Well, if you have a copy of the scriptures this morning, let me invite you to return to Ephesians. And we're in the process of doing an expositional series, going verse by verse, chapter by chapter through Ephesians. But we took a little bit of a break over the last couple of weeks. And today we're getting back in the groove. of looking at Ephesians. And we're going to pick up where we left last time. That is in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 11. And God willing, we're going to look at verses 11 through 18 of Ephesians 2. And so let me invite you, as you're able, let's stand once again in honor of the reading and hearing of God's Word. Again, I'm reading from the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. The second chapter, beginning in the 11th verse, wherein the apostle writes, Wherefore, remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called on circumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace. who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you, which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. May God bless today the reading and the hearing of his word, and let's join together again in prayer. Let us pray. Lord, we do thank thee for the holy scriptures, and we know that they are inspired and they are profitable for reproof and correction and instruction and righteousness. And we pray that you would use them to those holy ends in our lives. Give us eyes to see. Give us ears to hear. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. And you may be seated. So last time we were in this series, a couple of weeks ago, we were at Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10. And I called that. one of the Mount Everest passages in the New Testament. It's a high point, a momentous high point. And it's one of those kind of passages, again, that every new Christian should write on the flyleaf of his Bible. And we return to it over and over again. It's a touchstone of the Christian life. that we are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We also meditated that last time we were together about verse 10 that talks about the fact that not only are we saved by grace through faith, but we are God's workmanship. And God has foreordained that good works would flow from us. And we made clear to say when we say good works flow from us, it's not the good works that give us some merit with God. We are not saved by our good works, but those who have been changed by Christ will naturally have flow from them good works, love of God and love of neighbor and We sometimes say that all ethics in the Christian life is simply gratitude because we have been given so much and we have experienced the mercy and grace of God. It makes us want to live in such a way that is pleasing in His sight. As we continue now in Ephesians 2, we're going to find some things that are similar to what we saw earlier in this chapter. And that is, Paul is going to continue to draw a contrast for the Ephesian believers. Again, he's writing, if you look at chapter 1, verse 1, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. And he's going to set a contrast and remind them what they were like and what their life was like when they were unregenerate, when they were unconverted and unsaved. and what their life is like now that they are regenerated and that they are converted and that they are saved. And so he started this earlier in this chapter, but it's going to be a before and after contrast that he's going to continue to tease out. And I think I mentioned this one of the previous times, it reminds me of some of the fitness channels you can find maybe on YouTube or on social media and they got this this is what I used to look like when I weighed, you know 100 pounds more than I do today and when I was flabby and When I was sick and then now here's what I look like now that I've been dieting and working out, you know, I've been transformed I Was fat and flabby now I'm lean and fit and there's a before and an after contrast but here I It's a much greater contrast, because the picture that Paul is going to show is of somebody who is dead and who has now been made alive. And so he's going to continue tracing this contrast. He also is especially going to be addressing, in the passage we look at today, the theme of unity among the saints, unity among Christians, unity among believers. The church at Ephesus, Ephesus was an ancient town in what the ancients called Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. The ruins of that city are there today and tourists come from all over the world to visit there. It's one of the most pristine ancient cities. Lots of the old buildings are still there and people come to see it, amphitheater and other things. He's writing to this church and this church had been planted by the Apostle Paul himself. And we have a description of this. We don't have this for all the churches that Paul planted, but we have a description of how this church was planted and it's recorded in Acts chapter 19. And I want to call your attention to a couple of passages from Acts 19. that will indicate that when Paul planted this church, he began it the way he began most of his churches, by first going into the synagogue and speaking to his fellow Jews, his kinsmen according to the flesh. And there were also at that time, there would be some Gentiles, who are sometimes called God-fearers, who will have been attracted to the God of the Old Testament. the belief in one true God in the Old Testament scriptures. And so Paul would always start his ministry first in the synagogue. And if you look at Acts chapter 19, beginning in verse 8, you see how the church was established there at Ephesus. Acts 19, verse 8, and he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. So that's where he started. The first three months, he was in the synagogue. And as always happened, there were people who started to give pushback. And they didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. How could the Messiah have died on a cross? And you're saying that He was raised and you're worshipping this man, Jesus? And so there was a division. Look at verse 9 of Acts 19. But when divers were hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, He departed from them and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. So Paul left the synagogue and he went into a school, a rented school building, and was teaching anyone who had come, the school of Tyrannus, a rented lecture hall. And then look at verse 10, and this continued by the space of two years. So that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And that's the key thing. There were Jewish converts, and there were Gentiles, people who previously had been pagans. And let's just stick with Acts 19 for a couple more moments. There's an account there of how Paul encountered a Jewish man named Sceva, who was a chief priest, and his sons. And they had an evil spirit, and Paul cast out the evil spirit. But then look at Acts 19 verse 17, and this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus. And fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. But I'm emphasizing the fact there were Jews and Greeks who were coming to know the Lord Jesus in Ephesus. Over time, there were actually more Gentiles, non-Jews, who were hearing the gospel. They were hungry for it. They'd never heard of the one true God. They were learning about Christ. And the movement in Ephesus became so intense that many of the pagans stopped going to the pagan temples. And this was important because Ephesus had a magnificent temple in it to the goddess Artemis or Diana. The ancients listed that temple as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And there were so few of the pagans coming into the temple that some of the tradesmen who made little shrines, you know, Artemis slept here. Here's a little silver shrine of Artemis. You can take this home and have a little souvenir of your trip or worship the goddess. And they became incensed at the fact that the temples were being emptied out. And they created a riot over Christianity. So look at this in Acts 19. Verses 26 and 27, this riot was led by a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, in verse 24. And he and his fellow artisans say in verse 26, moreover, ye see and hear that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people saying that they be no gods which are made with hands, so that not only this our craft is in danger to be said it not, but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. And so this results in Paul having to flee Ephesus because these people want to kill him, basically, for bringing the gospel to Ephesus. But he left behind this church. And the church has within it people who are Jewish converts to the faith, and it has Gentiles, pagans, people who had left the worship of false gods behind. There's an account in Acts about how a group of these people took their books of occult and magical arts and burned them. They burned their bridges to their pagan and occult past and said, now we worship Christ and him crucified. But the fact that there were these Jews and Gentiles within the same church, this led to some tensions. And it's in some ways hard for us to understand looking at it retrospectively back now, but this was a huge issue in early Christianity. We see it across the New Testament. One of the big questions people had was, if you become a Christian, do you also become a Jew? Do you have the same view of the Old Testament that Jews have? Must you be circumcised? Do you need to keep the dietary laws? Do you need to observe Passover? That was a big question that some people had. And then there was also a question of, well, if there are Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, are Jewish Christians somehow, do they have a higher standing than Gentile Christians? Because they're the physical descendants of Abraham. And so there were tensions. And so one of the things Paul wants to do in Ephesians is he wants to encourage unity among the believers. And we're going to see in the passage we're looking at today, he's going to say that God has brought about unity so that they are no longer Jews and Gentiles. They are Christians. They are in one body. And this has been accomplished by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. We see that in verse 16. and that he might reconcile both, meaning both Jews and Gentiles, unto God in one body by the cross. And so that's going to be one of the great themes that we'll see within Ephesians 2. Well, that provides the context. With that in mind, let's turn now and let's walk verse by verse through our passage. And so we start in Ephesians 2 and verse 11, as Paul writes, wherefore, remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, were called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. So it starts off with this call, wherefore, remember. And he seems to be speaking especially to the Gentile believers at Ephesus. And he's calling upon them to remember what your lives were like before you were regenerated, before you were converted, before you were saved. What was your life like BC, before Christ? And we might contemplate that, those of us who are Christians here today. What was your life like? before you came to know Christ? How did you operate in your life? What did you think was most important in your life? What did you spend your time doing, pursuing, thinking about? Wherefore, remember. And again, Paul had done this earlier in Ephesians 2. Remember the very first verse. And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. He said you used to be dead. Spiritually dead. You were physically alive, naturally alive, but you used to be spiritually dead before you were quickened. You were brought to life in Christ. He also describes in this before and after contrast, remember back in verse 2? He said you used to be children of disobedience. You used to have no concern for following the ways of God, for obeying the teachings of Christ or the scriptures. You were children of disobedience. And remember, in verse 3, he said, you used to be children of wrath. You used to be ones who were deserving of the righteous judgment and wrath of God. That's what you used to be like. And then remember verse 4, but God. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace, ye are saved. But he's starting off with another contrast, bringing to their mind again, what were you like? Remember what you were like before you were converted. And to these Gentile believers in particular, he calls them to remember that they were what he calls, in verse 11, Gentiles in the flesh. Gentiles in the flesh. And this is going to refer to the fact that they were uncircumcised. They were called by Jews the uncircumcision, if you look at verse 11, who are called uncircumcision. And this was indeed something that set apart in the ancient world the Jews from all the other surrounding people. There had been a covenant of circumcision that God had given to Abraham. We read about that not too long ago. We were in our series through Genesis. God said that on the eighth day, all the males, children, descendants of Abraham were to be circumcised. And this literally, physically set apart the Jews from the surrounding nations. We know that later in Israel's history, beyond Abraham, when King David came to the throne and he battled against the Philistines, one of the things they called the Philistines were the uncircumcised Philistines. And so you could tell just by looking at a man, whether he was a Jew or a Philistine, because there was circumcision and uncircumcision. And he's also addressing here probably some of those Jewish Christians who perhaps were taking pride in the fact that they were the seed of Abraham, and whereas these Gentiles were the uncircumcision, they, on the other hand, had received circumcision, and they called themselves that by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. And again, it's somewhat difficult for us to understand to a certain degree. We think about, what are the great ethical issues in Christianity today? And we might think about issues related to marriage, or sexuality, or abortion, or things like that, where we take a clear stand for the biblical teaching of one man, one woman, and also the sanctity of human life, and so forth. And so we think, what are the big issues? But if we ask, what were the big issues At the time of the apostles, after Christ had risen from the dead, after he had appeared for 40 days and had ascended, what were the big issues? And one of the biggest issues was circumcision. And we see a little evidence of this in Acts chapter 15 at the church at Antioch. If you look at Acts 15 verse 1, it says, and certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. There were some people, sometimes historians called them the Judaizers, who said, if you want to be a Christian, you need not only faith in Jesus, but you need to be circumcised. And if you're not circumcised, you can't be saved. But look at Acts 15, verse 2. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem under the apostles and elders about this question. So Paul and Barnabas spoke against these guys who were saying you have to be circumcised. And they appealed to the apostles in Jerusalem. If you read the rest of Acts 15, you'll see that the apostles sided with Paul. And they said, you don't need faith plus circumcision. You just need only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And some of you are familiar with the book of Galatians or Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia. And the whole letter is dealing with this issue of Do you need to be circumcised to be a Christian? And there were some people who were teaching that. And it's all through this letter. Let me just look at a couple of places that show us this. If you look, for example, at Galatians chapter 5, verses 1 through 6, Paul says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. You want to think you can be saved by being circumcised? Fine, you've got to keep all the law. And then he says in Galatians 5.4, Christ is become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. And then he says in verse 6, For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. While you're in Galatians, you can look over also at Galatians chapter 6, verses 12 and following, Paul will write. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. And then he says, Galatians 6.14, But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Verse 15 is the explanation point of Galatians 6, this teaching. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature. Again, it might be somewhat hard for us to understand completely this question, but it's here. It's relevant here in Ephesians because this was apparently a place of dispute among these brothers, and this is why Paul is calling for unity. But he's also, again, describing to particularly these pagan believers, these Gentile believers, the fact that at one time, what did they care about circumcision? What did they care about the Old Testament? What did they care about Abraham? What did they care about anything of the one true God of the Bible? Jehovah, I am that I am. At one time, they were Gentiles in the flesh. At one time, they had no concern about these things. And although his point to them definitely is, What you need to worry about is not outward circumcision, but you need to worry about inward circumcision, the circumcision of the heart. But he's playing out this contrast of what they used to be, what they used to care about, and what they care about now. And in verse 12, Paul offers three further descriptions of the Ephesians in their unregenerate state. First of all, he starts out that at that time, the time you were unconverted, you were without Christ. He's reminding him. Before you were saved, before you were converted, you were without Christ. How sad it is to live a Christless existence. But all of us were without Christ before we heard the gospel, and the Spirit changed us and converted us. He particularly ties this into the fact, again, that at one time, as pagans, they were worshipping Zeus, and they were worshipping Mercury, and they were worshipping Diana, and they never met a god, lowercase g, that they wouldn't worship. They were alienated. They knew nothing about the scriptures of the Old Testament. They knew nothing of the biblical account of creation. They knew nothing of Moses and the Ten Commandments. They were in ignorance. They knew nothing of David, who is the forefather, according to the flesh, of Christ, the Messiah. They were without Christ. They had no Messiah. He goes on to describe them in verse 12, they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. They knew nothing of the covenant with Abraham. They knew nothing of the covenants that were made throughout holy history in the Old Testament, all of which were shadows pointing towards the new covenant. that will come in Christ Jesus. And so they were a people who didn't know their right hand from from their left. They had they had no inkling of the Messiah. They did not know that that the Christ was coming, the king, the deliverer was coming. They were in ignorance. It's interesting that the apostle Peter. He's also writing to Jews and Gentiles, Christians who were both some Jews and some Gentiles. And he writes to all of them collectively in 1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10. And he says to them, he uses language from Exodus 19. from the time when Israel was at Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and the law. He says, but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And then he says, you might think he's just speaking to Jewish Christians, but he's not. He's talking to all Christians. He says, in 1 Peter 2.10, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. So the first thing he says here in verse 12, he's going to give three descriptions of what they were like in their unregenerate state. The first of those is they were Christless. They were without Christ. They had no knowledge of the Messiah. And I think there is something that is certainly instinctive about the human predicament. Even unsaved people have an unfulfilled longing for Christ, for Messiah. Think about Muslims, for example. They're very keen to tell us we are ardently monotheistic. You Christians, you draw your paganism, you worship three gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we respectfully say, no, we worship one God, one God who is from all eternity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But if you look at how their religion plays out, they essentially make Muhammad a kind a kind of Christ, a kind of Messiah. And they put attention upon him. There's an innate desire for a redeemer. He cannot fulfill this role for them. But there's an innate longing for that. Think about people, secular people, worldly people. What do they tend to do? They tend to put their heroes up on pedestals. This political figure. Oh, he's going to lead us into the promised land. Or this entertainer, or this actor, or this guru, this self-help guru, he's going to teach me what I need to know. They are without Christ, although they have a desire for Christ. Second of three descriptions in verse 12, he also continues to say of the Ephesians in their unregenerate state, he says they were having no hope. Having no hope. They were, before the time that they knew Christ, without hope. And we know indeed that many people live in this world without hope. I read an awful online story this week about a little 10-year-old girl who took her life after reading social media and having people be mean-spirited and uncharitable. By the way, parents, keep your children away from social media until they become young adults. She was hopeless, this little 10-year-old girl, can you imagine? to be so hopeless that she would want to take her life. I saw hopelessness firsthand over 30 years ago when we went to be missionaries in Hungary after the collapse of communism. For 45 years, there had been suppression of Christianity. God had been taken out of public life, out of government. And I've said before, it was a very drab place. Very, very high levels of suicide. People, Hungarian friends, would joke about being in these high-rise buildings and seeing bodies fall before windows. People lived with a lot of despair. A lot of times that was channeled into alcohol, into drinking. I never saw so many people publicly drunk in my life as when we lived in Hungary for those couple of years right after the collapse of communism. When we were apart from Christ, we were without hope. We were hopeless. And of course, I think Paul's not only talking about those sort of experiential things I just shared with you, but he's also telling us that these folk were living without eschatological hope. They did not know that Christ was coming again. They did not know that one day the Lord of all the earth will do right, and that Christ will come with power and glory, and all the wrongs and all the injustices of this life will be set straight. And the righteous will be rewarded, and they will be gathered as his elect unto himself. They had no hope. They were hopeless. How sad it is. I feel so sad for secular people who go to their graves thinking this is all there is. You only go around once in life. How sad it is. How sad it is that they think that they will be happy by the things they're able to accumulate. We came into this world, Paul will say, in another place with nothing, and it is sure we will leave with nothing. How sad it would be to be without hope in this world. Thirdly, he says in verse 12, they were without God, and without God in the world. In Greek, this term that's translated here as without God is one word. It's athetoi. And we get words like atheist and atheism from it. In your unconverted state, you were without Christ, you were Christless, you were without hope, you were hopeless, and you were without God. You were atheists. We know that even in the ancient times, in the times of the Bible, there were people who would declare that they did not believe in God. We have two Psalms, Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, and they begin the same exact way. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. One of the worst and most deceptive songs ever written was John Lennon's song, Imagine. And it is sung over and over again. It seems to be drummed into. They seem to find a way at every public event to bring that song in and to laud it as saying something highly profound, even recently. at the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who was a professed Christian. They had a couple of country music artists who came out and sang a version of Imagine. That song is diabolical. It says, oh, if we would just imagine a world where there was no religion and no heaven, no hell, oh, we would have just a perfect utopian world. If we could just be without God. Friends, do you think any of these people ever took a look at the Soviet Union under communism? Did they ever take a look at the killing fields of Cambodia? You take God, you live in a godless world, and it's pathetic. It's sad. And Paul is saying to the Ephesians, you used to be Christless. You used to be hopeless. You used to be godless. But then we get the contrast, don't we, in verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus. But now in Christ Jesus. It's a lot like verse 4, isn't it? Remember? You know, you were dead in trespass and sin. You were the children of disobedience. You were children of wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy, has saved you. And here it's the same thing. You used to be Christless, hopeless, godless. But now, now we're returning to the status of being converted and living for Christ. But now, in Christ Jesus, Ye who sometimes, at one time, were far off, are made nigh, are drawn close by the blood of Christ. Well, Paul is going to use this image really through the rest of this passage. He's going to talk about a metaphor, distance. an unbeliever, you are distant from God. And when you're a believer, you're drawn nigh, you're brought close to God. He also stresses here that this has come about through a particular mechanism. It has happened by the blood of Christ. By the blood of Christ. Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, we spoke about the resurrection appearances of our Lord. as recorded in Luke 24. But today, the Apostle Paul takes us back to the foundational work of the cross, and in particular, the blood of the cross. Of course, in the Old Testament sacrificial system, there was shed the blood of bulls and goats. to make atonement for sin, but it could never be complete. It had to be done over and over again, every day, every morning, every evening. And then Christ comes and pours out His blood on the cross. And Paul will call it in Hebrews, a once-for-all sacrifice. And all those people, those Jewish Christians, never went back to the sacrifices again. They said a once-for-all sacrifice has been made by Christ. We saw this in the very beginning. Look back at chapter 1, verse 7. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Paul's going to expand now on this image of you were distant, but you've been brought nigh. But he's going to expand upon that in the verses to come. But before he can get there, it's like Paul cannot, he's got to stop for just a second and talk a little bit about Christ. And so in verse 14, he says, for he is our peace. For he is our peace. Christ is our peace. He is the prince of peace. When Christ comes into a man's life, he brings peace. He brings a cessation of hostilities. We hear about politics. People right now want to bring about ceasefires and peace. But at Calvary, the greatest peace was brought about. Hostilities ended at Calvary. when by His blood Christ made peace. He is our peace. Man was at war with God. Sinful man was at war with God. Sinful man was at war with his fellow man. And sinful man was at war with himself. And then Christ came and brought peace. I'm very thankful to have grown up in a Christian household. And one of the books that I remember being on the shelf was a Billy Graham book. And there are some things about Billy Graham, his theology, that I don't always approve of. But I'm thankful I was in the house when one of Billy Graham's books was there, and the title of it was Peace with God. And all these years later, I remember that. Now, I don't think I ever read it, but the title was in front of me all the time. Peace with God. Peace with God. Parents have books, well, have good books around the house with titles like that, and it'll make an indelible impression upon your children. That title, it's just playing off what's written here. He is our peace. How does Christ bring peace? Again, in three ways. First of all, most importantly, he brings us peace with our God, peace with our maker. In Romans 5, verse 1, Paul writes, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. When we are justified by faith, there is a cessation of hostilities. We're not warring against God. We're not fighting against God. We're not fighting against his word and his ways. And we are reconciled to our maker. Secondly, there is peace with our neighbors. In Christ's great commandment, he said, we're to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And we're to love our neighbor as ourselves. And that's a hard one, even after we're converted. I'm not saying everything changes overnight. But the person who becomes a believer begins to have, whereas perhaps in the past he was Uncharitable to our other men. Mean-spirited even. All of a sudden, the person who has been converted begins to have peace with others. Peace with his neighbor. Peace within his own household. And he even seeks to be reconciled to his enemies. The people who have done him wrong. You can look at Romans 12. where we see Paul talking about how Christ brings about peace with our fellow man. This is Romans 12, beginning in verse 17. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. Verse 18, if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Friends, I know that's very hard. I struggle with it myself, but we are Because Christ is our peace, we are to live at peace with others. He told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. And then the third part of it is, peace with God, peace with our neighbors, peace within ourselves. The unconverted man often has a tempest and a teapot within his own heart. He's unhappy, he's distressed, he's discontented, and he doesn't know why. And even after we're converted, again, we have remaining corruptions within us. And for whatever reason, you may not feel at peace with yourself. You might not like the way you look. You might not feel like you have achieved the things that you perhaps thought you might have achieved when you were younger or something like that. And you may feel grieved at the way other people have treated you or the way you've treated yourself. But Christ is our peace. You can have peace with God. You can be reconciled even to yourself. And you can cultivate in your life a gentle and a quiet spirit, a peaceful spirit. A lot of Christians love Philippians 4, 7, where Paul wrote, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. It doesn't mean that when things happen to us, there could be distressing things happen to us. We can fly off the handle. We can just like anyone else, we can do that. We can go through. Charles Spurgeon used to talk about, he wrote a little book for ministers. And he said, even ministers can have what he called fainting fits, where we're just worried about something or distressed about something. And with better thought and circumstance, the Christian comes to have peace in his heart, even the peace that passes all understanding. And haven't we had a wonderful man in our church demonstrate that in Elder Clark? How many times over the last couple of years did he say, I'm content. I'm at peace. I'm ready to go to heaven. But I'm at peace. And what a great, unworried, unbothered spirit. We know he's going through a hardship right now, but let me tell you, he would be here telling us, I'm at peace with God. I'm at peace with man. I'm at peace with myself. What more do you want in life? Well, there's nothing else that we want. You know the slogan we Christians sometimes use, no Jesus, no peace, no Jesus, no peace. And of course the first one, no Jesus, no peace is N-O. There's no Jesus, there's no peace. And the second one, no K-N-O-W. No Jesus. No experience. peace in your life. Paul proceeds then in verse 14, after he says, for he is our peace, he talks about the work of Christ, who hath made both one, again, Jew and Gentile who are believers, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Again, he's writing specifically pastorally to this church that perhaps has had some tensions between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. And he says, Christ is our peace. And he's broken down the middle wall of partition between us. What does he mean by that? Well, most interpreters of this passage believe that Paul is using an analogy here that is taken from the temple. And the temple in Jerusalem, the temple, again, that had been built by Solomon, that had been destroyed by the Babylonians, had been rebuilt by the exiles who had come back to their homeland. And it was the same temple that was there that Christ went into and cleansed the temple before he went to the cross. It's the same temple where a lot of the early believers met in a place called Solomon's Porch, according to the Book of Acts. And so they would have known the temple. And Paul says that Christ has broken down the middle wall of partition between us. The temple, the ancient temple, was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. But when it existed, it was kind of, we could imagine it as being like a series of concentric circles. And in the very middle of it, the most important place was the place that the Jews knew as the Holy of Holies, the place where God's presence was believed to dwell, manifest. And only one person, the high priest, once a year could enter into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. described in Leviticus 16. And then out from that, there was a place that the priests could enter. And to be a priest, you had to be a descendant of Levi, the tribe of Levi. Didn't matter if you were a holy and pious man who came from the tribe of Judah or Benjamin. You could only get so close. You had to be a Levite. You had to be a priest from the priestly caste. And then beyond that, then all the other Jewish men from whatever tribe, they could come and get a little bit closer to the epicenter, the Holy of Holies. And then weren't they really generous? They allowed the Jewish women also to come in. But they were just a little further out. And then they were really super generous. They had a place called the Court of the Gentiles. And they would let Gentiles, like most of us in this room, non-Jews, they would let us come into the temple, but we had to stay way far away, way far away from the Holy of Holies so that we didn't contaminate it. And Paul says, Christ has broken down the middle wall of petition. When he dies on the cross, the gospel writers record for us that the veil of the temple was torn asunder. And most interpreters have taken that to mean that there was a way of access, of mediation that was made so that we don't need priestcraft to be able to go before our God. and to pray to him, speak to him, and he to us. That was made by Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. But also, all those other divisions have been broken down. So that now, with that middle wall broken down, there are Jews and Gentiles, men and women, as Paul puts in Galatians 3.28, slave and free. You are all one in Christ Jesus. In verse 15 he says, Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain, old way of saying two, one new man, so making peace. Now we need to be careful about this verse because it could be misinterpreted. Someone might read this and say, Christ did away with the law altogether. That's not true. The classic Reformed way of understanding the law is there are three divisions of the law. First of all, there's the moral law that's found in the Ten Commandments. And we say the moral law is abiding still. God's moral law is still in effect. We're to have no gods before God. We're not to make any graven images. We're not to use God's name in vain. We're to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. We're to honor father and mother. We're not to kill. We're not to commit adultery. We're not to steal. We're not to bear false witness. We're not to covet the moral law. Christ didn't do away with the moral law. Then there's the ceremonial law. And this encompassed things like circumcision and dietary laws and keeping the Passover. And now that Christ has come, that has been completely abrogated. It's no longer binding on the Christian conscience. Then thirdly, there's the civil law. And we say our confession says this when it talks about the law. It says the civil law, this rules for Israel as a nation, a theocratic nation in the Old Testament. We say those laws have expired. But the general equity of them or the principles within them are still abiding. Like in the Old Testament, it says if you build a house, you're supposed to put a barrier around the roof so that someone doesn't accidentally fall off and injure themselves. Well, we don't slavishly keep that civil law. It's expired. We don't have that Nation of Israel building code anymore. But there's a principle there that you ought to be careful not to bring harm to somebody else. The general equity of that is still standing. So Christ went down to the cross. He abolished the enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances. And I think here especially, Paul is thinking of not the biblical laws I've just described, although the ceremonial law is abrogated, the civil law is expired. But he's also thinking about the traditions of men that have been added by people like the Pharisees that were unbiblical laws. And people thought that by keeping these unbiblical teachings, they could gain merit with God. He says, when Christ came, he did away with all that. And he's made in himself of those two people groups. And by the way, ancient Jews, they were very binary. They didn't seem multicultural. There were two types of people. You were either a Jew or a Gentile. But he made of the two one new man, so making peace. Christ is our peace. Verse 16, let me finally get to the title text. And I think this is all we'll get to today. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross. As Christians, we will never get tired, will we, of talking about the significance of the cross, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Someone asked Spurgeon one time what his plan was for preaching. He said, to read my text and make a beeline for the cross. Paul said, we preach Christ and him crucified. It was through Christ's work on the cross that one new man has been created, one body, and Christ has slain the enmity. The one who was slayed upon the cross has become the slayer. And he has slain all the enmity that we had against God, that we had against our fellow man, even that we had against ourselves. And we have been reconciled to God through Christ. Well, friends, we've worked through at least this part of the passage. We'll pick it up there next time. I hope that with the Holy Spirit's help, you've already made the applications to yourself. But let me just pose a couple of questions. As you read through this, can you resonate with what Paul is saying here? Is there a before and after in your life? Is there a before and after? Is there a way you used to be and the way you are now? And we're not saying that when you become a Christian all of a sudden in this world that everything is perfect. You have remaining corruptions within you. You're going to struggle until the state of glory. But do you recognize that somewhere along the way, maybe some of us can pinpoint, while I was listening to the sermon, It was when I read this book. It was when I went through this hardship and I was praying. Others, you're like, I don't remember exactly when this happened, but I just know something happened. Something's different. I don't think the way I used to think. I think about things differently now. Can you recognize a before and after in your life? And then again, this is just for you to answer for yourself. Do you have peace with God? Do you have peace with your neighbor? Do you have peace with yourself? And have you been joined in the one body through his work on the cross? It's the distinguishing mark of a believer. We have been transported from the old life into a new life, and we've been taken from being a people who had no people, and we've been joined to one body through the cross. Amen? Let me invite you to stand together. Let's join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we give thee thanks for thy word, for this opportunity to meditate on this letter that was written to the church at Ephesus. And by the miracle of the inscripturation of thy word, and by the work of the spirit, it's made relevant to us today. And so we ask that you would not allow your word to return void to you today, but you would accomplish the purposes for which thou has sent it forth. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.