The Reconciling God | Foundations Part 1 (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)

Glad to see you and this is my first time to stand up here in the new year. So happy new year to you Hope that things are off to a good start for you and if you and I haven't met my name is Brian Hey big I serve as one of the pastors here and that's Jeff Heiser one of our Pastors leading us in worship this morning But it's great to look out and see faces I know and see lots of faces that I don't know But you're very welcome here. So thank you for being here The last ten years Have marked a lot of disruption for downtown Presbyterian Church I'm thankful to say it's good disruption You know sometimes church disruption is bad disruption like a church split or Infighting and by God's grace it hasn't been that kind of disruption. Thank you Lord But there has been a lot of disruption in the last ten years So going back to you know the beginning of 2016 We have sent out three waves of people to be daughter churches or church plans and We're pretty sure that some of them were Christians and we really missed them Now these were just these were wonderful folks and this wasn't just dozens of people this is hundreds of people Went out and we're so thankful and all three are flourishing again. Thank you Lord But it's very disruptive Because those people especially that first church plan or two a lot of those were folks that just really heard and experienced And were reminded of things and things were reinforced before ten years ago Things that we have said a lot as a church they had that but they went out with that and we wanted them to On top of that in the last ten years we built a new meeting place We tore our old meeting place down on the same corner and we built a new one And again, thank you Lord for providing this this place for us to meet But it is really and this is a real blessing. It's really up the new faces that we see Every Sunday and it's just become it has become almost a weekly thing for somebody especially people who've been here for a while to say You know, I remember it used to be like when we have Lord supper and communion and people are filing by that I really I don't know everybody, but I knew a lot of them or I knew the majority of them and who Not anymore and that is a wonderful thing that means just just new faces new people so Thank you Lord but It's really it's driven home to me and it's driven home to Our leadership and our staff that we need to keep going back over things That we have been saying as a church from the beginning now we do that every time the word is open by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ And I'm gonna do that again this morning. That's always happening But we want to go back over things that are important to us as a church and we want to be clear about those and say them clearly Again, we're gonna call the next few weeks of Sermon's the series Foundations now now we teach a foundation's class We're teaching one of those coming up at the end of this month, but this series is gonna be called foundations because it's we're kind of saying Who are we as a church? What is important to us? What are we trying to accomplish? Let's be clear and let's say it again I And the other preachers are not going to be preaching on downtown press Very important we're not preaching on downtown press. We're preaching the word of God We're preaching from the scriptures, but as we look at the scriptures We want to connect the dots to who are we and what do we want to be clear about with ourselves? so where I want to start is In second Corinthians chapter five we're gonna start in verse 11 and We're really just parachuting in way into this letter So this is one of the letters written by the Apostle Paul We're in the New Testament. He's riding to a church in Corinth. There's an earlier one first Corinthians and Right before this he just said you know every human being One of these days in a day that's coming is gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ Meaning whether you believe this or not whether you agree whether you feel it whether it feels real to you or not one of these days every Everyone you saw the DMV Everyone you saw in the mall or the grocery store everyone you saw in an airport everyone will stand before the judgment seat Of Christ and so this The stakes are high they could not be higher and Paul was a worker I mean if you like work if you feel energized by work if you like cranking you would like Paul Paul cranked Have a professor that wrote a whole essay about the work ethic of Paul is incredible Why did he work so hard? Why why did he sail in not good ships? Across dangerous seats and sometimes experience shipwreck Why did he go into places where the message might be received or he might get beat up and he did get beat up multiple times He talks about that in this letter Why does he do that? Why does he stay single? Why does he work so hard this this passage is a window into it's like Paul is saying You want to know why the stakes are so high? You want to know why I'd like basically kill myself? To do what I do okay. Here's why I do what I do Let's make this the opening the opening text for our foundation series and let me invite you if you would stand for the reading of God's Word Having just said that we will all appear before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ Paul then says verse 11 therefore Knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade others But what we are is known to God and I hope it is known also to your conscience We are not commending ourselves to you again But giving you calls to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and Not about what is in the heart For if we are beside ourselves it is for God If we are in our right mind it is for you For the love of Christ controls us Because we have concluded this that one has died for all therefore all have died And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves But for him who for their sake died and was raised From now on therefore we regard no one according to the flesh Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh we regard him thus no longer 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. This is God's word. Let's pray together Lord please help us now Father We confess and we can fast our sins together that we forget that we're needy children So we don't thank you we're not grateful because we don't know we depend on you for everything we forget it But Lord we want to say we depend on you to hear you So please help us now as we worship you and we ask this in Christ night. Amen. Please be seated A few years ago I Was talking to a man who's on staff with new spring church and You know with about the closest thing to a road that goes right through the middle of the city limits would be Pleasantburg and you've probably seen the new spring church property on South Pleasant but I think that South Pleasantburg and It was Eastland Baptist church way up on a hill and they actually retained a good bit of the Old meeting place of Eastland Baptist but they expanded it added to it and And it's now the new spring church and I know from what I know they really did a good job of not just like eating that church and forgetting but celebrating it welcoming it even kind of There being continuity between that old church and bringing them into to newspring and One of the ways that Fleshed itself out was this man I was talking to he had been a pastor at Eastland Baptist and he was brought on staff to be a pastor the new spring But I was talking to him and he he said something about the staff of that church that he was working with and they're all younger than him It's an older man man. And it may be the best compliment I've ever heard of a church staff. Here's the compliment. He said, "Brian, I'll tell you, these folks haven't gotten over being saved." In other words, they don't just keep the trains running on time. And they're not just kind of like, you know, starting church programs to justify their paid position, but they are still blown away that God saved them. And so they want to talk about it just amongst themselves, not necessarily teaching or being upfront. They want to talk about it. They want to sing about it. They want to proclaim it. They love it. They cannot get over it. I thought, "Man, oh, that that would be every church staff. Oh, that that would be me." And it made me think of the question, "So what happens to a church when you do, you do get over being saved?" We could say a lot of things, but one would be you start having church instead of being the church. You have church. You have meetings. You have Sunday mornings. You have programs. Hopefully, you know, try to do a good job. You do keep the trains running on time. But this sense of urgency and fear and joy and all isn't there. And I'll just tell you, what I want for our church family is what I've heard. You say you want for our church family. And that is that we do have a sense of all and wonder and joy and good fear. Because if we have that, that will get, if that gets in the pipeline, if that's in the water supply, that's going to affect how we worship. It's going to affect how we reach out. It's going to affect how we treat each other. It's going to do all the things. How we interact with our city? If we have those things. Paul does in this passage something that he does in some other passages too. He frames the good news. If you hear a say gospel, that means good news. I mean, it's really good. It's so good no one has to come to you and say, hey, that's good news. It's inherently good. Like, after an eye storm and the power comes back on, no one has to say, hey, that's actually a good development. It's just inherently great. Good news. He frames the good news in terms of reconciliation with God, being reconciled to God. And the reason is not because a group of people said, you know what? I think I'm going to visit God. I want to start some peace talks about reconciliation. I want to see if we can meet halfway. I want to meet halfway. Reconciliation starts with God because God is the reconciling God. How does God bring people to Himself to be reconciled? That's what I want to look at this morning. I want to think about the message, God's message, this reconciling God, His message and His means. Okay? The reconciling God, His message and His means. Let's start off with this. What is not the message? And this is not the only place that Paul says this, but He says it here. What's not the message of reconciliation? Verse 12, we are not commending ourselves to you again. In other words, Paul says, I'm not the message. My colleagues aren't the message. The apostles and other parts of the world, we're not the message. Now, let me keep reading. Verse 12, we're not commending ourselves to you again, but here's what we are doing. We're giving you calls to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. And that thing about these people that boast about outward appearance, it's another clue in second Corinthians that there had been some people that had come in that had interacted with the Corinthian church and we're kind of trying to say, hey, Paul, those guys, they're not the real deal. We're the real deal. We're the real leaders. We're the real teachers. They're really into externals and their accomplishments. And Paul says this, we're not commending ourselves. We do want you to boast about us. We just said, you don't want, you don't want to commend yourself. If you keep reading in second Corinthians, there's a famous passage almost at the end of the letter where he says, hey, let me tell you what I boast about. All right, I'm about to brag. Here's my brag. I'm totally weak. I'm so weak that it's incredible that God could use somebody like me. So when I brag, and if you brag about me, I want you to brag about how weak and frail and needy I am. Okay, so there's your boast. So we're not the message. What is the message? The message is the good news. The message is the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel. Verse 17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold." Now, beholds aren't just put in the Bible by a committee that just spreads out the holds. If a writer says behold, the writer is saying, okay, check this out. Behold, the new has come. In other words, the gospel is not good news of, man, really, really time-tested behavior modification. Really time-tested religious wisdom from the ages. It is the transformation of human beings. It is the old you dying. And God not just forgiving sin, although he does that, but making a new you. The old has gone and new has come. Now, I want you to think about two words. And when I do the foundation's class at the end of this month, we always cover this. We're going to talk about these two words. These aren't the only two words that we think about. When we think about the good news, but they are right there in the core. And I want you to know these words. If you're visiting downtown press for the very first time this morning, and after hearing the little balding man up front, you don't ever want to hear me again. If that happens to you and you never come back to downtown press, I want you to know what these terms mean because they're not like PCA company brand terms. These are Bible words. All right? Here's the words, justification and sanctification. I want you to know what these terms mean. Justification and sanctification. These are right in the core of the core of the good news. Justification. Let's get back to this thing about Paul is telling us the good news. He's reminding me. He's riding a church. They've already professed to believe in the good news, but Paul loves to go back over the good news. I'm looking at a church. There is a critical mass of people here who believe the good news, but we need to always go back over it and review and feed on it and get clarity about it. What is justification? All right. Paul says the gospel is reconciliation. God is the God of reconciliation. Think about that term reconcil. Are you reconciled to somebody that you've never met? No. Can't be reconciled to a stranger. In other words, you're only reconciled to somebody that you have some connection with. But if you need to be reconciled, you're not connected. But reconciliation also has this urgency to it that you're supposed to be connected. You need to be connected. You need to reconnect. And Paul says this God is the reconciling God. Every human being that has ever lived, every human being I'm looking at, every human being that will ever live on the face of the earth, every one of them bears the image, not of a generic God, but of this God. And he or she has a soul that is made, not just for a generic God, not just for generic religion, but made for this God where this soul cannot be satisfied with anything else. And in our sin, we'll try anything else. We'll try everything else. We want him. Even if we won't admit that or say it, we want him. We're supposed to be connected to him. And listen to what God does about that. Look in verse 19. In Christ, don't hit the pause button. Don't fly past those words. Paul loves that phrase. In Christ, because what that means is that if you believe this good news, if you have what's called in the Bible, faith, not that you manufactured this faith, that God gives you this faith to trust, to believe the good news. If you do that, Jesus at that point is not just your teacher, your leader. You're king and he is all those things. You're Savior, he is that. But you're in him. You're united to him, Paul says in other places. So that what he has, you have. Because you are one with him. You're in him. All right. Verse 19. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people's trespasses against them. Now, Paul uses that language elsewhere about counting. You know, like when you're a little, you're playing a game, and there's some way that maybe you score points in this game, and you're friend cheats, and you see your friend cheat, and what do you say? That doesn't count. That doesn't count. Paul uses the language of God, counts. Our sin against Jesus. He didn't do any of these things. He takes our sins. We really do these sins, and then we're going to do some more. He takes the guilt and the dirt of it, the stains of it, the shame of it, he takes it, and he counts the dirt and the shame and the guilt of it against his son, and then does what? Looking, verse 21. John Calvin called what's described in this verse, "The wondrous exchange." Verse 21. "For our sake, He made Him." Let me clarify that. "For our sake, God the Father made His Son, made Jesus, He should be sin, who knew no sin." Meaning, he never sinned. He never disobeyed his Father. He never went against the law of God. He never fell short of loving God or loving His neighbor. If you were His enemy, He loved you. In fact, we can say present tense. If you are His enemy, He loves you. But He was so identified by God that if the sins of God's people, that it was as if He became sin. He never did them, but He so identified He becomes sin. For our sake, God made Him to be sin, who knew no sin. So that, and here's that phrase again, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. Now, did you catch the other side of that exchange? This is justification. All my sin, my failure, my guilt, my shame, is counted against Him. And God treats Him the way I deserve to be treated with His justice. On the cross, the wrath of God. That would get us out of hell. That would get us out of ever experiencing the justice of God. That doesn't get you into heaven. To go to heaven, you have to have a righteous life. God counts the righteous perfection, just airtight, loving obedience of His Son. He counts it to His people who believe. Let me read it again. So that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. That's justification. You don't get it through a pilgrimage. You don't get it through acts of obedience. You don't get it through volunteerism. We're giving enough. You get justification by believing the good news about Jesus Christ. Sanctification. Look in verse 14. Now, I would say this is the hardest part of the passage. But I think you're going to do awesome. Halfway through verse 14, that starts with, one has died for all. See where I am halfway through? One has died for all. That's Jesus. Therefore, all have died. And He died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. That's a difficult part of this passage. But there are other things that Paul wrote that help us shed light on this Scripture. That's one of the big rules of interpreting the Bible, that Scripture interpret Scripture. Use clearer Scriptures and bring them to the harder Scriptures. Paul talks elsewhere about the fact that when Christ Jesus died on the cross, He didn't just take the punishment that we deserve. You know, drink the cup of wrath. But He broke the power of sin. Sin is powerful. I mean, do you remember New Year's resolutions last year? And that might be like, drink more water. But it may have been things about ways I really want to change. You know, hard changes is because sin is powerful if you're fighting sin. Old ways, old habits, family patterns. Christ breaks the power when He dies. And this is a mystery. His people were in Him when He died, so that the old us died. And when He rose to Nenus of life, and He had no sin, but when He rose to Nenus of life, we rose with Him as new creatures. He has saved us, not only from guilt, He has saved us to be different now, to change, to live not for ourselves, but for Him. Paul knew what it was to live for himself. He was building quite a Jewish reputation. But man, when we said, when I met Jesus Christ, everything changed. I don't live for Paul anymore. I live for Christ. Why do I go all over the world for Paul? No, for Christ. God taking away our guilt, God changing us, God changing the ark of our lives, God changing our behaviors, but even our loves from the inside out, sanctification. Now there's a difference, friends, between grasping the content of this and being grasped by it. There's a difference between grasping the content and being grasped by it. Sometimes we really almost don't want to admit this out loud, but when Jesus sent out the 12 apostles, not just to do miracles, but to preach the gospel, one of those men that He sent out was Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot could clearly, ably, verbally communicate Jesus' gospel. So in other words, He grasped the content. It never grasped Him with terrible results. Do we just grasp the content? Is this just kind of like a cool, linear, coherent thought system? Okay, justification, sanctification. I can see how God can be just and He can save somebody because the transfer of the wondrous exchange. But does it grasp you? Now you'll know that it's grasped us when at least a couple of things happen. One is, and stay with me. The first is that we fear Him. We fear Him. I feel like I can't go, but just a few months without quoting this lyric, but amazing grace, arguably the most famous English hymn. What does the second stand to say? God's undeserved favor. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. Jesus Himself said, "Hey, don't be afraid of those who can only kill the body." Then after that they can't do anything. Let me tell you who you should fear. Your body can kill both body and soul and hell. Yes, I tell you fear Him. That's Jesus. That we will all stand before the living God who is a consuming fire. That's why after just mentioning the judgment seat of Christ, what does Paul say? "We fear Him." Let me verbalize something. This is an opportunity to do it. I don't like it when I get choked up when I'm preaching. I don't like it when my heart gets up in my throat. If you look at my notes, there's no bracket that says like dramatic pause. But it happens because the stakes are so high. If I may say so, if you do not fear the living God you need to. Because we are made in His image, we cannot escape and we have to deal with Him and we will stand before Him. Amen. When you don't just grasp the categories as a system but when it grabs you you learn to fear Him. And, oh, by the way, did you notice how, Paul's been talking about we've been reconciled, we've been reconciled, and then in verse 20 he says, "Be reconciled." In other words, don't just grasp the system and profess faith and get baptized. Make sure you really are reconciled with him. We fear him, but what's the other part when it grasps us? I love telling you this. When it grasps us, we know he loves us. I mean, we know it down in our bones. Verse 14, "The love of Christ controls us." In some ways that could mean our love for him, but the big one, Luminum of Repole is, "His love for us, his love for me. Why am I going all over the world because this is the best thing I've ever heard, seen, felt, and I want everybody to know it." That's what we do when we feel loved. When we love something. Do you know you have eternal life? Do you know he has taken away your sins? Do you know that your friends with him, that you're reconciled, or are you still kind of standing in front of his desk, nervous, that you're about to get it? When the good news grasps us, we fear him because of who he is and we know he loves us. It was grace that taught my heart to fear, it was grace my fears relieved. What is God's means for a needy world to get this? This is kind of hiding and playing inside. Paul goes all over the world and does what? Does he just give talks? Does he start men's ministries? Does he do conferences? He would teach anywhere, but what does he do? He starts churches. The reason we have so much of his writing in the New Testament is because he writes local churches. The means that God uses, this reconciling God, the means of getting this out to the world is these communities of sinful messed up people who have been reconciled to God, who have doctrine and who have leaders, who have a community called a church. What does the church need to do to be that means? Let me say three things quickly. Clarify, communicate and connect. Clarify, communicate, connect. Clarify. Churches must clarify what we are offering is not ourselves. The answer that the world needs is not us. All this comes from God. Verse 18. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. The good news is from God. Not from a church. I heard a pastor out west. I think he was in Boulder, Colorado, and he said he had been there for years. He said it drives him crazy because a new church would start up in Boulder and they would do their blast and their social media blast and it would say something like bringing God to Boulder. He said he just made him want to throw chairs because he wanted to say he's here. He's already reconciling the world himself. You did not bring that to Boulder. We don't bring that to Gringville. So clarity. All right. Communication. Verse 11. Knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade others. Verse 19. Coming to us the message of reconciliation. The good news has content that you must say. So churches have to say it whether that's preaching or small groups or one-to-one communication but in a particular way the public proclamation of the gospel we communicated. You've probably heard the thing about. Reach the gospel wherever you go. Use words if necessary. No one did good works like Jesus and he preached all the time. He went into synagogues and taught all the time. He taught in the temple all the time. It has to be communicated verbally. And then connection. Go back to verse 11. About halfway through there. But what we are is known to God and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We're not committing ourselves to you again but giving you calls to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what's in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves it is for God. If we are in our right mind it is for you. What can you tell in that text that he knows them and they know him because he has spent time with them and related to them and opened up his life and his heart to them and they have connected. If you walk down Main Street and you see someone with like an information, a little whatever stand or someone giving out tracks, they are probably trying to do the right thing but why does it feel like a disconnect? Because there is no connection. It is kind of like data transfer. Here is the information. That person might be a wonderful person but they are not connecting with you. Verses. Here is the vision of our church. It is not totally true yet and we don't hit it. Just right. Here is the vision of what we want to be true. Every avenue of downtown Greenville connected with the good news and loved well. The reconciling God doesn't just give data. Like great information. I sent my son, there is the information, there is a completed Bible, you do with it what you will. But I am not doing anything else. He works through sinful people to love and connect and invest in others. Let me end with this. This passage is so dense, so much to say but let me end with this. I had one grandparent of my four grandparent that I never met. It was my dad's dad, Paul Heybig senior. He died before my parents' river married so my mom never met him. My whole life, anytime he came up in conversation my dad would say the same thing. He must have said this a hundred times. When his dad would come up in conversation he would say he would eat new boys up. He would have eaten new boys up. If you go up to my study my office upstairs, I only have one picture of a grandparent in my study. It is Paul senior. First I think he is so handsome. I am just glad to be kind to him. Eighth grade education, blue collar guy looks like a bank president in this picture. My dad just kept telling me he would love to have a relationship with you so I feel like he does. I want him to be proud of me, honestly. But dad was an ambassador to me of his father that I never met. My church is our communities of ambassadors. When you pull out on a Washington or Macby or broad and somebody pulls in front of you and does something they are supposed to the way you respond is to be as an ambassador. When you go to school tomorrow and somebody is mean to you, you have the privilege to be an ambassador. It is hard work. The privilege to work churches are ambassadors of the living God. Amen. Let's pray together. Father we pray this won't just be an aspiration but will come more and more true in our lives and in this church family. This can only happen from you the reconciling God. It can only happen by the power of your Holy Spirit. We pray for this in Christ name. Please. Amen.