In today’s exposition with Dr. John Kyle, we embark on an exploration of identity and transformation through the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Addressing the call to remember our spiritual journey from alienation as Gentiles to being embraced through Christ’s sacrifice, the session unveils the profound implications of being God’s workmanship. Dr. Kyle skillfully bridges historical context with modern-day faith, illustrating the relevancy of Paul’s teachings. This episode challenges Christians to live a life of purpose and fruitfulness, rooted in the knowledge of who they once were and what Christ has done for them.
Welcome to Expository Truths, where we exalt Christ by bringing clarity of truth through the scriptures with Dr. John Kyle, pastor of Faith Community Church in Vacaville. As Christians, we’re called to know the truth and be able to proclaim it. We can know truth when we know the Word of God, which is precise, without error, and powerful and effective for both salvation and spiritual growth. Enjoy digging deeply with Dr. Kyle as he takes us verse by verse through the powerful book of Ephesians, giving us a marvelous summary of the good news of Christ and its implications for our daily lives.
SPEAKER 02 :
Please turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 13. The letter of Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul to the faithful saints living in the city of Ephesus. Paul wrote this while he was under house arrest in Rome in about AD 62, and he wrote it to lay a proper doctrinal foundation for these believers so they could then live out those doctrines for the glory of God. We’re now in the doctrinal section of this book that’s found in chapters 1 through 3. We’re right in the middle of it. And if you remember, chapter 1 was basically two long sentences. The first sentence showed us the many amazing reasons that we can and should bless and praise our amazing God. And the second sentence was a prayer by Paul for the Ephesians that we today should be praying for ourselves and for each other as we earnestly pursue the things that we are praying for. Chapter 2 began by telling us that we were all dead spiritually before God saved us. But good news, right? God is rich in mercy. God is great in love. He made us alive because He’s incredibly gracious to us. He also raised us to life and gave us His divine power for victorious living. And then to top it all off, He will show us His abundant grace and kindness for all eternity. But God, and He changes everything. See, it’s all Him. It’s all His grace, so that means that there’s no boasting on our part. No, our only boast is in Him. And then think of this. Verse 10 says that we Christians are God’s workmanship, His masterpieces. Therefore, go on and live like it. How? Do God’s work. Bear much fruit. Live out your faith because you love Him and because He is worthy. Walk well in what God has prepared beforehand for you to do. All right, what’s next? Verse 11. Therefore, verse 11. Therefore, remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from 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. And that’s just a taste. We’re just going to hit on that last part. We’ll get into it more next week. Alright, this is very interesting. Remember. Remember what you once were. Didn’t Paul say in Philippians 3.13 to forget? Right? To forget those things which are behind? Didn’t he say that? Yes, he did. So, Paul is contradicting himself here, right? No, absolutely not. Why? Because the point of forgetting in Philippians and then remembering here in Ephesians is the same point. In Philippians, it calls us to forget anything that’s going to hinder you from pressing on in the faith. And here in Ephesians, it calls us to remember anything that will help you to press on in the faith. It’s the same point. So, what might Christians need to forget? Well, how about memories of sin and failure that, when remembered and when dwelt on, only bring discouragement and disappointment and heartache? You need to put that all behind you. You need to forget that, bask in God’s grace, and move forward. Okay, what else might Christians need to forget? How about past successes? That when remembered and when dwelt on, cause you to well up with pride and self-satisfaction and cause you to rest in those past successes rather than continuing to press on in the faith. No, forget that and live today passionately and for the glory of God because every day is a new opportunity to glorify our good God whom we love, see? And so the sins, the successes, the failures, the victories, the mess-ups, the good accomplishments, they are all what they are, but what matters now is what you do today and what lies ahead. That’s what matters. Honor Christ now. Glorify Him now. So again, why then the call to remember here in Ephesians 2? Well, because remembering what you once were apart from Christ and then remembering what He did for you when He gave you new life, come on, that is a great way to get renewed in the faith. It’s a great way to get refilled with love and passion for your amazing God who rescued you from eternal wrath. Look what God did for me. I deserve nothing good, but He gave me everything freely. He rescued me from eternal wrath. He adopted me when I was rebellious. He saved my undeserving soul. He gave me everything for nothing. He made me His poem, His masterpiece. And as I look back, I can’t help but be filled with heartfelt love for my King. See how it works? This charge to remember takes us back, not just to the preceding couple of verses, but it takes us all the way back to Ephesians 2, 1, because that entire section that’s found in verses 1 through 10 is one single sentence in the original language, the Greek. So therefore, in light of everything that Paul told us in verses 1 through 10, remember all that. It’s interesting that this is the first command that Paul gives in the book of Ephesians. And there isn’t another command until chapter 4. So what he says here is very important. I mean, it’s all important, right? But this is important too. Remember what you once were, and then remember what God has done for you. Paul goes on to remind the Ephesians what they once were. Note how important this is for all Christians to do. Why? Because if we don’t do this regularly, if we don’t remember, then we can easily slip into apathy and leave Jesus, our first love, for much lesser loves. It can easily happen to you. And that’s exactly what happened to the Ephesian Christians only about 30 years after Paul wrote these words. Look what Jesus said in Revelation 2.4 to the church in Ephesians, in Ephesus, some 30 years later. He said this, But I have this against you. That’s not good. You’ve left your first love. You’ve left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first. Or else I’m coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. And that’s why remembering is so very important for us. Because it’s easy… for us to lose focus. It’s easy for us to get sidetracked. It’s easy for us to take our eyes off of Christ and focus on things that really don’t matter. It’s easy. One said, perhaps now is a good time to pause and recall your great salvation in Christ. It’s excellent preventative medicine for your soul. Nothing inspires gratitude more in a saved sinner than a look back to the pit from which he or she has been extracted from. That’s absolutely right. Therefore, Remember what you once were. And then, which we’ll really get to next week, remember what amazing things God has done for you. But first, Paul reminds the Ephesians what they once were, and this greatly applies to us. Look, first they were Gentiles, verse 11. Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands. Now, remember, a Gentile was a non-Jew, which before Christ came was a very serious thing. Why? Because for 2,000 years, from Abraham to Christ, God chose to work through the Jewish people, the Hebrew people, the people of God. Note that all these terms, the Hebrews, the Jews, and the Israelites, they’re all referring to the same people, to the same nation. The nation that came from the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Look, in Genesis 14, 13, Abraham is called the Hebrew. And that’s the first use of the word Hebrew in the Bible. So, where does it come from? Well, back in the genealogy in Genesis 11, one of Abraham’s ancestors was named Eber, who was the great-grandson of Shem. From Eber came that term Hebrew, and this then became a term that was used for Abraham and for his descendants. Okay, but what about the term Israel? Well, if you remember, after wrestling with God in Genesis 32, God blessed Jacob and changed his name from Jacob, which literally means supplanter, heel grabber, and deceiver, to Israel, which means God’s fighter. or he struggles with God, which is a very positive thing. Because after that wrestling match, which Jacob lost, look, Jacob won in the sense that he is now focused on the Lord and not so much on himself. Well, all his descendants then became known as Israelites, children of Israel. Okay, but what about the term Jew? Well, that term is derived from Jacob’s fourth son, Judah. And while it originally applied only to Judah’s descendants, it later was shortened to Jew and came to refer to all the Israelites, the Jewish people, regardless of their tribal ancestry. And it was through these people, the Israelites, that God revealed Himself and His salvation to humanity. It’s also through the Jewish people that Christ would come and bless the whole world, including us. See, God gave His law to the Jewish people. And at that time before Christ, the only way you could have a saving relationship with the one true God was by becoming a part of the people of Israel, a proselyte. And then by adhering to the system that God had set up in His law, which pointed people to repent in faith in Him for salvation and life. That said, please note this, you could be an Israelite and not be saved easily. Because not every physical Israelite was a saved Israelite, not at all. Instead, only those who were believing and repentant Israelites were truly saved. Only those who put their trust in God and then, as a result, obeyed God from the heart were truly saved. But again, it was through the Jewish people that God revealed himself and his salvation to humanity. And to be a Gentile, to be a non-Jew, was to be a pagan unbeliever. The good news is that when Jesus came, lived, died on the cross in the believer’s place as their substitute, and then rose up from the dead, Jesus put an end to that system, which was all a picture of Christ, the fulfillment of what the old foreshadowed. See, it’s not about being a Jew or Gentile anymore. No, it’s about Christ. and faith in christ and now look if you were jewish the way to be saved is to put your repentant faith in christ alone to save you and when you truly do that guess what you’re saved and also if you’re a gentile the way to be saved is to put your repentant faith in christ alone to save you and when you truly do that you are saved see it’s the same The Gentiles don’t have to become Jewish first in order to be saved anymore. No. They simply have to put their faith in Christ alone to be saved from the deadly wages of their sin. But here, Paul is encouraging these Ephesians to remember who and what they once were before they were saved. What was that? Unbelieving Gentiles. That was their background. That was their history. Here, Paul is highlighting their pagan, polytheistic religious heritage before they came to saving faith in Christ. And it was truly wretched. It seems clear that in the past, they didn’t know the one true God, and they didn’t care about the one true God, and they lived the way Gentiles commonly lived at that time and in that day, as rebels of God and as followers of idols. Wicked, see? Utterly wicked. Paul adds that they were called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in flesh by hands. What does that mean? Well, for the Jewish people, physical circumcision was a very big deal. Technically, circumcision is a surgical removal of the foreskin of the male. The word circumcised literally means to cut around. And it was this rite of circumcision that was required in Genesis 17 for all of Abraham’s descendants as the outward sign of a man’s participation in Israel’s covenant and agreement with God. But note that while it was an external act, it was supposed to represent an inward reality. See, it was a picture of man’s desperate need for sin to be cut away and for spiritual cleansing to take place in your heart and life. I mean, it was never just to be an external act only, no. But rather, it symbolized moral purity and separation from the world unto God. So circumcision was of great value to the Jews before Christ came as a reminder of their covenant relationship to God and of the need to be morally set apart unto God. That said, for many of the Jews of the day, the external ritual itself is what they valued, not what it represented. Side note, physical circumcision is of no spiritual value today now that Christ has come. But over the years… And the external act came to be synonymous with Judaism. And it was touted as a badge of their spiritual and national superiority. And here… When Paul mentions that they were called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in flesh by hands, Paul is reminding these Gentile Christians of how they were viewed by the Jews. What was that? As uncircumcised, which was a term of mockery, a term of reproach. Here Paul’s highlighting the fact that in their past, the Jewish people hated and despised them, the Ephesian Gentiles, as Gentiles. And clearly, these Jews who would do this were God’s people in name only, of course, because they were supposed to be a light to the Gentiles, but instead they despised the Gentiles. In fact, it was common for a Jewish man to begin the day with a prayer thanking God that he wasn’t a Gentile. A basic part of the Jewish system of the day consisted of an oath that promised that no one would ever help a Gentile under any circumstance. It even went as far as refusing to help a Gentile woman at the time of her greatest need when she was giving birth because the result would only be to bring another Gentile into the world. Therefore, we’re not going to help her. Look, if a Jew married a Gentile, the Jewish community would have a funeral for the Jewish person and consider them dead. It was thought that to even enter the house of a Gentile made a Jew unclean before God. The Jews commonly viewed the Gentiles as unclean dogs. Ancient Jewish writings tell of a Gentile woman who came to a rabbi. She confessed that she was a sinner and asked to be admitted to the Jewish faith. Rabbi, she said, bring me near. The rabbi refused and he slammed the door in her face. And while it was never supposed to be like that, this is what it had become. It was all external, but it wasn’t real in the heart. And so the people with the outward sign of circumcision and no inward reality, they would despise and they would mock the unsaved pagan Gentiles. So question. Why does Paul ask these Gentile Christians to remember this, what they were before Christ saved them? Why? To remind them how hopeless they once were before Christ rescued them. I mean, the people who were supposed to be the aroma of God to them, the Jews, they utterly hated and despised them, the Gentiles. And so it all looked insurmountable. They were Gentiles. They were uncircumcised. The Jews hated them. They were out. They were absolutely out. But Christ changed all that. But second, before Christ changed all that, look, they were without Christ, verse 12. How tragic is that? To be without Christ. I mean, being without Christ or being separated from Christ is absolutely devastating for your eternal soul. Who is Christ? The word Christ means Messiah. This clearly is talking about Jesus the Christ. Jesus the Messiah. Jesus the true deliverer for His people. So who is He? Jesus is God the Son. The second person of the Trinity. What did He do? Jesus, God the Son, left heaven and He came here. He lived a perfect and sinless life that we could never live. He then died on the cross in the place of the believing sinner and then He rose up from the dead three days later. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, we’re all sinners and don’t we know it? Anybody? Don’t we know? And sin is the problem. See, sin banishes us from heaven and sin condemns all of us to hell because eternity in hell is the just price for sin against a holy God. See, any sin against an infinite God requires an infinite sacrifice. Therefore, either man who is finite must pay the penalty for his sin for an infinite length of time in hell. or else the infinite Christ must pay for it once and for all in the believer’s place on the cross, which is exactly what Jesus did. And note that He’s the only one who could truly do this. He’s the only one who could become our perfect substitute for sin. He’s the only one who could truly rescue us from the true wages of our sin, and so He did it. What did He do? He went to the cross to pay the infinite debt we owe to God for our sin. On the cross, the sin of every believer in all of history was placed on the infinite Christ, and God punished Jesus for all that wretched sin on that cross, and now because of all that, God can now shower you, the believer, with grace, mercy, forgiveness, and life, life, eternal life. See, when you believe, you give Jesus all your sin, which He took and paid for in full on the cross, and in return, He gives you His perfect righteousness that covers you and fits you for heaven, and also that ensures your safe arrival there. So Jesus died for all who believe, paying the penalty of our sin in his own body on the cross, and then he rose up from the dead three days later, which proved that what he did on that cross was a reality, and also that he has a power to conquer the sting of sin, death, and hell for everyone who truly believes. And that means everything, everything for undeserving sinners like us. Should I say it again? Everything. Right? I mean, with Christ as Lord and Savior, you have everything, everything that matters. But without Him, you have nothing, nothing that truly matters. He alone saves souls from eternity in hell. He rescued us from our worst nightmare. He delivers us from the grip of Satan. He gives us eternal life, eternal glory. Heaven forever. What else matters? But without Him, what are you left with but to eat, drink, and be merry? For tomorrow you die, and then what? Hell. Without Him, all you have is your best life here. Without Him, all you have is the best of this life only. And while the best of this life only is pretty good, hey, that all ends when you die, and then you must face your Maker and pay the wages of your own sin forever. No hope. No hope. No real peace, not without Christ. No true satisfaction, since that only comes through Christ. No forgiveness of your sin that condemns you. No heaven to look forward to and to catapult you forward in life. Nothing but emptiness. That’s true to everyone without Christ in this world, whether they realize that or not. Hey, now that you know and love Him, can you imagine what life would be like without Him? Paul’s telling the Ephesians and us, That it’s good to do that sometimes. Why? So we don’t forget Him and take Him for granted. What a picture. Pagan idolaters, hated by the Jews, the people of God, lost and desperate and without Christ. Third, they were once aliens and strangers. Verse 12. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. Now look, Israel was a nation under God, but the Gentiles had no part in that. Also, God had bound Himself unconditionally to bring blessings upon and through Israel, but the Gentiles had no such promise. See, the Jews were privileged with a history that was based on God and based on the truth of God. But the Gentiles had no such history, and that is a massive deal. Kind of like how blessed people are who get to grow up in the church. Right? They get to hear the truth of God every week. They get to be surrounded by people who love God. They’re protected from the wretched and worldly ways that so many of their friends are exposed to before they know how to battle those things. And even though that doesn’t mean that they’re saved yet, they have great privilege because of their heritage and because of their background of growing up in the church. That was the Jewish people. That’s what they had, which the Gentiles knew nothing of. This reminds me of what Paul wrote in Romans 9. In verses 4 and 5 of that chapter, Paul lists eight great advantages that they had as a chosen people of God that the Gentiles didn’t have prior to Christ. Paul says, hey, you guys had so much going for you. He had the adoption. And there, he’s not talking about individual salvation, but he’s saying that the nation of Israel had a special calling by God on them to be a special people, a call to shine for God and to display the glory of God, and it was very unique. Again, it didn’t mean that they were saved, but it meant that they had some amazing privileges. Paul also says that they had the divine glory, and there, he’s simply reminding them that they had the presence of God with them. Think about that. When the Israelites traveled as a nation in the wilderness, God was with them. Not with other nations, with them specifically. God led them, God fed them, God took care of them, and the glory of God was definitely with them, not so the Gentiles. It also says that they had the covenants. That’s talking about the agreements that God made with them as a people that He had not made with the other Gentile nations. Unlike the Jews who had the one true God, think of this, and His law, and the truth, and God’s covenants and promises, and the true temple, and hope… and forgiveness, and mercy. Look, these poor Gentiles had Artemis. And looking back on that and remembering that was good for them to do sometimes again so they could then be reminded of how good the one true God really is and everything that He gives to us as people as opposed to lame Artemis or any other pagan false idol or false God which has Satan behind it. Remember, it’s good to do.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for joining us for today’s exposition from the book of Ephesians on expository truths with Dr. John Kyle. Continue on with us next week at this same time. And to find this sermon in its entirety as well as other sermons, visit vacavillefaith.org. Faith Community Church seeks to exalt Christ by bringing clarity of truth through the scriptures with a commitment to glorifying God through the pure, deep, and reaching message of the gospel through faithful exposition. Pastor John is the preaching pastor at Faith Community Church of Vacaville, a seminary professor, and a trainer of preaching pastors overseas. Join Faith Community Church for worship Sundays at 9 and 1045 a.m. Located at 192 Bella Vista Road, Suite A in Vacaville. To learn more, visit vacavillefaith.org or call 707-451-2026. That’s vacavillefaith.org.
