I Will Have a Peace, Thank You

SUMMARY

Chad Hammond examines Ephesians 2 and its powerful message about Christ as our peace who has destroyed the dividing walls of hostility. He explains that the Hebrew concept of peace (shalom) is far more than the absence of conflict—it represents wholeness, fullness, and justice. Through historical context, Hammond shows how the temple's physical barriers separated Gentiles, women, and others from full access to God, creating a system of limited belonging.

The heart of the sermon reveals how Christ's sacrifice has radically transformed this reality. As Ephesians 2:19 declares, "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household." We who were once excluded have not merely been given citizenship but have been invited into God's family and become the very dwelling place of God's Spirit. Hammond challenges the church to embody this inclusive peace by breaking down barriers that prevent others from experiencing God's love, becoming the first "domino" in a chain reaction of reconciliation in our divided world.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Thankful to Karl for inviting me and into this series a study of Ephesians. Like Shannon, I love Ephesians and I love this idea of this domino effect that our choices and our decisions and the way that we allow God to work through us can have an impact in some way and can create maybe a chain reaction that moves through this place and through this body and outside of these walls and into the world. That's our hope and our prayer. I texted with Karl just this morning and he said to be sure and send greetings from the saints in Malindi, Kenya. I'm also thankful to Karl for the resources that he provided me related to this that he had gathered as he prepared and studied, thinking he would be the one preaching this particular text.

And one of the pieces of one of the resources he provided was a beautiful sermon from Mike Cope, one of my preaching heroes and somebody that's been important to my family. Sorry I haven't cried over Mike Cope in a long time, but my family and I lived in Abilene and got to sit at his feet week after week during a portion of our lives. And I love him and I just want to confess up front that some of Mike's thoughts have made their way into my thoughts this morning. There are going to be some abrupt segues and transitions in my sermon and that's not good. If you're a preacher type and even those that have done no thinking about preaching or studying about preaching, you will notice how abrupt the transitions are.

I'm lik likening it to maybe trying to travel through downtown Dallas during rush hour. I don't know if you've ever come down 35E and then tried to get on to I30 east and then tried to stay in the right lane so that you could get off onto whatever highway you're trying to get onto. It may feel a little like that, but if you'll buckle in and go with me, I think we'll get safely to our destination here in a few minutes.

I stood right here just a few Easters ago during the Lord's Supper and we talked about sorrow and loss and I talked about the loss and trauma that we were experiencing and seeing day after day of a country whose all of its hopes and dreams and infrastructures being destroyed day by day and year by year. And I talked about seeing images of refugees all over the world that are just looking for a place to call home, just looking for a place to belong, a safe place to raise their families, things we take for granted every day. And we talked about the Loss of the divisions and the hostility that we see in our own country. And we talked about the loss and the heartache of burying our loved ones and church. Every one of those losses have continued to mount and pile up since that day and to this very day.

One of the losses that I didn't talk about that morning that's been on my heart heavy this week are the losses that we've experienced here as a body at Broadway. And I don't mean the people we buried. I've already talked about that. I mean that just the people we've lost from our fellowship together here. Some of them because of relocation and new jobs and new opportunities, and some of them because of choices that they've made to be somewhere else and be a part of a different body here in town.

And when I say we've lost them from our fellowship, I don't mean the fellowship of believers and I don't mean the universal church. I'm not writing off anyone for choosing to be at another congregation, and I hope that none of you are either.

But I am talking about the loss of a shared mission here in this place together. And I am talking about the loss of intimate allies in the mission of the Broadway congregation.

Churches. We work together with our friends from the Cyber Institute. And I thought I would see them, to point to them, but I'm not seeing them. And when we, as we invite God to help lead us into new dreams that he has for us, I hope that we've taken the proper time to mourn and grieve those losses because it has mattered. It's been traumatic and it's been grievous because we are a body in church.

If I lost a finger or a toe, that would be traumatic. And if I lost an arm or a leg, that would be traumatic. Each of us that have been here for any period of time can look around and we can name some of those losses, people that we love and people that we were counting on. It's worthy of some tears and some grief.

But I stand before you this morning thankful to be a part of this body, this now growing body of believers. And I'm excited about what God is going to do, this place and with us, with these people in our future, exceedingly more than we could ever imagine in the advance of his kingdom. And I'm thankful to be a part of it with you. Church. We're not here together this morning because we agree on everything.

We're here because we're committed to one another through the love and the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and we are bound together by has one spirit.

I think we're smart enough to know that there's no place that we can go where everybody is going to agree on everything. If you're looking for that fellowship, it is as big around as you are. My fellowship is a little bigger than some of yours, but it's limited. I want you to know that I love you deeply. I love this body deeply.

And I'm excited about what God's going to do. Here, listen to this.

For by one spirit we were baptized into one body. Whether Jew or Greek, whether slave or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit.

I love those people in those voices, in those words, Church. It appears that whatever work God is leading us into is going to play itself out in the context of a world that's torn apart, that's full of hostility and full of anger, full of bitterness. What a great backdrop against which is to be salt and light.

We live in a world that has devolved into a place where disagreements have become contempt. I can't disagree with you about anything without hating you. And we live in a world where discussions about issues or topics or ideas have turned into the villainization of other people. I can't talk to you openly about an idea or a thought without thinking you evil if you disagree with me. And we live in a culture that might cope referred to as inadequate allies.

We may agree on 90% of the things, but we're so fixated and so offended by the 10% that we become enemies instead of allies. That's the context in which we're ministering to the world. The enemy has come slithering in to kill and steal and destroy. And one of the ways he does that is through hostility and division. And while it feels like it may be at a new crescendo or new heights, it's not new.

It entered our story early in the third chapter of our story Paradise Lost and so soon. But church Jesus has come that we may have life and have it to the fullest. Paul says confidently in this passage that Curtis read for us that Jesus is our peace. He has destroyed the barriers, he has demolished the dividing walls. He has put to death hostility, creating in himself one new humanity, one body reconciled to God with access through the one, to the Father, through the one spirit and church.

I believe that. But I'll be honest, it doesn't always feel like it or look like. That's getting a little heavy. So I want to talk about pie.

I warned you, Michelle and I were blessed recently to be at the Succi’s and to be able to taste some of Barb's wonderful cooking. And she made a tremendous soup. And then she made for dessert a strawberry pie. My grandad used to make strawberry pie.

And I don't know that I had seen a strawberry pie like that since being a boy at my grandad's house until I saw Bar's pie the other night. And Michelle, my wife, was helping her serve that pie. And Michelle said, chad won't have a piece. Not because she was trying to. Trying to police my intake, but because she knew I'd made a commitment to not eating desserts.

But my grandad used to make a strawberry pie, and I wanted a piece. And so I said, I will have a piece. Thank you. And I did. And I wanted a second piece, but I didn't have that.

And I told Michelle later on that night that I would have loved to have taken that whole pie over into another room or another corner with a fork and just eating the whole thing right of that pan. But enough about pie. I want to talk about peace. I warned you. The word peace appears eight times in the book of Ephesians, and four.

Half of those times are just in this short passage that Curtis just read to us a few minutes ago. And when we hear peace in scripture, we should think, these are written by Jewish men, right, in a Jewish culture. So we should think shalom, or the Hebrew idea of peace, which is more than just being, more than just calmness, and more than just the absence of war. Instead, it holds the concept of wholeness and fullness and completeness. It holds the idea of health and prosperity and safety and harmony with God and with one another.

Shalom. There's one Jewish scholar who described it this way. It's not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice and the fullness of life. I like that. Perfect shalom was to be ushered in by the Jewish Messiah.

And so it's no wonder that at the birth of Jesus, the angelic chorus sings, peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Shalom. And it's no wonder that when Jesus launches his ministry in Nazareth and he's handed the scroll of Isaiah, that he un furls it to Isaiah 61, that messianic passage, and says, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me. And he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners in recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the Year of the Lord's favor.

Shalom in church in a broken, sick and hostile world. With a nod toward Barbs s pie and with a full acknowledgment of my soul's deep yearning and aching for shalom, I say I will have a peace thank you. And I know that was a long way to go to get to a wordplay and to the title of my sermon, but I thank you for traveling there with me and I invite you to buckle in and stay with me for a few more minutes. In verse 14, Paul speaks to a barrier or a dividing wall. Church, walls are intended to limit access.

They're intended to be a barrier to access. They say to those of us on the outside that you cannot come beyond this point. This is as close as you get. This is as far as you come. Whatever blessings or treasures are on the other side of this wall, they're not meant for you.

I remember as a college student watching President Reagan speak at the Berlin Wall and those famous words, tear down this wall. And I remember seeing young people that were about my age at that time climbing on the wall and protesting the wall and attacking the wall with sledgehammers. And I remember the wall coming down. And in my youth and in my naiveté and in my idealistic mind, I thought, the whole world is changing. There's no more yeast and there's no more west.

And I will live my adult life and I will raise my children in a world of peace and harmony and freedom.

And about 40 years later, here we are with all new walls of hostility being built around us.

And here we are considering these words from Paul in Ephesians 2. Paul twice says in this passage to remember. He says it in verse 11. He says it again in verse 12, remember? And you say, well, remember what?

And Paul begins this whole section in verse 11 with therefore. And we're good Bible readers, right? We're good Bible studies and we know that therefore means because of this than this. And so we need to look back and see what is it? Therefore, what because of what is this new thing and what it turns out to be is because we've been saved by grace.

And not because of anything we have done or deserved, just simply because of the goodness and the mercy and the kindness of our Father, we have been saved and we have been created to do good works because of that. Remember, this story did not belong to you. This story was not ours. Church I think it's easy for us to forget. Many of us have been raised in this story and we've come to own it.

And by owning it, we've kind of Westernized it. And I think it's important for us to remember and recall that our Lord and our Savior was a Jewish rabbi born in a completely different context in the Middle East.

This was not our story. Access to Yahweh, the God of creation, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and the Israelites and all the blessings and promises that he offered were not for us. They were reserved for the Jewish people.

The language of Ephesians 2, 1922 is clearly tabernacle language. And with this idea of walls and barriers, I want us to consider that language for just a minute.

Do you remember Eden? If not, I've got a picture for you to remind you. I chose this picture. It looks like maybe when we're actually leaving Eden, but the pictures of Eden in its full glory had a little too much glory to share, if you know what I mean. And so on a Sunday morning.

So I chose this where we're a little bit clothed. But do you remember church in the Garden of Eden? God's glory existed and dwelled right there in the garden with man until the rebellion. And then something shifted, Something broke, something was lost and a barrier was erected. Do you remember the Tabernacle?

Do you remember the children of Israel leaving Egypt after 400 years of slavery and following this God that supposedly of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their forefathers that Moses met at the burning bush, and they're following him out of Egypt and he's demonstrating his glory and a cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. And then when the tabernacle is built, he's behind the veil, right? His glory is behind the veil on the Mercy seat, in the holy of Holies. And then Solomon builds a temple, a place for God's glory, to dwell amongst the people.

But it dwelt behind the wall in the holy of Holies, in the most holy place, on the Mercy seat. And then that temple was destroyed and the new temple, or the second temple was built. And then later on, Herod the Great enhanced that and refurbished that temple. And maybe it looked something like this in the days of Jesus Church. Did you know that there were walls in the temple?

And I don't just mean the wall that separated the holy of holies. Take a look at that. There's the Court of Gentiles on the outside. If we. And this is probably a better picture to look at, but if we can go to that next slide as well.

This is A little busier, I know, but that outside part, that blue part out there is the Court of Gentiles. And on the pillars on those walls there was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin a notice forbidding any Gentiles or any other unclean people from going beyond that point by penalty of death.

Gentiles were invited to worship in that outer court, in that court of Gentiles, because after all, this was the God of all nations, right? But only so far, only so close in their wall. And then there was the Court of Women, where Jewish women were allowed to come and worship God, but only there. And no closer, no further. And then there was the Court of Israel, where men were allowed to come in and Jewish men were allowed to come in and worship God.

But no further, no closer. Because there was another wall that separated the court of Priests where priests performed their priestly duties and rituals. And then there was the holy place, right behind another wall, which limited access as well. And then, of course, the Holy of Holies, where only the chief priest and only once a year would enter, because that's where the glory of God resides.

I don't know if you know this or have heard this, but the Constitution is on display right now. I think this is the last week in the national archives in Washington, D.C. i saw a news story about it. My understanding it's the first time ever that the Constitution and all the amendments have been displayed together. And they were interviewing some people that had traveled and come to Washington to see that event and to see these documents all together. And there was one black woman who had brought her granddaughter with her.

And they interviewed her granddaughter, who was probably middle school aged. And her granddaughter was so excited. And she said, it's so exciting to be this close to these important and historical documents that I've been studying in school. And then they interviewed the grandmother and she stood by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. And she said, this Constitution was not written for me, but I am in the Constitution now.

And I wept with her and for her church. The same is true for us. These promises were not for us, but now in Christ Jesus. You who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. We have been invited inside the outer courts.

The walls have been torn down and removed. We have all been invited in together, whether Jew or Greek or slave or free or male or female or black or white or prisoner or free, whether native or foreign, you're invited in together into one house, into one place.

All the barriers are destroyed in Jesus to the cross and through his blood. Just take a look at his ministry. After reading from the prophecy of Isaiah 60:1, Jesus immediately goes out and starts fulfilling those prophecies among the people, and not just the Jewish people, most often are, very often amongst the Gentiles. There's a Samaritan woman, there's a Roman centurion, the there's a Roman official, there's a Canaanite woman, there's a Gerasene demoniac, there's a Samaritan woman. And then in Acts, in Acts, chapter 10, we get to see that one spirit of the Lord pour out onto gentiles, onto us.

And just look at Jesus teachings where prodigals and widows and women and foreigners become the heroes of his stories. I don't know church that we can appreciate how radical and how disruptive and how shocking and scandalous some of the teachings and activities of Jesus really were. The apostles find him talking alone to a woman and are shocked and then find that a Samaritan woman, at that, a sinful woman, is in a public place performing an intimate act of washing his feet with her hair and her tears or what? And then he says to them, hey, let's take this boat and let's go across over there to the Garazenes to those unclean people. And the.

The apostles go what? And then he says to a foreigner, have found. I have not found this kind of faith in all of Israel. And then again the heroes of his stories, Samaritans and fathers that welcome back prodigals. It's no wonder that the keepers of the law took offense at Jesus. Church implore you, do not be offended by the inclusiveness of our God.

He preached peace to those who were near and to those of us who were far away. Church rejoice in the inclusiveness of Jesus Christ our Lord. Because we were foreigners and we had been invited in. So instead of taking offense, let's emulate that church. There are people outside of these walls for whom access has been denied, for whom it feels like there are so many barriers in the way of them getting to this place and enjoying the blessings and the freedoms and the forgiveness that we enjoy in Jesus Christ.

And it's our mission to tear down those walls, to remove those barriers, to make the roads and paths level, to to invite them into this place and into this fellowship and into the blessings that we enjoy together here. Don't take offense at the inclusiveness of our God. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household. We've been brought in here. We've been invited in.

We were foreigners. The word says church. I think we've seen some glimpses of how uncomfortable, how dangerous, how unsettling it might be to be a foreigner. We see it most. We see it internationally, and we see it domestically as well.

But we've been made citizens, and we know what it is to be a citizen. Right? Those. To enjoy those protections and those liberties as citizens. But it gets better than that.

You know, I feel a kinship to all the citizens of the United States in some real loose way. But there are 340 million of them, and I don't know most of them. Right. But there's some kinship there. But it's better than that.

We've been invited into his household.

Those of us who are in this room know that inside of these walls there are blessings that we enjoy by being a member. Right. Of this church and of this body. But those of us who’ve ever been in small groups together are in the women's ministry heart to home. We know that when we get inside of those walls, when we get inside of one another's homes, the real blessings and the bonds of unity and the bonds of friendship and the bonds of intimacy really grow inside of those walls.

We've been invited into the household to be family and to be beloved. Church. Remember God's glory. That was in the holy of holies, where it was off limits and we had no access. Paul alludes to this in Ephesians, but he says it clearly in Colossians.

Well, let me back up. So it's hidden away from us in the holy of holies. But then the Word becomes flesh, right? And dwells among us. And then Paul says in Colossians, for God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in him.

The glory of God descends on Jesus, and it lives in him. And as he lives in our world and on the earth. So, church, my question is, where now is the glory of God?

And in him, you too, are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. What? Yes, this. We are the dwelling place of God.

If I may be so bold to teach like my teacher, the kingdom of God is like a room full of red raiders, give or take a few. On any given Sunday. I don't see the Thompsons here, but who gather together to hear a sermon from a longhorn. And we receive his word, and we receive him with love and acceptance. And we offer him shalom for him and his family and his household, but not his team.

The Kingdom of God is like an Israeli and a Palestinian facing off against one another and then seeing the humanity in one another’s eyes and realizing that they're both created by the same God and loved by the same God, laid down their weapons and embrace one another and offer one another peace. Shalom. The Kingdom of God is like a Ukrainian soldier and a Russian soldier facing off and then looking into one another's eyes and realizing that they're created and loved by the same God and laying down their weapons and embracing one another and offering one another peace in Shalom. The kingdom of God is like angry Americans, the bluest of blue and the red is of reds, facing off against one another and then realizing we're all created and loved by the same God. And we lay down our weapons, both literally and rhetorically, and embraced one another and offer one another peace.

Shalom. The Kingdom of God is like you and me this morning, naming the person or people against whom we've been holding hostility and withholding forgiveness and peace and deciding that this very week we’d take demonstrative action to offer them forgiveness and reconciliation and Shalom church. If not us, then who?

Not if not those of us who have received peace instead of hostility, forgiveness instead of wrath, reconciliation instead of rejection, those of us who have been Marked by a spirit and we've become trophies of his grace, those of us who have become a part of God's household. How then do we ever expect the world that the politically enraged, the nations and the world to offer peace? Tolstoy said, everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves. Jesus. And John the baptizer before him said, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand and it's right there to grasp.

And I just wonder who in this room will be the first domino to fall this week and what chain reaction might ensue from that. Father, may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And may it start right here in this place, right here in our hearts, right here in our homes and in this body of believers. And may the ripples spread out of this room and into your hurting world. World.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid for peace, My peace I leave with.