Peace in our Time

Sermons Blog - Calvary

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Peace in our Time

I invite you to take your Bible this morning and turn to Ephesians 2. As we focus our attention on verses 1 1-22 today, I want us to think about, "Peace in Our Time." When I was born into this world back in June of 1961 , June 1 8, to be exact, the world was far from a peaceful place. Six years earlier, in 1955, the Vietnam War began and it raged on for 20 years. For the first 14 years of my life, war was almost commonplace. It took center stage on the evening news every night and images of combat, and the death it brought, were everywhere. The Vietnam War was such a part of my life that I can remember as a young child, asking my mother if there had always been a war. Of course, as the war continued, there also came the protests and the calls for peace. If you lived through those days, you will recall the marches and the rallies that were held, begging for troops to be withdrawn and the war to be stopped. College-aged students burned their draft cards and often their calls for peace turned into violent confrontations with police. From my perspective, it seemed that war and conflict were constants and peace and harmony were nothing more than a dream that would never be realized.

Sadly, conflict, division, and strife are not confined to times of war, nor are they unique to the world or even to our time and culture. Even the church and those who claim the name of Christ experience, far too often, times of disunity. As Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians, they were apparently experiencing problems between Jewish and Gentiles believers. To remedy the situation, Paul not only calls upon them to remember the nature or content of their conflict, but he also reminds them that their conflict has been solved through Jesus Christ. From what he writes here in verses 1 1-22 we learn that peace, no matter how great the division, how long it has existed, or what has caused it, really is available in our time.