What's Your Ministry and Message? - Part IV

What do people say about God? Have you ever been told that God can't have anything to do with you because your sin has separated you from Him and He can't tolerate sin?

People go to great lengths in telling others about how they can have a relationship with God. But instead of being newsboys we become bread men. Instead of sharing Good News we market a product of salvation that we can hand out after people follow the steps we lay out.

In this study of 2 Corinthians 5:14-21, we come to verses 18-19.

"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 men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."

2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Paul has just stated that the new creation work of salvation ,that we have ALL been included in, is accomplished in Christ and now he calls us to focus on the author of salvation - "all this is from God...". God is the one who does the work of salvation - not you or me. God reconciled us to Himself through Christ. We aren't reconciled to God when we pray a prayer, when we commit our lives, when we join the church or are baptized. We WERE (past tense) reconciled to God through Jesus in His death and resurrection.

Isn't that amazing? Take a moment and soak that in. God has reconciled you to Himself. God has, through Jesus, reestablished a close intimate relationship between God and you. In Jesus, your life has already been restored to Father God. What Adam lost for you in his disobedience has been restored to you in Jesus. God is for you not against you!

This is the ministry and message God has given us, the church, to the world: "God was in Christ restoring you and the whole wide world to the Father and He doesn't hold your sins or anyone else's sins against you!"

You are forgiven! The Lamb of God has already taken away of the sins of the world. God doesn't keep a ledger sheet and He doesn't grade on a curve. Grace, grace and more grace!

The church isn't the place to dole out God or salvation. The church is the place where people, captured by the Good News of God's philanthropy, go far and wide announcing like angels (who were messengers):

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

This is the message we have been entrusted with. When was the last time you told a stranger with confidence: "God's favor rests on you. He loves you. He has forgiven you. He is well pleased with you!"?

Don't let those using sales pitches and memorized scripts selling fire insurance shame you into backing down from telling everyone you meet the Good News of God's favor in Jesus. You will here them say; "You're giving them false assurance. If they don't sign on the bottom line and commit they are an object of God's wrath."

The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who wastefully scatters seed willy-nilly everywhere and lets the seed do what it's going to do. Spread the news, plant the seed of hope and truth, water lives with grace and have a harvest celebration when one sinner wakes up to the truth - that when they were dead in their trespasses and sins God made them alive with Christ and raised them up and set them in the Father's lap.

What a message to spread!