Ephesians 2:11-13 | Brought Near by the Blood | Kurt Petersheim

[SPEAKER_00]: If you get your Bibles with you, if you don't have a Bible, there's Bibles under a lot of the chairs you can look and grab one of those open up with me Ephesians 2 really.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's our text today.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll also go to Exodus 6.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to go ahead and bookmark that we'll go to Exodus in a few minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray together y'all and then we're going to dive right in Ephesians 2.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord again, thank you for this day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for our opportunity on Sundays like this together and to worship you together to be in your word together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Got it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that we do that every day, but I thank you so much that we get to do that together on these days, and just be with you and be with one another, or lead us now in your word, humble us to hear it, and not just hear it, but obey it.

[SPEAKER_00]: for whoever hears these words, it's like a wise man that built this house upon the rock if we hear and we obey.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let us build our house today and our lives today on the rock of your word and obey it to go live it up in Jesus name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, if you were not here, Pastor Scott Moore did a great sermon on Ephesians 2, 10, that for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared an advance for us to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't listen to last week's message or weren't here,

[SPEAKER_00]: Those live online.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go listen to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: A great reminder to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that verse right there is sort of this connecting point between this really deep intimate gospel grace conversation that Paul's been having with the Ephesians to looking ahead towards more the application to how do we live in?

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we then go and live that out now?

[SPEAKER_00]: as we get to verse 11 here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul again, he's like he's not done yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not quite done laying the foundation of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we need to remember because he says therefore at the very beginning of verse 11, you need to remember what he just said.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

[SPEAKER_00]: which God prepared in advance for us to do and all of that from the grace of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God has.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has prepared and created and equipped you and I as believers in Jesus to do good works.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking a couple of weeks ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had coffee with Wayne Buns saying a lot of y'all know Wayne.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was in here for service.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Wayne's a church member here with us at Easterhead.

[SPEAKER_00]: He and his family.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was having coffee with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wayne recently has gotten an opportunity that hopefully might even be hearing about soon.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually work as a missionary all over the world, which is really, really cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Wayne has done a lot of missions in his life and back when, back in the early 2000s, this was 2004.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had went on a mission trip to Africa, to Uganda, in particular.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was on Lake Victoria.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lake Victoria has these islands that are all, Lake Victoria's a massive lake that the Nile flows out of and scut these islands on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He and his team were doing mission work on the islands on Lake Victoria, and he was telling me the story, and I just asked him if I could share this and he gave me permission to, that's not a such a cool story.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it goes so well with today.

[SPEAKER_00]: So during one of these particular days, him and his team, they kind of had to stay where they were just able to kind of go out into the villages and walk around and kind of do some free things, but also just share the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were just sharing Jesus with people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as they were doing that, Wayne said that there was this one particular guy that lived on the outskirts of one of these villages on this island on

[SPEAKER_00]: nobody really like talked to this guy knew this guy very well because in african culture if you don't live in the village then you don't live in the village you're an outcast now to us in america kind of sounds nice right we want to live in the outskirts but um for them that's very strange you live in the village um and this guy did not and so he really was he was a he was a weird guy to everybody and he was an outcast and so they were out there kind of sharing the gospel walking around and as they were walking they were going past this guy's

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very primitive area fishing village, very, very primitive part of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going past this guy's hut and Wayne said he just really felt the Lord said, hey, go, go, shoot the gospel of the sky.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he takes his interpreter and they go up to this guy's hut and they knock on the door or whatever it was but knock on him and the guy comes out and then Wayne says through the interpreter he just said, hey, I just want to share it with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel of Jesus, I want to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ, and he did and he just talked with them for a few minutes and Share with them the basics of who Jesus says what he did and death on the cross and resurrection all these things and So they got really listened very carefully very intently and when he was done The God just looked at Wayne and said, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for sharing that with me And he said this to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, you know, I know that missionaries come here all the time I know who they are.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know what they're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know they're sharing about this Jesus first I've kind of heard the name, but he said no one has ever come to my house

[SPEAKER_00]: ever and shared what you just shared with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he told Wayne, he said, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I will think about what you said.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, again, and Wayne said in their culture, that really does mean something.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're very intentional people and very thoughtful.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not just going to lie to you and say, I'm going to think about that if they're not.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the guy said, oh, we don't really think about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, he turned around through a net and caught a chicken and gave it to Wayne, which is really cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gave Wayne a chicken and Wayne named the chicken stampede, and then they went away.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of dead, but man, I was just thinking about how intentional that moment was, right, for Wayne's and no, man, again, I'm created by God to do the good works that he prepared long in advance for me to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not on our radar all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't always have it on the bingo card.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today's going to look like, or where we're going to go, or what we're going to say, or who's going to be in front of us, but we are made in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: What if we lived our lives that way with open eyes?

[SPEAKER_00]: knowing that we're made in Christ Jesus for good works and for Wayne that was a good moment to go you know what here's my good work right now just to out of a place of grace go and share the gospel with this person we are created in Christ Jesus to do those good works and so Paul then after he says that verse we are created for those good works he then turns in verse 11 he says therefore therefore from those good works and from a place of don't forget about this verse eight by grace

[SPEAKER_00]: by grace we have been saved through faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has changed just redeemed us, adopted us, go back to Ephesians one and think about all the wonders, about the glorious grace of God that He has done in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, therefore, remember.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, why does He say, remember?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why remember?

[SPEAKER_00]: I was reading this a couple of weeks ago and I was going to Michigan.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm efficient here with my dad.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was reading this on the plane just thinking about this message and thinking about, why remember?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm writing that down, just why does He say,

[SPEAKER_00]: It's an important thing, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's important for us to remember.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do a lot of remembering as Christian people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you'll know that.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we pray, we remember when we take communion, you know, that's about remembrance.

[SPEAKER_00]: God and his people for thousands of years, he has set up things for them to remember their feasts and their festivals and the times when they would go to the temple, it was a lot about remembrance.

[SPEAKER_00]: They need to remember who God was.

[SPEAKER_00]: They need to remember what God had done.

[SPEAKER_00]: They also need to remember who they were.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really what Paul's saying here,

[SPEAKER_00]: who you were.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that therefore again connects to everything I just said about the grace of God, the goodness of God, the salvation that He's given you by His grace through faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I want you to remember something.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's still laying a foundation here.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's laying a foundation of the gospel under our feet to help us stand upon this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was reading some commentaries on this this week in this guy named Albert Barnes.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was a pastor in the mid 1800s and he's famous for some Bible commentaries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he wrote about this verse.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said,

[SPEAKER_00]: The design of this verse, the design of this, is to excite a sense of gratitude in the bosoms of the Ephesians, for that mercy which had called them from the errors and sins of their former lives to the privileges of Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a good thing he says for Christians to remember what they were.

[SPEAKER_00]: We sang that a little bit ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember who I was.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was lost, I was blind, I was running out of time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jesus, for the blood applied, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We sang this good for us, he says, this good for Christians to remember what they were.

[SPEAKER_00]: He goes on, he says, no faculty of the mind can be better employed to produce humility, impenetence and gratitude and love than the memory of these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is well to recall the recollection of our former sins, to dwell upon our hardness of heart, our alienation from God, our unbelief, and to remember our wanderings and our guilt until the heart be affected, and we are made to feel.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love that thought of our heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we should remember, who God is?

[SPEAKER_00]: What is number?

[SPEAKER_00]: We should remember who we were.

[SPEAKER_00]: what we had earned for ourselves, what we have done to turn away from our gracious heavenly father again in the beginning and we should remember those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: We shouldn't dwell on it too much and just think that we're still guilty of sin because we're not if we're in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we should remember and here's why because we are made not just to know things but to feel things.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's right, I think that's true, I think Paul wants the Ephesians to feel something a year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he wants us, as we read this, God wants us to feel something here, not just intellectual people.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are emotional people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Emotions should not dictate your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: but they are real and they are good created by God so that our hearts would feel something.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to feel the love of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to feel the glorious grace of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to feel a deep sense of humility and gratitude and joy and hope which only the gospel can give.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what verse 11's doing for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to remember this.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what does he want us to remember?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see what the Ephesians do remember.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that formerly, it's almost formerly, before the grace of God had entered your life, formerly you who are Gentiles by birth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is, I would assume, anybody in here Jewish by lineage?

[SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, that's a real question.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody in here?

[SPEAKER_00]: No body.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're all Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's us.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're either due or you're Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Same for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Same for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gentiles by birth.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says and called on circumcised.

[SPEAKER_00]: That might as quote there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yours probably does to uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says that done in the body by the hands of men.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Paul is for a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: two different ways in which we were separated, okay, socially and spiritually, socially and spiritually.

[SPEAKER_00]: Socially is here, verse 11.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the social aspect of our separation before we knew the gospel, before we knew the grace of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Socially we were separated because we were gentiles by birth.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's what he's saying.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Ephesians were gentiles by birth, not Jewish people, not of the Israelites.

[SPEAKER_00]: not the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, you were called at that time, un-circum-sized.

[SPEAKER_00]: We said, now, real quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then that might be strange to 21st century American years if you haven't read, maybe Old Testament or grew up in this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he's talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Circumcision was the sign, the physical sign of the old covenant that God gave to Abraham.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and passed on through Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and on to Moses and all the Israelites right to sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: The physical sign that you were the people of God, the males were all circumcised.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how that worked, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they had a physical representation that said, I am of the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul is using this argument just to say that in the Jewish mind, they looked at the Gentiles as simply.

[SPEAKER_00]: on circumcised.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all would be on circumcised.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is a term that they would use.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a term of derision, a term of scorn, a term of contempt.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were basically saying, we're the circumcision y'all are on circumcised.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is to say, you're not one of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was the whole point.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't belong with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: where the Jews, where the people of God, where the Israelites, you're not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so Paul's just saying socially that used to be the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now here, here's something to note, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Paul does say that done in the body by the hands of man and he's kind of making a point there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Throwing a little jab at the Jews to let them know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all, circumcision is just an outward flesh thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It really is not the whole point.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that the whole point always Jeremiah says, this Jeremiah 44 says that God wants us to circumcise

[SPEAKER_00]: is always about the heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was always the point.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was the point for the Israelites.

[SPEAKER_00]: God gave them an outward physical sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: But his point was always, I want you to love me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not just having outward sign that you love me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not just do that with your flesh, but I want you love me with your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we know that that's true.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet still, formally, this was the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was the Jewish people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they called themselves, and there was even a particular party of the Jews who called themselves literally the circumcision, and even after some of them became Christians, they still tried to enforce this law upon the Gentiles that they had to be circumcised like the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of pages in the New Testament written to negate that because it's not true.

[SPEAKER_00]: But formally, there was this separation, that's the point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, socially, there was a separation between Jew and Gentile.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, verse 12 starts the spiritual, the spiritual separation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he says.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's five things, five ways in which we were separated spiritually.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 12, he says, remember that at that time, you were separate from Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's number one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Separate from Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before you were made alive by God, before you knew the gospel in grace entered your life, you were still dead in your sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: Separate from Jesus, you had no Savior, you had no Messiah, you had no Redeemer.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's number one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, he says, you were excluded from citizenship in Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is to say that the Gentiles were not citizens of the kingdom of God, the physical kingdom of God, in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was the theocratic kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: That means God is the king, theocratic.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is the king over this kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: He established it through his people, the Israelites.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Gentiles, before grace, they had no rights in this kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: God was not their king.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had no special blessing, no special protection, no special provision, no access to the

[SPEAKER_00]: worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll show you a picture real quick of the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the first ever picture taken of the temple in the first century by a drone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Back then, I'm kidding, y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's an artistic depiction.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what that is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, this is what the temple looked like.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a simple of hair.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: And out here, so this is the temple complex.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about 1,000 feet by 1,500 feet.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, 36 acres, very big complex.

[SPEAKER_00]: The temple proper, they're in the middle.

[SPEAKER_00]: That building in the middle, that's the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy of Holies is the tall part on the end there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the whole temple complex is in the middle there.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's about two football fields long.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, big complex here.

[SPEAKER_00]: All these little dots out here, these will be the Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the courtyard of the Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's as far as they could go.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you were a Gentile person, you could go to Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could go to the Temple Complex.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could enter in the outer wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you could not go in the temple, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: That was reserved for the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Gentiles could kind of live right outside there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sort of the whole point is, because they were excluded.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were excluded from citizenship.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have the rights of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before you were saved by Grace Paul is saying, you were distant at best, you had distant limited access even to the presence of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they were excluded from citizenship and Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, he says, you were foreigners to the covenants of the promise.

[SPEAKER_00]: God had made promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had enacted a covenant with his people in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: He started it through Abraham.

[SPEAKER_00]: He ratified it through Moses and then through King David.

[SPEAKER_00]: He promised them things like land.

[SPEAKER_00]: He promised them a priesthood that was access and mediation in the temple that they could draw near to God through these priests, the Levitical priesthood, that the priest would take sacrifices and offer them to God and that would allow them to have

[SPEAKER_00]: God promised them to be a great nation through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, God promised to make them a royal kingdom, through King David, and his lineage.

[SPEAKER_00]: God promised himself to be their king, and to eventually offer to them, I promised Messiah, all of these were promises to the Jews.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the Gentiles were included in a way that God was often kind of hinting at the fact that eventually all the world, all the Gentiles would be included, especially in the prophets.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see that God reminds us, people even sold Abraham.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to bless the whole world through you, but it was the Jews who were the ones who would take the blessing and take the promise and have the land and have the kingdom, and they were the ones who received all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go to the book of Exodus, told you we'd go there for just a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: When God calls these your lights out of Egypt, he makes them this promise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the promises that the Gentiles don't have, and the Jews did have.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Exodus 6, verse 6 says this, it's God talking to Moses.

Exodus 6:6

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to the promises here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, say to the Israelites, the Jews, I am the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will free you from being slaves to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will take you here to Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.

[SPEAKER_00]: then you will know that I am the Lord, you are God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and I will bring you into the land.

[SPEAKER_00]: I swore to you with up lifted hand to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will give it to you as a possession.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the theme of God in his people and the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: The story of God is this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be your God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will be my people.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's God's promise to the Jews, not the Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have that promise.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is Paul's point to the Ephesians right here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to remember, you didn't used to have this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't used to know this God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You used to have those promises in that covenant.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he says to them after that, he says, you were at that time without hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the universe 12 there, without hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why did they have no hope?

[SPEAKER_00]: They had no hope because they had no inheritance.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had no promise from God, not the way that the Jews did.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he concludes that with you or without hope and without God in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's something we need to just reckon with and get clear in our hearts and minds that to be separate from Christ, that's how we started this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are separated from Christ, to be separate from Christ is to be separate from God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're without Christ, you're without God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no version of Godliness that exists apart from Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one has God on their own terms in their own way by their own making.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you are not in Christ, I don't care if you call yourself atheist, agnostic.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care if you're a Muslim, a warmen of Jehovah's Witness, a Buddhist, a Hindu, I don't care who you are, where you are, what you're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you do not have Christ, you do not have God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: or if you're like most Americans today, you're a semi-spiritual humanist, trying to be a good person, live a moral life, discover the light within yourself, look at me, you have no God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have Christ, see the Ephesians, they formerly worshiped Artemis.

[SPEAKER_00]: Artemis was their goddess, we've been over this, if you've been here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Artemis was the goddess that they worshiped temple in the city of Ephesus, big temple to Artemis, the Romans called her Diana, Ephesians, the Greeks, they called her Artemis.

[SPEAKER_00]: Artemis was actually one of the 12 Olympians.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you guys know those stories, the old mythology stories, one of the 12 Olympians, she lived on Mount Olympus with Zeus and Hermes and Aries and Athena and Poseidon and Apollo.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was one of those 12 major gods of their religion.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would have also believed probably in the Titans.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Titans were kind of the older gods.

[SPEAKER_00]: At these gods, you served and took their place.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they probably also believed in all sorts of kind of local deities, depending on where you were from and what your traditions were.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is to say, the Ephesians formerly, probably had dozens of gods, which means one thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had no God, no God, and that is Paul's point to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is for all of us when we were separate from Christ, no Christ, no God, no citizenship as God's people, no promises, and therefore no hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: because we have no God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is for all of you if you are still separated from God, if you are still separated from Christ, look right here, you're not a citizen of the kingdom of God without Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not a recipient of God's promises, you're not a recipient of His blessings.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have nothing to hope in apart from Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have nothing to hope in.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you that, that's bad news that should be depressing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have no hope apart from Jesus, no God in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what can be done?

[SPEAKER_00]: What has been done, verse 13, keep reading.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now, there's one of those great butts again, but now,

[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ Jesus, you, you all, Gentiles, y'all, that's the word really, y'all, you all, who once were far away, have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: You once were far away.

[SPEAKER_00]: You once were dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said in Ephesians 2-1, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were followers of the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, Satan himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were excluded from citizenship in Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were foreigners to God's covenant.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were without hope and without God in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ Jesus you've been brought near.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were far and now you're near.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've been brought near through the blood of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we sing songs about blood?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is why because we're separate from God without Jesus blood.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're alienated from His promises without Jesus blood.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not redeemed.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not adopted.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have nothing

[SPEAKER_00]: that he's paid for us on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to show you the temple again, it's temple complex.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you were a Gentile, again, you could go into the outer courtyard there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could hang out really anywhere in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could not go into the temple unless you became a Jew.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you can't really see it in this picture, but there's some like steps, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: At the base of the temple there, the temple proper, or some steps.

[SPEAKER_00]: And around those steps, all around the entire temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was this little fence, there was a little fence called a ballastrod.

[SPEAKER_00]: a ballast rod and on the ballast rod every so often they would post the stone notices written notices of stone.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's still one that exists, this is in, I think some modern day turkey is in a museum there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still one of these stones that exists, this stone, this actual one, it was on the ballast rod that went around the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was written to the Gentiles.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was written in Greek.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was written in Latin.

[SPEAKER_00]: For them to read if they ever stepped up to that fence and had the idea that they might gain access to the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what it says.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what that stone says.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: No stranger.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, notice the language.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul said that we used to be foreigners.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are other translations.

[SPEAKER_00]: They strangers.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's who you used to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: That stone says no stranger talking to the Gentiles is to answer the ballastraught around the temple and closure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whoever is caught will himself be responsible for the ensuing death.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, that stone says, you cross this line, you die, Gentiles, that's what it says.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure whether the Ephesians were specifically aware of that law and the Jewish Temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think they probably were.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul spent three years in Ephesus teaching them, probably mentioned things like that probably talked about the temple, probably talked about the laws that they had.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it seems like he's assuming as he writes this that they understand this because he's not spelling it out for them, but he's using the same language about foreigners, about aliens, about strangers, and about drawing near, so I'm sure they kind of understand the imagery here.

[SPEAKER_00]: both spiritually and socially.

[SPEAKER_00]: Physically, you could not draw near.

[SPEAKER_00]: You literally could not be in his presence because you were unclean foreigners, you were Gentiles, you were not Jews, so you couldn't come near.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you tried to come near as an unclean Gentile, the payment was death.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now,

[SPEAKER_00]: In Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, in other words, now you will not die if you cross the battle of strut.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Jesus died so that you would never have to cross the battle of strut.

[SPEAKER_00]: He died to destroy the battle of strut.

[SPEAKER_00]: He died to destroy that line and come to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: the presence of God to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need not go to Jerusalem.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need not go to the temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need not go to the holy place.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need not go to the holy of Holy's two encounter God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has come to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has given us His Son, He has died for our sins and now by faith through grace, His presence is available to you and to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: freely y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's good news.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't have to cross that line.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 14, I'm going to read a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go into this more next week.

[SPEAKER_00]: He himself is our peace who has made the two one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, has destroyed the barrier, the balistraught, the dividing wall of hostility.

[SPEAKER_00]: by abolishing and his flesh, the law with its commandments and regulations.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's Jesus' work on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: He destroyed the barrier for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the opposite is true.

[SPEAKER_00]: What he just said, remember that you used to not be God's people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now your God's people, now your God's children, used to not be citizens of Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now your citizens of the kingdom, used to not have the covenants and the promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now every covenant, every promise of God, in Christ Jesus is yesterday, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: We used to not have hope, now we have hope, we used to not have God, now we have God, how, why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because of Christ, because of His blood, He's paid for us, in Christ Jesus by grace, through faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are brought to life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are united with Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: His death becomes our death, His life becomes our life, His righteousness becomes our righteousness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, church.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the truth of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We, who once were far away,

[SPEAKER_00]: have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Actually I stopped short at the end of Wayne's story at the beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Wayne shared the gospel with that guy on the outskirts of town there in Uganda and Africa.

[SPEAKER_00]: So 20 years later, this was actually last year, Wayne was on the phone with a guy named George George, was a young man from that same island in Africa, Wayne and him, Wayne and George have kept up with each other over the years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Wayne was talking to him, and George told Wayne that he remembered a couple things.

[SPEAKER_00]: He remembered the chicken, he remembered a stampede that Wayne had.

[SPEAKER_00]: He remembered that chicken, and that reminded him, and he remembered that guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He remembered that outcast guy that lived on the outskirts of that village.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he told Wayne this, he said, right after Wayne's team had left that island.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is 20 years ago, that that guy started going to a local church in the village.

[SPEAKER_00]: He went into the village, just got him going the village.

[SPEAKER_00]: He went into the village and he started going to a local church where he eventually put his faith in Jesus and was saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he said the people and all the villages around that herd about it and because that guy was such a weird guy in an outcast And he was the one now moving in and he was the one who was saved They heard and what did they do they started going to church?

[SPEAKER_00]: He said the whole village started going to church and he said eventually all of them were saved and the entire village was united under

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus for the first time.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was just a may like Wayne was here in the sword just going like what are you talking about?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just such an amazing reminder that we who once were far away have been brought near.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not by our own power, not by our own works or goodness, but by the blood of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's near to God and listen and near to one another too.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Paul's talking about here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, next week we're going to get more into the one another, but near to God and near to one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now listen, some of you, I would guess probably at times, maybe even right now, feel like an outcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: You feel like an outside or you feel different.

[SPEAKER_00]: You feel like maybe nobody gets you or nobody understands you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, maybe that's true at times.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's probably true of all of us at times.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, not everybody gets everybody in that, that's okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say this, God gets you, he understands you, he knows you, sees you, and he has given his son as this testimony that he wants you to be part of his family, to receive his promises, to receive his covenants.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's no ballast draw around this building.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll see that this morning when you walked in.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might see a written sign that said, you're dying if you cross this line, if you're not the right kind of person.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, that didn't exist anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus destroyed that jump.

[SPEAKER_00]: So two things, one, if you are a person who feels right now far away in whatever way that may be socially, or spiritually, especially, don't be afraid.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be afraid to draw near to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, first and foremost,

[SPEAKER_00]: And don't be afraid to be counted among his people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because here's the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can picture this way if there's a cross in the middle of this room, and we're all on a big circle around it, and we're all coming to Jesus together.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are we doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're coming to closer to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're also coming closer to each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we move towards Christ, we move toward one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: don't be afraid of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know not everybody's an extraver, not everybody wants to know everybody and that's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not saying you got to be because I'm really not either, but the beauty of the new kingdom that we live in is that we all draw near to Jesus together at the center.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we do that, man, we come closer together in good relationship and then I'll say this to the rest of us who

[SPEAKER_00]: You already are near, you're kind of in that club like the Jews felt like they were the ones who are already there and the Gentiles were the ones coming in.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know some of us if we're church kids and you kind of grow up doing this and you know the Bible stories and you know all these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be easy for us to kind of get an attitude about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't get an answer like, well, I'm here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if I care if anybody else comes in, or if I even want that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll just say this, if you have a problem with anyone drawing near anyone, drawing near to God and Christ, then the problem is with you, not with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's your problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not gonna be a place where we have a problem with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to draw near to the Lord, you draw near to the Lord, and I'm going to meet you there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to meet you there, and we're going to do that together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to draw near to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to sing one more song, y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do that together, too.

[SPEAKER_00]: This morning, we're going to sing one more song to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we do this, I just want to hope and I pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we sing, man, we would think about what we're singing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And think about the truth and the beauty of these words that we have blessed assurance in Christ that He is ours and we are His.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that also means, as we sing, I want you to reflect on this, that that means that we want this to be true of all people, that they would know that they are in, that they are Jesus' and He is theirs.

[SPEAKER_00]: We belong to God and He belongs to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be your God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will be my people.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's people all around us, y'all, who are without hope and without God in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you okay with that?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a real question, are you okay with that?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't want to be okay with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I don't think about it much and maybe that makes me okay with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't want to be okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Knowing that there's people still outside the ballast rod so to speak and feel like they can't cross that barrier.

[SPEAKER_00]: and far be it for me to be a ballast rod for somebody else.

[SPEAKER_00]: War for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it make sense?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not be those people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not speak by our words or tell by our actions or our faces, you're not welcome here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, let's just be people of grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember who you were, who you are now, and menless and white people and so.