Mission of Reconciliation: The Heart
Notes
Transcript
His heart had become closed in on itself. And closed off from other people. On the inside he was trying to justify it, I just don’t want to hurt again. People are untrustworthy, people let you down. It’s not worth the hassle of being hurt, of being shown again how ugly people can be. His heart was restricted and restrained. Coiled up in betrayals, bitterness, and resentment. Instead of a wellspring of life, his heart was shaped like a coffin. He just felt dead inside. This hadn’t happened either overnight, it took years of holding onto things that had now formed this coffin shaped heart. His heart was hidden away, air tight with distrust and wounds. But it was safe. Safe from betrayal. Safe from being let down. Safe from people. safe from cost and risk, safe from un-comfortability. Safe, but also closed off from any kind of redeeming and reconciling love.
In all good stories that we read, watch, and enjoy we at times encounter this kind of heart. Grinch stole Christmas. The Grinch takes all the presents from Whoville the night before Christmas, but in his mountaintop moment he realizes Christmas is more about presents, he’s convicted, his heart grows three times larger as the people of Whoville change his heart with their singing and joy. Think may think of Jean Valjean if you’ve seen Les Miserables. He is a convict whose is hardened by injustice. They literally sentenced him to five years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. Cmon now. He stays with the local bishop after his time in prison. His heart is convinced that life is all about survival. He steals expensive silverware from the local parish. He is apprehended next day by the police. Brought to his knees, the police ask the bishiop “Did this man steal from you?” and the bishop says; Jean Vel Jean you forgot to also take the candlesticks” As the police leave the bishop draws him close and embraces him with grace. And says with these gifts you no longer belong to evil; I give your life back to God
In these stories; sometimes you get a glimpse at the new creation. The kingdom of heaven breaking through. A beautiful glimpse what happens when a heart that is closed encounters a heart that is wide open. Wide open to the possibilities that only grace in Christ can bring about. The thief Jean Vel Jean has an encounter with the grace of Jesus and his heart is now opened by an act of sheer mercy. It seems so reckless, it almost doesn’t even seem fair, that the bishop would give him more. The bishop would look over his sins and yet the bishop hopes that with this costly act of mercy will reconcile this thief back to God and widen his heart forever. And he was right if you follow the rest of the story.
Last Sunday we spoke of cost. The cost of reconciliation means things may not go our way. If we step into situations where we apply grace, mercy, honesty forgiveness, things may get worse before they get better. There is a cost to exposing the truth, the pain, the wrongdoing. There is even a greater cost at times to giving people our mercy and grace in the name of Jesus. To cancel the debt and be reestablished and reunited together. Oneness takes work and labor. Oneness isn’t passive, but active and ongoing.
But to end our mission of reconciliation series. Today we are focusing on the heart of reconciliation. As I have hopefully preached we need to not only speak to our minds, we need the Spirit to reach into our hearts. If we are to participate in the mission of reconciliation we need to get to the heart of reconciliation. To work and labor for oneness and unity and for Jesus to fill all parts of our life and relationships. We need to heed the words of Jesus as He calls Himself the great Physician. We need daily spiritual heart surgery by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, I did not come for the righteous, but for the lost. I came for those who are sick. If your constantly saying, I’m okay, I don’t need a changed heart for the mission of reconciliation, you are getting in the way of what Jesus is seeking to do. We need Jesus to change our hearts, and bring us to the heart of reconciliation. Every day.
Just like the story of Les Miserables, our text today offers us two experiences of the heart in our lives. A heart that is closed off, curved in, and restricted, and hearts that are wide open. This is Paul’s plea in our text today to the church. Paul has just told the church; the cost he has experienced in his life. This is the cost of what we’ve gone through for your sake. Riots imprisonments torture, death, and yet in Christ he lives. We have nothing at times and yet we have everything in Christ. He shares how the power of God is still at work in them through all these costs of reconciliation. But then Paul closes his thought on the mission of reconciliation with this; Paul pleas with them, brothers, sisters, our hearts are wide open. We have spoken freely to you about this message of reconciliation in Christ, our hearts are wide open to you, and yet your heart is restricted. Your hearts are closed off by your own affections. So we plead with you, widen your hearts also.
Now isn’t that interesting. What is restricting their hearts? What is causing their hearts to close in, to coil to curve in and away from the open heart of a reconciling God? Paul makes it clear; your own affections are restricting your hearts. Affections. Deeply emotional loves that have taken the seat of God. Disordered desires. Dysfunctional impulses. Where we direct our emotional investments. Get this Paul is saying what you love, what dictates your affections has the power to shape your heart. To restrict and restrain your heart or to widen it. And your heart can be sharpened like a coffin, think Jean Vel Jean being ruled by bitterness, or our hearts can be wide open to grace, wide open to people of different backgrounds, brokenness, and sins. Wide open to experience more and more of the new creation in Christ. A heart wide open to the possibilities and potential that the mission of reconciliation can bring about.
So the question today; what restricts our hearts from the mission of reconciliation? What places in our hearts do we need the Spirit of God to do a work of transformation? What holds our hearts back from moving forward with the mission of reconciliation? And this will bring us to the heart of reconciliation. For Corinth, it was a whole list of things; they had a disordered view of sex and they struggled separating themselves from idols. They struggled holding one another accountable and doing the hard work of dealing with divisions and sins that plagued their community life together. They were obsessed with appearances, and oftentimes did not trust Paul, because he wasn’t the best public speaker. They were greedy, selfish, and oftentimes let their own preferences for life overshadow the bigger picture of what God was doing in their community and church with the gospel.
They had affections for power and pleasure, for appearances and success, but these affections would more times than not close their hearts and not widen them. But what about us?
Affections are powerful feelings. What we are affectionate towards dictates where we will invest our hearts. You are what you love. I would like to consider 3 affections however that restrict our hearts in the mission of reconciliation.
False love 1: Control. We love being in control. We have affections for control in our lives. Control in our relationships. Control oftentimes restricts our hearts to experience reconciliation, because it means when we enter into moments of reconciliation, we enter into the unknown. When you confess your sins to someone you hope they will still love, forgive, and accept you, but you don’t really know at times how things will play out. Or if you choose to forgive someone, you know that cancelling the debt means you cannot bring up their sins and brokenness to control them. To get them to do things you want.
Forgiveness means you have given their sins over to God, and now control is at an end. Reconciliation means that we have reestablished unity and will not let the past dictate our unity, but only the grace of God found in Christ Jesus. Also moving into conflict. There is a lack of control when you move into healthy and good conflict. I don’t know how this person is going to react. I want to make things right, but I’m not in control of their reactions, so become afraid and we don’t move at all into places of woundedness. Too tired too weary and so we don’t widen our hearts to the possibilities of healing when we move into the messy parts of the life together.
False love 2: The affection for fulfilled expectations. We have an idea on the inside of our broken hearts that makes up the perfect person. The acceptable person. The person with the good appearance. The person who has it together. The person who will fulfill us, advance us, make us better. Make us and keep us happy. The person who will satisfy my longings and expectations for the good life. We project that person on our spouses, we project that person on our children, our neighbors, co-workers, church community, we project that person on ourselves. And after a failed delivery. When we’re let down, we are indignant. Angry. Bitter. How could they? How could I? We leave no room for sinners and broken people, only people who will meet our expectations. And our hearts instead of being wide open for sinners in need for a reconciling act of love; become closed off because the perfect/the acceptable person we design in our deceitful hearts doesn’t really exist. And we lose sight of grace. Grace for others. Grace for ourselves. The mission of reconciliation becomes the mission of hiding my heart from others. Burying my heart underneath the constant restraints of expectations for fulfillment.
False love 3. An affection for self. Reconciliation means I will be reestablished with this person in my life. Someone who has caused hurt, estrangement, discord. Someone who cause me difficulty. Culture says you got to snip the people out of your life who are difficult, snip out the negativity. What a dehumanizing vision for community. Snip out difficult people. I guess I’ll have to snip out myself Reconciliation means that I will fight for unity in my neighborhood, community and relationships. Reconciliation means I will need to die to my self-importance, die to my comfortability, die to myself, so that Christ may be all the more present in my heart. So that more people will be embraced and loved. Where my wants and affections for my own life will be denied in view of following the way of Jesus. Paul says we have widened our hearts to you, you have restricted your own hearts by your own affections.
Sorry Disney, I love you and some of your movies, but you are wrong when you champion the phrase, Follow your heart; The prophet Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. We are deeply self-defeating individuals. We do not know what is best for us and our relationships. We need spiritual heart surgery daily. And we are addicted to affections that end up closing and restricting our hearts to the mission of reconciliation. I need Jesus. I need a new heart for the heart of reconciliation. We need the heart of Jesus to overcome us and to enlarge our hearts. Any affection that does not have it’s source and life in God will restrict and close our hearts from Him and one another.
Do you ever feel defeated and discouraged as you follow Jesus in His mission of reconciling all things? Do you ever feel like your dealing with a closed heart within yourself? His vision of unity and oneness. Oh cmon gimme a break, Oneness now? Unity now? The prophet Ezekiel certainly did at times. Ezekiel was sent to the people of Israel at a terrible time in their history. The nation Babylon had come and had just wrecked Israel. Their temple of worship was destroyed. The heart of Israel was laid bare and it was ugly, selfish, and it seemed as though their relationship with God and one another was irreconcilable. Agony and regret and failure had warped their hearts, and closed their hearts from God. Their sins were many and their brokenness was deep. It was a heart in the shape of a coffin. But it was Ezekiel who would speak up to them with courage in the One who makes all things new. God said to Ezekiel, though my people’s hearts are sinful and bent; closed in and restricted by false loves, I will give them a new heart and Spirit. One heart, One Spirit, a new heart and they will be my people and I will be their God.
This One heart. This One Spirit and unity is the heart of reconciliation. And it’s fully revealed in the heart of Jesus. This is what Jesus prays for before He goes to the cross in John 17. Father I pray that they would be one, just as you Father and I are One. One heart, One Spirit, not closed in or restricted, but wide open. For the life of the world, for the glory of God to fill all things. Oneness.
It would be the heart of Jesus wide open on the cross. Wide open for you. To swallow up our sins and death His heart bruised, His heart broken, His heart separated from the Father. Wide open for all the sins of the world, all the shame, and death. Wide open for His enemies. While we were still sinners and enemies of God Christ died for us. You think about all that restricts your heart today. All of that was consumed by Jesus on the cross. You think about how to even begin to reconcile with enemies or those estranged from you. Think on the cross, and how far Jesus went to reconcile you to the Father. IN deep fierce commitment to you. That you would one with Him. Unified in grace and mercy. The heart of Jesus would consume it all that would restrict our hearts in His death. And as He would rise from the dead He would breathe into His disciples the life of the Spirit. He would fulfill was Ezekiel could only prophesy about. A new heart, a new Spirit, a new life. Oneness here and now in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And that same Spirit was sent to you in your baptism. Making you One with Christ and One with one another. Giving you a new heart that reflects and is deeply connected to the heart of Jesus. Does that change your heart? Does that widen your heart? By the power of Jesus it will. By His power at work in you here and now it will.
The heart of Jesus is the heart of reconciliation. Putting away our fears of loss of control, because we have been accepted by God through Him. No one’s reaction to reconciliation, no loss of control in our lives can dictate or change the heart He has given you and sealed with His very blood. There is no longing Jesus can’t satisfy. He was perfectly obedient and frees us to look to His obedience to fulfill our needs for love and consistency from others. It’s His heart that can give us power to widen our hearts to those near and far. To make room for sinners and the broken with no expectations for fulfillment, but eager expectancy for Him to move. He will always hold you, love you forgive and show you the way of the new heart. And He will show how to lose your life, so that in Him you will find true life in all it’s freedom and restoration. All this he does because His heart is good, trustworthy, and true. And He has put His heart in yours. So let us hear Paul; let us hear Jesus and widen our hearts. Amen.