Alright everyone, we're going to gather our attention up here. Earlier I made that announcement about the coronavirus and if you kind of got the sentiment, we're neither making it a nothing deal and we're also neither making it like everything that is consuming our minds, right? But one thing I do want to make mention of the fact that is right now things are fast developing the tenor of how things have been developing since even Sunday till now, which is Wednesday, a couple days, it's changed.

And so please know that if there are major changes, it could possibly be that let's say our format of Bible study changes. We will make sure to update you guys and make sure we communicate broadly about that, okay? So let's take a moment to review and then I'll read the passage and we can jump in, okay?

So it's about 855. Reviewing this part's not on your packet, but remember there is so much to be said in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10 and the last section of it was man, like, look what God has done in salvation. He made us alive in Christ. He raised us with Christ.

He seated us with Christ and God's desire is to show, like, put on magnificent display his kindness towards us in Christ, the love that he has shown to us, okay? And so by review, the whole section, verses 1 through 10, showed us an incredible contrast, okay? On one side, you're absolutely dead in your transgressions and sins and you're absolutely oppressed by the forces all around you and the force of your own flesh.

God has, but in God's mercy, he has made you alive and raised and seated us with Christ. Similarly then, in this passage, verses 11 all the way down through verse 22, but we cut it off a little bit early, is this amazing contrast of salvation again, but it highlights for us something different.

Whereas the previous section highlighted for us this absolute truth that you went from death to life, what a vast, vast contrast of reality that you would go from death to living, here and now, Apostle Paul is highlighting for us our salvation where we go from far to near. Whereas one side, it is your existence and your reality before God, here and now, he makes it very personal.

This is the relational contrast of the gospel, right? This is the ramification that if you were dead, then you were absolutely detestable relationally and separate from God. If you've been made alive in Christ, now you are bringing, have been brought to him in Christ because our Lord has ascended to the Father, right?

Because our Lord is with God. Likewise, you will be with God. The ramification of the gospel, it has its great impact and it has everything to do with you and God, right? It's all about you and God. It's not about, "Oh, my former self was poor, sad, hardened, and now I'm much better than that." It has everything to do with you and God.

And so, we have our passage today. Let's take a moment to read it. Please look at your passage and it says, "Therefore, remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands. Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross.

By it having put to death the enmity. And he came and preached peace to you who are far away and peace to those who are near. For through him we both have our access in one spirit to the Father." Amen. Let's take a moment to pray. God, we thank you for your grace and Lord, we thank you so much.

God, not only did you free us from the oppressive grips of Satan of this world and our flesh, Father God, you showed us how dead we were spiritually. And Father, you have made us alive in Christ. But we thank you, Father God, because in justifying us, in freeing us, we just recognize, God, that you did not leave us like that.

But Father God, in your love, in your inexplicable care, in your mercy, you purposely drew us near to yourself. And for that, Lord, today we want to reflect, we want to meditate, and ultimately we want to praise you and thank you. We thank you, it's in Christ, and we pray.

Amen. Okay. So as we take a look at this passage, there is clearly a section where it describes your former alienated state. Yes? And remember, as you do your Bible study, if you see the repetition of terms, make sure you actually list them off and stare at it and observe all that you can learn.

But before we even get there, he tells you and commands you, "Remember all this stuff." Right? So we can't just slide by that, and we have to ask ourselves the question, why does Apostle Paul command the church to remember and reflect upon all of these various terms that are oh so discouraging?

And it's inclusive of the previous ones. The previous ones where it said, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins." Those things we should actually remember too. Wow, he says, "Therefore remember." So in thought of your deadness and the mercies of God that made you alive, you should also therefore remember this as your previous former state of alienation prior to you receiving Christ.

And just as a good way to do Bible study, when you ask questions for yourself, any time you see a command in the New Testament, especially these didactic teaching epistles, these like, you know, the lessons and the directions that we receive, ask yourself these questions like, what does Apostle Paul want me to do when he says, "Remember?" Right?

Because is he telling you to go into your room all pitifully in the dark and just sulk? Is he telling you to be like, "Oh yeah, that's right." Like is that all he expected us to do? And then you got to ask yourself, am I doing this right now?

How am I doing this right now? How am I not doing this right now? Because this is a command for you to heed. This is something that's actually repeated multiple times in the Bible and the scriptures rebukes us when we forget. Sometimes we're like, "Man, we received such a grace.

I'll never forget this." And then like we, the MO, the like, the operating, you know, the tendency of mankind throughout history has been, we just always tend to forget even the greatest of things. I mean, the Exodus. God with his strong, mighty hand delivers the people. They walk the desert and like, "Are you even with us?" You know, like, it's crazy how quickly they forget.

So, are you remembering? Do you understand what he means when he tells you to remember? But moving forward, I asked you as a study of this passage, please make sure you understand the description of the conditions that we were in. Because why? We're all Gentiles, right? This is us, okay?

This is all about us. And he says, "Remember all these different depictions." So, I have for us, I like to highlight in red the stuff that's sinful or the former conditions when we were lost. And there's so many. Yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And what's more, I highlight the ones in the next section because as he was describing what Christ has done, he gave different descriptions of the state that we were in.

So, as a summary list for us, it talks about being separated from Christ, right? Excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. There's more. You know, all of that stuff is strangers, right? You guys have heard recently probably the term being thrown around a lot, xenophobia, right? That's the term here.

Because xeno means foreigner. You are a stranger, okay? You're not the local guy that everybody knows, right? Nobody knows you. Having no hope without a God in this world, you are absolutely far off with a barrier of a dividing wall. And there was enmity between you and God's law, between you, God himself, between you and all the people around you.

Think about this for a moment and take a moment to observe that. This was my best shot at a picture. If you can't tell, the guy has no neck because he's sad, right? His head's down, okay? And that's the way it should be. There's like, you can't really see it very well, but there's like snake and bone down there because there is a level of this depiction where you are not in a neutral state with God, okay?

Whenever you meet the Lord, you are not in a mind my own business world. Some people think that. It's like, "You know, I'm just minding my own business and God's out there and he wants me to have a better purpose for my life than the one I purpose for myself now." Sometimes, don't settle for the less purpose, go for the higher.

No, no, no. That is not the picture the gospel paints, is it? This is the picture the gospel paints. Not only are you far from God. There is this massive wall between you two. And there is this like wickedness. There is this deadness. There is all kinds of vileness around us.

And so, as a takeaway, I've got two questions, right? One is, how humiliating do you think this is for the Gentiles in this church? And that question then goes to you. Have you felt the humiliation of the gospel? If you've heard a gospel that didn't make you feel rejected, perhaps you didn't listen to the right one.

Let me repeat that, okay? If you have never felt, after hearing the gospel, a sense of rejection, I'm not sure if you heard the whole thing. Why? Because if you were looking at this laundry list, or I guess if you were looking at this depiction of the picture that Apostle Paul is trying to give you, I want you to understand the picture.

I want you to see the reality of where you were, right? He is showing you an incredibly bleak, bleak picture of your life. I mean, to say that you're separate and excluded, you are alienated and strange, but he flat out tells you, you had no hope. Have you ever said that to anybody in your life?

You're so hopeless. That's a mean thing to say. But if you think about it from a relational picture, this is a picture of complete rejection. This is a kind of picture where maybe I should have drawn the guy banging on the wall and God saying, "No, I will not accept you and this wall exists between you and me.

Your sins have separated us." Right? That's the picture. That is a profoundly humbling thing to accept. And so the second question I have for you is, do you have an understanding of how desperate your life is prior to Christ? When you look back, the command is for you to remember, right?

So when you look back at your life prior to Christ, do you summarize and interpret it that way? What am I talking about here? If we're truly thinking about a state of despair, if we're truly thinking about a state of rejection, it should really, really hit us. But sometimes when I read people's testimonies, their depiction of their previous life is like, "You know what?

Back then, I just had it hard. I had the hard knock life. I wasn't loved by my parents. No one really cared. But now it's amazing." Okay, that may all be true. That may all be true. But is that the picture that the scripture and the gospel paints for us?

What's more, you think about why Apostle Paul would need to say this to the Gentiles, right? You hearken back to, let's say, the beginning chapters of 1 Corinthians. It is so innate within us to have arrogance and pride, right? Where you join the privilege, where you join this group, this group that like, "Oh my goodness, we have the promises of God, right?

We have hope. We have future with the Lord," and all this kind of stuff. And that should be to us like praise and thankfulness. And then it immediately turns into like, "And you, right? What's wrong with you?" It's pretty incredible, but we can already imagine the scene in that section.

Now in order for us to just appreciate this all the more because, again, for us as we look at this passage, I introduced it by saying, "What an incredible contrast." Just like the previous passage, it's an incredible contrast. For us to appreciate the contrast, we have to then get the first part right.

And therefore, in order to do that, an example. An example of how destitute, an example of how separated, an example of how estranged we are from God. There is this word that I have a hard time pronouncing. I always have to slow down. Enmity. Anyway, this word means enemy.

It means hostility. It means hatred. And what's really interesting about this is, here's the question I want to ask you. When you think about your life before Christ, it is not something that is inherently observed, and it's not something that feels natural, but the Bible teaches us before you are saved in Christ, your relationship with God is absolute hatred.

There is an animosity between you and God. Is that something that really kind of strikes us? And you know what's very interesting is, Scripture talks about this. Let me give you first a picture. This is absolutely foolish, but this is the way that I imagine it, right? We're puny, tiny little people, and somehow we think we can put our dukes up and go at it against God, right?

But Scripture says this, "And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross. Through him I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven, and although you are formerly," what? "Alienated, hostile in mind, and engaged in evil deeds." That is your description, and that word for hostile is the same word you find there.

What's more, in Colossians 2, verse 10 through 14, some of you guys have already texted me. It's kind of weird that the passage talks about the law being hostile, but take a look at this. "Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us of all our transgressions." And then look at this. "Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." The way I want to describe that to you is, a lot of people mistakenly think that, again, we are neutral with God, minding our own business, and what we have to do is accept this God who's going to make our lives so much better.

Now, is God going to radically transform our lives? Yes. But the scripture says the hostility actually went both ways. You are hostile to God because prior to us knowing God, every single man stood as Lord over his own life, which means your kingship stands directly hostile to God's kingship.

But what's more, your transgression and sins are like a rap sheet. You have a criminal record that judges you. You have a certificate of debt that says you owe. You have ledger. You have certified documents that show you how wrong you were. And in that way, the law of God is hostile to you because God's good and holy word compared to you, it stands in judgment over you.

It absolutely stands in judgment over you. Okay. So then, I take a moment to think about this. Like, I want to just give you a final illustration, then turn to the but and then turn it over, okay? I hope I did enough to get us to think about that question.

Do we really understand how lost we were before Christ? You guys know I'm super into cars. You know what car nobody wants? It's not the swagger wagon because it's a mama van, right? People love that stuff. It's not the little dinky cars because they're small. No, people really love that stuff.

It's not the style of cars that make people not want it. You know what people really hate? They hate salvage title cars. Cars that have hidden faults, that have been in wrecks before, that have been deemed at loss. Nobody would even pay full price for that. Yes? If there is a description for me that worked, was to think about a damaged vehicle that has no value.

Why? Because it's unwanted. The highlight of this passage is not so much just your deadness. The highlight of this passage is your rejection relationally. The gospel teaches us it's not because God is mean. It's not because he's so biased. Our deadness separates us from God. Our stain of sin is a sickness that nobody would want to be around.

I mean, we're in the midst of a panic because there is an unknown, very little that we know about this disease that's going around rampant. If an individual is then diagnosed with that disease, that person is cast out. And so it was all through history with the Jewish people and their regiments and the Levitical law so that it would be shown.

Sin is not to stain this community. You are in absolute isolation. This is the state before us and God. And then he says, reminding us of the future passage, I mean, sorry, previous passage, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love, which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ.

And then today, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly so far off, you have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Let's all together say amen. Ready? One, two, three. Amen. This is to us the greatest treasure. Because if you actually understood how far you were, if you actually understood how much our sins separate us from this loving God, when we hear the news, Christ draws you near.

This is the turnaround. This is the great contrast. This is the major point of this segment. It is the topic sentence. Memorize it. Think about it. Dwell upon it. Meditate upon it. And the only way I want to have us, not the only way, but one of the important ways I want you guys to think about this is because, remember, one of the passages talked about you are being called the uncircumcised by the circumcised.

Yes? Who are the circumcised? The Jewish people. Good. That one person who answered, thank you. It's the Jewish people. Because that was their whole tradition and mark. I am a chosen person of God in the chosen nation of God as a sign of the covenant of Abraham. We are all circumcised.

And to be uncircumcised, wow. What offense against the holy God. And then therefore that also elicited a pride in them. You uncircumcised going, you ethnic, all the others who don't have this promise mark, all of you, like dogs. It's crazy. If you read old, old literature, the Jewish people hated everybody else.

And what's really interesting is everybody else hated them. There was just a hate, hate relationship that existed. So much so the Jewish people would say the ethnic, the gentiles, were literally food for the fires of hell, fuel for the fires of hell. It was against their law, their systematic laws to even help a gentile woman give birth.

Why? Because that just means another heathen would enter this land. And then throughout history, so many people have hated the Jewish people. And then around the time of this writing, the people saw the Jewish individuals as the dirtiest of the dirtiest. That is heightened by the story of Sarah and Hagar.

You guys remember them? Abraham was given this promise, you will have a son. Many, many, many years went by. Sarah got super impatient and was like, what in the world is happening? She looked to her slave girl, Hagar, and said, I want you to sleep with your master and have a baby.

Upon having a baby, Sarah got super jealous. The green monster came out and said, I need you to get out. So Abraham cast out Hagar. Now you guys recall the story. Hagar goes walking in the wilderness and she cannot feed her son. And so in order to not see her son whimper and die of starvation, she puts her son by a bush and she goes walking away to be a distance away.

But I want you to think about the perspective of the son. Because sometimes we think it was an infant baby. I think the story actually talks about some years going by. And so that child posed a threat. Yes? I think the child was old enough to understand what was going on.

But think from his perspective. Like to have the emotional contrast of not only being the slave boy, but the unwanted boy who poses a threat to actually your father. Yeah? And then to be in a state where there is nothing for you. There is no commonwealth for you. There's nothing but desert.

And now what you're looking at is absolute bleak, bleak moment of despair with no food. And the only thing you're thinking is I'm going to die in this place. That is the contrast. When there is this contrast between you uncircumcised to now you being brought near. That's the reality.

That's the line. That's the heritage. That's the genealogy. Does that make sense? And so for us to appreciate this contrast and now, and now those who are outside the camp, those who are detested, those who are absolutely rejected, we are being brought near by the blood of Christ. Praise God, praise God.

And scripture says here, Psalm 73 verse 28, "As for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all his works." Can I give you guys kind of like a, I just want to meditate on this and give you like a personal story.

Because today's passage and the passages in Ephesians chapter 1 through 3 you guys know are conceptual. It's the theology we're supposed to appreciate and understand. And I'm going to give a really personal example, okay, between me and my wife with Bia. Because here in this passage in Psalm 73 he says, "The nearness of my God is good." And the thing that I'm trying to get at with trying to exposit this passage is have you felt that because you understood yourself to be Ishmael, the Gentile, the wrong lineage, the rejected child, right?

To go from that to them being brought near by the blood of Christ, seen, seen as a child of God, okay? There is an experiential exhortation I want to give to you is when we hear the gospel we then have to feel the pains of the farness and also the incredible bliss and joy of the nearness, right?

And I'm going to challenge you, even as a Christian, if you're walking your life and the things that's going to motivate you for sanctification, the things that's going to motivate you and fuel you for trying to live in the nearness of God, let it be this aspect of the gospel.

And so now to my example, my wife and I, Bia and I, feel like we have a really great relationship. But I know you guys, it's going to surprise you, sometimes we fight. All right, so some of you guys are like, "Why is that funny?" Sometimes we fight and sometimes we fight hard.

And I'm going to be honest, even though sometimes in my pride I'm like, "I'm the humblest guy in the world. I'm so reasonable and logical and I know how to fix problems. I'm a counselor. Come on, I can do this." But man, sometimes you're just really humble by your own weakness and sometimes I just act like a child and then ruin the good things that we have.

Case in point, one moment, okay? My wife and I got into an argument and because I got super defensive, I did the, "What do you mean by this? What do you mean by that?" When you get super defensive, you just like, "Define this, define this. What are you saying?" And then you kind of exaggerate the stuff that they say.

"Do you mean that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?" And it's like, "Did I say that?" I'm like, "Are you giving me attitude there?" I get all upset, right? And then so just start making things worse. Now in conflict, what you're supposed to do is in conflict you're supposed to actually pull the other person closer and say, "Let me understand what you're saying and hear you.

Do you understand me so you should be willing to speak?" But then when you act like a child, you push the other person away. You're like, "If you really want to understand me, then you come after me. If you want us to reconcile, then you reconcile with me." And you turn to Cole's shoulder and go, "Hmm," right?

And then you walk away, okay? Bia early on in marriage, she hated it when I'm like, "You know what? I can't deal with this right now. I can't talk." So then I'd be like, "I need to go for a walk, right, to cool down." But she hated that. She would be like, "Do you have any idea what it looks like when you turn your back on me?" And I'm like, "Oh, man, it's true." And then you realize sometimes you do the cold shoulder and back turn because you know it hurts the other person.

Okay, long story short, there was a moment in our marriage relationship where I did that, where I did that for like three weeks. And the house was cold as ice. I would come home and we would do like little talk, like, "Did you eat? I'm here. I'm here. I'm here." And then that's it.

There was nothing else. You know what was really crazy? After I did that for like two, three weeks, I could almost feel my heart getting crusty. Do you know what I'm talking about? And then therefore, when I went to work, I sat down and tried to read this book.

I couldn't read it. So I closed it and started distracting myself with other stuff. What I like to do is I like to clean. So I started cleaning the church. And then I started trying to write because obviously I have to write sermons. So I started trying to write a sermon.

I couldn't write. And I just sat there staring at my screen. It was weird. I felt my heart getting crusty and then I felt the rest of my body getting crusty. It was like ruining me. And then Pastor Peter walked by the office and I was like, "I can't do this anymore." I just started crying.

And I was just like, you know, like the world was done. And I was like, "I can't do this anymore." And Pastor Peter had to guide me and stuff like that. I remember it was weird because the pain of being far from the one who I'm supposed to be one with, the pain of being far from somebody I'm supposed to be so intimate and close with, it was just too painful.

You know what I mean? And so after that, it's literally every other like argument that I had, I was like, "No, I don't want to feel far from you. I don't want to feel like distant. I don't want to feel like there's a gap. I don't want to feel any of that.

So if we're going to talk and stuff, we're just going to talk here." It just kind of ruined me. But that is how it's supposed to be with you and God. For you to feel far from God should be absolutely painful. And that's why to us, when we think about, and when I think about this passage, we should have the emotional experience.

We should have the affections where we can say with our hearts, "The nearness of my God is my good." And I know you guys have felt it. And so the opposite of that, when we sin, when we falter, when we waver, that to us is the most costly thing.

Amen? And so again, this passage for us shows us and highlights the gospel truth that to us, the greatest impact of the gospel is you have access to God. You have now a nearness and you've been brought close. You have now such a oneness with him. This is to you, your great treasure, and this is to you, your great privilege.

And I use this to share the gospel. When somebody comes to me and they're not Christian and they tell me about how their life is a wreck, they tell me how they can't handle the stress, they tell me how they can't handle the pains of their family dynamics, and they can't handle why they are made certain ways.

I tell them, when your relationship with the one who should be everything to you is off, guess what? Everything is off. Your heart is crusty, your body is crusty, and you can't do anything else. Let's make this right with God. You have to reconcile with him. You have to come to a repentance.

And when you become one with him and you feel the nearness of God, trust me, all the other things will come into place. Amen? Now, in the last section, we have the fruit of all of that coming near to God. And coming near to God, we have peace and oneness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have peace and oneness with our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this next section is long, and I'm not going to be able to cover all of it, but we just want to highlight a few things. There is so much going on here, but I want to highlight a couple things for you.

A, the term peace is a major point of this section, clearly, right? He himself is our peace. That is a massive statement, right? That is like, you've got to dwell on that. One of our guys, like, that's kind of like saying, like, God is holy. That's kind of like saying God is love, right?

That's true. To say Christ is, he himself is your peace is a huge statement. And what's more, the passage is very clear. He is establishing peace for you. He is preaching peace to you. He is giving peace to you, right? So now we have to ask the question, like, what is this peace?

What is all of this, right? And what I want to highlight to you guys is just one of these dictionary entries. The peace, this is where we get the name. It's a beautiful name, Irene. Okay? That's the term for peace. But look at this. Peace used in the scriptures has so many different entries.

Peace, yes, means harmony. Peace means tranquility. Peace means reconciliation God. Peace means divine favor. Peace means state of tranquility again. Peace means having health. Peace means having prosperity and welfare. Peace means everything good, right? It's just like this massive statement. I read that, I started laughing, right? It's like, I'm trying to define something here, man.

And if you write every kind of good, that's just way too broad. Peace means happiness. And so I want you to think about that. God is giving you His peace. God is giving you the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to make this kind of profound for you by giving you this example.

Peace is not just like, um, right? That's not peace, okay? Peace is powerful. It's not just simply a state of mind, but it includes a state of mind. Peace is absolutely powerful. And the example that I want to give to you is I want you to think superpower, okay?

The US as a nation is a superpower in this world. The whole world looks to the United States to what? Keep the peace. When you have some crazy terrorist regime trying to overthrow this small little nation, who jumps in typically? The US. Now I want you to think about this.

In order to make peace in the region, what do they have to do? They have to exercise the full force of their military. They have to exercise their authority. They have to exercise a kind intention. Now go back to this passage. Take a look at this. And Christ broke down the barriers.

He abolished the flesh, in His flesh, the enmity. Mary says that He put to death the enmity. Think about the incredible power of God and the authority of God to not just, "Hey guys, relax." That is not what Jesus said. He is coming into our lives, abolishing, destroying, and putting to death those things of wickedness, those things of animosity, those things that make for conflict.

This is to us an incredible, incredible blessing of God. Because, then, the power of God, the incredible blessing of God, then equates to our tranquility. It equates to our prosperity. It equates to everything in the condition where we can have actual happiness. Christ then, He Himself, is the context by which we can actually live.

Live with hope. I mean, think about the corollary that I'm talking about. If you are an individual in a conflict-stricken nation, and a superpower comes in, and it eradicates the terrorists, and gives you a brand new hope, that is, to us, our victory. And then, what's more contained in this passage is oneness.

Oneness. Making all of you one with Himself. Those are the two things I want to highlight from this passage. Peter said in verse 7 that God wanted to show His incredible riches and grace and kindness towards us in Christ. God wanted to show us His love. And what's really incredible, he says, I highlighted it for you, he says, "I am making both groups into one.

I am making one new man. I am making one body. I am making you all one in spirit." I would like to highlight this interesting passage for you. I go to this passage regularly for marriage sermons. When I officiate weddings and stuff, I go to this passage. And it's not Ephesians 5 where it says, "Husband, love your wives as Christ loved the church." It's actually Jesus' high priestly prayer in John chapter 17.

In Jesus' high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, Jesus says in His prayer to God, "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through your word, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in Me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent Me.

The glory which you have given Me, I have given to them." Right, like the glory that God the Father has given to Christ the Son for Christ's incredible work of salvation and sacrifice. He says, "I have given to them that they may be," what? "One, just as we are one, I in them and you in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent Me and love them even as you have loved Me." This to me summarizes what Apostle Paul is saying.

God wants to show His magnificent love, magnificent love. But the way that He's going to do that is not just by dropping gifts from a helicopter. He's going to come down and be near you, but beyond that, He says, "I want to be one with you." I mean, we appreciate Christ's sacrifice because He died in our place.

But think about, I can't even describe it in words, but think about the arena of sacrifice when you share yourself in such a way that you want to have that person be one with you. That to me is just elevating everything. But there is no sparing of yourself, but as you are, you want that person to be.

And for God, that is to us the most incredible gift of all. God desires oneness because He in His nature is one. And what He's desiring for us in His blessing is that He would make all of us one with Himself. You know, this whole passage section began in Ephesians chapter 1 with, "Blessed be the Father." Right?

Are you meditating on the blessings of God? It's incredible. Like, the limits just keep going higher and higher, I feel like, right? The whole idea of raising you and seating you and all that stuff was just mind-blowing. And then to hear this, that He is in unrestraint giving to us all that He is.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for Your grace and we want to thank You so much. I pray, Father God, that as we are looking at this passage, Lord, may all the things that we're learning truly convict, break our hearts. And Lord, the things that we are learning, we want to remember it, Lord.

We want it to affect us so much that we never forget. And I pray, Father God, in that way, we're walking by faith. We're walking, Father God, with the lens of the gospel of how amazing You are to us and the love that You have shown us in Christ.

We again want to just thank You, thank You, thank You from the bottom of our hearts. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.