Title: Me in BC and Me in AD
I am of BC and I of AD (Ephesians 2:11-22)
BC stands for before the birth of Jesus, before Christ, and AD stands for Anno Domini in Latin, meaning after the coming of the Lord. The content we want to get an inspirational message from through the text is to confirm the identity of who we were before we accepted Christ and who we were after believing in Jesus.
Above all, I want to become a saint who can thoroughly confirm the existence of human beings before believing in Jesus and be able to be more specific and thrilled with the grace of salvation.
1. I of BC
Verse 11-13 “Consider, therefore, that ye were then Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcised by those who call themselves circumcised in the flesh with hands.
12 At that time you were outside Christ, outside the kingdom of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 Now you, who were formerly afar off, have been drawn near by the blood of Christ in Christ Jesus.”
The Bible calls all the people of the nation, except for the Jews, the chosen people chosen by God and circumcised, as Gentiles, and the situation of the Gentiles is portrayed in various ways in the text. At that time, they were not only Gentiles but also sinners (Genesis 17:9-14). outside of Christ,
He said that he was a person outside the country of Israel. As only Israel became a nation and the other nations were nothing, the meaning of the word was not very good. He said that he was a stranger without a covenant (Romans 3:2).
He was said to have no hope in the world. It is a succinct statement that my life has no meaning (Romans 15:13). To say there is no God means to live without knowing the true God, and to be far from God. They were beings that were abandoned in a distant place where there is no way to find them.
Colossians 1:21 “You, who were once alienated from your evil deeds, and were enemies in your heart,” are all these expressions, to sum up your existence outside of Christ, in one word, you were a meaningless human being. How miserable do you speak?
As we said in verse 13,
13It means that the Lord shed the blood of atonement to bring us closer to God, just as it is said, “You who were far away have come near by the blood of Christ in Christ Jesus.”
Just because we believe in God and receive blessings and experiences of grace, how does it mean to become a political person who oppresses people with the content of glory, honor, and belief in God's house, or to ignore the poor and those with little faith? You need to know how wrong you are.
Like the proverb that the loach was used, we must reflect on whether the arrogance that led us to ignore the existence of those who have not yet been saved or who have weak faith does not make us miserable again.
God rescued Israel from Egypt by the miracle of the sheepskin and gave them basic commandments when training them in the wilderness.
Exodus 20:1-2 "God spoke all these words, saying, 2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." It is an enemy nation that oppressed Israel. It is said that they became slaves there. It is similar to how we were oppressed by the Japanese.
Israel, too, has been punished many times for all kinds of evil spirits and arrogance after being saved.
It is to remember that they became slaves in Egypt and that the God of salvation, the God of salvation, built them, not the Exodus themselves. In the Bible, we, who are now children of God as Christians, and children of Gentiles, compare our status when we are outside Christ,
Romans 11:24 “If you were cut off from the original stony olive tree and were grafted into a good olive tree against your nature, how many more will these men of the original branch be grafted into their own olive tree?
We call it a stone olive tree, but Koreans may not know the stone olive tree well, so we often say in a proverb that it is a light apricot. Or if there is a stone feeling, there is a sweet feeling.
The stone persimmon bears a lot of fruit and has good light, but it is not eaten and has a very bad smell when it falls and rots, but the sweet persimmon has a sweet smell even when it falls and rots. There was a stone persimmon at the well under the mountain behind.
Why we should be humble is very simple.
Because we were dogs, we still have that temperament, so we should always be humble and careful. And above all else, the plight of us Gentiles before we believed in Jesus was so miserable.
I was immersed in Confucianism, a Confucian ideology, and an ethical and moralism without progress and creation, looking at the world and living.
If you know the history of the Korean church, you will not be very grateful for the fact that the gospel came from a pitiful situation as a nation that had been through many trials and tribulations politically, and how much blood was shed for this gospel. You can not.
We will have to live remembering the BC me before we believed in Christ. Without knowing the past, only the present cannot exist.
2. I in AD
Who are we in Christ Jesus?
In other words, a Christian's identity must be clear in order to succeed and win through the new pattern of life of faith. Many people think that believing in God and living in other religions are similar, but believing that is the same as not believing. The soul who met Jesus is completely different. existence. It's different, but it's so different. Fundamentally, they have different standing before God, different ethnic groups, and different national views.
As mentioned earlier in verses 11-13, it is not the miserable existence, but the fact that it is now part of the household of God. Paul was very convinced of this fact, and we must be believers in that same conviction.
Romans 8:33 “Who can bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”
Galatians 3:6 “As it is said that Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Verse 19 “Therefore, from now on you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”
As those who have become God's family in Christ, we now have the same purpose of life and gather around the church.
Texts 21-22 “In him, every building is joined together to become a temple in the Lord,22 and you also are being built together in Jesus to become a dwelling place for God in the Holy Spirit.”
It is the fact that the church community of our faith in Christ becomes a temple as if it had built a great house, and it is the members who build the kingdom of God as if it were built in Jesus. If we believe in Jesus, we need to be aware that we do not live separately in the world, but we work together to build the temple of Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:16 “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
1 Peter 2:5 “You also, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Israel, God's chosen people, had a community life of 12 tribes centered on the temple in the days of the church in the wilderness. In the same way, the saints who are now God's people in Christ and who make up the kingdom of God are living together in a church-centered way of life. it should be
Ephesians 2:22 “You also are being built together in Jesus to be a dwelling place for God in the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 12:5 “In the same way, we who are many are one body in Christ, and members of one another.”
The saints who have been transferred from BC to AD must have the consciousness of the communal life of Christ. It is not that we live separately. We live separately in our worldly families and in the workplace, but in spirit we are already brothers, sisters, and parents.
Matthew 12:50 “Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
3 Reconciliation with neighbors
Jesus told us that if we condense the commandments, we should love God as our comfort and our neighbors as ourselves with the utmost devotion. And he taught us to be reconciled to each other if we can.
Romans 12:18 “As far as possible, be at peace with all men.”
Ephesians 2:14 “He is our peace, who made the two one and broke down the middle wall.”
1 John 2:2 “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Colossians 1:20 “He rejoiced to be reconciled to himself through him in all things, things on earth and things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.”
Gal 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are one in Christ Jesus.”
However, it is wrong to seek reconciliation through the diversification of secularism, but striving to become one in the one love of Christ is the same principle as the love of God.
Today, we are living in a very chaotic era where we lose our identity. The positions of father and mother and children in the family must be clear and the heavenly world must be alive.
No matter how chaotic the world is, there is progress only when there is justice.
When lies and deceit abound, history tends to retreat.
We were well aware of the existence of humans before and after AD.
We must remember our situation when we are outside of Christ and live our lives. Before we can honor God, we must first remember the world of existence in which we were sinners and were oppressed by the devil, the god of the world, and lived in a miserable state.
Now, we must come into Christ and live proudly as God's children, but we must be able to overcome this world with a new way of life that becomes God's holy temple.
As God's people, I pray in the name of the Lord that you and I will be able to overcome the world with a clear view of history as a new existence while remembering the me outside Christ and the me in Christ together.
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Source: Cyber Theological Seminary View Original Author: nulserom