Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Welcome to week #3 of our series called Come Together. This series has been absolutely amazing.

But before we get things rolling on today’s message, I want to give you a little preview of what we’ve got coming up. We have this week and next week left in this current series. Then, on October 11, we are kicking off the biggest, most important series that we’re doing all year. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that this is the biggest series this church has experienced in the last 5-10 years.

Sometimes I get accused of overhyping stuff. Not this time. This isn’t hype. This is huge. On Sunday, October 11, we are launching a series called Simple Church. In this series, we’ll be laying out an exciting new vision that God has given us. This vision will be the catalyst to take us to a whole new level of worship. A whole new depth of discipleship. And a whole new perspective on serving.

This is going to be exciting because every single one of us will be able to articulate the vision of our church because it’s so incredibly simple. But not only is it simple…it’s thoroughly Biblical.

You absolutely cannot miss a day of this three week series. It starts in a couple of weeks on October 11. God is going to blow us away with what He is going to do in our church as we pursue His vision for us.

But now, let’s get back to the message at hand. We’re serving up the Bread of Life this morning, baked fresh and piping hot. I’m so excited about what God has done so far in this series. I know I just told you how huge the next series is going to be, but I’ve also got to tell you this. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have told me that this series is literally changing their lives. I have had so many conversations in the last couple of weeks with people who said that the messages in this series have been exactly what they needed to hear, exactly when they needed to hear it. God gets every ounce of credit for that. He’s the one who is changing lives. His Word is powerful and true, and He’s going to change even more lives today. I absolutely know it.

We’re in the book of Ephesians in this series. We’re still in chapter 2 today. Let’s pray, and then we’ll get started.

Where do all the lonely people come from? Of all the songs from the Beatles, this one moves me. Because I see it everyday.

As a pastor, I talk to a lot of lonely people. I talk to single people who are lonely. I talk to married people who are lonely. I talk to poor people who are lonely. I talk to rich people who are lonely. I talk to young people who are lonely. I talk to old people who are lonely.

In fact, a lot of the counseling that I do revolves around one problem…loneliness. It plays out differently in different situations, but the root cause is the same…I’m lonely.

The deepest human need is community. We need connection. It’s how God wired us up.

It started when God created man, and then he created woman, saying, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18a, NIV)

It’s not good to be alone…but many of us feel alone. Instead of calling the song Eleanor Rigby, we could easily insert your name as the title. You feel incredibly lonely a lot of the time.

The Apostle Paul wrote the book of Ephesians as a letter to some lonely people. We’re in chapter 2, pick it up in verse 11.

“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)—

remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:11-12, NIV)

The people in Ephesus and the surrounding area were Gentiles. In other words, they weren’t Jewish. And for centuries, the Gentiles had been the outcasts. The Jews were God’s people. The Gentiles were excluded.

They weren’t circumcised, which was the sign of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. The Jewish people looked with disgust on any man who wasn’t circumcised. And they made it very clear that the Gentiles weren’t God’s people.

Gentiles were “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” Aka, lonely.

The people of God was an exclusive club, and they weren’t invited…until now.

The cross of Jesus Christ leveled the playing field. God no longer had a special, chosen people, to the exclusion of everyone else. The cross of Christ says that God welcomes all people.

But some of you still don’t believe it. You come to church, but you don’t really think you belong. You listen to the Word of God, but you don’t think it applies to you. You hear that God loves you, but you don’t believe He could.

You’ve got to understand that you are playing right into Satan’s hand. He wants you to believe all this junk. He wants you to continue feeling like you’re all alone. He wants you to live in perpetual loneliness, believing that Christianity is an exclusive club and you haven’t been invited.

Listen to the truth, starting in the next verse. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…” (Ephesians 2:13-14, NIV)

The blood of Jesus Christ is the bulldozer that God used to knock the walls down! Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, the Gentiles were no longer excluded from the presence and promise of God. And because of His blood, you’re not excluded, either. You are not alone anymore.

Through the cross, you are connected with God. The sin in our lives creates a wall between us and God. It is an impenetrable barrier. We can’t get to God because God is holy. God cannot be in the presence of sin. So, if we have sin in our lives, we can’t have access to God. It would compromise God’s holiness, and that will never happen.

The cross destroys that wall because the price of our sin is paid. But it’s even deeper than that. The cross is not just the moment where Jesus takes our sin…it is the moment where we take Jesus’ perfection.

Listen to this incredible truth from 2 Corinthians. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV)

On the cross, God changed His sinless Son into our sin. And in return, He changes us into the righteousness of God.

That is how we can have access to God. If you are in Christ, God doesn’t look at you and see your sin. He doesn’t see the angry, lustful, gossiping, lying, fearful, broken person that you see.

He looks at you and He sees righteousness. Complete perfection. That’s the power of the cross. The barrier is forever broken down, and instead of being far from God, we are brought near through the blood of Christ.

Stop living like God is some far-off cosmic being and start living like He is here with you right now…because He is!

Stop living like you are never going to be good enough…you will never measure up…if you are in Christ, you are the righteousness of God!

Stop wallowing in the guilt of your past…allowing your past to determine your future. Your past was nailed to the cross and God doesn’t remember it anymore. Jesus became your sin and you have become the righteousness of God. If you are in Christ, that’s all God sees when He looks at you.

A lot of crazy things happened when Jesus died on the cross. One of the craziest was the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.

The Bible says in Matthew 27, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Matthew 27:50-51a, NIV)

This curtain stood at the entrance to the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place. The Holy of Holies represented the very presence of God, and access was incredibly restricted. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and he could only enter one day per year. Anyone else who entered the Most Holy Place would die.

But when Jesus died on the cross, this huge, thick curtain, this barrier between us and God, was torn in two from top to bottom. Top to bottom is significant because it shows that it was done by the hand of God. God Himself tore this curtain in two, because this restricted access was a thing of the past. Now, through the blood of Jesus, all of us are welcome in His presence. There is no wall, no barrier, nothing standing between you and God.

So many people miss this. They believe they still need a mediator between God and them. Maybe they pray to Mary or some other dead person to intercede for them. They go to a priest or some other religious leader so that person can be the liaison between them and God.

You don’t need to do any of that! The cross of Jesus Christ means that you have direct access to God. It means that He is with you at your best and at your worst. He’s with you in the highest high and the lowest low you will ever experience.

But sometimes this still doesn’t stop us from being lonely. We live in a world where someone can have 1,000 friends on Facebook and still be incredibly lonely. You can have thousands of online friends and not have a single real one. You can live in the most interconnected, accessible culture to ever hit this planet and still be incredibly lonely.

But let me take it a step further than that…you can spend your entire life in the church…you can give your life to Christ…you can absolutely believe that God is with you all the time…and still be lonely. Now, that’s a pretty controversial thing to say, because it sounds like I’m suggesting that God isn’t enough to cure our loneliness.

This is one of the most controversial things I’ve ever said from this stage, but here it is. God is not enough to cure your loneliness.

You don’t just need God. You need the people of God. Now, before you think I’ve gone off the deep end and I’m teaching that God is not all-sufficient for your needs, hear me out.

Your personal connection to God isn’t enough to keep you from being lonely. Yes, God is with you all the time. Yes, you are never alone. But God chooses to minister us through His presence AND through His people. If you rely on one or the other, you’re going to come up short.

But the beautiful thing is that through the cross, we are connected to each other. The church of Jesus Christ needs to understand the cross of Jesus Christ. If we are all connected to God through the cross, then that fact connects us all to each other.

Following Jesus isn’t about keeping certain kinds of people out. It’s about throwing the doors wide open to allow all kinds of people to come in.

In our text, Paul reminds us that the Jewish people loved keeping themselves separate from the Gentiles. They loved being in the club, while the Gentiles were kept out.

But listen to what he says, starting in verse 14. “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.

His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14-16, NIV)

Through the cross, the Jew/Gentile distinction was gone. That wall was completely destroyed. God created “one new man out of the two, thus making peace.”

Now, you’ve got to understand that a lot of Jews didn’t like this idea, but they weren’t the exclusive club anymore.

A lot of Christians don’t like this idea, but we’re not an exclusive club, either.

The gospel is good news for all people. That means that, instead of exclusive, the church doors are ripped off the hinges to allow everyone to have access to Jesus.

That means that, the more our church pursues our mission, the more “sinful” people are going to come through our doors. And that’s just how we like it. If you don’t like being around “sinners,” then you’re going to have a big time problem here. Because that’s who we’re reaching.

For those of us who are Christians, we’d better stop living like our faith is some kind of VIP exclusive club. Jesus didn’t die to make us better than other people. He died to make us servants of other people. He died to make us His ambassadors to other people.

In the church, we are God’s representatives to each other. God’s presence manifests itself among His people. I’ve met a lot of people who say, “I don’t need the church. I worship God on my own. I need Jesus, but I don’t need the church.” That is dead wrong. You can’t find a shred of Biblical evidence to support that.

You need Jesus AND you need the church. Jesus ministers to us through His people. That’s why we don’t exclude certain types of people. Because those people need Jesus. That’s why we need each other. Because we are Jesus to each other. That’s why a strong connection to the church is so critically important to combat the loneliness that so many of us struggle with.

So many of us feel like we’re alone. I know God is with me, but I can’t see Him. Actually, yes you can. You can see God…because He’s here. The church is the Body of Christ. Jesus shows up every time that we do.

In a very real way, your connection to God is never greater than your connection to the church. Your connection to the church determines the quality of your connection to God.

The church is where you experience the preaching of God’s Word. The church is where you remember the death of Jesus through the Lord’s Supper. The church is where you join with other believers in unity of worship and love for God. The church is where you are reminded that you are not alone. Whatever you’re going through…whatever hand life has dealt you…you are not alone.

Whatever you are struggling with in your life, you are not alone. Here’s where the church can drop the ball. We’re usually very good at rallying around people who are hurting or grieving. We rally around people who are lonely because of their circumstances…but what about people who are lonely because of their sinfulness?

Some of you feel incredibly lonely because you think you’re the only person who is struggling with some specific sin. You think you’re the only person in this room who is struggling with pornography. You’re convinced that no one else is struggling to stay sexually pure. No one else faces the fears that you do. No one else struggles with worry like you do. No one else is drowning in debt like you are. No one else’s marriage is in trouble like yours is.

Listen up, because here is the truth about all this. Someone else in this room has the exact same struggle that you do. Exactly. You are not alone.

But so many times the church forces us to feel alone because we create a culture of concealment instead of confession. Instead of a place of authentic confession…church becomes a masquerade. And a lot of times, what winds up happening is that church is the last place in the world where you think you can be real.

That is not the church as God intended. The church is the one place where you are free to openly confess that you are struggling, so you can find the help and support you need to overcome those struggles.

In James 5, God commands us to, “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16a, NIV)

Not confess your sins to God. Confess your sins to each other. That means that some of us here today need to get over ourselves. “But, if I actually confess my sin, people won’t think I’m perfect anymore.”

I’ve got news for you, bro. We know you aren’t perfect.

We know you’re messed up. And if you’re too prideful to confess your sins, then you’re even more messed up than we thought.

If you are serious about growing in Christ, then you need to be serious about confessing your sin so that people can start to pray for you. That’s the point of this verse. We confess our sins to each other so we can pray for each other. That’s how we are healed.

Some of you are feeling so lonely because you think your sinfulness has ostracized you from all the “good Christians” that are here. You couldn’t be more wrong. You are among people who are nothing more than forgiven sinners. And we will pray for you and the sins you’re struggling with, if you give us the chance.

Yes, there might be some prideful Pharisee here who will look down on you for your honest confession, but their opinion is irrelevant. This is a church that believes in the love of God and the power of prayer. If you give us the chance, we’ll lift you up and pray for healing to begin in your life. You are not alone.

In verse 14 of Ephesians 2, Paul said that Jesus’ death destroyed the dividing wall of hostility.

During this time period, there was a wall around the temple in Jerusalem. This fence prevented any Gentile from entering the inner courtyard and the temple itself.

On this wall, the Jews had posted large signs, chiseled in stone. The signs said, “No Gentile may enter inside the enclosing screen around the Temple. Whoever is caught is alone responsible for the death which follows.”

The really interesting part to me is that, not only did they chisel this message in stone, but then they painted it red. So in big, bold, red letters, the Jews were telling the Gentiles, “Stay out. You don’t belong. We’re better than you. You’ll never be good enough. If you ignore this warning, we’ll kill you. Stay out.”

The cross sends a very different message…written in the red blood of Jesus. The cross says, “You’re welcome. You do belong. You’re not good enough, but I am good enough. I’m giving my life so you can be with me. And I am making a place for you among my people. You are welcome.”

At the end of our passage, the Bible says, “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household…” (Ephesians 2:17-19, NIV)

Through the cross, God has proclaimed peace for us all. There is no exclusive club. There are no VIPs. There are simply sinners bought with the blood of Jesus. We have the same connection to God. We have the same connection to each other.

The song our band played earlier asked the simple question, “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” They come from a misunderstanding of what Jesus has actually done for us. Jesus’ death has connected us to God and to each other.

It means that you belong. It means that, if you allow us, this church will be a support network for you when you’re hurting. We will hold you up in prayer when you’re struggling. We will walk through life with you.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: church, Come Together: A Beatles Series, confession, Ephesians, loneliness