God and Man Reconciled?
Pastor Tan Thai · Dec 1, 2022
This Christmas sermon raises two important questions: why God and humanity need reconciliation, and whether that reconciliation has truly taken place. Beginning with the separation caused by sin, the pastor shows that God took the initiative to reconcile humanity to Himself through the incarnation and atoning death of Jesus Christ.
This Christmas sermon draws its title from a phrase in the beloved carol 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing': 'God and sinners reconciled.' Rather than affirming this reconciliation as a self-evident fact, the pastor places a question mark over the phrase and leads the congregation to wrestle with two core issues: why reconciliation between God and humanity is needed, and whether that reconciliation is genuinely taking place in today's world.
The first section establishes why God and humanity need reconciliation. God is the Creator who made humanity in His image (Genesis 1:27-28), but sin created a separation between people and God (Isaiah 59:2). All human effort falls short of bridging that broken relationship (Romans 3:23-24), because salvation comes by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Using the moving illustration of a prodigal son released from prison, the pastor emphasizes that God, out of His love, took the initiative to restore the broken relationship through Jesus Christ, as declared in John 3:16.
The second section confronts the reality that not everyone accepts God's Christmas gift. The pastor cites concrete examples: atheist billboard campaigns in America, Karl Marx's declaration that religion is the opium of the people, Friedrich Nietzsche's proclamation that 'God is dead,' and Voltaire's prediction that the Bible would disappear. The pastor argues that despite these figures having long since died, God continues to live in the hearts of billions of believers worldwide, and the Bible remains the world's best-selling book.
The pastor uses the two kings in the Christmas narrative — Caesar Augustus and King Herod — to illustrate that everyone lives under the influence of various 'lords' in their lives, such as money, status, success, or personal ambitions. These rival lords constantly seek to drive the King of Heaven out of a person's life, just as Herod sought to kill the infant Jesus. This is the profound spiritual competition that every person must confront.
The sermon concludes with a personal call to respond, grounded in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 and Colossians 1:21-22, affirming that God has reconciled the world to Himself through Jesus Christ. The pastor invites every listener to trust and receive Christ in order to be truly reconciled with God, and reminds believers that they have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation — carrying the message of peace to others.