Continuing our study, the Book of Colossians. Well, as you're turning there and getting one of those handouts, let me tell you about someone. This lady's name is Deuma. And Deuma was born in Ecuador in the 1930s. And she was born to a tribe called the Aka Indians. This tribe was a remote tribe. It was very savage. In fact, that's what the word Akka means. And they were known for killing all strangers that came in contact with them and killing each other. In fact, the murder rate in the Akka tribe was 74 percent. I should say the death rate, and that was due to murder. And if they thought someone didn't like them and their tribe, they would go kill them. And then all their other family members, that way that person to get revenge back on them or no family members would. So Dayuma lived in constant fear. In fact, she was even afraid of her own mother. Her own mother threatened many times to put her out in the jungle by herself in the Amazon forest there because girls were a burden upon them. And so if she became a burden, she threatened that. Her father had many enemies, and of course, living in a tribe like that, she saw many terrible things that happened, many children and adults that were murdered. One day, one of their neighbors came after her father to kill her father, and they were successful, and so he was coming next after her and her family, and so she fled, and she ran for her life, and she ran and ran until she could run no more, and finally ran to civilization. And she was told never to go there because the Ecuadorians would eat them because they're cannibals, which isn't true, but that's what they were told as children to keep them away from the foreigners. And she was invited in to live in an Ecuadorian community and she started living in civilized society. One day a lady named Rachel Saint, one of the missionaries that worked for Wycliffe Bible Translations, came and sat down with her and wanted to really learn the language from her, the Akwa language, so that she could translate their language into the scriptures. And also, she wanted to tell Deuma about the gospel, about Jesus Christ. Well, Deuma said yes, and so they began to talk, and she began to tell Deuma about Jesus. Deuma believed in God, her tribe taught her that God created the world, but then he left. And she was surprised to find out that he came back and his name was Jesus Christ. In fact, he came and he loved her and he died for her and rose again and was in heaven wanting her to be reconciled and trusted, trusting him. And Deuma was radically changed by God because she trusted in Jesus. She had hate really in her heart for many of the people in her tribe, especially those ones who had hurt some of her family and tried to hurt her. But that changed when she trusted in the Lord. Now she prayed for them. And actually, she wanted to go back and tell her mother and tell her siblings about Jesus Christ. In fact, she was able to do that. Deuma took herself and Rachel and a lady named Elizabeth Elliot and her child and they went and they lived with them. And from that interaction, she was able to tell her mother about Jesus and her mother got saved. She was able to tell the tribe about Jesus and many of the tribe got saved and they started a church there. And to this day, I think it's about 80% of those people are believers in Jesus Christ. And Deuma was able to have reconciliation physically with her mother and with her family, but ultimately spiritually, she was able to have herself be reconciled to God, but also for her family and her tribe to experience that reconciliation. And really this true story is gonna illustrate for us today what our study is about. And that is that God is in the business of reconciling people to himself. And he wants to restore those in humanity to fellowship with him. Last week we learned, if this doesn't work, if I click, you just go ahead and click it for me, okay? Because it's not gonna work. Okay, last week we learned in Colossians 1, verses 15 through 18, that we're able to share in the inheritance with Christ because He is preeminent over everything. He's preeminent over creation because He created it all. He's preeminent over preservation because He preserves it all. And He's preeminent over restoration because He is the restorer. This morning we're going to examine more of what that restoration looks like in verses 19 through 23 of chapter 1. I'm going to read actually 15 through 23. And as I read through this, notice the words all, and I think even maybe once or twice, there's the word every in there. And these words point to the scope of His superiority and His preeminence. In fact, the fact that He is superior over creation and preservation and restoration. Look at verse 15. of Colossians chapter one. It says, he, that is Jesus, is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn, in other words, the one who owns the rights over all creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him. Verse 17, And he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence. Verse 19, For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. and by him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, that's all things there, having made peace through the blood of his cross. And you who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death. Let's pray. Father, we present this text to you. and ask that your spirit would help us to understand it. We praise you, Jesus, that you are the creator of all. And right now you are preserving it. And will you help us this morning to better understand what it means that you are reconciling and restoring all things, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, you heard me last week and this week use the word restoration. You might think to yourself, well, where do you get that word from? Well, look down in Colossians 1, verse 20, and it says, in verse 20, it says, by him, that's Jesus, to reconcile all things to himself. So the word reconcile there, and also in verse 21, he says at the end, or the middle of it, now he has reconciled. That word is used a number of times in the New Testament. You could translate that word reconcile or you could also translate it to restore. This word speaks of two parties who are at odds with each other, who come back together in peace and in unity. One theological dictionary wrote the definition like this. The word reconciled speaks of the re-establishment of good relations in political, social, family, or moral spheres. And that has to do with a change of feelings or circumstances. So the idea is there's a re-establishment of a relationship or of a condition. And that's what we saw in Dayuma's family, didn't we? They were reconciled. Physically they came back together, but also spiritually they were reconciled with each other and with God. And after many years, or I should say that she was reconciled after many years, and I've chosen really to interchange reconciled and restoration. Reconciled really helps us see the severity of our sin against God and our offense to Him. And restoration helps us to see kind of the big picture, that in the end, He is restoring us. He's restoring His creation for its original purpose and its condition. So we'll kind of use those and interchange both those words. So look at verse 19. We're going to look first at the restoration accomplished. And he says, First we see that the Father, He planned out this restoration. and also was accomplished by Jesus. In verse 19, we observe that it pleased the Father. You could say the Father rejoiced to choose to do two things. First of all, He chose to put the fullness of deity in human flesh. Verse 19 says that all the fullness dwelt in Jesus. In fact, if you would, just flip over to Colossians 2, verse 9. This is kind of a parallel verse here. In verse 9 it says, for in him, that's Jesus, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And the word fullness here is speaking of the totality of the divine attributes and powers. And so when you combine Colossians chapter 1, verse 19, and here Colossians 2, 9, we see that the divine nature, with all its divine attributes, was dwelt in a human body, and that is Jesus when he became human. This is what we call the incarnation. That the eternal God, the self-existing God, came and dwelt in human flesh. It's interesting, in both those verses the word dwelt there means to take up permanent residence. So the creator of the universe chose to take up permanent residence in the body of a human. In verse 19, we look in Colossians 1.19, it says, all the fullness dwelt in him. So what does that mean? It means that his coming to earth as a human did not diminish any of his deity. He was still God. He did self-restrict some of his divine attributes, but he did not lose any of his divine attributes. That's why theologians call him the God-man. God means that he is 100% God, and man because he became 100% man. So in verse 19, we see the Father ordained that Jesus would be the God-man. And then in verse 20, we see that the Father used Jesus as the God-man to reconcile God to man. So look down in verse 20. And he says, by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him whether things on earth or things in heaven. Now this verse, what does this mean? What does it mean to reconcile all things to himself? This verse does not mean that everybody gets saved. When Jesus died on the cross, automatically everyone was saved. But this verse is actually talking about Jesus making it possible for all things to be restored to its original condition. Remember originally creation was made very good. God looked at creation. He said, it is what? It's very good. And that included the Adam and Eve. And when they were made, they were made in the image of God. And they were able to live in the presence of God. They live in a perfect environment of that garden. And they had perfect fellowship with God. In fact, Genesis chapter 3, verse 8 says something interesting. It says that God came to walk with them in the garden in the cool of the day. Now what does that mean? As I really looked at it and thought about it, it means that in some fashion, in some way, God manifested himself to Adam and Eve. And it could have been maybe a Christophany, what we see in the Old Testament, where Jesus actually appears to them and talks to people in a human form. And it could be that Jesus in his pre-incarnate self was able to walk and talk with Adam and Eve in the garden. But either way, whatever it was, they enjoyed fellowship with God and they lived as innocent, holy, good people in his presence. In fact, it's interesting if you look, there are really three blessings Adam and Eve were able to enjoy there at creation. First of all, they were able to experience positional blessing because they were friends of God. They enjoyed the fellowship of God. They were able to experience the spiritual blessing of holiness and goodness. They were innocent of sin. And they also were able to enjoy the physical blessing of living in a perfect environment with bodies that would never die. So think about that. That was the original condition that Adam and Eve found themselves in the garden. But what we learn is that They rejected God, didn't they? They had their hearts lifted up in pride, and they chose to disobey God, and with that disobedience resulted in a curse because of their sin. And that curse really was threefold. First of all, they went from being a friend of God to losing fellowship, and now they were the enemy of God. They were living in rebellion. Spiritually, they went from innocent creatures and humans to now that they were actually had the nature of the sin nature. They were now living as spiritually dead people. And we see the full effect of that with one of their children, right? Remember Cain. Cain has hatred in his heart towards his brother. There's the sin nature. And actually, the sin nature goes so far, he's so angry that he goes to his brother and he kills him. And so they got to witness with their first child there. how bad the sin nature was. And then physically, they experienced physical death. Their bodies were beginning to die and their bodies eventually did die and they lived in a broken world. And after sin entered into Adam and Eve's lives, after they chose to sin, they had a broken relationship with God. They were broken people and they were living in a broken world. I mean, imagine, imagine God When he kicks them out of that garden and they're there on the east side of the garden, they see the beautiful place where they were able to have fellowship with God and walk with God. And there in front of that garden there is an angel, right? A cherubim with a flaming sword. And what does that represent? It represents that now they are separated from God. they are experiencing death. And death really is separation. I mean, that's what it is, right? That's the sorrow of death. When we go visit a loved one who's in the funeral home in a casket, the sorrow in our hearts is that that person is separated from us. And sin causes death, and death is separation. And in fact, we see this, ultimately the separation is between us and God. Isaiah The prophet says, but your iniquities have separated you from God. So all humanity faces this now. And ultimately through Adam's sin, the Bible says that Adam's sin brought separation from us, from God, for all people, positionally, spiritually, and then physically. Now the rest of humanity, we face this separation. We long for the fellowship with God, whether we know it or not. But ultimately, we do not have it because of our sin. In fact, you think about it. If you think about it, we are all positionally separated from God. Ephesians chapter 2 says that we are children of disobedience. So that's who we are. We disobey and ultimately we're the children of disobedience. The children of, really the Bible says, of our father the devil. We follow his ways. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 18 says we're alienated from the life of God. And so now we have a world where people walk around and they're empty, right? And they're trying to fulfill some kind of void in their life. And so they go for, they try money and they try their job and they try entertainment and they go home and they feel empty. And what they don't realize is what they really need in their life is fellowship with God. And what they've lost is that fellowship with God. And they're separate from God. And also, They're spiritually dead. And we've got a lot of religion in this world, don't we? A lot of people attempting to connect with God and to bridge that gap with God, but it cannot happen. Ephesians chapter 2 says that we are dead, spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins. And that is realized when we see the conduct of ourselves. Verse 4 says, Which means this. It means our nature is sinful. and should be punished and will be punished, separated from God forever. And the third is the curse that we physically will die. We see that when we go to the doctor and find out that our bodies are failing. or we go to the funerals of our loved ones. So what is the hope for humanity? What is the hope for our world? Well, it's in Colossians 1, verse 20 here. It is that God has provided, through Jesus, a means for us to have peace. Restoration was accomplished for peace through Jesus Christ. Look at the end of Colossians 1, verse 20. He says, having made peace through the blood of his cross. So the cross is the means by which Jesus crushed Satan. Remember the promise of Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. He crushed Satan but also defeated death. He disarmed death. And as God, he had the power to defeat death. And he accomplished that by dying as a man. So the God-man bridged this gap. What we see on the cross is here in Hebrews 2, verse 14, what this says. And it says that Jesus destroyed death, and really, ultimately, he destroyed the power of death because he destroyed the power of Satan. And this is seen also in Ephesians 2, verse 14. And it says that he himself, that's Jesus, is our peace. So he has brought us together. He's removed the barrier, the separation between us. He has broken down the middle wall of separation. So there on the cross, the God-man brought peace. Sin divides and separates. Jesus brings us and reconciles us to God. Will you do something with me? Go to the Philippians chapter 3. This should be the next page over. This is really interesting to look at. Because if you look at this, you'll see that what God is trying to do, what He wants to do, I should say, is He wants to restore you. And He wants to restore you with the blessings that were originally He had given us. And He wants to restore us through Christ. And so Paul here in Philippians chapter 3 gives his own testimony. This is pretty neat to look at. In verse eight, Paul says that, listen, Christ has restored me in my fellowship with God. Verse eight, he says, Paul says of his testimony, yet indeed, I also count all things. In other words, I stopped trusting in my own self, my own religion. I stopped trusting in those things, but I count all things as lost for the excellent or the amazing value of the knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ. In this verse, he's saying, I know the Lord Jesus. I have fellowship again with God. And then secondly, look at verse number nine. Now he has the holiness and the righteousness of Jesus and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness, which is from God by faith. So now the holiness has been restored to him, not from himself. It's not like he worked enough to get it, but no, he was given to him by Jesus. Look down at verse 20. And so here we finally see the last part, which is the physical restoration. Paul is looking forward to the day when he will be restored with a resurrection body. Look at verse 20. It says, for our citizenship is in heaven. So there's another place I'm looking forward to. In Revelation 21, we learn that there's a new heaven and a new earth that God will create for us, and then creation will be restored. And he goes on to say, that it may be conformed to his glorious body." So there'll be a transformation or restoration of our bodies and it'll actually be like the glorious body of Jesus Christ. And he says, according to the working by which he, Jesus, is able to even subdue all things to himself. And how did he do that? He did that on the cross. I mean, think about these Indians there in Ecuador. I mean, here you have people who are mass murderers, really, right? I mean, they're running around as, in some sense, they were running around as savages. They're killing dozens and dozens of people. They have the physical scars of that. They probably have emotional and mental scars. I was thinking about that. It's like, what kind of dreams do they have? You know, scary dreams, right? But yet God saved them. He reconciled them. But they still have those scars, don't they? They still feel the effects of that fierce life they lived at one time. Their bodies are not yet restored, but their souls are. Think about it. They went from murderers to children of God. They went from wicked to holy in His sight. After one of them were saved, this is the prayer, I should say, of salvation that one of them prayed to God. He says, I look forward, to the hut you are thatching for us in the sky, and I will be happy, right? And in maybe a primitive way, he was saying, I can't wait to be fully restored. And then next, restoration was accomplished because of Christ's death for peace. And it's applied, must be applied to us as well. Look at verse 21. Restoration applied. And you who were once alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. Now Paul personalizes this restoration. It's not just enough to know that Jesus came, died on the cross, rose again, he has provided restoration, but it must be applied to you personally and individually. And that's why in verse 21 he says, and you. That's personal. Restoration must be applied to you in Christ. And notice it's applied in spite of you, not because of you. Most people, when you ask them, you know, how do you think God views you? They say, well, I think God thinks I'm a pretty good person, right? That most people think. I think I'm a child of God. I think I'm a pretty good person. A couple weeks ago, about three weeks ago, I was in the park down in Greenville and I saw this guy that was smoking and I went up and talked to him, decided to engage in conversation with him. And after talking to him a little bit, I asked him if he had any spiritual beliefs. He said, no, I just pretty much, you know, think that you can't really know for certain if there's a God and just try to live the best I can and see what happens at the end of time. And I said, well, if you were wrong, would you want to know? He said, sure, sure. I said, so if there is a God, let's say there is a God, how do you think God views you right now? What is his view of you? And he goes, well, I think I'm a pretty good person. I'm pretty kind. I think he thinks I'm pretty nice. And I said, well, let me ask you a couple of questions. You've probably heard something like this before. And I said to him, have you ever told a lie before? He said, yeah. I said, what does that make you? What does it make you? A liar. That's right. It makes you a liar. So he said, liar. And I said, okay, have you ever stolen something before? He said, yes. And I said, what does that make you? What does it make you? A thief. That's right. Not a stealer. Okay. They live in Pennsylvania. And I said, have you ever looked upon a woman to lust after her? And he said, uh-huh. And I said, oh, well, Jesus said, if you do that, you've committed adultery in your heart. So you're an adulterer at heart. So by your own admission, when God looks at you, he looks at you as a lying, thieving adulterer at heart. And he kind of saw where I was going. I said, now, when you stand before God, what are you gonna say as far as how God views you? What are you gonna tell him? He goes, well, I'm gonna tell him I don't believe you, because I don't believe in you. Okay, so he was ultimately agnostic, and he kind of saw where it was going, didn't like it, and so he decided to talk about some other things. And ultimately the conversation, although we talked about the gospel, it didn't lead him to the knowledge that Jesus Christ was the true God. But you know what's interesting? Even someone like this, this is a good example really of how most people respond. Because most people think, I'm a pretty good person, yeah. And then you kind of go through actually what their deeds are like. You know, what's your life really like? And it's like, oh wait, when you realize actually what you do, you realize actually what? Who you are. And how God views you. And that's what you see down in verse 21 here. He says that the verse 21 teaches that each human is born alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works. And he's saying here, your position as your position is as an enemy to God. And it seemed because you have in your mind, you produce wicked works in your life. Your position is as enemy and your mind produces wicked works. But go to Colossians chapter three, verse six, if you could flip over there. and see our condition before God, our works before God, really result in the end, and that is separation spiritually and eternally. Look at verse number 6, Colossians 3, 6 says, because of these things, and he just listed a couple things like lying, stealing, all those kind of things. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. So that's who we are, right? The sons of disobedience. And so what we need is we need restoration applied to us. And it's not because of our own self. In fact, our own works show that we can't be restored to God. But we need restoration applied to us because of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 21. Which means God can change you. He can change you. When God changes your position, he changes his view of you. Look at verse 22, and he sees you as holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. And it's not because of you, but it's because of Jesus Christ. Jesus has forgiven you. He forgives you and he gives you his very own righteousness. So God wants to transform you back from an enemy to a child. from spiritually dead to holy and blameless and above reproach, from separate from God to being in his presence forever. How does he do that? Verse 22, it says, in the body of his flesh through death. So it's Christ's body, that's speaking of his physical existence on this earth, and then through his death, and that's speaking of his substitutionary death in our place. In fact, this is an interesting verse that talks about reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20 says, we implore you on Christ's behalf. This is what Christ really through us is begging people to be reconciled to God. So each person stands apart from God, separated from God because of their sin. Verse 21, for he, that is God the Father, made him, that is Jesus, who knew no sin. So Jesus was sinless to be sin for us. that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So when Jesus was on that cross, God the Father, he punished Jesus, who was perfectly righteous, who lived a perfect life, he punished him as his enemy. He treated Jesus like the enemy that we actually were. He poured out his wrath on Jesus. He treated Jesus as the murderer. He treated Jesus as the liar. He treated Jesus as the luster. He treated Jesus as a thief. And he dealt with Jesus the way that we deserve to be dealt with. But also, Jesus experienced spiritual separation. Matthew chapter 27, verse 48, it says that when he was on the cross, about the ninth hour, he cried out with a loud voice, and what did he say? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And at that moment, there was a temporary loss of fellowship in the Trinity between the Father and the Son, because Jesus was bearing the sins of the world. And Jesus lost temporary fellowship so that we can have the right to fellowship with God. Matthew chapter 27, verse 51, we symbolically see that in the temple with the tearing of the temple curtain from top to bottom. Jesus suffered the full effect of the curse on the cross. He suffered positionally as an enemy of God. He suffered spiritually. He was separated from his father for a brief time and physically he gave up his life so that we could experience the blessings of restoration through Christ. And next, restoration is available. It's available, but it's available not because of your works, but because of faith in Jesus Christ. Verse 23 says, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. This inner restoration of fellowship and righteousness is available to all, all who continue in the faith. You look down in chapter one, look at verse four, and you can see the faith of these Colossians there. In chapter one, verse four, it says, they heard of the gospel and they placed their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is simply trusting, trusting in Jesus' person and trusting in Jesus' work. But notice it's a conditional statement here. Paul says, you are reconciled and righteous if you continue in the faith. And you see restoration can only be applied to you if you cling in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember when Isaac, my son, who's seven years old now, was a little younger, he used to like to get up on things and just jump off and hope I would catch him, okay? Which is kind of scary, but you know, boys are kind of crazy sometimes. I remember he did that once on the stairs. He was on the stairs there, and I was down there. And I'm not like saying, come to me. He just jumps, you know, supposed to catch him. And you know, you think about something like that, a little boy on the stairs like that, and he jumps to his daddy and I catch him, right? I'm the one that's ultimately catching him, but he's also holding onto me, right? He's holding onto my neck there. And the idea there is that I'm the one, in some sense, saving him, right? But he's holding on in faith and faith to me. And the idea here is that we hold on in faith to our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we don't ever let go. Now, the idea here isn't that if you let go, then God lets go of you. The idea here is those who are truly clinging to Jesus will continue to cling to Jesus. Some look at this and gaff, and they go, oh, is he teaching you can lose your salvation? No, he's not teaching that you can lose your salvation. He's saying that those who are truly saved will continue in the faith. And a person that is not continuing, a person who does not continue to believe in Jesus and trust him for saving faith was a person who in the beginning probably didn't have genuine saving faith. It's important to note here that this is not a one-time decision. You see, sometimes people look at faith in Jesus and they go, well, I prayed this prayer when I was five or six years old, so it's got me my ticket to heaven. I'm pretty good to go, right? That's a lot of people, a lot of Baptists here in Simpsonville think that kind of thing. If you talk to Baptists in Simpsonville, it's like, I prayed when I was a little kid. I had faith once. That's not the idea here in the New Testament. Actually, faith starts, yes, when you're born into the family of Jesus Christ, born of God by the Spirit, not of your own. You start faith then, but it never ends until you die. Colossians chapter 2 verse 6 says, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, what are you supposed to do? Walk in Him. So how did you receive Jesus? By faith. So how are you to walk? By faith. Jesus is talking to a religious Pharisee and this guy thinks he's pretty good and he's talking to Jesus. Here's Jesus, the perfect one. You know, this Pharisee thinks he's a pretty good person. He's trying to figure out, how can I have eternal life? And Jesus says, you must be born again. And so that born again, it was talking about, there must be a point in your life where God regenerates you and you're born into the family of God. And then he says the verse that we all know very well, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes. Now what's interesting there is that's a present tense, which means you could say it like this, that whoever continues to believe. It's not something that starts once and you're done, but faith is something that happens, yes, begins when you're born into the family of God, but it continues on. So faith starts at new birth into the family of God, but must continue on. And your faith is grounded. It's grounded upon the sure gospel. It's grounded upon the sure gospel. And then also, this restoration is available for all people. Verse 23 at the end says, the hope of the gospel, which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister." The idea of preach to every creature is the idea that the gospel is to be preached to every person possible. It's a parallel to what Jesus said. Jesus says, go into all the world and do what? Preach the gospel to every creature. So verse 23 is really a testimony of Paul that he said, listen, I want to go and I want to preach to every person possible. And he calls for us to do the same thing. So we see the full circle here, right? Christ created all. He sustains all. He is preeminent over all. He has made restoration possible for all creation, all people. And we are commissioned to go tell all so they can be applied individually to individuals as they trust in Jesus through faith. Now, Paul wrote this letter to them. Was the task finished for them after the Colossian church got this letter? No. The task, as we are going to learn this next month and focus on, the task remains unfinished. Think about it. Jesus has done everything possible to bring restoration, right? He accomplished it on the cross and through his resurrection. He is working through his spirit in the hearts of people to reconcile people to himself, but he has left the task of telling people about Jesus Christ and the reconciliation that's possible through Jesus. He's left that to us. In fact, a parallel passage of this is a really neat passage. 2 Corinthians 5.18. It says that God has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ. So that's what we talked about. And has given us the ministry. So here's our ministry, the ministry of reconciliation. And that is this. Here's the ministry of reconciliation. That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing the trespasses to them, but has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So that is the task unfinished. Jesus has gone back to heaven, and now we are here as his ambassadors, and we're to go out and tell people about this reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading, and it's interesting, this is the word begging. It's like God is using us to beg to this world. We implore you on Christ's behalf, he's already done the work, be reconciled to God. And here we are, we represent Christ on earth. His spirit is within us. And we get to go out and tell people that God has reconciled, has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God. In the month of February, we're setting aside this entire month for a focus on missions. And as you saw earlier, and Pastor Jerry explained, the theme is facing a task unfinished. We'll have missionaries in here from Africa and from Yap. Where's the other one from? Romania, that's right, Romania. Sorry, I forgot. And we'll be witnessing these missionaries who are finishing in their way the task that God has called for them in those countries. And here, these are men and women who are, in these countries, begging people to be reconciled to God. When I started off the story, I talked about a girl named And let me tell you the rest of the story to finish off. Dayuma heard the message about Jesus and told it to her tribe because there were some people before that that God led down to Ecuador to be ambassadors for Christ. 61 years ago this past month is the anniversary of five men giving their lives to tell the gospel to this tribe. You see these five men, which I have them up there, Nate Saint and Peter Fleming, Roger, Jim Elliott, T. Edward Macaulay, they prayed, they prayed. And secretly, they didn't really tell a lot of people about this. They prayed that God would allow them to have contact with these individuals and tell them about Jesus Christ. Nate Saint flew many, flew the plane. He was the pilot. He flew many missions in there, dropping different gifts and presents to them. And finally, one day, they were actually able to land on a little sandbar and get out. And some of the men came up to them. They were able to talk to them. and they had first contact with him. They were so excited. This was the answer to prayer. God was answering their prayer, and they believed that God was gonna use them to tell them the gospel, and he was, just not in the way that they thought it would happen. On January 8th, 1956, these Indians sent out a girl that happened to be Dayuma's sister. And they kind of sent her out as a prize and as a way to distract them. And then they came out with their spears and their machetes and they killed them. And the result of that encounter, though, was that Deuma, two years after that, Deuma, with Rachel Saint, and that was Nate Saint, the pilot's sister, Elizabeth Elliot, one of the wives of the men there, Jim Elliot, with her child, left civilization and they moved in with these Indians. So here the people who had killed their husbands and brother, they're moving in to tell them the gospel with Deuma. And one of the questions they asked as they had lengthy conversations about things is finally got to those men who had died. And they asked the question, they said, why didn't they use their guns? They saw they had guns and they had guns been used in that tribe a lot to kill them. A lot of people were fierce against them too. Why didn't they use their guns? And these ladies told him, well, they wanted you to know about Jesus. They came to tell you how Jesus can reconcile you to God, how you can have a relationship with God. And then they went right into the story, talking about Jesus. And Jesus, he is the reconciler, and he came to die for you. And these men in this tribe, these ladies in this tribe, Deuma trusted in Jesus Christ. because there were five families that answered the call. God completed the task for these five men and they died on that beach there. And a sister and a wife and their children continued the work, continued the task. And God brought about a great harvest. Jim Elliot wrote in his journal before he died, he wrote this, Are you free to go? Are you willing to face a task unfinished? Christ has called us to go, hasn't he? And sometimes we think about that being far off in the Ecuadorian jungles. But there's a task unfinished here, isn't there? There are people in Simpsonville, there are people in Malden, there are people in Fountain Inn who need Jesus Christ, right? And we are the ambassadors for Christ. Maybe you're in here and you say, you know what? I've never been reconciled to God. Well, you can trust in our savior, Jesus Christ today. Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful for the reconciliation provided through Jesus. It's amazing to think about that you, the God of the universe, sent your son who created all things to live a perfect life, to die on the cross and rise again. God, that you love us. All this sorrow and the burdens that Jesus carried, he carried it for us. Father, I pray for anyone in this room who doesn't know you. May today be the day that they trust in you. But God, for the rest of us, send us. As we go from here, Father, send us to finish the task that you have for us. Help us to carry this word of reconciliation. in Jesus' name. Would you stand with me? We're gonna sing a song right now. Amazing grace, amazing grace, my chains are God. If God is working in your heart, will you respond to him? If you need to respond in faith to be reconciled to God, he's waiting for you. Let's respond to him as we sing.