Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Ezekiel 36.
Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Ezekiel 36.
Bobby: Welcome to the Midweek Checkup. My name is Bobby Gilles and I’m joined by Lindsey Blair. This past Sunday Pastor Jonah preached Ezekiel 36:22-27. He taught us that Christ has forgiven our sin, defeated spiritual oppression, and torn down the wall of hostility and division that keeps people separated. And we get to be partakers in that glory.
Pastor Jonah did a great job of recapping what we’ve covered in this sermon series. We have been individually separated from God and each other. We are under assault from the spirit world. The nations have been corporately separated from God and each other. For a gospel to be good news, it MUST deal with each part of the problem.
Lindsey, what did you think?
Lindsey: I was really struck when Jonah read Ezekiel 36:22, “I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it” and reminded of God’s grace and mercy towards us. This is such good news for those of us who struggle with feeling like we need to work to earn God’s favor and approval.
Now, for anyone who missed the sermon or needs help remembering, let’s do a quick recap.
Bobby: Pastor Jonah began by answering, “What is wrong with the world? It has been desecrated. But the gospel of God is good news because it is a gospel of grace. We live much of our lives with fear, shame, and guilt. Our solution is to try to fix it ourselves. But only God can fix it, and he will fix it because we bear his name. God is committed to his image bearers.
Lindsey: Alienated at the Tower, God promises to bring us ALL home together. Oppressed from the invasion, God promises to cleanse us and give new hearts. Separated from his presence, God promises to bring us back to Eden. It’s not about what you do or don’t deserve, it is about a God committed to you because he is committed to his holy name.
Bobby: If you can put these three events, the fall, the invasion, and the tower, at the front of your mind, learning to read the Bible through these three lenses, the Scriptures will come alive. And if the Scriptures come alive, you will see the beauty of Christ more fully and you will hear the invitations of Christ more clearly.
Lindsey: Pastor Jonah closed by reading the first three chapters of Ephesians to us, how we have been brought to life in Christ, reconciled to God and each other. And now, “being rooted and established in love, we may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Bobby: Ours is a gospel of grace, which re-unites the nations into the family of God, which subjects the spiritual forces of evil under the authority of Christ, and which will carry us all the way back home to God.
Lindsey: This coming Sunday we’ll celebrate Palm Sunday and what it means for Jesus to be Lord of all. And in Bible Fellowship we’ll study Philippians 2:5-11, about the one who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.
Join us, and bring a friend.