When Jesus rose from the grave, His resurrection triggered a number of concurrent miracles.
And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll cites one of those historic breakthroughs. It's described by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians Chapter 2. As part of the Old Covenant, Gentiles were excluded from Israel. In Ephesians 2, Paul explains that Jesus dismantled the impassable barrier that kept them from participating in God's blessing. The outcome of His action changed history forever. Today, we're picking up right where we left off on Friday's program.
Chuck titled his message, Breaking Down the Barrier. You were the uncircumcised. You remember, verse 12, five things. I want to give you five words that describe life BC.
Okay? First of all, you were at that time separate from Christ. We were Christ-less. You were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. We were not only aliens from Messiah, we were aliens from God's nation.
We were excluded from the commonwealth and we were strangers from the covenants. The fourth word is hopeless, aliens to a meaningful future, and God-less. See the end of verse 12? Without God. I used to pray with a fellow years ago in my earlier years as a believer. He had a wonderful prayer and often mentioned it, Lord, help me never to forget what it was like outside of Christ. I hope you haven't forgotten. I hope you haven't forgotten the sleepless nights, the sweaty palms at funerals. I hope you haven't forgotten the futile attempts at prayer and quoting a few verses of scripture when you were panicked.
I hope you haven't forgotten life without God. I read recently of a small gathering of a socialite group. They had come to celebrate a famous actor's performance in a particular film. He had done a magnificent job and they were there to enjoy the moment and applaud him for his work. As you would expect, the group began to prod him to recite something for them.
They wanted the pleasure of an intimate work of art in front of them as he was so gifted and capable. There happened to be an aging pastor there who was a friend of the group. He looked at the man whom he knew and the man looked back at him and sort of shrugged his shoulders. The pastor said to him, why don't you just quote for us the the 23rd Psalm.
You know that. He said, yes I do. He said, I'll do that only if after I'm through you'll do that too. And he said, well I'm happy to do that. And so the actor began as he recited the Shepherd's Psalm, all six verses, word perfect, with remarkable diction and dramatic persuasion.
People sat in rapt silence. He finished and they all applauded. And then he nodded to the pastor who stood and rather bent in age and season and time of serving Christ over the years. And not with that great addiction or delivery, he began to recite the same 23rd Psalm. When he finished, there wasn't a dry eye in the place. And some looked at the actor and said, what's the difference?
That's easy. I know the Psalm. He knows the Shepherd. When you don't know the Shepherd, you just know words.
You just plead hoping that there's somebody out there in space that'll listen. That's the life of those who are Christless and stateless and friendless and hopeless and godless. Imagine it without God.
Imagine a terminal illness without God. Don't keep this antiseptic. This isn't first century truth to live by. This is 21st century counsel to live with. But now in Christ Jesus. I want to scream it. You've heard enough of my screaming for one service.
I'll try to preserve you from that. What difference did Christ make? What did he do? Look at it. But now this is the contrasted particle that announces a remarkable change.
We're moving from the way we were to the difference he has made. And it's the cross. It's the cross.
It's the blood of the Savior. It's the Lord Jesus Christ's death at Calvary. Where the penalty for all of those sins was paid once for all. So that we are now made right before God.
What an accomplishment. The whole eras of time revolve around BCAD. Even by those who deny the significance of his death. But now in Christ you who were formerly far off. Listen to the wall crumble. You who were told as Gentiles stay in that outer court. Don't even think about coming up here on the platform preserved for the Jews.
Don't even think about it. You who were held back from God have been brought near by the blood of Christ. I'll tell you that is an audacious message to announce in the first century for the Jew to hear and even in the 21st century.
Some settings you'd be marked. Don't tell me I'm one with them. It's the Emancipation Proclamation in the 19th century. And still there are blacks, African-Americans who find themselves pushed back and shoved aside.
Still there are Asians who live under racial discrimination. By the church. By Christians. You say, Chuck, you're getting pretty close to home.
Great. I love it getting close to home. I love talking about where the sin lies in all our lives. Those who were once far off have been brought near and amazingly they have found that God is colorblind and racially blind. Even in his omniscience he sees beyond all that thanks to the cross.
Look at how it writes it. We have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He himself. I promised I wouldn't yell, but I've got to at that point. If you could read this in the Greek sentence, you would see a pronoun all by itself shoved way ahead in the sentence. And it just stands there all alone, isolated, screaming for attention.
I've found some monument. Peace isn't found in some song. If I have to sit through one more halftime of the Super Bowl where a thousand people sing about peace in the world, I really will scream. You will not find peace in the world apart from he himself. We don't pray for peace apart from Christ.
It can't be. One wag is put it this way. Our nation's capital has a large assortment of peace monuments. We build one after every war. He himself is our peace. He himself.
Not some document people sign and then break. Every coronation of a queen or king. Every election of a president. Listen for it.
Every election year. Listen for the promises of peace. It won't be delivered.
They can't do it. He himself alone is our peace. If you're hoping to find it in your neighborhood, you'll never do that.
If you're hoping to find it at work, it won't be there. You'll find it in a person. Peace in your heart and hopefully peace in the next brother's heart so that we will be one in Christ Jesus. At least in the boundaries of the church.
At least here. He brought the peace. He stopped the hostility. I read recently of a World War II scene where the American soldiers were firing on a German home in the country. The German family had rushed away to the barn for safety as the German troops had occupied and they were firing back and forth. The three-year-old daughter of the German family in a moment of panic lost her restraint and got away from her mother's arms and raced out into the yard between the firing of the Americans and the Germans. And strangely, all firing stopped.
The little child turned bewildered until the mother raced out and grabbed her in her arms and carried her back to the barn to safety. And then the starting of the fire all over again, I thought as I read that, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government shall be on his shoulders and his name will be called. A wonder of the counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the peace prince.
Remember? The peace prince. The peace he brings doesn't stop. The peace we try to manufacture is just as momentary as a child running out in a yard, but the peace he gives is permanent.
He is our peace. Look at this. Who made both groups into one. Circle that. One. Who broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.
Listen to that. The wall came tumbling down. The Gentiles are no longer standing outside like dogs ready for the crumbs from the table. They're as much a part of it as those Jews who have come to Christ.
Not Jews nationally, but Jews who have been converted. Converting to Christ in this era and since Christ died brings us into one family, one body, one unified force, one family. And in that family there is peace because the wall has been broken down.
I love it. By abolishing in his flesh, that's a reference to the cross. That's when his body hung on a cross.
That's when he died. He abolished in his flesh the enmity which is the law of the commandments contained in the ordinances so that in himself, there's that word again, he might make the two into one new race, if you will. One new man, thus establishing peace.
Now we try our best to make it in the flesh, but it won't work outside of Christ. I remember reading of a bus driver in Australia. And he had on his bus every day both whites in Australia as well as Aborigines who were black. And the bickering never stopped.
It kept going and there were sometimes skirmishes and fistfights. And he just got full of it and pulled his bus over one day at the side of the country road and he said, as he looked at the white fellows and gals, he said, what color are you? And they said, white. He said, no, on my bus, you're green. You're green.
Now what color are you? Rather reluctantly, feeling a little foolish, they said, well, we're green. He looked at the Aborigines and he said, no, what color are you? Well, we're black. He said, no, on my bus, you're green. Everybody on this bus is green. Now what color are you? Well, we're green.
Great. He turned around, got back, began to drive and he heard after a few miles down the road, one of the fellows in the back saying, okay, light green on this side, dark green on that side. We don't get it.
He abolished the difference. Let it sink in your Southern mind. I, a fellow Southerner, plead with you, raised as you were raised, don't give me that answer back.
We who cut our teeth learning how to discriminate, stop it. In the family of God, if this says anything, it says the wall has come tumbling down and in Christ and only in himself are we made one. Some of you were thinking, man, Swindoll, how liberal can you get? Just as liberal as the scriptures, because I have found that God is a lot easier to live with than any one of us. So why are we grateful? Having read what Jesus has done, destroyed the wall, having seen where we were, alienated from him, it's pretty clear why. Take your pencil once again and circle the word reconcile. It's one of the great words of the Bible, 16, and might reconcile them. We are grateful because we have been reconciled.
Don't miss it. God has not been reconciled to man. Mankind has been reconciled to God. It's an earth to heaven arrow, not a heaven to earth.
Remember that. When he hung on the cross, he became the satisfaction for sin. It's called the doctrine of propitiation. 1 John 2 and verses 1 and 2. God was satisfied with the death of his son and God smiled on that death knowing that it meant now we are able to pull them together in one body in Christ.
Look at it. Verse 15. By abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments. Verse 15 ends, he made the two into one new man thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body. Still mark one new man, verse 15, one body, verse 16.
He broke down the wall between the Jew and the Gentile and since it was a double wall, he broke down the wall between man and God. One new man, one body, and he established in himself the place of peace which is through a relationship with Jesus Christ. See the word reconcile?
Let me teach this word to you if you don't know the meaning. It means to bring from hostility to friendship. One of my mentors used to say from enmity to amity.
Isn't that good? From enmity to amity. If you still got your cross drawn in your Bible, put enmity on the left side, put amity on the right side. Draw an arrow through it. From being enemies, we were made friends so that I can even call him Father, a Gentile.
That's a long ways to come from a dog in the street. I got a couple of questions I want to ask you in this application. They're not complicated and they're not tricky.
They're designed to make you think. Question number one, do you really believe what you have heard? Okay, go back over it. We were alienated.
Christ paid the penalty for that alienation and our sins and he destroyed the wall and we're now reconciled. You really believe that? You know what I think? If I handed out three by five cards or little post-its and you wrote yes or no, I think the yes would have it by a vast majority.
I think I probably wouldn't get 15, 20 nos from this entire group, this large number of people. I think we really believe that. It's the summary of our salvation. If you're saved, you believe that. Here's a second question.
Do you really live that? You knew I'd come back to this, didn't you? This is at the heart of the gospel.
The love of Jesus Christ changes a heart, cancels out color, does a number on prejudice and racism, and putting us together on one level plane, we exalt in the one who reconciled us. I saw Saving Private Ryan as many of you did. Magnificent film. Though a veteran, I will tell you that part of the first 30 minutes I had to close my eyes to.
It's pretty raw. If you didn't see it, it's a wonderful story of a family that was going to be bereft of a continuing of their name because Ryan was the last soldier still living. The family had lost the other members, and so they needed to save Private Ryan from being killed in action. So a small squad of soldiers were dispatched to do that. It involved risk, interesting adventures, and even more importantly, life and death threatening situations until they finally located Ryan. I will remind you who saw it, and you didn't, you need to know that the group began to grouse and complain as time moved on because of the dangers connected with all of this attention and effort given to one soldier. I mean, after all, they said to their leader, after all, there's a war to fight, and there's more involved than one man, and he stayed with it. You remember, it was almost mutiny a time or two, and they found him. They weren't that thrilled because of what they had gone through, and because their name wasn't Ryan, it wasn't that exciting to them, but they had done the heroic thing, the right thing. I thought, as I sat with my son-in-law looking at the film, I thought, what if he had been black?
Stay with me on that. All of them in the crew were white. What if they had found, after the risk and the effort and even the loss of a buddy or two in the process of searching, what if they had found him to be black? What if all of them had been Gentile and they discovered the one they saved was a Jew? Or if all of them had been Jewish and they found he was a Gentile?
Let me go a step further. What if they had all been Protestant and they found that they had saved a Catholic? It's interesting, not long after that, I read a true story of soldiers in battle who lost their buddy. He died. The battle was ebbing and they didn't want him to die or just remain there on the ground and decay, so they wanted to bury him with some sense of decency. So they carried his body to a local cemetery, happened to be a Catholic cemetery, and they laid him down and they talked to the priest, and the priest asked, was he a Catholic?
They hadn't thought, and they looked at what they called the dog tags, the tags around his neck, and they found he was Protestant. The priest said, no, you can't bury him here, he's not a Catholic. Stumbling away from the cemetery in disillusionment and discouragement, they got just outside the cemetery fence and they dug a hole and they buried him there. They covered him over and somebody said a prayer, a verse or two, and not far away they spent the night out in the open. They got up early the next morning to pay their last respects and they went back and couldn't find the grave, and they looked all over for it. So they knocked on the door of the priest and they found him rather disheveled coming to the door and they said, do you happen to know where the grave is? He said, yeah. He said, the first part of the night I felt sorry for what I had told you, and the second part of the night I spent moving the fence. When Christ died, he moved the fence, and it included you and me. It didn't make any difference, it included you and me. Aren't you grateful?
Let's pray. If you've been hiding out thinking that somehow you weren't worthy or good enough or it wasn't really all that important, you've had your eyes open today. You've learned some things, and more importantly, you've found that God moved the fence. And you can come to know his Son, Jesus Christ, by a simple act of faith.
Don't let anybody tell you any different. You don't have to earn your way in or sacrifice some great substance or prove yourself over the period of the next six months. Christ paid the penalty. He picked up the tab.
The banquet is now being held. It is an insult to offer to pay God for what his Son has already taken care of. What you need to do is accept the gift. It's the gift. It's the gift of getting inside the fence.
Do that now. Come on. What in the world are you waiting for but a Christless eternity? Thank you, Father. Thank you for your grace in giving us what we don't deserve and could never repay you for. Thank you for blotting out the transgressions that were written against us. Thank you for destroying the wall of separation that kept us from you and kept us from one another. Thank you for reconciling enemies and making us friends. Thank you in Jesus' name.
And we all said, Amen. Jesus not only moved the fence, he broke down the walls. You're listening to Insight for Living and a message from pastor and author Chuck Swindoll.
His topic today, breaking down the barrier. And to learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. It's our hope that today's study in Ephesians has whetted your appetite to learn more about Paul's letter, written while under house arrest. As you can see through the message today, Ephesians contains far more than historical facts about first century faith. It's filled with deep theological truths that impact our lives in very practical ways today. To learn more, I'll remind you that Chuck wrote an in-depth commentary on Ephesians. In fact, this particular volume includes Galatians as well. It's hard bound and more than 300 pages in length. And the format is laid out in a manner you'd expect from Chuck.
Clear, practical, and with helpful illustrations and ideas for personal application. To purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Galatians and Ephesians, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888.
Or go online to insight.org slash store. Grace is a major theme in Ephesians, and it's a motivating force at Insight for Living as well. Those who give month by month to Insight for Living Ministries have a ministry all their own, bringing God's message of grace to their community through this radio station. And these monthly companions are helping us deliver Chuck's Bible teaching all around the world through Vision 195. To become a monthly companion right now, or to give a one-time donation, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. That phone number once more, 1-800-772-8888. Thank you for your generous support of this nonprofit ministry. I'm Dave Spiker. There's more good news ahead when Chuck Swindoll describes the privilege of living in God's household, tomorrow on Insight for Living. .
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