The Message of Reconciliation

[00:00:01] You. [00:00:04] Let's pray. [00:00:08] Our heavenly Father, as we come now to the reading and preaching of your word, we ask that you would feed us by it and lead us by its light. [00:00:19] Strengthen us for today and for the time that you give us ahead. [00:00:26] Help us to rest in you and not only better understand the gospel, the good news of our salvation from sin, but also give us the ability and increase our ability to express it, to share it, and to tell others who are in need of it, which are many. [00:00:50] Lord, we ask now that you would bless us and that you would tune our hearts to sing your grace. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:01:00] Let's turn to God's word now. In two corinthians chapter five, it two corinthians five, verses 18 through 21. [00:01:40] All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is, in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconcile and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Amen. Please be seated. [00:02:45] Thank you. [00:02:49] I have a question for you this morning. [00:02:52] My question is, what would life be like if you could consider God as your friend? [00:03:01] How would you describe that kind of life? What would your life be like if you could and did consider God as your friend? [00:03:13] Now, when I say God is your friend, I don't mean your equal or your peer. Friends aren't always peers or equal. A man's best friend is said to be a dachshund, or less specifically, a dog. But that doesn't mean that dogs are equal to men. [00:03:33] Similarly, God can be friends with us, though we aren't equal in any way. [00:03:38] The gulf between us and him is infinite. And yet consider these verses. [00:03:47] Isaiah 41 eight says, but you, Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend. [00:03:58] God says that. [00:04:00] Or consider John 15, when Jesus says, no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you. [00:04:18] So if God can be friends with us, surely we can be friends with him. [00:04:27] So what would it look like? What would life be like if you knew that God was your friend? If God was your friend, the Bible has some things to say about true friends that may help us think about this a little bit. [00:04:43] Proverbs 1717 says that a friend, a true friend, loves at all times. [00:04:51] Proverbs 1824 says, a friend can stick closer than a brother. [00:04:56] Ecclesiastes 410 says this, for if they fall, two people who are together, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. [00:05:12] Bible tells us that friends help us when we fall down, friends make us better people. Proverbs 20 717 iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. [00:05:23] Psalm 133 one tells us that friendship brings us joy. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. [00:05:35] So if these things are true of human relationships, even human relationships, how wonderful it would be to be called as Abraham and Israel and the disciples are friends of God. [00:05:50] To know that God loves you at all times, even on your worst days, to know that he sticks with you even when others leave, to know that he can help you when you fall, he can sharpen you and make you better, that he can bring your life encouragement and joy. [00:06:12] What would life be like to have God as your friend? [00:06:18] It would be wonderful. [00:06:21] The most wonderful thing you could experience in this life would to be would be having God as your friend and knowing it and remembering it and enjoying it. [00:06:33] Paul is saying in this passage that friendship is the whole reason that we can be considered new creatures and have hope in heaven. [00:06:45] Notice what he says at the beginning of the passage. He says, all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself. [00:06:55] He made us friends with God again. [00:06:59] And because he did that we have all this. Well, what is all this? What is the all this that is from God? It's what he said before. We won't go back to the very beginning of two corinthians, but we can start at verse 16. [00:07:15] He says, from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. [00:07:37] Paul is saying that when we look at other christians and when we consider ourselves, we ought to consider ourselves new creatures, we ought to consider that the old has passed away, that the old sinful, fleshly self has died and the new has been born. The new has come, and with that new comes the resurrection and the kingdom of God and eternal life and all of these things, all of that that new life that we experience, the salvation that we experience, our new understanding and outlook and way and fruit. All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to himself. [00:08:26] We have that salvation. We have all these benefits. We have new life because of friendship. [00:08:37] Or more specifically, reconciliation. [00:08:42] What is reconciliation? [00:08:45] It's friendship with a history. [00:08:50] Reconciliation implies a dark past but a happy ending. [00:08:59] Reconciliation is what happens when two parties, two are hostile toward one another, but overcome that hostility and find again or find connection, closeness and communion. [00:09:16] That's what Paul's pointing to in this passage. He's pointing to reconciliation, friendship with a history, with a past. [00:09:26] Now, that may not be something you want to think about when it comes to your relationship with God. Might be nice to just think about him as a friend and sort of forget about what came before. [00:09:37] But it is important to characterize our friendship with God as a friendship that is one of reconciliation, a relationship that has been reconciled. [00:09:48] Why is it important to admit and be truthful about the past? [00:09:54] Well, one thing we can say is that healthy relationships are built on the truth, just kind of a common sense sort of thing. And God himself is truth. [00:10:05] How can we be friends with him if we're constantly denying something about what he did and about who we are and about what happened? That's not going to be a true friendship, a true relationship with him. We have to admit the truth and be honest about that. [00:10:23] There's another reason we need to embrace the truth about our history with God, and that's that it deepens our friendship with him. It draws our connection closer with him. [00:10:37] When we embrace the truth about how badly we previously ruined things, we're also reminded about how wonderfully and graciously God has fixed things. [00:10:49] Think about the story of the prodigal son. [00:10:52] Imagine after that son, or after that story, the son then living the rest of his life, always ignoring and denying the fact that he had been received back into his family. [00:11:06] Weird, right? [00:11:07] Ungrateful, obnoxious, perhaps. In a way, it even breaks the relationship, right? If he denies what his father did when he ran towards his son after all of his sin, imagine the difference between that and the son constantly rejoicing and loving and being filled with gratitude for his place back in his father's household, for being received back by his father's love and mercy. [00:11:41] Two very different kinds of relationships, right? [00:11:45] One is honest and truthful about what had happened before, and one is not. [00:11:52] Now I'm talking about being honest about the past and the ways that we were once enemies of God. I'm not talking about wallowing in the guilt of our past. That would be like the prodigal son not enjoying the life in his father's house, but just going back to the pig pens that he was in. [00:12:12] We can admit and be honest about the past without living in the past, without wallowing in the past. [00:12:20] Instead, we can enjoy, whistle and spin and be happy about what God has done and be filled with gratitude for his grace. That's what happens when we remember the truth about our past. Our love for the Lord Just grows deeper. I once was lost, but now I'm found I once was blind, but now I'm see, now I see. This is amazing grace. [00:12:51] Our love for the Lord just grows deeper. Our friendship with him becomes richer. Our intimacy with him grows closer. [00:12:59] So what is it about our past, our old life, our old selves that reconciliation has brought us out of? [00:13:09] What is it that we are being honest and truthful about in recognizing what God has done? [00:13:15] Simply put, it's sin and the curse for sin that results from it. [00:13:23] The Bible tells us that we know simply by looking at nature, looking in our own hearts, that God's wrath has been revealed against ungodliness. Romans 118 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. [00:13:50] So what Paul is saying there in Romans 118 is that everybody knows that they are sinners. Everybody who's honest and looks at their hearts knows not only that they've sinned, they've done bad things, done evil things, but they are sins against God. And on top of that, they also know, we also know every person, that that unrighteousness warrants punishment and that the wrath of God has been revealed against ungodliness. Against unrighteousness. [00:14:23] Now we suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness. We suppress that in the truth. We don't want to think about it. We push it off. It's too hard. I got other things to do. I can't live my life in a bunch of despair. Right, like these kinds of things. But that doesn't take away the truthfulness of it, the nagging of it, the presence of it. [00:14:45] What is unrighteousness? It's sin. It's disobeying God instead of being his friend and doing all those good things we talked about earlier that good friends do. [00:14:58] It's being backstabbers and feckless and deserters. [00:15:04] That's what sinful human beings do to God. [00:15:11] Now a man may say, I've never deserted God. [00:15:16] But if he's being honest with himself, he will certainly note that anytime he has lied, anytime he has stolen or failed to love his neighbor, he has failed to be a friend of God, to be faithful, to be true, to be loving. [00:15:36] Consider a human relationship. Consider your own relationships. Would you consider a friend, a good friend who constantly did everything that you hate? [00:15:48] Would you consider a person a friend who knowingly and willingly did things to hurt you, disappoint you, make you mad? If they tried to deceive you even when you were watching, and if they kept doing it over and over and over and over again, would you call that person a friend? [00:16:10] No. You'd call them an enemy. You call them a villain. You would seek to distance yourself as far as you possibly could from someone like that in your life. Today, we would call that person toxic. Right? This is someone that you should not be near, that you should probably avoid and get away from. Call the police. Right? Let judgment come in fairness on someone who was that awful. [00:16:42] But isn't this exactly what we have done to God in our sin? [00:16:48] We take the things he loves and we ignore them. We break them. [00:16:54] We lie, we steal. We don't love him. Sometimes we hate him, and we do it right in front of his face. [00:17:09] If this doesn't make you sad or embarrassed or disappointed, you seriously need to check your pride. [00:17:17] You check your heart. [00:17:20] God is perfect and holy and wonderful. [00:17:25] Would you spit on a Rembrandt painting or talk through your favorite movie? [00:17:31] Why then do you think it would be okay to disrespect and dishonor and fail to love God in every way that he calls you to the one who made you, and even right now is giving you the breath that you need to breathe. [00:17:50] This is how unrighteousness and sin is so horrible, and this is why it reveals God's wrath. This is why it creates hostility between us and God and makes us worthy not to be his friends, but his enemies who are under his wrath and curse. [00:18:14] Now, this is true for every person. [00:18:17] This is true for all of us who are born under the curse, born in Adam. [00:18:23] But for christians, this is our dark past. [00:18:28] Sin is still sin, even as we committed as a Christian. But something changes when we put our faith in Christ. [00:18:38] One of the things that changes is our old fleshly selves. Now, I'm sorry. Let me say that again. Our new selves struggle against sin in a way that our old selves did not. [00:18:53] We hate our sin instead of rejoicing in our sin. We find freedom and victory from our sin. Instead of being enslaved to it, we fight against it, we push against it, we war against it in the strength of God and his grace. Instead of hiding it under the rug or living with impunity about it, we live in this way. We act as new creatures, as he says, in this way, because something has happened in the life of a Christian. [00:19:31] Something changes, something that God has done. [00:19:36] And it's called reconciliation. [00:19:43] This message of reconciliation that Paul brings, this ambassador, Paul, from a heavenly country, he has this word of God, and he comes and he tells us this word. And what is the word? He says, once you were enemies, but God has made us friends through this work of reconciliation. He has reconciled us to himself. [00:20:11] He has exchanged his hostility toward us for friendship toward us. [00:20:19] Now that's good news. [00:20:22] Given the fact that we've done what we've done, this is amazing news, right? We should be treated as enemies. But Paul, this ambassador of Christ, is saying God has done something. He has reconciled us to himself so that we will no longer be enemies, but now friends. That's what reconciliation is. [00:20:48] Now, this is such an important point. Things between us and God did not turn around because we finally started getting better, right? God didn't wait and wait and wait and say, still enemies. Still enemies. I'll keep the door open. We'll see what happens. Oh, look, he's doing a little better today. Maybe this can work out after all. That's not what happened. [00:21:13] I didn't finally start improving my life in such a way that God finally looked on me and said, good enough, we'll give it a go. And you didn't either. [00:21:26] God says this. [00:21:29] He says that this relationship turned around because this really almost unimaginable thing happened, not because I or you got our lives in better shape and stopped sinning so much, but because he sent his son into the world to become a sacrifice for sin. [00:21:53] He sends his son into the world and as he says in verse 21, made him to be sin. Who knew no sin. [00:22:04] What does he mean when he says made him to be sin? He's not saying he made him to be a sin. Right. Sin is not an object. Right. Jesus is not sort of human, divine, and sin, right. That's not part of his essence. In a way, Paul clarifies that and helps us know that by saying he knew no sin, he did know sin. [00:22:29] Jesus was made to be sin not in the way of incarnation, but in this way, in that our sins were put on him. [00:22:39] He was a sacrifice for sin. A representative for us to take on our sin. [00:22:47] God ended the hostility between us by putting his son to death instead of us, by taking the punishment that we deserved. [00:23:01] This is a hard point to understand. [00:23:03] Perhaps it helps to consider it from a financial perspective. [00:23:08] Imagine that you had a really big debt, and on top of that, you were refusing to pay that debt. [00:23:17] And on top of that, you were unable to pay that debt and you didn't want to pay that debt even if you could. And your debtor is getting increasingly angry. Increasingly angry. But then one day we'll call it a million dollars you owe this debt. Collection agencies are calling every five minutes. You got people showing up at your door. They're trying to garnish your wages. All kinds of things are happening. It's getting worse and worse and worse. But then one day you receive some good news, right? An ambassador from your debtor, some sort of representative, comes with a message and says, I love you. [00:24:03] I've decided that I love you, and I'm going to give you my mercy, and I'm going to give you my grace, and I'm just going to cancel your debt. [00:24:12] I'm going to take the loss and everything that you owe me, and I'm going to take that on myself. I'm going to take the burden of the loss and I'm going to eat it. [00:24:24] That's what Jesus does for us on the cross. [00:24:27] He pays our debt. And since the wages of sin are death, he pays the price with his own life. [00:24:37] God doesn't reconcile us. Doesn't reconcile us because we get better. He reconciles with us because he pays the debt that we owed. [00:24:51] Let's hear a few words from romans, chapter five. [00:24:55] Paul makes this point. [00:25:01] Romans five, verses six and seven. [00:25:09] Or I'll. I'll read six through eleven. [00:25:15] For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. [00:25:31] But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [00:25:39] Since therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [00:25:47] For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more. Now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [00:25:58] More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. [00:26:08] So this passage reminds us exactly how it is. We have friendship with God and how it is. You can have friendship with God. If you don't already. [00:26:17] We can be friends with him. We can be reconciled to him despite our sins, because of what he has done for us. [00:26:27] He has fixed the problem by his wonderful, life giving friendship. We can live no longer ruled by sin, but instead by his love for us and in us. [00:26:41] So this is the message that Paul brings. This is the message that Jesus Christ himself has authorized Paul to go and spread into the world before our friendship with God. We're like boats on a stormy sea, rocking around, stressed out, full of anxiety, fearful of dying. [00:27:02] But because of God's friendship towards us, he calms the sea and we can sail with him. He's fixed the problem, and he sends messengers out, like Paul, out into the world, who preach this word and do something that Paul says here implores us to be reconciled to God. [00:27:25] Now it's important to note that this offer of friendship extends to all people. [00:27:33] There was a time once when Jesus was attending a feast, and he gave some instructions to the host. He says this in Luke 14, verses twelve and following when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [00:28:09] Why do you think Jesus tells us to show this kind of friendship and hospitality to those who can't pay back? [00:28:17] Well, one reason is because that's what he did for us. [00:28:21] If you wait, let me emphasize that differently. [00:28:27] If you wait until you can repay the Lord before you seek out his friendship, you will never come. [00:28:38] If you wait until you're a better person and you've got everything together, before you accept his invitation for salvation, you have already declined his invitation. [00:28:50] The invitation of the Lord for friendship comes not to worthy men and women, but to unworthy sinners, but because it's a genuine invitation, a true call, because it's him, you can accept that invitation. You can rely on that invitation. You can rejoice in that invitation and even share it to others. [00:29:17] Plus one, bring a friend. [00:29:22] What would it be like to have friendship with God, to no longer fear your sin, to no longer fear the coming wrath of God, but instead feel the freedom from sin, the presence of God, the strength of him in your life, fighting for you and with you and even through you, against sin in your life and in the world. [00:29:47] What would it be like to know that you could live and fight and enjoy your life with God at your side and for all eternity with him? [00:30:01] What would it be like to know that every day the things that you do are done with him and in him? [00:30:13] That's possible because of these promises, because of this message of reconciliation. [00:30:22] If you trust in Christ and you believe in him, live in it, rejoice in it, embrace it, develop it, grow it, maintain it, love being friends with God. [00:30:35] And if that's something you want, then I ask you to pray, to lay down your sword, your sword of fighting, your sword of enmity, your sword of seeking to repay God or make yourself perfect before him, and instead embrace the healing friendship he offers to you in Christ. [00:30:59] Let's pray. [00:31:05] Our heavenly Father, as we consider our many sins, we are saddened and burdened. [00:31:13] We cry over them, we mourn over them for the ways that they have disrupted and destroyed our relationship with you, the ways in which our sin have earned us not a place in heaven but a place in hell, a place not of a relationship, not of friendship with you, but of enmity with you. [00:31:40] Lord, we ask that you would help us to see the truthfulness of this and turn away from our fighting, turn away through the promise and the invitation that you offer in Christ. You implore us to be reconciled to you. And so here we are, laying down our swords of sin and embracing the friendship that you offer to us in Christ. [00:32:08] We praise you and rejoice in the sacrifice that you have given for us. How wonderful is your love. How amazing is your grace, your constant presence of your steadfast love and your work in our lives, through all of your acts of providence, this message of good news that has gone out into the world and has been proclaimed to our ears even today. [00:32:34] All of these things, Lord, are proof of your goodness. [00:32:41] Help us to rely on it, to trust in it, to embrace it, and to repent of our sins. [00:32:48] Lord, we ask that you would bring those who do not yet know salvation, the joy of salvation, and those of us who have already been saved and been reconciled unto God through Christ and his work for us and our faith in him. We ask that you would help us to live in light of it, to not ignore the fact that we are indeed friends of you. [00:33:15] And as we do that, Lord, we ask that you would help us to regard ourselves and other believers as those who are new creatures, honorable and glorious and blessed, a family of adopted children who have received an inheritance that is everlasting. We pray this in Jesus name amen.