Westside Church

When thinking about the purpose of attending Sunday services, we typically think we are going for God's benefit but in reality we are going for our benefit where the Triune God wants to serve and minister to us by tasting the powers of the Age to come and the spiritual feast they have prepared for us in the Divine Service. We attend church because we are summoned and served by God and therefore, it is the most important appointment of our week.

Given the events of the past eighteen months with a global pandemic, the question about the necessity of gathering for church has been brought to the forefront. In this biblical theological series on answering the question about what is the church, we see that the church by definition means to gather and assemble before God and for one another. This is for the purpose of receiving God's grace and testifying to the powers of the Age to come when God's kingdom will be realized in all its glory and splendor.

Revelation 4-5 contain the most important sections arguably in the entire Bible as the scene shifts from Christ addressing His church to the throne room of heaven where we see the holy, transcendent, sovereign God of the universe fully in control of His creation and church. This stands in contrast to the futility and hopelessness of the secular world that is powerless to solve the problems of suffering and death. The vision of Revelation declares that God has done what man is incapable of: redemption bringing new creation.

The Laodicean Church is one of the more familiar passages in the book of Revelation with what Jesus says about spitting the church out of His mouth due to their being lukewarm. The most common misinterpretation is that lukewarm means that they need to stop riding the fence with their indifference towards Christ. However, being lukewarm says nothing about their indifference but rather their smugness and self-righteousness which Jesus sees as their spiritual blindness and nakedness. He calls them to be zealous in their repentance towards Him in understanding their true spiritual condition and they're need for holy zeal as a church.

Trials & difficulties are an inevitable part of the Christian life. Fortunately, Jesus knows this and calls us to hold fast to Him, His Word, and His promise that He will provide spiritual strength to endure to the end when the New Jerusalem that He and His Father are preparing for the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Just when you think you are safe, you are not. The church in Sardis had a reputation of being a vibrant church yet the Lord Jesus knew what they were at the heart level: dead. Such is the danger when the church capitulates to the world and compromises with the culture influencing the church more than the church influencing the culture. Christ's call for the church to wake up is both sobering and merciful as the threat of judgment looms.

The church in Thyatira, while commended for their patient endurance in love, faith, and service by the Lord Jesus, was nevertheless in deep peril having giving itself to tolerating false teaching and immorality. The Lord warned them that judgment would fall upon the church unless they repented by purging the threat from within. The call to discern is an essential need for the church today as doctrinal compromise and immoral toleration are always present temptations with the world pressing into the church. The power to resist comes not from toleration but from revelation -- the revelation of who Jesus Christ is in all His glory and power.

Today we begin our look at the Book of Revelation that will be a timely word about the call to endure for the Christian Church. The book of Revelation is emphatic that the strength to endure comes not from within but from "Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever." The key to the Book of Revelation as in the Christian life is always seeing Jesus as He truly is, the One who says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades."

As God's image-bearers, humanity was made to behold the glory of God as the highest aim of our lives. Paul's doxology at the end of the first half of Ephesians tells us why we should glorify God for the great things He has done in redeeming His people with the promise of full reconciliation coming for His universe.

Stunningly, Paul prays that the believer's life in Christ would be rooted and grounded with a deep understanding of Jesus love and God's power toward them in making them new creatures with new identities as His redeemed people.

The Christian life is one of tremendous spiritual blessings according to the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. But what about when suffering and difficulties come upon the believer? Is the Christian faith worth its salt? What about when facing open hostility and opposition? The apostle's answer in Ephesians 3 is an emphatic YES because the value of Christianity isn't found in the believer but in the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ which are the beginning and the end of the Christian faith.

Contrary to the popular misperception, Christianity isn't primarily about making us happy, healthy, and wealthy. It's about making us holy, spiritually mature and rich in Christ. The Apostle Paul was the textbook example of this as we find in the opening words of Ephesians 3, 'For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you..."

Unity is one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian Church. Yet many seem confused as to where that unity comes from or how it is maintained. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that such unity is a consequence of Christ being our peace which gives us a new identity as kingdom citizens, a new community of God's family, and a new power of the Holy Spirit building us up into a holy dwelling place as God's final temple.

As we sit nearly 2,000 years removed from that first Easter morning, the resurrection of Jesus Christ continues to stand above all history as the only hope of peace for sinners with a holy God and with one another. In the tumult of 2021, the message that Christ is our peace could not be more relevant or timely.

With all the different religions and worldviews, it can be easy to think that they are all basically the same. Ephesians 2:1-10 clears up that confusion once and for all with the message that the Triune God saves sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and for the glory of God alone. No other religion or worldview comes remotely close to the good news of the gospel that is from beginning to end, ALL of grace on God's part. Soli Deo Gloria!

The overall theme of the first two chapters of Ephesians is the greatness of God's power towards His people in raising them from spiritual death and uniting them to Christ freeing them from their spiritual depravity. Here in Ephesians 2:4-5 we see how it starts with those astounding words "BUT GOD." Rather than leaving all sinners to their utter destruction, the God who is rich in mercy and great in love, graciously moves toward them to save all who will believe in His Son.

How often do we say or think that if we could only have a "mountaintop experience" of the presence of God we'd be much more faithful as Christians. Paul's prayer in Eph. 1:15-23 tells us that experience lies not in the mountaintops, but in the work of the Spirit giving us deeper knowledge in our relationship with God the Father.

In Ephesians 1:3-14 we see the incredible Trinitarian artistry and symmetry in the masterpiece of salvation that the God of the Bible and of history has accomplished. Amazingly, God the Father uses the preaching of the Good News about God the Son to seal believers by God the Holy Spirit marking them as His own possession and inheritance that will be fully realized at the end of the age in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

As human beings we love stories of redemption where the character who has been down and out is able to redeem himself through great difficulty and perseverance, but these stories pale in comparison to the biblical story of redemption where Jesus does what no one else can, He redeems us from the clutches of Satan, sin, and death and He grants us new life by virtue of His resurrection. In this sermon we focus on the part God the Son plays in redeeming, uniting, and predestinating us for an eternal inheritance.

Ephesians 1:3-14 is arguably the most profound sentence in human history as it contains the absolutely beautiful symmetry of the plan of salvation accomplished by the Triune God of the Bible. In this sermon we start with where our salvation began in eternity past with God the Father choosing, predestinating, and adopting believers to be part of His redeemed family.

We come to the first imperative in Philippians with Paul moving from how the gospel informs his life, to how it should inform our lives as worthy citizens of God's kingdom. This kingdom living involves standing united as believers to the outside world and standing united inside the church to guard against selfishness and pride that hurt the church's witness. The basis for this unity and harmony comes from the Triune God who first loved and served us in our sin. Thus, we must keep the person and work of Jesus ever before us to maintain our Christian unity and harmony.

As we look back on Paul's personal words that he wrote to the Philippians that he was able to maintain a spirit of joy in spite of the difficulties he was facing, we realize that there is much to be learned from his outlook for us in 2020.

We started off our series in Philippians by looking at Paul's introductory greeting where we find him addressing the age-old theme of identity. For the Christian the questions of who we are, where we are, and what we have from God have been answered once and for all. Special thanks to Brian Sorgenfrei for the opening illustration.