In Ephesians 6:18 Paul gives the final ingredient for waging successful spiritual warfare against Satan and his demons—fervent, biblical, specific, ongoing prayer. Our fight is a spiritual one, not a human one. One of the most powerful spiritual gifts God has granted to the Christian is prayer. In this message we examine various ways the Christian is to pray to achieve victory in the spiritual struggle against Satan and sin.
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With this verse, God commands all Christians to masterfully wield and apply the Word of God in specific, tactical, skillful and practical ways to ward off satanic temptations and demonic attacks. The Word of God is efficacious because of its supernatural nature.
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In Ephesians 6:10-17, four times Paul exhorts Christians to “stand firm” against the devil. In this passage he tells us the key to success is being a complete and well balanced Christian by wearing all the armor that God has made available to every Christian. In the spiritual war on terror, every piece of armor counts. Neglecting a piece leaves us vulnerable. Today we examine God’s ordained spiritual armor with which we defend ourselves against spiritual attacks from Satan.
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Harmony in the home is achieved when all parties involved are living in accord with biblical principles. Children are to obey their parents. Parents have their obligations as well. First and foremost, they are not to frustrate their children—they are to forsake all godless means and methods of parenting. Today we examine many common pitfalls in parenting that need to be abandoned and avoided.
Speaker: Dr. Cliff McManis
Scripture: Ephesians 6:4
In Ephesians 5:25-33 Paul commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. In 5:26-27 Paul reminds the husband that one key responsibility of true love expressed toward his wife is by insuring, safeguarding and furthering her sanctification. Husbands are to be proactive, consistent, systematic and deliberate in helping their wives grow spiritually in holiness—in other words, the man is to be the spiritual leader of the home!
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In Ephesians 5:25-33 Paul commands husbands to fulfill their most basic obligation towards their wives. The command is multi-faceted. The first component is the imperative to love. Christ is the model of true love. Today we survey Christ’s love in action on behalf of His Church which becomes the model for husbands to follow.
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In Ephesians 5:22-24 Paul lays out the main obligation a Christian wife has toward her husband if she wants to have a healthy, fulfilled, God-blessed marriage—submission!
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In Ephesians 5:22, Paul begins an extended discussion on family relationships. The tenor is corrective and commanding. Paul knows that healthy family living does not come “naturally” or from “common sense,” but results only from God’s supernatural directives given in Scripture, coupled with the power to live out supernatural truth by His grace. Before we look at Paul’s Biblical Correctives for godly living in the family, we first need to examine how the family got messed up in the first place.
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In 1 Timothy 3:1-13, Paul outlines the qualifications for the two basic offices in the local church: elders and deacons. These two offices comprise the foundation for stable church leadership. In this message, we survey what the Bible says about biblical deacons.
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This message was preached at GBF's One Year Anniversary Celebration service by Dr. Cliff McManis.
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James tells us that we should “Consider it a pure joy when we face trials of many kinds”; however, trials are anything but joyous occasions. Rejoicing is possible only when we understand the purpose of trials.
A sermon from Bob Douglas
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The Church Age is an absolutely great time to be alive! That’s now, the period between Jesus Christ’s first coming and the future Rapture. Believers in this time period, who are called Christians, have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, will never be forsaken by God, and will be the first to get their glorified bodies, just to name a few benefits! Another superb blessing is having the full Bible, which teaches us vital truths about the end times of humanity. We study a little bit of that this morning.
A sermon from Tim Wong.
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In Ephesians 5:21 Paul gives the fourth result of being filled with the Holy Spirit… living with a submissive attitude. This is a basic Christian virtue that is absent among unredeemed humanity, but it is a fundamental requirement for anyone desiring to be godly and like Christ.
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Last week we saw that the Spirit-filled Christian will be characterized by “speaking” to other Christians in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. This week we look at the next 2 results of being filled with the Spirit:
1. Encouraging Others with Uplifting Edification.
2. Praising the Lord with Personal Exaltation.
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In Ephesians 5:18 Paul commands Christians to be Spirit-filled. In 5:19-20 he gives examples of what being Spirit-filled looks like in daily living. Being Spirit-filled is manifest primarily through godly attitudes that are selfless and “other-oriented."
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In Ephesians 5:18 Paul gives us the key truth as to how Christians can successfully fulfill all of God’s commands — it can happen only when believers are living Spirit-filled
lives.
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A study on what the Bible has to say about alcoholic beverages.
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In Ephesians 5:15-17 Paul exhorts Christians to walk is wisdom. One’s "walk" is one’s lifestyle or habit of daily living. He already reminded us to walk in unity (4:1), to walk in holiness (4:17), to walk in love (5:2), and to walk in light (5:8). To successfully walk in wisdom, we are to consider three priorities.
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In Ephesians 5:11-14 Christians are called to oppose and expose the unfruitful deeds of darkness. This is the negative aspect of living as light in the world. To that end, Paul gives five priorities to help guide our holy belligerence.
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In Ephesians 5:7 Paul exhorts Christians to not partner with unbelievers by adopting their ungodly lifestyle, worldview, and habits. The reason? Unbelievers are under God’s wrath (5:6). We are different in our status and position before God, so we need to be different in how live and who we choose to associate with. Christians need to live lives of “separation.”
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In Ephesians 5:3-6 Paul continues to exhort Christians to live obediently in light of their salvation. Christians need to “work out their salvation” practically by making holy choices in daily living. In this passage Paul reminds Christians that this process entails saying “No” to indulging in anything illicit, crude, immodest or sensual.
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Today we examine the biblical portrait of a godly woman as given by God in Proverbs 31. Written 3,000 years ago, this inspired Scriptural poem is as practical, instructive and worth emulating as it has ever been. May God continue to raise up virtuous women in our families and in the Church.
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In Ephesians 4:32-5:2, Paul exhorts Christians to follow God’s model in showing love toward fellow believers based of Christ’s great love shown toward us.
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Remembering the Virginia Tech Atrocity:
1. The Reality Of Evil Is Clearly Addressed In The Bible
2. There is an Appropriate Christian Response To This Atrocity: Prayer & Compassion
3. Why Did The Killer Do This?
4. Whose Fault Is It? Who Is To Blame?
5. Who Were The Real Victims?
6. Why Did God Let The Killer Get Away With This?
7. Where Was God In All This?
8. What Should Christians Learn From This Atrocity?
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In Ephesians 4:29-31 Paul exhorts Christians to monitor their speech according to holiness. Since Jesus has saved us from sin, given us a new mind, and put His Spirit in us, every area of our life should be lived in submission to God’s expectations—that includes our speech. If you are a Christian, then talk like one.
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In the first four and a half chapters of Ephesians Paul taught and reminded Christians of their position in Christ—who they are spiritually in light of what Christ has done for them. Starting in 4:25, and for the rest of the book, Paul exhorts Christians to live accordingly—to act like they have been redeemed. He accomplishes this by giving over forty imperatives (commands) covering every area of daily living. Today we learn that God commands Christians to have a holy work ethic.
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In Ephesians 4:25-32 Paul gives five exhortations to Christians in practical daily living as they interact with one another in the Christian community. Christians are capable and obligated to obey in light of the fact that Christ has made them new creatures at conversion (4:22, 24) and is renewing them and empowering them on the inside daily through the indwelling Holy Spirit (4:23). Today we look at the first two exhortations: being truthful and controlling anger.
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In Ephesians 4:25-32, Paul is about to give a flurry of commands for Christians to live by. Before he does, he first reminds believers who they are not (17-19, unsaved and ungodly) and who they are (20-24, new creatures in Christ). Once again Paul reiterates that biblical imperatives (our practice) must flow from biblical indicatives (our position). What we know dictates how we live.
In Ephesians 4-6 Paul makes it emphatically clear that Christians are to live differently than unbelievers. They live differently because Christians are spiritually alive in Christ and unbelievers are spiritually dead. Paul accentuates this contrast in Ephesians 4:17-19 by first noting what lifestyle typifies unbelievers. He commands Christians to not be like them.
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In Ephesians 4:1-16 Paul delineates how the Church grows. True church growth results when every Christian uses his or her spiritual gift, given to them by Christ, in service to others, with dependence on God, in the spirit of unity, with an attitude of love.
In Ephesians 4:1-16, Paul tells us how God is building the Church. He is building the Church through Christ, Who has imparted gifts to believers to do the work of ministry. That process builds the Church. As the Church grows, fruit becomes evident. In 4:13-16 Paul tells us what that true growth and fruit look like as the Church grows. Today we look at four manifestations of true, healthy spiritual growth in the Church.
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Spiritual Gifts—Definition: Divine enablements/abilities given by God to every Christian for serving the Body of Christ (the local church), the results of which are due to the power of divine operation by the Holy Spirit.
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Ephesians 4:1-16 is a unit that tells of God’s plan to build the Church—the Body of Christ—to maturity. God is building His Church through His people. And He has equipped His people for the task by bestowing spiritual gifts on them through Christ. In Ephesians 4:12, Paul highlights God’s threefold plan of how our ministry can contribute to the fulfillment of His master-plan.
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Only twice in the Gospels did Jesus mention the "Church" explicitly. Once is in Matthew 16 where He promised He would build it. The other is in Matthew 18 when He commanded believers to maintain spiritual health in the Church by practicing biblical “Church Discipline.” The procedure for implementing “Church Discipline” that Jesus outlined is straightforward, obligatory, systematic, and the only recourse for dealing with sin in the Church. When it is neglected or when it is supplanted with alternatives, then the Church suffers. Careful and courageous obedience to it brings God's solutions and blessings.
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"And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers."
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In Ephesians 4:7-10, Paul tells us that Christ dispenses spiritual gifts to the Church, and to every Christian, for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ. God is growing the Church toward maturity, in unity, with diversity among individual believers.
It has become commonplace to make New Year’s Resolutions as the new year begins. A new year is upon us. God is the Author of life, and the Bible promises that we can entrust our future into His care. Psalm 37:4 and other Scriptures are key for Christians when thinking about dedicating our future into God’s care.
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