Walk by Faith For Reconciliation

It reminds me too of when I was early in the ministry and I moved here and at Denton that Holly and I were dating and it was a long-distance relationship. I thought about that last week as she was in Wichita for a few days and I started you know during the day I looked forward to talking to her on the phone at night. It reminded me of those days when we were dating we had that long distance and we had to talk on the phone and we would laugh and we would talk and we would just enjoy that time.

At least I did. She's loud. I don't know.

And you know at night we would call. It's a little different now because the boys might be in the car with me and we'd talk. It's on the screen.

It's not no hands-free. It's hands-free. My hands are on the wheel.

But we would we would talk and laugh and enjoy and share our day. And I looked forward to that time to close the gap that we had with our distance from one another during that time. So I I just paused and think what a blessing that is that we could do that.

Now as we conclude our series on um walk walk by faith not by sight. Walk by faith. We're gonna look at reconciliation.

We're gonna have to face some pretty hard realities that the church has already faced but the modern church tries to cut some of these things out and enhance reduces the experience we could have with God. So we are I'm just gonna brace you. I'm gonna blame Bill because you know you can tell he's a retired pastor because he's talking about doctrine and theology and all that.

So he opened the door so I can talk about it so much. But as we are concluding this series in in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 these last four verses really have so much doctrine that is derived out of them. So much theology that is basic to Christianity but that often modern church just pushes aside.

And we'll talk about that more in detail. But much like having a long-distance relationship with another person so in reality without Jesus we have this long-distance thing with God. That we could wake up any day of the week and think why is God so far from me? I mean those are words David used in the Psalms because nothing meant more to David, nothing hurt David more than to be apart from God, to be separated from God.

But to go back to God. Humanity has had a history of separating ourselves from God. Paul brought the people a gospel that reconciled us back to God.

It's so awesome. Will you stand as you're able. Our scripture is the last four verses of chapter 5 18 through 21.

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. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.

God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The Word of God inspired by God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

You may be seated. I wanted to tell you in advance so when I read the scripture you might hear some of the the different theology or the different doctrine coming out of this that some of the basics of the the Christian faith are in the middle of this. Now it's it's been kind of fun in my Wednesday men's Bible study we've started the book of generations and we've gotten we're still in chapter 1 because there's so much there but when you go over to chapter 3 when you go to 2 and 3 you see they what happens with Adam and with Eve and what kind of fruit was it? No! What kind of fruit was it? It was a mango.

No it doesn't say. It says somebody didn't like that trick question. Eve ate the fruit, Eve talked to Adam and eaten the fruit and then it all fell apart.

But here's the first thing that the Bible says on when God came. So apparently with this we discover that God would come and walk with Adam, excuse me, God would come and walk with Adam and Eve each day. Just spend time with them.

Just be in their presence. There's no more beautiful picture of Eden than I could ever have in my mind to have that time set out each day where you could walk with God. I walk with a dog which is God spelled backwards but it's nowhere near the same thing.

In chapter 3 verse 8 it says and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden and so began one of the most crushing things that could ever happen to the people that God himself created. They hid themselves from God because they had sinned. So sin, hurt, and trauma have created a chasm between us and God.

Let's just face that reality. Sin, hurt, and trauma have created a chasm between us and God. Now in here we have a couple of different things.

There is the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of original sin, and the doctrine of the fall. And these are things that if people can squeeze out of Christianity then they don't have to deal with any of the messy stuff and they can change what the Bible says on what we need to do. But I think you know it by experience in your life if you face the honest truth that without Christ in your life or if you have times where you have walked away from God then you experience that emptiness.

There is a difference between being in Christ whether you're tithing your time, whether you are reading the Bible, whether you are studying, whether you are praising God regularly. There's a difference between that and a life where we hide from God. Now the reason we hide from God is because we don't want to face God because we know that, I mean let's be honest, 99% of the time we know when we have fallen short.

We know when we have sinned. We know when we have worked ourselves against God and we want to hide because the darkness hides from the light. And when the light of God comes that exposes the imperfections and the stains on our hearts.

And it's tough. It's so tough that some people don't even want to admit that there is a doctrine of the fall. Paul does also in Romans 3 23 he says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

We all have sinned. We're not in this perfect Eden where we don't sin. You know Jesus said will the one who is sinless throw the first stone? Nobody could honestly throw a stone.

We've all sinned. Everybody's a sinner. That's the good news for today.

Everybody have a great day. But there's a new chapter. There's something else that comes into the world and that changes everything for us.

You see in the old Jewish system they had a system where they would provide offerings. Burnt offerings. And it was in a lot of religions.

And they would provide burnt offerings to God. But the thing is they would do that and then they would have to come back and do that. You learn about this in the book of Hebrews.

And when you read the Old Testament there are certain times a year you have to make certain offerings. Sin offerings. Different kinds of offerings that put you in a different state with God.

One of them is that there's a scapegoat. Where there is a goat that you put your sins on that goat and then the goat becomes the scapegoat. The goat that takes it all on.

So how permanently can any goat take your sins away from you? Yeah. They needed a different kind of goat. The greatest of all time.

I shouldn't just say things that come on The greatest of all time changes that so it is a different type of system and a different thing that happens in the world. You see under the old law there was something that happened called conciliation. If you conciliate that means you give something up.

You want to make a sacrifice so you can appease God or so they won't be angry anymore. Or if you think of a human relation where you give a conciliation. You conciliate.

You give something up so that the fighting and the feuding and the anger stops. But God with Jesus Christ wanted to take it to a whole nother level where there is reconciliation. Reconciliation goes further where there's not just appeasing the anger of God but it's restoring friendship or harmony and a relationship that can come.

Wasn't that a cool plan God had? Glad it wasn't up for me to come up with that plan. Reconciliation is what Paul is talking about at the end of this text to show us that we are in line with God. In verse 18 it says all this is from God.

Now you go back to when he said all this is. This is what we talked about last week where he said if anybody is in Christ they were a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come.

God did this. You didn't do this because you're so great. God did this.

All this is from God. Anything new in our lives, anything that helps us and moves us and guides us is from God. Now another doctrine that we have is called the Imago Dei.

That when God created people he created us in the image of God. The Imago Dei says we are the image of God. So part of what a life in Christ is is restoring that image or we say becoming more Christlike.

Getting back to that place because in reality there's a chasm. There's a space between us and God that is too wide for us to make. In middle school I was on the track team and I wanted two of my events were the long jump and the triple jump and man you can cover a lot of ground when you learn how to long jump and hit that spot just right or you learn how to triple jump and have the steps down you can go twice as far or more and it's it's a pretty cool thing especially for a guy who has a six inch vertical.

How that worked out I don't know. Now it used to be more than that but the gap that we have I don't know how else to say it that matter how long how far how wide how deep how strong you are it's too far for you to close that gap by yourselves. It's too far for me to close that gap so we need someone to step in.

Hebrews 4 15 said for we do we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. That's a lot of double negatives. In other words we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

Now the doctrine of Jesus Christ that's important for us I think to have enough faith to truly and reasonably rely on the gift of God in Jesus Christ says that Jesus was sinless he was perfect he was the pure and spotless lamb the the best sacrifice. That's why I called him the goat earlier the greatest of all time. There will be none better there will come none that are better there have never never been anyone like him in history that he's fully God and he's fully human and in that he was able to be the scapegoat not just for the people of his day but for the people that came before him and the people who come after him that you can do nothing that is worse than the love that God gives us the grace that God gives us in Jesus Christ but don't try God gave us Jesus Christ in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting the message of reconciliation so it was by Christ that sins and trespasses were not counted against people that God could wipe those out and Paul says therefore we are ambassadors of Christ God making his pill through us we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God I don't know how much clearer he says that that we need reconciliation with God that we by virtue of just being here being imperfect humans are separated from God from original sin and if there wasn't enough because of original sin I think we've all done enough that we're we could realize we are separated from God Paul also says thanks be to God in Jesus Christ that he doesn't hold that against us that we can be reconciled when we learn to walk by our seventh sense face faith offers a path of reconciliation for God and others when Paul says we are ambassadors for Christ that somehow even though we are imperfect we are ambassadors I've said it to people sometimes like this that you may be the only the only Christ they may see today is in you that we are ambassadors of the faith we represent the kingdom of God to a world who needs to know Jesus because we are all separated and we can all be reconciled in Christ when we learn to walk by our seventh sense faith offers a path for reconciliation with God and others now this reminds me of another theology or another doctrine called atonement and you may not have heard this directly but this is the one that I heard the most in in seminary a liberal seminary on how they were trying to say they want to call it the theory of atonement and not talk about how we need atonement and talk about making different things up now there are several theories of atonement the classic view is called Christus Victor dominant in the early church this view holds that Christ death and resurrection defeated the powers of evil sin death the devil liberating humanity that sounds pretty good the atonement in Christ and then later there was a ransom theory that says a subset of the classical view it's except suggest Christ's life was a ransom payment to Satan to free humanity that's not really my favorite one I'll be honest with you to say God owed Satan something there's another one that sounds pretty close to the Christus Victor called sanctification penal substitutionary atonement this is called the objective view it's developed by Anselm of Canterbury in 10 live 1033 to 1109 he was an Italian Benedictine monk and it was developed more by later reformers this view posits that Christ death satisfied the justice of God paying the penalty of human sin now that sounds kind of close to Christus Victor but focus on the the payment that was made now here's where I'm not sure the moral influence theory subjective view focuses on the cross as a demonstration of God's love aimed at inspiring inspiring humanity to repent and follow Christ's example that one falls short Jesus did more than do an example on the cross and it's here in our words themselves slide the next slide says Romans 519 for is by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners so by one man's obedience the many will be made righteous so when Paul says one man's disobedience who's he pointing to Adam and by one man's obedience many will be made righteous Jesus so one took us off track one put us back on track 1st Peter 2 24 says it pretty on the nose will you read this with me he himself bore our sins in his body on a tree that we might not die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds you have been healed kind of like Isaiah said in Isaiah 53 by his stripes you have been healed by his wounds you have healed that he is the gap that brings us back into reconciliation of God so we can have harmony with God so we can be in the presence of God so in a different sense it's like God walks with us every day and we don't have to hide from God the darkness comes the light and we can be with God the presence of God that was destroyed in the garden is now restored in Jesus Christ and it gives us the hope each and every day because of the atonement of Jesus on the cross and when we repent that means we turn and we ask for forgiveness and we turn back to God Paul closes this by saying for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God it's really cool that not only you know did we appease God but we are reconciled to God that we were back in harmony with God and not only do we have we put behind us a life of wrongness and a life of mistakes and a life of hurt and pain and everything else but we become the righteousness of God what I pray more than anything is that you experience God the presence of God every day and that the righteousness of God within you will be seen by others and they praise our Father in heaven and they receive Jesus to fill that gap to gracious God help us to walk by faith and not my side we pray for the reconciliation of the world which means we pray that the world would be reconciled to you that the most hurtful shameful person we know would know Jesus that they would turn and they would be made righteous because your gift is so good thank you God for the forgiveness that we can receive somehow through Jesus and the life that we receive through Jesus the new life in Christ help us every day to walk by faith so we can be in the presence of God because you have destroyed that gap that separates us from you as long as we love you we praise you and we glorify your name they say this in Jesus name amen