A Stranger to Everything and a Castaway

Ephesians 2:11-18 October 9, 2022 Pastor Ricky Alcantar

Thesis By grace, God brings the far off near together—reconciling alienated humanity both to Himself and to one another through the blood of Christ, creating one new humanity that transcends all ethnic, social, and cultural divisions.

Series

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Type

Expository

Tone

pastoraldidacticprophetic

Method

grammatical-historicalcanonicalredemptive-historical

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

25 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #21

"Direct application calling out subtle forms of exclusion in the contemporary church. Alcantar names internal attitudes (hoping certain people don't come, preferring homogeneity in community groups) and condemns them with the same prophetic intensity used for historical segregation. The unit concludes by reiterating that unity is found in shared identity in Christ, not in ethnic homogeneity or mere peaceful coexistence."

Doctrinal loci· 11 surfaced

Ecclesiology · 12 Soteriology · 9 Anthropology · 4 Christology · 4 Hamartiology · 4 Covenant Theology · 2 Ethics / Moral Theology · 2 Bibliology · 1 Eschatology · 1 Pneumatology · 1 Theology Proper · 1

Bible citations· 17

Illustrations· 4

personal story · unit #3 — Extended personal narrative establishing the experiential reality of alienation and the longing to belong. Alcantar recounts his creative writing class where students found connection through shared ethnic experiences, while he felt increasingly isolated due to his mixed heritage. The illustration is designed to create empathetic identification with the feeling of being an outsider before turning to the biblical diagnosis.
cultural reference · unit #9 — Literary illustration from Dostoevsky capturing the existential alienation described in the sermon. The character's inability to enter the 'feast' of creation despite being surrounded by its beauty serves as a vivid image of humanity's fundamental estrangement. Alcantar diagnoses the character's condition theologically: this is the longing for God.
historical example · unit #20 — Historical illustration of segregation in a New England church—wealthy white donors in heated boxes, people of color relegated to the balcony. The visceral image serves as a cautionary tale about how churches erect the very barriers Christ died to destroy. The illustration transitions from historical condemnation to present-day self-examination.
personal story · unit #22 — Closing illustration of a multiethnic gathering of pastors at Philadelphia airport. The couple's bewilderment at the group's diversity and Billy Reyes's simple answer ('we are just Christian brothers') serves as the sermon's climactic image of what Ephesians 2 produces. Alcantar's reflection ('that's where I belong') resolves the opening creative writing class illustration and demonstrates the experiential reality of the one new humanity in Christ.

Theological claims· 2

All human alienation—ethnic, relational, national—is rooted in humanity's vertical alienation from God that began in Genesis 3. unit #7
Christ's reconciling work has both a future eschatological goal (Revelation 7:9) and a present reality (believers now have access to the Trinity through Christ). unit #16

Quotations· 3

"Before him, Above him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite as if it went on forever. And for a long time he looked and suffered. What tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet? What was this great everlasting feast to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, in which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises. Every morning there's a rainbow over the waterfall. The highest snow-capped mountain there, far away at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame. Every little blade of grass grows and is happy. And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, and goes with a song, and comes back with a song. Only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds. And listen to this phrase: a stranger to everything. And a castaway." — Fyodor Dostoevsky (unit #9)

"Our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee." — St. Augustine (unit #18)

"The consequence of this new human race in Christ is that any sort of segregation or exclusion of any human being who professes Christ from full membership in the church is at odds with the church's very reality as a work of inaugurated new creation that deifies the Lord who founded it." — S.M. Bauw (unit #19)

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0 · Alcantar frames the hermeneutical approach for the sermon, warning against reading cultural frameworks back into scripture and establishing the proper movement from biblical text to cultural application

when we come to the Bible, that we not go, okay, here's my life, here's my culture, and I'm gonna go from my culture to the Bible, and what does the Bible say about these issues? Because then the way the culture frames those issues, we're trying to read back into the text. But rather, what we're gonna do today, by God's grace, is to go from the Bible back into our culture. And if you get the order wrong, everything will be wrong. So let's see what God has for us.

And let's look forward to God providing clarity to some of these issues in our culture today.

1 · The full public reading of the primary text

Ephesians chapter 2, we're going to read verses 11 through 18. 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 two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you, 'who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to God the Father.' This is God's Word.

2 · Opening pastoral prayer asking for receptivity to God's word and reiterating the hermeneutical commitment from the introduction—that the congregation would allow scripture to address culture rather than vice versa

Lord, I pray that you'd make us ready to hear what your Word says. Lord, I pray that we really would today move not from the culture back into the Bible, but rather from the Bible back into our own lives and culture.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

3 · Extended personal narrative establishing the experiential reality of alienation and the longing to belong

Well, I remember a particular creative writing class I took. My undergrad major was creative writing. And I remember this one particular class that I took where every week it felt like everybody else in the class got further and further away from me. And what I mean by that is that every week everybody would bring stuff that they'd written and we'd kind of read it aloud and talk about it.

And one of the things that happened is, I mean, these people are sharing from deep in their own experience, deep in their own life. I mean, you're all of a sudden, some guy you've never met is talking to you about like the most traumatic events of his life through poetry. And you're like, whoa. And so one of the things that would happen is often as people shared, you'd connect with people. Like people, you know, you'd realize, oh man, that person's like me.

And you start to realize people would kind of form up into friendships and groups and relationships. And different people would share and others would go, ah, they're like me. And so one of the things that happened in the class is that this class in particular, the makeup of it, it felt like everybody in the class almost was talking about the experience of being Chicano or Hispanic, growing up in El Paso, growing up in Juárez, right? Their struggle where their English was, they spoke with an accent, and that affected their job interviews, or their experience of going constantly back and forth across the bridge to Juárez and to El Paso, or them having undocumented family, or their fear of Border Patrol checkpoints, or whatever. You know, they're sharing about these things.

And here's the weird thing for me about that. I struggled to connect with some of that. Here's my background, right? Of my 4 grandparents, one was born in Guadalajara, one was born on the border in Presidio, One was born in New Mexico, rural New Mexico, and that family, my mom's mom's family, had probably been in New Mexico forever. And then I've got one grandfather who's born in the Deep South in Buckatunna, Mississippi.

And so that meant for me, I thought a normal breakfast growing up was eggs with salsa and grits and tortillas and sweet tea. That was what my granddad ate for breakfast. And I just was like, oh cool, that's what everybody eats, right? And then as I grew up, I realized, no, that's not a normal breakfast.

And so because of that, I felt like, okay, well, I can connect with some but not all of what they're sharing. And so I'd wait for other people to share. I remember one guy that was a chain smoker. I still remember this guy. We went to coffee a couple times.

He was a character. He was a chain smoker from the Rust Belt, just like kind of a blue-collar dude from the Rust Belt. Or another guy was, another girl was from the South, but from like the nicer part of the South, not where my Mississippi relatives were from. And their experience was totally different. And I remember thinking, okay man, we're getting down to the end, I don't really know who I can connect with here.

And there was one guy who had super, super white pale skin. And so I thought, well maybe this guy will share something. Because I'm obviously a wetto, and so like maybe he's got something for me here. And so the guy, I remember his poetry was always like, "My skin is so white, pale, pale white. I fear the sunlight.

I am a vampire." Like literally every poem was that. And I was like, "OK, definitely not connecting with that guy. That's definitely not my group. Whatever my group is, it's the opposite of vampire boy." And so, every week my experience was these people are sharing all their life, all their experiences, and yet it felt like every week everybody got further and further away from me.

4 · Structural transition connecting the personal illustration to the biblical text and announcing the sermon's thesis

And that experience, that experience of distance, is not exactly but a little bit like what Paul is addressing in Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2 is all about distance, about people far away from each other. And, in fact, people far away from each other and far away from God. From God himself. And it has a lot to say about why we as human beings end up feeling and acting so distant and alienated from each other. And it goes deeper and says that the problem of alienation horizontally is really a vertical problem.

The problem of alienation between us and God. And underneath all this ethnic strife and racism and turmoil in our world, there is a fundamental alienation between us and the God who made us. So I think in this text we're going to find a surprising diagnosis and then a beautiful cure. And the headline today is just this: by grace, which is Ephesians 2:1-8, as we've been talking about, by grace God brings the far off near together. He brings the far off near together.

5 · Exposition of the historical context of Ephesus and Paul's rhetorical reframing of ethnic division

Two sections. First, far off. Far off. Verse 11 says, therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles— so he's explicitly talking to the majority of the church who were Gentiles, "in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what's called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that at one time you were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Now, at first, remember, we start with the world of the Bible and then work back to our world.

So, at first this feels very foreign. Remember the background to the church in Ephesus. It was made up of former— not just, like, non-Jewish people, these were Gentiles, the paganest of the pagan Gentiles. Their city in Ephesus was filled with, you know, this great statue of Artemis. They had personal libraries of evil magic books worth thousands of dollars.

That's true, it's an ax. This was a city full of the smell of sacrifices being made. The streets in Ephesus were full of temple prostitutes, right? So a huge issue in that church was, okay, these people believe in Jesus, and then you have some of the Jewish people who believed in Jesus, and they're going, how can we possibly be one church? I mean, you're telling me, I'm the guy that, you know, I've tried to follow the Torah from when I was young, I knew the Tanakh, I know all of these things, I tried to be pure, that I'm now in the same church as pagan Gentile boy who just burned $1,000 worth of pagan evil books.

We're going to be in the same church? I don't think so. There's going to be an A church and a B church, varsity and JV, and we're the varsity, you know. And there begins to be those cracks in the church. So this led to a complicated situation.

This is where the parallels to our current day— it's hard to draw parallels to our current day. In many ways, the pagan Gentiles were the ones in the city who had power and influence and mistreated the Jewish people at times, which is widely attested by literature in the first century. So in some sense, they were the people above the Jewish people because of their power and influence. And Ephesus in particular wanted to be very Roman, so the more Roman you were, the better and more respected you were in the city. So they were above the Jewish people, but Paul knows his own people and knows that they often looked down on the Gentiles, and they knew that they had the true privileges that mattered the most, right?

So, in some sense, the Jewish people were above, ethnically, the Gentile people. And so you have this weird situation where they're both above and below each other, and they both consider themselves above the other. And so Paul says, listen, stop thinking about who's above who and who's below who. Start thinking about who is near and who is far. He reframes the racial issues and ethnic issues in terms of nearness and farness, not aboveness and belowness, if I could say it that way.

And this is where we often run into a problem in our text. Today, we often view ethnic relationships in our modern culture, in the West, in America, 21st century, through power dynamics. And if you want to know why we do that, you can blame Hegel and Marx and some of the other thinkers. But that's very much the way our culture is set up. One ethnicity or group is above the other in terms of power dynamics.

And so therefore, that's the way we constantly evaluate the world around us. Who's above, who's below, who's above, who's below. And Paul comes to that and says, no, no, no, you two are thinking wrongly. It's not about who's above and who's below. Primarily here in terms of salvation, it's who is near and who is far.

I'm not saying that, you know, listen, there's passages, before somebody emails me, there's passages about justice, there's passages about treating one another fairly, amen. But in this passage, Paul is going at the fundamental identity of who you are before God and to others. And on that issue, what matters most is who is near and who is far, not who's above and who's below.

6 · Exposition of the three-fold privilege of the Jewish people (hope in Messiah, covenant nationhood, covenantal promises) and Paul's corresponding three-fold indictment of Gentile alienation

And when we look at this, this list that Paul gives of the privileges of the Jewish people, we begin to see what Paul is talking about. First, Paul says that the Gentile people were once separated from Christ, meaning the Messiah.

This Jewish people had the privilege of one day hoping that a Messiah would come and make all things right. The Gentiles did not have this hope. Alienated from the nations were the Gentiles. So the Jewish people were this specially constituted and called people to be a nation, and their ethnicity and culture and state and country, if you could say it that way, were all wrapped up in this. Everything from their festivals to the way they dressed was shaped by God in the Old Testament law, they were then, Paul concludes, strangers to the covenants of promise.

Right? This is the real issue. The Jewish people were unique and special, not because of their ethnicity in particular, that was just their body. Instead, they were special most fundamentally because God had given them the covenants of promise. And the covenants of promise given to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and Moses, right?

All those covenants God would often begin by saying, "I am your God and you are my people, therefore this promise." "I'm your God and you are my people, therefore I'll be with you." "Therefore, someone will sit on the— somebody from the line of David will sit on the throne of David." "Therefore, you will become more numerous than the stars in the sky," right? These promises were made to this particular people. And so Paul is, in a sense, humbling the Gentiles and saying, "Listen, remember." Before you get on your high horse, you had none of those privileges. You were— you might be, "Well, I'm a little bit higher than Jewish people." No, you were far off. You were alienated.

You were separated from what mattered the most. Therefore, his conclusion, which is a pretty tough burn, he says, "You are without hope and without God in the world." I mean, that's just his summary statement. You had no hope that anything could change, that you could ever be saved, and Most fundamentally, he says, you were cut off from the God who made you. Therefore, the thing you should be concerned about, not is who's above and who's below, but rather why you are so far away and how could there ever be a way back. That's his fundamental concern.

7 · A synthesizing theological claim tracing the problem of alienation back to Genesis 3

Now, this is where the Bible diagnoses our human problem vastly different from anyone else in our culture. The problem is not most fundamentally this ethnicity versus that ethnicity, or this history versus that history, but rather who is near and who is far from God. And here's the thing: Paul has just— and you might think, man, that's pretty tough for the Gentiles. You know what's also tough? What Paul just did with the Jewish people.

Notice his language in Ephesians 2. He includes the Jewish people in the people who were dead and who were following the devil, and the flesh, and the world, right? So his conclusion is, he even kind of says it, listen, you people in the Jewish nation, you think because of something in your flesh, you're better somehow? You're somehow nearer as a result of that? No.

You, too, were dead. You, too, were following the world, the flesh, and the devil. You, too, were cut off. And so in that way, Paul basically lays out both of you think you're above the other, but both of you most fundamentally have the problem of being far away from God. That's the problem you should be worried about most fundamentally on a soul level.

And this is because if you go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1 and 2, humanity was made to be near God, to live in God's presence, to walk with God, to enjoy God. To live in right relationship with God meant to live in right relationship with others and with creation even. And then what do you see in Genesis 3? Well, when Adam and Eve choose to sin, do you remember what happens? What are the consequences?

They are cast out of the garden. And there's that interesting image of an angel with a flaming sword basically at the front of the garden saying, "You can't go back." What happened is humanity was cast out of the nearness of God, right? That's the fundamental— problem. They were no longer near God, and then when they're no longer near God, cut off from God, what happens? Well, Adam, who was singing a song to his wife in Genesis 2 about how great and beautiful she is, Genesis chapter 3 is like, "It was her.

She gave me the apple. I don't know what's going on, man. You actually gave her to me, so you bear some responsibility here. You did it. You did it.

I'm just here." And God's like, "Didn't I tell you to guard creation, probably including your wife?" from an evil— well, you know, things got— things were complicated.

And then two brothers, Cain and Abel, tragic, next story in the Bible. One kills the other out of jealousy. So what happens is this vertical relationship with God being broken, everybody deciding to be their own god, leads to constant conflict horizontally between one another. And then those people, those kids grow up and have nations, and those nations war against each other. But what Paul is saying most fundamentally Our problem is not this person, that person, this nation, that nation.

It is because our relationship with God is broken. The nearness we long for is cut off. Therefore, we have no hope and are without God in the world.

8 · Direct application of the far-off diagnosis to issues of privilege, disadvantage, and belonging

Look, this is the application of this section. You are or were far off from God. You think, "Well, that's encouraging. I'm glad I came to church today." But this is important because it changes the way you treat your privilege in any respect, any advantage of your ethnicity, or culture, or life, or family, anything that you think, "Well, I'm above this group. I'm above this person." Here's what Paul would say about that: that wasn't enough to bring you near to God.

You might be saying, "Well, listen, I have this, and I did this, and I have this, and my family is this." Doesn't matter. Still far. And then it changes the way you treat your disadvantages, where you think, "Well, I'm lower than other people. I'm lower economically. I'm lower ethnically.

I'm lower in terms of, you know, cultural cachet, right? I'm lower." And Paul is saying, "Listen, good news there is not a problem. In fact, you and the person you think is so far above you, you're exactly the same place before God, far from God." And then it changes the way we think about belonging. I really hope we get this. We often speak of alienation and separation and not belonging, not feeling like we belong in our culture.

And the Bible says underneath all of that longing to belong is a fundamental alienation between us and God.

9 · Literary illustration from Dostoevsky capturing the existential alienation described in the sermon

I'll read you a quote from Dostoevsky's work, The Idiot. The context is not important. All you need to know is that— if somebody just nudged their husband and said, "The book is about you." Don't do that. Stop.

Talking about the Bible, guys. Okay.

But this character has this experience. And I just want you to hear the experience. This is his experience. Before him, Above him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite as if it went on forever. And for a long time he looked and suffered.

What tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet? What was this great everlasting feast to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, in which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises. Every morning there's a rainbow over the waterfall.

The highest snow-capped mountain there, far away at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame. Every little blade of grass grows and is happy. And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, and goes with a song, and comes back with a song. Only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds. And listen to this phrase: a stranger to everything.

And a castaway.

What this character is experiencing is he's looking at all the beauties of creation and feeling somehow there is a fundamental disconnect between him and that.

And I think the Bible would diagnose it and say that is humanity's longing for a Creator it has cut itself off from. Underneath all of our longing to belong is a longing to belong to the one who made us.

10 · Brief structural transition signaling the sermon's major movement from diagnosis to cure

Which is why the next part is such good news. Part 1 is far off, Part 2 is brought near.

11 · Exposition of verse 13, emphasizing the simultaneous vertical and horizontal reconciliation achieved by Christ's blood

Verse 13 then should read like a firework of joy in our hearts.

Verse 13, "But now in Christ you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Look, what's happened here? What's happened is that the far-off have now been brought near. I hope you feel how staggering and freeing and powerful this is. Apart from God, every human being lives in profound isolation and alienation, both from God and from others. But now there is a way to come near again.

And this coming near is both primarily in relationship to God, but it also has a secondary effect of bringing us near to each other. 'each other.' This is where commentators talk about how the next section is very grammatically difficult to untangle because often you're like, 'Wait, is Paul talking about being reconciled and brought near to God, or is he talking about—' then he brings up the Gentiles— 'Is he talking about bringing, like, getting reconciled to each other? Are we brought near to God, or are we brought near to each other?' And one of the most helpful commentaries I read basically said, 'Yes, He's talking about all of it mixed up together because you can't do one without the other. And so what he's saying is, listen, if, you know, somebody's here on the stage and I'm over here and I start moving toward the music stand right here and somebody else is at a totally different part of the stage, they're way back here, right? And they start moving toward the music stand and we're like, well, I don't like that guy.

Doesn't matter. If we're both going over here, all of a sudden we wake up and we find ourselves together. And so when God brings us near from here and from there and from there and from there and from way out there, he brings us near to him, what happens? We get near to each other. What a glorious, unexpected work the Lord does.

12 · Extended exposition of how peace was achieved through Christ's death

How has this happened? Well, it's happened because it says in verse 14, "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one." and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. Oh man, this is glorious. God has created peace in the most unexpected way in all of history, right? It talks about later on— it says right there, breaking down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

So the Roman era was famous for this thing called the Pax Romana. Right, the Roman peace. And it was this long period in history, probably one of the longest periods in history without kind of major wars. And do you know how Rome achieved Pax Romana and kept everybody at peace? They wiped out everybody who opposed them.

So it's great because if you're like, hey, we're all at peace, and this guy's like, well, I don't know if I like that, Or the Gauls are like, well, we want to kind of be our own— dead, right? Everybody's at peace. Why? Because you kill the people that make it unpeaceful.

But God does the opposite. If it was a Pax Romana, what God would have done to create peace is just wipe out humanity altogether. But instead, what he does is he sacrifices His Son. Rather than tearing the flesh of his enemies, God the Father tears the flesh of his Son that there might be peace. That's incredible.

Nothing else in history like that.

As we saw in verses 1 through 10 in chapter 2, sin has wrecked humanity and the world, and sin is an attack on justice itself, and yet God, it says, has broken down in Jesus' flesh, the dividing wall of hostility, right? So on the cross, Jesus' flesh was literally torn apart. He was literally torn apart so that the wall separating us from God would be torn apart. So in Jerusalem, there was this— imagine the— you remember that scene where Jesus goes in and clears out the money changers? And he just, like, takes a whip, and it was my favorite story as a kid 'cause I was like, man, Jesus is beating people up.

Like, I didn't know about this part of the Bible. Yup, smacking people with a whip, telling them, get out of there. You know why? Because that was— they had set up shop in what was called the Court of the Gentiles. So that was meant to be a special area in which Gentiles could come and not— if they weren't Jewish, they couldn't actually enter the temple courts, but they could get close.

So Jesus wanted that area clear because he wanted everybody God was calling to be there. And then right there on all the pillars, Josephus has the inscription, I forget what it exactly said, but basically it says, Gentiles welcome, stay back or you die. You can't enter in. So if you're Jewish, you got to go into the temple court. It's like, oh, all right, now, yeah, we're God's people.

But then there were more signs and walls and barriers between you and the priests. And then the priests could go further, they were ceremonially clean. Supposed to be more righteous. And then there was another barrier, right, from them to the Holy of Holies where once a year one guy got to, after voluminous purification rites, got to go in for a few minutes and then come back out.

All these barriers between God's people even and him. And the Gentiles even further back from God's people, the Jewish people. But listen to what it says in Matthew 27, verse 51, when Jesus dies on the cross. Matthew 27, verse 50, it says this: Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split.

That's what Ephesians 2 is talking about, that at the moment Jesus dies, the wall of separation between God's people and God torn down, and the wall of separation between the Gentiles and the Jews Torn down. No walls anymore. You know what the new temple is, Jesus says? His body. And anyone who becomes one with him is welcomed into the very presence of God.

Right? This is the good news of Ephesians chapter 2.

13 · Exposition of verse 15's statement about abolishing the law

Verse 15 says he abolished— he did this by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, right? So the law was what basically separated God's people from him because it revealed to them their sin. The law was a record of God's character about what must be done to draw near to God.

But again and again, the law just illustrated nobody could do it. Nobody could actually bring themselves near to God. So instead, Jesus did it for them. He fulfilled the law. He abolished the law by fulfilling the law so that the law was no longer a barrier between God's people and God himself.

14 · Exposition of the 'one new man' motif in verse 15

And you know why this has happened? You know why this has happened? That God says this next section, "That he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace." See, God's design was not just to be like, "Okay, Gentiles, you're way back here. I'm going to save you. You stay there.

Jewish people, you're a little bit closer. Great job, you know. I set my affections and love on you and covenants on you. And you're a little bit closer, so you'll be a church over there and you'll be a church over here." Nor is it even You'll be a church where you're near to each other. Do you see the metaphor that Paul is pushing here?

That he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

This isn't nearness, this isn't partnership, this is absolute, utter oneness, right? When God brought us all near, he created one new man. One new man. Not one Gentile man and one Jewish man, not one white man and one black man, not one American and another Iranian. The key is in himself.

God in himself creates one new man. He doesn't just merge them together, he merges them, in a sense, into himself.

To be in Christ means to be reconciled to others in Christ on the most fundamental level. And in doing this, here's what Jesus does: he puts to death all the comparisons between ethnicities and peoples and socioeconomic groups and nations. There is no, "Well, we're both saved, but I'm a little more saved." You know, there's no, "Well, God brought us both near, but I was a little closer." You know, "I'm here and you're here." None of that. None of that in the body of Christ. There is only Far and near brought one together in Christ.

That's all there is.

15 · Exposition of verses 17-18, demonstrating that Jesus' earthly ministry enacted the reconciliation Paul describes

And so then Paul says, here's how you live in light of that happening. Verse 17, he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Right? Jesus came.

Well, why did he clear the court of the Gentiles? Because he wanted the Gentiles to draw near according to the promise he made to Abraham generations ago that through Abraham's family all the nations of the world would be blessed. According to Isaiah, that God's people might be a light to the nations to draw people in. Jesus is doing this, and therefore he goes and preaches, right? That's why he goes across the ocean to pagan Gentile territory to a pig farmer full of demons and frees him and sends him to tell others.

Everybody, no exceptions, gets to hear the good news of Jesus. Everybody, no exceptions, is offered redemption and salvation in in Christ.

16 · Theological claim establishing the eschatological and present reality of reconciliation

And Jesus' ultimate goal is Revelation chapter 7. We just went through Revelation. I'm still going to read it again.

Revelation 7:9, it says this. At the end of history, "I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Right? That is Jesus' intent from the very beginning, from the day he dies on the cross. And even that is not enough for Paul.

Paul says, not only all of that, not only were we offered salvation, but even today, right now, through him, we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. This is Trinitarian language. We're in Christ, we experience the Father's love through the Spirit. So what he's saying is this: the Gentiles, even the most far-off Gentiles with their house full of pagan evil witchcraft books, that person now has access to the Trinity right now through Jesus. This is what Paul is saying.

17 · Brief structural transition signaling the move from exposition to application and previewing the two-part structure of the closing section

So what's the application then? I'm going to move toward wrapping this up. What's the application? Two things.

18 · First major application: live as one who has been drawn in by God

First, live as drawn-in-by-God Christian.

If you are in Christ, live as if you are drawn in by God. Look, I think a lot about my buddy in creative writing that just wrote vampire fiction.

And I feel for him because what he did, essentially, was look around, be like, "Here's the Chicano group, here's the southern people, here's the Rust Belt guy." And he was like, "I don't fit in any of those, so I'm just gonna be a vampire. I connect with those guys," right? And you think, "Okay, well, that's silly." But listen, there is underneath his longing a longing to belong somewhere. And he looks out at the world and he says, "I don't belong anywhere, so I gotta create this world where I belong." You see in that, he's saying, "I'm a castaway." I'm a stranger. I'm just like that guy looking at creation unable to enter in.

And often in our culture, many seek to find their identity in their ethnicity or their sexuality or their gender expression or some other aspect of who they are. But here's the truth: apart from God, we will never be fully at home no matter our group or categories we try to take onto ourselves. And there's this desire in our world today that if we could just kind of perfectly quantify ourselves or perfectly express who we are, then somehow unlock would be this feeling of home and wholeness. It will not be. Only in Christ will we find it.

And look, if you're here and you're not a Christian, maybe you're thinking that someday you will find that perfect expression of yourself or express yourself perfectly and it will bring you peace. It will not. Listen to St. Augustine who said, "Well, our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee." So let me encourage you, if you're not in Christ, believe in Christ today. All that God is described in Ephesians 2 can be true of you today. You can be drawn in and belong to him today and that fundamental disconnection between you and your Creator can be repaired through the blood of Christ today.

Why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you believe? And if you're a Christian, let's not be caught up in— look, please don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying you should just just sort of like ignore your ethnicity. That's not Revelation 7.

It's not like there's— everybody just has the same color. Now they're all orange, you know. No, God made people with ethnicities and skin tones and all that stuff, and he made it to display his beautiful diversity of creation to reflect his glory more perfectly. But none of that stuff will most fennelly— most completely fill the hole inside of you that longs to belong.

That's only filled by coming to Jesus. So let's, as Christians, remember, man, we're constantly trying to recenter ourselves. Listen, that may be okay, that may be okay, that may be unhelpful, that may be terrible, but all of it is trying to get at this longing to belong, and in Christ, we just have to return to Christ and find the place we belong.

19 · Pastoral aside with prophetic edge

And last, let me just say this. Let me just encourage us as Christians. In light of this, we suffer no barrier to be put up to others being drawn into Christ.

We must not. How dare we? S.M. Bauw says this in his commentary. The consequence of this new human race in Christ is that any sort of segregation or exclusion of any human being who professes Christ from full membership in the church is at odds with the church's very reality as a work of inaugurated new creation that deifies the Lord who founded it.

What's he saying? He's saying this: How dare we as Christians put up barriers Christ died to destroy?

20 · Historical illustration of segregation in a New England church—wealthy white donors in heated boxes, people of color relegated to the balcony

I remember years ago, I was in New England, and there was this beautiful old historic church. And we went to this beautiful old historic church, probably around since the 1700s, and there were, it was really interesting, 'cause every, basically the way the church was is, especially in the front, all the church members that donated a lot of money got a special box with their family name on it that they would sit there. So it'd be like, oh, here's the Rodriguez box, or here's whatever, you know, and so you're like, great.

And then there was even like a little spot in there, 'cause New England winters are freezing, and so they could put some coals at the bottom of it, And they could be like nice and warm. It's like, "Oh, this is kind of a nice church, you know, this is kind of fun to be here." And you kind of turn around and you look and you're like, "What's that balcony?" And the guys explain, "Oh, the balcony was for anybody who wasn't white. For Native Americans, for black people, whatever. All in the balcony." And so you get this picture vividly of a church, here's the word of God, here's the people who donated a lot of money, and here's everybody who didn't or couldn't.

And you feel like, man, how often do we do that? Without even realizing, without even thinking about it, we put up barriers between, okay, you know what? We're a little bit closer than you.

21 · Direct application calling out subtle forms of exclusion in the contemporary church

Now Ephesians 2 says this: You were all far off and you have all been brought near by Jesus. How dare you put up a little box that says you people out there.

And let me just push on us for a second. If there is anybody that you're hoping— that you come to church and you're like, ah, I really hope they don't come. They don't sit next to me. Or in your community group, you show up and you're like, "I hope there are people that look and talk and act like me, with my background, with my preferences." Church, I think in light of Ephesians 2, I can say, how dare we? Christ has died to make us one.

And Christ's heart is not that they just not fight, okay? It's not just kind of this armistice between people in the church. Christ's heart is that we be one in Christ. And so we don't stop being Jamaican or Mexican or Russian or Iranian in ethnicity, but rather we become more truly, more fundamentally, more gloriously Christian. We become more in Christ, and in that we find our unity.

22 · Closing illustration of a multiethnic gathering of pastors at Philadelphia airport

So let me just end with this. For years, I tried to kind of struggle with my ethnicity and identity to some degree. And I was leaving a pastor's conference in Philadelphia, and so we found ourselves at the Philadelphia airport seated at a big table. And at this table was Todd Peterson, who's one of our brothers who's playing guitar today, two guys, two other guys from Texas, one of the guys from Texas happened to be Middle Eastern, our friend Pastor Billy Reyes with his big mustache, and two brothers from Mexico, one born in the US, one born in Mexico, two guys from Australia, one of them was born in the UK. And so we were hanging out, talking, just discussing the conference we'd been at, having a great time, and we got seated, 'cause it was short, you know, we get seated with another couple at our table, 'cause there just wasn't enough room.

And so this couple, I could just tell they kept like eating and then like glancing over at us, like, kinda like, what is this? Like, 'cause we're all laughing and talking and slapping each other on the back, and so finally they got bold enough to ask, like, hey, so, what is this? Are you, is this some kind of a, are you like a family, or like, And they're trying to figure out, are you like a business? Like, what kind of business is this? This weird Australian, Mexican, or Middle Eastern business.

And so Pastor Billy Reyes, with his big smile, if you know him, he just has this giant smile with his big mustache, just that smile. He says, "Ah, we are just Christian brothers." And that was his explanation. And they were like, "Oh, okay." You know, and here's what I realized. In that moment, I don't think I felt that at the time, but looking back at it, in that moment I realized that's where I belong.

That our fundamental longing to belong, it's not found out there, church. It's found in here.

23 · Brief concluding transition from sermon to congregational worship, inviting the body to stand and respond to the word preached

Amen? Would you stand and let's respond in song.

24 · Closing pastoral prayer synthesizing the sermon's themes and applying them specifically to Cross of Grace church

Now, Lord, I pray, I pray over Cross of Grace, Lord, I pray that you would make us a church that never forgets that we were once far off and have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Lord, I pray that that would shape us. I pray that that would help us, none of us to think more highly of himself or herself than we ought to, that we would we would be humble before you in that way as Paul is seeking to humble us, and that we would be amazed every Sunday that the far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

That, Lord, you and your desire in going to the cross was to reconcile us to God himself, to solve that most fundamental human problem that we all have, that we are strangers to ourselves and castaways. You solve that through the blood of Christ in reconciling us to yourself. And your intent was also in that moment to reconcile people of various nationalities and ethnicities and races to one another. Lord, I pray that Cross of Grace— Lord, I thank you for the ways that Cross of Grace has over the many years been welcoming and hospitable to all. But, Lord, I pray, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that we would put up no barrier to anyone.

Ethnically or economically, based on their background or what they look like or what they— where they've been in life. Lord, I pray that we would be a place quick to usher people, new people to the front, knowing that they too can be brought near by Jesus. I pray that you would do that, that you'd remind us as we sing that there is one thing that unites all of us, and it's not the way we look. It's not our background, not where our grandparents are from. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Sep 11, 2022

Sovereign Grace At the Bottom of It All

Saving grace is sovereign grace—God not only offers salvation to spiritually dead sinners but sovereignly chooses and effectually calls them to himself, making this doctrine a foundation for profound humility, gratitude, and worship.

Ephesians 1:3-5

Sep 25, 2022

It's Alive! It's Alive!

The gap between our spiritual deadness apart from Christ and the resurrection life we have in Christ is filled entirely by God's grace—not by human merit—and that gap is as wide as death to life.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Oct 2, 2022

Main Character Energy

Salvation is none of us and all of Him — accomplished entirely by God's grace without any human contribution — which eliminates all boasting and establishes the foundation for grace-based relationships in every sphere of life.

Ephesians 2:1-10

October 9 · This sermon

A Stranger to Everything and a Castaway

By grace, God brings the far off near together—reconciling alienated humanity both to Himself and to one another through the blood of Christ, creating one new humanity that transcends all ethnic, social, and cultural divisions.

Ephesians 2:11-18

Earlier in the corpus · January 29, 2023

A prior sermon on Ephesians 2:8-10

You preached this same passage — 6 Ephesians 2 citations in that earlier sermon. Worth re-reading before the next time this text comes around.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

What does Paul mean when he says the Gentiles were 'separated from Christ' and 'strangers to the covenants of promise' in Ephesians 2:12? Wh…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week, we trace the arc from humanity's deepest problem—alienation from God—through Christ's reconciling work, to the present reality of a unified church that transcends every barrier.

Prayer

Prayer for the Reconciled and Reconciling Church

Father, we come before you as a people who were once far off, separated from you and from one another by the wall of our own rebellion and s…

Family table

Who Are You Far From?

This sermon teaches that all of us—regardless of background—start out far from God, and Christ brings us near. Invite your family to think a…

Couples

Brought Near by His Blood

What part of this sermon made you stop and think about your own distance from God, or about barriers you've put up between yourself and othe…

Memorize

Ephesians 2:14

This verse captures the sermon's central claim: Christ's death is the singular act that destroys the barrier between alienated peoples and reconciles them to God and each other. It is the theological hinge on which the entire argument turns—the concrete expression of how God brings the far off near.

Sunday-evening family table

Who Are You Far From?

For the parent

This sermon teaches that all of us—regardless of background—start out far from God, and Christ brings us near. Invite your family to think about what it means to be far from someone, and then close to them. Listen for whether kids grasp that being brought near to God changes how we treat each other.

In the sermon, Pastor Ricky talked about people being far away from God—like they were standing outside in the cold looking through a window. Then Jesus's blood brings them near, right up close to God. Think about someone you were far from—maybe you had an argument, or didn't talk for a while—and then you got close again. What changed? How did it feel different once you were near them instead of far away? And if that's how it feels to get close to one person, what do you think it means that Christ brings us close to God?

Works for ages 7+ — younger children may need help with the 'far and near' concept; teens and adults will engage the theological weight.

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Brought Near by His Blood

What part of this sermon made you stop and think about your own distance from God, or about barriers you've put up between yourself and others?
In our marriage, where do we tend to erect walls instead of building bridges—whether through silence, assumptions, or refusal to be vulnerable with each other the way Christ has been with us?
How can we pray for each other this week to live as people who have been brought near by Christ's blood, and to invite others into that same nearness?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Ephesians 2:14

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

Why this verse: This verse captures the sermon's central claim: Christ's death is the singular act that destroys the barrier between alienated peoples and reconciles them to God and each other. It is the theological hinge on which the entire argument turns—the concrete expression of how God brings the far off near.

Draft · pending review

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

What does Paul mean when he says the Gentiles were 'separated from Christ' and 'strangers to the covenants of promise' in Ephesians 2:12? What was their condition before encountering Christ?

Ephesians 2:12

→ How would you describe your own spiritual condition before you came to faith—what were you separated from?
In the sermon, Pastor Ricky argued that all human alienation—ethnic strife, racism, social division—has a root cause. What is that root cause, and where does Paul locate it in Ephesians 2?

Ephesians 2:1-3, Genesis 3
According to Ephesians 2:14-15, what did Christ accomplish through His death? How does the tearing of the temple veil (Matthew 27:50-51) illustrate what Paul means by 'the dividing wall of hostility'?

Ephesians 2:14-15, Matthew 27:50-51

→ What 'walls' do you see people erecting today—either between groups of people or between themselves and God?
The sermon made a claim that both the privileged and the disadvantaged, both Jews and Gentiles in Paul's day, were equally far from God apart of grace. Why does recognizing this equality matter for how we relate to people different from us?

Ephesians 2:11-13
In Ephesians 2:17-18, Paul says Christ 'came and preached peace' and gave both groups access to the Father through one Spirit. What does it mean practically for your small group or church community to live as people who have been 'brought near by the blood of Christ'?

Ephesians 2:17-18

→ Are there people in your church or neighborhood whom you unconsciously hope won't show up? What does that reveal about barriers you may be erecting?
The sermon claimed that no identity category—ethnic, sexual, cultural—can ultimately satisfy our longing to belong; only union with Christ fills that fundamental disconnection. Where do you see people in your circles trying to find belonging in categories other than Christ, and how could you point them toward the deeper belonging He offers?

Revelation 7:9, Ephesians 2:15

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

This week, we trace the arc from humanity's deepest problem—alienation from God—through Christ's reconciling work, to the present reality of a unified church that transcends every barrier.

Monday Genesis 3

The fracture we see in our cities, our nations, our neighborhoods—all of it traces back to one moment: the breaking of relationship between humanity and God. When Adam and Eve turned away from their Creator, they didn't just lose access to Him; they lost the only connection that could hold every other relationship together. Read Genesis 3 not as ancient history, but as the explanation for why we still cannot seem to live at peace with one another.

Tuesday Ephesians 2:1-8

Paul's diagnosis is radical: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, insider and outsider—all of us are dead in our transgressions. We live as though some of us are closer to God because of our station, our heritage, our advantage. But this passage strips away every false hierarchy. We are all equally far. We are all equally recipients of grace. This levels the ground at the foot of the cross.

Wednesday Matthew 27:50-51

When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom—a sign that the barrier between God and humanity was destroyed. That same tearing open happened at Calvary for every wall we erect between ourselves and others. The blood of Christ doesn't just forgive us individually; it tears down the architecture of division itself. What Christ destroyed, we must refuse to rebuild.

Thursday Revelation 7:9

John's vision shows us where Christ is leading: a throne room filled with people from every ethnic background, every language, every human category, all worshiping together. This isn't a distant dream. This is the future Christ is building, and by His Spirit, the church is meant to taste and embody it today. When we gather, we're rehearsing the end.

Friday Ephesians 2:17-18

We search for belonging in a thousand categories: our race, our gender, our nation, our tribe. Christ comes and announces peace to us both—to those far off and those near—and offers something deeper than any identity we can claim for ourselves: access to the Father through one Spirit. That nearness to God is the only closeness that holds. Ask yourself: where am I seeking to belong, and is it pointing me toward Christ?

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Prayer for the Reconciled and Reconciling Church

Father, we come before you as a people who were once far off, separated from you and from one another by the wall of our own rebellion and sin. We confess that apart from your grace, we remain strangers to your kingdom and castways from your presence. We acknowledge that the divisions we see in our world—the ethnic strife, the relational fracture, the cultural separation—are rooted in our deepest alienation from you. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, we have turned from your face, and in doing so, we have turned from each other. We repent of the ways we have honored these divisions, the ways we have built walls where Christ came to tear them down.

But here is the good news: by the blood of Christ, you have brought the far off near. Jesus, the God-man, has made peace by his death on the cross, abolishing the hostility between us and reconciling us both to yourself and to one another in one new humanity (Ephesians 2:14-16). What we could never accomplish through our own effort or identity, Christ has accomplished through his sacrifice. He has given us access—all of us, equally near, equally beloved—to the Father through the Spirit. The dividing wall is gone. The barrier is destroyed. We are no longer strangers.

Grant us, Father, the grace to live as the reconciled people we have become. Free us from the lie that any identity category—ethnic, cultural, social, or sexual—can satisfy the human longing to belong. Teach us to refuse the divisions that the world constructs, to tear down the barriers we are tempted to erect, and to welcome into our churches and communities those whom Christ has already welcomed with his own blood. Give us eyes to see that both the privileged and the disadvantaged are equally far from you apart from grace, and that in Christ, all such distinctions are swallowed up in one new family. Help us to live as ambassadors of this nearness, as witnesses to the reality that you have already made us one.

We commit ourselves to you as a church that belongs to Christ and to one another, refusing to be strangers any longer. To you, Father, Son, and Spirit, be all glory and honor forever.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Cross of Grace Church

About us · What we believe

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# Cross of Grace Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [Sovereign Grace At the Bottom of It All (Ephesians 1:3-5, 2022-09-11)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/09/sovereign-grace-at-the-bottom-of-it-all)
- [It's Alive! It's Alive! (Ephesians 2:1-10, 2022-09-25)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/09/it-s-alive-it-s-alive)
- [Main Character Energy (Ephesians 2:1-10, 2022-10-02)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/10/main-character-energy)
- [A Stranger to Everything and a Castaway (Ephesians 2:11-18, 2022-10-09)](/CoGElPaso/sermons/2022/10/a-stranger-to-everything-and-a-castaway)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

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