Same Gospel, Same Access

Big idea: Enjoy Christ together; He preached the same gospel and granted the same access.

1. Enjoy Christ together; He preached the same peace.
• Romans 5:1
• John 14:27
• Colossians 3:15
• Isaiah 52:7
• Isaiah 57:19
2. Enjoy Christ together; He granted the same access.
   How do we access God together?
   
   • Worshipping together
   • Reading together
   • Talking together
   • Praying together
   • Singing together

• Automated Transcription
• 0:21
  Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter two. We are going verse by verse through Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Stand with me for the reading of God's word. It's going to be just a couple of verses. It'll it'll go quick, but just in a in a little bit of context, Paul has been unpacking the fullness of salvation. We were dead in sin. God made us alive by His mercy, love, and grace in Christ. By faith, we're saved, and that covers the vertical dimensions. But there are also horizontal dimensions to salvation. So that's what Paul has been unpacking from verses 11 to, and he will finish it in 22, which have far-reaching implications for how we relate to each other. This case, it was the Jew-Gentile division, which was a very strong division culturally, religiously, and what Christ did by his death, was abolish the barriers and unite us together. That's where we're picking up verse 17 and 18. And Jesus and He came and preached peace to you who were far off, Gentiles, non-Jews, and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. This is the word of the Lord. Our God and Father, we thank you. We thank you for your eternal plan, your eternal plan through your Son to redeem people from very different religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, national backgrounds, economic, and so on. The Apostle Paul's letters that you that you had commissioned by your Spirit, that you inspired, deal with all the kinds of ways that mankind is disunified with strife, and you resolved them in Christ. We are thankful for that. And this morning, we pray that you would be powerfully at work in us, help us hear and understand, and put into practice these foundational truths. These are the realities that set the course of our affections and actions as we interact with each other in families, in local churches, across a community, across the world. Do your work by your Spirit to help us have the right facts, right understanding, and therefore the right affections, and produce affections that produce peace and unity together as we serve Your purposes, Father. We pray for churches in our city. Three Crosses just sent me a note. They're praying for us. We pray for them, and we pray that You would help them as some of their members recover still from fire damage. We pray that you would continue to help the church be faithful to Scripture, the gospel. Help them have a sound doctrine that is preaching Christ and seeing His transformation in Northwest Spokane. Nearby them, Princeton Avenue Church with Aaron Badley, who used to be with us. Pray that you would continue to help Aaron and his elder team, his congregation. Be faithful. Help them build each other up and reach their community. Look to the South Hill. Pray for Roland Sanchez as he is preaching and laboring at Lilac City Bible Church in a new church plant. Pray that you would help Roland and that you would help their forming elder team, give them extra grace as they are in the setup, tear down public school meeting place kind of church. Give them endurance as they do that. Help them be faithful witnesses and light to you. We want to do the same here. There are people with very different kinds of suffering. We pray for compassion and encouragement that the church family would rally around them, and now give us the eyes to see Christ. That's what these two verses are about. We sang it. We mean it in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. How well do you know the cultural expressions of for world peace, I bet you know a number of them. There's the round peace symbol that are on bumper stickers all over the place. You'll see that, especially the old trope would be on the back of a VW bug. You could walk lots of neighbors. Hoods in Spokane, and there's the Black Lives Matters posters and yard signs. There's that expression. There's John Lennon's "Imagine, which some of you might hear in your head. It's an earworm of, so to speak. What do they all have in common?
  
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  They have a what they have in common is peace based on common humanity, with a disregard for the God who created them and sustained them, they're all a world peace without God. And world peace is a great concept. Don't get me wrong, and it could be a conversation with anybody who's got one of those bumper stickers, yard signs, or happens to be listening to John Lennon on his oldie station? But world peace without God is just another tower of Babel. It is just an attempt to rally together so that they could be independent from God. What is God's icon for world peace? What is God's icon for world peace? According to Ephesians 216, it's the cross. It's the cross. Verse 16 says that he might reconcile us both, Jew, Gentile, Jews, non-Jews, to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. Jesus Christ Himself is our peace. His cross, where He was slain, is the instrument that slays the hostility between us and God, and the hostility between each other. John MacArthur writes this: The cross is God's answer to Judaizing, racial discrimination, segregation, apartheid, anti-Semitism, bigotry, war, and every other cause that result in human strife. God is executing a plan for world peace through His Son Jesus Christ, King Jesus, King Jesus, crucified, resurrected, reigning in heaven, is establishing peace. He came down to all kinds of men and women, announcing the gospel of peace. And we come together. We come together because of the access he provided. If you want to experience this now, you you need to take hold of these verses. This big idea. You want to experience the realities. We need to enjoy Christ together. Christ is the central focal point. He preached the same gospel to all. He grants the same access to all. A conversation with an elder this week said he had this insight: the flesh is predisposed to suspicion. The flesh is predisposed to position this suspicion. We read a little book, "All Things Sad or Untrue, by an Iranian immigrant, and he talked about as a boy. He came with his mother. His mother was a believer, immigrated to the states, and he had a very different bathrooming experience as a boy in Iran versus being a boy in the states. In Iran, apparently, most people have bidets, not toilet paper, and he's coming to the states looking for the bidet. You're like, if you don't know what that is, it's a fountain that washes you. Just think of that. So, I mean, this is just a story of a kid who's going through cultural changes. But he shows up in his public school classroom, and the kids start asking him about differences, and he's telling them that. To which all of the kids start to ridicule him for months and months. You don't use toilet paper. Like we are, we are hardwired for suspicion of anything different, including how a person bathrooms. It's inbred. It is part of sin. It's different. Must be wrong. Would you like a community where God-given differences are treated like instruments in a band and not like porcupines in a balloon? Factory. Would you like a community where the inevitable conflicts of life and a fall in the world will ultimately be resolved and reconciled? In the church that Jesus died for, that's what you find-the one and ultimate thing that drowns out all divisions that dominate news cycles, national strife, nations at war is Jesus Christ and His redeeming rule over the world. Christ is the thing. Christ is the person. Christ is our King, and He is, according to this text, Christ our peace. If enjoying Christ together is priority one, we begin to experience the peace Christ purchased at the cross. If enjoying the gospel together, enjoying access together, seizing those, taking advantage of those, that is what produces true peace. No yard sign, no peace symbol, no made-up song about imagine can produce anything but rebellion if it's apart from Christ, and it can produce, and if it's in Christ, all the things that John Lynn wished were true with the world could be true for him if he would have just repented and believed. How do we start to experience this? Enjoying the same gospel together, enjoying the same access together. That's the two things that Jesus came to achieve for us. Let's look at them this morning.
  
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  Number one, you want to start experiencing what Christ produced on the cross, killing the hostility, making the two one, making the the one body. Start by enjoying the same gospel together. Christ came and preached the same gospel of peace to those who were far off and to those who were near. This is what 217 says. And he came and preached peace. God came down in the person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, and when He came, we approach our Advent season. Weber the angels' proclamation at the birth of Jesus: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased. Jesus Himself is the Word made flesh, according to John one. He's the message of peace itself. His teaching, His life, His death, His resurrection-they all speak. They're all a message. But what Paul's focusing on here is the gospel he gave that Jesus gave to the apostles and to believers that they take into the world. Notice the language. He said, "And he came and preached peace to you who were far off. Who's the you he's talking about? The Ephesians. Did Jesus show up at Ephesus? Yes, through the apostolic preaching of the gospel, which is a powerful statement, meaning wherever the gospel, wherever the scriptures are faithfully preached, Jesus is calling you. Jesus is speaking to you. Jesus is beckoning you to listen, and He's offering peace through the apostolic preaching, Jesus is still calling sinners, come home, come home. The word "preached" it's it's the Greek word that we use that we get evangelized. Ian Galizzo, the root form we we know commonly from the word evangelical, a person who believes in good news of the gospel. Properly, the word really means announced. He came and announced good news, and the good news was of peace. It's the call of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and what He's done, and the Bible speaks clearly enough about our condition before Christ, before Christ came. People constantly strike out on their own from Cain all the way through the Tower of Babel, all the way to the present day. They make up their own religions. They refuse to honor their Creator and His good purposes. Romans three nine would summarize it this way: All are under sin. Romans 312: All have turned aside. The prophet Isaiah would describe it this way: All we, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. Adam and Eve began the rebellion, and has continued ever since. It has its quiet forms, unbelief, secret. Sins. It has its loud forms: hatred, like Cain killing Abel, denouncing God, rejecting God's vertical purposes. Always mean rejecting God's horizontal purposes. And the evidence in life is constant, constant strife, conflict, aggressive attempts to control others. I think of the the irony of the that long list on a black background of all the things the Black Lives Matter say that we're for, and within the movement itself, radical feminists are at war with transgender over sports Issues like should men be competing in sports against women, and the feminists are saying no. It's just another form of male domination. We told you it wasn't going to work. Constantly, God is just. He's announced a day of judgment for all. Acts 1046. Jesus is going to return to judge the living and the dead. But here's the good news. Here's the good news. While the Father's wrath is poised to fall, like a like a hand about to squash a spider. Maybe you don't touch spiders with your hand, like a foot ready to squash a spider. He patiently restrains and patiently endures rebellion, so he can save rebellious sinners. Jesus Christ, God the Son, came to pay the penalty, rescue and restore. Jesus the Son hung on the cross as the boot of God's wrath fell full and heavy on him instead of us. And now there is an offer of reconciliation, friend. Have you been reconciled to God? I mean, you are literally far off from Israel, literally. Israel is a long ways away. He sent me. He sent others to you. Are you heeding his call to repent from your sin, your false worship, and trust Christ. There is an urgency. He came and preached, and he is still preaching. Here is the glorious realities: you can be made right with God.
  
  17:37
  Those of us who have repented of our sin and trusted Him. Hear these with this this sense of gratitude. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, when we trusted Christ, we were made right with God, justified, given Christ's righteousness, where He took our sin, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The end of hostility with God is possible, and what Paul is going into here strikes blows to the hostility within. He came and preached peace. Jesus said in John 1427, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. The war with God means the end of war within. It strikes a blow on the hostility we all experience toward each other. Colossians 315 says, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. You're one new creation. There is the new creation of the individual. There's the new creation of a humanity called the church. He gives us a message of peace to proclaim. There's notes there. We don't have time to go through all of the verses, but Paul refers to Isaiah 5719, and he's saying, "Peace, peace to the far and to the near, says the Lord, and I will heal him. If you are far away from God and you turn from your idolatry, from your sin, from your rebellion to God, He will restore you through Christ. And if you have, you were far off, and now you are near. Who are the near? In this case, it was the the Jews who had all of the Old Testament, had the traditions, had all of the Scripture. All of them need one message. It's through Christ and His cross that you're reconciled. It's it's no different today. I was asking questions this week about a different kind of experience of far off and near. I grew up in a home. Dad was an atheist. Mom was nominally Catholic. I had never heard of things like. Christian school, Christian music, Christian books-like these-these were these were things that I was never I'd never heard of. I'd heard because I was in basketball. I heard the gospel clearly the first time at Northwest Basketball Camp, but I really loved my sin more than I loved Jesus, my freshman year of college, I had teammates who sold drugs. Just another quality teammate at Eastern Washington University, and they would brag about how much money they would make. I took a trip to see you two in concert in San Francisco. It was the Joshua Tree tour. I know you're jealous. It opened with where the streets have no name, and I still get goosebumps thinking about it. I went with to see a friend, and one of my teammates, both my teammates that sold drugs, were from Oakland, or as they affectionately called Cokeland. Said, "Hey, Dan, my cousin wants to bring back a package. Wants you to bring back a package, and I'm thinking that's. I wonder if this could pay for my trip. I get on the plane at Spokane, and my head coach from Eastern is on the same plane to San Francisco on a recruiting trip. He didn't recruit very well, as it turns out. But when I get to the when I get to San Francisco, I stayed at Stanford with a friend, and I got cold feet because the cousin called, and I didn't want to take the call. Saw the concert, flew back home. At the tarmac, as I was going to get on the steps up to the plane, I was right behind the head coach, and we got on the plane. And just to the right, I can still see it was a uniformed police officer with a German Shepherd. I would I I would have been arrested in front of my coach going home. I mean that was one of those things that made me say, "What are you doing with your life? And that summer was a gut punch of soul searching. I was so far off from God. I did have the echoes of the gospel in my mind, and I thank God for guys like Steve Altmaier, who preached at Northwest Northwest Basketball camp because I would have had no other access to a biblical gospel, or Bob Elfers, who was a street preacher at Eastern's campus. I was far off.
  
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  Months later, I submitted to the gospel, trusted Christ. You might have been near. It's a funny story. It's third hand, so I'm going to embellish a little bit. John MacArthur is famous for saying something like this: "I was saved from a life of drugs, alcohol, immorality, and violence at age six. In other words, he had faithful parents and church family preaching the gospel to him, and he responded at six. He says, "Everybody's been saved from something. I was just saved before the consequences. Some others are saved after the consequences. That might be you. You might have been near, but it's the same exact gospel. You were near and hostile to God, and by His grace and mercy, in your parents' conversations, or your your youth leaders' conversations, or your pastor's conversations, the light finally came on. The Holy Spirit showed you you needed a Redeemer King, and you trusted Him. And we have the same Redeemer King, 818, or 80. There is only one way to be restored to God, to count on eternity with Him. That is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and having your full faith in Him. It's by faith alone in Christ alone that you can be rescued from the wrath of God. If you're here with your girlfriend, living together, having kids without getting married, you know you can have the same offer I had-peace with God by turning from your sin and trusting Him. Start believing in Christ, His promises. You start as an infant in Christ. You need the same gospel to conquer habits of mind and habits of heart. As you grow up, you need the same gospel to give you endurance through life's trials, and there are a lot of them. You need the same gospel to help you resolve conflict or think through your interaction in public life and politics, all of life. The same gospel is what helps all of us navigate life. So when people come from very various cultures, various ethnicities, classes, sinful backgrounds, and Christ saves them, and and they assemble, the greatest unifier is Christ and His gospel. Enjoying Christ and His gospel, which applies to every part of your life. That's what unifies us, so we enjoy the same gospel together, and we remind ourselves of it every time we gather. We remind ourselves every time we sing its songs, every time we see its elements in the ordinances like baptism or the Lord's Supper. Enjoy the same gospel together. Number two, enjoy the same access together. Enjoy the same access. The peace that Christ forged at the cross, killing the hostility between us and God, and us each other, opens access to God together. So when we pursue God together, we are enjoying that access. Look at 218 says for through Him, that is Jesus, we both have access into one Spirit to the Father. Remember in John 10 seven, Jesus says, "I am the door of the sheep. He's the only access to the Father, John 14 six. Jesus says, "I am the way. He is the only way, the only path to the Father. Romans five one talks about justification and peace with God. Romans five two says, "Through Him, Jesus, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Jesus is the great mediator. Through Him we come to the Father. His person, His work, are are the granted access. And Paul uses two really important words that you've got to get your mind around, that you've got to embrace their implications. the The first important word is the word "both, and you'd probably better translate it as "both together. Sometimes, when that same word for both is used, and there's like three or four or Five. It's all together, both together, all together, which would apply very well for other things that Paul applies. There's neither male, female, Jew, Greek. He's not saying that there aren't differences in realities. He's talking about the new identity. Everybody, regardless of their differences, trust in Christ, have access together, both together, and it's not distinct access as if one set of people has their train ride or their their individual car to heaven. So that culture has its, and then another culture and another kind of people have theirs, and and another set has theirs.
  
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  Know that the point is access together. We're made one body, one universal body, all over the world. This idea of differences with different access, are are people who propose kinds of segregation for churches. Christopher Wolf's Christian nationalism promotes a segregation. Each culture and nationality should have its own separate access to God. But that's not what this is talking about. There. together. Together, they're described as accessing God as one. We're not in different cars, each getting our own place in heaven, driving our way. We're on the same bus. We're on the same train. The second significant word is this word, access. What is access to God? It's admission into the presence of someone in high position. In this case, the ultimate position. It's access to the Father. Just, just imagine this this picture. Imagine a high court official who would bring someone into the presence of the emperor, or in a contemporary setting. If you wanted access to the president, well, good luck. He's a busy guy. But you would have to have, you would have to know somebody who knew somebody who would get you into the White House and then get you into whoever is the person that that brings somebody into the Oval Office. You'd have to have somebody. You don't just get to wander the White House. I hope you know. Not even on a tour do you get to wander the White House. You have to be brought in. Jesus is the one who brings us in. I think of this far and near. It's it's the same reality. They both have access together. Picture it this way: you can, you've probably been around. Maybe you've been around enough to see somebody who is a Hasidic Jew. A Hasidic Jew has a special black hat. The guys have certain curly tassels coming off the sides of their hair. Big, gigantic, bushy beards. If they're old enough to have a beard, and then there's a special coat, and then a prayer shawl with the little tassels, and and down it goes all the way to the shoes. You might have seen them praying. I've been in airports or other cities where there's larger numbers of Hasidic Jews. So that's one very unique look, right? Well, let's let's just play that back. Some version of that existed in Paul's day. Then picture the Roman soldier, hair cropped, short, no hat, breastplate for average wear, the the shorts, this this I don't know wraparound that he would wear, boots, sandals, sword. I mean, here's the picture that Paul's getting at. If you want to visualize it, through Jesus Christ, he grabs the ultra-conservative Jew by the hand, the Roman soldier, the Gentile. If we're going to picture that word, he takes them both as they look to his death and his resurrection. He takes them both into the Father's presence, the Holy God of the universe. He brings them both together, side by side, sits them down at the table next to each other for a meal with the Holy Father, and they look directly at him side by side, enjoying fellowship at the table with him. And they can ask him whatever's on their heart, and thank him for whatever's in their life together. Everyone can offer worship, pray, receive a blessing from God. When Christ died on the cross, the curtain in the temple was torn down the middle, and access was opened to all. Before, it was just the priest who had access. Now the access is open to everyone, male, female, Jew, Gentile, free, slave. The Colossians parallel a barbarian and Scythian, which were two levels of bad Nations, everybody has access to God once they're in Christ. Little comment in the ESV Study Bible I saw this week was worth noticing: to draw near to God and to enjoy Him forever in a new creation, because the church is a new creation too, is both mankind's greatest good and the ultimate accomplish of Christ's earthly work of redemption. To enjoy Him forever, which made me think of the two points: enjoying the gospel together, enjoying access together. Hebrews 1223 talks about this access for what we call the universal church. All who have died in Christ and who are now assembled in front of Christ, all those who are yet to die will soon to join. All those when Jesus returns will be gathered into the assembly.
  
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  The writer of Hebrews tells the the Jewish Christians, "Then you have come to the assembly of the firstborn. That's the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. Jesus is the one who gives us access. So that's why the writer of Hebrews said this earlier in the book. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time. Of need, there may be different ethnic and cultural assemblies in Spokane due to language and cultural barriers. Often, we have had joined with our church for well over a decade in the poly speaking congregation that's now officially their own church with their own elders. They meet on Saturday night in the room down the hall. Many of those dear saints still join us because they're still tied to us. There may be many denominations over secondary Issues and of course denominationalism is a great source of pride and segregation from heart to heart, but it is often a matter of secondary issues. I get a card about every six weeks from Three Crosses Church. They've been praying for us for years. I thought I would read their card to us. It is self-serving. I admit it as I read it, which I hadn't read it before. First hour, which was then awkward. Pastor Dan and church family continue praying for all the people who lost their homes in the wildfires. Thank God, Three Crosses Church did not get damaged. It was literally a cross assembly. The fires were just blocks away from them. Listen to Pastor Dan's sermons, Amen. Open up your heart. What does Jesus want you to know? Who do you need to talk to? Who do you talk to as someone about Jesus? God bless you. Have a heart for your community. We are starting a Sunday school class for all women's Bible study meeting groups during the week. Pray. Everyone at church is involved in these classes. Grace and peace. Three Crosses Church. We pray for churches all over the city. We rotate around different churches, different times, whether we're all on the same page or not. Because if we have the same gospel, we have the same access. And although we might meet in different locations, and churches meet all over the world at different times. We still really come together to worship. We still access God together. To cap it off, we have this staggering and wonderful Trinitarian language. Look at that same passage again. He says, "For through Him, that is Jesus Christ, we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. You can pray, "Our Father who art in heaven, because Jesus granted you the access. It's through Him. In one spirit, or by one spirit. Why did he need to say one spirit? Because in the ancient days, like today, people had all kinds of gods, and they thought there were all kinds of spirits. There is only one spirit, but it's significant to to grasp these Trinitarian realities. God exists, one God, three persons-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-not three gods, not one God who changes his hat between Father, Son, and Spirit. Depends how he feels at the moment. One God and three persons, which means God has always existed in community for all eternity, and Jesus' mission, according to John chapter 17, was to come, preach, die, restore all people, all kinds of people from all over the world into fellowship with the Trinity in community. I know the Trinity is a big idea. It's hard to get your mind around, but God exists in peace and unity-Father, Son, and Spirit-and they are working together that we would experience Him in unity and unity together by the power of the Spirit, we are brought into the presence of the Father. It means all have the same access. That you don't need a priest. You just need an open heart to talk to God. All have the same access. There are no second-class citizens of heaven due to sin, class, race, nationality, culture, or former idolatry in Christ. All come to the. Father, the pastor, and the congregant all have the same access.
  
  40:04
  The best access, the best access we can have, is an open Bible, a genuine, honest heart, and sincere prayer. An open Bible used to help you know God's will and obey Christ. A genuine heart admitting that you don't know sometimes what you need to know. Your failures, your feelings, your sadness. Sincere prayer to do His will. Doing this together forges a special unity. There are several things you can do to enjoy this unity: over a meal, or coffee, a growth group. You can find out another person's story of how they trusted Christ, or if they've not trusted Christ yet, what was the message they heard about their sin in Christ's salvation? How did they come to believe it? We never tire of hearing Jesus' trophies of grace. Share yours with someone as you experience the ups and downs of life. Take moments in the foyer, at the table, standing in the pews to pray and rejoice together, I put together just a small list of things that help us focus some attention. Worshiping together, keep vigilant in the habit of Sunday gathering where we sing, pray, hear God's word, and talk about life. Next week we're going to give one of the foundational teachings of the Apostle Paul about life in the body, or how we are members of one another, worshiping together. People get out of the habit of worshiping together are by passivity distancing themselves, segregating themselves from others, And without the valuable accountability of making sure you're thinking right about the scriptures, it's vital worshiping together, reading together. You know, parents, even if your kids can't fully grasp the Gospel. Start reading it to them. Read it with each other. Praying together. Even teaching your kids how to pray when they're really little. Although most of you teach your kids to pray like this, dear Jesus, you're not writing Jesus a letter. Teach them how to pray like Jesus prayed. Let the little ones come to me, Jesus says. For such is the kingdom of God. Talk to them with God, recite Scripture with them. Be like Lois and Eunice in Second Timothy, who faithfully taught Scripture to Timothy, which prepared him for the day where he finally realized I'm a sinner who needs a savior, and he's already had practice talking to God, reading together, praying together, talking together about what God's doing in your life, singing together. Would you like a community where the division that dominates public life is like that faint static on an AM radio station? You know, you you're gonna you're gonna get done here. You're gonna get in your car. The Seahawks fans either have it on a delay and they're going to watch it at lunch, or they're going to catch the last 10 minutes. And you find it on AM, and there's the announcer, and then there's this this like low grade static, but you can still hear the game. There's a lot of stuff that we bring in from the world, and there's a lot of stuff going in the world that needs our attention. But when we gather together and we recenter on Christ, hear His Word unpacked, unfolded His gospel and the access granted, He gets the the highlight, and the other things are that faint static in the background. Do you want a community where the division that dominates public life is just the faint static? Some of you have religious backgrounds where it seemed like a priest, a godly auntie, or grandmother had some special in with God, and God listen to him or her, but not to you. If you needed something big, you ask them to pray. Do you know you have access with God, and you know how you can get help in that? Grab a friend you're standing with when you stand up to walk out today and say, "This thing is going on in our life." Would you pray with me, and then just stop and pray? Others think there's something about a nation's heritage that makes them closer to God and more deserving. Certainly, there are people who've grown up in the church that are near, but even the near are not more deserving. They need the same gospel. Everybody gets the same access. Some of you are in very intense interpersonal conflict, and if you're honest, you think they're wrong and you're right.
  
  45:39
  There's a powerful dynamic when you open your Bible together to study the issue that divides you, and you determine to submit under its perspective. Some of you are so hostile you can't open the Bible together, so you call in, you get a your growth group leader, a friend, the the counseling center to help referee while they open the Bible together, and that's that's a real human issue. You need somebody to help you open the Bible together. But there's a there's a powerful dynamic when you hold the person's hand that you are at odds with, and you say, "I'm sure you're wrong, but maybe I'm wrong too. Can we pray? And you confess what you don't understand, what seems wrong. Father, I know she's wrong in this. You're like you can do that. Well, God knows you're doing it. You might as well just be honest. But I want you to show me what's right, and I know I have a bad attitude, and I'm sinning, and I can't figure it out. And both of you take turns doing that. God wants to answer those kinds of prayers. As a couple, you might you have access together. As a family, you have access together. As a small group, you have access together. As a church, you have access together. As opportunity with brother sister churches, with sister churches, you have you have opportunity to share this access together. And God really works as you come to Him humbly and teachable. What's God's icon for peace? It's the cross. That was the demonstration of God's humility in coming to the lost, bringing them the gospel, the good news of repentance and faith in Christ, crucified and risen, that can restore you to God and restore you to the person you have conflict with. Do you want to live in a community like that? That is what Jesus is making. It's His new creation in the church. Father, thank you for what you have given us in these passages-the realities that we found our lives on as fellow Christians, there are some here who are not yet yours, and they have been hoping for some kind of peace in in some way without you. Lord Jesus, show yourself to them as you call them from their conflict and the weariness and the heaviness of it, Father, I pray that you would do work starting in our relationships, roommates, marriages, families, church family, where we would experience the joy of the gospel and access together. We ask this in your name, Amen.

Dan Jarms

Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.

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