Advent Sermon Series Wk 4

Peace in Unpeaceable Times

Ephesians 2:13-17 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.”

There's a depressingly relentless cycle of political strife and military conflict between the nations and religious cultures of our world. Just recently, for example, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, North Korea, Israel and Ukraine have all experienced eruptions of violence. And there's constant suspicion and turmoil between the various communities of our cities-between, rich and poor, Muslim and Hindu, right-wing and left-wing, black and white. Etc. On racial tension where only a few people are allowed to comment and the rest are racist if we do. So much for Black Lives matters resolving the tension, all it did was throw gasoline on a dying fire. It was more to do with money, debauchary and marxists ideals, then to bring peace and harmony to racial conflict. Is there any hope of peace in our times?

But how about you? Is there conflict between colleagues in your offices, friction in your families, and hurt in your homes. Could our species ever stop fighting? Can you ever stop fighting. Can there be peace. Well yes Shayne there could be if I could get Aunty Agnus to agree with me politically then there would be, or if I could just convince my brother in the Lord to see end times my way then sure we could have peace. And there lies the issue doesn’t it? Peace on my terms and my interpretation of peace, we see this between Israel and Palestine and between Russia and Ukraine and You and Aunty Agnus. There has to be an ultimate peace, an ultimate interpretation. Also, there cannot be ultimate Peace without a King ruling one Kingdom.

But that poses the question doesn’t it. Could there ever be lasting peace within our communities and between our cultures in our time?

Firstly we must understand where the conflict and the wars come from

James 4:1-3 “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Peace Agent

You cannot have peace with division, and as we know Ephesians is a book all about unity and oneness! There were two opposing groups, the Jews and the Gentiles and they were like two negaitve magnets, no way of becoming close little alone bonding into one. That is seen in verse 2 where Gentiles were separated from Christ, denied citizenship and alienated from God’s promises. Let us look at the seemingly insermountable. Division in the Temple. When Paul refers to a wall of hostility, a wall that divided Jew and Gentile, it’s possible that he is talking about the wall in the temple that separated the outer court from the inner court. The outer court was the part of the temple where Gentiles were allowed to come and to pray and to visit the temple. But the wall separated them from the Jews, who were able to access the inner parts of the temple. In fact, this wall was a wall of hostility, as it threatened Gentiles on pain of death should they enter beyond that wall.

‘No one of another nation to enter within the fence and enclosure round the temple. And whoever is caught will have himself to blame that his death ensues.’

But don’t we put up both physical and non-physical signs on our church. Have you ever been in a church where you got the cold shoulder, left out of the pack so to speak or quizzed hard on what you believe on the secondary matters, which is a sign that if you don’t beleive what they believe you are not welcomed. Or actually signs, for example if you don’t speak in tongues or don’t believe in XYZ that you are not welcome.

Division through the Law

Or the “wall of hostility” here in Eph 2 could be referring to the law—the law of Moses—and in some respect this makes sense because the law symbolized the distinctiveness of Israel. There was an ethnic distinction, a distinction between Jew and Gentile. But the law also presented an ethical distinction—the upright—those who lived according to God’s law, those who lived in His ways—versus the pagan, heathen way of life. The difference was worship of one God through feasts, festivals, dietary laws and cleanliness vs. Polytheism and the worship of indulgence in temple prostitution. The worship of either light or dark.

The law was intended for good. Paul is very clear about that; and clearly in the ot, the law is good. But it was fundamentally exclusive and kept Israel and Gentiles apart. That was what it was intended to do: to make God’s covenant people—the Jewish people, the nation of Israel—distinct from the world around them. But here we see that this wall of hostility, whether that be the temple or the law—or perhaps Paul intends both ideas—that wall of hostility is broken down by Christ. You need to understand that whilst they tried to keep the law with its festivals, feasts and dietary laws, and keeping themselves pure, was that they failed time and time again. We need only to turn to any page in the Old Testament and keep reading until you come across the part where they messed up.

It is exhausting trying to live a perfect and righteous life on our own, but I do see Self-righteous, moralistic and legalists trying to do what the Pharisee’s were doing. All that leads to is us being a much tougher and crueler taskmaster to ourselves and others, or delusion that we are keeping it thus being puffed up and judgemental of others and/or feeling superior to others in the Church. It’s the ‘oh, you watch t.v. do you, well we don’t have a T.V. in our house’, or the ‘Oh, you drink coffee do you, well its a vice we only drink water purified by the God himself’, or ‘Oh, you are struggling to read your bible are you, well I read 10 hours a day’. You know, the Christian Jerk, or the Christian Karen, that thinks he/she is superior spiritually.

Or how about that becasue you are from the dirty outside world we will exclude you in some way, even if that is by physically ignoring them, because of the way they look, sound, behave etc. If you knew who used to be sitting next to you before Christ you would hide your stuff and run, and if they knew who you used to be they would doubly hide their stuff and get as far away as you as possible. We must remember the dirty laundry list of sins that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 NIV

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

We are welcoming but not affirming, as we heard last week God loves us and them to much to leave us the way we are or were.

The blood of Jesus the Son of God is the dissolving agent that destroys the wall of separation, allowing both groups to meld into one, whilst keeping their diversity. Jesus bridges the great divide who grafts both the Jew and Gentile into one people, God’s people and through Christ are called The Church, or to keep it intimate, we are his Bride, and he is our Bridegroom. You see it is both the legalist and moral keeper and the drug dealer that need this ultimate peace that was brought in as a person - Jesus Christ. Peace is normally a concept or an ideal. However, scripture states here that it is a person. Which makes it highly relatable, gives it an identity, and because peace is a person there can only be one version of it. This means that we are all intimately woven together in a person and not a cold concept. Paul means that Christ is the ‘means’ of peace. Christ embodies peace. He also connects Himself as the Messiah for all nations, becuase he is a person and not limited to a Nations idea of its own peace means that he connects himself as Messiah/Peace for all nations and not just for Israel. This person came to us in flesh, as a swaddled babe laying in a feeding trough in a small rural town called Bethlehem.

This idea of peace, unity through Jesus for all nations is captured in many places. Here are but a few places in the bible that confirm this.

John 10:16 NIV

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Or a modern day context for us would be if Jesus was walking the earth today and talking to us, I have other believers who are in Collie and not in here at the moment, they don’t even know they are believers yet, and they will hear my voice through the gospel shared with them, and they will hear my voice and shall come into the one flock I have, of whom I am the one shepherd.

1 Corinthians 10:17 NIV

Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

This is a reflection of the communion table that we all ate and drunk from as one body. And the following of being reconciled by the cross is reflected in this table of oneness as well.

Ephesians 2:13-17 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.”

Reconciled by the Cross

He has removed the enmity between Jew and Gentiles in His flesh (verse 14), and He has reconciled the two through the cross (verse 16) so that, through the death and resurrection of Jesus—through the fact that our salvation is by faith and not by observation of the law—then all people may belong to God. No one will be excluded on the basis of the law. No one will be excluded on the basis of their ethnicity—that they happen to be a Gentile rather than a Jew. Rather, in Christ there is the same basis of salvation for each and every person, and that is faith in Him. Equal at the foot of the cross no division in our sin separating us from God. Peace through reconciliation in Him, we have no reason to fight and war against each other over ethnicity, social status, being rich or poor, or if I agree with Aunt Agnus on her political leanings. Or in other words our muslim neighbour, our gay neighbour, our legalist neighbour, and ourselves all need the peace of the person who was upon the cross, the one who conquered death by rising, who ascended into Heaven and who is coming again soon.

Jesus Preached Peace to Both Jew and Gentile

In verse 17 we see that Christ not only achieves the ground for peace—not only is He the location for peace between Jew and Gentile—but He in turn preached peace. We’re told that He preached peace to those who were far—that is, the Gentiles—and He preached to those who were near, the Jews. This is an interesting idea because both parties must be aware of the end of hostility. If there is a war going on and one side declares peace and the other is unaware of this, what good does it do?

The New Humanity

Like two flowing seperate creeks converging into one mighty sea, is the new humanity. We flow into one person who is peace and has changed that heart where wars and conflicts come from that we read earlier in James. We have peace and are peace becasue we are one with Jesus, we are the peacemakers and we have the ability to live peacably with all men. So then we must go back to our question at the start of this message. Could there ever be lasting peace within our communities and between our cultures in our time?

Impossible as it sounds, the answer is: Yes. I've read about Palestinians who once fought for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, now working alongside Israelis distributing bread in the West Bank because they've all become Christians. Once they were implacable enemies who hated each other. Now they're brothers in the same global family of God, working together in the cause of Christ. How is that possible? Because,

Christ took the hostility into himself, and the cross is the place were barriers are destroyed. Can we have peace on earth, we cannot detach our reality to that of what is being said. It cannot be used though as a rebut of the peace that Paul is saying. Therefore, like our kingdom understanding of now, and the not yet, so to peace is now, but not yet. So peace defines who we are now, but complete peace will not reign until Eph 1:10 “to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” We are not seperated from God and others, we are interwoven with both and therefore, we are to live peaceably with all men and to display that to God and others in our fold. The reason we can do this is because this peace is a person and a fulfillment of a promise to us and all humankind, and that promised was realised and the kingdom of peace inaugarated when this person came to us in flesh, as a swaddled babe laying in a feeding trough in a small rural town called Bethlehem. Where all had access to him, the Israel Messiah and King realised. We must also remember to stay humble, especailly as the branch grafted into the family of God and we do that by.

Eph 2:12 “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.”

Yes it may sound negative but it is the greatest news, and most exciting and positive experience we have and ever have, becasue the flip side to this is the result of the gospel of peace and unity. You are now one with Christ, Citizens of the Kingdom of God forever, and no longer strangers but children of God’s inheritance and now have eternal hope firmly planted in Jesus. Therefore, knowing what you were and how you are now will bring you peace inside your heart and therefore peace with each other. Then with that same heart of understanding you will preach the gospel using words not just actions. I dislike that “Preach the gospel and if neccessary use words” that was attributed to Francis of Assisi, but don’t believe he said. It is both living in peace and preaching peace that will bring others who are in that former state that Paul shares in Eph 2:12. Go in Peace knowing that the Prince of Peace is your identity.