3 Things Quietly Killing the Church's Effectiveness | Pastor Jason Mayfield

There are three things quietly killing the church's effectiveness — and none of them are coming from the outside. In Part 1 of our new series "For All People," Pastor Jason Mayfield starts where Jesus says every believer has to start: removing the log from your own eye before you point out the speck in someone else's.

From Ephesians 2, this message names the three "logs" that wreck the church's witness and rebuild the "dividing wall of hostility" Christ already tore down: undiagnosed pride, willful ignorance, and immovable expression. Then it gets practical and uncomfortable — learning to hold the TRUTH of God's Word in one hand and the LOVE of the cross in the other at the same time. It's the difference between being right and being effective. It's learning, as Pastor Jason puts it, to "human well" with people who don't look, vote, or believe like us.

This is the foundation for everything coming in this series. Over the next several weeks we'll address the issues our culture is fighting about — but it starts here, with the heart.

🔑 IN THIS MESSAGE

• "Clear is kind" — why we say where we stand

• Removing the log from our own eye (Matthew 7)

• The dividing wall of hostility, and how the church keeps rebuilding it (Ephesians 2)

• Undiagnosed pride: "I've got it figured out, you just need my program"

• Willful ignorance: refusing to understand what someone else is actually living

• Immovable expression: why we can't seem to keep our opinions to ourselves

• Holding truth and love in tension — "the dance"

• How God Himself "humaned with the humans" (the incarnation)

📖 SCRIPTURES IN THIS MESSAGE

Ephesians 2.11-22 · Matthew 7.3-5 · Luke 4.43 · Hebrews 12.28 · Romans 11 · Galatians 2.18 · 1 Corinthians 9.22 · Galatians 6.3 · 1 Corinthians 6.19-20 · Proverbs 25.2 · Proverbs 20.5 · John 1.14 · 1 Timothy 3.16 · Romans 8.3 · Hebrews 4.15 · Matthew 6.10

⏱️ CHAPTERS

0:00 Welcome + setting up the series

4:13 Clear is kind

9:25 The log in our own eye (Matthew 7)

10:44 Why the kingdom comes first

15:02 The dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2)

20:31 #1 Undiagnosed pride

25:33 #2 Willful ignorance

30:15 #3 Immovable expression

36:58 Learning to "human well"

45:37 Truth in one hand, love in the other

47:36 How God humaned with the humans

49:55 Closing prayer

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Saraland Church

907 Shelton Beach Rd, Saraland, AL 36571

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