This evening our meditation comes from Ephesians 2 verses 11 through 13. We want to just note that verses 1 through 3 of chapter 2 are dealing with the whole matter of our deadness in transgression. the great transition that takes place from verse 4 through 7, but God, rich, being rich in mercy, causes us to be made alive. Then verses 8 through 10, perhaps the plainest verses in all the scripture on our salvation is not based on anything that we do, anything that we contribute. but it is due to the grace of God. And now if you notice with me particularly the emphasis here in verse 11. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to 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. I trust you can see in just the reading of these words of this verse its suitability as we come to the table of remembrance. Psalm 103 says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. Notice with me Roman numeral 1 this evening. Never forget what we were. Never forget what we were. First of all, here is our duty. of remembering the separation. The separation that is spoken of there more particularly in verse 12, at that time you were without Christ. But therefore remember, there's a strong connection to the verses that have gone before. Because you were dead in your sins, because God has radically intervened to save you, Because you are saved by grace, you need to look back and you need to remember the pit from which you were taken. It is in Ephesians 1 that we are urged in prayer to consider the power that has been operating in us in that radical transformation of conversion. And then we have here in verse 11, this present imperative, this ongoing work, remember and keep remembering that which God has done for you. Again, Psalm 40 and verse 2. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock. And there the psalmist is looking to a past situation when he was in a pit, whether it was an old well, whether it was a cistern where you stored the water. There's not enough water to drink, but there's enough water to make it muddy and mucky and miserable. And we're to look back and remember those days of our living apart from God. Stuart Elliott comments says, do you forget who you once were? Or do you take time to sit down and reflect on who you might have been if the Lord had not saved you? Where would you be today if God had not stepped into your life by his grace? What sort of company might you have been keeping? What might you have been doing? What sort of character would you have? What would be your thoughts about life and death? What sort of values would you be living by? What ambitions would you be nursing? How would your family be run? What would you find to be pleasurable? This would be largely speculation for us to think, well, that's where I think I would have been. But he says it's not speculation for us to look back, to think about what we were in our unconverted days. And it is a wholesome exercise to say, unless God had intervened, this is the direction that I was going, and this is very likely where I would have been. I would have been without God in the world. There is this contrast in verse 13, but now we see that looking back, and he's saying to them, you were regarded as the uncircumcision. The Jews in their mightiness, in their self-righteousness, looked on you as the riffraff, the uncircumcised, those who had not been circumcised with human hands, but God is really putting an emphasis on the circumcision of the heart. Secondly, B, five specifics of the separation. What was it like before? Well, first of all, number one, without Christ. Verse 12, at that time, you were without Christ. When we are without Christ, we are separated from Him individually. And all that needs to happen is that we have not yet believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we are apart from Him. We're being isolated from Christ. We're not like the Jews of old that at least would have had that pillar and the cloud there in the time of the wilderness wandering. They would have had the Shekinah glory coming down from heaven, going into that holy of holies as Gentiles. They were ignorant of all of these things. Years ago I heard of college students, Chinese college students, who had no awareness of what the Bible was, and in that atheistic nation had never had a conversation about God. That is hard for us to imagine. But that's something of the state of these Gentiles to whom the gospel is now coming. And when we're in an area that we are without Christ, we're so isolated from the things of God, then it's going to be a time where the works of the flesh are evident in our lives. Some sit in their unconverted darkness, but they still know where the light of the gospel is. There's enough light in their lives because they are in a Christian home or they've been in a Christian school, they've had some sort of exposure. But Paul is talking about individuals who are sitting in a pagan darkness where there's not even a night light of the gospel that is shining without Christ. Secondly, without church, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. They have been excluded. They're outside, and it's a fixed state for them. They are outside of the nation of Israel. And within the nation of Israel, there were many, many who were truly saved. But these are separated from Christ. They are also outside of the church, this commonwealth, where there is some fellowship and involvement with God. We can think of the nation of Israel, we can think of the church as something of God's club, where people belong to God's club. But what that means is that God is committed to protect them and to care for them and ultimately bring them to heaven, Psalm 23, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Thirdly, without promise. Strangers from the covenants of promise. God gave in the hearing of Adam and Eve that promise that there would be this superhuman descendant that comes from the line of the woman. To Abraham, God made a covenant. God made the promise that there would be a land, that there would be seed, that there would be blessing. God made a covenant with Moses and said, here is a sacrificial system and all of these sacrifices point to that one who is going to come. God made a covenant with David And here with David, he told us that that coming Messiah, in one way, he is going to be a king like David. And in another way, he is going to be a shepherd like David. And so there's expansion. Not only the sacrifices pointing to him, but this one who is to come will rule forever, and he will be a shepherd leading his people. The Gentiles did not have any of these Old Testament benefits. They had the speculations of Plato and Aristotle, some of the later Stoics. But what is that compared to the forgiveness of sin through a sacrifice that God provides and that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever? Fourthly, without hope, Still verse 12, having no hope. Hope is our certain expectation of future blessing because God has said this, that is going to happen, I believe it, I have this confident expectation, a certain expectation of future blessing. But the Greeks would not have this hope. Some of them had the notion that we go through history for a thousand years, and then we just kind of repeat that history over again, and the failure that we experienced on the first cycle is the experience we're gonna experience on the next one. It's really silly, isn't it? But then you think, of what it is to be a Christian and know that the God who said in the beginning, I've created the heavens and the earth, is the one that is going to carry this all the way through with his Redeemer Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and set this present world aside, and then to establish the new realm for all eternity. even when matters appear dismal for us. You take your worst weeks, your worst year, whether it's cancer, whether it's a death of a loved one, whatever it is that comes to your mind, and that is really sad and depressing, yet if you're a Christian, you still have hope. Because whatever's going on in this world, it's not going to change the fact that Christ is breaking through the clouds in glory, and he's coming again. Without Christ, without church, without promise, without hope, And now fifthly, without God. Last line of verse 12, and without God in the world. Here we are in God's world and we delight to know that he's the one who has made us He's the one who made the moon. He's the one who made the star. He's all the stars. He's the one who has made the hundred billion of galaxies that they presently estimate, each with their hundred billion stars in them. If we are not believers, We don't have the Creator to help us and to guide us. The word here for without God is the word for God, Thaos, with an A out in front of it, meaning not God. It's what we get atheist from. But it's not meant in this passage as an atheist in the sense of one who is denying the existence of God, because the Greeks would have had their plethora of gods. It's just they did not have the one living and true God. They even worshipped the unknown God for fear of leaving one out. Without God. Without God who spoke the worlds into existence. Without the God who loved us enough to send his only begotten son. the God who loves us enough that he's going to bring all of this world to the end with a glorious return of Christ, they didn't have the true God. See the benefits of having God. One sample, Psalm 32 and verse 5. I acknowledge my sin to you, David said, my iniquity I have not hidden. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sins. And then just a couple of verses later, you are my hiding place. You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go. When you have God, the living and true God, then you have the opportunity of forgiveness. You have the opportunity of having God's protection and of having God's direction as well. Thirdly, C, the broad application of the separation. Paul isn't exactly asking for sympathy for the believer, is he? He's saying, you know, when I look at you Gentiles, when I look at you in your pagan darkness, I feel sorry for you. because you have been isolated from all that which is good. He's ready to praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for all that God has done. He is urging us, now remember, remember where you were, remember the pit from which God has taken us, What is so bad about not being a Christian? You're without Christ, you're without the church, you're without promise, you're without hope, you're without God. But you and I as believers need a keen sense of these biblical realities so that we will feel a sense of our privilege that we're in the house of God on this day. that it's a big deal for us to come and remember the Lord Jesus' death at this Lord's Supper. You may be an unbeliever, though, who has no Christian background, sitting in darkness without even so much as a nightlight of gospel truth. You haven't known where to look to, to get help and direction, to get your life straightened out. Here with these Ephesians, as the gospel comes to them, they take all the stuff that they valued in the past. So note there in Acts, it speaks of how when they piled up all of their books regarding the occult and they burned them, it was equivalent to 50,000 pieces of silver. It gives us a sense of the sense of privilege that they had coming in from that pagan darkness to the gospel light of Jesus Christ. Further, you may be an unbeliever who has only a ritualistic background. You have something of Christian but all you know is that there is a little bit of hocus-pocus religious stuff and I don't understand it and somehow you get rid of your sins. No. I trust that you are one who sits with absolute gospel light. Even if you're not a Christian, you know that the Lord Jesus holds all the answers. But please understand that there's a responsibility that comes with God putting that light, that treasure in your hands. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required, and to whom much has been committed of him they will ask the more." Now secondly, Roman numeral two, never forget what we now are. Never forget what we were. But the great benefit comes in thinking about what we now are. Here's the contrast. We're looking at verse 13, but now, but now in Christ Jesus. And here, A, the conversion contrast to our separation from Christ. We were separated from him, now we are in him, in Christ. The devil divides nation against nation, man against man, man against woman, woman against man. We were formerly isolated and separated from God, but now. Same theme as in verse 4, but God. But God intervened there with new life. And, but now we are brought into union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, B, the foundational reason of our union with Christ. But now, in Christ, we're brought into union with Him, not because of us, but because of Him, in Christ Jesus. Whatever has happened to you in the conversion process, it happens to you through the merits of Jesus Christ. Thirdly, the essential result of our union with Christ. But now in Christ Jesus, You who once were far off have been brought near. You're out there in your pagan darkness with not even the nightlight of gospel truth, and through Jesus Christ you have been brought near. And here Paul builds on the Old Testament language. To be near was to be near Jerusalem, near the temple. To be far off is to be ignorant of the blessings that are found in how you have your sins forgiven. You were in your Gentile ignorance, and now you have been brought near to gospel truth. You know of communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All the benefits of the Christian life are summarized in this phrase, you have been brought near. Fourthly D, the specific efficacy. The specific efficacy of our union with Christ. The specific effectiveness. What is it in a specific way that reaches to us in our darkness and powerfully brings us in? What is it that's going to forgive our sin once we call on the name of the Lord Jesus? But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Can there be any doubt as to what is critically important? as the foundation of our salvation by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 1 in verse 7, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. There is no other means of bringing poor ignorant sinners into union with God except for the shed blood of Jesus Christ. All the works religions of the world depend on man. They depend on what you do as an individual, what you get accomplished. But here is where Christianity shines out so brightly. God is going to be pleased with the sacrifice of his own son. It is by his blood. And then E, the application the application of the transformation by union with Christ. Three questions here. Can you testify of a personal change? You see, Paul is speaking to Christians. He's speaking to individuals. He says, remember what you were. Remember your pagan darkness, but now. Can you testify of a change that has come in your life? And it's not that you need to formally have been a part of hell's angels motorcycle gang and you've been killing people and that now there's a change. No, even as one growing up in a Christian home where there's an outward right, you can see a change. where there's been a change in your motives as to why you do what you do. Can you testify of a personal change? Those who are in Christ Jesus are a new creation. It's something that we can discern and know of. Secondly, by way of question, can you testify of reconciliation with God? Do you know in your own experience what it is to once have been far off and now you have been brought near? Ignorant, unconcerned about God, and now comfortable in God's presence. What a radical change! And that can only come as our sins are dealt with. That can only come as the Spirit of God takes up dwelling within us and makes us to be comfortable in God's presence. where the language, our intimacy in talking with God is something like Abba, Father, crawling up into our heavenly Father's lap and having a sense that he smiles on me despite all of my faults. because of the blood of his son. Thirdly, by way of question, can you testify of reconciliation with God's people? Sin isolates. Selfishness isolates. If you're selfish, you don't want to listen to anybody, you only want to speak your own mind, you don't care what others have to say, that's isolating behavior. And the devil uses sin to divide us from one another, but see what God does. When God saves, he not only forgives our sins, but he brings us into union with the people of God. True conversion. changes our way of thinking. True conversion humbles us. True conversion makes us willing to listen and to hear from others. And it really doesn't matter what our background is, as long as you're a human, you're welcome in the church of Jesus Christ. Doesn't matter what your ethnic background is. Doesn't matter what your personality is. There'll be some Peters. There will be some Peters. There will be some Johns. Doesn't matter what side of the track you grew up on. There is a pulling together, a healing of the breaches. Dr. MacArthur records a missionary who is officiating at a communion service in the church. He's reflecting back on a service that was held there in Africa. He was deeply moved when he saw the chief of the Ndogoni people, along with many other members of that tribe, You also saw members of the Senga and Tumbuka tribes singing, praying, and participating in the Lord's Supper together. In former years, each of these tribes loved to brag about how many men, women, and children of the other tribes they had killed, raped, or maimed. The old chief could remember the days when the young Nagani warriors had gone out to attack their enemies. They had left behind a trail of burned and devastated villages and had come home with their spears, bloodied with the death of Senga and Tambuka people. But as once they were divided by the spilling of one another's blood, they are now united by the blood of their common Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for the simple words that are found in these verses, verse 11 and 12 and 13. We thank you for something of the graphic pictures that are presented to our mind, the remember, remember being in something like a pit, and then, but now. to see the radical change that comes as we are united to your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this radical change is accomplished by the blood of Christ. Lord Jesus, as we come to your table of remembrance this night, we want to highly value your sacrificial death in our behalf. Lord Jesus, we know that as you became a man, there was infinite worth that was brought together with your true humanity. And when you died, Lord Jesus, there was tremendous merit that was gained for us as rebel sinners. And we thank you that you, O Father, have been pleased to apply the Lord Jesus' perfect record to our account there in heaven. that in a sense you look on us through your Son, the Lord Jesus. And that is so wonderfully kind for you to do. We thank you for it and we pray that you would help us as true believers to be able to look back with this passage and see that there was a time when we were in darkness and did not understand the truth, and there is a but now. There was a point where you came, where you intervened. where you brought the new creation, where you brought the new birth, where you brought the transformation with a heart transplant. And all of this was able to be accomplished because of the perfection of your son, the Lord Jesus, and that he was willing to go to that death on the cross in our behalf. Thank you for this. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.