May 17, 2026 | Unity Within One Body Through The Cross

Ephesians 2:11-18, Pastor Jason Lancaster

Transcript

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I graduated from Dallas Seminary in 1997 and I told the Lord, Lord, I will go anywhere you want me to go. I'll go preach your word anywhere. You've wherever you call me to go. I don't know where it's gonna be. Just let me preach the word. I inquired of a certain church in a place called Marshall, Texas. What are you laughing about? And they asked me to come down and preach and to interview. And then the head of the search committee called me before I came and he was asking me a variety of questions, and he asked me, he said, What is it your wife does? I said she's a teacher, and he said, This. Good. She can teach the blank kids here. He used, yes, that derogatory derogatory word for African Americans. Good, she can teach the blank kids here. And I was like, I could not believe it. And I thought, okay, I could just cancel and not go, but I said I already committed to go, so might as well go and confront this. So I went there, and of course, there's my typical Texas church that is split 15 times with about 15 members. And I went there and I was having Sunday school with two other ladies, my wife, well, my soon-to-be wife, and myself. And she was the lady in the Sunday school, was teaching on final judgment, which was very ironic because she was about to face final judgment herself and what she held to. And so I just was doing this interview and I just started pressing them. We started talking about outreach. I said, What would you think if we started outreach to the community to everybody, including African Americans? And she said, Black people go to their own church. But I pushed back and I said, Well, what if they decided to start coming here? Would that be okay with you? She was shifting very uncomfortably, and she said defensively, well, maybe they could come here as long as they don't cause trouble. But they shouldn't come here because they can go to their own churches. They asked to take us around town, show us the sites, and we were like, nope, we're out of here. And I don't ever use the term we shake the dust off our feet, but we shook the dust off our feet, and we were gone. Whether you acknowledge it or not, or realize it or not, there is racism in the American church. I mean, of course not our church. No one in here is racist or prejudice, right? That's of course not our church. Unless you say, oh, our pastor, he's going woke this morning. I want to assure you that I do not ascribe to the world of critical race theory of the progressives and everything else that's being taught where everything is racism. Because when everything is racism, nothing is racism. And my job here this morning is not to make you feel bad for what your ancestors did with someone else's ancestors. Not playing that game. Not going to be talking about that you truly don't understand racism because you haven't read certain books or you haven't gone to a BLM rally that you just don't get it. You racists, and only white people can be racist, so you are racist. No one else can be racist. Not playing any of those games. What I want to do this morning is talk about you, your heart, and where you're coming from. Because if we really sat down, my guess is every single person in here, no matter what color you are, have some type of prejudice against some other people, maybe another people group. Maybe some of you men in here really have bad attitudes towards women. And some of you ladies in here, same towards men. Or maybe you have uh, I don't know, ageism. That's why you moved here. Can't stand young people. Well, they can't stand you either. But all of us have something going on. Well, we must realize that, yeah, in our hearts there's some prejudice, even borderline racism, whatever you want to call it. And we need to know this that it is the cross of Jesus Christ, and only through the cross of Jesus Christ can that sin be killed and diverse groups brought together in unity. Only through the cross. And that's what we're gonna look at this morning, Ephesians 2. Let's do it. Ephesians chapter 2, this unfamiliar part of Ephesians, where Paul is trying to get the Gentiles to remember their alienation from God. And a lot of this this morning will be technical, but we are gonna land in a spot where we're just gonna be very practical. So let's go. Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 11. Chapter 2, verse 11. Chapter 2, verse 11. Therefore, remember that formerly you, the Gentiles, in the flesh, you are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands. If you don't know what uncircumcision is, you can look it up later. But the reality is that the uncircumcision is a reference to the Gentiles, and the circumcision is a reference to the Jews. And when the Jews would use the word to refer to the uncircumcision, the Gentiles, it was a derogatory slang word. Because God gave the Jews circumcision as a separation from the world, and yet they have turned it into a weapon and almost like a curse word to refer to the Gentiles. Verse 12. Remember that you, he's talking to the Gentiles, this is Paul. Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Someone has called this verse the darkest verse in the entire New Testament, right here. Let's just kind of linger on it for a moment as Paul tells the Gentiles five things that stacked up against them. Number one, they were separate. Look at verse 12 again. They were separated from Christ. Obviously, Christ means the Messiah, and he was the Messiah, and he was the promised deliverer revealed to the Jews. The Gentiles were not included in much of this initial revelation of the Messiah, and that made them separate from Christ, and no hope of a future deliverer. So they're separated. Stay in verse 12. They were also excluded. You see it there? Excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. They had no citizenship in God's people. So they're separated, they're excluded. And look again in verse 12. They are strangers. Strangers to the covenants of the promise. Of course, the Gentiles were later blessed through those covenants in Christ, but initially they had no part in the covenants made to men like Abraham and David. Those were often exclusively given to Israel only. So they are separated, they're excluded, and they are strangers. And verse 12, hang out there again. It says they have no hope. They're hopeless. They're lost. They're separated, they're excluded, they're strangers, and they're hopeless, lost away from God forever. And lastly, verse 12 again, they are without God in the world. They are godless. The Gentiles must remember, darkest verse in the New Testament, they were separated from Christ. Excluded, strangers, hopeless, godless. And then the most beautiful gospel phrase comes in verse 13. But now. But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You Gentiles who were separated, excluded, strangers, hopeless, godless, you have been brought near to God and to his people. Why? Through the blood of Jesus Christ, not through working harder, not through being better, being religious, being a good person, following the law, even circumcision. Nope, it's through the blood of Jesus Christ. Reconciled to God, reconciled to others. Verse 14, now we're going to get a little technical. Gear up for this, verse 14. For he himself is our peace, who has made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. Doesn't necessarily say that Jesus brings peace or that Jesus hands over peace from a distance. It says that Jesus Christ is peace. Peace between them and God, and peace between one another. And it's interesting that Christ has brought us peace with him and with one another. And part of that means is that we are now, as believers in Christ, to love one another, not just tolerate one another. No one really wants to be tolerated. Or someone comes to the door where you shake your hand, good morning, great to have you. You sit down, you leave, glad you were here. See you later. And you just tolerate it. You just put up with. I mean, some of you, when you were kids, like your parents treated you like this. You you were just tolerated by them, not really loved, and now you're older and you're part of your body of Christ. And we want to say those ways are done. And if you felt tolerated and not loved in this church, I am, I am really sorry. Because we are called by the peace that Christ has brought through his blood to love one another and not just put up with one another. And so we continue once again, verse 14. For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances. On the cross, Jesus destroyed the dividing wall of hostility that existed between Jews and Gentiles. And so you may ask, what is the dividing wall of hostility? All right, lock in. I'm going to try to explain this to you. It's a metaphor, and what it's referencing initially is this stone wall that existed in the temple that kept Jews and Gentiles apart called the Soreg. Did you know that? Jews and Gentiles could not blend together in the temple. The Gentiles had to stay back. In fact, if the Gentiles crossed over that wall, there was a sign that says, You will be put to death. Paul is actually writing this letter. The reason why Paul is writing this letter is because he is being accused of bringing a Gentile past the Soreg into that court. He's writing that letter and saying, you know, that wall, that wall? Christ abolished it. But he's not talking about the physical wall. He's using it as a metaphor. And then what he's referring to is the law, the law-driven hostility. The laws in the Old Testament, like circumcision, food rules, festivals that mark Jews distinct from everyone else. You know, these laws were good. The law's not bad. It protected Israel and protected and pointed to God, but they also created hostility between Jews and Gentiles. And Paul is saying, in the cross, that wall's gone. That barrier is gone. Now just bear with me a little bit more. I want to keep pressing on this. Because what would happen is the Jews unfortunately turned the law into a source of pride and superiority. They looked down on the Gentiles, and the Gentiles resented them in return. And so this pride became the good fence of the law, and they turned it into the wall of hostility that kept the two groups apart. And on the cross, Paul is saying that Jesus broke down that wall. In his own body, he fulfilled and set aside, we could say, the ceremonial commands or the ordinances that separated Jew from Gentile, not destroying the law, but making those dividing parts obsolete and no longer operating system for God's people, which to say it in plain English, there is no longer this us versus them. No longer us Jews versus them, Gentiles. It's gone through the cross of Christ. So why? Why did he do this? Look at verse 15 again. Right there in the middle, it said that he did this so that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing a peace. So rather than just Jews and Gentiles, he made one new man out of the two. He made one new is what we could say, he made one new humanity, no longer just Jew or Gentile, but this new humanity called a Christian. Let me share a couple of verses with you. Colossians 3 11. It says, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew. There it is, Jew, Gentile. Circumcised and uncircumcised, Jew Gentile, barbarian, scathian, slave, and freeman, but Christ is all and is in all. Galatians 3.28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Because of the cross, we're all one, this new humanity in Jesus Christ. But be careful here. It doesn't mean that there's not distinctions. Do not say, because of this new humanity, I am now colorblind. Don't say that. Because we've been made by certain distinctions. Guess what? You would never say, I am now colorblind, and I also don't see gender. You better stop it. Yeah? They're still male and female. And so we have people from different nations, different cultures, male, female, everybody's different background. And the point is we don't see any of those distinctions. We say, Wow, think of all the what we've been through. Think of all the different foods we ate, the different cultures we came from. How in the world did God put us all together as one? That's the miracle. And that's through the cross of Christ. And so we don't get around each other and we say, I'm just colorblind, I don't see gender, blah, blah. No, no. It's like, whoa, what in the world are we doing together? Through the cross of Christ. Verse 16. And might reconcile them both, and here it is, through one body to God through the cross, by having put it to death the enmity. So if you are reconciled to the Father, you were legally and spiritually bound to every single person in here who has been adopted. And I don't I don't think that we kind of feel that as much in the village, but I want to make sure you feel it right now. So here, get this. Converted Jews to Jesus and converted Palestinians to Jesus are worshiping in the same church. How is that possible? The cross. Believers in Ukraine and Russian believers are worshiping in the same church. How is that possible? The cross of Christ. After apartheid in South Africa, you had black and white worshiping in the same church, the cross of Christ. In Rwanda, you have the Tutsis and the Hutus worshiping in the same church. How in the world is that possible? The cross of Christ. I mean, how else are you gonna explain it? It makes no sense. Why would those two opposing groups be friends? Not just tolerating one another, but loving one another. I have no other explanation. Cross of Christ. And then he says about this new race and and this new humanity in verse 15, verse 17, he said, and he came and preached peace to you who are far away, and peace to those who are near. Now the faraway ones would be the Gentiles, the gospel is preached to the Gentiles, and guess what? The gospel of peace is also preached to those who are near, that it would be the Jews. And so the point would be that the gospel is to go out to everybody. Do you really believe that? Not just in theory and theologically, do you truly believe that the gospel is for everyone? The gospel is for the Muslim terrorist who needs Jesus. The gospel is for the Hindus who need Jesus. The gospel is for the beautiful Mormon family they need Jesus. It's for the Jehovah's Witness, they need Jesus. It's even for the Democrats who need Jesus. And the Republicans who need Jesus. What you laughing about? Goes out to everybody. We're not we don't discriminate. We give the gospel to all, those far, those near, peace of Christ. And then he finishes up today. For we got verse verse 18. It says, For through him we both have our access in one spirit to the Father. I just love verses like this in the Bible that have the Trinity in it. But here it talks, says, For through him, Jesus, we both have our access in one spirit, Holy Spirit, to the Father. I love that. Trinity in full effect that through Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles have access in one spirit to the Father. This is such glorious news. This is so awesome. What would you say? This is very cool. This is this is amazing. And so we are called to live this reality. But we have to deal with what may be called closet racism. I mean, you may be here and you really are a closet racist. You're not going to talk about it, you're not going to put it on your social media feed, but you got something going on. Or some prejudice you have against someone else, whether it's men, women, young, old, there's something going on and you know it. I believe you need to deal with that. My good friend, who was my district superintendent up in Chicago with our movement, his name was Bill Reed, and he was an African-American man. And he said that if he ever left his church that he was pastoring, he would have no church in our denomination that would hire him because he was black. Now that is messed up. Now that was back then things have changed. Praise God. But that was once a reality. And he shared five things. Yeah, I had him preach at my church, and he shared five things with regard to racism. And I want to share these five things with you, and I think these are significant. Please let me just bear with me. I'm gonna close this way. We're almost done here. I'm gonna share these five things that he shared with my church about racism. So, number one is this stop debating. We don't need to debate whether racism still exists. We don't have to turn into some woke, crazy progressive that sees racism under every rock. We don't have to do that. Because once again, if everything's racist, Nothing is racism. But we don't need to debate. There is clear racism, even in the American church. Stop debating, and we should say, stop denying. Let's not deny that it exists. And stop disregarding. I know we'll say, well, it's not as bad as it used to be. My cancer is not as bad as it used to be. It's still there, but it's just not as bad. It's not a good thing. And if you think I'm making stuff up, I am not. The American church, and I'm saying American church, whatever church that would be, has people within it who are flat out racist. I am not making this up. Okay, here we go. I'm just gonna tell you this. We can cut this out of the stream later if we need to, but I'm gonna tell you this because I love you and I want you to know this. I want you to know what Pastor Jason has to try to work through with his 14-year-old African-American son who is with us this morning, who has experienced far more racism than I ever thought possible. Where among the Christian church? He has been called the N-word so many times. And where does it happen at? Well, he's been called the N-word at youth group by other kids. He's been called the N-word at his Christian school. He's been called the N-word at a local Christian camp. And you may say, well, those are just little kids trying on words, but guess where those kids learn those words from? You know that's what their parents are saying. You know that. The Bible-believing, Bible-caring parents who go to the church, know the word of God, you know that's where they're hearing that from. So let's not act like that stuff doesn't happen. It does. And what am I supposed to say to my son? Okay, you know, well, let's just stop going to church. No, let's call it out for what it is. Let's confront it. Let's get in people's faces if we need to. But let's not deny that that's not the reality in 2026. It's still here. Stop disobeying is the next one. We must quit disobeying the commands of God to love one another. And the last one is start doing. I asked my my brother who shared these, say, what in the world do you want us to do? And I love what he said. It wasn't very direct, but he said, you know, I told them, and he tells us, and he tells me to start being obedient to what the Spirit of God is asking them to do. And so, however, the Spirit of God is speaking to you this morning, maybe you need to get into someone's face. Maybe you need to get in your own face, maybe you need to repent, maybe you need to reconcile in places you didn't even think you needed to reconcile, and you can just throw out all the culture wokeness and just deal with your own heart. Where is the Spirit of God leading you this morning? And that's where we're gonna land. And that's where we're gonna pray. And we're gonna ask the Spirit of God to convict us and move us to do what He wants us to do, based upon the Word of God, the reconciliation that has happened in and through the cross of Jesus. So let's pray. Let's do that right now. Lord, you know this may be a part of us that we have tried to hide and no one really knows about. But when we see stuff on TV, boy, we our minds and our hearts and our thoughts, they go kind of crazy. We just get kind of mad, and we we we some of us are just like flat out racist, prejudiced.

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And we can just dismiss it all and say, oh, this is just stuff that the progressives are making up to make us all feel bad. But we know your spirit of God is is is convicting us.

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So if you're sitting here this morning and just between you and the Lord, in what ways do you need to repent? Maybe some of the men in here need to repent of the way they are just objectified women. Or some of the women in here need to repent the way they are hating our men. Some of us need to repent for the way we treat people who talk different than us. They're from different countries, and we make fun of them. We need to repent. And ask for forgiveness on the cross. Maybe there's something going on between you and someone in your family, you're not even talking to them anymore because they didn't say things the way you wanted them to say, or they did something you didn't like for them and you totally cut them off. Like you need to you need to you need to repent, you need to reconcile with them. Whether if it's a one person or a whole group of people, you need to repent. Lord, I just ask that you would cause me and cause our church not to just tolerate one another, but to love one another, no matter what. Because we thank you, Jesus, for reconciling us to you and to one another. And may we live out that cross focused, cross-centered life for your glory. In your name we pray. Amen.