The Cross: The Basis For Reconciliation Part 2

Is looking to Jesus and many who seek justice call for a level playing field of opportunity. There is one place where the field is level the cross of Christ. The only basis for reconciling people of different backgrounds today will learn why church in Chicago this serve teaching across the finish line.

Students are teaching us about Christians politics on the cross and the cross really bring together the extremes right always taken the point of view that the church of Jesus Christ should not be co-opted by the right or the left.

Billy Graham said I'm not for the right wing or the left wing, I'm for the whole bird and what I'm emphasizing in this message is the need for us to be reconciled at the foot of the cross, no matter our political convictions. I have before me a story that was sent to us. It says our next door neighbor was religious but didn't understand the gospel.

She has come to personal faith in Jesus Christ by listening to the ministry of running to win.

She's moved away, but she continues to listen my friend. I read that because I believe that this story can be repeated tens of thousands of times people coming to know Christ as Savior.

As a result of the ministry of running to win, but we can't do this without you. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner that somebody who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts because together were making a difference. Here is what you do go to RTW offer.com. Click on the endurance partner button RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 thanks in advance for your generosity and standing with us and that we go to the pulpit of Moody church and find the true basis of reconciliation.

You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and with the household of God and what he saying is, is that in the Old Testament. If you asked the identity of a person he would always go back to his room. There were three sons of Noah. There was sham and there was ham and there was Jacob, and from those three sons the entire human race has come to an end. Those divisions were important and that that was your identity, but we get to the book of acts, and what do we discover a first of all, there is a man who is a sham might and he's converted his name is the apostle Paul Polish Jewish and polis converted and then you have a descendent of Ham, the Ethiopian treasurer who was on his way to Ethiopia and he you recall is converted and then of course there are those who come to us from JPEG that represents in the New Testament, Cornelius, and those of us who are of European descent and now our identity no longer is racial identity is. He says that we are of the household of God. That means that we have the very same father. We have the same brother, namely Christ and the same companion, namely the Holy Spirit and ask what the new nation is all about. We can admire the city. It has its advantages to help us to understand the contributions of the various cultures, but the minute you walk into the doors of a church, where Christ is preached and were believers have come to saving faith in Christ you have lost your ethnicity as being your identifying mark and you are now a member of the household of God. Jesus said, who is my mother and my brother and my sister. Those who do the will of my father who is in heaven now the hard part, fragmented culture.

Families breaking apart single mothers the responsibility. You see, of the church is to create a new family and to be the family for our fragmented disengaged, disconnected, alienated, suspicious, culture, and that's our responsibility. Our responsibility is to create an environment in which those that are poor are going to be helped. Those who are weak are going to be defended and those who have gaping holes in their family structures discover that there are members of the body of Jesus Christ to move in. Perhaps not being able to do everything that their families should have done, but to grant the help and the strength and the support so that together we can be what we should be as a teacher. Father I pray that they shall be one even as thou, father, art in me and I in the event they may be made one in us. That's the New Testament pattern, and you see as long as I say to myself. America is a big place and I can go to my home and you can go to yours and we come together only to sing the same songs and to hear the same message we have missed the underlying commitment that Jesus is asking us to do the BF family in the midst of any culture but particularly one in which family structures have been shattered by the ravages of sin. That's our privilege*privilege the way to church this morning Rebecca was telling me about some members of our extended family. Great needs, and we do all that we possibly can at a distance to help and I'm sure that you do the very same thing and that's not only our obligation. That's not only our duty, because you know as Christians were supposed to do those things that my friend is our privilege to represent Christ.

Well, in a broken culture.

There's 1/3 illustration. The new body reminds us that we share the same life. The new nation reminds us that we have the same family. You'll notice also that there is a new temple.

It means that we have now. The same purpose.

Verse 20 he is building a new temple, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord in whom also you are being built together into a dwelling of God in the spirit.

This is one passage of Scripture, like many others where you can't really do it justice in two or three minutes.

Notice that all of the verbs here, by the way, are passive. God is the one that is doing it that he we are being built Christ as the foundation stone and then the imagery is this. Now we know that stones can grow in real life. But Paul is saying that they can because it's only in image is a figure of speech.

Remember when they built Solomon's temple. I should say they went into the quarries and they hewed stones and they brought them and they did the cueing in such a way that when they fitted them together. It says that there was no noise of an ax or a hammer they just fit because all of the fitting and the chiseling was done in the quarry.

You know what God does, don't you, he goes into the quarry of sin, and he picks up people whose lives have been the checkered lives that have been tossed asunder and torn apart because of sin, and any finds them and he chooses them and he brings them that he puts them into the temple, and he puts them next to each other and they they begin to rub on the one another and they begin to smooth out one another is a temple that's being built and why is the temple being built.

That's a good question. Is it so that we can all be happy happy happy no for an answer the question what should people say when they come to Moody church. When is it that they should really say they should say well singing was wonderful. The choir performed well soloist blessed us.

They always say that every Sunday they can say other things so they can comment on the message.

I'm sure they comment every Sunday to tell you what they should really say look at the text now being built together into a dwelling of God by the spirit what they should say, God dwells with those people.

God is here, and sometimes the scene might not bless you always does me but may be your style is a little different, and sometimes the sermon may not bless you and usually does me. You know that isn't even that important.

You come here to say this is where God dwells. God among his people, and that's what God is doing in the world and you see the fact that we are members of the same temple reminds us now that we have the very same purpose and and what Jesus is saying that all this fragmentation all the diversity that we talked about with different expectations and different backgrounds and and everything all of it now comes one in a body in a new nation as stones in a bran new temple feel important observations. First of all, the very high cost of unity. The high cost of unity.

How much does it take to bring people together. Well, it costs Jesus the cross and we want to get by on the cheap. Don't wait want to say well you know we are singing the same ends in we do rub shoulders with these folks know that it takes a forgiveness.

Forgiveness sometimes racially for our insensitivities and some of you African-Americans you know, sometimes our insensitivities. It takes forgiveness on the part of all of the different races accepting the other because now in Jesus Christ.

Ethnicity takes a backseat. We are now one in Christ and we are absolutely convinced that that which binds us together.

Namely, this great work of God on the cross in the blessed Holy Spirit of God is much stronger than anything that he could ever terrace our that's our responsibility. It costs forgiveness.

It costs inner strength, inner strength that we might be able to reach beyond our comfort zones and and include within our friendships and our involvement.

People who are not like us, you know your heart.

I know mine, I gravitate to people who are like me who think like me who have the same.

We can have a discussion about different topics. Because we always know the will agree, are able to make sure that we reinforce our prejudices. That's the kind of people I like to be around people who reinforce views like I have and those are the kinds of people that you like to be around to tell you what the cross is the cross is what you must do is to enlarge your circle at the cross of Jesus Christ says you must be willing to move out of that comfort zone and you must be willing to set aside your individual preferences for the good of the other members of the body of Jesus Christ were quite unlike number of years ago here in the suburbs error in one of our suburbs. I should say there was a man who ran for mayor or I will not mention the supper, but he ran on a very racist message. His slogan was let's keep this suburb for people like us and I say shame on him and I hope that the net day never comes when we say to ourselves, let's keep this church for people just like us. Now let's keep this church for the people of God. The people of God.

It involves risk.

It involves death to selfishness. Because if there's anything that unity demands it is self less mass and a fundamental desire that we shall do all that we possibly can to repent of that which is in our hearts that we might love across some very uncomfortable lines reversible word about the cost. Secondly, the word about the goal.

Where is old is leading what's God's intention. We know in Ephesians 2 that he has the intention of creating a new man in the new nation a new temple, but but where is all going to end user imaginations for just a moment and imagine often the horizon you see all of these dogs daughter all over the place but you notice that they are coming together his streams from the east and from the west and from the north and from the South. They are converging upon a mountain and as we look carefully we notice that the dots are actually people, people from every tribe and tongue and nation. They are all gathering together there. And yes, from every tribe. They have maintained their ethnicity. But that's not their distinctive mark because what God has done is he is taken all these barriers that we have erected and through the blood of Christ has demolished them so that the ethnicity and the distinctiveness remains in a mighty crescendo of the unity and praise from every country of the world, not just the great United States of America, but from every country of the world God brings his people together and they say thou art worthy Lord to take the boat and to break the seals that was slain and has redeemed us and then they sing the hallelujah chorus God's design. The transnational community and he invites us to have a church to reflect that before we get there. Now you're the kind of person is as we know it all because one thing I'll never do in life is lived in an interracial neighborhood, not me of your saying that I need to warn you about heaven. Some of you might want to reroute your travel plans. As I look at this text know that I see is diversity an interracial praise to Jesus Christ. Remember that story I like to tell you this.

I will as yet we don't exactly remember it all help you little bit the guy in World War II who their buddy died. These two soldiers. They wanted to have a place to bury him.

They came to a cemetery and they asked if they could bury him in the priest in the cemetery said your buddy are Roman Catholic and they said no and he said I'm sorry but this is a Catholic Cemetery Bury him. So they felt very badly and they buried him just outside the fence of the cemetery, dug a grave there went on their way and came back in the morning so that they could at least straighten it up a little bit and bring some flowers and they couldn't find the great shock and the priest came to them and said you know I couldn't sleep all night because of what I told you so I got up early this morning and I moved the fence to include your buddy within the cemetery. Now you know me well enough to know that the purpose of telling that is not to make any ecumenical point so much as to make a different point that if we are to be the people of God and fulfilling Jesus Christ prayer if the cross that we take into the world is a cross that is to reconcile people so that the fragmented culture and by the way, Jesus never prayed that the world would become one of the only prayed this people what if this fragmented culture that is so distrustful and cynical of us Christians who are also filled with the individualism and the claws of modernity are also consuming our flesh if we want to be able to say yes Christ prayer is fulfilled, and we have become one. A high cost. We need to do is to move the fence. We need to move the fence for some it is a racial fence.

Some of you are and over it yet you're not over it. Just because you come to a church where there may be some integration you're not over it that and that fans has to be removed. It may be an economic fence that has to be removed. Maybe it is the fence of personality that has to be pushed over or an educational fence because if our love does not extend beyond those who make us comfortable. We have not found yet what Christ prayed for and for what his heart longs Edwin Markham.

He drew a circle that shut me out heretic rebel a thing to plowed love and I had the will to win, drew a circle that took him in, and this entire message would have been a failure if right now in your mind you are not thinking of ways by which the fence. The circle the walls can be demolished, the fence extended the circle, enlarged so that so that now you begin to see like God sees beyond all the differences that mean so much to those of us who still sometimes walk in the flesh, we begin to see God's desire for transnational community. That's to be modeled in this world are some of you are listening were not yet a part of that community. By the way, because you don't become a member automatically does the text say repeatedly. Ephesians chapter 2 through his cross through his cross.

He made him one and then as you come to God through the cross and you get close to God.

The closer you get to him.

The closer you get to other people. The unity begins to happen.

Here's what God does. First of all, he demolishes the walls of the human heart so that he can come in cleanse us forgiveness and reconcile us to himself.

Then he came along historically. He demolished the walls of the temple, said those walls have to go and then in next chapter 2 through a series of events that we do not have time to tell you about. He he opened the walls of the church said that the church has to be without walls. The unifying factor is peace through the blood of his cross. Today I speak to some people and you are our friends, but you are not yet are brothers and sisters you. Maybe our neighbors.

There may be many of you here who fit into that category, but you are not yet our prayer partners, for it is in Christ, that we are reconciled. I urge you with all that is within me, be ye reconciled to God become a part of the new body part of the new nation part of the temple that God is building and eventually a part of that great company which no man can number from every tribe can Britain people of tongue and nation. I urge you today to believe in Christ, that you may be saved, my friend. If you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. As a result of this ministry even as a result of this sermon would you let us know we'd be greatly encouraged in a moment I'm going to be giving you an address that web address as well as a phone number so that you can connect with us. Also in the midst of all the political rancor that is taking place right now. Isn't it wonderful that we can be reconciled to one another through the cross. I believe that these messages can be of special blessing to you as you listen to them again and again and share them with your friends for a gift of any amount this series on the cross of Jesus Christ and of course, Christians in politics can be yours. Here's what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 this series of messages can be yours.

And thanks in advance for your generosity. Go to RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 in the midst of this political year. What a wonderful opportunity. It is for the church of Jesus Christ to show that we are unified as long as we stay close to that blessed cross. You can write to us running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614 culture that rejects Christ as a culture says it's the yardstick for moral choices and those choices lead to polling place choices help determine our nation's destiny. So where does morality come from. Next time I'm going to win when Sir brings a message on the cross as the basis for heroic running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening for Dr. Erwin loser this is Dave Alastair running to win is sponsored by the teacher