Reconciled to God
by Joe Mack Cherry
I. Opening
A. God’s Word needs no embellishment.
1. As an aspiring songwriter years ago, I used to constantly work on hooks.
2. Hooks are catchy phrases or clever word spins used to get the attention of the listener whether it be a publisher, an artist, or an audience.
3. The story of God’s purpose to save mankind needs neither of the above. As teachers or preachers, we need to just tell it in its own beauty and simplicity.
4. Today’s lesson “Reconciled to God”.
B. Jo. 3:16-17
1. Vs. 16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
a. One of the first verses we learned as a child.
b. Who is the whoever?
• Murderer
• Rapist
• Thief
• Liar
• Sexual deviant - I Cor. 6:10-11
• Prodigal Son – someone who once renounced God/Christ and came back.
2. Vs. 17 – “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”
a. God loves us even at our worst and wants us to spend eternity with Him.
b. I think at times in our lives, we acknowledge this as truth but it doesn’t really resonate with us just how precious this gift is.
c. It is a sobering thought to think that WE cannot reconcile ourselves to God, only He can reconcile us to Him.
C. God does not need us but He wants us. How can this be?
1. God tells Moses to refer Himself as the I AM WHO I AM to the Israelites.
a. Yahweh - He is all encompassing, totally self-sufficient, and omnificent (possessing all creative power).
• Most used name for God in the Old Testament.
• Used over 6000 times.
b. Jews revered this word; they would not speak it aloud and if they wrote it, they would use all capital letters and leave the vowels out. YHWH (Tetragrammaton)
2. God could have destroyed Adam and Eve instead of just running them out of the Garden or ignored Noah and his family’s faithfulness and let them perish in the flood and never missed a beat.
3. God could have just said, “They ain’t worth the trouble and ended life and earth as we know it.”
a. As humans, we tend to give up on things like relationships and friendships with this mindset.
b. Why did God not give up on mankind?
c. The answer can be found in the following verses.
II. Reconciled to God
A. God has pursued man before man came into existence.
1. I Pet. 1:18-21 “…knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundations of the world but was manifest in these last times for you who through him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
2. Rev. 13:8 – “… Lamb (who was) slain from the foundation of the world.
3. How awesome is that people? This has never ceased to amaze me.
B. God’s Omnipresence allowed Him to do that.
1. He is not bound by time or space.
2. He sees all the yesterdays as clearly as He sees today and all the tomorrows.
3. After considering this, we can safely deduce that Calvary was a forethought, not an afterthought. Calvary was Plan A not Plan B.
a. As humans, we mess up and then we try to fix it.
b. God did not make a mistake and fix it with Calvary.
c. Reconciliation comes after a conflict or disagreement, not before. To us mortals that would be putting the cart before the horse!
d. Isa. 55:8 – “God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.”
C. For there to be a need for reconciliation there had to be a separation.
1. That separation came as a result of sin.
2. God ran man out of the Garden and placed an angel there to guard the entrance.
3. Isa. 59:1-2 – “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear; But your iniquities have separated you from God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
a. God did not move, man did.
b. He waits for our repentance and return so reconciliation can occur.
4. How does sin separate us from God?
a. When we focus on the wrong things, we can’t see God.
b. Like Peter walking on the water, he sank when he lost sight of Jesus?
c. Can we focus so much on a good deed that we lose sight of God?
• I know I have.
• We can place more emphasis on something or someone and God gets relegated to the back burner.
• God is not a “back burner” kind of God. Ex. 34:14 – “Do not worship any other God, for the Lord whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Heb. word of Jealous is “Qanna” (pronounced Ka-na) meaning “demanding exclusive service.”
D. We are reconciled because God is Faithful.
1. Refer back to Jo 3:16-17
2. Psa. 135:13 – “… The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all He has made.”
3. I Thess. 5:23-24 – Read
E. II Cor. 5: 15-20 – The Ministry of Reconciliation
1. Vs. 15
a. One died for all. Also see Rom. 5:7-10.
b. Calvary is reason we can be reconciled to God.
c. When we have been reconciled to God we are to no longer live for self but for Him, as was the example that Paul and the other Apostles exhibited daily.
2. Vs. 16-17
a. No one should be regarded strictly from a worldly point of view.
b. Reconciliation is Spiritual; man cannot be reconciled in the flesh.
c. We are a new creation.
3. Vs. 18-19 – “All this is from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
4. Vs. 20 – Paul says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors…”
a. We as Christians are ambassadors for Christ, today.
b. We must teach others how to be reconciled to God.
c. The reconciliation of others is the result of our commitment to the Great Commission. Mk. 16:15-16
d. We need to let others know that they can have the assurance of eternal life.
e. We are not offering a “maybe you can squeak through the pearly gates!” That was not the message Paul brought to the Corinthian brethren.
III. Embracing the Ministry of Reconciliation
A. First, we must accept ourselves for who we are.
1. We must reconcile (come to grips with) ourselves regarding the following:
a. Rom. 3:10 – “There is none righteous, no not one.”
b. Rom. 3:23 – “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
2. Isa. 64:6 – “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…”
3. Many live with these scriptures running through their heads and capitulating to the thought that they could never live the Christian life.
a. We were told we had to be perfect. Mt. 5:48 – “Be ye therefore perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
b. No one bothered to tell some of us that the actual Gr. word used here is “teleios” which means MATURE, not PERFECT.
c. Some even gave up and never accepted God and His promises.
4. I Jo. 5:13 – John writes, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you know you have eternal life.”
a. Still, we find ourselves saying:
• “Well, I hope I get to heaven.”
• “I’m not arrogant enough to say that I know I’m going.”
• News flash - “I” ain’t getting me to heaven, Jesus Christ is doing it!
b. If you still can’t be sure, the next time the song leader calls out the number for “Blessed Assurance”:
• You might want to sit it out and not sing.
• Or change the words to either “Blessed assurance Jesus is mine, I hope” or “Blessed assurance Jesus is mine, if I’m good enough.”
• Poetically, they don't rhyme. Musically, they don’t meter. Scripturally, they don’t convey what I Jo. 5:13 says.
B. We must accept that we cannot get to God on our own.
1. We have already established that God knew that man would fall even before He made him.
2. The arm of flesh will fail us, no matter how hard we try. Rom. 7:14-24
a. The things that I want to do, I don’t.
b. The things I don’t want to do, I do.
c. Oh, wretched man that I am, Who can deliver me?
3. According to Lk. 17:7-10 - After we have done all that we can, we are still unworthy servants.
4. God has reconciled us.
a. II Cor. 5:21 – “He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
b. Rom. 7:25 – “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So, then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
c. There is place between undue fear and arrogance that allows us to accept our frailness and fully trust in the promises of God.
IV. Closing
A. Accepting the truth that Salvation is free!
1. Salvation is free to us but it cost Christ His life.
2. Ezek. 33:11 – “… God does not delight in the death of a sinner.”
3. Have you ever stopped to think how refusing God’s grace/reconciliation hurts God?
a. Mat. 23:37 – paraphrased “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I would have gathered you unto Myself as a mother hen would her chicks; but you were not willing.”
b. This should make us want to be all the more ambassadors for Christ because God truly wants everyone to be saved.
c. I can picture Jesus saying the same thing to America today.
4. It takes a lot of faith to accept the greatest of God’s promises, eternal life.
B. Things to take home with us.
1. If we really contemplated the love that God has for us, we would shed tears often. Communion gives us an opportunity to reflect.
2. We must accept ourselves for who we are and accept God’s promise of reconciliation through Jesus Christ.
3. We should thank God every day for His love for us, no matter what is happening in our lives, good or bad.
4. Life is never the same once we fully embrace our reconciliation to God.
5. We should actively be a part of spreading the message of Reconciliation. To not share it is, in a sense, wasting it.
