1. "Friends, all religions are not created equal. While we champion religious freedom for all, we do this on the basis of the dignity of each person made in the image of God and the peaceful functioning of our society, not because all religions are equally true. There is only one God."

2. "We should realize that as certainly as Paul's Jewish peers could be damned through idolizing physical circumcision, letting the sign eclipse the truth signified by it, so we can be damned through the church. Relying on our religious observances rather than on Christ alone is our equivalent of self-salvation."

3. "The good works we do now don't save us. We do them because God has already saved us."

4. "The signs Christ has given us of baptism and the Lord's Supper are barriers erected against self-righteousness, repeated reminders that we do not save ourselves. We are born again by His will. We are sustained by His provision."

5. "Brothers and sisters, we can never repent if we don't first remember."

6. "Can you imagine being without the Bible? That's what their situation was like. It was like those poor tribesmen in Indonesia before Christians brought them the Bible. It was like the poor Europeans who had been kept under the darkness of Rome's theft of the Scriptures from them for centuries."

7. "Apart from Christ, there is no certainty of good in the future. Our natural condition was to be lost in despair or dissolution or both."

8. "To be in the creation but without the Creator is to be death. In the world that echoes His glory, blind in a world that reflects His wonder, cold to every touch of His presence."

9. "Our natural condition since Adam's fall is to be lost, to be without God, the Author of life, is to be naturally dead and liable to the eternal judgment of hell."

10. "A full Christ welcomes empty-handed sinners and makes them saints filled with His blessings. Remember all that you've been delivered from so that you will be helped to remember all you've been delivered to."

Observation Questions

1. In Ephesians 2:11, what does Paul call the Gentile believers to do, and what physical sign does he mention that distinguished Jews from Gentiles?

2. According to Ephesians 2:12, what five descriptions does Paul use to characterize the Gentiles' former spiritual condition before coming to Christ?

3. In verse 11, how does Paul describe circumcision with the phrase "made in the flesh by hands," and what contrast does this imply about true spiritual circumcision?

4. What does Paul say the Gentiles were "strangers to" in verse 12, and what does this suggest about their relationship to God's promises?

5. In verse 12, what two-word phrase does Paul use at the end to summarize the Gentiles' ultimate spiritual state before Christ?

6. Looking at the beginning of verse 11, what connecting word does Paul use to link this passage to what came before in Ephesians 2:1-10, and what does this suggest about the relationship between these passages?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul emphasize that circumcision was "made in the flesh by hands," and how does this connect to the Old Testament warnings about being "circumcised merely in the flesh" (Jeremiah 9:25-26) versus being circumcised in heart?

2. How does being "separated from Christ" relate to the other four descriptions of the Gentiles' former condition in verse 12? In what sense is separation from Christ the root problem that produces the other deprivations?

3. Why is it significant that Paul commands the Gentile believers to "remember" their former condition, rather than simply telling them to forget the past and move on? What spiritual purpose does this remembering serve?

4. How does Paul's description of the Gentiles as "having no hope and without God in the world" challenge the idea that all religions offer equally valid paths to God or that sincere religious devotion is sufficient for salvation?

5. According to the sermon, how could even Jews who possessed the sign of circumcision fall into the same spiritual danger as the Gentiles, and what does this teach about the relationship between outward religious practice and true faith?

Application Questions

1. The sermon challenged listeners to identify things they have relied on for spiritual security other than Christ—such as family background, church involvement, moral goodness, or life circumstances. What specific things in your life are you tempted to trust in for your standing before God, and how can you actively redirect that trust to Christ alone this week?

2. Paul calls believers to remember their former spiritual emptiness. How might regularly reflecting on what you were like before Christ—or what you would be like without Him—change the way you approach worship, prayer, and daily gratitude?

3. The sermon emphasized that sharing the gospel is essential because people who are "separated from Christ" cannot fix their own condition. Is there someone in your life—a neighbor, coworker, family member, or friend—who needs to hear about Christ? What is one concrete step you could take this week to share the gospel with them?

4. The preacher warned against treating religious observances like baptism, communion, or church attendance as sources of salvation rather than responses to salvation. How can you guard your own heart against turning good spiritual practices into a form of self-righteousness?

5. Paul's description of Gentiles as "alienated" and "strangers" highlights how the gospel breaks down barriers between people groups. Is there anyone you tend to look down on or distance yourself from because of their background, ethnicity, or social status? How does the truth that all believers share the same desperate need for Christ and the same unity in Him challenge you to pursue reconciliation or deeper fellowship?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Deuteronomy 10:12-22 — This passage contains God's command to Israel to "circumcise the foreskin of your heart," showing that true devotion to God has always been a matter of the heart, not merely outward ritual.

2. Romans 2:17-29 — Paul explains that being a true Jew is a matter of inward circumcision by the Spirit, directly reinforcing the sermon's warning against relying on outward religious identity.

3. Colossians 2:6-15 — This passage describes the "circumcision made without hands" that believers receive in Christ, showing how Christ's work accomplishes what the physical sign could only point to.

4. Isaiah 44:6-20 — God mocks the foolishness of idol worship and declares that He alone is God, illustrating the spiritual emptiness of the Gentile religions Paul's audience had left behind.

5. Acts 19:1-20 — This account of Paul's ministry in Ephesus provides the historical background for the letter, showing how the gospel came to this city and transformed people who had been devoted to false religion.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Diversity of the Church and the Importance of Remembering Our Past

II. Remember Your Past Outward Irreligion (Verse 11)

III. Remember Your Past Inward Emptiness (Verse 12)

IV. Christ Alone Is the Answer to Our Former Deprivation

Detailed Sermon Outline

Churches are composed of different types of people.

Look at us. Look around. Here are men and women.

Here are old and young. Americans and internationals. Black and white. Asian and Hispanic. About half our congregation is over 30.

About half is under 30. Some were born here in D.C. Some weren't. About half the congregation lives within a mile of our building, about half further away.

Some of us would rather spend an hour reading Others, an hour at the gym. Some of us are long-termers. We've been here for 10 or 20 years or more. Or we're from here. Others are considering moving away even this summer.

Here's a combination that's present in this congregation that I wonder if you've ever thought of.

Many of us heard Reese Plant's address last Sunday night. Or his interview with Deepak. Reese is the larger of our Canadian pastoral interns right now. He's one of those Christians who heard the gospel as a child and cannot remember a time he didn't believe it. Reese has the testimony that parents want all their children to have.

He told us that he can't remember a time when he didn't believe in Christ. And trust Him. And that is going to be a lot of people in a congregation like ours. Maybe most people, but not everyone. So for example, William Wolff who just read it to us from Jeremiah 9 and will be preaching to us on that very passage tonight, was converted here at our church 10 years ago.

He can well remember his life before he trusted in Christ. And that's true also of many of us. So let's try a little experiment right now. Now if you're not a Christian, we're very glad you're here. You're very welcome.

This will not affect you. You can simply look around and be informed for a minute. I would like for those who have the same testimony as Reese shared, who cannot remember a time when they didn't believe in Christ to stand up right now. Just stay standing for a minute. And everybody just look around, take it in.

You know, let's keep standing here, just keep standing, look around. That is a lot of people. There are a lot of happy Christian parents represented by these people who are standing up. Praise the Lord. Okay, please be seated.

Now, if you're a Christian who can remember when you did not believe in Christ, whether you were a child or a teenager or older, But you can remember the time before you trusted Him and were born again. Would you please stand?

Oh my goodness. All right, I'm a little surprised. All right, that's most people here. If you'll stay standing for a moment, you all are the ones that I'm especially preaching to in this sermon. Please be seated.

Now, I trust that explaining God's Word is going to be helpful to everyone here, Christian and non-Christian, converted later, converted earlier, Jewish and Gentile, and we'll be saying Gentile a lot today because the passage Gentile just means all who are not Jewish, the nations. Paul is writing the letter to the Ephesians, which we're studying this year. To a church that he had taught for some time, the church in Ephesus, a city on the west, Greece facing coast of Turkey. It was an important city, the center of the worship of the goddess Artemis, Diana. And the Christian church there was favored with perhaps the most illustrious list of pastors of any church in the history of Christianity.

Timothy and John the Beloved Disciple. There's so much information about this church in the New Testament. You can find its early days in the book of Acts. If you read the account of Paul there in Acts 19 and 20, you can find the letter that the risen Christ sent to the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2. And you can find two letters written by Paul to its pastor Timothy.

Intended to be shared with the entire Ephesian church, 1 and 2 Timothy. And there is this letter that we are studying, Ephesians, written to the entire congregation. Let me encourage you to open your Bibles to that now. Well, I say this was written to the entire congregation. Listen to our passage for today and see if you understand which part of the congregation Paul is particularly speaking to.

In this single long sentence that we find in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 12, beginning of verse 11. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Jesus' initial mission had been to the lost sheep of Israel. You may remember in Matthew's gospel when Jesus once questioned about His mission to the Canaanites and other non-Jews says simply, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This explains the mission He had sent His disciples on earlier when He had instructed them to go nowhere among the Gentiles. That's during Jesus' earthly ministry before His crucifixion. But then, after His crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus explained that His ministry was now for all.

He instructed His disciples, Go and make disciples of all nations. And so they had. Just read of all their activities in the book of Acts. We saw in Ephesians 1 this great news repeated, God out of His mere good pleasure from all eternity elected some to everlasting life. And he had entered into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of their state of sin and misery and brought them into a state of salvation by the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

And that included many Gentiles. In fact, when he had converted the Jewish rabbi Paul, he had commissioned him particularly to be an apostle to the Gentiles, to the nations. And it was in that capacity that Paul had first brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the city of Ephesus. To Jews there, yes, but also to many, many Gentiles. In this long sentence it's stretched out over the two verses that we're considering this morning in verses 11 and 12, Paul is exhorting most of the members of the Ephesian church to remember their past.

How deprived they had been before the coming of Christ and before Christ's gospel had come to them. The news that had come to them was not that they would need to move to Israel and be circumcised and worship in the temple and obey the food laws and other laws about special days found in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. Old enmities between Jews and Gentiles were being buried now as their religious poverty was being flooded with the religious riches of God's grace for them in Jesus Christ. And in order to help them appreciate that and to refocus and recenter their own understandings of themselves, Paul was calling them to remember, remember their past outward irreligion, that's verse 11, and their past inward emptiness, that's verse 12. And that's the outline.

Verse 11, Remember their past outward irreligion. And verse 12, Remember their past inward emptiness. Before we turn to these two verses and look at them more closely, we should just consider the importance of Paul's basic command to them here to remember.

I've sometimes heard Roman Catholics dismiss Protestant understanding of the Lord's Supper as mere memorialists, as opposed to Rome's teaching that at the Eucharist the wafer becomes the sacrificed physical body of Christ and the upheld cup His blood. But I would suggest not only are there serious conflicts between Rome's teaching at this point and Jesus' teaching, but that any idea that remembering is to be slighted or belittled is strange to the Bible story of God and His people. Not only did Jesus specifically instruct the disciples, Do this in remembrance of Me at the Lord's Supper, But the command to remember echoes throughout the Old Testament as God exhorts His people to love Him and fear Him and to remember His commandments and to remember all He has done for them. From God's promises to Noah and his sons to remember the covenant, not to destroy the world again by water, to the risen Christ in Revelation 3 exhorting the church at Sardis to remember what they had received and heard Remembering is central to God's relationship with His people. It's central to our relationship with God.

And we see that today in these two brief verses. So first we read Paul's exhortation here in verse 11, Therefore, that is because of all we've seen of God and His saving plans for us, because of the inheritance we're receiving in light of the fact that we were dead, but God loved us and made us alive together with Christ, saving us by his grace, which was not our own doing. Therefore, in light of all this, remember.

First, Paul says to these Gentile believers, Remember your former outward irreligion.

The Ephesians were very religious. Don't be confused by my use of that word irreligion there. The Ephesians were very religious. There was a great temple to Artemis there, and their devotion was such that when it seemed threatened by the popularity of Paul's message, we read in Acts 19, For about two hours this crowd in the amphitheater cried out with one voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

But their religion was as man-made as the statues they prayed to. Their religion lacked the signs of revealed religion, which Paul summarized here in verse 11 with a sign of circumcision. This ancient sign had been given by Abraham as a physical marker on God's people, as a sign of their faith in God's promises for the future, especially to provide them with a deliverer. Friends, all religions are not created equal. While we champion religious freedom for all, we do this on the basis of the dignity of each person made in the image of God and the peaceful functioning of our society, not because all religions are equally true.

There is only one God. And this God has revealed Himself in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. At the same time, the world then and now abounds with many others who claim to speak for other gods. And yet God has told His people in the first two commandments, you, shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness to represent this God.

Or as He said through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 46, Remember this and stand firm. Recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me. Friends, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Job, and Revelation bring this same message, as does the whole of Scripture.

So the Gentiles had no true religion before the gospel of Christ came to them, and their uncircumcision showed this. However, Paul also seems to be implying warnings to his fellow Jews who may be hearing this letter, those who may have experienced a more subtle religious deprivation. Do you notice Paul's language in the second half of verse 11? Called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands?

Why all that repetition? Why that strange roundabout way of saying it? Called by what is called in the flesh made by hands? When we follow the word order in the original and put made Next to by hands, perhaps we begin to see what Paul's getting at, made by hands. Now of course circumcision was done by human hands.

From God's establishing it with Abraham in Genesis 17, to it being enshrined centuries later in the laws of Moses, commands were given about how this divine sign was to be administered by human hands. Of course it was. But made by hands, that phrase, in the Old Testament had other associations as well, not least of which was a description of idols. And Paul was suggesting here that his peers were doing what he himself had done before he met Christ. They were treating physical circumcision like the Gentiles had treated their idols made by hands.

What always had needed to be circumcised, speaking by analogy, was their hearts. As the Lord had said to His people back in Deuteronomy 10, Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. But of course, that circumcision will not be made by hands.

God Himself will have to do that heart work. As the Lord said through Moses in Deuteronomy 30, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Centuries later when the Lord would call the people to repentance, we read in Jeremiah 4, Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts.

But, friends, such heart work is exactly what dead sinners can't do. Do you remember Paul, just a few verses before in verses 1 to 3, reflected on how dead we were spiritually by nature? But you know what a dead sinner can do really well?

Religion. So the Lord warned later in Jeremiah 9, In those verses we heard William read earlier, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

Being circumcised merely in the flesh was the reality of so many of Paul's friends and family. And that's why Paul laments as he did in Romans 2, For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward in physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.

So why should you this morning keep all this in mind? Why should you remember your past religious life. Because we should realize that as certainly as Paul's Jewish peers could be damned through idolizing physical circumcision, letting the sign eclipse the truth signified by it, so we can be damned through the church.

Relying on our religious observances, being baptized, taking communion, hearing sermons, joining a church, relying on any of that rather than on Christ alone is our equivalent of self salvation, even through the most religious of actions. Just remember a wrong reliance you've had. On a parent, or a spouse, on a job, or a sport, on your bank account, or your health, or your own goodness toward others, remember all of those forsaken idols and turn and rely on Christ alone for your salvation.

Friends, this is the core of the good news that we have. Not that we're a Baptist church so we get baptism right, or that we're careful with membership so we get the Lord's Supper right, or we have longer sermons than normal so we get the preaching right, or we have a more patient congregation than most so we get the hearing right. Friends, our hope is in Christ alone. If you are here today and you're aware of your own wrongness, your own sins, your own need for forgiveness from others and ultimately from God, the answer is not merely in you trying to change how you're living. The answer is finally in Christ having lived a perfectly righteous life for all of us.

Who would ever turn and trust in Him as our substitute. He died on the cross specifically as a sacrifice bearing God's wrath, His good and right wrath against us for our sins, for all of us who would have Him as our own. Friends, that's the answer you need today. If you want to know more about what that would look like in your own life to repent and believe, talk to the Christian you came with. Or someone sitting around you, or I'll be up here afterwards, please come and talk to me or one of the other pastors that you can find.

Friends, this is what we need to remember this morning. The wrong religion called by whatever name that is replaced by saving trust in Christ alone as God raises us up with Christ alone and seats us with Him in the heavenly places so that in the coming ages He might show His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. This is why He saved us. By grace through faith, it's not our own doing. It's not the result of our own works.

He has created us in Christ to do those good things He has prepared for us since eternity past. The good works we do now don't save us. We do them because God has already saved us.

The great festivals of ancient Israel, chief among them the Passover, were set up for this simple reason. Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.

So too the signs Christ has given us of baptism and the Lord's Supper are barriers erected against against self-righteousness, repeated reminders that we do not save ourselves. We are born again by His will. We are sustained by His provision. Perhaps there are some here today who need to hear the words of Christ that He wrote to the Ephesian church some decades later in Revelation 2:5, Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent, and do the works yous did at first. Brothers and sisters, we can never repent if we don't first remember.

We all need to remember what we used to rely on and what we're really relying on now this morning.

But we should turn to verse 12 too, where Paul called these Gentile converts to Remember your inward emptiness. You see there in verse 12, Paul was calling them to remember that time. When is that time? In verse 12. Well, it's the one time there in verse 11.

At one time. The time Paul describes here in a series of five phrases as he puts aside merely the religious rights that they had formerly lacked. And instead pursues their inward experience that used to mark their lives of being separated and alienated, of being estranged and deprived.

Some people have wondered if these five phrases in verse 12 are really all simply restatements of the same thing.

Separated from Christ alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world.

And certainly each of them involves the others.

So for example, if you were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel during the Old Testament times before the gospel of Christ, then you had no hope because hope of deliverance from sin and its penalty only came from the promises of God and those He had made uniquely to His people Israel. But I think Paul is peeling back the layers of the religious experience of the Gentile Christians before they were saved. He begins with the most obvious inward deprivation separated from Christ. And this was not the kind of deprivation they could fix. Someone, Paul in this case, had to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to them.

That's what we do when we share the gospel with someone. That's why parents tell their kids about Christ. That's why members volunteer for Praise Factory and Sunday School and other children's work at the church. To share the gospel with the rising generation. That is why Josh and Mandy Poole have moved to Valdosta, Georgia, to pastor Covenant Baptist Church there for Josh.

That is why Rob and Katie moved to India. That is why Ben and Meredith Wright moved to Texas. And Ben helped to start a new church there in Cedar Point near Austin. That is why Robert and Ronna Kline have served at the IMB for so many years. That's why Mack and LeAnn Stiles have done so much that they've done through the years, not least of which was working at better establishing the International Baptist Church in Erbil, Iraq, thanks to the good work of our sister Betsy.

Friends, if you're moving somewhere in the next few months, I trust that part of the reason why is you want to reach people who are separated from Christ, whether they're in Wisconsin or Texas. Whether they're in Iraq or East Asia. Apart from hearing from one who knows Him, how would they know of a Messiah, a Deliverer that was promised and that has come?

They were separated from Christ.

But Paul pushes back further into their memory of their own history. He says that they were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel. They weren't a part of the political nation of Israel. They weren't citizens of it. We sometimes forget how consequential citizenship is.

In Acts 22, one man, surprised that Paul was a Roman citizen from birth, exclaims, I bought this citizenship for a large sum.

Before they were in Christ, these Gentiles had not yet entered into the great heritage of all The truth that we read from Genesis to Ezra, from Ecclesiastes to Malachi, they were excluded because they walked in ignorance. Paul a number of times refers to those who are not in Christ as those who are excluded or alienated. The implication, of course, is that now the Gentile believers are spiritually in Israel. But we'll come to that more as we continue through the letter in the weeks to come, Lord willing. Their having been excluded from the citizenship of God's people in the past was part of the deprivation that they had once known.

But we continue. Paul pushes still further back with his next phrase, Strangers to the covenants of promise. So once in Christ, by contrast, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. You see that up in chapter 1:13. Or we read over in chapter 3 verse 6, this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Covenants are established by promises God makes to His people. And with this mention, Paul pushes back from David and Moses, back even to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 17 None of these did the Gentiles know before they heard the gospel of Christ. None of them were they party to and partakers in. You're understanding something of the depth of their deprivation. They had none of these promises.

Can you imagine being without the Bible? That's what their situation was like. It was like those poor tribesmen in Indonesia before Christians brought them the Bible. It was like the poor Europeans who had been kept under the darkness of Rome's theft of the Scriptures from them for centuries.

I was giving lectures one time in London at All Souls on Puritanism and I pointed out that in many old churches they would see in the pulpit a wrought iron a rod coming out from the side, turning, and then with a circle on the top. And I asked him if anybody had seen such a thing, and most people raised their hands. I said, Anybody know what they were? No one knew what they were. I said, those were gifts of the congregation to the preacher, usually given in the 1560s or 70s, and they were hourglass holders.

And they were to give the preacher one or two turns of the hourglass for His sermon.

When I said that, one person sitting there gasped out loud. And she said, what time did that leave for worship? And I explained, the people who were sitting there, many of them could remember seeing men and women killed for reading the Bible in English. Or translating it into English. They realized the precious treasure it was to be able to have the Bible, God's Word, in their own language that they could understand.

And they knew that the center of their worship was hearing God's Word and responding to it. It was 500 years ago this very weekend. That Martin Luther stood before the emperor at the Diet of Worms and he made his famous statement before the assembled bishops, that I am bound by the Scriptures. I have quoted in my conscience as captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything.

It's neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. May God help me. Amen.

Friends, the great thing to learn there is not that Luther obeyed his conscience, but that Luther's conscience was captive to the Word of God, was educated by the Word of God. Friends, do you so value God's Word? Before we heard the promises of God, we were the opposite of children of promise. We were strangers and foreigners because of and by our sin. Our ways were futile, our eyes were blind.

If we were religious at all, we were idolaters. And Paul's exploration of our destitution has still not reached bottom. Look at the next phrase. Having no hope. No hope.

Think about that. Before you heard of Christ, What solid basis for hope did you have? Apart from Christ, there is no certainty of good in the future. Our natural condition was to be lost in despair or dissolution or both. Apart from the promises of God, they had no hope of a prophesied and promised coming deliverer.

They knew a hopelessness in sin. They were drowning in the middle of the ocean of their own sins, and there was no rescuer in sight. The hope of the godless shall perish. This world has nothing for you apart from Christ. Friend, when death is your greatest hope, you are hopeless and barren.

What is the hope of the godless? Paul referred elsewhere to non-Christians as those who have no hope. In fact, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, Paul said that we have no hope. But friends, Christ has been raised from the dead, and so we do. Even if these Gentiles had had the Word of God, They would have known that the hope that God had given them, even after Adam's fall, that there would come one who would bruise Satan's head, who would defeat the devil.

But even the earliest glimmer of hope for a redeemer, they lacked when they were still in their Gentile darkness. What was it Dante said there was above the door of hell? Abandon hope. All who enter here. Paul concludes his descent into the darkness and spiritual death that was their lot before Christ converted them with the final phrase there in verse 12.

Look down at that final phrase in verse 12. Without God in the world. To be in the creation but without the Creator is to be death. In the world that echoes His glory, blind in a world that reflects His wonder, cold to every touch of His presence. The word translated here without God is really the single word atheists.

Paul could have said without God like he said without Christ earlier in the verse. Translated here as separated from Christ, separate from Christ. He could have said, Separate from God, but instead he uses the simple single word, atheists. He says, what these sinners were without God, they were godless. The psalmist said, All the thoughts of the wicked are there is no God.

There is no fear of God before his eyes, said David in describing the wicked. How did Paul put it to the Roman church? They did not see fit to acknowledge God. Sinners are godless. Less.

Now these atheists were also polytheists. They worshiped many so-called gods and goddesses like Artemis. But these gods were wholly and completely different than the one true God. If you read Isaiah 44 or Isaiah 46 this afternoon, that's Isaiah 44 or Isaiah 46, you'll see the Lord mock the idolaters as going to the woods and cutting down a tree and With half of it they burn and cook their food over it, and the other half of it they carve an image and they bow down before it and worship it. Their being without God is no limitation on God's omnipresence.

It clearly defeats the universalist belief that God is omnitolerant, that He's all accepting. The Bible nowhere teaches that the true God has a relationship of peace with all those made in His image. Our natural condition since Adam's fall is to be lost, to be without God, the Author of life, is to be naturally dead and liable to the eternal judgment of hell. Their alienation from their fellow humans indicated their alienation from the God in whose image they were. This reminds us how hatreds of others for whatever reason disagreement or resentment, unforgiveness or prejudice, thinking you shouldn't be with somebody because they're of a different race, is a blasphemy against the God who made us all in His image.

It misunderstands and mistakes what God Himself is like. It strikes at the image of the God that person was made in, whether or not they're eternally lost or saved. Friends, remember what it was like to be so inwardly empty. A full Christ welcomes empty-handed sinners and makes them saints filled with His blessings. Remember all that you've been delivered from so that you will be helped to remember all you've been delivered to.

Friends, that's our time for our study this morning. Hope you've taken the main point there, even if you weren't in the second group that was standing. Nothing qualified us for salvation. Nothing in our race, nothing in our pre-existing religion, nothing in ourselves. Paul digs this deep foundation here in order to build our solid unity in Christ alone.

When I was reflecting on these verses with Jessica Bufford this week, she pointed out that all the verbs here are in the past tense.

These Gentile believers could now rejoice in this work already done, already accomplished for them. All of this they were remembering was no longer their state.

I guess most of us have a Gentile background, but we've been brought together now with all of God's people.

You see how Christ is so clearly the answer. Without God in the world, so reads the eyes of the flesh, but by the eyes of faith we see Immanuel, God with us. Come for us, without hope according to the eyes of the flesh, but Christ is our hope according to faith's sight.

Strangers to the covenants of promise, but by God's grace He's given us friends to tell us and ears to hear His promises in Christ. We were alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, but now you look down in chapter 2 and verse 19 and we see You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. We were separated from Christ, but now we have been united to Him by faith. Uncircumcised or circumcised in the flesh now, in Christ there is a circumcision of the heart, did both Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ share. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, In Him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.

How did all these blessings become ours? Only by Christ, by Christ alone. Christ was cut off that we might enter in. And so now in Him our hearts unite. When we His children share His love, our joy is His delight.

Our hope is in Christ alone. Remember that.

Let's pray together. Lord God, we thank youk for the way youy have provided so richly for us in Christ. We pray that yout would cause us to remember and to praise youe for your goodness to us in Him. We ask in His name, Amen.