Ephesians: The Local Church as the Instrument of God's Love

Said my name is Drew Henley and I am from Redeemer Community Church down in Atlanta.

And you guys, whether you all know it or not, have been graciously supporting us.

We are very thankful for that.

Our staff sends their just appreciation for a church that's willing to give to help a church that is very mixed socioeconomically, be able to love, have the finances available to love our neighborhood and our church well.

So thank you so much for having me up here, and thank you to Pastor Russ.

Say a few words about your pastor.

We get together for lunch.

He's, I think, supposed to check in to make sure we aren't like embezzling money down in Atlanta.

And I have there's two things that I've taken away from much be uh taken away from those lunches.

One is that your pastor walks through life with such wisdom and conviction.

I know you probably see this, um, but it is so um helpful and encouraging uh to me as a younger pastor.

Um second, uh your pastor loves his people, loves you so much.

Um becomes out in the lunches that we have.

And so uh be blessed knowing that you are being cared for well, um, and we are very thankful for you.

Uh the sermon this morning is gonna come from Ephesians 2, verses 11 through 22, and uh it's gonna pop up on the screen.

Ephesians 2:11–22

Boom, look at that.

Um, and I'm gonna read this, pray, and then dive into the text together.

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 covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in 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.

Amen.

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.

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

For through him we both have access in one spirit to the 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 the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in which 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray.

Father, we are so thankful for your word, thankful that we stand under it, uh, looking to it as authoritative in our lives, that we submit to your word as both a guide for how to live life, but even more so reminders and truth of how you treat us as your children.

May your gospel be preached this morning.

May we grow and may we be convicted of sin and led back to the cross.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

In 1986, there was a peace march that began in LA but prematurely ended with bickering and argument.

After going about 120 miles, half of the 1,200 marchers got so fed up with each other and the bickering that they simply left and went home.

Those in this peace march peace march that remained quickly polarized because some were determined to walk, others insisted on riding in cars.

They also fought over the proper dress code for the marchers.

They decided to hold an election at near the end to decide these kinds of matters, but they couldn't agree who should be allowed to vote.

So finally, they agreed to allow everyone to vote, even the children.

They hold the election, published the results only to have it declared invalid by a separate faction of marchers.

Many ended this peace march, P-E-A-C-E march, not speaking to each other.

And we may laugh and shake our heads at this story, but honestly, it's so relatable.

If there's a theme to the last few years in our country, our city, and even our churches, and our local church communities, it could be sadly described as the theme of division.

We long for peace, love the idea of it, may even want to participate in a march about it, but actually living out peace alongside our brothers and sisters is oh so hard.

This text from Ephesians 2 reminds us that the church has been dealing with this issue since its inception, but also gives us hope for what true peace can look like.

Ephesians 2, 11 through 12, up on the screen, the thing to notice in verse 12 is that to be separated from Israel, Paul speaking to these people, is to be separated from Israel is to be separated at that time from Christ.

It says, separated from Christ, alienated from Israel.

See, God, as you know, revealed himself first and foremost to the Jewish people, the nation of Israel.

The other nations didn't know God, and if they wanted to know God, they entered in through the Jewish people.

Now, what is being said in these first two verses is crucial to everything else.

Paul is reminding them that they were people, the Ephesians were people, the Gentiles were people, you and I, unless you are of a Jewish and Jewish ancestry, were people who were outsiders without hope.

Before Christ came, before the gospel came, people were grafted in.

You see, uh in the Old Testament, a few people here and there, but the hope comes in the gospel and him breaking down that wall of hostility.

This perspective is to form how they look at all their relationships.

Those two words, therefore remember.

When the gospel was first preached to the church in Ephesus, Ephesians was written, our people, our ancestors were the farthest people from God.

And sometimes we tend to forget that.

When Jesus and the apostles talked about taking the gospel to the uttermost parts of the world at the end of the book of Matthew, he's talking about taking the gospel to you and I.

And there's obviously in this text a class of cultures in the church in Ephesus.

Paul acknowledges that there are dividing walls of hostility between these two peoples.

The Jewish people and the Gentiles, which is just simply non-Jewish people, were not getting along.

The Jews had a literal wall on the outside of the temple with a little sign on it that said, No Gentiles.

And that the Gentiles would only have themselves to blame according to the Jews if they walked past this and were sentenced to their death for coming into the inner courts.

This wall separated in the Jewish mind the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, the Jews and the Gentiles.

Jewish people literally referred to Gentiles as the uncircumcised.

But our tendency as we look at this and say, what a fascinating issue 2,000 years ago.

But the reality is that all cultures have walls.

Every culture has a way of defining itself within the walls and saying, inside these walls we are good, and those on the outside are bad.

But Jesus looks at this and says, Paul looks at this and says, Jesus tore down these cultural walls 2,000 years ago, and he's calling us to do the same thing today.

Before we planted the church in Vine City, which is just west of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta, I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt that this gospel that breaks down walls was the motivation for the church plant.

Being in a neighborhood that is predominantly African-American, that has a history of being overlooked by the city of Atlanta, coming in and saying, what does it look like for us to be a neighbor in this community, to learn from people who have been here and the gospel's been here long before we came, and to have a church that welcomes people into the four walls and does our best to break down those walls of hostility.

And how do we do this?

We do it the same way as the why through the gospel.

A few years ago, one of the guys at the church was getting married, and before he did, he a bunch of the guys got together and kind of took him out for a night to kind of celebrate kind of a bachelor night.

And for some reason they asked the pastor to do some of the planning for this, which is usually not uh the case, but we were good friends, and so one of the guys was involved, was tasked with planning the dinner, and I was tasked with planning the after dinner activity.

And this guy enjoyed bowling, so I said, Cool, like we'll call the local bowling alley and see if we can get a deal to get 12 of us to go down and bowl for a while after dinner.

So I am super frugal and I knew we had kind of some a range of incomes in the group, so I said, How can we get this for as cheap as possible?

So I call the bowling alley and I say, We've got a group of 12 come in.

Can we reserve some lanes?

Do you have any deals?

And the lady very kindly said, Well, you can, if you'd like to, you can reserve the lanes for$25 a piece, and then that money you don't get back, it's just for the reservation, then you pay for the bowling.

And I said, Well, is there any other deal?

Like, that doesn't seem like a great deal since we're losing that money just to kind of reserve the spots.

And she said, Well, your option number two is an all-inclusive, like dinner and bowling.

And I said, No offense, like the dinner at the bowling alley is like probably not gonna be for us.

So, like, is there any deal for just the bowling?

And the lady had like a long pause on the phone, and she says, Well, there is a free party.

And I swear I I reacted just like you did of like that's not a real thing.

And so I like catch my breath and I said, Excuse me, like it sounded like you said there's a free party.

And she said, Sir, it's not complicated.

Like, if you come, if you come, we will send you, if you agree to this, we'll send you a contract.

You show up anytime you want after six, stay as long as you want, and your 12 friends will have three lanes to bowl as long as they want.

So I said, ma'am, that sounds perfect for us.

And so she sent this contract.

At this point, I'm like, surely this is not real.

Sends this contract, emails it over, I print it out, and just like she explained, she said, You can get here whenever you want.

After six, stay until we close, and then in like a highlighted, like what you owe at the bottom was a dollar sign 00.00.

And so I say, you know, tell all the guys, I'm like, you're never gonna guess this, but there's a we're we're headed to bowling and it's on me.

Like, I will cover it totally on me.

And so I said, no, just kidding, like there's this free party.

They said, You're an idiot, this is not real.

And I said, just be ready to pay, but like I promise they this is what they said.

And so we pull up after dinner, all of us together, and it dawns on me that I have left the contract on the printer at the church.

I reprinted it right before, left it at the church, and so I walk through the double doors, muster up as much confidence as I can, walked up to the desk, took a deep breath, and said, Ma'am, I'm really sorry, but I'm here for the free party, and I left the contract on the printer, fully expecting her just to laugh in my face.

She looks at me and says, like Hidgenazi says, Mr.

Henley, we have been waiting for you all night.

We're so glad that you're here.

Waves us all in.

I then turn full confidence, wave all the buddies in.

I'm like, you're welcome, you're welcome.

We head to the shoes, get our shoes, head to the lanes.

One guy shows up late and I'm like, you're gonna mess this up for everybody.

He gets there, they wave him right on back as well.

And to be honest, at no point in the night, maybe up until the last 30 minutes, did I actually think this was going to work?

We got our shoes, one of the guys arrived late.

I just assumed at some point along the way a bill would come, and that was totally understandable, but it never happened.

And on the way out, they said, We can't wait to see you again.

I said, You definitely will.

And so, in that party, which I promise is 100% exactly how it went down, in that party, how did I get to the party?

It was simply a gift of this lady in charge, or she just didn't understand how it worked, one of the two, or she thought the theory we came up with was that she thought I was some big celebrity, and like bringing me in was gonna bring more people to the bowling alley.

Maybe that worked, uh, probably didn't, um, because my you know, social media followers are in the 90s, I think.

So, but deep down I realized that so similar to the gospel, the whole night my deepest fear was that I would get found out.

At first it was a contract she sent, and it was like, okay, great, now I'm in.

When I got to the door, I thought this is too good to be true.

I'm gonna get found out, waves me through.

I get to the shoes, which they usually charge, that's where you pay for the shoes separate than the lanes.

I was like, surely they're gonna find us out and charge us here, waves us on through at any point in the night.

I said, we are going to get found out and have no real defense for this.

And brothers and sisters, this is the same fear as every one of us in the church.

The same fear that we will get found out, that when we are fully known, we will not be fully loved and accepted.

A quote from Tim Keller, which I'm sure some of you have heard before, to be loved, but not known is comforting but superficial, but to be fully known and truly loved is well a lot like being loved by God.

It's what we need more than anything.

And this vertical love we talk about from God, and you hear the gospel, you receive it when you take communion, that you are loved 100% because of what Christ did for us.

But that vertical love from God has to change our horizontal love for one another.

The good news is we are loved and accepted not because we are lovable, but because we or because we decided to march for peace, but because he himself is our peace.

For he himself is our peace, Ephesians 2 says.

He has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

Friends, this is the power of the local church.

We're the physical representation of this love.

God's gift for God's people at communion is the physical representation of the atonement.

Preaching is the physical representation of God speaking truth into your life.

Community is the physical representation of God saying, I see you, I love you, and you have value.

And brothers and sisters, for our church in Atlanta, this is why we do what we do.

There's all sorts of extra activities we do with job training, with youth sports, uh, partnering with a local school that serves our neighborhood well, uh, partnering with a nonprofit that runs out of our church that helps victims of sex trafficking with a two-year residential program, uh, working with a nonprofit gym that operates out of the church where the sanctuary turns into kind of a fitness center during the week.

Those are because we want to be able to communicate the love of Christ, that you are loved and you have value.

And the beauty of this calling is that our church, it is a beautiful place, but it is a messy place as well.

About a hundred people kind of file into a building every Sunday morning, 50% white, 50% non-white.

Uh, there's a few, the majority of the non-white are black, a few Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Eastern men and women sprinkled in there.

And it is this beautiful picture of the kingdom, but it's also all these cultures clashing together.

We have women, two women at our church who are deaf.

We have women and men that are reading on a third grade level compared to men and women who have PhDs all sitting next to each other, and you're like, oh, this is so incredible, but it's also so also very hard.

And I'm sure you experience some of that the same way.

There's differences at our church on everything from how to parent, uh, differences on where to send your kids to school, differences on how to give birth to a baby.

People have strong feelings about this at times, but also at our church and at a lot of churches as well, when there are racial instances, racial events in our country, those differences come out.

When Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice were killed, we saw that that hits us at our church differently.

For my kids, I don't ever worry about them being uh being mistreated based on the color of their skin.

But my brothers and sisters have that same thought go through their mind every single day with their young black and brown children.

And these differences are not to be ignored, but they're an opportunity for us to come together as a church.

We can't let them define us or divide us, but they are an opportunity for us to understand each other because understanding each other helps us know how to love each other well.

See, our poor, our less, our lower income brothers and sisters in the church, they face a housing crisis in the city of Atlanta that our middle to upper income people don't face.

But we look at that and we say, how can my excess help fill in your need?

Our people of color face racial discrimination that our white people simply do not have to deal with in the same way.

But we look at that and say, how can my privilege be leveraged for your need?

Our women face catcalls or gender discrimination that our men are often oblivious to, but instead of saying that's your problem, how can we as men live a life where we say we see you, we value you?

How can we come alongside to care for you well?

And not only is this our deep fear in all of us that will a person who looks like you accept a person who looks like me, but the deep socioeconomic divides look allow our lower income men and women at Redeemer, at our Redeemer, to look and say, Do I even have value here?

When they drop money in the offering plate, sometimes it's loud because of the coins compared to the checks that the low that middle and upper income people write, and they look at that and say, I know there's a difference.

How do I have value here?

But we have the opportunity just simply by being the church to name that value.

There's a woman that a few years ago we had our kids' ministry was exploding, and we kind of created this policy to where if you're at Redeemer, you have to serve in the kids' ministry at least four times a year to keep kind of eight people from just rotating in there every week.

And I came to this lady because somebody canceled uh the Sunday morning because she got sick, and I came up to this lady, Miss, we'll call her Miss Stacy, and I said, Miss Stacy, like next, we're gonna have somebody for this morning, but next week we I'd love for you to start helping out with the kids.

We need to do a background check on you, all the things that we do.

And Miss Stacy just broke down in tears.

And I looked at her and I was like, Miss Stacy, you don't have to do this if you don't want to.

Like, I'm really sorry.

Uh I don't know what's going on.

And she broke down in tears, and it dawned on me, and I knew some of this story already, but she broke down in tears and explained, like, I thought you would never ask a woman like me.

When Miss Stacy was 21, she lost her kids to the defect system because of some poor decisions that she had made, and she walked through life with that shame.

And at 33, us asking her to simply hold babies in the nursery was us looking at her saying, you have value and worth.

There's another woman at our church, we'll call her Miss Jane.

Miss Jane has been struggled with addiction her whole life.

She's 46, and on December 28th, she celebrated a year of sobriety.

It's the longest she's been sober since she was 17 years old.

She's very public about her battle with addiction, and we asked her if she would share her story, her testimony the following Sunday.

And she looked at me and she said, No, no, no, Pastor Drew, that's your job.

And I looked at her and I said, Jane, you have more to teach us about grace and forgiveness than I could ever teach these people.

And we hand her the mic, and I know when you hand her the mic, just like Russ knows right now, you can't get it back.

When you hand her the mic, I'm saying, I trust you to speak to our people from the Holy Spirit's work in your life.

And when we do that, it's an opportunity for us to simply be, there's nothing special.

We simply get to be the church and live out Ephesians 2, 17 through 19.

He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

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

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

The whole point that Paul is making here is the way that God has treated you will fundamentally affect how you relate to others.

Or as one of my favorite pastors, Tony Evans, says, the reasons we have racial, ethnic, gender, and class divisions in the church is that we have not fully understood the cross.

Church, I pray that we would grow in our understanding of the cross and may that change how we view each other and those who are being welcomed into our body.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that we would heed, learn, be convicted from the story in Ephesians, and from Paul's words to the people in the church in Ephesus.

May that be used to change us, to convict us of sin, and to give us hope for us to display peace to a divided world.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.