Vision: Embody the Gospel (2 Corinthians 5.17-6.13)

Last week we began a series on the vision of our church. We started by looking at the big-picture view of what God is doing in this world—how his plan for this world is to save a people for himself, to save the creation itself, and to receive the glory for his grace.

We have to keep this huge picture in mind, of God’s glory, manifested in the grace he has shown us in Christ, because if we aren’t keeping our eyes fixed on this God, the vision of our church will be reduced to a list of things for us to do, rather than what we hope it is: the means God gives us to work together with him for his glory in Paris.

But once that goal is established, we do need to move from the why to the how. So here is the vision of our church: we’ll be taking one week for each point.

Eglise Connexion exists to:

1. Embody the gospel for the residents of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send out Christians equipped to serve the church of Christ in France and beyond.

Today we’ll be looking at the first point—our desire to embody the gospel for the residents of Paris. And we see a really good example of what this looks like in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

In order to understand what Paul’s getting at in this passage we need a bit of context.

The church in the city of Corinth was profoundly messed up. Paul planted this church with fellow workers Priscilla and Aquila; they spent eighteen months there, and eventually moved on to Ephesus. (We see this in Acts 18.) At some point after this, Paul received word that the church in Corinth had gone totally off the rails—false teaching, unhindered sin of all kinds… They were a mess.

So he wrote them a letter. We don’t have this letter, but he mentions it in 1 Corinthians 5—and apparently the Corinthian church completely misunderstood it, and their problems worsened. So he wrote another letter, which we have in our Bible as 1 Corinthians. In this letter, he corrects a good number of doctrinal errors and calls them out very bluntly on their sin.

And good news: a large number of people in the church were convinced and convicted of their sin. They repented, they accepted Paul’s gospel—they were getting back on the rails.

But some people in this church still resisted Paul, still refused to accept his leadership, still refused to repent. So Paul writes another letter, 2 Corinthians, both to encourage those who have repented and to defend his apostolic ministry before his opponents.

But he’s not just speaking on his own behalf; he’s speaking on behalf of everyone who has served the Corinthian church with him—people like Priscilla and Aquilas. It’s really important to see that he’s not giving a single isolated example of what he did, but he speaks of how “we”, those who have served the church in Corinth, have lived.

He’s describing a pattern of group behavior, not just one man’s example.

Ambassadors for the Gospel (5.17-6.2)

Leading up to this, Paul has been talking about the suffering he and his co-laborers have endured for the gospel, and especially why they are doing it. In chapter 4 he talks about the fact that because they know where they are going—because they know that their work is not merely temporary—they can be in the midst of the most brutal circumstances and still not lose their hope.

And on this note, he starts to speak about what motivates him and his fellow workers. Chapter 5, verse 17:

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

Paul tells us two things here that are essential. First, he tells us the gospel. Nearly the totality of the gospel is summed up in v. 21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a human being, fully God and fully man, and he is the only human being in history who “knew no sin.” All of us have sinned and are naturally separated from God; Jesus, although he shared in our human nature, never sinned. Though he was tempted like us, he never gave in to temptation like us. He was and is perfectly innocent, perfectly just, perfectly righteous.

And yet, God made him who knew no sin to be sin. That is, he took all of the rebellion of all of his people throughout all of human history, and placed that sin on Christ—so completely that it was as if Christ himself was the sin which made us guilty before God. And carrying that sin on his shoulders, Christ went to the cross, and was punished. God poured out every drop of his wrath against our sin, and he poured it on Christ.

That’s half the equation. The other half is in these words: so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Just as Christ took on our sin so completely that it was as if he had become our sin, he gives us his perfect life so completely that it is as if we have become his righteousness.

This is how, as Paul says in v. 18, God has reconciled us to himself.

God cannot be reconciled to sin. It’s oil and water: sin and holiness cannot cohabitate. So how can God reconcile himself to sinful people? By killing their sin in the person of Christ, and by giving them the sinless life that Christ lived.

Think about what this means; I’ll use myself as an example. I have placed my faith in Christ. I have repented of my sin. So God preactively killed my sin when he poured out his wrath on Christ. That is, two thousand years ago, God killed all of the sin I have committed over the last forty-three years, and all of the sin I will commit for the rest of my life. Two thousand years ago, God killed the sin I will commit tomorrow.

And in the same way, God preactively gave us Christ’s righteousness, in order that we might grow in righteousness. Two thousand years ago, Christ lived the perfect life that I will show to God when I die. I will stand before him, and he will examine me, and he will see the perfect life of Christ that was given to me, and he’ll declare me innocent and holy—innocent because my sin is covered, and holy because Christ gave me his righteousness.

You will undergo a lot of pain, a lot of trial, in your lifetimes. But if you have placed your faith in Christ, one thing you never have to worry about again is being punished by God for your sin. He’s already done that. And he’s placed Christ’s perfect life on you, so you never need to worry about being guilty before God. You are guilty before God, and so am I. But Christ isn’t—and it is his life we’re carrying now. We’ll have plenty of worries in our lifetime, but this is one thing we never have to worry about again.

That is the gospel. That’s the first thing Paul tells us.

The second thing is as surprising as the first (at least it is to me).

If God has made a way to reconcile people with himself, people have to know about it. Now of course, he’s God. He could easily appear to us in a vision, or just make it so that the truth miraculously appears in our minds. He does that occasionally: he can easily proclaim the message of the gospel to people on his own.

But most of the time, that’s not how he does it. Most of the time, he gives that responsibility to other people. That’s what Paul says in v. 18-20: God has given us the ministry of reconciliation; he has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation; he has made us ambassadors for Christ; he makes his appeal through us.

This is crazy. This seems like such a risky way to go about it. Because I know me, and I know that 90% of the time, I don’t speak very well. I’ve prepared this sermon ahead of time, and I’m the only one talking; I can do this. But I can’t prepare for a conversation, because the other person isn’t going to do what I imagine they will.

And apparently (we find out later on in this letter, in chapter 11) Paul had the same struggle. He says he is “an unskilled speaker.” He was a great writer, not a great speaker.

Even so, God chooses to make his people ambassadors of the gospel, to give us the ministry of reconciliation. Why? Because when we minister in our weakness, that’s when Christ’s strength comes out. It’s an amazing thing when a fumbling, imperfect conversation about the gospel results in faith being born in someone else, because we can never kid ourselves that this person came to Christ because I did such a good job. No—clearly that was God’s doing.

And so, as imperfect as we are, we make our appeal; we implore people on behalf of Christ, “be reconciled to God.”

And that is what we see Paul do at the beginning of chapter 6:

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“In a favorable time I listened to you,

and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

He says what needs to be said. He puts it plainly to these people in Corinth who call themselves Christians but are rejecting the true gospel: Don’t say you’ve received God’s grace and then live as if you haven’t. Don’t wait for tomorrow to live reconciled to God. Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation. Don’t wait to understand everything, don’t wait to have it all figured out. Turn to him now, while it’s still today.

This is Paul’s job as an apostle, this is Priscila and Aquila’s job as his fellow workers, this is our job as Christians. This is the mission Christ gave us: to call people to repentance and faith in Christ in order to be reconciled to God. For that to happen, the good news of the gospel needs to be shared.

Living Examples of the Gospel (6.3-10)

But one thing we see consistently in the Bible is that the proclamation of the good news rarely if ever comes on its own; it is accompanied by a living example of what it looks like. And that’s where Paul goes next: he spends eight verses simply reminding the Corinthians of how Paul and his fellow workers live. 6.3:

3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything

In this passage Paul gives two arguments for why his opponents should listen to him. The first is in 5.20-21, which we saw earlier. He says, “Listen to what I’m saying because it’s what Christ is saying: God is making his appeal through us, and that appeal is to believe in what Christ did for you. Listen to what I’m saying because it’s the truth.”

That should be enough. But Paul doesn’t stop there. The second argument Paul gives as to why his opponents should listen to him is the example he and his fellow workers set in their lives. The way they live, the way they serve, the way they suffer. His second argument is entirely behavioral, experiential, and visible.

And the point is this: the gospel of Jesus Christ changes us. He said it earlier. We used to consider one another according to the flesh, we used to consider Christ according to the flesh. But not anymore. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Those aren’t just words. It’s not a sentimental statement. It is the literal truth. If we are in Christ, we are no longer what we used to be.

Now, I want to be careful here, because a lot of us will read Paul’s list in these verses and go, “Well, I’m not that good, so I must not be a Christian then.”

That’s not what Paul’s saying. Go read Romans 7—he freely acknowledges that there are some changes in us that are immediate and others that take an entire lifetime; we have to learn to observe all that Christ commanded. It’s not automatic. So if you’re still not up to the level Paul describes here, don’t worry; neither am I.

But if we are in Christ, by definition, as new creations, there will be change. And we will be growing in that change. Paul gives the example here of what mature, seasoned Christians look like—or to put it another way, what it looks like to be living examples of the gospel.

He gives positive examples—endurance (v. 4), purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, love (v. 6), truthful speech, the power of God, and righteousness for all situations (v. 7), in all circumstances (v. 8). This is the part of the Christian life that other people will look at, and say, “I want to be like that.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this. A lot of people will find problems with Christian doctrine and Christian ethics if they want to; those are the areas where people debate, where they try to poke holes in what we believe in order to discount it. That’s what Paul’s opponents are doing in Corinth.

But no one ever has a word to say against Christian character—not a credible word, at any rate. No one says, “I hate patient people. I hate kind people. I hate loving people. I hate honest people.” These are characteristics that are almost universally appealing.

And that’s normal, because every human being is made in the image of God, and we are created to respond positively to godly character.

However, some people will persist in resisting such character in themselves, because while it is appealing, it is also costly. And that is why Paul’s negative examples—or rather, examples most of us would consider negative. It’s easy to be patient and kind and loving and truthful when everything is going well.

But the true nature of our character shows itself when the world turns against us. And that’s what Paul says—not only is their character exemplary, it is exemplary in the hardest of situations. In afflictions, hardships, calamities (v. 4), beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger (v. 5), dishonor and slander (v. 8).

James K. A. Smith gave this great measuring rod; I’ve mentioned it many times in the past. He said, if you really want to know someone—what makes them who they are, down at the core of their being—the question you need to ask is not, “What do you believe?” or “What do you think?” but rather, “What do you want?”

What do you love? What do you desire?

If what you desire is comfort and ease and superficial happiness, then you’ll drop your patience at the slightest obstacle to those goals. We can really tell the value of your character when your character continues even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

And the reason why the Christian’s character is able to continue in the midst of suffering is because Christ transforms every circumstance into a grace for us. Paul says (at the end of v. 8):

Et la raison pour laquelle le caractère du chrétien peut continuer de se manifester et de grandir au milieu l’épreuve, c’est que Christ transforme toute circonstance pour en faire une occasion de grâce.

Paul dit (à la fin du v. 8) :

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Now in part, these things are true. They were often punished and dying (Paul himself was killed in Rome some time later). But they knew what was waiting for them after their death. They were poor, but their poverty wasn’t an obstacle to the spiritual enrichment of others. They were often sorrowful, but there was a joy in the Lord that didn’t disappear in their sorrow, because it didn’t depend on their circumstances.

They really did have very little—they left everything behind to follow Christ. And yet they possessed everything.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. For anyone who is in Christ, a trial becomes a grace. For anyone who is in Christ, a failure becomes a stepping-stone.

The Appeal of the Gospel (6.11-13)

Because when it is, the appeal God calls us to make as his ambassadors cannot be easily discarded. Paul says in v. 11:

11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.

Here’s what he’s saying to the unbelieving Corinthians who are listening to this letter. No matter what you may have heard from other sources, we are not burdening you, and we are not living falsely. Our heart is wide open. We are not holding you back, and the gospel is not holding you back; what’s holding you back is you.

So just as we’ve widened our hearts to the gospel and to you, widen your hearts also. We are living proof that it is possible to live for Christ, in good times and in bad—to be called liars and yet tell the truth, to be sorrowful and yet always rejoicing, to have nothing and yet possess everything.

And if we can do it, you can do it, because we’re not the ones who did it—this is what God has done in us. And he can do it in you too.

At this point, the Corinthians have no more credible ammunition to throw at Paul and his fellow workers. They can debate theology if they want, but they cannot speak against the faithful Christians they know with any seriousness.

And if what Paul says about his own character is verifiably true…might it not also be true that what he and his fellow workers believe might be true also?

You see, God uses the gospel to bring us to faith, but he does it in more than one way. Sometimes people hear the gospel and are fully convinced by the Holy Spirit—right away. That happens, and it’s marvelous when it does.

Other times, though, they hear the gospel and go, “Okaaaaaay…” And they remain doubtful.

But over time, they see what the lives of their Christian friends look like, they see the practical application of the gospel, and they come to believe that what they used to think is crazy, might actually be true. That’s the Holy Spirit at work as well.

We can’t know what means the Holy Spirit will use. So we always have to have all our tools at the ready.

Conclusion

And here are the tools Paul gives us.

The first is the gospel. It sounds silly to say it, but there is no salvation, for anyone, without the gospel. That means we need to know what the gospel is—everything we talked about earlier. We need to study it, to think about it, to consider it, pray about it and meditate on it. We need to grow in our knowledge of the gospel, because getting the gospel right matters.

That shouldn’t be controversial, but it is, so I’ll say it again: getting the gospel right matters.

If you ever go to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, it’s sort of scary, because the statues they make of celebrities are really good. So good that occasionally a celebrity will come in and stand next to their statue, and as long as they don’t move, you can’t tell the difference.

Here’s the thing though: only one of those is actually the real person.

When we get the gospel wrong, we run the risk of sending someone to a wax statue of Jesus instead of Jesus himself. We run the risk of pointing to someone who looks a lot like Jesus and even sounds a lot like Jesus, but who isn’t Jesus, and who cannot save them.

Now I don’t want to alarm anyone—God is very gracious. And thankfully, all too often when he sees someone heading towards the wax statue of Jesus, he grabs them by the shoulders and says, “No no, he’s this way.” It isn’t up to us to get it perfectly.

But this is the Savior we love. I want to know him—him, not an alternate version of him. And when I talk about him, I want to say true things about him.

The gospel is the first tool God gives us, and we should do everything we can to know it as well as we can.

The second tool he gives us is our lives. Paul’s life, and the life of his fellow workers, legitimized the gospel for the Corinthians. As they say, the proof is in the pudding—the Corinthians had a harder time doubting the gospel when they saw what the gospel did in Paul.

Now this means something that will make a lot of us uncomfortable. It means that we need to give people access to ourselves, and our community, in such a way that they can see the gospel lived out in various circumstances among us. When we’re doing stuff together—whether it’s going to church or home group, or bowling—unbelievers should be included whenever possible. Because they need to not only hear the gospel; they need to see what it looks like.

This takes a lot of time, it’s not easy, and it’s risky, because it means being able to say what Paul says to the Corinthians: our heart is wide open. A lot of us don’t want to open our hearts to others, because that will mean letting others have access to parts of us we want to keep for ourselves.

But that is what it looks like to be an ambassador for Christ. It’s risky, but it’s incredibly freeing. There is nothing more freeing than having nothing to hide. People need to see the gospel.

And when we do it, we can use the last tool Paul gives us here, which is the appeal. We need to make appeals for the gospel. Paul says, “Our hearts are wide open… Widen your hearts also.”

We need to be unafraid to not stop with a presentation of the gospel, but to say, “I implore you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. Please believe this. Accept it. Put your trust in it.” No appeal you will ever make is more important than this one.

Now if we live this way, if we use all the tools God gives us, will it be effective every time? No—at least not in the way we think of the word.

But every time a disciple of Christ is made, every time a person comes to Christ in faith and then proceeds through a life of discipleship, this visible presence of the gospel, manifested in the lives of his people, will be there. And you never know what God will do after these conversations, after these periods of friendship where unbelievers see what the gospel looks like in practice. God saves, and he does it in his timing. He calls us to be faithful with what he’s given us.

So we want to be a church that embodies the gospel for the people of our city. We want the people Paris to hear the gospel, to see the gospel, and to accept the gospel. This is our prayer, and God is faithful.