Believe

"It is easy to believe in God, but far more difficult to believe God." 
RC Sproul

The Motivation of Theological Appreciation Appropriated in Worship

In other words, he has written to them in this particular way because he is aware that, ultimately, the profundity of their theological appreciation, appropriated in worship, will be far more effective in helping them to be what they were meant to be than merely piling moral exhortation upon moral exhortation.

- A.T. Lincoln commenting on how Paul sought to motivate the Ephesian church.

Society preserved, disturbed and invaded

“It is too easy to divorce the rule of Christ in heaven from the life of his church on earth; to so abstract the one from the other that the effective outworking of Christ’s sovereignty is left to mysterious forces quite unconnected with our everyday Christian life. In this way we can make the reign of Christ something too remote; invisible, inaudible and eventually undetectable. Whereas it is through the Church’s presence and power, by her work and witness, that society itself is preserved, disturbed and invaded by this reigning Lord.”

- Peter Lewis

Its not about us

The Bible is God’s book, it is a revelation of God, and our thinking must always start with God. Much of the trouble in the Church today is due to the fact that we are so subjective, so interested in ourselves, so egocentric. That is the peculiar error of this present century. Having forgotten God, and having become so interested in ourselves, we become miserable and wretched, and spend our time in ’shallows and in miseries.’

The message of the Bible from beginning to end is designed to bring us back to God, to humble us before God, and to enable us to see our true relationship to Him. And that is the great theme of this Epistle [Ephesians]… We must not start by examining ourselves and our needs microscopically; we must start with God, and forget ourselves. In this Epistle we are taken as it were by the hand by the Apostle and are told that we are going to be given a view of the glory and the majesty of God.

- D. M. Lloyd‐Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1:1 to 23 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 13.

Preacher

“The Christian preacher has a boundary set for him. When he enters the pulpit, he is not an entirely free man. There is a very real sense in which it may be said of him that the Almighty has set him his bounds that he shall not pass. He is not at liberty to invent or choose his message: it has been committed to him, and it is for him to declare, expound, and commend it to his hearers . . . It is a great thing to come under the magnificent tyranny of the Gospel!”

Donald Coggan, quoted in Stott, 126-27