10/1/17-Eph. 2:11-22-In Christ: God’s Holy City
Last week we looked at what it means for an individual to be “In Christ” by grace through faith. This week we are going to go from looking individually to looking at us as a group.
At first glance, this text looks like old, dusty history, but when we see the implications, we are going to understand this has just as much to say to us today as back then.
The three sections we are going to see is the Problem of sin (v. 11-13), the Peace of God (v. 14-18), and the People of God (v. 19-22)
The Problem of Sin (Sin divides and builds walls of hostility, between us and God, and between each other).
In this text, both Jews and Gentiles had hostility toward one another, and so in sin, they put walls up against each other (walls of suspicion, mistrust, and ignorance).
How often we too jump to conclusions about a person or group before getting to really know them, only to find out we may have been off base the whole time.
Paul in this section focuses mostly on Gentiles (most of us) and lays out the hopelessness and isolation that a life apart from Christ brings. Elsewhere, Paul puts Jews and Gentiles in the same boat (“There is none that is righteous, not even one, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”)
Here, Paul says that Gentiles were without Christ, and they were outside the Old Testament covenant so that they did not know God or His love.
Maybe we too felt like that. Like we are never good enough, not possessing the right name, education, wealth, etc.
Yet Paul lays out the gospel hope in vs. 13-When we were far away and isolated from God, He took the initiative. He loves us and through that love, drew us to Him so that we could be a community. This community of redeemed people is called the church.
Christ’s death has destroyed all kinds of barriers and so now there is…
The Peace of God-In Jesus Christ, God drew close to humanity, walked alongside us, entered into our evil world, took responsibility for our evil, & bore it all in His body on the cross.
Christ is our peace, and through the cross, God is extending the olive branch, His peace, to you and I. When we gather as a church, we do so in the shadow of His cross, that new reality, because we are in Christ. Remember, He became what we are so we could become what He is.
In Christ, humanity is recreated. In Christ, the hostility that sin built between us and God=gone
Christ killed that hostility within Himself as He carried sin to the cross. So use the cross to remember this. A cross has two pieces, a vertical piece, and a horizontal piece. In Christ, He gave us vertical peace between each of us with God. He also gave us a horizontal peace between us and our neighbor.
For when the true peace of God, Christ’s peace, touches us, it touches every part and we must live it out. This means not just “inner peace”, but the gospel must be the foundation for being at peace with one another.
Paul says in Christ the hostility between Jew and Gentile is gone now. Christ accomplished this by abolishing the law. This does not mean that the Old Testament is no longer a moral guide. Rather, what once separated Jew and Gentile (circumcision, sabbath law, food laws) are no longer to be enforced so that neither Jew nor Gentile is excluded from Christ’s table of fellowship.
In Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are re-created, born again, made new men and women and now we are in a new family.
Today there seems to be an interest in dividing people. We have division through different races, genders, income, citizenship, political views, and Paul is not necessarily saying that when we become Christians, these differences vanish.
Simply put, in Christ the differences no longer matter as “identity badges”. Instead, the cross and resurrection are the events which shape our identity. Who unites us is stronger that what could ever divide us.
He is the peace that breaks down all the walls of hostility, because in Christ, we only carry one label: Christian.
We went from problem of sin, to the peace of God, and now it is the people of God.
Another way of putting is that Christ is building us into a city of God.
We are God’s temple, not a building of concrete and steel, but of followers of Jesus, and He is the chief cornerstone, which means he bears the load and determines the lines. In other words, Jesus is the foundation of the church and our truth.
We in the church are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Our hearts are where God resides, and if He has called us out from darkness to light, then He has given us different gifts in his body that we must use to glorify Him
Yet, just as importantly if not more importantly, we must show the world what it means to be united in Christ as a church. We must be the “family of God”, understanding one another not by any differences that we may have, but rather by Whom unites us. In Christ, there is the foundation for peace and reconciliation.