Breaking Down Walls Series

3. Increase your commitment to the local church. Many of you are gathering with God’s people on a regular basis but some of you are spotty in your attendance. Many of you have joined Edgewood, but some of you have been hesitant to become part of the family here. It’s time. Scripture knows no such thing as solo Christianity. Sadly, it’s widely accepted among many professing Christians. I often hear people say something like this, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t really go to church.” Mark this. The church is God’s Plan A. There is no Plan B.

One writer puts it like this: “Churchless Christians. Flockless sheep. Bodyless body-parts. First century Christians would not have had a category for such a thing. It would’ve been one of the more bizarre phenomena imaginable.”

4. Be reconciled to God through a relationship with Jesus Christ. The tallest and thickest wall of hostility in human history is the separation our sins have caused between us and a holy God. Jesus has torn this wall down, but you must repent and receive Him in order to experience the peace He provides. Once you do, you’ll be at peace with God, and you’ll be able to live in peace with others.

I just finished reading an amazing true story called, Wounded Tiger by T. Martin Bennett. The book traces the sovereignty and grace of God as three lives become intertwined when the gospel breaks down longstanding and bitter barriers during WWII. Fuchida was a Japanese nationalist who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jake DeShazer was a bombardier on the Doolittle Raid when he unleashed bombs on Japan, and Peggy Covell grew up as a missionary kid in Japan.

The book is 600 pages long so any attempt at a summary will be inadequate but here goes. Peggy’s parents were beheaded by Japanese soldiers in the Philippines. When she grew up, she ministered to Japanese prisoners of war in a U.S. hospital. One of the prisoners later remarked, “That girl loved us like we were her own brothers. Even better than brothers.”

Jake was captured by the Japanese in China and was brutally tortured in prison. It was in prison he was given a Bible which led to him getting saved. After the war, he returned to Japan as a missionary. In one of his sermons, he said this: “I attacked Japan for revenge. That’s what I wanted. That’s what every American wanted. I hated the Japanese for what they did at Pearl Harbor.” Recognizing he needed to be freed from the power of hatred, he concluded: “It wasn’t evil around me I need to be rescued from; it was from the evil inside me…He made this great sacrifice because of a great love – for me, for you. In that dark cell, I was set free from the prison of hatred, and a deep love for the Japanese people began to grow in my heart.” Jake served the people of Japan for thirty years, helping to establish over twenty new churches.

Fuchida was so impacted by Jake’s conversion and by how Peggy served Japanese prisoners that he surrendered to Christ and was saved. His salvation was a headline in Japanese papers (show pic). Fuchida went on to share the gospel with thousands of Japanese. Here’s a picture of him speaking to a crowd of 15,000. The man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor was reconciled to God and in the process was reconciled to one of the men who bombed his own country. Here’s a picture of him, the former commander who directed the attacks on Pearl Harbor, shaking hands with Jake, the former bombardier who dropped bombs on Japan. Only the gospel can do that.