Let's open our Bibles again to
2 Corinthians chapter 5. Now Paul wrote his first epistle
to the church at Corinth because it became necessary for him to
correct some errors in doctrine and errors in behavior that had
come up there. And he corrected those things simply by doing
one thing, by preaching Christ crucified to them. And then he
waited to hear the result. He dealt pretty plainly, sometimes
harshly with these things, and he waited anxiously to hear the
result of his how they would receive his letter. And some
time passed and he was very happy to hear that the Lord had granted
repentance and he changed some behaviors there, been corrected.
And then Paul wrote a second letter to them. And the theme
of his second letter is the same as the theme of his first letter.
It's Christ crucified. Because at all times, in every
situation, our only message is Christ crucified. Paul told young
Timothy, Timothy, you preach the word. Be instant in season
and out of season. What he meant by that is in every
season, you preach the word. And Paul followed his own advice.
In every situation, he preached the word. He declared unto them
Christ crucified because that answers every situation that
we're in. And this morning, I pray, I carefully
sought the Lord that he would enable me to preach Christ crucified
in a very clear and simple way in the power of the spirit and
not in the weakness of this flesh. Because if God will enable me
to preach this message, this message will give to you the
key to the gospel. It'll give you the key to all
of the scriptures. I hope that the Lord, by his
spirit, will give you the key to unlock the mystery of how
God saves sinners. And I pray somebody's interested
in that. Is anybody interested to know how God saves sinners? Maybe God will give you an ear
to hear this morning. That's my prayer. Now, verse 18, the
apostle says that God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. What is the ministry of reconciliation? And I have four points that I
pray will make crystal clear the message of reconciliation.
The title of the message this morning is Substitution, the
message of reconciliation. So here's my first point. The
message of reconciliation is the message of what God has done
for sinners. Look at verse 18. And all things
are of God. who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation,
to which specifically, namely, this is the message of reconciliation,
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now, why is there a need for
God to give to us the message of reconciliation? Well, because
when Adam was created, Adam had fellowship with God, didn't he? Adam walked in the garden every
day with God. You think of that. And God was
the creator. God created all that. God put
Adam in the garden, gave him everything there in the garden.
And it was only right that God gave Adam just one rule. What?
Just one law. Just one. That's not unreasonable. God said, Adam, all this is yours.
Eat of it freely as much as you want. Accept the tree that's
in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. Don't cheat it. The day that you eat thereof,
you'll surely die. That's not unreasonable, is it?
And as long as Adam didn't eat of that tree, you know what?
Adam had fellowship with God. But Adam disobeyed and he disobeyed
God willful rebellion, and he ate that fruit. And the moment
Adam took that fruit, Adam died. And Adam and everyone who ever
would come from Adam died, spiritually died. At that very moment that
Adam took that fruit and ate it, Adam began to hate God. Adam loved God. Now he hated
God. Adam had fellowship with God. Adam looked forward to walking
with God in the cool of the day. Now he hid himself from God.
He didn't want to be with God. He was afraid. Adam loved God
and now he's afraid of God. His carnal mind became enmity,
hatred against God. And Adam passed that nature of
sin down to every one of us. All of us came from Adam and
he gave that nature to us. Adam was not friends with God
anymore. Adam declared war on God and
all of Adam's children have faithfully kept up that war against God
right up to today, including you and me. That's our nature.
So you see, there's a great need for reconciliation and there's
a great need for peace. We've declared war on almighty
God. That's a war we can't win. We
need reconciliation. And there's a need for reconciliation
because when Adam sinned, God thrust Adam out of the garden.
Adam couldn't walk with God anymore. God thrust him out. Adam couldn't
come back into God's presence anymore. And none of us can either. Man cannot come into the presence
of God and be accepted anymore because we're sinners. We can't
come in ourselves and be accepted of God. God cannot. God's holy. He cannot accept
us in our sin. So there's a great need for reconciliation,
isn't there? Well, how can God and sinners
be reconciled. How is that possible? How can
that be done? How can God be reconciled to
sinners? And how can sinners be reconciled to God? How can
those things happen? We can't be reconciled to God
by anything we do. Paul says all things are of God. Reconciliation is a work that
God does for sinners. All things are of God and he
does it by Jesus Christ. Paul says, namely, this is the
message of reconciliation, how God reconciled sinners to himself.
God was in Christ, Paul says. You know what that means? God
was in Christ. It means that God became a man. Jesus of Nazareth
was a real man. I guess I should say he is a
real man, shouldn't I? He is a real man. And that man
is God. He is God. And since he's God,
Jesus of Nazareth was the only perfect man to ever live. The
Lord Jesus Christ did what Adam could never do. He obeyed God's
law perfectly in every detail. Scripture says he obeyed in every
jot and tittle. What that means is every minute
detail, every little comma and semicolon and period and apostrophe,
all those little punctuation marks, he obeyed it perfectly. Thought and word and motive and
deed, he kept the law perfectly. But you know what? The Lord Jesus
Christ did not come keep that law for himself. He didn't have
to establish righteousness for himself, did he? He's God, he's
already righteous. He kept that law as a representative
man representing his people. Adam represented the entire human
race. What Adam did, we all did because
he's our representative. We received Adam's nature from
what Adam did was passed right on to us. We all became sinners. We became guilty when Adam was
guilty and we became sinners. We had a nature of sin when Adam
sinned because he's our first representative. Well, how is
God going to make his people righteous? The exact same way
we were made unrighteous through a representative name, through
the Lord Jesus Christ. God sent his son to be the representative
of his people. And everything that Christ did,
his people did too. We did it in him. Well, what
did he do? He did perfection. He kept the
law perfectly. And when he kept the law, when
the Lord Jesus Christ kept the law perfectly, Ralph Brown kept
the law perfectly. That's representation. So reconciliation
is all of God. It's all the work of God. All
things are of God. If we can use the word plan,
I don't know that I like the word plan, but I can't think
of a better one. The plan of reconciliation was ordered by
the wisdom of God. The purpose of reconciliation
was ordained by the grace of God. The application of reconciliation
is applied by the love of God. And the purchase of reconciliation
happen to satisfy God's justice, God's holiness, by the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll look at that in more detail
in a minute, but that's our first point. Why is there a need for
reconciliation? Because man's nothing but sin. We've separated ourselves from
God. We've declared war on God. Somebody's
got to make peace. Here's the second point. The
message of reconciliation is heard always from a preacher. See what Paul says here in verse
20? Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did
beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled
to God. Now we have this message of reconciliation. I don't apologize to say this
message of reconciliation is not preached everywhere. It's
not. Very rarely. It's preached here. And I don't
say that full of pride and haughtiness. We have it because God gave it
to us. That's the only reason we have
this message of reconciliation. Paul said, God had given to us
the ministry of reconciliation. He said in verse 19, that God
has committed this message of reconciliation to us. Well, that gets your attention,
doesn't it? God's committed something to your care. Literally, it means he's put
it in us. He's put this message of reconciliation in us to preach. We have this message of reconciliation
because God has made us his ambassadors. Now, ambassadors, they don't
bring their own message. They go to the place that they're
sent, but they don't bring they bring a message. They come with
an agenda, but it's not their message. It's not their agenda. They bring the message of the
king. Their agenda there, whatever country it is they're sent to,
you know what their agenda is every day? It's the agenda of
the king. What's good for the king? What's
good for the country? That's what I'm going to do.
I'm not there to try to get something for myself. I'm there to represent
the king. And we ambassadors, God's ambassadors,
we're nothing. Paul says, we're nothing. He
said, I'm nothing. And Paul says, nothing. We're
nothing. It's God that gives the increase. God's ambassadors
were nothing in ourselves. But our King and our message
is everything. It's everything to you. And if
you're going to hear it, you're going to hear it from a man.
Now, this message of reconciliation is of God. All things are of
God. Why is that message preached
here, not somewhere else? I don't know. God's will. It's
the only reason I can tell you all things are of God. The message
of reconciliation is sent by God to his people, wherever he
sends his ambassadors. That's God's duty, because all
things are of God. But if you're going to hear the
message of reconciliation, you're not going to hear audibly from
God. He's not going to speak to you
like he spoke to Abraham in Genesis 22 that we read earlier. He's
not going to speak audibly like that anymore. If you're going
to hear the gospel, you're going to hear it from a man. Paul says,
we preach to you in Christ's stead. We're preaching to you
in the place of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we preach to
you is exactly the same thing Christ would say to you. We're
in his stead. I hope I say this right, but
if the Lord Jesus Christ were here this morning, he wouldn't
preach anything different to you than I'm preaching to you.
Now, we all know he'd preach it better, wouldn't we? That
goes without saying. But the content of the message
would be the same. Were God's ambassadors preaching
to you in Christ's dead? So if sinners are going to hear
the gospel, they're going to hear from whom? From other sinners. If you're going to hear the message
of reconciliation, you're going to hear it from a sinner who's
already been reconciled to God. Don't you like that? Because
who can tell the story of reconciliation better than a sinner who's already
been reconciled to God? Who can testify the mercy of
God and the grace of God and the love to God towards sinners
better than a sinner who's already been reconciled and already experienced
God's grace and mercy and love? Who better to preach that message?
So if you're going to hear from God, if you're going to hear
how God saves sinners, You're going to hear it from a man.
Paul says we have this treasure, the treasure of the gospel. It's
in earthen vessels, just earthen, what he means is clay pot, some
potter, you know, formed with his hands. It's just in an earthen
vessel. The treasure is not the vessel.
The treasure is what's in it, what's in it, that the excellency
of the glory would be of God and not of us. It's pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching, by a man preaching the gospel
to save them that believe. So if you're gonna hear this
message of reconciliation, you're gonna hear it from one of God's
preachers. And then thirdly, here's the manner that we preach
this message of reconciliation. Look at verse 20 again. Now then,
we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. Now remember, we only have this
message because God gave it to us. We can only preach this message
because God gave us the gift to preach it. God made us his
ambassador and he gave us a post. You know, the president gets
elected and he selects ambassadors to go to all these different
countries. He gave them a post. That's where they're going to
go serve. Well, we can only preach this message of reconciliation
because God's given us a post. He's given us a place to serve.
This is my place to serve. Well, if God gave us the message,
God gave us the ability to preach it, God gave us a place to preach
it. We don't have anything to be proud of, do we? So we don't
preach this message in a proud and haughty and arrogant way.
The only reason we know Christ is God's revealed himself to
us. The only reason we believe Christ is God's given us the
faith to believe Him. All things are of God. So we
preach in a humble, in just a very humble, plain fashion, so that
you're not impressed with the preacher, that you're impressed
with the Savior. And you notice the manner in
which the Apostle Paul speaks to these Corinthian believers.
Now, the gospel, this message, ministry of reconciliation, It's
not an invitation. The gospel, this message of reconciliation
is a commandment from the King. Don't ever mistake that. But
when we preach the gospel, we don't just beat people up with
it. We're not taking this rod and
just beating people over the head with it, you know, just
pummeling them all the time. That would be the preaching of
the law. If you had to preach the law and you had to keep people
in line all the time, My good friend Jeff Vandal showed me
this article yesterday that somehow these scientists have looked
into the human brain and they figured out by looking at the
human brain, man doesn't have a free will. Really? But you
know what those scientists said? We can't tell anybody that they
don't have a free will or all hell's going to break loose.
Well, so if you're not going to tell them that, what are you
going to do? Well, you're going to beat them with the law. You've got
to keep telling them, you've got to do this, you've got to do this, you've
got to do this, you've got to be more, or if you don't command them
and beat them up and threaten them, they never will be. That's
not the preaching of the gospel. That's the preaching of the law.
It's beating people up. But when we preach grace, God help us not to beat people
up with grace. There's never been a sweeter
message than the grace of God for sinners. When we preach grace,
we persuade men, we urge men, you come to Christ, you be reconciled,
you surrender, I urge you this morning, you be reconciled to
Christ. Listen to Isaiah 1 verse 18.
Come now, let's reason together, say it the Lord. This is the
way the Lord speaks to his people. Come now, let's reason together.
Though your sins be as scarlet, they should be white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they'll be as wool. Now the Lord
said that, so you rest assured that's a commandment. You come
reason together, you come bow. But oh, if your sins are red
like crimson, that sure sounds like a sweet invitation, doesn't
it? See, this is a commandment. The gospel is a commandment given
in such a way that sinners are not afraid to come to Christ,
but that they're compelled to come to Him. It was the law that
made men afraid, wasn't it? When God gave the law of Mount
Sinai, the people ran away. They said, Moses, don't let God
speak to us. But Christ comes and He removes all fear. Grace
removes all fear so that we come praying, God speak to us. Speak
to us through your word. And this is the way, in a humble
way, urging sinners to come to Christ. This is the way the Apostle
Paul always preached. Let me show you two examples.
First in Acts 17. This is the way we're to preach
the gospel. Acts 17 verse one. And when they
had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica,
where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner
was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days he tore the life
out of them, preaching the gospel. No, he reasoned with them out
of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs
have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this
Jesus, whom I preached unto you, is Christ. And you know what?
Some of them believed. He reasoned with them out of
the scriptures. He showed them Christ. Did you see that? Oh,
I pray Christ will show you. You see, he's the Christ. Look
at over at page chapter 18, verse four. And he reasoned in the synagogue
every Sabbath day, and he persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. Paul
persuaded them, this is the Christ. You come to him, you surrender
to him. See, we never drive men to Christ. We lead men to Christ. We don't threaten people. It's
the goodness of God. It's the grace of God. It's the
love of God that leads us to repentance. The law has to drive
with threats, but the gospel leads through grace and mercy. Goats have to be driven, but
sheep are led. Sheep are led through the word.
The gospel is a commandment. but it sure is a sweet invitation
to a sinner. And Paul says, we beseech you
in Christ's dead. This word beseech, it means to
call. It means to implore and exhort. And Paul says, we beseech you
in Christ's dead. Christ, the King of kings, the
Lord of lords, who has all power and all authority, he implores
you You surrender. You come to him for salvation.
Now, that does not mean he's begging you. No, he's not. He's
imploring you. He's not begging you. He never
begs anybody to accept him as their personal savior. Never.
He's not begging you to let him save you. But you know what this
shows us? It shows us how tenderly and
compassionately Christ calls his people out of their sin into
his holiness. It's how tenderly he calls his
people out of their fear. They're afraid to come to him.
They're full of fear of God. How compassionately he calls
them out of their fear into his peace. It shows us how compassionately
the Lord calls his people out of their darkness into his light. He tenderly calls his people
out of their ignorance. He knows they're ignorant, so
he deals tenderly with them and calls them out of their ignorance
into his wisdom. He knows they're dead, so he
compassionately deals with the dead and calls them into his
life. Now, when we preach the gospel,
we've got to preach with authority, authority that we know this is
God's message, this is the truth. But we've also got to preach
in tenderness and compassion. I tell you where our authority
comes from. Our authority in preaching always comes from the
word of God. Our authority does not come from
how much we yell or how sure, you know, we act of ourselves.
I heard Greg Elmquist say this once years ago. He said in seminary,
he says what they taught him is, he said in your notes, you're
right. Weak point, yell. Well, yelling
is not really going to give you a lot of authority, you know,
on the weak point. Our authority comes from the word of God. That's
our authority. And we use that authority in
compassion. tenderness for sinners, copying
our Savior. Who is more tender and compassionate
with sinners than the Savior? Who's ever been more tender and
compassionate with you than the Savior? And that's the way we're
to preach, to deal compassionately with sinners, because we know
how lost and miserable they are. We know how much they need Christ.
We know because we've been there. So you have compassion on somebody
when you've been there. So our goal in preaching, we
must be truthful. We must glorify God. And our
third goal is to see sinners say, we're not just preaching
to there. I'm preaching to you. Every one of you this morning,
I'm preaching to you. This message from God's word
is to you. I pray God will give you a heart
to believe. eyes to see, we preach so that sinners will be saved.
And that can only be done by preaching Christ in compassion
for lost sinners. Now here's the fourth point.
Reconciliation is accomplished through substitution. If I just
had two words to describe what went on at the cross, they'd
be substitution and satisfaction. Those two words best describe
what Christ accomplished at the cross. And that's what Paul tells
us in verse 21. For he hath made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. I wish for just a moment that
you'd lay aside all your preconceived notions about this verse, preconceived
notions about religion. And you listen to what God says
in his word. about substitution, absolute
substitution. Now, this is the gospel in a
verse. You notice it begins with God and it ends with God, doesn't
it? Because salvation is of the Lord.
All things are of God. And in this verse, there's just
three people. He, him, and us. He, God the
Father. Him, God the Son. Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and us, the sinner. Let's look at how all
three of these people are related in salvation. First, there's
God the Father. Now, what do we know about God?
Well, we know God's holy and just, don't we? You don't have
to read very much scripture. Just start in Genesis 1, start
reading. You'll find out real quick, God's
just, God's holy. He must punish them. God said
of himself, I will by no means clear the guilty. I will punish
every sin with death. But Paul says in verse 19 that
God is not imputing their trespasses unto them. He's not imputing
the sins, the trespasses, the iniquity of his people to them,
even though they're sinners. He's not imputing their trespasses
unto them. Well, God's holding. If he didn't
impute, if he didn't charge that sin to his people, can you tell
me where he did impute it? If there's sin, God's got to
charge it somewhere, doesn't he? He's got to punish it somewhere.
I can tell you. God did not impute the sin of
his people, the iniquity, the trespass of his people to them
because he charged the sin of his elect to Christ our substitute. Which is exactly why David said,
blessed is the man. unto whom the Lord imputeth not
iniquity. That man's blessed. If God has
not imputed your iniquity to you, you're blessed because he
imputed your iniquity to his son or substitute. Paul says
the father made his son sin. Now he didn't make him a sinner. He made him something worse.
He made him sin. that were the words there to
be. Those are in italics added by
the translators. And I wish they hadn't put him
in there because they, they don't make the verse say what it really
says. He hath made him sin. He made
him sin. And the natural man reads that
and says, it doesn't mean that. You can rest assured the Bible
always means exactly what it says. Always. The natural man
says That's impossible. That can't be done. It's impossible
for Christ to be sin and still be the sinless sacrifice. Not
for God, it's not. Here's the other thing about
God, God's sovereign. You read the first page of your Bible,
you know what else you, or God's holy. You read the first page
of your Bible, you know what you'll find out? God's sovereign.
God says, and it is. God's sovereign. God does what
he pleases. He always does his will. God
made his son sin. Can I understand that? Absolutely
not. But almost everything God does,
we can't understand. We can't understand anything
God does unless he shows it to us. This is certainly one of
them. But I don't have to understand
it to believe it. God cannot be understood by human logic.
So you're gonna have to lay human logic aside when you read this
verse. Other people say, I'll never
believe that. I'll never believe it. I love
my redeemer too much to listen to somebody say he was made sin. Let me ask you a question. If
that's so, do you think you love Christ more than his own father
does? God's inerrant word said the
father who loves his son. All of the father's love is for
his son. The father loves his son, doesn't
he? He loves him more than we do.
Yet the father made him sin. You say you love your Redeemer
too much to listen to anybody say he was made sin? Well, I
can tell you, you certainly don't love God's elect as much as he
loves them. God loves his elect so much God
set his love on a sinful people and he loves them so much, killed
his son so they could live. Now the only way God's elect
can be saved is if God took their sin off of them and put that
sin on his son, that Calvary's tree. He had to make his son
guilty. A holy God can never kill an
innocent man. So the father made his son guilty of the sin of
all of his people so that through his suffering and his death,
he could put that sin away. Now, sin was not just laid upon
Christ. Scripture says he took our sin
in his body on the tree. Christ was never made a sinner.
He was made sin, yet he never sinned. But the father made his
son guilty. all of the sin of his people.
He made him sin itself, a mass of sin. And then the father in
his holy anger poured out his wrath upon his son, our substitute,
and put his son to death in justice. Now Christ has died for the sin
of his people. Justice is satisfied and God's
reconciled. God's reconciled the sinners
because he took the sin that made him angry and put it away
through the sacrifice of Christ. God's not angry. He's reconciled. He poured out all of his wrath
upon our substitute, God the Father. Here's the second person
in our verse. The Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior,
this perfect man, the one who is God, manifest in human flesh, Well, if he's God, he's perfect. He can never die. God can't die.
How can you say he died? Because Christ died as the substitute
for his people. A substitute trades places, don't
they? Trades places. He traded places
with his people. He was made sin for them. And in the exact same way, they
were made righteous in him. And when he was made sin, how
he suffered, oh, how he suffered as our substitute, suffering
what his people deserve. But through his suffering and
through his death, he made an end of sin. Only the God man
could do that. Perfectly man, perfectly God. The blood of bulls and goats
could never do it, could it? They'd never take away sin, but
this man, The sacrifice of Christ once and for all put away the
sin of his people so that it does not exist through his perfect
sacrifice. Now, here's the third person
in our verse, us, the sinner. Well, how did man become a sinner?
Well, we fell in Adam, didn't we? We saw that earlier. We fell
in Adam. And when we fell, we fell all the way from the top
to the bottom. so that we're the opposite of
God. In every way, you and I are the opposite of God. God's holy. We're nothing but sin. God's
just. We're nothing but unjust. And
our sin and our rebellion, it's against God. Now that just deserves
God's wrath. Do you see our rebellions against
God? Of course he's angry with the
wicked. There's nothing unreasonable about God's wrath upon our rebellion
against him. Our rebellion against him deserves
eternal death. And God will by no means clear
the guilty. Does that take away all hope
for me? If God will by no means clear the guilty, is there any
way a guilty sinner like me can be made righteous? There's one
way. And it's found in God's substitute,
in substitution. Christ took the place of his
people. He suffered all the wrath their
sin deserves. He suffered the death their sin
deserves. So God has no more wrath for
anyone for whom Christ died. It was all poured out upon our
substitute. Now here is the essence of substitution. Substitution is such a simple
truth. Anybody can understand it. Christ
is nothing but righteousness. He's nothing but holiness. You
and I are the opposite of that. We're nothing but sin. So Christ
was made what he was not so that you and I could be made what
we're not. That's substitution. Substitution is trading places. Christ took our place. He took
our sin. He took our death. And when Christ
took the place of his people, We also took his place. We got to trade places. He became
what he was not, so we could become what we're not. He became
what we are, so we could become what he is. It's trading places.
That's how substitution works. I use this example all the time.
In a basketball game, there's five guys on a team. There's
going to be a substitute. One comes in. Somebody's got
to come out. Somebody's got to trade places
and take his place over on the bench. Otherwise, the referee
is going to say, stop everything. There's a foul here. This can't
be. Substitution means one fella
goes in and one fella goes out. That's what Christ our substitute
did for his people. He took our place and we took
his place. Christ was made sin for his people
so that he could take that sin away through his sacrifice. So
what that means is substitution. We're made what he is. God's
elect are not made something like righteousness. They're not
sinners, but God will pretend and call them righteous for a
while until later on, you know, in glory makes them righteous
someday. No, right now, you who believe are holy and blameless. present in the sight of God because
of the sacrifice of Christ, because he's your substitute. Now, that's
a miracle of grace. You can understand substitution.
God's got to give you faith to believe grace. That's a miracle
of grace. And you and I need that miracle.
Sinners are made righteous in a mirror to the same extent Christ
was made sin. If Christ was not truly made
sin, then I am not truly righteous. And if I'm not truly righteous,
God's going to send me to hell. He'll never accept me. But the
scriptures are plain. Christ is the substitute for
his people. He was made sin so that his people
are made righteous and were accepted. And that's what salvation requires. There can't be any salvation
apart from that. Salvation requires sin must be
paid for. has to be paid for, has to be
paid forth debt. And I've got to be given, if
God's going to save me, he's got to give me a new righteous
nature or he can never accept me. And that's what our sinner
has in Christ our substitute. He paid for our sin and gave
us his nature in the new birth. Now let me close with this. Like
I said earlier, I'm not just giving a lecture on doctrine
to the air. I'm preaching to you. Each soul
here this morning, I'm preaching to you. Our message of reconciliation
is to sinners. I'm not here negotiating terms
of peace for the king to see if he'll accept them. We're here
proclaiming, thank God, there are terms of surrender. There
are terms of peace. and they're so easy. Christ died
for sin. God's reconciled. He's not angry. He took away what made him angry. Now you be reconciled. Isn't
that what Paul says here at the end of verse 20? We pray you
in Christ's dead be ye, you, reconciled to God. Well, I'm
at war with God. What's my motivation to surrender? Why would I surrender? Four,
because he had made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God. Your motivation to surrender
is that God destroyed his son so that his people would live.
God killed his son so that his people would live forever. Your
motivation to surrender is a debt of gratitude. Gotta do that for
me? Oh, I surrender. I surrender. I'm waving a white
flag. I stack my arms. I surrender in a debt of gratitude. Your motivation to surrender
is that God sacrificed his son for sin. God did something so
wonderful and so gracious he sacrificed his son. Sinners are
compelled to surrender to such a gracious sovereign as that.
Look what he did for sinners. That motivates me to come to
him and beg for peace on his terms. That's your motivation
to surrender. It's a debt of gratitude and
the grace and love and mercy he put on display for all the
world to see. when he made his son sin and
sacrificed him for his people. The message of reconciliation. Now surrender, just surrender. Let's bow in prayer. Our father, how can we ever thank
you for giving to us this message of reconciliation? that sinners
have peace with God through the blood, through the extraordinary
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can we ever thank you for
taking the sin of your people off of us and putting it on your
son at Calvary Street, that you deal with your son in unmitigated
wrath and fury because you made him sin, that we sinful and vile
though we be, we, your people, might be made righteous in him,
given his righteousness and accepted in your presence. Father, how
we thank you. And I beg of thee that you would
apply your word to the hearts of your people this morning. Father, cause your gospel to
go forth in power. Don't let us just go home. and move on to the next thing
and forget this great, gracious, wonderful truth of reconciliation
that's been preached to us this morning, but apply these things
to our hearts. Make us surrender. This morning,
we beg of thee that you'd make us surrender and come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's worthy that we surrender
our all to him. It's in his name we pray for
the glory of his name. We pray these blessings be upon
your people.