A few folks have sought me out to request a copy of the quotes I shared during Sunday’s sermon entitled, “The Father’s Grace, The Father’s Glory” from Ephesians 1:3-6.

So I thought I’d go ahead and post them here.

I hope they serve you as you reflect on the marvel that is God’s sovereign, electing, saving grace!

C.H. Spurgeon:

“When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me.  I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.  I can recall the very day and hour when I first received those truths of God’s sovereign grace in my own soul – when they were, as John Bunyan said, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man – that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.  One week night, when I was in the house of God, I was not much thinking about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it.  The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian?  I sought the Lord.  But how did you come to seek the Lord?  The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him.  I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray?  I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures.  How came I to read the Scriptures?  I did read them, but what lead me to do so?  Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the Author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, ‘I ascribe me change wholly to God.’”

C.H Spurgeon:

“I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.”

J.I. Packer:

“The biblical doctrine of election is that before creation God selected out of the human race, foreseen as fallen, those whom he would redeem, bring to faith, justify, and glorify in and through Jesus Christ…  This divine choice is an expression of free and sovereign grace, for it is unconstrained and unconditional, not merited by anything in those who are its subjects.  God owes sinners no mercy of any kind, only condemnation; so it is a wonder, and matter for endless praise, that he should choose to save any of us; and doubly so when his choice involved the giving of his own son  to suffer as sin-bearer for the elect.”

Mark Webb:

“After giving a brief survey of these doctrines of sovereign grace, I asked for questions from the class.  One lady, in particular, was quite troubled.  She said, ‘This is the most awful thing I’ve ever heard! You make it sound as if God is intentionally turning away men and women who would be saved, receiving only the elect.’  I answered her in this vein: ‘You misunderstand the situation.  You’re visualizing that God is standing at the door of heaven, and men are thronging to get in the door, and God is saying to various ones, ‘Yes, you may come, but not you, and you, but not you, etc.’ The situation is hardly this.  Rather, God stands at the door of heaven with His arms outstretched, inviting all to come.  Yet all men without exception are running in the opposite direction towards hell as hard as they can go.  So God, in election, graciously reaches out and stops this one, and that one, and this one over here, and that one over there, and effectually draws them to Himself by changing their hearts, making them willing to come.  Election keeps no one out of heaven who would otherwise have been there, but it keeps a whole multitude of sinners out of hell who otherwise would have been there.  Were it not for election, heaven would be an empty place, and hell would be bursting at the seams.  That kind of response, grounded as I believe that it is in Scriptural truth, does put a different complexion on things, doesn’t it?  If you perish in hell, blame yourself, as it is entirely your fault.  But if you should make it to heaven, credit God, for that is entirely His work!  To Him alone belong all praise and glory, for salvation is all of grace, from start to finish.”

Mark Webb:

“God intentionally designed salvation so that no man could boast of it.  He didn’t merely arranged it so that boasting would be discouraged or kept to a minimum – he planned it so that boasting would be absolutely excluded.  Election does precisely that.”

It was great to be together again yesterday morning, gathered as God’s people, united in Christ to celebrate the incredible grace that we’ve received through the gospel.

Yesterday’s sermon from Ephesians 1:3-14, entitled: “The Father’s Grace, the Father’s Glory” 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 finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for — the launch of our Ephesians Memory Verse Songs Project.  This week’s song – “Before the Foundations of the World (Eph 1:3-6)” 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.)

This week’s bulletin is available to download from here.

This past Sunday (11th October) we began our new series studying together the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – which I am very, very excited about!

The audio for Part 1 is available now.

During the sermon I made some suggestions for how we can all maximise the benefit of this in-depth study, on our lives and families.

The suggestions were:

1.  Read the whole book through a few times.

Sunday mornings are going to be like taking a “glass-bottom boat trip” over Ephesians.  We will have time to see the richness, beauty, glory and intricate detail of God’s truth.  But there’s also a place to take a “speed-boat” trip over the book, to get the bigger picture and to see how it flows and fits together.

Let me suggest reading the entire book in one sitting.  It should take about 25mins.

2.  Study Ephesians in your own personal devotional time.

Get hold of a good study Bible (like the ESV Study Bible) and work your way through Ephesians in your own quiet times.  Review your sermon notes from Sunday, get out the “Take it Home” sheet and use the questions to reflect on the passage/message.

In fact, there’s an on-line version of the ESV Study Bible you can use.

To aid you in your personal reading through Ephesians, get hold of a good commentary.  A particular favourite of mine (and the one Clare and I are using for this purpose) would be:

THE MESSAGE OF EPHESIANS

by John Stott

It’s a great one-volume commentary which is, at the same time, accessible, readable, simple to understand and, yet, wonderfully insightful.

We will have some copies available from this coming Sunday (18th October) at the Info Point, for a remarkable Amazon-price- beating£6!  Be sure to pick up a copy!

3.  Talk to others about what God is teaching you and what you are learning.

Don’t wait for home group to roll around, share the things God is teaching and showing you with others, to encourage them, and ask others what things they have been learning, so you might be encouraged!

4.  Memorise Scripture.

There can be an enormous benefit to our souls to learn and memorise portions of Scripture – to hide God’s Word in our hearts, and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly.  In order to serve us in memorising Scripture passages from Ephesians we have produced our Grace Church Ephesians Scripture Memory Songs Project.

As we saw in our recent “WHY: sing?“ sermon, singing is a gift from God that can help us remember the truth of God’s Word.  So, to coincide with almost every sermon, we will be releasing a short song (via this blog) that has a Scripture passage from Ephesians set to music.  Every song has been written, played/sung, recorded and produced by people in our church!

Look out for the release of the first song with next week’s sermon.

5.  Let’s pray!

This letter is packed full of majestic, grand themes and rich theological truth — the sovereignty of God in Salvation, the grace of God, what our union with Christ means — and also simple, profound practical truths for living our lives in a way that glorifies God.  This combination makes this book immensely powerful.

Let’s pray that God, through the power of His Holy Spirit would use our study to change our lives, for our good and His glory, as He gives us a renewed panoramic vision of the glorious and wondrous work of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

It was really great to join voices together yesterday as people who “know mercy because of the cross”, and sing the praises of our God.

And it was great to welcome in some folks as new members of our church!  It’s always so encouraging to see the Lord build and establish his church and add to our number.

We began our new sermon series studying the book of Ephesians, and the audio for part one, entitled “Let’s Study Ephesians – Eph 1:1-2” is available to listen to or download from here or via our iTunes podcast feed.

As we mentioned during yesterday’s sermon, we are re-introducing our “Take It Home Sheets“, short handouts that provide us all with the main points of the message and some questions to help us review the sermon and apply it to our lives and families.

Today’s “Take It Home Sheet” is available here.

It was great to gather with you all again on Sunday morning and sing praises to our ‘Glorious and Mighty’ God.

Yesterday, we began a new 5-week preaching series entitled: “WHY: church?” and the first sermon – from 1 Peter 2:1-10 – is available to download or listen to from here.

We have homegroups this week, so if you missed the message for whatever reason, please try and take a listen so you can discuss and apply the sermon with your group.

Here’s a few questions to help us review and apply the message to our lives:

1. Is God’s design that a Christian build his/her life around a local church in your heart?
2. How has this message helped you to see the importance and priority of the church in God’s eternal purposes?
3. Do you love the local church?  How is this reflected in the way you prioritse your life and time?  Would someone else be able to look at your life/time and trace it back to a love for the local church?

What a great morning we had yesterday worshipping our great God together!

What a privilege to gather together and be reminded of God’s great work in the gospel for us, and of Christ our “once-for-all, never-to-be-repeated sacrifice of atonement”; to celebrate the gift of children to families in our church, and see the parents dedicate themselves to raising these little ones for the glory of God; and to sing God’s praises!

If you missed the bulletin (or have misplaced yours!) you can download this week’s edition from here.

The audio for the sermon entitled, “Blood, Guts & Sacrifice” from Leviticus 16 can be downloaded/listened to here.

In order to maximise benefit from the message, here’s a few review and application questions that can help us process the truths we heard:

1. What qualities of Christ enables him to be our perfect high priest?  Be sure to thank him for each attribute as you think of them.
2. How does the imagery of Leviticus 16 point to, and enrich our understanding of Christ’s death on our behalf?
3. “The world is not thy friend nor the world’s law.” – What impact should this have on our thinking as Christians?
4. What other things are you tempted to trust in for the atonement for your sins?  Why do you think you are tempted to do this?