Destroying Walls
Ephesians Series
CCCAG 2-13-22
Scripture- Ephesians 2:11-22
I’ve had a lot of good things happen lately.
Since I last spoke with many of you, I passed my state nursing board, called the NCLEX and have finally received a nursing license from the state.
I’ve completely my orientation and am now a full-fledged ER RN.
On Thursday, my daughter Haley passed her NCLEX and is also a licensed RN at Aurora Hospital in Kenosha. She is one of the few people in her class that actually passed her NCLEX on the first time, so we are very grateful for that.
I give all glory, praise and thanks to God for all of those. Going through nursing school has been a pipe dream of mine for years….something I thought would be really neat but never had the opportunity to do it.
As I was praising God for all of this, I thought of where I had come from in life.
Most of you know, I grew up largely in a medium to large city. My parents moved to Kenosha in 1974 from Hayward so my dad could pursue his career as a state patrol officer. That career didn’t last long, and neither did their marriage and they split up soon after.
Because of this, I lived for a few years in some very economically depressed areas. Some would call it “The hood”, or ghetto. I was always the kid in the special line at school- the one who got the free lunch. Often, I didn’t have the appropriate supplies for school or nice clothes and was teased for it.
I didn’t take school seriously at all and dropped out and lived relatively homeless for about a year before I entered the Army- crashing periodically on friends couches and such.
I started from the lowest of the low. I was used to being almost a 3rd class citizen-
Poor, Uneducated, White living among nonwhite people.
Coming back to today’s topic, I kind of understand how a gentile felt hanging around Jewish people in the early church.
Maybe you’ve had similar experiences today- being the odd person out. If so, listen carefully to todays message.
We are going to take Ephesians 2:11-22 in smaller sections today.
We are going to start today talking about divisions in the early church- the racism that existed under the radar but was real.
Let’s read about the overall condition first-The Apostle Paul speaking to those in the church at Ephesus
Eph 2:11-13
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
Prayer
If you are not an avid bible reader you might be surprised to know that many of the same problems that plague us today also existed 2000 years ago, even among those who were converting to Christianity.
As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun, what was will be again”
The book of Acts says that soon after the incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, the Jewish people, who thought themselves to be the one and only chosen of God had to start intermixing with Gentiles who they saw as, well, just lesser people.
But it was not just a Jewish/Gentile thing. You also had the Roman Occupation- they were living under Roman rule, and if you were not a Roman citizen you were nothing.
You had no rights to anything. A Roman citizen could like your cloak and walk up and demand you give it to them, and you would have to comply.
Do you see the recipe for some racism and hard feelings among people groups?
Fast forward about 2000 years.
Growing up in the 80’s, and coming to adulthood in the 90’s with some military experience mixed in there, it’s my belief that racism was largely going away in America. Sure, you would see some problems and I’m not minimizing that at all, but for the most part people were no telling racist jokes anymore, or using the N word too refer to people of color.
That was a good thing.
Then a movement started in this nation about 10 years ago. It’s insidious and seeks to divide people. It’s using the media to spread it’s message of division and hatred, social media as it’s tool, and lies as it’s source and seeks to forcibly control what the message is, how you think, and who you depend on for truth.
George Orwell, the author of the book 1984 was prophetic in what he wrote, even if he was off by 30 years or so.
Let me just be very blunt- what is going on is satanic. It’s an attack upon our culture, nation, and church. It seeks to destroy us as a people, so it can destroy us as a nation.
We see it in the news of the last week- like him or dislike him- Joe Rogan is under attack by that cabal of deception because he had the courage to speak against many of the government overreaches on COVID, so they are doing everything they can to destroy him in the public eye, even taking a video of him quoting others using the N word and using it to call him a racist.
This is just one example of how this latest movement demands your compliance, or they will destroy you.
We as Christ’s ambassador’s need to be different. We need to be willing to stand for truth in these last days.
Now-
I want to be very clear- if you are listening to me right now, and you are racist or hold racist ideas, you need to repent of that. Here in this church- You need to be at this altar in prayer and beg that God changes your heart and mind or you will be very disappointed when you see Jesus- guess what- he’s a person of color. Have you ever seen a true mid-eastern person? They are very brown or at least tan.
Hatred of people based on skin color or different culture is antithetical to the message of Jesus and the Gospel.
We need to remember that God has every reason to hate us as a species. Before you came to Christ, you were a rebel. You have thumbed your nose at God and His commandments and done as you saw fit.
God has every reason to hate you, destroy you, and forget you ever existed. But God saved you anyway.
For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his one and only son.
Not just the white folk. Not just those of us of European descent.
Jesus came for the entire world, and everyone who is in it- including people of color- “That whoever would believe in HIM would not perish, but have everlasting life”
Now, I understand if you grew up racist. Maybe mom, dad, grandparents, friends, whoever looked down on people of different backgrounds.
If that is you- I am in the same boat. The military started to kick all of that out of me- we were all the same color- green.
Then I came to Christ, and discovered the truth- listen very carefully-
There is not more than one race- there is a human race. We are all created with the Imago Dei- the image of God within us- the eternal spirit residing in these bags of flesh and bone. The amount or lack of pigment in your skin, is irrelevant to God.
Therefore, it should be irrelevant to us what the external appearance looks like.
Martin Luther King Jr in his famous “I have a dream” speech said this-
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
This, by the way was the message of Jesus- we are all one people under HIM as our God. There is no black or white, slave or free, Jew or Gentile- all one people washed in the Blood He shed for us on the cross.
Let’s read further-
14 For he (JESUS) himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
One of the most dramatic things that happened when Jesus died was the curtain in the temple being torn in two, from top to bottom.
Why did that matter? What was this, as Paul calls it, this wall of hostility.
Remember a few weeks ago, I explained that we are spiritual beings having a temporary flesh experience while we are here on this earth. Jesus was very specific in John 3 when he said “Flesh gives birth to flesh, and spirit gives birth to spirit. This is why you must be born again”.
At the fall of man, our flesh continued to live but our spirit separated from God’s spirit- in essence and in every way that is important- everyone born thereafter was born dead- with a spiritual disease of sin dragging them away from the true life that is found in God.
Humanities spirit was disconnected from it’s source of life at the Fall, and fell away from the God who sustained it.
Fast forward a few thousand years to the time of Moses.
Moses leads the people out of Egypt, and God tells him to set up a building called the tabernacle. The Tabernacle was to be the meeting place between God and humanity- where God’s presence would dwell.
Everyone thinks of the tabernacle as a simple tent.
It was so much more than that.
Watch this-
Remember- The tabernacle was to be the place where God spirit resided on earth. God’s spirit resided in a very special place in that tabernacle- the Holy of Holy’s where the ark of the covenant was kept.
However, that area was closed off by a curtain preventing anyone from being close to the presence of God because their sin would cause them to be destroyed.
That curtain was the dividing wall between God and man. You could call it, as Paul did- the dividing wall of hostility showing God’s hatred of sin.
It was the constant reminder that no matter how well you lived your life in obedience to the law, you could never actually get close to God because all have sinned and fell short.
A few hundred years later, when David, and then his son Solomon became King over Israel, they built a temple of stone mirroring how the tabernacle was to be laid out. However, it should be noted- God never asked them to do that. We will see why in a minute.
Fast forward again- Jesus dies on the cross saying “it is finished”
What happened?
Tombs were opened
Sky was darkened
There is an earthquake
And that temple curtain- a very thick, 2-3 story high ornamental fabric- what Paul calls here in Ephesians- that dividing wall of hostilely was torn from top to bottom. Something that would have been impossible to do from a human perspective.
God reached down in reply to Jesus saying “It is finished” to say, “Indeed it is!” and He himself ripped that curtain apart.
So that begs the question- where did God go? He ripped the curtain, he isn’t in the Holy of Holy’s anymore?
Watch this- back to the tabernacle?
What was the tabernacle made of?
Animal skins- God gave very specific instructions about that. Notice- no instructions from God in the bible about the brick and motor temple, but very very specific instructions on the tabernacle.
Why so much detail about it being specifically animal skins?
Think about that for a moment, God was showing us HIS heart
The tabernacle was to show us God’s spirit residing in an animal skin structure….
Do you see the symbolism there? Do you think God was speaking even back in Exodus what he really wanted?
To reside in the animal skin structures that we call the human race
Let’s read it again-
His purpose was to create in himself one new man (Greek-humanity) out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
It’s a vital message for us today to understand and live by. What God did was destroy the walls of hostility that existed between Him and humanity.
We were doing that in the church when I got saved. Promise Keepers did huge events based on racial reconciliation.
You may not have seen blatant racism here in the northern part of our country, but I was stationed down south and in many of the church’s there is no mixing of people of different ancestries, or what our common culture incorrectly calls races.
So the churches there for decades perpetuated racism. In fact, the Klu Klux Clan considers themselves Christian warriors preserving God’s prescribed way of doing things- whites on the top and everyone else bears the Curse of Ham and deserves to forever be second class citizens.
(explain Curse of Ham) (Horrible theology)
- After the flood waters recede, Noah plants crops including a vineyard.
- He drinks wine from the vineyard and gets sloppy drunk, falling asleep naked in view of others.
- His son Ham sees him, and laughs and goes and tells everyone that dad is naked and drunk. Noah’s other two sons take a blanket, walking backwards so they don’t see their father naked and cover his disgrace without mocking him
- Noah wakes up and hears what Ham did and places a curse on his descendants that they will always serve the descendants of the other two brothers.
- When you look at the ancestries in the bible, the descendants of Ham went largely to Africa to settle.
- This is how the church for hundreds of years justified African slavery.
Dumb isn’t it? That’s the “Christianese” version of biblical racism.
Let me tell you what it really is-
It’s garbage. It’s a lie of satan, and if you follow that dung you need to run to this altar and repent while you still can.
God desires to inhabit all people, regardless of the color of their skin or their cultural background.
THEY ARE ALL PRECIOUS IN HIS SIGHT!
We’ve seen the wrong…let’s look at the glorious truth now-
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
A couple of points to make here-
Who is the cornerstone?
Is it your opinion?
Is it what our culture tells us is important?
It is how the government tells us to believe?
NO
Christ is the cornerstone. That means everything
When you build a foundation, the first brick you lay has to be perfect, or the whole structure will fall apart.
Christ is our perfect foundation, and therefore it’s his words, opinions, and thoughts that should be the beginning, middle, and end of every opinion and believe we have.
Because Jesus wants a bride that shines HIS light and message to a lost and dying world that is doomed without HIM.
All rise
21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. (Emphasis) 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
That’s everyone. Everyone who has come to Christ has God’s spirit living inside them.
Let’s remember to treat them as brothers and sisters, and continue to tear down those dividing walls of hostility that the enemy keeps trying to erect.
Conclusion
