Eph 2:11-12 Remember the Grace of God

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1 1 Eph 2:11-12 Remember the Grace of God Very often, especially when Kristen and I get together with old friends, whether that be with some of you in this congregation, or others throughout the world, we often reminisce about old time and common experiences. (Recall any.) We like to remember. Today, Paul says to us to remember something as well, and it isn't good times. Beginning in v. 11 and going to v. 22, Paul reminds us to "Remember." But, he asks to remember where we once were without the grace of God in order that we might praise God for what he has done in our lives. So, today, let's remember the grace of God. This morning, our text gives us 5 truths we should remember. Before looking at these, let me begin with some context. The Church in Ephesus was a diverse church which included both Jews and Gentiles (though probably more Gentiles). And Paul had already established that salvation was by grace through faith for all who believed, whether Jew or Gentile. And we will see specifically in the coming verses that all peoples, Jew an Gentile, had now been included in the household of God, the Church. In these verses Paul desires that the Gentile Christians in Ephesus remember their state before the grace of God appeared. In v. 11 Paul says they were Gentiles in the flesh. This simply means that they were born that way. Physically, they were not Jews. Then, he uses the word "circumcision" to describe them. Circumcision was the physical sign of God's covenant with Israel. God required all the males of Israel to be circumcised. This was a sign of separation. God was saying, "You are my people." "You are different." When the Jews thought of the Gentiles, they often called them the "uncircumcised." Do you remember what the young David said when he saw Goliath cursing the armies of Israel. He said, "For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God" (1 Sam. 17:26). He was saying, "Who does he think he is? What right does he have to curse the people of God?" In other words, the Jews thought, "We are God's people. We are circumcised. We are special. You Gentiles are not." Paul himself, when recalling his position as a good religious Pharisee, said, "I was circumcised on the 8th day." But, since his conversion, he realized circumcision was religiously irrelevant. How do we know this? Look at v. 11. He says, it was, "in the flesh," meaning, exactly that. It was not a spiritual reality. Then he says, this circumcision was made "by hands," expressing emphatically that this rite was a human act, but not the work of God. He is contrasting the old order of Judaism with its external and material features with the new spiritual order that began with the coming of Christ. Even in the OT, Moses and the prophets spoke of the true circumcision, or the cleansing of the heart. In Deut. 10:16 Moses said to the Israelites," Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn." Deut. 30:6: "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." Jer. 4:4, " Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds." In Col. 2:11 Paul said, "In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ." In v. 11 Paul is contrasting the picture with the reality. The reality is always, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." And, this is displayed and realized in the gospel of Christ.

2 2 With these things in mind, Paul wanted the Gentiles to praise God with him. And one of the ways for them to do this was to "Remember" some very important deficiencies about their past. Then, he reminds them of their present state. In v. 12 he says, "Remember." In v. 13 he says, "But now." So, I would like for us to do the same. 1. Christless. Paul says, "You were separated from Christ." It is obvious that anyone outside of Christ is Christless. But, in this context Paul was saying, "You didn't even have a perception or thought about a Messiah." In other words, the promise of a Messiah came through the Jews, not through other nations. Though I believe Adam, Abel, Seth, Noah, Abraham, and others were looking for One to come and fix the problem of sin since the fall, the truth of this coming Messiah was developed clearly in the history of Israel. In Deut. 18:15 Moses said, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers-- it is to him you shall listen." Israel was always looking for that King who would come and establish an eternal throne. Isaiah said, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this" (Is. 9:6-7). In John 4 the woman at the well said, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things" (John 4:25). To which Jesus said, "Salvation is of the Jews." In the flesh, Jesus was a Jewish man. The promise of God to send a Messiah came through special revelation to the Jews, not to the Gentiles. And, in this way they were Christless. It wasn't simply that they were without faith in the Messiah, they didn't even have any perception of him. They were Christless! 2. Stateless. He says, you "were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel." Now, the Gentiles had their own state or identification with their own people and country. This simply means they were separated from Israel. Just as the citizen of mainland China who resides in China is separated from the country of the U.S.A. and vice versa. But, this separation was very serious because God had revealed himself to Israel in a particular way in which he had not revealed himself to the Gentiles. Being separated from the chosen people of Israel was a serious disadvantage since it meant being outside the sphere of God's election and isolated from any covenant relationship with Him. In a song sung by Moses he remembers their past and God's special care for them. In Deut. 32:7-9 he said, "Remember the days of old... When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples (Gentiles) according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage." He goes on to say in v , "He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him, no foreign god was with him." In Deut. 33:27-29 we read: "The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he thrust out the enemy before you and said, 'Destroy.' 28 So Israel lived in safety, Jacob lived alone, in a land of grain and wine, whose heavens drop down dew. 29 Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs."

3 3 An example of this alienation is found in the Kurds, a people group in Southern Turkey and Northern Iraq. In my travels I have met many of them. And when I talk to them further, they are truly stateless. Sure, they have homes, and villages and provinces. But, it is not their own. If they live in Southern Turkey, they have Turkish passports. But, in the meantime, they are alienated because the Turks don't like them. They don't have a favorable relationship with the Turks. If they live in Northern Iraq, the same thing is true. They have a passport, but they don't have a favorable relationship with the majority peoples. Neither country treats them with special favor as they would their own people. In the same way, the Gentiles are not God's chosen people and they are stateless in that they do not have a favorable relationship with the people of God through which the favor of God flows. 3. Friendless. Paul also says, You were "strangers to the covenants of promise." They weren't without physical friends. But, in relation to the covenants of promise, they were strangers. In other words, they were not friends of God's covenants. Paul may have been recalling Ps. 25:14 which says, "The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant." Throughout the Bible God has spoken to his people (also called "His friends") through specific covenants. From Noah to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, God has established various covenants. And all of these covenants we see in the Bible are simply reaffirmations of the overall covenant of grace. Abraham was minding his own business and God said, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen 12:1 ESV) Later in Gen. 17:4, this is called a covenant. God said, "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations." As we read through the OT, we do not see these kinds of covenants with the other nations. The Blessings of God only come through a divine promise. So, Paul was saying, "Remember" that these covenants, these blessings of promise, did not come to you as God's friend. They came to Israel! 4. Hopeless. Paul goes on to say You "had no hope." This is an obvious point. If real blessings (the spiritual blessings from 1:3) come through a special divine promise called a covenant, and they have not come to the Gentiles, then there is absolutely no hope. Hope is one of God's most gracious gifts. William Hendriksen defines hope as a "solid, firmly-anchored assurance of salvation." In 1 Cor. 13 hope is mentioned alongside faith and love. Hope is knowledge of God's promise plus confidence with respect to its fulfillment. Hope is the conviction that all things will be well, even when all things seem to be wrong. Hope never disappoints because, like faith, and love, it is a divine gift. Real hope flows from evidence as it looks to something greater. I think of an orphan that has no father or mother. They long for a particular love. They long for protection. They long for security. They long for the things that a real son or daughter has. But as long as they are in the orphanage, there is no evidence for such things. With a real child of a loving Father and mother, there is real love, real protection, real security. And, real hope follows. The Gentiles were like these orphans in relation to the promises of God. They had no evidence of God's promises in the way that Israel did. They were hopeless.

4 4 5. Godless. Finally, Paul says You were "without God in the world." I think this last truth is the greatest. It is the culmination of the previous four. Surely the Gentiles had gods, but they weren't real. (Now, we will find out in a moment that they weren't abandoned. After all, WE are evidence of that!) But, apart from the grace of God that came through the Jewish nation, they were without God. Now, some of you may ask, "What about creation? What about the powerful acts of God in nature? What about conscience? What about the law of God written on their hearts?" The Gentiles had creation, conscience and the law of God on their hearts. But, the special revelation of God that had come through Israel, did not come to them. And because it did not, they had been without the true knowledge of God. Do you remember when Paul walked through the Aeropagus in Athens. He said, "I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god" (Acts 17:22-23). I picture a sailor on a ship in the middle of the ocean with no compass, no radio, no sails, no engine, no rudder, in high seas. And, this is the picture I get from Paul for the Gentiles: No Messiah, strangers to the blessed people of God, outside of the Divine Promise, with no hope whatsoever, and without God in the world. Could there be a more serious description for a man or a woman in all the Bible? But, what about us? I guess categorically, we are not Jews. We are Gentiles. But, we may not see ourselves as Gentiles in these categories because we live in the Bible Belt where we have grown up with the promises of God. And we live in a country that has generally been receptive to Christianity. Probably, everyone in this room had a Bible in your home growing up. (I feel that this may not be the case for coming generations.) But, in the same way both Jew and Gentile are alike in this: If the grace of God had not appeared and come to us, we would all be in the same boat. Listen to these words in Rom. 3: 9: "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews an Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 13 "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." 14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God... For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Now, look with me at v. 13. "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were fare off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." This is the Gospel. In Tit. 2:11 Paul also says, "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men..." And in this great gospel, God has united all peoples in the Church. This is just the beginning of God's plan to "unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth." Oh, the grace of God in the blood of Christ! "REMEMBER!" Let me finish with a few applications. 1. The Gospel of Christ unites people. There is no distinction for those who are in Christ.

5 5 2. There is no place for racism in the Church of Christ. From a spiritual standpoint, all men are on an equal playing field. 3. If the grace of God has come to the world, us, then we must extend this grace to all peoples. This should affect who we reach out to. We should see more diversity here! Along with this, a great part of our focus should be on those who have no gospel and no opportunity to hear the l. For, faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. This should be a great motivation for us to make disciples. 4. It is good for us to remember. Paul does this often with his own salvation. In 1 Tim. 1:13 he says, I was "formerly a blasphemer, persecutor and an insolent opponent." When he considered his status as a good Jew, circumcised on the 8th day, of the Tribe of Benjamin, as a model Pharisee, he said, "All of that is rubbish." In Eph. 2:1, He told the Ephesians to "Remember where you once walked as you were dead in your trespasses and sins." Today, it is good for us to remember where we once were. 5. It is interesting that even though all of these promises came through Israel, the great majority of them are still lost today. What does this say to us in the visible church? It means we can hear the Word of God week after week and become cold to it, and in the end, be lost. We are after circumcision of the heart and not of the flesh. May we consider the great kindness of God and praise him always. Let me finish simply by reading v. 13: "But not in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."

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