MK040 Sermons
The Gift of Reconciliatiion (Audio)
I was ten years old when I was at summer camp and for a ten year old boy summer camp is a dream. No parents around get to spend time with friends, get to buy lots of junk food at the snack bar, you know life could not be better for a ten year old boy. And one time during the summer camp that I attended, one of them that I attended, I remember my grandparents coming to visit. And for those of you that ever heard me talk about my grandparents, you know that they are very significant people in my life, had an incredibly positive influence in my life. But this one time they had to, but at that age in my life, I had not come to appreciate who they were. Well they had driven a half an hour to come to see me and I believe I might have acknowledged them with a wave and then disappeared with my friends. That's about all I remember from that experience. I mean I completely ignored them. And I don't think I was by nature a rude individual or rude kid, but I was preoccupied and didn't give a second thought to the fact that my loving grandparents had taken the time to come to see me and it's not one of those life experiences that I really want to remember but for some reason it's stuck with me. And as I thought about this a little bit more, I realized there are some other things that stuck with me as well. Because I knew that the next time I met them, they welcomed me with open arms in spite of my rude treatment of me. I knew that they never mentioned this to me. I knew that my parents weren't there so I couldn't get in trouble for it. I knew that they loved me in spite of me and moved back toward me in spite of the pain of rejection that they likely felt. I knew that I had experienced a kind of love that I don't experience very often. Someone loving me in spite of me. I wanted to ask you this morning have you experienced that recently? Someone loving you in spite of you? Someone who moved back toward you relationally when you knew you did not deserve that because of what you had done to them. You were harsh with words to your spouse and they found a way to serve you. You were rude to your parents or grandparents and they gladly helped you the next time you were in a pinch. You took credit for something that you knew you didn't deserve all the credit for but you had a coworker that did not expose you when they clearly could have. You treated a cashier or a customer or a service agent rudely and they responded with grace and kindness. When you walk away from those experiences, I know I have in my life, I walk away with a sense of I can't believe I just did that and amazed that they would treat me with the grace that they have. This morning we want to take a look at what does it look like to be loved when we don't deserve to be loved and then what does it look like for us to offer and extend that to someone else? As I mentioned, we've been talking about these gifts that come at this Christmas season, the gift of anticipation and expectancy, the gift of adoption and the challenge last week of sharing with someone else what God has provided for you and that's what this blue insert or blue headed insert inside your program is for is just different ways for you and your family to think about how can we share with others what God has shared with us. This morning we want to talk about that a little bit more. Let's talk about the gift of expectations. It's amazing because one of the places where things can go bad quickly is in a family. That's where words get said that you wish wouldn't have been said. Emotions get expressed, feelings get hurt, blame gets a sign leaving painful wounds that we wish would no longer there and sometimes it just seems like our family relationships are very very fragile and they can easily be broken and they create this amazing chasm, this painful chasm that we wonder will that ever get closed. Christmas is one of the times of year when we get to think back about how God closed that chasm between us and him because one of the amazing things about Christmas is God chose to build a bridge back towards us. You see the relationship that God wanted to have with the people that he created was a mess, it was broken, it was in need of a rescue and instead of waiting for the world to come back to him he came back us, he took the initiative to move towards us. That's what 1 John 4 19 says when it says we love because he loved us first. Not because we decided you know I'd really like to have a relationship with God and I'm going to move back to God but no because God took the initiative because God came towards us because God made the sacrifice and God chose to bridge that chasm between us and him and this morning I'd like for us to look at a passage of Scripture that talks about that. If you have your Bibles you would turn to 1 John chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4 if you don't have a Bible with you this morning our guys have some and they'll pass them out to you at the page numbers on the screen. 1 John 4 is where we're going to start this morning and I want us to look at a passage of Scripture that reminds us what why God did what he did. 1 John chapter 4 it's page 1207 and the Bibles they're distributing to you. Listen as I read he says dear friends let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son in the world that we might live through him. This is love not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son as a toning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends since God also loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete. In this passage John repeatedly talks about this concept of love and he explains where that love comes from and he calls us to show that love for one another. And when he talks about love he's talking about sacrificially serving another person. He's talking about putting the needs of the other person before my own needs. And he goes on to explain that this is something that comes from God. You see the Bible doesn't just talk about God doing loving the things. The Bible talks about God being a God of love. It's part of his character. It's part of who he is. He can't not act in a loving way towards us. And if we are made in God's image then all of us regardless of our faith journey and faith experience have within us this capacity to put others in front of ourselves. Most of the time we don't choose to do that. He goes on to say in this passage he says everyone who loves has been born of God. He's talking about those who place their faith in God. This love comes from him. And they know God. There's a relationship they have. They know and understand who God is and what he's all about and what he's doing. The reverse is true in verse eight. He goes on to say in verse eight he says whoever doesn't love doesn't have any connection with God. It's a pretty strong statement says that if God's in your life then you should relate to other people differently because there's that statement that God is love. He goes on in verse nine to talk about what that looks like. He says this is what it looked like. This is how he showed it to us. This is how he demonstrated so we could get a glimpse. He said this one and only son in the world that we might live through him. Isn't that what Christmas is all about? We get reminded every single year that God loves us so much. He was willing to send his greatest treasure, his greatest gift to this world so that we could live. And that's what he did. You see his love came down to us when we did not deserve it, when we didn't think we needed it, we didn't really want it. Now let's listen to this song and it reminds us of that. [Music] "If the storms of life they come and the road ahead gets deep, I will leave these hands in faith, I will believe. I remind myself of all that you've done, and the life I have because of your son. Love came down and rescued me, love came down and sent me free, I am your home, I am forever yours, mountain high or valley low, I sing out remind my soul that I am yours, I am forever yours, when my heart is filled with hope, and every promise comes my way, when I fear your hands of grace, rest upon me. Staying this before you God, staying humble at your feet, I will leave these hands and praise I will believe, I remind myself of all that you've done, and the life I have because of your son, because love came down and rescued me, love came down and sent me free, I am your home, I am forever yours, mountain high or valley low, I sing out remind my soul that I am your home, I am forever yours, love came down and rescued me, love came down and sent me free, I am yours, I am forever yours, mountain high or valley low, I sing out remind my soul that I am yours, I am forever yours, love come down, why did he come down, because I was a good person, because I needed a hand, because I had done a bunch of good things, now love man spite of me, spite of all of that, never before in human history had God shown up on the earth in the form of a man, it reflects God's amazing love and passion for all of mankind that he would be willing to do this, and the result of that is we have life, look what he says in verse 9, he says this, he says, can we put verse 9 up there man, here we go, he says this is love, not that we loved God, but they loved us and sent his son, excuse me verse 10, I am sorry you had verse 9 up there, verse 10, there we go, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for us in, so how did this love show up, and what did this love look like, something had to change, something had to change, this whole idea of an atoning sacrifices, something had to remove this barrier between us and God, there was something getting in the way for that relationship to occur, in this renovation project that we are involved in over at Reinholds, one of the things that I have discovered is one of the most critical individuals to have on hand when you are doing demolition is electricians, you know Frank's right here, he is one of our electricians, and electricians are very very very important people, because when you are removing walls, a lot of these walls have wires running through these walls, and it's very important that they identify, is this where a wire hot is what they would say, or is it live, because they need to identify that, and then figure out how they shut that down, how they disconnect this wire, and then you can begin to start swinging a sledge hammer and taking this wall down, because if you try to swing a sledge hammer and remove part of a wall, and you accidentally hit a live wire, and there is a flash, and then the lights go out in the rest of the room, and everybody wonders what happened in the world, how does John know so much about this, it creates a problem, and it's a good thing you have electricians there to help fix your problems, but if that wire is not removed from that wall, you can't take the wall out without a lot of risk at play, in the same way Jesus had to come, and he had to be that sacrifice to take away my sin, and he had to be removed for me to have this relationship with God, that was the barrier between us and God, and when Jesus showed up on the earth, he was the one who was that sacrifice that made that possible, since God has loved us so much, look what he goes on to say there in the next verse verse 11, he says, since he's done so much, I want you to do that for each other, I want you to do that for each other, I want you to love one another, and I want you to love one another, not just because someone has treated you well, not just because someone gave you a Christmas card, so you give them a Christmas card, or someone, you know, invited you to a party, so you invite that, we're not talking about reciprocal giving, we're talking about giving to other people when you have not done anything to really deserve that, being loved in spite of yourself, you see, I think our church here is, and many of you are really, really good at caring for one another, at helping one another when they're in need, helping one another when they're in crisis, but the kind of love that God shows for us is when we are loved and we feel very unlovable, when we are loved and we have not done anything to deserve that love, you see John, what does that look like? I think it looks like exactly what God did, it's movement towards someone else, and actions that reflect your heart, maybe it's someone you haven't seen here for a while, and you're wondering, I haven't seen them, and you reach out to them and you just say, hey, I was just thinking about you and praying for you, and hope you don't okay, maybe it's just praying for other people who are here, and as you pray for them, God gives you a nudge and says, I want you to move towards this other person, maybe it's someone who's treated you badly, misunderstanding, I'm just going to go to a different service, I can go to a different service, I don't have to see them, it can still be my church, you know, God says move towards them, move towards them, move towards them, that's what this love looks like, when we love others in spite, when we are loved in spite of ourselves, and I want us to take a look at one other passage of scripture that gives us a glimpse of what this looks like, and it's in the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, if you would turn there in your Bible, 2 Corinthians 5, if you're in 1 John, just turn back a few books, you'll get the 2 Corinthians eventually, you have the Bibles that the guys passed out at page 11, 44, 2 Corinthians 5, and I want to read you a verse, you'll see that Paul's talking about some of the same kinds of things in a little bit different way, in verse 15 he says, and he referring to Jesus died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, remember it's not about me, but for him who died for them and was raised again, so Paul's talking about the love of Christ, and he says in verse 14, the love of Christ compels us, or it moves us to do something, verse 17, he says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, a new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here, Paul's talking about a change that happens in the life of a person when they invite Jesus into their lives, he says they become something new, now they don't necessarily lose a bunch of weight and get a makeover, but there's something new about this person on the inside, someone suggested to me recently, it's a good suggestion, we may do this, in a month or two we may invite all of you to go up to the building in Reinholds and just kind of take a tour and walk through, and for those of us that have been working in there, you know that it doesn't look anything like what you looked at this summer, there are walls missing and there's doors missing and there's all kinds of things and we're kind of starting to get a glimpse of what this might look like, and we anticipate that when we're finished the community has only seen the outside get cleaned up a little bit and they're going to come in the inside and especially those that maybe had been there once before and say wow this is totally different on the inside, but the truth is that's not what God has called us as a church to do, it's just to renovate buildings isn't, no. What God wants to see is he wants to see people renovated on the inside, he wants to see people transformed, he wants to see people who are relating and living differently with other people. You see when I think about what should mark people who are Christ followers as being different than other people, one of the drastic ways they should be markedly different than other people is the way they relate to each other and they were the way they relate to the world around them. You see if God's character and at the essence of who God is, is he expresses himself in love, meaning he sacrificed officially, puts the needs of others in front of himself, that should be the way Christ followers live. Shouldn't it? Shouldn't it? I think it should be, I think it should be. You see it's troubling to me when when someone who's a Christ follower doesn't appear to be any different, when they don't relate to other people in different ways that people say and other people don't treat me that way when I treat them badly, they just treat me badly. And Christ followers say no, I'm somehow, and I'm not sure how I'm going to do this, but God's called me to love other people in spite of themselves the way I have been loved in spite of myself. Look what he says in verse 18, he said, "All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." As you go on to read this passage which we will in a minute, you'll see this word reconcile, come up over and over and over again. Do you know what this idea of reconciliation is? It comes from when there's two opposing groups that are in conflict. It could be two labor parties, it could be two armies, it could be two political parties, and they have to come to agreement. Who do they hire to come when you have two opposing parties? Who do you hire to sit down at the table with you to get you on the same page? You know what that person's called? Mediator, mediator, right? Or an arbitrator. Sometimes that's the word that we use today. And what does that person do? They sit down with both sides of the table and they say, "All right, this is where we want to get to. This is where you are. Okay, would you give a little bit here? Okay, I'll give a little bit here. Would you give a little bit? Okay, I'll give a little bit here. Okay, you know, they gave a little bit. So now it's your turn. Now you know what, they gave this much. Now I think you, and so what do they do? They both compromise till they get what? Get to a place of agreement, right? That's what happens. And then they're reconciled to each other. Paul takes this concept and he uses this word that's used in all different kind of arenas and he brings this over into the faith conversation. And he says, "Let's talk about what this looks like in relationship to God and us." He says, "God who reconciled us to himself through Christ gave us the ministry of reconciliation." So God wants to reestablish a relationship with us. God wants to have people that pursue God and love God and follow God. And so what is God willing to do? God's willing to give up his one and only son that he treasures the most so that mankind could have an opportunity to choose him. We're all thinking about gifts right now. When we think about gifts, you know, you probably, maybe if you've been real diligent, you've saved some money all year, and now you have some money to go buy gifts. And others of you, you kind of get into October, November, and you're like, "Ah, Christmas is coming. Where's the money going to come from?" And you're kind of in a panic about that. And so you scrounge up some money and then you get some money together. And now you can go out and you buy something like, "What did that person like? What have I heard them talk about? What am I going to?" But we don't think about giving up the thing we care about the most, do we? I don't. What about you? That's for me. But what God did is God gave the thing he treasured the most. He didn't say, "You give up a little and I'll give up a little. You give up a little and I'll give it." He said, "Here, I'll give you the best that I have." Even though we don't deserve it. Okay. He describes it in verse 19. He says that God was reconciling the world to himself. He's trying to reestablish this relationship to the world to himself. How? In Christ. And look at how he did that. Not counting people's sins against them. One of the things I dread is when I know I've done something wrong and I have to face somebody with it. It's torture. It's just torture. God says, "I know them all. I know them all. And you know my gift to you is? They're all erased. They're all gone. They're never mentioned again. No guilt. No shame. No consequence. Ever. Ever. That's what God offers to us. He says, "Here, it's my gift to you." And then look what he challenges us to do. Paul says this in verse 20. He says, "We therefore are therefore Christ ambassadors." As though God was making his appeal to us. You know, we have ambassadors around the world that represent the United States of America in the embassies around the world. And they represent our country's interest in other foreign nations. They stand there for all of the 365 million people that live in the United States. They represent him, us. And he says, "That's what I want you to do." He says, "I don't have another plan. I'm not going to send them an email or a text message with God at the bottom so they know what to do. I only have one plan and that's for you to go out and for you to live and for you to love people in such a way that they don't deserve it and they know they don't deserve it. But you keep loving on that way in spite of themselves because you have been loved in the exact same way." You see, I think what God wants us to do from time to time is to hold a mirror in front of us and look at ourselves in that mirror and realize that God saved me when I didn't deserve it. And he invites me to offer that same gift to other people. He takes one final shot in verse 21 of explaining it to us one other way. Look how he does it in verse 21. He says this, "God made him who had no sin, referring to Jesus, to take on all of our sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Martin Luther called it the great exchange where I am here with my sin. Jesus is here perfect with no sin. My sin gets placed on him and his perfection gets placed on me. There's this great exchange that God offers to you as a gift. And then he says, "Will you extend that same gift to people who just like you don't deserve it?" That's the gift of reconciliation. Loving someone else in spite of themselves. You know, as you think about your family, you probably don't have to go very far to think about someone in your family that's distant, that's cut off, that's removed. They haven't done anything for you this whole year. They might be on the card list just because they got you the same last name or they're somehow decently related to you. But maybe this Christmas, the challenge is for you to love someone who doesn't really deserve to be loved. It's done nothing to earn it. Nothing to obtain it. What would that look like for you to do that? What would it look like? It's not easy. I knew this message was coming up and God had been tapping on my heart in the specific area with a relationship that had been very distant, my life, my family. And I put it off, I put it off, I had time, I put it off, put it off. And I reached out this week and that's what I got. So thank you for calling. It was so great to hear. I haven't talked to you in such a long time. It's so wonderful. Not. Answering machine and very short curt email a day or two later. Love them in spite of themselves. So now I have to think through and ask God what do I do now? Not easy. This is hard. It's really, really hard. Maybe it's someone in your office. Maybe it's a classmate that you have. Someone who just doesn't deserve it. You know, take credit for other people's work, they're rude, they're obnoxious, they've mistreated you in the past. And you're like, God, is there some way I can show them a little glimpse of the extravagant, undeserved love that you have for extended for to me? I wish I had a couple hundred gifts up here this morning that I could just give to you and have you sit somewhere and say, this is a reminder of what God has done for you and he wants you to extend that and offer that to someone else. What would that look like? What would that look like? It's easy to buy gifts for people we love, people we care about, friends, family. It's a lot of fun actually for some of you. Some of you are glad Amazon exists. It's really hard to do this for people who don't deserve it. And I think what God wants us to walk away with this morning is to remind ourselves that I didn't deserve it and you didn't deserve it, but he loved me in spite of myself. I'm gonna invite you to bow your heads and just close your eyes for a moment and just give you a quiet moment to talk with God. Maybe he zeroed in and as soon as I started talking about this, you knew right away. You knew who you had to go and some of you even know what you have to do and you're like, oh. And some of you aren't sure and you just need to have your heart open before God and say, God, who do I need to love in my life in spite of them? You haven't done anything to deserve it. Actually, they maybe have done the opposite. They deserve a lump of coal. But you never give that to anyone and you certainly didn't give it to me. God Christmas is a time that we remember God coming to this earth and human flesh is a baby. It's Jesus. And God, we celebrate that and we remember that and it gives meaning and significance to many of us. But God, that movement toward us began the process of reconciling all of mankind. With an opportunity to have a relationship with the Creator through His Son, Jesus. And Lord, if we have received that incredible gift, that undeserved gift, that amazing gift, then you call us to offer that to other people. Lord, for some of us, it's a family member. For some of us, it's just personal and it's kind of old and grumpy. It doesn't seem to like people like Christmas like us. God, I don't think we have to look very far to find people for us to love in spite of themselves. God, I thank you for this gift that you have offered. And I pray that we would have opportunities to not only reflect on receiving this gift, but then to offer this gift over and over and over again this Christmas season. God, help us to do this because it's incredibly difficult and we can't do it on our own. We need you in your day. Amen. Enjoy.