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Sermon by Mark Evans at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church on Dec. 25, 2022
Christ the Peacemaker | Ephesians 2:11-22 | (Mark Evans 12-25-22)
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Sermon by Mark Evans at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church on Dec. 25, 2022
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Well, if you have your Bible, you can grab it and make your way to the book of Ephesians. Our scripture reading for today's sermon will be in Ephesians, chapter 2. It was the great early church father, Athanasius, when he reflected on the reason for the Son of God to become incarnate, said this, quote, We were the purpose of Christ's embodiment, and for our salvation He so loved human beings as to come be and appear in a human body. Indeed, we see much of that in our text this morning, as we'll see Paul reference what Christ has done in His flesh as the incarnated Son of God. And so let us hear now the word of the Lord, Ephesians 2, verses 11 through 22. And these are the words of the living God. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you 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 in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments and 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. The grass withers and the flower fades. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we praise You that when far off You brought us near, that You have done this through the peace of Christ. We know on our own we are blind, we are deaf, and so we pray You would give us eyes to see, You would give us ears to hear, You would give us ready hearts to receive Your Word and treasure it up. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, one of my most vivid mental snapshots from television as a child was the coverage of the 1989 Berlin Wall coming down. I still to this day have memories of Germans smashing that wall with a sledgehammer, men standing atop of it cheering, women with tears streaming down their faces, all because that wall was coming down. I can even recall President Reagan with that very distinct accent of his saying, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. And of course, the tearing down of that wall was not simply about a brick and mortar structure, because that wall represented decades of hostility, of animosity, of the Iron Curtain itself. And the great hope was that its destruction would bring a future of peace and unity. And what we have this morning is actually the very fullness of that reality, that Paul introduces to us a far greater wall with far greater hostility, the kind of wall that only the pride of man could construct. And so we'll see how Jesus Christ, as the Prince of Peace, has torn down that wall and in its place brought everlasting peace, everlasting unity. And so we'll walk through this passage in three simple steps. You see it there in your outline, looking firstly at peace with man, secondly, peace with God, and then lastly, peace in God's house, the church of Jesus Christ. And all of it with the main point that Christ indeed is the great peacemaker. And so jumping right in to peace with man, Paul says, verse 11, Therefore, remember, at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called, quote, the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision. And just to set the context there, because that may not be clear, Paul is addressing the Gentiles specifically. And he's reminding them to remember that they were called a certain epithet, really a slander, an insult. And you see it in that name, quote, the uncircumcision. As you see, the person uttering that offense is of the, quote, circumcision party. In other words, Paul is addressing the elephant in the room and he's saying, you Gentiles, let's talk about how the Jews have disparaged you as an excluded, uncircumcised stranger and outsider. Remember, the original intent of circumcision was a sign of God's blessing. God's covenant promised to Abraham that in him all the families, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. By this point in church history, man had so taken that great blessing and perverted it, twisted it into this divisive, prideful, even hateful boundary marker between the haves and the have-nots. It was even said of the Gentiles that the only thing they are good for is to be firewood for the flames of hell. That's the connotation, the infusion of animosity embedded in that phrase, quote, the uncircumcision party, the non-Jews. Because indeed, if the blessing of Abraham was so great, well, the opposite is also true. It means to be outside of Abraham by birth was to be outside of God's blessing, to be born into a hopeless existence. And you see, that's exactly what Paul reminds them of in verse 12. Verse 12, he says, remember that you were at that time, and just listen to the catalog of curses that follow, you Gentile, you were separated from Christ, you were an alien to the commonwealth of Israel, you were a stranger to the covenant of promise, you had no hope, and you were without God in the world. Well, I couldn't necessarily recommend its theology. You're probably familiar with Dante's Inferno, where that great poet Dante imaginatively reconstructs seven circles of hell, and that the deeper and deeper in you go, the worse and worse the despair and the torment. Well, here it's as if the Apostle Paul is reminding the Gentiles that they were on that seventh degree, that seventh circle, about as far off as could possibly be, as a stranger, an alien, when it came to knowing the true and the living God. And of course, you need to only read through the Old Testament, and you can see why that is. Israel is God's chosen portion, God's people, and when you read about surrounding Gentile tribes like Canaan, Moab, Assyria, Philistia, they are precisely unchosen. They are excluded from God's covenant promise. God's light does not shine directly upon them. Instead, God's light was to be refracted through the prism of Israel, hit that prism, and emanate to all the surrounding nations. And so, if we ask the simple question, did Israel succeed in her mission? Did she live up to her calling? Did she rightly herald the blessing of God to all the nations? Well, we could simply let the prophet Isaiah answer that question when he says of Israel, all day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. And so, then comes the bigger problem. Well, if Israel has failed to be a light to the nations, and if the rest of humanity, if you and I as Gentiles, if we are alienated, what becomes of God's plan to bless all the families of the earth? And what could heal this hostility? What could break down this great wall of division between Jew and Gentile? We see our answer in verse 13, that great phrase, but now, but now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, you Gentile, you have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, and he has made us both one. Kids, I want to ask you a simple, simple math question. I know it's early, but I'm confident you can get this one. What is one plus one? What is one plus one? Hopefully, you're awake enough, nodding with me as I say the answer is two. Well, kids, guess what? God, God can make one plus one equal one. That is what God has done here. He has taken one Jew, one Gentile, and he has brought them together, and he has made one new man, one new person. And we see the two ways how God has accomplished that marvelous math. Verse 14, it says that he broke down the dividing wall of hostility. Now, it's hard to know exactly what is this wall that Paul speaks of. Is it a literal wall? Is it a symbolic wall? Some commentators think Paul has in mind the temple wall, that there was this literal wall that Gentiles were forbidden to trespass upon penalty of death. Other commentators say, no, it's just a symbolic wall. It's the hostility between those two parties that might as well have been a literal wall. Either way, what's most clear is that that wall has been broken down, quote, in his flesh. Verse 14, that when Christ was broken upon the cross, that wall was broken. When he died, that division died with him. And that is what Christ does as the great peacemaker. He breaks down unbreakable walls. We still use this imagery today in our own speech. If you have a relationship that begins to grow cold, distant, maybe even in your mind, irreconcilable, what do we say? We say, there's a wall up. He's putting a wall up between me. She's putting a wall up between us. So great is the division, there might as well be a literal wall between the two parties. And friends, what you need to see this morning is that Christ tears down such walls. That Christ reconciles the irreconcilable. He heals the hostility. Hostility that has brewed even for years and years. Maybe you've been simmered for decades and decades, and you may have such a wall up with your friends, perhaps even in your own family, perhaps even in your marriage. But you hear what Paul is saying. He's saying Christ has torn down one of the longest standing, most hostile of walls between Jew and Gentile. Could he not, would he not do the same in your life? Could he not repair such a breach? Would he really tell us, go and be reconciled to your brother? If he couldn't also accomplish that reconciliation. So he has torn down the wall, but you see also how he did that in verse 15. He did it by abolishing the law of commandments. Now we should be reminded, in one sense of course, Christ did not abolish the Old Testament law, right? Christ himself says, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. So we should be clear that Paul is certainly not saying that a law like to not murder, to not commit adultery, has been somehow abolished in Jesus Christ. We know of course the Old Testament law has an abiding validity. But you can tell from the context, in fact you could probably guess it on your own, if you read that passage carefully, that Paul has in mind stipulations specific to Israel for a time period until the coming Messiah. Circumcision, an obvious example, that now in baptism with the dawning of the new covenant, we baptize all the nations, discipling all the nations. And in that sense, Christ has abolished those specific stipulations. And so Paul makes this great boast that in Christ he created one new man, whereas before they were two. And so we're right to not miss the forest here for the trees, right? This may seem like highly nuanced stuff, but zoom out for a moment and realize the great significance of what is at work here. Paul is saying God is making a new humanity, a new human race, that Christ has torn down walls and repaired the breaches. And he has healed sin in order to bring forth peace, the kind of peace that the world longs for but cannot accomplish. Indeed, it's no small secret that we live in divisive times, that you probably can't go very far into a political commentary, into a podcast, even just a casual conversation with your friends without hearing that consistent lament that in our present day we're full of conflict and division. We're more divided as a people now than ever as we scramble for solutions. We're right to see God's word gives us such a solution that Isaiah says the effect of righteousness is peace. That's the equation. Righteousness yields peace. And what has God done? God has given us the man of righteousness, the man of heaven. This is why he is called the prince of peace, that he takes hearts of hostility and he knits them together in love and he makes one new man in place of the two, reconciling the irreconcilable. So we've seen peace between man and man. Let us now look at peace with God in the next section because if we speak of walls, we should bring to bear that by far the greatest wall of division is not between man and man, great though that is. The greatest wall of all is between God and man. That if you remember from last week, and in case you weren't here, we saw how man's heart is wholly inclined to evil, that there's this permanent opposition, this ongoing aggression between a holy God and sinful man that knows of no truce, no peace treaties, right? Man with man can at least go along to get along, but not so with a perfect, holy, righteous God. And so emerges the glory of verse 16, that we don't just have a horizontal reconciliation, we also have a vertical reconciliation, that Paul says both Jew and Gentile, both sinners in their own right, have been reconciled not just to one another, as amazing as that is, but reconciled to God himself all by way of a particular instrument. I have a friend who is a policeman, he's also a member of the SWAT team, I remain nameless, but I remember having a conversation with him and he was describing for me some of the many breacher tools that the SWAT team uses. And a breacher tool, as I understand, it's just a tool, an instrument, that you pierce through a wall with. And so it can be any number of battering rams, hooks, hammers, and they all have the same common goal, which is to get through that wall, get to the hostile force on the other side, and work towards a peaceful resolution. And you see here what is God's breacher tool, that pierces through the wall of separation. Verse 16, he says, we are reconciled to God, how? Through the cross, the cross that kills the hostility. And hear that great irony, the killing of Christ kills the hostility. So great was our alienation, that only the life and death of Christ could kill it. And more than that, it's not so much that we lay down our enmity towards God. No, no, what is far greater is that God laid down His enmity towards us. That God in His holy opposition has been satisfied. That God is the one who is the reconciler. It is like with the prodigal son, it is the father who runs towards the wayward son in seeking reconciliation. And that is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. There is nothing left in us for God to be opposed to. But if you are in Christ, you can ask, what is there left to condemn? What is there left for God to be opposed to? What debt was not canceled by the cross? What hostility was not healed by the cross? Not one. That is why Christ Himself is our peace. And roll that over in your mind. Paul's not saying Christ is peaceful or that He has a peaceful demeanor, right? The way you might say, you know, so-and-so, He's got a really peaceful way about Him. You know her, she's got a really calm, tranquil spirit. That's true of Christ, but that's not what Paul's saying. He's far stronger. He's saying, no, peace is a person. Christ Himself is our peace. For in Him and Him alone, man can be at perfect peace with his God. And so, if you're here this morning and not a Christian, this is Scripture's call to you, to be reconciled to God, to be at peace with God. And you see how? Coming to Jesus Christ. For it's through Him that you can truly, fully, completely be reconciled to your God. And we see He's not just the Prince of Peace, He's also the Preacher of Peace. Indeed, the very first word the risen Christ said to His disciples was, peace to you. And you see in verse 17 that Christ has not stopped preaching peace since that day. Verse 17 says, He preaches peace both near and far. And we're right to wonder, well, how does Christ do that? How does Christ preach peace to Saudi Arabia, to Venezuela, to Texas? How does Christ preach peace from sea to sea and coast to coast? After all, He is seated at God's right hand. How does He do that? Well, He does it through His church and the ministry of word and spirit. As Romans says, how will they hear unless someone preaches? That's why as we talk missions, and whenever we talk missions at Cornerstone, we're always oriented towards the work of church planting. Will there be a minister heralding the good news, carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ? For it's the ordinary way that Christ Himself, through His Spirit, preaches peace near and far. And you see what this peace brings in its weight is access. The very last verse in this section concludes with this thought that through Christ, both Jew and Gentile have access to the Father. And so just look where God has brought us. We began with two hostile forces in loggerheads, irreconcilable, and now God has taken the two, made them one, reconciled them to each other, and now they both have full access to God. And just think what that would have meant to an outsider. Paul has used such lofty language as to how highly exalted God is. You wonder if the Ephesians at some point said, Paul, I see how exalted God is. I see how high He is. But do I have any access to Him? Do I have any approach to Him? I remember the excitement years ago when President George W. Bush came to speak at our school. And when he finished his speech, he came down a row of cadets, and he was shaking hands. And I remember I forced my way into this row, and for the briefest of moments, I shook the President's hand. I remember walking away, kidding myself, thinking, wow, I know the President. We're friends now, really, when you think about it. I have access to the President. Well, that kind of remote, fanciful access is not what is in mind here. By way of Christ's reconciliation, Jew and Gentile, that means you and I have perpetual, confident, bold access to the Father through the Spirit. The triune God, once again at work, that through Christ, by the Spirit, we have an approach to our Father who is in heaven. And why? Because there is peace. Right? If we stumbled into God's holy throne room without peace, well, I just think of the men of the Old Testament who walk into the Holy of Holies without sacrifice. They are consumed. So we must behold that God has spared no expense in granting us access to Him. And so with that, thirdly, let us see what this peace looks like specifically in the household of God. It was Christmas Eve, actually, the year 1914, so the throes of World War I and gruesome trench warfare. But that night, Christmas Eve would be an exception because on that night, in the German tongue, it was the sound of Christmas carols that started to emanate across the battlefield. And for whatever reason, the opposing side, the Brits, began to sing back Christmas carols. And then eventually a strong German accent said, hey, come over here. And the Brits cautiously said, how about you come halfway and I'll come halfway and we'll meet in the middle. And so they did. And on Christmas Eve in 1914, instead of bullets, there was brotherhood. As they met right there in the middle of no man's land and exchanged songs and cigarettes. And for the briefest moment, there was peace. And it's recorded for us in history as the great Christmas truce. And as great as that story is, that truce, of course, only lasted for one night. The next day would bring the bullets and bring the bloodshed. You see, their citizenship resided in a Britain or in a Germany. And Paul here calls to us of a far, far higher citizenship, a far, far greater peace. You see, in verse 19, Paul says, you, as in you Gentile, guess what? You're not a stranger anymore. You are a fellow citizen of the kingdom. You're no longer an outsider. You're now a full-fledged member of God's house. And it's hard to overestimate what that would mean to a stranger Gentile. That as a heathen, leaving with no hope, they were as excluded as could possibly be. And Paul says, you've now been brought fully into the fold, a member of God's house. You all who have large, busy, active households, you know how this is. The more and more people you bring into your house, the harder and harder it is to maintain peace. Maybe even during the holidays, you're feeling that now. The more and more people pile in, the greater and greater the stress factor. So what is God doing here, right? Worldly wisdom would say, if peace is the goal, just keep the circle small, right? Keep the outsiders out. Keep up that wall. Why open it up? It's going to make things complicated and messy and afford a stressful house. Well, it would, but you see the second part of what Paul says, that this citizenship sits on a solid foundation. And North Texans were keenly aware of the importance of a solid foundation, right? Matter of time, if you don't have that, before the cracks start to show up. Well, you see in verse 20, God is constructing this house on a particular foundation, choosing only the best rock to support this house. And so you see, he says he builds it upon a cornerstone. The cornerstone was the most important stone. You lay that stone incorrectly, the entire house is askew. You lay that stone correctly, and the entire house is straight and flush. And this is why Christ our King is so often called the great cornerstone, the chosen and precious stone that God has chosen him to build his temple upon. And just remember, when they, the Ephesians, when they hear the word temple, they probably would have first thought of that Temple Diana, that temple to the Greek goddess, right there in Ephesus, right in their background. That's what they're going to think when they hear the word temple. And guess what? If you went there today, all you would see of that great, magnificent temple is one solitary, pathetic column left standing. Friends, I ask you, compare that temple to God's temple built upon the cornerstone who is Jesus Christ, that with every century that goes by, grows with a growth that is from God. And so just imagine what it would have meant to Paul's Gentile audience, with Temple Diana in the background, as an excluded stranger, an outsider, for him to say, verse 21, in Christ you are just as much a living stone as any other stone. You are just as much part of the household of God, a family member as anyone else, by the Spirit, through Jesus Christ. This is what man is made for. Man is made for peace. Peace is lodged into the heart of man. And it is painfully obvious that the world wants peace and unity, but pursues it by the world's methodology. The world is after a Christless peace, a godless peace, a peace manufactured by man, and there is no such thing. You see, the sociologists of the age, how confident they are that man could have peace on his own terms. What was the great rallying cry of Karl Marx? Working men of the world, unite. There it is. We can be united. And you see the same spirit at work today, with all manner of marches and riots and protests and initiatives and movements, all clamoring, hoping for peace. But you see, here is true diversity, Jew and Gentile. Here is true unity, both made one new man. And here is true justice, all by way of the blood of Jesus Christ. That is what amounts to real, everlasting peace. Peace with man, peace with God. And so, as we begin to close, let us lay up in our hearts but two uses of this great section of Scripture. Firstly, we are united to one another, united to one another. As I've said so many times, the main point of Ephesians, one of the main points, is that the Christian is in union with Christ. We are in Christ. That's one of the best ways to think of yourself. I'm in Christ. But we're reminded here that in Christ does not mean, well, it's just me and Jesus, and we've got our own private club, just the two of us. We see that being joined to Christ means we are joined to one another. It's not a cornerstone with just one tiny little stone placed on top of it. No, it's many, many living stones, all cut just right, all fit just right into this living temple. And of course, to do that, what do you have to do? You've got to chip off some of the rough edges. You've got to smooth some of those stones, right? You've got to knock off the rough parts. And that is what God is doing with us. That is what God is doing with this body. That's why we'll soon see there's so many commands to love one another, to be patient with one another, to bear with one another, to be humble towards one another. And they all amount to that idea, because we have received peace, we're to pursue peace with one another. And so it's right to ask yourself, is that me? Do I make the mason's job easy, or am I resistant to material? Is my grumbling, my complaining, my gossiping, am I against the construction project that God is doing? Or by the Spirit, am I making that work easy by loving my brother and sister, by walking in peace? And the only way to do so is with our last point, that Christ is indeed our great peacemaker. One of the great maxims of peace is that there is no peace without war. Peace is costly. The moment that sin intruded into the world was the moment that man forfeited his chances, his rights to peace. Of our own devices, we have no peace. And so Christ comes as the great peacemaker. Now, when someone uses the term peacemaker, oftentimes that's a pejorative term. Is it to say, yeah, this person makes peace, but he does so by compromising, being too flexible, by being even spineless? And I trust you see not so with our peacemaker, that he gives the kind of peace that the world cannot give. He gives the kind of peace that the world cannot take away. He gives the kind of peace that surpasses all understanding, and he did so through his death on the cross. For it was for this very reason that he was born. What did the angels say? Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among with those whom he's pleased. Is that you this morning? Are you one with whom God is pleased? Well, the only way to do so is through the great Prince of Peace himself and trusting in him, in him alone. Let us pray.
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