Let's hear this morning from the Lord. So we'll be turning to Ephesians chapter 2. We'll be looking at verse 11 through chapter 3, verse 10. So if you'll turn with me in your Bibles. And I'll give you just a moment to turn there. Ephesians chapter two, beginning in verse 11. This is the holy inspired word of God. 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 are 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 afar 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 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 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. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and 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. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Let's pray together. Father, we certainly do not deserve to be here this morning. We do not deserve to worship you, to enter into your presence through the Lord Jesus Christ, to be counted among your children and part of your household. We do not deserve to have you speak to us. In fact, if it were not for Christ, we would be destroyed by your word. But we thank you that through the Lord Jesus Christ, You do and have spoken to us. You have brought us into your family. We, through him and his righteousness, can worship in your presence. And we pray this morning, we are slow to hear, that you would open our ears and open our blind eyes to see and to hear your word. We pray that by your spirit you would transform us. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. About a year ago, I had some peastone delivered to our new house and dumped out front on our sidewalk. We had just moved into West Jeanette, and one of the projects that I needed to get done before winter was to put down a water barrier against the foundation wall of our house so that rainwater didn't get into the basement. So I laid down some plastic and I had the landscaping stone delivered in order to put on top of it and hold it in place. On my street in West Genette, it's a good mix of African American and white, all low income, with a couple of abandoned houses, and at the end of our block, an abandoned factory. Some kids will ride their bikes up and down our street, and as I grabbed a wheelbarrow and a shovel to start moving the stone, one of those kids, an African American boy about 11 years old, rode up to see what I was doing. I asked him how he was doing, and I asked him how long he thought it would take me to move all that stone, and he said about a day, and then he said, you know, I could help you if I wanted to. And I said, well, I only have this one shovel, but that's really nice of you to offer, and he said, I'll be right back. A couple minutes later, he showed up with a shovel and got right to work. He was a quiet kid, but polite. He would only speak in response to a question. But I found out that he lived two houses down with his dad and mom and his brothers. He had grown up in Jeannette, he said, but he had just moved to West Jeannette because, as he put it, his family couldn't live where they were living any longer. I found out that his father was currently unemployed, but it sounded like he cared for them, because when I asked him what he had had for breakfast, he said that his dad had made his brother and him bacon and eggs for breakfast. And I muttered out loud that I should probably come over to his house for breakfast. But other than when I asked him a question, he was silent, and he worked. He worked hard. We worked all day. He never tired, and he never asked for a break. When we had finished moving all that stone, I told him how grateful I was for his help, and I told him that I wanted to give him a couple dollars for helping me out. He hadn't asked, but I thought that I should do that. And so I said I wanted to ask his dad if that would be okay. Would he mind taking me over to introduce me? He just nodded his head, and we started to head across the street to his house. He hopped over the front porch and went inside. I heard him tell his dad that a neighbor wanted to talk to him. So his dad came out and closed the door behind him. When his father came out, I explained the wonderful thing that his son had done for me, and I asked him if it would be okay to give him a few dollars. I was very grateful for the help. And he said yes, and so I gave the kid a couple of dollars, and I started heading back to my place. No sooner had I stepped off the porch than I heard the kid's dad demand that he come back inside the house. And I heard him begin screaming at the boy at the top of his lungs. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but I could tell that whatever it was, he was not happy about what had happened. I was pretty shocked. And I was confused. The last thing that I wanted to do was to get this nice boy in trouble after what he had done for me. In fact, I was hoping for exactly the opposite. I was hoping for his dad to beam with pride over his son. But I realized at that moment that my foundation wall was not the only wall that I was facing in Jeannette, that there was also cultural walls that I couldn't see but that were no less real. And I had some learning to do of these barriers if they were to be overcome, if we were going to develop relationships in the community. In our passage this morning, Paul addresses a cultural wall of division that had carried over into the Ephesian church, one that at first glance may be just as unfamiliar to us, but this wall of hostility threatened the unity of the first century church, a unity that Christ had paid for with his blood. In America today, there are dividing walls as well, walls of hostility that divide along racial lines, political lines, cultural lines, and sometimes carry right on over into the church, threatening the unity of the church to this day. And our call is the same as the one to the Ephesians, to see the hostility killed here so that people will see the multicolor wisdom of God. That's what we need to look at in our passage this morning. There's much in this passage that I read that I'll not be able to address. But I'd like to get at the heart of this passage. And lying behind it, we need to recognize that there was a deep racial division and hostility in the first century. Look with me at verse 11 again. 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. The terms that Paul uses here are racial terms. Gentiles in the flesh. The uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision. Terms like made in the flesh. were quite a bit separated in time and culture from this language, but the terms Gentile and uncircumcision amounted to derogatory racial slurs, ones that would have been spoken with disgust and probably followed by the speaker spitting because even the terms were considered dirty. The word goyim, the Hebrew for Gentiles, is still used by Jews today in a slightly derogatory way. But in the first century, it was a term of disdain. And Paul kind of throws it back at the Jews who used it here because of the racial superiority implied in the term circumcision by calling them the so-called circumcision and adding the term made in the flesh by hand, implying that it went no deeper than that. But behind all of this was a bitter racial hostility between Jew and Gentile. The Jews saw themselves as the chosen race, as God's special people, and because of that, the only clean people on the face of the earth. And there was some good reason to think this. God's presence dwelt in their midst by way of the temple in Jerusalem. God had chosen them to be his people when he covenanted or entered into relationship with their forefather Abraham. He had formed them into a nation at Mount Sinai after delivering them in spectacular fashion from Egypt. God had rained down plague after plague on the Egyptians, killed all the Egyptian firstborn in a night, had split the Red Sea and drowned Pharaoh and his army in that same sea. And then he had come down with thunder, lightning, fire, and trumpet blasts on Sinai. and spoke to them so that they heard the very voice of God himself. He delivered to them the law written on two tablets of stone by his own finger and he commanded them to be holy as he is holy. What nation was like this nation? And this caused them to look down upon heathen nations around them, to view themselves as a superior race, and to view the Gentiles as unclean and defiled, even something less than human. We have historical records of them calling Gentiles or non-Jews dogs. and of their being loath to even associate with them. They would not eat with Gentiles and believe that even the dust of the heathen nations was unclean, that it defiled whatever it clung to. If a Jew traveled outside the Holy Land, they would shake the dust of the unclean Gentile nations off their feet before stepping back in to the Holy Land. And the Gentiles, they picked up on this sense of superiority and this disdain of them, and it did not sit well with them. It did not lead to cordial relations, to say the least. This racial tension and hostility was only compounded by Roman occupation. During the first century, Rome ruled over and occupied Israel. And they were not exactly sensitive to the cultural norms of the lands in which they occupied. Israel's scruples over clean and unclean, holy and unholy, were not on their list of top priorities. And this led to ever-worsening relations. One historian writes this, the division between Jews and Gentiles was one of the most bitter divisions in the ancient world. This hostility would build to a point of erupting in a horrific bloody war that would end with the absolute destruction and burning of the temple in 70 AD, less than 10 years after the writing of this letter. The Jews were disgusted by the Gentiles and the Gentiles despised the Jews. In the summertime, once in a while, I will stumble across an insect that stops me dead in my tracks. I hate bugs in general, but these ones, they creep me out. They give me the heebie-jeebies. They're a house centipede that have really long legs, and they're super fast. I've stumbled across a few when I was working in the office at Murraysville Community Church, and one actually touched me. I had to go home and shower immediately. I almost scrubbed my skin raw. I would rather, these bugs, they disgust me, they're dirty, nasty bugs. I would rather kill them than know that any exist anywhere near me. In fact, I'll spray bug killers as a boundary around the outside and inside of my house, specifically because of those guys. We cannot exist in the same house. This is how the Jews viewed the uncircumcised Gentile. They could not exist in the same land. And it existed this, it erected this wall of hostility. You see, racial tension, racism, segregation, discrimination, and hostility are not new things. While racism is evil and it's sinful, I think we often fall into the logical fallacy of believing that it is distinctly American or maybe German, but it's not. It began in the human heart the moment Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and it existed deeply at the time of Christ and the writing of this letter. And unfortunately, this hostility had carried somewhat over into the church. Look with me at verse 14. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. The writing of this letter, as well as many other New Testament books and their content, attest to that sad fact. The Book of Romans, while containing these deep theological truths about our redemption in Christ, is also filled with Paul addressing issues surrounding Jew and Gentile relations in the church. Romans 3, 9, what then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jew and Greeks, are under sin. The book of Acts, while certainly written for many reasons, had as one central purpose the legitimizing of Paul's apostleship, because he was an apostle to the Gentiles. And so his apostleship was under attack by Jews, who were demanding that for Gentiles to be saved, they needed to become Jews. They had to get circumcised. The Jerusalem Council at the center of Acts was called to address that very controversy. The book of Galatians addresses it as well. Galatians 6, 13 through 16. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them. and upon the Israel of God. And here in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul is still addressing this very thing. Racial hostility that had somewhat carried over into the church between Jew and Gentile. The Jew, the so-called circumcised in the flesh made by hands, was in some way calling the uncircumcised not enough, maybe unclean in some way, maybe still heathens. You see, the Jews, these Jewish Christians, they had accepted Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah. They had seen Him as the fulfillment of the sacrificial system by His death on the cross, as their substitute for their sins. Jesus satisfying the wrath of God that they deserved in His body on the cross. And they had trusted in His blood to cleanse them from their sins and make them clean in God's sight. They saw him as the fulfillment of the priesthood, representing them before the Father, his righteousness laid to their account and becoming their righteousness through faith alone. So that as the high priest of Israel would usher the people of Israel into the very presence of God to atone for their sins, wearing upon the breastpiece the stones with the name of Israel over his heart, so Christ had ushered them into the heavenly temple, into God's very presence. But that was because they were Jews. And the God was the God of the Jews. And God promised to send the Messiah to bring salvation to the Jews. But that this same reality was now open to the Gentiles on the same ground with them? wasn't even on their radar. It was unthinkable. They could not conceive that the dirty, unclean, despicable, heathen dog, unholy and uncircumcised, aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise, hopeless and without God, could all of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, be fellow worshipers in the same church, fellow citizens with the holy ones of God, members of God's household, given access to God, the promises to Abraham, the prophets, and the Messiah himself. It's unthinkable. It overturned everything they had ever known or believed. One theologian writes this, The most unexpected and unprepared for revelation from the Jewish point of view was that of the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. There was nothing analogous to it. Josephus, a Jewish historian in the first century, records that when Herod built the temple between 19 and 9 BC, he enclosed the outer court with colonnades. On these, warning signs in Greek and Latin were posted on pillars, equal distance apart. Written on these white limestone signs in red ink was the saying, any Gentile that proceeds beyond this wall, his death, which will follow, be upon his own head. This wall was to keep all non-Jews from entering the temple. There was no way in the Jewish mind that now, all of a sudden, the Gentiles had access. And so, in the church, they were viewed as second-class Christians at best, and maybe even as defiling the church at worst. There was still a dividing wall of hostility. And I think in too many corners of the Christian church today, these dividing walls still exist. Sometimes it's along socioeconomic lines or racial lines, but certainly it's along cultural lines. While we in the church might not demand circumcision, many of us would demand conformity to certain cultural norms. Maybe dress, or jewelry, appearance, or ways of talking, music, habits, or choices. These determine in our mind and in our circles who's in and who's out. Sometimes they're unspoken, but there's often a dividing wall all the same. The racial hostility between Jew and Gentile had carried somewhat into the church. But Paul reminds them here that Jesus killed that hostility at the cross. Look with me again at verses 14 through 16. 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. This racial hostility between Jew and Gentile had begun long before it erupted into bitter division in the first century church. In fact, it can be traced back to the very first humans who ever walked the face of the earth. God made Adam and Eve in his own image. He made them holy, righteous, without sin or sinful natures, but good, in perfect loving communion with him. And because they perfectly loved him, they perfectly loved one another. Because they carried the very image of God. But of course, all that changed when at the temptation of the serpent, Adam and Eve rebelled against God, wanting to be their own gods. This plunged them into an estate of sin and misery. It brought them under God's righteous wrath and condemnation, and it also corrupted their natures. And it set in motion a war between humanity and God that continues on to this very day. they willingly became God's enemies. And because they represent you and I in the garden, we become born into the world at war with our creator, in love with evil by nature. And because we cannot see God, we hate one another instead, because we are the image of God that we can see. We observe this principle worked out in the very next generation after Adam and Eve, when Cain, mad at God, kills his brother Abel. And we have been taking our inborn anger at God out on each other ever since. Racism and racial hostility is just one example among many. Government oppression, unjust wars, anger, abuse, fighting, bitterness, broken marriages, unbiblical divorce, are all just so many examples of humanity's war on God whom we can't see taken out on his image that we can see. But that's why Jesus came to redeem fallen humanity by living a perfect life of love towards God and love towards God's image, man, and then dying on the cross to fully satisfy the wrath of God for our God hatred. And by doing this, removing the grounds of God's wrath, our sin, he secured terms of peace. But because our hearts are irreparably embedded with hostility towards God in our natural selves, we reject those terms of peace. And so he sent his spirit to give us new hearts, to supernaturally take out our hearts of stone, our God-hating hearts, and replace them with God-loving hearts, something that he does unexpectedly and unilaterally through the preaching of the offer of peace, the gospel. He overcomes our natural resistance, and he produces in our hearts faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we lay down our weapons of war against God, and we accept terms of peace with gratitude and joy. And then, unexplainably, feelings of love towards God begin to well up in our previously black hearts. And we express that love in love towards others, towards his image, no matter the race. This is how Jesus has killed the hostility between Jew and Gentile, and man a man of any race at the cross. Because by being our peace with God, creating love for God in our hearts and all this, not because of anything in us or about us, We start loving God's image, our fellow man, as an expression of our love for God, whether Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, black or white, all having peace with God on the same grounds, the cross, and being brought into union with the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit, we're also brought into union with one another. all having peace with God on the same grounds, and it creating peace between us. It kills the hostility. In fact, it unites all believers together in the same church by the same spirit into one body. He himself is our peace. when the previous senior pastor at Murraysville Community Church, Pastor Eric, was, when I met him for the first time, he was candidating for the senior pastor position at MCC, at Murraysville Community Church. I had been on staff for some time at that point, and the pastor search committee wanted us to meet as he was candidating. But as he walked into the room for the very first time, I immediately knew something about him, and I later learned that the same was true for him. I knew at first sight, because of the way in which he carried himself, that he used to be a cop. By virtue of my criminal past that the Lord saved me out of, I was trained to spot it, and so was he. He knew immediately that I had been in prison. And yet, Jesus, by virtue of the cross and bringing us both to peace with God, brought cop and criminal together as co-pastors of the same church. He killed the hostility and made one new man in him. Jesus is our peace. It was true for Jew and Gentile, and I think what we fail to see is that it's true for us as well. Our churches, our communities, our country, our time. And the reason this is important, the reason that we can draw this out as an application of this passage is that there is still racial tension right now. It spills over into protests and violence, police being shot, concern over black men being gunned down and unfairly treated by the legal system. There are cultural, racial, dividing walls of hostility. Nobody's going to dispute that. What's disputed is the reason and the answer to the problem. Jesus, you see, killed the hostility. The gospel speaks to this very issue loud and clear, and it lays out a call that's impossible to ignore, to accept terms of peace in both directions. Christ killed the hostility at the cross, and the killing of this hostility was God's plan all along. Look with me at verses 19 to 22. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Build 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. A holy temple, Paul says here, from Jew and Gentile. And then he'll go on in Ephesians three, four through six and say, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. This was the mystery. Gentiles are fellow heirs. But it had been hidden, he says, not that God had not proclaimed it. God had foretold it in many places, and the Jews should have known it. In the very same place where he formed them as a nation, as his people, the promise to Abraham, he made it known. Genesis 12, one through three, now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. In you all the families or all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. While this New Testament mystery was certainly a surprise to the Jews, it was not a surprise to God. It was His plan all along. He was going to build a temple, a place of access and nearness to Him, but it was not going to be limited to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where Jews now gather to pray at the Wailing Wall. It was going to be a human temple. made of living stones, constructed of believers from every race, socioeconomic status, and culture. The temple in Jerusalem was a temporary provision meant to picture something much greater, that God would be a God to his people and that he would dwell among them by making the church his holy temple and dwelling in their hearts by his Holy Spirit. And this temple, it would stretch over the face of the entire earth, pulling both Jew and Gentiles into the promise of Abraham through the work of the Messiah. And the Jews, far from cutting themselves off from the rest of the world, were meant to be the conduits through which the blessings of the Messiah was meant to flow to all the nations, thus fulfilling the promise that the seed of Abraham would be a blessing to all nations. But instead, because they were sinners like us, they built walls, dividing walls of hostility, and they became kinks in the hose. When I was a kid, my brother and I, in the summertime, would play out in the backyard. And we'd often fight over the hose. When one of us would get it, we would chase the other around the backyard, spraying him with the hose. I remember one time getting the hose and cornering my brother up against the fence in the back and just spraying him as he squealed for mercy. Unbeknownst to me, at that point, my father, hearing the commotion, had come out in the backyard and he kinked the hose. And so as I was spraying my brother, the flow stopped. So I squeezed the nozzle and nothing came out. I squeezed the nozzle again and nothing came out. And so being the young smart lad that I was, I decided to look inside to see what the problem was. And that's when my dad let go of the kink and I got what was coming to me. See, instead of being conduits for God's blessing to flow, the Jews had become kinks in the hose. But God's plan all along was to bring those afar off and those near to himself, reconciling them both to himself at the cross, and then killing the hostility, tearing down the dividing wall and making them fellow citizens, members together of God's household. And that is his purpose in America today. to build a holy temple in which to dwell by his spirit. From rich and poor, black and white, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Korean, Chinese, even from Democrat and Republican, every tribe, tongue, and nation, and so break down the dividing wall of hostility. and bring together as one family with participation at every level, leadership on down of people who look and act, think and live and talk differently as the outworking of his wise plan in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the church is to be the place where this wise plan is revealed. Look with me at chapter three, verses six through 10. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. It's through the church, Paul says, that the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known. Where is the wisdom of God in bringing together Jew and Gentile, deeply divided people groups to be revealed? the church. Paul uses a word here for God's wisdom that means manifold or multifaceted, but could loosely in the Greek be translated multicolored. I think quite fitting, maybe an intentional play on words. God's wisdom in the redemption of man is not one-sided or monochromatic. The work of Christ in redeeming fallen humanity has manifold implications, effects, consequences, and outcomes. While I think we often focus on one aspect or facet, the washing away of our sins, salvation from God's wrath, the reconciling of the relationship with God, the gospel is actually like a beautiful cut diamond. multifaceted, with far-reaching and innumerable ramifications and effects, one being the multicolored, multicultural, multiracial nature of the church. You see, racial reconciliation has been a focal point and a central issue in our country for some time. Whether it's discussions of discrimination in the workplace or political arena, questions of fair treatment of African Americans by the legal system, or the use of force by police, among others, the desire to see racial reconciliation And the elimination of racism has led to things like riots in the streets of many of our major cities, protests by groups like Black Lives Matter. It was the impetus for the celebration after the election of Barack Obama, our first black president. and the concern and fear over Trump's election and his appointment of people like Jeff Sessions to Attorney General. You see, I'm bringing these examples up because our country is highly concerned to address this issue, and rightly so. But it is looking to everything from programs to policies, protests to political parties, presidential candidates and laws, and yet no matter what they try, the problem just seems to get compounded and worse. Why? Because they want it without God. They want it without Christ. We want to do it our own way. while neglecting and rejecting the way that God has appointed in his wisdom for it to happen. And not surprisingly, this is probably the very reason for cultural diversity in the very first place. If you remember the story of the Tower of Babel, all the people of the earth had one language and the same words and were one people. And they gathered together saying this, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. They desired unity and to reach heaven, but they wanted to do it autonomously, without God, without Christ, and in rebellion to Him. And God, in His mercy, would not allow it. He dispersed them over the face of the earth. And as long as this country continues to seek unity and oneness, racial reconciliation apart from Him, rejecting His appointed way, in His mercy, He will not allow it. It is through the multicolored wisdom of the gospel at the cross of Christ. And this is to be made known through the church. The church is the window into which can be seen the confounding wisdom of God in doing something that no one and nothing else can do. People should look at us worshiping, serving together, hanging out, being a family with people so radically different and normally divided that they say, how in the world did that happen? Therefore, our call, the thing we must do is to see the hostility killed here so that people will see the multicolored wisdom of God in Christ. You see, if it was true of Jew and Gentile, how much truer is it for us? For black and white, rich and poor, urban or suburban, upper middle class and lower class. There is no basis for hostility, and more than that, there's a responsibility to be one. Jesus has reconciled us at the cross, and the church is the very place where that is to be seen. We must be the place where not only people of different colors and cultures are accepted, but where they are included on every level. where people who look, talk, and act differently are won in leadership, service, decision-making, direction, mission, vision, where the dividing wall of hostility is continually being killed, and the demand is not on them to conform to our cultural norms, but is on us to overcome biases and discomforts, and not allow things like race or dress or non-sinful actions or viewpoints to erect walls, that Jesus has already destroyed. So that people see the reconciliation and unity, and they're astounded by God's wisdom. Because try as they might, they cannot create it. And when their political parties or candidates lose, all their hopes for it are crushed. Our hope lies in Christ working through the church to turn the world upside down. Now we have an opportunity to do that. I don't know about your community here or the neighborhoods in which you live in. It's not something that can be artificially forced. It's something that if your community reflects that, you intentionally strive to do. And we have that opportunity to see Jesus break down dividing walls, to see black and white, rich and poor, people from various walks of life, worshiping, serving, and loving one another as a family together in Jeannette, in our diverse community. But even among those in Jeannette where we're planting, a diverse community, the dividing wall is still evident. There are black and white churches in our community where lines are only minorly crossed. We openly discuss among ourselves how we're going to need to work hard to overcome biases and judgmentalism and discomfort, to strive to see one another through the blood of the cross, starting with ourselves first, allowing God to dictate what are the big things, leaving our preferences, our comfort, our cultural preferences out of the equation. being patient with ourselves and with others, remembering the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ toward us so that we're willing to show it to others, even when everything within us screams to walk away, and keep moving forward with the goal of being the place where the dividing walls are torn down and the hostility is being killed. Because we fear, if not, the multicolored wisdom of the gospel will remain monochromatic and dulled by the very ones it's supposed to shine brightest through. We feel that that's our call and our mission in Genette. At the end of World War II, Germany was effectively split in two, as the eastern part went to the Soviet Union, and the west to US, Great Britain, and eventually France. But deep within communist East Germany, there thrived a Western capitalism in Berlin. As one Soviet leader remarked, stuck like a bone in the Soviet throat. To stem this tide of fascism, they said, on August 13, 1961, the communist government began building a wall, closing the border between East and West Berlin. Overnight, families were separated. Thousands of East Berliners lost their jobs in the West. The wire fence was later reinforced with 45,000 sections of 12 feet tall reinforced concrete and nearly 300 watchtowers. Behind the wall on the east side was a gauntlet. According and described by the History Channel, it had soft sand to show footprints, floodlights, vicious dogs, tripwire machine guns, and patrolling soldiers who were given the command to shoot anyone they saw in sight. There were also 20 bunkers and 65 miles of anti-vehicle trenches. This became known as the Death Strip. But even this didn't stop people from trying to cross over. Some jumped from windows in buildings close by the wall. Others climbed over barbed wire and tried to fly hot air balloons over top of it. They crawled through sewers and tunnels. Some drove through unfortified parts at high speeds. At least 171 people were killed trying to get over, around, or under that wall. It became a tangible symbol of the Iron Curtain, separating Western Europe from the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. The Berlin Wall exemplified a dividing wall of hostility. And in June of 1987, standing in the shadow of this wall, Ronald Reagan gave a speech in which he said there was only one Berlin. And he called for Mr. Gorbachev to tear down this wall. Two years later, East and West Germans climbed upon the wall and they began chipping away at it with various tools. while not a physical wall of concrete and barbed wire. The dividing wall between Jew and Gentile was just as real and sometimes just as hostile. And in some ways it carried on into the church. But at the cross, Jesus tore down that wall of hostility. And he called his followers to do the same, to chip away at that wall by making the church the place where the multicolored wisdom of the gospel would be clearly seen. Today in America, there are still dividing laws of hostility, just as real. And we are not simply called to stand in their shadows and call for their destruction. We're called to stand in the shadow of the cross and to see them torn down so that people will clearly see the power and wisdom of God and Christ in the gospel. This is what we aim to do in Jeannette, by planting a cross-cultural church that includes the poor, the middle class, and rich at all levels. And I ask that you would pray for us in this. We welcome your participation, your help, and your support. Let's pray that we would see God begin chipping away at this wall through the power of the gospel. Jesus, we thank you that you did not leave us in our sin and our misery as rebels against our creator, but that you came and you bore our weakness, you bore our sin, you bore our rebellion in your body on the tree. You suffered the wrath of God that our God hatred and man hatred deserved. And by doing that, you have become our peace, our peace with God, and you have become our peace with one another. That's what we'll see pictured here in just a moment at the table, the Lord's table. We pray that you would continue by the power of your gospel, and having killed the hostility at the cross, to continue to bring together in your church people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, building them into a holy temple in the Lord in which your spirit dwells, and by which you create one body, one spirit, and one baptism. And we pray that you would put on show your manifold wisdom through us, the church, not because we have done it or could do it, but because you have done it at the cross and through the power of the gospel in your spirit. We pray you would do these things in Jesus' name.