Reconciled

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 9th of March, 2025, the first Sunday in Lent.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

Wednesday afternoon we entered the season of Lent with our Ash Wednesday service, and we noted this is our time to remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us and to look deep within ourselves to see if we are living the way God wants us to live.  I said that Lent is the 40-day period that recognizes the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting, praying, and being tempted by the devil.

Our season of Lent is actually 46 days long, but the six Sundays before Easter Sunday are not included in the count, and so we have the 40 day period.  Today is the first of those Sundays, and I’d like to look at one of the many things Jesus did for us through His life and His mortal death, by His great sacrifice.

First though, let me remind you of Saul, who we also know as Paul.  Saul was a Pharisee who did everything he could to stop Christianity before it could get a foothold.  He traveled far and wide to hunt down believers and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial.  It was on one of these trips that Jesus struck him blind with a light from heaven for three days.  After the three days, Jesus sent a follower named Ananias to restore Saul’s sight.

During those three days, Jesus must have given the man we now call the Apostle Paul special insight into Himself and God’s heaven, because even though Paul never knew Jesus nor followed Him while He walked this earth, he had a profound knowledge of Jesus and the things He had taught.  Paul went on to form many new churches in the known world and to write letters that form a goodly portion of our New Testament.

Sometimes Jesus gives someone a special insight, giving them knowledge they have no reason to know, so that they can carry out the work He gives them.  Paul was one such person, assigned the task of apostle to the Gentiles, to us.  Please listen and follow along as the Apostle shares with us a little of that special insight as regards God’s love for us, as he wrote in verses 15 through 23 of the 1st chapter of his letter to the Colossians, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible this morning…

15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

16 for through Him God created everything

in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see

and the things we can’t see —

such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through Him and for Him.

17 He existed before anything else,

and He holds all creation together.

18 Christ is also the head of the church,

which is His body.

He is the beginning,

supreme over all who rise from the dead.

So He is first in everything.

19 For God in all His fullness

was pleased to live in Christ,

20 and through Him God reconciled

everything to Himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were His enemies, separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body. As a result, He has brought you into His own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault.

23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.

--Colossians 1:15-23 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us a physical, visible representation of Yourself and Your Holy Spirit, who are both invisible, spiritual.  Jesus is the visible manifestation of Your love for mankind.  Thank You for sending Him to walk among us, to teach us, to show us how we should live by how He lived.  And thank You so much for inspiring Paul to tell us so much about Jesus and what He has done for us.  Sometimes, Father, this world and our modern society pound on us and wear us down to the point that our spirits weaken and our faith waivers.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Strengthen us to face whatever the world sends our way.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand the message You have for us this day.  Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and one purpose in our love, our worship, and our service.  And please keep us healthy and safe through these trying time.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   

And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

One New Year's Eve long ago at London's Garrick Club, British dramatist Frederick Lonsdale was asked by Seymour Hicks to reconcile with a fellow member.  The two had quarreled in the past and never restored their friendship.  “You must,” Hicks said to Lonsdale.  “It is very unkind to be unfriendly at such a time.  Go over now and wish him a happy New Year.”  So Lonsdale crossed the room and spoke to his enemy. “I wish you a happy New Year,” he said, “but only one.”

That’s not much of a reconciliation, is it.  But this is what God asks of us, that we be reconciled with those we consider our enemy.  After all, we were reconciled to Him by the blood of His own Son.  God lived in Christ Jesus and through Him, this physical manifestation, God reconciled us to Himself.

And Family, this is all about love.  God loves us and doesn’t want us to die without being born again and saved, so He reconciled us to Himself through Jesus.  Jesus commands us to love others, all others, including our enemies.  We can show our love to any and all, and especially those who we have issues with, by reconciling our differences with them.

In our scripture reading, Paul begins by kind of echoing the opening to the Apostle John’s Gospel account.  Christ Jesus, in His own invisible, spiritual form, existed before anything was created.  It was through Him that God created all there is, in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see, and the things we can’t see – He made everything.

And through Him, God reconciled everything to Himself, including us, who were once far away from God.  In our rebellious, sinful ways, we distanced ourselves from our heavenly Father.  We turned our backs on Him, but He never abandoned us, He never left our side.  Instead, He sent His Son Jesus, in His physical form, to die on the cross to reconcile us to God.  And by our faith and belief and this reconciliation, we can stand before God when our time on earth is finished, and He will see us as faultless, blameless, and holy.  But we must continue to believe the truth and stand firm in our faith.  We must not waiver, not loose grip of the assurance we are given by the Gospel message of salvation through Christ Jesus.

Staying with Paul’s special insight as revealed in his letters, I’d also like to look at the second epistle he sent to the church in Corinth.  Paul wrote two letters to this gathering of believers, and this second one addressed some doubts and misinformation that had crept into the church.  In the opening to this 2nd letter, Paul says it is from himself and Timothy, his young protege.  We have no idea if Timothy was an actual co-author, or if he simply accompanied Paul at the time of its writing, but I don’t think it really matters.

Please listen to what Paul wrote in verses 13 through 21 of the 5th chapter of his 2nd letter to the Corinthians…

13 If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. 14 Either way, Christ’s love urges us on. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

--2 Corinthians 5:13-21 (NLT)

I love that opening: “If it seems we are crazy…”.  A lot of people think we Christians are crazy.  First we believe in the existence of some invisible, unprovable God who supposedly created everything there is.  And then, we believe that this man named Jesus who lived 2000 years ago is the Son of God, who is also God, and who died but walked out of the grave and still lives to this day.  That’s just crazy, right?

Well, if it seems we’re crazy, it’s all to bring glory to God.  But we are indeed in our right minds, and because of our belief, we know that we have been reborn into a new creation, a new person.  And we now live for Christ who gave us this new life.

But now comes the hard part.  Paul affirms that he and Timothy have stopped evaluating other people from a human point of view.  From what we can read in our bible, this is how Jesus looked at folks, not from a human point of view but looking more at their spiritual self, at their heart.  Paul and Timothy adopted this practice, and Family, so should we.

But it’s hard, I know.  It’s tough to let go of our old, judgmental ways, to look deeper than the skin when evaluating a person.  Paul did it, Timothy did it, and so can we.  We just need to make a concentrated effort to try to find some spark of goodness in everyone, to maybe find some common ground.  For this will allow us to be reconciled with them.

God has given us the task of reconciling people to Him, bringing them to Him, showing them His love and mercy, sharing the Good News of salvation.  We can’t do that if we judge someone from a human point of view rather than looking into their heart.  We can’t carry out our mission if we aren’t willing to forgive someone who has wronged us, just as God forgives us.

We carry the name of our Christ, we are His ambassadors, His representatives.  So let’s share the wonderful message of reconciliation and salvation, pleading “Come back to God” to all who have gone astray, and “Come to God” to those who do not believe.  Let’s help others get right with God.  In the glorious name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of God, our Master and our Savior.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for reconciling us back to You through Your Son Jesus.  You have brought us into harmony with Yourself, a feat we could never accomplish on our own.  Thank You for having mercy on us.  Father, we admit that we sometimes struggle with not evaluating other people from a human point of view.  Too often we judge people on silly things, like skin color or accent.  Please forgive us our lapses, loving Father.  Please help us be more like Jesus in how we look at others and how we react to the world, in living out our love and in giving our love to those who need love the most.

Strengthen us, Father, to reach out to others and show them Your love by giving of ourselves in their service, in Your service, just as Jesus did.  And please help us share our Lord Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  Help us pave the way for Your Spirit to do His work on them.

Father, please shield us from Satan as he attacks our faith, trying to make us his own.  Help us be better servants, glorifying You in all we do so that the world can see You in us, through our deeds, in how we live.  And help us remain strong, faithful, and true to You in all things, no matter what comes our way.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, by Your selfless sacrifice, we have been redeemed and reconciled to God.  We have been washed clean and brought back into harmony and righteousness in our heavenly Father’s eyes.  But Jesus, we know that we don’t always act as we should.  We still judge others rather than trying to see them through Your eyes.  Please forgive us our failures, Lord.  Remind us that we are Your representatives and that we’ve been assigned the task of sharing the message of reconciliation and salvation.  Help us see others as You see them.

Holy Spirit, please help us reach out to the non-believing world, sharing the Gospel message, showing God’s love through our love.  Give us the words to say, show us the deeds to bring more followers to Jesus.

And Jesus, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this world might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.