Sermons on Ephesians

Time is important to us. When you were in school, you spent a lot of time trying to learn how to tell time. Now, a lot of you are at a disadvantage because you’ve grown up in the digital age and clocks tell you what time it is. Your watch will beep; a digital voice will call out the hour. You don’t have to tell time. The time tells you.

Is religion relevant? Many people apparently do not think so. They don’t believe religion is necessary because they are convinced that all anyone really needs in life can be obtained through science and technology. For them, any attention given to spiritual matters is a waste of time.

Before you leave today, I am praying that God will give you a new identity: I am a minister.

From the sermon series “Family Business” As we’ve been looking into this passage of Scripture on the biblical teaching of marriage and family, we’ve been using the analogy of a pair of scissors. We’ve seen that Paul is very fair and balanced in the way that he addresses the people involved in these relationships. For instance, he talks first to the wives, then to the husbands; he talks to the children, and then he talks to the parents.

When people get married, they often say, "We have decided to "tie the knot." Given the numbers of people who are deciding not to tie the knot at the present time, I think that is an admirable decision. I try to point out to them that when we think in terms of Christian marriage, it's not so much two people deciding to tie the knot as God deciding to join two people together. It's not so much a human decision as a divine action. Marriage is all about God joining two people together. I say this on...

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”(Eph. 5:31). That statement comes in the middle of some teaching that the Apostle Paul was giving the Ephesian Christians on the whole subject of marriage and family. You’ll notice, however, that the quotation that he gave is incomplete because it starts out by saying, “For this reason…”

There are occupational hazards in being a Pastor. Let me mention two of them. One of them is that while people expect you to be pious, you can come across as a little too pious at times -- like the lady who came to a pastor at the end of a service, and was very effusive in her gratitude. She said, "That was the most wonderful sermon I've ever heard. That was absolutely fantastic! It was so powerful, it has changed my life!"

There it is again, that word. If I hear it again, I think I’m going to scream. The word is “vision,” its kissin’ cousin, “visionary.” These are the modern mantras of leadership. A leader must be a visionary, a “vision caster.” He must know where h