Ephesians: Love for Church Community

Today's service includes worship led by the youth and youth directors, and the message is two-fold. You'll be hearing from some of the church about what they learned from the book they read together last summer called Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison, which is about God’s heart for racial reconciliation. (Watch the video of this section here.)

Secondly, Pastor Scott finishes up the book of Ephesians—finally! This message takes some of the ideas in the last verses of this epistle and relates them to the relational tensions we are seeing in the Church throughout the land regarding politics, race, the pandemic, theology, and many other things.

The Church is more divided than ever. Even groups that have enjoyed much unity around a system of theology have suffered terrible divisions. How can our church survive what is happening today? How can we be unified as brothers and sisters if we disagree about important things? This message shows how—despite the complex differences of opinion amongst Christians—we can find harmony by simply caring for one another.

Ephesians: The Armor of God

Ephesians 6:13-17

In this message, Assistant Pastor John looks at the Apostle’s encouragement to take a stand against Satan’s forces using the armor of God that’s available to all followers of Jesus. We take an in-depth look at how Paul paints a picture of the spiritual weapons in our struggle as analogous to the armor worn by the Roman army soldiers of his time. 

Ephesians: Spiritual Conflict

Invisible to our eyes—and yet very real—is the spiritual realm. It’s the place where God, angels and demons, and the spiritual part of humans, collide. Because it is invisible it is not easy to understand. The Bible gives us some insight but much remains a mystery. What we do know is that there are spiritual forces of darkness seeking to pull us away from God. These fallen angels have superior power and intelligence to us and their clever schemes are often effective. This message aims to give us a greater awareness of these unseen adversaries and to show us how to overcome.

Ephesians: Slaves + Masters

Ephesians 6: 5-9

Why does the Bible not condemn slavery? Why does the Paul Apostle not encourage slaves to run away or encourage slave owners to set their slaves free? Would God want anyone to be a slave? Why was Jesus so silent on this subject? These are questions that have caused much debate through the centuries of the Christian Church. This message seeks to address some of these complex questions. 

Ephesians: Children + Parents

Ephesians 6:1-4

This message looks at God’s design for the relationship between children and parents.

Ephesians: Christ + the Church

Ephesians 5:22-33

In this message, I’ll be using Ephesians 5:22-33 but only focusing on the relationship of Christ to the Church. The passage has much to say regarding husbands and wives (explored in the previous message). But here we want to celebrate one of the most profound and glorious truths, namely, Christ’s vast love for His universal Church. There are seven specific elements the text unveils about Christ’s relationship to His Church. My prayer is that after listening to this message you would float away on a cloud knowing how deeply loved you are in Christ.

Ephesians: Marriage

Ephesians 5: 22-33

In American society, and especially a progressive city like Providence, the biblical ideas of husbands being the head of the wives and wives submitting to their husbands seems out of date. Society now boasts of a much better way of doing marriage. The old-fashioned Bible ideas have been tossed aside as the antithesis of female empowerment. Meanwhile, divorce rates have skyrocketed and fewer people even get married. Is the wisdom of the Bible really outdated? What is God’s design for marriage? What does marriage look like as God intends it to be? Why did God design it this way? How has the fall of man complicated His design? These are the questions explored in this teaching. 

Ephesians: Submit to One Another

Ephesians 5: 21

In western American culture "submit" is an unpopular word, but Jesus' view of submitting is different, being Holy Spirit-led and full of humility. In this message John Michaelson unpacks what it means as a church to be mutually submissive to each other, looking at Christ's character as a reference.

Ephesians: Giving Thanks

Ephesians 5:20

One of the most basic evidences of a life filled with the Spirit is a strong practice of expressing thanks. Without the filling of the Spirit, even if we are Christians, we easily fall into grumbling and grumpiness, discontentment and resentment. Christian gratitude is not dependent on things going well in the present circumstance. We are taught to look beyond the present and rejoice that our God is working all things together for good. We may not always understand why things happen as they do but we can trust the Father knows what He’s doing. 

Ephesians: Sing, Sing, Sing!!!

Ephesians 5:19

This message is about singing and making melody to the Lord with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Eph 5:19). It is part of the preceding verse that exhorts us to be filled with the Spirit. The writer (Paul the Apostle) is encouraging us in one of the most basic and common ways to be filled with the Spirit, namely, singing! This teaching explores how singing from the heart can drench us with the joy of the Spirit. It is an encouragement to fill our lives with songs, to join the innumerable angels in festal gathering (Heb 12:22), to sing to the Lord a new song! Even amidst a pandemic and global problems mounting, we can sing with the choirs of angels —  “Glory to God in the highest.” A Savior has come and it is good and fitting to make a joyful noise!