Cedar Mill Sermon Podcast

This week we come to the end of our “In Christ” series, & Paul gives us one of the most passionate & powerful prayers in the whole New Testament. He begins by finishing the sentence he started back at the beginning of chapter 3: “For this reason…” & the reason is everything we’ve seen in chapters 1 through 3. We have been chosen, made alive, brought near, & built together into a dwelling where God lives. Now Paul prays that what is true of us would become real to us. He asks that we would be strengthened by the Spirit in our inner being, that Christ would be at home in our hearts, that we would be rooted & established in love (not fear), & that we would grasp how wide & long & high & deep the love of Christ really is. Then he can’t help himself & bursts into praise for the God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine! So our question this week is this: are we settling for a tiny sip of God, or, by the power of the Spirit, are we building our lives on a God whose love is as vast as the ocean?

Paul talks about the mystery that God unveiled at the right 6me, which was this: all people gathered to Him under Christ, His church and bride. It’s the mystery that caused even the spiritual enemies of God to marvel at His wisdom. In this mystery, those of us who once didn’t belong now belong. It’s in this grace that we are all compelled to administer this grace to others.

One thing about the Gospel is that it changes things more radically than we sometimes realize or understand. This week Paul talks about the radical relational reconstruction of all society as he walks straight into the deepest divide of his world, Jew & Gentile. And he starts by telling them to remember. Remember that you were the ones on the outside. Remember that you had no standing & no hope. Remember what it cost to bring you in. Because Paul’s argument in Ephesians 2:11-22 is that the same mercy that made us alive back in verse 4 is the mercy that makes us one. There was a real wall in the temple, with a warning sign on it, & Jesus did not climb over it or negotiate around it. He tore it down, & then he used what was left to build a house he could actually live in. That is the Gospel! Mercy creates humility, & humility grows unity. So our question this week is a hard one: what walls are we still keeping up that Jesus already died to take down?

This week Paul opens with a shocking diagnosis nobody wants: we were dead. Not struggling. Not behind. Not low on fuel. Dead. Infected more deeply and certainly more fully than we may have realized. And then verse 4 arrives with 2 of the best words in the Bible: “But God.” Out of his great love & his rich mercy, God made us alive with Christ, raised us up with Christ, & seated us with Christ. And all of that was an amazing gift of grace that now asks us to surrender our lives to a new master, one who brings life, obedience & blessing. So, are we boasting in the grace of God? Are we fueled by the riches of his mercy? This is the new life each of us is offered and it puts God’s kindness on full display. So, what needs a “but God” in your life right now? What needs the confidence, assurance and humility of his grace? This week the apocalypse continues as the life-changing reality of God’s good news “in Christ” continues to change everything.

In Ephesians 1:15–23, Paul prays that the church would do more than simply know the right things about Jesus—he prays that the eyes of our hearts would be opened so that we would truly know Him and grasp the hope, inheritance, and power we have in Christ. The resurrection changed everything: Jesus reigns above every power, over every age, and His kingdom is already breaking into the present through His body, the Church. We are called to live as a tangible glimpse of the world to come—a community where death becomes life, enemies become family, and the peace of God begins to take shape here and now.

Where does your worth come from? Where do you actually belong? What is still true about you on your worst day? This week we start a new 6 week series called "In Christ." Paul uses that phrase 11 times in the first chapter of Ephesians alone, because for him it answers nearly every question worth asking. Our text, Ephesians 1:3-14, is one single sentence in Greek, 1 long thought, 1 huge idea with no period, & Paul writes it as a poem with 3 movements: the Father chooses, the Son redeems, the Spirit seals. Diving into this dense passage, we will run straight into the greatest hits of church vocabulary, words like chosen, predestined, adopted & sealed, & we will let Paul define them out of his own Bible, remembering that God has always chosen one for the sake of the many. In the end, our hope is not only to find peace & confidence in being "in Christ," but to hear a calling to share God's lavish grace with the world around us.

For 3 weeks Jesus has taught us to lift our eyes to a Father whose name is holy, to pray 9 life- changing words, & to ask for bread & forgiveness. But as the prayer closes, Jesus turns our attention to what seeks to derail us, our enemy. Here are the words he gives us to pray: “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” This week we’ll discover that the word our Bible translates “temptation” means both a test & a trap, & what it means to pray that our tests would not become our traps. And, most of us have heard the famous last line, “for yours is the kingdom, & the power, & the glory,” but where did it come from & why is it not in the Bible. This series may be almost over, but there is still much to discover as we finish “The Lord’s Prayer” together.

This week we are talking about trusting the Lord for the provision of all things. Trusting that He will give us enough. Enough to meet our physical needs. Enough to meet our spiritual needs. A softness of heart that enables us to forgive those who have wronged us. We unpack the implications of these things: the boldness to step out in faith for the kingdom, hope for the moment no matter how difficult, the joy of our salvation, and the ability to forgive those who have wronged us. We pray that as a community, we will not only hear these words but that we will be “doers” of them. To God be the glory.

Most of us pray with a microscope, eyes down on our own lives, our own needs, our own gaps. And God wants to hear all of that. But Jesus does not start us there. Last week Pastor Jeremiah handed us a telescope and taught us to lift our eyes to a Father whose name is hallowed. This week Jesus swings that telescope around and points it at our world, our city, our homes & our hearts, and he teaches us to pray nine of the most world changing words we will ever say: “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” So come join us as we talk about the Kingdom of God & why it’s by far the number one thing Jesus spoke about. Come learn how God becoming King can transform lives & families & cities & nations one mustard seed at a time. Come dive into the power of a prayer that’s about laying down our lives by saying, “God, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

The Lord’s Prayer is the most recited, repeated and memorized prayer in the world. It spans just about every Christian tradition. For over 2 billion Christians, it is our “default” prayer.
Yet, what actually is the Lord’s Prayer? Is it a magic mantra; the correct words to gain God’s attention? Is it a public recitation that is memorized rather than internalized? Or is it truly “how you should pray”? (Matthew 6:9b)
This week we are diving into what it means to pray “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”, remembering the intimacy of a Father and the awe inspired by our holy God. Our hope is rediscover or discover for the first time awe for God and the praise that naturally flows out of that place.