reconcile_03

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that speaks to you, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water... Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. (John 4:10, 13–14)

What every human heart is searching for was lost in the fall and is restored only through the cross of Christ.

What Was Lost in the Fall

In our last two times together we considered the reality that humanity, in the fall, lost community with one another and communion with our heavenly Father. This is shown clearly in Genesis chapter three. Sin brought death, and death means separation. Sin severed the oneness God created humanity to enjoy, and it brought a death between God and man. We were created to enjoy this oneness, yet every one of us was born into this death, this separation. Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all because all sinned.

External sinful behaviors are simply indicators of an internal sinful heart and a sinful nature. Man's sinful behaviors are his feeble attempts to restore what was lost in the fall. There is an internal recognition—a desire, a draw, a longing in the heart of every human being—for what was lost. We see the evidence of the fallenness of creation everywhere: in our newspapers, on the news, in pop culture. Everywhere we look we see man's yearning to restore what has been lost. But every such attempt leaves man unsatisfied.

A Thirst Nothing in This World Can Quench

The woman at the well in John chapter four is a perfect case study of this lostness. Jesus said, "Whosoever drinks of the water of this well shall thirst again." The sinful heart longs to be satisfied; it craves something to quench its insatiable thirst. It will glut itself on every delight and pleasure this world offers, yet nothing here will ever slake the lust of the lost human heart. Many of you lived this way before following Christ—trying to satisfy an inward desire you simply could not satisfy in the things of this world.

Often we don't even fully know what it is that we want. We know there's a want; we just don't know what it is. Just this last week my wife and I had a couple of days off, staying at a house in Coronado. Monday evening Andrea asked, "What do you want to eat?" I said, "I'm hungry, but I don't know what I want." We drove around Coronado—no, not that. We went over the bridge into the gaslamp area of San Diego, restaurants everywhere, and walked fifteen blocks. "What about this?" "No, I know I want something, but that's not it." If you drink of the waters of this world, you will thirst again. Sin is pleasurable for a season (Hebrews 11:25), but ultimately a famine always awaits.

The Living Water That Does Satisfy

But Jesus said more in John four. His words reveal that there is a source, a well that never runs dry, a living water that does satisfy. There is a way that what was lost in the fall can be restored, and it is restored through the cross of Christ. Jesus said, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that speaks to you, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water." God in Christ Jesus restores what was lost. We are estranged and separated from our Father because of sin, but Christ is the one who reconciles us to God—and not only to God, but to one another.

John puts it this way in 1 John 1: > That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes... declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full... If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

John says we have received a message from the Lord, which we deliver so that those in the world would have fellowship with us and also with God—so that what was lost at the fall would be restored. That's what the gospel is all about. In Christ we have restored community with one another and communion with God, to the extent that your joy would be complete. God is complete light, and in Him is no darkness. If we walk with Him in the light, we have a new, restored fellowship with one another, and the very thing that destroyed fellowship—sin—is cleansed and removed.

Brought Near by the Blood of Christ

This is life more abundantly. Jesus said in John ten, "The thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly"—to its fullest. That is what is found in Christ, and what every person desires at the depths of their being. At that soul level, every sinner is longing for the oneness found only in Christ.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2: > For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.

He then describes our former condition: we were without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, "ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Christ dealt a death blow to death itself. Death means separation—not just the physical separation all humanity dreads, but the separation from one another and ultimately from God because of sin. By the cross, having slain the enmity, Christ reconciles us to God in one body. He came and preached peace to those who were afar off and to those who were near, and through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. We are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.

Cross Connection: Our Name and Mission

This has been the focus of this series, Reconcile: that Christ restores what was lost. So how do we wrap it up? At the beginning of this year I shared what I believe the Lord ministered for our church this year—the theme of enjoying His grace and extending His glory. A few weeks later we announced a name change, official in mid-March, from Calvary Chapel Escondido to Cross Connection Escondido. We are still part of the Calvary Chapel movement. Why the change? Because the name expresses our vision and mission.

We are a people brought into connection with God through the cross and into connection with one another by the cross. Because of that connection, we are to bring disconnected people back into connection with Him. We have experienced the grace of God's salvation, and we have the privilege of extending the glories of His salvation to those who have not yet experienced it. That's why we are called Cross Connection—our goal is to connect disconnected people back to the cross of Christ. The very thing your unbelieving co-workers, neighbors, friends, and family members are longing for in the deepest part of their souls—even though they cannot verbalize it—is found in the cross. They know they want something but don't know what they want, and that is the condition of the world. It is not arrogant for us to say we know what they want, because we have the whole story. We know what created the want in the first place: sin, which brought separation from one another and from God.

Provoking the World to Jealousy

The more I meditate on these truths, the more I'm convinced that the greatest way to extend the glories of our communion with God and community with one another is to live that community out in the world. In Romans 10:19 Paul quotes Moses: "I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." God prophesied through Moses that Israel—who had seen His mighty works—would fall into unbelief, and that He would provoke them back to Himself by using a people who were not a people, a foolish nation, to incite a jealous yearning.

Who are these people? Peter answers in 1 Peter 2:9: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." God will use us—our restored lives—to incite jealousy. Those who don't have this are yearning for it, and they should see it in us to the point that they say, "I want that."

Look around this room. There is a diversity of people here, and the only thing that unites us is Christ. There are people here you would never associate with apart from Jesus, but He has made us who were not a people into a people. How? By giving us mercy, extending salvation, and cleansing our sins. We have been reconciled to Him and restored to one another, and now we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

Ambassadors and Ministers of Reconciliation

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5: > Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature... all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation... Now then we are ambassadors for Christ... we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

When an unbelieving friend sincerely asks, "Why should I want to become a Christian?" we cannot answer only, "Because you want to go to heaven, don't you?" Escaping hell is real, but is there nothing more? What is it that makes heaven heavenly? We should be able to say, with our words and by our very lives, "Come and find that what you have been unsuccessfully searching for is found only in Christ."

This is exactly what the woman at the well found. Jesus offered her living water that would spring up within her unto eternal life. When He revealed her past—five husbands, and the man she was with was not her husband—she perceived He was a prophet. He told her the hour was coming when worshipers would worship the Father in spirit and in truth. When she spoke of the coming Messiah, Jesus said, "I that speak unto thee am he." Then she left her water pot and went into the city saying, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" Having found what we need at the deepest level, we go into the world and say, "Come and see."

A Demonstration, Not Just a Definition

Apologetics are good, and we will continue to teach them. The four spiritual laws and the good-person test bear fruit. But as wiser men than me have said, what the world needs today is not a new or better definition of the gospel but a greater demonstration of it. They need to see that it restores lost people to the very thing their souls desire—communion with God and community with one another. As we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. He deals with the very thing that caused the separation, then brings us together again in Christ.

Oh, that we would live so that we induce jealousy in the heart of the unbeliever, so that the world would look at what we enjoy in Christ and say, "I want that." This can only happen outside the walls of the church, right where we live. It is terribly easy to become hung up on the sinfulness of our society—and it will get more shocking, not necessarily because it is more sinful but because it is more out in the open and more accepted. As Israel fell before Babylon, they called evil good and good evil (Isaiah), and we are seeing some of that in our day.

Not Sin-Verifiers, but Proclaimers of His Praise

When sin becomes more apparent, we can almost become sin identifiers and sin verifiers: "That's sin, and that's sin." Yes, it is—but we could spend our entire lives just pointing out sin in Escondido and become categorizers of what is really bad sin and what is not so bad. That is not what God called us to. He called us to proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. I cannot find a single verse telling us to go around as sin verifiers.

Every sinful behavior is a symptom of the sinful heart. A while back I visited a young girl dying of liver disease at Children's Hospital. She was completely jaundiced—the whites of her eyes bright yellow, her skin yellow—because of excess bilirubin. The jaundice was merely the external indicator of a diseased liver. In the same way, the sinful behaviors all around us—drunkenness, adultery, fornication, wrath, malice, homosexuality—are external indicators of an inner disease: sin. Dealing only with the symptomatic behaviors without dealing with the inner disease is no help at all.

Plenty of people reform their outward ways and look healthy externally—but this is how the Pharisees were: whitewashed tombs, looking great outside but dead within. Some come to church looking unhealthy regarding sin, then learn to talk the Christian talk; by 10:45 after the first service they drive off and you'd never know they had been to church. Outwardly they may look healthy, but inwardly they are still lost in their sin, and that inward sin continues to destroy. Only Jesus Christ deals with the sinful heart. Only He can extricate the sinful root from which every sinful fruit stems. It is the Holy Spirit's work to bring conviction of sin; it is our job to proclaim His praises.

Sent Out to Live the Oneness

Most of us in this room believe this. We come together each week like a family reunion to worship, because where two or three gather in His name, He is in the midst of them. He teaches us, challenges us, encourages us, and stirs us up to go out from here to people who are nothing like us, and there proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.

My prayer is that we would live as ambassadors of our Savior in the midst of a world in desperate need of His salvation—throughout North County, throughout Southern California, to the ends of the earth. I will be the first to say we are lacking in this right now. So a group of about eight of us have been meeting Wednesday nights, praying and planning new ministry to challenge us to live out our faith in community outside the walls of this building. The things we've been praying about are revolutionary and challenging, because the person who comes here and puts on a mask can no longer be anonymous; gathering with brothers and sisters throughout the week, they will be forced to live in the reality of who they are. But as we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us and transforms us.

I am completely convinced that the gospel is powerful enough to sanctify us even while we live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. As I shared last week, the woman at the well said, "You Jews have no dealings with us Samaritans," because the religious Jew believed contact with sinners made him unclean. That is false. We come in contact with sinful people every day, and there we have an opportunity to proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Would to God that He would work this heart in us.

Closing Prayer

Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You... I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and You gave them to me, and they have kept Your word... I am praying for them... Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one... I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one... Sanctify them in Your truth; Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world... that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that You have sent me.

Lord, we thank You that You prayed this for us, and that You will most certainly fulfill this prayer. We thank You, Jesus, that You have reconciled us to Yourself and to the Father, and that we are one with You and with one another because of what You have done. Glorify Yourself through us as we live out this oneness in community and communion right here in our community. Stir us up, Lord. Enable us by Your grace to live in a way that proclaims Your praises, that we would be image bearers of You and reflect You to this world. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.