For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. | 2 Corinthians 5:14–18
The last two weeks, we have been talking about relational reconciliation. Two weeks ago, we talked about the process of reconciliation, while we focused this week on the posture required for this work. The assumption that undergirds both the process and the posture is: we should be engaging in the work of reconciliation. I want to spend a minute defending this assumption, because in a culture that holds rights, freedom and autonomy as its highest ideals, the work of giving yourself to others is easily dismissed. Our ability to justify inaction should not be more powerful than the Biblical call to heal.
The general storyline of the Bible, the meta-narrative, is a movement from Creation to Fall to Redemption to Restoration (I preached a series on this). We are created by God, we sin and fall away from Him, He actively redeems us, and promises that all of creation will be restored to a perfect reflection of the Creator. Our part in this story is: a people created in the image of God, polluted by sin, redeemed by Jesus, awaiting the return of Jesus and the ushering in of the New Heavens and the New Earth. As we wait, we are called to be part of the redemptive work of God: applying the gospel to all areas of life. We commit our lives to the remaking of all that sin has broken.
As the graphic above shows, our brokenness is more than just spiritual. When sin came into the world, it broke all systems and relationships. The relationships broken are summarized as: relationship with God, relationship with self, relationship with others and relationship with the rest of creation. This image is from the book When Helping Hurts, which goes on the describe the brokenness of the Fall this way:
Because the four relationships are the building blocks for all human activity, the effects of the fall are manifested in the economic, social, religious, and political systems that humans have created through history…. The systems are broken, reflecting humans’ broken relationships.
What this means is that our ministry of reconciliation is broad. Our main focus is bringing people back to God, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (20b).
But it should not end there. We have a responsibility to work toward reconciling all of the broken relationships sin has created. There has been a lot of talk about social justice in the church: with some saying that this is the work of the gospel and others downplaying the role of the church in social issues. The truth is, the gospel should motivate us to reconcile. It cannot replace the work of Jesus, but it should be a response to it. As we interact with a world that is broken, we should use the tools given to us by God to bring His healing to bear. This ministry of reconciliation is not a role for only some in the church, it is the very identity we take on as a new creation:
We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us (20a).
Identify the broken relationships and systems around you and get to work, using the power of the gospel and the gifts of the Spirit to bring the healing of Christ into a fractured world.