This episode presents a heartfelt exploration of the themes of separation and reconciliation with God. Starting with an examination of life’s negative emotions such as alienation and isolation, we venture into understanding the longing for a personal connection with the divine. Learn about the concept of reconciliation not just as a desire, but as an essential need for a fulfilling spiritual life. Emphasizing the significance of Christ’s sacrificial role on the cross, our discussion underscores the transformative power of God’s forgiveness and love. We highlight how Jesus bridges the profound gap between humanity’s sinfulness and God’s holiness, providing a
Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, February 5th. Adam and Eve chose to rebel and it shattered everything. But there’s still good news. Let’s learn how anyone can move from alienation to reconciliation.
SPEAKER 02 :
Separation. rejection, isolation, alienation, all of these are emotions that none of us like. In fact, we’d all like to avoid all of them, all of our life if we possibly could, but we cannot. Because we live in a fallen world, we’re going to experience those kind of emotions. And it’s one thing to experience them between us and some other person. But when I think about separation, rejection, alienation, isolation, and a person’s relationship to God, how absolutely empty and futile life must be. To feel that somewhere, somehow, there must be a God out there, but you don’t feel any relationship with Him. No personal relationship. He’s sort of that invisible force out there. And something inside of you wants to relate to God. Something inside of you desires a relationship with someone who’s greater than you are and someone who’d love you. But somehow, it just never has happened. the worst kind of alienation is alienation from God. And what I want us to talk about in this idea from alienation to reconciliation, I want to talk about, first of all, the fact that there is a tremendous need for everyone to be reconciled to God. So I want to just define a couple of terms here. When we talk about alienation, we are talking about being separated from something. And that alienation may be An unfriendly relationship, it may be a relationship that you’re against someone, but there is a separation. There is a division. And so when there is an alienation between a person and God, that person can never, never, never be what God intended for them to be. Because God created us to walk in oneness with Him. He created us to be a part of him. And so, therefore, when we talk about alienation, we’re talking about separation. When we talk about reconciliation, we’re talking about bringing that which was alienated and separated back into a relationship. So a reconciled relationship is one that has been brought back together and is now one. Now, I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter 5 for a moment, because in this chapter, again, he gives us a warning here. And so often we allow people who are lost to tell us how good they are. They’re not so bad. And somehow we sort of agree with that. But what I want you to understand is this is God’s opinion. This is not just an opinion. This is God’s truth. This is God’s perspective on people who reject Christ. He says in chapter five, verse six, let no one deceive you. with empty words because they’re empty words. For because of these things, speaking of sin, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. That does not mean that if a person is saved and they disobey God that they fall in the category of sons of disobedience. Sons of disobedience refers to those people whose lifestyle is rebellion against God, having rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and living their life in their own way. So he says, don’t be deceived. And this is exactly what happens. They’re deceived with empty words. He says, don’t be deceived with empty words, thinking that you’re going to live like this and the wrath of God is not going to come upon you. So when somebody says, well, why do I need to be reconciled to God? Because God says that you’re ungodly, that you’re a sinner, that you’re without strength, you can’t do anything for yourself, that you’re an enemy of God under his wrath, facing his judgment, for which there is absolutely no hope because the only hope is the cross of Jesus Christ. And if you go on sinning, having heard the truth and rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no more sacrifice for sin because no one could die in your place because everyone single person on the face of this earth has sinned for themselves. Do you realize that means that mankind is hopeless and that mankind was hopeless until God intervened? No amount of good works, nothing you and I could ever do could ever make things right because, listen, you see, it isn’t just sins, but when you and I came to this world, we had a sinful nature. We sinned because we were sinful, and God had to change that to make it possible for this relationship to be right. God’s desire is to reconcile us to Himself. And to do that, He says, He places us in Christ. To be placed in Christ is a spiritual relationship. When you and I trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior, what happened was He brought us into a new relationship. Before we rejected Christ, before we were too busy, before we had no time, before we didn’t understand all that. To receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior is what the Bible calls the new birth. That is something new happened in our life. To receive him means that we are brought back into a right relationship with God. Your dead spirit came alive. It came alive unto God. And the Holy Spirit who convicted you and brought you that also sealed you, he says, under the day of redemption. He didn’t seal you to your sin again. He sealed you, the Bible says, under the day of redemption, which means until he calls you home, until he takes you home. You’re sealed forever. Now, how in the world did God, watch this, who is absolutely holy and humanity absolutely in violation and rebellion against God, how could God who is holy reconcile, how can you and I even reconcile the idea that holiness and wickedness could come together? Well, here’s what God did. Now, look at this passage of Scripture, and I want us to stick right with it for a few moments now, and I’m going to go back over two or three verses a couple of times. Look, if you will, in verse 18. He says, now, now all these things, these things, these changes that have come in our life. He says, all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He says he reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Now, what is he referring to here? Simply this. He is referring to the fact that this alienation had to be bridged. Now, watch this. We didn’t do it. The Bible says that man didn’t lay down his sin and come to God. but that God took upon Himself the responsibility of reconciling, reaching out to sinful man and bringing him to Himself. You see, not any of us can take any credit for being saved. It isn’t what we’ve done. He reconciled us unto Himself. He took the initiative. He made the move. We did not make that move. Now, I want you to notice two or three things, if you will. When you look at this passage and you ask, well, now, why would God do this? How could God do this? We keep going back to the cross. And I want you to look at two passages here and think about this for a moment. What God did to reconcile man was this, to see how absolutely hopeless and helpless we were. And God said, I will take the initiative. I’m going to reconcile man to myself. So God, notice what he says now in this passage. Here’s what he says. He says, God reconciled us to himself through Christ. Namely, look in verse 19, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he’s committed to us the reconciliation. Now, I want you to go back and look at two phrases again, because I want to skip something and come back. He says, he reconciled us to himself through Christ. He says, Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. Now, what does he mean? Now, watch this. When the Lord Jesus Christ came, he came, God, in the human flesh. He came into this world for the primary purpose of dying for sin. When he came into the world, here’s what happened at the cross. God saw all of your sin in mine and the sin of all humanity. We’re talking about the sin of all humanity. All of man’s sin, all of his condemnation, all of his guilt, and all of the wrath. Listen to this now. All the wrath that God had ready to release upon mankind. When Jesus Christ went to the cross, he had to be the sinless son of God. And if you’ll notice what he says in this passage also, look in verse 21, he made him, that is Christ, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, which means not that he became a sinner, not that he became sinful, but he placed upon him. He says in first Peter chapter two, he bore, he bore in his body our sin. Now we’re the ones who had the guilt. We’re the ones who had the debt. We’re the ones who had condemnation and wrath upon us. And so what did he do? God the Father, and listen to this now, in order to make it possible for this gap to be bridged, He took the initiative to bridge this gap, and He bridged it by the cross. And here’s what He did. He placed upon Jesus Christ all of our guilt, all of our sin, all of our penalty, all the wrath, everything that was due mankind, all of mankind, He placed them upon Jesus. As a result of his death, he took all my condemnation, all my guilt, and all my wrath that I deserved. God looked out upon sinful mankind. And he looked at all of our inability to do anything about our wickedness and our sinfulness. And he said, I’m going to take the initiative. What God did with lost humanity, that is simply this. He, seeing our helpless condition, He took the initiative. We’re the ones who should have. But we couldn’t. He took the initiative. He came into this world. He died at the cross of Calvary, and He placed all of our sin upon His Son. God the Father charged to His own account our sinfulness. He took the initiative. He wasn’t waiting for us because He knew we could not. Reconciliation is God the Father reaching out to lost, helpless mankind, saying, “‘Charge it all to Me.'” Put it all to my account. And in the death of his son, Jesus died paying your sin penalty in mind, freeing us from all guilt, freeing us from all condemnation, freeing us forever from all wrath. You and I are the sons and daughters of God living in the freedom purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other way. And this is… This is why Paul says in this passage and says it so beautifully. He says, we’ve been reconciled. He says, we’ve been reconciled to him through Christ. And he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. I want you to notice a couple of things here, though. Look at this. Let’s keep moving here now. He says, he reconciled us unto him. And somebody says, well, you mean to tell me that if I trust the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior, that you mean there’s no condemnation There is no guilt before God for my sins and my eternal salvation. You mean to tell me that the wrath of God cannot come upon me? Cannot. Now, friend, I don’t need anything else in life to motivate me to want to serve God, to be obedient to God to the last moment of my life. That in itself is enough. Because nobody could do that for us but Him. Listen, we couldn’t do it for ourselves. Nobody else can do it for you. What in the world would it take to motivate the people of God to walk obediently before God and share the message of God to the world? We have the message God intends for the world to hear. And what I want you to remember is this. Look at this verse. He says, now all these things are from God who reconciles to himself through Christ, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And he said, well, no, wait a minute now. Hold it. Wait a minute. If God breaks this gap between his holiness and the sinfulness of man, and he says he reconciled the world himself, does that mean that everybody’s saved? It sounds like it. No. What he did is, here’s what God said. At the cross, he said, world, you are welcome and you can have it if you’ll trust my son who took your debt and paid the penalty. The moment you trust him as your savior, we’re reconciled. By saying he reconciled the world to himself, what he’s saying is he made it possible for the world, for everybody who’s ever lived, to be saved. And notice what he said. He said he has given us the ministry of reconciliation. We have, he’s committed to us the word of reconciliation. We are ambassadors for Christ. And he says this is the way it works. He says it works this way. As though God were entreating, appealing through us that other people be reconciled to him. Now, every single one of us is saved as a result of the grace of God. Most all of us have been saved as a result of somebody talking to us or the gospel being heard in some fashion or reading the scripture, whatever it might be. Guess what he says? Now that you and I are the reconciled children of God, we’re not an enmity with God. We have a relationship with him. He says it is our personal responsibility. We have the ministry of reconciliation, the service of it. The word of reconciliation has been committed to us. We know how to be saved. We know what to tell people. And he says, therefore, we’re ambassadors for Christ. Now, what’s an ambassador? An ambassador is a representative. An ambassador is a person who doesn’t speak for himself, doesn’t speak by their own authority, but speaks in behalf of the one who sent them, by the authority of the one who sent them. They’re representatives. Every believer is a representative of Christ. We don’t speak by our authority, but in his authority. It’s not our name, but his name. It is not our message, but his message. Committed to you the word of reconciliation. Every single believer has a personal responsibility. We don’t reconcile men to God, but we become the avenues, he said, as it were, God pleading with you through us. And that is exactly what witnessing is all about. Witnessing the gospel is the Spirit of God appealing and pleading through us, the people who are lost, to receive the message of hope, the message of reconciliation. Sir, you are alienated from God. You are separated from God. You’re ungodly in His eyes. You’re under the wrath of God, the condemnation of God, and I’m appealing to you by the cross of Jesus Christ to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. He says that’s what an ambassador is all about. We represent Jesus speaking his word. We are working in his authority, not on our own. He says it’s been committed to us. You and I have no reason to be afraid of rejection, getting thrown out, or whatever it might be. Because you know what we’re doing? We are ambassadors representing the Lord Jesus Christ who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords and who rules and reigns and who is sovereign over this entire universe. You don’t ever have to be ashamed of representing the sovereign God of this universe. Never, never, never be ashamed of Him. And that’s why I appeal to you, my friend, if you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you’re hopeless. Listen, if there was some other way we would tell you, you’re hopeless. This is the living Word of God. And He says it is our responsibility to, in love, appeal to you. Allow God to bring you back into a right relationship with Him. So that you can become the person God wants you to be. Achieve the things in life that God wants you to achieve. Make you, listen, make you that godly person that God created you to be from the very beginning. And I want to ask you, my friend, listen, if you’re willing to ask Him to forgive you of your sins. And all you have to say is, Father, I do realize today that you loved me enough that you sent your own son, Jesus, to die on the cross. And I do believe, as the scripture says, he died for my sin, that you put to his count, you charged to his count all of my sin all these years. And Father, I want to ask you to forgive me of my sin. Thank you that Jesus died for me. He took my penalty. I do receive him as my personal Savior here and now. You can put that in any kind of words you want to. As long as in your heart what you’re doing is confessing sin and confessing your need of the Lord and receiving him as your Savior and acknowledging it isn’t something you do. You’re just responding to the gift of love. How could you turn that down? How can you turn down eternal life? How can you turn down the grace of God, the goodness of God, the love of God, the kindness of God, the blessings of God? My friend, don’t turn it down. To turn that down is to make an eternal mistake. And you don’t want to do that. I appeal to you by the blood of Jesus, the love of Jesus, to receive Him as your personal Savior. And you can kneel where you are, sit where you are, pull off to the side of the road. It doesn’t make any difference where you are. Just do it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen? Amen. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of From Alienation to Reconciliation. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
