April 17th | New-life Action

The resurrection life of Jesus is what makes Christians distinct from any other individuals or people group on the planet.

(NIV) 2 Cor 5:14-15 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 

It is upon that foundation that all Christian hope rests. Upon that foundation, we know that an eternal reality and an eternal element of ourself is True. Resting upon that foundation everything about our lives is changed and re-directed. We live a new life, tending toward an uncompromisingly selfless life, a life lived in the sacrificial, eternal way of Jesus.
 
In Jesus, our lives are morphed into an eternal existence that has eternal impact, and future certainties change present actions. For example, when you find out you’ll be selling your home, all the partially done home-improvement projects finally get done. A terminal illness radically changes what is important today. A soldier called to the battle front will, for the sake of his family, get her affairs in order before leaving.

As a result of this new attitude, direction, approach and revived life in Christ, we turn our attention to others. We turn our attention to ones in our lives or on the periphery of our life…the ones that we formerly cared little about, at most polite with, maybe those we even laughed at (behind their back), maybe ridiculed, judged, or simply devalued…and we look at them totally differently.

(NIV) 2 Cor 5:16-20 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

So, you can see how embracing the real Jesus, accepting who he really is drives a equally new and radically different view of others? People who drive us nuts, who make us angry, who are an embarrassment to you and society, but also people who are clearly but obliviously walking down a dangerous path, ensnared in materialistic superficiality, lost in immoral darkness, trapped in addictive behaviors…we see them now not simply a reject lost in life, but as ones loved by God…sacrificed for in Jesus.

We begin to see others with new eyes:

The lonely work associate
The desperate single mom
The loser at school
The once well-to-do, now struggling neighbor
The once attractive, now ailing young man
The addicted mom
The incarcerated eldest son of that one family

And not only do we see others differently, we have something to offer…

2 Cor 5:18-20 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 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. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

In Scripture, reconciliation is the restoration of harmony between two persons at odds, by the removal of existing obstacles, 1 Samuel 29:4. Christ bids the man who has wronged his brother, to make peace with him, and secure his favor by confession and reparation, before presenting his gift at God’s altar, Matthew 5:23,24. In the far more important matter of peace with God, to make human salvation possible, a just God must be reconciled to the sinner, and the rebellious sinner be reconciled to God by grace alone through faith alone.

An ambassador is an official representative of a king or government, and a person sent with authority to represent and stand for the sender, but only when acting within the instructions the sender has given.

So, this is why Vista embraces the mission we do. This is why we act the way we do, do the things we do, don’t do the things we don’t do. It is why we suggest that you spend less time in church and more time being the church to the others in your life? We are agents for God-reconnections. We are called to infiltrate the spheres of influence God’s blessed us with, to be Jesus to them…we have this message and the corresponding ministry. The message is a mission.

And we go into the world in ways that demonstrate and highlight God’s mercy in light of our own need for mercy as it relates to our own brokenness, failure, shame, insecurity, poor choices, unflattering job, income, debt, as Jesus mercy relates to our struggling marriage, painful circumstances, cyclical discouragement and depression, our lack of confidence, or in the mercy that washes our pride in performance, position and possessions.

The world sees the mercy of God when they see it in your life.

So, there’s our Easter message! The message of God’s resurrection and reconciliation for all men and women.

So, why did we give the Easter message THIS week? Well, because rarely are people reconciled to God without first the work of the reconciled doing the ministry and living the message of reconciliation with the unreconciled!

The Easter message to those who believe…to those already reconciled …The Easter message to those who believe it is an ongoing mission. We have the ministry of reconciliation.

Next week, Our Easter service is a tool for you as part of your ministry of reconciliation.

Next week, Our Easter service is a message for your friends, the un-reconciled, and it’s up to you…and only you…to invite them. The Spirit of God will compel them and bring them…you invite them and show them the road.

Now go be a messenger of reconciliation knowing this…remembering this:

Psalms 20:6-7
6 Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. 7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. (ESV)

Your slick invitation or you clumsy invitation, your put-together-life or your disaster of a life, our awesome Easter service or our awful Easter service in the end although done as excellently and faithfully as we can muster will not be the difference.

God does the heavy lifting. The living Jesus and the Spirit of God is where the power is. We trust in Jesus…in the Name of the Lord…and then we celebrate what He does.

Questions

In what do you need to receive the forgiveness and mercies of God today?