2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to 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.
Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Tonight, I chose somewhat of a shocking title, good people go to hell, bad people go to heaven. Many of you who came in we're noticing it, and we're talking about it today. Now, if you have been a Lutheran for very long, you might have seen through the shock of it, Lutherans, we know, only bad people can be saved to sinners, because that's who Jesus came to die for. And that is what St. Paul is helping us to see. When he tells us that what he is saying in second Corinthians chapter five, he says, We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Be reconciled to God, he says. What he says is that there is a distance between God and humanity. That distance is caused by our sin. From the very beginning, human beings have separated ourselves by our own sinful nature, and the things that we do. But even more than that, we don't have to look just at our actions, we can see the ever encroaching power of death in our lives. Every year, we feel it just a little bit more in our bodies, and in our bones. And every year, that phrase that I tell you, when I put that ash on your forehead, from dust to have come to dust, you shall return. Well, it feels just a little more real. And that's because of sin. That's because of death. And the distance we have between God and us. Even an infant child born yesterday, has the same distance as someone 90 years old. We are all approaching death. But St. Paul gives us a reassurance, that through Christ, we have eternal life and righteousness, reconciliation with God. He says, For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. St. Paul is telling us that for our sake, God sent Jesus Christ, the only perfect human being sinless from the moment he was conceived. He sent him to take on our sin and die in our place, so that we could have God's righteousness. Jesus Christ is a righteousness, the righteousness for sinners. So he says, We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. So the real question then is, how? How can we sinners be reconciled to God? That's the real question. The church isn't divided about our need to be reconciled. At least the Christian church isn't just about every Christian you ever talked to says yes, we do need a savior. We do need to be reconciled with God. We need someone to come and die for us. The question is always how if good people go to heaven, or bad people go to hell. For many people, that's the way we talk. We talk as if the Christian church is a place where good people go to work on their spiritual muscles. We gather together and we pick up our weights we do our leg presses, our squats, we make sure that we never skip leg day. We pull out the barbells we do our bicep curls. And if you're really excited about it, you don't do your just your exercises at church, you do them at home too. And the most buff of us the ones that can be most impressive. We make Instagram reels and show off a powerful spiritual weights that we can lift. Sometimes we say that the Christian church is a place for good people, to become better for Christians to turn to our own works and get comfort from the good things that we do. And I think it's because we Americans are a positive people. We like to think of ourselves as pick yourself up by your bootstraps and get going. And you can do it with Tim Robbins and Joel Osteen and people like that. Be reconciled to God then turns into looking at your own spiritual abilities, your prayers, your devotions, your life. Now, it might sound like I'm exaggerating just a little bit. And sometimes I do that for a fact. But I have an example of something that is supposed to be inspiring something that is supposed to tell us how great it can be to be a Christian who is a good person working on their Christianity. It's a song called Rise Up Lazarus by Kane. And the song is really great. I mean, it's it's peppy, it's exciting. It makes you feel good. And there's this chorus where it's like, rise up, rise up. It's really fun. Until you get to the words. Here they go. In the dark and all alone growing comfortable. Are you too scared to move and walk out of this tomb, buried underneath the lies that you believe safe and sound stuck in the ground to last to be found? You're just asleep. And it's time to leave? Come on, rise up, take a breath. You're alive now. Can't you hear the voice of Jesus calling us out of the grave like Lazarus, your blank, brand new. The power of death couldn't hold you? Can't you hear the voice of Jesus calling us out of the grave like Lazarus rise up, rise up, rise up out of the grave like Lazarus. You can hear it there can't you? It's this idea that we can hear the voice of Jesus and climb up. God is calling us to a brighter and better future we can be those Christians we want to be and it Jesus is just calling and you can do it. But can you? I look at those words. And if I'm honest about my life, I can't have I left behind all the lies I once believed Am I able to really pull out of the grave that I find my life in. In fact, when I look at my sin, when I look at the things that make me most frustrated, that make me most sad about my life. Sometimes the frustrating part is that I love it too much. I can't leave it behind behind. In fact, when temptation comes I don't even try to get away from it. I just dive in headfirst, I embrace it, I love it. I can't get enough of it until it's gone. And then I hit myself again. In a church where it's all about lifting our spiritual weights and showing off our spiritual muscles. Rising up is not good news. When you're frustrated like that, you say, Oh, come on. Can't you hear the voice of Jesus calling? You come out of the grave like Lazarus. You can do it Christian rise up, rise up. Can't you hear the voice of Jesus Jesus calling your brand new the power of death couldn't hold you can't you hear the voice of Jesus calling us out of the grave like Lazarus, rise up, rise up rise up. That's not good news is it? In fact, that's terrible news. You're just not good enough to come out of the grave. If only you truly heard Jesus's voice, if only truly you listened that's why we need a savior. Someone to be sin for us, so that we can have his righteousness. You see, to be reconciled to God means that you are a sinner who needs a Savior. And that's why I titled this sermon. Good people go to hell. Bad people go to heaven. It's the bad people who look at words like rise up Lazarus and think to themselves. There is no way I can do this. In fact, I have nothing that I can give God. I'm just a sinner. I don't leave behind my lies. I don't pull myself out of the grave. I've got nothing. All I can do is turn to Jesus and cry out. Save To me,
and just for people like that, that Jesus gives them, his righteousness. He came to give us his perfection. That's why his whole life was about perfectly following God for us in our place. Because we simply can't. And what St. Paul tells the Corinthians and us is that now is the time to receive that perfection, that reconciliation. God sent St. Paul to the Corinthians, as a pastor and an ambassador of Christ, telling them out saying, be reconciled to God. St. Paul says, working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of Christ of God in vain for he says, in a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time Behold, now is the day of salvation. And that message is the same for you today, now is the time to call out to Jesus, I am a sinner, I am a bad person, I need you to save me, now is the day of salvation to cry out to Him and say, Send someone to reconcile me with God. And that is why he sent Paul and why he sends pastors do you see, we don't turn people to their works, and say, Get up, you can do it. We tell people, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We have a pastor who says, I forgive your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And then we give out the medicine that leads to eternal life, Christ's Body and Blood in the bread and the wine. These are not things that you can claim in spiritual strength. They're not inspiring, they don't call you to be the great person that you want to be. They're just a simple gift of life, given from one center to another, with the power of God, for salvation. Jesus saves people through these things and he saves you through them. Bad people go to heaven. Now, that favorable time won't always be here. The day of salvation won't always be around. There will be a day when Jesus closes the door of grace. Maybe it'll be the day when when a person dies. Maybe it's the day when Jesus returns. On that day, good people will turn to Jesus and say, Jesus, look, I left behind the lies I left behind my sin. I heard your voice and I climbed out of my grave I trusted you. I served you I gave you I did everything right. They'll present their good works to Jesus. And He will turn to them and say, I never knew you. He will cast them out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Because that's not how people get salvation. when good people turn to their their spiritual strength and say, Look what I did for you, Jesus. They don't get salvation. It's sinners, who are saved. Bad people who cry out to Jesus saved me. Give me life. Forgive my sin, give me your body and blood. And then Jesus welcomed them into his into His eternal life. Because Jesus didn't come to save good people. He came to save sinners like you. In his name, amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai