Larne Elim Sermons

This sermon on Psalm 88 takes us to what has been called “the darkest corner of the Psalms”. How do we pray when everything seems hopeless? How do we keep going when there seems to be no light ahead? How do we cope when darkness seems to be our only companion? This is where Psalm 88 uniquely and powerfully helps us.

This messages on Hebrews 12:1-3 reminds us that the Christian life is all about looking to Jesus . It also teaches us how considering him and what he suffered for us strengthens us to keep living for him through all the ups and downs of life!

This sermon walks through Isaiah 9:1-7 and focuses on how Jesus is our Prince of Peace in an often divided world. It also calls us to reflect him by being peacemakers in our everyday life.

This sermon on Jeremiah 29 reminds us that God’s a plan for us and what that plan looks like.

In this message Joanne Fitzsimmons helps us see from Scripture and personal experience how God has a purpose for every believer. That we might glorify him and enjoy him as the person he has created and called us to be.

When Christ moves into our lives, he brings change. He moves things around and reorders things as he fills our hearts with his love. When he moves into our lives, he changes our lives with the breadth and length and height and depth of his love. That’s what Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-22 is centred around in our reading today. Paul prays that we would be strengthened with God’s power to love. That we will be rooted and grounded in love so we can comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, so that we may be filled with all the fulness of God.

In this episode Robert Swann shares his testimony of God’s grace in his life. From how the seeds of the Gospel were sowed in childhood, to getting involved in a paramilitary organisation, to coming to faith while in prison to suffering the tragic loss of his son and law and son as a believer. Robert’s story is powerful and honest story of God’s grace in his life.

When Paul uses the phrase ‘the mystery of Christ’ in Ephesians 3:1-13, he is talking about God’s hidden plan being revealed to the world through the Gospel and the Church. Specifically Paul says “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Therefore, in these verses we read of the mystery of Christ, the ministry of the gospel and manifold wisdom of God displayed through the Church. We need to understand how these three M’s fit together if we are to understand God’s hidden plan now revealed.

In Ephesians 2:11-22 Paul clearly teaches that Christ came to make peace between Jew and Gentile through the reconciling work of the cross. The Gospel of Christ is not only about reconciling us personally to God but also about reconciling us to each other in Christ! So much so that Paul can describe us as one new man, one body, fellow citizens, members of the same household, a holy temple joined and built together in the Lord with Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. In Paul’s view this is as much a part of the Gospel as God raising and saving us from our sins by his grace! In Paul’s view this is the mystery that has been revealed in the Gospel!

Psalm 46 is a Psalm that has encouraged many believers in troubling times. It’s a Psalm many have turned to in times of war and great evil. In the US many pastors turned to it following the events of 9/11. It has brought comfort to our brothers & sisters in the persecuted church. It was also Martin Luther’s favourite Psalm during the turmoil of the Reformation.

The gospel is never about what we do for God. It’s always about what God has done for us. Of course, there are things we are called and equipped to do as believers, but these things are the result of what God has done for us and in us. They are the outgrowth of the new identity he gave us when he created us anew. That is what Paul wants us to see. Who we are, what God has done for us and what God is doing in us can be summed up in one word. Grace! In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul teaches us two primary things. 1. We are saved by grace through faith. 2. We are God’s workmanship. And when we put them together, we see that we – as believers and as Christ’s Church – are God’s work of grace!

What does it mean to be saved by grace alone? Paul’s words about being saved by grace in Ephesians 2:1-10 come amid him talking about being raised with Christ. So, the short answer to the question is: It means being raised with Christ. Raised from spiritual death! Made alive together with him! Yet before writing about being raised Paul importantly points to why we needed raised. We were spiritually dead, enslaved to the world, the devil and our own fleshly passions, and therefore ‘children of wrath, like the rest of mankind’. However, the Gospel tells the story of how God takes us from the depths of such depravity to the heights of being seated with Christ in heavenly places! That’s what Paul wants us to see in Ephesians 21-7!

In this sermon Pastor John unpacks why we practice ‘Believers Baptism’ as a church. Firstly, he shows that in the New Testament baptism always followed believing. It was part of a believer’s response to the good news of Jesus. Secondly, he then highlights how ‘Believers Baptism’ better pictures the Gospel and then thirdly how it also reminds us we are baptised into God’s bigger story of redemption.

This week guest preacher Phillip Griffith shares about the work of Samaritan’s Purse and their upcoming Christmas Shoebox appeal as well as reminding us that as Christians we are all called to be influencers for Christ.

This sermon unpacks Paul’s powerful prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23. A prayer in which he prays for the spiritual vision of believers. He asks that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened to clearly see the hope to which God has called us, the riches of who we are in him, and especially his incomparably great power “for us who believe”. A power revealed most clearly in the resurrection and exalted reign of Christ!

This latest sermon in our Ephesians series focuses on chapter 1: 11-14. These verses hinge on two key phrases: “In him we” as in we Jews (11) and “in him you” as in you Gentiles (13). Paul’s point is to underline the inclusion of Gentile believers in God’s saving purposes. The common denominator for both groups is that they are now both ‘in Christ’! Then in verse 14 Paul points to the inheritance we now share in Christ because we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Paul teaches us about our inclusion in Christ in three steps. 1. The Election of the Jews (11-12), 2. The Inclusion of the Gentiles (13) and 3. Our shared inherence (14).

Our redemption is the best that God could give us. Revealed most powerfully in the Father giving his Beloved Son for us, and in Christ’s willingness to lay down his life for us! Our redemption is truly “according to the riches of God’s grace”! God has held nothing back. It cost the whole life of Christ, and it gives us everthing in Christ! In Ephesians 1:7-10 we learn that our redemption is through the blood of Christ and secures the forgiveness of our sins. We also see how it is part of God’s bigger purpose to unite all things in Christ at ‘the fullness of time’!

The Christian has both been blessed and chosen by God the Father. In the original Greek Ephesians 1:3-14 forms one long glorious sentence celebrating God’s glorious grace in Christ! In it we see the purpose of the Father, the mission of the Son and the work of the Spirit and within this we see that we are chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son and sealed with the Spirit! This message looks at the first part of this (Eph. 1:3-6) which highlights that believers are blessed and chosen by God the Father according to the purpose of his will. Paul tells us believers are blessed by God the Father with every spiritual blessing in Christ, chosen to be holy and blameless in Christ and predestined for adoption through Christ.

This sermon introduces a brand new series on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. As well as giving us an overview of Ephesians this message looks at Paul’s greeting which points believers to our confidence, our call and our peace in Christ. Ideas Paul will develop in the rest of the letter.

The New Testament gives us a number of windows into what happened when early Christians gathered. Hebrews 10:19-25 is one such window. One which particularly helps us understand the threefold purpose of gathering together as Christians. 1. To help us draw near to God in faith (22). 2. To help us hold fast to Gospel hope (23). 3. To help us motivate one another to love (24). In other words, the purpose of gathering is to help us grow in the Christian essentials of faith, hope and love, and all the more so as we see the Day approaching (25)!