Anne and I were talking in the living room on Friday when we heard an eruption of squeals, screams, and whelps and then finally a very loud “Share!”. Aedan has learned how to say “share” but he uses “share” in place of the word “mine” as in “Give your stuff to me”. So anyway, I called them both upstairs and it turns out that they were fighting over a toy camera. I took it away and gave them a long speech about how all toys are gifts from God and that were God to deal justly with them, they would have no toys at all. Every toy is a free gift of grace to undeserving sinners, so what they have received freely they must also share freely. They weren't impressed. They were impressed however, when I made them hug each other. We‘ve been making them hug after they fight for a while now. If you have toddlers or post-toddlers, you've got to try it. The belligerents sort of inch closer to each other and Emma gets this look of disgust on her face and Aedan sort of opens his arms so wide that he doesn't have to actually touch his sister and they shuffle forward, turning their faces away. We have so much fun. But it's not just for our entertainment. We are part of the same family and as long as our children are in our house they will love each other. They may not feel love toward one another but they will act in love toward one another whether they like it or not..

 I think that is kind of the attitude God has toward his family of believers, his children. You can see it in our reading today in Ephesians 2:11.

 The Jewish people of Jesus' day didn't care for Gentiles. The Gentiles didn't care for Jews. There was a deep cultural disdain running in both directions. Gentiles thought that Jews were greedy, narrow minded, and anti-social because Jews living in Gentile areas remained strictly separate. They married only other Jews. They socialized only with other Jews. If they could help it, they spoke only to other Jews and when they  couldn‘t help it, they cleansed themselves afterwards as if they had been rolling in a sewer. All of this communicated disgust.

 So, if you were a gentile living in those times, chances are you'd have a good deal of resentment toward the Jews. But the Jews had good reason to act the way they did. By and large, 1st century Greek and Roman culture really was decadent. 1st century Corinth was like Las Vegas, Tijuana, Amsterdam, and New Orleans all in one. There was good reason to keep your kids inside and to not mingle with the neighbors. Crime, prostitution, promiscuity drugs, were commonplace. But unlike today these things were actually celebrated. Parents sold their daughters to the Temple of Artemis to become prostitutes and this was seen as a devout thing to do. Drugs were used as a form of worship. Sex with anyone at any time married or not was seen as a celebration of the goddess of love. I'd keep my kids indoors too.

 From the old testament to the new, God tells us through his prophets and apostles that if you don't worship the one true God revealed in the scriptures, that you're ultimately worshiping a lie and a demonic lie at that. God alone is to be worshipped. Now demonic lies never look like demonic lies. The devil always masquerades as an angel of light (2nd Corinthians 11:14) so he comes as the goddess of love or the god of wisdom, but make no mistake, if you serve any other god besides God, you are in truth serving Satan. “The sacrifices of pagans“, Paul says in 1st Corinthians 10:20 “are offered to demons, not to God.” So the Jews wanted nothing to do with the gentiles because their culture was thoroughly decadent and they were devoted to demons.

 But while the Torah did command Jews to remain distinct from the peoples around them and to reject their gods and not intermarry, it also commanded them to reach out and call gentiles, non believers, to become Jews, to put away their idols, and come to faith in the God of creation. That's what God meant when he called Israel to be a “light to the nations“ (Jeremiah 4:2). They did a fantastic job of refusing to bow to idols or follow the ways of the people around them, but they failed miserably in calling the gentiles to faith because rather than having compassion on their fellow human beings lost and enslaved to sin, they had contempt. And God hates that. God's mission for his people has been and is to call fallen humanity back into an eternal relationship in the true creator. You, if you're a believer, are part of that mission.

 Now, the foundation for that restored relationship has been done by Jesus Christ. That's what Paul means in Ephesians 2:13, when he says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“ Jesus paid the penalty for every human sin when he died on the cross. That makes it possible for people who say yes I want his death to count on my behalf, to have a relationship with God that lasts forever.

 From beginning to end, the bible is very clear. IF you want to have an eternal relationship with God that begins now in your life here, then you must repent and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. People in the OT put their trust in God's promise of the coming Savior. People now trust in the Savior who has come. Anyone at any time who hears the word of God, repents and trusts in the Savior will be saved, brought into the household of God.

 That's where the problem lies. Jewish and Gentile believers didn't really want each other in the household. That can be where the problem lies for us as well.

 Sometimes we can look around at the world and say, this place is so decadent and sinful, we need to just huddle up in our little church and bar the door. I look outside the window in my office and every day I see a man sitting in an old car. Every once in a while another car will pull up. Someone will jump into the first car. They'll drive around the block. The passenger will get back into his car and drive off. What are they doing. Right, the guy in the old car is selling coke. I've thought about just walking out there and talking to the guy and sharing the gospel with him, but I've always stopped short of doing it. Why? I think somewhere deep inside, I'm not sure if I want a guy like that in this church around my kids. But guess what? God does. God loves that guy and sent his son to die for him. I may not want him, but I'm not the one calling the shots.

 This is the great part about God's plan. We don't get our way. God gets his way and so long as we are his children living in his house, we will 1. call everyone, even the people we don't like, to faith in Jesus Christ and if they come to faith, we will 2. welcome them into the household of God, that means this church, with open arms no matter who they are what they have done or what their background is. God will make us give them a nice big hug.

 Something you may have noticed about God in the last year or so. He loves putting people together who don't like each other and making them embrace and work together and live together and grow together and guess what happens? After a while you start to look at your brother or sister who you may not have liked in your immaturity or their immaturity and all of a sudden you love them. God uses his church to break down barriers between people.

 That's exactly what God did with the Jews and the Gentiles. He made them hug each other. Look down at verse 14. “For he himself is our peace who has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” Don't misunderstand. Paul is not saying that Jesus took away all those hard rules so that we could just get along and not worry about morality or truth? No. Paul is talking very specifically about the OT purity laws which, while God-given and good, were twisted and used as a means to keep Gentiles away. Jews simply called the Gentiles unclean and made no attempt to help them find a way to be clean. But now, Paul says,  Jesus has made everyone who believes, Jew or Gentile, clean by his blood.

 How often churches do the same thing. How easy it is to look at the hung over guy in the next cubicle, or drugged up guy at the next desk or the woman who's slept with everyone in the office and say “what a waste. Good thing I'm not like that.” But that kind of thinking is horribly wrong.
 God's purpose, says Paul, “was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to those who were far and to those who were near. For through him we have access to the Father through one spirit.”

Now don't get me wrong. There's a popular teaching prevalent in churches today that says that churches should stop teaching biblical morality because God accepts everybody without any conditions or restrictions. That is a lie. God loves everyone and wants everyone to come to him, that‘s why he died. His arms are open. But there are conditions. You don't come to God on your terms, you come willing to accept his. Everyone who comes to him must come willing to let go of their lives, let go of their habits, let go of their addictions, let go of everything and surrender to Jesus. That's what it means to accept him as your Lord. It means making the decision to let God's will rule over your heart, asking Jesus to come live inside of you make your heart an outpost of his kingdom. Once you make that commitment, then the Holy Spirit indwells you and starts to make that commitment a reality and you become part of the family.

 That's what this place, this church is for. It is not a social club. It's not a place where we all look alike and talk alike and have the same backgrounds. This is God's house “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” We come here to be changed by Jesus and to invite others to be changed with us so that in this one corner of the earth, it will be as it is in heaven.

 AMEN