Reconcile

Date
2026-08-14
Speaker
Rev. Edward Jjumba
Book
Genesis, Matthew, Psalm, Psalms, Romans

Speaker: Rev. Eddie Jjumba
Sermon Scriptures: Psalm 133; Genesis 45:1-15; Matthew 15:10-20; Romans 11:1-2, 29-32

“Nevertheless, we do have a word for the day and it’s a very simple word. Yes, when I was reading some commentaries they said we put this word—especially Christians, we put this word on banners, we put it all over the place—but he was cautioning and he was saying that word is messy. It’s a messy word; it is not as simple as it appears because it brings so much out of us to be able to truly, truly reconcile.

Have you ever walked into a room and felt like you were completely a stranger? Walk in a room, maybe picture—give me that image. Give me the image of a family reunion table. Have you ever walked in a room where people, a family, had gathered to have maybe a meal and you accidentally just end up in that group, like that guy right in the middle, and before you know it you’re eating their food? So it’s not your food.

I want you to think about that. I want you to think about that image as we take some time together. That tension when you realize that you are in the wrong place. Yes, it could be the right time, the right food, but you realize that this is not your table. This is not your food. The tension between you and the people who are the owners of the food—that tension is what we are talking about this morning. That’s what we are stepping into today, and we want all of us to personalize this so that we can make the most meaning out of it. Let’s not think it’s for the other guy who didn’t come to church today.

We are looking at a God who specializes in crushing down all those tensions, all those divides. There’s a story in the Bible where we read about a man called Joseph, and many of you would be somewhat familiar with that story. We are looking at Joseph standing before the brothers who left him to die. Anybody ever left you to die?

Anybody ever did something so evil to you that you were literally or metaphorically dying, and they could extend a hand to save you, but they just let you continue to die or continue to suffer? Think about that person. Maybe some of you have people like that. Maybe some of you don’t. If you don’t, maybe you will. I’m not prophesying doom; I’m speaking about the story of Joseph. This is truly what happened to him. His brothers left him to die in the literal sense of the word.

We are talking about this growing church in Rome where, when the church started, it was mostly occupied by Jews. And when the king—a little context there, Romans 11—when the king at the time, who can guess the name of the king? Bible readers? Claudius. When King Claudius got rid of all the Jews, the church almost became empty. And now the Gentiles, the people who were born in Rome, started occupying the church because they were coming to Christ. People continued coming to Christ even though the Jews had been expelled.

Now, this king—I don’t know, there’s a little joy in me, but I think that’s an evil joy—this king dies at some point. You know, all of us will come to that place. No matter how much you think you have the power to turn the world around, there comes a time and you die. Now, when you die, you don’t really have control over what happens. So anyway, King Claudius dies, and when he dies, the Jews start coming back to Rome. Now when they come, those who came back to the church, they were not very welcomed.

They were not very welcomed. So there was a big tension. And this is when Paul writes the letter to the church in Rome, brother Steve. So he finds—are you following the story? We had a church. Let’s take Milliken church for example. Let’s say we have a church here that is occupied by one specific ethnicity, and—I don’t know, God forbid—some crazy politician expels that ethnic group out of Markham. But then after a few years he dies, or she dies—whoever that politician is—and now people start trickling back. But when they trickle back, they find the church now has been occupied by a different group of people, but they are also believers in Christ, but they’re doing some cultural things that were very different. They’re eating pork. So the Jews were against that. They’re doing all manner of things. Oh, I feel tempted to give live examples. Somebody told me there was a time in the history of the church when drums were an abomination.

So they come back and people are playing drums, people are doing all these things that they didn’t consider okay to do for a Christian. And now there’s a big tension between the returning Christians—mark you, all of them are Christians—there’s a tension between the returning Christians and the Gentiles who were there. And this is when Paul writes to the church and says, ‘Guys, you have to drop this nonsense.’ Literally. Well, a little bit of a paraphrase there, but really this is what he says. He says, ‘You have to drop this nonsense.’ And he says that in so many other words, but the Bible actually, in the commentary, says he yells at them. He yells at them for doing that.

But I want to draw your attention to this image of the tree. So if you ever felt too broken to be forgiven, or if you ever looked down on someone thinking they are too far from being forgiven, maybe this word is for you today.

But I want you to address your mind to this image, or give me that image of the tree. How many of you know the concept of grafting? People who are familiar with agriculture would know that. Okay, some people—oh, she was on a farm in Nova Scotia? Yeah, so she definitely would know about grafting. But grafting is… the science behind it is you can take a tree—in this case, that little branch that he has is from a tree that wasn’t doing so bad; in fact, he says it’s from a tree that was bearing fruit that you could not really eat. So he takes that tree, he cuts that branch, and he connects it. Really, grafting is like connecting, but a little bit more than that: he connects it to the tree that already is known to bear good fruit. And just a matter of time, this branch now also starts bearing good fruit.

And Paul gives them this image because they could easily relate to this image. And he’s saying to them, ‘Now you, who is a branch that couldn’t even bear fruit, you have been now connected to this tree that is able to bear good fruit, you’re now bearing good fruit, and now you’re taking pride and you’re excluding others who cannot bear good fruit. You’re forgetting that you were that tree just a few years ago. You were that tree that could not bear fruit.’ In fact, he reminds them that the roots—the roots that are responsible for the fruit you’re giving—are not your roots.

There’s a preacher in the book—I don’t know if the book is The Man Who Planted Trees [referencing The Man Who Planted Trees / Acorn]—but he says that my fruit grows on other people’s trees. Can you think about that for a second? Would you be okay if your fruit grew on other people’s trees? Would you be okay with that? It invites us to be okay with that. I just remembered that that image.

But the illustration here is to humble us, because none of you—how many of you here are Jews? Who knows, some people might be Jews, so I don’t want to make an assumption, because I know on the 12th we are going to be visited by a brother, he’s a preacher, he’s a follower of Jesus Christ who is a Jew, he’s going to visit us on the 13th, I think, September, he’s going to be the one to preach. Please make sure you invite as many people. It’s going to be a great Sunday. But except for people like him, all of us are Gentiles in the context here of what Paul is talking about.

So because we are now in Christ, we cannot and we should not think that there are other people who are so far from being redeemed because of how they behave right now, because of how much maybe they have taken before they come to Christ. Maybe some of you, it is family members, and boy, you have prayed, you have fasted, you have maybe even yelled at them sometimes, you have tried to choke your Jesus down their throat some days, and none of it has worked yet. So ‘yet’ is the key word there.

Don’t cancel them out. Don’t consider them irredeemable, because he has just reminded us that no, even you who is now in Christ, there was a time when you were that tree that doesn’t bear fruit. But now you have been grafted and connected and now joined to this tree that has good root, and now it’s bearing fruit.

Be humble. Be humble in your attitudes towards people that don’t know Christ yet. Today is primarily about that. If you understand that, we have understood everything. We want to have a different attitude towards people that don’t have Christ yet. But he uses the example of Joseph because it also needs to be personal first. It needs to be a personal message first before you think of the globe, before you think of the village, before you think of the rest of the world.

A super quick look at point number one: reconciliation overcomes your deepest betrayal. For example, look at Genesis chapter 45 where we read: Put yourself in the shoes of Joseph’s brothers. What would be your first words? Sister Ivonne, you were the man in charge—you literally have what it takes to order anyone to die, and they will die instantly. You have that much power. That’s how Joseph was. And now, so many years down the road, you come face to face with this group of people, your brothers, your sisters, who left you to die. What would be the first words that come from your mouth as you reveal yourself to them?

What would be the first words that come to—why are you laughing so hard like that, Nicole? Maybe somebody might say, ‘You crossed me. Once you crossed me…’ Somebody might say those kinds of words. Yeah, might say, ‘Yeah, you left me to die. It’s my turn. It’s my turn.’ Somebody might say words like that. What might you say, or what have you said already? Maybe some of you, we are talking about things that have already happened. Somebody left you to die, and you had an opportunity now to encounter them, except this time you were the one in power or you had some kind of advantage over them. What did you say? What did you do? Where did you punch them? Which part of their body did you punch them? Because people who know about punching, there are places where you can punch and it hurts the most, or it knocks the person down instantly. How hard did your blow damage the other person?

They threw him in a pit. They listened to him beg for his life. This was a very sad scenario. They listened to him beg for his life, so that means there’s something they could have done to save his life. They sold him to slavery. As if that was enough, they went back and lied to their dad about what had happened. So they built a life on a foundation of all these lies and buried secrets.

Now fast forward: this man, because of this big famine that hits the area, they now travel to Egypt, and there they are standing in front of the most powerful man at that time in that region. And the first words that come from his mouth as a way of revealing himself to them—he just speaks to them in the language they could understand and says, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ Those are the first words that came from his mouth. He didn’t think revenge. He didn’t think, ‘It’s my turn to get even with you.’ That’s not where his mind was.

But can you imagine the terror that came to the brothers once they realized that, ‘Oh man, this is the person that we left to die, and now he’s the boss. He’s the man in power. He’s definitely going to do something harmful to us.’ And he did not. He could have; he had every power. Someone might even say he had every reason to, but he did not. He didn’t say, ‘Now it’s my turn.’ But he says—he literally says word for word—he says, ‘Come close to me. Do not be distressed, and do not be angry with yourselves, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.’

Do you catch the language there? He says, ‘God sent me.’ So, in other words, it’s not them who sent him. He says it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. Now, I’m not here saying go and thank your betrayer or thank the guy who really crossed you or did you so much damage. No, I’m not saying that. But I say, boy, take something from this, take a lesson from Joseph. Joseph reframes their sin through the lens of God’s sovereignty. This whole idea that ultimately God is at work in everything under the sun—that lens is sometimes so hard for us to work from, but that is the lens, that is the framework that Joseph uses as he responds to them.

Now, he’s not saying what they did wasn’t evil. In fact, the only reason we forgive people is because what they did could not be excused. I said this a few times standing here: we forgive people because the thing they did to us cannot and should not be excused. That’s why we forgive people. Otherwise, forgiveness would be just a redundant word that means nothing. We forgive because what they did cannot be and should not be excused. In that, Joseph declares that God’s grace is bigger than their violations or their betrayal, whatever word is appropriate to you, whatever word you want to use. God’s grace is always bigger than that.

Point number two: There’s a shocking history of the unbroken promise. God’s promise does not break at any point. Doesn’t matter how much the person fails, God’s promise remains because it’s a covenant. It’s not a contract based on your failings or your achievements. It’s God being faithful, that he promises that while we were still sinners, as we said there earlier, he chose to forgive us.

To really fully understand this, you have to remember the context I just gave you there at the beginning—at the beginning when the emperor got rid of the Jews, and now they are coming back, and the church is filled with other people that are different from them, and now they get into it and there’s a whole clash that happens because of that. And Paul asks them a question that we both read, he writes the Roman [church] into this arrogant environment and he says to them, asking the question: ‘Did God reject his people?’

Anybody remembers the answer? It was an absolute no. He said no, he did not. God did not reject his people. So who are you to consider anybody fully and totally rejected, whether in the sense of coming to Christ, or whether in the sense of reconciliation? Paul points out that if God could just rip up his contract with Israel because they stumbled, then nobody is safe. None of us—not you, not me—would be safe. But in verse 29, he says, ‘God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.’ Irrevocable. They cannot be redone. They cannot be taken away. He cannot go turn around and say, ‘No, I don’t forgive you any longer,’ or, ‘Now I’m going to put Christ back on the cross, I’m going to bring him back so that your state of sin remains as it was before he died on the cross.’ He won’t do that because it is against his nature.

And the last one here is the humbling reminder that you, me, we are all guests at someone else’s tree. The good fruit you’re bearing—you did not plant the roots, or you didn’t water the soil. This is really truly the image that Paul wants the church in Rome, or the church at Milliken, to register deep down: that unless you are a Jew, don’t pride in being a Christian as if you are the owner of that thing called Christianity. But boy, be proud that you’re bearing good fruit! And he’s using the image of being in Christ: we bear good fruit. We can bear good fruit, we should bear good fruit when we are in Christ.

I’m going to draw your attention to three, maybe two, actions as we conclude our time here.

And the action that I want to draw your attention to number one is: See beyond the grudge. And of course some of you are saying, ‘Oh pastor, you have no idea what you’re talking about, you young man. What have you seen when it comes to grudges?’ Maybe you’re right. Maybe nobody has left me to die as they did to you. Yeah, some people have done some evil things to others.

But even that person—now I’m going to challenge you—that person who deeply wronged you, think of your own version of Joseph’s brothers. Maybe that’s a better example. Think of Joseph’s brothers: they did so much harm, they did so much deception, they did so much evil to him. And as the story goes, really, you can’t catch any—besides the dreams he was dreaming maybe a little bit too much, but besides that there’s nothing you could say they were revenging because he did so much harm to them also; this is why maybe they were selling him off—not really, you can’t find anything like that, at least in the story. I’m not saying he was a perfect boy, because no one is anyways. But we are saying that even that person who wronged you so deeply—we are still applying this, we are saying stop praying for their downfall, and start asking God to show you how you can use that painful chapter of your life to build character and to save others.

Find a way of using that painful incident in your life, and instead of praying for the death of the other person—anybody here has ever prayed for the death of someone? Oh, we have all these good heaven-bound people that don’t pray for any… they only pray good things, never prayed for any harm to go to anyone. Even the person behind you, never prayed any? No? Oh man, we have good people in this church! [laughter] You should read the Psalms! Or you prayed for someone… oh, I thought somebody had their hand up.

But he says, ‘Stop praying for their downfall. Start praying that God gives you the grace to see how you can use that incident to be the very person that others might come to Christ because of, or as a result of that incident.’ As a result of that. I acknowledge that what I’m talking about maybe brings out some difficult things for people that they would rather not remember, or they would not even want to talk about yet. I encourage you to do the same thing.

Pastor—when Pastor P came here, she told you, I remember, I wasn’t here, but I listened to the message—she told you, ‘Don’t follow your heart.’ You know why? Because in our heart, the Bible says there are so many deposits that are evil, and sometimes they can be seen in our actions and in our words. So don’t follow your heart. Teach your heart. Re-educate your heart. Give it instructions. Don’t follow it, you got to give your heart instructions. And those instructions have to align with what the word of God teaches.

Confront any form of spiritual pride that would be in you. I’m not saying tomorrow, or I’m not saying next year, I’m saying now, start that as a way of living.

And the last one: Extend a seat at your table. There’s some man who says that there’s always one extra seat at the table. Think of that image for a minute. Many of you would understand this when it comes to eating; some of you are always ready to share food with others. Think of that when it comes to the lost. When it comes to your attitude toward the lost. When you see the church doing things that would eventually help more people to see there’s a church here, more people to see that, okay, it is safe to come to Christ.

Oh man, I was so challenged. I read this thing earlier in the week, that there are two reasons people don’t become Christians, brother George. He said the first reason is because they have never met a Christian. But do you know the second reason? The second reason is because, Nicole, they have met a Christian.

Two reasons, brother Steve! Two reasons people don’t become Christians: