A man was walking across a bridge one day, and he saw another man standing on the edge, about to jump off. He immediately ran over and said "Stop! Don’t do it!"
"Why shouldn’t I?" the man asked.
The first man replied, "Well, there’s so much to live for!"
"Like what?"
"Well ... are you religious or atheist?"
"Religious."
"Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?"
"Christian."
"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
"Baptist Church of God."
"Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"
To which the first man replied, "Die, heretic scum!" and he pushed him off the bridge.
As we continue our journey through Ephesians this morning, Paul is going to address some people that had similar attitudes – people who had gotten so caught up in their religion that they had lost sight of what really mattered. Let’s read our passage together:
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men) - remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:11-13 (NIV)
In the first half of chapter 2, Paul writes about the human race in general and about the portion of the human race that has been saved by the grace of God. But beginning in verse 11, Paul begins to specifically address his main audience of Gentile believers. He points out that prior to Jesus there was a barrier between the Gentiles and the Jews. But, as Paul will point out in the following verses, Jesus came to tear down that wall and to initiate peace between the Jews and Gentiles.
I’m sure there are quite a few principles that we could mine out of our passage this morning. Certainly, there is the idea of Jesus tearing down the walls that tend to separate us from those who are different from us in some way. In fact, as I looked at some other sermons on this passage this week, that seemed to be a common theme. But as I pondered these verses, what really stood out to me is how both groups – Jews and Gentiles – had gotten so caught up in their religion that it had actually drawn them away from God.
I read this week about a plane which had lost both engines and was heading for a certain crash landing. One of the passengers noticed that she was sitting next to a minister, so she yelled at him: "You’re a minister! Do something religious." So he passed the hat and took up an offering.
One of the things that constantly amazes me is how people react when they find out I’m a pastor. They may not say it out loud like the lady on the plane, but I often get the feeling that they’re waiting for me to “do something religious.”
Both the Gentiles and the Jews of Paul’s day would probably consider themselves to be religious. Obviously the Jews understood themselves to be God’s chosen people and they had the Scriptures to study and to guide their lives. And many of the Gentiles were religious, too. Remember how Paul had addressed them in an earlier encounter in Athens:
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
Acts 17:22 (NIV)
As we’ve seen already, the Gentiles had no shortage of religion. In fact they had all kinds of Gods.
Perhaps before we go any further this morning, we ought to define the term “religion.” I figured that should be a pretty easy thing to do. That is until I went on the internet this week and tried to sort through the hundreds of different definitions that I came across. But probably the simplest and the one that best describes the word in the way I’m using it this morning comes from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
“…a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith”
That definition seems to encompass a lot of movements today that I would classify as religions:
• Political parties and interest groups
• Radical environmentalism
• Causes to address social issues such as poverty and hunger
• Causes to address various diseases such as AIDS, cancer and heart disease
• Groups that promote certain lifestyles
• Self
Every one of those movements consists of people who are committed to a cause, principle, or system of beliefs that they hold to with ardor and faith. It’s interesting to me that even atheists fit that definition. I’m not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with many of these groups. There is nothing wrong with taking care of the environment or trying to lessen suffering or eradicate disease. But for many people the causes themselves have become their religion.
But as Paul so clearly points out, what we need is a relationship, not a religion. And it is both the Jews and the Gentiles that were in danger of missing out on that relationship because of their religion. Although Paul primarily focuses on the Gentiles in these verses, he also hints at the fact that the religion of the Jews was a problem for them, too. So let’s look at why religion posed such a danger to both of these groups. We’ll start with the Gentiles, since that is a little more obvious in this passage.
DANGERS OF RELIGION
For the Gentiles
Jews and Gentiles alike shared the same past that Paul had described earlier at the beginning of chapter 2. Both groups were dead, dominated and doomed before God entered into their lives. But, just as he did in his other letters, Paul makes it really clear that there were some advantages the Jews had when it came to their relationship with God that the Gentiles did not share in. for example, here’s what Paul wrote in Romans:
What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way…
Romans 3:1, 2 (NIV)
Here in Ephesians, Paul describes 5 disadvantages that the Gentiles faced when it came to their relationship with God. And regardless of what religion or religious system they subscribed to, nothing short of their relationship with God through faith in Jesus could overcome these difficulties.
1. No expectation of a Savior
…separate from Christ…
Our first inclination is to think that Paul is just repeating here the point he has already made previously. But we know that both the Gentiles and the Jews were separated from Christ before God completed His saving work in their lives. So in what sense is Paul writing that this is a problem that only the Gentiles face?
It seems that when Paul uses the word “Christ” here, he is not using it as a reference to Jesus, but rather in its broader sense. This Greek word literally means “anointed”. It is the Greek equivalent of the Jewish word we translate “Messiah”. The point that Paul is trying to make here is that the Jews at least had the hope of a coming Messiah, a savior. That was an advantage that the Gentiles did not have.
There is no religion on the face of the earth that can address the fact that we are separated from God as a result of our sin and that therefore we need a savior. Only a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ can deal with that need.
2. No part in God’s election
…excluded from citizenship in Israel…
The Jews were God’s chosen people. As I’ve said earlier, God didn’t choose Israel because they were worthy or they had somehow earned that right. God just chose them because of His grace. So those who were citizens of Israel had the benefit of being within the sphere of God’s election. That was a blessing that the Gentiles did not share in prior to the death and resurrection of Jesus.
By now, if there is one thing we’ve learned from our study of Ephesians, it is that no action on our part, no religion, is capable of earning favor with God. Every one of us who has a relationship with God has that relationship because God chose us, completely apart from any merit on our part. And the only way we can accept that gift is through faith in Jesus Christ.
3. No share in God’s blessings
…foreigners to the covenants of the promise…
The Jews were the beneficiaries of many covenants, or promises that God had made to them. It’s interesting that Paul writes about covenants (plural) of the promise (singular). Paul seems to be saying that all of the covenants from the Old Testament really flow out of the foundational promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
Genesis 12:1-3 (NIV)
Although God promised to bless all peoples on earth through Abraham – including the Gentiles – that promise could only be made operational in the lives of the Gentiles through Jesus.
There is no religion which can ever provide us with the blessings of God. Only God can provide those blessings for us. And he chooses to do that through our relationship with Him that is made operational by our faith in Jesus.
4. No hope
…without hope…
Because the Gentiles did not share in the hope of a coming Messiah, nor were they within the sphere of God’s election, nor were they the recipients of God’s promised blessings, they had no hope.
The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s regular class teacher. "We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now," the regular teacher said, "and I’d be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind."
The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, "I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs." When she left she felt she hadn’t accomplished much.
But the next day, a nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. "No, no," said the nurse. "You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live."
Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: "They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?"
One of the greatest problems with religion is that it unable to give us lasting hope. No rituals, no good works, no amount of piety can produce hope in our lives. The only way that we can have hope is through our relationship with God, which is made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
5. No relationship with the true God
…without God in the world…
The Jews had the advantage of at least knowing something about the one true God. And although it was incomplete until the coming of Jesus, they even had a relationship with Him. God revealed Himself to the Jews and gave them an opportunity to respond to Him in worship.
The Gentiles, on the other hand, had many gods, but the idea of any kind of relationship with any of those gods was completely foreign to them. The nature of their gods made any thoughts of a relationship impossible.
But now through Jesus Christ, both Jews and Gentiles have been given the privilege of a person, intimate relationship with an infinitely awesome God.
For the Jews
In spite of all the advantages that the Jews experienced, there is evidence in this passage that their religion had also fallen short. And there are two specific aspects of their religion that Paul alludes to in this passage that kept them from the kind of personal relationship that God desired for them:
1. Pride
…you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision"…
Paul very clearly describes the contempt that Jews had for the Gentiles. In fact, the very word “Gentile” was not one that the Romans and Greeks used to refer to themselves, but was a derogatory term that the Jews had coined to describe anyone who was not a Jew.
Not only that, the Jews derisively called the Gentiles by the title of “uncircumcision”, while proudly referring to themselves as the “circumcision”. There is an interesting play on words here. The literal translation is “Gentiles in the flesh”. For Jews, circumcision, which had been given by God to Abraham, was a physical sign of their relationship with the God of the covenant. Obviously, the Gentiles did not bear that physical evidence on their bodies, hence they are referred to as “Gentiles in the flesh”.
What really strikes me here is the pride of the Jews. They had lost sight of the fact that God had chosen them, not just for their own benefit, but as His chosen people who were to be a blessing to all peoples, just as God had revealed to Abraham. So instead of trying to reach out to the people that God wanted to bless through them, they were making fun of those very people. They were so infected with the pride of being God’s chosen people that they missed on the opportunity to be used by God in the lives of others.
There is a real important lesson for those of us who are Christ-followers. By now, if there is one thing we’ve learned from the book of Ephesians so far it has to be that God’s work in our lives is nothing for us to be proud of. It’s all God’s work and we’ve done nothing to deserve it. So rather than looking down on those who don’t have what we’ve experienced, our hearts should be broken over that and we ought to do everything in our power to make sure they are exposed to the truth and to pray for these people.
2. Deception
…that done in the body by the hands of men…
The second problem that the Jews faced is that they were deceived. They figured that since they had participated in the ritual act of circumcision that they were OK with God. But in His letter to the Galatian church, Paul addressed that attitude:
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Galatians 5:6 (NIV)
Although Paul specifically writes about circumcision here, the broader principle is that nothing we can do in the flesh has any value.
As we saw a couple of weeks ago with our poll and as evidenced by the results of other surveys that have been done, most people today who consider themselves religious, even the majority of those who consider themselves to be Christians, have been deceived. Every religion I know of has as one of its major tenets the idea that we can somehow do enough good works to earn favor with God. But that’s not what Jesus taught and that’s not what God’s Word teaches.
THE SOLUTION
A relationship with God through Jesus Christ
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
All of us were once far away from God and there was nothing we could do to bridge the great divide between us. But in Jesus, God provided the way for us to be drawn close to Him. God is not looking for religion, He’s looking for a relationship.
I’m not really sure who came up with the summary I’m about to share with you, but I think it’s a pretty good way to wrap up our time this morning.
Religion Relationship
Based on rules Based on a promise
Legalistic Liberating
Depends on man’s effort Depends on God’s grace
Man endeavoring to work his way up to God
God coming down to man
Something you do Someone you know
Focuses on a code of conduct
Focuses on a covenant of
grace
About working harder About coming closer
Effort of man Gift of God
Caught up in the ritual Caught up in the Person
Man’s search for God God’s search for man
Maybe you’re here this morning because you came looking for religion. God wants to offer you something far better – a personal, intimate relationship with Him.
