Peace In Ephesians Series

Peace in Ephesians

Ephesians 2:1-10, pew Bible p 917

Good morning! Please open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2.

Introduction

How many of you were teenagers in the 80’s? Do you remember all the anxiety that was in the air, especially in the early 80’s?

• Tensions between the United States and Russia were at an all time high. Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The US boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980, The Soviets boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.

• In 1983, the television movie The Day After, which showed the aftermath of a global nuclear war, became the third most watched non sporting event in television history up to that point. Red Dawn was a huge hit at the box office.

• There were devastating natural disasters. In 1979, Hurricane Frederick, a Category 4 made landfall at Dauphin Island. In March, 1980, Mt St. Helens in Washington exploded. There was famine in Ethiopia.

• There were fears about the economy (Gas shortage). Fears about terrorism (Pan Am flight 103). Fears about swimming (Jaws)

• Radical Islam was on the rise, Amierican hostages were held in Iran for 444 days from 1979-1981.

• And Madonna’s first album came out.

With all of that, a Canadian named William Curtis from British Columbia began a quest to find the safest place in the world in which to retire. A place that would be far away from any military targets, with no history of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, blizzards, volcanoes, forest fires, great white sharks, terrorists, plagues of locusts, or MTV.

In 1981, after months of research trying to find the most peaceful place on earth, the Curtis’s sold their house and moved to an island 350 miles east of South America and 700 miles north of Antarctica, to the most remote point in the British Empire, the Falkland Islands The Falklands were home to 63 different species of penguin, hundreds of thousands of sheep, and 2,229 people.

Less than a year after the Curtis family moved there, the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina, and Great Britain declared war. Altogether, over a thousand people, and who knows how many sheep and penguins, perished in the war. The decisive battle was fought only a few miles from the Curtis’s farm.

The Curtis family couldn’t find peace, not even on a tiny island in the South Atlantic.

You know, ever since Luke 2, when Jesus was born and the angels proclaimed, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace,” we’ve been looking for that peace. But it has been hard to come by. According to a 2003 article in the New York Times, in 3400 years of recorded history, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them. And that’s only considering “active conflicts that have claimed more than 1000 lives” If the New York Times had drilled down to civil unrest, gang violence, and hate crimes, how many years of peace on earth would there be? If you considered family dysfunction, domestic violence, and divorce, how many years?

If you factored in depression and anxiety, then do you think there has ever been a time in recorded history that there has been complete peace on earth?

It sure doesn’t seem like it, does it? But believe it or not, when God told Isaiah that the Messiah would be the Prince of Peace, he meant it. When the angels sang “peace on earth,” it wasn’t just some idealized pipe dream, or some promise for some time far off in the future. Here is the big idea for this morning. Write this down:

Peace is possible in the present because of what was paid in the past.

As we read Ephesians 2, 11-21, I’d like you to take note that this passage about peace is in the past tense and the present tense, but not in the future tense. Pay attention to that as I read:

[Read passage]

11 Therefore remember that at one time [past] you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ [past], alienated from the commonwealth of Israel [past] and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now [present} in Christ Jesus you who once were far off [past] have been brought near [present] by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace [present], who has made us both one [present] and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [present] 15 by abolishing [present] the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might [past subjunctive] create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace [present], 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross [past subjunctive], thereby killing [past] the hostility. 17 And he came [past] and preached [past] peace to you who were far off [past] and peace to those who were near [past]. 18 For through him we both have [present] access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are [present] no longer strangers and aliens,[a] but you are [present] fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built [past] on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows [present] into a holy temple in the Lord.