Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

It is important when thinking about biblical truth to remember that it usually involves other people in addition to ourselves. Paul here is explaining the unity of the church, a unity that will not be realised fully until Jesus returns. So it is not something that will occur in our lifetime unless we happen to be part of the final generation. He wants his readers to bear that future reality in mind. Yet we have to ask what we should do as the church before its final state appears. Because, after all, we live in a world of spiritual problems. So here are five details to consider and bear in mind. 1. The divine provision of grace Paul continues his explanation of the unity of the church and what the bases are for it. He reminds his readers that every Christian can and should contribute to this unity because each has received grace through Christ’s gift. The apostle knows that there are different types of believers, but we should remember that each has received grace from C...

There are two individuals called Philip in the Bible. One is the apostle Philip and the other is an evangelist who took the gospel to Samaria, then introduced the Ethiopian treasurer to Jesus and then evangelised down the Mediterranean coast before settling in Caesarea. In this sermon, we will focus on the apostle with this name. His conversion (John 1:43-44) John describes the conversion of Philip. From one point of view John does not say a lot: ‘The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Yet there are three details we can notice.  First, Jesus was willing to travel a distance to meet Philip. This is a reminder that the Saviour did not regard locating his people a burden. He may have travelled forty or fifty miles, perhaps more, to find Philip. Of course, we can see in this short journey a reminder of the longer journey that Jesus took to deliver his people from the penalty of their sins. Second, Jesus did not use anot...

Moses had a very remarkable encounter with God when he appeared in the burning bush in the desert. It was a secret meeting since no-one else observed it, and even if some saw him from a  distance they would not have known what was happening. No doubt, it was a surprising meeting for Moses – he probably had assumed that he would finish out his days in Midian as a shepherd. Yet the meeting, sovereignly arranged by God, is a reminder that he has ways of getting our attention and informing us of his plans for us, plans so great that we cannot imagine them before he tells us what they are. It is the case that we do not know what a day can bring. Often life can go on with nothing unusual happening and perhaps this period marked by lack of surprise can last for years. No doubt, Moses was not expecting what occurred to him in the incident described in Exodus 3. He had been working for Jethro for about forty years and nothing unusual is recorded about those years. Yet he was God’s...

Paul now begins the practical section of his letter and he does so by highlighting the importance of unity. In verses 1-3, he describes what we could call the path of unity and in verses 4-6 he refers to nine aspects of unity, divided into three sets, with each member of the Trinity connected to a different set. By this method, Paul indicates that unity is possible and that it reflects the Trinity in action. The process of unity The first point to note is that Paul does not ask his readers to create unity, but to maintain it. The unity, which he calls the unity of the Spirit, was created when peace was made. As we have see in earlier chapters of this book, this unity was created when Jesus came and preached peace to them through his servants and the Ephesians were converted. This means that any expression of practical disunity is a denial of the unity created by the gospel of peace. The second point to note is that unity is progressive – we can see that this is t...

Paul was writing to a very young church, only a few months old. It had been planted by Paul, Silas and Timothy during Paul’s second missionary journey. They had only been there for a few weeks when Paul and Silas had been forced to leave Thessalonica because of very strong opposition led by the Jewish synagogue. In addition to external problems such as opposition the new church also had internal issues connected to wrong views of the second coming. Nevertheless Paul writes that he and his colleagues ‘have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command’ (2 Thess. 3:4). Framework Paul had the ability to pack a lot into a short sentence. There are numerous examples of this ability in his letters. And we can see that he does so in our text as well. In this verse, he refers to the Trinity – it could be rephrased as ‘May the Holy Spirit direct your hearts to the love of the Father and to the steadfastness of Christ.’ Obviously, during the s...

The description of Jesus as a shepherd is one of the well-known titles that he has been given. Most people have heard of the opening lines of Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ and they think of Jesus when they hear it. Many hymns have been written about this title and millions of sermons preached about this role of the Saviour. It is likely that there are several books about this theme found in Christian bookstores. But what kind of shepherd is he? Here are some suggestions. Omniscient shepherd Jesus said on one occasion that he knew all his sheep. This means that he knew every circumstance in which they would be. He not only knows about them after they become members of his flock, but he also knew all about them before they became members. Jesus knew them when they were like lost sheep, far away from the heavenly fold, heading toward divine punishment and a lost eternity. Their lostness was not accidental, nor was it caused by anyone else. Each of them had chosen the...