Christ Community Fellowship - Sarver, PA, 160 Singleton Road, Sarver, PA (2026)

09/07/2026

Day 1 — You Can Define It. You Still Have to Live It.

Scripture: Ephesians 1:1–2 (CSB)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will:
To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Devotional
Anyone can give a definition for what a parent is. A parent feeds a child, protects a child, and sits up with a child through the night when they are sick. But all that definition gives you is head knowledge, where you know the facts without having lived them.
That changes the day you have a child of your own. You learn what those words actually mean and cost, usually somewhere around two in the morning. Head knowledge becomes lived experience. The definition was true the whole time, but it was thin.
Faithfulness works the same way. We can define it easily enough, saying God keeps his word and does not quit on his people. Knowing that is not the same as having been kept by him.
That difference is where Paul begins this letter. He calls himself an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, writing to the faithful saints in Ephesus. It reads like an ordinary greeting, the kind of line anyone might put at the top of a letter.
But behind it stands a man who once hunted the church down. Jesus met him anyway, knocked him to the ground, and handed him a job he had for him. So when Paul says "by God's will," he is not repeating something he was taught.
Notice too that he calls the Ephesians saints, and what God calls you if your faith is in Jesus. To be a saint, means, God’s holy ones, meaning you have been changed and belong to him, in order to be set apart for Himself. He is not going to change his mind about it.
See another reality, there is a whole lot of letter to the Ephesians left to read. Meaning they are saints, but God is still working on them, because being named something and living like it are two different things. That isn’t just an Ephesians reality, this is a reality for every Christian. God calls you a saint, but he is working on you too. You are already his, and you are still being changed.
Everything Paul know about God as savior, he knows because God saved him. That is where our week begins.

Sermon Connection
On Sunday we said it is one thing to know the definition of a word, and another to live it. Paul knew both. This week we follow his prayer in Ephesians 1:15-19 for a church he wanted to know God the way he did.

Reflection
How do you know Jesus as savior; from something you were taught, or from something you have lived?

Prayer
Father, thank you for calling me your own. I know a great deal about you. Teach me to actually know you. Amen.

09/02/2026

Day 2 — You Did Not Start This

Scripture — Ephesians 1:3–8 (CSB)
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding.

Devotional
Yesterday we saw two stories in every Christian. Today we ask how the second one started.

The second one starts when God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

That is before Ephesus existed. That's before creation began. God set the story of salvation in motion.

God planned to redeem a people for himself. The plan included salvation, sanctification, and more for those in Christ.

Now hold that beside the other half of the passage. Paul says we have redemption through his blood.

Redemption is a word for paying the price to set someone free. It is the price paid to buy a captive out.

That word only works if someone was captive, and that captive is us.

Here is where we have to be honest. We were held by sin, and in that captivity we did sin's bidding. We were not bystanders. We were guilty.

So two things are true about our story before Christ; we were owned by sin, and we were willing participants in it.

This matters because of how we think about our own story before faith. We like to say we built our life. We chose our path. We made our own way. But, the reality is, we didn't decide on our own to seek salvation. Jesus sought us out while we were still captives to sin in order to set us free from its hold.

This is where verse 8 hits hard, read it again slowly. God poured his grace out richly. He didn't carefully measure the pouring; instead, he generously saturated us with his grace.

So be careful about the past you defend sometimes. Your life before you believed the gospel was not a monument to your own strength. It was a life captive to sin's bidding.

And now, by the work of Christ on the cross, sin's hold is broken.

This is where the tension of this week's passage is coming from. When you come to Christ, you stand at the end of an old story bound to sin, and now you are free so God's new story for you can take hold. A product of the old, ready to be made something new.

Reflection Question
What part of your old life do you still find yourself defending?

Prayer
Father, you moved before I could. Thank you for paying what I could not pay. Loosen my grip on the story I keep protecting. Amen.

09/01/2026

Day 1 — Saints Who Happen to Live Here

Scripture — Ephesians 1:1–2 (CSB)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will:
To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Devotional
Paul begins his letter with an address. Look closely at the order he uses.
He does not write to the people of Ephesus who happen to believe in Jesus. He writes to the faithful saints in Christ Jesus. Then he adds where they live.
Identity first. Address second.
That order is the whole point.
Ephesus was a real city with a real hold on people. Trade moved through it. Many religions kept temples there. People were born there, worked there, and buried their parents there. The city shaped them, and it shaped them deeply.
Paul does not pretend otherwise. He simply refuses to let the city dominate the conversation.
We know something about that here. Pittsburghers are shaped by Pittsburgh. This place gets into your speech and your habits. It teaches you what normal feels like.
Pastor Nate said Sunday that he is a son of the San Joaquin Valley of California. He has also lived in Montana and North Dakota. Now he lives in western Pennsylvania. Each place left something on him.
None of that is a problem. It is simply true. You were formed somewhere, by someone, over years.
But Paul says something older is also true. Before Ephesus could claim these people, God had a plan to make those in Christ his own.
So two stories run at once in every Christian. There is the story that formed you. And there is the story God has been writing since before the world began, the story of salvation, that if you are in Christ by faith, include you.
Both are real. This week we will look at how they fit together.
For today, sit with the address. Paul calls them saints. Holy ones, set apart for God, that happen to live in a specific place in time.

Reflection Question
If someone asked you who you are, what would you say first — where you are from, or whose you are?

Put It Into Practice
Name the place that formed you. Say it out loud or write it down. Then say the second sentence too: and I belong to Christ. Notice which one comes more easily.

Prayer
Father, you knew me before any place did. Thank you for calling me yours through Jesus. Help me to remember that. Amen.

08/29/2026

If every secret thing is judged, who could possibly stand? No one, because we all sin. But there is one who makes a way. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. Everything was created through him and for him. He holds all creation together while we spend our lives trying to hold our own together. He went through death and came out the other side. He made peace by his blood on the cross. That is the answer to our sin and our decay.