Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Paul Evans tells the story of a farmer who established certain guidelines for his teenage son, one of which was that the boy had to be in at a certain hour.  But the lad had a hard time getting home by the deadline.  Finally the father said, “Son, if you aren’t home by 12, I’ll lock the door and you can’t sleep at home.”  Sure enough, on Saturday night the hours began to fly quickly as the boy was having fun with his friends.  At 12 the father arose and looked down the road for his son, and with a sigh, he finally turned the lock on the front door and went to bed.  He was still awake when he heard the son come home and try the door.  The son had never seen it locked before, and rattle it as he might, the door wouldn’t open.

Finally, the boy went around to the barn and crawled into the hay loft.  The dad couldn’t sleep.  He didn’t like what he had done, but he felt that he had to deal with the issue.  The boy, frustrated and perplexed, couldn’t sleep either.  He knew he was wrong, but he couldn’t understand why the door to his home was locked.  Suddenly, he heard the creak of the barn door.  “Is it a prowler?” he wondered, and then he heard the footsteps of his dad coming up the stairs to the loft as he said, “I told you, son, that you couldn’t sleep at home if you didn’t come home on time, and I had to do it to keep my word, but there’s nothing to keep me from sleeping here in the barn with you.”

In a very real sense, that’s what caused Christ to come!  Man had ignored God’s direction, and sin separated him from the father; but God through Christ came to meet us at the point of our disobedience and to bring us back into fellowship with the Father.

In his book, The Cross of Christ, John Stott says that there are four images or pictures represented by the cross, one of which he describes as reconciliation. The clearest picture of this is what happens in a home when a father and a son become bitter enemies because the son has rejected the father and everything he stands for, but eventually the two are reconciled because the father has made forgiveness possible.

Paul gives us this picture in his letter to the Romans.  He begins, saying, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Having established the basis of forgiveness, which is the cross of Christ, Paul says, “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:9, 10).

Reconciliation is not simply a theological concept; it describes how you can be brought into the family of God.  Have you received the gift of life which enables you to find God’s forgiveness and be reconciled to the Father?  You can, right now, wherever you are.  You can pray, “Lord Jesus, I feel like the door of God’s heaven has been shut for me, but You said You are the way, the truth and the life, and I want You to forgive me and to bring me into fellowship with the Father.” Then you will discover that your life will take on a new dimension.  God’s plan is for you to be reconciled to Him today!  It’s your move as you come to the Father through His Son.

Resource reading:  2 Timothy 2:1-26