Passing On the Message of Reconciliation

Transcript

GR 1810
06/07/2015
Passing on the Message of Reconciliation
2 Corinthians 5:20-21
Gil Rugh

We're in 2 Corinthians 5 and this is the second letter we have preserved in our Scripture from the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. He had written at least one other letter because he refers to that, but from what we have in our record, we have 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. And they are two rather long letters. And we are familiar with the church at Corinth and sadly we often think of it as a church with troubles and it is. But these two letters to this church remind us and encourage us of basic foundational matters. And here we have Paul's second letter. When he initially visited them he spent a year and a half ministering there, leading them to Christ, and teaching them. He has written these letters. They are a church that constantly needs to be pulled back on focus and I think that's one of the reasons the Lord has preserved these two letters for us. A reminder, here we are in 2 Corinthians 5 and Paul is going over what we would call basic foundational matters—the facts of the Gospel, the foundational truths that God in Jesus Christ has provided salvation. And that salvation comes to us through faith in Christ and radically changes and transforms our lives.

Now Paul talked about this when he was there with them on his first visit as he presented the Gospel. Come back to 1 Corinthians 1. The Spirit of God directed in the writing and preserving of what we have as our Old Testament and New Testament. So these are messages that the Spirit of God intended to be preserved for us and to benefit from. And you'll note as Paul began this letter he has to deal with issues that are dividing the church at Corinth, causing conflict and confusion. In verse 11 he says, “I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you.” And those dividing around personalities have caused conflict. And really we haven't moved much along when we get to 2 Corinthians because there is division in the church there, taking a little different twist but the same kind of problem—they have lost focus. And false teachers have come and they have been undermining the church's confidence in the ministry of Paul. And what does Paul do? He brings them back to the basic Gospel.

What did he do in 1 Corinthians 1? Look at verse 17, “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel, not in cleverness of speech so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Verse 21, “Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed. The Jews ask for signs, the Greeks search for wisdom, we preach Christ crucified.” It's a stumbling block to the Jews, the Greeks look at it as foolishness, we preach Christ crucified. And this is what brings salvation. Paul did the same thing in the first letter that he has to do in the second letter. Let me bring you back to the beginning. What was the message you heard that by the grace of God you responded in faith and experienced the power of God's salvation?

Look at verse 26, consider your calling, you are not a church of the super intellects, of the super rich, the super powerful. You are just average, ordinary people. Because they keep being turned aside from the simplicity of the beauty of the work of God to getting captivated by men and their actions. Where we are in the second letter Paul has to deal with the fact that people have infiltrated the church and said he's not the great speaker, he's not trustworthy, he's not reliable. The church is constantly drifting off and Paul has to pull them back. So the focus of the Gospel and message of Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 2:2, verse 1, “I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, in much trembling. My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.” Now later he writes the second letter and what does he have to deal with? Same eroding confidence in Paul and the message that he preached. So as we keep going back over these basic foundational truths, it is because God has preserved these letters for our benefit because we face the same kind of struggles, constant drift to move off focus, if you will. And we are constantly being brought back to the truth of the Gospel.

Come over to 2 Corinthians 5. Paul talks about his ministry, that is what has been going on in these opening chapters, because those who would attempt to undermine his ministry, and the reason they are trying to undermine their confidence in Paul, so that they would lose confidence in the message that Paul preached. And Paul wants to remind them, the message that I preach is the message of God's salvation. It's the message that brought you salvation. And in this there are discouraging times. We may look weak, we may not be impressive in the eyes of the world, we may be suffering physically, but our message is a message of power. And that has to be the focus.

We live in a world that respects wealth, that respects power, respects intelligence, respects success. And in that sense nothing has changed. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. So we have to be careful that we as the church don't get enamored of the things that enamor the world. And we try to adjust to get more admiration from the world, and that always comes at the expense of the message that God has entrusted to us.

Paul has reminded them in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” Then verse 11, “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.” And that is what he is unfolding now—the message that God has entrusted to him. And he is so concerned knowing someday he will give an account for his faithfulness with that message, he wants to be clear. He is functioning in light of what God has done and what God has committed him.

So when we come to verses 14-21 we will find a reoccurring two points. He's going to talk about the work of reconciliation that God has accomplished, and the message of reconciliation that God has entrusted to us—Paul and now down to us who are also believers. Verse 14 he had said, “the love of Christ controls us.” And when he is talking about the love of Christ he is talking not about some sentimental feeling but the love that Christ demonstrated for us by dying for us. “Having concluded this, one died for all; therefore all died. He died for all so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who loved them and died for them.” Verse 17, “Therefore if anyone be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things pass away, new things have come.” You understand this work of God's salvation is a life transforming work. It sets you free. It makes you new. It gives you a new life, spiritual life. As we've talked about, that's why we don't get involved in works of reformation, trying to clean up the outside of the cup, as Jesus talked about, so people look good on the outside. We have a message that truly changes a life and makes a person new.

“All these things,” verse 18, “are from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” And that two-fold emphasis we keep going back and forth through the rest of this chapter. “God was in Christ reconciling the world. God has committed to us this message of reconciliation.” Verse 19, verse 18, now verse 20. And what we're going to do is pick up what he did in verses 18-19, verse 18, “God reconciled us to Himself;” verse 19, “God was in Christ reconciling the world.” The end of verse 18, “God gave us the ministry of reconciliation;” the end of verse 19, “He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” Verse 20, “Therefore,” picking up what he just said, particularly at the end of verse 19. “He has committed to us the word of reconciliation; therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.” What does that mean, we are ambassadors for Christ? Well, he just told us—He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

A number of writers draw attention to what an ambassador is. He was the same thing in the ancient world, whether among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans or down to today. An ambassador is someone who was commissioned or appointed to a task, representing someone or something like a government. They had a special task in carrying out that work of representing this other person. They exercise the authority of the one they represent. In other words they come, like an ambassador from the United States. We send an ambassador to another country. He represents the United States. He has been commissioned for that task. The response of people to that ambassador is indicative to their response to the person or country that he represents. If one of our ambassadors is mistreated, humiliated or physically abused, that is an action against our country.

So when Paul says we are ambassadors for Christ, we come with a message proclaiming what Christ has done. We represent Him, we represent the God who is bringing His work through us to you. And he goes on to say that, verse 20, “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us.” This is not Paul's message. It is a message concerning what God has done in Christ. Simple. We as believers understand that. That's how we came to know the salvation that has been provided in God. We come proclaiming what God has done in Christ. What has He done? We read in verse 18, “All things are from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.” Verse 19, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” That picked up on the end of verse 18, “God gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” These flow together. Here is what God has done, now we have been sent to tell you what God has done. God has provided reconciliation in His Son. As His ambassador when I convey that message, when you convey that message, it is just as though God were making an appeal through us because we are just passing on the message of what God has done. It's not my message, it's not your message. So it's as though God were making His appeal. We have become mouthpieces, giving forth God's message. That's an ambassador, an ambassador doesn't represent himself. He represents the one who has commissioned him, the one who has assigned him.

Verse 18, “God gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” We are ambassadors for Christ, to tell people about Christ. It's as though God were making an appeal through us. And this is important to see the connection. The work of reconciliation has been done. Remember reconciliation, key theological word. There are a variety of words that are associated with God's work of salvation. We think of justification, sanctification, glorification, propitiation, redemption. All are part of God's work in salvation, but they all bring a little different emphasis so that we know more fully. Reconciliation has to do with bringing us into right relationship with God. In our last study we talked about that word. It indicates there is enmity, there is conflict. If you are going to reconcile two people, it's not because they are friends. You don't reconcile two people who are friends and in a good relationship with one another. You say I'm going to reconcile these two people, and they say, what's wrong? What's the problem they are having? By very definition reconciliation indicates there is a conflict. And there is a conflict between God and sinners. We noted the amazing thing about the reconciliation God has accomplished, He has done what was necessary to resolve the enmity and hostility that was there by the action of sinners. He has taken the initiative to do everything for sinners who were at war with God, who were under the condemnation of a holy God, destined to an eternal hell. He has taken upon Himself to do the work of reconciliation so that we could be brought into a relationship of peace with Him. That is the message He has entrusted to us.

So you can, with confidence, go to a person and say God has sent me to tell you something of great importance. I have a message from God for you. God says that He has a great love for you, a love so great that He sent His Son to die so that you could be brought into right relationship with Him. That's the message entrusted to us, that's a message of reconciliation. It's as though God were making His appeal through us. And so what does Paul say at the end of verse 20? “We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Follow through, that's what our life and ministry is about. I am God's ambassador, so I come representing Him. It's just as though God spoke from heaven, but instead of speaking directly He is speaking indirectly—He has sent us to tell people what He has done in Christ.

Turn over to 1 Thessalonians. Thessalonica was another Greek city. This letter was written to that church in the Greek city that Paul had established. In the first chapter of this first letter Paul says in verse 5, “Our Gospel did not come to you in word only but also in power in the Holy Spirit with much conviction.” See what Paul did when he came to Thessalonica—he preached the Gospel. And as a result of the preaching of the Gospel some believed and were saved. They experienced the power of God's salvation in giving them new life, in making them a new creature, in setting them free from slavery to self and sin and Satan. The end of verse 9, “How you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God so that we would no longer serve ourselves,” our selfish ideas, our self-made ideas of how we please God. Down in 1 Thessalonians 2:4, “But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel.” Same thing Paul wrote to the Corinthians, God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, “so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines the hearts.” Very similar, isn't it, to what we talked about in 2 Corinthians 5:10 where it says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” where the motives of our heart will be examined. Paul says I have been entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak. What do we speak? What was entrusted to me. I'm not called to come up with clever ideas and plans, I'm entrusted with the Gospel. I must speak that because as God's representative He will examine my heart.

This is what the Corinthian church was battling with. They are constantly concerned about pleasing men. What do people think? How do people look at this? Paul says I don't take that into consideration. Down in verse 13, “For this reason we also constantly thank God when you received the Word of God which you heard from us.” It's God's Word, you heard it from us. Same thing we are reading in 2 Corinthians, “as though God were making His appeal through us.” You understood when you heard the Gospel from us, you recognized this is God's Word. Paul is simply passing it on. “You accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God which performs its work in you who believe.”

How amazing. Think about what Paul is saying. Every time you present the Gospel to someone, which is God's message of how a sinner can be reconciled to Him, you are really speaking God's Word. How awesome is it. That's why we saw where Paul talked about, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” so that He gets all the glory and all the credit. How amazing is it that you can tell someone the message of Christ and God may use that to bring about a transformation in them. They believe and are marvelously saved. Wow! What could be more important than that? No matter what is going on in the world today, the most powerful men, the most wealthy, all of it pales into insignificance in light of what is happening when the most insignificant person, unimportant in the world's eyes, a Christian tells someone the Gospel of Jesus Christ, giving God's Word so that God might use it to transform a heart.

We have to be very careful here. We have been entrusted with the message from God. I have no liberty with this, I have no freedom with this, I am simply to pass it on. That's why James warned, don't many of you be teachers because we will incur a stricter judgment. It's a serious matter to be entrusted with the Word of God.

The church drifts. I was reading some material this week on contextualization. It's a word that has become big in missions—we must contextualize the Gospel. Now we used to say we want to go and do a work of indigenization, create indigenous churches. You preach the Gospel, people believe, a church is established and it becomes an independent Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church. Now that's not enough. Something ought to tell you some of these ideas the church picks up, do you know where that idea of contextualization came from around 1970? The World Council of Churches. Has any good thing ever come out of the World Council of Churches? Has anything biblical ever come out of that? Now you can't read a modern book on missions, even by evangelicals, that doesn't talk to you about the importance of contextualization, which is not just bringing the Gospel, we have to consider the context, the culture of these people, the social conditions of these people because then we want to put the Gospel in its proper context. Do you know what that is another way of saying? We are going to massage and make changes in the Gospel.

No. What did Paul do when he preached the Gospel to the Jews at Jerusalem? Any difference? What about when he preached the Gospel to the Greeks? The Jews wanted miracles, the Greeks loved wisdom. We just read in 1 Corinthians 1 about those things. Do you know what Paul said? When I preach to the Jews, when I preach to the Greeks, different culture, different social conditions, “I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Do you know what happened when he got to the Romans? Preached to the Romans? Same message. The church says yes, but what they've really done is absorb the world and pretty soon now . . . I was talking to the head of the Department of Missions in an evangelical seminary, we're working in the importance of contextualization. What do you mean, the importance of contextualization? What's wrong with the pure Gospel? It always comes out that we're going to be more effective.

So the issues being dealt with in the New Testament aren't any different. It isn't any wonder that God repeatedly takes us back to what we have to be focused on. He has spoken! Tell them what I said. They are in a different culture. We first have to study their culture. We have to study their social conditions. We want to know where they are in their thinking. Who cares? They are lost and on their way to hell. They are so confused they don't know which end is up. They are so confused they don't even know they are lost. It's like me when we go on a trip. Marilyn wakes up and says, where are we? I don't know, we're on the way to where we are going. I think you turned around. One day we traveled hours going the wrong way. I got in a jug handle, I didn't know I was lost. We kept going. We could have been in Philadelphia instead of California. That's fine, I don't even know. That's where the world is, they don't know. They are in a world of confusion. Come and tell them the truth. But they have a different culture. I know, they are in a whole different world, they are in a world of lostness. All I can do is bring light and trust that the living God will do a work that only He can do. As soon as we start to massage things and do the work that only God can do, we have begun to compromise and corrupt the Gospel.

I say that because we are back going through what for the church at Corinth ought to be the ABCs. We're just back to talking about the Gospel. How does the church drift all the time? We had a speaker here, now with the Lord, many years ago who said every church, every seminary goes liberal. He's right. It's the relentless drift. We are saved, there is nothing more important. We want to tell everybody that. Pretty soon it is still important to us but there are other things and churches just wander away.

Come back to 2 Corinthians 5. I love the way Paul puts it at the end of verse 20, “We beg you on behalf of Christ.” We are standing here as representatives appointed by God to bring you the message of what Christ has done. Verse 14, “The love of Christ controls us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Be reconciled to God, that's a strong statement. There is passion in Paul here. We beg you. It's a different word but carries the same idea, translated appeal. As though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you. And that verb reconciled, aorist imperative, it's a strong and forceful command. There is passion. You must be reconciled. One commentator translating the Greek said, get reconciled to God. This is just not, take it or leave it, I told you. For Paul this is the passion of life, this is how we go about it, it consumes me. You must hear this, you must believe it. I beg you, I encourage you, place your faith in Christ. Be reconciled to God. I'm working on it, I go to church. I've been baptized. No, you can't be reconciled to God that way. That will keep you from being reconciled. Maybe I'll come to your church and get baptized. That won't help. The only way you can be reconciled is to recognize there is nothing you can do. Your situation is so dire, so helpless, only God could do something. And He did it. He had His Son die for you. “The love of Christ controls us, having concluded this. One died for all, therefore all died.” The work has been done.

How tragic, we have people running around trying to do good works, trying to go to church, get baptized, partake of sacraments, go to confession, abuse their body as you see in some of the pagan religions around the world. The work of reconciliation has been done. There is nothing you can add to it, there is nothing you can take away. It is done. Now you will either accept it or you won't. That's the point. We beg you, be reconciled to God.

Now we come back, here is the work of reconciliation to drive home the point. This is all that can be done, it has been done. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” One of the most profound statements in all the Bible and it just is telling you what happens in the work of Christ in reconciliation. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,” verse 19 said. Stretch that out. “He made Him who knew no sin.” Christ had no personal involvement in sin, either in thought or action. He is sinless, He is without sin. We studied the book of Hebrews and we went through that in passages like Hebrews 4:15, 7:26 and we will be into this in Peter, He is the spotless Lamb of God, in our study of Peter on Sunday evenings. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.” He didn't make Him sinful, He didn't make Him a sinner. That's not possible, that wouldn't fix the problem. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.” In effect our sin is going to be imputed to Christ so that the righteousness of God can be imputed to us. That's where he is in this verse—“made Him to be sin on our behalf.” Acting for our benefit, as our substitute, paying our penalty. So all the consequences of my sin now are placed on Him, my guilt, my punishment. He steps in and takes it. He didn't commit the sins, but He is bearing the responsibility for them, the accountability.

Turn over to Galatians 3. When it says “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,” you understand that all teaching that implies you have to do something. This is a major difference between evangelicals and Catholics. Catholics say what Christ did is necessary but it's not enough, you have to partake of the sacraments, you need the fellowship of the church and its ongoing . . . That's why they have a purgatory. It's not done. Well God did a partial work? That's a denial of the Gospel. He either paid the penalty for sin in full for all or He did not. And this idea that you also have to do . . . That's not the Gospel. You are lost and on your way to hell. Salvation comes when a person recognizes Christ did everything, it's done.

So we come to Galatians 3 and here Paul is talking about the Gospel, the power of the Gospel. Here again the drift. Verse 3, “Are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh?” The idea we trusted Christ and now we work to bring salvation to completion. Come down to verse 13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us.” That's the same thing, He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us. He redeemed us, paid our penalty, our guilt by becoming a curse for us. The Bible says cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, and He was hung on the cross. He was bearing our penalty so that, the end of verse 14, “we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

The work of reconciliation, redemption has been accomplished. It is done for everyone. There is no limitation to that, it has been done for everyone. But no one is saved by the fact the work of reconciliation has been done. We've stressed this but somehow there is confusion among evangelicals. No one is saved apart from faith in the work that Christ has done. I can't understand why there is confusion on that point. Reformed theology, limited atonement. The more I read about it the more nonsensical it is. He died for all. Well, then everybody must be saved. No because you are not saved except by faith. Nobody is saved because He died for them, they are saved because they believe in His death on their behalf. It is not really complicated, theologians have made it difficult.

So Christ became a curse. Come over to 1 Peter 1:19, I've referred to this verse. “We were redeemed not with perishable things like silver and gold, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” I referred to that verse and He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, when He died He was the sinless Lamb of God. But He was paying the penalty, taking the curse that was due us for our sin. But you come down to 1 Peter 2:24, “And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross.” So it was for our sins, our penalty, it was the death due us that He was dying “so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wound you were healed.” It is His death that brought God's salvation to us. In 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also died for sins once for all,” note this, it's on the death once for all for sins, “the just for the unjust.” There again He is the righteous One, dying for the unrighteous, the unjust, “so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, made alive in the Spirit.”

So you come back to 2 Corinthians 5, “He made Him,” verse 21, “who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Then note here, why did this happen? So we could be reconciled to God. And so we might become the righteousness of God, that God might declare us forgiven, declare us righteous. This is what we call forensic not ethical righteousness. Any more than the sin that is credited to Christ is ethical sin. He didn't become sinful. And you'll note here, “that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” I've talked about reform theology, reformed theologians are always talking about the righteousness of Christ. But you understand that expression is never used in the Bible? They have active and passive obedience. The active obedience of Christ—He had to keep the Law perfectly based on the covenant of works, part of covenant theology, to acquire righteousness for man that was lost by Adam in his sin. The passive obedience is His death on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. That's a theological development that has no biblical foundation. In the first place I'm told here I get the righteousness of God in Christ. Why? How? By His death. When did God make Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf? At His death on the cross. Why did He die on the cross? So that my sin could be placed on Him so that God's righteousness could be placed on me, so to speak, credited to my account. God takes the sin of my account and places it on Christ and God gives His righteousness to me. I don't have any problem with talking about the righteousness of Christ, but it's the righteousness of Christ provided by His death on the cross.

Come back to Romans 5. It was by one act of righteousness that Christ provided righteousness for us. And we've been in the first part of Romans 5:6, “For while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Verse 8, “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.” Verse 10, “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,” the work of reconciliation was accomplished while we were the hostile enemies at war with God. Now that we have come to believe in that work of reconciliation and have become God's children, have His life, how much more will we be reconciled by His life. Then you come into that contrast between the one and the many or the one and the all in verses 12-19, summarized in verses 20-21, the one and the many. We'll just pick up verse 17, “For if by the transgression of the one,” talking about Adam and his sin in the Garden, “death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” So one person brought sin, one Person brings life.
“So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.” It was one act of righteousness that resulted in justification of life. It's not the life of Christ and obedience to the Law that acquires righteousness. The concept of active and passive obedience is as theological doctrine devised in covenant theology out of the covenant of works.

I don't know why as I read some dispensationalists talking about the active and obedience of Christ. It was one act of righteousness and you can't explain that. Well, you could use one in a collective sense. Well in the comparison then you would have to say that Adam's one act of sin was collective of the whole life of sin he had been living. And pretty soon we just start to dismantle Scripture because it doesn't fit our theology. Instead of adjusting our theology to fit Scripture, we begin to reinterpret Scripture to fit our preconceived theology.

All of this to say the death of Christ provided righteousness from God for us. That's it. Because my sin had been removed from my account and placed on Christ so that He died for that. Now the actual transaction is not applied to me until I place my faith in Christ. Why was He dying? Because He had to pay the penalty for my sin. You know we have these catchy phrases. John Owen, either Christ died for all the sins of all men and all men are saved; or Christ died for some of the sins for all men, therefore no one is saved; or Christ died for all the sins of some men and only those men can be saved, the elect. That's for limited atonement. Don't write it down, doesn't matter if you remember it. Who said that's the only possible answer? What about the fact Christ died for all the sins of all men and only those who believe in Him will be saved. Well, it's not reformed. Oh. Well, maybe we ought to stop having a Bible and reform theology as our authority. Maybe we just ought to have the Bible. That should be adequate.

All this to say we have salvation in Christ. The greatest thing, come back to 2 Corinthians 5, and we want to grab on to this, we don't want to lose our hold, this is what we are called to do. That's why we may be out of step with other evangelicals. We don't get involved in trying to improve the culture. We don't get involved in trying to upgrade social things. . . Nothing wrong with that, the world can do that, fine. We have been entrusted with something of far greater importance. The church is the pillar and support of the truth, we are unique in the world. We come to tell people a message from God. It's a message of reconciliation. It can be intimidating but don't be afraid. You can speak as God's spokesman, I have a message to tell you that comes from God. He said He has done a work to enable you to be reconciled to Him, it's done. I have my church. Well that doesn't have anything to do with being reconciled to God, you know. What it took to reconcile you to God is for God's Son to take your place, bear the penalty for your sin, die for your benefit in your place so that God could forgive you. Now what you have to do is place your faith in Him, trust that. That's it. Understand responsibility.

Paul’s talking about what God has done for him and in him and he was one, now, carrying the message of reconciliation. But how did it get down to us? My cousin was visiting here recently. Spent twenty years as a missionary in France, came to trust Christ one day in 1975 back in my parents' home in New Jersey. He and I, when we were young, living outside at Pittsburgh, went forward at a camp meeting in response to a presentation of the Gospel. And I was saved, my cousin was not saved at that time. He was saved a number of years later, 1975. But he was telling me he found out who that man was who was preaching at that camp meeting at that time. Amazing. I didn't know. But the same process happened—somebody heard the Gospel and believed it. And here now 2000 years after Paul, after Christ someone passed it on to me and I believed it. Then 25 years later passed it on again to my cousin and he believed it. And everyone here, someone told you. May have been your parents, Sunday School teacher, somebody you work with, one of your kids. Somewhere we had to hear the Gospel so we could believe it. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. You understand you were entrusted with the most important treasure in the world, the message of eternal salvation. We have to let it out, we are commissioned to tell it. All of us have contact with people someone else, a believer, may never have contact with. If I don't tell them how will they ever believe? How shall believe in that which they have not heard? How shall they hear without someone to tell them? How will they tell them if they haven't been sent? God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Tell someone. I'm glad someone told me. Stop and think. Who told you so that you could believe? And what a privilege it is to be an instrument to tell someone else.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the message of reconciliation, Lord, a life-changing message. Lord, it is easy for us to get lax, to get distracted even as a church from the proclamation of Your truth. May we as a church and we as individuals have the passion for truth that we are willing to beg people to be reconciled to God with a sense of urgency. You must be reconciled to God. Christ died so that you can be reconciled to God. I've come to tell you a message of life, a message of forgiveness, a message of salvation. Thank You for our salvation, thank You for calling us together as Your church in this place. Lord, may we be faithful to this message and to the truth of Your Word in all that we do. We pray in Christ's name, amen.