God-Man Race Relations

CIT: Why shouldn’t the Corinthians regard anyone “according to the flesh?” By Gods reconciling ministry, the Corinthians who were “in Christ” were made new creations with a ministry of reconciliation as well.

CIS: Total reconciliation is the heartbeat of the Gospel

SO: Explain: Mankind was an enemy of God, by their own choice, via sin. The just penalty from sin is death. Prove: You are guilty and far less than you ought to be. Apply: You are an agent of reconciliation with a testimony.

Intro

MLK

Transistion: What exactly does the Scripture have to say on the concept of reconciliation.

Scripture:

Context

Paul (& Timothy)

Would have considered Jesus a person, perhaps a false prophet of another faith.

Corinth

Acts 18 - stays a long time with Pris and Aquilla, deals with politcal persecution, establishes a church near a synagogue which grows.

Recognize the Shift (v.16-18)

Exp:

Flesh - sometimes has the meaning of sinfulness. But in the case, it means more of natural humanness, cf. John 1:14.

What sort of things can be understood via our persons appearance?

Ethnicty; Complextion, Gender, Style,

The driving evaluation is not perceiveable in the flesh, but in the spirit, accomplished through Christ.

The old is not speaking about our flesh, but what’s inside.

The Father orchestrated our reconcillation to him through Jesus’ death.

Why is the necessary?

God is holy, righteous and true, and consistant with himself.

We are sinners and are incapable of living upright

We all reject God’s truth and that sin disqualifies us and makes us guilty before God.

You are guility and far less than you ought to be.

God sent the Son to become man and bear our convitiction and guilt.

He shed us blood, and atoned for our sins perfectly, unlike the OT sacrifices of animals.

He rose again and made a way for all. Those who trust in Christ have their guilt remitted and are again in fellowship with Christ with a new spiritual nature that grows in with God.

Apply:

You sentenced to electric chair but God took your place.

Your sin deserved. The perfect and innoncent Son took it for you.

We can be right with God

Understand our Old Status (v.19)

Explain:

Jesus came to earth to reconcile humanity to God.

We were enemies; now we are not.

When we understand our difference between our new and old status, sharing the message is much easier.

Apply:

When we understand the Old Status: we ought to rejoice in our new status.

Bring Out the Gift we recieve (20-1)

Explain:

We are ambasssadors with a testimony.

We recognize what others do not about our selves.

We will need to appeal to the people around us.

They may not understand/cannot in thier own capaicities/

We must live aligned to that purpose.

Do not recieve God’s grace in vain!

Apply:

If we are new creations, what aspect of the flesh should divide us?

If we are new creations, the bond of spiritual salvation should compel to relate with all other saved individuals with dignity and respect.

IF we are new creations, we see the world similarly to Paul’s perspective, where the spiritual realities trump the ones of the flesh

There is no room for prejudice, racisim, chauvism, or any other form of devaluation based off of the flesh for those who are cHristians.

When we reflect on this and find that we have that sin in our lives. We must repent of this so that we can be the ambassador that God is calling us to.