Sent by the Gospel (2 Corinthians 5:14-21) Myles Holmes | Sept 7, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 with me.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

You're gonna need a copy in front of you this morning.

And so if you don't have one with you, the ushers are making their way to the front of the aisles, you can flag one of them down.

They'd love to get a copy into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

As you're turning to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, I want you to uh can I want you to consider something about yourself that you may have never realized.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

It just sort of happens naturally, and that's that as human beings, we are naturally sharers.

You ever thought about that?

You spend a long enough time with someone and you will know exactly what they love in life, exactly what they think is good.

T.S.

Lewis had this thought.

He said that the delight, our delight in things are it's incomplete until it's expressed.

In other words, he sort of made this argument that you can't really enjoy something until you express to other people your enjoyment of that thing, how good you believe that thing is.

And we know this to be true, don't we?

You know, you find a new restaurant and you you feel the need to tell someone else about it, and and you feel, on the other hand, you know, the disappointment when they don't experience that thing the same way you experienced it.

Your team wins a big game, you you have a baby, you know, all these life big life moments, you can't keep it to yourself.

In fact, if you've been around here a while, you probably know a lot about me without even me you know trying to give you an autobiography every week.

You hear me give sermon illustrations, and you have come to discover this point by this point that I only really have four sermon illustrations, right?

Coffee, which by the way, I spoke about coffee a few weeks ago, and I've never had so much feedback about how people's coffee is so much better since actually someone called it this morning this the sermon on coffee, which is great.

You know, coffee, Lord of the Rings, the gym, smoked meat, which I always say smoked meat now instead of smoking, because when I was interviewing at this church, I said I love smoking.

I meant smoked meat, but that can be interpreted another way, can't it?

Needless to say, spend enough time with anyone and you'll know what they love because it comes out of them.

That means by by nature, all of us are evangelists.

That that word evangelist means really a sharer of good news, a sharer of good things.

The reality of our lives is Christian or not, you know, mature Christian or immature Christian, all of us are naturally evangelists.

C.S.

Lewis was pointing this out that to be human is to express what we believe is good.

And Tim Keller put it like this: you don't get to decide whether or not you will be a witness.

You can only decide what kind of witness you will be.

And so the question for us then is not whether or not we will be an evangelist, the question is what message are you evangelizing?

Now we are quick to share the good news about a restaurant or about a new workout or about our favorite sports team, but but what the gospel frees us to do is be evangelists of things that actually have eternal consequence.

I mean, you understand this.

You find a good restaurant and you go on the evangelism tour of how great that restaurant is, and you might, you know, provide for some people a few great meals.

But the joy of the gospel is that when you preach the gospel, you change people's eternity.

And so at its very heart, you know, you know, remove all of the shame, remove all the uh intimidation, remove the fear of rejection.

At its very heart, we can take a step back and just say, you know, remove from all those things.

Evangelism should be exciting, it should fill us with joy because we have news that can change eternal destinies.

At the very heart of our evangelism should be joy.

It is the gospel that not only saves us, it calls us to share the news of what Christ has done and invite others to experience it as well.

Now, this morning we're gonna start a three-week series, and the name of the series is sent.

And the foundation of this series is really that the good news, the gospel, not only saves you, but it also sends you.

We're gonna see that clearly this morning.

But my prayer for this series is that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes, would open your eyes, would open my eyes to the joy of evangelism.

Truly, that evangelism can be a joy, that if it's never been like that, or maybe it was like that, you know, years ago, but you've lost the joy, that the Holy Spirit would would renew this joy in us, that if evangelism has ever felt like a burden, if it's ever felt awkward and intimidating, and and whenever you know we talk about evangelism, it's it's guilt-inducing.

I want you to see that evangelism can actually be one of the greatest joys that we experience as a Christian.

That's gonna take the Holy Spirit to do that work, so before we move on, would you just take a moment to pray with me?

Father, we need your help.

God, we so often talk about the need to share the good news, to be preachers of the gospel, to seek the lost.

And God, we are uh filled with often guilt for maybe what we haven't done, shame for what we feel like we can't do.

And Lord, we know that all these things are not from you, Lord, that they are from the Father of lies.

And so, Lord, our our prayer is for you to accomplish in us maybe something that's never happened in our lives, Lord, to give us a boldness and a confidence that comes from the reality that we have been commissioned to carry this gospel to the world by the one who sent his only son to die for us and to be raised with new life.

God, do this work in us.

We pray, be present, Lord, in the power of your Holy Spirit, that to press your word so deeply in us and to press really the good news of the gospel so deeply in us that the overflow is a desire to do what Christ has done for us, to seek the lost.

God help us.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Well, maybe you've never thought of evangelism as a joy.

The Apostle Paul certainly did.

In 2 Corinthians 5, he shows us why the good news is not only that we are saved, the good news is also that we are sent.

We're gonna read that together.

As we do, would you stand with me?

2 Corinthians chapter 5, reading from verse 14 to 21.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

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 is 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 the word of the Lord.

You can take a seat.

The gospel is not only that we have been saved, but that we have been sent.

I want you to see this in this text.

I want you to see first that the gospel sends me because it compels my life.

Compels my life.

This is what Paul says here in verse 14, one of the greatest evangelists in the history of the church.

Paul had traveled tens of thousands of miles across the Roman Empire.

If you know his biography, you know that he had endured beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, hunger, rejection, cold, sleepless nights, and yet until the end of his life, he would not stop preaching Christ.

And so when Paul then opens a window into really the heart and motivation of his evangelism, we should lean in with sort of a fascination.

What was it that drove Paul?

Well, notice here in verses 14 to 15, it was the love of Christ.

He says there, verse 14, for the love of Christ controls us.

It was not Paul's love for Christ, it was Christ's love for Paul.

I want you to recognize right from the get-go that realizing the love of Christ changes everything about our evangelism.

It is the love of Christ that's displayed at the cross, Paul says, where one died for all.

When Paul had met this savior, this suffering savior dying on the cross, his life was changed.

His life was seized by Christ, given a new purpose.

His eyes were opened, and the love that he experienced there, that poured out for him from the cross, now compelled his life.

It became a controlling love.

I want you to know that that word control, it's exactly what it means, to hem in, to compel, to seize hold of.

You think of it like the banks of a river, which hold the water in and allow the water only to go one direction.

And what Paul is saying here is that the love of Christ, the deeper that it sits in our soul, the more magnetic its force to compel us, to draw us to preach the gospel.

It's not just that the love of Christ is sort of inspiring, it's that it's controlling, it holds us captive.

Everyone, it's good that we pause here for a moment and ask ourselves this question: do we know the love of Christ?

You know the love of Christ.

Do you experience on a daily basis the love that Christ has for you?

That the Son of God loved you and gave himself for you.

That before you had committed any of the sins that you have committed in your life, the Son of God chose to die for you.

You know the love of Christ.

Knowing your weakness, knowing your waywardness, knowing even the sins that you work so hard to hide from everybody.

Jesus knows that.

And you see the words here?

One died for all, for you.

This is the love of Christ.

And it's crucial that you understand this because you see, in Paul's life, obedience to evangelism was not in order to earn Christ's love.

Do you understand that?

Paul's obedience to evangelism, Paul's desire to seek the lost, it flowed out of Christ's love for him.

Now, many of us flip that, don't we?

Many of us think that our actions control the love of Christ.

Do you understand the difference?

Paul comes and he says, hey, listen, the love of Christ controls me, it compels me, it seized a hold of me.

Because Christ loves me, I have no other choice.

But do you know that many of us, the thing that we would have to say is that we think we control the love of Christ.

We think our actions affect Christ's love for us.

What does that look like in our life?

It looks like the person who thinks that if they share Christ with their neighbor, maybe God will finally be pleased with them.

Maybe that will earn points for them.

It's what happens when you feel like that if you blow the opportunity in evangelism, you'll let God down so badly that he just won't want to use you.

It'll be like he'll be in heaven embarrassed about how poorly you just performed in that conversation.

It's the person who thinks if they don't perform, maybe it'll prove that they're not really a Christian.

And loved one, I want you to know this that if you think that you control the love of Christ, you are not free.

You are still enslaved to a gospel of legalism.

It's not the gospel.

It's slavery.

We don't control the love of Christ.

The love of Christ controls us.

The love of Christ compels us.

Evangelism, therefore, is an overflow, then, of our experience of the love of Christ.

And so it is helpful for us just to stop here and ask ourselves this question, to do to do some self-reflection and to ask: has evangelism been an obligation?

Has evangelism been for us an obligation, or has it been the overflow of Christ's love in us?

You know the difference between obligation and overflow.

Picture a husband who buys flowers for their wife every single Friday.

I'm asking you to imagine this because this is not me.

I wish I could say, you know, this is what I do.

It's not at all.

In imaginary husbandland, imagine he buys them not because he delights in his wife.

Imagine he buys them because he fears like if he doesn't get these flowers, his wife is not gonna love him.

He's gonna withhold her love from him.

You know, if you were to do that as a husband and your wife found out you were doing that, she would be like embarrassed.

Like that would no longer be loving.

It doesn't honor her.

If anything, it's insulting to her.

Now picture a husband who brings flowers because he's so secure in his love that like the flowers are just it's an overflow of his expression of delight in her and love.

And honey, I just want you to know, whenever I bought flowers, it has been like that.

Evangelism is never to be the first, it is always to be the second.

A heart for evangelism will only come from the overflow of living in and experiencing Christ's love.

Loved one, this is the gospel.

The very heart of the gospel meets us in our efforts to be evangelists, that we don't evangelize for Christ's love, we evangelize from Christ's love.

God is not honored when our hearts for evangelism are driven from guilt.

And so listen, right now, like if there's this tension of guilt, and oh man, I know I gotta be a better evangelist.

Can I just ask you, loved one, would you press into the gospel right now?

Would you press into the gospel that your righteous standing has nothing to do with your efforts in evangelism?

Your righteous standing is secure in Jesus Christ.

Pray that the Holy Spirit would press this gospel deeper into your heart.

That's the only way that a heart for evangelism comes.

This is what Paul says.

He says, listen, it's the love of Christ that controls me.

Evangelism is the overflow of the love of Christ.

Notice then what Paul says in verse 15.

Look at the text with me.

Look at what he says in verse 15.

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.

You see it, Christ's love doesn't just free you from guilt-driven evangelism, it frees you from self-driven living.

You don't have to do anything anymore to secure any righteous standing of your own.

Christ has done it all.

Now, now you can live for the honor and the glory of Jesus Christ.

You are taken care of.

His death and resurrection has bought you a whole new purpose.

That means every conversation, every relationship, every opportunity we have to share the gospel, it's it's no longer about building our reputation.

We don't need that anymore.

We don't need to protect our comfort anymore.

We are freed by the gospel to live for the one who loved you and gave himself for you.

This is what Paul's saying.

If the love of Christ compels you, it changes everything about the way that you live.

The deeper you press into Christ's love for you, the more your life will change.

And here in verses 16 and 17, he shows us one crucial way that life changes.

You see, evangelism, it doesn't begin with opening your mouth.

We often think that, that it begins once we start having the conversation.

Evangelism actually begins with the way that you see people, it starts with your eyes and then it moves to your mouth.

And what Paul's pointing out here is that the love of Christ transforms the way that you see people.

Look at verses 16 and 17 with me.

Notice what Paul says.

He says, From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.

Now, this is the second thing I want you to see this morning.

Notice, secondly, the gospel sends me because it transforms my vision.

It transforms my vision, it transforms the way that I see people.

The love of Christ had shaken up Paul's life in such a way that it made a permanent shift in his life.

He says this from now on.

Recognizing Christ's love for him on the cross was a line in the sand.

Everything was different.

He says this, we now can regard no one according to the flesh.

What does it mean to regard someone according to the flesh?

Throughout Paul's letters, he uses this word flesh in the Greek sarks.

He uses it time and time again to refer to life apart from God.

It is the old way of seeing things.

It is a seeing that is shaped by sin, that is shaped by pride, that is shaped by worldly standards, to see someone according to the flesh is to size them up the way the world does.

Maybe that's by success or failure, maybe that's by beauty or their lack of beauty, maybe that's by their position of high, a high position or a low position, maybe that's by their talent or their personality or their charisma, whatever it is, Paul says, I used to look at people with these worldly standards.

In fact, I even once looked at Jesus like that.

And we do the same.

You know, the 21st century measures Jesus with modern standards that make Jesus look sometimes a little bit like a fool, but even more often we do it with people.

We look at people and we say things like this: that they're too hardened.

Their heart is too hardened.

They will never become a Christian.

We look at their level of success and say they're too comfortable.

They would never need Jesus, they would never hear my message.

I mean, we look at their life, and maybe their life is filled with brokenness.

They're too messed up to ever change, they're too hostile to Christianity, they'll never believe.

Loved ones, this is how the flesh sees.

And we come face to face with this hard truth this morning that at the heart of our lack of evangelism is often this.

We don't really believe people can change.

I mean, take a moment just to reflect on the heart of why we don't share the gospel.

I need to reflect on this, you need to reflect on this.

I mean, I mean, if we truly believed that the gospel was the power of God for salvation, that it was, that it would transform people's lives completely, that it would make them, as Paul will say here, a new creation, then we would preach.

We often see obstacles, and we come to the conclusion that it's impossible.

What's happened for Paul is that the power of the gospel has taken a hold of his heart.

And the ability of Jesus Christ to make the most hardened sinner a new creation has captured his imagination.

And so he shares the gospel, knowing that God turns sinful rebels into new creations.

You see what he says in verse 17?

Look what he says in verse 17.

If anyone, if anyone, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

I think that word, anyone, should test us.

You know, loved ones, the most hardened sinner you know.

Paul is asking us here to look at them with new eyes.

Do you think that God's not powerful enough to soften their heart and completely transform their life?

I mean, of course, we will say with our mouth, like, no, of course, God can change anyone.

But our actions speak louder than our words.

Loved one, has the gospel changed the way that you see the lost?

Many of you know Amber and I are expecting our fourth child.

Tomorrow she'll be 36 weeks, so if you know, if you talk to her after, it's not just that she's eaten a lot of grilled cheese.

She's 36 weeks pregnant.

Maybe it's maybe it's both, I'm not sure.

One of the amazing things about pregnancy is how over the span of 40 weeks your vision of this child changes.

Remember when we first found out, you know, like you find out you're so excited, but but nothing's really happened.

And then you get that first ultrasound and you see the little lint ball.

And you start to like, you know, there's been actually a lot of studies on the emotional connection that's created between a parent and their child when they see that for first ultrasound, even though it's just like this little ball of lint.

And then later you find out what gender it is, and you know, we announced to the church a few weeks ago that it's a girl, and since that time, you know, we've been so just growing in excitement because we feel like we know who this baby is more and more, but nothing will surpass the day when that baby is born, and we meet her for the first time, you know, face to face, and and over the next few years get to discover who she is.

Part of the the process is that you don't give up on the little lint ball that you see saw in the first uh photograph.

Because this thing is turning into this new human uh being.

This is what Paul is saying.

Without Christ, we only see people on the surface, but with the gospel lens, we see what they could be in Christ.

It's like a spiritual ultrasound that we can put on everyone's life and say, this person could be a new creation.

The gospel is powerful enough to speak to them and change them.

Can we just let's worship together for a moment and praise the Lord that when Jesus looked at you, he didn't regard you according to the flesh.

When Jesus saw you in your sinful rebellion, he didn't just see your sin.

He didn't just see your hardness, he didn't just see your all the sinful mistakes and guilt that would come into your life.

What he saw was through that to the new creation that you would be for all of eternity in him.

I see that in my own life.

No one would have looked at me and thought that the gospel could change me.

In fact, everything was being tried, every kind of therapy, different kinds of medication, all these things were being tried to change me.

I praise God that Jesus knew and he came after me.

And when others only saw a block of stone, Jesus saw the new creation that God intended, and now he calls us to see others the way that he has seen us.

When you look at the lost, do you have that same hopeful imagination that Jesus had when he looked at you?

This should transform how we see people.

This is why Paul in Romans 15 7 he says, welcome one another.

Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

The way that you invite others into the kingdom of God, the way that you welcome others into God's family is a reflection of the fact that when you were unlovable, when you were filled with sin, Christ looked to you and welcomed you into his family.

And now we do the same for others.

The gospel transforms how we see people.

I want you to notice, though, that the gospel also transforms what we do with people.

That this new vision we're given by the gospel also leads to a new mission.

This is where Paul goes next.

I want you to see this thirdly.

The gospel sends me because it shapes my mission.

The gospel sends me because it shapes my mission.

Look at how Paul begins verse 18.

All this is from God.

Paul has just described a life that is compelled by Christ's love.

He's talked about eyes that are transformed to see differently and the miracle of becoming a new creation in Jesus.

Now he comes to say, listen, none of the, even though I am a messenger of this gospel hope, none of this originates in me.

All of it is from the Lord.

No one becomes a new creation except by the sovereign work of the Father.

No blind eyes are opened except by his power.

No one is sent apart from the Lord of the harvest, sending out laborers, calling and commissioning his people.

This is what we read about in Romans 10 when we were praying together.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but Paul goes on to say, how will they hear unless someone is sent?

And Paul takes a step back to say, hey, listen, I'm sent with this gospel.

The love of Christ compels my life.

I see people newly, but I want you to know that all of this is from the Lord.

In other words, Paul is taking a step back to say this.

Evangelism is not ultimately our idea.

Evangelism is not like the project of the church, where the church says, hey, listen, I think, you know, this is a really cool, trending idea.

Why don't we share the gospel?

That's not what's happening here.

What Paul's doing is taking a step back and saying, listen, evangelism is God's idea.

It is God's mission.

It flows directly from God's heart.

It is accomplished by his work.

And it is entrusted to his people.

Paul's saying that, you know, evangelism, from the point of sharing the gospel to the gospel saving, it is all a work of the Lord.

And this should humble us and it should exhilarate us at the same time, because the reality is God doesn't need us.

God doesn't need you.

Let that comfort you.

Ever feel like you've like dropped the ball on someone?

Like maybe it's your kids, maybe it's a conversation you had, whatever it is.

Like if I could have just been different, then that person would be saved.

And I just want you to know if I can be as honest and you know, bold as you'll allow me.

God doesn't need you.

It's not about you.

The power of evangelism does not lie in your hands.

If God wanted, he could paint the message of the gospel in the sky.

But in his sovereign design, God has chosen to use us.

He reconciles us to himself, Paul says, and then he turns around and hands us the ministry of reconciliation.

That's exactly where Paul's going in verse 18.

Look at your copy of God's word with me.

He says, all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

You see that?

The gospel had saved Paul.

He was reconciled to Christ, and it sent Paul.

He was given the message of reconciliation.

You could put it like this: reconciliation received becomes reconciliation entrusted.

Reconciled people, reconcile people.

This is what John Stott said about evangelism, that evangelism is nothing more than beggars telling other beggars where to get bread.

Verse 19, Paul expands on this.

He says, 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.

Notice two things here.

Notice first that reconciliation is God's work.

In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.

The offended party, the holy God, the God that we sinned against, he is the one who moved toward us.

He's the first evangelist.

He takes the initiative through Christ.

It is God who bridges the gap that we never could.

Like again, can we just take a moment to allow the truth that we are reading to cause our hearts to elevate in worship?

Love when you did not move toward God.

Scripture says no one seeks God.

Have you ever allowed that truth to stir up a thankfulness and gratitude in your heart?

You know, you were not saved because you were born into a Christian family.

In fact, more often than not, many who are born into Christian families are hard and legalists, and it's hard for the gospel to get into their lives.

You were not saved just because you were at the right place at the right time.

You were the rebel.

You were blind.

You were lost.

You were on a hell-bound race, dead in your sin.

But the holy and righteous God you had spent your life sinning against, he moved towards you.

The scriptures say we love because he first loved us.

And that truth right now should stop us dead in our tracks and cause this sense of worship to rise within us.

It has nothing to do with us, it has everything to do with God.

In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.

Notice, though, that now reconciliation is our ministry.

Paul says it twice in these verses.

He says, God gave us the ministry of reconciliation in verse 18, and he says he entrusted to us the message of reconciliation in verse 19.

He has put the gospel in our hands, and he has put the gospel in our mouths.

Having been saved, we are now sent.

Well, what does that mean?

Paul draws it out in verse 20.

Look with me at verse 20.

Therefore, because we have been reconciled and now entrusted this message of reconciliation, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.

We are ambassadors for Christ.

An ambassador in Paul's day was a messenger of the king.

They were sent from the homeland to represent a foreign land, and they carried the king's authority.

To hear from an ambassador was to hear from the king himself.

Paul says, this is our identity, this is who we are.

We are ambassadors.

We don't invent the message.

In fact, as soon as you start adding to the gospel, you're not preaching the gospel at all.

Not only that, we don't speak on our authority, we speak on behalf of Christ.

You see what Paul says there?

Therefore, we are ambassadors, God making his appeal through us.

Now, I think we've probably read this verse before if you've been a Christian for any length of time.

You've probably read this verse before.

Can I ask you to look at those words again and to consider the reality of what Paul is saying here?

We are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

Loved one, you know what's happening when you evangelize, whenever you speak the message of the gospel, whenever you ask questions that pierce to the depth of understanding life and eternity, whenever you're having that conversation, something supernatural is happening.

God is making his appeal to that person through you.

It's your mouth, it's God's words.

It comes with the authority of the king.

Now, if the power of our evangelism depended on our words, I want you to know that the gospel would really have no power at all.

I thought I tried to think about like the least powerful words you can say.

I thought about like dad jokes.

You know, dad jokes, I say them all the time.

It's inherent with being a dad.

And what happens when you say a dad joke?

Well, you say a dad joke, and the people, you know, they groan and they just move on.

And loved one, you know, that's the power of the gospel if it's not sent from God Himself.

That's not what's happening.

When you evangelize, you know what this passage is saying?

God, God, God is making his appeal through you.

That's the voice that created the universe.

You remember Genesis 1 when God said, Let there be light, there was light.

You remember Jesus when he spoke to Lazarus, Lazarus, get up where there was death, there was life.

It is the powerful word of God, Paul says, that flows through the evangelists, through their words, to the person who is hearing it.

Love one, this is your identity.

You are an ambassador.

Because of that, you have this power given to you by the king himself.

You have been entrusted with a powerful word, the gospel that is the power of God.

Let us not be ashamed.

We are entrusted with a mission.

We are saved and sent.

You know, we need to get both of these realities in our Christian life.

We need to understand that we are both saved and that we are sent.

And my fear is that, you know, we we've got the salvation piece.

We've got the fact that the gospel saves us.

But when we lose out on the fact that the gospel also sends us, we we sort of become like tourists in the world.

You know what it's like to be a tourist?

You go to this, you know, country, but you don't really contribute to it in any meaningful way.

You're not doing any work, you're just kind of there to enjoy the ride, to see the scenes.

Love one, is it possible that your Christianity here on this world before you go to heaven has become a little bit like a tourism escape?

This is what happens when we don't live out our calling as those who have been sent, as those who are ambassadors of Christ.

We are just here then to enjoy the scenery.

Maybe we'll dabble in the culture, maybe we'll buy a few souvenirs.

But tourists don't represent their country.

They don't carry a message from the king.

The gospel has changed your identity so that in this world you are an ambassador.

You have been given a message from the homeland that is heaven itself, a message for the world.

It's the king's message of reconciliation.

You know, I'm convinced now more than ever, in our day where it's so easy for everyone to have a voice, that the world does not need more opinions.

You know, for what the world needs from the church is not just more opinions, it's not just more self-help tips, it's not more advice.

The church has something to offer the world that can be offered nowhere else, and it is the gospel, the message of reconciliation.

And in verse 21, Paul puts that message into a single breathtaking sentence.

I want you to see fourthly that the gospel sends because it defines my message.

Sends because it defines my message.

Paul writes in verse 21, 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 the heart of the gospel in one verse.

Notice it here, for our sake.

Paul says it in verse 15, for their sake Christ died and was raised.

Here he says, For our sake, Christ was given for us.

This is what Jesus says in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son for his glory, and because of his love, God desired to redeem you.

It was for your sake.

This is the message we preach that God, for the sake of the lost world, has sent his son so that all who believe in him might have eternal life.

Well, what exactly did God do?

Notice what Paul says.

He made him to be sin.

On the cross, Jesus took the penalty of your sin.

Where you deserved wrath, where you deserved curse, Jesus took it.

He stood in your place, he received the judgment of all those who would believe.

Now, this was the greatest injustice in human history, Paul says, because he knew no sin.

He made him who to be sin who knew no sin.

That spotless, innocent Lamb of God was condemned as guilty.

Not just condemned as guilty, the sin of all who would believe was put on his shoulder.

Martin Luther says this he became the greatest sinner who ever lived, not by committing sin, but by carrying ours.

He became the greatest sinner who ever lived.

So that.

You see that?

The purpose.

Here's the purpose.

You see it in verse 21?

So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The cross was not an accident.

It was the purposeful plan of God to give to us his righteousness.

This is the exchange, this is the message of reconciliation that Jesus gets our sin and we get his righteousness, that he bears our same shame and we receive his acceptance.

Jesus becomes what he was not, so that you and I, through faith in him, can become what we never could be.

This is the wonder of the gospel.

Not that you are just forgiven, you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

And loved one, when God sees you, even though you, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, even though this is not you at all, he sees his only son, his perfect son.

Jesus has taken your sin and clothed you in robes of righteousness.

This is the message in one verse that we are entrusted with.

This is the message that we carry to the world.

By way of application.

Let me ask you this if first, if you've ever received this great exchange.

Your loved one, your the penalty for your sin will be paid.

It'll either be paid by you or it'll be paid by Jesus.

And the offer of Jesus this morning is that if you come to him in faith, he who knew no sin takes your sin in order that you might become the righteousness of God.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, right now, you can be clothed in his righteousness so that you are now reconciled to God in relationship with God as Jesus Christ is in relationship with his Father.

If you've accepted the message of the gospel and you've been reconciled to God, I want you to know that this message that once saved you, it now sustains you every day, and it sends you with a message of hope.

This is the good news we carry.

It's not just opinions, it's not self-help, it is a message of reconciliation.

That Christ became sin for us, so that in him we could become the righteousness of God.

This is the message that you and I have been entrusted in.

It's the message that changes people's eternity.

It's the message that we joyfully proclaim.

The love of Christ displayed at the cross.

It saved us and it sends us.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the gospel that we've heard so clearly.

Lord, as we've sung together, as we've opened your word, every line of scripture points us to your son Jesus Christ, who knew no sin and became sin for us in order that we might become your righteousness.

God, we stand in awe of that love.

God, I pray that you would never allow us to get over it to dull our affections for you in light of all that Christ has accomplished for us.

God, our prayer is that, like Paul, you would compel our lives by the love of Christ.

That you would open our eyes to see people newly.

That you would give us this identity, Lord.

Help us to live in this identity you've given to us as ambassadors and to preach the message of hope, the message of reconciliation in Jesus Christ.

God, if there are those here today who haven't trusted you, I pray, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, would you open their eyes to the work that Christ has done for their life?

And God, for those who have trusted in you, I pray that you would give us a boldness because of the message of reconciliation that you have entrusted to us.

Lord, send us out this week as people who are not only saved, but sent with a message of hope and salvation to the world.

Lord, we take this moment as we stand together to sing, to stand in awe of the reality that Jesus has paid for our sins.

God, we give you all the praise.

We pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me?