Getting into Ben’s desk. How can I be looking at something so familiar and yet it be so complex/hard for me to open it.

In a lot of ways this Fundamentals series is like that desk. Ben has been week by week taking these core concepts and showing how they all interconnect.

1st 3 weeks, the reality of our need: Proclamation (Repent and Believe)—>Diagnosis (desperately in need of a rescue)—>Justification (when we could not make ourselves right with God, God made us right with Christ)—>

2nd half of the series dealing with the “now what”:

New Life (Grace raises us from death to life)—>What is this new life is built upon/anchored in the resurrection of Christ—>led us to the question What is this new life for?

Today, we will be looking at that final component.

2 Corinthians 5:11–21

Paul begins first lays some groundwork of describing what this new life looks like and then he lays out what this New Life is for.

2 Corinthians 5:11

V.11—Begins with “because/therefore”—so you have to look at what has led to this. Previous 10 verses are about what this New Life will be like in eternity (Gospel promises eternal life).

Have you ever seen something that you can’t unsee—Magic Trick—coin, got your nose. Once you know that truth, you can’t not see it. And it’s really hard not to tell others the truth about the illusion.

Paul is saying that now that he knows Gospel, he can’t not see it—and he is so affected by it that he can’t not tell others about it! Now that he knows what Christ has done and what that means for eternity, he can’t not see it. And every unbeliever that he sees who is living under the illusion that life on this earth is it—he can’t help but sharing with them that there is so much more.

Fear here does not mean scared—it means reverence/awe. In other words, as believers we are in such awe at what Christ has done for us, we can’t stop thinking about it. We can’t stop talking about. We are forever changed because we can’t unsee it.

The Gospel of Christ becomes the lens through which we see the world

2 Corinthians 5:12-13

v. 11b-13 becomes a little personal for Paul. If you ever meet a church that gives their pastor a hard time, it was the Corinthian church. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote some hard things that not everyone wanted to hear. And so there was division and people were bucking Paul’s authority and leadership. Some thought Paul was crazy, some thought Paul was too serious. In these verses, we see Paul make a bit of a side note and essentially say, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you think about me. It’s what the Lord thinks about me and what I have done.”

v. 14—And when it’s all said and done, they’re all on the same team working toward the same goal, even if they don’t like him!

What an important reminder for all of us, isn’t it? We may not always agree with each other. We may think others are downright crazy. We might be so compelled by the love of Christ that others in our own circles think WE are the ones crazy. In this day and time, people are willing to look crazy for many reasons…but none are as important as the Gospel.

v.14—Christ’s love controls us’ may be rendered as ‘the fact that Christ loves us causes us to act as we do’.

2 Corinthians 5:15

Our New Life in Christ is one lived for Christ, not for ourselves.

What exactly does that mean? Gal 2:20 Our new life is now oriented toward Christ’s purposes. You are now aligned and joined to His mission. What does that look like? It means when someone needs us (physical help, an ear to listen, spiritual help) we sacrifice our own desires to be the hands and feet of Christ to them. We do life as a community.

It is not uncommon to hear people say “my faith is private.” But with that statement we run the risk of convincing ourselves that life is just about what we believe. It just about our own inward transformation, we hold truth but we keep it to ourselves. The Gospel was never meant to end with you. It is meant to go through you. You are a conduit…

—here is the deal.

Jesus had a public ministry, died a public death on a public cross and resurrected in public. And if He intended to keep it private He would have done it differently.

A New Life in Christ is Public, not Private

If you’re living for Christ, then you are publicly living out your faith. This isn’t something that Paul has made up. He is just reiterating what Jesus was telling his disciples. Matthew 5:14-16

2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Paul is saying, when I see people, I don’t see them as the world sees them. He sees someone who is being made into a new creation. New—the same Greek word that we looked at when I preached from Revelation a few weeks ago. Kainos. The kind of new that is unlike anything you have ever seen before. Paul is saying “I can’t not see the Gospel working inside of them.”

A New Life in Christ means we are being made into a New Creation

In previous messages, Ben has talked about prevenient grace (the grace that comes before accept Christ), and justifying grace (the grace that comes when we made right with God) and here we see what John Wesley would call sanctifying grace.

As we have seen—sin is deep and it’s serious. And there are layers to it. When we accept Christ, it is not a one and done moment with sin. As we are following Christ, we are becoming more Christlike, more holy, not perfect but continually trying to do better.

Paul is saying here that if we’re really living out our new life—we start looking at people differently. We start looking at people through the lens of sanctifying grace.

What does that look like as church? It means that we come together we don’t act like we are perfect and we have it all together—because we don’t. And we don’t expect perfection from others around us, because they’re not perfect. And while we hold our leaders to high standards, we don’t hold them to perfection either—because all of us, leaders included, are continually being sanctified. This is why churches should be places where it’s safe to be vulnerable. A place where people come and honestly share where they are spiritually, what sins they are struggling with and not be judged but instead prayed for and grace spoken over them. A place where we are all trying to live a life that reflects Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19

And here we finally get to the answer to our question, What is this new life for?

New Life is for Participating in God’s Reconciling Work

When you reconcile your checkbook, you are comparing your records with your bank statement. You are making your true available balance in your checkbook match the bank statement

Checkbook/Humanity/Where you think things stand = “I’m fine”, Bank Statement/God/Authoritative Record= “Something is off”

On the human side, the bank account shows debt—Sin causes the discrepancy (Part 2 of this series)

God’s grace to cover the debt (Part 3 of this series)

God is the sole actor in reconciliation

Our job is to be like the accountant—to come alongside others and look at the records with others. To help them see the discrepancy between in their account. And to not only point it but to tell them that our accounts were once in the exact same condition as theirs is now! And to then point them to the only One who has the power to balance their account out.

And this is where people sometimes push back—and they say but I’m not a preacher. You see we often think that this sounds like the work of an evangelist.

An evangelist is fundamentally a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially through public preaching.1 The term derives from the Greek word for gospel, designating one who announces that gospel to others—literally, “a bringer of good tidings.”2

But Paul is not talking about an evangelist here.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21

4. Our New Life in Christ means that we are now His ambassadors.

He’s talking about an ambassador, which is not the same.

What does it mean to be an ambassador? The role of an ambassador today very much mirrored the image of an ambassador here. An ambassador was someone who was sent by the King to a foreign land, they were responsible for engaging the culture and government on behalf of their King, and they were sent to accomplish a very specific task. An ambassador was someone who was sent to live in a foreign land for the purpose of representing the country/king where they come from. An ambassador’s life was first and foremost about building authentic relationships and credibility with people in the foreign land so that they could be a channel/conduit for achieving peace or reconciliation between their nation and the people of the nation where they are living (ministry of reconciliation!). Being ambassador often required the skill of being bilingually fluent. Fluent in their language and the language of where they are living. Yes, there were times when they use words but their fundamental role was to build bridges between their nation and foreign nations through relationship.

All evangelists must also be ambassadors but not all ambassadors are evangelists.

Do you see the difference? Evangelism is a spiritual gift. Some people get it some people done. Being an ambassador is not a gift it is an EXPECTATION. As ambassadors, we should all be faithfully representing our king while we live in this foreign land. We should all be building authentic relationships and promoting peace (ministry of reconciliation). We are all exiles—we have a home and we are not there yet.

The role of an ambassador was not a new concept to believers. God had been preparing His people to be ambassadors for centuries. Although God did not call it in ambassadorship, we see a foreshadow of what this will look like for us in (Jeremiah 29:4-7). Much like the exiles to Babylon, today, we are called to genuine cultural engagement. Not living as detached and as silos in a foreign land. We are to work alongside our neighbors, seek their well-being, PRAY to the Lord for them.

Ambassadors bring people to church. But let me be clear. Your job as an ambassador is not finished when you get someone through the front door of the church. Often in our mind, we think—if we can just get them to listen to our evangelist, they will get what they need. And while the message of the evangelist plays an integral role in bringing people to Christ, when someone walks through the front doors of the church, they are looking for something far more. They are in need of an ambassador. They are looking for authentic relationships—people who will walk alongside them. And that’s not the preacher’s job, it’s YOUR job.

Bottom line: Saved people are sent people.

God doesn’t just save us from something. He sends us into something.

1. Has the magnitude of the Gospel become something that you can’t not see?

Has the awe of what Christ has done captured you in such a way that you are forever changed. Not in just in the not yet but also in the here and now. Because everything that Paul talks about in this text hinges on how we let the Gospel change us from the inside out. When you look at this world and the illusions others are living under, are you so transformed by the truth that you know that you cannot help but tell others the truth that you know?

2. Does your daily life reflect a life lived for yourself or for others?

Are you focused on your own wants and needs? Or are you spending your time helping others reconcile with God? When people look at you, can they see Christ living in you?

Who do you need to sit down with this week and look over their records with them? And point them to the One who can reconcile their account?

How does your daily, lived out faith inspire others to know your King?

In other words, how effective is your work as an ambassador? An ambassador’s work is only as effective as their willingness to represent their king faithfully, even when it costs them everything.