Mining Grace

Last Sunday night marked the five year mark for my ordination.  It being a Sunday that I was asked to preach on I decided to pick a verse that summed up what I wanted to be as a pastor.  I chose 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself 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 entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

My main point was that pastoral ministry is primarily concerned with preaching the message of reconciliation.  Pastors can do many good things but if they are not primarily telling people–lost and saved alike–the message of reconciliation then they aren’t doing the main thing.  No truth has humbled me over the past five years than this one.  This glorious message of reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ is what I want to mark my ministry until the Lord should return or take me in death.

In explaining the passage I wanted to show five parts of the message of reconciliation.

1. The message of reconciliation is centered on Christ
2. The message of reconciliation is for the world
3. The message of reconciliation deals with sin
4. The message of reconciliation is God’s appeal through pastors
5. The message of reconciliation is about double imputation.

However, when I got up to preach I had less time than I had thought.  We had a superb mission report on the front end of the service for which I did not adequately allot time.  So I had about 20 minutes to preach a 40 minute sermon.  It was at that point I was glad that I work from a simple outline rather than a manuscript.  In the end I think I should have cut more content rather than illustrations.  But the Lord is sovereign over my preaching whether I think it was good or bad, long or short.

I leave you with John Calvin’s thoughts on the passage.

Ministers are furnished with this commission, that they may bring us intelligence of so great a benefit, nay more, may assure us of God’s fatherly love towards us.  Any other person, it is true, might also be a witness to us of the grace of God, but Paul teaches, that this office is specially intrusted to ministers.  When, therefore, a duly ordained minister proclaims in the gospel, that God has been made propitious to us, he is to be listened to just as an ambassador of God, and sustaining, as they speak, a public character, and furnished with rightful authority for assuring us of this.

- John Calvin, Commentary on 2 Corinthians, 236.

2 Corinthians 5:18-21 – The Message of Reconciliation

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