I know how hard y'all worked on this. Thanks so much! I was really encouraged.

I also compiled some resources from the DVD (and other corners of the web) for those interested in more information about adoption. I found these links to be useful...thought I'd share them here.

Agencies (Domestic and International):

America's World Adoption (Christian, also offers pregnancy counseling)
Bethany Christian Services (Christian, also offers pregnancy counseling, office in NJ)
Children’s Home of New Jersey

Adoption Funds:
Rescued Adoption Fund
Lifesong for Orphans
Showhope

Orphan Sponsorships:
Living Hope International

Take a look. We're very pro-adoption at our church. If you think of some ways we can help as a church, or if you're convicted to adopt yourself, we'd like to hear from you.

1. Apostles: The apostles were a special group of people who had direct contact with Christ. There are no more apostles today!

2. Prophets: The gift of prophecy had a revelatory ingredient to it. They "laid the foundation" of the new multi-ethnic church (Eph 2:19). This gift was necessary in the beginning stage of the church that is no longer necessary now.

Upon the completion of the scriptures, these gifts are no longer needed for special revelation. God no longer speaks to us directly today! There are no more prophets today! These two gifts laid the doctrinal foundation! These gifts have ceased, because there is no more direct revelation and no more foundation laying. The foundation has already been laid.

Today, the gift of prophecy has become the gift of preaching. The gift of prophecy was necessary before the written Word was completed. Now that its completed, the job of the preacher is to proclaim it to the people.

3. Evangelist: Evangelist = bringer of good news. This is one who travels to bring good news.

4. Pastors: Someone gifted with the ability to shepherd the people of God. Feeds the flock with God's Word. He wants to guide them, guard them, and defend them.

5. Teachers: The ability to make clear the scripture through systematic instruction.

In this section, Paul is giving us practical outworkings of the theology in Ephesians 1-3., We looked at how we're called to conduct our everyday lives in loving admiration to one another, and to conduct our everyday lives eagerly to protect the Church's unity.

Now we come to a difficult passage of Scripture.

Each believer, not just the leaders, are given a particular manifestation of their own particular spiritual gift to edify the whole body. True Biblical Christianity is not a spectator sport. You should never think of yourself as watching the game from the bleachers or the pews!

Instead, view yourselves as in the game, with each having a function, in order to win for the whole team.

Where does the gift come from? The source of the gift is Christ(Ephesians 4:7).

But who measured out the amount of gift that each believer receives? Christ! Not all believers have the same gift or amount of gifts.

But we're not to worry about how much we have compared to others. We're just to faithfully use it for the kingdom (1 Cor 12:11)!

Each believer, regardless of status, has a gift to serve Christ with. What service are you performing for the cross of Christ on this earth?

But before we look at the gifts, we need to look at a deeper question. Why is it that Jesus Christ has the authority to give gifts to his people?

This question is answered in Ephesians 4:8. This is a quote from Psalm 68:18. But Paul slightly changes the verse in the OT! This makes us want to take a closer look at the Psalm.

A close look at this Psalm finds that the Psalm conveys 2 themes: the idea of victory, and the idea of sacrifice.

Back to Ephesians, we see that Paul is equating Jesus's resurrection to a king returning from battle!

One of the reasons for this passage in Ephesians is to remind those who would serve their Lord with their gifts is that the battle which was fought and won by Christ came at a great cost. It's not a foolish, wimpy thing to serve Christ, but being a soldier along with Christ!

The leading away of the captives pictures Christ's victory. His ascention (Ephesians 4:9) mens that the king has returned from battle, and he's won.

Jesus is the greatest special warfare combatant that has ever laid boots on the ground. He fought the battle with Satan's works and death, and won.

A victorious king returning from battle brings the spoil of victory! And he gives gifts out of these spoils (Ephesians 4:8). But unlike an eartly king, Jesus doesn't give gifts obtained from the enemy, he gives gifts according to his own riches!

The magnitude of the victory can be understood by looking at the magnitude of the sacrifice. This is in view when Paul points out that Jesus "descended" (Ephesians 4:9). The "descention" means that Jesus went into the ground.

This conquering king has the authority to give gifts to you and I.

These gifts are for the building up of the church. Everyone is to make a contribution to the church's maturity! No one's off the hook!

"Therefore," Paul says.

"a prisoner of the Lord." Paul wants the Ephesian church to know that he is currently imprisoned not because he did any wrong, but he is living out what he preaches.

"walk"to live

"worthy" This calls to mind the image of a balanced scale. Your doctrine is balanced out with your walk. This is a balanced life. They are not just professing Christ, they living what they believe.

"calling" He's talking to real Christians here, people who have already believed the doctrine.

We are to live our life in two ways: (Eph 4:2-3)

"tolerance"This is about exhibiting Christian love among each other. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are to bear with one another in "love," conduct everyday life with loving conduct towards each other.

"being diligent to perserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." We need to diligently guard the unity of the church in the bond of peace. The bond is synonymous with the word for "ligament," something binding bone to muscle. Peace is the instrument that preserves the Church's oneness.

How do we guard the unity of the Church? The unity he gives us is maintained by guarding 3 spiritual ways of conduct (Eph 4:2):

"humility". The opposite of this is pride. Pride promotes disunity. This promotes the other person to be more important than yourself in your eyes.

"gentleness". This is not the same as weakness.

"patience". This is endurance. A long holding out instead of giving into passion or bitterness. This word about longsuffering is repeatedly used by God towards us.

Do you love people? Are you gentle with them? Are you humble with them? Are you longsuffering with them? This is how you know whether you love people!

The stress of the next three verses is the basis on which Christian unity is founded. Here are the fundamental unities on which the Christian life is based. The stress in this passage is on the word "one." (Eph 4:4-6)

"One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism" They're known by their love, because of their unity!

What are we to pray for?

1. We are to pray for the welfare of the nation (Jeremiah 29:7)
2. We are to pray for the salvation of the people (1 Tim 2:4)
3. We are to pray for spirutal things (Eph 1:15-17)
4. We are to give thanks(Eph 1:15-17)
5. We are to pray for our marriages (1 Peter 3:7)
6. We are to pray for victory in spiritual warfare (Eph 6:10-18)
7. We are to pray for peace (1 Tim 2:8)
8. We are to pray for victory over sin

Prayer brings us to the point where we become humble, because we depend on God.

The life and the power and the glory of the church is found at prayer. Without prayer, the church is lifeless and powerless. And so are you!

Both personally and collectively, worship is the most important activity in which we are involved.

You were saved to worship! You cannot really worship God unless you understand who He is and what He's like.

This morning we will look at an element of worship that God considers central to worship: The Lord's table (1 Cor 11:23,25)

Why is the Lord's table important?

1. We declare our love for Christ (1 Cor 11:23)
2. We remind ourselves of our devotion (1 Cor 11:25)
3. We declare our unity (1 Cor 10:16-17; Matthew 5:23-24)
4. We declare our Lord's death (1 Cor 11:26)
5. We declare our eagerness for Christ's sure return (1 Cor 11:26)

The Lord's table is a solemn declaration of our devotion until He comes, and should always be preceeded by a self-examination and followed by a joyful celebration!

We all need to covenant together to faithfully gather for the breaking of bread. It's that important to the Lord!

Cultivating the priority of fellowship in the local church is very important. It cures us from our selfish individualism. It takes us from the "me" and the "I" to the "you" and the "us." The center of every Christian's life should be the fellowship of the congregation.

What is fellowship? There are three words used in Scripture to describe fellowship:

1. Fellowship is sharing together in relationships (Acts 2). We are to devote ourselves to relationships - a sharing of the very life of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Fellowship is the body life of the church, living and caring for each other as we share life in Christ. Why might we lack fellowship? Could it be that things in our life have so demanded our time that we have no more time for fellowship? Relationships require sacrifice.
2. Fellowship is partnership (Philemon 17, Phil 1:27). Its a partnership with other believers in order to accomplish his work.
3. Fellowship is sharing (Acts 2:45). Sharing material posessions is really fellowship in the church. You demonstrate hospitality and share your posessions when others have needs.

Since we are Christians, God has given us three kinds of love we never had before:

1. Love for God
2. Love for fellow believers
3. Love for fellow people

What does fellowship look like? (1 Cor 1:9) If we want to serve God, we are going to have to learn to love people. The capacity for it is already there now that we are Christians, but we must learn to excercise it.

As Christians, we are already supernaturally enabled to love people. The love of God has already been placed in our hearts.(Romans 5:5) The fruit of the spirit is love (Gal 5:22). The seed of God is already in our hearts as believers, and the very love of God has been planted in our hearts. We should expect to see fruit!

Are we love-filled or love-less?

If we don't see this type of love in our lives, it means we have to cultivate it!

If we say we love Christ, should we also love Christ's people?

You have to examine yourself ... what do you love? You have two implanted appetites as a believer. The first is an appetite for spiritual nourishment.

Do you desire the pure milk of the Word? Are you centering your life on Christ?

The second appetite is to grow in respect to salvation. A believer desires to be transformed. The believer desires to be spiritually wise.

Psalm 119 demonstrates the superiority of the Word over 4 sources of "truth" esteemed by the world:

1. Experience (Psalm 119:98). The Word makes you wiser even than your enemies
2. Education (Psalm 119:99). The Word gives you more insgith than the educators.
3. Age (Psalm 119:100). The Word gives you understanding more than the aged.
4. Feelings (Psalm 119:101). The Word gives you more understanding than your feelings, which change every hour. The Word of God can direct your feelings and guard you from evil desires.

This new year, read the Word every day...the One Year Bible is a helpful tool to do this! For those who observe the Word, three things become a reality (from Proverbs 1):

1. Wisdom. It will change the way you look at your life. Wisdom will get inside of you, and will bring knowledge that is pleasant (Prov 1:10). Happiness and pleasure come from obedience to God!
2. Insight. It will give you insight past the surface, at the root causes of things.
3. Understanding.

Wisdom will keep you aware of sin, away from remaining corruption, provide you with discernment, enlighten you to provied the people with sin. Wisdom and understanding will give you the ability to avoid the snares of those who would want to entrap you into sin!

It's the Word of God that will protect us, transform us, and make us like Christ!