Good morning, Mercy Hill Church. My name is Daniel Thompson. I am the college pastor here at Mercy Hill. I'm going to invite you to open your Bible to Ephesians chapter 2. We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 2.
If you have a copy of scripture on your phone, go ahead and pull that up. As you're turning there, man, I just want to bring to our attention that it's Palm Sunday. It's the week before Easter. This is not the point of the sermon, but I do want to say this. If you grew up in church, you kind of understand the flow of Palm Sunday into Easter.
You know, next week everybody's going to be dressed up in pastels and finding Easter eggs, right? That's what Easter's about. Amen. No, kidding. But one of the things that I struggled with and I didn't do well early in my Christian walk that I've learned now is to really use this week leading into Easter as like a reframing week for my life.
And one of the ways we did that, we talked about with our college students this past week, is, you know, Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry, what happened was it was Christ going into Jerusalem before the Passion, before, you know, we're going to talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And as he's going in, his disciples and the people in Jerusalem, they have palm fronds. It was Palm Sunday, and they're laying their coats on the ground, their cloaks, and he's walking, riding in on the donkey, all of those things that some of us know. And what they're doing is they shout this phrase, Hosanna to the son of David. Basically, what they're saying is, he's the promised Savior.
He's the promised one that God has promised. And he's going to save us the way that we want to be saved. He's going to get Rome off our backs. He's going to do all these things. And they're just celebrating.
What he's doing. And I've always seen that, I've always loved that. But it's always kind of shocked me as how we get from there to the passion, and this is what I want to do. I want to show you something really quickly that I want to make sure maybe you can use in your own life. They were perfectly fine saying Hosanna, saying he's the savior, when he was the savior that they wanted.
When he was going to do the things they wanted him to do, make their life easier. But the second it was realized by them that he was a different kind of savior that was calling for them to live a different kind of life, and he was a different type of Lord over everything, that he controlled what they did, the same people. Who shouted Hosanna? If you flip your Bible one page, you're shouting crucify just two pages later. And that can be true in our lives too.
That when he's this type of savior we want, we're fine. But the second he begins to call us to something that we don't like, we're like, well, I don't know if I want that.
So use this week. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to use this week. as a week to look at my life and say, Lord, is there any part? Where you are not Lord. Is there anything I'm like?
I want the good things, but I don't want the God things that you have for me in this area. And so, use this week as we go into Easter. Pray with your family. Pray with your friends. Pray with your community and say, Hey, you see my life?
Is there any part that you would say, like, man, I don't think it's totally delivered over to God? And then fall on your face and say, God, as we approach Easter, I understand Christ died for that rebellion in my heart, and I want you to write it now. Let's do that together, okay? We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 2 today. I'm excited for today's sermon.
It's going to be an incredible time. It's one of the best passages in Scripture. I'm not just saying that, they're all good, but this is literally one of my favorites. I am going to show you a picture as we dive in. This is a picture of a guy, his name is Michael Carroll.
You may look at the sign before the number and you're like, that's not a dollar sign, it's a pound sign. He's a British guy. He won when he was 19 years old and he won the lottery. And he won what was equivalent in 2002 to $11.8 million as a 19-year-old. Any 19-year-olds praying for that?
No. He won $11.8 million in 2002, and by 2005, he was bankrupt and working back in a slaughterhouse. And I heard that story, I'm like, that's crazy.
So I began to do what anybody would do, and I'll pull up ChatGPT and I'm like, what percentage of lottery winners lose their money? And there's all these different numbers and different sources. But really what it comes down to is about near nearly 50% of all lottery winners are either back where they were or near bankruptcy within five years. And I was like, that is a crazy fact. And then when I it kind of dawned on me, so many Christians live that exact same life.
That they get saved and they win the proverbial Christian lottery and they have their big check and it says saved, and they're so excited. And then you've seen it happen. They're so pumped up. And then the shine wears off. And the emotion wears off.
And they're just like, ah, that's. This is not, I don't know if this is what it was meant to be anymore. Is that what it is for all Christians?
Some people are like, some people walked in here today and that's where you are.
Some people walked into our campuses and that's where you are. You're like, man, I'm a Christian, but I just don't know. I just don't feel it anymore. It doesn't have that same oomph. It doesn't have the same shine.
It's not as attractive as it was. Is that just how it is for Christians? Is it like a lottery? Is it 50-50?
Some Christians, you see them, they live, and they're just, man, happy-go-lucky rainbows and puppy fur forever, right? It's just incredible. Then is it for the other half that you're really, really excited? And then it just is like, this is horrible for this moment. I just got to do it, I guess.
Or Is it that we're missing something? Could we be missing something that God wants us to see today? It's not always a good service or a good song that's going to make us feel good. It's got to be something else.
So, let me ask a question. If you were to win the lottery, how do you end up not bullying it? How do you end up not going bankrupt?
Well, you know how to manage the money afterwards, but if you don't, you'll end up somewhere you never thought you'd be. And for the Christian. How do you become a follower of Jesus and continue to grow as you follow him? You know what the Bible calls you to do after you are saved and you obey it. Many Christians don't know what it's called to do, and then the ones that do, sometimes we don't want to obey it.
And so that's what I want us to see. This message, this biblical truth that we're going to see, it might be one of the most missed or neglected or outright just discarded parts of scripture that a lot of people, myself included sometimes, don't love. And here's the big idea. If you belong to God, you belong to the household of God. Being a faithful member of the church isn't optional for the Christian.
And when I say church, I'm not just saying Mercy Hill. I'm saying Big C Christian Church, the believers. But the way that we can interact with that group of believers where we are is through a local body like Mercy Hill or like whatever church you grew up in, wherever you grew up. That's what God has outlined for us. You know, in the past few decades, there's been this shift growing up, and I'm sure you guys, when I say this, you'll be like, I know, I've seen that.
I would ask people, and I've asked people now, you know, are you a Christian? And they'll say things like, well, I've gone to church my whole life. or my grandparents are Christian. My parents are Christian. My whole family is Christian.
Things like that. And that's really not what we're saying because we understand if you're a believer in the room that just where you are or going to church doesn't save you. And so Christians got smart, and it's a really good question. They began asking: Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Anyone heard that?
Yes. Amen. It's a great question. And it gets to the heart of the issue. What they're saying is, you yourself, not just your family, you yourself have sin in your life that has to be addressed if you are going to be a follower of Jesus.
And that's a good thing. But what happened was this: we do this all the time with things that are good. We make them, we turn them, and we take them farther than it was ever meant to be. What started as prioritizing a personal relationship with Christ, a lot of Christians have made a private relationship with Christ. They have taken it from, hey, this has to be a thing that you personalize to now it's a thing that you can do totally private.
I hear it all the time on the college campus. I hear it from college students. They'll be like, well, you know, I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. I don't have to go to church to be a Christian. And I'm like, technically speaking, if you mean that going to church doesn't make you a Christian or you can go to church and not be a Christian, I'm like, sure, that makes sense.
But really, a lot of times when they say that, I respond, I'm like, brother, you're wrong. You cannot thrive as a Christian if you're not a faithful member to a local body. And you're like, Daniel, what is that? Because you have been bought into, you have been brought into this people. And so what we're going to see today is...
It's not something you just participate in. It's something you are. And you're missing something by not being a part of it. What I've seen at large, and I've seen at Mercy Hill, and I've seen in my own walk with Christ, is that many Christians attend church but don't actually understand the importance of it. They don't understand what it is, and that's what I want us to see today.
If you leave today, listen, this is the wrong way to leave. If you leave and you say, okay, God needs me to do more. To do more, you've missed it. I want you to leave and say, man, maybe I missed something and God has more for me. That's what I want you to leave with.
All right, now we're going to read verses 11 through 22 together. I'm going to read the whole chunk. Let me tell you this: this is the worst part of preaching for me. Having to read the whole passage and reveal to everyone at a fourth grade reading level.
So, if that's you, you have freedom today. You are not the worst reader in the room, but let's read it together, verses 11 through 22. 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 were once far off and brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in the place of two.
So making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members, underline this, of the household of God. built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God. by the Spirit.
Let me give you a little bit of background. You know, every pastor has these sayings. If you've been at Mercio for any amount of time, you've heard Andrew say things like, if I'm lying, I'm dying. I think that's like he's trying to show us his country, you know, where he's Cowboy. I get it, man.
He's got his thing. We love him. Right? No, but every pastor's got their phrases. I grew up in a church in Bowen Springs, South Carolina, and our pastor was Hank Williams.
And some of you guys are like, the singer? No. My dad would have been much happier if it was. But no, his name was Hank Williams. And he would always say this.
Anytime you read the Bible, if you see the word therefore, you should ask, what's it there for?
Some of you guys probably had passages the same thing.
Well, if you're reading along and you're following along, you're an active reader, you would see that verse 11 started with therefore.
So we need to ask that question. What's it there for? What happened before this?
Well, what happened is Ephesians 2:1 through 10. It's one of the most quoted and preached on. We quote it all the time. We say it all the time here at Mercial. It is a massively important passage for the believer.
If you've never read Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, I want you to mark it and go read it and really digest it. I'm going to run through it really quickly and talk about the importance of it. In verses 1 through 3, he starts off by saying, And you were dead in your trespasses and sin in which you once walked, following the course of this air and the power of the air. The spirit is now at work in the sons of disobedience, and you are by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. He starts by saying, Like Lazarus in the tomb, who could not do anything before Christ called him out, your soul was dead and lifeless without God calling you to life.
That's what he's telling you. And he continues in verse 4 by saying, But God, again, underlined. You're going to do a lot of underlining and circling your Bible today. If you like a neat, pretty Bible, you're not going to like me. All right.
Circle and underline that but God, that's one of the most important phrases in all of Scripture. It says, But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he had for us. For when you were dead, When you were dead in your trespasses, you were made alive together in Christ. By grace you have been saved. And at the end of that, it says, so that he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
And that word, but God, at the beginning of verse 4, catches our. Attention immediately. And what he's saying is this: that even in spite of your wickedness, of my wickedness, God has chosen to do something about it. He has chosen to act. And then he continues on in verses 8 through 10 by saying, For by grace you have been saved.
This is not of your own doing, this is a gift of God, so that no one may boast. What he's saying there is that our response. in salvation. Is faith and that even that faith is a gift from God. It's not a result of works that you can't boast.
What he's getting at is even our act. is given by God. Even our faith is given by God. You know, I preach on Ephesians 2, 1 through 10. Probably eight times.
I have never preached on verses 11 through 22. I've talked about their college students a little bit, but that's about it. And we neglect this part of it. I'm going to go and throw Ephesians 2:1 through 10 because we quote it all the time here at Mercy. I'm going to go and throw it on the screen and read it for you.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. For good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. That is an awesome verse. We say it till we're blue in our face, and we're going to keep saying it because it's incredible. And a lot of people hear that verse and like, great, God has awesome plans for my life.
Now what? I want the awesome plans, but I don't know what it is.
Well, we stop reading. In verses 11 through 22, we get the therefore, because all that's true, let's do this. And that's what Paul is saying to the church in Ephesus. And we're going to see that God has outlined what he wants for us after these first 10 verses. We're going to see three things today.
We're going to see our alienation from God, our reconciliation to God and others, and our unification with the body.
Sometimes we stop at those first two. We remember we are far from God and we remember we've made right with God, but we don't ever get to what it has done for us. for the people you're sitting beside. That you weren't just redeemed to God the Father. You were redeemed to the person sitting beside you that you don't even know.
If they're a believer. And that's what we got to know if we're going to be the body that God has called us to do. The first thing we want you to see is the alienation. Alienation, verse 11 and 12: that before our salvation we were dead in our sin and alienated from God. You know, he starts by saying in verse 11, Therefore, remember at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision.
I've been called a lot of things in my life. I ain't never been called a Gentile in the flesh. All right, and I don't think many of you have. And maybe you're like, I have no idea what that means. Paul was writing to the church in Ephesus, and they were what the Bible calls Gentiles, which means they were not the people of God.
They were not part of his covenant people. And this word circumcision, you can go talk to somebody about it, not me. And what it really was, it was a sign that was given to God's covenant people as a sign that they belonged to him. And what he's saying is to the church in Ephesus, the Ephesians: hey, you were not originally part of that people. He's reminding them that you were once outside of that.
He says, remember in verse 11, and look at verse 12. What does he say again? Remember that you were at a time separated, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant prophets, having no hope and without God in the world. He says, remember in the first two verses right there, 11 and 12. There's no such thing in the Old Testament.
This is a good historical Bible view for you. There was no underlining. There was no bolding. There was no italicizing. There was no exclamation point that you put in the middle of a sentence.
You couldn't do a text effect in an iPhone message. You could do any of that. And so, what they did was they just repeated things constantly. That was their way of saying, hey, this is important. Look at that.
In verse 11 and verse 12, he says, remember twice. Twice in a row. Think about what he's saying. He just wrote verses 1 through 10, some of the greatest Christian theological truth that will ever impact our lives. And the next verse, he's like, don't forget it.
And the next verse, he's like, don't forget it. Why does he have to do that? 'Cause we're dummies. What do I I like to call this elevator Christians? You're like, what do you mean by that?
This is what I mean. You've been. In a hotel, or you've ever been to a business building or a conference center, and you gotta go upstairs or downstairs, whatever, and you're waiting for the elevator and you're in a hurry. You're late for a meeting, you gotta use the bathroom, whatever the reason is, you're really late. And you're just hitting the button, and you know, when you hit it, for some reason, that's when the elevator decides to stop on every floor.
It just takes forever. You hit the button and you're waiting there and you're checking your watch and the doors finally open. And everybody's sitting there looking at you. What are they thinking when that thing's full?
So I just wait for the next one, right? It's completely packed, but you're like, I've got to get on there. And so, what do you do? You do that awkward thing where you step in and you kind of nudge, you do the awkward little shoulder and you say under your breath, sorry, brother.
Sorry. You do that and you turn around and you feel everybody looking at you. You feel that awkward. You start sweating. I call it the middle school boy.
You just start sweating and stinking. It's just, you sit there, and you're sitting there waiting. And you just feel horrible. You just feel absolutely horrible. You feel like such an outsider.
And then the elevator miracle happens. Those doors close and you go up a floor or two. And then, sometime between those two floors, when those doors open back again, and someone else is standing in the exact same position you were just in, you're like, hey, get a load of this guy. He thinks he's about to get on this elevator with us. Dude, wait your turn, buddy.
Right? That's what we do. Christians, we are the worst at that. We are the worst. We forget that that's exactly where we were.
Why does Paul say remember twice? Because we're sick. We forget it constantly. Why do so many unchristians and so many new believers feel so uncomfortable in the church? Because we forget we were them.
We forget we were alienated. We forget we were far. And what Paul is saying is: if unity is the goal and the end, and you have a group of people who forget they were on the outsides, you will never get to that unity. You will never get there. If you forget that you were outside.
Christians, when you forget your alienation from God before you were saved, Other Christians can feel more like a burden than a blessing. Listen to me. If you come in here and everyone just mildly annoys you. You have probably forgotten who you were before Christ saved you. If you're like, oh, they parked in my spot, oh man, I wish they could slide down a seat.
Please don't say, hey, welcome, Tim. Please don't say hey to me. If that's your heart posture. Coming in here, you do not see them as your siblings in Christ. And that is a reflection that we do not remember where we were before Christ saved us.
So why does Paul say remember so much and so quickly? Because we forget it. How are these things related? How is our alienation from God, how does it affect how we treat other people? Because if the goal is unity, if it's the unity of a people who are all lost, all hopeless, all alienated from God without Christ.
But then when you forget that you were without God, You can trick yourself into believing that your morality, your effort, is what gets you to where you are. that your goodness is there. And if you think it's all on you, that your value before God rests all on your shoulders, you will never say this out loud, but you'll believe it in your heart that you're better than them. You might never say it because we're good Christians. I we wear a collared shirt.
I'll never say that out loud, right? But I feel it in my bones. I'll treat em like I'm better than them. I'll smile and never help em. I'll never cry with him.
I never burdened myself because of them. They will always be the burden. I will never bear it with them. That's what happens when you forget that you were animated from God. And what's true is that when any time someone does not directly benefit you or help you.
At best, at best. They're just a mild nuisance. At best. And that is not the life that Paul and God and Christ has called us to live here. That is not what we see.
and remembering your alienation. I mean, it was the only thing that would prevent pridefulness and boasting. In Romans 3, Paul says this. He says, if we understand that, what becomes of our boasting? In Romans 3:27, it is excluded.
It cannot be true for us. And some of you guys, well, I've never bragged about being a Christian. I'm not a boastful person.
Well, maybe not outwardly, but in Philippians, Paul says again: in humility, count others as more significant than yourself.
So let me tell you, church, and myself included. If I don't see others as more significant, I actually see them as insignificant, it is not humility that marks me, it is pride. It is fraud.
So, what I'm saying is, if someone Getting something or doing something that you feel like you ought to do just absolutely eats at you in the body, and you cannot sacrifice for them. You are not a suffering saint. You're a prideful one. And we need to repent of that. And I am the most guilty in the room.
And we need to see that today. That's why Paul, right after these first ten verses, Think about this. He says You have these first ten verses. As you walk out this Christian life. Remember those first 10 verses.
Because if you get it, if you forget it, you won't walk it out rightly. That's the first thing we see. Is that we were alienated? We had to remember where we were, and the next thing we see is where we have been brought our reconciliation. We were alienated, now we've been reconciled.
That through the cross of Christ, we have been reconciled to God and each other. God and each other. In verse 3, he says, But now in Christ, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace. You see it again there, this repetition. You see it all the time in the New Testament.
Specifically in Paul's letters, he does it constantly. This is a good rule of thumb if you're ever reading the Bible and you're on. I encourage you to do so. If you read it and you feel like they're saying the same thing over and over again, you're like, okay, okay, I get it. I get it.
That is your sign that it's pretty dang important. You should say, What am I supposed to take away from this? They're repeating it constantly. You know, it says in verses 1 through 10, Jesus is your savior. Verse 11, remember that he's a savior.
Verse 12, remember verses 1 through 10. Verse 13, you've been brought near by the blood of Christ. Verse 14, he's your peace. He says it constantly. And why does he do that?
Because we forget this Christian truth. And let me tell you: if you're not writing anything down, if you haven't written anything down, you didn't plan to, I'm asking you for just be kind to me and take a note of this. That the starting line for the Christian never changes. It's always the foot of the cross. Why does Paul say, remember, remember, he's our peace.
We've been brought near by the blood of the Christ. Because what happens is we get saved on our knees at the foot of the cross, saying, God, I have nothing to bring before you. We all know the feeling if you're a believer. We all remember that moment when we felt helpless before God, but we saw and felt his love for us. But then what happens is somehow, We begin to believe that now I got to get up and go do this thing.
And he's like, no, stay on your face at the foot of the cross and say, God, if anything's going to happen good in my life, it's going to be because you changed me. That's what Paul is trying to get us to see here. We try to move beyond that. And I understand that this is hard. And so I want to say this.
This is something I was like, how do we understand this? Why is it so hard for us to get?
Well, we don't live in Rome in the first century. Every Roman, or someone who lived in a Roman-conquered area, when they were walking down the road, we don't see this on 40, there were crosses everywhere. Of people being crucified. And so, when you're telling the Ephesians he was crucified, his blood brought you near, they have a very good mental picture. of what that was like.
And we don't. You know, we have some college students that grow up their own farms, like Pastor Andrew, that have a farm. I am not. That is one of mine and Andrew's biggest, you know, rubbing points and disagreements. Not disagreement, not that I shouldn't.
I just think he'll never say this. I just think he thinks less of me as a man because I didn't grow up on a farm. I don't have one. But that's okay, man. I don't need his approval.
Dad, you know, anyway, okay. But anyway. You know, we struggle to see that, but one of our students told me this, and so I went fact-checking. It's true. They said that sometimes they were talking about farm life, and they were saying, you know, we kind of know this generally in our world, that pregnancy and birth is a difficult thing.
It's a traumatic thing. And it's even more so true in like animals. It's like a hard thing. And so what happens sometimes is when there's two pregnant cows, you know, you're hoping that they both, man, both the moms and the calves both survive. The birth, and that doesn't always happen.
They say when this happens, when this specific thing happens, there's something unique that happens. That when one of the moms has a calf that either doesn't make it very long or is stillborn or something, the calf dies. And then sometimes you have another mom who the calf lives, but through complications or somebody, the mother passes away.
Now, I'm going to warn you, this gets pretty morbid. But what happens is the farmer is like, okay, well, you have a problem. You have a mother who has passed away and a calf, and you have a mother who is living and a dead calf. Why don't we just bring the living calf to that mother?
Well, they've tried that, and what happens is the mother just kicks the cow, it will not let it come near. The animals don't like that idea of taking care of something that's not theirs. And so, what the farmers have to do, and this is where it gets bad, is they will take the dead calf and they'll have to skin it. And they'll take that flesh and they'll throw it over the living calf. And they'll bring that living calf near.
And the smell. Of her calf reminds that mom, like, okay, this is my baby. And after a while, she begins just to treat it the rest of its life like it's her baby. That is exactly what has happened, that is how we have been brought near. through the blood of Christ.
That is exactly what God has done for us in Christ. We miss that because we don't see it. He is our peace. He's done that for us. You might be thinking, Daniel, that is a graphic and gory metaphor that you could have used.
Let me listen to me, church. That is a tame one. That is mild. compared to what Christ has done for us. That is a way a farmer takes care of a calf to redeem a soul God had to die to death that you and I deserve.
That is a thing that we have to get down into our core. And when that understanding is rooted in your gut. When it's rooted deep in your gut, it's the only way that you can actually live out this life that we see in scripture. The problem is we forget it. It doesn't feel that drastic.
You're like, I'm not a horrible person. It couldn't take it that much. Brother, it took way more than you think it does. And we cannot squander it. And he continues on in verse 14 by saying this: So out of that, you know, Christ has done all that.
He is our peace. He's made us both one and has broken down in the flesh this dividing wall of hostility. By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create for himself one new man in the place of two. And he might reconcile us. Both to God and one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
And he came and he preached peace to those who were far and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father.
There's a few things I want to point out here. The first is this. This idea of dividing wall of hostility. I want to encourage you: if you ever don't know something in the Bible, text your campus pastor, text your group leader. This is something that we don't have a familiarity with sometimes, this dividing wall.
At this time in AD 62, Right? The temple was still up. And so when the Jewish people would go, the Israelites would go to the temple, they could enter in to this place where they could make sacrifices. But the Gentiles could not go all the way in. There was a wall that separated them.
And then there was something called the court of the Gentiles.
So there was a physical wall there that separated the people of God from not the people of God. And what Paul is saying is when Christ died and that veil was torn from top to bottom, the dividing wall is gone. There are no longer two people, there are one in Christ. There are one. They are unified.
And because of that, we have to understand that there is one man in the place of two. This is not talking about, like, okay, numbers. This is talking about unity in the body and how you view yourself. And this understanding that between you and the person sitting beside you at the campus, between you and the buddy you brought, there's no more like, well, they're this and I'm that. You are one in Christ.
You have been brought near because of the blood of Christ. Christ has done the work, and remembering that is the only way you'll actually walk out this unity, the unity that we see in verse 18. Look at it again. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the Father. Both have access, one spirit to the Father.
These truths, man, they should shape how we approach God. They should shape the truth that we have access to the Father. Because we have been brought near and made one in Christ, it should change how we approach God. And on the other side, how we approach God reveals if we believe we've actually been brought near to Him. What do I mean by that?
A couple months ago, we were having a student leadership with our college students. We have some college students that lead groups, they lead serve teams, just like you would see on a Sunday morning. And some of those students go out on the gospel uh campus to share the gospel and all these different things. And I'm Talking to them and casting vision. You know, I'm going up there and I'm like, man, we're going to go on the college campus.
We're going to reach unbelievers with the gospel. We're going to see people saved. We're going to see people baptized. We're going to see college students sent to the nation, going to church, all these incredible things. And in the midst of, you know, pastor, I get riled up.
My wife says, I get my pastor voice. You know, I'm getting riled up. About that time, I see a three-year-old with bouncing curls running straight down the aisle at me. My daughter sprinting, you know, and you know, kids, legs flailing, seeming like the world's going to end. And she comes and sits right beside me.
I'm like, hey, hey, hey, Rowan, what's up? She goes, I'm going to help. And I was like, okay, she did not help. Not one second during that. Training, did you help?
What happened is the whole time I'm going, and she's trying to whisper to me, and she's grabbing me, and she's messing me, and she's actually ruining the whole talk. And it gets to the end, and it is, I'm like, we're not, we're doomed, right? There's no vision, it's okay. But I began thinking about that, and I was like, why did she do that? Because she had absolutely zero fear about how I felt towards her.
She had zero fear. She's not worried that I would push her away. She's not worried that I would neglect her. She's not worried and reminds me of what we see in Hebrews chapter 4 when it says: let us then draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. That we receive mercy and find grace and help in the time of need.
This is what I want you to know about every relationship, but specifically your relationship with God. is that how you approach someone reveals how you view your relationship with them. It reveals it. My daughter running up to me in the midst of doing work things, you know, and all you guys, if you ever work from home, you understand your kids, if you have children, they're going to annoy you and bother you in those times. That's what's going to happen because they have zero fear about how your relationship is.
They have zero fear. The same is true with our relationship with God. You can tell if you've been reconciled to God based on how you approach him. If you sin and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm the worst Christian in the world. I don't even know if I can go to church this weekend.
You have a wrong view of what has happened when Christ brought you in. It should be the opposite. It should be, oh my gosh, I've sinned. I've got to tell other believers. I've got to get people to pray for me.
I've got to repent and turn. That's what should happen. A lot of us live this prodigal son Christianity. I'm not saying you're not a Christian, but what did the prodigal son do? After he had squandered all the wealth and wanted to go back to his father.
He writes this letter, this speech. You know, he's got this poem, this nice stanza. He's like, I might do a limerick, I might do all these different. I don't know what he's going to do, but he's trying to be as clever as possible. And he goes to the father, and what happens?
Is the father angry with him? No, he runs to him. Because why? This is what we see. The son did not approach the father based on how the father actually saw him.
It was based on how the son thought the father saw him. And so, if you are approaching hesitantly, if you come in here afraid that you're going to get judged by everybody in the room, and you're afraid that all your things going out there will be the worst thing in the world, that your sin being confessed to other believers, that people knowing that you struggle is the worst thing out there, you have zero issue with other people. Your issue is you don't think God actually forgives you. That's your that's that's that's the issue. You do not believe that the blood of Christ has reconciled you.
Or you are not fighting to walk it out with other believers. And that's what Paul is getting at here.
So let me ask you this question today. Do you approach God with confidence or hesitancy? When you approach God, when you go. to God in prayer. When you come down to the altar.
Are you wringing your hands and thinking, man, maybe one more time he'll forgive me? May maybe he might can change me a little bit. Or is it, Lord, I know what you're making me into, but God, I am struggling to live it out right now. And I want you to do it, and I know you will. You know, we can only approach God boldly when we understand that that chasm between us and God has been bridged by the cross of Christ.
When we understand that his sacrifice has been applied to us. Believer, if you're in Christ, you can go to him with confidence when you repent, when you request things, when you thank him. And why is it so important? I get this matter for my personal relationship with Jesus Christ, right? I understand that.
But how does that affect? How does the way I approach God affect how I approach other people, my relationship with other believers in the church? Because it doesn't only affect how you relate to God. If you're taking notes, just a couple seconds ago when I told you about reconciliation, I said that we've been both reconciled to God and other people. Sin didn't just break your relationship with God.
It broke your relationship with other humans. It fractured that. And when Christ died, he didn't restore just your relationship with God, he restored it with other people. The problem is those people are sinful and broken too. And so it's going to be hard.
But how you view your relationship with God determines how you approach those things.
So, let me ask you, church: if you don't see God as a father to love, whatever in the world makes you think you'll see each other as siblings to love? If you have a wrong view of God, you will have a wrong view of other believers. If you're like, man, my fellowship with others is great, and I love my community, but man, I just think I got to earn something before God, you do not have a right relationship with the community. If you're struggling to view community rightly, it probably means that there's something off in your relationship with God. If you've never joined a group because it would be uncomfortable, if you won't confess things in the group, and I don't mean confess the things that we like to, we're Christian, believers in the room.
If you grew up around church, you're very good at saying enough where people don't think you're not sharing anything, but not saying any of the real things, right? We understand all that. Let's get past all that crap and let's get real. You will not share. The real sinful parts of your life.
Because you will care so much about the other believer thinks. All that does. is revealed that the way that you think God views you is off. It doesn't mean you got it together better than them. It just means when you look at scripture, what is true there is not true here yet.
It's not your here. And that's what's got to happen. Men married people in the room. Do you invite people into your marital problems or after the fact do you say, well, yeah, God was there, it was great. Bring them in.
You've been reconciled to other people to help you grow in your walk with Christ. And when you neglect it, do not be shocked when your walk with Christ suffers. Suffers. We have to be able to see. that we were alienated from God, that we've been reconciled to both God and others.
And finally, this is kind of how we'll tie this thing up, is that in our unification, because of our reconciliation, we are no longer strangers. We are now a unified people. We're now a unified people. And this really is the whole point. If you want to know kind of the whole point of the Bible, this is it.
Is that God would purchase for himself a people and go and prepare a place for them, and they would be there with him. That is the goal of the Bible, in Christ. then we would all be working towards that unity in the body. He says it in verse 19, so then, because of Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, because of verses 11 through 18, so then, verse 19, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. A family.
He's creating for himself a family, a people. That does not mean uniformity, and it definitely doesn't mean it's going to be easy. My parents are in the room here at the Ridge this morning. And I love them, and my siblings are here, and my best friends are here. And I'm telling you, the people, and y'all could all say it's true, the people who have hurt your feelings the most, who have bothered you the most, are either your family or your best friends.
I don't ever get my feelings hurt by somebody I don't know. If somebody I meet be like, I think you're dumb. I'm like, okay, can I just go and about my life? That has zero impact on me. My wife says it to me, it cuts.
It cuts deeply. Probably true, but it cuts deeply. Because the people that are closest to us often have the ability to hurt us the deepest. To cause the most harm, to cause the most pain. And that's true.
That's happened in the church. That's probably why some of you in the room struggle so much to get connected here. Because there's something in your past where a believer has probably wronged you. There's something in the past where maybe even somebody at Merciel has wronged you. Let me tell you two things.
One, we have to fight for forgiveness. I'm not saying that we have to keep going back to where we're abused and hurt, and I'm not saying all that. What I'm saying is we have to fight for it. Here's a framework I use. Here's a thought experiment I use that helps me get to where I ought to be.
It helps me get there. Is that some of the people who hurt me the most in my life are other believers, honestly? They've betrayed trust. They've done all these little things. And it's been hard to forgive.
By God's grace, man, I've taken steps in all these different areas, and I've still taken steps. And I hope you do too. And I hope we work together. I hope you challenge me if you ever see me not forgive someone. I hope all those things are true.
This is where my mind goes. When I get to heaven. All those believers who have heard me. Every single one of them. I hope I see him there.
Hope I get to sit next to him at the marriage supper of the Lamb. I hope I hear God say, well done, my good and faithful servant. I hope I'm standing next to them in the choir of heaven singing, Holy, Holy, Holy. I hope I hear their name read aloud in the Lamb's book of life. Why?
Because it means he got what he paid for. He didn't just die for me when I was the good guy that got hurt. He died for me when I hurt other people. And if he can redeem them, if they're not there in the end, then brother, I'm probably not there in the end. And so I hope that we can look at each other and say, like, every time you hurt me, hey, it is all for loss because he has redeemed it.
And then we can sit there and enjoy. We have to fight for that. We have to walk that out. This idea of sanctification, growing in forgiveness individually and modeling it corporately. Listen, we're going into Easter.
Let me put it as plain as I can put it. Your right to remain bothered, your right to remain offended and to not forgive people was crucified and buried and it did not rise with Christ. You do not have a right not to forgive. I love it. In America, we love this individualization.
We love these rights. In Christianity, you lose a lot of them, you lose the right to not forgive other people. You lose it. Because what Christ says in Matthew 6, if you do not forgive others of their trespasses, what? Neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
We can't do it perfectly. I'm not saying, like, oh my goodness, if I ever struggle with forgiveness. No, what I'm saying is, that is the goal. That we are forgiving others. Ephesians 4, later in this, Paul says: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
It was buried and it didn't resurrect. You have no right. To not forgive people. And listen, this might be a really helpful way to think about it. When you forgive someone, you're not saying they didn't do something wrong.
Forgiving someone doesn't mean you think they're blameless. It just means that you know that God sees you as blameless in Christ. Forgiving someone has a lot less to do with the other person. It has a lot more to do with you. Because truthfully, and you guys know this: you've harbored hatred in your heart towards somebody, another believer in your life, and you see them, and you're like, oh, they feel horrible, and they're doing fine.
And they're perfectly okay. Because it is you. It has to do with you and how you think God views you. And how you walk that out. This is what the Bible outlines for Christians, how we should act towards one another.
So, let me ask you this: when your desire to do something that is contrary to the desire that scripture says you all have, who wins? You or the Bible? You or scripture? It ought to be the scripture. It ought to be God's word.
Look at verse 20. That's what he says here. Built on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. Scripture outlines it, Christ models it and doubles down. We stand on the shoulders of giants of faith, and this truth is what reigns supreme.
Submission and obedience to Scripture is the marker for the people of God, the church. We have seen that we have been alienated. We have seen that we have been reconciled. We've seen that we've been called to unity. Will we obey?
Will we remember where we were? Will we remember? Will we fight to forgive the debts and the trespasses that people have done to us? Or will we say, Lord, no, I win? I win when you call me to do something differently.
That can't be true for us believers. The Bible calls us to faithful unity and commitment, not overlooking sin, not forsaking calling one another to repent, not hiding behind the mask of how are you? I'm good, brother. Like, not hiding behind that. But radical love and commitment, not instead of struggle and conflict, but in the midst of it and through it.
It'd be like a young married couple after one year of marriage coming up to be like, This thing's hard. And you're like, Yeah, brother, it is. They're like, But the honeymoon, that was great. Church and Caicos was awesome. You're like, that's not the real thing because you understand this: suffering and conflict isn't the goal, but the only good relationships are on the other side of it.
You do not have a best friend in this world that you have not argued with and you have not struggled with in relationally. You don't. But for some reason, when it comes to church, you're like, you bother me, I'm out. New church. New group, I'm out.
And then you're like, I don't know why I don't have any deep relationships. You've never struggled. What do you tell your when your kids, when my kids, when they fight against each other, they're like, they made me mad. I'm not like, okay, we'll get you another sibling. No.
You're like, hug em. Forgive them. Because you're a family. If we don't act that way in the church, what does it say? We don't think we're family.
We don't think we're family. Let me end with this in verse 21. Following that line, he says, in whom the whole structure being joined together. grows into a holy temple to the Lord. In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit.
Scripture calls us to unity. He says it's building this thing together. God saved you to be together. You know, I'm not saying that every guy in the room, every man, you don't have to love war movies. You don't have to.
You gotta like them, right? You gotta like them. And I like the movie Saving Private Ryan. All right, it's a great movie. If you haven't seen it, you should.
I'm gonna spoil it. Anyway. Matt Damon plays a character who's Private Ryan, who's out in the middle of the battlefield and they've lost him. And they send out a team to rescue him. Tom Hanks leads it.
And really, this scene at the end of the movie, I'd seen it a bunch of times, but it wasn't until this scene that I kind of understood it. I'm like, man, that really is it. He gets to the end, and nearly everybody dies except for Private Ryan and Matt Damon and Tom Hank's character. Tom Hank's character has been shot and he's dying. And he pulls Private Ryan close.
And he doesn't say any crazy speech. He doesn't say anything massive. He says two words. He says, earn this. Earn this.
And in that moment, the movie kind of flashes forward to a scene where they're in the graveyard where all these soldiers are, and an older private Ryan is there, and he's with his family. And you kind of get a look into his mind where he's talking to his family, and he basically says this: he said, Did I earn their sacrifice? Did I earn it? Did I live a life that earned it? And now listen to me today, Christian.
I am not saying that you got to earn your salvation. That is not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is when you were saved, he purchased you out of your sin and into a people. He purchased you away from sin and death and into a new family. And so, what I'm asking you is: are you living a life that squanders that sacrifice or that lives into it, into the body?
Are we squandering what God has done on the cross by living isolated Christian lives? And what I'm saying is this, if you're there. I'm not saying you should feel bad. What I'm saying is, you should take steps. Come talk to me, come talk to me, come do something.
and take steps to write that. Because what you got to understand is that God didn't just save you from something, he saved you into something. Into a family. Into a mission, into a body. Ephesians 2.10, we say it all the time, we are his workmanship.
Built, created in Christ Jesus. What he says here. The whole structure being joined together grows into the holy temple. It's being built in something. And some of us in this room, we are a brick, we're a stone that is out in a field by itself, saying, I don't really feel much like a building.
It's like because you're not connected to it. And for some of you, it might be no fault of your own, but it's time to come back into the family. It's time to play your role. For some of you, it's that first step. It's baptism.
At our Eastern services next week, we're going to be baptizing at all of our locations, all of our campuses, all of our service times. For some of you, you're like, what's my first step?
Well, if you're a believer and you've never been baptized.
Well, I got sprinkled as a baby, but I really trusted Christ personally. I mean, I was a teenager. You need to get baptized. That is the first step into the family. That is the first step where everyone else at all the campus can look in and say, we are now indebted to your walk.
We are now committed to helping you grow. That's what you need to do. But here's how I'll apply in my application and I'll be done. Respond to the gospel by committing yourself to the people Jesus died to save. We got Easter coming up next week.
And the thought in your mind. that Christ has purchased Some people who are out there. who don't know that he's died for them yet. ought to fire us up and go drag them in here next week. It ought to.
Why? Because you remember you were there. And if it wasn't for someone else inviting you or sharing the gospel with you, or luckily the family you're born into, you wouldn't be here. Does that move you? To the unbeliever, though, what you got to understand is there is no resurrection before burial.
You got to die to yourself.
So many people want to live this Christian life without denying themselves, without dying to themselves. They want all the benefits and none of the costs. But listen to me: Christianity is a costly thing. You get everything, but you lose your life. You have to doubt it yourself.
And you're like, Daniel, I brought a friend here. That's not going to attract him. It's honest. Lay your life down. And let Christ raise it up again.
To the believer. Invite, serve. Go to off service time?
Well, I don't know, man. That would be uncomfortable. Yeah, it would be. You got to learn a new way to live. You were dead.
Now you're alive. My daughter doesn't like eating vegetables. You got to. You gotta grow. Dad in the room.
Our goal this year, fortify the family. We cannot be upset if, at the end of the year, our families are not where we want to be when we are not taking the steps that God has put before us. I'm not saying you got to take the steps. What I'm saying is though, you can't be shocked when you don't get the result you want. Let us lead.
I'll end with this. A couple weeks ago, I was at the High Point campus. And at the end of the service, they, you know, we opened the altars for prayer at all of our locations. And there's a little boy, a little middle school boy. He went down there, he got on his face at the altar.
I mean, he was just prone. Down there. And I was kind of chuckling. I was like, man, this dude must have got some bad tax information or something. He was praying like this.
This is horrible. And he's just down there praying. And I had the thought, I'm like, man, what is going on in his life? That could be, I mean, he's 12. What is that bad in his life that he needs to be praying like that for, right?
And then another one's little buddies came down. and put his hand in the middle of his back and he had his hand up and he's praying. And I'm like, brother, dude, there ain't nothing in a 12-year-old's life that warrants that kind of response. And at that moment, The spirit. And he said.
In my heart, Daniel, they're not the ones that's wrong. You are. You have forgotten. That there is not a moment of your life you shouldn't be faced down before me. And every single week, it's happened in every church I've ever been in, happened in the church I grew up in, happens here at Murcia, it happens at the Ridge, High Point, Cliffs in the Northeast, happens to every one of them.
There are things that matter more to us than the people in the room. We'd rather beat the traffic out of here. We'd rather beat the lunch lines and we dip out. We neglect fellowship. We neglect prayer during the song.
We neglect singing together. We neglect all of it because if it doesn't benefit me, I ain't doing it. And listen to me, it ends today. Men, lead your family. Wives, if your husband is not, hey, do what the women in Scripture do and go down and beckon God to change his heart.
Husbands, if your wife is not a believer, pray. Children, if your family's not a believer, pray. If you're by yourself and you look at someone and they kind of look Christiany, tap them and say, Will you pray for me? Will you pray with me? And if they won't pray, we'll pray for them, right?
Let's be the people that God died to make us. Amen? Let's pray. I ask that all of our campuses, Lord. That we would not squander the sacrifice they made.
God, you didn't just bring us to yourself. And if you had done that, it would have been amazing. It would have been more than we ever earned and ever desired and ever should have gotten. But God, in this life, you also reconciled us to one another. And that God, this call to be a part of the body.
Is a joy. And so, Lord, I pray every single campus people will come down front and pray with their family for the first time, with a friend for the first time. And the people would see believers that they don't know, and they would go pray for them. And it doesn't matter. that they know exactly what it is, but they don't understand that your burden is my burden.
Because I want to be there in the end, and I want to see that Christ got what he paid for in you. Lord, if we can do that. Lord, if we can remember our alienation, remember that we've been reconciled to God and each other and be a unified people, God. That is how you change the world. Lord, start it in our hearts.
In Christ's name we pray. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
