Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been exploring Paul’s “Household Code” in Ephesians 5 and 6, taking a look at how our new life should work out in new relationships within the home, specifically with regard to “Husbands and Wives” and “Parents and Children”.

Take Home Sheets for these two sermon are available:

New Life//New Relationships: Husbands & Wives

New Life//new Relationships: Parents & Children

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.”

Take Home Sheet for this week’s sermon available here.

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.”