Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 12, 2025 | Ephesians - Pursue what Holds us Together

Transcript

October 12, 2025 | Ephesians - Pursue what Holds us Together · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, TBC.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: My name is Jeremy McGrath.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm the youth pastor here, and it's my privilege to bring the word of the Lord to you guys this morning.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh before we hop in, though, how many of you guys got the chance to go to Gary's Berry's last night?
0:15
SPEAKER_00: A couple of us?
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't, it was a wonderful evening.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh the deacons prepared us dinner.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, deacons.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: You did a great job.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been to Gary's Berry's, you know, they have like the corn pit.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Have any of you guys been in the corn pit before?
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you haven't, you'd realize very quickly that corn apparently can get into places that sand can't even.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Um I learned that yesterday.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh no, it was a lot of fun, and uh it was good to see y'all and get to hang out.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Um we're continuing, as you see up here in our series in Ephesians, if this is your first time with us, we've been going through this book, which is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to this church in Ephesus.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be kind of continuing in chapter two.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Um but before we we dive into our scripture, uh, I wanted to start with a story.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Any of you guys history buffs in here?
1:07
SPEAKER_00: A couple of us.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: I uh I really like listening to history podcasts in my free time.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And a couple months ago, um, I was just going through the Revolutionary War, and I got to this episode where they talked about the very tail end.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: It was 1783, and the war was essentially over.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: We had won.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: The British were sailing back to Britain, and all that needed to be done was just uh sign the.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Oh, am I not?
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there we go.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, guys.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Did I show you my whole sermon?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you didn't cheat and look ahead.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Um anyways, British were on their way back, and the peace deal was about to be signed, but we had won.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: But there was one thing that was standing in the way of a total victory, and that was in fact our very own troops.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: You see, uh the troops for about some of them for months and even years had not been getting paid.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Congress was broke.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: And the officers had been promised a pension, um, but had not started to receive any of that money.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: And so, as you as you could kind of understand, they were getting very frustrated.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but Congress, their hands were tied because they needed money from the states to be sent in to be able to pay these troops.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And so everyone was unhappy, and they're kind of in this gridlock.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And so some of the officers, as their frustration grows, began to plan a mutiny.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Right as we had won the war.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: And they begin to plan this idea to go storm Congress and force them to pay them.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And so George Washington, he actually catches wind of this and he's he's alarmed, and he calls this emergency meeting with all of these officers.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And he gets in a room, pictured up here, and he begins to talk with them.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: But but the person who was recording this event said that when George Washington took the stand, there was no applause, there were no faces of welcome, everyone was stone cold.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to hear anything from this their beloved leader.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this to them.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: He said a lot of things, but I want to read just kind of a portion detailing what their plan was, what many of them were thinking.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: He said, Many of you are considering two dreadful alternatives.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: You're either considering deserting our country in the extremest hour of her distress, or turning our arms against it, which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into instant compliance.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And this has something so shocking in it that humanity revolts at the idea.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: And so there were, as he says, two kind of camps.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: There were some of the men who said, Man, we're just gonna give up our arms, we're gonna stop fighting for our country that won't even pay us, and we'll we'll let the British kind of do what they want.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And then there were others who, like I said earlier, wanted to go in and get theirs just due by holding Congress hostage.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: And as Christians, I think sometimes we can feel in a similar boat where we have so many issues and differences and frustrations with other people in the church, other believers, that we would prefer to either abandon our churches or leave Christianity altogether, or march against those within that we deem to be its greatest enemies.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And so the question that we're going to consider today as we jump into Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11 through 22, is what do we do when division and differences within the church pull us apart?
4:51
SPEAKER_00: What do we do when division and differences within the church pull us apart?
4:56
SPEAKER_00: And we have four points to consider as we work through these verses.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: The first is that we as Christians need to perceive our humble state.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Second, we need to pursue the gospel's peace.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Third, we need to have peace without prejudice.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And fourth, pursue what holds us together.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Um if you forget, I tried to do a little alliteration here, so we got the four P's, but if you're taking notes, this is the structure we're gonna follow.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, at this point in the sermon, uh, if you guys have heard me preach before, you know when I'm downstairs with the youth, I like to ask them, are y'all with me?
5:33
SPEAKER_00: After I've given them the outline, you guys know what you say.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: So we're just gonna, I'm not even gonna prep you.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: You guys already know.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay, are y'all with me?
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was pretty good.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: We probably should have prepped, but you know, that's okay.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh I give you a B minus.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna jump in here.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: We're in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 13.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're gonna start.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says this 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.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's jump in here.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: So, last week, if you guys were with us, uh, Pastor Connor was wrapping up Ephesians, or the beginning of Ephesians 2 in verses 8 through 10, a well-known verse to many of us, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, not by works, so that no man can boast.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Right?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, a lot of us know this.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And so he's starting with this idea that, hey, hey, look, man, you were saved entirely by God's grace.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't your doing, and what he's trying to do is cultivate this sense of humility and this sense of gratitude within us, specifically within the believers in Ephesus, but also within us.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing we could do to merit God's grace and favor and salvation.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And he continues in this idea, but uh.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Now he's writing to people in Ephesus who are primarily what we might call Gentiles or non-Jewish people.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: In verse 11, he calls them the uncircumcision.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: If you guys know your Old Testament well, you know that the people of God used to exclusively be the Jewish people, the people of Israel.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And they would mark themselves as God's people by becoming circumcised.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: And so those who were uncircumcised showed themselves to be not part of God's people, separate, right?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul's trying to show them that at one time they were not part of the commonwealth of Israel, they were not citizens of Israel, but even more importantly, they were not citizens of the kingdom of God.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: We, at one point, were not citizens of the kingdom of God.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: We were not his sons, we were not his daughters, we were separated from him.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the separation goes further than just, man, we're standing outside the camp, but we don't even know the camp exists.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: We have no knowledge of God, we have no relationship with God, we have no ability to obey God, we have no ability to be saved by God.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: We are totally and utterly apart.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And what this does, as Paul says at the end here of verse 12, is that it leaves us with no hope.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Leaves us with no hope.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: This message still applies to some of us today.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: That the Gentiles who were separate from the kingdom of God had no way in, had no hope.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: This applies to some of us.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are in this room right now and we're not believers.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: We would not consider ourselves Christians or we're exploring.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And I want to just pause here because there's a reality that we need to accept.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the Gentiles, but before they learned about Jesus, these people in Ephesus, they didn't think of themselves as people without hope, right?
9:21
SPEAKER_00: We could compare them to someone who's walking across a bridge that's about to collapse.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:26
SPEAKER_00: They're walking and they're feeling all good, life's great, there's no problem, and they don't know that their destruction is imminent.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: They have no hope, whether they realize it or not, and some of us in this room are in that same boat.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And we've maybe never even thought about it, because if there is no God, let's just say, if there is no God, if this is all kind of a joke.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: If we're all wrong, the Christians in this room, that doesn't make your life filled with more hope.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Rather, if there is no God and there is no afterlife, then all the things that you love, all the people that you love, all the things that you do, all the ways that you try to make this world a better place, will mean nothing.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Because it will all crumble to dust one day.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: And so all of us have to come to grips with this idea that apart from a God out there, apart from an afterlife, there is nothing meaningful in this life.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: There's no hope.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: But the news gets worse for those of us who aren't believers.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Because if there is a God, the Bible tells us that we are separated from this God.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: As we learned about in Ephesians, that we we live this life of selfishness, as of an evil, we hurt the people around us, we live for ourselves, and this breaks God's law, and when we break God's law, it deserves punishment, eternal separation, and torment from Him.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: No hope.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And we can't get back into God's good graces by just flipping the script and becoming good people all of a sudden.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: And so praise be to God, who sent Jesus Christ to those of us, all of us, who were once far, so we could be brought near by the blood of Christ.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: If that doesn't make sense to you, if that's very confusing to you right now, what I'm saying, how Jesus is able to bring hope to our hopeless situation, come talk to me after the sermon.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Talk to a pastor, an elder, maybe the person who brought you here today.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't get this right, nothing else I'm about to say matters.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would find the hope that I have in Christ.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul's telling his people here, he's telling the Gentiles, remember, man, you you have all of this that you owe to God, and so it should humble you.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: It should give you a spirit of gratitude, and you should also be grateful because you were separated from his people, but now you've been drawn near.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna take the sense of humility and the sense of gratitude into our next point, which is that now he's calling us with a state of humility and thankfulness to perceive what the gospel is calling us to, specifically this gospel of peace, how we should pursue the gospel's peace.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read this here up on the screen, point two, for he himself, Jesus, is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And he abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he, Jesus, might create in himself one new man in place of two, thus making peace.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: And he might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So uh Paul, Paul actually kind of he pulls a fast one on us here.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Because what we've been thinking up to this point, if you've been following Ephesians, is we've been learning about God's grace to us and how he's reconciled us to himself, right?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And so we hear this good news, he's like, look, God, he made, he made peace.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: So now we have peace with God, and we're like, yes, yes, we were looking for it.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: But then he throws this thing in that we weren't expecting.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: He has made peace among us.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: He was made both the Israelite and the Gentile one.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: How many of you guys have seen Shrek?
13:18
SPEAKER_00: You've seen the first Shrek, a couple of us in here.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, all of us.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a fantastic movie.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: But in Shrek, Fiona, the princess, is up in a tower waiting to get rescued by who?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Prince Charming, right?
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And then Shrek bursts in, and I don't know about you guys, but he's my Prince Charming.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: All right, I like that guy.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what she was expecting.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't expecting an ogre, right?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: And and his face was covered, if you remember, when he first bursts in and rescues her.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And then when he takes off the helmet, she's like, This isn't, this isn't how I was supposed to be.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: This isn't what I was expecting.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: This isn't what I wanted.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be Prince Charmin.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And to the Jewish people, and even some of the Gentile people at this time, this might have been the reaction to what Paul was writing right here.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: He's like, look, Jesus is coming and he's gonna make peace with you and him.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: They're like, yes.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And then he's like, now he's gonna make peace with you with each other.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
14:12
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, do we have to do that part?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And some people are like, well, what's the big deal?
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, isn't it good to be at peace with each other?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, why is this such an issue?
14:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we have to understand just how scandalous this would have been to the Jewish people at the time.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: You see, during Jesus' time and even after, the Jewish view on the Gentile was mixed.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: There were some Jews that had a pretty positive view of those outside the Jewish community, but there were many others who did not.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: In fact, a rabbi who wrote around the time of Jesus, Rabbi Helbo, he said this converts can be compared with sores on our nation.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about Gentiles who become Jewish.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: He's like, they're sores on our nation.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Other rabbis said that Gentiles were naturally wicked, that Gentiles who converted and tried to become part of Israel brought trouble, and that they were even responsible for the delay of the Messiah.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Those who converted were often viewed as second-class citizens, and most Jews did not want to associate with them.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: But why did the Jews hold such prejudice?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Part of it was actually for their own good and was kind of mandated in the Old Testament.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And I we need to understand this so we can understand what Jesus did.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: You see, in the Old Testament, they were actually prevented or told not to intermarry with people outside of Israel.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Why?
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, it wasn't like a race thing, it was just that if they were to do that with these people who worshiped idols, then those they married could convince them to be led astray from worshiping God.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And this happened over and over and over again.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: And so what ends up happening is Israel's like, we gotta keep a distance from those people, because if we invite those people in, then they will corrupt us.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: A good example of this can be with their leprosy laws.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: And how many of you guys have heard of leprosy?
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay, a couple of us.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully we don't super have to deal with it as much anymore in the modern day, but back then it was a big issue.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: It's the skin disease.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: It's very viral.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorite stories actually occurs with a leper in the Gospels in Matthew 8, where this leper is kicked out of the community, couldn't be around the Israelites, and if an Israelite came into contact with a leper, they'd be ceremonially unclean, but also physically unclean.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: They'd get leprosy.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: They'd be corrupted by their corruption.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And this leper comes before Jesus, he hears that he can heal, and he throws himself at his feet and says, Lord, have mercy on me.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does something amazing.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: When we've read stories about Jesus, Jesus can heal people from afar.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: He can heal people he can't see.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And he could have done it with this leper.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: He could have taken a couple steps back and then said, bippity bopity boo.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, no, that's not what Jesus does.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: All right, he would have just said, you know, be healed, right?
17:05
SPEAKER_00: And he would have been healed.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus goes up and he touches him.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's significant.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: Because what Jesus is teaching us here is that when Jesus comes into contact with the corruption of the world, he is not corrupted, he makes it holy.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus comes into contact with the corruption of the world, he is not corrupted, he makes it holy.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And so what I want us to get from this, I think what what Paul wants us to get from this, is that not he Jesus doesn't want anything to stand between us and God and also us and each other because his power to change anybody is working in this world.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to take this down that Jesus wants nothing to stand between us and each other.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Why?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Because we can trust that his power can make anything clean that we previously thought, no, we can't, we can't touch that, we can't be around that, we're gonna be corrupt.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Jesus changes.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: But why does Jesus want this so bad?
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Right?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: He calls us, he's like, man, I made you into one man.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing you together, all people from different tribes, nations, and tongues.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter where you come from, I want to make you one.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have peace.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Why?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's move to our third point here.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Peace without prejudice.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Peace without prejudice.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Let's read here verse 17.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus came and he preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Pause.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: The people that were near, as we've been kind of reading about, we could assume, were the Jewish people.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: The people that were far were the Gentiles.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: But let's think about this critically for a second.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Were the Jewish people truly closer to God?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Truly?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Paul doesn't seem to think so.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 3, 9, he says, What then?
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Are we Jews any better off?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: All of us were in the same situation, whether we knew God, we were part of Israel, or we didn't, our sin condemned us before the Holy God.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: So what is he talking about?
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Those who are near God and those who are far from God.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: I think Paul is being a little, like playing a little like tongue-in-cheek here.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And how we might transport that into our world is another way we might say this is that people who need to hear this gospel of peace, who need to understand it and hear it and vibe it into their hearts, is the consistent churchgoer and the sporadic churchgoer.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: The pastor and those in the back.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Those who read their Bibles daily and those who have decorated their Bibles with dust.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Those from the right part of town and those from the wrong part of town, every single one of us needs to hear this gospel of peace.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And guys, if if you grew up in the church like myself, I I know I was convicted by this.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear this right now.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Because we can start to think of ourselves as the people who are near to God.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: And this nearness to God can create a pharisetical mindset in us.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
20:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a book called Evangelical Pharisees that details the way as Christians today that we can act like the Pharisees or the guys in the Bible who rejected Jesus without even knowing it.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Let me read you this quote.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: He says, they, the Pharisees, were intensely proud of their orthodoxy.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
21:02
SPEAKER_00: That just means believing the right stuff.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
21:04
SPEAKER_00: They were intensely proud of their orthodoxy.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we believe, hopefully, if we're in this room, we've been part of the church, we think we believe the right stuff.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Great, that's good, that's not a bad thing.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: But despite all of their study, they failed to see either the depth of their need or the liberality of God's kindness.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: They professed a God of grace, but they were blind to the true meaning of grace.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: They then treated others with merciless harshness and self-concerned lovelessness.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
21:37
SPEAKER_00: It means that some of us in this room, we believe the right thing, right?
21:42
SPEAKER_00: We believe Ephesians 2 8, for it is by grace that you have been saved, not by works, not of yourselves.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: It's the gift of God.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: I know that, I got it.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: But what we know hasn't transformed our heart.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: We have actually a very small view.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: With God's grace.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: We think it's actually it's easier for God to give us grace than that person down the street.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Don't be fooled.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: We can go to church every week, be a member of the quote unquote correct political party, read our Bible often, do a bunch of good things, say a bunch of good things, and you would be just in just as much need of God's grace as the person next door who has the pride flag?
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Do we believe that though?
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And like I think most of us in this room who have been Christians for a long time can say amen to that statement with our mouths, but do our hearts say amen to that?
22:43
SPEAKER_00: Do our hearts say yes, yes, I am always in need of God's grace.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: God's mercy is new for me every day.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm just as much in need of it now as I was when I was three, when I was seven, when I was fifteen, and I'm in just as much need of it as that person who I think is so far from God.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Do we really believe that?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: And guys, we need to believe this in our hearts.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't, it's gonna prevent us from achieving this peace and unity that Christ has been calling us to here in Colossians.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: So we need to get rid of a heart that does not feel it's as in need of grace as others, because this is gonna create division and prevent us from moving towards full inclusion in our churches.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I want to read the rest of these verses here, 18 and 19, before we move to our final point.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Paul continues for through Jesus we both, Israelite, non-Israelites, Christian, non-Christian here, we have access, if we come to God, in one spirit to the Father.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Here's the other thing I want to just pull out.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Is some of us maybe have this idea that there are certain kinds of people who can't actually be fully included in the church, who can't be full citizens of the kingdom of God, who can't be true brothers and sisters, that there are some people who need to remain on the outside or can never achieve full spirituality.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Um in Luke 7, 9, well really just in chapter 7, I'm gonna quote 9 in a second, Jesus encounters a centurion, okay, a Roman soldier who's a Greek, who comes to him and begs him to heal his servant.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Many of us know this story.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And what's miraculous is actually not the fact that Jesus does it.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: He does heal him, because he's Jesus, he can do that.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: But actually what he says after this is what shocks all of the Israelites around him.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And what the Israelites are thinking when they hear this is they're like, wow, faith can come from there?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: If you guys know, right before one of Jesus' apostles joins him, when he finds out he's a Nazarene, he's like, Can anything good come from Nazareth?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Right?
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And some of us have the same mindset when it comes to other people who are part of the wrong group or the wrong organization or think the wrong way or part of the wrong political party, and we think, man, can anything good come from X?
25:47
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in the homeschool community, I don't have time to share this story, but um, at least where I was from, um, there was a lot of fear towards groups that we deemed unfit to be within the church.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of fear that they were gonna come in and corrupt us, and that no one who held these kinds of beliefs or a part of this group could possibly ever love Jesus.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I started to meet some of these people who sometimes I still disagreed with some of their ideas that I'm like, but man, they really love Jesus.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: They're really my brother and sister in Christ.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And so are there ways that we exclude people in our minds from full fellowship because of things that they think, organizations they're part of, they're past, that do not actually have a bearing on if they can be sincere followers of Jesus?
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I have been constantly shocked at where I end up finding good Christians.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: But I'm sure my prejudice has prevented me in the past from engaging a brother and sister in Christ because I thought surely nothing good could come from there.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we move on, I think we need to be balanced here.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: That there are some ideas and ideologies that are not in line with Scripture and that are harmful to our ability to be united as a church.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of want to end with this quote, this section, with this quote here from a well-known Lutheran theologian.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: He says, in essentials, unity.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: In non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: What he means by this is in the essentials, when it comes to the gospel, to the core of our faith, we do not budge.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: We can only have unity if we get the core, the basics right.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: But in all the other stuff, man, give people liberty and charity as we seek to be brothers and sisters in Christ.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: So let's wrap this up here.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: We've been kind of circling the big idea of this passage and where we're going.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And remember, we asked, what do we do when division and divisiveness comes in as Christians?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: What should we do?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think really the answer here is that we need to pursue what holds us together.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: We need to pursue what holds us together.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's finish these this passage.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had built, or sorry, this house.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we're going from verse 19, it was talking about the house that Jesus built.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And this house, us, the Christians, have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: What I want you guys to picture here, I want you guys to see, so it calls G uh Paul calls Jesus the cornerstone.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: But I think this is a bad translation.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: There's another word we use for cornerstone, and really this is more along the lines of the capstone, or the stone at the top of the corner that joins two walls.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And so, really, what I want you to picture with Jesus is this.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Have you guys seen the Spider-Man movie?
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Right?
29:18
SPEAKER_00: The ship gets cut in half, and Spider-Man's trying to hold it together as the ship is the halves are falling apart from each other into the sea.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: And this is Jesus holding us with all of our division, all of our different ideas, our different ethnicities, our different cultures.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to hold us together and bring us back in and make us into something one and something beautiful.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, well, Paul says, and he's echoing Jesus here, that when we are joined together, growth happens.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: When we are joined together, growth happens.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: I think another thing we find here in verse 21 and 22 is that God cares a great deal about our corporate faith.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: How many of us here understand that part of like the gospel is that we need to have a personal relationship with Jesus?
30:20
SPEAKER_00: How many of us at least understand that, even if we're not believers?
30:22
SPEAKER_00: We need to have a personal relationship with Jesus.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And part of this personal relationship is becoming more like him.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so individually in our time, we're reading our Bible, we're praying, we're trying to become better people, we're trying to speak to our spouse better, to raise our kids well, and to make our communities better, right?
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're trying to personally become more like Jesus.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: This is what we call sanctification, personal sanctification.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to note here something that some of us never think about.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: And I can promise you, I didn't really think about until later in life, was that God cares a lot about our corporate sanctification.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: That he says, Man, I love that we have this individual relationship where you're growing closer to me, but I don't want you to do it alone.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want us to go want us to go off on our own personal islands and read our Bible and have our own personal relationships with God.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to have a relationship with each other and then together move towards him.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that's part of the gospel?
31:22
SPEAKER_00: That's part of God's plan and desire for the world and for us.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And so, guys, how many of us have worked on our personal sanctification this week?
31:34
SPEAKER_00: But how many of us have worked on our church's sanctification this week?
31:39
SPEAKER_00: How many of us have individually tried to take a step towards God daily?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: But it's been a while since we've ever considered what would it look like for me to help my church grow towards the Lord.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's where I want to end.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Some application points for us as we wrap up.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Number one, because we see that Jesus cares so much, not just about our individual growth, but our growth together as a church.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says at the end of time, he's going to present us, his church, as a bride to himself in Ephesians 5.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Then we should put on church-building virtues.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: What are those?
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Church-building virtues.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of virtues, but there's a couple in Scripture that are labeled as church-building virtues.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: We find some of these in Colossians 3.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read to you a couple of these, and then we're going to kind of draw some lessons from this.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: In Colossians 3, 12, it says, Beloved, put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Bearing with one another.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Bearing with one another.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: And forgiving.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: And on all of these, put on love.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pause there.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to rule?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to rule?
33:09
SPEAKER_00: It means to have authority over, right?
33:11
SPEAKER_00: And if God is ruling over us and he has a will for us, then everything we do should fall underneath that will and that rule.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And he says, let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
33:22
SPEAKER_00: It means every decision you make with a fellow brother and sister in Christ, the agenda, the goal, should be how can we attain more peace together?
33:34
SPEAKER_00: And I know my heart, there have been lots of times where my goal in talking with a brother or sister was not to create more peace, but that's going to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: How many of us have quietly and angrily slipped out of a Bible study, a small group, a Sunday school, or even church that we disagree with or become frustrated with, without trying to gently and humbly two of the virtues that Paul calls us to address the issue?
34:11
SPEAKER_00: How many of us, when we speak in person to or send maybe a strongly worded email or letter to a congregant correcting and rebuking them, we defended the truth, but we did it without kindness, humility, compassion, or patience.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Is that message going to help bring healing and peace or cause hurt and further division?
34:31
SPEAKER_00: One of the other things we pull out here is like is bear with.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: This idea that, man, as people, we stink, we hurt each other, we make mistakes, and sometimes, as a Christian, we just need to bear with them.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to address every wrong and every hurt.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we need to bear with.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: But man, on the flip side of that, some of us have been peacefaking.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: We haven't been living under the peace of Christ.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: We've been saying, I just don't want to step on toes, I just don't want to make anyone angry or upset or hurt someone, but it's hurting your relationship with them, it's hurting their ability to follow Christ.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it does need to be addressed.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: But we've been peacefaking, we're just like, well, I'm just not gonna rock the boat.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: But if we're letting the peace of Christ rule our hearts, we will move towards that person.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: We will talk through it in kindness.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Because we want Christ's peace, not just any peace.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's one, put on church-building virtue.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Second, understand we all need built up in Christ.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Understand that we all need built up in Christ.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: At the very end there in 21 and 22, we see that we are being joined together by Christ, and we are the operative word, growing into God's holy temple.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have already achieved and have become God's holy temple?
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Man, you just, everything that it means to be holy and perfect like God is you are.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm encouraged to see no one's raising their hand.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: I am, but that was just, I'm not raising my hand, sorry.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're growing, all of us, whether you've been a Christian for 50 years or you're just exploring it now and have just accepted Christ, we are all growing into this holy temple.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: And so when we go into addressing issues in division, this is what I want.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Remember that humility and thankfulness, right?
36:17
SPEAKER_00: This idea that there are still things that I don't understand in ways that I need to grow.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: That when you address division, when you address an issue with somebody else, go into it with humility.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: Understanding that you may have something to learn, even if you think the other person is in the wrong or is an incorrect opinion or idea, you may have something to learn.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: You may have something that needs to get corrected.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And then on the flip side, if you are the person getting corrected, having humility saying, I know I'm not perfect, and let my first inclination not be lashing out or defensiveness, but to say, man, is there something here that I need to learn so that we together can grow into God's holy temple?
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, number three, how are we working to bring all into unity with the church?
37:04
SPEAKER_00: I tell my students this all the time.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know a non-Christian, when we have a lot of homeschoolers and private schoolers, and I was in their boat, and I'll ask them, like, hey, who can we bring to church this Sunday?
37:14
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, I think I have an aunt in uh Canada who doesn't believe.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, ah, okay.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: But like, yeah, you know, a lot of us were just like always surrounded by Christians.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: And I say, put yourself in situations where you can rub shoulders with non-believers, where you can bring them into relationship with you and with Christ.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: And some of us need to correct our mindset, like we were talking about earlier, where we need to go to those people who would say, Man, nothing good can come from that community.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure a Christian can't come from over there.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I can't be in relationship with those kinds of people.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Go to them.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Be a good neighbor, be a good friend, shine the light of Jesus.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, the um the mutinous commanders uh from the story that I started the sermon with, they um they weren't moved by Washington's words.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: They gave he gave his entire speech and they remained stone cold.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: They were still committed to their way of division.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: And then Washington pulls out a letter that was written by Congress, and he's he's gonna start reading this letter after he's done with his speech.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: And then he opens it and he starts to read it, but he's like stuttering and stumbling and making a fool of himself, and he pauses, and you know, everyone's confused.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: They're like, this isn't George Washington, right?
38:36
SPEAKER_00: This isn't our leader, what's going on?
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And he says this, he says, Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I've not only grown gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: And at this, the officers wept.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: When they saw what their leader had sacrificed to keep this country together, they finally broke and decided they were willing to sacrifice too.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Have you guys seen what Jesus has sacrificed to keep us together?
39:10
SPEAKER_00: Let's not let that sacrifice be in vain.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for your word.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that you are creating peace in shalom, not just between us and you, but you want a peace that transcends all division, all peoples.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Lord, this harmony of relationship that reflects your perfect plan for creation.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: And we know, Lord, that one day you will make everything right and you will bring shalom, but until then, you call us to this building of your holy temple together with all people.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: We pray we would follow you in this, Lord.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: You may go in peace.