BROUGHT NEAR TO BE SENT, A Weekly Reflection by Pastor Lap Dinh on Psalms 64-66; 2 Corinthians 5

We carry a quiet suspicion that our sin is bigger than God's willingness to deal with it. We believe in forgiveness in the abstract, but when it comes to the specific thing, the failure we keep repeating, the guilt that surfaces at 2 a.m., we suspect we are the exception. So we keep our distance. We stand at the back. We assume that whatever nearness to God is available, it is for cleaner people than us.

David felt the weight of it and then watched God lift it: "When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions" (Ps 65:3). Read the order. The iniquities prevail. They win, they overwhelm, they are stronger than we are. And then God does not lecture**;** He atones. He deals with the very thing that was crushing us. And the result: "Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts" (Ps 65:4 NVB). Atoned, then brought near. The far-off dragged close. The exile given a room in the house.

Paul tells us how far God went to do it, and it is the most staggering sentence in the letter: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21). Sit in that. The sinless One was made sin. Our record was put on Him, and His righteousness was put on us. This is not God overlooking our transgressions. This is God absorbing them into His own Son so that when He looks at us now, He sees righteousness. Psalm 65 said "you atone." Paul says here is how: at the cross, in an exchange we did not deserve and could never repay.

Lord, we have kept our distance as if our sin were bigger than Your cross. Forgive the unbelief of it.

And here is what that does to a person: "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). Not renovated. New. The person who was standing at the back, sure they did not belong, is remade and brought near. And people who have been brought near cannot stay quiet about it. Listen to the psalm: "Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul" (Ps 66:16). That is the most natural thing in the world for a rescued person, telling what God has done for them.

Paul takes that instinct and turns it into a commission: "we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:20). Do you see the movement? We are reconciled so that we can become reconcilers. Atoned so that we can carry the news of atonement. Brought near so that we can go and be sent. The same God who dragged us close now speaks through us to drag someone else close.

So we are not saved to sit at the back forever. We were brought near to be sent. The 2 a.m. guilt was answered at the cross, the exile was given a room, and now the room-dweller becomes a herald: come and hear what He has done for my soul.

Lord, You atoned for the very sins that were prevailing against us, and You brought us near when we were sure we did not belong. Make us believe it all the way down. And then make us ambassadors, not people who keep the rescue to ourselves, but people who cannot stop telling what You have done for our souls. Reconcile us, and send us to say: be reconciled to God. Amen.

Have we been keeping our distance as if our sin were bigger than the cross, and who is God wanting to bring near through our "come and hear what He has done for my soul"?

--Pastor Lap