FORMERLY FAR—BUT NOW BROUGHT NEAR

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 4, 2022 under 2022 |

Bethany Bible Church Sunday Sermon Message; December 4, 2022 from Ephesians 2:11-13

Theme: Remembering that we were far from God’s blessings—but are now brought near—should make us eternally grateful.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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It’s horrible to feel like an outsider.

For many of us, one of the earliest of unhappy childhood memories is that terrible experience of being made to feel like an outsider—not allowed to be a part of the group—not being let on the team—not getting to sit at the cool kids’ table. Even those of us who may have tended to be more of an ‘insider’ than an ‘outsider’ as we grew up, we still nevertheless have had times when we were made to feel like ‘an outsider looking in’.

And it’s not just a childhood matter either. We live in a time today when—because of the incredible influence that popular society has given to ‘social media’—some people have the power to make ‘social insiders’ into ‘social outsiders’ almost overnight. They can socially ruin people with a click of the button—’cancel’ them—and make them into ‘outsiders looking in’.

This morning’s Bible passage speaks of the greatest ‘insider/outsider’ distinction that has ever existed in all of human history. This is a far greater distinction than could ever be created by social media. It’s greater than any other kind of difference that you can name—whether on the basis of economics, or of social class, or of skin color, or of gender, or of any other human category.

It’s the distinction between the Jewish people—the chosen people of God—and everyone else in the Gentile world. There never has been—and really never could be—any greater or more basic human distinction than that one. From the standpoint of our Creator’s redemptive plan for the whole of humanity, the Jewish people were the ultimate ‘insiders’ … and everyone else in the human family was ‘outside looking in’.

But God brought an end to that ‘greatest of all distinctions’ through His Son Jesus Christ. And now, no Gentile who is in a relationship with God through faith in His Son is an outsider any longer. Now, every Jewish person, and every Gentile person, has been given the same ‘insider’ status—with full and equal access to all the covenant blessings of the God of Israel.

We’re told about it in Paul’s New Testament letter to the Ephesians. The whole book of Ephesians—as we’ve been studying it together—has been about the good news of the blessings that are ours through Jesus Christ. And one of those blessings is the end of the ‘insider/outsider’ distinction in the human race through the blood of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul—a redeemed Jewish man—wrote to his Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ in Ephesians 2:11-13 and said;

Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:11-13).

This is a truly world-changing piece of news from God our Creator. God now welcomes all people—Jew and Gentile—equally to Himself through Jesus Christ. And understanding this—and truly remembering the change that it has brought about for us—will be a constant source of deep appreciation to God, and of rejoicing in our salvation in Christ.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; the idea that the Jewish people are unique was not something that the Jewish people pridefully came up with on their own. They actually are the people that God had made the unique people of the world. They are—and always will be—the foundational ‘insiders’ in His plan for the ages.

It all started with the promise that God had made to Abraham—the father of the Jewish people according to the flesh. Abraham had been a man who—at one time—lived in a pagan land among pagan people. But God had graciously called Abraham out to Himself. in Genesis 12:1-3, God had told him;

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Deep within that larger promise that God had made to Abraham—that covenant agreement—was the promise that the Redeemer of all humanity would come from him. Jesus the Messiah—the Christ—was born from the Jewish people. And in that respect, ‘in Abraham’, all the families of the world—both Jew and Gentile—would indeed be blessed.

But until the time in history when Jesus was finally born into the human family as our Redeemer, the Jewish people were kept a distinct people before God from all the nations of the earth. The laws, ceremonies, and customs that God gave them were what set them apart as His privileged ‘insiders’ among the nations. He gave them His commandments; and ordained that they lived differently from every other people group. As it says in Psalm 147:19-20;

He declares His word to Jacob,
His statutes and His judgments to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any nation;
And as for His judgments, they have not known them (Psalm 147:19-20).

Sadly, the people of Israel didn’t live up to their high calling from God. They fell into sin and rebellion and idolatry many times in their history. The Old Testament tells us all about it. They often ended up behaving like the Gentile nations around them. But that still didn’t change their true ‘insider’ status before God as the recipients of His covenant promise to Abraham. As Paul himself once wrote in Romans 9, they always remained those

to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen (Romans 9:4-5).

Whoever blessed the Jewish people would be blessed of God, and whoever cursed them would be cursed of God. Every nation on the earth would be judged by God according to how they treated His chosen people. There couldn’t possibly be a greater ‘insider’, with respect to the blessings and promises of God, than the Jewish people. And there couldn’t be greater ‘outsiders looking in’ than the whole rest of the Gentile world.

* * * * * * * * * *

So then; with that in mind, look at our passage this morning from Ephesians 2, and see …

1. WHAT WE ONCE WERE AS GENTILES.

First, we were socially distinct from God’s chosen people. We were ‘outsiders looking in’ by birth. In Ephesians 2:11, Paul began by writing;

Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— (v. 11).

The people that Paul wrote to were “once Gentiles in the flesh”. The word that’s translated “Gentiles” is ethnos. It’s the Greek word from which we get the word “ethnicity”; and it simply means “nations”. It refers to all the other nations of the world as distinct from the Jewish people. In terms of God’s program for the ages, we were “ethnos in the flesh”—Gentile people who were distinct and separate—by birth—from God’s chosen people Israel.

The Jewish people themselves were constantly reminded of that separation. They had a covenant sign—given to them by God at the time of Abraham—that physically distinguished them from the Gentile world. God had commanded that all of the males born from Jewish parents were to be circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision didn’t make them into the chosen people of God. Rather, it was an outward sign that distinguished them as the chosen people of God that they already were. And that sign of circumcision was a sign of great privilege. It symbolized a unique relationship with the one true God. It symbolized all of the covenant blessings from God that belonged only to the Jewish people—all of the commandments, and ordinances, and the revelations from God in the Scriptures, Above all, it symbolized the promise of God that the Redeemer—the Christ—belonged to the Jewish people, and that He would come from them. It symbolized the fact that the promised King of kings and Lord of lords—the Ruler over all the nations—would be Jewish and would reign for them.

And everyone else was—in that respect—just an ‘outsider looking in’. That’s why Paul said that we who once were Gentiles in the flesh were called ‘Uncircumcision’ by those who were ‘Circumcised made in the flesh by hands’. In the same way that ‘circumcision’ was a sign of great privilege before God as the covenant people of God, ‘uncircumcision’ was a sign of being an outsider—kept by birth from those covenant promises.

Now; Paul was writing all this to Gentile believers. And he wasn’t telling us Gentiles about this just in order to make us all feel bad. He wasn’t saying these things in order to rub salt into the wound of our ‘outsider-status’ by birth. Rather, he was bringing emphasis to this in order to help us—as those who were “once Gentiles”—to appreciate what it is that Jesus has done for us in order to bring us into the blessings of God to Israel. Do you notice that he says that we were “once” Gentiles in the flesh? That’s because that great distinction only had a place in God’s plan for a while—only so that the Jewish people could be set apart as the unique people through whom God would provide salvation to the world. And do you notice that he calls the Jewish people “the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands”? That was to bring emphasis to the fact that physical circumcision no longer stands as a sign that distinguishes those that God spiritually welcomes into His covenant blessings. Now, all are welcomed to Him equally through faith because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. As Paul wrote in Galatians 5:6;

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).

But just consider what it meant to have been distinct from the spiritual blessings of Israel. Just consider what our condition once was as Gentiles. In Ephesians 2:12, Paul told us;

— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (v. 12).

We can see five things that describe what our terrible condition once was as outsiders to the covenant promises of God:

• First, we were without Christ. Jesus—the promised Messiah—was not our Messiah. The King of the Jews was not our king. The promised Servant from God was not our Servant. He came—as He Himself once said—for the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but we were, at that time, not His sheep. We were separated from Him by the fact that we were not born as Jewish people.

• Second, we were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. The word “commonwealth” is a translation of the word politeia. You can recognize the word “politics” in that; can’t you? It’s a word that can be translated as “citizenship”—with all the rights and privileges of being an authentic citizen of a commonwealth or a state. As far as the rights and privileges of God’s chosen people were concerned, we were aliens to it all. We had nothing but ‘alien status’ with regard to the blessings of the commonwealth of the chosen people of God.

• Third, we were strangers to the covenants of promise. In the original language of Paul’s letter, he said that we were strangers to the covenants (plural) of the promise (singular). That great promise was the promise that God gave to Abraham for the people who would be born to him; and the covenants are the agreements that God had made with His chosen people regarding the fulfillment of that great promise. We were “foreigners” to the covenants of that promise. Those Jewish laws, the ceremonies and feasts, and the sign of circumcision offered no help to us because the promise was not given to us. We were strangers to it all.

• Fourth, we had no hope. Because the covenants of the promise were not for us, we had no share in the glorious future of the people of Israel. We didn’t have the bright outlook ahead of us of enjoying the benefits of the reign of the Messiah on this earth. We weren’t able to look forward to the glories of His kingdom. We didn’t have any way that we could have made ourselves worthy to be the chosen people of God. We had no hope.

• Fifth—and most horrible of all—we were without God in the world. The word that Paul used is one that basically means “atheists”. But it wasn’t that we were “atheists” in the sense that we didn’t believe in any god at all. Rather, it’s that the one true God—the God of Israel—was not naturally our God. We were without Him—separated from the One who made us—outside of a covenant relationship with Him. And on top of it all, we were without God “in the world” that is in rebellion against Him—the world that is under the sway of the devil—the world that is destined for destruction and eternal judgment.

What a horrible thing it is to be an outsider. And that’s what we Gentiles all once were.

* * * * * * * * *

Now, again, Paul was not telling his Gentile readers all of this in order to make them feel like outsiders. Rather, he was doing so in order to emphasize …

2. WHAT WE ARE NOW IN CHRIST.

In verse 13, he wrote,

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (v. 13).

In other words, we who were once ‘outsiders’ by birth—and who were therefore in a condition of separation from the spiritual blessings of the covenant people of God—have now been made into ‘insiders’ by grace. And how did God do this? Paul made it clear that it was “by the blood of Christ”.

Way back in Isaiah 57:19, God had made a promise to the Jewish people. He said;

“I create the fruit of the lips:
Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,”
Says the Lord,
“And I will heal him” (Isaiah 57:19).

God made this promise both to those who are far off and to those who are near—to the Gentiles and the Jews—to the outsiders and the insiders who were broken by sin. It was His plan all along to redeem them both by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

This helps us to understand the things that Paul went on to write in Ephesians 2 about Jesus. In verses 14-19, he said;

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God … (vv. 14-19).

This means that all the blessings of God are now available to everyone who is “in Christ”—whether they are Gentiles or Jews.

• It means that we are now (both Jew and Gentile) one new man in Christ. Jesus is “our peace” between the two most divided groups in all of humanity. He has broken down the middle wall of separation that divided the ‘outsiders’ from the ‘insiders’. By His death on the cross, He has abolished the ceremonial laws, and rituals, and covenant signs that distinguished the Jewish people from the Gentiles by fulfilling them in Himself. This was so that they—Jewish people and Gentile people together—can now place their trust in Him and be made by Him into one new kind of ‘insider’ together; one new man.

• It also means that we—the Gentiles; the former ‘outsiders’—are now fellow citizens with the saints. We’re no longer excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. All the rights and privileges of full citizens in God’s kingdom now are ours through Christ—whether Jew or Gentile. As Paul said in verse 19,

  Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints …

• It also means that we are now full heirs of the promises of God. Everything that the true ‘insiders’ inherit from God the Father is now ours also. As it says in Galatians 3:28-29;

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:28-29).

• It also means that we now have hope. We don’t have ‘hope’ in the vague sense that we have reason to hope that—maybe—things will all work out alright for us in the end. We don’t just have a hope that we will—somehow perhaps—escape the judgment that will come upon ‘outsiders’. No! Rather, it means that we now—in Christ—share the full expectation of the glories of God’s eternal kingdom with all those who are true ‘insiders’. We have this hope as a sure and certain expectation. As it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:8-9;

But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:8-9).

• And finally, this all means that we are now full members of the household of God. That’s what Paul says in verse 19 about us who are Gentiles in Christ by faith in His blood. We are “members of the household of God …” Can anyone be a greater ‘insider’ than that?

* * * * * * * * * *

It’s horrible to feel like an outsider. And as Gentiles—separated from the covenant promises of God—that’s what we were. But brothers and sisters in Christ; we are outsiders no longer! We believing Gentiles—together with every Jewish man or woman who is also redeemed by faith in the blood of Jesus—have been made more of ‘insiders’ than the former insiders ever could have been.

And this leads us to a final point; and that’s …

3. WHAT WE’RE TO DO ABOUT IT.

Paul makes it clear in verse 11; “Therefore remember …!” Think back to what you once were. Remember all of the things that you didn’t have because you were an ‘outsider’. Then, see what it is that God has brought about for you through the blood of Jesus. Let your heart swell with the joy of your salvation! Celebrate that every bit of the full inheritance of God’s chosen people is now yours in Christ! Express your gratitude to Him in worship!

Do this; because remembering that we were once far from God’s blessings—but have now been brought near through Jesus—will make us overwhelmingly joyful and grateful for our salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

AE