Benjamin Hatch brings a message from 2 Corinthians 5:11-16 as part of our series "God's Power in Our Weakness," a series in the book of 2 Corinthians.
Redeemer Bible Church of Fort Bend
One Died for All (2 Corinthians 5:11-16)
(soft piano music) - You're listening to a podcast by Redeemer Bible Church. Come visit us Sunday mornings at 10.30 a.m. or visit our website at redeemerfortbend.org for more information. Thanks and enjoy. (soft piano music) - Well, I know we're gonna hear the loudspeaker from the football game next door. So do our best to stay focused on the things of God this morning. If you've got a Bible turn with me now to 2 Corinthians chapter five. If you're using one of the seatback Bibles, you'll find this morning's text on page 908. This morning we're gonna read verses 11 through 16. Second Corinthians chapter five, verses 11 through 16. Hear what scripture says. Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance, and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. This is God's word, and all God's people said. Amen, let's pray. Father, as we come to this passage this morning, we pray that you would help us to think about some really core foundational matters. She would search us and show us where there are unclean ways in our lives that we might forsake and confess those things and Lord, that you would forgive us for Lord, we all stumble in so many ways. Give us attentive hearts now, even as we hear the distracting noise of the PA system next door, we pray that you'd help us to be able to focus and understand, and we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. In the year 1173, the Italian city state of Pisa was rich and prosperous, and it had a beautiful cathedral, which was so renowned that it was allowed to host the election of the Pope just five years later. And the city decided that this beautiful cathedral needed an appropriately beautiful bell tower built from marble, featuring grand Corinthian columns. So using a hefty donation from an elderly widow, plans were made, stones were carved, and a foundation was laid. And five years later, a second story was built upon that foundation. But around that same time, people started to notice that something was off. The building seemed slightly to lean, and it was discovered that was because its foundation was improperly built upon weak, unstable soil. Well, did they stop and find a better place to begin the work again? No, they just kept building upward. And the higher they got, and the longer that time went by, the more the tower leaned. Until more than 800 years later, foundation repairs had to be done to prevent the leading tower of PISA from collapsing. And these repairs ultimately included removing its bells to reduce the strain upon the foundation. It stopped being able to achieve the function it was built for. Now, here was a building that should have been an enduring testimony to the wealth and strength of PISA, which became a curiosity, a joke, not even capable of discharging its own function, all because of an improper foundation. I think this illustration has application for us, believing friends, we need strong, properly laid foundations. For if our foundations are off as we build upon them, our spiritual lives will start to lean and become lopsided off track and ultimately might cause us to prove an effective in God's service. And friends, if we don't want that, if we wanna actually succeed in being what God calls us to be and doing what God calls us to do, we need to make sure our foundations are properly laid. And so this morning, as we continue our series in the book of Second Corinthians, the Apostle Paul points us to some foundational truths that we need to grasp and live by. And that's what we're gonna see now in Second Corinthians chapter five versus 11 through 16. And this morning, we'll consider two points. First, we must seek to persuade others of the truth of the gospel. And second, we must love Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. Let's start with our first point. We must seek to persuade others of the truth of the gospel. Now, over the first four and a half chapters of this book, Paul has presented his self-defense. He has answered lingering questions in the Corinthian church about the legitimacy of his ministry. And some of these questions were the residue of years of conflict between Paul and the Corinthians. You might remember that for a time, the Corinthian church had wandered away from the truth of the gospel, indulging and tolerating all manner of sin. And Paul vigorously opposed this and he repeatedly urged the Corinthians to repent. But the Corinthians just deflected. They didn't engage with the substance of what Paul was saying. They decided to counter-attack Paul and dispute whether he had the right to issue them correction. And this went on for years until, by God's grace, many of the Corinthians were finally persuaded of their errors and repented of their sin. But while that main conflict was now over, some of these long-standing questions about Paul endured. And Paul had to answer them. At the same time, other challenges were being developed around the time Paul wrote this book by a vocal minority in the Corinthian church who had not repented, who were still reveling in evil, who were still attacking Paul. And these folks had not found some false teachers to follow. And they also maligned Paul and his work. And so, in the first big section of this book, Paul has answered these various challenges to his ministry. And we have seen that Paul has responded to basically three attacks that were made against him. First was an attack rooted in the Corinthians' false prosperity theology, which went like this. If Paul really knew God, he should be healthy and wealthy, but he seems to suffer a lot. Maybe Paul doesn't really know God. And Paul answered this by talking so much about suffering in these chapters. Showing us that suffering is common for God's people because we are weak and fragile like jars of clay. And because the Lord Jesus suffered, so as his people we should expect to suffer to. But mercifully, we've seen that God gives his people comfort. He gives us the strength to endure our suffering. And he intends for us to take the strength that he gives us and use it to strengthen other believers who are also suffering. And Paul has also shown us how we should endure suffering. If you've got your Bible open, look at 2 Corinthians 4 verse 17. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. Believing friends when hardship strikes, we must not just gaze at the hardship of our circumstances. We must look to the unseen realities that await us in eternity. The glory of the resurrection life to come, which prepares us, which we are prepared for as we endure the hardships of life. And so Paul is not discredited because he suffers and therefore the first attack is false. The second attack made against Paul claimed that he was a liar. You might remember Paul had communicated some travel plans to the Corinthians, which he later had to change. And Paul has explained in this book why he changed those plans. Not because he's an insincere jerk, but because he made a wise decision as he responded to evolving circumstances in his conflict with the Corinthian church. He made a decision that was trying to preserve his relationship with them and ultimately help them. So Paul is not a liar. Rather, Paul is marked by sincerity, plain speaking and transparency in his life and in his preaching. Second Corinthians 4 verse two, he says, we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience to the sight of God. Paul was a man of integrity. So the second attack was false. The third attack was that Paul acts credibility because he had not presented letters of recommendation to the Corinthian church. Almost certainly this charge came from the false teachers who had deceived some of the Corinthians. Likely these false teachers had shown up with letters purporting to come from some other church that vouched for them and their false doctrine. And after they handed their letters to the Corinthians, the false teachers said, well what about Paul? Did he ever show you letters like these? Maybe you shouldn't trust him. Now that is totally absurd because Paul had founded the Corinthian church. Whatever gospel work had been done in Corinth, whatever positive spiritual things had taken place in the city, it was all because of Paul's ministry. Paul didn't need letters to authenticate himself to the Corinthians. The Corinthians could look at their own church and see that any good work done there was because Paul was the real deal. As Paul said in second Corinthians, three verse two, you yourselves are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts to be known and read by all. The Corinthian church proved Paul's ministry really came from God. So the third attack is also false. Now all of that is what we've seen in the first four and a half chapters of this book. You say, well that was a long review. Well I gave it to you for a reason because in today's passage, this long first section, this self-defense finally comes through a close. And now Paul transitions away from that into the second big section of this book, which is an exhortation in which Paul makes demands on the Corinthians about how they live. And Paul makes this transition in our passage, look now at chapter five verse 11. Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. I want you to notice three things about these verses. Number one, here is the end of Paul's self-defense. And what he says is that he hopes, after four and a half chapters of making these arguments, the Corinthians are finally convinced that his genuineness and legitimacy have been confirmed to them once again. But whether or not the Corinthians are satisfied, Paul invokes God's name. Paul says he has lived a life of openness and sincerity before God. God knows what he's about even if the Corinthians don't. God is his witness. So the Corinthians allegations against Paul are false, and Paul's ministry is true. The second thing I want you to see here is why Paul has spent all of this time on this self-defense. You know, hearing all of this, we might think, why did it matter so much to Paul, what the Corinthians thought about him? It doesn't the Bible say that God's people will have enemies? Absolutely. So why doesn't Paul just write these folks off? Why is he so determined to prove to them that he's a legitimate minister of the gospel? Because ultimately, Paul's ministry is not about Paul. Look at second Corinthians four and verse five. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. See, Paul's not really worried about his popularity in Corinth. No, Paul understands that all of these attacks made against him are just smokescreens. They are distractions and justifications which have led people away from the true gospel into false wisdom and false lifestyles and false teachings taught by demonic heretics who traffic in appearances, Paul says in verse 12, but not in truth. People who use manipulation and innuendo to mislead folks while they put on a show of godliness, but in truth what's in their heart is evil. And so Paul in this self-defense has not been contending for his own reputation. He is contending for the Corinthian souls. And now he tells us plainly what his purpose was in writing this massive self-defense as he says that he is giving the Corinthians reasons to boast about us. What Paul's trying to do is he's trying to equip the godly repentant folks in Corinth with some counter arguments that can be used to silence the false teachers and the unrepentant folks in the church that are spreading these lies and trying to mislead people. So the self-defense section that opened this book is fundamentally an exercise in what we call today apologetics. Paul is giving answers so that godly church members can shut down these false attacks on Paul that are serving as a vehicle for misleading people away from the gospel. So Paul's self-defense is not just about himself, it is in service to Jesus for the benefit of the Corinthians. And that's his point in verse 13, look at that one. Paul now answers a fourth allegation raised against him that he's crazy. That would have been an easy way for the Corinthians to dismiss Paul, right? Just stick that label on it. Paul's a nut. You follow Paul? Really? Certainly Paul might have seen crazy to the Corinthians. You know, in ancient Corinth, there were lots of philosophers and religious teachers. None of them were like Paul. All those philosophers, they were known for their lofty rhetoric and intellectually dispassionate arguments. And Paul came in and he just said it like it was with some emotional pleading. Paul's whole style was totally different than anything the Corinthians were used to. And that was on purpose. First Corinthians 1 17, he says, Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Paul doesn't need gimmicks and a flashy presentation to sell people on the truth because the cross of Christ is the power of God and the salvation. And so Paul intentionally used a countercultural approach to distinguish himself from all of those false losers. But because Paul was so different, it would have been easy for the false teachers to say, well, look at Paul's emotionalism. He is hysterical. He is insane and try to dismiss him. So Paul answers it. He says, look, if I'm crazy, it's out of love for God. It's in service to Christ. Now, Paul's not saying he's crazy, but he's saying whatever this intensity is, he's got a good reason for it. And friends, we should have some intensity when we talk about sin and the gospel. These are ultimate matters. These are eternity defining concepts. Friends, there's nothing more important in the gospel. If you can't get excited about this or energetic about this, you have missed the true sense of what we're talking about. But Paul goes further. He says, but if there's a method to my madness, which there is, if there's a rationality to what I'm saying, then that's for you Corinthians. It's for your benefit. For years, Paul had engaged with this dysfunctional church trying to serve them, trying to convince them not to walk away from the gospel, not to be deceived. Paul did all of that because he wants to serve them. So Paul wants the Corinthians to look past the merely visible, the false wisdom of the world and the gimmickry of the world and the rhetoric of the philosophers and all the junk that he's seen, which is transitory, which is fading. Paul wants him to look past that, to what is eternal, to what is real. Paul wants the Corinthians to see as God sees. 1st the name of 16, 7 says man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Paul wants the Corinthians to look past what's outwardly visible to what is true, to what is inside him, his love for them, his love for God, his love for the truth. So he's written all of this to help the godly Corinthians contend for the faith against those who would lead them astray. Now all of this leads to the third thing I want you to see here, which is that Paul's aim is to persuade others. Paul is a servant of Christ and he serves Christ by serving people. Paul wants to win the lost to the gospel. Paul wants to get drifting believers back to where they ought to be following Jesus. And again, that's not because Paul wants to get a big number of followers. No, look at verse 11. Paul says what sits at the heart of his ministry is his knowledge of the fear of the Lord. That's what we talked about at the end of last week's passage, chapter five, verse 10. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Those aren't just words to Paul. That's a reality. Judgment is coming. And we need to understand that when Paul says, "God is my witness that I have integrity in ministry." He does that with fear and trembling because he knows God is watching him and that Christ will judge him. That fear of God animates Paul's life. It compels his truthful preaching. And he says it compels him to try to persuade others. This is why Paul went throughout the ancient world preaching the gospel. This is why Paul endured years of putting up with the Corinthians. This is why Paul is writing this book because judgment is coming at a fear of God compels Paul to set forth his best efforts to help the Corinthians resist this error and submit to the truth so that on the last day they might not be condemned because they committed apostasy and fell into some false doctrine. Now what should we take from this first point? Let me offer us two applications. Application number one, we too must seek to persuade people. Paul understood that what God entrusted him with was not a private faith that lived only in his brain and comforted him alone. Paul understood he was entrusted with a ministry. God changed him so that he might be a tool in the Father's hand to change others. Now of course, Paul had a unique ministry. He was an apostle and he had this special calling to go to the Gentiles and take the gospel to them for the first time. In that sense, we're not like Paul. We're not apostles. But like Paul, we have been entrusted with a faith that is not private, that we shouldn't be trying to hoard and withhold from others in our dying world. Friends, we too have been entrusted with a ministry. We have the same command upon us that Paul had upon him, woe to us if we don't preach the gospel. We too are called to persuade people, persuade them with what? With the gospel and with the demands of Christ, and we're gonna talk about that content in a minute. But just like Paul, friends, we must pursue the lost with the message that leads to salvation. Paul says later in this chapter, in chapter five verse 18, all this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. The Father sent the Son into this world to reconcile sinners to himself. Sin has severed us from God. If it is to be put back together, that can only happen because of Jesus and his death. That is the message unbelievers around us need to hear. And Jesus told us to tell them, Matthew 28, 20, he says, go therefore and make disciples. We must pursue the lost with this message that saves, hoping and trusting and praying that God will use us to bring the lost to himself. But beyond persuading unbelievers, we also need to persuade those who claim to know Christ, whose lives don't look anything like a Christian life. And we need to tell them, you need to live for Christ. That's what Paul has been doing in his correspondence with the Corinthians, pleading for those who profess Christ to do so, not just with their words, but with their lives. Friends, we need to pursue the wayward and urge them to come back to where they need to be. James 519 says, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. So we're not just to try to persuade unbelievers, we're also to persuade those who have wandered from the truth. Now, where do we find these unbelievers and people wandering from the truth? Well, Jesus sent Paul to the other side of the world and maybe Jesus will send some of us to foreign missions. But for most of us, our mission field is the people God has put in our lives, our family members and friends and coworkers and neighbors and acquaintances, these are the people we should try to persuade. And friends, these are the people we must try to persuade. I think so often we view evangelism as just one more thing on a big checklist of expectations that the Bible puts on believers. Believing friends, we need to see evangelism as a core aspect of what it really means to follow Christ. It is a foundational obligation Jesus puts on us if we belong to him, we must try to make him known. So we need to be more serious friends about persuading others in our lives. And that means we need to stop being quick to make excuses and write people off if we have one or two brief conversations with them and it doesn't seem like they're interested. Friends, we need to recognize that while sometimes people are immediately eager to listen to what we have to say, oftentimes persuading people in these big spiritual matters takes months if not years. I've not just brief conversations but spending time together, showing them you care about them, letting them see how you live and seeing that you're different than the world. Don't be quick to abandon efforts to win their lost in their infancy, persevere in trying to be persuasive. And the last thing I wanna say here is, don't be quick to prejudge who you think will listen and who you think won't. Isn't it so easy for us to just look at someone and make a snap judgment about them? That person is someone I really need to pay attention to. This person isn't. This person looks like me and acts like me and has similar interests or politics to me. Maybe they seem rich and connected, they have value. I'm gonna invest myself there. Oh, that person dresses in a way I don't like or you've got tattoos or maybe they smell a little strange. I don't really wanna spend time there. I don't see value in them. Friends, that kind of thinking has no place among believers. That's the wisdom of the world. If we have been made new by Christ, we need to adopt a new way of viewing other people. Later in this chapter, Paul says in verse 17, "If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation." And tied to that wonderful declaration, he says this, 2 Corinthians 5, 16, "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh." That means we shouldn't be trying to adopt any worldly or fleshly categories of prejudging anybody that we encounter. Instead, we need to see everybody we encounter as an image bearer of God. That's how God sees us, right? And we need to seek to reach them simply because Acts 17 says God calls all people everywhere to repent. So are there people in your life where you've said, well, I'm looking down on this person because of this criteria or that one? Friend, if you know that's something you've done, you need to repent of that. Are there people that you know you should be making more of an effort to win? And you've written them off or you've turned away because it didn't think it was worth your effort. If there are people that are coming to your mind as I'm speaking right now, friend, do something about it. Reach back out to them, talk to them about Christ because time is short and eternity is long. So let's strive to persuade others. Application number two, contend for the faith. First Peter 3.15 says always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. In the midweek email this week, I sent an article out to the church that said, let's win people not arguments and that's true. But we need to recognize that just like in Paul's day, there are many malicious lies circulating in our world today. Let's say, oh, don't be a Christian, that's hateful, that's bigoted, or that say, here's some lies about Jesus and the Bible. And we see in this book that Paul finds great value in preparing believers with counter arguments so that they can contend for the faith and blow that kind of smoke screen away and expose those kind of attacks as false so that they can get a better hearing from those that need to be persuaded. And again, the point of this kind of argumentation is that we might be able to better persuade others. It's not that we get to experience the glee that comes from winning an argument. So we need to be gentle and respectful when we answer the challenges that come against us, but it would serve each of us well to spend some time learning some basic apologetics, learning how to counter the criticisms of the world and the basic claims made by the predominant false religions around us. That preparation might help us be more effective as we try to pursue people in our world of deception. So to wrap up this first point, we see the foundational importance of trying to persuade others and preparing ourselves to be persuasive. But we come now to our second point, which is this. We must live for Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. All right, so now Paul's done with his self-defense. Now he moves into his second section where he's gonna exhort the Corinthians about how they should live. And he develops this idea that he's gonna exhort them by elaborating on this idea that he's trying to persuade others. And ultimately we might say, "Well, Paul, who do you wanna persuade?" Well, he tells us later in this chapter who he wants to persuade is the Corinthians. Second Corinthians five verse 20, he says to them, "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Lost people when the church need to be saved. Straying people in the church need to repent. That's where this book is going." And in this second section, Paul's gonna tell the Corinthians, "Hey, we need to talk about how you're living. Let's talk about what repentance looks like. Let's talk about how you use your money. Let's talk about godly separation from the world. But before Paul does any of that ethical instruction, notice how he begins. He grounds all of that in the gospel. Look at verse 14, "For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this. One has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised." Here's why Paul has a ministry. Here's why he's trying to persuade others, even the Corinthians, because of the love of Christ. Now, what's it mean when Paul talks about the love of Christ? Is he talking about his love for Jesus or Jesus' love? For him and for believers. Well, in Greek, just like in English, you can take the expression either way. But based on the context and the description of Jesus' death and resurrection that follow, probably Paul's talking here about Jesus' love for us that he showed by going to the cross. And Paul says that love controls him. It compels his action. It drives his ministry. Paul has been persuaded of the glorious significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But you know it was not always so. Paul says in verse 16 of this chapter, "Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, "we regard him thus no longer." You know, there was a time when Paul was not impressed by the love of Jesus. There was a time when Paul thought Jesus' death had no consequence. Back before Paul was converted, he thought Jesus was just a dead criminal. Because he viewed the claims of Christianity from a natural, unsaved perspective. He was untouched by the Holy Spirit. And from that vantage point, he saw nothing lovely or excellent about the cross of Christ. Why? But because he wrote in 1 Corinthians 2, 14, "The natural person does not accept the things "of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, "and he is not able to understand them "because they are spiritually discerned." Or as he wrote in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, "The God of this world has blinded the minds "of unbelievers to keep them from seeing "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." Before his conversion, Paul couldn't see the truth about Jesus because he was blinded by Satan. And he was in this natural, unregenerate state. And so the message of the cross was foolishness to him. That's why he persecuted the church so vigorously. In Galatians 1, he says, "You've heard of my former life in Judaism. "How I persecuted the church of God violently "and tried to destroy it. "Why did Paul do that?" Because as he looked at Christ, he didn't see the surpassing value of Jesus. But praise God, something changed. Jesus met him on the Damascus Road. And as 2 Corinthians 4, 6 says, "God who said light, shine out of darkness, "has shown in our hearts to give the light "of the knowledge of the glory of God "in the face of Jesus Christ." The Holy Spirit made Paul new. The light of the gospel shown into his dark mind. And then he saw Jesus rightly. He didn't think of Jesus as a dead criminal anymore. He saw him as the holy, eternal Lord and Savior. He didn't think the gospel was foolishness anymore. He knew it was the power of God unto salvation. And so now as Paul considers the cross, as he sees it rightly, he sees it as an amazing demonstration of God's love. But how does it show God's love? Well, twice in verses 14 and 15, he says, "Jesus died for all." Friends, this is how we need to think about the death of Jesus. You know, down to the centuries, many people have tried to explain the death of Jesus in lots of different ways. Let's say, "Well, Jesus died "because powerful people persecuted him." That's true. Or Jesus died because of a miscarriage of justice. That's true. Some views are a little stranger. Liberation Theology says, "Jesus died to show his solidarity with oppressed people." Not so much. But there are lots of views about the significance of Jesus' death. But here we need to know Paul tells us, this is the primary way we need to understand Jesus' death. Jesus died for other people. Jesus died as a sacrificial substitute. Jesus died the death we deserved. Friends, this is central to the truth of the Bible. God is holy and righteous, and we are sinners. We are sinners by nature. We are sinners by choice. We are rebels and traitors in God's universe. And God says that deserves death. Romans 3.23 says, "All have sinned "and fall short of the glory of God. "We all deserve to die physically and die eternally in hell." But the great news is Jesus died in our place. He took the penalty we deserved upon himself. And more than that, Paul tells us at the end of this chapter, 2 Corinthians 5.21, 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 became sin and bore the judgment we should have born so that believers might be granted Jesus' perfect righteousness so that we might stand before God. That's what happened on the cross. That is the primary and truest significance of Jesus' death. As Isaiah prophesied 700 years earlier, we heard this morning from Isaiah 53. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And that's exactly what Paul says here. Jesus died for all. But what does Paul mean when he says this? Please understand, Paul is not teaching that everybody will be saved. On the contrary, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2 that there are people who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. So not everyone will be saved. Unbelievers will be lost forever. This is not teaching universal salvation. So what does it mean then when Paul says Jesus died for all? Well, sometimes the Bible talks about Jesus' death by speaking about its impact on the whole world. So John chapter one says, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Verse John 2, 2 says, He is the propitiation for our sins and not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Verse John 3, 16 says, Christ's death is because God so loved the world. And yet not everyone is saved. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, 10, He is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. There's a tension there. Jesus' death impacts the world differently than it impacts believers. How should we understand this? Or church's teaching statement explains it like this. Christ's death is sufficient to purchase all people and thereby fully atoned for the sin of the entire world. And therefore he can rightly be proclaimed to be the savior of the world. However, Christ's death is efficient to atone only for those who believe. That is to say the saving effect of Christ's death runs only to believers. And that's what John 3, 16 says also. Not just that Christ's death was because God so loved the world, but that it imparts everlasting life only to those who believe. And indeed this is why the Bible so often talks about Jesus' death not in terms of the whole world, but rather as something definite and particular which runs only to believers. Because only believers experience the saving benefits of Jesus' death. That's why Acts 20 speaks of the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. Or why Ephesians 5 says Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Or why Matthew 121 says he will save his people from their sins. The death of Christ has a particular effect for believers that it does not have for the rest of the world because it actually saves us. Now when Paul says here that Christ died for all, is he making a general statement about Christ's death being theoretically sufficient to pay for the world? Or a particular statement about Christ's death being actually efficient to atone for believers? Well let's let Paul answer that as we keep reading. Paul says one has died for all, therefore all have died. Now when Paul says Christ died for all he then defines the word all by speaking of those who have died. What's he talking about? Often in Paul's letters he makes a theological point. Believers are united to Christ's death that in some way in God's accounting of things those who belong to Jesus have died with him. So Galatians 2, 19 Paul says through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Paul says in the mind of God he has been in some way joined to the death of Christ. In some way it's like Paul himself has died. So the demands and punishments of the Old Testament law bind him no longer. Well listen to Romans six. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. In order that just as Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might walk in newness of life. Those who believe in Jesus are joined to his death and so Paul says we have died to sin. We are free from the power of sin and we are united with Jesus' resurrection so that we have a new life. Or Colossians three, three he says for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And these verses and many others like them. The people who are said to have died are believers. So this explains what Paul means when he says that one has died for all, therefore all have died. Those for whom Christ died are believers. We are so joined to Jesus' death that our lives are radically changed. We don't have to be dominated by sin anymore. We have been set free from the curse of the Old Testament log upon those who disobey. Christ's death has set us free for massive spiritual forces that we're gonna result in our condemnation. But does that mean that we're now free to just go on a bender of selfish sinful living? No, because look at what Paul says in verse 15. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Christ did not die to build a community of self-indulgent people. He has not empowered us to revel in sin free from accountability and judgment. No, Christ is building a new humanity that is chiefly characterized by submission to his lordship. See, Paul's point is that as Jesus died and rose again, that should impact us believing friends. We are set free to enjoy a new life. We have been made new. Some small measure of the resurrection existence that will one day be ours is in our hearts as we have been given new life. And the point of all of this is that we would no longer live for ourselves, no longer chasing the desires of self and sin, but rather that we would be free to live for Christ who died for us and rose from the dead. Now, how should we here live in light of this truth? Application one for him. I'm gonna ask you, how do you see Christ today, right now? Are you like Paul before his conversion? As I'm talking about the death of Jesus right now, how does that make you feel? Are you in awe of Jesus' love for you? Are you amazed that our holy God cares about sinners and did such amazing, dramatic things to save us? Does that stir your heart? Do you crave the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of God? Are you excited by the idea of a new life? Or are you cold and indifferent to all of this? Or worse, maybe none of this makes any sense to you. Friend, does the death of Jesus appeal to you in any way? If it doesn't, or worse, if it repels you or angers you, understand that is because you are looking at a spiritual reality through the eyes of flesh. It can't make any sense to you. What you need is the Holy Spirit to give you life. To draw you to the gospel so that you might be saved. Because right now you're spiritually blinded by Satan. Your mind is darkened and you are on a collision course with the wrath of God forever. As Paul said to the Corinthians, I now say to you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. My prayer for you is that God would shake you from your spiritual slumber and shine the bright light of the gospel into your heart. And if you want to believe, but this just seems so strange to you, pray that God would give you spiritual insight so that you might respond to the gospel of faith. But as we're talking about these spiritual things, if they're starting to make sense to you, if they're beginning to appeal to you and you desire them, understand that is God drawing you and enlivening you. And if that is happening in you today, friend, turn from your old life of sin, turn in faith to Jesus. Believe that he is God and man, that he has died for your sins and risen again. That that is the only way you can be reconciled to the Father is by casting yourself upon the mercy of Christ because of who he is and what he has done for you. Application two, believing friends, who are you living for today? We have said faith in Jesus is not just some private thing that lives only in our minds. It should shape how we live outwardly. True faith produces a godly life and conversely, we need to understand that godly life is impossible without true faith. You know, there's all this talk in our world today about Judeo-Christian family values and all that kind of stuff. It's ethics without gospel. Friends, you cannot expect people to live out the ethical demands of the gospel if they don't believe the gospel. It won't work. If you want to live a godly life, you need to know God. You need to be reconciled to God through Christ. If you want your neighbors or your society to be more godly, they need to know God and that means we need to get busy persuading others. But this passage says if we do know God in a saving way, we need to live for him. We need to pursue godliness. Last week we talked about that in the context of final judgment. Indeed, the fear of the Lord should drive us to holy living. But so too should the love of Christ. God the Son left the glories of heaven above to come to this earth, to live a menial hard life, to experience all manner of suffering. Even as he lived a life of perfect godliness. And he went to the cruel death of the cross to bear our sin, guilt and death. You know, we hear a lot today about the love of God, don't we? And usually when people talk about the love of God in our society today, it is framed as a squishy, subjective, emotional thing. Oh, God is your cosmic grandfather and he just tolerates everything you do and he wants you to be happy. Friends, that is a lie from the pit. If you really want to know the love of God, look to the cross. Romans 5, 8 says God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's an incredible truth. We were vile rebels in God's universe and the Father gave his Son to bear that horrible judgment we each owed. That he might impart his own righteousness to us and spare us and save us. That is the supreme demonstration of God's love. If you want to know God's love more, look again to the cross. But as Christ gave all for us friends, we should respond appropriately. We should live in a way that gives all for him. That's the great truth of Romans 12.1. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Jesus gave all for us. The only right response is that we should try to bring our whole lives into subjection and obedience before him. How are we doing with that today? Especially as we draw near to the Lord's table. As we remember what Jesus endured for us, are we living lives for him or are we living for ourselves? Over the last week or month or year, what has driven you most, money, acclaim, getting the new stuff, or trying to please Christ? Are you lying to yourself regularly, imagining that there are sins you can indulge in without consequence, rationalizing to yourself that God understands, and this isn't really that big a deal. Friends, are there areas of life that you have intentionally withheld from obeying Christ? Maybe our failures relate to the first part of this sermon. Maybe we've just failed to pursue the lost in the wayward. Maybe we who have been so well loved by God are actually loveless. Maybe we're too busy judging those around us to care about their eternal destiny. Friends, if I'm speaking to you here, and I would imagine on some level, I'm speaking to all of us. Let us repent and draw near to Jesus. You know, so often we look at the Lord's table and we say, well, I worthy to participate today. Friend, that is the wrong question we should be asking. None of us are worthy to have any fellowship with God. The question today is, what is your attitude about your life and your sin? Are you content to allow it to stay there and wallow in it, or do you wanna forsake it and turn back to Christ who loved us and gave all for us? Friends, let me ask this, does the love of Jesus compel us? Do we think about what he did for us and act on it, as Paul did? Or have we becoming different to the gospel? So I came to church and heard another sermon about the gospel that I've heard that before. Friends, it's the good news, it's not the old news. If that's us today, let us pray God would wake us from our slumber and get us serious about eternal things again. As we take today, let us ponder the bread and the cup and what they symbolize. Jesus broke in body and shed blood because we are sinners. Friends, do we value what we've been given? Do we value the newness of life we have? We're secretly in our hearts, do we pine away for our old sin? Do we love and value holiness? Or do we cling to that which is passing away? Friends, how are we living? And where we know we have not been honoring Christ, let's be thankful that we serve a gracious and a merciful God who says in 1 John 1, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Friends, let us confess our known sin to God and turn away from it. So to conclude, today we've seen some foundational truths. Talked about the gospel and our need to live for Christ and persuade others. These are central matters to what it means to be a Christian, to what it means to live a life that is effective in serving Christ. If we realize that we've been majoring on the miners and not putting the central things at the core of our life, let's not be like those guys that built the leading tower of Pisa. Just kept building and building and building, even though they knew where they were off track. No friends, let us return to the strong foundation of the gospel and these things that we've talked about today. Let us put first things first. Let us keep the death and resurrection of Jesus before us. Let us pray to God that we would never grow indifferent or tired of the gospel. And that the love of Jesus would awe us and compel us to run this race well and persevere to the end in obedience and service to him under his glory.