Transformed Series-Reconciliation

NOTES:

An idea God has really put into my heart lately is this idea of transformation.

How, we believe that Christ came for 3 big purposes:

Salvation

Jesus came to save us from our sins, and the consequences of them.

Resurrection

Jesus came not just to give us life here - but in eternity

Transformation

Transformation is everything that happens from here and now to eternity. How God is changing us from what we are now to what we need to be then.

And last week, we talked about how

Every step of the transformation process starts with God’s effort, and points towards God’s goodness

It’s all about Him. It’s His goodness, not ours. It’s His power, not ours. All we do is listen and obey - every success after that is because of Him.

So today I want to talk about two big things:

The First:

Transformation leads us to Christlike-ness

We don’t know what we will look like - but we know it’ll be like Christ.

1 John 3:2 NIV

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

This is the goal of transformation at all times - to move us progressively closer to looking like Christ.

Now, something we need to keep in mind. This idea of us being like christ, you know what it means? It means that we’ll be like Christ.

And that means we’ll have experiences like Christ. We’ll have times where everything seems to go our way.

We’ll have times that it seems like everything is against us.

We’ll have times of blessing.

We’ll have times of trials and suffering.

But through all of these things - God is moving us towards being like Christ.

Secondly,

Transformation gives us the ‘ministry of reconciliation’

2 Corinthians 5:17–20 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

God has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

And notice, it’s not a message of judgment, of hellfire and brimstone.

Reconciliation means ‘restoring friendly relationships’.

We are Christ’s ambassadors - his representatives. We need to treat it like

The world needs to hear this message - and I’m the one God’s asked to spread it.

Not everyone has a full-time job of leading a ministry on staff in their future. But everyone, everyone has been given this ministry of reconciliation.

INTERESTING STORIES FROM PEOPLE - we all have stories to tell. We all have things we’ve been through.

Your story could be someone else’s survival guide

Peter talks about it like this.

1 Peter 3:15 NIV

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

We all need hope. We all need God. And

If you have a hope in God - you have something to share

And this is what this ministry of reconciliation is about. When people are faced with hopelessness/fear/anxiety, we come around and say, hey, God is here and he’s real and he loves you and he can help you through this.

And if you’ve experienced that - you have something to share with someone who hasn’t.

And here’s a secret -

God loves it when we do this

This can sound like a scary commitment - saying, ‘I’m going to try and talk to more people about God.’

And we’re going to talk about that with later messages - how to witness, how to work in this minsitry of reconciliation.

But Jesus said this:

Luke 15:7 NIV

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

If you want to lead the kind of life that God celebrates over - this is how.

This is what powers our vision as a church -

Seeing transformed lives in our community and church

That doesn’t happen by us sitting back and waiting for other people to do stuff.

It doesn’t happen by us just making sure WE’RE taken care of, and hoping it trickles down to other people.

We’re in the pairing with God in transformation business. We’re his ambassadors.

All of the ways God has reached you and changed you - He calls you to make those same appeals to others on His behalf

The point of salvation is holiness and transformation - not safety

‘The Christian who thinks that his salvation consists merely in safety and not in holiness, will find himself deceived’ - The New Life, Andrew Murray

The word ‘saved’ can be misleading. Becoming a Christ follower isn’t just jumping out of a fire into the arms of a fireman. It’s a lifelong process of continually becoming more like Christ. Becoming separate and holy.

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