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?

The audio from the sermon on Sunday 24th August 2008 entitled: “The Cost of Discipleship” (Luke 14:25-35) is available to download or listen to here.

Saturday 24th May to Tuesday 27th May 2008. The New Attitude 2008 conference was held in Louisville, Kentucky. This is the annual Sovereign Grace-hosted conference for singles and young married couples.

This year, the focus of the conference was on the importance of God’s Word. The speaker line-up included NA conference usual suspects; men like John Piper, Mark Dever and Al Mohler, together with Eric Simmons, Joshua Harris and CJ Mahaney.

The audio for all 8 sessions is available to download from here and should be added to your iPod/mp3 player for essential holiday listening!