Tearing Down the Wall of Hostility to Build a Wall of Unity

Tearing Down the Wall of Hostility

to Build a Wall of Unity

 God takes the unnoticed stones of the earth

and makes them alive.

Placing them with other living stones

in order that they might carry out the purpose

He created them for.

  

Ever feel like an outsider or felt left out?

You moved to a new neighborhood or attended a new church;

peoples’ smiles said hello, but you still felt like you didn’t belong?

Maybe you have felt like all the great deals in life

are passed out to everyone else but you.

You have wondered why some people are so lucky.

When I was building my house my neighbor said to me,

“Bill, if you didn’t have bad luck, you wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

Yes, there were a lot of trials in building our house,

but the outcome has been a greater blessing that far out weighs the trials.

You and I were considered dead when it came to God.

We did not have the faintest idea of what God was doing

and the rich covenant and promises that came through the cross. 

All God has done for us has nothing to do with what we have done.

The greatest gift anyone could ever receive

was offered to dead undeserving people like you and I.

Jesus said He would build His church.

He is taking you and I, like living stones,

and putting us together to build a spiritual house.

Jesus preached a message of peace.

He placed great emphases on getting along with one another.

There are at least 23 “one another commands” in His Word;

applying to both Jews and Gentiles.

Take a look around you, who does God have you connected with?

A brick layer knows it takes 7 bricks to make a wall.

You have to be related to at least 6 other people

to be a part of the wall.

With living stones,

you will have other living stones

you are in direct relationship with.

  God has placed them in your life;

and without them

you can not be a part

of the spiritual house God is building.

God has placed you in the spiritual building

and now you belong because of what He did.

But don’t forget you belong,

because God has a purpose for you

and those He has connected you with.

So pray for the ones God has connected you with.

Seek Him for ways to be more effective

with the ones He has joined you with.

Scripture Reading

 Ephesians 2 THE MESSAGE

It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.

 2 You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live.

You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.

3 We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing,

when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat.

It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.

4 Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love,

5 he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ.

He did all this on his own, with no help from us!

6 Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

7 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world

and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.

8 Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it.

It's God's gift from start to finish! 9 We don't play the major role.

If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing!

10 No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving.

He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does,

the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

11 But don't take any of this for granted.

It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways 12 had no idea of any of this,

didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ.

You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel,

 hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large.

13 Now because of Christ — dying that death, shedding that blood

 — you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

14 The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this,

both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders.

He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance.

15 He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print

and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped.

Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people

separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion,

he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

16 Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross.

The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.

17 Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders.

18 He treated us as equals, and so made us equals.

Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

19 That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles.

This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders.

You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home.

He's using us all — irrespective of how we got here — in what he is building.

20 He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation.

Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone,

with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone 21 that holds all the parts together.

We see it taking shape day after day — a holy temple built by God,

22 all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.