This Sunday I taught on 2 Corinthians 5:17-19. The more I teach about reconciliation the more it penetrates my heart. I started by asking what Jesus came to do. The usuals were said, "To be an example." "To save us." etc... And those are true, but I think it goes so much deeper than we assume...
I am trying to look at scripture as an entire story, rather than books and letters. Then I ask myself, what is God doing throughout the whole story? It seems to me that since the fall of man in Genesis God has always been reconciling His people back to Him. God pleads with Adam right after their defiance, God uses many people to call His people back to Himself, God even sends prophets to warn people of their destruction, so they have time to change their ways and come back to God (How can He not be seen as graceful?). The shame in it all is that we continually turn our backs on God. How sad and frustrating it must be for Him to be pouring Himself out over and over again only to see a few turn around. If you do not know Jesus, I pray that you would see that it's not about rules or coming to church, but it's about being reconciled to your creator. How amazing is it that we have a God who would do that?
I want to be continually amazed by this truth every morning. Not only does it put me in my place, a sinner who needs to be reconciled, but it also sets me up for what God has called me to do...
The next question I asked the students is what they think we're (Christians) called to do.
The same passage speaks volumes about that. Jesus has passed the baton and now we are called to be ambassadors to God's reconciliation (Just as Jesus was). Had I really understood what Jesus had done for me in high school I think my outlook on life would have been different. I treated my calling as if it were a wardrobe to put on everyday. My calling (in my eyes) was to look a certain way. That meant being hip to all the new "Christian" trends: clothes, music, language, activities, books, etc... The more and more I looked like what a "cultural Christian" should look like the more it became my focus, and an unknown vanity was produced. I became more concerned about how I looked than others souls.
And so it goes for a lot of Christians today, especially in south Tulsa. We have created a Christian subculture. We can listen to Christian music, read Christian books, speak church language, wear clothes and jewelry we by from Christian stores, etc... But the most telling truth about this subculture is that we only hang out with our Christian friends. The more we sink into this cultural Christian paradigm and live in our Christian subculture the more we alienate the very people we are called to reconcile. How much closer to Jesus have I ever been then speaking to people who have never heard of Him? I feel different because I am awaking to the truth of my calling.
Matthew 23 is a scary chapter... As I look at my own life, especially in high school and in college, I am reminded of the Pharisees in this passage. I tried to conform to a look, which was artificially created by culture, and I tried to have others conform to that look too. All the while I am trapping myself along with these people in a downward spiral to hell because I haven't truly connected with Jesus. I haven't truly understood the gospel of Jesus and His reconciliation, which would mean maybe I wasn't saved? How can I have accepted the gospel if I never understood it? And when I think of hell, this is what I picture... A place where people are tormented but who live with the hope that some day a savior will come and only the devil knows that he is not coming...
And this is where I am today. I am fighting my comfortable vanity to be inconvenienced for the gospel. This vanity will never save me. The only thing that will save me is humbleness in the midst of Jesus sacrifice. I often tell students who are scared to share their dark stuff that they will never understand the fullness of what Jesus did on the cross until they understand the fullness of their depravation before Jesus.
So my prayer for myself, and for all those in the church, is that we can drop the vanity. We have created for ourselves a picture of what a follower of Jesus looks like and we are slaves to that picture, not Jesus. I pray we can take a long hard look at our own sin and be reminded that our deeds do not make them clean... only Jesus washes away our sin. I pray that we can then go out of our Christian bubbles and meet people who don't know Jesus where they are, physically and spiritually, and reconcile them back to God.
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