Great day to be here together to worship God.
We have a great crowd this morning.
We have a lot of visitors. We may have more visitors than
our own this morning. We have so many who are either
traveling or sticking out. And so thank you for filling
their seats today. Thank you for being here.
And we pray you are just as involved in this worship as
anyone else here today, because our goal is to glorify God.
And we are happy to do that with you.
And hopefully through the singing, through the prayers,
through the communing, through the teaching of God's word, we
can do that together. If you weren't here last week or
last time I taught, we were starting the study in the book
of Ephesians and we're going to pick up in Ephesians Chapter 2.
And we're going to try to cover this whole chapter today in this
lesson. So Ephesians Chapter 2.
I'll do a very brief recap. I know I've maybe got a little
too and recap in the past and spent too much time reviewing,
but it's so good to remind ourselves the flow of these
letters because we read this book and it's all sectioned out
nicely. But they just got this letter to
the Church of Ephesians as one long scroll or pages of
documents altogether. So it's helpful to get the flow
of it. I've got the kind of the keynote
of this chapter. I've labeled it as the verse
that says that we've been brought near by the blood of
Christ. And I've got a picture of a
diamond with a dark background here.
Because I think what Paul does in the in this chapter is he
tries to set a very intentional stage for the gospel that they
have accepted and and been brought into and he has to 1st
paint a very dark background. If I were to have a diamond
sitting in a in a very lit up room with white and everything,
you couldn't really see it very well.
But if I take a diamond and I place it on a piece of black
velvet, I can see the beauty of that diamond and all of its
glimmering angles because of the blackness behind it.
And I think that Paul does that as he lays out this this chapter
is he starts to paint a very dark picture of what things look
like before this gospel and before this, bringing near by
the gospel and the blood of Christ that he's going to talk
about. So if you're wondering why
that's the meaning there. So a couple of overview points
again. Remember, the purpose of this
letter was #1 to remind Christians of their spiritual
blessings in Christ, and #2 to exhort Christians to have a walk
that is worthy of the calling that they are called by.
So these are kind of the overview.
Remember, this book is broken into 3 chapters of teaching and
then three chapters of application.
So we're in the first couple chapters still where he's
teaching us about what it means to be in Christ and our riches
that are in Christ. So we already already covered
our spiritual possessions in Christ.
Today we're going to be getting into our spiritual position in
Christ. We're going to talk about how we
are raised and seated with Jesus by Jesus on the throne, where
Jesus is raised on the throne and we are reconciled and set
into the temple. And then just to give you an
idea of where he's going next, he's going to talk about our
responsibility in Christ going on in Chapter 4.
So all these things we're going to talk about today, it's going
to sound ripped. It's going to sound like we are
brought in, we are welcomed, we are everything we can imagine
being. And he's going to say then and
the last three chapters of this book.
So here's what you should be doing.
It has to manifest itself in your walk.
And he's going to talk about walking unity with the body of
Christ. So it's important to be a member
of a church because that is the body, the fullness of him who
feels All in all we read last week and he's going to call us
to walk in purity and harmony and walk in victory.
OK, so that's the overview of the book.
Let's get a running start. From last chapter we read that
Paul was saying that he wanted that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation. He wanted something to be
revealed to them, the knowledge of him, the knowledge of God.
Paul wanted a knowledge of God to be revealed to him.
How? That the eyes of your
understanding would be enlightened.
That you may know what is the hope of his calling?
What are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
Saints? And what is the exceeding
greatness of his power toward us, who believe according to the
working of His mighty power, which he worked in Christ, when
He raised him from the dead, and seated him at his right hand in
the heavenly places? Far above all principality and
power, and might and dominion in every name that is named not
only in this age, but also in that age which is to come, the
last couple verses of the last chapter.
And He put all things under Jesus feet his feet, and gave
him to be head over all things to the church, which is his
body, the fullness of him who fills All in all.
So that's the flow we have now we're picking up in Ephesians
chapter two. He starts out by saying And you
who were dead and trespasses and sins.
OK, so I have here this phrase he made alive, kind of darkened
out. And.
And the reason is, if you look at your Bible, it's in italics.
If you read a passage of scripture or it's usually just a
couple words, they're in italics, It's because that was
not originally there in the text when they translated.
The italics portion will be something that translators put
there for clarity's sake. OK, he's going to say this
phrase that we were made alive shortly after this, but he
actually didn't say it right here in the original.
So he's starting out with pure darkness in this.
In this portrayal of what's going on, he says and you who
were dead and trespasses and sins.
So he makes a distinction here. He says trespasses and sins.
And for my study, the reason I could or the reason being I
believe is sins is a very maybe a a general way of saying you
missed the mark. That's what the word sin
literally came from. As I understand in the Old
English, if you were to be an Archer and you would shoot at an
opening or a target and miss it, they would say you were a
Sinner, you missed the mark. And the concept is, from what I
can picture is we can still be trying and we can miss the mark.
We messed up. We sin even sometimes when we're
trying to do what's right. That's how weak we are as
humans. But trespasses is more of an
overt if you trespass, you're going over a boundary.
Usually know you're getting into something you shouldn't be into,
and it's more willful. And he says you who are dead and
trespasses and sins and missing the mark and overstepping God's
boundaries. Maybe even you knew it.
You were dead. And he's starting out by saying
you because there's a distinction we set up in the
first chapter between you and we.
Paul was a Jew, and he's writing to people who some of them were
Jews, some of them were Gentiles.
Gentile just means they weren't a Jew.
So some of these people had been God's followers throughout
history. They were Jews.
Other people had no history following God.
They were Gentiles. So he's saying you Gentiles who
haven't had history following God, were dead.
This chapter is a spiritual recalibration for reality.
We don't see ourselves and we're insane.
We don't look at ourselves like we're dead men walking.
There's a show called The Walking Dead.
It's all about zombies. He says you were zombies.
Basically, you were dead while you were walking.
We don't see ourselves like that.
We're in sin. We think I'm doing what I want.
We really don't want to know it's best for us.
Sometimes we were dead in trespasses and sins in what you
once walked. So remember, he's not writing to
a bunch of people who haven't been converted yet.
He's writing to people who were once that way, and if we are
going to be the people of God, we have to make it so that it
was a once stay. We can't be a part of God's
family and just make it part of who we always are, being dead
and sin. He's called us beyond that.
Past that, he says. In which you once walked
according to the course of this world, according to the Prince
of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the Sons
of Disobedience. We talked about predestination
in the first chapter, about how God had a plan that was laid out
ahead of time. He didn't say, I'm going to save
this person and I'm not going to make I'm going to make that
person go to hell. He didn't do that.
He laid out and predetermined a plan that said whoever will
follow me, I will save them and give them everlasting life.
Satan has some of his own predestination that goes on.
So he kind of contrasts the two here by saying that Satan had a
predetermined path. He had a course of the world
that he is trying to manipulate the world with.
And it's it's a very, it's a very real picture to be kind of
like a puppet master. He doesn't say, doesn't decide
for us to make wrongs, but he he's trying to lead us into a
course, into a path that would be of disobedience to God.
We don't see ourselves like this, right?
We think we're doing what we want when we sin, but we're not.
We're walking according to Satan's purposes when we
following him. And you know, in English,
there's there's multiple words for a walk.
You could, you could say I was walking with a purpose to get to
the back door. You know, if you're having to
use the restroom during services, after services, you
bolted to the back door. You have a purpose.
But if you're walking through the mall, you're just meandering
through. I think that's the sense in what
she's saying here. We were just meandering through
life without purpose, without true direction or reason.
We were being led, according to the Prince of the power of the
air, a dead fish can follow a stream.
It takes something that's living to go upstream.
Takes a living fish to go upstream against the current, he
said You were dead. According to the Prince of the
Power of the Air, who now works in the Sons of Disobedience,
he's going to talk about the sons of God and the sons of
disobedience and sonship just basically means that's who
you're putting yourself in line with.
If we follow Satan, we're putting ourselves in line with
him like we are his descendants. But it says that he's the
Prince. Remember, there's only one king
of kings and Lord of the Lords, and it's not Satan.
Satan has temporary power here on Earth.
He's a Prince. He has power on earth, but it's
not ultimate Among whom we all, among whom also we all once
conducted ourselves. So before he was saying this to
the Gentiles, to the people who hadn't followed God in the past,
but now he's saying we all did it, Paul.
And another point said, I, you know, I tried to serve God my
whole life. He said it innocent, you know,
with a good conscience. But it doesn't mean that Paul
didn't sin. It doesn't mean even though Paul
might have been trying, it doesn't mean that he wasn't
living according to the lust of the flesh.
He said we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our
flesh. Lust just means strong desires,
passions, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
all of us. You know, sometimes I think
about passions or lust being like anger.
You know, lashing out, Want to hit somebody, Maybe lust for
power or even a sexual lust. That's what usually we think of.
Do you know any sin that I commit?
Any selfish ambition, any jealousy, any pride in my heart,
any gossip, any of those things we might call white collar sins?
Those are lusts of the flesh. We are trying to fulfill a
desire for something in us. That's not good.
When we are trying to undermine somebody else and to to to
slander them or say evil things about people back biting, there
is a desire of either the mind or the flesh that we shouldn't
be trying to satisfy, he says. And we were by nature children
of wrath. Now some people say that and and
imply that OK, see we were sinners from the get go for the
moment you're bored, you were in Sinner.
It's just your nature. Well no.
There's plenty of passions that say that children are innocent.
Children are the are pure before they reach a point where they
start making decisions on right or wrong.
So we weren't born with sin in our heart, but it's becomes
nature when it just becomes your habit.
You know, you could say, oh, it's just his nature to be late
to work. Was he born late to work person?
No. He chooses to make a habit of
being late to work. The Bible says we were by
nature. It was who we became.
We became children of wrath. There it is again, lining
ourselves up behind, behind Satan.
It's who we were lining ourself up with.
It's who we became. It was so natural to us, just as
the others, you know, little side note here, little pause.
Sometimes we feel like and the world tries to talk to us like
there is no enjoyment in the Christian life.
And sometimes we act like that and that is absolutely backwards
and wrong from the get go when we when it says here that we
were fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
The key here is that it's saying we once conducted ourselves.
It's not that we can't have lives that are fulfilled and
joyful and desire feeling, we can have desires that are
fulfilled. The problem is when we try to
conduct ourselves. And Psalm 37 verse four says
this wonderfully. I love this verse.
It says delight yourself also in the Lord.
Make the Lord the things that you delight yourself in and then
He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Christians should be people who live fulfilled desire lives.
If we are just Christian enough to see how God wants us to be,
but we really don't get there, we don't really feel like doing
it, then we haven't even gotten to the good party yet.
If people try to talk to you like your life is unfulfilled
and you don't get to live by desires, that's just wrong.
We have to change our desires and ask God to change our
desires within us. Have you ever had something you
thought you would never enjoy doing, But then now you're like
God. That was God for me.
I never thought golf was going to be anything fun, enjoyable.
I was, you know, in high school, you're playing basketball,
you're playing baseball, football, you're playing the
sports that are, you know, upbeat.
And there's a lot of action and commotion.
And I thought, how in the world do people just go out there and
do that dumb sport when there's a ball laying on the ground,
they slap it around. I thought it was just so dumb.
I thought there's no way I'll never, I'll never enjoy that
game. Maybe you've had things you
insert anything that you thought you wouldn't like and that you
now like, what changed? Well, for me, first of all, I
surrounded myself with people to share it with that were good
people. When I moved here, I didn't have
all people who played baseball, basketball, football.
But when I came here, Frank and and some of the others here
played golf and so I was able to play golf with them.
I had a good time. I surrounded myself with people
to share that with. It took effort to to get to the
point that I now really enjoy playing golf.
I had to put in a lot of effort. Or I just go out there and try,
OK, you have to try something. I had to have challenges.
You know when when you go out to golf for the first time, you're
like, God, this can't be that hard.
You line up and you Shank it. Most of us still do, but you
Shank most balls. When you first start, you
realize how hard it is to do well.
And so you get a kind of a reference point for what success
is. You get a reference point for
how hard it is to be successful in this game.
Golf is incredibly challenging. And then you you have that one
shot. People say there's a there's a
famous phrase I hate golf. I hate golf.
Nice shot. I love golf.
You will have small successes if you play the game that keep you
coming back. This is how, in my estimation,
you change your perspective on something you don't like, that
you then begin to like. You have to surround yourself
with people to share it with their good people.
You have to put in some effort, and when you put an effort,
you're going to find challenges, and those challenges make the
victory so much sweeter and you can start to appreciate the walk
of whatever it is. That's true with golf, I think
it's true with the Christian life.
And you know what? You may have to overcome certain
things. And golf you may, you might have
to overcome previous messages that you said or the other
people said to you, what a dumb sport.
You may have to overcome that later when it gets hard, you
might want to say, oh, this is such a dumb sport.
You may have to overcome that. You may have to overcome past
failures because when you fail, it makes you think, I just
can't. People say that.
I just can't do it. It's not true.
But okay, it's how they feel. You may have to overcome a fear
of how others see you. You know, I've had people, I'd
say, oh, come out with us just because I want to spend some
time with so and so and and it's a good way to get out there
together, Be outside and they say I'll just feel bad holding
everybody else back. You may feel that way about the
Christian life, that if you get started in this Christian walk,
then we subject to criticism. You're going to be surrounded by
people who are holier and OK, hopefully we're not really like
that. Hopefully you're going to see
once you surround yourself with people, that we're all here for
the same purpose. You may have to overcome things
that make it not enjoyable to you, but what you're going to
notice is that we can start to delight ourselves in the Lord,
and God will fulfill us in those desires.
May we pray that individually and collectively that God will
make us desire Him and His ways so that we could be fulfilled in
Him. It's the best kind.
But God verse four, who is rich in mercy because of His great
love with which He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses,
he made us alive together with Christ.
By grace you have been saved. So here's where he says that
this is where he introduces the light.
He's been all darkness and gloom.
And now he starts to introduce that we've been made alive, that
there's this great God. And sometimes we get numb to
this. As Christians we read this
phrase and we get numb to it. And so this is a good spiritual
recalibration. I want you to think for a second
picture of God who does not love you.
Sometimes we we start to think that just because our our minds
like can we can you really love us but no, picture it picture of
God who does not love you. That's Greek gods during this
time they were gods but they had nothing to do with the people.
They didn't really care about them.
Picture of God who is not rich in mercy, who does not care
about being merciful to you, who does not love you, and who when
He saw you dead, said too bad, kick the dead body off to the
side. Picture of God who thinks that
way because we need to recalibrate to appreciate
sometimes how rich God's mercy is for us, how great His love
for us is, so that when he saw us dead in our sins, he didn't
write us off, He didn't kick us to the curb.
He has a persevering love that still sent Jesus to die for us,
we all. And there's people in this room
who I know have gone through difficult things for people you
love. Maybe it's your children who
have put you through, maybe the ringer, some of the things that
you've been long-suffering in with them.
Maybe it's a spouse. Maybe it's, you know, in the
sense that maybe you had to care for a spouse.
There's people in here that because of great love, you have
done great things for people in your life.
I want us to connect with God, to understand that's how God's
great love is toward us. That though we were dead, though
we were rejecting. You know, that's what that's
what deadness implies. Deadness implies lifeless,
Apathy, spiritual apathy, Unresponsive, cold, numb,
hopeless. If it's spiritually, maybe it's
rude. It's unwilling to change
spiritually. Maybe we've we've seen that in
people's lives around us. So why do we continue to show a
rich love toward others and and great love and and mercy toward
others? Why do we keep sharing the
gospel or sharing the love with others?
Because God did that for us. We learned that He love.
We love because he first loved us, even when we were dead.
God loved us so in our lives, as there's people in your life who
are just not having any of your business, sometimes the people
who are most adamantly opposed to your faith are the people
who, in my experience, in people's lives around me, Those
people are the ones sometimes the ones that flip sooner.
Maybe there's people who are dead in their center around you.
Why keep doing it? Why keep showing them love and
mercy and kindness and being the light when it's unresponsive and
boring? Because God did that for us.
And as soon as we lose sight of that, as soon as we lose sight
of the fact that we were dead and God loved us and that was
merciful to us, we will not show mercy to others.
I believe May we be merciful and show a persevering love toward
others because God made us alive together with Christ, and we've
been saved by God's grace. Verse 6.
And raised us up together and made us sit together in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So God having saved us by grace,
he raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly
places. I get a very paternal image when
I read this, almost like a father scooping one of some
children up and and and raising them to sit together in these
heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he
might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness
toward us in Christ Jesus. You know, sometimes when we
think about heaven we think about this richness and God
showing the the exceeding riches of his grace.
Sometimes people think heaven's boring or whatever.
Would God talk about richness and exceeding richness and
kindness if it was some mundane, boring place?
No. And when we get to heaven, we're
going to be overflowing with praises for the richness and the
goodness and the greatness. It's going to come out of us
because that's how great heaven is, he says.
Ages to come. There have been several ages
that have passed in this in this earth.
We think about the patriarchal age when we had the early
fathers who from Adam to you might say to Moses, you had the
patriarchs who led their families.
You have the mosaic age. Once Moses came and delivered
the Old Testament law, there's thousands of years covered in
that spam. Then we have the Christian age
where Jesus coming in, the Messianic age, where Jesus is
now the Messiah and he has come and he died and he has set up
his church. We have the Christian age today.
There have been ages and those ages are thousands of years.
I think what he's trying to get us to zoom out to is beyond our
personal life, beyond our struggles, beyond our daytoday,
mundane frustrations and and anxieties.
He wants to zoom out and see the big picture that there are ages
to come. And while it might not be
separated like it was, there are going to be massive amounts of
time that we that we span in the in eternity.
And God wants to list up, lift us up with Jesus and show us
exceeding riches of his grace and kindness in Christ Jesus.
Can you believe that's said about you.
You know we have tunnel vision and I don't know about you, but
probably most people in this room are thinking about at the
most maybe year out and you're just like, you know I've got
this coming to my year. I've got these plans and this
and that. But probably many people are
thinking about the next month. That's me.
I'm thinking about the next month.
Right now. I've got some big projects lined
up. I've got to get done.
I've got, yeah, I've got some stuff finished and I've got kind
of a lot of my plate. This next month, maybe for you
it's the next week. Maybe you've got a lot of hard
stuff. Maybe you got some things
they're wearing on you. Maybe for some people it's just
through today. If you're carrying burdens, you
get to the point where you just have to get through today.
That's that's man, and that's God.
Give me what I need just to get through today.
And I think that's a survival instinct.
If you are trying to just get through something difficult
right now, survival instinct says focus on this.
Don't worry about months, years, anything like that.
You just need to focus on them. But God wants us to zoom out
because spiritually we need it. Spiritually we need to zoom out
and say, yes, there are days and and and within days there are
weeks and within weeks there are months and months and years and
years and centuries and and millennia.
And this is the perspective we God wants us to see that this is
all small. If there are ages to come, there
are thousands and years, thousands of years to come.
Amazing Grace, the song says. When we've been here 10,000
years. When we've been there 10,000
years, bright, shiny as the sun, we will have no less days,
10,000 years in to our heavenly experience, The eternal
experience, 10,000 years in probably longer than the world
has been around. There's not going to be one day
less ahead of us than there is behind us.
We need that spiritual perspective because this life
gets difficult. He wants to show us, I think of
a of a good father that can just welcome his children and show
him this is all for you. He wants to show us and open the
doors to us, the exceeding riches of his grace and the
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
He didn't have to be that God, but he is and he did do what he
did for us. One man said one way to see the
greatness of the grace of God is to see how he begs man to
receive it. When we offer a gift to someone
and they refuse it, we are likely to allow them to refuse
and leave them alone. God does not do this with us.
Even when we refuse his mercy, He reaches into a storehouse of
grace and persists with us, begging us to receive the free
gift. This is backed up by Second
Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20. It says therefore we Speaking of
the teachers of God's word, are ambassadors for Christ, God
making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of
Christ to be reconciled to God. How great is the grace of God?
Sometimes when we convert to God's ways we can't see how
people would just won't throw away their old life and come
join the Christian walk. Reasonably so.
But we have been that person. Verse 8 of Ephesians chapter two
goes on to say for by grace you have been saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works
less anyone should boast. So we're going to start to turn
this diamond and see the different angles on it.
And sometimes people get caught up and explain this a certain
way and and they neglect the other angles of the diamond if
that makes any sense. We are saved through faith but
it is a gift of God our salvation and it's not of works
less we should both so we can't walk and say man I did so good
in this life I I earned myself a wonderful home in heaven.
We can't do that. Our faith is one person
described it as is like a hose. If you were thirsty and you go
to drink from a hose, the hose did not quench your thirst.
The hose brought the water to you, but the waters was
satisfied your thirst. Maybe that maybe that's a good
analogy to help explain that faith brings may bring us to God
and they connect us to the water source, but it is God's saving
God's gift that saves us. It is the water that quenches.
It is God's saving grace that gives us the salvation that he
that we have lest anyone should boast.
We have nothing to boast about. We have nothing to pride
ourselves in. For we are His workmanship.
Why does it matter that we should not boast in our own
works? Because it's not even our own
works. It says we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand that we should walk in them.
I get a picture of a Craftsman when I think of this, and we
have this idea then that more that predestination is still
floating through here. Not that God chose us
individually, but God predetermined and preplan.
They're going to works that his people are going to do.
We don't have to do a PhD in research studies on how to do
good in life because God gave us a clear plan.
He prepared good works for us. We know what's right and wrong.
God prepared them for us that we should walk in them.
So it's not our great works, we're just walking in God's
ways. That's the beauty of God's plan.
It's not about us at all, but this does encourage me as I
think about you know a a Craftsman and and workmanship.
I like to do art myself. I haven't done it in a long
time. I like to do woodworking and if
I have a piece of craft that I have worked on and I am
satisfied and happy with it, man, it's there's a sense of
pride and joy that comes with like you know, you go out to
your your portfolio wherever you have it.
Maybe it's woodwork stored away and you go, man, I'm really
happy with how this turned out. I put I was able to get a lot of
working on this project and I feel good about that.
But there's those other projects where I go into and I'm like,
oh, I never finished that. And that's not to be
condescending in any way, but I more personally want to be
someone who God looks at and is proud of his workmanship.
I'm not not pridefully, because it's not about me after all.
But I want God to be happy with his work in me.
As we think about ways to positively change our mindset
away from just being fear driven and afraid of condemnation.
That's a positive outlook. You know what?
God can be happy with me. Then we can be a workmanship
that He's proud of. Now.
Unlike tool, or unlike a piece of wood or or a black canvas,
the canvas has no say over what happens.
We are different than that. We can.
We decide whether we will be worked on by God, but the point
is I want to be well worth it. God is proud of to let him work
on me. Verse 11.
Therefore remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh.
So he's kind of making that distinction again here between
Jew and Gentile who were once Gentiles in the flesh who are
called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision meaning
the flesh by hands. This is referencing the Old
Testament law. You had to be circumcised if
you're a male. So you, who were called the
uncircumcision people, who were Gentiles, that at that time you
were without Christ, put yourself for a second in the
shoes of not being able to access Jesus.
These Gentiles were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and
strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world. From the beginning of time, God
told his people he had a blessing for them, He had a
promise for his people. But the Gentiles were strangers
and aliens from that. They have no place in it.
They were without God in the world.
There's a sense of being stranded on earth.
If you think about that the Gentiles were stranded on earth,
Raise your hand if you can trace your lineage back to the 12
tribes of Israel. I feel comfortable asking that
because I know none of us can. The records were destroyed.
No one in this room can prove that you are tied to God's
lineage. Therefore, I'm a gentile.
You're a Gentile. We cannot prove our connection
to God's family. From the start we were all
stranded on earth. There was no way off this earth,
only down into the ground. But now in Christ, you who are
once a far off, you heard once on the outside looking into this
great fellowship of God's people, he said.
Now you have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
We don't have to live on the outside looking in the Fomo, the
fear of missing out on God's plan.
We have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He himself
is our peace. Jesus is our peace.
Who has made both one. He's taking these both these
Jews and these Gentiles, and he's made us both one.
And he's broken down the middle wall of separation.
The middle wall of separation. If you go to the Old Testament
time, sorry for the blurred picture.
This is what it would have looked like in their Old
Testament Tabernacle, their place of worship.
Remember, the most Holy place is like this little square room.
Then you have the holy place. Just for a quick refresher, this
special place where's where God God's presence was among his
people. This special place called the
Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest.
One man could go in once a year to be in the presence of God
once a year. It was so dangerous and
sometimes intimidating they had to tie a rope to his foot
because if he died in there, no one else could go in.
It was that sacred and. Then you from there you have the
holy place where the priests would go in and do their daily
things. Then you go out from there.
You'd have the court of Israel where Jews could go.
Then you had the court of women where Jewish women could go.
And then outside of that you had the court of the Gentiles.
If you were a proselyte, meaning you were converted to Judaism,
to God's people from being outside.
This is as close as you could get.
And they had a wall separating. As I understand it was about 5
feet high. You could not go inside if you
did. There used to be signage posted
around, carved in stone and painted in red lettering, and
here is a picture of what one might have, what one of the old
Ones look like, their signage warned the Gentiles, saying No
foreigner is allowed within that balustrade and embankment about
the sanctuary. The sanctuary is God's place.
Whoever is caught violating this rule will be personally
responsible for his ensuing death.
This was no joke. You go in there and people go
crazy. Here's an example.
Acts chapter 21, verse 28. Jews from Asia seeing him.
So they were seeing, I believe, is Paul coming in to the temple.
They stirred up the whole crowd and lay hands on him crying out.
So they're going to accuse of something that didn't really
happen, but they thought this happened.
They said men of Israel help. This is the man who teaches all
men everywhere against the people, the law and this place.
And furthermore, he also brought Greeks into the temple and he
has defiled this holy place. They were, they were stirring up
an up war because of this. That's how big of a deal it was
if you were a Gentile. And they thought this happened.
It didn't really happen. But they thought the Gentiles
were brought in and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
This guy came in and he crossed the line.
We have carved stone to show you can't go in here.
That's why when it says that Jesus has broken down the middle
wall of separation, that's that wall of separation.
The law that was keeping out the Gentiles has now been broken
down by Jesus Christ. Having abolished in his own
flesh, they took his flesh to abolish it.
The enmity, the separation, the the angst, the the problems that
were in that relationship, that is the law of commandments
contained in ordinances so as to create himself one new man from
the two. God took Juke, he took Gentiles.
Bam. Now they're one, thus making
peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in
one body through the cross. We are that one body.
Bible tells us we are the church, the one body.
Through the cross, therefore putting to, thereby putting to
death the enmity Jesus did the great greatest switch around
ever. He through his own death, put to
death, suffering, pain, separation, death.
Self it took. His death, though to put to
death the enmity. Verse 17 And he came and
preached peace to you who were a far off, who was a far off the
Gentiles, and to those who were near, Who were those who were
near the Jews, the Jews were near.
He preached peace to both Jew and Gentile, for through him we
both have access by 1 spirit to the Father.
We don't stand here. Some people in this audience say
I'm Jewish, so I've got this in with God and you guys have to
crawl on your knees up here. No, we all come with one spirit.
We all come in the same piece. We come in the same Ave. to the
father. We have the same plan.
How First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 12 through 13 says for as
the body is 1 and has many members but all the but all the
members of that one body being many are one body So also is
Christ. Here's the kicker for by 1
Spirit, that same phrase he just used in Ephesians.
By 1 Spirit we were all baptized into one body.
How do you, Jew in the body, how do we become one?
Jews had to be baptized into Christ.
So do Gentiles. On the day of Pentecost, they
were baptized and added to the Church.
We are baptized into that one body, whether Jews or Greeks,
whether slaves are free and of and have all been made to drink
into one Spirit. So that's how we both.
Have access to 1 Spirit through the Father, verse 19 of
Ephesians 2. Now, therefore, we're finishing
up here. You are no longer strangers and
foreigners, your fellow citizens.
With the Saints and members of the household of God.
This is true of the Gentiles. This is true of anyone in this
audience who has said you have an opportunity to be members and
fellow members in the household of God.
This isn't just citizenship, this is familial household.
This is members of God's family. We talked about that last week.
How awesome is that? You know there are people, maybe
there are people we know who suffer the consequences their
whole life of actions they make. For example, in the in the
education, if you're a teacher and you commit sexually indecent
acts with a minor, you will never be able to get a job in
that field again. You you will suffer the
consequences your whole life. There is nothing you can do.
Spiritually speaking. We are all members of the
household of God. And that's true.
No matter what you've done, none of us will be fit to sitting
here in this room this morning as members of the household of
God. We wouldn't.
None of us have the history, the pedigree to say, yeah, I'm, I'm
straight and narrow. I belong God's family.
No. But because of Jesus.
We are all members, despite our past of the household of God.
Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
As I understand, during that day they didn't have all the
concrete and stuff we have today, so they would have to go
to a field, find a big stone. And they would build everything
else off of that one stone. Because likely you're not gonna
have four big giant stones to build your building off of.
So you'd find one cornerstone, and you layout the rest of the
building off that corner. You'd square your walls.
You'd let that be the primary load carrier of the weight of
the building. Today we do something very
similar. We we pour foundation or some in
some circumstances. You have corner peers.
You have corner supports that are concrete, that hold up a
structure. That's a similar concept.
Here. The Christ is that cornerstone
where everything else is built off of it.
The apostles and prophets spread God's word and taught God's word
from the Holy Spirit. They built up that foundation.
It was all off of the chief cornerstone, Christ himself.
And we are being built up. In whom?
The whole building being fitted together.
That's us. We are being fitted together,
grows into a holy temple in the Lord and whom you also are being
built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
This is the conclusion of this chapter.
We are being built together. Sometimes it's easy for people
as members of a church to be like I just, I don't like them,
or I don't want to deal with people at church because I've
had too many bad experiences. Well, guess what?
We are being built together for a dwelling place of God.
This is bigger than us. This is bigger than my problems.
This is bigger than my don't like so's or whatever.
We have a bigger responsibility than to worry about our petty
concerns. People have done wrong things.
And that doesn't mean there aren't boundaries set.
That doesn't mean there's a whole lot to be said about that.
But as the big picture, may I treat the family of God like we
are being built up for a dwelling place of God.
It's not about me. It's about God.
If I'm going to be committed to an organization, it has to be
with this purpose. And if we're not committed to
being a member of the church, we're not committed to building
a dwelling place for God, how can we say that?
You know I want to follow God. Except if we're not going to
commit ourselves to building up God's dwelling place.
What a special. Responsibility to be able to
build up a place for God to dwell among us.
It's not this building. We were in Oregon last week.
We were worshipping on the side of a mountain.
It was beautiful. It was wonderful.
There wasn't a lot of people there.
So we can we're able to make it happen.
God doesn't dwell. Buildings made with.
Hands in the Old Testament, Solomon designed this elaborate
temple. Look how big it was.
These are people down here. It was golden and it was ornate.
It was carved. All these special images and
symbols, First Samuel 15, verse 20.
Two has the Lord has a great delight and burnt offerings and
sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord the whole To
obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen is better than the
fat of Rams. This wasn't it for God.
God didn't need this, and so God didn't stop.
There in his plan, God's ultimate plan is this.
This building is nice. It doesn't matter.
God's ultimate plan is not. To be an ornate, beautiful
structure, It's for people like us to come together and lift him
up and to be committed to his cause, spreading his truth,
loving one another. Jesus says they will know, they
will know me. Jesus says by how we love one
another. Are we building up a church, a
dwelling place of God that respects God's greatest design
plans of all? God does not dwell in temples.
Made with hands, but in the hearts of his people.
In conclusion, take it away from this There is nothing one man
wrote. This list I thought, was pretty
fitting. There is nothing as noble as the
Church, seeing that as the temple of God.
There is nothing so worthy of reverence as the Church seeing
God who dwells in it. There is nothing so ancient
since the Patriarchs and Prophets worked to build it.
There is nothing so old, so solid, since Jesus Christ is the
foundation of it. There is nothing so high since
it reaches as high as the heavenly places in Christ.
There is nothing so perfect and well proportioned.
Since the Holy Spirit is the architect, you think you're not
the way you should be in this house.
God has a place for you in the building.
God's not a bad architect, he knows.
What he's doing there is nothing more beautiful because it is
adorned with the building stones of every age, every place, every
people. From the highest kings to the
lowest peasants, with the most brilliant scientists and the
simplest believers. There is nothing more spacious,
since it is spread over the whole earth and takes in all who
have washed the robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb. There is nothing so divine,
since it is a living building, animated and inhabited by the
Holy Spirit. I challenge all of us.
Whether we are committed to being here or whether maybe you
don't come all that often to question how you.
Are being made into a support for God's body here on earth.
How are you committed to this cause, making that a theme of
your life that I'm going to be a member of this organization?
We're not perfect. We go around the room.
None of us are perfect by any means.
But we will work together for one common purpose, to glorify
God on this earth. And there's in this visual they
had some steps. You could take or leave this
visual. It's just maybe visual aid.
The steps are something that we do to get into this body.
The Bible says we have to hear before we can believe.
Faith coming by, hearing, hearing by the word of God, We
have to believe. We have to be willing to repent.
Luke 13 and three We have to be willing to change our life and
to not walk in the course of this world, but be conformed to
him who called us. We have to be willing to confess
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Romans 10/9 and 10, and be
baptized as we read in that one Spirit and be added to the body
mark 16 and 16. Once you're added to the Church,
once you remember, that's just where the journey begins.
We don't stop there. This is where the walk starts
and we mess up. And if you are someone who needs
the prayers of the Church to get on the right path for support,
whatever means we have this time now set set aside in the
invitation. But this isn't the only time you
can come anytime. Talk to one of us and we can
work things out of whatever needs you have.
Please come while we stand and while we sing.
We thank you for listening to. Our podcast put on by the Church
of Christ at 2215 Plans Rd. in Bakersfield.
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