Therefore Remember
Download MP3Hey everybody. Thank you, Erica. We're going to be continuing tonight in our study in Ephesians. So if you want to open up your Bibles or, it's also going to be in your worship guide, upside down, right side up. You can figure that out on your own.
Collin Hansen:We'll be in Ephesians chapter 2. We were, we looked last week at chapter 2 verses 1 through 10. We're going to finish the chapter out tonight. We're taking a bit of a break from our Exodus study. We'll be jumping back into that soon.
Collin Hansen:So Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 11, let us listen carefully for this is God's word. 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 have been 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 place of the 2, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Collin Hansen:And he came and he preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. And 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 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 also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit.
Collin Hansen:Let's pray. God, your word is so rich. We we can barely scratch the surface tonight. But we ask that by your spirit, you would draw us near to you. That we might grow in our humility and thankfulness and our confidence in who you are and what you have done for us.
Collin Hansen:Help us to remember tonight. Help us to remember, Lord, that you might be exalted in this place in our hearts and in our lives. And as we go from this place, we pray these things for the name of Christ here and around the world. Amen. So for a number of years, I've been really fascinated, with wanting to know more about how people think, how we grow in our understanding, how we interact with knowledge, how we learn.
Collin Hansen:It's It's always fascinated me and I got to take a class in college actually called learning and memory. It was one of the strangest classes that I had next to a chess class or, which was awesome, or just the psychology of eating, just weird classes. It was just college was just this buffet of me trying to figure out the weirdest class titles and just seeing what would happen next. I don't remember what I made in my learning and memory class. That's called selective memory.
Collin Hansen:I did learn that that little fact, but one of the things that we studied was just how the the phases of memory as we acquire memory, then we retain that memory, and then we want to recall that memory. Those three phases, acquisition, retention, and recall. And one of the things that happens, a theory about recall is that if we don't have sufficient cues, if we don't have enough things that would prompt us to recall a memory, that we can start to lose that memory. That's that's what forgetting is. It's a retrieval cue hypothesis that if we don't have these things that come in and remind us, prompt us to access that memory, it's like a lamp that's not plugged in anywhere.
Collin Hansen:It's just not going to turn on. And so we need these things to remind us to call these things to memory, and then that memory gets stronger and stronger and stronger. Here in the second half of Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul is calling his readers to remember. So last week we looked at verses 1 through 10, and in that we we saw the gospel played out. Our desperate need, our our helpless state, God breaking in verse 4, but God being rich in his mercy, this wealth of love and mercy.
Collin Hansen:He reaches through that darkness and that chaos and he brings us resurrection in Christ Jesus. He brings us life. What we call the Exodus from the grave. That's what we looked at last week. And then that we were called into a life with God, verse 10.
Collin Hansen:That we were called into living out this gospel into our daily lives and good works that we were created for in Christ Jesus. Then Paul stands at the end of all of that and says, therefore, remember. The beginning of verse 11. He says, therefore, in light of all of this that we just talked about, in light of all of that, remember. So first off, there's a call to remember.
Collin Hansen:So what does he want us to remember? What is the content of this call to remember? Look with me in verse 11. This is what he's calling us and his hearers to remember. 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.
Collin Hansen:Remember. All right. Let's pause there. 1st he wants to address who is the hearer here. The hearer that he's talking to are the Gentiles, the apostle Paul, the the missionary to the Gentiles, the one who is bringing this call of the gospel to them.
Collin Hansen:He is he's addressing them and he's reminding them. Okay. So you Gentiles who were called the uncircumcision, which was a derogatory term, you are being called the uncircumcision by the circumcision. So, just to make sure we get all our terms right as awkward as they might be for us. We're gonna we're gonna say that the the the uncircumcised, we're talking about the Gentiles, those who were not Jews, those who were not a part of Israel, and then they were called that by the circumcised, by the Jews, the people of god, who had an outward sign of an inward reality that they were a part of the covenant people of god.
Collin Hansen:And they carry that marker with them and they would in a negative way call the Gentiles the uncircumcision And he's saying, okay, remember that that, ethnic, that that racial, that background. So, you who were called those negative things by these people and all of that being done in the flesh, these outward signs, remember verse 12, that you were at that time when you were called those things, 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. He wants them to remember these 6 things, separated from Christ, alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of hope, the covenants of promise that they were having no hope, that they were without God in the world, and that they were not like these other people. They did not have this covenant sign. They were separated, and he wants his hearers to remember that.
Collin Hansen:These are pretty intense charges and it's difficult for us to really process them. Are we have to reach back to our old testament understanding of of the covenants. What is a covenant? These repeated agreements and promises between god and his people wherein really there were there were mostly, like 3 main parts to these covenants. 1, God saying, I'm going to be your God.
Collin Hansen:Secondly, that you're going to be my people. And thirdly, that I will rescue, restore, and rule you. And these promises were made over and over. We see it from Abraham to to Moses. We see it in David.
Collin Hansen:We see it in the prophets, this promise of a new covenant that God would rescue and restore and rule his people. And what Paul is saying is, remember that promise was not to you. That's a startling thing to tell someone to remember. Remember all of these good things? So what we walk through in 1 through 10, all the gospel coming to you, I need you to go way back and remember that these promises, this the the covenants, the Commonwealth of Israel, hope, salvation, not yours.
Collin Hansen:See, Paul's continuing and is still willing to have a very hard conversation with us, just like he did last week. Separate from Christ, separate from the hope of salvation, separate from the kingdom of God, separate from God himself. Look again at verse 12. At the very end, having no hope and without God in the world. Now, this is this is an intense phrase here.
Collin Hansen:Actually back to the to the Greek, a theos is used here for without God. A theos where you might can guess we get atheist. And what he's saying here is that you were not atheist. The the way that we think about an atheist now is that an an atheist sits in the judgment seat. They're the decider.
Collin Hansen:They're they're going to look at all the information of the religious claims. They will weigh them out in the balance and then they will make a decision and say, no, god. But what we're seeing here is that Paul is saying that by nature, you were without God. Not that I'm in the judgment seat, but that God himself is in the judgment seat. And outside of the the covenant of grace, outside of the hope that is in Christ, if I am separated from that, then I am without God in the world.
Collin Hansen:Not at my own, I'm going to make this claim, I am an atheist, I have decided these things, I have weighed out the arguments. I have studied these things, and I am now going to plant my flag and say, atheist, no. I am by nature atheist because I am without God in the world and I'm without hope. Paul says, if you are not in Christ, that that is the separation and that's intense. This might be even more intense than before when he told us that we were dead in our sins and our trespasses, but really he's making the same connection.
Collin Hansen:Dead in your sins and trespasses is without god and without hope. See, Paul wants his Gentile readers to remember this. Remember that you were dead in your sins and remember that you were by nature children of wrath. Remember that you were separated from Christ and all the promises that he holds. Remember that you were strangers and aliens.
Collin Hansen:Now, strangers and aliens, what what what does he mean here? At that time, an alien was a non citizen that was afforded some rights and some privileges. A stranger was a complete foreigner with no rights, no privileges. And he says he uses those words to describe, first, that we were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel. Alienated.
Collin Hansen:So we are non citizens. We are we are afforded some rights and privileges, and what that meant, and and you could even see this, in the temple itself, with Gentiles being able to do commerce, some business at the temple to a certain point, to a certain barrier. They could they could do business, they could trade, they could buy things. They would benefit. They would benefit from a a good Jewish neighbor who would treat them fairly and kindly or maybe a a Jewish boss that would, treat them fairly and pay them rightly and they could benefit from that.
Collin Hansen:So they had some benefits of being near Israel, but they weren't citizens. But then strangers to the covenants of promise, that meant that they had no rights, no privileges when it came to the promises of hope. The promise of rescue and restoration, the promise of God ruling over them as their sovereign Lord and King, There there was no hope in that. They were separate from that, strangers. And Paul calls his listeners to remember who they were at that time, Just as he did in verses 1 through 3.
Collin Hansen:Remember that you were dead in your sins and your trespasses. Now, this is a good time to pause and remember that remembering takes a lot of work. Remembering is hard. Forgetting is easy. It can be.
Collin Hansen:If we don't have those things to come and prompt us and call us to remember, we can just let it go. So, why is Paul doing this? Why is he saying, you have to remember who you were And just like he did in verse 4, after that first clause of bad news, And in verse 4, he says, but God. Look with me in verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus.
Collin Hansen:How many times has he already said, remember who you were at that time, who you were, how things were, what was going on then? Think about that. And now, now, now in Christ Jesus, Things have changed. You who were once far off have been brought near. How?
Collin Hansen:By the blood of Christ through his cross. You who were far off have been brought near. Those who had no right to the covenant promises, no hope, were without God in the world, you have been brought near. How the blood of Christ. You The blood of Christ.
Collin Hansen:You all who are once far off. Isn't this beautiful passive language here that we were brought near? Hold in your mind verses 1 through 3 and and what we've seen here 11 and 12, hold that in your mind. The helpless hopeless state for each and every one of us. Hold that in your mind.
Collin Hansen:And then here, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. If we dare to hold that tension long enough, if we dare to really think about who we were at that time, then this verse comes in and stirs in our hearts something that nothing else can. It stirs in us an awe that nothing else can. Think of yourself. Think of your lack of rights to salvation, to hope.
Collin Hansen:Remember your rebellion and hear, but now in Christ Jesus. His death, his cross has brought you near so that all who are near, none can attest to their work. None of us. That's what we were singing earlier that we cannot boast in this. He has brought us near by his blood.
Collin Hansen:None of us are able to claim that we have brought ourselves, but we can look and see that we have been brought near by his blood. We sing a lot about his blood washing us and cleansing us of our sin as well as we should. We sing a lot about his blood buying us and purchasing us. We need to also be singing about how his blood has brought us near. That was the first song that we sang tonight, Alive and You, that that we are brought near to God and we are reconciled to God and to the kingdom of covenants.
Collin Hansen:This kingdom of promise that we are reconciled to God and to these promises that we had no claim to, no privilege to, and that we have been reconciled to these promises of rescue, restoration, and rule. And Paul wants us to see this. He wants us to see this because he also wants us to see what Christ has accomplished. He wants us to remember who we were at that time and to also fully see all that Christ has accomplished for us, in us, despite us, around us, that we would see it and believe it. Look with me in verse 14, for He himself is our peace who has made us both 1 and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.
Collin Hansen:Let's pause there. What he's talking about is he's continuing this, Jew Gentile divide. And he's saying that Christ himself is our peace. That that peace isn't just a virtue that we seek, a practice that we're seeking, to somehow become better at being peaceful people. But he's saying first and foremost, peace is a person and that person is Jesus.
Collin Hansen:And that in his flesh now alright. So before when we had, this kind of battle of flesh, those who were circumcised, those who are not circumcised, and all this in the flesh language, now we get to the flesh that matters, and that is the flesh of Christ upon the cross. That's the flesh that we should be putting our attention to. And in his flesh, he broke down the dividing wall of hostility. That dividing wall, that would be both a literal and a figurative wall.
Collin Hansen:The wall that was up within the temple that kept the Gentiles out that said, if you come any further, it's going to be on your own head that you are executed. It's your own fault. No further. We we worship Yahweh in here and here's the wall. And Paul is saying that he has torn that wall down, but also the figurative wall, the relational wall, the societal wall that would keep the Jew and the Gentile from each other.
Collin Hansen:And he is saying that in his flesh, not the flesh of the Jew, not the flesh of the Gentile, in the flesh of Jesus. He has made us both 1 and he abolished this law of commandments expressed in the ordinances. Those were those ordinances and ceremonial laws that kept the Jew and the Gentile at bay at a distance from one another. And he says that he did this to create in himself, in his flesh, a new man in place of the 2, so making peace and might reconcile us both to god and in one body, his flesh through the cross, thereby killing hostility. That's a pretty intense phrase.
Collin Hansen:Like killing hostility. Think about that. That in his body, in his flesh, what he's saying is this, that in the death of Christ, in Christ being killed, he killed hostility amongst the people of God. Because now the people of God included Gentiles. That's a mystery that later in chapter 3, to the Ephesians, Paul is going to talk about.
Collin Hansen:This is this mystery that has been revealed that the Gentiles are heirs to Christ. This is a mystery that we did not see coming. And he is saying that in in Christ's body, in him being killed, he killed hostility within the household of god. Now, this has a ripple effect into every division and distinction within the church today. Paul is not specifically talk or he's not generally talking about this and saying that he's not dealing with all forms of ethnicity and race and socioeconomic issues, but it's all in there.
Collin Hansen:It's all in this. It it has an impact on how we see all of this. That there is no hostility because Christ put the that hostility to death in his own flesh, that we would not have these kinds of barriers and divisions. And let me say, because I think it's important for us to say, like, just really quick one liners that that that let us know. If your worldview does not permit that kind of peace, that is sin, and you need to repent.
Collin Hansen:If I look through my worldview and I don't see that kind of unity in Christ because of his flesh and I just look at flesh in other ways and make judgments. That's sin in me. It is wicked and it is evil and it must be repented of. I urge you to think for yourself on that issue and perhaps repent and turn in joy to what Christ has for you in forgiveness and restoration, and know that the unity that he has for us is better. It is always better.
Collin Hansen:You see, we can't look at people as outsiders within the church because that's who we were. That's what he's saying. We're all outsiders. We're all these misfits that don't belong here. Right?
Collin Hansen:We were strangers and aliens, but he has made peace for us. Look at verse 19, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members 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 of the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. He says, Paul says, no longer. No longer are you strangers, no longer are you aliens, No longer are you far from God's promises.
Collin Hansen:No longer are you separated from Christ. No longer are you without hope. No longer are you without God in the world. No longer. Because the blood of Christ.
Collin Hansen:Some of you this week, will be traveling, for Thanksgiving. Some of you might be, first timers in a boyfriend or girlfriend's home, for for Thanksgiving lunch or dinner. Good luck with that awkwardness. It's always fun. When Jess and I started dating, one of the first family things that I attended was a Thanksgiving dinner.
Collin Hansen:I wore a suit for the first time since I was about 5 years old. It was fantastic. It was really awkward. I was super stressed out the whole time. Well, it wasn't all that long ago that we found some photos of the night and I look terrified.
Collin Hansen:I'm in the background of every, like, shot and I'm just, like, even wider than usual, and I'm just terrified. Her grandmother had this game where we played, like, name the flags of the world, and I was so focused. I won. I was just like, I know all these flags. I think I still have like a gift card that I need to redeem from that, but but now you know years years later, like I I go and and I'm at I'm at home.
Collin Hansen:It's I'm family now. You know, I can joke around, and I can I can be relaxed, and I'm I'm around family? You know, I'm not a stranger that just kinda wandered in to thanksgiving dinner. I'm family. And that that's how we transition here.
Collin Hansen:Like we we were far off and now Paul is declaring to us that we are family within the household of God. Some of you are here and you don't know anyone in this room. And what we're striving for here is to be a household of faith. We want to be a family. We want to care for one another.
Collin Hansen:We want to celebrate with one another. We want to mourn and cry with one another. That means that we don't we we can't just put these lines of outsider around here. We we can't just say, you came in at this point. Oh, we were here a week before you.
Collin Hansen:We we actually joined like a week before you. So, we're kind of like the old school redeemer and I just remember what that was like and we're just going to hold on to that until I kill it. But oh wait, sorry, was that too much? And so, but we have these we have these mindsets you know, we just we but we're a household, we're a family and that we're being built together into something beautiful and precious. Think again to this passive language, God is doing this.
Collin Hansen:He's building together. We have responsibilities, of course. We have callings and gifts that we need to bring together into the household, but he's the one who builds us together. He loves his church, big c church. He loves his church more than any of us do.
Collin Hansen:And he loves this little sea church. This this little gathering of people, he loves this more than any of us do and we need to remember that he's the one that's working here. He's the one that's building us together. He's the one that's making us a dwelling place for himself. So we can trust that.
Collin Hansen:We can believe that. We can take a lot of peace in that. We are being brought near. We are being built together into a loving household. This is the work of God.
Collin Hansen:That means that we have to let go of the ideal and receive the divine. That's what Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about in his book, Life Together. And in it, he contrasts the the ideal community and the divine community. The ideal community is pretty easy. It's, hey, does everybody like blank?
Collin Hansen:Well, this is the place for you. And then we just, you know, make some rules up. Like, that's just it's those things are easy to make. But a divine community is something received. He he writes this.
Collin Hansen:He writes about this danger that we have within the believing community. The danger is that those who love their dream of Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of the Christian community. Even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial. That when we just hold on to what we think the church is supposed to look like, We love that idea more than we love people that we end up destroying the very thing that we want. Voltaire had his birthday this past Friday.
Collin Hansen:I know that because Garrison Keeler told me on the writer's almanac, and, and so on Friday, Voltaire, he, he had his birthday and and this is you might recognize this line from Voltaire. The perfect is the enemy of the good. You heard that before that the enemy, the the the perfect is the enemy of the good? And to put that into what we're talking about here, especially in light of Bonhoeffer's quote, it is that the church community of your dreams is the enemy of the church community that you have. That when we hold in our minds some ideal and this can this can play in 10,000 places within the church and our faith.
Collin Hansen:Right? But when we have this this dream, when we have this this ideal, that is the enemy of what God has for us. It doesn't mean that we let go of calling or or a vision or any of those things. Not at all. Not at all.
Collin Hansen:We work very hard. We strive within the responsibilities that God has given us. But sometimes we have to give up that ghost of idealism to really receive what God has for us, And that leads us to, this to really think about what is the outcome of remembering. So we had a call to remember. We we've really looked at and examined what what is it that we're supposed to remember this content of remembering, and then what what is the outcome?
Collin Hansen:What does it do? What does it yield in us? I want to suggest 3 things. You might want to write these down. These are 3 things.
Collin Hansen:3 things that come from remembering. Number 1 is that remembering people are humble people. When we remember, we are brought into a place of humility. Because when we see rightly who we were at that time, what God has done to rescue us, to restore us, to rule us, when we see these things happen, it results in humility. The humility that realizes that anyone who comes to the table of the Lord, anyone who sits down at that marriage feast of the lamb that Joel talked about a few weeks ago, anyone who is seated at the table is a guest.
Collin Hansen:No one bought their way in, no one earned their way to the table, but that we are here by the blood of Christ. The more that we see these things rightly, the more we grow in that humility. And humility is critical because humility also attacks our doubt because there's no reason to doubt when we see god and what he has done for us. Here's one way that it attacks that doubt. If it was about how we can earn our way, if it was about how we could merit our way to the table of the Lord, how we could merit our way to salvation, there's also a way I could lose it.
Collin Hansen:But if that is not what is going on here, if God has acted on my behalf in my place and it's about his flesh and not my flesh, then I grow in that humility because I realize it's not about me. Then that directs me to the second thing, a remembering people are thankful. You see, if I really hold these things in mind and I see what the flesh of Christ has done, and I see what my helpless state was and what he has done, and then all that I can do after that is be thankful. It results in praise and worship and celebration. So as I grow in humility, I grow in tandem.
Collin Hansen:I grow also in thankfulness. And then the third thing is this. So first one, humble, Remembering people are humble, remembering people are thankful, and the third one is this, remembering people remind others. Alright. So think back to that retrieval cue hypothesis that if we don't have enough substantive reminders, if we don't have enough substantive prompts to call us to remember, we can easily forget.
Collin Hansen:When we come together in this place, in this time, we become living reminders. When we sing, when we pray, we do that here together. We do that in our home groups. We become these living reminders, these living prompts to remember the gospel. Remember the gospel, remember who you were at that time, Remember what Christ has done on your behalf.
Collin Hansen:Remember, because it's so easy to forget. We become these living prompts and when we remember, we remind others And we become this beautiful community, this beautiful household of faith where we just remind one another. Have you met those people before who just remind you of the gospel? They are so confident in who God is. They're so confident in what Christ has accomplished on their behalf.
Collin Hansen:They're just fearless. They're fearless, they're not afraid to approach you in humility and love. They're not afraid to pray for you. They're not just gonna say, hey, I'll be praying for you and then obviously never pray for you. They might even want to pray for you right there on the spot.
Collin Hansen:Like they're those kinds of people. We need more of those people. We need to become more of those people. I need to become more of that person Where we gain so much confidence in what God has done that we can be humble before Him and before one another, and we have nothing to prove nothing to prove just like Erica was talking about earlier. It's like, God, we pray now that God would grant us hearts that would be humble, hearts that would be thankful, and that we will become a people who remind one another of this beautiful gospel within this household of faith.
Collin Hansen:So let's pray together. God, you have united us in one body in Jesus Christ, and you have laid the only foundation for our community in the testimonies of the prophets and the apostles and with our cornerstone Christ himself. That is our basis. That is our unity. That is our harmony.
Collin Hansen:And God, may that be truer and truer in the days ahead of this this church family. May that be our bedrock. May that be our foundation that we are built upon your word and that you by your spirit would dwell in us. And help us to see that you have brought us near. Help us not to regard anyone as an outsider, and help us to hear in the depths of our hearts.
Collin Hansen:But now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Spirit, bring us this kind of unity for your glory, Father, Son, and Spirit, we pray these things. Amen.
