(text and audio)
Title: Unity at What Cost?
Intro:
IJust trust me on this: the title of this message will not make sense until we reach the end of the message. So don’t worry about how it fits in just yet, we will get there.
This is a message that builds to a very challenging conclusion, but it builds to that conclusion slowly, so just stay with me as we work through the passage and I promise, we will have some very juicy conversation at the conclusion.
Last week we talked about the dividing wall coming down, and we looked at three aspects of that meant:
1. The wall between the court of the gentiles and court of the jews within the temple, signifying that not only has the presence of God moved beyond the holy of holies in the inner temple, but also beyond the inner court of the Jews and into the court of the Gentiles. Symbolically, the point is that Jesus makes God available to the world, not just the Jews.
2. The wall between man and God because of sin. Through Christ we now can have communion with God, despite our sin.
3. The wall between Jews and Gentiles as people groups has been abolished. Now, after Christ, “Israel” (God’s Children) is not the Jewish people, but The Church (all who believe in Christ, regardless of ethnicity).
Now the question becomes: How, precisely, did Christ’s death accomplish all this?
“…by abolishing in His flesh the enmity…”
“Enmity” defined: the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.
So Christ’s death removed the default state of man being an enemy of God.
Why is/was man an enemy of God?
“…which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances…”
The Law is God’s standard and expectation for holiness, and it establishes the guidelines for what it would take for man to NOT be an enemy of God.
KEY: This is where two HUGE factors enter into the picture of God’s plan:
- The general idea of Grace in that despite that fact that NO ONE lived up to God’s standard (not Noah, not Moses, not Elijah, not Jeremiah, not Isaiah) YET God designed a plan through BOTH the LIFE and DEATH SACRIFICE of Jesus whereby His perfect life could be substituted for our failures, and we’d be accepted by God.
- The specific idea of Grace in that Jesus came for ALL who would confess him, not just those of a Jewish heritage.
And what then is the result?
“… so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace…”
The result is the through the sacrifice of Jesus, there is now no “Jew” and “Gentile” but rather, the entire world, and all it’s people can be reduced to “Believers” (aka “The Church”) and “Non-believers”.
(Notice I did not say “sinners” and “saved”…why not?)
The Church has peace with God through Jesus. The rest of the world does not.
And Finally…
“…and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”
Jesus’s death brings Jew and Gentile together into one people (The Church) by having put to death the hostility that previously existed between God and Man.
Jared and I are enemies on Sunday afternoons (Browns vs. Steelers) but that enmity is trumped by our common commitment and love for Christ.
In other words, the fact that in the natural world Jared and I SHOULD be enemies, NOT one people is trumped by the fact that we are united in Christ.
Paul is stressing the same concept here concerning those who were raised Jewish and those who were raised Gentile.
In the natural world there was limited community between these two groups, and there were actual physical barriers that separated them (like the wall between the court of the Gentiles and Court of the Jews).
But, in Christ, these barriers are destroyed and we are all one in Christ.
Paul reiterates this in Galatians 3:28
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
So What?
I only have one concluding thought, but it’s a doozy, and it’s where I drew the title of this morning’s sermon from…because we continue to fail as a people over and over with this one simple concept.
Be careful not to separate that which Christ has united. (examples of how we fail with this?)
So where is it ok to “draw lines”?
pray/QA