Like you to turn in your copies of God's word to Ephesians chapter two, we'll be looking at verses 11 through 13 this morning, and we've provided an outline in your bulletin. I encourage you to use that, write down some notes, fill in the blanks and then put it in your Bible, bring it out maybe later on today or later this week to remind yourself of what God has taught you in his word. How much time do you spend remembering the past? Is remembering the past a good thing? Well, it can be a good thing. If you're remembering maybe the promises that you've made, the vows that you made in marriage. Can be a good thing, remembering those good childhood memories. But, you know, remembering can also be very painful. You may remember your children being at home when they were little, like these children here, and they've grown up and they're gone. That makes you a little sad. You may remember when you were young and you look at yourself in the mirror and you are discouraged at what you see. Remembering can lead to sadness if we don't have the hope, the hope in the presence and hope in the future. How do we respond to past memories? In large part depends on our relationship with God. It depends on the hope that you look to in Christ. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wants believers to remember some very difficult and hopeless times in the past in order for them to focus on the hope that they have now in Christ and to Focus on future hope as well. Remembering the past and celebrating the present and the future is one of the keys, I think, to having joy in the Christian life. We have been in a sermon series in the book of Ephesians, and we've been looking at chapter two together. And Paul started out this chapter in verses one through seven by describing the hopeless situation of the human race in general, apart from Christ. How all people apart from Christ are The walking dead. We are spiritually dead. We are enslaved to sin, enslaved to our passions, our sinful passions. We are by nature, children of wrath. And yet Paul wants to remind us. But God, but God has recreated us. Those who are believers in Christ has given us a new heart, has made us alive together in Christ. It is by grace we've been saved. And last week we looked at Paul elaborating on that grace, how we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. And yet this is not a faith that is alone, this faith by God's grace produces works, good works, and we are. God's workmanship, we are his masterpieces and he is at work in us producing good works because they were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And now in this passage, Paul kind of answers, what is it that will compel us to pursue walking joyfully in good works? Well, he's already shown Believing in the indicatives in the gospel is is what is very important in the Christian life. We need to focus on what God has done for us in uniting us to Christ. And Paul emphasizes that after he talks about in verses one through four, our condition before Christ. Then he says, this is what God has done and we're to focus on what God has done. We've been regenerated, we've been made new. Well, now he zeroes in on the Gentiles before in one through four, he was focusing on the whole human race. Paul now focuses on the Gentiles and wants the Gentiles to see a comparison of what they were before and what they are now because of Christ. Now, why does he focus on the Gentiles specifically? Well, I think that Paul was addressing some challenges in the Ephesian church. Challenges of unity. You see, this church was made up of converted Gentiles and converted Jews. Now, as you may know of your Bible, there was great animosity between the Jews and the Greeks who were nonbelievers. We can probably compare that animosity to the animosity today between militant Islamists toward Jewish people. Before becoming Christians, the Jews would call the Greeks dirty dogs. They believed, many of them, their teachers, that Gentiles were only fit for hell. The Gentiles, on the other hand, thought the Jews as enemies of the human race. They thought they were arrogant and self-righteous and judgmental. But you see, these two groups of people have been brought together into one race. one new race through the gospel. We're to be one. We're to be a new community together to glorify God together to proclaim the gospel together to love one another as he has loved us. Well, Paul knew the tendency of both of these groups to revert back to their prejudices, their sinful attitudes. And so he knew the key to them experiencing unity was for them to focus on what they had in Christ and for them to do more remembering about who they used to be and binding their hearts together in the truth of who they are now in Christ. And brothers and sisters, I think we need that today as well. We need to remember the past, but rejoice in what God has done through us and in us by his grace. So let's look at Ephesians chapter two verses 11 through 13 together. And remember, this is the word of God. He's speaking to your heart. May God open up our ears and our eyes to see what he wants us to understand and apply to our lives. 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 once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. That is the reading of his word. After 33 verses in Ephesians and all of these verses pretty much being indicative statements, meaning statements of fact about what God has done by his grace, we now come to the very first imperative in Ephesians. Remember, imperative is a command. And we find it in verse 11 when Paul says, therefore, remember, Therefore, remember, and then we find it also in verse 12 repeated, remember, and there is no more imperative in this book until we get to chapter four, verse one. And so you could say that the entire first half of Ephesians is, for all practical purposes, an imperative free zone. Except for this one. And again, it shows us, I think, How we are to approach the Christian life, how we are to approach sanctification, how we are to approach discipleship. You see, God knows that attitudes and actions stem from what we believe, what we know to be true about who we are in Christ by grace alone. And so we're to emphasize being before doing. That's the proper order of gospel grammar. And if we get that wrong, we're in danger of turning the message of Christianity into works righteousness or into moralism. Now, if we consider that word, remember, remember means continue to remember in the Greek, what are the Gentiles to continue to remember? Well, first, Paul communicates in verse 11 that they had been called a name by the Jews. Do you remember any bad names that you were called when you were a child? You know, you remember that phrase, sticks and stones will break my bones, but names or words will never hurt me. Is that true? No, it's not true. At least the second half of that is not true. Names and words, negative names and words really do hurt. And they really do stay with you for a long time. As I was thinking about that, I immediately thought of when I was in grade school and I was called Chubby. And I also remember when I was in gym class and and I couldn't do pull ups and the kids calling me names because of that. We remember those things immediately almost, but not so much the positive things. Well, the Gentiles were called the uncircumcision by the Jews. And actually, the the interpretation, the more literal interpretation is is more demeaning than that. In other words, they were using this term in a derogatory manner, in a contemptuous way, as a nickname for the Gentiles. And that's really too bad, because circumcision was to be a sign and seal of God's covenant of grace. It was supposed to be a very positive thing for the people of God. It represented what God had done in their lives. He had set them apart and put them with the people of God. And it represented what God had to do in their hearts to save them. He had to cleanse them from sin. By the blood of an atonement. And it served also as a seal. sealing God's promises to those who believed by grace. But you see, the Jews, what they did was they turned this precious sacrament into something that they were proud of, something that made them self-righteous and proud of their race. And they trusted in this outward sign rather than what it really indicated. had to take place in their hearts. And so Paul is saying in a sarcastic tone here that. Their outward circumcision is not what matters or counts, but it's the inward circumcision, in other words, not that which is done by the hands of men to the flesh, but what God does to the heart. And then Paul moves from reminding them of the external distinctions, the name calling that they used to have to endure to the greater difference between the condition of lost Gentiles and lost Jews. He says a second time in verse 12, remember. Remember, and the first point. Remember, as Gentiles, you were you were what? He says, before your conversion, you Gentiles had at least four disadvantages that the Jews did not have. And that first disadvantage was that you were separated from Christ. Now, what does Christ indicate? Christ is the word for the anointed one or the Messiah, and the Jews knew from God's special revelation to them that God was going to send them a Messiah. Now, why did they need a messiah? Well, because God had revealed to them that he was a holy God and that he required perfection, perfect obedience to his commandments. And God was also a just God and must punish all disobedience to his commandments. And the Bible also spoke to the fact that men and women are born with a sinful nature. are born committing sin against God's commandments and we cannot live a holy life and we fail to live according to the commandments all the time and we cannot pay God back for that disobedience and the debt that we owe him. And so God promised to send us a Messiah who would be our substitute, who would come and do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He came to live the perfect life. He came to take upon our sin and guilt and to die in our place, to be punished in our place on the cross so that those who believe in Christ will be declared forgiven of all their sins and declared righteous in God's sight. And so the Jews knew this, they knew that this Messiah was promised to them, they had this exposure to this special revelation about the Messiah, and the Gentiles had no idea. And secondly, Paul reminds them that they were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel. What does that mean? It means citizenship with God's people. You know, U.S. citizenship is a precious thing. I'm reminded of that every time I go out of the country, when I go on a mission trip to keep my passport close to my person, because there are people who want to take my passport, who want to steal it. Because it's so valuable, they want to sell it on the black market because citizenship is so precious. Paul is talking to mostly Gentile Christians, many of them who were Roman citizens, and in that day, Roman citizenship was coveted. It was very precious. You had certain blessings and rights because you were citizens of Rome. And if you were not born into a Roman Citizens family, it was very difficult to get citizenship, usually cost a lot of money. And Paul is saying to these Ephesians, many of whom were Roman citizens. Yes, you have great blessings by being citizens of Rome, but this is this world is passing, this government is passing, the greatest blessing is to be a citizen of God's people. And God had a special relationship with his people and they had a claim on a land and a city that someday they would inherit. And one of the other advantages that they had was they were part of a nation that was given laws and ordinances that were blessing their means of blessings, and they pointed people to the nature of God and how he dealt with his people by grace. I remember when Jesus was with the Samaritan woman in John chapter four. He revealed by what he said to her, the spiritual advantages of being a citizen of Israel. Remember, she asked him, where is the proper place to worship? And she said, our people, the Samaritans believe the proper place is Gerasim, the mountain of Gerasim. But of course, you Jews believe it's Jerusalem. You remember how Jesus replied? He says, you Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. That was not an arrogant statement by Jesus, it was the truth, it was the great advantage of being a Jew, because God had chosen to chosen to reveal his salvation to the Jewish people. And then Paul reminds them that they were also strangers to the covenants of promise. What's he referring to? He's referring to the covenant that was made to Abraham, the covenant of grace, where God promised to be his God and a God to his people and their children. He promised Abraham that he would make his descendants into a great nation and that they would inherit a land someday. And that promise was repeated and confirmed to various covenants to his descendants through the patriarchs, through the priests, through the kings, through the prophets of Israel. What is a covenant? A covenant is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. It was patterned after the treaties in that time that kings would make with one another. They would enter into an agreement and they would say to one another, if either of us fails to fulfill this covenant, we will die. We will be killed. But God promised. His covenant to Abraham promising that he would fulfill both ends of the covenant because he knew that his people would fail the obligations of the covenant. And so God promised that he was going to fulfill the commands of the covenant and he was going to provide a substitute atonement to pay for the disobedience against God's covenant as well. So the point is here that the Gentiles did not have these advantages. They were in the dark as to God's saving promises to his people because they didn't have the scriptures. All they knew from nature And from what they felt in their own heart, they fell short of God's laws that were placed in their hearts, which leads to the last disadvantage that the Gentiles had before they became Christians, and that is they were in a hopeless state. Paul says, having no hope without God in the world, you know, one of the most dreadful statements, I think, is this statement without hope. How can you live? How can you live just an average life without hope, let alone go through trials and go through tribulations without hope? If you don't have hope, you are lost. The Gentiles were without hope in this life because they were without God. James Boyce said that the deeper a person without Christ thinks, the more pessimistic he becomes. The great secular philosophers, poets and writers throughout history, as they got older, became increasingly pessimistic about life. And isn't that true? Don't you see it in some older people who don't know the Lord, how grumpy they get because they know there's not much more in life than what they've experienced already. And they see the end and they get very depressed. All people without God, without Christ or without hope. Apart from God's special revelation, apart from the life, death and resurrection of Christ, none can have hope. And this hopelessness comes from being without God. Now, many of the Gentiles were polytheists. In other words, they believed in many gods. They sacrificed to many gods. And that word, Athios. Without God was a word that the Gentiles would use against the Jews in disdain for them because they felt they were atheists because they didn't believe in their God. They didn't sacrifice to their gods. What irony that was, and you know, this same criticism was leveled at early Christians when they were persecuted in Rome, they were actually slandered by the nonbelieving people to be atheists because they did not believed that their emperor was a God. And they didn't believe in their many idols. In fact, Polycarp was a disciple of John. He was a bishop of Smyrna. And back in 120 A.D., the authorities took him when he was 86 years old to the arena and commanded him to renounce his faith. And they commanded him to utter an anti-Christian slogan. And you know what that was? Away with the atheists. Well, Polycarp refused to do that. And before they burned him at the stake, he said, you are the atheist. Without Christ, religious people who do not know Jesus or are walking in darkness, they're walking in in a false reality, they think they know God, but they don't. You see, we were made to derive hope from knowing God personally. And if you don't know God, the true God of the Bible through Jesus Christ, you don't have real hope. You are without hope in this world. You know, we were created to get our hope from God. We are created to get our very purpose from God to glorify him and enjoy him forever. But the Gentiles. We're apart from God. They lack the witness. of the special revelation of God's scripture. And so. As Romans 3 11 says, no one understands, no one seeks for God. So we've seen so far the disadvantages the Gentiles had in those days before they were regenerated. And Paul wants them to pause and to remember what they were before their conversion. But now we come to the hinge of our text. Verse 13. Quickly and eagerly. Paul turns from that tragedy. Of the Gentiles former desolation to the joy of their reconciliation, and this is patterned just like verses one through seven was earlier in in in this chapter where Paul enumerates all the disadvantages that nonbelievers have in verses one through four, but then in verse four he says, but God. And then he talks about how God has made them alive in Christ. And it's by grace that they're saved. Well, Paul does a similar thing here in verse 11 and 12. He talks about the condition of the Gentiles before they came to know Christ. But then in verse 13, he says, but now, but now he wants to show them the sharp contrast of what they formerly used to be when they were far away from God. And so our second main point is But now in Christ you have been, you have been what? Point A, brought near, brought near to God. You know, twice Paul uses this emphatic pronoun you. First, it was in verse 12 when he said, remember, you were separated, you were alien, alienated, you were strangers, you were hopeless without God. However, in verse 13, he says, but now You who were far off have been brought near. Now, what does being brought near mean? You know, the people of Israel felt that God was near them and he wanted to communicate that to his people by establishing the tabernacle and then the temple. It was a symbol of his presence with his people. Moses said, What great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us? And we know the Bible says that we are separated from having intimate fellowship with God because of our sin. Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden of Eden. They were banished from having intimate fellowship. And yet, as believers, now we are brought into union with Christ and union with God, we have intimate fellowship with him. How how does that happen? Well, Paul uses this favorite phrase that we're going to get really used to in this book when he says in Christ Jesus. In other words, believers, point one, have been united to Christ. The Holy Spirit comes into a person, resurrects them, gives them a new heart and gives them faith to believe and unites them to Christ. And so we share in everything that Christ has done for us. And so all that Paul has stated here That was the disadvantage to the Gentile now has been reversed. Now, I want you to think about this so far. What Paul has said has been the disadvantage of the unbelieving Gentile has been reversed. And all these disadvantages really represent our basic needs as human beings. We need to be joined with God. We were created to be in fellowship with him. We need to be made part of God's family, his community. We need to be friends with God. We need to have God promise to us his everlasting love and care. We need to have hope, the hope of God's presence in our lives. And God has done this by uniting believers to Christ. Being joined to Christ means that they were point to made part of Israel. I want you to I want you to allow this to sink into your heart. You see, Paul states in Romans 1117 that believing Gentiles have been grafted in among God's people. They now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree. In other words, we've been made a part of the people of God. Galatians 616. Paul is pronouncing a benediction on the Galatians, a church that was mostly Gentile believers. And he and he says, peace and mercy be upon the Israel of God. He's saying to them, you are part of Israel, spiritual Israel. And then Romans four, four, six or 14, six says. The children of Abraham are those who share in the same faith as Abraham. I'm sorry, Romans 416. And so all believers, converted Jews and converted Gentiles are part of the true Israel of God. And point number three here, that means that we're recipients of God's promises. Meaning you can go back to the Old Testament and you can see all the covenantal promises that God gave his people, both spiritual and physical. And you can say, those are my promises. Those are for me, too. Even those physical promises where God promised his people a city and a land. Well, we've been promised that city, the new Jerusalem, we've been promised that land, the new earth. And furthermore, we who are hopeless Gentiles without God in the world now have hope with God, hope with God in the world. Paul says in Colossians 126 that Christ in the believer is the hope of glory. We're given a benediction in Romans chapter 15, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. Brothers and sisters, what great news this is. We can abound in hope in this life and in the life to come. We have promises given to us of eternal life, but also the presence of God here. God is with us. Working through all of our circumstances, He is doing everything for our good and for his glory. That is the hope we have in this life. And the hope that we have to come is that we will be with Christ forever. We will have resurrected bodies on a new heaven and new earth. Now, Paul does not want us to forget exactly how. The Gentiles and the Jews that were converted that were believers are brought near to God, and so I want you to look at verse 13, the end of verse 13 says, that they have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You know, in the Old Testament. God's nearness was not as near as his nearness is to us today. And the reason I say that is that in the Old Testament, the people were prevented from having very close fellowship with God. They needed a priest. They needed to make sacrifices. The veil hung before the holy of holies. Restricting people from being in the presence of God, their sins were constantly before them, requiring continual sacrifices. But then Christ came. The perfect lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world and by his shed blood and death. By his enduring God's wrath for us, the punishment that we deserve. We've been cleansed and forgiven and we have access to God. We have fellowship with God. The idea of a blood sacrifice, the blood sacrifice of God's son who had to become a man first in order to offer his blood. Let's face it, that is offensive to the world today. When you talk about blood and blood sacrifices and how Jesus had to give up his blood in his body, people think that's. That's that's gross, that's archaic. That's. You're a Neanderthal to think that. But, you know, without this part of the gospel, there is no good news to tell people without the atoning sacrifice and blood of Christ. We have no peace with God. Jesus had to be forsaken. He had to be judged. His blood had to be spilt. He had to die in our place for us to be forgiven and to have fellowship with God. All right, so what application what application do we take away from this text this morning? Well, first, whether your background is a Gentile or Jew, God wants you to examine your true condition before him this morning. Have you been united to Christ? Have you been born again? Do you no longer sense God's condemnation and judgment for you against you? Do you have assurance that you will be in heaven with God forever? Have you been brought near to God? Have you been united to Christ? Have you been made part of his people? Are you trusting in God's promises? Do you know that those promises are for you? And you have hope that God is present with you now and forever. Now, I'm probably talking to a lot of people here this morning who have grown up with a connection to the church or as members of the church, and in some way you have a similar privilege that the Jews had back in the Old Testament. What a great blessing to have grown up in the church. And those of you who are baptized in infants, what a great blessing that you've had that sign applied to you because it points to Christ. You've had great privileges hearing the word of God preached, being among God's people and fellowship, worshiping the Lord, the sacraments. But you know what? None of those will make you Christians. Your participation in those things will not make you a believer. God has to work his grace in your heart and bring you to repentance and faith. And so examine your heart. Has that happened to you? And if not, don't leave this place today without praying and asking the Lord to give you faith and repentance, trusting in him for your salvation. Now, if you're a believer, you're exhorted by God through this text to keep remembering who you are. Keep remembering, I'm sorry, who you were. Remember who you were. Now, there are some things that Scripture tell us to forget. We're going to forget the injuries which others have done to us or the sins that others have committed against us. But there's one thing in particular that we're commanded to remember and to never forget. And that is what we were before God's love and grace reached down and found us and transformed us. For only if we remember our former alienation, shall we be able to remember the greatness of God's grace. Which forgave us, which transformed us, and you know what, when you remember what God has done. That helps us to have compassion for the loss. and come and confidence in God's power through the gospel to save. I'm wondering if you've come here thinking about a loved one who doesn't know the Lord or a neighbor who doesn't know the Lord or a work associate that doesn't know Christ and you're thinking, boy, I don't know how they're ever going to come to the Lord. They are so resistant to the gospel hardened. I recall John Newton, who was dramatically converted. He used to be a wretched slave trader and God called him to himself and he became a preacher and a hymn writer. And he was once asked if he ever despaired of the salvation of someone who seemed so far so hardened against God. And he said, I never despair since God saved me. Each and every one of your believers are miracles. God had to change your heart. We need to believe that he can do that. He still does that today, even with the most hardened people. So keep believing, keep trusting, keep sharing the gospel. Keep praying for that unsaved loved one. And lastly, continue to celebrate who you are now. Remember who you were and then dwell on who you are now. Remember that you Have union with Christ and remember, you have it through his shed blood. And remember the butts of this chapter, what are the two butts? Verse four, but God and verse 13, but now. Some of you might be thinking, OK, Pastor, you're wrapping it up here. I need something more practical. A brother or sister, this is immensely practical, because if you focus on who you are now in Christ, it makes you humble. It makes you grateful. It gives you comfort and hope and joy and peace. It helps you to find your identity in Christ and not in any other thing or person. God is near you through his Holy Spirit, and we need to exhort one another. To avail ourselves of that great privilege. You are his beloved people. You are the apple of his eye. You have a sure hope in his promises and in his presence in the world now and in the world to come. So whatever you're going through right now, maybe you're in a trial, maybe you are experiencing adversity or maybe you're struggling with a particular sin. God is saying to you, keep remembering what you used to be and who you are right now. Keep preaching to your heart the indicatives of what Christ has done for you, and then you will have the motivation, you will have the power, you will have the joy, you will have the hope, and you will see God continue to grow you, to change your life. Let's pray.