We are One
Notes
Transcript
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.
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.
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.
For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—
assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you,
how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.
When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ,
which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
ACTS - Adore - bow before Father from whom every family is named. Confess - we seek activity before identity. Thanks - for gentle reminders. Supplication - open our understanding.
Introduction
Introduction
In AD 6, a man by the name of Annas was appointed by Quirinius, the governor of Syria, as the high priest of Judea. From the beginning, Annas’s short-lived career as high-priest was extremely corrupt. Though he was only high priest for less than nine years, he made a lasting impact and retained political power for the rest of his life. He is remembered mostly for two separate but telling events. One was that he was the first to see Jesus after he was arrested. Before taking Jesus to Caiaphas, Annas’s son-in-law, the guards brought him for Annas himself to question. The other however is not so much one moment of time, but a system that he set in place—a system that Jesus confronted twice in his lifetime. It was known as the Bazaar of Annas (or simply, Annas’s Bazaar). This bazaar was set up at the temple in Jerusalem inside the Court of the Gentiles. The way that the temple was structured was that there was the central portion made up of the most holy place and holy place. Then there was the priest’s court that contained the altar and laver and such. Then came the court of Israel, which is where the men of Israel would gather. Next came the court of women. Outside of the priests’, men’s, and women’s court was the court of the Gentiles. This would be where Gentiles could gather and observe how the people of Yahweh worshipped.
Except, rather than seeing the sights and smelling the aromas of the sacrifices, they saw animals being herded and money being exchanged. They smelled a mixture of animals and dung. Instead of hearing the prayers of priests and holy men and women, they heard bleating sheep and sellers of pre-approved sacrifices yelling to catch the attention of passers by. They were stuck among the bazaar-going folk. They could not get any closer to really catch a glimpse of the religious rituals of Israel because there was a wall that blocked their courts from the others. On that wall, a sign read, “No foreigner may enter... Anyone caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.” It was clear that Gentiles had no place in temple worship. And it was just as clear that the Gentiles were not even welcomed being near the temple worship.
Is it no wonder that Jesus was so offended by these acts that he cleansed his temple, not once, but twice. The second he was even more indignant than the first. Mark wrote,
And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.
And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
In that moment, Jesus made a statement, a statement that many have sought to ignore or pretend he never said. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” Every nation, tribe, tongue, people belong in his house.
Brothers and sisters, as we open up Ephesians 2 this morning, we need to understand that the temple wall that threatened death to any Gentile who entered was not the only wall built. In fact, we could argue that the message on the wall pointed to a wall of hostility already built within the hearts of the Jewish people. Yes, there was a physical wall that separated the Jews from the non-Jews, but there was a deeper, much more ideological wall that was also dividing them as well. And as we open up Ephesians 2:11-3:6 this morning, we need to see that Jesus did not change his stance. He expected for his house to be a house of prayer and worship for people of every nation. Paul wrote about this expectation by reminding his readers of three important truths. Those truths are listed in the very last verse we read:
We are Fellow Heirs
We are Fellow Members
We are Fellow Partakers
And in case you didn’t see it coming, we are all three in Christ. This morning’s sermon is simply a ten-thousand foot view of this passage; over the next few weeks, however, we will zoom in and take a look at these verses much more closely.
We are Fellow Heirs
We are Fellow Heirs
The first truth that Paul wrote about in the verses we’re studying this morning is that we are fellow heirs in Christ Jesus.
As we’ve seen over the last ten weeks, Paul is helping us to understand our identity—our true identity. Most of us have a view of our identity much more in line with Aristotle than Paul. Will Durant summarized Aristotle’s views in one statement: “We are what we repeatedly do.” This is how most people—even mature Christians—tend to think of themselves and others. Theologically, we know it’s not true, but practically speaking, we default to this mindset of “we are what we repeated do.” If I were to ask you, “are we sinners because we sin,” you’d most likely respond, “No! We sin because we’re sinners!” But tweaked my words a little bit, we might just give an answer that is exactly opposite. We think we are dirty because we’ve done unclean things in life. We feel shame because we have acted shamefully at certain times and areas of our lives. But the reality is that our activities are only evidence of our identities. And the important truth of the matter is that when we were adopted into God’s family, our identity was changed from being unclean and shameful sinners to being holy and blameless sons and daughters of God. We went from children of wrath to children of mercy.
Paul has made important strides in bearing this out for us. In chapter 1, he continuously points out that we are in Christ and that God adopted us in love according to his own pleasure. And then he reminded us of our former identity—children of wrath who are dead in their trespasses and sins. Then, he reminded us of God’s great love, mercy, and grace that made us alive together with Christ. At that point, he wrote that we are his workmanship created for good works. Did you catch the identity before activity in verse 10? We are his workmanship (identity) created for good works (activity).
I bring all this to mind because Paul then says something in verse 11 that requires us to hold on to this reality.
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—
“Therefore.” The word “therefore,” indicates a reason for the upcoming statement. We could just as easily translate it, “For this reason...” For what reason? The identity before activity reason of verse 10. Let’s read them together.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
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—
Now, we don’t get the full strength of Paul’s argument in verse 11 alone, but we can get enough of it to understand where he is coming from. Paul and those who are with him as he writes this letter, along with the believers in Ephesus (and all believers everywhere), are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Again, that’s who we are. Did you know that verse 11 has the only imperative—the only command—in the first three chapters of Ephesians? There are over forty imperatives (commanded activity) in Ephesians, and they all come after chapter 3. Chapters 1-3 are focusing on our identity. The only imperative in these chapters is one that calls on us to remember our identity. Our activity is an overflow of our identity.
As we get into verse 11 and following we see that Paul understands the believers identity much better than most. To the Jews, Gentiles were judged on their body: they were uncircumcised. But the reality was as one commentator summarized verses 11-12, the Gentiles were Christless, homeless, friendless, hopeless, and Godless (EGGNT). And then we find that in Christ all of that changed. And look what Paul said about those who were once homeless:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
Again, this points back to chapter one with our adoption. We are members of God’s household—sons and daughters of God. And with that adoption comes an inheritance, just as we saw in chapter one. If it seems like Paul is repeating himself, he is. I think he does so, at least in part, because we forget so easily who we were and who we are. There is this constant need to be reacquainted with the gospel message. The gospel is often summarized by saying that Jesus died to save us from our sins, but that is simply a summary of it; it is not all there is. The gospel involves all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places including our adoption and inheritance. Thus, to say that we are fellow heirs in Christ is part of the gospel that is so often forgotten.
It doesn’t matter what other people have said about us. It doesn’t matter who we once were or what we once did. All that matters is what God has said and done. And what God has said is that we are no longer strangers and aliens. We are fellow citizens and fellow heirs in his household. We are his workmanship in Christ Jesus. Now, imagine how ridiculous it would be if we believed the words of a fallen world to tell us who we are when God has already done that! God has already spoken his unchanging word over us, but so often we allow our enemies of the world, the flesh, and the devil to misidentify us, mislabel us, and misuse us without ever realizing how far from the truth they are.
Think for a moment about the beloved children’s movie, Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Ariel loves to collect items from the human world. One of the items she finds is the dinglehopper, which looks surprisingly similar a fork—yet she promptly uses it to comb her hair. Another is a banded bulbous snarfblat, which she uses to play music while humans may or may not use it to smoke tobacco. What makes the scene so funny—even for children—is that we know that the dinglehopper is actually a fork and it’s not used to comb hair but to eat food. We know that the snarfblat is indeed a pipe and it isn’t used to blow out music, but to breathe in tobacco smoke. These items were someone’s workmanship, created for a particular task. It’s strange—and at times even comedic—to hear them called by any other name or used in any other way.
Paul says, we are God’s workmanship—sons and daughters of his. We are his workmanship. The work is not done. As Paul would tell the Philippians,
Philippians 1:6
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
As part of his work, we are adopted and therefore we are fellow heirs in Christ Jesus. We cannot let this world, our flesh, or the devil dictate who we are or where we stand or how we see ourselves. That being said, remember identity then activity. We know that a fork’s identity is a fork. We also know that it’s activity is to be a tool for eating, not combing. And it is not wrong to look warily at those who would use it as such.
We are Fellow Members
We are Fellow Members
Paul didn’t just write about our future inheritance; he also wrote about our present unity. We are not only fellow heirs, we are fellow members in Christ Jesus.
Once again, we were Christless, but now Christ is our head. We are his body.
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.
There is one new man. In Galatians, Paul would point out that there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female; we are all one in Christ. The ideas echo what Paul wrote in Ephesians. If we are united in Christ, we are just as definitively united to one another. There is no more us and them. There are no more walls. That doesn’t mean that there will not be some disagreements between fellow-believers. But it does mean that supernaturally we are united even when we may disagree in certain doctrines. We may have different cultures, different skin colors, different backgrounds, different hopes and dreams, but if we are believers in the same Christ, then we are all in Christ. To apply a teaching that Jesus gave about marriage in a slightly different way: “What God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Brothers and sisters we need to understand the importance of this passage. What Paul says here goes to the heart of Christian unity. There are groups that we are united to—good groups even—that can easily pull us away from our unity with one another, even without meaning to do so. Friendships and acquaintances can be a major blind spot in our lives; we can’t even see how we adopt viewpoints that contradict the unity of the faith. The commonalities that we have with people in our friendships can easily overshadow the unity that we have in Christ with fellow-believers. Political groups easily entangle us with their ideologies and platforms. Suddenly, those who vote the way we vote mean more to me than those who are united with me in Christ. Races, ethnicities, and cultures have historically put asunder what God has joined together. Even Peter was not exempt from the sin of disunity. Paul had to publically rebuke him when he separated himself from the Gentiles because those who adhered to Jewish traditions had arrived and he wanted to please them more than maintain unity. Even family can shift our loyalties.
Paul was saying here that all those differences that divide us mean nothing when we are all united in Christ! We are one new man, fellow members of one another. We’ve got feet, hands, ears, eyes, fingers, toes, arms, legs and more. Each of us makes up a part of this body of Christ—this one man. We’re not Van Gogh; we don’t get to cut off a part of ourselves just because we don’t like the way it looks or how it makes us feel. We don’t get to separate with others just because they look different than we do, speak a different language than we do, are from a different country than we’re from, or for any reason—unless they have proven themselves to be apostates: deniers of the faith either in word or deed. And yet all too often, the world—with its nationalities, political parties, friendships, and families—the flesh—with its races, cultures, backgrounds, and prejudices—and the devil, with all his lies and schemes—are trying to drive a wedge between us and those with whom we ought to be united. Let me ask you: are you tempted to be more like Peter or Paul? Are you tempted to see someone as a “them” even though they are “us” in Christ? Can I remind you of something?
What makes the gospel so amazing is that it not only reconciles us to God, but it reconciles us to one another. Thus the power of the Spirit both to attain and maintain unity is in us who are in Christ.
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
We are Fellow Partakers
We are Fellow Partakers
It’s not only that Jesus broke down the dividing wall so we could all be fellow heirs and members in Him, but also so that we could be fellow partakers of the promise in Him as well.
To fully understand, we need to go back to the prophets. While Judah was in exile, Ezekiel prophesied that one day God would send his own Spirit to indwell his people. He wrote:
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Joel also wrote about it as well.
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
Since God primarily worked through the Israelites, it would be easy to think that only the Israelites were guaranteed this promise of the Holy Spirit (which may be what some Jewish members of the Ephesian church believed). But as Paul said in the first chapter, we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit—all of us. The same Spirit that was promised to the Jew is the same Spirit that dwells in us. There is one Spirit who gives us access to the Father and unites us in the Son through the gospel.
It is the same Spirit who is building us up into a temple of God. Do you see how precious this Holy Spirit is? Do you see how desperately we need him? We often neglect to recognize the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. He is the very power of God that unites us to Christ and causes us to be in Christ. There is no fellow anything without him. There are days when we feel like our prayers go no further than the ceiling, and yet we know that we always have access to the Father so our prayers always reach him, but not because our prayers are worthy or good enough to reach him, but because the Holy Spirit has given us access to him. Without him, it would not only feel as if our prayers hit the ceiling—they really would! Without the Spirit moving and working, the global church would cease to grow. We would cease to be the fulness of Christ as he, through whom he fills all in all.
Beloved, let us never forget that the same Spirit who fills the Jewish believers, fills us. The same Spirit who fills us fills Christians in and from Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mexico, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Egypt, France, and every other country and people group in this world. If blood is thicker than water, then beloved, the Spirit is thicker than blood.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We have quickly taken a ten-thousand-foot view of Ephesians 2:11-3:6 this morning. From that angle, we’ve seen Paul’s main thrust of unity. It wasn’t me that put the words “fellow” in my three points. It was actually Paul. In Ephesians 3:6, Paul wrote that we were heirs, members, and partakers in Christ Jesus, but Paul put a prefix in front of each of those words meaning “fellow” or “together with.”
Paul continuously shows that our identity is not individualistic, but corporate. Without a doubt Jesus saves us personally, but never does he save us privately. He saves us for the purpose of coming together—one body sealed with the one promised Holy Spirit unto one inheritance—from every nation, and from all tribes and peoples and languages.
Beloved, that cuts against the grain for many of us. We live in a society that has taught us to focus on the individual. We have been indoctrinated to see that the good of the individual is what is most important. If the family or the group or society or the church benefits from the good of the individual, that’s an added bonus. But the Bible opposes such thinking. It doesn’t deny the that there is an individual, but it doesn’t elevate the individual to a place they do not belong. Instead, it shows us that, as Ryan Kwon said just about a week and a half ago at TGC25, we are here for the family, not the family for us, meaning that if we are only looking for what others can do for us, but are never or rarely looking for what we can do for our brothers and sisters, we have missed the point of who we are together in Christ. The Bible is counter-cultural to American rugged individualism.
As we leave here, we are about to face another week, but we do not face it alone. You and I will be tempted to do it though. We will want to rely on our own abilities, our own intelligence, our own strength. We will be tempted to say, “I don’t want to bother anyone. I should be able to handle this.” At the same time, we may be hesitant to step in when we see we are needed—especially when if we aren’t asked.
We must be careful not to give into these temptations. We must be careful not to build walls that Jesus has torn down. We must be careful not to put up signs that tell others “No one may enter.” We are here for one another. We cannot rescue each other from every discomfort or every temptation, but we can bear one another’s burdens, weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. That’s unity. That’s being one body, filled with one Spirit, looking forward to our one inheritance.
Prayer
Our Heavenly Father,
Remind us of our identity in Christ. Let us not seek to do before we know who we are. Help us to put identity ahead of activity, knowing that we are fellow heirs, fellow members, and fellow partakers of the promise with each other—together in Christ. In Jesus’s name, we pray. Amen.
