The Ministry of Reconciliation
II Cor. 5: 14-21
Are you prejudice?
Introd.
Of course not – I am a little offended that you even ask the
question. That somehow I would
judge someone by their outer covering rather than by their heart.
Are you sure?
Let’s talk about that.
As
Christianity spread from Jerusalem outward, groups of people began to join
together to form congregations of like minded believers.
As time went by there began to be much discussion about the doctrine
and beliefs of these congregations so under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
the Apostle Paul wrote letters to these churches so they could know their
purpose as to why form congregations to begin with.
One of those
churches was in Corinth. It had a
multitude of problems as Paul wrote at least three letters trying to
straighten them out. In this
section of scripture he presents two main thoughts:
Be reconciled to God
Be a minister of reconciliation to others.
He emphasizes
both – this individual need for a person to be reconciled to God and the
church’s need to be ministers of reconciliation to their communities.
Reconciliation:
English bring two people or groups
together –Greek change from an enemy to a friend
II
Cor. 5: 14-21
2Co 5:14 For the love of
Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore
all died;
2Co 5:15 and He died for all,
so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who
died and rose again on their behalf.
2Co 5:16 Therefore from now
on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known
Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him
in this way no longer.
2Co 5:17 Therefore if anyone
is in Christ, he is a new creature; the
old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
2Co 5:18 Now all these
things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and
gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
2Co 5:19 namely, that God was
in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
2Co 5:20 Therefore, we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we
beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
2Co 5:21 He made Him who knew
no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that
we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
I
First imperative: be
reconciled to God.
Vs.17 When we
came into a personal relationship with Christ.
became a new creature – old things began to drop off – new
attitudes – new habits – new perspectives begin to be developed. Change the way we view things.
Vs. 16 says we no longer just view things from a worldly point of view.
Every single
person is in need of being reconciled to God.
– all of us have sinned against a holy God – Gone on our way –
done our own thing without regard to the love of God.
Vs. 18 says all
this is from God he took the
initiative. To reach out to us with the offer of forgiveness and
reconciliation.
vs. 19 says
in this process of reconciliation he wants to forgive us and not count our
sins against us.
When we
recognize that we need help; God
steps in and provides a way out of a self serving shallow lifestyle by
offering us hope through Jesus Christ. Rom.
7:24 O Wretched man that I am who
will rescue me from this body of death? Thank
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
First and
foremost and most important decision we
can make in life is to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ as our
personal Savior.
Now what?
Once that step has been taken – the church – the gathered group of
believers; the corporate body of Christ is given a mission – a task – a
ministry –
Be
reconciled to each other
It’s a
group effort – vs. 14 Christ love compels us;
vs. gave us the vs. 19 has
committed to us. Vs. 20 we are Christ’s ambassadors. This is not something that can be
done individual; it must be a group effort.
The people of
the first century had a multitude of prejudices to work through.
Jews –
Gentiles
slaves – free men
– women
There was a
prayer that a pious Jew would pray every morning – Lord thank you that you
did not make me a gentile, a slave or a woman.
Paul uses
two phrases -
Vs.
18 ministry of reconciliation
Vs.
19 message of reconciliation
What’s the
difference– the message is that of God’s love; our need to be reconciled
to him – salvation. The message
is God’s story.
The ministry
of reconciliation is getting God’s message out to people. We tell them our story – how we have been reconciled
to God. We cannot influence people to be reconciled to God if at the same time
we are not showing with our lifestyle that the message of reconciliation is
real to us and affects the way we live our lives.
The ministry of reconciliation is not about bringing people together
– it is about bringing people to Christ.
There are
times the Church of Jesus Christ needs to repent because we have not done a
good job of representing Christ to our community. I want to talk to you about three barriers that keep us from
being effective in getting God’s message to people.
Be
reconciled to the racial issue
We have made
great strides in this area but it still exists in certain pockets of the
Christian community. Not at Bayside. At
Bayside we need to make extra efforts to include, invite, and incorporate
people of color in the fabric of our congregation.
I know that
part of this is cultural – people of different ethnicities worship
differently than we do but we want to make sure that we as a body of Christ
are on the forefront of racial reconciliation. Black, Hispanic, and Asian
people need to be a part of our family.
Amy
Biehl died a violent death in 1993. She was a 26-year-old Fulbright scholar
who had gone to South Africa to help register black voters for their first
free election. But even though she was seeking to help the people of South
Africa, as she was driving one day, she was dragged out of her car, stabbed
and beaten to death by a mob which was committed to violence in the struggle
to overthrow the apartheid government. Soon afterward, Amy’s parents, Linda
and Peter Biehl, quit their jobs and moved from their Orange County,
California home to South Africa — not to seek revenge, but to start a
ministry in Amy’s name. Today, two of her killers work for the foundation.
She says, “Forgiving is looking at ourselves and saying, ‘I don’t want
to go through life feeling hateful and revengeful, because that’s not going
to do me any good.’ We took Amy’s lead. We did what we felt she would
want.” That is the picture of
racial reconciliation. It is following the heart and character of God.
This
is not an attempt at uniformity. We
will still have our preferences, traditions, and uniqueness but It is a
reconciliation of understanding and inclusion for all people.
Be
reconciled to the sin issue
As Christians
there are times when the particular sins of people keep us from sharing the
message of love with them. Obviously this doesn’t mean we should embrace
sinful behaviors but as ministers of reconciliation we have to be grace givers
not finger pointers. Our quickness to point out the obvious sins of others has
hampered God’s message of reconciliation.
The Bible
talks about many types of sinful behavior but as Christians we try to isolate
those that are not a problem for us and focus on condemning them yet remain
non- chalant about other sins.
You all know
my stand on homosexuality. You
have heard me preach it on Nov. 28th.
I believe the Bible specifically and directly speaks to this issue.
I also believe the Bible specifically and directly speaks to the issue
that all sex outside of marriage is wrong.
We cannot single out pet sins that we don’t practice and pretend that
our disobedience of God’s word is less serious.
Reconciliation
does not ignore our value system but it recognizes all of our need for grace.
The Bible in
many places also condemns lying, drunkeness, gossip, deceit, disobeying
parents, strife, greed, arrogance. Our
concern for those issues should be just as important as sexual misconduct. Ah
do you see why we need grace? Reconcilers
are stretcher bearers – bearing with one another – A true understanding of
scripture keeps us from being proud of our righteousness and causes us to fall
on our knees in humility before the Lord and say I need your grace.
Be
reconciled to the gender issue
Throughout
the history of the world there has always been exploitation of the weakest in
our society. Those who have less
physical strength, less education, less power, less finances.
It was the same in the first century. Then Christ came along and turned
the whole system upside down. He befriended the weak, ill, gentiles, the
children, the women and the infirm.
What does it
say about our efforts to stamp our prejudice when we deny 50% of our family
the right to teach or lead because of the way they were born as females.
It
would be considered a highly prejudiced view if we were to say that you
can’t teach or lead because of the way you were born – color of your skin
– what about gender – I had no control over being born a man.
In CHOG we
have always proclaimed equality recognizing God’s giftedness to all people.
Many
individuals in the evangelical faith including many in this congregation grew
up with the concept that there were certain roles women were prohibited from
having.
First ran
into this in Vero – story of a man on the EE team. I always thought
giftedness, dedication and commitment were the ingredients of leadership but I
discovered how you born is the deciding factor.
You are free
to develop your interpretation but when believers divide themselves over non
Salvation issues – the body of Christ suffers. The mission of reconciliation
to God gets sidetracked.
Reconciliation
requires us to consider the full counsel of scripture not just isolated
verses.
The Bible
contains many paradoxes, perplexities and problem but not outright
contradictions. Therefore when we find difficult passages, we have to remember
some rules of Biblical interpretation.
Interpretation starts with the big picture and then moves down to the
minute issues not the other way around.
What
about I Tim. 2:8-15 Paul
is giving instruction on worship to a congregation in the midst of a first
century worldview. Is it a timeless decree of universal prohibition or a
corrective to a congregation. It
is interesting that we emphasize only certain parts of this section.
throughout
much of the Bible we find multiple examples of women in leadership where they
did teach men: Deborah was a
judge over Israel; Hulda was a prophet; Priscilla instructed Apollos; Miriam
was sent to lead people. In Acts 21:9 we discovered that the evangelist Philip
had 4 daughters who prophesied. Acts
2:17 “I will pour out my spirit
on all people and your sons and daughters will prophesy”
In I cor. 11:
in another section on worship; women who pray or prophesy are to keep their
heads covered.
In
Christianity we are one in Christ Jesus.
He breaks down the manmade divisions and says if you come to believe in
Jesus as your Savior, we are all in the same family.
Gal. 3:28 “There is neither Jew
nor Greek; slave nor free, male nor female for you are all one in Christ
Jesus.”
We need to
rediscover our unity and spiritual equality in Christ to present a unified
message to a hurting world.
Be
reconciled to God and one another
Jim
and Kitty Fasel story
Looks
just like his father – for years he had borne the image of the father – he
just didn’t know it – our ministry is to help people discover the image of
God in their life.