SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you have a Bible you can turn on, you can uh do that as well.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have the text up in front of you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let me um, as you're finding your seats, I'm gonna just try to remind you of the of the ground that we've covered over the last three weeks because we're in a part of 2 Corinthians where there is um from chapter 2 to chapter 7, Paul is explaining the way that he does ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna give you, I'm not gonna take you all the way back to chapter 2, but I do want to just go back to chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: You'll remember that at the beginning of chapter 4, Paul says we don't quit in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't stop because we are recipients of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time that we don't quit, we're also not putting a spin on the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: We're not um engineering some kind of some kind of spiritual movement.
SPEAKER_00: We're just commending ourselves to every man's conscience.
SPEAKER_00: We're we're just there's this open display of the truth.
SPEAKER_00: That's all we really care about.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's no tricks, no tampering, just an open statement of the truth because God is the one who said in Genesis 1, let there be light, and then he's the one that's doing that in each person's heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who flips the light switch and just says, Let there be light, and and people are experiencing the light of the gospel inside of them.
SPEAKER_00: That was three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago, we looked at how that light is a uh it is like a treasure that travels in jars of clay, or if you read it in the King James, like earthen vessels.
SPEAKER_00: And so there is the excellency of the power of God inside of you, but it's you yourself are this clay pot or clay jar.
SPEAKER_00: The weakness of the container is not a design flaw.
SPEAKER_00: It makes plain that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a design that God has designed for your real, like the glory of your life is not the how awesome you are as a clay pot, it's the fact that God's in you as the excellency of power.
SPEAKER_00: And so as you get jostled around like a clay pot might, the power of God is in on display in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we looked at this section, chapter 4, 16 through 5.10, where again he says, we do not lose heart, we do not quit.
SPEAKER_00: This tent, he moves from clay pots to now, using the analogy of your body, he says that it's your body's like a tent that groans while it is waiting for a building from God.
SPEAKER_00: And as we're in this middle ground, living in this tent, anticipating a future building made by God, we are we're walking by faith and not by sight.
SPEAKER_00: And the unit there ends in a courtroom that we are, while we're anticipating this great future building, we presently live as if we are in a courtroom, or we will end up in a courtroom that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not eternal judgment, but a sifting, an evaluation of what did you do while you were in the tent?
SPEAKER_00: So we've covered a lot of material, and I hate to break it to you, but this morning we're gonna cover a lot more material, some really dense ideas that are all chained together by Paul.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the question that I want to put before you.
SPEAKER_00: What does a life look like once it has stood in advance before the only court that matters?
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the final scene that we looked at in verses 9 and 10 is this idea that there is a judgment seat that you and I will appear before.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul's gonna jump back to the present, and the question is what does your life and my life look like in advance once it has stood in advance before the only court that matters?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together before we look at the text.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we are gonna journey through and the next section that your spirit led Paul to pen from this letter to the Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_00: And we fully believe that your spirit was composing through Paul something that would transcend not just that church in Corinth, but would be useful and profitable for the nitty-gritty parts of our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: And that you can take the text we are looking at this morning and use it like a potter works on clay, that you can work it into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, as we um go through the text, we come before you with a teachable spirit, a humility.
SPEAKER_00: We're ready to listen to you.
SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to listen for somebody else, but we're trying to listen for ourselves what you want to say.
SPEAKER_00: And God, we want to also be in this posture of ready obedience, that we have the hearing of faith, ready to grab on to what you say and say yes right away, knowing that if you're saying it, you're gonna give us grace to obey.
SPEAKER_00: So we we we come before you in that posture with open hearts, we pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's answer to this question it runs from persuasion to a love that leaves no one in a neutral place.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna kind of summit a mountain this morning at the end of chapter five and into the beginning of chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: What we're gonna see is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and he now makes his appeal through people like us.
SPEAKER_00: This passage ends with one word about timing, and that one word is very present.
SPEAKER_00: So between verse 9 and 10, between verses 9 and 10, we move from this present courtroom where we're our deeds done in the body are evaluated by Jesus the King to the very present, today is the day of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And so you've gotta you've got to work with Paul as as he is trying to bring this church in Corinth along with him in understanding how to do the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does it look like, not just on Sundays, but but what does it mean to wholeheartedly be in as a follower of Jesus and and let it let it invade the nitty-gritty, the warp and woof of our daily life?
SPEAKER_00: This morning we will watch Paul explain his strange ministry in four steps.
SPEAKER_00: The court he lives before, the love that drives him, the message that God gave him, and the day that makes it urgent.
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready?
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's jump into the first section here: a ministry that lives before God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes, Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people.
SPEAKER_00: What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: We're not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may have a reply before those or for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: For we are out, for if we are out of our mind, it is for God, and if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about this courtroom.
SPEAKER_00: He starts with a therefore, and so the thought is tied to what was happening in verse 10, where you have the bhima seat of Christ judging what's done in the body.
SPEAKER_00: And he says this produces in our life a fear of the Lord, that there is this reality, that God, there's this moment of appearing before the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the amazing thing is that there's this vision of you and I standing before this judgment seat, but he also says in the next verse that what we are is, or right here, it's actually in the middle of this verse, what we are is plain to God, and I hope it's also plain in your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: So God is present, he's in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: What we are doing, what we have done this week, is done and plain and open before him.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that will be hidden.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that he cannot see.
SPEAKER_00: He refuses, Paul refuses the appearance in a court.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice that in verse 12?
SPEAKER_00: The court that he refuses to engage, he says, we're not commending ourselves again to you or to you again.
SPEAKER_00: But we're giving you an opportunity to be proud of us so that you may have a reply to those who take pride in outward appearances.
SPEAKER_00: There is this courtroom of appearances, and Paul's like, we're not playing that game.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been with us, you remember that Paul's writing to a church that has some what he calls super apostles in it, who he is alluding to right here.
SPEAKER_00: It's those who take pride in their outer, outward appearance rather than what's going on in their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I'm not playing that game.
SPEAKER_00: He says, even if I'm out of my mind, in verse 13, even if I'm crazy, it's for your sake, um it is for God.
SPEAKER_00: If we are in our right mind, it is for you.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, like, who I am and what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna be, if people are gonna say about me, you're nuts.
SPEAKER_00: This guy, Paul, you know, he is, he's out of his mind.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That might have been the accusation that was pointed at him.
SPEAKER_00: If that's what's being said, he said, look, fine, it's for God that I'm like that.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're in our right mind, it's it's for your sake.
SPEAKER_00: Corinth is in the middle of being wooed by ministers that boast in their appearance, in their face, and not what's going on in their heart.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're playing games.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody that's grown up in the church, you know what it's like when people use their spirituality for a facade rather than a liberating force to drop the facade, right?
SPEAKER_00: Rather than using God's work in their life to be transparent and open, like Paul says, what's commissioned by the New Covenant, New Covenant lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, there are people who claim to be followers of Jesus and they're boasting in their appearance.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is explaining why a true ministry, a true ministry life doesn't photograph well.
SPEAKER_00: The only court he's gonna accept is the one of God and their conscience.
SPEAKER_00: And so again, he says that we are not commending ourselves again, but we're giving you an opportunity to be proud of us.
SPEAKER_00: Commendation is what we talked about in chapter three, where he asks a question.
SPEAKER_00: Do we need letters of reference?
SPEAKER_00: And the reason he had asked that question is because Paul's already spent time with them.
SPEAKER_00: They already know Paul.
SPEAKER_00: They know that he's working on the side, build like mending tents, building tents, so that he can fund his ministry and he can pay basically for his work to be able to love them and care for them.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, it's so out of place.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need letters of recommendation to justify me.
SPEAKER_00: You know me.
SPEAKER_00: You should be proud of me because you know me in your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul rejects the courtroom of appearances, and he says, the courtroom that matters to me is the courtroom of God and your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: The ministry pleads, it doesn't perform.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's ministry, Paul is pleading for a genuine work.
SPEAKER_00: He's not looking for actors, he's not looking to enroll new Christian actors in a Christian game.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking for real life participants, people that have been truly transformed by the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: So the question that we have to ask from this section is about the court of appearance.
SPEAKER_00: What court are we acting for?
SPEAKER_00: Are we basing our decisions as actors in a performance, or are we being true to the work that God is doing in us?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're in a season where you're like, I don't know what God's doing in me.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we do waypoints.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have a spiritual development program in our church called Waypoints, where we're we're saying, get to know God, read your Bible, memorize scripture, learn to pray, learn to hear his voice, learn to discern his will, so that you're tied into, oh wow, I thought that part of the story was just random, but then you're you're having God interpret your story for you better.
SPEAKER_00: You're having your eyes open to the work that is going on in your life and what he's done in you, and you're tied in with that so that it's you don't feel like you have to be in the courtroom of appearance.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be performative.
SPEAKER_00: You can be at home as the person God designed you to be.
SPEAKER_00: So, what this first section established is that Paul lives and pleads before an audience of two, before God and the people of Corinth, that God had put in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He saw them not as just the new customer for his ministry, but he genuinely looked at them as like, you're you're the people that God called me to.
SPEAKER_00: And if you step back and you look at the life of Paul out of the book of Acts, you know that he traveled all over.
SPEAKER_00: There are times where doors were shut.
SPEAKER_00: And so when there's an open door like there was in Corinth, and he had the ministry that was there, he didn't see it as just random.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, this is a spirit-initiated, a spirit-authored work between me and you.
SPEAKER_00: He has walked away from this performance or the appearance court entirely.
SPEAKER_00: But nobody quits the appearance court for free.
SPEAKER_00: Approval by appearance or trying to be approved of by your appearance is a very real currency for the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: In the culture, even in Baltimore, even in our culture at large, there is a current around appearance.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You look at social media, you look at, you know, how am I going to get my next job, my promotion, my boyfriend, my girlfriend?
SPEAKER_00: There is this pull towards performance, this pull towards the appearance.
SPEAKER_00: So we should ask, what could make a person like Paul live that exposed in the way that he's exposed before this church with no image management at all?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer we're gonna find is gonna pick up in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is not disciplined.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, Paul was not disciplined out of the appearance court.
SPEAKER_00: He's loved out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: This change that's happened in Paul where he's not all about outward appearance and pedigree and letters of reference.
SPEAKER_00: He's been loved out of that place, not kicked out of it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at verse um, the second section, starting in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: The love that leaves no one neutral.
SPEAKER_00: It says this, for the love of Christ compels us, since we've reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died.
SPEAKER_00: And he died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective, even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: The old has passed away, and see, the new has come.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul picks up here in verse 14 with this statement about motivation.
SPEAKER_00: What caused him to leave this courtroom of appearance and instead act, use his body to act in a way where when he appears before the Bhima seed of Christ, he's gonna be found faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna receive the reward, those good rewards for what he did in the body.
SPEAKER_00: The engine of his strange ministry, not bad ministry, but definitely different.
SPEAKER_00: The engine is the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He says it hems him in.
SPEAKER_00: It is the motivating factor.
SPEAKER_00: Christ died for all.
SPEAKER_00: So he says it's the love of Christ that compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died.
SPEAKER_00: So he is weaving in some theological truth here, this this core theological truth that death was necessary for all, in that one died for all.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a theological equation that he's making.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, we can conclude that because somebody died for all, therefore all were dead.
SPEAKER_00: We know this from Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 2, God told Adam and Eve, listen, put you in the garden, I want you to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and rule.
SPEAKER_00: And and here's the garden that I want you to tend to.
SPEAKER_00: Work with me.
SPEAKER_00: Be my image bearers, my blessable image bearers on earth in this garden.
SPEAKER_00: But don't touch that tree.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the day you eat from that fruit, you're going to surely die.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to Genesis 3, and there is a rebellion that's incited by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Eve gives in, and then Adam gives in to the temptation put before them, and there's this human rebellion, and death enters into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's looking now back at it, and he says, I see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus died for all, and therefore all had truly died.
SPEAKER_00: It is this theological equation that he's playing out.
SPEAKER_00: We stopped sorting.
SPEAKER_00: This is really the consequence, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we see when we get to the sixteen and seventeen.
SPEAKER_00: We stop sorting people by their appearance as a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Even Christ Himself, Paul says, we don't know him any longer according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's walking through this logic.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for all so that all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reality.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's talk about the um the um secondary effects basically of the theological thing, the death of Christ and how it impacted individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's like, let's carry this out to our relationships.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know one another?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know anyone from a worldly perspective, even if we have known Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is that a death has happened that redefined every person who is alive, and a love that will not let Paul live for himself any longer.
SPEAKER_00: And so the person you ride on the bus with this afternoon, after you leave here, your Uber driver, your classmate, your co-worker, your spouse, your child, your neighbor, your grandma, as you know them, you now have new eyes as a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You now see someone whom Jesus died for.
SPEAKER_00: Someone whom Christ died for, who themselves, when you look at them in the flesh, they were condemned.
SPEAKER_00: They were a rebel, all were born in rebellion against God, one degree or another, oriented towards themselves rather than oriented towards God.
SPEAKER_00: And their condemnation, their penalty was a sentence of death.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Christ died on the cross for them.
SPEAKER_00: And the opportunity before you is that that person, if they have not yet received the life of Christ, it is it is theirs to have.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know anyone from a worldly perspective any longer.
SPEAKER_00: This changes our church relationships.
SPEAKER_00: On one hand, it um it gives so much grace because we look at one another and we're like, you, Christ died for you, and you've received the gift of forgiveness into your life.
SPEAKER_00: You've welcomed the work of Jesus into your life.
SPEAKER_00: And when I look at you, I see someone who's being transformed by the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: And your mess and the things that you do that are stupid.
SPEAKER_00: I look at you and it's like Jesus has already paid for that.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this overabundance of grace over you.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also this great degree of accountability.
SPEAKER_00: I expect so much of you because the Spirit of God now dwells in you, and he is making you new.
SPEAKER_00: And he has given you life and he has changed, he's going to work at you, and so I expect that you're growing in the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: Paul does that with this church.
SPEAKER_00: So he's abundantly merciful, so kind and loving, just overflowing, but yet he's expecting of them that they will be obedient to Christ in who they are, and that they'll live out this inward work, that Christ is renewing you day by day, he's making you new.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you look like a clay pot, but this powerful dynamic is also in you that when you have this car accident, Bunny had a car accident this week, right?
SPEAKER_00: When you have that car accident, you know, or you get your power turned off, or you have this illness over here, you have this problem, like I look around the room, I'm I'm so honored to be a part of your lives, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you guys are, we're all clay pots, like I felt it this week, you felt it this week, but you and I have this dynamic power of the Spirit of God at work in us.
SPEAKER_00: And so the expectation is that in that the power of God is at work in you, overflowing, that you are more than conquerors in Christ, that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, that you're that in your despair you're a recipient of the comfort of God so that you can comfort others.
SPEAKER_00: There is this incredible new covenant dynamic over your life, and Paul is bearing witness to it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Listen, a death has happened that has redefined every person alive, and a love that will not let Paul live for himself any longer.
SPEAKER_00: We live now for others, and Paul is doing what he does in 2 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: He's narrating for this church.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how I think about myself, and here's how I'm thinking about you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, because of what Jesus did for me, I want to live like that towards you.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want we no longer live for ourselves, and we no longer regard anyone according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives, our lives are transformed by that reality.
SPEAKER_00: The text asks for two deaths.
SPEAKER_00: The death of a self-directed life, that's the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: The second death is the death of our sorting scale, where we're trying to be polished, where we're trying to use our past, where we're um playing off of our useful usefulness, maybe, and and and trying to take an angle, playing games.
SPEAKER_00: We let those things die with Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We die with Christ, it says in Romans 6.
SPEAKER_00: But we've been made alive with Christ in Christ so that we can now live for others.
SPEAKER_00: So this section, it establishes this fact that a death has happened that has redefined everyone.
SPEAKER_00: And the love of Christ demonstrated through the death of Christ is the motivating factor where I'm not performing.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're we don't have to perform anymore.
SPEAKER_00: The weight is off.
SPEAKER_00: You've been liberated.
SPEAKER_00: We sang that, like we're no longer slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to perform.
SPEAKER_00: You get to be who God made you, He loves you, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're liberated, but you are called.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to live for others.
SPEAKER_00: The question that that arises is that this is an enormous claim.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul is talking about the death of Christ and living for others, there is there this is massive.
SPEAKER_00: It reframes the orientation of my life and your life.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, like, who who authorized the death of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Who put this into motion?
SPEAKER_00: Where did this massive change come from?
SPEAKER_00: If it's just Paul's self-improvement program, we can decide, you know, that's for Paul, but that's not for me.
SPEAKER_00: If this is just Paul, you know, spinning the gospel, then we can just say, oh, it's kind of like a diet.
SPEAKER_00: That's not that diet's not for me.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, where is this from?
SPEAKER_00: All of this is from God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're gonna see in this next section.
SPEAKER_00: It's not from effort, it's not from religion.
SPEAKER_00: God was reconciling us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: God did the reconciling.
SPEAKER_00: We carry the appeal.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at verses 18 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and he's given us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.
SPEAKER_00: He has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.
SPEAKER_00: We appeal or we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he says in verse 18 that all of this is from God, everything is from God, who is reconciling us to himself through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God is making this appeal through us to others to be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: This whole section from chapter two, verse fourteen, through chapter seven, verse four, is Paul responding to this, these super apostles that are there.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's group has this appearance of looking really weak.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't flashy, he was vulnerable to accusations of being just not appearing like a powerful apostle.
SPEAKER_00: But he rejects that courtroom, and he's refusing to play that game, and instead he says, Listen, I'm just an ambassador for a king.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just carrying the message of my king to you and to other cities around Asia Minor, around Macedonia.
SPEAKER_00: And Corinth, their conflict with Paul, their strain with Paul became a strain with the reconciling God.
SPEAKER_00: They were not so much at war with Paul as they they were responding to this new group of super apostles that were coming in, and there was this, they were getting distracted from the work of God in their life.
SPEAKER_00: The God who reconciles.
SPEAKER_00: Now, our instinct, as we look over this passage, our instinct is to, if you're new to like Christianity or reading the Bible, the instinct is to think that we need to make up with God.
SPEAKER_00: That you hear about God's forgiveness, and it's like, okay, I need to make up with him.
SPEAKER_00: But but here, notice that he's reconciled himself through crow through Christ towards us.
SPEAKER_00: So think of two parties who have their backs turned towards each other, right?
SPEAKER_00: Our back, Adam and Eve, they turned their back on God, right?
SPEAKER_00: And when they rebelled against God, God turned his back away from them.
SPEAKER_00: So their presence, there's no more friendship between God and Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: There's a separation that occurs there in the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: It's broken.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened on the cross was that one of the parties being God, because of the work on the cross, turned around and is now facing you.
SPEAKER_00: He no longer, he doesn't have his back towards you.
SPEAKER_00: God's turned towards you.
SPEAKER_00: The party that has its back towards God is you and I, if we haven't received Jesus Christ into our life yet.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's reconciled himself towards us, and he's waiting.
SPEAKER_00: Will you be reconciled to me?
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is commissioned as an ambassador to preach this message.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he's committed the message of reconciliation towards us.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice that?
SPEAKER_00: We plead on Christ's behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the crazy thing.
SPEAKER_00: God's already turned his disposition towards you through the work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's just waiting.
SPEAKER_00: Will you turn towards him?
SPEAKER_00: He is facing you through his son Jesus, saying, I love you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: I already finished the deal.
SPEAKER_00: There was some nursing students that came over from the Hopkins nursing program.
SPEAKER_00: They were doing a study and they wanted to hand out flyers to people at the Compassion Center about participating in the study.
SPEAKER_00: And on their sign, it said that you could like you would be given, I think it was like a like a cash card or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: But as we were talking with them before we kind of set them loose on the line, we asked, like, does everybody get a cash card?
SPEAKER_00: It was like, no, not not everybody.
SPEAKER_00: It's like some of the people that participate.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's kind of like a raffle.
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay, could you just change the wording on there?
SPEAKER_00: Because not everybody's gonna get a cash card that that participates.
SPEAKER_00: It's only gonna be some people.
SPEAKER_00: And yes.
SPEAKER_00: Did you you probably were hoping you were gonna get the cash card, weren't you?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, go for it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That's not because so last week, if you go back and read the read the um six to ten verses before we were at today, and so Paul says that there's the inward man is being renewed day by day, the outward man is perishing.
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't say anything about the appearance of having an appearance of light in this section.
SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about is is who you are inside, is where God's at work, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is all about the new covenant life, God's work inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a metaphor when he says, let light shine in our hearts, from chapter four.
SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about is a spiritual light that God flips a switch and we're able to see who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And so this has nothing to do with like you might look at somebody and they've got a great smile and they seem really happy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not talking about that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, God's light.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So the ladies who are offering the cash cards, they went back and they changed it.
SPEAKER_00: But I only bring that example up because for them it was an offer where some people would benefit.
SPEAKER_00: You'd have to, everybody had to participate, and then you were hoping, like, do I benefit?
SPEAKER_00: In the case with with God's work through Jesus, it's already done.
SPEAKER_00: God is disposition is towards you.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking at you, he's hoping that you'll be reconciled to him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, Will you respond?
SPEAKER_00: Will you turn?
SPEAKER_00: He made the one who did not know sin to be sinned.
SPEAKER_00: So he took and um he put the sin of the world on Jesus, and Jesus paid for our sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just ask you, are you in him?
SPEAKER_00: When we go through waypoints, we go through the salvation section, we we memorize that scripture from 1 John, that he who has the Son has life.
SPEAKER_00: He who does not have the Son of God does not life, because eternal life is in the Son.
SPEAKER_00: And here Paul is using that language again.
SPEAKER_00: He says, so that it's in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in him?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question of the text that it's asked of us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in him?
SPEAKER_00: Have you been reconciled to God?
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this final and fourth section.
SPEAKER_00: The day has arrived.
SPEAKER_00: Do not receive it empty.
SPEAKER_00: The last two verses for this morning.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This, working together with him, we also appeal to you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't receive the grace of God in vain.
SPEAKER_00: For he says in Isaiah 40 49, Isaiah 49, at an acceptable time I have listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.
SPEAKER_00: See, now is the acceptable time.
SPEAKER_00: Now is the day of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: As small as this is just two verses, you've got to please see this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you step into a relationship with God and you're like, I'm so grateful that Jesus forgave my sins.
SPEAKER_00: And then you take upon yourself this burden to make the kingdom of God a reality, and you're just trying so hard to love your enemies and to serve the poor, and to forgive the people that have wounded you, and to take responsibility, and you're just carrying it around like this impossible ver like this impossible burden, and you're missing 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see what it says here?
SPEAKER_00: Working together with him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the dynamic.
SPEAKER_00: If you go back to the garden in Genesis chapter 2, it says that the land had not yet sprouted out up, there was no vegetation coming up yet from the ground, and there were two reasons for it.
SPEAKER_00: The first reason is because God had not caused the water to rain on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: But the amazing second thing is this that the man, the human, had not yet tilled the ground.
SPEAKER_00: That's cooperation between God and humans.
SPEAKER_00: It's there from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: You were designed as God's image-bearer, blessable image-bearing covenant partner, to not do life alone, but to do it with him, to be a worker together with him.
SPEAKER_00: And here he goes, he's no longer pleading.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's appealing to you, and he says this: don't receive the grace of God in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: It is possible, again, for God's disposition to be towards you, for God to have all the grace of heaven pouring out upon you, and it's producing vanity in your life, which means empty and as light as air.
SPEAKER_00: There's no fruit coming up.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is appealing to this church and saying, don't receive the grace of God in vain.
SPEAKER_00: Let it actually go to work in you.
SPEAKER_00: Accomplish the fruitfulness that God has called you to.
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes and he puts his spin on Isaiah 49.
SPEAKER_00: At an acceptable time, I've listened to you.
SPEAKER_00: In the day of salvation, I've helped you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, listen, there's Isaiah 49, and then there's my version.
SPEAKER_00: Now is that acceptable time.
SPEAKER_00: There's an urgency because the prophet Isaiah was by the Spirit looking into the future of an acceptable time.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's standing after the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has done the work.
SPEAKER_00: He's reconciled humanity back to himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's given all that heaven's got to you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, now, right now, is the time to be reconciled.
SPEAKER_00: Now is the day of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Stop putting it off.
SPEAKER_00: Stop procrastinating.
SPEAKER_00: Stop living a beggarly life where you're empty, you're not a container of God, and you're just trying to do life in your own strength, in your own energy, and you can't figure it out and you can't connect the dots.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make sense, and you've settled.
SPEAKER_00: You've settled.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God's saying, Today, today is the day of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Today is the day I want to make all of that your living reality.
SPEAKER_00: You can drop the appearance game, the performance, you can just be who God designed you to be.
SPEAKER_00: You can let God work on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: It's all there.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I just ask that we would be the saints that are the responders to what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: In this text that we've looked at, God, you're doing so much for us.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's just explaining, like, look, I don't have to perform anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I get to just serve other people.
SPEAKER_00: I get to live for other people.
SPEAKER_00: I get to receive your grace and let it just go to work.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we we pray that that would be the living dynamic in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.