Our First Love

 

I read this text once again this morning from Revelation 2: “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

The Lord is speaking to the Christians in the ancient church at Ephesus. And because the word of God is eternal, He is also speaking to the modern church wherever it is found.

There is not a Christian alive who ought not read this warning without self-examination. The heart is so susceptible to self-deceit (Jeremiah 17:9), that ONLY a humble seeking for truth about ourselves from the Holy Spirit can keep us walking that straight and narrow path.

Now look at that fourth verse in its context: ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. (Revelation 2:2-5)

The Christians of ancient Ephesus were doing A LOT of things right. Read it again: They were persevering in their doctrine, working hard for the gospel, testing the preaching of their teachers against the revealed word of God.

They were doing well. But - - - -

They’d lost something along the way, and they were unaware of their loss. They’d forgotten WHY they were serving Christ. Their love for Him had grown cool and been replaced by ‘doing the right things.’

Application? Oh, my. I don’t have to look further than the mirror for application because I am ever in danger of replacing a passionate love for Jesus – replacing it for ‘doing all the right things.’

And you also are in danger of doing the same.

Let’s return now to the text in Revelation to see what the Lord advises them – and you and me – to do: “Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.”

Repent. Seek guidance from the Holy Spirit as to where we are failing to place our love for Jesus as the singular focus of all our ‘doing the right things according to the correct doctrines.’ And then repent and ask His help to live a life of ongoing conversion.

Rich Maffeo
maffeo.richard@outlook.com 

Blog: www.inhimonly.blogspot.com 

Afraid to Die?

According to a 2017 survey conducted by Chapman University in California, 20% of Americans were “afraid’ or ‘very afraid’ of dying. Two years later, another survey found that more than 40% of Americans were afraid, or very afraid of dying. That’s a 100% increase in only two years.

 

My question this afternoon, therefore, is a reasonable question – and perhaps all the more so because of the audience I am addressing since, and I’m only guessing now, the average age of those living here at Ashwood is mid-eighties.

 

How many of your friends and acquaintances here at Ashwood have died in the last 12 months? In the last 18 months? I have ask that same question nearly every year since I began ministering here eight years ago. I remember my mother, before she died in her apartment on the third floor, often said to me after yet another of her friends here at Ashwood died: When will it be my turn?

 

I don’t want to get very far into today’s message before first assuring everyone that this is a message of HOPE – hope in the definition of the word as it is used in the New Testament. The Greek word, elpis, means a ‘confident expectation’ of something God has promised us. And so, today’s message is a message of “confident expectation” – at least that is my intent. But this message is one of a confident expectation ONLY for a specific group of people. And what group is that?

 

We need to know that there are only two groups of people living here at Ashwood Meadows. Indeed, only two groups of people live on this planet – the Lost, and the Rescued.

 

The Lost live without Christ as their only God, Lord, Savior. They have never placed themselves under His absolute authority, having confessed to Him their sins, following Him in baptism, and living obediently to His commandments. OR, they have done all those things in their minds, but not in their hearts. They have deluded themselves into thinking they are saved from God's wrath at the Judgment Day. They are part of the number Jesus warned of in Luke 13 who will say to the Lord on that day: We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; Depart from Me, all you evildoers.’  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Luke 13:25-28).

 

We spoke about that self-delusion last time, and so we will not take the time to repeat that message, but the main point of this is that the ‘Lost’ are not faithful and true followers of Christ.

 

It is the Lost who have every good reason to fear death. Indeed, they have every good reason to be terrified of dying. For them, there is only one final destination. It’s called an eternal torment in the Lake of Fire. Here is how the scene is described in the book of Revelation:

(Revelation 20:12-15) “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

The Lake of Fire is the final and eternal destination of all who’ve rejected God's offer of reconciliation with Him through the forgiveness of sins. It is the place the Lord Jesus described as one where the “worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. [Where] everyone will be salted with fire.” (Mark 9:49-49).

I’ve mentioned this next point before, and I do so again to make it as clear as I can – Jesus was deadly serious when He warned the Lost that hell is not only REAL, but that more people end up there than they do in heaven. Here is what He told the crowds during His sermon on the mount: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

And THEN He added this next verse: “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7:13-15)

False prophets such as Catholic Bishop Robert Barron who tells others we all can have a ‘reasonable hope’ that hell is empty. Or Lutheran Bishop Paul Egensteiner who tells his flock that a loving God would never send anyone to an eternity in hell. Or Pentecostal preacher, Carlton Pearson, who does not even believe hell exists.

False prophets. Jesus warned us of them. St Peter warned of them: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment . . . then the Lord knows how . . . to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.” (2 Peter 2:1-4, 9)

False prophets. False teachers. Those who assert things to be true that the Bible unequivocally declares false, and vice versa. Listen: Hell is real and eternal. The Lake of Fire is real and eternal. And while I will not spend much more time talking about that destination, I will say this for the sake of clarity: There is only one way for anyone on this planet to avoid an eternity without hope of ever, ever receiving a ‘Welcome Home’ from our Creator God. And that way is Jesus, who said of Himself in various words: “I am the way, the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6)

Unless a person repents of their sins and subsequently lives a life of ongoing confession and daily obedience to the commandments of Christ – there is no hope for that person after death to ever receive eternal life.

No. Hope.

Okay, that was the bad news –for those in the group Scripture identifies as ‘Lost.’. Now the good news, the good news for the other group of people – the RESCUED, the follower of Christ, the child of God through his or her faith in what Jesus did for him or her on that cross – those in THAT group have NO reason to fear death. None. Zero.

Colossians 1:13-14, Paul, speaking of the Father: “ For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

And again, the apostle, this time to the Christians at Galatia: (Galatians 1:3-5) “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.”

From my experience over the years talking with Christians, I’ve found that many of those who sit in church pews each week are unsure about what happens to them after death. They think eternity is a huge question mark. But God gives us enough information about death of the Christian that no child of God should fear the grave. Let’s look only at two texts that speak directly to those who belong to Christ.

Here is Revelation 22: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new . . . . and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

 

And here is what the apostle Paul had to say about death: (2 Corinthians 5:1-8) “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. . . . Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

These two passages (and we could look at dozens besides) give us only a glimpse God's promise to the Christian about eternity. That we can know what awaits the follower of Christ on the other side of the valley of the shadow of death. 

 

But there are those in the pews who argue within themselves, “I am such a bad person. You don’t know what all I have done in the past. How horrible my life was. How can God really forgive me?”

 

Well, let’s let the infallible, inerrant, and wholly inspired word of God answer that question. Here is what God tells us through Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth – a church FILLED with sinners:

 

“Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or anyone practicing homosexuality, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, HCSB) 

My brothers and sisters here who are IN Christ through your faith in His love for you and in His sacrificial atonement for your sins – please hear this. This is important:

 

Despite the litany of damnable sins Paul cites in the text I just read – the Holy Spirit quickly focuses our attention on the good news in verse 11: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” 

I researched the meaning of the Greek words Paul used in this text and were translated into English. “You were washed,” means the person’s sins were completely, thoroughly, utterly cleansed through their initial baptism and ongoing confession and repentance of their sins.

 

“You were sanctified,” means God had purified them from those sins. He Himself had pronounced them ‘pure,’ set them apart for His work. He declared them to be holy because they were covered with the sacrificial blood of Jesus.

 

And finally, Paul tells them, “You were justified,” meaning, God had pronounced them to be righteous, innocent, and without guilt. And if GOD Himself pronounces us to be without guilt – He means what He says and He says what He means. God declares the penitent sinner to be righteous and innocent and without guilt. Period. Full stop. End of sentence.

 

Rescued. Look at these words again: Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

 

Home in the body; Absent from the Lord. Or absent from the body; home with the Lord. Oh, hear this once again: Home. Absent. Absent. Home.

For the true Christian, death is like walking through the doorway leading out to the dining room, THAT is what the death of the body is like for the Rescued, for the Christian, the faithful follower of Christ – walking through the doorway leading from this life to life eternal. Immediately in the presence of God. No intermediate steps. No such thing as what some call ‘soul-sleep.’ No further cleansing or purging of our sins – just Absent/ Present.

 

That being the case, then WHY would the Rescued fear death when what we have waiting for us on the other side of that door is what St John wrote for us in the last chapters of Revelation? Eternal health. Eternal safety from our enemies. Eternal joy where there is no longer any death, or sickness, or loss or pain.

 

Listen! You’ve read the end of the story! You and I know how it all finishes. Absent/Present – forever with the Lord immediately upon closing our eyes in death.

 

I will close with another piece of Good News – this news for the Lost.

 

If you are part of that group, as I warned earlier from God's infallible word, if you belong to that group, you have every reason to be terrified by death.

 

BUT – and this is critical. It is crucial: No one has to remain in that group called Lost. Anyone can be rescued – right now, this moment. We all have God's unchangeable vow: “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21)

 

If you are part of the Lost, then right now – I will give you a moment shortly – right now confess to Him your sins, as many as you can think of – sins of thoughts, sins of words, sins of actions. Then repent of those sins and ask the Father to cleanse your sins with the sacrificial blood of Jesus. And then thank God for answering your prayer and rescuing you from the domain of darkness and transferring you, right now, into the kingdom of His beloved Son. And if you have never been baptized, be baptized.

 

Absent/Present. The Rescued have no need to fear what only the Lost should fear. The Rescued have been redeemed, saved through the precious blood of the crucified Savior.

 

One Each Week

 

So, I’m reading Titus this morning and the Holy Spirit caught my attention at these verses in chapter one: “Holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. 10 For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.”

True, in context, St Paul is writing specifically about overseers – ‘bishops’, as the Greek is often translated. BUT don’t you think his instructions also apply to the laity as well? Of course, they do. What person in the pew is not commanded to hold forth, to hold fast, to hold firm “the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching” of the apostles and the historic teaching of the church?

And why are those in the pews and the pulpits commanded to hold God's word firmly in their hearts and on their tongues? Paul tells us why in verse nine: “To exhort in sound doctrine, and to refute those who contradict.”

And why must we all be prepared to exhort and refute? Again, Paul answers that question, even as it applies to 2023: Because of the “many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers” in both the pulpits and the pews.

Listen to what Jude tells us in his short epistle: “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:4)

In St Paul’s second letter to the Christians at Corinth, Paul also talks about deceivers in the pulpits AND in the seminaries: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.” (2 Corinthians 12:13-15)

Returning now to Titus: Clergy as well as laity must hold fast, hold firm, hold forth the faithful word, the word of God. THAT is why it is so NECESSARY for the laity, as well as the clergy, to “be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Christian, PLEASE hear me: One verse a week. Will you commit yourself to memorize one verse a week? I find it easier to memorize verses in context, sometimes two or three verses at a time. But even if you do only one verse a week, that will result in memorizing 52 verses in a year.

The book of Titus has only 46 verses. You could memorize entire book in less than a year. The book of Jude has only 25 verses. You could memorize that entire book, one verse at a time, in a few months. Second Thessalonians has only 47 verses. And there are dozens of individual chapters that have far less than 52 verses.

I think you get my point.

Laity and clergy, please pay attention: The Holy Spirit calls all of us to hold “fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that [we] will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.”

Our time is limited and growing shorter. Health and safety can change in a moment. Please, let us ALL use our time wisely.

Rich Maffeo
maffeo.richard@outlook.com 

Blog: www.inhimonly.blogspot.com 

God is NOT Mad at Us

 

God is NOT Mad at Us.

Last week we spent our time looking at this text in 2 Corinthians 5:17 –  Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” We looked at what it means to be ‘IN’ Christ, and how a person gets to be IN Christ, and how we can know that we haven’t deluded ourselves into thinking we are IN Christ, when in reality, we are not part of His Mystical Body.

 

Today, I want to bring us back to that text in chapter five. Here again are verses 17-21 for context:

 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

My first point today comes from verse 18: “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

 

The ‘these things’ Paul refers to what he just said earlier in verse 17. We spent our time last week looking at that verse: “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.”

 

Now please notice verse 18 once again: Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

 

You and I are in Christ ONLY because of what God did – and continues to do – for us. Scripture tells us time and again, as for example:  “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” (John 6:44)

 

Let me reiterate this crucial point: we did absolutely NOTHING for God to save us. No amount of church attendance, or tithing, or cleaning up our lives got us into Christ. Remember what the apostle tells us in his letter to the church at Ephesus: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1)

 

The Greek word Paul used here is the same word from which we get ‘necrotic.’  In plain words, we were a corpse. Dead. Decomposing. And as such we could do nothing in our own strength and from our own resources to be made alive in Christ. Which is why Paul continued, saying: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2”4-6, 8-9)

 

“So that no one may boast.”

 

So please, if the thought remains nestled somewhere in the back of our minds that WE did ANYTHING to achieve salvation – throw the thought in the trash where it belongs. To again quote Paul in this Corinthian passage: Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

 

God saved us because He wanted to save us because He loves us – loves us so much that even as we were shaking our fists in His face, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)

 

And here is the take-home message of this point: If God loved you that much before He awakened you from spiritual death to life IN Christ – if He loved you so much THEN – do you think His love has diminished for you over the years?  If He loved you so much while you were shaking your fist in His face, do you think His love has diminished for you now – even when we don’t follow Him perfectly?

 

Listen, I plead with you to listen: Jesus tells us the Father loves us right now – sinners as we are – He loves us just as much now as He loves Jesus His Son. Here is what the Lord Himself tells us. You’ll find it in John 17: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. (17:22-23)

 

Does the Father care if we remain sinners?  OF COURSE, He does. Paul answered that question in his letter to the church at Rome: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid!  (Romans 6:1-2)

 

And while it is certainly true that Christ receives the sinner who says to Him: ‘Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me” – it is equally true that we must not REMAIN as we were when we came. For if we remain as we were, and to paraphrase Hebrews 10:29, we do nothing less than trample “underfoot the Son of God: and live as if His blood is worthless.

 

So, to summarize this first point: We did nothing to earn our salvation. God saved us because He chose to save us because He loves us. All we did for our salvation was respond affirmatively to His call. And His love for us has not diminished even a hair’s breadth, even when we do not follow His perfectly.

 

Which brings us to the second point of today’s message: Not only are we new creations in Christ because of His love for us, but BECAUSE He loves us the holy God has already reconciled each of us who responded ‘yes’ to His call. God has unreservedly brought us into His Mystical Body because of our faith in Christ’s atonement for our sins.

 

To illustrate that reconciliation, think about the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Do you think the son returned home all dressed and gussied up in fine clothes and pleasantly fragrant cologne? Of course, not. He’d just left his employer’s farm feeding pigs. I don’t mean to be indelicate, but the young man stank. He’d been stepping in and around pig feces and urine and slobber for who-knows-how-long. And who know how long it had been since he’d bathed.

 

He was filthy, grungy, sweaty, and smelly. He was someone most would not want to be within 15 feet of. But he was also lonely. And lost. And frightened. And remorseful. And penitent.

 

You know the story. His father – who represents our heavenly Father in this parable – his father saw him a long way off and ran to him. And embraced him – filthy, putrid, foul smelling and all – his father embraced Him and brought Him home to himself.

 

In other words – the Father reconciled his penitent son to Himself. And then he immediately held a party in his honor because his son, who had been dead, was now alive. His son, who’d been lost, was now found.

 

Listen, if you do not think of your unrepented sins as a stench in God's nostrils, then I will say it as clearly as I know how: You do NOT have a biblical view of your sins. I return us again to Ephesians chapter two: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins.” Necrotic. Decaying.

 

Have you ever smelled a dead body?  I have. I still remember that hot and muggy August day many years ago in San Diego. As I jogged around the neighborhood, waves of heat rippled above the asphalt. The humidity was so high, I thought I was breathing water. 

That suffocating combination of heat and humidity is probably why I smelled the cat before I saw it. I rounded the corner and spotted its decaying body in weeds by the curb. Its lifeless lips tightened into a grotesque grin.  Sun-bleached ribs peeked through putrefying flesh. I held my breath and picked up the pace to move past the odor. 

 

Now what if someone dressed the dead cat in a silk suit and tie?” What if someone dressed the corpse in fine linen and splashed expensive cologne on its face?  I assure you, a gallon of cologne couldn’t have masked the odor of death, nor could the most expensive clothes disguise its hideous appearance. Nothing short of God’s supernatural intervention could breathe the fragrance of life into that corpse. 

 

That’s the message the Holy Spirit tried to impress on those in Ephesus, to whom the apostle Paul wrote: “You were dead – necrotic, decaying—in  your transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

 

And so were you and I necrotic and decaying before God reached down and, “Being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  (Ephesians 2:4-5, 8-9)

 

Please don’t miss this: We are not, as even some pastors like to say, we are not ‘diamonds covered with mud.” It doesn’t matter who we are, or what we have – religious titles, academic degrees, church affiliation, hefty bank accounts, political power, or accolades from the rich and powerful. Without Christ, we stink.

 

As He tells us infallibly through the prophet Isaiah: “All of us have become unclean, and all of our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)

 

By the way, the Hebrew word used in this text for ‘filthy’ is a very graphic one. I believe it is used only once in the entire Hebrew Bible in this context. “ee-DA” means a garment soiled by menstrual blood. So, yes, our sins stink to God. And He can smell us on the other side of the universe. 

 

AND THAT IS WHY nothing short of the Father;s supernatural power, exercised only through His Son, gives us new life. No one smells so badly that Jesus’ blood cannot transform the necrotic odor of death into the sweet fragrance of eternal life. We have Scripture’s promise about it. 

Which brings us now to our third point. PLEASE do not miss this: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20)

 

Listen: As God gave the apostles the ministry of reconciliation, He has ALSO given the same to us as well. You know the Lord’s last words at the end of Matthew’s gospel – Go ye into all the world. (Matthew 28:19-10)

 

We have the unspeakable privilege to tell others that God doesn’t hate them. To tell them God loves them. That he wants to be – that He LONGS to be – reconciled with them even more passionately than the father in that parable wanted reconciliation with his wayward son.

 

And we are perfectly fitted for the job. Why? Because we each know what it’s like to be lost. We each know what it’s like to be blind to God's truths. We each know what it is like to be trapped in sin, and to held prisoner to our past. We know what it is like to be made to feel worthless to God and to others, to be emotionally beat down by the enemy of our souls.

 

We all know these things because life hits everyone below the proverbial belt often enough. But you and I also know what it’s like to have our eyes open to God's total and complete forgiveness. We know what it is like to hear His voice behind us, telling us, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

 

That’s why what St Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth should resonate with each of us who have pasts of which we are ashamed. Here is how JB Phillips renders 1:3-4 – “Thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort. For he gives us comfort in our trials so that we in turn may be able to give the same sort of strong sympathy to others in their [trials and needs].”

 

And also notice Paul’s words in this text: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

Please get this, too: God is BEGGING the Christians – to whom the letter is written – God is begging them in the church at Corinth AND in the church at Ashwood Meadows – be reconciled to God.

 

There are some people in this city who believe Jesus did not die for everyone. He died ONLY for the ‘elect.’ They define the ‘elect’ as those – shall we say – ‘lucky’ people whom God chose to save. All the rest of humanity are lost simply because God did not choose them. But such a false doctrine is totally incompatible with this text in which Paul BEGS his readers to be reconciled with God.

 

If Jesus died ONLY for a small group of people and not for the whole world of sinners, then it makes no sense at all for the apostle to beg people to turn to Christ. If – according to that false doctrine – if God did not choose them for salvation, then they could not turn to Christ, no matter how hard Paul begged them.

 

Which brings us now to the close of this message, and the last verse of this chapter: “[God] made [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

In other words, God imputes to His sinless Son – the Father places on His sinless Son your sins and mine, while at the same time He imputes, He places on us, the full and complete righteousness of Jesus the Christ.

 

Hear this once more today: Those who are born again through faithful obedience to Christ are new creations. We are beloved by God. God has reconciled us with Himself. He has brought us back and embraced us to Himself. He has privileged us to tell others what He wants to do for them – that being, in part, to place of Jesus the penalty of all our sins, and to place on the penitent sinner the full and complete righteousness of God Himself.

 

The word ‘gospel’ in Greek means, ‘Good News.”  Do you see why the gospel is such GOOD NEWS? God is not mad at us. He longs for us to be IN Christ through faith in the cross that brought us atonement for all of our sins.