It was great to be together today as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together and given us new life!

This morning’s sermon from Ephesians 6:1-4, entitled: “New Life//Relationships: Parents & Children” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

The “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon will be available on Tuesday.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “Children Obey Your Parents (Eph 6:1-2)” 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.)

Here’s the quotes for this week too…

John MacArthur:
“What we desperately need is a return to the biblical principles of parenting.  Christian parents don’t need new, shrink-wrapped programs, they need to apply and obey consistently the few simple principles that are clearly set forth for parents in God’s Word, such as these: Constantly teach your kids the truth of God’s Word (Deuteronomy 6:7).  Discipline them when they do wrong (Proverbs 23:13-14).  Don’t provoke them to anger (Ephesians 6:4).  Those few select principles alone, if consistently applied, would have a far greater positive impact for the struggling parent than issues that consume so much time in a typical parenting programme.”

J.I Packer:
“To obey biblically is to attentively and heartily comply with the directives of someone with acknowledged authority.”

John Stott:
“At the head of the Roman family was the father, who exercised a sovereign authority over all members of the family.  He had full, autocratic right and power over his children.  He could sell them as slaves, he could make them work in his fields even in chains, he could take the law into his own hands and punish as he liked, he could even inflict the death penalty on his child.”

J.C Ryle:
“Instruction, advice and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life.  Your children will never believe you are in earnest and really wish them to obey you so long as your actions contradict your counsel.”

J.C Ryle:
“Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, patience, forbearance, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys – these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily – these are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart.”

Grant Layman:
“The goal of our parenting is to raise children who become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ and are committed to serving within the context of the local church.”

J.C Ryle:
“Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes; but if you love them, think often of their souls.  No interest should weigh with you so much as their eternal interests.  No part of them should be so dear to you as that part which will never die.  The world, with all its glory, shall pass away; the hills will melt; the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll; the sun shall cease to shine.  But the spirit which dwells in those little creatures, whom you love so well, shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery (to speak as a man) will depend on you.”

It was great to be together today as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together and given us new life!

This morning’s sermon from Ephesians 5:22-33, entitled: “New Life//Relationships: Husbands & Wives” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

The “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon will be available on Tuesday.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “Husbands & Wives (Eph 5:31-33)” 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.)

Here’s the quotes for this week too…

Geoffrey Bromiley:
“As God made man in his own image, so he made earthly marriage in the image of His own eternal marriage with His people.”

John Piper:
“Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. It’s the disposition to follow a husband’s authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, “I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don’t flourish in the relationship when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works.”  The reason I say that submission is a disposition and an inclination to follow a husband’s lead is because there will be times in a Christian marriage when the most submissive wife, with good reason, will hesitate at a husband’s decision. It may look unwise to her. Suppose it’s Noël and I. I am about to decide something for the family that looks foolish to her. At that moment, Noël could express her submission like this: “Johnny, I know you’ve thought a lot about this, and I love it when you take the initiative to plan for us and take the responsibility like this, but I really don’t have peace about this decision and I think we need to talk about it some more. Could we? Maybe tonight sometime?” The reason that is a kind of biblical submission is 1) because husbands, unlike Christ, are fallible and ought to admit it; 2) because husbands ought to want their wives to be excited about the family decisions, since Christ wants the church to be excited about following his decisions and not just follow begrudgingly; 3) because the way Noël expressed her misgivings communicated clearly that she endorses my leadership and affirms me in my role as head; and 4) because she has made it clear to me from the beginning of our marriage that if, when we have done all the talking we should, we still disagree, she will defer to her husband’s decision.”

John Piper:
“Biblical headship for the husband is the divine calling to take primary responsibility for Jϰ-like, servant-leadership, protection & provision in the home.”

It was great to be together today as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together and given us new life!

This morning’s sermon from Ephesians 5:15-21, entitled: “New Life//New Wisdom & Influence” 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, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “Be Filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:19-20)” 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.)

Here’s the quotes for this week too…

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.”

Jonathan Edwards:
“Resolved: Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.”

Richard Gaffin:
“This command is relevant to all believers throughout the whole of their lives.  No believer may presume to have experienced a definitive filling of the Spirit so that the command of verse 8 no longer applies.  Short of death or the Lord’s return, it continues in effect for every believer.”

Wayne Grudem:
“To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the immediate presence of God himself.  It will result in feeling what God feels; desiring what God desires; doing what God wants; speaking with God’s power; praying in God’s strength; knowing with a knowledge that God himself gives.”

It was great to be together today as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together and given us new life!

This morning’s sermon from Ephesians 5:3-14, entitled: “New Life//New Purity” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

The “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon will be posted on Tuesday.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “Walk as Children of the Light (Eph 5:6-10)” 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.)

Here’s the quotes for this week too…

Thomas Watson:
“It is dangerous to procrastinate repentance, because the longer any go on in sin, the harder they will find the work of repentance. Delay strengthens sin and hardens the heart. It is hard to remove sin once it has become rooted.”

Richard Baxter:
“Keep as far as you can from those temptations that feed and strengthen the sins which you would overcome. Lay siege to your sins and starve them out, by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.”

John Piper:
“Thankfulness is what you feel when you believe God is for you and not against you. It’s what you feel when you believe that he gives you only what is good for you and withholds no good thing (single or married). It’s what you feel when you trust him, the tragedies of your life are not evidences of his meanness or his incompetence; but rather that they are the discipline of a loving Father who values your holiness above your fleeting worldly happiness. Thanksgiving is the alternative to a life driven by cravings for what you don’t have. Thanksgiving says, in God I have all that is good for me, and I will not be driven to dishonour the worth of His name just to get a few sexual sensations. The root problem of being driven by the domination of earthly cravings is that it dethrones God.  So when Paul puts thankfulness in place of covetousness, he is simply putting God in the place of man, and specifically putting God in the place of self. Thanksgiving is the opposite of covetousness because it enthrones God. Thanksgiving says that God is the satisfaction of all my longings. Covetousness says that God is not adequate as a satisfying treasure; I must have sex — God will not suffice. Paul tells us that God should be everything to you. God should be your pleasure and satisfaction and hope and joy and master. And all your life should be governed by an overflowing gratitude to him for his goodness and glory and grace and power and wisdom.”

It was great to be together on Sunday as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together and given us new life!

Sunday’s sermon from Ephesians 4:30-32, entitled: “New Life//New Attitudes” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

Unfortunately, there is no “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “Kindness & Forgiveness (Eph 4:32)” 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.)

John Stott:
“Speech is a wonderful gift of God. It is one of our human capacities which reflects our likeness to God. For our God speaks, and like him we also speak. Speech distinguishes us from the animal creation. Cows can moo, dogs bark, donkeys bray, pigs grunt, lambs bleat, monkeys squeal and birds sing, but only human beings speak.”

Tullian Tchividjian:
“Words kill and words give life, they’re either poison or fruit – you choose. Words have not only destructive power but also life-giving power. They have massive potential for good and disastrous potential for evil. Our words can serve either to love or to hate, to encourage or to discourage. They have the power either to build up or tear down… That’s why Paul tells us that the church needs to be a community that use the gift of speech the way God intended, as we put off harmful words and put on helpful words… The church must be marked by a different language than the world exhibits, a peculiar speech. We must choose to speak redemptively. The sweetness and strength of the gospel – the sweetness of grace, the strength of truth – should flavour everything we say.”

Paul Tripp:
“We need to realise how “wordy” our lives actually are. Talk seems so normal, so ordinary, so unimportant, so harmless. Yet, there are few things we do that are more important. Words are powerful, important, significant. It was meant to be that way. When we speak we must speak with the realisation that God has given our words significance. He has ordained for them to be important. Words were significant in creation and at the fall. They are significant to redemption. God has given words value. So we must do all we can to assign words the importance that Scripture gives them.”

Bryan Chapell:
“Paul’s imperative (v.29) is far broader than we may expect or like. Christians are not allowed to say whatever they desire simply by rationalizing that we do not cuss or become corse. We are not even allowed to fall back upon some category of neutrality in rationalizing what we say, as in: ‘It doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s all right to say.’ The apostle’s standard is that if it does not build up and benefit, then it is not worthy to be said.”

David Dickson:
“I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord, and have fled from both to Jesus Christ, and in Him I have sweet peace.”

Tullian Tchividjian:
“When we choose to speak redemptively — the way God intended — our words become a means of transforming grace. People encounter the grace of God as we give them a sense of who he is by the way we speak. You don’t have to be in an evangelistic conversation for your speech to be redemptive. When you treat others with your words the way that God has treated you, they’ll encounter his grace regardless of what the conversation is about. And in a world where words are so often used to destroy, this becomes a powerful exhibition of God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

It was great to be together on Sunday as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together and given us new life!

Sunday’s sermon from Ephesians 4:29, entitled: “New Life//New Words” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

Unfortunately, there is no “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “New Words (Eph 4:29)” 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.)

The quotes from the message will follow tomorrow.

It was great to be together on Sunday as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together!

Sunday’s sermon from Ephesians 4:25-5:2, entitled: “New Life//New Actions” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

Unfortunately, there is no “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song — “Be Imitators of God (Eph 4:25-5:2)” 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.)

The quotes from the message are available here:

Bryan Chapell:
“By Christ’s reconciliation we of all nations and backgrounds are reckoned as God’s dearly loved children.  God’s imperatives, [commands] and our obedience, rest on that loving relationship; they do not form the relationship. We obey because we are loved; we are not loved because we obey.  The love of our Father precedes and stimulates the obedience of his children.  We are to forgive and live and love as dearly loved children imitating the One who already is our Father, not performing to bribe God to become our Father.”

Peter O’Brien:
“The readers have been adopted into God’s family and are his beloved children.  His love has now poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit.  Since they have richly experienced that love, they should be imitators of Christ and reproduce the family likeness.”

Darrell Bock:
“The love commanded is not an abstract love tucked away in the person’s inner recesses, but a love that demonstrates itself in concrete action.”

John Stott:
“The essence of love is self-sacrifice.  Love is positive.  Love seeks the other person’s good.  Love leads to activity for him, even to the point of self-sacrifice.”

Brian Chapell:
“Why should the renewed person speak without falsehood?  For the sake of the body.  If one member lies to another, then the body cannot function.  Consider what happens when the eyes does not communicate the truth of a hot iron to the hand.  Fingers get burned.  The body cannot perform it functions if its members do not communicate what is true to each other.  When trust disappears, the work of the body comes to a screeching halt until that trust can be restored.”

John Stott:
“In the face of blatant evil we should be indignant not tolerant, angry not apathetic.  If God hates sin, his people should hate it too.  If evil arouses his anger, it should arouse ours also.  “Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.” [Ps 119:53]  What other reaction can wickedness be expected to provoke in those who love God?”

It was great to be together on Sunday as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together!

Sunday’s sermon from Ephesians 4:17-24, entitled: “The Unfashionable Walk” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

Unfortunately, there is no “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song – ”Put Off//Put On (Eph 4:22-24)” 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.)

The quotes from the message are available here:

Tim Keller:
“On the cross, Christ wins through losing, triumphs through defeat, achieves power through weakness and service, comes to wealth via giving all away.”

Tullian Tchividjian:
“Our calling to be in the world but not of the world is what gives us transforming influence.  Instead of trying our best to fit in, we need to be encouraged and challenged by the biblical reminder that θ’s people have alway served the world around them best when they’ve been countercultural, shaped by θ’s unfashionable ways to such a degree that they’re distinctively different from the world.”

Tullian Tchividjian:
“The problem with the typical evangelical motivation towards radical or sacrificial living is that imperatives divorced from indicatives become impossibilities.  Or to put it another way: gospel obligations must be based on gospel declarations.”

It was great to be together on Sunday as a church, and to join our voices to celebrate the good news of the gospel that has brought us together!

Sunday’s sermon from Ephesians 4:14-16, entitled: “Gifts for Growing” is available to listen to or download from here, or via our iTunes podcast feed.

Unfortunately, there is no “Take-It-Home” Sheet for this sermon.

And don’t forget, there’s the weekly memory verse song you can download to help you memorise portions of God’s Word. This week’s Ephesians Memory Verse Song – “Growing Up into Christ (Eph 4:14-16)” 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.