Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas

NT Framework - Reconciliation Explained

• Jeremy Thomas • Season 6 • Episode 143

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Peace doesn’t start at a negotiating table; it starts in the heart made right with God. We dive into reconciliation as Scripture defines it: two hostile parties brought to peace, with Christ’s cross as the decisive initiative from God toward humanity. 

More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com 

This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).

Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner. 

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01:

The next word is reconciliation. This is not an economic word, but this is a social term that describes a situation where you have two hostile parties, and somehow they make peace by coming to terms. And so by analogy, of course, it speaks, you know, the fact that God and man are at hostility toward one another, but Christ made a peace initiative on the cross so that God is now at peace with uh the world, with man, but man is not necessarily at peace with God. Something has to happen for him to be uh at peace with God. It's sort of like if you have two countries who are warring one another, or two people groups, let's just say Israel and Hamas, whatever, okay, Ukraine and Russia, you've got two people groups that are at hostility with one another. If one side's saying, hey, look, we we we want we want to be at peace with you, but you know, you don't want to be at peace with us. Well, you've got one party that's willing, you've got another that's not. You can't you can't come to peace on those terms. Um, you have to have both sides wanting the peace. And so um that's what reconciliation is about. And it's not sin word like redemption, it's manward, it's directed on man because God and man are in a hostile uh situation. The Bible says before we believed we were enemies of God, right? It doesn't say we were friends, it says we're enemies, but those who believe become friends of God. We're at peace with God. Romans 5, 1. We have peace with God. So um reconciliation is looking at this peace initiative as it relates to Christ and what he did on the cross so that God could be reconciled to man. So let's look at uh 2 Corinthians 5 first, 2 Corinthians 5, 18 through 21, uh 20. And then we'll look at some of these others. Some of these others are just um people that are not reconciled with one another, just human relations. But why why aren't why aren't why is there war in the world? That's kind of a big question, right? Like, why is there war in the world? Why are people and people groups fighting one another? Well, very simple. I mean, it's sin, right? I mean, that's why, because we're selfish and we have sinful ambitions. Um and so that's all consequence of sin. Which first our problem is with God. That's why we have a problem with God because of our sin. Then it becomes a problem with man. Then we have a problem with man. Uh so think think about the Ten Commandments for a second. Okay. Another cultural item in our society. You know, we post those up on the Supreme Court, you know, the Ten Commandments. Oh, we can't have that up there. It's a I guess we agree with murder now. You know, I don't know. Take that down. Adultery, oh, that's good. Take that off. We don't want we don't want to say that's wrong. Um silly things like that that people do in our country. But all this stuff is like posted there in the Ten Commandments. Well, you've got Ten Commandments, right? We say ten words, the bar, Hebrew to bar. The ten words that God gave Israel at Mount Sinai. Now, the first three or four, depending on how you count them, are all between God and man. Like thou shalt make no other gods before me, right? Thou shalt have no graven image, okay, and so forth. They're all like this relationship, vertical, man to gut, man and God. Then after that, you see things like thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet. Now, those are all man-to-man, right? What we call horizontal. Now, why why is it in that order? Um, why does it start with the God word commands and then move to the man word? Because this is where the problem starts. In other words, we can look out there at the world and say, man, it's a mess out there. I mean, somebody stole my car. You know, why why are you guys stealing my car? That's that's wrong. You shouldn't do that. Why do we have stealing going on? Well, because we have a problem between man and God. That's just, this is the root problem, man and God. This is the fruit problem. We say, well, we want a better society. We want things to be nice, we want nice clean parks around here, we want plenty of room on division, so we're not having a whole bus lane taken up and we want to get places fast, and we want, we want a better life. Yeah, well, guess what? The way to a better life down here is to get this straight. When this gets straightened out, guess what? Nobody has their vested interest in the politics of this city in making stupid decisions. They want what's best for everybody else. Why? Because they have a right relationship with God. That's why. See, all the stuff that we have to deal with down here, the stupid stuff, is because people won't get right with God. Because once you get right with God, then you're conditioned of humility. That is necessary. You have to. To come to the foot of the cross, you can't come with arrogance. Arrogance says, I'm going to do it myself. Humility says Jesus Christ did it for me. Now, once you believed in Jesus Christ, you have a humble attitude toward everything. That means you put everybody else ahead of yourself in your own vested interests. But if you're if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it's all about you and your power agenda that is usually played out through the political agenda uh political scene. And that's why Americans hate politics. We can't stand it that those people up there are just really interested in themselves and not interested in us. But why are they interested in themselves and not in us? Because they're arrogant. This is the most obvious thing in the world and it's driving me absolute crazy. Sorry. A lot of rants today, but it's this is a is this is a problem that really is only resolved by the cross. It really is. That's why the only people that Jesus is going to let into his kingdom are guess what? Believers. He will not let one unbeliever in there. Why? Because they're spoiled, brats. He doesn't want that nastiness coming in there to do what? Mess everything up that he set up that's perfect. Oh my goodness. So we've got this verse. 2 Corinthians 5.18. And I'm still still in Thessalonians. 2 Corinthians 5.18. And this shows you both sides of what happened when Christ died on the cross. Now, all these things are from God. Oh, what things? Well, the things he's been talking about since 217, but we won't go through all that. All these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Now, all this salvation that we have, it's it comes to us from God, verse 18, who reconciled us. There's the word. We were hostile to him, but he reconciled us to himself through Christ, his work on the cross. And then he gave us, believers in him, the ministry of reconciliation. I just that's so interesting. Uh he gave that to us. He could have, he could have he could preach the gospel himself. I mean, he's not a mute. Um God can preach the gospel. He can speak to the whole human race right now if he wants to. But it says he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He wants us to take the ministry of reconciliation and tell the world about what Christ has done to reconcile us to God. Why does he want to do that? Why, when you're working in the garage or you're a mother, you're working in the kitchen, do you take one of your little kids beside you and you say, No, look, here's how you dice green peppers, here's how you prepare the pasta, here's how you why do you do that? Because you want to involve them in the process and get to teach someone something that they will take them with them for the a life. You're you're investing. That's what you're doing. You're investing in the little kid, right? You're teaching them, you're training them. Why does God want to involve us in the ministry of reconciliation? Because he wants us to get to be a part of what he's doing. He wants to invest in us.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.