Jesus reconciles us to God and to each other. Jesus broke down the dividing wall between races. Now, we are ambassadors of His peace, building bridges not walls.

April 21-22 2018

Introduction and offering

I said a couple weeks ago that there are two wings on the gospel plane: a spiritual wing and a social wing. We were made to love God and to love people. We are spiritual and social creatures. Jesus came to reconcile us to God and to each other. But many of us are more comfortable with the spiritual than the social.

But that one-winged plane won’t fly. The gospel plane has two wings: love God and love people. Be reconciled to God and be reconciled to each other. Two weeks ago, we talked about You and God, the spiritual wing. Here comes the other wing, the social wing: You and the Other.

Originally I was doing a talk on three things: racial reconciliation, political reconciliation and reconciling with enemies. But as I wrote, I realized that I had too much to say on race, and I’ll have to circle back later on the others. So our big idea is:

Jesus reconciles us to God and to each other. Jesus broke down the dividing wall between races. We are ambassadors of His peace, building bridges not walls.

I have a deep conviction that Jesus cares about our racial divide and died to heal it. And because of that, we Jesus-followers ought to be taking the lead on racial reconciliation. I also think that race is a very difficult thing to talk about. The subject fills people with confusion, guilt, shame, and anger. It’s deeply personal and profoundly emotional. So I’m going to ask you to listen to your pastor who loves you and wants the b