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Our lives on earth should reflect our heavenly hope.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:16-20, NIV).

This passage of Scripture speaks strongly to me about the new kind of humanity God will create through a process described as “reconciliation.” But before we explore this further, I want to first recognize two “buffer zones,” or “bookends,” that support and shape this message of a “new humanity.”

1. What God has done for each of us personally and individually: Through Christ He extends salvation—complete, total, and never-ending—to all who accept Him as their Savior. He says: “I am not going to hold your sins and transgressions against you. Christ has taken care of that; He paid for it when He died on the cross. And that is enough.” By this act—by this means—He says, we have been reconciled with God.

2. God wants us to tell the world about His salvation: I want you to be my witnesses—my “ambassadors”—says God. Your assignment is to tell everyone who is a stranger to Jesus Christ that God is offering a fresh start, a new start, to every man, woman, and child. This is the “new humanity” He offers, and it is different from anything you have been before. It has to do with basic values and qualities of life. This is the witness you have to bring to the unbelieving world, He says. And I don’t want you to stop doing it until I come again. In fact, I will not come back again until you have done this.

These form the bookends for this new humanity—the personal gift of salvation in Christ, and His second coming, when the full benefit of this gift will be realized. Today we live between these two moments. God says to us: Because of what I have already done for you through the death of my son, Jesus Christ, I will begin now to create a “new humanity” of those who accept Jesus. I will do this in preparation for the second coming of My Son, at which time it will be completed.

Seventh-day Adventists are well familiar with the truth of Christ’s second coming. It has defined us as a community since we began 160 years ago. It is a truth that is solidly based on Scripture. Therefore, we know that His second coming is not an imaginary idea. We know that it is not an unrealistic, vague, existential notion. We know that it will be a real event in time, just as real as His first coming. We know that it will end the ongoing process of history. We know that it is only after the second coming of Christ that we will discover what it really means for Him to “make all things new” (see Rev. 21). If this is not clear to you, or if you do not believe this, you have a major problem with Scripture.

New Relationships

We are people who have been reconciled to God by Christ’s death, and who are awaiting the full consummation of that reconciliation at Christ’s second coming. And so now the big question is: How is this meant to shape our relationship with other people?

Christ says, through the apostle: I am sending you out and I want you to be My ambassadors. Clearly, then, our life and our mission mandate involve relationships with people on a comprehensive, grand scale. How is that to be?

Reconciliation with God translates into reconciliation between people—people who, for one reason or another, have been estranged and hostile to each other. It is not enough to preach reconciliation between an individual and God; there has to be reconciliation between people. It is with this in mind that God says: My intention is to make of you “a new humanity” (see Eph. 2:11-18).

What does this “new humanity” look like? “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17, NIV). The new humanity has a new attitude in relationships with other people; in Paul’s words: “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view” (2 Cor. 5:16, NIV). The world of prejudices looks at the external—what immediately meets the eye—and judges you on that basis. That, says Paul, will not do for reconciled people. We do not value people by external considerations such as wealth, status, position, education, race, color of skin, language, culture, tribal identity, gender, or age.

We are a global church. How is the church in your country doing in this regard? People are on the move, and we are constantly in contact with people who are different from us. Do the differences bother you? Some people we meet are dispossessed by war, some are victims of poverty, and others are just seeking better opportunities for their children. We meet them by the millions in the more highly developed countries. Wars, poverty, or ethnic persecution, whether it be in the Balkans, in Eastern Europe, in Sudan, in the Middle East, in the rest of Africa, or in Asia, have set masses of people on the move.

How do we deal with this flood of “strangers”? Is it the flood—the fact there are so many—that is the problem, or is it that they are “strangers”? What if they are Adventists? Do our basic sentiments change? Yes, I know, we are to treat with particular kindness those who are our brothers and sisters in faith, but we also have an obligation to relate to people just simply because they are human beings—whether in the faith or out of it.

In Ephesians 2:11 Paul speaks of the “circumcision” and the “uncircumcision.” The setting is the barrier between Gentiles and Jews. The Jews called the Gentiles the “uncircumcision”—a description of contempt, because the Jews had nothing but contempt for the Gentiles. There was a saying among the Jews that God created the Gentiles to be the fuel for the fires of hell. Until Christ came the barriers between Jews and Gentiles were absolute. Marriage could not cross that line. Even to enter a Gentile house was for a Jew to become unclean. Before Christ, the barriers were up. After Christ, the barriers are down.

The Gentiles had no hope of the Messiah. They were described as being “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants” (Eph. 2:12, NIV). They were considered to be without promise, without hope, without God, and without a future. To the Gentiles history was cyclical—it was going nowhere. By contrast, to the Jews history was a march toward God. Even in their most bitter and defeated moments, the Jews never doubted that the Messiah would come and the future would be glorious.

What does it mean to be a stranger to the covenants on which the promises were made? Israel was the covenant people. They believed that God had handpicked them in preference to all other peoples. He said: “I will take you to me for a people” (Ex. 6:7, KJV). This was both a privilege and a responsibility. It involved keeping the law that God gave them. And they affirmed: “All the words which the Lord has said we will do” (Ex. 24:3, 7). It was a grave and serious commitment, but it gave to the Jews a special consciousness of being the chosen people of God. This is a mind-set Paul was well aware of, for it was part of his own heritage and culture. It is a mind-set that could be a problem.

Maybe it is good to pause just for a moment and reflect on what it does to you and me if we believe we are God’s handpicked people. Is it wrong to believe we are God’s movement of destiny? I think not, but the big question is: What does it do to our self-consciousness and to our relationships with other people? How genuinely open and caring can we be toward others? Can we function in an inoffensive way as witnesses for God?

No More Barriers

Paul continues, and here we see the “newness”: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ…. He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:13, 14, NIV). This “dividing wall” is a symbol from the Temple. There was the court of the Gentiles; then there was the court of women; then the court of the Israelites; followed by the court of the priests and the Most Holy Place. It all had to do with access to God’s presence. No foreigner could go into the inner courts of the Temple, and for someone from another nation to violate the sanctity of the Most Holy Place would result in death.

This kind of religious or cultural barrier was not unique to the Jews. The Greeks had the same as they related to the “barbarians,” on whom they similarly looked with contempt. Refugees, people—foreigners—who come from a foreign land, are very commonly viewed with suspicion. Consciously or unconsciously we may ask: “What luggage, in terms of crime or even just different cultural habits, do they carry?” There is a saying: “Unknown makes unloved.” Is this the kind of measured apprehension we have toward foreigners who come and invade our space?

But the text says that people reconciled to God relate to other human beings differently. “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.” That is a foundational statement for us as Seventh-day Adventists to take with us as we relate individually to people who are different from us. It is true in respect to how we view anybody, but it is all the more true about how we view people who are part of our spiritual community. In the church, an international and cross-cultural community, we see and treat diversity as an enrichment factor, not as something negative. Racial discrimination and a sense of racial superiority do not belong within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A sense of respect or disrespect must not arise from either wealth or poverty, formal education or none, public position or the lack of such. We will treat all people with a sense of respect and dignity, for we are all children of God.

We have in so many countries around the world a considerable number of “ethnic” or national churches. They are churches to which people, immigrants or refugees, can come and taste and feel a bit of their own home culture, speak their own language, sing their own songs, and nurture much-needed social links. That is the reality we live with in which people are on the move, and many of them are our brothers and sisters. That is how we must accept those who have come into our areas—into our space. “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19, NIV).

Being reconciled to God causes barriers to be gone! As God reached out to His reconciled people and embraced them, so reconciled people reach out to each other and embrace. Being “reconciled” is inclusive, affirming, and nonjudgmental. Yes, they may come into your space; yes, they may take your job; yes, they may eat your food; but we are joined as human beings by values that are greater.

I have to come back to what I have commented on many times before, namely the engagement of youth in the life of our local congregations. We say: “They are too young. They lack experience.” I say: experience is overrated. Get the right personal qualities and personality. Experience will come with exposure to the assignment. Inclusion, affirmation, and empowerment come first. Only after you have done that do you come to the next question: are they able to do it? You make sure first that the spiritual gifts, personal values, and commitment are in place. And then, let us help them to be able!

Paul’s discussion of the removal of barriers among God’s people is in the context of unity. Suppose two people have a quarrel and a difference. How can that be resolved? The surest way to bring the two sides together is through a mediator—someone whom they both love and respect. That is what Christ is. He is our peace. He heals broken relationships. He reconciles (Eph. 2:14). It is God’s plan that the people who share faith and hope, and who live in anticipation of Christ’s second coming, should be bonded and united as one. This is a sacred bond ministered to by the Holy Spirit. These are Paul’s words: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3, NIV). This is why Christ, during the last few hours He was with His disciples before His death, underscored repeatedly the importance of unity. He prayed: “… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me…. May they be brought to complete unity” (John 17:21-23, NIV). The catalyst that brings this about is the love ministered by the Holy Spirit.

When Paul makes the point that Christ made “a new humanity out of the two,” he chooses the word for “new” (kainos), which means a new quality (not new in time), meaning “newness” of a different kind. The newness that Christ achieved is not that He made all Gentiles into Jews or Jews into Gentiles. By becoming reconciled to God one does not become deculturized or denaturalized; you don’t lose your racial, tribal, national, or cultural characteristics. You just become, additionally, what you were not before: citizens of God’s everlasting kingdom. People on both sides of the previous dividing line have been reconciled to God. Through Christ people from “all sides” have equal access to the Father (Eph. 2:18).

By what language does the Bible describe the relationship between reconciled people? “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2, NIV); “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger” (Eph. 4:31, NIV); “Do nothing out of selfish ambition … but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3, NIV); “As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with … kindness…. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another” (Col. 3:12, 13, NIV); “Live in harmony…. Do not repay evil with evil” (1 Peter 3:8, 9, NIV); “God has called us to live in peace” (1 Cor. 7:15, NIV). Living in peace is the commission that the Lord Himself gave when He said: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9).

Pardoning Grace

This all demonstrates the different kind of person that you and I are meant to be. In addition to the word “love,” the one word that catches my attention more than any other in a reconciled community is the word “forgiveness.” It is difficult to find any word that describes the Christian attitude better than the readiness to forgive. We have all been faulted; we all need forgiveness. As Albert Schweitzer wrote: “Why do I forgive anyone? I must forgive the lies directed against myself, because my own life has been so many times blotted by lies; I must forgive the lovelessness, the hatred, the slander, the fraud, the arrogance which I encounter since I myself have so often lacked love, hated, slandered, defrauded, and been arrogant.”¹

We have this in common: we are all sinners in need of forgiveness!

“Forgiveness” does not trivialize sin; it heals the damage and hurt caused by it. That is as true for the relationship between God and humanity as it is for the relationships between people.

Listen to the inspired words of the Lord’s servant: “The ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of God, but by our attitude toward others we show whether we have made that love our own…. He who is unmerciful toward others shows that he himself is not a partaker of God’s pardoning grace.”²

“In the consciousness of sins forgiven there is inexpressible peace and joy and rest…. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.’ … Ps. 23:4.”³

God, who reconciled us to Himself in Christ Jesus, has appointed us, as His ambassadors, to be ministers of reconciliation. That is our assignment, our mission, until He comes again when we shall see Him face to face, as literally as we see and greet each other here today, and we shall hear from Him the blessed words: “Well done, good and faithful servant! … Come and share your master’s happiness” (Matt. 25:23, NIV).

Source: AdventistsWorld.com
Author: Jan Paulsen is president of the General  Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. References:¹ A. Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, II, p. 260. ² Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 251. ³ Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, pp. 267, 268.

Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders announced financial restraints and cutbacks to deal with the current economic situation, ranging from delaying pay increases and budgeted increases in appropriations to reducing travel budgets and relocating executive meetings. Also, a hiring freeze is in effect for the church's General Conference, one of several entities at the church's headquarters building near Washington, D.C.

The moves come in response to global economies facing declines in stock market value, a credit crunch and increased unemployment rates, realities that could significantly affect tithe and other contributions to local congregations and administrative offices worldwide.

Church finance officers will review the church's budget in mid-February, shortly after new tithe and offerings figures will be available. Leaders emphasized the church was not in a "crisis" mode, but making short-term changes until they have a clearer understanding of where the economy and financial markets are headed.

"We believe that the time frame is not long," said the church's treasurer, Bob Lemon. "If we felt this was going to last 3 to 5 years or was permanent we could look at other changes. But we can cover for a short period of time until we have a clearer picture."

Officers announced the approved measures Monday, November 17, during a special meeting with employees following regularly scheduled worship in the building's auditorium.

Leaders also said they valued employees' sense of security in their work and would do their "utmost" to protect it.

Changes include:

Keeping 2009 wages at the 2008 rate for General Conference salaried staff and hourly employees. Normal step increases for those not at the maximum of their pay grade will still be implemented.
A 20 percent reduction in travel budget for GC staff.
Delaying a $3.5 million supplemental budget for the church's Kenya-based Adventist University of Africa until after a mid-2009 review. The Executive Committee approved the supplement during Annual Council in October.
Holding off a scheduled 3 percent increase in appropriations to world Division regions and institutions until after a review in three months.
Holding the April Executive Committee's Spring Meeting inhouse instead of at the church's Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. While the Executive Committee generally meets outside of Washington once every five years, committee members would already be in Washington for pre-meetings, leaders said.
Shortening the President's Executive Administrative Council meeting and holding it at the church's headquarters instead of at an offsite location.
Delaying the implementation of a document management system.

Lemon announced that future construction of the Hope Channel/Adventist Television Network studio will proceed because of signed contracts, which would be expensive to break.

He also announced that the hiring freeze and travel budget reduction would not apply to field staff of the General Conference Auditing Service, an entity that would have to otherwise hire external auditors to complete audits.

The restraints come a month after the Executive Committee voted to give the Administrative Committee the ability to withhold implementation of some aspects of budgets.

The Administrative Committee will conduct a major review of the restraints by February 17, with subsequent reports every two months following.

Church finance officers have continually monitored the economy. In September, church investment manager Roy Ryan said the church was not changing its investment strategy, maintaining a conservative, long-term approach for retirement funds.

"The Lord and His people are immensely faithful, even when they face hardships," church world president Jan Paulsen said at Monday's meeting. "So we go into the future with assurance, but at the same time with a sense of responsibility that we will have been prudent and careful".

"We praise the Lord and are privileged to serve Him, also in difficult times," he said.

Source: ANN Adventist News Network

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