Living Water Community Church

Chapter 4 began with a call to walk in a manner which is worthy of the calling we have received. Part of this calling is to bear with one another and to seek unity and peace. After giving this call to unity in Christ and rooting it in the unity found in God Himself Paul moves on to talk about how this unity plays out in the church. The church is one body. To begin with each of the members of the body has been uniquely gifted by God. The reason we have been gifted and set apart is firmly rooted in the person and work of Jesus. We explored how when Paul talks about Jesus descending to the lower regions of the earth he is really talking about the role Jesus plays as the new Adam. His descent is linked in the passage to His ascent which should point us to His death and resurrection. These are pivotal to Jesus role as the messiah and the new Adam. It is in this role He fulfills God’s command to Adam to subdue and to rule. He currently rules at God’s right hand and God is bringing everything into subjection to Him.

Today we celebrate explicitly the great work of Jesus in overcoming sin, and death by sin, in completing the work of paying for our sin, and rising from the dead. He lived a perfect life and He who new no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We call this transfer of our sin to Jesus propitiation. We became righteous because His righteousness was given to us. We call this transfer of His righteousness to us expiation. Today I want to focus on something which has fallen out of popularity in our world but we must not forget. The fact that we were under the curse of sin and Jesus became a curse for us. This may be most explicitly laid out in our main passage today.

We just finished summarizing how the prayer is a petition for Paul’s readers to be strengthened by the riches of God’s glory through the Holy Spirit. That Jesus may dwell in our hearts through faith. That we would be strengthened to comprehend the immeasurable nature of His love for us. That we would know this love not just in our heads but we would experience it. God calls us to "put up with one another" especially when it is difficult. We strive for unity in the body of Christ. Christ should be first in our hearts and pervasive to us throughout our lives. The Church needs to set her heart on Christ.

We worked through the prayer Paul prays for his readers. He wants them to know the immeasurable riches of God. God gives us these riches for His glory, He does this because He has given us His Son and He sees us in Jesus. All of this is bound up in God’s love for us. This love of God is immeasurable. God has given us all of this so that we can manifest the greatness of God’s glory to all generations. He has called us to be a people who walk by faith. A people who trust in God in all areas. 

We worked through the beginning section of chapter 3. It is a section where Paul takes a short excursion into his role as the apostle sent to the gentiles. He does this immediately after highlighting the new great mystery of how the Jews and gentiles are now one new body of Christ because of Jesus work on the cross. Paul is a minister of the gospel to the gentiles. The church is now the physical manifestation of God’s people on earth. It is through the church that the wisdom of God is being made known not just to men but to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This is all part of God’s eternal purpose realized through the person and work of Jesus. Since Paul sees all of this including his imprisonment as part of God’s plan, he calls on the people he is writing to not lose heart over it. Paul affirms how part of the reason he is in prison is because of their faith. But rather then looking at the situation and losing heart because of it, they should look at how they were counted as being so effect

We wrapped up the majestic ten verse declaration of why we need salvation, how that salvation is brought to us through grace and how that grace alone is what saves us and protects us from having anything we could potentially boast about. The ten verses start by showing us we are completely corrupt and children of wrath. Because of God being rich in mercy and having great love for us He has made us alive together with Jesus through His substitutionary death on the cross. We have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not our own doing but a gift from God and not a result of works so that no one may boast. This is the God’s means of safeguarding us from potential pride for all of eternity because we will always know our salvation and hope for eternity is all from Him and through Him and draws us back to Him. Even the works we accomplish are from God and for His glory. This again draws us to rest in what He has accomplished for us and is accomplishing through us. He has done and is doing the work of brin

We worked through the end of chapter 2 and looked at how the world has really been changed by the person and work of Jesus. After Jesus became our substitutional sacrifice He caused a radical change in the world. The people of God were no longer simply identified as the Jews. Now the people of God were identified by faith in Jesus. The idea of national identity in God’s economy is done away with. Identity is now are you a follower of God through faith in Jesus or are you following a man centered worldly system. One of the things this does is call the church to be intentionally welcoming to people of all nationalities. We should be the most racially integrated meeting place in the world. If someone is in Jesus we should see them as our family. Jesus Himself when told about His mother and brothers wanting to talk to Him He replied that those He was with were His mother and brothers and sisters. The church should be the one place everyone who is a Christian feels welcomed and embraced. As members of the church b

We worked through verses 4-7 as we dealt with the magnificent work of God done on our behalf to save us from the state of corruption we were in. We began by looking at the rich mercy and love of God for us. A love which was poured out on us even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He made us alive together with Christ. He saved us by His grace and seated us with God in the heavenly places in Christ. The reason for this is to show us the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Jesus. Verses 1-3 show us our state and verse 4-7 show us the great reversal God has brought about on our behalf. 

We worked through the beginning of chapter 2. These first 10 verses are really a continuous flow of thought culminating in verse 10. We are taking the verses in 3 sections. The first section dealt with the radical corruption which plagues mankind because of the fall. This corruption is rooted in the fall of Adam. In Adam we became dead in our trespasses and sins. Our spiritual death makes all men pursuers of the passions of the flesh. This complete corruption means we will not desire God but only follow the desires of the flesh. 

We worked our way through the end of chapter 1. The 8 verses which wrap up the end of the chapter really highlight the unlimited almighty power of God which is in Christ and because the Holy Spirit indwells us it is also in us. Its existence in us is for the glory of Jesus. He blesses us and He sustains us in the midst of difficulties. It is there to help us come to know God better. This happens as we trust Him and He sustains us. It is primarily relational and it comes through faith in Jesus. As we live this life of faith our actions will be characterized by love. This happens because we are trusting in the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead. Which means as we experience weakness and attacks from those who hate Jesus we are able to trust God to be our strength and shield. Will we always do this perfectly? Of course not! But the truth is as we cultivate a life of totally trusting God in all situation we will find our hearts more inclined to leaning on Him and finding our strength in Him. Today we b

We finished working our way through the longest sentence in the Bible. It runs from Ephesians 1:3-14. It centers on the magnificent power or God as it is displayed in the work of Jesus. It is a very heart stirring God exulting section. Paul was very familiar with the church in Ephesus and had been very involved there, not only for 3 years in establishing it, but in supporting them through Timothy and his ministry. The soul stirring call to worship invoked by these verses may be because Paul knew they were struggling with getting their hearts engaged in loving God. This is certainly cited as a problem of this church in the book of Revelation. Paul calls on his readers both in Ephesus and all who pick up this letter to engage their hearts in what is essentially a call to worship and adoration of God. 

We continued to explore the greatness of God’s work as Paul exults in it. We are in the middle of this massively long sentence which is lavishly filled with the vastness of the glory of God. The part we explored last time started with redemption and ended with how in the fullness of time all things will be united in Jesus. In the middle Paul talks about how God poured out his redemption on us and forgave our trespasses with all wisdom and understanding. The wisdom and understanding here speaks of God’s wisdom and understanding and ties back to the redemption which is poured out on us. This means God did this not ignoring our sin but in full understanding of what He was doing in Jesus. This really brings out the greatness of His grace because it was not blind to our sin but rather God wisely took care of the penalty for our sin and brought us forgiveness. Again emphasizing the majesty of the redemption which God has brought to bear on us. God’s will is described as being the uniting of all things in Jesus. All

We began our verse by verse study of Ephesians. We began by looking at how the church in Ephesus is addressed by the Lord in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. What we see in Revelation gives us a little window into the church in Ephesus. Honestly, the church in Ephesus sounds like a pretty solid church theologically. As a matter of fact based solely on how the church here is described most churches today would love to be described like they are. Yet the truly shocking thing about Ephesus is how in spite of their refuting of false teachers and their zeal for God’s word they are reprimanded for losing their first love. If this is the core problem in the church in Ephesus then we might have a really good clue about what God is doing through Paul here as he pens this letter to the Ephesian Christians and really all Christians throughout all time. This letter opens with a magnificent heart stirring exultation of God. If the church is struggling with a heart felt love for God then this is certainly a

We worked through an overview of the book of Ephesians. We laid out the people and context of the area it was written to. We explored the ideas of the book in a broad overview. And we looked at the unique aspects of the letter. How Paul wrote in a general sense and this makes the letter very relevant for Christians of all times and ages. It was probably written this way with the idea it would be circulated among the churches. 

We are going to consider Mary and how her role as the one chosen to bear Jesus points us to His greatness. In the Biblical picture we are betrothed to Jesus. That means the commitment to marriage has been made and we are for all intents and purposes married but not yet united. This is part of the reason scripture speaks with anticipation of the great marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus has committed Himself to His bride and has paid the price for her with His own shed blood. This is a serious commitment of God to His people. In addition this is why a relationship with God is a serious matter and not a light and casual thing. This is the type of relationship Mary had entered into with Joseph. Mary is not chosen because she was a remarkable person. Mary is a remarkable person because she is chosen. God made Mary to be the person He needed her to be. Mary was chosen because she was the right woman betrothed to the right man at the moment in time in which God planned to bring Jesus into the world. This is not to s

In particular the highlighted person was Bathsheba. But in this instance she is not mentioned by name. She is referred to as the wife of Uriah. She is the mother of Solomon by David. What this does for us as readers is it highlights David as a sinful man. David is and was almost always thought of as the greatest king of Israel. As we looked at last time in Jeremiah 30 the people are prophesied to one day serve the Lord their God and David their king. This points out how highly the people thought of David. Because this verse is clearly the referencing the future king who is descended from David. What Matthew is doing is drawing our attention to the fact that while David was a great king he was also a sinner and could not be the greater and better king we all needed. That king is the one Matthew is writing about. The other thing we saw as we looked into the situation with David and Bathsheba is the prophecy Nathan made of how the child Bathsheba carried would die because of David’s sin. It is easy to read past

The story of Ruth continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Ruth was a Moabite woman who ends up coming to Israel because she had married an Israelite man. Boaz shows favor to Ruth because of what he's heard Ruth has done for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth proposes that Boaz should redeem the inheritance of Elimelech. Boaz figures this out and ends up being the redeemer of Ruth and takes Ruth as his wife. Ruth, a Moabite, is brought into Israel and made part of the line of Christ.

The story of Rahab continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were mainly pagans and gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Which is particularly striking since Matthew was written to Jews. This is very important because grace to gentiles is poured forth in even the line of Christ. Rahab was a prostitute who probably also had a house for prostitution. Why did the spies go to Jericho? Because God had a Canaanite women in Jericho that He was going to save from the destruction that He was bringing upon Jericho. It's almost like Rahab was participating in the passover that the Israelites were just starting to share in, for the first time, in the promised land.

The story of Tamar continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Tamar loses her first two husbands because of their wickedness before the Lord. Tamar appears to be 'tainted goods' and Judah doesn't want to give his youngest son over to Tamar even though he's come of age. The picture of Jesus and Adam are also seen in this passage in the bearing of the twins by Tamar.

Today we looked at how Babylon came and conquered Jerusalem. How Zedekiah was made ruler and how he rebelled against the King of Babylon. Destruction followed this rebellion as Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed Jerusalem and carried into exile a great many of the people. The remaining people left in Judah, flee to Egypt after Gedaliah the governor is murdered. The promises of God are seen to be fulfilled in bringing judgement upon Judah for there sin and rebellion against God.