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

“In a favourable time I listened to you,
    and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

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

‘The new world has a new king, and the king has ambassadors. Paul is not offering a new philosophy, though his message makes robust philosophical sense in its own way. He is not inviting people to try out a new religious experience, though anyone who believes his gospel will have experiences they never imagined. He is going into all the world with a message from its newly enthroned sovereign, a message inviting anyone and everyone to be reconciled to the God who made them, loves them, and has provided the means of reconciliation for them to come back to know and love him in return.’ Tom Wright.

In the light of these great new creation realities, Paul now urges them to make the most of this era of grace. God is saying ‘Yes!’ to all His prophecies and promises (1:20). The day of salvation is here. So, make the most of it. There is a challenge here for all Christians. As we ‘work together with God’ what might not be possible as we draw upon the infinite reservoir of grace in Christ? But above all, we can see it is vital to preach the gospel to the church. In any local congregation there may well be those who have not personally accepted Christ for themselves. They hear the good news over and over without becoming true believers. As Tasker points out, to harbour any belief that we can save ourselves is to receive the grace of God in vain.

”So, as we work together with God, we appeal to you in particular; when you accept God’s grace, don’t let it go to waste.” Tom Wright translation.

”As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it. ² For God says,

“At just the right time, I heard you.
    On the day of salvation, I helped you.”

Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation. NLT.

Those who know they ought to be ‘saved’,but keep postponing the decision to some vague and indefinite later, need to face the challenge, ‘If not now, when? As the song says, ‘For all we know, tomorrow May never come. ‘’Now’’ is all we can be sure of.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ESVUK

Our sin lies at the heart of our alienation from God.

”…but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” ESV

Sin separates. Essentially it separates us from God (but also from one another).

Sin separates, but Jesus saves. This verse expresses the heart of what God did in Jesus upon the cross, in just a few words. It’s been described as ‘the great exchange.’ Jesus got our sin, and we receive His righteousness when we trust in Him. God now sees us as being as righteous as His own perfect Son. He no longer sees us in our sin; He sees us in His Son.

Martin Luther expressed the wonder of this in somewhat stark and graphic terms: ‘Therefore, He is both the greatest and only sinner on earth, for He bears the sins of the whole world, and also the only righteous and holy One, since no one is made righteous and holy before God except through Him.’

In saying that at the cross Jesus became ‘the greatest and only sinner on earth’ Luther was perhaps using exaggerated language to bring out the enormity of what Christ did. Certainly, He was treated as if He were the world’s greatest sinner. All of our sins were piled on Him, and He bore the just penalty for them. so that we would not have to, if only we will turn to Him and trust in Him.

In saying that God ”made him to be sin” Paul does not mean that Jesus was unwillingly forced into something He did not want to do. The Father and the Son are perfectly at one in the work of salvation. If God the Father willed the death of His Son, the Son was also totally willing to die in our place. The comprehensive Biblical picture brings this out.

Let’s not hurry away from this verse, but stay awhile and remove our shoes. We are standing on holy ground.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ESVUK

Here is the essence of the message to be delivered by the ambassador for Christ: the ”appeal” made by God ”through” this person. It is urgent.

”We implore you…” This matters. It is serious business. Listen to this…please!

Unless you become reconciled to God through faith in Christ, you will remain estranged from God. To be without God forever is the essence of hell. When you consider the price God has paid to bring you back (which we will next time) it is no light matter to reject His offer.

I fear that in the church today we are losing a sense of urgency about evangelism. Could this be that because we are becoming shaky in our beliefs about what the Bible has to say about the state of lost people?

“It is clear you don’t like my way of doing evangelism. You raise some good points. Frankly, I sometimes do not like my way of doing evangelism. But I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it.” Dwight L. Moody

 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ESVUK

The very idea of being an ”ambassador” contains the double senses of humility and dignity.

The humility is found in that of service to another. The ambassador does not write his/her own script, as it were. Ambassadors do the bidding of their King, or Queen/government. They deliver messages on their behalf. They represent them. ‘Ambassador’ is such an important role and ambassadors need to be good at what they do. But it is never about them; always about another. They serve.

Yet there is no doubting the dignity involved in being the highest representative of one country in the heart of another. What a privilege. Christians are ‘citizens of heaven’ (Phil3:20) and yet we represent our King and His government here on the earth.

But was there ever ambassadorship like this? We don’t just speak for our King. He speaks through us

PRAYER: Lord, this text reinforces upon my mind the truth that preachers need to deliver your words and not their own. Keep all who preach faithful to their God-given script. May they not write their own lines. Grant that the message of heaven may be heard here on earth.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

The late great Liverpool football manager, Bill Shankley, famously said, ”Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.” Clearly he was being ironic, and yet, although his tongue was no doubt firmly in his cheek, this does show his passion for the game.

Recently I saw some video footage from a local football derby. It showed a portion of the vast crowd appearing to be violently aggressive in manner and speech towards the opposing supporters (who were probably goading them). I thought, ‘And there lies the whole divided world in miniature.’

”What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?² You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” James 4:1,2a ESVUK.

The world looks hopelessly divided, I know. But ”the message” and ”the ministry” of reconciliation offer hope. They tell us that when people are first of all reconciled to God, it is then possible for them to be reconciled to one another. Where Jesus, ‘the Prince of peace’ is allowed to reign, it is possible for peace and harmony to transcend and overcome all barriers erected by hatred, prejudice, fear, unforgiveness, and the like. Every local church should at least be a foretaste of what the universe will one day look and feel like when it is perfectly ruled by Christ.

 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 

In verse 19, Paul highlights two things God was doing in Christ:

1. He was ”reconciling the world to himself”. At the heart of this, He was dealing with the sin problem. (Note, this will be explained a little more in verse 21. How can it be that God will not ‘count’ our sins against us when we are so obviously sinful and such blatant sinners? We will see shortly);
2. He was ”entrusting” to the church ”the message of reconcilation”. So the order is that reconciliation was achieved at the Cross; then it is announced by the church. Still today the church has this sacred stewardship of the gospel.

‘…the reconciliation by God of sinful men to himself, effected once and for all in Christ, has lasting effects. It is not applicable merely to one period or to one group of people, but to all the world. Whenever the word of reconciliation is proclaimed by those to whom God has committed it, and whenever it is appropriated by an individual sinner, whoever and wherever he may happen to be, that person is reconciled by God to Himself, and his reconciliation means that God no longer imputes to him his trespasses, i.e. He no longer counts his sins against him.’ R.V.G. Tasker.

 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 

For anyone who has eyes to see, there is clearly something wrong with the world – very wrong indeed. The Bible diagnoses the root of our problem in terms of estrangement from God. This alienation, which is deeply felt, if not always understood, lies behind the need for ”reconciliation”. We live in a dislocated world; on which is ‘out of joint’ with its Maker, and therefore in pain.

One year, just before Christmas, some of the lads at my High school were playing football on the outside hard courts in a lunch break. My friend, Leslie, was shoulder charged by a hunk of a guy, who had fairly recently moved over from Australia. Les was immediately in great pain. I can’t remember ever seeing someone turn so white, and he was sickly. I accompanied him in the ambulance to Wigan General Infirmary, and for a time I didn’t see him while the staff attended to him. When I did see him again, it was a different Leslie. The pain had gone; the bone had been reset, and relief was written all across his smiling features.

God has made a way for a dislocated, out of joint, in pain world, to know the relief of healing. It is possible – and it is only possible – through Christ and His Cross.

 All this is from God… ESVUK

As God’s sovereignty is seen in creation, so it is with the new creation. We do not save ourselves. We cannot reconcile ourselves to God. This is a humbling truth, but one to be received with great gratitude.

 “We do not cause the new birth. God causes the new birth. Any good thing that we do is a result of the new birth, not a cause of the new birth. This means that the new birth is taken out of our hands. It is not in our control. And so it confronts us with our helplessness and our absolute dependence on someone (namely, God) outside ourselves.” John Piper

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ESVUK

The change of perspective regarding people, and above all about Jesus, comes from being made new: ‘’a new creation’’. A Christian is not a patched up old person; not like a tuned up old car. He/she is a whole new person.

“To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God, and ourselves, and the world, and the life to come, and salvation.” J.C.Ryle

Tasker observes: ‘…Paul in the latter part of this verse is in fact saying, not only that the entire world of his experience changes for a man who is ‘in Christ’, but that because there are new men in Christ the new order of things foretold in the prophet Isaiah has now become a reality (see Is.43.18). Each man regenerated by the Spirit of God is a new creation, and a world in which such new creations exist is potentially at least a new world.’

Tim Keller puts it like this: ‘The new birth is the power that God is going to use to regenerate the world, brought into your present.’