All right. Second Corinthians chapter 5,
verses 17 to 21. The Bible says, therefore, if
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to
himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of
reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead be
reconciled to God, for He hath made Him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him. Today we're going to deal with
this subject of reconciliation. We will see first and point #1
if you're following along the work of reconciliation, the work
of reconciliation, see something had to happen for man to be
reconciled to God. And you maybe didn't know this,
but this is your greatest need. If you could maybe think about
what does the world need or what do I need?
We all want security, money, purpose.
We all want to fix the planet, make it a better place, make
America great again, or whatever.
You know, I don't mean to be political, but we all want
things to improve. And what really is the thing
that will improve society? Is it reform?
What really will fix my life? Is it more income?
And your greatest need, whether you want to admit it or not, is
that you need to be reconciled to your Creator.
This word reconciled is used multiple times in verse 18.
Who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ in verse
19, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
himself. And in verse 20 the request is
be reconciled to God. This is your greatest need.
So just in case you aren't familiar with the word, maybe
it's been a long time since you've been to English class.
The word reconcile is to conciliate anew, to
reconciliate, to call back into union and friendship the
affections which have been alienated, to restore after
estrangement. Maybe you see some of those
words and think that's that's pretty intense to think that I
need to be restored to God. Most people think they're a good
person, but the the reality is that we need to be conciliate
with God and we are alienated. As it says, that's a pretty
intense word as well. We are estranged as in we don't
by nature have a relationship. We may understand who he is.
He's certainly at work in our life and in the the whole world.
But as far as connection in relationship goes, the Bible
uses a couple of those words. Alienated is a Bible word.
Colossians chapter 1 In Colossians one it mentions the
the previous life of a Christian before you were saved, that you
were alienated and enemies. Yet now hath he reconciled, you
have been conciliate again. Romans chapter 5 similar
language. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son.
This isn't just that you're kind of a good enough person to get
to heaven. The standard is holiness and all
have fallen short. We are all enemies of God until
we are saved. So I put it to you this way in
your notes. We must know that we are lost
and separated from God to be saved.
If you don't think you need saving, then the gospel will not
really have much value to you. And maybe you've met people like
that. You try to share the gospel with
them and they're like, Nah, I'm fine, I'm good.
I think I'll make it to heaven anyway.
On their own merit, not on the merit of Christ.
So you, so people need to understand their lostness.
That's your greatest need. Secondly, you need to know that
Jesus did all the work for you to be reconciled to God.
Many of us would think, I have things that I've done, if we're
honest with ourselves, I've had things that I've done that I'm
ashamed of or I know I shouldn't have done, and maybe I need to
atone in some way. And what we find, the good news
of the gospel is that you can't atone somebody atone for you.
You don't have to try to make up for all of your past sins.
Now, if you are in relationship with other people and you've
done things wrong, you should apologize.
You should get right, you know, do what you know to do.
But as far as being in right fellowship with God, there is
nothing you can do to restore the breach of being an
adversary. It had to be done for you.
So first we see that Jesus takes all of your sin.
This verse in verse #21 is absolutely amazing.
The Bible says, For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
This is this is the greatest deal of all time.
Like if you're thinking about game shows like Deal or No Deal,
or if you're hip and modern and you're thinking about Mr. Beast,
who would I betray for $1,000,000, right?
This on the have you seen the show?
You know, they put up people against all these different
things and there's money or choose your friends and but it's
a game show. These people don't know each
other. It's like choose the money.
Come on, it's 1,000,000 bucks, right?
No, that's just, that's how I look at it.
It's a game, but there is no greater deal.
There is nothing that anyone could give you.
There is no exchange that you could ever make that's greater
than the exchange of the cross. That every single thing you've
ever done wrong was placed on Jesus, for he hath made him to
be sin for us. John calls Jesus the Lamb of
God, which takes away the sin of the world.
The book of Galatians, the Bible, says that he gave himself
for our sins. So Jesus is death on the cross.
It's not just accident, it's not political, it's not whoopsie.
It was an intentional, intentional laying down of his
life for us. Hebrews tells us that he
appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. So when you watch the Passion,
when you remember Easter and you think about the crucifixion, you
can know that the thing that put Jesus on the cross was your sin.
Certainly it was the Romans, the Jews, but also we're responsible
as well. He took it upon himself.
So he takes all of your sin, and this is the exchange.
He gives you all of his righteousness.
Verse 21 that that we might be made the righteousness of God.
This is absolutely incredible that we might be made righteous.
You see you, you have, you aren't righteous, you have to be
made righteous. And when God makes you
righteous, it's greater than anything anybody else can do.
Verse 19 says not imputing their trespasses unto them.
So God is no longer taking your trespass or your sin onto you.
It's now been placed onto Christ.
So that word impute is probably not a word you use everyday.
So to impute is to reckon, to properly set or to put.
It comes from the Latin word input O or to put in to input,
right? It's that simple.
You see it, right? So what God does is He no longer
puts your sin on you. Instead He exchanges that and He
puts righteousness into you. We see this in Psalm 32.
This is quoted in Romans chapter 4.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth, not iniquity. So it's no longer on your
account, it has been reconciled, cleared and instead God imputes
something else to you. As Abraham is a picture for us
in Romans chapter 4, it says for us also like Abraham, to whom it
shall be imputed if we believe. So.
You can go read Romans chapter 4.
Maybe that's some homework for you.
The example of Abraham is that he trusted God by faith, and
because of his faith, God put righteousness into Abraham to
say I'm counting him righteousness because he
believed me. And that's the same thing for
us. It is our faith that puts God's
righteousness in us, not because we're deserving based on the
merit of our faith. So I put it to you this way in
your notes that rightness with God is only obtained through
faith in the Gospel. Rightness with God is only
obtained through faith in the gospel.
So so far, this is how you are saved.
Atonement was made on the cross. If you take the greatest deal of
all time, your sin is placed on Jesus and God gives you his
righteousness. And when you choose to believe
by faith, I believe that Jesus died, buried, was buried, and
rose again. I call him Lord God, forgive me,
put my sin on Jesus. I want to be righteous.
I want to be saved. When you choose to do that,
there's a result that happens. The results of reconciliation.
You will forever be changed. It is an unchangeable change
because it was made by God. You were made righteous.
So let's look at this change that we see here in verse 17.
It says therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. So the Christian that believes
the gospel that's taken the deal you're on Mr. Beast and you said
I want the 1,000,000 bucks. I don't care about my friends.
I'm in on Jesus right. You have a new nature.
This isn't just a new religion. It's not just a pattern of good
works. I've got to attend church
because I'm supposed to. Something changed inside of you
the moment that you believed. So there's three things I want
you to see here. We'll hit them briefly, but
first you are placed into Christ.
You are in Christ. This is in verse 17.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, this is just absolutely
amazing that God places you into His Son.
We see that a similar passage, Ephesians chapter 2 says that we
are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
So that word created is very simple, similar to the concept
here in 2nd Corinthians 5 that you're a new creature.
Here it says you're recreated again.
You are created in Christ Jesus. Secondly, we see that you are
passed away. We can just have a funeral right
now. Let's just do it next week.
I'll do that. I'll wear all my I have funeral
attire. I call it like funeral shoes and
stuff that's like just all black.
My wife likes when I give clothes away and clear my closet
out and we purge things, right? And she pointed to those and I
was like, those are my funeral shoes.
They can't go away. I need what if someone dies?
I need black shoes. But let's just imagine you're
right here. You're in a casket in the front
of the room. We all come to grieve.
We mourn the loss today of you. Old things are passed away.
Whoever you think you are, Romans chapter 6 says that we
are buried with him by baptism into death.
This is how we identify with Jesus in the the water of
baptism. It's not the act of baptism, but
the act of baptism represents the spiritual reality that when
I chose to believe, I became a new creature and what happened
to me is I'm actually buried with Christ into death.
It goes on to say that our old man, who I used to be, I'm
actually crucified with him. Well, that's hard to accept,
isn't it? Obviously you're still alive.
You should stay alive. That'd be good.
We're talking about the submission of yourself to God
and the acceptance of the new creature that God made you to
be. Just by way of example for me,
some things that that looked like when I became a Christian,
sort of following God and his word, I brought to the table
about the time I was being discipled A threefold options
for my life. I was going to be a professional
video gamer. I played competitively.
I thought I was good. And the Lord just totally shut
that down. I was in a death metal band.
I can still play guitar, but I'm not the Lord just shut all that
down. And I thought I had a career
path, that I no longer have that career path anymore either.
And certainly it's not wrong to do things with your life, enjoy
your life, do things. But our, our entire identity
changes when we become a Christian.
It all gets surrendered and crucified to say God, you tell
me who you want me to be. My old man has passed away.
And that's bad news. But good news is that you are
made new. There's a new you.
You don't have to worry about grieving the loss of the old
you. The new and improved 1 is
absolutely better, just infinitely better because he's
eternally better. The new you is saved.
You have eternal life man. I mean you have victory over
sin. Verse 17 says he is a new
creature. All things are become new.
All things are of God. This is essentially the rebirth
of you. If you might wonder, you know,
you watch like TV or something or video games or whatever it
is. They use rebirth as like the the
thing that happens to to change and create or develop a new
thing or spin something off again.
And it's really all just ripping off Jesus in John chapter 3 when
he says accept a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom
of God. This is the born again
experience salvation that when we're born a second time through
faith in the gospel, God gives us his Holy Spirit to
permanently indwell us and identify us with him, to be
conciliate and reconciled back to him.
We become a new person. Your personality might even
change. I know when I was lost, I had
taken personality tests that were one thing, and as I began
to follow the Lord, I started to realize maybe I'm not the way I
thought I was. You, you might still retain some
of your personality. By the way, God retains that.
When you read the Psalms, you see King David's personality
through the Psalms. He cares very much about your
life and your experiences. And he can we'll talk in a
moment about using those things, but we need to believe God when
He says that all things are become new.
We need to step into the new creature and the new creature.
Lastly, we'll see today has a new purpose.
If you believe the gospel is true, you have something else to
do with your life than what you used to do.
You now live your life just one moment.
All right, we got it. So you have a new purpose in
verse. Read verse 20 with me.
In Second Corinthians chapter 5 it says, Now then we are
ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by
us. We pray you in Christ's stead be
reconciled to God. So who wrote this?
The book of Second Corinthians is written by the apostle Paul.
It's written to a church in Corinth, essentially Greece that
he he planted prior to this. This is the second technically
the 3rd letter that he's written to them and he's talking about
himself here with the other apostles or his ministry team.
When he says we are ambassadors for Christ, he's talking about
him visiting Corinth with that. The message that I shared with
you in .1 the the God was in Jesus reconciling the world unto
himself. So he says we came as
representatives of Jesus to you as though God did beseech you by
us. So he said God is hitting you up
and he's using us as we come to you and this is now your life as
a Christian. We no longer have apostles that
are outgoing, wild and crazy planting churches doing
miracles. We now have Christians, we are
ambassadors for Christ. So this new purpose that you
have is twofold. We'll see today.
First is to become a minister. It says in verse 18 and and hath
given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
So those of us that believe we have a ministry of service to go
to other people and see them reconciled unto God the same way
as we were, It says we are ambassadors for Christ.
And I'll tell you what, the lost world will never preach the
gospel. People that are not born again
do not care about the gospel. If Christian people don't share
the gospel, nobody will. Who is going to be saved in your
neighborhood, in your Co working space, in your family, unless
you share the gospel with them as though God did beseech you by
us. This is your new life.
You're a minister. Congratulations.
You want to come up here? I'll get you my funeral garb.
I don't have one of those callers, but we'll get you a
caller if you want one. Welcome to the ministry.
This is what Jesus taught us, didn't he?
The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister
and to give his life a ransom for many.
So no doubt we we want you to come to church man, get
discipled and joy being ministered too.
But you got to get equipped because you have a ministry even
in your own life. We all do.
I want to point to an an example.
In first Corinthians chapter 16, Paul mentions these folks, the
House of Stefanus. He says that they have addicted
themselves to the ministry of the Saints.
I just think what a phrase for the Bible to use the word
addicted. Like I can't get enough of
serving other people of the ministry of reconciliation, of
sharing the gospel, of investing in others.
I I just can't stop. I think that should be true of
all of us. We maybe don't always feel like
it. We all need rest, absolutely.
We need to function within our gifting, no question.
But we can all seek other people out that they might be
reconciled. So I put it in your notes.
How can we leverage our identity in Christ to reach others?
I might have put an extra word in there.
That one's free. But just think about for you,
how can you reach others? I know just this week I've been
praying, walking around my neighborhood, praying and
counting the houses and just thinking who's going to reach
them. And I got to confess, I don't
always want to be the one doing that.
As much as I love the ministry, I really do, there is that
social thing of like trying to figure out, hey man, you you
need to get right with Jesus. It's not always easy for us to
do, but how can we leverage that?
How did God make you? What opportunities do you have?
And lastly, let's look at sharing with others.
Verse 19 says, so verse 18 says we're given a ministry.
Verse 19 says that we're committed the word of
reconciliation, the word of reconciliation.
See, the only way anybody's ever going to receive this message is
if it comes out of our mouth. I have a pastor friend in
Vancouver who would say that the gospel is still mouth to ear.
No matter how fancy we make it in digital, we make it.
We can't outsource it. We've got to just talk to
people, and really we need to talk to people with the Word of
God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing
by the Word of God. So we need to be pursuing
conversations that get us to the Scriptures so that the Word of
God can do the heavy lifting and convict of sin and open the eyes
of the blind for people to see Christ.
That might be intimidating for you, but I have it real easy for
you in your notes. At very least you have the
gospel. You maybe can't solve all of the
problems in the world. You maybe don't have a rebuttal
for every atheist or every complexity in the faith, but if
you know that there was an exchange made on the cross the
greatest deal of all time, that's enough.
If you don't have that, I think we have tracks.
I don't know if I have one with me.
Our tracks will help you out. You can just grab one of these.
You can cheat. It's totally fine.
You can cheat on the gospel, man.
It's OK. But if you have more, maybe
maybe you know more. You also have what you know of
the Bible. If you've been in church for any
length of time, you know enough to steward.
You can take people as far as you've been, and if you don't
know enough, this is what our personal discipleship ministry
is for. We want to take the Word of God
and then commit it to faithful men.
Let's get some doctrine into your life.
Let's give you answers to common questions.
How do I know that I'm saved? Am I saved forever?
Who's the Holy Spirit? What's communion?
What's baptism? What's a church?
What should I do with my life? We can give you the answers to
those questions and you can steward at least as much as you
have in your possession. But that's a lot for us today.
We saw the new creature. We saw we became the new
creature through the gospel. Let me ask you in a moment of
response. Well, we have another song here
in just a minute. What do I need to do today?
Has there been a time in your life that you chose to take this
deal the greatest deal of all time?
If not, it's a simple The Bible says that you believe in your
heart that Christ rose from the dead, and you confess with your
mouth that he is the Lord and you'll be saved.
You'll be changed just like that on a random Sunday night in
April. Maybe the new creature needs
some reckoning to figure out. What does it mean for old things
to be passed away? What does it mean to have all
new things in my life? I I don't even, I don't know if
I understand that. Maybe just tell that to the
Lord. What'd you do to me when you
save me, who am I? How about this week, if we go
from Sunday to Sunday and we never pursue anybody or share
the gospel with anybody, we're missing it.
Is there anybody in your life that you would just right now
have come to mind that you would say, man, I know I need to reach
out to that person. If they die right now, apart
from Christ that they're not going to go to heaven.
Or maybe you at least would surrender to God using you this
week. But how about us as a church?
If we consider the neighborhood we're in or the way in which
we're reaching the city, what does God have for us?
How can we be good ministers of reconciliation as a church?
How can we have the word of reconciliation and get it to
others? What does that look like?
We have opportunities this summer.
We have missions teams coming about 1 per month.
I think most of those are in your notes.
If you want to figure out your calendar, come and be present.
We're going to do evangelism together in the city on a
Saturday once a month. If you've never done it, just
come and watch and be a part. Or you can come and try.
That'd be awesome. But I'd like to give us a moment
now to pray. Let's just ask the Lord to
search you out if He's given you something already that you know
you need to do. Circle it, write it down, pray,
and then I'll lead us in a prayer and we'll have one more
song. So let's take a moment and pray.