You Are Reconciled

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. When two people have a disagreement, it takes effort on both parties to fix the relationship. But being rightly related to God is, in fact, very one sided. If you'll turn to Second Corinthians Chapter five, Second Corinthians Chapter five and I want us to read verses 17 through 21. So he begins in verse 17 by saying, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

Old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. As that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God.

For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. As you and I understand the message of the cross, what really transpired the cross. There's going to be a deeper devotion to God. There's going to be a deeper understanding of every other facet of the Christian life. And until we dig deeper into the meaning of the cross, our Christian life will always be slightly frothy and surface. It is one thing for God to do his work. It is something else for us to respond. On the other hand, in the negative, it's either negative or positive. And I want you to see something very clearly here in all of these messages.

And that's this. When you think about the possibility of any man being made acceptable in the eyes of God. When you think about the possibility of anybody getting to heaven and ignoring or bypassing the cross of Jesus Christ.

If there is one thing the scripture teaches, it is absolutely and totally impossible for anybody to get to heaven and to bypass the cross. And as we've said some of these things over and over and over again, my purpose is that you understand until they begin to ring in your ears what is the message of the cross. And the message of the cross is that God has reconciled you and me to him.

Now, let's first of all look to see what the Bible says about our need of reconciliation. And I want you to go back to Genesis chapter three and let me show you something here. In Genesis chapter three, you recall that God had placed man in the perfect Garden of Eden. And you recall that man sinned against God when man sinned against God.

The scripture says in the third chapter here in the eighth verse that God comes walking in the cool of the day. Now, listen, when Adam sinned against God, what Adam and Eve did was simply to rebel against God's way and say, we want to have the same kind of knowledge that God has. We want to know what God knows not to be like God. That's what the devil told them. Now they sinned against God. They rebelled against God who took the initiative when the first act of sin was committed. Who took the initiative? God took the initiative. It was God who came walking in the cool of the day.

Are you listen? The Bible says when God got through speaking to Adam and Eve, he said to them in verse twenty three of the third chapter, therefore, the Lord God sent them forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence it was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.

Now, watch this. Here's the thing we forget about sin. We oftentimes just see sin as a violation of a spiritual principle. Listen, sin is a wedge driven by Satan into the heart of man to separate man from God.

You see, sin speaks of separation, division, isolation. Sin has isolated man from God. When you and I came into the world, we came into the world not with a bent toward God, but rather a bent away from God. As earlier and before we even knew the difference between right and wrong, we were doing things that were wrong. As soon as we learned to do what was right, we still did what was wrong. Even after we have known the truth, we still do things that are wrong. There is a bent in mankind away from God. And man is a sinner by his very nature. He is a rebel at heart.

He wants to do his own thing in his own way, regardless of the price. And you see, we rationalize it away. Now, sin is a divider. It divided Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden from God. It has divided man from God ever since so that there is a great gulf fixed between Almighty God and sinful man. And there is no way for man to get to God. God had to reach down in reconciliation in order to bring man unto himself.

So when he says in this passage that God drove them out, it was as a result of their rebellion. Listen, if you're not aware of the fact that having been saved by the grace of God that he's reconciled you unto himself, there's something inside that needs to be removed, that the peace of God may be yours. Now, I want you to see how God has provided for your reconciliation of mind.

Now, let's go back for a moment. We said, first of all, that God loves us just the way we are. Secondly, that he has forgiven us of all of our sin. We're living under the canopy of God's forgiveness. Thirdly, that he has redeemed us from all of our sin. That is, he's bought us off the slave block and has redeemed us.

He's paid the price that you and I may be free. Now, when he says, look, that you and I have been reconciled, that is, that we have been brought back into fellowship and have been made one with Almighty God, what does he mean by that? All right, I want us to go back to Colossians just for a moment.

Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Look, if you will, in Colossians chapter 1, what he says here. He says in verse 19, for it pleased God, the Father, that in him that in Christ should all the fullness dwell. That is, Jesus Christ is God in the fullness, having made peace. That is, he arranged for you and me to have peace with him through the blood of his cross. That is, through his crucifixion, by him to reconcile all things unto whom? That is, God is reconciling us unto himself. We're not reconciling ourselves to God. We didn't compromise and say, Lord, here's what I'll do.

I'll do this if you'll do that. No, that's not the way it is. God says, here's what I'll do. God assumed the total responsibility of reconciling man to himself. The only thing man has to do is to respond properly, which is the response of confession and faith and repentance toward God. All of the initiative was on God's part, reaching down to sinful man, and here's what he said he did. And notice, if you will, in verse 21. Now, watch this verse carefully. And you that were sometime in the past alienated, separated and divorced from him, in him is, listen, in your mind by wicked works. Now, you see, he says in our thought processes, a man may not be a criminal in actuality, but a man can be a criminal at heart.

A man may not sin outwardly as far as breaking certain commandments, but if in his mind, he is violating the law of God, violating the principles of Scripture. He says in our mind, we were alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works. He says, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and the word is unreproveable or there is nothing else to be found in you to expose.

That's what that word means. Now, here's what I want you to see. How did God forgive us when you and I were disobedient and guilty of sin? How did he redeem us when you and I deserve to go to hell?

How does he reconcile us when we do not deserve to be reconciled? And here's the way, Almighty God looking down to sinful man, knowing that man within himself had no desire for God, what did he do? God sent his only begotten son to the cross.

He took all of man's rebellion, all of his indifference, all of his hostility, and he placed it upon Jesus Christ. He said he made him to become sin for us. All of your hostility, all of your rebellion, all of your indifference, all of your sinfulness, all of your vile, wicked thoughts and motives, he said he placed them upon him and then he punished him. That which you deserve, he punished him.

God loves you and me enough to reach down into your life and take all of your hostility, all of your wickedness, all of your sin, all of your rebellion, place them upon him and punish the Lord Jesus Christ with crucifixion, death and separation from God the Father that he may pay for your sin and my sin. Then he said having taken all of your rebellion, all of your defiance, all of your sinful, wicked, vile motives, having placed them upon the Lord Jesus Christ, having atoned and paid for your sin, God is saying, child come home. For God to forgive me means that I'm no longer guilty in his sight. To have redeemed me means that I have been liberated and freed from the power of sin. To have been reconciled means that I'm back in the fold with almighty God. Reconciliation is a part of God's whole redemptive plan for mankind.

And until a man is forgiven of his sin, redeemed from the slave market and reconciled unto God, there is no hope of heaven whatsoever. God the Father takes the initiative and listen, what I'm saying is simply this, that 2,000 years ago God looked down 2,000 years ahead, saw you just the way you are, loved you just the way you are, provided for your forgiveness, provided for your redemption and said not only am I willing to forgive you, I want to take you back the way you ought to be. I want to bring you back into the fold of almighty God. I want your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

I want you to be one with me once again. And you see, sin, what does sin do? Sin drives the wedge between man and God. And you see, if you're living in defiance and rebellion toward God, you know what God wants you to do. You've heard the call of God. You felt it in your heart.

You felt the tug in your spirit. You know in your spirit what God wants you to do. If you have refused to do that, what you're saying is, God, I'm going to have my way. And God says, there will never be any peace until your way becomes my way. Because the very word peace in the Greek, irene, means to bind together.

And so when he says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have been bound together through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, reconciliation is the bringing together. Let me tell you something, my friend. God knows I wish I knew how to say it so you'd never forget it. Listen, you will never have any peace. You will never have any joy. Nothing you ever possess, nothing you ever do, no place you ever go, no person you're ever with will ever be able to substitute. But what you're looking for, every man and woman, boy and girl alive, needs the reconciliation experience. The peace that passes all understanding. It will never come. It cannot come. There is no route for it to come by, no pathway, no road, no highway, no expressway, no freeway. There is no way for it to come except God the Father seeing that separation and seeing our futility.

What does he do? God, in essence, laid the cross from heaven to mankind and makes it possible for man to be brought to glory through the cross of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the meaning of reconciliation.

And what is man's response? Look in 2 Corinthians for a moment, just chapter 5, beginning in the 19th verse. He said as that God was in Christ reconciling, listen, the world, not just you and me, but the whole world. Most of the world does not even know that God the Father has already taken care of the price of our reconciliation.

The majority of the world doesn't know that. But listen to what he says in this 19th verse. He says he reconciled the whole world to himself, not imputing or chalking up to their account, their trespasses unto them. But he has committed to us, that is to us, the word of reconciliation. What is the word of reconciliation? What is it that he's committed to you and me when he says he's committed to us the word of reconciliation? What is he committed to us? You and I have the word and the experience of reconciliation in our heart. And you see, let me tell you how simple this is.

You can go to anybody and explain this just this simply. You can say to a lost friend, let me show you what God says you are. He says because of sin, you've been separated from God. You've been alienated, sin drove a wedge.

You're a stranger. He says you are separated from him. You're divorced from him spiritually. Here is God who is holy and righteous and justice. And how is a sinful man going to be able to reach a righteous God?

You can't do it in your own strength. God the Father sent his only begotten Son to the cross. And when he came to the cross, he came to the world to make it possible for you to be reconciled to him, brought back into fellowship with him, forgiven of your sins and made one with him once and for all.

There's not a single one of us who cannot explain that at least enough for somebody to understand it. I look, if you will, in verse 20. He says, having received the word of reconciliation, now then we are what ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech the lost man through us. We pray you, he says in Christ, that is we are praying in his behalf for you that you might be reconciled to God.

Now think about this for a moment. What is an ambassador? An ambassador is a person who is representing someone else. Secondly, he is there in someone else's place. Thirdly, he is speaking in their behalf.

And fourthly, he is speaking the message that person sent him to speak. And what he's simply saying here is this, that every single one of us who has experienced reconciliation by repentance and faith through the Lord Jesus Christ have already assumed by the word of God the responsibility of being the ambassador of Jesus Christ on earth, the representative to someone else to say what we are told to be said, to be there in his behalf with his precise message in order that that person through the message that we deliver might find in Jesus Christ a new relationship to God the Father. He says all of us have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Now listen, you say, well, now, you know, I haven't accepted that yet.

That's not even the issue. He says the moment you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you had the message of reconciliation. Maybe you didn't understand it as good as you understand it right now. You have the word of reconciliation and he says it is your responsibility and my responsibility. Every single one of us is a sent ambassador representing with the message in behalf of speaking in his behalf Jesus Christ, the message of reconciliation. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you know today without a shadow of a doubt that you've been reconciled to Almighty God through faith in Jesus Christ?

And if you can say yes, I know that's true. You know, are you willing to commit yourself to God to do what he said do and that is to start acting like what you really are. And that is an ambassador of Jesus Christ. Listen, the next time Jesus comes, he's coming in the air for the church. Until he comes, he said, I'm going away.

I'll send the comforter. He'll be in you with you and upon you. He will empower you to do what represent me as an ambassador of reconciliation.

Every single one of us is his personal envoy representative ambassador to an unbelieving world to give them the message. Jesus Christ took all of your punishment, all of your shame, all of your guilt. In order that by faith and repentance, you may receive the Lord Jesus Christ and be brought back into fellowship with him once again.

But what I want to ask is this. Do you know that in your heart you are ready to meet Jesus Christ as you're saving your Lord? Thank you for listening to You Are Reconciled. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.