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Introduction
Our society and media loves rivalries.
Dogs versus Cats.
Chevy versus Ford.
Trucks versus Cars.
The University of Missouri versus the University of Arkansas.
The Cardinals versus the Cubs.
The Yankees versus the Red Sox.
The Midwest versus the Coast.
Rivalries are often localized, however they can also be national.
We know this to be true as there are international rivalries.
The United States versus Russia.
North Korea versus South Korea.
France versus England.
There are even rivalries that exist in these countries.
Pepsi versus Coke.
Samsung versus Apple.
Thankfully, these rivalries are mostly peaceful (although there are some exceptions).
What we see in is that there exists a very deep and hostile rivalry between Jews and Gentiles.
Gentiles are non-Jews.
That includes everyone in this room, I believe.
At this time in Scripture, Gentiles did not know Yahweh God.
The Jews did.
Jews had various religious ceremonies and feasts that were unique to them.
Gentiles did not have these.
The Jews had the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob coursing through their veins.
Gentiles could not boast in this fact.
However, as Paul will show us today, Jesus Christ brings these bitter rivals together.
Through Jesus Christ, the enemies have become friends.
As radical an idea as it would be for a Cardinals fan to root for the Cubs, it is all the more radical for Jews and Gentiles to become unified - yet that is exactly what Christ has done!
What we are going to look at today is the purpose of the church - to share the Gospel with every nation, tribe and tongue - and Paul gives us several things to “remember”.
This text is fitting for us today because Paul’s audience was primarily Gentile and that is the boat we find ourselves in today.
Let’s dive into this text, .
Ephesians
In this text, Paul shows us that whenever we remember all that God has done for us, we have a greater appreciation for Him and we love those around us.
As a corporate body of believers, this is our identity and our purpose.
Who We Were (11-12)
Last week we were in and we saw how before Christ, we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
We were disobedient children of wrath and we had no hope because we followed our own fleshly desires in addition to those of the world.
Verses 1-3 of talked about our individual status.
Each of us are individually lost and dead in our sins.
What we see immediately in verses 11-12 is that we (as Gentiles) were separated from Christ!
This is a group status, not an individual one.
Paul starts by saying that these Gentile believers were at one time strangers to the covenants of promise.
They were “Christless”.
The Jews, even if they rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah, at least had an understanding and knowledge of the Messiah.
These Gentiles had no idea what this Messiah was and why He was so important.
It is hard for us to grasp this concept because Christianity is so commonly known here in the Western hemisphere, however imagine that you traveled to another country that had next to no knowledge of the Gospel.
You would be bombarded by a culture that would be foreign to things that we take for granted day in and day out as American Christians.
The Gentiles that Paul is speaking about in verse 12 were Christless before they came to know of Christ.
This is the case that we find ourselves in today as well.
We might have known about Christianity but our lives were Christless before coming to know Jesus Christ.
Next, we see that these people were foreigners.
In the Old Testament we know that Israel had kings, there was a united monarchy with Saul, David and Solomon and then the kingdom split into 2 (Israel in the North and Judah in the South).
There were many different kings that “ruled” over these kingdoms, however at the end of the day, God was the leader of Israel.
The king was supposed to simply be a human leader who submitted and obeyed God’s commands.
Unfortunately, things didn’t always work out good for these kings and the people of Israel, though.
As bad as things might have been for the Israelites, the Gentiles were complete foreigners.
They were excluded from citizenship in Israel and strangers to the covenants.
Whenever we think of covenants what are we talking about?
We know the covenant that God made with:
Noah - the whole earth would never be flooded again.
Abraham- all the people of the world would be blessed by his nation (a foreshadow of the Messiah)
David - David’s house will rule forever (Jesus Christ comes from the lineage of David)
There are several key covenants that God makes with people in the Old Testament and the Jews would have been familiar with them, however the Gentiles would have been completely confused and lost.
Because of that, Paul describes them as foreigners.
Finally, Paul closes verse 12 out by saying that these people had no hope and were Godless.
shows us that God will bless all the nations of the world through Israel, however these Gentiles were completely oblivious of this.
Because of this, they had no hope!
Think of a student who misses his first day of school in which the teacher goes over the syllabus and expectations for the class.
Whenever the student showed up to class, he would be clueless of what to expect.
Where other individuals would have understanding and comfort, he would be hopeless and up a creek without a paddle.
Paul says that these Gentiles had no hope.
These individuals were walking into a world without hope because they were unable to see the light.
As tells us, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.
There is hope for those who call upon the name of the Lord, but these Gentiles were aliens and without hope.
Not only are these Gentiles facing eternal separation from God in a place called hell, but they face a hopeless situation during their lives on this planet.
God is the God of hope.
If you do not know God, you do not have this hope.
We must remember that this was the situation that we were all in before we came to know Jesus Christ.
If we remember where we came from, how lost we were, then we will certainly live a life of gratitude towards our God who saved us!
Who We Are (13-18)
Anytime we see a “But God” statement in Scripture, we need to get our highlighter ready.
We saw one such statement in as Paul wrote that we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but God made us alive with Christ!
We see a similar story in .
Paul has made the point that we were aliens, we were hopeless and we were Godless “But Christ Jesus has brought us near!”
It is by the blood of Jesus Christ that we are saved!
Only through His blood can we be reconciled to God.
The dead of Jesus was a public death.
It was not a death that only a couple of people knew about or in a very remote place.
If we were to compare this to modern terms, he would have been crucified in a park or outside of a mall.
People saw Jesus die and we know that He took our place on the cross so that we might be declared righteous.
We encounter the effect of the cross with our union with Christ.
Paul writes in verse 13 that it is “in Christ Jesus” that we experience the benefits of His shed blood.
There was a past event that is experienced presently.
Whenever you come to accept Jesus as Lord of your life, your old self dies and you are raised just like Christ was raised!
If that has not happened to you yet, I pray that today would be your day of salvation and that your eyes might be opened so that you might experience the present and eternal hope that comes along with being a child of God.
The cross is central to our theology.
Some people don’t like talking about the cross because it was gruesome and bloody and painful, however what the blood shows us is the gravity of our sin.
It cost something - the blood of the Son of God.
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