The wall that kept you on the outside — because of who you were, where you came from, or what you'd done — has been destroyed by the cross of Christ, and you are in the center circle.
Central Image
The literal dividing wall in Herod's Temple, ringed with death-threat inscriptions telling non-Jews they'd be executed for crossing it — a wall that directly contradicted what the law of God actually said in Numbers 15.
The Turn
Everyone assumed the Jews were following God's law when they walled the Gentiles out. They weren't. The law of God in Numbers 15 gave Gentiles full access to bring peace offerings right up to the altar. They drew lines where God never drew them — and so have we.
Outline
Where we've been — Toby recapped the series: Jesus is the plot of history, fullness comes from him, and grace is the engine that moves the whole story forward. The question this week: what does all that big cosmic stuff have to do with Okies and hoopies?
You were outside (Eph. 2:11-13) — Paul tells the Gentile church to *remember* where they started: without Christ, alienated, strangers to the covenants, without hope, without God. Nobody in the room is full-blood Jewish. Every person there came from people who were worshiping rocks and trees. That was us. That's the starting point.
The law that kept people apart — "The law of commandments and ordinances" that Jesus abolished wasn't the moral law. It was what Toby called the land and seed laws — the laws designed to keep Israel distinct so that the world could see God keep his promise to bless the nations through Abraham's offspring. Once the Messiah came, those laws had done their job. Kosher is the example: it doesn't just make dietary restrictions, it makes family impossible. You can be friends from a distance. That's it.
The dividing wall — Herod's Temple had a literal stone wall around the inner courts, with inscriptions in Greek and Latin warning that any non-Jew who passed it would find their own blood on their own head. Toby traced it back to Solomon's Temple, which had no such wall — where a Gentile could walk to the altar, kill his own bull, and make a peace offering to God, same as any Israelite. Numbers 15 said explicitly: the stranger living among you shall do as you do; you and the sojourner will be alike before the Lord. Herod's Temple didn't just restrict Gentiles — it walled out Jewish women too. They drew lines where God never drew them.
We do the same thing — Toby named it plainly: Christians who'd rather their daughter marry a white non-believer than a Black Christian. Church of Christ folks who'd rather she marry an unbeliever than a Baptist. Thomas Campbell, who started the Restoration Movement because he gave communion to the wrong kind of Presbyterian and got defrocked for it. The lines keep going up. The only line in history that matters is Jesus.
Jesus killed the hate — The word translated "hostility" is the Greek word for hate. Toby put it straight: Jesus killed the hate. Because Jesus took our sin, we don't have to keep pointing fingers. We don't have to blame somebody. We can just love.
The Landing
Through the cross of Jesus Christ, every wall that kept you on the outside has been torn down — you're not peeking over at the people who have access, you are in the center circle. He's made one new human race: no hoopies, no Okies, no distinctions about who's holier or more qualified — just one people, made the same way, by the same grace.
Questions to Think About
- Toby opened with Missy not knowing what a hoopie was and then tracing "Okie" back to what it actually meant when people from Oklahoma went west during the Depression. Have you ever had a word thrown at you — or at your people — that was meant to put you in your place? What did it feel like to be on that side of the label?
- Paul's whole point in Ephesians 2:11-13 is that the Gentiles weren't just inconvenienced — they were "without hope and without God in the world." What does it mean that that's where every person in that room started, regardless of how long they've been in church?
- Toby made a distinction between the moral law (don't murder, don't steal) and what he called the "land and seed laws" — the laws designed to keep Israel distinct until the Messiah came. In your own words, why did those laws exist, and why does their abolition matter for who gets into the room now?
- The Jews in Herod's day drew lines where God never drew them — walled out Gentiles and women in ways that directly contradicted Numbers 15. Where do you find yourself drawing lines that God didn't draw — inside the church or outside it?
- Toby said it: he's seen it in his own heart, not just in the world and not just in the church. When you look honestly at your own instincts about who belongs and who doesn't, what do you find?
- Thomas Campbell got kicked out of his church for giving communion to Presbyterians from a slightly different branch. The Restoration Movement started over a line that, as Toby put it, "wouldn't even make sense to us today." What lines are we drawing right now that a congregation fifty years from now might look back on the same way?
- Toby ended with one new human race — no hoopies, no Okies, no insiders and outsiders, just one people made by the cross. What would it actually look like for this church to be that? Not as an ideal — as a practice?
- Toby said Jesus picked you first for his team — nobody here that he didn't want. This week, is there one person in your life who feels like they're behind the wall — someone you've kept at a distance for reasons that don't hold up in light of this? What's one thing you could do to tear that down?