How to Persuade By David Wood (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)

We call this the great exchange. Martin Luther called it the the sweet exchange. Some theologians call it double imputation, where we take the worst of what we have to offer our sin. We give it to God and he says, okay, I'll take your sin and I'm gonna give you Jesus' righteousness. The blood of Jesus now being applied to you. What an incredible exchange. That's a no brainer. Right? That's an amazing trade in value right there that we see that the means of what God does in our lives at the atonement. [00:33:16] (36 seconds)  #TheGreatExchange

Or would there be some sort of fallout if the secret things of your life became public things? We are called to be people of integrity as we honor God both in public and in private. As we seek to persuade people, we seek to do so with God honoring integrity. It's a big deal when people see that you're the real deal because of Jesus. [00:13:03] (30 seconds)  #LiveWithIntegrity

And God says, I'm here to save you from that lie. You are not a good master for yourself. You are not the person you should be serving with everything that God's entrusted to you. God alone is the one that we get to and that we ought to and that we will serve and worship for all eternity. You and I make very bad gods. Amen? Amen. [00:18:46] (27 seconds)  #GodIsYourSovereign

They would have to settle up and the word in Greek for it is katalage. What they would do is they'd come together. It was a financial term for exchanging these coins, and when you get to the end, you would say, we're reconciled. Everything's square. We're even. Or to put it in a modern vernacular, you are debt free. [00:25:49] (27 seconds)  #ReconciledAndDebtFree

When we have those types of ambassador conversations, when we have those types of persuasive conversations, it's God doing it through us. What does it say in verse 20? God making his appeal through us. That's amazing. We get to go be God's mouthpieces, sharing the good news, making an appeal God is making an appeal through us. [00:31:03] (29 seconds)  #GodSpeaksThroughUs

Now, here's the thing about Paul. There were people saying that he was out of his mind, that he was beside himself. You know who else had people saying that about him? Jesus. Mark chapter three, we see Jesus' own family members thought that he was out of his mind. So if anybody in your life ever says, man, you're crazy. You're in good company because so is Jesus and so is Paul. [00:11:02] (29 seconds)  #InGoodCompanyWithChrist

As we seek to persuade others, we should do so with this contagious integrity. This integrity that when other people see it, they say, you're the real deal. That tells me something about what God's doing in your life. Hey, who you are behind closed doors is the same person as who you are when you're shaking hands with somebody on a Sunday morning at church. [00:11:57] (25 seconds)  #ContagiousIntegrity

But it's not just the facts. It's not just the facts that they need to hear and to interact with. It goes a step further than that. The people in our lives don't need to just hear the facts. They need to actually be reconciled to God. Their relationship with God needs to be settled up and fixed. That's the third thing you can write down in your outlines today. Is that we should persuade others to be reconciled to God. [00:24:29] (34 seconds)  #PersuadeTowardReconciliation