who fear him, he remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works in giving them the inheritance of the nations. The work of his hands are faithful and just. All of his precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to his people. He has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have good understanding. Indeed, his praise endures forever. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious heavenly fathers, we come this morning to see the smiling faces of all these folks that have gathered here this morning. We all gather for this reason, Father, because we see that you're worthy. We see that you are the God of heavens and earth, God of this scripture, the God revealed, not only in this truth that you've given us in your word, but in the light and the glory of Jesus Christ, and indeed, Father, in our hearts, as you indwell your church, your people. We come together this morning, Father, to praise you and give you thanks for the good things you've done, to hold your name, the name above all names, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, covenant-keeping, long-suffering, merciful Heavenly Father, we come because we adore you. and want to sing praises to your name. Fill the hearts of your people this morning and join them as they come together and sing praises to your name. In Jesus' name, amen. Have your hymnals turned to hymnal number four, How Great Thou Art, hymnal number four. Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder Consider all Thy works Thy hands have made I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe displayed Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art, how great Thou art Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art, how great Thou art When through the woods and forest glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down from lofty mountains grandeur, And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze, Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin, and sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art! Please be seated. Oh, wait. Give somebody a hug, and then you can be seated. You caught me there with ending with that last verse. If you have your Bibles this morning, let's turn over to the book of Isaiah for our confession passage. The book of Isaiah. Keep your finger there in Psalms, we're coming back to that. Book of Isaiah, 55th chapter. Just two verses this morning for our confession passage. If you're new with us this morning, you'll see that the gospel is in the shape of our worship. We recognize who God is. And in seeing who God is, we recognize who we are. and we want to confess our sins to him, and that's what this passage, or this focus is during this time in our worship service. It also serves to give you a time to go before the Lord privately before we take of the Lord's table at the end of our service. Isaiah 55, verses six and seven. Isaiah 55, six and seven. Seek the Lord while he may be found, Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious and merciful Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning in your house, blessed by your goodness and your giving, and we bring before you all of our shortcomings, Father. We bring them before you because we don't want anything between you and us. We want the blessing of full communion. We have that in your Son, Jesus. That's promised, and it cannot be taken away. But Father, we know that when we make mistakes that we still live in these sinful bodies, that it causes separation. Like a child who doesn't wanna face his father after doing something wrong, we are those children. Intimately so, you take us in your loving arms and you bless us when we bring our shortcomings to us because you forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Like a loving father, you tell us it's gonna be okay. and you take us back in your arms again. Father, we bring it all before you this day. Hear the prayers of your people. Heal the hurts of their heart. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Psalms 116 for our propitiation passage. Psalms 116, verses one through nine, for our propitiation passage, which we exalt God for who he is and the call to worship, And seeing who he is, we confess our sins before him. And then in the propitiation passage, we see what God has done for our sins in his son, Jesus Christ. Chapter 116, the book of Psalms, verses one through nine. I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish, but then I called on the name of the Lord. Oh Lord, I pray, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me. Return, oh my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. In Christ your sins are forgiven you. Amen. Turn your hymnals now to 624. We're gonna sing the doxology. You're gonna play all the way through it, okay. That's fine, either way. I think what they're gonna do, do you wanna stand? Go ahead, jump up, stand, 624. Right, they're gonna do just the first little bit of it, the music to it, and then we're gonna sing it acapella. The doxology, and I'll just backfill this a little bit, is something so precious, especially when the saints of the Lord sing it out loud and proud. 624, you'll recognize the tune, 624. You guys ready? Everybody's ready. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen. Now turn to 148, O Holy Night, 148. You guys did a great job. O holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining. till he appears and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees Oh, hear the angels' voices O night divine O night When Christ was born All night divine All night, all night divine Led by the light of faith severely beaming, With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand. So led by light of a star so sweetly gleaming, He came to this world, this man from Orient land. the king of kings they thus in lowly manger in all our trials born to be our friend he knows our needs too are we Ness is no stranger. Behold your king. Before him low, he lowly bend. Behold before him lowly bend. Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for his slave is a brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name. Christ is the Lord. Oh, praise his name forever. His power and glory evermore proclaim. His power and glory evermore proclaim. Thank you. Please be seated. Good job, ladies. Thank you for your leading. If you have your Bibles with you this morning, please turn to the second chapter of the Book of Ephesians. It should be no surprise where we're preaching from. I know Christmas is getting near, and I'm excited about the Advent season. It's a special time of the year, the focus on the Christ coming into the world. And every Sunday, as a matter of fact, is a special time to focus on those things. Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter two, we're gonna begin in 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 the promise. You had no hope. Without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus 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 the 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 he preached peace to you who were far off. and peace to you who are near, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers or aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God. by the Spirit. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Fathers, we come this morning, just pray your blessings on your word this morning. Father, go past my simple words. Use the words and power of your Holy Spirit to speak directly to the hearts of your people. Enliven them, encourage them, strengthen them. Father, this world is a difficult place. These folks go out in it every week, they go to work, You go to deal with all the things that life involves, and we watch the news, we watch things around us, and we see the hurt and the pain just outside our doors. But we come in here this morning, Father, because we know we have hope in Jesus Christ. We know we have hope in what he has done in reconciling us to you, for he himself is our peace. Fathers, we preach that message this morning. Let it rest in our hearts with strength and glory. And let that message encourage us and carry us until we meet here again, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Excuse me. This passage, as we work in Ephesians 2, 11 through 22, we had verses 11 through 13 for you last week, and it's gonna require just a little bit of a review before we go into verses 14 through 16 this morning, but not too much. But what we see in this passage, and we're really kinda taking it in three chunks, Verses 11 through 13, and then, well, let's just look at them there momentarily. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, the ones that the Jews call uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, that's the Jews, which is made in flesh by hands, remember that you were separated from Christ. And remember we recognize these five things in this passage, that you're separated from Christ, You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. That means that you were alienated from citizenship. You were kept from citizenship of the people of God. So you were separated from Christ and that's the most important one. The rest of these flow out of that position. But they were alienated from citizenship. They were strangers to the covenant. We spent most of our time there because it's in the covenant promises that God brings us as from pagans or from Gentiles or from the nations into God's people. and we receive the covenant blessings. Remember we talked a lot about that last week. I think it's so important for Christians today to know the covenant blessings. The covenant that God made with Adam, the covenant that God renewed with Noah, and then on through Abraham and David and all down through the Old Testament and through the scriptures until God changed the new covenant and he made it open to all of us. We were strangers, we were the uncircumcised according to the circumcised, but when Jesus came, he made a way so that we could have the covenant blessings with the nation of Israel. And we found that in the cultural mandate, it's a land, seed, and promise of not only protection by God, but fellowship with God, his presence, that's the word I was looking for to alliterate my piece there this morning, his presence and his protection. His perfect gift to us through that in the covenants. That we would be fruitful, multiply, fill us to do the earth, and have dominion over it. That's been it. And then with the new covenant, he added that we have the great commission. That we would go into all the nations discipling them, right? Baptizing them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit. And lo, Jesus says, I'm with you always. And the reason we do that is because All authority was given to him in heaven and all authority on earth was given in him to us to do that, and as we do that, others can come into the kingdom, others can become people of God, and then be expressed through the covenants of grace, the covenants of promise that was given originally to the nation of Israel. In other words, he's making from two different types of people, the people of God and the people not of God, one people, and it's called the church, and he's doing that in Jesus Christ. So these five things we noted last week are very important. We were separated from Christ, alienated from citizenship to the one nation that had all these truths, the prophets. And we were strangers to the covenants, and indeed that left us, as he said, hopeless and godless. Literally, atheists. We were godless, without God, in this world. But then he said, now in Christ Jesus, you've been brought near by his blood. Those promises, or what we see the people receiving if we jump down to verse 19, because we're gonna work on sections 14 through 16. He said you were separated, but in verse 19 he begins, so now then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you're fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. So Paul's reminded them that they weren't, they were separated from Christ and all the blessings of God to the nation of Israel through Jesus, we become part of that blessing and part of those covenants, And in 19 he says, now we're part of that. So it's the verses that we're gonna look at today that tell us how that took place. The second section is what I wanna cover today from verses 14 through 16. For he himself is our peace, it says, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law and commandments that were written in ordinances against them. God has done in Christ what we could not have done. He has brought himself to this place, and we celebrate that in Advent, the baby Jesus coming some 2,000 years ago in the manger, his growing and being tested as a man, his dying on the cross of Calvary, his being buried in the grave, and lo and behold, his rising on the third day. It is faith in him and his payment for our sins that makes the two one. But it's in this lesson this morning that we're gonna see that Jesus and Jesus alone is our peace. The name of this is One New Man. because that one new man from the two, and mind you, that God doesn't institute something new here for the nation of Israel, but he's gonna say both have to go through the blood of Christ to be brought together. So we're gonna see how he brings us together, but that one new man, that one new body that's created out of the two, beloved, that's the church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is you. That is where we set today in this building. That is why we come together. That is why we are one person in Christ. That is why we have fellowship together, okay? For he himself is our peace. Let's work on that. You see it there in verse 14. Only Jesus can bring peace to man and to the world. Let me say that again. I know it's simple and we can breeze right past it. Only Jesus can bring peace to man and to the world. No amount of money, no amount of political power, no amount of military might, no amount of prestige can or ever will satisfy the human longing for true peace. Peace cannot be gained by things. Peace cannot come from your possessions. Peace cannot come from you performing great accomplishments. Peace cannot come from fleshly pleasures. Peace cannot be gained by instating more laws. Peace cannot be gained by war and peace can certainly not be gained by treaty. Why? Why is Jesus alone our peace? Because you and I, beloved, were created for God and the human heart will not be satisfied until we're reconciled with God. Because you and I were created for God and the human heart will only be satisfied in relationship to God and indeed will have great disquiet until reconciled with God. There is no neutral. There is no in-between state. It's either Christ or chaos, beloved. It's either Christ or chaos. It's either Christ and peace or no peace. It's either Christ and peace and reconciliation or enmity and hostility. There's no in between in this world. Don't let the fooler of the great fools, that is Satan, the one who would have you fooled to believe that there is peace made by man in this world. Just take for a moment and look at our world and look at the strife and look at the fighting and look at the chaos and you will soon see that it's because they have no Jesus, they have no peace. See, there's an enmity contained within the human heart. and it must be reconciled before any good thing can be accomplished or experienced by man. I speak in a bit of platitudes this morning, but that's the simple truth. You have enmity in your heart as a sinner. You also have a hostility in the heart of man that affects every part of the life of man and being and always and continually will affect man and therefore every working and doing of man and every relationship of man and will not be reconciled ever by human means. There is a hostility and an enmity within man that cannot be dealt with in any other way but through Jesus Christ. You know what enmity is, right? It's a Bible word, we don't hear much in our culture today. Enmity, it's spelled E-N-M-I-T-Y, enmity. It's hard to say, that's why I'm saying it over and over, because I'm gonna say it a lot today. It's being actively opposed to someone or something. We're not just sinners who have fallen, but we, in our sinful state, in our lost condition without Christ, are actively opposed to God. And because we're actively opposed to God in our sin, we are actively opposed to every human being that exists. We cannot be right with others until we're right with God. Our hearts have to be dealt with before we can have friendships and peace in this place. This hostility and enmity cannot be pushed down. It can't be covered up. It can't be held back, suppressed, or apprehended. It will come out. It will manifest itself in your relationships and the way you live. It cannot be controlled so that man can live in peace, not with himself, nor with his fellow man. Listen, scripture's clear this morning. You see there in verse 16, it can only be put to death. You see it there in verse 16? and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, therefore by killing the hostility. That enmity in your heart, that hostility in your heart can only be killed and put to death on the cross of Calvary, only through Jesus Christ. The apostle had just set forth this great example in all the history that there was separation and hostility between the Jew and the Gentile. We shouldn't be surprised, right? the people of God, and all the things that they had, and all the other people of the world. There was a hostility between them. I mean, there's hostility among all people groups today. It says that in verse 13, they were separated, right? Paul wanted them to remember where they had come from, so much so that they could not live together even. From an ethnic perspective, they had hated each other as people groups since the day inception of their lives. The Jews believed that the Gentiles were pagan dogs and the Gentiles seen the Jews as elitist religious hypocrites. Sound familiar? And it just so it goes on today. The Jews believed that they were ethnically pure and that their offspring of being the offspring of Abraham. and having those covenant promises given to them that they were a people of God, and they were, and therefore they were better. They were somehow worthy of what God was doing, which they weren't. So this enmity and hostility is at the basis of all of our racial and ethnic strife in the world today. You see it all over the world, it's not new. The hostilities have always existed in unredeemed man. Here, Jew and Gentile today, black and white, north and south, rich and poor, have and have not, male and female, right? Old and young. The hostility's there and it's built in because of the hostility and enmity in the human heart. I forgot to include the political divisions, but you guys see enough of that, right? So yeah, you can laugh at that. So it's there in our world and in our life. It's very real. So Paul uses the illustration there in verse 14. He calls it a dividing wall of hostility that separated them. That's an interesting passage. It's just here in scripture and it alludes to something in the first century. And in this case, the dividing wall that Paul most likely would have been pointing to was there in the temple in the first century. It's there we find the wall that divided the Gentile court from the Jewish court. In other words, the Gentile area of the temple, which was as far as they could go without profaning the temple, where the sacrifices would have been made. The Jewish historian Josephus in the first century pointed out that there were 13 stone slabs with writing, both in the Greek and Latin, were placed in intervals along this partition or this barrier, warning the Gentiles not to enter. In Josephus' own words, he says this, there was a partition made of stone. Its construction was very elegant, Upon it stood pillars at equal distances from one another, declaring the law of purity. That's the ceremonial law that would have been written there. Some in Greek, some in Roman letters, that no foreigner should go within the sanctuary. Archeologists have since recovered two of these warning slabs, which state upon them, no foreigner is allowed to enter within the balustrade or the division surrounding the sanctuary and court Whoever is caught will be personally responsible for his ensuing death. That was the punishment, by the way. If you were not a person of God and you entered the temple and you tried to go into anywhere but the court of the Gentiles, it meant death, ensuing death. And you were responsible yourself for that. But what mattered was the way that God saw them ultimately, right? We talked a lot about that last week. And we're gonna see even more specifically this morning that Christ was the answer for both groups, that both needed something to be one, to be the church. God does not, and it's because this, God does not judge by skin, but by sin. It's not a skin problem, but a sin problem. God doesn't judge by your ethnic standards. He was not gonna allow the Jews into heaven by just their familia, connections, it would be through the blood of Jesus Christ. It's not a skin, see these are man's categories, rich, poor, white, black, male, female, tall, short, yeah, whatever you wanna say, haves, have-nots, Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter. If you're gonna deal with what's in your heart, you're gonna deal with it through Jesus Christ. So the wall represented for Paul the hostility between these two groups, indeed, and that wall had to come down for both groups to have access to one another. But the wall was not a physical barrier as such, for if the physical wall in the temple would have immediately been torn down, this would not cause the two groups to immediately become one, to live at peace with one another. They would still have hostility and enmity. They would still disdain one another and hate each other, and all that they would do if left to their own devices would be build new walls. The hostility that it took to build the wall and the enmity they had for one another would exist whether the wall, the physical barrier was there or not, and that's true still today, that was true in the first century temple, and it's true of what Paul is speaking about in making one new man. The wall therefore was not physical, but it was a wall erected in the human heart. It was not the physical barrier ultimately that separated them, It was what was going on in their heart. The hostility and the enmity were not a result of the physical wall denying access to God, but the result of their separation from God and sin. That is, to make the two one, they both had to be, you see it there in verse 16, reconciled to God. Reconciliation and the destruction of that wall of hostility between man was torn down, as it says in verse 15, by abolishing the law and commandments expressed in the ordinances. That is, through the cross. Jesus fulfilled everything that took place in the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law was the law given to Israel to tell them that they needed to slaughter a lamb, to put that lamb's blood on the altar, to have it burned there as a sacrifice to propitiate their sin before God. That's why it had to be through the cross because the final lamb The lamb without spot or blemish had to bring down the law. He had to fulfill it by living it perfectly, and he had to bring down the ceremonial law by spilling his own blood to pay for our sins. But this is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The dividing wall was in the heart of man. It was their sin, the nature of man is sin, and the strength of that wall is the law, the righteous law of God for judging man in his sin. This is where the hostility comes from. Man is separated from God. He is evil in that state and condition. He hates God, and because he hates God, he hates his fellow man. And the only way for that wall to come down is for the law to be fulfilled. for the hostility to God to be ended and man to be reconciled to God. For when man is reconciled to God, he can be reconciled then and only then to his fellow man. This hostility is where the hate is generated. This is where the hostility comes from, is that we're wrong before God. That we fight and we wanna be who we wanna be. We don't wanna listen to somebody above us, right? That's our state in sin. but this payment has been made so that hostility can be brought down in Jesus Christ. Then and only then can two men, two separate men, become one new man. Both men, in verse 16, you see it there, read it with me. And might reconcile to, or might reconcile us both to God in one body. Both men, the circumcised man and the uncircumcised man then, needed the blood of Christ. That came through the cross, as it says in verse 16, thereby killing that hostility. It was the death of that hostility that allowed them to be reconciled to God so that they could be one together in Christ. That's the church, beloved. Those who have been reconciled to God, made new in the blood of Christ on Calvary, because only the blood of Christ can reconcile man. Only the blood of Christ can propitiate and pay the debt that relieves the hostility that is there. There's a lot of people that thinks that sin is such that it can just be forgotten by God. It can't be so. It has to be paid for or God would not be just. If God required us to fulfill the law and would send us to eternal damnation for not fulfilling the law, then our sin has to be paid for. And that payment came in Jesus Christ. One of the best ways to illustrate that today is the thing that's going around now that's so popular that your student loan can be forgiven. Like the money just evaporates. And you see, I'm gonna explain this to you, right? Because it's gonna show, this is a perfect illustration in my opinion, because for the people that have the student loan that don't have the money to pay it, they're happy. I would be. Somebody come in and paid my debt. Right? My debt's gone. I can use that money for something else. But there's a whole group of people over here that's paying it that are not happy anymore about that. Right? Because it doesn't just evaporate. Somebody has to pay the bill. Because of the hostility in your heart, Jesus propitiated. He satisfied the wrath of God against your sin. on the cross of Calvary. And it's there in that cross that we see the love and the mercy and we see the justice of the Father. It's in that act that we see who we are and see who God is. And it's in that act where our debt is paid that we can lay down our hostility between us and God. Then and only then can two be one new man. Both men needed reconciliation to God before they could become one body, the church. And all of those are the church who have been reconciled to God, made new in the blood of Jesus because only the blood can reconcile man to God. So that word reconciliation there in verse 16, that's where I wanna work for the next hour or so. I'm swearing those girls were drinking eggnog last night at the Christmas party. This word reconciliation, you see it there in verse 16, it's key to our understanding of what Paul is teaching us here. The root word translated here is unique because Paul only uses this in one other place. Now you see the word reconciliation a lot of other places in the scriptures, and it does come from the same root word that Paul uses, but here he puts a prefix on it that means something that just inflects the meaning a little bit that's so important to our message. Turn with me to Colossians, it's just one, two books over, Colossians chapter one. It's important because this is the central portion of what breaks down the barrier, what destroys the, what kills the hostility, okay? We're gonna see that language here again. Colossians one, I think we're gonna begin in verse 15, yes. It's the preeminence of Christ. Imagine that he matches these two things here in Colossians, but it's the same line of thought. It's the only other place that this word is used with this prefix in this form. Paul writes, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether they be thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all those things, and in him all things hold together. There's a glorious truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. John 1-1 would say, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And all things were made through him, and there was not one thing made that was not made through him. Not only was it made through him and he was in the beginning, but all things consist or hold together. He's holding it all together today. You don't have to let go of it, all right? Jesus has got you, right? This Jesus that Paul speaks of in Colossians is the one holding all these things. Surely he can kill the hostility between you and God. Verse 18, and he is the head of the body. Recognize these words from Paul. Paul is such a, he loves his rhetoric. He's making, the two one new man into one new body, that is the church, okay, through the crucified body of our Lord Jesus Christ. He uses these terms, it's soma in the Greek. And he's the head of the body, not only figuratively so is our head, but the head of the church, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that's because he rose out of the grave, that in everything he might be preeminent, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. and through him to, there it is, reconcile to himself all things, we see that language in Ephesians 1, 9, and 10, remember? Whether on earth or in heaven, that's those thrones and principalities and powers from above, making peace, only in Christ can peace come by the blood of his cross. Verse 21, and you who were once alienated, same words, right, and hostile, in your mind and you were doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before God. It's that reconciliation, it's a key to the understanding here this morning. Reconcile then in context means to change from a hostile or an enemy, one with enmity to a friendly relationship And it's not just the friendly like you do whenever you make up with your buddy and you see him in Walmart. Instead of wanting to kill him, you kind of go, hey, what's up, John? Right? That's why I hate to go to Walmart. Right? You laugh, but you do the same thing. It's not that kind of reconciliation. This word emphasizes the completeness of the action of the reconciliation. And that it supposes that the enmity that caused the strain in the relationship. The hostility is so laid aside in such a way, so done with, that only the good follows from this new relationship. It carries the meaning of a completed action. This prefix establishes that the greater partner is the reconciling partner. It's a prefix that says it comes down from above, cutting action, it means to come down from above, but what it's saying here, and the Latin gets this better, reconciled means to be brought back to where you once were. Thus, in this context and this use of this word, what we're seeing is that God is bringing us, that Christ is reconciling us through his blood back to where we were. What it's hearkening to is Paul is saying that before God, you're back to where Adam was, as if your sin doesn't exist. the hostility and enmity is gone. That is through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, you're being reconciled to God to enjoy and enjoy that first relationship that the first Adam had with God. This relationship had been destroyed, and if you remember in the Garden of Eden, the greater God came looking for Adam to reestablish that. But that's what sin does, beloved. Man is separated from God by sin. Because God's holiness sets forth in the law, verse 15, that's the law and the commandments, and the ceremonial law expressed in the ordinances, shows forth God's justice and righteousness in our sinfulness. And it also shows man his just punishment and why he's been separated from God. Man had broken fellowship with God. This is the fount of all that hostility and enmity and the hostility and enmity we have with fellow man. If you think about this, it's not too difficult. Every sin that man senses against God causes him to break fellowship with God and causes hostility and enmity within fellow man, greed, Our greed causes us to be at wrong with God and be at wrong with our fellow man. Our money has to come from somewhere and usually greed pushes you to the point where you get unmerited gain. What about the man who drinks every night? He's at wrong with God and at wrong with his family. Hostility of man and abortion. He's at wrong with God because of murder and he's at wrong with that baby because of its life. How about this explains it well. If you want to see hostility of man, take a look at the Homosexual Male Sex Act. It is the most openly hostile thing one man could do to another, and our culture calls it love today. That's the condition that man's in. Listen, if you blame someone else for any problem that you're having, you show the problem. Let me illustrate that with my children. Of course, it's not the child that I have here today, it's all the other ones, right? Because I couldn't tell you it's him. But all your children do this too. Whenever I say, listen, we need to correct this, you're doing this wrong, he'll say, well, I'm not as bad as my brother Mike, to make up a name. But beloved, that's not the standard. The standard is God. If you point to someone else to justify your behaviors, you're showing the enmity and hostility in the work of sin in your heart. Because the standard is not somebody not making the standard in a worse fashion than you. The standard is God's perfect and righteous law. The standard is God. Turn with me to John 15. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we need Christ. Without him we can do not one thing. John chapter 15, we're gonna read verses one through five. Jesus says, I'm the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch that is in me that does not bear fruit, he takes that branch away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. And that's the work of sanctification in the life of a Christian. He prunes us. He nurtures us. He carries us along. In our temptations, in our trials, he's making us better. But the branches that bear no fruit are dead branches. He's throwing them away for the fire, right? Verse three, already you're clean, he's telling us, because of the word that I've spoken to you. Abide in me, verse four. Abide in me, for apart from Christ you can do nothing. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in that vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. Here's what I wanted. For apart from Christ, you can do not one thing. You cannot work your way out of the hostility and the enmity in your heart. You must give your life to Christ. You have no hope. Apart from Christ, we have no hope. Even us who call on the name of Christ, apart from his working and intervention in our lives in this world, we have no hope. He is the one that has created everything, that owns everything, that everything was created for his glory, and sustains everything. Jesus has brought us peace by his life, by his death there on Calvary and his burial and then his resurrection on the third day. Only he can tear down the wall of hostility. First with God, that wall comes down and we're saved, right? Our hearts are regenerated, that enmity and hostility is taken from us and then with us to other men. Only he can change the way we look at other ethnicities. races, the way we look at the rich and the poor, white and black, male, female, able, unable, whatever category you want to bring from man, only Christ can make us see it in the right way. Only he can bring them together, making the two one in his body, the church on the cross. Scripture here plainly says that he tore down the wall of hostility. He obliterated it, what separated us from God. He fulfills the law on our behalf and our hostility towards one another is done away with. It's put to death. He killed it, beloved. He put it to death. It is no longer alive. It is gone as far as the east is from the west. God sees your sin. No more in Christ you are made righteous. And you can live in this world and with your fellow man. One more passage of scripture and I promise I'll leave you alone. Go to Mark chapter 12. The result of this is what we're gonna read in Mark chapter 12. Beginning at verse 28. And one of the scribes come up and heard the group disputing one with the other. Mark 12, 28. And seeing that he answered them well, asked him, which commandment is the most important of all? And Jesus answered, the most important is Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second one is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Beloved, God has made it clear for us this morning. The enmity and hostility in the lost person's heart is what separates them from God and separates them from their fellow man. Only can that hostility and enmity, that all be torn down in the blood of Jesus Christ. Be reconciled to him today. Be reconciled to him in the name of God and his son, Jesus Christ. Gracious Heavenly Father, if we're to have peace, it's to come in Christ. and what he has done on the cross. As we celebrate this Advent season, we see that baby come in a manger, yes. And we knew, we know because scripture tells us and the Holy Spirit confirms this in our hearts that he grew and he was tested and he was tempted. but he remained without sin so that it could be the perfect sacrifice so that he could pay the penalty that we owed. And it's in his paying the penalty that we owed and our faith in that, that the hostility that is between you and us is broken down. And Father, as you do that to various groups of different people, we read last week from Revelation in two passages that when we look into heaven, every nation, every tribe and every tongue and every people. And all of them will be praising together the one who is worthy, the one who is worthy of honor and thanksgiving, our mighty Lord and Savior Jesus. Father, it's in his name that we can come to you this morning and seek peace. It's in Jesus' name, amen. The man that's gonna come to help us with the Lord's table this morning, I would tell you that as we complete that this morning, don't forget that we're gonna follow that with a song and the offering as we leave today. Gonna do the Lord's Table from 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians 11. What a great precedence to renew the covenant, to renew these vows time and time again, the Lord said, until he comes again. Read from Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians 11, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, he took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and he said, this is my body which is for you, do this in remembrance of me. And in the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again. Amen. Please stand, we have this last hymn, and don't forget that our Soon as the hymn starts, our ushers will begin to work. Right here, brother. Hymn number 97. It will be up on the screen for you, I believe. Hymn number 97. Oh hail the power of Jesus' name, let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all. He chosen seed of Israel's race He ransomed from the fall Hail Him who saved you by His grace And crown Him Lord of all Hail Him who saved you by His grace And crown Him Lord of all ♪ Let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball ♪ ♪ To Him all majesty ascribe and crown Him Lord of all ♪ ♪ To Him all majesty ascribe and crown Him Lord of all ♪ 2 O that with yonder sacred throne we at his feet may fall! We'll join the everlasting song and crown him Lord of all. We'll join the everlasting song and crown him Lord of all. Now to him who is able, now to him who is able,