The Cross: The Basis For Reconciliation Part 1

Race of warriors looking to Jesus and prevent many of today's conflicts stem from deep-rooted racial or ethnic strife seems there is no human solution. There is a divine solution. There is a place of common ground for those who can't stand the sight of each other. They would from the Moody Church in Chicago this morning with Dr. Erwin listserv was clear. Teaching helps us make a cross the finish line after Luther at election time people go crazy attacking each other because of their differences. As we've seen, those raffles are not over when elections are decided.

You're absolutely right. Did you know families are divided and churches are divided politically and yes before an election and after an election, but the reason that I preach this series of messages is because I wanted to emphasize that when it comes to reconciliation, no matter where we are politically to write the left the middle. We meet at the foot of the cross as sinners and our commonality as sinners is what brings us together and the redemption that we have in Jesus Christ. So in the midst of the wrangling in the midst of the difficulties and the different points of view.

Let's turn to the Scriptures and we find out that the ground is very level at the foot of the cross. I think that all of us would agree that we are living in a fragmented, fragmented culture culture that seems to be breaking apart of the founding fathers believed that it would be possible to have a culture that would be held together by the Constitution, one nation under God. John Quincy Adams says that the immigrants must cast off their European skin, never to resume.

It they must look forward to their posterity rather than backward to their ancestors whole idea was that America was supposed to become a melting pot recent years seem to show that America is on notable very difficult to make it into a melting pot. So today we have what is known as the cult of ethnicity. We have African-Americans we have Asian Americans we have Hispanic Americans, Anglo-Americans, and I think that we can see some of the racism in our culture, even as a result of the O.J. Simpson trial in the Rodney King experience America's prejudices within the human heart died very hard were divided racially were also divided economically. We have rich and poor we have masters and servants we had shadows and we had suburbs and we had the Gold Coast were divided economically were divided domestically by that I mean our families are falling apart because of the high divorce rate and because of the abuse that is taking place in the infiltration into our culture of pornography and drugs and all the other things that divides and scatters as a result of that whole generation of people is being reared that struggle with connectedness because they seem so disconnected from their families and from one another, fueling all of this of course is radical individualism.

I'm not entirely sure about this story but I do think I heard it this week that a man was driving along and stopped to read one of those signs that you see as you approach an airport, giving the various terminals in the different carriers and someone hit him from behind and the person who stopped is now being sued by the person who hit him and now he is suing the airline company for putting up those signs the airline companies no doubt are going to be suing the airport and the airport is going find the guy who did the painting and he's going to get it anywhere in the world is all this going to end anyway. What does the church to be doing in the midst of this difficulty in the fragmentation of America. What's the church supposed to be doing were supposed to be representing the fact that it is possible for people with different backgrounds ethnically different backgrounds from the standpoint of religious experiences and cultural and economic backgrounds.

It's possible to develop deep and abiding friendships and loyalties on the basis of unity in Jesus Christ. Despite all the fragmentation. That's what Jesus Christ prayed for, that they may be one that the world may see therefore and believe unity, not just union.

You can have union, you can be together and then immediately fragmented when things get tough union is one thing you can take two cats, either tails around each other throw them over a clothesline and you have union, but you do not have unity. Christ was praying for something that was deep but was really with in the human heart. He was praying that we might be knee deep in love is the sin always scatters Adam and Eve committed. Of course the person and what you have in their family to family troubles I forgot started.

They were divided from one another and from God and their children end up being divided from one another in Kane ends up killing Abel see as we look into the human heart. We can seal this division. All the wolves there built up within us to keep other people at arms length. For example, the Bible says all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the flesh means that I'm going to run by my desires and and whether or not you do something for me and whether you feel make me feel good and whether I have good will toward you then will accept you as a friend, but if you begin to become a bore. If you become difficult to be with. I will withdraw because I want to expend energy in a relationship. Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes read is he agreed that serpent that lies coiled in the bottom of our hearts that agreed to says I have money because I have ability and I have worked hard and you are poor because you are lazy and you are mentally challenged and it's all your fault, the pride of life. Pride says I'm better than you are. And not only am I better than you are, but I have myself to thank for it. Now you see it's possible in America to give the illusion that we are united because it America such a big country we can scatter we can we can all be together. People Siebel are united we just saying all the same hymns and right now we are all listening to the same sermon when it's all over.

We go back to our homes and were back to our individualism when we visited Russia a number of years ago. In that country because of a housing shortage, sometimes two and even three families would live together in one apartment. I thought about that a little bit. How would you like to share at kitchen with another family and a living room and closets. Don't you think that all of the of the selfishness and the greed and the mistrust and all of that scum would come to the surface.

If we in this country had to live so closely with those with whom we perhaps disagreed and people we don't like it all lies there dormant in the human heart, waiting to spring up whenever the opportunity presents itself. How were we supposed to live in the midst of that address the question differently.

How is it that we are to learn to love people whom we naturally distrust this like and maybe even eight. That story is found for us in the New Testament, a beautiful model of how Jesus did it, you can take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter 2 Ephesians chapter 2.

A perfect example of animosity and hatred for the Jews and the Gentiles. You have to understand that the Jews and the Gentiles were different in so many different ways and they had huge walls built between them. For example there was the difference religiously. The Jews were the chosen ones, but they made a tremendous error. They thought that God chose them because they were better than others is a mistake, never chose them because they were better in fact he says in Deuteronomy. You are stiffnecked in your hard to get along with and you are just plain stubborn. I chose you anyway to put my love upon you. This should have humbled them, but it made them proud. They thought chosen men better so they despised all the foreigners, all the Gentiles. They didn't like him at all. There was the barrier of religion. There was also the barrier of race race you we don't understand, Jesus says, sitting on the well. Talking to a Samaritan woman.

No big deal to us.

But remember that she was a halfbreed. She was part Syrian and as a result of the theory of blood that says if you are of a mixed race you have lost your purity, the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, much less what they have and dealing with a woman and so you see this great hatred and animosity in the way in which the Gentiles those half casts were despised by the Jews because they were racially impure fact in the temple area there was a sign that said no foreigner may go beyond here. That was the court of the Gentiles and beyond. The court of the Gentiles. That's where the Jewish people could go because foreigners needed to know their limits and that they are bound.

There were also divided culturally here the Jews with the great heritage of being God's people and they they had artistic work was done they had various cultural abilities that God gave them and then over there were the pagans with all of their artwork and all of their sculptures which were pagan oftentimes and sensual and the Jews to spy those foreigners. There was also another division even within the Jewish race and that was of course the gender division. You know that women were not allowed either in the inner sanctum of the temple and Jewish men used to pray.

Shame on them but they used to pray. I thanked the God that I am not a woman you talk about the oppression of women and equality and the whole idea that the woman exists simply to serve the man that has a long history as long as the history of the human race with its sin.

Here's the way Paul describe the Gentiles all pick it up in verse 12 of Ephesians 2. Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Sad state of affairs.

You sense the heart ache.

Do you sense the rejection and yet but now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, the cross that you and I take into the world is across the unifies. It brings together it breaks down barriers and it makes people want with your Bibles open. I want you to notice that Paul uses that word. 14 times and if you're in the habit of underlining your Bible, you could at this point underline that word. Verse 14 he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. Middle of verse 15 in him he might make the two into one there it is again new man is establishing peace. Verse 16 and might reconcile them both. In 19 underline the word one body to God through the cross.

18 for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the father now. Jesus did not artificially create this unit. It was a unity that actually broke down the walls of mistrust and hostility.

What did he do we already read the text where he says in verse 14 he broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances that in himself he might make into one you man the both of them in one broke down the wall and the wall that he broke was first of all, the law which divided Jews and Gentiles. All of those regulations. I am so glad I don't live in the Old Testament era did not live back there. I'd rather lift today. All of the things that they could need and couldn't Deaton God was saying your special people in your going to be separate now with the coming of Jesus Christ. He says that all is been broken down because the law is taken away in that Jesus Christ on the cross met its demands it is no longer the barrier, but it was. Not only that, you know that that wall that I told you about before that said no foreigner shall enter into the temple area. Perhaps that's what Paul had in mind as well that was broken and then if that wasn't enough, the veil of the temple when Jesus Christ died was split into from top to bottom and Jesus was now saying that people of every race and color and creed can come to God through the blood of Jesus Christ and be received. He made God accessible for all of us.

He made peace. The Scripture says he established it and as I've already mentioned, this was not simply a peace treaty. It was not simply a matter of Jesus asking us to sign on. It was actually a piece that was born from within the human heart because the facility was taken away and the Scripture says that in Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free mail or female. That's the kind of cross that we take into the world down in order to illustrate what Jesus actually did is he not only broke down the wall. He decided also to build something brand-new that no one had ever thought of before you see the hostility between Jew and Gentile. You have to understand, was about like the Jews and the Arabs today. Oh, it's more volatile today in some sense because we have the news media and we have new forms of weapons and we have new pipe bombs and what have you asked the kind of hostility and if you've ever been in the Middle East. You know that there's no way you can somehow bring a irrational dialogue to the table and people can sign a peace treaty for the good of their countries and still viscerally hate each other, not the kind of peace that Jesus brought he brought peace to the heart and he took the hostility and put it away to illustrate what Jesus really did the apostle Paul gives us three figures of speech.

Three figures of speech notice. First of all, verse 16, that he might reconcile them both in the one body one body. I do know that in first Corinthians, Paul gives an entire chapter illustrating what it means to have one body in Jesus Christ and he saying that first of all, there is diversity there are hands and ears and there's a nose and there is I and one head there is diversity in the ear cannot say to the hand.

I have no need of you.

I walk across this platform. It is my eyes. The guide my feet, but when I arrive I put out my hand and I shake your hand and it's all done in a very coordinated way. And Jesus said that's the way we should be when the world looks at us coordinated one so there is diversity but there is also interdependence. I can't get along without the different parts of my body.

Even the parts of the body that you never see the Scripture says, are very very necessary sometimes the most necessary and as we've already emphasized today when we have ministry here at the church is often times the people who you don't see that make it happen.

It is the greeters that is the parking attenders. It is the people who are working behind the scenes to bake the cookies that Lee said we should all get in on at that concert time is it is it is all of these people doing things oftentimes unrecognized, even in the secret and it is that it makes it happen. Pulses this but if you belong to Christ, you are a member of that body. You are a cell within the body and you share the very same life. How did he do it. It says he made one new man and you'll notice it says through the holy spirit of God. Verse 16 he might reconcile them both into one body to God. Verse 17 he came and preached peace to you who were far away and to them that are near for through him we both have access by the spirit to the father.

There is not one Holy Spirit for African Americans and another Holy Spirit for Asian Americans and then another one for Anglo Americans. Now that same spirit, same life, same sales and same head in heaven and Jesus said that if you love me and serve me you will be coordinated that the world may marvel at your unity second figure of speech you are and you nation.

He goes on to say verse 19 is so that you are no longer strangers and aliens you actually have a passport. None of this business of trying to just hang onto a green card that 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 roots. 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 and now our identity no longer is racial. Our 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 that's what the new nation is all about. My friend, this is pastor's or can we cut out the noise the political noise that we are surrounded with in the midst of different opinions and angry comments oftentimes from one side or another. Can we finally agree that if the cross of Jesus Christ. We are one. I've written a book entitled Christians politics and the cross and urgent plea for the church to return to its mission.

Chapter 4 is dedicated to the issue of reconciliation. It's entitled the cross and reconciliation.

I try to deal with the relationships of Christians to the flag, but also of course. And most importantly to the cross for a gift of any amount.

This book can be yours.

Here's what you do you go to RTW offer.com RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 asked for the book Christians politics and the cross, let me thank you in advance for your generosity. I'm so grateful for the many of you who belong to what I called the Moody media family running to win family. What an opportunity it is for us in the midst of a political world, or any kind of a world to share the message of the cross of Christ. RTW offer.com that's our website.

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Many who seek justice call for a level playing field of opportunity. There is one place where the field is level and glanced at the foot of the cross of Christ.

The only basis for reconciling people of different backgrounds. Next time I'm running to win will learn why running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race. Thanks for listening for Dr. Erwin Luther this is Dave Alastair running to win is the nature