One God One People

Those Excluded Are Now Included

We all have a desire to be included. Yes even you introverts! Think about some of the different groups you are involved in. It could be the gym, schooling related groups, recreational groups. That is a small example but if your saying those things are nice but doesn’t really mean I desire to be included.

I’d say okay let’s talk about some times you were excluded and it hurt. That time you were left out of the brides maids for a close friends wedding. When you realized a friend had a birthday BBQ and you weren’t invited, a camping trip, a Super Bowl party, a hunting or fishing trip. Whatever it may have been that once you realized it had taken place and you weren’t included you developed some hurt feelings or feelings of animosity towards the others. That was your desire to be included flaring up.

So we all have a desire to be included and we all know what it's like to be excluded. Paul is gonna talk about it today. This is the part of Ephesians 2 that isn’t talked about as much.When we think of Ephesians 2 we think saved by grace, God’s workmanship things like that. But here's what Paul's going to tell us in this passage.

He's going to tell us that those who have been excluded in the past are included in the present. He's telling us that those who were on the outside can now be on the inside. Those who are considered losers can now be winners. He's going to talk about the church and this is hard for us because we think we're Americans, we're Westerners, we think about the individual right?

You think about your individual personal relationship with Jesus. You think about your personal devotional. You think about your personal walk with the Lord. Well today Paul's going to move from me to we and I think this is why we don't know this passage as well because it's not as much about you as it's about us! Ephesians is really deep and Paul is going to tell us a lot but this morning there's three parts to what we're going to look at.

So I'm going to kind of tell you before I show you.

First we're going to see that everybody is separated from God and and from one another. In fact the way that he talks about it last weeks passages Paul talks about us being enemies. This week he talks about us being aliens but he's going to go from you were separated that's going to be the first few verses we look at.

Then number 2 okay you've been reconciled. In fact he's going to talk about what's called a double reconciliation. A double reconciliation basically because there was a double alienation. You were alienated from God and you were alienated from others and Christ brings us together with God and with one another.

But then and we'll see this at the very end it's not just alienated to reconciled it's this interesting unification. So you may go what does that mean? We'll see in about 30 or 40 minutes.

Let’s open in prayer then we will take off in verse 11.

Ephesians 2:11 ESV

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—

I need to talk to you a little bit about the Ephesians. I did this in the first week but I didn't talk about this part. The Ephesians were Gentiles and that may not be important to you and you're like well who cares but it's actually very important because all that Paul did and every church that he planted was mostly gentiles. So he'd go to the synagogue but very few Jews would believe and then he'd go to the marketplace and what he ended up finding out is that almost all of his churches were almost completely made out of Gentiles.

Natural State of Humanity is Division

So the Ephesian church is a Gentile church. Now here's what the Jews did and this is what you do and this is what I do. Our natural state is that we break the world up into a very simple black and white right? This is how people tend to break the world up there there's us and then there's them.

This is what the Jews did. There were Jews and then the Gentiles. The Jews and then everyone else who wasn’t a Jew.

Gentiles simply means nations. So here's how the Jews broke up the world. Us, we’re the good people and Gentiles everybody else.

In fact it's hard for me to explain to you how much the Jews hated the Gentiles and the Gentiles hated the Jews. Like I know there's some animosity and there's enmity and there's hostility in our nation and I know there are groups of people in our nation who hate each. But I can tell you I don’t think anyone hates each other as much as the Jews hated the Gentiles.

So here's one of the sayings the Jews would say. The Jews they would say hey listen if you see a Gentile woman and she is in dire need and she is giving birth do not help her cause all you would do is bring another Gentile into the world.

So we see in verse 11 they call them the uncircumcision. You know what that is? That's a derogatory and demeaning nickname.

We give nicknames to two people groups. People you love and people you hate.

Think about it. Love, kids, wife, family.

People you hate. Bad boss, an ex, the opposite political party.

One of the things I want us to be aware of is the natural state of humanity is division. If you don’t believe me that’s okay because it’s an election year and just be aware I keep receipts. So it’s just a matter of time till I will have an opportunity to hit you with a big fat I told you so.

Think of all the wars of the past. Think of all the terrorist organizations. None of which are proponents of unity. Shoot dial it back all the way to the Garden of Eden. Have the whole garden, just don’t eat from that one tree. How long did that last!

Story of Salt Lake County Jail. All the different forms of division.

Inmate vs Cops

Racial

Gangs

Regular inmate vs Inmate workers

Even different security levels

So what I want us to see today is this is going to be really practical for us we're going to see how God through Christ brings people together let's look back we'll look at verse 11 and verse 12 one more time together.

Ephesians 2:11–12 ESV

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Five Ways We Are Separated

See what Paul did there? He pointed out five things that we were before being in Christ.

Separated from Christ

Alienated from the commonwealth of Isreal

Strangers to the covenants of promise

Having no hope

Without God in the world

So I’ve shared before that nobody is born a Christian. Being raised in the church no more makes you a Christian than hanging out in a stable would make you a horse. So if you ever meet somebody who comes faith in Christ at 30 or 40 or 50 they can tell you this was their past. These 5 things were their past.

So what I want to do is I want to unpack all 5 of these briefly for us.

1. The 1st thing we're told is they are without Christ. Verse 12 says remember that at that time you were separated from Christ.

Now we know this but Jesus Christ came into the world through the Jewish nation and the Jewish people and Paul said you were cut off from Christ.

Who is Jesus? Well he's the Messiah, he's the anointed one, he's the savior.

So I want us to not just think of ourselves before we knew Christ. I want us to think of this as the condition of people today in our city and in our nation and in the world apart from the gospel of Christ.

We tend to think that the lost have no savior. They don’t have The Savior but they are constantly pursuing all kinds of saviors.

So what does this mean? This means their finding or trying to find someone else or something else to save them.

Because the world is always looking for something to save them.

Here's how it works everybody creates a functional hell and then a functional Heaven and then they find something that will bring them out of their function hell into their functional Heaven and it's called their savior. They worship it, every person does this all the time.

So imagine that your functional hell is being single. You don't want to be single, you don't want to be lonely, you want someone in your life.

So what is your functional heaven? Yes, marriage or a deep romantic relationship. So what is your savior? That boyfriend or girlfriend that comes into your life. Have you ever met somebody who hasn't had a romantic relationship in a long time and then someone comes into their life and they are obsessed?

This happens all the time and it can be described with theological language. What's happening is this is a worship issue with this person.

Or what about people that are so obsessed with their jobs and their career and their education. Again sometimes you just need to look at it in theological language.

Because for that person their functional hell is to be poor or to be insignificant and so they will worship the job that is their savior to get them to their functional heaven of financial freedom.

Now don’t get me wrong these are both God given healthy situations people can be in what I am referring to is when it becomes to a point of idolatry and looking for a Savior outside of Christ.

So the first thing we're told about the unbelievers is that they do not understand Jesus Christ as their savior.

2. Second we're told they're alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel that means they have no Christian community. Christian community puts us in a community of people that support us and help us create distance from our sins not lead us closer to them by romanticizing them.

You ever been or know someone that seems so lonely each life decision they make leads them further from God and it’s usually in a community that is working their butts off to normalize sin?

Lonely people are vulnerable and easily inflated by groups that tell them just be yourself. Find your own truth. Christian community is so important because our message is the opposite. None are good not even one. Repent and believe. Even though we fail the grace of God is sufficient. You need to walk with other brothers and sisters in navigating hard truths like that.

3. 3rd we're told they are strangers to the covenants of promise. Now this is very interesting to note we're told the first thing, the most important thing is they don't know Christ. But then we’re told they are also cut off from 2 things that God uses to bring people to Christ. That is the people of God and the word of God.

The covenant of promise is shorthand for the word of God. Because God made His covenants and promises to his people early on through his spoken words then later on through his written word.

Here’s an example how I encounter and consider this in being a pastor. So when I run into or have people reach out to me about a loved one who is in a bad place in life. Usually because of my past of addiction that God brought me out of it’s often their loved one is in those circumstances.

So when they ask me what they should do depending on the situation I try and give them practical solutions and resources but I always tell them to continue praying.

Pray that they will find themselves in the presence of the people of God who will lovingly share with them the word of God. Yeah God can intervene supernaturally if that is His will for that person but there is so much power in community of the people of God who focus on the word of God.

4. Which leads to the 4th thing we're told that in some ways the saddest conclusion is that they have no hope.

They're nihilistic, now I didn't know this but at the time this was written the Roman Empire was as nihilistic as it had ever been. See I always thought the Roman Empire was up and to the right until it wasn't but this was a very dark time in the Roman Empire. This was a time where people were writing things like it's better to never have been born than to be born. It's better to die young than to live and see much trouble.

We live in a time right now it's very nihilistic and if you don’t know what that means it simply means rejecting all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless.

I don't know if you’ve heard of this but there's a phrase called deaths of despair and they're increasing in our nation. Deaths of despair of course is suicide but it's all types of deaths that are connected to having no hope. It's opioid abuse, it's drug overdose, it's reckless behavior and here's why.

So we have these teens and young adults that are trying to navigate life with no identity. They don’t have a sense that they are children of God because they have a world telling them you came from nobody and you are here for no purpose and when you die you go nowhere.

Do you understand how people could say well then when it's too painful I'm going to end it.

In these passages Paul says they were(we were) separated from Christ, alienated from God's people, strangers to the covenants of promise, therefore having no hope and then he just summarizes it again they way he started and without God.

Jesus Brings Near & Gives Peace

He starts and ends with what they don't have, God. Then the big transition happens just like it happened earlier in the chapter.

Ephesians 2:13–17 ESV

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

So if you remember in verses 1 thru 3 we had we had all this bad news. Then in verse 4 we have those 2 beautiful words “but God” and now we got all this bad news in the first couple verses here today and then we get up “but now”.

Look all of us have been through those five things of separation we just talked about. Some of us may still be navigating through those things. Some may be just on this side of them but the wreckage from our past seems so daunting. But I know this much having that “but now” moment and traversing all that wreckage from the past with the peace we can find in Christ will always be the better option than sifting through that wreckage apart from Him.

That “but God” and that “but now” moment doesn’t magically make all that wreckage vanish but it can bring us a peace that nothing or nobody else can. Paul describes that peace this way in...

Philippians 4:7 ESV

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Peace that is outside anything we can understand. A protective peace that will guard our hearts and minds.

So we go from...

Separated from Christ

Alienated from the commonwealth of Isreal

Strangers to the covenants of promise

Having no hope

Without God in the world

To this peace in Jesus. This peace that Paul mentions 4 times in 4 verses. But some of you may be sitting here saying Pastor I’m feeling a lot of things in life right now but peace isn’t one of them.

There is a relational peace where we can basically say I know Jesus Christ and to be in a relationship with him and to know even though I don't know what the future holds I know who holds the future.

He's handled my greatest problems already the wrath of God and my need for forgiveness and he's going to walk with me through every other problem. There's an internal peace and that's the lack of worry internally lack of anxiety internally even and especially when everything's not going right externally.

But there's a second type of peace and that's the peace with one another. That external Peace isn;t something that just happened. Conflict just doesn’t resolve itself. It’s something that has to be dealt with. So when we think back to the animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles and their disdain for one another it’s not something that just dissipated.

In these verses Paul said ‘reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility”.

The result was reconciled to God and to one another. But the killing of hostility came at the cost of the killing of Jesus.

One new body.

Ephesians 2:18–22 ESV

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and 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.

Here's what happens here's the unification. Remember I told you there was separation there was reconciliation now there's unification. Paul uses this interesting phrase he says Jesus is gonna make you one.

In Acts 15 the first Council of the church is about this question. Does a Gentile need to become a Jew to become a Christian? The whole debate was you need to be circumcised and all kind of stuff.

So here's what Paul's telling us he's saying that when a Gentile becomes a Christian he doesn't become a Jew he's telling us that when a Jew becomes a Christian he doesn't become a Gentile they become something completely new.

That word “new” so it says one new man there's two words for it. Theres a Greek version of the word that basically means new in time. So like updated. So my phone for example I have the Galaxy S22 and I want the new S24. See it’s new in relation to time, it’s upgraded, it’s advanced but it’s still a phone.

Then there is this Greek word Kainos which is translated new but it means new in kind or in contrast to what previously existed.

So when we think of the Body of Christ we are now a part of it isn’t some new adapted version of Judaism. We have been made one and been made new a completely distinct body.

So we have this beautiful style of writing that I love in Paul’s writings. He takes us from the 5 things we were outside of Jesus and bring us full circle and shows us three beautiful promises or identities that we are now when in Christ.

We are one. Like I mentioned earlier we like to think our faith is our business. Just us and God, but we see that is not the case we are one. One with God yes, but also one with one another one body.

We are no longer broken down into Jew and Gentile these two divisive groups.

1 Corinthians 12:12–20 ESV

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

We are fellow citizens and members of the household of God. Again we see this community aspect this familial aspect. When I suffer you suffer. When you isolate we all suffer. There’s the flip side too. When you rejoice we rejoice.

1 Corinthians 12:21–27 ESV

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

We are a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So the walls of hostility are demolished, we are one, we are members of the household of God and through the Spirit we are his dwelling place. There are many verses in the bible about this I encourage you to explore them. One example is

1 John 4:16 ESV

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

All of this creates an ability for us to seize the opportunities to reflect Christ to the lost we encounter in this fallen broken world.

I think one of the things that makes this so cool is that we have that opportunity in this day and age.

We have a tendency to get into this mindset that the world is more broken than it’s ever been. That humanity is so far gone why even try. Ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden the world has been broken. It’s not operating in the way God designed it. The way I see it broke is broke, no need to put levels or layers to it. Just like to God sin is sin. My sin isn’t more favorable than your sin. It all creates separation.

The cool thing I like to believe is actually the opposite. It’s so cool what we get to be a part of because I think Christianity is stronger than it’s ever been.

When we see truths from scripture like “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone”. To me that shows growth, sustainability and power.

Growth, sustainability and power as one body as members of the household of God with one mission to share the Gospel with the lost all while being indwelled by the Holy Spirit all while being built on Christ as the cornerstone. That’s something I am so grateful that God called me into and it’s an honor to wake up and say yes to that every day.

So in a world full of darkness keep your eyes on the light. The body of Christ, the church is such a beautiful thing to gaze upon because

There is nothing as noble as the Church, seeing that it is the temple of God.

There is nothing so worthy of reverence, seeing God who dwells in it.

There is nothing so ancient, since the patriarchs and prophets worked to building it.

There is nothing so solid, since Jesus Christ is the foundation of it.

There is nothing so high, since it reaches as high as to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

There is nothing so perfect and well proportioned, since the Holy Spirit is the architect.

There is nothing more beautiful, because it is adorned with building stones of every age, every place, every people; from the highest kings to the lowest peasants; with the most brilliant scientists and the simplest believers.

There is nothing more spacious, since it is spread over the whole earth, and takes in all who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

There is nothing so Divine, since it is a living building, animated and inhabited by the Holy Spirit.

Let’s Pray