Ephesians: Who You are in Christ, You're the Dwelling Place of God [Part 2]

You must understand Christians, we are not saying to the world we are better than you. In fact, no matter if anyone is a Christian at all and we would go back with CLO and we would say Ephesians 21 you really want to know who I am not better than you.

I was dead in my trespasses pastor, author and Bible teacher Alan Wright. Welcome to shearing the light, a program of healing and hope shearing.

The good news of what God is done for us in Jesus Christ were also to hear Allen's message in a series called Ephesians if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program.

I will make sure that you know how to get our special resource right now to be yours for your donation this month to shearing the light as you listen to today's message go deeper as we send you today special offer. Contact us@shearingthelight.org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later program but now let's get started with today's teaching here is Alan Wright. These were the people that were descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and so that's the Jewish people, and this is the people that God had chosen Andre himself to be a light unto the nations and to be a blessing to the whole world.

This is the people through whom God had predestined that there would be an electric one will be one who would be born out of this people, a Jewish boy who would be born in Bethlehem become Savior of the world melt the Jewish people, God's people were given the law of God as a gift to give them instructions in the way of life and so they were to chairs thought the law and they were given an old covenant through Moses, and said if they work obey the laws, then they would be blessed.

But along with this covenant of works. There was also that if you do not obey then you are under a curse.

And so it was that this is that the people God knows the Jewish people of the Gentiles or every other kind of person, and you might see that at different years of history, the Gentiles are characterized by their love of other deities of their love of wisdom like the Greeks or their thirst for power and prominence like the Romans, but all of including the barbarians. All of this would be categorized as Gentiles who had only two in the biblical worldview, there are only two kinds of people there Jewish people and their Gentile people felt was important to understand is that they had such animosity towards one another. It was rooted in this, the people of God who saw themselves as the ones who had the covenant and they had the outward sign of the covenant of circumcision. They saw themselves as God's people and what sin does in the human heart is one or two things.

Either you tend to rebel against that wall or you tend to try to keep that law so much that you feel so much better about yourself but all along the way God had known the people needed a Savior and everything that God had had shown to the life of Israel was in many ways, foreshadowing the Savior that would come the Lord Jesus.

What happens so often among the Jewish people and see this when Jesus's ministry that you had some of the most religious people like the Pharisees. Jesus absolutely rebuked and said you are just you're just like blind guides your ear like whitewashed tombs. You look good on the outside but inside all of the bones and so this criticism. This rebuked the Jesus had was very striking towards the very people that were the Jewish people about the Jewish people look down upon the Gentile people called them dogs and what he was supposed to associate with them.

The Gentiles look to the Jewish people and they either ridiculed them for all their silly laws like handwashing rituals and all of that or they persecuted them as a Jewish people and so persecuted over throughout really their history so you have this development of hostility. It was just so great. I really enjoyed seeing what Pastor Mark Driscoll and all of his irreverent way and sometimes playful way puts it, he said, let's say that there were two boys out playing. Let's say one was a Jew, and one was a Gentile and they weren't supposed to be playing together without playing and they saw one another.

Let's say the Gentile boy asked Jewish boy oh are there any Gentiles in the Bible.

He probably at first feel very encouraged to hear the Jewish boy say yeah actually there a lot of Gentiles in the Bible all good.

The Gentile board site so we made the book yeah the Jewish kid says you guys the Babylonians near the Chaldeans right near the Egyptians, you heard of Nebuchadnezzar that your guy do you like the story of David and Goliath. David was our guide Goliath was your guides all the bad guys, those your guys all the enemies of God and his people. Those are your guys and if this were an old-school Western all your guys are wearing black as all my guys wear white hats where the good guys.

You're the bad guys.

God loves us and God hates you own pretty pretty playful way to put it but that's kind of the become animosity that had developed between Jew and Gentile and and it's important to realize that this is completely for the Jewish people for any by the ever miss understood what it meant to be the chosen people of God that this is an absolute misunderstanding of everything God ever intended.

Right because what got it done as he had chosen the people unto himself, not because he said I love this people and I don't love the rest the world. But he was demonstrating the way of redemption.

What God was going to do was he was going to not just have a chosen people.

He was and have a chosen person he was going to have his only begotten son who would come into the world and this one elect one his son in him would be life for anyone. She must understand Christians, we are not saying to the world we are better than you.

In fact, a matter if anybody is a Christian at all.

We would go back with Paul and we would say Ephesians 21.

If you really want to know who I am. I'm not better than you.

I was dead and my trespasses, I was lost in my sin. I'm not better than anybody. In fact what we recognize because we become more honest we start recognizing the depravity that's in the human soul would never say we're better than you instead were just saying we were dead people, and God made us alive. Can I tell you about the life of God.

We were people who didn't know how loved we were and found out how loved we are can I tell you about the love of God. We were people who were starving and we found bread cannot serve you some we were nearly thirsting to death were not better than you. We are just so thirsty. But we came upon a spring of living water. I can tell you where it is. You see the difference between that went on saying we are better we are just simply saying that we like all of humanity were utterly dead and lost and God, who is rich in mercy, has blessed us and now we have discovered the love of God and we want everyone to know but when you don't have that mentality all manner of division arises and so there is this huge animosity between the divide of the people of God. The Jewish people and the Gentiles.

And you would think that here is where in the spirit of the age. What the world would say is you need a good mediator if you're going to get these people that are so alienated from one another.

You need some by this going to help reconcile them and so there are two versions of our story. They get told and I want to tell you.

First, the version that is more palatable for the spirit of the age. The version that is more believable right, the less tall tale would go something like this. God saw that his precious people were confused. They were hurting one another. The Jewish people, the ones that he didn't trust the wall to in the promises to had not been able to keep the laws of the given them, and they tended to become idolatrous and abandoned is lost when they tended to become prideful and boasted how well they kept the loss compared to others. In short, they felt themselves to be better. They call themselves the circumcision, the covenant people and all the rest were bad guys but non-circumcise the non-covenant people and the uncircumcised hated the Jews because they were so boastful and so prideful and they thought themselves better than everyone else. So they rebelled all the more, and they sought to overpower the Jews and show them who was really in charge. What would God do to bring reconciliation. So this version says he would send a mediator a peacemaker and the mediator would be born in a humble way and a baby as a baby and Bethlehem born to a peasant girl amidst a scandal that she was betrothed and not yet married and he would grow up to be one of the most loving people most open-minded men so gracious that he could get along with everyone and when he began teaching publicly. Everyone was amazed at how wise he was and they were amazed at his ideology.

This new ideology of love. He was the perfect mediator because he didn't judge either side, Jew or Gentile. But he could bring them together with his new peaceful solutions. He advocated peaceful solutions accepted all kinds of people and talk tolerance so that people could learn to get along.

There were some who misunderstood him and like so many great advocates of peace. Violent men killed him but his life stands as a model for us today.

Jesus is faults trial and the abuse that he suffered is an inspiration to us because if he suffered for his teachings of peace and tolerance and love, then we ought to be able to make his teachings more real to ourselves and to others. If we would just hearken unto his teachings and follow his example, we could bring people of all faiths and ideologies together and coexist with one another in a new dimension of love and harmony that sounds like you are listening to sharing the light will have more teaching from today's important series. Think Eli really think about how you see yourself as you see yourself as wife SM you might as well do nothing worthwhile if UCSF is treasured in your investor suffered joy to see himself as a center cursed less to become that I'm free. You see yourself determines how you read to get to sharing the light in this case it seems imposter. Ireland's messages are bound on a USB thumb drive with your digital Dharma is on way of saying thanks for your partnership sound like letter to the nations drinking the gospel and discover who you are, according to God. Time to finally find out who you really are happy to send this to you as I banks from sharing the right ministries, 877-544-4860 or come to my website sharing the right to like your listening to sharing the today's teaching now continues once again is Alan Wright really good man came who really loved like nobody's ever loved before, and you didn't judge people and he was able to teach peace and blessed are the peacemakers and and that through this so much good came into the world and so we have a lot to learn from this man of Jesus. And that's essentially the version that the is palatable to the culture around us is issues, not our gospel. Our gospel is way more unbelievable than that carcass was just way more improbable than that. It's way more fantastic. It's far more supernatural. It is extraordinary. It's preposterous. It's it's unbelievable to earthshaking the story is far different. We give you the tall tale told tale version is this God's all that his people, his own people were unable to keep the law and that the cause of this, they were under a curse of sin and death for the been prescribed in the beginning that the wages of sin is death and God, who is rich in mercy, will that no one would perish long that everyone have everlasting life, and he saw that there was a great wall of hostility between the people that he had called to be a blessing unto the nations but that instead was hostility and hatred towards the nations and God love all people the same and he and his great infinite mercy and richness.

The creator who created the great dog star and created every molecule, the God of infinite wisdom and glory did the unthinkable.

He came to the earth, leaving behind the raiment of heavenly glory and becoming an ovum in a peasant girl's womb, and being born as a helpless baby and Bethlehem and there were shepherds that were watching their flocks nearby and the angel of the Lord appeared unto them, and said, glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth and it was declared under the shepherds boy that unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior is Christ the Lord, with the expectation of the chosen people of God has now come to pass in this new king has been born.

So great was this news that Magi later from a faraway place in the East came following the supernatural star that actually led them to the very place where Jesus was and they being warned by the Lord not to go back to Herod, went back by a different route because Herod wanted to kill the baby boy but an angel spoke to Joseph and told him to take the child over to Egypt until the threat was gone because even though the baby was utterly vulnerable. The baby was utterly protected because this baby was fully human, and yet was fully God. This may be, who had yet to do any ministry none.

The last was the son of God who grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and with man. And when the time came. So our story goes, when the time came for his public ministry he was speaking in his own hometown of Nazareth, a little Podunk town in Galilee, but his fame had begun to spread as a great teacher and a wonderful rabbi and so they were honored to have a visiting Rabbi at synagogue that day and so they handed him the scroll to read the preselected Scripture and then to expound upon that Scripture and so it was that Jesus of Nazareth unfurled that scroll and it happened that that date is selected reading was from Isaiah chapter 61 and he read that the read the words of the prophet who had spoken eight centuries earlier in the prophet Isaiah had spoken under the unction of the Holy Spirit seeing into things that were eight centuries ahead and and had said that the spirit of the Lord's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor and to bind up the broken hearted, to bring release to the captives, and open the my the eyes of the blind and to proclaim the year of Jubilee. The favor of the Lord is at hand. And he read the Scripture from Isaiah 61 he rolled the scroll back up and handed it to the attendant. They sat down in all the eyes of everyone in Nazareth was fixed upon this young rabbi, and he looked at them and he said I imagine with a smile.

Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

He said I am the Messiah that is been awaited and what is being announced through my ministry is something that will change the world and he went on to heal the sick, and raise the dead, and open up blind eyes literally and spiritually. And yes, he taught amazing things and spoke of peace and spoke of love and spoke of the glorious truth of an eternity with God, and there was only one thing that the Jews and the Gentiles ever agreed upon the Jewish aristocracy and the religion and the Ende and the Roman authorities ended up agreeing upon. This one thing this man ought to be killed, but this man wasn't killed. Instead, Jesus said on several occasions. No one takes my life from me. I lay down my own life because it was my God set for ordained purpose that Jesus would come and that Jesus would lay down his life by his own volition. Why, because what Jesus had come to do. He set his face resolutely toward Jerusalem and he did because the son of God who was perfect and sinless and righteous and deserve nothing but God's good pleasure and eternal reward and majesty. Instead, he hung up on the cross he had been beaten and flogged to the point that he could barely walk in someone else had to carry his cross, and by the time they nailed into that tree.

He was merely dead. They didn't need to break his legs as was customary because his crucifixion was swift. He was ready and he was ready to surrender his spirit and he spoke it is finished and when he said it is finished. When he died that day the earth shook the cosmos was changed. There was some dead people in the graves that couldn't stand it so they just came on up and came alive because everything had changed because in his body he took within himself the sin of humanity the perfect unstained son of God became as if he was contaminated with the poison of every sin of life. He drank of the cup of suffering and he drank it to the drain and he not only took within himself the whole curse, but he took upon himself the whole penalty of any wrath of God against sand for all time in the past and the present and in the future. So when he said it is finished he meant it is finished.

No one needs to die anymore. The law has served its purpose, but now a new era has common and new covenant is been established, and when he was buried. He was really dead and he was really married, but all the third day, a glorious light came bursting forth full of the same power that came forth from the mouth of God in the beginning when he said, let there be light in that resurrection power of God raise that Nazarene from the grave and he gave many convincing proofs that he was still alive, so much so that the gospel writers speak of it is one of those miraculous times he was ascended to the right hand of God the father, which was better for us. He said because if I go to the father been what it means is I'll send my spirit to you. The Holy Spirit will come and I will be with you until the end of the age. And I'll never leave you will never forsake you.

And so what has happened. He said, is that I have become sand so that you would become my righteousness and anybody therefore who is in Jesus Christ comes into an awareness of a perfect love casts out all fear. And when there's a perfect love that casts out all fear the human heart no longer has a need to place itself about other people and racism and prejudice in the wall of hostility comes down because something supernatural has happened.

Everybody who is in Christ is now a part of the third form of humanity kind of race, one who is in Christ is no longer Jew or Gentile no longer Jew or Greek no longer male or female, no longer black or white no longer this or that one in Christ, and we have become like cells in the body of the head of Jesus Christ and he is alive within us and we like cells in a body or given a spiritual DNA that connects us in a supernatural way that is eternal, that is glorious, is beyond our comprehension. What is happened literally is that you church have not only been brought together with one another you been brought together with God and become good swelling place of God.

Take it or leave it, but that's our story and I'm sticking with it because that is the gospel you're listening to shearing the line.

Today's teaching you're the dwelling place of God is from the Scripture and the overall theory from Ephesians and it's your hearing the like. We've got more from Alan in the studio with additional insight for your life coming you think Eli really think about how you see yourself. If you see yourself as my face, then you might as well do nothing worthwhile if UCSF is treasured in your investor stuff with joy.

If you see yourself as a center curse tire failures and less to become that I'm free. You see yourself determines how you read to get to shearing the light in this case it seems imposter.

Ireland's message is attractive.

See USB thumb drive with your digital Dharma is on way of saying thanks for your partners Pastor Alan might letter to the nations drinking the gospel and discover who you are. According to die. Time to finally find out who you really are happy to send this to you as I banks from sharing the right ministries, 877-544-4860 or come to my website sharing the right idyllic elements. The mark of a wonderful sermon when you start off that you had that silence make the same statement at the end and you get rousing pillow is clicked. It's made since now.

What a wonderful conclusion.

We are the dwelling place of God. It is something that will make you just want to either sit in all or shout glory your or let it just sink deeply into our story. Daniel is not one that should be no tone down or maintain because it seems so outrageous. It's one that should be announced in all of its glory. And this is what God's thing at our list that every single woman you accept Christ you become his dwelling place always encouraged to hear from you whether you visit online at shearing the dog or or call 877 like again shearing the.OR G or call 877 LI GHD 60 get Allen writes daily shearing the like devotional in your inbox each morning when you sign up at shearing the like who Archie this is been sharing the light Helen right listener supported production of shearing the likeness