Zion Baptist Church

Zion Baptist Church Promoting worship -
Preparing for service -
Passionate to share

09/06/2026

Here is the first message on the book of Ephesians. We are looking at chapter 1, the first two verses.
Chapter 1:1,2
The book of Ephesians
Who?
Who wrote the letter? The first word in my translation is Paul. The writer introduces himself as Paul, the apostle. An apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God . Paul did not apply for the position, God called him to it: you remember how that happened. Did you know that there is debate over who wrote this letter? There are some who say that it was not Paul, but perhaps a disciple of his. The reason for that being that the writing style is somewhat different than Paul’s and there is some vocabulary that is in this letter that is not in his other letters. After reading the arguments I am going to agree with the commentators that I read, and I am going to go with the following of the kiss principle, and say that the Paul that we all know and love is the writer of the letter. I am not going to go through all the arguments, even though I know that some of you would love to have me do that, other than to say this letter lends itself to a different style and different vocabulary because it is different than most of Paul’s other letters. This letter is not arguing against a certain person or viewpoint or teaching on certain issues. The letter is more of Paul sitting back and saying, “Now, if I could just write down what is important to me, what I think the church needs to know without being forced to write on specific issues in a church, what would I write?” I think that we have our answer in the book of Ephesians. You want an example? People say how similar the books of Ephesians and Colossians are, and it is true, many of the same things are stated in both books. But Colossians was written to correct theological error. Some in that church denied the priority and sonship of Jesus the Christ. Paul had to address that. There is a difference in the background of the writing of the two books.

When?
The book of Ephesians was most likely written between 60 and 62 AD. It is one of the prison epistles. There is debate, of course, about which prison Paul was in when he wrote it. Again, I’m going to make you all happy by not sharing the viewpoints. The majority agree that the book was written in Rome during Paul’s first imprisonment there. That is what sets the date. The other prison epistles are Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon. It is believed that Paul dictated all the books, handed them off to Tychicus, one of his companions, and Tychicus headed off to deliver them all.

Where
If you were attending on Sunday nights with us you would know where Ephesus was. It was a coastal city on the Mediterranean, a large and important city. The capital city of Asia. Paul first went there when he was on his way to Jerusalem to deliver a financial gift to the church there to help them during the famine they were having. Paul had Priscilia and Aquila with him and they stayed there. Before Paul left, he entered the synagogue and debated the Jews. The Jews wanted him to stay but he felt he needed to get to Jesusalem. Paul did come back to Ephesus and stayed for over two years. Paul became very well known doing extraordinary miracles and causing a major riot. It seems that Demetrius, a silversmith, who made a lot of money making shrines for a goddess Artemis, did not want Paul ruining his business by saying that gods that are made by hands are not gods. Again, something you would know if you joined us on Sunday evenings. Paul had a lot of knowledge of Ephesus and probably had some friends.
Believe it or not, there is also a debate on where the letter was sent. In some of the older, respected manuscripts, the “at Ephesus” is not to be found. If that phrase were added later, the first verse would read, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus.” That would make sense if this letter was meant to be carried by Tychicus to Ephesus and then to the other cities in Asia on his way to Colossae. In my way of thinking, it does not matter much. It might have been intended for Ephesus, but it would have been shared with other churches in the area. It may have been intended for the faithful saints in the area, and gone from church to church. I think the important issue here is that, as the inspired word of God, written by Paul is that it is intended for you. You need to hear it and understand it and do what it says.

What
If you were to ask Pastor Cox what his favorite book in the Bible is, he would say Ephesians. I know that because when I said that I was going to start a series on Ephesians he said it was his favorite book. What are we going to learn from this book? Well. the book can be divided into halves. The first three chapters are doctrine, things that are true about God and things that are true about us because of what is true about God. The last 3 chapters tell us what we should do about what is true about God and us.
There are some themes that are in the text that will appeal to all of you and would to almost everyone. There is the theme of unity, we are one in Christ. There is a theme of love, both the love that we are to have for one another, and the love that God has for us.
I want to stop here for a second and tell you what I think about those two subjects.
Let’s talk about unity. There are several arguments on why there should be unity between all the churches. When Paul talks about unity in the church, in this letter, either in the church at Ephesus or the church at large, he is talking about the unity there is between Gentiles and Jews because they are now in Christ. They have been blessed with the same spiritual blessings, have the same Spirit, and have God given gifts to use in ministry for Him. There are those that describe themselves as a church that we will not be in complete unity with. There are those that say that we all worship the same God and therefore should enjoy fellowship with one another in all things. The problem is, is that we do not all worship the same God. the Messiah, the anointed one sent from God, the very Son of God who is God, does not worship the same God as you and I do. In the book of 1 John, it very clearly says that if you deny the Son you deny the Father. We will never be totally unified if you add something to salvation other than the perfect work that Jesus did on the cross for you. If you add that you must be baptized, or you must attend the church, or you must tithe, or you must know the catechisms. There is one way to be saved, and only one, that is to trust the saving work of Jesus. How can you go out to share the good news with someone if you do not agree on the good news? I do not agree that a person can go on willfully sinning after coming to the truth of the gospel. I believe in sanctification. That once you are saved the Spirit works in your life to make you more like Christ. If you are saved you want to be more like Jesus, if you are not saved why would anything about Jesus be important to you. How can you be unified with someone who believes that Jesus saves you from hell but you can act like hell until then?
The other theme is love. We are to love our brothers and sisters. We are also to love the lost. I would think the difficulty lies in determining who is family and who is not. We love our family and do what we can for them. We love the lost by sharing the good news with them. We may meet other needs so that they may know that God loves them through us so that they may listen to the gospel. If there is no response and a rejection of the Lord, we shake the dust off our sandals and move on.
Conclusion
Paul, an apostle because God chose Him, is writing a letter to faithful saints.

08/23/2026

what follows is the scripted message from today. Jacob is headed home, back to the land God has promised him.
Headed home
Genesis 31

Let’s start this morning by looking at something from several weeks ago, back in chapter 28. Let’s start reading from verse 12 and read to verse 15. Several things to notice. It is Yahweh who speaks. He introduces himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac and He makes these promises, one, He will give Jacob and his offspring the land where he is at, spreading out in all directions. Two, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through him and his offspring. Three, there is a promise that He, Yahweh, will watch over Jacob wherever he goes and four, will bring him back to the land and not leave him until all the promises are kept.
Let me ask you this, has God made any promises to you about going home? The Apostle Paul wrote that he longed, "to depart and be with Christ -which would be for better -but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake." Philippians 1:24. Or in 2 Cor. 5 he wrote about being home in the body is being away from the Lord. we are confident, he wrote, "we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." According to Paul there are two places to be, either in the body or at home. I would rather be home. Explain that to your rehab nurse when she is trying to evaluate your mental health. I think in all of us there is a desire to go home. For a christian, home is to be with Christ.
Turn over to chapter 30 and verse 25. Home for Jacob was the land promised to his fathers and to him. God told Jacob He would bring him back. Do you think that was in the back of Jacob’s mind when he told Laban that he wanted to go home with his wives and children. Laban responded that he has seen, he has been carefully paying attention, and there have been signs along, like omens, the way that he has been blessed because of Jacob being there. Jacob agrees, Laban has been blessed, but now it is time to do something for his own family. Laban asks what it is that Jacob would want that would keep him there. Jacob replies that he will stay on the condition that he can go through the flock and pull out the speckled and spotted, and dark ones for his wages. What I have read is that the lambs and goats that had color were not very numerous, so Laban was thinking, since there were not very many of them to start with, his flock would always be more than Jacob’s, so he agreed. Plus, he had another trick up his sleeve. Starting in verse 35 it says that Laban went out and removed all the animals with color and told his sons to take the sheep three days away. Now let’s see how Jacob can build his own flock.
Well, there is that promise of God that He will watch over Jacob. What Jacob did was to take branches of fresh poplar, almond, and plane trees, and strip rows of bark off the branches so that the white could be seen, and he put those in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink. The sheep would breed when they came to drink and the offspring would be speckled or spotted or dark. Then Jacob started to do some selective breeding, when the strongest of the flock were breeding, Jacob would put the branches in the troughs, when the feeble sheep came he did not. Jacobs flock grew numerous and they were bigger and stronger than Laban’s flock. That is why there are always fields of trees next to people who raise sheep. Those people want strong, healthy sheep. Ok, you know that is not true. We see in the next chapter, when Jacob is telling his wives that it is time to go home, he tells them of a dream that God gave him. It was not the branches that did the trick, but God increased Jacob’s flock. Because his flock was doing so well he became a very rich man, Yahweh made him a very rich man.
That puts in chapter 31. Laban’s sons were saying that Jacob’s wealth was taken from their father. Laban was not happy either. He had done everything that he could to keep Jacob needing to work for him, and it did not work. Because of the attitude of Laban and his sons, Jacob knew it was time to leave. And the fact that Yahweh told Jacob to go back to the land of his fathers, that pretty much sealed the deal.
In verse 4 Jacob makes his case to his wives. They do not believe they have been treated fairly and tell Jacob to do whatever God has told him to do. Jacob takes all that is his, his wives and children, and they head back to the land Yahweh has given him. They are headed home.
In this life there will always be obstacles. People will tell you the home you are away from is not as good as you remember or have been told. That there is a place for you right where you are at and you can make it better. This abundant life is only as abundant as you make it. Not true. This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. I'm glory bound, I've a Savior to see, a mansion to find, streets of gold to walk. There is nothing in this world that can keep me here. Especially because I know those I hold dear are going to be there too.
Three days later Laban is told that Jacob is gone. He gets his relatives together and pursued Jacob. It took seven days to catch up. Laban accuses Jacob of stealing away with his daughters and grandchildren. He would have thrown a going away party. Laban tells Jacob he could do him great harm but the God of Jacob's father told him to be careful. Then Laban made another accusation, "why have you stolen my Gods?” Jacob says whoever has his qods will not live. That was a dangerous thing to say because Rachel had taken them. I read during the week that in the culture the one in possession of the gods could come back and take possession of all the land and what was on it. If that were true here, you could see why Laban would be worried. That would also explain why Laban wanted a covenant between the two of them. He did not want Jacob coming back and claiming the land. They set up a mound of stones to serve as a marker that neither would cross. Laban effectively cut himself off from his daughters and grandchildren. It would almost make you think they were not the most important thing to him anyway. He just wanted to protect his wealth.
Do you think as you have gotten to know Laban a little, that he is a man to be trusted? That he is a man of his word? I think, based on what we have seen, Laban’s words did not mean a thing. Laban was a man that was a good example of a man that lived for self. Who Laban was was shown by his life, his actions, and not his words. I was told by a man that he had led another man to the Lord. The one that had accepted Christ said that he had no interest in reading the Bible or going to church. Am I not right in questioning that man’s words about his salvation? J.D. Greear in our Sunday School class today said that we are saved from sin and saved for service. We are not saved to ignore the God that loves us.
Eventually Jacob and his family make it back to Bethel. More on that next week.
Our three points of application that were in the message this week are one, this world is not our home, we should be homeward bound and have a desire to finish the trip. Two, there are going to be obstacles, some trials and temptations, in our journey home. Those can be truly trials, or they can be really positive, but nothing compares to the glory of being home. Three, do not let your actions betray your words. Walk your talk, or talk your walk. It is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man.

08/16/2026

Please find below the message from today, little longer than usual but hey, it was a big family

Today we are going to look at quite a bit of material. Some of it is of interest to me so therefore I assume that it is interesting to you as well, even though through the years I have learned that is not necessarily true. We are talking about the last patriarch, Jacob. We have talked about Abraham. God’s promise to Abraham was that He would make him a great nation, his descendants would be as the sand on the shore and the stars in the sky. And then his wife was barren and had no children until she was 90, and only one child. Not exactly a multitude. The next patriarch was Isaac. His wife was Rebekah and she too was not having children. So they prayed and they ended up with 2, Esau and Jacob. Again, not exactly as promised, not the sand and stars that he too was promised. Now we are talking about Jacob, the third patriarch. He too was given the same promise and his chosen wife was also barren, however through all the circumstances that we will look at today, he had 13 children. Most of the time when we hear of a family of 13 we are impressed. My father’s grandparents had 12 children, my wife’s grandparents had 12. I would suspect that if you brought all my relatives together we would have a pretty large group. I was listening to a comedian talking about her family reunions just on her father’s side. She said her grandfather had 24 children. He had 11 when his first wife died, then he remarried and ended up with 24. She said that when they have a family reunion now there can be 500 there. Things can grow pretty fast. One of the things we are going to do is to look at Jacob’s family. I think that it is good to know something about the 12 tribes that make up the nation of Israel.
Our text this morning goes through three chapters, Genesis 29-31. We are not going to read them all. You are certainly invited to have your bibles open and follow along and make sure that I am not leading you astray.
To begin with, we need to look at Jacob’s wives. There are several parallels between how Jacob meets Rachel and how the servant of Abraham met Rebekah. The servant and Jacob both were outside of Haran where the flocks were watered. Rebekah and Rachel were both taking care of the flock for the family, the same family. There is a difference in the way the story is told. The Rebekah story, you see God’s involvement. The servant prayed, Rebekah answers all the requirements of that prayer. The servant worships and then goes and meets the family. The servant tells the story to the family as it occurred. In all of this you can see the working of God behind the scene. The story of Rachel you do not see the working of God so directly. Jacob shows up at the well, Rachel shows up at the well at the right time. The stone that takes the shepherds to move, Jacob moves and waters her sheep. He kisses Rachel and identifies himself. Just as Rebekah ran off, so does Rachel to tell the family. As before, Laban hurries out to meet his relative.
It seems to have been love at first sight for Jacob, and after a month of working with Laban, Laban asks Jacob about wages. Jacob says that he would work seven years to have Rachel as his wife. He was so in love that in verse 20 it says that the seven years seemed like days to him. At the end of the seven years Jacob asks Laban for his wife. Laban responds by holding a feast and then substitutes his older daughter Leah for the younger daughter Rachel. I’m not sure how that worked, it must have been really dark in the tent, but Jacob did not realize that it was Leah and not Rachel till morning.
Jacob was really upset. How could this happen? He asked Laban why he would deceive him in this way. The deceiver was deceived. Instead of the younger taking the place of the older it was the older taking the place of the younger. You think Jacob spent any time thinking on that?
Jacob does not argue, he gives Leah the customary week of celebration, and then Laban gives Rachel to Jacob as well, for another 7 years of work. To the daughters Laban gives servants. Zilpah he gives to Leah and Bilhah he gives to Rachel.
Let’s take a quick run through the children. The first four sons were born to Leah. I always remember the first one by thinking of one of my favorite sandwiches, the boys name was Reuben. Leah states that the Lord has looked on her affliction. What affliction would that be? That she was the unloved one, or at least compared to her sister she felt unloved. God saw it and gave her a son. Reuben should have received the birthright, been the leader of his brothers, but he forfeited that by going to bed with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and the mother to two of his siblings.
The second son was Simeon. The Hebrew from which the name comes from means to hear. Leah states Yahweh has heard that she is unloved and given her a son. In Jacob’s blessing to his children at the end of his life he calls Simeon violent and angry. In fact, in that blessing Simeon and Levi are linked together, what is said about one is said about the other. They proved that characteristic when their sister was r***d and the two of them went in and annihilated the whole town. Simeon is one of the smallest of the tribes and seems to get absorbed with the others. In Moses’s blessing at the end of Deuteronomy, he is not even mentioned.
Like Simeon, Levi is also scattered among the tribes, the reason is different. Because of two instances that I can think of, the tribe of Levi stood for the Lord and dealt punishment on the others when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, and it was a Levite who ended the love affair between an Israelite and a lady of the land. Levi’s name means to be joined to, and they ended up being joined to the rest of the tribes.
Judah was the fourth son. He ended up being the most prominent one, the ruler over his brothers. David and Solomon and the kings of the southern kingdom of Israel came from his line. So did Jesus.
Leah was ahead 4-0 at this point which perturbed Rachel, she screamed at Jacob to give her sons. Jacob did not think that fair at all, he yelled back, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld offspring from you!” As you know, the servant could bear children for her mistress so that a family could grow. Rachel told Jacob to go to Bilhah and he did and she conceived and had the next two boys. The first one was Dan. The name has to do with judge, Rachel said the LORD rendered judgment. The most famous of the Danites, and maybe the most famous of the judges was Samson. The second son Bilhah gave birth to was Naphtali. Rachel talks about her wrestling with God and with her sister. She seems to think this is a competition and because her servant is bearing children for her, she is now winning, even though the score is 4-2.
Leah of course knows what is going on so she tells her servant to go to Jacob. Zilpah also has two sons, the first one is Gad. That tribe is known for being great warriors. They joined themselves to David when he first became king. In 1 Chronicles in reads that the least of them was a match for a hundred, the greatest a match for a thousand. Asher’s name was derived from a word that means happy. His brother was a warrior, he was not. He lived by the sea and his tribe was successful business and trade.
Reuben was out in the field and gathered up some mandrakes, supposedly an aphrodisiac. Rachel asked Leah if she could have some of them. Leah said ok as long as Jacob stayed with her that night. The result for Leah was another son whom she named Issachar meaning “ a hired workman.” She had hired Jacob for the night with the mandrakes and Issachar had to bear the name of how he came to be. Leah then had another son, Zebulun meaning to exalt or honor. This tribe is known for being mighty warriors as well. Finally, after 10 boys, Dinah was born, there was a girl in the family. And then, the Lord listened to Rachel’s prayers and she had a son named Joseph and proclaimed, “The Lord has taken away my disgrace.” She was no longer childless, she had her son and wanted another one. You have to move all the way to chapter 35 to see the story of Benjamin’s birth. The family is back in Canaan, they had just left Bethel, and Benjamin is born and Rachel dies.
I know that at the beginning d said we were going to cover chapter 31, sorry, it will have to be next week. I have struggled all week with this text. There are things that I believe are good for us to know. I was asked once during a Bible study of Daniel, "what is in this for me? what am I supposed to get out of this?" I responded that it is God's word, it was given to us for a purpose, and if nothing else we should know that it is there and what it is talking about. I have been thinking this week that you are going to be sitting where you are and thinking, "Big deal, who cares about how the nation of Israel came to be?" Some of you may be thinking, "who cares about Israel.”. I guess my answer in the same, this is God's word, it in good to at least know who Israel is and how the 12 tribes were started.
Is there anything we can learn from what we have heard this morning?
Here are a couple of things. One, I wish that man would stay out of God's way. I have wanted to be used by God for a long time. Perhaps I have done things well as a Christian school administrator and pastor, I know that patience is difficult for me. I think that patience is easier when you have a clear sense of God’s will. Too often it seems that even after being told what God was going to do, the patriarchs forged ahead and tried to do it on their own. Two, a constant theme in looking at the patriarchs, that disobedience will have consequences. The birthright in this family fell all the way to the fourth son because of Reuben’s moral impurity and Simeon and Levi’s violent nature. The discipline a child receives affects the present but also influences the adult that child is going to become.
Three, even though Leah was unloved by her husband, it must have been difficult at times, she was loved by God and blessed, having six sons, three times the number of the other women, and one daughter.

08/16/2026

Here is the message from last week. Sorry I forgot and its a week late!
Covenant - Jacob - scripted

Things have settled down a little. Things were a little hectic in the Isaac and Rebekah household when we last visited them. Rebekah and Jacob had just deceived Isaac into giving the blessing that was to go to the oldest child to Jacob. Esau, the oldest child, when he discovered the deception was quite upset. He wanted to be blessed. Isaac, in 27:33 said, “Who was it then,” he said, “who hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it all before you came in, and I blessed him. Indeed, he will be blessed!” He will be blessed; Isaac, I think, all of a sudden came to the realization that he had done the right thing, which was to bless Jacob, just as Yahweh had informed his wife many years ago. So now, Isaac calls Jacob in and commands him to not marry a Canaanite girl. Why not a Canaanite girl? One, Rebekah wanted to get Jacob out of town until Esau cooled down. She told Isaac that Esau’s wives were driving her crazy, she did not want Jacob to marry another one. Rebekah was the wife of Isaac because Abraham had sent his servant away so that Isaac would not marry a Canaanite. Canaanites, in the language of our day, were a diverse group. There was a lot of marriage between tribes and people groups. The fastest way to water down the distinctiveness of a people, or have them turn away from God is through marriage. The Canaanites were not a god fearing people. So, let’s keep it in the family, Jacob, you are to go to your uncle’s house to find a wife. Only about a 450 mile trip.
In verses 6-9 we see Esau’s heart. He learned a little from his mom about the art of eves dropping. He overheard his dad telling his brother to go visit uncle Laban because he did not want Jacob to marry a Canaanite girl. Well, if that is what will make Isaac happy, then Esau thought he would get another wife, not a Canaanite this time, but a descendant of Abraham. Esau must have been thinking that marrying from the line of Abraham had the chance of pleasing Isaac and perhaps improve his position in this blessing fiasco. So, Esau went to Ishmael, married one of his daughters, Mahalath. That was not the way to rectify anything. Remember what Yahweh told Abraham when he was to go to the place God showed him and sacrifice his son? God told him to take his son, his only son, the son of his love, and offer him up. In the plan of God Ishmael was not even a footnote. Ishmael became a great people because of Abraham, but all of God’s dealings with people came through Abraham and then through Isaac. The oldest son Esau, but not the chosen one, went to the oldest son Ishmael, also not the chosen one, to make it right with the one God had chosen, Isaac. You see when we do things our own way, to make things right or walk righteously, we always will mess it up. Esau had dug a hole for himself, he had despised his birthright and tried to marry into his father’s good graces by marrying the daughter of Ishmael and continued to dig deeper to get out of the mess he was in. To do it my way, instead of God’s way ends up far away from God and His blessings.
How’s Jacob doing? He had traveled around 50 miles north of Beersheba, 6 miles north of Jerusalem, and decided to stop for the night. He takes a rock for a pillow and goes to sleep and has a dream.
Dreams and visions are often how Yahweh spoke to people at that time. They did not have the written word as we do today. I know, you’re thinking that with a rock for a pillow, of course he was seeing things. This is not because of the rock, the vision that Jacob had was because of God. Yahweh established that He was in this place, there was a staircase that reached to the heavens. Yahweh established that the heavenly hosts were subservient to Him, they were moving up and down the staircase and He stands above it all. God now renews the covenant that was made initially to Abraham, then to Isaac and now to Jacob. He tells Jacob that he is being given the land on which he is lying, the land of Canaan. That his offspring will be as the dust of the earth and will cover the whole land. All the peoples of the earth are going to be blessed through Jacob and his offspring. Yahweh promises to be with Jacob, to bring him back to this land and never to leave him. When Jacob woke up he was awestruck. What an amazing place, Yahweh was in this place! This is the house of God, the gate of heaven. He wanted to make sure that he never forgot this place, so he set up a marker, his pillow. It must have been a little bit bigger than most pillows. He set up the rock and poured oil on the top and named the place Bethel, the house of God. Jacob was in awe of God, so he worshiped. He made a vow, look what he said in verse 20. If you want, you could change the word “if” to “since.” The things that Jacob mentions in his vow are the things that God told him that He, God, was going to do for him, Jacob. Here is the Koehn translation, Yahweh, this is what you have promised, I believe everything that you told me, I will return to this place and You are my God. I have set up this memorial stone, I will never forget what happened here and I will always remember that all I have is yours by giving you back a tenth.

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