Scripture referenced 9 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Ephesians 1:1-2 Paul's opening greeting, used to introduce the will of God and the question about obedience vs disobedience
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Keep this verse
Ephesians 1:3-6
The section on God the Father, read and expounded as the opening of the long Greek doxology
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ;
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love;
5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,
6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved,
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Ephesians 1:7-12
The section on Christ's role, read and expounded as part of the doxology covering redemption through his blood and the plan for the fullness of time
7 in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
8 which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him
10 to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him;
11 in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will;
12 to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ.
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Ephesians 1:13-14
The sealing of the Holy Spirit, read as the closing section of the doxology
13 In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.
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Romans 8:28
Quoted as a parallel to the repeated theme that God works all things according to his will for those who love him
28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
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Colossians 1:19-20
Quoted as a parallel to Ephesians on uniting all things, referencing the fullness of God dwelling in Christ and reconciling all things through the blood of his cross
19 For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him;
20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on the earth, or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
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John 20:21
Quoted as Jesus sending his disciples just as the Father sent him, applied to the body of Christ as God's agency on earth
21 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
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John 20:22
Referenced as Jesus breathing on the disciples and giving them the Holy Spirit after commissioning them
22 When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit!
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1 Corinthians 11:23-25
The institution of the Lord's Supper quoted during the communion service, covering the bread and the cup
23 For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread.
24 When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me.”
25 In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
On the Sunday after returning from a week in Guatemala, Pastor Ray preached from Ephesians 1:3-14, running the passage alongside the story of what the team experienced on that trip. The two threads, one theological and one personal, were meant to be read together: what God's Word says about how He works, and what it looked like when He worked through a group of ordinary people who showed up willing.
What was said
Paul opens Ephesians with a sentence 202 words long in the Greek, the second longest in the entire New Testament. It is not an argument or an instruction. It is a doxology, a study of God's glory, and it simply overflows. Pastor Ray noted that Paul had just introduced himself in the first two verses and then could not help himself. The praise burst out before anything else.
The passage moves through the three persons of the Trinity in order. God the Father is the one with the will and the plan. He chose, He predestined, He adopted through Christ, and everything Paul says about Him points to a God who is loving, gracious, and determined. The phrase "according to the purpose of his will" appears three times in just these few verses, which Pastor Ray connected to the question he had left the congregation with before the trip: would you rather have God work through your obedience, or in spite of your disobedience?
Christ is the agency. He is the one through whom the Father's plan is carried out, the one in whom believers are sealed, the one in whom redemption and forgiveness are found. Pastor Ray pointed to the parallel verse from Colossians, where the fullness of God dwells in Christ and through Christ all things are reconciled. The Son carries out what the Father purposed, and the body of Christ on earth continues that work, sent the same way the Father sent the Son.
The Holy Spirit is the guarantee. Pastor Ray was careful to call the Spirit a who, not an it, the third person of the Trinity. The Spirit given to believers at the moment of faith is described in the passage as an earnest, a down payment, the security that full communion with God is coming. He said the Spirit's voice is a still, small one, and easier to hear in obedience than in disobedience.
Running alongside all of this was the story of Juan Bautista and Graciela, a couple in their seventies from the Guatemalan countryside who walked into a mobile medical clinic on Monday afternoon and collapsed. Over the course of the week, it came out that they had been praying for two years, that their neighbors had been carrying them, that the mission had already heard of them, and that a house on a plot of land where Juan could keep chickens and ducks was being offered. The team built it in a single day, Wednesday, going from one block high to full ceiling height with walls complete.
Pastor Ray said none of that was on the schedule. The shoes, the food distribution, the medical clinics, those were all planned. The house was not. The people at the site called it the Miracle House. When the team handed over the keys on Friday afternoon, Graciela grabbed them and ran after the departing bus, not to ask for anything else, but to say she and her husband were going back to their village to tell everyone what God had done.
The two threads met at the end. The doxology in Ephesians exists because God's will is not thwarted, and His chosen agency for making that will known in the world is the body of Christ. Pastor Ray said that what happened in Guatemala that week was not a surprise to God, only to the team. The passage lays the foundation for everything that follows in Ephesians, and laying a foundation, literally digging footers in Guatemalan clay, is exactly what the team spent that Wednesday doing.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Pastor Ray asked the congregation to consider whether they would rather have God work through their obedience or in spite of their disobedience. Which feels more true to your own experience, and why?
- Paul's doxology in Ephesians 1:3-14 is described as a study of God's glory, with the Father as the one who had the plan, the Son as the one who carried it out, and the Holy Spirit as the seal and guarantee. How does seeing those three roles laid out together shape the way you think about your own salvation?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 9,179 words
0:00
Listen. I you folks can kind of lean this way because Ray's side is pretty empty over here. I don't know.
0:09
Do y'all remember the old Allelu Allelu Allelu Allelu Allelu song? You think we ought to do that one today? We'll give you a week. We'll give you a week to recruit some members. Learning to lean.
0:20
Hymn number five thirty four.
0:22
Learning to lean. It's a theme today. It's a theme. Amen.
0:29
To lean learning to lean I'm learning to lean on Jesus finding more power than I've ever dreamed I'm learning to lean on finding more power than I've ever dreamed Amen.
1:24
Y'all can have a seat. Have a few announcements this morning. Discovery Class happens on the third Sunday of each month and if you're here and you are thinking, I'd like to be a member of this church, that's the place to go and talk about not just kind of what is the church is about. If you're getting to the point of wanting to be a member, then you probably know a lot about the church but it's a helpful time for us to get to know you a little bit too. So, discovery class happens on the third Sunday each month, and it's in my office in between services.
1:56
Monday nights at first B. We are still meeting and we are still eating, all right? So it is music, meal, and a message. And we do, even though the kitchen is being remodeled right now and we're in the middle of that project, we don't have a kitchen available. We're having different people, different families are supplying us with the food.
2:15
Usually they make it at home, bring it in, or order it out, bring it in. It's been really, really good. So meal music and a message still happening every Monday night. And this Monday night, you'll get to hear from the team that went to Guatemala. You'll hear a little bit about it this morning.
2:30
I'll, because I've got the pulpit, I get to tell a little bit about it. So but that's just my story and one story, really. There were six people that went on it. So those other five people are gonna get a chance, and I'll probably do the closing prayer. Okay?
2:42
So that's tomorrow night at Monday nights at First B. How many of y'all have heard about this concert? Okay. This is I'll tell you the story behind this. The Revelations.
2:52
They are from Warm Springs, Shiloh, Georgia, right around where I'm from. They Bill Strandberg is the pastor at County Line Road Baptist Church. It is walking distance from my house. I mean, I I can I can get there pretty quick, and they've been there for a long time? They have been singing and doing concerts since 1968, Southern Gospel concerts.
3:15
It is full on Southern Gospel. Okay? It's a different thing. I know culturally it's different from Western music. It's not the same thing, but it is fun.
3:24
And so my mama called me a while back and said, Ray, if you hear from Bill and Becky Strandberg, they are coming out and doing a Western Loop a tour, and they're doing Southern Gospel concerts. And so I said, you told them to call me, didn't you, mama? And she said, did. I said, alright, well. So he called a few weeks later and he he is a very joyful guy, and they're great.
3:47
The singing is good, and I usually say no to this. We have a lot of people that say, brother Ray, can we just come out and do a concert for y'all just for a love offering? And I think in summertime in the Jackson on a Sunday night, chances are nobody's gonna show up. I'll be straight up honest with them out of the gate and say that, but I'm asking y'all to show up. I'm asking y'all to come so my mama will be happy.
4:11
All right? So that's the truth. And they are actually, they're good. I know these people, but, but it'll be, I'll translate for you. If you need a translator, I'll translate for you.
4:21
I like to interpret. So that's, that's the revelations. Next is something we're more used to. This is like the twenty something year that the the Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center has done their, a fundraiser that the Bar J has hosted. So come join us out at the Bar J.
4:38
It's early season. You get the early season version of the show the Tuesday after Memorial Day. So that's May 30. That other one was the twenty eighth. That's a Sunday night, next Sunday night.
4:49
This one is May 30. It's a Tuesday. There'll be a silent auction. There'll be the, you know, the food is great and the music's wonderful. So that's the way it goes.
4:58
And we will do a little bit of pitch for Turning Point, right? Judy and Carolyn or Zinniac, there you are. There you are. If you want any more information about it, can talk to either one of them and there are tickets available already, right? Okay, good.
5:14
So this one, the Reno's. This one's sad. This is a sad announcement. So the Reno's, Kale and Renzi and Boone and Ace are gonna be heading out. They're moving up to Sheridan, Wyoming.
5:27
Most of y'all already know that. So they'll be leaving and their last Sunday here is June 18. So please, that's Father's Day, join us for a potluck. And Rinsey made this announcement. And it says, goodbye spelled wrong.
5:39
It's a goodbye party, and gifts are required. But I'm pretty sure Renzi made the announcement, so that's not true. The gifts are not required, but if you wanna see them off, that is the day to do that. So goodbye party. He gave gave himself away.
5:54
Renzi's not a speller. We have a vacation Bible school that's coming up. We're using a slightly, a very different format this year. It's an intensive two days. So June twenty third and twenty fourth.
6:06
Kids can sign up now in the back room, and I just saw Liz Owings walk by the door back there. Liz, would you stick your head in here for just a second? There you are. That's Liz Owings. If you'd like to sign up as a volunteer for Vacation Bible School this year, she's the person to talk to.
6:22
Liz Owings is in charge of children's ministry. Starting right now. If you want to volunteer, you can sign up at the sign up desk back there or you can sign a child up. You can register back there. June twenty third and twenty fourth in the evenings.
6:36
Format is different but the content is the same. Alright, thank you, Liz. And we do need volunteers for that. And we also need volunteers for the nursery. Now Bailey Morley is the one that's in charge of the nursery.
6:49
And a few weeks ago, actually before I went to Guatemala on that trip, you remember the last sermon when I was talking about? I said, when you see Bailey Morley Morley, ask her how you can help her because we do need volunteers in the nursery and she said, thank you for doing that afterwards, you know, and then, I got back the other day and she said, I've had tons of people come and tell me they would pray for me And so she's very thankful that you're praying for, but what she needs is for somebody to say, I will watch the kids for an hour a week. So, you know, are a hundred and sixty seven other hours in the week. So, a hundred and sixty eighth hour can you spend it taking care of kids downstairs in the nursery? That would be very helpful if you wanna volunteer.
7:26
Quick video.
7:28
Mayday. Mayday. Hello. Can you hear us? Can you hear us?
7:31
Can you over. I mean, we are sinking. We are sink
7:36
Hello? This is the German coast guard.
7:41
We are sinking. We're sinking.
7:45
What are you thinking about?
7:55
So the speaker for Turning Points Gala, which will happen later on, it'll be in July, the speaker that we're having this year is Ken Sandy. And his specialty is relationship, like relational wisdom. Three sixty is his ministry. He's the fellow who wrote The Peacemaker. A lot of y'all have probably read this.
8:15
It's about how to help people get along and communicate better, and it's a thoroughly biblical study and very, very helpful. In between now and the time that he does the Turning Point Gala and is here for this on a Saturday from nine to 03:30, the July 15, in between now and then, he is going to Congress. Can you believe this? He's going to Congress to share with them some relational wisdom about how to get along. So isn't that great?
8:44
So he's a pretty well known guy. You would miss a treat if you missed this. So plan on being here. Ken Sandy, Relationship Seminar. And for everything else that should be in your bulletin, would you stand up and greet one another and we will bring you back together with a song.
9:11
Lamb of God. Let's get
9:13
our hearts and our minds pointed at him this morning. Let's worship together. It's great to see you all this morning.
9:58
Your rising again, I bless your name. You are my all in all. When I fall down, you pick me up when I am dry you fill my cup you are my all in all Jesus
11:00
worthy is his name. Amen? Amen.
11:02
About freely.
11:04
Freely. You gotta be free with that. Gotta be willing to be led. You gotta be free. This is a good song.
11:11
Listen to the words as we're singing these out. Amen?
11:17
God forgave my sin in Jesus name I've been born again in Jesus name and in Jesus name I come to you to share his love as he told me to. He said, freely, freely, you have received, freely, freely give. Go in my name and because you believe others will know that as he stole me to. He said, freely, freely, you have received. Freely freely give go in my name and because you believe others will know that I live
13:00
Amen. Y'all can have a seat. Invite the frontline team to come forward. And miss Rosemary. Would you pray with me?
13:11
God, I thank you and I praise you this morning in Jesus name. I thank you that you have given so freely, lord, that which we did not deserve. There's no argument there. You freely have lavished upon us your grace and your love through Jesus Christ. And so, Lord, I pray that right now, as we recognize that fact, we would give also freely to those other causes and ministries that you would have people come to know you.
13:39
So, God, would you use what we put in these plates to do your kingdom's work, lord? May it not be of man, but may it be of God, and may you advance your good gospel through our obedience. In Jesus name, amen. Thank you very much. Wow.
16:49
So here we are. So it's been two weeks that I was not in this pulpit, and some of y'all, like I said, beat me back here from down south somewhere. And I was in Guatemala, and I had a couple of guys that preached while I was gone. One of them was Mark Hull, and I'm very, very thankful for Mark. He's one of our elders.
17:10
He's an elder this year serving, and when I called him and asked him if he would preach, I said, hey, Mark, I've got a question for you. It's a loaded question. And he said, okay, shoot. What is it? I said, well, I'm going to be going to Guatemala on a mission trip.
17:25
Would you preach for me while I was gone? And he said, yes And it took him about that long and he said, And I said, okay, well, there's a pause there and so, you know, it does say, he goes, it's my duty. Yes. And I said, well, you know, it does say that an elder should be able to teach, but it doesn't say he has to do it when the pastor commands right now. So if you're not ready, just let me know.
17:52
He goes, no, no, no. I'm ready. I'll I'll do it. I said, okay. Good.
17:56
Well, you can preach on Ephesians wherever we end up or you can preach on an Old Testament passage or whatever you wanna do. You tell me if you want to preach topically, that's fine too. And he goes, no, I know what I'm gonna do. I said, what? He said, fear.
18:09
Because I just asked him to preach. And so but he he did, and I heard great things about him, and I appreciate his willingness, and I appreciate your encouragement to him too, because what he had to say I think warrants being said. So thank you for doing that. And Nick last week. So Nick, all know, is our office assistant now.
18:29
And Nick came to me several weeks ago and said, if you ever need somebody to preach, I've got one rattling around in my head, and that happens sometimes. You just have something you feel like you have to say, and when that happens, it's good to let me know that. It's good. So Nick said that, and then I needed that second Sunday too. And it was completely different styles.
18:49
Did you notice that? Could not have been much more different, right? But it was God's truth both times conveyed through the means of personality. And I was thankful for both of those guys and thankful for y'all too. When we came on here, y'all know you hired a missionary when you when you hired Tanya and me to be here and they the elders all said when they hired me that we expect you to be somewhere else in the world six or eight weeks, six weeks a year doing something else in ministry.
19:14
So we were for both of those Sundays. Thank you for that. Now, I left you with this question last time before I left to go on that trip. Would you rather have God work because God's gonna do his work, right? God is a sovereign God.
19:27
He's he is mighty, and he is gonna do his work. We've got it in several different places that he is going to take the evil that people mean and use it for good. So I left you with this question. What would you rather have God work through your obedience or in spite of your disobedience and I said, just ponder that and I've been pondering that since then myself. So, that's what the thought was when I left from Ephesians one one and two.
19:53
So, I'm going to do this today. I'm going to share this scripture. This is one long sentence in Greek. It's just 202 word long sentence. You know, it's very very complicated and how it works together.
20:08
I'm not going to go through the grammar of it. What it is is an overwhelming blessing, blessing God for being who he is and how he is. It's a study of God's glory. So, I'm gonna go through that passage and I will say everything that those verses say in them But I'm also gonna do parallel that with our trip to Guatemala. A lot of y'all have asked what we did down there, and so I'm gonna do that.
20:32
Now I'm one out of six people that went on that trip, and I have have a lot of stories myself, but I'm gonna tell you basically one story, just the thread for me that went through the week. And then everybody else that went on the trip, you can hear them say one thread for them tomorrow night. It'll be shorter than mine though, Okay. So Ephesians one three through 14. And I'll tell you what Pascal did.
20:54
The first day Pascal helped with food distribution. So she gathered up bags, 200 and something bags of about 40 to 50 pounds of food each. And so she helped with the distributing this food into the bags. And then after that, they had a team of people that went out into the communities and distributed among those who are the most needy in need of food. That's Pascal right there.
21:18
Pascal and Tanya working side by side. What was that place, Tanya? A shoe distribution? So Tanya helped with distributing shoes. Each day they had arranged ahead of time to have elect the mayor of a small community village way out in the middle of nowhere to come together and bring the kids from the community, and we were given shoes.
21:38
So they gave out almost 200 pairs of shoes that day. This is mostly what Tanya did for the rest of the week. Four days, that's Tanya. That's a genius doctor. And then this is a little old lady who doesn't understand this genius doctor.
21:53
So Tanya worked on interpreting in mobile medical clinics. She did that for four days. I did that for four days too. This is Mike Demetrius. Do you all know Mike?
22:06
Mike Demetrius, in perfect preacher fashion, you see his hand up right there. He is doing the message that these kids, women and kids mostly, are waiting for the shoes, the ones who are sitting down. And Mike and the other folks standing up were there to give Crocs, little shoes, you know? And so they gave out a couple 100 pairs of shoes at this place and then another place, and he did a bit. We're doing communion today, so the passage from communion says that, you know, it it talks about the Lord's supper being instituted but before that, Jesus washed his disciples feet and so Mike is sharing a little bit of Jesus washed his disciples feet on the night that he was betrayed and we're here and we're here to do that.
22:54
And we're washing feet. Makes sense when you're handing out shoes to clean someone's feet. And so they were there to do that. Mike handled that for several days. He was on that team.
23:02
There he is, washing feet and speaking as much Spanish as he can muster to every child administered to. There's JJ, that's Mike's wife, if you all don't know JJ. Jenkins, now Demetrius. So she's doing what she does, just loving children. JJ actually, by the way, was adopted.
23:22
So she spent three years in an orphanage, and I'm going to cry. That's why I'm not telling JJ's story. I'm going skip that. That's JJ and Mike, all right? She was loving kids the whole time.
23:36
But there, there's Tanya. Actually that was a combination. That one was not just washing feet. She saw something that was going on with that little girl's feet and was helping her medically right there. This is Maddie Casey.
23:52
She was on the trip. So that's Maddie if you don't know her. Maddie's been to Ethiopia a couple of times. She is Kristen Wilson's niece and she right there is pictured washing feet and handing out shoes. But she also has some nursing in her background, so she was helping out at the mobile medical clinics also.
24:09
By testing blood sugar, and she was also a runner that would take someone who walked through the door, went through triage, and then walked through the stations of the clinic, she would go along with them. Kind of continuity of care is what you call it in The States. This is what I did most of the week, whether it was with that doctor or with a different doctor. That's a Guatemalan doctor, sharp as attack. I know he looks like he's 14, but he is the doctor at the elderly care facility.
24:37
How many of y'all know Lauren Fry? Y'all know Lauren? So Lauren went down two years ago on this trip, and she's an architect. And while she was there, they said, well, we're going to have an influx of more senior citizens coming into our elderly care facility, and we don't have space right now to put them. We'd like to build a bigger building.
24:54
Would you help us with that? To Lauren, who showed up on a volunteer team two years ago. So Lauren got out her pad and pencil and walked around, stepped it off, and drew the plans. Came back here, checked a few other things. She works for a law architect firm in town.
25:11
And sent back her recommendations and her drawings and plans, and they built it. It was dedicated a year ago. So the same team that we all went with, there were six from here and 66 from other places in The States that we joined up with. And those 66 people, most of those come each year, and they had helped build this elderly care facility last year that Lauren designed the year before, and now they have a 100 senior citizens living in that. This is one of them and he was suffering and wanted prayer, so I'm praying for him.
25:43
But this is what four days of the week looked like for me. This was Monday, this brightly lit church. It was in a community that's walking distance from the compound where we stayed, and this doctor is a diagnostician primarily. He's a family practice guy who's seen it all, and he has been coming on these trips for a long time, volunteering his time, but he doesn't speak any Spanish. So Tanya got to interpret for him, I got to interpret for him, and on Monday afternoon, we met this couple.
26:12
So 03:30 in the afternoon, after we had seen most of the patients from that village, they wandered in and they weren't from the village. They didn't have a number. They had not talked to the mayor. They just came in and they were obviously in need. Tanya recognized the need from a distance, and then the closer that they got, she was kind of ushering him in to have a seat, and he passed out.
26:35
He passed out in the middle of the ceramic floor in a church, lots of sharp edges everywhere. He passed out, and Tanya helped him up into a chair at her triage station. And she's really good with understanding what people say and what they mean behind just what they say. And so she was picking up that the wife knew that the husband was sick enough to need to be in an elderly care facility or in a hospital, but he was kind of hard headed. He's a man, right?
27:02
That's the way it goes. She recognized that and trying to help him to save face when she got him up in the chair, he had already started with her saying, I've never been sick. I've always been healthy. I've always been able to work. And he kept saying that over and over.
27:20
Tonya recognized that he was the sickest person we had seen all day. Actually, turns out he was the sickest person we saw all week, but we didn't know that on Monday at 03:30. And he said she just skipped over several of the stations and brought him to this diagnostician, Doctor. Dewar. And he tested this, that, and other thing.
27:41
He looked at his skin. He looked at it. He felt his joints. He felt everything. And he was able to diagnose him with something.
27:46
We didn't have many tests. We did have blood sugar and his blood sugar was three thirty three. That's not good. He hadn't had anything to eat in almost a week. Six, seven days they both estimated.
27:57
And so that's pretty bad. He has uncontrolled diabetes. Turned out he had acute adrenal failure and colon cancer. And he learned that at a medical clinic. He traveled on a bus to get there.
28:11
Their house is about forty five minutes by bus, took them about an hour after they got off the bus walking to this clinic, and then they come in. And so that's Juan Bautista and Graciela. I'll continue their story. But I wanna keep on doing this too. Alright?
28:24
We're here to hear about God's word. Now, Ephesians one three through 14 is one long sentence in the Greek. It's 202 words long. It's the second longest sentence in the whole New Testament. And I've told you over and over now that Colossians and Ephesians are like twin books.
28:41
In a lot of ways, they're like twin books. They happen to be written or birthed about the same time. They don't look exactly alike because Colossians was a group that Paul had never been to Colossians. He'd never been to that church. He knew, he didn't found that church.
28:55
He wasn't the apostle that took the word there. Epaphras was but he was good friends with Epaphras. He knew a bunch of the people but he didn't know him the way that he knew the Ephesians. He knew the Ephesians because he had lived in Ephesus for three years by this point. He knew them really, really well.
29:10
He knew personalities and people, and he knew what it was like to be there. It's one long sentence. It's two zero two words. It's five sentences if you break it up into decent English, and one of those I think is a run on. Okay?
29:24
That is the diagram of that sentence. That's is that ridiculous or what? I'm not gonna go through it with you, but that is what it looks like if you diagram it. Okay? Everything in this sentence is interrelated.
29:36
Everything is, and it is a great expression of praise to God. It is what you call an overflowing, I say, doxology. It's his opening. He said, you know, peace, grace, and peace with you. I'm Paul the apostle by the will of God.
29:53
He said that in the first couple verses but this is where he just can't help it. It's like he's filled with this praise and he cannot help it. It just bursts out, and then he goes into this long run on sentence. This doxology is from Greek word doxologia, and it means a saying about God's glory, or better, a study of God's glory. So this is, for these next eleven, twelve verses, that's a study of God's glory, straight from the mouth of Paul.
30:21
And the way this one breaks down, let me go to this, is this way. God the father emphasized at the very beginning the first four verses three through six, and then seven through 12 emphasizes Christ's role, and then thirteen and fourteen is the sealing of the Holy Spirit. So it's God the father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now there are people who say, I don't know about Trinity. I don't see that word in the Bible anywhere.
30:45
Well, it's all over. And the Trinitarian formula that we commonly do in doxologies is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost or Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's thoroughly biblical. But it is hard to explain. This passage is really good.
31:00
It lays it out like this. So Juan, Bautista, and Graciela. They came in at 03:30 in the afternoon, hung around till 04:30 in the clinic there, and when we walked back up for supper around five they walked back up with us. They hadn't had anything to eat. We were about to have supper.
31:17
We were going to obviously going to take them to get that. We knew that they needed, because of all of his medical issues, he needed to be in the hospital. And there's a hospital on-site at this campus. It's an 800 acre compound that we are staying on, and there is a hospital there, and there's an elderly care facility. So we took him up to the front desk and said to the administrative guy that's over this all, wandered in and said, hey, we don't know exactly the process for how this needs to be done, but this couple needs help.
31:46
The man is severely ill and needs a hospital. And so what do we need to do as a team? We want to help them, but we don't know what it is that we can do or what you can offer or what you would even say. And the guy behind the desk said, they are known to us. And I thought, what are you saying?
32:03
They're known to us. Like they're known to us. They've tried to scam us. They they're known to us. We know about their problems.
32:10
And they said, no, they came by several weeks ago. I don't know what's going on. Y'all just let me handle it. And I thought, oh my goodness. Alright, so that's Monday afternoon.
32:21
They did have supper with us. We knew that they'd have a place to spend the night that night. He guaranteed us that. We told them if we needed to give them a place to stay for the night, we need to pay for a hotel or whatever we needed to do, that we would do that. And Tanya and Tom, another one of the leaders on our trip, I actually walked away when he said, let me deal with it.
32:40
I was like, oh my goodness, I don't know what I'm going to do if he says no. You remember the trip to Nepal, right? Yeah, y'all all remember that sermon. So, I was thinking, if they don't help em, I don't know what what I'm going to do here because we've got a chance to do something in Jesus name. Some things you don't have to pray about.
32:57
You know what I mean? You just do it and so, when we were we were there, I'm walking away, and Tonya and Tom were standing there, and Tom said, Listen, if we need to pay for a hotel room or if they need a house, because they told us their living situation, if they need a house, we'll do that. I thought, after I heard that, I thought, Oh my goodness, what are they going to do? What are we going to do? So here we go.
33:20
The passage. The passage lays the firm foundation for everything that will follow in Ephesians. So it's God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit and in Ephesians, if you look at the first three chapters are theology and it's about God and about God's will and how he's making known the mystery of the gospel in this age and then chapters four through six are about the application of that gospel to life and how you should walk. The sixth chapter is primarily about walking in the spirit, and it's about the fruit of the spirit, and it's about walking it out. So the this passage lays a foundation for how the rest of the book is gonna look.
34:00
On Tuesday morning when I woke up, I went in, went in leadership meeting early in the morning every morning. So I went in and they said, is everybody doing all right? Everybody sleep all right last night? Is there anything you're struggling with? Any joys or things from yesterday you wanna share?
34:16
And I immediately just was like, I can't stop thinking about that couple that came in into the clinic. And I feel like I had told them multiple times while he's saying I've never been sick, I've never needed to ask, I've always been healthy. Was thinking, oh, lord, help us do whatever it is and I promised them that we would do whatever we could but I didn't know what that was because we're not in control, right? And so, Tuesday, I said, I want y'all to pray for me because I'm struggling and I don't know and I don't know the situation of the administration of Guatemala whether they can help these people or not. I just don't know how I'm going to be able to deal with it if we have to say no to these people and so, after that little meeting, we all prayed got up, the head of the mission, who's not there every single week, he's there, he was there this week, and he had had a talk with Juan Bautista and Graciela.
35:10
And when he was talking to him, he found out that this couple is from the countryside. They had always been in the countryside. He had always worked with chickens and ducks and things like that, had a little farm, a little piece of land that he could work on. And he'd always been healthy for seventy five years, and in the last two years they've been going downhill. Well, how have you survived?
35:29
We asked them, and they said, God's provision through our neighbors. But we're putting a horrible burden on our neighbors because we don't have any kids and we don't have any grandkids. She had been so severely malnourished she was told that she'd never have kids and never has. And so they felt the burden of being a burden on their neighbors and everything. So when they were talking to Carlos, he said that a month earlier, three weeks earlier, they had come in and asked if, she had asked if he could be admitted into the elderly care facility.
36:00
And she wasn't really sick enough to need that, but he was. And he didn't want to go because he's a hard headed man. And he didn't want to just check into a nursing home so that he could die there. He'd rather live until he died. His diabetes needed to be under control and his other health problems needed to be under control.
36:18
And he would gladly accept the help of some medical care, but he just didn't feel like he needed to be there. So that was a month before we arrived. In that intervening month, realized how sick he was and he came back and he stumbled into the clinic and passed out that day. But Carlos said, well, would you like to have a place where you could have chickens and ducks and turkeys? And would you like to have a place that had a little field that you could work?
36:42
He said, yeah. He said, if it were not an elderly care facility, would that work for you? And he said, yeah. He said, well, the team here this week has offered, if you would like it, to build your house. And he didn't tell us that, he told them that, Okay?
36:56
And so the next morning he said, Ray, would you come up to the front and would you invite your friends up here? So that's Juan and Graciela and I'm up there too. And then he said, would you tell them that you all are going to build them a house? On Tuesday morning after breakfast, we're leaving on Friday. You know, we're finished working on Friday.
37:12
And so, here we go. So laying the foundation, this passage lays the foundation for the whole book of Ephesians. This is laying the foundation for that house. So these are normal folks. One of them is an automotive engineer.
37:27
This guy has been a construction guy, but is now retired. This guy's an 11 year old that I think if his mouth is closed, that's the only time he didn't, wasn't saying something that whole week. Gavin, he's great though. So these folks are digging out trenches. These are foundation footers for the house.
37:45
That's Jay Buckhalter. He's the guy that kind of puts this team together each year. And he doesn't usually do shovel work, so I like that picture because he's actually doing something. There it is laying the foundation. Now this passage I'm gonna go through three slides.
38:01
I will highlight different things, but there are three slides. Usually, you know how I build it up? I do half a verse and then half a verse appears and we keep on going. I'm going to do the whole section about God the father. It's right there.
38:12
Ephesians one three through six but I want to highlight for you as we go through wherever it says, God the father. So, this section is talking about God who has the will and who has the resources and has the way of doing this. Blessed be, Paul says, it's just like, oh, 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 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.
39:01
So, this is God the father. What did Jesus say was his purpose on Earth? He came to do the will of the father. He was always obedient to the will of the father. So, I'm separating these out.
39:13
God is one but he is a triune God. He's trinity also. To the praise of oh, by the will of God. Let's say, go back to Ephesians one one and two for a second. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, we talked about that last time.
39:29
To the saints who are in Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. The will of God is what prompted this question. Would you rather have God work through your obedience or in spite of your disobedience? That was the one to contemplate. According to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.
39:52
What's the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. Now, that's God the father. That's the section about him and it looks like God the father is loving, he is caring, he is choosing, He is making a way for us to be holy and blameless.
40:19
He's making a way for us to be adopted into his family though we do not deserve it. He is glorious and gracious. But if you keep on looking, there are a lot of passages, a lot of things in there that point to Christ too, right? So, between the two, I want to point those out before we move on to Christ Jesus. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, okay?
40:42
It's he is central. This triune God. It's hard to separate one from another but Paul does that. Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him. So, in Christ before the foundation world, that we should be holy and blameless before him and love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.
41:05
Are you getting how Jesus is the agency? He is the agent by which God offers salvation. He's the agent by which God presents us with the possibility for redemption and adoption and then he's called the beloved. He has blessed us. God the father has blessed us in Jesus, the son.
41:27
So this is Wednesday afternoon. I was taken off of medical clinics. I did Monday, Tuesday, and I did Thursday, Friday. But on Wednesday, they asked me to go do construction for the day. So when we got there, it was foundation level, one block high, all around with the dirt, hills all in the middle still.
41:43
And about 02:00 in the afternoon, this is what it looked like. Yeah, it was pretty fast. They had about 10 Guatemalan guys and 18 Americans working on this together. You're standing on top of each other when there are 28 of you, but nobody was missing any work. We were steady the whole time.
42:04
Oh, that's the six of us from here, and that's Graciela and Juan Bautista right there with us. So that's Wednesday evening after a full day of construction. And at the end of construction that day, the walls on the house were 13 blocks high all the way around, and the front and back had the peaks already done. No roof, no floor, but in one day it went from foundation to the height of the ceiling. So that was a pretty happy time.
42:27
They had not been there at that point. They didn't know anything about the house except for it would be built, but they didn't know when, they didn't know how, they didn't know where, they had not even seen it. So we get to this next part and it's about Christ. So it's Ephesians seven through 12, one, seven through 12. And I'm gonna do the same thing.
42:47
I'll list each time in green where it is Christ, and then I'll put yellow where it's the father, okay? In him, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood. So, it is Christ Jesus, the son that offers redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his, that's God the father's grace. God the father graciously gave Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for us, right?
43:16
Which he lavished upon us. That's God lavishing upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will. And there it comes up again, his will. His will is not gonna be thwarted. You can be a part of it by being obedient to it, or you can be disobedient and he still gets his will done.
43:34
According to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things. Christ, the fullness of time. I think of this verse a lot. Like, in the plan of God, this is a great Christmas passage to me but when the fullness of time had come, when everything prophetically that needed to be accomplished was accomplished. Socially and governmentally and everything else when it all got to exactly the right time in history, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem.
44:13
That was his purpose. Those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. Parallel verse there. Which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him. Remember this one from Colossians?
44:27
This is from that 219 word Greek sentence, the only longer sentence in the Bible. For in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things to unite together all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. In him, we have obtained an inheritance. Having been predestined according to the purpose of him, who works all things according to counsel of his will. It comes up again.
44:56
That's the third time in just these few verses that the will of God. Paul is blessing God or saying a blessing about God, a study of his glory because God is accomplishing and working out his will. In the second and third chapter of Ephesians, the cosmic scope will become evident that there is a mystery which has been hidden for years and years and ages past but now, it's being revealed and it's being revealed by God through Christ and the continuing work of his Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, his church. So that we who are the first to hope in Christ There we are. Say it again.
45:36
Romans eight twenty eight and we know that for those who love God and all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. So it prompts the question again. I feel much more comfortable by it being through my obedience, right? But you know what? How comforting it is when you fall and you know that he still works through your disobedience.
46:00
That's a very, very comforting thought. So that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. It's his will and it's his glory and it's through Christ. Now, I say this, the father and the son part because the father is the one who had the plan. The son is the one who carried out the plan.
46:27
And God still has a plan. He still has a plan and he is using what to accomplish that plan. The agency that God uses to affect change on this earth to draw other people to himself is the body of Christ. It is this. It is the continuing body of Christ.
46:44
And this is one of those key passages that Jesus says to them, to his disciples, peace be with you, just as the father has sent me, even so I am sending you. So, he's saying that whatever we would do in God's name. He doing it the way he did it in complete obedience to the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus didn't falter the way that we falter but he was constantly in communion and contact with God. So this is Friday at about 03:00, 02:30 in the afternoon.
47:19
Ain't that cool? That is crazy. Tuesday morning, we find out that the will of the place there is that these people would have a house. Now they've been praying for a long for the last two years, they've been praying, and they are believers, both of them. They've been praying that God would intervene and he had been providing and they gave him glory for providing meals and everything else.
47:43
They didn't ask for a house. They weren't asking for that. They weren't asking for it to be in this field where they could have chickens and ducks and all that either but these team members right there were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen and there were some paid Guatemalans that were there that are working for this ministry for the glory of God too and so all these folks together put that house together. Now, the last part of it is the Holy Spirit. How do you know what to do?
48:14
Right? How do you know what it is that you should and should not be doing? Well, Jesus, right after he said this, the next thing he said, it says, and he breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit so that they would know. Holy Spirit. Last two verses.
48:34
In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation. Now, I'm going to highlight that. That's Jesus. In him, in Christ, Jesus. You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and you believed in him, that's in Christ At that point, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit It's a gift of God.
48:57
It is him giving his spirit to you. You are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. And oftentimes we think of the Holy Spirit as an it and we say it like that. But this says who? The who?
49:11
It's the third person of the trinity. Not as easily explained or understood probably as Christ. I mean, God demonstrated his love in Christ and we can look at him and see him in our same form but we know he surrendered to the who of the spirit always. The Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. Now, that guarantee is an earnest.
49:40
It's like a down payment. It's a big down payment actually. It's an earnest to earnest money, a large part of the payment. It's given in advance as a security that the whole will be paid afterwards. Complete communion with God is for the future and it is for glorification but we can have his spirit among us.
49:57
Now, by our belief in Christ, we have redemption, we have salvation, and we have this guarantee that is the spirit and he will direct. It's a still, small voice. It's easier to hear when you are obeying and more difficult when you're disobeying. I got to talk to them that first day and I was their main kind of interpreter between. So they gave me the keys and said, here, you get to give these to them, which is pretty cool.
50:27
Now they had not planned on this. They've got these blankets that somebody brought from Pittsburgh, quilts that they've made. They ended up with this house. He'd already by this point had his blood sugar levelized and had his medical concerns starting to be cared for. But handing over the keys to that, I thought, well, certainly they'll just stay right here.
50:50
In fact, know, to the praise of God's glory, it's amazing. We had lots of stuff planned that we did that week and the other folks will tell you about those things, the distributing shoes and all that other stuff was all planned. This wasn't planned. The people on the site called it the Miracle House because you're not supposed to build one of those in a day. You know, and to the praise of God's glory, he knew what he wanted before we got down there.
51:13
Now, this is the picture, you know, when there they are, the team's leaving. We're getting on the bus to kind of go back to the campus, and there they are. And then right after that picture, she grabbed those keys and came running after the bus. I thought, what are they doing? And it's a little anticlimactic when you give somebody a house and then they go with you instead of staying there, you know?
51:34
And then I said, what are y'all doing? And she said, oh, we're going back to our village. Tell everybody what God has done. Exactly. So, she could not help it.
51:43
She could not wait. She had to wait for that to get through the ceremony part of it But it was like all those people that Lord, you know, I wanna go with you. I wanna go with you. And he goes, no, you stay here and tell your people. And that's what they were doing was going back and saying, listen, y'all been good to us this whole time that we've been in need, but God has provided for us.
52:02
This is the way that it happened. So that's a dual purpose sermon there. I can't help. I'm overflowing about it. If you talk to me this week, you'll probably hear more about this trip, but I'm also excited about what God is doing right here.
52:16
So And I want to hear what he's doing with y'all too. We are going to do in remembrance of Christ sacrificing, in remembrances of his complete obedience throughout his life. We're going to now come together and have communion. So, Judah, you're to play something for us. Can I ask the frontline team to come forward?
52:38
God, I thank you for for your goodness. I thank you for your grace. I thank you for your will and that you, lord, are not willing that any should perish but that all should come to a saving knowledge of you, of your son, to have complete communion with you that will last eternally. I thank you, lord, that you are a good and loving, mighty, gracious, and saving God. God, I thank you for the temporal needs that you met on this team.
53:06
I thank you for the temporal needs that you're meeting here in Jackson today. I gotta I pray right now that we would center ourselves that we think of our walk, we think of our obedience, and our disobedience. We think of your gracious goodness, your promised spirit, and how we may be obedient. More and more. Lord, we confess our sin and we ask you to remove the weight of it, the guilt of it in Jesus name.
53:35
Lord, in remembering your precious broken body, it was broken for us. We distribute this bread and I pray a blessing on it and each one who would partake and lord, if there's anybody here who's who's here just tagging along and they haven't put their trust or belief in you. Lord, may they be drawn into your family by the witness of the people that are sitting around them. In Jesus name, lord, I ask you that you would spread your blessing. Amen.
56:42
This was betrayed. It's actually the same night that he washed the feet of his disciples too. After supper, he took bread and after he blessed it, he said, this is my body that is given for you. Take this and eat and do it in remembrance of me. Lord Jesus, I I am so thankful in living And and you're living in the same state that we have, Lord, in this state of temptation and trial, and yet you are without sin.
57:39
Your perfect record, perfect life well lived. Ode no sin debt, Lord. And as I think of that, I think about how precious your shed and innocent blood was and is. And so, Lord, as we remember your perfect record given through the shedding of your innocent blood, we remember that with this cup. Lord, would you bless each one who would partake and for those, Lord, who don't, would you impress upon them their need of forgiveness.
58:13
In Jesus name, lord, would you would you bless this cup as we distribute? Amen. Up after supper and he said to his disciples, this is the new covenant in my blood. Take this and drink and do it as often as you will in remembrance of me. Amen.
1:01:54
Would you stand with me and we're going to sing Blessed Be the Tithe that binds. Amen. The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. In Jesus name, lord, would you take us out this week and use us to do your will and your way in this community and beyond. Amen.
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