The Commission of Christ Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Commission of Christ Part 2. He will be reading out of 2nd Corinthians 5:18-20.

You don’t become a saint because you achieved great things for God. You don’t become a saint because you sacrificed so much for God. You don’t become a saint because you’re a missionary for God. You become a saint because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from The Open Door Church. We’re delighted that you could tune in today. This is Hope Worth Having broadcast, and today we’re going to be in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 18 through 20.

And we’re going to be talking about the commission of Christ. You know, the Lord has an assignment for each and every one of us. It’s important for us to know that assignment and to carry that assignment out each day.

So let’s get our Bibles. Let’s begin to study together the commission of Christ. Have your Bibles this morning. Join me in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. We’re continuing our study through the book of 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 18 through 20. I want to talk to you about the commission of Christ, the commission of Christ in each of our hearts. Christians are God’s ambassadors, and He has called us to be an ambassador to the world.

And we have a commission, and our commission is to preach and proclaim, to tell the Gospel to every heart, to every home, to every person. And that challenge that Jesus gave to His disciples in the Gospels has not diminished.

It is not diminished because our circumstances change. But rather, God is still calling ambassadors, and He is still calling us to be witnesses, and He’s still calling us. servanthood. The Apostle said in Romans 1 .15, so as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

There was an anticipation and an eagerness in the heart of the Apostle to tell others about Jesus Christ. He did not require much motivation for him to be able to share the wonderful good news of Jesus Christ.

And God has called all believers, no matter who you are, to proclaim the gospel. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be a pastor. You don’t have to be a missionary. You don’t have to be in some kind of a particular ministry.

It doesn’t matter who you are. We are all, as believers, called to tell others about Jesus. We have received this commission. and this calling from God. God is our authority, God is our source. He is the one who has touched us and He is teaching us that we must tell others.

Now as worldwide witnesses, we must be aware of three things and we see these three things in our text today. And before we dive into those, let me just read our text in verse 18. Now all things are of God.

I’m in verse 18 of 2 Corinthians 5. Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.

Not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

What are these things that we need to be aware of as ambassadors as we understand this commission that God has given us? First, let us understand that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

Again, look at verse 18. All things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Every one of us has been given the ministry of reconciliation if we are true believers in Jesus Christ.

Now He starts out this verse by saying now all things are of God. What is He talking about? He is referring back to verse 17. So let’s go back to verse 17 so we take this in context and he reminds us of this great verse.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new what? He’s a new creature, a new creation. And all things have passed away and behold all things have become new. That sums up the work of salvation in your heart and in my heart.

What the apostle is reminding us that this great work of salvation is from God, is a result of God. All things are of God. What things? The things that he just referred to about this new creation. When the apostle teaches us about this new creation, he says that the old things have passed away.

This is my progressive position in Christ that as a believer, I am progressing. forward for the Lord. I am moving forward for Jesus Christ and our old things are passing away as I am walking with Jesus, old attitudes, old habits, old sins, old thoughts, things that are dishonoring to God, things that are built upon the flesh, things that are focused on selfish desires.

These old things every day in my life, as I walk with Jesus Christ, are progressively passing away in my life. This is what God desires. It’s not that the Christian would go backwards or even stay neutral, but that the Christian life would be a progressive growth in the Lord Jesus Christ, where we are constantly having old things pass away in our life.

And so as you review your heart and you review your walk with God and you’re looking at your spiritual life, that’s one of the indications you wanna see. That’s one of the factors that you want to see manifested in your life, that you are progressively allowing old things that God is pointing out into your heart day by day, month by month, year by year, that you are taking the steps to let those old things pass away.

But he goes on to say in verse 17, all things have become what? They have become new. This is my position in Christ. I am progressively in Christ growing, but positionally, I am already seen as a righteous person.

I am a saint of God. You don’t become a saint because you achieved great things for God. You don’t become a saint because you sacrificed so much for God. You don’t become a saint because you’re a missionary for God.

you become a saint because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life. And so when God looks at your life, he sees the robe of righteousness of Jesus. And that’s why you are positionally new in Christ.

That is why your position before God Almighty is that I am a child of God who has been redeemed, my sins have been washed away, and I stand before him as a righteous person. Now the mistake we make as Christians is that sometimes we become a little arrogant about that.

That our position in Christ gets to our head, and it affects us in the way that we treat others. We think perhaps that we’re better than others. We’re above others, but the truth is the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

And the truth is we need to be humble, and we need to recognize that we are servants, and God has called us to serve others, and that there isn’t any one of us. that that’s better than the other. It is by the grace of God that we are who we are.

And if it were not for the grace of God, we would find ourselves in the mess that we see so many people in throughout this world. So we do not come arrogantly recognizing somehow that, hey, I’m a child of God and therefore I’m better.

This is what happened to the Pharisees is that they saw themselves above others. And Jesus crushed that by reminding them that even at the best, even at their best, they miserably fell short of God’s righteousness.

Jesus said to the Pharisees and to the crowd in Matthew 5, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Now you couldn’t have found a more religious people than the Pharisees, more legalistic, more zealous about what they believed was essential to entering into the kingdom of God.

And that’s why that message was so startling. But the point that Jesus wanted to make is that even at your best, you can’t even touch the righteousness of God. The great prophet Isaiah said that our righteousness is as filthy rags before God.

The best of Mike comes miserably short of the perfection and righteousness of God. And that’s why by faith in Jesus Christ, that righteousness is imparted unto me. And praise the Lord, we should be humbled that God would give us his righteousness.

We should be humbled that he would save our souls. We should be touched in our hearts with great, great thankfulness that God. God would not only save us, but He would bestow upon us forgiveness, grace, and mercy so that we are positionally in Christ.

All things have become new. All things have become new. Now this is what the apostle was pointing to when he says in verse 18 that all things are of God. These new things are all of God. These new things that I’m experiencing as a believer are all of God.

It is God who initiates salvation. It is God who is reaching our hearts and takes that initiative to draw us into the family of God. Now I know that there may be some of you that might think somehow because of your great heritage and wisdom that you are the reason that you are in Christ but the Bible says we love Him because He first.

love us. Aren’t you glad that Jesus first loved you? I mean even when you weren’t even thinking about God, God was thinking about you. Even when God was not even a part of your life and you were checked out and you were focused on what you wanted to do and what your dreams were, there was a God in heaven who was pursuing your heart.

The work of salvation is from God. To help us understand this even better, John, the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 12 and 13 really puts it in a nutshell for us. Note as you follow along here, it should be up on the screen, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power authority to become the sons or the children of God, even to them that believe on His name.

So that is our response to the Gospel. But note, which were born not of blood, your heritage doesn’t make you a Christian. You’re not born again because of your of your family or because you were born in the right family, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

You are born again because of God. Your salvation is because of Him. There is no ability to appease God in the sinner, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Again, I call your attention to James chapter 1 verse 18.

He says, of His, referring to God’s own will, He brought us forth by the Word of Truth. It’s the same idea, is that because of God’s will, He brought us forth as believers to be born again. How did He do it?

By the Word, because the Bible says that faith comes by what? Hearing, and hearing the what? The word of God. Faith comes by hearing the word. And so it is James says that of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Meaning that we are the first fruits of the creation. It’s the idea of the farmer who begins to grow the crop and those first crops that begin to spring up are just an indication of what is to come. The kind of fruit that is to come in the crop.

And so it is that we as believers are the first fruits of the great work of salvation that Christ has done. As we have sprung up, God has planted into our hearts the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we have responded to that gospel.

God initiated, he reached out to us and he brought us into the family of God. as we repented and believed in Him. Now take your Bible and just back up a little bit. Don’t lose 2 Corinthians. We’re gonna go back, but I gotta bring some things into context for you.

1 Corinthians chapter one. I want you to just back up to 1 Corinthians chapter one. You need to note these verses. 1 Corinthians chapter one verse 30 and 31. 1 Corinthians chapter one verse 30 and 31.

It’s very important for you to get there, pull it up on your device or get your Bible out. Whatever works for you. I just want the word of truth to be read by you this morning. I want you to come to learn, to grow, to be sanctified by the truth.

If you’re an unbeliever, I want you to be touched by the truth that you would be saved. Verse 30 says, but of Him you are in Christ Jesus. Some translations put it like this as a result of Him. As a result of God, you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.

The apostle was making it clear that we are in Christ as believers positionally because of God, because of what God has done for us. Because He is the one who pursues us and draws us. He is the one who sent His son.

He is the one who loved us first. And He is the one who gives us the wisdom from God. Some of you might say, hey, I was smart enough to believe. No, my friends, you weren’t. You and I were not. The Bible says we were dead in our trespasses, but He awakened us.

Praise God. The gospel illuminated our minds and our thoughts. The gospel helped us to understand. And so it’s God’s. wisdom that helped us to understand the gospel, to believe the gospel. You can’t even give yourself credit there.

And he says, goes on and says that he became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So God from the beginning to the end of our salvation. Remember, I’ve taught you that salvation is not just the moment you get saved.

Yes, you are positionally saved. And yes, you are justified before God. And he declares you to be righteous before him. But there’s a sanctification. The old things are passing away. But note in our verse of chapter one of 1 Corinthians, verse 30, he says, not only righteousness, that’s the day you decided.

Sanctification, that’s what you’re going through now as you are growing and allowing old things to pass away, but your redemption. He’s not just using another word to describe your salvation, but he is showing the full scope of salvation to you.

It’s the redemption of your body. It’s the redemption, that is the culmination of your salvation, is that one day you are going to rise again as believers in Christ, and you are gonna stand before God in a glorified, immortal body, and from the beginning that you decided to believe in Christ, all the way to the end where you are finally resurrected, and you have a redemptive body standing before God Almighty, God is the authority and source of your salvation.

And so that leads us to verse 31 of 1 Corinthians chapter one, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. So why would God from the beginning to the end be the one who reconciles you so that he might be glorified?

You cannot take any credit for your salvation from beginning to end. You cannot take any credit. You must give him all the glory. He who glories, let him glory in who? The Lord, he deserves all the credit this morning.

He deserves all the glory for what he has done for us. And that’s why the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 5 .8, that all things are of God. He’s talking about your salvation from beginning to end. He’s talking about your position in Christ.

He’s talking about your progressive growth in Christ. He’s talking about the old things passing away and all things becoming new. It is all the result of God. And so let God’s people say amen. Yes, I know it’s early But you got to do better than that.

Let God’s people save man This is your salvation. He deserves glory You come into the house of the Lord this morning There’s nothing to complain about Nothing because you are a sanctified believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you come worshiping and Rejoicing that you know Christ as your Savior You’ll note in verse 18 of chapter 5 of 2nd Corinthians.

He said he has given us the ministry of reconciliation It is God’s will that sinners be reconciled to him Romans 5 10 tells us that for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God By the death of his son much more being reconciled.

We shall be saved by his life So I want you to know that God is not in the business of burning bridges But God is in the business of reconciling people to Him. And this is why it’s never too late to come back to Jesus.

It’s never too late to give your heart to Christ. This is why as a pastor that it doesn’t matter, man, you could be on your deathbed. I want to try to win you to Christ as long as you have breath, as long as you have life.

I wanna do everything I can to lead you to Jesus Christ. I have seen people on their deathbed when I shared the gospel with them, squeeze my hand and say, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they have not said it verbally, but they said it when they heard me say the gospel and I told them to squeeze my hand if you believe in Jesus.

Now it’s not recommended that you wait before you die to get saved, amen. It’s better to be saved young, it’s better to be saved and not have to deal with some of the craziness of this world and the foolishness of the flesh and to be led down the wrong paths by the devil.

It is so much better to give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ. 70% of people in church today came to Christ as a child. That’s why children’s ministries are important. That’s why we should invest in the young people because they need to come to Jesus Christ.

I came to Christ through the bus ministry and I came to Christ as a young 11 year old boy and I praise God for that. I praise God for that, but I want you to know no matter how old you are, God loves you and no matter how much of a mess you’ve made of your life, God is ready to reconcile with you.

Now we have been given this ministry of reconciliation, each and every one of us. This is the message we must proclaim. This is the message we must get out to every person. is that we must help people understand that they can be reconciled to God.

And note in Romans 5 .10, he says, that we are reconciled by the death of his son. And much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. So again, there it is. The death and resurrection of Christ brings about the reconciliation of sinners.

It is what Christ has done on the cross for us, makes it possible for us to be reconciled to God. The prophet Isaiah again said that your sins have separated you from your God. And so our sins separate us from God.

For all of sin, we already learned. And it is our sinfulness that separates us from God. And so praise God, Jesus Christ took the punishment. He took the penalty on the cross for our sins. But his resurrection is a part of our salvation as well.

Not just in the fact that we are saved and forgiven by God, but he is raised again so that we might have a future with God, that we have not only the power of the cross, but the power of the resurrection that sanctifies our hearts and helps us to live with hope knowing one day we are going to live with God forever and ever, and that not only are we gonna live with God, but all of our loved ones who believe in Christ are going to be united with us as we live with Christ forever and ever and ever.

Now we this morning need to be aware of three things. First, that the ministry of reconciliation has been given to us, but the message of reconciliation has been given to us. Look at verse 19. That is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

The word of reconciliation, meaning the message, the message of reconciliation. Our message is that God’s forgiveness is made possible through the cross. Our message is that God is calling people to true salvation, and that there is only one way to be reconciled with God, and that is through Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me. Now please understand, there are not many roads that lead to heaven. There are not many paths that eventually lead to heaven.

There is only one way to heaven, and that one way is through the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that we live in a pluralistic society, and everybody… wants to not offend others and we want to make everybody happy and we want you to feel good and so we say hey this or that but the bottom line is this there’s only one way to heaven and that’s through Jesus.

Now on the flip side we got to be careful as believers because we say well if you’re not a part of my church or if you’re not a part of my denomination or if you’re not a part of my particular faith, meaning the strand of faith, the particular doctrines that you might believe, then you can’t go to heaven.

Listen to me friends probably the biggest shock you’re gonna have is that you’re not the only one going to heaven when you get to heaven and you’re gonna be a little surprised at who you might see in heaven.

You might be surprised who’s not in heaven but the one thing is this the most important thing doesn’t matter the title of your church it doesn’t matter what label you go by. It doesn’t matter even in the finite details of the doctrines of the faith that you might embrace.

What is most important is the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ. And so if I meet with a brother or a sister in Christ who maybe we don’t see everything eye to eye, but the one thing that we see together is that Christ is the only way to heaven.

And she believes or he believes in Jesus Christ, then my friends, they are a believer in Jesus. Now, you know, as I tell people, you know, we may have to straighten you out a little bit. Just kidding.

Maybe they need to straighten me out a little bit. How about that? Yay, thank you, brother. Leave it to Brother Don. He still owes me a Cracker Barrel breakfast. He hasn’t paid his dues yet. So he needs to take the pastor out for a nice Cracker Barrel breakfast.

So making a comment like that, he owes me big time. So that’s the problem. That’s the problem. The pastor gets the last word because he’s in the pulpit. Now, I want you to know, I love you, Brother Don.

We appreciate you. And I want you to know that this message of reconciliation that we recognize, this wonderful message that we have is in Christ. Christians are God’s ambassadors in this world. Our commission is to preach and teach the gospel to the entire world.

The challenge that has been given to us by our Savior has not been diminished. God is still calling each and every one of us to be a witness for him. And I hope that you hear and sense and understand this calling in your life and that you will commit your heart to fulfill this commitment.

that is so desperately needed because the answers in this world will not be found in the world. They will only be found in Jesus Christ. I want to encourage you to make sure you check out our YouTube channel.

If you go to youtube .com and just type in Hope Worth Having, you can see our channel. And there’s, again, many videos. We have a lot of videos of Q and A, interviews, and of course teaching, and you can get up to an hour of teaching of the Bible, or you can get as little as a few seconds and minutes to just have something that’s inspirational and encouraging.

The YouTube channel is a great resource where we put all of our sermons, and they are all archived, and it’s a great opportunity if you have a different topic or subject that you want to learn about.

You can go back and you can study all that together. So make sure you go there. Make sure that you subscribe to our channel. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.