Talk 5 - Ephesians 2:11-22

0:00 We are back in Ephesians this morning, and let me just remind you where we finished last time. In chapter 2, if you want to look it up, that would be great if you have a copy and you test on it with you. We finished last time with this really wonderful statement where Paul says, You, that is, all who are believers in Christ, are God's workmanship. The word meaning his craft, his handiwork, his artistry. Created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And as Gray pointed out, our word poem, we are God's poem. We are his work of art. We are his handiwork.

1:01 And in recent days, we have witnessed some of God's amazing handiwork in the heavens. The aurora on the 10th of October, just startling for all of you who have the opportunity to see it. You could even see it out of your bedroom window. Amazing. But even the tiny things, the artistry, a leaf frozen in the water, the butterfly's wings. Fascinating to think. A damselfly on a leaf. And even the ice patterns on the front of your car.

1:39 Crafted by God, his handiwork. That's what God is doing with each believer in Jesus Christ. To make us into something indescribably beautiful. Now, I know it takes a bit of a leap of faith. When I look in the mirror, it doesn't always appear. I'm certainly not what I will be one day. But this is the reality. We don't see it yet.

2:11 But if you could see the person beside you as they will be one day in Christ, you would be tempted to bow down and worship them. Such is a startling reality of what God is up to in our lives. That is what Paul is saying in these verses. And part of that is the good works that Paul talks about here, that God has prepared good works for us to do because they are an essential part of the way in which God shapes us and crafts us. It's not, this is not just theory. As we engage in those things, our characters are being changed, rough edges are being rubbed off, and we're being polished up, if you like, to make us more like Christ. And being made more like Christ doesn't mean there's some fear, it means that we all end up looking the same. I used to watch these movies that would show, you know, workers in a Chinese factory or something.

3:26 They all used to be dressed in the same uniform. This would be a horror show if that's what the future life is going to be looking like. But it's not like that. Each of us has the opportunity to become like Christ and yet remain ourselves, although more so, if you like, retaining our individuality and yet like Christ. That's what's been set up. And since then, Paul has talked about these good works that God has prepared for us to do. You would expect Paul now to list what they are, and he doesn't. He leaves those to much later.

4:09 There is a sharp change of direction in the flow of the content of the letter here in chapter 2 and verse 11. So let's read from here through to the end of chapter two. This is Ephesians 2, 11 to the end. Therefore, he says, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth are called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, which is done in the body by human hands. Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from the citizenship in Israel, foreigners to the covenant of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near for through him we both that is both Jew and Gentile have access to the Father by one spirit.

5:57 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. So this is a marked shift in the content, in the theme, in the topic. It follows the same pattern because in the first section of Ephesians, we had this before now pattern, before the creation of the world, we were chosen in Christ. Now we are blessed in the heavenly places in Christ. We're redeemed, we're forgiven, we're sealed by the Spirit and all of that. Here we have that pattern again.

7:09 Before, says Paul, formerly, or before, you who are Gentiles by birth, you were separated from Christ, et cetera. Now, in Christ Jesus, you have been brought near. So it's the same pattern, but the topic is clearly different. Because from the beginning, he is addressing those in the church who were, like me, born Gentiles, that is, not Jews. And as Gentiles by birth, he's reminding them that they were not party to the particular relationship God entered into with Israel, with all its covenants and sacrifice and so on. I'll talk about this a little bit more later. But we Gentiles were strangers to all that. And in that sense, therefore, says Paul, without God, without the unique promises and the hope that those promises brought.

8:12 But now in Christ, that state of things has been dramatically changed. Through his death on the cross, he has destroyed the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. Those who were at a distance, namely the Gentiles, separated from this hope have been brought near. But more than that, of the two, Jew and Gentile, he has made one brand new thing, A spiritual entity, if you like, that Paul calls the one new man, or as other translations have it, the new humanity. In the next paragraph of chapter 3, he calls this new creation the body, to emphasize the fact that it is a corporate entity in which Gentiles are fellow members with Jews. And then in the third paragraph of this section, chapter 4, 12 and on, he calls it the body of Christ. So three labels, if you like, for the same thing. The new humanity, the new body, and the body of Christ.

9:30 Now, what's the point? It sounds complicated. And in a sense, of course, it is. Well, what was the purpose? What was God thinking about? What had he in mind in this arrangement? Well, that's given to us right at the end of the chapter. The purpose towards which God is driving is this, to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit.

10:05 Now, think about that for a moment. This is a truly astonishing concept. a mind-blowing idea that God's overriding purpose, according to Paul, in human history is to build a dwelling place for himself within his creation, not in the form of a physical building, but in the form of a new spiritual community made up of Jew and Gentile alike. In recent weeks, we have been looking at God's purpose in creation to have us, as Paul puts it in chapter one, before him, his sons and daughters, before him in love, holy and blameless. And we've looked at the steps that God has taken to make that reality real. But here we are going further. It's not just God's desire to have us before him, but his desire to dwell among us in human history, in space and time, in the form of this new spiritual community made up of forgiven people, Jew, Gentile together, in which he now lives by his spirit.

11:39 Now, that is many, many implications, some of which we'll unpack today, many of them we won't. But one of them is this. It means that here, in Glen Abbey, or in whatever church we're involved in, We are part of God's central purpose for history. The purpose that he's been driving towards over thousands of years. This is the biggest, most significant, most valuable building project, if you like, in human history. A project that is global. That will continue on earth until God calls time on human history and stages the return of Jesus as king. An eternal project because it projects into the eternal world as the eternal dwelling place of God.

12:40 So that's the big picture. You can now go to sleep. I'm just going to dive into the detail. Well, no, not really, but if it happens, I'm going to try and dive into some of the detail here. And this will be a bit of a whistle stop ride. So be prepared. You Gentiles, he begins. Now, if it's possible, try to imagine what it would have been like to live in Ephesus when Paul and his team came there to encounter the message of the gospel, to encounter Jesus for the first time and discover then that what is totally new to you has actually been building up through history for hundreds of years.

13:32 Because that's what we're dealing with here. Jesus didn't just appear out of nowhere. the message of the gospel wasn't a first century invention. This has been building through history and goes way back. And in particular, in the context of what we're talking about here, to God's self-revelation to the ancient historical figure of Abraham and the nation that came from him. But if you're a Gentile in Ephesus or a Gentile in Northern Ireland, we didn't have all that background of God forming the nation, of God's special revelation to them in terms of his law and the covenant that he made through Moses, the temple in Jerusalem, the system of worship and the sacrifices. They didn't know about Moses, about Joshua, about David or Solomon. They didn't know about the exile or the return, the rebuilding of the temple and the long wait, the promises of the coming of Messiah and then the long wait for Messiah to come.

14:42 They are simply plunged into the middle of a much bigger story trying to make sense of it all. Have you watched any of the Jason Bourne movies. You know the idea. Somebody wakes up suffering from amnesia. Who am I? What is this all about? You're left trying to piece together your past history. That's what's going on here.

15:11 That's why Paul is talking about this. And as you read this passage, you're probably thinking, what circumcision, uncircumcision? What in the world is all this about? That's what I'm talking about. That's the bit you missed. That's the bit we missed because we weren't party to all of that if we are Gentiles. And you know the feeling. I mean, perhaps you come to Christ recently.

15:34 You've heard some of the stories of Jesus. You've read maybe the gospel of John or Luke. You've heard the gospel. You think Jesus is fantastic. You come to believe in him. And then you suddenly discover that it's not just the gospels, that there is a New Testament bit and there's letters in it and then there's this book revelation and then you discover that the majority of the book actually comes before the gospels what's all that about you don't know anything about it that's what we're talking about here it's a big story how does jesus fit into all of that What was God doing all that time before he came? So Paul gives us the overall purpose so we get a hold of that.

16:19 I know what this is about. I know where it's driving to. But then he hints at the steps that God has taken along the way in order to make that possible. And what's immediately obvious is that God did not set about his purpose in one go, but through a lengthy step-by-step approach. So strap in and get ready for a fast-track tour through centuries of history. I do like history. I listen to podcasts like the rest is history, and that's all very exciting and interesting. But I'm not going to be talking about 1066 and all that or the rise of the Mughal Empire.

17:00 I'm not going to be talking about the kings and queens of Britain or not even going to be talking about 1690 or the Easter Rising. This is a history lesson that you won't get on the podcast unless you write to Tom Holland and persuade him to write in and ask me and we could have a bit of fun doing it. This is a different view of history. The first humans, so we're going way back, knew that there was one true God. They didn't arrive at that knowledge after centuries of believing in many gods, they started there, and it is still the core human instinct. When we consider the vast complexities and marvels of the universe, it triggers that basic reaction. There must be something behind us. There must be a God who started all of this.

17:52 We perceive, says Paul, God's reality, his power, his transcendence, and that is reinforced by the moral awareness within us As the famous philosopher Emmanuel Kant put it, two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder, the starry heavens above me and the moral sense within me. We sense both of those realities as we become more and more conscious of the world around us. But many didn't like and still don't like the idea that there was one true God to whom they are by definition accountable. So they gradually dropped the idea. And even as Paul, again, in Romans 1 suggests and explains, actively suppressed it. But if you get rid of God, you need to find an alternative explanation. So you ascribe the universe around you and your own life to other powers, powers within the universe rather than outside of. In modern terms, we talk about chance and necessity, the big bang, weak atomic power, strong atomic power, gravity, and so on.

19:12 The physical powers of nature. And that is precisely what the ancients started to do. They acknowledged that these realities, what they understood of them, they were the supreme realities, like the sun, the wind, the storm, or the great psychological powers within them, anger, love, sex, et cetera. They acknowledged these things as the supreme realities, and they worshiped them, often making physical representation of them. But it's just basically the same thing as we do today. Deifying, making gods out of the powers of nature. And it was into that world of what we call idolatry now that God revealed himself to Abraham in ancient Babylon as the one true God. God is one, ultimate, supreme creator.

20:20 The God that everybody knew deep down in their heart to be real even though they denied it. And God revealed then his plan and purpose to Abraham that he was going to make of him a nation that would stand in the world for the belief in the one true God as distinct from the worship of all the so-called gods of the physical and psychological powers of the universe. So if you like, it was the setup within history, a protest movement against idolatry. So Abraham became the father of the Hebrew nation, later to be called Jews. So first of all then as a protest movement, but not just that, because God's plan was salvation. Good news for the world. His plan was to bring into the world his son to be the savior of the world. That is the very heart of the Christian faith.

21:29 The fifth, that Jesus is the son of God. But which God would have been the question if you had claimed that in ancient Rome or Ephesus? Is it Zeus? Aphrodite? Which God? Because they were so used to all kinds of gods and these gods had intermarried and there are all sorts of myths about children being born and all that kind of thing. So to come along and say that Jesus is the son of God would have just meant nothing special. There needed to be a context where people had finally come to realize and stick to the belief that God is one before then.

22:16 Jesus was brought into the world. And of course, that was a long process. Because the nation set up as a protest movement against idolatry were constantly going off after the gods of the world around them. And God had to constantly bring them back. And you can read that story as you read through the entire Old Testament. But he was building this up to the point where at exactly the right time, as Paul puts it, God sent his son. And everybody knew that the claim to be of God was not the same as it claimed to be a son of Zeus. This was God himself come to visit the planet.

23:00 And as he did that, all through those centuries, he was training them. The way we parents train our kids when they're little, you know, you give them toy cars to play with, not the real thing. At least I hope you give them toy cars, you know. It teaches them that there's wheels and, you know, they go in a certain direction. And if you get scholastic, it gets even more exciting. Or you maybe give them something that has toy money in it to teach them values. They'll be disappointed if they take it to the Swedish shop because it won't work there. But it's teaching them something.

23:38 And down through the centuries, God is teaching basic values through the system of worship, through the sacrificial system, teaching them about holiness and about sin and about the necessity of sacrifice. that forgiveness isn't just a matter of God saying, I forgive you. It doesn't matter. Sin matters, has to be paid for, needs a sacrifice, all pointing forward to what Jesus would do when he came. And one of the distinguishing marks that God gave this particular nation in order in that sense to keep them separate as this protest movement was that of circumcision, where the male children on the eighth day after being born were circumcised as a mark that they physically belong to this Hebrew nation. The Gentiles didn't have that custom. They were the uncircumcised, as we read here. And the uncircumcised Gentiles were not allowed into the main parts of the Jewish temple.

24:35 The Jews were allowed in, but only so far. So Paul, therefore, with that background, and that's a history lesson over. Was that fast enough for you? With that background, Paul writes that at that time, you Gentiles were separated from Christ. That is, they didn't have the Old Testament. They didn't have the prophets with all the promises that one day God was going to send Messiah into the world. These promises were given to the Jews. God's Messiah was going to come through the Jews.

25:05 The Gentiles, by and large, didn't know anything about it. And therefore, in that sense, they had no hope. They had nothing to look forward to. They were strangers to it. and outside the special covenantal relationship God made with the nation. But then Jesus came. And everything changed. And I'm going to mention just briefly as I finish, five changes that Paul refers to here.

25:37 Now you could count them differently and you might end up with 17, that's fine. Just encourage you to have a look at what's different now. What has Jesus actually achieved in his coming, and particularly through the cross, through his death, the sacrifice of himself on the cross? The first thing is that God has abolished the distance. You, says Paul, who were far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Let me pause just for a drink of water. I hope you don't mind. and it is only water.

26:22 Messiah didn't just come for the Jew. He came for the world. Sin separates us all from God. Whether we're Jew or Gentile, we're all in the same position in that regard. But Paul is here particularly addressing addressing the non-Jews who had nothing to do with all these special arrangements, who were at the distance both from God and from the covenants and the promise and Messiah and so on. But when John the Baptist introduced Jesus to the world, he said words that would have shocked his hearers on a number of levels. He said of Jesus, "Here is God's lamb." So the lamb is now a person, not a literal lamb.

27:14 A sacrifice is a person. God's lamb who takes away the sin of, not the Jews, not the nation, but the world. Things were changing. And by the blood of Jesus, God's lamb, That is by his death. He gave himself willingly as the only sacrifice for sin that could deal with human guilt because animals know nothing about sin or guilt. They're not moral beings. It's only symbolic pointing forward to the supreme sacrifice of Jesus. He was both God and man.

28:06 He gave himself so that through his death, we Gentiles have been brought near. Now, this isn't, of course, automatic. This doesn't happen to us whether we believe it or not. Listen to the famous words that you have no doubt seen at rugby matches or emblazoned in trees around the country and so on. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him. It demands a response. This is not a passive thing. It doesn't happen to us by osmosis.

28:47 It's not an accidental thing. It requires a response to accept and believe Christ and what he has done. But because of what Christ has done, The distance is now abolished. Secondly, he has brought peace. Christ himself, says Paul, is our peace. Worth thinking about that. In the world that is riven with division. The country that's riven with division at all sorts of levels.

29:29 Our peace is Christ. That's the whole basis of it. We work it out from there. So it's not primarily in a process. It is in a person. It is in Jesus. He has destroyed what Paul calls the dividing wall of hostility. It's been very realistic here.

30:00 you see the Jews had their God given law their rituals including in particular the ritual of circumcision and having that of course made them different from the nations around them so they very often got it into their heads that not only were they different but they were superior and that they were much more spiritual than anybody else and they were superior even though the reality was as their own prophets pointed out but very often they behaved far worse than the Gentile nations around them. But they held on to these badges of superiority, they thought. And it set up, it contributed to setting up enormous hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles. But then Christ came, says Paul, and announced peace to those who were far away, the Gentiles and peace to those who were near. Because even though those who were near were specially privileged, they were still sinful. They still needed a savior. But through his coming into the world, he set aside that old system of a law plus commands, plus regulations.

31:22 He set aside the whole thing. God designed it. God now in Christ set it aside. It had served its purpose. Now in Christ, God scrapped it. And both Jew and Gentile now will be saved and forgiven and reconciled to God in exactly the same terms. Not circumcision. Not special religious requirements.

31:49 all equally called to repent and trust in Jesus alone for salvation. He is our peace. We all come to him and he accepts us all on exactly the same terms, whatever our ethnicity, religious background, etc. treasure. So that in the early church in Ephesus and other places, believing Jew and believing Gentile were able to sit together, worship together, break bread together because Christ was their peace. And they still can. And often still do even in Israel and Lebanon and the nations around despite the horrific ongoing conflict in the area. Because Paul is not talking about political peace here.

32:55 He's talking about the peace that Christ brings, the peace that is Jesus himself that forms the basis for other practical stuff to be worked out. It's the basis where people from any kind of, even radically opposed positions meet together. As the old preachers used to say, sinners saved by grace. Taking that understanding that whatever our background, our supposed superiority, inferiority, whatever that, we're all the same here. Doesn't abolish the fact of my own ethnicity, but as far as God is concerned, And therefore, as far as relationships in this new body of Christ are concerned, that's irrelevant to our acceptance with God and with one another. And building from that, God has replaced the old division with something new. His peace is not simply a matter of the cessation of hostility. God has gone much further.

34:09 In Christ, he's created something that has never existed before, something new. To bring that peace, he's taken the two, Jew and Gentile, and created this new entity, this new humanity. Let's be clear here. It is not that God has taken the Jews and then added into them the Gentiles that have come to believe in him. This isn't an add-on system. This is a replacement system, something absolutely new, a new man, a new kind of humanity, believing Jew, believing Gentile together in one new body, the body of Christ. And they say, I'm not talking politics here or ethnic distinctions. Apparently, I am Scotch-Irish by birth.

34:59 There's nothing I can do about that. Apparently, I'm from the Lennox clan that was led by the Earls of Lennox, who once dominated large areas of Dumbartonshire, I'm told. We were historical supporters of Robert the Bruce, and I have a distant forebear who was married to Mary, Queen of Scots. Wow, I will sign the autographs later. Nothing I can do to change any of that. I'm also Caucasian. Nothing I can do to change that, but in Christ, I am part of this new entity that he has created. Where those distinctions that still exist don't become divisions.

35:45 Here is our peace. It's Jesus himself bringing us together into this new body. Now that has obvious implications, which I hope in the home groups and so on you will talk through about how I treat Someone who doesn't share my background or ethnicity. That's the basis for practical unity. The spiritual bond is real. It's not that we have to work towards unity. It is that the unity has already been created and we are to seek to maintain it, to develop it, to work out its implications as we meet together and as we work together in this world. And my time is disappearing.

36:30 Very rapidly, very quickly, number four, we now have immediate access to God. Again, a startling thing. There was a system of worship in the Old Testament where they had a temple, and that temple had a very basic structure, two-part structure, and it was divided in two by a massive veil. And only the high priest could go, the other side of the veil was the symbolic presence of God with the Ark of the Covenant and so on. Only the high priest could go beyond there year. That was it. Everybody was kept out. And the Gentiles, the uncircumcised, were kept out even further.

37:07 Now, says Paul through Christ, we have access. Access all areas. You've seen the badge. Access to the immediate presence of Christ, of God. This is stunning. This is stunning. Think that through. This is not about merit.

37:31 It's not about race. It's not about anything like that. Education. It's about what Christ has achieved for us. And finally, God has replaced the temple with something far better. If you were a Jew in the New Testament, meeting together as believers in the book of Acts in the early chapters, you'd have gone to the temple courts for a while because that was part of your culture and it was a magnificent building even though after 47 years whatever it still wasn't complete but it was a magnificent building and you'd love the artistry and the pomp and circumstance you'd be used to all of that and the smell of the incense and all the stuff that was going on perhaps you wouldn't like the smell of blood but that's another story but that was all part of it and then of course the early church eventually were kicked out of that facility so now you're faced with meeting in a warehouse you're faced with meeting on the hillside you're faced with meeting in a wee upper room somewhere and I mean you wouldn't be human if you didn't sort of sit there one day and think that you know they used to be lovely color to look at and they used to be it used to be so nice so artistic so gorgeous and and that's all gone do you remember the choirs and that we're trying.

38:51 There's just a bunch of us meeting together. We're taking bread and wine, and it just seems so simple. And so Paul, or whoever it was, wrote the letter to Hebrews to explain that what we have is something that is far better, a building made of people, the new community of God that has been crafted by him into something beautiful, which will be the new community of heaven itself. Amazing thing at the end of the Bible, we read these words, that the dwelling place of God is among people. God is for us, not against us. That's his purpose. creating this new community of people who have been forgiven, redeemed by the blood of Christ, who've received his spirit, who have been joined together in this body with every other believer.

39:59 If you ever travel, as I have on occasions, to speak in other countries or meet with other believers and don't understand their language, and they certainly don't understand mine. They tried to teach me to dance in Tanzania. It didn't work. which has called the entire congregation to laugh. And I just don't have that sense of rhythm and a complete weirdo as far as they were concerned. But there is this bond, which is inexplicable. It's not political. It's not cultural.

40:34 It's not ethnic. It's not to do with the color of skin. It's to do with what the Holy Spirit has done through Christ in making this body. Now that has implications for us at every sort of level. And again, I encourage in home groups us to think that through. Think that through. It's good sometimes, you know, I'm not speaking for the tourist board now, but it is good sometimes to get out of our own country. and to meet people in other places and realize that the family of God is so much bigger.

41:17 I was at a missions conference yesterday and it was just amazing to hear the stories of what God is doing all across the world in places like Iran and the Stan countries in Middle Asia and in Europe, in Ireland, all kinds of things. It does you good, but it reminds you of this bigger picture that sometimes we lose sight of because we get quite myopic and parochial in our view. So I encourage you to do that. Take whatever steps you can to understand that the body of Christ is a much bigger thing. And then understand that when we are together, when we interact with each other, this is not a social club. This is not a country club. It's not a spectator sport where you come and think, oh, who's on today? Oh, Gilbert, that's going to be long.

42:11 Oh, dear. Dinner's going to burn. Or I don't like the guys leading the music. This is awful. You know, I'll come next week. I prefer the songs. This is not a consumer sport we're engaged in here. Because if we are part of the body of Christ, it means that we are part of the dwelling place of God, which means that God is among us.

42:34 That needs to change our expectation. But we come to actually hear his voice, to listen to what God is saying to us from other people, to listen to how God is prompting us towards other people in love and compassion, to respond to him as we're going to sing now. Yes, we're singing to each other. That's important because we're encouraging one another with our songs, but we're singing to him. That worship then is a response to what you have heard this morning from God's word, that I disappear out of the equation, and this magnificent reality of the body of Christ becomes a thing in the dwelling place of God. I'll pray the man will come back, so let's pray. Father, thank you. A lot of information to cope with, or not cope with, as the case may be.

43:26 but just thank you for writing it for us and writing it into history. Thank you for preparing the way for Jesus to come so that he just didn't appear out of nowhere but we have a context for understanding who he is and what he's come to do and thank you for this revelation of what you have achieved through Christ and through the work of the Holy Spirit and we pray that this will become an increasing conscious reality for us as we seek to represent our little bit of this massive global eternal project that you're engaged in for the sheer privilege of it for the amazing grace of God is just incredible none of us here deserve and yet that's the point we don't deserve it's a gift that's given through Christ thank you for it use your word in our lives we pray in Jesus name Amen