Pastor William Heiges New Sermon Series: Jesus - 2rd Article of Apostles’ Creed

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church Text: 2 Corinthians 5:18-21

Watertown, WI October 1, 2000

GOD WANTS EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE PEACE & HARMONY

(RECONCILIATION) IN CHRIST

Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 as background to our text. Then read vv. 18-21.

Today we begin a new sermon series which focuses on Jesus Christ, his person and especially his work of redemption for us. The sermon texts are based on the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed. Each week we will see Jesus from a new perspective. Today we see him acting as our Substitute for sin.

The Spanish have a story about a father and son who became estranged. The son left home and the father later set out to find him. He searched for months with no success. Finally, in desperation, the father turned to the newspaper for help. He wrote an ad which read, “Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father.” On Saturday, more than 800 young men named Paco showed up looking for forgiveness and love from their estranged fathers. I believe our world (and that includes Watertown and St. Marks) is filled with hurting people who desperately long for reconciliation - with each other and with God.

St. Augustine once commented that there is a hole in every human heart the size of which only God can fill. No amount of alcohol or drugs, sex, money or things will satisfy that deep longing. You won’t find it in a six-pack or drinking yourself into oblivion. You won’t find it in the arms of another lover. You won’t find it in a pay raise or a shopping spree. You won’t find it in another person - not even your spouse or your children. You can only find it in Jesus.

It is my task, my duty, my honor and privilege to share with you today the most important message of all - the message of reconciliation. It is a message that God has given to me to give to you. The message is this:

GOD WANTS EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE PEACE & HARMONY IN CHRIST

There was a placque hanging on a wall in my home where I grew up which read, “The most important things in life are not things.” I am sure you would agree with me that the most important things in life are people and the relationships we have with them. When they are good, then your life is marked by peace and harmony. When they are bad, then life can become a living hell. But who takes the time to figure out why or how things got so bad? God knew. And I think you do to.

1. GOD TOOK CARE OF OUR PROBLEM - SIN

Sin is much more than a generic word preachers throw out to make you feel guilty. It is a powerful force which beats inside every human heart. Sin hurts and harms. It robs and rips apart. It kills and destroys. It mostly hurts the person sinning, but its horrible consequences wash over those who surround them. Sin hurts our relationship with God (it all begins there). Sin estranged us from God. Isaiah write in 59:2-3: Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things.”

It all goes back to the garden where “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all have sinned” (Ro 5:12). When God created Adam and Eve he designed them to live in a perfect relationship with him and each other. He desired that relationship with them. At the end of the six days of creation, God took a look at all that he had made and said, “It’s perfect!” Then came sin. Man deliberately chose to disobey God’s command, and all hell literally broke loose as a result. The consequences and fall out of that poor choice were deadly and far-reaching. They reach as far as you and me today, for we have inherited from our first parents that sin nature which is prone to pride and selfishness and rebellion.

It destroyed the perfect relationship Adam and Eve enjoyed with God. We see the fall out immediately. They realized they were naked and felt shame for the first time. Now they knew the evil of lust just like Satan promised. They were the ones who estranged themselves from God. They hid from him. And when confronted with their sin, they tried to dodge and evade their responsibility. They passed the blame for what they had done off on someone else. Adam blamed his wife and God. Even blamed the devil. Their sin tore apart their relationship with God.

It’s the same with you and me today. If you are like me, you don’t like it when someone confronts you about something you have done wrong. Do you get defensive like I do? Do you begin to make shallow excuses? Do you tend to pass the blame off on someone else, like I do? Or am I the only one who is real in here? We all do it - because we hate to face the reality of our sin and the devastation and hurt it causes. We can’t be real with God, because we are not even honest with ourselves. We are told in the Bible that our sin actually “grieves the Holy Spirit.” Our pride and our selfishness and our stubborn rebellion rips his heart apart.

What does it take to wake us up and realize what we have done and may be still doing? Do you remember the prodigal son, you know, the one who took his share of the inheritance early and took off to be on his own - out from under what he felt were the restraints of religion and his father’s rule. He did what any person could do, for after all the Bible warns us that “the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things” (Jer 17:9). He ran after what he thought would fill that deep craving in his heart, but all the booze and parties and wild women left him empty, broke and alone. He had to hit rock bottom first. All his pride and selfishness and rebellion had landed him in the gutter. The Bible warns us that “pride goes before the fall.”

And that is where the Holy Spirit stepped in. Using the Word remembered - the Word of God he had heard at his father’s feet and in Day School and Sunday School, the Spirit brought that young man back to his senses. He moved him to repentance leading him to confess to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and against you” (Lk 15:21).

Does it have to take a major fall to wake us up and bring us to our senses to see how our pride and selfishness and rebellion - our sin - has hurt our relationship with God and others? Everytime we sin against another person we sin against God. Every lie we speak, every time we cheat, every love withheld. How many times have we thought of ourselves first. How many times have we hurt someone, sinned against them and then refused to admit our wrong, say we are sorry and ask for forgiveness. What keeps us from doing that. Stuborn, rebellious, selfish pride! Unconfessed sin piles up and takes it toll on us and our relationships. It robs us of peace and harmony. It satisfies for a second only to leave a deeper longing and emptiness afterwards. The list of sins we commit against others is as long as the earth is wide. But they all come from a pride-filled, selfish, rebellious, self-deceived heart. God cries out to us, “Wash the evil from your heart and be saved” (Jer. 4:14). Only the cleansing blood of Jesus can wash our hearts of every sin - of the sin of pride and selfishness and rebellion. There’s a hymn that goes, “What can wash my sins away? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

That is why only God can take care of our problem - sin. And he did - in Christ. “God reconciled us to himself through Christ.” He did this by “not counting men’s sins against them” (19). The picture here is of a ledger account. Each sin we commit is entered in and tallied. Only God doesn’t charge our sins against our account. He charged them against Jesus instead and made him pay for our debt of sin. We’re told in our last verse, “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin (of his own ) to be sin for us, so that in him [Jesus] we might become the righteousness of God” (21). We call this God’s Great Exchange. He takes from us something of no value, absolutely worthless - our sin - and places it on Jesus. Then he takes something of immeasurable worth and eternal value - the perfect record of righteousness that Jesus earned for all by obeying all of God’s commands and never sinning - and he gives that to us - free of charge!! It’s far better than having a dozen charge cards maxed out and getting a statement back saying they have been all paid in full. He now declares us to be righteous, holy, free of sin - all because of Jesus.

That is what Jesus did for us on the cross. He took all our pride, selfish acts, stubborn rebellion - every hurt we have caused others, every wrong we are guilty of and he died for them, washing them from our record with his blood shed on the cross. The cross is God’s solution to our problem of sin. Our relationship with him has been restored. The cross of Jesus bridged the gulf between us and God our sin had created. Like Paul says in our text, “All this is from God.” He did it all and he gives it to us free of charge. The result?

2. GOD RESTORED PEACE & HARMONY (RECONCILIATION) THROUGH CHRIST

Sin is always the cause of any broken relationship - whether it’s adultery or abuse, neglect or careless, hurtful words. Sin strains and estranges and sometimes even breaks relationships. It causes suspicion, fear, anger and hostility. Reconciliation, however, results in peace and harmony where we are restored to better than ever and friendly relations are reestablished. But someone has to take the first step. Make the first move. I have found that it is always the stronger person, spiritually speaking, that is.

God is the one who made the first move and took the first step to undo what Adam and Eve had done in their disobedience. To right what they had wronged. It was not they who sought out God. The sinner rarely seeks out God. He (she) runs from God and truth. They try to hide their guilt and avoid responsibility for what they had done. But God didn’t let that stop him from reaching out to Adam and Eve. He sought them, even though they had hurt and wronged Him. He still does that with us today - through Jesus.

It was not Zaccheus seeking Jesus. It was Jesus seeking Zaccheus, “Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” (Lk 19:5). And we all know the result, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man [Zaccheus], too, is a son of Abraham [a true believer in Jesus as his Savior]” (Lk 19:9). And then Jesus gives us a glimpse into the heart of God, a heart that has been hurt by us too many times to count. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Lk 19:10). It took Jesus coming and dying to reconcile us to God, to restore us to a right relationship with him, to reestablish peace and harmony between once again.

Have you been running from God, living a lie, deceiving yourself and others in the process? Then here is my message for you: BE RECONCILED TO GOD. He has bridged the gap for you through the cross of Jesus. “[Through Christ, God was pleased] to reconcile to himself all things ... by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” God is reaching out to you through me right now. He wants you to experience the peace and harmony Jesus came to win back for you. We all want peace and harmony in our relationships with others, but it has to begin with God first. Paul tells us, “Since we have been [past tense, an establishe fact due to Christ’s death on the cross] justified [declared not guilty of all our sins] through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ro 5:1). With God there is no such thing as irreconciliable differences.

The process goes like this: Peace with God [through faith in Jesus] = leads to Peace in me [in my heart, that peace which passes all understanding] = and that makes it possible for us to live at peace with others. We want the last step without going through the first step, but it doesn’t work that way. Jesus tells us, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). There is no truer statement than in this world we will have trouble. Who of us hasn’t been troubled by sin? We can handle trouble with our car or house. We can fix our finances, but it’s trouble in our relationships with others that always causes us the most pain.

Jesus has overcome a world of pain caused by sin for us. He overcame our sin. He gives us that peace which the world, nor anything in the world, can give us. He fills our hearts to overflowing with hope and joy and peace by the power of the Holy Spirit (Ro 15:13) so that we can be the one who takes the first step and makes the first move to reconcile our broken relationships with others. It caused me no end of pain to see my step-mother and her sister estranged from their brother for years - for what? Over a dispute in settling their parent’s estate. Stupid! And selfish! What a waste. When he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 55, they finally realized how wrong and stubborn they had been. Are there any relationships in your life right now that are estranged? Someone in your past that you have not forgiven? A sister, a brother, an ex-spouse, a child, a parent who has abused you? Anyone you have not released from the responsibility for having wronged you?

Remember the prodigal son’s father? He prayed for his son every day. He waited patiently for his son to come to his senses and return. And when the son did, the father forgave him and welcomed him home with arms open wide. Just like God has for us. After all we have received from God, how could we not forgive those who have hurt and wounded us? How can we withhold forgiveness from them, fail to do all within our power to reconcile with them? Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s parents disapproved so strongly of her marriage to Robert that they disowned her. Almost weekly, Elizabeth wrote love letters to her mother and father, asking for a reconciliation. They never once replied. After ten years of letter writing, Elizabeth received a huge box in the mail. She opened it. It broke her heart to discover that the box contained all her letters to her parents. Not one of them had been opened! Today those love letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature. If only her parents had read just one letter, perhaps a reconciliation would have happened. This leads to my final point.

3. GOD MAKES US ALL MINISTERS OF THIS MESSAGE (OF RECONCILIATION)

We who have been forgiven so much; we who have been restored; we who now enjoy peace and harmony with God through Jesus - God entrusts to us the precious message. What God has done for us, he has done for all, for our text reminds us, “that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (19). And, “God gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (18); “And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (19). He has made each of us his ambassadors to the world (including the world in which you live here at St. Mark’s and in the community of Watertown).

Do you remember the old Shirley Temple movies? She was the cute little girl who dance and sang her way into people’s hearts. She grew up to be an ambassador of the United States to a country in Africa. An ambassador represents his country and carries the message of his country’s leader to other countries. He or she only speaks what they are told and they are not responsible for the reception of the message they share. We are like that. Many of us are afraid of what others might say to us or think about us if we tell them the truth about their sinful lifestyles and where they are headed. Fear prevents us, but that fear is another form of selfishness on our part. Our message is too important, their eternal fate is too real to let them plunge headlong into destruction.

Our task is simple. Share the message. Tell them the truth. Invite them to be reconcilied to God - and leave the results up to him. That is his department, not ours. Jesus reassures us with these words, “He who listens to you, listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him (God) who sent me” (Lk 10:16). So don’t take their rejection of you personally. They aren’t rejecting you. They are rejecting God. Just make sure that you never give up on them. Continue to pray for them and reach out to them when you have the opportunity and ALWAYS leave the door open for their return to you and God. Never, ever give up on them. Their soul is too precious to God who sent his Son as a Substitute to die for them and win them back for all eternity.

You may know that I am the pastor who is in charge of the Elders. It is the elders responsibility to reach out to the lost and straying members here at St. Mark, but is it? Is it only their and my responsibility? Is it not everyone’s responsibility? Did not God reconcile ALL of us to himself in Christ? And did not God give to ALL of us the ministry of reconciliation? Do we not ALL hold in our hands the powerful message of what Christ has done for all. I ask you to help me, to work with me, to see yourself as a partner in the Gospel with me and the Elders. If you know of anyone who is living in sin, who is running away from God, would you be the one to follow the instructions of Jesus in Mt. 18:15-18 and speak to them first. The goal is to win them back to God. To reconcile them with God. You know them. It will take me time to get to know all of you.

They may be your friends or family. You may work with them or live near them. Find strength and courage in Christ to reach out to them. I can guarantee you they’re hurting. They may not look like it on the outside, but that God-sized hole is on the inside. Their emptiness may hide behind their laughter and carefree lifestyle, but it’s still there and it’s still real. And only Jesus can fill it. And He wants to use you and me to reach out to them (Read Daniel 12:3; James 5:19-20; Jude 22-23). Remember what God has done for you in Christ - restored and reconciled you to himself. Think of what he has given you in Christ - the peace and harmony you experience through faith. Now think of their need. GOD WANTS EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE PEACE & HARMONY IN CHRIST! My fellow ambassadors, join me in reaching out to those within St. Mark’s and our community of Watertown with the saving message of reconciliation through Christ. Amen.