(text and audio)
Title: Therefore, Remember (Part Two)
Intro:(Show Two Snowshoe Slides) Story about realizing how close you were to disaster: Driving up the fog covered windy road to the top of Snowshoe, WV. Then seeing the road the next day and realizing how close we were to disaster.
And, after seeing the road, our appreciation for God’s grace was multiplied, because we had a sense of what we were saved from. And, after studying Paul’s words here in Ephesians I hope they will have the same effect on us; I hope when we realize all of the disadvantages that Christ’s blood overcomes, it will give us fresh, new reasons to praise God. Let’s begin!
11 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— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
I alluded to this last week, but today, as we cover the second half of this passage, what we are going to focus in on are the five things, the five “disadvantages” that those of “the uncircumcision” have to overcome to reconcile with God.
Disadvantage One: “…at that time you were without Christ”
This one seems a bit obvious on the surface, and it is the ultimate bookend for Paul’s argument, but it serves to set the table for how much things have changed. Look at the transition that occurs between the beginning of
v. 12 “…at that time…” compared to v.13 “But now in Christ Jesus…”
In a way, Paul is setting the stage and saying, “Okay, at that time, you were without Christ, but are you totally aware what that actually means? Let me show you.”
Disadvantage Two: “being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel”
Being a part of the community of Israel had several advantages, for example:
1. Being raised with the teaching, truths and commandments of the one true God.
2. Living amongst a people who are all on the same page in terms of their worldview.
3. Participating in the O.T. sacrificial system of atonement, which was designed to both draw someone closer to God, AND to point FORWARD to Christ.
So, NOT being a part of that community obviously opens you exposes you to a lot of false teaching, a lot of false beliefs, and a lot of false promises.
But here’s the good news (and I’m jumping ahead a little bit) remember the pictures I put up of all the kids in our Church? They have these same advantages by living in the homes of our believing Christian families!
My point is, the system that God set up in the O.T. with Israel worked, it was the way God wanted people to be structured in their belief and life so that all glory was rightly given to God. And the reason I know that is because that system is repeated in the N.T.
Now the Church is the new Israel, and we raise our children with the truths of Christ, just as the Jews raised their children with the truths of Yahweh the Father.
Disadvantage Three: “..strangers from the covenants of promise…”
Disadvantage number three and four work together in conjunction, and Paul phrases them back to back in a way where he is saying, “Because of this disadvantage, there was an even bigger issue you were facing…”
So here’s the initial disadvantage in this paring, explained by Packer.
J.I. Packer: They were not citizens of the nation with whom God was in a covenant relation. Though God’s relationship with Israel included a promise to bless the nations (Gen. 12:3) Gentiles had no awareness of this hope.
PB: The concept of being in a relationship, a covenant, with God was an extremely strange idea to a non-Jew. Remember that most of the Gentile world (both Romans and Greeks) were from poly-theistic societies, where humans fought and struggled to earn the “favor” of God through their piety, sacrifice, and devotion.
Think about that for a moment. Every other major religion system of this time had the concepts completely backwards. Completely. We know, as believers in Christ, that it is impossible to earn the favor of God.
It is Jesus who does what we cannot do. It is Jesus who, on our behalf, lives a life of piety, perfection, and sacrifice and therefore is approved as worthy by the father and appeases his wrath by becoming acceptable to God.
And this thought Paul leads directly to the fourth disadvantage:
Disadvantage Four: “…having no hope.”
Because of everything we just listed in points one, two and three, Paul concludes that the sad state of the reality of the uncircumcision, the non-Jewish world, is that they have no real hope.
Any “hope” they have is false, fleeting, and only serves to dilute them, pacify them, direct them falsely.
As I was studying this passage, I ponded this concept this week, and I arrived at a very interesting question, that I’m not sure I have a good answer to, but I wanted to pose this question to you, to let you chew on it and see what you come up with.
Let’s take the perspective of the Enemy this morning, let’s take the perspective of the Devil. He’s trying by any and all means to keep us away from Christ. So do you think his best strategy is to lead people to no belief, or to lead people to false belief? In other words, would Satan rather have us believe nothing, or take comfort in believing something that we THINK is right, but is not?
I tend to think it’s the latter option.
And let me be clear about the power and danger of this deception. I’m not just talking about a Buddhist who thinks he’s close to God because he lives a moral life and does unto others. I’m not just talking about the devout Muslim, who prays to Mecca five times a day and gives alms to the poor…
I’m talking about the “Christian” who thinks that “being a good person” and saying the sinners prayer, and paying tithe, and attending church occasionally makes you a Christian.
There is such comfort in the assurance of believing you are right with God. I think we’d do well to remember that Satan is often better served by getting people to believe in a false God, then to believe there is no God at all.
Disadvantage Five: “…without God in the world…”
Paul then reaches his conclusion on the matter of disadvantages. It might help to recap and summarize what we’ve learned so far, and how it concludes with this last thought:
Here is what Paul is telling us:
We used to be without Christ. We did not grow up with the advantages of the Jews: we did not have sound teaching, pointing us to the one true God, we had no understanding of the covenant that God made with his people, because we weren’t his people, Therefore, we had no real hope, and, as a result, we were without God.
BUT NOW…
Verse 13 serves as one of the most powerful sentences EVER written, but feeling the full weight of this concept depends entirely on understanding all of the information in the two verses that come before it.
Once we’ve seen what a total, utter, disadvantage the Gentiles were in, compared to the the Jews of Israel, we can more appreciate the state that Christ has put us in.
Now that we’ve looked in depth at verses 11 and 12, we can drink in and appreciate the gravity of verse 13.
“But now, IN CHRIST JESUS, you, who were once FAR OFF, have been BROUGHT NEAR by the blood of Christ.”
Last week when I showed the pictures of our Church Youth I wanted to amplify the importance and advantage of raising our kids in Christ.
But this week I want to speak to you, who like me, were either raised in a non-Christian home, or (perhaps even worse), a nominally, culturally Christian home, leading to false hope.
Think of what the blood of Christ overcame to bring you near.
To illustrate this, I want to share a short, personal story of my own journey, in hopes that you will see what the blood of Christ is capable of overcoming.
(Story of how Ben ended up at AU, and the three amazing things that happened while there.)
Pray/Close