It was great to be together yesterday morning to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel.

Yesterday’s sermon from Ephesians 2:11-22, entitled: “The Walls Come Tumbling Down” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

The “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon is available here.

And don’t forget, because we’re back into our Ephesians series, there’s a weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’ Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song – “Brought Near By the Blood of Christ” is available now!

(To download this song to your computer… For Mac Users, ctrl + Click and download linked file. For PC users, right click the link and “Save As” the file.)

For those of you with children in the Generations Sunday School, here’s the “Weekly Info” that we hope will serve you in following up with your children on what they sang and learned this week, and the verse to memorise for next week’s Sunday school.

And finally… For all those who like to have the quotes from yesterday’s sermon, here they are:

John Stott: [Referring to Galatians 3:28)
“When we say that Christ has abolished these distinctions, we mean not that they do not exist, but that they do not matter.  They are still there, but they no longer create any barriers to fellowship.  We recognise each other as equals, brothers and sisters in Christ.”

John Stott:
“It is marvelous to look back and trace the sequence of the apostle’s teaching.  He paints on a large canvas with bold brush strokes.  Once, he reminds his Gentile readers, you were alienated from God and from his people.  But Christ died to reconcile you to both.  So now you are no longer the aliens you were, but the kingdom over which God rules, the family which he loves and the temple in which he dwells.  More simply still: you were alienated, you have been reconciled, and Christ has brought you home.”

For many of us we have been taught that “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

We may think that these two goals are at odds with each other. We are made to share in his ultimate aim, that is to glorify himself. Therefore which is it? Are we created for His glory or for our joy?

This is what 18th Century New England pastor, Jonathan Edwards wrote:

“God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might be received both by the mind and heart.

He that testifies his idea of God’s glory doesn’t glorify God so much as he that testifies also his delight in it.”

God created us so that we might spend all of eternity glorifying Him by enjoying Him forever.

So it’s not an ‘either/or’ choice, as Edward’s says “God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.”

Let’s not just live for His glory but also rejoice in Him and make His glory our passion and joy.

I was recently directed to this excerpt of a book written by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones by Elisabeth Cary, an international student and friend who was a part of our church earlier this year while she studied in Bristol.

I doubt it will be a new concept to a lot of you but it is a vital practice for everyday life and something which we must remind ourselves to do regularly.

“Preach to yourself” by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking. Who is talking? Yourself is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.’…

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’– what business have you to be disquieted?

You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’– instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.’”

– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965/2002), pages 20-21.

It was great to be together yesterday morning to join our voices to praise and magnify our great God and rejoice in the glorious, transforming truth of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday’s sermon from Ephesians 1:1-2:10, entitled: “Let’s Recap Ephesians!” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

The “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon is available here.

And don’t forget, because we’re back into our Ephesians series, there’s a weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’ Word.  This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song – “The Exceeding Greatness of His Power” is available now!

(To download this song to your computer… For Mac Users, ctrl + Click and download linked file. For PC users, right click the link and “Save As” the file.)

For those of you with children in the Generations Sunday School, here’s the “Weekly Info” that we hope will serve you in following up with your children on what they sang and learned this week, and the verse to memorise for next week’s Sunday school.

And finally… For all those who like to have the quotes from yesterday’s sermon, here they are:

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
“Paul’s great concern here is to give the Ephesians, and others to whom the letter is addressed, a panoramic view of this wondrous and glorious work of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Puritan Thomas Brooks (Heaven on Earth):
“I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan’s bond-servant but now I am God’s freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul.”

John Calvin:
“In Christ every part of our salvation is complete. As all mankind are, in the sight of God, lost sinners, we hold that Christ is their only righteousness, since, by His obedience he has wiped off our transgressions, by his sacrifice appeased the divine anger, by his blood washed away our sins, by his cross borne our curse, and by his death made satisfaction for us. We maintain that in this way man is reconciled in Christ to God the Father, by no merit of his own, by no value of works, but by gratuitous mercy.”

O the riches in the Gospel! (By Kevin Hartnett)

O the riches in the Gospel!
Purposes no man conceived!
Grace unfailing; love astounding,
Given those who have believed!

Pardon full for helpless sinners.
Justified- though guilty be!
Jesus cursed for our transgressions;
We made righteous by decree!

Peace with God, oh timeless marvel!
Christ’s blood our security!
Holiness at one with Favor;
Heaven opened wondrously!

Purpose in the Master’s kingdom;
We, His worksmanship by grace,
Cleansed to serve; alive in conscience;
Spirit-filled to run the race.

Pleasure in His highest priv’ledge:
Sons of God by name are we!
Heirs with Christ through God’s adoption;
Called in love eternally!

O the riches in the Gospel!
Purposes no man conceived!
Grace unfailing; love astounding,
Ever theirs who have believed!

Starting this coming Sunday evening — 28th February 2010 — is our brand new outreach into the city of Bath.

OUTPOST: Bath is a monthly Sunday evening gathering open to anybody who wants to come and experience God-centred, Christ-exalting worship, and solid, relevant, gospel-centred preaching.

We’re starting at 6pm.  The service will only be an hour.  We’ll be meeting at the Percy Community Centre, New King Street, Bath, BA1 2BN.

There’s no formal provision for kids, but there is a room where younger children can play, if a parent wants to supervise them.

More details can be found here.

In the book, ‘A Proverbs Driven Life’ I was reading recently about Jacob and the way he sinned in attempting to gain, by his own devious and unethical ways, what God had already promised him.

Through His word God has given us many great and wonderful promises that we can trust in and depend upon, because He is a faithful God. Here are just a few of his promises towards us his children.

1. He will never leave us or forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5)
2. He makes all things work together for our good. (Romans 8:28)
3. He provides all that we need. (Matthew 6:31-33, 2 Corinthians 9:8)
4. He will bring us safely to heaven. (John 14:2-3)

Four promises. The first and the last promises we can do nothing about, but with promises two and three we can sin like Jacob in trying to get what we need through devious means and not trusting in the faithfulness of God.

The question we should all ask ourselves is: Do I rest consistently in those promises and Am I trusting God to fulfil His promises in His time?

So often we can act like Jacob by trying to bring about the fulfilment of God’s promises in our own power and strength, and thereby sin by not trusting in the faithfulness of God to bring about and fulfil His word to us.

God is faithful and we can trust and wholly lean on His faithfulness.