The Valwood Park Sermon Podcast

Jesus never promises that following him will be easy. Few churches in the first century knew that better than the Christians in Smyrna. What does it look like to suffer well for the gospel? What is Jesus’ promise to the one who conquers amidst the pressures to forsake Christ?

As Jesus addresses the church in Ephesus, he is speaking to a congregation that is lost. They do the right things, but with a heart that is empty. They've lost their first love. But what does that mean? How does it look when we do the same?

Churches do a lot of things. We keep busy schedules and activities on the books. But what are the key habits and values that define a healthy church? How do its members participate? This week, we look at the four essential habits of a healthy church. After the sermon, we took the Congregation Health Assessment that measures how well we are each maintaining these habits.

As Paul brings his beautiful letter to the Ephesians to a close, he leaves them with a crucial reminder that the road ahead will be challenging. Using battle terminology, he describes how they must remain prepared and vigilant against the enemy who opposes them.

As Paul moves into the final section of his letter, he stresses the importance of having rightly ordered relationships, the foundation of which is mutual submission toward one another. After unpacking how this looks in the context of marriage, he moves on to parenting and worker relationships.

So far in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul has provided a beautiful and comprehensive reminder of the gospel, a plea for unity in the church, and a challenge to personal holiness. Now, he turns his focus to how the gospel informs the most basic and intimate relationships in a believer’s life, starting with marriage.

As Paul continues to build on what it means to live as a follower of Christ, he draws a contrast between the lives the Ephesian Christians once lived and who they are called to be now. In doing so, he specifically challenges them to live as light in the Spirit. But what does that mean, and how can we discern God’s will for our lives?

As Paul continues to lay out the practical implications of following Christ, he calls on the Ephesians to imitate him with love and purity.

As we celebrate Easter, we focus on the living hope that sustains us in the midst of suffering and points us to an unfading, incorruptible inheritance awaiting us in eternity.

As we celebrate Easter, we gather first to remember the fateful night that Jesus was crucified on our behalf.

After a long and determined journey, Jesus is finally arriving in Jerusalem. While they celebrate his entrance into the city, hardly anyone understands the true significance of the moment or the dramatic turn of events that will unfold over the coming days.

After calling the Ephesian believers to put off the old self and identity that once ruled them, submit themselves to the renewal of the Spirit, and put on their new identity, he now gives them granular commands that exhibit true Christian living.

After writing about the unity the Ephesian Christians have with one another, he shows the disunity they now have with the world. He challenges them to stop walking as those who have not been redeemed and calls them to a life that reflects the gospel they profess.

After expressing the call, requirements, and foundation of unity in the church, Paul now shifts his focus into how they practically function together as one Body. In this section, he takes particular care to address the role of the church's leaders in this as well.

In light of everything Paul has written up to this point - the power of the gospel, the unity now forged between the Jews and Gentiles, and the filling they have of the Holy Spirit - Paul now calls them to live according to these beautiful realities. He challenges them to maintain that unity and calls them to the character traits that will facilitate it.

In this prayer that closes out the first half of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Paul specifically asks God to give the believers the strength to fully know, comprehend, and walk in his love while keeping his glory as the north star in his request.

After calling the believers in Ephesus to an uncommon and radical unity, he now demonstrates his personal commitment and sacrifice to this calling.

In light of the comprehensive picture of the gospel that Paul has presented up to this point in the letter, he now calls for a shocking and uncommon unity among Gentile and Jewish Christians.

In this passage, Paul unveils the distinct contrast between who we were before Christ and who we are now. He brings particular focus to the shift in identity we now enjoy.

In light of the adoption, redemption, and guarantee ensured by the Trinity in 1:3-14, Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians of the incredible hope, inheritance, and power that is theirs in Christ. 

Paul opens into the meat of the letter by displaying the full glory and splendor of the gospel. With language that can only be seen as worshipful, he demonstrates the unique roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in God's salvation program that ultimately puts his glory on display.

Paul is writing to a pillar church, operating in culturally foreign and difficult territory. He appeals to them from a posture of high spiritual authority, while humbly recognizing the unmerited way in which he acquired it.