The following is a presentation of Grace Covenant Baptist Church, West Monroe, Louisiana. Tonight we're going to be looking at Jesus as the Restorer. This is our last message in the second section in our study of the Trinity where we've been looking at the Son, and we're going to be looking at the Son as Restorer God. You may remember that When we started this discussion now 24 weeks ago, we talked about the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons, one essence, that they were unified in their thinking and their purposes, their ordination, but they had different things, different portions, of the redemptive story that they were involved in or overseeing, if you want to call it that. We said that the Father was instrumental in creation, the Son was instrumental in redemption, and the Holy Spirit was instrumental in restoration. We're talking about the Son as Restorer, then Jesus Christ as the Restorer in the ordination of redemption. Now, we're going to talk a whole lot about restoration next time, Lord willing, as we get into the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit, in terms of redemption, we've talked about the Holy Spirit kind of overseeing the restoration part of redemption. The Father ordained it through creation, the Son procured it through redemption, through His sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit applies it in the lives of people. Now, as I mentioned a minute ago, all three persons of the Godhead actually participate in all three of those categories. So, not only does the Father, was He instrumental in creation, obviously the Son was instrumental in creation, and we would also say that the Spirit was instrumental in creation, although the Father is kind of the one who oversaw creation, if you want to call it that. Not only was the Son active in redemption, the Father was active in redemption, and the Spirit was active in redemption. And not only is the Holy Spirit active in restoration, but the Father and the Son are active in restoration also. And so tonight we're going to be talking about the Son as Restorer God. And I already mentioned we're in Ephesians chapter 2. We'll be looking at verses 18 to 22 tonight as we look at the Son as Restorer God. Now, as we look at these verses and go through our time tonight, we're going to be doing so with this kind of centralized thought, and that is that the Son's purpose in redeeming all things is to restore them back into the Father. Remember that when Adam and Eve lived in the garden, that they lived in perfect fellowship with the Father, right, prior to the fall. Adam and Eve were in God's presence. This seems to be at least inferred, implied, that they walked with God, they fellowshiped with God, they spent time with God, and I would argue that they did so in a material, bodily presence, right? that there was no sickness, there was no disease, there was no death, all prior to the fall. But then the fall happens and Adam and Eve's fellowship is broken with God. They are banished from the garden. Sin has entered the world. Death, if nowhere else, death is seen for the first time in the garden in that God killed two animals to make clothes, garments for Adam and Eve. Yes? Well, that's a great question. If he knew Adam and Eve were going to disobey him, why didn't he just go ahead and... Why did he not ever make them? So if you don't make them, then they can't disobey. Right? Does that make sense? But then, who would the Lord Jesus come and die for? No. If he killed Adam and Eve, there is no us. You see, God's foreknowledge of knowing those things doesn't prevent Him from actually allowing those things to occur because it's all part of His plan to do that so that redemption might be played out in the lives of real people like me and you, and that we might have the opportunity to be redeemed as well. So that would be my short answer. You're welcome. Good question. Good question. All right, and so we're talking about Christ restoring all things back to the Father. Yes, buddy. To make clothes for him. They can't very well wear a gazelle while he's still living, right? Huh? Well, there he is. Okay. All right. We'll talk about that later. All right. We'll talk about that later. The point is that sin entered the world, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and at that point in time, the world was corrupted. There's sin, there's death, there's illness, there's disease, we're coming to a point not long after that where animals are killing animals, men are killing animals, men are killing men, and it just goes downhill pretty quick. And yet, All of that, all those things, humanity, mankind, the creation, the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, everything is being restored back to God. That's a promise of the Bible that is coming in the future still, that that day of restoration is yet coming where there'll be a new heavens, a new earth, and God is going to make all things new. Okay? Now, back to Noah's question in a sense. What happens when God makes all things new? No. Lots of things. Everything happens when God makes all things new. But if it's sin that has separated us from God, Does that mean that God just makes this all new and just says, okay, the adults will understand. You get a mulligan, you get a do-over, right? Just don't worry about your sin. I'm just going to wipe it all off. Don't worry about it. We're just going to have a new heavens, new earth, a new everything. You guys, oh, come on, it wasn't that bad, so I'm just going to let it go. Is that what's going to happen? No, because we know from the Bible that there's a real sense in which God is going to judge sin. There's coming a day when we all will have to stand before the great judge of the universe and give an account. So how is it, if we're guilty of sin, which all men are, how is it that we're going to get to enjoy this recreated, restored heavens and earth, this new creation, this new reality, if sin is the thing that has separated us from the one who's going to be doing the recreating? Well, the answer is redemption. Yes. Yes. In Adam, we have the nature to sin. So in Adam's sin, he brought the sin nature and then all of us have gained or inherited that sin nature from Adam. So we have the, it's in our bones to do it, but we're responsible for our own choices and we're responsible for our own sin. You can't blame Adam for disobeying mom and dad. Sorry, doesn't work. Of course, that doesn't happen, right? You never disobey mom and dad. Okay, well you can't blame Adam for that. Okay. Okay. All right, so. It is a, it's difficult to balance that discussion, it is. But if God is going to make all things new and we are sinful, guilty people and that we've rebelled against the one who's doing the restoring, how can we enjoy the restoration if we're at enmity or if we're separated from God? You can't. Unless you're redeemed. And so that kind of brings us to where we are in that Christ is the one who made the ordination of redemption a reality in real life, in real space, in real time, becoming a real man, living a real life, being tempted in real circumstances just like we are, yet never sinned and went to a very real cross and died a very real death to pay a very real penalty that we ourselves deserve. And so that when that restored and recreated heavens and earth is brought about, when God makes all things new, when Christ makes all things new, guess who gets to enjoy it? Along with God. Along with God. Along with Christ. Those of us who have been redeemed. Yeah, believers, people who have believed the gospel and repented of their sin, get to enjoy that recreated heaven and earth with God. And so that's the idea that we're talking about tonight in just simple terms, that Christ's purpose in redeeming not just humanity, but all things, because he's redeeming the created order as well, is to restore those things back to the Father. So where we're going Where God is taking us is right back where he started us in Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2. No more sin, no more death, no more sickness, no more disease, no more killing, no more broken fellowship, everybody together enjoying the fellowship of those who are in the family of God. That's where we're all going, okay? And so for our time tonight, we're going to be talking about Ephesians chapter 2. verses 18 to 22, in which the Apostle Paul wrote this, for through him, that is Christ, 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 the 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 up together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." Okay? And so the first thing I want us to see tonight as we look at this is that it is only through the Son that we have any right to address God as Father. In this Ephesians passage, Paul says, verse 18, for through him we both have access. We both have access. Now, the both means those who are far away, those who are near, the Gentiles and the Jews, the both. The only access we have to the Father The only right we have to call God our Father is through Jesus Christ. The word access here, let's see here, is, whoo, don't know if I can say that out loud, prosagunane, sagunane, prosagunane. It's a compound word, obviously. And it means, literally means, the right or opportunity to address someone implying higher status of the person being addressed. So it's a right, the only privilege, the only right, the only way that we have the opportunity to address God as Father is through Jesus Christ, right? Which I think is lost with some folks. Have you ever heard somebody say, no, no, no, I'm good with the man upstairs, right? I've heard hundreds of people say that. Well, the reality is, if you truly are good with the man upstairs, you're not calling him man upstairs. you're calling him father. And if you're not calling him father, then you're probably not good with him, okay? You know, well, I'll let that lay, okay? You see, the only way that we have access to God, the only way we can even consider him to be our father, the only way that we can be in good standing with him is through the redemption of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, that's what Jesus meant when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me, John 14, 6. Right? And so what we're talking about is being restored back to that same kind of relationship that Adam and Eve had in the garden. That's what we're talking about, where we don't have to run and hide. from God. We don't have to be afraid of God. As a matter of fact, we run to God. We not even run to him in heaven in that restored state. We're constantly in his presence. Right? It's literally being immersed in God, if you want to consider it that way. Right? So think about it this way. Now this illustration is going to break down, but it's a visual, so it's going to give you a picture. You're a fish. Right? Okay? Just picture yourself as a fish. Can we do that for a minute? All right. Yeah, Emory's got it going on down there. All right. And so you're swimming along, let's just say you're swimming along in the river, okay, since the river's right here. And you're just minding your own business and you're just, you go off, kind of off the beaten path, off some areas that you're not used to. and you're swimming in some water, and it's not as really deep as you're used to it being in, but you got enough, you can swim. And so you swim off out of the river, and all of a sudden the water recedes and you're trapped in a pond. Yeah. Okay, now you still got, you got water, and you got stuff to eat, and you got air to breathe, but you're not where you're supposed to be. and you know it, right? Now, let's just assume for a minute that the water doesn't come up again. The water stays down, and you stay cut off from the river. You're a fish. You're in a pond, trapped in this pond, and you can't get back to the river, okay? Your only hope is that somebody who knows where you are, who loves you, comes and gets you and takes you back and puts you in the river. Right? And that's exactly what we're talking about. We are fish who have gone out of the way that God has set before us, leaving the banks of the river, swimming through the backwater. Swimming is a little shallow. It's not what we're used to, but we're okay. But we know we're not supposed to be there. That's a picture of our rebellion and sin. And there are consequences to that, that we are cut off from God permanently. And we're living this life cut off from God in a pond separated from the river where we're supposed to be. And our only hope to get back to where we need to be, where we want to be, is for somebody to come and pick us up out of the pond and go put us back in the river. And when we're put back in the river, we're literally immersed, if you will, in the place where we're supposed to be. So, y'all follow the analogy? Now I know it breaks down in a lot of points, I got that, but it's a helpful illustration for me at least. That's what Christ is doing. in our only way to get back to the river, the only way for us to address God as our Father is through Jesus Christ. Well, that leads me to the second. The Son's restoration moves us from alienation to adoption. So, as we are moved from that pond where we're cut off back to the river, it's more than just getting back to the river. I think for us it would be fine for us just to be, you know, God's no longer mad at us. I think he'll be okay with us, you know, in our kind of our human way of seeing things. I really don't deserve anything else, but as long as God's not mad at me, I'm okay, right? But just much more than that. Listen to what this passage in Ephesians says. For through him we have both 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. All right, so we're no longer strangers and aliens. The hostilities have ceased. God has forgiven us of our sin. He's forgiven us of our rebellion. He's forgiven us for our stupidity to leave the river and go swim through the backwater and get caught in a pond, right? He's forgiven us of that. But not only has he forgiven us, he's adopted us. Right? Paul says that you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. You know, this is not new for you guys. We've talked about this before. Not only are we brought into the kingdom of God as kingdom citizens, having the rights and the privileges afforded thereto, right? We are allowed inside the wall, inside the city. We receive the protection that God gives to us. We receive the provision that God gives to us just as citizens, right? But it's far better than that. We're not just citizens. We're actually sons and daughters of God. We're adopted into His family. So, a couple areas here. We would be good if God was no longer mad at us, if hostility stopped, that's the forgiveness part. We would be good, it's even better, that we are kingdom citizens because we get to stay within the city gates, right? But it's best that we get to come within the household of God, the very house of God. We have his name, we have his mark, his identity, and we have the ability to address him as father. Okay? In 1 John 3, 1, we find this, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. God's adopting us as His children is a sign of His great love for us. Let's think about this for just a minute, okay? All right? How many people in the Muslim world get to claim Allah as their father? None that I know of. How many people in the Buddhist world, and Buddha was the prophet, but I don't even know what the, where's Bob when you need him? He can tell me. How many people are you familiar with that have like a personal association in Buddhist faith? Probably not many because it doesn't have any that I'm aware of. And think about this, even Judaism. Judaism does not have the personal claim to God that Christianity does. See, through Christ is the only way that we have this personal identity, this personal connection with God. And it is different than literally everybody else in the world. It's why the world does not know us. Because it doesn't understand the love of Christ, the love of God poured out on our behalf. Letter C. Without the Son's restoration, salvation will not hold together. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Very. And I think in some ways that's why it's so hard for us, or really anyone, to really grasp Christianity. Because the idea that, because you have to come to a place where you realize how sinful and evil you are. And in that very same thought, it's followed with this. I'd be like something is wrong Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you were talking about somebody, you know, giving you $1,000, you know, the last little track I wrote about truth. That was a thought that I incorporated in that track. You know, if somebody gave you an account number and said, hey, this account number has got a million dollars in it. And all you got to do is just go claim it. Here's the number. Wouldn't you at least want to at least go check to see? I mean, you'd be interested. You know, you might get on Google and go check and see if this is real, or you certainly would want to know, okay, what do you want in return, or where's the booby trap, or whatever. But wouldn't you at least be curious? You're not just going to leave an account number with a million dollars just laying on the ground and go, yeah, whatever. But that's how people treat truth. And the reason why I put that in there is because the truth of the gospel is so phenomenally outside of this world. It's so phenomenally supernatural that our human mind, the finiteness of our mind, just can't grasp it. And I think you're exactly right. That's why it requires the work of the Holy Spirit to illumine our mind and quicken our dead spirit before we can even consider this. Because it is just, it's so far beyond us. Grace, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. I think that's why the gospel starts with, well, no, the gospel starts with the standard, which is God's holiness. But the second step is the depravity of man, how we've fallen from that. And so there's a very clear contrasting between God and man. And it's hard for us to understand God because he's infinite, he's eternal. But I think you're right. I don't even think we understand ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right, because in heaven, in the restored state, what we're going to be focused on is the glory of God and Christ. You know, I think, you know, will that occur at the judgment? Maybe it does. Maybe we really see all of the things that we were forgiven of, and I think, as you were saying, you know, those two paths where or two views where we begin to see God in an increasing amount of holiness, but we see our depravity, we see our depravity in an increasing amount, how depraved we really were, we look back on and have a better understanding of what we've been forgiven of. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, without the viewing of that, mouths will not be shut and knees will not bow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because ultimately, as we saw in Philippians chapter 2, at the name of Christ, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess. Well, why are they bowing and confessing? It's because they've seen themselves rightfully so in the light of Christ's redemption and Christ's restoration. And so that's why I'm saying that without the Son's restoration, salvation just won't hold together. Not that there is no salvation, it's just that it can't even exist. The concept is not even viable without the restoration of the Son. Acts chapter 4. Verse 11 and 12, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. You know, it's interesting to me as I was kind of running this cross-reference, the number of references to the chief, the cornerstone, being rejected by the nation of Israel, by the scribes and the Pharisees, the chief cornerstone, or that cornerstone that was rejected, but now is the chief cornerstone. You know, and we'll talk about this in just a minute about the church not being fitted together, but Christ holds the predominant place as the cornerstone or as the keystone. And without Him, you can't build. Without him, if you take in masonry work, stone masonry in particular, you take that keystone out of the arch, the arch falls down. The keystone is what keeps the arch together. Christ is the thing that keeps salvation together. And without Christ, not only is there not salvation, there's no hope of salvation. So, practically speaking in terms of evangelical or evangelistic kind of thought, any gospel that does not by necessity require repentance and faith and belief in the blood of Jesus Christ and the restoration that only He can bring, if your gospel presentation doesn't have that in it, it's not the gospel. All right? Let me say that again. If your gospel presentation doesn't have the necessity of Christ's redemption in it, it's not the gospel. It's something else. And you might make people feel better about themselves, and you might help them along the way materially. You know, they might, I don't know, be motivated to get off drugs or have better marriages or go to school or keep their jobs, whatever. But they'll do that, and they'll stand before God and be condemned as as tares and goats in that final day. Because the only way salvation holds together is through the restoration of Christ. Which brings me to the letter D, which is very similar to this, that without the Son's restoration, the church cannot be fitted together. Look, the church, as we saw this past week, is the collection of regenerate, redeemed believers. If you're not regenerate, you're not a member of the church. And I, you know, I don't care what my Presbyterian friends say. If you're not regenerate, you're not part of the church. Doesn't mean you won't be regenerate. Doesn't mean that you won't be part of the church. But until you've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, you're not a member of the church. Because regeneration, the restoration that the Son brings, is the thing that fits the church together. You know, there's a lot of talk right now in Southern Baptist circles about this critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality, and it's complicated, and we're making it complicated, and we don't need to. Look, either you're lost or you're saved. I mean, and I'm not trying to be harsh or blunt about it. I'm just trying to cut through the haze, and let's see it for what it is. You can dress a pig up and take it to the county fair, but it's still a pig. Right? Right? That's kind of how that old saying goes. Put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. What? To dress it up and make it look nice. But it's still a pig. You're right. They don't. That's right. Okay, yeah Yeah, I was I was kind of wondering where this was going but Yeah, so, but hang on, but the point is, is you can say all kinds of things, you can say all kinds of things, you can even do all kinds of things, but it doesn't make it so. Regeneration is the key. Restoration is the key. Redemption is the key. And here's what happens. It's to speak to the division in our world today. Here's what happens when people get saved. All those kind of earthly things go away. And the unity under the banner of Christ is what rules the day. Right? Christians who are saved and growing in their faith, who love Jesus, love each other. because that's what Christ commands and that's what His Spirit brings. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11, For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. You see, Paul is talking about building ministry, building in the church and working in the kingdom. And the point is that the only way you can effectively work in the kingdom is to build upon the foundation that Christ laid. And if you're not working, if you're not building on the foundation that Christ laid, you're not doing kingdom work. Right? So if I contract with Mr. Berry to build me a house, right? And my house is on my land, right? It's got a specific address, a specific place, and in the design process, we've said, okay, this is where the house is going to go, all right? And I contract with Mr. Berry to build me a house. But Mr. Berry doesn't want to build my house on my land. Mr. Berry wants to build my house on Mr. Lamar's land. Can you do that? Nope, you sure can't. And if you build me a house on my behalf, on Lamar's land, guess who owns the house? Lamar does. Yep. And see, we see this in real life that you can't just go build on any foundation. You just can't go build anywhere you want to. If we're going to be doing kingdom work, if we're really going to be talking about being restored, It has to be done through Jesus Christ, otherwise the church just can't be fitted together. And I think that's what we're seeing. I think what we're seeing in practical application, this insistence over probably 20 or 30 years of let people come as they are, be who they are, don't say anything that'll offend them because we want them to be here so that they can hear the gospel, but the gospel is offensive to begin with. And so when we start soft-selling the gospel, then we start differentiating ourselves by human standards. as opposed to God differentiating his children according to eternal standards. Which brings me to the last thing tonight, that without the Son's restoration, we cannot have peace with God. Now remember, we started tonight saying that the Son's purpose in redeeming all things is to restore them back into the Father. If we're restored to the Father, we have peace with the Father, right? That's what restoration means. We have peace. And that's what we're looking for. We're wanting peace. We're all wanting to find acceptance and tranquility and peace. And that's ultimately found in the Father through Jesus Christ. And so, in this Philippians 2 passage, it says, and I'm going to read the whole thing. I'll be focused on verse 22 for this last point. For through him we have both access and 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 the 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. Now, what great expression of peace in that God is living inside of you? What better expression of peace than God is living inside of you? And the truth is, through the Holy Spirit, as we'll be looking at in our next section with the Holy Spirit, that's exactly how God lives inside of you. It is the Spirit of Christ that indwells you. And that's a sign that we are at peace with God, that we've been restored back to a right relationship with God. In Romans 5.10 it says this, "...for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life." That's what Paul's driving at, that the death of Christ is necessary to bring us peace with God. The death of Christ is necessary to bring us into a right standing, a right relationship with God. And if we don't have the restoration, if the work of the Son has not restored us to the Father, then we don't have peace with him. And it's just as simple as that. Right? And so as we're thinking about that in our own lives, yeah, oh man, it's just such a supernatural thing. I mean, it goes beyond anything that we could conjure up in our own minds. It goes beyond what we could think or imagine. The glories of Christ are far beyond anything that we could ever come up with. And so it takes a supernatural work of the Father through the Spirit by the work of Jesus Christ to bring us to a place where we can even acknowledge this and understand this. And in this life, because of the finality of our minds, I don't know that we'll ever fully appreciate what was done for us, what's being done for us. But we have the hope and the promise that one day we will be glorified, we'll be restored, we'll be brought into a restored state in which the realities of our salvation are set before us in such a way that we can see and we can understand. Now, again, I don't know that we're going to dwell on that for all eternity. Yeah, I don't know that we're going to dwell, well, I'm almost positive we're not going to dwell on our sin. I think there's going to be a breaking moment, a break point at the judgment where, you know, all we have is either Christ saves me or he hasn't. Right? The religion is stripped away. The denomination is stripped away. The works are stripped away. You know, anything that we might bring to the table is stripped away. And we are confronted, perhaps for the first time in our lives, that if Christ doesn't move on our behalf, then it's a done deal. We have no hope. And I think that's the point in time in which the son steps forward as the advocate and, I don't want to say reminds the father, but demonstrates to the father that we are found in him. And at that point, You know, I think there is an overwhelming sense of awareness of our sin and our depravity, but that melts very quickly by the love and the grace and the praise that we give to the Father for His sending the Son to die on our behalf. And it's the glory and the praise of the Father, and the glory and the praise of the Son, and the glory and the praise of the Spirit for all eternity that we're living in at that point. And so those little trivial questions that we have like, when I get to heaven I'm going to ask God why I made grass green. Yeah, sky blue. All that stuff just kind of passes away. Right? And are we going to see people in heaven that we're going to recognize? Yeah, I think we will. And I don't think it's going to be because we knew them here on earth necessarily. I think we'll see people we recognize because we know them in Christ. Now, what does that look like? I can't explain it. Other than to say that we meet people all the time that we've never met a day in our life. We don't know them from Adam's house cat. And yet, there's an immediate connection with them. It's like we've known them forever. Why? Because they're in Christ. And we're in Christ. Right? Y'all know that. And so, You know, it's going to be a glorious time. It's going to be a wonderful time. It's going to be a time that goes beyond anything we could ever comprehend or imagine because we have been restored back to a right fellowship with the Father through the work, the reconciliation of the Son. Does that make sense? I hope that makes our evangelism a little, I'm going to say richer, a little fuller, a little more meaningful to us and to the people we're talking to. I hope it also, having said that, I hope that also causes us to see just how shallow our evangelism may have been in the past. when we thought evangelism was just walking through the Roman road, right? Just memorize a track and just walk them through the points of the track, how shallow that is, right? Because what we're doing is we're taking the glories of the gospel, we're taking the banquet of the marriage supper of the lamb, and we've boiled it down to a TV dinner that you stick in the microwave. Right? But when we understand the glories of the riches of Christ and the salvation he brings, then we're sitting at the table and we're trying to bring other people to the table with us. It's not TV dinners. I don't even think there is a microwave in heaven. Don't need it. Right? Y'all get the point. It's about the glories of Christ. All right? So thoughts or questions before we button up tonight? Good comments. Good questions. Wheels are turning. Okay. All right, well we'll... Okay, well it looked like you did. Yeah, critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality. Right. One. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That's right. I was just curious, you know, you highlighted that in verse 16, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 16, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And so, the way I kind of read that, just at first blush, is that God is not going to allow division within his family. Right? I mean, if Ava and Emery got to fussing about something where it was dividing them, you wouldn't allow that to happen, would you? Yeah. Well, I mean, you'd love for them to work it out. It shows, it shows. Yeah, well, I got that. Yeah. Yeah. There is, you know, there is no division within your home. And so certainly you would try to foster them working it out on their own. But if you don't, yeah, something's going to change. But if we, being so fragile and faulty and shallow in our thinking, preserve unity in our own family, how much more so a perfect and holy God who does everything perfect and has the power to do whatever it is he wants to do? So this whole division stuff that's going on within the church tells me it's not of God to begin with. because what you just said, we wouldn't even allow that in our home, why would we allow that in our world, our church? And then that's where someone would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but that person, that's the whole point of intersectionality, that they're not like me, they're different, they're other. We have these issues. But this analogy says right here, you can't get any other, you are no longer Well, I think we can. I think... Right. Right. I think when Christ is the head and when we are living in the restoration that Christ brings, I think we do. You know, I'm just thinking, you know, among our bunch here, You know, I've never even thought about our church in this way, but there have been, I have had people say this to me, I mean, you've got a really solid inter, what do they say, multicultural, interdenominational church. Okay. Well, that's what I said. And what they were driving at was that, number one, that we have people of different ethnicities here, and we have people who came from different denominational backgrounds here. And what it seemed to be kind of shallow compliment at first really as I got talking to him was really pretty deep. I don't think they realized how deep it was. But the point was is that we're all different and we all have our hang ups and we all have our strengths and Christ has brought that together because Christ is the main thing. And those earthly distinctions are fading away and the heavenly distinctions are coming into full view. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, you know, historically there was not any two groups of people at more opposition one to another than the Jews and the Gentiles. You can talk about You know, we were listening to something today, and I've read recently blogs and articles in the last couple weeks, you know, about the fussing and the fighting between men and women and black and white and, you know, oppressed and privileged. And I can tell you there was no greater division between persons, between Jews and Gentiles. And yet God says, Paul here in Ephesians says, we've broken down the wall of hostilities and we've taken those things that were divided and separated and we're dividing and separating themselves and made them one. And that's where You know, and the only reason I bring it up is because it's a big issue that the church needs to take a stand on. We really need to get back to first principles and to basics. You're either lost or you're saved. You know? And there are white Anglo-Saxon Protestant lost people, and there are white Anglo-Saxon Protestant saved people. And there are, you know, I think the buzzwords now are of color. There are black and brown people who are saved and black and brown people who are lost, you know. You're going to find those people in both categories. So if you're going to find white and black people in both categories, then that's not a proper category to be kind of judging who is and who isn't on, right? And so I never would have thought of our church as a multicultural church, multi-ethnic church, because I just don't think that way. I don't think that way. Now, over the years together, there have been people that have crossed our door who were truly, I believe, regenerate and saved by the fruit, the evidence of fruit in their life. And we've had some people that have crossed our doors over the years that I'd have to say I don't really see any fruit. I didn't look at them in terms of their ethnicity or their social standing or their background or how many different categories they felt oppressed in. I looked at them as, are you in Christ or not? And I think when we begin to, when we begin, no, when we begin to see things that way, then we're a lot better off. All right, well, I'm sure we can continue to talk more about this as we go along, but for tonight, I think we'll button it up. So, well, let's pray, and then we'll be dismissed. Father, again, we thank you for the day that you've given to us. We praise you for your goodness, for your mercy and your grace. We just ask, Father, that you would help us to see that our only hope is restoration through the Son. That there is no other way to be restored back to you. There's no other way to be held together or fitted together. There's no other way that we could receive peace with you other than through Jesus Christ. So Lord, may that not only be our hope, but may that be the words of hope that we give to others as we share the gospel of Christ with them. That what we're seeking, what you're seeking, is for your people to be restored back to you. through the redemption of Christ and the restoration only He can bring. And though we might find comfort in a lot of other things, none of them will lead to restoration. And so, Father, help us to communicate that to a lost and a dying world, that they might repent of their sins and turn to You. We love You, Father. We praise You. We thank You. And we continue to ask these things in Your name, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.