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GOOD FENCES MAKE BAD CHRISTIANS #4

NEW CARS AND NEW MEN

Quick! Think right now of your worst enemy. Your polar opposite; that man or woman whose glare at you is imprinted in your brain. You're so diametrically apart from each other. Did you know that God wants to take you — and that enemy — and blend you BOTH into a new person?

Have you ever wished that you could have a complete make-over? All of us have taken stabs at fixing up this or that: a tummy tuck, eyelid surgery, nose jobs, hair transplants, contact lenses or laser eye surgery. And of course, there have been somewhat successful adventures with this mechanical AbioCor device: Mr. Robert Tools survived almost five months with the artificial heart beating in his chest. But wouldn't it be even better if you could be brand new from head to toe — in every way? If God could simply wave a divine wand and give you a "new birth"?

The Bible talks about "you are a new creation," of course; that's in II Corinthians 5:17. And you know, friend, this isn't just metaphor, but reality! If you are "in Christ" — that's the one prerequisite — then you are a completely new individual! Oh, your hairline may be where it was before, and your astigmatism and sore bunions may keep on like they are . . . but those are temporary blemishes. On the spiritual side of the ledger — which is the only part that counts for eternity — you're absolutely and completely brand new.

We're here in Ephesians chapter two, and Paul has spent most of the essay describing the divisions of the human race. Jew and Gentile. Saved and lost. Followers and rebels. And he just keeps hitting the one point over and over: through Jesus, through Calvary, through grace, through God's love expressed in all of the above . . . the whole business of "two sides" is gone! Jew and Gentile — gone! Male and female — gone! Rich and poor — gone! Alien empires — gone! "You who were far have been brought near," he writes. "Jesus is our peace; He has made the two one. He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility."

Did you know that in the old Jewish temple there in Jerusalem there actually was a wall designed to keep "those people" out? That's right. The Adventist commentary for Ephesians points out:

"The imagery may have been derived from the barrier in the Temple separating the court of the Gentiles from the court of the Jews. Beyond this wall no Gentile dared go."

In fact, flip back in your Bible just a few pages to Acts 21 and there's quite a story there where Paul gets into trouble big-time. The Tyndale commentary tells it like this:

"There was a wall both literally and spiritually. In Jerusalem, between the temple proper and the Court of the Gentiles, there was a stone wall on which there was an inscription in Greek and Latin ‘which forbade any foreigner to go in, under pain of death.'"

The markers are still there, by the way. Josephus writes about them and a French archeologist, M. Clermont Ganneau, discovered some of them back in 1871.

"It is strangely significant," author Francis Foulkes continues, "that Paul was finally arrested and condemned by the Jews [here in Acts 21] on the basis of a false statement that he took an Ephesian, Trophimus, beyond this barrier."

We studied yesterday how the mountain of minutiae, of Jewish regulations, had been abolished at Calvary. That was part of what had created this barrier between Jews and Gentiles. But Jesus Himself, the Bible says, is who brings peace. "He IS our peace," Paul writes. He takes away our hostility and our feelings of superiority, because there's no such thing as needing salvation a lot or a little bit. We all need it totally, completely.

"The cross is the great leveler" — this is back to the first commentary again — "the common denominator for all men, because Christ died for all, and there is no other means of salvation." Then they add: "Discord in the family, party strife, national animosity, denominational jealousies, and personal tensions and conflicts — all these are healed when human beings become sons and daughters of God, and thus ‘one in Christ.'"

And now Paul uses the metaphor which I think is so exciting, so ground-breaking. It's in verse 15:

"His purpose [Jesus'] 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."

That's a long word picture, but think about that phrase: one new man. Representing, I believe, these two groups: always at war, always resenting, always divided. The Jewish "man" and the Gentile "man." Or the white "man" and the black "man." The Catholic "man" and the Protestant "man," if you will. We could go on and on. And Paul tells us that Christ wants to build here a magnificent new man. Not a patching together of old parts, stitching together a fragile coalition that could blow apart when you and I can't agree on what some hard verse means. But a new man.

Let me illustrate this way. You may love to go car-shopping, and you're thinking of going out this weekend to grab a brand new 2003 model of this or that car. But what if, instead of getting a new car — slightly sturdier bumper, one more airbag, eight speakers instead of six, engine cubic displacement a little bit better than the 2002 version . . . you went down to the dealership and got a whole new creation altogether?

A couple of hotshot web sites were describing something that may be out there real soon; it's called the M400, designed by a Dr. Paul Moller. And fasten your seatbelt because the M400 is also called a "SkyCar." You've got it; this thing is actually going to fly. You strap yourself in and the SkyCar will zip you at 400 miles an hour anyplace you want to go within 900 miles. If you're afraid about steering and operating the rudders, don't worry . . . the whole thing flies itself using a GPS — global positioning satellite. You just sit there and enjoy the ride; the computers keep you in a safe air lane away from all the other Sky Cars roaring here and there. There may not be too many right at first because the beginning models will cost about one million dollars, but when the mass production gets going, they'll be just about $60,000 each, and they fit right in your garage and a standard parking spot at the mall. And if you don't happen to like the body styling of the M400 SkyCar, don't worry. You can get a CityHawk model instead, invented by Israeli Dr. Rafi Yoeli of AD&D, or the SkyRider X2R from MACRO Industries in Huntsville, Alabama, or the AirCar from Sky Technologies. It's already been field-tested — or sky-tested, we should say — and goes a nifty 200-400 mph in the air . . . and 65 on the Ventura Freeway. Kevin Bonsor joked on one Internet report:

"When George Jetsen first flew across American TV screens in his flying car-like vehicle in 1962, many of us began wondering when we could buy our own Supersonic Suburbanite or Spacion Wagon. Amazingly," he writes, "that day may be around the corner."

Well, friend, flying cars is not our great concern here today. Except to God's kingdom on Resurrection Day. The point is this: if you went to the Auto Mall and got one, that wouldn't be an upgrade — it'd be a whole new thing. And Paul is talking here about a whole new kind of man, a brand new kind of woman. In Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message, you almost get a picture of flying-cars-in-the-laboratory. Listen:

"Then He started over." Jesus, that is, after tearing down the wall of clogged-up law codes. "Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and hatred, He created A NEW KIND OF HUMAN BEING, a fresh start for everybody."

Maybe you're saying right here: "You know, I gave my heart to the Lord . . . and things aren't much different. I still sin a lot. My ‘moral gas mileage' ain't a whole lot better than it was before." I know that. Or maybe you look around at the church, filled with gossip still, and with resentment and with a deadly lack of passion, and you say: "New men? Where? You can't prove it in this church." I know that too, friend. Here at the Voice of Prophecy there are days when it feels like "New Men and flying cars" and days when it feels like every single employee, starting with me, came to work in a spiritual Edsel with four flat tires. But that doesn't take away from the ideal God is giving us through Paul and this incredible book of Ephesians. He WANTS us to be new men and women; He wants us to soar in the sky, riding high above our former sins. He wants us to leave the crowded freeways of frantic selfishness and greed, and get off the traffic-choked turnpikes of temptation. And what does it mean for the Body of Christ when just one believer — just one, here and there — really commits to BEING new for the Lord? Is willing for God to MAKE him or her new? Friend, I haven't done it nearly as much as I should, but I want to. I want to live according to the ideal God has given us here, and to preach peace — not so much here on the radio, even — but in my own life as I interact with my church, and with my fellow workers, and with the people living on both sides of me and across the street.

The most friendly dealer in the world has got one of those SkyCars gassing up right now, and your name's already on the pink slip.