OPEN: A medical doctor once told of one of his patients who’d developed cancer. He said she’d grown up in an abusive, alcoholic family and felt bitterness toward her parents. But when she discovered she had cancer, she decided to change her attitude and try to show love to her parents - in spite of the harm they had done to her. At one point she moved her mother into her home, and every morning as the young woman left for work she’d tell her mother she loved her. But her mother NEVER answered.
One morning, after about 3 monthes the daughter was late for work and rushed out of the house.
Her mother went to the door and yelled out: “You forgot something.”
“What?” the woman asked.
“You forgot to say I love you.”
Realizing what had just happened, the daughter rushed back to her mother, they embraced and cried. And that moment was the beginning of their reconciliation as mother and daughter.
(Bernie S. Siegel, M.D. “Prescriptions For Living”)
APPLY: Reconciliation means many things, but today we’re looking at this definition: “to fix broken relationships.”
In our text this morning, God tells us that that was what he did for us. Our relationship with God was broken… so God fixed it – He reconciled us to himself. What I find interesting about this passage is that God says: NOW that He’s reconciled US to HIM… He wants US to be a RECONCILER with others:
“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, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” II Corinthians 5:18-19
Now for us Christians - this means a couple of things: 1st it means that we are called to be reconcilers in the church. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9
Some people read that and they think that Jesus meant that they should sit quietly I the corner, fold their hands, stay out of trouble and keep their mouths shut … THEN they are peace makers. Is that what term means? Of course not. We are peace makers when we MAKE PEACE. Or another way of saying it: when we MAKE PEACE we are peace makers.
We have a case study of that in the book of Philippians: Apparently there were a couple of ladies there who weren’t getting along real well. Their names were Euodia and Syntyche. Paul wrote: “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.” Now apparently Paul realized these girls weren’t going to do that on their own, so Paul enlisted someone else: “Yes, I ask you also … help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel...” Philippians 4:2-3
You see when there’s a conflict in the church it is inappropriate for the rest of us to stand back and say “Ain’t my problem.” Or another of saying that: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” But it is your circus. God has called us to be peace makers. “Blessed are peace makers for they shall be called sons of God.” If you want to please God, if you want to reflect His glory in this world, if you want to do Him honor, you’ll step up, step in and help fix what is broken… because God calls us to be fixers/reconcilers.
Now – how do we do that? Well, we REFUSE to be “enablers”. Do you know what an Enabler is? An enabler is someone who makes it easier for people to do their sin (whatever that sin is). In this case, the sin is being angry at someone in the church.
• An enabler listens and encourages their friends as they vent their spleens. They nod their head sympathetically and say soothing words.
• Enablers tell their friends it’s ok to feel the anger that they feel. “I’d feel that way too if I was treated that way!”
• Enablers may even take the side of their friend and spread some of the venom (about that OTHER person) throughout the church.
Enablers aren’t peace makers… Enablers are encouragers of bitterness and conflict.
I don’t want to be an enabler. I want to be a Peace Maker. But how do we do that?
1st - we stop being a listening post. Stop sympathizing with their anger. Research from about 8 years ago showed that if you listen to gossip long enough you eventually tend to believe it. You thus become offended with someone who didn’t even do you any harm! We don’t want to go there. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4239731a19716.html)
2nd, we explain to our friend that what they’re doing is WRONG. It’s called grumbling… and God condemns it. Paul spoke of the sins of the Israelites in the wilderness: “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor GRUMBLE, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” I Corinthians 10:9-10
3rd - we try to build bridges between this person and the one they’re angry with. You either try to emphasize the good in the person their mad at, or you try to minimize the bad that they’re guilt of. We have people who will come to worship here and they’ll retell the mistreatment they’ve received at the hands of church or preacher that they just left. Whenever that happens I try really hard to give excuses for why the offending church or preacher made the decision they made. Why would I do that? Because – if they grumble about the experience they had at the last church – they’ll grumble when they get here. Don’t want that!
So, now we know how to handle conflicts between Euodias & Syntyches (or Mary & Freida)… what about conflicts between you and Harry… or Fred… or John? Yes, God also calls us to fix relationships with people WE have problems with.
Jesus said a couple things about this. In the sermon on the Mount Jesus said: “…if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and GO. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24
Don’t even bother offering your gift to God. God doesn’t want it until you’ve first made things right with the person you’ve offended.
A little later in that sermon Jesus said “If your brother sins against you, GO and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” Matthew 18:15
So… if you’ve sinned against someone, what are you supposed to do? (GO)
AND… if you’re brother sins against you, what are you supposed to do? (GO)
Notice the objective in both cases: reconciliation/ gaining your brother.That doesn’t mean you’re going to get it done… it just means you’re supposed to TRY.
Now, how do you do that? Jesus gives some solid advice in the Sermon on the Mount. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:3-5
What’s that mean? It means that when we have conflicts with other people we tend to see the problem as 90% THEIRS and 10% ours Of course the problem is theirs… we’re nice people, we don’t wouldn’t do anything wrong. But they don’t see it that way. THEY tend to see the problem as 90% OURS and 10% theirs. They see us walking up to them with this huge log coming out of our eye and trying to fix their itty bitty problem. We want THEM to solve their problem first and they think the problem is mostly ours, and that WE should solve ours first.
What does Jesus say to do here? That’s right – we are to solve OUR problem FIRST. BUT IT’S THEIR FAULT!!!! Maybe it is… maybe it isn’t, but Jesus says: you take the log out of your eye 1st.
How am I supposed to do that? How do I remove the log from my eye? You ask forgiveness. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. Don’t say “I’m sorry.” Why not? Because saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t call for a response. (Approach a person in the audience and say “I’m sorry”. See… they don’t have to respond.) But if you say (to the same person) “I’m sorry” (wait for a response)… they have to respond. They can either say “Yes, I forgive you” or “No, forget it.”
So how do you ask forgiveness if you think this is all their fault? You be honest. You say: “I have offended you. Will you forgive me?” Notice – you’re not saying who’s MORE wrong, AND you’re not saying they’re wrong. You are simply acknowledging the obvious – they’re offended with YOU and you’re taking the log out of your eye.
Now, what if they don’t do the same. What if they don’t ask YOU for forgiveness? Not your problem… that’s God’s problem now.
ILLUS: Years ago when I first started preaching I owned a house in Angola but the church I hired at (in a community 15 miles away) had a parsonage, and they wanted me to live there. So now I have a house I can’t live in and what am I to do with it? I decide to rent it. (dramatic pause) I’ll never do that again. The first two renters were nightmares – late payments, repairs of things they’d broken – not a good experience. But then my sister came to my rescue. She said she knew a young couple that attended a nearby church who would be excellent renters. Sounded good to me, so I signed them up.
(Pause) Two weeks later I get a call from the police. They inform there’s a dog kennel in the backyard of my rental and it violated a city code. If it didn’t come down I’d have to pay a fine. So I call my renters and explain the situation and inform them that the kennel needs to be taken down. The renter says: “No.” They’re not going to get rid of the kennel (they were raising shiatzu dogs for extra income).
So I call the police back and ask them to go remove the kennel. Sorry, not their problem. Removal of things from my rental property was my problem. I call the church this couple belonged to and asked the preacher if he’d intercede for me. Sorry, not their problem. They weren’t going to get involved.
So now I’ve got a problem. They won’t take down the kennel, the police won’t help and the church won’t help – and I’m on the hook for a fine unless I take them to court… which I can’t do because I’m a preacher and they’re fellow believers.
I think and think and think about the situation. And the more I think the madder I get (you wouldn’t like to be around me when I get mad). I finally get so frustrated I call up my renter and inform him that unless the kennel was down by the end of the week I would personally come and tear it down with my bare hands and he could go looking for his dogs. Then I hung up.
(Give smug look to the audience) I guess I told him! (Pause) But then I began to realize something (pause). I’d sinned against this man. I’d threatened to destroy his property and set his dogs loose.
(Pause) What am I supposed to do when I’ve sinned against someone? That’s right I have to go and ask their forgiveness. I don’t want to but gotta. So I ask my foster son to come along with me as a witness and I drive over to the rental. I end up sitting down in what had been my dining room and I asked him for forgiveness.
“Well you ought to ask my forgiveness” he replied (along with some choice words).
I reply “I’m not here to discuss that. I’ve come to ask your forgiveness for having offended you.”
Again he lets loose on me for my indiscretion, but again I say “Will you forgive me?” He gruffly said he would and I took my leave. I wasn’t happy, but I’d done what I had to do. A week later, the kennel was gone… and so were my renters. God had put me through a learning experience and when I’d obeyed He solved the problem.
There’s one more aspect about reconciling with people who you have a conflict with. Jesus said: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:31
Now there are some who say Jesus didn’t come up with anything original here. They say others had said something similar years before and Jesus simply quoted from one of them.
Confucius for example (some 500 years before Jesus) said: "Do NOT unto others what you would not wish done to yourself."
The Buddhists (who also predated Christ) have a saying, "Putting oneself in the place of others, kill NOT, nor cause to kill."
In the Old Testament Apocrypha book of Tobit (which predated Jesus)): "Do NOT do to anyone what you yourself hate."
Rabbi Hillel (20 B.C.): "What is hateful to you, do NOT do to anyone else. This is the whole law; all the rest is only commentary"
And Hinduism - "This is the turn of duty; do NAUGHT unto others which could cause you pain if done to you." —Mahabharata, 5, 1517
Many critics point out that all these folks said essentially the same thing as Jesus did. Well, did they? NO. Look again. Each of them said “DO NOT”. Jesus said “DO. “DO unto others as you’d have them do to you.”
You see, that’s one of the differences between paganism and Christ. Paganism is satisfied if you just don’t DO anything nasty or terrible in your life. But Christ is only satisfied when we’ve DONE more than we had to. It’s not enough to NOT DO certain things if you want to fix broken relationships. You have to DO things for people if you want to reconcile.
ILLUS: Years ago there was a 3rd baseman for the Boston Red Sox named Wade Boggs. He loved playing baseball, but hated going to Yankee Stadium. Not because of the Yankees, but because of a specific fan who apparently had a season ticket for a seat not far from 3rd base. Whenever the Red Sox were in town, this guy would torment Boggs by shouting obscenities and insults. One day, Boggs decided he’d had enough. He walked directly over to the man and said, “Hey fella, are you the guy who’s always yelling at me?”
The man said, “Yeah, It’s me. What are you going to do about it?”
Wade took a new baseball out of his pocket, autographed it, tossed it to the man… turned around and went back out into the field to continue his pre-game routine.
And guess what happened. The man never yelled at Boggs again; in fact, he became one of Wade’s biggest fans at Yankee Stadium. (Don Chisholm in Pulpit Helps 10/99)
Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you… Now are we simply to do what we do - because it’s a nice thing to do? Are we reconcile people who are arguing with each other and reconcile ourselves to other folks around us simply because its makes us NICE PEOPLE?
Well... no. We do what we do because God first DID IT for us!!! 2 Corinthians 5:18 says “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
God did not wait for us to come to Him. God stepped down out of heaven. He came to us to offer to fix what was broken. He died on the cross in our place.
Now unlike us… Jesus didn’t have a log in His eye. He was without sin… but we weren’t. But He did UNTO US as we would want God to do UNTO US - He forgave our sins… and told us He loved us. God thru Christ reconciled us to Himself.
CLOSE: There’s the story of a crazy woman in certain town. Everyone knew she was crazy because she had the habit of talking to herself in public and it was known that she believed she even talked to Jesus - and he talked back.
A new preacher came to town and, hearing of the crazy woman, and he thought that he might be able to make her face reality. So one day, as he saw her walking down the street he spoke to her and eventually got around to asking, "I hear you talk to Jesus."
"Yes," she replied. "Jesus and I talk for just hours and hours."
"Would you do me a favor? “Could you ask Him something for me?"
"Why of course," the old woman responded.
"Would you ask Jesus what the last sin was that I confessed to Him?"
"Certainly," she replied.
The next day, the preacher saw the crazy woman just down the street and so he approached her asked, "Well, did you talk to Jesus last night?"
"Why, I surely did," she squealed.
"What did He say was the last sin was that I confessed to Him?" the preacher coyly asked.
"Why, He said He didn't remember."
She might have been crazy, but she was right. Whenever we confess our sins to God He remembers them no more.
CLOSE:
And that’s what reconciliation is all about. That’s what God did for us. And that’s what He calls us to do with others… He asks us to get to the point where we don’t remember what others have done to us… and we help them to forget what we’ve done to them.
INVITATION
