Ephesians 2 - Brought Near by the Blood - 04/19/26

Ephesian 2:11-22

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands 

12 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. 

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

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 

15 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, 

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

17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 

20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 

21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I'm gonna be reading Ephesians 2, uh, verse 1 through 10, if you guys want to flip through your Bible and read along. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sin, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised up his raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast, for we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Awesome. Thank you, Steph. Um many of you have been asking where my dad is. If y'all don't know me, my name is Ben Phillips. I am Pastor Billy's son. Um he is at a wedding, and so you may have mistook us for looking like each other just because I have the big forehead up here. I assure you I'm much younger than him. As we get started, when I preach, I like to give an overview of where we're going. I like to give kind of a flight plan so that we have an idea of where we're going. Um you know, that way you know the departure, the destination, and any layovers that we might be going to, and you can have an idea of where we're going. So, with that being said, we are in Ephesians 2, as we were in Ephesians 1 last week, and we're going through the book of Ephesians, and I see three main movements in this text. I won't be going into depth on them. You'll have to do that in your own time. Um, but the movements that I see are what we are saved from, what we are saved by, and what we are saved for. And when we understand those things, it should produce four main responses in us, which is what we're going to be talking about. It should produce humility, awe, gratitude, and unity. Those are the four things that uh should be our responses from this text. So last week, as I said, we were listening to a sermon on Ephesians 1, and the emphasis was on identity. And as you would have it, Paul writes one continuous letter. It's not, oh, chapter and verses as we see today. He wrote one continuous letter, so that theme continues on into chapter 2. Weird, I know. Um, but he really takes a deep dive into the gospel and hits it really hard. He says something that I find to be true in every area of life from the very beginning: that before you can have a solution, you must admit that there is a problem in your life. So that's exactly where this chapter begins. We must humble ourselves and face the reality of our condition. Let's go ahead and read the first three verses again. It says, 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, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. The word says that we're dead, dead in our sins and trespasses, sons of disobedience, children of wrath. He doesn't hold back. We are hopeless and helpless without Christ. There is no hope if we are in ourselves. This shows the truth about who we were before Christ or who we are currently if we don't have Christ. And oftentimes I see that we like to minimize, we like to soften our true reality and where we are. We like to act like it's not that big of a deal. Where we think, oh, um, maybe I'm not as bad as what people say. The truth is we're actually way worse off than we would ever or could ever imagine. Way worse off in our actual true condition. It says that we are dead. Not struggling or sick, dead in our sins and trespasses. I don't know about you, but a dead man can do nothing on his own. It's not like, oh, you need to go to get healed and you're just sick. You're hopeless in yourself, in desperate need of a savior and a reviver. So our first response should be to humble ourselves in the truth of who we are. Which then leads us to one of the, in my opinion, best two-word combinations in the Bible, as we see in verse four. But God. This should be popping out and screaming at us off the page saying, okay, this was our circumstance, but there's about to be a change. There's something that's about to change in the narrative. He's about to give us hope because he's saying, But there is good news to hear. And so let's read that in verses four through seven. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable rich riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. But God, like I said, it should be popping out at us. It says that he is rich in mercy, something that is in his very nature and character, who he is. It's not something he lacks or has to go try and get more of. It is who he is, and we can know that when we see, but God rich in mercy, this is actively a part of his nature that we can trust in. He doesn't lack. Where we read in the first three verses, it says, We were dead. Now we see, but God is rich in mercy. Where we were enslaved, but God is great in love. Where we were condemned, God is powerful to save. Our condition, and then where God is standing, waiting for you to be drawn in if you accept him. Like I said, you are hopeless and helpless without Christ. There is hope, though. Because of his great love, he made us alive with Christ, raised us with him, he saved us, and seated us with him in heavenly places. Why? It tells us right here. It says, so that he can Verse 7, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. The immeasurable riches of his grace. To me, that is saying for eternity, we're going to be searching out God's character, who he is, and we will never fully fathom that because he is so great. If we could fathom that in our human minds, then he wouldn't be a God at all. For eternity, we're going to be in awe and enamored by who he is. By the richness of his grace and his mercy. Forever. We'll be seeking that out. What a God. As that song says, what a God, what a God. I'm not going to sing it to you because my voice is not very good when it comes to that. Joyful noise is what some people say. I don't even know if that counts. But are we not enamored? Lost for words, left to only say holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. That word holy means other than, something that I don't have words for, so I just am left with this one because it's like you're something other than me that is good, and I'm lost for words, and but you're pure, and so I just don't have the English words to grasp fully who you are. And so I'm left to only say, holy, holy, holy, and hopefully, hopefully you enjoy the praises that I give you because I'm at a loss of words for who you are. I'm in awe of who you are. That's the place that we should be from what he's done for us. Don't tell me, I'm gonna be a little confrontational here, don't tell me that God doesn't love you. You may not feel like he does, and that's okay, but feelings aren't fact or truth. The truth is that he left eternity, the perfection, at his feet, where angels were worshiping, worshiping him, where golden streets were there, and he came to walk the dirt roads to pay the price for you where he suffered, and that is true love. True love, what greater love than one to give up his life for another? Self-sacrifice, let alone while we were still enemies of God, children of wrath, children of disobedience, who hated him. We were enemies because we sinned against him, and yet he still came and lived a life and died for us. What greater love than that? Should we not be enamored and in awe of who he is? Can we not give him his praise that he deserves? See, when we were an enemy of God, when we were in the passions of our flesh, he not only died for you, we have to remember he lived for you, he died for you, he rose for you, he ascended for you. All of those are important in itself. If he did not live for you, his death doesn't matter. If he wasn't perfect, the death does not meet the payment, the standard of God. If he didn't die for you, then we of all people are most to be pitied. If he didn't rise. If he didn't die, the payment isn't there. If he didn't rise, then the payment wasn't accepted. And if he didn't ascend, then we don't have hope because the Holy Spirit wouldn't be coming and we don't have a hope of a future. But he did each and every single one for us, which has a purpose in each separate step. He lived for you. Not only died, he lived for you. Died for you, rose for you, ascended for you. So don't tell me that God doesn't love you. Because those aren't the facts. The facts are that he came, he died, and he rose again on the third day. And many of us, even while we didn't recognize that we needed that grace and mercy, he extended it to us. It was freely there, waiting for us to turn around and receive it. How can we not be in awe every single day, reminding ourselves of the fact that he went through extreme measures to a great extent to come out and reach towards us purely out of love. Even if we he wasn't expecting us to love him back. So the second response that I've been harping on this whole time is awe for what he's done. We need to get back to a place of being in awe of Yahweh. Let's go back to the verses, let's read verses eight through ten. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. All throughout this whole chapter, you should be seeing grace and mercy, grace and mercy. It's a theme throughout the whole thing. Why? Paul is drilling into the Ephesians' heads and our heads today that it is by God, not by you. You could never boast, he says, that no man may boast. He's saying, it is only by the blood of Jesus, the payment that he's done. I can't stand here before you and be like, Look at Ben, look at how great I am. I made it, I did it myself. I can only boast and say, Look at what my God has done. What a God! Look at how he saved me, and you need the same thing. I cannot stand here and boast to myself, but I can boast to my God to other people and say, you need this same thing because he did it for you. He's drilling it in our heads that it's not God. Now, two simple definitions that I think are important. We talk about it all the time in young adults. They intertwine a lot, but mercy and grace. They are separate, but they go together. So we often get them mixed up and just intertwined. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. So in this situation, we deserve eternal death. The wages of sin is death. And he gave us mercy not giving us that check when we accepted Jesus. But grace is unmerited favor, or to put it in another way, getting what you do not deserve in a good sense. So he's given you good gifts, he's given you salvation, eternity in his presence. Grace and mercy he has given towards us. And so, salvation being a gift of grace, the proper response would be gratitude for any gift, right? To receive it with gratitude. Stop rejecting the gift out of pride and saying, Oh no, I've got to work for it because I haven't been good enough, and so now I need to reach God's standard. No one could ever reach his standard. That's why we're in the situation we are today and why Jesus had to come. Right? No one can earn it. A gift is freely given, hence the word gift. It's by grace. Stop trying to do it out of works. And I can already hear people saying, Well, where where do works come into play? Doesn't it say that faith without works is dead? Yes, absolutely. Let's go to verse 10 and see what it says. Verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. We are his workmanship created and made new. We were made a new creation in Christ Jesus. What for? For good works. It's from a place of salvation, a product, it's not for a place of salvation. Do you get what I'm saying? Where good works happen when you are in the place of salvation. Jesus' blood has washed you clean and it naturally begins to flow out of you because of your relationship with God. Not, I'm doing good works for this place of salvation. That will never work. And your good works will fall short and be not adequate. So it's from a place of salvation that that is produced. So what I've been talking about, the third response has been gratitude. So we've had uh gratitude, awe, and the first one, sorry, humility. Now we're gonna move on into finishing the verses, verse 11 through 22. Bit of reading here, so stick with me. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God and the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the flesh, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law and of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who are far off, and peace to those who are near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the 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 foundation of the apostles and prophets Christ Jesus, himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. That they were separated from Christ in the covenants of the promise, that they were living life without God in their world. They were fully separated. He's reminding them of the place that they were in. And again, we see in verse 13 that word that is super important we talked about earlier. Verse 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. But now, by the blood of Christ, all of us have been brought near. Whether you're Jew or Gentile, all are brought near through the same solution. Without the blood, payment would still be owed. Without the blood, we are far off, broken in despair, but the blood has brought us near. His perfect and precious blood has made peace. His blood has unified us with God. And not only the Gentiles, but the Jews as well. The blood of Jesus is the only way, the only solution. So that's what unified us with God. But it's not only unity with God, it's also unity with enemies and other people. So the Jews and Gentiles were enemies, and it didn't just reconcile sinners to God, but it reconciled enemies together. That's what the work of the gospel does. In verse 14, it talks about it. Verse 14 and 15 says, For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the 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. He's talking about the Jews and Gentiles who were separated, and Jews were boasting all the time about how they were the people of God. And there was actually, he may not literally be talking about this here, but it is a cool fact. There was literally a wall that separated the two, that had inscriptions on it, that the Gentiles, if they were to walk in, they would be killed for walking into those places. And it's saying that Jesus has torn down those walls of hostility between the two, and he's bringing them together as one man, no longer saying Jew and Gentile, but one in Christ. Gentiles are no longer strangers or aliens, as it says here, but they're fellow citizens and members of the household of God, not just with temporary privileges, but people who have been adopted into the family, who have been given the name on their back, the full protections and rights that come with being in that community of God, who have the inheritance of reaping eternal life with Christ Jesus and being fully, fully cleansed, being fully purified and in all and sitting there, no more tears, no more pain, and perfection. All of this with Jesus being the foundation and the cornerstone of our faith says that we are built on the foundation of Jesus. It can't happen without his blood. And if you take him, the whole, he's the cornerpiece, the whole building begins to crumble because we can't do it alone. What other message or thing in this world have you ever seen that brings together people like the gospel? Enemies become one. Every nation, tribe, tongue, people group become one. All are brought into the same purpose. All who were against each other and put up against odds against one another are now on one team. Nothing else in the world unites people like the gospel for one purpose. So not only does this unify us back to God and create this reconciliation there, it's a vertical thing that begins to be an expression horizontally in our relationships here. These saying these relationships are important and should be healing, and we should be speaking life, and we should be Christ-like. If we are the church, we should be in unity with one another. And that is our fourth point or our fourth response: unity with God and people. We must be the church, being built into a holy temple that he is pleased to dwell in by his spirit to come and dwell in us. He should be pleased to be in our presence, which he is, because the blood purified us. And he said that he was coming to put his spirit in each and every single one of us when he ascended. And that's the good news that as Christians, we should be his. Many of us have heard we were made in his image. We use it a lot. What does that mean? To me, we are supposed to be his representatives in the world. We are created, so our characteristics we should be carrying his power, his character to the ends of the earth, and they should see Christ in us. His power, his glory. It should all be for his name, and we should be the One stewarding that to all creation. See, we've been talking about the gospel here, the good news. And the gospel is not about making bad people good, it's about making dead people alive. Dead people can't sell save themselves or do self-help. They must be resurrected. No self-help, but God's help. Only by the blood. There is nothing else that can help you out. I don't care how many self-help books, it is only by the blood that you will be cleansed and reunited with God. You cannot perform your way to salvation. Once you're cleansed by the blood, as we talked about, it begins to flow out of your life. The good works begin to flow naturally as you get in relationship. If I start to walk with Jaden, the more I walk with Jaden and talk with him, the more I'm gonna look like him, the more I'm gonna talk like him. The more I'm in relationship with God, the more I begin to look like him, the more I begin to talk like him, his character begins to come out of me. Are you spending time in your word? Are you spending time in godly community and discipleship? Or are you trying to do it alone? Because we were meant to be in community, in unity with each other. This is not a life to do on your own. Now, a bit of a hard stop. We're coming to an end here. I want us to be the church. So turn to people around you, and I want us to pray together on those four points. If you need to be honest with yourself in the sensual in your situation of life and humble yourself with truth, then pray about that together and receive new life if you haven't given your life to Jesus yet. Humble yourself with the truth that in myself I am a child of wrath, of disobedience. I am lost and helpless without Christ, and I need him. If a lot of us have that, then if you've lost your awe of God or your enamor of who he is, pray that that would be revived in you, in your group that you're praying with. If you haven't been grateful the last week or last few days, pray that you would be reminded of the gospel each and every morning, that you would wake up and be like, Thank you, God, for giving me salvation. Thank you for new life. Thank you that even if today was not a good day, that I still have hope, that I still have new life, that there is something that I can look forward to. And lastly, everyone should be praying about the unity of the church. So during this time, if you can find some people to gather with, we'll have a little bit of music in the background. If you can just ask what y'all want to pray about there, and then everyone pray about churchwide unity, and then we'll come and wrap it up.