He Uses the Reconciled

Introduction

I remember when I was a boy how my mom would sit at the kitchen table with a pen in her hand and her checkbook in front of her. This is where she would sit once a month to balance the checkbook. That’s not a term that we hear too often today. But in those days—before debit cards, online banking, and Quicken—people often paid for things with checks and would need to balance the checkbook when they received their monthly bank statement in the mail. Balancing a checkbook is sometimes called reconciling.

To reconcile is to make consistent with one another; cause to coexist in harmony; make or show to be compatible.

If the checkbook said that mom had $1,000 dollars in the bank, but the bank statement said that she had $500, her accounts were out of balance. Inconsistent. Unreconciled.

Friends, can we agree that if your bank said you had $500 less than you thought, that you’d be feeling a whole lot of things other than harmonious?

When the accounts are out of whack, action needs to be taken to make them consistent with one another again.

Oops, forgot about that rent check. That’s where that $500 went.

Now my accounts are balanced.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible shows us how sin—our rebellion against God—threw humanity out of balance with our creator, and how God through Jesus reconciled us to Him.

God created Man and Woman in his own image.

They disobeyed God.

The wages of sin are death.

God sent his Son to die in our place.

God made, we broke it, Jesus fixed it.

We see this reconciliation summarized in 2 Corinthians 5:19 when the Apostle Paul writes:

For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.

Thesis & Transition

God, through the work of Jesus on the Cross, has done everything needed to reconcile us into harmony with Him.

How did Paul respond to what he called “this wonderful message of reconciliation”?

What can we learn from Paul’s response?

How does it apply to those of us reading the word today?

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:20 how God uses the reconciled:

So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

Pray

He Uses Us as Ambassadors

Here in his letter to the church of Corinth, Paul describes Timothy and himself as Christ’s Ambassadors.

Ambassadors are official representatives of one country to another.

In the first century, an ambassador would have been an elderly man of high rank who would travel to another country with messages from the king of his own country.

In the Roman Empire—of which Paul was a citizen—there were two types of provinces:

Senatorial provinces were made up of people who has submitted to and were at peace with Rome.

Imperial provinces were in danger of rebellion, so Rome would send ambassadors to make sure that rebellion didn’t break out.

Earth, in rebellion of God, is an Imperial province of Heaven.

As Christ’s Ambassadors here on Earth, Jesus uses us to share the Good News: the Gospel.

Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns!

He Uses Us as Spokespeople

Paul continues, saying that he “…speaks for Christ.”

To understand the motives of a heavenly spokesperson, let’s look at Paul’s own life and example.

God’s Spokespeople are Reverent and Loyal

Back in verse 11, he says his “fearful responsibility to the Lord,” is why he works hard to share the Gospel.

Other translations render fearful responsibility as Fear of the Lord.

That’s a strange term in today’s English.

In Paul’s culture, the Fear of the Lord described a reverence of God’s power that was expressed through loyalty to Him.

God’s Spokespeople are Sincere and Christ-Centered

Paul had some critics back in Corinth and he was very cautious about bragging about himself.

As we see in verse 12, he understood that he could easily fall into the trap of doing just what his critics were doing: bragging about their own spirituality and accomplishments.

These false teachers were more concerned about getting ahead (2:17), more concerned about money and popularity, and boasted about their eloquent speeches (11:5-6) and impressive presentations (10:10-11).

Paul was concerned only with pleasing God and preaching the truth of verse 15:

“He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”

Our Message is the Gospel

2 Corinthians 5:20 (NLT)

So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

The English word Appeal doesn’t do the original Greek justice.

It means to urge; to implore.

Paul: appointed as an Ambassador of Christ to Earth—an Imperial province of Heaven in rebellion of God—was given an urgent message.

He spoke for Christ when he plead, “Come back to God!”

Come back to God. Be reconciled to God.

Paul phrased this command in the passive tense.

He wasn’t telling folks to reconcile themselves; they were incapable of doing that.

Instead, Paul was announcing that they could be reconciled to God by accepting God’s free gift of salvation.

Hugh of Saint Victor, an 11th century theologian, put it like this:

Between us and God we had caused a breach by our sins—and God was the first to apply the remedy. He sends to us His ambassadors to call us, the offenders, back to peace. [See} that God Himself, whom we offended, has come forward in the person of His messengers to ask us to be reconciled to Him.

That’s the Good News.

That’s the Gospel.

That’s the wonderful message of reconciliation.

That’s the message that God wants to use us: the Reconciled—His Ambassadors; His Spokespeople—to spread to the ends of the Earth.

Conclusion

Paul beautifully sums up the Gospel in the last verse of 2 Corinthians 5.

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Jesus, who never sinned, took our sin upon Himself so we could be made right with God. Then he uses the reconciled to share that Good News with others.

No matter where you are on your faith journey, there is truth to be found in this scripture.

If you already follow Jesus, you’re his Ambassador. You’re his spokesperson. Are you loyally representing your King in a rebellious land? Are your words and actions pointing people to Jesus? You don’t need to be a preacher or a teacher. You don’t need a platform, a podcast, or a blog. You can choose to represent Jesus with sincerity and reverence in your workplace, your school, and your community. Take this moment to ask Him, “How can I be a better ambassador for you, Lord?”

If you’re not yet following Jesus, I want to invite you for a moment to consider the words you‘ve heard today. You, I, everyone; we have all sinned and fallen short. We can’t earn our way into God’s favor. There’s no amount of good work that can overcome the deficit between us and God. We’ve cashed checks that our bank account couldn’t cover. We’re overdrawn. We’re bankrupt. But God knew that was going to happen. So he sent his Son to take those debts on for us. We deserve death, we deserve eternal separation from God and an eternity in hell, but Jesus paid that price for us. He has done the work to reconcile us with God. And you can accept that reconciliation today, begin to live an abundant life, and be guaranteed eternity in heaven with him. All you have to do is place your faith and trust in him.