Joined by the Cross
Text: Ephesians 2:11-18
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Not too long ago there was a book that came out and it quickly shot up to the number one position on the NY Times best-seller list. It was one of those so-called “spiritual” books. The man who wrote it wasn’t a pastor, he wasn’t an evangelist, he wasn’t a theologian, or a seminary professor. He was just a “regular” guy who wrote a book hoping that it would give some clarity about the Trinity to his children. The name of the book was The Shack. I actually read this book because someone asked me to do so and tell them what I thought about it. I’m not sure if you’ve read it, I hope that you didn’t. Because what’s in that book is pure heresy. God is portrayed as an African-American woman, who reminded me of Ophra Winfrey. Jesus was a Middle-Eastern man, and the Holy Spirit was an Asian woman. (Those portrayals in and of themselves are nowhere near as bad as what the book actually teaches and implies) And I think that Christians who know their Bible’s weren’t sucked into the false teachings and heresies of this book, but it still made the NY Times best-seller list and sold thousands of copies. It’s not the first book of its kind to do that. There have been plenty of others that were just as heretical that have also been best sellers..
What this tells me is that there is a spiritual hunger in our nation. But the spiritual hunger is not directed towards the traditional forms of religion. Spirituality is in, but religion is out. I have heard it said that a new religion is started every week in the United States. People seem to have the mind set that says, “If I can’t find a religion that agrees with me, then I’ll just start my own.” And what we see today is that people want a worship service that makes them feel good about themselves and the way they live their lives. People want sermons that are emotional, but the truth doesn’t really matter so much. This is not Christianity, its humanism. It’s man making himself out to be God.
Our text this morning butts heads with this kind of thinking. In my opinion, our text this morning is one of the greatest passages in the Bible when it comes to dealing with the Church. But often times we don’t take the time to read what it says, instead we just breeze over it. But mature Christians should desire the “meat” of the word, and not just the “milk.”
Now this passage begins with the word, “therefore,” and what that tells us is that Paul is not offering random thoughts. No; he’s laid out his writing to the Christians in Ephesus in a careful and thought out manner. And since he just talked about how salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, he’s now going to focus on Christ alone. He’s moving from justification to Christian maturity. From justification to joining.
Paul wants his readers to remember what they were before they came to faith in Christ. He wants them to think about the great change which has taken place in their lives, in their thoughts, and in their behaviors. And he wants them to remember that they were excluded from the covenant with God. That’s why he brings up their being uncircumcised. To the ancient Jewish people, circumcision was a sign of being in the covenant with God. And to be quite honest with you, the Jews saw themselves as superior to other races because of it. There was an old Jewish saying that said, “God created the Gentiles so that there would be fuel for the fires of hell.” It was so bad that a Jewish person would not help a Gentile woman who went into labor because if they did it would only bring another “cursed” Gentile into the world.
Now the Gentiles weren’t any nicer to the Jewish people. The Greeks believed that all forms of civilization had sprung from their culture and everyone else was uncivilized at best and complete savages at worst. To the Greeks, to speak any language other than Greek was “bar-bar.” A nonsense language that was similar to a child. That’s where we get the word barbarian. And so there was no association between Jews and Gentiles, and even the Gentiles who believed in God, who had converted to Judaism, were still viewed as outsiders, and were seen to be outside of God’s covenant.
But more importantly than being alienated from the Jews, the Gentiles were also alienated from God. The Bible tells us that before a person comes to Christ, they are an enemy of God. The Greeks were concerned with appeasing their gods, And to the Greeks, Zeus could was fickle. He might help them one day, but the next day he might be on the side of the Persians, or the Egyptians, or the Macedonians, or whoever he wanted. In-other-words; they did not possess the great promise given throughout Scripture where God says, “I will be your God and you will be My people.” So they had no notion, no idea, of what a covenant was all about, especially a covenant with God.
Now there’s no doubt that the Gentiles were spiritual. The Greeks had many beings they worshiped as gods. The city of Ephesus had the greatest temple of the ancient world – the Temple of Diana, but the Greeks did not know the true God.
When I think about this, I can’t help but see the similarities today. We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; we spend more, but we have less; we buy more, but are unable to enjoy it; we have bigger houses and smaller families; we have more conveniences but less time; we have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems. We have multiplied our possessions, but we’ve reduced our values. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not how to live a life.
The movie Braveheart is one of my all time favorites; and there is a line in that film, where Mel Gibson as the Scottish hero William Wallace says, “Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.”
So why do we have all these problems? I think that it stems from mans alienation from God, and the answer is to be reconciled to Him. Look at what Paul says in vs. 13 (read).
“But now…” the alienation that used to be there is gone. How? “In Christ Jesus… you’ve been brought near by the blood of Christ.” And verse 14 says, “For He Himself is our peace…”
Jesus doesn’t bring peace, He IS our peace.
But Paul isn’t necessarily talking about Jesus giving us a warm, fuzzy feeling of serenity and calm. He’s talking about peace between two enemies. Romans 5:10 and Colossians 1:21 both say that before we were brought to faith, we were enemies of God. We were hostile towards Him. That’s why Paul says in verse 16 that Jesus has reconciled us to God through the Cross, and put a death to enmity. Jesus did this so that we could be reconciled to God, made right with Him, and also so that we would be joined together as one body. We are joined together with Christ, but also joined together with other believers. I’ve worshiped with Christians from just about every racial background you could think of. And I could do that because regardless of ethnicity, we were all citizens of heaven.
There’s been a lot of confusion about this message of peace. We read the Christmas story, where the angels appeared to the shepherds and said, “Peace on earth, good will towards men.” And we say to ourselves, “Wait a minute! There is no peace on earth. There are wars and rumors of wars all over the earth.” But again Jesus brought has made peace between God and man. He has reconciled us to God.
You notice that Jesus doesn’t reconcile God to us… no He reconciles us to God. In other words, man is the offending party. Man is the one who has done wrong, man is the one who has offended God, not the other way around.
So what does this peace with God, and this being joined to Christ and to one another through the Cross do for us today?
Well, verse 18 says, “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”
In ancient times a person could not just walk in to the court of a king. He or she had to be granted access, and the idea here is that Jesus is the One who vouches for us so that we are allowed to meet the King and the Holy Spirit is the One who takes us to meet Him. This is similar to what Jesus said when He referred to Himself as the “door.”
In 1st Corinthians 12:13 the Bible says, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one Body – whether Jew or Greek, slave or free – and we were all given the One Spirit to drink.” The Bible speaks of one common faith among believers and one baptism. This is what it is referring to. Not to long ago my daughters were baptized in water. What that was – was an outward profession of what had already taken place in their hearts. Being baptized into water is not the being baptized in Christ. You should already be baptized into Christ before you profess it through water baptism.
Now there’s one other point I want to make before I close: Today it seems like when we focus on Christianity, we are only looking at ourselves and our relationship with the Lord. We often think of it as a private thing; a thing between us and God. But Scripture goes beyond that. The Christian life must be lived out openly. We are all one Body and members of that body. Some of us have different roles, some of us have different callings, but the Bible teaches that if one part of the Body is suffering, then the entire Body is suffering.
Our text this morning describes the life of one who is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, but as a person who is not alone. Some pastors call this Christ Centered Relationships. I call it being members of the same Body. Now I’m not saying that we as Christians should be sticking our noses into our brothers and sisters business. I’m saying that we should mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice and that we should bear one another’s burdens as best we can. You see this is important because, God doesn’t inhabit a building… He inhabits a “Body,” a body of believers who have been joined by the Cross.
INVITAITON AND PRAYER
