Church In The City, Chicago Il

God's faithfulness and grace pursue us through our trials, pain and circumstances- even when we disobey.

The devil will do everything he can to cause confusion about our position (in Christ and all that comes with that) and hamper our practice (becoming who we already are – God’s people displaying His glory to creation). How do we fight? By standing firm and strong in the Lord and by taking up and putting on the whole armor of God.

God wants us to partner with Him and to take action as He leads and guides us. Our time is now to respond and take the next step of faith, knowing that He has been faithful to us and will ever be with us.

Huge thanks to Amanda, Nancy and Wendy who joined Steve on Sunday for a time of discussion and encouragement over our church body.

The New Man, in the New Society, culminates with in relating to Jesus in all of our relationships. Marriage, Family, and Work are major categories of our human relationships, and they each are transformed when we understand them in our ultimate relationship to Christ.

Purity and holiness (Christ-likeness) is not achieved by legalism or licentiousness but rather by spending time with Jesus and becoming more like Him. When we do so we live a life of love because He is love, we walk in the light because He is light and we live wisely because He is truth.

For God so LOVED the world that he sent His Son, Jesus, to OVERCOME the problems of mankind (Sin & Satan) with a "not-of-this-world" upside-down Kingdom of love, service, and sacrifice. The Cross is the ultimate picture of love and image of God's Kingdom ways, and the Resurrection is the ultimate victory over death and promise of new life for all who believe. Our hearts respond to Jesus with belief and worship! Christ has OVERCOME!

As we await the fullness of the Overcomer's Kingdom, we bring brokenness to Jesus. We bring our "WHY?s" to God, we trust Him for HELP, and we worship Him in the YET to be outworked. God deeply cares for us, and in our places of difficultly or doubt, He shows himself strong and faithful. In the Cross we find the place where Christ took on our sorrows and paid for our sins.

We live a life worthy of the calling we have received by living in UNITY (last week) and PURITY (last week). But how can we “live like God in true righteousness and holiness”? By putting off the old self, putting on the new self by changing our thinking.

Spiritual maturity is best developed within a church family and a mature and unified church family reflects the glory of God.

Paul has taken half his letter to the Ephesians to describe the incredible things God has done for us in Jesus and he wants to get to the practical outworking of it all. But before that, there's one final, essential truth to tackle -- how these great truths become life changing experiences. It's by the power of God strengthening our inner being by the Holy Spirit.

Discovering God's eternal purpose of revealing His glory through the Church

God's intent is not just to raise us from the dead as a new man (singular) but into a new people (plural). Salvation brings us into the new people of God - we are citizens of His Kingdom, members of His family, bricks cemented together to form the temple of God where He dwells by His Spirit. This is counter-cultural. We limit the presence, power and work of God in our lives to the degree to which we isolate ourselves from healthy Christian community.

The greatness of sin and the desperation of man’s condition outside of Jesus is overshadowed by the “greater-greatness” of God’s grace by which we are saved and the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus is raised from the dead, ascended into heaven and seated on the throne of glory AND WE’RE IN HIM! We are citizens of heaven because He saved us by grace through faith.

Christians are generally ignorant of the incredible blessings we already have in Jesus. Paul not only encourages us to pray for a revelation of our citizenship in heaven - what it means to be IN CHRIST - but gives us specific things to pray for...for ourselves, and also for others.

Paul's opening prayer to the Ephesians praises Father God for the blessing of Christians being "in Christ". Paul alludes to the fulfillment of Israel's history, while stressing our inheritance of being adopted into God's family. Christians have been marked with the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead- this changes everything!

Purposed to confidently and lovingly advance the Kingdom of Jesus