I’d like to read from Romans Chapter 5 to start with. Let’s start in Verse 6.
For we, being still without strength,
in due time Christ has died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a just man will one die;
for perhaps for the good man someone might also dare to die.
But God commends His love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.
Much rather, therefore, having been now justified in the power of His blood, we shall be saved by Him from wrath.
For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in the power of His life.
And not only that, but we are making our boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom now we have received the reconciliation.
Also, we’ll read from 2 Corinthians Chapter 5. We’ll read a little bit in Verse 9.
Wherefore also we are zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to Him.
For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of the Christ, that each may receive the things done in the body according to those he has done, whether it be good or evil.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
I want to skip over to Verse 14.
For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this: that One died for all, then all have died.
And He died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to Him Who has died for them and has been raised.
So that we henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
So if anyone be in Christ, there is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
And all things are of God, Who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation:
how that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning to them their offenses, and putting in us the word of that reconciliation.
We are ambassadors, therefore, for Christ, God, as it were, beseeching by us. We entreat for Christ: be reconciled to God.
Him Who knew not sin He has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him.
Let’s pray together.
Lord, we thank You for Your great, immeasurable heart for us. We come as Your people this morning. We want to hear from You. We want to fellowship with You, and we entrust the time with Your Word together.
Lord, all our hearts are laid bare before You. We pray You would move by Your Holy Spirit amongst us, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
One word in common that you might have recognized from these verses is reconciliation—reconcile. Actually, today I’d like to talk about the ministry of reconciliation.
This is a word that we don’t use a lot here around these parts. In Kentucky, we use it. We say, “I reckon so.” We do. Instead of saying, “I think so,” or, “Do you think?” you would say, “I reckon,” or, “You reckon?” So that’s how we talk.
A while back, when some friends and I were in college, we read the book The Normal Christian Life. There’s a chapter called “Reckoning,” and then there’s a chapter called “Knowing.” Everybody said, “What is the difference? Why are there two chapters on the same thing?” But I’m from Kentucky, so I didn’t have a problem.
From Romans Chapter 6, there is a knowing and there is a reckoning, and there is a difference. But I think this word is not commonly used much.
Accountants use it to reconcile bank statements and reconcile their accounts. What is going on when they do that, whether they use software or have it on paper? They take what they think they spent and match it with what the bank says they spent. When the two match, it is reconciled. There is harmony. They are exactly the same.
If it is off by something—you think you spent something and actually it never got spent, or you thought you did not spend money and instead a lot of money was spent—you have to reconcile your accounting, your bookkeeping.
In families, some people have budgets and have money and keep track of their money. Currently, that is not very common these days. Most are winging it. They spend money and occasionally check online at their bank account to make sure there is something in there.
But probably some in this room have kept a checkbook register, where you have a physical checkbook register and check it off when it matches up with your bank statement. Then you know, “Okay, that check went through.” Some people have done that.
Some people probably spend according to what they think they ought to spend, while others spend wildly unreconciled, and they do not even look at their bank statements.
So this word is something kind of used, but scripturally speaking, there is a larger, broader use of it. In the Scriptures—and not just in the Scriptures, but in reality—humankind became very far away from God and needed to be reconciled.
What is reconciliation? Reconciliation is when enemies are brought to be friends; when there is disunity and you are brought to unity; when there is no peace, no rest, and you are brought to peace and rest.
When there is strife and contention, and something does not match up—when you count it and it does not match what it should be—that is when there needs to be reconciliation. There is something wrong.
With God and mankind, we humans rebelled against God. In our rebellious state, we are distant from God. Just like we read in Romans Chapter 5, while we were sinners, while we were enemies of God, while we were so far off, this is when God reconciled us to Himself.
Consider how it actually happens with God and mankind first. Many of us in here—actually, most of us in here—are born again, and we have received reconciliation. But there is a ministry of reconciliation which I want to get into. To get that, we need to look at how it happened with us receiving reconciliation.
First, mankind being far from God, we are the ones who did the wrong. We are the ones who sinned, and we are the ones who made the mistake. We are in need of being reconciled with God. But on God’s side, He does not need to be reconciled.
God is the right standard. Nothing is wrong with Him. He is the One Who has been offended. So it is not that God needs to come and reconcile with us; instead, we are in a position of needing to return to God.
From the beginning, with the first sins that happened all the way through the ages, if you watch as you read the stories in the Scriptures, gradually man became more rebellious and further and further from God.
It was not just the sinners that did not know anything about God. Gradually, mankind got confused because we wanted to do what we felt like doing. Out of these lusts of the flesh, our minds got more confused. Instead of worshiping the Creator, we worshiped creation. You have all of this idol worship. You have worship of ourselves. We are part of creation, but we make ourselves gods.
Man became confused even on morality. You would think that by taking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, by feeding the soul with that fruit, we would know what is good and what is evil. But what happened was that our soul got puffed up, and gradually even that knowledge got lost.
Until this day, what is right is considered wrong, and what is wrong is considered right. Even in Romans Chapter 1, when it talks about the degradation, the fall of man’s morality, and the darkening of man’s mind, it mentions males with males working shame, and females with females working shame. Even in this country, there is such confusion over this. Morality is lost. Darkness is all upon mankind.
If you look around, you see that man is in need of being reconciled with God. We are in a rebellious state. Theoretically, we should respond, repent, and turn to God. When you have done wrong, you should return to God.
But we did not do it. Mankind as a whole did not repent and did not return to God. God even brought about a people, a nation of Israel, to be His people and His testimony on the earth. Yet gradually that nation rebelled against God. To the point that when their Savior came, they as a nation rejected Him. This is our condition.
Theoretically, when one person has wronged another, the offender should apologize. Parents do this with kids if they fight over toys or other things. You bring them together. Whoever did wrong, you tell them, “Say you’re sorry,” and they say, “I’m sorry,” and give the toy back, or whatever they do. Maybe they both did wrong, and they both have to apologize.
But with God and mankind, mankind never did it. Mankind stood as enemies of God. It is the love of God: God took the initiative. This is God’s reconciliation ministry.
While we were sinners, while we were enemies, God came and provided the way for us to be reconciled. Because the love of God is so big, we know that Christ died for the ungodly. This is basic gospel understanding: we are in the state of needing to be made right with God.
At that time, while we were in our shame and rebellion and far away from God—as far away as we could be, with no friendship, no peace, no harmony, in such a terrible state—Christ loved us. The love of Christ and the love of God came upon this earth, and Christ died on the cross for our sins.
God took the initiative and provided a way for us to be made right. In this case, He not only made the provision. Not only was Christ crucified for us, but God, in His ministry of reconciliation, seeks us.
His word of reconciliation is, “Be reconciled to God.” He has this appeal. He has this almost begging, this heart cry to mankind, where He cries out and says, “Come back to Me. Be reconciled to God.”
The Lord is seeking after those lost souls, and that includes us. He sought us. He found us. He brought us to see His love and be touched by His grace. By the grace of God, we who were born again, we who received reconciliation, were made right with God.
What happened then when we responded? We believed and received eternal life. We confessed our sins. We repented, in whatever way the Lord brought us to come to Christ. We received the provision of His reconciliation.
In this process, we now eternally receive friendship with God. When you are reconciled, you were enemies and now you are friends. You were far away and now you are close. You have been brought near.
In Romans Chapter 5, at the beginning, he says that we have peace with God. There is this peace that has been made with God. Whether you are experiencing it or not right now, as a born-again Christian, you have been reconciled to God. This is an eternal state.
This is an experience forever: you are made right with God, and you cannot lose it. Once you have received the reconciliation, you have received it. In Christ, we are reconciled to God.
But there is a problem. Today, we need to walk in this reconciliation. There is another experience, which is: right now, I live as a friend of God.
Before you are saved, the enemy does not want you to be saved, obviously, and all hell is against it. But for those who are saved, what the enemy wants is for you to be distant from God.
You do not even need to fall into some gross sin. You do not even need to be humiliated. You just need to be distracted. He just wants you to be distant and not friends, not to be close, not to be at peace, but for there to be something that is not right—something not matching up, something not one with the Lord.
Using many different ways—the attraction of sin and the distraction of the world—there can be many types of attacks. But the one thing he is after, the one thing this world system is trying to pull away from us, is to keep us from worshiping God and communing with God.
There is a state motto in Kentucky that says, “United we stand, divided we fall.” That is a good state motto, I think. You divide people up, and you can conquer them. But if they are one, they can fight. If you are one with the Lord, you can stand. If you lose your peace with the Lord, you have no hope.
I think the state motto of Virginia is Latin. I think it means something like, “Get your foot off my neck,” or something like that—standing on him. Anyway, it is a whole other motto, more rebellious, I think.
With this experience of us Christians, what you experience is a constant draw to be divided. I am talking about with God right now. There is a constant push.
The cares of life are one thing. These are legitimate cares, constantly pulling us away from having time to worship God. It is like Pharaoh asking us to make bricks without straw. You think about worshiping God, then he says, “I’ll take away your time.”
Also, if you find yourself distant from the Lord, you fall into things that normally you would never fall into. You may have reached a height of maturity and then find yourself distant from the Lord, not living in reconciliation, and you may fall into things that long ago you had overcome. By yourself, without the Lord, you fall down.
As a Christian, to maintain our reconciliation, there is a way to walk as friends. If you walk as a friend, as soon as you mess up, as soon as there is some enmity, strife, or controversy, you apologize right away. It may be that on your conscience there is some sin.
If I offend the Lord, if I do something wrong, the response of a friend that is right, that is in this friendship relationship, is immediately to confess your sins. You take up the provision that there is in Christ dying for you on the cross. By God’s mercy and grace, because God is righteous and faithful to His Word, you will be washed clean by the precious blood.
Christians who live close to the Lord and are friends with the Lord constantly appreciate the precious blood. The closer you walk with Him, the more He may show you what is really not glorious to Him, what is really not healthy, what is really sin, and what is really falling short.
The closer you get, the quicker you are to confess your sins and apologize to the Lord. This is how we walk as friends.
In 1 John Chapter 3, he talks about us Christians, but speaks about Christians who are children of the devil. This sounds odd, and when we read it we all get confused. But he is saying, “We are children of God.” This is our standard: you are fellowshipping with God, walking with God, and you are a child of God.
But experientially, if you constantly walk away from God, if you constantly walk in sin and unrighteousness, if you are always in this apostate way, always rebelling against His lordship, you are reflecting the devil, not reflecting God.
We are called to be ambassadors of Christ, but instead you are like an ambassador of the devil. There is no middle ground. There is no ability for a Christian to walk in a neutral zone. You are either right with the Lord and reconciled and walking with Him—really, in your experience, a child of God—or you are not.
A child kind of looks like the parents, usually. They reflect them. They have the expression of the parent and even the characteristics sometimes. So with God, as children of God, we walk and live in that righteous way, and our righteous God is manifested through us. This is our experience.
But if a Christian turns from God constantly, even though eternally they are children of God and eternally have reconciliation, for today’s experience of fellowship and for the age to come, it is as if they are followers of the enemy.
You would never say it. You would never break out the evil games and purposefully worship Satan. But he does not need you to go that far. He just needs us to be distracted. This is the dividing and conquering that is going on with our relationship.
On a positive note, as Christians who want to walk with the Lord in this reconciliation, we quickly act like friends. If you have a friend you are stuck with, or a mate—like you are married—good couples quickly respond. They quickly apologize.
If you do not make provision to know how to apologize or how to make things right when something goes wrong, you are in trouble. Even as a young couple, you need to know how to quickly repent.
If you say something harsh, treat someone carelessly or wrongly, or are mean to someone, but you are attached to each other, you quickly apologize. You see you offended somebody, you quickly apologize, and you restore the relationship. This is the way of a married couple, and with kids and parents it should be the way too.
A good, healthy family environment recognizes that even parents mess up sometimes. The kids, more than anybody except for the spouse, see the flesh of the parents. But the kids will notice the response of apology from parents too.
A parent who apologizes when they mess up still has a testimony with their kids. But a parent who has to save face and will not apologize—whatever they say about the Lord, the kid cannot hear it.
I watched a brother whose heart was softened and who was saved. Mainly, the impetus was that his mom apologized after she had been saved. She had messed up and apologized to him, and this so softened his heart.
Even with parents brokenhearted for their kids, if there is something we have done wrong, we quickly apologize. With children, to apologize to our parents out of real love and respect maintains that good, healthy relationship.
If you have a friend—some people are BFFs, “best friends forever,” for those who do not know—it means they are kind of stuck together. I think everybody uses that term about anybody almost, but some relationships, you are just stuck.
This is the experience with the Lord. You are walking with the Lord as a Christian. You are BFF. You and the Lord, as soon as there is disharmony, as soon as there is anything wrong, you quickly react.
It could not just be a sin. You can get a sense, “I feel like I do not have the Lord’s presence,” or, “It is so hard for me to worship Him,” or, “Something is so distant.” This can be how we experience or tell what is the world to us and what is not.
It is hard to pick on details of the world because sometimes healthy, normal things can be the world to you, meaning normal things can be distractions to you. Some in this room may read the news together with the Lord in His presence and use it to have a burden for prayer, and this is healthy.
But for others, they may give up reading the news for a while because every time they read the news, they feel so distracted from the Lord because it consumes them. It can be temporary for a time.
You may love to play the guitar and worship to the glory of God, or the guitar may be your distraction. For a time, you may give it up to the Lord. What you notice, though, as friends of the Lord, is, “I lost His presence. Every time I do this, I am distracted.”
For me, a big thing was wrestling. After I finished high school in my wrestling career—which was not much—I discovered in college that I could no longer wrestle anybody without getting stirred up in my flesh.
One time in Memphis, I saw a strong young man, stronger than me, wrestling some other guys. He was being really hard with them and flipping them around. I could feel my heart bubbling over because I really thought I could beat him quick.
I noticed that. At that point, I knew I had to deny myself because, for me to jump in, I would lose the Lord’s presence.
Last night we had a wrestling match at my house. But now I can wrestle in the Lord’s presence, and I do not really lose my peace because I do not get excited about it. I do not get disturbed.
But I can tell you, for me, I gave up wrestling for years. Now I wrestle for fun, but not really fighting or anything. It is little things like that. You notice, “I am about to do something, and I feel like I just cannot do this. I cannot do this anymore.”
As a friend of God, you are quickly willing to give up things that lose your friendship. Even with a husband and wife, or in a family, if there is something that offends the other person, you are able to lose it; you are able to give it up.
Another thing is that if we do not take our position as the people of God, we lose that peace. If you cannot say, “Jesus is Lord,” in whatever you are doing, you lose harmony and lose that reconciliation.
You may not look at it and say, “This is a sin,” but if you look at what you are doing and say, “I am God, and God is not God,” there is something off. If it is all me—choosing, willing, wanting, my strength, and my way—you are out of harmony. You are out of the experience of reconciliation.
As friends of God walking in reconciliation, what we actually do is everything together with the Lord.
The love of Christ is this: He died for all, but all of us have died. We died with Him. But not only that: He was raised, so we can live in this new life. His provision is not just that my sins have been forgiven. His provision is that I can walk with Him in this newness of life.
Now, I am not mainly burdened to talk about our own experience with the Lord. What I want to get into is comparing that with reconciliation amongst us.
We are called to be ambassadors of Christ. We are called to have this word of reconciliation, to stand as His representatives. An ambassador goes and speaks the word for the king. You are called to have this ministry of reconciliation, to share the word of reconciliation, and to exercise this ministry amongst us.
We exercise this in the world, and it is a similar experience. But the ministry of reconciliation is: “Be reconciled to God.”
Take it, for example, with sharing with the world. As ambassadors of Christ, every Christian in this room represents Christ. To the world, you can stand with the Word of God and with the heart of God, sharing His heart and saying, “Be reconciled to God.”
When you touch His heart, you can express what is on the King’s heart to the world. This is the ministry of reconciliation to the world.
But how about amongst us? We have a similar experience to what goes on with the Lord. Let us start at the beginning. If there is a problem that happens, somebody has offended someone else, somebody has done something wrong, somebody acted in the flesh, somebody was not right with the Lord at the time and did some sin.
There is a person who is offended, and there is a person who did the offense. Who should start first? It should be the person who caused the problem.
If you are ever that person—if you have sinned against someone else, and I am talking about in the church, with one another—you have done something wrong. Before trying to go on following the Lord, before trying to bring your gift of worship to the Lord, go and make things right with that believer.
For example, in Matthew Chapter 5, the law says not to murder. But you may not murder, yet hate in your heart. Maybe you call them weird names like Raca or something. Today it is not a common term, but maybe you have spoken ill of them, said something wrong, or have some hatred in your heart.
In some way or another, you did something wrong to this believer. Now, if you come to bring your gift to worship the Lord—maybe you come to break bread—when we come to break bread, we bring our gift of thankfulness and worship to the Lord. We come with hearts full of gratitude, and we are here to remember the Lord.
But the Lord says, “Leave your gift at the altar, and go make things right with that person that you offended.”
Our gift is unacceptable unless we are right with our brothers and sisters. Many times at breaking bread, passing notes is usually wrong, right? Some people get in trouble for it. But sometimes passing notes is good because you have a note of apology you are passing on: “I’m sorry I said that.”
So when you see people passing notes, do not always get onto them. Sometimes it might be a good note, even young people. A note of apology—I have seen a lot of notes passed.
One time I was in a place and a note was passed through thirty people. This is odd. Usually you should make things right before it gets to this, but all of us were passing this note. It had the person’s name on it, so we all had to pass this note. I think that can be a distraction, so do not do that.
But before you try to come and have your gift at the altar, make things right with brothers and sisters. If you owe someone an apology, or even if they saw you sinning or were there when something happened, and someone else may be offended at what you have done, apologize when it is appropriate.
If it is just in your mind, it may be odd for you always to apologize for everything going on in your mind. Not only odd; it would be damaging. If you thought something evil about what someone’s dress looked like, do not tell them. It is between you and the Lord.
But if you said something rude to them, apologize to them and make things right.
Now, this is if you are the offending party. Another example is that the Bible says if husbands treat their wives wrongly, their prayers are not heard at all. That is very interesting.
Imagine you are at home and you have just been quite rude. Then you go to read the Bible, and you are stuck. You go to have a prayer time, and you cannot do anything until you get up and go apologize. Then, having peace with this person that you offended, you can have peace with God and go on about what you are doing. You can serve the Lord.
I do not know if you have ever interrupted somebody when they were reading the Bible and they yelled at you. You think it would not happen? Some of you have probably done this: “Leave me alone. I’m trying to worship God.”
Then you get right back to your reading and feel, “Oh, I have got to go apologize.” You know that feeling? You just cannot go on.
You are focused on serving God and walking with the Lord; everything is going good. But then you have a bad reaction, just a moment of flesh. Somebody disturbs you, and you need to apologize then.
But this does not always happen in the church. Somebody has offended you, and they did not actually apologize. Remember: the Lord acted first.
What is the time of forgiveness? Is it when the person comes and apologizes? Is that when you forgive? No. We, as ambassadors of Christ, forgive when Christ forgave.
Our reconciliation is not for people to be reconciled to ourselves. We do not have a ministry of reconciliation so that, when this person offended me, I can get things made right between me and them. What is going on is that they need to be reconciled to God.
Your word of reconciliation is for the sake of them being right with God. This is important not only for you and them to have fellowship, but it is important for them to continue growing in the Lord. It is a selfless ministry of reconciliation. It is not for the sake of you feeling better.
Even in the world, you can go and make people apologize to you. Just like the two little kids, they say, “I’m sorry,” but they may not really be sorry, right? As parents, I think you just have to do that. But as believers, you can go to somebody in bitterness and say, “You did this to me. You need to apologize.”
But do you win your brother, or do they just apologize while still in bitterness or whatever? What kind of reconciliation is that? That is between you and them. But when they sin, the ministry of reconciliation is, “Be reconciled to God.”
That is the word. It is not, “Be reconciled to me.” Like when David sinned, he said:
Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.
Even though he sinned against a lot of people, the thing is, in our heart as ambassadors, we say, “Get right with God.”
Imagine an ambassador of a king going to another country, and that ambassador gets beaten and humiliated. What they did to the ambassador, they did to the king.
They do not just have something wrong against the ambassador. There is a problem with that whole country. They have a problem with the whole king.
When you mess with God’s people, you are messing with the Lord Himself, because these are His ambassadors. These are His people. These are His children. When we hurt each other, offend each other, and wrong each other, we cannot go on having a good relationship with the Lord.
As ambassadors, the time of forgiveness is two thousand years ago: Christ on the cross saying:
Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.
At this time, the provision is there. God provided the way for forgiveness. Our provision for forgiving our brother or sister who offended us is that Christ died for them. That is your only provision.
Do not wait for your heart to feel better towards them. In these relationships, do not wait two weeks hoping somebody forgets about it. I am not saying you have to act right away. I am saying, do not wait for forgiveness.
You do not wait until the feeling of bitterness goes away. Instead, in Christ, as Christ’s ambassadors, we forgive as God has forgiven us in Christ Jesus. We forgive one another, just as God forgave us.
How do we do it? We see that person, and we see that Christ died for them. They have like a bubble of Christ all over them. They are in the new creation.
If anyone is in Christ, we do not know them according to the flesh anymore. We used to know them according to the flesh. If we open our eyes, we can see them according to the flesh. Even people used to know Jesus according to the flesh. But we no longer know them according to the flesh, like it says in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5.
If you are in Christ, there is a whole new creation. The old creation passed away. When you see your brother or sister, even though the old creation has crept out and you have seen it, you see them with the eyes of forgiveness and with the eyes of seeing the cross that crucified the old creation. Instead, you see them in Christ.
Even though they have not repented yet, even though they have not responded, the forgiveness is already there. We take our stance as ambassadors of Christ: “I have forgiven this person.”
Sometimes it takes an action of saying out loud before the Lord, choosing to go this way and saying, “Lord, by Your grace, and because Christ died for my brother or sister, I forgive them. I forgive them and forget all the offense.”
Another offense can be that someone is not doing what they should do. They may not have done you wrong, but maybe another person is not living up to the standard that you know they should be doing. It offends you. They did not even step on your toes, but they also did not wash your feet.
Probably many of us, myself included, can get offended because, “Why did that person not encourage me? Why did they forget my name?” Or whatever. “Why did they not say hi to me?” We can take offense because someone is not walking as they ought.
But are we ambassadors of Christ, or are we our own king? That is the question. As ambassadors of Christ, you have a whole other foundational approach to God’s people. You are in the ministry of reconciliation. You are not in the way of offense.
You are always the one beseeching God’s people, “Be right with God.” You are always the one ministering to the others, trying to help others come to be right with the Lord.
Even people more mature than you—we have our responsibility as well. Say someone more mature than you should be shepherding you or encouraging you. But it is a vicious cycle because we have our own responsibilities in the church.
I may be a brand-new Christian for half a year. I do not know Bible verses to help this mature Christian who has been a Christian for twenty years. But if I came to the breaking of bread and shared my portion in a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness, I might have washed the feet of that mature Christian.
Then that mature Christian, having had his feet washed, was able to encourage me. Who is responsible for that person not encouraging me? Both of us. Who is responsible for the saints not doing as they ought? All of us are.
You do not know how important the ministry is that you yourself have. You do not know how important it is for each part of the Body to come and do what they ought to do. All of us are suffering because all of us are not walking in everything we should walk in.
We cannot be offended at each other any longer. We have to be reconciled to God ourselves. We walk in our full ministry, and then we stand as ambassadors.
If we took our stand today as ambassadors of Christ, all of us would take the place of serving each other. None of us could have bitterness or contempt. Instead, we would take up this ministry. We would always be trying to bring everyone to restoration.
We can never complain. We hate sin. We get angry at sin. We even violently pray against the situation. But we love the sinner that Christ died for. While they were still sinners, while still enemies, He died for them.
The Lord teaches us not just to love our enemies, but to pray for them. What happens when you pray for your enemy? You pray and want your enemy to be your friend.
The Lord knows our weakness. “This is my enemy. Okay, I forgive them. I love them, but I just do not like them,” we say. Actually, we usually hate them. Because of that, we do not pray for them.
Maybe we go a step higher and we are not bitter, not thinking about what they have done, not anything like that. But is that person on your prayer list? That person should be on your prayer list.
Somebody who has offended you, somebody who always offends you, somebody who offends you by the way they look, should be on your prayer list. There are people who just annoy you, and it might even be their fault. Those people you pray for daily. Those are the ones you want to be your friend.
It sounds odd, but you are an ambassador of Christ. Who did Christ die for? His enemies. That is it.
We have personality clashes in the church too. We have movers and thinkers. The movers are offended at the thinkers, and the thinkers at the movers. The thinkers are not thinking right, and the movers are not moving right. There is a problem.
I know that is confusing, but it is confusing. We have clashes. But imagine you take the stance as an ambassador. Then we learn from each other, and things that were offenses, we realize, should not be an offense.
We need to be humble as ambassadors for Christ. We stand for Christ. If He sends us, we go. But we take up our stance on our knees, because it is God reconciling man to Himself.
It is the Spirit of God moving to bring us back to Him. It is the Spirit of God that will move on somebody to repent and apologize to you, not you. Your first stance as an ambassador of Christ is on your knees. It is not walking to that person to talk to them.
The first stance is on my knees. I have the foundation of forgiveness. I have the way of the heart of the love of God for this soul. But I take it to the Lord in prayer on my knees. I go to God first. I am praying for this person.
Many times it is solved. Many times you just wait a week, and you are praying and praying and praying. The Lord has not led you to talk to them or anything like that, and suddenly they apologize to you. It is more glorious.
Occasionally, though, the Lord will lead you: “Get up off your knees. Be a faithful ambassador, and go and restore your brother.” This is almost impossible. It is so hard because you are tempted to go in bitterness. But we have the foundation: I have forgiven them.
In Matthew Chapter 18, there is a story of this experience. Somebody has wronged another. Go and talk to your brother to restore them. At first, you go and talk to your brother.
Sometimes the brother or sister will respond. It says, if they respond, you have gained your brother. This is so good. That is the heart.
It is not, “If they respond, I gain the victory,” or, “I won that battle,” or, “I feel good because finally that person was humiliated and had to apologize.” It is not like that. It is, “I have the heart that I want this to be my friend. I want to be at one with them.”
Eternally speaking, all of us in this room who are born again are friends. All of us are stuck together. All of us are one because the Body of Christ is one. All of us have the unity of the Spirit.
But in our daily experience, we need the ministry of reconciliation. So you go to your brother in love, with compassion. It is for the sake of saying, “I want you to be right with the Lord,” because if they have sinned, it affects their walk with the Lord.
It is for their sake and not your own. Even if you have been offended by somebody, remember: they may forget, may not know, and may not remember. This may really affect their walk with the Lord.
If you leave them alone to themselves, it may damage their walk for years. It may be very hard for them finally to be enlightened and see, “Oh, I said that wrong.” They may not even know, or they may have hardened their heart and forgotten. They continue on in a low walk with the Lord.
But when you come and restore them, they are brought back up to the height they should be at.
Another thing can happen when you go to your brother or sister: you discover that you were wrong. This happens too. Somebody came to me and thought I gave them a really mean look. But actually, I had a toothache. I was in pain.
I had a really angry face, but it was because my tooth was hurting me. I said, “No, I was not even looking at you. I was just looking over toward that door or something.” I was so glad my friend came and said, “Hey, is everything okay? You were looking at me really evil.”
As friends, you can do that. As people living in reconciliation, you can easily say, “Hey, the other day you said this. It felt a little rude. Did you mean it that way?”
If they did mean it that way, they have the opportunity to apologize, and it helps their walk with the Lord. But you already have a soft heart toward them. You have already prayed about it. You have already forgiven them. There is no animosity there on your side. You are an ambassador of Christ.
Sometimes, though, they are a little stubborn. In Matthew Chapter 18, it says to take a couple more ambassadors with you. Some people of God whom this person respects may come with you to have a talk with them: “Let’s be reconciled. Let’s get things right.”
I know someone’s watch is dancing, so please take off your watches. No, I’m kidding.
If they refuse a few of you, then it says to take it to the church. What we are going to do is, whenever this happens, bring you up here and announce all the problem in front of everybody. Not only everyone in this room, but we need to broadcast it on television because there are a lot of people in the church. Not really.
You take it to the leaders in the church. Imagine you have offended somebody, but you do not want to apologize, or you do not really see it as an offense. Somebody comes to you, and you talk it out, and you say, “I just do not think I did wrong. I think you are the one who did wrong,” or whatever.
Then they come with two people, or a few people, and these few people all think that you did wrong. We should be humble enough and softhearted enough to say, “Wow, I might be wrong.”
Especially if you get to that point and then go to the leaders in the church, and all of them also feel, “Yeah, you really did something wrong here.” We should be in the humble state, in the softhearted state, willing to say, “All right, I was wrong.”
Then you gain your brother. Then you are gained, and your relationship is right.
But even if they refuse all of that, even if a believer is so hardhearted, it says to treat them like a tax collector or a sinner. Usually when we read that, we are like, “Yeah, I’m going to treat them like that.”
But actually, it means you love them like you love sinners. God loves sinners while they are enemies. It does not mean you treat sinners badly. It does not mean you keep strife with them.
It means that from now on, to you who have been offended, that believer is one to whom you take this stance as an ambassador for Christ: “Be reconciled to God.” Because of this issue, you cannot have such close fellowship all the time. There is a distant problem.
But on your side, you do not need to be reconciled. On your side, you stand there as an ambassador of Christ always, and you can continue to pray for them. Eventually, they can be restored.
Just like a sinner or a worldly person—like someone who works for the IRS. No, just kidding. That is a tax collector. Today in this country, we do not say that about IRS workers.
Actually, reconciliation gives us a picture. If you reconcile your accounting regularly, when you get audited, they come and look at everything. You have named everything for what it really is and not fake stuff. All your books are in order. You file your taxes according to what is true.
Then you come to that judgment time of the audit, and they say, “Well done, good and faithful taxpayer.” But otherwise, you get in trouble.
Just like in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, there is the judgment seat of Christ. There is a time when we must all be manifested. If your accounts are in order, and what is named is true, you are walking in the light, reconciled to God and reconciled to one another, you stand in that day.
The Lord says, “Well done, good and faithful bondservant. Well done, good and faithful ambassador of Christ. You have been faithful. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”
But if not, there is loss. There is suffering. There is pain from it. But the eternal reconciliation is still there.
In this ministry of reconciliation, if you get to that point with a believer, you still maintain your stance as an ambassador for Christ.
Regularly, daily, walking with each other as believers, we are quick to respond. What is really on my heart is this appeal that is mentioned. I want to read it again in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, Verse 19.
How that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning to them their offenses.
He put in us the word of that reconciliation.
We are ambassadors for Christ, God as it were beseeching by us.
We entreat for Christ: be reconciled to God.
This word, “Be reconciled to God,” has been on my heart, growing and growing, for months. It is the stance of the love of Christ standing there, just desiring for us to be as we ought.
As a Christian, you can feel you are doing okay, but you are not walking in the full measure of the ministry you have been given. God’s heart for you is, “Be right with Me. Make this right.”
Even as messages are shared, we hear teaching on the way to go forward. We sit and feel like, “I’m doing okay.” But the Lord’s cry to us is, “Be reconciled to God.”
There is something missing. There is something where we are failing in our ministry as ambassadors of Christ. There is something where God has a standard He has given you. He has His measure of Christ, and we have been failing and failing and failing.
It is not that He has not provided the way or the grace, because the love of Christ will constrain us to go on. It is for the love of Christ that you give up the world, not from a method. It is the love of Christ that enables you to forsake sins.
Because of the love of Christ, and not wanting to lose His presence, you can make things right even when it is embarrassing. You can apologize even when it is shameful. You can pray for somebody even though you hate them, and you can confess your hate as a sin.
Because you know that touch of the love of Christ, you want to be right with God all the way.
We can sit and feel that we are doing better than another, and that we are doing better than we could be doing. But if we stand before God, is He there with His heart of love and tears of compassion for us, saying, “Be right with Me now. You are not matching up. There is something off. There is some disharmony.”
There is something where it is not My life in you, but it is your own kingdom. If this is the case, it just comes down to this: Did we hear the Lord’s heart? Did we hear His voice, His word of reconciliation, and respond to it?
If we fall out of being ambassadors for Christ, if we fall out of our ministry of reconciliation, we lose our measure, we lose our standard, and we are not right with God.
But if we take this stance as God’s people—“Be reconciled to God”—and are able to hold that word in our hearts, all of the bitterness falls off. Now we are ambassadors. We are not our own kings.
We can be offended because only people offend the king. If they slap me, they slap the King. If they offended me, they offended the King. What is my role? I am after that soul to be right with my King.
What is my role? I want that person to be my friend. Someone should have done good to me, but instead, as Christ’s ambassador, do good to them. Someone should help me, but instead, as His ambassador, Christ sends you to encourage them.
You would be shocked how much all of us in this room need encouragement, how many of us are suffering. The Lord is waiting for that one-talent person to rise up and put in their portion of Christ. It may be a key for many people being refreshed.
It may not take a big man of God or woman of God. It may take the little one to share small words of encouragement, and suddenly many feet are washed. This is our need in the church too.
We are hearing encouragement from the Lord to go on, and even understanding of how to do it. I feel the heart of God is, “Let’s do this. Let’s rise up, be right, and be ambassadors of Christ.”
That is all on my heart. Let’s pray together.
Lord, we come and stand before You and just repent in dust and ashes. We know we have been failing and failing, not walking, not serving, and not loving Your people as we ought.
Lord, where we are holding some feeling against someone, we want to cast it down to the cross, away from our hearts. We plead the precious blood, Lord, even for our bitterness and the sin of unforgiveness.
Lord, we plead with You to expose where You want us to walk, how to live before You, and do not leave us to go on in our darkness. Lord, we pray that if there is something You had us in before that we forgot, You would reveal it to us.
Lord, we pray that You would just restore broadly in our hearts the love of the brethren. We can all be friends and go on together and be one together in our experience.
Thank You for Your love for us, Lord, and that You are pleading to us. You do not leave us to ourselves to go our own way. In Jesus’ name, amen.