The Household
Nothing Left to Prove: Living Within the Father’s Verdict • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction: The Man in the Yard
Introduction: The Man in the Yard
1. This morning we left a man standing in the yard.
a. Music was coming through the windows. His younger brother was inside wearing the best robe in the house, with the family ring on his finger. His father was out in the dark beside him, pleading.
b. And Jesus stopped the story right there. We never find out whether the older brother went in.
2. Tonight I want to go inside the house.
a. Jesus left the door open in Luke 15. In Ephesians 2, Paul walks us through it and shows us what the Father has built on the other side.
b. It's a household. One family at one table, made up of people who used to have a wall between them.
3. Think about the last time you walked into a room where everybody knew each other except you.
a. A new job. A reunion on your wife's side of the family. A church building in a town you'd just moved to.
b. Everybody else knows where to sit. They know the inside jokes. They know whose casserole that is. You're standing by the door with your Bible, trying to look like you belong.
c. Nobody is being unkind. There's just a line in the room you can't see, and you're on the wrong side of it.
5. Some of you have felt that line in this building. Maybe years ago. Maybe last month.
a. And some of us have been on the inside of it so long we've forgotten it's there.
b. Paul has something to say to both. Turn to Ephesians 2.
Remember What You Were
Remember What You Were
1. The first half of this chapter is about what God did for us.
a. Verse 1, we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins
b. Verse 5,
5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
c. Verse 8,
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—
b. Then verse 11 starts with *So, then.*
11 So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands.
Paul is about to show what that grace does to the people who've received it.
12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.
2. Most of the Christians in Ephesus hadn't grown up in synagogues.
a. They'd grown up in the shadow of the great temple of Artemis. Acts 19 tells us what happened when the gospel started cutting into that business. The whole city filled up with a riot.
b. And the Jewish world had a name for people like them. *The uncircumcised.* It wasn't meant kindly.
3. When I taught Ephesians years ago, I counted five things in verse 12 that described where those people stood.
a. *Without Christ.* No Messiah coming for them.
b. *Excluded from the citizenship of Israel.* No papers. No place in the nation God had called.
c. *Foreigners to the covenants of promise.* God had made promises to Abraham and to David. None of them had these people's names in them.
d. *Without hope.*
e. *Without God in the world.* Ephesus had more gods than it knew what to do with. What it didn't have was God.
4. Why would Paul make them look at that?
a. He wants them grateful, and gratitude needs a memory.
b. People who forget where they came from start building walls.
c. That was the older brother's problem this morning. He'd forgotten what it meant to be a son, and he'd forgotten he had a brother. *This son of yours,* he said.
5. Some of us have been members so long we don't remember being outsiders.
a. But every one of us was on the far side of that line once.
b. And every one of us was brought in by somebody else's hand.
The Wall Came Down
The Wall Came Down
1. Now read:
13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh,
15 he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.
16 He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.
2.v. 13: *But now.* Two of the best words in the Bible.
a. Everything in verse 12 was true. Then God stepped in.
3. *You who were far away have been brought near.*
a. Here's something I didn't want you to miss. The word Paul uses for *far away* is the same word Luke used this morning. *While the son was still a long way off, his father saw him,* Luke 15:20.
b. Same distance. Same Father closing it.
c. And look at how they were brought near. *By the blood of Christ.* Nobody in that church walked in on his own record.
4. v. 14: *For he is our peace.*
a. Jesus didn't hand us a treaty and step back. Paul says he himself is the peace.
b. Reconciliation means the relationship has been restored. Sin broke it. Christ repaired it.
5. *He tore down the dividing wall of hostility.*
a. The Christians at Ephesus knew exactly what wall Paul meant.
b. In the temple in Jerusalem, the outer courtyard was open to anybody. Gentiles could come that far. But a low stone barrier ran around the inner courts, about chest high, and along it stood stone signs in Greek and Latin.
c. The first-century historian Josephus describes them. One of those signs was dug up in 1871, and you can still see it in a museum in Istanbul. It warns every foreigner not to go past the barrier, and it says that anyone caught doing it would have only himself to blame for the death that followed.
d. Think about that. A Gentile could love the God of Israel with his whole heart and walk all the way to Jerusalem to worship him. The closest he'd ever get was a sign telling him he'd be killed if he took another step.
6. Paul knew that wall personally.
a. In Acts 21, some men from Asia spot him in the temple and start a riot. They shout that he's brought Greeks into the holy place. Listen to why they thought so:
29 For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.
b. That accusation got Paul arrested. It started the chain of events that took him to Rome in chains.
c. So look at how he introduces himself in the next chapter:
1 For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—
d. The man writing *he tore down the dividing wall* is sitting in chains because of that wall. And the friend he was accused of taking past it was from Ephesus. They'd have known Trophimus by name.
7. So what did Jesus do with it?
15 he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.
a. The law of Moses had drawn the line between Jew and Gentile. Jesus kept that law perfectly, and at the cross he brought that whole arrangement to its end.
b. *So that he might create in himself one new man from the two.* The Gentiles didn't have to become Jews to get in. God made something new out of both of them.
c. Verse 16.
16 He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.
d. The hostility died on the cross with him. He didn't bring it back out of the tomb.
8. Now let's bring it closer to home.
a. None of us has ever seen a stone sign threatening a visitor with death. We build our walls out of other material.
b. Where we sit, and who we sit with. Who gets invited over and who doesn't. The look that crosses our face when somebody walks in with a past. How fast we decide whether a person is our kind.
c. The apostle Peter did it. He had eaten with Gentile Christians in Antioch for a while. Then some visitors showed up from Jerusalem:
12 For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party.
d. Did you hear why? *Because he feared.* The men heard a lot about that fear on Friday night. Peter got up from the table because he was worried about a crowd, and Paul confronted him to his face over it.
e. When we put that wall back up, we're rebuilding something Jesus died to tear down.
He Came
He Came
1. Now read the next two verses:
17 He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
2. *He came.*
a. That's the verb this whole weekend has been running on.
b. This morning in class we opened Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were crouched in the bushes, and the LORD God came walking in the garden calling, *Where are you?*
c. Yesterday the men watched God send Nathan to a king who'd spent a year building his cover story.
d. They stood at the Jordan River and watched the sky tear open so the Father could speak to his Son.
e. And this morning, a father gathered up his robe and ran down a road.
f. Nobody in any of those stories found God. God came to every one of them.
3. *Peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.*
a. Paul is echoing Isaiah 57:19, where the LORD promises peace to the one who is far and to the one who is near.
b. Hold that next to Luke 15. The father ran down the road for the son who was far away. Then he walked out into the yard for the son who was near.
c. Both sons. Paul says that's what Jesus did. He came for the Gentile out past the barrier, and he came for the Jew who'd been at the temple all his life. Neither one could close the distance himself.
4. v. 18: *Through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.*
a. *Access* is a word for being brought into the presence of a king. Somebody takes you by the arm and walks you in.
b. Think about that Gentile standing at the stone barrier. He couldn't take one more step without risking his life. Now Paul says he walks straight in to the Father.
c. Look at who's involved. Through the Son. In the Spirit. To the Father. The whole Godhead at work to bring you home.
d. The men spent yesterday morning in Galatians 4, where the Spirit of God's Son cries out *Abba, Father* in the heart of every Christian. Here's what that means for a church. The person sitting next to you tonight calls on the same Father you do.
e. That makes you family.
Members of the Household
Members of the Household
1. Here's where Paul has been heading all along:
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
2. Watch the words move.
a. *Foreigners and strangers.* The second word describes a resident alien. He lives in town. He pays his taxes. He doesn't belong.
b. *Fellow citizens with the saints.* Now you've got papers.
c. *Members of God's household.* And Paul keeps going past citizenship, right into the kitchen. You're family.
3. Stay on that word *household* for a minute.
a. This morning a young man came home asking to be taken on as a hired worker. His father wouldn't even let him finish the sentence.
b. Paul says the same thing to the whole church. Members of the household. Nobody in this house is on the payroll.
c. And a household is where people eat together. Remember the complaint that started Luke 15. *This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.* The Pharisees meant it as an insult. It's a description of God's house.
4. v. 20: *Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.*
a. The cornerstone was the first stone set, and every other line in the building was measured from it. Walls, corners, doorways.
b. That's why a church can be made of very different people and still be one. Every one of us is measured from the same stone.
5. Now notice the verbs in verses 21 and 22. *Being put together. Grows. Being built together.*
a. That's present tense. The work is still going on.
c. And look at the word *together.* You can't be a brick all by yourself. A brick sitting alone in a field isn't a building.
6. Then look at what the building turns out to be. *A holy temple in the Lord. God's dwelling in the Spirit.*
a. Go back to that stone barrier in Jerusalem, with its warning sign.
b. God's new temple is built out of the very people that sign kept out, fitted together with the people who stood on the other side of it.
c. And God lives there.
7. Paul says it again to the Galatians, and he spells out who's included:
26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.
27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.
a. Paul takes the three categories that sorted every person in his world and says they don't sort anybody in Christ.
b. Jews and Greeks were still Jews and Greeks. Men were still men, and women were still women. What changed was that none of it decided your standing. Every one of them was a son and an heir. The sisters in this room hold the same inheritance the brothers do.
c. We could add a few categories of our own. The family that's been here forty years and the family that came last month. The man with a clean record and the man with a record. The member who's never missed a service and the one coming back after ten years away.
d. In this house, they eat at the same table.
Conclusion: A Household with Nothing Left to Prove
Conclusion: A Household with Nothing Left to Prove
1. We've spent three days on one question, asked a few different ways. What happens to a person when he stops auditioning for God?
a. Friday night the men looked at the cage. Saturday they heard they were sons. This morning we watched two sons misread the same father.
b. Tonight we're asking what happens to a church.
2. A church full of people still auditioning is a lonely place.
a. Everybody is performing. Nobody is honest about how they're really doing. And the walls stay up, because walls help us look good.
3. A household works differently.
a. People who remember they were brought near by blood don't have anything to prove to each other.
b. You can let a new family have your pew. You can tell a brother the truth about your week. You can welcome somebody with a past, because you've got one too.
4. So let's get specific about Waterford.
a. Who's a stranger here right now? Somebody who's visited three or four times and still doesn't know where the classes meet?
b. Who eats alone after services?
c. Who's been coming for a year, and nobody has had them over?
d. Who's drifted off, and nobody has called?
e. What would this congregation do differently in the next thirty days if that wall were really rubble?
5. I'd like to give you something with a date on it.
a. **[Hand out cards, or have them use the back of the bulletin.]**
b. Write one name. Somebody on the edges of this family. A new couple. A widow. A teenager who sits by himself. Somebody who hasn't been back in a while.
c. Write one table. Your kitchen table, a restaurant after services, a cup of coffee on a Tuesday.
d. Write one date, before the end of October.
e. Some of the men did something like this yesterday for a different conversation. It works the same way. A name without a date is a nice thought. A name with a date is a plan.
7. This morning Jesus left the older brother standing in the yard.
a. Some of us have been standing out there a long time. Arms folded. Keeping score. Watching who gets let in.
b. The Father has come out to us too. The door's open. The table's set. And your brother is inside.
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,
8. We came into this weekend auditioning. We go home as members of God's household, being built together for his dwelling in the Spirit, with nothing left to prove.
