1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,880 Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our 2 00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:07,960 lead pastor Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message 3 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:12,240 would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you 4 00:00:12,280 --> 00:00:14,840 to the life changing love of Jesus. 5 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:18,640 May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow Him today. 6 00:00:18,760 --> 00:00:20,760 Before we jump. In I was thinking this way, our 7 00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:25,160 confession really is a reflection of kind of what 8 00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:27,920 Johnny talked about last week. Last week Johnny was like talk 9 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:30,280 like like the the zombie apocalypse, right? 10 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:35,000 Like like you were dead. You were made alive in Christ 11 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,760 because it is love for us. Each week when we come together, 12 00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:42,400 our confession, Are you ready? Our confession is that we're 13 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:45,440 badly broken. Yes, you are. 14 00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:47,520 Grace and peace to you. See, that's the thing. 15 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:49,760 We say brokenness. And what Johnny revealed last 16 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:52,520 night that Paul was talking to these Ephesian Christians about 17 00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:56,160 was that brokenness goes all the way to the bottom, all the way 18 00:00:56,160 --> 00:00:59,040 to the very end. It's not just brokenness. 19 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:01,920 Like I'm sad sometime. It's not brokenness like, you 20 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:04,480 know, I, I, I say a cuss word when the Astros are just 21 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:08,280 terrible, you know, like those are all valid signs of 22 00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:10,080 brokenness. But those are very much on the 23 00:01:10,080 --> 00:01:12,600 surface. And a brokenness runs all the 24 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:16,320 way to the end. Last week, though, we saw this 25 00:01:16,320 --> 00:01:19,680 construction, right? We were dead in our trespasses 26 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:25,960 and you remember, but God being rich in mercy made us alive with 27 00:01:25,960 --> 00:01:27,720 him. That's really the summary of the 28 00:01:27,720 --> 00:01:32,720 whole Jewish people's story. The whole idea was they were far 29 00:01:32,800 --> 00:01:36,520 away from God, but God called them to a person, Abraham, and 30 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:38,680 he found him and he said, Abraham, I'm going to make you a 31 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:41,400 people and I'm going to bless you and the whole world is going 32 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:44,200 to be blessed to you. And that began a relationship. 33 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:48,280 Relationship between God and people and relationships are 34 00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:50,560 interesting things, right? Like there has to be 35 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:54,520 communication, there has to be understanding and clarity, and 36 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:59,200 there are these promises between God and his people that defined 37 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:03,280 that relationship, that broken and loved relationship, this 38 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:06,280 relationship where God said you. Jewish people, you don't get it 39 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:07,280 right? You have to learn. 40 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:10,320 I'm a holy God, he said. And you're not. 41 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:13,280 And so we have to learn and figure out how to make it work 42 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:15,760 together. And those relationships, those 43 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,280 defining kind of promises, are called covenants. 44 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:22,280 And so the word covenant, we can sometimes think about the word 45 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:25,760 covenant and it's like a list of all the things that you have to. 46 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:27,720 Do. But that's not really the heart 47 00:02:27,720 --> 00:02:29,800 behind a covenant. The heart of A. 48 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:33,120 Covenant is to define a relationship. 49 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,640 How can 2 beings who aren't the same come together? 50 00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:41,920 How can they work together? And so these covenants define 51 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:45,600 the relationship between God and his people, the Hebrews, the 52 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:47,560 Jewish people. It started with God made a 53 00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:51,280 covenant with Abram and he said Abram, I'm going to bless you. 54 00:02:51,280 --> 00:02:55,880 And he said I'm going to make. You a people, a nation, Abram, 55 00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,160 the family that comes from you is going to be a. 56 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:00,680 Nation and he. That it was a covenant. 57 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:04,680 And later when his people, Abraham had son Isaac and Jacob 58 00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:07,200 and his twelve sons, and they went into Egypt where they 59 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:12,680 became a nation, and then God led his people out of slavery by 60 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,880 his own hand, and he created another covenant with his 61 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:17,880 people. This covenant was called the 62 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:20,360 law. The Law was a covenant. 63 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:22,560 See, we thought the law. We think if we're not careful, 64 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:25,840 we just think that the law is a list of things that we need to 65 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:28,680 do because God is kind of like cranky a little bit and doesn't 66 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,520 want us to have fun. But the heart of the law was you 67 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:38,520 are a people who are not holy. You fight and you and you, you 68 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:41,720 fear and you and you, you hurt each other and you hurt 69 00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:44,640 yourself, he said. And I, God says God is holy. 70 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:49,760 And so the purpose of the law is to show how an A broken people 71 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:55,120 and a perfectly holy God can live together and coexist in the 72 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:57,600 same space. It's not to limit us. 73 00:03:57,600 --> 00:03:59,600 The purpose of the law. The covenant. 74 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:04,280 Of the law is to bring us into the presence of God and that 75 00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:07,840 took shape in the temple with the sacrifices and the 76 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:11,200 priesthood. Finally God made a covenant with 77 00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:15,360 David and he said I will make your household, your family, 78 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:19,040 your lineage will be a royal family. 79 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:23,640 There will forever be a descendant of David on the 80 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:25,240 throne. And they thought this was again, 81 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:28,480 because the Jewish people have been thinking in terms of, of, 82 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:33,960 of national kind of, they thought a literal throne in 83 00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:37,200 literal Jerusalem, there would be a literal David on that 84 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:38,160 throne. That's why they were so 85 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,160 frustrated and angry with the Romans because the Romans, 86 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:45,360 Caesar was sitting where there was supposed to be a descendant 87 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,320 of David. So these covenants that God made 88 00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:51,400 with his people, this desire to define his relationship with 89 00:04:51,400 --> 00:04:53,480 them was intended. What did he tell David? 90 00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:56,240 Abram? It will be a blessing to who? 91 00:04:56,360 --> 00:05:00,160 The Jewish people. Or the whole world, he said. 92 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:02,960 I will bless you and you will then be a. 93 00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:05,000 Blessing. But by the time we come to the 94 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:10,360 1st century, by the time we come to Jesus, these covenants had 95 00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:13,120 become They've been used to exclude. 96 00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:16,440 People from the presence of God. These covenants that were 97 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:19,360 created to cover and fill the whole earth. 98 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:21,880 With the knowledge of God and his people have been used to. 99 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:25,400 Exclude him and this is actually shown in the temple when we 100 00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:27,600 first started in week 1 when Johnny started he showed us a 101 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,480 picture of the temple. And so I want to bring that back 102 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:33,360 again, labeled a little bit because when you look at the 103 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:36,160 structure, the very structured, incidentally enough, 104 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:40,040 interestingly enough, when we get when we do our Lent series 105 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:42,280 next year, in the weeks leading up to we're going to do the 106 00:05:42,280 --> 00:05:45,440 whole series on the temple and what the temple shows us, what 107 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:47,160 the temple means for us, how it lead to sin. 108 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:50,440 But you can begin by looking the tall part in the center is 109 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,480 called the temple building. Inside the temple was where the 110 00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:56,440 brazen altar was, where sacrifice was made for the 111 00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,520 forgiveness of sins. It was where the showbread was. 112 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:03,360 It was where the lamps were. And the priests would the people 113 00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:06,400 would come to the doors of the temple and they would bring 114 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:10,120 their sacrifice and the priests and only the priests were 115 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:12,960 allowed to take the sacrifice into the altar and make 116 00:06:12,960 --> 00:06:15,480 atonement inside the temple building. 117 00:06:15,640 --> 00:06:20,440 Was the Holy of Holies where? One day a year, one person the 118 00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:21,520 high. Priest was allowed. 119 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:25,480 To enter in and make atonement for the people, the temple. 120 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:30,520 Proper was where the physical presence of God dwelt, and this 121 00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:34,040 is so important. The reason we have a temple is 122 00:06:34,040 --> 00:06:37,000 because God desires to be with his people. 123 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:39,120 We go all the way back to the Garden of Eden. 124 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:43,160 God traded Adam and Eve in the garden that says that God walked 125 00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:45,880 with them. The temple shows us the God 126 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:47,280 wants to be with his people, right? 127 00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:49,800 So right around that temple building, you can see behind 128 00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:53,680 that first wall would have been called the the the court of the 129 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:57,000 Israelites. And not just any Israelites, 130 00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:01,520 male Israelites, Jewish men were allowed beyond that. 131 00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:05,080 They could get right up to the door of the temple building, but 132 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:07,520 then no further than that outside the court of the 133 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:09,960 Israelites. What is the court of women? 134 00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:13,520 Not just any women. Jewish women. 135 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:14,720 They were allowed to get a little. 136 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:17,280 Bit closer to the temple, a little bit closer to the 137 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:20,480 presence of God, but not quite all the way in. 138 00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:24,240 And then outside the Court of Women, it would have been, this 139 00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:26,840 would have been called the Court of the Gentiles. 140 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:29,680 And so it's not that Gentiles. Weren't allowed in the temple. 141 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:32,400 It's just that they weren't. Allowed that close to the temple 142 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:34,840 and there was a structure you can see it called the 143 00:07:34,840 --> 00:07:37,200 balustrade. And it was this sense, this 144 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:42,360 series of stones set outside and it was intended to be a literal 145 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:47,880 physical barrier to the gentile people that said do not come 146 00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:49,720 inside. They've actually found one of 147 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:52,040 the stones that created this balustrade. 148 00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:54,600 And on this balustrade there was an inscription on it. 149 00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:58,640 You can see it written all right and here's how that translates 150 00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:02,040 on the balustrade. No foreigner may enter within 151 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:05,680 the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. 152 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:06,840 Now listen, here's the good part. 153 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:12,680 Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing 154 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:16,680 death. Some of you are like we need a 155 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:18,480 wall like that. Well. 156 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:23,680 Hang on to that because we're going to see by the end. 157 00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:29,960 What that looks like. But the idea is there are all of 158 00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:34,240 these obstacles and barriers that kept the Jew, the the the 159 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:36,640 Gentile people away from the temple. 160 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:39,919 And notice it wasn't good gentiles and bad tiles. 161 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:43,400 This was a categorical exemption. 162 00:08:43,559 --> 00:08:46,720 It doesn't matter whether you were a tall gentile or a 163 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:51,200 handsome gentile or a rich gentile or a gentile who looked 164 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:55,120 like a Jewish person. If you were gentile, you were 165 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:57,640 out. We call this, Yeah, a category 166 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:00,400 exclusion. Another way to express this is 167 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:03,880 systemic. There was a systemic approach 168 00:09:03,880 --> 00:09:05,320 to. Keeping these people. 169 00:09:05,560 --> 00:09:07,920 Out of the way of God. We're familiar with this. 170 00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:10,640 We have a history of this in our in our country, right? 171 00:09:10,760 --> 00:09:13,440 If you walked around before the 40s and the 50s, you might see 172 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:17,120 signs that look like this. It doesn't say if you were a 173 00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:20,800 person of color and you were wealthy or rich or connected. 174 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:24,920 It just says if your skin is a certain color, you are not 175 00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:27,720 allowed here. You have to stay out. 176 00:09:27,880 --> 00:09:31,560 No questions, no comments, just exemption. 177 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:33,720 We call this systemic. It doesn't. 178 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:37,120 It doesn't even bring into fact whether this is a good person or 179 00:09:37,120 --> 00:09:39,880 not. We still see some of this today 180 00:09:39,880 --> 00:09:43,560 and it looks like this. Augusta National golf it not. 181 00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:46,240 Just Augusta National. But notice what it says, 182 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:50,320 Members. Only another way you could say 183 00:09:50,320 --> 00:09:51,560 it. It's like if you're not a member 184 00:09:51,560 --> 00:09:57,080 here, don't even think about coming inside these walls. 185 00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:00,200 Now listen now. So, so this is, this is a 186 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:03,640 revelation. This shines a light for us right 187 00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:05,280 here. What it doesn't mean is that 188 00:10:05,400 --> 00:10:08,960 every person who's a member of Augusta National hates every 189 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,920 person who's not a member. It doesn't mean that once they 190 00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:15,040 walk outside of those gates that they have to fight each other. 191 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,360 They're not. But it clearly says there's a 192 00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:21,640 difference between you and me. It doesn't mean that that you're 193 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,960 bad and I don't like you. It just means this place isn't 194 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:28,000 for you. And if it's a holy twitty Golf 195 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:30,480 Club, really, like, who cares that much about that? 196 00:10:31,320 --> 00:10:35,000 But listen. If it's a temple where the 197 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:38,080 presence of the living God dwells, that matters. 198 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:45,680 The implicit sign is Gentiles don't have access. 199 00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:48,680 And I want to pause and I want to stop because I think 200 00:10:48,680 --> 00:10:51,640 culturally we've lost a little bit of that sense that at the 201 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:56,120 beginning we were outsiders. We've kind of Co. 202 00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:58,720 Opted this story and today we're going to understand why we get 203 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,600 to Co opt that story. But it's important to really sit 204 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:05,120 with the idea that it hasn't always been that way. 205 00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:10,000 See, the Jews and the Gentiles were both dead in their 206 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:13,760 transgressions. They both had sin that needed to 207 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:17,200 dealt be dealt with. But the distinction between Jew 208 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:19,560 and Gentile wasn't sin or not sin. 209 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:22,760 The distinction between Jew and Gentile was inclusion in the 210 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:26,440 story of God. The Jews were dead, that they 211 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:33,480 were God's people, Gentiles. That's most of us Gentiles, dead 212 00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:37,560 in our trespasses, but not even available to have access to the 213 00:11:37,560 --> 00:11:41,160 presence of God. That's why last week was such 214 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:43,840 good news. That's why last week was so 215 00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:48,080 important. Jesus has made us alive with 216 00:11:48,080 --> 00:11:50,720 Christ. He has unified us. 217 00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:52,280 We saw that Jew and Gentile come together. 218 00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:56,360 He's unified us in him. So we look at the picture of the 219 00:11:56,360 --> 00:12:00,440 temple in the balustrade, in the in the separation and the walls, 220 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:03,120 and the question is, if we've been made alive in Christ, how 221 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:08,720 do we get from here to there? How do we get from separate 222 00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:12,240 Gentiles out of there in light of the covenants, in light of 223 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:15,000 the promise to Abraham, in light of the promise to Moses, in 224 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:18,280 light of the promise to David? How do we get away from and 225 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:20,720 beyond and around the separation? 226 00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:23,200 When our death is promised, That's what. 227 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:28,480 Paul picks up in Ephesians chapter 2 now Stephen rayburn 228 00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:32,560 read out of. Message or new living or one of 229 00:12:32,560 --> 00:12:34,400 those kind of easier to read I'm going to read out of the new 230 00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:36,520 American standard and like Johnny said last week it's a 231 00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:39,120 little bit clunkier it's a little bit harder to read which 232 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:43,080 really gives us an opportunity to drill down and focus in on 233 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,160 what he's saying right so we pick up in Ephesians chapter 2. 234 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:50,520 Let's read verse 11 right. Remember we're his workmanship 235 00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:53,800 were created to do good news, therefore. 236 00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:57,680 Because of that, because we're a new creation, we're because 237 00:12:57,680 --> 00:12:59,200 we're created to do good works, right? 238 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:02,000 Remember that, that previously you and remember when we read 239 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,360 Ephesians, who is you? Is it you, right? 240 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:06,600 Is it, is it Joe and Fred and Susie, right. 241 00:13:06,720 --> 00:13:12,160 You is who all y'all, all y'all. He's talking to the Gentiles 242 00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:13,560 right now. And what is he, what he says at 243 00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:15,880 that time? Remember that all y'all the 244 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:18,800 Gentiles in the flesh, he was talking about circumcision. 245 00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:21,760 All of y'all who haven't been circumcised, all of you who are 246 00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:25,000 excluded from the covenants, who don't practice that, every 247 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:29,160 single one of you by the so-called circumcision which is 248 00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:30,840 performed in the flesh by human hands. 249 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:36,160 Remember that all y'all were at that time separate from Christ, 250 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,800 excluded from the people of Israel, strangers to the 251 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:44,400 covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the 252 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:48,040 world. So what Paul was saying is all 253 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:51,680 of y'all, we're on the outside and notice what he does right? 254 00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:54,320 When he talks about all of y'all who were the circumcision and he 255 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:57,720 talks about those who were the, you were the uncircumcision and 256 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:00,520 you were by those who were the the circumcision, right? 257 00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:03,920 What he's talking about is these things begin to become identity 258 00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:08,320 markers for us, don't they? We begin to identify ourselves 259 00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:13,120 as the ones who get to go behind the wall, the ones who get. 260 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:15,600 I know a couple people who actually went. 261 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:18,760 To. What's the place called? 262 00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,160 Augusta National, right? For the Masters? 263 00:14:21,440 --> 00:14:25,080 And they brought me booty swag, right? 264 00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:26,680 Like I got a sweet hat and I go then. 265 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:29,520 So it's so it looks like I've been behind the wall, but have I 266 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:34,520 been behind the wall? No, I'm a little bitter about 267 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:38,000 it, but I'll get over it, right, Because these things become 268 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,720 defining characteristics and Paul unpacks that and what he 269 00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:44,320 goes into, like Paul makes a big deal out of this about of their 270 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:48,840 distinction and he identifies 5 things that the Gentiles didn't 271 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,040 have that made them different, right? 272 00:14:51,160 --> 00:14:53,160 Like what does he say? This is verse 12. 273 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,360 Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ. 274 00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:59,640 Jesus is the covenant person. Jesus is the one, right? 275 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:01,880 Like when God made a promise to Abraham, said I'm going to bless 276 00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:04,520 the whole world through you from the beginning. 277 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,840 Israel didn't do that. Israel stopped being a blessing 278 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,600 to the whole world. They didn't fulfill the plan and 279 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:13,400 the purpose of their covenants, but Jesus came and did. 280 00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:16,680 But what he said to the Gentiles is Jesus wasn't for you. 281 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:20,520 That's not your guy. Jesus was a Jewish person by the 282 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:22,160 wayside. Note this shouldn't have to be 283 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:26,360 said in the 21st century. Your anti-Semitism, your belief 284 00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:30,040 that the Jews are doing right, it doesn't fit here. 285 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:36,560 It doesn't work here. Our Savior is exhaustively and 286 00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:40,080 thoroughly, all the way down to the bottom, a Jewish man. 287 00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:43,680 So it doesn't, it doesn't work. Let's let's not do that. 288 00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:44,960 Not us. We don't do that right, but 289 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:46,760 other people. It's OK to just look at it and 290 00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:48,200 just go. Hey, when you see it right here, 291 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:49,400 just go well. That's not true. 292 00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:50,880 That's not true, right? He says. 293 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:53,160 You were Gentiles were without Christ. 294 00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:56,000 You didn't have access to the covenants because you didn't 295 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,160 have a person, he says. You were separate from Christ. 296 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,880 You were excluded from the people of Israel. 297 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:04,360 You are not part of a family. You didn't have a covenant group 298 00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:07,520 that you were a part of. You were strangers to the 299 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:12,360 covenants of the promise of a, of a land, of redemption, of 300 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:14,680 return, of, he says. You didn't have any of that. 301 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:18,040 There were no covenants made with the Greek, with the Greeks. 302 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:22,520 God went to the Jewish people. And made himself known strangers 303 00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:25,080 of the covenants, having no hope. 304 00:16:25,240 --> 00:16:27,960 See, apart from Jesus, apart from the people of Israel, apart 305 00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:30,080 from God's presence, there was no hope. 306 00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:33,040 And this last one is without God in the world. 307 00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:35,880 That Greek word is actually it's atheos. 308 00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:42,080 Christians were called atheists because they didn't partake in 309 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:44,920 the religious system of who they thought. 310 00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:45,920 You don't. Have a God. 311 00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:52,160 So what Paul is talking about is at this point, prior the Greeks, 312 00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:57,520 the Gentiles, us, we were systematically excluded from 313 00:16:57,520 --> 00:16:59,680 everything that God has for his people. 314 00:16:59,880 --> 00:17:02,880 We were outside. And again, this is really 315 00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:04,800 important for us to pause and take in. 316 00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:08,280 This is a real thing. This is a real thing. 317 00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:12,040 And it's important for us to remember this existentially, 318 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:15,720 like when we leave this room, because there's a very real 319 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:18,440 temptation in our signs, not just in our signs. 320 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:21,760 To create boundaries and walls that keep people out. 321 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:25,680 And as we begin to keep people out, we begin to identify them 322 00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:30,120 as people who are outside, people who don't belong here. 323 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:34,720 And we begin to identify people by where they belong in relation 324 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:37,680 to us. We begin to erect walls. 325 00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:41,080 We can begin to put up boundaries and borders. 326 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:44,680 So again, the problem wasn't that the Jewish people hated the 327 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:47,960 Gentiles, it was just that they acknowledge God doesn't work in 328 00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:50,640 you the same way that he works in us. 329 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,360 This isn't Paul telling the Gentiles, hey, you guys are the 330 00:17:53,360 --> 00:17:54,920 black sheep of the family, right? 331 00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:56,840 You're familiar with that, with that thing, right? 332 00:17:56,840 --> 00:17:59,120 Like the black sheep means you do some terrible things. 333 00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:02,040 He wasn't telling the Gentiles, hey, you guys have some bad 334 00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:04,920 behaviors, but if you would just get it together, then you would 335 00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:06,480 be inside. He's not saying like you're a 336 00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:09,560 black sheep in the sheep in. He's saying you're like a llama 337 00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:12,840 in the sheep in a different thing entirely. 338 00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:15,840 Like you eat different food, you got different stuff. 339 00:18:15,840 --> 00:18:17,480 Everything about you is different. 340 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:22,800 You don't belong here. When was the last time you 341 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:24,800 paused and stopped? And when you looked at this 342 00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:29,080 story and you meditated on the reality that this wasn't for 343 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:35,360 you? At 1st you were an outsider. 344 00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:40,280 You. Were a stranger to the promises. 345 00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:42,120 That's not my words, that's Paul's word. 346 00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:45,320 It's actually in the scripture, he said. 347 00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:49,480 There once was a system to exclude you from the presence of 348 00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:52,600 God. And Paul is hammering this. 349 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,480 Paul just goes at it, right? And he's a little bit to the 350 00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:57,400 people where they're like, all right, Paul, we get it, right? 351 00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:59,200 Like let up, like, like, like, move on. 352 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,120 His point here isn't to shame them. 353 00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:06,640 His point isn't to shame you. But listen, I feel like if we 354 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:09,920 don't know how bad the bad news is, we can't really appreciate 355 00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:12,760 the good news. And I just feel like a lot of 356 00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:15,800 times when I look around and I see kind of the way sometimes 357 00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:17,640 that we act and the kind of the sometimes the way that we 358 00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,960 behave, I think we've forgotten that we were at once foreigners 359 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:27,760 and strangers to the promise and excluded from Israel and left 360 00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:31,960 out in the cold and therefore brought in by grace. 361 00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:37,640 And I think when we forget that. We get 9 miles down a bad road 362 00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:40,840 and we get lost and we get. Stuck So what does he say right 363 00:19:40,840 --> 00:19:45,880 so you were way outside verse 13 but now in. 364 00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:49,720 Christ. You who were previously. 365 00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:54,200 Far away have been brought near. This is similar to verse 4 right 366 00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:57,800 verse 4 last night you were dead in your sins in verse 4. 367 00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:03,200 But God being rich in mercy, he he made us alive with Christ the 368 00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:07,880 same thing we were far away, but God has brought us near. 369 00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:10,640 Now here's the thing that we don't automatically get, but 370 00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,120 that if Paul's first hears and emphasis would have got because 371 00:20:13,120 --> 00:20:15,800 he spent years with them teaching like that, those ideas, 372 00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:18,280 those that language about brought near. 373 00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:21,840 That's priestly terms. Those are terms about the 374 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,040 temple. Paul's talking about the temple. 375 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:27,000 One time you were on the backside of the balustrade, but 376 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:31,480 now Jesus, but God, same thing, rich in mercy has brought you 377 00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:34,720 inside the wall. You get to be near now to where 378 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:36,480 He is. Listen, I can show you that 379 00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:39,200 verse in Numbers. That's in the Old Testament 380 00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:43,640 Numbers chapter 3, verse 10, talking about Aaron. 381 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:46,440 He says you shall appoint Aaron. Aaron was the high priest. 382 00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:49,720 God says you shall appoint a high priest and his sons that 383 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,960 they may keep their priesthood. But the layman who what say it 384 00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:59,760 out loud, what who comes near shall what put to death a layman 385 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,600 who's not a priest, He doesn't get to come close to God. 386 00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:06,200 But what Paul says is you outsiders now because of Christ, 387 00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:10,120 you have been brought near. And listen, this was always 388 00:21:10,120 --> 00:21:13,320 God's desire. This was always what God wanted. 389 00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:18,320 Look, Isaiah chapter 57 verse 19 talking about creating the 390 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:19,680 praise of the lips as a prophecy. 391 00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:22,960 Listen, this is God speaking through the prophet peace, Peace 392 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:27,800 to him who is what? Far away and. 393 00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:31,720 To him who is near. Peace to those who are outside 394 00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:36,800 the wall, across the balustrade, those peace to those who are on 395 00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:42,240 the other side of the river. Peace to those who are far away. 396 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:44,360 He says, listen, we saw it in Jesus. 397 00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:47,640 When Jesus in math in Mark Chapter 11 died and he was on 398 00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:49,040 the cross. What does it say happened? 399 00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:52,080 It says the veil in the holy of Holies was torn. 400 00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:55,640 The division, the separation between the outside and the 401 00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:58,200 presence of God was removed forever. 402 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:02,440 And it wasn't just a matter of curtains and Home Hardware. 403 00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:07,000 It was a matter of the presence of God filling the world just 404 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,120 like He always. I wanted it to. 405 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:13,360 Paul says that's what Jesus does. 406 00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:17,120 So I want to show that picture of the temple again when we talk 407 00:22:17,120 --> 00:22:20,040 about you have been brought near. 408 00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:22,440 He's not saying that you have a new. 409 00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:24,440 Idea. A new doctrine to tweeze with. 410 00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,960 Oh yes, let's let's bring this before Zeus and see what Zeus 411 00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:30,240 has to say. He's talking about a literal 412 00:22:30,360 --> 00:22:34,280 physical reality. You are brought near outside of 413 00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:36,520 the balustrade. The veil has been torn. 414 00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:38,240 You have brought been brought in, not. 415 00:22:38,360 --> 00:22:42,080 Just to the outer inner courts, not just to the court of the 416 00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:46,520 Israelites, all the way to the Holy of Holies where the 417 00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:52,280 presence of God has dwelt. You are actually brought in to 418 00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:54,840 the presence of God. Are you hearing me? 419 00:22:56,520 --> 00:23:02,040 We take this for granted. We have been given access. 420 00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:08,080 To a place that was once off limits, we had been given access 421 00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:12,320 to a healing that was once far away from us. 422 00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:16,080 And what we're told over and over again is that it is Jesus 423 00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:19,880 who does that. Jesus doesn't just make peace, 424 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,360 He is peace. And you remember the thing that 425 00:23:23,360 --> 00:23:25,040 we've been saying from the beginning, One of these big 426 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:29,280 phrases is in him. In him he's menu Christ broke 427 00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:32,120 down the barriers. Christ, God and his mercy made 428 00:23:32,120 --> 00:23:35,040 us alive. Those who are in him are walking 429 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,080 up. But listen, just the same way 430 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,520 that we weren't made new, we weren't given life because of 431 00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:43,400 our circumstances. This piece isn't circumstantial, 432 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,200 and some of you all need. To hear that today. 433 00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:48,440 The peace that we're seeking, the peace in Jesus, it's not 434 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,600 circumstantial. The Gentiles weren't included in 435 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:53,640 the people of God because they did enough. 436 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:55,960 They weren't included in the people of God because they kept 437 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:56,480 the. Law. 438 00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:01,000 They were included in the people of God because Jesus came for 439 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:06,040 them, and in the same way that they were made new in him, they 440 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:10,200 were made God's people in him. Peace was made through him. 441 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:15,240 He explains it this way verse 14 for he himself. 442 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:17,480 Talking about Jesus is our peace. 443 00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,480 And I was like, like every word here is so important. 444 00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,320 Please don't hurry past this, right? 445 00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:27,480 He himself is our peace. How did he do that? 446 00:24:28,360 --> 00:24:30,680 I should find it right? He himself is our peace He made. 447 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:39,840 Both groups into one. He made both groups into one and 448 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:44,400 he broke. Down the barrier of the dividing 449 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:45,520 wall. What does that make you think 450 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,600 of? The balustrade, right? 451 00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,520 The walls on the temple that kept the Gentiles from the 452 00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:54,040 Jewish women, the Jewish women from the Gentiles from the 453 00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:57,160 Jewish men, and the Jewish men from the priests and the priests 454 00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,200 on the presence of God. He said he's torn down the 455 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,680 walls. They don't exist there anymore. 456 00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,880 By abolishing in his flesh the hostility, which is the law 457 00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,880 composed of commandments expressed in ordinances. 458 00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,160 That's a mouthful we're going to unpack. 459 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:19,720 So that in himself he might make the two one new person, in this 460 00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:24,080 way establishing peace. Jesus literally broke down the 461 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,960 wall that kept us apart. Look, if you turn back like one 462 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:32,880 page the book of Galatians chapter 3 starting in verse 27, 463 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,960 Paul writes this to another group of Gentiles. 464 00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:38,000 For you all who were baptized, remember what baptized means. 465 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:42,200 What does baptize mean? Say it, I hear it immersed. 466 00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,000 Totally immersed, right? Like no part is of me is dry. 467 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:47,880 Under the water, right For those of you who have been. 468 00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:51,840 Immersed in Christ Jesus, have clothed yourself with Christ. 469 00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:57,280 Now listen, there is neither Jew nor Greek, Jew and Gentile. 470 00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:58,520 That's everybody in the whole world. 471 00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,120 And he says that distinction doesn't exist anymore. 472 00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:05,440 There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor 473 00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,680 female. You are all one in Christ, one. 474 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,520 It doesn't. This doesn't mean conservatives 475 00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:15,680 and liberals getting at a table together and not blowing each 476 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,760 other up. It means those distinctions 477 00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:23,640 cease to exist unless you keep bringing them up, unless you 478 00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,240 keep insisting on them. They're not real. 479 00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,360 They don't exist. Men and female, right? 480 00:26:29,360 --> 00:26:33,360 Well, women can't women got to do it's like nonsense oh, slave 481 00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:35,440 and free. What's the distinction that you 482 00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,360 want to impose on the Kingdom? That's your. 483 00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:40,760 Idea. That's not Father's idea. 484 00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,120 And he talked about, right, like this distinction, this hostility 485 00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:49,040 was rooted in the law and the ordinances, right and all that. 486 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,200 This is so important. Are you listening real quick? 487 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,520 What Paul's not saying? Is that the law was bad. 488 00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:57,320 He's not saying that the law is bad. 489 00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:02,200 What he's saying is the law sin. Remember, Johnny talked about 490 00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,360 the powers, the spiritual forces, these powers that are at 491 00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:08,680 work and the age to come, but also in the present age, right 492 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,520 there at work. Now these powers sin, use the 493 00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,240 law to build distinctions, right? 494 00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:17,360 What parts of the law? Circumcision. 495 00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:22,560 It's real easy to tell, right? You are. 496 00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:29,120 You're not easy to go. I'm either us or I'm them. 497 00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,600 Talk about the dietary restrictions. 498 00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:37,840 You either eat ham or you don't. And if you are circumcised and 499 00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:42,040 don't eat ham, it becomes real easy to tell real quick, doesn't 500 00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:43,240 it? Oh, you're one of them. 501 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:49,200 Oh, you're one of those. The Festivals. 502 00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:54,680 Passover Tabernacle. All of these, these feasts that 503 00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,920 were taught to show God's movement with within his people 504 00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:00,160 and for his people. It became real easy for the 505 00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:01,680 Gentiles and for the Jewish people. 506 00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,120 The Jewish people started to believe, well, you don't do 507 00:28:04,120 --> 00:28:06,960 these things, you're not circumcised, you're them, you're 508 00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,000 outside. You don't belong in the temple. 509 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,440 You don't get access to where I go and listen. 510 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,720 So over time it becomes the most easy thing in the world to 511 00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:18,760 believe closer to God equals further away. 512 00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:22,080 From the Gentiles. The closer I get to God, the 513 00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,120 further I get away from the Gentiles. 514 00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:29,240 And so we start to evaluate our experience in terms of our 515 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:31,400 boundaries, in terms of our borders. 516 00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,200 We see it. Spiritually all the time, right? 517 00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,720 Like we just say I'm a spiritually mature Christian 518 00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,640 because I have memorized 500 verses of scripture because I go 519 00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,760 to church all the time, called boundary marker spirituality. 520 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,560 And what I want to say is, reading the scripture is great, 521 00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,920 going to church is great. But I know lots of people who 522 00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,320 read the scripture every day and they use it to justify hate. 523 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:55,120 You're not mature. You hate Jesus loves. 524 00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,080 You hate using the. Scripture to reinforce your 525 00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,800 worldview. Doesn't make you like Jesus. 526 00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,840 It baptizes something that Jesus came to do away with, right? 527 00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:07,960 He. Came to bring peace. 528 00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:13,400 And again, what he didn't do is say, hey, here's a roughly Jew 529 00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:17,280 and Gentile mob, he said. Those are my people. 530 00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:25,440 It's not saying I hate Cowboy fans, but I'll have lunch with 531 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:26,840 one. And the reason I'll have lunch 532 00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,800 with 1 is so that I can hope to convince them that the Cowboys 533 00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,240 are terrible and Jerry Jones is ruining the NFL and all that. 534 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,160 And if I can just get in a table with them, then I would know I 535 00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,120 would convince them. But I'm a little nervous because 536 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,040 if I go, if I go have lunch with the Dallas Cowboys fan, am I 537 00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,400 justifying their Dallas Cowboys existence? 538 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,240 What if I go have lunch with them and somebody sees them and 539 00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,520 they wonder whether I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan? 540 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,520 And what if I go to them and I have lunch with them as Dallas 541 00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,280 Cowboys fans and I'm telling them and they get mad at me and 542 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,320 I just walk up and go, Lord save me from these. 543 00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:10,480 Heathens bless you. Listen, Jesus didn't come so 544 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,280 that black people could drink at white drinking fountains. 545 00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:20,800 Jesus came to create a world where there are no signs, ours 546 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:22,960 and theirs. He. 547 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:28,560 Said he made US1. And the reason we read the 548 00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,360 Galatians passage is because it's not just about Jews and 549 00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:34,320 Gentiles. It is the most fundamental 550 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,160 distinctions we can think of. Male and female. 551 00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,520 What does that mean? We're all just some amorphous 552 00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,200 BLOB of, you know, neutered gender? 553 00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,360 Absolutely not. He created you like you are. 554 00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:54,560 What it means is whatever you are, male, female, foreigner, 555 00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,000 native. Whatever, whoever you are. 556 00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,160 That doesn't make it easier for you to get to Jesus. 557 00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,240 That doesn't make you more like him fundamentally, at your core. 558 00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,920 The work of Jesus doesn't destroy our enemies. 559 00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:22,600 It destroys hostility. The problem is we me, we have 560 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:26,520 made far too much peace with hostility. 561 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:34,960 The problem is we love to baptize hostility as religious 562 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:39,720 something or other. We're separating, dividing, 563 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,280 killing, hurting, responding, retaliating in the name of 564 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,280 Jesus. So what I want to say is listen, 565 00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:51,000 and I mean this I'm what I want to communicate to you is love 566 00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:52,880 right now. I love you. 567 00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,640 I see I see the world that you're in. 568 00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:59,240 I see the things that we see all over the place on the news and I 569 00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,800 and I want to say is I understand that in every heart 570 00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:04,920 there's some bias. We just live in a world where 571 00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,240 there's bias and I understand, and if it's not carefully 572 00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:12,160 tended, it can lead us to hate other people or other groups of 573 00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:13,560 people. And what I want to say is I 574 00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:15,960 don't need you to hide that from yourself. 575 00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,720 I don't need you to to just what I need you to do is not not, you 576 00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:21,720 know, try to pretend that that's not a case on it. 577 00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,720 What I need us to do is not baptize it in the name of Jesus 578 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,560 and tell us that we hate other people because Jesus wants us 579 00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:34,200 to. It's a very different thing. 580 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:39,240 I can say I have trouble with this person, right, Cowboys 581 00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:39,960 fans? Come on. 582 00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:45,400 Hey, you're hurting me. So All right, look at how. 583 00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,800 See, look, the dividing line has been down, right? 584 00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,480 It's OK to say, hey, man, I really struggle to like Cowboy 585 00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,800 fans because they've settled for mediocrity and all that stuff. 586 00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,280 What I can't do is, did that come out? 587 00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:07,680 Was that real? What I can't say is that Jesus 588 00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,000 feels the same way about Cowboys fans that I do. 589 00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:16,160 And what I need to do is hold up in my heart that says I latch 590 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,760 onto distinctions that aren't real in the Kingdom. 591 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:25,280 And the closer that I try to get to him, the more and more those 592 00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,440 distinctions should become uncomfortable to me until 593 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,160 eventually they become untenable. 594 00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,080 Jesus doesn't destroy our enemies. 595 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:38,600 He destroys hostility. He destroys all the things that 596 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:44,040 make us hate or distrust or not like other people. 597 00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,600 This is called the doctrine of reconciliation. 598 00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,080 We see it all over the place. It's all throughout Scripture, 599 00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,280 right? But he says explicitly here in 600 00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:56,880 verse 16, he, he did this right? He, he did away with the 601 00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:02,000 hostility that he might reconcile them both in one body. 602 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,280 Who's the body? Jesus in him. 603 00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:06,600 What's the church? The what? 604 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:11,080 Of Christ, The body of Christ. He brought us all together, Jews 605 00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:15,320 and Gentiles, male and female, black and white, slave and free, 606 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,120 Cowboys and Texans and 49ers. Maybe I don't know, right? 607 00:34:19,199 --> 00:34:21,840 But he brought all of us together so that we might be 608 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:26,520 reconciled to Him, having put to death the hostility. 609 00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:33,120 Listen, you cannot claim that the law of God has irreversibly 610 00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,000 set you against somebody that God loves. 611 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,800 We've misinterpreted and mishandled the law. 612 00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,440 The cross doesn't mean that Jewish people will suddenly 613 00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,120 become Gentile people. It doesn't mean that Gentile 614 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,840 people will suddenly become Jewish people. 615 00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:54,239 What it means is everything that just made us distinct and 616 00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,600 separate. He killed that he. 617 00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:02,760 Killed the reason for the Jewish people to want the Gentiles out. 618 00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:10,360 So here's the bad news for us. In a deeply and thoroughly 619 00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:19,400 divided and often hostile nation and culture, our separation from 620 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,520 others reflects A separation from God. 621 00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:30,480 You've seen the shirt, right? And it's whatever God loves. 622 00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:39,400 All the people that you hate hate that shirt because listen, 623 00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,200 I'm broken. I'm sinful. 624 00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:45,360 I'm trying to figure out how to live in the world, right? 625 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:47,640 I'm trying to figure out how to make it better for my kid. 626 00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:49,520 And I see dumb people doing dumb things. 627 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:54,040 I'm like God, you're people like help us right, like we're like 628 00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:58,080 we're doing all and and me and I think that's the distinction. 629 00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,480 As soon as I forget that I was invited into this thing that it 630 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,720 wasn't my party when I started, it becomes real easy. 631 00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:09,560 It's self righteousness becomes real easy to for me to believe 632 00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:16,640 that I I belonged here. If we cling to the things that 633 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:21,120 cause us to resist reconciliation, if I cling to 634 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,000 the things that make me go, but God, have you seen them? 635 00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:29,440 God, do you know, like we cling to those things and we, we're 636 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,680 resisting those things, we're resisting him. 637 00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:39,960 When we fail to make peace with our enemies, we're resisting the 638 00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,840 Prince of Peace, the king, to restore a Kingdom in which there 639 00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,640 will no longer be slave or free or Jew or Greek or male or 640 00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:51,920 female or all of those things. So what does that sound like in 641 00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:53,440 our ears? What does that mean to us? 642 00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:59,040 That kind of reconciliation? Verse 17 And he Jesus came and. 643 00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:02,880 Preached peace to who? Y'all all y'all, he came and 644 00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,720 preached peace to all y'all who were far away and peace to those 645 00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:09,120 who were near A lot of times in our mindset right? 646 00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,280 Like we can place ourself in the in the people who are near, 647 00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,520 right, Because we've been included in this for a long 648 00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,520 time. We now have the Scripture, we 649 00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:18,400 have the New Testament, we have the teaching. 650 00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:21,640 I've been in churches since I would before I was a person. 651 00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,120 I've been in church, right? And so it's easy for me to think 652 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,560 like, no, I've been brought nearby Christ and it's the 653 00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:28,480 people who are outside that are doing all the problems. 654 00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:32,000 But the thing he says is now the people who are near needed peace 655 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:33,600 too. The Jewish people. 656 00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:35,520 Didn't have it all right. They didn't get it all right 657 00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:36,600 either. They were broken. 658 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,360 They were in the sense having the temple didn't make it OK for 659 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:40,920 them. They all needed peace. 660 00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:45,360 They all needed recovery and restoration, just like we do in 661 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,240 verse 18. For through Him we both have 662 00:37:49,240 --> 00:37:53,200 access in one spirit to the Father. 663 00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,560 Peace, this piece that we're talking about, this covenantal 664 00:37:56,560 --> 00:38:00,000 peace, not just with you and you and you and you, right, but this 665 00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,320 relationship, this promised relationship between God and his 666 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,840 people. Peace is the embodied message of 667 00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:12,520 Jesus announced to us, this message, this no longer slaver. 668 00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:14,000 Free. Distinction. 669 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,040 The dividing wall brought down the end of the balustrade, the 670 00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:18,720 crumbling of temple. What did Jesus say? 671 00:38:18,720 --> 00:38:21,320 He says I'll destroy this temple and I'll build it up. 672 00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:23,400 Next week we're going to talk about the temple again, and 673 00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:24,080 about new. Right. 674 00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:25,720 But Jesus. Said, listen, this temple, it's 675 00:38:25,720 --> 00:38:27,680 going away. All of those things, the way 676 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,760 they used to get in those things are are are going away. 677 00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,000 What Jesus said is the things that you think make you 678 00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,320 different and better than someone else don't exist 679 00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,040 anymore. There is only Jesus and those 680 00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,640 who are in him and those who are outside. 681 00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,480 And you know what we call the word lost people, right? 682 00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,080 Do you know what a great way to refer to people who aren't 683 00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:50,280 following Jesus, who don't know Jesus yet? 684 00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,200 A great way to refer to. Them is the ones that Jesus 685 00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:57,000 misses the most. Thank you. 686 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,040 The ones that Jesus. I look at those. 687 00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,880 People and go. Lord, right, it's a tax 688 00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:06,320 collector and a Pharisee. Lord, thank God you didn't make 689 00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,800 me a cowboy fan. Hallelujah, I've been delivered. 690 00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,680 Cowboy fans over there, go and have mercy on me because I've, 691 00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:21,220 you know, I know it. I get it. 692 00:39:21,820 --> 00:39:23,620 There's a lot. Of that going on I know. 693 00:39:29,100 --> 00:39:32,220 The temple makes peace through sacrifice. 694 00:39:32,420 --> 00:39:33,620 That was the point of the temple. 695 00:39:33,620 --> 00:39:37,260 Bring your sacrifices to the altar and have them sacrifice 696 00:39:37,260 --> 00:39:38,660 and then the forgiveness of your sin. 697 00:39:38,660 --> 00:39:40,860 Jesus came and said I'm the sacrifice. 698 00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:45,280 It's not the blood of goats and Rams, it's the blood of covenant 699 00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:50,400 maker, the King who is all things and he makes access for 700 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,400 all of us. So before we move into next 701 00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,640 week's vision of what new the new humanity looks like, I want 702 00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:59,200 us to stop there, OK? And I want us to talk about I 703 00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:02,920 want us to put handles on this. This is counter cultural. 704 00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,600 This is hard. OK, So what are some things that 705 00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:08,880 we can do this week? First, remember. 706 00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:13,600 I mean, spend a lot of time this week thinking about the fact 707 00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,440 that you were excluded. This wasn't for you. 708 00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:22,160 The whole. 1st 2/3 of the book, The Old Testament were about 709 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:24,120 another people in which you weren't included. 710 00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,680 And we can pause and stop and remember, but listen. 711 00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,680 We don't think about our outsidedness to make us ashamed 712 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:32,960 or to make us fearful. We. 713 00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,760 Meditate on it to remind us to be grateful. 714 00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,480 Our remembrance should inspire in US gratitude. 715 00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,440 And so we practice gratitude. The second thing that we can do 716 00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,400 is receive. Receive the grace of 717 00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,440 acceptedness. This Jesus didn't save you for a 718 00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:56,160 religious performance. Jesus didn't include you in a 719 00:40:56,160 --> 00:41:01,240 new cultural identity. He included you in a new kind of 720 00:41:01,240 --> 00:41:04,200 humanity. We're all the distinctions and 721 00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,880 we're all the hostility between you and me. 722 00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:08,640 Go to die. It sounds like I have a little 723 00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,760 work to do, right, Russell? A little cowboy football work. 724 00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,680 He invited us into a new kind of humanity, a new way of life. 725 00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:24,680 And finally reach, remember, and then receive and then reach. 726 00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,240 What I mean is go across the wall. 727 00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,000 I'm not just saying invite someone into your space. 728 00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,720 I'm saying you go to their space. 729 00:41:36,240 --> 00:41:41,440 Have a meal and just listen to them and just understand them. 730 00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,040 This is not I'm going to go have. 731 00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:48,680 I'm going to go grace those liberals with my redemptive 732 00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:50,920 presence, and I'm going to give them the gift of. 733 00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:53,520 Convincing them that they're wrong. 734 00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,680 This is an invitation to put to death the attitudes in you that 735 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,160 cause you to see people in terms other than Jesus. 736 00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:10,080 The idea is to put to death the hostility that makes us respond 737 00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:13,640 in hate and separation and division from other people. 738 00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:20,680 See, we're gathered here in this room on this day as a 739 00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:26,680 congregation of Jesus Church, and our express purpose is to 740 00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:31,440 demonstrate in real time and space the peace that Jesus has 741 00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,600 made lasting and practical for us. 742 00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,120 This is our demonstration. This is our testimony. 743 00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,080 So when we build walls of hostility between people, when 744 00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:47,120 we maintain those walls and we work on them, we are destroying 745 00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:51,440 the reconciled humanity that Jesus died to give his life for. 746 00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,600 When we insist that some are outside and some are inside, 747 00:42:56,600 --> 00:43:00,640 we're destroying what Jesus came to do when we tolerate our own 748 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:02,240 prejudices. Or when we. 749 00:43:02,240 --> 00:43:05,880 Refuse to be curious about whether we have any prejudices. 750 00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,120 We are rebuilding walls that Jesus tore down, and we are 751 00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,920 resisting the peace that Jesus has come to secure for us. 752 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:17,120 But here's the good news. Try as we might, the walls are 753 00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,640 down and there are those who are entering. 754 00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:25,840 Try as we might, the peace has been made and our invitation 755 00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:30,440 isn't to believe in something. Our invitation is to embody 756 00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:35,520 something, to live like this peace, truth. 757 00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:40,200 So let me pray for you for just a minute because I want to 758 00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:41,760 acknowledge that this is difficult. 759 00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:44,840 I want to acknowledge that this is hard. 760 00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:47,960 I want to acknowledge that this is countercultural, that there's 761 00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,640 nothing in our world that tells us that this is the way. 762 00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,760 By the way, that's why Jesus said it's a narrow path. 763 00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:59,320 And listen, some of you are wrestling right now, and I want 764 00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,880 you to know Jesus isn't mad that you're wrestling. 765 00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,800 Jesus isn't mad when he reveals something. 766 00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,120 You know why he reveals? Because he wants to love you in 767 00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:12,600 that sure. He wants to lead us to a 768 00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:14,760 promised land beyond all those things. 769 00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:18,520 So Jesus, I just pray that you would give us peace. 770 00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,600 I pray that you would give us peace Now in this moment, in 771 00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,480 this place, badly broken as we are. 772 00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:27,760 I pray that you would show us your love. 773 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,160 And Lord, help us to be wall Breakers. 774 00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:36,560 And that's a different metaphor, right? 775 00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:38,120 We meet wall builders and all this. 776 00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:40,480 But Lord, help us to break down hostility. 777 00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,680 Help us to actively go into the world for the purpose of 778 00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:48,840 reconciliation. May we never believe that there 779 00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:52,720 are people or groups of people that are categorically excluded 780 00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:57,840 in the promise of God, in the covenant of Jesus, the new 781 00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,440 covenant, his blood which makes peace. 782 00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:08,040 Father God, forgive me. I tolerate too much of this in 783 00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:13,240 my heart. I get angry, I get exercised, 784 00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:20,440 get frustrated, I get sad and I want to scapegoat someone. 785 00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:23,840 Jesus, I just pray that you would. 786 00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,560 Every time that that happens, I pray that there would be like 787 00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:31,080 bells in my head that go off. That's not the Kingdom that you 788 00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:34,400 have invited me into. That's not ultimate reality. 789 00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:37,960 So I pray, Father, that you would give me an apocalypse or 790 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,000 revelation of the new humanity that you have created. 791 00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,760 And I pray that you would help me to walk and lighten in terms 792 00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,320 of that. Jesus, we need your peace today. 793 00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,600 We need your grace. We love you and we thank you, 794 00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,560 and we ask all of these things in your name for your glory. 795 00:45:54,240 --> 00:45:56,280 Amen. Thank you for joining us today. 796 00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,520 River City Church is all about experiencing and expressing 797 00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:02,200 God's love in our lives and community, and we hope that 798 00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:04,240 you've been able to experience that today. 799 00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,400 As grateful as I am that you've spent this time listening in 800 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,440 this morning, this podcast is no substitute for full 801 00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:14,360 participation in a local church. I love it when River City people 802 00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,680 listen to other pastors, but it is those who show up week after 803 00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,600 week faithfully giving their support and time and resources 804 00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,000 that make all of this possible. If we can help you get connected 805 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:28,000 to a local church, pray for you, or support you in any way, click 806 00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:29,720 the link in the description and let us know. 807 00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:32,320 If you'd like to financially support the ministry of River 808 00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,280 City, click the give link on our website in the description. 809 00:46:35,720 --> 00:46:38,400 Don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to share this with 810 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,400 your friends. Thanks so much for listening. 811 00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,560 May the Lord bless and keep you in all grace and peace.