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Isn't that good news? Reminds me of Martin Luther in his commentary on Galatians. Luther writes, I've 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 God's 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, you are a sinner, therefore you're damned.
We respond, Christ 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'm a sinner, you do not terrify me, you comfort me above all measure. And it is for that reason, we open our Bibles today to Ephesians chapter two, 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 it's the quality of the parking lot.
Why do people come? Because they know they want to hear about the Lord Jesus. As you've 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, I want to receive the grace of God, and God has ordained it that it is through preaching, through the Lord's Supper, and through baptism, that's how Christians grow. That's what makes Christians respond with gratitude and praise.
And today we come to Ephesians chapter two, verses 11 through 12, and I have to tell you, it's all about who Jesus is. It's all about the triune God and what he's done. It'll help us to walk with our eyes focused on who he is versus ourselves.
We will look to ourselves, there's nothing but really bad news to see, but that's 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 don't 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 can't concentrate and you can't 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, you know, you're making good progress, and I said, I'm just so tired though.
He said, your lungs require a lot of energy to be healed, and so you're probably gonna have to take a nap every day. And so I went home immediately to tell my wife and Kim, doctor's order, naps every day.
Could you write that down on a script, please? But there's also a spiritual kind of fog that we have, and that is we tend to forget things. That's one of the reasons why we come back every Lord's day, the first day of the week, to be reminded of the most important truths in all the world, because we're a forgetful people.
And that's exactly what we're gonna look at today in Ephesians chapter two, something that we're supposed to remember, and I call it the forgotten command. It's a command that many of us don't really know about.
If I told you to love God, you'd say, I understand that command. Love your neighbor, don't steal, don't commit adultery, honor your parents. There are many commands that you would say, I know those commands.
But today we come to a command that it's easy to forget, and therefore God commands us to do this very thing. Well, we're in the book of Ephesians. Before we get into chapter two, verse 11, it's good to have a little review.
Big picture, I'm taking two sermons per chapter, 12 chapters, 12 sermons in total to get us through the book of Ephesians. It's designed to get you to dive deeper. It's designed for you to appreciate it as an overview.
Remember, if you'd get a letter from someone that was important, you'd probably read the entire letter at what? 60 sittings? No, you would read it all at once. And so it's good for us to see the entire flow and faster preaching like this, I think, assist and augments the local ministry at the church where we go through books of the Bible in a much slower fashion.
Chapter one, he starts off with a preface. You see it in verses one and two. It's 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 I'd 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 you're 15 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. God's 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 three of chapter one. And I just, every time I read this, when he's talking about God the Father to be blessed, I just think of fireworks. It's just going off and explosions and report, 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 I'm the head of the house. And I lit that thing and you could just see. And I thought that's Ephesians chapter one. I mean, not 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, here's Ephesians chapter one. Even though I'm sinful, even though you're 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 couldn't 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 here. He's still saying, this is how great God is.
Then at the end of the chapter, he has a prayer request for the church. There's Thanksgiving involved, but it's 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 I'm growing in my emotional attachment and my volitional attachment. And I'm really grasping, this is exactly who this God is.
He is worthy to be worshiped. Paul then goes to chapter two that we saw last week in a very, very familiar and famous passage, chapter two, verses one to 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 one, two, and three. Anybody, you can say them out loud. Yes, there we go. Dead, dominated, and doomed.
Welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church. One time I was on the phone, I told you the story, and I have to be nice on the phone, even though I'm trying to get something done. If I see, think there's an injustice with customer service, I'm just going to go all the way.
But I have to be nice because at the end of the call, they always say, what's your email? Bbcpastor at bbcchurch .org. I should just get a fake Google account. And so this one time a lady said, oh, you're a pastor.
And then I say, guess what I do for a living? Oh, you're 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 she's like, I listen to Joe Osteen all the time.
I thought, M80's in the fireplace. I said, well, you know what? I don't think you should listen to Joe Osteen anymore because he says things like this. I don't like to talk about sin because people all know they're 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, there's praise, there's thanksgiving.
It is good to look back and say, I remember 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 world's Satan, the system of the air.
And we were enslaved, we couldn't get out. And the end for us, do you see at the end of verse three, 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, it's 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 everything's good between God and I, I do more good than bad and you die and you're hoping for the best and you wake up and it's going to be doom.
We need to be rescued, every single one of us. And so everything turns with the hinge of verse four, does it not, of chapter two, 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 didn't mention it much last week, but if you take a look at verse five, 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?
There's Lazarus in the tomb and he's dead. How dead is Lazarus? He's dead, dead, he's four days dead. And Jesus says, Lazarus, what? Arise, and he makes, I like kids, who likes kids sounds? I do, most days, I'm just kidding.
I'd rather have a kid cry or say mom, mom, mom anytime than having some Kenny Loggins music break out on a ringtone. Was that two 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 that's a good picture of God, the triune God, we're dead in trespasses and sins, dominated by the world and Satan and our own lust and doomed and God says, you're 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 you're alive. And if it was a cooperation, we did it together, then the praise would be dimmed.
If it's all God and it's 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.
You're raised, you're seated, you're ascended with the enthroned 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 you've been saved through faith. It's just a great passage. And now we come to chapter two, verse 11, and following the great and forgotten command.
And that command is remember. It's found right there in chapter two, verses 11, second word, therefore remember. There's a man named Harry Ironside, and he was on a train. He was going from Chicago. He was a pastor of 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, I'm Scottish, and I wouldn't 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, it's 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 two, here's my past. You were dead in trespasses and sins. That's my past. The woman said, that's enough, I don't want to hear any more. Ironside said, but wait, there's more.
Here's my present because of his great love for us. God, who is rich in mercy, made me alive together with Christ, even when we are 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. That's our past, present and future. But Paul's 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 there's some good results that come out of that. But on a horizontal level, that's true as well. And that's 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 four, 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, let's take a look at verses 11 and 12 and flesh this out a little bit.
Therefore, remember that at one time, you Gentiles in the flesh call 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.
Here is the first imperative. There's not another imperative until chapter four, verse 25, I believe. Typically, Paul has a lot of information up front, the first three chapters, and then here's 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 isn't, 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. It's easy to remember because it's D-Day, of course, very romantic.
What if I just say to myself, honey, I remembered our anniversary. 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.
I remember our anniversary and therefore I'm going to take you out on a romantic weekend. I'm gonna take you to Rome. I'm gonna take you someplace. We're gonna do something. I bought these gifts for you.
I wrote for you these poems for you. Whatever they are, I remembered and then I did something. It moves me to do something similarly here. It's not just, okay, I've got this mentally down. 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 here's what it's supposed to move you to do, to be thankful, to have a grateful heart, to be humble, to not think we're 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. Here's John Newton, the slave trader and then slave himself before he got saved. Here's the verse on his desk, Deuteronomy 15, 15. Remember that you were a bondman in the land of Egypt and thy Lord redeemed thee.
Remember, that's a common thing in the Old Testament to remember and not forget. Remember Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of thy benefits. Deuteronomy 5, you shall remember that you were a slave.
Deuteronomy 8, you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness. Deuteronomy 9, remember, do not forget. Deuteronomy 16, you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt.
So the first thing Paul wants us to remember found in verses 11 and 12 is your past. Super easy, I don't always do alliteration, but it's been coming up quite a bit lately. Here's the outline, remember your past, remember your peace and remember your place.
Remember your past, remember your peace, remember your place. First, let's look at remember your past or your heritage, verse 11 and verse 12. What was your status if you were a Gentile before you got saved?
Now, there might be a few Jewish people here with Jewish origin, but typically as I look around, we are Gentiles. What was our status? And I'll just give you the big picture and then we'll dive into the details.
When you look at the sun and the moon and the stars, that can't save you. You can't say, I've sinned against this creator. I'm going to need a blood sacrifice. I'm going to need a Messiah who's truly God and truly man who will die in my place and prove that he's 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 I'm on the earth. You can't get that from looking up at the sky. You can get power, wisdom, might. So you're going to need special revelation. You're going to need not general truths, but special truths, specific truths.
Things that say you're a sinner and you need to have your sins paid for by you or another. You're going to need to have details. If you're a Gentile running around worshiping trees and bugs and scarab beetles, and you see the sky, you don't see anything except there's enough up there to judge me, but not save me.
You're going to need to be around special revelation, special things that tell you exactly who the God is, what he's done, how we've sinned against him, how it can be repaired and breached. You're 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, we'd say things like the electrolytes, the cellulites.
They're like, I don't even get that as a kid. You're going to have to have special revelation. And guess what? It's through Israel. Israel is the nation. Well, if you're a Gentile, you're not close to Israel.
And Paul is going to remind all of us. We not only were dead in trespasses and sins, we weren't even close to any information to help us with special revelation because we weren't part of Israel. We're Gentiles.
We're in, my ancestors were in Germany worshiping trees. And Africa worshiping trees. We're worshiping animals and bugs and all these other kinds of things. We need to be close to Israel or else there's no special revelation.
That's the big picture here. Now, sin splits up people and Gentiles hated Jews and Jews hated Gentiles. So much so, and I'll just make a passing comment, but it's in the Greek and you get the idea of how much derision they had.
You formally, the Gentiles in the flesh who are called, it's nice there in the English Bible, uncircumcision by the Jews. Remember God gives to Abraham the right of circumcision to set apart his people and the males would be circumcised and those slaves that were added in would be circumcised.
And you either circumcised or you weren't circumcised. Here the word in English is uncircumcision, but deridedly called by the Jews. And the Greek word is the foreskin. We're the circumcised, they're 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 there's a divide even among the people. I'm far from Israel, the Israelites don't like me.
What am I going to do? No Israel, no salvation. No Israel, no special revelation. No Israel, which is God's ordained salvation instrument, no heaven. And so Paul says, I want you to remember. 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 didn't have any of those. Look, this is for all of us. All of us as Gentiles, we were separated from Christ. Christ, that's the word for Messiah. That's the Jewish word for Messiah. We weren't close to the Jewish Messiah.
And by the way, he's the only Messiah. So if you're not close to the Messiah in Hebrew, in Israel, you're 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 didn't, we were separated. And Paul wants to say, yes, dead in trespasses and sins, chapter two, verse one and following, but also not close to anything that's gonna 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 weren't close to Israel. Additionally, strangers to the covenant of promise.
We as Gentiles, our past was, we weren't close to the Davidic covenant. We didn't 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 didn't know anything about it. Acts 13, we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers. Not close. What does he say there?
This is logically flowing from the first three. Having no hope. Israel's hope, Israel's coming hope, nothing. What's the opposite of hopeful? Not a trick question. Last week I got you the trick question.
Hopeless, we're hopeless. Not close to Israel, hopeless. We're already dead and trespassed by the sins and then we have no idea of what to do or what to do about it, or could anything be done? Galatians 3, all the nation shall be blessed in you.
Abraham, hopeless. No Messiah, no hope. Oh, well, maybe there's a little hope. I'll cross my fingers and hope that I make it across that threshold of death. Maybe God, you know, I think he's supposed to be immutable, means he doesn't change, but maybe he changes a little bit and maybe he'll change and be a little less holy on the day I die.
Maybe he'll be a little less omniscient, a little less knowing of all things on the day I die. Maybe that would be my hope, but it's all hopeless. And look what it says there at the end, without God in the world.
You probably know that Greek word without God, atheist. They're without God, atheists. Not even close. 1 Thessalonians 4, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God. 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 two, verse four, but God, no hope, no God, no covenants, no Israel, no special revelation, verse 13.
But now, oh, everything turns just like it did earlier. But now in Christ, you who are once far off, Gentiles, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Oh, this is so good. But now we move to remember your peace.
Remember your past. Okay, my past is not only chapter two, one to three, I'm dominated and doomed and dead, but also I'm 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 he's called that. It's interesting. Look at chapter two, verse 13 and 14. But 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.
If you're a Gentile, you had no Messiah of Israel. But now, if you're a Gentile, no citizenship in Israel, but now, no hope, but now, it's a dramatic change. And that's exactly what the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus does.
Now, in the old days, what you would do is you think, okay, we're far and we're brought near. And here's 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 book, the Bible, and you've got the Holy of Holies, can't go in there except the high priest once a year.
Then you've got the holy place, can't go in there. And you've got different courts and you start going out a little bit. You've got the court of the women. Gentiles couldn't go in any of those courts.
Because if they did, they would be killed. There were signs up that we found actually archeologically. If you are Gentile and you go past this sign, be ready to be killed. So geographically, they're 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, you're far off. And Paul is talking about that very thing. Then he says, but you can get close, not to the real temple.
By the way, that's been destroyed at 70 AD. But how do you get close to the triune God of Israel when you're far away? What's the text say? Have been brought near by the blood of Christ. What's that mean, the blood?
Platelets? Plasma? What does it mean, the blood of Christ? We talked about this in chapter one. 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 there's 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 you'd 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, bite.
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 it's 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, it's just shorthand for Jesus.
He wasn't just living in 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. That's the Greek word, hematology. So when we sing songs about there's power in the blood, we're not talking about there's power in the blood to fight leukemia.
We're talking about there's power in the vicarious, vicious, sacrificial death of Jesus. How much power is there? You got Jews and Gentiles. Could they ever get along, circumcised, uncircumcised? How could they ever get together?
And they're 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, you're going to think violence.
And that's exactly what it was. Verse 14, He Himself is our peace. He's called peace. It doesn't say He Himself is called peace, although that's true. It doesn't say He made peace, although that's true.
He's our peace. It's just a good name for Jesus, peace. He's the Prince of Peace. We call Him other names, the bread of life, resurrection in 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 there's only one way of salvation? The world hates it. The world doesn't like it. There are many ways to God. By the way, between us, every religion does take you to God.
That's a true statement. Every religion takes you to God's judgment. Because every religion says, do something. And you think you can assuage God's wrath by doing. And unless it's perfect doing, entire doing, exact doing, it's impossible because of Adam's sin.
But even if it theoretically was possible, it'd have to be perfect doing. And so you think, you know, you're climbing up this ladder to see God and its judgment. That's why Jesus here, He and no other.
No help from anybody else. The God-man alone. And He's our peace. He's our shalom. He's our wholeness. He's our fullness. Hugh Latimer, who died for his faith hundreds of years ago, said, Jesus is our preservation from damnation.
He's our comfort. He is our help, our remedy. When we feed upon Him, then we shall have remission of our sins. 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. For 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.
He's the answer. He's our answer. Micah 5, this one will be our peace. 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, who made both groups into one. How do you get Gentiles and Jews to like each other? And again, it wasn't 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 weren't 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 they're going to have to be because we have worship services for both Gentiles and Jews because there's only one God. How did he do it? Verse 14, do you notice he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall?
What's the dividing wall? Now you might be thinking, oh, 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 priest, not just the priest, not just the men, not just the Levites, not just the women, but Gentiles as well.
That's true, that's back there. But here specifically, by 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.
Okay, we'll have to make this simple because time is fleeting. One of the things I love about preaching is I looked out my watch, I'm like, I just can't believe I just spoke for 38 minutes. And if you're listening and you're engaged, you're like, well, keep going, that seemed like it was fast.
Remember when I first started going to churches, I'm thinking, oh man, I can't believe they're talking for more than 15 minutes of this sermon, I'm dying. All of a sudden you get saved and you're like, I wanna know the truth.
God's law reflects his character. God's holy and just and his law reflects that. And if you think of the moral law, if you think of the 10 commandments, those aren't abolished, those go on and you see almost every one of those 10 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, we're not thinking about that. Moral law, 10 commandments, I'm 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, well, you know, God really knew when he told the Jews, he knew about trigonosis and so therefore don't eat a lot of pork because God already knew, don't eat pork, trigonosis.
Is that why God said, don't eat pork? God said, don't 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, make them separate. Everything about them is going to be different.
That's why when I go to the store and I go to the bread section and I see Ezekiel 4 bread, you like Ezekiel 4 bread? Tastes good, but you're not any holier for eating it. You're just putting yourself underneath the old covenant.
I'm just kidding. By the way, go read Ezekiel 4 sometime when you get home today because if it's real Ezekiel 4 bread, remember it's cooked over dung. Somehow the marketers forgot that. I don't know why.
Every person that says, we're going to go back to Old Testament diets because that's what God wants in Seventh-day Adventists do and all kinds of people running back to the Old Testament diets. If you have diet issues and you want to eat certain foods, fine, but it's not a religious thing.
For the Jews, it was a religious thing and it made them different. You have to do this. We have to do that. You can do whatever you want on Shabbat, on Saturday. We have to have all these feasts and regulations and things and we can't walk so far.
We can't work. It was all to say, you're different. You're not like a pagan. That was part of God's program. But that was like scaffolding. You're going to build a building and then there's some lumber outside so you can climb up, but when you finish the job, you don't leave the scaffolding up, do you?
The scaffolding of circumcision, Sabbath feasts, food laws, all the ceremonial law, the scaffolding was up there until this happens. What do you mean this? Until Jesus dies and brings both together. Now I don't need to have all these separations because the ceremonial law has been fulfilled.
All the types pointing to Jesus. The shadows pointing to Jesus. The Old Testament pointing to Jesus. Jesus is here. Why do I need to go back here again to all this scaffolding? That's the idea. The far and the near.
Do you see it right there in verse 13? Far off, been brought near because He's our peace and He did it by abolishing, verse 15, the law of commandments and ordinances because He wants to make one new man.
What else does He want to do, verse 16? He might reconcile to both Jew and Gentile, to God in one body through the cross, therefore killing the hostility. Side note, when you think about race baiting and race wars in this country, you have to reread Ephesians 2.
You have to reread this and think, okay, what did the Lord Jesus, the Jewish God-man, what did He do? And if part of the reason why He died is to make the people come together in the church. When people want to divide others, I think to myself, that's not what Jesus Christ does because He brings people together.
That's what the blood of the cross did. So when people do the opposite of Jesus and want to split based on race, they're not doing what Christ wants, they're doing what Antichrist does. It's Antichrist spirit to do that.
I think this is what God has done. All kinds of people, Jews and Gentiles, who no longer are Jews and Gentiles, but the new man, the body. Remember what has to happen in the old days? The Jewish people who were Christians said, you Gentiles, you can be a believer, but first you've got to get circumcised.
First, you've got to do this. First, you've got to do that. You become a Jew first, then you can get to heaven. No, that's wrong. Everything about this is wrong. Jesus is our peace. Abolished. Of course, when Jesus said, I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, I didn't come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
That scaffolding of the ceremonial law is done. Well, verse 16, it says He's going to kill the hostility. Very interesting language. And only the Lord Jesus could bring a hostile person to become a friend.
And now we come to the very last section, verse 17. And He came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who are near. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait. What do you mean? It's out of order.
He came and preached peace to you far and peace to those who are near. This is the way it should go. You first preach to people, then they get along. Then they're part of the body. Then Jews and Gentiles are no longer.
Here it's Jews and Gentiles no longer. Blood of Christ, Jews and Gentiles no longer. Now preach peace. What's going on? Super simple answer. Jesus has apostles and now you preach to other people. That's all He's doing.
He came and preached peace. How did Jesus come and preach peace to the church at Ephesus? Answer, through Paul. And then He has the final reminder, verses 18 and following. Remember your past, remember your peace, and now remember your position in the future.
What Lloyd-Jones called one of the most spectacular verses in all the Bible, verse 18. Through Jesus, we have access in one spirit to the Father. Trinitarian discussion right there, right? Trinitarian discussion.
How are we gonna get into the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament? You can't get in. How are we going to get in? Saunter right on into the thrice-holy God? I mean, God is a consuming fire. But Christ died for our sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might not make us happy, wealthy, that He might bring us to God.
Because of Jesus, we have access. Do you know any time in the world, in the hospital room or riding on a bicycle or anything in between, you have access to God the Father now because of the work of the Son through the Spirit, and you can just say, help.
You can say, I thank you. There was no entree before. This is language of access of, and I've said this before a few times here, but now that I'm getting older, I guess I have the COVID fog. Sometimes I'm in my study, my office, and somebody just walks in the door.
And I'm thinking it's either Kim, Maddie, Grace, Luke, Haley. They can just walk in anytime they want, can't they? They can saunter right on in. And other people just walk in. I'm like, what if I was blowing my nose or something?
I mean, come on. This is like my office. I said, just next time, just knock a little bit, would you? I'm just gonna saunter right on in, kind of Conrad McGregor, just walk right up into heaven. Hey, God!
It'd be utter nuclear winter. And not just for McGregor, but for all of us. But now both Gentile and Jew can go to their dad's office, walk right on in. Gentiles don't have to do anything extra. Jews don't have to proselytize to Gentiles.
You just walk right in. And literally the word here is to bring before the face, right in the face. You don't want the face of God if he's frowning, but if he's smiling at the work of the Lord Jesus, the Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, the Lord make his face what?
And because of Jesus, he's smiling upon you. You're like, yeah, but you don't know what I did this last week. I know, but God does. And dear Christian, that's already paid for by the blood of Christ. And then he goes into verses 19 and following.
And basically what he's saying here is, while there used to be a physical temple, now you Christian are the temple. While we used to be not a citizen, you're a citizen. While it used to be a growing structure just for the Jews, now it's all of us.
And that's what he's doing here. We're all put together in the holy temple of God. Verse 19, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens. That's a lot different than verses 11 and 12, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, both Jew and Gentile.
They don't have extra seats, better seats, special seats, low seats, and members of the household of God. You are in God's house. By the way, if you're in my house and you're my kid, you get all the blessings of a son or daughter.
I protect you, I provide for you, I care for you. I'm concerned about you. You belong to mom and I. You have access into my presence at any time you want. There's intimate access, Abba, Father. And here, how much more?
This is exactly Paul's point. And by the way, if I can saunter in and my Jewish friend can saunter in, and I, a Gentile, he or she, a Jew, and we're both part of the household, what does that do for Jews and Gentiles in terms of getting along?
If different skin color people can all walk in because they're all sons and daughters, how does that not affect just our vertical relationship to God, but horizontally? That's why when people want to split because of race, it is exactly opposite of the work of Christ and this passage.
Think like a Jew for a second, and you're thinking about the temple. What's in a temple? What do you need to make a temple? You're gonna need a foundation, you're gonna need a cornerstone, and you're gonna need some building blocks.
And what does he say here? Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
You are the temple. In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. More Trinitarian theology right there. Paul says, while there's a vertical dimension of my relationship with God, because of the Lord Jesus, now there's a horizontal dimension, and it means Jews and Gentiles have equal access.
And when you remember that, it should make you think, I'm so thankful. Are you thankful you get to go to heaven? We had a funeral right here. Judy Bowman's body was right here yesterday. And truth is the truth.
And the truth is, Judy Bowman didn't deserve to go to heaven. Did you know that? My mom died, she didn't deserve to go to heaven. Nobody deserves to go to heaven. But all those who trust in Christ get to go on the work of another who's peace.
Judy Bowman's in heaven because she trusts the promises of God. And God even gave her that faith. This is a truth designed for us to go, one day I'll be in that box. You'll be in that box one day. If you're here and you're not a Christian, you'll be in that box.
And then what? Then it's too late. But while you have breath, you see, what kind of God is like this? I think God should be against me. And Romans 8 says, if God is for us, who can be against us? What's the kind of God who, like Luther said when I started the service, what's the kind of God who loves sinners?
What's the kind of God that says the vilest offender who truly believes? If you're not a believer, you can be the most vilest offender and truly believe. And then there's hope. And then we comfort one another with the words of 1 Thessalonians when we bury a Judy Bowman because she's more alive right now than she's ever been.
And she's in the presence of her savior. Ephesians chapter two, if you had to summarize it, verse four, but God. Verse 13, but now. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you for what you've done in Christ Jesus applied to us by the Holy Spirit.
I pray for each person here that they might be thankful today. We have all kinds of trials, yet we can still say, but God. And we can also say, but now. In Jesus' name, amen.