Thursday 21 March 2013

Part 5 - The World's Greatest Hero - Christ Crucified.


Preached at Gateway 17 March 2013
Ephesians 2.11-18

Jesus offers the hand of friendship

‘and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility’ v16

Introduction
So far we’ve covered the images of the battlefield, and the hospital, the lawcourts and the prison.  Today, the image is this...let’s paint a picture to give you a clue...you are now in your own home with family and friends.  Imagine, as does happen, a quarrel breaks out between you and family member or a friend.  It might be more serious than a little argument, it might be real hostility.  To be reconciled is to have that friendship restored, renewed.  So we’re thinking about the image of friendship or reconciliation. 

To go further, it might be that you feel alienated.  It might be alienation at work, or at school, or even at home, or just generally in society – as if you’ve been isolated, with no-one to relate to.

This theme of reconciliation is perhaps one of the most popular today re. the different images of the cross.  In our contemporary world where people are searching for authentic relationships and having to work out and work through the breakdown relationships, the theme of friendship or reconciliation is very relevant.  It’s also very personal.

The apostle Paul speaks about a ‘dividing wall of hostility’ in his letter to the Ephesians, v14.  There are many barriers that separate people, that divide people.  The Berlin Wall is a very tangible example until it was destroyed in 1989, separating east from west.  Last Saturday there was a strong line of stewards and police separating football supporters...  It was a dividing wall of hostility.  But there are many more examples that divide people, it may be racial or religious divisions.  It may be jealousy, pride, or bitterness.  Just consider the Huhne family re. the speeding points saga...

Former cabinet minister Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce have each been jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice.

Huhne had admitted asking Pryce to take his speeding points to avoid losing his licence in 2003, and Pryce was convicted of having agreed to do so.

Pryce, 60, went to a newspaper with the story after their marriage broke up.
The judge said Huhne, 58, had fallen from a "great height" but any tragedy was their "own fault".
Huhne, who resigned as an MP after pleading guilty, told Channel 4 News ahead of sentencing that his actions in 2003 had spun into a "massive, devastating set of consequences for family, for career and for everything".
It might be a Conifer Trees that are a cause of hostility between neighbours...!

‘The dividing wall of hostility’...
What dividing wall is the apostle Paul referring to?

A bit of background...if you look back over the Old Testament you’ll find how God chose Israel out of all the people of the earth to be his holy people.  It started with a guy called Abraham and how through his descendents the nation Israel would be formed to be a blessing to the families of the earth, to be a light to the nations.  But what happened over the centuries, and by this time we come to the 1st century, the time of Jesus and the apostles, and the writing of the NT - the people of Israel, the Jews hated the Gentiles (those who were not Jews).  They forgot or neglected their calling from God re. their purpose to be a light to the nations, they twisted the privileges they had, as God’s people, into favouritism.  They regarded the Gentiles as ‘dogs’, which as you can imagine is a term of contempt!  When the apostle Paul writes this letter to the church at Ephesus, there was real animosity between Jews and Gentiles.

When the magnificent Jewish temple was built in Jerusalem, there was this wall that separated the Jews from the Gentiles.  It was eventually finished in 64AD, a structure of cream stone and gold.  You not only had the whole structure built upon a platform, so it was elevated, and you not only had different courts, working outwards, first a court for the priests, then one for the Jewish men, then another one for the women, but you had this huge wall further below that separated the Jews from the Gentiles.  So if you were a Gentile, you would look up at this great resplendent building, and furthermore you were cut off it by this wall, which was essentially was a very intimidating stone barrier.  There were notices displayed at various points, that read, not ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’, but ‘Trespassers will be executed’!  In fact some of these notices in the common language of the day, Greek and Latin have been unearthed, and have been displayed at a museum in Istanbul.

1) Be reconciled to God.
This literal, physical wall speaks volume about humanity.  On the one side were the Jews, so near yet so far from God with their distorted religion, looking down on the other side upon their fellow human beings, the Gentiles, who also were’ far away’, see v11-13.  They were without Christ, they were outside all that real Judaism offered (not this distorted version), therefore they were without hope.  The Greek and Roman gods failed them, such idols could not satisfy the hunger of their souls.  So they had no hope to sustain them.  They were without God, they had no fellowship with their Creator, because they did not know him.  They were far away!  The imposing wall outside the temple, in a away, symbolised their position, their status.

Is that you today?  You know very little about the one, true living God, with the gods of your life – whatever you look to for hope – not delivering.  It may be the so-called church you’ve somehow looked to, have, like the Jews of Paul’s day, become smug and superior, constructing barriers.  Churches that start well, that even develop into denominations can start pulling up the drawbridges as if they are the special lot, the chosen lot, and look down upon everyone else and distort what God has called them to be.  Gateway, lets always seek to have open doors!  Above all, have you met Jesus who offers the hand of friendship?  Is that you today?

The good news, is through the cross of Jesus, Christ crucified, you can be brought near into something very special.  Jesus offers the hand of friendship.  Verse 18 promises you can have access through Jesus to the Father, by the one Spirit.  Jesus is the gateway, it’s why we are called ‘Gateway’. 

Why is it through Jesus?  Go back to v13.  It’s through the blood of Jesus – which is reference to the historical event.  It’s his sacrifice upon the cross, an event in history.  But also v13 says ‘But now in Christ Jesus...’  That is reference to your personal faith in Christ.  It’s your conversion.  The moment you put your trust in Christ, that he died for your sins, the benefits of the historical event are applied to you – you are reconciled to God.  It’s like at the cross God in Jesus offers the hand of friendship to all, but you have to accept and receive his outstretched hand.  ‘But now in Christ Jesus you who were once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ’ v13.  Be reconciled to God.

2) Be reconciled to others
Broken relationships is real for everyone, all of us have been affected by broken relationships.  It may be between parents and children or between husband and wife or between brothers/sisters or between good friends or between neighbours or colleagues.

It’s amazing how in Ephesians we see this working out between these two very hostile groups Jews and Gentiles (religious and pagan).  See Acts 19.8-10.  It is through the cross that they are brought together, see v14 & 15, and both groups have access to God through Jesus the Son, v18.  In God’s kingdom, there is no room for any kind of superiority or inferiority based on ethnic background or any other dividing line, e.g. the Caste system in India.  Before God, because of his reconciling love demonstrated at the cross, everyone in Christ stands on a level playing field before God.  ‘You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew or Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3.26-28). 

Of course there are actual differences between male and female, between Jew and Gentile.  Men are men, women are women, Jews are Jews, and Gentiles are Gentiles, but the point is in the church, in Jesus, the differences shouln’t cause division. 

Jesus died to create a community, built on love and forgiveness.  Jesus didn’t die to form a committee, but a community – church.  The cross results in, yes, the salvation of individuals, but also the founding of a new community called the church.  The church is made up of ordinary people, indeed those on the margins of society are found at the centre of the community called church.

Vinay Samuel, an Indian Christian leader and author says, ‘One sign and wonder, biblically speaking, that alone can prove the power of the gospel of reconciliation...Hindus can produce as many miracles as any Christian miracle worker.  Islamic saints in India can produce and duplicate every miracle that has been produced by Christians.  But they cannot duplicate the miracle of black and white together, of racial injustice being swept away by the power of the gospel’.  That is a miracle – which no other religion can produce. 

As one Pastor tweeted, ‘A business has customers, consumers, critics, complainers.  A family has dads, mums, sisters, brothers. Church is a family’.

3) What does it mean to be reconciled?  How does it really work?
It’s about bringing enemies into a place of genuine friendship.  I don’t mean a kind of romantic or sentimental ‘making up’ but a real look at the cause of the hostility, rather than a papering over the cracks.

Sin is the problem in the breakdown of relationships.  The most serious case of a broken relationship, as we’ve already considered, is between you and God.  The Bible declares that we are enemies of God.  It’s not a neutral position, rather your default position is hostility towards God.  That must be overcome and reconciliation and forgiveness to take place.

To be reconciled, with God, and with others, there must be an honest facing up to facts.  In other words you cannot have true reconciliation with honestly considering the cause.  The issues have to be confronted which can be painful, with a cost involved.  Good counselling or mediation helps the two sides look at the causes and the issues.  

It starts with God.  In 2 Corinthians 5, the apostle Paul is emphatic in that whilst we are helpless in sorting out this problem, God takes the initiative.  ‘All this is from God’ v18, God was reconciling ‘the world to himself’ v19, and ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might the righteousness of God’ v21.  Let’s be careful, don’t think that Christ became a sinner, rather he was made to be sin.

So reconciliation is something done primarily by God the offended party.  He takes steps to forgive and set aside the offence.  For a broken friendship to be restored – there must be forgiveness.  The cross of Jesus, the death of Jesus, Jesus Christ crucified, reveals the full measure of God’s love for us.  All that Jesus endured at Calvary was for you.  That is how much you matter to God, indeed how much you and I have sinned against God.  The offer for real forgiveness for real sins, is only possible because Jesus bears the punishment.  He mediates between us and God.  He is the mediator, the go-between.  Your relationship with God is transformed through human repentance and divine forgiveness with Jesus mediating.  ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ’, (2 Corinthians 5.19). 

The cross of the crucified Christ deals with the problem.  The life of Christ was not sufficient, it needed the death of Christ.  Romans 5.10, ‘We were reconciled to him through the death of his Son’. 

It starts with God, and continues in the church.  As Gateway church we’re to be a community of reconciliation.  In the first place you and I are not to share Christ from a position of superiority.  As a community of reconciliation we urge people to sort out their lives with God, but from a position of humility and gentleness, pleading with people to look to Christ.

Furthermore as Gateway we’re not only to proclaim this message of reconciliation but we are to model it too.  An authentic reconciliation with God does affects the vertical dimension but also the horizontal, that there should be genuine reconciliation with one another.  We’re to model it in our relationships. 

It’s useful to examine ourselves, Gateway church, re. the differences between us...men and women, young and old, different backgrounds and education...there are differences in our preferences...personal desires re. worship songs (the music is too loud or it’s not loud enough), dress code...  but the big question is do these differences – major and minor – cause division?  Or is there a sense of unity within the diversity.  Do you welcome people who are very different form you...it might be class or culture or is it only like-minded people you embrace?

At the cross, Jesus not only makes us one with God, but one with another.  To how much does Gateway reflect the reconciliation?  Are we as united as possible, amidst the diversity, as devoted followers of Jesus?  This is God’s desire, but are you and I displaying it?

Conclusion
So reconciliation tells us something is wrong, otherwise why did Christ die?  But also reconciliations tells us that forgiveness is available.  Forgiveness is so important if a relationship is to be restored and this only comes about when the offended explain to the offender about the full hurt caused and the pain that has been inflicted. 

The cross tells us that our relationship with God falls far short of what it is intended to be.  We are alienated from God, and a sign of that is division between people.  We are not born into the fullness of a relationship with God, it has to be established.

‘and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility’ v16.  Jesus was slayed upon the cross.  He was nailed, he was crucified.  Above all who took the punishment of hell that we deserve from God upon himself.  He was slayed, Jesus, the Son of God.  But in doing so, by paying the price, he slayed the hostility in both directions.  Christ crucified slayed the hostility between you and God, so you can be at peace with him.  A settlement has been agreed, Christ is that mediator.  But also, Christ crucified has slayed the hostility between people, nations, tribes, communities, friends, colleagues, families, within families, marriages.  That hostility has been decisively dealt with.    So in Christ crucified, we have a new humanity, individuals reconciled with God, individuals reconciled with one another.  You have no excuse – but Christ has slayed any hostility between you and God and between you and another.  You just have to pick up the ‘peace terms’.

V17 surely is a reference to the risen Jesus.  John 20.19 & 21, ‘Peace be with you’.  The first words he spoke to the disciples after his death were ‘peace’.  In others words , Jesus is saying, “I’ve settled it, you can experience the full blessing of all that you ever need”.  It’s a peace to those far away and to those near.  Together, different people from different backgrounds, temperaments, even religions...together as God’s new community, the church, we approach God our Farther by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. 

Question for Q & A – Ask yourself, have you accepted the hand of friendship offered by Jesus, the mediator, who is able to reconcile you to God?  If you have, have you done all you can to reconcile yourself to others where there is a broken relationship?

Prayer of commitment & faith:
Lord Jesus, I have done a lot of things wrong in my life.  I am sorry for going my own way instead of your way, and living without you.  Thank you for dying on the cross to forgive my sin, so that I might be reconciled to you.  I believe that by your death you destroyed all hostility on my part towards God and towards other people.  Please come and take first place in my life, that I might have a real friendship with you living God, filling my life with your reconciling love.  Amen.

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