The Church’s New Year’s Resolution
2 Cor. 5:17-21
Here are a few things to think about as you find the scripture for today: “Here’s the testimony the world gave on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013 in Peshawar, Pakistan: “In bright fall sunlight…worshippers are leaving All Saints Church when two members of the Taliban, each wearing vests weighed down with 6 pounds of hard-wired explosives, show up at the church and blow themselves up near its entrance. The attack kills 84 churchgoers and seriously wounds another 146.
“Among the dead are two brides, married the day before, who returned for the Sunday service to give thanks for their marriages…a primary school headmaster and his entire family—his wife and two young daughters, along with his brother and a nephew. The force of the explosions was so great investigators later said they found the skull of one of the bombers on the rooftop of the church. (Mindy Belz, “Waiting and Singing”, World Mag)
Here’s the testimony that the Church gives: Monday, Sept. 23, 2013, the same city and church in Peshawar, Pakistan: “The survivors return to All Saints Church. They collect the scattered shoes of the children killed. They clean up the Sunday school papers and books that litter the churchyard. They rinse and clean the bloodstains inside the church... As they work, they wail and weep and sob. Then they gather themselves into the pews, a very small collection now—and they sing…their hands in prayer, and they worship the God who gave life and has taken it away.” (Mindy Belz, “Waiting and Singing”, World Mag)
Testimonies
What makes men and women return to a blood-soaked church, and worship and sing the very next day? What makes persecuted Christians in North Korea and in China say: Don’t pray for us to be released from persecution, but for faith to witness and withstand the persecution? What causes the bishop of a church in Aleppo, Syria, where 5 other church leaders have been murdered or kidnapped, willing to go back out on the dangerous streets day after day and minister to hurting people, and still preach without fear?
Look at 2 Corinthians 5:17-21: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (We looked at this last week: If Christ has saved you, everything in your life changes; you place new price tags on EVERYTHING because you have been granted forgiveness and a new ETERNAL identity in Christ. You possess a NEW present reality as you are being sanctified into the image of Christ but also a NEW future reality, realizing that God’s Kingdom is so close! A New Year has begun; the old has gone. Now today…a New Year’s resolution for those who are new creatures in Christ, for those who trust in the Grace of God alone to save them.
Verse18: “ALL THIS is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry (diakonia) of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world (this is NOT everyone IN the world in a universal sense; that would not agree with John 3:16. When God begins a work in a sinners life, He will change their ENTIRE WORLD and the whole sphere of humanity-every ethnic group and everything about your world.) to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them… 21 God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him (in Christ) we might become the righteousness of God.”
Reconciliation
What is it “to be reconciled” or what’s “reconciliation”? (Greek:”katallagç (gay), root word, “katallassô”.) Here’s a short description: God wills sinful men to be restored to Him. God wills? Yes. Verse 18 says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself THROUGH CHRIST.” Praise God for His Work of restoration and forgiveness through Christ alone. His Reconciliation has to do with an EXCHANGE.
In the Greek, the meaning was often associated with the business of money changers; Reconciliation is about exchanging equivalent values in order to adjust differences. If you are going to have “reconciliation” with God, an EQUAL EXCHANGE has to occur in order to restore God’s favor.
You have to realize that God’s Law is double-edged: It demands PERFECT obedience and but also demands EXACT punishment for lawbreakers. How can you possibly cancel out your sins? God says that Sin requires a perfect exchange, a perfect payment and so God cannot merely erase your sin without payment. If God did this, HE WOULD NO LONGER BE PERFECT.
Think of it this way: Imagine a book keeping ledger, a balance sheet, but instead of monetary figures, in one column you have God’s record of all the times you have broken God’s Law, even the first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me: He says: “I must ALWAYS BE number one in your life!” Imagine how long that list of infractions would be! It would be infinite! ONE INFRACTION gives you the death sentence, so what would millions of infractions earn you? And if the only way you can fulfill the law is to obey it perfectly, you already missed altogether. You have no hope to pay the debt. You have an infinite amount of sins to pay but no assets to pay the debt. The wages you have earned are DEATH. Your original investment began with SIN. You were born in SIN! In and of yourself you have INFINITE liabilities and NO ASSETS
In the other column you have all of Christ’s life recorded. Jesus performed all of the Expectations of God’s Law PERFECTLY-never a flaw. In RECONCILIATION, GOD moves all of Christ’s ASSETS to your DEBT and pays the DEBT completely! You owe nothing on CHRIST’S ACCOUNT, not because of your payment but His.
“Adam was commanded to obey God’s law and failed, Israel was commanded to obey God’s law and failed, but Christ came into this world and completed a life of perfect obedience to the law of His Father. Christ the righteous One was indeed the Last Adam, the True Israel…We have not only been forgiven on the basis of Christ’s curse-bearing death, but justified on the basis of His probation-fulfilling life.” (Michael Horton, “Obedience is Better than Sacrifice.”)
LISTEN CAREFULLY to Romans 5:9-11: “Having now been JUSTIFIED by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” In this way God provides the restoration of the favor of God to sinners who repent of their sin and put their trust in the substitutionary life, death and resurrection of Christ. We are NEW CREATIONS IN CHRIST when we have been reconciled to God BY CHRIST’S WORK. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him (in Christ) we might become the righteousness of God.”
In the Heidelberg Catechism, question #60 asks the question: how we are reconciled to God: “How are you righteous before God? Answer: “Only by true faith in Jesus Christ.1 Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, of never having kept any of them,2 and of still being inclined toward all evil,3 nevertheless, without any merit of my own,4 out of sheer grace,5 God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ,6 as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.7 All I need to do is accept this gift with a believing heart.”8
(1 Rom. 3:21-28; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8-9; Phil 3:8-11 2 Rom. 3:9-10 3 Rom. 7:23 4 Titus 3:4-5 5 Rom. 3:24; Eph. 2:8 6 Rom. 4:3-5 (Gen. 15:6); 2 Cor. 5:17-19; 1 John 2:1-2 7 Rom. 4:24-25; 2 Cor. 5:21 8 John 3:18; Acts 16:30-31)
Justification
BY BELIEVING in God’s promise and Christ’s WORK, God exchanges my sinful ledger for Christ’s perfect one, and then He declares me RIGHTEOUS: Basically that is what justification is: It is God’s Declaration: This person is NOT GUILTY on Christ’s Account! God says: “There is therefore NOW no condemnation to those who are IN CHRIST JESUS.” (Romans 8:1)
When Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins, are sins died there too. Justification does not change us internally. Justification is declared by God and credited to us on account of the exchange of our sins for Christ’s righteousness. Remember that justification means that God looks at me through Christ “just-as-if-I’d never sinned”, but He also looks at me “just-as-if-I’d ALWAYS obeyed”. (Jerry Bridges &Bob Bevington)
Ambassadors
Look at our text in verse 19b: “And he has committed to us the message (word, speech, that which is declared, or “logos”) of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
This is the reason why men and women return to a blood-soaked church, and worship and sing the very next day…and the day after that! This is why Pastor Saeed in Iran has been beaten, stabbed, persecuted day after day and does not recant the testimony of faith in Jesus Christ alone. This is why 12 Nigerian Christians fasted, prayed, and sang in prison, asking God to use them to bring their persecutors to faith in Christ!
Why are you here on this earth as a Christian who has been saved by the Love and grace of God in Christ? Why did God save you and leave you here and bring you here? Your answer should always come back to verse 20: “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
We may “struggle to be holy here. We struggle even with our fellowship here. We struggle with our praise here. ..We struggle with our communion, our prayer with God here. We limp along in this life and wonder why it is that God just doesn't get us out of here. We long to escape to the glories of heaven. We want to be perfect. We long for that body which is from heaven, as Paul states it in 2 Corinthians 5. (beginning of the chapter). We're left here really for one reason, we're left here for the ministry of reconciliation because there's one thing we will not ever do in heaven and that is we will never tell a sinner he or she can be reconciled to God; There is no evangelism there. We are left here, a force of ambassadors, with a ministry of reconciliation to declare the message of how sinners can be reconciled to God.” (John MacArthur, Message entitled, “The Ambassadors' Ministry of Reconciliation”). The ministry of reconciliation is our mission in the world; it is why we are here.
Scripture tells us: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." "Go and make disciples of all nations." Or, "You shall be witnesses…to the uttermost parts of the earth.” We are Called to be Christ’s ambassadors: We are Mouthpieces of the Living and Saving God who has reconciled us and justified us on Christ’s account for HIS GLORY. We are spokespeople for God, declaring salvation in Christ alone. Verse 20: “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.” Ephesians 6:20, Paul said: “I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
How do I proclaim it? With words, speaking boldly. Being an ambassador of Christ occurs in serving AND speaking: It is in ministry (serving) and it is serving with words, the message of reconciliation through Christ alone. Those folks who are being persecuted throughout the world for the sake of the Gospel are persecuted not only because they were “NICE” to others by serving, but because they have testified with their mouths to the TRUTH of the GOSPEL OF GRACE found only in Jesus Christ. 1 Cor.1:18 tells us: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, (that is, to the world) but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
The message is simple but profound: “Be reconciled to God in Christ.” The cross is the demonstration of God’s love AND ALSO God’s power to save. Every Christian is to be engage in the ministry of reconciliation from God in Christ, proclaiming the message of reconciliation, functioning as an ambassador, a spokesperson, for Christ. Every one of us should be conveying the saving message of the Life, death and NEW LIFE that we have received, by no cost to ourselves, but by which Christ shed His blood.
Having become NEW CREATIONS, and knowing that the old has passed away and new things are continually coming in Christ does not only motivate us to a New Year’s resolution of proclaiming the Gospel. It is our life’s resolution because we are new CREATURES in Christ. He IS the source of our lives, and He IS our lives. We cannot help but tell others, because that is why WE have been saved, and why we are here!
OUTLINE
I. Reconciliation from God: God wills sinful men to be restored to Him.
A. Reconciliation is an EXCHANGE.
B. God’s law demands PERFECT obedience and but also demands exact punishment for lawbreakers.
C. In Reconciliation, God moves all of Christ’s ASSETS to your DEBT and pays it completely! (Rom 5:9-11)
II. Justification:
A. Is God’s Declaration: Not Guilty on Christ’s Account! (Rom 8:1)
B. Does not change us internally: God looks at me through Christ “just-as-if-I’d never sinned”, but He also looks at me “just-as-if-I’d ALWAYS obeyed”.
III. The Message of Reconciliation is our Mission in the World:( Eph 6:20)
A. Calls us to be Christ’s ambassadors: Mouthpieces of God.
B. Occurs in serving AND speaking.
C. The simple but profound message: “Be reconciled to God in Christ.”
