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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
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All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
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that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
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We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
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God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:17-21
These words should remind us again of God’s incredible love toward us – that He would take my sins and your sins and lay the guilt of those sins on Jesus, that He would nail the certificate of our indebtedness to His cross (Col 2:13-14) so that by His blood, by His sacrifice, our sins would be covered, our debt paid. That grace displayed there, that love compels us to have a desire to live for Jesus who died for us and was raised again (2 Cor 5:14). Our response to this grace received is to be devoted to our calling to be “messengers of reconciliation”, to be Ambassadors encouraging people to be reconciled to God; that kind of devotion is our heart’s desire.
But the reality is, we can get distracted by so many things that can pull us away from that devotion, like Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38) where Martha was showing devotion to Jesus the best she knew how, opening her home, preparing a meal – her last name was Stewart! But she was doing what she thought was the greatest act of devotion. And it was good, Jesus never said that it wasn’t – but He very gently helped Martha see that there was something better. And if you remember, Jesus said that Mary had chosen what was better.
You see, empowered by the Holy Spirit, devotion is something we choose, it doesn’t happen by accident. Look back at 2 Cor 5:11, Paul says, “Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade people.” Now “fearing the Lord” isn't being terrorized by God, it has more to do with having a sense of awe and respect and having the desire to honor Him, that’s why we try to persuade people. And after reading that you’d think that what would follow would be like 5 easy steps on how to share our faith with others – but that's not it at all.
The next sentence says, “What we are is plain to God and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.” And what Paul is saying is that persuading other people is not primarily about some technique – it’s about your life; it’s about what’s happening in you and what is showing through you. When we’re living our lives for God, when we’re staying close to Him and following Him as we’re enabled by the Holy Spirit - our lives become tools that God can use to draw other people to Himself and to help persuade them that He is real, that He is alive and that He can and does make a difference in people’s lives – even in the midst of a pandemic!
Do you see, when we became reconciled to God, we also then became qualified as ministers of reconciliation, we became the embodied message of hope and forgiveness that God wants to communicate to this world - each one of us is a minister of reconciliation. So here we are, we’ve got one foot in heaven and the other foot planted firmly in this life; we’re living our lives as residents of heaven and foreigners here on this planet. We are here to represent, to “re-present” God's kingdom on this earth – God ruling in grace in the hearts and lives of people.
And so, our role is to communicate to this world the message of salvation in Jesus and in Him crucified for us, in the most effective and culturally relevant way that we can. – that’s what an ambassador does! We want people to see Jesus in us and hear about our Savior from us. And the motivation again to do that is because God is devoted to us! Because Jesus went to the cross and gave His life for me and for you, Paul says now He deserves nothing less than our lives. Through Jesus, we have become God's children and we can live in fellowship with our heavenly Father even while we are on this planet and then one day, we’re going to have all of eternity to celebrate Him in heaven.
I don’t know if that is amazing to you or not, to see how motivated God was to express His devotion to us, that He took His Son, who He had fellowship with for all eternity and for an instant, laid the guilt of the world’s sin on Him. And during this season of Lent we remember again, when Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” In that moment, our holy God had to turn away from His Son, because His Son had become sin for us… only the love of God, and that is what becomes the motivation for us to be devoted to Him – having received a love like that, how can we not but want to live for Him? Having been recipients of that grace how can we not give our lives to His work?
Paul says in 2 Cor 6:1, don’t take this grace in vain; don’t ever take what happened on the cross and what God extends to you for granted; don’t ever let His grace become anything less than amazing to you; don’t ever let it be replaced by what you think or don’t think you can do - remember how God found you, helped you, saved you, how He continues to walk with you and live in you today – all because of grace. Friends, it’s because of God’s amazing grace and His eternal goodness that we are compelled to live a life of devotion. Although we may stumble and fall, that is our heart’s desire – to be grateful for His grace.
Rev. Jon Zehnder, VP Region 4
Pastor St Michael Lutheran Church & School
Fort Myers, FL
