Sermon Notes

Living as a Reconciling Community

Associate Pastor Mike Brown
May 4, 2008

2 Corinthians 5:14-6:2

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says,

“In the time of my favor I heard you,

and in the day of salvation I helped you.”

I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

Message—Living Out the Reconciliation Ministry in Community

Reconciliation

Community—The Body of Christ

• Thinking about community within our cultural context
• What makes us a community?
• What makes our community different?

Ministry to the World

• Justice
• Mission