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A Recap from Sunday’s Sermon 

Preaching Text: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

I was talking with someone from my neighborhood who shared, “I believe in God.  I try to be a good person.  Hopefully that’s enough.”  Ultimately, this is his perspective on the crucial question: How can people be made right with God?  It only makes sense to look at what God says and 2 Cor 5:21 is one of the clearest passages that outlines how we can know that we are in right relationship with God.  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This verse shares four central truths:

1. Jesus lived a perfectly righteous, sinless life. “He knew no sin”
2. On the cross, our sin was counted to him and borne by him. “God made him to be sin”
3. By his death and resurrection, he defeated sin and death. (See 1 Peter 2:24)
4. If we confess our sins and believe in Jesus, our sin is forgiven and his perfect righteousness is counted to us. “In him we might become the righteousness of God”
   

In Christ, we have a new standing before God: when God looks at us, he actually sees the righteousness of his son.  It is Christ that makes us right before God.  2 Cor 5:18 says, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”  God has reconciled us so that we can have a living relationship with him.  Click here to watch this powerful story that gives us a human example of the divine truth of God's reconciliation of us.

Taking It Home: As we prepare for Holy Week, deepen your relationship with God through attending the services and reading the passion accounts in the Gospels that walk us on the road to the cross and the empty tomb.  Also, you have been given the ministry of reconciliation, so look for opportunities to invite people who don’t know Christ to hear this good news at the Easter services