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Senior Pastor Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the message series "Look Up" teaching out of the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians. Reconciliation is possible through God's work in our lives.

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Let's pray together. God, as we are gathered today, I ask that you would speak to each of us wherever we're coming from, whatever we bring to this moment. I ask that my words would reflect your Word in content, tone, and emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, what do you think is the greatest need in our world today? If you had to say what would address the issues that are in our world, what would most address those issues? Now, I realize that some of us who are gathered would say well, things are actually pretty good. You might cite some statistics that talk about how there are some things globally that are moving in good directions in terms of maybe health care and global hunger. Even though there are still issues around those things. But my guess is many of us would say that even if there are some things that are getting better, there are plenty of things that are really challenging.

Certainly, the war that's taking place right now in the Middle East alone is one of those things that if you see images of it, is disturbing and concerning in many ways. But it isn't just hostility between nations. There's acrimony certainly in our country. You see it between groups of people where there are some things that are racist that are happening on college campuses that would have been unthinkable even just a few months ago. And yet you see those kinds of things.

There is a book that came out a couple of years ago called Adrift and in it, the authors give a bunch of statistics and graphs to show the trajectory of things. One of the ways that they showed acrimony in our world was a statistic that said in 1960, 4% of people would have been opposed to marrying somebody of the opposite political party. Do you know what it is today? 45% of Democrats would be completely opposed to marrying somebody who's a Republican, and 35% of Republicans are opposed to marrying a Democrat.  

But it isn't just acrimony. There's also disparity, certainly economic disparity in our world. Again, Adrift talks about the average home price. From 1960-1990, the average house price stayed steady at twice the average income. So, whatever the average household income was, a house cost twice as much. Today, that's four times the average income, meaning it is harder to buy a house today for the average person in this country. And not only that, the disparity of net wealth in 1990, 24% of the wealth was held by the top 1%. Today, that's 32%. And the bottom 50% held 4% of the wealth in 1990. And today it's 2%. In other words, there is a growing disparity. There's acrimony, there's hostility in our world however you see the statistics. The question is what's the greatest need? What would help the most?

Now, some people would say education would help. If we could just increase education. If we could help people understand. If we could bring education. But we've always had education. Education is good. It's important and it's positive. But has education changed the trajectory of our world? Some people would say well, how about economic development? Can we bring about some kind of economic system where we maybe take from the top 1% and help other people have a better chance in this world? Would that bring about the kind of change that we need? Some people might say what we really need are political solutions. We need a different political candidate or a different party or different ideas, and maybe that will bring change. Others would say, what we really need is to return to past values. If we could get back to the way things used to be, then maybe the world would be better than what it is today.  

People are always searching for these different ideas. But I believe that the Bible actually gives an answer. And it was in the text that you heard just a few minutes ago. But it's probably not a word that if you hadn't just heard that Bible passage read, would have jumped to your mind. And the word that I'm referring to is the word reconciliation. Here's where we see this in Second Corinthians five. Again, we've been in this series through Second Corinthians called “Look Up,” and Second Corinthians is the second letter that we have that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church of Corinth. The first letter, First Corinthians was a corrective. The church at Corinth was in a cosmopolitan city. And so, we've said in some ways it was a confused culture and a compromised church. And Paul wrote his first letter to correct the church there. And the second letter is more personal, more heartfelt in a sense. He deals with the way that he's being critiqued and criticized.

But in chapter five, he pushes this idea of reconciliation. Here's what he says in verses 18 and following. Just listen for the word reconciliation or reconciling. It says, “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 people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This word reconciliation is a simple word, and I'm not going to take the time to trace it throughout the New Testament. But the basic idea is that there are two parties that are at odds with one another, and they come back together in reconciliation. And so, Paul is talking to this church, and he says here's what I want. I want you to embrace reconciliation. I want you to implore people to be reconciled to God because you have the Ministry of Reconciliation. And so, the idea is how do you bring things back together?

Cornelius Plantinga writes about this and here's how he states it. He uses an Old Testament Hebrew word, shalom, which is a word for human flourishing. Here's what he says. “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight - a rich state of affairs... Human communities would present their racial and regional specialties to other communities in the name of God, in glad recognition that God, too, is a radiant and hospitable community of three persons. In turn, each human being would reflect and color the light of God's presence out of the inimitable resources of his or her own character and essence. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be... We may safely describe evil as any spoiling of shalom, whether physically, morally, spiritually, or otherwise. Sin is the disruption or disturbance of what God has designed... Sin tends to disintegrate both its victims and its perpetrators.”

Here's why I like the quote from Cornelius Plantinga. He does something with this idea of sin. If you've been around the church, any church, probably one of the easy patterns of thought to slip into is that sin is a moral affront to God, doing something outside of God's moral bounds. Jesus came to forgive us of our sins, and if we believe in Jesus, we punch a ticket to a future heaven, and it has little to do with our existence here and now. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a moral wrong, that sin is, that Jesus isn't the Savior that we need to come to, and that there isn't a future heaven, but it's too narrow of a view. What I mean by that is what we do is miss this idea of reconciliation, that God's intention is human flourishing, and that it's because we are at odds with the creator of the universe that there's no human flourishing all the time. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. God created humanity to flourish. But because of the choice to eat the fruit in the middle of the garden, the brokenness of our world came to be the reality that we know. The hope for our world is reconciliation with the creator. It's reconciliation with God's ways.

You see, this is when families feel that disintegration because of broken relationships, because of somebody who says I just don't want to do this anymore, when they say we're going to live in a reconciled state with the creator, designer of the universe, where people start to say, we will put our way of being in the way of God. This is when people who may make self-destructive choices around addiction and self-medication say we're going to integrate our lives and be reconciled to God's design for us. When people have experienced somebody who has been abusive in their life, neglectful, or hurtful, they can say, we can come back together.

You see, there's a piece of us like the people on that video that you saw, who say reconciliation isn't really possible, but in God's economy, reconciliation isn't just possible, it is the answer. Because it's when nations that are at odds can come together. And that's when people who have found their way in this world will say, we can serve other people, and instead of disadvantaging the community for their own benefit, will say we can disadvantage ourselves for the benefit of the community. And so, in this, we begin to see God changing people.

In Second Corinthians five, here's what we see. Verse 17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” And so being reconciled to God makes people a new creation. The reason that reconciliation with God does something that education, economic development, and politics can't do, is because there's a change in people and when they're aligned with God, they start to live for human flourishing rather than against human flourishing. And that is what brings about change. 

I want to read a section of a book that just came out recently. This is called Sunday Matters by Paul David Tripp. He's somebody I tend to read most of what he writes, and this book is intended to be something that you read before attending church on a weekend. And so, there are 52 different things to read, but he starts his book by talking about how disoriented even people of faith can be around this idea of reconciliation. He doesn't use the word, but it's the same thought. Because I know what's possible is that a lot of us who gather, even if you gather here regularly, you can say look, I understand the idea of sin and a need for a savior, but how much difference does God make in my day-to-day existence? Here's how Paul David Tripp writes about it.

“I don't know about you, but in the rush and press of life, I can lose my mind. No, I'm not talking about going insane and needing to be institutionalized. I'm talking about a much more subtle form of insanity that often inflicts me and a vast number of my Christian brothers and sisters. There are moments in my life when I lose my gospel mind. There are moments when I live as if God did not exist, the Bible had never been written, and Jesus had never lived, died, and rose again. I'm not referencing an intentional walking away from the faith, but rather a deformative gospel forgetfulness. Why do I call it deformative? Because in these moments, my life is no longer formed by a vibrant rest in the surrender to my Lord, but rather it is deformed by other things in and around me. There are times when I lose sight of what is truly important and valuable in life, and when I do, it alters what I desire, how I think, what I say, and the things I do. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

Perhaps during an argument with your husband, wife, or friend, securing affirmation as being right becomes the most important thing to you. You've lost your gospel mind. Maybe you find yourself doing whatever is necessary to get the job promotion. You have lost your gospel mind. Maybe you're willing to destroy your relationship with your neighbor over a boundary dispute. You've lost your gospel mind. Maybe you ripped vengefully into your teenager because you're tired of being disrespected. You have lost your gospel mind. Maybe you cling to an unending obsession with your weight and appearance. You've lost your gospel mind. Perhaps a lifestyle dream is leading you into crushing debt. You have lost your gospel mind. Maybe you harbor a pattern of internet sexual sin. You have lost your gospel mind.

Maybe you feel an overwhelming anxiety about what people think about you and how they respond to you. You have lost your gospel mind. Or you might demand to be in charge and in control of your relationships. You have lost your gospel mind. Maybe you're passive and complacent when it comes to your faith. You've lost your gospel mind. Maybe patterns of envy and bitterness have robbed you of your joy. You have lost your gospel mind. Because of the radical life-shaping hope-giving values of the gospel are nowhere reinforced in the surrounding culture, we all live with a constant need of fundamental gospel values clarification.”

He goes on to talk about how this happens primarily through gathering with other people, singing songs of affirmation about who God is, about what's true, hearing the Bible taught in a way that's relevant to our lives, and times of prayer and community. And then he says this. He says, “The regular gathering of the church is designed to lovingly confront us with the fact that the most valuable thing in life can't be earned. The most valuable thing in life can't be humanly achieved. The most valuable thing in life can't be purchased or owned. The most valuable thing in life is not an experience you will have. The most valuable thing in life is not something you will get from people in your life. The most valuable thing in life is an eternal gift of divine grace. It is my eternal forgiveness, my eternal acceptance into the family of God, the guaranteed destiny that mine, as a child of God, all secured for me by the righteous life substitutionary death, and life-giving resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

He then talks about how that is something that is formed when we take time together and let God remind us of reality. So, reconciliation, he uses the term gospel-shaped values or gospel-forgetfulness, is when we live in the reality of what Jesus has done. Now, I said just very simply that this idea is often floated even in churches, that faith is nothing more than a mere transaction of saying I believe that Jesus did something, and it gives me a future ticket to something. But being reconciled means you start embracing the shalom, the peace, the thriving that God brings into human existence here and now. And that is part of your lived experience.  

What he does when he talks about this is he says, okay, this is God who's been at work reconciling himself to us. And I mention this idea of not being just transactional. But note there is this element here where he says in verse 21, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Some theologians have called this double imputation. The idea is that our sin is imputed to us from Adam and Eve, that we have sin, and that Jesus takes our sin, and then gives us His righteousness. It isn't just that God takes sin, but He actually gives us a right standing, a way in which God, when He sees people who've come to Jesus for forgiveness, are seen through the righteousness of God. In other words, reconciliation and living in that reality does something inside each of us. We may forget it but when we see it and grasp it, we realize that we are living in the reality of the Creator.

And then he says this very simple thing. He says we're ambassadors, and we've been given the Ministry of Reconciliation, and we're compelled in one sense by fear and in another sense by love. What I mean, is verse 11, he says this, “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.” And the persuade here probably isn’t persuade others of the Gospel, it’s probably persuade others of our credibility because of the flow and context of the argument. And then he says that we are compelled in verse 14, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” And so, there's a love that compels us. Compelled in the original language means to be without options, to be constrained, to be so pressed in that it feels like the only thing you can do.

What he's I think driving at, again to his confused culture in the compromised church, is he's saying that the Ministry of Reconciliation, of bringing together the broken pieces of our world, by helping people see that God has been at work reconciling the world to himself, is the work of everybody who claims Jesus Christ as their Savior. I think we can see three elements of this right here in this passage. The first, I'm just going to say is this credibility. This is caught up in this word, ambassador, and it really is this idea of verse 20 where he says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

I don't know about you, but if I were God, and it's a good thing I'm not, I don't think I would have trusted the message to the likes of people, like me and you. Because there are too many days where my own crap gets in the way of any good intention. And yet, this is exactly what this text says that God has chosen you if you are a follower of Christ to be His ambassador. That means your neighborhood, your place of employment, your family, your school, if you're in high school or middle school, your school is a place that God has said you are my ambassador to this school. I mean, there's a status to that, and there's a credibility that's also earned. As people become aware that you live not as somebody who's not reconciled to the things of God but is aware of who God is and what God means, they begin to see the relevance of this message, consider the veracity of it, and maybe give it a small trial before making a commitment.

There's a credibility that's part of being an ambassador, saying I've lived my life in a certain way, but there's also a conviction. And when I say this, what I mean is this. Again in verse 20, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” The conviction is that the world is actually better off when people are reconciled to God and that you've been entrusted with that message if you're a follower of Jesus Christ.

There's some research that's been done on the church, and one group that did research claims that only 17% of people who attend church regularly have what they call a Christian worldview. Now, a Christian worldview is one of those phrases people throw around, but here's how they define it. These are people who attend church regularly. This is what they actually believe according to this research. Only 17% would affirm all of these, that there is an absolute moral truth that exists, that the Bible is totally accurate in all that it teaches, that Satan is real not just symbolic, that you cannot earn your way to acceptance with God but it's a gift, that Jesus Christ was sinless, and that God is the all-powerful creator of the universe who still rules.

Now, those are really easy things. I mean, our kids get that every week in our kid's ministry. That's not some high-end complicated thing. But what that says is only 17% of people who attend churches all around the country actually say, yes, I believe those things. And so, it's no wonder that many people today, even church people, say you know what, it's just a preference. You have your way. I have my way.

In fact, that same research found that 47% of millennial Christians, people who go to church and millennials, you know, I think they're trying to say that's a younger emerging generation. However, I have news for you. If you're a millennial, you're no longer young. But they said 47% of people who are in that age demographic think that it's morally wrong to try to convince somebody else that your religion is right. Think about that. That's almost half of the people who attend church in that demographic who would say I just don't ever want to try to convince anybody else about my religion. In fact, I think it's wrong to do so.

And what we're doing as a church culture, as a whole, is we're watching the disintegration of our world and saying nobody needs to be reconciled to God. You have your way. I have my way. But here's the thing. Everybody's trying to convince everybody of something. I mean, a little girl comes to your door with cookies and says would you like to buy some cookies? She's convincing you to buy cookies and invest in the Girl Scouts. There is a constant desire to say think this way, believe this, this is the answer. If you or I don't have a conviction that says Jesus Christ is the answer, being reconciled to God is the answer, there will be a lack of willingness to say be reconciled to God.

So, there's credibility, there's conviction, but there's also content here. And this is, again, back to verse 21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The righteousness of God comes because of what Jesus Christ has done. The message isn't just to reconcile yourself – it's God who has done the work through Jesus Christ, and when you receive it, you are reminded that the most valuable thing is not something you can buy or acquire, it's a standing that you are given from God Himself and that being reconciled to the Creator is where life is found. That message is a message of hope. It's a message that helps anybody who is alive. Maybe the brokenness of our world is something that doesn't have to just be accepted as a way that things are with no hope.

I was thinking about this and thinking about the season that we're in. It's November and obviously, there's Christmas coming. You heard about the Christmas Brunch this year if you're a woman, which is a great time to invite people. This year we have a really beautiful, wise, smart woman giving the message. It's my wife. But it's a great chance to invite people. We do Christmas Eve here in a way that says how can we invite as many people to Christmas Eve? You know the reason we do Christmas Eve the way that we do it isn't because I want to do the message 14 times. It's not because the band wants to do it 14 times. We do it because we know that it's a time when people are ready to say maybe I'll try church. But here's the thing. The Ministry of Reconciliation isn't just the people who are on stage. It is everybody. And maybe one of the best things you can do this year is pray about and think about who you could invite to be a part of one of those services and have them to your house afterward for some eggnog or something. Or invite your family on Christmas Eve day and say we're going to make this a thing this year.

One of the things we see year after year here at Orchard Hill is people begin a spiritual journey during the Christmas season. But I was thinking about it a little bit the other day. I went home, I got my mail, and I don't know how you get your mail out of your mailbox besides walking out and getting it. But as I was walking into my house, there was a garbage can in my garage. And so, what I'll usually do if I walk in with the mail is I'll stand above the garbage can, and I'll look and say what do I need and what is junk? And I'll start throwing the junk into the trash can before I take the real mail into the house and then distribute it among everybody who needs the mail.

But all of a sudden, as I was standing there, kind of flipping through this mail, there was an invitation to a Diwali celebration. Do you know what Diwali is? It's a Festival of Lights, a Hindu Celebration of lights. I got this flier, and I thought that it was interesting. What would make me want to go to a Diwali celebration? Is it that they're going to have cool lights and compelling music? Is it because they have Fairtrade coffee that they're going to serve? No. The only thing that would make me move from this is a flier that I'm receiving, to think this is something I might actually want to do, is if I knew somebody who was part of that, who said, would you come? And there was credibility and conviction.

Now, even then, I might be a tough sell for that, but I thought about the fliers that people will stand over their garbage can with from Orchard Hill in the next month. And I thought, what would make somebody say maybe? And you know what it is? It's if they know some people whose lives have experienced reconciliation, and they hear about the reconciliation that God is doing in this community and beyond.

You see, the hope for our world is as individual hearts are transformed, that reconciling with the creator can do something that education, economic development, politics, and past values can't do because the brokenness, the enmity that exists, can be brought back together. And as people see just a glimpse of that in someone, they say maybe, there's something greater.

Christmas isn't just believe in Jesus and one day you can go to heaven. It's Jesus came to this earth, and he is reconciling all things to himself. And you can be a part of that now. And he says if you are a follower, I’m entrusting you to be my ambassador, to be in the Ministry of Reconciliation. Not just saying, how is this for me? And here's what will happen if you come on Christmas Eve with a friend on your arm. You'll experience the whole thing differently instead of coming and saying I can't believe they didn't do that song that I like so much. You'll be listening through the ears of your friend and praying and hoping that maybe God would work in a way to bring some hope and reconciliation into their life.

So, Paul's message was, Look Up in our broken world, confused world. There is hope because God is at work reconciling things to himself, and you can be a part of it. And so, he says we implore you to be reconciled to God. Maybe you're here today and are saying well, this is a nice thought. You can be reconciled to God because he who knew no sin took your sin. And if you believe, He will give the righteousness of Christ to you, and if you believe that, He says I give you this ministry, you're an ambassador of this message.

God, I ask that you help those of us who've gathered here today to understand that the greatest need in our world is reconciliation with you through Jesus Christ. I pray that it would compel us and move us to say this is something that matters more than anything else in this world. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thanks for being here. Have a great week.