Brought Near by the Blood

Show Notes

Ephesians 2:11–22 (2:11–22" type="audio/mpeg">Listen)

One in Christ

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,¹ but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by² the Spirit.

Footnotes

[1] 2:19 Or sojourners
[2] 2:22 Or in

(ESV)

What is Sermons from Redeemer Community Church?

Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:00

Alright. We are gonna be continuing our study in Paul's letter to the Ephesian Church. We're gonna be in chapter 2. If you're new to Redeemer, if you, are kind of new over the last couple of weeks or months, first off, hello and welcome. Secondly, if you're trying to figure out what Redeemer is about, what what's important to us, and and really why we do the things that we do, I would like to point to these first kind of 4 or 5 sermons in Ephesians.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:29

These are the things, we've been digging into the things about God, and what he has done for us in salvation through Christ, and what he has given us in the holy spirit, that what we've been looking at over the last couple of weeks is central to who we are as a household of faith. And so if you haven't listened to those, I'd like to encourage you to go back and take a listen. We will be in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 11. We'll read through verse 19, And let us listen carefully, for this is God's word. Therefore, remember that at one time, you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:30

Remember that you are at that time separated from Christ. Alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both 1, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the 2. So making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in 1 body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:29

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. The word of the Lord. Amen.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:00

Let's pray. Father, we come to you this morning, and we ask that by your spirit, you would awaken dead hearts, Lord, that you would lead us to truth, and that that truth would change us. Lord, we're desperate for you. Whether we know it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, each and every one of us here this morning, we are desperate for you. And so we ask, in the name of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, would you speak to us?

Jeffrey Heine: 03:45

Your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. 16 years ago, I met Katy Perry. And if you don't know who that is, I respect you beyond measure, and I wish to learn of your ways.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:12

She's a pop musician, and she has sold 1,000,000 and millions and millions of records. But 16 years ago, when we were both still teenagers, I met her outside of a small theater in Nashville called The Bell Court. And, I'd gone to see this Christian singer songwriter, Bebo Norman play, and she opened up for him. And a few weeks earlier, she had released her first record, which would go on to sell under 200 copies. Her next record would sell over 7,000,000.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:46

And I was outside the venue after the show, and she was standing with a friend that had come to hear her play. And we talked for a few minutes and talked about her new guitar that she had just gotten. And with no sense that I would ever hear of her again, I walked away. No photograph, no autograph, no sense of excitement. I just walked to my car.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:12

And it's funny to think back on that night now, not so much as like a brush with pop culture celebrity, but more as a life principle. And it's this. Most of the time, we have no idea what is going on, when it is going on. Neither our best attention nor our best worry can lure an understanding of our present from the reality of the future. We have no idea what is going on, when it is going on.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:48

And what the Apostle Paul is describing here in Ephesians chapter 2, is a description of what was going on in your life when you were dead in your sins and trespasses. He's describing your state before you were brought near, when you were far off. Paul is taking you back. He's taking you back so you can learn to remember. Learn to remember what was going on, when it was going on.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:22

Because if we're going to praise God in our salvation, and walk in peaceful humility with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to know that from which we were saved. We have to know what He's done for us. So this morning, let's turn our attention to Ephesians chapter 2, and the words written to the Ephesian church and by God's providence written for us today. And let's listen to Paul as he calls us to remember, and tells us, teaches us what to remember. So look with me in verse 11.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:03

Therefore, remember that at one time, you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were, at that time, separated from Christ, alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Here, Paul is zeroing in on a particular part of his audience. The Christians in Ephesus who were Gentiles. Gentile is the name for the non Jewish person, someone who did not bear the sign of being a part of God's covenant people, which was circumcision.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:49

And Paul notes that the Jewish people at that time, the circumcised, they were referring to the Gentiles as the uncircumcision. So 2000 years ago, Paul's doing air quotes with this sick burn of the uncircumcision. But he says, Remember, Gentiles. Remember, you who do not bear the sign and symbol of the covenant. Remember back in verse 11, he says, at one time.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:20

In verse 12, he says, at that time. But what time is he talking about? What time are the Gentiles supposed to remember? I think if we trace back in chapter 2, back from verse 11, and that therefore, I think we can start to see what time he's talking about, particularly in verses 1 through 3. And you are dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:09

That's the time Paul is pointing back to. At that time, Paul is saying, remember the time when you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Remember that time when you were following the course of the world. Remember back to that time. Think back, because I'm gonna explain to you what happened to you at that time.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:34

Paul gives a very specific description of the Gentiles as to what was going on when they were dead in their sins. In verse 12, Paul lists out 5 things. Five things that the gentile listeners needed to remember about their rebellion against God. Five descriptions. And they go like this.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:54

Number 1, you were separated from Christ. Number 2, you were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel. 3, you're strangers to the covenants of promise. 4, you had no hope. And 5, you were without God in the world.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:25

These five things in verse 12 are things that you, the non Jewish, therefore, Gentile listener, are called to remember. And you are to remember these things in light of what Joel preached last week from Ephesians chapter 2, 1 through 10, that God has lavished his amazing grace on all who are in Christ. Paul says, in light of that grace, remember, Gentiles, that you are at that time separated, alienated, strangers, without hope and without God. These words are intended to be jarring. And if it's not jarring to you, I'd encourage you to lean in a little bit further and listen, because Paul is describing you to you.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:14

Paul wants the Gentile to know what was really going on in their lives when the spirit awakened their hearts and enabled them to respond to the grace of God, proclaimed in the gospel of God. And I know that we don't like to consider ourselves ever as being so desperate. I know I don't like to. We don't we don't like to think that we were ever without. And if we do concede that we were without, we definitely don't want to give in to the notion that we were unable to do anything about it.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:54

But that's what Paul is teaching us to remember. We need to recognize both our tendency to remove ourselves from any of the scriptures, scenarios that talk about condemnation, and read ourselves into any scripture that's talking about blessing. I think that that tendency says a lot about us as humans. Think about it. We will plaster Jeremiah 29:11 on bathroom mirrors and on dish towels, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:32

But 7 verses down, Jeremiah 29 18, I will pursue them with the sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them. It's hard to needle point that onto a pillow. But we want to read ourselves into all of the blessings, and not read ourselves in any of these scenes of desperation and need. But it's critical for us to see this separated, alienated strangers to the covenants of promise without hope and without God in the world. We have to recognize that relationship with God has always been exclusive.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:32

Often, we make the mistake of thinking so highly of humanity, as though God exists for us and not the other way around. We think that God is like a lonely kid on the playground, just hoping that someone will be his friend. Now that you can see that scene where the Father and the Holy Spirit are sitting on the park bench, and Jesus is out there on the playground, and Spirit's just kind of checking his phone. And the father nudges him and says, Look, someone's going to play with Jesus. But that's not what it's like.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:09

That's not what it's like that God's not out there just begging for someone to be his friend. He's not like Tinker Bell, who lives and dies based on whether or not we believe enough in him. That's not God. The Old Testament scriptures present to us a history of God in exclusive relationship with a particular people. And if you are not a part of that particular people, you are a Gentile.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:36

In Paul's words here in Ephesians chapter 2, you are without hope and without God. God alone decided whom he would call out of rebellion and establish relationship. And a concept that is helpful as we kind of understand this historical pattern of God is the phrase, covenant people. When God chose to call men and women from their rebellion and establish relationship, He would do this through establishing a covenant. And through the covenant, God would make a people for himself through redemption.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:14

He established these relationships through covenant making. So what is a covenant? A covenant is a binding promise, an agreement. And in the bible, covenants are established between God and a people whom God has chosen to be in relationship with. And in making these covenant promises, God establishes a covenant people.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:37

When God establishes these covenant promises, he establishes a covenant people. And these binding agreements between 2 parties, they they have stipulations. Keeping the covenant would result in blessing, not keeping the covenant would result result in judgment. And in Genesis chapter 15, God established a covenant with Abraham. God promised to make Abraham's name great, and he promised to give him a descendant, from whom a great people, a whole nation, would arise, and that nation would be a blessing to the whole world.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:12

In this covenant, God set the terms of the agreement, and he vowed that he would fulfill his promises. Promises to Abraham and to Abraham's children. The next covenant was established by God with the Israelites and the descendants of Abraham at Mount Sinai. With Moses as an intermediary, God called on Israel to terms of agreement, which included laws on how to follow and be his people. The agreement was based on faith.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:48

We need to see that. This is based on faith. Faith in a forgiving God, because God built into that covenant a sacrificial system. He provided the sacrificial system, which presupposed law breaking, that there was gonna be a need for atonement. To use the words of doctor Paul House, professor at Peace and Divinity School, he said, the law was not given as a means of salvation, but a means of discipleship to teach the covenant people how to follow God.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:23

Later, God established a covenant promise to David, King David, who was a descendant of Abraham and those Israelites at Sinai. The covenant promise was that there would be a descendant of David who would sit on his throne, King David's throne, forever. That he would be the perfect eternal King. And we know, even from just kind of cursory reading of the Old Testament, that the people of Israel broke the covenant over and over and over, but God never broke covenant. God was always faithful to his covenant promises and his covenant people.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:05

And God promised through the prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 31, that he would establish a new covenant, and that his people would never break this covenant, because God's grace, through God's grace, he would forgive their sins forever, and the people would be made righteous forever. These glorious new covenant promises were spoken by God through the prophet Jeremiah, saying these things. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:45

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and say to his brother, know the Lord, for they all will know me and I will be their God. From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more. We read of this new covenant again in Matthew 26, when Jesus is instituting the Lord's supper. Matthew 26 says this, and as they were eating, Jesus took bread.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:13

And after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples saying, take, eat. This is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and said, drink it all of you. For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. The new covenant promises described in Jeremiah 31 are established in the blood of Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:45

And God's new covenant people are an exclusive people that God has redeemed for himself, And for everyone who is a Gentile, Paul says, you cannot lay claim to any of these promises. Imagine walking down a quaint little neighborhood and seeing a beautiful big house. And you walk up, and instead of knocking on the door, you check to see if it's unlocked, and it is. And so you turn the knob and you walk in. You survey the rooms, and you find the biggest bedroom.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:22

And without even taking your shoes off, you jump into the bed. And the homeowners come in very politely and say, who do you think you are, and what gives you the right? And you say, well, I've decided I'm part of this family now. This is going to be my room. I would like to know what my new last name is and the Wi Fi password.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:53

And it's ridiculous. It's completely absurd. But that's often how we think about the promises of God, right? Just there for the taking, if anyone happens to be interested. Like the, take a penny, leave a penny at the gas station.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:06

If you need a covenant promise, go ahead and grab 1. If you've got an extra one, leave it, pay it forward. But no, this is not how people interact with God. Nowhere in the Old Testament and into the New Testament, do we see that this is how men and women can respond to God. Paul tells us that the Gentile is separated, unrelated to Jesus the Messiah, an alien among the nation of Abraham's covenant people.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:34

And because of this, you have no hope and you are without God. And the Greek word, therefore, without God reads, you are an atheist, which means that's where we get the English word atheist. And this is not an atheist by the high minded intellectual reasoning I'm rejecting the notion of God. No. Paul says that the Gentile is an atheist because they were a stranger to the covenant promises, and they were without God.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:59

Separated, alienated. That's the harsh reality that Paul wants you to remember. On your own, none of these promises were for you to simply lay claim to as yours. You don't have the position or the authority to just claim these promises as yours. Relationship with God has always been exclusive, and Paul wants to remind the Gentiles, the non Jews in Ephesus, that they had no claim on the promises of God.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:32

Remember, Paul says. Because if you're willing to do the hard work of learning to remember, to remember what happened to you, You will never think about God, nor your brothers and sisters in Christ the same way. In your prayers, in your study of the word, in your worship and song, it will deepen and become richer and richer, the more you mind the truth of what happened to you in your redemption. So that's verses 1, 11, and 12. Let's look at 13.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:09

But now in Christ Jesus, You who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Paul's doing what he did earlier in chapter 2, with verse 4. After he had given that terrible description of our sinfulness and disobedience, rebellion against God in verses 1 through 3. Paul launches into verse 4 with, but God. And Joel taught us 2 Sundays ago from that text, and if you haven't listened to it, I encourage you go back and listen to it.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:48

Paul's making that same turn here again, after describing what is a startling and dreadful account of the state of the gentile men and women outside of the covenant promises of God, he launches into verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus. The Greek actually leads with the word now. Translated would be now, but in Christ Jesus. And and that's a bit clunky.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:15

So, we we kind of order it the way that we have it, but but I love that that turning point is now. Now. Remember that. Remember. But now, now in Jesus, you have been brought near.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:32

You who were far off, who had no claim to the covenant promises of God. Now in Jesus, you have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. How did you get here? How did you get to the covenant promises of God? Did God see your potential and say, one day, through enough behavioral modification, they're gonna clean up their life?

Jeffrey Heine: 24:53

No. Because you were serious enough, because you meant it enough, because you prayed enough? No. You were brought by the blood of Jesus. There was no other way.

Jeffrey Heine: 25:08

But you were brought. And this is the mystery, the mystery of God that Paul talks about to the Romans and the Colossians, and he's gonna go on at length in Ephesians chapter 3. It's a mystery, because no one expected the blood of Jesus to bring Gentiles into the promises of God's covenant people. Paul's saying, you weren't only sinners, you were sinners outside of the people of God, and Jesus brought you into the promises of God. His blood made you saints, sons and daughters.

Jeffrey Heine: 25:42

Verse 14, For he himself is our peace, who has made us both 1 and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the 2, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in 1 body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came, and he preached peace to those who were far, and he preached peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:35

Here, Paul is talking about this relational transformation that is occurring as Jesus brings together Jews and Gentiles into a new man, he says. And in doing so, making peace through Jesus's cross of these Jews and Gentiles. And keep in mind, he's not talking about all Jews and all Gentiles. No. He's gathering a new people from those who were far off and those who were near, a people who would confess Christ and follow him.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:05

Because through Jesus, we have access to the father as the people of God. One spirit to the Father, that that's now our house, because he has brought us into that house as our Father. Believing Jews and believing Gentiles are being reconciled together in Jesus, and are established as God's covenant people. Think about that. The wounds of Jesus bind together people who hated one another.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:39

He makes enemies brothers and sisters. How through his broken body, the very flesh of Jesus, his atoning sacrifice is what breaks down the dividing wall of hostility. And what does that mean? What's Paul talking about? The dividing wall of hostility.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:59

There are 2 readings of this that I think make sense, are helpful, and kind of complimentary. The first is this, that in Jerusalem, there was a literal 4 and a half foot tall wall in the temple grounds. And Gentiles could not go beyond that wall. They were kept out from the temple proper. They had to stay in the courtyard where they could do business.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:21

They could buy, and sell, and trade, but they couldn't go any further. And one reading of this is that through the sacrifice of Jesus, through his blood, this literal dividing wall was metaphorically torn down. Another reading is that Paul is talking about a metaphorical wall, a wall that existed because of pride and hatred. That through Jesus, these added ordinances that serve to separate the Jews and the Gentiles, that through Jesus, that metaphorical wall has been broken down. And these readings achieve that same end, that God has put an end to hatred between the believing Jews and the believing Gentiles.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:10

And he did that through the suffering of his son. And keep in mind that Paul is not giving kind of a blanket commentary on race relations here. He's being very specific. Because Paul's not saying all Jews and all Gentiles are brought together in Christ. This isn't universal racial reconciliation, because this isn't universal salvation.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:33

But what Paul is talking about here has enormous, serious implications when it comes to race in the church today. Implications for how we must see our brothers and sisters who are in Christ as the covenant family of God. Because the covenant family of God is made up of every race and every nation. You cannot have a mind of racial superiority and the mind of Christ at the same time. They are incompatible.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:06

And you cannot have love for God and hatred for your brother at the same time. They are incompatible. And these are Paul's words, the first example, and John's words, the second example. These are Paul and John's words. That when we say we love God but hate our brother, we are testifying, evidencing that the love of God is not in us.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:30

But when we love our brother, when we do the work of reconciliation that was established and made possible by the blood of Jesus, then we testify to the love of God in our hearts. The believing Jews and Gentiles in Ephesus were having to do that hard work of reconciling to one another. But because of the peace and reconciliation that Jesus secured for them through his death and resurrection, they could do it. And we too have to receive the peace of Christ and reconcile with our brothers and sisters, both racially, and also in your own families, in your own workplaces, in your own church. We have to reconcile and and do the hard work, the challenging work of reconciliation, no matter how hard it might be.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:16

Because there is no effort that you would put forth or I would put forth when it comes to reconciliation that would exceed what Christ has done in reconciling us to the father, and has secured the possibility that we can reconcile to one another. He is our peace. He killed the hostility with his body. Paul says, you are no longer strangers. You are no longer aliens.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:45

You are fellow citizens. Citizens with the saints, those whom God has called holy and forgiven. You are members of that household now. And just as there were 5 things that Paul was calling us to remember about who we were, He's now offering 5 things that we must consider about who we are now in Christ. Number 1, that you are brought near by the blood of Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:22

That you are reconciled to God. 3rd, that you are given peace with your brothers and sisters. 4th, you are fellow citizens with the saints. And 5th, you are members of the household of God. Paul says, no longer.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:48

No longer are you strangers and aliens. No longer are you without hope. No longer are you without God. But now in Christ, you are members of the very household of God, With God as your father, you have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. Hear this.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:05

The God of the covenant promises to which you had no claim. The God of the covenant promises to which you had no claim has claimed you. He has claimed you for himself. He has brought you and bought you by the blood of Jesus. And for that, Paul says, remember and rejoice.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:39

And it's not enough for us to remember just 1 hour every week when we come into this place for worship. That would total up to 4 hours a month that we would remember these things. And 4 hours a month in church. And that's that's the best case scenario. Right?

Jeffrey Heine: 33:57

Like, that's if we're not too tired from watching football the day before. That's if we make it back in town in time, or if work's not too busy, or if a friend texted you back that they're actually going to go this week, so you're going to go this week. At best, we've got 4 hours a month, these Sundays gathering together, and that's not enough time for remembering. The average American now spends more time per day looking at a screen than any other activity, including sleeping. We're now up to 11 hours a day looking at a screen.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:37

That's 1 hour per day, more than last year. We've added an hour every day. At the end of the year, that that's an entire week, 24 hour a day week, looking at a screen more than last year. Was that your new year's resolution for 2017, to spend more time with your phone? It wasn't mine, but we're doing it.

Jeffrey Heine: 35:03

And then we come into these circumstances where we feel guilty about not being in the word enough, not being in prayer, not mentoring, not serving, not doing these things, and we say, but I just don't know where I would find the time. Well, we had the time last year, We gave it to Instagram and Snapchat and Outlook and Netflix. We had the time, and we gave it away. Remembering takes effort, and in a culture that's addicted to distraction, we need help. A number of years ago in college, I took a psychology of memory class, and one of the topics that we covered was the retrieval cue hypothesis, and it goes like this.

Jeffrey Heine: 35:48

After acquiring a new memory, the memory requires prompts for retrieval, called cues. And we need regular cues that will cause us to retrieve that new memory, to remember that memory. And that new memory will either be forgotten or remembered based on those cues. How regularly are we being reminded to remember? And Paul is giving us a new memory, a memory we did not have before, because we did not understand what happened when it happened.

Jeffrey Heine: 36:22

So he's described it for us, and we have this new memory of what happened to us in our salvation and redemption. We have this new memory, and by God's grace and design, we are living retrieval cues, one to another in the family of God. We remind one another to remember. When we gather, every time for worship, but also in home groups, bible studies, service opportunities, when we get together for coffee or for lunch, when we gather around the scriptures in fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers, songs, together, we build a gospel memory, a shared gospel memory. We remind one another to remember.

Jeffrey Heine: 37:08

And I know that some of you today are forgetting that some of the most difficult challenges that you are facing right now in your life are the result of forgetting. And our responsibility, one to another, as the family of God here at Redeemer Community Church, is to be a living cue to call our brothers and sisters to remember. Because when we do, when we are remembering people, we are a thankful, humble, and joyful people. You are called as a member of the household of God to remember what has happened to you, and to call other people to remember. Not because we want to dwell on our sinful past.

Jeffrey Heine: 37:53

No. It's that we need to remember, so we can continually be overwhelmed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. You are brought near by the blood of Jesus. You are reconciled to this God. You are given peace with your brothers and sisters, and you are fellow citizens with the holy ones, the saints of God.

Jeffrey Heine: 38:23

You are members of his house as sons and daughters. Remember and rejoice. Let's pray. God, we are thankful for your word and spirit. And we ask that in this time, you would help us to be honest, honest both with ourselves and with you, honest about our need, honest about our inability to save ourselves, and God, that you would write on our hearts Your grace that now in Christ Jesus, we can call out to you, Abba father.

Jeffrey Heine: 39:21

We are not strangers. We are not aliens to the commonwealth of Israel. We are not separated. But because of the blood of Jesus, we have been bought and brought into the family of God. Help us to remember by your Spirit and to rejoice in these truths.

Jeffrey Heine: 39:44

We pray these things in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever and ever. Amen.