Message summary: Our omnipresent God is always up to something!

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“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

We were sitting around our dining room table with a group of fellow chaplains and sharing with one another about different ways God was working through our ministries. (Note: The photo is actually that of friends in a Bible study around our dining room table and was not from the meeting we are writing about.)

One chaplain shared how he had walked out of a hospital room after visiting a patient and saw three people talking around a table. A woman who recognized him as a minister approached him and said, “I think God might be up to something over here”. She had been sharing with an individual who appeared to be ready to hear the message of reconciliation. She was recruiting the chaplain to help her at this point!

“I think God might be up to something.” That’s an interesting expression, and although I don’t question the earnestness of the individual, some tend to limit their view on God’s activity based upon their own experience. As if there are times when God is not up to something! For sure that day, today, and every day the omnipresent God is always indeed up to something!

The daily Scripture portion succinctly describes what God is up to. I have always found it interesting and frankly a bit annoying when people speak of finding out what God is doing, as if He’s always changing! People will flock to conferences, buy books or DVDs and participate in whatever program is currently hyped.* But God is doing what He has always been doing: reconciling the world to Himself through Christ. Specific methods change but His overall mission remains the same.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” Pastor R. Kent Hughes comments, “The ministry of reconciliation is not telling people to make peace with God, but telling them that God has made peace with the world. The gospel is not good advice, but good news.”

“And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors.”  During the 70's, early in my ministry, the denomination I am ordained through called their youth program, “Christ’s Ambassadors” CA's. For some reason they dropped that name but it remains a good description and is certainly based on Scripture. On our email sig line we use this description,  "ambassadors of hope, community chaplains". An ambassador is a representative of one nation to another. As Christ’s followers we are representing His Kingdom in a fallen, very broken world.

Bible teacher Henry Blackaby writes, “Sin breaks our relationship with God; it severs relationships with others as well. Broken relationships are the epidemic of our day.  Sin alienates family members, separates friends, divides churches, and destroys marriages. Sin creates mistrust, jealousy, hatred, and greed, all of which devastate relationships. Only Christ has the remedy for the disastrous effect of sin on human relationships. As His ambassadors, we are to take the message of reconciliation to a broken, divided world. We urge reconciliation first with God, and then with each other.”

Today all over the world, in large settings and in small, God is using His reconciled children to proclaim the glorious message of reconciliation to others. God is definitely up to something!

The question for each of us who call Jesus Christ our Lord is, “Am I faithfully serving as Christ’s ambassador?” The appeal for any readers who do not serve Jesus Christ as Lord is “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13.

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

Daily prayer: Jesus, we want others to view the message of reconciliation as it is lived out in our lives and in our daily conversation. Because You reconciled us to the Father through Your sacrificial death on the cross we want to see others experience this wondrous reconciliation when we were snatched from the evil one and transported into the Kingdom of God. What great joy it is to share this message with others, see them respond to Your Spirit, and take them alongside us in this journey of grace. Keep us faithful in proclaiming the Good News. Amen.

* Brooksyne and I were considering this concept of “finding out what God is doing” through our years of ministry with various things that tend to be faddish. We recall a Texan preacher in the late eighties who had a video series on the Lord’s Prayer that many claimed as a "Must Watch". Later it was a small book on the “Prayer Of Jabez” or “The Purpose-Driven Life” you absolutely must read. These resources were very helpful to many people but we suspect there was some money-making marketing involved in all the hype as well. In the late nineties a large church in Florida became a destination to see a revival in action and for many it was seen as the place to go to see “what God is doing”. There was a lot of money and marketing in this as well, though certainly some lives were reconciled to Christ though the fruits of the revival. The list could go on and on.

Reconciled Through Death: Years ago in a western city a husband and wife became estranged and chose to separate. They moved away and lived in different parts of the country. The husband happened to return to the city on a matter of business and went out to the cemetery to the grave of their only son. He was standing by the grave in fond reminiscence when he heard a step behind him. Turning, he saw his estranged wife. The initial impulse of both was to turn away. But they had a common-hearted interest in that grave, and instead of turning away they clasped hands over the grave of their son and were reconciled. They were reconciled by death! Our personal reconciliation took nothing less than the death of God’s Son; but his death and its effects went far beyond any human death. (Clarence E. Macartney, Macartney’s Illustrations)