For a few weeks we have either been in this passage of Scripture or referring to it. It’s one of those texts that simply can’t be exhausted because it doesn’t just speak to something that God has done or that God wants us to do, it reveals more of who God is, more of His heart, His character and His will. Paul wrote that “for our sake” God made Jesus, who knew no sin to become sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. There is no selfishness in God, while He created us, while He loves us, while He desires us and even is jealous for us, Jesus tasting death for everyone, becoming a man, fulfilling the Law and then becoming the embodiment of our sin was completely for our sake. Hebrews 9:22 tells us there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. Our blood would not cleanse us, the blood of sacrifices could not transform us and so the blood of Jesus was not God’s only option, it was our only hope and so the Father sent the Son completely for our sake. Paul then wrote that if Jesus died for all then we have to realize that this means that all have died. This means that all sin has been paid for, there is no past, present or future sin that Jesus didn’t conquer when He became sin, died our death and then rose from the grave. Now, this doesn’t mean that everyone has received salvation, it means that the way of salvation has been opened to everyone. God has done the work, He has made the way; there has to be a reception of His gift, an acknowledgement of His love, a faith in His work and a surrender to His Son. Salvation is an exchange, Jesus has done the hard part, He has exchanged His perfection for our sin but salvation is not completed, redemption is not received until we exchange our will for His, until, as Jesus described it to His disciples, we deny ourselves, take up the cross and follow Him. As we will see over these next weeks, reconciliation requires a surrender. “For our sake” God has done all the work to save us because we were and are completely incapable of doing anything at all that could bring us any measure of salvation. Paul then concludes that if One died for all then those who are now alive in Him and because of Him should learn to live for His sake. Paul had earlier told the Corinthians, the same people he is writing to in today’s text “you are not your own, you were bought with a price”. Many of us love what has been done for our sake but we bristle at the reality that if we accept the gift of God that means we become the possession of God. We are not our own, we must live for His sake. What kind of king does for His people what they could not do for themselves and then doesn’t hold it over their heads, doesn’t make them pay it back with interest, doesn’t enslave them to His every whim but instead calls them to a relationship? What kind of king adopts rather than enslaves, frees rather than binds, enriches rather than indebts? I pray that over these next few weeks we will see that we have a king of reconciliation, a king that didn’t just die for us but one who died for all so that we wouldn’t just live with Him but that we would also live with each other, a king that doesn’t just want to give us peace but decided that He Himself would become our peace.