1. Introduction (2:11-13)
a. You were once without Christ (11-12)
i. You were aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel
ii. You were strangers from the covenants of
promise
iii. You had no hope and were without God in the
world
b. You are now in Christ (13)
i. You have been brought near by the blood of
Christ
2. The blood of Christ reconciles us to one another
(2:14-15)
a. The blood of Christ breaks down barriers
i. The blood of Christ broke down the middle
wall of separation
b. The blood of Christ abolishes enmity
i. The blood of Christ abolished the enmity
(the law of commandments contained in
ordinances
c. The blood of Christ makes peace
i. The blood of Christ creates one new man
from the two, thus making peace
3. The blood of Christ reconciles us to God (2:16-18)
a. The blood of Christ reconciled them to God in
one body thereby putting to death the enmity
between the two (16)
b. The words of Christ preached peace between the
two because the blood of Christ gives both
groups access by one Spirit to the Father (17-18)
EPHESIANS 2:11-18
A story is told of an old pioneer settler in the Old West. He had a beautiful ranch and he and his family were very happy. All the people who had settled land around him were good, friendly people. They never had any trouble with their neighbors because they were all friends and got along wonderfully. One day, the old settler was sitting on his porch when a wagon pulled up. It turns out the man in the wagon was from back east and was looking for a stake to claim. So he asked the settler, “What kind of neighbors do you have?” He was kind of surprised when the old man answered his question with a question of his own. He asked, “Well, what kind of neighbors did you have back East?” The easterner told him, “They were cranky, unfriendly, and cantankerous.” The settler looked back up at him and said, “I’m afraid that’s the same kind you’ll find here.” So the man left to stake his claim somewhere else. A few days later, another wagon pulled up asking the same question. The settler answered with his same question. This time, the travelers answered that their neighbors were the most kind and loving neighbors in the world. The settler told them, “You’ll find the same kind of neighbors here.” Why did he give the two travelers two completely different answers? Because the settler was a wise man. He knew that unity with others usually starts with ourselves. When our heart is right, it’s a whole lot easier to be right with others. If these settlers fought and argued with their neighbors back East, they would probably do the same thing out West. But if their neighbors were loving and kind, it probably meant they were treated with loving kindness. Unity is a choice. It’s a choice, but it’s not something we can do on our own. If we try to do it on our own, we’ll end up looking at how much more we’ve done to unify than anybody else. Then our attempts at unity just turn into pride. The fact is, there is only one real kind of unity. And that’s the kind that’s only provided by the blood of Jesus Christ. In this passage, Paul starts by reminding the Ephesian Christians who they were before they met Christ. Look at verses 11-12:
EPHESIANS 2:11-12
When they were without Christ, they had no hope of unity. Because they were Gentiles, they were excluded from the nation of Israel. And because they were uncircumcised, they had no hope of even tagging along as a proselyte. They were strangers to God’s covenants He made with Israel. They didn’t have any hope of salvation, much less unity. They were without God. That’s who they were—helpless, hopeless, lost. But then look what happened. Look at verse 13:
EPHESIANS 2:13
Now they are in Jesus. They’re saved. They’re washed in His blood. And look how Paul puts it: he says that they have been brought nigh. They were once far off, but now they’re near. Now they are no longer strangers. They’re no longer excluded. They’re now unified with each other and with God. My prayer this morning is that each of us will be unified by the blood of Jesus Christ. In order to do that, we’re going to look at the two kinds of unity we have in Jesus Christ. The first kind of unity we have in Christ is with each other. Look at verses 14-15:
EPHESIANS 2:14-15
Unity with each other. Ever since the tower of Babel back in Genesis 11, people have been looking for unity with each other. Isn’t it funny how we can’t even get along with our neighbors, but we seem to think we can unite the world? Until I can walk up to someone’s house without getting dog-bit or a gun pointed at me, I don’t think the UN has much of a chance. That’s because people are trying to unify around the wrong things. They’re trying to unify around programs, projects, buildings, social clubs, treaties or contracts. I even remember back in the ‘80’s when a bunch of musicians tried to unify the world around a song. You remember—We Are the World…We Are the Children. Even before that, John Lennon sang that the world could live as one. All we had to do was, “imagine no religion…it easy if you try. No Hell below us, above us only sky.” The whole world wants unity. They just don’t have a clue how to get it. The Bible tells us that the only way people can have unity is through the blood of Jesus Christ. If there were two groups that hated each other more than Jews and Gentiles, I don’t know about them. It wasn’t like they just disagreed on musical styles in worship or something simple like that. They were ethnically different. They were racially different. They ate different foods. They came from different cultures. They valued different things. They were offended by different things. They were as different as two groups of people could possibly be. A friend of mine who is a youth pastor told me about his Wednesday night study a couple of weeks ago. He had his normal group of clean-cut Baptist kids there that night. A few minutes into the study, his pastor rounded up a group of skaters from the parking lot and herded them into the youth room. So here was the youth room—half clean-cut Baptist kids, half punked-out convict looking kids who had no real interest in being there except for the food. But even those two groups weren’t as different as the Jews and the Gentiles. That all changed because of Christ. His blood breaks down barriers. Paul said it broke down the middle wall of partition. That was a reference to the Jewish temple. In the last temple that Herod built that existed until AD 70, there were a series of courts. The innermost court was called the Court of Priests, where all the male members of the priestly tribe of Levi could enter. Out from that was the Court of Israel. It was for all the male Jews. Next out was the Court of Women. That was as far as the Jewish women could go. All of those courts were on the same level. So, even though they were segregated, there was some sense of equality. But then came the next court—the court of the Gentiles. To get from the court of the Gentiles to the Court of Women, you had to walk up a flight of 14 steps. At the top of the steps was a 5-foot high wall. Every few feet along the wall was a sign that said, “No foreigner is to enter…. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death which follows.” Not exactly a warm welcome. That was the partition that Paul referred to. It was still physically standing when Paul wrote this. But all that it represented had been broken down by Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ breaks down the wall that separates people. Verse 15 tells us He breaks down that wall by abolishing enmity and making peace.
Enmity is hostility—a deep burning hatred. Do you ever wonder why people can be so hostile to each other? Do you ever want to ask with Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?” You remember Rodney King, don’t you? Do you remember the LA riots back in 1992? They were started because the police were video taped beating Rodney King as he resisted arrest. Those riots that followed were a tangible display of enmity. I remember interviews on TV asking people if they knew why they were rioting. They didn’t have a clue. They were just full of enmity. Enmity against the law. Enmity against society. Enmity against order. Enmity against each other. How can people be so full of hatred? Paul tells us in Romans 8:6-7: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” That is man’s natural state. You could say that it’s natural for man to hate—to hate God and hate other people. But the blood of Christ reconciles us to one another by abolishing enmity and making peace. Jews and Gentiles focused their enmity on the things the Jews said they had that the Gentiles couldn’t do. Those things that verse 15 calls “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” Those are the parts of the Old Testament law that pertained to the Jews only. The laws that dealt with their government. The laws that separated them from the pagans in Canaan. The laws that dealt with feasts and sacrifices and temple worship. Those laws were abolished by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Jewish governmental laws were abolished when they rejected Jesus as their king. Sabbath and feast laws weren’t done away with. They were fulfilled in the finished work of Christ. According to Hebrews, we find our Sabbath rest in Christ, not in a particular day of the week. He is our Passover. He is our Atonement—our Yom Kippur. Jesus said that He did not come to do away with the Law, but He came to fulfill it. All the moral law still applies. The moral law is not divisive. When we love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves—it unites. Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law and the law that separated Jews from Gentiles. He abolished the enmity—the divisive laws. And by abolishing the enmity, He created peace. He creates one man from the two. When saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. They become one in this new thing God created—the church. Now, I want you to think about that for a minute. God took two groups as diametrically opposed to each other as Jews and Gentiles. He took them, and when He saved them, He unified them. Unified them to the point where He called the two of them one man. He broke down the barriers that separated them. He abolished the hatred and enmity between them. And He brought them peace by making them one in the church. There is not anybody in here who is as different from one another as the Jews and Gentiles were. We all speak the same language. We all come from the same culture. We all live in the same area. Jesus doesn’t have nearly as much to overcome in our lives as He did with theirs. Or does He? You see, we have the same pride issues as the people Paul was writing to. That’s why he started by reminding them where they came from. Like those people, we are all in the same boat. We’re all just sinners saved by grace. I’m not any better than any of you. And you’re not any better than anybody else here. We were all dead in our trespasses and sins until Jesus brought us to new life in Him. That puts us all on level ground. I’ve heard it said that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. It’s also level on the floor of His church. Because it’s all about Him. It’s not about us. He breaks down the barriers. He abolishes enmity. He makes peace by making us one. By unifying us. But He doesn’t unify us so we can just hold hands and sing Kum-By-Ya. He unifies us so we can be unified with God. The second kind of unity we have in Christ is with God. Look at verses 16-18:
EPHESIANS 2:16-18
Unity with God. God doesn’t reconcile us to each other so we can have great fellowship dinners. He doesn’t unify us together so we can have a really friendly church. He doesn’t unify us so we can have lots of people and make the state paper. He unifies us to bring glory to God. That’s what church is. It is a group of people saved by the grace of God. A group of people who are made one through the blood of Jesus Christ. A group of people whose natural hatred for each other has been put to death. Look at each one of those things. A church is a group of people who are saved by the grace of God. Remember back to verses 8-9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” No one here did anything to earn their salvation. If you did, you would have a right to brag. Or a right to hold yourself in higher esteem than someone else. But you didn’t. The same blood that covered your sins covered mine. He’s the One who can boast—not me, not you. Because He graciously applied that blood to our lives, it kills any excuse we can come up with to have enmity with each other. Any reason we can find to be hurt or bitter or angry with each other is covered with Jesus’ blood. If it’s not sufficient to cover those things, it’s certainly not sufficient to cover my sin. But Paul says in verse 16 that we are reconciled—unified—in one body by the cross. Because by the cross, the enmity between us was slain. When we are saved and baptized as a picture of that salvation, we are buried with Christ. When that happens, certain things need to stay in the grave. Our pride. Our self-centeredness. Our need to get our own way. As Paul puts it, our enmity. Then we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life. When that happens, we can’t get our shovel to dig up the old things that we buried. They should be slain. They need to stay in the grave. I say they need to stay in the grave, because that is the challenge, isn’t it? There is certainly a difference between knowing the right thing and doing the right thing. That’s why Paul told us in verse 18 that our unity with God is accessed through one Spirit. We’re back to where we started. Everybody understands the need for unity. It’s something that we all desire. Even people outside the church want unity. But unity isn’t something we get by ourselves. It’s not something that we can program into the church. It’s not something we can create with better organization or activities. It’s something that we get when we seek the Father through the Spirit by the blood of Jesus Christ. First, true unity can only come when we are saved. That should be a given, but unfortunately it’s not. You can only experience true unity in the church if you are truly a part of the church. That doesn’t mean that your name is on the role. That means that you have repented of your sins and trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you’re still trusting in yourself, you’re not trusting in Him. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ—not your abilities, your strength, your ways. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Second, true unity can only come when we take our focus off ourselves and place it on Jesus. That can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit. The job of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin and righteousness. He has shown us that divisiveness and enmity is sin in God’s eyes. And He has shown us the righteousness of reconciliation in Christ. The blood of Christ unifies us with one another by breaking down barriers. By abolishing enmity. And by making peace. The blood of Christ unifies us with God by placing us in one body. By burying our enmity with our old nature. And by giving us access to God by the Holy Spirit.
If I gave you a survey this morning, and I asked you to rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how unified your church was; how would you rate it? Now, why would you rate it that way? Would you rate it that way because Jesus’ blood isn’t sufficient to unite us? I should hope not. Or would you rate it that way because His blood hasn’t been applied? This church is made up of individuals. The blood can’t be applied to the church as a whole without first being applied to each of us individually. So what about you? Has the blood of Jesus Christ been applied to your life? Has it broken down barriers between you and your brothers and sisters? Has it gotten rid of the enmity in your life? Has it brought peace? The blood of Jesus Christ has supplied everything needed for us to be unified in one body. This morning if you rated the church at anything less than a 10, the only thing lacking is your application. Apply his blood today. If you have applied His blood in faith believing, then submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Access your unity with God through Him and unity will come.
