Being reconciled to God
‘Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.’
Matthew 14:27
Read: Matthew 14:22-33
What are you hoping for?
Who are you trusting to fulfil your hopes?
Jesus’ disciples often had these questions in mind, especially as they painfully tried to make headway on the tempestuous waters in the Sea of Galilee. After close to nine hours battling the wind-tossed waves in the dark, the disciples would have been desperately hoping to reach the shore at Gennesaret.
They were on their own. This time Jesus wasn’t with them in the boat! They couldn’t wake Him to calm the storm! Then terror struck! They cried out in fear when they saw Jesus walking on the water, thinking Him to be a ghost!
Immediately, Jesus speaks to them. With His Word, Jesus encourages their faith and overcomes their fear, ‘Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid’ (Matthew 14:27).
Jesus walking on the tempestuous sea has already shown them that He is the Lord and ruler of creation. Yet, it takes His Word to reveal that He is their eternal Lord! ‘It is I’, he says, in Greek, ‘ego eimi’, literally ‘I am’! Jesus reveals that He is truly God. ‘I am’ is the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses (Exodus 3:13-15). The name by which Moses revealed that God was present with His people to save them.
Jesus was not there just to take away His disciples’ fear. He was not there just to overcome their being tossed about by the wind and the waves. The Lord Jesus was there to be their Saviour. He is the Holy One of God they could trust!
Jesus revealing His identity as ‘I am’ is for us too! Among the twenty-two times in John’s gospel that Jesus says He is ‘I Am’, is ‘I am the Good Shepherd, the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep’ (John 10:11). He speaks clearly of His innocent suffering and death on the cross by which He paid the price of our sin and opened heaven for us through the forgiveness of sin.
In his day, Martin Luther expressed trust in Christ’s forgiveness this way;
I am completely steeped in and saturated with, the article of the forgiveness of sins. I am dealing with it constantly, day and night; and all my thoughts are of Jesus Christ, my only Saviour, who has atoned and paid for my sins. I grant the Law – and all the devils – nothing. If only a man can believe the forgiveness of sin, he is a blessed person.
Through Christ’s forgiveness you are now reconciled to God! You are a blessed person!
By the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul spoke of the unsurpassed greatness of being reconciled;
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).
Biblical Reconciliation is not secular or societal reconciliation, and it’s totally by God’s initiative! God has shown his love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life (Romans 5:8-10).
This ‘vertical dimension’ to Biblical Reconciliation is Jesus coming to us in the storm of our broken relationship with our heavenly Father! With another ‘I am’, Jesus reveals that He is the one we can trust for eternal hope. He says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die’ (John 11:25,26). By faith in Jesus Christ, we live in Him each day until we are with Him in heaven forever.
With Jesus living in us, we can depend on Him to live with confession and forgiveness with each other in the body of Christ. This is Biblical Reconciliation’s ‘horizontal dimension’!
In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for the two dimensions of Biblical Reconciliation,
‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’
Peter began to drown when he shifted his trust from Jesus. When we shift our faith from Jesus it’s impossible for us to forgive those who sin against us!
Being reconciled to God is life changing. Why? Because God changes the heart! Jesus now lives in you! Jesus is with you in all life’s storms! The storms of strained relationships with others, whether through your sinning against them or their sinning against you. The storm of gently restoring a brother or sister in Christ who is caught in sin (Galatians 6:1,2). The storm of forgiving a person who repeatedly sins against you (Matthew 18:21-22). The Spirit of Christ changes your heart toward others. He makes you gracious, tender-hearted and forgiving toward others (Ephesians 4:32).
With Jesus, you are living in your heavenly Father’s forgiveness, and you get to live in forgiveness with one another.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for reconciling me to You while I was still a sinner. You sent your Son to pay the price for all my sins. In light of Your mercy, help me examine my own heart before I reach out to help others see their sins. Strengthen my faith that I may confess my sins to You and those I have sinned against. As I confess to others, keep me from demanding their forgiveness, as forgiveness is an undeserved gift. Instead, increase my trust in You and the hope I have in Your forgiveness. Remembering Your mercy toward me, move me to forgive those who have sinned against me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Pastor Paul Kerber