Grace Chapel Podcast | Leipers Fork, Tn

In chapter 4 of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church, Paul is telling us that biblical unity is the byproduct of inner character. It is the result of the people of God cooperating with the spirit of God, as He sanctifies us, matures us, a grows us in godly character. When there is unity in the body of Christ, when we're growing in God's character, and operating in the gifts that He has given us for the benefit of those around us, we grow to maturity in Christ as a result.

This morning we had the privilege of Pastor Don Finto preaching on embracing the power of the Holy Spirit, embracing the power of love, and embracing the power of Godly imagination, through sharing stories from his own personal walk with the Lord.

In the first half of Ephesians 3, Paul is telling us that whatever hardships we face as a result of obedience to Christ, we face as a prisoner of Christ, not as a victim of circumstance. See, Paul was so thrilled about the gospel that not even a prison cell could keep him from moving the mission forward. He understood God’s perspective and purpose in his imprisonment. If we grasp the enormity of the grace we’ve been given through what Jesus did for us, it allows us to surrender our will for God's will, and like Paul, our circumstances may throw us, but they will never crush us.

This morning was such a sweet Student Takeover Sunday with students on our worship, serving all throughout the service, and a message from our Student Pastor, Dylan, from the second half of Ephesians 2.Praise God that because of the amazing grace that He has extended toward us, we’ve been found, and in Christ, we never have to be far from home again, because we have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Sin isn’t just the bad things that we do or our selfish motives for the good things that we do – sin is actually the condition of our hearts. It’s who we are apart from God’s miraculous work in our lives. We were spiritually dead…BUT GOD."But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved" Ephesians 2:4-5When we were all dead in our trespasses, we were utterly hopeless...and yet God made us alive, not because of our own doing, but because of His great mercy and love for us.

Paul never once prays for believers to have easier circumstances, but that they would know God more deeply as a result of their circumstances. Becoming an apprentice of Jesus doesn’t rescue you from hardship, instead, God gives you the ability to persevere through hardships that would have previously crushed you apart from Him. See, it's knowing God, who you are in Christ, how valuable you are to Him, and the future hope that you have been called to as a child of God that gives you the power to endure and persevere in times of hardship and suffering.

This morning Pastor Rob kicked off our summer sermon series on the book of Ephesians with what it means to be in Christ!"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places," – Ephesians 1:3What Paul was telling the church of Ephesus and the message for us today is know who you are – remember that God chose you, appointed you, empowered you, called you, and in Christ, you have been blessed with every. spiritual. blessing.

This morning Pastor Jimmy wrapped up the Parables series and in this parable from John 12, Jesus is saying if we are truly going to live, we have to be willing to die. The seed that dies bears much fruit. "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." – Galatians 2:20-21We can't rule and reign over our own lives. King Jesus is inviting us to lay everything down and completely surrender with nothing held back in order to follow Him and make Him the Lord of our lives.

In this parable from Matthew 13, Jesus is telling us that the byproduct of a life wholly surrendered to Him is to bear fruit and multiply the Kingdom. Through His Word, Jesus is sowing seed in our lives, and maybe you haven't seen fruit because you've been living with a hardened heart toward God and your relationship with Him has grown cold, or you love Jesus but when hard times come you get easily uprooted, or maybe your fear of man has caused you to be choked out...If this is you, ask God today to till up the land again, and remove the rocks and thorns from your life so that you may begin to bear fruit.

In the parable of The Ten Bridesmaids from Matthew 24, Jesus is giving a warning and an encouragement to the Church. Jesus is coming back for His bride, and He is telling us here to get ready and stay ready because if you wait until the Bridegroom shows up, it’ll be too late.We need to be ready not only for the return of the Bridegroom, but also need to be ready to love and serve our neighbors, the lost, the hurting, broken, and confused…to bring light into dark places. Church, we have a responsibility to be ready with light in a world that gets darker by the day because as it gets darker and darker, the light gets brighter.

On this Easter Sunday, we looked at the three parables found in Luke 15; The Lost Coin, The Lost Sheep, and The Lost Sons. Through these parables, Jesus is showing us that God cares about lost things. He is absolutely set on pursuing and finding what has been lost. His heart is for lost people because you are His highest treasure! So much so that He sent His own Son to die – but Jesus didn’t just die, He rose! He conquered death, hell, and the grave so that through Him what is lost can be found.Maybe today, you need to come home. Maybe you’ve wandered off, maybe you’ve been running, and today God is searching for you. And as soon as you take one step toward Him, He will run to you, embrace you, and say "Welcome home."

In light of the horrific and unimaginable tragedy at The Covenant School in Green Hills last Monday, we decided to push pause on our Parables series this week to speak to some of the questions we all may be asking and to create space to come to God in prayer.God can handle our biggest questions, our deepest sorrows, and our greatest fears. He not only allows it, but He also invites it. And the truth is, if we’ll make room to pay attention to those things and bring them before the Lord, we can come to know Him far more intimately through our pain than we ever will in prosperity.

With this parable, Jesus is reminding us that if we, like the rich man, place our entire identity in wealth or other temporary comforts, when those things are taken away there is nothing left. Riches, reputation, beauty, and possessions will all fade away, but when our life is centered on the Lord, even after every single pleasure this world has to offer is faded and gone, God is still our help because He alone remains constant through eternity.

This morning we had the privilege of being taught by Bill Spencer, the Executive Director of the Narrow Gate Foundation, on the Parable of the Talents found in Matthew 25. Bill has a special way of breaking stories down, putting them into the full context of Scripture, and helping us gain so much understanding.

This morning Pastor Dylan taught on the parable of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector found in Luke 18 in which both men go into the temple to pray and the Pharisee uses his prayer to elevate his righteous actions while condemning the shortcomings of others. The problem wasn’t his behavior but that he believed that he could be justified by his behavior. We can easily fall into this self-righteous trap of comparison by thinking that we are better than other Christians because of what we do for God or the way we live our lives, but we must humble ourselves, stop relying on ourselves for justification, and admit that we need Jesus to transform our lives and restore us to who God made us to be.

Every single one of us is like the fruitless fig tree in the parable from Luke 13 that deserves to be cut down. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but that's not the end of the story. In this parable, the caretaker is committed to making this tree fruitful. That's Jesus! He is doing all the work in order to create the conditions in us through which we would come to repentance. Our job as the tree is to simply cooperate with what the caretaker is doing so that we may bear fruit.

We have an enemy who loves to sow division, discouragement, duplicity, and distraction in an effort to sabotage the work of King Jesus in the world and in our lives. In this parable, Jesus is warning us of that and telling us it's not our job to worry about the tares. One day the farmer is going to take care of the tares. Our job is to mature and multiply, and trust that the farmer knows what He's doing.

This morning the Holy Spirit was moving in powerful ways during worship, so we decided to lean into that and follow His lead.

The parable of the workers in the vineyard found in Matthew 20 is not actually about the workers or the vineyard, it is about a gift that you’ve been given by an extravagantly generous God in heaven, who kept seeking out the one’s that no one else wanted. The brokenhearted, the beaten-down, the overlooked, the forgotten.This story tells us that life is not fair, and thank God it’s not because when we deserved justice, God gave us mercy. When we deserved dismissal and rejection, He chose us and welcomed us in. He pursued us, He came down to invite us into His vineyard – to give us a place to belong, a purpose in life, and a home in heaven where we will be with Him for all of eternity. It is a gift that we could not earn, and do not deserve.

In Mark 2, Jesus is saying that you wouldn't use an old piece of cloth to patch a garment or put new wine into old wineskins. Similarly, we can't just patch God onto our lives. We can't combine our way of life and God's way – we have to be totally transformed. We cannot receive the gospel of grace and remain the way that we are! We need a whole new wineskin, we need to be reborn, and we need to be “refilled” with the Spirit of God.