Christ our Peace (Ephesians 2:14-18)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morningston, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Behold how very good it is, a pleasant thing to see, when brothers join to live in one in peace and unity." What a beautiful line.

Let's go ahead and turn in our Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2, and we'll be reading verses 11 through 18, but the sermon will be specifically looking at verses 14 through 18. Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 11.

Hear now God's word. Therefore, remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ. Aliens. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. Having no hope and without God in the world.

But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made both one. and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And he came and preached peace to you who are far off and to those who are near. For through him, we both have access by one spirit to the Father. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's Word. It is holy, and it is true, and it is never fading away. 18 years. 18 years.

Some of you in here have not been alive for 18 years. Some of the children in here have never known a day where our country was not at war. For 18 years, No peace whatsoever with the Taliban. 18 years of war. And this year, think whatever you want, we're not getting into politics here, but just think about that. For 18 years, never a moment of peace. Always ready to fight. Always fighting. 18 years. For over 4,000 years, Nothing but enmity, fighting, God against us, and us against him. No peace.

And then one day, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace came, and he brought peace that would not just be a momentary truce, but he brought peace for you that would last forever. This is what our passage talks about today. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 14 through 18 is about Jesus Christ, the Prince of priests. I told someone this morning, I said, oh, I'm going to preach Jesus today. And she said, well, that's good. And that's what you're going to get as the prince of peace today. That's what this passage is talking about. Us who were once far off from God have now been brought near to him. How? That's what we look at this morning is how were you brought near to God? How were you given peace from God? And his name is Jesus Christ.

Look with me at verse 14. For he himself is our peace. Notice that he himself is our peace. It is not that Jesus just brings peace, but Jesus Christ himself in the flesh is our peace. And so as we look at it this morning, we need to see that there was enmity both horizontally as well as vertically. That there was a war being waged both in the here and now on earth as well as between us and God. And Jesus Christ is the answer, the peace that happens in both the horizontal and the vertical. And in verse 14 we get right away what that enmity, what that lack of peace was.

Look with me at verse 14. For he himself is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, and so created in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace."

See, there's a wall of separation. A wall of separation between the Gentiles and the Jews. There was enmity between the Jews and the Gentiles. There was, one translation puts it, there was hatred between the Jews and everyone else. The clean and the unclean. The circumcised and the uncircumcised.

And this was actually seen in the temple during the time that Paul is writing this to the Ephesians. If you were a Gentile and you thought, well, I'm going to fear the Lord and I am going to go and I'm going to worship Yahweh. I'm going to go to the temple and I'm going to offer sacrifices.

You're right. You could walk to Jerusalem. And when you got to Jerusalem, you could even go into the mikveh and you could be cleansed. And you would walk up the stairs and enter into the temple mount. And as you were there on the temple mount, you could see the temple proper. You could see the Holy of Holies. You could see a wall that surrounded the temple proper.

But outside that wall, there was another wall called the Soreg. And written on that wall was a prohibition that if any Gentile passed that wall, it was on punishment of immediate death. You who were once far off from God, there was a wall that separated you from God.

Even if you wanted to go worship God, you could not come closer than the Sorek Wall. You could not actually get into the presence of God. You were not allowed to actually walk in to where the sacrifices would be offered. You were not allowed to see the priests offer the sacrifices.

There was a wall, and everything beyond that wall, all the promises, all the forgiveness of sins, all the atonement, all that was somehow there, but you were not. I asked last week, and nobody raised their hand, how many of you are Jews by birth? You were once far off from God.

There was enmity between the Jews and the Gentiles. There was a hatred, and even if you walked into that courtyard of the Gentiles, There's more enmity than just the wall of separation. See, even in the Mosaic Covenant, even in the Torah, even in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, you would find laws that said that the Jews could have no intermingling with you. It was so clear in their eyes that if you walked into the temple, And you were there and you were looking around beyond the Sorek Wall and you saw Jewish people entering, they wouldn't be dressed like you. Because even their clothing was meant to look different than yours. They were not allowed to have mixed fibers. They were not allowed to have different types of wool and polyester. Polyester wasn't invented then, but it's not allowed to be mixed. No wool and flax, no wool and cotton, none of it.

Why? Because even their clothing was a symbol that they were to be totally separate unto God. Totally apart unto the Lord. But even if you looked closer, the men wouldn't wear their facial hair the same way. They couldn't cut the corners of their beards. They had certain things that looked different and they were set apart. And so when the Jews would see people in the court of the Gentiles, right away they could know, he's not really one of us. There was a wall of enmity. There was a wall of hatred between the two.

But brothers and sisters, the beauty of Jesus Christ is that that wall of enmity has been torn down. that Jesus Christ, our true priest, administering in the heavenly tabernacle, it is He who admits us into God's presence now. You are no longer one who is far off at enmity with God, but God has made peace with you. He has brought you near to Himself. He has abolished those commandments.

Now, I'm going to be careful here. I want you to pay attention to something that this says. Verse 15, having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law and commandments contained in ordinances. Okay, let me just ask you a question. Does that mean all the law is gone? I mean, like everything gone, right? Did Jesus abolish all the law? I mean, that's what it says.

And some people will take it that way. I'm going to encourage you, when you read a book of the Bible, read the whole book before you make some conclusions, because Paul doesn't think so, and it can't mean this here, because later in the book, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 2, this is one that my children know well. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.

Paul is not saying all the law is gone, okay, murder's okay now, adultery's okay now, covetousness is okay now. No, he's not saying that. Actually, Jesus was clear, he did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. So what is Paul saying here? He's saying all those ceremonial laws, all those things that were pointing to Jesus Christ, all of them have been fulfilled in him. In Jesus Christ, there is no more need. You can wear all the polyester wool you want. You can eat all the bacon you want. The dietary laws do not matter anymore.

And if you think this was an easy thing for the Jews, remember when Peter was told to go see Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, when Peter was told to see Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, God brought him a vision and there was a sheet and brought down on the sheet was all sorts of animals.

And God told Peter to eat. And Peter said, no, no, no, no. I've never defiled myself. I can't do that. Three times Peter says that to the Lord. And God says, what I have called clean, let no man called unclean. In Jesus Christ, these ceremonial laws are gone. There's no longer this wall of separation between us and God. I'm not sure if that means much to you, but it sure means a lot to me, because it means that we are not under that yoke and that bondage, but we have the full freedom of Jesus Christ. having abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of the commandments in ordinances, so he created in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. See, God took these two groups who hated each other, these two groups that were at enmity with each other, and in Jesus Christ, he made the two one. One body, one new man. And this has massive repercussions for the world. The sister letter to Ephesians is a book of Colossians. Turn it over to the book of Colossians with me. Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. This is what God says about this.

In Jesus Christ we are to put on the new man who is renewed according to the image of him who created, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all in all. Do you see it? It's not just that God had taken the best of the Jews, the best of the Jewish tradition, and the best of the Gentile tradition, and mixed them together. No, he says, no, this is a brand new creation. This is a new body. This is my body.

This is the church which, with chapter one, told us he is the head of. It is the church that puts people in this weird and awkward place. It is the church that sadly let the ball drop on this in the dark past of our history when we had segregated churches, when there was black churches and there were white churches, where there were rich pews and poor pews, when there were denominations that were completely separate from each other. Do you not see that the church is one body and in this one body there is neither slave nor free. There is neither barbarian, nor Scythian, nor American, nor Chinese, nor Taiwanese, nor Cambodian, nor Colombian, nor Valenzuelan.

It is Christ's church and we are one. This is one of the beautiful things that the church gets to do as we do this every single week as we thank God for what He is doing in His body throughout the entire world. Because He has made us one. He has brought this horizontal enmity to nothing.

It is a sad reality that in the church today there is so often still enmity, hatred, even between Christians of different races and classes and nationalities. Do you wanna know why the Chinese are so worried about the Christian church? Because if the Chinese Christians realize the truth of this, it means that there is a greater body that they belong to than to the communist government of China. Dictators hate these passages as well as slave owners.

Because it is in these passages that we see humanity equaled out. You are either now in Christ or not in Christ. And if you are in Christ, we are all equal as one. It is in Christ that he has brought a peace to this enmity that existed for thousands of years.

But we would be remiss and wrong to stop it there, right? Social justice warriors will want to say, we need to just stop right there. But brothers and sisters, it's far better than that. Because the enmity is not just horizontal, but there was enmity between God and us. There was a wall of separation between God of heaven and us here on earth.

And that's what he talks about in the following verses. Look with me here at verse 16. and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity." Do you see the enmity there between God and man? It is, we had to be created one new body in Christ Jesus, the second Adam, that the hostility the enmity, the war between God who is righteous and just and holy and cannot even stand to look upon sin, that He might make a way of peace for us, and that way of peace is through Jesus Christ. This is what we found in Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter 5 tells us this, verse 1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. See, you have been justified with God. God has given you and declared you righteous because that was how he was going to make peace with you. God made you as if you never sinned so that he could live at peace with you.

See, we were the ones, we were the ones who transgressed his law. We were the ones who walked in iniquity. We were the ones who traded his glory and worshiped what was created rather than the Creator. We were the ones who once walked according to the ways of this world, satisfying the lusts of the desires of our flesh. We were once those who deserve nothing but God's righteous judgment.

But instead of God pouring out that righteous judgment on us, look what verse 16 says He did. that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross. It was on that cross, on Golgotha, that God poured out the full measure of his holy wrath upon his only begotten Son. The one in whom there was no sin or guile. the one in whom there was no fault, the one in whom deserved no punishment. God made him who knew no sin to become sin, that we might have peace with him.

And this is the truth for both Jews and Gentiles. Notice that Paul is writing to both of these groups. Anybody who thinks that the Jewish people were saved by their works, by keeping the law, why would Paul preach this to them also? No, Paul is preaching the peace that comes through Jesus Christ because it is the covenant of works that we broke, both Jews and Gentiles, and it is only through Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the one who told you that. What did he say? I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. There's a reality that there's not like some little asterisk to that and says, except for the Jews, they came to God because they kept the law. No. No, there is one gospel, one Savior, and God has used Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, to bring that peace, because he is that peace. It is Jesus, at the price of his own blood, reconciled us to God. This idea of reconciliation is the office of mediator that Jesus holds.

When Olivia and I ran our photography business, we had part in our contract when couples would sign, it was a mediation clause. So if I did something boneheaded, if I zoned out and let's say I forgot to take pictures of the father-daughter dance, they had a right to sue me. But in our contract, we said, well, hold on, hold on. Instead of going straight for the jugular, instead of going straight for taking everything I'm worth, we're gonna go to a mediator first.

And that person is gonna be a go-between between us and you. And they'll make sure that there's justice before we go all the way to the courts. There was enmity between us and God. We were those who had wronged God. And it was God who had every right According to his covenant of works, for the day you eat of this, you shall surely die. To then punish each one of us.

But instead, what does God in his loving kindness do for you? He gave you a mediator. But it's better than these people that we might use as mediators, which by the way, we never had to use a mediator, thank God. But it was Jesus Christ who not just acted as the go-between, between us and God, but it was the mediator himself who paid the price. It was Jesus Christ, the man through his own blood on that cross, who reconciled us to God.

Now that enmity might be gone. And this is what's been preached. You might be saying, well, I've known that. Pastor, you're not telling me anything new. Okay, we hear this every single Sunday. Well, congratulations, that's what verse 17 tells you. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. Now this is an interesting statement in verse 17, right? And he preached this to you. When did Jesus preach peace to the Gentiles? Yeah, he did it in small places throughout the Gospels.

But what's being talked about here is when Jesus Christ is preached, it is Him preaching. When you hear the good news of Jesus Christ, it is not the pastor's words coming to you, but it is the Holy Spirit who convicts people and converts people and draws them to Himself. When an evangelist tells of the peace of Jesus Christ, it is Jesus Christ who is offering his peace. It is Jesus Christ who is caring for people. And this is the peace that was preached both to those who are far off, the Gentiles, and to those who are near, the Jews. You see, it's only through Jesus that both Jews and Gentiles are brought to the Father.

This vertical enmity is gone through the cross. Oh, that's something to be thankful. Oh, that's something to be thankful for. But what's the result of that? I mean, have you ever been reconciled to someone, kind of? Right? You know what that's like, right?

When you were fighting with someone, maybe it's a family member, and you've just been at odds with them, and finally you're just like, okay, fine. I don't want to fight anymore. Let bygones be bygones. But when the next family reunion goes around, you know who you hope you don't get sat down next to. That's not what's going on here.

Look with me at verse 18. For through him We both have access by one Spirit to the Father. It is not just that God has called a stalemate and a truce and we're just kept at arm distance but not receiving wrath, no. No, we have access, not just to the courts of heaven, but to God himself. Not just to the presence of God, but to the person of God. Brother and sister, you are being drawn to God's presence.

I want you to think back, just close your eyes and remember that beautiful scene of what it's going to be like when we enter into that heavenly courtroom, when we go into that sitting. And the gates are opened wide for us. And we walk along that path that is lined with golden bricks. And we bask in the sun that is God's glory.

And there, as we enter into the courtroom of God, there we see around his throne, We see both Americans and we see Mexicans. We see Canadians and we see Scottish. We see British and we see Saudis. We see Turkish and we see Mongolians. We see North Koreans and South Koreans. We see Japanese and Australians all bowing to the throne of Jesus Christ.

And with the myriads and myriads of angels, all of us crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, almighty brothers and sisters, you have access to God himself. through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the Christian hope. That this enmity between God and us is gone. And the enmity between us and other men is gone through Jesus Christ. That there is a way of peace and his name is Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, when you find yourself depressed and down because you hear of the racism and the hatred and the wars and the rumors of wars and the famines, and you hear of divisions among people, cling to Christ. When you find yourself pressed down and you think of yourself and you go, but God, do you remember my sins? Remember the cross. Remember that there is no enmity between you and God. God has perfectly made a way of peace for you. Perfect shalom. Fullness. Perfection.

Closing Prayer

And that peace has come through his son, cling to Jesus Christ. Go to Jesus Christ, run to him, flee to him, rest in him, trust in him, for it is Jesus Christ, as verse 14 told us, who he himself is your peace. Let's pray. Oh Lord, what good news you have given us today. that you are the way of peace. Thank you, Father. Thank you for giving us everything we need to dwell in your presence and to bask in your glory. Father, we pray that you would bury this truth deep down within our souls, that, Lord, it would be the very foundation of our hope, that the cornerstone of our faith is Jesus Christ our peace. In his name we pray. Amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.