The Be and Become of the Atonement

The cross offers far more than relief from guilt, it invites us into the responsibility of walking in Christ's righteousness.

In this Communion Sunday sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:21, Lead Pastor Neil McClendon unpacks "the 'be' and 'become' of the atonement." Pastor Neil breaks down how God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin so that when He died, sin's capacity and power over us died with Him. Moving beyond transactional forgiveness, discover how receiving Christ's righteousness shifts our identity from merely trying to stop sinning to actively living out our relational calling as the righteousness of God.

In this episode, we cover:

• The "Be" and "Become" of 2 Corinthians 5:21: Unpacking the deep theological shift that occurs through the cross.
• Relief: How Jesus becoming sin broke the ultimate power and capacity of sin in the believer's life.
• Responsibility: Shifting our focus from transactional sin management to walking in our new identity as the righteousness of God.
• Relational over Transactional: Embracing God’s invitation into a vibrant relationship rather than a score-keeping contract.
• Approaching the Table: Discerning the Lord’s Supper with a heart prepared in joyful gratitude rather than mournful guilt.

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Transcript

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This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandProquay.org.

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Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we've come to do exactly that, to bask and to revel in who you are and all that you've accomplished on our behalf. You became something, so we could become something. That's not a transaction, that's an invitation into a relationship. And so for everybody in this room today, I pray that they would just hear the Holy Spirit of God just kind of saying, Ali alley and free. Come out, come out wherever you are. None of us is sinned so much that we're beyond the pale, we're beyond the capacity of God and gospel. So kind of woo us and win us today, Lord. We don't need a lecture, we don't need a beat down, we don't beat, we don't mean to be made to feel bad. We need the truth. And because the Jesus you said will know the truth and the truth will set us free. We want to understand that freedom that is ours in Christ because of Christ. We want to taste and see that the Lord is good. And so, Holy Spirit, lead us into this time now. We pray in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. You could have a seed. And if uh let me just begin by saying good morning. Good morning if you're our guest today. It's a it today's a communion service, and I'll give you some direction around that in just a minute. Don't pinch the baby and head to the door, okay? Uh because communion, we do it apparently we do it a little different here. We don't try to be different, we just try to be faithful, but we'll get to that in just a minute. But before I do anything, I just want to acknowledge that some incredible things happen in this room this weekend at our women's weekend. And so if you were a part of Women's Weekend, would you just stand up right now? Yes, yes. Uh uh the majority of them, you can have a seat. The majority of them are at home, they'll be at the next service, okay? Because they're kind of like staggering, recovering from it. We had over 500 women on our campus. Uh, I walked across campus yesterday. There were groups of women everywhere sitting down the grass in the sun, eating their lunch, and I thought, is Jesus feeding the 5,000? What's going on here? Uh but it was incredible, incredible, incredible service. I want to say a big shout out to Marcy, our women's minister, and her team did an incredible job. Uh an incredible job. And and uh uh I just want you to know if you're visiting today, uh, that you are part, you're sitting around some of the best people and most consequential people you'll ever meet. And so I want to talk to you. Here's why the people of this church love communion, because it's a very communal uh aspect, but also it's a very short sermon. Amen. You jerks. Anyway, uh I want to use my time. I want to read one verse. This is from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. I want to talk to you this morning about the be and the become of the atonement. Let me say that again. The be and the become of the atonement. The atonement is a big theological word uh that we use to summarize what happened when Jesus died on the cross. Look at me. I want you to focus on these two accessible words, the be and the become. Because if you understand what it means in this verse when it says be and then become, the rest will sort itself out in your life, okay? So this is 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. The Bible says this. Uh excuse me. Uh uh, for our sake, he, that's God, made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Did you hear it? Let me read it again. For our sake, for our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. See, let me draw your attention to those two little words in him. In him, what does it mean? We believe and we understand the Bible to teach that there are things that you and I only experience in him in a relationship with Jesus Christ, okay? And so when I talk about the be and the become of the atonement, I got two words for you this morning. Number one is relief. Relief. And we love that word. Scripture says that God made Jesus to be sin, not just to establish a relationship with sin. It says right here in the text, he made him to be sin, which is why God the Father looks away from his son on the cross. He didn't take sin away. I mean, he did that, but more than just taking sin away, no, he became sin. Now, why is that a big deal? You're like, hey, dude, you seem pretty amped about that. Why is that a big deal? Here's why that's a big deal. Because Jesus became sin. When Jesus dies, look at me, sin dies. Because he became sin. And so when Jesus dies, sin loses its capacity in your life. And you may be thinking, well, why do I still sin? Because you believe a lie. And when I sin, I believe something that's short of the gospel, but that's a whole other sermon. I just we we think about the the the we think about the the cross, the atonement, and we think in terms of relief. All my sins are forgiven, and and and I got forgiveness. Yes, but more than that, because Jesus, he made him to be sin. And so when Jesus dies, sin dies. So sin no longer has power over you. Oh, okay? But here's the thing I want you to understand today. That's the relief part. Here's the responsibility part. Jesus was made to be sin. So you can become something, something he's never been. He was sinless. He was made to be sin. Why do you do that? So you could become something you've never been. This is the essence of the gospel. Jesus becomes something he's never been, something that was foreign to his nature, but you and I could become something that up to now was foreign to our nature as well. So the first word is relief. The second word is responsibility. Jesus was made to be sin so you could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That's what he says right there. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. Why? So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In the church in America, we do really good at talking about sin. We do terrible at talking about righteousness. If you want to get a big amen in the Baptist church, just get up and say, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. Amen, brother. If you want people to talk about you at lunch, get up and say, I am righteous and I've been made righteous and I can never be anything short of righteous. People be like, hmm, he's a narcissist. I took the online assessment and I think that's exactly what he is. No. We're good at focusing on the first part that has to do with our sin. We're not so good at focusing on the part that has to do with us becoming righteous. Why? Because to become righteous, which is what happens, is responsibility. Okay? And the responsibility is not to stop sinning. Jesus did not die on the cross just so you could stop sinning. Jesus died on the cross so you could live righteously. Do you hear the difference in those two? Yes, yes, he took sin away. God made him to be sin. So when he dies, sin dies. It loses its capacity over you. But if you just focus on the first part and you don't focus on the responsibility of becoming righteous, then you miss out on what happened on the cross. You cannot neglect becoming righteous. Because if you just focus on the sin part and not what happened, hey, he he was made to be sin so you could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And what we do is we just focus on the sin, sin, sin, sin, and we have a very transactional way of relating to God. Look at me. But when he says he made him to be sin so that you could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, what he's saying is it's not transactional, it's relational. God the Father has always been relational, always about a relationship. That's why the Bible in the New Testament sums up Jesus' life and ministry of this. He came to seek and save that which is lost. He came to find people that knew better and did it anyway. He came to whisper grace into the lives of people that put it in the ditch. So we have relief and you have responsibility. And here's the last thing I'll say. And then we're gonna just kind of spend some time getting our head and our heart ready to come to the table. The way you know you understand the fullness of what took place on the cross, it's not that you quit sinning. Let me say that again. The way you know you understand what actually took place on the on the cross is not that you quit sinning. That's that's sex that's like entry-level one-on-one class, okay? It's not that you quit sinning. The way you demonstrate that you understand what took place on the cross is you begin to live righteously. Not self-righteous, not better than obedience is reflex, it's not labor, it's not effort, it's your identity. Why? Look at me. Here's why. That's possible because God made Jesus to be sin, so you could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So if you're sitting in this room this morning, I want you to get ready to come to this table, not as somebody that's like, oh, God's looking down, going, Oh, here you come again. Let me guess, you did it again, even though you told me last week you wouldn't do it. No. If you're a Christian, if there's ever been a point where you gave your life to Christ, you should you submitted and surrendered to King Jesus, when you approach the table, God says, Oh, here comes my righteousness. This is not just a sinner saved by grace. This is a person who reflects and represents my righteousness, my right way of seeing the world in a world that is so wrong. This is the be and the become of the atonement. Now, what we like to do is here at Grand Park when we have communion is to get something in our head and then think about it. The Bible gives us some instructions in the book of 1 Corinthians about how we approach the table. And it says this it says, hey, don't come willy-nilly. Don't just come, oh, it's communion. Let me just sleepwalk through this. No, no, no, no, no. It says, hey, discern the body. Think about yourself in relation to the church that you're a part of, because your sin affects your faith community. And so I sent this in an email, uh, and I'm not trying to be exclusive, but uh we always say this: if you're here and you're not a believer, this is not for you. You should just ask yourself, why would I not want to know a God that that sacrificed his son in my place and for my sin? But also, here's the other level of uh of admonition. If you're here and you're a Christian and you're living in willful, unrepentant sin, you need to stay away from the table today. Come and say, Hey, pray for me, because I'm I'm living in sin and I don't know I want to be done. I'm believing things that aren't true, whatever. No one's gonna judge you. We respect that. You can just come and say, I'm gonna abstain, but pray for me. If that makes sense, say amen. So let me voice a prayer, and you just spend some time just kind of getting your head and your heart right and ready to come celebrate. This is not a mournful uh experience today, this is joyful. Christ offered up himself, God made him to be sin. So that when Jesus dies, sin dies with him. Can you imagine relating to God on the basis of something besides your sin? God can't. That's why he gives you his righteousness. Let me pray. Father, thank you for the truth of the gospel. It doesn't take much of that, God, to get it to set our heart and our head to to just uh uh orienting around you in the truth. We're tired of managing sin, God. We're tired of uh trying to do more good than bad. Because we can't do that. The reality is that what Jesus did on the cross took away all the math and turned it into music. And so, Lord, turn up the volume on the music of our belovedness today. Let us hear uh our identity in Christ because of Christ, who we are because of what Christ did on the cross, not because we had a good week and we didn't sin this week, but because when Jesus, who was made to be sin, died, sin died. So I'm tired of relating to God on the basis of sin, and I want to relate to God, myself, and the world on the basis of righteousness. This is who we are in Christ. And God's we just ponder that for a moment before we come to the table. Let's take a minute before we're dismissed. If you're visiting today, you may be thinking, man, it's a long service. Our services don't usually go this long, but we think it's a sin to hurry. And so communion is like it's not a shower, it's not efficient, it's like a hot bath. Light some candles, pour you up something to set on the side of the bathtub, like milk, uh sinners. Look at me, and you immerse yourself in the accomplishment of Jesus that washes off self-pity and self-determination at the same time. Yes, work hard, rise, grind, whatever you got tattooed in the small of your back. But you do that believing that it all comes from him. He's a God of provision. So let's just think about. Then it asks this question how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? The cross is an indication of God's posture towards you. The question you have to ask yourself is can you live in that and be content and keep believing that? Let's just take a moment and think about that. We'd like to conclude our service with a spoken blessing, so if you would hold your hands out. When you say grace that is greater than all our sin, you're singing the gospel. What that means is that God is not as disappointed with you as you are with yourself. He's in love with you. And love never changes its mind. Infatuation does, lust does, but love doesn't. Depart now is the beloved people of God, the provided for people of God. And provision is not just something in the past, it's a reality that awaits you in the future. Leave now and live as if you believe that. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless you.