Ephesians 3.1-13 - Prisoner(s?) of Christ

What keeps you going?  What’s your go-to?  What’s your secret sauce?  

When we were leading teams to Slovakia, it was Heinz ketchup.  We carried it around with us - cuz you could put it on just about anything and make it edible.  I do think if we were still doing that now I’d be taking a bottle of this - [sweet baby rays]

But actually we’re asking that question on a deeper more fundamental level today.  What picks you up when you’re down?  What helps you keep going when the going gets tough?  When things don’t go your way?  The way you hoped?  Or do you even have something that helps you, something you turn to when discouragement rears its ugly head?

If we fast forward to the end of today’s passage, we see that Paul wants the people who are following Christ in Ephesus to not lose heart.  He wants them to keep going, whatever their circumstances. When things don’t go their way.  So Paul takes this entire section to unpack some of what keeps him going.  What kept Paul going?  What was his energizer bunny?  Would you like to know?  Let’s talk about that…  [3.1-13]  Paul understood three things…

He understood God’s grace, how much God loved him, all He had done for him in Christ.  Three times Paul mentions this gift of God’s grace, this undeserved favor which God had given him.  And he understood that he in fact deserved none of it.  Not one drop of God’s favor.  He calls himself the very least of all saints [8].  Of all the people God could have chosen to use, of all the people God could have shown favor to, Paul saw himself as the least deserving of all.  But more than that, he knew that he was a steward of God’s grace [2].  Grace is not meant to be hoarded but shared, passed around.  I will bless you - AND you will be (a) bless-ing.

Which brings us to Paul’s new identity.  He calls himself the prisoner of Christ Jesus.  He saw himself as being Christ’s prisoner - OF Christ, and FOR the nations.

The word for prisoner here refers to someone or something who is bound, tied (or possibly chained) up.  It can refer to a donkey or to a bundle of sticks or to one held prisoner.  The one thus bound is under the direct control of that which has bound them/it.  Contained, no longer free.  Paul of course was well acquainted with this condition in real life, and if this letter was indeed written while Paul was in Rome, he would have been a prisoner for years at this point.  But it is more enlightening to consider who Paul holds responsible for the binding and their reason for doing so.  So notice what he does not say here - he does not say that he is a prisoner of Rome, or of Caesar, or of the Jews who in fact were the ones most directly responsible for his imprisonment.  No, he is a prisoner of Christ, and this works on two levels.  In all likelihood, Paul is in prison or under some kind of house arrest in Rome at this time, but he sees the big picture, and knows Who is ultimately in control of the situation.  It is neither the Romans, nor the Jews.  Whether in prison or free, Christ is in control - He’s got this.  And Paul knew that if he was literally in prison, it was because Christ had a reason for him to be there.  It was part of His gracious plan for Paul’s life.  But wait - there’s more.  Paul was bound by Jesus in a much more all-encompassing sense, such that were he to find himself free from any physical bonds, his heart was forever bound by Christ.  He at no time saw himself as being free and self-determinant.  He had been bought with a price, and was no longer his own man, not at all free to go and say and do whatever wherever and whenever he pleased.  

1Corinthians 6:20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

Yes, Paul was imprisoned when he wrote this, but he had been a prisoner ever since he surrendered his life to Jesus.  But Paul was no begrudging prisoner.  This was not hard time.  He was bound by grace.  A prisoner of grace.  Of Christ.  His was the response of gratitude.

2Corinthians 5:15 …He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

Paul gives us the reason why he is imprisoned as well - for the nations.  Of course he is referring to the Gentiles, and that includes every other nation and people besides the Jewish one.  But both the cause and the purpose for him being bound is because he is called to carry grace, the Good News about Jesus, TO the Gentiles, to the world.  He was doing that all throughout Asia and on into Europe, which is what stirred up the Jews to try to get him arrested and killed in the first place, but (don’t miss this) he is still doing it!  Still going!  He is leveraging his imprisonment, making the most of it and every opportunity to help advance the Good News among the Gentiles.  No pity partying or navel-gazing here.  He’s in prison, house arrest - or even chained up.  So what?  If I am in prison, or wherever I am, so what?  I’m in the hospital - really, so what?  It is not about me.  Whether free and healthy or sick or in prison, God’s got this.  This - whatever this is - can and should ultimately lead to an opportunity for me to tell my story about Jesus to someone.  I may not have a calling with a scope as broad as Paul’s, but I am to be just as much a steward of grace as he was, representing the One Who sent me to those around me wherever and in whatever circumstances I am.  Even if someone is out to get me, life has not singled me out.  I am not a victim.  But neither is life mine to spend as I please.  Remember that all things are from Christ and by Him and for Him.  When we leave Christ out of the equation in essence we become practical atheists.  He is behind this and in the middle of this and orchestrating this, all for the nations and for my neighbors, those who do not yet know Him.  So I can fairly say that I am whatever I am because of Him - I am His prisoner.  Or should be.  Whatever hand I may think life has dealt me, He is the Dealer - AND He is the House.  In reality, I am ALWAYS playing with house money.  So I am not just a cancer patient - I am a cancer patient of Christ.  I am not just a doctor treating a cancer patient - I am a doctor of Christ.  I am an orphan of Christ.  I am a widow of Christ - I am His widow.  I am His teacher, lawyer, engineer, coach - whatever I am, wherever I go, whatever I do, I am His.  The response to grace is grateful surrender.  All this is for Him.  for the nations.  Prisoners of Christ - that’s what we all are - or should be.  Have I surrendered yet?  Have you?

See ours is the fallacy of freedom.  We want to be free to do what we want.  And when things don’t go our way, the way we planned or hoped, we can lose heart.  But true freedom is found in surrender, surrendering to the One Who made us and knows the plans He has for us and Who died for us to bring us back by grace.

So Paul understood God’s grace.  AND He understood God’s power.  Both in its direction, and its magnitude! Oh yeah!  v 7 - according to the working of His power.  And the full magnitude of this limitless power was being directed at Paul - in and thru him.  This is the power which raised Jesus Christ out of the dead.  We are talking about the power of our almighty God Who created all things (v 9).  v 11 - this was in accordance with the eternal purpose which God carried out in Christ.  God’s eternal purposes can and will never be frustrated.  Nothing is too difficult for Him.  He will bring it to pass, whatever “it” is.  According to the working of God’s power.  To fully accomplish the work which God had given Paul to do.  And this same power, the same omnipotent God is at work in us!  [1.19!!!]  I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength.  But to the point, God’s unfathomable power is unleashed through surrender.  I can’t do this.  Not in my own strength.     [AB Simpson - pg 40]

But Paul also understood his hyper.  Yes, Paul had a hyper.  [1] For the sake of.  [13] On behalf of.  That’s the word in the Greek - hyper.  For the sake of you Gentiles, he says.  On your behalf.  Paul was a prisoner, yes.  In some kind of chains or bonds.  He had lost his freedom, yes - but he was still free to live into his hyper - which he did with all power God put at his disposal.  This hyper was his raison d’être.  His reason for being.  His over-arching why that kept him going.  It got him out of bed in the morning and it got him up off the ground and it got him out of his comfort zone and out of the confines of the threefold-self and into the lives of his neighbors and the nations.  Because it flowed from the eternal purposes of almighty God.

And this is what we saw last week.  God’s plan, His eternal purpose which He is bringing about through Christ - which was a mystery but now has been fully revealed - is that the Gentiles, the nations, the peoples of the earth - they’re in.  They were far, now they’re near!  They are part of God’s plan.  They're included in this thing called glory.  The unfathomable riches of Christ for all the nations.  Paul says, everything I am doing, all that I’m going thru - it is for YOUR glory [13].  I am a prisoner of Christ, I am all in for this - so that you Ephesians and ALL the nations can enter in to glory.  This is God’s manifold, multicolored wisdom - all that He has done and is doing is proceeding according to His eternal plan.  [not like Palpatine]

Let’s camp out here for a moment.  The manifold wisdom of God... [10] the manifold wisdom of God.  How ‘manifold’ is it exactly?  Poly-poikilos in the Greek, it means many-multi-colored.  Used only here in the NT, the root is used in the LXX for Joseph’s coat of many colors.  Beautiful, fascinating, glorious, mind-blowing, unsearchable, inscrutable - far beyond the capacity of finite man to even comprehend (see Paul’s mind blown…) Unfathomable.

Romans 11:33   Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

Layer upon layer upon layer of beautiful, many-colored wisdom, God’s knowledge and His ability to apply it is inexhaustible, never waning or wavering or failing, always and forever infinite, glorious and unfathomably creative.  He knows the name of every star in the universe (since He made them), He knows every hair on the head of every person on planet earth (since He made them), He knows every thought in my head and every word I speak before I speak it, He knows every single thing that has ever happened, and every single thing that ever will happen, and some suggest that He even knows every possibility of what could happen.  But wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge, and this too God possesses in vast and beautiful infiniteness, multi-layered and many-leveled and breathtakingly beautiful.  What’s more, He gives it to His creatures - to you and me - and that generously.  Wisdom comes to us from God Himself and from His Word.  The relative morsel of wisdom He bestowed on Solomon made that man the wisest person who ever lived, amassing for him vast amounts of wealth and power and huge tracts of land.  But this is about God’s wisdom on display in all it’s wonder, a beautiful tapestry of color.  This is certainly true of creation, where God out of His manifold wisdom has OUT OF NOTHING made indescribable beauty and fascinating complexities.  An evening sky; the human eye; flowers and birds and trees in the fall - a wondrous cavalcade of flora and fauna (too many to mention); the daughters of eve; the way of a man with a woman - who could ever imagine all these things, much less engineer just one of them for real?  Man, for all his pomp and posturing, can merely try to study and explain it all and at some point perhaps he sits back and marvels (or scoffs - haters gonna hate).  This is the manifold wisdom of God on display, and it is now on display through the church, the body of God’s people. On display now at a church near you!  Or should be. [v 10]

Let’s try to get our minds around this - the glorious breathtaking mind-blowing many-colored wisdom of God that we see manifested in all its splendor throughout the entire universe is now being shown off THROUGH THE CHURCH!  This church, the church of Jesus Christ, the worldwide assembly of those of truly follow Him, and the localized expressions of this Body - this is now providing a glimpse into the mind-boggling wisdom of our amazingly creative Creator.  The glimpse apparently is primarily for angels, those rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, and no doubt they are amazed, but we here on earth also get a glimpse.  We’ve certainly seen less-than-stellar beta versions of God’s people (1.0 - Adam’s wicked descendants were destroyed in a global deluge, 2.0 - Noah’s haughty descendants were deposed in a global dispersion, 3.0 - Abraham fathered a nation repeatedly indicted by their own prophets for being stiff-necked, half-hearted, self-righteous xenophobes).  But now we see that what God has been working towards through all of created history has been to ultimately gather to Himself a many-colored multi-ethnic assembly of least-of-these faithful worshippers who freely humble themselves in His sight and whom He is transforming by His now-indwelling Spirit to be able to truly devote themselves to loving Him, to loving one another, and to loving their neighbors and the nations.  Prisoners of Christ!  In the end these will have surmounted seemingly unassailable obstacles of sin and pride and of opposition and persecution and of language and culture and geography to reach and bring in a vast multitude which no one will be able to count.  And ultimately we will clearly see that it all was God’s doing!  No sweat.  And it was His idea from the beginning!  Mind blown…

And so this is all being underwritten, if you will, by the unfathomable riches of Christ.  The unfathomable riches of Christ - God sending His only begotten Son to earth to die on the cross in our place and demonstrate to the fullest degree just how great His love is for us.  Grace.  And this was what God revealed to Paul and the other apostles and prophets and was making known through the church - that the nations (ALL of them) were part of God’s people, part of the body.  Part of God’s family.  v 6 - Same inheritance.  Same body.  Same promises.  They were included.  All the multitudinous millions upon millions of them.  Good news!  And somebody needed to tell them.  Paul was all in.  And it got him out of bed in the morning.  Even when he was chained to it.  Prisoner of Christ.  He understood God’s grace.  He understood God’s power.  And he understood his hyper - God’s manifold wisdom and his part in it.  Question: what’s my part?  What’s your part?

And so v 13 - he asks these believers in Ephesus to not lose heart.  Keep going yourselves, he says.  Don’t become discouraged.  Don’t lose your courage when life tilts sideways.  The word literally means, evil in.  Evil in.  In place of courage and love poured out, evil in.  Evil in.  Evil in is what stops you and me from doing good, whatever good God has given us to do.

Luke 18:1   Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.

Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

2Thessalonians 3:13 But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.

So what is the secret?  What is the secret sauce that keeps us going?  Paul says, my trials are for your glory.  Ultimately it is a vision of glory.  Made possible by the unfathomable wisdom and grace of almighty God, wrought by His limitless power.  What keeps us going is a vision of glory.  And a heart surrendered to that.  To breathtaking goodness.  To love and grace.  Something beyond, something far greater, far more far reaching than my immediate circumstances.  A view beyond the horizon.  And how do we do that?  We zoom out.  We need to zoom out.  And elevate.

[earth pic]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvE5bBYShY - 2:40-4:08]

When you’re neck deep in alligators it’s difficult to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp.  Sometimes we just need to zoom out, step back, and gain (or regain) some perspective.  We need to remember God’s grace in Christ, what He did for us on the cross.  We need to remember and tap in to God’s inexhaustible power.  And we need to embrace our hyper.  Our reason for living.  The reason why God has left us here.  For some of us, we need to surrender to that.  I am not here for me.  It is not all about me.  It is all about Jesus.  Making Him famous.  All for Jesus.  Prisoners of Christ - just like Paul-the-prisoner...

Ephesians 3:1   For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles — 2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; 6 to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory.

Ephesians 2:11-22 - "1+1=1 (and other equations of unfathomability)"

Today we are going to look at some crazy math.  Unfathomable.  But this is how it is with God.

[vv 11-12]  Therefore.  What is the therefore there for?  Well, after line upon line of glorious, life-changing unfathomable truths - every spiritual blessing in Christ/surpassing greatness of His power towards us in Christ/rescuing us by His grace through faith in Christ - Paul now gives us his first command.  The first thing he is telling us to do in light of all the unfathomable truth he has just presented.  Let’s take a look…

Remember.  Remember.  Therefore, be remembering, he says.  Present tense, a continuous ongoing action.  Constantly be keeping something in mind.  Be remembering what?  Let’s take a look…

Our passage today is structured very similarly to the passage we looked at last week.  Last week Paul talked about the way we were, and then what God did about it (BUT God), and then he talked about the new us.  The way we all were - sons of unbelief, children of wrath; BUT God - He sent His Son to save us, we are rescued from wrath by faith and not by works; and the new us - we are new creations, RE-created not BY good works but FOR good works, to be living in them.  Well he does the same thing again in this section.  The way we were, But God - what He did about it, and the new us.  Only this week, he addresses us not as individuals but as a group, an ethnic group known as Gentiles (to which these Ephesian believers belonged).  He says, be remembering the way you Gentiles used to be - separate, excluded (alienated), strangers, no hope, godless.  Remember the way you were.  Our history gives us perspective.  Gives us hope, motivation.

But we need to wind the clock back about 2000 years, when Paul wrote this.  As it pertained to God, there were two groups.  Only two groups of people.  One group was the nation, Israel - God’s people, the "chosen" people.  Membership was obtained by birth and by circumcision.  And then there were the "nations".  The Gentiles.  Anytime you see that word Gentiles, it is really the word, nations ("ethne" in the Greek).  But this referred to anyone from any other nation besides Israel.  And to THE nation, God’s chosen nation, the “nations” (aka everyone else) were dirty.  Spiritually filthy.  They were NOT circumcised.  They were ignorant - of God’s commands and ordinances and promises.  They were NOT chosen, not special, far from it.  They were sorely deprived - of the Law, of citizenship in God’s polites —> they were deprived of God.  God-less.  Heathen.  And by extension they were deprived of hope.  They had been excluded from the covenant God made with Israel, and that’s exactly how Israel saw them.  Excluded.  Jews in general wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the filthy Gentiles.  The nations.  Even that word, nations - in Hebrew it had become a derogatory term.  Goyim.

Not originally.  2000 years before that, God said to Abraham, I will make you into a goy, and I will bless you, and through your seed all the (rest of the) goyim will be blessed.  It was very much a neutral concept.  And almighty God had a plan for all the goyim, all nations, a beautiful unfathomable plan for blessing and glory.

Genesis 12:1-2, 22.18    Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing…(and) in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed…”

Here we get our first equation of unfathomability:  7000-1xS=∞   All the other nations (~7000 or so), minus the one (Israel), acted upon by the "Seed" results in immeasurable eternal blessing.

But the word "goy" began to take on negative connotations as Israel began to live into their existence as God’s chosen people.  They were by no means perfect, far from it, often no more faithful to God than the sad ignorant filthy Gentiles, but descendants of Abraham had the covenant of circumcision, which God gave their forefathers in part to distinguish this nation from all the others, AND they had the Law.  The commands of God.  Literally hundreds of them.  Through centuries of walking in this identity of God’s chosen people, they came to see themselves as being so much better and cleaner than the other nations.  Even as they strayed far from God in their hearts.  They grew to despise and shun the goyim - especially as God began to allow other nations, goyim, to conquer and subjugate Israel (His increasingly wayward people), trying to get their attention.  Come back!  

Next equation of unfathomability:  7000-1=2

Two groups - us and them.  You got the one group - us - and then all the rest of the groups, a second category, UNaffectionately known as "them".  The history of the world is that of racial hostility.  Think about it.  Our innate inability to get along with strangers, with those who are different from us, from me.  Often times even my own neighbor can be difficult.  But these others - “them” - we’re somehow "better" than them, we are more deserving somehow, looking down our various ethnic noses at them, misunderstanding them, disrespecting them.  [see image of some funny shaped noses we look down]  And we plow on forward like so many bulls in a china shop - we laugh at and make fun of strangers/those who are different, we hurl slurs and disparaging words, and we attack.  We take, and take over, subjugating and even enslaving and exterminating those who are not like us.  Not one of “us”.

Think about it.  It wasn’t always like this.  Let’s go back to a time not too long before Abraham, to a place called Shinar.

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…”

Genesis 9:1   And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

And that's what people did.  Finally, in [Gen 11.1-9] - the whole earth, filled as it was, used the same language.  We were one people.  And we were working together to build a great city.  There was synergy.  Unity.  The oneness was powerful.  Intoxicating.  It was a heady time - building this great city with a tower that was going to reach all the way up to heaven.  Some say that was metaphor, a sign of our great aspirations.  But we grew proud and overconfident - nothing was impossible for us.  Or so we thought.  Let’s make a name for ourselves, we said.  Let’s make our name great.  Cuz that’s how we see ourselves.  And then we can just stay here.  Enough of this filling the earth nonsense.  We were unified not only in our purpose but in our determined disobedience.  Falling prey to worshipping ourselves.  Putting us first, our tribe, our plans, our wants.  And so the God Who alone is worthy of worship, the One Who spoke and created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, in His sovereignty He spoke and said, “Let’s confuse their language…” (Side bar: As proof of how we-first we are, I bet most of us assume that when God said, “Let’s confuse their language”, He was speaking English.  It’s in our DNA)  But so, out of one family, out of one people —> many.  

Next equation: 1÷7000=7000.  God created the nations.  It certainly put a halt to that rebellious movement there on the plains of Shinar, in the place which came to be called Babel.  In the ancient Hebrew language “babel” sounds very much like the word for confuse.  Confusion.  God certainly confused the language at that time.  Trying to learn even just one new language can be extremely confusing!  But God had a plan…!

Fast forward to the day, a future day when people from every nation and language will gather around the throne of God, in all the glorious diversity which our Heavenly Artist has spoken and breathed into all He has created.  The same wondrous beauty we see in all the varieties of flowers and birds and fish and butterflies and on and on and on - He has woven the same beauty into the many cultures of the world.  Latins and Africans and Asians and Europeans - so much in common and yet so so different.  We can see it in the church already - different styles of music and worship and feeling and response.  One day…

Revelation 7:9-10   After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

Suffice it to say, they’re not all going to be speaking English.  There will be 1000s of tongues, singing our great Redeemers praise. 1000s of unique expressions of worship.  Unfathomable!

Don’t miss this timeline then:  One family/nation —> many (Babel).  Out of many —> one (Israel).  Out of the Seed of the one, the many brought back together as one.  And finally, with one voice but many languages the many-made-one will worship forever in glory the Seed Who made them one.  Unfathomable!  [1÷7000-1xS=1=∞]

Meanwhile - back on planet earth - what do we have?  We have pride.  Nationalistic pride.  Ethnocentricity.  We have prejudice.  Racism (folks think it’s bad in the US but go to almost any other country and it is way worse).  So ugly.  Unimaginable.  There is bigotry.  Hatred.  Distrust and disrespect.  Enslavement.  Border conflicts.  Genocide.  I’ll tell you what we see - we see a spiritual enemy hard at work and fallen man cooperating with him, trying to uglify what God created as a thing of beauty, something to be appreciated and taken care of.  Full of possibilities for blessing!  But perhaps the most ugly racism of all was what developed between the Jews and the Gentiles.  And it cut both ways.  It has for thousands of years.  What God meant as a global blessing was turned into some of the most ugly and violent and horrific conflict the world has ever seen.  Even in its most mild form, the Jews merely shunned the Gentiles.  Standards of ethical treatment did not always even apply towards goyim.  Contrary to the edict to bless the nations, most Jews came to believe they were not actually supposed to have any dealings with goyim - never go to their homes, never eat with them, walk around their region if you can, and never associate with them.  And Gentiles returned the favor of mistrust and mistreatment with regularity.

This is one practical reason why Jesus was ultimately rejected by the Jews as Messiah - the Jews wanted a zionist messiah who would deliver them from subservience to the dirty rotten goyim, one who would defeat the gentiles and kick them out of the promised land God had only given to His chosen people.  They wanted Jesus to clean out their country, clean out the Gentile riff raff, not clean out their temple.  They would never embrace a messiah who would make peace with the goyim, much less let himself be killed by them or bring them wholesale into the fold.  Even as they were missing Messiah and the true life of God themselves - they were shutting out the nations too!  And it even continued unabated in the early church, among those first Jewish believers.  God literally had to force them to include the Gentiles.

Because that’s what He did.  But God…  What does Paul say here?  But now… [vv 13-18]

[Grover near and far - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9IuXEwpU7U]

We were far off, but God brought us (Gentiles) near.  There was this enmity, Paul says.  Last week we saw there was this vertical enmity.  Enemy hatred.  Hostility between individuals and God.  We were children of wrath, sons of unbelief.  But here’s this horizontal enmity between peoples, enemy status, particularly between Jews and Gentiles.  But God, being rich in mercy… He abolished the enmity, He put it to death. 

And yes, so into this racially-charged divide plunged Almighty God, the consummate Peace-maker forging an unlikely peace between two parties who had come to hate each other going back hundreds of years.  God sent an emissary, an Ambassador of peace, the Prince of peace in fact - His only Son, to blow up the barrier and create peace where there was hatred and hostility.  He removed the barrier separating the two.  He took down the wall (long before Gorbachev).  That’s what Jesus does - He removes walls of separation.  Walls of personality, of economic disparity, of racial diversity, of familial disharmony.  But God’s peace is not simply absence of war or conflict.  There will be reconciliation, forgiveness.  This is the idea of shalom.  Overall well-being and harmony, completeness.  Peace on earth - announced by angels at His birth, that is why He came in the first place.  World peace, peace and harmony - the elusive Shangri-La.  Many seek it, some promise it [the old Coke jingle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2406n8_rUw], but only Jesus actually delivers.  In Christ, in the Prince of peace Himself, both groups, all the peoples of the earth will be finally brought together in real and deep abiding shalom towards one another as well as towards their Creator.  Next equation: 1+1=1

Matthew 5:9   “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

God broke down the dividing wall.  That which divided Jews and Gentiles, Paul says, was the Law.  God abolished the enmity, which was the Law of commandments and ordinances, by actually fulfilling the requirements of the Law by the blood of Christ.  The Law highlighted our sin.  And the blood of Christ fulfilled the Law by covering our sin.  And established peace.  Paving the way for reconciliation.  Peace to those who were near AND peace to those who were far away.  Peace to those who were “IN”, and peace to those who were excluded.  And peace between both groups, between all people.  Through the cross.  Through the blood of Christ.  The only path to world peace is up the hill called Calvary.

One new man, Paul says.  One body.  Both in one Spirit.  [1+1=1]   This is the new us (God’s masterpiece) [19-22]

In Christ, we (Gentiles) are no longer dirty rotten Gentiles.  Filthy foreigners.  We’re fellow citizens!  We’re family - we’re part of God’s family.  Not far but near - AND dear!  Members of His household.  We have a new clan.  We are citizens of heaven - and it supersedes all other loyalties.

And Paul closes with this idea of a house, a building.  A very special building, this.  In fact it is a temple.  A place of worship.  Worship of the God of heaven.  And this is no brick and mortar edifice.  We’re talking heart and soul and real flesh - and real blood which was poured out in order to begin building this house.  Christ is the cornerstone.  And the apostles and prophets have laid the foundation - not only by giving us God’s Word but by laying down their lives for the sake of those who would come after them.

And so all of us, all we diverse peoples, we are all being fitted and joined together as this holy temple, the locus for worship of the one true God.  The global called-and-gathered body of Christ - it is the engineering project of the ages.  Temple 3.0.  Far more glorious than Solomon’s temple (or Herod's).  It’s the glorious green room of eternity, where all nations as one will gather round the throne.  But we can’t miss this - Paul specifically says that these believers in Ephesus - God was also building them together into His dwelling place.  You also.  The Spirit of God was gathering together an assembly of Christ-centered worshippers there in that place, a spiritual family who would be loving one another and would be celebrating and spreading the knowledge of God’s goodness, blessing their neighbors and the nations.  More on this in Chapter 4, but for now we need to understand the significance of the both-and.  There is both a personal AND a corporate aspect to God’s unfathomable plan here.  Yes we are each one of us saved by grace through faith not by works but FOR good works.  For glory.  AND as part of that we are fitted into spiritual body, God’s eternal family, a global enterprise of peace and there are local chapters everywhere.  In every nation.  Peacemakers.  Outposts of shalom.  Places where the Spirit of God shows up and shows off the unfathomable everlasting love of God.  At least that’s the plan.  That’s the mission.  Which we fulfill together.  One Spirit.  One body.  Hold onto that thought for when we get into ch 4.  But this is the mission.  So that all people will know that you are My disciples.  All nations will be blessed...

Ephesians 2:11   Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands — 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. 17 AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; 18 for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:1-10 - “Good News For Zombies”

Last week we talked about surpassing greatness, some of the amazing things God has done and is doing for us in Christ.  How we have this amazing hope, and this amazing inheritance, and this unfathomable power at work in our lives when we believe in Christ.  And this immeasurable power is the same great power which raised Jesus up out of the dead.  And we should have slammed on the brakes right there.  Wait - Jesus died?  God died?  Inconceivable!  But God raised Him up!  Truly unfathomable.  But guess what - He raised you up too - if you are a believer in Christ!  That’s what Paul tells us today - let’s take a look…!

[vv 1-3] - the way we were

AND you were dead, Paul says.  YOU all were dead, too.  All y’all.  He says it twice (verse 1 and verse 5).  The way we were.  Dead.  Jesus died, and you were dead too.  But this was a different kind of death.  Somehow we weren’t all dead.  We were only "mostly" dead 

[a la Mad Max in the Princess Bride :) ].

We were dead in "trespasses and sins".  We were dead due to stepping over the line (God’s line), missing the mark.  Off target, walking around in this disobedience and ungodliness we were.  Off the path - off God’s path.  And on the course, the paths of this world.  In lock step with the world.  And we were dead.  The walking dead.  What is a walking dead person is called?  That’s right - a zombie.

[zombies]  [picture of Rick Grimes] - do you know who this is?

This guy has been the star of a show called "The Walking Dead".  It’s been the 2nd most popular series on TV for the past 8 years.  The zombies (aka walkers) on the show - are the result of a pathogen which has infected the entire human race.  Everyone is infected - when you die, you become a zombie.  The walking dead.  All you can do is stumble around trying to satisfy this uncontrollable unquenchable desire.

[from the comic]  “How many hours are in a day when you don’t spend half of them watching television? When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something that we wanted?  How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we wanted?”

Zombies are a metaphor for this aimless mind-numbed existence, a search for something, anything more, a mindless pursuit of wants, almost to the exclusion of all else.  But they are a perfect picture of what Paul is talking about here:

We were

-Walking dead

-walking (treading around) in transgressions, in the course/path of the world

-note: there is an outside force at work here, a malevolent spirit

-Sons of disobedience (unbelief)

-lived in fleshy lusts

-indulging wants of flesh and thoughts

-Children of wrath

Sons of unbelief.  Paul is saying there really is a pathogen, a pathogen which has infected the entire human race.  And that pathogen is unbelief.  Lurks in the heart of every person.  And the results are desires and wants and even thoughts out of control.  And isn’t that somewhat of an apt description for our society?  Desires out of control?  Wants gone wild?  Girls (and boys) gone wild?  Out of control?  Indulging our every thought and want and whim?  Or most of them?  Unable to say no, especially if left to our own devices.  We have been given so much, there is so much prosperity in our society - and yet isn’t this part of the challenge before us?  Because the more we prosper, the more we are free to indulge our flesh.

Now in the fictional, post-apocalyptic world of the walking dead, there is no cure for the zombie pathogen, no hope.  Literally.  You are destined to become a zombie, sooner or later.  You become a zombie when you die.  But in the real world, we become a spiritual zombie the day we are conceived.  We are born infected with this spiritual pathogen of unbelief, and left unchecked it grows and festers into this infinite abyss of dissatisfaction and discontent.  And we miss the mark, the glorious life God designed us for.  The unbelief in our brains results in more and more indulging, wanting more, indulging the eyes and the flesh, but never being satisfied.  Just like the fictional zombie, the walking dead, never satisfied.  Never sated.  Never enough.  The only way to cure the mindless craving of the zombie is to destroy its brain.  Thankfully for us, there is a different solution, a real cure - but WE have a plot twist…! 

It turns out that there is an antagonist.  Our deathly walk of unbelief is indeed egged on by a malevolent spirit.  The prince of the power of the air, Paul calls him.  The spirit now working in the sons of unbelief.  In fact Paul tells us elsewhere that this spirit, this fallen angel (who the Bible calls Satan or Lucifer), is actually blinding people’s eyes.  Spiritual blindness, which perpetuates and exacerbates the unbelief.

2Corinthians 4:4 

…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

He is aptly called "the great deceiver".  The "father of lies".  We’ll delve deeper into overcoming this spirit in ch 6.  But if you find yourself not yet believing, you are being deceived.  Plain and simple.  For all those who do not yet believe.  And that path is a ticket straight to an existence which is worse than any zombie apocalypse.  Your worst nightmare… Children of wrath.

Paul says, in that state of unbelief we were children of wrath.  Like the rest.  Who is that?  Who are the rest?  All of humanity.  All these sons and daughters of unbelief.  And what is this wrath?  Isn’t that an old fashioned idea?  Isn’t that rather victorian, outdated?  Something reserved for the Old Testament?  For the dark ages?  That’s intolerant, isn’t it?  Don’t people like to say that the God of the Old Testament was this God of wrath, but the God of the New Testament is a God of love?  But here’s what God says about Himself: He doesn’t change.  The fancy word for that is immutable.  What He was He still is - and will always be.  He is the same yesterday today and forever.  We saw in our study of the Old Testament minor prophets that God has always been slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.  But He always was and always will be holy and just and cannot let sin go unpunished.  His wrath is naturally revealed from heaven against all wrongdoing and ungodliness.  All unbelief.  God’s wrath (and His love!) are real.  Just as real in the New Testament as they are in the Old…

Romans 1:18   For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…

And here it is, right here in our text.  The wrath of God.  Far worse than any zombie apocalypse.  Something to be avoided at all costs.  Literally.  I’m not sure any of us could accurately describe this wrath, either.  Simply unimaginable.  Unfathomable.  And so many people seem to get hung up here.  Wrath seems so harsh.  So unfair.  These hangups stem from failing to realize three other unfathomables: that God is unimaginably perfect and holy and just, and that sin and unbelief are truly awful and justly deserving of consequences.  (we naturally like to minimize our sin and dumb down God’s holiness).  But there is a third thing these folks fail to realize.  They forget that there is Good News.  What we do get in the New Testament is Good News - Good News for zombies!  The God of love and wrath showed out His love and poured out His wrath on a Substitute.  Someone Else took the wrath of God which we deserved.  In fact, it was God Himself.  And in doing so, He simultaneously provided a cure for this zombie pathogen of unbelief.  What we see in these first three verses is definitely bad news… Unfathomably bad.  The zombie apocalypse.  Next verse…

[vv 4-9] - But God…

-(Eternally) being rich in mercy, full of great (mega) love - WHAT HE IS LIKE

-(Past) loved us, made us alive (with Christ)(remember we were dead)(saved us), raised us up (in Christ) - WHAT HE HAS DONE

[Gene Wilder clip from Young Frankenstein - "It’s alive!" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VkrUG3OrPc]

--(Future) show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us - in Christ Jesus.  The language here is basically a promise. - WHAT HE WILL DO

And isn’t it like us to miss these things?  Or forget them?  We forget what God is like.  We forget what He has done.  And we forget what He has promised.

But God.  He saved us.  From so great a peril of eternal death.  Came to our rescue.  What do we call the person who saves us?  The hero.  When (if) we stop in verse 3, we are tempted to look at God as the villain.  We minimize our guilt, and transfer the blame to Him.  But in our story, God is always the Hero.  He is coming to our rescue - in Christ.  He is saving us from an eternity of being separated from Him, our glorious breathtakingly good Creator. Our Hero!

And what part do we play in this great rescue mission?  What do we need to do in order to be rescued, for all this to get cranked up in our lives?  Faith (aka belief).  You have been saved by faith, Paul says.  That’s all.  Saved through faith.  We believed.  We moved from unbelief to belief.  The antidote to the pathogen of unbelief is belief.  Faith.  Trust.  It is all about the object, that in which I am putting my trust.  The default object of my faith is myself.  My own works.  My own efforts to make myself better, to improve myself, to somehow pay for or work off my sin, to somehow make myself more acceptable to God and to gain entrance into the heavenly realms.  But this rescue is a gift.  We are flailing around in this flood, this raging current of unbelief, destined to drown, and here comes the Hero.  God is offering us a lifeline, a heavenly lifeboat- Jesus.  

[story of flood victim who tells rescuers that "God will rescue me" - and when they die and ask God why He didn't rescue them God says, I sent you two boats and a helicopter...!]

And we can put our trust in Him, or we can continue to sink into the morass of unbelief and disobedience.  Not as a result of works, Paul says.  There is nothing, not one thing we can do to ever deserve to gain entrance to heaven.  To merit one ounce of rescue.  It's a gift, plain and simple.  Ours is simply to trust in Jesus.  Have you done that?  Have you transferred your trust from what you are doing to what Jesus did?  He said, it is finished.  There is nothing more we need to do - just believe in Him.  For God so loved the world, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.  It is gift based on a divine promise.  There is no need to wait.  Don’t wait any longer.

Paul calls this grace.  It is a gift we don’t deserve.  Undeserved favor.  We get this when we put our trust in Christ - this rescue, this forgiveness, all these blessings - all of them are underserved.  But check out the promise - in the ages to come, He is just going to keep on showing us the surpassing riches of His grace, pouring out kindness on us, lavishing it on us.  Here, have some more.  It’s like we’re feasting at Grandma’s.  Here, have some more.  In Christ.  Think about that.  An eternity of God pouring out His kindness on us.  Who wants a slice of that?  Here, have some more.  Unfathomable.

[vv 10] - the new you

Those of us who believe in Jesus, trust in Christ and follow Him - Paul says God has made us, has literally re-made us.  We are a new creation.

2Corinthians 5:17  

Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come! 

Verb Noun Noun-ee

Create Creator         Creation

Produce         Producer Product

Do         Doer Deed

Make Maker (something made?)

Paint Painter Painting

When it comes to God, what He is making with your life - when you are following Him - is a masterpiece!  And you know the truth about a tapestry, right?

Important point: He has re-made us FOR good works, not BY good works.  Not a result of works.  FOR good works, which God Himself prepared beforehand, before we ever heard of Christ, and He intends for His people to walking in these good deeds (as opposed to walking in unbelief and disobedience).  He wants us to be living a life characterized by these good deeds, yet they are not means of grace but rather by-products of it.  But wait,  there’s more...

-Note also that while most English translations use the phrase ‘created UNTO good works’ or ‘FOR good works’, that is not what it says in the Greek.  One would expect a different preposition (the Greek word eis) for that.  But the word Paul uses is epi - meaning above or upon.  When referring to creation, it means the place where the creator creates his creation, where he intends it to live.  God created man upon the earth (is 45.12) - we were meant to live on, to inhabit the earth. (the very first command God ever gave to man speaks to this - gen 1.28).  But now in this instance, God has created those who believe in Christ upon good works, intending for His people to live ON good works, to inhabit them, to live into them and fill them up, which is exactly what Paul says in the next phrase - in order that we should walk in them.  The meaning is essentially the same, but the word picture is certainly more nuanced than what we get in the English.  Good works are not just what we do, it’s where we live and who we are.  It is as if God pre-formed this planet named Good Works, and He breathed the breath of spiritual life (His Spirit) into so much spiritual dust, spiritual zombies, and formed those who believe in Christ Jesus to live on planet Good Works.  We are now Good Work-lings.  Greetings, goodworklings.  Good works are our life, they are where we live, we live into them, inhabit them, and fill them up.  It is as much about identity as it is about function, if not moreso.  And again, good works are not any kind of rocket ship that takes us to said planet - they are the skin in which we live having now been born onto that world.  Good works are not the means to the destination - they ARE the destination.  They are the by-product.  All these things are the expected inevitable result of trusting in Jesus.  We breathe in Jesus, and we exhale good works.  If you are breathing in Jesus, there will be these good works.  Greater works, in fact.  Which ultimately are intended to show off the breathtaking goodness of our Hero.  Jesus.  Making Him famous.  Have you breathed in Jesus yet?

Ephesians 2:1   And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.