Ephesians 2:1-10

When it comes to who we are as God's people, one of our most defining characteristics is that 'we are alive.' But what does it mean to be alive? Tune in to this sermon from Pastor Ike as he expounds what it means to truly be alive.

The notion of being "blessed" is often misunderstood and misused in faith spaces. It plays naturally into prosperity theology, and the idea that if I obey God, I will be "blessed." It also becomes a way of making God a means to an end, rather than the end in himself. We worship God because of what he can do for us, not who God is. But the answer isn't to neglect this language that is so prevalent in scripture, but to clarify what Scripture has to say. The book of Ephesians gives us a clearer picture of what it means that "we are blessed" and why. In this sermon, Pastor Ike Miller helps us understand that we were blessed for a bigger purpose than ourselves.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul casts a vision for who the people of God are called to be. Through this series, Pastor Ike will be looking at the specifics characteristics and values that Paul calls the church at Ephesus to embody.

This first message in the series expounds Paul's theology of participation in Christ, and  the fullness of life available to us in him.

Whether we believe it or not, we often feel like our prayers have to be pretty. But many of our most urgent prayers are in times of confusion, fear, pain, and disorientation. In continuing this series on the Psalms, Pastor Ike looks at the brutal honesty of some of David's prayers and how that can help us pray in times of disorientation as well.

Psalm 3:1-8 Tune in to this message on how we bring our honest fears to God in honest prayer, and how God uses that honest to transform us in light of our fears.

In the final part of this message series on Good Baggage, we ask the question, where do we go from here? We look at this through the lens of the biblical story of the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus asks him a question we are all being asked today, "Do you want to be well?"

Jesus tells the man, "Get up, take your mat and walk." In this story, the man is being invited to participate in his own healing, and I believe we also are each being invited to participate on our own healing as well. This is where we go from here.

A common way of coming to grips with the trauma of our childhood is to conclude, "Everything happens for a reason." This logic is well-intentioned, but we often say it without full awareness of what it implies about what we've been through or what it implies about God's role in it.

In this week's episode, we talk about this logic, where it goes wrong, and what a better, more bilblical notion of redemption looks like.

This week we look at the good baggage the undergirds everything else this series and my book has to offer: our passion to see our relationships go differently than the relationships we saw in our childhood. 

In this episode, we look at 3 things our childhoods taught us, and how we can leverage them for the health of our relationships now.

One of the most prevalent impacts of our difficult childhoods is codependency. When we think of codependency, we tend to think of people pleasing or approval seeking, but those are symptoms of the deeper issue. Codependency at its core, is a loss of self.

We do not have a clear sense of who we are and so we seek to be whoever we think others want us to be, or will approve of. 

Until we address this challenge, it will be difficult to do much of the work to leverage the difficulty of our childhood for the health of our relationships now. How do we being taking steps to address this struggle? That's what this message is about.

For better or worse, one of the people most affected by our childhood difficulties, will be the person we marry.

In this episode we talk with my own wife, Sharon Miller, about her experience being married to an adult child of dysfunction. She shares how our relationship has been impacted by my childhood, how she has navigated challenges, and what advice she might have for other spouses in similar situations.  It is a MUST LISTEN if you are married to an adult child of dysfunction!