GYC West 2014: I Am The Conflict Continues

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GYC West

The Cross & The Great Controversy

Winston Green

Content With Christ

Patrick Dillon

Redemption and Conflict

Confidence through the Conflict

Redemption and the Church

I'm looking forward to this morning's message.

I think that I'll probably say some things that are not controversial as such, but may not have been emphasized, or you may not have heard emphasized from the book of Ephesians.

And so we're going to be talking about the church and how central the church is to God's plan.

We'll do a quick review, And then we'll jump right in.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your love and goodness.

And we just pray, Lord, that you will open our minds to understanding, that you will give us wisdom and guidance, that you will speak through me and to the people that are here with me.

Alright so on Friday morning we basically covered the history of redemption in 10 verses.

And we saw that humanity had been hijacked by Satan, and that God's plan was to break into the hijacked territory and rescue captive humanity.

And in that, we found the language of inheritance, we found the language of new earth, we found the language of new creation.

And This is the model that the New Testament uses to talk about salvation.

And so we usually can grapple with these verses pretty well, but what we're going to see this morning hopefully is that for Paul, this idea of redemption, this cosmic redemption, translates almost immediately into a corporate experience.

And for us In our society, Western society, and I think our church has kind of bought into it, I think most Christian churches have, actually, is that we kind of tend to have a very individualistic view of society.

And we prize ourselves based on our independence and our ability to do things on our own and our self-sufficiency.

And you know, this comes from Lockean philosophy that was introduced from Britain into American society.

And it reveals itself in political debates and it also reveals itself in theological perspectives.

And oftentimes when it comes to salvation, we also have a very individualistic view of what it means to have a relationship with God.

We say things like God doesn't save groups and He saves individuals and God is not saving organizations.

And there's certainly a strong element of truth to that, that I'm not saved just by putting my name on the books.

But the truth that I want to hone in on today is that we may not be saved in communities, but we are saved in 2 communities.

And in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, even though I think it's largely been lost sight of, it's being restored gradually, the major emphasis, the major framework of thought was that of the covenant.

And Winston has shared this at length in his presentations on Hebrews.

And the covenant was not simply about God selecting random individuals here and there to go do their own private work for Him.

The covenant was about God selecting a people group, and that as a people group, they were going to glorify and demonstrate the name of God.

So let's look here at the first 3 verses of our passage for this morning.

We'll do some background, and then we'll move forward.

Ephesians 2, 11 through 22 is going to be our passage, our main passage for this morning.

The first word there is, therefore, remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands, remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

He says, remember that you at that time were separated.

What is that time that he's referring to?

It's right here in Ephesians 2, the first portion of the passage that we looked at Friday morning when he talks about their estrangement and their bondage to Satan.

So he's saying at that time when you were indulging in the flesh and in the desires of the mind when you were being led about by the spirit of this age when you were following in sync with the course of this world at that time you were separate from the Commonwealth of Israel.

So the point is there that their spiritual disunion with God also, a part of that was their social disunion with the people of God.

And if you look at some of the things he mentions there, the commonwealth of Israel, the covenants of promise, and then he also hones in on having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, see this is part of his proclamation.

It's not simply that now in Christ Jesus you have justification or you have spiritual renewal.

It's now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near.

So on the 1 hand, we've been reconciled to God in a vertical spiritual renewal, but we've also been reconciled horizontally, if you will, into the community, into the people of God.

And just to set up some background to this on how this works out in the big picture, the 2 classes that are being distinguished here are the Gentiles and who else?

And as we read it today, I think sometimes we get stuck and we don't know how to practically apply it.

So immediately we say that the Jews are conservatives and the Gentiles are liberals, or we try to come up with some kind of spiritual application.

But the issue here is in reality an ethnic division.

And as it applies for Paul in the first century, and I'll talk about what that means.

This divide took place and began in Genesis chapter 12.

Now up to this point there had been people of God.

But with the call of Abraham there was a step that was taken in the process for distinguishing the people of God from the people of the world And that step that was taken created an ethnic distinction.

And there was 1 particular sign that was used to make the distinction.

And so Abraham was called and God said that he would bless him and he would make his name great and that all the nations, all the what?

All the Gentiles or all the nations in you would be what?

And Paul argues that out in Galatians 3, which is a wonderful passage.

But at this point, you now have this distinction between the people of God and the people of the world, but it actually is now a national ethnic distinction.

And it's true, we know retrospectively that being a part of Israel didn't necessarily make you an Israelite, and that yes, there are Gentiles who responded to all the life that they had, and so therefore, you know, their consciences are going to approve themselves, as Paul talks about in Romans Chapter 2.

But as far as the visible church is concerned, there was a distinction between the nation of Israel and the Gentiles around them, just like it is for us today.

We know that not everyone who calls himself a Seventh-day Adventist is converted, and not everyone who is a part of the religious traditions outside is a child of Satan.

They just may not have all the light, and they may be walking according to all the light that they have.

And when God reveals more to them, they jump on board like I did, and they follow through.

So, trying to create some similarities to help it kind of stick in the mind, that there was certainly, though, a distinction at that time between Jews and Gentiles, and in order to become part of the people of God in the truest sense, 1 had to not only convert spiritually, but 1 had to take upon himself the markers of a Jew.

And so Gentiles needed to be circumcised.

And they had to participate in all of the moral and ceremonial aspects of the religious service.

Now, Israel was set apart for what purpose primarily?

When Paul talks about, to glorify God, when Paul talks about what the advantage of the Jew was in Romans chapter 3, he says much in every respect.

First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God.

Now if I entrust you with a letter, I expect you to deliver that letter for me.

And the oracles of God, that's the divine revelation of God.

So they were entrusted with the divine revelation of God.

It was the task of the people as a people.

And that's the point that I want to really drive home throughout this talk.

It's as a people, Not as scattered individuals who sometimes choose to get together and have Bible study and prayer.

As a united people group, they were supposed to take the message of God to the Gentiles.

So what Paul is saying though, for us, I've wrestled with it, how can I understand the significance?

Because for Paul, it's dynamic, it's revolutionary.

In chapter 3, he calls it the mystery that's been revealed that now Gentiles are accepted as being the people of God as Gentiles in Christ.

So the best way that I can illustrate this is this would be akin to a former Ku Klux Klan member or a white supremacist going back into his community of white supremacists and declaring triumphantly that all people of color are now accounted as being the superior race in their own skin.

Can you imagine how that would rock that community?

Series

The Cross & The Great Controversy

Redemption and the Church

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Put Your Sword in its Place

45m

The Plan of Salvation

02 The Plan of Salvation

1h 11m

Last Day Events

Armageddon and the Seven Last Plagues

1h 5m

The Final Revival

36m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

16 The Mark of the Beast and the Seal of God

1h 14m

Morning Devotional

Why Are We Here?

29m

Experience The Power

The Power of Helplessness

1h 18m

Jonathon Cherne Weekend

Enjoying Peace Before the Storm?

56m

By the Grace of God I Will

39m

The Beatitudes

Blessed are the Meek

39m

Men of Issachar

31m

Science of Worship

12 - Mark of the Beast Principle - Part 2

56m

Sound Doctrine