Jan 11th "One in Christ!" Eph 2:11-22

You see, our our deepest need, our greatest reality, as it relates to what man most needs, is not that we simply need our behavior fixed, or that we need to be moral. Our greatest issue is that we are Christ less. Mhmm. That we need Jesus. We need a mediator. It's not that their habits were bad, although they were. It's not just that their morals weren't good, that they weren't. It was the reason why their habits were bad, and the reason why their morals weren't good. It it's because they were Christless. [00:31:49] (52 seconds)

And friends, where there is no promise from God, there is no hope. Where God has not spoken, there can be no settled expectation. Paul's painting a disastrous reality. They were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. He goes on to say, having no hope and without God in the world. And if those first three or four weren't bad enough, I think this one might be the worst. Without hope and without God. [00:39:38] (41 seconds)

``This is still true today, isn't it? Apart from Christ, people live without hope. This is exactly why evangelism is necessary. What is evangelism if it's not a delivering of hope? What is evangelism if it's not delivering a message of promise from God? That those who are in the darkness, who are far off can be brought near to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. [00:41:57] (45 seconds)  #I can do that—could you confirm how you want the quotes counted? Should each paragraph (separated by a blank line) be treated as a separate quote, or do you want the entire block treated as one quote? The text appears to include repeated paragraphs, so I want to be sure before generating the exact number of hashtags.

We live in a broken, fallen world without God. And the word he uses here is the word atheoi. Have you have heard of the word atheist? It's where we get that when he uses the word without God. They weren't atheistic in belief as if they didn't believe in gods. They were atheistic in that they were totally apart from the one true God without him. No covenant knowledge of him. No fellowship with him. No dwelling presence with him. No promise to cling to. I just wonder if that breaks our hearts for those who are lost all around us. [00:43:42] (43 seconds)

He's not saying that we were brought near by some sort of moral improvement, that Gentiles were not brought near by becoming Jews. That's not how this works. Although, that's what the first century was trying to figure out. No. You've been brought near through the blood of Christ, and we see that he has taken the two and he has made a new creation. He has made one. [00:45:39] (27 seconds)

But look at how Jesus is our peace. We were brought near how? By the blood of Christ. How? Through the breaking down in his flesh of the dividing wall of hostility. Friends, a crossless Christianity is a powerless Christianity. A Christianity that does not look to Jesus, hanging on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin with his blood poured out, washing our sins away is not Christianity. [00:47:43] (40 seconds)

See, the greatest separation was not first between people, but between God and people. And the temple itself preached that separation. But at the cross, Jesus did what the temple could never do. He reconciled the Jews and the Gentiles to God through his death. And the good news is when that greater barrier fell, the lesser barriers collapsed with it. [00:49:48] (31 seconds)

And each one of us are blood bought children of Jesus. And the way we love one another either puts God's love on display or distracts from it. In other words, hostility cannot be our settled posture toward one another as God's people. Jesus died in order to put that to death. Enduring hostility toward one another is living as if what Christ has done never happened. And that leads us into Paul's last point here as he tells us about unification, that there's one new humanity starting in verse 19. [00:52:23] (53 seconds)