Third Wednesday after the Epiphany (2024)
Epiphany • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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“We regard no none from a worldly point of view . . . If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! . . . God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them . . . God made him who had not sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” —2 Cor 5:16, 17, 19, 21—
Let us pray…
Powerful words, “You are a new creation.” It is kinda hard to grasp this especially when this earthly life tries to overpower us. We look around how can I be a new creation when I’m dealing with a stroke? How can I be a new creation when I have the same problems as my non-Christian neighbor? How can I be a new creation when I look into the mirror and I see the same person that I have always seen, with the same problems and challenges as everyone else? How? Because God has said so.
The very One who spoke the world into existence, the One who said “let their be light” is the same one who said, “You are a new creation.”
And so now, God has this message to send to the world. He wants others to know: (1). He has reconciled the world to himself in Christ. (2). He begs you to believe this. (3). He calls minister as his ambassador.
God Has a Message to Send
God has reconciled the world to himself in Christ
God has reconciled the world to himself in Christ
2 Corinthians 5:18 (NKJV)
18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:19a (NKJV) 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
God has reconciled us to himself through Christ by forgiving us all our sins, by counting them against Christ instead of against us.
God was not reconciled to us, as if some change took place in him. No. God, in fact, is the subject, reconciling us to himself. Taking the Greek word quite literally, we would say that he was making something about us completely “other” from what it was.
And that something is our standing in his sight. In Christ, God does not impute sin to us. Indeed, the whole world (κόσμον), is the named beneficiary of this reconciliation. God now considers all people to be different from what they were.
Formerly, by birth and nature, they were his enemies to be cast into eternal punishment.
Now their status is changed to make them holy and blameless in his sight. This is universal reconciliation.
Jesus had no sin, being born without it. Yet God made him to be sin, so covered him with the sins of the world that Christ became, as it were, sin personified.
Our sins are stripped from us and given to Christ Jesus, and the holiness of Christ becomes ours.
It is this which the preacher pleads, on God’s behalf, for people to accept. — “Repent and Believe the Gospel!”
God begs you to believe this
God begs you to believe this
2 Corinthians 5:14–20 (NKJV)
14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 20b we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
The origin of this life (vv. 14-15).
Christ's death for all men counts as our death.
Verse 14 asserts that “if one died for all, then were all dead.” Note the full extent of God's grace in this assertion. This reminds us of the familiar truth that while Christ suffered we got off scot-free
While He died we went on living, but more: we share His death; His death is the same as if we all had died (Rom.6:6; Gal. 2:20 .
20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
We not only escape dying; in addition, we get credit for having died!
Christ rose from death, and so do we, not only in the life to come but already in this life
Verse 15 reminds us that Christ rose again. But amazingly, what it asserts of Christ, it asserts of us also. We too “rise.” According to verse 14 we “died,” but according to verse 15 we “'live” (“They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.”)
The life spoken of here is not physical life but rather the life of God, a life characterized by an unselfishness and commitment similar to that displayed by Christ in His saving acts.
We no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us and rose again.
Christ provides the example for this selfless ministry (v.15).
He provides the energy for this selfless ministry(“in Christ,”v.17).
We no longer know either Christ or our neighbor “after the flesh”—From a worldly point of view—
We once did! (judging Christ “according to human standards” in The Good News Bible). Mark 4:35-41 portrays the disciples mistaken in their evaluation of Christ before He stilled the stormed-tossed sea. “Don’t you care we are about to die?”
Job 38:1-11 depicts God responding to the all-too-human standards applied to Him by Job and his advisers. “Where you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
They look different to us; we see them for what they really are.
We look at them differently; our vision is no longer impaired.
We are to see the whole world as people whom God has reconciled to himself. All that remains is for someone to tell them about this reconciliation, and that is where the church and its ministry come in. God, who reconciled us, “gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” In fact, the Greek text could be translated as: “the administering of this reconciliation.”
He has sent your minister as his ambassador
He has sent your minister as his ambassador
2 Corinthians 5:19–20 (NKJV)
19b …and [He] has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.
His purpose here is simply to show the importance of the ministry in God’s scheme of things.
The ministry is the link between the universal and the individual.
Jesus accomplished the universal, and through the preaching of ministers God brings about, for each believer, the individual.
Since this is the case, the ministry truly ought to be held in great honor by all Christians.
Many in Corinth were not doing so, and many today follow their lead. Any and all reasons for this pale into insignificance in the light of what Paul says here. Ministers are God’s tools to bring about, out of universal reconciliation, the personal reconciliation of the sinner to God.