A People Brought Near

Zechariah’s Vision of the Nations Seeking the Lord

The Old Testament scripture reading this morning we found in Zechariah chapter 8, verses 20 through 23. Please stand in honor of God's word. Thus says the Lord of hosts, people shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities.

The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts. I myself am going. Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, in those days, 10 men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, let us go with you. We have heard that God is with you. New Testament scripture reading will be found in Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 through 20.

The Great Commission and Christ’s Authority

Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

You may be seated.

Well, good morning.

Now as a forewarning, confess together. If you look in your bulletin, there's that word Catholic. It's not capitalized, so don't let it scare you. It just means universal, okay? Always seem to get that question, which is a rightful question to have.

We don't wanna be confessing Catholic, capital C doctrine. So when we confess that after the preaching of the word, that C there, it just simply means the universal church, the church universal, okay?

That's just as a forewarning. But I ask you to open up your Bibles to Ephesians, chapter two, please, the book of Ephesians. We'll read 11 to 22, and we'll go to the Lord in prayer. So Ephesians chapter two, verse 11.

Remembering Our Former Separation from Christ

Therefore, 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.

And so therefore, you had no hope, and you were without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came and he preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both, Jew and Gentile, have access in one spirit to the father. So then you are no longer strangers and you're no longer aliens, but rather you're fellow citizens with the saints.

And so therefore, members of the household of God. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. Let us pray to our God. Oh God in heaven, what a wondrous, what a beautiful text we have before us. Lord, our world is filled with hatred.

It's filled with disunity. It's filled with division. Where there is any kind of unity, it is in sin and it's in rebellion against you. What a wretched state the world is in. But Lord, you in kindness, you looked upon the world with love and with mercy in your eyes, you brought together a people to be unified.

And not just that peace would happen or hostilities would cease, but that we would actually be active in being the dwelling place of God. Not only do we go from fighting each other to being at peace, but we actually are actively involved in a purpose and that purpose is the purpose that you have for all of creation.

And that is to be a display of your glory or the dwelling place of God. Oh Father, with this purpose in mind, how can we lack unity with one another? With Jesus doing the work, how can we not be a people that love one another as we love Jesus?

Oh God in heaven, we need your help. And so I thank you for this word. I thank you for this truth. Oh Lord, I pray that you would use me to proclaim it accurately and that the people would receive it well.

Lord, be glorified in this, we ask and pray in Jesus' name, amen. So we live in a world that is following the prince of the power of the air, who is a spirit that has work in the sons of disobedience, as we learned last week or a few weeks ago, I should say.

Cultural Individualism and the Church’s Need for Community

And so anytime we see a cultural obsession, it is an interesting affair to see the obsession and see how it is the doing of the evil one and how it needs to be turned for truth once more. And we see this across the board.

This is something that you should be teaching yourself and teaching your children, that when the culture is obsessed with something, it's always wrong. It's always twisted. And there's a way to untwist it in Christ and make it renewed again.

And the obsession I wanna look at today in light of our section of text that we have here that'll take several weeks to get through is the obsession with individualism, with isolationism, with a lack of community.

If you notice Christianity, not that everything was perfect in America, I don't ever wanna sound like that, but it's fascinating to see the culture's shift into more paganism and to see certain Christian ideals kind of torn away.

And one of those things is a lack of community, a lack of togetherness and isolationism and individualism, one in which there is no coming together of groups of people, but rather we prize this idea of being the individual, of being isolated from others, of being left to our own thing.

In fact, this, of course, like it always does, carries over to the church. It carries over to religion in which a big mantra is I don't need religion, I just need a relationship with Jesus. And it sounds good on paper.

In fact, I remember when I first came to Christ going to a big evangelical church, I heard that often, and it was really helpful for me to know that the core of Christianity is having a relationship with God through Jesus.

I don't wanna throw that away at all. That is the core of Christianity for you to know right now is that you can be forgiven of your sins and have a relationship with God through Jesus. That is beautiful.

But we don't wanna throw the baby out with the bathwater. We don't wanna start saying these things like I don't need religion, I just need a relationship. No, you do need religion. You do need the gathered saints.

You do need the church. We do need the people of God coming together to be unified for one cause because that is actually what Jesus has done. Now, in verses one through 10, we talked on the individual level.

You remember?

You, if you are in Christ right now, you were once dead in your sins. You loved sin. You desired it.

You did it.

You were a slave to it. But individually, God, if you are in Christ, has brought you out of that state miraculously to desire him now through forgiveness of sins. That is what the gospel is. It's a work done in you through Jesus to bring you into union with him.

Now, that's an individual affair as we've seen in one through 10. But I think Paul then goes back and he kinda says the same thing. Remember that one time when you were dead in your sins, but he's gonna talk about in a group level now.

Now, if we see, you think of the book of Revelation. You guys as a church went through that recently, kind of-ish, with Pastor Tim. And you remember he had the proper interpretation where the book of Revelation is John given the same vision from a different angle over and over again.

If that's a proper way to read Revelation so it doesn't turn into a tangled mess is that it's one revealing, one revelation that he gives from different angles, right? And I think Paul is doing something similar here.

He's going back saying, okay, again, remember when you were dead. But now it's from the angle of a community, not just the individual, but a community, a group of people that have been brought together for the purpose of salvation.

In other words, salvation is not just an individual affair, although it is. It is a group affair. God is not just saving individuals, he's saving the church, the church, the religion, the group of people coming together.

So as much as it is a miracle to bring someone from hating God to loving God and salvation, it is a miracle to bring individuals who hate each other together to be God's dwelling place on earth. Jesus lets the hating go on and make it terrible as we will get through in the sermon.

I don't want to jump too far ahead here. So that he would be glorified in his ability to then bring them back together in unity for the sake of the glory of God. This is what's the main point as we look at it from 11 to 20.

Is that it's not just the individual, but it's a group of people, it's people coming together in salvation. So if God showed he can do that to a people who hated each other most, like Jew and Gentile, he can certainly do it for people like us in LaRue, right?

It's a lesser, greater to lesser argument. If God can display that ability in the greatest way that two people who hate each other the most, Jew and Gentile came together in the first century, surely he can do it with us, right?

Surely he can do it with your spouse. Surely he can do it with your brother or sister in Christ. He's done it to the nth degree, he shall do it for you here. I think this is what we're gonna look at in 11 through 20, 20, two.

Is that he's done it to the greater of unity with two people who hate each other, and he can surely do it to the lesser for me and you. And just like in Christ, just like Christ, in Christ, that was what the needed ingredient, if I may use that language, for your individual salvation.

So in Christ is needed for that group salvation, that church salvation, that groups of people coming together. Jesus needs to be that cornerstone. So if you lack love for the saints, for the brethren, it is a Jesus problem in your own life.

So that's the things I want you to have in your mind as we go through these verses, this from individual to a group level, coming together and loving unity for the sake of being the dwelling place of God.

Now let's begin. In verse 11, you see that, therefore, remember, he says in verse 11 in your text. Therefore, remember. He's going back, doing the same thing.

Therefore, remember.

I'm going back where we're gonna see this from a little different angle, and he tells us to remember. Now I've already made a point of that, of the need for the Christian to remember. We are remembering people.

God has gifted you with memory. God has gifted you with the ability to remember. God always has his people to remember. That is a gift given to you for your good, beloved,.

Your memory.

We are Ebenezer people. We are the type of people that raise up an Ebenezer stone, like in 1 Samuel chapter seven, in which it was a stone to remind the Israelites that God had protected them from the Philistines.

They would look at the stone.

And remember God protected us from our enemies. We are the same type of people like the 12 stones that were pulled out of the Jordan River and placed on land in Joshua four to remind the Israelites that God opened up a way in the Jordan to get them into the promised land.

They needed to remember the works of God. We are the type of people like the Israelites who had a Passover meal each year to remind them of how they were brought out of slavery onto life. We are remembering people.

God always calls his people to remember. Memories are a gift from God, whether good or bad. Your bad memories are a gift from God in the life of Christ. They are meant to remind us of the way God works in our lives.

That is what your memories are for. You are to set up reminders for yourself. Memories are a gift from God to make timeless realities of God's work fresh in your hearts today. You get that? Memories are meant to make timeless realities of God's work fresh in your heart today, which will then spur you on to present action.

You get in the line of thought there. Your memories are a gift from God to remind you of timeless things that God has done for you in salvation, to remember those things, which will then spur you on to present action.

Memory is needed. God calls us to remember because it brings us unto present action, especially in the moment of temptation to sin, especially in the moment when you do not want to be obedient to God, especially in those moments in our present context when you do not want to love the brethren, when you do not want to love your spouse, you do not want to love those who are in the community of God.

He calls you, remember where you came from and what God has done for you, and that will spur you on to proper obedience. We are remembering people. Always remember, especially in light of temptation to sin, remember the Lord.

That is the blessed words of, supposedly, a Peter to his wife before she was martyred. Peter, the apostle Peter, now this isn't the Bible, but supposedly, Peter's wife was being taken away to be martyred, and Peter, the apostle Peter, tells his wife, remember the Lord, remember the Lord.

In our greatest trials and our greatest temptations and our greatest hardships, we must remember what God has done in salvation. If you're not remembering, you will falter. And so, Paul tells us, therefore, remember.

Now, before he gets to the substance of what the Gentiles, or what we need to remember, he kind of gets on a sidebar for a moment. He kind of interrupts his thought. It's a divine interruption. And that interruption's really helpful for the whole context of the verses.

So look at that interruption in his thought. Look at it real quick. So verse 11, therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles, and then he gets kind of get caught up. He says, in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made by the flesh by hands, remember that you were, and then he kind of reintroduces his thought.

So he gets kind of caught up there, but it's really a helpful caught up because it explains a lot of the context of the verses before us. And so let's look at that verse there, and let's dwell there, because I think it's going to help us in the coming weeks in looking at these verses rightly.

He says, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, who are called the uncircumcision, that's what people call you, and you're called that by people who are called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

So we see there's two main things.

I want to grab from there.

There's two main things, is that there is a natural hatred going on in that verse. You see, think of that as you're called this by other people, it's name calling. It's name calling. You have the uncircumcised Gentiles who are not circumcised, and the Jewish circumcised people call them names.

And what do they call them in derision? Those are the uncircumcised people. Those are the uncircumcised. And it's a name of not endearment, but of hatred. It underlines the fact, Paul is underlining the fact that there was hostility between this group of people and that group of people.

Remember that time when you guys were once hostile towards one another, the uncircumcised, right? As you were once called. So he's highlighting a natural hostility between two groups of people. And it was driven by the worship or the ordinance that God had laid out of circumcision.

Those are two main things I wanna focus on right now because it's really gonna help us. So keep with me, keep your mind active here. Is that he is talking about the hostility between two groups of people because they're a natural hatred for each other that was driven further by the fact that God instituted the worship or the ordinance of circumcision.

That's going to make sense in the big picture. Let us spend a few moments getting there though. So look at that division because these verses are about division. It's about the fact that there was once people who hated each other and Jesus brought these hatred people that hated each other together as a dwelling place of God.

And so he's gonna underline that he's underlining that division in that verse right there. So we gotta understand that in our sin, there's that natural hatred that we have for neighbor. There's that natural hatred that we have for neighbor.

Let's look at that. It's worth looking at that natural hatred that Jesus fixes. But go back to Genesis three, if you don't mind. We talked about in verses one through 10 of Ephesians two, we talked about that natural division that we had with the father, with God in our sin.

Remember what happened to Adam in Genesis three, three eight, is it? Three eight, yeah. And they heard the sound of the Lord, God walking in the garden, the cool of the day. And instead of going to God in fellowship,.

What did they do?

They ran away, right? There's that lack of fellowship. There's that enmity now that's signifying, that's showing that enmity now between Adam and God. And we talked about that in light of Ephesians two, one through 10.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We didn't desire God, we desired sin. And this is highlighting that. But you gotta understand that sin did something else too. Sin didn't just create an issue this way between God and man, but sin created an issue between man and man.

It's that horizontal issue as well. And we see that dripping out from this original sin as well. Look at Genesis three, 12. You gotta see it with a theological framework, with a mindset on the whole scriptures.

When in chapter three, verse 12, you remember what the man said when he's caught in his sin? He says, the man said, the woman whom you gave to me, she gave me the fruit and I ate. Can you sense the hostility there?

Right?

The woman you gave to me, she did this. Thanks, thanks God for giving me that woman, right? You can sense the enmity between a married couple, right? That's all too often today. And we see the Genesis of it right here.

Part of the pun. And then we see it the other way around in the curse given to Eve. You remember that curse given to Eve in chapter three, verse 16? To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing, and pain you shall bring forth children.

And look at this, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. What that's underlining is the fact that the wife is not going to want to fulfill her godly role to submit to her husband.

She's not gonna like the idea of her husband having that role of being a leader. She's gonna fight against it. There's going to be enmity in the very basic fabric of the marriage relationship. And you gotta understand that originally it was understood.

Without sin, it's understood the wife had a certain role and it's a blessed role. It's a great role of submission to the husband. And now we have this idea that that is completely, whatever you want to call it, bigoted, racism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

It's a terrible thing to consider such a thing. But that's really, beloved, just underlying the enmity between man and woman, man and man, right there at the basic relationship of the marriage relationship.

It's a basic one between two individuals and there's enmity now between the two. And it just goes out of control, right? Eve, Adam and Eve have a couple children and one murders the other, right? This enmity between man and man is not the cute little things, it is serious.

There's not murder between two individuals. Man truly does hate man. Now that sin has entered into the world. We gotta understand that we were made to love each other as we focused on God. We were made to love one another as we focused our attention on God.

But when we lose our focus off of God and it goes on anything else, which it goes to typically ourselves as idols, we no longer have the ability to love each other truly. Have you ever noticed how much people love to be in communion with one another and their focus is on a third party?

Have you ever noticed that? I remember going to a lot of concerts in my youth and we, you know, the people love it, right? You're all together and your focus is on a third party. Or you think of a play, you think of a movie, you think of a sports game.

People love being in community with their focus on a third party. And I think that's underlining this natural thing that should be in us, that we should be people in communion with one another with our focus upon God and that enables a love for one another.

But the moment that focus on God becomes anything else, that love is now gone. And now there is no unity between one another. And so what we're seeing is the focus went off of God with Adam and Eve, and then it brought disunity or enmity or lack of peace between others.

And now we bear the fruit of that today. We gotta understand that there's a natural division.

Between man and man.

And we see this in even Ephesians 2. We see it in Ephesians 2, right? This hatred between Jew and Gentile. But we gotta understand that that natural enmity division is furthered or exacerbated or made worse by God himself when he sets up the covenant of circumcision.

Now, I want you to be thinking,.

Why would God make it worse so that Jesus can make it better? So just keep that in the back of your mind. But nevertheless, that division is driven because true worship is structured or enabled by God.

And that only makes the division between man and man worse. Well, if you notice, we see the beginnings of that. If you look in scripture, have you ever noticed in scripture that division between true worshipers of God and non-true worshipers of God, and there becomes a growing divide between those two people?

And we see in Genesis 4, have you ever noticed the line of Cain? The line of Cain, who is the one who killed his brother? In verse 23, we see it kind of crescendoing on Lamech. 23, Lamech said to his wives after he had killed a man, he says, Ada, or Eda, I say Ada, I don't think that's proper though.

Ada and Zillah, hear my voice. You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold. And what seems to be happening there is he's kind of like celebrating that enmity of murder.

Between man and man.

And he's saying, Cain was protected by God, and I shall be protected. And he's kind of bolstering that sin. He's kind of highlighting that enmity between man and man, and he doesn't have a care at all about honoring God.

But then you have the contrast immediately right after. Verse 25, and Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.

So to Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. And what that means is people started to structure themselves in religion, in proper worship.

It doesn't just mean they called upon the name of the Lord, said, hey God. It's a language referring to the fact that proper religion started to happen in this line. So you have the other line of Cain, right, which is murder, strife, enmity, but you have one that's distancing itself, and that is people calling upon the name of the Lord.

And that goes on, and now we could look at, follow that strand of thought through the flood and everything like that, but then for the purpose of this text and circumcision, we see that that continues on to a man named Abram.

And this man named Abram, people started calling upon the name of the Lord, this organized worship, it was seen in circumcision. If you remember, God called Abraham to circumcise himself and all his family.

And that circumcision would carry on all the way into Israel. And so you have that instituted worship of God, the proper worship of God, and that was looked at, and you need to be circumcised, and your family needs to be circumcised, and all of Israel needs to be circumcised.

And so we see that hatred of the circumcised versus the uncircumcised. There is this growing division between the organized structure of worship and the not. And so this enmity of man and man is worse and worse, it grows and grows, and is even deepened by the fact that God leads people into proper worship, in which those outside the pale, there's a greater enmity because of that.

So we're setting ourselves up well for the fact that there was two very distinct people groups instituted by God, fueled by hate because of the fall. This is the situation that Paul, if we go back to Ephesians 2, is highlighting as he's referring to the fact that Jesus has brought these two people back together.

If we go back to Ephesians 2, again, verse 11, therefore remember that one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called a circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

So think of enmity, think of differences, think of the fact that they were hostile to one another. They hated each other because of the fall, they hated each other because of that proper display of worship and circumcision.

They were divided. So he goes back to his main train of thought when he says in verse 12, remember that you were at that time before Christ, during that Old Testament period, remember that at that time you were separated from Christ.

You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and you were strangers to the covenant of promises, the covenants of promise. So we can read that like this. Remember that time you were separated from Christ because you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and so therefore you were strangers to the covenants of promise.

You gotta understand that in the Old Testament there was great benefit for being in Israel. There was great benefit in being in that those who called upon the name of the Lord, those that were in the structure of worship and the Gentiles were kicked out of that system purposely by God and he says that at that time you were separated from Christ because you were not in Israel, so therefore you were separated from the covenants of promise.

Remember what Jesus tells a Samaritan woman, the half-breed, the one that's like a halfie. She's an Israelite kind of and a Gentile kind of a half-breed. What does he tell her? Says salvation comes from the Jews.

There was great benefit to be a Jew. There was great benefit to be an Israelite in the Old Testament. There was great benefit to be in the commonwealth of Israel. That just simply means the political system of Israel.

There was great benefit there because what does Jesus say? Salvation comes from the Jews. We'll look at Romans three. I'm gonna flip over to Romans three. Paul details this other places. Look at Romans three.

We see these benefits come out. What are these benefits? Look at chapter three of Romans. He says, what advantage has a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? And he says in verse two, much in every way.

To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the word of God, with the oracles of God. In the Old Testament, if you were anywhere outside the walls of Israel, you had no word of God near you. And if you were at Sunday school, you would have heard how important it was or is to be near the word of God because that is the mode of faith.

That means God uses for faith which opens the floodgates of Jesus in your heart. And so imagine the Old Testament period at this time when the word of God was just in the corner of the world. We're used to in this New Testament period where you can go anywhere and find the word of God and you can find it being proclaimed anywhere.

But at this time, Paul's saying, you Gentiles were completely severed from the word of God proclaimed. You were separated from the nation of Israel where the word of God was entrusted. Look at Romans nine.

Look at Romans nine verses four and five. Paul says about the bloodline Israelites, about the nation of Israel, he says, they are Israelites and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants and giving of the law, the worship and the promises.

He says to them belong the patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. And so we're grabbing the same kind of understanding that from Israel came the word of God, came the promise of Messiah, Jesus.

And so when we are considering the fact that the Gentiles were one time alienated from it, separated from it, they were outside of Israel. So they're outside the covenants of promise. They're outside the covenants of promise.

We gotta understand that all the covenants given to Abraham and the Mosaic, they were all pointing to a greater covenant, a greater promise of Jesus to come. And one thing we gotta keep in mind and it'll come into play later on in these verses is that just because you were an Israelite doesn't mean that you received the covenant of promise of salvation in Jesus.

But it certainly helped to be in the hope of that system. If you look at or listen to me if you're tired of flipping 2 Corinthians chapter three, 2 Corinthians chapter three, verse 12. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold.

Not like Moses who would put a veil over his face that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end, but their minds were hearted. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that's enough for their salvation, the same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away.

Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. So notice there is great benefit to be an Israelite in the Old Testament. The word of God was there, the covenants were there, the covenants of promise.

But it didn't, just because you're in Israel doesn't mean you received the promise of Jesus. But you were there, you had the hope of receiving Jesus in that system. But if you were a Gentile at that time, you were completely alienated, separated, strangers.

And what does he say about that system? He says, look at Ephesians 2, verse 12, you therefore had no hope, and you were without God in the world. You were without hope, no hope, and you were, the Greek word there is literally you were atheists.

The Gentiles outside of Israel in the Old Testament, separated from the word of God, separated from the covenant of promises, they were atheists. They were people who, although they might acknowledge some kind of God, it was the wrong God.

And it was the God, a wrong God that forced, that caused them to live out a life of atheism. It's very fascinating if you look at like Psalm 14, one through three, right? It talks about, oh, let me just go to it.

I've been flipping a lot, let me go to it. Notice what atheism looks like. And you can just listen to me. Psalm 14, one through three, the fool says in his heart there is no God, they are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

So notice what atheism looks like there. It is a denying of God in your actions. And so the Gentiles at this point were practical atheists. That is, they denied God by their actions, by their thoughts, they were outside the covenant community, so therefore they lived with no hope and as atheists in the world.

To be an atheist is to live without hope. To deny God is to deny the only aspect in this life where there is any sign of hope at all. That's why it's not hard to see in the atheist system, it's not hard to see someone that has no hope at all in this life.

In the system of someone who might proclaim some kind of God, but it's not the true God, and they live like an atheist, look at the lack of hope in their life. It is not hard where you see an atheist or a practicing atheist and the way they live their life, you see someone that has no hope at all.

But for those who are in the covenant community, there's all hope. And Paul says that you Gentiles at that time had no hope. Now, I want you to notice there, this is kind of like, you remember in chapter two of Ephesians chapter two, you remember verses one through three, how it was all these things that we were outside of Christ, we were dead in our sins, we had no desires for God, it was just a terrible situation, right?