You Are Reconciled in the Body

Next week Pastor Viars will be here speaking on Ephesians 2:1-10 about our reconciliation with God, today we are responding to God’s word in Ephesians 2:11-22 about our reconciliation with others in the body of Christ, the church.

You Are Reconciled in the Body

3 responses because of God's peacemaking work through Christ.

I. Remember your past to be thankful for your present position (v. 11-12).

God wants Christians to remember our spiritual condition before Jesus so that we are filled with thanksgiving and worship for Jesus Christ and what he has done so that we would praise his grace.

Ephesians 2:11-12 - Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

The separation of the two groups (Jews and Non-Jews) was symbolized by the physical distinction of circumcision.

Non-Jews (Gentiles) before belief in Christ were:

A. Separated from Christ.

We did not trust the Messiah, Jesus. We were spiritually alienated in a condition of spiritual death. We did not know him and were apart from a right relationship with Jesus.

B. Excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.

We were once not apart of experiencing the special blessing, care, protection and love that God showed to his promised nation, Israel.

C. Strangers to the covenants of promise.

The covenants of promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and through the Mosaic Covenant, and the Davidic covenant, were not ours, for non-Jews they were realities that only those in the covenant experiences and we had to be grafted into experiencing these covenantal blessing that would be fulfilled through Jesus, the Messiah and the nation of Israel.

We were once…

D. Without hope and without God.

Our spiritual condition was such that we did not trust and have confidence in Christ and rejected God. We once rejected the only hope and way we could be saved from our sins and experience a restored relationship with God.

That was our spiritual condition apart from the peacemaking work of Jesus suffering on the cross for our sins, and rising from the dead to make us right with God.

Remembering the past can help us appreciate the present position that we enjoy that we can be tempted in our pride to take for granted and forget.

Before Paul gets into the living out of the Christian life and how we grow and mature in unity as the body, he encourages the believing Gentiles to remind us what we were…[if time allows applications to unity].

II. Celebrate your reconciliation with God and others in the church (v. 13-18).

God wants us to move from remembering what we were as non-Jewish people to rejoicing in what we now are in Christ because of the precious peacemaking work of Jesus.

Celebration, thankful remembrance, is one of the areas we are seeking to grow as a church family this year.

As we reflect on our 60 year heritage. We are celebrating the unity we have experienced as a church because of the way that Jesus has brought us peace with him and one another.

Reconciliation means turning from hostility to friendship.

How do we experience a change from hostility and opposition to God and hatred and hostility in our relationships with others?

Jesus is our peace because of his powerful peacemaking work on the cross.

Ephesians 2:13-16 – “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

Acts 10:28 – “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean”

Acts 11:1-3 – Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

Acts 21:27-30 – When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Law and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was provoked, and the people rushed together, and taking hold of Paul they dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut.”

The dividing wall is used figuratively in reference to the partition in the Temple in Jerusalem, which set off the court of the Gentiles from the rest of the Temple area.

What is the proof that you are thinking rightly about Jesus’s reconciliation is…

A. By valuing Christ's work in the church.

Are you seeing rightly your brothers and sisters in Christ through the lens of Jesus love for his church and how he has brought us together to him?

Your brother or sisters in Christ is someone that Jesus views as precious and has been…"brought near by the blood of Christ"

The enmity, the hostel hatred that characterized our relationship with God and that divided Jews and Gentiles has been put to death. It died when Christ died.

Now Christ is for us because of his great love for us, and dividing walls that ensured separation between Jews and Non-Jews are now destroyed.

Our unity is now described as:

"one new man"

"one body"

Together both (Jews and Gentiles) they are brought to God together through the same way, Jesus Christ. Now being both brought together to God, they are brought together with one another.

The differences had become dividing walls. But now because of the common unity and peace we experience with Christ, the differences we have in the body take a lower priority. The dividing walls that once ensured separation are now destroyed.

God uses the dividing wall and enmity that were covenantal differences to illustrate this point and apply it to other areas of differences to emphasize the unity we experience in Christ is now the priority for our identity.

Colossians 3:11 ­- “a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”

The distinctions and divisions that we once valued more and can be a source of conflict and division are now a lesser priority in the church because I am valuing and prioritizing Christ and his peacemaking work.

Part of our 60-year history is the humbling reminder that in its early days… Faith was often called and known by some as "hickory Baptist” because of how often people would split and divide over differences and preferences prioritizing those partitions over the commonality that we share in the Lord.

• - You could divide because of your preferences for a certain style of musical worship.

• - You could divide because of your preferences for how you believe we should meet needs in the community.

• - You could divide because of your preference for how Christian engage in education for to the church family and community.

Celebrate the power of Jesus’s reconciling work on display and his peacemaking power to in our wonderful history of maturing in unity…because of Christ’s grace and work in our church family.

• - Think about his peacemaking power in the nations that are represented in this room alone as a church assembled…

• Chinese, Korean, Bolivian, Guatemalan, Haitian, German, Indian, Nigerian, Mexican, Indonesian, Filipino, Americans etc. all united and worshipping together because of our common Prince of peace.

• The difference of age is not the biggest barrier. In our church family we have a history of not majoring on age as the biggest difference/distinction and letting that be a barrier to unity). Example with mentoring in college ministry, college students serving in children’s ministry.

• How we do want resources/richer or poorer to be distinction or family background and upbringing and why we wanted to serve in the Northend.

• Our temptations and sins and those differences are not the primary way we one another and that does not prevent us from experiencing unity (VOH/Restoration etc.).

• Public/private/homeschool and the unity in a school expansion project.

In each of these examples myself and my interests are subservient to Christ and his interests for the body to be unified and strengthened.

As John MacArthur says, “Peace comes only when self-dies, and the only place self truly dies is at the foot of Calvary.”^[1]]

How did we come to know about the cross-work of Jesus, about who he is and what he did, we experienced peace through the preaching of the good news about Jesus and believing the message about him. When you understand the good news and have experienced peace you celebrate and rejoice in worship…

B. By preaching the gospel to one another.

Ephesians 2:17 – And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near

In v.17 there is a quote from Isaiah 52:7 and 57:19 that applies to both Jew and non-Jew. Talks about how the gospel was preached to us to bring peace.

Part of the way we celebrate the reconciliation of Jesus, cultivate thankfulness for it, and maintain unity together is preaching the message to ourselves and one another regularly.

Paul is speaking to Christians in this letter, and to help them grow and mature in unity, in the letter he reminds them of the gospel and God’s work to reconcile them in Christ. They need to be reminded of this and be thankful for this…why??

The foundation for unity is the gospel.

To grow and mature in handling problems and conflicts in the body of Christ in a way that pleases God requires that you believe the gospel and you then are approaching sinners like our Savior by seeking to be a peacemaker…

I hope that we do not take one another for granted and our heritage as a Church family for how we seek to solve problems biblically as peacemakers.

[Application to conflict resolution]

• - Milton Vincent Gospel Primer

• - Ken Sande – The Peacemaker

Rejoicing in the reconciliation we experience in Christ should also cause us to want to please our God…

C. By using your common access to pray for one another.

v.18 mentions that we have common access to the Father through the Spirit because of the peacemaking work of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:18 – for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

God's house is to be house of prayer for the nations (Jew and Gentile). Jesus wanted all nations to worship and pray to Father through Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Remember what Isaiah prophesied would happen with the coming of the Promised Suffering Servant, Jesus the Messiah.

Isaiah 56:7 ­– For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.

And what was Jesus righteously angry about for what was occurring in the courts of the Gentiles. Rather than it being a place where the nations could pray, hear the word of God….

Matthew 21:12-13 – And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.”

There is only one way to God, Jesus says I am the door. I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me. If you receive Jesus as your Savior by faith, you have access to God. It’s the same way, through faith in Christ, that we have access to this kindness we now stand in Jesus.

Are you expressing your thankfulness for Christ through the privileged position that you have to pray to the God of heaven and earth?!

What helps guard against divisiveness/hatred/hostility between brothers and sisters in Christ when we sin against one another is praying for one another. It’s a means that God uses to build unity and help grow one another’s love for one another.

Deitrick Bonhoeffer in his book “Life Together.”

“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.” Deitrick Bonhoeffer in Life Together

[Unpack all the ways that praying for one another builds unity and how Paul model's this in the letter through the prayers].

• - Example of a college student struggling to build a friendship with another student in the body.

• - Example in marriage of a spouse struggling to love their spouse.

• - Example for teenagers fighting to submit and obey their parents.

• - Example for a church member not agreeing with a pastor and getting their preference.

Is there someone that you are avoiding in the body of Christ and not wanting to seek to resolve problems with? Can I ask you how much are you praying for that person?

Finally, the implications for our identity continue to be fleshed out that because of our unity we are to…

   III. Live for our common unity in Christ (v. 19-22)

We see some more metaphors for the common unity in Christ that shapes how we see ourselves in the Church and live in the church.

A. As a citizen.

Ephesians 2:19 – So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints

Believers in Christ are citizens of Christ’s kingdom. No longer strangers and aliens.

With citizenship come amazing privileges [remember all those wonderful spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ!! Ephesians 1]

If you are a citizen of the kingdom, you view yourself and the church differently than if you are a foreign tourist.

Citizens care about the overall welfare of the kingdom.

• - Tourists or those traveling through don’t care what is happening at the local or top level in a kingdom.

Citizens sacrificially invest their resources, time, talents to build and work together for what is most important for the wellbeing of everyone in the kingdom.

Citizens take a long-term view and are concerned for the next generations after them.

Christ wants you and I if we are Christians to see yourself as a citizen of his kingdom. You care most about his interests, his goals, his objectives. And you are investing toward his plans and purposes through the church to make disciples of all nations.

Do you think like a Christian Citizen do you celebrate wins for the whole kingdom?

• - Kossuth Street had a kingdom mindset (planting a church)

• - Restoration Ministries

• Greg story of salvation

• Community Center Servants

• Reaching those…spiritual fruit of the housing upstairs

• How many Christians and churches are blessed to have that for students to spiritually grow and mature?

• How many in our community benefit through the preschool?

• Consider the bible studies, other Christian groups, churches that have used your generosity with the Lord’s resources at Faith West…

• Mention servants volunteering time, the risk liability to do something like that…

• How many churches, individuals, marriages, children etc.? Eternally impacted through that week after week.

• Number of churches (insert number).

• [90 MABC students]

• [Over 100 pastors trained in MDiv program]

The next description of our new identity in Christ…

B. As a family member.

Ephesians 2:19 – and are of God’s household

God wants us to view the church as a household/family.

This shapes the way we see each other and care for each other.

Please tell me if one of your children was gone for a couple weeks without telling you that you would notice. That you might be rightly concerned.

Or if you are a brother or sister and a few of your siblings were not at the dinner table that night with Mom and Dad that you would wonder where they are? What are they doing?

Why because they are family! You love them, you care about them. You do life together.

As a member of the body of Christ do believe that you have that kind of responsibility for the care and love for one another. To be devoted to one another in love, to carry one another’s burdens.

It’s not just the Pastor or Deacon who is a family member…but every member of this church and every member should seek to care for every member of the body as you would a family member.

• - I was so encouraged and blessed to see how this was done even over Easter as I talked with various folks at the Good Friday service and Sunday services who did not have family in the area and they had been invited by the body of Christ to enjoy celebrating Easter together in their homes with hospitality.

Viewing each other this way impacts the way we seek to speak to one another, show forbearance with one another and handle problems and sin when it needs to be addressed. When you know they are family and you are going to be living with them, you have to resolve problems, you have to work toward unity, you discuss priorities, otherwise the whole house is impacted because of the decisions and choices of just one member of the family.

• - So seek to speak/talk/respond to one another with the lens that if they are a believer in Christ, you are spending eternity with this person. And I like to think that because Jesus has a great sense of humor and because he loves you so much…he’s going to put your dwelling places right next to each other. So you will be spending eternity praising him for how powerful his grace was to help you be perfected in love.

• - I am thankful for our former Senior Pastor, Pastor Goode, preaching Matthew18 on first time preaching in the church…family’s learn to solve problems together to be unified and deal with sin.

Additionally, part of showing love in the family is also honoring members of the family in appropriate ways.

• - Celebrating our local church’s 60^th birthday

• - Honoring and thanking long-term members of this church for God’s gracious work in their life and their faithfulness through the years.

• - Encouraging one another in the growth that you are seeing in others in the family.

Finally consider who you are…

C. As God's dwelling place.

Ephesians 2:20–22 – having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

We are to see ourselves as the construction and building of a Holy Temple in the Lord…built together to be where the holy presence of God dwells among his people. Dwelling implies a permanent home, not a temporary stop.

Christians enjoy God’s permanent presence to bless them.

• - Notice he says you are being built together.

• - Each part/each member fits perfectly together.

• - No part is out of place.

• - No member is defective or can be disregarded as not important.

• - Each part is appropriate for the whole to be built up.

• - Why is it growing because new parts are being added?!

• Application to those who are newer believers and members of the church.

• Example of God’s fitting together perfectly men and women of different backgrounds in our history.

^[1] John F. MacArthur Jr., Ephesians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), 76.