Text: 2 Cor. 5:14 - 6:2

14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 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. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6:1 As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2 For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

When God called Abraham, He was establishing for Abraham a life-time vocation of cooperation with God. Whatever God asked of Abraham, from the time God called Him, and into his old age, Abraham was faithful to that call.

Through Abraham, God also called Isaac, Jacob, and all their descendants to the same vocation of cooperation with Him. They were to become a nation of priests who would be His partners in bringing righteousness and justice on earth.

Finally, through Jesus Christ, God's call to Israel was expanded to include all people and nations in a covenant partnership with Yahweh. The Apostle Paul wrote in our text, "Christ has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors. As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain." You and I have been called of God to be workers together with Christ, to be His partners in ministry - to take on His vocation in the world today. This is wonderful news, but who is this God, who is calling us to such lofty heights? And what is His agenda?

H. Richard Niebuhr, uses three metaphors that attempt to capture what God's work in our world is like [Creator, Governor, Liberator/Redeemer]. I invite you to journey with me as we examine these three metaphors, and first of all attempt to understand what God's agenda is. Then secondly to endeavor to capture the significance of His invitation to enter into partnership with Him to accomplish His purposes on earth. First, who is this God who is calling us?

1. Who is God?
   
   
   1. God as Creator

      God has always been in the creation business. I often wonder about what the Hebrew Children in the Old Testament would think if they knew then what we know about the universe today? A few years ago, using the Hubble telescope, astronomers recorded what they believe was the formation of a new galaxy. Add to the vastness of the universe the fact that it is merely one of His creations, and that God is infinitely more significant than the universe. As our knowledge of the universe expands, so should the significance of God increase. Creation is still happening. Our universe is also not finished.

      Michael Behe, a biochemist, wrote a book four years ago entitled Darwin's Black Box. In this book, Behe states with certainty, that the highly sophisticated molecular machines that control the cellular process in our bodies cannot be accounted for in evolutionary theory. These molecular machines render evolution by chance to be mathematically impossible. As scientists are faced with increasing complexity, both in the universe and microscopic, many natural scientists are coming to the conclusion that randomness is harder to explain than creation.

      God's creation is not, however, like the grandson who, commented to his grandmother upon seeing the Rockies for the first time. "Just think - God did all this with only one hand!" She puzzled over the statement for a moment, then asked him what he meant. "Oh, you know, Grandmother," he replied, "the Bible says Jesus was sitting on the right hand of God."

      In the summer of 1975, I listed all of the Bible passages in which the Kingdom of God is mentioned. They range from the creation of the world on the one hand, to Christ telling His disciples of going to prepare a place for them on the other. The one thing all of the passages had in common was that Jesus was involved in creative activity. The Kingdom of God includes all of the creative activity of Christ. We are His creation through redemption. The Kingdom of God for us, then, is in us.

   2. God as Governor
      

      God is in charge of ordering and forming both our personal lives and the common life of world events. Niebuhr invites us to see God, and life together in Him, as issuing out of His intention that righteousness should reign. We can see God's intent, both in the flow of human history, and in the present day. As long as the Children of Israel obeyed God, and social justice was the rule in their society, their enemies couldn't field an army large enough to defeat them.

      But as soon as they forgot God, and exploited the widows, the orphans, the poor, and the immigrants in their society, the prophets would remind them. When God's judgement would come, it didn't matter how large their own army was, or how powerful their Allies were, they were powerless to defend themselves. Both Gibbon and Toynbee also suggest in their writings, that all human kingdoms fall when righteousness and justice are replaced with selfishness, perversion and exploitation [Ezekiel 16:49-50]. Paul Tillich once wrote, "We do not so much break the laws of God, as we break ourselves on them."

      Cornelius Platinga, Jr. writes that in our society, a great spiritual danger always accompanies the democratic spirit that yearns to be free. The danger is that we may seek to rid our lives of not only human but also divine dominion.... The danger in a popular democracy is that we may try to democratize God. If we don't like God's program, we might just conclude that God isn't any better qualified than we are, vote him out, and run for office ourselves. -- Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., in Assurances of the Heart. Christianity Today, Vol. 41, no. 10. See: Ex 15:18; 2 Ki 19:28; Job 12:19; Pr 21:1; 1 Ti 1:17.

      I was a school child when the words "one nation under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Abraham Lincoln was the first President to use the phrase, "This nation under God." Inspired by those words, President Eisenhower, in 1954, added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. Such a phrase points out the desire of President Eisenhower to place our country under the authority and governance of almighty God. God as governor, as lawgiver, as the one who will have the last word. Governor is the second image of God's rule.

   3. God as Liberator-Redeemer

      Before some of the liberation theologians began forming theology to meet the needs of the economically oppressed, Niebuhr was inviting us to see God as Liberator-Redeemer. His, as well as my, understanding of Liberator/Redeemer is centered in God's agenda. The incarnation - God is with us. Here we see, as we never saw with Adam, Abraham, or the prophets, God's last, costliest, and completely effective expression of divine initiative. Through Christ, God entered into the world and experienced everyday involvement in human lives. The Holy One of Israel has now Himself entered the arena of redemption and liberation. He offers all of humanity redemption from sin and liberation from all that holds people and groups in bondage - alienation, the oppression of inflexible social structures, and the hardness of human hearts.

      But this is only half of the picture. We see in our text this morning, that God is actively pursuing a living and dynamic relationship with humanity. This relationship is for the purpose of including us into partnership with Him.

      Martin Lloyd-Jones has written, "Our normal, ordinary view of salvation is hopelessly inadequate. Too often we start with ourselves instead of starting with God. Instead of going to the Bible and discovering there what salvation means, we start with certain benefits that we always want to enjoy in this life and in this world.

      We want forgiveness of sins; peace of mind; enjoyment and happiness; deliverance from certain sins; guidance; and our whole conception of salvation is reduced to that level...."

      Yet, the most wonderful thing is not that our sins have been forgiven, nor is it that we enjoy certain experiences and blessing as a Christian. The thing that should astound us ... is that we are children of God, God's people. -- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in Safe in the World. Christianity Today, Vol. 34, no. 7. See: Ex 19:5; Dt 14:2; 1 Pet. 1:2.

      "Christ has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20)." God is making his appeal to the rest of the world through us, as it were. Paul continues with his message to us in v. 20, "We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." This creator, governor, and redeemer God has redeemed us for the purpose of being partners together with him.

      Think what that means: Partnership! We are Partners with God in His Creative Activity, His Governing activity, and His Liberating-Redemptive activity on earth!! This is why God redeemed us! This is God's Incredible Proposition to us this morning.

2. What Does God's Proposition To Us Mean?
   
   
   1. Partnership with God the Creator

      Probably the most obvious area is parenting, raising and nurturing our children to the point of personal faith, wholeness and the desire to contribute to the spiritual and common good. Partnership with God in the creation - returning to God's original vocation for man, "to be a steward over all the earth [Gen 1:28]. The benefits include the safety of the environment. God's creation of the Church through Christ's victory and our faith in Him - our stewardship over this creation, which is to mirror the society of which we read in His Word.

      The first call of the Church is to be reconciled to God through Christ. A real and personal relationship with God through forgiveness of sin. A second and co-equal call, is to be reconciled to each other by accepting personal and collective responsibility for the common good of both the household of faith and our society. In everything, we are to see ourselves as reconcilers.

      The "reconciler" church is one that takes the initiative, reaches out, and calls all peoples to salvation through Christ. A reconciler church transcends the cultural values which she encounters by ministering together with God in redemptive partnership. She remembers that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.

      In the Power of the Holy Spirit
      In the account of the book of Acts, the secret to the living out of the ministry of Christ in the Church was the presence the power and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The first Christians lived out gladly the mandates of the Old Testament, because the Law of God was no longer based on external pressure. God and His presence was now internalized through the indwelling person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit cleansed, empowered, and sent each new Christian back into their personal sphere of influence, where they became powerful examples of God's grace to those around them.

      The Christian Church today desperately needs a new Pentecost where she bursts forth from behind her locked doors during the week, and her fortress mentality, and rediscovers herself as a new spiritual community. It was through the power of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that the language barrier was overcome. The ministry of the Holy Spirit prepared Peter for the destruction of ethnic barriers (Acts 10). All through Acts, not just in Chapters 2-4, many demonstrations of socio-economic diversity in the Church are found (2:42-45; 4:32-37; 6:1-6; 9:36ff.; 13:1; 16:12ff.; 21:26; 24:17).

      God is still looking the world over for those who are willing to become involved in His creative activity in our world.

   2. Partnership with God's Governing Activity

      Societies have always been corrupt. John the Baptist taught his new disciples, that to be a reconciler means to be generous in a context of need, and to be honest in a context of dishonesty. They were to be generous with the little they had, in a culture where greed was a value. Gentleness, caring and compassion were to be their signature, when all else seemed to becoming increasingly callous and violent. Reconcilers are not always well liked, but they are salt, light and leaven. They model for others, be they in the work place, at home, and in daily contact with others, what it means to be in redemptive partnership with God in our society.

      Being redemptive partners with God is also connected with: a) practicing what it means to love one another as Christ loves us; b) rediscovering ourselves as a new community of faith, where there is truly no longer a distinction between "Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free," or to put it in today's language, being done with perpetuating ethnic, gender, and economic discrimination.

      The Church in the U. S. has become very complacent and dependent on safety, comfort and convenience. Our study of the ministry of Christ tells us that to be a reconciler, one must be willing to live through danger, hardship, and inconvenience. As we are in redemptive partnership with God, we will be salt, light and leaven in our society. Salt, light and leaven each lose their natural state and form in the process of reconciliation. However, not only are they transformed by that process, but they also transform whatever they touch.

      Rapid change in our society has produced loss of certainty and hope for everyone we know. As change impacts the lives of people, it creates pain and fear in all it touches. In such times of despair and disillusionment, people are often most willing to respond to a proven friend. This is the second incredible proposition God is calling us too: helping Him to create a righteous and just society.

   3. Partnership with God as Liberator-Redeemer

      God has invited us to proclaim to all who will listen, that God is alive and has the power to transform all who will believe in Christ as Savior and Lord. The heart of the power of the incarnation is "God is with us." Jesus underscored this reality when He said, "As the Father has sent me so send I you."

      A closer look at the life of Jesus shows that by extending the offer of the kingdom to those whom that very establishment considered unfit and alien, He was putting Himself at risk with the religious establishment. Yet Jesus' offer to those "outcasts" was saturated with an unconditional love only God could have or give. He was offering God's reconciliation to them. Jesus' unflinching loyalty to them, and God's Good News, ultimately cost Him His life. Truly, the low of society are exalted, and the high brought down. This is the substance of Christ's call to the Church. "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21). We are sent - are we going?

      Steve Sjogren is the pastor of a Vineyard in Cincinnati, Ohio. One Monday morning he was feeling particularly discouraged and announced to his wife Janie, "I'm quitting the ministry! And this time I mean it." Janie had heard this kind of talk before so she suggested, "Why don't you go for a drive and think things through? Usually that helps when you're stressed out. And while you're out, could you be a sweetheart and pick me up a burrito?"

      Steve drove around for about an hour, complaining to the Lord the whole time. Finally, he was in the fast-food drive-thru to pick up Janie's burrito when he sensed the Lord speaking to him. In a subtle, quiet way he sensed the Lord impressing this message on his heart, "If you open your door I will give you a gift." Even though he felt silly, Steve figured he had nothing to lose, so he opened the car door, looked down and saw embedded in the asphalt, a tarnished penny. This is what he wrote about the experience:

      "I reached down to pry out the coin and held it in my hand, feeling less than thankful for this 'gift.' The Lord spoke to me again: 'Many people in this city feel about as valuable as discarded pennies. I've given you the gift of gathering people who seem valueless. Though these are the people that the world casts off, they have great value to me. If you will open your heart, I will bring you more pennies than you know what to do with."

      If we will open our hearts to people who are suffering and needy, God many wonderful surprises for us, as well.

      The hope of all those who follow Jesus' example is the hope of resurrection. The resurrection could never have been predicted by the Apostles from an analysis of the past, or even a rational assessment of the present. Seen on this side of the resurrection, however, its reality and power has become an event which, for the Church and her ministry, is eternally in the present. The Law of God has now been written "with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Cor. 3:3). The new structure is anchored in the resurrection of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit's presence in the life of the Church.

      Cooperation with the liberative and redemptive action of God, therefore, decisively shapes the ways people seek positions, use resources, and make themselves available to the creative and governing action of God. Put most simply, it means God gives us an active, generative, initiating love for those whom God loves. This love transcends images of power, value and success, and is ready to spend and be spent in God's work of fulfilling an inclusive commonwealth of love (Fowler 1984:92).

Our text this morning calls us to the ministry of reconciliation. We are Christ's ambassadors, and are to proclaim on Christ's behalf, "Be reconciled to God." However, in the next breath Paul seems to be concerned that they are not doing it, because he says, "as God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain." He was concerned that the Corinthian church was not spreading the Good News of the gospel. They were fighting with each other over trivia, and excusing outright sin in their midst, and claiming to be more spiritual because they had certain gifts. Paul is also urging US this morning to lay aside everything that is keeping us from bursting out from these four walls and reclaim our birthright and our ambassadorship.

One of the Native American tribes has a wonderful saying that goes like this: "When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner so that when you die, the world cries, and you rejoice."

In attempting to recruit John Sculley, the 38-year-old President of Pepsi-Cola, Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple Computer, issued a tremendous challenge to Sculley. He asked him: "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?"