Just as the cross of Christ has two beams, vertical and horizontal, so is the nature of Christ’s reconciling work on the cross. Ethnic unity in the church isn’t merely an application of the gospel, it is a continuing extension of the gospel. When we settle for a gospel that only speaks to matters of vertical reconciliation without horizontal reconciliation we are settling for an impoverished, truncated, and incomplete gospel. One of the more powerful ways we declare the gospel of Christ is in how we display the body of Christ as an ethnically unified and reconciled people. The work of ethnic unity and reconciliation in the church is an embodied testimony and witness to the power of the gospel. Because the gospel makes us and moves us to be family. But we risk losing the credibility of this testimony and witness to the gospel as the church when we at best see the work of ethnic unity and reconciliation as merely a fringe benefit of the gospel, and at worst see it as a distraction from the gospel.
Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/48948513
22.09.11
