Ephesians 2 (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, ìBut we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour ,î so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isnít for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as weíre called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Luther on Christ Given for Sinners

Hereís our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Martin Luther in his commentary on Galatians. Luther writes, ìI have often proved by experience and still daily find what a hard matter it is to believe that Christ was given, not for the holy, righteous, worthy, and such as were his friends, but Christ was given for the ungodly, for sinners, for the unworthy, and for his enemies, who have deserved Godís wrath and everlasting death.

Let us therefore, Luther says, arm ourselves with these, and like verses of the Holy Scripture, that you may be able to answer the devil when he accuses us, saying, ìYou are a sinner, therefore youíre damned .î.

We respond, ìChrist has given himself for my sins, therefore Satan, you shall not prevail against me when you go about to terrify me in setting forth the greatness of my sins. And so to bring me into heaviness, despair, distrust, contempt, and blaspheming God.

As often as you object that I am a sinner, you call me to remembrance of the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders, and not mine, lie all my sins. For the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Wherefore, when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me, you comfort me above all measure .î. And it is for that reason we open our Bibles today to Ephesians chapter 2, so I have the privilege of reminding you of who this Lord is, who Jesus is.

What a great job I have, what a great ministry the Lord has given me, and that is to proclaim the riches of Christ Jesus to you. There are many reasons our church is growing. Number one, I think itís the quality of the parking lot.

Why do people come? Because they know they want to hear about the Lord Jesus. As youíve heard me talk about many times, you can get motivational speeches and TED talks in many places. But where can I go to receive what we call the ordinary means of grace, where we say to ourselves, ìI want to receive the grace of God ,î and God has ordained it that it is through preaching, through the Lordís supper, and through baptism.

Thatís how Christians grow, thatís what makes Christians respond with gratitude and praise. And today we come to Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 -12, and I have to tell you, itís all about who Jesus is, itís all about the triune God and what Heís done.

And itíll help us to walk with our eyes focused on who He is versus ourselves. You know, when we look to ourselves, thereís nothing but really bad news to see, but thatís why the Lord has us to look up regularly and often.

Paul is a Christ-centered preacher. Paul wants us to remember that. In these days of COVID fog, I donít know if you have COVID fog, but they say up to 30 of people who have had COVID have some kind of COVID neurological fog for up to six months afterwards, kind of this brain fog where you canít concentrate and you canít remember things and you feel sluggish or not sharp.

I just thought that was old age, but I had a CAT scan this week and the doctor said, ìYou know, youíre making good progress .î And I said, ìIím just so tired, though .î He said, ìYour lungs require a lot of energy to be healed, and so youíre probably going to have to take a nap every day .î And so I went home immediately to tell my wife, ìKim, doctorís order, naps every day .î Could you write that down on a script, please?

But thereís also a spiritual kind of fog that we have, and that is we tend to forget things. Thatís one of the reasons why we come back every Lordís Day, the first day of the week, to be reminded of the most important truths in all the world, because weíre a forgetful people.

And thatís exactly what weíre going to look at today in Ephesians chapter 2, something that weíre supposed to remember, and I call it ìThe Forgotten Command .î Itís a command that many of us donít really know about.

If I told you to love God, youíd say, ìI understand that command .î Love your neighbor, donít steal, donít commit adultery, honor your parents. There are many commands that you would say, ìI know those commands .î But today we come to a command that itís easy to forget, and therefore God commands us to do this very thing.

Well, weíre in the book of Ephesians, and before we get into chapter 2, verse 11, itís good to have a little review. Big picture, Iím taking two sermons per chapter, twelve chapters, twelve sermons in total, to get us through the book of Ephesians.

Itís designed to get you to dive deeper, itís designed for you to appreciate it as an overview. Remember, if youíd get a letter from someone that was important, youíd probably read the entire letter at what, sixty sittings?

No, you would read it all at once, and so itís good for us to see the entire flow, and faster preaching like this, I think, assists and augments the local ministry at the church where we go through books of the Bible in a much slower fashion.

Chapter 1, he starts off with a preface, you see it in verses 1 and 2, itís all about grace and peace, and I guess if you were washing a car, my dad would wash the car, then he would give me the chamois, he would give me that piece of leather, smooth leather, and Iíd have to wipe off everything, and it would get full of water sometimes, and I would have to take that chamois and I would just squeeze it out, which was easier to do when youíre fifteen years old and when you have arthritis, like I have, but squeeze it out.

If you wanted to squeeze everything out of the book of Ephesians, it would be grace and peace, Godís demerited favor, and peace, not just an absence of war, but a presence of peace and blessedness, shalom.

He starts off with this great praise, remember, in verse 3 of chapter 1, and I just, every time I read this, when heís talking about God the Father to be blessed, I just think of fireworks, itís just going off and explosions and report, you know, they say with report, and off they go, and I remember last night I had, I found some fireworks in the house, and so I wanted to light one off, just in honor of this passage, and so I put it in the fireplace and made sure it pointed the right way, my wife and my daughter did not like it, but Iím the head of the house, and I lit that thing, and you could just see, and I thought, thatís Ephesians chapter 1, I mean, not my disrespecting my wife, but just this powerful, bright, you know what, I closed my eyes afterwards and I could still see the outline of that burning hot sulfur, and so you could close your eyes and you think, you know what, hereís Ephesians chapter 1, even though Iím sinful, even though youíre sinful, God is to be blessed because, you know what, He chose you in eternity past, He chose you, God chose me, I could say that, Christian, you could say that, and He should have sent His Son to come and judge me, and He sends His Son to die for me, Jesus redeemed me, He got me out of the slave pit of sin, and to make sure I couldnít lose what He did, He gave me the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of promise, and He sealed me to the day of redemption, and you can imagine a guy like Paul, who thought he needed to work his way to heaven by pharisaical keeping the law, when he realized it was grace, it was over for Paul, it was fireworks in the fireplace every night for Paul, this is 25 years later, and Paul is still saying, this is how great God is, then at the end of the chapter, he has a prayer request for the church, thereís Thanksgiving involved, but itís essentially the prayer for the church, that they would understand these truths more deeply, that they would say to themselves, you know, I have it intellectually, but now Iím growing in my emotional attachment, and my volitional attachment, and Iím really grasping, this is exactly who this God is, He is worthy to be worshipped.

Paul then goes to chapter 2, that we saw last week, in a very, very familiar and famous passage, chapter 2, verses 1 -10, Paul talks a little bit about what we were, what the Lord did, and then the results, what we were, remember the three words, who can remember the three words, they all started with D, that describe verses 1, 2 and 3, anybody, you can say them out loud, yes, there we go, dead, dominated and doomed, welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church, when I was on the phone, I told you the story, and I have to be nice on the phone, even though Iím trying to get something done, if I see, think thereís an injustice with customer service, Iím just going to go all the way, but I have to be nice, because at the end of the call, they always say, whatís your email, bbcpastor at bbcchurch .org, I should just get a fake Google account, and so this one time, a lady said, oh, youíre a pastor, and I said, guess what I do for a living, oh, youíre a pastor, I said, yes, I am, and now she wants to kind of talk my language a little bit, even though she probably works for AT &T, and sheís like, I listen to Joe Osteen all the time, I thought, M80ís in the fireplace, I said, well, you know what, I donít think you should listen to Joe Osteen anymore, because he says things like this, I donít like to talk about sin, because people all know theyíre sinful, and I said, but it was the Lord Jesus, and those he sent, like the Apostle Paul, that want to talk about sin, because when you realize your prior state, and you realize your current state, all because of what God did, thereís praise, thereís thanksgiving, it is good to look back and say, I remember, you know, the old movie title, The Way We Were, and the way we were, we were dead, and we were dominated by all kinds of lust, the worldís Satan, the system of the air, and we were enslaved, we couldnít get out, and the end for us, do you see at the end of verse 3, children of wrath, it was going to be literally hell to pay, we thought we were free, we thought we were alive, we thought we had free will to do whatever we wanted, and we were enslaved and headed for wrath, I mean, itís one thing to say to yourself, when Judy Bowman and Ruth Bolivar close their eyes, and they wake up as it were, in the presence of God, as a friend and a savior, what would it be like if your whole life you think, everythingís good between God and I, I do more good than bad, and you die, and youíre hoping for the best, and you wake up, and itís going to be doom, we need to be rescued, every single one of us, and so everything turns with the hinge of verse 4, does it not, of chapter 2, but God, not and God judged, therefore God exacted justice, but God, and you see words like mercy, and love, and grace, and kindness, I didnít mention it much last week, but if you take a look at verse 5, made us alive together with Christ, we were dead and He makes us alive, this reminds me of John chapter 11, does it remind you of John 11, thereís Lazarus in the tomb, and heís dead, how dead is Lazarus?

Heís dead, dead, heís 4 days dead, and Jesus says, Lazarus, what? Arise, and He makes, I like kids, who likes kids sounds? I do, most days, Iím just kidding, Iíd rather have a kid cry, or say mom, mom, mom, anytime, than having some Kenny Loggins music break out on a ringtone, was that 2 weeks ago that it happened here?

Plus, some people think Jesus looks like Kenny Loggins, that makes it all the worse, we do not know what He looked like, Lazarus, arise, and thatís a good picture of God, the triune God, weíre dead in trespasses and sins, dominated by the world, and Satan, and our own lust, and doomed, and God says, youíre alive, and He makes you alive, we use that language of born again, born from above, and God sovereignly, God monergistically, mono erg, working alone, God working alone, says, youíre alive, and if it was a cooperation, we did it together, then the praise would be dimmed, if itís all God, and itís all His glory, then we say, to God be the glory, great things He has done, the vilest offender, who truly believes.

Paul says, you share in His triumph, right here in this passage, youíre raised, youíre seated, youíre ascended with the throne Christ, and may we never think, God was really mad at us, the Father, the Son assuaged the wrath of God, now God can be nice to us, because of Jesus, no, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in eternity past, loved sinners, and went, and sent the Lord Jesus to rescue sinners, for by grace youíve been saved through faith.

Just a great passage, and now we come to chapter 2, verse 11, and following the great and forgotten command, and that command is, remember, itís found right there in chapter 2, verse 11, second word, therefore remember, thereís a man named Harry Ironside, and he was on a train, he was going from Chicago, he was a pastor at Moody Church, Chicago, taking a train back in the old days, to Los Angeles, to preach, and a gypsy came up, and she wanted to read his poem, and Ironside said, are you sure you can do this, you see Iím Scottish, and I wouldnít want to part with my silver, my money, without getting full value for it, oh yes, gentlemen, please, I will tell you all, so Ironside gets out his New Testament out of his pocket, and he said, itís not really necessary for you to tell my fortune, because I have a book that gives me my past, present and future, let me read it to you, Ephesians chapter 2, hereís my past, you were dead in trespasses and sins, thatís my past, the woman said, thatís enough, I donít want to hear anymore, Ironside said, but wait, thereís more, hereís my present, because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made me alive together with Christ, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, no more, she said, Ironside, here too is my future, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in kindness to us in Christ Jesus, the gypsy, according to the account, ran away, and screamed out, I took the wrong man, I took the wrong man, thatís our past, present and future, but Paulís not quite done yet, he says, you know what, before God, on a vertical level, we were estranged, Jesus did something, because he was sent by the father, and the work was applied by the spirit, and thereís some good results that come out of that, but on a horizontal level, thatís true as well, and thatís what Paul addresses here, not just our relationship to God, but what about relationship to other people, and therefore he says, remember, and if the first 10 verses could be summarized by two words, but God, verse 4, this section could be summarized by two words in verse 13, but now, but God, but now, let me give you three things that you should remember from this passage, so that you can remember properly, and not forget, three simple commands, before I give the commands, letís take a look at verses 11 and 12, and flesh this out a little bit, ìTherefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world .î Here is the first imperative, thereís not another imperative in chapter, until chapter 4, verse 25, I believe, typically Paul has a lot of information up front, the first three chapters, and then hereís how we live it out with some imperatives, but now he gives us this imperative, and he wants us to remember something, by the way, remember isnít, I just thought of it again, for instance, this June, June 6th, Kim and I will be married, 33 years, and I want to remember that anniversary, itís easy to remember, because itís D-Day, of course, very romantic, what if I just say to myself, ìHoney, I remembered our anniversary .î When you remember something, you do something about it, when God remembered Noah, He did something, He already knew all about Noah, but the language is, you remember so that you do something, ìI remember our anniversary, and therefore Iím going to take you out on a romantic weekend, Iím going to take you to Rome, Iím going to take you someplace, weíre going to do something, I bought these gifts for you, I wrote these poems for you ,î whatever they are, ìI remember, and then I did something, it moves me to do something ,î similarly here, itís not just, ìOkay, Iíve got this mentally down ,î no, Paul wants the church at Ephesus, and every other church in the area, and every church since then, including ours, to remember, so it moves us to do something, and hereís what itís supposed to move you to do, to be thankful, to have a grateful heart, to be humble, to not think weíre so great, Paul wants us to look back at the saving work of Jesus, did you know John Newton, that writer of amazing grace, had on his desk a verse, some people put verses on their desks, or up on the wall, hereís John Newton, the slave trader, and then slave himself, before he got saved, hereís the verse on his desk, Deuteronomy 15, 15, ìRemember that you were a bondman in the land of Egypt, and thy Lord redeemed thee .î Remember, thatís a common thing in the Old Testament, to remember and not forget, remember Psalm 103, ìBless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of thy benefits .î Deuteronomy 5, ìYou shall remember that you were a slave .î Deuteronomy 8, ìYou shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness .î Deuteronomy 9, ìRemember, do not forget .î Deuteronomy 16, ìYou shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt .î So the first thing Paul wants us to remember, found in verses 11 and 12, is your past, super easy, I donít always do alliteration, but itís been coming up quite a bit lately, hereís the outline, ìRemember your past, remember your peace, and remember your place .î Remember your past, remember your peace, remember your place.

Remember Your Past and Your Gentile Heritage

First letís look at, ìRemember your past or your heritage .î Verse 11 and verse 12, ìWhat was your status if you were a Gentile before you got saved ?î Now there might be a few Jewish people here, of Jewish origin, but typically, as I look around, we are Gentiles.

What was our status? And Iíll just give you the big picture, and then weíll dive into the details. When you look at the sun and the moon and the stars, that canít save you. You canít say, ìIíve sinned against this Creator, Iím going to need a blood sacrifice, Iím going to need a Messiah whoís truly God and truly man who will die in my place and prove that Heís victorious over death by raising Himself from the dead and ascended into Heaven.

I need this God-man to intercede for me even today as Iím on the earth .î You canít get that from looking up at the sky. You can get power, wisdom, might. So youíre going to need special revelation. Youíre going to need not general truths, but special truths, specific truths.

Things that say, ìYouíre a sinner and you need to have your sins paid for by you or another .î Youíre going to need to have details. If youíre a Gentile running around worshiping trees and bugs and scarab beetles, and you see the sky, you donít see anything except, ìThereís enough up there to judge me but not save me .î Youíre going to need to be around special revelation, special things that tell you exactly who the God is, what Heís done, how weíve sinned against Him, how it can be repaired and breached.

Youíre going to need special revelation. And guess which country, nation rather, God said gets the special revelation? The Amalekites? The Hittites? The Jezreelites? If we had young kids, weíd say things like, ìThe Electrolytes?

The Cellulites ?î Theyíre like, ìI donít even get that as a kid .î Youíre going to have to have special revelation. And guess what? Itís through Israel. Israel is the nation. Well, if youíre a Gentile, youíre not close to Israel, and Paul is going to remind all of us.

We not only were dead in trespasses and sins, we werenít even close to any information to help us with special revelation because we werenít part of Israel. Weíre Gentiles. My ancestors were in Germany worshiping trees.

Weíre in Africa worshiping trees. Weíre worshiping animals and bugs and all these other kind of things. We need to be close to Israel or else thereís no special revelation. Thatís the big picture here.

Now, sin splits up people, and Gentiles hated Jews, and Jews hated Gentiles. So much so, and Iíll just make a passing comment, but itís in the Greek and you get the idea of how much derision they had.

You formally, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called, itís nice there in the English Bible, ìuncircumcision by the Jews .î Remember God gives to Abraham the right of circumcision to set apart his people, and the males would be circumcised, and those slaves who were added in would be circumcised, and you either circumcised or you werenít circumcised.

Here the word in English is ìuncircumcision ,î but deridedly called by the Jews, and the Greek word is ìthe foreskin .î Weíre the circumcised, theyíre the foreskins. Now, it was a good division, but the Jews had torqued it.

The big picture though is, we are far away from Israel, and thereís a divide even among the people. Iím far from Israel, the Israelites donít like me, what am I going to do? No Israel, no salvation. No Israel, no special revelation.

No Israel, which is Godís ordained salvation instrument, no heaven. And so Paul says, ìI want you to remember .î And look at all the things he says to remember. You could just go right down the list, right there in those two verses, and you would see five things that we were not having for us.

While Romans 9 says the Israelites are given adoption of sons, and glory, and covenants, and the giving of law, and the temple services. We didnít have any of those. Look, this is for all of us. All of us as Gentiles, we were separated from Christ.

Christ, thatís the word for Messiah. Thatís the Jewish word for Messiah. We werenít close to the Jewish Messiah. And by the way, Heís the only Messiah. So if youíre not close to the Messiah, the Messiah in Hebrew, in Israel, youíre not having any hope of salvation.

Without Christ, separate from no captain, no high priest, no prophet, no king, because the Jews had Him, we didnít, we were separated. And Paul wants to say, yes, dead in trespasses and sins, chapter 2, verse 1 and following, but also not close to anything thatís going to give us hope.

Destitute of the knowledge of the Old Testament that talked about the Messiah would come the first time, and the Messiah would come the second time. No expectation of a Savior. He goes on to show you how far away we were, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.

And again, if anybody that you know needs to hear the Gospel, you go share the Gospel with them. You preach the Gospel to them. You evangelize them. If any person needed to be saved back in those days, it was not you, it was Israel.

And we werenít close to Israel. Additionally, strangers to the covenant of promise. We as Gentiles, our past, we werenít close to the Davidic covenant. We didnít have the Abrahamic covenant details right before our eyes in the Hebrew manuscripts.

And when you look at the Abrahamic covenant, what do you see? The promise to send the Messiah. We were far from that. We didnít know anything about it. Acts 13, ìWe preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers .î Not close.

What does he say there? This is logically flowing from the first three. Having no hope. Israelís hope. Israelís coming hope. Nothing. Whatís the opposite of hopeful? Not a trick question. Last week I got you the trick question.

Hopeless. Weíre hopeless. Not close to Israel. Hopeless. Weíre already dead in trespasses and sins and then we have no idea of what to do or what to do about it or could anything be done. Galatians 3, ìAll the nations shall be blessed in you .î Abraham.

Hopeless. No Messiah, no hope. Oh well, maybe thereís a little hope. Iíll cross my fingers and hope that I make it across that threshold of death. Maybe God, you know, I think Heís supposed to be immutable, means He doesnít change.

But maybe He changes a little bit. And maybe Heíll change and be a little less holy on the day I die. Maybe Heíll be a little less omniscient, a little less knowing of all things on the day I die. Maybe that would be my hope, but itís all hopeless.

And look what it says there at the end, ìWithout God in the world .î You probably know that Greek word, ìWithout God .î A-the-ist. Theyíre without God. Atheists. Not even close. 1 Thessalonians 4, ìNot in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God .î Every one of us, dead in sins and God forsaken and not close to knowing anything about God because we had to be close to Israel.

And then we come from a desert to a gushing fire hydrant of blessings. Dead in trespasses and sins, chapter 2 verse 4, ìBut God .î No hope, no God, no covenants, no Israel, no special revelation. Verse 13, ìBut now .î Oh, everything turns just like it did earlier.

ÌBut now in Christ, you who are once far off, Gentiles, have been brought near by the blood of Christ .î Oh, this is so good. Now we move to remember your peace. Remember your past. Okay, my past is not only chapter 2, 1 to 3, Iím dominated and doomed and dead, but also Iím not close to anything that would give me any hope.

Except the Lord Jesus shows up now, and I said for my point here, remember your peace for the command because Heís called that. Itís interesting, look at chapter 2 verse 13 and 14, ìBut now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace, who made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility .î If youíre a Gentile, you had no Messiah of Israel.

But now, if youíre a Gentile, no citizenship in Israel, but now, no hope, but now, itís a dramatic change. And thatís exactly what the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus does. Now, in the old days, what youíd do is youíd think, okay, weíre far and weíre brought near.

And hereís the concept of the whole thing. You go to the temple, and of course in the temple, and you probably have a picture of the temple in the back of your book, the Bible, and youíve got the Holy of Holies, canít go in there except the high priest once a year.

Then youíve got the holy place, canít go in there. And youíve got different courts, and you start going out a little bit. Youíve got the court of the women. Gentiles couldnít go in any of those courts because if they did, they would be killed.

There were signs up that we found actually archaeologically. If you are a Gentile and you go past this sign, be ready to be killed. So geographically, theyíre far away. How close can you get to the temple?

How close can you get to God? How close can you get to the holy place? Answer, youíre far off. And Paul is talking about that very thing. And he says, but you can get close, not to the real temple, by the way thatís been destroyed at 70 AD.

But how do you get close to the triune God of Israel when youíre far away? What does the text say? Have been brought near by the blood of Christ. What does that mean, the blood? Platelets? Plasma? What does it mean, the blood of Christ?

We talked about this in chapter 1. It has nothing to do with red blood cells, white blood cells. It has to do with a theological shorthand for vicious death, bloody death, gory death, violent death. Not everybody bleeds when they die.

You can die in a comfortable bed and just die of old age and thereís no blood. But if there is blood, that should tell you something. Something has happened. And in this particular case, when you think about the blood of the lamb and the blood of the Passover lamb, I mean, can you imagine just taking a little lamb into your home and loving that lamb and being kind to that lamb and naming that lamb?

What would you name a lamb if you had a lamb to name? Fluffy? Snow White? And youíd love that lamb. You could start teaching that lamb little dog tricks. Come, stay, go, sit, bite. I used to say that to my dog, ìBite !î.

Then one day you realize, you know what? There has to be a sacrifice for sins and the wages of sin is death. And we can have a substitute, that little lamb that we love. Just imagine the kids and the parents too, bawling their eyes out.

But itís better for that lamb to die than the children to die and the parents to die and those in the house that would die, the nation to die. And so when you see blood, itís just shorthand for Jesus.

He wasnít just living a life and died in old age. They did this to Him. We did this to Him. The word blood is where we get our word, hemorrhage. Thatís the Greek word, hematology. So when we sing songs about thereís power in the blood, weíre not talking about thereís power in the blood to fight leukemia.

Weíre talking about thereís power in the vicarious, vicious, sacrificial death of Jesus. How much power is there? Youíve got Jews and Gentiles. Could they ever get along, circumcised, uncircumcised? How could they ever get together?

And theyíre going to need to get together because God has always planned the Gentiles to also believe in this God of Israel. Violent death on the cross. You can die without losing your blood, but if you see blood, youíre going to think violence.

And thatís exactly what it was. Verse 14, ìHe Himself is our peace .î Heís called peace. It doesnít say He Himself is called peace, although thatís true. It doesnít say He made peace, although thatís true.

Heís our peace. Itís just a good name for Jesus, peace. Heís the Prince of Peace. We call Him other names, the bread of life, resurrection and the life. He is our peace. And the text is in the original, He and nobody else.

Why do we preach at this church and why must you preach every Christian that thereís only one way of salvation? The world hates it. The world doesnít like it. There are many ways to God. By the way, between us, every religion does take you to God.

Thatís a true statement. Every religion takes you to Godís judgment, because every religion says, ìDo something .î And you think you can assuage Godís wrath by doing. And unless itís perfect doing, entire doing, exact doing, itís impossible because of Adamís sin.

But even if it theoretically was possible, it would have to be perfect doing. And so you think, you know, youíre climbing up this ladder to see God and His judgment. Thatís why Jesus is here, He and no other.

No help from anybody else. The God-man alone. And Heís our peace. Heís our shalom. Heís our wholeness. Heís our fullness. Hugh Latimer, who died for his faith hundreds of years ago, said, ìJesus is our preservation from damnation.

Heís our comfort. Heís our help, our remedy. When we feed upon Him, then we shall have remission of our sins .î The same remission of sins is the greatest and most comfortable thing that can be in the world.

What a more comfortable thing is this? Your sins are forgiven. And this proclamation is cried out daily by His preachers, which proclamation is the word of grace, the word of comfort and consolation. ÌFor like as sin is the most fearful and most horriblest thing in the world, so the most comfortablest thing is the remedy against sin, the Lord Jesus .î Heís the answer.

Heís our answer. Micah 5, ìThis one will be our peace .î Not just an absence of war, like the Greeks thought, but the presence of something, blessing. And what did this great God do? He made peace with God, of course, Romans 5.

But look at specifically here in verse 14, ìWho made both groups into one ?î How do you get Gentiles and Jews to like each other? And again, it wasnít just the Jews who called the Gentiles bad names. The Gentiles called Jews bad names.

And by the way, if you were a Greek, and you were, therefore you were a Gentile, and you met other Gentiles who werenít Greek, you were a Greek and they were a barbarian. So even within the Gentiles they had hatred for one another.

How can these two groups be together in one? And theyíre going to have to be, because we have worship services for both Gentiles and Jews, because thereís only one God. How did He do it? Verse 14, do you notice?

He broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. Whatís the dividing wall? Now you might be thinking, ìOh, that kind of reminds me of the curtain that was torn in the temple from top to bottom to give us access to God, free access, not just the high priests, not just the priests, not just the men, not just the Levites, not just the women, but Gentiles as well .î Thatís true, thatís back there, but here specifically, ìBy abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that He might create in Himself one new man in the place of two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, therefore killing the hostility .î Okay, weíll have to make this simple, because time is fleeting.

One of the things I love about preaching is I look down at my watch and Iím like, ìI just canít believe it, I just spoke for 38 minutes .î And if youíre listening and youíre engaged, youíre like, ìWell, keep going, that seemed like it was fast .î Remember when I first started going to churches, Iím thinking, ìOh man, I canít believe theyíre talking for more than 15 minutes of this sermon, Iím dying .î All of a sudden you get saved and youíre like, ìI want to know the truth .î Godís law reflects His character.

Godís holy and just, and His law reflects that. And if you think of the moral law, if you think of the Ten Commandments, those arenít abolished, those go on, and you see almost every one of those Ten Commandments reiterated in the New Testament.

But God had something set up that what we might call ceremonial law. I mean, the civil law, how does Israel work as a country? Okay, well, weíre not thinking about that. Moral law, Ten Commandments, Iím not thinking about that.

But God had other ceremonial laws, and those ceremonial laws did a lot of things, point to Jesus, remind of sin. But there are other ceremonial laws that just made people different. I remember people would say, ìWell, you know, God really knew when He told the Jews, He knew about trigonosis, and so therefore donít eat a lot of pork, because God already knew donít eat pork, trigonosis .î Is that why God said donít eat pork?

God said donít eat pork to the Jews, because all the Gentiles are eating pork. How do we make ourselves different? Just like with the sign of circumcision, sign and seal of circumcision. Everybody else just has a kid, and you Israelites on the eighth day, by the way, when potassium K is at its highest for blood coagulation, circumcise your son.