Jonathan Newlon
Uniontown Church of Christ
1 May 2020
Ephesians 2:11-22 Remember What You Were
Introduction
Memory can be a funny thing. I can’t tell you how many times I try to recall an event to someone only to be seemingly corrected by someone else who was there. They remember the event much differently than I do. After that, the two of us end up arguing about what really happened and what the details of the event were. We may agree on the main point of it, but in our own minds, we remember the details very differently. Memory is so interesting. What we choose to remember verses what we forget can tell a lot about a person. With that in mind, let’s read Ephesians 2:11-22 together and see what Paul encourages the Church of Ephesus to remember.
As Christians, sometimes we tend to be very forgetful of our own past. It may be because remembering what we were before becoming a Christian can be a painful thing. It can be a scary thing. However, it is important that we do not forget what we were before being saved by Christ. When we forget what we were, it’s easy to look down on someone else who may be now where we once were. It’s easy to think of ourselves as being better than someone who hasn’t been saved by the Lord yet. It’s easy to think of ourselves as better than a new Christian or someone who isn’t as “spiritually mature” in our eyes.
The issue here is pride. Pride can be a very dangerous thing. Pride can lead to things like false testimony, lying, stealing, self-glorification, and a whole list of other sins. When we fall victim to our own pride, we tend to glorify ourselves rather than God. Remember what the writer of Proverbs 16:18 said, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” What I want us to do today, is to take a look at some great men of faith throughout the Bible. I want us to look at not only what they became, but most importantly to our context this morning, what they were before they became great.
I. Moses
Let’s start off our journey of looking at faithful men who came from iffy places with Moses. Let’s start off by examining what Moses became. Moses, without doubt, became a great man of faith in the Lord. This is a man who talked often with God, himself. This wasn’t just in prayer, but actual two-sided conversation with the Lord God Almighty. He became the leader of the nation of Israel who performed miracles of God in front of the most powerful world leader of his time. He would go in front of the Pharaoh of Egypt and perform mighty miracles from God and secure the release of his nation from slavery.
God would give Moses the law by which God’s people were to abide. This started with the ten commandments and then would develop into the entire book of Leviticus. This is the law that would teach us what sin was. This is the law that would give us a temporary system of atonement for sin. This is the law that would look forward to a Messiah. This is the law that would be fulfilled by the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the greatest moment of Moses in the Bible was where he appeared with a transfigured Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Moses’ great faith was shown to be true and so was his eternal reward. Moses appeared in Matthew 17. Starting in verse 2 it says, “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” Moses was certainly a great man of faith.
Now let’s take a look at who Moses was before becoming the great man of God we know him as today. Initially, Moses shouldn’t have even survived childhood. Before his birth, the Pharaoh of Egypt made a decree. We see it in Exodus 1:22, “Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.’” Moses ended up being saved by the daughter of Pharaoh due to the grace of God.
Not only should he not have survived childhood, but he also ended up being a fugitive of the law and exiled from his homeland. Exodus 2:11-15a reads, “One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your companion?’ He answered, ‘Who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and thought, ‘Surely this thing is known.’ When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian.” He would go on to be a shepherd, the lowest of the low in the eyes of the Egyptians.
Moses would also have very low self-confidence. In Exodus 3 and 4 we see the story of the burning bush. God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and spoke with him. He wanted Moses to lead his people, the Jews, out of captivity in Egypt and to the land God had promised them. Throughout this conversation, God told Moses what he required of him. Moses kept pleading of God to send someone else instead because he didn’t think he would be able to do what God was asking. Take an example from 4:10. God had just shown Moses miraculous signs and yet Moses still plead, saying, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” He would say in verse 13, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” This is the man who God would make the leader of His nation, the father of the law, and the example for many of great faith.
II. David
David is another example of a great man who came from a place where many would look down on him. He is a great example of the least likely person that God would choose to do great things. Let’s take a look first at what David became. This is the man who would slay giants! We see in 1 Samuel 17 the story of David and Goliath. Goliath of Gath was a Philistine, the enemy of the people of Israel. He was a giant standing “6 cubits and a span,” or 9 feet 9 inches if measuring by the standard cubit. This could have been more if measuring by the nonstandard cubit which was measured from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. This could be as many as 21 inches in some cultures making Goliath over 10 feet tall.
When no man would or could stand against Goliath, David came forward to fight. Goliath would say to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” David would sling one stone, sink it into the forehead of the giant and kill him. Because of this, the women would sing, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” He became a mighty warrior through this.
This is the man who was anointed King of Israel. We see in 1 Samuel 16 where God was fed up with King Saul’s sin and commanded Samuel to anoint a new King over Israel. He had Samuel go to Jesse of Bethlehem to examine his sons to see who would be anointed King. Jesse had seven of his sons pass by Samuel to see who Samuel would anoint, but even though these were mighty men who the world would deem worthy to be a king, God chose none of them. Finally, there was but one son left, the youngest son named David. David passed before Samuel and God chose him. He would be anointed by the prophet as the next King of Israel.
This is also the man who was called the man after God’s own heart, of who’s lineage would come Jesus the Christ. There are many important titles in the world, but what would be more amazing than being named the man after God’s own heart? Even more, the one through who’s lineage would be the savior of the world! This is shown in Acts 13:22-23 where Luke writes, “And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their King, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.” This was surely a great man in the eyes of God and of the people.
Now let’s take a look at where David came from. He wasn’t meant to be King. Saul was chosen by the Lord as the first King of Israel. His son, Jonathan, should have been his successor, yet due to Saul’s sin, the Kingship was stripped from his family. David was outside of this royal family. If not for the intervention of God and anointing by Samuel, David would have likely remained a shepherd.
David was the least likely of the brothers to named God’s anointed King. Let’s take a look at what Jesse actions say about David in 1 Samuel 16. It says starting in verse 10, “And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen these.’ Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ and he said, ‘There remains the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.’” Jesse was sure one of the older sons would be chosen as King. He didn’t even think enough of David, being weaker and younger than his brothers, to even bother bringing him before the prophet to even be considered for the Kingship. Perhaps his pride in his other sons got in the way of bringing young David. Yet this is the man who would become the great King of Israel.
III. Paul
Let’s now take a look at a man from the New Testament who would come from terrible beginnings only to become great in the eyes of God. He is also, today, considered great in the eyes of men. He is a man we all trust. He is a man we all look to for the truth. I am speaking of the Apostle Paul.
Let’s see what Paul became. First, Paul became a great missionary preacher. If you look through the book of Acts, it details Paul’s missionary journeys throughout. Paul would travel to many places preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He would start in Antioch and travel through the Mediterranean Sea to parts of Asia and back. He would then travel from Jerusalem all through the coast of the Mediterranean to Greece and back. He would do that again traveling more extensively through the region and revisiting some of the Churches he had planted before. On these trips he planted many churches and convinced entire cities to become believers in Jesus Christ. He is the one who truly brought Christianity to Europe and parts of Asia as a major force. Finally, he would be taken to Rome where he preached until his death at the hands of the Roman government.
Paul was also a great author. He would write many different letters throughout his Missionary and Preaching career. Chances are that we don’t have nearly all the letters that were written by Paul. However, those we do have are sacred. The letters of Paul that we have are included amongst Holy Scripture inspired by God in the New Testament. Of the 27 books of the New Testament, Paul wrote 14 of them. In other words, Paul wrote over half of the New Testament! He was a great man, a great Christian, a great Missionary, a great preacher, and a great author.
Now that we’ve seen what Paul became, let’s take a look at where he came from and what he was before being saved by the blood of Christ. Paul was a Jewish leader who had no faith in Jesus. He was from Tarsus and, by his own admission, was a student of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was a highly respected Jewish leader. However, like Paul, he had no faith in Christ. They were lost because they knew not the Lord.
Paul wasn’t just a nonbeliever in Jesus, but he was also an enemy of the Lord. We first see him in Acts 7 when he attended the stoning of Stephen. He wasn’t just pressuring the Church, he was involved in killing it’s members. The beginning of Acts 8 starts with the sentence, “And Saul approved of his execution.” He was a wicked man, he persecuted the Church, and he was an enemy of God. This was all true, until Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and saved Saul. Saul, would be renamed Paul and become a great man of faith, a great missionary preacher, a great author, and a great apostle.
IV. Application
Thus far, we’ve taken a look at three great men: Moses, David, and Paul. We’ve seen not just about their greatness, but also their beginnings and what they were before they became great in the Lord. Moses was a timid exile who shouldn’t have been alive past birth. David was the weakest of his brother whos father didn’t even expect to do great things. Paul was an enemy of God; a persecutor of God’s people. God was able to take these unlikely men and do great things with them. What does this mean to us?
This is where our passage from Ephesians comes into play. Starting in Ephesians 2:12, Paul writes, “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Just because you think yourself to be unworthy or unable, remember that just as God did great things through these unlikely men, He can do great things through you. Just because you don’t have great faith in yourself doesn’t mean that God doesn’t. If our Christianity was defined by faith in ourselves, we’d be living a lie and in a world of trouble. However, our Christianity is defined not by faith in ourselves, but our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ! It is Him that we trust in. It is Him we look to for guidance. It is Him that we look to for salvation!
Also, remember not to look down on others. How easy would it have been for Moses’ father-in-law in Midian to tell him he was crazy and not to leave with his daughter? How easy would it have been for David’s brothers to become hurt and vengeful at David when he was anointed as King instead of him? How easy would it have been for the Apostles to look down at Saul as their enemy and as scum when he came to them a changed man on fire for the Lord? Don’t let your own attitude and opinions of others get in the way of the work of God. Our opinion isn’t the one that matters, only God’s.
Conclusion
In closing, I want each of us this morning to take time and remember where we came from. Remember what we once were. Trust in the Lord to work in us, instead of trusting in ourselves to do the work on our own. Remember what God did through each of these great men we discussed this morning. Finally, remember that He can do the same through you or through someone else even when we don’t see the possibility ourselves.
