WEBVTT 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:42.159 Starting with verse 11, it says, Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:48.880 But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 00:00:49.119 --> 00:01:13.120 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:19.200 And he came and priest preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:24.319 For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:43.439 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 foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:50.159 In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:51.840 So reads God's word. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:12.639 It felt a little bit like the introduction to today's uh sermon kind of writes itself because I don't know if you've noticed, uh, but as a culture, as a society in the West, we're a little bit divided. 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:24.479 Uh that might be something that is familiar to you unless you've been living under a rock uh for the last uh, I guess, uh, well, certainly half decade, but possibly possibly more. 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:36.960 Uh there are lots of divisions along lots of different lines, whether it's uh political or ethnic or cultural or class or religion. 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:46.000 I imagine if I, and I'm not going to do this, uh, got even people in this room to say, put up your hand if you think Donald Trump is awesome. 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:57.520 Uh, and then got everybody else to look at uh who had their hand in the air, or the opposite, put up your hand if you think Donald Trump is the worst orange man who ever lived. 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:04.159 Um you might get a strong division even in a room like this. 00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:09.280 Uh how do we handle these divisions? 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:22.400 Uh, these uh dividing lines, whether it's political or ethnic or cultural or class-based or religious, uh, are dividing walls. 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:33.759 Uh, walls which uh in some senses protect uh the community within them, uh, but walls which keep others out. 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:38.800 It's them and us. 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:56.879 Uh we can be tempted to look at the particular polarizing figures like the Donald and blame them for the division that they caused all of this hostility. 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:12.000 But that would be too low a resolution view on human history because human history is riddled with separation and walls. 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:22.079 Human history is the story of division, nation against nation, empire against empire. 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:37.439 You keep on going further and further back, and you go back to tribe against tribe, and you go further back still, and you go back to uh family versus family, and you go back further still, at least in the pages of the Bible, and what do you get? 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.639 You get brother against brother. 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:44.240 Go back another page. 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:45.519 What do you get? 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:49.839 You get humanity against their God. 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:59.040 Division and separation leading to hostility is the story of human history. 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:07.759 Before Cain murdered Abel, humanity was estranged from the God who made them. 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:22.000 So the fountainhead, the wellspring of all of our division and hostility, the breach that exists between peoples, is not one political figure. 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:34.480 No, the fountainhead of division that exists between peoples is our vertical division between humanity and the God who made us. 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:50.319 And so any solution that would bring lasting peace must take that vertical breach, that separation between God and man, God and humanity, into account. 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:54.879 Or else it will never deliver a lasting peace. 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:00.720 Some people have tried to offer solutions. 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:12.480 They've said that the differences that exist between us are unimportant or inconsequential, and yet that is not how we tend to feel them. 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:18.240 The differences that exist between us are sometimes deeply held. 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:37.360 In the West, we have tried to say something like, well, all cultures are actually well, just they're all the same and of equal moral weight, value, and utility. 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:41.439 And yet that doesn't seem to have worked either. 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.800 And that is not Christianity's answer. 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:57.360 Paul, in these passages that we've been looking at over the last few weeks, and we're in a series of uh of what the book of Ephesians has to teach us about the church. 00:06:57.759 --> 00:07:06.240 But two weeks ago, when we looked at chapter one, Paul prayed three things for the church. 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:15.040 He wanted to have the eyes of their spirits, the eyes of their hearts enlightened. 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:22.959 So, what that basically means is I'm praying that you will see certain things that you can only see with the eyes of faith, right? 00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:27.680 And the three things that he thinks that we can only see with the eyes of faith are this. 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:30.160 One, the hope to which we're called, right? 00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:33.759 The hope that is laid up for humanity because of Jesus. 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:35.120 That's the first one. 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:41.680 Secondly, the glorious riches of his inheritance in the saints. 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:42.879 We'll come back to that. 00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:46.800 And the third one was the power that is at work within us. 00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:51.279 Now, last week we saw that power that is at work within us. 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:52.319 What is that power? 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.360 Well, it's the power to bring the dead back to life. 00:07:55.519 --> 00:08:08.879 That just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we, by his grace, received through the empty hand of faith, who were dead in our trespasses and sins, are raised to newness of life. 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:14.240 So Paul has gone on to tell us about the power at work within us. 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:28.319 And now, in a sense, he's circling back, and in this passage, he's showing us the immeasurable riches of his grace in the inheritance of the saints, that is, in the church. 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:30.720 Put it another way, let's simplify the language. 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:37.120 Paul's saying, I want to show you the amazing work that God is about in the church. 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:48.240 I want you to have spiritual eyes to see how beautiful a diverse and united church is around the Lord Jesus. 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:50.720 And that's what this passage is all about. 00:08:51.039 --> 00:08:56.080 He wants us to see the beauty of the church. 00:08:56.320 --> 00:09:03.440 And in order to do that, he encourages us in three simultaneous ways. 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:06.960 And they're going to appear on the screen behind me, I hope. 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:14.000 The first is that he wants us to actually remember the walls that divided us, which might seem strange. 00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:15.919 You might think, well, I want to move on from that. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.159 But no, he says, start by remembering those things that divided you. 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:26.399 Then, second, we are to trust the everlasting peacemaker. 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:31.200 And then third, to live as God's new humanity. 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:33.279 Look at that. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:35.200 So that's where we're going. 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:37.600 Don't just nod off now that they're up there. 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:38.720 Track with me. 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:39.200 Okay? 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:44.320 Number one, remember the walls that divided us. 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:50.080 Paul begins with this command to remember where they have come from. 00:09:50.240 --> 00:10:01.519 Verse 11, therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called, quote, the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision. 00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:04.080 Why does Paul command this remembrance? 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:05.759 Well, it's not nostalgia. 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:10.240 It's not in saying, Oh, you remember, remember how great things were? 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:12.080 Remember how you had it? 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:25.919 No, he's saying, remember how divided you were, how hostile you were to those who you deemed as lesser, as other than you. 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:43.360 And he is drawing on a particular division, uh, probably the deepest division that is ever run between humanity, certainly the deepest division that existed in the ancient world, and that was the one between Jew and Gentile. 00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:58.080 When Paul quotes, uh puts in quote marks the uncircumcision, they're in quote marks because that was a Jewish ethnic slur against the Gentiles. 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:04.399 You might think in your own minds of other ethnic slurs that might be used in our day. 00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:13.519 And in the ancient world, the uncircumcision, we might we kind of read read read over it, but imagine if Paul had put in the N-word. 00:11:13.759 --> 00:11:17.279 It has that level of emotional force. 00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:21.120 That's how deep the hostility ran. 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:28.080 An ethnic slur that the Jews uh said against the Gentiles. 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:36.080 And equally, it is not as though you had uh one side was was oppressed and the other side was oppressor. 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:39.679 The Gentiles give back as good as they did it. 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:43.759 So they derided the Jews for their circumcision. 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:44.960 Welcome to you. 00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:52.480 Uh, if you weren't expecting lots of chat about circumcision this morning, uh before uh before your morning pastry, I'm sorry, but it's here. 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:59.919 Um but this was the level of uh of derision, of hostility, of hatred and rancor. 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:06.399 And he wants them to remember that tension that there was between them. 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:26.320 Now, given that he's riding to a predominantly Gentile city in Ephesus, which is uh over over uh near uh modern-day Turkey, riding to a predominantly non-Jewish audience, he then spells out the implications of this division. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:32.080 What did it mean for for them to experience this wall, this hostility? 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:41.200 And so he gives five little staccato points in the next verses as to the consequence of their division. 00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:57.200 Verse 12 remember that you were one, separated from Christ, two, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, three, strangers to the covenants of promise, four, having no hope, five, without God in the world. 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:04.960 That's the way the Gentile now Christians were separated from Christ. 00:13:05.039 --> 00:13:08.879 Let's just run through so that we understand what each of them mean very briefly. 00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:10.320 Separated from Christ. 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:11.440 What does that mean? 00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:24.000 See, Paul's saying, God had promised to the Jews a Messiah, a savior king, chosen by God, anointed by him who would come and rescue them. 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:28.240 He's saying, Gentiles, he was not your king. 00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:34.799 You had no share in the Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:40.799 That is, that they were, they were not members of God's chosen people all the way through the Old Testament. 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:45.360 God is saying, You are my particular treasure. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:52.159 And some other translations say, my peculiar treasure, chosen out of all of the nations of the world. 00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:54.960 Paul's saying, Gentiles, that was not you. 00:13:55.200 --> 00:14:05.919 You were not part of God's chosen, treasured people, called out from amongst all the nations of the world, strangers to the covenant. 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:18.159 That is, the covenant was this legal, uh, this legal document filled with blessings and responsibilities, and say, all of the blessings of being God's covenant people you could not enjoy. 00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:22.000 They were not your blessings, they were not your rights. 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:33.360 For as a consequence of all of this, they had no hope in the world, no future to aspire to, no future to stabilize their present. 00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:48.240 And fifthly, without God in the world, their religions, their spiritualities, their belief systems were not all just different paths up God's mountain. 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:55.440 They had no access to him as a consequence. 00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:58.960 You might think about your um your passport. 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:02.080 I mean, you traveled here uh recently. 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:10.480 Your your passport identifies that you are a citizen of a particular country. 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:15.840 Uh, I have two, I have an Irish one and I have a British one because I grew up in Northern Ireland. 00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:19.919 Uh, and so I'm a I'm a divided person in my own being. 00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:29.600 Uh, but my my British one's about to lapse, and I will enjoy my Irish citizenship uh into the next into the next decade. 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:39.600 And our citizenship, which our passport identifies, it grants us certain legal protections, certain legal guarantees. 00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:50.559 So, in theory, the blessing of the constitution of your home country is yours to enjoy by rights as a citizen. 00:15:51.440 --> 00:16:03.279 But if someone is not a citizen, then those blessings, those protections of that shared cultural identity do not apply to them in the same way. 00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:14.159 And Paul is saying that the Gentiles by nature had no citizenship, had no standing, had no status in the kingdom of God. 00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:16.639 They were far far off. 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:23.200 It is as though they were standing on the shores of that land. 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:28.879 But they could be certain that they would be turned away at the border. 00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:37.919 In verse 14, he describes this great dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. 00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:43.759 And on one hand, on one hand, you kind of get the metaphor, and Paul is using it in a metaphorical way. 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:51.200 But did you know that Paul is also talking about a literal wall that divided Jew and Gentile? 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:52.559 Now, have a thing. 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:54.559 Where was that literal wall? 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.360 Well, that literal wall existed in the temple. 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:11.200 The temple, if you can imagine a great rectangular structure, was a series of walls, a series of concentric courts moving out. 00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:20.640 So in the very heart of the temple, you had the most holy place where only one person, the high priest, could could go one time a year with a sacrifice. 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:23.680 And it was divided by a great curtain. 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:25.359 That's the first wall. 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:31.759 Beyond that was the uh the inner court of the temple, the holy place. 00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:39.200 And that's where uh the priests could minister and they could offer incense and prayers, but they couldn't go behind the curtain. 00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:58.400 Then you come out and you have the the court of the court of the Jews, the court of the men, where the priests would offer sacrifices on the great burnt altar, where the great uh basin, the labor of ceremonial washings, set, and only uh Jewish men could go there. 00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:04.799 And then you had the court of the women, where Jewish women could offer their prayers behind another wall. 00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:15.039 And then you step out again, and there's another wall, and what at the furthest point, all the way back, furthest point from the most holy place, the furthest point from any sacrifice, what court was there? 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:16.880 It was the court of the Gentiles. 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:19.359 Thus far and no further. 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:26.400 And on the doorway that connected the Gentile court to the inner courts, there was a sign. 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:28.960 What did that sign say? 00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:36.559 That sign said that if you cross this line, you are responsible for your own impending death. 00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:42.559 You're responsible for your own shed blood if a Gentile crosses that line. 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:50.559 And so any Gentile coming to worship God, any non-Jew coming to worship God, that's as far as they could get. 00:18:51.680 --> 00:19:01.200 They could purchase a sacrificial animal, but they had to then pass it on to a priest who would take it on in. 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:11.359 They could never see that animal be sacrificed, they could never smell the sense of that burnt offering, offering atonement for their own sin. 00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:13.519 They were excluded. 00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:15.839 There was a dividing wall. 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:31.680 Parenthetically, when Jesus overturns the table in the temple, you know that famous scene, even if you've only Sunday school knowledge, you know that Jesus got a little bit annoyed one day and he turns over all of the tables of the money changers and scatters all the livestock. 00:19:32.640 --> 00:19:34.480 Where was that market? 00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:37.599 It was in the court of the Gentiles. 00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:40.400 Why is Jesus so annoyed? 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:46.799 Because he's looking at the Jews and he's saying, This is as far as a non-Jew can get. 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:53.200 This is as far as a non-Jew can get to worship God, and you have turned it into a marketplace. 00:19:55.599 --> 00:20:00.640 A literal dividing wall that kept people tight. 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:21.359 The Jew-Gentile divide in the ancient world was the hardest social wall of the first century because it was not only ethnic, but religious and cultural and legal. 00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:25.920 Why does Paul want us to remember those things? 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:29.759 Why does Paul want us to remember those walls? 00:20:31.119 --> 00:20:40.000 Well, it's not because Paul wants to shame us, or indeed shame his first readers. 00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:45.519 Rather, he seeks to expose the depth of our problem. 00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:51.519 The depth of division that runs between human beings. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:06.799 And secondly, to encourage us to move forward together with gratitude and humility, not taking the unity that we enjoy for granted. 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:14.079 We are to remember that this is the natural disposition of the human heart to each one of us. 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:16.559 I feel this in my own heart. 00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:25.039 We gravitate by nature to tribes that we identify with. 00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:38.640 We gravitate towards echo chambers, our algorithms, our podcast feed reflect back to us the boundary lines that we instinctively draw. 00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:45.440 So we all have temperaments and we all have particular convictions, and some of those convictions are very deeply held. 00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:57.599 So we must know that we can be led to looking down upon and disdaining others as a consequence. 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:18.160 So it is worth asking yourself, what what label instinctively triggers you that somebody identified themselves as being, oh I'm not sure that I want to be in a community group with them. 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:23.279 I'm not sure that they should be a leader of a community group if that's the way that they think. 00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:29.279 What type of people do you tend to look down on? 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:36.880 Even if you don't even if you don't mean to. 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:44.400 You know that it kind of something has aroused in you in that moment. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:51.039 There are walls that we each need to acknowledge and repent of. 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:13.839 And that is to trust the peacemaker. 00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:32.799 There is such a temptation to place our hope in a particular man-made system, whether it is a political party or an economic idea or a cultural system. 00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:54.960 If only our candidate were to win, if we could create policies that ensured X, Y, Z, if we could embrace these ideals, if we could take to ourselves these beliefs, then surely the world would be a better place. 00:23:55.039 --> 00:23:56.960 And look, please hear me. 00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:02.640 God has put in place a system of good governance. 00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:06.880 The Bible teaches on what good governance should look like. 00:24:09.599 --> 00:24:20.000 But in terms of our ultimate hope, in terms of our ultimate lasting peace, it can only be found in one place. 00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:27.039 And that is the Lord Jesus. 00:24:27.519 --> 00:24:28.720 Verse 13. 00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:39.440 But now in Christ, you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:44.400 Now, did you notice that we were talking about places there? 00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:47.599 What place can peace be found? 00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:50.079 And the answer is a person. 00:24:50.319 --> 00:24:51.759 Isn't that interesting? 00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:58.000 The place of peace is the person of peace, the Lord Jesus. 00:24:58.319 --> 00:24:59.440 Look at what Paul says. 00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:14.160 Paul says, but now, that decisive pivotal moment, given all of this hostility, given all of this division, we're switching, but now God has acted, something has happened, there's a bend in the arc of human history. 00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:23.359 But now in Christ, the prince of peace is the place of peace. 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:28.240 He himself is the peacemaker. 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:36.880 Peace, therefore, is not brought about by a policy, but in a person. 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:48.079 And this peace is what God is showing to the world through his people in the church. 00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:56.720 This peace has been achieved by his blood shed on the cross, that is, his death. 00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:04.240 Because in his death, his shed blood, as a result, Gentiles have been brought close. 00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:08.960 Those who were far off have been brought near. 00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:22.880 Imagine for a second that if God had just brought the Gentiles close without making peace, well, it would cause even more conflict, wouldn't it? 00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:29.519 But Christ doesn't just draw near under one roof two warring factions. 00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:32.799 No, he ends the warfare. 00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:37.119 He unites us together in Him. 00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:40.559 In his death. 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:41.839 How? 00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:46.079 His death does three things in this passage. 00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:47.599 Ready for them? 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:52.240 His death demolishes, it abolishes, and it creates. 00:26:53.039 --> 00:27:05.359 See that verse 14, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down, that's demolished, is broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. 00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:06.240 By what? 00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:18.000 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. 00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:18.960 How does peace? 00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:20.480 How does peace come about? 00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:23.920 By demolition, an abolition, and a creation. 00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:30.000 He demolishes the dividing wall. 00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:35.920 What ultimately kept us far from God was our sin. 00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:40.079 That's what alienates us on that vertical dimension. 00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:46.319 All those signs in the temple were actually for our own protection. 00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:52.640 Because if we were to draw nearer to a holy God, we would be obliterated. 00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:57.119 But Christ has taken our sin, and so we can draw near. 00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:00.720 Do you remember what happened when Christ died? 00:28:01.279 --> 00:28:03.440 Think of Mark chapter 15. 00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:12.240 When Christ breathed his last, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:13.200 Why? 00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:22.000 Yes, it's an end to the old sacrificial system because Christ has offered himself once for all, but it's also a symbol of access. 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:25.200 All now draw near. 00:28:25.279 --> 00:28:35.759 And so the writer to the Hebrews says, therefore, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that you might receive grace and help in your time of need. 00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:46.079 You Gentile, though you were far off, Christ has brought you near by demolishing the wall. 00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:50.079 We all have access together to God through him. 00:28:51.759 --> 00:28:54.400 Not only does he demolish, but he abolishes. 00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:59.200 He abolishes the law expressed in ordinances. 00:28:59.359 --> 00:29:06.240 Now, what this doesn't mean is that Jesus is an anarchist and that he is just all for moral chaos. 00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:20.160 No, Paul here is referring specifically to those cultural markers that set the Jew apart from the Gentile, chiefly the food laws and circumcision. 00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:29.519 Circumcision was a very obvious sign, so to speak, of uh of denoting who was a Jew and who was not. 00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:41.039 And yet in Christ, he has declared all foods clean, and he has given us a new sign, not of circumcision, but of baptism. 00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:48.640 And our baptism, our shared one baptism is a sign of our unity together in Christ. 00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:56.799 So he has abolished those old cultural markers in himself and therefore created something new. 00:29:57.119 --> 00:30:01.039 The Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to worship God. 00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:04.799 The Jews do not need to become Gentiles in order to worship God. 00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:08.799 No, Jesus creates in himself a new thing, a new people. 00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:11.440 There's no longer them and us. 00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:15.759 It's not two, but one in Christ. 00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:41.200 Our horizontal reconciliation between people of different political opinions, different ethnicities, different classes, different backgrounds culturally speaking is inextricably linked with that vertical reconciliation that we achieve, or sorry, that we receive by grace through faith because of Jesus. 00:30:47.039 --> 00:30:49.920 This is how He makes peace. 00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:56.000 Our divisions may run deep, but Christ offers us a unity that runs deeper still. 00:30:56.480 --> 00:31:01.359 A unity that roots all of us together in the united God. 00:31:01.519 --> 00:31:12.640 Did you notice that the Paul here tells us that every member of the Trinity is involved in this? 00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:16.720 Let me read to you from verse 17. 00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:18.720 He came and preached Christ. 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:23.200 Sorry, he came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those of you who are in year. 00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:30.400 For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. 00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:36.400 Through Jesus, we have access in the Spirit to the Father. 00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:50.880 The unity that roots us together, the unity that creates peace and joy in our midst, is the unity that God Himself enjoys in eternity. 00:31:53.680 --> 00:31:54.880 I think that's beautiful. 00:31:57.759 --> 00:32:05.839 Therefore, Paul would encourage us this morning to receive the peace that Christ offers. 00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:15.759 To embrace him as the only true hope for our world and the one who can heal the anger that we feel in hostility towards others. 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:24.000 He would invite us to the foot of the cross again and to lay that hostility down. 00:32:25.839 --> 00:32:34.720 To bring every grievance to him, and where possible, to have a posture of forgiveness and to seek reconciliation. 00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:41.599 He would encourage us to show hospitality, a cross difference. 00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:53.680 Not because our differences don't matter, but because if we are in Christ, our differences take on a relative importance. 00:32:54.160 --> 00:32:56.079 They are no longer absolute. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:02.880 City is a living example of this unity. 00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:05.519 Look around you. 00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:08.079 We're not perfect. 00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:10.480 But it is beautiful. 00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:22.079 The media team this week worked to show you just a little glimpse of the unity that exists between us. 00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:28.960 And so I hope as I talk slowly, and Jared runs to the back. 00:34:10.880 --> 00:34:12.880 He himself is our peace. 00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:20.559 It's not the absence of disagreement, it's not the absence of difference, but his presence amongst us. 00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:29.679 Incidentally, if you'd like to join the media team, you can talk to the uh uh to Ian, who is the last person on the video, and uh he is looking to recruit right now. 00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:34.639 God is doing a wonderful thing in our midst. 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:44.159 And so our encouragement as we close then is to live as this new humanity, the new humanity that God is creating. 00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:49.039 What Christ has done plays out in the church. 00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:57.920 And Paul closes this chapter by giving us three three images of what he is doing. 00:34:58.320 --> 00:35:10.000 He says that God has made us citizens together, that we are members of a household together, and that we are being built together into a holy temple. 00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:14.880 Citizens, a household, and a temple. 00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:23.039 Citizens, we enjoy a new legal status in the kingdom of God. 00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:31.679 If you are not a Christian here this morning, stop standing on the borders of our land. 00:35:33.199 --> 00:35:34.800 Stop standing on the shore. 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:39.199 You will not be turned away at border entry. 00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:47.360 You are welcome into the kingdom of God because Jesus has taken your sin. 00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:58.639 You can receive a new status in his kingdom, forgiven, blessed, never again to be turned away. 00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:02.079 We are a new household. 00:36:02.559 --> 00:36:25.920 Here, Paul has in mind that familial intimacy and connection that siblings enjoy, that we have all been adopted because of Christ into his family, that God the Father is our Father, and he rejoices over us with singing because of our elder brother, the Lord Jesus. 00:36:26.239 --> 00:36:43.599 That we can know acceptance, that we can know intimacy, that we can know what it is like to be truly and deeply known and also truly and deeply loved. 00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:47.519 And temple. 00:36:49.519 --> 00:36:52.559 Temple is the place where God dwells. 00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:59.119 He dwells in his people, he dwells amongst us. 00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:10.400 When people encounter us, when people come into our gathering, they encounter him through us. 00:37:13.360 --> 00:37:22.480 Paul says that the foundations of this house, this temple, are the apostles and prophets. 00:37:22.719 --> 00:37:38.559 That is, that they are, that we are built and established on the biblical witness, on God's unfailing word, on the truthfulness of what he has said here in these pages. 00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:41.280 That is our foundation. 00:37:42.719 --> 00:37:49.119 So to lose the joyous embrace of the Bible would be like removing the foundations of our house. 00:37:49.280 --> 00:38:04.719 And as a consequence, and you see this in church after church and denomination after denomination, that when the foundations of the apostles and prophets, that is, the foundations of the biblical witness are undermined, disunity, peace. 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:14.079 Peace goes, disunity enters in, hostility and fracturing apart is inevitable. 00:38:16.159 --> 00:38:27.440 Lots of talk in churches and in denominations that have long since uh turned aside from the truthfulness and the authority of the Bible. 00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:29.760 They talk lots of unity. 00:38:29.920 --> 00:38:32.320 Let's be united together. 00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:34.639 Around who? 00:38:36.079 --> 00:38:37.440 Based on what? 00:38:39.039 --> 00:38:47.679 And yet unity is talked about in a kind of nebulous, pious sort of way, but it's rock solid in Paul's mind. 00:38:47.840 --> 00:38:52.159 It's built on a particular foundation, it's centered around a particular person. 00:38:53.039 --> 00:38:57.280 It's built on the word and around the word made flesh. 00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:01.519 Take those away, it's just pious nonsense. 00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:05.519 Christ Himself, Paul says, is the cornerstone. 00:39:05.599 --> 00:39:14.719 That is, he is the guide, the rule of our life together, the one who holds the whole structure in place. 00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:22.320 He is the one who unites ethnicities and languages, classes, groups, friends, marriages, families. 00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:25.280 And this is a living structure. 00:39:25.519 --> 00:39:27.760 This temple is not a static thing. 00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:29.599 It grows and it develops. 00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:34.320 Our unity, friends, our unity cannot be taken for granted. 00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:36.960 It must be worked upon. 00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:42.000 It must be protected and guarded and invested in. 00:39:42.320 --> 00:40:00.079 And so when we serve and when we invite you to serve, you are expressing your solidarity with your brothers and sisters in City Church, and you're contributing to the strengthening and growing of this temple in which people will encounter the living God. 00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:31.199 When we make an effort to go and open ourselves up and offer our insights and thoughts and reflections in one of the community groups, you are strengthening the bonds of affection and of love that exist between us, that together we might become more mature in Christ, that we might stabilize one another's lives as we seek to follow Jesus so that we're not, as Paul will talk about later in the book of Ephesians, tossed to and fro. 00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:34.239 And so our life together is not incidental. 00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:50.639 When you give, you are investing in that life together, deepening your own commitment to our mission to see Christ made known in Dublin and beyond. 00:40:51.519 --> 00:40:59.840 So none of these participatory things, service, investment in community group, investment in giving, none of them are incidental. 00:40:59.920 --> 00:41:05.280 None of them are just the tick box to-do's of what a good Christian should look like. 00:41:05.519 --> 00:41:09.360 It's how we grow together. 00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:19.599 It's how we become that holy temple in which God is encountered, in which his presence is made known and felt. 00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:27.440 It is how others come to hear of Christ's peacemaking love for them. 00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:36.400 So as we close, consider those three images. 00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:53.119 If you are a citizen, commit to his people, join us, serve, give, shoulder the mission with us. 00:41:55.119 --> 00:42:07.840 If you are a sibling in the household of God, then join us not as a service provider, but as a family. 00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:20.800 Do not rob your brothers and sisters of the opportunity to get to know you, to bless you, and to be blessed by you, to laugh with you and weep with you, and to know the goodness of all of that. 00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:48.320 And if we are a temple, may we move forward, expecting to experience the beauty and goodness of God's presence amongst us as we gather and expecting that those who are right now far off would experience that in our midst also. 00:42:52.639 --> 00:43:13.920 As we speak his word and as we respond to him in our worship, that he by his spirit would change hearts, heal wounds, heal marriages, reconcile enemies, and pour out his joy on all of us. 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:24.239 In a divided world, the church's unity is its only hope. 00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:42.239 And we have an opportunity to be a signpost of the power of the gospel and to show the immeasurable riches of his inheritance in us, his saints. 00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:59.440 If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website. 00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.599 Find in the links below.