Mostly Canadians, eh?
We have a group of people here from Brazil. I’d like for you all to say, “Bom dia.”
Yeah. Yeah. That’s all they’ll understand the rest of the morning.
And actually, we have people from all over the place. How many people are here for the first time? Look at that.
What? As I said, my name is Dana Congan. I often work with the young people. They let me escape this year to speak here a few times. I think it’s actually because I’ve been coming here eighteen years now, and most of you used to be young people.
Well, it makes me feel more comfortable anyway.
And what I want to share on today, and for the three remaining times after today, is a matter of reconciliation—this word, reconciliation.
Now, before we read the Scriptures and talk about it this morning, I’d like for us to sing a song which some of you may know. It’s an old gospel song called “Nothing Between,” and I’ve just amended a few words there to put the word reconciliation in there so we could sing it. But other than that, it’s pretty much the way the song originally goes.
And I’d like for us to try to sing. Okay, how many of you know this? Ah, three people. Okay.
Let’s hear it one time from the musicians, and then we’ll sing it together.
Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.
Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
Naught of this world’s delusive dream;
I have renounced all sinful pleasure,
Jesus is mine—there’s nothing between.Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.
Nothing between, like worldly pleasure,
Habits of life, though harmless they seem;
Must not my heart from Him ever sever,
He is my all—there’s nothing between.Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.
Nothing between, like pride or station;
Self or friends shall not intervene;
Though it may cost me much tribulation,
I am resolved—there’s nothing between.Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.
Nothing between, e’en many hard trials,
Though the whole world against me convene;
Watching with prayer and much self-denial,
I’ll triumph at last with nothing between.Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.
Dear Lord, that’s our prayer this morning as we gather together. Knowing the way has been cleared for us by Your precious death and resurrection, we just pray, by the Spirit of grace, that there’d be nothing between.
We thank You for this blessed promise, this blessed reality. And now, by faith, we would enter in and rejoice in our reconciled state, with nothing between.
Lord, give us utterance to share the gospel of reconciliation. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
I’d like for us to turn to three passages of Scripture where Paul speaks of this matter of reconciliation. Actually, Paul is preaching the gospel in all three sections.
I’d like for us to begin in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature:
the old things are passed away;
behold, they are become new.But all things are of God,
Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ,
and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation;to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,
not reckoning unto them their trespasses,
and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation.We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ,
as though God were entreating by us:
we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God.Him Who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf;
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Then in Romans 5, we find another gospel pronouncement, beginning in Romans 5:6.
For while we were yet weak,
in due season Christ died for the ungodly.For scarcely for a righteous man will one die:
for peradventure for the good man some one would even dare to die.But God commendeth His own love toward us,
in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.Much more then, being now justified by His blood,
shall we be saved from the wrath of God through Him.For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life;and not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through Whom we have now received the reconciliation.
And then Colossians 1, beginning in Colossians 1:19.
For it was the good pleasure of the Father
that in Him should all the fulness dwell;and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself,
having made peace through the blood of His cross;
through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works,
yet now hath He reconciledin the body of His flesh through death,
to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him:if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast,
and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard,
which was preached in all creation under heaven;
whereof I Paul was made a minister.
Here is Paul, an ambassador for Christ, beseeching, entreating, talking—but as though God were talking through him. And he is saying to the world, to the saints, to all that will hear, “Be reconciled to God.”
He preaches this gospel. And within the gospel of our justification by faith, within the gospel of this righteousness, is this precious gem: the reality of our reconciliation.
So Paul, we find him here in Romans, Corinthians, and Colossians. Whenever he gets the chance, he never moves far from this central message of his gospel: we’ve been reconciled through Christ.
And it was on my heart, in a very simple way, to share on this matter of reconciliation for the few times that I’m with you. I will share today the gospel of reconciliation; the next time, the word of reconciliation; the next time, the ministry of reconciliation; and the final time, Lord willing, ambassadors of reconciliation. So that’s where I’m going with these times.
First of all, a simple definition of reconciliation: what does this mean?
If you read in dictionaries, they give you some different definitions. But basically, if you’ll remember three words, you’ll be at the heart of reconciliation. Reconciliation is the result of what Jesus did on the cross. Reconciliation is also commonly used in everyday language, and it always means three things:
For there to be real reconciliation, all three of these things must take place: peace, resolution, and favor.
Now, even in the Bible, the word reconciliation is used both horizontally—that is, dealing with human beings—and vertically, dealing with God’s reconciliation toward us.
As an example, you don’t need to turn there, but in 1 Corinthians 7:11, Paul talks about a husband and a wife being reconciled.
And of course, all of us know what that means. Just to use this definition a little bit further: a husband’s mad at the wife; the wife’s mad at the husband. The husband says, “I can’t live with this wife,” blah, blah, blah, blah. The wife says, “I’m mad at my husband,” wah, wah, wah, wah.
You get these two people together and, blah, man—you get them together, get them to resolve the issues, say, “Peace now. Don’t fight anymore. Let’s shake and be friends, or kiss and make up.” I don’t know how emotional they are.
That’s reconciliation in its simplest form.
But for there to be reconciliation, they just can’t say, “Well, let’s forget about the issues,” if they’re not resolved. No, no, it doesn’t work. It always comes back up. You notice? Unresolved issues pop back up.
And it’s still not reconciliation unless there’s really peace between the two of them—not the kind of truce that says, “When sundown comes, I’m fighting again.”
Neither is there reconciliation unless there is real favor and friendship. The husband now is friends with the wife. The wife is now friends with the husband.
Now, if you can take that as a simple analogy and somehow cast it up on the magnitude of what God has done through Jesus Christ, we see this really quite amazing thing that is happening: a resolution of the issues that have held us away from God, peace instead of conflict, and divine favor.
We sang in that song, “Nothing between.” There in the middle of the chorus, it says, “Nothing preventing the least of His favor.”
We’ve been reconciled to Christ. That’s a wonderful gospel, and wonderful for us to think about.
In eternity, there has always been shalom—peace. There has always been favor. You can imagine the Father, the Son, and the Spirit there together in eternity past, and how there was such wonderful peace among Them. There’s no fighting, no issues—just a flow, a life, a beauty, a rest, a harmony.
You know, the Jews use this word shalom. You all know that. As a matter of fact, they’re very strange people. When you go to Israel, they’re the only people that come up to you and say, “How’s your peace?” That’s how they greet each other. They say, “How’s your peace?”
I mean, you know, they say, “Bom dia,” and in New York we say, “What’s your problem?”
But when Lance walks up to his friends in Israel, he says, “How’s your peace?”
Because this word shalom, this word peace, we’ve got to get it a lot bigger than just the absence of conflict. The word shalom is a blessing that you bestow on somebody. It means, “Be at peace, be at rest, be blessed; know prosperity, know favor.”
This is what you’re saying when you say shalom to somebody. That’s when the apostles would walk into somebody’s house and say, “Peace upon this house.” What they were saying was, “May God’s prosperity, and God’s blessing, and God’s love be known right here.”
Shalom is a big word. So if you bring one of your children up to Lance and he goes, “Shalom,” well, they’ll tell him what will happen: big blessings in store.
And this is the way it has always been in heaven among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit: this precious peace.
When God created the heavens and the earth, it was created with this in mind: to express the shalom of God—this well-being, this prosperity, this blessing, this life that flows, this order.
Even as marred as creation is today, all of us realize as we look out there, there’s still some kind of incredible design there, and some kind of order—something that’s precious. It still manifests the shalom of God, the beauty of God, the balance of God.
The plants send off oxygen, which we need; we send off carbon dioxide, which the plants need. Something so beautiful in creation. And God said, “Good, good. I like this creation.”
Of course, there’s a reason why creation in its original state, before sin and everything entered in, was so beautiful. And you know what it is? One of the keys we will find coming up in reconciliation is this: the Son of God was at the center and the focus of the whole place.
Now, when you have this kind of central focus, there is order, there’s beauty, there’s life, there’s design, there’s purpose. Jesus was at the center. Creation was created in Him; He’s the sphere of it. By Him, He’s the Creator of it. Through Him, He’s the holder-together of it. And unto Him, He’s the end of it.
Jesus, the Son of God, was the center of creation from beginning to end. Oh, what a beautiful sight then.
And if we’re going to think about our need for reconciliation this morning, even in the gospel, somehow we need to imagine what life must have been like in this sort of way.
When man was created, he was created with the shalom of God. He said, “Now this is very good. Now, I like this.”
And He created man in His own image. There we have to picture, again, Adam and Eve knowing what real love is all about: no issues, but favor and peace, mutually loving one another, mutually respecting one another.
All that we have to sort of picture in the garden—you know, this beautiful life they had. They were co-heirs, co-multipliers, co-dominators, co-subduers, and co-workers. It was something so precious there.
And why is it, of course? It’s because their lives were under God. There was that triangle, where again the centrality of their lives was in God.
You know, before man sinned, can you imagine Adam and Eve talking to one another without including God in the talk? It would be unthought of. Or having a good time, or working together—what, without their Lord?
They talked with Him, they walked with Him, they thought about Him, they talked to one another. And so, as I talk about it, it’s like the triangle, as I say. Here’s Adam and Eve, and here’s God above: all together in peace and flow and blessing, there to work together.
I mean, this is a marvelous thing to see, and to know that God wants to reconcile us and bring us back to the same kind of reality.
But of course, even when Adam and Eve were in the garden, there were signs. There were signs of a rupture of this peace.
We don’t know how much Adam and Eve actually knew about the angelic warfare that went on before their creation, but we know that there were some signs of chaos even in this world, and Adam and Eve could see it.
Even in the command that they had, God commanded them to multiply and to take dominion. It implies that there was something that had to be taken, something that had to be overcome. There was some chaos set into order.
You know, when God created the heaven and earth, He didn’t create a big blob of nutty putty and then say, “Okay, now I’ve got to start to form this stuff. It’s just a formless void.” No. When God created the heavens and the earth, He created something beautiful and orderly from the moment He spoke the word.
But somehow creation was damaged by the angelic rebellion. There was a break in this relationship. So by the time Adam and Eve came on this earth, there was some subduing to do.
And there was a command: “Don’t you eat of that tree, but you eat of this tree.” Within that command, there’s a sense that something is wrong. There’s limitation here. There’s need for obedience here.
Within that command and warning about not eating of that tree, there’s also implied some kind of danger. There’s something dangerous about eating knowledge out of the triangular relationship with God. If we eat knowledge independently, something could go wrong.
And of course, we know something went wrong.
Man lost his peace. Man lost his state. Man forfeited this shalom, which was a daily experience.
Isn’t it incredible today? Even when men have everything they want, a man and a woman are blessed—they’ll find a way of causing a problem.
And so Adam and Eve became alienated, hostile, enemies toward God. These things we read in Colossians, Romans, and Corinthians became their experience.
This God, Who was part of the fabric of their lives, the central focus of all of creation and all of their work and all of their purpose—now suddenly they were alienated and broken from that because of sin.
This sin that they committed in the garden, although the details of it are left to our imagination, was something deeper than just some kind of casual, naive picking of a piece of fruit, or some moment of curiosity, or some sort of foolish sin—if you can call sin a foolish trespass.
Nor was it simply a deception of the devil. There was something deeper in the sin of man that caused this break with God above them.
There was something in man that the devil could come to and appeal to, and man listened to. And what was that?
Something in man that desired independence. Something in the pride of man himself. It didn’t like having to be under somebody.
As good as the triangle was—to be under God, obeying God, submissive to God—there’s something in man that says, “You know, let me just do it myself.”
Man, you know, every man hates to be a debtor. You hate to owe somebody something, to be a receiver and always in the position of saying, “Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord.” You’d like to be able to say, “No, I did it myself. Thank you very much.”
And so the enemy came to Adam. Now, of course, I’m telling it my own way. I read these stories, and it always comes through my glasses. I don’t know—maybe.
And so the devil came to Adam and Eve and he said, “Listen, I can make you the head of a triangle. You’re going to rule the whole world. You don’t need somebody above you. You can be a god. That’s what God’s afraid of. You’ll be the head of the triangle.”
And they said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
And in conscious and deliberate, prideful independence, they said, “I’ll take this myself without reference to the One above us.” And they broke it.
And you know, it was such an incredible fall. We just have one chapter to talk about it in a story in Genesis 3. But when you think of all the little things you can see already crumbling right there in chapter 3, it’s just amazing.
From the sense of freedom and shalom that they had came guilt and shame in their lives. Now they’re covering themselves.
And from a candid life before God—hey, they could talk about anything before God; there was nothing hidden—now they’re hiding behind trees and avoiding God. Stealth comes in, and that whole sort of hiddenness that still marks the character of mankind today.
The passing of blame, you know. The husband says, “It was the wife.” The wife says, “It was the serpent.” And that thing’s going on today: passing the buck, not accepting responsibility.
The hardest thing for man today to say is, “I am a sinner. It’s my fault.” It’s hard even for a Christian today to say, “I am wrong. It’s my fault. Forgive me.”
See, this thing works itself out so deep. We still have stains left from the garden. And that kind of mistrust and paranoia came in.
Adam and Eve trusted each other implicitly, but now that the triangle had broken down, Adam couldn’t trust Eve, and Eve wondered about Adam. “What’s this guy trying to do—dominate me?” Adam’s saying, “What’s the matter with you, woman? Work, work.”
And all of that shalom, all of that joint-heir, joint-family, joint-ruler reality, just fell apart and became, “You raise the kids; I’ll work the field.”
The more the triangle broke down, it turned from the sweet peace of God to sweat—from shalom to sweat. Now they’re sweating out there in the field, not producing half as much. There’s no shalom over them anymore. And she’s bearing children in the pain of the whole experience.
You can just see the decline right there before us. What a pathetic thing.
And you know, ever since that day, we’re still in that same thing. Nothing’s changed; it has only gotten worse. The snowball is rolling faster.
We are losing a sense of the image of God almost completely within mankind today, still unable to escape all of this: the sense of judgment, the shame, the guilt, the hiddenness, the passing of blame, the independence, the mistrust, the paranoia. It is seen all through the fabric of all of our society today.
We need to be reconciled.
And it isn’t as though God through history did not reach out His heart and say, “Be reconciled with Me.” The story of history is the story of God reaching down and giving people covenant rainbows of promise, choosing people for no good reason at all other than He just chose who He chose and said, “Be reconciled to Me.”
Delivering people who didn’t deserve to be delivered—this is a God Whose heart was to be reconciled with a people who had fragmented the relationship.
He called a people. He blessed Abraham, the whole family of God. You know this. He gave them covenants. He gave them a law. He said, “Look, if you’ll live this way, we’ll be reconciled.”
He gave them sacrifices and said, “Look, if you sacrifice this way, we’ll be reconciled.” He gave them the Day of Atonement and said, “Okay, on one day a year, we’ll be one.” He gave them a temple, and in the temple He said, “Come to Me, come to Me. Let’s have fellowship. Here’s the basis of reconciliation right here.”
He raised the deliverers and the judges, et cetera. He raised the prophets, and through the message of the prophets in the Old Testament, what do you pick up? Beyond the warnings, beyond the sure judgments, there’s a God calling and saying, “My people, be reconciled to Me.”
The priests were a testimony of an intercessor and God’s desire for reconciliation.
When you look through history, the way God has dealt with His people, you see that God is reaching out for reconciliation despite the absolute, willful provocation of all of us toward the wrath of God.
The testimony of history has been: His mercies endure forever. He keeps on striving. He keeps on reaching, bailing us out, helping us out when we’ve almost gone down into the pit. This is the testimony of God’s heart for reconciliation.
But man—man today, look at man today. We—look at us today. Let’s not get beyond this gospel. You know what? Paul preaches this gospel to Christians.
There’s something about us that, if we’re not careful, we find ourselves at war with God.
Now, I’ll give you one specific focus of reference when we look at this simple state. Think of God’s own people, the Jews. Think of all the ways God has held out His hand to these people, and look at the state they’re in today.
Do you know some Jewish people today where you live? Do you know them? I mean, where I live, there are a lot of them. And I think they may be the worst representatives of what Jews could possibly be up there in New York. They say New York Jews are really tough.
But when I see them, there’s such a testimony—not of peace, but of fighting. There’s a kind of fighting, negative energy about them. They’re actually fueled by a kind of negative fighting energy.
When you ask Jewish people why they are the way they are, they say, “Because we’ve had to survive.” Their existence is wrapped around self-preservation.
And this is not just some paranoia. They’ve been rejected and persecuted and killed every place they go. That’s why nobody monkeys with Israel. Like the old song says, they’re like the junkyard dog—they’re mean.
And you know Saddam Hussein was so glad the Jews didn’t come into that war. See, they play for keeps. They’re not setting up some PR thing or making some kind of political maneuver. If the Jews come into that thing, they’re there. The first thing they would have done is take out Hussein.
If they had to invent a bomb to burrow down four miles under the ground, they would do it. You know that’s true? They’re meaner than a junkyard dog, and their life depends on it.
The Arabs outpopulate the Jews—I don’t know what it is, fifty to one—and they’re absolutely terrified that this dog will get loose.
But they live on this energy. You know what I’m saying? Listen to this: you see a picture of a Jew—I mean, a God-fearing Jew, somebody who is a real Jew with faith—and you know something? They are fighting, nobly fighting, against their own Adamic nature. Have you ever noticed that?
They set up laws, rituals, legalism. They do this and this. They pray three or four times a day, and they go to the synagogue.
Up in New York, we have a lot of them wearing garments of righteousness and doing things of righteousness. Their rituals and laws—they’re fighting their own Adamic nature. They say to their kids, “You will be in our family, because we’ve always been a family, and that’s our tradition. That’s the way it’s going to be. I don’t care what you think. We’re going to do it this way.”
They’re fighting: “Even I’m going to be righteous somehow.”
If you just take this whole thing and think about the way Paul was, Paul was absolutely committed to fighting against his own Adamic nature, somehow being righteous. And a war went on inside him.
Can you imagine the day that Paul saw, “I am crucified with Christ”? Most of us don’t even fight against it. Paul was fighting it every day with every ounce of his Pharisaic body.
When he came to Galatians 2:20, boy, he leapt into the air. Because when he talks about being crucified with Christ, what he meant was, “I’ve been crucified to the law,” if you go on and read the thing. “And I don’t have to live under that fighting against my own nature anymore. I’ve been crucified.”
Isn’t that amazing? But do you know the Jews are doing that today? “Yeah, let’s do a little more ritual, a couple more prayers. We’ll get it.”
Amazing. And deep down in the fuel of the fight is their controversy with God Himself.
You know, I don’t know what to say about this, because in certain ways, I think the Jew who loves God loves Him more than some of us, but his love is a fight. He’s loving mad.
And then his passion—you know, they question God. I heard one rabbi, I was at a conference one time with rabbis and Christians, and this one rabbi said, “Every time I think of the Holocaust, I pray by shaking my fist to God, saying, ‘How could You do that to us?’”
And he meant that. It’s his question. It’s his issue. It’s his fight. And he will not stop or rest and get the answer.
You remember Luke 19. Jesus comes to Jerusalem and says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you only knew the things that made for shalom.”
You know, the very word Jerusalem—I mean, God is your peace. Salem on the end of shalom. He says, “You don’t even know your name.”
There you are: smoke coming out of the temple, sacrifices, the priests are priests, the scribes are scribbling, the Pharisees are seeing them, money changers working, all busy. No peace, no peace. They’re just busy; there’s no peace.
“If you only knew the things that made for peace.”
Now look at this. Just turn there to Romans 11 for just a minute. It’s amazing that this word crops up in this little passage. In Romans 11:15, we have this amazing thing to think about regarding the nation of Israel.
For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world,
what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
Their rejection is allowing us to be reconciled—we Gentiles, to be reconciled to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine what happens when all of that negative energy of the Jewish people is turned around under the enlightenment of Who the Messiah is, and it turns into positive love for God, overcoming of sin, and a willingness to proclaim the favor of God? That’s going to be life from the dead.
Boy, when the church gets hold of some turned-around Jews, it will be incredible. And it is incredible when one of them turns, one by one, by the grace of God. Just think of the life from all of that negative energy.
But, you know, isn’t that a little picture of the way man is? I mean, that’s God’s people. Think of the rest of us.
The rest of us are so pathetic compared to the Jews—just dead in sin and miserable situations.
In the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of political hope and freedom. Where is that getting anybody? Freedom, so-called, leads to independence, which is true. It leads to what? Chaos.
Is it so good to be free from the bondage of some of these things? I mean, when you think of the Romanian government and the Albanian government and some of these things, you have to say and rejoice that these people have been set free.
But it seems almost like seven worse demons have fallen upon them. The freedom turns to chaos, the chaos turns to corruption, and corruption turns to a worse scene in the streets of these countries than they ever knew before.
Just think about that. And you know what? I mean, like in Russia, they basically freed up the economic system, and what happened? It went crazy. They’re facing shortages and famine. Why? Because you can’t have freedom amongst amoral people. They just steal everything.
So all the people who suddenly got free—the little middlemen and the farmers and all that—they just steal all the food and hoard it for themselves. Now that Big Daddy government isn’t over them every moment of the day, everybody’s stealing.
So now they’ve got the haves and the have-nots. But in two years in Russia, it’s amazing how quickly sin defiles what was supposedly something good.
But let’s not get all economic and political and all that. Let’s look at home life today.
If we see a situation needing reconciliation, certainly the home has got to stir us up as much as anything today.
You’ve got to feel for children living in the kind of context where parents are no longer even partners for life, but just people who have negotiated a cohabitation and sometimes decide to raise children in the midst of it.
And what happens to those poor children? There used to be some household words the kids understood, but now, sin corrupting the world as it is, do kids know what daddy means anymore? What is daddy?
Daddy—a genetic father? Daddy—somebody who comes home for the weekend and visits? What is daddy, and what is mommy anymore?
Is mommy the daycare-center helper? Is mommy the person who’s pursuing a career and comes home with Kentucky Fried Chicken at night?
These things that were given, the stable food upon which kids could grow up—now they don’t know what mommy and daddy are telling them. They don’t know.
And before we just look around at the poor world and the way they live out there, we should ask about our own children as well.
If you take a survey among the teenagers who are here today, I wonder how many of them are really pro-marriage. Something insidious in the system here—the education or something—has made kids despise marriage. It’s an amazing thing.
They don’t put out much hope for marriage anymore. I don’t know, I was quite a sucker for it. I believed in marriage. But young people today, they’re not really sold on that anymore either.
Their friendships? I don’t know. They seem pretty shallow, just acquaintances.
You know, children really need to be reconciled: reconciled to God, reconciled to their parents. Some of them need to be reconciled to life itself.
I mean, the psychologists are so fearful now, because more kids today are talking about suicide than at any other time anyone remembers. It’s just the fact of reality.
And sin has invaded among men. Men are on jobs, and they hate their jobs, as if it’s been different down through time. As if a hundred years ago people loved to slave on a farm. And now they hate their jobs.
Added to that, men hate being pushed around by bossy women. And men sometimes feel like children are a burden.
Now can you imagine how far we have gone from the original picture of man with a quiver full of kids? And now, “I don’t want you. Kids are a burden.”
There’s something sinful in that—very sinful in that—selfish to the very roots. “Kids are a burden.” What a terrible thing to say.
And yet women are approaching that same sort of attitude. In many places up where I live in New York, the word housewife is despised.
Women feel put upon by a male-chauvinist society, and they’re trying to find ways of getting revenge and getting back, and all of it. Some women feel like their kids are holding back their career moves.
What kind of sin have we gotten into? “My career move is what’s important. My kids are in the way.”
Something is absurdly wrong with our whole life today. Something is so out of joint. We have no idea how badly we need reconciliation from God.
But God knew. That’s the gospel. God knew how bad we were.
Let’s turn to that Romans 5 passage and just look again at some of the simple matters of this wonderful gospel that we have.
One of my favorite phrases we find right here in Romans 5:6:
For while we were yet weak,
in due season Christ died for the ungodly.
The New International Version says, “At just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.”
Look at our situation. And for a moment, I know you’re saved, and you’re almost perfect, and you’re ready to be raptured. I know that. But there’s some reason that Paul rehearses the gospel of reconciliation before our ears.
Let’s just stop for a minute and realize how helpless we were. Listen to what it says in verse 6: “While we were still helpless.” Powerless, impotent.
I like this word helpless, because when you talk to people—even people doing evil, even people committing sin—most of them say, “You know, I don’t want to be the way I am. I’m just helpless to do something about it.”
When you talk to somebody honestly, they wish they weren’t the way they were. They wish they didn’t always fly off the handle with anger and provoke the children, or they wish they didn’t always go into a shell whenever they had any kind of confrontation.
People don’t want to be the way they are, but they’re helpless to do anything about it.
And Jesus Christ, just at the right time, when we realized we were totally helpless, He came as our Helper—help to the helpless.
And the Lord help us, even as saints, born again. Any of us can find ourselves in a helpless state, still unable to do. We can’t hold back the yelling.
Some mother says to me, “I know I shouldn’t yell all the time, but I just do. I’m a yeller.”
Well, if nothing else, it should drive you to the place where you say, “I’m helpless, Lord. I’m helpless,” instead of just being content to go on being a yeller, or an angry person, or a liar, or somebody who smothers everything you grab hold of.
These things—we say, “I’m helpless. I’m helpless.” Just at the right time, Jesus died for the helpless.
And notice how he describes the helpless there. He says they are the ungodly.
Now, the Jews at least are trying to be godly, and there are some Hindu fakirs out there trying to be godly. Most of us even gave up the hope of being godly.
But at the right time, Christ died for those who had no chance of being godly. He died for the ungodly. He died for the anti-godly.
I mean, it’s an amazing thing to think about. Do you remember what state you were in? Some of you were saved at a very young age. But still, because of our sinful nature, this ungodliness has a way of creeping up.
God came to the ungodly, those who were not even pretending to be godly.
When I got saved at twenty years old, I was a totally ungodly person, and I wasn’t looking for God. Some people would say I was a nice guy, but those are just people I paid off.
However you want to look at it, I was an ungodly person, not even searching for God, and He reached down and saved my soul. He helped me, even when I was ungodly.
Notice again some more descriptions here. These are just descriptive words Paul uses in Romans 5:8:
But God commendeth His own love toward us,
in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He didn’t wait until we were even repentant. We were still in a sinful state, falling short of the mark continually—always saying, “I’m going to be good,” and we’re bad; always intending, and we never perform; always falling short, falling short, falling short.
And Jesus died for us even while we were in the process of sinning.
What a demonstration of love this is. Even though it’s old hat to us, can we just sit for a moment and think? Why on earth would somebody die for somebody who is always in the shortfall, falling short of glory, always sinning? Why would somebody die for that person?
What a demonstration of love this is.
As it says in 2 Corinthians 5, He Who is righteous became sin on our behalf, that we could become the righteousness of God.
What a transaction: sinners transformed into righteous by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the gospel.
Notice in Romans 5:9 another description:
Much more then, being now justified by His blood,
shall we be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
We were wrath-deserving people. Because of our willfulness, because of our stubbornness, because of our lying, because of all of our various reasons, we deserved the wrath of God.
But because He died, and because of His precious blood, we have been saved from the wrath which we deserve. What a love. What a gospel.
Verse 10:
For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.
Brothers and sisters, we were enemies of God. Let’s not candy-coat that word. We were enemies of God.
A person who lives a selfish life is an enemy of God. A person who lives against holiness is an enemy of God—not to mention the many times people use God’s name in vain and all the other more open reasons we could say somebody was an enemy.
And yet here is the point of the gospel right here: while we were enemies, saying, “I don’t want You, God. Get out of here, God,” God died for us and said, “I declare peace with you.”
We were reconciled while we were still enemies.
Now, He didn’t just look for people who weren’t being peaceful. He said, “You are My enemy? I say peace. Sign the truce. Sign the peace. The issues are resolved.”
What an amazing doctrine this is. Just think of it in a nutshell here.
Here is the gospel of reconciliation: the enmity is gone, and the war is over. All the person needs to do is come to the Lord Jesus.
It’s not like the Desert Storm war. If you sit at the table, there are no reparations. Can you believe that? There is no penance that you have to do. Can you believe that? You’re not going to be in prison, and you’re not going to be fined.
No. He says, “Come to the table. Let us reason together. Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Come to the table. Receive My favor.”
And so here are the three great parts of reconciliation.
Because His Son justified us by His death on the cross, God says, “I now show My countenance upon you. I show you My favor.”
That’s an amazing stroke.
Second of all, the gospel of reconciliation says we need to stop thinking that God is our enemy, that God has some kind of war with us.
You know, many people, even Christians today, lurking in the background, think God has something against them. He’s got an issue. He doesn’t like you. He’s at war with you. Maybe it’s just a little skirmish, maybe just a spiritual scud, but He doesn’t like you.
Amazing how many Christians walk around under this overcast sky. They’ve got a cloud over them. You say, “How are you doing?” “No, no, no, no.” “What’s happening?” “I’m not sure.”
And all the time they know underneath it all, “I think God doesn’t like me.”
Look, here’s the gospel: He initiated the reconciliation.
Now, here is the gospel point that’s important to us. It’s not like God was at war. Here was man, and here was God. God didn’t like man; man didn’t like God. Then Jesus stepped in the middle and said, “Now God, take it easy here. I’m going to die for these people so You can quit being angry.”
No, no, no, no. It says God looked upon us in our sinful state, as enemies and hostile toward Him, and He said, “I want to be one with My people. I’m sending My Son.”
He wasn’t mad with us. He just paid the price and took care of the issue and said, “It’s all resolved. There’s peace. There’s no war anymore.”
And all we need to do is accept the call, move beyond, cease our own hostility with God, cease our own war with God, and come and receive the provision of His Son.
That’s all He says: “Come and receive the provision of My Son, and the favor of My Son is yours. We’re at the table. Come.”
What a gospel this is.
Paul is preaching this gospel to Christians. Why is it that Christians need to hear this gospel?
Could it be that Christians, even saved and born again, don’t quite realize the favor of God? Is it possible that we’re still living in some kind of murky limbo, thinking we’re almost there, but we’re sort of on probation and we’d better watch out?
So many Christians seem to be there. Paul’s preaching the gospel to lay that foundation, to ground it down, and to get it clear.
By the justification of Jesus upon the cross, we have been reconciled with God, and God says, “Peace. Shalom once again unto you. Come unto the triangle of My Son, and enjoy the peace and the shalom that I purposed from the beginning of time for you.”
This is a wonderful gospel, and so applicable.
How can I just jump way ahead for just a minute? Why is Paul writing this in 2 Corinthians, this passage about reconciliation? Why is he writing this?
Well, let’s just turn there a minute. We should be able to finish this up. If we just get way ahead of the story here for a moment, notice in 2 Corinthians 6:11.
Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians,
our heart is enlarged.Ye are not straitened in us,
but ye are straitened in your own affections.Now for a recompense in like kind
(I speak as unto my children),
be ye also enlarged.
That’s a very practical issue here. Now listen to this for just a moment, folks. If you stay with me, we’ll be out of here.
Paul is having some problem in his relationship with the Corinthians. Paul has been open toward them, as one reconciled to his brothers and sisters, but they have been restrained toward him.
Now, how is he going to deal with this? How is he going to become one again with these people, many of whom he led to the Lord himself?
Strange to say, in the body of Christ, there are some walls, some barriers, some things separating between one another. What is Paul’s remedy for any breach of fellowship in the body of Christ?
He says this: the solution is, “Be reconciled to God,” and you’ll see the barrier fall.
He doesn’t say, “Look at the barrier between us and get rid of the barrier.” He says, “Be reconciled to God.”
And in this we find a secret which we’ll try to apply for a couple of days. Namely, it’s this. Maybe you think this is oversimple. I just want you to listen for a second.
Many times, the things we think are barriers and obvious walls and divisions down here are caused by our own lack of relationship and reconciled favor with God.
You cannot just deal horizontally with situations many times. This is the dimension that needs to be taken care of.
Could it possibly be that brothers and sisters in Corinth, who are out of sorts with Paul, don’t need to get together and resolve issues at some kind of peace-pipe table? But in fact, Paul believes that if they can just be reconciled to God, they’ll be reconciled to him.
And this is good news for us.
Young people, be reconciled to God. You think you’re at war with your parents? Do you have issues with your own brothers and your own sisters?
God says, “There is no war. The fighting is over. You don’t have to be separate from your parents. You don’t have to be alienated from them. You don’t have to live in a sense of rebellion. The war is over.”
Be reconciled to God.
And I’ve seen so many times in those precious young people’s meetings that when some young person becomes reconciled to God, the barriers fall between him and his parents in a moment. He goes right back to his parents’ room and finds reconciliation in an instant.
They find their parents haven’t been against them, as they always thought.
But how these fake wars and these fake paranoia things, sent from the enemy, divide us—all of us.
Spouses, there is no issue between you and your husband—blah, blah. Be reconciled to God.
If you’re reconciled to God, there are some husbands and wives right here with an issue against each other, something we’re holding, something we haven’t released—unresolved issues. You need to be reconciled to God to find oneness with one another.
And fathers who have some issue with their kids, holding something over them—you know, the expectation of perfection and all this, “I am a holy God; be holy, because I’m holy.”
Except this is a person saying this. And now the kids have the idea that God has a scowl on His forehead and says the same thing to them.
And that’s why the fathers, as it says in the Bible, one of the great last acts of history will be this: “The hearts of the fathers will be turned to the children.”
Fathers, be reconciled to God.
And mothers, it’s just the same. You have many issues against your husband, against whatever. Be reconciled to God.
The church—oh, now there are a lot of issues there, right? Issues with brothers, issues with another sister, issues with a competing brother, issues here and issues there. “That dumb brother—I’m so mad, I just came down to the conference to turn in my resignation.”
The secret to body life: be reconciled to God, and see if there are any walls after that.
So often our fights are because we’re out of focus with the only One Who can bring us peace. And because we lack this peace, we find ourselves just fighting and picking and criticizing everything around us.
And God says, “Be reconciled to Me. You’ll find a lot of that stuff just falls away.”
How we need to find the reality of this gospel and stand in it.
Young person, there’s no reason for you to fight anymore. Who are you fighting? A paper windmill? You beating the air? Who are you rebelling against? God is for you.
Who can ever separate you from the love of God? Do you think a few sins are going to turn Him away from you? He said, “Peace. Receive My peace.”
And then there may be somebody here today who came with a friend, or you came and you’re listening, or maybe you’re a Christian in name, but you’re just a fighter.
And you’ve not found the peace that can only be found through Jesus Christ, the only One Who can reconcile you, bring your life into focus and peace and favor, the only One Who can resolve the issues.
Look, the Bible says, the gospel says, He has come to give you peace.
Forget about all of these, “What about this? What about that?” I know all of you are saying that. “Well, I have an issue with my wife. What about—?”
Forget about the whatabouts. Stand in the finished work of the gospel for just a minute and be reconciled to God, and maybe those things—the whatabouts—will be answered.
My dear friend, if you’re here and you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, as the One Who settles the war, then I’d just like for us to spend the last moment and pray for you.
Could we all bow our heads together?
No wars, brothers and sisters, no wars. Don’t fight with God; He’ll not fight with you. He comes to offer peace and reconciliation.
If you have civil war in your heart, there need be no war. Be reconciled to God.
I hope you don’t go through this week and stay here with unresolved issues. You have unresolved issues with some brother, some sister who’s right here, or some husband, or some wife, or some child. I hope you don’t go through this week with unresolved issues.
Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known unto God.And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
Hearts kept with peace—that’s the sign of a Christian who knows reconciliation: a heart that knows peace.
And everyone here in this room can know the peace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you need to ask Him into your life and into your heart, you say, “Lord Jesus, I come to You. You have reached out and desired for me to belong to You. And I come to You and say, ‘I need peace. I’m helpless. I’m ungodly. I’m a sinner. I’ve been Your enemy.’”
“I stood in a Christian family as Your enemy. I stood as a testimony of one who would not go along with the program all this time. Now I come and ask for peace.
“I rebel against my parents, and don’t even want to do it, but right now, at this time, I ask for Your peace. Resolve the issues as You did on the cross. Heal my heart. Give me Your shalom, and let me live in Your life.”
For all of us, Lord, we come—brothers, sisters, people who’ve known the gospel. We come to You, Lord, and say, “How come we fight so much? Why are there so many issues that crowd into our brains?”
For just one moment, could we stand in the finished work of this glorious gospel and hear the word peace, and sense the settling of shalom on our lives?
After all, our lives are in Your hands. And if You be for us, who can be against us? And we stand in peace and no longer want to fight.
O Lord, enable husbands and wives to lay down their arms, their differences.
And Lord, may it be that somehow, in the body of Christ, there can be reconciliation; that we can move on to Your purpose and not be stalled by so-called issues, when it really comes from the frustration of our own unreconciled, unresolved lives.
O Lord, bring to us with new force this gospel of reconciliation.
Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.
Just sing that first verse and the chorus with me, please.
Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
Naught of this world’s delusive dream;
I have renounced all sinful pleasure,
Jesus is mine—there’s nothing between.Nothing between my soul and the Savior,
There on the cross He reconciled me;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear—let nothing between.