Reconcilation

Well, good afternoon again, brethren, and it is delightful to see each and every one of you. I always love to be able to sit here, or at least stand here, I guess I am, and look out and to see your smiling faces, and be able to take a look at the people who attend services here in Kansas City. It's always a delight to see you. I'm glad. I know we've been down a little bit. It looks like we've got almost everyone here today. Not exactly all, but a good number of people who are normally here. So, I'm thankful to see you. I guess we all have potlucks every week. We get almost everybody here every time. Maybe that would be a good idea. Anyway, I'd like an introduction to the sermon that I want to give here this afternoon. I'd like for us to think of a section of the Bible in the Old Testament that we're all familiar with, or at least we're familiar with the story. We're familiar with the story of Joseph. Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob. And of course, what was unique about Joseph? Well, when you read the latter part of the book of Genesis, actually almost the last quarter of the book of Genesis, 10 or 12 chapters there are talking about Joseph. And in essence, it's talking about a problem. A problem that Joseph had. Because he and his brothers kind of got crossways. They were at odds with each other. They were certainly... they didn't like each other. They didn't like Joseph. They didn't like the fact that Joseph seemed to be given quite a bit of favor by their father, Jacob. And of course, Joseph may have egged that on a little. He kind of prayed it around in his pretty coat. And it was something his father had given him, and he wanted him to have. And it seems like Jacob had given him some special favor in at least some ways. And yet Joseph also made some kind of weird statements sometimes. He talked about some dreams that he had, and about how those brothers might be bowing down to him. I think he was at least describing the dream, whether he realized that exactly what that would indicate. I don't know. But that didn't make his brothers like him very well. They got matter and matter and matter at him. And of course, ultimately, as we'll recall, when we recall this story, you know, they ultimately got rid of him. They didn't kill him, but they did what they could to get rid of him. They sold him on a caravan, you know, who was going to be going down into Egypt. And so ultimately, I think all of them agreed, or at least most all of them, maybe there was one or two who said something about how, you know, this isn't right, this is not the right thing to do. But then they all went ahead and did it. And so they sent Joseph into Egypt. And ultimately, Joseph, as he gets into Egypt, runs into numerous different problems. He's got several obstacles and trials that he goes through. But eventually, God causes him to rise to a role in Egypt that was extraordinary. A great deal of power, a great deal of authority, where he could actually prepare the nation of Egypt, and even in helping others around them, to be able to survive the severe famine that they were going to have.

Well, what I want to point out is just that Joseph and his brothers were at odds with each other.

And ultimately, you know, they were separated. And as we're going to study here a little bit later, they're going to eventually be drawn back together. They're going to eventually be put back together. They're going to eventually learn to accept one another again.

And yet, that didn't happen immediately. That certainly wasn't happening whenever, you know, they were trying to figure out what to do, how to get rid of him, how to cause an estrangement within this family that, of course, God was intervening and He was going to do something in saving the people of Israel. And yet, I'd like for us to look at it in maybe a different way than perhaps you have thought about this in the past.

I want to go to the book of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians today and talk about something that ties in with Joseph, ties in with how he viewed his brothers and what it was that he did.

What it was that he did toward his brothers that was very important. How it is that we want to be aware of this in our Christian lives today. And I also want to tie this in. I'm going to go to 2 Corinthians 6.

But I want to tie it in with a statement that was made during the feast down in Branson.

And I've been thinking about, I've written a number of statements down that stood out to me that I wanted to think about more. And I told you I was probably talk about them for several times here as far as things that seemed to be very significant to me.

But the statement that was made was that division reveals the heart.

It reveals attitudes and it reveals motivation. I think it's good for us to think about that because when you study the book of Corinthians, most particularly 1 Corinthians, you find that Paul is addressing here in the church at Corinth a problem of division. He's addressing a problem where they're trying to follow different people. Some Peter, some Paul, some Apollos, some saying, well, we'll follow Christ. And yet the first three or four chapters in 1 Corinthians all talk about how can this be? How can you really be Christian if you feel that division is the answer?

If you feel that being divided has anything to do with the plan of God or with the family of God? Because as we've discussed, the family of God is a united family. It is a family that works together in harmony and in cooperation. And I think we had a very good example of that during the feast this past year. We had a great deal of cooperation and peace and harmony that we certainly don't want to just do occasionally.

We want that as an entire way of life. But what I want to point out here is that Paul was very close. He was very close to the people in Corinth. He was close to them because God had used him as an instrument to actually bring many of them into the church. We go back to the book of Acts and you read about how Paul, he went to Corinth, he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God, and he eventually stayed there for about a year and a half because what we find in Acts is that God said, I want you to stay here.

I want you to be here for 18 months because I have many people here. It wasn't that the Corinthians were just such marvelous people that they all wanted to turn to God and they were going to give their heart to the Lord. That wasn't what it said. What it said was and what God meant was, I have a good number of people here in this city that I'm going to draw, that I'm going to bring into the church of God.

And I want you to stay here and preach and teach and be a part, instrumental part of bringing them into contact with me. And so Paul had a great deal of concern for the people of Corinth. But as I've just said in 1 Corinthians, he writes about the divisions that they had.

He writes about the problems that they had. He writes about and he did very directly correct them for certain problems that they were allowing to go on or that they didn't address. They didn't see a need to address. They didn't know that it was even something they ought to address, perhaps. And yet, when he wrote that to them, he later realized that, well, that did change their mind.

They repented. They changed. They responded. They were uplifted. And they were actually able to receive one another. But when you read his second letter, you find that throughout this second letter, he's appealing to the church to accept him. Now, why would they not accept him? Well, there were others who were saying, well, Paul's not interested in you. He's not even a minister of God. He does this. He does that. You hear about him being shipwrecked. You hear about this problem, that problem. There was a lot of discrediting being done. And so the people were kind of confused. They didn't know whether they ought to accept Paul or not.

And yet, what we find here in 2 Corinthians is that Paul was appealing to them. He was appealing to them to understand that, well, look, it was how God worked with you by sending me and others with me, Titus, and others who were with me to preach the gospel to you. And you really are special to us. You are precious to us. And we want you to respond. Here in 2 Corinthians 6, 2 Corinthians 6 verse 11, he says, We have spoken frankly to you, Corinthians.

Our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours.

That he was speaking from the standpoint of himself and those who were with him, those who were in the ministry, those who were appealing to them. We love you. We are deeply concerned about you. We are interested in you. We want to help you. And so he says in verse 12, there's no restriction in our affection toward you, but there is in yours. In return, I speak as to children, open wide your hearts as well. And so he was appealing to them that your response, your heart, your attitude needs to be accepting. It needs to be nurtured by the care that Paul could provide. And they seem to be standoffish. They seem to be reluctant about accepting what Paul had to say. And he mentions, well, do we need to bring letters of commendation to in some way get your attention? And of course, he later said, well, I don't think that's necessary because God used us to even bring you into the church. You are a letter in itself.

And so what we find Paul is discussing here is actually, in a sense, a remedy, a remedy for division. And I want to back up to chapter 5 here, because here in chapter 5, he talks about a topic that we don't often talk about, but it is one that I think it is important.

It's a topic of reconciliation. The topic of being reconciled, as Paul is describing this, and how it is that reconciliation is necessary. It's needed. It's needful. And there are numerous aspects of it, as we will see. I like to start up in verse 11 of chapter 5. He says, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade you, but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your conscience. So you can see that he is trying to appeal to them. I know, he was saying, I know that we are well known to God. I know that God has been working through me and us, and I hope that you know that too. I hope that you are also thinking along that line. In verse 12, we are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. See, again, there were those who were trying to discredit Paul. Those who were trying to minimize the concern or the love that the Corinthians had for what Paul was able to do or what he wanted to do in helping them.

And in verse 13, he says, For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And so he starts telling them as to how or why we are together. How that we have been brought together because of the death of Jesus Christ. We all have been, as he talked to the church, we all have been baptized. We all have made a commitment to God, and yet we've done that. We've made that commitment after God reached out and pulled us in a direction that is to Jesus Christ. So he says, the love of Christ urges us on in verse 14, because we are convinced that one has died for us, therefore all have died. For he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. And so he said, as Christians, as members of the church of God, not only myself, but all of you, we all have been brought together by the death of Jesus Christ. We've been brought together by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. We all have been drawn together to have a similar goal, to have a similar future, to have the hope that is absolutely wonderful, and there's no reason to be fighting and bickering. There's no reason to be torn apart. And so he was pleading to them in verse 16, now on therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know Him no longer in that way. See, now this was a statement he made, and perhaps it's something that we can think about ourselves as we think back to when God actually intervened in our lives and brought us to an awareness of His desire to have us to be a part of the Church of God. For the most part, we had all heard of Jesus Christ. I can certainly say about myself. I was younger then, but that's been 40-45 years ago, and I was aware of Jesus Christ. You know, my parents taught me at least something about Jesus Christ. They gave me a certain understanding, and yet as I looked at it then, and as I look at it even today, my understanding of Jesus Christ was very limited. It was very minimal. It was a kind of in name only awareness, or it was kind of a confused misunderstanding about Jesus Christ and about the plan of God in general. But as he mentions here, you know, we don't want to look at Christ as we did in the past from a human point of view. We want to be able to look at Him in a much different way. So he says in verse 17, if anyone is in Christ, then there is a new creation.

If anyone is in Christ, if anyone has been brought into a relationship with God through the blood and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then they are a new creation. Everything old has passed away. Everything has become new. See, that's an absolutely fabulous concept that he wanted them to realize. He said, for you to continue to be bickering among yourselves, to be somewhat confused, to be divided, to not even be accepting Me. That actually just reveals your motivation. That reveals your heart, because that's what division does. But he says there's an answer to that. There's an answer to that, and I'm going to tell you what it is. Verse 17, everyone who is in Christ is a new creation. In verse 18, he says, all of this, all of this as far as being brought into a newness of life, to be brought into a new creation, as opposed to the way we were in the past, all of that has come from God.

All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their transgressions to get them, but entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So here in two verses, in verse 18 and verse 19, He actually points out three different aspects of reconciliation, three different concepts that I hope that we can discuss here this afternoon and better understand just how it is that God is causing us to work together. How it is that He wants us to be this new creation that verse 17 talks about. But in verse 18, He says, God has brought this about. He reconciled us to Himself through Christ.

And then beyond that, He's given us a ministry of reconciliation.

And so not only is it good enough to just be reconciled to God, to be brought back, to be drawn to God, and to be reconciled to be God, to be received by God. Whenever we talk about a reconciliation, it talks about a change. It talks about a change from having been against or separated or estranged. A change from that to being close, being trusted, being in a loving and warm, a friendship, relationship. That's what when you think about reconciliation, I think you often, at least in the way that it's used here, you think of it in somewhat of a family relationship. If they're broken apart, like I mentioned with Joseph and his family, his brothers, they were clearly estranged. You know, they were beyond estranged. They were completely separated. There was a great deal of anger, a great deal of hatred, a great deal of distress in that relationship. It was clearly a broken relationship.

But as we're going to see as we'll talk about that a little later, God healed it. God did heal it. And that's what Paul was telling the Corinthians.

I want your relationship with each other. I want your relationship with me to be healed.

And the way that we can understand that is through understanding the reconciliation that God has provided for us. That He has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And beyond that, He has given us a message. And that message is a message of reconciliation. See, our teaching, our preaching, our proclaiming of the gospel of the Kingdom of God is a proclaiming of a message of reconciliation. People can be reconciled to God. And so He goes on here in verse 20. Since that's the case, God has reconciled us to Himself. He has accepted us. He thankfully brought us out of our misery and placed us in a position to where we can have a close friendship with Him. Because of that, then we have a job to do, preaching reconciliation. And so, in verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ. Now, we've used that in many different ways. You know, that we're representing the Kingdom of God. We are ambassadors for Christ. We are ambassadors for Christ since God is making His appeal through us. So we entreat you on behalf of Jesus Christ, be reconciled to God.

This is what He was telling the Corinthian brethren. He was telling them, God has reconciled us. Talking of us on an individual basis, He has brought us to Himself through Jesus Christ. He has given us a message that is a message of reconciliation, a message of cooperation, a message of peace, a message of working together, if not being divided.

And He says, in appeal to them in verse 20, be reconciled to God. He wanted them to be reconciled among themselves and toward Him. He wanted there to be the love that He talked about there in chapter 6. He wanted that love to be shared. He didn't want that to just be poured out from Him and never returned. He wanted that to be returned. And so it goes on in verse 21, For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. This is a statement that sometimes we do use or read around the Passover time.

And of course it's talking about how it is that Jesus took upon Himself the penalty of our sins.

He's the one who took upon Himself the penalty of sin that all of us have incurred. We have all deserved. And yet He took that upon Himself and He did that for us. And in so doing, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. See, when righteousness is talked about in the Bible, it tells us there are good and bad. There are unjust, but then there are righteous things that we can do. And of course we want to obey. We want to honor God. We want to live in a righteous manner. That would be a description of the type of life that God would want us to live. But is it a matter of what we do or is it a matter of how God is the one who cleans us up? He's the one who gives us His righteousness. He's the one, you know, when we learn to ask for it, when we learn to see He's the source of it, He's the one who can give it to us. And I'll show you that here in a second. He's the one who has that to give. And the more we ask for that, then the more we're going to understand reconciliation. We're going to understand how important that is on an individual basis, how important it is as our message, and then how more important it is that we share that with one another. So those three aspects are what I wanted to focus on here today. The first one, of course, is simply that God has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And of course, why would we need to be reconciled? Well, very clearly, Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2, talks about how that our sins and our iniquities have separated us from God. And so God is then the one who brings about a reconciliation. I'd like for us to look. We read this in 2 Corinthians 5. Let's take a look at Colossians 1. It's a fabulous section here, talking about Jesus Christ, talking about who He is, what He did, what He has done, what He is doing, what He will do. And in verse 19, it says, In Jesus Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And through Him, God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or heaven, by making peace.

See, that's what reconciliation is about. It's about peace. It's about changing from being estranged to being close together. And so He says, God is pleased to reconcile to Himself all things by making peace through the blood of His cross. In verse 21, And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him. See, remarkably, this actually goes on and points out how that we've been separated, our sins have separated us from God, how that we have been in hostility toward God, and how that God changed that. He changed our mind. He changed our heart. He purified our hearts so that we are forgiven and that we can be reconciled to Him, so that it says, He can present us holy and blameless and irreproachable before Him. See, now, that's how I'd like to be before God. That is the way I often feel.

And even though we know, yeah, we're supposed to be holy because God is holy, what this tells us is that God is the one who's able to do that. He's the one who is able to present us holy and blameless and irreproachable. He's the one who is able to create that type of reconciliation and give us those type of qualities. He goes on here in verse 22 to say what we can do.

What we can do is provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith without shifting from the hope that is promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, of which I became a servant of the gospel. See, Paul was telling the Colossians in this case, you know, the same thing. He was telling them God has created a reconciliation with you where He can provide you the righteousness of God. He can provide you the ability to be holy and blameless. He wants you in verse 23 to simply continue securely established and steadfast in the faith. See, that's what He wants of us. But He wants us to understand that, well, we've been reconciled and that's something we should be deeply appreciative of. In Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter 5, you have a section that is very similar to this, and yet it in essence points out that God's reconciliation toward us is an absolutely perfect pattern. Romans 5, verse 8 said, But God proves His love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by His blood, we will be saved through Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, we will be saved by His life.

To here it points out how the reconciliation that came from God, the calling, the forgiveness, the grace of God, the mercy that He extends to us, you know, He did that while we still needed to be cleaned up. We still needed to be purified. He did that in order to purify us. And so as we are reconciled by God in that way, well then we want, as it says in verse 10, to know that we're going to be saved through His life, living in us. And of course, that's what the power of the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit of God has been given to us, and then we are to grow in that Spirit. Grow in our understanding, grow in our appreciation, grow in our recognition of how He's working with us.

And so those are all scriptures that I think in essence say kind of the same thing, but it does point out a perfect pattern and a pattern that we ought to think about perhaps as we then talk about these other two things. That's the first thing that's mentioned here about reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5. The second thing was that we have, apart from the fact that we're reconciled to God, we have a message of reconciliation. See, that's what we preach. That's what we teach.

That's what the gospel of the kingdom of God is all about. The kingdom of God is going to come to the earth. It's going to transform this entire earth. But in regard to people, what do people need?

Well, they need the kingdom of God. They need Christ to return. They need Him to be the king of the earth. But individually, they need to be reconciled to God. That's what we read here in 2 Corinthians 5.

Everybody, our message of the kingdom of God comes down to that God is appealing. Here in 2 Corinthians 5 again, He's appealing. The message that He has given us is a message of reconciliation.

And as we see in verse 20 of 2 Corinthians 5, since we've been given this message of reconciliation, we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making His appeal through us, and we entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. See now that, as we understand our mission, as we understand our message about the kingdom of God, as we reach out to other people, as we recognize that not only do we need to be reconciled to God, but so does everybody else. Every other human being needs to be reconciled to God. Now we understand that that does involve God bringing us to a recognition of our need. He brings us to repentance. He brings us to a commitment toward Him. Yes, all of those things are true, but ultimately, as He brings that about, He is reconciling us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And so that's why our message is a message of reconciliation in whatever way we serve. See, all of you serve in one way or another.

At least we all should be, and I think all of you do. You feel an understanding of that. You know that, well, that's what Christ called us to do. That's what He perfectly set an example of doing. And He did that in order to show us that that's the way He wants us to live.

And so whatever it is that we do, however it is that we serve one another, or that we serve others at our home, or that we serve others in our community, however we do that, we are doing that. And we all play an important role in spreading God's message of reconciliation. See, that is a part of what we should be doing. That's a part of what we do when we have our Kingdom of God seminars.

It's not simply a matter of having a seminar. It's a matter of all of us reaching out to others, all of us having a desire to see others reconciled to God, because that, again, is a message that is very clearly related to the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And then the final of the three things that I wanted to mention about reconciliation is that not only have we been reconciled and we have a message or word of reconciliation, but that we are to live a ministry of reconciliation. See, each of us have a responsibility, because God has given us that reconciliation to Him. We need to be reconciled to one another.

We need to be able to build relationships with bridges and not with fences. That's the type of thing that we really need to do. We need to be able to understand the topic of reconciliation. It actually is to make friends with someone that you've been separated from. That's what I mentioned to you earlier, and that's what I think we see with Joseph and his brothers.

They were separated, and yet they're ultimately going to be brought back together as we're going to read in Genesis chapter 50. I'd like for us to look here in Matthew chapter 5. See, this is not just a nice thing to read. This is actually a direction from Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.

As He talks about the topic of murder and anger, which clearly divides people, He talks about how that, yes, murder is wrong, yes, that's a sin, but then He goes through, starting in verse 21, He goes through several examples of how that hatred, how that anger toward others, anger in excessive ways even as He describes that, that those are all sins as well. But He says in verse 23, So when you are offering your gift at the altar, when you're offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, well then leave your gift therefore before the altar and go, and first, be reconciled to your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift.

See, He points out that our relationship with God, and this is in essence what we would, in a spiritual sense, giving a gift to the altar. That in many ways is our prayer life. It is our devotion to God. It is our connection to God. If we're trying to pray and honor God with our lives, we're trying to develop and cultivate a close relationship with God, because we know He wants that, and we want that. We don't want to allow divisions. We don't want to allow the lack of reconciliation with a brother or sister to impede that. We don't want, I mean, here it says, stop and go and solve that problem. Be willing to solve the problem. Be willing to do what you need in order to address that issue, to be reconciled to your brother. And then it says, come and offer your gift at the altar. See, that is, in my understanding, what we see back here in Genesis chapter 50 as far as what God brought about in the life of Joseph.

As I mentioned, you've got a number of chapters here that are about Joseph in Egypt.

And of course, we know that he ran into different problems, and he had to flee Potiphar's wife. And he had to go through a number of trials that were in many ways not easy.

And yet, he did learn certain things that maybe otherwise he would not have learned.

He did know what his brothers had done. And only as he later saw how things are improving.

I'm sure he didn't initially think, well, this is great. Here I am in the dungeon. Here I am in this difficult situation. I'm sure he didn't think, oh, I'm sure God sent me to this dungeon. I doubt that he thought that. I think he probably had no idea until he later started seeing how God was helping him. And here in chapter 42, I think it is, when his brothers come to Egypt, verse 7, Joseph saw his brothers. He recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke harshly to them, and asking, where did you come from?

In verse 8, although Joseph recognized his brothers, they didn't recognize him.

To here, he was being confronted with a situation where these rascally brothers of his are brought before him, begging him for food. Begging him for any kind of help that he could offer them. And they didn't know who he was. I don't know whether he had a new hairdo, or whether he was older, or whether he didn't have any hair at all. They didn't recognize him initially. And yet, he could see from the group, and probably he could tell just with the other 10, I believe, who were there. And of course, he later says, how about bringing Benjamin, which they knew was a problem. Jacob wasn't going to like that. He would just about die if anything happened to Benjamin. And yet, Joseph knows how to bring him. That's what I want to see.

So, we find Joseph dealing with his brothers initially in a little bit of a harsh way.

And yet finally, when we find Joseph revealing himself to his brothers, it's in chapter 45, you find that they are in many ways delighted. They're thrilled, and then they're scared to death.

Because they know that, well, it would appear he might be able to help us, but he also knew, or they knew, he also knows what we did. He also might be just waiting to get rid of all of us, because he appears to be in a position to do that. And so finally, what we see at the summation of this is over in chapter 50. And this is really what I want to focus on, because it's what God brought Joseph to see. And I think he knew this, or saw this, as God worked things out, and he rose to prominence in Egypt, and he was able to then see how God has brought my brothers, He's brought my family here, I'm able to feed them, I'm able to help them. They're actually all going to come down here. Jacob's going to come as well. They're all going to be here. And yet in chapter 50, Jacob dies. Jacob's life is over, and he has now died in chapter 50. And in verse 15, and we see a short section here that's really about Joseph and his brothers.

It says, realizing that their father, their father Jacob, had died, Joseph's brothers said, what if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we have done to him? See, they got to thinking, uh-oh, this might not be too good. While Dad was here, while he was watching over things, while he was certainly able to influence Joseph, he has been nice to us. But now that he has died, what's going to happen? What if Joseph maintains that division? What if he maintains that grudge against us that surely he has had to have that we clearly had toward him? And so in verse 16, they approach Joseph and say, your father gave this instruction before he died. Now, I don't know exactly whether Jacob did this or not. It would almost appear that they might have come up with a good way of saying this might help. I don't know. I'm not sure whether this was something that Jacob had directed or whether they were just coming up with a real plan here. Father gave this instruction before he died. Say to Joseph, I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they have done in harming you. Now therefore, please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.

You can take that maybe several ways. Maybe that was what he said. I don't know.

And yet, when you read this, you see that, well, God was working with Joseph.

I don't know how much he was working with the other sons of Israel, the sons of Jacob. They all seemed to be somewhat cantankerous and had all kinds of difficulties and problems. And Joseph had his own problems, but clearly God was working with Joseph. And actually, God was giving Joseph a reconciliation attitude. He was giving him an attitude of reconciliation. And whenever they said this to Joseph immediately, you see his response. It says he wept when they spoke to him. And then his brothers also wept and fell down before him and said, We be as your slaves. See, they realized we're completely indebted to you. We beg your mercy. We ask for help. And we pleaded, even with our Father's name, if you would possibly be merciful to us. But see, already, Joseph had a reconciling attitude. He had a desire to reach out to them, even though he didn't immediately do that. When he first saw them, he allowed it to go on for a while. He later was able to help them help all of their families, help the entire family of Jacob. But he said in verse 19, Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good in order to preserve a numerous people as He has done today.

So have no fear. I, myself, will provide for you and for your little ones.

And in this way, he reassured them, speaking very kindly to them.

Now what we see, and I think that this is very closely tied together with what we read in 2nd Corinthians. See, Paul was appealing to the Corinthians to be reconciled to God. Understand you've been reconciled to God and that you have a message of reconciliation and that you should be reconciled to one another. You should be reconciled to me talking about Himself. You should be pleased that I'm here helping you learn more about the way and love of God. And exactly when we study what Joseph did, he had been given a spirit of reconciliation, a reconciling attitude, and he had that, or he had that because he now recognized, and I'm sure he did even earlier than this, he recognized the hand of God in his life. That's what Joseph had to come to see. Now maybe he had thought that all along, but ultimately, even more as he went along and as he now is forgiving, he's forgiving his brothers, he is reaching out to them in peace. He is kindly toward them instead of harshly speaking to them. He is acknowledging, he's recognizing the hand of God in his life and then therefore, he is wanting to be reconciliatory. He's not wanting to have that grudge. He's not wanting. He's not doing it because it's just out of the goodness of my heart. He says, I know what God has done for me. I know what he has done for you, and so I want, I want to be reconciled to you. And so I think that that is an example, an illustration of the type of reconciliation that we want to live. See, that's what we want to live among ourselves with each other, with others who might create some type of offense that would need to be resolved. We want to have the attitude that Joseph had and certainly what God expects of us since we have been reconciled to him. Then we want to be reconciling toward others.

And so I think that's a little different than, you know, the topic of forgiveness. It's similar, and there certainly is forgiveness within reconciliation, but reconciliation seems to imply more of a close, more of a warm friendship, as opposed to just simply a forgiveness of some type of an offense. And so, as we see these three things here in 2 Corinthians 5, I hope that we can appreciate how it is, you know, that God has reconciled us, how he gives us that message, and how he wants us to live that way of reconciliation. And this is actually what Paul says there in 2 Corinthians 6. He's appealing. He's appealing to the people in the church in Corinth.

He's wanting them to respond. He wants them to, out of the heart, out of the right motivation, he wants them to respond to him. And so, as he's explained this in chapter 5, we are ambassadors for Christ. Be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to one another.

And in verse 6, he says, as we work together with Him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. See, that's what He extends to us. You know, as God works with us, as He has extended the grace of God to us, that we appreciate that, and in so doing, out of our heart.

Have the type of reconciling attitude toward others that God wants to see in us. That's what He is telling us. That's what He's showing us. And so, as we continue in the work that we have to do, the ministry of preaching and teaching the message of reconciliation, I hope that we can not only appreciate what's been given to us, but that we can also extend.

Extend reconciliation. Extend the type of friendship and peace that needs to be extended to others, simply because we very deeply appreciate the hand of God that has reached down and touched our lives on an individual basis.