Your Identity In Christ

Part 1 of 2

One of the scariest times when traveling, when having to pass through security at the airport, when the attendants are coming down the aisle on the train, or when waiting to get into any country, is that moment you don’t know where your passport or ID is. You stick your hand into one pocket, into another pocket, into all the other pockets on your cargo shorts and you come up with nothing. You look in the backpack that you only remember having 4 zippers, but now seems to have 20 some zippers going every which way and you just can’t find it. Your heart starts to race a little more and a little more with every passing second until at last…you feel something around your neck. That wallet and passport pouch had been securely hanging there and has been for some time…speaking from past experience getting on airplanes and trains, this scenario has happened to me more than I would like to admit and maybe the same is for you as well. 

You see, we get excited and wound up because our identity matters. That passport or ID proves a person’s identity, who they and what they stand for.   

Identity has always been a worry and concern for us as we travel and even as we go about our daily lives and in fact, it was something that was on Paul’s mind years ago as well. Paul’s words to the Ephesians reminded them how safe their identity more safe than holding onto it for dear life, or tie it around their necks, it hiding it so well. Paul wanted them to know and realize that their identity as so safe because it was in Christ Jesus. And this morning, we are going to look how Paul’s words that tell us in the same what Paul wanted the Ephesian people to know: Remember your identity in Christ Jesus. 

In order for Paul to remind the Ephesians about their identity, he needed to lead them to see who they once and where Jesus had taken them now. And for us to see that, we have to look at the groups of people who heard Paul’s message about Jesus.  When Paul went out to the different people in the Mediterranean as the Lord had directed him to go, he had a plan of action in telling them about their identity in Christ. The norm as Paul went out it that he first would go to the synagogues.  And it would seem reasonable because these were the people who were studying the scriptures and looking for what God had promised. And so, they should be the ones to take to heart Paul was saying. 

More often than not some of the Jews would reject and run Paul out of town feeling he was compromising their identity in the Old Testament.  And so Paul would take the message elsewhere outside the synagogue not as the second rate stop but to more people who would listen to their identity in Christ. And many of these people were Gentiles. In fact, some of the coolest and memorable stories about Paul and his companions are recorded about all kinds of Gentiles. Time after time, even though Paul went to the synagogues first, the Bible tells us that both Jews and Greeks, ethnic Israelites and outsiders to the nation of Israel, came to rejoice in the message and salvation of Christ. 

And that same routine happened for Paul in Ephesus. He went to the synagogue. He was chased away. Yet, he still preached to the Gentiles and the Jews who listened. In fact, as the Bible tells us, it happened in Ephesus for about “two years…so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province heard the Word of the Lord.”

 And with all that in mind, can you imagine what feelings both sides would have had? The Jews were God’s people, and had been worshiping in the temple and in their synagogues for years stretching back to the time of Moses. They were the ones God had been close to and guided for hundreds and hundreds of years. The Gentiles were the foreigners, outsiders, never had worshiped or known about God until recently and did not have any physical Jewish heritage.  And while we don’t know to what degree the Jews and Gentiles felt separated, we are told there was some degree of hostility between them. And in a way, each Gentile and Jew was held into their old identity and defined their lives by that…

And so, that’s exactly what set up Paul for his words to the Ephesians either Jew or Gentile. Take a look again at the words of Paul to the Ephesians, “But now you who were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” 

What Paul was saying to the Ephesian people were two things. First, Jesus Christ had brought the Gentiles near. He hadn’t literally brought them into the Jewish bloodline or told them they could now worship in the synagogue like the Jews. Through the forgiveness of sins he won by shedding his blood on the cross, the Gentiles had the same closeness that the Jews had because from the time they were born, they had been sinful and outside God’s grace. And second, for the Jews, all the rules and ceremonies, religious festivals, the Sabbath days, the guidelines of the Jewish people that God had set in place way back on Mount Sinai were no more. Those laws and lifestyle had served a purpose in keeping the Jewish people separate and unified so that Jesus would be born from their line as God promised, but Jesus was something greater, better, which trumped those laws, and was for all people. And when Paul talked about that “dividing wall of hostility,” it was those mixed feelings the Jewish and Gentile people felt, one side feeling they were a little closer to God since they were the “chosen” ones and the other side feeling left out. In other words, there was a rivalry that had been on-going between the two people. 

And remember what I said, this was Paul leading his people to see who they once were and who they were now. And that’s why Paul’s words here were extra special for the Ephesians back then and for us today because really, through this Jewish-Gentile rivalry, he was illustrating something else for all people Jew, Gentile, you and me. In the same way the Gentiles felt and at one time really were outside the people of God, the Lord’s valuable possession, and the grace of God, so do Paul’s words highlight how all people were outside and far far away from God. In fact, there was a hostility between man and God and that dividing wall wasn’t rules and regulations, but the one thing that also separates you and me from God, sin.

You can try to relate with the rivalry between the Jewish and the Gentile people with your own rivalries and hostilities, whatever they may be. Maybe even today, this Jewish-Gentile rivalry doesn’t even feel that real or apparent because you feel like the Jews today are the ones who are really far off and missing the picture. Yet, nothing hits you more right smack dab in the heart to know that your sin divides you, separates you from God. Plain and simple, God is up way up here in righteousness and holiness, while we are down here. 

But, God doesn’t leave you outside, down there, excluded. He sets things straight because of his Son Christ Jesus and because Jesus Christ has destroyed your division of sins against God. Listen to Paul’s word in what Jesus did for Jews and Gentiles, and how beautifully that again illustrates what he has done for all people, “His (Jesus) purpose was to create in himself one new man out of 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 (Jesus) came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” 

It was Jesus who destroyed and took away the hostility between the Jew and Gentile. It was Jesus by his body, true God and true man who took down the wall of sins between you and God reconciling you together with a holy and righteous God. And even better, it was Jesus who came and told and preached to people what he did and what he is still preaching to you through these verses we have before. It’s the Holy Spirit working in your hearts and minds to know you have peace not division, you have a closeness not a separation, you have a God who listens and who doesn’t scold. You have an identity in Christ Jesus forever.