Be Reconciled!

 “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 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.” 
(2 Corinthians 5:17-21)

Today, I want you to think on one word with me. Reconciliation. Now how many of you have heard that word before? Can anyone tell me what it means? The dictionaries I looked at gave two basic meanings:

1. To reconcile is to restore two or more parties into close friendship. So, reconciliation carries this idea of estranged and alienated friends brought back together.

2. A banking term, to make consistent. To balance the books and harmonize the differences, including paying debts, etc. So as we talk about being reconciled to God, these two ideas are helpful in our understanding: the healing of broken relationships, and the balancing of books.

          As you have likely heard many times here, the state that God created man in, reading from Genesis 1:26-27: ‘God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’

So in the original creation, we were made in God’s image, reflecting His dignity, His ability to govern and rule, and His ability for relationship. So that’s who we were, but what about our relationship with God? I’ll read Genesis 2:8-25.

 ^“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

 So, one aspect of God’s relationship with man was communication. God spoke to Adam freely and told him what he should do and what he shouldn’t do. He also was concerned for Adam’s needs and provided for them, particularly in creating woman and instituting marriage to complete man, supplying the help, support, encouragement and human companionship that he needed. Another aspect was the one of freedom. There was freedom in the garden to eat of any tree except the one which God had forbidden, and Adam and his wife were naked without any shame. Another aspect of God’s relationship with man was one of partnership; God put Adam in charge of the garden that he had made, He put him in charge of the animals He had made, even allowing him to name them all however he chose! So, the relationship of God with man was one of communication, provision, freedom and partnership! That sounds like an incredible friendship doesn’t it? God created man to be in relationship with Him!

          If it had ended there, there would be no need for reconciliation, would there? But Adam and Eve were led into temptation. They doubted God and gave place to the devil! That one forbidden action of eating from the tree took place and as a result, human friendship with God was tarnished and damaged by sin. Chapter 3:23-24 “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.” The image of God was tarnished; relationship was shattered! We all are born with that shattered image and broken relationship. None of us are born with that relationship we were intended for, the relationship of communication, freedom and partnership!

          We also need to be reconciled in a debt kind of way. We all personally add up a lifelong list of sins, that weigh against us, making us worthy of God’s judgement and unworthy of approaching God or going to Heaven when we die! Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death!” When we die and the billing period hits, the only payment we can offer on our own is eternal separation from God, the punishment of Hell!

          There is hope! This is our message; the message of reconciliation. You can be born again, created anew to live for God! You can be made right with Him! You can have that debt of sin crossed out and balanced with the true goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself credited to your account! How was this done? Let me read 2 Corinthians 5:21 again for you: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus took our sin upon Himself and died in our place so that He could credit His righteousness to our account!

This is the message that reconciles us to God! The message that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Almighty Creator God, that He has made the Only way to God by dying on the cross for all of our sins, that He rose again from the dead so that He could be our Lord and Saviour and give eternal life to all who will turn from their sins and believe in Him! On the cross, Jesus has made the way for you to be right with God, to be restored to relationship with Him, to live as you were intended and be changed from the inside out as He works within you. On the cross, He has accomplished the accounting that needs to be done so that your debt can be crossed out and replaced with incredible righteousness! Will you receive that gift today? Will you turn from the empty life without God and accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour? Be reconciled to God! He longs for you to come home, to become his child. He wants to make you a new creation and He will do it if you will respond to Him in faith!