Down to the end, verse 22. You should also have a little sermon notes page there for you this morning in the bulletin. Helps you to follow along as we go through these 11 verses this morning. Ephesians 2, 11 to 22. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God, the world but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace who has made 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. And to all these words God's people say, Amen. Well, I read this quote this week that said, this, to bring our hearts to preach is to be transformed into the power of those truths or to find the power of them. To bring our hearts to preach is to be transformed into the power of those truths or to find the power of them. As I read that I thought I need to share this. We bring our minds We bring our minds as preachers to the word. We analyze the words. We analyze the syntax or how those words are strung together in a sentence. We analyze the grammar, the various parts of speech and how they all fit together. We analyze the theology that's being taught by those words, by that syntax, by that grammar. And it's all super, super important. Absolutely necessary for us to preach the word, to analyze, use our minds and dig deep and study words and syntax and grammar and theology. But we also as preachers, and I say this as well to us as listeners and to hearers, we also need to bring our hearts to the word, before the word, because it's by the word that God changes our hearts. He changes our lives and it's by the word that our hearts experience the power of God. And so as we open up this part of Ephesians this morning, where Paul has been blessing the blessed God for every single one of his blessings to us, and then he's prayed for us, he's prayed for the church in Ephesus in that first century, but also he's praying for us in the present tense with the power of the Holy Spirit. He's praying that we'd have the eyes of our hearts. Remember kids, I asked you to draw me a little picture, the eyes of your hearts. He prays that those eyes of our hearts would be opened. The very deepest part of our souls, that furthest and deepest and even darkest corner of our minds would be opened up and our hearts would experience deep down inside to truly know, that's what he's saying there, to have the eyes of your hearts open. To truly know, to have deep down inside the knowledge and the experience of what the gospel of Jesus is. And so we bring our hearts to preach, we bring our ears to listen, we bring our hearts to receive, so that we might be transformed by the power of the truths, the power of the words that are found here in Holy Scripture. Did you bring your heart this morning? Did you bring your heart this morning to hear? And not just to hear one ear out the other, but to have those words penetrate deeply in the very depths of your soul so that you would be changed today. Did you bring your hearts today, loved ones? And so as we continue on here in Ephesians, we want to be changed. We want to be transformed. This is Paul's prayer. To be changed, to be transformed by the word. As it proclaims to us here in this text, everything great about the good news. We thought last Sunday in chapter 2, verses 1 to 10, everything that you need to know about being a Christian, and we talked about basically guilt, grace, and gratitude, sin, salvation, service, our being dead in sins, our being made alive in Jesus Christ, and now how being made alive, we are walking in the path which God has put before us. He's prepared good works for us to walk on that path. That's what it means to be a Christian. We need to know that we are sinners. We need to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of those sins. And how we now, as those who are saved, need to walk in a way that pleases God. And then he continues on, right? Notice this is not just, this is not like a new chapter. This is not a new page. There's not a huge gap between the words. He's continuing the very same thought, but he's now, he's explaining to us and he's transitioning for us and concluding for us that what makes the good news great are these various things. We call it the gospel. The word gospel means good news. And so we talk about the gospel, we say the good news. We mean what Jesus Christ has done. That's the gospel. He's the gospel. He's the good news. But there's something great about the gospel. We talk about good news, but we can't forget that it's also great news. What's great about the good news? What Paul says to know what is so great about the good news is first of all to remember, to remember where you were and who you were before the good news, before the gospel of Jesus Christ came into your life. You need to know why the gospel's necessary. Why should I put my trust in Jesus? I'm fine. Nothing's wrong with me. My life is going great, I'm happy, I'm blessed, I've got everything I need. But Paul says to us here, God says to us, he says to you, you need to remember. And he's writing here to believers, of course, so he's writing to us as believers. Remember what you were, who you were before you came to Christ, before Christ came to you, why it was necessary. Therefore remember, he says, verse 11, remember. And here Paul states it as, remember, you who were far off. Notice there's a spatial language. Far off and being brought near. We'll keep seeing that throughout. Just like we saw last Sunday back in chapter 2, or just up in chapter 2, verses 1, 2, and 3, Paul began with the bad news, didn't he? You were dead. You were dead in what? Trespasses and sins. And you once walked in those trespasses and sins, you once walked in the way of the world, and you once walked according to the Spirit, the power of the air, the prince who is at work and the sons of disobedience. You not only once walked in your own desires and according to the world's temptations, but you also walked in the ways of the devil. That's the bad news. Remember that, the apostle says here. Remember that, the bad news. Now, maybe you've painted something recently. I don't know. I've never been a painter myself. But every painter needs some sort of a background, right? A canvas upon which to paint his or her masterpiece, right? Maybe it's just like a stick figure. Or maybe you can really paint. I don't know. We all need to have some kind of a backdrop, something to write on, a canvas to paint upon. So, you know, we can appreciate, for example, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Starry Night or Vermeer's The Girl with the Pearl Earring. These are like famous paintings in the world. But we have to remember that those paintings are put upon something. They're not just suspended in midair. They look like they are, that's why they're so amazing, but they're put upon a background, they're put upon a canvas. And so Paul is telling us to remember who you were when you were far off. Your sins, your status before God, before Jesus invaded your life, is like a canvas upon which God does his masterwork of the good news for us and in us. Remember then, he says. Well, what are we to remember? Again, verse 11. That at one time you Gentiles, what's a Gentile again? What's a Gentile, brothers and sisters? A non-Jew. Right? So, you Gentiles, those of you who are non-Jewish, and you'll see why that's important here, remember that at one time you were in the flesh. At one time you were in the flesh. Ensarche is this Greek phrase that Paul uses throughout his letters in a very typical way to describe our status in sin. It's what we call being unregenerated, not born again, living in sin, dead in trespasses and sins, 2 verse 1 again. So remember that you are in that status, that state of anarchy and in the flesh, but notice it's more than just being in a sinful state. He's contrasting the Gentiles with the Jews because the Gentiles were uncircumcised. uncircumcised in the flesh. Now, we have to step back and remember that, you know, in our culture, for the most part, those of us who've had boys, baby boys, you know, we do circumcision not for religious reasons. We do it for Just out of custom. I don't know. Maybe insurance companies charge more for it. I don't know. There's probably a reason for that or maybe it's like sometimes it's like we think of it's better hygiene for our babies or even a sense of aesthetics or whatnot. But here Paul's speaking about religious circumcision. The thing that God gave to father Abraham to distinguish them from the nations around them. And so he's thinking of that, religious requirements. And so Gentiles, like Romans or Greeks, typically would have been uncircumcised versus their Jewish neighbors who were circumcised. And so remember, he says, Gentiles, that when you were uncircumcised, meaning you were unregenerated, you were living in sin, you were in trespasses and sins dead, you were walking in the way of the world, you were walking in Satan's path, Remember, remember, you were called the uncircumcision, and we have little quotation marks there in our English Bible. You were called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, meaning the Jews, which is made in the flesh by hand. And then notice he reiterates again, verse 12. Remember, this is the main verb here, remember. You know how verse 12 then gives a little list. of the things that you are to remember about that time in the past when you were uncircumcised, when you were unregenerated, when you were dead in trespasses and sins, when you walked in the ways of the world, when you walked in Satan's path. Remember these things about yourself. You were separated from Christ, the Messiah. You were separated from Christ, the Messiah. Now, if you go back to chapter one, do you remember, I think I mentioned this, but in chapter one, over and over and over again, as you read chapter one, that first part of chapter one, that song of praise, that hymn of praise, blessed be the God and Father and so forth. Do you remember how over and over again the Apostle Paul uses what we call spatial language or locational kind of language? To describe our having every spiritual blessing, where are we blessed according to Paul in chapter one? Where's the location of those blessings? It's in heaven, yes, in Christ, right? In the heavenly places, in Christ, right? So that in Christ is constantly reiterated by the Apostle Paul over and over and over again, as if Christ is the location, the spatial place where our blessings are found. And so in other words, everything great about the good news is Christ. It's in Christ. But when you were uncircumcised in the flesh and you were lost in your sins, you were separated from Christ. Notice the contrast in chapter one, now chapter two. When you're in Christ, you're blessed with every spiritual blessing, but when you are separated, you're outside of Christ, you're apart from him, you're separated from all those blessings. Don't forget that, he says. Don't forget that. You were separated from Christ. Now you're in him. There, back then, you were outside of him. You were also alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel. This word for Commonwealth, palatea, we transliterate it into English as apolity. Apolity. It's a compound word. that speaks of a city or a state, a polis or polis, a city or a state. And then there's also this part of the word here, that little te at the end, or t, the poli-t, it means that I am a living citizen of the polis, of the city, of the state. In other words, the Commonwealth, the polity, the people, the city, the nation of Israel, and you were at that time alienated from that people. You were not a citizen. You had no citizenship in the community of citizens called the Lord's people. So you were separated from Christ, you were outside of Christ. You were even outside of the people, the sphere, the realm, the land even. God's presence and his people so again just it's contrasted with chapter 1 the in Christ and everything outside of Christ you were also estranged he says you were strangers to the covenants When he says here, covenants of promise, the covenants are the promises. The word promises explains the word covenants here, so it's sometimes not as clear in English, but the covenants, that is the promises, is what he's trying to say to us. The covenants are the promises of God. So why would it be so bad? to be estranged from God's promises, His ancient covenants. Why is it so bad to be estranged or strangers from God's promises? You're separate from Christ, you're alienated from the people of God, and you're estranged from His promises. What does that mean? Separated, okay, it means no hope, right? No promises, no salvation. Right? If you don't have the promises of God, you don't have salvation. And so that's why he goes on to explain, having no hope without God in the world. Notice that, right? Again, the contrast of being in Christ or being in the world. Having no hope. One of Job's friends in the book of Job Chapter number 11 says it like this. And we know that Job's friends, his counselors, sometimes they... They're pretty much always missing the mark, like practically speaking. They don't... They're not really good comforters. They're miserable comforters, right? Job calls them. They're miserable comforters. But in the midst of their miserable comforting, they sometimes say right things. So for example, here's Zophar, one of Job's friends, one of his comforters. He says something that's right in the midst of this bad advice he's giving Job. So he's describing in Job 11 that a life that is rightly directed towards God It's like this, Job 11. Quote, your life will be brighter than the noonday. So think of that image. Your life will be brighter than the noonday, okay, if you are rightly ordered towards God. Its darkness, your life's darkness, will be like the morning. And you will feel secure. Why? Because there's hope. This is what Job's friend is saying. Now he's telling you all that in the midst of some bad advice, but he says something that is correct there. Now the opposite is also true then. A life without hope is not bright like high noon, but dark. Morning will be like the darkness. You won't have security, no stability, no rest. Without hope, the human heart breaks, as one writer once said. Without hope, without hope, without God. No hope, no God, right? No God, no hope. And so to be separated, alienated, estranged, hopeless and godless is the opposite of being in Christ. Being far off is opposed to being brought near, drawn near. Can you remember those days, brothers and sisters, some of us can remember those days, can't we? Separated, alienated, estranged, hopeless, godless. For some of us, our life apart from Jesus Christ was like living in a galaxy far, far away, right, as the movie says. For some of us, it feels like it was just yesterday. The point is, don't forget. Never forget, that's the canvas upon which God has done his gospel work. Amen? Don't forget. Now, secondly then, he says this in chapter 2, verses 13 to 18. He says, revel in being brought near. Remember that you were far off, but now revel in being brought near, but now in Christ, right? So we have chapter two, verses one through three, the bad news, and then verse four, that famous little opening, or that famous transition, but God, the same thing here, but now in Christ Jesus. You who once were far off have been brought near. Near to what, brothers and sisters? What's he saying here? Near to what? Near to what? Christ, what else? Israel, what else? The covenants, the promises, what else? Having hope, what else? Having God, right? The five things he just said. That's what it was like to be far off. Now you've been brought near. You've been brought near to Christ, from whom you once were separated. You've been brought near to Israel, from whom you were once alienated. You've been brought near to God's covenants, his promises, from which you were once estranged. You've been given hope from which you had none. You've been given God, you've been brought to God from whom you once were distant. And in fact, you were dead to God, but now you're alive. You've been brought near, he says. Revel in the gospel. How have you and I been brought near? How has God brought us near? We were separated, we were alienated, we were estranged, we were hopeless, we were godless. How has God brought us near? Did God just do it like that and made us near? By the blood of Christ, right? So verse 13, that language of by is like the means by which, it's the way that God accomplishes this, by the blood of Christ. Notice that, by the blood of Christ. Notice how he doesn't just say there by the death of Christ, do you see that? The blood of Christ, not just the death of Christ. Now, the death of Christ is true. It's by the death of Christ, by the cross of Christ, by the sacrifice of Christ, and so forth. But he says here, and specifically, he says here, by the blood of Christ, you have been brought near. Why does he say that in this context, by the blood of Christ? Remember, he's talking here to Jews and to Gentiles who've been drawn, who've been separated from Jews and who are now being brought near. So why does he mention the blood of Christ or blood of the Messiah? What does that language make you think about in the Bible? Sacrifices. Okay, and where are those sacrifices found? all the way back in the Old Testament, right? The temple, the tabernacle, the priesthood, the animal sacrifices, the offerings, all that apparatus of what made the Old Testament the Old Testament. So there was no forgiveness of sins according to the Old Testament. There's no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of what? Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Now, in the Old Testament, whose blood? Whose blood was offered up as some kind of a thing? Yeah. Goats, right? Lambs, rams, turtle doves, whatever it might be. Can animals sacrifice and take away sins? They can't. So why did God give them commandments to sacrifice animals if animals can't sacrifice for human beings? So these are foreshadowings, right? These are like pictures and crayons. I like to say these are like crayon drawings that our kids give to us as parents. But in the case of the Old Testament, it's like God is drawing the crayon drawing for the people to teach them something of what it's going to be like in the fullness of time. And so all these animal sacrifices were what are called types and shadows. They're all pointing forward to the one who is going to come who would sacrifice for sinners and take away their sins. So what does the blood of Christ do? Notice verse 14. For he himself is what? Our peace. He himself is our peace. What's the opposite of peace? What's the opposite of peace? Turmoil, war, strife, chaos, conflicts, all these things. That was us. That was us at war, striving, in conflict, in our uncircumcised, our unregenerated state, Paul is saying. We were far off. Imagine a battlefield, in a sense. We were far off shooting arrows against God. shooting bullets against God, launching missiles against God. We're at war with God. But Christ is our peace, the apostle said. But Christ is our peace, meaning by his blood we are reconciled. We are reconciled. His blood brings us peace. His death brings us life. He stepped, Christ stepped into the middle of the battlefield between God and human beings so that God would no longer be fighting against us and we no longer fighting against Him. Christ is our peace. Christ is our peace. Do you have that peace today? Stop fighting against God. If you're here today, you don't know Jesus Christ. Stop fighting against God. Stop trying to fight against Him. Stop being at war with Him. You can't fight against God. You can't win. You can try to fight against him and you can rebel against him. You can walk away from him. You can go doing your own thing. You can serve your own sinfulness. You can try to run from God. You can try to get away from the things that your parents have taught you. You can try to run away from the church. And then you can turn as an antagonizer and say, you know, all those things are so false. It's all just a power play to keep me under the man's thumb and so forth. Stop fighting with God. Stop fighting with God, find peace instead. Christ Jesus has come to bring peace, to bring peace, so that we would no longer fight against God and that we would no longer experience him, as it were, fighting against us. Now notice to whom we are reconciled here. So it's by the blood of Jesus, it's by the blood of Christ, that we've been brought near because he himself is our peace. So this is the language of reconciliation, right? This is the language of reconciliation. No longer at war, but now you're at peace. You're not fighting anymore. Now you are friends. Now you are allies. Now you are joined together. That's what we call a covenant. We're brought together, God to us and we to God. But to whom, according to Paul here in the text, to whom are we reconciled? To whom are we reconciled here? Notice there are two directions in which this reconciliation affects us. Two things that the blood of Christ does, two benefits that the blood of Christ does to bring us reconciliation. Notice first of all, there's a horizontal or a social aspect to this nearness. Notice it says there, Paul says there, who, meaning Christ, Christ has made us both, who's the both? Who are the two parties here? Jews and Gentiles, right? So Christ has made us, Jews and Gentiles, one and has broken down in his flesh, meaning his body upon the cross, the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. How? Again, notice verse 14. How did Christ's death break this wall down to bring these two opposing parties together by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances and those societal differences between Jews and Gentiles, Romans, Greeks, whoever. those societal differences, that dimension, that horizontal dimension between various categories and groups of human beings was exemplified in things like circumcision, right? If you wanted, we see this in the book of Acts, we see this in the book of Galatians. For a Gentile, the Jewish believers in Messiah believed that for Gentiles to now come and believe in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, they had to be circumcised first to be full members and full citizen. So they were using circumcision as a boundary and a barrier to keep Gentiles from coming in. Things like kosher food laws. This is why God gives Peter a vision in Acts chapter 10. There's this big sheet and all these animals running around and Jesus tells Peter, a Jewish man who's only kept kosher laws his entire life, rise, kill these animals and eat them. What God has declared clean, let no man declare unclean. So Paul can say elsewhere that it's by the word of God and prayer that food is sanctified and we can eat and drink and enjoy the good gifts of God. And so he's abolished these laws, these commandments that are expressed in various ordinances, things that were used as barrier markers and boundary markers. Why? Verse 15, the purpose was that he might create in himself, notice again there's that in Christ language, in Christ, in himself, one new man in place of the two. So making peace. So making peace. Notice that. One new man. Out of Jews and Gentiles. The two. Thus making peace. Isn't that great? Isn't this something that's great about the good news? We think of the good news, you know, it's me and my relationship to God. But notice there's a horizontal, right? There's an earthly, human element as well. This is one of those passages that are so important for us to combat racism, loved ones. We call it racism, right? Or it's a conflict, there's a hatred, a strife between ethnic groups. This existed in Paul's day. The Jews had ethnic strife, hatred, conflict against Gentiles, and Gentiles did the same things to Jews. They didn't call it racism, because race is more of a modern term, but different groups of peoples, Jews and Gentiles, Jews and Romans, Jews and Greeks, Jews and Scythians, whatever they might be. And they had strife between these groups. We call that racism. But Paul says here that it's in Christ that God creates one new man in the place of Jews and Gentiles. You see that there, don't you? We see that there. I have to say it again. I've said it a bunch already, but I've got to say it again because it's always coming up. No doubt we all know this. We are a very polarized society and social media only makes it worse. There's such a political mess within the house, we might say, of our country. We're like a big house, right? A big family. But now it seems like for some reason, right? We know the reason is sin. But for some reason, there's like a window now wide open in our house as a people. for racism in our country, and there's all kinds of reasons for it, all kinds of examples of it, right? And, you know, if you've ever, I hear this on a regular basis, and it's sort of the shock value has lost its luster, and it's sadly becoming more and more the norm. People saying things like, America is in shambles because the Jews are plotting our demise behind the scenes. And you see this on both sides, the right and the left. We see it every day. Inner cities full of blacks are in chaos, right? People say that. Tell those illegals to go back to the hell holes from which they've come, right? Those are the kind of attitudes that people express. And when we as Christians say, you know, it seems like the society is crumbling and godliness and so forth, we become susceptible to these sorts of ideologies. It's racism, it's sin, it's wrong. You're Christians, brothers and sisters, you're Christians. God has made out of two gentles and Jews, one, right, one. We should never have these kinds of attitudes running through our hearts, through our minds. We need to hold each other accountable as brothers and sisters. We need to die to these kinds of sinful attitudes. And so people out there are trying to latch on to this sort of angst that lots of Christians feel, angst about the society, the direction of the world, and so forth, and they do this so that they can get a little crack in the window to get you to start thinking racist thoughts about other people whom God has made in His image. Do better is what I would say to you as a Christian. And so God has blessed us, of course, here with a diverse congregation. It doesn't matter what color you are and where you've come from, you belong here. You belong here. There's no one group of people that holds like the reins of power in our church. And so I say let's continue in that. Amen? The world wants us to be divided. The world wants us to bite and to backbite and to devour and tear each other apart. And it has its ways of doing that. Paul says here, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God says here to you, That in Jesus Christ, he has broken down these kinds of walls between ethnic groups, these barriers between peoples, the strife, the war, the hostility, the enmity against different kinds of peoples. Why? To make in himself one new man. and thus make peace, to bring peace, the peace that only Jesus Christ can bring. And so, notice then, by the blood of Christ, there is a horizontal, a human level reconciliation that can exist within the church, and it should be in the church best and most of all, that this is true. Right? The world wants its own versions of peace and harmony and so forth. It should be in the church that this most of all should be present in evidence. That there are no groups of people and there's power and there's lesser powers and there's people above others. No. He's made out of the two, one. Thus making peace. Notice then secondly, The second direction is the obvious one, the vertical one. The relationship between God and us. By the blood of Christ, we have been reconciled to God, right? There's this vertical, theological language of being near and might, verse 16, and might reconcile us both to God. Notice that. He's reconciled peoples to each other and then to God together. In one body, through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. Notice that. If Jesus Christ has killed in his own body on the cross the hostility between Jews and Gentiles, who are we to raise that up from the dead? Do you see that? He's killed that hostility between Jews and Gentiles and between human beings and God. Who are we to resurrect that? And to cause strife and divide peoples. Who are we? And so that hostility between both Jews and Gentiles is also expressed between human beings, all human beings, Jews and Gentiles, and God. Jesus Christ died so that you won't be hostile to God anymore. And the opposite is true. He died so that God won't be hostile to you. He would bring peace. And so Christ came into this world and preached peace to those who were far off, the Gentiles, and peace to those who were near, the Jews, verse 17. Now he's talking about his wall, right? So there's this language of walls and division and separation between Jews and Gentiles, hatred, enmity, strife, war. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus, he worked for the Roman Empire because they wanted to have historians and people that knew the cultures to be able to expressed to the Caesars and military generals the various cultures and tribes and peoples over which they ruled. And so Josephus once recorded in a writing for the Romans that around the Jerusalem temple upon the Temple Mount, Mount Zion, there was a high wall. They built this high wall all the way around the temple. And all the way around it there were these signs placed where all the entrances were. And they placed those signs in Greek and Latin. And they warned non-Jews, all the Gentiles, all the Greeks, all the Romans, all the people that lived in the region. It warned Gentiles from entering beyond that precipice of that wall or else you'll be put to death. That's the kind of boundary that Paul is envisioning here. That's the kind of hostility that Jesus Christ came to kill. He preached peace, we're told here. And that's why he describes this peace, this nearness then to Christ, to Israel, the covenants, the promises, having hope, having God. Notice verse 18. Notice that language here. There's no more wall. For through him, meaning Jesus, through Christ, we both, Jews and Gentiles, have access in one spirit to the Father. Revel in being brought near, brothers and sisters. You've been brought near. You have been brought to God himself. No need for circumcision, no need for kosher food laws, no need for all this enmity and strife and ethnic issues. No, you come to God together through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so finally to respond to that, we look at the last couple of verses and just quickly to say this, he concludes there, he's wrapping up and summarizing all this in terms of this new access that we now have. You Gentiles are no longer strangers, you are no longer aliens from those covenants, those promises, Israel, the Messiah, but you're now fellow citizens with the saints. Notice the image here, the metaphor here of the whole people of God is like a city. You are citizens of that city, that commonwealth, that polity of Israel. So how do I respond to that? Well, just like I said a moment ago, we are to make known that all Jews and all Gentiles are invited to come from the outside inside. There's access now to people who come to God through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. And it does not matter who they are, where they come from, what color they are, what sins they've committed, they can come to Christ. We even have something like that in our own cultural experience, don't we? If any of you have ever traveled to New York City, ever gone to the Statue of Liberty, you've read these words. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. How much more so in Christ? How much more so in Christ? He switches the metaphor then in verse number 19. So then you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you are members of the household of God. Notice the people of God are a city, but we're also a house. Right? The shifting of imagery here. You are citizens of a city, but you are also members, family members of a house. How do I respond then to that reality? Again, welcome anyone and everyone to belong to the family. It's not your house after all. It's not your house. You are the house, but it's not your house. You're built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Speaking there of the Christian prophets of the New Testament. Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone, verse 20. And it's in Christ, it's in him, the whole structure, this entire house is being joined together Notice now it takes on more Old Testament significance. It grows, notice this city is growing, this house is growing, but, well, what is this house? It's a holy temple, verse 21. It's a holy temple in the Lord. And you can see the language of the Trinity here in verse 22. It's in Him, it's in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are also being built together, you meaning Jews and Gentiles, into a dwelling place for God, Notice God is distinct from the Lord by the Spirit. You're being built together into a dwelling place for God, the Father, by the Spirit. How do I respond to this wonderful access? As God's temple, brothers and sisters, act like priests. Offer yourself every single day as a living sacrifice. And as a dwelling place, a holy temple in the Lord, offer yourselves to the Lord in holiness every single day. And one of the ways that we can live holy lives, live in holiness, is exactly what he's been saying here. No more strife, no more hostility, okay? Love neighbor as self. Welcome sinners to become citizens. Welcome sinners into the family. This is what makes the good news great. That God has so loved people like you and me. So far away from him. He's come himself to us. To bring us. To draw us near. So that we might serve the Lord and serve one another in love. Let's pray. Lord, help us, we pray, to hear, to receive in our hearts as we change by these wonderful words today, to access you in joy and in love and in peace. Add to the Church across the world, Lord, from every tribe, language, people, and nation, every single day, a people who are being saved for your glory. And we ask it all in Jesus' name, and all of God's people say, Amen.