Please read the passage carefully before reading the sermon!

Ephesians 2:11-22

YOU ONCE WERE FAR AWAY BUT HAVE BEEN BROUGHT NEAR THROUGH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

In the second chapter of this letter Paul paints two stark picture of conversion. They are vivid, almost shocking. The concept of conversion is repulsive to some; the idea that we need some change in order to know God does not resonate with modern ideas about humanity. But Paul has already painted a picture of the human race as dead people who need the life-gift of Jesus Christ. Now he pictures us as alienated people who need the peace-gift of Christ to bring us to God

• FAR AWAY - EXCLUDED FROM THE COMMUNITY

  The language is clear and emphatic. We are gentiles, far away, separate, excluded, foreign, alien, with no hope and no God. There cannot be a more desperate condition; dead and lost! Our nature and our condition exclude us from the presence of God.

  But Paul is not just talking about being cut off from God. There is a second evil arising from our condition; we are alienated from one another. There was a tradition of animosity between Jews and gentiles that was part our human failing and part of God’s purpose. When Adam and Eve sinned they were excluded from God and their own relationship was terribly damaged and it was part of God’s curse that this should be so. Sin has damaged our world and our lives more than we can imagine. In Genesis chapter 11 you can read how God deliberately introduced human alienation as a way of restraining mankind’s godlessness.

  We are cut off from each other; alienation and separation are all part of the human condition. You can see it in nationalism, tribalism, sectarianism and individualism; the wars we watch on TV, the broken families and broken relationships we know and the rivalries we witness - these are all indications of the human condition of alienation and separation.

  But remember that not only are we separated from one another, we are separated from God as well. And that is the real tragedy of the human condition – we are without God and without hope … Paul has already explained (v1-10) that life without God is death. Being separated from him is not living, whatever it might appear to be.

  Now here is a wonderful thing. By his own choice God surrounds himself with a community – he did it with “the sons of Seth” (Gen 5) and with Abram (Gen 12) and with the nation of Israel. To know God you had to be in the group.

  Now the real purpose of that Old Testament community was not so much to be exclusive but to carry the blessings of God to the whole world. It was always God’s loving intention to rescue mankind. But the people involved perverted God’s intention and instead of the community of Israel forming a pathway to God they became a barrier, a wall of separation. Paradoxically the old system that might have been the answer to our problem only served to highlight the problem of alienation from God. Things became so bad that by the time of Jesus and Paul the temple had been built with this idea in mind and gentiles could only watch from a distance and crossed the threshold on pain of death.

  That is Paul’s classic picture of our pre-Christian existence. We are alienated from God and from one another.Now this a fundamental point: no group membership and no involvement in the community will mean no relationship with God. The problem is indeed a desperate one.

• BROUGHT NEAR - INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNITY

  The fundamental group principle hasn’t changed, just the definition of the group. “Now” says Paul “we have been circumcised, brought near, made household members and fellow citizens, reconciled to one God.” The old alienations have been banished, we are no longer at war with God and there are no longer separate and warring communities. The enmity of the past has been dealt with in the establishment of one new community that is simultaneously reconciled together and to God. This is a new community that enjoys access to God and inclusion through the work of Jesus Christ. The far-away and the near are brought together to access the Father.

  And this new community is no longer exclusive but inclusive. Now anyone can come to God through this community and in the name of the leader.

  It’s still the case that if you aren’t in the community you will not have access to God. The basic principle hasn’t changed. But God and his new community are one and access is available through the gateway that God has opened. You won’t be surprised to hear that This new community of access to God is the church.

  Not just any community but a group with enormous privileges.

• THROUGH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

  “Now in Christ” says Paul. Once again it is Jesus Christ who makes the difference, does the work, changes an impossible and unchangeable condition. “Through the blood;” the barrier has been destroyed, the law abolished, a new man created. We are “reconciled to God through the cross.” Jesus preached peace to the near and the far and the creation of the church is his work alone.

  The bible contains many pictures of reconciliation but my favourite is the welcome that the father gives in Jesus’ story of the lost son: “Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.” Christ has gathered up all the alienated and dispersed and has brought us all together and brought us home and presented us to God who welcomes us unreservedly for his son’s sake. It is his work and he should have all the glory for it. Christ is our salvation we have life and hope only through him.

  How can anyone who claims to be a friend and follower of Christ have a life centred on anything other than this glorious Saviour and the church he has called into existence?

• BECAUSE … (v19-22)

  Yes, our new community is the church! The two alienations, between God and man and between man and man, have been swept away through the work of Jesus Christ. The old tension that separated men from God and at the same time separated them from one another has been resolved in the creation of peace – Christ himself is our peace.

  Can you see the beauty of what he has done? He has made a new community from a scattered rabble and a new building from a heap of rubble. It’s another example of the creative power and energy of God in Christ

  In the New Testament this fabulous concept of a new community of which Christ is the foundation stone and in which Christ lives in glory is thought of in two ways. First it is a universal community that spans every place and every age; the universal church that will be brought together at the end of the age to gather around the throne of heaven to worship the king forever – glory!

  But for now that glorious community is scattered and dispersed into local communities or churches; real people with faces and names who commit together in the name of Christ to be a sort of microcosm of the universal church. In this second New Testament idea of church (by far the most common use of the term church) we are called to be open and inclusive communities ruled over by Jesus Christ and through which anyone can find access to God.

  But there is one more thing. Our purpose in these local churches is to be the building and the community in which Christ displays his glory. The immediate purpose of our salvation is to fulfil our role in this household, community, family or church.

  Paul is going to develop the fulfilment of that purpose for a local church as his letter unfolds.

  Christ is glorious and so is his church!