Epiphany Fellowship LA

This past Sunday, we walked through the shoes of peace.  Paul exhorts the church to boot up with the gospel of peace.  He encourages the church with the type of peace we need in Ephesians 2 that deals with the beef between God and man and mankind with each other due to sin.  Through Christ's death and resurrection, Christ is now our peace.  Through Him we have peace with God and each other.  This challenges all the other forms of fake peace that humanity tends to hold onto.  

Spiritual Tattoo: Believers have the capacity to overcome in the chaos

We learn from Ephesians 6:13-14 that the believer has the capacity to Overcome.  While the enemy attacks in at least four specific ways (Deceit, Difficulty, Distorted Power, Discouragement), in Christ we have been given all the necessary armor to properly defend and see Kingdom advancement in the midst of the attacks.  Since Christ is seen to wear all the armor as the overcoming Messiah, both in OT prophecy and New Testament reality, our union with Him ensures that we have the capacity to put on His armor and overcome in the battles.

Spiritual Tattoo: Believers are created with the capacity to Overcome

Guest Speaker Hunja Koimburi walks us through the Spirit-filled life in Ephesians 5:15-21.  The driving theme with the text is that if we are going to be prepared to engage the spiritual battle, we must be spiritual people.  The way to be spiritual people is to be full of the Holy Spirit.  When the people are full of the Spirit our lives are functionally living in Christ and empowered to live in His victory of the flesh, the stain of the world, and the devil.  When we ignore the things to which the Lord is calling us, we quench the Holy Spirit and begin to walk in the flesh.  It is in the flesh where we do not have power to Overcome.  It is in the flesh where we become caught up in the careless living in vs 15.  

Spiritual Tattoo

We must be a spiritual people if we are to fight a spiritual war.

Looking through Ephesians 4:1-3 on how we can engage the spiritual battle with understanding so that we can better fight that battle.

This past Sunday we walked through Ephesians 4:1-3 where Paul was beginning to break down how the church is to live out our union in Christ.  In chapters 1-3 He is highlighting how the peace of Christ brings people to God and each other in such a way where our unity puts on display the victory of Jesus.  It is in this unity where those in the heavens, who have sought to distort God's character and nature are reminded that they have lost and our God reigns in freeing those who once were subject to the enemy's domain of darkness.  Paul exhorts the church to guard this Kind of unity through displaying the character of Christ, especially when we rub each other wrong or get on each other's last nerve.  He reminds us to think about the big picture of what this unity, and the significance of guarding the unity the Spirit has produced, puts on display in creation. 

Remember that Jesus doesn't call us to something that He has not already fulfilled and perfectly lived.  Let's press into His perfect and finished work on the cross and the power of His resurrection.

Spiritual Tattoo :Battle Readiness Must Be Build On Gospel Unity

In order to begin to understand how to get #BattleReady we need to understand the victory in which we stand through the person and work of Jesus Christ.  As we worked through Ephesians 6:10 and 1:20-23, we learned that the battle is beyond what we can handle in our own strength or in any other strength other than what God provides.  Paul is exhorting the church to draw its strength from immeasurable power of God that was displayed on the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ far above any other form of power we can even imagine.  Since Christ is victorious, so is the believer who is resting by faith in the finished work of Jesus.  

Spiritual Tattoo: An overcomer engages the battle in light of victory.

Welcome to Epiphany Fellowship LA! 

The Overcomers Series focuses on spiritual bondage the the war grounds we battle through everyday. 

As we walk through Colossians 1:15-20, we see that everything in heaven and on earth was created in the sphere of Jesus Christ and it is also brought back to God's reign through the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Jesus came into a world where the seed of the serpent (all those who are in opposition to God and His reign) is seeking to war against the seed of the woman (God's people advancing God's redeeming reign through the Messiah).  The good news is that the one through whom all things were created is the very one who conquered those who had rebelled in the heavens and to provide forgiveness for those who rebelled in the earth through His death and resurrection.  In light of his victory, we rest in that fact the Spiritual Warfare must begin with an understanding that Christ has done everything to secure our freedom.  The foundational understanding, in light of the backdrop, is to make it a habit to continue to call upon the Lord who has and will continue to fight our battles.