Today’s message, has similar structure to last week’s Bad News then Good News. Paul writes about how hard it is to be separated, but then shares the good news of being reconciled and joined together. If you feel alone today and feel like you’re separated from others there is good news for you in God’s Word.

You may have noticed the Lego displays around the Foyer and Welcome Center. Our CCA parents created an after-school Lego club for the month of February. Legos are a great toy because with a creative idea you can build just about anything you can imagine. Their real fun comes when the Lego bricks are joined together to make something. A single block is not very exciting, but a bunch of them together can be amazing. In our passage in Ephesians 2, we will see the value of joining together with other believers.

“Therefore” – based on what Paul just said about previously being dead in your sin and now alive in Christ, remember this. At that time, you were separated from Christ. You Gentiles were called the uncircumcised, by the Jews, who were the circumcised, even though this was a just a physical distinction. You were alienated from Israel and strangers to the covenants and promises of God.

You were separated from God and His people, Israel both geographically and socially. God told His people, the Jews to not marry Gentiles. The Jews lived in Israel and the Gentiles were in their own lands all around. You were outcasts and unclean to the Jews.

And you were separated from God spiritually. You knew nothing about the promises of a redeemer. You knew nothing about the covenant sacrifices that were symbolically saving people from their sins. You did not have access to pray and worship God in the Temple. You did not have His law and writings from the prophets. God did not visit the Gentile nations.

v. 12 ends with you had no hope because you lived in this world without knowing God at all.

Just like we saw last week in verse 4, the word “But” changes everything. Last Paul said you were dead in your sins, but God made you alive in Jesus Christ.

v. 13 says “But now.” You who were separated and far away from God, were brought near by the very blood of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus, Gentiles would still be separated and without hope or knowledge of God and His redemption plan.

v. 14 says Jesus is the source of our peace with God. He made us (former Jews and Gentiles) united as one because through his own body, crucified, buried, and risen from the grave, the wall of hostility dividing us has been broken. Just as the Temple curtain, separating people from worshipping and praying directly to God was torn in two when Christ died. The laws and commandments separating us have been abolished to make only one kind of people – followers of Jesus. No more distinction of Jews and Gentiles is necessary. The two types of people are now one and they are at peace with each other and with God.

v. 16 says Jesus reconciled us both together as one people to God through the cross killing the hostility between Jews and Gentiles and killing the hostility we had towards God. Romans 5:10 says when we were separated from God we were enemies of God and we hated Him. We wanted nothing to do with Him.

The word reconcile means to bring former enemies together in unity. It usually means to restore a broken relationship. And in this case, it’s the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and people and God. When the world was originally created, Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with God. Sin had not broken things.

v. 17 says Jesus preached peace to the Gentiles and peace to the Jews. the word preached here literally means to announce good news. God came to earth, Himself, to bring the Gospel, the good news of how mankind could again have peace with Him. It was through the promised Redeemer. God, himself, would become human, take on the same flesh as us, and willingly give himself as a sacrifice to pay for our sins. Our sins are what separate us from God. And Jesus came to take our sins on himself to reconcile us socially and spiritually.

Socially

Just as Jews and Gentiles were socially separated by the Law and the Covenants, Jesus came to fulfill the Law paying all of the penalties for sin. Jews and Gentiles are no longer under the law, but under Christ. Gentiles are no longer kept from God and His Word. Gentiles are no longer unclean to the Jewish people. In Romans 11, Paul wrote the Gentiles are like a wild olive shoot grafted in to Himself, the olive tree to grow alongside the natural branches, the people of Israel. We are reconciled together in the same tree of life – Jesus Christ. The olive branch has historically been a symbol of peace.

Spiritually

Through Jesus we have peace with God because our sins and hostility toward God have been wiped away by His blood on the cross. We are reconciled to God, not by any work or goodness of our own, but by the cross.

v. 18 we have a beautiful picture of the trinity working together in our salvation. Through Him, Jesus Christ, the Son, Jews and Gentiles alike, have access through the Holy Spirit to God the Father. This access is to come to the Father in communion and in prayer. In John 10:7-9 Jesus said he was the door for the sheep to find rest and pasture with God. In Romans 5:2 Paul wrote, we can come to God through faith in Jesus. And in Hebrews 4:16 we learn that we can confidently approach God because of the grace He showed us through Jesus.

v. 19 says we are no longer stranger and aliens separated from each other. You are now fellow citizen with all the saints throughout history. We are now members together of the household of God. As Paul taught early, God adopted us into His family. Jews and Gentiles are brothers and sisters together in the same family and equal citizens in God’s holy kingdom.

In Paul’s day, being a Roman citizen was a powerful position. It gave him the right to a fair trial and it gave him the right to ask for a hearing before Caesar himself. There’s a lot of talk today about citizenship in the United States and the value it should have. To be fellow citizens in God’s kingdom, means none of us is better than the other. It also means we are all valuable to God and should be welcomed by each other.

Paul moves from the citizenship and family metaphors into the concept of a building. The church of Jesus Christ has a foundation, a cornerstone, and a structure.

The Foundation is the apostles and prophets. In Matthew 16, Jesus told Peter that the church would be built on him and implied the other apostles. In Revelation 21, the new city of heaven has the names of the twelve apostles on the foundation. The word order of prophets coming after apostles, most likely indicates that these were NT prophets, who spoke God’s Word as opposed to the writings of the OT prophets. Either way, the foundation of the church is the apostles and their writings of the New Testament – the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Word of God is the foundation of our church, not a human leader or even a group. The Bible is our foundation.

vv. 20-21 say the Cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. There were two OT passages that talked about the Messiah being the cornerstone. And another in Isaiah that talks about a stone of stumbling.

Isaiah 8:14 “And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

In Matthew 21, Jesus calls himself this stone rejected by the builders that became the cornerstone. He also said he was the stumbling stone Isaiah talked about. Because the religious leaders and many Jews rejected him as Messiah, they fell away from knowing God and recognizing that salvation was only through Jesus.

A cornerstone in a block building, was the first stone laid at the intersection of two walls. It had to be perfectly level horizontally and plumb vertically. It had to create a perfect right angle for the walls. Jesus is our perfect standard for building our own lives or our church. No one else can be that perfect example.

The whole structure, joined together by Christ, the cornerstone, grows or is built up in to a holy temple in the Lord.

v. 22 says that Jews and Gentiles are the building blocks side by side in the walls of the structure. On the foundation of the Word of God, written by the Apostles, perfectly level and aligned on Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, and held together in Christ like the mortar holding the stones. We are the dwelling place, the church, the temple, where God resides. God tabernacles with us. He moves into our lives. He is part of our daily walk, our work, our rest. He is the object of our worship. Everyone that sees us should see God in us because if we are followers of Jesus Christ, his Holy Spirit lives in us.