Barrier

This morning we are looking at the work that Christ has done in order for us to be in relationship with Him and importantly with others.

Our lives in Christ not only mean that we are reconciled to Him it means that we are also actively reconciling with others who are different than us. Because if Christ has done a work in us, He is doing a work in others. And our role is to recognize that work.

roger kibbe in international airport

God has brought us near to Him and others, removing anything else in the way.

we are called to live a 2 dimensional reconciliation life. We are called to live a 3 dimensional life.

Because we are deeply loved by God, He has destroyed everything that gets between us and Him and us and others.

so that’s what we want to be looking at today. How do we see Christ and His work in such a way that it causes us to love others more than our own preferences and culture?

Because stuff often gets in the way. Our preferences get in the way. Our culture gets in the way. Our identity gets in the way.

These things create separation in our lives.

how have you seen separation happen through people’s preferences or identity?

On our own we separate

Our passage this morning begins with a call to remember . Often in the Scriptures we are called to remember, but when we do so it is to remember God.

But this remember is different. This remember is a bit different. This remember is to look at where we were. Where we used to be. To remember that we were separated from Christ and alienated from community and strangers to God’s promise. We were without God and hope.

This is strong language. Paul is telling us that on our own, we were hostile, alienated, without God and without hope.

Paul is telling us to get into that frame of mind so that we can understand where others are. We can see from their perspective. We can understand again what it is like to live apart from good.

Have you ever felt not seen? Not picked? Looked over? That’s the concept we are getting in these first few passages. What is it like to go through life and not be seen?

On our own we easily grow hostile with others

When we are without hope, when we are alone and alienated, it can be easy to not worry about others. It is easy to think of others simply as a means that either helps or hinders our own goals. Hostility is not just anger toward others, it is the idea of treating others as less than human.

It is looking at people as a series of transactions.

When we don’t see the way God sees it becomes easy to see people as goals or barriers to our desires.

this not always perfect or fixed in the church. But the command remains to love others beyond preference.

How have you seen people become a series of transactions instead of relationships?

On our own our different ideas become the most important part of us

Stanford Prison experiment? What happens when we borrow the strategies of the world? We end up acting like it.

When left to ourselves we will find the most meaning in the ideas we have. But in the end the ideas that we have, while important, are not the most important part of us. Christ and His Kingdom and our life in Him is.

How do we live lives of reconciliation when everyone has different ideas?

That’s really the idea. Right now I think the biggest thing separating people in the US is what we think/believe about very specific topics. And while it is good to think things about very specific topics. Those same topics are often the same things that Christ came to remove as relational barriers. So how do we uphold the things that matter in our lives and still love others?

Holiness vs hostility

Up until this point we have looked at the tension. We have looked at ways that keep us separate. And you might be thinking, “good, aren’t we called to be separate from?” Yes. As a people of holiness. Defining holiness is that which is separate from. But if we are using the same strategies that the world is using, anger, bitterness, yelling. When the church uses the same weapons that the world uses, we have chosen hostility.

TO choose holiness means to act differently with different tools and different relationships.

In Christ we have peace

Ephesians 2:14 ESV

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility

Christ doesn’t give peace,

He gives Himself as peace.

Our peace is not found in an idea or a strategy, it is found in a person and a relationship.

We don’t have better ideas for peace as Christians, we have better relationships

This is the highlight of the Church. We don’t always have better ideas but we are always called to have better relationships. Because it started with Christ and He chose to make peace with us. We receive that peace and through that are called to offer it to others.

How have you seen the church highlight the need for healthy and good relationships? How is God calling you to better relationships?

Christ recognizes us in our alienation

The passage begins with “remember” but then it goes into “now”

And the “now” is simply that we who were once far off are now near through Christ.

We were distant and now we are close.

I love a good airport. I, like many of you, have spent alot of time at airports, either waiting for people or going through them myself. By far the best thing about airports are the greetings. It is fun to watch people waiting with signs. And there are always different kinds of signs. There are signs from limo drivers waiting for people and then there are big signs from family and friends. I fly in and out of TF Green every few months and I love when a big sign catches sight of people coming out of the gates. There is distance but they have made eye contact. And the sign people are jumping up and down and the people can’t walk fast enough to get there. There is a great embrace because the travellers have been far away and now they are close.

Christ is a big sign holder. We were far off and have been brought near. His embrace is one where we recognize that everything that has kept us distant is now gone.

How did Christ welcome you into His Kingdom as one of His own?

All barriers can only really be broken down at the cross.

And the distance in Christ is gone because of the cross. It is at the cross that every barrier is broken down. Christ beat death itself, where o death is your sting. Everything else is lesser. So we have reconciliation with Christ at the cross.

And I am reconcilied to Christ by the cross

and so are you.

ephesians 2:16 “and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

The cross kills hostility between God and us and between us and others. Our reconciled lives in Christ is the hope of reconciliation for all our relationships with others.

This is the greatest news in the world but causes some fits of anxiety. Why?

Because we love good news for us.

But we don’t always love good news for others.

We want God to see us but not them.

Who is a them?

Anyone who is not a you.

We are very good at making “them” in our lives. We are so good at it that we would presume to believe that the good news is for us and not them.

Christ is the hope for all our relationships

Christ is the hope for us and them. And Christ has destroyed anything that keeps us from them.

Galatians 3:27–28 ESV

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Thems and Usses.

In this passage we see the thems and usses placed together. We see gender, race, position all as one in Christ Jesus.

All the notions, ideas, plans and strategies that keep us separate are now gone in Christ.

We who were distant have been brought near and the cross has plenty of room for them.

Not Thems and Usses but His

We become one in Christ in here, baptized in Christ.

What it does not say is that the “thems” become “usses”

But here is the single mistake we make in looking at this passage. Sometimes in Christianity, that’s really what we want. We want those who are unlike us to become us.

But that is not how reconciliation works. Nor is it how relationships work.

Them will always have a distance to it. Under Christ there is no them.

As we come to Christ we are changed entirely but we still celebrate that we are all thems, we are all people who have been distant but under Christ we don’t just become usses. We become His.

Revelation 5:9 ESV

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,

We are a church that is His from every tribe and language and people and nation. We are His, as we celebrate our usness as people who are different racially and in gender and in socioeconomics, in ideas and ideals. We are connected by being His.

What do we do?

Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV

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.

We live an “us” life, in Him.

We surrender our “them” language to Christ.

We repent of our “them” language to Christ

we befriend thems to make His

Have you ever been reading an article online and have a popup fly to the center of the screen? Either with an ad or with a request for subscription? I might be really interested in the article but all the sudden all I can see is the information on the ad.

Holding onto our ideas more than our relationships is like trying to read an article with big pop up ads on it. No matter what we do we have this thing that just seems to get in the way.

Christ destroyed that thing. He destroyed what gets in the middle of our relationships. We need to allow Christ to remove them.

We trust that the cross of Christ is enough to bring reconciliation in relationships.

We don’t have better ideas. We are called to have better relationships.

What area is God calling you to next? To surrender “them” language? To repent of “them” language? Or to befriend “thems” in your world?