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Continuing our series looking at how we are created in the image of God we develop the ideas we encountered last week. Last week we stated that all believers, whether gifted specifically in leadership or not, are called to lead unbelievers towards Christ, because we are created in the image of God and therefore, in part, bear His role as authoritative ruler. This week we will look at this evangelistic call more specifically.

One of my favourite Christian leaders said recently that churches should do away with worship departments and mission departments, because everyone is called to worship and everyone is called to mission; not everyone is called to children's ministry, for example. While I do not fully agree with the outworking here I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. Whether we have an obvious spiritual gift of evangelism or not we all have the responsibility to be evangelists in some sense. Perhaps this will not work itself out in an 'Ephesians 4 ministry' style, but this same call has come to each of us. Let's have a look at 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 and hopefully you'll see what I mean:

'[God] through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 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. 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.'

Apart from this passage being one of my favourites it is one which does not take an enormous amount of searching to discover simple truths. Read it through again carefully, and I would love to highlight a couple of key points.

...the ministry of reconciliation...

I would love to start with these words. I have been to many conferences and the question is often asked: 'Who here is in full-time ministry?' I feel that my hand should go up, despite the fact that my salary does not come from any local church, denomination, or Christian charity. I, like so many others, am employed full-time to make money for my secular bosses, yet I cannot say that I am not in full-time ministry. In these verses Paul tells us that we have been given 'the ministry of reconciliation'. It is my job, your job, our job and full-time ministry to bring this 'message of reconciliation' which we have received to those who have not yet received it. The vast majority of Christians' first contact with the church is through a relationship; mine came partly from my parents and partly from two friends I went to university with. Who was your first contact with Jesus? Who would you like to be the first contact for? If you, like me, are employed full-time in a secular workplace then please do not deny that you are being employed as a full-time evangelist in that setting!

A teenage girl recently gave her testimony in my local church. She began by saying, 'I came to this church because I was invited by Sam Isason, Icason, Isan - Sam,' and a friend after the service said to me, 'another mention from a new believer - how do you get people to become Christians?' My answer was simple: 'I do not. I ask everyone I know if they would like to come to church to hear the good music, to experience the joy, to see the sick healed, and some say yes. When they come along someone else takes over!' My illustration is not to say that I am great and that you should emulate me, but that my flawed invitation to everyone has occasionally been the seed that has grown to produce fruit. Jesus himself said, as recorded in John 4: 'Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.' Whether you are called to be a sower or a reaper embrace the ministry of reconciliation as one given to you by God.

...the world...

While this would be an opportunity for me to jump on the conditional vs. unconditional bandwagon I will not, for this phrase gives us a far more interesting insight into God's view of imago Dei. While the phrase 'the world' is used Paul continues with use of the word 'their' and 'them', rather than 'its' and 'it' - in the Greek this grammar would be incorrect unless Paul were talking about one entity yet many individuals, one good example of which would be the Trinity - one God, three Persons. The message behind this point is not one to do with evangelism, but is one which will help us to understand more of what it means to be created imago Dei. God reconciled 'the world' to Himself as one item 'in Christ', yet that reconciliation was also a personal, individual reconciliation to you and to me. This truth gives us a sure hope in that the church is reconciled to God, and therefore if we know we are a part of the church then we know that we are reconciled to God as individuals. In addition it brings a challenge; because the church is reconciled to God as one entity it is with this in mind that we should carry the ministry of reconciliation. Paul did not write this passage with mental pictures of an enormous evangelistic crusade and an overwhelming altar call followed by a move to the next big city, he wrote it with mental pictures of the global united church. It shocked me to find out that the author of a very popular 'Christian' fiction book, The Shack, has not been part of a church for 12 years; please do not give up on God's plan for reconciliation, and please do not leave new believers to find their own way into the church. God's reconciling work is for the church, so let us unite behind Jesus and bring his love to the unsaved through his community, his bride.

...on behalf of Christ...

We will return to this concept in the future but a part of the culture in which Paul was writing, which would be useful for us to be reminded of now, is that of ownership. A slave would often be branded or tattooed with a likeness of his or her master to enable the authorities to recognise ownership, and this was something Paul and his original readers would have been well aware of. The fact that we carry the image of God means that it is natural to assume that we do His work - we are 'ambassadors for Christ'. Of course, the best example of evangelism in all of history is that of Jesus himself, who gave up the riches and comfort of heaven to enter into the world of his insignficant creation. Let us emulate that example and step out of our comfort zone every so often to show others Christ's love, justice, work, mercy, death, and resurrection. Christians too often stand on their soapbox and declare that everyone in another camp is wrong, yet never bring that into a context which unbelievers understand. Let us be those who copy Christ in that he took the first step into our world, became like one of us, humbled himself, came under enormous torture, told us what we were doing wrong and showed that the only way to the Father is through the Son.

...he made him to be sin...

And this truth is the truth that underlines everything in all of Scripture and all of history. We live in a fallen world, filled with sin and folly. Jesus' act of stepping into our world of sin did not affect him like it does us - the Bible tells us in Hebrews 4 that Jesus 'in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin'. It is as if we are all covered in absolute filth, dripping with excrement, vomit and decay; some has been voluntarily accepted and some has been poured onto us, yet Jesus could shake our hands and he would not become dirty as we are. While some offer God their works as means for salvation Isaiah 64 declares that 'we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.' If we come before God saying, 'look at what I have done - grant me salvation' it is as if we, covered in our own flith and the filth of others, are offering up to the perfect King of the Universe a disgusting pair of dirty underpants, saying 'reward me!'

This illustration is horrific, and intentionally so - the Bible never comes close to saying anything remotely positive about sin, and rather uses shocking language intentionally to describe it, which is why when Paul writes that Jesus literally 'became sin' we should be shocked. That filth we are all covered with? Jesus actually became it - he was not just covered in it, he BECAME SIN! There is no wonder that Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was 'if there's another way please let's do that'! This awesome miracle should make us physically sick, bow down in awe, moved to radically become more godly and declare Jesus' love for us to everyone we know; I would say that if you recognise the truth of what Jesus did for you but do not want to let others know of that same truth you need your head examined!

"Word from Scotland" from Sandy Shaw

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