The Joy of Real Reconciliation

The Real Power of Reconciliation

1.21.24 [2 Corinthians 5:14-21] River of Life (3rd Sunday after Epiphany)

He is a larger-than-life showman. An entertainer. A magician. The lively and quick-witted voice of the magic team known as Penn and Teller.

As a celebrity who is as synonymous with Sin City as just about any other, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Penn Jillette is not a Christian. But it runs deeper than that. He is an avowed atheist. You don’t have to dig deep into his book to discover that. His cars have vanity plates that read ATHEIST, NOGOD, & GODLESS. If you did have the chance to talk to him about his faith, he is apparently very open about his beliefs. He doesn’t just not believe in God. He is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt there is no God. Many know this about him.

So fifteen years ago, after a show, an audience participant thanked Penn Jillette for his show and then gave him a gift. It was a pocket Bible with a personalized inscription for Mr. Jillette.

How do you think he reacted to such a gift? Well, here’s what he said.

I’ve always said, I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe there is a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? … to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

Surprised? It’s not what we might expect to hear from an atheist. But it does make some degree of sense. And it shakes some sense into us. Especially the last two questions. How much do you have to hate someone to not share the Gospel?

When we hear that from an avowed atheist it rattles our cages. It makes us want to prove him wrong, right? To share the Gospel and show him—and people like him—that we do care about people’s eternal futures.

Maybe that’s the way we take Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians as well. I mean, he’s not an avowed atheist like Penn, but he does make a similar point. (2 Cor. 5:19-20) God has committed to us, to Christians, the message of reconciliation. We know we ought to be about the work of imploring people: Be reconciled to God.

Both the Apostle Paul and the atheist Penn Jillette want to see us do the work of proselytizing, preaching the Gospel, and imploring people to be reconciled to God. What they want you to do is not altogether different. But why they want you to do it, is. So let’s start there, today.

For a moment, let’s leave behind all the missed opportunities that haunt us. For a moment, I want you to put to bed all the reasons why you may think you’re not up to the task of being an ambassador of Christ. Let’s set aside the why not’s and get at the why we do's.

There are many reasons why we do speak up about spiritual matters. But not all of them are good reasons. In fact, sometimes, we proclaim the good news for bad reasons. Four particular bad reasons seem to rise to the forefront. Fear. Guilt. Greed. Fame.

Fear: We may be haunted by a fear of what will happen to the person we do not share the Gospel with. As Christians, we personally look forward to heaven’s eternal bliss. But we also recognize the reality of hell. Fear, especially for our loved ones, pushes us to warn people of God’s wrath. To implore them to be reconciled to God.

Guilt: Guilt is almost as powerful. We know what Paul says here. We heard what Penn Jillette said as well. We feel guilty if we don’t at least try to tell someone about Jesus a couple of times in our lives.

Greed: When we think of how greed can drive Gospel ministry we might think of the televangelists with their prosperity preaching. But that’s greed in its most baldfaced form. Greed isn’t just something you see on TV. Greed gets into our evangelistic thought process in sinister ways.

We don’t think of it as greed. We just want more. We just want better. More people might mean more contributions and better financial stability. More people might mean that we can offer more types of ministry. We can be a better church. More people might mean more volunteers and less on my plate. Then my life will be better.

Fame is the final shabby reason for sharing the Gospel. And we might be inclined to point to all the mega-churches and accuse them. But, at times, our reputation drives us more than we care to admit. We want to be a part of a growing church. We want to have the stories that impress people. We want to have numerical achievements like baptismal pelts on the wall.

What we must understand is God can and does advance his kingdom through people with impure motives like these. The prophet Jonah is the poster child for this. But when these things are what drive us to do the work of an evangelist, we will never live as ambassadors of Christ.

At some point, the fear and the guilt subside, especially when we feel like we have really tried hard or given it our best shot. At some point, we will discover that more sinful people in church are as likely to bring more difficulties and complications to church life as they are contributions and donations. At some point, we will have enough stories to impress enough folks, enough numerical achievements to rest on our laurels.

When we are compelled by motives like fear, guilt, greed, or fame, we will ultimately regard people from a worldly point of view. When it’s all said and done we will gauge people based on what they can do for us. We will size them up as threats or assets and sort them accordingly.

We can’t do that because it’s sinful—it’s done for our glory, not God’s. But we shouldn’t do it because it’s not how God treated us. That’s the foundation the Apostle Paul lays out in our text. It is not fear or guilt or greed or fame that compels us to live as ambassadors for Christ. It is Christ’s love that compels us. The love of Christ is like a powerful magnet attracting us to God and to live as ambassadors of Christ. The love of Christ doesn’t just give us direction—what to do—it is also our motivation—why we do what we do. Marvel at God’s love for us!

God sent his beloved Son to die for all (the what) with the goal of reconciling the world to himself (the why). Perhaps, we are prone to rush over that reality. But, if we are going to be fueled by God’s love and love as God has loved us, we need to understand his love for us.

In our world, we reconcile two things—accounts and relationships. The picture God is using here is the latter—relationships.

It’s a scenario that plays out in movies and TV shows because it is an all-too-common slice of life. A couple falls deeply in love. They get married. Everything is going great. For a while. Then one is unfaithful and has an ongoing affair. That kind of selfishness and wickedness destroys many marriages. It’s hard to recover from.

If the marriage is going to be saved, if the couple is going to reconcile, who needs to take the first step? It’s the cheater, right? They need to apologize and mean it. They need to demonstrate that they’ve changed. They probably ought to bring some gifts and make some new promises. The wrongdoer must make it right.

But that’s not how our spiritual reconciliation works. We have been unfaithful. God has been embarrassed by our wicked, selfish ways. And he is the one who does the full work of reconciling. He reaches out to sinners. He bears the guilt, the shame. He paid for the sin. He died for us because he loves us and wants us to be reunited and reconciled more than anything. God did nothing wrong but made himself the wrongdoer in the relationship so that we might be healed, whole, and righteous. That’s the message our King gives us.

It’s amazing that God calls those who have not been faithful to him to go out and represent him. But he does not regard us from a worldly point of view. We are his new creation. So we cannot evaluate other people based on external matters or what we think is most likely.

When we look at Christ’s work, his life, death, and resurrection, we see that what drove him, was love—not fear, not guilt, not greed, and not fame. He did not view anyone from a worldly point of view.

If fear drove Christ in his work of reconciliation, he would have spent his ministry home base in Jerusalem. If fear or guilt drove him, he would have done a couple of miracles to satisfy his hometown, Nazareth. If fear or guilt drove him, he would have stopped everything he was doing when his family showed up because they thought he was out of his mind. Instead of doing any of these things, he preached in towns and villages, in cities and lonely places, to crowds and individuals. He made Capernaum—not Jerusalem or Nazareth—his home base. When his family showed up, he taught the crowd that whoever does (Mk. 3:35) the will of God is his brother and sister and mother. It’s not that he didn’t love his hometown or his family or his nation, but he was never paralyzed by fear. He was calm. Confident. Faithful to God’s mission.

Instead of being greedy or fame-hungry, we see Jesus living selflessly. He spent time with people who had nothing to offer him. He broke bread with people who only sullied his reputation. When people were eager to increase his fame, or thought he could be doing something bigger or more important, Jesus refused. His mission was saving souls.

He didn’t live righteously because he was afraid of disappointing God or ruining his reputation. He delighted in the word and will of God. He didn’t die for the sins of all because he felt guilty about what would happen to mankind if God did not intervene. Jesus loves God’s Word and sinners. So, in order that God might be just—abide by his laws—and the one who justifies sinners, he died for all. He didn’t just take the first step. He didn’t just initiate the reconciliation. He closed the deal.

That kind of love and commitment transforms us. If God loves us like that—and not just us—but all sinners—we don't need weak forces like fear or guilt or greed or fame. God has made us a new creation. We look different. We live differently. We look at everyone else differently. Because we know what God has done for us and for them. So live as Christ’s ambassadors. Represent him fairly and faithfully. Proclaim the message of Christ’s love in the context God has assigned you. Amen.