Remember Where You Came From

Remember Where You Came From!

By Pastor Matt Black

26 November 2006
Lord's Day morning
Ephesians 2:11-13

Open your Bibles to Ephesians 2, and let’s read verses 11-22. The title of this morning’s message is “Remember Where You Came From”.

[Read Ephesians 2:11-22].

Ephesians 2:11-13, “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; 12 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: 13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

Introduction: Have you ever had a problem getting along with someone? Anytime you argue you show the ultimate problem that is in all of our souls. We are proud, selfish, self-centered!

The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God! A soft answer turneth away wrath! As James says further in 4:1, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

There was a great war going on in the churches of the first century. Jews and Gentiles were at odds. The brilliant Greeks where there were all the philosophers said that anyone who was not a Greek was an ignorant Barbarian, including the Jews! And the Jews said that anyone who wasn’t a son of Abraham was a dog. We all have our divisions and disagreements. The questions is: Why can’t we all get along? The answer is clear from our text! We don’t remember where we came from.

Paul says, “Wherefore remember…” It is not simply a suggestion, but a command. He has just taken us from the depths of death and sorrow—a world of people that is “dead in trespasses and sins” (verse 1), to a people that have been “quickened together with Christ” (verse 5) and “seated in the heavenlies” (verse 6). These people—you and me—were enemies of God, “sons of disobedience” (verse 2), “children of wrath” (verse 3), and he has taken us and made us “His workmanship” and made us a new creation “in Christ Jesus unto good works”. He took someone that was nothing (you and me) and made it something beautiful!—something that is going to bring Him praise for all eternity, just as verse 7 says, “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus”.

Ponder how far you were away from Christ

Normally, you would think Paul would say, “Listen, based on all this great stuff, REJOICE!” He doesn’t say that. He says the opposite. He says “Remember.” Remember that not too long ago, you were an “uncircumcised” Philistine! Remember that not too very long ago, you had no way of salvation, since “salvation is of the Jews” and you are not a Jew. He says, you need to remember (ponder, let it grip you) that not too long ago, you were on the side of the great cliff on the edge of hell, and every breath you took was enough to cause you to lose your balance and fall into the abiss—you were that close to hell! You were “without Christ” and without “hope” and “without God in the world”. You were so far away from Christ.

Once you’ve pondered those truths, then you can think about verse 13, “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

I. Why do we need to Remember?

You cannot just skip from verse 10 to verse 13. That’s what we like to do. We like to skip the bad parts and go right to the good parts. That’s why a lot of people love to preach the Bible, but they conveniently skip over the hard, difficult, and depressing verses. Listen, this Bible is the Word of God. Every jot and tittle is breathed out by God, and we skip over a verse to our own peril and hurt. Verses 11 and 12 of Ephesians 2 are necessary. Why? In one word: Pride.

1. Remembering is necessary because of Pride

Pride is the cornerstone and root of every sin. It was not murder, lust, hatred, or blasphemy that made Lucifer, the angel of light, to fall from heaven into the deepest hell. What was it that made Satan the author of all lies, murder, hatred, and all evil? What was it that made the most beautiful angel into the devil himself? What was it? It was pride. Pride is the most cardinal of all sins. The Bible does not say that God resists the wicked and lustful and murderous. Yes, all of that is true, but to some up the epitome of evil and filth, we know that “God resisteth the proud” (James 4:6). What is the very first thing of the seven things that God hates with a perfect hatred? It is “a proud look” (Proverbs 6:16-19).

We need to take time to remember, so that we can see how far we have come and been “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (verse 13).

Remember! Ponder! Meditate on this! He says “wherefore”. That is saying, “listen, based on the fact that you have been moved from the lowest position in the universe to the highest one, you need to think about the pit you just crawled out of, and keep thinking about it, and never forget it!”

2. To not remember our misery will actually keep us from true Happiness.

The World says, “Don’t Remember”

Our culture today says in essence, “Don’t remember”. “Don’t worry, be happy”. Your happiness is all that matters. That philosophy, my friends, is the death knell of your happiness. If you try to please yourself, you will most certainly be miserable. Your flesh cannot be pleased. You were not created for you. You were created for God. If you want to be really, really happy, you need to see how far God has brought you to Himself.

Paul says, remember where you came from. You were miserable. Remembering our misery is fought against in our world. Our culture tells us, “Listen if you are thinking on your misery, then you need to stop it! Stop thinking and become a zombie of entertainment, but you need to stop it! What you need is Prozac^©…what you need is another movie. What you need is a Bears game. Don’t worry too much about your misery. Don’t worry about the fact that very soon you will most certainly die. Just drink a Miller light or take a Prozac or grab a DVD or a nice restaurant and forget your misery. Don’t remember it, but forget it!”

No, we need to let the truth and reality about who we really are depress us and brake us and drive us to Jesus Christ! The truth will set us free! The truth will drive us to Christ! Listen, no matter who you are or what you’ve done, ”Christ Jesus came to save sinners!” If you are saved, there’s nothing to be proud about. Remember your misery, and you will be thankful for anything you receive that is not hell. You’ve not gotten hell, so therefore, everything else is a bonus.

3. Remembering our former misery will lead us to Contentment and joy with whatever we right now currently have.

What we are going to find out is that remembering how far God has brought us to Himself, remembering that we never would have come to God on our own, remembering what we really deserve, and pondering on the shame of who we once were will make us thankful and content and delighted with anything and everything that we experience because we have not gotten what we deserve! We were children of hell, but God has spared us. What have we to complain about? Every time you are tempted to complain and to get your own way, and to whine and fuss and crawl into depression and feel lost and lonely, you need to stop and REMEMBER! Remembering is necessary to fuel the fire of a love for souls, and a hatred for sin, and above all and burning passion for God. Without pondering on where we have come from and the hopeless condition we were in, we are on a one way journey to spiritual pride and self-righteousness. Before you get too high and mighty judging all those sinners out there that have not bowed the knee to Christ, Remember! Ponder! Meditate on it. Let it grip you. An intellectual understanding is not enough. Let the reality of grace soak into your heart and soul. Let it seize you and move you and shake you. Remember!

So we’ve seen WHY we need to remember, now let us look at what are we to remember. What does Paul call on us to meditate on?

II. What do we need to Remember?

A. First, he says, remember the Hatred. Again, verse 11, “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…” The Jews, who were chosen to be a band of priests and really evangelists to the world, became introverted and self-righteous.

Explanation: The Jews called the Gentiles “uncircumcised”. That was a derisive name. That was like calling them trash. The Jews of 2,000 years ago actually taught that it wasn't lawful for them to help a Gentile mother at childbirth because that would be helping to bring another dog into the world. If a Jewish daughter or son married a Gentile the family held a funeral service. They never recognised their own children again. The children were in effect dead.

The Jews were called out of this world to be holy, but they were also to be humble! They lost that, and trusted in the outward sign instead of the inward reality. You trust in the outward, and you will become proud. They trusted in their outward circumcision, but they missed the whole point. Look at a few places in the Scriptures:

r Deuteronomy 10:16, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.”

r Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.”

B. Secondly, he says, remember your History. Look at verse 11 and 12, “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; 12 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:”

1. Let’s first look at the way it was.

Here it is: “remember… in time past [you were] Gentiles in the flesh”. In other words, you were not chosen by God. You were left out of God’s covenant. Paul makes it very plain in verse 12: you were “without Christ”, without “hope”, and “without God in the world”. You were alienated from God’s called out people and you were a total foreigner when it came to the covenants of promise. In other words, God was 100% completely against you, and you were totally unaware of it. Remember your ignorance. Remember you were a Gentile. God had a plan in the Old Testament, and you, for the most part, were not part of it.

Jews Chosen above All Nations

The Jews were chosen out of all the world and the Gentiles were left behind. This is a huge obstacle to overcome. Look at Deuteronomy 14:2 where this is so clear. Moses reminds the people of Israel, “For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”

History is God’s Story

History is not just something that man makes up as we go along. Adam did not just decide to call on God. God came after him. Noah didn’t decide one day that it would be a good idea to make a boat. God instructed him. God called Abraham from Ur and Moses from Egypt. You see it is not man’s story at all, it is HIS story! It is God’s story.

Illustration: The late Dr. Lloyd-Jones commenting on this passage had this to say, " How is it possible that anyone can read an open Bible, starting with the words, 'In the beginning God...,' and then go on to think of the whole thing as the activity of man? It is God who acts everywhere. He made man, He made the world. Man sinned- God went after him. It is God who called Abraham; it is God who created the kings; it is God who gave the instructions about the building of the tabernacle and the temple; and it is God, who, in the fullness of times, sent forth His own Son. It is God's workmanship, God's activity, from beginning to end."

Gentiles Far From Christ

Let’s think about the way it was. Here it is: “remember… in time past [you were] Gentiles in the flesh”. Remember now, Paul says to us, that you were Gentiles in the flesh. Friends, I am a Gentile, I would guess that most if not all of you are Gentiles. Think about how it was for us in times past. Even Gentiles who followed the Lord and became Jews were never allowed to forget how far away they were from the Lord.

When they came to Jerusalem to the feasts they were restricted to a walled courtyard called the 'Court of the Gentiles' which ran around the Temple. From there they could look at the distant building and three courtyards between themselves and the Temple.

r First most outer courtyard was for Gentiles.

r Inside of that was the courtyard for women.

r Then there was another inner circle where the men had their courtyard with a wall about five feet high around that.

r Then another inner court again was found where the priests alone entered.

r Then there was the Temple itself which was further divided into the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.

No common worshipper ever entered the Temple. So Gentile converts were right on the fringes and forbidden to go any nearer because they were not Israelites. In fact, there were warning signs all around at the gateways to the next courtyard. The signs said, "Trespassers will be executed." Can you imagine? Don’t go near to God, or you will die!

All People Far From Christ

And actually, the whole set up of the Temple and the Jewish religion was set up to remind us that we cannot go near God! Moses was given the Law of God, and no person could be near the mountain. There were thunderings and lightenings and threatenings from the mount of God—Mount Sinai.

Then when the Tabernacle and later the Temple were erected, no one could enter into the Holy of Holies except for the high priest once a year, and he risked his own life doing so!

This is the picture of way that Israel approached God in the Old Testament. They, even the chosen people, were afar off. They were sinners in need of a Saviour. They were in need of a true high priest from above, the Lord of Glory to go before them! And that He did! As verse 13 says, “13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

2. Now let’s look at the way it is now.

Circumcision

r Philippians 3:3, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

r Romans 2:28, “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh…”

r Colossians 2:11, “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ…”

True Israel

We learn in John 4:22 that salvation is of the Jews. Gentiles must be brought into Israel. I, as a non-Jew, must become a fellow citizen of Israel (2:19) and a fellow-heir of their promises (3:6). There is no salvation outside the true Israel. Now do not misunderstand. I am not talking about national Israel. I’m not talking simply about becoming a member of a physical nation.

There are not two peoples of God. If the New Testament is clear about anything, it is clear about that. Paul reveals the mystery in Ephesians 3:6, “That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:” We are fellowheirs with Israel of the same body!

Israel was not replaced, it was enlarged and fulfilled. As Paul says elsewhere, "if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:29). By faith Gentiles join the "true circumcision" (Philippians 3:3), and become "sons of Abraham" (Galatians 3:9) and "the true Jews as Romans 2:29 says, “he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit”. We were a wild olive branch, but we have been grafted into Israel the true olive tree (Romans 11:17). It is not that a Gentile program has taken the place of Israel. There is one people of God called the church, and also called “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).

III. Two Examples to Remember.

1. Israel in Ezekiel 16.

Look at Ezekiel 16 and beginning with verse 6, “…when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. 7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. 8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine. 9 Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. 10 I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk…” Look down to verse 13b, “thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. 14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD. 15 But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.” Look at verse 22, “And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.”

Israel refused to remember their misery, and they departed from the Lord and trusted in the beauty that God gave them instead of trusting in God Himself! They thought they deserved the benefits God gave them and played the harlot and lived in self-righteousness and pride!

2. The Prostitute.

Do you remember what happened when Jesus went to eat with Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36ff.)? Jesus “went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. 37 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, 38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”

The Pharisee objected, and Jesus told him a parable (verse 41): "There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. 42 And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? " Simon answers correctly, the one who owed most, and Jesus basically says, "That is why the prostitute is moved to tears and you aren't. You won’t remember your own misery. You are just as much in need of forgiveness!” He called self-righteous Pharisees sons of hell in Matthew 23.

Conclusion: Are you getting along with people in this church. Your service for God is hindered if that is the case. You might think you are doing great things, but are you humble? Are you remembering the horrible condition of misery you came from.

God resisteth the proud!

There is only one answer to every situation: Psalm 34:18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Are you remembering that “ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ”. You have nothing to boast in but Jesus!

Closing Hymn: 411 The Solid Rock