The July issue of Christianity today had an article written by Timothy George, Is the Church Divided? He makes the statement, “Our visible disunity causes many unbelievers to stumble. The problem is not only division, but divisiveness, within congregations as well as between (and within) denominations.”
It is tragic we have division. I understand it is in other churches, other places, everyone here recognizes we are one happy family and we have love for one another. What a joy it is to pastor in a church where everyone gets along, and there is no disunity among us. We could just skip this message and go out to have an agape lunch, except we might run into people who are not like us, so it is best we understand what Paul is stating in Ephesians 2:11-22 so when we come across people who are disunited we can share the wealth of information we have gained.
Before we get into the unity, lets look at
I. The Gentiles Past Paul writes in Ephesians 2 starting at verse 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). In society there division, here we see the division of the uncircumcised, the Gentiles, and the circumcised, the Jews. The circumcision was done in the body by the hands of men. Isn’t that the way of division, for the most part it is man made. It could be the side of town you were born on, someone from the other side of the tracks, or by your bank account or lack of one, it could be the color of your skin or your sex gender, your nationality or religious beliefs or lack of beliefs. Division exists there is no getting around it. And people in society will use that division to either elevate you or put you down. Paul says there is division. The Jews said the Gentiles had been created by God to be the fuel for the fires of hell, that if a Gentile married a Jew, the Jews held a funeral for the Jew because they were dead to their family and friends. There was absolute division.
So we know the Gentiles and the Jews were divided, separated, but how. Paul continues in verse 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.
We see the following divisions…
1. They were without Christ. Remember Ephesus was noted for its worship of the pagan goddess Diana. It doesn’t matter what pagan deity you might bow your knee, you will always outside the unity of God and His Son Jesus Christ. There is only one road to heaven, the road of unity in Christ. Gentiles were not concerned as much with the afterlife as they were with their present life and their lifestyles displayed that disregard. Today it is no different, people who live Christ- less lives stand outside of heaven, no matter Jew or Gentile, and they have a Christ-less eternity before them, one of self condemnation for their life decisions. Paul said in verse 12, they were not only without Christ but …
2. They were without citizenship. The commonwealth of Israel held the blessing and Gentiles, except for those who were proselytes, stood outside the unity of acceptance. Without citizenship Paul states,
3. They were without covenants. In Exodus 6:7 God told the people of Israel, I will take you for my people, and I will be your God. There was a unique covenant which was sealed with Moses at Sinai. God’s covenant required an obligation for the privilege it brought being His people, they were obligated to keep the Law. It was not an issue of favoritism but of special responsibilities and the people of the world were aware they were God’s chosen. The Gentiles past did not include Christ, citizenship, covenants which meant in reality…
4. They were without hope. Sophocles wrote
“Youth’s beauty fades, and manhood’s glory fades.
Faith dies and unfaith blossoms as a flower;
Nor ever wilt thou find upon the open streets of men,
Or secret places of the heart’s own love,
One wind blows true for ever.
Sophocles, like the Greeks, like the Gentiles, knew there was a season to which they lived but in the end, hopelessness because they season was to fade away. They were without hope and sadly, the end conclusion…
5. They were without God. They had in their nations all kinds of gods, but not the true God. They said it was easier to find a god in Athens that it was to find a man.
It is a sad accounting, one that should note it was not because God did not want them, rather they did not want God which was evident in their willful acts of sin and self indulgence.
God so loved the world he provided a way to bring unity where disunity exists and the means to carry that unity is to be found in the church. God did what was unthinkable, our next main point. He brought together…
II. Jews and Gentiles in Christ. Lets look at the remaining verses in chapter 2. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14 For he 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.
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. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ultimate unity is found in Christ and the church is to be a demonstration to the world of how unity is to exist. If unity does not manifest itself in the church, how then can be expect the world to find cause for unity? We can’t. Paul teaches that unity will be found in…
1. One Nation. I had highlighted illustration to show how the Jews and Gentiles had a dislike for one another, now Paul shows how before, in the past, Gentiles were divided against Jews but now, in Christ, they are united in one nation because at the center is the peace of Christ.
Listen, rules and regulations put up fences, the love of God takes them down. How can we have ought against our brothers and sisters if we have love?
Rita Snowden tells a story of the war. In France some soldiers with their sergeant brought the body of a dead comrade to a French cemetery to have him buried. The priest told them gently that he was bound to ask if their comrade had been a baptized adherent of the Roman Catholic Church. They said that they did not know. The priest said that he was very sorry but in that case he could not permit burial in his churchyard. So the soldiers took their comrade sadly and buried him just outside the fence. The next day they came back to see that the grave was all right and to their astonishment could not find it. Search as they might they could find no trace of the freshly dug soil. As they were about to leave in bewilderment the priest came up. He told them that his heart had been troubled because of his refusal to allow their dead comrade to be buried in the churchyard; so, early in the morning, he had risen from his bed and with his own hands had moved the fence to include the body of the soldier who had died for France.
Jesus removes the fences and brings us together in one community called the Christian church so we are no longer Jew or Gentile but one nation of people called Christians.
The unity which Jesus achieves is not achieved by eliminating all our racial characteristics; it is achieved by making all men of all nations into Christians. We have had this tendency to send missionaries abroad to produce people who wear American clothing and speak the English language. There are indeed some missionary churches who would have all their congregations worship with the one liturgy used in the churches at home. It is not Jesus’ purpose, however, that we should turn all men into one nation, but that there should be Christian Indians and Christian Africans whose unity lies in their Christianity. The oneness in Christ is in Christ and not in any external change. We can have unity without having conformity, to be the same but have different characteristics.
He did this by secondly making us…
2. One Family. A. B. Davidson tells how he was in lodgings in a strange city. He was lonely. He used to walk the streets at evening time. Sometimes through an uncurtained window he would see a family sitting round the table or the fire in happy fellowship; then the curtain would be drawn and he would feel shut out, and lonely in the dark.
That is what cannot happen in the family of God. And that is what should never happen in a church. Through Jesus there is a place for all men in the family of God. Men may put up their barriers; churches may keep their Communion tables for their own members. God never does; it is the tragedy of the Church that it is so often more exclusive than God. We have to fight against this exclusivity and realize that you and I and others who proclaim the name of Christ are family and to treat anyone without civility is a sin within the house of God.
Finally, Paul states in Christ Gentiles are part of…
3. One Temple. And the cornerstone of that Temple is Jesus Christ for without Him we are nothing. In the Book of Genesis, God “walked” with His people (Gen. 5:22, 24; 6:9); but in Exodus, He decided to “dwell” with His people (Ex. 25:8). God dwelt in the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34–38) until Israel’s sins caused “the glory to depart” (1 Sam. 4). Then God dwelt in the temple (1 Kings 8:1–11); but, alas, again Israel sinned and the glory departed (Ezek. 10:18–19). God’s next dwelling place was the body of Christ (John 1:14), which men took and nailed to a cross. Today, through His Spirit, God dwells in the church, the temple of God. God does not dwell in man-made temples, including church buildings (Acts 7:48–50). He dwells in the hearts of those who have trusted Christ (1 Cor. 6:19–20), and in the church collectively.
Looking back through what God has done through Christ for us as believers we realize what a tremendous privilege it is to be part of his nation, family and temple. It causes us to take a moment of reflection.
Let me ask before we leave, have you personally experienced the grace of God? Are you spiritually dead or have you received the free gift of salvation which only Jesus Christ can bring? If you are not sure, I want to urge you today to make a bold decision and become part of the huge family of God to which I have been talking about, so you can gain the citizenship, the covenants, the hope, so that you can gain a seat at the table in eternity with God. You might even be here today, having turned your life away in disobedience. I want to encourage you to come home, come back to the place of asking for God’s forgiveness so you can once again walk freely in His promise.
You might be a believer but you are not living your life in the unity of the Spirit, you might have wronged someone, held animosity toward other believers, not walking in the grace, truth and unity of Christ’s love to the fullest. Jesus came as the minister of reconciliation. There is no wall of division he cannot break down and let the love He has flow through you.
A missionary was preaching in the village market, and some of the people were laughing at him because he was not a very handsome man. He took it for a time, and then he said to the crowd, “It is true that I do not have beautiful hair, for I am almost bald. Nor do I have beautiful teeth, for they are really not mine; they were made by the dentist. I do not have a beautiful face, nor can I afford to wear beautiful clothes. But this I know: I have beautiful feet!” And he quoted the verse from Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace” (Isa. 52:7). Do you have beautiful feet?
I want to take a moment to pray for people who need prayer, prayer for salvation, prayer for restoration, prayer for God’s power to move in your life as we close our time together.
