THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 6, 2024 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from October 6, 2024 from Daniel 11:21-35

Theme: As recipients of His grace, it’s now our privilege to invite others to ‘be reconciled to God’.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Last week, Marilyn and I got to attend a meeting with a large group of other Portland area pastors and pastor’s wives. It was a great time of encouragement.

As I looked around the room at all those pastors and leaders in ministry—folks that have given their lives to the work of the ministry in a very hard mission field—I wondered, if they were asked why they do it, what they might say. It wasn’t long before I turned that question to myself. Why do I do it? Why was it that—not too very long after I placed my faith in Jesus as my Savior and Lord—I felt the irresistible tug of the Lord on my own heart to go to Bible college, get training, and go into the ministry of the gospel as my life’s work?

And when I thought about it, I concluded that—along with other things—it was because I became absolutely convinced of the life-changing power of a relationship with Jesus Christ by faith. I have personally experienced the transforming power of His love and grace in my own life, and I want to tell others to experience it too. There’s absolutely nothing that can transform the human heart like a personal relationship of love with the Savior. I’m pretty sure that most of the ministers in that room the other day would have said something very close to the same thing.

And I know someone else who would have said it. It’s the apostle Paul. In his second New Testament letter to the Corinthian church, he was dealing with the problem of people who were questioning the sincerity of his ministry. He spent a lot of time in this letter describing how hard ministry had been for him and his co-workers—and how much it cost him personally to preach the message of the life-transforming power of faith in Jesus. And in Chapter 5—while writing about his own experiences and his own sense of calling in the ministry of the gospel—he told the Corinthian believers;

For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:12-17).

Don’t you just love that last verse? Can you think of anything more wonderful?—that if any man or any woman places their trust in Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, they become a brand new creation before God? All the old things have passed away. The past is gone. For them—in the sight of God—all things have become new! The life-transforming power of simple, sincere faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is immeasurable! It’s the power of God unto salvation for all who believe! It’s the one message of hope—above anything else—that the people of this world most need to hear! It’s the greatest transforming force for good that there is in the world because it does what nothing else can do—completely transform a person into a new creation!

And as I have been thinking about that over these past few days, my attention was particularly drawn to what Paul went on to write to the Corinthian believers. I believe that he was thinking primarily about himself and his fellow workers in the gospel. But what he went on to say has application to you and me today—in fact to every man or woman who has experienced that same life-transforming power of the gospel.

In 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, he wrote;

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

You see; for every one of us here this morning who have heard the message of God’s saving grace through the gospel—whose hearts have been opened to see that God’s sinless Son Jesus Christ took the guilt of our sin upon Himself and paid the price for us—who have placed our faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and who have now experienced for ourselves the life-transforming power of peace with God through Jesus—we now have a duty in this world to invite others to place their trust in Jesus and experience His life-changing power for themselves. We have been given the ministry of inviting others to have a relationship of peace with God through faith in Jesus. We may not personally be in full-time ministry in a vocational sense; but we have nevertheless been given a ministry … and we’re to be working to fulfill that ministry all the time.

And so; let’s look at these words from the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 in more detail. In them, we discover that as recipients of God’s grace, it’s now our privilege to invite others to do as Paul says and ‘be reconciled to God’.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; let’s begin with a basic question about the ministry we’ve been given; that’s …

1. WHAT THIS MINISTRY IS ABOUT.

As you read through these words, you find that it’s a theme that’s repeated. In fact, it’s mentioned five times in just these four verses. It’s the theme of ‘reconciliation’. We’re told that God has “reconciled us to Himself” (v. 18a); and Paul said that he and his co-workers had been given “the ministry of reconciliation” (v. 18b). He explained that God was “reconciling the world to Himself” (v. 19a); and that He had now committed “the ministry of reconciliation” to Paul and his co-laborers. He now fulfilled that ministry by declaring the invitation, “be reconciled to God”. It’s a ministry—a call to service from God; and this passage specifically speaks twice of “the ministry of reconciliation”.   So; it doesn’t take a brilliant Bible scholar to figure out that this “ministry” is about “reconciliation” with God.

But what exactly does that mean in this specific case? ‘Reconciliation’ isn’t a word that we use very often. We sometimes use it in an ‘accounting’ sense when we talk about ‘reconciling’ facts and figures in different sets of documents. When we use the word that way, we’re saying that we’re trying to ‘reconcile’ the different figures so that they’re consistent with one another. Or we might use that word in a relational sense when we talk about two people who have had strong differences with one another but are now ‘reconciled’. And when we use the word that way, we’re saying that they now co-exist in harmony with each other. Sometimes we use it in a personal way and say that we have ‘reconciled ourselves’ to this situation or that circumstance. And when we use the word that way, we’re saying that we’ve come to a kind of peace with a matter—that we’ve resolved ourselves to it and no longer fight against it.

In the original language of Paul’s letter, the word is katallasō; and at the most fundamental level, it speaks of the idea of ‘change’. It’s a word that means ‘to change or exchange one thing for another’. In the Bible, it speaks of exchanging one kind of relationship for another—specifically, exchanging a relationship of hostility with God for a relationship of friendship with Him. And that’s what this ‘ministry’ is about. It’s about announcing the good news that an ‘exchange of the relationship’ with God has been brought about through Jesus Christ—a change from a relationship of hostility and enmity to a relationship of love and peace. We have become ‘reconciled’ to Him.

The Bible tells us that it was our sin has caused a separation between ourselves and God. It started with our father Adam. He disobeyed God’s command and ate the fruit that was forbidden to him. And then next thing we know, God was described as calling out to Adam and saying, “Where are you?” God is a holy God; and He cannot have fellowship with sin. Because of our sins, we had made ourselves the enemies of God. And until the guilt of that sin is removed, we can’t have peace with Him. As the Bible tells us in Isaiah 59:1-2.

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear (Isaiah 59:1-2).

And so; when we talk about the Bible’s concept of ‘reconciliation’ through faith in Jesus—which is the ‘good news’ of the gospel—we’re talking about a work in which God has taken away the cause of that separation between Himself and us. He has provided atonement for our sins through the cross of Jesus, and has brought about ‘an exchange in the relationship’ from one of hostility and enmity to one of friendship and welcome.

But here’s the thing that makes this work of reconciliation so remarkable—and unlike any other that we can think of. In most other conditions of enmity and hostility, both parties need to equally be reconciled to one another. But it wasn’t that God needed to cease being our enemy in order to be reconciled to us. He didn’t need to exchange the relationship He had with us from one of hostility to one of love; because He already loved us while we were in the condition of hostility toward Him! The apostle Paul told us about this in Romans 5, when he wrote;

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation (Romans 5:6-11).

So; that’s the great theme of this ministry—the declaration that God, in love, has already brought about all that’s necessary for full reconciliation with us. He didn’t need to cease being our enemy, because He already loved us. Even when we were in that ‘unreconciled’ condition—even when we were the most hostile against Him—even when we were raging against Him and refusing to acknowledge Him—He took the first step and completely removed the cause for the separation between Himself and us through Christ … and extended the invitation to now be reconciled to Him.

And that leads us to another thing to notice in this passage; and that’s …

2. WHOSE IDEA IT WAS.

Who is the great Instigator of this great program of ‘reconciliation’ with God? Paul tells us plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:18; “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ”.   It is all the doing of the heavenly Father.

We sometimes have a very unworthy picture in our minds of God’s attitude toward humanity. We sometimes think of Him up in heaven looking down upon the people of this world with great wrath and anger—ready to destroy us for our sins; and then of Jesus, His Son, standing between Him and fallen humanity—seeking to appease His Father’s just wrath against us, pleading with Him not to destroy us, reminding His Father that He died on the cross for us. But that’s not the case at all. It’s true that Jesus loves us and has satisfied His heavenly Father’s just wrath for our sins by dying on the cross in our place. But Jesus did so because the Father Himself loves us and sent Him to be our atoning sacrifice.

You’re familiar—I’m sure—with the most well-known verse in the Bible. Almost everyone can quote it. It speaks to us of how we are saved. It’s John 3:16; which says,

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

But have you carefully considered the first nine words of that verse?—“For God so loved the world that He gave …”? Have you ever considered the order of events in those nine words, and how God’s love is the first act described? And have you ever considered the next verse—verse 17? It says;

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (v. 17).

That’s one of the glorious aspects of this wonderful message of ‘reconciliation’. It’s that we don’t have to work hard to climb up the impossible ladder of ‘earning God’s love’ before He can be reconciled to us. That’s what mere ‘religion’ is all about—the impossible effort of trying to make ourselves worthy of being reconciled to God. The good news of the gospel is that God has already taken the initiative of love. He has already given everything that is needed to take away the barrier between Himself and us. All we have to do is believe it and receive it.

So then, dear brothers and sisters; that’s the “ministry of reconciliation”.  It’s to declare that God has already made the first move toward us so that we can now make the move toward Him.  It’s to tell poor, lost, needy, broken people that God loves them and has already paid the price for their sins so that they can now simply come to Him for life.  It’s the most transforming message the world has ever known. And if we’ve tasted of it and have been transformed by it, how can we help but minister that good news to others?

And that leads us to another thing to notice from this passage; and that’s …

3. WHO HAS BEEN GIVEN THE TASK.

In verses 18-19, Paul wrote, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” God, in His immeasurable wisdom, has given the task of declaring this message of reconciliation to those who have been transformed by it.

The good news is that God was reconciling the world to Himself “in Christ”.  Jesus paid the price; so now, no one has to try to earn the right of having their sins removed from their record. All they have to do is come to God in faith, tell Him that we are sorry, and believe that Jesus paid it all for us. What good news! And think of it! He didn’t give to angels the ministry of declaring this good news—although they surely could have fulfilled it with great power. Nor did He Himself open up the clouds and utter it with a thunderous voice into the world.  Instead, He gave this ministry to us—to those who were once His enemies but who have now been reconciled to Him by faith in Jesus.

Paul once wrote about his personal experience of transformation. He said;

And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.  This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life (1 Timothy 1:12-16).

Paul had personally experienced the life-changing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ! He—a formerly notorious sinner against God—had been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ!  He was—by virtue of his own life story—a very convincing piece of evidence for the ministry of reconciliation!  No wonder he was so eager to proclaim “the word of reconciliation”!

So should we be! And that leads us to another thing that this passage tells us; and that is …

4. WHAT AUTHORITY WE HAVE IN DOING IT.

In verse 20, Paul said, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

An ‘ambassador’ is an official representative of a king or a nation.  He or she is officially sent to proclaim the interests of the one who sent them, and to invite someone else into a friendly relationship with the one they represent. That was what the apostle Paul was. In fact, the word ‘apostle’ means ‘sent one’.  In Ephesians 6:20, he called himself “an ambassador in chains”—faithfully and officially representing the invitation of his Lord and Master, even though he suffered in this world for doing so.

Paul’s ‘ambassadorship’ was a unique one. But there’s very clearly a sense in which all of us who have believed the gospel and are now reconciled to God by His Son are to go out into the world as “ambassadors of Christ”.  As the apostle Peter once wrote;

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10).

And that leads us to one more thing about this glorious ‘ministry of reconciliation’ that we are called to; and that’s …

5. WHAT THE BASIS OF IT ALL IS.

In verse 21, Paul explains to us what has made this good news of reconciliation with God possible. He wrote, “ For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Our sin made it impossible for us to be reconciled to God. But a great exchange has occurred. God sent His Son to bear the guilt of our sin on our behalf and willingly pay the death penalty for us.  He who had no sin of His own, and who bore no guilt of sin before His Father, was made to “be sin for us” on the cross.  Our guilt was placed onto His account for us, so He could pay the debt for us. Thus, God removed the barrier to reconciliation so that we could come to Him. But God did more. He also credited the righteousness of Jesus to our account, so that God the Father now looks upon us—who have placed our faith in Jesus—as being made as righteous as Jesus is in His sight, and fully welcomes in His holy presence us as reconciled to Himself. As it says in Hebrews 10:19-22;

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19-22).

What a glorious description of reconciliation with God!

* * * * * * * * * * *

So, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; if we have personally tasted of the joy of full reconciliation with God through the good news of the gospel—if we have experienced the life-transforming power of peace with God through faith in Jesus—then we’re meant by God to be an ambassador of it to this world.  You and I need to go out—as authorized ambassadors—with the invitation, “Be reconciled to God.” You don’t have to be in full-time, vocational ministry to do that. You can just be an ambassador of ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ right where God has placed you.

And if you’re here this morning and have never put your faith in Jesus—if you’ve never accepted God’s invitation to be reconciled to Him—don’t wait. As Paul himself went on to write in 2 Corinthians 6:1-2;

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,
And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

As someone who—myself—has experienced the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ, I extend the invitation to you: Put your trust in Jesus and “be reconciled to God”!

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