Episode 11: Peace and Unity in Jesus

In this powerful episode of Live It Out, Pastor Jason Lancaster and Adam Green unpack Ephesians 2:11-18 and reveal the true peace with God and man that only Jesus can bring.

Once far off from God and separated by a wall of hostility, we were without hope. But Jesus changes everything. His blood tears down every barrier, brings us near to a holy God, reconciles us to the Father, and creates genuine peace—not just with God, but with one another.

Discover how Jesus makes one new family out of former enemies, ends the old hostility, and offers lasting unity that the world desperately needs.

If you’re tired of division, distance from God, or broken relationships, this message will fill you with hope and show you the only true path to peace.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey friends, welcome to this episode of Live It Out, a podcast where we talk about God's word and we encourage one another and our listeners to live it out for the glory of God and for the good of others. I'm Adam Green, and with me today is Pastor Jason Lancaster, and we're recording this here live at Village Bible Church in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. And if you're in the Hot Springs area, we encourage you more than anything to join us in person. There's nothing better than gathering with the church to give all praise and glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can do that with us every Sunday at 9 15 a.m. And while you're here, go ahead and introduce yourselves to anyone on staff or really anyone in the church, and we'd be thrilled that you're here with us. Well, with that, let's go and dive into the podcast where we're talking about Ephesians chapter 2, verses 11 through 18. We're in chapter 2, verses 11 through 18. So much stuff here. Maybe there's something that didn't make your sermon, or maybe you just want to highlight a quick overview of what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Yeah, it's I think it's Ephesians 2 is often the neglected part of Ephesians 2. People don't know what it is about, but it's about Jesus Christ breaking down the barrier between Jew and Gentile and reconciling them not just to God, but to one another, which is I I at our day and age we don't understand how that significant that is when there's so much animosity and hatred between Jews and Gentiles, where Jews looked down on Gentiles, Gentiles resented them, they stayed apart, did their own thing. Jesus Christ breaks down that barrier and reconciles them to one another.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Right. Um, I um I mean obviously Paul's telling the believers multiple times to remember their former condition. Uh, why is this so important uh for us to constantly remind ourselves of where we came from?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, it's he's telling the Gentiles you were separated, you weren't part of these promises, yeah, you're godless, uh in fact you had no hope.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

And now you have hope, you have God, you have promises, you have eternal life, you have Jesus. And I think it's significant for us because we forget, we forget what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, and it's good for us to remember where we were and where we are now because of the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, I loved uh how you pointed out, I I forget what you called it, but you you essentially pointed out that we're separated from Christ, we're we're excluded, we are strangers, right? No part of the blessings of the covenant, uh, we have no hope, and we're godless. I mean, that is a terrible position to be. Um, and that was reality before Christ.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Reality. Yeah. And so, I mean, my goodness, he changes all of that around through his blood that was shed for us.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

So I I think uh I mean, practically speaking, we're always looking for ways to think through this throughout the week. It's good to remind ourselves of thank you, Jesus, for giving us that hope that we're not separated from Christ, right? We're not now uh excluded from you, far off from you. We've been brought near, we're not strangers, we're children of God, right? We have hope every single day. Amen. Um, no matter what you're going through, we have hope and we're not godless, but matter of fact, God what dwells in us. That's right. It's crazy. Crazy. Awesome. So, what does it mean that Christ Himself is our peace? Because I know you you kind of pointed on this little spot here.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

He is not just one who brings peace or ushers in peace or shows a way to peace, he is the peace between obviously God and man. Through the cross, he brings enemies. Yes, we were God's enemy, hostility against God, him wrath on us. Now there's peace between us and God, but also pe peace between us and others within the body of Christ. In the context, Jews and Gentiles have been warring each other forever. Now there's peace between the two through and because of Jesus. Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

And you you had you had kind of pointed out this uh this uh this wall of hostility. Can you maybe um just for my refresher, remind me of that, whatever that wall was called and the significance of this wall being broken down?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah, so there he the the idea is that in the temple at the time there was a wall called the Soreg that kept the Gentiles uh at a certain distance from the Jews and further away from the Holy of Holies, of course. In fact, if they crossed that, they would be punishable by death. And the Apostle Paul is actually in jail because he's accused of bringing the Gentile past that wall. Uh and now he's writing to them and saying that wall is done. But he's not talking about that physical wall. He's talking about this metaphorical spiritual wall that existed because of the law. Now, it's not because of the law in and of itself, you could say it's because of the usage of the law by the Jews. So, what we mean by that is the law talks about circumcision, talks about separation, talks about holy days, talks about what you can and cannot eat, what we would call the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. Yes. And so the idea is that that has been broken down in the sense of the enmity, of the strife, the hostility that exists, because the Jews would say, We got the law, we keep it, look how much better we are than you. And hostility existed between them and the Gentiles, and Paul's like, that's done. There's no us versus them anymore. That wall is now gone.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Amen. Why?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Because of the cross of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Our hope is in Jesus. We have a right standing with the holy God. We are brought near to him. Now, let's get a more practical here, and I think that's how you got toward the end of your message. Um, okay, so we're gathering together, and I've I've always been told in the past, you come together to worship Jesus, but not everyone in the room you might be buddies and buddies with, but yet you've got a common uh uh brotherhood around Jesus because you've all been bought by the blood of Jesus, so he's reshaped your heart to love others.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

But that goes back to the part where we're not just here to tolerate one another, right? We're here to love one another, right? We're here to love one another. I mean, we don't want to just say, okay, I'll I'll put up with you. No, we are supposed to aggressively love one another. And it's amazing. People have come from different backgrounds and different histories and different abilities, different teckets, and we're called to love one another actively.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

How does that look like? Maybe you can give an example of what that would actually look like. Because I know from Sunday to Sunday or different churches I visited, everyone seems chipper and they kind of get along. Maybe they're putting a facade on, but again, there's people from all different walks, different preferences, different likes. Uh, maybe someone's been wronged by someone else, whatever. There may be some internal uh frustrations. But what does it look like to not tolerate but to truly love one another, despite, like I said, all these differences? And I know you kind of honed in on a few at the end.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

I mean, the answer comes down to, of course, you can love them at church, but to have them in your home, to get to know them, it really comes back whether you're crossing what we call racial boundaries or cultural boundaries or even physical ability where people would have disabilities, like kind of be ignored. No, we're gonna have you in our home. We're not just gonna welcome you. We're gonna we're gonna friend befriend you, and hopefully you'll befriend us as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

We're gonna get to know you. Yeah. Want to know about you. And and I think this also plays into not just Sundays, but you're really challenging us outside of church to daily live it out, live out this changed life that we have, the hope that we have, and that God loves, and you made it made it very clear, God loves everyone, yeah, despite whatever He loves everyone. And and that we should also extend that love to those who maybe we have a preconceived prejudice or uh, you know, maybe we grew up and our family talked about certain cultures, certain people a different way, but that's not how God sees them.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, and I would think if you want to see a miracle in this world, look at the way God has brought hostile groups together through the cross of Christ. Think specifically about Jewish believers in Jesus and Palestinian believers in Jesus, will today worship in the same church as brothers and sisters. I mean, how else can you explain that? That is an absolute miracle. Wow. No peace summit or conference you can go to. This is through Jesus. Think about Ukrainian believers in Jesus, Russian believers in Jesus coming together. You think in Rwanda, Hutu's and Tutsis coming together to worship after genocide in the same church. Wow. I don't know how else you're gonna explain that. You can give some worldly explanation, but it's all through the cross of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Right. Countercultural, radical.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Is there any last things you want to uh add to this or give us practical? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Application. We have to come to the reality that there is racism in the American church. We have to come to that reality. And probably racism, prejudice even in our own hearts. And if if we don't acknowledge that, we'll say, well, you know, that's just woke ideology, and we just cast it off of all the crazy CRT stuff of the world and go, yeah, no, we don't go down that road, then we're gonna ignore prejudice, hatred, even in our hearts. As I mentioned today, my African-American son in Christian context, camps, Christian school, and also at church, uh youth group has been called the N-word. And that's like I said, not just kids trying on new words. That's that's that's just hearing that stuff from their parents, Bible-believing, apparently, parents who I'm sure have the outbursts of these words in their home. And until we start dealing with stuff in our own heart and we try to act like racism's out there or it's not as bad as it used to be, we miss the reality that through the cross, racists can be forgiven. That through the cross of Jesus Christ, our prejudice can be forgiven and those can be broken down, and we can be reconciled between us and them through the cross of Jesus Christ. So it really plays out practically in the way that our hearts interact. And it could be even just men hating on women, women hating on men. I mean, you could just take it across the board. Right. Through Jesus, through the cross, those barriers are gone. We are reconciled to one another and we need to act like it.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah. Well, would you pray to that end just for again us to be um awakened to what Jesus has done and how we need that help to help him shape our hearts. We have victory over that and love for one another.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Amen. Lord, we just ask you to make us people of repentance that repent if we're closet racists, closet prejudice. We got things going on where we just can't stand other people, or we maybe just tolerate people. Lord, just convict us. That's not the way you love us. You don't just tolerate us. You love us sacrificially. Help us to find that forgiveness in Jesus and not just tolerate others, but actively love them. Go into places that are uncomfortable, places where we need to love people, where we need to find forgiveness in Jesus and find ourselves reconciling with others for for, like we'd say, for our good and for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Live It Out. We are truly grateful and thankful that you tuned in with us today. And if you found this helpful or encouraging in any way today or throughout the week, please drop us a comment as we love to see how these words of encouragement and how God's word is making an impact in your life and hopefully in the life of others. And if you have any topics or questions for future episodes, we love to receive those. And again, it would help us to be able to answer some of those in our future episodes. You can easily do that by emailing us at live it out, all one word, live it out at VBCHSV.org. Well, we hope you have a good week. Keep living it out for God's glory and for the good of others. God bless.