Why are we called The Exchange?
“The Exchange” is the way we understand and communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Although the totality of the gospel requires much more detail than can be summarized here, we believe the main parts of it can be explained in three exchanges: Sin, Christ, and Repentance.
Sin
We are living in a broken world. On a personal level, we waste our worship on trivial things. We betray and hurt one another. We overwork ourselves to achieve a satisfaction we can never seem to attain. On a societal level, we cannot escape the realities of poverty, prejudice, oppression and injustice. The bible tells us that this brokenness we experience both in our lives and in the world is due to the first exchange: sin.
While humanity was created in the image of God to glorify him, man exchanged the truth of God’s perfect holiness for the lie of sin and traded the worship of the Creator God for the adoration for lesser created things (Romans 1:18-32). As a result, we’re not only born into rebellion against God but we’re destined to face God’s wrath. Because of our sin, each of us deserves to be heading toward an eternal death and none of us are able to do anything by our own power to change that (Romans 3:23; 6:23).
Christ
But God, rather than allowing all of humanity to face eternal punishment, sent his Son to save us. He lived the perfect life we failed to live and was obedient to the Father even to the point of suffering on a cross. He served as our substitute facing God’s wrath and taking our sin upon himself (Isaiah 53:6; John 3:16; Romans 5:8). When God the Father laid all of the punishment we earned upon His blameless Son, another exchange had taken place: God himself in Jesus Christ died for our sin and gave us his righteousness. But he didn’t stay dead; he rose from the grave so that we would know that sin and death have been conquered and that his sacrifice was sufficient to cover all our sin and turn God’s wrath away from us forever (1 Corinthians 15:4; 23).
Repentance
The question at this point is: What will we do in light of this message? How will we respond?
The Bible tells us to repent (Acts 2:38; 3:19); to turn away from our ways –deceitful, broken, and rebellious – and enjoy the life that he wants us to have in him. We are to exchange our life of sin for his way of righteousness. As we daily confess our need for Jesus to be our Savior and submit to his Lordship (Rom.10:9), He awakens our hearts to delight in Him, grows us in love, leads us in life, weaves us into a new community and commissions us to go and make Him known (John 5:24; 1:12-13; 1 Corinthians 12:18-27; Matthew 28:18-20).