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Howdy. Well, really glad to have you all joining us here for worship today. You know, sometimes

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there are certain emblems or symbols or certain marks, certain things that when you see it,

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it triggers some impression on your mind and in your heart. If you're driving down the

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road and you see two golden arches, then you know that one, the kids in the backseat are

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probably going to be screaming for french fries and two, you're probably going to have

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a stomach ache for the rest of the day. If you see an apple with a bite taken out of

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it, you know that there is somebody who thinks that their phone and their computer is better

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than yours and they tell you every time, even during sermons. But if you were to see a

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fleur de l'oeil with an eagle and a shield with stars and stripes on it, that means that

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you are looking at the Boy Scouts. Now, the thing about the Scouts, they've been around

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for quite a long time and they've had quite an interesting history over time. Now, when

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I was in high school, I found out that a friend of mine, Paul, I found out he was about to

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become an eagle scout and I was like, is that a big deal? Well, finding out, yes, it's huge,

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but in my mind, he did not seem marked by or emblematic of a scout. The thing is, is

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that for me, in my mind, a scout was somebody with a bandana on all the time because they

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don't know how to use napkins, okay? They're wearing boots, they've got messy hair. I mean,

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this is someone that looks like they belong in the woods, you know? And my friend Paul,

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he was tall and gangly and he played bass for the band and he was in the J-R-O-T-C and

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worked on the newspaper staff as one of our writers. That was not who I had in my mind

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for that. But what I was thinking about was, well, okay, it's a little too late for me

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to join the Scouts at this point and try to, you know, make my way. So instead, is there

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some other way that I could try to, you know, have personal growth and learn responsibility

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and become the person I'm supposed to be? And I started looking at some of those badges

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that they have for the Eagles, well, for Boy Scouts as a whole. And I started saying, you

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know what, I could do that. And little by little over time, one of the things that's

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been in the back of my mind is just, you know, what are some skills, some life skills that

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I would like to make sure I know how to do? And so there have been times that I've learned

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to make sure I knew how to camp or times when I knew how to figure out what poison ivy is.

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So do not lean against a tree that has a hairy vine on it because that could be poison ivy

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without the leaves on it. One of my old students learned that the hard way with his face. Not

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good. Or even things like how to be a good citizen or other things. Because even though

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I didn't get those skills as a scout, I can still learn those things on my own. But then

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also realizing not everybody even sees the scouts the same way. Some people disagree

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with some of their politics and some of their practices and they don't feel like that's

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the right direction to go. So then would it be fair to treat that only the people with

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that emblem on themselves, only those who have gone through that specific type of training,

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those are the only people who are allowed to enjoy the outdoors or the only people who

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are allowed to work on projects around their house or the only people who are allowed to

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be good citizens in the world and all the women are saying and clearly half of us wouldn't

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even be in there in the first place. Well that idea of who is or is not allowed based

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on the way that they grew up, this is in many ways what we see when we try to understand

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the difference of Jew and Gentile. Because the thing is that those who were coming to

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know Christ who had been born in the Hebrew community, they had this background, this

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understanding of looking for the Messiah but there were all of these laws that they had

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followed, all of these expectations that the Gentiles who heard about Jesus, the Gentiles

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being pretty much anybody who was not of Jewish descent, they were like we didn't grow up

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that way, why in the world would we be expected to do things the same way? You see there were

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a lot of practices that the Jewish community had that the Gentile community had never grown

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up with. The idea of having circumcision for the males, the idea that that was originally

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something that was meant because of hygienic and religious purposes but imagine that you're

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talking to a 40 or 50 year old Gentile man and saying well you gotta be Jewish so you

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better go get circumcised, that's not gonna fly over very well. But even the fact that

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many of the reasons behind it weren't even there anymore, even including that they were

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with Jesus Christ giving his life, the shedding of blood was no longer required. Or even things

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like the food laws, not being able to eat pork. If any of you have had that McRib, I'm

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pretty sure somewhere along the way it was a pig at some point. But with it though is

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to be able to say yeah there were reasons why they didn't eat pigs during those times,

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the way that the, what the pigs would eat and some of the ways in which they kept them,

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but that wasn't necessarily true later on and the Gentiles didn't have an upset stomach

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afterwards. Or even more than that, not combining meat and dairy. If the dairy spoiled, well

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then the meat was bad too. All these things where it's like well okay yeah but it doesn't

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necessarily apply the same way or even more so, worshiping between Friday night to Saturday

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night. But Jesus rose again on Sunday morning. And now you've got a whole group of people

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worshiping at the time when Jesus rose again and they're trying to be told why is it that

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you didn't focus on the Sabbath. There were all of these things where every time the

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Judaizers, in other words those who expected everyone who was Christian to follow the Jewish

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laws, every time the Judaizers saw them they said you're not really part of the kingdom

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of God. You don't fit in there. And because of this there was this automatic rejection

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of the outsider. There was this automatic rejection. See they didn't grow up knowing what they were

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supposed to do. See they had all of these ideas that didn't fit was expected. And so

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the beginning part of chapter 2 in Ephesians it does emphasize you belonged to the prince

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of the power of the air. It's kind of a long wordy title but essentially the one who deceives

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you who happens to be everywhere. See that's the thing about Satan deceiving us. It's that

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it doesn't require you to say I want to go out there and follow Satan and be deceived.

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He's everywhere. Throughout all sorts of things just our culture, our mindset, our teachings,

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our practices, our social media, every single thing. There are all these little influences

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trying to lead us away from God. Of course the Gentiles didn't know all of these things

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beforehand because they had no idea what it meant to follow God. But even now following

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Christ Jesus it was still easy to label them as those disobedient people. You know what?

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You're already kind of messed up as it is. So we're just going to go ahead and add all

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the customary laws that we think you're supposed to. You just need to get on track all together.

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But not realizing that the different lives, the different experiences that they had had,

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that there was a reason why so many of these things didn't make sense for them. The thing

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is that oftentimes we end up getting confused by what we see as the good works we're supposed

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to do and we sometimes confuse them with our sense of our customs that we're used to.

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See Paul does say we're not saved by works. See as much as he knew that the Gentile community,

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they knew just how sinful they were. And he was letting them know you are saved by grace,

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you're forgiven. This does not mark you for the rest of your life. He was letting them

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know. But what does he go further to do? In the second half of the chapter he then goes

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further and says even those customary cultural laws that the Judaizers keep telling you

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to do, that is not what separates you from the kingdom of God. Nothing does because of

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what Christ has done for you. See this whole sense of not following God because we want

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to be in his perfect will but rather is saying no, this is what our custom was and nothing's

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going to make us question that. Is that Paul had to show that doesn't keep you out of the

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kingdom of God. But I'm sure that in our society none of us would ever treat somebody else

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as being an outsider, right? We've never had a time where we treated somebody like they

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weren't one of us just because there was something different, right? Who are our own outsiders?

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If I were to take two phrases, if I were to say to you the phrase we need to fight for

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our freedoms and we need to fight for our rights, those two are not really all that

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different, they're kind of complementary. But if I say one phrase, it connects with

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one group of people. And if I say the other phrase it connects with a different group

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of people. Because we're listening for certain phrases, certain terms. There are things that

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trigger us as either, yeah buddy, or I think you're an idiot. Not just catch phrases but

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even certain views on things. What's funny is how often you will hear the exact same

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thing come from two different people and you may say yes to one and no to the other depending

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on whether they have an R or a D behind their name. How many times is it even that we're

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looking for something even in our religious circles? I cannot tell you how many times

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whenever somebody was complimenting a sermon because they said that's so much like what

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I grew up hearing. That was the compliment. Is to measure preaching the word of God based

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on whether it was the way that they heard it growing up. Is this feeling of I'm looking

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for those who are one of us in order to decide if they're a part of our community? How many

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times do we say we want to be unified? But it's either because I'm going to convince

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you that I'm right or second I'm going to brow beat you into being quiet and just conceding

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or third I'm just going to overpower you somehow and you have to go along with it anyway.

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How often is it that we're trying to make sure everything matches what we've experienced

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and what we've seen? Instead of pausing to say that maybe there's a gap there that someone

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else's experience might help us to see. That if we weren't so quick to assume and figure

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out why something is automatically on the outside. Couldn't we spend long enough to figure

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out why it's worth our time and worth our effort? What if it turns out that none of

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us are actually completely correct on our own? I know, I know, that's going to take

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you a moment. What if it turns out none of us are actually completely right on our own?

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See that's the thing about the Prince of the Power of the Air. You ever tried to grab

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the air? You ever tried to like put your hand on it? Try to figure out this is where it is.

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The air doesn't stay over there. The air goes everywhere. The air travels over here. The

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air gets into your lungs. The air moves into your cells, into every piece of you. Because

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here's the thing about this, is that the Prince of the Power of the Air, yeah, had influence

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on the Gentiles, but so did on the Jewish community too. That's the hard part is that

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we don't want to take the time to realize that the deceiver, the one pulling us away

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from God, has infiltrated everything. Everything. We are all struggling with it. We are all

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being pulled away from hearing what is good and right. We are all being tempted to mock

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and to ridicule the idiots that disagree with us. We are all being pushed to figure out who

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the outsiders are. And we are all being called by God to realize we are the outsiders. Because

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that's the amazing part is that sometimes we take it for granted so often. You know,

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what's funny though is that all of us, because we were naturally born from Adam and Eve,

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we were all dead in sin. So the natural born child no longer existed. Whether you were

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Jewish or Gentile, we were all adopted. That's one of the funny parts a friend of mine mentioned

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that if you were in a family that had multiple children and the oldest got the inheritance,

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then the rest of you are sitting there wondering what do I have now. It wasn't just in the

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Bible days, it still happens even today. And yet if you were adopted by a wealthy family,

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then that meant you finally had something of your own. And that was why adoption was

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such a big deal in that world. Because it could often times admit the difference between

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having nothing and having everything. But that's the reality. We were all in need of

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being made clean. Not because any of us finally got it all figured out. Our good works, there

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was no one group of us that had it all figured out and now the rest of the people needed

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somehow get with the program. But all of us were saved by grace. Because our hope is not

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because of something that marks us. Something that's obviously different. And it's not

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because we somehow were doing some work that other people don't have. But rather is that

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our hope is by the Savior who unites us by His righteousness. So if we wish to spend

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our time ridiculing or mocking the ones who didn't come from that same background and

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for some reason just can't see it any differently than we can. Isn't it possible that maybe

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God brought them into His kingdom to show us something we weren't willing to see? And

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isn't it possible that maybe because of His grace being for all of us that we as a community

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can be better for it? So wherever we find ourselves, may we remember that we were brought

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from the outside in even as God is calling everyone else to do the same. Not waiting

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for us to finally see things with the same view, but rather because He's called us all

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with the same grace.

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Thanks be to God.