What we have before us tonight, quite a lengthy part of scripture to deal with in one sermon. Ephesians 2, verses 11 to 22. The title of the sermon is A New Community. And really we must recognize that what is in this passage, the therefores of verse 11 and the therefore of verse 19 follows logically what we actually were looking at last week. And what we have in chapter two, verses one to 10. that the implications that Paul is drawing from the state that we were in to the state we are now in has implications. And that's why he says, therefore, there are things to be concluded from this. And we're not to miss out in that, as we saw last time. He changes sometimes from saying we to sometimes saying you. you he made alive and then verse three of chapter two among whom also we all once conducted ourselves making a distinction there in his speech because he's referring to believing jewish background people and the you which are the the gentile people and having made that distinction and shown actually that everybody is in absolutely the same condition all needing saving from sin and all benefiting from their union with Christ, he then, in a sense, then demolishes the you and the we distinction. That because there is a commonality that transcends, whether you're a Jewish background or Gentile background, and that is that we're all born in sin and then are all saved by a union with Christ, there are implications. And those implications are what very much take him up in the last half of chapter two. And in a way, what we are seeing here kind of made larger is what we have in verse 10, when he declares here, we are his workmanship. We now has rather kind of embraced Gentiles and Jewish background believers and asserted of all that we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus for good works. And we might see that workmanship extending then in a larger scale, not as just individuals with good works, but this new community that is being brought out as a result of Christ, brought near by the blood of Christ, by this work that he has done on the cross and what we read there of abolishing in his flesh the enmity and these things that speak to us of what the cross accomplished and it had a great effect socially and in terms of people's relationships with each other. that his workmanship is going to extend not only to individuals and their growing in Christ-likeness and sanctification, but there are implications for relationships among larger groups of people, and how they're to look on each other, how they relate to each other. So we find him speaking there of the household, the temple, the habitation of God, his dwelling place, that this is his people, his workmanship, his handicraft, and that this has got a very, very special place in his affection. But the reason Paul is having to this subject and make mention of Gentiles in the flesh, verse 11, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision by Jewish background people and made in the flesh, he says, by hands. And he speaks to them that you were in a different place once. You once were indeed in a very difficult place. Not only were you born in sin and fulfilling there the desires of the flesh and of the mind, but you didn't have access actually then either to the benefits that Jewish background people did have to God. That was once forbidden you, or at least in large measure that was denied you. But that has all changed now. And that, of course, was very controversial to say that. And so what we have here, the God-imposed distinction, and we'll elaborate a bit more on that in a moment, between Israel, and then really post the exile of the Northern Kingdom under the Assyrians. We were looking at that, weren't we, with the Seekers Club children just on Thursday, but that exile. Then it was the Jews, the tribe of Judah, a few others attached, but primarily there that we were looking to for the place where God would speak, God would act, God would keep alive the promise of the Messiah to come. But whereas that distinction was the key distinction in the ancient world, that was the key distinction in the old covenant. That covenant had an aspect about it that reserved the Jewish people, Israel before that, to be the beneficiaries of what God was doing, what God was teaching, what God was revealing. And the situation is deeply complex, and we're not going to be able to answer every question here this evening, because scripture, very subtle, very carefully weighted, and the apostles' words here are words of inspiration, carefully weighted. And when we have the entirety of scripture, enabling us to avoid an error this way, or an error that way, an imbalance here, or an imbalance there. And so there are aspects of this complex, let's call it that, old covenant that was marked there by those who were circumcised, that was the mark in the flesh, this circumcision made by hands, male children obviously there, but that marked them out and distinguished them from all the other nations and then beyond that they had strict clothing regulations and dietary regulations and their properties and what happened there were differently regulated to anybody else's, anybody else's houses or cities and dwellings. There was a distinction which God had made and it was a distinction made of the whole nation irrespective of whether those people truly were converted or not. And he would act toward the nation, either in generosity and kindness, when there was at least in some sort of general, aggregate sense, an obedience, a willingness to listen to what he was saying, or to act in judgment, when again, in an aggregate sense, there was disobedience. So it had an aspect to being a national covenant, with all the promises and what they really were speaking of, and all the helps and everything in its deepest and most valuable sense. Well, that was for the real people of God amongst the wider people of God. those that God had called out from among them, those who had ears to hear, and they would receive further things and more things than the rest of their fellow citizens, the members of the tribe of Judah, Elaspeh's tribe indeed. So when you read what they got up to there in some of the days of the kings, it's really, well, they were sent into exile and not for no reason. But that has changed, and that distinction that God would speak to this people and entrust this people with his promises. Those promises that they were given for their safekeeping, which they didn't really keep particularly well, were of a promise that one day all nations would receive the same benefits, the same blessings, the same proximity to God, the same relationship with him, the ability to hear him, understand and do his will. And we could read many, many texts to that extent, but always one that's very helpful is 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 9 to 10, where language which belonged we'll hear some of it in a moment, language that belonged to Israel, the country, the ethnic people who were in an aggregate sense called this, but now this is also conferred upon people of all backgrounds. So let me read it. It says, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him, who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. We can hear echoes there, can't we, of the last part of Ephesians 2, of people without hope, without God in the world, hadn't received mercy, they hadn't received the benefits. The Gentile people were thinking of those, of that kind of background. And now they're called a holy nation. That used to be ethnic Israel, and within it, more particularly, the true believers in ethnic Israel. But that was the only nation that would qualify. But not now. It's not about territories, and not about cities here, and borders, and tribal allotments, or any of the kind. This is now all God's people. Gentile people, they are now called the Holy Nation, this new community that the Lord was bringing to pass. And so in Ephesians 2, those verses we've been reading, verses 11 to 22, that having shown actually the Jews and Gentiles are in exactly the same beginning point, that they are slaves to sin, then showing the common experience we have of sharing Christ did and his life and his death and resurrection, ascension, what we share in, now he's at the right hand of God, has these implications that now, instead of this God-imposed distinction that there are Jewish people, there are Gentile people, they have special helps, they do not, that has now changed. And so Paul says, for instance, in verse 15 of Ephesians 2, he's made one new man. He's brought both of them together now. They are one, he says, in verse 14. No longer both, as he has in verse 18, but now one body, verse 16. And that occurs again and again. This is what Paul is showing, driving home the implications what it means, what Christ has done, and how the implications of what Christ has done, and indeed the plan and intention of God, which was actually there written in the words of the old covenant, which they'd missed, we'll come to that in a minute, but which now meant people from all nations were going to benefit from what Christ's blood has accomplished. So verse 13, in Christ Jesus, You who once were far off, that's the Gentiles, you were without God, without hope in the world. You were strangers to these promises and aliens to the commonwealth of Israel. You weren't there, but now you are there. And the blood of Christ intended in that was your salvation as well as that of Jewish background people. So here we are seeing that the near twos and the far offs, the near two people, Jewish people for whom what they were hearing, well, they had the whole of the Old Testament to make sense of it, but Gentile people now who had none of that and were now coming into that, well, they have the same blessings. They're all reconciled to God through him. So my first heading is this. This was the big issue of the day. This was the big issue of the day. we might struggle a little to sort of quite get it or feel the significance of it. But you can see that in the fact that so much of the New Testament writing, the epistles, was dealing with matters of relationships between Jewish background believers and Gentile background believers. and being able to pick carefully through how they should relate, where at times concessions should be made, and in the best sense of the word, compromises can be allowed for, but where an overarching truth still prevailed for both of these people of this background. Well, the God-imposed distinction, which I've been mentioning, turn to Exodus chapter 19, just the prelude to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. And the Lord speaks there in this kind of language. And you'll hear 1 Peter 2, verses nine to 10 in this language. For Exodus 19, verse four, you have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above All people, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel." That's ethnic Israel, isn't it? There, we have the language, the royal priesthood theme, and the holy nation, and chosen generation, special people. And the psalm that we read earlier, Psalm 147, right at the end of it, verses 19 and 20, He declares his word to Jacob. Jacob, of course, being a shorthand for saying Israel, his statutes and his judgments to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any nation. As for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise the Lord. And so we see that special place that the people of that day, Israel, occupied in God's workings, and they had the covenants of promise, Abraham and David, and of course they had Moses, and the law, the regulation of worship, and all of these things, tabernacle, and then the temple. They were able to understand from the Ten Commandments in a way with clarity that none of the nations else had. What God loved, what God hated, and to be able to at least align themselves to that. And they had the blood sacrifices, true blood sacrifices, which attained to the very matter of fellowship with God, the true God, and which were needed because we couldn't keep the Ten Commandments and we failed. and the people of Israel failed and therefore needed to observe the various sacrifices. They had special places to go, Jerusalem particularly, places they could not go, should not go, high places that were forbidden. Of course, often they were winked at there by the kings of that day. And so within that, that was where the hope of the world was kept alive actually. Within that people, practicing that faith under the old covenant, they were being kept distinct and reserved because from them, of course, it narrows down, doesn't it? From the family of David would arise the Messiah. They were to be kept distinct, pure, and a part for that great event. However, they misunderstood their calling, didn't they? and they lost sight of what it was that they were called to be and to do. They certainly didn't obey. It was there, wasn't it? If you obey my voice, if you do these things, then you will enjoy my blessing. If you do not, I will push you away. And that, of course, was the unthinkable thing. And yet it happened when they were sent into exile by the Babylonians, certainly the Southern Kingdom. But within it, these distinctions, these helps that they had, the revelation, they had the prophets, they had the law, gave them a sense of superiority rather than a sense of humility and of service to the nations. It's all in the Old Testament there about what God would do for the Gentiles. Indeed, how Isaiah 42 and one of the servant songs, you go to the Gentiles, the far off isles, the coastlands, elsewhere too, spoke of what the Messiah would do. Yet that seemingly didn't get read. When Paul was to preach and bring these passages out, he's simply saying what was already there. Shouldn't have been a surprise at all, except they'd lost sight of it and believed themselves there somehow to have all this special status, gave them a superiority of sense of almost immunity, As long as we did the right things, God would be happy with us, even though in their hearts they were far from him. Doing a lot of very, very wrong things. And looked down upon the Gentiles. So in our Lord's day, where so much of that hand washing and washing of cups and kettles and pots and cushions, or you might've contracted some uncleanness from the Gentiles, this inferior people, this uncircumcision, these uncircumcised people outside of the blessing of God, and that they were unclean. And so this really horrible attitude sets in, and it's all over the actions and behavior of the Jewish people. And we were thinking this morning, weren't we, and hearing there when our brother was preaching how the Pharisees, purity party, but their idea of purity meant that they recoiled from the tax collectors and the sinners and could not believe that God would have any dealings with them, how wrong they were. And it was Peter who needed a revelation from heaven to jolt him out of a sense still of Jewish specialness, that only Jewish people could have any kind of relationship, interaction with God, that God would be interested in any other people. And there was a remnant of that still in this converted man, this apostle indeed. And we know how in Acts 10, Cornelius has sent a delegation to come to him and Angel has told Cornelius what must be done for him to be saved that he had to send from for Peter to come from Joppa and as all that's happening there in Caesarea then Peter is having a vision and in Acts 10 let me just read verses 13 to 15 of this vision and it were all kinds of four-footed animals the sheep that descended from above, and a voice came to him, rise, Peter, kill, and eat. But Peter said, not so, Lord, for I'm never eating in anything common or unclean. And a voice spoke to him again the second time, what God has cleansed you must not call common. This was done three times, and the object was taken up to heaven again. It needed to be three times. There was a lot to be dislodged there in godly, upstanding Peter. And the Lord is showing that those distinctions and the outward markers of those distinctions were now set aside. It's clean animals and unclean animals. God has declared now for his people, all animals clean. Well, we don't eat things which are going to poison us obviously there, but all things now, there's no distinctions that God kind of has imposed in that way. Peter can rise, kill, and eat. Apologies to the vegetarians there, but there is the fact. All those animals now are declared to be clean. And this we have where in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul talks about verse 15, abolishing in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, those things that maintain those distinctions and ensured in a way that there always had to be some difference between Jewish and Gentile people, but it had gone to seed and generated this superiority that we were just thinking of there. But now that middle wall of separation that's thought to refer to some structure within the temple there, that's where the Gentiles could come but no further, all that is gone. There's no arms lengthening now of the Gentile people, God is speaking to them and speaking mightily to them. And the Apostle Paul, well this is how very much he lands in the trouble that he does in Jerusalem, because he is the Apostle, isn't he there, specifically, particularly to the Gentiles, and that was not to everybody's taste at all. And so when in Acts 22, and he's standing before the rather bloodthirsty mob in Jerusalem, and the Romans have come to seize him, there's a commotion, and he is speaking to them, and he says to them in Acts 22, just reading from verse 21, then he said to me, that's what God said to Paul, depart, for I'll send you far from here to the Gentiles. And then the reaction, they listened to him until this word then they raised their voices and said, away with such a man from the earth, for he is not fit to live. That's the reaction. That's how dreadful that the Jews regarded the Gentiles, an awful state that they were in, and they found it incredible, beyond comprehension, that God should now be dealing with these people. So that was the big issue of the day. That is where people had dug in deep and where old practices and ideas which were not actually in the old covenant had taken over, where things which weren't part of God's revelation were actually the dominant thing working in their attitude to people, tax collectors, sinners, or to Gentiles in total. So my second heading then, what we belong to, Well, we belong, we is now whichever ethnicity, whatever background, this is now where we belong. And it's a building that we belong in. This is something that's being built together in verse 20. It's described there as a temple in verse 21, the dwelling place of God. It's where his spirit will dwell. and has as its foundation, well it can't have any other foundation, the cornerstone of it being Jesus Christ, verse 20, and those he's appointed to teach and bring his revelation, in other words, the apostles and the prophets. That is now the foundation for this new community, this new building, this, if you like, new build, use the local parlance there, that is being erected and which is now No ethnic distinctions here. This has Jews and Gentiles, not sort of separate bit of the building for them there, and a kind of different brickwork over here. That's the Gentile bit, bit inferior quality there. Perhaps the new build round there could take a lesson or two from that. But this is now all of it the same, and of good quality designed by God. The building is in him, verse 21. In whom? That's in him, verse 22. The whole plan of construction, the whole life and energy and what happens in this building and to the rocks, the stones, us in other words, who compose that building is all because we are in him. The building is in him. And because of all of this, well, there's some wonderful implications and we hurry over them really, but they're all wonderful. that through him, verse 18, we both. There he is, he's bringing them together and kind of bringing a we to describe Jews and Gentiles. He's not making a distinction here between you and Jewish people, but just saying now we are a we. We both, we all of us. have all the same privileges and benefits. We have access to the Father and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, affirms and confirms it. And the fact we're regenerate by the Holy Spirit, that is what sort of entitles us now and qualifies us as being those who can now enter the kingdom of heaven. We have that adoption. We have one spirit, one spirit, not one for the Gentiles and one for the Jews, second-rate kind of Holy Spirit to indwell Gentiles in them. Superior version Holy Spirit for Jewish background people. No, exactly the same Holy Spirit. And he'll do exactly the same kinds of operations, and he'll bring the same revelation about Jesus Christ and bring it to this person and that person, and there is now no distinction there. This is the common life, the commonwealth that we now are. This is the life that is shared together. And an interaction there, that was the big issue of the day, the Jews and the Gentiles, well, that interaction now can, should, and does take place. and that therefore this is now this new community that the Lord has established. The day of Pentecost was very much the day that Peter was there, but perhaps didn't fully grasp all the implications, what was happening on that day, hence the vision that he needed in Acts 10 to sort of move him off this, I've never eaten anything common or unclean, that he retorted back to the Lord with. But that marked actually the transfer of authority and the teaching away from the old priesthood and away from the high priest at his best and away from kings and successive lines maybe drawn from David, transferred it away from that and it now rested with these apostles through their teaching, churches that were established pastors and the elders and the deacons and everybody else that would be appointed in those churches, and that God would speak now to those people, and that Paul would lay hands on Gentile background believers, and they will speak in tongues, and they would, in their confines of that early period, work signs and wonders, that they would receive revelation, that they would be prophets, And so this is now the transfer of authority. And along the way, Acts 10 with Cornelius, there is a milestone moment. Why? It was also there in Acts 8 with Samaria and how something missing in the experience of the Samaritans converted, but in some sense, not received the Holy Spirit. There was a lack of something. And that was for Peter and John as the authorities. Remember, it had been the ministry there of Philip at that point, one of the the deacons who'd been appointed in Act 6. So it needed this authorization, this binding and loosing by the apostles. And they came, Peter and John, and saw the work of God now amongst the Samaritans. Well, they weren't much thought of, were they, by the Jewish people. Now they were all on the same equal footing. We're all now the household of God. So the very significant changes were announced really on the day of Pentecost giving of the spirit of all the people that were present on that day. And that was then worked out throughout the book of Acts and the issues, the housekeeping issues that needed to be addressed, such as in here in Ephesians 2. Final heading, some implications. So this new community, well, has no distinctions in who can belong, who can receive, the Holy Spirit who can grow in sanctification and increase in knowledge. Well, everybody can. And in Galatians 3, we read in verse 26, for you're all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as you were baptized into Christ to put on Christ. 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. So we can all pray to God and we can all give our own thanksgiving to God, we can all proclaim him in our various places and situations. We can all read the word of God and have the help of the Holy Spirit in doing it. So this is this new community, one spirit. We all have access that slaves don't have to say to free people, well, could you pray for me that I can then come to God? Or women folk don't have to ask men folk, well, can you do something for me to enable me to approach God and pray to him on my own? No, no such a necessity. Everybody free to go. You're all free to go and should exercise all that you have by way of privileges. And this building is under construction and this is an ongoing work. You see it's growing in verse 21. The whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Grows. Well, when there is growing, that means there are changes. Where there are changes, there is the likelihood, the danger, the risk of friction. And here, Paul is anticipating amongst the Jewish background people and the Gentile background people, the friction points and the various areas where those steeped still perhaps over much in the Jewish privileges of the past, might be likely to look down the noses at the Gentiles. And he's anticipating that and showing that this is something that's growing. We have to grow together, understand each other and each other's ways and background and different struggles that Jewish background people might have and different struggles that Gentile people might have, baggage that they bring in and where we need the help of the Holy Spirit to overcome. Of course, Update some of that, can't we? And racial distinctions that still impose themselves and horrible parts of United States history and segregation in South Africa, where complete denial of what we're reading here and where this house, this household, this building being fitted together should be growing into a holy temple in the Lord, his dwelling place. But far from it, one suspects the spirit must have been hugely grieved that there were such distinctions being made on the grounds of race and differences and people being relegated to a second-class citizenry and told, you stand over here or you sit over there, much in the line that James would warn us against, I think, in James chapter two, isn't it? or language barriers that hinder and get in the way and can cause friction. Not undone yet, have we all the effects of God's judgment at the Tower of Babel. Sometimes of necessity, have to be kind of churches with particular congregations because of the language and lack of a translator. It was good to hear this morning, wasn't it? Those churches, I think it was in Poland, wasn't it? Where half the congregation now, Ukrainian, So they got translators translating away as the preaching takes place, trying to transcend the language barrier, trying to build a sense of unity and common life by having the language barrier overcome as far as possible. And sometimes, of course, one hears of schisms where there is a division where friction comes and the division is not based on any good reason, not sufficient ground for it. We're coming in the moment to the fact that there can be sufficient grounds, but people can get hot-headed and people get too big or get the wrong idea, impulsive, rash decisions. And sadly, those have been littered through the history of the church. Shouldn't be. And that pull, that holding to what the new community should be, sometimes we have to. Sometimes we have to say, actually, Whatever that group of people are doing, they're not on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. They're not with Christ as chief cornerstone. Whatever it is that they're doing, it is no longer consistent with Bible teaching. So when people deny the resurrection, Christ's divinity, deny the Trinity, then we have no common life here. This is not the household of God, because we'd be built on the right foundation. And here, this is some other foundation, and that's going to collapse. That's going to be burnt up on the day of judgment. And we have to part, so we cannot go with you any further in that. Religions, parts of Christendom, where they teach salvation by works. We can't agree to that. We can't rob from Christ. We can't take away from him or speak of him in that way that derogates from the blood that he shed, that takes away from the work that he did upon the cross and adds on other things to it. And moreover, again, we look on with horror, really, don't we, friends? We look on with horror, the number of evangelical church, I'll put that in inverted commas, whose practice now allows for the abolishing of distinctions God most certainly has made of creation, of male and female, and of man being united with woman in marriage. And now saying, oh, no, no, no, and finding all kinds of tortuous ways to reinterpret the Bible to try to fit in what they want to see in there. because it fails. It's not what Scripture teaches, it's not God's will. And we have to, we can't go with that. You're fundamentally abolishing distinctions that God very clearly has made and has repeated in the New Testament. And surely he's not going to unmake those distinctions. So we have to step back at that point there. Just, we may come across it in the news, but a sermon that was preached at Christ Church College in Cambridge will try to be as careful as possible in saying where and what. But in this sermon, which was preached by a student, divinity student, but where basically he was asserting that Christ is transgender, that he's transgender, transgender person. I think I understand it rightly that actually there's a woman there, but he was sort of acting out as a man and playing that part. And people were leaving blightly, leaving in tears. And the dean of the college or the chapel there was told by people that that is heresy, that you can't stand for that. apparently, according to the report, that he's a legitimate expression of whatever doctrine he thought was legitimate. Astonishing. And there it is. And well, we know that all kinds of things are said about the Lord and his person, kinds of things are attributed to him. And we have to back up and say, we can't go there. We really cannot go there. LGBT and all of these things, we really cannot go there. And there are other times too, when the practice of the church is so outrageously anti-biblical, where the behavior, we think here, don't we, of people who claim that this is the work of the Holy Spirit that's making them do these things, but where we simply cannot just watch while God's name is brought so low by their wild and crazy practices. And people putting themselves under the ministry are quite outrageous. heretical teachers. And we have to sort of say, we can't go with this. We have to separate away from it. This is not on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And of course, quite a lot of these people call themselves apostles and prophets. We have to deny them that title and say, no, those have been, they've gone, and they've told us what we need to know. And what you're telling us is not what they told us already. We can't go with you in that. So we know that this building is fraught with tension. and hard choices that have to be made and decisions where in good conscience we have to act, act upon what we believe scripture is teaching and does mean that we have to step away from people. wherever we recognize the true church, and we may differ on church government and eschatology, and we may differ on some aspects of that kind of doctrine, but where we nevertheless recognize that actually there's a love of Christ here, a real Christ, a love of the gospel that's being preached, and sinners' courts, repentance, without all the extras and the confusing emotionalism that passes for so much worship, preaching, and church life. So we learn together. The growing together has got friction and change and, well, friends, isn't it here that we're seeing quite a lot of change over these last few years and how? and new friends joining with us and finding a place among us there and this, there's change. And I can name other places which equally are changing and new faces, new people God is bringing. And so we're learning, growing together, sanctifying each other, bringing our various understanding what we've seen on our spiritual journey, just to be iron sharpening iron in that respect. And so it's a new community. new community, the Church of Jesus Christ, the pillar and ground of the truth. And Paul is here expressing, isn't he, in these very elevated terms. You feel his excitement, don't you, of what there is here and what we have before us. And really it is, isn't it, a prospect, and so often church life seems to fall flat and be pretty far, far, far beneath this. But this is not something that we just sort of give up as an impossible dream, but by the grace of God, perhaps yet we will see further growth inwards, the maturing of Christian experience and Christian men and women, and that we will be the place where, indeed, God is a dwelling place made here, that he is pleased to dwell among us and to reveal his secrets of his covenant to us. Well, there's a promise in there, is there not? Well, may God make it real in our own experience. Well, let's sing our final hymn. 333, 333 glorious things Thee are spoken.