Joel M Bradshaw

17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.–2 Corinthians 5

Verse 17 was the theme of my church youth group when I was in high school. We were called to be new teens, new creations. Let’s ask 5 questions of this passage this morning.

1. Is your life more a reflection of the NEW in Christ or the OLD in your previous selfishness?
2. Do you regularly count other people’s sins against them or are you seeking to bring the Gospel reconciliation to your relationships?
3. Who are you an ambassador for? Your two choices are yourself or Christ Jesus. And before you answer ‘for Jesus’ remember that this means you are seeking humble reconciliation with God above any other goal. An ambassador represents the one he serves. That’s convicting if you think about it. Are you serving yourself or Jesus?
4. Are you aware of this profound moment in verse 21? Jesus wasn’t a sinner, but the Father put on Jesus your sin in your place. So to reconcile you the sinner to God, Jesus had to become considered with your sin. Jesus got your sin and you got reconciled to be with the Father. He never sinned and took yours You couldn’t be reconciled to God on your own and yet Jesus taking your sin made that possible. But God to consider the only sinless one to be like sin. It’s the most unfair moment in history.
5. Knowing all this, do you live gratefully?–JMB