Battle Ready: "Religion Doesn’t Unite" Ephesians 2:11-13 Pastor Daniel Reese

A man was walking across a bridge one day and he saw another man standing on the edge about to jump off.

He immediately ran over and said, stop, don't do it. Why shouldn't I? The man asked.

The first man replied, well, there's so much to live for. Like what? Well, are you religious or atheist? Religious. Me too.

Are you a Christian or Jewish? Christian. Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant? Protestant. Me too.

Are you Episcopalian or Baptist? Baptist. Wow. Me too. Are you the Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?

Baptist Church of God. Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?

Reformed Baptist Church of God. Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1879?

Or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1915? Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1915.

To which the man replied, die, you heretic scum, and he pushed him off the bridge.

As we continue through our study of Ephesians this morning, Paul is going to address some people that had a very similar attitude.

People who had gotten so caught up in their religion that they had lost sight of what really mattered.

So let's read our passage this morning. Ephesians 2, we'll start in verse 11.

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

Alright, so in the first half of this chapter, chapter 2, Paul writes about the human race in general,

and about the portion of the human race that has been saved by the grace of God.

But beginning here in verse 11, Paul begins to specifically address his main audience of Gentile believers.

He points out that prior to Jesus, there was a barrier between the Gentiles and the Jews.

But as Paul will point out in the following verses, Jesus came to tear down that wall and to initiate peace between the Jews and the Gentiles.

I'm sure there's quite a few principles that we can get out of this text this morning.

Certainly there's this idea that Jesus tearing down the walls that tend to separate us from those who are different from us in some way.

What really stood out to me though is how both groups, Jews and Gentiles, had gotten so caught up in their religion that it had actually drawn them away from God.

I read this week about a plane which had lost both engines and was headed for a certain crash landing.

One of the passengers noticed that she was sitting next to a minister, and so she yelled at him,

You're a minister, do something religious!

So he took his hat off and took up an offering.

One of the things that constantly amazes me is how people react when they find out that I'm a pastor.

They may not say it out loud like the lady in the plane, but I often get the feeling that they're waiting for me to do something religious.

Both the Gentiles and the Jews of Paul's days would probably consider themselves pretty religious.

Obviously the Jews understood themselves to be God's chosen people, and they had the scriptures to study and to guide their lives.

But many of the Gentiles were religious too.

Remember how Paul addressed them earlier in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Paul then stood in the meeting of the Areopagus and said,

Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious.

And so we know that both of these groups, Jews and Gentiles, are religious.

And so we could go further this morning.

We ought to define the term religion and what it really means.

Probably the simplest form is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.

That definition seems to encompass a lot of moments today that I would classify almost as religions, if that's the definition.

Political parties and interest groups, radical environmentalism, causes to address social issues such as hunger and poverty,

causes to address various diseases such as AIDS and cancer and heart disease, groups that promote certain lifestyles.

Now every one of those movements consists of people who are committed to a cause, a principle, or a system of belief

that they hold to with passion and faith.

It's interesting to me that even atheists fit into that definition.

Now I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with many of those groups.

There is nothing wrong with taking care of the environment or trying to lessen suffering or eradicate diseases.

But for many people that causes themselves, those causes have really become their own religion.

And if you pay attention to the news, you understand that there is a lot that divides people.

The Berlin Wall stood in the city of Berlin, Germany as a symbol of the Cold War,

the struggle between communism and the West.

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood near that wall and made a dramatic plea to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gesturing toward the guarded wall of concrete and barbed wire that divided Berlin and all of Germany since 1961,

Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.

Two years later, the wall did come down. That barrier that had separated the East from the West was now gone.

When Jesus came into this world many years ago, another wall was standing.

Not a wall made of wood or stone, but one built with prejudice and misunderstanding.

For many centuries, it divided two groups of people.

It divided the Jews and the Gentiles.

But that wall no longer stands. It has been torn down by Christ.

Now today, Jews and Gentiles may become one in Him.

So as we dissect this passage this morning, let's keep in mind that it is still applicable to today, to our lives.

We live in a culture of division. That's our world now.

So let's look at two different groups this morning, the Gentiles and the Jews.

As we look at them, we need to beware the pitfalls of religion.

So let's look at the Gentiles first.

What separated the Gentiles from the Jews was circumcision.

Now, why God chose that method of separating His people, I do not know the answer to.

The only thing I can come up with is that living in the flesh is what separates us from God in the first place.

Circumcision was instituted by God in Genesis 17 as a symbol of a covenant between Him and Abraham.

God had promised Abraham, I will make you into a great nation.

That nation, of course, would become known as Israel.

Circumcision was the mark that distinguished the Jews from the Gentiles.

Every Jewish male was circumcised eight days after birth.

The Gentiles were not.

The Jews came to despise the Gentiles because of that difference.

They saw themselves as better than the Gentiles.

Now, people have a way of turning differences into barriers.

We do the same thing today. Do we not?

There are barriers between Republicans and Democrats.

There are barriers between believers and non-believers.

There are even barriers amongst churches that are still part of the same Protestant whatever.

And the list goes on and on and on.

The more the pride of the Jews swelled, the worse the hatred of the Gentiles grew.

If a young Jewish man or woman married a Gentile, his or her family would have a funeral service.

Symbolizing the death of their child as far as religion, race, and family were concerned.

Some Jewish women refused to help a Gentile woman give birth

because to do so would make them responsible for bringing another despised Gentile into the world.

When a Jew entered from Palestine, he would often shake off the dust of his sandals and clothing

in order to not contaminate the Holy Land with Gentile dust.

Some Jews believe that God created the Gentiles as fuel for hell.

Many believe that God loved Israel and hated every other nation.

Now, the prophet Jonah typified the common Jewish attitude towards the Gentiles.

Through Jonah's preaching, God produced one of the greatest revivals in history, and Jonah was not happy about it.

He was angry that the city of Nineveh had repented and been spared from God's judgment.

Why? Because those people were the nation's enemies.

They were Gentiles.

In Jonah chapter 4 verse 2, we read about the unhappy prophet.

Jonah 4:2

He says, and he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, it is not this what I said when I was yet in my country.

This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God,

and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

The real reason Jonah didn't want to preach in Nineveh was that he didn't want them to repent.

He wanted them judged. He didn't want them forgiven.

The Jews failed to realize that circumcision did not make them superior.

It was only a physical mark, and we see in Ephesians that circumcision is in the flesh.

It is made by hands.

In Romans chapter 2, Paul says, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor a circumcision outward and physical.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.

His praise is not from man, but from God.

Circumcision was an outward symbol of an inward reality.

It's similar to baptism in that way.

It was God's plan that there should be Jews and Gentiles.

There's a real difference between them. The Jews were circumcised, and the Gentiles were not.

Now, we know that the Gentiles were religious people.

Paul addresses that in Acts, and as he stands in the Areopagus and notes that, they worshiped all kinds of God.

Even here in Ephesus, one of the ancient wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis was there.

But what we know about the Gentiles is this.

Number one, they had no confidence of the Savior.

Our first inclination is to think that Paul is just repeating here the point that he has already made previously.

But we know that both the Gentiles and the Jews were separated from Christ before God completed his saving work in their lives.

So in what sense is Paul writing that this problem that only the Gentiles are facing?

It seems that when Paul uses the word Christ here, he is not using it as a reference to Jesus, but rather in its broader sense.

The Greek word literally means anointed.

It is the Greek equivalent of the Jewish word we translate Messiah.

The point that Paul is trying to make here is that the Jews at least had the hope of a coming Messiah.

A hope of a future Savior.

That was an advantage that the Gentiles did not have.

There is no religion on the face of the earth that can address the fact that we are separated from God as a result of our sin,

and that therefore we need a Savior.

Only a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ can deal with that need.

Now they live by a standard that many people today live by.

If I do enough good, if I worship enough, then I will spend eternity in heaven.

Surely I wouldn't be punished forever because I have done so much good in my life.

I have said it many times throughout this series, but I will say it again.

If the motivation for you coming to church is to think that that puts you in God's graces, then I would find something else to do.

You are wasting your time, and I am sure that you could find something better to do with your time.

I come to church not to earn God's favor, but to celebrate with you how good and gracious He is.

Me coming to church does nothing for my eternal security.

My faith in Jesus does.

I come to church because I want to be more like Jesus, and by being around other believers, it helps me do that.

Church is valuable to me because by being around other believers, I am challenged to be a better husband and a better father.

I am challenged to take my pursuit of Him more seriously.

That's not religion.

The second thing we see is they have no share in God's blessings.

Paul says, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise.

The Jews were the beneficiaries of many covenants or promises that God had made to them.

It's interesting that Paul writes about the covenants, plural of the promise, singular.

Paul seems to be saying that all the covenants from the Old Testament really flow out of the foundational promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

This is now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse.

And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So although God promised to bless all peoples on earth through Abraham, including the Gentiles,

that promise could only be made operational in the lives of the Gentiles through Jesus.

There is no religion which can ever provide us with the blessings of God.

Only God can provide those blessings for us.

And he chooses to do that through a relationship with him that is made operational by our faith in Jesus.

We also see that the Gentiles had no hope.

That's what Paul says, having no hope.

Because the Gentiles did not share in the hope of a coming Messiah, nor were they the recipients of God's blessings, they had no hope.

There was a school system in a large city, and it had a program to help children keep up with their schoolwork during long stays in the hospital.

One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child.

She took the child's name down, took his room number, and talked briefly with the child's regular class teacher.

She said, we're studying nouns and adverbs in this class.

The regular teacher said, and I'd be grateful if you could help him understand that so he doesn't fall too far behind.

Now the hospital program teacher went to that boy that afternoon.

No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in a great deal of pain.

Upset at the side of the boy, she stammered as she told him, I've been sent by your school to help you with your nouns and adverbs.

When she left, she felt like she hadn't accomplished much.

But the next day a nurse asked her, what did you do to that boy?

The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and as she began to apologize, no, no, no, no, no, no, said the nurse.

You don't know what I mean. We've been worried about that little boy.

But ever since yesterday, his old attitude has changed.

He's fighting back, responding to treatment. It is though he's decided to live.

Two weeks later, the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived.

Everything changed when she came to a simple realization.

He expressed it this way, they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?

One of the greatest problems with religion is that it is unable to give us lasting hope.

No rituals, no good works, no amount of piety can produce hope in our lives.

The only way we can have hope is through our relationship with God,

which is made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now, I've been on many mission trips around the world.

I've spoken with people of different faiths.

I've had many conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.

They all have in common is the answer to this question.

How do you know that you have done enough good?

They all have the same response in some way.

They will all say, I don't. I just hope that I do.

That's not hope. That's wishful thinking.

I love that through Jesus, I have confidence that I will never be able to do enough good.

But Jesus has.

Their hope is in themselves.

My hope is in Jesus.

There are people who have done a lot more good in their lives than I have.

They have helped more people. They have given more money.

They have championed some really good causes.

But if they haven't surrendered to Jesus as Savior,

then their eternal destiny is not going to be like mine.

My hope is found in nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Okay, so that was the issue the Gentiles faced.

But now let's look at the Jews.

Now, even though Paul was writing to first century Jews,

these are still an issue today with non-Jewish believers.

The first one is pride.

Paul says, you Gentiles in the flesh call the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision.

Now, Paul very clearly describes the contempt that the Jews had for the Gentiles.

In fact, the word Gentile was not one that the Romans or the Greeks used to refer to themselves,

but was a derogatory term that the Jews had coined to describe anyone who was not a Jew.

Not only that, the Jews derisively called the Gentiles by the title of uncircumcision,

while proudly referring to themselves as circumcision.

Now, this is an interesting play on words here in this text.

The literal translation is Gentiles in the flesh.

Now, for Jews, circumcision, which had been given to God by God to Abraham,

let's not flip those, was a physical sign of the relationship with God and the covenant.

Obviously, the Gentiles did not bear that physical evidence on their bodies.

Hence, they are referred to as Gentiles in the flesh.

What really strikes me here, though, is the pride of the Jews.

They had lost sight of the fact that God had chosen them.

Not just for their own benefit, but as his chosen people who were to be a blessing to all peoples,

just as God had revealed to Abraham.

So instead of trying to reach out to the people that God wanted to bless through them,

they were making fun of those very people.

They were so infected with the pride of being God's chosen people

that they missed on the opportunity to be used by God in the lives of others.

I see this often today, not just in the Jews.

I see this in Christian circles all the time.

Us versus them.

Now, we should have some pride, but not in ourselves.

We should have pride that we are considered the people of God through Jesus.

I don't know the best way to say this, because I'm not sure everybody's aware,

but Jesus was not a Baptist.

And he wasn't a Lutheran. And he wasn't a Methodist.

When we become prideful because of what church we go to, or what denomination we are part of,

we are acting like the Jews that Paul is referring to here.

We need to always be like Jesus, speak truth and love.

Now, I might not agree with your lifestyle or your worship style of choice,

but I can still love you.

And if I truly love you, if I see you walking in sin,

I will point that out to you in a way that I hope that you will accept.

I don't want to be accusatory. I don't want to be wagging my finger in your face

and telling you how wrong you are.

But I do want to confront you with the truth that is found in God's Word.

Now, if you don't accept it, that's on you.

But I never want to be accused of being unloving.

There is a real important lesson for those who are Christ followers to learn here.

By now, there is one thing we have learned from the book of Ephesians so far.

It has to be that God's work in our lives is nothing for us to be proud of.

It's all God's work. It's all God's work.

And we have done nothing to deserve it.

So rather than looking down on those who don't have what we have experienced,

our hearts should be broken for them.

Our hearts should be burdened over.

Over that, we ought to do everything in our power to make sure that they are exposed to the truth.

And we need to continue to pray for those people.

We also see that the Jews were deceived.

Paul says, which is made in the flesh by hands.

The second problem that the Jews are facing as a religion is that they are deceived.

They figure that since they had participated in the ritual act of circumcision,

that they were okay with God.

But in his letter to the Galatian church, Paul addressed that attitude in Galatians 5.

He says, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Now, although God, although Paul specifically writes about circumcision here,

the broader principle is that nothing we do in the flesh has any value.

As we saw a couple of weeks ago when I shared a recent poll from Newsweek,

and as evidenced by the results of many other polls throughout the years,

most people today who consider themselves religious,

even the majority of those who consider themselves to be Christians, have been deceived.

I hope that you're not deceived.

I hope that you're not deceived when it comes to right standing before God.

If you've been here throughout Ephesians, I don't know how many times,

or in how many ways, that we can say that all of our righteous deeds are like filthy rags before a holy God.

Did you know that blood speaks?

God's Word says it does.

The first reference to blood in the Bible is found in Genesis 4.

In that chapter we read that Cain, filled with jealousy, murdered his brother Abel.

In verse 10, God confronted Cain and said,

What have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.

Hebrews 12, 24, we find that Christ's blood also speaks.

That verse tells us that the blood of Jesus in verse 24,

into Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,

into the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Blood speaks.

Abel's blood cried for vengeance.

Christ's blood speaks of forgiveness.

Abel's blood demanded judgment.

Christ's blood disclares his love.

Jason Tuske was a 17-year-old high school honor student.

He was close with his family, his mom, his dad who was in a wheelchair, and his younger brother, Christian.

Jason was an expert swimmer who loved to scuba dive.

He left home on a Tuesday morning to explore a spring in Underwater Cave near his home in West Central Florida.

His plan was to be home in time to celebrate his mother's birthday by going out to dinner with his family that night.

Jason became lost into the cave.

Then in his panic, he apparently got wedged into a narrow passageway.

When he realized he was trapped, he shed his yellow metal air tank and unsheathed his diver's knife.

With the tank as his tablet and the knife as his pin, he wrote one last message to his family.

I love you, mom, dad, and Christian.

Then he ran out of air and drowned.

A dying message.

Something communicated in the last few seconds of life.

It's something that we can't ignore.

God's final words to us are etched on a Roman cross.

They are blood-red.

They scream to be heard because they too say, I love you.

If you are coming for religion, you're in the wrong place.

If you find your worth in religion, you are in the wrong place.

If you think that anything that you can offer God is going to earn you favor with Him, you are in the wrong place.

My hope and desire is that every single one of us in this room is not here to earn a sticker on our attendance sheet.

But I hope that every single one of us in this room is here because we want to celebrate the fact that God is good and gracious and loving.

And then as we interact and as we go get donuts and as we go to our ABFs and as we sit through Sunday school and as we teach the younger ones and as we gather again next week,

I hope that as you're rubbing elbows with people, as you're communicating with people, you too will be encouraged to grow in your faith.

That you too will understand, hey, that guy's a pretty good dad. I want to be more like him.

And what unites us is Jesus. What divides us is how we feel and our emotions.

What was that? We just sang a song and it was on its kind of...

What was the third song we sang?

Build My Life. Put the words on the screen. The bridge. Please.

No, next.

No, next. No, no. I might have the wrong song.

Didn't we sing something like I will not go by my feelings? Didn't we just sing that? What song was that?

Christ Be Magnified. Okay. I won't bow down and I'll stand strong.

Next. Next. There it is. Thanks, pal. Thank you.

I won't be formed by feelings. I'll hold fast to what is true. What in the world does that mean? What did we just declare?

That... What? I can't hear you. I'm not going to be formed by feelings.

We're going to stand firm on God's word and God's word says this isn't about religion. It's about relationship.

And so we're going to sing one more time. I don't think we're singing that song. You can. It's up to you.

But my prayer is if there's anything in you that feels divisive, if there's any hurt feelings in this room

and you're looking across the room and like I'm not happy with them. Can we reconcile those things today?

There's no barrier. There's no more barrier. We're all God's people.

And so I pray that we will continue to be as a church united by the blood of Jesus, even though we might think differently.

Even though we might have different opinions and different feelings, but we're going to always be united by the blood of Jesus.

And I pray that as we interact in the community, when we come across those Lutherans and we come across those Catholics

and we come across those Baptists of whatever denomination that God pushed them off the bridge for,

that will respond in love. Or respond in love. Let's pray.

Father God, I pray that you will speak to our hearts. I pray that you will convict us.

I pray God that you will remove any sort of division in us. That we will not be an us versus them.

It won't be believer versus nonbeliever. It won't be this lifestyle versus this lifestyle.

But God, we will stand on your word, we'll walk in your love.

I pray God that we will continuously be united in you. I pray that we will continuously plead the blood of Jesus.

So God, we thank you for him. We thank you for his sacrifice.

We thank you that the curtain has been torn in two from top to bottom.

We thank you that we can approach you.

I pray that you speak to our hearts right now.

I pray that we will leave any division at the altar.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

I don't know how to end this thing today. I don't know how to end it.

But I mean, we'll sing. So that's okay.

But if there's somebody in this room that there's some conflict with,

I'm going to challenge you to make it right today.

I'm going to challenge you to be the bigger person and rip down the barrier.

So that we walk out of here in peace. So that we walk out of here united.

So that we walk out of here walking in forgiveness.

And if they're not in this room, maybe you just bring that to the altar today.

Maybe you just lay that before the Lord and let him deal with it.

Maybe let him fight your battles for you so that you can walk in true love. Amen.

All right. Thank you.