I just want to open up, obviously you see the passage at the top, but the letter to the Corinthians, both of them, we kind of get distracted because there's a lot of stuff to look at, there's a lot of rebuke to look at, but I actually find both these letters some of the best advice in all of the New Testament, the clearest instruction on sharing the gospel, and why and how, and mostly by the example of Paul, but he just gets very descriptive. The world has done us a favor in that many people have boiled the Bible down to a book of rules and essentially some Levitical law and some other things they find unsavory. And it seems difficult, and sometimes we get intimidated with sharing the gospel, especially with somebody who is you know, maybe a stranger or just as loosely in our lives and has found their way into our influence for whatever reason. But we get intimidated because the world is so much less Christian, let's say, than it once was. You know, 40 years ago, everybody had been to Sunday school at some point. Their aunt took them, somebody took them. My generation, probably half of us. So I grew up with probably half the kids on the block having some semblance of knowledge of the Bible. Whether or not they believe it, not what I'm addressing. Just there was this familiarity, and now it feels like All that the world puts forth about us is, you know, some little fraction of a verse that sounds bad or, you know, stone this person, you know, that's the Bible. But they've done us a favor because the scriptures are so beautiful. And now they have this impression. And now we go out and encounter them with the beauty of the scriptures. And it's shocking to them when you actually just show them what's in it, what's in God's word. I found that the reactions are like, oh, it says that? Yeah, yeah, this is the gospel. This is what the word of God says. But let's just look at a few and review. These are some things that I have spoken on before, so we're not gonna spend long. In 2 Corinthians, turn to chapter four with me. 2 Corinthians chapter four. And this was where I really fell in love with the letters of the Corinthians so far as it influenced my evangelism. Because when I was in college, I used to go out with a group called Open Airs at Cedarville. And it was like, they would take you out on the town in Columbus. and a group of us college kids would go out, and they would have you use all these clever ice breakers and stuff, and I would try, and I came across this passage once I got out of school, and I'm out on my own, and just had started reading the Bible more to find God more regularly, and for some time, somewhat obsessively, and I came across this. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, verse 2. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of some of your translation, Say, the open statement of truth, commending ourselves, presenting ourselves to every man's conscience. Wow, that doesn't sound like the methods I was taught, you know? Sneak into the discussion, you know? Let's weasel in there. And with some, and I'm not telling you not to use a story, not to use an analogy, but the object is actually to just manifest, to show, to bring light to the actual truth. And that was like, I know it seems so plain and so easy, but that just changed me so much how I would share the gospel. Like, and I found out that you can literally just walk up to somebody and go, hey, can I talk to you? They're like, um, okay. And you can just literally ask them about their, you don't have to have some clever question. You don't, you can just ask them about their, hey, do you know what the scriptures say about how you can deal with your sin? Because you believe you've sinned against God, right? Whatever angle you want to take, ask them a question. Show them the scriptures. And it was just eye-opening to me that I didn't have to be clever, I could just tell them And people kind of appreciate the genuineness. And then back to that passage we read in the scripture reading. The humility. And I've watched this as well. People can tell when you actually care about them. And you can't come down and meet somebody if you consider yourselves better than them. You can't fake it. We are hardwired in a world of fakes and generics and salesmen and commercials to spot disingenuous behavior. They all spot it. You can't fake like you care about them. I used to be a salesman. Oh, and I hated it. I used to be an insurance agent. People say insurance agent, it's just a salesman. It's a gross sales, sorry. For all of you that are in sales, I'm not against it. I just, I couldn't do it. And they would have these discussions about how to come across more trustworthy. And I'm like, could we just be trustworthy? Has anybody thought about that? They're like, I don't know what that guy's talking about. But the world's gonna spot you from a mile away. And so when we read that he picked you, one of the ways that we can keep that or grapple with that humility that is necessary. Remember, he picked you not because you were noble, not because you were wise, not because you were of good standing, not because you were able. But he takes what is weak in this world, what is insignificant, what is small, so that he can conquer. what is mighty, what is wise, what is high and lofty, and that he will be glorified. I remember when I was young, I'd be like, oh, if that person, oh man, if he brought that person, they'd have so much influence. He doesn't need you. He used a harlot on the wall in Jericho. He doesn't need your prestige. He doesn't need your nobility. And he says, I picked you exactly not because of that. Because you were weak. He wants somebody he can work through. So that's just kind of, those are things that I've taught on in the past. I actually came across this passage that is listed there at the top. Your 2 Corinthians chapter five. And I came across this phrase, this, Ministry of reconciliation and and I had just never given it much thought I had read past it a lot and you know read through understanding, you know, but I Had never thought about it this way So verse 16 of 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 Therefore from now on We regard no one according to the flesh. And I'm just gonna stop right there. It's right back to humility. And you might say, and I might say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't consider myself better than anybody. Oh yeah? Have you seen, who here has ever witnessed a Christian school? Like been in one? seen it taught there or just seeing the interactions yeah yeah have you seen how the i went k through 12th saw a lot how the socially despondent or the left out have you seen how they're treated in a christian school not amazing Not amazing. And guess what? They didn't learn it from nowhere. They're just as mean as any other school. We can't share the gospel if we think somehow we are above the recipient. And I know we do, I don't think that way, do you? How about when you encounter somebody that's in gross sin, deep, gross sin, and you can fill in the blank with whatever you would like. Can you look them in the eyes as an image bearer of their God? When we see somebody paying the penalty for their sins, do we go, they made their choices, So did you and God saved you. Yeah. They're going to pay the price and the consequence for their decisions, but we should have compassion and mercy on them. And it is not easy. And it is not easy. So I have encountered. 10, 12 times, people caught deep in very twisted sexual sin. Very. And the first time it was difficult. For me, I took them out to a restaurant, they were poorer. And it was difficult. But brothers and sisters, Do we really believe if not by the grace of God, there go I? Did you pick your family you were raised in? Did you pick any of it? And I'm not trying to take the edge off the message. I'm not telling you to present some sweet, edgeless gospel. That's not my point in speaking to you this way. But you must be eye to eye with them. They will know immediately if you are condescending. And your words will fall on deaf ears. He regarded no one according to the flesh. Well, how did Paul live it out? How about Onesimus in the book of Philemon? His letter to Philemon pleading for this slave who was a criminal and a slave. And did Paul, was Paul just happy for Philemon that Philemon was helping him? No, he loved Philemon. He spoke of him as a son. Somebody way lower on the social order. Social order does exist. It really does. I have a boss. I expect that he tells me something to do, I'm gonna do it. I have people that work for me. I expect that when I tell them, go do this, they're gonna go do it. But guess what? That's according to the flesh. In the spiritual realm, in all reality, on the end stage, we're all right here, and that's it. And we must be able to confront people with boldness and humility. If you have genuine humility and compassion on them, it makes room for boldness. It is very hard to be angry at somebody who you can tell genuinely cares about you. So I'm not telling you to take the edge off of the message. How about the example of Christ? Who did he hang out with? He got ridiculed constantly for hanging out with tax collectors and sinners and drunkards. He didn't become one of them. He didn't absolve them of their sin like it wasn't real. He called for repentance, but he loved them and he had genuine compassion on them. and he dwelt with them. He didn't just try to deal with them from arm's length. So I would just ask us to challenge ourselves. Are we evaluating people on what they're worth to us, on what they add to our lives? Have we been caught by where we are socially and in the flesh? I don't know, just challenge yourself. Maybe you don't. I've seen a lot of I know a few of you, in fact, are not in need of repentance. I know a few. I wish I could say names, but I would just make them blush, and they don't want that. But there are some people in here I have watched just embrace anyone. And you can hear the truth in their voice. They think no less. They're just hurting. They're broken. And it's hard because they're against you many times. They're angry at you. But when Paul gets into this ministry of reconciliation, the first thing he says here is we regard no one according to the flesh. Let's keep reading verse 16. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. Verse 18. Now, all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. This is the phrase that caught me and I'm like, you know, I guess I really never thought about what I'm doing that way. I think we, and it's right. There's many angles of the gospel. This message is not, this is the only angle to the gospel, and this is how you need to think about it. This is, but it's one that gets left out, I think, in the presentation. Because we think many times just about sin and the payment for sin, escaping punishment, and how you can go to heaven. But One of God's end goals in all of this is that he was reconciling people unto himself. One notice, he is the reconciler. He's the one doing the reconciling, and it is unto him they need to be reconciled. This is where the relationship is broken. But we're not just saving people or trying to pull people from away from the punishment of sin. And then we're not just offering a way for them to be forgiven and everlasting life. And I'm not saying these things are lesser. That is not my point. But I feel like Sometimes we leave out the part of the message that you need to be brought together with God. Your relationship with your creator is broken. You are standing asunder to him. You are standing opposed in a position that is opposed to your creator. And Paul viewed it here as that he had a ministry to reconcile, to help, not for him to reconcile, but to call people to a reconciliation with their creator. I wanna skip down for a moment to verse 20. Our tone. Verse 20, 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. I just wanna remind us here that there is There must be an urgency to our message. There is certainly a time when scattering the seed is all we can do. In passing, very short opportunities, yes. But I think sometimes we take the parable of the sower. You remember, you know, he sows the seed and it falls on different hearts. And we take that as if it's how to evangelize. The parable is showing the divergence of the different hearts and the recipients of the gospel that some will hear and receive. It wasn't a lesson on how to sow. That's not the purpose of the parable. Yes, we do scatter seed. Sometimes, yes, that is all we have to do. But look what Paul says here as to how it is done. Verse 20. Once again, as though God were pleading through us. It's just kind of unbelievable if we have this crucial, critical message, it's life and death, and we speak it so trivially. It's not believable. And I'm not telling you to fake it. Like I said, you'll smell it right away. It's over. When I was in high school playing varsity basketball, me and some of my friends were outside in the back parking lot of Emmanuel Baptist High School and I had this brown Ford LTD that my grandma had inherited me, 1984 Ford LTD. If you don't know what that is, it's just, we'll just call it ugly. And it's this brown car and the hood, the hood was sun faded for 15 years. So it was kind of like this throw up pink color that the brown had faded into. And it was about the most ugly, my friends called it the beast. And my friend Marcus, my back's turned, I'm talking to him, he said, Morsi, your car. What? Morsi, your car! I turned around and the car's rolling across the parking lot. I fell out of gear apparently. So I'm chasing down the car. Listen, if we really want... Marcus wouldn't just be like, hey Tim. Your car. It's rolling away. I would be mad at him. In the rest of our lives, in everything else we do, our tone matches our message. Did you catch it? I did, I did catch it. I dove in the side door, we got it. About six inches away from a car. I was fast then, I'm not so fast now. In every other instance in our life, it just does. Our tone matches the message. We have a precious message of dire consequence and exciting end game. And if we can't fake it, and I'm not telling you to fake it, then what am I telling you? Why aren't we more urgent? I'm sure there's a variety of reasons, and I'm not gonna try to point out every one. I'm not telling you to put on some face in the... Oh, this is so... I'm not telling you to embellish. The gospel doesn't need embellishing. The creator of the universe died on behalf of his creation. It doesn't need embellishment. It's huge. But we just tiptoe so much. Like we're embarrassed of the message. That's what our words cry out, that's what our tone says most of the time, is that we are embarrassed of the message. I once had a man, and he would come to me, he was also a believer, and he would see me with my Bible at break, and I work in construction, not exactly the cleanest of all trades, verbally. And this one guy claimed to be a Christian, and he would get me aside, like, after everybody else got out for a job, and we had to go to a different one, he'd be like, And then he'd try to talk to me about Christian things, you know. And somebody else steps in the car as quick as he can. I said, Greg, why do you do that? Why do you do that, Greg? Oh, I said his name. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do that. It's bad practice, folks. I said, why do you do that? And he says, oh, I just think that our faith, that that's a private matter. Oh, OK. Said, you know what Jesus said about it? What? He said, whoever denies me before this wicked and adulterous generation of him, I will be ashamed before my father and the holy angels. And I'm not, some of the greatest differences weren't like these great flag-carrying revolutionary, take over cities, go preach on hilltops. I'm not telling you. But what has God already placed in your lap? Who is sitting right in front of you, well within your reach, in your realm of influence? I'm not telling you to go take on the world. Who's right there? He has made a complete pattern throughout the scriptures. Yes, we remember the parting of the waters and some of those great, magnificent accomplishments, David and Goliath. But how about the faithfulness of Philip evangelizing to the Ethiopian eunuch? Just that. The man was placed right in front of him. The man had a question. Yeah. So that's the way that Paul says, as if God were pleading through us. And I want you to notice in the previous verse in 19, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and committed to us the word of reconciliation. This is our tool, is the actual word that we have to share, the gospel of reconciliation. the gospel, that Jesus Christ, we have that. And one of the darkness's favorite things to do, as I would encounter people, especially like, you just see, and I use that with my group this morning as well, but you just see how he just guards them. And one of his favorite tools is to distract and to get them onto tangents while you're trying to share the gospel. But it's not just drag them back to topic. There's a way. Look at Jesus with Nicodemus. One thing we don't do is listen very well. We have a pitch, and we're trying to barrel through it. This is critical information. I'm trying to barrel through it. But look how Jesus spoke to Nicodemus. Nicodemus had a question. Jesus answered it. then guided him right back to the vitality, to the critical nature of the cross, of the gospel. Paul at the Areopagus. Yes, much is made of his clever Appeal. I noticed that you have many gods. Why? Yeah, it's very clever. But guess what he does right back to Jesus Christ in the resurrection. And who knows how far he would have gone had the place not outburst and interrupted the speech. But very quickly. Well, it's right at the end. Well, listen, it was like four sentences. How long does it take you to get back to Jesus? In a discussion. But Paul. Yes, he considered where they're at. One of the problems is, we're not listening. They're gonna tell you a lot, so probe them with questions. Use questions, ask them, and actually listen to them. They're gonna tell you a lot. But yes, you must bring them back, because we have this word, and that is the power. God is the one reconciling them. and the darkness would love nothing more than for us to be over here in left field discussing microbiology and why it verifies the young earth. Hey, I'm all about it, and there is fields for those debates, and I think we need to be able to stand up for those things. A one-on-one discussion is not that place. With the unbeliever, there's a place for it, answer the question, but it needs to come back to this vitality, because we have this message, and that's all we have. I want you to notice also that he is speaking to the Corinthian church when he says in verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. So we implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. He is speaking to professing Christians, be reconciled to God. Thought that was interesting. I thought for sure I would get into the language and find out he's just saying, like the we is the, who he's speaking to as well, all of us church, we, so we implore. But no, he's actually speaking to them, be reconciled to God. We beg you. Once again, listen to his tone though. We beg, we implore. It's not like, hey, we casually invite you. So one of the many problems that comes up is that we ourselves are in a broken state with God. And it is very, very difficult for us to utter the words of the gospel when we ourselves are at odds with God. We treat these things that separate us from God like they are merely things that we're not allowed to have because we're Christians, or things I shouldn't do because it's bad. But it's that thing that keeps you away from the arms of God. It's that secret sin or that thing that you just baby. That sin that you know you have, the one that you just baby along because it's not that big a deal. Be reconciled to God. Because if we are not drawn near to Him, we have no message. We certainly have no convincing one. We go out, and I've actually seen the looks when you have this message you're trying to get out. And I really want us to focus on the heart of that, not judging anyone according to the flesh when it comes to these parts of your life. They will spot you. I've seen the turnoff, the immediate turnoff. It's the right message. It's a nice delivery. But they just know. And I've also seen harsh, callous words. They're like, oh, he said what? I had a friend who was good for that. He'd be out sharing the gospel with us. And he'd just say something, and I'm like, oh, that's, wow, that's kind of harsh. But he was so genuine. He cared for their souls, and they knew it, and they couldn't even be mad at him. He reconciled you. We should be zealous for other people to be drawn to him. It's not just a bunch of people trying to escape hell. We have been brought into the arms of God through Christ. Some of the quotes in the song that we sang at the beginning are right out of this passage. Right before that, right as he's introducing this whole concept, if one died for all, then all died, and he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but he, for him who died for them, and rose again. And I think in the end that is the thing that keeps us from it the most. It is really hard to get out there and get your hands dirty in the lives of another human being when we are self-obsessed. Nearly impossible to feel genuine compassion when your life is so busy and pity me. I have a world of guilt in this area. Well, you know, you have what you have. Yeah, but it's still, he did not give you something in one area of your life so that you could be disobedient in another. Yeah, I have eight kids and a whole lot of other things that I volunteered to do. And it is very, very easy to just stop caring about a fallen world. to be cold, callous, to see the destruction and just ignore it. But there are people in my life, there are people in your life right now that need to be reconciled unto God. And you have the message. You literally have the remedy, you have it. We just need to break out of our bubble here. Did you hear what he said in verse 15, right before this passage? That those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them. So yeah, we must. I can't be derelict of my duty as a father and go out and Yeah, there's some things I can't do now that I used to do, but it is not a hall pass that I can just let everybody around me go on without the Lord. And I would just like to close with this one concept we looked at, me and my Sunday school class looked at this morning. One of the things that made David so unique is that he was so jealous for the glory of God. And if our zeal is actually that God become more famous, that he be glorified, that he not be mocked, I'm very good at protecting my reputation, making sure people know that I'm a stand-up guy at work. Check the box. I have effectively created a reputation at work in which I am trusted. Good boy, Tim. Well done. How is the reputation of Christ among my coworkers? What have I done to bring more honor to him? That he be thought of in a higher light, not myself. And I'm not talking huge things. I'm not telling you to make posters. But there are things right in your life that we just walk by every day. And I know it because when I was more sensitive at times, I saw them and it felt like opportunities were there all the time. And they are. Just be faithful in the little ones. Just love them. Just love them. You can't fake it. You can come up with the best little pitch and read the best 10 steps to personal evangelism. You read whatever you want. If you don't love those people, they're not hearing you. But if you do, it makes room for a world of both of us. You can be completely direct. And if they know you care, they might be mad. Man, it just, it just lands so much different. Let's pray. Our father in heaven, we come before you as broken people. failing, weak. We know you are the one that goes out for us and reconciles hearts unto you. And it's only the message of Christ that can accomplish these things and that you will go out for us. Grant us boldness, Father, when we believe you and we step out. Grant us compassion like you had. These things are from your hand. These aren't things we can manufacture. We need them from you. So we pray for them now. Hearts that see out beyond ourselves. Eyes that see the hurt and the end of the things and the lives of the people who are falling around us. Give us that humility, that genuineness, the compassion to actually care about them. Give us your heart, your eyes, your words. Draw us alone to yourself, that we may live for you and live near to you. Please, Father, grant us your spirit. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.