The God You’re Looking For.

1. The God You’re Looking For. From Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians (Part two)

2. The God You’re Looking For? • A God who comforts us. • A God who can be trusted. • A God who loves us. • A God who accepts us. • A God who gives generously.

3. How do people view church…or God?

4. Paul’s motivation • How he now views God. “Christ’s love has moved me, at times, to extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.” (v.14) • How he now views other people. “We no longer evaluate people by what they have or how they look.” (v.16)

5. Paul’s revelation • What Godcan do inus. “Therefore, if any-one is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come!” v.17) • What God has done for us? “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” (v.18)

6. Paul’s revelation • What Godcan do inus. “Therefore, if any-one is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come!” v.17) • What God has done for us? “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” (v.18)

7. Or to put it another way “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (v.19) “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (v.21)

8. Paul’s expectation • Enter the ministry “(God) gave us the ministry of reconciliation… He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (vv.18-19) • Share the message “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (v.20)

9. A Challenge for 2013 Don’t look on things as they are, but how they could be!

10. Reconciled to God…to be a community of reconciliation No more dividing walls - (racial, social or relational)

11. “Building bridges to make Jesus known”

12. Seeing things as they could be!