Upward, Inward, Outward
By Dr. Derwin Gray
At the heart of the gospel is that God wants his family back. This reunion is called reconciliation. We have gone astray, detached and dislocated from the Creator. As a result of our cosmic betrayal, we have found ourselves enslaved with no means of escape.
But God, who is rich in mercy, filled with “I-am-coming-to- get-my-kids-kind-of-love,” sent Jesus as a peace offering so we can be reconciled to him. At the heart of the gospel is reconciliation.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col. 1:19–20)
God in Christ brings us near through his shed blood. We are moved from being enemies to family, from foes to friends, from orphans to sons and daughters. Even creation itself will be made new through the shed blood of Jesus. In Jesus, “faithful love and truth will join together; righteousness and peace will embrace” (Ps. 85:10).
Through Jesus, peace himself, “we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). God’s peace enables us to live out this truth—“If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone”—across ethnic, socioeconomic, and political lines, starting in the household of God, and then to those outside the family of God (Rom. 12:18; Col. 4:5).
But like any gift, we must take hold of it, and unwrap it with grateful hearts, and live from it in the way our lungs take in oxygen.
We are forever God’s family through the reconciling grace of Jesus. That’s the good life!
God’s peace and the doctrine of reconciliation are two sides of the same coin: “But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds” (Isa. 53:5). By grace, we are carried into the community and unity of God. We are eternally friends of God. Since God has made peace with us, we can now make peace with ourselves.
Our fussy souls calm down as we rest in God’s grace and forgiveness.
Our anxious hearts rest in knowing that our slate has been wiped clean.
Our hearts find peace because Peace found us and said, “You are no longer an orphan, you are my daughter or my son.”
He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. (Eph. 1:5–6)
The separation between us and God is nailed to the cross and the relationship that God the Father has with God the Son is a gift we now possess. Inwardly, as we steady ourselves in the grip of God’s grace, we can begin to love ourselves because our worth is found in the infinite value of Jesus. Our inner peace is shaped, not by external factors, but by the eternal cross of Christ. Marinate on this:
For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation. (Rom. 5:10–11)
Paul says we also “rejoice” because of the reconciliation we have with God. We are happy because God says we are his friends. We are his children. We are his. It’s like God is saying, “The wall that divided us—I knocked it down by plunging through it with my Son on the cross. His cross is the bridge that unites us.” Happiness is knowing that we are loved by God. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, was the peace offering sent so we could become peacemakers. I want to share a story about how peacemakers make the powers of darkness tremble in fear.
Dr. Derwin Gray is the founding and lead pastor of Transformation Church, a multiethnic, multigenerational, mission-shaped community located in Indian Land, South Carolina, just south of Charlotte, North Carolina.