When Jesus came to walk this earth, most people weren’t ready. Despite all the prophecies that He fulfilled, most rejected Him. Why did Zechariah get to be an insider, someone who was made aware of, and ready for, the arrival and mission of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago? What can we learn from him so that we are ready for Jesus return? Zechariah had knowledge and obedience. He did the right things, but something was missing. God helped provide what was missing, by His grace. We can follow Zechariah’s example, but we too must learn to trust in God’s grace, or we won’t be ready for Christ’s return.

Christmas isn’t just history, it’s not just looking back. Jesus teaches us to look forward to His return and to be ready for Him. The Insiders Christmas series looks at His teaching and at examples of people who were ready for His birth 2000 years ago. By looking at them, we can learn lessons about being ready for the fulfilment of God’s promises through His prophets and most importantly through His own Son. Jesus is coming back, will we we ready like the Insiders, or will we be left outside because we weren’t prepared?

Baptism is an act of Worship in obedience to the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ. It declares what He has done for us in His life, death and Resurrection. The Scripture repeatedly tells us to repent and believe the Gospel, assuring us that through faith in Christ we are saved by God’s grace. Baptism not only declares this but visually reminds us of the power of Jesus Christ over sin and death.

Baptism is a source of debate, disagreement and sadly division within Christ’s Church. Much of this uncertainty stems from a failure to understand the power and purpose of the Gospel. What do you think about when you think about baptism? The first response if often the thought of being washed clean - but does baptism in water wash away our sins? If it does then do we need to be baptised to be forgiven? Comparing baptism and the Gospel in action in the life of a Roman soldier called Cornelius helps us to understand the purpose and power of each, clears confusion and motivates us to Glorify God by being baptised.

The Church is built on Jesus by Jesus. The Church is not a building, it’s the Family of God. Family Church is here to Love God, love others, Worship God alone in Spirit and in Truth, and Honour & Obey God’s Holy Scriptures. We do this by practising Scripture, Prayer, Worship and Serving, every day, everywhere we are.

Not all Scripture seems inspiring at fist glance, but all Scripture is inspired by God. It is His Word breathed out to all of us. The ending to Ephesians talks about someone called Tychicus. Who is he, and why should we care? Tychicus has so much to teach us and is sent to encourage us, we just need to ask our Heavenly Father to reveal His awesome Word to us. Tychicus teaches us that we should stop worrying what the world thinks about us, and worry about what Jesus knows about us. If you’re tired of searching for approval, or of proving yourself, listen to the story of Tychicus.

The final instruction on putting on the whole armour of God is to keep praying “in the Spirit”. What is “praying in the Spirit”? The armour is God’s armour, and it protects us because it’s God’s power. Prayer is how we “put on” God’s power to protect us from the enemy. All the armour is put on with prayer, and so it’s important to be reminded what true and powerful prayer really is, and how we should be praying.

So far, each part of the armour of God protects a certain part of our bodies, each with their own spiritual applications. Today, we take a look at the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, which like the shield and the helmet are to be taken up by us. The sword of the spirit protects us from the whole onslaught of the enemy, and when wielded correctly, we are able to parry his blows and push him back. Today we will look at the spiritual as well as practical applications of the sword of the Spirit and how we can weild it in our own lives, so that we can have an impact on this spiritual war we are engaged in.

The Shield, Helmet and Sword are to be “taken up”. We’ve seen how faith in action protects us from harm and ensures that we do the work of God, now we see how trusting in God’s ultimate salvation must be lived out to effectively protect our minds in the heat of spiritual conflict.

The first three pieces of armour are to be in place all the time, the second three need to be “taken up” and used as the specific attacks of the enemy occur. They are necessary in addition to the first three. They prevent the attack from reaching to the level protected by the first three. The shield of faith is not only what we believe, but what we do abut our belief. When we don’t act on our faith, we get more deeply impacted by the evil one’s attacks. Standing firm in our faith and continuing our work, guards us and keeps us from harm!

We are at war whether we like it or not. When we are going through any form of conflict, our natural desire is to have to end so that we can experience peace. In today’s message, we learn that we need to take peace with us into the battle in order to win it. Like most of God’s wisdom, it is counter-cultural but profoundly accurate. When we seek peace before the battle, we are assured of victory. To prepare us for this peace, Paul tells us that we must put on the sandals of peace. In the ancient Meditteraen, the war sandals were a major advancement in modern warfare. They were studded with spikes to give them stability in battle. Yet they were light, allowing great mobility for the army. Let’s take a look at the spiritual implications of these two attributes of the sandals.

God has given us armoured spiritual protection from the attacks of the enemy, we’ve learned that we wear these through reading, trusting and praying through the Word of God. Having looked at the attack against who God is, and the belt of truth, we turn to the Breatplate of Righteousness, and the attack on who we are in God’s eyes. Job is given to us as an example of how to fight under the protection of God’s Righteousness through Jesus Christ our King.

Knowing that we’re in a battle between good and evil, and knowing that we can only survive by trusting in God’s power, we start looking at the first piece of God’s mighty armour, the belt of truth. What is the truth, and how can that truth be so powerful that it protects us from the attacks of the very strong spiritual enemies that war against God and His Church? Knowing this and trusting God’s promises about this will truly set us free.

The book of Ephesians teaches what is true and what to do, what we believe and how we should live it out. Having finished the teaching on living as husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and employees, the Holy Spirit now moves to show us how to have victory in our lives. To win in every fight, we need to know we’re in a fight, who we’re fighting, and what tools we have to fight with. Ephesians six does all this in teaching us all about God’s Powerful Armour.

In our short “Being Human” miniseries, we have taken time out from Ephesians to consider what it means to be human. We live in times where we are flooded with information and that information is generally seen as knowledge. When we apply that knowledge, we are then considered wise in the ways of the world. The problem with this is that there can be no real wisdom apart from the knowledge of God and understanding that knowledge to a point where we can apply it in our everyday lives. That is true wisdom. In today’s sermon, we consider the wisdom of Jesus and what it means for us to be wise. Today we are focusing on verses 37 and 38.

Building on our theme from last week (where we learnt that humility leads to submission, and submission to obedience) another thing that we lack as modern, highly intelligent humans is compassion. Jesus tells us as the second of the two great commandments to love our neighbor as ourselves. But this is easier said than done. We live in times where people in general are getting more and more selfish and hurting others to get what they want. Our natural response is to dislike those people and to see revenge or justice when we are hard done by. What we will learn from Jesus today is how to love those who we struggle to, even those who hate us.

With all the exciting advances in technology and AI, it’s not uncommon for us to question our value as humans. In many cases, machines can do a better job than us. And as the world hurtles down this scary road, we’re already seeing signs of humanity becoming more and more artificial. We no longer need to think, the machines do that for us. Society tells us how to react to different situations and how to live in the world. While we’re breaking from Ephesians, we’re going to take a look at some of the things that make us human. What better way to do that than to study Jesus? We’ll start today to look at what Jesus implies is the cornerstone of our characters: humility. Humility is an elusive thing, just when you think you have it, you don’t! Today, we will be focusing only on verse 35.

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at how God wants us to conduct our faith in relationships. We’ve looked at the relationship between wife and husband, children and parents, and now Paul turns his attention to employees and their employers. Isn’t that such a wonderful thought? God loves us so much, He even gives us instructions on how to get the most out of our work lives. Whether you are an employer or employee, God wants you to glorify Him in your work and today we learn how.

God designed the family before it existed. He has determined our roles and responsibilities in order to help us be the people He designed us to be. To fulfil God’s purposes we must believe His promises and obey His commands. Obedience is hard, it can only be accomplished when God empowers us to obey. At the heart of God’s teaching on family lies the profound principle of the Gospel. Obedience comes by believing, and that obedience brings about God’s purpose for us.