Hello my friend Dr. Brad Miller here with the Daily Bible Refresh.

This is your daily reading of the Bible from a progressive point of view.

In a bit I will read the New Testament lessons selected from the Revised Common Lectionary for this very day.

The reading is understandable.

I use the message version relatable.

Please listen to the points to ponder and applicable with action steps you can take.

We pray and are done in less than 10 minutes.

It's all brought to you by voiceofgoddaily.com which is the home of your free personal Bible Study Guide, the ABC1, 23 Bible Study Method.

Please join me in my mission of getting the audible word of God into two millionaires a million people by 2028.

You can help by saving and subscribing to the podcast and tagging your friends.

Here's today's reading.

Reading today from Ephesians 2:1122 from the

Message but don't take any of this for granted.

It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this.

Didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ.

You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises to Israel.

Hadn't a clue about what God was doing in a world, in the world at large now, because of Christ, dying that death, shedding that blood, you who are once out of it all together are now in on everything.

The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together in this both non Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders.

He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance.

He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped.

Then he started over.

Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross.

The cross got us to embrace and that was the end of hostility.

Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders.

He treated us as equals and so made us equals, though we both share the same spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That's plain enough, isn't it?

You're no longer wandering exiles.

This kingdom of faith is now your home country.

You are no longer strangers or outsiders.

You belong here with as much right to the name Christian as anyone.

God is building a home.

He's using us all irrespective of how we got here and what he is building, he used the apostles and prophets for the foundation.

Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together.

We see it taking shape day after day.

A holy temple built by God, an all of us built into it.

A temple which God is quite at home.

Well, my friends, I'm glad you're here.

Let's get into the scripture here today and, and just dig, dig a little deeper about this inside, outside group, the in group and the out group and how the tradition and those are outside the circle and those inside the circle kind of whether, you know, sometimes said the real people gather.

And this passage is speaking to those of us who see the world as us and them kind of a thing.

And the passage really helps us to pull things together.

So let's talk about two points to ponder.

The first one is this.

The walls between us, between us are human construction, not God's thing.

Paul is crystal clear here.

The wall between insider and outsider.

Christ tore it down.

It wasn't something God built to protect sacred space.

It was something we built to protect our own sense of superiority.

And the religious law that was supposed to point people toward God had become so loaded with fine print that it was actually keeping people away.

Now, let's be honest about how alive this still is right now.

Every generation of the church and of society seems to rebuild these walls and using different materials.

Sometimes it's theology, sometimes it's politics, sometimes it's sexuality or gender or nationality or being an immigrant or maybe the style of music that you sing.

But the project is always the same, drawing a line and deciding who's in and who's out.

And Paul says Christ's whole mission is to demolish that way of thinking.

Jesus died to tear down the walls.

And we should probably stop and ask ourselves whose work we're actually doing when we build up walls.

I think about it, when I think about my cancer podcast that I have, and I'm talking with someone who's been told that they have some sort of a spiritual failing or something like that because they have cancer.

They were told they didn't belong, they didn't belong in those walls.

It has nothing to do with God.

It has nothing to do with anything along that line.

Tear down the walls.

The second point to ponder is this.

Belonging comes before God.

Belonging comes before believing the right things.

Look at the order here.

Paul doesn't say, once you started out your theology and Cleared up your life, then you'll belong.

No, he says, you are no longer strangers or outsiders.

You belong here with as much right to the name Christian as anyone else.

So Paul talks about beginning at the starting point, not the reward.

God is building a home and using everyone, irrespective of how we got here, is what he says.

Irrespective.

Get that word?

The word is.

That word is doing enormous work in that sentence.

It means your path.

It doesn't have to look like my path.

It means the person who grew up memorizing scripture and the person who wandered in last week with nothing but questions.

They both get into the family.

The structure is made for both.

I think about my own family.

My wife and I raised three great kids, and all three of them have found their own way in the world and they're thriving and doing well.

And their lives are very different, all three of them, very different than ours.

And if I told any of them, you only belong to this family if you do things exactly the way I did, that wouldn't be love.

That would be something else.

That would be control.

God is building something bigger than any single tradition or formula.

And the building material is people, all kinds of people, fitting together stone by stone.

So here's your action step.

Paul says God is building a home and fitting us all together brick by brick.

And I want you to identify a person in your life or perhaps a group of people in your community that you've may have sort of thought in your own mind or somehow group you're part of, categorized as outsiders.

Maybe it's an unconscious thing, or maybe it's an overt thing, or maybe it's somebody from a different faith background or an immigrant or someone from a different political or sexual perspective.

A different experience.

And this week, I want you to take one concrete step toward them rather than away from them.

Share a cup of coffee, a meal, just have a conversation.

Make a friendly Facebook post.

Not.

This isn't about trying to convert them or to convince them of anything.

Just to practice what Paul is preaching here.

Tear down one brick, one wall at a time.

That's how homes get built.

Come back and have a prayer here in just a minute.

But let me share with you before we pray that we have a great resource for you.

It's called the ABC123 Bible Study Method and love for you to pick it up at our website, voiceofgoddaily.com let's pray.

God, we are very good at building walls.

We build them fast, we build them high, and we slap your name on them to make it look official.

Forgive us for building walls.

Forgive us for every time we've made someone feel like a stranger in a place where.

Where you wanted them to feel at home.

Thank you that your construction project is so different than ours.

That you're taking all of us with our messy arrivals and complicated histories and fitting us all together into something holy.

And for anyone listening who may have felt like you were outside the wall because of someone else's fine print, would you speak to them today and tell them that you belong here.

You with as much right as anyone.

And for the rest of us, give us the guts to grab a sledgehammer and start tearing down the walls.

Help us become the kind of home where you'd actually want to live.

Brick by brick, stone by stone, make us new.

Amen.

My friend.

I am delighted you chose to join me for today's reading.

The Daily Bible Refresh is completely listener supported.

Your gift goes a long way to getting the audible word of God from a progressive perspective into 2 million years, a million people by 2028.

I would be so grateful if you would go to voiceofgodddaily.com and share your gift of each any amount.

Thanks much.

My name is Dr. Brad Miller and I'll be right here tomorrow with your Daily Bible Refresh.

Please subscribe and tag your friends until tomorrow.

Remember, God's loyal love doesn't run out.

His merciful love hasn't dried up.

It's created new every morning.