Belonging Part II
Title: Outsiders to Insiders
Text: Ephesians 2:11-22
Thesis: When we come to faith in Christ we belong to the family of God… a caring faith community.
Series: Belonging, Believing and Becoming
Slide 2
I invite you to journey with us as people who value:
• Belonging to a caring faith community. Parts 1 and 2
• Believing the truth of God’s Word.
• Becoming more like Jesus Christ.
Two weeks ago the focus was on our being a people and a faith community that welcomes others... who lovingly open our arms to all-comers and give them a place to belong. This week the focus will be on what it means for us to belong in a caring faith community. We want to be a place where non-believers want to belong and this is why.
Introduction
George Burns rather cynically once quipped, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
A dictionary definition of family would be: a group of people who are related to each other or a person’s children or a group of related people including people who lived in the past.
Biblically, the human family began when God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” So the Lord caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and brought her to the man. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one.” Genesis 2:18-24
At the very onset of Scripture we read of God at work creating the world and all that is in it, including people. We read of the creation of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve and their union in Genesis 4, resulting in children, Cain and Abel.
So we have it… a family.
It was not only the first family; it was the first dysfunctional family. When Cain and Abel grew up Cain killed his brother, Abel, in a fit of jealousy. The bible says that afterward God showed up and asked Cain,
“Where is your brother? Where is Abel?” “I don’t know,” Cain responded, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:9
The rhetorical answer, “Yes! You are your brother’s keeper.” Inherent in the concept of family is the care for and protection of the members of the family. Belonging to a family means you belong to other people who love, care for and protect each other.
When I got the call that my brother Randy was dead it fell to me to see that my mother was told. It fell to me to call my brothers. I called my aunt Floris to notify the dad’s side of the family and asked my cousin Donna to notify my mother’s side of the family. Word travels fast in a small town so by phone and word of mouth the news got out.
And so it was we came together… my mother, my brothers and our families, aunts, uncles, cousins and Randy’s friends from the community. And then there were the prayers, the cards… people loving and caring for us. I have a wonderful stack of cards expressing loving care and concern and assurances of prayers for my family from you. That is what it means to be my brother’s keeper.
In her book Lock and Key Sarah Dessen asks, “What is family?” And then she answered her own question, “They are the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up and stayed there, regardless. It wasn’t just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger.”
So we understand family in a much larger context than blood relations… family is the people who show up and stay.
Just as physical family members can become estranged… either drifting apart or driving each other apart, we find ourselves estranged from God. We may have drifted away or rebelled and run away or just never really had any familial connection with God. So we are described in Scripture as being far away from God.
I. From far away people to brought near people, Ephesians 2:11-13
“Don’t forget you used to be outsiders. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” Ephesians 2:12-13
Don’t forget… don’t forget what you’ve overcome and what you have become.
: Don’t forget that you have not always been close to God.
A. People have a problem.
“Don’t forget you used to be outsiders. You lived in this world without God and without hope.” 2:11-13
We had a sin problem. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death… so what was God supposed to do to take care of our sin problem?
What is to be done?
B. God reversed our problem.
I learned to type on old Underwood and Royal typewriters. I also learned that no matter how hard I tried I inevitably made mistakes. It was not only a matter of how many words per minute I could type but how few mistakes I made. Correction Fluid became my new best friend. In 1951 Bette Nesmith Graham invented the first correction fluid in her kitchen in her blender. She called it Mistake Out which became Liquid Paper. I eventually owned a Sears Selectric typewriter that had a correcting ribbon that actually lifted the error from the paper… it literally removed the error.
So what was God to do? One commentator suggests three things:
1. Ignore it? Sweep our stuff under the rug?
2. Require penance? Make us do stuff to right our wrongs or make up for our wrongs?
3. Reverse our plight? Make the problem go away?
“In Christ God drew alongside, entered into the problem caused by evil, took responsibility for evil, and bore its pain and consequence in his own being. Christ came as the representative human being, standing for us all.” (Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary, P. 142)
Not only did God move us from being far away people to nearby people, God removed the barriers to peace between people and God and between people and people. So we moved again…
II. From hostility people to peace people, Ephesians 2:14-18
“Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.” Ephesians 2:16
We are all too familiar with the term hostility these days. Racial hostilities continue to boil over in the St. Louis, Missouri area. Hostility runs high between Hamas and Israel. Hostilities rage on between the Ukraine and Russia. Hostility hardly begins to define what the world feels for ISIL and ISIL for the world. I
read a Sanford research report that showed the Democrats and Republicans are increasingly hostile over political ideologies… more so than over religion or race. They found that marriage across party lines is extremely rare. It seems the likelihood of a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever is more likely than a marriage between a Republican and a Democrat. (Clifton B. Parker, Stanford Report, October 8, 2014)
In the last month there have been three hostile confrontations on airlines over headroom and leg room. As airlines constrict the space passengers become increasingly possessive of their own space. In one flight from Newark to Denver a Denver businessman put a Knee Defender on his tray table and went to work on his laptop. The woman in front of him threw a hissy and he eventually removed the Knee Defender only to have the woman slam her seat back into reclining position and throw a glass of Sprite on him.
Their hostility created a barrier to peace... neither party made nice and got all lovey that day.
Hostility is the word used to describe the relationship that historically existed between Jews and Gentiles long before Ephesians was written. Hostility is a powerful barrier preventing people from living in peace.
The wall of hostility refers to the Jewish Temple where 4 courts were divided by 4 walls. The outer most court was the Court of the Gentiles, the next was the Court of Women, the next the Court of Israelites and the innermost was the Court of the Priests. The outer court was as close to God as the Gentiles could get. If a Gentile were to enter any of the inner courts he would be tossed out.
In our own cultural history, think of a black man or woman sitting in the whites only section or kneeling to pray in the whites only section of a church. Think of Rosa Parks daring to sit in the front of the bus… the audacity of it all.
Christ has broken down those walls and we all may sit in the front of the bus. We all may draw near to God in the inner court, so to speak.
When we hear or read the words “reconciled” or “reconciliation” we know there is a problem. To reconcile means to restore to friendship or harmony or to settle or resolve differences. Our initial problem is with God. We do not have peace with God because there is a sin barrier between us… a barrier we have created.
It is important to understand that we are separated from God by our sin. God has not moved away from us. We have moved away from God. Once again there is nothing we can do to make what’s wrong right so the Scripture tells us, “For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself no longer counting people’s sins against them. For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sins, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” II Corinthians 5:18-21
So it is in Christ that God reconciles everyone, everywhere to himself. He removed the barrier through Christ’s substitutionary and sacrificial death for us. He did not just reconcile Jewish people. He did not just reconcile Gentile people. He reconciled Jews and Gentiles to himself.
Romans 5 states, “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us… Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege.” Romans 5:1-2
So God’s initial action was to reconcile us to him.
A. People reconciled to God – Vertically God and us.
“He reconciled both groups to God…”
And God’s second action accomplished the reconciliation of people to people. Despite whatever differences existed, now God sees us as one people.
B. People reconciled to each other – Horizontally us to each other.
“…and our hostility toward each other was put to death.”
The passage infers that Jewish people enjoyed privilege as the proud people of God while the Gentiles were regarded as uncircumcised heathens. Even as Jewish followers of Christ and Gentile followers of Christ began to belong to the Christian community the tensions persisted. But it is not God’s intent to have a nice little community of Jewish Christians over here and a nice little community of Gentile Christians over there.
So now, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ. And now that you belong to Christ, you are true children of Abraham so God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” Galatians 3:28-29
“In this new life it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.” Colossians 3:11
In this new life every political, racial, socio-economic, academic, societal barrier is removed.
So early on in our text we see that God has taken care of the distance problem… we may have been far away but in Christ we are brought near to God. Second we see that distance is not the only issue. Hostility is an issue. The barrier of sin between us and God is removed and the barrier of differences between people are removed so we may be seen and see ourselves as one people.
And now we need to take the next step in understanding we are now defined as or identified as Children of God and as such members of the family of God.
III. From stranger people to members of God’s family people, Ephesians 2:19-22
“So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners… you are members of God’s family.” Ephesians 2:19
Several years ago Bonnie and I flew to Chicago to welcome Samson and Benji to our family. Alby and his sister had flown to Liberia to bring them home. The orphanage sent 8 other children along with them who were being adopted by families on the east coast. Quite the flight… 10 little Liberian orphans flying over the Atlantic… Alby said that about half way over he was looking for a door to jump out of the plane. But there in O’Hare we gathered to get a glimpse of those two little guys… total strangers who were now members of our family.
Three powerful verses speak to this new familial relationship to God and each other.
A. Born again as children of God
In John 1 we learn that just as there is physical birth there is also a spiritual birth called the new birth. “They are reborn not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. In the new birth we are reborn as children of God.
“To all who believed in him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”John 1:12
B. Adopted children of God
In Romans we read, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit has joined out spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.” Romans 8:14-16
C. Loved Children of God
And to me the capstone, “See how much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and we really are!” I John 3:1
Conclusion
Before we became Christians we were far away from God... now near.
Before we became Christians we were hostile toward God and others… now peace.
Before we became Christians we were strangers… now family.
Belonging means we belong to the family of God. When we are children of God we are members of the family of God. Belonging means we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Belonging means God is our Father. Belonging means we no longer see each other from a human point of view.
“Christ died for everyone so that those who receive this hew life no longer live for themselves. Instead they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
“So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.” ( II Corinthians 5:15-17) How differently we see each other now!
As God’s children we belong to the family of God and we see each other in the light and life of Christ. We do not focus on our differences. We focus on that which unites us as one in Christ.
I cannot think of what it means to belong to the family of God without thinking of God’s conversation with Cain, “Cain, where is your brother?” To which Cain replied, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And then that powerful rhetorical answer, “Yes you are!”
Belonging to the family of God means we are each responsible for the other’s well-being. To belong to the family of God means we care for and lovingly watch-over each other.
