Brought Near
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.
Admit, Pray, Trust, Act, Thank
Introduction
Introduction
Oliver was born in the 1830s in a bleak English workhouse, about seventy miles from London. His mother died shortly after childbirth, and he grew up as a poor, beaten, and unloved orphan—never knowing his family. At just nine years old, he was apprenticed to an undertaker, at which point another boy insulted Oliver’s dead mother. Without even giving it a thought, Oliver lashed out in grief and rage. Because he was terrified at the punishment that was sure to come, he ran away to London; it’s easy to get lost in the big city.
As he neared the city, he met a boy called the Artful Dodger, who you could probably tell just by his name, had quite a bit of street smarts. Dodger introduced him to a man named Fagin. Fagin, it turned out, trained orphans to become pickpockets. After a few days of practice, Oliver was sent out with the gang—but when he saw an old gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, being robbed, he was horrified and refused to join in. Ironically, he was the only one caught. But instead of punishment, something remarkable happened: Mr. Brownlow took Oliver into his own home and showed him kindness.
While there, Oliver noticed a portrait above the mantle of a young woman—and Brownlow couldn’t help but see the striking resemblance between her and the boy. As the story unfolds, Brownlow not only adopts Oliver as his son, but discovers that Oliver is the child of Agnes Fleming—the woman in the painting—and the beloved of Brownlow’s late best friend, Edwin Leeford. And as it turns out, Oliver is the rightful heir to a great inheritance, long hidden from him.
Oliver Twist is a work of fiction by Charles Dickens, but there are striking similarities to what Oliver experienced through the imagination of Dickens and what every Gentile in Christ experiences in real life. In Ephesians 2:11-13 we’ll see those parallels emerge as the Apostle Paul explains how our lives are shaped by three circumstances that we neither chose nor could change even if we wanted to.
Born as No One Special
Bound to Nothing Spiritual
Brought by a Noble Substitute
We are Born as No One Special
We are Born as No One Special
Last week, we went through a large swath of Ephesians getting a 10,000 foot overview, but as I said then, we are now getting a much more zoomed in understanding of this text before us. What we find in this first verse this morning is that as Gentiles, we were born as no one special. That’s a bit off-putting, especially with our self-esteem, self-worth, everyone is special philosophy of today, but before we are take too much offence, let’s take a look at the text and understand it for it what it 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 hands—
For two millennia, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were considered to be God’s people. In fact, as Moses was preparing the Israelites to enter the promised land, he told them
Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.
God owns everything in this universe. He has control over all things—visible and invisible—but when it came right down to it, God chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and those were were their offspring. As Moses said, he chose them above all peoples. The people of Israel were the chosen ones; not Gentiles. Abraham was someone special. Isaac was chosen over Ishmael. Jacob was chosen over Esau. And then from Jacob, whose name later changed to Israel, God chose his twelve sons to be his people. He set them apart from everyone else. The covenant God gave them a covenant sign that they performed to show his covenant love—it was the sign of circumcision.
It was meant to be an outward sign or an inward heart. Hence, the very next verse even states,
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
Thus, what we find is that those who called themselves the circumcised called Gentiles the “uncircumcised.” The Jews didn’t just use these words as a terms of identity; they used them as markers of superiority and inferiority. We were born as no one special.
Much like Oliver, we were given a name by those hostile to us. Oliver’s name, both his first and last, were not given by a loving mom or dad, but were chosen like every other orphan the workhouse, by cold system of whatever letter was next in the alphabet. No thought, no care, no delight in the naming of a child. He was born no one special and his name proved it.
You see, what Paul told his readers is that they were Gentiles in the flesh—circumcisionally speaking, they were who the Jews said they were. But then he shows them that the Jews had no room to talk. Their circumcision was only hand-made and not heart-deep. Paul wanted his readers to see that both the Jew and the Gentile were in the same boat going in the same direction—away from God; the only distinction was the paddles they were using.
Beloved, some of you grew up in homes in which your parents made you feel seen and safe. They called you sweetheart or buddy or some other name that let you know you were loved and accepted, but some of you may not have had that experience. In fact, you may have faced the opposite. You were told that you were no one special; you were a mistake. Unwanted. Maybe it wasn’t your parents, but your sibling, your schoolmates or teachers, or even images that you’ve seen on Instagram and TikTok telling you that you’re not good enough. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not strong enough. You’re no one.
Brothers and sisters, the world does not get to define you. They don’t get to tell you who you are. That’s Paul’s point. On the one hand there was truth that we were nothing special. We could not earn God’s love no matter how hard we try. We could not impress a perfect God with our imperfections. On the other hand, God’s grace changes everything. The only reason Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or the people of Israel were considered special was because of God’s grace. Moses made that point abundantly clear in Deuteronomy 9. Your story does not end with how the world identifies you. It ends with who God says you are.
We are Bound to Nothing Spiritual
We are Bound to Nothing Spiritual
It is not only that we were born as nothing special though. Oliver was not only named by a cold, indifferent system that gave no thought to his true identity ; he was also ensnared in a dark world that left him blind to reality and estranged from his true family. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:1-3 that we were in a similar bondage. We were at one point bound to our sin and bound to God’s wrath. Now in verse 12, he is showing in a different way that we were bound to nothing spiritual—bound not to Christ, not to Israel, not to the covenants of promise, nothing spiritual!
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.
Again, as one commentator put it we, at one time, were Christless—the Jews who were promised the Messiah—the Christ, not Gentiles, homeless—we weren’t born as citizens of Israel and so had no rights to their vast privileges, friendless—strangers to the covenants of promise given to Abraham, Moses, and David-not directly to us Gentiles. And because we had no Christ, no citizenship, and no covenants of promise, we were hopeless and Godless.
The Jews had all the advantages. God bound them in covenant promises including the promised Messiah. Every circumcised man was bound to their citizenship in Israel. We were bound to nothing spiritual—only our sin and God’s wrath. Talk about a hopeless situation!
Yet, here we are—in Christ with hope in this world and the next. How did that happen?! Was it just an accident? Did we happen to stumble upon this Christian thing? Were we just Plan B in case something didn’t go right?
Do not think that you or I or any other Gentile in Christ was an afterthought. First, God never has any afterthoughts. Secondly, remember what Paul wrote in chapter 1.
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
He chose us in him before the foundation of the world; we were predestined in love for adoption. We are no afterthought. We’re not plan B, but in our natural state, we are bound to nothing spiritual. And it is important that we remember this to be the truth because the moment we forget who we once were is the moment we take for granted the grace that made us who we are.
There is a scene in Oliver Twist in which Oliver, who had been rescued once, was kidnapped by a couple of Fagin’s thugs. He was forced back into a life of crime, but once again he was able to escape and he returned ashamedly and fearfully to Mr. Brownlow’s home. He was ashamed of what he was forced to do, but also ashamed that he allowed it to even happen—that it was somehow his fault. All at once, Oliver felt the shame of being sinned against and the weight of a false guilt—a guilt that he was never meant and never could bear. Dickens wrote
“Oh, don’t tell me you are going to send me away, sir, pray!” ... “Don’t turn me out of doors to wander in the streets again. Let me stay here, and be a servant. Don’t send me back to the wretched place I came from. Have mercy upon a poor boy, sir!”
Sounds so much like what the Prodigal Son wanted to say to his own father, doesn’t it? Then we read,
"The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion’s face, with tears of real agony.
'My poor boy,' said Mr. Brownlow, who, despite his resolution, felt a moisture in his eye, ‘do not be afraid.’”
Oliver knew what he deserved, but he also knew that Brownlow was a man full of compassion and mercy, ready to forgive if he was truly repentant. Oliver was not to dwell upon his past so that it kept him enslaved to the things he did or the things that were done against him or even to the person others said he was. But he was to remember the past in order to recall just how wonderful and loving Mr. Brownlow was.
So, it is with us, church family. God does not call on us to remember our past so that we wallow in the muck of our former selves. What good does that do? There’s no grace in the wallowing. There’s only condemnation to be found there. He calls on us to remember that we once lived in the muck, but are now so far removed from it so that our thanksgivings are deeper and our praises are richer and his glory is more greatly reflected.
When you fail this week, and you probably will—we all will, you will probably hear a voice say, “Here you go again; you’re such a failure. You always have been; you always will be. You’re hopeless” And the temptation to wallow will be nearly overwhelming. When that happens, know that is not what God is calling you to do. That is not the voice Spirit, but the devil, the world, or the flesh. Take those thoughts, those memories, and turn them into praise and sing John Newton’s most famous line: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” And if you’re so inclined, add Chris Tomlin’s tag to it: “My chains are gone; I’ve been set free. My God—my Savior—has ransomed me. And like a flood, his mercy rains. Unending love, Amazing grace.”
We are Brought by a Noble Substitute
We are Brought by a Noble Substitute
That grace makes the third circumstance even possible. We who were born as nothing special and bound to nothing spiritual have been brought by a noble substitute because of God’s grace toward us.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Take a second and allow those words to sink in. You have been brought near to God by the blood of Christ. You. are. near. You are not closer to God because you’ve converted to Judaism. You’re not nearer to God because you read your Bible or pray ten times a day. You’re not any closer to God because you go to confession and say five hail Marys and three Our Fathers. You are brought near to God only by the blood of Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I know how much we want to make our nearness dependent upon our own actions. When we mess up royally, we want to express our grief royally. We missed a week of Bible reading so rather than picking up where we left off and accepting the grace that our Bible is exactly where we left it and God’s Spirit will use it just as mightily when we pick it back up, we want to somehow make up for lost time and so we rush through it. We haven’t prayed in a few days and so rather than accepting the simple fact that God’s throne is always available, we beat ourselves into believing that he doesn’t want to hear from us because we haven’t called lately. We fall back into our besetting sin and rather than trust that the blood of Christ has covered every conceivable sin, we want to wallow in our own grief as if our tears or solemness were penance to show God how truly horrible we are.
But Paul says those very words; read them again:
Eph 2:13
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
“Have been brought near” is in the aorist tense. In essence, it’s a done-deal. It’s not in the present tense as if it were on ongoing process, inching our way forward, getting nearer and nearer to God. It’s not in the future tense as if one day eventually we will be near to God. It’s the aorist tense. It’s already happened—no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We were far off because we were born as nothing special and bound to nothing spiritual. We were far off. But now in Christ, we are brought near because he was was our noble substitute. His life for ours. His blood shed so ours would be spared. He bore the wrath reserved for you and me. Now all we know is grace!
Are there times when we don’t feel close to God? Absolutely. In those moments, come back to Ephesians 2:13; read it and absorb its truth: you were brought near to God by the blood of Christ. His blood is a river that gushes only one way: the throne of God. Our sin can’t out-paddle the current of that crimson river.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Oliver was a boy who was born into a dark world that trapped him into a life of shame and fear. Like him, we were born as no one special and bound to nothing spiritual, but we were brought near by a noble substitute. That’s the gospel message. Christ did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Paul’s words to the Ephesians and to us are not, “Beat yourselves up because of who you were and what you did,” but “remember who you were and where you stood, so that you never take for granted who you are and where you stand now.” And it’s all because of the blood of Jesus.
Beloved, there are two difficulties when it comes to remembering. The first is simply that we don’t want to remember at all. We’ve either gotten puffed up and think we have always lived as God’s adopted child, or our former life is so painful that we just want to forget it ever happened. That’s the first difficulty. The second is that we do remember but we get stuck in the memory. We don’t remember for the same reason that Paul calls us to remember—to magnify God’s love and grace. It’s so difficult, sometimes, to pull out of those memories. For those moments, let me remind you of something Paul told the Philippians:
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
For you who have never received Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, let me assure you that you are still living in Ephesians 2:11-12. You are still Christless, homeless, friendless, hopeless, and Godless. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Trust in the noble substitute—Jesus Christ himself who assuaged God’s wrath on the cross, shedding his blood for those who would put their trust in him—and you will be transferred from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, becoming a beloved son or daughter yourself. Would you trust in him now?
