The Great Peace Mission

The Word of God records for us the meaning of our Lord's coming to this earth in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 11, and reading to the end of the chapter. The historical facts are given in the Gospels. The doctrinal truths are given in the Epistles.

Wherefore, remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, remember that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off are made near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, to make in himself of two one new man, so making peace.

And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to them that were near. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.

And we are his temple, and may we glorify his name. Some of us remember seeing the pictures in the newspaper. He came home from Europe with an umbrella in one hand and a piece of paper in the other hand.

It was Sir Neville Chamberlain. He had been conferring with Adolf Hitler in Germany, and Mr. Chamberlain got off of the plane and waved the piece of paper, and he said, Peace with honor, peace in our time. That was in September of 1938.

And one year later Hitler invaded Poland, and the world was plunged into war. President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy. For while we were negotiating peace, they were attacking in war.

The history of mankind is the history of war and of peace agreements that simply did not last. And yet the greatest peace mission that ever was performed in all of history was performed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and this peace mission is described for us in Ephesians 2.11-22. Here is the greatest ambassador in history, Jesus Christ. Here is the greatest conflict in history, the conflict between righteousness and sin.

And here is the greatest peace treaty in history, written with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the covenant. And yet men don't want it. And yet people would still rather live in hatred and war.

And I'm not speaking simply on the national and international level, I'm speaking also about the personal level. I speak to some people right now who are at war, at war with fellow employees, at war perhaps with family members, perhaps even at war with people of Moody Church. I speak to some people now who, deep within their hearts, don't have any peace.

And at this Christmas season, the question comes to us, am I an ambassador of peace or a perpetrator of war? This past week, because we were alive and working and doing what we did, was there more peace or more fighting? Was there more love or more hatred? Is it ever going to be possible for us to share with others peace on earth? That's what Paul is talking about. Paul is saying to you and me that he wants us to become ambassadors of peace. And in order for us to do this, we have to obey some instructions that are found here.

They circle around the little word, remember, in verse 11. Paul gives us three instructions for us to obey, and if we obey them, we will find ourselves enjoying God's peace and sharing God's peace. Instruction number one, verses 11 and 12, remember what you were.

Verses 13 through 18, remember what Christ did. Verses 19 through 22, remember what you are now. He goes into the past, the present, ties them together, and reminds us of what we ought to know if we're going to be ministers of peace.

Some listening to me now have never experienced this peace. There are those who are hearing my voice who say, Pastor Wiersbe, I don't know the first thing about peace in my heart. I'm at war with myself, I'm at war with God, I'm at war with the world, I'm at war with people around me.

Is there any hope for me? There certainly is. Perhaps there's some Christian listening to me who says, I have to confess there's a tumult in my heart. Is there any hope for me? There certainly is.

The peace of God that passes all understanding, the gift of God, peace through Christ, can be yours today. Let's consider the first instruction, verses 11 and 12, remember what you were. Paul is telling us here the spiritual condition of the Gentiles before Jesus came.

And this is the spiritual condition of every unsaved person today. Notice first of all that the key word here is the word without. That means outside of, away from.

And there are five areas here that are characterized by this word without. First of all, without Christ. Therefore, remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, that at that time ye were without Christ.

Nowhere did the Gentile world have a Messiah. This means they didn't have a Savior, they didn't have a prophet, they didn't have a priest, they didn't have a king. They were without Christ, they were outside of Christ.

When Paul came to Ephesus with the gospel of Jesus Christ, he introduced these people to Jesus. But up until that time, they had been without Christ, outside Christ. That means no forgiveness, no cleansing, no peace, no joy.

Without Christ. Secondly, without citizenship, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Now, there's no question when you read the Old Testament that God's people were the people of Israel.

Salvation is of the Jews, and God had singled out the Jewish nation and granted to the Jewish nation all of the spiritual riches to be shared with the Gentiles. But you see, back in Old Testament times, if a Gentile wanted to become a believer, he had to become a Jew. He was born outside the commonwealth of Israel.

Thirdly, without covenants, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. God never made any covenants of promise with the Gentiles. We find no record back in the Old Testament that he made any special covenants with the Gentiles.

Everything the Gentiles got had to come through the Jews. This is why the word of God tells us that salvation is of the Jews. Without Christ, no salvation.

Without citizenship, no nation. Without covenants, no assurance, no promises. Without hope, that's the result of all of this.

If you don't have a Savior, and you don't have any relationship to God, and you have no promises from God, then you are without hope, having no hope. You and I can't begin to realize how hopeless the world was before Jesus was born. Everything men had held on to was falling apart.

The Roman Empire was not as strong as it used to be. Law was not accomplishing anything. There was fear and hopelessness.

The Oriental religions had drifted into the Roman Empire like they have drifted into America today. People were looking to all of these strange, weird philosophies. All of the old traditions were gone.

All of the old philosophies had melted away, and people were just simply hopeless without God in the world. The Gentile people had gods, just like people today have gods. They had gods of silver and gold and iron and wood, just like people today have gods of silver and gold and iron and wood.

They are made a little differently, but we still have them. Just as in America today, in Chicago today, people are worshiping the things that they have made—that's idolatry—so back in this day, they worshiped the things that they had made. They manufactured their own gods.

And yet they were without God. The psalmist, you'll recall, in the Old Testament said, "...eyes they have, but they see not, ears they have, but they hear not, they have hands, but they handle not, they have mouths, but they speak not, they have feet, but they walk not, and they that worship them are like unto them." Paul says, you better remember what you were before you met Jesus Christ. This raises the interesting question, why were the Gentiles in such a sad plight spiritually? He tells us over here that the Jews were near, and the Gentiles were far off.

As far as the things of God were concerned, God had given to the Jewish people the marvelous privilege of drawing nigh unto the true and living God. But why were the Gentiles in such a mess spiritually? For the same reason people are in a mess spiritually today. We're not going to like these two reasons, but they apply.

Number one, the Gentiles were in this mess spiritually because they had refused the truth that God gave them. Romans 1, verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those who hold the truth in unrighteousness. My scientist friends want to tell me that civilization began very low and gradually worked its way up, but Romans 1 doesn't say that.

Romans 1 says that civilization began very high, that men knew the truth about God, and that which was known of God they wouldn't receive. They suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, they exchanged the truth for a lie, and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. And consequently they manufactured gods made like unto men and beasts and even creeping things.

If a man becomes like the God that he worships, and Psalm 115 says that he does, and the Gentiles begin to worship creeping things, that means that the Gentiles became like creeping things. They became like beasts. And the immorality in the ancient world was the result of the idolatry in the ancient world.

And the idolatry was the result of willful, deliberate rejection of truth. Why are people today, not only in the city of Chicago but Miami and New York City and wherever else you may go, why are people today wallowing in the filth of immorality? Why are they living for the cheap things of this world that simply aren't going to last? It's because willfully they have rejected the truth that God gave them. And so God gave them up.

God said, all right, you want to follow that way, go right ahead. That's the first reason why the Gentiles were in the situation they were in. But there was another reason.

It was because the Jewish nation had failed in their calling. God had given all of these spiritual blessings to the Jews that they might share them with the Gentiles. And God gave them the covenants, and he said, I'm giving you this covenant that through you all the nations of the earth may be blessed.

In other words, Israel failed in her missionary mission. And they said, well, we're different from the Gentiles. And they were.

God made them different. But differences do not have to become barriers. And the Jewish nation took their differences, and they made those differences into barriers, and they built walls between themselves and the people who needed the mission that they had to perform.

And they became isolated and insulated and very proud. And they looked at the Gentiles and said, dogs, Gentile dogs, uncircumcised dogs. You say, how could they do that? It's just as easy as Christians today who look at unsaved people and say, filth, unsaved sinner.

We have taken our differences, and we've made our differences into barriers. And God never meant for the differences to become barriers. He meant for the differences to become bridges.

That because I know the true God, I want to share him with you. Because I know the truth of the word, I want to give it to you. And the Church today is committing the same sin that Israel committed.

We're building walls instead of bridges. And yet at Christmastime, the message said, peace on earth. Not just in Israel, goodwill to man, not just to Jews.

And about the most selfish thing we could do this Christmas would be to keep to ourselves that which has made such a blessing in our lives. He said, remember what you were. If you remember what you were, it will help you to reach out to that person and say, I've got some peace for you.

I'm an ambassador of peace. I want to talk to you about Jesus Christ. Now in verses 13 through 18, there's a second instruction.

Remember what you were. Remember what Christ did. Notice that little phrase in verse 13, but now, remember therefore, but now, a change has taken place because of what Jesus Christ did.

I'm sure it pains your heart the way it pains my heart when you read some of the silly things that are written at Christmas. Ninety percent of the people who are sending Christmas cards and singing Christmas songs do not really know what Christmas is all about. The key word here is the word reconcile.

Reconcile means to bring back together again. You'll recall some years ago when Mr. Nixon was campaigning in Ohio, a little teenage girl got famous because Time magazine took her picture and she was holding up a sign that said, bring us together again. Now that's what Jesus coming to this earth was all about, bring us together again.

There is a twofold reconciliation that Jesus Christ accomplished by coming, being born, dying and being raised from the dead. First he reconciled Jews and Gentiles. Now back in the Old Testament there was a difference.

That difference was the law. God had given his law to the Jewish people. That law was to make them holy.

That law was to drive them to their knees, to call upon God for his grace. That law was to be a light to the Gentiles. As the Jewish nation obeyed their law and shared the truth with the Gentiles, then the Gentiles could find the truth of God.

But this law, instead of becoming a bridge, became a barrier. In fact there was a wall in the temple. You know this, as you walked into the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, you walked into the court of the Gentiles and then there's the court of the women and so forth, they had a barrier there.

A Gentile could not go any farther. The archeologists unearthed one of these inscriptions way back in the late 1800s, about 1871. Here's what it said, let me read it to you.

No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught so doing will have himself to blame for his ensuing death. There was a literal wall in the temple that said to the Gentiles, you can't go any farther.

And yet when Jesus Christ died on the cross, he broke down that wall. Now it didn't happen literally on the day of his crucifixion, it happened literally some 40 years later when the Roman army came in and wrecked the temple. But spiritually speaking, when Jesus Christ went to the cross, he reached down with one hand and took the Jews.

He reached down with the other hand and took the Gentiles and he brought them together and said, there is no difference, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the religious man is no closer to heaven than the irreligious man, both need Jesus Christ. Now when he died on the cross, says Paul, Jesus put the law out of commission.

He broke down the wall. He said from henceforth there is no difference, the Jew is as much a sinner as the Gentile. This hurt the Jewish pride.

For many, many years the church had to fight this bigotry, this prejudice. We are Jews, they are Gentiles. But the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

Today we say, we are religious. We're not like those poor people on South State Street. And Jesus says, wait a minute, I broke down the wall.

The law no longer is the privilege of one group against another. The cultural commandments of the law, the religious commandments of the law, the legal commandments of the law, all of this has been nailed to the cross. Jesus bore the curse of the law when he broke down that wall of partition.

So he was able to reach down and take Jew and Gentile and put them both into the same group and say, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's the first reconciliation. Today there's no distinction between Jew and Gentile in the church.

Then he took the Jew and Gentile that he had reconciled and he lifted them up and reconciled them to God. Here's a twofold reconciliation. When you give your heart to Jesus Christ, you are reconciled to others and you are reconciled to God.

Now, Jesus destroyed two things in the temple when he died. He destroyed the wall of partition and he destroyed the veil of the temple. And that veil was torn in two from top to bottom by the invisible hands of God.

And what's he saying? He said, I knocked down the wall, I will reconcile Jew and Gentile. I've torn the veil, I will reconcile all men to God. And now, any sinner, any sinner, a religious sinner, an immoral sinner, can come to God through Jesus Christ and be reconciled.

Have I not told you about the distraught father or husband who came in to see me one day? He was an interesting fellow. I spent many, many hours talking with him. And he came in one day and he said, well, my wife and I need a recancellation.

I said, you mean a reconciliation? He said, yeah, I guess that's what I mean. Then I thought, no, he's right. They do need a recancellation.

They had books against each other. She remembered everything against him and he remembered everything against her. The whole thing needed to be cancelled.

That's a good word, recancellation, reconciliation. That's what Jesus did on the cross. This means, my friend, if you are saved, you're a part of the answer, not a part of the problem.

This means if you are saved, there is reconciliation on the human level as well as on the divine level. Jesus Christ performed two great feats of reconciliation. He brought men back together again and he brought men and God back together again.

And the two go together. That's the whole theme of Ephesians. Chapter 1, verse 10, that Jesus Christ might gather together in one all things in Christ.

Now, Satan's out scattering, Satan's out dividing, Satan's building walls. But Jesus Christ is knocking down walls and Jesus Christ is gathering. He said one day, he that gathereth not with me scattereth.

I wonder this past week if I was out gathering or scattering. If because of my presence people felt closer together or I blew them apart. A lady said to Billy Sunday one day, there's nothing wrong with me losing my temper, it's just like a shotgun blast, it's over with.

And Billy Sunday said, yes, and look at the damage that's left behind. You see, in Ephesians chapter 2, Jesus Christ reconciles Jews and Gentiles. That's the solution to all national problems.

In chapter 4, he reconciles Christians. He talks about Christians having unity. That's a solution to all our religious problems there.

Chapter 5, he gets to meddling. He talks about reconciling husbands and wives. Oh, Paul, we don't mind you're talking about Jews and Gentiles.

We don't even mind you're talking about Christians, but when you get into my home, that's going too far. Paul says, if you had been reconciled to God, you and your wife ought to be able to pray together and live together. Chapter 6, he even talks about the children, about parents being reconciled to their children.

We could use some of that. He even talks about masters and servants. Do you mean to tell me that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, rending the veil and breaking the law, is the solution to racial problems, and church problems, and home problems, and industrial problems? See, our problem is not that this doesn't work.

We just haven't tried it. But let's come right where you live now. What does this reconciliation mean in your home, where you work, in this church? Remember what Christ did.

He gave his blood on the cross, shed his blood to make peace. And Paul says, he is our peace. Peace is not a document, it's a person.

Peace is not an organization, it's a person. You leave out the person, you've left out peace. And today we don't have peace, we have pieces.

He is our peace, and he made peace, and he preached peace, and he's still preaching peace. The Holy Spirit came down like a dove, not an eagle. Rome didn't preach peace, Rome preached war.

The Roman eagle kept everything together in uniformity, but the dove of peace has come to bring everything into unity. There's a big difference. Remember what you were, and remember what Christ did.

He closes the chapter by telling us, remember what you are today. Oh, this just thrills my heart. Verses 19 through 22.

It thrills my heart to be a part of God's church. He gives us three beautiful pictures of what the church is. Fellow citizens with the Saints, God's holy nation, the church.

Our citizenship is in heaven. We belong to him. Jesus said, Rejoice that your names are written down in heaven.

We're citizens of the same nation. We are members in the same family. Look at this.

And of the household of God. And we are stones in the same temple. We're being built together in this marvelous temple.

Now the Ephesians knew about temples. They had a beautiful one. They had one of the seven wonders of the world, the temple of Diana.

And the Jews knew about the temple. They had a temple back in Jerusalem. Both those temples were gone in a few years.

But this temple keeps growing. If you're a saved person, you have been reconciled to God and reconciled to men. And you are a stone built into the temple.

And God is building for himself a habitation which is his church. Now my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit individually. But all of us collectively as the church of our Lord Jesus Christ are the temple of God.

This is a marvelous thing. In a world where sin is tearing down, where Satan is destroying, where all the foundations are shaking, what's God doing? Just quietly building a temple, building a temple. Back in the Old Testament, Solomon built a temple.

Didn't make a big fuss out of it, it was so quiet. All the stones were prepared before they got on location. That's the way God builds his temple.

You were being prepared long before he saved you. You were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And when you got on location, he set you into that temple.

He cemented you in with grace and love. Back in the Old Testament, when they finished the temple, God moved in. In the New Testament, when God finishes the temple, the temple moves out.

If today the last stone is quarried out of the pit of sin and placed into this beautiful temple, we're called home. Now, says Paul, is there any reason why you and I can't be a part of the peace instead of the pieces? What's keeping us from being a part of God's peace mission? When you remember what you were, and what he did, and what you are. Every time we meet an unsaved person, we look upon someone for whom Jesus died.

Every time we meet a Christian, we look upon someone in whom Jesus lives. Why are there fights? When we've experienced the peace of God, when the dove of peace has come and settled in our lives, why should there be war? During this Christmas season, my friend, we are ambassadors of the greatest peace message ever, ever completed. Men have written thousands of peace accords, and they've been broken.

History records they last an average of about two years. God has written with the blood of Jesus Christ a peace covenant, and that covenant is going to last forever. And he died to do it.

Now maybe you've never received this peace. You need reconciliation. You need to be reconciled to God and to man.

Oh, what a difference it will make when you surrender to Christ and let his peace come in. Christian friend, we are ambassadors for Christ. Blessed are the peacemakers who marvel, heavenly Father, at so amazing love that in this world filled with so much turmoil and hatred and murder and selfishness and strife, we can be ambassadors of peace because we have experienced the peace of God in our hearts.

Oh, Father, help us to remember what we were. We were bondsmen in the land of Egypt, and yet you redeemed us. Help us to remember what Jesus did when he broke down the wall and tore the veil and accomplished blessed reconciliation.

Help us to remember what we are, a part of the great nation of God, the great family of God, the great temple of God. Oh, what a high and holy calling! And help us to go out into that battlefield, vulnerable to share the peace of God with our lives and with our lips. May someone here today, hearing this message, surrender to the Savior, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.