Who Am I? How Reconciliation Should Impact Your Answer

In getting ready for Sunday’s message that will finish our 4 week Involveagram series, I was encouraged to think about the gospel – the good news that Jesus came, died for our sins, and rose again, making it possible for us to be forgiven and reconciled to God if we would repent and trust the Lord Jesus as our Savior. Specifically I was encouraged to think about some of the impacts in our lives of being reconciled to God, impacts that should inform how I look at myself. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 is a passage that has helped me think about those impacts. It reads:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 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.  ¹⁶ 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.  ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸ 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. ²⁰ Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 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.

In brief, here are five impacts those verses tell us are true about followers of Jesus:

·         Impact #1 – You Receive a New Life – 2 Corinthians 5:17 – In being reconciled to God, we receive new lives – literally we are new creations.

·         Impact #2 – You Gain a New Outlook – 2 Corinthians 5:16 – instead of looking at people based on gender or ethnicity or socioeconomic status, we can look at people in light of eternity. So often we put barriers between ourselves and others people because of short-term stuff. But when with the new perspective we gain through being reconciled, we can invest in relationships across what used to be barriers.

·         Impact #3 – You Report to a New Leader – 2 Corinthians 5:15 – being reconciled means that the Lord Jesus is really the driver of my life bus, which means that my life is being led by the smartest, most powerful person there is. But that raises a question: Why I follow the best leader? My life can be very different when I do.

·         Impact #4 – You Are Stimulated by a New Motive – 2 Corinthians 5:14 – Lots of things can be the driving motive of our lives. Paul wants us to know love can be that motive of our lives, specifically verse 14 it telling us that we can be motivated by Christ’s love for us. Sometimes starting a new day is hard, but think of how different each day can be when the spark in our lives is not the cup of coffee we might crave, but will soon wear off, but instead is Jesus’ love for us that He declared in dying on the cross while we were His enemies.

·         Impact #5 – You Have a New Mission – 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 – when you receive Jesus, you are given the privilege of joining God’s State Department as His ambassador to your home, school, neighborhood, workplace, and social networks. There is a very real purpose for your life.

If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus you need to see yourself according to those impacts. That is who God reconciled you to be. Lots of things can influence how we view ourselves. But because of what the Lord Jesus did on the first Christmas, first Good Friday, and first Easter, one influence can truly be the most influential. Please, live according to the person God has reconciled you to be. Many will be blessed by the impact of you being the God-reconciled person you are in the Lord Jesus.