Wow is this Sunday's sermon text a timely one! (But isn't every Word from God?!?) This Sunday, we take up one of Scripture's great teachings on reconciliation. Are you ready for that?
Here's the background. What we find in Ephesians 2 is an incredible example of sin's power to take anything that God gives us- our intelligence, our looks, our success, our social position, even our race- and to weaponize it to despise and hate those without it. The Ephesians were looking down on those without the law. "We're better than you. We have the law!" The law with its commands and regulations became a way for "law-having/keeping Jews" to look down on and be hostile toward Gentiles. It was so bad Paul called the law "a dividing wall of hostility." (Eph. 2:14) Jews and Gentiles needed reconciliation. Walls needed to be broken down.
Here's the good news: God has put all hostility to death on the cross of Jesus. And have you ever noticed this about Christianity? That life begins in death? That when Jesus died, he rose again? That in his death, our life in heaven was assured for us? Listen in!
