Sermon Tone Analysis
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*/Ephesians 2:17-22/*
* *
* *Let’s review last week’s progression in Paul’s argument.
Review is critical.
We learn by repetition.
This is what we call training.
The book of Proverbs calls this intense instruction /muwcar/ (Prov.
1:7, 8).
/muwcar/ requires repetitious training.
Most people don’t like training because it hurts and it takes hard work.
You’ve got to go over it and over it and over it.
You’ve got to hammer it into your mentality.
If you don’t you just turn into a passive, reactionary Christian.
When trouble starts you fall apart.
You don’t know how to respond properly to life’s problems.
So, we need training and training requires repetition of Bible doctrine.
If you don’t have the doctrine in place /ahead of time/ then you’ll crumble under the pressures of life in the /present time/.
This is why the military trains men to the point of boredom.
They go over and over and over the drills day after day after day.
But the officers know the advantages of repetitious training.
They know that when their boys hit the field of battle they’ll naturally respond the way they were trained.
That’s what we’re after in the Christian life.
You train and train and train so that when the problems hit your natural response is DVP.
What often happens in war when a soldier fooled around during his training?
He gets hurt or killed because he went into an emotional response pattern.
I want to train you not to respond emotionally to life’s problems.
Some of you say, “well, I’m just an emotional person, that’s just who I am.”
Uh uh, the word of God says you can and you should control your emotions.
You can train yourself to control your emotions.
If you don’t learn to control your emotions they’ll overwhelm you and once you’ve fallen into that trap then you can’t make objective decisions, everything starts falling apart around you.
That’s why training by repetition of Bible doctrine is so important.
That’s why most Christians don’t like the kind of teaching I’m doing here.
They love emotionalism and entertainment because they love to be fleshly, it feels good and they get all tingly.
I teach objectively and verse by verse and I emphasize that this is absolute truth.
I refuse to give you a 15 minute feel good sermonette for Christianette’s as Dr.
Howard Hendricks used to say.
Sermonettes never helped any Christian live the Christian life.
What helps is knowing objective truth.
That’s the only thing that matters.
But most Christians would walk out after a Wednesday night here saying, “what did that have to do with my life?
You didn’t give me anything practical.”
Oh bologna.
These kinds of Christians want an instant solution to every problem.
They want to feel good when they leave church.
All I can say to those types of Christians is that I’m sorry they’ve become so much a part of this TV dinner culture that that’s how you feel, but that’s not what you need.
You need Bible doctrine, Bible doctrine.
And you may not see the immediate application but it’s required that you know it.
I guarantee you if you learn what we’re teaching here in an objective way it will greatly benefit your Christian life.
It’s solid meat that grows strong muscles and bones whether you like it or not.
And that’s what a Christian needs to make it through the Christian life, to be a tough hard as nails Christian instead of a passive, puny believer.
And so, that’s why I review so much.
It’s important and there’s no way you can get it just listening to it once.
* *Last week we looked at Ephesians 2:14-16, Paul’s Assertion of Peace.
*/For He Himself is our peace,/* introduces Paul’s explanation of verses 11-13.
Jesus Christ is peace Himself.
What did Jesus Christ do?
He */made both groups into one/*.
What two groups is Paul talking about?
He’s talking about believing Jews and believing Gentiles.
How did Jesus Christ make these two groups into one new group?
He */broke down the barrier of the dividing wall/*.
The barrier of the dividing wall was the Mosaic Law misinterpreted.
How did Jesus Christ break down the Mosaic Law?
Did He destroy it?
No.
He did not come to destroy it but to fulfill it (Matt.
5:17).
How then did He break it down if not by destruction?
verse 15, */by abolishing in His flesh the enmity/*.
See, the Mosaic Law became a barrier between Jews and Gentiles because it was misinterpreted by Judaism.
The Law was good when used lawfully and was meant to be a witness device, a witness of the God of Israel to the surrounding Gentile nations.
But Judaism misinterpreted the Mosaic Law and when they did this it created enmity between Jews and Gentiles.
So, Jesus Christ destroyed the enmity in His flesh, that is on the cross.
He did this by fulfilling the Law in His life and therefore rendering it inoperative.
The Mosaic Law, wrongly interpreted could therefore no longer be the source of enmity between Jews and Gentiles.
It was */the Law of commandments contained in dogma~/ordinances/* that caused the enmity, not the Mosaic Law rightly understood.
Paul tells us that the Law is good when used lawfully, but when used unlawfully it causes enmity.
Why did Christ do this?
Why did He destroy the enmity by rendering the Mosaic Law inoperative?
*/so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man/*.
He did this not to make believing Gentiles become Jews or believing Jews become Gentiles but to make out of believing Jews and Gentiles */one new man/*, one new humanity.
We discovered last week through a series of verses that this was the Church, the body of Christ.
This new man is not Jew or Gentile but a new race that is raceless!
What was the result?
There are two: first, it */established peace, /*Jesus Christ is peace Himself and He established peace between the two groups (of believers only) at the cross.
Second, he */reconciled them both in one body to God/*.
The two groups have now been reconciled in one body to God.
The emphasis throughout the passage is one new group formed from two groups.
To whom have they been reconciled?
To God.
By what means were they reconciled?*/
through the cross/*.
There is one way of reconciliation to God.
There is one way of salvation.
No one, Jew or Gentile, is saved by any other path.
There are not many paths to God.
All must go through the cross.
Why?
Because only the cross */put to death the enmity./*
Man is at enmity with God and therefore it’s God’s prescribed means by which that enmity can be changed into peace and that prescribed means is through the cross.
The cross of Christ put to death that enmity for the Jew and Gentile who believes in Christ.
This is not reconciliation for all men to God nor does it remove the enmity for Jews and Gentiles in general.
It only reconciles believing Jews and Gentiles to God and those believing Jews and Gentiles to one another.
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