Reconciliation

Good morning. My name is Tim Stoker. I'm reading the scripture this morning. Passages this morning is from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 11 through 22 With possibly a few exceptions all of us are Gentiles rather than Jews. This passage is addressed specifically to us Therefore remember the formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision that done in the body by the hands of men. Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ where he himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the law with his commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two thus making peace and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near for through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Consequently you are no longer foreigners and aliens but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord and in him you two are being built together to become a dwelling which God lives in which God lives by his spirit. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks Tim. We're continuing our series that might start a sort of weeks ago now where we're talking about doctrines that change your life and we've talked about the doctrine of predestination and the doctrine of adoption. Today's topic is reconciliation. I found an article this week that talked about some reconciliation stories. In fact it was entitled The Top 10 Reconciliation Stories of 2010. It was put out by a seminary up in North Carolina and I won't tell you all the stories. One of them was interesting. I don't know if you know this but Guatemala has been sort of frustrated with the United States of America for a long time because and this what happened was basically in the 40s some United States health institute scientists and doctors intentionally infected 700 Guatemalans with some diseases in order to find out how a penicillin worked. Way to be awesome America. So that actually a college professor named Susan would ever be kind of was able to show that that had actually happened and in 2010 after all these years Hillary Rotten, Hillary Rotten or Secretary of State made an official apology to Guatemala and to the descendants of all 700 of the people that were infected and so us in Guatemala were good in case you were wondering. Another one was interesting that it had to do with Michael Vic and the Humane Society. Let me fill you in in case you're not aware of the story. Michael Vic is currently the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles but he used to be the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons and he was there for about six years and then he had to stop playing NFL ball and pray a little he had to play a little prison ball you could say because he was arrested for having a dog fighting ring he owned and operated a dog fighting ring in Virginia and apparently in the NFL you get Tuesdays off so on Tuesdays he would fly up to Virginia and he would host this dog fighting ring where people would bring dogs that were trained to kill put him in a ring and they would try to kill each other and the people that were there would bet to see which dog would win. So obviously he's very tragic very sad very cruel to animals and so you can imagine that the Humane Society was a little upset about this you know they wanted blood from Michael Vic himself they were furious and would you believe if I told you that in 2010 they reached some reconciliation. Let me tell you what happened he was in jail for 18 months and then he was home confined for two months and then he got picked up by the Eagles but at the same time he actually started working with the Humane Society. He made a public apology said he wished he'd not done it and he began to tour teaching how wrong it is to have dog fighting and he became a speaker for the Humane Society's end dog fighting campaign and about twice a month on average he was out speaking against dog fighting and in 2010 Wayne Pasella the president of the Humane Society said that if Mike Vic or his daughter wants a dog in a year or two I think he should probably have one. That's reconciliation. Reconciliation is when relationships are restored because what is causing the conflict between two people or two groups of people has been removed okay. Reconciliation is restoring relationships by removing the source of conflict and we're going to talk about the death of Christ bringing two forms of reconciliation for us. One is spiritual the other one is social so we'll start with talking about the spiritual reconciliation but let's pray and then we'll jump in. Father in heaven would you just pour out your spirit upon us now that we can just see how amazing your son is so we can love him more serve him better and be better equipped to run with the gospel to our neighbors into the nations in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So the first thing if we're when we're talking about spiritual reconciliation that's about us being reconciled to God okay and so the spiritual reconciliation is this the restoration of a good and right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ and if you know your Bible if you've been following Christ for a while you know that the big conflict between God and human beings is the sin of human beings okay. God is a holy God a just judge and so he must punish sin which creates a big problem for you and me who are sinners and this is something that we have to really understand that we really do deserve God's wrath and he really does have wrath for sin. He has said in his word places like Exodus 24 other places too he will not let sin go unpunished it's part of who he is he cannot let sin go unpunished and so he's always had wrath for the sin of mankind and he still has wrath a lot of times we want to think that God is this big teddy bear in the sky who just wouldn't hurt a fly and that is not who God is God is holy and righteous and good and therefore he has to punish sin and he has wrath for the sin of mankind and we see this in the New Testament too if you were to look in Romans 5 Paul mentions reconciliation three times uses that word in Romans 5 and but in verse 9 he talks about how we are justified for given and righteous by the blood of Christ therefore we will be saved from his wrath meaning God has wrath for sin and it's coming but because of Christ we're saved from it another place where he talks about this as well and he uses I mean it's it couldn't be clearer is Colossians 3 verse 6 in Colossians 3 verse 6 he flat out says God's wrath is coming and there's plenty of other places in the New Testament where we could talk about the fact that there is a judgment day that's coming and so God is going to not let any sin go unpunished

but that doesn't mean that we will be punished because this is this is the idea of reconciliation this is the concept that Jesus on the cross paid for our sin so our sin if you believe in Jesus Christ has been punished and it will not be punished ever again okay this is absolutely huge that your sin everything you've ever done wrong everything you will do wrong if you have faith in Jesus Christ it has been paid for so that's how your relationship with God is restored Christ has removed what created a conflict between you and God which was your sin he's paid for that taking it as far from you as the east is from the west therefore all God has for you is love this is why in Romans 8 Paul says there is therefore now no condemnation no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus I mean doesn't that just knowing that no matter what happens in your life God is not mad at you that is some serious peace in your heart and it's so amazing the more you realize this the more you realize that Jesus has taken away what brought conflict between you and God the more it changes you I want to share the story with you there is a farmer who walked out into his field and he could see that the forest beyond his field was absolutely ablaze it was just a horrific forest fire moving extremely fast he could tell that it was going to come and burn everything in its wake okay so what he does is he goes out into his field and he lights a fire and then he runs home and he gets his wife and his children and maybe some belongings and they all run back out into the field and at this point there is a very large already burned area in the field and they walk right into the middle of that and they sit down and they wait as the fire comes by and it goes through and it burns up the rest of the whole field it takes their house it takes basically everything but they were fine because when a fire is approaching something that's already burnt it can't burn it so it just goes elsewhere Jesus is our safe place Jesus took the fire of God's wrath upon himself so that as we have faith in him we are in Christ and when God's wrath for humanity comes down on judgment day we won't even feel the heat that's what he has done this is how he has reconciled us to God by paying for our sins so there's nothing between us and God but love if you believe look turn quickly keep your finger in Ephesians but turn to 2nd Corinthians 5 in 2nd Corinthians 5 verses 18 to 21 Paul uses the word reconciliation 5 times okay this is a big deal to him and a big deal to us 5 times he uses a form of the word reconciliation let me read this to you 2nd Corinthians 5 18 through 21 he says all this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation let me stop there that is the church's ministry what we are doing as followers of Christ is the ministry of reconciliation bringing the good news so other people can be reconciled to God he says 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ not counting men sins against them since have been paid for he and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation we are there for Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us let me stop there too how amazing is this what Paul is saying is that when you share the gospel when you share the good news of Jesus Christ with somebody it is God who is sharing it with them through you that's powerful stuff then he says here's the message of reconciliation he says we implore you on Christ behalf be reconciled to God God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God did that make sense this is one of those it's such a massive massive verse in the bible in the way it translates into English it's kind of hard sometimes to totally get it but this is what he's saying what Paul is saying is that God made him that's Jesus to be sin he made he took all of our sin and for those of us that believe he took every one of our sins past present and future well they were all future for us but all of our sins that we would ever commit and he put them on Jesus Jesus became our sin and God unleashed his wrath on Jesus Christ poured out his anger and his wrath and his punishment that each and every one of our sins deserve onto Jesus he says so that we could become the righteousness of God see once all of our sins has been dealt with God can declare us righteous as he has and we are totally forgiven and we are totally righteous and God has no anger for you and me all he's got is love we're talking about how these doctrines change your life when you think about that especially in hard times or when you blow it big time or screw up in some way that you don't know how you're going to get out of that you got it you stop and you take a breath and you say you know what though I'm at peace with God God is at peace with me oh it's huge it's so huge the ministry of Christ to give peace between us and God through faith in him that's spiritual reconciliation so if you're not a follower of Christ what I would say to you today is be reconciled to God repent of your sins put your faith in Christ know that he's the safe place and you won't even feel the heat of the wrath when it comes on judgment day for those of us who know Jesus and we understand some of these things already what we need to know next is about what we would call social reconciliation social reconciliation is the restoration of a good and right relationship with others other human beings through faith in Jesus Christ this is we call this the double fruit of Jesus's death reconciliation with God and reconciliation with other people this is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians chapter two which we read today and we don't have time to kind of go through everything in there but basically what I want to show you is what Paul is saying is there is two groups there was Jews and Gentiles and he says you know they didn't get along he says there was hostility between these two groups so you're not you wouldn't see Jews and Gentiles hanging out you wouldn't see them having fun together having a relationship there was hostility between them look at verse 14 Ephesians 2 starting in 14 he says for he that's Jesus himself is our peace who has made the two Jews and Gentiles one as and has destroyed the barrier the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the law with with its commandments and regulations his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two thus making peace and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility I love that there's one new man that he mentions in 15 it's basically this those of us that are in Christ are part of the new humanity we're like humanity 2.0 and the big major difference between the new humanity those of us the difference is that we have been reconciled to God Jesus has paid for all of our sins so all God has for us is love and therefore we not only are reconciled to God but we can be reconciled to other people that's what Paul is talking about here he's talking about the hostility between groups of people or between two people gets destroyed it gets put to death by Christ's death now this doesn't mean that all Jews and all Gentiles were suddenly totally buddies and go into the movies together what this means is that any Jewish person who came to Christ and therefore was reconciled to God and any Gentile person and this time that came to Christ and was therefore reconciled to God was also reconciled to each other peace with God and peace with other people and this is real this really really happens that people who have had horrible things done to them are able to forgive and be reconciled to the perpetrator because they truly believe deeply that they have been forgiven of their sins by Jesus' death so they are able to forgive others I'll give you this example blows my mind okay Rwanda some of you might know I think you probably know in 1994 in Rwanda we saw one of the worst genocides of the 20th century and basically two tribes the Hutus and the Tutsis had a big conflict okay and the Hutus were killing off Tutsis they tried to kill as many as they could and for 100 days they slaughtered and raped and killed a million Tutsis one million people which slaughtered in 100 days quick math will tell you that's 10,000 people a day okay and so obviously when you think okay let's let's talk about Mike Vick again Mike Vick went to jail and then he did some good things and now the Humane Society Hammer are good but that's awesome okay but think about now back to Rwanda what how in the world could you ever go to jail long enough to to make up for having slaughtered a million people how how much good deeds could you how how much would possibly be enough to make up for slaughtering a million people I mean there's humanly speaking there's absolutely no way that you would ever see reconciliation between Hutu people and Tutsi people but guess what there is reconciliation between these two it's unbelievable go home and google it google reconciliation in Rwanda and watch some of these videos it will just shock you it's unbelievable a lot of it came from this guy Bishop John Richihanna and he started a ministry prison fellowship where basically he was going in and ministering and offering forgiveness through Christ to these perpetrators to the Hutus but he was also teaching the Tutsis that they were they'd be able to forgive if they really embraced that they've been reconciled to God through Christ they'd be able to forgive these people and there's all these amazing videos and pictures of Tutsi people and Hutu people coming together saying please forgive me and saying yes I forgive you and embracing I mean can you imagine it's real the more you truly understand that you have been reconciled to God because of the death of Christ you are able to reconcile with anybody here's another story some of you may have heard of Corey Tenboom she wrote a book called the hiding place which was about the fact that she and her sister Betsy were involved in hiding Jews during the Holocaust but they got caught and so they got put in one of the concentration camps a place called Ravensbrook and after the Holocaust was over one thing Betsy's Betsy died so Corey Tenboom sister Betsy died while they were in the concentration camp after the Holocaust was over Corey Tenboom began to go around and teach about Jesus especially about forgiveness and one day she looks out in the crowd and she sees one of the jailers from Ravensbrook let me read to you what she says it was a church service in Munich that I saw him the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbrook he was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time and suddenly it was all there the room full of mocking men the heaps of clothing Betsy's pain blanched face he came up to me as the church was emptying beaming and bowing how grateful I am for your message for a line he said to think that as you say he has washed my sins away his hand was thrust out to shake mine an eye who had preached so often about the need to forgive kept my hand at my side even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me I saw the sin of them and get this she says Jesus Christ had died for this man was I going to ask for more Lord Jesus I prayed forgive me and help me forgive him I tried to smile I struggled to raise my hand I could not I felt nothing not the slightest spark of warmth or charities and so again I breathed silent prayer Jesus I cannot forgive him give me your forgiveness and she goes on to talk about how she felt Jesus Christ give her the power to forgive this man and extend her hand to shake his hand and then she says this from my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seem to pass from me to him while into my heart spraying a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me and so I discovered that it is not on our own forgiveness any more than on our own goodness that the world's healing hinges but on his as gods when God tells us to love our enemies he gives along with the command the love itself how does that happen how can people like the Tutsis forgive the Hutus and be reconciled to them how can someone like Cory Tenboom forgive this man and actually feel love for him it's this when we understand this this changes everything see God accepts Jesus' death as payment for people sins against him and in Christ we can accept the death of Jesus' death as payment for people sins against us God accepts Jesus' death as payment for the sins of people against him and we can accept Jesus' death as payment for people sins against us

and we think about it if God can do that if God can take Jesus' death and say that's enough and he's got a way better sense of justice than you or me than you and I can say about Jesus' death according to the people sin against us we can say that's enough and we can open our hearts and be reconciled to people so who is it who has wronged you in a way that has maybe until today prevented you from actually really letting go I know there's probably people in this room who are holding a grudge who have not forgiven people and maybe you've even said to yourself I will never forgive that person exhausted that but I'm telling you this is real this is real meaning when you really get this in your heart it empowers you I'm telling you to forgive and be reconciled to anybody the reason that I know this is real is because for my whole life until I came to know the Lord I had a really strong sense of vengeance against a certain person a babysitter molested my sister in me when we were little and it's affected me and it's affected my sister and so you know there were times as I was growing up and not really knowing the Lord not understanding reconciliation where I wanted to find her I wanted to find her so I could probably hurt her I don't know by God's grace I never did here's the difference now that I understand how sinful I am now that I understand that what Christ's death did was pay for people's sins so that I could be reconciled to God I know I can be reconciled to her I want to find her I hope I do someday but not to hurt her I want to find her and I want to say listen I forgive you I forgive you I want to be reconciled to this person because I know it's possible I know that it's real I was talking to Hannah that's my wife last night and I was saying I was thinking about this and I was like Hannah I can't think of anybody that I haven't forgiven and I was like whoa like this is amazing Jesus is real this stuff is real it's really happening and I realized there's really nobody and I was like searching my brain and I'm serious I'm telling you and I know a lot of you are sitting there thinking yeah that's how I feel too and it's Jesus that did that it's Jesus that gave you the power to do that and if some of you were sitting there saying there's there's people I can never forget you're wrong or the people that you can never forgive I'm telling you you're wrong this is the power of reconciliation that when you understand that Jesus death paid for your sins so that you could be reconciled to God you can let Jesus death pay for that person sin too so you can be reconciled to them it's about peace it's about having peace with God and having peace with other people you know what's so amazing do you know Jesus's first words to his disciples after the resurrection you can look in John 20 you can look in Luke 24 Jesus dies a horrific death rises from the dead triumphantly goes and talks to his boys who are really worried about what's happening he kind of cruises through the wall which is pretty awesome and he shows up and you know what he says the first thing he says peace be with you peace be with you as if to say guys all that I just did my perfect life my horrific death my triumphant resurrection now it's to give you peace with God and guess what you can have peace with each other too you can have peace with anybody that changes your life now today in a moment we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper which is such an amazing picture of this of this reconciliation you know that him that we sing of that song that we sing sometimes we say once your enemy now seated at your table this is the table you know I know most you don't go having dinner with your sworn enemy usually right okay well this is the proof that we are not God's enemies that there is no hostility between us and God that all the conflict from our sin has been paid for by Jesus Christ so he says come dying with me sit at my table my friend I love you all I've got for you is love I have no anger for you I have no wrath for you that are in Christ Jesus took care of that all I got is love let's see that's what God says to us in the Lord's Supper so my challenge to you today is as you partake of the elements that you just focus on the fact that Jesus took away what was causing conflict between you and God and now there is nothing but love from God for you and I want you to think about how if you really will believe the truth of that that you could forgive and be reconciled to anybody because it's true so be reconciled to God and if you are then be reconciled to others let's pray heavenly Father we just want to praise you thank you so much Lord that you sent your one and only son to die for us and to remove that which was causing conflict between us so that our relationship could be restored all Lord just help us to really feel that restoration help us to feel that you're at peace with us that we don't have to prove anything to you that we don't have to be perfect we just get to be your children who have been made perfect by your perfect son Father it's so easy for us to forget this stuff just put it in our minds daily help us to remember that we've been reconciled through the cross so that we can be reconciled to others as well we pray Lord that you would bless the elements the bread and the wine which we will take in remembrance of you and we pray that you will send us from here ready to be reconciled with other people and ready to rejoice about the reconciliation we have with you in Jesus name we pray amen