Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Okay, so if you want, we're going to be in Second Corinthians. Actually, not. If you want, you should just turn to Second Corinthians, Chapter 5, and I'll do that, too. And while you turn there, you know, maybe this story will help you just get to know me a little bit better.
[00:00:26] I don't hope you guys know my name. My name's Austin.
[00:00:29] But one thing about me is I do enjoy reading. I love books.
[00:00:34] And in fact, most nights when I have time, if we're not out doing something late and having to put Annie to bed quickly, I read to Annie and Katie aloud. I also usually read a separate book to Katie aloud, but together, the three of us have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia, you know, maybe the best series of all time. Right.
[00:00:58] Raise your hand if you've read it.
[00:01:03] Okay, well, I know there are different opinions, but it is objectively fantastic. Maybe we can agree on that. So specifically, what we're reading right now is the Horse and His Boy.
[00:01:13] And so I've not read them all. I didn't grow up reading them, so I haven't read them all. So this is kind of a new experience for me. I'd only read the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was a kid, and so I'm loving this book. It might be my favorite so far. The Horse and His Boy. Now, when I read, I cannot do a British accent. I spent time in the uk I can't. I just can't do it. It's terrible. And there's a character in the Magician's Nephew that has, like, a cockney accent. I definitely can't do that. I think Katie tried to make me try, and it just sounded like redneck. You know, I just. I just can't do it. I'm too American to do a British accent, so I typically don't try to. But when I'm reading and, you know, if you read aloud, you should try this. I try to use maybe slightly different voices, different inflections for each character.
[00:02:06] What? You know, does somebody read like that to you?
[00:02:10] Yeah. Maybe your parents read like that. See, the goal is to kind of become the character so that if you're listening, you kind of immediately know who is speaking.
[00:02:22] And so my goal is to represent the character to my family. But obviously, because I can't do the accent, and sometimes there are too many characters, I can't even remember what did I make this one sound like last time? I don't do it perfectly.
[00:02:38] Well today in Second Corinthians, 4, 5.
[00:02:41] We're not talking about Narnia or other books. We're talking about Jesus.
[00:02:46] And Jesus doesn't pretend to voice different characters, but he did something far more extreme than I think is kind of analogous or similar.
[00:02:55] See, he was a man who was sinless. He knew no sin, we see in this passage, but he actually became sin for us. So more than just pretending to voice like us or pretending to be a man, he actually became one. And he hung on a cross and bore our sins. He actually did that. He actually became that for the sakes of all of his people.
[00:03:21] So the story of redemption is completed because he takes us on and stands in our place to receive the judgment and wrath of God. And this makes us or Christians and. And him one.
[00:03:35] And this is only true for those who have been born again, who have turned from their sin and put his or her faith in Christ fully. Now, I say that I'm pointing out that this is, you know, about Christians specifically, because the Bible attests to that and because Paul, who wrote this book, Second Corinthians, he is talking to Christians specifically. So he wrote this to a church.
[00:03:58] He wrote to the Corinthian Church.
[00:04:02] But because we too, are Christians, or if you are a Christian, it can apply equally today.
[00:04:09] Now, Karen, I want you, and I challenge you to do this in between the fun and the time to kind of fellowship and have fun together.
[00:04:18] I want you to honestly look to yourself and to Jesus, and I want you to ask yourself this, am I really a Christian?
[00:04:26] Does my life actually look like this? You know, we're going to see some examples. Do I really look like this at all? Can the things said of these Christians be said of me, honestly?
[00:04:37] So later today we'll talk more about what the Christian life specifically looks like.
[00:04:42] But this passage includes that, but has a different focus. So let's read it.
[00:04:48] So second Corinthians, chapter five. We're going to start in verse 14, so you can follow along as I read.
[00:04:57] For the love of Christ controls us.
[00:05:01] Because we have concluded this, that one has died for all. Therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
[00:05:14] From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.
[00:05:18] For even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
[00:05:24] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
[00:05:28] The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.
[00:05:31] All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to himself. And gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
[00:05:50] Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
[00:06:12] The Corinthian Church has dealt with many issues.
[00:06:17] And you know, the. The letters, if you've noticed, those are some of the longer letters in the New Testament.
[00:06:24] And there even was at least three letters written to them. One that we don't have and probably more over the course of time. Two are included in Scripture.
[00:06:34] So they dealt with a lot.
[00:06:36] What is relevant here, though, is that the Church was divided over many things and they had many false teachers telling them false things.
[00:06:45] They were also suffering greatly under persecution. So you got false teachers, you got division, you have persecution.
[00:06:54] Doesn't sound very pleasant or peaceful.
[00:06:57] Paul wants to unify them with one another by reminding them that they have been united, united to Christ. So unity with Christ leads to unity with church.
[00:07:09] And this should also encourage them in suffering, you know, as they have partners in the faith to endure with them.
[00:07:15] In this passage, the theme, I believe is union with Christ. So union is like a uniting together, union with Christ. Now, in youth group, you'll probably hear me mention union with Christ as often as it comes up, because I believe that union with Christ is the center of salvation, the center of redemption. We often think, oh, you know, the main part is my sins are forgiven.
[00:07:41] But that happens when you're united to Christ. The very heart of it is being one with him. And this passage gives us a lot of insight as to how that happens, what it looks like, and how we should live as a result of. Of it.
[00:07:58] Repentance and faith unite us to Christ, and the result is salvation from sin and eternal life with God.
[00:08:08] Now, the main idea of second Corinthians 5, 14, 21 is this. So when I say the main idea, I do this a lot. What I'm saying is this passage, if I could kind of boil it down to a sentence, here's what it's about.
[00:08:25] And so my goal when I'm preaching is everything I'm saying is trying to kind of support this is why I think this is the main idea. So here's the main idea of this passage. Christ became man, that any man or woman may be one with him and his righteousness so Christ became man, so that any, I'll say person may be one with him and his righteousness.
[00:08:52] So there are three points, and it's kind of based on verses 14. So we're going to go through point one, one died for all, point two, all died, and point three, all must live in him. So first, let's look at this. This phrase, which I think kind of is unpacked in the passage, one died for all source. I want you to notice that Paul is not reciting in this passage some meaningless mantra. They're not just isolated truths, which I think a lot of times maybe we mistakenly read the Bible that way. Like all these different verses are just isolated. You know, this is a good verse, and this is a good verse, but it's telling you it's all written together to make one big idea known.
[00:09:37] So he's saying here that the love of Christ controls us. That's how he starts the love of Christ controls us. I want us to think about that language. If you say you love Christ, then that will change how you live.
[00:09:56] There is a new controlling factor in your life that wasn't there before.
[00:10:02] Being controlled by your passions or your desires or your sin or your selfishness or whatever it might be. No, in Christ, the love of Christ controls you. There is a totally new life, a new existence for someone who has died with Christ.
[00:10:19] So now we're looking at Christ, the one who died for all. That's the one, if you didn't know. The one who died for all is Jesus Christ. And Paul says that in verse 16, we once regarded Christ according to the flesh.
[00:10:36] Okay, what does he mean by that? Well, I think what he's. He's saying is Christ was man.
[00:10:41] The theological word is he assumed human flesh.
[00:10:47] The reason we use the word assumption, which kind of has a different meaning even nowadays, but we want to clarify that God the Son did not change into a human, did not change because that would mean he stopped being God and he continues to be God. God the Son also did not add human flesh. That's not quite right, because that would give the impression that God has changed. He is now better, or maybe he's now worse. He's added something different to himself.
[00:11:18] So the word assumption is theologically used because he put on flesh, which is to say that the divine Son of God united his nature to the human nature so that they're one person, Jesus Christ, God the Son.
[00:11:33] And I'm talking about all this thick theology for a reason, not just to show you. Oh, I know theology or to bore you to death or to tears, but because we can't overlook this truth.
[00:11:47] So it's kind of a subtle way he says, we're recording. We've regarded him according to the flesh, but the fact that Christ has been in the flesh and is is hugely significant.
[00:12:00] Nothing we think we know about the gospel or the Christian life is the same. If this did not happen, if that's not true of him. So we need to not overlook this. God the Son, putting on flesh changes our lives.
[00:12:15] How so? Well, there's many places we could go.
[00:12:19] But if you want to hold your finger here and flip to Hebrews 4, we read a couple of verses. So finger there. Hebrews 4 to the right.
[00:12:39] Hebrews 4. We're going to look at verses 14 and 15.
[00:12:45] Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
[00:13:07] So you can keep looking there.
[00:13:09] This great high priest, this is Christ Jesus, the Son of God. So the author of Hebrews even says, jesus, the Son of God, to. To emphasize he is God the Son.
[00:13:22] This great high priest, Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses.
[00:13:29] God the Son sympathizes with our weaknesses.
[00:13:33] Now, biblically, and I learned and learned and heard some of this, even at our most recent camp in New Mexico, as this just happened to be. This verse happened to be preached one of the nights. The word sympathy refers to suffering through something with someone. Suffering through something with someone.
[00:13:51] So how can God sympathize with the weakness of man? Is God weak?
[00:13:56] Well, through the God man, Jesus Christ, he can sympathize with our weaknesses. Because Jesus actually is a man. He's not like kind of a man or a mixture of man and God. He is true man.
[00:14:11] That's what one of the old creeds says, true man, true God.
[00:14:15] So basically, whatever it means to be a man, he is that. Whatever it means, he is that. He is a true man.
[00:14:24] Now, he's not weak. We need to understand what this means. He's not weak in that he sins. You know, we can say, I'm weak. When I sin, I give into temptation.
[00:14:34] He's not weak in that sense, but he experienced weaknesses of the flesh, like sickness and sorrow, pain and growth and the whole range of human emotions.
[00:14:47] These sorts of weaknesses are that we have just by nature of being human. He experienced and sympathizes with them.
[00:14:58] With the exception of sin. Jesus experienced a completely real and genuine a human experience.
[00:15:08] In fact, he lived actually as the ideal human.
[00:15:13] He lived the way that we were created to be. So you could say he lived a more true human life than any of us will live.
[00:15:22] He understands life and humanity better than we do.
[00:15:26] So when you are weak, Jesus can sympathize with you.
[00:15:31] When you are sick, happy, sad, when you're well, when you're hurting, when you're joyful, he is there with you, and he can sympathize with you.
[00:15:46] And when you're tempted, we see here Jesus, he too was tempted, yet without sin.
[00:15:53] So he was tempted, yet he showed us what it is like to. To completely resist it.
[00:16:00] So, again, I think this is telling us, and this is also what. What I heard from our. Our camp speaker. He understands temptation better than us because he didn't give in.
[00:16:12] We give in.
[00:16:14] We all fall short. We all sin.
[00:16:18] Sorry, I'm gonna unplug that Spam call.
[00:16:23] So, saying he did not give in to temptation, he endured the whole way. So we cannot fathom what it's like to endure temptation for the entirety of your life, but Jesus can.
[00:16:39] And he never gave in.
[00:16:41] So when you are tempted, you can look to Jesus who endured.
[00:16:45] You can look to him when you're tempted and when you're weak.
[00:16:49] And why?
[00:16:50] Because he became man. He put on human flesh.
[00:16:55] And even more than that, Philippians 2, 5, 11. Paul in this passage, is careful to point out that Jesus's humanity is the reason that humans can be saved from the judgment of sin.
[00:17:09] So you don't. You don't have to flip there, but I'll just read it. Philippians 2, 5 through 11 says, Jesus, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, putting on human flesh and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
[00:17:31] Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So if Jesus is not man, he cannot die in the place of man.
[00:17:52] His obedience to death would actually be a tragedy rather than a triumph.
[00:17:58] But because he was human, it was a triumph. So what do we do with the fact that Paul then says, we no longer regard Christ according to the flesh?
[00:18:08] Well, he's Still a man. He's not saying he's no longer a man.
[00:18:12] He is. We're affirming that he is. And Paul believes that. But despite the wonderful truth of the humanity of Christ, the Corinthians were looking at other people according to the flesh, which means they're looking at other people superficially, objectively. You know, they are thinking very shallow of others. You know, we do these sorts of things when we insult or hate someone else or gossip about them or treat someone unkindly.
[00:18:41] We're looking at them in a superficial way. We're not considering their needs, their dignity, or any of that.
[00:18:48] And the Corinthians were behaving in some of these ways.
[00:18:51] They just thought of other people as plain humans, plain men, plain women.
[00:18:57] But what does this ignore?
[00:18:59] Well, it ignores the entire spiritual dimension. It ignores what we read in Psalm 8, actually, that humans were crowned with glory and honor by God.
[00:19:11] So Paul is saying to consider the spiritual dimension, just like we do with Christ. He's saying we regard him according to the flesh, but we know he is more than that. We know he is eternal God.
[00:19:23] And so when we look at his creation, we should also look at them as being made in the image of that eternal God, not just as human people that don't matter and have no significance.
[00:19:37] So don't be divided, be united and reconciled to each other, because that's what Christ does.
[00:19:44] He reconciles. He unites people of all kinds under the banner of his name in the Church.
[00:19:52] And he did this by means of his death.
[00:19:56] Paul says in the end of this passage, for our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin. So Paul is grounding his call for reconciliation and peace and unity, and the fact that the sinlessness of the God man, so the sinless God man hung on a cursed cross and took upon himself all of their sins.
[00:20:22] So when he says he became sin, doesn't mean he sinned. He. He took on, took the credit and the punishment for all of their sins, every single one. So the Corinthians should look to the cross and remember, my sins are all up there.
[00:20:38] That's what he means. God made him to be sin who knew no sin. He was sinless. This is a radical, crazy idea.
[00:20:47] How can you be divided if you say that your sin has been cast on the cross?
[00:20:53] If Christ has bore it, how can we not treat each other with love? How can we be divided in the Church?
[00:21:01] How can we behave this way if we say that's true of us?
[00:21:05] How can we not love others?
[00:21:08] After looking at the love of Christ on the cross, that's what Paul is bringing their minds to.
[00:21:16] I think that's helpful for us as well.
[00:21:20] So how can we not love when we see the love of Christ?
[00:21:26] Or another question you might ask, what do you do if you want your sins to be on that cross? What do you do?
[00:21:35] Well, you have to die.
[00:21:39] That's it. You just have to die.
[00:21:42] Brings us to our next point. Number two, all died.
[00:21:46] In verse 14, we read because Christ died for all, therefore all have died.
[00:21:51] Now, this might be a little weird.
[00:21:54] When did you die? When did I die? Are we all dead?
[00:21:58] The Corinthians might be. Well, that's interesting. I don't remember dying.
[00:22:03] I'm just. I think I'm still alive.
[00:22:05] It's a little bit odd language. We may not talk like this all the time.
[00:22:10] And we also want to ask, what does all mean?
[00:22:14] Like who died, all died.
[00:22:17] Now, the word all is actually a little more confusing than we often give credit for.
[00:22:23] I've heard someone say all means all, and that's all that all means.
[00:22:28] Sounds catchy, right?
[00:22:30] But it's kind of interesting because in that sentence, the word all has different meanings. Some all means all, so it means everything, but that's all that all means. So now that second time, that's all that all means is using it in an exclusive way, so it doesn't mean anything else.
[00:22:48] So you can use it in different ways.
[00:22:52] So it can be exhaustive, encompassing everything, or it can be exclusive, meaning more general.
[00:22:58] So what does this mean? We don't want to skip over words and assume what they mean. We want to make sure we're studying the Bible faithfully, trying to understand it, so we could clarify that at least. He's saying to the Corinthians church, all of you have died. He might be saying that. He could be saying that all kinds of people have died. So all sorts of people have died and will. And in fact, any person can come to him and die with Christ.
[00:23:25] But we. We learn in the. The Scripture that He. He dies for and saves those who die to themselves through faith.
[00:23:33] And that's all that means.
[00:23:35] He saves those who die to themselves through faith.
[00:23:40] But then how do you die? I want to die, right?
[00:23:44] Don't tell your parents that I tell you to say that.
[00:23:47] But what if you want to die in this way? Die with Christ? Well, Paul tells us you must be in Christ.
[00:23:54] You must be in Him.
[00:23:57] The words in Christ seem maybe insignificant, but it's a very common phrase.
[00:24:05] But do we Ever think about it?
[00:24:07] What does this mean?
[00:24:09] Do we think about the importance of being in Christ? That in Christ is another way of saying in union with Christ.
[00:24:17] Do you think about what it means to be in union with him?
[00:24:22] Do you?
[00:24:25] You can be in a relationship with God.
[00:24:28] That's not a small thing. It's easy to think it's a small thing when you grow up around that phrasing and grow up in the church. But that is not a small thing to be in a relationship with God.
[00:24:40] Though you are not Christ, you and him can actually be one.
[00:24:45] His works become yours. His righteousness can be yours, you, his innocence, before the Father is credited to you.
[00:24:54] Hello.
[00:24:56] Thank you, Bryson.
[00:24:58] I think that's probably our food.
[00:25:05] All of those things. We can come back in. We'll get there soon, It'll be ready for us.
[00:25:12] Poor guy was just. Maybe that's who called me.
[00:25:17] Innocence, righteousness, the works of Christ, credited to you. The sonship of Christ is credited to you as a son or a daughter of God. And specifically in this passage, we see how in his death on the cross, you too die.
[00:25:33] As your sins were burned by God's wrath on the cross, your old self dies and burns away.
[00:25:40] That's why at the end of the passage, Paul summarizes by saying that God made him to be sin who knew no sin, why.
[00:25:47] So that in him, in Christ, in him we might become the righteousness of God, become the righteousness of God, like we become that Jesus act of becoming sin by taking sins upon him on the cross and dying for them doesn't just end there. It's not just a wiping of the sins.
[00:26:08] That would be good, right? You know, hey, Jesus forgives me of all my sins. Well, I guess maybe for my future sins. Well, okay, but how does that get me in a relationship with God? That just kind of makes, I guess, the sins go away. But I'm not in a loving relationship with God.
[00:26:27] It becomes a great exchange.
[00:26:30] Christ becomes a substitute.
[00:26:33] You trade in your sinfulness, and it's not just getting rid of it.
[00:26:37] You trade in your sinfulness and you get righteousness.
[00:26:40] And this perfect righteousness is how you can be declared righteous or justified, how you can be in union with Christ. You can be a son or a daughter of God.
[00:26:51] That's why this is so important.
[00:26:53] So how can you be in Christ? Well, you can only enter that relationship through faith in him and his works. You must fully believe what this passage is teaching and that to your old habits.
[00:27:04] The old self in verse 17 must pass away on the cross to make way for the new self, freed from sin, righteous in God's sight, fully justified before Him.
[00:27:18] So in context, Paul is saying, that's how someone can be reconciled to God.
[00:27:23] That is how not only a broken but a hostile relationship between you and God can be healed.
[00:27:31] Therefore, then Christians should be reconciled to one another, loving and serving one another.
[00:27:37] You must die with Christ through faith.
[00:27:41] Now onto our point number three.
[00:27:44] All must then live in Him. All must live in Him.
[00:27:50] Our ability to live in him is not something that earns our way to being in Christ. There are no requirements outside of repentance and faith in Him.
[00:28:01] And at the same time, you have no right to say that you are in Christ if you don't truly live in Him.
[00:28:08] You must live in Him. The fruit of life in Christ is obedience to His Word. So we need to know what it says, we need to obey it.
[00:28:18] And this passage gives us help. As we want to live in Him.
[00:28:23] So live for him, who for your sake died and was raised. See that in verse 15, right?
[00:28:30] He died for all that. Those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him, who for their sake died and was raised. So live for him, who for your sake died and was raised.
[00:28:41] Who do you live for?
[00:28:43] Who do you live for?
[00:28:45] I want you to think about that like now. You think, who do I live for?
[00:28:52] I think that all of you live for someone or something.
[00:28:57] Maybe it's for a video game.
[00:29:01] Say, that sounds silly. I think people really do live at the controller, waiting for the next Fortnite round or whatever might be popular now.
[00:29:10] I think I hit a nerve. You think day and night about your next game. If you had no limits, you would probably play all day. Maybe that's how you spent your summer. You care about it and cherish it.
[00:29:23] You get upset when you lose.
[00:29:25] You feel the need to tell everyone when you win. It's a big deal.
[00:29:30] You might live for this in other ways too.
[00:29:34] Maybe a sports team. You know, we've talked a lot about the thunder. We love the thunder. Maybe a sports team is we hang our emotions and our happiness on the success or failure of this team.
[00:29:47] Maybe you trust and follow and live for a friend group. You want to be in a certain friend group. Or you want to just like be around certain people because you like them. Or you think maybe that'll be a good benefit to you. Maybe your thing is you. You live because you want to be the smartest kid. You need to be the most successful first in your class.
[00:30:11] Maybe you live for Yourself in a very vain way. You want to. You care how you look too much, you know, I got, I gotta look good. I can't do anything unless I look good. You know, all of these ways, and really a lot of these are just ways that we live for ourselves. These are different things or people that we live for. We give our devotion to our cares to.
[00:30:33] Paul is telling us to throw that all aside.
[00:30:37] That's all at best secondary.
[00:30:40] Live for Christ.
[00:30:42] Live for Christ. And he specifically refers to Christ as the one who died and was raised. So if you're thinking of trivial things or selfish things that you live for, he's saying, no, live for Christ. Okay, but why he died and was raised, that's his reasoning.
[00:30:58] Pretty solid argumentation.
[00:31:00] The entirety of the life of Christ, everything he did, I want you to think about this. Every step he took, every word he said, everything he read, everything he did, the entirety of his life was intentionally done to bring about the cross so that he would save all who have faith in him. Everything was done toward that end.
[00:31:22] That is the incredible nature of his selflessness and his love for sinners.
[00:31:27] Not one thing was out of place. You see in the Gospels, even as he performs a miracle, he sometimes tells people, don't tell anyone of this. Because he needed to do everything intentionally at a particular time. Because he was devoted. He needed to do the right things at the proper time. He knew exactly how it had to work out so that sinners could be saved.
[00:31:49] Everything he did was for that purpose.
[00:31:52] His whole life devoted to saving sinners. So you ought to live for him, right?
[00:31:59] Another way we can live like this is we can live as if the new has come. So you look at verse 17, you see, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. So live as if the new has come.
[00:32:15] Your life should look different.
[00:32:17] Your life needs to make a u turn, 180 degree turn.
[00:32:22] Your words should change, your thoughts should change.
[00:32:25] And some of these things gradual and even your schedule changes.
[00:32:30] Think of the radical words here.
[00:32:34] You don't just change. Like I said, you, you died. You become an entirely new creation.
[00:32:42] It's not just a mere change up, it is a complete renewal.
[00:32:47] Instead, maybe you live differently. Maybe you wake up earlier than you need to so you can get a taste of God's word.
[00:32:55] Instead of doing whatever hobby, whatever you enjoy. Maybe you take some time away from that for prayer instead of maybe chumming it up with your pals, talking about sports or books, or take Taylor Swift or something. You try to talk to your friends about something important like the sermon that you heard or about the gospel, all of these things. It's not that you can't ever do these fun, casual things, but think of how are you spending your time? How can that change? How can I honor Christ more with my time?
[00:33:29] And this really brings us, you know, to our. Our next application.
[00:33:35] From verses 18 and 20, we see all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
[00:33:44] Right. So live to reconcile others to God and the church.
[00:33:50] Your life should include a devotion to reconciling others to Christ and the church.
[00:33:57] Now what does that mean?
[00:33:59] Well, it means you actually share the gospel with people.
[00:34:03] And even people who maybe say they're Christians, they might not be. Maybe they need the gospel.
[00:34:11] The gospel should be on our lips in our conversations for the sake of those people as well.
[00:34:18] Remember, only faith in Christ can reconcile a sinner to God.
[00:34:22] These things aren't automatic. These things aren't for people who just do a generally good job or try to be pious.
[00:34:30] No, these are for people who have their faith in Christ alone.
[00:34:35] And on top of that, someone who has been reconciled to God doesn't end there. We should seek also to help people reconcile to a church. They need a church. So maybe they're in one and they're divided or they're not going because of some conflict. We need to try to mend that and bring peace to that situation.
[00:34:53] People might not be in a church. We need to encourage them to be there. That's how God disciples you is through the church.
[00:35:01] So he pairs those together intentionally. Being reconciled to God and being reconciled to one another because they go together. We no longer regard people just according to the flesh, AKA we don't think of people merely by, you know, fleshly things, whether it be race or age or interests or personality or anything else.
[00:35:25] You know, we instead think things like is so and so is that guy, Is he reconciled to God?
[00:35:31] That's how we should be thinking of others.
[00:35:34] He's also reconciling very different people to himself in order to make us into one big people. So my favorite things about the gospel, he's taking people from all over the place and making us into one big people.
[00:35:47] People that I would have never been friends with or run across. Like I get to know in the church because we have something significant in common. God has reconciled us to each other.
[00:35:59] And so think of this reconciling, helping others meet the Lord, helping others reconcile to his people think of this as your ministry. If you're in Christ, share the Gospel with others and help them join a church.
[00:36:15] And then finally we see in verse four, which is actually at the beginning of our passage, and we kind of started with this, you should live controlled by the love of Christ.
[00:36:25] Let that be the driver in your driver's seat. Because it is true that Christ died for sinners so that sinners can die with him and then live with him forever. And so we must be controlled by the love of Christ.
[00:36:38] So think to yourself, is that an accurate statement about you?
[00:36:43] Am I controlled by the love of Christ?
[00:36:47] Is that really true of me?
[00:36:50] There's a good chance that you might look at your life today, and I hope you are thinking about it.
[00:36:56] And it doesn't even. It doesn't look like you're controlled by the love of Christ. And some of you might think it really doesn't even look Christian at all.
[00:37:03] I mean, I don't do, like, super bad things, and I go to church when my parents drive me, but the rest of it doesn't really look all that Christian. Maybe that's true for you.
[00:37:14] My desire is for you to love Jesus and to love him so much that this love controls you.
[00:37:22] Years ago, you know, over the course of my life, I would love. I love to come home from work or school.
[00:37:31] I would watch TV or I would read books. And I could do this for hours.
[00:37:36] It'd be like, maybe all I did, you know, I'd have dinner, but that'd be all I did. But now my life looks differently. And though I was happy doing that today, I have a daughter that you guys have seen, and I love her.
[00:37:49] And I still do those things. You know, I'll watch a TV show where I read books, but I do them less.
[00:37:55] And instead of immediately picking up a book, even a really good book, like I was just reading one on Clarence Thomas, you know? You know, there's always a good book that I have instead of immediately picking it up or immediately turning on the TV or something.
[00:38:08] When I come home, I sit on the floor and I play with her.
[00:38:12] We just do silly things.
[00:38:15] I'm playing with blocks and stuffed animals because I'm controlled by my love for her. Not because I want to play with the teddy bear or, like, these giant Lego blocks, although I maybe secretly do, like, building stuff.
[00:38:31] I'm mostly not doing it because I enjoy those activities. I'm doing it because my love for her is controlling me to do it.
[00:38:38] Our lives should change. If we love Christ, our hobbies, the ways we spend our time should be different.
[00:38:45] And so later today we're going to think even more specifically on how our lives should look when we live according to the Spirit.
[00:38:54] Let's pray.
[00:38:57] Father, thank you for your word and for the gospel, for your son Jesus Christ, who humbled himself and put on flesh, who bore the weight of sin and death on the cross for the sake of those who would believe in him.
[00:39:13] Lord, we ask that you would convict the hearts of anyone in here who has not truly trusted his or her whole life and put his or her faith in your son.
[00:39:25] Lord, we pray that you would call that person to yourself and save them.
[00:39:31] And God help us all then to live as if the love of Christ controls us.
[00:39:37] Lord, also give us safety and help us to have great fun the rest of the day and good fellowship. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
