Video Introduction: “Tell Me”
You and I are literally surrounded by people who need the gospel. God has positioned each of us to proclaim His purposes and to tell them the good news because we have the greatest hope known to mankind.
Next weekend we’ll wrap up this series by focusing on the recovery God longs to bring to our lives as we celebrate the ministry of Celebrate Recovery. During the month of August, we will do a verse-by-verse study of Romans 8 called, “God is For You.” On Labor Day weekend, we’ll labor in prayer together. Then, on September 10-11, I’ll preach a message called, “The Promise of the Lord’s Return” to prepare us for the Prophecy Conference September 16-18, featuring Dr. Michael Rydelnik, Dr. Ray Pritchard, Jason Crosby, Gerad Hall, and Levi Hazen. On September 24-25, we’ll begin our fall series with an in-depth look at the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis.
Today, our focus is on another “Re” word – “reconciliation.” The word “reconciliation” means, “to restore to friendship by bringing harmony between enemies.” At its root it refers to “change, or exchange.” In Hebrew, it means “to take pleasure in.” Ancient Greeks used this word to describe two people in previous conflict who are now at peace with one another.
When reconciliation occurs between two parties, it assumes there was something wrong with the relationship in the first place. Isaiah 59:2 says our sin separates us from God: “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” Ephesians 2:3 declares unbelievers are “children of wrath” who are estranged from God.
In 2016, then Iowa Governor Terry Branstad issued a proclamation declaring the Bible as the Word of God and it should be read aloud in its entirety in all 99 counties. Here’s the beginning and the end of the proclamation: “Whereas, all Scripture is essential to prepare us to be the people God wants us to be and to accomplish the purpose for which he created us; and…regular Bible reading renews the mind of men, transforming the life of the individual which ultimately affects the lives of those in the family, the local community, the state, and the Nation.”
Governor Kim Reynolds has continued this practice and a group of believers recently met at the Scott County Courthouse for a Bible Reading Marathon. This brings back memories of what we did in our previous church when we spent 90 straight hours reading the Bible to bring in the year 2000. In that spirit, let’s stand to honor God’s Word and read a section of Scripture found in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. Listen for a form of the word “reconciliation,” which is used five times in five verses.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 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. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
We could spend weeks in this text because it is filled with deep doctrine and practical application. For our purposes today, we’ll seek to understand reconciliation so we can become reconcilers. Let me summarize the passage in a sentence: We are ministers of the message of reconciliation.
This paragraph has a natural outline to it:
• The miracle of reconciliation (17)
• The ministry of reconciliation (18)
• The message of reconciliation (19)
• The mandate of reconciliation (20)
• The model of reconciliation (21)
1. The miracle of reconciliation. Let’s begin in verse 17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” If you have been born again through the new birth, you are a brand-new person. The phrase “in Christ” indicates someone who has been saved from their sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The word “new” means, “new in quality, freshly made or created.” When you are saved, you literally become someone you never were before. Think of the Apostle Paul, who went from a persecutor to a preacher.
The “old has passed away,” means the old life has “perished.” The use of “behold” is designed to call attention to this fact, “Look! Don’t miss this!” If you are saved, you have been created anew and the old stuff is abolished. Jesus said it like this in John 3:3: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The miracle of reconciliation comes from being reborn.
Galatians 6:15 tells us this is not an outward act but an inward reality: “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” 1 Peter 1:23 says: “Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
2. The ministry of reconciliation. Our task is spelled out clearly in verse 18. Those who are reconciled are now reconcilers: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” The phrase “all this is from God” places the emphasis on God. God did it all for us. Our enmity against God has been eliminated by God Himself! I think of Jonathan Edwards’ famous quote: “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” I provide my sin, and He takes care of everything else.
Notice how Christ “reconciled us to Himself.” We can’t make ourselves right with God because our relationship with Him has been ruptured, and God’s wrath is rightfully directed against us. If there’s going to be peace, He’s the only one who can make it happen.
Romans 5:10-11 says we were enemies of the Almighty and under His wrath before He took the initiative and reconciled us to Himself: “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. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Before we come to Christ we are at war with God. The word “enemy” was often used to describe bitter military foes and meant, “hated, odious, and hostile.” Today, it would be like the U.S. and North Korea. Amazingly, Jesus now refers to us not as foes, but as friends in John 15:15: “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
As recipients of reconciliation, we’ve now been given the “ministry of reconciliation.” The word “gave” has the idea of “entrusting to” and “bestowing upon.” The word “ministry” is the word from which we get “deacon” and means “service.” We are saved to serve. One way we serve is by being ministers of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 3:6 says God “has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant.”
I’m thrilled today is Chris Rogers’ first day as our new Youth Pastor! My favorite part of last weekend was when Chris recounted the ‘dangerous prayer’ he prayed: “Lord, my answer is already ‘yes’ to whatever you ask me to do.” Please mark your calendars for August 6-7 as we will be officially installing Chris as our Youth Pastor and having a reception for him and Jamie after the Saturday night service and between our Sunday services.
With Chris on board, we have seven ministers again…or do we have more than that? Biblically speaking, we have over a thousand ministers and seven equippers. Ephesians 4:11-12 says God gave “shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”
• Pastors prepare. This word “equip” is the same word used to describe what James and John were doing as they “prepared” their nets in Matthew 4:21. They were cleaning off the seaweed, stitching up the sections which were torn, untangling them, and getting them ready to be used again at a moment’s notice. The nets were prepared for service, not to be put in storage. In classical Greek, the word was used of setting a bone, putting it back into proper alignment in the body. Pastors are to repair what’s broken and supply what’s missing, so we’re all strengthened to serve.
• Servants serve. Look at the next phrase in verse 12: “…for the work of ministry.” The preposition translated “for” is really the word “into.” We mistakenly speak of only pastors or missionaries who are in the ministry but members who are equipped go into the ministry. Every member of the family of God is a minister of reconciliation; every saint is a servant. 1 Peter 4:10 says: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
Have you ever wondered what it is that pastors do? Often people make fun of me by saying I work just one day a week. I correct them and say I work a day and a half because we have a Saturday night service. Actually, it’s a pretty nice job. You pay your pastors, and we get you to do all the work!
We are ministers of the message of reconciliation.
3. The message of reconciliation. Once we receive the miracle of the new birth and strive to live out our roles as ministers of reconciliation, verse 19 tells us we must get the message right: “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.” The word “God” is emphatic: God was reconciling the world to himself. I love the phrase, “not counting their trespasses against them.” The word “count” means to, “impute, calculate, or reckon.” Because of the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross, no charges are counted against us, because the righteous wrath of God was fully satisfied through the shedding of His blood. Enmity has been eliminated.
This is clearly seen in Isaiah 53:5: “But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.” He doesn’t count our trespasses against us because He died for us, in our place. The Father poured out on Christ the chastisement we deserve, thus making peace with us. This should cause us to be forever grateful for forgiveness of sin like David was in Psalm 32:2: “Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity.”
The word “message” is the Greek word logos, which in John’s gospel is a clear reference to Jesus. Our message is not how to “Have your best life now” or “How to be healthy and wealthy and happy” or “Name it and claim it.” Our message is the gospel of Jesus Christ, who died in the place of sinners to bring peace to His enemies and reconciliation to those under His righteous and holy wrath.
We have been “entrusted” with this precious message of reconciliation. This word refers to “depositing, laying down, and assigning.” We are under obligation to share the message of reconciliation with those who are still at war with God and under His wrath. If we go back to verse 14, we see it was the love of Christ which compelled Paul to share Christ with others: “For the love of Christ controls us…”
We are ministers of the message of reconciliation.
4. The mandate of reconciliation. In verse 20, we’re called to passionately urge people to be reconciled to God: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” We are more than messengers; we are representatives of the Sovereign who sent us.
Warren Wiersbe gives some helpful background about the role of an ambassador. In the Roman Empire, there were two kinds of provinces, the senatorial and the imperial. The senatorial provinces were generally peaceful and friendly to Rome. The imperial provinces were not as peaceful and were under the authority of the emperor himself. To these provinces, the emperor sent ambassadors to govern and maintain peace.
In a similar way, we have been called by the King to give a message of reconciliation to those who are in rebellion. As ambassadors, we have the authority and obligation to act on His behalf. We are sent with the endorsement of the King and thus are entrusted to speak on His behalf. John 17:18: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
I appreciated the honesty of a pastor who said:
“When I was a young pastor, it used to embarrass me somewhat to make visits and confront people with the claims of Christ. Then it came to me that I was a privileged person, and ambassador of the King of Kings! There was nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, the people I visited should have been grateful that one of Christ’s ambassadors came to see them!”
Charles Hodge wrote:
“An ambassador is at once a messenger and a representative. He does not speak in his own name. He does not act on his own authority. What he communicates is not his own opinions or demands, but simply what he has been told or commissioned to say…at the same time he is more than a mere messenger. He represents his sovereign. He speaks with authority, as accredited to act in the name of his master.”
I love the reminder of how God is “making His appeal through us.” It is as though God Himself were making a personal plea through Paul. We are simply the instruments God chooses to use. This takes pressure off because it’s not all up to us. God Himself is making His appeal to people through you! Our responsibility is to enter conversations with people so we can make a bridge to the gospel. The results are all up to Him. If someone is interested, God will make it clear. When they’re not, just smile, say a prayer, and see who else God wants you to speak with.
Let me share a couple examples. This week I was in McDonald’s working on this sermon and noticed a guy reading the paper. I went up to him and asked, “Hey, is there any good news in there or is it all bad news?” He said it was a mix of good news and bad news. Then, he asked me if I like getting good news first or bad news first. I told him I liked bad news first because when the good news comes it’s really good news. Realizing this was a gospel opening I said, “That’s how the Bible is. It first tells us the bad news that we’re all in trouble because we’re sinners and then we read the really good news that Jesus forgives our sins, right?” He dropped his eyes and began reading his paper again. Looking a bit uncomfortable, he got up and left, leaving his paper behind.
Beth and I celebrated our anniversary this week with Thai food for lunch, a long bike ride, and dinner at an Italian restaurant. When we were out for dinner, we built some bridges with our server and ended up having a long conversation with her. When I asked if she was a woman of faith and invited her to church, the conversation skidded to a stop. We left her a nice tip and an invitation card (hold up).
While these two conversations didn’t appear to be fruitful, I’ve heard three salvation stories this week involving a man, a young mom, and a teenager from Edgewood. Another teen was baptized at camp on Thursday!
The key is for each of us to be intentional when it comes to the gospel. Everyone you meet is either saved or lost, at peace with God or at war with Him. Let’s keep Colossians 4:5-6 in mind so we don’t miss the opportunities around us: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
When we do have an opportunity to have a gospel conversation, we’re to “implore” people to be reconciled to God. “Implore” means, “to urge, to beseech, to beg.” The idea is to make an impassioned plea by saying something like this: “Get reconciled to God and do it now.” When you think about it, the only reason we are still here on earth is to urge people to be reconciled to God.
We are ministers of the message of reconciliation.
5. The model of reconciliation. Verse 21 contains a concise statement of what Christ completed on the cross for our reconciliation: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Our sins were placed on Christ and in their place, Christ gave us His righteousness. This is reinforced in 1 Peter 2:22, 24: “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth…He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”
When we repent and receive Christ, we are reckoned as righteous. We could call this the great exchange – God treated the one who knew no sin as sin so we can exchange our rottenness for His righteousness. One commentator said it well: “The one who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we who knew no righteousness might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Humans have been at war with God ever since Adam and Eve sinned. Beginning with the conflict between Cain and Abel, which eventually led to one brother killing the other, we also find ourselves in bombastic battles with people made in the image of God. Someone said this about Christians: “Where two or three come together in Jesus’ name…there will eventually be conflict.”
Let’s consider James 3:18: “And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
We have two primary responsibilities from this verse:
• We must sow peace. The word “sow” means, “planting by scattering.” When God grows peace in us, then we can plant it in others.
• We must show peace. The phrase “make peace” literally means “to do, to create, to work.” Peace must be actively made because it never happens by chance. Left to ourselves, we drift toward divisiveness. Peace must be pursued until we have it, and then guarded so we don’t lose it. Psalm 34:14 says, “Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
If the root is right, the fruit will be right. If the root is wrong, the fruit will be foul. Don’t allow your hurts to turn into hate. You can become bitter or better. The choice is up to you.
Action Steps
It’s easy to talk about the importance of reconciliation, but until we put peace into practice, it’s just words. Here are four action steps.
1. Make sure you’ve been reconciled with God. If you have not yet put your faith in Christ, the Bible says you are an enemy and at war with God (Ephesians 2:3). It’s time to have a peace conference with the Prince of Peace. There is no way to have the peace of God until you know the God of peace.
2. Be reconciled with those around you. Do you need to make things right with someone you’re in a fight with? Is there anyone you need to forgive? Do you need to ask for forgiveness?
3. Help others who are in conflict. How can God use you to build bridges between people who are in conflict? Let’s be like Francis of Assisi, who prayed, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.”
4. Urge others to be reconciled with God. Ephesians 6:15 refers to believers having their feet fitted with “the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” Proverbs 11:30: “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.”
We have some upcoming events and regular ministries you could utilize as tools to reach your family members, neighbors, and friends.
• Super Summer Slam
• Prophecy Conference
• Weekend Services
• Celebrate Recovery
• Awana
In addition, I encourage you to keep a couple Anchor for the Soul books in your car so you’re always ready to hand one out.
This week I talked to a church member on the phone. He was filled with joy and excitement as he recounted witnessing someone being reconciled to God through the new birth. He said it was amazing to see how radically he was saved. As my friend kept talking, I could tell this experience was charging him up spiritually, so I shared Philemon 6 with him, a verse I memorized in the NIV many years ago: “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”
When we’re active in sharing our faith, we end up rehearsing the gospel of reconciliation, being reminded all over again of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. The more we share the gospel, the more we’re aware of all the good things we have in Christ. Conversely, if it’s been a while since you’ve had a gospel conversation, chances are good you will grow spiritually stale and maybe even bored with the gospel.
A recent Lifeway study revealed the following…
• 79% of unchurched Americans say they don’t mind when their Christian friends talk about their faith.
• Sadly, only 3 in 10 say a Christian has ever shared with them one-on-one how to become a Christian.
• 80% of those who attend church one or more times a month believe they have a personal responsibility to share their faith.
• Yet despite this conviction, less than 10% of Christians share the gospel with one person per year.
It’s time to change that. Let’s go back to the opening video and be reminded there are people all around us who are silently saying, “Tell me.” It’s time for us to go and tell them so they can be reconciled with God because we are ministers of the message of reconciliation.
Receive this closing benediction from Philemon 6: “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”
