August 30, 2009

Our Mission and Vision (Sermon 1)Reconciling Sinners to God

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Sunday MorningAugust 30, 2009Church in the BoroRob Wilkerson

Introduction

One wise person once said, “if you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time.” I’m afraid this is where much of Christianity lands, unfortunately. So do churches, for that matter. And how sad this is when Jesus has been so very clear about the aim and direction of the church for which He died! By God’s grace it will not be so with Church in the Boro. We have seen His vision for our local church, and it is the gospel of Jesus Christ applied to sinners, to each other, and to the world. It is when a local church loses its vision of the target at which it aims its efforts that its life begins to set like the sun at the end of the day; that its relevance to the culture begins to deteriorate rotten wood; that its lack of ability to refresh and heal the lost world around it begins to make Jesus want to vomit. And this happens corporately to a local fellowship of believers when the majority of individuals in that church stop their lifestyle of aiming themselves, other people, and the world toward the message of King Jesus.

To maintain an aim one has to look at it regularly. If you were to close your eyes right now, for example, and imagine a bulls eye, probably everyone here could do it and draw it out on a piece of paper. And we must be able to do the same when I ask you to close your eyes and imagine what exactly it is that Jesus Christ wants from you and His church. Could you open your eyes and begin writing it down in a succinct way? Would it be simple enough to share with others? Would it be accurate? Would it be biblical?

We’ve just celebrate last week our first anniversary as a church family here at Church in the Boro. What an exciting weekend it was last Friday through Sunday. And there’s no better time in the life of a church than during its anniversary season to re-imagine and re-draw the target or goal at which King Jesus intends us to aim as a church, both individually and as a group of individuals. This is just what I intend to do by God’s grace this year and every year following during this time. I want to lay before us each year the mission of Church in the Boro in a fresh way so that none of us loses clear sight of the target at which we are aiming. I want to do this each year so that everything we do as a fellowship of people flows out of this mission and back into this mission. I want every effort we expend to be guided and guarded by this mission.

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Because again, if we forget it we grow irrelevant to a dying world and we make our Savior sick to His stomach.

On the other hand, if we get it right and do it consistently and follow through well, we will hear “Well done, good and faithful servant”, from the lips of our Savior! Imagine hearing THAT! Imagine hearing from Him, “Enter in the joy of your rest”! How exciting and breathtaking that would be! Oh, this is what I long for as your pastor, and this is exactly the target of my function here in this church: to equip you in and with the mission King Jesus has given you, so that you can hear Him speak these words to you. If you fail to hear these words from Him on that day when you face him, then I pray it will not be because I failed to equip you to be who you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Our mission statement here at Church in the Boro is: Reconciling Sinners to God, People to Each Other, and the World to King Jesus. This mission crystallized for us early on in December of 2007 during our four month church plant investigation process. While I was preaching through some of the highlights in Ephesians 1 for a few Sundays our mission statement was born seemingly in an instant one Saturday afternoon during a group discussion about our function as a church body. Whereas Romans is Paul’s theology of missions and the gospel, Ephesians is his theology of the church. And the church is made up of sinners who’ve been reconciled to God first, then reconciled to each other second. When these two happen, together they can reconcile the world to King Jesus.

So for the next three weeks I want to break open to you our mission statement so that each person attending will understand with clarity what it is we are about here at Church in the Boro. This week I’ll talk about what Reconciling Sinners to God is all about. Next week, I’ll address the topic of Reconciling People to Each Other. And following that week, I’ll speak to Reconciling the World to King Jesus.

Reconciling People to Each Other is that part of our mission statement explained best in a paragraph of a letter Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. To be sure, it’s the second letter in your Bibles, but in reality the third letter he actually wrote to them. Turn if you will in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 to which I’ll point your attention in a few minutes.

In this section Paul speaks of “the ministry of reconciliation.” And this is what we want to understand first and foremost, since everything we do here at Church in the Boro is about that very ministry. There are two or three key things I want you to see this morning as I attempt to exposit this text for you.

1. The Ministry of Reconciliation Will Usually Take Place Against the Backdrop of Satanic Work

The primary reason for Paul writing this letter to the Corinthians, which again is actually his third letter, is to defend his apostleship. It would appear from the contents of the letter that

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false teachers had infiltrated the ranks of the Corinthian church, and were calling themselves apostles. The mark of a false apostle or false teacher is seen in how they conducted themselves: they promoted themselves and discredited Paul, calling his genuine apostleship into question.

So Paul wrote the letter to deal with the accusations, answer the allegations, address the insinuations, and confront their gullibility head on. He did just that by defending his own apostleship through his lifestyle and character, which in turn would give the Corinthians a standard to use in measuring the other so called “apostles,” proving them to be imposters.

People’s lives had been transformed and set free through the gospel God had committed to him to preach. Paul had labored with them and planted a church there. And sometime later their spiritual welfare was being threatened with adverse teaching and application that didn’t flow from the gospel but was hostile to it.

Some of the Christians in the Corinthian church were being heavily influenced by these false teachers who, in undoing their respect and love for Paul, would thereby undo the effects his gospel had worked in their lives. The apostle Paul had authority from God because of the authority of the message he was preaching. If the Corinthians perceived that his authority was in question, then that meant his gospel – i.e. his lifestyle, his preaching, his ministry, etc. – was in question also.

This group of people in the Corinthian church, unwittingly driven by Satan, were promoting themselves as the true apostles while attacking Paul’s apostleship, and they did it primarily in one way: attacking his credibility. And that’s how it always happens anyway, isn’t it? Here’s a running list of the things they evidently accused him of in an effort to degrade his credibility.

They cited his change of schedule. He was originally headed to Corinth, but stopped in Troas on the way, to preach the gospel and meet Titus with a report from Corinth. When he eventually could stand it no longer, he decided to cut the time in Troas short and head on to Macedonia to meet Titus sooner (2:12 ff., 7:5 ff.). It was there, probably near Philippi, that Paul finally met up with him. Now understand that what was going on in Paul’s mind is significant. You know how it is when you’re waiting on news that seems to be delayed. You start thinking the worst. But instead of acting out of fear, Paul simply and wisely waited for the information he needed before going to Corinth. That change of schedule, for wise reasons, was used by the false apostles to attack him, and call his credibility into question.

They cited his lack of commendation. Other apostles evidently would come into town with letters of commendation from their sending church. Paul came with none (3:1). Paul’s answered in chapters 4-6 that the suffering he incessantly endured for the gospel and the church was a commendation better than any letter. Again, what a petty attempt to attack his reputation and ministry.

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They said Paul was a toothless dog, loud and brave from a distance on a chain, but when he was there at the church he was the opposite of impressive both in his authority and his communication (10:10; 11:6). In short, his presence and preaching didn’t impress these false apostles who looked on the outward for validation rather than the inward.

They accused him of fleecing Christians and robbing churches. In chapter 11 it would seem that we have some of the most backward logic being used to call Paul’s ministry into question. In that day and time a Greek rhetorician or orator would travel into a city, make arrangements to speak at a certain place for a certain number of schedule appearances, then charge people to hear them. Paul, on the other hand, did just the opposite. He proclaimed the most significant message a person could ever hear, gave it away for free, because he loved the people. The false apostles, however, were saying that he did not charge them, combined with the fact that he didn’t take money from the Corinthians for himself, should be proof that he did not, in fact, really love them (11:11; 12:13 ff.). THEN! these false apostles would turn around and whisper to the Corinthians that what was really going on was that the collection Paul was taking up for the poor saints in Jerusalem was lining his own pockets. In summary, they watch him turn down personal contributions for his preaching, receive contributions for poor Christians in Jerusalem, falsely concluding that he was getting rich secretly while appearing to be holy and upright (12:17 ff.).

These bozos were probably to be blamed for the slow up in collecting offerings for the poor saints in Jerusalem. This was one of the reasons Paul was headed to Corinth in the first place, as we learn in chapters 7-9. But these false apostles, in attacking Paul’s credibility, were probably causing doubts and raising questions about Paul in people’s minds so that they slowed down their giving and collecting of money.

Four Lessons to Learn From the Background of 2 Corinthians

1. There will always be men and women Satan will use to infiltrate the ranks of the church in order to threaten and undo the work of the gospel. Expect it. Count on it. Wherever the true work of the gospel is going on, you can guarantee Satan will be right there to counterfeit it, question it, counteract it, contradict it, and do whatever he can to push a church off track. The fact that we don’t expect it leads us to be surprised by it when it happens, when if we had all been on our guard from the beginning, we’d recognize it quicker and deal with it sooner, killing all such efforts before they can grow to destructive levels.

2. Such men and women will offer up accusations or make insinuations about your character based on (a) petty things, or (b) circumstantial evidence, or (c) things that can be interpreted several ways, while always choosing the most negative one. Again, expect it and count on it. Be ready to defend yourself based on the truth of your motives and your ministry, and not based on your feelings and emotions. When you allow your personal feelings to enter into the matter, it all turns into a personal offense.

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But when you keep the matter about the gospel and its effects on people’s lives, keeping yourself out of it, then your motivation is pure.

3. You are inseparable from the gospel you preach. Your reputation will flow from what you say, how you live, what you preach, etc. Any undoing of your reputation will ultimately undo your gospel. The gospel message you carry contains the very authority of God. That authority gives your life authority. Any perceived unraveling in your authority will cause a perceived unraveling of the gospel’s authority. In other words, if you can’t be trusted, then how can your message? 2 Corinthians 11:4 is too very often true of Christians in churches who believe whatever they’re told about someone.

4. True apostleship, true leadership, and true discipleship, should have a resident built-in self-defense of self-denial. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, in his commentary on 2 Corinthians, has written an excellent summary along these lines. “And so, with evident distaste for speaking about himself, Paul reminds the Corinthians that, as they well knew, in contrast to the pretended apostleship of these false teachers his apostleship was one of continuous suffering and self-abnegation, and that it was precisely in his own manifest weakness, which left no room for self-glorification, that the power and grace of God had been magnified (11:21-12:12)” (p. xix). Jesus said we can’t be one of His disciples if we don’t deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. When that’s our motif in life, our self-defense is our self-denial and suffering for Jesus.

This is issue of self-denial brings me to my second point this morning about the ministry of reconciliation here at Church in the Boro. And it gets us right to the passage. What I want to do for the remainder of our time together is to give you a microcosm of Reconciling Sinners to God, based on 2 Corinthians 5. Then I want to zoom out and give you a macrocosm of what that looks like, based on Paul’s own ministry of reconciliation, making connections from the text on how exactly we will reflect that ministry.

2. The What: Our Ministry of Reconciliation is All About Urging Sinners to Take Advantage of the Open Door to Intimate Relationship With God That Jesus Christ Made Available Through the Cross…Before That Door Closes.

It may seem a little backwards to start right in with the text before giving you a bird’s eye view of where this passage fits into the larger letter. But it’s necessary to do it this way so that everything makes sense and flows well for us this morning. So bear with me as I start with the microcosm of reconciliation, moving outward to a bird’s eye view of what this ministry should and will look like in our lives and at Church in the Boro.

First, Paul begins his discussion about reconciliation with the Judgment Seat of Christ. Back in verse 10, he writes about the fact that we all will appear before Christ’s judgment seat one day to give an account of everything we’ve done while on this earth. We don’t have time to break down the theological significant of this. So you’ll just have to be content with the fact that

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what Paul is speaking about here is a day and time when Christians, not unbelievers, will have their life’s works – good and bad – examined by Christ and rewarded accordingly (v.10).

For Paul it is in light of this day that he works as hard as he does preaching and teaching the gospel and planting churches all over the Roman Empire. He too wants to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant,” like the rest of us.

It is based on that day of judgment that he fears, respects, and reverences Jesus Christ. And it out of this fearful, respectful reverence that he persuades other people (v. 11). And this is the heart and soul of the ministry of reconciliation. To be sure, Paul is speaking generally here of his desire to persuade the Corinthians that he is a true apostle of Christ. And he appeals to his own life and ministry in verses 12-17 as evidence of that.

But in a larger sense, this persuasion of his apostleship is inseparably linked to their persuasion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For if he is not a true apostle, then they haven’t believed the true gospel. So to persuade them about his apostleship is also to persuade them about the gospel of Christ.

He says as much in verse 18 when he writes that “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” For Paul, his ministry was a reflection of God’s ministry. God had reconciled Paul to himself, and now Paul was out to reconcile everybody else to God.

Now, what exactly is “reconciliation”? The word has to do with the idea of bringing something close again. The Jewish idea of reconciliation was in Paul’s day, and even before then, just what it is today.

According to Josephus (War 5.415; Antiquities of the Jews 3.315; 6.144-56; 7.184), God is reconciled to people who confess their sins and repent (Kistemaker, II Corinthians, p. 194).

The writer of II Maccabees, a book in the Apocrypha, (1:5; 5:20; 7:33; 8:29; cf. 1 Clement 48.1), used the verb “to reconcile” four times, all of which were about people petitioning God to be reconciled to them. “To initiate reconciliation is the duty of the offender…” (ibid).

Today this is still the common perception people have about God. They inwardly know that God is not pleased with them, and they live responding one of two ways. First, they either pursue some religious course of action or effort which they see as an act of confession and repentance in order to be close to God again. Second, they get tired of the whole religious course of action thing and forsake the matter altogether.

This is where Church in the Boro MUST get this ministry right! For every other ministry we do here is based on this one all-important ministry. The New Testament teaches that GOD restores us to himself by putting us into a right relationship with Himself. You see God knew

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and still knows that we will NEVER, EVER be able to produce any kind of confession or repentance or course of religious action that will truly make us right with Him. This is for the simple reason that you can’t make up for the wrong you’ve done…EVER. It’s simply impossible to do enough good to make up for the bad. And what’s worse, because you are basically bad, even your attempts to do what you think is good is actually tainted with bad, so that God can’t even accept those efforts. In fact, they just offend Him that much more because He accepts nothing less than perfection.

So in light of this terrible pickle human beings are in, God, the offended party, took one giant leap for mankind, and He took the initiative to make us right with Himself. If He waited around, He’d do so for eternity with everyone dying and going straight to hell. So instead of waiting around, He made the only choice He could make: to love us and step forward out of heaven to wipe away all the bad we’ve done and make us right with Himself, reconciling us to Himself, bringing us close to Him, near to Him…forever.

That, dear friends, is the ministry of reconciliation Jesus performed while on this earth. And that, dear friends, is the ministry of reconciliation Church in the Boro will perform while on this earth. This is our purpose in life…our mission on this planet.

This is very key theologically and practically for us as a church. Paul had a ministry of reconciliation because he himself had been reconciled by God through Christ. Likewise, Church in the Boro has a ministry of reconciliation because those who are members of it have themselves been reconciled to God through Christ. Do you see this?

To be reconciled to God necessarily carries with it the ministry of reconciling others to God. Do you understand that? One cannot be reconciled to God and not also at the same time care nothing about reconciling others to God. Such a thought would have never existed in Paul’s mind, nor Jesus’ for that matter. That’s why Jesus gave the mandates He did.

Matthew 28:18-20. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Mark 16:15-16. 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Luke 24:45-47. 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

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Acts 1:8. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

“God has given [Church in the Boro] the taskof reconciling people to him”

(2 Cor. 5:18).

And why has God given Church in the Boro this task?

“Because God was in Christ,reconciling the world to himself…”

(2 Cor. 5:17).

“It is because the way of reconciliation now stands wide open that the ministry of reconciliation has been committed by God to His servants” (Hughes, p. 206). What God has done for you in Jesus Christ is to open wide a door of intimate relationship with Himself as the sovereign King of the Universe. And with that door now open because of the cross, it will close again one day soon, which means that our task is to usher as many people as we can through that door before it closes. THIS then is the ministry of reconciliation God has given to us as a local church. THIS is what it means to Reconcile Sinners to God.

“[Church in the Boro members] are Christ’s ambassadors,and God is using us to speak to [the lost].

We urge [them], as though Christ himself were here pleading with [the lost],‘Be reconciled to God!’

(2 Cor. 5:18).

Why are we doing this work of ambassadors?

“Because God made Christ, who never sinned,to be the offering for our sin,

so that we could be made right with God through Christ”(2 Cor. 5:19).

3. The How: How the Ministry of Reconciliation is Built and Reflected

The ministry of reconciliation is built on a particular theological foundation and is then reflected in a particular practical way. Let’s break both of these down, the foundation and the reflections.

A. The Ministry of Reconciliation is Built on a Foundation Made From Authenticity and Self-Denial Mixed Together with the Holy Spirit.

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Now I want to zoom out and give you the macrocosm of the ministry of reconciliation. The microcosm in 2 Corinthians 5 :11-21 is all about that ministry. But the larger context of 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 is the macrocosm that shows us how we build on and reflect this ministry of Reconciling Sinners to God. Examine the larger context with me if you will.

Paul addresses the Corinthians’ felt-need for letters of recommendation for his ministry (3:1.)

Paul answers their felt-need by pointing outward and inward.

o Outward. Paul pointed to them as living proof of that ministry (3:2-3 ff.).

o Inward. Paul pointed to his own life and ministry as proof (4:1-6:10)

Authenticity: His Preaching as True Ministry (4:1-6). Rejection of all shameful, underhanded methods, trickery and

distortion of the truth (4:2). Telling only the truth, with honest people bearing witness (4:2). Rejection by anyone is a sign they are unbelievers, blinded by

Satan (4:3-4). Rejection of self as the center of preaching, and embracing of

Christ as that center (4:5).

Self-Denial: His Suffering as True Ministry (4:7-6:10) Weak bodies are vessels holding God’s glorious power (4:7). Suffering bodies share in the death and life of Jesus (4:8-18). Weary bodies will one day receive a heavenly body (5:1-5). Weak, suffering, and weary bodies are here for now, but are living

in light of what’s coming (5:6-10).

KEY: 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2 is an explanation of Paul’s ministry sandwiched between two texts about his suffering and endurance as identifying marks of true gospel ministry.

Patient endurance is the best method of removing distractions or hindrances from people coming to Christ (6:3-10).

What I want you to see about the larger context of the passage on reconciliation is that a biblical ministry of reconciliation is going to be built with the spiritual concrete of (1) an authentic and sincere presentation and communication of the gospel, combined with (2) a life of self-denial which always leads to weakness, weariness and suffering, mixed together with (2) the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

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Just as a concrete foundation of a building is created by mixing two ingredients – sand and gravel – with water, the foundation of Church in the Boro is made from authenticity and self-denial mixed together by the Holy Spirit.

Just as concrete cannot exist without any one of these three elements, so a gospel-driven ministry in a local church cannot exist without an authentic presentation and communication of that gospel, combined with a life of self-denial, suffering, weakness, and weariness, mixed together with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Do you see that inherent in the context?

B. The Ministry of Reconciliation Will be Reflected in Sincerity, Charity, and Spirituality.

Now zoom back into chapter 5 to see how this plugs into the ministry of reconciliation. With authenticity and self-denial as the foundation, the other pieces of the building begin going up. And when the walls of this ministry of reconciliation are erected, they flow out of the foundation. If you can imagine a foundation with only three sides and therefore three walls, imagine it this way.

The Ministry of Reconciliation is Reflected in Three Ways.

1. Sincerity (5:11-12). It’s about a having a sincere heart before God. This flows from the authenticity side of the foundation. It’s about the real gospel message of the real Jesus Christ being displayed in real ways. Here are the two ways it will be displayed at Church in the Boro.

a. When you’re sincere you take seriously the judgment seat of Christ who will judge everything we do while we’re here on this earth (5:9-10).

b. When you’re sincere you work hard to persuade others to come to Christ (5:11).

2. Charity (5:13-15). It’s about ministering because you truly believe Jesus loves you and everyone else. This flows from the self-denial side of the foundation. When you sincerely love others you sincerely deny yourself to give to others. And this will be reflected through Church in the Boro in two ways.

a. When love is present, how others perceive your actions is irrelevant (5:13).b. When love is present, you believe your old life of pleasing yourself is dead, and

your new life of pleasing Jesus is the focus (5:14-15).

3. Spirituality (5:16-17). It’s reflecting the truth that reality is about spirituality not superficiality. This flows from the Holy Spirit side of the foundation. When the Spirit of the Lord is present, everything is laid open, bare, and naked. He sees everything for what it really is, and who they really are. This will be reflected in two ways in the life and ministry of Church in the Boro.

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a. When you’re spiritual, you stop evaluating everyone else by what the world thinks about them (5:16).

b. When you’re spiritual, you start evaluating everyone by the whether or not they have truly been made new by God (5:17).

Paul applies all three of these elements in 5:18-6:2 in his ministry of reconciliation. In 5:19, Paul explains that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.” The message of reconciliation is a message about God’s sincerity, charity, and spirituality.

God has been the most sincere person who has ever lived. He took seriously the judgment He will hold at the end of time. He took it so seriously that He took on a human body and became a man named Jesus to persuade people to come to Christ as the deliverance and rescue from that judgment.

God has been the most charitable person who has ever lived. Jesus did things, said things, and lived in such a way that some thought he was crazy and some thought he was in his right mind. Regardless, he didn’t care about the perceptions of others. He didn’t let what other people thought get in the way of loving us. And He would NOT have been loving if He had let His creation and His world go to hell and suffer His eternal judgment against sin.

God has been the most spiritual person who has ever lived. Jesus never evaluated people based on who they were on the outside, or based on what they had done in the past. He never sized up somebody by how the world would usually see them. Instead, he forgave people, made them brand new creatures, and treated them like it, regardless of what they looked like on the outside.

Conclusion

This is the God who has stepped out of heaven to make His enemies right with Him, to bring His enemies close to Him and to love them, to bring them near so He can bless them with everything He possesses.

This is the God whom Church in the Boro labors to represent to sinners who are in need of being reconciled to Him.

This is the God who through the Holy Spirit has persuaded us to come to Him, and the same Holy Spirit through whom we labor to persuade others to come to Him.

This, then, is what this ministry of Reconciling Sinners to God will look like here at Church in the Boro.

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If you believe that God has accomplished His mission in your life by reconciling you to Himself, are you willing to join with Church in the Boro as we make it our mission to reconcile other sinners to Him?

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