Teaching Text

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Sermon Recap

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Fall Sermon Series, Making Sense of the Church with a message on what it means to be God’s people and citizens of Jesus’ Kingdom. The role of the Church is to take people from hostile and divided backgrounds and form them into a new community of love. In Ephesians 2, the Apostle Paul unpacks how followers of Jesus can build a community like this because Jesus offers a better sense of identity, status, and belonging than anything that the world can give.

The Church in Ephesus was composed of people from widely different backgrounds, and many were Gentiles who had no sense of belonging or attachment to the story of God and His people. Paul reminds them, and by extension us, that before receiving Christ, we were foreigners, a people without hope. However, it is by being brought near to God through Jesus and transformed by His blood that we receive a new, transcendent identity. When we accept Jesus, He calls us to identify with Him above everything else, and allow Him to transform our personalities by altering our perceptions of beauty, threats, justice, politics, and morality.

Being citizens of Jesus’ Kingdom means we also receive a new way to approach status and belonging. Worldly status is defined by exclusion, competition, and recognition tied to human opinion and relationships, leaving us extremely fragile. However, Godly status is defined by the radical inclusion of Jesus, the importation of His peace, and the collaboration of the new humanity God is bringing about through His people. It is from this place that the Church can operate out of a deeper place of community and belonging. Equal right and access to the Father is given to anyone who accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior, bringing them firmly into the family of God, and allowing them to be built together with the community of believers to form God’s temple here on earth.

The Church has an opportunity in this cultural moment to love across differences and divides the way that Jesus did. We must give our primary allegiance to God and His people by allowing Him to form our identity, recognize the gift of our status, and find our sense of belonging in Him. The Church is made up of the people of God, the citizens of His Kingdom, that are being built together into His dwelling place, and is called to pursue the kind of radical love that Jesus modeled for us.