Eric Ludy Sermon Podcast: Church at Ellerslie

The Christian life asks us to give up being a “somebody” and become a "nobody”. As a “somebody” there are certain jobs that we would never choose, want, or desire. However, strangely, as a “nobody” our tastes change, and suddenly we find ourselves craving the jobs that the “somebodies” reject. And these very tasks become the jobs that the “nobodies” all want. This message explores the missionary w...

The fear of the Lord seems strangely absent from the Church these days. A cavalier, loose, and even sloppy attitude has replaced the reverence and the healthy trembling amongst the saints. Every now and again it is good for those of us that call ourselves believers to visit the idea of God’s Holy Presence in order to freshly sober our meditations and sharpen our worship. Our God is a loving, kind,...

Who is Jesus? Is He merely a good godly man or is He, in fact, God Almighty? The answer to that weighty question is everything to the life of a believer. Did the life of Jesus begin in the womb of Mary or, as the Scriptures boldly proclaim, is His life from of old and from everlasting? When Jesus asked Peter, “But, who do you say that I am?” It’s critical that each of us run smack into the frankne...

A storm has the potential to go one of two ways. It could bring devastation and destruction or it could bring life-giving moisture. The key to turning the storm—even the most fiendish of storms—is to remember that our Lord is the Superintendent over all storms, and He is very capable of bringing life out of every bit of bluster. This is a message about seeing God take our personal bluster and turn...

So many of us throw up pathetically bland and prosaic prayers into the heavenlies—prayers that massively underestimate the power and ability of God to save, to act, and to do. God is the God of the Impossible, but we often times mix Him up with ourselves, and presume that He would prefer to work in the realm of the simple, easy, and predictable. But God loves big faith. He loves it when believers...

This message unpacks the theological mindset that the missionaries of this past century shared that led them to radical givenness and great risk on the mission field. And it’s a mindset that, for the most part, is no longer present in the modern Church. Simply put, the mindset was, “Bring back the King!”

We are commanded to remember God's works. However, remembering is not a passive activity, but a very active one. We must labor to remember. We must discipline our mind to hold on to the wondrous works of God.

The God we serve is not random, He is not capricious. In fact, the Scriptures declare Him to be unchanging—always the same! But, if He truly IS always the same, what is He like? Because, whatever He is like—He will ALWAYS be that way. This message explores the nature of our God that is unbendable, unbreakable, unalterable, and inviolable. Oh, and is also, astoundingly wonderful!

Eric has been hitting on the theme of courage and bravery time again over this past year. And here he goes again. This is a powerfully practical message about “taking courage” in the midst of the harrowing and heart-stopping moments of life. "Playing the Man" doesn’t mean gritting and growling in your own natural manpower—it means allowing the courage of The Man, Jesus, to function as your courage...

As Believers, we are in the midst of a battle and we have an enemy that is seeking to devour us. And this is why it is imperative that we don’t just have a faith that is adept with the doctrines of Christianity, but one that is triumphant in the Person of Christianity—Jesus Christ. It can be easy to grow lazy in our souls and be lulled to sleep by the coziness of earthly comforts. But Christianity...

The Christian life is supposed to be all about Jesus. This message reminds us about the North Star of the Scriptures and shows us how to set our life compass as believers.

The Christian life is an abundant life, but that abundance is only found when the believer relinquishes everything in order to get it. The Cross is the starting point on the grand journey toward the wealth of the Kingdom, and yet, the Cross is a place of “giving up everything” and “surrendering all.”  The yearning  to hold on to the riches of this world, and  the refusal  to le...

There are two ways to build a house. One is with human ingenuity, human strength, and human determination. The other is with God-ingenuity, God-strength, and God-determination. Psalm 127:1 makes it clear that all house-building labor done in the human mode is vain. None of us wishes to waste our best energies on something that doesn’t hold eternal significance. And when you translate this same hou...

There appear to be two seats in which the Christian can choose to sit. One of them, like the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, promises limitless earthly fulfillment while simultaneously accusing God of being a big bummer for prohibiting access to it. Psalm 1:1 describes this first seat as the “Seat of the Scornful”. But, there is another seat. And this second seat is a heavenly seat. And when...

Jesus declared that just as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so also would Jesus be a sign to His generation (Luke 11:29-30). This message explores the meaning of the unique phrase, “The Sign of Jonah” and unpacks how this sign works in bringing people unto a dynamic faith. 

Inconvenience is something that, as humans, we specialize in avoiding at all costs. And yet, the entire make-up of the Christian life is based upon not just being available to God-orchestrated inconvenience, but wholeheartedly embracing these amazing grace-endowed inconveniences. For in the lustrous folds of these challenges, weights, financial drains and directional detours is the rich consolatio...

Many Christians are stuck in “observation-mode” and have a difficulty putting their Christian beliefs into actual practice. They stay seated in the very moment that standing up is most needed. Action-mode is the operationally successful position to have the Christian life in. But, action, in and of itself, doesn’t lead to success. In fact, action absent the love of Christ can wholly undermine the...

It is our human instinct to people-please. And some of us are more vulnerable to this strange phenomenon than others. But it is NOT our human instinct to God-please. Yet it essential for every believer to access the grace to rise above the pressures of the lowercase “t” they and learn to live for the pleasure of the capital “T” They. We are supposed to be avid, love-driven, grace empowered God-ple...

This message functions as both a Sunday sermon and the very first episode in Eric Ludy’s spring Daily Thunder series, entitled Becoming Brave , that explores the mechanical construct of spiritual and moral bravery. This initial episode enunciates the biblical foundation for living with heavenly courage in a world gone wrong. To hear the other episodes in this series visit https://ellerslie.com/dai...

Why is it that someone can doctrinally understand something out of the Bible, and yet, not seem to be able to grasp that truth in their own personal life? This is a more common problem than most people realize. However, there is an elixir for this strange phenomenon. This message refers to this elixir as, “the personal touch”. It is essential that a student of The Word of God have that the Text pe...

Our human propensity is to pick the seat of honor. But Jesus came to save us from our natural propensities and to establish a new and altogether different behavior pattern in our lives. And in this new Kingdom behavior pattern, He intends to, not just convince us of the value of the low seat, but also empower us to select it . . . every time.

Waiting is hard, but it is the thoroughfare through which God brings blessing and beauty into our life. So many of us lose the lustre and the wonder that comes through waiting well, because we drain it through complaint, through frustration, and through self-pity. But, when we wait, as God has asked us to wait, the blessing that comes is always more than worth the challenge inherent in the waiting...

Weakness is deemed by many as the arch-nemesis of happiness. Most of us would go to great lengths to avoid it at all costs. But in God’s system, earthly weakness (of any kind) is a catalyst to the formation of heavenly strength. And when the believer finally grips this fact, they can begin to take pleasure in this weakness, instead of fight it, beg it to go away, and waste its virtue through compl...

To get the fullness out of your cereal-eating experience, you need to be a man or woman of quick action. If you don’t act in the short window supplied after the milk touches the flakes, the soggy soupy saucy stuff follows. The similarities between cereal eating and following Jesus are profound, and many of us have approached our obedience to Jesus as if it doesn’t matter how long it takes us to ac...

The human tongue, untamed and unharnessed, is a dangerous thing and is the leading cause of much of the heartache this world currently endures. But as James chapter three states, “Who can tame the tongue?’ The Christian has an answer to that question. God can tame the human tongue. And the Christian's tongue is supposed to demonstrate this fact. The Christian boasts a new tongue set free by the sa...