EPHESIANS 2:11-22

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you

who are Gentiles by birth and called

“uncircumcised” by those who call

themselves “the circumcision” (which is

done in the body by human hands)—

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

12 remember that at that time you were

separate from Christ, excluded from

citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the

covenants of the promise, without hope

and without God in the world.

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once

were far away have been brought near by

the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is

our peace, who has made the two groups

one and has destroyed the barrier, the

dividing wall of hostility,

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

15 by setting aside in his flesh the law withits commands and regulations. Hispurpose was to create in himself one newhumanity out of the two, thus makingpeace, 16 and in one body to reconcileboth of them to God through the cross, bywhich he put to death their hostility.

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

17 He came and preached peace to youwho were far away and peace to thosewho were near. 18 For through him weboth have access to the Father by oneSpirit. 19 Consequently, you are no longerforeigners and strangers, but fellowcitizens with God’s people and alsomembers of his household,

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

20 built on the foundation of the apostlesand prophets, with Christ Jesus himselfas the chief cornerstone. 21 In him thewhole building is joined together andrises to become a holy temple in theLord. 22 And in him you too are being builttogether to become a dwelling in whichGod lives by his Spirit.

TROUBLESMore than 15 years on from whatwas known as the Troubles, walls,gates and fences still separatesome Catholic and Protestantcommunities in Northern Ireland.The longest of these barriers,separating the Shankill and Fallsroads in Belfast, is more than 10metres high in parts; an imposingstructure of concrete and steelfencing. At nightfall and weekendsmassive steel gates at crossingpoints are locked and often thestone-throwing begins, each sideblaming the other for rocks foundlying close to the wall most days.

RACISM WALLS

Many of the blacks living in verypoor townships surrounded withenormous walls, and then whitesliving oftentimes in more affluentcommunities also surrounded byvery high walls and barbed wirewith armed guards to even get intotheir neighborhoods.

GREAT WALL OF CHINA

The Great Wall of China is a seriesof fortifications made of stone,brick, tamped earth, wood, andother materials, generally builtalong an east-to-west line acrossthe historical northern borders ofChina to protect the Chinese statesand empires against the raids andinvasions of the various nomadicgroups of the Eurasian Steppe.

INTRAMUROSIntramuros (Latin, "within the walls")is the oldest district and historiccore of Manila, the capital of thePhilippines. The city was inconstant danger of natural andman-made disasters and worse,attacks from foreign invaders. In1574, a fleet of Chinese pirates ledby Limahong attacked the city anddestroyed it before the Spaniardsdrove them away. The colony hadto be rebuilt again by thesurvivors.[8] These attacksprompted the construction of thewall.

ISRAEL

When you enter into Israel, you firstrealize there are walls literallyeverywhere, and the ChristianQuarter, and the Muslim Quarter,and the Jewish Quarter are all very,very much divided, and you have topass through security checkpointsat certain times to actually go fromone area to another. The dividingwalls are protected by soldiers withguns, and unless you havepermission, you’re not allowed toeven pass from certain sections ofthe city into others.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE RECONCILED?

JEWS AND GENTILES ARE RECONCILED IN CHRIST

EPHESIANS 2:11-15

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you

who are Gentiles by birth and called

“uncircumcised” by those who call

themselves “the circumcision” (which is

done in the body by human hands)—

EPHESIANS 2:11-15

12 remember that at that time you were

separate from Christ, excluded from

citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the

covenants of the promise, without hope

and without God in the world.

EPHESIANS 2:11-15

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once

were far away have been brought near by

the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is

our peace, who has made the two groups

one and has destroyed the barrier, the

dividing wall of hostility,

EPHESIANS 2:11-15

15 by setting aside in his flesh the law withits commands and regulations. Hispurpose was to create in himself one newhumanity out of the two, thus makingpeace

ABRAHAM

Abraham circumcised himself andhis household, and begancircumcising his descendants as anoutward sign of an inward covenantwith God that ultimately would befulfilled with circumcision of theheart by the Holy Spirit in the NewCovenant. And so what happenedwas you had this side of the family,they are the circumcised, this sideof the family is the uncircumcised.

GENTILES

These are people who are “without God.” They have their own religions, they have their

own religious leaders, they have their own religious traditions, and it’s all demonic, it’s all evil, it’s all corrupt, and it’s all damnable, and That’s us. Any of you who are not Jewish, that’s your heritage. We’re godless pagans.

JEWS

And God says we’re the apple of his eye, and that he chose us, and that he’s our Father,

and that we have eternal life, and that we are the chosen ones. We’re the good people. And

if you would like to consider or join our religion, you have to become Jewish.

You need to learn our language, your men all need to be circumcised, you need to change your diet,

you need to celebrate our holidays, and those pagan things you used to do, even if they were just cultural, those need to stop, and you need to just

become Jewish. But because you’re not of the pure bloodline, you’re still not going to perhaps be considered a first-class citizen. You’re a convert,

but you’re not pure entirely.

Abraham was a pagan Gentile. That’s how he started until God saved him, and that’s how we all start until God saves us. There

was a place called Babylon, and they built a tower called Babel, and God judged it, and confused the languages, and scattered the

people.

And then he chooses a man named Abraham, and he’s really elect. He wasn’t seeking God, God was seeking him, and

God saved him, God entered into relationship with him.

GALATIANS 3:6

6 So also Abraham “believed God, and itwas credited to him as righteousness.”

ONE NEW MAN

JESUS

Their identity is no longer uncircumcised Gentile or circumcised Jew, it is in Christ, reconciled together as a new man. So, there’s this new group, there’s this new category, there’s this new people called

Christian.

The two become one and they make a new family. It’s kind of like that with Jesus. Jews and Gentiles are reconciled together in Christ. They become one, the church, and they start a new family called Christianity.

And so for the Jewish people, they’re trying to figure out, “Okay, our primary identity is in Christ.” For the

Gentiles, “Our primary identity is in Christ. We shouldn’t be fighting with one another, we

should be loving one another and figuring out what it means to be this new family if God is, in

fact, our Father, and Jesus our saving Big Brother.”

BENEFITS OF BEING RECONCILED IN CHRIST

OLD THINGS MAY EXPLAIN US, BUT THEY NO LONGER

DEFINE US IN CHRIST.

Your primary identity is in Christ, which

means your primary allegiance is to those

who are in Christ.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE,

BETWEEN CULTURAL PREFERENCES AND

CULTURE PREJUDICES.

It’s okay to have cultural preferences. We need to be careful not to elevate them into prejudices. We’re not talking here about

issues of sin, we’re talking about issues of style. Not issues of sin, but issues of style.

YOU AND GOD ARE RECONCILED IN CHRIST

Not only does God in Christ reconcile Jew and Gentile, God in Christ reconciles God and sinner. You think about the differences between us and God: Creator, created; holy,

sinner; infinite, finite; and we’ve sinned against God, and the result is there is hostility

between us and God.

You’re a sinner, I’m a sinner, we’re all sinners by nature and choice. We’ve rebelled against God, we’ve declared war against God, and

God, who is holy, has a serious problem with us, and if he didn’t, he would cease to be

holy.

EPHESIANS 2:15-18

15 by setting aside in his flesh the law withits commands and regulations. Hispurpose was to create in himself one newhumanity out of the two, thus makingpeace, 16 and in one body to reconcileboth of them to God through the cross, bywhich he put to death their hostility.

EPHESIANS 2:15-18

17 He came and preached peace to youwho were far away and peace to thosewho were near. 18 For through him weboth have access to the Father by oneSpirit.

God, because of sin, knows that there is a wall of hostility between us and him. It’s a

wall that you’ve built, it’s a wall that I’ve built, a wall of rebellion, sin, and folly. And so God lives in heaven, we live down here. He lives in a holy place, we live in an unholy place.

He lives where there is no sin, we live in a place that is filled with sin. He lives in a place

where there is no death, we live in a place where there is death. And we have built a wall and we have spiritually lived our lives

apart from God.

And God comes as Jesus Christ. God becomes a man. The Creator enters creation. The Spirit God who made all adds to his spirit

human flesh and he goes from heaven to earth. He goes from being worshiped to being

hated.

He goes from a life of affluence to a life of poverty. He goes from a life of notoriety to a life of hostility. Jesus is God coming over

that wall that we have built. It is God coming to seek, and to save, and to serve

us. It’s a rescue mission.

And what he does is he lives without sin, he declares himself to be God, which is why he

ultimately was put to death, and he dies. It says that we are saved, we’re reconciled through his body. So, Jesus takes upon himself all of our sin

and the penalty for sin, which is death. It says that he kills the hostility by dying in our place.

So, if you are in Christ and your faith is in Christ, he died in your place, and God is no longer one

who has hostility toward you, he has peace with you. That’s exactly what he says. He has

peace with you. He won’t punish you because Jesus was already punished in your place.

And he has eradicated, in the body of Jesus on the cross of Jesus, that dividing wall of hostility. And

now, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in the children of God and there’s no barrier. The spiritual

barrier of sin has been removed, and now God dwells in us and God dwells with us.

YOU AND OTHERS ARE RECONCILED IN CHRIST

EPHESIANS 2:19-22

19 Consequently, you are no longerforeigners and strangers, but fellowcitizens with God’s people and alsomembers of his household, 20 built on thefoundation of the apostles and prophets,with Christ Jesus himself as the chiefcornerstone.

EPHESIANS 2:19-22

21 In him the whole building is joinedtogether and rises to become a holytemple in the Lord. 22 And in him you tooare being built together to become adwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Holy is wherever the Holy Spirit is, and what’s interesting is we no longer go to a holy place, but a

holy God comes to any place to meet with his people. That’s good news.

So he says, “The cornerstone is Jesus,” It means everything rises and falls with Jesus. When you lay the foundation of a building, the most important thing is to lay the cornerstone correctly. If you lay it

incorrectly or you lay the wrong cornerstone, whatever you’ve built will eventually crumble.

Everything states with Jesus, and everything

rests, and rides, and resides on Jesus.

What make a place holy are the people of God

being present and Jesus being made much of.

And when we come together, God is eminent, he is present with us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and he is reminding us that we’re reconciled to him and one another, and he is revealing to the world the reconciliation that happens in Christ, and that means that we come together to sing, and as we sing, we’re showing we’re reconciled in Christ,

and we’re reconciled to God in Christ.

CONCLUSION

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in

the Struggle for Lifeby Charles Darwin

The Bible says that no matter what group you’re in, we all

actually descend from one man and one woman. So, we’re

actually all part of one big family. In addition, the Bible teaches that

God made animals who don’t bear his image and likeness, and

people who do, and there’s nothing in the middle. So, all

people equally bear the image and likeness of God, are worthy

of equal dignity, value, and equality. That’s what it says,

that’s what it means.

Now, let’s bring it to Christ. Let’s say you are in Christ, the Holy

Spirit dwells in you, Jesus loves you, the Father adopts you, and he reconciles us together. In the

family of God, there are no second-class citizens. There

are no children who are half in the family and half not in the family; half in the inheritance, half not in

the inheritance. God’s not a Father who treats his kids like

that, and because of the Bible, we should never see people like that.

Ideas have consequences. Through the Bible, it allows us to be a people of God, a family of God, where our preferences don’t have to become our prejudices, and where those things that explain us don’t have to define us because we’re a new

group together in Christ.

In the family of God, there are no second-class citizens.