Our Great Transformation - Ephesians 2:11-22

Well, good morning. So excited to be back here. I wish I had time to get here earlier to visit with everybody, but super excited. I know Tyler's gonna be out. I think a few weeks this summer off and on. and so I told Dalton, I would just love to come over and see everybody and give him one Sunday off, so super excited, thanks to Armando, who met me at the door there and drove me over and made me feel big time, and so thank you for that. But appreciate it. So good to be here. And you know, if you went home today. And scrolled social media. Don't do it while I'm preaching. But if you went home today and scrolled your Facebook feed, you're probably going to see a lot of before and after posts that people make. I have a friend who has some kind of weight loss program that they have clients in, they're always posting, look at this person before. They got all my program, and now look at them now, all the weight they lost. I'm gonna be 54 in a couple of weeks. My feed is full of military workout apps. Don't know if anybody gets those ads. Like, here's what you gotta do to stay fit in your 50s, and they'll show some overweight guy, and then, and then he'll be like, jacked, you know? And he'll say, just 15 minutes a day for nine weeks, and look what happened to him. I don't think that's true. But maybe it's hair loss. Some of you might look into that. I'm going to name names, but you get, you show the guy with the thinning hair, and then you put this on, and then there's this after picture, his lush head of hair afterwards, or maybe it's skin care products. You get that shot of, I had these crow's feet. I put this ointment on it, and now look how beautiful my skin is. before and after. That's what Ephesians chapter 2 is. It's a before and after picture of your relationship with God. This is what my life was like before Christ. This is how Jesus has changed our lives. That's what Paul, the apostles given us in Ephesians chapter 2. Started last week, the 1st half of Ephesians in chapter 2, verses one through three. He said, you were dead in your trespasses and sin. You walked according to the course of this world, and you carried out the desires of your flesh. But then in verse four, he said, but God, but God made you alive in Christ, saved you by his grace, and called you a life of good works. before Jesus, you were dead. When you came to know Jesus, you're alive. Before Jesus, you carried out the desires of your flesh, after Jesus, you're pursuing the good works that God has created for you to walk in. And so what the apostle Paul is doing here. He's trying to say, this is your life before, and this is how Jesus changed it. We're going to continue that theme in verse 11 through 22 with one little added change. He's not going to talk just about our relationship with God. He's gonna add the dimension of our relationship with other people. Not only did Jesus change your vertical relationship, Jesus changes our horizontal relationship. It's going to add that dimension as we move through this. My hope this week and this morning is twofold. Number one, if you're not a follower of Jesus. I hope you'll see in this passage what God can do in your life, how he can transform you. And if you are a follower of Jesus, my hope for you is that this will be just a good reminder of what we have in Jesus. I think we go through our day-to-day lives a lot of times, not really thinking about what we have in Jesus. And we need a reminder of the gospel in the life, even if someone is following Jesus, of what we have in Christ, in a good challenge, to walk this out. So let's look at this. We're going to look for things that characterize our lives, our characterize our lives before Jesus, for things that are true about our life now, and then application at the end. What do we do with this? At one time, 4 things were true of your life. Number one, at one time, you and I were separated from God. It was a time of your life when you were separated from God. Verse 11 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 the hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. There was a day when you were cut off. Now, he uses this phrase, you were called the uncircumcision. This phrase, the uncircumcision, would have been a derogatory term in that day, of what a Jew would call a Gentile. It's kind of an insult. You're not one of us. You're one of the uncircumcised, deep animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles. Now, what's a Gentile? I didn't know this for a long time, so I never assumed that other people know this. A Gentile is just someone who's not Jewish. So we have Jewish people and everyone else in the world who aren't Jewish. Those are Gentiles. I'm assume maybe everyone, probably everyone in this room is a Gentile. And in that day, you would have been cut off from the Jewish people. It would have been deep animosity. A Jewish person would have seen you as unclean. If you were a Gentile Roman, you would have been seen as an oppressor. They would have tried in every way to separate themselves from you. And now, you're following Jesus, and you're part of the local body. Now, imagine being a Gentile Christian in 1st century Ephesus, you would have been alienated in a lot of ways. You left paganism. You walked away from the false gods of the people of Ephesus. And so you no longer fitted with them. You become a follower of Jesus, and now you're held at arm's length a little bit by the Jewish Christians in the crowd. And so they would have felt this in a very real way. And so he's saying that, he was going to say later, there's no longer a dividing wall, but historically, culturally, they would have felt that they're not really part of the family here, deep divide between Jews and Gentiles. And then he says, not only that, verse 12 said, you were separated from Christ. And that word Christ is important. You know, in my early years, I thought Christ was Jesus' middle name, Jesus, our last name, Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ, because that would be his middle name. But Christ is not a name, it's a title. His name is Jesus Christ. Christ is his title. What does Christ mean? It comes from a Greek word that means the anointed one. It's equivalent of the Hebrew word that meant deliverer. And so what you didn't have is you didn't have a deliverer. You didn't have a rescuer. You lived as a Gentile, cut off and separated from what you viewed as the people of God, and without the hope that they had, of God sending a Messiah. sending a deliverer. Maybe that describes you today. You feel like an outsider. on the outside looking in. And maybe you desperately are hoping for a deliverer, someone to rescue you. That was our state without Christ. Second, He said you were cut off from God's people. Verse 12, continuing. You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, or excluded from the citizenship of Israel. citizenship was a big deal in that day, just like it is today. But in that day, I think this would have hit differently when you read this as a person living within the Roman Empire. You lived inside the geographical boundaries of the Roman Empire, but not everyone inside the boundaries of the empire were citizens of Rome. And so you lived among citizens, but you weren't one, and they had rights you didn't have. They had privileges and benefits you didn't have. And so we use this as an analogy spiritually. Just as you can live as an alien in a land, you can live as an alien to the kingdom of God. The same way today, there's many cut off from the benefits, from the privileges, that those who are followers of Jesus experience. And today you feel alienated. You feel cut off. Third, they were blinded to God's promises. Verse 12. He continues, not only were you separated from Christ and alienated from citizenship, You were strangers to the covenants of the promise. You didn't know the promises that they knew. You didn't know the wonderful promises of the covenant God made with Abraham to grow out of him a great nation, to give them a promised land. You didn't know the law and how the law pointed to the coming Messiah, Jesus. You didn't know the promises of the prophets God had sent. And you were ignorant of all of this. You didn't know the beauty of God's word and God's promises. And finally, perhaps worst of all, you were without hope. You were without hope, separated. You were cut off, you were blinded, and you had no hope. You live, verse 12 says, having no hope, and without God in the world, without God in the world. interesting thing about Ephesus. You can go there today. Has anybody been to the ancient city of Ephesus? You have Matt, you can go on, my wife and I went on a cruise last year. And one of the stops was Turkey. You can get off the ship, you can get a cab or a driver to take you to, and you can wander the streets of Ephesus. The very place Paul spent 3 years of his life, the place where they would have read this letter. And it's full of gods. It's full of temples. It's full of idols. The temple of Artemis is there, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world is there. You walk the streets surrounded by gods, little G, but no hope. And that describes our culture today in some ways. People looking for truth in a sea of counterfeits, in a sea of imitations without hope. Can you imagine? Or do you remember? what it was like to not have the hope of Jesus in your life. Well, I go through hard things, and I know all of us in this room, gone through difficult things. I often wonder, how do people without the hope of the gospel do this? How do they get? life is hard enough with Jesus. I can't imagine it without them. And that's the life they lived. All the trials, all the tragedy, all the heartache, and no hope, no hope in the midst of it. But then we have these powerful words in verse 13. But now. But now, as might be the 2 most important words of this whole chapter, little words seem significant, but now everything's changed. It carries that same punch that, but God in last week's, did you peach last week? So you probably keyed in on that. But God, those are two, he said in verse one, you were dead, verse four, but God made you alive, but God does the same thing here. Verse 12, you were cut off, verse 13, but God. God brought you. First thing that's changed is we've been brought near to God. We were separated from God, but now we've been brought near through Jesus. We were cut off, but now we've been united. Verse 19 he says, so you are no longer strangers and aliens. You were an alien, now you're a citizen. Fellow citizens with the saints, and now you have every right, every privilege, every benefit, that a citizen of the kingdom of heaven enjoys. Have you ever had a friend go through the process of becoming a U.S. citizen? Maybe we had someone do that. I don't know if you have, I've had 2 or 3 times where they've invited me to come to the ceremony. Shannon, have you been to one of those? No, it's a powerful thing. You're the room full of people that have lived here for a number of years as aliens, as strangers, in a sense, than our text would say. They lived among people who had rights and privileges that they didn't fully enjoy. And now today, at the end of the day, when they raise their hand and get sworn in, they're going to be citizens of the United States. It was cool. We walked out of the courtroom, one time, there were 2 tables out there. One, you could register to vote. And the other one you could apply for your United States passport. Oh, what a cool thing that would have been, to walk out of that room and register to vote. I've lived in this country all these years without this right and now I have it. I've lived among these people all these years, and now I'm going to have, in my hand, a United States passport as a citizen to freely come and go whenever I want with this passport. That what he's saying here. You have a privilege you've never had before. You have rights you've never had before. Philippians 320 said, our citizenship is now in heaven. because of Jesus. Do you feel like a spiritual outsider, through faith in Jesus. You can be brought into the family of God. You can be brought near to God. Second, because of Jesus, we're united in peace. We are united in peace. Look at verse 14. For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, 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. The 1st thing I think we ought to notice about verse 14 is this phrase, he is our peace. He is our peace. Notice he doesn't say, he taught us about peace, or he pointed us to peace, or he pointed us to peace. He is our peace. I will point that out because I think we live in a culture where people don't have a big problem with Jesus. They think, well, he taught us about peace. He was a peaceful person. And if we live like Jesus, and we follow the teachers of Jesus, the world will be a more peaceful place. It doesn't just say Jesus taught peace. He said Jesus is peace. You don't get to peace by just following the teachings of Jesus. He didn't just say, I'm the I'll teach you the way to God. He said, I am the way to God. He didn't say I'm teaching you truth. He says, I am the truth. And here's the same thing. He didn't say, Jesus came to show us what peace looks like. He said, Jesus came to bring peace, to be our peace. We put our faith in Jesus. We're at peace in 2 ways. Number one, we are now at peace with God. Because of Jesus. We used to be enemies of God. We used to be rebels, and because of Jesus. The rebels are now reconciled children of God. And then also the text says, we're now at peace with one another. Vertical peace with God, horizontal peace with others because of what Jesus has done. Those Jews and Gentiles who are once separated are now made into one, the text says. The wall is gone. What is the wall he talks about here? You study this, there's two options that are put forward here. One is, it's a reference to the physical wall that existed in the temple complex. You went to the temple in Jerusalem. There was the courts of that temple, places you couldn't go if you weren't Jewish. In fact, you walk up to that wall, there were signs, Archaeologists have found these. There's signs around the perimeter that says, If you're a Gentile, don't go past a sign, or we're gonna kill you. You cross this line, you're dead. I couldn't go in there. He said, that wall, gone. Others say it's the wall was actually the law itself. Jewish people were following this law that I didn't know. He said, that law that separate you, it's gone. Not gone because God destroyed it, gone because God fulfilled it. That whole law pointed to Jesus. Everything they were doing for generations was just pointing to Jesus. Jesus, come now, that law is gone because the law is fulfilled, fulfilled, not eradicated. And for that reason, any walls are now gone that might have existed at one time. And now there's a new race, no longer Jew and Gentile, but Christ follower. Colossians 311. There's not Greek or Jews circumcised and uncircumcised barbarian or Scythian, slave or free. Christ is all in it all. Galatians 328. There's neither June nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free, there's neither male nor female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And then Romans 10, Romans 1013 is a kind of a popular verse. I'm going to guess that if you've done some scripture memory that somewhere along the way you might have memorized Romans 1013. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And we love that verse, short and easy to memorize. And it's a beautiful promise that if I call on the Lord, I'll be saved. You know what the verse report says? 1012 says this. There's no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all. So what are you saying here? All means all. All who call. Every race, every ethnicity, every color, every class, all who call upon the name of Lord, will be saved. There is not a distinction. This race can come to Jesus, but this can't. This color can come to Jesus, this can't. This economic class can find hope, but this one can't. He said, all who call on him will be saved. Verse 17, he came to preach peace to those who are far off and those who are near. All the barriers are gone. I read one scholar this week, said that divisions that were once like oil and water have been emulsified by the blood of Jesus. Division somebody. What does emulsify? You know what emulsifier is? An emulsifier, Abby, you're shaking your head. You're one of the smart chemistry people in the room, right? So you know this. An emulsifiers a substance that helps two liquids that don't mix well, mix well. These two things don't mix. You add this, they mix. I'll give you the most common one. It's in your house. It's your dishwashing liquid. Okay? Go home today, fry a hamburger in a pan, or some bacon, and then rinse it with water, and just put it back. No, don't do that. That's bad, right? Water won't take grease off a pan unless you do what? You add an emulsifier. You add the dishwashing liquid. So whenever you squeeze dishwashing liquid into your sink, I want you to remember this sermon, all right? Jesus is the emulsifier. Jews and Gentiles didn't mix until Jesus got added to the picture. And now, two things that didn't mix oil and water won't mix unless they're emulsified. The blood of Jesus emulsifies our relationships with everyone. They're people you don't get along with. There's people you don't think you mix well with, Jesus takes that division away. And people who are once separated are now live as fellow citizens, fellow saints following Jesus Christ, he can put you at peace with God today, and he should put you at peace with others today through the blood of his cross. Third, He reconciled God and his people, we are excuse me, we are reconciled to God and his people. Look at verse 16. that he might reconcile us both to God in one body, through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. Notice that we are now reconciled to God, we're made one body, the hostility between you and God is gone, the hostility between you and others is gone, put to death, by the cross, and then verse 19. We are now members of the household of God. We're part of the building of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Now, no one needs to tell you this as part of the riverside campus, that a church is not a building. You know that better than anybody, right? Because this is most of the week, this is a middle school. And right now, it's a church. Why is it a church? Because y'all showed up. And so when people say, a church is not a building, they're mostly right, except for what Ephesians chapter 2. Here's what you tell people. Actually, the church is a building. This is not a building in the way you think it's a building. Because what he said here is we are the building of God. And the stones of that building, you know, the followers of Jesus. God is building a building. And he's building it on a foundation, which is the apostles and the prophets. What does that mean? That's the word of God, that was taught by the apostles and the prophets. He's building it on the foundation of his word. He's put Jesus as its cornerstone, that key architectural element that lines everything up, everything squares up by the cornerstone, the most important stone of the building, and then he's starting to add on that foundation of his word, lined up with the cornerstone of his son. He is building a building with the blocks that are you and me today. He's putting together a place where his spirit dwells. His spirit dwells here today, not because there's something special about this building, but because we showed up, and we have the spirit of God dwelling in us. And he dwells here. You don't have to meet God somewhere. One Sunday night is that the kids city campus I was leaving, we had some event. I was one of the last people carrying out with the last people to leave. I was locking up the building, this before we had Nathan over there locking up for us. The car pulls in. A lady jumps out a little bit frantic and she said, are you closed? I said, I closed? I don't know, closed means that the church was like, we just finished a thing. And she goes, oh, I've been driving around all the last hour trying to find a church that's still open. And I said, what do you mean? She goes, I just need to talk to God about something. And I haven't been able to find a church that's open. And I said, well, come in and pray. And she Carrie and I hung out in the lobby and she came in. 10 minutes later she came out, tried to talk to her. She wasn't interested in talking. She just wanted to talk to God, and she had to find a building that was still open so she could do it. See what she didn't understand is God's spirit doesn't dwell inside a building. dwells in us. If the tornado took this place out and the building it on Wacomus out, we'd all just meet the High-Vee parking lot, and the Spirit of God would be there. dwelling among us, because we are his building that he's putting together. We are his body. And then finally, Because of Jesus, we are granted access to his presence. I love verse 18, through him, we both have access in one spirit to the Father. We both do. Not like one group gets in, the other does, and the Jews can get in, but the Gentiles can't. We get we all get equal access to the Father. You think about places you don't have access to, because you're not important enough. You're not wealthy enough. Think about it, travel this. Go on a trip this summer. You show up at the airport. There's these beautiful lounges that the fancy people are going into. I'm at the Chick-fil-A with the commoners. Don't have access to the special area. get on the plane. I walk by the first class people back to Row 32, seat A, and then the flight attendant shuts that little curtain. Don't try to come up here and go to the 1st class bathroom. You go to the bathroom in the back with the commoners. You go to the concert, that the Morton Amphitheater. You're gonna sit with me at the lawn seats. You're not gonna be in the front row with the wristband, with the VIP access to the front row. You ever feel this cut off? There's places, you'd go to the hotel this summer on your vacation, and you'd try to push the 12th floor button, it doesn't work, because your key doesn't light that one up, because that's where the VIP lounge is. You get back to floor 11 with the commoners. Oh, ain't it good news? When you see that, just stop right there and thank God, you may not have the access to all the VIP lounges in this country, but you have access into the presence of the creator of the universe. We have the all access into the presence of God because of what Jesus has done for us. So what do we do with this? First of all, I want to encourage you, if you've never put your faith in Jesus, put your faith in him today, turn from your life of rebellion, and trust Jesus alone for your salvation. Verse 13 says we are brought near by the blood of Christ. Verse 14 says Christ is our peace. Verse 20. Christ is the cornerstone of the building. Everything God's doing lines up with his son. It's only through Jesus that we can be made right with God. I have this little hobby that I do, where I drive for Uber once in a while. And I called Carrie Friday afternoon at 4.30. I ended my last meeting, and I thought, I want to turn the Uber app on. Call my wife. I said, hey, what are you doing? Would you mind if I went out and drove for a couple hours? She said, no, I'm going to get my nails done. I said, oh, cool. I'm gonna go Uber. She said, how long will you Uber? I said, how much does it cost to get your nails done? And she gave me a dollar figure, and I said, that long. I'm gonna drive till I hit that dollar amount, and then I might go a little further, but I'm gonna stay out till I make up. What was I saying? You're about to go spin some money. I'm gonna go make up for it, right? Then that's how people think we can treat God. I can sin. And then I can go make up for it. There's not an app that calculates the sin to good works conversion rate for your life. Or you can say, how many good things do I have to do to make up for the sin I did this week? It doesn't work that way. And boy, it's a good thing it doesn't work that way. Because if it worked that way, we'd be in big, big trouble. Because I guarantee that you sin a lot more. I said a lot more than the good works I can do to make up for it. And that's why the blood of Jesus was shed on the cross, so that sinners could be made at peace with God, so that sinners who were cut off could be reconciled, sinners who are on the outside could be brought into the family through the blood of Jesus. Have you put your faith in him today, you can do that. Second, Live a life of gratitude. Live a life of gratitude. How often do you think about these principles that we just looked at in Ephesians chapter two? I think I can go through a whole day or maybe a whole week. Well, that stopping going, wow, I have access to the creator. Man, I was on the outside one point in my life, and now I'm on the inside. I'm not cut off anyway. I used to be ignorant to the truth of God's word, and now he's opened my eyes to see it. And I think we think about gratitude being for the daily blessings, and we should. We absolutely should thank God for every good gift that comes down from heaven. But I think sometimes we don't live with a heart of gratitude because we place our attitude on the immediate and not on these blessings that we have. You ever, how many of you pray when the plane's taken off? I do every time. I pray on the tax, we're taxing out there. I pray when we're going, I pray for the pilots, I pray for the weather, I pray for the mechanics. I pray against the terrorists. I pray every kind of way you can pray when that plane's headed down that runway. And then the wheels touch down. And I gather my belongings and jump out in the aisle and head on to where I'm going that day. I don't always pray as much when we land, as much as when we're taken off. And I realize that's a metaphor for my life many times. I pray on the front end of what I want from God. I always put it on the back end of what he gave me. I want to encourage you today, the wheels have touched down safely here, and you have access and forgiveness and citizenship. Would you take time this week to walk in that gratitude, walk in that joy, to walk in that thankfulness of what God's done in your life? Third, strive for unity. As we love and accept one another. Strive for unity, as we accept and love one of the Christ has brought down the wall. Who are we to build another? Christ has made us one. How could we not come together? Christ died to reconcile us. How could we not forgive? Ask the Lord to search your heart. Is there a division in your heart, an animosity in your heart toward a person or a people or a group of people for whom Christ shed his blood? Then finally, Share Jesus with those who are far from him today. Share Jesus with those who are far from him today. With many still, so far off, how can we turn our backs on them? I read many years ago, I don't know who this quote is attributed to, I should have looked it up, but it said sharing the gospel is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find the bread. You heard that before, Caleb. That's all we're doing. We were just beggars who found some bread. And how wrong would it be for the beggars who found the bread not to tell the beggars where the bread is found? How wrong would it be for us who are on the inside to not take the gospel to those on the outside? If we've been reconciled. We must become ministers of reconciliation to others. Last night, the tornado sirens went off, our phones all went off, all these ways of being worn, and I turn on the TV, YouTube, try to find an old school television channel, with just a local meteorologist, right? And so I get channel 9 or channel 5 or whatever the equivalent is, and I'm watching, I'm watching the radar, and then I start texting people, I know, in the path of that storm. I texted my kids first. You guys good? Yep, we're good. I think it's past us. Text my mom, mom, you watching the weather. It's coming your way. I texted some friends in liberty. Hey, I just heard they saw something near Liberty North High School. I know you live near that area. Y'all watching the thing up there, started warning people, what's coming their way. And then I was watching these meteorologists. I was working on this slides. And man, these meteorologists, they love this. It's a Super Bowl for them, right? They just, all the boring life they live with, like, just the temperatures and now a tornado. I get, and you're gonna break away from an NBA game. And now you're you're more famous than NBA stars now. You've got the spotlight on you. And I literally prayed this. This is silly. I was working on this. I was watching this, and I said, God, would you make me as passionate about the gospel as a meteorologist is about a tornado warning? Would you give me that same passion? That same energy, that same drive to warn people about the rotations in the clouds that they have to warn people about their need for Jesus Christ. Would we pray for that? God, give us passion for the gospel. Break our hearts for the beggars who haven't yet found the bread, and give us boldness to take this mess of salvation to those who have not yet seen the truth of the gospel in Jesus. Oh, and pray that, I think, because of a closing song and it takes some time to pray with me, if you would, though. There's 4 prayers you might pray. One, might be a prayer of salvation. Jesus, I know I'm on the outside looking in, and I know my only hope is you. I know there's a wall between us and my only hope is your cross. Would you pray, Jesus, I'm turning from my sin to trust and follow you. Maybe it's a prayer of gratitude. Jesus, it's been a while since I just thanked you for your bloodshed for me. Thank you that I have access to the presence of God. Maybe it's a prayer for unity or reconciliation in your life and a relationship. God, forgive me for the prejudice in my life. Forgive me for the judgmental heart. I often have. Forgive me for the animosity that I have, the unforgiveness I have toward this person in my life for whom you died. Or maybe it's a prayer for boldness and passion for the gospel. God, I'd be so wrong of me. to not take the good news of the gospel to those who are still on the outside looking in. Would you pray with me? What's the prayer that you need to pray? What would God have you pray? As you think about what he's done for you? Jesus, I pray for the one who doesn't know you, that today their heart would be open, their eyes would be open, that they would turn from their life of brokenness and rebellion, to trust you as their savior. I pray, for the followers of Jesus that you fill our hearts with gratitude, for the blessings and the privileges we have as followers of Jesus. I pray you'd search our hearts. For animosity, for unforgiveness, for bitterness, for prejudice, whatever dwells in our heart that is not consistent with the new life in Jesus, would you reveal it, so we could repent of it. And then fill us with passion for the gospel boldness, to take it outside of these walls, a burden for those who have not yet found the truth that you've revealed to us. Let us be bold. Let us be faithful. We pray Jesus' name. Amen.