Representing Jesus and His Kingdom

Finally, I want to introduce to you our guest speaker for this weekend, Dr. Ed Stetzer, who is a very close personal friend of mine, who has had a tremendous impact on my ministry and really the shape of this church. He's also one of the premier missiologists in the country. Ed, as much as anybody that I know, has a profound understanding of our culture, where things are headed, and what it's going to take for us to reach our nation with the gospel. Ed has been a church planter himself. He holds two doctorates, and in his spare time, he trains pastors on six different continents. He's a big deal, and he has the longest goatee of anybody that I know.

That thing's down to his ankles. My kids love it when they get to see Uncle Ed, because he lets them swing on his goatee. I cannot think of anybody better to come and give a prophetic word to our church about reaching our culture with the gospel. So summit at all of our campuses, please give a warm welcome to Dr. Ed Stetzer. Well, that's quite a welcome, and a welcome to you and all of our campuses.

Glad that you're here. J.D., I don't know how to respond. I did trim back the goatee four inches. It was becoming a stumbling block to many, and as my ministry to them, I wanted to do that back. But I want to remind J.D.

again that there are three kinds of people in this world. There are men with beards, females, and boys. I don't know what that thing he's working on in his face actually is. It's constantly at a two-day growth. I don't know how you do this.

It's probably a special razor. He spends hours doing that. But nonetheless, I don't judge. I'm just here to serve. So if you have your Bible, turn with me to 2 Corinthians 5. We're going to look at what it means to represent Jesus and His kingdom well.

So what I'd like to do, I'd like to just read the passage, and we won't put it on the screen right at the beginning, but we'll go through it as we walk through the passage a little bit later on. So I want us to look at what it means to represent Jesus and our kingdom well. So hopefully you've got your Bible open. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, beginning at verse 12 says this, From now on then, we don't know anyone in a purely human way. Even if we've known Christ in a purely human way, yet now we no longer know Him like that. Therefore, if anyone's in Christ, He is new creation.

The old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Pray with me. Father, speak to us through your word. Help us understand how the cross compels us to the mission so that we might represent Jesus and His kingdom well. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Well, this passage is a passage that's in the middle of a context. Now, at some point we typically would go through books of the Bible so we'd have kind of walked up to this passage in 1 Corinthians, and we'd know by now that Paul's writing this letter to a church at a place called Corinth. They're the Corinthians, and the church had become corrupt, and he admonishes them here using strong language, both defending his apostleship but also provoking them to represent Jesus and His kingdom well.

But we haven't had a chance to do this. It's kind of a one-off message, so we don't have all of that background, but I want to briefly mention it because it'll be helpful to understand the context and the application. But there are four things I want us to see today that will kind of walk us through this passage and help us to think about what it might mean to represent Jesus and His kingdom well. So let's take a look at them. Number one, I want to encourage you to jot notes to help you remember.

So number one on your outline is this. We get a new perspective. Now, a new perspective is always people are kind of calling for a new perspective, and there are different ways that people lay out a case for a new perspective. Well, here Paul's calling the people of Corinth, the believers at Corinth, to have a new perspective on the world around them.

Two thousand years later, we need to be reminded again how to have a new perspective as the world changes around us. Let's look at the verses. It says this beginning at verse 16.

You'll see it on your screen. It says, From now on then, we don't know anyone in a purely human way. In other words, the way we perceive or see people, the way we look at people, has been changed. Now, the reason it's been changed is actually described in the verses before, which we don't have time, but verse 17 will help us to get it as well. But it talks about this new life in Christ. So we don't know anyone in a purely human way.

As a matter of fact, even if we knew Jesus that way. So even if we knew Christ in a purely human way, yet now we no longer know Him like that. So the preceding verses and the following verse both remind us that because we have a new life, we get a new look.

Because we have a new life, we get a new look. We see people, the world, and Jesus differently because we have new life in Christ. Verse 17 explains that new life in a way that many of you will be familiar with.

If you grew up in church, you've been in church just for a little while, you've probably heard this verse. Verse 17 says, Therefore, if anyone's in Christ, there is new creation. Something is created new. Jesus calls it being born again. There's new life in Christ.

Therefore, if anyone's in Christ, there is new creation. Old things have passed away. And look, there's the look again, look, new things have come. So many new things, but in the context of this passage, we've received new life and so therefore we have a new look. We see people and the world differently.

We see people and the world rightly. Now it's key here that the new birth is not the same as turning over a new leaf. So maybe you came today and you came to church, maybe this is your first time and you want to turn over a new leaf and you want to get some religion in your life.

Well, we're glad you're here, but we want to articulate that message a little differently. You see, Christianity is not about turning over a new leaf. It's about receiving new life. And having received new life and been changed by the power of the gospel, we then begin to, with this new self, with this born again spiritual nature, we begin to live differently because of the life that we have received.

But understand that we have to understand a bit of the state of the world, right? If Jesus is creating and making all things new, if Jesus is giving new life, we also have to recognize that the old world is passing away. Matter of fact, Paul writes that earlier under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in an earlier letter to the people, the church at Corinth, he says, for this world, this is 1 Corinthians 731, for this world in its current form is passing away. So the world is passing away, but Jesus is bringing and making new life. And as we receive that new life, we get a new look about the world around us.

I'm not just talking about how we look, but that changes too as people see in us the working of Christ. But I'm talking about a new view, a new perspective on the world. Now that needed it then and we need it now, partly because we need to understand that that culture, world, context can be defined maybe in two broad terms, right? The world is both broken and lost, right? So the world is broken and lost. So it's broken because the impact, the effect of sin has stained everything. So now there's wars, there's tragedies, there's injustice, there's racism, there's lostness.

Just all around us, the world is broken. And because the world's broken, Jesus comes serving in the midst of a broken world, though the world's broken. As a matter of fact, he tells us that in Luke 4. We won't turn there for the sake of time, but he announces and inaugurates his public ministry, quoting Isaiah in the Old Testament. And he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news.

He talks about the poor, the captive, and the blind. We'll address that more later, but I want you to see that the world is broken. Jesus comes serving. The world is lost, right? The world is lost without Christ.

Paul writes in Ephesians that it's dead in its trespasses and sins as we were dead in our trespasses and sins. So Jesus comes bringing life and salvation to that world. Now, when we define the world, we'll do that more in just a second, but when we define the world in a situation, that can be frustrating to us.

Right now, it can be frustrating to us, right? So I lead a research organization, LifeWay Research, and so we look at trends in church and culture. And here's what we find when it comes to followers of the way of Jesus. And right now, our Western culture is moving away from values that followers of Jesus have historically and biblically been connected to. And that can be frustrating to us, right? That can lead us to lash out.

That can lead us to use our social media as a place to vent about anger, but that anger is often picked up and maybe because it's directed to our neighbors. Maybe over time as the world and culture goes this way in the West, and as we as followers of Jesus continue to follow Him and that distance grows, we feel maybe put upon, maybe marginalized, maybe irritated. And so in doing so, we respond in anger. We begin to dislike those who are different than us.

But here's the challenge, right? Jesus instead points a different way. Paul writes about it and says, from now on, we don't know anyone in a purely human way. So we don't see people going this direction, opposite from ours is our enemy. We may perceive them as prisoners of war, but they're not our enemy. We may perceive them as cut up and stuck in the world system, but they're not our enemy. And if we don't get that and see people in the way that Jesus desires, no longer in a purely human way, but with a new perspective, seeing them as Jesus did, we'll miss the point that you can't be angry.

You can't hate a people and reach a people at the same time. And so we want to live as those who've been changed by the power of Jesus, who see the world for what it is, broken and lost, who see people for who they are, not our enemy, but maybe trapped in the enemy's system. And we see them as Jesus sees them. He tells us, he says, he saw them as like sheep without a shepherd. Well, how do we see people with sheep without a shepherd?

People in need of Jesus. We get a new perspective. We have a new life. So we get a new look. We see them as hurting. And so like Jesus, we go binding up and healing in the midst of that hurting.

Why? Because a new life gives us a new look. We get a new perspective from now on then we don't know anyone in a purely human way. We've received new life. Therefore, if anyone's in Christ, there's new creation. We receive a new life. Therefore, we get a new look.

But it doesn't end there. So number one is we get a new perspective, but number two is equally important, sent on a mission of reconciliation. So if the world is broken and lost, and those are biblical descriptions and definitions of the world in which we find ourselves as they did 2,000 years ago, and now we find ourselves today, 2 Corinthians 5 verses 18 and 19 speaks of the mission we are sent on into a broken and lost world. The word reconciliation is predominant in these next two verses. Actually, I'll count them off as we see them, right? So how many times in two verses can we see the emphasis on reconciliation?

Well, let's look. It says this beginning at verse 18, Now everything is from God, referring to that which is before in verses 16 and 17, but also 13, 14, 15. All this is from God, the new life that we have, giving us a new look, the new perspective because we've been changed by the power of the gospel, and now we see people in the world rightly but differently. So now everything is from God who reconciled us, there's one, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

So four times in two verses, it is articulated that reconciliation is a central response to the believer, to the state and the condition of the world. We see clearly, so we're on a mission rightly. We see clearly, so we're on a mission rightly. So we get this picture, right? We're sent on a mission of reconciliation, but it's so important that we don't miss it.

It almost seems redundant, but it's an intentional parallel in the structure of the words. Paul writes, God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Then reconciling the world to Himself, He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. So we look to these things and we begin to understand.

We begin to get a beautiful picture of what it means to get a new perspective, to see the world rightly as broken and lost, and then to acknowledge and respond by going on mission, a mission of reconciliation. You say, Ed, is that something for our church? Are we not doing that? You're a guest speaker. Do you know us?

Are we doing some of these things? Actually, I do know your church really well. I've written about your church in two books. I've known your pastor and appreciated him and his friendship for years, consistently seeing him preach in those shirts that are two sizes too small to emphasize his arms. And I don't judge.

I just say, welcome to the gun show during every single message. But I love your pastor. I love your church.

And I've written about it. And we actually have files on thousands of churches at LifeWay Research. And the file for your church is in a very special place.

It's kind of a technical research description, but we have a little section for your church. It's called freakishly abnormal churches. They say, is that bad?

No, that's good. But sometimes when I go to a church like yours, I have to sort of remind people that no, no, this is not normal. It's not normal that before I shared the message today, your pastor said, we'd like some of you to leave and go to Orlando and to Brooklyn and Los Angeles and to Winston Salem.

That's not normal, but that's Jesus. It's not normal that you consistently hear about how we can maybe even inconvenience ourselves for the betterment of others, that we can be on mission, showing and sharing the love of Jesus in a broken and hurting world. So I get that your church gets that the world is broken and lost and your church is joining Jesus on his mission.

He tells us to do so in John 20, 21, as the father has sent me. So send you, Jesus said. So I get that you're on mission, but I'm here as the writer of Hebrews said, to provoke you to love and good deeds. I'm here so that we might see even more mission that we might say yes, even more to Jesus. And some of you having heard just moments ago about places like Brooklyn and LA and Winston Salem and Orlando could say, even now that I'm going to say yes to Jesus, to be on a mission of reconciliation there, all of us need to live our lives in such a way that we put our yes on the table and let God put it on the map. And in doing so, we recognize that wherever we are, we're sent on a mission of reconciliation. The world's broken. So Summit individually as people and together as a congregation ministers to a broken world by serving the hurting in the name of Jesus.

The world's lost. So Summit individually and as a congregation seeks to reach people so that they might hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So the end result is that we follow Jesus on his mission. Now, if we look back to the words of the verse, it's another interesting parallel I don't want us to miss. I've already pointed out one parallel on reconciliation, but also says, now everything is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ.

Don't miss that. To himself through Christ. In the next parallel statement, it says that is in Christ. God was reconciling to himself.

So I don't want you to miss this. This is not our mission. We're joining Jesus on his mission. Again, John 20, 21, Jesus says, as the father has sent me, so send I you. So all of us respond like Isaiah did. And we say, here I am, Lord, send me. So wherever you are, wherever stage of your journey of your Christian life you're on, you and I have been sent by Jesus on a mission of reconciliation into a broken and lost world.

And when we say yes to Jesus, we are part of his agenda in the midst of a world that deeply needs to hear and respond to the gospel. So we start with a new perspective, right? Number one, we get a new perspective. We get a new life.

So now we have a new look. We see the world as Jesus does. But number two, we're sent on a mission of reconciliation. We have been reconciled. Having now seen the world rightly as both broken and lost, we have been reconciled. Then we become agents of that reconciliation. We're not the means of that reconciliation. Jesus is through his death on the cross for our sin and in our place. But now we are messengers of that reconciliation.

Thirdly, we get a new perspective sent on a mission of reconciliation. Number three, representing Jesus and his kingdom. Representing Jesus and his kingdom. Now, if we had more time and we were more into the context, we would know that Paul's actually defending his apostleship and his ministry here.

He's actually specifically referring to himself. And I think we'd be quite faithful with the text because when it speaks about us representing the kingdom in so many places, we can be quite faithful to the text and see how it applies to us. But look with me at verse 20. It says, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. Certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. This is the great marching order of one who represents Jesus and his kingdom.

This shouldn't surprise us. Jesus said in Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be provided for you. So as we follow King Jesus and are about his kingdom work, we're actually going to be representing Jesus and his kingdom. Well, that's what being an ambassador is. Paul refers to himself in a sort of band of missionaries and ministers with him as ambassadors, but we represent Jesus.

We are ambassadors of a sort. I grew up just outside of New York City. So I live in Nashville, Tennessee now, which is a very different world culturally. I'm fixing to fit into Nashville, y'all.

But sometimes I just want to say, you got a problem with that? That's the way my dad actually still talks. But when I grew up, we saw ambassadors all the time. In New York, we go into the city and they drive around and they have these cars with flags in them. They didn't have to pay parking tickets because they weren't under the laws of the land. They were from another place.

And there are some similarities and some differences between ambassadors then and ambassadors now. But in either way, we represent Jesus and his kingdom. Sometimes that's easy.

Sometimes that's hard. Yesterday, I had the privilege of flying in here to share God's Word for the weekend services. And when we did, Alan, who's on our staff of our church there in Nashville, came with me and we went to lunch. And I had written some emails on the plane and so I needed to send them. So I came in and asked the server, do you have Wi-Fi?

And they did. And so I brought my laptop in, opened my laptop, sent my emails. I was online.

The computer was sitting there. And then our server came up to us and she said, so what are you in town for? And I said, I'm speaking to this church. And I kind of explained the church. She said, I didn't really see it.

I had to explain that, well, you basically need a GPS to find it. But I explained where it was and she started talking to us. We were there early.

There wasn't anyone else there waiting on service. And so she said, I used to go to church. I've kind of given up on organized religion. And I said to her, well, listen, it's not a church.

It's not that organized. So there's that. So I tried to encourage her that way. It didn't help. She said, but no, she said it's just because I kept asking questions about science. And every time I asked questions about science, people didn't want to answer my questions.

They were too hard questions. So I've sort of dropped out of church. And I once said to her, not everyone thinks that way. And here in the triangle, I've been filled with people who love Jesus and are in the sciences and have thought through these issues.

But in God's providence, in His sovereignty, I would turn to her and say, well, listen, let me just ask you a question. I actually just have written a chapter in a book that published by the National Association of Evangelicals called God and Science. And I wonder, would you be interested in the article? And I just while I was talking, I pulled up the article.

Here's the article. And I could send you the book. And she said, yes, let me give you my email. And so I gave her my email. I said, well, if you have any questions, she kept asking questions. And we're having this conversation about who Jesus is and what Jesus is about. And I think to myself, now, this is how witnessing should always go, open laptop, ready for questions. And I can think of about two times in the history of my life that's happened that way. So you can pray for her as she considers some of the things that we've said.

But most of the time, being an ambassador is harder than that. And that shouldn't surprise us. A few months ago, my dad called me. And my dad's not a Christian. And when I say he's not a Christian, I'm not saying he's in a denomination that I don't like. I'm saying he doesn't, I mean, he would say he's not a Christian. I'm saying he doesn't, I mean, he would say he said to me that, you know, I just don't see why Jesus had to die on the cross.

I don't see how that has to do anything with me. And he called me up a few months ago and said, I'm going in for some surgery and I wanted you to know. And it's a few days from now and it's a brain surgery and there could be some complication. I might not make it.

And if I make it, I might lose a lot of my mental capacity. And I said, okay. And so he wanted me to tell the grandkids. And so I said, I'd be glad to do that and said, but dad, can I come down and see you? And he said, sure. And he knew why it was coming.

He said, sure. And so it was Wednesday or Thursday of that week. So I grabbed a flight on Saturday and I went down, had lunch with my dad, a ham sandwich.

When you factor in the flight, it was the most expensive ham sandwich in the history of the world. But it's your dad, you know? And so I sat down. I've been sharing the gospel with my dad for decades. When I first became a Christian, the first person I had to come home to tell was my dad.

And I came home excited. I didn't even know what all the words meant, but I said to dad, dad, are you saved? And he said, saved from what? And I said, I don't know, but you need to be.

And so I sat down with him and we spent three hours together that day, just a few months ago. And I talked about who Jesus was and why Jesus died. And he had questions and disagreements. And I talked about, well, why the world's broken and how Jesus is the answer and tried to represent Jesus. Well, I wanted to be an ambassador for Christ, right? Knowing that God is appealing through us. I said to my father, we plead on Christ's behalf. Now I didn't use those words, but I did.

I said, I want him to be reconciled to God as the passage says. And I will tell you, I want you to hear this. It was three beautiful hours. We laughed together. We wept together. We prayed together. I prayed for God to intervene. I prayed for God to speak.

He wasn't offended. I was a son that loved him. How could I not sit down and tell him what I believe to be true? And I wish I could tell you today that he trusted Christ that day.

I've never had a conversation with that level of specificity in question where someone didn't trust Christ, but my dad didn't. And he did. He recovered.

He recovered and he's fine after the surgery. And we left that conversation, following that conversation, having more conversation, following up and continue to go for there. But I want you to know that the hardest witnessing conversation I've ever had is with my own father.

And maybe that's the case with you as well. It's my dad, you know, I mean, he knew me as a teenager. He found stuff he shouldn't find and I shouldn't have been doing.

It's your dad. He doesn't know the Lord. Sometimes being an ambassador is hard.

Sometimes being easy. And the same is true as Paul describes his own situation. Paul says we're ambassadors for Christ in a sense, defending his apostleship, but also a picture for us certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

That's applicable to us. We representing Jesus and his kingdom. But then that same Paul only uses the word ambassador twice. Actually, it's only found twice in our English Bible at all. The other place is in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 19 and 20 where it says this. Paul says, pray for me.

Right? This is how I felt. Donna, my wife, prayed for me that day. My kids prayed for me that day. Pray for me so that the message may be given to me when I opened my mouth to make known that with boldness, the mystery of the gospel for this. I am an ambassador. We don't miss the next two words in chains.

He wrote this chain to a wall of a prison. He says, pray that I might be bold enough in him to speak as I should. You see, when we're called to represent Jesus in his kingdom, sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes it's easy, but all the time it's necessary. That's what ambassadors do. They represent Jesus and his kingdom, a place that's not their own. In a strange land, they represent Jesus and his kingdom. Now, what gets a little tricky here, too, is that the word ambassador then is similar but not identical to an ambassador.

Now, here's one way that that's the case. An ambassador always sort of represented the country, the kingdom, the sovereign, the land that is not her or his own. But back then, Rome actually didn't send out ambassadors. It was too powerful. Rome was the only superpower.

No one else was close. Pax Romana ruled over the known world. And so, Rome didn't send out ambassadors.

It didn't need to. The weak would send ambassadors to the strong, not the strong to the weak. So, the Roman emperor would actually brag that he had received ambassadors from as far away as India, but they didn't send out ambassadors because they didn't need to. What Rome sent out was conquering armies and ruling governors, as we see in the New Testament. That's what Rome sent out. But they received ambassadors from others. The weak would send ambassadors to the strong. And yet, Paul uses that same language that in their day would have bring a recollection of weakness to the strong.

And he says instead, the God, the sovereign God of all the universe, because of his great love, he still is all powerful, far powerful than Rome would ever be, but because of his great sovereign love, he would send out ambassadors, representatives of Jesus, Paul and his band, and 2,000 years later, us and this church as ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us, pleading on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. So, that means we do so individually, right? We do so to our neighbor, to our coworker, to our friend.

And maybe as I was sharing about my dad, maybe you thought about someone in your family. Be an ambassador for Christ. Appeal as Christ calls. Be reconciled to God.

Maybe it's through groups coming up in just a few weeks on a gathering of groups, groups of seminars as groups are launched. And they together engage in God's mission. What a beautiful way to join with other brothers and sisters in Christ to engage in mission together, right? To see people differently. We get a new perspective. We have a new life, so we get a new look. To be sent on this mission of reconciliation. We've been reconciled to be agents of reconciliation. To finally represent Jesus and his kingdom through our church, but also through sending out people to plant other churches. That's what ambassadors do.

They're more concerned with the message than with their comfort. Fourth, and finally, and I'll close with this. You know what it means when a guest speaker says I'll close with this? Absolutely nothing.

Hope you packed a snack. So let's go on to number four. And finally, it's because of the cross. It's because of the cross. As I look at this last verse, I want you to see a pattern that changes here kind of suddenly. As we go through this, we get a new perspective, right? So we get this new life.

So now we got this new look. We see others differently. Then we're sent on a mission of reconciliation. We've been reconciled to be agents of reconciliation, but that's still relating to the people and how we relate to them. And then thirdly, we're to represent Jesus and his kingdom. Paul talked about being an ambassador and reminding us to plead on Christ's behalf, still dealing with how we relate to others. So the first three points built around the first few verses are kind of clearly related, but then there's the sudden divergence of the text. And what happens in the next verse in verse 21 is quite a shift.

Here's what it says. It says, He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So we go from three very clear points and several scripture verses that kind of speak about how we engage others representing Jesus and his kingdom to a deeply rich, theologically driven verse that doesn't seem to fit unless you think about it a little more.

How does it fit? Well, I want you to see, this is actually a doctrine here built around the doctrine of imputation. It's a well-known verse around this. And what does that mean?

Imputation is a bit of a, it's like a banking term. It's like receiving a deposit in yourself. And here we see that in the verse.

We're going to leave it on the screen for just a minute so we can not miss it. It says he, the he here is God. So God made the one who did not know sin. The one who did not know sin is Jesus who's lived a sinless life, who has always existed as God the son, but then was come and born on this earth, walked through the sin and the stench and the death and the destruction all around him, but he himself did not sin. He knew what sin looked like. He knew the ravages and the stench of what that sin is, but he himself did not sin. So he, God made the one who did not sin Jesus to be sin.

Don't you miss that? To be sin for us. So Jesus didn't just die for our sin that we did. He didn't just die for us and he died by becoming our sin. So sin was imputed to him so that, so that, don't miss the so that's in the Bible, right? So that we might become, so this happened so that something else might happen. We might become the righteousness of God in him.

There's some imputation going on here, right? So Adam's sin was imputed to us, right? We inherit a nature that's inclined towards sin. I don't have to teach my daughters to sin, to be inclined towards sin.

I have to teach them to go another path. So Adam's sin is imputed to you and to me, and that's original sin. But then in this verse, we see that our sin is imputed to Christ. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, imputed to Christ, our sin in the atonement. So Adam's sin imputed to us, original sin, our sin imputed to Christ in the atonement. And finally, Christ's righteousness, so that, so that, the verse says, we might become the righteousness of God in him. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us in this thing called justification. I have been justified and now it's just as if I'd never sinned. Because what Jesus did on the cross, for my sin and in my place, means that when God looks on me, he doesn't see my sin. He sees Jesus' righteousness. And what does that have to do with the others?

How does that compel us to this mission? When I was a young man years ago, my, we moved from New York City, just outside New York City, down to Orlando, Florida, and to a really undeveloped area that's now way more developed. But we moved into a home. My grandfather had retired. He was a fire battalion chief in Manhattan. He had retired, moved down to Florida. New York City sort of went financially belly up. And my dad, who was a union iron lather, couldn't find work.

So he followed soon thereafter. My grandfather had houses that we could rent. My grandfather was a bit of a slum lord. He had moved down, bought a bunch of properties that weren't in the best condition.

I told you I didn't come from a Christian family. So my dad said, well, we didn't have anything else. We were starting over. We were broke.

And so my whole family moved down to Florida. We moved into one of my grandfather's houses. And I don't know if you call it a house. It was in such bad shape, it didn't have a front door. It had been torn off by the previous tenants. And I technically think a house without a door is a cave rather than a house. It's a dwelling rather than a home. My dad was pretty handy, though, and he put these things back together.

And he was a bit humiliated by the life he had found himself in. And so we were there a few, I don't know, it seemed like weeks maybe, and fixing things up. Didn't have air conditioning in the home.

Wasn't designed, was designed before air conditioning. Was on blocks. And so we made it the best way we could starting over. And my dad got frustrated. And you could tell he was a bit humiliated. And one day all the plumbing backed up in the whole place.

There's only two bathrooms, both toilets, both sinks and those things, the kitchen sink. And my dad had had enough. So he called my grandfather up and said, you've got to come over and fix this. And my grandfather said, okay. So he called back about 20 minutes later and asked for me.

He said, Eddie, he called me Eddie, and you may not. And he said, Eddie, can you come meet me in the yard? We're going to dig up something. Grab a shovel. We're going to dig up something in the backyard. I'm like, sure, that sounded awesome.

And so my grandfather showed up about maybe 20 minutes later driving a red Cadillac with a big long iron rod that he brought over with him. And he said, come on, we're going to the backyard. We're going to dig up something in the backyard.

I'm like, this is awesome. What young kid doesn't want to dig up something in the backyard? He said, there's some treasure back here. And I said, oh, yeah, there's going to be awesome. And there, there was some treasure back there. So I walked to the backyard and he found a particularly lush spot right near the side of the house that was slightly a mound, a little bit of a mound, but lots extra green and extra grass there. And he said, we're going to, we're going to dig up right here.

And I said, this is awesome. So I took my shovel and I started digging. It didn't take long. I mean, it seemed like it was eight feet down. I'm sure it wasn't, but because I was a kid, but it didn't take long before I hit something and I began to clear it off. And there was, there was a lid in the yard.

And as I cleared it off, I began to come to the conclusion. There was a box buried in my yard and my grandfather had this grin the whole time. And I was, I was so excited because he was so crafty and smart.

Maybe he had found a treasure that Ponce de Leon had buried in our yard. And here I am. And I'm looking at this and he kept smiling and smirking.

And I, I didn't know, but you know, we were, we were Irish grew up in New York city. And so we had two emotions, drunken sleepy. And so I didn't know which he was at that very moment, but, but he was smiling.

I thought maybe he's found something powerful. And so, oh, he did. And so there I was there, the box was cleared off and my grandfather says, we're going to open it.

And I said, you bet. We're going to open it. And so, so he gave me the long iron rod and I, and I lifted the lid and as I did, it slid over and lifted up and, and I looked at the box and sweet mother of Pearl, it was a box of poop in the yard. I don't know if I can say that word in church.

I probably should have checked beforehand, but I'm a city kid, right? So I, I'm completely at a loss as to why somebody has created a box buried in my yard, full of human waste. And my grandfather tried to be funny.

He said, ah, don't worry. It's your family. I'm like, I don't care if it's the queen of England. Somebody has buried a box of poop in our yard. I mean, in the city, we don't know. I mean, we snake a drain and stuff goes away the way that God intended it to be. And he says, we got it. We got to unclog it.

I said, we, so I renegotiated my fee. And he said, here's what you got to do. And by this time I, all right, I'm going to do it. And so you got to take the long iron rod and you got to, you got to sort of lean over the, sort of lean over the septic tank. That's what these horrendous contraptions of the devil are actually called. You got to lean over it, Eddie, and you got to hold the pipe and, and there's a little hook on the end of the rod and you got to get in there and you got to, you got to hook it and sort of yank out your family. And all right. So, so I, so I get to the edge of the edge of the thing and it was a little bit of sand and dirt behind me. And so I clear that off and I'm leaning over and I'm trying to get the angle and I can't really get to work.

And I said, it's not working. He says, don't worry. I'll hold your shirt. My grandfather says, so he holds my shirt and he's leaning me over this thing. And he's, he's trying to be funny. He's like, oh, don't fall in.

Don't fall in. And I do. And I, and this is a true story. This is not a preacher story.

This is a true story. And I, uh, I'm standing above my knees in my family and it was the most traumatic moment of my life. I have to share it just to get it out.

And there are certain things that automatically happen when I share it. I have no control over them, but I, uh, but I'm still to this day, I mean, I just can't, I can't sense it. Um, it literally was, I mean, you felt it. It viscerally impacted, you know, I'm standing there up to my knees, looking at my grandfather with an iron rod as a weapon, but we were standing with a weapon, but we were a family. So I let it be, but I'm sitting there and they took me out and they all laughed and they washed me off with tomato juice. I don't understand.

That's like a cult ritual. I don't even know what was going on, but what I, what I, what I realized, and you realize, you see, I can just viscerally relax, reacted to that. I mean, imagine standing in the midst of this, this thing that you are not supposed to be near.

And now it's, it's on you. And I don't know about you, but I, but I, I years later, I remembered that when I read this passage that the perfect sovereign God of all the universe who so loved us that he came and walked in the midst of a sin filled and sin stained planet, but he himself did not sin. He had seen the stench of that sin, the, the, the, the revulsion all around and, and the destruction that has caused, but, but, but because of his great love for us, he continued his trek to the cross. And when he came to the cross, he, he died on the cross for our sin and in our place in this one moment, maybe we saw something of a glimpse of what was going on. He was nailed to the cross and he cried out, Eloi, Eloi, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because while dying on the cross for our sin and in our place, Isaiah 53, six explains it that we like sheep have all gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way. The Lord had laid the on him, the iniquity of us all. So your sin and mine has been laid on Jesus, not just on him, but he becomes that sin for us. He dies a sinner's death. He's not a sinner. He's never sinned, but he dies a sinner's death. The one who knew no sin dies as strange separated.

This is the substitution. Our sin is taken on Jesus. He takes the wrath as a substitute for us. God treated Jesus as if he committed every sin so that believers could be seen by God as having lived Jesus' perfect life. And when I understand this, this makes a little more sense because when I understand that this is all about how we represent Jesus and his kingdom to others, that the cross is what compels us to this. As a matter of fact, if you look back just a little bit earlier to verse 14, it says this, it says, for Christ's love compels us since we've reached this conclusion.

If one died for all, then all died. And he died for all so that those who live, that's us, we've got new life so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. So because of the cross and only because of the cross, when we understand it, we can get a new perspective.

A new life has led to a new look sent on a mission of reconciliation. We've been reconciled by the work of Christ on the cross to be agents of reconciliation, representing Jesus and his kingdom, ambassadors for Christ, appealing to our friends, our neighbors, and our families. Be reconciled to God.

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so we might become the righteousness of God in him. Would you pray with me? Father, we acknowledge today that we can't come before you in our own merit. By your grace and your goodness, you've redeemed us and called us by name. We acknowledge again, Jesus, our inability.

Acknowledge again your ability. If you're a follower of Jesus on all of our campuses, would you just bow your head with me, just everyone, just bow your heads for a moment. If you're a follower of Jesus, I want you to think on and about the cross of Jesus Christ. And then consider again that we get a new perspective.

A new life has given us a new look. We're sent on a mission of reconciliation. We've been reconciled to be agents of reconciliation, to represent Jesus as his kingdom ambassadors for Christ, pleading on Christ's behalf because of the cross.

Just as you take a moment, would you dwell on that? Would you pray through that reality if you're a follower of Jesus? But if you're here today, wherever you are, whatever campus you're at, the Spirit's at work. And maybe right now you're saying, Ed, I don't know this Jesus. Well, he died on the cross for your sin. I want to invite you today to call on him to say, Lord Jesus, forgive me of my sin. Come into my heart, Jesus. Be my savior. Be my Lord. I trust and follow you. Father, I pray that we might get a new perspective, all of us sent on a mission of reconciliation, representing Jesus in the kingdom because of the cross. And because we did, because we gathered together here this weekend, that your name and your fame would be more widely known. For it's in Jesus' name. And for Jesus' sake, we pray. Amen and amen.