September 6, 2009

Our Mission and Vision (Sermon 2)Reconciling People to Each Other

Ephesians 2:11 ff.

Sunday MorningSeptember 6, 2009Church in the BoroRob Wilkerson

Have Harrison share his testimony from the incident at school two weeks ago.

Introduction

One of the most difficult aspects of Christianity is the horizontal relationships. The vertical relationship we have with God seems to go fairly well for those who are truly born again. God has saved them, they know it, they love it, and they live in that salvation, praising God for it.

But the horizontal relationships don’t seem to fair as well. Those who are truly born again will attest to how difficult it is to leave in total peace with other Christians. Fights, quarrels, bickering, gossiping, slandering, etc. all abound in too many churches and among too many Christian relationships.

I’d like to submit to you this morning, however, that your testimony about your relationship with God is inseparable from the lifestyle you reflect in your relationships with other people. You can’t have a solid vertical relationship without a solid horizontal one. And conversely, you can’t have horizontal relationships that function normally in a biblical way, unless your vertical relationship with God is functioning in a normal way. They go hand in hand. They’re two sides of the same coin.

Why does it have to be this way? For the simple fact that we show our love for God by how we love one another. People won’t know we love God if we don’t love one another. By the same token, they will know we are followers of Jesus by how we treat His family members. As one pastor put it, “you can’t love Jesus and dis His Bride.” Or put another way, “You can’t say you follow Jesus when you mistreat His brothers and sisters.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news that God has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ to live the perfect life I never could, and die the death I never would, and raise Himself from the dead in order to one thing: to get rid of everything in my life that hindered me from being God’s best friend, thereby making me a friend of God.

My goal here this morning is simply to make the single most significant application of the gospel in all of Scripture: if God has reconciled you to Himself then you’re also reconciled with

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everyone else who’s reconciled to Him. My ability to act this out and live this way, as far as it depends on me, is the real measure of whether or not my profession of faith is genuine.

Turn in your Bibles to one of the most significant texts on personal relationships and reconciliation. It’s Ephesians 2:11-3:21. You’ll remember me saying several times that the letter to the Ephesians wasn’t actually intended just for the Ephesians. It would seem that just as Romans is Paul’s theology of the gospel, Ephesians is his theology of the church. So this letter, meant to be read by all the churches, contains the foundational beliefs and core doctrine of the universal church and the local church.

Ephesians 1:4-2:10 is all about Reconciling Sinners to God, the first part of our mission statement here at Church in the Boro. Ephesians 2:11-3:21 is about the second part of that mission statement, which is “Reconciling People to Each Other.” You see, we believe here at Church in the Boro that being reconciled to God means we are automatically reconciled to everyone else around us who has been reconciled to God. In other words, if you’re a follower of Jesus, then you and I are followers together. And if nothing separates you from the love of God, then nothing can separate you from my love…and nothing should separate me from your love.

This doctrine of reconciliation is actually the doctrine of racial reconciliation also, since the fundamental issue facing the church at this time in history was Jews and Gentiles getting along with each other and worshiping together. This was a racial thing in every sense of the word. The Jews looked at Gentiles like whites looked at blacks not too many years ago, and for very many years prior to that.

He speaks to this in 2:11 and following, when he writes that the Gentiles were uncircumcised. Circumcision, while something doctors do today to infants for health purposes, held deep religious significance for a Jew. If you’ve ever read the story about Abraham, in Genesis 17 God tells him that because He chose Abraham and was going to make a whole nation of people who would love Him, God wanted to seal His promise with Abraham by mandating that he circumcise himself and all his descendants after him on their eighth day. A scary prospect for a man who was about a hundred years old at that time, if not a little older.

So to not be circumcised is to not be a part of the promise God made to Abraham. And that’s what Paul meant in verse 12 when he writes that they were “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” That’s an incredibly heavy statement, isn’t it?! I mean the Gentiles were on the “outs” with God and with God’s people. To the Jews, Gentiles were dogs, pigs, and any other racial slur you can think of that has been used in the past. (To be sure, this wasn’t God’s intention...ever! God wanted them to be a light to the Gentiles to bring them into the covenant. But instead of doing this, they burned their only bridge to accomplish God’s purpose for them when they murdered Jesus.)

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And it is at this point that Paul introduces the gospel, the good news. It was good news to the Gentile who was on the “outs” with God and His promises to Israel. Paul writes in verse 13 that “now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Hallelujah! That’s you and me folks! Unless I missed any Jews who are here visiting with us this morning, every single one of us would have continued to be without hope and without God in this world had it not been for Jesus Christ bringing us close to God by His blood. I love Paul’s language there: you who once were far off. Once upon a time I was far off from God, but not anymore, hallelujah.

That brings us to verses 14-16 which seem to be the theological pivot of chapter 2. We know that because Paul begins verse 14 with a causal conjunction, seen in our English word “for.” In essence, Paul is using this word to explain how it is, and why it is that God has brought the Gentiles near to Himself and His promises to Israel through the blood of Jesus Christ.

1. The Who: Jesus Christ Himself is our peace.

2. The What: as the very Peace of God itself, Jesus Christ accomplished two things…

a. He united believing Jews and Gentiles into one group.

b. In dying for them (us) He broke down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances.

3. The Why: as the person of Peace, Jesus Christ had a two-fold goal in doing what He did.

a. He wanted to create in Himself one new group of people to replace the two groups in order to make peace.

b. He wanted to reconcile Jews and Gentiles to God in one group through the cross, effectively putting to death all the hostility that raged between them.

The endgame, so to speak, is found in verses 17-22 of chapter 2. Jesus came and preached this peace to Jews and Gentiles (v. 17), so that they both would have access in one Spirit to the Father (v. 18). What Jesus effectively did in this bold act was to instantaneously bring Gentiles into the covenant, making them equal heirs with believing Jews. In verse 19 he calls them “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” So red, and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.

Cultural Parallels in Reconciliation

And this brings up a key parallel I want to make from Ephesians 2 to our day. The issue in Paul’s day was the two races: Jews and Gentiles. But we’d be idiots if we missed the parallels that can be made to our culture today, a culture where we can’t necessarily identify with Jew and Gentile disputes in a local church. Here’s what it looks like today: Racism and Discrimination.

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1. Social Favoritism, Racism and Discrimination. This happens when people inherently decide not to associate with a person or group of people who are another race or class of society. Ever chosen not to go eat at that restaurant because of the type of people who run it? Ever driven by a trailer park home and thought, “Glad I’m not livin’ there!” Ever had a red flag go up in your mind when you compare a regular home to a mobile home?

2. Economic Favoritism, Racism and Discrimination. This happens when we spend our money or give our money based on the economic strata of a particular race or group of people. It happens when we decide to go the Harvey’s on the white side of town instead of the one on the black part of town. It happens when “White Flight” occurs in a neighborhood because the influx of blacks into a neighborhood drives down the value of a home. When white people do that, they show that they prize the value of their home more than they do the value of the people moving into their neighborhoods. And when white people rent their houses to blacks or poorer people but don’t take care as good of care of it as they would if more “respectable” or wealthier, white people lived there, that’s racism and discrimination too. When white people do that, they are not living the Golden Rule of doing for those people what they would those people to do for them if the shoe were on the other foot. Why wouldn’t I take care of the home you’re renting from me as well as I take care of my own?

3. Institutional Favoritism, Racism and Discrimination. This happens when the very foundation and core and root system of a community, business, or organization is driven by a particular race or status of people for a particular race or status of people. When churches, communities, and local governments are driven by white people, then their policies and decisions and efforts will be driven for white people, no matter what they say to the opposite. Affirmative Action is a joke to the black community in America because it simply continues to affirm that special decisions have to be made to ensure a black person or minority person gets a job in that organization. But when they do, it’s usually the lowest paying job or one with the lowest amount of responsibility.

The street I live on is a great example of all three layers of racism and discrimination coming in to play. Why doesn’t Mikell Street in Statesboro have curbs like almost every other street? Because cities give attention to streets based on the amount of money the citizens on that street contribute to the system. So on a street where 90% are blacks (most of whom are receiving from the welfare system), 5% are Latino, 2.5% are White, and 2.5% are Philippino, a city is not going to commit their resources equally to my street as they would in a much more privilege neighborhood of Statesboro. This is evil, wicked, and unbiblical because God hates favoritism and partiality. And favoritism and partiality are driven by racism and discrimination, no matter how much we hate to admit it.

Now undoubtedly, I’ve asked a lot of questions and you’ve had a lot of answers pop into your head. But here’s the point I want to make clear. The fact that you’ve had a lot of seemingly

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justifiable answers pop up in your head to my questions makes my case that racism and discrimination are systemic to our culture in the south and to our city here in Statesboro. You made up answers and exceptions to my questions because you are just as much affected, or rather infected, by racism and discrimination as I am. It’s in our DNA. But the point Paul made, and the one I’m making, is that the blood of Jesus Christ has changed our DNA. Let me say it in Southern for you: “I ain’t no white-lovin’, nigger-hatin’, Jew-hatin’, Mexican-hatin’ Georgian by birth, and Southern by the grace of God!” I’m a multi-ethnic lover, multi-racial lover, multi-color lover, and multi-language lover of red, yellow, black and white just like my Savior, Jesus Christ! THAT’S WHO I am now. All skin colors fade in the blood of Jesus.

God says that ALL Christians are a part of His family. He doesn’t discriminate. He does not show favoritism. He is not partial. He shares His blessings with everyone, regardless of race or social status. The difficulty, however, is that since the church is the reflection of God’s blessing on earth, it’s awful hard to tell that God is sharing His blessings with every race and social strata of Statesboro when we still have white churches, black churches, Latino churches, Korean churches, etc. If they are believers, they have been made right with God just like I have. And this necessitates hard work on the part of the church to make the outer look like the inner, to make our relationships with each other reflect that reality in heaven, to bring black and white relationships out of our culture and into a living color reality that it is supposed to be in the church of God. In other words, it’s gonna take a lot of very, very hard work to act out this doctrine of reconciliation in the life of Church in the Boro when in the deep south where we live social, economic, and institutional racism and discrimination is still very much part of the DNA of our culture.

Now, let me switch back to the theology of Ephesians here and take what I’ve just preached to you and drive it a little further. What I don’t want you to miss here is the interplay Paul intends here between the work of Jesus on behalf of reconciling sinners to God, and the work of Jesus on behalf of reconciling people to each other. When the blood of Christ brings a Gentile near to God and into the covenant and promises of God, then that automatically means that saved Gentile is brought near to the saved Jew as an inseparable part of the same family.

In other words, the work of Jesus on the cross for each person, regardless of their race, accomplishes the very same work vertically (in their relationship with God), and horizontally (in their relationship with each other). And here’s the application I want to give to you this morning.

Jesus Christ died for the church. If you are a believer, you are a part of the church. When Jesus Christ died for you and everyone else in the church, He instantly, once-and-for-all brought you and everyone else near to God. Therefore, when Jesus Christ died for you and everyone else in the church, He instantly, once-and-for-all brought you all near to each other. His death united you to Himself, and it also united you to each other. If you are reconciled to God, then you’re equally reconciled to the believer sitting next to you, as well as to the believer sitting on the other side of this planet from you right now. Let me break this out from Ephesians 2 for a moment to drive my point home.

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Jewish and Gentile believers have been brought near to God, and therefore to one another (2:13).

Both races have peace with God, and therefore with one another (2:14).

The hostility both races have with God has been removed, and so it has with one another (2:14).

God has nullified His law toward me because of Jesus’ perfect obedience, and therefore God’s law toward one another has been nullified too (2:15).

God did all these things not only to unite me to Him, but in order to create a new group of people reconciled and united to each other (2:16-17).

Jesus preached peace to Jews and Gentiles alike, in order to give them all an access to the Father, making all Christians, regardless of race, saints and members of the church of God (2:18-19).

Really, what we’re saying then is that the second part of our mission statement here at Church in the Boro - “Reconciling People to Each Other” - is about continuing and deepening our relationships with each other regardless of sin or skin.

God doesn’t let our sin get in the way of our relationship with Him because He’s forgiven it once and for all. And so we shouldn’t let our sin get in the way of our relationship with each other, because He’s forgiven their sin once and for all also.

Likewise, God doesn’t let our race, as Gentiles, get in the way of our relationship with Him because Jesus died to bring us into His family. So neither should we let the race of another person get in the way of our relationship with them, because Jesus died to bring them into His family also.

To summarize this in a helpful statement: if they’re reconciled to God, then they’re reconciled to me!

Application to Church in the Boro

Now, in light of these truths, there are five things I want to leave you with this morning which are key applications for us as a church plant right now.

1. Continue and deepen your relationships with each other without thought of their past sins or offenses. If I am reconciled to God and you are reconciled to God then we are reconciled to

each other. Therefore we must act like it.

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If I am reconciled to you and you are reconciled to me then we act like it by relating to each other based on the truth that all our sins are forgiven.

If all our sins are forgiven then they can’t get in the way of our relationships with each other. Yes, there’s repentance involved, but forgiveness must precipitate all of our relationships, not repentance.

o Repentance is an ongoing, progressive process. No other human being can be the standard for success in repentance. Therefore, no other human being can judge another person’s success in repentance. Thus, repentance from the perspective or perception of another human being is far more subjective than it is objective. And it cannot be used as a measure of continuing or deepening relationships.

o Forgiveness is a once-and-for-all decision, statement, and conclusion made about another person’s sin. God is the standard for forgiveness. And if He has forgiven another person’s sins, then so ought we. And if God’s relationship with that person is not hindered because of that sin, then we should make every effort to see that ours are not either (stubborn, willful, unrepentance as the exclusion, of course).

Forgiveness does NOT mean… I condone what the other person did. I approve of what the other person did, said, or believes. I accept what they believe as true.

Forgiveness DOES mean… Dealing with an issue head on, ensuring that the relationship

continues in love. Dealing with unrepentant sin head on, ensuring that the

relationship continues in love.

In the end, it is the knowledge that you forgive that person and still fervently love and accept them that will foster their repentance. When people feel that the relationship will be hindered or separated, as it usually happens, they usually think about their sin or the other person’s sin differently. In other words, the lack of forgiveness and commitment to reconciliation always clouds a person’s perception of other people’s actions, words, and lifestyle. But when the relationship is soaked and marinated and baptized and drowned in the blood of Jesus Christ, a fervency of love toward each ensures that the relationship won’t be lost. That blood of Jesus Christ is actually an oil or lubricant that motivates forgiveness and stimulates faster reconciliation.

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2. Continue and deepen your relationships with each other without thought of skin color or race.

When Jesus made Jews and Gentiles into one new group (Eph. 2:14), every tribe, race, and language was included.

When Jesus reconciled Jews and Gentiles into one body, killing the hostility that existed between them (Eph. 2:16), there is no reason in the mind of God in which two Christians of different races ought not to be reconciled to each other today; especially since all races have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18).

3. Study how God treats those He’s reconciled to Himself to know how to treat those whom God has already reconciled to me.

This means that everything you learn about God’s attitude towards you is to be the attitude you take towards other people, including unbelievers. Remember Romans 5:6, 8, and 10. While you were ungodly, helpless and His enemy, He died for you. Study the love God has toward you in Christ if you want to know how to love one another.

4. If you have sins, offenses, or issues to clear up with someone you know you’ve offended, then stop what you’re doing and go be reconciled with them.

Jesus taught us in Matthew 5:23-24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” God doesn’t want to accept what you want to give Him if you aren’t right with one of His children, with one of your brothers or sisters. It’s hard to receive it from you when He knows you don’t want to give it to your own spiritual flesh and blood.

This is a huge key for some of you right now. In the past you acted out a desire to glorify God by being jealous for His glory, but you acted it out in a sinful and prideful way. This unnecessarily offended other people and actually had the opposite effect of staining the glory of God in their eyes. So it’s hard for God to accept the praise and worship and prayers and Bible reading you do when that other matter hasn’t been cleared up. If you want real freedom and real breakthrough in your life this morning, get this area right and the heavens will open up to you and the blessing of God will come down on you like you’ve never experienced it before. Do NOT underestimate the power of reconciliation, nor the blessing and success it brings in your life and ministry. Listen to Eugene Peterson’s translation of Isaiah 58:1-12 on this subject.

1-3 "Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,

face my family Jacob with their sins!They're busy, busy, busy at worship,

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and love studying all about me.To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—

law-abiding, God-honoring.They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'

and love having me on their side.But they also complain,

'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'

3-5"Well, here's why:

"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.

You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist.

The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground.

Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a day to show off humility?To put on a pious long face

and parade around solemnly in black?Do you call that fasting,

a fast day that I, God, would like?

6-9"This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice,

get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed,

cancel debts.What I'm interested in seeing you do is:

sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes,

putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once.Your righteousness will pave your way.

The God of glory will secure your passage.Then when you pray, God will answer.

You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'

9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims,

quit gossiping about other people's sins,

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If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,

Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.

I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—

firm muscles, strong bones.You'll be like a well-watered garden,

a gurgling spring that never runs dry.You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,

rebuild the foundations from out of your past.You'll be known as those who can fix anything,

restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.

5. If you have been offended with someone else’s sin or issue, then stop what you’re doing and go and be reconciled to them.

Jesus flips the coin on the other side in Matthew 18:15-20. In Matthew 5 the focus was on the person who knew they had offended somebody else. In Matthew 18 the focus is on the person who has been offended by somebody else. Listen to what Jesus says. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” The goal in going to the person who’s hurt you is to gain them, to win them, to be reconciled to them.

For those of you who have taken offense at what someone else has done, Jesus challenges you as well. He cannot bless you when you are holding something against one of His other children. If I could get this one thought across to you it would be this: Jesus is just as crazy in love with His other children as He is with YOU! Forget this truth and you will be held on bondage to bitterness and resentment the rest of your life. You cannot hold something over the head of another follower of Jesus when Jesus doesn’t hold anything you’ve done over your head. So if somebody’s done you wrong, drop what you’re doing and go settle it with them, treating them as God has treated you, dealing with their sin the way God has dealt with your sin. And if they listen to you about what they did wrong, then you’ve reconciled yourself to them and them to you.

Conclusion

September 6, 2009

To wrap this up, listen to me closely here on these five application points. This whole issue of being reconciled to each other is a whole lot bigger than just you and your problems, you and your enemies, you and your issues. Do you know why Paul wrote what he did in Ephesians 2 and 3? It was about the church of God.

You see, the presence and work of Jesus in the church has a greater dimension of impact on the world than the presence and work of Jesus in your personal life. You must reconcile yourself to one another because if you don’t, then the church effectively ceases to exist in any real and effectual way. Who wants to be a part of a family that can’t get along with itself? Who wants to be a part of a church were people are all the time mad at each other? How can such a church really have an genuine impact on the world, reconciling sinners to God, if they can’t even stay reconciled to each other. You know what they’ll interpret from that? That if we can’t stay reconciled to each other, then how can we stay reconciled to God? You see, they interpret the gospel by how we behave. If we tell them about justification by faith, that God declares us no longer guilty before Him, but then we turn around and hold other people guilty before us, where’s the consistency that makes people want to be justified by God? Why would I want to come to your God when you can’t get along with the people He loves?

A Warning From God

Hear this warning from God Himself on this matter.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

That’s how serious God is about this matter of not being reconciled to each other. Grouping off into cliques is something foreign to Jesus when He predestined this whole plan of a church. Not one Christian can come up with one solid reason as to why they should not be reconciled and unified with other believers.

“Well, they’re just strange folks.” Remember, you were strange folks to God, but He saved you and made you a part of His family.

“Well, they’re just not in our socio-economic strata.” Well, you’re not in God’s socio-economic strata. He owns the universe and you own a nice house and a couple of nice cars. He doesn’t hold that against you.

“You don’t understand…so and so has got some serious issues.” But from God’s perspective, so did you before He saved you. And now He’s working your issues out, just like He’s working out their issues.

“Well…there’s just no way I’m fellowshipping with those Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists and Pentecostals.” Why? Whatever denomination you are is just as bad as those!

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“But Rob, I feel uncomfortable and out of place in a church where I’m one of the only few white people.” Then you’re gonna feel extremely uncomfortable around the throne of King Jesus, because in Revelation 5 there are gonna people there from every skin color and language.

World Evangelism Rests on Racial Reconciliation

My point is that this matter of reconciliation to each other is way, way bigger than just you and me and our personal issues with other people. This is a matter of world evangelism. In John 17 we see a prayer that Jesus prayed then, but one He continues praying right now to this very minute. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:20-23).

Friends, that’s powerful. That’s the most powerful prayer I’ve ever read, I think. Notice the frequent references to being “one.” And how does that happen, exactly? Just how does a group of Christians act as one? By being reconciled to each other.

And did you notice that other phrase Jesus used twice? He basically said that the reason He wants us to be one, to be reconciled to each other is so that the world may believe in Jesus, so that the world may know that Jesus is the Son of God and that God loves them just like He loves Jesus.

So this whole matter of “Reconciling People to Each Other” is about world evangelization! That’s how serious this is! Take it that seriously!

I want Church in the Boro to be the answer to the prayer Jesus prays there in that passage. Let me say that again, loudly, clearly, and slowly.

I…

Want…

Church in the Boro…

To…

Be…

THE…

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Answer…

To…

The…

Prayer…

Jesus…

Is Praying…

Right Now!

Will you work with me to be that answer, so that together we can reconcile the world to King Jesus? If that’s what you want, then we want you here with us at Church in the Boro.