First Church of the Nazarene
Pastor Henecke's Sermon Outlines

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Pastor Henecke's Sermon Outlines

The Woodland Street Pulpit

August 08, 2004 AM

Reconciliation

1 Peter 2:22 He committed no sin; no deceit was found on his lips.

2 Corinthians 5:14-6:1

The love of Christ reigns over us, since we have come to the conviction that one died for all – and thereby all died. He died for all, so that those living would no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. We no longer hold a merely physical estimate of anyone; even though our understanding of Christ was once from the flesh, we no longer understand him in that manner. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, the old is gone and a new state of being has come. All of this is of God, who reconciled us through Christ, and entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation. That is – God existed in Christ reconciling creation to himself, not holding anyone's misdeeds against them, but giving us the word of reconciliation. We are Christ’s representatives! God makes his appeal through us. Our appeal to you is for Christ, "Be reconciled to God!" For our sake he made the sinless One to be sin, so that we might become God’s righteousness one, in him. In union with him, we urge you not to receive God’s grace without result.

  1. Introduction

    1. The whole of the Christian faith is built on one single truth

      1. God was in Christ reconciling humanity to himself

      2. The Messiah and his church is about reconciliation

        1. The mending of a rift

        2. The healing of human hurt

    2. We live in a world of brokenness

  1. We are a divided nation

  2. We are in a world of conflict

  3. There are no laws that can end racial divisions

  4. Intellectually we are polarized

  5. Industrially we are split

  6. Domestically we are shattered – getting married with hope

  7. The church is fractured; rarely have we such relentless tensions

Jude 1:17-19

Dear friends, you must remember the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They wrote, "In the final age there will be those who mock at our faith as they live in their own godless desires." These people, cause divisions; they are worldly and unspiritual.

    1. Here it is that we find the source of our Christian mission:

      1. The healing work God in humanity

      2. Bring an end to inner conflict

        1. Establishing inner peace in people

        2. Regardless of the hostility of "the worldly"

    2. Thereby ending the source of all conflict

      3. James 4:1-3

      What causes wars and conflicts among us? Is it not precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you lack it; so you kill. You have an ambition that you cannot attain; so you fight and scheme to obtain. Through prayerlessness you do not possess; when you do pray and do not receive, it is because you prayed wrongly, wanting to indulge your passions.

    3. This remains the human condition outside of the cross

      1. It is to humanity in conflict that God came

      2. Here is the great act of God – out of his love

Romans 5:11

If when we were God’s enemies we were reconciled to him through his Son’s death, how much more, being reconciled, shall we receive salvation in his life. That is not all: we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we obtained our reconciliation.

John 3:16-17

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not perish but may have everlasting life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.

  1. The Healing

    1. Scripture clearly teaches we are voluntarily alienated in life

      1. Disoriented from the creator of life and earth

      2. Living in violence inwardly and outwardly

    2. Into this condition came our atonement

      1. God in Christ brought the liberation

        2. Romans 8:3

        Because of the illness of flesh the Law couldn’t do what God accomplished; commissioning his very Son in the form of sinful flesh (because of sin), thereby condemning sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

      2. He came into our very being

    3. The necessary work of God in Christ is simple

      1. He lived the sinless life

        1. Thereby sanctifying this very life

        2. Ending the false claim that all must sin

      2. He entered every aspect of human existence

        1. The womb - the tomb

        2. Our poverty and hostility

      3. Thereby liberating those who are in him

    4. Redemption is liberation

      1. Forgiveness (cleansing)

      2. Regeneration (new birth - re-creation)

      3. Renewal - the gift of the Spirit – indwelling

    5. The sinless One unites us to himself

      1. Ending the division

      2. Bringing peace with God and self

      3. We can never go back/we must "go and sin no more"

Colossians 1:19 -24

In Jesus, God in all his fulness willed to dwell, and through him to reconcile in his own person all on earth and all in heaven, making peace through the blood of his cross. Once you were alienated from God, his enemies in heart and mind, as your evil deeds revealed. But now by his dying in mortal flesh, God has reconciled you to himself, to establish you holy, faultless, and irreproachable in his presence. Yet, you must remain faithful and steadfast in the faith, never wavering from the hope of the gospel that you accepted. This is the gospel which is being proclaimed to the whole creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

  1. Newness of life

    1. What Jesus did and what he is transferred to his congregation

      2. Ephesians 2:13-16

      You were at one time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to God’s covenants of promise. Yours was a world without hope and without God. Once you were far off, but now in Christ Jesus you have been brought near through Christ’s blood. For he himself is our peace. Gentile and Jew, he has made to be one; having broken down the barrier of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, so that he might create a single humanity in himself, replacing the two and establishing peace. He purposed to reconcile us both in a single body to God through the cross and thereby ending all conflict.

      1. We are to be his ambassadors

        1. To live among our fellow humans

        2. But to not be one of them

          1. If we have the illness of others:

          2. Then who will be the physician?

      2. We are to go about doing good

        3. Acts 10:38 God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Because God was on him he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.

        1. Touching humanity with a different lust

      Titus 2:11-14

      God’s grace dawned upon the world with healing for all mankind; and by it we are disciplined to renounce godlessness and worldly desires, and to live a life of self-mastery, integrity, and godliness in the present age, awaiting eagerly the blessed hope when the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus will appear. He sacrificed himself for us, to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people to be his very own who are zealous for good. Remind everyone to be submissive to leaders and authorities, be obedient to them and ready for any honorable work; slander no one, and avoid quarrels; be conciliatory, displaying a gentle disposition to all. There was a time when we too were lost in senselessness and disobedience and were in bondage to lusts and pleasures. Our days were passed in malice and envy; we were hateful, and we hated others. But when the kindness and generosity of God our Savior dawned, not for any good deeds of our own, but because he is compassionate, he saved us through the water of rebirth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he lavished upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, justified by his grace, we might hope to become heirs to eternal life. This teaching you may trust.

    2. We must not compromise what he has entrusted to us

      1. End all areas of false living

      2. Refuse to be shaped by the appetites of the flesh

        1. Unless you are at peace

        2. There is no hope for your children

      3. The husband and wife who secretly sin together

        1. Already have guilt in their bed

        2. There is loss of trust and confidence – even if it is denied and never mentioned

    3. The atonement is not a moving film

It is God - reconciling you into an agent of reconciliation







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Last updated: August 6, 2004