Our Reconciling God

Good morning. I'd like to open in a word of prayer. Father, we come to you and praise you and thank you that this is your word, your message, your purpose. your plan, and I thank you for your people. Unite us, Father, in our hearts and worship to you because of what Christ has done for us. I pray that your message would go out and you would use your people.

We pray in your son's name. Amen. If you turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5, you're going to tap into my favorite, or one of my favorite, passages. If you look at verse 17, I'd like to read from 17 to 24, or 21 I mean. therefore if anyone is in christ he is a new creation the old has passed away behold the new has come all this is from god who through christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. About 15 years ago Deb and I had the opportunity and really wanted to have the opportunity to get our children into a cross mission experience or an opportunity to see a cross situation and to be able to present the gospel I was hoping for Romania.

I had the opportunity to go there once, and I wanted the kids to see that, and the Lord had a different direction. He had New York City in mind for our children. That was not my plan. But when we went there, we stayed with a very enthusiastic pastor who was extremely energetic, and he was truly an evangelist. and what he had in mind for us was an open air evangelistic situation in downtown New York.

So if any of you have ever experienced this opportunity, it can be a little intimidating to say the least, and also it can be a little bit dangerous. The plan was for the person who was speaking on the street corner to take a Mr. Microphone and share the gospel. The rest of the group was to come around this group of people and share the gospel to any of those who seemed to be very interested.

My children were small, and the group was fairly large. And so as we broke up, I have to admit, fear overcame me as my little evangelistic children went many different directions around the street corner, and Deb and I went another direction. My focus was, where are my children? what could happen to them. When all of a sudden, I was taken by surprise by a stranger, a very strange man, let's put it that way.

He was a very hyper man, and he was shouting in my face, if God is a God of love and says that thou shalt not kill, why did he kill his son? He just took me by such surprise. I didn't even know what to say or how to react. And all I could think is, it's not like that. But before I could say anything, before I could think anything, he was moving down the street saying it to the next person and to the next person.

And I could hear him three people away saying the same thing. I like it not like that I wanted to defend God And first of all God doesn need to be defended And secondly God used this strange hyper man to wake my soul up to the deep truths of the gospel I knew the gospel. But it's not like that. The question is, well, what is it like? Turn to Isaiah 53.

What is it like? Isaiah 53. Let's look at verses 4 through 6. Where Isaiah says this, Surely he, and here he is referring to Christ, has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we were healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him, on Christ, the iniquities of us all. he was stricken and smitten by God he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed what does the word smitten mean? it means to strike, smite hit, beat, slay kill, it is like that this morning I'd like to look a little deeper into that subject in 2 Corinthians 5.

And I also want to look at the characters of the gospel and what part we play in that plan of the gospel. So if you turn back to 2 Corinthians, in verse 17, Paul starts out, that whole subject is talking to the people of Corinth, and Paul has written them a couple of different letters. And he is dealing with the relationship that he's having with the people in Corinth.

He's had to confront some very difficult sin. He's had to write some very difficult letters to correct the sin problem that was going on in their church And some of the people in Corinth in this church had the arrogance to attack Paul in regards to his authenticity as a true apostle, as a true evangelist, as one bringing the word. And Paul is working towards correcting the relationship and building their relationship between them.

And he uses this passage to help identify the relationship between them and their relationship with God. And he is establishing that through this passage of reconciliation. So if we look in verse 17, Paul starts out by saying, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed, behold, the new has come. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.

He is talking then specifically about the person who is a new believer, one who has stopped being self-reliant and is being Christ-reliant. When we see a person take on a new creation, it means that there is a new characteristic about this person. A change has happened. There is a new appetite, a new desire, a new drive in that person's life. This is consistent with the prayer that the Lord has in Matthew 6, 9 and 10, where he says, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Your kingdom come. Your will be done on heaven as it is on earth. The image here is the new heavenly kingdom comes down. Or King Jesus comes down to earth, bringing with him the heavenly kingdom and makes a change to the earthly kingdom. A new creation occurs when Jesus arrives into a person's life. He is establishing a heavenly kingdom here on earth, affecting the life, when he came, affecting the life of one sinner, one sinner at a time. that's what happens when we see that Christ is introduced into a person's life and God gives them the grace to see Christ Think, if you will, of the examples of Zacchaeus.

His life was turned around as a tax collector and met Christ. He was saved and he went back and he reconciled. He gave back what he had taken from those and then some. The woman at the well, when she met Christ, she turned and went back and told the people and became an evangelist and brought people to Christ. Her life was made new. The thief on the cross.

Even though it was the very last second, Christ said, this day you will be in heaven with me. His life changed directions. He was a new creation because Christ brought heaven to earth. They became a new creation. They took a new heavenly direction. They have the characteristics of Christ himself.

When Christ comes into their life. Isaiah prophetically described a new heaven and earth situation as a new creation can be imagined or seen in this way. In Isaiah 11, he says, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them.

This isn't what we see on earth. You never let a child be around a lion. That's a very dangerous situation. You never allow a lamb. That's just not natural, right? Salvation is not a natural change.

Paul goes on to describe that the new believer is an ambassador for Christ. So the character that we see first is the Christian ambassador, the new creation ambassador. What's an ambassador? This is a person who represents or speaks for the monarch or a higher authority. It is associated with a foreign culture other than our own. In other words, you are in a foreign country speaking for someone else with a message and authority of someone else other than yourself.

This is a Christian's purpose on earth. As some of you know I worked for Honda and was required to go to Japan on several occasions On one occasion I was required to speak and support to a support plant I should say along with the supporting suppliers about a project that we were doing in North America. I was about to start this project in North America and needed their support.

Not only did I need this Japanese company's plant support, but I also needed the many companies that supported them. So I learned an amazing truth is that an ambassador, when they're appointed, they have a lot of power. The little business card that I had in my pocket and the white uniform that I was wearing somehow gave me the superpower to cause these people to bow.

I didn't understand it, but, you know, I bowed back. I felt really uncomfortable. But my message was a cross-cultural message. It was not my personal request. It was authorized by someone greater than myself, and it was my purpose and responsibility to communicate someone else's message. So the new creation believer not only has a new desire, a new direction, a new purpose in their life, but also a new message.

We as believers are to communicate the gospel for the king and let the message come down and change lives. Not my message. The king's message. Christ's message. In fact, when we do this, we become more like Christ. The application here is for today.

Right now. Ambassadorship needs to take place right now. Think of it this way. Why does the believer remain on the earth? If you know Christ, what is your purpose on this earth? Now the question, are we going to be appointed to do this work of ambassadorship in heaven?

Who will be in heaven that needs to be reconciled with Christ? What our purpose Our purpose is here and now There is no unbelievers in heaven The call is more urgent than we like to make I personally oftentimes say, I'll gradually work into this person's life, I'll build into this life, and then I find out that this person died. the mandate here is very similar to Matthew 28 with the Great Commission, where he directs believers, while they're still alive on this earth, to make disciples. Well, Paul's saying the same thing here that Christ said there.

Be ambassadors. Share the gospel. It is true that we need to build into the lives of the unsaved. But we need to share the good news, the gospel. So if the believer is an ambassador, who's the monarch? Who's the authority sending us and what is the message?

So first we see the Christian ambassador. Now we're going to look at our reconciling God. Verses 18 and 19. All this, okay, this new creation which he's referring to, all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God, or I should say God in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. so first let's look at the repeating word of reconciliation i've already used it some in this message but it's obviously the theme of our text that it's used five times reconciliation can be defined as to make peace between or to pacify atonement become friendly with or to reunite.

These definitions can help us understand the meaning of this word. For example in our home when we were raising our children we applied reconciliation by saying or asking and seeking for forgiveness from one another Oftentimes you would hear mommy's voice come out and say, okay, we need to make it right with one another now. What do we need to say to one another?

What do we need to do? We need to make peace with each other. We need to seek forgiveness and we need to make it right if I have wronged you. We need to be in right standings. We need to be reunited, become friendly, or to have peace with one another. This is a good practice not only for children, but it's a greater practice for adults because our children are watching.

So we need to apply this when it comes to reconciliation. This is just a simple childlike example. So Paul is saying that our new changed life is from God. God was working in Christ. God was working through Christ and is now giving us the ministry of reconciliation. So what is that message?

That message is very simple. Make peace with God. Make peace with God. This can apply to the unbeliever as well as the believer. It's very clear in Scripture that we are to confess our sins. We are to make peace with God.

We actively have to fight sin, believers, ambassadors. We're not made, we're not perfect in this earth. We are still attached to this flesh. We still sin. And so we need to make peace with God through the confession of sin. But is that a difficult message for the ambassadors to do to the world?

What's so hard about saying, make peace with God? Peace be with you. Shalom. When you were in Israel, we heard it all the time. It's like in the court, in our court system today, two parties are usually at fault. So both parties need to reconcile, whether they admit it or not.

However, if we're reconciling with God, there's only one guilty party. man man is a party that has been wronged from the beginning in Eden and the curse and the attack of sin on man has continued until this very moment and will continue until Christ's return. So we need to make war with sin, believer. It continues. But because of man's sin, God is always the offended party.

Since he being perfect has established the standard of perfection by the law, we are naturally the offenders, the violators of the law. so God is the only one who can set the terms for reconciliation for himself. Verse 20 says, Therefore we're ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. So we implore you on the behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Why does the believer need to beg people to come to Christ? why is it that we need to implore it means to beg to appeal to the unbelieving world John 3 19-20 says this and this is the judgment the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does evil things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works will be exposed. In fact, Paul says in Romans that we were enemies of God.

He goes on to say in Colossians chapter 1 is that we were alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil. This is the unsaved world. This is the natural bent of our heart. It is our sin that makes us the offenders, the violators, the enemies of God. Jeremiah says man's heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Our basic bent is towards evil all the time.

People do not naturally want to reconcile with God. People are filled with pride. We self self self self and just plain old selfish Man love is naturally for himself. Man's natural love is for sin and for darkness. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 19, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself. Why would God call for reconciliation of man?

Why would God even do that if you're so evil? Most of us usually think that when we don't like somebody's actions, we don't like them and we really don't care. But God's not like that. God has a great desire. It's hard for us sometimes when we're sin and we feel guilty that God would really desire me? 1 Timothy 2.3 says well let's just turn there.

It's easier to go there. 1 Timothy 2.3 Let's turn there. 1 Timothy 1 First of all then I urge that supplication, prayer, intercession, thanksgiving be made for all people. Verse 2 for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good. It is as pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of Christ.

Do you want to know how to pray for our president, our leaders? Pray that you have a desire like God's desire that all people become saved, that they come to the knowledge of Christ. Paul, when he's speaking to the Romans, brings out the point of God's patience. Romans 2.4 Do you presume on the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

His patience leads us to repentance. Let's go back and look at Luke. I had you read the passage in Luke 15. And everyone knows about the prodigal son That he wanted to go his own way he wanted to do his own thing he appealed to his father he appealed to his father to give him his inheritance Basically, I want to go out and live a riotous life. I'm going to go sow my wild oats. verse 17 says but when he came to himself when he started thinking about the life that he was living he was convicted of the life that he was living and he started thinking about the life that the heavenly father has offered to him i love verse 20 he arose and came to his father But while he was still a long ways off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

The father was waiting. The father was waiting for his son to return. Romans 2.4 Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and his forbearance and patience not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Christ was talking about one of the many things in this parable about the prodigal son that his heavenly father was a patient God.

He was looking forward to the repentance of every child. So this is a beautiful depiction of God himself. Christ tells this story for when he prefaces this story with verse 7 in chapter 15. I tell you, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Wow. The Father rejoices.

That's not just angels. That's where the Heavenly Father dwells. There's joy in repentance. There joy in reconciliation The desire is reconciliation Right So why wouldn he give us this message and this purpose to share this very thing I love in verse 24 of chapter 15 where he says, For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate.

They began to celebrate reconciliation. I want us to look at another passage. I want you to turn to Exodus 34. God not only desires us to be reconciled. He is not only patient. But I want to see what God has to say about the person of God.

What does God say about himself? How does God see himself? Let's turn to Exodus 34. And what this is, I'm going to set the scene here. Basically, Moses has already broken the tablets. When he was on Mount Sinai, out of anger, he came down and broke the first set of tablets.

And God says in verse 1, I will write the tablets in the middle of the verse. I'll write the tablets, the words that were on the first tablet, which you broke. Be ready by morning. Come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you and no one to be seen throughout all the mountains. let no flock, no herd, no grace opposite the mountain.

So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and he rose early in the morning, went up on the mountain, and as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand two tablets of stone, the Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. Now don't miss this. The Lord has passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, God, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

This is God talking about himself. This is the kind of God that we're called to serve. This is the kind of God that we... are to love and we have reason to love. Verse 7, keeping a steadfast love for thousands, forgiveness, iniquity, and transmissions of sin. Who forgives iniquities, transmissions, and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children and the children's children.

Growing up, fear of the Lord was the theme in my heart. What the beauty of this is, is God describes himself, he describes himself with some very great characteristics. It's almost as if I'm all these great things to you. I love you, I care for you, I'm patient with you. And he lays out all of this loving kindness. I'll forgive you of all these things.

But there's a yet. Yet. I cannot tolerate. Because I'm holy, I can't tolerate these things. Right? It's a beautiful thing when you look at God's character and God lays it out for us. by saying by no means will I clear the guilty.

Now, for the believer, that should be a great relief because Christ has covered it for me. But to the unbeliever, that yet, that but, should cause pause. That should cause pause. Romans 2, 5 says, but because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed so because of our offense or our violation to his perfect law there are consequences his just word states that all have sinned that all wages have a consequence of sin have a consequence of death In other words without reconciliation with God we just storing up wrath for ourselves from God But the court session doesn end there Hebrews says without the shedding of blood there no remission of sin 2 Corinthians 5, back to our text.

18 and 19. Again, this new creation is from God. Through Christ. Reconciling ourselves to himself. And he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.

Not counting the trespasses against them. So that it is through Christ. It is through Christ. God was working in and through Christ. Reconciling us to himself. so before we see that God has laid out his character in Exodus and he says but who will by no means clear the guilty there's also another exception in Romans 5.8 it says but God shows his love for us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died since therefore we have now been justified much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God so because of Christ God's wrath will not be poured out on the believer for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of Christ Christ is the one who paid the price for us Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received reconciliation. Paul is saying the same thing to the Romans that he is using to say to the Corinthians. The same message of reconciliation is being shared with them for the unbeliever that it is in Corinth. But God makes a way for us to avoid his destructive wrath that I deserve and instead have peace with God through the work of Christ on the cross.

What does that mean that God worked through Christ Our salvation is made possible through his work through someone else work Christ, our substitute, is the next character that we see. First the believer, then the reconciling God, and now Christ, the substitute. For in verse 21 of 2 Corinthians it says, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin. so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

There is a substitution that takes place. A substitute is a person or a thing acting or serving in the place of another. An add-in. In the place of. An alternate. An alternative.

A replacement. One to go in for or by proxy. It was kind of like the ram who was caught in the thicket by his horns when Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac. And he took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son, Isaac, Genesis 22 says. The ram was the substitute to be offered up for the burnt offering sacrifice. The ram's life in the place of the life of Isaac. the substitute.

Christ bore our sin. He absorbed the punishment that I deserved. I want you to turn to Colossians 1.19. I know I've covered a lot of passages. Colossians 1. Paul speaking specifically of Christ.

For in him, for in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And through him, through Christ, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross. And you who were once were alien and hostile and mind doing evil deeds he has now reconciled He has made peace in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy blameless above reproach before him On the cross God treated Jesus as if he lived my sinful life and looked at me as if I lived the perfect righteous life that Christ lived.

Because now when God looks at a reconciled, repentant believer, what does he see? He sees Christ. We go back to 2 Corinthians, that whole aspect is considered to be a cross. It's a cross of love. Your sin for my righteousness. We see the cross as a brutal, ugly, torturous, impaling place of death, but to those who believe it is a beautiful remembrance of the cross or an exchange of love.

Christ took upon himself the Father's just wrath. What I could not take, but instead gave me the righteousness that I did not earn. I'm going to wrap this up. John 3, 17 and 18 says, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son.

Condemnation is the wrath of God and is poured out on man, either on Christ in the place of the believer or his wrath is going to be poured out on the non-believer. His wrath is going to be poured out on man either way. Either you don't know him and you're going to pay the price, which is eternal damnation, or you're going to be protected as a believer because Christ has already taken it.

Isaiah 55 that we read earlier says in verse 6, Paul continues this whole thought in 2 Corinthians. 6. In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul wraps up this whole point that he makes about Christ taking it upon himself and transferring his righteousness for ours. And in chapter 6, verse 1 and 2 says, Working together with him, with Christ, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God vain.

For he says, in a favorable time, I listen to you. And in a day of salvation, I have helped you. Behold, now is a favorable time. Now is a day of salvation. So I make my appeal to anyone who has not repented of their sin. Now is the time.

I also implore you to accept Christ. I encourage we the believers, don't wait for the opportunity, but be an ambassador. Speak the message that God has given us to speak. It's not your message. This is not your home. But to the unbeliever, I implore you to make peace with this reconciling God.

Come to Jesus and live.