"Seeing New Creations" 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

June 14, 2015

          Two weeks ago, I labeled Christians – we are the “born-agains.”  I made the case that all Christians are born again Christians.  Anyone interested in why I say this can listen to the sermon on our website or read out my blog.  Better yet, read the Gospel of John, chapter 3.

          Last week, I declared that we “born agains” are “clay jars,” hard and easily broken.  We are all cracked pots.  Actually, the Apostle Paul is the one who said that.  did.  Again, you can listen or read my “Honest Talk with God” blog.  Better still, read 2^nd Corinthians 4. 

          I offer no labels this morning.  Instead, we are invited to see as Christ sees.  How do born-again clay pots see and regard people?

          Before we dig into the answer, a word from 2^nd Corinthians 5:15 is needed.  That verse says, “[Jesus Christ] died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.”  That Jesus died for us is good news, the best news, because sin leads to death and eternal separation from God, and we all sin, every one of us.

          If I lie and get caught, others see me as a liar.  The consequence is no one will trust me.  He steals something, gets caught, and he’s convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony.  There may be jail time or a fine or community service.  You kill someone and get convicted, and you may face life in prison or the death penalty.  All these things are sins in God’s eyes and when we die in sin then we die eternally.  Eternal death means eternal separation from God, a condition we describe as Hell. 

          When Paul tells us “Jesus died for all,” we realize Jesus took sin, death, and Hell off of us and carried it on his own shoulders.  Because of the cross, we are saved from eternal separation from God. 

          Verse 15 goes on to give one of the results. We have our faith in Christ and thus we have life.  This means we live for him.  Jesus shares our death and shares with us His resurrection.  We have eternal life and that means our lives are no longer ours.  Our lives – our individual lives and us united as the body of Christ – are for Him.  We belong to the Lord, we live for the Lord. 

          OK – so what?  What, exactly, does this mean?  We live for Jesus.  What does this mean in the daily living of our lives?  Verse 16 gives us focus.  The verse begins “From now on.”  If you are reading The Message you see that it says, “Because of this.”  The New King James Version says, “Therefore.”  The NIV renders it “So from now on.” 

          All these English versions show the same thing – there is a change.  That Jesus died and rose and that we came to entrust our lives to him by putting our faith in him means a radical change in the direction and orientation of our lives.  We were self-focused.  Now, in Christ, we are God-focused.  We were, in life, headed away from an eternity with Him.  Now, in Christ, our lives are God-oriented.  A change has occurred.

          This shift from a life apart from God to a life that is lived under Jesus as Lord is radical enough that Paul found himself challenged.  He was opposed by his fellow monotheists, Jews who did not believe Jesus was the son of God or the Messiah.  He was confronted by Romans who felt an offense that he would claim Jesus, and not Caesar, is Lord.  And he was mocked by Greeks who lived by a loose polytheism and the wisdom of sages like Plato.  And, Paul was challenged by other Christians, people within the church. 

To all these he says in verse 13, “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God.” Paul knew some thought he was just crazy.  He accepted that.  Living for God meant taking whatever abuses might come.  In our era, we are in some quarters expected to live for our country.  Marketers want us to live for ourselves.  If we do then they will sell us products they have convinced us we need, if we want to be happy.  You need this new phone.  You need this new … whatever.  Why?  It will make you happy.  Other voices today may reject that life has any meaning at all.  There is no God and we are all results of a biological process, the collection of atoms.  To the nationalists, capitalists, self-worshipers, and atheists, we say what Paul said to the temple, the government, and the academy:  “Go ahead, call us crazy.  We are living for God and that looks insane to you, so be it.”

We do not try to live for God in a way that allows us to also idolize country or idolize self.  We do not dare say becoming a Christian is no big thing.  It is the biggest change we’ll go through.  “From now on;” “Because of this;” “Therefore;” we are in Christ.  He is Lord of our lives. 

Following his lead then, we see from his perspective.  We born-again cracked pots regard people as Jesus regards people.  Verse 16 makes this clear.  Because we are in Christ, how we approach others will be the biggest change we make.  “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view.”

Jesus’ own teaching illuminates this.  If you ever watched Star Trek you know Vulcans live by a code.  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.”  In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, Jesus says God is like a shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep to go out and find one lost sheep.  When we see people, not from a human point of view but as God sees them, we then see them as ones for whom God goes out of his way to save.

You’re at the grocery store and you see a mom with her teenage son.  She is riding him hard.  You failed two classes last semester.  You father was a straight ‘A’ student.  You brother made the dean’s list in college.  You failed two classes.  And, three times I was called by the principle about your behavior.  If you don’t care school, at least care about your family.  You are embarrassment to us all.”  You are appalled at the way she demeans her son and you should be.  It is terrible to break a kid like that.  It is even in worse to do it for everyone in the Food Lion to hear.  And they do hear it.  You see heads turn to witness this major parenting fail.  You want to go over and tell that mom to shut it. 

From God’s point of view, she is a lost sheep who needs to be saved.  “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way.”  We know he was a human and he was God; we know he died on the cross.  And so the cross the lens we look through when we see the world and more importantly people in the world.

We see the overbearing verbally abusive mom and her actions may merit criticism.  If the child were young and she were beating the kid, authorities should be called in.  But we do not hold her in contempt.  The cross of Christ colors our visions.  We see her and we see her sins on him, nailed to a cross.  With love we see that she needs him. 

In our daily relationships, we no longer regard others as we did before we were in Christ.  We now see spiritually.  Love determines how we regard others – those in the church and those outside it.  Paul writes in 2^nd Corinthians 2:15, “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”

What then does it look like to regard people when we see as Christ sees?  Paul names it in 2^nd Corinthians 5:17-21.

¹⁷ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,^[d] not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰ So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

          We pray for the angry mom in the super market and the son she verbally flogs.  We look with the love the Spirit pours into our hearts and we pray for reconciliation.  Think about real people you know, those who anger you.  Think about those who hurt others, those you know who are difficult.  We look and see people who, if they turned to Christ, would become new creations in him.  We don’t see from human point of view but from his.

          We do this when we look in the mirror too.  Sometimes the one we hold in contempt most, the one we love least is ourself.  When you see yourself do you see the new creation Christ is creating – the new you Christ is forming in His image?  That’s how Paul saw himself.  He writes in 2 Corinthians 1:12-14,

¹² Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with frankness^[c] and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God—and all the more toward you. ¹³ For we write you nothing other than what you can read and also understand; I hope you will understand until the end— ¹⁴ as you have already understood us in part—that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are your boast even as you are our boast.

When we see ourselves and others from Jesus’ perspective, through cross-colored lenses, through eyes of love, we see the new creation that we become in Him.  And in those who don’t know Him, we see what they can be if the join themselves to Christ.  We always see people as to who they are in Christ or who they might be in Christ. 

I close with an assignment.  Determine that this week, you will see from Jesus’ perspective.  You will see people as God sees people.  Now this is an assignment, so write it down.  When you leave this place, imagine the very next person you will see.  When you see him or her, imagine how Christ sees that individual.  And you see him that way and relate to him in kind.  Act toward him as if he is a new creation in Christ or is someone in need of Christ. 

This requires discipline.  You will see people you don’t like, at least not in the flesh.  Jesus did not say, love them unless they annoy you and then you can treat them like dirt.  No, he said, love as you love yourself.  Paul unfolds this teaching by telling us we are in Christ so we see people as new creations. 

So go out and see in this way beginning with the first person you encounter after leaving here.  We see with eyes of love and act on what we see.

AMEN

2 Corinthians 4:7 - Treasure in Jars of Clay

“Good News About Death” (2 Corinthians 4:7-5:1)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Recently I made a minor blunder.  It was a small mistake made in the course of carrying out my duties as pastor of the church.  So, I said to someone, “Your preacher is a clay pot.”  A bit of Biblical literacy is required in order for that allusion to make sense.  Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 4, “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” 

          Of course clay pots, once they cool are hardened, and if they are dropped on a rock or a concrete floor, they smash.  Was Paul saying that we who follow Jesus are hard headed and hard hearted?  Yes. 

          We can be short tempered with one another.  We hold on to forgiveness and mercy.  We refuse to give it.  We refuse to give one another grace.  We can be very hard hearted.

          We can be given the truths of scripture and yet we are so locked on what we think we already know, we are seemingly incapable of seeing what God wants to show us.  We become set in our thinking, fixed, static.  This intractable stance makes it difficult to learn new things or be open to new relationships. 

          Yes, Paul was most certainly saying that we who follow Christ are hard; we’re set when we should be malleable in our master’s hands.  And we are fragile, easily cracked.  It dropped on the floor one time too many, we may shatter.  We are broken. 

          Thus my statement about the preacher being a clay pot was and is a truth that I and each one of us is prone to falling and to failing spectacularly in our discipleship.  When Paul wrote this, he said, “We.”  He did not say, “You Corinthians are a bunch of cracked pots.”  He said, “We are.”

          I wonder if it is my fragility and my tendency to commit errors that led me to think it was a good idea to entitle this sermon “Good News about Death.”  It seems a bit insensitive.  We have several members of our church who have loved ones who have died in the past month.  A mother or a father living a fews hours drive from here or several states away has died.  And our brothers and sisters here, HillSong members, have to go through all the pain of grief and the burden of handling the affairs and estate of the death of the one we loved.  This wave of loss has hit many of our members in a very short span.

          Many others are in that awful spot of waiting for it.  I don’t have to spend more than a minute and I can come up with a list of half a dozen to a dozen people in our church family who have a mom or a dad or a beloved uncle who is elderly and in very bad health.  Then the cruel game of waiting plays out.  You know your loved one is suffering and is going to die and it is probably going to be soon.  But you aren’t sure.  Part of your knows death will bring relief.  Your mom or dad won’t suffer the daily pain any more.  You want that end.  But, when it does, then mom or dad is gone. 

          Many of our families here at HillSong are doing that difficult dance with end of life realities.  Many others within the past few weeks have seen the end of life come.  In a few HillSong families, they have and are experiencing both.  One spouse’s mother dies.  The other spouse’s father is failing fast but has not yet died.  Paul writes in verses 8 and 9, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned;struck down, but not destroyed.”

I hope Paul is right.  I hope we are not crushed.  I pray that despair is not setting in on anyone.  Please, dear God, don’t let the struggles we or any believers face destroy us. 

          Many hear this and think, “That’s not me.  Everyone I love is doing OK.  He’s not addressing me this morning.”  That may be going through your mind right now.  Please understand, I have definitely been there.  I have sat as a speaker spent much time addressing a struggle I was not facing.  Maybe right now, you are not facing declining health, the reality of old age, and death.  You will.  I will.  As long as we are part of the fallen world, even though we are in Christ, we suffer the injuries of sin and death.  And this message is not all about grief.  The title is “Good News about Death.”  To get to the good, we have to walk through the bad and describe it as we go.  And you may have problems that quite serious even they aren’t related to the type of grief I have named.  Everyone of us has times in life when we are hard pressed on every side.

Of course, Paul was referring to persecutions suffered by first century Christians.  But, he also had in mind that Christians are as inflicted with the fall that sin produces as the rest of humanity.  Followers of Jesus make mistakes.  We are cracked pots.  Our bodies die.  And God, in the beginning, did not create us for blunders or for death.  But we do sin and we do die.  So even we who have turned to Christ remain under the influence of a reality that is far from God.  Indeed, what dumb thing, to name the sermon, “Good News About Death.”

          And yet in death, Paul sees purpose.  In verse 7 Paul said, “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”  Our weakness points to God’s glory.  Then in verse 10 he writes, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”  And in verse 11 he says, “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.” 

          That verse has an especially poignant phrase.  We are always being given over to death.  Paul’s immediate concern is the series of arrests and beating he has had to endure because he speaks about Jesus.  In the place we live, work, and play, we don’t usually face bodily harm because of our devotion to Christ.  That’s not an issue for us as it was for him.  But his inability to do much about it is something we can understand.  Paul could either stop speaking for Christ or he could he accept that doing so would get him flogged, stoned, jailed, and eventually killed.  But he could not give his message and avoid the pain.  He lacked the human power to control things.

          We do too.  Whether we face pain and loss because of our own sins or because of the sins of others or simply because the world is a fallen place, we cannot prevent suffering.  It eventually hits and it hits hard.  Paul’s phrase we are always being given over to death may taken on additional meanings in our lives, but it speaks.  His words can be ours.  Or we might say it as it is written in the version of the Bible known as The Message, translated by the late pastor and scholar Eugene Peterson.

We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.

We feel broken.  Grief, disappointment -  these are heavy things, but we know God carries them because he has.  Jesus was God in the flesh.  Unlike Paul, Jesus could have called on legions of angels and his suffering on the cross would have been prevented.  There would be no crown of thorns.  There would be no nail-pierced hands.  There would be no tomb.  He was fully God even as he was fully man and could have avoided every trial and every wound.  He didn’t though.  Jesus chose to take the cross on himself and in doing so took sin on himself and the penalty of sin on himself.  He bore it for us. 

          Thus, he knows what we’re going through.  In the book of Hebrews we read the following about Jesus:

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

He has been tempted and passed the test.  He has suffered and overcome it.  So, Paul says, our suffering and our weakness point to Him.  Second Corinthians 4:11, “we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.”  The point, the purpose in our difficult times, is we lean on Jesus in spiritual dependence and for emotional healing.  People see us at our worst and they see Him.  Our weaknesses point to His glory and strength.

There is more than just a purpose in our pain.  There is also a promise that Jesus has something much better in store for us.  “Do not lose heart,” Paul writes.  “Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure,18 because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”  The faithfulness in which we live in the challenging days of life is a mark discipleship.  It is also a staging area for “the eternal weight of glory.” 

Again Peterson’s rendering in The Message illuminates the promise we have from God that our sufferings and grief will give way to eternal life and eternal joy in the presence of God.

These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

5 1-5 For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again.

The Good News about Death is in facing it we turn our faces to God and those around see us and their faces are turned to God.  The even better news is God promises that for us resurrection lies ahead.  We have hope for loved ones we watch die painful deaths, and we have hope for ourselves. 

I was listening to a radio show this week.  The conversation was about wrist watches.  The host talked about professional athletes he interviewed.  These are millionaires, and he said many of them spend tens of thousand of dollars on wristwatches.  He has several co-hosts on his show and they all weighed in how much they spend on watches.  One asked, “Do you think a really expensive watch is a sign of status for man, a way of showing all he’s accomplished.?”  They discussed this for a while and decided, yes, it is a status symbol to wear a really expensive watch.  They talked about watches that cost more than any car I have ever driven.  Why?  A wealthy person wears this for the purpose of telling everyone around him how rich he is.  And all the radio guys agreed this is a good thing.

I think such crass materialism is a step toward death without redemption.

We don’t watches to show we are.  We wear death.  We don ourselves in our fragility.  We clothe ourselves with weakness, the same weakness that blankets the millionaire quarterback and his $500K wristwatch.  We cracked clay pots wear death and all the while we look to Jesus.  Someone nearby sees us and they follow our gaze.  And then they too are looking to Jesus.  And there is hope because we know and looking with us they know what Paul wrote and what is true. 

          The one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us together into his presence.

AMEN