Christ Is Our Peace Pt. 2

The following message is brought to you by the people of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. For more information, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org. And now, here's Pastor Jason Booth with the message. Let us read Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 22. We will read them together, and we'll trust that the Lord will add His own blessings to the public reading of His Word. Let's go to Him now as we read the Word together as a church family. Listen, the Word of the Lord. 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 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 we trust the Lord will add His own blessings to the public reading of His Word today. Amen. Amen. We continue with part two of the series, Christ is our Peace. And as we do, let's quickly review the five ways in which mankind is cursed apart from the Gospel. The Scripture says that we are separated from Christ, think about our life before we encounter the Gospel. We know, looking back, with spiritual lenses in our eyes now, having been opened, that we were separated from Christ. Here, Paul the Apostle writes to the Ephesians, that before you encounter the Gospel, you are separated from Christ, and thereby separated from God. The Bible says that as Gentiles, non-Jewish people, we were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. So we didn't even have access to the civil niceties and graces of growing up in a Jewish civilization. Meaning that we didn't have access to the one true God and His Word. We didn't have access to the Scriptures. We didn't have any kind of connection to that ethos. These are special things that we didn't have as Gentile believers, or as Gentile sinners. And now, as believers, we look back and say, we were completely disconnected from all things God. Thirdly, the Bible says that we were strangers to the covenant of promise. So we didn't have any kind of promises to look forward to. We didn't know anything about Abraham, or any of that sort of thing. The Ephesian Gentiles had no connection with the promises God made to Abraham. So completely separated, strangers to those covenants, and fourthly, having no hope. The Bible says that about us. Before we know Christ, we have no hope. Here, Paul the Apostle is writing to the Ephesians and he says, you all don't have any hope apart from Jesus. Of course, he's writing to Christians, so they are all looking back at their previous life and going, that's exactly right, there was no hope apart from the Lord. And fifthly, without God in the world. And we talked last time we met about how that's where our word atheist, that's where it comes from. Without God, the same Greek words used in this particular passage, give us our word atheist, without God. You're probably not terribly used to calling unbelievers atheists, but are they not without God? Family members that don't know the Lord and the full-saving, pardoning grace of this gospel, they don't know God. They are essentially without God in the world. Yes, in Him we all live and move and have our being, that is true. But, the grace, grace and truth comes from one source, the Bible tells us in the Gospel of John. And who is that source? Jesus Christ. Grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. He even says of Himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So, there's a five-fold condemnation to those who are apart from Christ. We just read them. So many indictments, and any one of those indictments would be enough to send a saved person to his knees. But if you don't know Christ, and all these indictments are still true, you don't know Him, you have no heart fit to believe the report of the Lord. You're dead and lost in the grave of sin. Do any of these things concern the average unbeliever? The answer is simple, and you know the answer from your own dealings with humanity. Men don't care. Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. And so when we share the gospel, understand that not everyone, and frankly most people, will hear you and then go, hmm, and then move on their merry way. And why is it? Well, did you expect someone who was without God, without hope, without promises, strangers to grace, did you expect them to receive that message? How can they receive the message? They have no way to receive it unless and until the convicting power of the Holy Spirit of God does a work in their mind. And that's what the Bible talks about in the Old Testament, how He comes and takes out that stony heart of unbelief and gives us a heart of flesh. This is not meaning that He's going to give us a fleshly heart, meaning a sinful heart. It means He's going to give us a lively seat of knowledge, a place to receive that which God is declaring. Do dead people receive information? No. If you're dead in the grave of sin, you don't receive information. How many times have you visited the grave of a loved one? And you'll say a word maybe to God, maybe you'll think about your loved one, but all of us understand that you can speak at a grave site until you're blue in the face and the loved one who is interred in the ground is not going to speak back. Why? Because they're currently not existing in a state that would allow them to communicate with you. And yet the world, the modern church world, continues to believe the lie that if we water down the gospel, if we make it palatable to the unsaved appetite, if we try to make Jesus cool or trendy, that somehow we're going to titillate the emotions of unsaved people in such a way that they are going to jump up and spontaneously choose to be alive. They're going to choose to be born again. They're going to make a decision for Christ. Beloved, did you hear what I started the message with as we read our scripture lesson? Who are we again? We are separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth, strangers of the covenant of promise, having no hope, without God in the world. These are the people that are now going to choose Jesus because we bought a fog machine? You see how silly this sounds? Or we're going to paint our churches jet black and put in black lights and we're going to have flashing discotheque light effects and the pastor's going to wear skinny jeans and a v-neck t-shirt and that's going to save the laws. You see how foolish that sounds? And you've all seen what I'm talking about. Oh, Pastor Trendsetter down at the church on the move is doing this or that or the other and he's going to have some really cool visual effects. And what we're doing is we're attempting to lure goats. But our Lord is in the sheep business. And beloved, He calls us sheep for a very honest reason. Notice He didn't say that we were wise as owls. He didn't say we were spot on with our vision as eagles. He called us dumb, stubborn sheep. And there's a reason He called us that. It's because we go our own way. We do our own thing. And the shepherd has to come in with his shepherd's crook and grab hold of us and put us back in the line. Why? Because before we knew the Lord, who were we? We were strangers to God. Haters of righteousness. Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And no, we can't trendset people into the Kingdom of God. We can't convince people. I can't convince a dead old sinner that they need to become alive. But do you know who can do the work of salvation? The Lord of glory. He can. I think today as we were singing that special song at the beginning of this message, I remember being a little child and watching my grandma play that song and singing it at church. And she's gone now. She's been gone for many decades. And I think about the passing just recently of Cal Smith and how Cal and Bessie were here so many years attending. Even when I was not here, they were here. And I can remember talking with him and how their faces would light up when some of their favorite songs were sung or they would comment about messages and about how they had hope and peace. And now he's gone. My grandmother's gone. So many more are gone. So many from our own church have gone on to be with the Lord. And yet the Lord is faithful. Today, we're going to go down. We're going to go down to the lake. And today, Jared's going to be making a public profession of faith in the gospel and in Christ. And so the Lord will call some of us home, and He will call others to Himself in salvation. And nothing can stop the sovereign move of God in the salvation of sinners. He will faithfully bring His people home to be in His presence as they await their resurrected bodies. And He will faithfully bring in His harvest, and He'll continue to do so until it pleases Him to send Christ in return. And beloved, as I begin to think about that circle, that completed circle, I think to myself, what an awesome thought. We are a small fellowship of believers, but has God not proven Himself faithful to us? Has He not proven Himself to us time and time again? How we have seen His hand at work in our own families, keeping us safe, keeping us through the trials of this old world, keeping us, even though we were making decisions at times that would have shipwrecked any life, the Lord is good to restore and to return people and to build us up and to keep us out of a ditch. And then the Lord sees fit to just save souls. You know, one of the things we don't do in this church is single people out and call people up front to pray and cry in front of everybody as though God is somehow more able to save you if you walk toward the preacher than if you sit in a chair. That's not in the Bible. It's just not there. You want to publicly profess your faith and belief in the Gospel? You come tell somebody that you're ready to be baptized. That's how you do it. That's the Gospel way. You say, I believe. I believe that Jesus is who He says He is. I believe He died for my sins. I believe that He's coming again. I want to be identified with Him in the waters of baptism. My Savior was baptized to show me the way and I want to follow Him into those waters. And then we all go down to the lake or the river. I think most of the time we go to Lake White around here, don't we? And that's a wonderful thing. I'm glad that we can go and I hope there's about 15 fishermen out there and I hope they look over and go, what in the world are those crazy people doing? I'll tell you what we're doing. We're publicly testifying to the sufficiency of Christ in the Gospel. He is our Lord and Savior and we will be buried with Him because He doesn't leave us in the grave. He raises us to newness of life. Hallelujah forevermore. So we're not strangers. We're not aliens. We're not without God. We're not without hope. Beloved, there is hope in Christ. He is, the Bible says in this very passage, our peace. The old hymn, Peace, peace, wonderful peace coming down from the Father above. Sweep over my spirit forever I pray in fathomless billows. Billows are waves of love. Has He not proven Himself time and time again to be faithful to us? He said to His disciples, Peace I leave with you. Not as the world gives. What kind of peace can the world give you? The world can give you all sorts of luxuries. The world can give you all sorts of entertainment. Listen, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that church will ever compete with the movie theater or with the special effects of Hollywood. There's no reason to think we're going to compete on those levels, right? Because the world knows how to push the buttons of the world. But what happens when all those things fall short and they ultimately do? Your money runs out. Your friends run out behind it most generally. The good times go away and the good time crowd goes away with them. And you find yourself with no one and nowhere to look because you put everything and all your stock into the world. Is that peace? No, that's not peace. That's pay to play. That's not peace. But the Lord gives us something better than that. The Lord says, no, no, no. There is a peace that passes understanding and this peace is found in the work of Jesus Christ on behalf of His people. And verse 13 says this, But now in Christ Jesus, you once who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Being separated from Christ, being alienated, being strangers, having no hope, being without God was not enough to keep the saving power of God in Christ from rescuing His elect children from the hand of death and despair. There isn't a grave deep enough. There isn't a sin wretched enough. There isn't anything in this world that you can do that could keep God saving efficacy from you if He has an eternity determined to set His love on you. Beloved, I don't care what's happened in your life. Yes, I care. I want to be clear. I don't mean to say I don't care about you. But I'm trying to say that I don't want you to think that your problems are bigger than your God. It doesn't matter what you've done. If He's set His love upon you, if He's given you faith in His Son to believe the Gospel, then you need to understand something. Nobody can take that away from you. It wasn't yours to take in the first place. It was God's to give. And He has set His love upon you. And He has given you peace. And this peace isn't contingent upon your ability to maintain certain levels of works or worth. You are worthy because Christ has made you worthy. So be gone with your doubt. Be gone with your second guessing. Look up for your redemption draws nigh. Look up because your salvation is nearer today than it was yesterday. Look up! Hold your head up, not because you have pride in your soul, but because you know that the Lord is your steadfast hope and your righteousness. Don't you dare as a believer look down upon your life and say, I'll never make it. I've got news for you. If you believe the Gospel, you were always going to make it. And it wasn't about you. It was about the Lord's work that He finished on your behalf. Take courage. And why is your preacher spending so much time pounding this thought into your head? Here's why. I can't tell you that Jesus is the Prince of Peace unless His people understand that they have His peace. You have the peace of Christ. This isn't something that you earned. A lot of times people will say that Christian assurance is only wrought through diligent and tearful and strenuous efforts. Only the Puritans taught that garbage. The Lord didn't call strong, healthy, able, spiritually speaking bodies to Himself. He said, I'm here to help the sick. I'm here to help those who have no hope. How do you know you have no hope? Well, when you encounter the Gospel, you immediately understand that all the things that you thought made you righteous were in fact the things that damned you even further. Those were the idols of works. The idols of religion. And this could be anything. You might think, well, I attend church. Or, ladies, I have a particular hairstyle. Gentlemen, I don't do this or I don't do that. I don't even watch races on Sunday. Well, good for you. What's that got to do with anything? Because it's all just works righteousness. But when the Lord saves us, when He comes in on the scene to bring true peace, we look at all the stuff we thought made us better than our neighbor, made us acceptable to God, and we realize it's all just hogwash. None of it counts. The only thing that counts is a new creation. And the only way you can be reborn is to be born again by Jesus Christ. You've got to believe the gospel. And you do that as the Spirit of God gives you the ability, the faith, to believe it. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. What good would it be for a preacher to talk about grace and mercy if it was all just boiled down to your decision? There's no grace in that. Oh, the preacher did a good enough job convincing you to exercise your so-called free will to choose Jesus. So now you get to spend eternity in heaven bragging to all your buddies about what a good choice you made? That's not grace. That sounds an awful lot about works righteousness. I did this. I made better use of my faith than my neighbor did of theirs. God save us. This is all about grace. Why is it that someone can sit here and not hear a word I'm saying, and someone else can sit here and hear every word, soak it up like a sponge, and then run out the church doors and go, oh my, I believe the Gospel. This is amazing. And someone else is like, where are we eating? What makes the two to differ? One person says, well, it's my free will. No, you don't have a free will. Your will is in bondage. The Lord just defined you as someone without hope, without any promises, without God, apart from Israel. You have nothing. What are you? Dead in the trespasses of your sins. You're in the grave in bondage. You have nothing. The flesh can't please God. Yeah, I'm going to actually have my free will. No, you're not, because even your will is in bondage. And what will you choose to do every time, always, everywhere? Sin. Surprise! You're a sinner. And sadly, people don't catch that. They want to think there's something different than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. But all that is is pride. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. They're better than their neighbor. We need redemption. We need saving. We don't need a partner. We don't need an associate. We need redemption. We need to be saved. We need to be resurrected. And it's the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit of God at work, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, will one day quicken our bodies. And it's the same Spirit that comes in power when we hear the Gospel proclaimed. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. 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This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. This is the power of the resurrection power. I am thankful that He has never left us or forsaken us. We have peace. Hallelujah. We've been brought near by the blood. Sacrifices. We talked about it in Sunday school. The Old Testament dealt with the blood of bulls and goats. And how did they know, even in the Old Testament, that the blood of bulls and goats didn't take away sin? Want to know how? They kept on having to offer bulls and goats, or rams, you know, and all the other animals. The turtle doves. The drink offerings. The grain offerings. Constantly had to keep offering. And the priests were more or less butchers. Today your pastor is not a priest. I'm not your priest. We have a great high priest, Jesus Christ. I'm just a fellow here who's helping you to learn the gospel. And the only thing that separates me from you, and I've said this time and time again, is that you're sitting down and I'm standing up. There is no special spiritual curtain that comes up because I'm standing, you know. Or that I have some sort of special title that gives me special access to God. No, no, no. We are all Christians. We're all God's people by grace through faith alone. That's it. And I'm no butcher. You don't see me up here slaughtering animals to try to cover the sins of the people. Why not? Because some 2,000 years ago, my Lord came as a babe in a manger. He lived. He grew in stature. He was confounding the wisest men by the youngest ages of 10, 11, 12. He was performing miracles. He was tempted in like manner as are we, yet without sin. He fulfilled all righteousness. He was obedient even unto death. He went to Calvary, Jesus Christ the righteous. Went up Calvary's hill. And as the sacrifice for God's people, He satisfied God's wrath forever. He brought us near by His blood. The blood of bulls and goats, yes, it served a purpose to signify. It was a type and a shadow of what was to come. But the ultimate sacrifice was Jesus Christ the righteous. And now there remains no sacrifice for sin. Why? Because there isn't any more sin to die for. Jesus paid the debt in full. We forget that too. I said a couple Sundays ago and I stand by this. We never forget our sin. As a matter of fact, the Bible calls us in verse 11 of this very passage, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh were all of those things. The Bible commands you to remember your sin. And so what I can't forget, God doesn't remember. What I cannot forget, God has cast into the sea by the blood of Jesus Christ. He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And He has brought us near by the blood. Does it say by our works? Does it say by our efforts? Does it say by any of those things? No, those things are all replies of faith. Those are your replies. Yes, you love the Lord. We talked this morning about doing good and being a good neighbor and being a good Christian. Those are wonderful things of which to seek after. No one in this church is going to tell you to go out and be a mean person or a dishonest broker or any of those things or a liar or a cheater or a swindler. Those things are not of God and they're not conducive to a life of grace. But one thing we won't tell you in this church is that you are somehow extra special in God's economy because you've done this or you've done that. No, the only work in heaven that satisfies God's wrath is the work of Jesus Christ. Now what do we do in reply to that? The Bible says we love him because he first loved us, he gave himself for us, and everything else we do, we do by the mercies of God. Even the passage we read in Sunday school said, I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. So where is the motive? The motive is Jesus Christ is my peace. He is my security. He is my fortress. He's the cleft in the rock to which I can run to in times of calamity. He is my all in all. He is my portion forever. Hallelujah. Now, I love him and my love expressions to him will never be perfect in this life, but God give me strength to love you and help me love my brothers and sisters. And do you know if love is the motivation of your heart, you're going to make a lot of decisions that are good. It sounds pretty elementary, doesn't it? The Lord has never called you to have a mercenary spirit. That means this, a lot of churches will tell you, you've got to quit this and you've got to quit doing this and you've got to do more of this if you expect to make heaven your home. You know what that is? That's just mercenary works. Now you're sitting in the crowd going, alright preacher, I'm going to give you 15 units of whatever legalistic bondage you think I need to do and then that'll please God. No, you'll please that preacher, maybe. You might look good in the eyes of that congregation, maybe. But what have you said about the finished work of Jesus? You've said you don't believe any of that. Alright, if he's going to be your peace, then you've got to let the scripture speak. Let the Bible speak. And it says, we've been brought near by the blood. Not the blood of bulls and goats. Don't you see that any time the Bible talks about the blood of Jesus cleansing us, it is by necessity negating all other works, all other gods. Behold, nebo, stupid, says the scriptures. The false gods, all torn down from their high places. Because it's the blood of Jesus that cleanses from all unrighteousness. It's the blood of Jesus that forgives. The blood of Jesus that restores. You cannot have works in one hand and grace in the other. Because grace would then be no more grace. But he is our peace. And what's the point of all this? He does all of the work. He saves us. We've come running to him, saved by his grace. And we serve him now out of a heart filled with thanksgiving and love. And we say, Lord God, help me do the work you'd have me do. Help me lift up a neighbor when they're down in the ditch. Help me feed someone who's hungry. Help me, Lord, to be a loving human being. And you know what? He gives more grace. That's what he does. Bitterness, let it have no part in your hearts. Let it have no part in your life. Why? Well, the Scripture tells us that he abolished the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man. So he's speaking now about the separation of Jew and Gentile, and how one of these people had all the political benefits of being close to God, but none of the spiritual reality. And these new Gentiles seem to have spiritual reality, but none of the political benefits. And Paul is here saying, hold up. If you're going to know God at all, you're going to know him through Jesus alone. Jesus makes one new man. There is no circumcision or uncircumcision. No, no, no, no, no. There is now a circumcision of the heart. And so in light of that, the Bible says in verse 19, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints in the household of God. You're in his household now. And he is your peace. Christ is our peace. Beloved, be encouraged in the Lord. You're saved by grace through faith alone. If you believe in this gospel, if you believe that Jesus came and did what he said he did, if you believe he did that for you, then only God could reveal that to your heart. No man can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Do you believe what Jesus did? He did for you. Do you believe that? Well, if you do, only the gospel of saving grace will do. And the only way you believe this gospel is by the Holy Spirit. So what do I got to do to be saved, preacher? The Bible simply says this. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with our mouths confession is made unto salvation. Now, it's not that you believe and then you're saved. Scripture gives us a better insight than that. We believe this report because the Lord has changed our hearts and made us willing. And so everything we do is a reply of something God's already done. And that's amazing. That means you're in his hands. You're in his care, safe, secure, forever. And I'll leave you with this. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life. And they shall never perish, neither shall they be removed from my hand. My Father, who is greater than all, has given them to me, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hands. I and the Father are one. Amen. Amen. He is our peace. And we pray that the Lord would bless our time together. Thank you, Lord, for being our peace. Thank you, Lord, for being our surety. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for salvation full and free. We ask for only that you would bless us to remember these words, to take them to heart, and receive praise and glory. Only wise God. We thank you through Jesus Christ. Amen. You have just heard a message from Pastor Jason Booth of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. To learn more about the good news of Jesus, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org.