Chris Osborne, Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Ministry and James T. Draper Chair of Pastoral Ministry at Southwestern Seminary, preached from Ephesians 2:11-19, in SWBTS Chapel on February 20, 2025.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
So, open your Bibles, please to Ephesians two we are going to walk through 11 through 19. Now, whenever you preach a sermon, if you’re going to be correct about it, there are two things about every sermon that you implement. One is what, and the other is so what. So, the what is, you explain the passage, and then the so what, as you walk through how that passage should manifest itself in a practical way in your life, this passage is probably the easiest, clearest, strongest passage on what Paul’s saying here. The what we’ll walk through pretty quickly does not require any elaboration. Even Augustine could have figured it out. I had to throw that out there for you systematic boys. It’s extraordinarily easy. What blows me away, though, is the so what I need to be careful here.
But the so what in the Southern Baptist Convention on the whole now we completely ignore, and we don’t care, so because of our so what, we ignore the what here, even with the immensity of the clarity. Now to understand the text, we’re going to have to do just a quick background run here. He’s talking about peace between Jews and Gentiles, and they don’t like each other. That’s the understatement of the millennium. Matter of fact, Paul’s in jail in Rome, and just a couple of years after the writing in this book, it’s going to be a Jewish revolt, and Rome is going to come down and take care of that. As a matter of fact, Titus will come sacked Jerusalem.
He’ll blow up the temple, he’ll blow up the walls of the city, then he goes home. But the interesting thing is, there are like 900 Jews that escape. Who cares? Right? It’s 900 Jews. Big deal. They conquered the capital, but the Roman the Jews and the Gentiles, the Jews and the Romans had such a bad relationship that the Romans decided it wasn’t enough just to conquer Jerusalem, and so what they do is they chase these 900 Jews down into Masada. The Masada was a fortress that Herod, the Great had built. He was a genius, but he built this fortress on this mesa. The only way to get up, it was a snake path that one person could walk at a time, single file. He put up their places to get out of the weather. He had baths. He had cisterns for water. He had places for food. I mean, it could hold easily, which it did, 960 something Jews. And it was just, I mean, they were free.
You couldn’t get up to the mesa. See, you would think that the Romans even chasing them down there would have said, ah, 900 Jews, we’ve conquered the nation. Let’s go home. But they don’t. They stay there about four weeks, and they can’t get up that snake path. So, what they do is they build a dirt ramp all the way up side of the hill of the mesa, and finally they finish the ramp, and they get up, kick open the door, and when they walk in with their swords ready to fight and kill, they’re met with An eerie silence, and what they find are 960 bodies. Out of a combination of killing and suicide. These Jews have decided they’d rather die than live under Roman slavery. These two groups don’t like each other. Their morals are different. The way they live are different. Their understanding of what’s valuable is different.
Every single thing about these two groups is disparate and different and totally distinct. But before this rebellion occurs, just a few years before where all this is starting to kind of rumble, and people are getting mad, and talks going on, and as this rebellion begins to kind of heat up, right in the middle of the heating up, he writes his Letter from the Capitol that’s about to destroy his capital. What’s intriguing is, if everybody’s right about this book, and they probably are, then it’s not a book really written just to the Ephesians. It’s probably a circular letter. So went to more than one church, then when he writes this section that we’ve read, he’s writing that every single church he seems to be writing to is struggling getting the Jews and Gentiles together in the church. It’s a difficulty, which makes great sense, particularly in this moment. If he did fever there, they’re not happy with each other. And now Sunday morning. They’re kind of stuck with each other.
There’s only one church in town, right? There’s no Redeemer Lutheran or Second Baptist, or anything else. There’s one church. So, they’re kind of stuck with each other. So, I want you to listen, walk with me carefully to what Paul says, simple, clear, incredibly, strong. I want you to notice the clarity. I want you to notice the strength. So, when we come to what this mean for us, we’ll change who we are. Listen to what he says. Here he goes. Remember, he’s writing to the Gentiles when you were Gentiles in the flesh, the ones called uncircumcised by the ones that were circumcised, but with hands, you were, at that time, apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, not having hope and without God in the world, there’s your best news you’ve had in a long while.
That’s where references to all of us, he says, basically to the Gentiles in the church. He said, I want you to understand, prior to Christ, you literally were nothing. Had nothing. You were zero. You had no hope. You didn’t have God in the world. You were finished, then I love what he does. He’s done it already in the chapter he says in verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, now listen, listen to how he says all that he’s going to say. But now in Christ, Jesus, You, who were once far away, become near in the blood of Christ. So, he’s already said two things.
He said, look, things have changed. You’re not where you used to be. It’s not like it used to be. And the reason it isn’t is because of the person of Christ and His blood. So, he’s very precise, very clear, very strong, easy to understand. You’re in trouble now you’re not. You were far away. Now you’re near, and it’s because of the person and the blood of Christ. And then he moves on, for he is our peace, the one who made both one and destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility in his flesh, the law of commandments and decrees, he nullified that the two might become in him, one new man making peace.
Now he pulls out here, basically a metaphor. If you remember when Christ died, the veil in the temple, right? You’ve got the Holy of Holies, a veil in that was torn open. Now the temple is still standing, obviously, when he’s writing this, but he’s pulling a metaphor out, saying, since that was destroyed, what you need to understand is all these courts, all these places the Jewish men could go, here, priest here, holy of holies here, high priests one day a year. Then you have court of the men. You have court of women, Gentiles. In all of these there was a big wall and a door, even the signs, matter of fact, where the money changers were Gentiles could get on that part of the temple. But there was a sign, literally, that really did say, if you go past this door, we’ll kill you if you’re a Gentile.
So, what Paul says is, look, in Christ, he says, the law set all this up, but now in Christ, all of that’s gone. I want you to understand what he’s saying. He’s saying in Christ now Jew and Gentile can be standing in the place where the money changers are, and you can literally now walk all the way straight up into the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God is. He says, Jesus has changed it all. He says, as a Jew, you don’t have to keep the law to make the walk, and as a Gentile, you don’t have to become a Jew to make the walk. He’s very clear. You’ve got to understand this. He’s very clear. Thank you so much. He’s very clear. You got to understand this. The Jew and Gentile Walk together in Christ all the way into the very presence of God.
Now, watch what he does, watch where he goes now, so that the two might be created in him into one new man, making peace. And He reconciled both in one body to God through the cross by killing the hostility in himself. And he came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who are near now. So, he comes back. Again, in verse 16, look, he makes us both one in the body of Christ through his cross by killing the hostility in himself. And then in verse 18, he pulls the whole Trinity in. He says, because through him, we have the access, both of us in one spirit to the Father. So now he pulls the Trinity in. He says, we all, because of Jesus, have been given the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, we experience the Father. So, you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you’re fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God. Now John, I want you to listen to what he did. Okay? He says, Jun Gentile, one, there’s peace between us.
Doesn’t matter what’s going on in the culture. We’re sitting in a church building, and we’re struggling because we’re coming out of different cultures, and we don’t like each other, and we’re struggling sitting in church. And so, Paul writes this so that every church will get it that the unity between the Jew and the Gentile, the total peace between the two, is rooted in the Body, Blood cross Person of Jesus. It’s not rooted in whether or not we like each other. It’s not rooted in whether or not we’ve come out of the same background. We’ve had the same morals. We married as virgin.
So, this guy slept with 27 women, but now we’re both sitting in the same house, listening to the same gospel, singing the same songs. Doesn’t matter. We’re the same, spiritually identical in Now listen, in the body, the blood, the person and the cross of Christ, you can’t get any more important. You can’t get anything in the universe more important than the body, blood, person and cross of Christ, nothing. And he says that’s the basis of you guys being together, because I don’t care if you like each other, I don’t care what you like and don’t like you’re in Christ together, and I want you to live there.
Now this is obviously a huge deal to Paul for two reasons. Number one, it’s probably one of the clearest passages Paul ever wrote in the Bible. But the other reason is because he laces it with everything he can say about Jesus, that He can say, talks about his body, his cross, His blood, his person. Says it over and over and over and over. You cannot miss this, that the unity between two groups that hate each other in the secular world. But when they come on Sunday mornings, they’re together because of the blood body cross and Person of Jesus Christ, and as a result of that, they are identical spiritually, so should be able to be in the room together and worship together.
The reason Paul is so passionate about this because of two things. Number one, he understands if they catch this, right, if they really, honestly, catch this. And Sunday morning, Monday morning, one Gentile is walking down the street with his buddy. His buddy says, where’d you go yesterday? And he says, well, I went to church. What’s a church? Well, went there, and we sang songs to this deity that I’ve met Jesus, and we worship together. We take communion, we take a Lord’s Supper. Together. We do we look at the Bible together. He said, what do you mean? Together? With whom? Well, with some Jews. I’m sorry, you’re in the room with a bunch of Jews. Oh yeah, Gentile, yeah. You ever go in their home? Absolutely been in the home. Had supper. Great time. You like these people? No, I love these people. What do you have in common? Well, we only have one thing. I mean, we’ve come out of different backgrounds, everything similar. We have one thing. We met the same Jesus Christ, and because of that, his Holy Spirit has come into us, and now we have fellowship with the Creator of the universe.
We both have it. So, we both enjoy singing together. We enjoy taking us up. Together. We enjoy praying together. We enjoy community Absolutely. Now, when he walks away, this Gentile is thinking one of two things, either this guy is mad, or how in the world, and who is this Jesus, that He can bring two groups that hate each other so badly and put them in the same house and in the same room at the same time, and have them love each other. How in the world can that occur? What Paul is deeply passionate about is he wants the efficacy of the cross of Christ to be demonstrated across the Roman Empire.
Every church is obviously struggling with it, but he wants all these places where churches are springing up to demonstrate in a community and in a culture, that’s beginning heeded unrest to say, Listen, Jesus, Christ can really make a difference. He can change you inside out. And the demonstration of that will be two cultures that don’t like each other at total peace with each other through the body, the blood, the person and the cross of Christ.
He’s excited, I think he’s also fearful, which is why he spends this long section. Now listen, just going to get hard here in a moment, just listen, he’s also fearful that should they not do this? They lose in the middle of this feisty culture now, they lose the ability to demonstrate the power of the cross of Jesus Christ, if, for example, at Ephesus, they give him a call and say, look, we’ve decided we’re going to have the Gentile church here, and we’re going to have a Jewish church over here. We just can’t hang anymore. Or even if it was worse than that, even if they’re in the same house and say, the Gentiles are going to meet in the living room, we Jews are going to meet back in the bedroom.
We just can’t worship together. I saw somebody say the other day; Paul saw that he’d be sending another letter. That’s exactly right. He’d be popping a letter out, because he’d be howling at the idea that you should have the Jews in the bedroom and the Gentiles in the living room at the same time singing of the same Jesus. It would be appalling to him. So, you explain to me how in the SBC that that is exactly what we do, and then we pat ourselves in the back for our ingenuity. I won’t say where, but I preached in the church another state couple of years ago. Three worship services. Sunday morning had an 815 traditional, 930 contemporary, dark lights, smoke, the whole thing 11 o’clock, traditional. But here was the irony.
And I just, I’m sitting in all three services watching this, going, how can they not see this? Because in all three services, they had a video and the video was about how and it had older people with younger people in the video, and they were talking about how we love each other, we care about each other, We enjoy each other. How do you do that when you can’t even worship together? I don’t understand how you can read this and have two different worship services. I don’t understand that because when you do different worship services, I can’t even sit with a 22-year-old kid and sing with him for 20 minutes. And yet I’m going to run around saying, I believe in the body, blood person and cross of Jesus Christ is bringing unity, so that both Jew and Gentile can walk straight into the Holy of Holies. But I’m going to stop for a minute before we get in there, because I don’t want to go in with him, because I don’t like his music. Are you kidding me? We have lost our minds in the SBC. We have stepped away.
We ignore this. Why every pastor I’ve ever asked so. I said, why are you doing two worship services? Every pastor has always given me the same answer. Said, well, we if don’t do that. We’ll lose people. They’ll leave. I have two words for that. Let them we are not called to chase crowds. We are called to make and find disciples. Jesus Christ had in John six, probably 15,000 people following him. Now, he was Jewish. Grew up in a Jewish home. He knew what a big thing this was, and so he told them those 12, 15,000 he said, look, here’s what you have to do. You got to drink my blood. You got to eat my flesh. And he said it over and over in about three verses.
So, the Bible says, After this, many of His disciples left and no longer walked with him. And then Jesus said to the 12, he ran off, 12,000 people, he knew they’d leave. He could’ve made it easier if he said to them, when he said to Nicodemus in John three, you got to be born again, they wouldn’t have left. If he said to them what He said in John four, drink from me or never thirst again, they wouldn’t have left. But he put it in a term that he knew they would leave, and he left him with 12. But I want you to listen to what he was looking for. Are you wanting to leave too? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, where would we go now? Listen to what he says. Now I’m going to read it literally from the Greek.
You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and we have come to know that you alone are the Holy One of God. That’s a disciple. You’re not a disciple because you cried during a praise song. You’re not a disciple you go to eight Bible studies. You’re a disciple when you’re so sure of who Jesus is, it doesn’t matter what he asks you to believe, or do you are all in and I do not think Jesus would ask us to have an old folks worship service and a young person’s worship service. If people will leave, let them go. We are not chasing crowds. We are called to make disciples, and that discipleship can be anywhere with people who believe what I believe about Jesus.
I can be at peace anywhere. And this is causing, it’s causing what’s killing us in that stats are, we’re losing our young people, right? They’re not coming back to church. Part of that is this, virtually every person I’ve ever heard give me a reason for why they joined the church today, it’s always the same thing. Well, we love the music. We like the preacher. They have good programs. So, we joined. It’s been great. In other words, we joined because we’re going to consume whatever makes us happy. And so, when the kids grow up, they live off that consumer idea. When they marry and move off and go to another town and they can’t find a church that they like, they don’t go because they learned that from mom and dad. What mom and dad had sat them down, wouldn’t say and said, look, when you were born, God gave us certain talents. When we were reborn, God gave us certain spiritual gifts, and he’s called us to serve in his kingdom.
So, here’s what we’re going to do as a family. We’re going to look for people who have the Holy Spirit because of their belief in the blood of Jesus and access to the Father. We’re going to find people like that, and we’re going to ask God, where do you want us to go, to serve best in your king? Which church can we serve your kingdom best in we may not like the music the best. We may not like the preaching the best. They may not have the best programs. But where do you want us to go, because we’re not going to base our church membership on our consumerism. We’re going to base it on your spirit call. We’d see radical alteration across our convention, because we’d have people going to churches that are. Struggling today because everybody wants to go where they feel good instead of where they’re actually cold.
It’s amazing to me how clear that is, how pungent it is. I don’t understand how we ignore that and then pat ourselves on the back. Problem of this passage is not the what, it’s the so what. And it is time. It really is time that worship and church membership and service in the church is not about my pleasure, it is about his heart. Let’s pray.
Father just takes back to the clarity of your word. It’s not hard to understand, but just make us obedient to the clarity of your truth. So, I’ll ask in Jesus’ name Amen.
