Together We Are The Dwelling Place For God

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Old Testament scripture reading this morning is Genesis 17, verses 9 -14.

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Would you please stand in honor of God's word? And God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.

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This is my covenant which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.

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You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between you and me.

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He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.

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Both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised.

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So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. An uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people.

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He has broken my covenant. New Testament reading,

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Galatians chapter 5, starting verse 1. For freedom

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Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

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Look, I Paul say to you, if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace.

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For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

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You can be seated. Good morning.

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Open your Bibles to Ephesians 2 please, Ephesians 2. You'll have to be patient with me,

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I ask. Earlier this week, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I was looking at my youngest, and one of the ways that children show their gratitude for raising them up in the

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Lord is they get you sick. And I just saw snot coming down on his face, and a cold, and it just plastered on him.

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And I knew that in a few days, it would spread to mom, to the other kids, and it would get to me about the end of the week, just in time for me to preach.

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So I saw it coming earlier on in the week, so I just ask that you be patient with me, as you kind of have to, you can hear it in my voice.

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But with your Bibles open to Ephesians chapter 2, we'll continue off where we left last week.

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Ephesians chapter 2 verse 11. Therefore remember that at one time you

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Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

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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.

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But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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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.

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Chapter 2 verse 16 of Ephesians. And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

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And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the

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Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets,

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Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit. God in heaven, be with us. Lord, this morning I ask God that you would grant us favor that's rooted in your grace, that despite our many sins, your grace would abound all the more,

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God, and that you would cause us to grow in unity with one another. Each Lord's Day, through the week,

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Father, let it start with us as individuals who have been found dead in sins in the world, but made alive together with Christ.

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And then let that go forth into our families and into society and into the church.

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And in this church we have this beautiful unity that Christ is doing, in which he proclaimed peace to those who are near and far off.

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So God, I pray that it would start with us as individuals and it would culminate into the church, and that we would grow in unity, surrounded by the

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Spirit dwelling within us and causing us to be truly a dwelling place for God.

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Lord, be with me in my weakness. I pray, God, that from my lips would come your word, and that people here would have open hearts to hear and to gain whatever they can, by the

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Spirit, to grow more in love with you, through the Lord Jesus Christ, working by the

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Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for this time together that we have. Blessed in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if you remember last week, we really focused on Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, and we said that that's more of an individual look at salvation, of how as individuals we go from being dead in sin in the world, following Adam, and how we go from being dead in sin to alive in Christ.

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And that's more of an individual look. We talked about how it's the telos, or the goal of God, that he would make a people who were dead in sin alive in Christ, and then he would make those people a temple of the

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Lord, right? That we would be the dwelling place of God on earth. Indeed, we talked about how that's very much what

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God is doing in creation, is he wants to dwell on this physical creation.

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He wants the spiritual to come down to the physical and dwell with man and dwell with women. And we saw the failures of that in the first Adam, but the success of the second

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Adam in bringing us dead individually from death to life in Christ.

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We talked about that on a more individual level. And so chapter verses 1 through 10 of Ephesians 2 is very much telling that story of you individually going from death to life, going from dead in sin to life in Christ.

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And one thing that I kind of didn't emphasize, and it should be, and I want to say real quick before we move on, is that there is, in verses 1 through 10 of Ephesians 2, it's very much man and women, when

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I say men, I mean man and women, but man, they're very much passive in what's going on with the grand scheme of salvation.

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God is the active agent bringing grace upon those who are dead in their sins and making them alive.

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It's very much man in this scenario, in the perspective of God working in all eternity, man and women are actually more passive as God pours out

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His grace through the Spirit to the dead sinner who cannot accept it in their death, but it makes them alive.

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It's very much man is passive, God is the active one. But we see in the breadth of Scripture, we see other vantage points.

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We see salvation from different vantage points. And another vantage point that we've got to hold on to is that when we are hearing the gospel proclaimed, so the preacher or the person who's talking about the gospel, they're saying, you are dead in your sins, you need to be made alive together with Christ.

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When they're talking about these things, do they then leave and say, maybe God will do it for you, and that's it?

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No, when the gospel is truly preached to the unbeliever, what do we tell the unbeliever?

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Whenever you're telling the gospel to someone, you tell them the great measures of Christ and how there's life in Him and death and sin, certainly, and how you can be made alive together with Christ, but you must end it, or at least it must be in there, that you must do something.

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And what is that something that they must do? It starts with an R. Repentance, right?

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If you look in the Acts of the Apostles, what did they stress? They talked about the promises of Christ in Israel, and then they stress, and now you must repent.

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And so we always see that man is active in salvation in some measure, and the fact that they must respond with this good news by repentance, why?

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Because when the Holy Spirit does this great work of salvation, of bringing a dead person alive to Christ, what does the

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Spirit always lead them to do? What is the first step that individual, with the

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Spirit, making them alive in Christ, what is that first step? Repentance from their sins.

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A turning away from their sins because it no longer satisfies, and a turning to Christ.

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We know that God is working in that because man has no power of himself to do so.

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But we know that that is what we tell someone in their sins to do. You must now, in light of the

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Gospel, repent. And a Christian lives in repentance.

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And so we don't talk about the salvation of God as if man must do nothing. Although in the grand scheme of things,

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God is the sovereign one that's working all things together for the good of his elect saints. But we know that whenever we are down here and proclaiming the

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Gospel, we tell people to repent. You must repent and live a life in keeping with repentance.

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It becomes our glorious worship in light of the salvation of God. We must be repentant people.

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The life that we have in Christ is a life of repentance. Your worship is a worship filled with repentance.

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Usually when a Christian is bored, it's because they have forgotten how to repent. And the first thing they must do to get out of their boredom is to repent and believe upon Jesus Christ.

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It's a lifelong process. Your lifeblood is found in Christ and your repentance away from your sins and looking upon Jesus.

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The Christian who is no longer living in repentance is a dead Christian indeed.

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So although we have this great story, beautiful work of salvation, verses 1 -10, we must not forget that what we must do in light of this work of God is to repent and live a life of repentance.

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And so as we go from going from death to life as individuals, what that looks like, we then, in verses 11 -22, we get how

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Jesus, God, what He's desiring to do is to bring these individuals together.

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Jesus desires to bring individuals who are saved by grace through faith, they have repented from their sins, looked upon Christ as individuals, to bring them now together.

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And verses 11 -22 is about how these individuals are brought together. Individuals who are made alive are to come together to be a covenant community or temple or dwelling place for God.

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We are meant to come together as alive individuals to make the temple or dwelling place for God.

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Remember how we talked about in verses 1 -10 how it's normal, the world can understand what you mean when you say that although you might be living physically, you are dead as you live, right?

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Spiritually, you are dead. The world can even understand that we're meant to live physically and live spiritually.

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And that's, we know as Christians, is when we follow the telos of God, that is to be the dwelling place for God.

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That is all that we are meant to do. And so when we're doing that, we are alive indeed. But there's also a certain aspect that the world can understand.

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That we understand that we are meant to be in a community, aren't we? We are meant to be communal people.

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We are not meant to be islands or isolated from one another. If one thing COVID -19 has taught us is that social distancing can only last so long.

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And it has very bad negative effects. And we're all aware of just how much we are in need of society.

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We're all made as people in God's image to not only be alive together with Christ, to feel alive as we're living, but also to be together alive in community with one another.

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And this is, again, what Paul is talking about. The community of God's people in covenant with him.

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We are meant to be in community, even before COVID -19. One thing that Facebook and Twitter and social media is telling us is that we desperately need genuine social relationships.

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We genuinely need to be together in society. These things are not a good substitute.

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We are meant as humans to come together as a covenant people of God and community.

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There's something within us that cries out for social relationships, right?

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And Paul, again, is detailing that. How individuals go from being individually made alive together with Christ to coming together as a community to be alive together as a temple, the dwelling place for God.

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It's within our very DNA. Now, Jesus shows his great power in these verses.

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Not only to bring an individual dead in sin, you understand the power it takes to make someone dead in sin alive with Christ, right?

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Not only does he show his power in salvation that way, but Jesus shows his power of bringing two great enemies together to live together to be the dwelling place for God.

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Two great enemies to not only stop being enemies, but then to be united together in a community to be the dwelling place for God.

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And those two great enemies that we're referring to is Jew and Gentile. We see scripture is a perfect example of how

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Jesus knows no boundaries, that when he saves, he saves people from the two greatest distance that you can imagine, puts them together in a new creation in Christ, and makes them a dwelling place for God.

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He can do it in the most extreme way that we can imagine, and that would be Jew and Gentile. And so one thing

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I want to say before we actually get into it is if Jesus can do it in the greatest degree,

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Jew and Gentile, I don't have time to go into how much the Jews and Gentiles hate each other, we'll get into it a little bit, but if Jesus has that kind of power, cannot

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Jesus bring together any two groups of people? In our culture, what's the big two groups of people going on right now is blacks and whites, right?

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The gospel is the true power of bringing two different groups of people together. Not to get too much into it, but what's going on right now with the world, what the world is saying what can bring these two groups together is actually proven to drive them more apart.

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The gospel, Jesus Christ shows his power that he can bring in two different groups of people and bring them together as a dwelling place for God.

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Not only that, though, we think about our families. How often the family unit should be the strongest unified agent, but how often in this world as we go further away from Christ, how much does the family become something that it's

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World War III in the family. In fact, children just want to get out of the family because there's no unity in there.

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They'd rather go off with their friends. Christ can bring together Jew and Gentile. He can bring together a husband and wife who are not getting along together.

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Christ shows his power to do that. If we simply are following what Christ has done, and we'll talk about what that looks like.

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I'm spending way too long on that introduction. But as he reconciles one group of people and another group of people, he brings them together and so they are reconciled as well.

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If he can do that with Jew and Gentile, he can do that with wife and husband. If you're struggling in your marriages, I know there's people in here who are.

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If Christ can do that with two different people who hate each other, certainly he can do that with a husband and wife.

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Certainly he can do that with siblings. Again, going to the family unit. For some reason, we follow the world and saying it's okay for our siblings to hate each other and to war together.

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No, that's not the Christian family, the Christian home. If Christ can bring Jew and Gentile together, he can bring brother and sister, brother and brother, sister and sister together.

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It is unacceptable for the Christian home to have such division. So it goes from the individual as we'll get to the family, to the church, and then it spreads out to society.

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This bringing people together to be the dwelling place of God, overflowing. But let us look.

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We're going to see here that the focus on this bringing together, being the dwelling place of God, individuals coming together,

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Paul's going to focus on the Jew and the Gentile dilemma. And how in the

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Old and the New Testament, we see it coming together of these two great enemies to show that Jesus is powerful.

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We'll see in verses 11 and 12, the separation of Gentiles from Israel. And how the

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Gentiles, when they were separated from Israel in the Old Testament, was dead. Just like we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

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Verses 13 through 16, we're going to see how Jesus reconciles a people from both Jew and Gentile by reconciling them to God.

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And so therefore they become reconciled with each other. So if we want to be reconciled with others and come together, we must first be reconciled with God.

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And that has a natural way to make us reconciled with one another. Therefore, we'll conclude that if we are not reconciled with others, husband, if you're not reconciled with your wife, wife not reconciled with husband, if your siblings aren't reconciled with one another, that means there's a reconciliation issue between you and God.

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Between the two parties in God. It always goes back to that. So as Jesus reconciles a people from both

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Jew and Gentile, he does this by reconciling them to God, which makes them be reconciled together.

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We'll see that in 13 through 16. 17 through 22, we'll see that this reconciled people in Christ that has happened, then is to reach the world.

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It is to reach the world. That is what the temple of God is to do. Okay. So let's look at verse 11, chapter 2.

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Chapter 2 of Ephesians, verse 11. Paul says, therefore, and as we go through this, remember, this is kind of connected.

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Remember chapter 2, verse 1 through 3. He's talking about the deadness, that we were dead without Christ, right?

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You were dead in your trespasses and sins. You followed the world, you were children of wrath, all that kind of stuff. And now this is connected here with Ephesians 2, 11 and 12.

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Just like individually we were dead, the Gentile group of people were dead too without Christ. He says, therefore, chapter 2, verse 11, remember that at one time you

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Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

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Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. You were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise.

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What is Paul referring to there? To understand what he's saying there, you got to understand the Old Testament, what's going on.

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If we look at Genesis 12, if you go back to Genesis 12 with me, you'll see that at that time, right before Genesis 12, all the world, all society was dead.

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You remember the story of Genesis? Verse 11, you have the

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Tower of Babel. Verse 10, you have the nations that come from Noah.

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What was right before that was the great flood, right? So Adam sins, the whole world goes into chaos.

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We have the flood, right? That'll kill off the wicked and we'll be fine again. No, very quickly the world goes back to being chaotic.

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The whole world very quickly falls into just deadness, without promise, without hope, deadness.

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But that changes in chapter 12. We get this great hope in verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

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And I will make of you, Abraham, a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you'll be a blessing.

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Anytime we get blessing from God, that is life from God. And so although the whole world falls into sin and chaos, all of a sudden there's a covenant or a promise made to Abraham from you,

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Abraham, is going to come blessing. We know what came from Abraham was the nation of Israel, wasn't it?

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But this nation of Israel was to be separated from the world that was dead without Christ.

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The nation of Israel was on purpose supposed to be separated from the world because the world was corrupted in sin.

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And so on purpose God separates Jew from Gentile. God is the driver of that wedge because of the wickedness of the

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Gentiles. This is why in chapter 17, and I'm not going to read it because we've already read it today, but in chapter 17, 9 through 14, what did

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God set with Abraham? The covenant of circumcision. You are to be separated from the

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Gentiles. You are to be separated from the Gentiles by being circumcised, and that will separate you and drive that wedge of separation because of the evil of the

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Gentile people. But what's very important to understand, to understand where we're at with Paul, is again in Genesis 12, verse 3, what was to come from this

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Israeli nation? What was to come from this separated Israel nation?

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What we see in verse 3 of chapter 12, I will bless you, in Genesis, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you

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I will curse. And in you, Abraham, in you, Abraham's seed, that is

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Israel, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So we have this understanding.

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What's going on in the Old and New Testament is God separates for himself the Israel nation, and they were to be separated, and they were not to be with the

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Gentiles because the Gentiles were in sin. But from Israel would come a Messiah, a promised one, who would then bless all the world.

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And so what we have in Ephesians 2, verse 11, is Paul reminding them, is at that time, before the

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Christ had came from Israel, before the Christ had came from Abraham and Israel, at that time you were purposely separated from Israel.

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You were away from the covenant of promises. You were not welcomed in because of your sin. Remember what he says in verse 12 of Ephesians 2.

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He says, remember that at that time you were separated from Christ.

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In the Old Testament, if you weren't in Israel, where was

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Christ proclaimed in the Old Testament? In Israel. You are failing, Israel.

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You are not following the law of God. But one will come who will. That's the

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Messiah, the Christ, the Christos. That's Greek, that's not Hebrew. They wouldn't have said that.

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But nevertheless, they said, Christ is going to come. And so the point is, is that if you weren't in Israel to hear the promises of the one who would come to succeed, then you were separated from the covenant of promise that Christ would come.

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And so at that time, Paul's very clear that you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and so you were strangers to the covenants of promise.

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Therefore, at the end of verse 12 of chapter 2 in Ephesians, have been no hope and without God in the world.

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When you are separated from the gospel of Jesus Christ, I don't care if it's in the Old Testament, of the promise of the one who is to come, or now in the

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New Testament, if you are separated from the proclamation of the gospel of peace, of Jesus Christ, of the covenant community that proclaims

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Christ, if you are separated, you are without God and without hope. The word is literally atheism.

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Without God. I hear a lot of when people don't come to church, what we are to tell them is that we just miss you so much.

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I mean, that's fine. It's good to miss people when they aren't here, but if they are just negligent to be with the covenant community of God that's proclaiming the promises of Christ to the nations, if they are not coming to that, surely we miss them, but there is death in that.

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There is no hope in the community that's outside of Christ's community, and so there needs to be a certain urgency that you're not coming to church, and you're separating yourself from the hope that's found in Christ.

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There's death in that, but there's life in the community of Christ. So these

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Gentiles, before Christ came, were on purpose from God, separated from the covenant community.

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They were not welcome into Israel, except for very minor circumstances. And so the

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Gentile community was dead before Christ came. See, that word started off in verse 13 there, but remember that word beginning of chapter 2?

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Remember verse 1 of chapter 2 of Ephesians? And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, whereby nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, like the

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Gentile world, right? But then what's that word? But, right? And we talked about how that is a change of direction.

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Well, Jesus, God in his dealings with the world, never wanted to leave the

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Gentiles alone to never be saved, right? The whole idea here is that the Gentiles are not in a good position in the

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Old Testament. They're not in a good position before Jesus comes. They are separated from the promises that are in Christ.

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But then there's that great word, 13, right? In chapter 2, 13. But now.

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But now. The Christ has come. The promise from Abraham through Israel has now come.

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And he has done something magnificent for the Gentile world that was not happening for them prior.

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What was going on? But now, in verse 13, In Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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Now, being far off. Now, certainly the Gentiles were across the whole world. But far off has the notion of being, you were far off from God.

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The Gentiles were far away from Israel, indeed. But they were also very much far away from God. And so he says, in verse 13,

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But now that Christ has come and done his work, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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Remember in chapter 1, verse 8? Verse 7, I mean. In him we have redemption.

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Christ, we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.

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You see, when Christ had forgiven people of their sins, he brings them together.

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Individually, he brings you together to be with the Father. But as a covenant community, he brings them together to be with the

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Father. So where the Gentiles were separated from Israel because of their wickedness and sins, they had to be separated from Israel because of their sin.

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Because Jesus has accomplished the work of forgiveness of sins, now the Gentile world can be brought together with Israel.

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There's no longer that wedge that God has purposely placed in there because of the Gentile sin. But now there can be great unity because of the blood of Christ, of the forgiveness of sins.

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Now there no longer is that issue. So look at verse 10 of chapter 1.

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As a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

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You see, Jesus, the purpose of why he came, was not just to save Israel the nation, but was to save the

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Gentile and the Israel nation, and to unite all things under him. God brings disunity in the

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Old Testament, so that Christ would bring unity in the New Testament. The disunity was driven by sin, to separate

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Israel from the Gentile pagan nations. Christ comes and brings unity by the forgiveness of sins.

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So not only is the redemption in Christ a beautiful reality for you individually, but it brings about this great unity that Christ would bring together two different people, purposely driven by God because of sin, forgiveness of sins, and make them one in Christ, one new man.

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Verse 23 of chapter 1, which, in verse 22, I'll go to that in chapter 1, and he,

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Christ, put all things under, God put all things under Christ's feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, to that one new man, to the

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Jew and Gentile coming together, which is his body, the fullness of him, who fills all and is in all.

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There is this great disunity in the Old Testament, but Christ comes and by his work on the cross, the forgiveness of sins, brings unity to two enemies of God.

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Two enemies of each other. But now, 2 .13,

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And Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. And look at the way he does it.

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If you remember, I kind of captioned this, Jesus reconciles the people from both Jew and Gentile to God.

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How? How does he reconcile Jew and Gentile together? By reconciling these two people to God first.

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And that is the forgiveness of sins. So look at verse 14. For he himself is our peace.

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Jesus himself is our peace. Remember those, you know, in the gospels we have at Christmas time, right?

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Peace on earth and good will to men. Right? And Jesus, we can be confused, because Jesus, he says,

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I didn't come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. And so what did Jesus come to do? Did he come to bring peace?

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Or did he come to bring a sword and division? We understand that Jesus' whole purpose was to come and bring peace.

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But not with pagan world. Not with sinners in their sin. But Jesus came to bring peace between man and God.

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And there's this great thing that happens that we'll get into, where when we are made at peace with God, and other people are made at peace with God, we all of a sudden become at peace with one another.

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And so this Jesus came to bring peace, first and foremost between man and God, and then through that, between man and man.

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So that's why Paul says here, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one.

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Jew and Gentile are now one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

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There is, in the Old Testament temple, as you're going closer from the court of the

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Gentiles, into closer into the holies of holies, or getting towards it, there would be a wall that basically warned

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Gentiles, do not go over this, or do not go past this wall, lest you want to die. And that wall was to divide the

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Gentiles away from the Jews. Why? Because the Gentiles were in sin. And if the temple was to remain holy, the presence of God, the

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Gentiles were not to go beyond that wall, unless they wanted to face death. But Paul here says something wonderful.

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He says that he broke down in his flesh this dividing wall of hostility. That wall no longer applies to the very presence of God.

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The Gentiles are now welcome beyond the wall to the presence of God. He says, by abolishing, verse 15 of chapter 2, the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace.

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Verse 16, and might reconcile us both to God in one body, through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

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So what's being done there? What's being done there? Because Jesus was able, through his work, to bring reconciliation between Gentiles and Jews to God, through his sacrifice, now that dividing wall of hostility, that separated the

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Jew from the Gentile to keep Israel holy, no longer is needed. Now, since they have both been reconciled to God, now they can be reconciled together.

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This is exactly what the gospel does. The gospel reconciles us to God.

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And then, with relation to those who have been reconciled with God, now there's peace between us as well.

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And so together we can become not Jew, not Gentile, but one with Christ.

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See, our identity changes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile for those who are in Christ, for we are one in Christ.

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And that is a great unity that we have in Christ because of the reconciliation that he's brought us to God.

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So when there's disunity, when there's strife, when there's arguments and disunity, the issue always goes back to the fact that there is something wrong between a certain individual or certain person and God.

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That reconciliation needs to happen. And when we're all reconciled to God, there is this natural unity that comes forth.

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This is what Jesus does in his work on the cross.

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He brings unity to a people that hated each other, a people that no way could you ever bring.

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We even see that today. We see the picture today. I mean, just recently Israel, I think they're done with the war now, but they were just at war with the

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Palestinians around them, right? It's amazing to see even that strife even today between Gentile and Israel.

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But look at the beauties of Christ and the gospel that he can make. Look at the beginning. We're about to get in this.

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But look at the beginning of the Christian church. It was a Jewish church. But yet then we see a grafting in of the

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Gentiles and a unity despite the differences because there's one new person under Christ.

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And this is what we're going to get at. You look at verse 17. This new dwelling place of God where we have reconciled people with their

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God, coming together in community. This temple, this dwelling place of God, is meant to spread far and wide.

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Look at what he says in verse 17. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

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See, that can be kind of confusing too. Paul's saying Jesus came and preached peace.

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You know, this reconciliation with God and with each other. He came and preached peace to you who were far off, the

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Gentiles, and peace to those who were near, the Jews. We can see in Matthew, if I had more time, we could go there.

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But especially in Matthew, Jesus is very concerned. I'm not here to go to the Gentiles. Jesus is very concerned.

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When he brings out his disciples to go to the Israel nation, he says don't go to the Gentiles. And so how can

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Paul here say in verse 17, he came to preach peace to you who were far off.

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Jesus was very concerned not to actually go to the Gentiles. Because what Jesus is doing in the gospels, what we see him doing is he is making a renewed

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Israel. He's staying in Israel. He's preaching the gospel of the kingdom to Israel to make them new, to make them renewed, to make them in true covenant with God, to bring the elect out of Israel to make the renewed

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Israel. Because with this renewed Israel that we have in the beginning of Acts, with this renewed

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Israel, they're going to preach the gospel of peace to the Gentile nations. And you see this is going back to Abraham.

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What did Abraham, what did God say to Abraham? I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless you.

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But then the whole goal of that blessing of Israel was so that that nation could then bless all the

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Gentile world. And so what Jesus did is he fulfilled that covenant promise that through Abraham came the promise of the church.

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So then that church could then bless all the Gentile world. This is all what

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God's word was to do. This is all culminating to this point of what he says. He came and preached peace to you who are far off.

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That is the church being faithful to that covenant promise to Abraham that through Israel would come the church and they would preach the gospel to those who are far off and peace to those who were near.

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And he says in verse 18, For through Jesus we both have access in one spirit to the

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Father. You see in this dispensation of the church age the spirit is on display and the spirit is the one who spreads the church far and wide, spreads the dwelling place of God far and wide, applies the salvation to those individuals who are dead and sin alive together in Christ.

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The spirit is indeed at work and doing this great work. For through him we both have one access and one spirit to the

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Father. And so the conclusion is, so then you are no longer strangers. In verse 19, you

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Gentile people, you once that were enemies, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God and were built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

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Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. I think what he's saying there is the apostles of the New Testament, the prophets of the

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Old Testament and Christ is the cornerstone of it all and now this is now the temple of God. In whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord. In him you also are being built together in the dwelling place of the spirit, for the spirit.

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So the conclusion is, is Christ is making a dwelling place for God on this earth by his blood.

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This is what God, this is the plan, the talos of God of all creation, is to make a dwelling place for God on this earth by the blood of Christ.

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And it starts individually with every one of us who have been truly saved by his grace. It starts individually that he would bring us from death into life.

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This is where the dwelling place of God starts is in our individual life. And we know that he came to bring peace.

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And so can you say that your life as an individual Christian, is it marked by a peace with God?

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And peace is on God's terms, not ours. Peace doesn't mean you feel good. Peace means that I am no longer living in sin as a rebel against God, but rather I am at peace with God through the

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Lord Jesus Christ who has empowered me for holy living. Are you at peace in your individual life with Christ, with God?

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Can you say that individually in your individual life you are a dwelling place for God? If there's only strife, if there's only sin, if there's only depravity in your life that you hide, well there is no dwelling place of God in that at all.

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And so what's the call for us to be made alive together with Christ? For us to repent of our sins and to receive the promises of old to Abraham to us through Christ that would be found from death to life in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The first step for you is repentance. Turn away from your sin. And as an individual at any point in your dwelling place with God, you find yourself not living in repentance.

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Well there's a problem there. Again, that means that you're no longer the dwelling place of God, but rather you're allowing sin to be the dwelling place in your heart.

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And so there's a certain level in which to be a dwelling place for God, it starts on the individual level. But it cannot remain there.

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It must go forth. So if you're an individual and you're a father or mother, is your home a dwelling place for God?

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Is there strife in your home? Is there arguing? Is there sin just acceptable in the dwelling place of God within your own home?

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There's many and many of theologians who say that your home should be a church for the Lord. And so we can ask ourselves, if I am truly to be the dwelling place for God, and it starts individually with me and it goes out in circles beyond me, is my home the dwelling place for God?

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Fathers, this is a huge deal for you as leaders of the home. Are you organizing?

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Are you stressing? Are you making sure that your home is a dwelling place for the Lord? And if it's not, if you see strife with your wife or with your children, is that something you take personally?

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If we are to be the dwelling place of God individually onto our families, that is something that should hurt our heart whenever we see disunity.

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Because we know the whole work of Christ was to bring the gospel and the love and the peace within your own heart, but also to bring it to those who you come in contact with.

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And if you have an influence over your family, and you're not utilizing that to see reconciliation, the very power of Jesus at display, that should hurt you.

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You are to be the influencer. So this is what

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Jesus has done. It displays the power of his grace to bring two people who are usually at odds together, now at peace together.

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Well, in the home, fathers and mothers or husbands and wives, it starts with that relationship, does it not?

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Surely if he can do it with the Jews and the Gentiles, he can do it with a husband and a wife. There is no excuse for a

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Christian couple who are not in love with each other in Christ. And the first step, if there is disunity, is to see that it is a reconciliation issue with usually both individuals with God.

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Where in my relationship with God is there a non -stopping point?

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I can't think of the word. My brain is a little foggy with the cold. But then through that, through the reconciliation, comes a reconciliation within the home between husband and wife.

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And then, of course, it goes beyond that to children. We are meant to have children if God has ordained that for you.

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And so if within our Christian home, if the children aren't reconciled with parents, with husband and wives, if they're not reconciled with one another, again, that should hurt our hearts.

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The whole power of Jesus is in reconciliation. And so if they are not being reconciled with one another, it means that there's an issue of reconciliation with them and God.

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Boys will not be boys. That is a bad saying. We are to train up our boys and our girls to be reconciled with their

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God so they can be reconciled with one another to be the dwelling place of God within our homes. And if there is disunity, if there is strife, we cry and weep over that, and we teach repentance.

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And then it goes beyond that. Our houses become a lighthouse to our society around us, our neighbors.

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It becomes a lighthouse. We don't do it with pride and ambition, but we do it because we are the dwelling place of God. And they are to look at it and see there is something different with this home where all the other families of the world is in chaos.

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This one seems to have somewhat things together. That doesn't mean we're perfect, but it means there's a certain difference in which when they do fail, there's a certain difference in which they're repenting before God and they seem to be growing through their imperfections.

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This is different than what's happening in the world. And so that has an organic way of affecting society around the church or the family.

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But then these families come together and they join together in a church. And this unity that's going on in our separate churches, it comes together into the body of Christ.

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The church of God is alive in the local area. And we become unified, surrounded by the power of Christ and the gospel to reconcile different people to himself through his blood to God and then make them reconcile with one another and to love each other.

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That is only something Christ can do. And what a great time and this great period in which the world is so divided to show what it means to be united in Christ.

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What an opportunity it is today to be a Christian. We look at the world going down in flames and that does hurt,

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I know. We're not happy to see that. But what a great opportunity it is to show that, yes, this is what you do.

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This is what happens when you're not reconciled with your God. It goes into flames very quickly.

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And so then that the church can fill that void up and this is what reconciliation looks like. This is what it looks like to be unified.

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This is what it looks like to have godly families coming together into a church showing with the power of Jesus to reconcile individual sinners and reconciling individual sinners together into the body of Christ being the light of Christ to the world.

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What an opportunity it is. The church is meant to preach the power of Christ to those who are near and far off.

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This is what we are to do. There should be something in us that we can't help but to proclaim this and do this.

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Again, there's just things that come naturally to humans, right? We want to feel alive, and that's only found in Christ.

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We want to be in community, and the greatest community is found in Christ. And we want desperately to spread this community to everyone.

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This is just something that God has placed in us to preach this good news of reconciliation far and wide, near and far.

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It's a wonderful thing to think that in all this, this is what everyone wants.

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When you're giving the gospel, when you're showing the gospel light to the world, that's what people want.

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They want to be reconciled with God, but in their sin, they just don't understand it.

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So when they see it being played out in your life, there's something that gravitates to their heart saying, this is right, and the

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Spirit works in that in their heart. And so we have this great thing going on where the dwelling place of God is spreading across the land.

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I think in very many ways, the church has followed the world instead of the world following the church.

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And so we're in this position where families are more influenced by the world's families instead of families being influenced by what

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God's word says. So there's this great need, this great opportunity that we are in where we can see the world is not our friend, but God through Jesus Christ is, and he shows us what it means to be truly the dwelling place of God.

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And it's not dwelling with the world. It's not flirting with the world. It's being markably different.

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And it starts in division. It spreads organically to the family, to the church, and it has to go to culture all around.

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It is a blessing to have that telos, the goal of God, playing itself out on our midst.

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Let us pray for that end that would continue year by year, day by day, through the gospel activity, through the

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Spirit's power. God in heaven, please be with me. Be with that sermon.

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Be with the words that were proclaimed. Lord, I'm so thankful for the strength that we can have through Jesus.

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I think of the impossible task that we have. Every single one of us, an impossible task.

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How can we, Father, in a true sense, be the true dwelling place of God when we are so beset with so many sins and failures and shortcomings?

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Just my sickness this week reminds me of just how weak I am, just how much a need of humility

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I need. But then what's wonderful is you take that and you say, this is a mandatory prerequisite that you would come to me humble.

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Lord, the truth is that we cannot do this of our own power. We cannot be the dwelling place of God. We cannot represent you well to our families, to our culture, to the world around us.

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We can't do that of our own power. That's the whole purpose of the promise that would come from Abraham, that is the Messiah, who would take upon our weaknesses upon himself on the cross.

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We thank you, Lord, that you see that we are weak. And in our weakness you meet us with strength in Jesus Christ.

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I pray, God, that all of us together as a church would see just how much we're in need of you to be faithfully the dwelling place of God here on earth.

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Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your Son. Thank you for the Spirit who works all these things for your glory and our good.

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We are so thankful for you today. Let us carry this with us throughout the week. In Jesus' name, amen.