Ephesians 2:14-18 • Breaking Down Barriers
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
For those of you who are already here, we're going to have a little choir practice.
You didn't know you were the choir? You are the choir. Inside is a song called "From the Sun's Rising." And while people continue to gather, we're going to sing through the first stanza of it. It's a great song about the gospel going to the nations as far as the sun rises and sets, and as we prepare to worship today, let's sing through this once. Davina will play it, and I guess I'm singing it. Pardon me? Okay.
[piano music]
First stanza through once.
From the sun's rising unto the sun's setting, Jesus our Lord shall be great in the earth, and all earth's kingdom shall be his dominion.
All of creation shall sing of his womb.
Let every heart, every voice, every tongue join with spirits of place. One in his love we will circle the world with the song of his praise.
[piano music]
I'd like to call your attention to the announcements on the back of the bulletin. On Wednesday, we begin the first of six senior preachers among the student body. Each one has been selected by their fellow classmates in the graduating class, and we begin with Michael Gordon on Wednesday. Also, there's a ministry lunch on Wednesday, Dr. Doriani. We're running some ideas by those of us who come to the ministry lunch regarding ministries of women in the local church, traditional ideas and fresh proposals. Don't you love to hear Dr. Doriani's fresh proposals on anything, and particularly this subject? This is not just for women, by the way. This is for men and women to come and hear what Dr. Doriani has to say.
Also, please note, April 11th will be campus day, if you could get that on your calendars if it's not already there. And there'll be more details about that coming as we go.
Hear the word of God from the book of Revelation.
"They sang a new song.
You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth." As we worship God today, we worship with confidence that the gospel is going to the ends of the earth, breaking down barriers and walls that have separated people not only from God, but from each other as well. So let's stand together and sing "From the Sun's Rising." We'll sing all three stanzas.
[music]
Father, we celebrate this morning the good news of the gospel that has reached us and is reaching the far corners of the earth.
Lord, we pray that we would be faithful ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ as we spend time here preparing for the ministry that you've called us to in the future. And even while we are here preparing for future ministry, may we be faithful ambassadors of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ to all around us and as far as you would take us. Lord, receive our worship today. We have that wonderful sense of being not only here together, but in your presence
with those that you've already gathered from various places and in various times as we worship the Lamb who was slain, who tore down the wall of hostility that was ours toward you and is ours toward others. Father, work in our midst, speak to us today, and change us to be more like Christ, for it's in His name we pray. Amen. May be seated. We're happy to have Dr. Jeffrey Heil, who is the Minister of Music at the Kirk of the Hills, leading us in special music today, and he'll be followed by Dr. Chappell.
[music]
Jesus, Lord, every thought of thee, with sweetness fills my breast.
But sweet her fire thy face to see, and in thy presence rest.
[music]
Would you look in your Bibles this morning at Ephesians chapter 2, we will be looking at verses 14 through 18.
I come today to be an echo, not only to Dr. Heil and his wonderful singing that has just occurred, but I think of the really wonderful apologetics conference that just happened this past weekend. I think of the work that Dr. Vasholtz and Jennings and Beyer did as they taught us about Islam and Judaism and Buddhism,
attempting, I think, with great clarity and heart to speak with respect, as well as clarity, and to be very helpful to us as believers, thinking about persons quite different than we in region and religion.
It's not apart from the message that the Apostle Paul has in Ephesians 2 as well, as he is seeking to those at Ephesus, Gentiles from many different regions and religions, to talk to them not about their past labels, but about their new identity in Christ.
And in some ways to tell them that the deeds of the flesh, the matters of the flesh that once distinguished them,
are put aside now because of the work of the blood of Christ.
And it's a message still for us. It's a message as clear as today when I look at a newspaper headline about grenades killing five at a church in Pakistan, or Israelis and Palestinians having trouble with peace talks. What would happen if we were really able to see past labels to a single identity in the world? What would really happen if we could see with one identity who people really are? We would have peace.
It's what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 2.14 when he says, "For he himself is our peace,
who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace. And in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility, he came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."
Pray with me.
Father, we do ask that you would work by your spirit to speak to us of this peace that is beyond the divisions that are so present among us by our humanity.
Help us to understand what it would mean to live for Christ in such a way that our differences would be bridged and the barriers brought down between us.
Work, I pray, through your word in these moments, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try.
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today.
Imagine there's no countries.
It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for and no religion to.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, and maybe someday you'll join us, and then the world will be as one.
You recognize the secular conclusion toward the end of the 20th century, sung so artistically by John Lennon and the Beatles, a conclusion that said there would really be peace if we could bring an end to all religion.
And you can't travel much in the world today to Europe or to the Middle East, where people have been separated by faith for centuries, many of them seriously tormented by religious wars, and not find many people who will agree. If we could just put an end to religion, there would be peace.
But there is something of a different conclusion of our culture here at the beginning of a 21st century.
It's a conclusion that you might find in something like a textbook used in our public schools, one called Across the Centuries, published by Houghton Mifflinden, used throughout our country.
It asks for a different imagine of its students.
Imagine, it says, that you are a Muslim soldier on your way to conquer Syria in A.D. 635.
Write in your journal entries that reflect your thoughts about Islam.
The reason for this is explained by Vincent Faradino, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. He says, "It's only by this kind of assignment that we can have understanding that will enable us to work with people of different backgrounds."
And the understanding that we're to share is explained in the book itself, because the understanding is that the revelations of Mohammed
showed that his belief in one God, or monotheism, was confirmed, and he as the last messenger of a long line of prophets sent by God, the God that Mohammed believed in, Allah, is the same God of other monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity.
And so that people will not be discriminated against by this one God of Islam and Judaism and Christianity, students are also urged to imagine what it would be like to be in Africa and to dance to the African gods of polytheistic cultures as well.
The conclusion, not that peace will come by the end of religion, but that peace will come by the blend of all religions. It's really the challenge that's in front of all of us right now. I think that if you are going to minister as a Christian in the church today, the great challenge before you is to speak with clarity and courage about the gospel in the face of pluralism, where everyone is saying, "It's really all just the same God." You're not really going to be exclusive, are you? I mean, we feel the pressure all of us at this time. Those who even survey Evangelicals say it's not just liberal Protestantism out there somewhere that says it's all the same God, but more than a third of Evangelicals surveyed will say that a good Muslim and a good Hindu are also going to be in heaven with the rest of us. And it's not just people out there. I feel it at the holiday dinner table when my own relative says to me, "Now, you don't really believe that a good Mormon is not going to be in heaven, do you?" And I don't just feel the pressure of political correctness. I feel the pressure of politeness. I mean, I don't want to sound cruel. I mean, how could you be at Covenant Seminary and not be taught about being compassionate and thoughtful and respectful of other people and not somehow feel the pressure to say, "Well, you know, it's all kind of the same God." I mean, we all feel that pressure.
Surely Paul did an Ephesus where there was a God on every corner. And people all around who were saying, "You know, you don't really believe that your God is better than all others." And yet the Apostle Paul in this passage comes out with this audacious proclamation that it is not the end of religion nor the blend of religion, but the blood of Jesus Christ that will bring peace. How can he say that? The Apostle Paul is explaining to people as different as we are and as pluralistic a culture as we have, that it is the blood of Jesus Christ that will bring peace among peoples and with God and even for the soul.
The way in which the blood of Jesus Christ is going to bring peace among peoples is what he's talking about in verse 14. He says, "For he himself is our peace who has made the two one and destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility." You understand what that's about when you back up a little bit into the 13th verse where we are told that in Christ Jesus you were once far away, had been brought near through the blood of Christ.
The background of verse 14 is recognizing that for the Jewish religious mind, there are only two races of people, Jews and everybody else.
There are those who are near, those who are near to the temple ceremony, to the way in which atonement was made with God, those who are near to all the laws and regulations of ritual that God has set up to purify a people unto himself. That's what was near. And everyone else was far. I mean they might be different of Hittite and Philistine heritage or whatever, but they're really all the far people as opposed to the near people, just two races.
And the apostle recognizing that that is the conclusion of many says that these races not only are different, but there are ancient enmities between them. And what Jesus has done, he says, is has by his blood destroyed the ancient enmity between people. The enmity is clear enough if you back up into verse 11, we looked at it this last time. He said, "Formally you were Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who called themselves the circumcision." There were not only two groups of people, but they were separated by these rights of purification. And one people viewing itself as pure and the other impure not only led to difference, it led to discrimination, hatred, name calling, derision.
There are these ancient enmities, but now something has happened. By his blood, there has been a barrier brought down.
Now you recognize that barrier. It's the language that Mark Dalby referred to even in his prayer before. He himself is our peace who has made the two one and destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Now it's not clear what this dividing wall is, the illusion that the apostle is talking about. Most commonly, the commentators say it may be an illusion to that partition between the court of the Gentiles and the rest of the Jews in the temple of Solomon.
And the temple partition itself between the court of the Gentiles and the Jews had this inscription on it in both Latin and Greek by the time of Paul, which was a fanatas warning, a death warning, saying if any Gentile crossed the partition into the Jewish area, he was responsible for his own death.
I couldn't help but think of it. When I have visited Jerusalem and been up to the Wailing Wall, and there is a partition that separates the general populace from the Jews who in traditional garb still go up to the Wailing Wall to pray and to study the Torah and to go through rituals at that place.
Now you can as a Gentile go in, but you have to cover your head. And when I have entered that partition, I can't help but think of this passage and to feel kind of the eeriness of being out of place and even in a little bit of danger if I don't show proper respect in this place.
And the Apostle is saying that that now 4000 years today of heritage that has separated Jew and Gentile by Paul's time, 2000 years, that that ancient enmity, that barrier, that wall has been brought down, how has that occurred?
Well, he says how it's occurred. The dividing wall of hostility is down, verse 15, because Jesus, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.
There has been a destroying of an ancient enmity, and it's happened because the wall has been brought down, but the wall is now described. It's not so much the partition that's physical. It's the ceremonial partition.
The law and its regulations. Here, we're not talking about the moral law, not the Ten Commandments, but that specific language that's referring to the ritual law of the temple.
That has been destroyed because Christ has been the atoning sacrifice so that that partition, that ceremony is now done. It doesn't distinguish people anymore.
What the Apostle is saying is he's not only Christ by his blood destroying the ancient enmity by removing that wall of ritual and law, but something else has happened.
Not only a destruction, not just destroying of the barrier, but the creation of a new humanity.
It's amazing to us the way in which the Apostle is talking. By abolishing his flesh, the law with its commandments and regulations, he continues in verse 15, his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace. Now, you get the understanding of a certain homogenization, what the Apostle is talking about. I'm going to create a new man, Jesus does, by the destruction of the barrier. After all, there's not a race now that is made purified by ritual, and there is not a race that is separated by ritual. Since the ritual is gone in terms of its relevance for religious purity, there's just one race.
You're not discriminated by being ritualistic. You're not denigrated by not being ritualistic.
But it's not just that things are homogenized, one.
There's an elevation as well. There is one new man by his blood. Jesus purified them all.
Even the ancient preacher Chrysostom, in trying to say what was being done, he said, "As though you took a statue of silver and a statue of lead, and you forged them together, and they became a statue of gold."
Not only are they just homogenized, they're elevated. They're made higher, better than they ever were.
And the Apostle Paul is looking across the different humanities, the different races of man, and he has said, "Through Jesus Christ, not only is the barrier between you removed, but it's as though you as a believer are able to stand with God at the dawn of a new creation and see a new Adam being made."
Here's a new man coming out, no longer distinguished or discriminated by ritual. But through the blood of Jesus Christ made one and made pure and made holy. And if you could think of it, if you could just stand with God and watch Adam at creation and think of the wonder and the joy and the glory of that, it's really what the Apostle Paul is wanting us to marvel at. Here is this one new man by the blood of Jesus Christ.
You know, just last Sunday I had the joy of being at a church in North Carolina during its mission conference, and they showed a video, and the video was of a ministry that they support in Hungary that is led by a Korean who's been commissioned by a Presbyterian church in Romania.
Now the mind kind of boggles to put all that together.
Here are Anglos from a Confederate state in the United States, supporting a minister from a nation that we were at war with a half-century ago who himself is ministering in the land of Attila the Hun, having been commissioned by Presbyterians from the ancient land of Dracula.
You know, you just kind of go, "That's bizarre!"
But the Christian goes, "That's neat! That's wonderful! Look what the blood of Christ does!" It takes things so different and so separate and so far apart and pulls them together into something glorious.
It's the thing that God is wanting us even to see today. I think of words that I said to you all on Day of Prayer, that there are people who are of minorities even among us as a campus who sometimes feel out of place, sometimes feel as though we do not adequately regard them.
And I think, now, what do we do about that?
Well, you know, we can guilt everybody into change, or we can make it mandatory that you greet somebody of a different color than you, or we can find out the people who are expressing concern and find out what their real motives are.
And maybe all that will do something for a little bit, but I don't think it's going to last very long. You know what will ultimately, fundamentally change us is if we actually perceive it as pure joy that we get to sit with God at creation and be a part of seeing it happen even now. As though what Mark read from Revelation 7, that taste of heaven, where the saints of God from all tribes and languages and people and nations come to wash their robes and the blood of the Lamb to make them white so that though they are different, they are one.
And we get, by greeting and meeting and working, we get to taste heaven now. It's part of our experience.
But what stimulates that joy? What makes us really want to participate in it?
It's not just recognizing the blood of Christ is bringing peace among us. It's recognizing the blood of Christ is ultimately bringing peace with God in a way that relies upon our corporate worship.
This is very hard for us in this culture to understand, but look at verse 15 again. You know the first part, that Jesus, by abolishing his flesh, the law with his commandments and regulations, did something. His purpose was to create himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace.
Now, two have become one, and verse 16 continues.
And in this one body, to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility. Now, in our Western mind, we read their hostility, and verse 16 is saying, "Christ did something that put together the hostility between the two parties." But it's not really the point he's making. That was the hostility of verse 14. This is a different hostility that's being referred to. I think of it in comparison to an experience that I had growing up. You know, when I grew up in the South, I played lots of Little League Baseball. I mean, if I wasn't playing in a game on a summer evening myself, I was viewing one of my brother's games, which means we went as a family to lots and lots of Little League Baseball games. And that got real boring at times. So you had to find ways of relieving the boredom. And one of the things that at least some of us, when we were little discovered, was that you could take that dirt that is next to a Little League Baseball field that's been under, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of cleats and pulverized by the tractors that groom the feeling. It's very, very fine. And you can scoop it into a Dixie Cup, crush it together, leaving one little opening, and against the night sky with all the lights lighting up the field, you can throw it up into the air, and it is like a fireworks streamer going across the sky as the dirt streams out of that Dixie Cup.
Now, I learned to do that, and lots of other kids have done it too. But you also learn at some point in your boyhood experience that if you just learn to aim right, you can get that streamer just to fly out right over somebody else's head, too.
And one particular night, I remember when two brothers were discovering this particular way of making the dirt stream out, and one launched it right over his brother's heads and got his brother good.
And the brother, you know, as soon as that Dixie Cup hit the ground, grabbed it up, scooped the dirt back into it, and chucked it right back at his brother, who by this time had dodged under the stands, where all the parents were sitting.
Now, you've already discovered where this streamer went, haven't you? You know, it went right over the parents.
And I can remember the father, the two boys, turning around. He had a certain degree of hostility toward both of them now, and looking at them going, "You come here."
Now, the boy that was nearest, you know, came right away, but the one who was a little more distant had that kind of deer in the headlights, frozen fear. You know, he just didn't move at all. And so the father, then with the other hand, noticed that, "I don't just want one of you. Both of you come here. I mean to deal with you together."
Now, the hostility of verse 16 is that hostility. It's the hostility between heaven and earth, between all those different ones. And the apostle is saying, "God intended to deal with his hostility as one body." He wants to deal with us together in explaining ultimately the way in which he's going to reconcile himself and the hostility that was between heaven and earth.
You know what this means? It means for me to fully understand the reconciliation that God intends for his people. I have to understand that he intends to relate to us together, different people.
He intends to relate to us together. And I will not fully understand the reconciliation that he has in mind. I won't even see it. See its power. Experience it fully if I'm not one body with others.
Now, I think I saw this powerfully just a few weeks ago when here in St. Louis, a very large African American denomination's leadership decided that Planned Parenthood would start going to the local churches of this denomination.
And presenting in those African American churches not only birth control but abortion as an alternative for unwanted births.
One of our former students is a pastor in that denomination. And I will tell you it is very difficult for him to stand up against the leadership of that denomination.
But he had learned something here about the scriptures as the authority of what God intends for his people. Something about the sanctity of human life that's affirmed in the authoritative Word of God.
And at a local leadership conference of Baptist pastors, he stood up with the leadership of the denomination present and preached about the sanctity of human life and the authority of God's Word and the fact that Planned Parenthood wasn't going to come into his church. And because of his courage, other African American pastors also said Planned Parenthood wasn't going to come into their churches.
Now let me tell you something. If I had gone to that denominational gathering and said you shouldn't have Planned Parenthood coming into your churches, it would have been deemed as inappropriate and pompous and not right to challenge the leadership.
But by that wonderful student having been part of us here, a ministry that we believe is so important went with power to another place.
God's reconciling power of the Word going among all peoples because we had managed to come together at some point in our past experience. It was powerfully happening now. If we had been separate, that reconciling work of the Gospel even bringing life, real physical life, to the womb, that reconciling of heaven and earth would not have occurred. I begin to understand that in so many ways that if I am not dealing with people much different than I, that the reconciling power of the Gospel in dimensions quite great, that I'm not just talking about understanding salvation in Jesus Christ by the Christ, I'm talking about every dimension of the Gospel, understanding fully what it means for God to take people who are sinful and weak and fallen and all the repercussions of sin as it flows throughout all kinds of people and nations and cultures.
That that reconciling power of the Gospel doesn't work if God's people aren't able to come together.
When Dr. Zach Niedingia was here at Day of Prayer and we were questioning him about what is it that we need to learn from Africans and what do Africans need to learn from us, he I thought was very candid in saying Africans need to learn more about the doctrines of the faith from North Americans.
But North Americans typically approach the faith with a very materialistic understanding of their own benefit and fulfillment by economic privilege.
And North Americans don't have much of a concept of what it means to relate to God as a community. I mean even Dr. Guthrie when he reported on a recent survey of North American seminarians said what we typically only think about in terms of faithfulness is it's just a relationship between me and Jesus.
We don't think about responsibilities to others, to the church, to a new generation. It's just, "How am I doing today with Jesus?"
And we begin to think of what would it mean if we could come together and stimulate the joy of tasting heaven that I can worship and write with others, not because it's joy, not even because it's politically correct or because it relieves my guilt, because something foundation and fundamental in me believes that when I relate to people far different than I, I understand the Gospel better.
My own understanding grows and expands.
When I teach and preach in African American churches downtown and I recognize I am standing in a pulpit of a man who week after week deals with a drug culture or speaks to single women raising families, two-thirds of the children that I'm looking at are being raised without biological fathers. And I can look at all the socioeconomic reasons for that, but what do I have to learn from this pastor who with such courage and perseverance and faithfulness ministers in a place so difficult I can hardly imagine, and this is his everyday existence. I need to learn something here. What do I need to learn when I do go to Hungary and I sit across the table from a man who's been tortured for his faith and have soup with him? I think, "I've got to learn from you. You don't even speak my language. You don't sing my song. I have things to learn from you." And it's when our hearts hunger for the fullness and the richness of the Gospel begins to make us long for what other people can teach us and have to offer us that will begin to long. What can I learn from your culture? What can I learn from your style of worship? What can I learn from your language?
And ultimately it's my own—it's not political correctness. It's not even guilt motivating me. It's my hunger for the Savior. I need you. I need you to help me understand more the richness that God will be teaching me from what you have experienced.
And when you see how God is saying it here so plainly, if you kind of put the middle of verse 15 and verse 16 together, his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two. And in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility, it's that whole background of his purpose which we'd understand by this oneness, the reconciliation, that verse 17 makes sense to you.
"He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near." He is not just putting corporate hostility to death. He's proclaiming corporate oneness. Who is? Jesus. He's not only exhorting it, he's the great example here of one who came preaching. Should we be preaching this way? Should we be seeking one who is with others? The Apostle, having kind of built the cage, looked at the reconciliation that would be taught by two becoming one, says, "And even Jesus, he preached it, he preached it so that we would know." And when it's your understanding that it's Jesus that's behind it all, that you begin to understand this ancient enmity being put aside as not the apostles, not the apostles, only reason for writing these things. Yes, he wants peace among peoples, and yes, he wants with peoples, peace with God. But ultimately it's this preaching of Christ that's talking about what Christ's more concerned about that's going to be occurring, and that's peace in your own soul when these kind of barriers come down.
Verse 18, "For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit." I mean, it's just a wonderful image. Different children having access to the Father.
And when I see that and understand that, it does something in me. I just have to be very personal in explaining what that verse says to me.
I grew up in the South. I grew up within three miles of the Mississippi border in South Memphis.
And a lot of my early childhood is remembering the ugliness of racism.
I mean, I remember the names that people were called, and I remember the pecking order of kind of the southern blue collar area in which I was raised. You know, whites looked down upon blacks. Blacks make fun of Jews and Catholics. I don't know who Jews and Catholics make fun of because there weren't enough of them around to hear that.
I can remember my mother gathering me and my siblings along Highway 51 going down into Mississippi as James Meredith engaged on a peace march, and my mother just saying, "This is important. I got all my siblings together on the highway to watch James Meredith and his peace march, only later that day to hear that he had been shot as he was going from Memphis to Oxford, Mississippi." I can remember the agony of my parents struggling over resisting the white flight of the public schools in Memphis as integration came, and my parents wanted their children to stay in the public schools, and most of their peers got their children out early. And then how it was when my sister was attacked in public school for being white, and how my parents against their deepest desires felt that for her safety they had to take her out of public school, and how that hurt them. I remember my own consternation of hearing my father talk about being the end of World War II in the Japanese occupation force, being a military policeman in Japan with one of the very early integrated military police units in Japan, and him talking about how with a particular friend of his who was black, how he had good times and hard times and sometimes went through great danger and hostility with this man,
and they had lived so much of life together, but when it came time for them to ship home, how my father said he still did not want to take the black man's hand and shake it, because something in him was still out of his deep southern upbringing, something almost at the level of the soul gave him a sense of repulsion, of touching a black man.
My father was not defending that. He was just honestly saying what was in him.
And then all of us, my siblings and I, wondering how my father would react when my sister, when she became an adult, the same sister who was attacked, by the way, for being white, when she adopted a black infant. How would my father react to that?
You know, we have a picture in our house that I count precious. It is a picture of my father asleep with my African American nephew asleep on my father's chest.
And I think the arms that once held me are holding my black nephew. He has equal access to my father.
There's an ancient enmity that's been put aside, and it's heaven. It's wonderful. It's beautiful.
And what I think God is wanting us to see in this verse where he talks about we all have access to the Father is understanding that though I am sinful and wayward, weak and frail, my God, through the blood of Jesus Christ, has given me access to the Father. I'm on his lap, but equal access there. I can look across my father's lap, and there are other children, red and yellow, black and white, all precious in his sight. And when I see that, I understand something more about the heart of my father. And because I understand something more about the heart of my father, I understand something more about his care for me.
Oh, the Apostle has wonderful things to say here. But ultimately he is wanting us to recognize that in the love that God has for people quite different as it flows through us, we understand him better.
And our own hearts are renewed in the peace that he offers because he has loved one such as us and given access to many others like us into his own wondrous and eternal arms.
May God so use us as we seek faculty and board members and new students. Oh, let's not move for political correctness. Let's understand that we love God all the more when our hearts enable us to see how great is his love for ones far different than we.
Pray with me. Father, work in our hearts. These are not easy truths. And in some measure we resist, in some measure we say, oh, that's old stuff. I already know that.
But it's not always evident among us. Keep renewing in us that great love for you so much so that our hearts are conformed to your heart and we delight at being one with some far different than we so that the heart of our God might be further revealed. And we even know how much more precious we are because of it. Grant this work of the gospel among us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Would you rise for the benediction? May God, by his Spirit, make us one. In Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.