Ephesus: One New Man-One New Community

This past weekend at Eastbrook Church, I continued our series “Light for the City” with a message entitled “One New Man-One New Community.” This message explored Ephesians 2:11-22 where Paul describes the new community that God has created in Jesus Christ from both Jews and Gentiles.

I organized the message around five points:

1. Sin and the Walls that Divide (Genesis 1-3): describing how sin entered into our primal state of innocence and right relationship with God and one another to create foundational disconnection between God and humanity, as well as human to human relationships.
2. Salvation and Broken Down Walls (Ephesians 2:1-10): describing how Christ’s saving work breaks down the walls between God and humanity, as well as human to human relationships
3. The Church: A New Kind of Community: this revolutionary community built by God is a picture of the kingdom which Paul paints three ways:a) the New Humanity or Body (2:15; 4:13) – a biological wonder; b) the Household of God (2:19-20) – a familial wonder; and c) the Temple of the Lord (2:21-22) – an architectural wonder
4. The Making of This New Community: completely by God’s work and not our own
5. Living Like the New Community We Are: I’ll separate this out as another post because I want to give further attention to it.

You can listen to my message and access the bulletin outline for it at the Eastbrook web-site here. You can also subscribe to the Eastbrook podcast here.