Howdy. Well, really glad to have you all joining us here for worship today. You know, sometimes
there are certain emblems or symbols or certain marks, certain things that when you see it,
it triggers some impression on your mind and in your heart. If you're driving down the
road and you see two golden arches, then you know that one, the kids in the backseat are
probably going to be screaming for french fries and two, you're probably going to have
a stomach ache for the rest of the day. If you see an apple with a bite taken out of
it, you know that there is somebody who thinks that their phone and their computer is better
than yours and they tell you every time, even during sermons. But if you were to see a
fleur de l'oeil with an eagle and a shield with stars and stripes on it, that means that
you are looking at the Boy Scouts. Now, the thing about the Scouts, they've been around
for quite a long time and they've had quite an interesting history over time. Now, when
I was in high school, I found out that a friend of mine, Paul, I found out he was about to
become an eagle scout and I was like, is that a big deal? Well, finding out, yes, it's huge,
but in my mind, he did not seem marked by or emblematic of a scout. The thing is, is
that for me, in my mind, a scout was somebody with a bandana on all the time because they
don't know how to use napkins, okay? They're wearing boots, they've got messy hair. I mean,
this is someone that looks like they belong in the woods, you know? And my friend Paul,
he was tall and gangly and he played bass for the band and he was in the J-R-O-T-C and
worked on the newspaper staff as one of our writers. That was not who I had in my mind
for that. But what I was thinking about was, well, okay, it's a little too late for me
to join the Scouts at this point and try to, you know, make my way. So instead, is there
some other way that I could try to, you know, have personal growth and learn responsibility
and become the person I'm supposed to be? And I started looking at some of those badges
that they have for the Eagles, well, for Boy Scouts as a whole. And I started saying, you
know what, I could do that. And little by little over time, one of the things that's
been in the back of my mind is just, you know, what are some skills, some life skills that
I would like to make sure I know how to do? And so there have been times that I've learned
to make sure I knew how to camp or times when I knew how to figure out what poison ivy is.
So do not lean against a tree that has a hairy vine on it because that could be poison ivy
without the leaves on it. One of my old students learned that the hard way with his face. Not
good. Or even things like how to be a good citizen or other things. Because even though
I didn't get those skills as a scout, I can still learn those things on my own. But then
also realizing not everybody even sees the scouts the same way. Some people disagree
with some of their politics and some of their practices and they don't feel like that's
the right direction to go. So then would it be fair to treat that only the people with
that emblem on themselves, only those who have gone through that specific type of training,
those are the only people who are allowed to enjoy the outdoors or the only people who
are allowed to work on projects around their house or the only people who are allowed to
be good citizens in the world and all the women are saying and clearly half of us wouldn't
even be in there in the first place. Well that idea of who is or is not allowed based
on the way that they grew up, this is in many ways what we see when we try to understand
the difference of Jew and Gentile. Because the thing is that those who were coming to
know Christ who had been born in the Hebrew community, they had this background, this
understanding of looking for the Messiah but there were all of these laws that they had
followed, all of these expectations that the Gentiles who heard about Jesus, the Gentiles
being pretty much anybody who was not of Jewish descent, they were like we didn't grow up
that way, why in the world would we be expected to do things the same way? You see there were
a lot of practices that the Jewish community had that the Gentile community had never grown
up with. The idea of having circumcision for the males, the idea that that was originally
something that was meant because of hygienic and religious purposes but imagine that you're
talking to a 40 or 50 year old Gentile man and saying well you gotta be Jewish so you
better go get circumcised, that's not gonna fly over very well. But even the fact that
many of the reasons behind it weren't even there anymore, even including that they were
with Jesus Christ giving his life, the shedding of blood was no longer required. Or even things
like the food laws, not being able to eat pork. If any of you have had that McRib, I'm
pretty sure somewhere along the way it was a pig at some point. But with it though is
to be able to say yeah there were reasons why they didn't eat pigs during those times,
the way that the, what the pigs would eat and some of the ways in which they kept them,
but that wasn't necessarily true later on and the Gentiles didn't have an upset stomach
afterwards. Or even more than that, not combining meat and dairy. If the dairy spoiled, well
then the meat was bad too. All these things where it's like well okay yeah but it doesn't
necessarily apply the same way or even more so, worshiping between Friday night to Saturday
night. But Jesus rose again on Sunday morning. And now you've got a whole group of people
worshiping at the time when Jesus rose again and they're trying to be told why is it that
you didn't focus on the Sabbath. There were all of these things where every time the
Judaizers, in other words those who expected everyone who was Christian to follow the Jewish
laws, every time the Judaizers saw them they said you're not really part of the kingdom
of God. You don't fit in there. And because of this there was this automatic rejection
of the outsider. There was this automatic rejection. See they didn't grow up knowing what they were
supposed to do. See they had all of these ideas that didn't fit was expected. And so
the beginning part of chapter 2 in Ephesians it does emphasize you belonged to the prince
of the power of the air. It's kind of a long wordy title but essentially the one who deceives
you who happens to be everywhere. See that's the thing about Satan deceiving us. It's that
it doesn't require you to say I want to go out there and follow Satan and be deceived.
He's everywhere. Throughout all sorts of things just our culture, our mindset, our teachings,
our practices, our social media, every single thing. There are all these little influences
trying to lead us away from God. Of course the Gentiles didn't know all of these things
beforehand because they had no idea what it meant to follow God. But even now following
Christ Jesus it was still easy to label them as those disobedient people. You know what?
You're already kind of messed up as it is. So we're just going to go ahead and add all
the customary laws that we think you're supposed to. You just need to get on track all together.
But not realizing that the different lives, the different experiences that they had had,
that there was a reason why so many of these things didn't make sense for them. The thing
is that oftentimes we end up getting confused by what we see as the good works we're supposed
to do and we sometimes confuse them with our sense of our customs that we're used to.
See Paul does say we're not saved by works. See as much as he knew that the Gentile community,
they knew just how sinful they were. And he was letting them know you are saved by grace,
you're forgiven. This does not mark you for the rest of your life. He was letting them
know. But what does he go further to do? In the second half of the chapter he then goes
further and says even those customary cultural laws that the Judaizers keep telling you
to do, that is not what separates you from the kingdom of God. Nothing does because of
what Christ has done for you. See this whole sense of not following God because we want
to be in his perfect will but rather is saying no, this is what our custom was and nothing's
going to make us question that. Is that Paul had to show that doesn't keep you out of the
kingdom of God. But I'm sure that in our society none of us would ever treat somebody else
as being an outsider, right? We've never had a time where we treated somebody like they
weren't one of us just because there was something different, right? Who are our own outsiders?
If I were to take two phrases, if I were to say to you the phrase we need to fight for
our freedoms and we need to fight for our rights, those two are not really all that
different, they're kind of complementary. But if I say one phrase, it connects with
one group of people. And if I say the other phrase it connects with a different group
of people. Because we're listening for certain phrases, certain terms. There are things that
trigger us as either, yeah buddy, or I think you're an idiot. Not just catch phrases but
even certain views on things. What's funny is how often you will hear the exact same
thing come from two different people and you may say yes to one and no to the other depending
on whether they have an R or a D behind their name. How many times is it even that we're
looking for something even in our religious circles? I cannot tell you how many times
whenever somebody was complimenting a sermon because they said that's so much like what
I grew up hearing. That was the compliment. Is to measure preaching the word of God based
on whether it was the way that they heard it growing up. Is this feeling of I'm looking
for those who are one of us in order to decide if they're a part of our community? How many
times do we say we want to be unified? But it's either because I'm going to convince
you that I'm right or second I'm going to brow beat you into being quiet and just conceding
or third I'm just going to overpower you somehow and you have to go along with it anyway.
How often is it that we're trying to make sure everything matches what we've experienced
and what we've seen? Instead of pausing to say that maybe there's a gap there that someone
else's experience might help us to see. That if we weren't so quick to assume and figure
out why something is automatically on the outside. Couldn't we spend long enough to figure
out why it's worth our time and worth our effort? What if it turns out that none of
us are actually completely correct on our own? I know, I know, that's going to take
you a moment. What if it turns out none of us are actually completely right on our own?
See that's the thing about the Prince of the Power of the Air. You ever tried to grab
the air? You ever tried to like put your hand on it? Try to figure out this is where it is.
The air doesn't stay over there. The air goes everywhere. The air travels over here. The
air gets into your lungs. The air moves into your cells, into every piece of you. Because
here's the thing about this, is that the Prince of the Power of the Air, yeah, had influence
on the Gentiles, but so did on the Jewish community too. That's the hard part is that
we don't want to take the time to realize that the deceiver, the one pulling us away
from God, has infiltrated everything. Everything. We are all struggling with it. We are all
being pulled away from hearing what is good and right. We are all being tempted to mock
and to ridicule the idiots that disagree with us. We are all being pushed to figure out who
the outsiders are. And we are all being called by God to realize we are the outsiders. Because
that's the amazing part is that sometimes we take it for granted so often. You know,
what's funny though is that all of us, because we were naturally born from Adam and Eve,
we were all dead in sin. So the natural born child no longer existed. Whether you were
Jewish or Gentile, we were all adopted. That's one of the funny parts a friend of mine mentioned
that if you were in a family that had multiple children and the oldest got the inheritance,
then the rest of you are sitting there wondering what do I have now. It wasn't just in the
Bible days, it still happens even today. And yet if you were adopted by a wealthy family,
then that meant you finally had something of your own. And that was why adoption was
such a big deal in that world. Because it could often times admit the difference between
having nothing and having everything. But that's the reality. We were all in need of
being made clean. Not because any of us finally got it all figured out. Our good works, there
was no one group of us that had it all figured out and now the rest of the people needed
somehow get with the program. But all of us were saved by grace. Because our hope is not
because of something that marks us. Something that's obviously different. And it's not
because we somehow were doing some work that other people don't have. But rather is that
our hope is by the Savior who unites us by His righteousness. So if we wish to spend
our time ridiculing or mocking the ones who didn't come from that same background and
for some reason just can't see it any differently than we can. Isn't it possible that maybe
God brought them into His kingdom to show us something we weren't willing to see? And
isn't it possible that maybe because of His grace being for all of us that we as a community
can be better for it? So wherever we find ourselves, may we remember that we were brought
from the outside in even as God is calling everyone else to do the same. Not waiting
for us to finally see things with the same view, but rather because He's called us all
with the same grace.
Thanks be to God.