And in the morning if it is wet and the ground is dry, then I will know that it is you." We all benefit from your creativity and generosity. Call to Worship from Ephesians 2: We are saved by Gods grace. Such is the very power that has taken you and me up in divine grace, and wrought toward us. But the connection is important. Lord God, we confess that we have each of us grieved the Holy Spirit. Those things result in death! He wished to sing of Cadmus; but his harp resounded love alone; and so the harp of Paul resounds with Christ alone, Christ alone. Let the stealer steal no more." children of God, citizens of the Kingdom. B. Davidson tells how he was in lodgings in a strange city. Through Jesus there is a place for all men in the family of God. Well, dear friends, if we have been quickened, we have been quickened from above. If we want to know what the holiness, and blamelessness, and love of God is, we must look at Him; but in the same way also, if we desire to know what are the relationships into which God puts those He loves, where shall we find the highest? We wait for nothing greater nor its match; we await the results of this glorious power for the body and the creation; but we look for no new putting forth of power which can enter into competition with that which God has already shown in Christ. Both the xenos ( G3581) and the paroikos ( G3941) were always on the fringe. Now, as life comes thus with strange surprises, and mingled with pain, so, dear friends, it comes often with many questions. We know ourselves loved, but we balk at the cost. You are princes of the blood imperial. It kills innocence; sin may be forgiven but its effect remains. The battle of the Reformation has to be fought over again. It is thus seen to be founded on the great facts and standing privileges mentioned at the end of Ephesians 2:1-22; but it is the desire that the saints should know God's present power to an indefinite extent working in them in spiritual enjoyment, through the Holy Ghost's power, giving us to have Christ the definite and constant object of the heart. By grace are you saved.Now, not only has He made me alive. Is there not good reason for saying that the church is but a consequence? As the light that shone then was brighter, than the sun at noonday, so in the vision the truth about to be learnt was entirely outside and superior to the present or the past. So many of you have begun to form habits that are evil; you know that already the screw of the devil is tightening on your finger. This covenant relationship involved not only privilege, but also obligation. For we are his work, created in Christ Jesus for good works, works which God prepared beforehand that we might walk in them. Now, secondly, let us think of OUR PRESENT LIFE. At the back of things there was a kind of essential despair. 3. Sin is an organic epidemical malady, a slow devitalizing poison issuing in moral necrosis; not a stage of arrested or incomplete development, but a seed-plot of impending ruin." Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but he never forgot the unique place of the Jews in the design and the revelation of God. Heres a call to worship based on Ephesians 2: 11-22. We were full of vigour towards everything which was contrary to the law or the holiness of God, we walked according the course of this world; but as for anything spiritual, we were not only somewhat incapable, and somewhat weakened; but we were actually and absolutely dead. But it is not said that we are love. No statement can be conceived more exact. (LogOut/ That is the first part of our position, that we have come to live a separate life now, and have quitted the path we trod before. Such is the character of our blessing, and such its seat. "But to every [each] one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Are we in life where we ought to be? In this order He gave them the body to be edified, and ministry carried on, but always the individual first. I should like some of you young men who do not pray at the prayer-meeting to make a start. Jesus is never called a child in the sense in which I am now speaking He has His own relationship to the Father eternally. For "if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." New International Version (NIV), Jew and Gentile Reconciled Through Christ, In contexts like this, the Greek word for. But when presented to him, he knows all that it was meet for him to know then. The Lord is close to everyone who calls upon God; God hears our cries and will save us. It is a pleasant thing to hear an honest confession; they are dead to dead men. "I will take you for my people, and I will be your God" ( Exodus 6:7). And Gideon took them down to the stream and 9,700 of them got down on their knees and put their face in the water and began to drink and 300 of them picked it up in their hands. That is the result of life. Those that pick it up in their hands and drink out of the hands, then with these will I deliver the Midianites into the hands of Israel." All of us have sinned, all of us have missed the mark. We cannot describe it; no man can describe his first birth; it remains a mystery. A pencil produced in the factory this week is neos ( G3501) , but there already exist millions exactly like it. How is it that I find some who say they are people of God; but yet are rather fond of wearing their grave-clothes? These are the things that governed our lives in the past. No God? Hear the word of truth, the good news of our salvation. The conflict is against Satan and his hosts. Do you remember when the new life came into you? 16-18. I would want to make it a great day.Now, do you think that our Father is any different? When you see a person meandering you get the impression he is not really going anywhere and he doesn't have any purpose. In Romans the sinner is regarded as alive in sins; and death, the death of Christ, is the means of deliverance. The law or "mark" in this context is the righteous will of God. That not of yourself, the faith didn't come from you. This old English word conversation doesn't really give you the true meaning of the Greek word, which is our manner of living. So we pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to bind us together in love and peace, building us up as awitnessing, welcoming and forgiving community of grace. Evidently also, it is no essential matter for present practice of faithfulness, whether few or many see and feel it: this is a question for God's will, who will act for His own glory, whether by many or by few. The Holy Ghost gives us the certainty and joyful assurance of our place as saints; the Holy Ghost at the same time gives us the foretaste of the bright inheritance of God that lies beyond. This engineer was soundly converted. Our duties flow from what we are, or are made. I pray you that are instructed, and have become fathers, never laugh at babes in grace, if they ask you the most absurd questions. Here are some indexes that might be helpful: INDEXES: For a complete list of all the indexes on this blog, click here. "Like trying to get an octopus into a paper bag." "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" ( Matthew 5:48 ). This, then, was what was needed for the principalities and powers, and this is what they behold in the church of God. How dies the wise man as a fool, this too is empty, it doesn't satisfy. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.". document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. It was not the result of works, for it was God's design that no one should be able to boast. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.(AZ). And so "and you who were dead" really as the result of your transgressions and sins.The Greek word for sin, hamartia, is a word that means "to miss." This last was of all-importance to the saints, and the rather as that power had already been put forth. It is not again a simple question of a new nature, but of a new man: the first Adam, with all remedial or corrective dealings in him disappear, and one new man comes before our view. Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 12, 1857, by the REV. It is Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ; like the harp of Anacreon. Whenever a man realizes that he has sinned, he is oppressed with the feeling that he dare not approach God. "But God, rich in His mercy, in His love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins." The sight of that Cross awakens in the hearts of men of all nations love for Christ, and only when they all love Christ will they love each other. And it is just a joy and a pleasant delight, to gather with God's people and to just experience God's love and the love within the family of God. * To us, to be called children of God is more intimate than to be styled His sons; but it would derogate from the Lord. Paul speaks of the condition of the Gentiles before Christ came. We would readily agree that the robber, murderer, the razor-slasher, the drunkard, the gangster are sinners, but, since most of us are respectable citizens, in our heart of hearts we think that sin has not very much to do with us. (T) 10For we are Gods handiwork,(U) created(V) in Christ Jesus to do good works,(W) which God prepared in advance for us to do. The consequence is that we find the Spirit of God, now sent down from heaven, not only putting the saints into relationship with the Father, but, besides, dwelling in them and making them God's habitation through the Spirit. hath he quickened, is not in the original text, but is supplied from Ephesians 2:5, where it will be met with and explained: here those who are quickened with Christ, and by the power and grace of God, are described in their natural and unregenerate estate. Such an one is the harlot, from whom one's head is turned in the very street. Thanks to those of you who took time to answer questions and offer comments about how your congregation navigated worship during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We must carefully remember that the mystery does not mean the church merely. She was very poor and there were no luxuries, but the attic was as light and airy and clean as the cellar had been dark and dismal and dirty. The relationship in the Godhead has nothing to do with the question of time; and the great mistake that has been wrought by all human philosophy is from introducing notions of time where time can have no place whatever. Now the very baptism of a Christian man is the confession of the truth, that God has in Christ judged flesh root and branch. It shines in full contrast with Israel. But now they had consummated their rebellion by refusing the Christ of God. The defensive comes before the offensive; and all should follow dependence on the Lord. 4But because of his great love for us,(H) God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions(I)it is by grace you have been saved. (i) He made both Jew and Gentile into one new man. But the Christian is even now himself, with his fellow-saints, the object of the very same power which never can be outshone the power that raised up Christ from the dead. The life everlasting, the life that can never die, is put into us then, even as Christ said, "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Once a thing becomes a habit it is not far from being a necessity. Sinners are dead in state, being destitute of the principles, and powers of spiritual life; and cut off from God, the fountain of life: and they are dead in law, as a condemned malefactor is said to be a dead man. Does he inflict his moods on his family? But it is by grace, God's glorious gift of love to me. It is a very blessed experience to be able to walk on earth, and look up to heaven; but it is a higher experience to live in heaven, and look down on the earth; and this is what the believer may do. 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