Repentance is the Gateway to Reconciliation (Proper 24c)

    Jesus is teaching us the great lesson of repentance as the gateway we must all walk through from the spiritual prisons of pride and un-forgiveness to the joy of reconciliation. We have all at some time been lost sheep who got into trouble and needed to repent our foolishness and come home to Jesus. Jesus and His Church – all of us are in the reconciliation business. This is who we are and what we do – or at least are supposed to be doing.

 

1.    We Are All Lost Sheep

Why did the sheep wander away? Like the sheep, all of us get distracted, have a bad experience or get angry and walk away from others to do our own thing. Many of us grew up in a home that was either unchurched or only formally churched like the Pharisees. Many of us are somewhere in the process of:

·     Wandering away from the Church

·     Having a traumatic life experience 

·     Crying out to God for help 

·     Looking for help by reading the Bible, praying, experiencing HS 

·     Deciding to come home to Jesus

 

2.    We all Need to Repent & Come to Jesus

Repentance is the gatewaywe must walk through into freedom from the prison of our self-exile. I had a profound experience of this a few months ago:

·     Wandered away spiritually from Anglican Church over the last decade over liberalization

·     Holy Spirit confronted me on this in my prayer time

·     Very humiliating and painful as I wasted years of productive ministry in unforgiveness

·     Jesus was in the reconciliation business – gave His life to show us how to die physically and spiritually to the things that distract us and separated us from God

·     All Christians are in the reconciliation business

·     Mission is to proclaim the good news of forgiveness and reconciliation through Jesus- and a new spiritual life of love, joy and peace

·     Proclaim by modelling this with our family and within a loving and healing Church community

·     Proclaim by going out and looking for the lost sheep and carrying them on the journey of reconciliation with the church community

 

3.    Reconciliation Leads to the Spiritual Gift of Joy

Paul is the great example of Christian reconciliation. He went through the same process of being separated from God, a dramatic experience of the Holy Spirit of Jesus, repentance, baptism of the Holy Spirit and receiving the spiritual gifts of love, joy and peace:

·     My experience of HS Baptism

·     After reconciliation with ex wife

·     After being welcomed back to Anglican Church

 

Repentance and reconciliation are the antidotes to the spiritual poison of pride and un-forgiveness