Title: AN APPEAL FROM HEAVEN
Focus: Be reconciled to God.
Function: To move the people to seek and receive God’s reconciliation and to live a reconciled life today.
Text: II Corinthians 5:11-6:2
Violence and death confront us every day. We read of gang members killing each other at random; domestic violence, where husbands and wives are at each other’s throats; and we read of horrendous stories of child abuse in many States and American homes. Violence and death are pervasive in our culture.
The larger picture in our world is not any more encouraging. The African continent is rife with conflict—ranging from Zambia to the Sudan. The European continent has its own share of conflict. Think of the Middle East, where Israelis and Palestinians treat each other with hostility. Or consider the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so many other places. It’s no wonder that people become numb to the pictures of violence and death. You want to walk away from it all and protect yourself by pretending it’s not there, or by ignoring it all together.
So, you have come to church today. And the first thing your pastor asks you to do is follow the road of Christ’s suffering during this season of Lent. That road of suffering ends at a hillside called Golgotha. And there we find Jesus Christ being nailed on a cross, along with two other criminals. A picture of violence and death.
And as you listen to the scripture passage from II Corinthians 5, you hear an appeal from heaven: “Be reconciled to God!” And you wonder: what’s going on? That the world needs reconciliation and peace is clear. But what does a Christ on the cross two thousand years ago and this appeal from heaven in the scriptures today, have anything to do with you and me?
Let’s explore the scripture passage. The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church in the context of having to defend his ministry of preaching the gospel against some preachers who made claims of being super apostles, having access to divine power. They discredited the ministry of Paul. These so-called super apostles were “peddling the Word of God for profit.” It’s in this context that Paul writes about the heart of the gospel or good news. Paul could not care less what people think of him. But Paul gets passionate when it comes to the heart of the Christian faith. Listen: “If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” So, then, it is good news, centered in the Lord Jesus Christ--the crucified, risen Son of God--that drives Paul and moves him to come to us today with an appeal from heaven.
The second thing we should note from this passage is the urgency of the apostle Paul’s appeal to us. Listen to the language in the text: (vs. 11) “…we try to persuade men.” (vs. 14) “For Christ’s love compels us….” (vs. 20) “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (vs.20b) “We implore you on Christ’s behalf….” (6:1) “As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.” (6:2) “Now is the time of God’s favor; now is the day of salvation.”
Clearly, there is urgency in Paul’s voice. That urgency calls us to pay attention.
That leads us to the next observation in the text: a key word: reconciliation. Perhaps I should start with the meaning of that word. Take a member of the Klu Klux Klan. Such a person hates African Americans (and usually anyone else of different race or skin color than his own). Members of the K.K.K. have burned crosses and threatened the lives of many in the early nineteen fifties and sixties. Clearly, when you see a K.K.K. member doing his work of hostility, you see enmity at work.
Now take that same K.K.K. member: remove his hood, his burning cross, his hateful words towards black from his lips. Then picture an African American sitting with that same person, drinking coffee together, laughing, and joking together, and working together. That’s a picture of reconciliation.
Or imagine the Israelis and Palestinians—no longer throwing rocks and shooting bullets at each other, but working together, playing together, building together a country of joy and prosperity. That’s a picture of reconciliation.
Or try to picture Sunni Muslems and Shiite Muslems—instead of treating each other with contempt and violence—now walking together, building a new Iraq, considering the interests of the other more important than their own. That’s a picture of reconciliation.
Having pointed to Jesus Christ as the “one who died for all,” Paul points to the awesome result of Christ’s death: “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” And then Paul says (vs. 18) “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 men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
Here we learn that reconciliation is the work of God, a gift of God, and a call of God to us.
Here is a mystery that must be believed and embraced: when we observe Christ’s suffering on the cross and consider his death, we see God at work—reconciling you and me and the world to himself. Elsewhere in Scripture Paul says: (Rom. 5:8ff) “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
It was our sins, it was our rebellion and hostility to God and to one another that led Jesus Christ to the cross. Our sins raised up a great wall of hostility between God and us. But God knocked down that wall by sending his Son to die for us, to appease God’s wrath on us, to make us friends with God rather than his enemies. That’s why Paul says in Rom. 8:9ff “Since we have now been justified by (Christ’s) blood, how much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God through (Christ)! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”
Earlier, I gave you some worldly pictures of reconciliation. Here are some biblical pictures: (Isaiah 65:25) “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox….” A picture of peace. Here’s another one: (Isaiah 11:8) “The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” A picture of calm, of peace, of reconciliation.
Here’s a very dramatic picture. It brings us back to the cross of Jesus, when Jesus died and gave up his spirit. Matthew, the gospel writer says: (Matthew 27:31) “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” As Jesus dies on our behalf, he opens up the way to God; the hostility that kept us, sinners, from having peace with God, is now taken away. We are reconciled to God.
Reconciliation, then, is the work of God. He has brought us peace through his Son, the Lord Jesus. Jesus took our place; he suffered the wrath of God on our sins; and Jesus paid the wages of sin. Thus Jesus atoned for our sins, that is, he made us one with God by shedding his blood, and by transferring his righteousness to us, so that “in Jesus, we may become the righteousness of God.”
In other words, so that God no longer sees us a guilty sinners, but forgiven. God no longer counts our sins against us, because his sinless Son, Jesus Christ, was made to be a sin bearer, a sacrificial lamb, a sin offering to God. Thus, reconciliation is not only God’s work in and through Jesus; reconciliation is also God’s gift to us.
The gift of reconciliation comes to our broken world, and to all broken people, sinners, you and I included. And with great urgency, the apostle Paul appeals to us saying, “Be reconciled to God!”
What does that mean for us today? To be reconciled to God means that we accept or welcome God’s peace initiative through Jesus. It means that we respond affirmatively to God’s offer of salvation. It means that we say “Yes” to Jesus. It means that we believe and trust in him and in his word on the cross. Have you said “Yes” to Jesus? Have you put your trust fully in him? Be reconciled to God!
To be reconciled to God also means that our lives reflect renewal. Whoever comes to Christ in faith becomes a new creation, the old has passed, the new has come. The Spirit of Christ brings rebirth, a new orientation in our lives. We no longer live a life of sin; we die to sin. We no longer live for or unto ourselves; we live for Christ. Listen to the text: “(vs. 15) “And (Christ) died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” Living for Jesus is the new mantra for Christians today.
Be reconciled to God means that God’s peace becomes visible in our relationships at home, in school, at work, and in our families. Fathers and mothers work as a team, holding each other up, and supporting their children; husbands and wives work in tandem, not fighting each other, but supporting each other. Children seek to honor their parents; and parents seek to disciple their children in the ways and fear of God. The same is true for our relationships at work, at church, at school and anywhere else.
A few decades ago, Israel’s prime minister offered a peace plan to Yasser Arafat, at that time the leader of the Palestinian people. It was a historic moment. Acceptance of the peace plan would usher in a new era for the Palestinians and Israelis. Arafat rejected the plan. And hostility continues even today.
For 2000 years now, the Lord our God has offered the world his peace plan: life and salvation in Jesus Christ, his kingdom rule or influence here on earth; forgiveness of sin; no more condemnation, no more enmity between God and us; access to the throne room in heaven; and eternal life on the renewed heavens and earth. Listen to this appeal from heaven: “Be reconciled to God.” “…now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.