The Ministry of Reconciliation

I was talking to my friend the other day and the Spirit just got me preachin’ to him about preaching the Gospel! As Pastor Pete has said so many times, it is the ONLY message we’re supposed to preach!

“What!?!?! How can this be? Surely there are other things that God wants us to talk about!?!?”

Nope. Not really!

“What about the end times? What about worship? What about love? What about being a Proverbs 31 woman? What about the Psalms? What about spiritual gifts? What about serving the poor?”

Those things are great! And they’re quite important. But if we preach those things apart from the Message of the Cross, then those things are just things and our preaching about those things is incomplete and lacks power. “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power” (I Cor. 4:20) and again, “For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (I Cor. 1:18).

The Cross of Christ pertains to every aspect of life. It must! My good friend Ryan Fluetsch just said to me today, “The Cross applies to everything or nothing at all”. Wow. But yes, the Cross does apply to everything, which is why Paul said in I Corinthians 2:2, “I resolved to know nothing but Christ and Him Crucified while I was with you”. That means the death and resurrection of Jesus can be applied to and experienced in every aspect of our lives. The good, the bad, the ugly, the mundane and also the beautiful! The other night we had a meeting for the Audio/Video team for our church and our worship pastor gave a message about the Cross and how it applies to audio and video. What!?!? How?!?! Huh!?!? What does the Cross have to do with that stuff?!? What foolishness it is to think that the Cross could apply to that area of church and life! And if you are of the world, if you are thinking out of your old dead man, then it is foolishness. But to us who are being saved, the Cross is the power of God! Indeed, the Cross is what powers the Audio/Video team at MDCC!

Anyways, I was talking to my friend and I took him to 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, which is perhaps one of my favorite passages of the Bible. It talks about how God has given us the “ministry of reconciliation”. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard that preached/taught a few different ways. One time someone taught me that this passage talked about how we’re supposed to love and forgive each other and that we’re to encourage love and forgiveness amongst each other. “The ministry of reconciliation is to forgive freely and promote forgiveness amongst each other.” That is true on many levels, but that is not really what this passage is talking about. This passage is talking about the GOSPEL!!! It’s talking about being reconciled with God, because HE RECONCILED HIMSELF TO US OUT OF HIS OWN WILL AND ACCORD! This passage is talking about forgiveness yes, but it’s talking about God’s forgiveness to everyone and just exactly how God forgave: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). To be an ambassador of Christ, to be a minister of reconciliation, is to preach the Gospel! THERE IS ONE MESSAGE!

Apart from preaching Christ and Him crucified you just have topics and Christian-themed world philosophies, all of which lack the power of God. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but more often than not I hear them preaching on topics and subjects that are viewed as relevant to society and those coming to their church. To be sure, they insert some Christian themes like love, worship, integrity and maybe the Cross. But the Cross AIN’T NO THEME! It is what we’re to preach. I remember being in Bible college and my teacher saying, “Preach what Scripture says. Don’t preach on a topic and try to apply Scripture to it.” WOW. I didn’t realize how powerful a statement that was until now. We’re basically being lazy when we pick a topic and try to apply Scripture to it. Man, that whole viewpoint is just whacky. Scripture is not to be applied to a topic, Scripture is to be the source of inspiration, not a support for whatever you can come up with. And of course, all Scripture is pointing to Christ and Him crucified!

This is my rant for today (even though I started this on 6/3). Amen.