← Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Well, would you take your Bibles? Let's go to Colossians chapter one. We're making our way through the Bible and we are here in Colossians. We are in chapter one still. I'm going to be looking at verses 19 through 23, Colossians chapter one, and I'll start reading at verse 19 down through verse 23. This is what Paul writes here. By inspiration of the Spirit, Colossians 1:19. He says, for it pleased the Father that in him that is in Christ all the fullness should dwell. And by him to reconcile. Circle that word in your Bible. By him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has. There's the Word again. Reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. If indeed you continue in the faith grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. Let's pause there and pray. Lord, we pray over the Bible study now that you would use this passage to open the eyes of our hearts to speak to us, Lord, either a word of encouragement or a word that you would challenge us today as we study together, we pray that you would be most glorified. We love you and we thank you for the fact that you first loved us and gave your life as a an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Bless this time now in your word we pray in Jesus name. And everyone said Amen. Well, I heard this story about a husband and wife who got into a little bit of an argument. They weren't talking, you know, the whole silent treatment thing. And so they were at odds with one another. The husband had an important business trip the next day. He had an early flight at 8 o' clock in the morning. So he needed to get up at 5 to get to the airport to get ready to go on this business trip. But he always would sleep through his alarm. So his wife usually would help him to hear his alarm and wake him up. But now they're not talking. So how is he going to get the help of his wife? He decides to go to bed early. He leaves a little note on her pillow. The note says, wake me up at 5am Good night. And the next morning he wakes up, but it's nine o' clock in the morning, he's overslept. He missed his flight, the business trip, the whole deal. He's furious. He wakes up, he's ready to say something to his wife, and then he notices on his nightstand that his wife had left him a note. And the Note said, It's 5am get up. That couple is in need of what we call reconciliation. Reconciliation. Reconciliation basically means to restore harmony. Now, we commonly use that word today in two settings. One is in an accounting sense. You need to make reconciliation of bank statements and ledgers and financial reports. You have to account for the income against expenditures and make sure that there's harmony between the numbers, because numbers don't lie. So there has to be reconciliation with financial reports. But the other way that we more commonly use the term reconciliation is in regards to relationships. Whether we're talking marriages or we're talking co workers or friends or neighbors, wherever you have relationships, you have the potential for things to go sideways, for there to be a strain in relationships, for there to be a broken relationship. And those relationships can become broken for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it has to do with some kind of a disagreement or some kind of a dispute, or more serious things like betrayal or dishonesty. Sometimes it can be as simple as miscommunication can break down relationships or something like poor communication, just misunderstandings. And all of a sudden there's a rift between two parties or two people. And it can happen quickly, or it can happen over a long period of time until eventually there's this brokenness in the relationship. Whenever those broken relationships are restored and mended, that's reconciliation. And that's the way that Paul uses that term here in Colossians chapter one, as it relates to God restoring and mending what was broken in the relationship between God and man. Now, again, hear me. He's restoring or reconciling what was broken between God and man. In order for us to understand reconciliation, we have to first understand that there's a brokenness in the harmony, in the unity, in the fellowship, in the closeness that man has with God. And this has been since the garden. When you look back in the book of Genesis, in Genesis, the relationship between man and God was broken. No fault of God's. It was the fault of humanity because Adam sinned against God, and thus the relationship was broken. It wasn't always that way. I mean, when you look at the first part of Genesis, before the fall of man, Genesis 3. 8 says that God walked with them in the cool of the day in the garden. So that insinuates this closeness, this fellowship, this unity that God had with Adam and Eve as he would walk, walk with them in the cool of the day. But that that fellowship was broken. Then when Adam sinned, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, that harmony was broken. The closeness, the unity was broken. Remember how God had originally told Adam that he is free to eat from any of the trees in the garden except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why did God put that one tree there in the garden? And the answer is, because God is introducing choice in the relationship. If there was no choice, there would be no opportunity for mankind to show that he wanted a relationship with God. Out of that choice, God wanted a mutual, loving relationship. And if you don't give someone the choice of accepting you or rejecting you, then it's really not a relationship based on love or free will. It becomes rather a robotic relationship kind of a legal arrangement. God didn't want that. So he gives mankind choice that they might show their love for him by obeying his commands. And there was only one rule. You're free to eat from all the trees. I mean, that's great liberty. The one rule is don't eat from the one tree. The tree, the knowledge of good and evil. Adam only had one rule, ladies and gentlemen. Just one. One law. One rule. And he broke it. And Remember, this is 2500 years before the Mosaic Law was given, when God gave the law through the prophet moses. That's like 2,500 years after Adam. And how many laws, by the way, are recorded in the Old Testament under the Mosaic Law? 603. In the Hebrew Mitzvoth, 603. Now you might say, well, I thought there were only 10. Well, the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue is a summary of the 630. There's 603 laws. But that's 2,500 years later. Adam is at a place with God where he's only got one rule, one law, and he broke it. Like a little kid who's told, okay, there's one thing I don't want you to do. And then he does. Reminds me of this story I've shared here before, but I recall this with you. This is rich, everybody. Every year that I've been leading tours to Israel over the last 25 years, Terry and I would take each of our kids when they reached like 10 years old. Cause we wanted them to be old enough to like, really experience the trip. So we took them individually. And so on one of those trips, Middle Child over here, Pastor Austin, he's like 10 years old. We're in the old city of Jerusalem. It's crowded. If you've been there, you know, the marketplace, it's very crowded. I think we were in the Muslim quarters, and we come into this one gift shop, and again, it's loud, it's crowded. There's a lot of people bustling Tourists, Arabs. There's people all over. And we get into this gift shop and there's this little basket on the ground with a bunch of wooden flutes in it. Okay? Wooden flutes. Now, knowing my son and seeing the basket, I say to him, because I'm not a germaphobe, I'm just germ aware. Okay, everybody, I said to him, look, whatever you do, do not pick up one of these and start playing it, okay? Because every tourist, thousands of tourists and Arabs have had their mouths on these flutes. Do not play it. You understand? He's like, yeah, Dad, I get it. Okay? So he's browsing, and I walk away, and I'm browsing in the store. Not five minutes later, I hear. And I'm thinking, no, surely not, Lord. That must just be an ignorant tourist who didn't get my speech right. Oh, it was a tourist, all right. It was tourist Austin over there, 10 years old, blowing on the flute. I'm like, what? What in the world? I just told you. So you know. You know what I did? This is what any loving father would do. Open up your mouth. And I dumped Purell in his mouth, everybody. I didn't make him swallow it. Just gargle with it and spit it out. One rule. That's all Adam had. One rule. Couldn't seem to do it. Now, look, he turned out okay. A little brain damage, but he's fine. The Bible says that Eve was the one deceived. She believed the cunning of the serpent, of Satan. She eats of the fruit. She turns and she gives the fruit to Adam, and he eats. But God puts the blame at Adam's feet. Because remember when God gave the instruction about all the trees you can eat except the one? He gave that to Adam. And Adam's responsibility was to translate it to Eve. Now, either something got lost in the translation, or Eve, just of her own volition, decided to rebel and sin and eat of the fruit. But the reason why God holds Adam responsible is because she turns and she gives to her husband. And he ate also, which means he was standing idly by and did not do anything to intervene as the spiritual leader of his home. And so God calls Adam responsible for this. But when that happened, the sweet fellowship between man and God was broken. In that moment, the harmony, the unity, the fellowship was severed and they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, separated from God. That broken fellowship would continue for 4,000 years until it would be restored when Jesus came to reconcile us to God. And you see, because Adam sinned, that affected the whole human race. And thus we inherited this sinful nature because Adam sinned. We're all born into sin. We all have a sinful condition because we are born into sin. And that means we are all from birth separated from God because we all have a sin nature and because we're all born separated from God. In fact, Paul talks here about being enemies of God. We all need, therefore, reconciliation. We need to be reconciled to God. Isaiah 59:2 says, you, iniquities have separated you from God, and your sins have hidden his face from you. In Romans 5:12, it says, through one man Adam, sin entered the world, and death through sin and and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. So before we can appreciate reconciliation, we have to understand the human condition. The human condition is we're all sinners. We've inherited sin nature from Adam. That relationship was severed and broken when man sinned against God. And thus we are now all fallen in nature and in need of reconciliation. Here's just a definition for reconciliation because we're talking about it from a biblical standpoint. It's the restoration of relationship and fellowship between God and man through Jesus Christ. Sacrifice on the cross. That's what reconciliation is. I'm going to share four points about reconciliation for those of you taking notes, four important things about reconciliation. Here's the first one, Number one. Reconciliation was accomplished on the cross. You see? Good news, everybody. What was broken in the garden was reconciled by God on the cross. What man broke in the garden, God reconciled on the cross. Look again in your Bibles here at Colossians 1:19 20, verse 19. For it pleased the Father that in him, in Christ, all the fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. It was the cross. It was the sacrifice of Jesus. God's plan of reconciliation was this. We are sinners. He is holy. And the only way to bridge that chasm is for Christ to come to die on a cross that by his atoning, sacrifice and faith in what Jesus did, not what we can do, because we can't by ourselves remedy our sinful condition. Okay, but by faith in what Christ did, we can be reconciled to God. This was the great exchange. Sinners cannot improve their condition. So a holy God sent a holy son, Jesus, to be the perfect sacrifice for imperfect people. It was the great exchange Jesus, sinless life in exchange for our sinful lives. Jesus gave us peace in exchange for taking on our punishment. This was that great exchange. He imputes his righteousness to us, and he assumes he takes on the cross, he takes on the sins of the world. So Second Corinthians 5:21 says it this way. For he that is God made him Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that in him we. We might become the righteousness of God. That is an amazing thing, everybody, that in our sinful condition, which we cannot change or improve in our own efforts, God did something for us we could not do for ourselves. And he sends His Son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins. And then he says, if you will just accept by faith what my Son did for you and receive the forgiveness of sins, I will impute to you My Son's righteousness. So that now when God looks at us, he sees us through the righteousness of His Son, not through the sinfulness of our past. The righteousness of His Son. The second important thing about reconciliation is that it was initiated by God. This was his doing. He was the innocent party in the broken relationship. We were the ones who betrayed Him. And yet he goes after us, he pursues us, he initiates this. He wants reconciliation with us. In your Bible, still in Colossians 1, look at verses 21 and 22. In verse 21 it says, and you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled. Okay, Notice the commentary there on the human condition. When we were alienated from God, we're enemies in his mind. Why? Because of our wicked works. That we do wicked things, we think wicked things, we say wicked things, and yet despite that about us, God says, I love you enough to reconcile you to Me, so I'm going to go after you. And he initiates reconciliation. This was God's decision to reconcile us to Himself, not because of our worthiness, but because of his mercy. He has pursued us in all of our sin and wickedness. God has gone after us to bring us back into fellowship with Him. And he did this by the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. Number three. Reconciliation means that God does not count our sins against us. Now, this is taken from 2nd Corinthians, chapter 5, where Paul also in that letter to the Corinthians, talks about reconciliation. Let me just read to you 2 Corinthians 5, 19, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Listen. Not imputing their trespasses to them. Not imputing their trespasses to them. That last part means that our guilty record was expunged, okay? It's not only that God forgave us, it's that he wiped our sinful record clean. It's like if you had committed a crime and you stand before a judge, there's nothing you can do to get out of it. You're guilty, okay? You've admitted to it. You're guilty. You can't change that. But it's not just that a merciful judge forgives us of our crime, but he expunges the record completely, as if it never happened. In fact, the Bible says in Psalm 103, verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us. I mean, that's how much he wipes the slate clean. No matter what you've ever done, said or thought. Do you understand? Jesus died on the cross for that sin. And what we need to do is just be humble enough to say, lord, I confess my sins. He already knows, but he wants us to come in agreement with him, to recognize our sinful condition. Condition? When we commit sins and say, father, forgive me. I know I've sinned against you. And he forgives us if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And he does this for us, not counting men's sins against us. Which is why when Jesus dies on the cross, the last words he utters, it is finished. It is finished. Tetelestai. Tetelestai is a single word in the Greek, what he says, tetelestai. It is finished. You know, they would write that word often over the prison doors of those who had finished the sentence for their crime. It is finished. You're free to go. They would also use it. Mariners would use it in receipts for shipping cargo. Once you had paid the debt, you would get a receipt that was stamped tetelestai. It is paid in full. That's what Christ has done for us. He's paid in full the debt that we owed by his sacrifice on the cross. That's what Colossians122 means when it says there, he's made us holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. Niv says, free from accusation. Free from accusation. That's what he's done for us. That when by faith we receive what he did for us on that cross, we are reconciled to God. We're made right with Him. The fellowship is restored. What was broken in the garden was repaired on the cross. But now here's the last point, and I want us to hear this because this is also important. Reconciliation is a message that God wants us to share with the world. It is not simply enough that we have been reconciled. God says, now I want you to share the message of reconciliation with others, that they would know the same repaired relationship with me that you know. This is taken out of Second Corinthians 5. Just listen. You don't need to turn. But this is Second Corinthians 5:18-20. Listen to what Paul writes. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That's what he's given us, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Verse 20. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal for through us. So He. He commissions us. He says, all right, now, once you've experienced reconciliation, I want you to take the message of reconciliation into the world, and I want you to be my ambassadors. Now we, we understand what an ambassador is in a. In a governmental, political sense. An ambassador is someone who represents the sending nation or the sending sovereign to a foreign country to which the ambassador is sent. That ambassador is a representative of that nation, a representative of that sovereign. And that ambassador has to always be careful to properly represent the nation or the sovereign which sent him or her. This is our calling. This is our mandate. This is what God wants of us. It's as if we've been sent to a foreign country. Because when you think about it, this world is not our home. We don't belong here. We're passing through, right? The Bible says our ultimate citizenship is in heaven, right? I mean, I'm proud to be a citizen of the United States of America, but this is not my ultimate allegiance. My ultimate allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ. And my ultimate home, my ultimate destiny is heaven. And so because we are passing through, this, in a sense, is like a foreign country to us, which is where we are supposed to represent him as his ambassadors. And this is a high calling, everybody, because as ambassadors, we don't have the luxury of living like the rest of the world wants to live because we are to always put Christ on display. That's uncomfortable for some of you. You're like, I don't always want to live my life, you know, knowing that people are watching my witness. Well, too bad. Like when you say yes to Jesus, you're wearing the jersey with his name on the back now. And everywhere you go and everything you do is to be a representation of Christ so that others might see what you have and want to have that same reconciliation. So that means you don't get to cuss out your co workers like you used to. That means you don't get to just cut somebody off on the road because they cut you off. Oh, Lord Jesus, give me mercy on the road. It means you don't get to cheat someone or lie to someone because you're an ambassador of Christ. It means you're not supposed to be getting drunk with your friends or hooking up with people. You're an ambassador of Christ. And he has commissioned us to share the ministry of reconciliation with the lost world. I will close with this illustration. There are two pretty famous poets in American history, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. Now the two of them married, she became Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In fact, her poetry is probably better known than Robert Browning's. But the two of them together kind of became a powerhouse of literature in the mid-1800s. They married in 1846, but when they got married, it was against her father's wishes. Her father, in fact, did not want any of his children to get married. I don't know what his deal was, but he didn't want any of his children to get married. So he basically disowned Elizabeth Barrett Browning when she got married to Robert Browning because they eloped. They ended up then moving to Italy where they would spend the rest of their lives. But Elizabeth Barrett Browning never wanted to give up the opportunity of trying to reconcile with her family. So every week she would write a letter back home to her parents. She did this every week. Sometimes it was a lengthy letter, sometimes it was a short letter. But she wanted desperately to reconcile with her parents. About 10 years passed after she was doing this. Every single week. After about 10 years, she receives a large box that was mailed to her there in Italy from her parents. She opened up the box to find every single letter she had ever written, and they were all unopened. Her parents had sent them all back to her. Those letters, by the way, she would end up publishing and it becomes some of the Sweetest poetic parts of literature in English literature. And it was all born out of her desire to reconcile with her parents. If her parents had just opened one letter, they would have seen the heart of their daughter and possibly have been able to reconcile with her. Listen, everybody, this is God's one letter to you. This is his love letter. Our Father in heaven wants reconciliation with his children. We've done everything to break it, and he's done everything to go after us to mend it. So read his love letter and understand the heart of the Father for you. And if you already know Jesus in a personal way, then be his ambassadors. Be his ambassadors. And if you don't know him, be reconciled to God today. Surrender your heart to Jesus. Be reconciled to the Father. Would you bow your heads with me as we pray? Father in heaven, we thank you for this time in your word. And we thank you that you have pursued us to reconcile us to yourself. We broke the relationship, and yet you have gone after us to pursue us that that relationship might be restored. Thank you for what Jesus did for us on that cross to reconcile us to you. I pray, Lord, for those of us who know you, that we would be ambassadors for Christ. We would be unashamed, and we would be mindful of our lives. Yes, Lord. There will be days that we are not good examples of Christ. Forgive us, Lord, and help us to do better the next day. We need your grace and your power and your strength. But I'm also thinking of those right now who don't know you in a personal way, and they need to be reconciled with you. Today. I'm just going to pause in my prayer with your head still bowed, eyes closed. And here's my invitation to you. Be reconciled to God today. No matter what you've ever done, said or thought, Jesus died for you on that cross because he loves you and he wants a relationship with you. And just like Adam was given choice, you were given choice to either accept Jesus or reject him. There's no other way to get saved except through faith in Jesus Christ. Please do not reject him today. Receive him today. He wants to be reconciled with you, and this is how you can receive him. Today I'm gonna lead in a word of prayer. And you can just pray this prayer with me where you're seated, and you can just invite Christ into your life. Just pray a simple prayer like this. You can just say, lord Jesus, I thank you that you love me, that you died for me, that you want to reconcile me with you. Forgive me of my sins. Come into my life, Lord Jesus, and be my Lord and Savior. I surrender my life to your lordship. I want to be right with God today, so I choose to be reconciled by faith in Jesus Christ. And I thank you for the free gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. In your name. I pray. Now, everybody, look at me for just a minute. If you prayed that prayer with me, there'll be a pastor down front here to give you a Bible just to remember today's decision. And we'll mail a Bible anywhere around the world. If you prayed that prayer online, just text the church. I have decided. The number's there on the screen for you, 703-844-9969. And we'll mail you a Bible anywhere, everybody. God has reconciled us to him through faith in Jesus Christ. Go in the grace of the Lord Jesus. God bless you, everybody. Have a great day.