The Ministry of Reconciliation

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GREETING

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Prayer time
Prayground and snacks

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ladies Paint night saturday the 16th
Ladies bake sale Saturday the 23rd
Almost Christmas party Sunday the 24th
Remembrance Day - Show Video then Moment of Silence

MESSAGE

2 Corinthians 5:18 NIV
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
2 Corinthians 5:17–20 NIV
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
It is all about God
All TO Him, THROUGH Him, FOR Him, and FROM Him
The primary point of this is that God is reconciling all people TO himself. Our relationship with HIM is what needs reconciling.
We have broken relationships on earth, broken families, broken friendships. We have sins and histories. But the bible teaches, first and foremost, that being reconnected to Him is the most important thing we need to handle.
Other reconciliations can come through that relationship with Christ - but that we need to reconciled first to Him.
And god works THROUGH his power to help us to bring about this reconciliation
There’s nothing we can do to earn it ourselves. It required Jesus on the cross.
The desire and ability to reconcile comes FROM god.
The bible teaches that nobody can approach God unless the spirit draws them first.
This is all happening FOR god - not just for our benefit
Our benefit is an extremely important thing. But we need to understand one thing - God has made his glory known to us so that we can know it. He’s here to spread HIS kingdom, not ours. God loves us more than we can possibly imagine, but he is here to build a kingdom, to spread his name - and we’re called to go along with that.
This is really important because I think we unintentionally miss this mark. When we build and structure our churches, our services, we place a bar on people to say, ‘This is how good you have to be, or how you have to act, to have a place in our church’.
And don’t get me wrong. There’s good logical reasons for this. People can be disruptive. They can bring their own emotional requirements. They can be difficult. They can be a drain on our resources. And there’s a place where you have to say as leadership, ‘yknow what? this is a problem that does need to get dealt with’. But there’s an underlying question we should ask.
If GOD has reconciled them to Himself, and WE can’t reconcile them to ourselves - whose power are we operating out of?
Jesus died to bring reconciliation, God has literally stopped counting people’s sins against them and cleared the debt - who are we to stand up and say ‘ya, but, you forgot God, they use bad language’ or ‘they are loud’ or ‘they are distracting’. If Jesus bought their redemption with His blood, but we can’t make it work - whose power are we using?
And don’t get me wrong - a church service should be orderly. But even
And power is the key word here. Success in church, feeling God’s presence, coming out of a service fulfilled or changed - that isn’t created by us making you feel more comfortable, or singing the right songs in worship. It’s a choice we make, to open ourselves up to the living God. And you can do that no matter what’s going on around you.It’s saying, God, I want your power to work through me. What changes us is God’s power, not our comfort or familiarity with how things ‘should be’.
When we place the entrance bar for new people, or the success of a service, at how it makes US feel, then we’re communicating that these things are done for US
When the bible is clear - the only thing, the ONLY thing that brings this reconciliation, is a direct encounter with the spirit and person of the living God
People bring their own problems, they bring difficulties to the table. It’s HARD to love people. So we can take a cue here from Jesus - when he was presented with a world of problems, and entire humanity full of problems, what did He do to solve it? He gave his life. He sacrificed.
God is the one taking almost every step in this process of reconciliation - it is from God, through God, to God, and for God
If we want people to enter into a relationship with God and be eternally changed, we need to do everything in our power to arrange the meeting.
It’s been said that people are generally cool with Christ - it’s Christians that they tend to have a problem with.
The greek word here for ‘counting’, it means ‘to take an inventory’ or also has the sense of a ‘debt collector keeping record of a debt’
Every single soul in this world exists to worship God. Every person you will ever meet, they are a person that Jesus died to bring into His kingdom. As a church, we’re given this ministry called ‘reconciliation’ to restore people into their rightful relationship with God. But we too often consider our own preferences - our comfort level, our style, our desires - when it comes to what kind of people we want in our church. But we should be asking the question - what kind of people does GOD want in his kingdom? And then we should be asking the next question - what can we do to reach THOSE people?
And when we do a church service, we don’t do it to to honor ourselves - we do it to honor God. It’s literally our entire reason for being to be a place where we draw people in to worship God. A good service is one where God is lifted up, not us. It’s great to come out feeling encouraged, it’s great to come out feeling renewed - that’s a natural byproduct of being connected to the spirit. But when we say, church is good or bad based on how it feeds us and makes us feel - that’s not healthy.
In fact, we pray so much for revival. And revival will come. But there’s this terrible thing called ‘Revival addiction’. That we see the Lord move, we feel that awesome rush and change and the power of God, and a REAL revival moves us to the next step, it sends us out into the world to make a difference, because a REAL revival is about God spreading his kingdom. But when we move service to service, revival to revival, just hoping to catch that ‘spiritual high’ again - we’ve made it about us. We’ve made revivals not a place where God can change the world, but a place where he can make us feel better.
And this ministry of reconciliation combats that, because it’s default outward focused. This is why God has called us to bring the outside people inside - because we’re not doing this for ourselves, we’re doing this for Him, and He wants more people in his kingdom. It keeps us in check. and...
It says that the new creation doesn’t come until Christ does.
We can’t let a person’s eternal destiny be decided by how they make US feel.
We are Christ’s ambassadors in this process
Culturally, an ambassador was a person of high esteem charged with delivering or receiving a message
God’s ministry of reconciliation was in ‘not counting people’s sins against them’.
The greek word here for ‘counting’, it means ‘to take an inventory’ or also has the sense of a ‘debt collector keeping record of a debt’
We are not just the ambassadors of Christ’s MESSAGE - we are also the ambassadors of Christ’s METHOD
We’re called to speak God’s words - but we’re also called to take up our crosses daily. We can’t do one without the other.
The method that Jesus used to pave the way for humanity to reach the father was through sacrifice - giving his life to pay for the sins of the world. If we want to lead people down that road, we’re going to do it through sacrifice.
God is going to ask us to sacrifice our..
Comfort
Time
Wealth
Focus
Selves
The scripture here goes so far as to say, ‘as though God were making His appeal through us’
So how can we bring this ministry of reconciliation?
If we believe God wants to reconcile a person to himself, we also need to accept that God will do it THROUGH us
We continually ask the question, ‘what does church need to look like to meet MY needs?’. But instead, let’s start asking the question,
‘What does our church need to look like to help THEM fix THEIR relationship with God?’
And it’s funny, Paul gives us a picture later in 1st corinthians of what this meant for him:
1 Corinthians 6:3–10 NIV
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
2 Corinthians 6:3–10 NIV
We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
This is a pretty intense list. This is certainly not a comfortable list. But I think it’s fair to say that Paul has accomplished an INSANE amount for the kingdom of God.
Paul went through an incredible amount of hardship to ensure that everybody had a chance to hear the gospel. Jesus went through an agonizing death to make sure everybody had access to the father. We’re called to that same spiritual heritage, that same cross - we’re called to die to ourselves, to take up our own crosses, and to give our lives in service to God to reconcile all people to himself.
So let’s commit to being a church that preaches Christ’s MESSAGE using his METHOD in order to work in his MINISTRY. Because THIS IS all for God.
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