The two little parables in Matthew 13 perfectly illustrate this point. We become new creatures entirely. Christ repeatedly urged His disciples to count the cost of following Him. The rich young ruler understood that. What would he give up for the sake of his eternal soul? It was a test of his obedience and what he valued most in his heart. And he failed miserably. Nothing less is acceptable. When I was in college, I played football, and I had a coach who meant a lot to me personally.
Throughout high school and college, he was the best coach I ever had. His name was Jim Brownfield, and he was a legend in southern California. He coached at every level of football. He was innovative, he was creative, and I cared about him a great deal.
I remember sitting next to him on the plane as we were flying up to San Francisco for a game. I took that opportunity to communicate the gospel to him with all my heart, but he rejected it. Sometimes we try to shake it off with thick skin and tough talk and just power through this type of brokenness.
The truth is, in most cases, we would like to see the relationship reconciled. No one likes living in constant brokenness and hurt. This is exactly the situation with God. Everything begins to change when you know God.
As your relationship grows, you are filled with this desire to invite others into this incredible relationship with God. Encouragement: Being in relationship with God is life changing. It is so awesome, that the desire God gives us is to help others be reconciled to God too. Ask God to show you who He wants you to help reconcile to Him. He will show you. Prayer: Dear God, thank you for reconciling us to You. You are amazing. Any dichotomy between the evangelistic and the prophetic is false.
Along with leading believers into personal holiness, the church is charged to have a prophetic social presence. The church must learn to speak the truth to powers.
The capacity to be a prophetic church is being seriously eroded by three stances. A religious pluralist stance promotes social transformation without personal conversion, losing the uniqueness and lordship of Christ.
A quietist stance ignores social evil, is silent when people suffer persecution, and preaches the sufficiency of individual salvation without social transformation, losing public social witness. An assimilationist stance misuses the Bible to support the status quo of social or political exclusion, or weds Christian interests with particular governing authorities, losing all prophetic distance. In addition, the church often shares in the sin of comfortable neutrality, the complacency of those who find themselves on the side of social privilege and fail to work vigorously to transform the status quo.
This is at least true of those who tend to preside over the levers of theological power and influence. Thus the theology of the church is often in support of the status quo, or asks very few critical questions, losing all prophetic voice and domesticating the gospel. As communities of Christians learn to model confession, forgiveness and costly peacemaking in lives marked by joy, we proclaim a new future and offer a vision of hope to a broken world.
Christ has prepared the way for reconciliation by abolishing the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile, making of the two one new humanity, establishing peace Ephesians The wholeness that God seeks to bring to all areas of brokenness is captured by the rich Scriptural notion of shalom.
This is shalom as rooted within the full biblical story and not in any nationalistic or politically partisan sense. Shalom pursues mercy, truth, justice and peacefulness through both personal conversion in Christ and social transformation.
One crucial implication is that Christians must stand against any destructive or dehumanizing barriers built up by one person or group of people against another, whether they are Christian or not.
Reconciliation with God is essential and Christians must be agents of that restoration. However, to stress evangelism without also being agents of holistic reconciliation betrays the full truth of the gospel and the mission of God.
Only in this radical journey of conversion can Christians develop the skills to resist destructive conflicts and live out a way of being which, over time, can heal and reconcile.
We are led by Christ crucified to fully engage painful historical conditions and by the risen Christ to explode walls and barriers and build new forms of common life. Christian discipleship is also led by the risen Christ to live in ways which explode old walls and barriers and build hopeful new forms of Christian community and just society between divided peoples. Reconciliation and the quest for justice go hand in hand. There cannot be reconciliation if sin is not named, judged publicly and condemned.
One mark of holistic reconciliation is a commitment to pursuing justice that is primarily restorative rather than retributive, keeping open the hope for future common life between enemies and alienated peoples.
Difference itself, or differences, are not necessarily the problem calling for reconciliation. In many ways, diversity of peoples and cultures is a gift, such as another language opening up a new world to us, or another culture as a gift to enrich us. Often the problem is how the will to dominate exploits the differences. We must carefully and locally discern where the gospel affirms culture, where it opposes, and where it encourages transformation.
Christians are called to lives of hospitality, to open themselves to the stranger, the alien, the outcast, and the enemy. The pursuit of reconciliation is an ongoing struggle. This quest should not be expected to end conflict in this world, but rather to transform it. True reconciliation and shalom is only in the eschaton , when all things are reconciled in Christ.
While full reconciliation does not happen in this life, there is hope of substantial healing. Every act seeking reconciliation, no matter how small, matters greatly to God. This work of becoming peacemakers between divided peoples is not secondary or optional, but is central to Christian mission along with planting churches and making disciples.
This peacemaking work must be theologically grounded. At the same time, there is a qualitative difference between how reconciliation can be pursued outside versus inside community with Christ. The Lordship of Christ claims the whole lives of persons and alienated groups, something no other authority including the state can demand.
Christ offers forgiveness and healing which no legal effort or human attempt can effect and calls His disciples to a repentance and joy which is radical. Christ calls for far more than admitting guilt, but deep contrition, and a costliness and depth to healing broken relationships that goes far beyond tolerance or peaceful coexistence.
This witness begins at home. Baptism identifies believers as one church family, the body of Christ. Biblical reconciliation also leads Christians beyond church circles to vigorously analyze, engage and influence our local communities, nations and world as witnesses for reconciliation and just community.
Without sacrificing our Christian convictions, we should seek to partner creatively with people of good will to promote peace, including with people of other faiths. Governing authorities are subject to the sovereign Lord for their conduct in ensuring just order and peaceful relations. Certain legal, governmental and national efforts can bring a cessation of hostilities and public pursuit of truth and just practices that the church alone cannot bring and for which the church should advocate.
They must be approached carefully, critically, and provisionally. The church must never compromise its identity or prophetic voice. Reconciliation is a long and costly process. Reconciliation is not a one-time event, or a linear journey of progress, but addresses multiple causes and relations that intermingle. Christians are called to be intentional and energetic in pursuing reconciliation, to go out of their way to love their neighbour who is difficult to love.
This costly journey requires hope, nurtured in practices where we listen to God in worship, Scripture reading, and prayer. In the meantime, we do our part. It is this hope that keeps the process moving forward.
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