God Transforms Us to Use Us

Search committee, it is my honor to introduce Pastor Jeremy Simmons. Jeremy served in the mission fields of Indonesia and is now with the church in Lexington, South Carolina. He and his wife, Becca, and their two children, Annie and Luke, reside in Lexington. Jeremy is an alumnus of Charleston Southern University right here in Charleston and Southeastern Seminary. Please welcome Jeremy.

I thought I was just guest preaching today. Yeah, so like Mary said, happy to be here with you all. My wife, Becca, is here. Our kids are somewhere in the back. I trust in good hands and yeah, whoever’s taking care of Annie, we’re going to pray for them in a moment. So yeah, like Mary said, Becca and I, we served in Indonesia for a few years. So I want to thank you all actually because of the way the Southern Baptist Convention works. Y’all give to something called the Cooperative Program, which is a fund that all 46-some-odd Baptist churches in America contribute to. And in that fund, various ministries are funded and supported, including the IMB. So in a way, y’all had a hand in sending Becca and I to Indonesia for a couple of years. I just want to say thank you. We could not have done it without you, without your prayers, without your financial support and happy to bring some of that back to y’all.

So yeah, like Mary said, I’m on staff at a church in Columbia area, Lexington, South Carolina. I lead our groups ministry and I’ve got incredible excitement for what God is up to here in Sauldam Baptist Church and Greater Ravenel and all that. Something else you need to know about me is I’m an aspiring hunter and I recognize how big of a deal it is for y’all to be here. I know that this is the weekend that you can start getting does. So the fact that you’re here is a big deal. So I appreciate that. But I should say aspiring hunter. Okay. Not a, not full time. So, but here’s the big deal. Something I want to encourage y’all in something that I want to really talk about is the fact that God is posturing Sauldam Baptist Church for a new season of influence and fruit. That’s just the, that’s the story. That’s the truth of the matter. Y’all have an incredible wave of opportunity coming to you. And I know regardless of Beck and I joining y’all or not, y’all want to posture yourselves and take advantage of that.

And we all want to make our lives make a difference, right? Like there’s none of us in the room today that want to just coast through life, not really doing anything of significance, never having an impact on others. Not a single one of us in the room. So here’s the thing. I believe that God has something to say about that. You know, back in 1841, there was a group of believers that wanted to make their lives matter for something. And they settled down at Sauldam and they founded a church. And that has been here for almost 200 years. You don’t start that unless you want to make a difference in your community. And I’m thinking about the next 200 years for y’all. And I know, I know y’all want to capitalize on that. So how about this? We’re going to pray. We’re going to open God’s word and we’re going to see what does God have to say about making our lives make a difference.

So if you will pray with me, Jesus, thank you. God, thanks for today. Lord, there’s a number of us feeling a number of things in the room right now. God, all of us on some level are just hopeful. Lord, I just, I’m grateful that we can have hope in You regardless of what today is, regardless of what next year has. God, I pray that You would really get a hold of us this morning. Father, for myself as a preacher, that I would get out of Your way and that You would speak with these folks. Lord, I thank You that Your word speaks to all peoples in all times and all places. God, I pray that today, this morning, You would speak to us. Father, we love You and it’s in Your incredible name that we pray. Amen.

Well, if you have a Bible with you or if you see one in the pew, I want you to open up to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We’ll be in verses 16 through 21. If you’re a note taker this morning or if you’re not, there’s one thing, really, just one thing I want you to take away from today.

And that’s the fact that God transforms us to use us. He transforms us to use us. So how about this? I’m going to read God’s word for us and then we will start to unpack it and see what that transformation means and what it looks like when God uses us.

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 this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. 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, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making His appeal through us, we plead on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. And one of the most incredible verses in all the Bible, 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. All flesh and grass may fail, but God’s word stands forever.

So here we are. What does God have to say to our lives being significant? What does He have to say to us at Sauldam Baptist Church this morning? He’s got this one message for us. God transforms us to use us.

And we see that transformation in verses 16 and 17. You look at these mentions of who is available to be transformed. Paul starts right out the gate. Anyone. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. That means that for those of us in the room that aren’t quite sure about this whole Jesus thing, you can be transformed. That means for the neighbor down the street that we’re not quite sure they know Jesus, they can be transformed. That means any of us, any one of us can experience new life in Jesus Christ. But that new life, like I said, only comes through Jesus Christ. Christ wants to transform people. He wants to make new creations out of people. And that’s available to who? Anyone. Paul is abundantly clear. There’s not a single person in this entire world beyond the scope of God’s grace. That means you. That means your family member that’s been rejecting Jesus. That means your friends that scoffs at your face. That means the person at your work that doesn’t understand why you get up on a Sunday morning and you come to church. Anyone. Anyone can be transformed.

Now, Paul, he had to re-understand this whole Jesus thing. Now, he was raised a Jew, which means he knows his Old Testament way better than we ever will. He understood there are so many promises that God was making about this Messiah, this Savior for the Jewish people. But when Paul reads his Old Testament, he sees promises of a king who is going to conquer the people that were conquering Israel. And he had to have his whole understanding changed. Because when Jesus came, Jesus didn’t come as a conquering king throwing the Romans out. He came as a suffering servant dealing with an inward problem. Jesus did not come to transform communities by putting out a local government. He came to transform communities one heart at a time. That’s how the church grows. One heart at a time being transformed.

So what caused this perspective shift for Paul? It’s a question I’ve got, at least. In verses 14 and 15, just a little before our passage, it’s not on your screen. So if you’ve got your Bible, just go a little north of where we’re at. And Paul writes this, For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. Jesus’ love compelled Paul through His own sacrificial death. It is on the screen. I was surprised. Okay, Paul had to personally deal with the reality of Jesus dying and coming back to life. And in that process of Paul reconciling with that and thinking through that, Paul’s whole perspective about people was changed. Simple fact of the matter is, No one can accept the love of Jesus for themselves without offering the love of Jesus to others. You can’t do it. You just can’t do it.

In Matthew 5, verses 14 and 15, Jesus said this. For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses. Or think about in John 13:35. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Jesus is clear. If you claim Him as Savior and Lord, if you see Him that way, then you’ve got to offer people grace too. And that’s what Paul is talking about. He used to view people according to a human perspective. How much money did they make? What family did they come from? What did they used to do? What did they now do? That’s not how he viewed people anymore. Because when he met Jesus, he started to recognize people are either in Christ, they’ve trusted Him for forgiveness, or they’re way over here. And they don’t know Him. And they haven’t trusted in Him yet. Those are the only two perspectives that Paul had for people. And those are the only two perspectives we can really have for people too. At least that’s what the Bible says.

So if Christ’s word is final, how do you view people? How do you view that neighbor of yours that does stuff you wish they wouldn’t? Or that neighbor that doesn’t do the stuff you wish they would? How do you view that family member who still won’t apologize for what they did? How do you view that co-worker that stabbed you in the back to get the promotion instead? How do you view that person who doesn’t look like you, doesn’t do the same stuff as you? Paul is saying there’s only two ways to view people. Followers of Jesus or not, God transforms our perspective. Transformed people then ought to live transformed lives, right? And that requires a transformed perspective.

So I want to talk a little bit as we go through the passage now down to verse 18 and 19 to talk about how real transformation comes through total reconciliation. All right, I’m going to read these verses again. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And He has committed to us or committed the ministry message of reconciliation to us. This real transformation comes through total reconciliation.

I’m going to use another big word, all right? Something else you’ll learn about me is I’m a nerd. I can’t hide it. It may be shocking. I’m an aspiring hunter, but it’s not shocking to anybody that I’m a nerd. And that’s fine. I’ve grown to accept that in my years, and that’s fine. Reconciliation is this relational dynamic of atonement. So you hear about the day of atonement in the Old Testament. It’s this theological idea that where there used to be two parties, they’ve been brought together. Atonement is at-one-ment. And reconciliation is what happens to the relationship.

Now, see, when I was married to Becca, we became before God one person. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a fight every now and then, right? Thanks, Buck. So when we have a fight, we have to reconcile. We have to undergo reconciliation. So that’s what Jesus has done for us. He hasn’t just made a way for us to be forgiven by God and other good theological things. He’s made a way for us to actually enjoy God and to be in a good relationship with Him.

So how does He do that? How does God bring us together with Him? He does that in an incredible way by exchanging a bad relationship for a good one. I’ve got a little personal story there. I’m in high school and I’m dating, just like my first real girlfriend thing. That’s not a big deal, except for the girl broke up with another guy to date me. Now, that was a big deal. Apparently, when we were teenagers, that was a big thing. So the only fight I ever got in, again, shocker, I’m not much of a fighter. The only fight I ever got in was with a guy named Brandon, the girl’s ex-boyfriend. So he corners me one day on a Saturday. We’re playing football with our friends or whatever. And I’ll let you imagine who won the fight there. And Becca laughed on that one. I don’t know why. So we get in this fight and it ends probably as quickly as it started or whatever. And we go our separate ways. And I wish I could say that I was the bigger man and I made it right with him. But He comes to me and he says, “Jeremy, man, I was a jerk. I should not have done that. I had anger toward you and I took it out on you and I’m sorry.” So we end up actually going to Darlington Motor Speedway to watch a NASCAR race, which I don’t, I mean, for, yeah, that was how we made up. A lot of time in the car together and watching other cars be together. It was an interesting way to reconcile. But that was like a personal experience that I had. Me and that guy, Brandon, were enemies. And he crossed the gap of our relationship to make it right. And he came close to me. When I didn’t deserve it, when I didn’t ask for it, I certainly didn’t earn it. And that’s what Jesus has done for us.

In Colossians chapter 1, 19 and 20, it says, “God was pleased to have His fullness dwell in Jesus and through Jesus to reconcile everything to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven. How? By making peace through His blood shed on earth or things in heaven.” And it was through His own sacrifice. That’s how God reconciles.

So as we come back to 2 Corinthians 18 and 19, we see that God does not count our trespasses against Himself. Trespass, that’s just an interesting word for sin, offense. It means when we go over God’s stated boundaries. Trespass, we want to make it this big theological word. But you get onto my property and you’re not supposed to, you understand what trespassing means. And we’ve done the same thing to God. God has this boundary marker around His will. And when we step over that boundary, we go where we’re not supposed to? Trespassing. And God, in His kindness, doesn’t count our trespass against us. It’s like He says, “You’re in the wrong and I’m going to put you in the right. And I’m going to forget about you crossing the fence.” So that’s what God does for us.

Reconciliation then between me and Becca or between you and your family member or you and your co-worker requires that you overlook the trespass and you treat somebody better than they deserve to be treated. That is what God has done for us. We become transformed by God because God doesn’t just sweep our stuff under the rug. He doesn’t even count it against us. He forgets it completely. And that’s what He wants to do for you. That’s what He wants to do for your neighbor, your family member, your enemy, the friends that you secretly judge. That’s what He wants to do. He wants to forgive and forget trespasses.

And in that, God gives us this ministry of reconciliation, which is part of the craziest aspect of all this for me. The fact that God would take me, His enemy, and make me not just His friend, but a minister of this gospel. Imagine that. God doesn’t just forgive you, but He wants to use you so that He can forgive other people. If that doesn’t blow your mind, then you may not understand just the badness of what you’ve done and the goodness of who God is. God wants to transform you so that He can use you. When we join God in helping others be transformed, we’re engaging in the ministry of reconciliation. And that is God’s design for your life. He’s got a special will and special winding path for your life. But the overarching goal is that you would help people be transformed by being forgiven by Jesus. That is what God wants you to do.

And for Sauldam Baptist Church, guess what? I know the path forward, but it’s not in here. It’s right here. God wants to use this church as a ministry of reconciliation. For people that are lost to be forgiven by God and for people in this community to reconcile with one another and for people to reconcile honestly with themselves. That’s what God wants to do with Sauldam Baptist Church. His design for a local church is not that pastors would do all the ministry. No matter who occupies this pulpit a month from now, they are one person. But you look out into the pews, imagine the ministry that could be done by the people in these pews. That’s God’s design.

Becca and I, we long to be part of a church where members share the weight of making disciples, where leaders meet with others to help them process where they are spiritually to take their next step, where people are governed by the Holy Spirit’s clear directives to all believers, where members actively embrace forgiveness and actively give it to others. One of my favorite memories of the church that I serve at right now is going to a local sandwich place for lunch. I’m going to go meet up with a guy. He’s going through some hard stuff and we need to talk through something. And I get to the parking lot and I see another pastor’s car and I see a small group leader’s car and I see somebody else that I know and I walk inside and those three other people are doing the same thing I’m doing. And as a group, we are engaging in ministry together.

That’s what Becca and I long for. That’s the type of church we want to be a part of. And I think that’s the type of church that God wants to make Sauldam into. A church where people are shouldering the weight together, carrying it forward as a group, as a family.

And where does God want this church to engage and interact? In the world. He says, God was reconciling the world to Himself. There’s a world of people out there that need to know Jesus. And you don’t need me up here to tell you that. In fact, a lot of them are moving here. You just pull up any sort of census data and you see Ravenel and West Ashley and Somerville are beyond getting big. It is here. There are thousands and tens of thousands of people moving to this pocket of our state. And I know that y’all want to reach and y’all want to engage them.

Imagine all the places they’re coming from. Imagine the families they’re coming from. Imagine the spiritual environments they’re bringing with them. Imagine the hope that they have for their life and the seriousness of things they’re wrestling with. And God wants y’all to engage that. He wants y’all in Poplar Grove. He wants you in Homecoming. He wants you in Summerville. He wants you in West Ashley and Somerville. He wants you down in Hollywood and other places that I can’t quite pronounce yet. He wants you there. He wants you engaging there. Making disciples. Helping people meet Him and know Him. That’s His design.

It’s not a question of should I move to Indonesia or not. Though I want to process that with you. It’s a question of am I taking responsibility for my neighborhood now? Am I taking responsibility for my Publix now? For my bank now? That’s what God is asking y’all.

But don’t worry because you don’t have to engage in the ministry of reconciliation according to your own wisdom or strengths. Though I’m sure there’s many. You engage in it according to the message of reconciliation. God’s given it to us. This message that everything is from God and He wants to forgive you. He sent His Son for you. That is the message that we take to those people. It’s not y’all need to come to church. We got great things going on. Though you do. It’s not y’all need to clean up your act. Though they may need to. The message is God so loved you. He sent His only begotten Son so that you would not perish but that you would live eternally for Him in complete satisfaction and joy. That’s the message.

And as people believe that, that’s when their lives change. As people believe that, that’s when they engage the local church. That is the tool that God has equipped every single one of us in the room who know Jesus. He’s already given that tool to you in your pocket.

I think there’s something else that’s fascinating here. In verse 19, it says that He has committed that message to us. That word committed, it’s like this word of commissioned, appointed, ordained, laid hands on. Imagine the God of the universe sitting in your living room with you tonight. He puts His hand on your shoulder. He says, I love you. I want to use you. Tomorrow morning, that phone call you have, that meeting you’ve got, I’m there with you. And this is what I want you to do with it. That’s what God’s done. He’s committed this ministry and this message to you. Are you engaged in it or not?

I think it’s kind of funny. God has made all of us ordained ministers in this world. If you don’t believe me, just look at the screen again. Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus said this after He rose from the grave and approached the disciples. He says, or it says, Jesus came near and said to them, all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I commanded you. Remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. Jesus, if you believe in Him, has commissioned and ordained you for ministry. Are you stepping into it or not? He’s commissioned this church for ministry. Are we stepping in it? As people are transformed, as they experience reconciliation, they become representatives. Verses 20 and 21: “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.” Incredible verses.

We’re all, I think, familiar with what an ambassador is, right? It’s this royal, authoritative representative in a foreign place. America has ambassadors all over the world. Places all over the world have ambassadors here in America. These are people that represent the values and the good of their country to another place. There’s a process to becoming an ambassador for America. I don’t know if you’ve Googled it recently. I have. You’ve got to get a certain education. There’s certain degrees you go to and you get that. You’ve got to have the right work experience in foreign affairs. You have to pass this standardized test. I don’t know who has the authority to make a test about being an ambassador. Then you just have to have utmost dedication to America. And you do that and that puts you in a pool of people that then are selected to send off to various countries. And thankfully in Indonesia, we never got into trouble where we had to deal with an ambassador or not. There’s some people with our organization that did. But that’s the process.

I want to think about it in this way, though. What’s it take to become an ambassador for Jesus? A little corny, a little cliché. I get it. But to be an ambassador for America, you’ve got to have a certain education. But here’s the thing. For Jesus, you’d have to know Him. You’d have to know Him. To be one for America, you’ve got to have the right work experience. But for Jesus, all of your good experience doesn’t count. You actually just have to know that you’ve done a lot of the wrong stuff. For America, you’ve got to pass a test. But for Jesus, you’d have to actually accept Jesus’ perfection for you. You can never pass a test to represent Jesus. And then for America, you have to have the utmost dedication to our country, which is incredible. But for Jesus, you have to have your utmost commitment to His own kingdom.

And God wants us to be ambassadors for Him. He wants us to be His ambassadors. Think about that. The God of the universe that created all things, that is holy and good and wise, chooses us to represent Him in this world. How incredible is that? The fact that God would choose us. And He would say, “There, He is mine. She is mine.” What they say, yeah, stamp of approval on that. What they live for, yeah, that’s me. What they want to grow, yeah, I gave him that. God wants to make us ambassadors, which means that we’re means there’s no part-time believers. There’s no part-time ambassadors here in this room.

When we lived in Indonesia, it was easy for us to remember that we were ambassadors for Jesus because we would see stuff like this all the time. It’ll come up on the screen. That is the central mosque in our city, Samarang, Indonesia. What isn’t captured there is that structure in the back could house six or 700 worshipers at a time. Those big white pillars are actually fans or not fans. They’re like umbrellas. They would come out and on big holy days, all those white tiles would be filled with another 2,000 people and the sun would be so hot that they would have to open up those big umbrellas that were hundreds of feet across. It was easy for us to remember that we are ambassadors for Jesus there because that was one of hundreds of mosques we would ride by as we dealt with Muslim people.

But how about this next place? Is it easy to remember you’re an ambassador on the I-26-526 interchange? A little bit of nervous laughter, right? Kind of hard to remember, especially when somebody’s cutting you off or when you want to cut somebody else off. Or how about the next spot? Is it easy to remember you’re an ambassador at Aldi in Somerville? You’re Passing by somebody on the chicken aisle, and I don’t know, they grab the last thing of chicken legs or whatever. Here’s the point. It’s easy for us to right. It’s easy for us to forget that who we represent is actually Jesus. And God has grace for us. He’s got grace for us, but He wants us to remember there’s no such thing as being a part-time Christian. You don’t just show up on Sunday and leave and live however you want. He demands and honestly deserves total commitment from us.

So how do we go about this task? We appeal and we plead. Ambassadors in foreign places act with total confidence based on the sending nation’s authority. They do not plead with a local government. The ambassador in America is not begging for the Indonesian nation to treat Americans well. No, they’re saying, “Hey, when I’m here, America is here, and you need it outright.” But that’s not how we act as Christians because we’re ambassadors for a different type of kingdom. God has said we plead, we beg, we urge people, we use a message, we use words to help people to help people be reconciled to God.

This message: He made the one who didn’t know sin to be sin for you so that in you or in Jesus, you might become the righteousness of God. Jesus was counted as a sinner on your behalf. He became sin for you so that you would become righteousness itself. That’s how God views you. What an incredible message to offer. I think everyone in this world recognizes on some level that they are a sinner and that they have transgressed or trespassed a holy law, and you have the message they need that God has forgiveness for you.

So where are you in this passage? I think some of us still need to experience transformation. And for you this morning, I just want to plead with you: believe the gospel. Believe this message that God sent His Son for you. He wants to transform you. So for you that have believed the gospel, I want to ask, are you leaning into this transformation? Because as you do, God wants to use you to help others be transformed. And He’s already given you a ministry and a message to do it with.

About 200 folks in 1840, 1841, they believed this message—that God was good and He sent a Savior to the world—and they founded a church on that. What about in 2041? 2141? 2241? What will the people here believe? What will you believe? Imagine what would happen for Sauldam Baptist Church if everyone in this room seriously considered how they need to respond to this passage, and they took that step.

At the end of the service, I’d be down front. I’d love to pray with you. I don’t have all the answers to all of your questions, but you know what? I’d love to pray with you. Love to talk about that. Love to talk about how God can take your life and make it significant or more significant for Him.

So how about this? I’m going to pray for us. Jesus, I love You. I get to the end of these things always wishing that I could have said or done more to help people believe it. God, I trust that You work despite my inability. Lord, I pray for the folks of this church, and I’m asking that You would bless them. God, bless them with a sweet relationship with Yourself and a deep trust in Yourself, Lord. God, we love You, and we just want to see people be reached by You. It’s in Your great name that we pray, Lord. Amen.