II Corinthians 5:18 – 6:2

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for uh joining us for tuning in uh this morning.

Uh, welcome to you, wherever you're tuning in from, uh, to this live stream from City Church Dublin.

My name's Mark, I'm one of the leaders uh of the church.

I want to uh pause just for a moment before we get into the uh the passage that Alice read for us and uh and acknowledge and pray for uh the uh the mothers amongst us and acknowledge that it is uh it's Mothering Sunday.

Uh traditionally, uh not really to do with biological motherhood, but about uh about churches gathering together at the mother church at the cathedral.

Um and so it is a uh it is a shame that we're not able to do that uh this uh this Mothering Sunday.

Uh and yet we do acknowledge that uh that it has uh become a day uh rightly where we remember and celebrate and pray for uh our mothers.

And I know that uh some in our uh in our number uh have recently uh become mothers, uh certainly in the uh in the last year.

But I also recognize that uh that actually this can be a complicated day uh with lots of complex emotions.

Uh, I know also that there are those who are grieving the loss of mothers uh in this uh in this last year.

And so this first mothering Sunday uh is perhaps particularly difficult, to say nothing of the uh the strains and uh complexities of life uh that uh make relationships with some of our mothers difficult.

Perhaps relationships with some of our children can prove to be difficult.

What we're going to be looking at, what Alice read about, is the gospel of reconciliation.

We're gonna look at some of the implications of that uh in just a few moments, but we are grateful to God that what he does is he brings us to himself into a new family, and he begins to break down some of those barriers.

So let's pray together, let us give thanks and let's pray for for God's help.

Let me read uh just a uh a couple of verses from the mother of Jesus when she found out that she was carrying him.

She says, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.

Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for our mothers, for those who give us life, for those who nurtured and cared for us.

We thank you for those mothers who rejoiced in God their savior, and who uh like Timothy Timothy's mother uh taught faith to their children from an early age.

Would you honour that?

Father, we also pray for those for whom this day is difficult and has complicated emotions.

I pray uh especially for those who are grieving the loss of their mother.

Would you comfort and console them?

I pray also for those who are longing for motherhood.

A prayer that as yet has not been answered in the way that they would desire.

Would you renew their hope this morning?

Help them to see your eternal care of them and of their family.

We pray for us all as we navigate the complexities of of family life, of motherhood and uh and being uh being children and uh all of those relationships.

Thank you that the gospel uh permeates and filters into all of those cracks and can bring about reconciliation and renewed joy and renewed life.

Thank you for our mothers, and we pray for ourselves now as we come to this passage.

Help us to glory in what you have done for us through the cross of the Lord Jesus, and we pray it for his glory.

Amen.

Amen.

Uh, I was thinking this week as I was um preparing for this passage about something that happened around about 10 years ago.

Um about 10 years ago or so, a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, uh, and I had uh had fallen out.

Uh things had happened uh between us, our relationship had become strained, and uh I can honestly say that it was uh vastly, if not entirely, my fault.

Uh I know that might come as a surprise to some of you watching, but uh I can be quite sinful just from time to time, and uh that had taken its toll on that friendship, on that relationship.

And it's an awful feeling, isn't it?

To know that things have broken down, have disintegrated between friends, between family members, between child and mother, uh, between siblings, or between you and your spouse.

After about six months or so, we had the opportunity to sit down again.

Time had passed, uh cooler heads were prevailing, and we had a drink together one evening, and and during that time we talked about what had happened, and I apologized fully, unreservedly, and he forgave fully and completely, and we were reconciled, he and I, and are still good friends to this day.

The Lord took that breakdown and I think actually built up something that is stronger.

There are a number of poignant pictures in the Bible that speak of this sort of reconciliation, one in the Old Testament with Jacob and Esau.

Jacob and Esau, the twin brothers, Jacob, that that trickster who uh deceived his father and his brother uh into taking the the birthright, the inheritance, the blessing.

And he is estranged from his brother for years and years and years, is scared about uh that his brother might kill him, what his brother is going to respond uh after being uh tricked out of his out of his inheritance, and yet they come back together uh after about 14 or so years.

And in the book of Genesis, what we read there is that Esau's heart had been softened towards his brother, and that Jacob came with repentance, and and and what we're told there in Genesis 33, verse 4 says, But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, fell on his neck and kissed him and wept.

Genesis 33:4

That's reconciliation between brothers.

I guess perhaps one of the most um notable images in the New Testament is that of the prodigal son who wishes his father dead, who goes to a foreign country and squanders his own inheritance, and eventually comes to his senses and goes to go back to his father and say, Look, I'll just work your field, I'll be one of your hard men if you would just have me back.

And the father's having none of it.

He runs and he embraces his son and is reconciled.

And you see that uh in uh beautifully uh depicted in that very famous uh Rembrandt painting of the the prodigal coming back and clinging on to his father's robe on his knees and being reconciled back to that family.

Reconciliation.

I think it it tugs at our heartstrings because it kind of goes right to the very heart of what we need, it goes right to the very heart of the the Christian message.

It is something that we long for at various times and in various circumstances.

Maybe some of you now are longing for reconciliation with someone where there has been disintegration, there is this yearning for things to be made whole again.

Paul describes in the passage that was read for us that his ministry is a ministry of reconciliation, not that it brings about simply moments of reconciliation, but it defines what his ministry is, it defines what gospel ministry is.

Gospel ministry is about reconciliation.

It is what the gospel does, it is at its very core.

And so it is worth this morning considering this reconciliation, digging a little bit deeper into what it means to be reconciled, with whom and how, and what are the effects of it?

So let us ask some questions of this passage in the hope that it might yield some of its some of its gems, so that we might understand this reconciliation better.

First question: What is this reconciliation?

What is this reconciliation?

Or rather, with whom are we reconciled?

After all, as we've already noted, reconciliation implies strain or a breach in relationship.

There's a relationship that has broken down somewhere that the gospel repairs.

We see it hinted at here in verse twenty, the second half of verse twenty, where Paul begins, we implore, he says, We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Be reconciled to God.

The one with whom our relationship has fractured and fragmented and broken down is the God who made us.

This is what humanity needs.

We are not simply estranged from one another.

In fact, that estrangement from one another is a symptom, is a consequence of a greater fracturing, of a greater estrangement between humanity and their God.

There has been a cosmic breach between creation and creator, between maker and made.

Now, what has caused this breach?

This is a question that has to be answered, because without it, the rest of the passage won't make sense.

What has caused the breach between creation and creator, between us and our God?

Well, the Bible's answer, and again it's uh it's talked about here, it's sin.

Sin is what has caused the breach between humanity and their God.

That is, that humanity, by nature and by choice, have turned away from God's good and loving rule over us.

We have doubted his goodness, we have rejected his truthfulness, we have shut our eyes to his beauty, and so we have run after other things.

We were made to love him and to experience his love in return, but we chose rather not to love him, but to love ourselves, like narcissists, staring into that pool in Greek mythology and becoming enraptured by our own reflection.

We have become enraptured by ourselves, by our own intellect, by our own strength, by the things that we create, the things that we own and dominate.

We have become enraptured by those things.

We have fallen in love with those things.

We have taken the good things that God has given us, we've made them ultimate things, we've taken good things and made them god things.

We've taken things like sex, power, comfort, happiness, those good things that God has given us, and we've made them little small g gods over us.

They control our lives, they control our drives and our desires.

They govern how we view ourselves and how we think and how we act.

As a result of this cosmic treason, and that's what it is, it is cosmic treason.

We find ourselves not just not loving God, but actively hating him.

That's the the two foundational tenets of atheism.

There is no God, and I hate him.

We find ourselves hating God, hating others, warring against others, using our power to abuse and corrupt others.

Our relationship with God has broken down, and as a consequence, we find ourselves under the judgment of God.

He is rightly angry at our self-love that corrupts and destroys us, and which corrupts and destroys other people made in God's image, whom he loves.

His justice is aroused at our injustice perpetrated against other people.

Our sin is an affront to his goodness, his holiness, his justice.

We, like the prodigal son, have run from the father, taken his stuff, but rejected him.

We wanted his stuff, but we wanted him dead.

We need to be reconciled.

That is who we need to be reconciled with.

That is our first question.

Second question: Where does this reconciliation come from?

Where does this reconciliation come from?

Well, have a look down, would you please at verse 18?

How does it begin?

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.

God has reconciled us to himself.

The offended party, the victim, has made moves and made provision to be reconciled with the perpetrator.

Um thank you.

I just got a text from Philippa saying, You sound crooky, can I bring you a drink?

Yes, thank you very much.

Um that would be wonderful.

All this is from God.

The reconciliation that we need is conceived, executed, and finished in God.

He is the active party in this text.

He is the one.

Thank you, glamorous assistant.

He is the one who is moving here, he is the one who is actioning all of these things.

So he was the one who, verse 18, was reconciling us through Christ.

He is the one who, further on in verse 18, has given the ministry of reconciliation.

And Paul says in verse 20, look at verse 20, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

It's not that I am appealing to you to be reconciled to God, it's God through me.

That's what Paul is saying.

God is the is the mover, he is the actor in this quest for reconciliation.

It is so much more palatable to think that we can somehow contribute, earn, or even reimburse God for what he has done.

But that is not Christianity.

There is not a sense here of God does his bit and we do our bit in return.

That's not what this text says, and that's not what the gospel is about.

Christ does not say do, he says done.

He has worked definitively in history to bring us back to himself.

Now you might look down at uh at verse 20 where Paul says, We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God and think, Well, isn't that on us?

Isn't that our part?

Be reconciled, Paul says, that we need to reach out in faith.

The truth is that by the time your heart has been so softened as to reach out to Christ with repentance and faith, the Holy Spirit has already been working on you imperceptibly, wooing you, drawing you, making you willing.

It is all from God.

Even those first embers of faith that begin to warm your heart are a gift from Him.

That is where this reconciliation comes from.

Thirdly, how is this reconciliation achieved?

Have a look at verse twenty one with me.

For our sake, he, that's God the Father, made him, that is, Jesus, God the Son, to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of 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 verse brings us right to the very heart of the Christian gospel.

It is what makes the good news good.

There are two phrases here that are working in harmony, and we need to understand them both.

The first is that he made him, that is Jesus, to be sin.

And the second is that we might become the righteousness of God.

Let's take them in turn.

First, Christ was made to be sin.

This is that the sinless Lord Jesus, who knew no sin himself, became sin for you and I.

We should not misunderstand this and think that somehow Jesus became sinful.

No, rather, it is that all of our sin was laid upon him.

He took sin upon himself and so became the focus of the wrath of God, the judgment that we deserve.

He became the locus and focal point of it for us.

He so identified himself with sinful humanity for our sake.

The one who knew no sin experienced wave upon wave of sinful corruption, deceit and murderous pride and perversion cascading over his sinless soul.

As the hymn says, it was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished.

But this is not where Jesus' reconciling work ends.

Just as our sins were laid upon him, taken from us by him and placed on him, so there is an exchange that goes the other way.

And this is the second phrase.

In this exchange, we find ourselves robed also, not in our sins as we deserve, but in his perfect righteousness.

That is what Paul means when he says that so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus willingly takes our sin, and so he willingly gives us his blameless righteousness.

It is not the case that if you have become a Christian, that God has merely got you started on the Christian life, that he's cancelled your debt and brought you up to zero, and then you start to add credit into your account by your good deeds.

That's not the gospel either.

No, it's not just that God has taken your sin and made you sinless, but that he has made you positively righteous.

He has robed you in the perfections of Jesus, so that when he looks at you, he sees those sinless perfections.

What a glorious gospel we have.

This is the ground upon which the Christian stands before God, not trusting in our righteousness, but trusting in the righteousness of another.

It is on this basis that God declares us, not just innocent, but righteous.

How?

How does this exchange take place?

There is an important theological idea here in this passage that permeates all of the New Testament.

How is it that our sin is taken by Jesus, that his righteousness becomes ours?

How does that happen at the cross?

The answer, the answer is that we are united to Christ, that we are joined to him by faith.

Look at verse 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that's the language of union.

If anyone is joined to Christ by faith, he is a new creation.

Or verse 21 that we've just been looking at, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In Christ, joined to him.

Some might ask, how is God just in punishing the sinless Lord Jesus?

Well, because we as sinful people were united to him on that cross.

That is how Paul can say in places like Romans 6 or Galatians 2, that when Christ died, I died.

And so the life that I now live, I live not for myself, but the one who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2.20.

When Christ died, we died.

How?

Because we were united to him by faith.

How is it that we receive his righteousness?

How is it that we are robed, spiritually speaking, in a righteousness not our own?

It is because we are united to him by faith.

This idea of union with Christ is certainly hard to get our heads around.

It is hard to grasp.

But we see its effects, or we can understand it in a number of different ways from the New Testament.

First, certainly it is mystical, not in the sense of it's you would have to enter into some trance or we reappropriate it by mysticism.

That's not what the what I mean, or what the Bible means by talking about this mystical union.

It's simply that we don't comprehend all of how it comes about.

We're not given insight into the entire mechanism.

But what we do know is that it is spiritual, that it is something that the Holy Spirit brings about.

The Holy Spirit is the one, he is the conduit that joins us to the Lord Jesus, that affects that union.

It is a spiritual union in that sense that it comes from the Holy Spirit.

It is a vital union.

Not so much that it that it is that it is crucial, but that it is life-giving.

That's what I mean by the word vital.

It is a life-giving union.

And we experience that in different ways.

We experience that through our our new creation desires, our changed thought patterns, our changed way of living.

We have been brought to newness of life, and that is evidence of our union with him, and it is an eternal union.

That Christ joined us to himself in eternity, and that we are seated with him in the heavenlies.

That is how we are reconciled, because we have been united to Christ by faith.

He has taken our sin and given us his righteousness.

That is what he achieved on the cross.

Do not mistakenly look at the cross and simply see a good example, or still worse, the sorry end of a promising teaching ministry.

No, it was the very mechanism and planned way that God would reconcile humanity to himself.

What is the effect of this reconciliation?

That's point, that's question four.

And we've touched on it briefly.

But it is verse 17 that those who have come to Jesus by faith, who have been united to him in his death and resurrection, how are they described here in verse 17?

They're described as new creations.

That is what you are receiving the righteousness of Christ is not just a legal declaration, though it is that God in that cosmic courtroom declares you righteous.

But it also is creative, it also creates something in you, that new heart that the prophet spoke about.

Those who have been declared righteous are given the new heart and the Holy Spirit so that they live righteously.

The old creation with its corruption, deceit, and self-serving has passed away.

The new creation modeled after Christ.

And his life is something that we live into.

We live with increased selflessness, with increased love, increased generosity and joy, willingness to serve, generosity and faith.

And this is what makes reconciliation with people possible.

Doesn't necessarily guarantee it nor does it make it easy, but it does make it possible that if you know that you've been reconciled on the vertical that is between you and your God, and the extent to which Jesus went to forgive you your sin and to bring you back to Himself, then maybe, just maybe, it is possible to look at those who have sinned against you, like my friend ten years ago, and to look at me with compassion and to recognize the forgiveness that he needed, and so he extended it to me.

That is what makes true horizontal person-to-person reconciliation possible.

That is one of the glorious effects of the gospel.

That once enemies embrace again.

And finally, what should be our response to the reconciliation that God has offered us in Jesus?

Well, it is there towards the end of our passage.

Read with me from verse 20b.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God.

Working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

For he says, In the favorable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.

Behold, now is the favorable time.

Behold, now is the day of salvation.

Excuse me.

Surely, in examining this passage, we can see that the only appropriate response to hearing what God has done for us, for you in Jesus, is to be reconciled with him, to respond to him by faith and repentance, to come to him and receive that reconciliation, to be clothed in that righteousness, and to be made that new creation.

Paul in 6 verse 2 quotes the prophet Isaiah.

It's Isaiah 49, which talks about God restoring his people.

And then he says, in effect, that's what can happen now.

That's what God is doing now through Jesus.

That is what the gospel offers you.

And so he says with urgency, now is the favorable time.

Be reconciled to God now.

Today is the day of salvation.

Can I encourage you not to presume upon the mercy of God, not to presume upon his patience, that he will give you long life.

Do not miss this opportunity to have your sin removed and righteousness given to you.

Don't wait.

Don't wait.

You might say, but I have questions.

Me too.

Let's ask them reverently together.

Let's come as children of God before his throne and wrestle with them together, as people of faith.

If you understand this morning simply your need for forgiveness, don't wait.

Don't wait to clean yourself up a little bit.

Don't wait to try and morally improve.

And I like what it says in one of those verses.

It says, Come ye sinners, weak and weary, lost and ruined by the fall.

If you tarry, that is, if you wait, if you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.

Healing, cleansing, restoration.

It's not find outside of him.

Don't wait.

Don't wait to clean yourself up.

If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.

Don't wait for death.

Don't wait for deathbed conversions.

Speaking of someone who has sat there and heard the death rattle.

And seen people slip in and out of consciousness.

It is not as is portrayed in the movies.

Where people with coherent thought make final pronouncements and professions.

That is not how it works.

Do not wait.

Do not wait and look back with regret and see that you have wasted your life in darkness and in doubt in deceit and despair.

Do not wait.

Do not wait.

Now is the favorable time.

Now is the hour of salvation.

Let us pray.

Father, I thank you for what you have done for us in the gospel.

That you send the Lord Jesus.

That seeing our need, seeing our estrangement, our lack of any health in us, that you send him to live a life of perfect righteousness.

And then to on that cross not just take our sin and our shame, but to give us as a gift of his grace those perfections.

Thank you that you have sent your Holy Spirit into our lives to unite us to Jesus and to cause that new creation life to break into existence.

To dawn across the horizon of our lives.

And to begin the dispel to dispel the darkness of our old self.

I pray for those watching who are believers.

That we would not take the grace of God in vain.

But that we would glory and live into and press into our reconciliation.

And Father, for those relationships that I'm sure are very complicated and there is much sin to be dealt with.

Would you give us renewed hope that perhaps, just perhaps, repentance and reconciliation might be possible because of what you have done?

We thank you.

We praise you this morning, and we love you.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen, everybody.

Have a good day.