The Church In Ephesus

I intentionally saved the best for this week!

We had 4 baptisms last year, church. We give God all the glory for that!

We’ll talk about that a little more, in a bit.

I’d like to take us back to January of 2023.

We had our Kingdom Builders Vision Party- raise your hand if you attended that.

We discussed several areas that day, and I explained what God part on my heart for growth, as the top 3:

Worship music

Children’s ministry

Outreach

While we have had changes in our worship music, that is still a work in progress right Crystal?

As far as Outreach, we got involved in two ministries.

In September of 2023 CPC was part of two churches that launched CR in Madisonville, and we’ve made some forward strives in that, and recently seen a small spurt of growth. As many of you know, Roman is the leader of the ministry, along with Rhenae by his side, as well as a couple of other people.

Heart and Hands, as we briefly covered last week.

Our children’s ministry has seen God working miracles, as only God can do. That is all I am going to say about that, because I have the dream of not whimpering this entire church service today! So if I say any more, it will be broken dreams!

At the end of 2023, God put on my heart that we need to get intentional about discipleship @ CPC.

Yesterday, I went through all the sermons I gave last year. Of the 44 sermons I gave, 27 of those were pertaining to, or at least had mention of, discipleship.

Although I have not felt God put a specific word on my heart for 2025, I have a really positive feeling about growth, and we’re gonna talk about that today.

Body

As we delve into this, you might see it as a sermon built into a business meeting, or a business meeting built into a sermon.

Either way you look at it, God put this on my heart to share with you today. And it doesn’t happen very often, but this was “last minute” for me. Thursday morning to be exact. Trust me, that is “last minute” for me.

I don’t even have to look over there, but I have no doubts that Lisa is nodding her head in agreement!

Our two key passages of scripture are found in Ephesians 4, and Romans 12.

If you have been around CPC for @ least a month or more, you have probably heard me say that Ephesians chapter 4 is one of my favorite NT books, or epistles, if you will.

Paul wrote this epistle to the church in Ephesus around 60 AD, while in a Roman prison.

The intent of the epistle was to strengthen and encourage them in their Christian faith.

Prior to his imprisonment, Paul spent over 3 years with that church, and as a result, was in a tight relationship with the leaders.

Chapter 1- Paul lays out our incredible spiritual blessings.

Chapter 2- Explains our salvation in Christ

Chapter 3- How God’s wisdom is made known through the church

Chapter 4- How we, the church and individuals, are to walk in a worthy manner.

Let’s begin in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11.

Stand with me as we honor God while reading His word.

Now, I’d like to go to Romans for a quick minute.

Paul probably wrote Romans a few years before he wrote Ephesians.

Contrasting Ephesians, which was softer in tone, to Romans which was heavy in doctrine about sin, salvation, and spiritual growth, we see some overlapping or parallel themes within the two books.

In chapters 1-11, Paul is just flat-out teaching what to believe.

In 12-16, he is teaching how to behave as a Christian.

Let’s see if we can mesh these two together.

The purpose of today’s message is to examine the health of CPC as Paul has laid out in scripture, as well as consider our growth as a church.

You’ve probably noticed that today’s handout is a little different than usual.

Let me begin by saying that next Sunday, we will have a meeting immediately after service. It is our annual meeting, and you don’t want to miss it!

I know, I know, hard to get jazzed up about a meeting, but I truly believe it will set the tone for any success God intends for us to have in 2025.

Obviously, anytime you mesh something together, there is some juggling involved. Please don’t get too caught up in finding each verse I cover today, but rather catch the big picture “quilting” of it, right Becky?

You will see a series of questions that are posed today.

They are not so much, in a scriptural sequence, so to speak, but instead; what scripture instructs us in terms of what to be as a church, and thereby, we can measure how we stand up to that “scrutiny”.