Sermon Notes
Bishop Geoffrey V. Dudley, Sr., D. Min
July 2 & 3, 2011
Sermon: What’s My Ministry?
Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 5: 18-21
18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation….19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Paul reminds the Corinthian church of their primary responsibility as believers. Every believer’s ministry is reconciliation. Sometimes the problems of life can cause us to loose focus on our calling but every Christina must understand reconciliation, as it is the heart of our existence as believers.
Point 1: My Ministry (vs 18)
Sometimes we look at the church to find a ministry instead of looking in the Bible to find our ministry. We are in search for man’s ministry and overlooking the ministry that God gave us, which is reconciliation. We use the faulty approach of “church shopping” to find which place has our ministry where we can “fit in”. With this approach, the options may be limited depending on the church because every church may not have the same ministries. When we don’t see the ministry we want, we tend to criticize that church. We get caught up in the “purpose of our destiny” and begin to confuse accomplishments for ministry.
Things to know about your ministry:
A. God gave it to you
B. God will give you what you need to be successful
C. What God gives you, man can’t take it away
D. What God gives you is more powerful than what comes from man
Point 2: My Method (vs 20)
Paul explains to the Corinthians that they should be ambassadors to a rebellious world. He explains that they must be ambassadors to a rebellious world, urging them to make peace with God and not be at war with God.
As ambassadors of Christ, we have an embassy, which is the church. The church is a place of safety and security and it is where you come to get your instruction on your ministry. Some of us are in a foreign land (enemy territory) because we don’t have instructions since we haven’t come to the embassy. How can you represent the Master without getting his message? The world is still at war with God and in order for the world to be reconciled with God, they must make peace with God. The enemy is rebelling against the authority that sent you. If you’re not declaring peace, you must be with the enemy. Never forget: we are representing God and not ourselves.
Point 3: My Message (vs 19, 21)
The sin mankind committed in the garden of Eden separated us from GOD but He imputed our sins onto Jesus. Although God knows you didn’t earn salvation, He deposited grace and mercy into your account. All you have to do is access it by faith. God had to work around his holiness so he had to reconcile the relationship with us: the answer was Jesus. He saved us from ALL our sins: from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. When we accept salvation, we’re released from the penalty of sin. We are not telling a message about how we saved ourselves, but rather how we were saved through Jesus Christ. We must realize that we don’t have to be guilty with our sin because we’ve already been reconciled through Christ. We’re always trying to tell our story, but we need to tell his story.
