The Ministry of Reconciliation

You and I live in a world of constant conflict. It's all the time. Can you imagine turning on the news once and the news people saying, well, all the politicians agreed today.

Yeah? We just live in everybody's in constant conflict. And of course, you go to work every day and people there in conflict, you come home, husbands and wives, parents and children in conflict. Where do we go to get away from the conflict, from the constant struggles between human beings? Christians, we claim to follow the Prince of Peace, knowing. That's what we say. But you know, many times in our lives, whether it be husbands or wives or longtime friends or inside the church itself, we have conflict. And many times it's difficult because when we look at the church, we will see divorce. We will see people not getting along. We will see people angry and bitter. We will see all the results of conflict. And sometimes inside the church, it's no different than the world. And that means there's something wrong with us because you and I were called to follow the Prince of Peace. And peace is more than the absence of armed conflict. I mean, the obvious breaking of peace is when you turn on the television and you watch, you know, all over the world. People rising up, wars taking place, people killing each other, dictators crushing the rights of their people with tanks. We see this armed violent conflict. But you know, violence is just the far end of conflict. You could stop all violence today and we would still be a people on this earth in conflict. We would still live in a world of conflict. We would still have conflict between ourselves and our families and between each other as Christians. Why are Christians so often embroiled in the same conflicts as the world? Why aren't we any different? Because we're supposed to be. The solutions to solving the conflicts that happen between Christians, whether it's husband and wife, whether it's inside the family, inside the congregation, with each other, whether it's how we deal with the world, how we deal with our co-workers, how we deal with our neighbors.

This is very important because to really understand how we should deal with conflicts, we have to deal with the very foundation of what Christianity is. Very core foundation of what Christianity is. You think, oh well, good, this is going to be a sermon on conflict resolution. I'm not going to give you 10 steps on conflict resolution.

Before we ever get to those kinds of discussions, we have to deal with other issues. You know, it's natural for human beings to have differences of opinions, right? We all have differences of opinions on all kinds of things. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to have dysfunctional conflict.

In any relationship in which the relationship is healthy, that doesn't mean there's a lack of disagreements. Even the most healthiest of relationships except one that we can talk about. And that's between the Father and Jesus Christ. All other human relationships, we'll talk about human relationships, have issues we disagree with. I can remember early in our marriage, my wife and I having a terrible argument, but we don't argue over this anymore. We found a way to fix this, over where we would go for vacation. But this is because we had families scattered all over the country in all of our vacations for years. For 25 years, every vacation we went on but one was to go visit family. And which family are we going to go visit? And which family is going to be upset because we didn't get to see them on this vacation? So what we would try to do is sometimes take these long vacations. Two week vacations where all we would do is drive 6,000 miles visiting family. That way everybody was happy. Of course, we were exhausted and needed a vacation when we got back. But we would have these difficulties. Which family do we see?

Those are normal, over time, healthy relationships. We figured out a way to solve the issues. But solving the issues isn't the reason, or the issues aren't the reason for conflict. We say, well, no, no. What we have is the difference of an opinion. A difference of an opinion can be worked out.

So we have to deal with why there really is conflict. What is the basic core of conflict?

In the Sermon on the Mount, there are some things I want you to write down today. Because in this series of sermons, we're going to be going back to some core ideas. And one of them is this. So in the Sermon on the Mount, one of the Beatitudes mentioned by Jesus Christ. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

We're going to talk about peacemaking, and we're going to talk about being the sons of God, the children of God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. So in disagreements in our marriages and our friendships, disagreements among people in a congregation, among Christians, leads to the same bitterness, the same lack of forgiveness, the same destructive outcomes as the world, then we are not acting as the children of God.

When our conflict leads to the same destructive outcomes as the world, then we are not acting as the children of God. You say, how can you say that? Because blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called the sons of God.

So write that down. That's one of the premises that we're working off of here. How can we be examples to the world as the children of God, as peacemakers, if we can't livid ourselves? Peace is not just the actions that happen between people. As we go through this, you're going to begin to realize peace is something that happens inside of us.

Peace is first an internal issue and then becomes an external issue. What we think is, you know, the argument over what color fabric they have on the living room couch is the real issue, and it is not.

The disagreement over color is just opinion.

The anger and the fighting and the bitterness is a result of something else. Now, I'm going to go through some of the major reasons why we have conflict internally. Now, I want to start with this, because there's five major reasons that we have internal conflict. That we have problems internally that end up in conflict with others. The first four we will cover very briefly, but I want you to write them down because we're going to go back and deal with these next week.

It's the fifth one I really, really want to zero in on because the fifth reason is the major reason. Now, the first reason that there's conflict between human beings is because of pride. We could talk a lot about pride. I'm not going to talk about it much. I'm just giving you an example. You can write this down and say, okay, these are the reasons people have conflict with me and I have conflict with others.

Pride is an exaggerated viewpoint of yourself, and so we become deceived by ourselves. The problem with pride is it's very deceptive and we deceive ourselves. We have an exaggerated viewpoint of who we are. And because of that, pride, we forget that the whole purpose of Christianity is about how we treat others. And instead, our whole viewpoint becomes centered around how others treat us. Christianity is about how we treat others. But when we're driven by pride, we become driven by how others treat us.

And therefore, we become totally consumed with negative thoughts and feelings. And we wish to be vindicated no matter what the price. And when we're driven by pride, here's what happens in conflict. There's only one way to solve conflict, and that is to win. And the way to solve conflict is to win. So we have pride. That's an issue. Once again, that's a whole subject in itself.

But I went zero in on number five. So we have a pride issue. A second reason that we have such dysfunctional conflict between each other. And I'm an expert at this. I have done more. I have done a whole lifetime of dysfunctional conflict in one way or another. We all have. We all become experts at bad conflict. The second reason that we have such dysfunctional conflict with each other is because we need the other person to emotionally heal us when we've been hurt. I knew a man one time who was hurt by another person, and the other person died.

And he lived in such turmoil because there were two things he wanted, either justice or healing. Either the person has to pay or the person has to say they're sorry. The person died. The person couldn't receive justice. He couldn't be punished for what he had done. And he couldn't say he was sorry. And this man was in agony all the time. He almost couldn't have relationships with other people. I'll never forget what he told me.

This was many, many, many years ago. He said, it's as if this man is reaching up out of the grave and controlling my life. I need to be healed and he can't heal me. I need him to say he's sorry so I can be healed. And so many times we're driven by emotional conflict because of a desire and need. Right? I mean, I need that. You need that. We all need to have somebody say they're sorry. As I've said before, I am sorry. Maybe the three most important words in any relationship even more than I love you.

I am sorry when it actually means it. Well, the person can be fined. Here's what I'm sorry for. Here's what I did wrong. Now I am sorry. Why? I don't know. I just hurt you. Well, that's the meaning. But to be able to say I am sorry and then say here's what I did wrong may be the most important three words in any relationship. But we have this emotional need to be healed. What happens when two people hurt each other?

You think about how this everything we go, pride is conflicting. You get two per people filled with pride and guess what happens? That conflict goes on and on and on because they have to win. Pride makes you have to win. What happens when people are driven by the need to be emotionally healed and they both hurt each other. They both are driven to have the other person heal them.

A third reason that we get trapped in conflict that never gets resolved is that we have expectations that others will satisfy our needs and desires. Now, you have to understand that's not entirely wrong. They have some kind of, I mean, we would never have a relationship if we didn't get something out of it. I mean, people would never get married unless they expected to feel loved by the other person, to work together with each other, to satisfy each other's emotional needs. All of us are driven by desires to be happy, to experience pleasure, and to avoid physical and emotional pain. I want you to write that down, too. All of us desire to be happy, experience pleasure, and avoid both physical and emotional pain. Here's the problem. All of us are expecting everybody else to do that for us. We have these very high expectations from each other. And when other people don't meet those expectations, we go in conflict with them.

Marriage is such an easy example to use. I mean, if you were a person who needs verbal affirmation, and your husband never says, I love you, or says something nice about you, or praises you, or thanks you for anything, you're miserable. You expect him to do that. When he doesn't meet those expectations, there will be conflict. So not all of this, by the way, pride is one of those things that is very detrimental to relationships. The need to be happy is the need to be emotionally healed is part of who we are. But if we don't understand that, and we don't deal with that, we will never heal any relationship. And this third one, those needs of themselves are not evil, but they become conflict-driven. You will meet my expectations, or you will pay.

Once we head down that emotional route, we begin to destroy the relationship. We begin to perceive others as blocking our expectations for happiness. We see them as the source of pain. We see them as the source of keeping me from what I want in life. So we put on our battle armor, and we go in ready for hand-to-hand conflict. Because you're keeping me from being what I want to be, or you're keeping me from happiness. You're not meeting my expectations. And the fourth reason, then, is the need to control. All of us are designed to have in us, when we're confronted with conflict, a reaction of flight or fight, right? We either run away from conflict, or we rush into it with our sword drawn to fight. And it's the normal human reaction to conflict. We either run or we fight. Well, there's times to run, there's times to fight. But if you really want to solve conflict, neither of those will work.

Now, here's part of the reason why we either fly away or fight. And I want you to write this down, too. We want to protect our rights, we want to protect our self-image, and we want to protect our emotional security.

Truth is, much of life, we don't have a lot of control over. You just don't. You have control over some things. In fact, one of the great aspects of wisdom is figuring out what you have control over and what you don't have control over.

When you and I are fighting to protect our self-image, and when you look at all four of these, and you mix them together, here's what we do. We literally make ourselves an idol. We make ourselves an idol. We become our own God or goddess. And we will determine how other people worship us. We will determine how other people treat us. We will determine, always, it always be the final arbiter of what is righteous in my relationships. Now, you see, that's a pretty strong statement to make that we become our own gods. Well, we're acting as our own God. We're acting as our own goddesses. Now we're going to get into the real reason for conflict. Those are emotional human reasons and mental human reasons for conflict. But those are the result of something. All human conflict comes down to one conflict. And how we solve that conflict will determine how we deal with other conflicts with each other. One conflict at the core of all of it. What is that? Romans chapter 8. We have all erected in our own minds a self-image of ourselves as the center of the universe. Every human being makes himself or herself in their own mind, the way we act, the way we think. We wouldn't say this, but it's what we do. Our own self-image, we are a god or a goddess. Everybody is supposed to act a certain way when around us. Everybody is supposed to be a certain way when they're around us. Everybody is supposed to treat us a certain way. We expect it. And when it doesn't happen, we have conflict with them. Right? Romans chapter 8.

I just looked out and I saw someone waving at a child, and for a second I thought they were waving at me. It was a strange experience. Romans 8 verse 7.

Because the carnal mind, this is the natural state of a human being. This was your natural state and my natural state. And brethren, brethren, brethren, brethren, folks, we're still partly this way. This is why we have so much conflict. Because we haven't dealt with this conflict. The carnal mind, the natural mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. There it is. Write that one down. That's one of the premises we're going to work off of. You and I are naturally the enemy of God. You know, this Passover season, we're brought back to that, and I fear we really haven't grasped what that means. In our natural state, we are the enemy of God. That's what that says. And we can't do His ways. You can't. You may want to, but you can't because you have an innate hostility towards His solutions. I know I'm still that way. There are certain solutions to God's, God has the certain things. My initial reaction still is hostility. No, I don't want to do it that way. I don't like that way. That's not the way I want it to work. Why? Because I want it to work my way. I want it to meet my graven image that I have in my mind as myself. That's what I want. I'm only speaking from experience, folks. This is our natural state.

Now God, we're the enemies of God.

We know how it came this way, but let's go set the basic core premises again. Genesis, chapter 2. We are in conflict with God. We are in conflict with God.

There was a time you did not know you were in conflict with God. You just thought, God loves me, I love God, but you lived your life as an idol. You worshipped yourself, and you were in conflict with God.

Oh, I was a good person. Well, Genesis 2, in Genesis 3, verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. Talking about Satan, of course.

Now, there's three interesting motivations here. In verse 6, the tree was good for food. This wasn't poisonous, and it was going to taste good.

She says it was desirable and that it was pleasant to the eyes.

It was something that was good-looking, and it would make her wise. In other words, to be, to know the difference between good and evil was a good thing. And she took it. Now, you know, when you look at those three motivations of themselves, they weren't evil. Of themselves, to want to learn wisdom is not evil. To want to eat good food is not evil. But those desires, uncontrolled, get twisted. And at that point, she became, because now it started in her mind, all sin starts in the mind, that sin led to an action, and she became a mixture of good and evil. And at that point, she was hostile towards God. If she would have said, no, I love God, I'm going to do what's right, she would have loved God. But now she became hostile towards God. Her nature changed. When Adam followed along, his nature changed. It wasn't just a matter of, oh, I've committed a sin. The very core of who he was and who she was as a person changed. They were no longer in a loving, peaceful relationship with God. They had become at this point gods in their own eyes. They determined right from wrong. They determined good from evil. They had become their own gods. And as their own gods, since there's only one god, they are now in hostility and conflict with the one god.

And the one god said, fine, you don't live in my house anymore. Remember, Adam and Eve didn't walk out of Eden. They were kicked out of Eden. The one god said, you are in conflict with me. I am God, you are not. You must leave my house. You are no longer my children. And humanity no longer were the children of God. Something changed in them. And they became something else. And it's what you and I were. And it's what you and I have been called to be something different. And when we act just like our own gods, when we worship ourselves, when we make the idols of who we are, we end up back in conflict with God. Because remember, you and I still have elements of this hostile nature in us. It's still there. Not the way it used to be, hopefully, but it's still there. We have to remember, there is only one God. There is no room. There is no room in God's house for millions of self-determining gods. It just doesn't exist.

You know, it's interesting, in 1 John 2 16, we have, well, let's go and turn there. 1 John 2 16. I wrote down so much information that there's no way to cover it all today, but we have to set the premise. We have to understand the conflict we have because we are our own gods. We are idol-worshippers. We worship ourselves. And this basic court conflict between us and the true God is why all other conflicts exist. 1 John 2. And the Passover season is supposed to remind us of this. 1 John 2 16. I'm sorry. 1 John 2 16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but it is of the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, same three motivations that motivated Eve. Originally, you know, the desires were not evil, but they became twisted.

Now, we start to look then at human nature that we've talked about so far.

This exaggerated, hostile human nature and what it means and why we have conflict. Well, let's first let's just look at what we've covered. We've talked about pride as an exaggerated view of self so that we have to win over others. We have an emotional need to be healed by the people who hurt us. That's not nothing wrong with that, but that's a powerful driving force. We have a desire to be happy, experience pleasure, and avoid both physical and emotional pain. And we have expectations that other people will do that. The natural human reaction to conflict is flight or fight. We want to protect our rights, our self-image, and our emotional security.

And we desire to do this. And we become then something happens to us. I talked about the change in nature. Ephesians chapter 2. We read this scripture all the time, but let's go back to Ephesians chapter 2.

Because of this, here's what happens. We have this conflict with God. We have all these core needs that aren't being met all the time. And so we come back to this. Here he's talking about Christians who have changed. Now we are in the process of changing, just like these people are in the process of changing. But we need to remember what we were, because we're still carrying part of that in us. When we get to the days of Unleavened Bread next month, we'll talk about coming out of Egypt and how we can't carry Egypt with us. We'll talk about getting rid of leavening, and we can't take leavening with us. All these symbols. Ephesians 2 verse 1. And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. He said, you were dead. You were the enemies of God, God had pronounced the death penalty on you, and you were dead. But he made you alive. In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, showing that sin isn't just something we do, it's something we think. And we're by nature, children of wrath, just as the others. By nature, we became children of conflict. By nature, we must, as God, impose our will on others.

We must impose our wills on others, because I have expectations of others and what they must do to fulfill me, to make me happy, to do what I want.

And so we literally become our own gods, and in doing so we become the children of wrath. Adam and Eve were the children of God. When they ate of that fruit and determined, I will be my own God, I will determine good from evil. At that point, they became the children of wrath, the children of conflict, the children of bitterness, the children of anger, and they were no longer the children of God. Now, that's what every one of us was, the children of conflict, and the children instead of the children of God.

And we bring all those internal mess. The internal mess is what we bring to our relationships with each other. Fortunately, people are a mixture of good and evil, because with that internal mess, if we were completely evil, the human race would have killed itself off thousands of years ago. There's still enough good to keep humanity from simply killing itself off. We know that before Jesus Christ returns, humanity will be on the very brink of self-destruction. Now, in the midst of all this, you have something deep inside of you that you have to come to grips with. Every one of us has an inner deep spiritual need that aches to be restored to God. See, you and I were designed to have a relationship with God. We were designed to have a relationship with God, because we were designed to be the children of God.

So inside you is a conflict. A conflict between self-determination, which we will protect at all cost, because we've made an idol of ourselves, and a relationship with our God, which we need and we desire. Now, you think about the conflict you have if we could just sit down and analyze it inside ourselves, which we're not very good at. We have a deep desire, need, ache to be in relationship with God, who we are also hostile towards at the same time. We're hostile towards the only one who can give us what we need. We're a mess, folks. Human nature is an absolute mess.

I need God. I want God. I want God to help me and love me and take care of me as long as I don't have to do what He says. As long as I can be my own God, you know, like a lesser God. So I'll worship you, but leave my life alone. So we're in this internal conflict inside of ourselves.

And that conflict spills out over into anything. This is why you cannot solve the other conflicts until you solve this one. The problem is we're incapable of solving this one. God has to do something. Now, this brings us to a concept that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5. So let's go to 2 Corinthians 5. So we've set the premises that the you and I are at our core.

Pretty sick, messed up people. Pretty sick, messed up people.

That before our calling, we were hostile towards God. The natural mind is the enemy of God and can't be subject to His ways.

So how do we get to where we have to go? 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 18. Paul says, Now, I really want to stress this idea of reconciliation. When we go through this, you'll see that God does not want to sort of solve your issues with Him. Now, this isn't negotiation where God says, let us just sort of solve the issues we have between each other and learn to get along.

When God talks about reconciliation, He is not talking about solving our issues. He is talking about restoring a relationship.

He is talking about restoring a relationship. He is talking about changing us from children of wrath to the children of God.

So this idea of reconciliation isn't just, let's sort of negotiate a peace and then go away still hostile towards each other.

God wants to change the hostility that you and I have towards Him. He wants to change the fact that we are His enemy and we feel towards Him as an enemy.

So He says, Now, all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, Paul says, this is the message I'm supposed to give you. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us, Paul says, we implore you. He's talking to the church here. He says, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. That we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus Christ came to this earth and to carry out the work of reconciliation.

To bring us back into relationship with God. To deal with the primal core reason for all conflict. Because all conflict begins with human beings being the enemy of God. Human beings, if all human beings were reconciled to God, there would be no war. There would be no crime.

There would be differences of opinion. There were issues between individuals, issues between peoples, but those issues would be solved. They would be solved because everybody involved was totally reconciled to God. Now, there is no human being walking the face of the earth, even the most converted among us who is totally reconciled to God yet. We still all have bits and pieces of our hostile human nature. Because of that, we are in conflict with God and we are in conflict with each other. But Passover is the time we are brought back into the concept of being reconciled to God. Here is the problem we face.

Now, when we look at how God saved us, what we just read here, obviously we have an issue of the law. You and I are all condemned to death by the law of God. Now, what the Protestants come to the conclusion is, he abolished the law, which is absurdity. I won't go into that, but how do you abolish the law? Then there is no need for him to be sacrificed. There is no need. If there is no sin, if there is no law, then there is no need for any of this. But God's law still stands. He didn't abolish his law, so there had to be a substitute. So we talk a lot about Jesus Christ as the substitute, and we should, because that's where we start. He's the Passover Lamb. He is the substitute for us so that our sins can be covered up and blotted out.

Now, after they're covered up and blotted out, what's supposed to happen next? What's supposed to happen after the law of God is satisfied? I say the law of God. It's God's justice. God is satisfied. God is satisfied. And you know, we'll go through Isaiah 52 and 53 sometime during this Passover season. It satisfied him to sacrifice his son. His justice was satisfied. Jesus Christ sacrificed himself in order to satisfy his own sense of justice. Because we're all still held accountable for our sins. And either we die or we have a substitute for us. Now, that's the law aspect. The question is, what happens next? If the law of God, if God's sense of justice has been satisfied and you're forgiven, you're forgiven. But by nature, understand, you can be forgiven of your sins, and by nature, you're still what? The enemy of God. You're still hostile towards God.

If you want to do an interesting word study, go through the Bible and study the word abomination. For abominations, sometimes it's plural.

Because abomination, you'll find, is used many times in reference to God's interaction with human beings. Abomination is God's reaction to hostile enemies. Abomination means detestable. I mean, it is hard to even put into words what the depth of what an abomination is. An abomination is detestable to God. It is disgusting to God. It is something He finds absolutely repulsive.

So what is a human being in relationship to God? Hostile towards God. Enemy towards God. What is God's reaction to corrupt human nature? He finds it detestable.

When we go through this, you're going to see, what's fascinating here is what motivates God to do what He does. He finds human beings in corrupt state to be abominations.

Now what we like to do is we like to pick out in there, okay, homosexuality is an abomination, idolatry is an abomination. We like those. Because we get, oh yeah, we like to attack those things. But if you go through and look up all the places where abomination is used, you're going to find that your life at times is an abomination to God. While you were His enemy, He found you quite disgusting. He found me quite disgusting.

Abomination is used for dishonesty. It's used for pride. It's used even for a person's thoughts. There's a place in Proverbs where He says, a person becomes so wicked that their prayers are an abomination to me. Now we think, well anybody praying God would listen to their prayers. God says, there are times when there are people so disgusting to me that I find their prayers disgusting. You have to understand the level of hostility that we have as human beings towards God, because there are six billion gods running around on this earth. We've all made ourselves gods. And we're the enemies of God, and He finds the whole thing rather disgusting.

Oh no, He loves us. I'm not talking about whether He loves us or not. I'm talking about what He says, not me, what He says His reaction is to children who will become His enemies, which is everybody until He changes us. I mean Proverbs 6, 16. Let's look there. Proverbs 6, 16.

You see, wow, this is getting pretty depressing, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa. This ministry of reconciliation is amazing, but we have to understand the depths of the price paid. We have to understand who we were if we're going to understand who we're becoming. If we're going to understand how to deal with conflict, what do we receive when Jesus Christ comes back? A reward of helping Him do what?

Reconcile humanity to Him and stopping all the conflict between human beings. So we better learn it now, because that's what we're called to do.

There's always going to be conflict as long as we're human beings. But we have to understand the reasons and core problems beneath it, and why we end up so much of the time with anger and bitterness and hatred and dysfunctional, destroyed relationships. Because this is where it starts. Look at Proverbs 6, 16. Six things the Lord hates. Oh, God doesn't hate any. Yes, He does. And yes, seven are an abomination to Him. A proud look. A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that are swift to running to evil. A false witness who speaks lies. And one who sows discord among brethren.

He will find place after place in the Bible. We say, well, yeah, I've done some of those things. But see, we pick out the ones about homosexuality or others because it's so easy, then, to go after those people. Yes, that's an abomination to God. So is it when you sit around devising wicked plans. So is it when you bear false witness.

So is it when you sow discord among brethren. So is it when we do any of these things. We're proud.

So here we have this dysfunctional human nature in conflict with itself. In need of God and wanting to be a God at the same time.

And yet we realize that we are called to return to be the children of God. But to return to be the children of God, that means we have to have a basic change in our nature. We have to go from becoming the children of wrath to the children of God. How does that gap take place? Or how does that meeting take place? You think about the gap between us and God. There's this huge gap between us and God. We are His enemies and He's the righteous creator.

You and I can't bridge the gap. We can't get from here to here. You know, we talk about God's grace. And sometimes we're afraid to talk about it because the Protestants was using it so much. But the bottom line is you and I can't get from here to here. The Passover lamb must be slain. The blood must be put on the door post. And the death angel must pass over us. You can't go out and play cards with the death angel and say, I tell you what, let's just cut cards for this.

You and I can't go to God and force Him to bridge the gap. You can't. I can't even get there on our own. This is what grace is. Now, we have a responsibility. We don't fulfill that responsibility. Yes, you can lose eternal salvation. But I'm talking about here, how do we get from being the enemies of God? This is the ministry of reconciliation. How do we get from being the enemies of God to the children of God? How do we get from being by nature the children of wrath to by nature the children of God? How is that bridge, that gulf, that huge endless gulf, how do we bridge that when you and I can't do it? Romans 10. I'm going to go through a number of scriptures here very quickly because I'm going to read them, and just expound on them a little because they say it themselves. Romans 10. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Romans 10.15.

Let's go to verse 14. How then shall they call on Him, on whom they have not believed? Paul says, how does this happen? How does someone call on God? How does someone become into a relationship with God, be restored to God? How can they do that?

And how shall they believe in Him, of whom they have not heard? I mean, this isn't where I want to be. Where do I want to be? Oh yeah, this one. And how shall they hear without a preacher? He says, how do people get to God? How do people get to God? And then verse 15. And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things?

Contained in the gospel message is peace. Peace between nations, peace between families, peace between brothers and sisters, peace between members of a congregation, peace between neighbors. But it all starts with peace between us and God.

The gospel of peace. How does God bridge that gap? Hebrews chapter 2. Now we're going to go through a series of scriptures here, just going through them. And looking how the scripture says that gap is bridged. Hebrews chapter 2. Because there's two things that must happen. First of all, God must reach across the gap to us, and then He must do something to bring us across the gap to Him. You see what I mean? There's this huge gulf between us and God, and we are His enemies. He must reach across that bridge, or that gap. He must reach across to us.

Then He has to do something to bring us across the gap to Him.

There's two things He has to do. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14. 15. Inasmuch then as the children have been partakers, or have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death, speaking of Jesus Christ, He might destroy Him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. You know, one of the reasons we try to control everything. I know why I try to control everything. Fear. I can just get everything right in my life all the time. I can be happy and have a good right self-image and be emotionally secure, and all my expectations would be met. It doesn't work that way, does it? We're in fear all the time.

He says, And release those who fear of death through all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Now, we're talking about Jesus Christ who has came through, of course, Abraham. Therefore, in all things, He had to be made like His brethren. He had to be made like us. How did He bridge the gap? You and I couldn't go become God, so God sent His Son to become like us. He sent Him across the gap.

Jesus Christ, according to Philippians, willingly did that. There Paul says He gave up His divinity and His privileges of divinity. He literally became flesh. He literally became flesh. So that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are being tempted. He literally became that way. After a hard day's work of hammering out there as a carpenter, His muscles ached, just like ours do. There were days when He was hungry, just like we get hungry. There were days when He didn't feel good, just like we don't feel good. There were days when the disciples got on His nerves.

There were days when He was surrounded by conflict and went to the Father and said, you read some of His prayers. This is bizarre how these people live.

He sat and cried and looked over Jerusalem and said, I could fix this if you would let me. We have to, at the core of who we are, we have to understand what it means that Jesus Christ became flesh. Remember that old man telling us John 1-1 over and over again until he got sick. Mr. Armstrong, you people don't get it. And he would take us to John 1-1. The word became flesh and the flesh was God, and the word for us was with God. And we'd say, why is He doing this? This is why He was doing it. At the core of our being, we have to understand the price that God and His Son paid to cross over that gap, to stop our conflict with them.

When we get this, it changes how we deal with conflict with each other. If we don't get this, we will treat each other the same way the world treats each other. Jesus Christ got dirty and had to take a bath.

Jesus Christ went through all kinds of things, and His whole life was conflict. His own brothers and sisters didn't accept Him as the Messiah until after He died. His own disciples, His own best friends abandoned Him. He was mocked in public. He was unjustly tried. He was brutally murdered. His whole life was people trying to kill Him just for telling the truth.

His whole life was conflict. He went across that gulf, became like His brethren, to do what? To be made fun of, put down, ostracized, and give up all the greatness of being divine. Of never having to sleep, never feeling pain. He gave all that up to cross over. Colossians 1, verse 19. So let's look at how Paul now describes the ministry of reconciliation.

Colossians 1, 19. For it please the Father that in Him, Jesus, all the fulness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile, now we understand the reconciliation that He had to die to pay our penalty against the law. But it's more than that. It is so that we can enter into a relationship. It's because the gulf can be breached. He breached it. You and I can't.

You and I can't. And by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him whether things on earth or in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And you, not what? Peace. Notice what he says? Peace can happen between us and God because of this. Because our sins are forgiven, because our hostility towards Him is forgiven, because we can now not change, so that we're not His enemies anymore. We can become at peace with God. And you who were once, notice what verse 21 says, you who were once what? Alienated and enemies in your mind. Enemies of who? Enemies of God. By wicked works. Yet now He has reconciled. The ministry of reconciliation isn't a set of good communication rules so that you and your buddies can solve a problem. Or you at work can sit down and get together in the boardroom and solve a problem. Those are simply ways of dealing with issues. When we talk about the ministry of reconciliation, we're talking about the very core of what a human being is. And the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection was God's way of jumping across the Gulf to bring us back into relationship by first forgiving us of our sins, because He won't accept us in sin. The idea that Jesus just accepts you as you are is one of the greatest false lies ever told by modern Christianity. God doesn't accept us as enemies. God says, come here, let me change you. Come here, let me forgive you. Come here, let me do something with your life so that you and I aren't enemies anymore, so that we're at peace. Come here and let me do this. I have to jump the Gulf for you to do it, because you can't do it. You can't get across that chasm.

Verse 22, in the body of His flesh, through death, why? In the body of His flesh, you know, I get allergies today. Jesus walked around with the sniffles once in a while. What a price to pay. What a price to pay. To have to be made that low to be like your brethren, to be like the other children. What a price to pay.

In the body of His flesh, through death, to present you. See, once peace is made between us and God, and our nature can be changed. He presents you, holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight. Peace is made between you and God because Christ jumped the void. He jumped the chasm. Romans chapter 5, verse 6.

Here's what's really amazing about this. You know, we need to be healed, though. We'll talk about this more next time, how we need to be healed. God's approach to healing of conflict, is the exact opposite of ours. Exact opposite. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Christ didn't die for us once we became godly. You know, it's like the idea I'm unworthy of baptism, and I'm worthy of God. And I'm worthy of God. And I'm worthy of God. And I'm worthy of You know, it's like the idea I'm unworthy of baptism. Yes. So what do I have to do to become worthy of baptism? Recognize that you're unworthy of baptism.

Let's go back again. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrated His own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were His enemies. Because there is no way for us to get across the chasm. There's no way for us to come to God and change ourselves. We can't do it.

You know, we always admire somebody. You know, these guys that these people who get the Medal of Honor because they throw themselves on a hand grenade to save their buddies. Okay. We say, well that's like what Christ did. No. What Christ did was being tortured and hated by the enemy and threw himself on the hand grenade to save the people who were torturing him.

Okay. Now there's the context. He took the abominations. That's what he calls us. He took the little finite human beings running around and saying, I'm God, I'm God, I'm God.

And he jumped on the hand grenade while we were torturing him. That's what he did. When we understand this, whatever conflict you have between your husband and your, you know, between with you and your wife or your husband or you and your children gets pretty minor. Most of it. It's pretty minor. He says, and remember he did it because he loved us. He looked at us not as what we were, but what we could become. God didn't see in us what just what we were. He saw in us what we could become. And he loved us. That was the motivation. He loved his enemies. God didn't love us because we were lovable. He loved us while we were enemies. Understand that. While we were hostile towards him. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more have been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Jesus Christ didn't stay dead. Jesus Christ was resurrected and Jesus Christ now does a work of reconciliation in people. He does a work of reconciliation. So we were forgiven. But in bridging that gap, jumping across that gap, he is still on the other side of that gap. He's still with us. He's still with us reconciling us to God, through God's Spirit, bringing us to God, through his Spirit, acting as a high priest, acting as an older brother, all these terms that are used in the Scripture. This is how we bridge the gap.

This is what Passover is all about. Now, he bridged the gap by jumping over it to us. How does God take us to the other side? Because there's two steps to this. Two steps. Next side, we will discuss the ministry of reconciliation and how Christ crossed the gulf for us to become flesh, the mind of God and a human being, and what he is doing now to reconcile us so that we come back across that gulf and we have a relationship with God that can last for eternity.