Is There One?
Tim Ross | July 12, 2020
“Make sure to prioritize where your identity really lies. It’s not in your ethnicity, it’s not in your sexual orientation, it’s not in your political affiliation. It’s in one place—Christ Jesus. ”
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Transcription
What's up Embassy City family? I am so excited to have this opportunity to teach God's word. Listen, I am pumped. I had an opportunity to rest last week and so whether you are a part of our family that used to meet physically, does seem like it's been a long time right? Or you are a part of our extended family watching abroad, welcome.
I am so grateful that you have set aside this time so that we can dive into God's word. Juliette sends her love she says, hi. She's usually right by my side to pray for me and greet you all before the service starts but I relieved her of her duties today. We're doing some renovations at the house and so the girl needs to rest.
Since she always prays for me, would y'all mind if I just pray for my girl real quick? I didn't think you should mind. God, thank you so much for Juliette, thank you for the incredible woman that she is in Christ. Thank you for the wife that she is, the mother that she is, the incredible, dutiful, Jill of all trades that she is.
God, I pray that she would be a refreshed today, that she rest today and as she resets, she'll come back even stronger. In Jesus name. Amen. I love you, baby. All right, so check this out. If you have your Bibles, I want you to go to the book of Ephesians chapter number two, the book of Ephesians chapter number two, I am so excited for this word this weekend.
Here's what happened, so last month, I did four weeks called We Make Dreams Come True. In the midst of that series, I did three sermons entitled, If I See Something, I Say Something. I thought I had done a really good job of trying to, in a theological way, present the body of Christ with a perspective on racism and injustice in this country and how the church needs to respond to that.
After taking a week to rest I thought I would be moving on to another topic, another subject, and the Holy Spirit said, "I'm not done talking about this and I'm not done talking about this through you." I don't have a series title for this but I do have a message for this week. I also have one for next week and the week after, the whole month of July.
The remaining month of July is dedicated to speaking on this and here's what I felt like the Holy Spirit told me last night. He said Tim, "When it comes to getting rid of racism in my body, I want you to see it like cancer treatments. I want you to see it like taking the body through rounds of chemotherapy theologically. I want you to see it as as as the body going through radiation in my word, to literally rid the body, especially our body of this spirit."
I want you to go to Ephesians Chapter 2, starting at the 14th verse, I want to read four verses in your hearing that I'll give you the title of the message. Here's what it says reading from the New Living Translation, "For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.
He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now, all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done through us. Wow, that's so good. All right, so if you're taking notes on this message, the title of this message very, very simply is, Is There One?
It's the question I want to ask today, Is There One? I grew up in a charismatic Pentecostal church. Very vibrant expressions of faith, and a love. I mean an absolute love for God's word. In those more traditional charismatic Pentecostal circles, when the preacher would get to the end of his sermon, get to the end of her sermon, they would ask everybody to bow their heads in a time of prayer.
They were given that space so that if anybody's heart was stirred by the gospel message at that time, they would have time to reflect and respond if the Holy Spirit was drawing them to Christ. In that moment, this question would be asked, Is there one? Is there one among us today in response to the message that has just been preached that would like to give their life to Jesus Christ?
Is there one? Is there one among us based on the gospel that's just been heard that wants to give up their old way of living and choose to walk in a new way according to the teachings of Jesus Christ? Is there one? I heard this question asked year after year after year. As I began to study for this particular message, the Holy Spirit asked me this question to ask us as the body of Christ.
Is there one? Not one that would come up and respond to the gospel message, but for those that have already committed their lives to Jesus Christ, the question that needs to be asked is, is there one? Is there indeed one body of Christ that the world can look at and see that there is a difference in the way that we have chosen to live our lives?
A difference in the way that we have chosen to act in our lives. A difference in the way that we have chosen to respond to life's many challenges compared to what's going on in the world. That's the question I want to answer today, is there one? I believe that the Apostle Paul makes it very, very clear, according to what he just writes and what we've just read in Ephesians 2:14-18, that Jesus Christ indeed had the intention and gave the deliberate action for us to become one.
In this particular passage, in the book of Ephesians, Paul is talking to Gentiles, a Jewish man talking to Gentiles about their access into the fellowship of God, being engrafted into the body of Christ. That the messianic prophecies that were given about Jesus Yeshua. His death on the cross made a way for the Jewish people who were close to God and the Gentiles who were far from God to become one as if they were never apart from God.
I want to give you three points, because I like to shoot my three pointers. I'm going to give you the three points based on this message and give you the reasons why the two became one. If you're heading this, I just want you to write, "Two became one because". There's no way that two can become one unless there is a deliberate action that's taken. There's no way that two can become one without intentionality.
There's no way two can become one without some forethought and some planning. There's no way two become one by accident. Two became one intentionally, on purpose, for purpose. I want you to write down point number one, "The two became one because Jesus broke down the wall." That's right. The two became one, because point number one, Jesus broke down the wall.
Here's what it says in Ephesians 2:14, for Christ himself has brought peace to us. Now, let me just stop right there. For Christ himself has brought peace to us. I want you to think about this. Christ himself is the one that brought peace. They just talked about having that overwhelming sense of peace. But I want you to understand, peace is just not something to be attained, it's a person to come into a relationship with.
Jesus is described as the Prince of Peace. When Christ brings peace, he's not just bringing something to drop off, he's bringing himself to maintain a space for eternity for Christ himself have brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. I did some study on this wall of hostility.
There's some great Jewish commentary about what this wall really represents. It represents a physical space that was in a temple that actually separated Jews from the access where Gentiles would come into in the temple. What Jesus is saying is I've removed that wall. There was also some hostility based around what the Torah explicitly told the children of Israel how they were supposed to be in a relationship with people that were not in the same covenant with God.
He says, "I'm tearing down that wall of hostility", not the law, not the Torah, but the ordinances around such laws that would cause there to be a distinction that would separate Jews from Gentiles. Let me tell you why this is very, very important. Because if God can do this for Jews and Gentiles, remember based on his perspective, looking down on Earth, all he's ever seen is those that have covenant with him and those that do not.
Those that he made a promise and an oath to which are the Jewish people, and those that do not, which are Gentiles. Christ says, "I tore down in my own body being broken on the cross, I tore down the wall of hostility that separated Jews from Gentiles." If that is the case, then it must be the same for us here in America.
That God, through the broken body of his son on the cross, removed the wall of hostility between black and white, between Asian and Hispanic, between Russian and Croatian, between Costa Rican and Puerto Rican, between Cuban and Brazilian. He tore down a wall of our facility. Anything that would make us hostile towards each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, he tore the wall down.
Why are you still mad? Why are you still mad? White man, why are you still mad? Black man, why are you still mad? Mexican man, why are you still mad? Chinese man, why are you still mad, as a believer in Jesus Christ. I'm not talking about somebody that is disconnected from a relationship with God, they got a lot to be mad about. I'm talking about somebody that has confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, raised Him from the dead.
How are you still mad at your brothers and sisters? How could there still be even the slightest drop of prejudice in your heart towards another believer in Jesus Christ? Paul himself has declared definitively that in Christ's broken body, he removed the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile. Which means God is really good at bringing two different people groups together.
God is really good at bringing people that would no other way in history be united together. He's really good at it. There's nothing wrong with what he's doing. There's got to be something wrong with what we're doing. He took two and turned them into one because he broke down a wall. Here's the thing that I just think is important to realize. There is actually a wall.
We have to recognize as believers, that Satan has been really good about putting up walls between us in this country. That America is the most sophisticated country in the world at reminding us simultaneously who we are and who we are not, based on skin tone, based on finances, based on zip code, based on college, based on height, based on weight, we are constantly being reminded and bombarded by walls.
I want to make sure that those walls that are out there, don't start getting set-up in the church because we won't go back to the scripture and realize that he tore down the walls of hostility. He literally tore them down and he didn't do it with jackhammer and sledgehammer and wrecking ball. He did it with his own body.
I refuse to disrespect that broken body that went to that cross to tear down the wall of hostility, to still be mad at somebody that doesn't look exactly like me. Doesn't worship exactly like me. Doesn't even think exactly like me. He came to tear down that wall of hostility. Point number two, please write this down. "The two became one because Jesus created a new group."
One of my favorites. The two became one because Jesus created a new group. Here's what it says in Ephesians 2:15. He did this by ending the system of law with his commandments and regulations. I just want to pause once again because a lot of people think that Jesus changed to do away with the law. If he did away with the law, he'd be doing away with himself. He did not come to do away with the law. He came to be the fulfillment of the law.
A better way to say that is he came to fill up the law with himself. Jesus hasn't come to do away with the law and start something new. He comes to in the best expression of that law, be the fulfillment of it, the filling up of it and give us the way to walk it out. He's not ending the system of law and his commandments and regulations rather it is the ordinances that the Rabbis that used to interpret the Torah, put around the laws that God gave to the children of Israel.
He does away with those. Look at this. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself, one new people from the two groups. Now y'all. [laughs] I wish we would all get back to this book because this book makes it so simple. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself, one new people from the two groups. Here's what Jesus said for all the division.
All the division that would ever be dividing anybody for all time. He said, "Just get in me. You over there, get in me, Jews you're very, very near step on over, get in me. Hey Gentiles you are far away, come over here get in me." That way, when it comes to identity, you won't just be celebrating your Jewishness and you won't just be loathing the fact that you were far, you're a Gentile, in me, I'm just going to create a new people group because y'all getting carried away your own identity. "Get in me and identify as me. Not you anymore, me."
Now, let's bring this into the context of all the tension that's going on in this country. Could it be that the only reason why you're still trying to maintain that blackness because you haven't jumped inside of him? The reason why you're trying to maintain that whiteness because you haven't jumped inside of him? The reason why you're trying to maintain that culture is because you haven't jumped into kingdom culture?
The reason why you have not let go of the thing that you think makes you, you is because you have not died to you yet so that you can become him. Jesus said, I'm going to break this whole thing up. You get in me, you get me, there. Now, you're a new people group. Who shall we call you? The church, Black church? No. The church, White church? No. The church, Catholic Church? No. The church, Pentecostal Church? No. The church. Lutheran Church? No. The church. Because whatever you put in front of that word church is the idol you're trying to keep in my church.
There is no black church, white church, Hispanic church and Asian church. Again, it is America's cultural divide that's crept into the church that has us categorizing ourselves like Americans, when we know for a fact we're citizens of heaven. He said, "I can fix all this division, just get in me and put your identity down compared to mine."
I didn't tell you to forget your black heritage. I did not tell you to forget your white heritage. I did not tell you to forget your Spanish heritage. I just said in comparison to me, make sure that you prioritize where your identity really lies.
It's not in your ethnicity. It's not in your sexual orientation. It's not in your affiliation politically. It's in one place, Christ Jesus. The two became one because he in his own body decided to make a new people group. You know why? Because he knew that if we were left to our own devices, we would always find something to divide us. It's the nature of man to divide. It is the nature of Christ to unify.
He says, "I want you in my body and I don't want you to identify as you anymore. You must identify as me." Thinking not strange that there are so many people trying to identify themselves with such unique labels, because of course, the enemy wants you to identify with 20 other things to keep you so distracted and disoriented that you would never identify yourself as a believer in Jesus Christ.
I won't be your black preacher. I won't be. I will be a believer in Jesus Christ, who happens to be black. I'm happy about the skin I'm in but compared to what I found in Christ, I count this dunk, because I won't show up in this shade in heaven anyway. Spirits will be reconciled with him. Now, I can hear somebody saying, "Well what about Revelation 7 where it says all nations, every tribe, every tongue?" Yes, we love the diversity but not at the expense of unity.
When diversity brings division, it is no longer something to be celebrated. It is something to be corrected. I'm telling you at this point, you need to choose which group you're in. Jesus made it very easy. You can jump into my body and be referred to as the body Body of Christ. One body, where Jews, Gentiles, and every other nationality that you could possibly imagine, can be found in me or you could jump outside of my body and try to be your own body, but that's a cancer cell.
It's a free radical, and it metastasized and start to eat away at the true Body of Christ. This is why theologically, we're going to pump some radiation into the body because we need to shrink those dangerous cells from taking form. I refuse to come out of the context scripturally that Christ made us one, to have an argument or sow more division or more strife between who is supposed to be my brother and my sister.
Point number three. The two became one because Jesus reconciled all. I say again, that the two became one because Jesus reconciled all. Just a quick recap. Point number one, the two became one because Jesus broke down the wall. Got that, check. Point number two, the two became one because Jesus created a new group. You got that, check. Point number three, the two became one because Jesus reconciled all.
Here's what it says in Ephesians 2:16, together as one body. Do y'all see how many times Paul in four verses has said the same exact thing over and over again? One, what is he driving home for a Gentile? This a Jewish man telling this to Gentiles. The man who has the bloodline that can connect back to Abraham. The man that has the bloodline that gives him the right to boast about his relationship with the promised Messiah says to Gentiles who were far away from God, never had to come in it in every single way was distant. He says to those Gentiles, "Hey, I just want you to know, we're equal now. We're one. I don't even have any more Jewish privilege. You have as much privilege in the kingdom as I do, you're not a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God.
You are now on par with me. You are equal with me. We both needed the shed blood of Jesus Christ to be in the body that we're now in. I don't have a head start in front of you anymore. We are now brothers, equal. We were near, you were far, but thank God that we're both here." Here's what he says, "Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God, by means of his death on the cross and our hostility towards each other was put to death."
I got to read that slower, Christ reconciled both groups to hope to who? To God. I need you to see the order. He reconciled both groups to God. He reconciled both groups to God, not to each other. He reconciled both of the groups to God by means of his death on the cross and in connection with our hostility towards each other was put to death.
Now, this is really important. He reconciled both groups to God because he knew he cannot not reconcile both groups to each other. See, were having the wrong conversation in this country as it relates to racial reconciliation, there is no actual racial reconciliation to be had between black and white people in this country because to reconcile means to restore to a previous relationship, of which black Americans in this country and white Americans did not have a relationship, they had a business transaction.
The white slave owners lost their machines. They lost their generators of work output so there's no reconciliation there. This is why every time we keep scrambling around in our churches to have a racial reconciliation day, it didn't work because you're trying to reconcile something by which you don't have a relationship with. You found the black pastor down the street, the black president, you don't eat with, you don't visit his house.
You don't know his wife's name. You don't know his kid's name, you found the white pastor. You don't have a relationship with him. You just know he's the other big church in the city and so you want to get on the phone real quick and have a photo op and you put two different colors side by side, two different cultures side by side. That doesn't say we're one. Only in the body of Christ can we be one.
Christ gives us through Paul's writings the clearest formula. Christ takes both in the groups and says, "We need to go to my dad's house because it's only when you get reconciled to your father, that you can put away the hostility that you've had for each other." Christ, based on his death, on the cross reconciles, both of these groups to the only place they can be reconciled to, the only person that can be reconciled to and that is God. Reconciliation only happens with God.
Then, the hostility can be torn down and put to death with each other. He reconciled the two groups to God and our hostility when each other died. Now, let me tell you why this is so important to me and why I'm so passionate about this. I was born and raised in Inglewood, California. I was born at a very diverse environment.
Southern California has so many different groups of people and I got to the South and it was only when I got to the South that I started to experience what it must have been like for Black Americans living in the South at that time there, even though segregation was done away with, there was still these lines of demarcation that people were still governing themselves by two generations later.
I had the opportunity for two years to travel with Josh McDowell, who was an incredible Christian apologist through the heartland of America. For two years, I was his stage manager and MC. We went to church venues to put on Christian events for young people to bring them closer to Christ. It was in that 24-month period that I experienced the worst racism that I had ever experienced in my entire life. It was all from church people.
This is when I knew that this spirit can be in the church, even though people open up their Bibles every week and preach from it. Even though people attend church every weekend and want to feel the presence of God, there can still be division if we have not looked to scripture to find out where we are supposed to find ourselves. There was no sense in me trying to address the racism that we got exposed to as we were going on these tour dates because we were only going to be there for five or six hours, at the most.
I had never been apologized to by white men such as Josh McDowell and the crew that I rode with as much as I was on that tour because they could see the ugliness of that racism in churches. Reconciliation wasn't going to happen because we got in their face and start to chew them out. It was only going to happen when we got in the presence of God. If Christ doesn't bring you back to God to be reconciled in this area, there's always going to be a wall of hostility between us.
That can be black, white. That can be black, Asian. That can be black, Chinese. That can be black, Southeast Asian. That can be black, native American. It doesn't matter. The enemy is good at division. Christ is good at unity. Is there one? Usually, we would ask the question at the end of a sermon to see if somebody wanted to give their life to Jesus Christ, but my question is a little bit different today. It's something I hope that you answer in your heart individually.
Is there one? Do you truly see yourselves a part of one body or have you allowed a wall to be set up in your heart that you may not even be aware of? Is there one? Could you walk into a predominantly black church and say, "I'm one with these people," not culturally, spiritually. Is there one? Could you walk into a predominantly white church and still feel like you had brothers and sisters there, like you were a part of the world's greatest fraternity and sorority? Is there one?
I think that's a question that you and I need to answer. This is a open-book test. Yes, there's one. The question we need to answer is if we want to be? Would you bow your heads and close your eyes. What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?
Is there one? America does a really good job of putting up walls. You would be amazed how many people live their life going through the maze of invisible walls that this country has so masterfully put up. "I don't go to that side of town because that side of town is this. I don't go to that side of town because that side of town is this.
I don't eat over there because that's this. I don't eat over there because that's there. I don't shop there because there's this. I don't shop there.
I don't hang out with them because of this. I don't hang out with those people because of that." Wow. A lot of walls up. Only one place that these walls came down, and it was in his broken body. It was in his shed blood.
It was in his ability to forecast what the major division would be and say, "Before we even get started, let me clear everything up. In my broken body, I just wanted to take the two groups of people, the chosen people, those that were not chosen, the Jew and the Gentile. The Jew and everybody else. In my body on the cross, I just wanted to make a new group of people that the whole world could look to and go, "They're different."
Not that the world will look to and go, "I can't tell the difference." Christ's broken body on that cross in his blood being poured out for the remission of our sins was to make a new group of people that would be so distinct from others around them that they would, out of curiosity, have to go, "How are you also different? How do you all get along? How is it that you're not having the same problems in the church that we're having in this country?"
That's pretty easy, it's because Christ made us one. That takes surrender. That takes submission. That takes forgiveness. That takes humility. Is there one? In front of God, I pray right now in Jesus' name that you would take this message on this day, that you would, Holy Spirit, baptize us again into the body of Christ for the purposes of your glory and our benefit in such a crazy world.
