YWCTW (THE FOREIGNER)
SCRIPTURE READING: EPHESIANS 2:11-22
SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2026
Kyler Piedra
Who is the foreigner? What does that mean in the Biblical imagination?
-The foreigner is any person outside the land or region of which they identify as their own
-The foreigner is any person unable to smoothly navigate the culture they find themselves in
-The foreigner is any person who does not have a sense of belonging in their current social/geographic position
-The foreigner is any person lacking the rights, privileges, and protection of the ruling power
Exodus 20:1-2
Application:
1. Know your story well
2. Talk/Consider the foreigner as if you were talking about and thinking about yourself
3. Meet needs/wants from a place of God’s overflowing generosity to you
4. Invite the foreigner into relationship with ourselves & our God
Ephesians 2:11-22
11: Therefore, remember that at some time you were gentiles in the flesh, the ones called “uncircumcised” by the ones called circumcised in the flesh by human hands 12: that you at that time, without Christ, were alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers of the promised covenants not having hope and godless in the world. 13: But now in Christ Jesus you who at some time being far off have been made near by Christ's blood.
14: For he is our peace, the one who made in his flesh both one
and destroyed (in his flesh) the dividing wall, the hostility.
15: by nullifying the law of the commandments in decrees in order
that he may create the two in him into one new man producing peace.
16: and that he might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross killing the hostility by it. 17: and after he came, he declared with good news peace to you the ones far off and peace to the ones near.
18: That through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
19: Therefore, then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints and you are members of the household of God
20: being built on top of the foundation, that is the apostles and prophets, Jesus the Christ himself is the cornerstone.
21: in which all the house is being held together growing in a holy temple in the Lord.
22: in (the Lord) whom also you are being built up by the Spirit for a house of God.
Application
1. Prepare for heaven not this earth – reshape, replan, recommit, realign
2. Repent for undervaluing/underappreciating the foreigners in our lives
3. Commit/Invest to foreign relationships
-The foreigner is any person outside the land or region of which they identify as their own
-The foreigner is any person unable to smoothly navigate the culture they find themselves in
-The foreigner is any person who does not have a sense of belonging in their current social/geographic position
-The foreigner is any person lacking the rights, privileges, and protection of the ruling power
Exodus 20:1-2
Application:
1. Know your story well
2. Talk/Consider the foreigner as if you were talking about and thinking about yourself
3. Meet needs/wants from a place of God’s overflowing generosity to you
4. Invite the foreigner into relationship with ourselves & our God
Ephesians 2:11-22
11: Therefore, remember that at some time you were gentiles in the flesh, the ones called “uncircumcised” by the ones called circumcised in the flesh by human hands 12: that you at that time, without Christ, were alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers of the promised covenants not having hope and godless in the world. 13: But now in Christ Jesus you who at some time being far off have been made near by Christ's blood.
14: For he is our peace, the one who made in his flesh both one
and destroyed (in his flesh) the dividing wall, the hostility.
15: by nullifying the law of the commandments in decrees in order
that he may create the two in him into one new man producing peace.
16: and that he might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross killing the hostility by it. 17: and after he came, he declared with good news peace to you the ones far off and peace to the ones near.
18: That through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
19: Therefore, then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints and you are members of the household of God
20: being built on top of the foundation, that is the apostles and prophets, Jesus the Christ himself is the cornerstone.
21: in which all the house is being held together growing in a holy temple in the Lord.
22: in (the Lord) whom also you are being built up by the Spirit for a house of God.
Application
1. Prepare for heaven not this earth – reshape, replan, recommit, realign
2. Repent for undervaluing/underappreciating the foreigners in our lives
3. Commit/Invest to foreign relationships