Text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21<\/p>\n
The Great Exchange<\/p>\n
Grace,
\nmercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
\nJesus Christ. Amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes
\nfrom the Epistle which was read earlier.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s
\nhard being a pastor. We get up each
\nSunday, stand before our congregations and we preach about sin. We preach about the sin that first came
\nthrough Adam and Eve, we preach about the sin that we have, we preach about the
\nsin that Jesus doesn\u2019t have. In our
\nministry, people don\u2019t like to hear about sin. If a couple comes for marriage counseling and we ask if they are living
\ntogether, the answer has a strong possibility of being yes. When we tell them that living together before
\nor without marriage is a sin, we become the bad guy. Who are we to judge them? What right do we have to judge their
\nbehavior? <\/p>\n
When
\npeople are unhappy about not being able to take communion because they are not
\na Lutheran, we tell them that we are not a \u201cmembers only\u201d club, that we are
\nfollowing the words of Scripture. We do
\nnot commune them for their benefit, not because you have to be a card-carrying
\nmember of The Lutheran Church \u2013 Missouri Synod.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At
\ntimes, we pastors are seen as Public Enemy #1. So why do we continue to
\nbe pastors? Wouldn\u2019t it be easier for us to just quit, find a different
\njob where
\neveryone likes us and we\u2019re happy? What
\nkeeps us in the Office of Holy Ministry and in the pulpit week after
\nweek? The love of Christ compels us. The love Christ has for those for
\nwhom He
\ndied and rose again is the force that motivates us. And the love of
\nChrist
\ndoesn\u2019t compel just us pastors. It
\ncompels all Christians. Every human
\nbeing is one for whom Christ died. By
\nthat substitutionary death all persons, their sin, and their sinful
\nnature are
\ndead. People who are redeemed by Christ
\nare not to continue in sin or factional infighting, but to live for Him
\nwho
\ndied and rose again for them. Martin
\nLuther wrote that \u201csin is forgiven not so that we may continue in it
\nbut that
\nwe might break loose from it; otherwise it would be called a permission
\nand not
\na remission of sin.\u201d It is, therefore,
\nto further the aims of the loving Savior and to prepare His people to
\nlove and
\nserve Him in return that Paul preaches. It is for that reason why we
\npastors continue
\nto preach.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nmessage that Paul gave to the Corinthians is the same message that pastors give
\ntoday: Christ died for all people, and because of His death and resurrection,
\nwe live for the One who died for us, Jesus Christ. I\u2019ve said this before and I will say it
\nagain. Christ just didn\u2019t die for the
\nrich and aristocrats, or for the poor and the lame. He died for all people, regardless of who
\nthey are. Jesus, unlike sinners, doesn\u2019t
\nplay favorites. He treats all of us
\nequally: all as sinners.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Through
\nJesus Christ, we have died to sin and been made alive in righteousness. Our old self was crucified with Christ and
\ndied there as surely as He died there. From the throes of death rises a new man fully redeemed and cleansed in
\nbaptism to the glory of Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a The Jesus, <\/p>\n Jesus <\/p>\n As <\/p>\n Being <\/p>\n Paul, This Now Text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 The Great Exchange Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes from the Epistle which was read earlier. It\u2019s hard being a pastor. We get up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nnew creation: the old one has gone and the new has come!\u201d<\/em> Our sinful self, though it is still very much
\na part of us, is no longer seen by God. When God looks at us, He sees us wrapped in the holiness and sinlessness
\nof Jesus Christ. We have been made holy
\nby the blood of the Lamb who died on Calvary\u2019s
\nmountain. While it is hard to understand
\nthat we can be \u201csimul justus et peccator,\u201d<\/em>
\nat the same time sinner and saint, that is exactly what we are. When we were brought into the family of God
\nby our baptism, we became saints, even though we are very much a sinner. Our old sinful self is now gone and replaced
\nwith the newness of Christ\u2019s righteousness. <\/p>\n
\nkey to all of this is to remember that it is not anything that we did. Paul makes this point yet again in our text,
\nas he does in several of his letters to the various churches: \u201cAll
\nthis is from God.\u201d<\/em> Paul doesn\u2019t say that this is from us. He doesn\u2019t say it is from what we or someone
\nelse did. God has reconciled us
\nto Himself through Christ by forgiving us all our sins, by counting them
\nagainst Christ instead of against us. In
\nChrist, God does not impute sin to us. Indeed,
\nthe whole world is the named beneficiary of this reconciliation. God now considers all people<\/u> to be different from what they were. Formerly, by
\nbirth and nature, they were His enemies to be cast into eternal punishment. Now
\ntheir status is changed to make them holy and blameless in His sight. This is the saving grace of God\u2019s love for
\nHis people.<\/p>\n
\nthe Word made flesh, is our substitute. He is the second Adam, undoing what the first Adam did by his
\ndisobedience. He will take our place
\nbefore His Father and buy back all of humanity. Through His unlimited atonement, the whole world is reconciled to God.<\/p>\n
\nlived our life perfectly. He became
\nfully man so that He would qualify as our substitute. Righteousness is
\nwhat He brings to God. But instead of righteousness to guarantee
\nGod\u2019s approval, He trades it all away to us for our sin. Jesus\u2019
\nrighteousness becomes ours by faith,
\nand our sin becomes His.<\/p>\n
\nI said, this isn\u2019t easy for us to understand. But that\u2019s the good part
\nof all of this: we don\u2019t have to understand
\nGod\u2019s forgiveness to receive God\u2019s forgiveness. You don\u2019t have to
\nbelieve in the forgiveness of sins to receive it. Christ died for all people<\/u>, even those
\nwho choose not to accept it.<\/p>\n
\nin Christ, being a new creation, is quite a gift in and of itself. But Paul tells us what it is that we are to
\nbe: \u201cbe reconciled to God.\u201d<\/em> Those who receive the reconciliation as their
\nown, who give up trying to reach God by their own good works and take
\nforgiveness and life as the gift it is, they are the ones who are finally and
\neffectively reconciled to God. All
\nothers, rejecting Christ, reject this reconciliation. These are those who choose to be reconciled
\nto self, seeking their own vices in a vain effort to bring about salvation of
\nsome sorts. Everyone knows that Jesus
\ndied for all, so it doesn\u2019t really matter what it is I believe or what it is
\nthat I do. I still have my golden ticket
\nto heaven. That is exactly what Satan wants
\nus to think and believe. But Scripture
\nsays otherwise. \u201cGod made him who had no sin
\nto be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nin simple and forceful terms, gives the gist of the \u201c\ufeffmessage of the reconciliation.\ufeff\u201d<\/em> Jesus had no sin, being born without it. Yet God made Him to be sin, so covered Him
\nwith the sins of the world that Christ became, as it were, sin personified.
\nWhen God regarded Him, He was affronted by all that sinful nature had become
\nand wrought, the sorry history of humankind, all its wickedness, and the ruin
\nof its goodness. But it was there, in
\nChrist, that we are made the righteousness of God. Our sins are stripped from us, and the holiness
\nof Christ becomes ours.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cmessage of reconciliation\u201d<\/em> that Paul
\nspeaks of is our ministry, all of ours responsibility. Our Lord\u2019s great exchange, His power of
\nreconciliation has been given to us as our ministry of reconciliation that we
\nare to share with others. We are ambassadors,
\nmaking known the wonders of God who desires mercy and grace toward His
\ncreation. Just as we are no longer to
\nsee ourselves in light of our old self, so we are no longer to see others in
\nthe same way either, because God no longer sees us in that light. The gift that God has given to us He has
\ngiven to the whole world, the gift of forgiveness and the righteousness of
\nGod. Amen.<\/p>\n
\nthe peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
\nChrist Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"