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Jan 17, 2021

What’s Given is What’s Needed

What’s Given is What’s Needed

Passage: 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: All Things New

Keywords: righteousness, reconciliation, new creation, sight, ambassador, reason for being

We tend to think of the grace God gives us in terms of its benefits to us. On that count there is no doubt. But what if the grace given us turns out also to be what the world most needs from us? Paul’s greatest desire in this passage for his listeners is that they not receive the grace of God in vain--not give up on it, not settle for an alternative, not fail to make the most of what it offers. In what that grace does for us is clear where it reaches deep within us. But we also need to see how what comes to us is in fact what our world is most desperate for--perhaps like it never has been before.

Order of Worship

OPENING PRAYER: To Live In Christ
CALL TO WORSHIP: Romans 8:19-23 & 2 Corinthians 3:18
OT READING: Ezekiel 36:23-28
MESSAGE TITLE: What’s Given is What’s Needed
CENTRAL TEXT: 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2
CONFESSION OF SIN (See below)
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
RESPONSE: Communion (Outdoor service only, weather permitting)
BENEDICTION: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Readings & Scriptures

OPENING PRAYER: To Live In Christ
LEADER: Jehovah God, creator and upholder of all things. It is our privilege is to be
under the care of your wisdom righteousness, mercy, and grace.

ALL: It is the discovery of Your goodness and mercy alone that can banish our fears, allure us into Your presence and help us to confess sin. For in You there is mercy and kindness. Exceeding riches through the finished work of Your Son.

LEADER: May we always feel our need of Jesus. Find all joy and strength in Him.
O Blessed Spirit, enliven our hearts. Renew our mind. Work in us the image of the heavenly.

ALL: That we may know Christ and live in this good news.

CALL TO WORSHIP: Romans 8:19-23 & 2 Corinthians 3:18
LEADER: 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

ALL: 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

OT READING: Ezekiel 36:23-28
23 I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. 24 ‘“For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

CENTRAL TEXT: 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2
11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 1 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 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.

RESPONSE: CONFESSION OF SIN
ALL: Jesus, who sat at the table with outcasts and sinners, we confess that too often our words and actions are not consistent with our identity as new creations. As if the old has not passed away, we often ignore the needy, show indifference to the lonely, and reject those who seem different from us. Forgive us, we pray in light of what you have done for us in the gospel. Because the new has indeed come, empower us by your Holy Spirit to reach out to all in love for the glory of your name. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Romans 8:34; 2 Corinthians 5:17
LEADER: Hear the good news! Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us.
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old life has gone; a new life has begun. Know that you are forgiven,and be at peace.

ALL: Thanks be to God.

BENEDICTION: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
LEADER: 16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Isaiah 44:18-19
  • Romans 6:3-4
  • Jeremiah 31:31-34

ILLUSTRATIONS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Two ice-breaker questions: 1) What’s new (or at least different) about you as compared to last year--both good and bad? 2) What in your humble opinion does our world most need? Imagine several possibilities.
  2. How did Paul originally see Jesus--how did he conceive of Him? How did that understanding change? How does Paul see that change of perception of Christ change how he perceives all people? How are we tempted these days to see one another in reductionistic ways? How is this new way of seeing Paul outlines perhaps vital to preserving our fragile society?
  3. Paul contrasts a life lived for the self with a life lived for the One who died and was raised for us. Why is a self-focused life not merely bad? Why is there loss in it? How does a life lived for the good and glory of Jesus meant to offer a good life?
  4. What forms your inner confidence--even if that confidence waxes and wanes? How might believing that you are in fact reconciled to God and having His righteousness form that inner confidence? How is it supposed to?
  5. What will reconcile a polarized world? How can the message of reconciliation we’ve been entrusted with become a resource for us in a world largely giving up on reconciling?

QUOTES:

  • If we want to be serious about our own humanity again, rather than fearful of it,  we needn’t look any further than the source and summit of our practical life, which is our natural longing for happiness, where happiness is understood not as feeling good but as the total and permanent fulfillment of our capacity to desire what we know is truly good. . . . We must try to see in what direction this desire ultimately points us, which is outside of ourselves. - Jennifer Frey 

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