Title: Reconciliation: From Outsiders to Insiders
Text: Ephesians 2:11-22
Thesis: God is in the business of reconciling people to people and people to himself.
Introduction
It is not as though we are uninformed and unaware of the evil in our world. It is kind of like the Whack-a-Mole Game… evil pops up here and there. We are not surprised when evil shows its ugly mug. When it pops up we take a little hammer and try to smack it down with a call for people to be nice, reminders of acceptable social behavior, laws and if need be, law enforcement and consequences for unacceptable behavior. Sometimes we will even go to war in the face of evil. The game is marathon in nature and we never seem to get rid of the little imps. Then in the middle of our little Whack-a-Mole Game one of the little moles pops out of his hole and smacks us on the head with his own hammer. And we are reminded that there are some really bad people doing some really bad things in the world. Generally evil elicits little more than a yawn but sometimes we see it for what it really is and we gasp in shock.
While God is always good… people are not! Our text today details the difference between the people of God and those who are not.
Our text speaks of those who are far from God as outsiders. It is not God’s desire for anyone to be consciously or unconsciously outside of God’s transforming grace but, they are, as we once were.
I. The making of outsiders
Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders… Ephesians 2:11-12
Ephesians 2 contains two before and after or as the NIV Application Commentary puts it, “formerly – now contrasts” that describe how the people in the church at Ephesus were before they came to Christ and then after they became followers of Christ.
The first is found in Ephesians 2:1-3 deals with sin and disobedience to God:
Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil – the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. But God…
The second begins with our text today, Ephesians 2:11-13, deals with deprivation resulting from division and alienation:
Therefore remember or don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision (and no better off). In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promise God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus…
The context suggests distance and disadvantage. They were:
• Outsiders, V. 11, i.e., they were marginalized
• Called “uncircumcised heathens,” V. 12
• Apart or separated from Christ, V. 12, i.e., they had no savior or messianic hope
• Aliens or excluded from citizenship, V. 12,l i.e., they had not claim to Israel’s status as the people of God
• Without / No hope, V. 12, i.e., no hope of escaping the human plight. Ref. “We do not want you to grieve as those who have no hope.” *I Thessalonians 4:13
• Without God, V. 12, i.e., this does not mean they were forsaken by God but were ignorant of God and lived contrary to God’s will
Verses 11 and 12 are designed to emphasize just how spiritually pathetic and pitiable people are before they become followers of Christ.
God is not asking us to do anything other than simply remember when we were not Christians and what we were without Christ.
In verses 1 – 2 God asks that we remember what we did or how we lived before we became Christians. When we think of our “pre-Christ” days we think about our sinfulness and disobedience to God. But in verses 11 – 12 we are not being asked to remember how sinful we were, we are being asked to remember our spiritual status or position.
When we are asked to think of our “pre-Christ” days in terms of our sinfulness, some of us look back with considerable regret. Some of us know something of the depths to which we can sink. But others of us look back knowing we were and are sinners, theologically speaking, but we aren’t all that bad in comparison to what we know other people have done. Sure, we may have been less than truthful or entertained an impure thought on occasion or gossiped a bit or felt a tad self-righteous and judgmental but our sins pale in comparison to the sins of others. Today we may readily compare ourselves to James Holmes. So we may be incapable of understanding the depths of spiritual deadness caused by sin and disobedience.
So verses 11 – 12 speak to spiritual status or state or position. If remembering your sins does not ring your bell, then remember your spiritual status or state.
If your actions do not give you pause to think about who and what you are then maybe where you came from will. Some people spend their entire lives trying to distance themselves from where they came from: the country, the wrong side of the tracks, poverty, ignorance, the mills or mines, a family name or reputation or whatever. I recently listened to an interview in which a woman confessed to working tirelessly to be rid of a regional accent and grammatical usage that she associated with being ignorance. It’s the way we think when we grow up poor and we are determined that poverty will not be our new identity.
It does not matter if you were a good person or a bad person in your “pre-Christ” days. What does matter is that you were a spiritual outsider and that Christ came to make you a spiritual insider… once you had no spiritual rights or privileges but now you do.
So how is it that there is such a person as an outsider? What we see and hear every day bears witness to the fact that the insanity and inhumanity of evil wreaks havoc 24/7 around the world. Little girls get snatched while on a bike ride. Officers get shot at community events. People drive drunk. Drugs get sold and used. Innocents are victims of war. Despots will go to murderous extremes to remain in power. Financial wizards are without conscience in their quest for personal gain. Spouses abuse spouses. Children get neglected. And an angry, deranged young man meticulously carries out his plan to shoot up a movie theater filled with people who just wanted to see a Superman flick.
Ultimately the making of outsiders rests in the hands of the ruler of the powers of evil. “You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil – the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.” Ephesians 2:2
Outsiders are generally unwittingly on Team Satan. And what we see and hear about are merely examples of the depths of deprivation to which anyone who refuses to turn to Christ and live into a Christ like life can fall.
But for the grace of God any one can be a James Holmes. Any one can attach a 100 round ammunition drum magazine to an AR-15 assault rifle and go on a shooting rampage. That’s what kind of evil lurks in the heart of a person under the influence of the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.
Twice in Ephesians 2 God says, “Don’t forget…”
The good news is… we don’t have to be under that kind of influence and control. We can become new people in Christ.
II. The making of a new people
Christ himself brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. Ephesians 2:13-18
The movement between 2:11-12 to 13ff brings people who were once distant from God, near to God. When we, who were distanced from God because we were dead in trespasses and sin and spiritual outsiders, become followers of Christ or are united with Christ the distance gap is suddenly narrowed and we are proximate or near to God. V. 13
However the making of a new people is not just about bringing people who were estranged from God into a loving relationship with God… the making of a new people is about bringing estranged people together in loving relationships with each other. That is what Paul speaks of in Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11: “For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus… you have been united with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female, circumcised or uncircumcised, civilized or barbarian. For you are all one in Christ.”
Verses 14 – 18 expand on and tell us what the work of Christ on the cross accomplished for us… and one of those good things is the destruction of the walls of hostility that exist for whatever reasons between people.
• Jesus broke down, i.e., destroyed the wall of hostility, V. 14, i.e., the most often cited is the racial and religious tension between Jews and the heathen Gentiles.
If you find yourself walled in or out by racial or ethnic prejudices, are gender biased, are socially conscious, are religiously sanctimonious or otherwise inclined to look down your nose at others – you are not living into the unity in diversity that Christ makes possible for all people.
• Jesus abolished the law, V. 15, i.e., the standard of law-keeping as a way to God as if perfectly keeping the law was possible. Cite Ephesians 2:8-9. “For you were saved by God’s grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done… so no one can boast about it.”
• Jesus made peace by making one new people, V. 15, i.e., interestingly God in Christ deals with reconciliation on the horizontal plane bringing people together as one people.
I found the thought of horizontal reconciliation between people as taking place before experiencing vertical reconciliation with God interesting. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us, “If you are presenting your sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and e reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” Matthew 5:23-24 Similarly in Matthew 18 Jesus taught that forgiveness between people is requisite if we are to experience the forgiveness of God… in other words, if a person has truly received the forgiving grace of God he or she is compelled to offer that same forgiving grace to others. Reconciliation between people is big in God’s heart and mind.
• Jesus reconciled both groups to God, V. 16, i.e., then God deals with reconciliation on the vertical plane bringing God and man together through Christ.
Christ not only breaks down barriers between people, Christ breaks down and removes the things that keep us from God. When we are sincere followers of Christ we will neither entertain thoughts or deliberately do things to harm others nor will we think, say or do anything that is in disobedience to God.
Once again, we are not being asked to do anything. God is simply asking us to remember what Christ has done… as Christians there is to be no hostility between Christians and in Christ we are now in good with God.
If we who were once far from God can be brought near to God… the question is, just how near?
III. The making of a new home for the Holy Spirit
Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22
As we have moved through the text we began with distance from God to being brought near to God and now to becoming the dwelling place of God. The plight of alienation is replaced by the privilege of life with God.
The contrast really hits home here… before they were outcasts, called “uncircumcised heathens,” separated from Christ, aliens and foreigners without the rights of citizenship, without hope and without God. Now they/we are likened to:
• One family, i.e., look around at your brothers and sisters in Christ.
• One House, i.e., living in the same house…
• One Temple, i.e., worshiping at the same temple
• One Dwelling place, i.e., indwelt by the same Spirit of God
So it would seem that God’s work of reconciliation is both a destructive act and a constructive act. Barriers are broken down but new relationships are forged between people and God and this new unity results in the construction of a dwelling place for God.
Conclusion
Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world… God is in the business of breaking down the walls of evil that divide and hurt people. God is in the business of reconciling people with people and people to himself.
• Right now you may be distracted by and perplexed by the utterly evil things people can do to other people.
• Right now you may be distracted by your views on the Second Amendment. You may be thinking, “Oh no… now someone will want to enact greater gun control and take away my constitutional right to own an AR-15.” You may even be thinking, “If only everyone in that theater were packing someone could have stopped the mayhem.” Or you may be thinking, “Oh boy, this is our chance to reel in the power of the NRA.”
• Right now you may be distracted by the realization that you and the people you love are not safe from the powers of evil anywhere and if you thought TSA was a nuisance at DIA… learn to live with it because it’s coming to a theater near you.
• Right now you may be distracted by the age old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
• Right now you may be distracted by the need to defend God against those who ask, “How could a loving God allow such a horrible thing to happen?”
• Right now you may be thinking there is no punishment great enough for a person like James Holmes?
• Right now you may be thinking and praying that the God of all comfort will guard the hearts and minds of those who have been so ravaged and that the all-sufficient grace of a loving God will be evident in their suffering.
But I want you to think about this from a perspective of what we were without Christ and who we are in Christ and in addition to feeling the pain and loss of those most affected by this evil… consider this story of grace and reconciliation:
The scene is a courtroom trial in South Africa. A frail black woman stands slowly to her feet. She is over seventy years old. Facing her from across the room are several white security police officers. One of them, Mr. van der Broek, has just been tried and found guilty in the murders of the woman's son and then her husband. He had come to the woman's home, taken her son, shot him at point-blank and then burned the young man's body while he and his officers partied nearby.
Several years later Mr. van der Broek and his cohorts returned to take away her husband as well. For months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then, almost two years after her husband's disappearance, Mr. van der Broek came back to fetch her. How vividly she remembered that night. She was taken to a river bank where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as Mr. van der Broek and his fellow officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, "Father, forgive them. . ."
Now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions of Mr. van der Broek. A member of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, "So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?" "I want three things," begins the old woman calmly, but confidently. "I want first to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial."
She pauses, then continues. "My husband and son were my only family. I want, secondly, therefore, for Mr. van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me." "And finally," she says, "I would like Mr. van der Broek to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. van der Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven."
As the court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr. van der Broek faints, overwhelmed by what he has just heard. And as he struggles for consciousness, those in the courtroom, family, friends, neighbors — all victims of decades of oppression and injustice — begin to sing, softly but assuredly, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."
It may be hard to believe, but this is what God has done for us through Jesus.
He has reconciled us to each other and us together to Himself.
We were his enemies by nature and choice. But because of Jesus, He invites us to Himself in full forgiveness and reconciliation. And He makes for Himself a new people.
