Beholding His Glory ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

Ephesians 2:19-22 ~ The Foundation Laid by the Apostles and the Prophets ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

The foundation is the most important structural element of a building. If the foundation is faulty, the rest of the building will be faulty as well. Jesus said that He would build His Church and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). Jesus could make this claim because the Church that Jesus builds is built on a firm, solid foundation: the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.  If a church is built on any other foundation, it will be a faulty church.

Ephesians 4:11-13 ~ The Pastor-Teacher's Calling ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

When a man is called to vocational pastoral ministry, there is both an inward call and an outward call. The inner call is the result of the continuing drawing or the eliciting power of the Holy Spirit which in time brings an individual closer to the church’s outward call to ministry. So there is both an inward call of the Holy Spirit and an outward call by the Church. My hope is that this message will help the man who is sensing God’s call and considering pastoral ministry as a vocation--as well as the church who is prayerfully considering calling a pastor.

Ephesians 2:19-22 ~ The House that Jesus Builds ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

This message is an architectural view of the “House that Jesus Builds,” His church.  The Lord Jesus is the Divine Architect and Builder of the church. He has designed it to function perfectly to fulfill His intended purpose and plan. It is being fitted together and built together into a dwelling of God. It’s the actual place where God dwells—where God lives. It is the place where each one of us as believers is being fitted together as a “living stone” so that we might offer up spiritual sacrifices to God.

 

Ephesians 4:7-13 ~ How God Does Extreme Makeovers ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

Each one of us a believer in Jesus Christ is a masterpiece in the making. We are being crafted and sculpted into the masterpiece God wants each one of us to be.  But God doesn’t transform us into the image of Christ just to make us into a beautiful work of art to be displayed in a museum, or to put on a shelf,  or placed in a vault. He shapes us into what He wants us to be for the work of service, as a tool, to the building up of the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts so that we might serve God and serve one another as a tool in the hand of the Master.

Ephesians 2:1-10 ~ A Masterpiece in the Making ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

The One who created all that there is—the One who created you—desires to do an Extreme Makeover for every single person on this earth. As amazing as it is to see the transformation of a house on the reality show Extreme Makeover Home Edition, God wants to do a relational, spiritual, emotional, internal transformation in every man, woman, and child. He wants re-creation. He wants to take the old and put it away. He wants something new to come in. He wants to take the old and cleanse. And He wants to put your past behind you. You will discover in this message from God’s Word that you are God’s Masterpiece in the Making as you are transformed more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.

 

Romans 12:4-5 ~ Humility in the Functioning Body in Christ

Ephesians 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.  

The phrase “in Christ” is used eighty-nine times in the New Testament. This great truth to be “in Christ” means that when you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior a union is established between Christ and you. This union is established between Christ and you in such a way that everything in Christ that can be shared will be shared with you. Only Christ’s deity and it’s unique God-defining attributes like omnipotence and omniscience cannot be shared. But everything else that Christ is and has is yours in Him.

Romans 12:3-8 Exercising Our Gifts in the Right Mind ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)

Paul shows us in Romans 12:3 that you are not to think too highly of yourself.  But he also shows us that you are not to think too low of yourself.  Godly humility is not thinking too low of yourself, but to think as to have sound judgment.  If you are a believer you are a recipient of God’s Grace—not only the grace that saved you, but the grace by which God has gifted you for service. Our spiritual gifts differ according to the grace given to each one of us. But each one of us does have gifts.  You are not nothing. You  are not someone who can’t do anything or incapable—not at all.

Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; (Romans 12:6)

Romans 12:2 ~ Transformational Living ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

God’s goal for you as a Christian is for you take the same form as His Son, Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul taught that before time began God chose to save believers so that they might come to have the same form as His Son (Romans 8:29). 

This expresses the glorious goal of Christlikeness—of becoming like Jesus in our actions, in our behavior, in our thinking, motivations, compassions, love, and in our service to others. It’s everything that it means to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2). In this we “prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2 ~ Presentational Worship ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God,

to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice,

acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual service of worship.

Romans 12:1

 As we offer our bodies as living sacrifices on the altar of God, we are dead to sin and alive with Christ.  So the living sacrifice of the believer doesn’t demand the destruction of the sacrifice as it did in the Old Testament. But it projects the full energy of life that is in Christ Jesus—the fullness of life, the abundance of life, all that it means to live the positive and dynamic life of Christ.

Romans 11:33-38 ~ To God Be the Glory Forever ~ Pastor Bill Slabaugh

At the end of Romans chapter 11, the apostle Paul drops to his knees in praise and adoration for God. Before moving on his letter to the practical conclusions which flow from the grand and distinct doctrines of the Gospel, the apostle pauses to marvel at the ground which he had trekked. And looking back on the whole of Romans 1-11, Paul must exalt his Sovereign. God is worthy to be praised for God knows what He’s doing even when we do not. God is control of all of history even when we don’t get it. Therefore, Paul falls down before God and worships by bursting into a marvelous doxology.