Gentiles remember eph 2 11-13

Here is your sermon content, fully corrected for grammar and readability. All Tamil words have been translated or removed, and the message, content, and original structure have been preserved in full without condensing:

11 Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— 12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

One reason Paul was used so mightily by God is that we see a man filled with immense gratitude for God’s salvation. The reason for his overflowing gratitude is that he never forgot what God saved him from.

The first chapter was the highest, purest Trinitarian praise raised on earth in the entire New Testament. Like Stephen, who, though the whole world was about to stone him in anger, looked to heaven and praised God, Paul, though in a terrible jail on the outside and facing death at any moment, completely forgot his earthly situation. He was caught up in wonder and glory at the thought that he should be chosen by the eternal God to display the riches of His grace for all eternity. Burning like an angel, this man has flown to the highest heaven, and he wants us to join him in praise.

If we have still not flown to heavenly praise after Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 he helps us do that by giving two contrasts.

First, the “before and after” in verses 1–3 shows what we were as sinners in the WORST condition—dead in sins. Then, verses 4–10 show what God did in our lives for our BEST, all by GRACE. In verses 1–10, there are three words you can remember: WORST, BEST, GRACE. Each letter served as a heading in our explanation. If we ever really grasp what it means to be a Christian, we will never again be envious of anyone who is not a Christian, we will never wish we were back in the world, nor will we in any way be drawn toward its pattern of life.

Now we come to the second contrast, beginning with verses 11–22. Verses 1–10 showed the contrast before and after as individual Christians. Now, in 11–22, the contrast is before and after as the whole church, the people of God. In the first contrast regarding individual sinners, Paul includes himself—whether Jew or Gentile, all were dead in sins; we all were “even as the rest.” But in this contrast, right at the beginning, he specifies what class of people the Ephesians were: “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles…” Then he compares these Gentiles in verse 12 to the commonwealth of Israel. In verse 17 he says you were far off, and the Jews were near.

So in this second contrast, the focus goes beyond individuals and broadens to the entire population of the world, divided into Gentiles and Jews. The earlier contrast was about an invisible, individual spiritual state; now, it is collectively about visible people groups: Gentiles and Jews. We now live in an age of God’s blessing on the Gentiles. Today, churches are largely made up of Gentile believers. None of us here was born a Jew or can claim Abraham as our forefather, so this passage is very relevant to all of us; we are all Gentiles.

He is making this contrast not to lift up the Jewish nation as a special bloodline or a heroic race as many Zionists do today. Rather, he wants the Gentile Ephesians and us to realize not only how badly off we were in a dead state, but how far we were from any means of salvation—far off from everything related to redemption, having no contact with any means or knowledge of the true God and His way of salvation. How remote was the chance for us to come into contact with the saving truth of Christ, to hear the truth, and, even upon hearing it, to grasp it to the extent of being saved! It was impossible! He wants us to see how utterly hopeless our condition was.

He wants us to see the supernatural, marvelous, miraculous grace of God in saving far-off Gentiles like us. If not for God’s grace, there is no way we could have come into contact with gospel truth, nor could we have grasped or believed it with Christ. We should be doubly grateful for salvation compared to a Jew. So even through this passage, Paul makes us extremely grateful for the salvation of God.

Good news to our Gentile congregation: I plan to go a little faster in Ephesians, so today we will complete three verses. Can you believe it!

We will cover three verses: 11–13. Here is the summary of these three verses: Always remember your hopeless condition before God saved you, so that you will always rejoice in what Christ did for you on the cross.

“Remember” is the key word. Verse 11 starts with “Therefore remember…” “Remember” is a command. This morning, it is God’s command for us. Paul doesn’t say, “If you are interested, like it, or if it grabs you, you may want to try it.” Rather, he commands us, “Remember,” and goes on to specify what it is that we are to remember.

He does not mean superficial thinking, idle daydreaming, or irresponsible nostalgia (“Oh, that was so nice”). It is not merely “having it in mind.” Let the memory seize you; deeply meditate. Make it a conscious exercise again and again to consider what you were. Keep thinking about it so it grips you and moves you to gratitude and rejoicing. He means: let it grip you. Feel the memory. Feel the plight you have been saved from. An intellectual recollection of facts will be of no spiritual benefit if it does not move the heart. Most Christians can list what they have been saved from if you ask them, but they don’t feel it. It does not move them. It’s not real to them. They have never imagined the horror of what would have happened to them if God hadn’t saved them.

Have you seen people remembering? They sit silently; they are not just thinking, they are actually traveling back in time. Their eyes lose focus on the room around them, as if they are watching a movie only they can see. In those moments, the person isn’t just reciting a fact; they are feeling the moment. Past memory has become an “experience” again. That is what Paul tells us to do.

When Paul says “remember,” he means: “Know it, feel it, be gripped by it.” Let it be a matter of constant, conscious mental reflection. It is an intentional mental activity. If you really want to make people worship God, don’t just play a band and emotionally pump or whip up feelings with music into a hallelujah meeting. Use your head. Think. Intelligent, realistic reflection upon our desperate plight by nature is what is needed, because that alone deepens our gratitude, enriches our worship, and transforms our lives. Remember, this is God’s command for us. Let us obey it together and not resist its discomfort.

What are we to remember? He lists seven things. Notice verse 11 and 12:

1. Remember that you were once Gentiles in the flesh.
2. You were called “Uncircumcision” by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands.
3. At that time you were without Christ.
4. You were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
5. You were strangers from the covenants of promise.
6. You were having no hope.
7. You were without God in the world.

To remember these seven things, consider the acronym GUCASHA. There is no real word like that—it sounds funny, almost like something out of a horror movie! But this was our name before we knew Christ. Spelling out GUCASHA helped me again and again to remember who I was:

• G – Gentiles
• U – Uncircumcision
• C – Christless
• A – Aliens from the nation
• S – Strangers to the covenant promise
• H – Hopeless in heart
• A – Atheists (Without God)

First: G – Gentiles

“…that you, once Gentiles in the flesh…”

Four thousand years ago, God called a man named Abraham and chose to reveal His word and work almost exclusively through his descendants. They were called Jews—His peculiar, special possession. No other nation had this special blessing. All other nations were left to go on in their ignorance, sins, and idolatry. No revelation of truth was given to any nation except the Jews.

In the Old Testament, the Bible divided the population of the world into two groups: Jews and Gentiles. Gentiles went on for thousands of years in sin and idolatry, degrading more and more with every new generation, bearing the curses and sins of their fathers and forefathers. As Romans 1 says, they were given up to a depraved mind to worship the creature rather than the Creator—given up to lust, the desires of their hearts, and all manner of wickedness.

Imagine being created in God’s image, created to know and enjoy your Creator as your only true happiness, yet being part of a vast population abandoned by their Creator far from true blessedness and left to sin as they wished, suffering His eternal wrath. They had no divine identity; they were like wandering orphans in the wilderness without a father or mother. Paul says you were in that group of abandoned Gentiles.

The Bible says salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22). There is no salvation outside the true Israel. Remember how hopeless you were as Gentiles.

Even if, by God’s grace, some Gentile believed in the true living God, they were not allowed to live with the Jews. They had to live far away and could not even enter the temple proper. If a Gentile eagerly tried to enter because their soul craved God, the penalty was immediate death. They could only worship Jehovah from very far away from the actual temple, in what was called the Court of the Gentiles. First, consciously remember that you were a Gentile.

Second: U – Uncircumcision

“…who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands…”

Paul says you were called “uncircumcised” by the Jews. The Jews were God’s people not because of anything in themselves, but because of God’s election to reveal His glory to the nations through them. However, they forgot their real purpose. Instead of seeing themselves as favored by God, they saw themselves as His favorite pets. This developed in them a smugness, a pride in their heritage, and a hatred for all others, reaching its peak in the self-righteous religion of the Pharisees.

Jews in their pride called Gentiles “uncircumcised.” This was not just a label; it was a deeply derogatory term. They even called them “unclean Gentile dogs,” implying that they lacked shame, discipline, and culture—lacking proper moral foundation.

Jews saw Gentiles as so low, blind, and immoral that, like dogs eating anything unclean, they had no knowledge of the one true living God. In their covetousness, they would worship whatever stone gave them money—even the devil. They showed no honor to parents and were utterly immoral, having sexual relationships like animals. If they felt anger, they killed; if they felt lust, they took. They would covet and rob, living like animals just to satisfy the body with no self-control.

Circumcision was a significant thing for Jews. It was performed on the male organ—the center of man’s strongest physical drives. For a Jew, circumcision was a covenant sign to live sexually pure before God and man. They believed that how a man controlled himself sexually reflected his relationship with God.

Gentiles were called “uncircumcised” because they had no morality in their relationship with the true living God; they worshipped anything for money and, in their relationships with other humans, were full of adultery. This was not just an isolated individual behavior; generations of Gentiles lived only for this. This is what you see in the cultures of Babylon, Greece, and Rome: idolatry and terrible sexual degeneracy. When you visit ancient temples in our country, you find two main things: different idols of all shapes—from small mice to elephants—and a tremendous emphasis on sex symbols. They didn’t just commit adultery secretly; they made adultery a form of worship. That is what it meant to be a Gentile and uncircumcised.

Remember that this is how the Ephesians lived. They worshipped the idol Artemis with all kinds of adultery and lived in fear of evil spirits, trying to keep them at bay through magic. Take time and think deeply: remember that you and I lived a life of idolatry and spiritual adultery before coming to Christ. Unless we grasp that, we will not be able to see the wonder of this passage.

There were thousands of years of enmity and animosity between Jews and Gentiles. Jewish men prayed every morning, “Lord, thank You that You didn’t make me a Gentile.” When a Jew saw a Gentile, he didn’t see a fellow human; he saw a “dog” who had lost all sense of shame and self-control. To a Jew, a Gentile was not just a sinner; they were a defilement on the earth. They believed God allowed Gentiles to live like this simply to become fuel for eternal hell. That is why Jews would not touch them, eat with them, or enter their houses, maintaining many strict rules. Most of these rules were not God-given, but were created by the Jews out of pride.

Paul is not talking about Jews in a purely spiritual sense here, but in a physical sense. Notice he says, “you were Gentiles in the flesh” and refers to “circumcision made in the flesh by hands.” In that physical sense, all Israelites were Jews who were in a national covenant with God through the sign of circumcision, while the rest of the world was called Gentiles—not in a spiritual sense, but in an ethnic sense. So first, remember you were Gentiles, and secondly, remember that you were constantly mocked as unclean, uncircumcised dogs. Paul says to remember that you were part of that uncircumcised, unclean group.

Third: C – Christless

“…that at that time you were without Christ…”

You were separate from Christ. You were cut off from Jesus Christ! That word “separate” should jar us and shock us!

All the redemptive blessings that come to a sinner come only through a connection with Christ. There is not a single drop of God’s grace anywhere outside of Jesus Christ. After Adam’s fall, Christ was the only hope for fallen mankind. Yet we were completely cut off—disconnected from Jesus Christ. The Lord said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Out of a living connection with Him, we were cut off from all sources of life and grace, and were thus utterly dead.

Notice he does not say “apart from Jesus,” but “apart from Christ”—the Messiah, the Anointed One of God as Prophet, Priest, and King throughout the Old and New Testaments. We had no connection to any of the Old Testament ministry of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. We had no revelation from His prophetic ministry, no connection to His priestly ministry, and were not ruled by His kingly authority. All the blessings and promises of God were given only within the orbit of Christ, and we were completely outside that orbit—utterly severed from Christ.

To be apart from Christ—the anointed Messiah who alone can give life, who alone can give the knowledge of God, who alone can give the solid hope of forgiven sins, and who alone can give the prospect of eternity in glory and bliss—is to be in a state of the worst misery. Do we realize not only how miserable, but how dangerous a condition it is to be cut off from Christ, the only mediator between an angry God and a depraved sinner?

It is a state of frightening danger. Apart from Christ, I have no one to stand between me and the anger of a righteous God—a God who will punish every sin with eternal wrath, who is a consuming fire, and who has pledged Himself to track down every sinner and punish every sin in hell. Imagine standing before God without the only mediator! How frightening!

This was the greatest tragedy of the Gentile nations: God allowed them to go on in sin and darkness, store up wrath, and perish in hell for all eternity without a single saving grace from Christ. We were there—cut off from the only source of life and grace.

Remember that this was your condition. I have often thought that if I had been born before the gospel came to our country, I would have lived, died, and been burning in hell right now with no knowledge of the gospel or Christ. I would have been eternally separated from Christ! We should always be amazed that God’s grace came to us.

Fourth: A – Aliens from the Nation

“…being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel…”

A “commonwealth” refers to the citizenship of a nation formed under a constitution aimed at the common well-being and wealth of its people. For example, being part of the commonwealth of India means you are a citizen of a constituted nation. God selected Israel and constituted them as a nation with the highest, most excellent, and most just rules under His direct governance. Israel’s constitution was written by God Himself. It provided the ultimate common well-being and spiritual wealth for those people.

Israel was a nation under His rule, bound by a covenant with peculiar privileges and responsibilities. All the revelation of God and His redemptive plan was given to them in types, rituals, parables, and prophecies. He not only formed them as a nation, but also promised them an eternal King—the Son of David—who would reign forever. He promised covenantal blessings primarily to that nation, and as a foretaste of those eternal heavenly blessings, He gave them the Promised Land.

Israel could rightly say, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 33:12), and they could refer to God as “the God of Israel” (Ps. 72:18). They were a visible reflection of the eternal kingdom of God. God gave them the commonwealth and divided the land among them as a foretaste of an eternal inheritance.

What was your relationship, and mine, to the citizenship of that commonwealth? Paul says you were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. You were strangers—people who did not belong by birth or by citizenship. You were so alien that you didn’t understand anything about the nation. You didn’t even understand the Hebrew language in which the Old Testament was written. You had none of the rights or privileges that God gave to the nation of Israel.

The point is that you were in a state where it was impossible for you to enter into those covenant blessings. If eternal inheritance was promised only to those within the commonwealth of Israel, and you didn’t own a single foot of land in Israel, you were an alien to that commonwealth. You had no right to His “common wealth” and no right to the inheritance of the “Sons of David”—disqualified by birth. No matter how hard a Gentile worked or how much money he paid, he couldn’t change his bloodline or buy citizenship. He remained an alien. Do you see how hopeless we were?

If you’ve ever traveled in a foreign country, you know what it feels like to be excluded, as though you don’t belong. The authorities treat you as an outsider—from border customs questioning why you are coming, how long you are staying, telling you that you must leave in 60 days, that you cannot work there, cannot earn money there, and cannot buy land or property. You feel like an alien. You don’t speak the language, so you are excluded from conversations. Their currency is different. You don’t know their customs, so you often feel foolish or unable to do simple things that you know how to do in your own country. You are completely excluded.

Fifth: S – Strangers to the Covenant Promise

“…and strangers from the covenants of promise…”

The plural word “covenants” refers to the several covenants that God made with Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3; 15:7–21; 17:1–21), Isaac (Gen. 26:2–5), Jacob (Gen. 28:13–15), the nation through Moses (Exod. 24:1–8), and David (2 Sam. 7). You were strangers to all those covenants!

The singular word “promise” refers to the underlying pledge behind all of these covenants: to send the Messiah and grant all the blessings of redemption (Gen. 3:15; Rom. 9:4–5). These were covenants promising both spiritual and physical blessings. God made a binding commitment to surely bless the Israelites, but we were completely outside it. You had no benefits from those covenants and no right to any of those promises. God never came to a Gentile man to promise him covenant blessings.

Imagine a rich father who signs a legal will leaving his vast wealth to his children, the Israelites. We were like beggars standing outside. In fact, the Lord Himself indicated that Gentiles were like dogs outside the house when He said one does not take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. We couldn’t even expect a share of the property; we weren’t in the will at all, perhaps only standing outside hoping for a few leftover scraps. We could not say, “Lord, You didn’t give us anything,” because He would say, “I never promised you anything.” You were a stranger to the covenants of promise. There was no provision, protection, or benefit promised in My covenant for you.

As Gentiles—uncircumcised, aliens to the commonwealth, and strangers to the covenants of promise—we had no right to any redemptive blessings. While Jews received the blessings of the covenant promises made to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we as Gentiles inherited the curses of our forefathers and the ignorance of idolatry.

Paul tells us to remember. Remember that you had no seat at the table of the covenants. You were a stranger passing by a house where a Father was giving rich gifts to His children (Israel). You weren’t invited, and you had no right to knock on the door. You were legally and spiritually excluded from “The Promise.” You weren’t waiting for the Messiah; you didn’t even know He was coming. You were an orphaned soul carrying the curse of your ancestors.

Before God sent the Savior, many generations of Gentiles lived and died without any knowledge of God’s covenant promises. That could have been us today, had we been born in a place where the gospel is not yet known! Remember! We were strangers to all the gracious covenants of promise that God made in the Old Testament.

Sixth: H – Hopeless

“…having no hope…”

Here is the second part of your sermon content, fully corrected for grammar and readability. All Tamil words have been translated or removed, and the full content, message, and original structure have been preserved in full without condensing:

This is the saddest statement. Hope means a confident expectation of promised blessings. That’s hope: confident expectation. What is it based upon? Not wishful thinking, but upon promised blessings by the God who cannot lie—a rock-solid certainty of something that will happen because God said it.

But now, without God’s covenant promises and being strangers to them, there is no hope! As Gentiles we had no hope—at least, no hope based on the sure promises of God. We lived our lives with no hope, and then all our hopes disappeared like a vapor the moment life ended. What is our hope after death? No hope. We die hopeless, with no solid hope of resurrection. Superstitious religions give us empty hope; at best, it is the idea of becoming a lizard or a donkey based on karma.

“Remember that you were hopeless!” But it gets even worse:

Seventh: A – Atheists (Without God)

“…and without God in the world.”

Paul says we were Atheos—without God in the world. Those may be the saddest words in the Bible. To face all of life’s trials without God and without the hope of God’s promises makes life a terrible thing! The best you can hope for is expressed in a bumper sticker I once saw on a car: “Eat healthy, exercise, and die anyway!”

We as Gentiles lived without God. Though we had dead idols as gods, we lived without the knowledge of the true and living God—without any true, life-flowing, vital experience and communion with God. Without God, there is no forgiveness from God, but only the wrath of God for all my sins. God was not our Justifier, but our Condemner. God was not working all affairs in our lives for good, but for the worst bad: eternal damnation, storing up wrath for ourselves on the day of the righteous judgment of God. When we soon leave this world, we could expect not eternal life, but eternal damnation.

Paul says “without God in the world.” Look at that location! We weren’t in a neutral place. What kind of world is this? As verse 2 says, the whole system and philosophy of the world are controlled by the prince of the power of the air, Satan, and this evil world is under the condemnation and wrath of God.

Imagine a child lost in a dark forest filled with wolves, poisonous snakes, lions, and tigers, and that child has no father, no map, and no light. That was us. Satan has brainwashed the world from childhood with ideas like “greed is good” and “wickedness wins”—teaching that only wrongdoers and wicked people get ahead, so do more wickedness and you will succeed. This philosophy unconsciously drags souls along the path to hell. The course or current of this world drags people into the lake of fire through this evil system. The saddest thing is to live without God in Satan’s world. To live in the world without God’s love, without God’s law to guide, without God’s peace, and without God’s guidance is a 100% guarantee of hell. What a terrible state to be in!

Without a Creator, you are just a monkey; there is no right or wrong. You live as you want with other monkeys—kill, rob, and abuse other monkeys, and there is nothing wrong. Without God, there is no final judge, and the wicked and abusers will never be judged. The tears of the abused, innocent, and poor are never wiped away. If there is no God, the billionaire who built his empire on the blood of the poor wins forever. Without God, life is just a meaningless, cruel accident. Godlessness is the ultimate cruelty. To face the trials of this life without the “God of all Comfort” is not just hard—it is a living hell before the actual hell begins. But that is how you and I were.

Sometimes, unbelievers look at the suffering in the world, especially the suffering of little children, and scoff, “If there is a God, why does He allow these terrible things to happen?” But what they don’t realize is that if you remove God from the picture, you make the situation utterly hopeless! Without God, a child may be born unwanted, sold into prostitution, abused by wicked men, and die of AIDS, with zero hope. But if that girl or even the brothel owner hears the gospel and gets saved, there is a hope that brightens the darkest corners of the earth! Atheism or “Godlessness” doesn’t solve suffering; it traps you in it.

Oh, remember! Remember your name before Christ! You were GUCA-SHA:

• G – Gentiles
• U – Uncircumcision
• C – Christless
• A – Aliens from the nation
• S – Strangers to the covenant promise
• H – Hopeless in heart
• A – Atheists (Without God)

Paul wants us to remember these things so that we never forget where we would be if the Lord had not saved us. Oh, it is so important to remember! Just as all the ungrateful backsliding and sins of the Israelites could be traced to forgetting, the same is true for us. Because if we forget, we will grow lukewarm and apathetic about the things of God. If we forget, we will lose the joy of our salvation. If we forget, we will lose our hunger and thirst to know God more deeply through His Word. If we forget, we will lose our motivation to take the gospel to the lost.

The quality of our Christian life is closely connected to how much we remember where we were and how grateful we are for God’s great salvation. Intelligent, realistic reflection upon what we were by nature is calculated to deepen our appreciation and gratitude for what we have become by grace.

God has saved us so mightily for good works. We are to be zealous for good works. Every day we wake up, there are thousands of opportunities for good works. When someone angers us, instead of forgiving them for God’s sake, our ego hits back. When we don’t live in the joy of gratefulness for what God has done, we fall into covetousness and dissatisfaction. We become upset because we don’t have what our greed wants, so we spend our time in laziness and lusts instead of good works. If God’s great purpose in electing us is that we are His workmanship in creation and providence, using all situations, trials, and sufferings to make us do good works, and we ignore that in ungratefulness, living in pride without a care, then soon more of the Lord’s chastisements will come.

So, remember your desperate situation before God saved you. It’s a command!

When you deeply remember, you will rejoice now. The more you remember, the more you will rejoice. For the seven things you remember, now you can rejoice seven times over! So we have remembered seven things about what we were; now, let us rejoice looking at seven things God has done. Let us move from the “Horror of the Past” to the “Glory of the Present.”

Notice the contrast in verse 13: the first two words are “But now…” In verses 1–3, the first section told us of our dead state, and in verse 4 he said, “But God…” Now he says, “But now…” This is a vigorous contrast of time between the period prior to the coming of the gospel and what we now are.

He says in verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near.” Far brought near! What does that mean? “But now”—from our earlier hopeless state, now the same seven glorious things have changed:

1. G – Rejoice that though formerly you were a Gentile dog, now you are a true Israelite! The Bible says salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22). There is no salvation outside the true Israel. For a GUCASHA like me to have any hope at all, I must not only cease to be a Gentile, I must become a fellow citizen of Israel (Ephesians 2:19). Praise God! Scripture says in Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” Galatians 3:7 also says we have become “sons of Abraham.” I am no longer a spiritual orphan! I have a 4,000-year-old heritage! When I read about Abraham, I am not reading about someone else’s grandfather; I am reading about my spiritual father. In Romans 11, Paul uses an analogy: even though we were wild olive branches, by faith in Christ we are grafted in to share the rich root of the cultivated olive tree of Israel (Romans 11:17). In Romans 2:29 he says we are “real Jews”—one who is not one outwardly, but one inwardly is a true Jew. Because my connection is not just ethnic, but a life-flowing spiritual connection, we are now part of spiritual Israel, which is higher than ethnic Israel. Rejoice that you are not a Gentile, but a true Israelite!
2. U – Rejoice that though you were uncircumcised in the flesh, now in Christ you have received true circumcision of the heart by regeneration! This again is far higher than the physical. Physical circumcision was done by “human hands,” but New Covenant circumcision is done by the Holy Spirit (Colossians 2:11). My whole heart is sensitive to God now. Paul says in Philippians 3:3, “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
3. C – Rejoice that we who were without Christ, separate from Christ, and did not even know Him, did not just meet Christ—we are fused to Him! My identity is always seen in Christ Jesus. We are inseparably, eternally united to Him. So much so that everything for us now is in Christ. As we saw in 1:3, we now have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. This is Paul’s favorite phrase, used hundreds of times. Now we are totally identified with Christ as recipients of all blessings in His death, resurrection, and present position at God’s right hand. I am a member of His body now—something no Old Testament Israelite could claim!
4. A – Rejoice that we who were Aliens are now citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem! My name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life—the ultimate Registry of Heaven. When I appeal as a citizen, the King of heaven hears my prayer. I have the provision and protection of the King, and the full “Commonwealth” of His resources is at my disposal. We are part of the commonwealth of the true Israel of God.
5. S – Rejoice that we who were strangers to the covenants of promise are now, in Christ Jesus, heirs of all the promises of God! I see my name in the covenant will. We are included in all the promises of God because scripture says all the promises of God are “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus. All that God declared in the Old Testament is no longer stranger history to us; it is my inheritance papers. I feed on my heritage in the Old Testament day by day. Jews had only the shadow of Old Testament revelation, but now I have the full fulfillment of revelation in the New Testament. I have far exceeding, great promises—more than any Old Testament Jew had! Someone once said: “I count it the most precious of all things as a Gentile to be saved by being joined to Christ, the seed of Abraham, and becoming an heir of all the glory promised to God’s people Israel. I am excited that true Israel’s destiny is now my destiny and all the promises made to her are my promises.”
6. H – Rejoice that we who were hopeless now live with a living, eternal hope for this life and for eternal life! This is a solid hope based not on my performance, but on Christ’s death and resurrection. This hope is the anchor of my soul in the storms of life. It makes me live every day with joy here on earth and has removed even the fear of death, so that even when I die, I will die with hope!
7. A – Rejoice that we who were without God are now filled with God in every area of our lives! Dead to God, we are now alive to God, whether we eat or drink, doing all for the glory of God. I was not even allowed to enter the outer court of the Old Testament temple, but now I can enter the Holy of Holies by Christ’s blood! We went from a “God-less Void” to a “God-filled Temple.” I am never alone, never abandoned, and never without His presence!

Paul says all this in one phrase in verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near.”

The far-off Gentile is now a true Israelite; uncircumcised in the flesh, now circumcised in heart; without Christ, now united to Christ; an alien, now a citizen; a stranger to the promises, now an heir of God’s promises; hopeless, now full of hope; and without God, now full of God! This is the closest intimacy of a personal relationship with the living God. You see, the Israelites had an external nearness that may not have meant internal nearness. But all those who are truly saved are truly brought near to God Himself. We are not only brought near to the means by which God reveals Himself, but we are brought near to the God who reveals Himself in those means!

Now for the final, great, billion-dollar question: What powerful means made this impossible miracle possible? How were we—GUCASHS Gentiles, uncircumcised, without Christ, aliens, strangers from the covenants of promise, with no hope, and without God in the world—brought near? What effected so mighty a transformation?

Can you tell from verse 13? “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Paul says it is the blood of Christ. “But now in Christ Jesus, ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ.”

The only means that had the power to make this change is the blood of Christ. Oh, we use the blood of Christ so cheaply! What was in Paul’s mind? As a Jew, he packed all the richness of Old Testament sacrifices into this, illuminated with the light of the New Testament gospel. All those thousands of years of sacrifices and blood had deep roots embedded in the Old Testament. The Jewish religion was a bloody religion: no acceptance with God without blood, no covenant without blood, no worship without blood. We see the book of Leviticus full of blood; they worshipped, as it were, in a sea of blood.

God would always come near and manifest Himself when blood was shed. Why all this blood, blood, blood? The primary function of blood is as a sacrifice for sin; without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. It is blood that turns away the wrath of God by satisfying the righteous anger and judgment of God against sin. It was all pointing to that one-time, glorious sacrificial death of Christ on the cross.

So Paul says the powerful means through which God came near to us who were so far off is the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin. This death removed every obstacle Godward and manward. This blood removed all those intricate, traditional Jewish distinctions. It brought us who were far off near to God, near to all redemptive blessings, near to heaven, and near to all the people of God throughout the ages. We have seen what we were as GUCASHA—we were far, but brought near by the blood of Christ.

Application

Why do we pray with so little fervor and affection? Why do so many sing scarcely from the heart and with such blank expressions? Why are so few hearts breaking for the lost people around them? Why do not more of us say spontaneously and repeatedly, as one of the richest men said when he was saved: “Now I know the greatest thing in the world is to be saved”? Why isn’t the experience of salvation like the first morning of a month-long foreign vacation—bright sun, clear sky, excited while packing, unable to sleep—instead of being like a boring, cloudy winter day where we have to go to work early and everyone is grumbling?

Why is lukewarm love for Jesus so common and white-hot devotion so rare? One of the reasons is this: you can’t burn the burner of commitment and love up to white-hot heat if you don’t connect the gas cylinder! The gas that increases the devotion of our Christian life is the command: “Remember! Remember! Remember that we were hopeless!”

One lesson of this passage is that it is of great spiritual benefit to remember the hopeless condition in which we were and would still be without salvation. Let me give you three benefits of remembering. Don’t just hear and go—chew on these, and you will see your cold heart becoming slowly hot, hotter, and hottest:

1. Remembering “then, but now” curbs our pride.

Pride is poison for the spiritual life; pride drains our gratitude, worship, and joy. Spiritual amnesia is the mother of pride. We start to think our current blessings are a salary God owes us. When we think we deserve more and don’t get it, we get upset and frustrated. Remembering where we were humbles us, controls our pride, and fills us with gratitude.

The beauty of being redeemed is always in danger of turning into self-righteous pride. Pride is a camera pointed at yourself; remembrance turns the camera around to face Christ.

There was absolutely nothing in us that made God save us. We were not seeking God or longing to know Him; we were extremely, very far from being saved. Remember GUCASHA. But remembering our plight apart from Christ is a precious preventative against such pride. Let us use it! A diamond is only brilliant because of the dark velvet it sits upon. If you take away the dark background of your GUCASHA past, the diamond of Grace loses its sparkle in your eyes. To keep the heart hotter and hottest, you must never stop looking at the darkness you were pulled out of.

Paul says this was our condition not just as individuals, but as a church. Oh, we are brought near as the people of God, true Israel, the commonwealth of the people of God! Yet many of you take the church so much for granted. You don’t contribute anything to the growth of the church; just coming and going feels like a big sacrifice to you. We have to keep asking you for testimonies for more than a month! It all shows how lightly you take this blessing. Do not despise this blessing, lest God take it away from you. Oh, may God open your eyes and shake you for your ungratefulness!

2. Remembering “then, but now” deepens our love for Christ.

In Luke 7:36–50, Jesus was dining with Simon the Pharisee (who may have been a leper the Lord healed) when a sinful woman came in and anointed Jesus with expensive perfume. She wet His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair as she kissed them. Simon was shocked that Jesus would allow a sinner to touch Him in this manner. But Jesus told Simon that this woman loved much because she was forgiven much. He added (Luke 7:47), “but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

He did not mean that the Pharisee had fewer sins than this woman. Simon was filled with pride and self-righteousness, which are abominable to God, but he didn’t see himself as a sinner, and so he didn’t love Jesus much. Jesus called self-righteous Pharisees “sons of hell.” He means that if we are aware of the gravity of our sin—if we remember how terrible our plight would be without Him—we will be moved. We will cherish Him. Words of affection for Christ will always pour like water from our mouth. We will not sing with blank faces. We will not pray with rote mechanics. If you feel you are forgiven little, you will love little. I do not believe it is possible to cleave to Christ with white-hot devotion if we do not remember and feel what our plight would be without Him. If your heart has grown cold toward the Lord, remember where you were when He saved you and where you would be today if He had not.

The Puritan Thomas Goodwin said that when he was about to preach on the Sabbath and his heart was hard and cold, not filled with amazement at the grace of God due to a lack of prayer through the week, he knew what to do: “I used to sit alone and think of my past life and sins, up and down, and I always came down again with a broken and a contrite heart, ready to preach…” And he preached with the Holy Spirit’s blessing and unction.

Remembrance! Where would I be? There are multitudes in the world today who are still far off. It is as though Christ had never come for them. But Christ not only came, He brought His gospel and applied it to us. Why are we here, showered with gospel privileges? May God fill us with a new sense of the glory and wonder of His sovereign mercy to undeserving sinners! We should say with that rich man, “The greatest thing in the world is to be saved!” Remembering your past sins deepens your love for Jesus.

3. Remembering “then, but now” deepens your compassion for the lost.

Do you ever look at the faces of people and see the hurt that sin has brought into their lives? Jesus saw the crowds as distressed and dispirited, like sheep without a shepherd, and He had compassion on them (Matthew 9:36). Even people who seem to be rich and happy are heading for death and eternal judgment. They are all in that GUCASHA state. Remembering that you were once there will give you the compassion of Christ for these hurting people and motivate you to do all you can to get the gospel to those who have not yet heard.

To those of you who have still not come to Christ: do you see your condition in GUCASHA? Far off, with no hope and without God in this evil world that will drag you to hell. You may be near the church, attending services and using the means of grace, but until you are in Christ, you are not near. You know nothing of what it is to bask in the light of the reconciled face of God and call Him Father.

How do you enter into union with Christ? Union is effected when the gospel of the grace of God is preached, and when, by the operation of the Spirit in the hidden depths of a person’s being, they see their great need as a sinner. They see glory in the face of Christ. They see that Christ is perfectly suited to their needs as a sinner, and they cast themselves upon the Savior for acceptance and pardon. They come into a vital, living union with Christ, and then all the blessings of the Redeemer become theirs—they are brought near.

Why are you not near? You cannot say, as Gentiles could have said for centuries, “I’ve not heard of the means by which one can draw near. I’ve not been told of the way in which sinners can approach the Holy God.” The gospel is right before you. As Romans says, “The word is near you, in your mouth.” But my friend, you are still far off. And why are you far off? Because you love your sins. You choose the agonizing insulation of your sins.

That is the curse of curses: insulation from God, insulation from His people. That is what hell is—eternal insulation from God and from His people, insulated with nothing but all the potential of your own foul heart and depraved nature. What kind of insanity keeps you far off? The blood has been shed. The sacrifice has been offered. And every gospel preacher is warranted on the basis of Scripture to say: Come, all things are ready. The feast is prepared. Draw near. Draw near!