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Ephesians 2.11-22
17 October 2010
Introduction
Today, in the final sermon in the series, we are thinking about the church
and its place in God’s plans for the world.
Now mention the word church and you’re likely to receive a not entirely
enthusiastic reception. Here are some reactions…..
Vox Pops
Ephesians is one of Paul’s letters in which he talks a lot about the church
and read alongside other of his letters like Colossians it gives us a rather
different perspective on Paul from the one many of us have grown up with.
Paul is far less individualistic and far more community focussed than we
have maybe allowed for as, being good Protestants, we have tended to read
Paul through the eyes of Martin Luther whose favourite books were
Romans and Galatians.
Paul has been bombarding the Christians at Ephesus with truth concerning
the blessings that were theirs through faith in Jesus Christ (c.f. 1.1-13; 2.1-
10). In 2.11-22 the bombardment continues, though now from a new
angle, that of the enormous privilege that it is for non-Jews, Gentiles, to
belong to God’s people. Remember that the first Christians were Jewish,
but as the message spread to places such as Ephesus many non-Jews came
to believe.
Quite why Paul introduces this subject at this particular point I am not
sure. Maybe the Gentile Christians were forgetting about the roots of their
faith or maybe they were simply in need of some encouragement? After
all, the church at this stage was very small, the forces opposed to it were
very big and it had no obvious resources to draw upon.
Paul, then, highlights several ways in which the non-Jews amongst the
readers of his letter had been at a spiritual disadvantage before coming to
faith in Christ
c.f. Gillette and Hicks = big hats and no cattle (Mark Lawrenson)
Which means that if you are not a Christian you should maybe factor into
your thinking about the church not just what you see when you pass by an
old building that has been turned into a carpet warehouse or a set of flats –
that is a dying institution – but what has come before, what is going on all
around and what is yet going to be.
It also means that if you are a Christian then we should stop apologising
the way we so often do about the church. Yes, of course we need to be
constantly seeking to improve the way we do church so as to continue to
be relevant etc. But, at the same time, we must not think that just because
we have a tatty building or the members are all elderly or we haven’t got
the latest gizmos we are somehow failing or any less important in God’s
eyes. It might be an awful lot nicer or cooler in Starbucks, but they
haven’t been in business 2000 + years.
Christians, then, take their place within a much larger story. But how do
we enter the story? We enter it, says Paul, through faith in Jesus Christ.
That is the point made in this second paragraph.
The important thing about the new era – the New Testament – is that it is
one in which God is seeking to bring all people together. And not just Jew
and Gentile as highlighted by this passage, but slave and free, black and
white, male and female as Paul expands upon elsewhere (Colossians 3?,
Galatians 3)
We all have to come the same way, by the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.
It is the cross that underscores the radical nature of the church.
You see it is easy to talk about unity, the brotherhood of man, but far less
easy in practice to achieve it. However, those who have been to the cross,
aware of their own need of God’s forgiveness and conscious of His love
for others, will find it far easier to love the difficult and the despised and
the downtrodden.
These closing verses compliment the opening ones as Paul again returns to
the theme of the church and what it means to belong to it.
In vv.11,12, Paul had essentially been looking back and had highlighted
some of the privileges that were now enjoyed by non-Jews who, through
faith in Christ, had been written into the story of God’s people. Now, in
vv.19-21, he brings his treatment up to date by emphasising some of the
privileges of the new era in so doing, he gives us a wonderful description
of what the church is.
o Firstly, history
As per previously
And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago—
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.
o Secondly, unity
Christ as foundation
o Thirdly, experience
Everybody welcome
Presence of the Holy Spirit as God’s intimate presence e.g. healing service