Welcome to Hopewell!: When Christ the Sunrise Has Risen upon You and Transformed You into Light (2021.12.23 Family Worship lesson in Ephesians 5:8

Thursday, December 23, 2021

When Christ the Sunrise Has Risen upon You and Transformed You into Light (2021.12.23 Family Worship lesson in Ephesians 5:8–14)

How should believers respond, when their new life in Christ makes an uncomfortable contrast with those around them? Pastor leads his family in today’s “Hopewell @Home” passage. Ephesians 5:8–14 prepares us for the second reading in Morning Public Worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these seven verses, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the LORD hasn’t just brought us from darkness into light but transformed us from being darkness into being light. This makes for tension with those who are still darkness, so let us seek what is acceptable to the Lord Who is our Life, and find increasingly comfortable our increasing fellowship with Him. Then we will not be distressed by the tension that exposes the darkness around us and will increasingly hope that He uses us to increase His light in the world.(click here to DOWNLOAD mp3/pdf files of this lesson)

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Weekly Schedule: Study, Worship, Fellowship, and Pray with Hopewell!

Each Lord's Day
9:50a - Free full breakfast during…
10a - Sabbath School for all ages
11a - Public Worship (current series: Matthew)
1p - Coffee/Fellowship Time
1p - Catechism Class
1:15p - Shared Food Fellowship (there's always plenty, so come!)
2:50p - Memory Verse Recitations and Song Requests
3:00p - Psalm/hymn Sing
3:45p - Evening Sermon (current series: Numbers)

Wednesdays
6:30p in the Chapel - Midweek Prayer Meeting for all ages. We hear a sermon from Proverbs and then join all together in prayer led by men, before splitting into groups and individuals for intercession, thus balancing being led in praying corporately together with giving everyone an opportunity to pray out loud and covering our requests list.

Every Day in Your Home
You are the most important individual on earth in your and your children's spiritual lives!

Scripture teaches us that shepherd-teachers and every other member of the church are given as gifts from Jesus to help us grow up into Him. But there is nothing that anyone else can do that will substitute for daily worship of Him, by those means that He has appointed, through which He works in us by His grace.

The Hopewell at Home daily devotional guide is a weekly publication that comes alongside to facilitate personal and family devotions. Freshly written every week by a pastor who knows those entrusted to his spiritual care (Heb 13:17), it not only enables you to see the meaning of the text by asking simple, inductive questions, but also gives a sample exposition and application for you to use for yourself, as a couple, or as a family.

Other Service, Fellowship, and Worship Opportunities
The ministry of the Gospel at Hopewell focuses especially upon those church activities started and commanded by Christ Himself. While formalized/programmed events can be useful to get us going, our elders encourage us to take the initiative ourselves.

Some examples have included a ladies' book club, sidewalk ministry at Planned Parenthood of Nashville, and a ladies' fellowship tea put on by some of the youngest ladies in the congregation.

What ministries will you be starting, or are you already participating in, that you will use to encourage the rest of the church in walking with the Lord?

Men's Breakfasts
Led by one of our elders, on the 4th Saturday of each month, men ages 1-121 gather for breakfast at 7 a.m. and read and discuss some profoundly helpful Scripture or scriptural book. We’re currently studying Building a Godly Home, v1: A Holy Vision for Family Life by William Gouge—the first volume of a masterfully exposited and applied treatment of Ephesians 5:21–6:9.