Sunday Setup – 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2

[Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Hey, Cross Church. Welcome to the Sunday setup. This is the time where we have the opportunity to digitally gather our together on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and our podcast where we get to just read through the passage that we're going to preach through this Sunday. And as we read through it, we have some prompts that we will pray through. And the goal of this is to prepare our hearts, to prepare it for Sunday, that when we gather together, that God's spirit is working in us and his word can hit us where we are with what we need to hear so that we can live out and we can make Jesus known in our community. Today we're going to continue on in 2 Corinthians and we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 looking at verse 16 and we're going to read verse 16 of chapter 5 through chapter 6 and verse 2. But it starts out in 2 Corinthians 5:16. The Apostle Paul writes this. He says, "From now on then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. And see, the new has come. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, we also appeal to you. Don't receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At an acceptable time, I listen to you and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation." Paul and then this small little passage really just hits on this theme that we're going to study more this week, but he talks about this message of reconciliation that he says that Christ uh through God, he has he has reconciled us to God that because of what Jesus did, he became sin on our behalf. We are now have restored in our relationship to God. And I want us to start with kind of this prayer of thanksgiving, this prayer of praise to our God. is God, thank you for reconciling me despite. God, thank you for reconciling me despite. This could be despite the sin you have in your life. Uh despite the ways that you have turned away from him in your early years, is God still loved you? He still pursued you. He still died for you and he rose again to defeat your sins. Is God thank you for reconciling me despite? Pray that to our God. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] And God, thank you for reconciling us to you despite the fact that we are sinners, that we are born into our sin, that we have continued in our sin, that in the only nature we know in our flesh is that of sinning, of turning from you, of making choices that push us farther away. But despite that, you have revealed yourself to us in the form of Jesus Christ, that you died for us, that you raised again. And we thank you that despite the bad choices we make, despite the sin that is in our life, despite the mistakes that we make, you have reconciled us to you through your son Jesus Christ. God, we thank you for that. But we not only thank you that you have given us uh this reconciliation to you, but Lord, that you've also given us this me me this uh message of reconciliation, this ministry of reconciliation that we then get to live out in loving the people around us. in in verse 20 when he talks about us being ambassadors of Christ that we now get to reconcile with other people. We now get to share the good news of salvation that he talks about in verse two of chapter 6 with the world around us. And in this prayer as we prepare our hearts is here is where we turn our attention to other people. And for this time, I want us to get personal and for you to think about someone in your life and think about maybe people in your life that you need to be reconciled to that you need to forgive in your life. And here's our prayer is God soften my heart to reconcile with. God soften my heart. Because often we don't reconcile because our heart is hard that we don't want to just give up. maybe say sorry or we don't want to forgive someone that has wronged us is God soften my heart so that I can reconcile with pray that to our God. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Laughter] [Music] God, we are so thankful that you have reconciled us to yourself, that you forgave us of our sins. And God, as we think about the other people who maybe we have hurt or that have hurt us, God, we ask that we can forgive, that we can be forgiven by other people, that we can repair relationships, we can reconcile relationships, so that not for selfish reasons, not just to like bury the hatchet, but so that salvation can be made known to the people around us. God, I just ask that we can forgive others so that we can then make you known and we can give you the glory for it. That as we prepare for Sunday, God, we think of the people that in our lives with strain relationships and maybe those that don't know you yet. And Lord, you just use it as a foothold to make your name known. That you use it as a ministry, God, for us to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. And Lord, I just ask that you move in our hearts in this time. God, you prepare us through the rest of this week. And that as you bring us together Sunday, God, we can be part of the movement of reconciliation, our world, the forgiving movement that we see inside the church and through the church to the world around us. God, we thank you for this time and we lift all this up in Jesus's loving, forgiving, and reconciling name. Amen. Hey guys, thank you for joining us today. We'll see you on Sunday. [Music]