God's Intentions - Pastor Sandra Roach

In this powerful episode, Pastor Sandra walks through Ephesians 4 and uncovers God’s heart for a unified, holy, and Spirit-filled Church. This teaching confronts spiritual complacency, self-centered Christianity, unforgiveness, and the loss of first love, while calling believers back to humility, unity, and deep devotion to Jesus. 

Through biblical teaching and practical application, explore what it truly means to live worthy of our calling, preserve unity in the Spirit, and reflect the character of Christ in our daily lives. 

This message is a wake-up call for the Church to move beyond religion and return to authentic love for God and one another.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Summit Church Podcast. Thank you for joining us as we share weekly sermons and teachings from Summit Church in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Our prayer is that today's message encourages your faith and helps you grow in your relationship with Jesus. Check out our website at summitchurchtn.com. Thanks for listening, and we pray this message encourages you today.

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Today, we're looking at God's intention for the glorious church without spot or wrinkle. And we're going to look at Ephesians chapter four. And I won't apologize for my emotionalism because he's everything to me. Ephesians 4, and we'll start with verse 1. Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Who has been called by God? It's those who profess Jesus as your Savior and live as He is your Lord. Hallelujah. Paul was writing the letter to the church of Ephesus. And he was writing it from a prison in Rome. And why was he in prison for boldly preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and his light, God's light, transformed that city. Amen. Hallelujah. Paul pleads with us to live our life worthy of our calling from God. You see, this word is for every Christian, not for just a few, not for those who are living right now, not for those who haven't mistaked, made mistakes. He is calling us, sons and daughters of God, to live a life worthy of our call. This isn't just for five-fold ministry, the apostle prophet, the evangelist, pastor, and teacher. It is for the church that we live a life worthy of the call of God. Amen. If you have truly had a life-changing encounter with God, you begin the process of transformation. You too. And you know when it ends? When you see Him face to face. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Your identity changed to Son immediately upon salvation. But transformation happens when you completely yield every part of your life to the Lord. Many think this change means giving up those sinful things you used to do. Just give up sin. It'll be easy. We'll just give up sin. That'll be it. Bam. I'm saved. Just like those who went through the water of baptism. They came up and they thought, okay, sin is over in my life. But beloved, it's a process of allowing God to change us, to completely change us into his image. Hallelujah. Verse 2 says, always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowances for each other's faults because of your love. Listen to what the Passion Translation says. With tender humility and quiet patience, always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience. Has anyone in here ever had someone try their patience? But you see, even though people try our patience, we don't give up on them, do we? That's what it means to be a Christian. Every one of us has had our patience tried. Listen to Philippians 2 and verse 3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Wow. Count other people, other Christians, other brothers and sisters in the Lord. You, I count you more valuable. I put my focus on honoring you more than I honor myself. See, here's the deal. If the only time I get bragged on is if I'm bragging on myself. Come on. I've not done much. But the Bible says, let others speak well of you, not you yourself. And we get to that place when we honor others above our own self. When I love you enough to make way for you. See, this is an expression of Jesus in us. Humility. Count others more significant than yourself. We've spent years trying to build everyone's self-esteem. In the public school, they want to make sure that everyone is included in making a decent grade, even if you've not done the work, because we don't want to tear down self-esteem. I mean, that's ridiculous. That's like if you were here the a few Sundays ago. You heard me preach on the difference between real basketball teams and upward basketball, where everybody gets the same trophy, even the kids who you know got out there and stood during the game. Okay? It just whatever. Okay. I'm not going to get back on that sermon. I'm not. I want to propose to you that the church has been so busy building self-esteem that we have taken our focus off Jesus and glorifying Him in our lives and in our bodies. We've taken our focus off of that now. We want to make everybody feel good. But beloved, when God is taking you through a process of yielding your body, yielding your life to him, it sometimes doesn't feel good. Do I have a testimony in here? Do I have somebody that can say yes? That when he's taking you things where he is purging things in your life, it's not a warm fuzzy. We all don't get together for a group hug. We get together and pray for you because you're going through the process. Come on. We have become so good at building conceited, self-important, entitled, self-focused people instead of strong Christians. See, it doesn't matter if you have been called of God. It doesn't matter what people think about you. It matters how God sees you. Hallelujah. Now you don't go around acting like somebody crazy just because you don't care. I don't care. I've had people say that to me. Well, I don't care what other people say about me or think about me. But when they say that, they usually do. They really do. Okay? So I'm asking you not to get offended at me. I'm preaching straight out of the Bible. Paul goes on to say, be gentle, be patient with each other, making allowances for each other's faults because of your love. See, I can forgive the things you're going through. I can stand by you in a storm. Come on. Am I preaching with the church or to the church? See, I can stand with you through the storm because I love you. And I'll help you go through the process of being healed. Not just me. I'm the pastor. You think, well, sure, that's your job. And the church is in a mess because we think just people that have a full-time ministry job are the ones doing this. Beloved, hear me say this. This is every one of us. It's every one of us. Paul goes on to say that we're to make allowances for each other's faults. Don't give up or get offended at your brother or sister in Christ. Walk with them, help them, speak truth. And sometimes speaking truth is uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. But it must be done. Amen. It does not mean ignoring sin or character flaw that do not exemplify Christ. Beloved, not every Christian is as good looking, as smart, as funny, as well spoken as you are. Some of us may be a little edgy, not so put together as you. Say things out of honesty without tact. A little too in your face, a little too preachy. Sometimes getting in your lane without invitation. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Come on. Some of us do that. We don't think we're doing it until somebody points it out. You see, there are things then that lead the church to concern. Are you gonna hear me in this? Concern is translated like this in the church. Disgussing these Christians, tearing them apart with our words, showing no love, actually assassinate them with our tongue. Making no allowances for them because of our lack of love. When the Lord gave it to me, I had to let it settle in. When the Lord was speaking to me about this, it reminded me of the warning Jesus gave to the church in Ephesus. These words have become absolutely alive to me. If you are not making a practice of coming to Wednesday Night Live, let me tell you, you don't want to miss this. You just don't want to miss it. It's so good. It is preparing our hearts, it is opening our eyes, it is making us put our focus back on Jesus instead of churchy things. We're putting our focus on Jesus, his character, his love, and what he has called us to. Beloved, we are living in the last of the last days. King Jesus is moving now. He's moving in his church if you'll respond. Come on. He's moving in his church if you'll respond. And he's moving in the world. So in Revelation 2, 4 and 5, he said, But I have this complaint against you. You don't love me or each other as you did at first. Look how far you have fallen. Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don't repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the church. See, this is alarming to me. He'll come and remove his lampstand from the church. The church of Ephesus was a pagan city steeped in the occult and was totally impacted by the gospel. When Paul got off the boat and he stepped up on the steps of the temple of Diana, the goddess, and preached the gospel. What strength of character, what passion for Jesus that took. Where is that today in the church? That we boldly step into a place of occult practice, step into a place of sin and darkness, and we boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Come on, church. Well, I'm just waiting on an evangelist to come and do that. You see, beloved, we're all evangelists. Wherever I go, I take the light and the glory of Jesus Christ with me. You are placed strategically. I want you to hear me say this. You are placed strategically with the anointing God has placed on your life, with the call he has on your life. You have strategically been placed there for such a time as this. He has empowered you with his spirit. He is guiding you by his spirit to be bold in your witness, to tell people Jesus is coming. Are you ready? The Spirit of God was poured out, and a great revival took place that brought people out of darkness into God's marvelous light. And then at the time of the writing of Revelation, Jesus said these words to the church. You don't love me. You don't love others like you did at first. Let's look where this begins. You left your love for me. Ask yourself this. Do I love the Lord and long for his presence as I did when I first believed? When I began to know him more and spend time with him. You know, every time I read this, I think of this. A progression in our life was always meant to happen. When we get saved, we're filled with that first love, that passion for Jesus. We're telling people, but I got saved. Listen, I got saved. It was awesome. I remember when that first little girl that went through the water, my youngest granddaughter. I remember we picked them up on Thursdays from school. They go to a great school, advertisement time, called the King's Academy, and they talked to them about Jesus all the time. And she got saved in that classroom. And I was thrilled that she had a teacher that talked to them about Jesus. And that day the Spirit of God began to woo her and move on her heart. And she said yes to the Lord Jesus. Oh, what a day. What a day. And she gets in the car and she says, Nani, have you heard? I'm saved.

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Hallelujah.

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Oh. Papa and I were happy grandparents. We were not happy. We were full of the joy of the Lord. All of our children are believers. And now all of our grandchildren are believers. What a wonderful thing. That's why parents and grandparents, that's why we talk to them about Jesus all the time. That's why we put them in a place where they not only can hear from parents and grandparents, but a teacher who will teach them about Jesus. Come on. Hallelujah. See, time is running out. We can't say one day anymore. One day could be today. Now, this may not follow in your end time doctrine. I don't care. It's good to be ready at all times. Hallelujah. I love you. I love you if you differ than me. I don't care as long as we're headed at the same place. I may get there a little earlier than you do. It's okay. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. You see, it's easy to take a day off or a week off from spending time with them because the love of self becomes more important than the love of Jesus. Pastor, you don't know how busy I am. You don't know. I've just sort of walked away from the Lord. I'm so busy. I got all this going on in my life. Get up a little earlier. Just get up a little earlier. You see, you have another love in your life when you leave. We all have something we love. We do. We all have things that we love. We have activities we love. I love to go see Tegan play on her volleyball team. I love to go watch her. We pray and believe our grandkids are going to win that game. I love going and seeing my other two dance and get into dance competition because we believe they're the best. We pray for them. But you see, that has no comparison to the one I love. To the one Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, these words were for believers. Our love for God and for each other will grow cold if we begin to spend less and less time with Him. And then we can't tolerate those know-it-alls, those self-righteous Christians. I can still be saved and love Jesus, but I don't have to hang out with Christians. I don't have to go to church. And God will still love me. You're right. But, beloved, those are the ones who fall. We encourage each other in the Lord. We build each other up. We pray for each other. That's why we're together. We're better together. Hallelujah. How can you tell if you've if your love for others has grown cold? Oh, I'd love to tell you. Number one, you have a critical spirit. You find yourself increasingly annoyed and easily irritated by the flaws of other believers. Anyone know what I'm talking about? They just push my buttons. They go overboard. They're ultra Christian. God doesn't really require that. Much out of us. Number two, you have isolated yourself from fellowship. You withdraw from church attendance, small groups, preferring not to engage with other believers. And number three, you lack sympathy. Excuse me, not sympathy, empathy. You lack empathy. You're unmoved by the struggles of your brothers and sisters in Christ, and you choose the comfort of your own wants and needs. Beloved, this is rampant in the church. Growing cold doesn't happen suddenly. It's been growing in you because your lover Jesus has been slowly growing cold. It doesn't happen overnight. It's like one day you wake up, you hear things, and you'll say, oh, that drives me crazy. Some Christians are so weird. I just, oh man, I just want to go to a church where people are normal. There is none. That is non-existent, beloved. There is no normal Christians. You know what a normal Christian is? A normal Christian is going into the grocery store and when the girl is checking you out, say, honey, can I pray for you? I sent something heavy on you. Can I pray for you? Normal Christianity is when you hear somebody sick, you lay hands on them and pray for them and expect to see them healed. That's normal Christianity. That's Book of Acts Christianity. And now we've slipped into this dull, lifeless go to church, go home, check. Prayer times. Oh, I'm telling you. We oh Thursday night in prayer. If you don't come to Thursday night prayer and Saturday night prayer, you're crazy. We got in here and the Lord said, I could feel the prayer. I saw the baptistry. We sat right over here, and the Lord said, Do you feel that? You're in a thin place between heaven and earth. It was glorious. God moved. God is moving in prayer in this house. Listen, it's time for us to boldly, to boldly be who God's called us to. Relinquish your control of your calendar. Let him have it all. You know what we'd love to do? I just thought of this. This is a song we sing. You can have it all, Lord. Every part of my life. I'm sorry, I can't be there. You gotta understand, listen, Sunday's all I can do. We sing these songs of passion and love for Jesus, and we go through the motions, and I'm not here to bring guilt and condemnation. I'm just speaking God's truth. We go through all of these things. We talk about how the things, we talk more about the things we can't do instead of just being. Lord, just get me in a better mood. I've had a really hard day and I'm exhausted, and and I just I'll just be quiet tonight. I will, I have decided I'll just be quiet tonight. And we get in here and the Spirit of God falls, and we're all just having a Holy Ghost party, and it's glorious. Listen, he is the lifter of the things I'm going through. And I live encouraged, I live excited about what God is doing. I get my focus off me and on to him again. Come on. You see, the church loves to talk about the fiery love of God, especially spirit-filled churches. We love to talk about the fiery love of God when our own fire is about to go out because we've learned the language. We've learned the language without the life. If I speak it enough, they'll actually believe. Maybe God will believe too. If I talk about enough, God will believe too. That's where I'm at. Beloved, He knows you inside and out. There's no hiding from God. If He's not your first love, we will never have the ability to love the brethren. We just won't. This word love in Ephesians 4 and verse 2 is agape. This love is selfless, sacrificial, brotherly love. This love puts others before ourselves, never giving thought to our differences, never giving thought to our differences. This love was demonstrated by Jesus. We open the gospels and we see this love demonstrated on every page. Ephesians 4 and 3 says, make every effort to keep yourself united in spirit, binding yourself together with peace. For there is one body and one spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. Are you kidding? Are you hearing that? There is one God. He's living in you. And he's moving through you. This is the church. This is the glory the church carries. Jesus prayed this prayer for us. I want you to look at John 17, 21 through 23. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one. As you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have. I have given them. I have lost my place. There it is. I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Think about that. The Father loves us as much as he loves Jesus. Oh, come on. Hallelujah. The unity of the Spirit is not something we work on creating. It's something we're preserving. The unity of the Spirit begins in you. The unity of me and the Holy Spirit is one. It begins in me. Come on. It begins in you. Are you in unity with the Holy Spirit? So how does that work? That sounds hard. How does that work? For anyone who doesn't know Christian terms, let me break it down. The Holy Spirit dwells in you when you get saved. Comes to dwell in you when you get saved. Isn't that glorious? Come on. It's me and the Holy Spirit, and He's speaking to me all the time. And you are to be led by the Spirit. When you see that you're starting to think like the world, come on. When you start thinking more like the world, when you start getting irritated, oh they make me so mad. Wonder if they're really saved. I don't know. See, when you start thinking like that, you've stepped out of the spirit and into your flesh. You've stepped out of the spirit and into the way the world thinks. See, we were never to live that way. And so what we do is instead of following the instructions of the Bible, we follow the instructions of other people by the way they live. Your testimony is lived every day of your life, the way you walk, the way you live, the way you think, and act out on what you're giving way to thinking about, okay? People can see your testimony or the absence thereof. It's truth. It's truth. And we must, as sons and daughters of God, get ourselves to a place where we're living in the spirit. And the minute we feel ourselves veering, we get back in the spirit. We are one. Christ in me and Christ in you, we are one. He loves you and I the same. There is no qualifier for who gets more love. It's not like, well, you know, she looks more like me. I think I'm gonna love her most. That's carnal, and that's the way men think. But God, oh, I love his word. He loved us even when we lived in trespasses and sin. He loved us. Ephesians 4 and verse 1. There it is. He loved us before the foundation of the world. That beautiful. He knew us in love before the foundation of the world. This is the God we love and we serve. He wants your best. And your best is looking like him. Hallelujah. We say, oh look, they're starting to get along with each other. Isn't that sweet? Beloved, it's so much more than just getting along with each other and not arguing or disagreeing. We are one in Christ. If I'm mad at you, I'm mad at myself. If I don't like something going on in your life, I don't like something going on in my life. Because we're one. I mean, wrap your mind around this, wrap your heart around the fact that God loves us all equally. Hallelujah. You see, we're bound by our covenant with God in Christ Jesus. You see, I'm not only in covenant with God through the blood of Jesus, I'm in covenant with you. That's a beautiful thing. I had a friend call me the other day. I hadn't talked to him in, I don't know, maybe it's been a year, maybe it hasn't. I don't know. Maybe it's been months. You know, when you talk to as many people as I do, you sort of lose track of how long it's been. But it wasn't a good ending. And then love came. Do y'all hear? Do you know what love is? Love is forgiving before they ever talk to you. Love is when you answer their call. Love is there. Christ is there bringing healing. Not looking at the phone going, oh my goodness, should I even answer this? Come on, church. Let's be real honest, okay? Because his word is calling us to be honest, okay? Instead answering hello, can you talk, Pastor? Can you talk? Why, yes. And forgiveness had already taken the wall down. Long before the call. Come on, church. We are united in spirit. We're not just united because we are Christians and we accepted Jesus and we're accepted in the Blood. We are united in the Spirit. That's beautiful. I love His word. I love His ways. This passage of Scripture was for the church, not for the world. Unity is needed to see the power of God manifested through the church to the world. We need to be in unity with each other. Unity in the spirit. I see my friends here today. I've not seen them in a long time. I love them so much. Oh my goodness. It's just like having two more kids come to church. Hallelujah. They live in another place. They live in West Virginia, and they're changing the whole uh landscape of West Virginia. No, they really are. They really are. They're changing, they're changing the way everything is operating to get people off of drugs in West Virginia. Come on. Hallelujah. We should be shouting for that. And they chose to come here today because they're spiritual sons and daughters. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Huh. It always does a mama's heart good. For the church to work together to impact a city, a region, or a nation, we must preserve unity. It's not some worldly contrived idea of unity. We must decide to get along, to love, and walk with each other together. See, I just I just had this the the Lord drop this in my spirit. And it doesn't mean that from time to time you want to wring someone's neck because they've walked away from the Lord or they've done stupid. But that doesn't mean you turn your love off. That doesn't mean you quit helping them. And and because we've instilled that in this church. Church, do you hear this? We have instilled this in this church. And not only have we instilled this in this church, we have instilled it in some apostolic alliance. And so our spiritual children over here, they're under a covering of unity. They're under a covering of love and forgiveness. They're under a covering of we're here for each other. You may be in another state and another place, but we're here for each other. Come on. Hallelujah. So can a Christian live in unity and peace? It's a choice, a sacrifice. It takes love and forgiveness. Beloved, I want to say to you, if there is anyone in your life you're harboring unforgiveness toward, man, just let it go. Just let it go. And I've ministered to so many people who cannot forgive because you don't know what they did to me. I know that my sin nailed the beloved Jesus to the cross. To wipe away my sin and to restore me to the Father. If he did it, I can do it. Hallelujah. We must stay in the spirit to stay in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ. There's no allowance in the Word of God or in the Spirit for anything else. There's no learner's curve. There's no test, we're going to grade on the curve. No. You either obey or you don't. You either love or you don't. You either love the brethren. You either love Jesus or you don't. There's no, well, you know, I'm from a family that loves Jesus. No, you have to love Jesus. We must never have these words on our lips, but Pastor, you don't know how they've treated me. Anybody ever said that? Where do you find that in the Bible? Oh my goodness. We never hear this particular phrase in the Bible. I don't go to church because I have been hurt by the church. You don't see that in the church. We come to worship him. We don't come to worship each other. I don't come here because I need your approval. I come here because I was called of God. And as long as that calling is intact, I'll be here for him. However, to love, to pray, whatever he wants. But you see, we've made excuses. We've talked about wounds inflicted from a brother or sister in Christ, and now we don't trust anyone. I have this is a phrase that I've heard a thousand times. I have trust issues. I have hearing issues. I have a really bad hearing issue. I can be sitting with my family and somebody can be having a discussion. And later on the week, Steve said, What do you think about that? And I said, Well, they said that? Oh yeah. See, it's it, if you're sitting on this side, I get nothing. I have a hearing issue. But it doesn't make me stop listening. It just doesn't. I've learned to read lips if you look right in my face. I'm not going to quit listening because I have a hearing issue. I don't quit loving God and coming to his house and serving him because I have an issue with someone 20 years ago that hurt my feelings. Come on, we got to get over ourselves. We're the church of the living God. We're filled with the Spirit of God. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in our mortal body. Oh my goodness, I hear the voice of my master. And I obey what he says. It doesn't matter about my hearing issue with him. I can hear every word he says. Hallelujah. Come on. We love to use the issue card to keep from forgiving and loving people. You see, but I can't ask you to forgive me if you don't come to me and tell me what you perceived I've done to you. And we gather together. We come together and talk about it, and it restores unity. And there are times that people said I've done things I didn't even know I'd done it. You walked by me three times, didn't speak. I could tell you didn't want me in this church. And so I'll see him and I'll say, What? Well, I could tell I knew by your body language. When I probably had my sermon on my mind. Come on. We just, we're so fickle as people. Do you know why? We're more self-motivated than we are Christ motivated. Oh, come on. If you would have asked him, he would have said. But she's got her mind on what she's listening to what I'm saying. Come on. You see, but the bond of peace must be restored so that the world can see a demonstration of God's love and power. And we want, how many in here want to see their region impacted for Jesus? Okay. Hallelujah. That's the call of God on our lives. Today, God wants to heal and restore. As we have this altar call, let's be obedient to the Lord. Whatever He says, do it. That's a novel thought. Whatever He says, do it.