Remember. Cherish. Live.

Well, today our sermon passage is Ephesians chapter 2 starting at verse 11.! I'm going to read our whole passage, which is 11 through 18. Starting at verse 11.

Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

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 were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of two.

So, making peace. And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.

The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever.

Let's pray. Amen. Oh Lord, like you send forth the rain and the dew, and in due season they bring forth the fruit that you intend.

You promise to do the same with your word, as it goes forth by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, because of Christ ministering in heaven and interceding for his people.

We trust, Lord, that the preaching of the word, even through a cracked jar of clay, will contain the treasure of Christ, the gospel, and that your spirit will use your own word, Lord, to powerfully do a work in our hearts and our minds, the inner man that changes us, that transforms us through our union to Christ.

We pray, Lord, that through the preaching of the word, you will comfort those who are in pain, that you will reassure those who have fear, that you will settle those, Lord, whose faith is shaky.

We pray, Lord, that you'll cause us to trust you more, that you'll elevate our eyes on Christ and know your goodness again today. We pray, Lord, that Christ will clearly call into his kingdom more disciples today, more sons and daughters, more citizens of heaven, that we as a church have the joy of watching you do this, to work new life into us who are spiritually dead, and that you will do all of this, Lord, for your glory alone.

For Christ's sake, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. I have to begin our sermon today with a heavier reflection, and it's not pleasant for any of us to go there, but I ask that you please do.

One of the themes of this passage is reconciliation, and in each of our lives, we have relationships that are broken, that are not reconciled. And at least for a moment as we get started, I ask you to think about those for a bit and ponder what is broken.

Because when ones that we love are not at peace, out of love, we feel it deeply too, don't we? I know we have this within our own family, our own relatives, and it's so hurtful within the church when this happens.

We care deeply. We feel it. And in those difficult relationships, gratitude for one another becomes replaced by grumbling about one another.

Celebrating one another is replaced by comparing ourselves to one another. Washing one another's feet is replaced by avoiding one another.

Isn't this true? We don't know an occasion for this passage that we just read, but we know this is our tendency.

We know human nature does not change. And we as Christians, we as a church of any generation, we need these reminders. This is what Paul brings to the churches who will read this letter.

The implied diagnosis here is that they have forgotten something. Or that he's worried they may forget. That they have not valued something enough.

Or that he's worried that they will stop valuing it. They will lose their first love. And the result for a body is dysfunction. Picture your own physical body.

It doesn't take much, at least for my wife and I. If one little part of my body is tweaked, I can't do anything. So the prescription that we see in this passage is also the title of our sermon today.

Remember, cherish, and live. Remember, cherish, and live. I'm a simple person, so here's our simple outline.

Number one, remember. Remember your misery outside of Christ. This is what Paul brings to the church first. Remember your misery outside of Christ.

Look at verse 11. He says, therefore, remember. Therefore, he's reminding you what he just built up to this point. Therefore, because you were all once dead.

Therefore, because you whom God has made alive in Christ. Therefore, because of God's great love with which he has loved us in Christ, his beloved, since the beginning of the world.

No, since before the foundations of the world. Therefore, because God gave Christ to his church as the head. Therefore, remember.

Verse 11 says, therefore, remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands.

We don't know the details of their division or the strive for the confusion. We do know that ethnic Jews outside of Christ, they pointed to their own heritage as a bloodline, as an ethnic people group.

they had been set apart by God through a sign put on the bodies of all the males called circumcision. And this was instructed by God at the beginning of this bloodline, this ethnic people in the covenant he made with Abraham.

And the descendants of Abraham are called God's holy people. And they were to be set apart, they were to be holy, they were to be other and different than the rest of the world that's fallen and in darkness having no access to the true God.

Those foreigners were called Gentiles or the uncircumcision. They were pagan, meaning they don't know the true God. They worship demons and things that you can make out of stone and wood.

And they were outcasts. They were defiled. They needed to be, go through a series of rituals in order to be even at the outskirts of the worship of God in the way that the tabernacle and the temple were set up.

And so, this term, uncircumcision, it was a handle, a short way of referring to all of that and creating division now within the body of Christ within a local church.

It was a term of contempt to say you're part of the uncircumcision. You're outside of God's covenant. And these synagogue Jews used this to mock Christ's disciples.

saying Christians, Christians are dirty. Christians are unwelcomed rejects. And Paul's wording here is very interesting.

Look at verse 11. He says, you're called that by what is called the circumcision. Now notice the next words that follow. Made in the flesh. It's something on the outside of the vessel.

By hands. He's repeating himself a little bit. And that phrase, by hands, made by hands. That's the term throughout all of the Old Testament for making idols.

You worship these gods made by hands. You worship stone images, wooden carvings made by hands. Now the circumcision, those that look only to the outside, sign of the covenant which pointed to the internal reality of the promise of union with Christ.

Circumcision has become your idol. Can't you see? In Romans 3, we're reminded that there's great blessing in being part of national Israel because to them, God gave His word.

To them, God gave the Old Testament. But Paul, before bringing the Jews back into that, he says, that's what you're called. Well, don't object to that right away.

Let that slander that you're receiving as a Gentile, accept whatever is true of that. Let's go with that for a little bit. We need to remember. Verse 11, remember, keep in mind, bear in mind, call up to your memory, recall what is true about your condition outside of Christ.

And if this is good for the church in Ephesus, this is good for the church in any day and anywhere, we need to remember our misery outside of Christ. This brings glory to God.

Remember, he says in verse 12, that at that time you were, here's five things he says, piling it on, almost like a shovel digging a hole five scoops deeper.

Number one, you were without Christ. Without Christ, you were detached from a Savior. You were enslaved.

because Satan was your master without Christ. You were fearful because without Christ, we don't have a shepherd to protect us.

You were guilty because without Christ, we have no perfect righteousness covering us. You were filthy because without Christ, we have no precious blood washing us.

Remember that you were exhausted because without Christ, we have no rest for our souls. Remember that without Christ, you were hateful because there is not enough love inside of us for God or for anyone else.

Remember that you were doomed to die and suffer forever because without Christ, there is no eternal life. That's the first one.

Remember that you were without Christ. Here's the second one. Remember that you were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. You were foreigners to citizenship that God blessed.

Now, this probably cut both ways in the first century churches because it was a big deal to be a Roman citizen. You can only imagine what the Jews are showing their arrogance.

Gentile Roman citizens can give it right back to them. If you're a foreigner without local citizenship to Rome, you had to live as a legal alien without any protections and without any civil rights.

You were in really bad shape. You couldn't get anything done in business. You could easily be arrested or charged with something that you didn't even do wrong.

Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel for Gentiles meant that they had no way of knowing the one true God, no way of hearing the word of God of the Old Testament, delivered and preserved throughout the nation of Israel in the darkness of demonic myths all around them in Ephesus, surrounded by lies from demons, from the devil, accusations with no truth to counter that.

Here's the third thing they need to remember. You were strangers from the covenants of the promise. In the Old Testament, God made and preserved and revealed covenants.

And these covenants were a pledge that God made. They were an oath-bound promise. There's not a good word in our language in our modern society that we can exactly relate to covenant because it's way more loving than a mere contract but it's way more binding than just a promise or a vow.

It has stakes attached to it. The covenants of the Old Testament meant every single one of them was preparatory. It was preparing the way. These were gradual unfoldings of one single promise.

Do you see the plural or singular in that statement? You were strangers to the covenants, plural, many preparatory covenants of the promise, singular.

Only one promise all the way through. I picture this. You might have watched a formal ceremony of the military, the honor guard. And you know when they'll take a very big American flag and they'll follow the exact steps.

My grandfather served and he taught us how to do this when we would go over to his house. How we're going to fold up the flag so it makes a big, long, rectangular strip vertically. And then we're going to start folding it over so that the triangle is going to tuck itself all the way.

And in the end you have a very tightly folded American flag in the shape of a triangle and all you can see are blue stars. You know what I'm talking about children? You can picture this. You can think of the Old Covenant, you know, all the Old Testament ministry of God and unveiling revelation.

There's one promise. There's one flag all along. It's the flag of the gospel of Jesus. And each movement of the whole scripture, the Old Testament, it's like one unfolding of that triangle.

One more unfolding. One more unfolding. And it gets a little bit more clear until in Christ comes the fullness is opened up and Christ waves it for all the world to see and come to him.

But he's telling the people in this church who are Gentiles, you had no way of knowing Jesus Christ through these promises. You have no way of knowing that this promised seed, this promised nation builder, this promised king, this promised deliverer would be God's own son.

And that this is good news for you too. This gospel promise of Jesus that God himself is coming to save a people for his glory, it would have been lost on us.

We would have never known from whatever part of the world your own bloodline traces back to that this could be good news for you also. That God so loved you that he would send his only begotten son to deliver us from sin, Satan, and death.

You were strangers to this promise. Here's the fourth one. You had no hope. Having no hope. We would not have known how great our sin is.

How great our need of God is. We would never have had hope of dreaming up for ourselves a God who is so gracious, who is so abounding in steadfast love, who would be faithful to his promise, and who himself would pay the price of our great sin through a torturous death that's called cursed, and that would rise again and continue living to minister to us.

We would have none of those reasons to hope. And here's the fifth one. Remember that you were without God in the world. You were without the fatherly love of your Creator, without the comfort of communing with Him, without enjoying the presence of the One.

You were made to glorify and enjoy forever without God and not in a pleasant place. You were without God but still in this world, this present evil age, in this domain of demons and people who rage against God, angry at their Creator, and who hate one another, hate those who are different than them.

You would be left in that state without God in the world. Your soul would remain restless, unsettled, stuck in the thorns of your own sin. Remember this.

We remember this when we sing many times the very first verse of some of our favorite anthems. I believe we sang this one last week. I too, we can say, once was lost in the darkness night.

I thought I knew the way. The sin that promised joy in life had led me to the grave. I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will and if you had not loved me first, I would refuse you still.

Church, we need to remember our misery outside of Christ. That's the first one. Remember. The second one is cherish.

Not only remember, but now Paul's instructions, his medicine for the church is to also cherish. Number two, cherish your standing in Christ.

Cherish your standing in Christ. Christ. Sometimes I use these older words and I think it's good for me and it's good for us. So children, what does it mean to cherish something?

Webster's Dictionary of 1828 defines it this way. To cherish a thing is to hold it as dear, to embrace it with affection, with love and care.

It's to value a thing greatly. And that's what Paul causes the church to do next. He says, cherish your standing in Christ.

Look at verse 13. This great shift of remembering how lost you were. He says, but now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

The picture and the reference point here is to where a person is standing in relation to God. You were standing way, way over there.

God's people receiving promises of grace in Christ in Israel, in Jerusalem, up on the top of the Zion mountain. And yet you were so far away you had no idea that God would minister to sinners like you.

you were standing way over there but it was the blood not of bulls and lambs and goats that were only shadows. It was the blood of Christ himself.

The blood of Christ the work of Jesus Christ is what brought you near to God. Cherish your standing in Christ now. He brought you near to God with the blood of his own son.

Now outcasts from every nation are gathered into the eternal household of God as joint heirs with Christ. So now even you and I who are strangers from the covenants of promise God has brought near to himself by the blood of Christ.

Think about how God has fulfilled all of these covenants in Jesus Christ and how all along it's been a declaration for all the nations. Remember all the nations have a common origin twice.

All the nations have the common ancestry in Adam and Eve. In the beginning God created one father and one mother for all the peoples all the nations. And when was it that it happened the second time?

It was after the flood. God preserved Noah and his wife. Now the next generation had others as well but the sun and that line and that promised seed that would come God preserved.

God had promised that the seed of woman would defeat Satan. In Christ this original promise is fulfilled by reuniting a scattered race into one redeemed family again.

So now in Christ Jesus you and I who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. That same song goes on to say as our testimony as I ran my hell bound race indifferent to the cost you looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross I beheld God's love displayed you suffered in my place you bore the wrath reserved for me now all I know is grace hallelujah think of the covenants of the same promise all the way through with Abraham God gave this command on the eighth day circumcise all the males among you Genesis 17 12 Leviticus 12 repeats this that on the eighth day the flesh of the foreskin of the men in

Israel needs to be cut off think of how Christ fulfilled this God graciously bound himself to provide through Adam's line this promised seed he would declare through Abraham that in your seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed and Jesus Christ fulfills this covenant as the one singular heir who brings eternal salvation now to every tribe and every tongue so now in Christ Jesus we who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ the next covenant we can think of is with Moses under Moses God set Israel apart as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to demonstrate the righteousness of God to the whole world and Jesus became the true vine the true Israel so that all the elect both Jews and Gentiles are brought in as his people so now through Jesus Christ we who were far off have been brought near by the blood of

Christ one more covenant we can celebrate God covenanted to David your house and your kingdom shall be established forever by his life and his death his blood Christ now has authority to draw all the nations into his kingdom and God prophesied through Solomon that this kingdom would never end and it would be a ministry and a rule over all the nations so that's why in Christ Jesus we who are far off now know this promise given through each of these covenants and as we receive Christ by faith we are brought near by his blood we sing this one of my favorite anthems we'll sing it here in a moment Christ exalted is our song buried but long to the firstborn of the grave glory glory to the king crowned with countless praises Christ exalted we will sing throughout unending ages this begins now church we practice this now we cherish our standing in

Christ we hold our standing in Christ dear to us we embrace Christ with affection we value Christ greatly and all that he has done by his blood to make us near God our creator first we remember then we cherish Christ and the third movement is that we live we live live together church at peace in Christ live together at peace in Christ in verse 14 he writes for he himself is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation!

We started by thinking about relationships that are broken that need reconciliation there is no reconciliation! outside of Christ but in Christ there is peace he himself is our peace peace and this reference to the middle wall of separation it would be so amazing if we could go and travel especially if we could go back in time and really see it and feel it but as we would ascend these hills toward Jerusalem and within Jerusalem make our way over to where the temple stood this was called Herod's temple on the outskirts the outside of it would be anyone who had their body mutilated if you had a surgery that cut something off and then as you got closer there could be a place for those who had been ceremonially cleansed and gone through all the civil requirements to be a Gentile a foreigner but you could be around the worship of

God and then there was a wall of separation the who were uncircumcised into the temple area caused a lot of trouble and if you were to go even after Christ's life and during this time period now into Herod's temple you would have seen a low wall maybe about the height of this table right up here and it was separating the court of the Gentiles from the inner sacred courts the first century

Jewish historian! Josephus recorded that all along this wall all the way across there were these stone signs and they held an inscription in two languages both Greek and Latin the languages of the Jews of the Gentiles those of Greek descent and Roman descent or any other travelers who had to do business there and the sign read like this no foreigner is to enter within this wall this enclosure around the sanctuary whoever is caught he himself will be the cause of his death to go across this wall it was to to die they will arrest you it was posted very clearly they will take you out and stone you and you will be to blame!

the sign was posted you had no right to be! inside of there now notice what Paul writes to the church Jesus Christ himself has broken down this wall of separation verse 15 having abolished in his flesh the enmity the hostility that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances see these civil and ceremonial laws to show a separation of a holy God from a fallen pagan world and access only by his grace these were to prepare the way for Jesus Christ but now Jesus Christ has fulfilled all of the purpose of those civil and ceremonial ordinances God had given Israel judicial and ceremonial laws but these expired when Christ's new covenant arrived our confession puts it this way the judicial laws no longer obligate anyone though their general principles of justice still hold moral value in the ceremonial laws which prefigured

Christ taught moral duties but they have been removed by Jesus Christ who is the law giver he has abolished the Jewish ceremonial and civil laws in his own flesh it was in his physical body that Jesus kept the law and it was that same body of Christ that was torn apart for our law breaking no one who is in Christ now can be called unclean can I run that one by you one more time you receive this if you are in Christ now no one can call you unclean in Christ we are all as clean as Christ himself no one who is in Christ is defiled now in Christ we are all as accepted by

God as Christ himself in his flesh which was torn Christ created one new man from these two people who were divided thus making peace I had to study why why is the church called one man here one new man well the rest of scripture makes it very clear to us that Jesus himself his flesh being torn was like that veil that separated any priest even from the holy of holies and it's the same flesh of Christ that tore that veil that gives access in Christ to the most intimate place of communion with the holy God and the church is pictured as a nation a kingdom of priests so if you're in Christ you're in the church you're brought from far away into

Christ the head and Christ boldly as a man a priest the holy priest who ministers forever of a higher order marches he marches from the part that's only for Gentiles crosses right over that wall abolishing it as a man he he goes through the court of the women and they gain access through him he goes into the place where all the priest minister in Christ those who believe in are in him and he's their head they enter enter to where the holy of holies is the veil has been torn we are one man entering with Christ as a church see Adam was the first man created to enjoy a life of peace with God to guard and to keep the first temple dwelling of God the first creation now the church is called the new man with Jesus Christ as our head we are created to enjoy a peaceful life with God as one body obeying

Christ's mission we are his temple we are his dwelling place and with him as our head we guard and keep his temple as he ushers in the new creation in verse 16 Jesus did this that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross thereby putting to death the enmity this enmity or this hostility there's a hostility between sinners and one another there's an enmity that we have and this word is repeated back from the curse in Genesis 3 part of the promise was not only that the seed would crush the serpent's head but that God would put enmity into the heart of those who trust in him those who trust in his promised seed God would put enmity against Satan so there's an enmity now that gets reversed if you are in the world you're following the pattern of the world you're called a child deserving of

God's wrath a son of disobedience you don't know that Satan is the enemy of God you go with! the way of! and you are an enemy of God and now the change happens where you're moved from the domain of this world into the kingdom of Christ and he puts an enmity in you against the enemy against Satan and there's no reconciliation possible between Jew and Gentile between any other people brought together in the church there's no peace no reconciliation apart from being made right with God being found in Christ and knowing his peace the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom in which all the peoples of the whole world are represented Christ died to bring the world representatives that he loved in Christ from the very beginning together into one family one nation and it's already inaugurated in the church spiritually verse 17 says that it was

Jesus Christ himself who came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near Christ is the servant of God who God said would do this he would bring good news to the islands to the coastlands to the ends of the world this is prophesied in so many places we read today this wonderful promise in Isaiah 56 starting at the word of Christ preaching to us who are far away my salvation is about to come my righteousness to be revealed it is for the foreigner who joins himself to the Lord thus says the Lord to them I will give my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off by power and grace some of you some of our youth are praying about baptism and when you're baptized

Jesus says baptize my disciples in the name the name of the father the son and the holy spirit think of your baptism and look forward to those who will be baptized soon Lord willing that's the fulfillment of this promise God giving you his everlasting name and you shall not be cut off you have his name for all eternity in Isaiah 56 God promised I will bring to my holy mountain these people and make them joyful in my house of prayer for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations I will bring comfort I will heal you I will give peace peace to him who is far off and peace to him who is near the exact words church in Ephesus verse 18 buttons off this passage with a reminder of our triune

God in this work of salvation listen for all three persons of the Trinity in verse 18 for through him Jesus Christ we both have access by one spirit to the father through Jesus Christ we have access we possess we enjoy we hold we experience we we have this in the active present tense a reality for all believers real entrance by the spirit to the presence of the father that word in verse 18 access it's putting in our minds an imagery of a royal court in the ancient world subjects could not simply walk into the presence of royalty without being formally admitted and introduced this is saying that

Christ himself through him we are personally introduced we are personally brought in to the court of God himself Christ introduces you by name as a welcome guest around the throne of God Christ himself is the access Christ says I am the door I am the way and the way that we are accepted and welcomed in the presence of God is on the merits of Jesus Christ both Jew and Gentile are now welcomed through Christ to the father how by the one spirit of God who does this amazing work in us no one who is in Christ is uncircumcised now either in Christ we are all as clean as set apart as holy as Christ himself is before God

Christ fulfills His circumcision Christ was cut off so his people might receive a circumcision of the heart this is what we see in Colossians 2 verses 11 and 12 say that in Jesus Christ you also were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands achieved by putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ what was the circumcision of Christ how was Christ circumcised goes on to say you were buried with Him in baptism in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God who raised Him from the dead the circumcision of Christ was His cross we are united with Christ in His death on the cross Christ was cut the new covenant was cut in

Christ and we are buried we're united Him so that we are raised with Him and enjoy the promises of salvation and this is how the church now the whole church is one living man one new creation one body over which Christ himself is the head the church is made up of those whom God himself has circumcised in the heart His covenant is cut in our hearts not of flesh but by the ministry of the Holy Spirit remember in Acts 2 when Peter preached what does it say happened to those elect who heard the word preached go ahead and say it out they were cut to the heart they were circumcised not by the work of hands these are Jews in Jerusalem around the temple hearing this great unveiling of Jesus Christ cut to the heart by the gospel if you trust in

Jesus Christ you get to celebrate your union to him this covenant do you remember when God told Abraham and then later in Leviticus on what day was it that you were to be circumcised it was the eighth day well how many days are there in a week there's only seven days in a week so that's a weird way of saying it isn't it what's the eighth day the eighth day is the first day of the week the first day of the week is the Lord's day it's the day our Lord rose from the dead so when we gather on the Lord's day we celebrate the circumcision that Christ went through that the spirit has applied to circumcise our hearts in Christ it's the beginning of a new day a new creation a great work that he has done and that we get to be part of we gather in the name of Jesus we worship and enjoy our living God by this peace that Christ purchased by being cut for us do you see what the blood of

Christ does he brings us to God the presence of God the Father he does this by the spirit and it's the same Holy Spirit who unites his people as one body when we forget what was true of us outside of Christ his spirit reminds us when we stop valuing Christ we stop valuing one another his spirit reminds us how precious each Christian is to Christ and in this way what our flesh keeps turning into dysfunction God's Holy Spirit preserves and he puts back in right order again he makes his church keep marching one foot at a time in front of the other behind King Jesus our head the Holy Spirit replaces our weeping with rejoicing He replaces our great loss with his abundance!

He replaces our grumblings about one another with gratitude for one another! He replaces our comparing of ourselves to one another with celebrating one another in Christ!

And he replaces our avoiding one another with washing one another's feet when we're in Christ! Christ exalted is our song, our anthem through eternity!

Praises rise and wake the dawn, heralding his majesty! Christ without arrival reigns over all creation, name above all other names, enthroned in adoration!

let's praise our great Savior! Oh Lord, you are true to your promises, you are so faithful, and your Holy Spirit causes us to trust you to receive them again.

Lord, we believe, help our unbelief, for those who are still far off, Lord, bring them near, may they hear the loveliness of your voice, through your Son, Jesus Christ, for his glory alone we ask, Amen.

Amen.