January 25, 2009 - Pastor Tim

LOOK UP!

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

One of the most personally frustrating things I deal with in life is an ongoing battle with my weight. I know that not everyone relates to this issue, but I won’t ask for a show of hands—nor will I ask all of you to stand up and turn around. It’s beyond my comprehension that those who go through life with no understanding of what it is to battle weight are irritated when someone calls them “skinny.” I’d love for once in my life to be so offended!

I remember the embarrassment of wearing “husky” size pants when I was a pre-teen. Don’t you think they could come up with some label that would be a bit nicer than “husky”?! In my last year of high school, I lost probably 20 pounds and I recall an old friend seeing me and asking what it was like to be able to see my feet again! I’ve yo-yoed back and forth across the years—losing the same 20 pounds probably a half-dozen times! I exercise almost daily and three times a week do a pretty rigorous workout, and the Lord only knows how big I’d be if I didn’t do that! When Cindy cooks—which seems to be less and less these days!—she cooks consistently healthy, and, while I tease her about never baking goodies for me, I’m afraid I’d be as big as the side of a barn if she did!

I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to do something about it again, but haven’t seemed to have mounted up the self-discipline yet to tackle it. It’s pretty much up to me—I know that. I’ve got to be the one who makes the choice not to eat dessert and not to eat the things that put on the pounds. Cindy’s tried nagging me on it a little bit across the years, but I think has finally realized that it’s not very productive. If I’m going to lose weight, it’s up to me.

Putting the weight issue aside now, do you think that’s the same way many of us approach our relationship with God? Do we feel the burden, day after day, that it’s all on our own shoulders—and get to feeling pretty dismal when time after time we seem to fail? It can be real discouraging, can’t it? It’s really a terrible way to approach the most important facet of our lives—our relationship with God. Do you really believe God intended it to be that way? The Apostle Paul didn’t believe so, and wrote some powerful words for us to digest this morning.

[2 Corinthians 5:11-21, NIV]

Did you know that Paul wrote those amazing words primarily to address his critics in defense of his ministry? Paul, who was undoubtedly the most significant human instrument for the spread of the Gospel in the first century, was guided by the Holy Spirit in writing a good portion of the New Testament. And when we think of him that way, it’s hard to fathom that there was a time when he was accused of being a crazy, self-appointed peddler of the Gospel. Evidently enough people took the criticism seriously that Paul felt it necessary to defend himself. I suppose we might also remember that there was a time when Jesus’ immediate family wondered if He might be crazy! This should be encouraging to those of us who have also been misunderstood and even falsely accused of ungodly motives along the way! But as a result of Paul’s defense, we have these classic statements about his motive for ministry and the difference Christ can make in our lives.

There’s actually so much in these eleven verses—more than we’ll have time to deal with adequately this morning—but I might make a few observations from the text before I hone in on what I believe is the Lord’s primary message to us today.

For Paul, the reason for doing something was as important as what was done. Christ had also stressed that principle in the Sermon on the Mount when He criticized those who did good things—like fasting and praying and even giving—but did it for the wrong reasons. Paul had grown up in a religious world that centered on the deed and ignored the motive. But in his relationship with Jesus Christ he had come to realize that fear or guilt or a sense of duty or a desire to impress God or others were terribly inadequate reasons for sharing the Gospel.

And in verses 14 and 15 he opens up his heart and tells us why he was devoted to spreading the Gospel. Four words pretty much sum it up: “Christ’s love compels us.” And though some were questioning Paul’s motives and his integrity, above all things he wanted his readers in Corinth to understand this about him. In saying “Christ’s love compels us,” Paul was putting the focus first and foremost on Christ’s love for us—and not our love for him. That’s what stirred him to do what he did for the cause of Christ in the world. Christ’s love for him compelled Paul to devote his life to sharing that Good News with others.

I also want us to note from this passage that to those whose lives had already changed by the Gospel, Christ has given “the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting [people’s] sins against them…we are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making the appeal through us.” You ought to feel honored in this, friend—that Almighty God would want to work through you and me in His efforts to redeem the world!

I was reading in my personal devotions this week about Moses, and drawn to something written by Louis Giglio—

God is always looking for ordinary people to play significant roles in His unfolding story. And, given that He is God and supremely confident in Himself, He is free to choose the least among us—the slowest, the lesser-known, the last, the smallest, the poorest—to accomplish amazing, God-sized stuff…

So try to put yourself in God’s shoes for a minute. Your people are enslaved in Egypt, toiling day and night building monuments to the fame and greatness of the pharaohs. Yet you have a redemption plan, a deliverance mission, and you’re looking for a spokesman to take your agenda to the most powerful man in the most powerful empire on the planet, demanding that he let your people go free. Who are you going to choose to lead Israel out of bondage? What criteria are you going to use to narrow the field of candidates?…

Well, you probably wouldn’t choose a stuttering shepherd with wilting self-esteem—an aging man on the downslope of life who for years had been on the run from the mighty Pharaoh after killing one of his slave drivers back in Egypt. Would you? But that’s exactly who God chose; just the guy He invited to take the helm in this chapter of His unfolding story. (Louie Giglio)

It’s amazing that God has given to you and to me the ministry of reconciliation—being in some mysterious way tools in the Hand of God to help others become reconciled to God as we have been. We are His ambassadors in this world—just think of it! You and me!—ambassadors in the most important mission of the ages!

By the way, this ministry of reconciliation is why we do what we do as a church in matters of evangelism and world missions. We are Christ’s ambassadors in this wide world—near and far, as close as our own homes and neighborhoods and as far away as the other side of the globe. And the fact that Christ has given us this ministry of reconciliation begs some questions for every believer: How are you carrying out your unique part in this ministry? And is what you’re doing “compelled” by Christ’s love for you or have you gotten drawn into lesser motivation? Those are sermons all by themselves, aren’t they?—and may be the very thing some of you most need to hear this morning from this passage.

But what I have sensed the Lord most wants me to center our message around this morning is found in verses 17—

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

There are few words in the Scripture filled with more HOPE than these words from Paul! (repeat verse) If you somehow feel that you’re “stuck” in a life pattern that is somehow less than what you believe Christ wants you to be, by God’s power and His grace in your life He makes us new creations—“the old has gone, the new has come”!

No one needs to linger outside the realm of God’s grace, somehow fearing themselves unworthy or incapable. Paul threw out the invitation to us all when he wrote,

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20b)

And if you’re somehow concluding in your spirit that this just might not include you, listen to more of what we find in this passage of scripture—

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

Please hear these words of hope for you—particularly if there is any part of you that somehow feels like you might be beyond the scope of God’s grace. Christ died for all! That includes you! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of hope for every one of us because it is God’s Word to each of us that we do not need to remain as we are! Christ died so that every one of us could be reconciled to God and so that we could each be made “new”—becoming the persons that God designed for us to be, living lives of submission to Him, compelled to even share this Good News with others!

Paul was not talking about a newness that was merely cosmetic—like a new haircut or a new outfit of clothes or even an “extreme makeover”! Paul was instead speaking of an inner change in us that only God can orchestrate. It’s a newness that redeems our past, brings transformation into our present lives, and encompasses our future with a persevering and powerful hope. This newness is eventually reflected in every area of our lives—giving us a new direction and a new purpose for living. It all comes about when our sins are forgiven and we are thus “reconciled” with our Heavenly Father. We enter a new journey of life with Him!

I was blessed to be part of a radical transformation that I saw take place in the life of a man named John Wildman. John and his wife Sue had visited our church in Ohio. Sue accepted the Lord that week in their home, but John did not yet feel he was ready. He had been running from the Lord for a long time and had a lot of preconceived ideas about what it might mean to be a follower of Christ. I think it was only a week later though that John also asked the Lord to forgive his sins and welcomed Christ into his heart and life.

I don’t know if I’ve ever witnessed such a transformation in someone’s life as I watched happen in theirs—particularly John. John was about my age, but honestly, he looked 10-15 years older than me and it was all because he had lived a rough life—a wild life! But when John prayed through, things began to change! It created a bit of challenge in their marriage initially because John was growing so much spiritually that Sue could hardly keep up with what was happening! And what I began to even notice on the outside of John was that he was looking younger and younger. God was changing him within, and the change was so radical that it was impacting John’s appearance on the outside! The Lord called John into ministry and he has been pastoring for probably 15 years now. I just learned the other day that John is now pastoring the church that my grandfather pastored near the end of his pastoral career back in the 1960’s! It was so amazing to me that someone I had the privilege of serving in this “ministry of reconciliation” was now caring for the flock that my grandfather once served!

I fear though that the church is often tempted to make something less of conversion than this. We sometimes get stuck on what we see in people’s lives today and while we talk about conversion, in actuality we can’t get past where someone is now, failing to believe that God really can change lives! But if we quit believing that God can change lives, we’re all in trouble! We may as well lock the doors of the church and go home! But NO! God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation, and it’s a message of hope! And I want each of you to see that if there’s some part of your life that has not yet been transformed as you know it must be in order for you to live in a right relationship with God, you don’t need to remain stuck in such a pattern. God wants to change you—and, as Paul went on to say in the opening verses of chapter 6 of this letter to the Corinthians, “Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

But be assured it will not be a self-improvement project—like my efforts at losing weight have too often been. The “new creation” that Paul is speaking of goes much deeper than any self-help project could ever go. That’s where many who have “tried” the Christian life have failed—they’ve approached it like a giant self-improvement project and it’s simply too big of a task for any one of us! When we try to take on such change in our own willpower, we consistently end up falling flat on our faces. You and I are incapable of making ourselves to be the people God wants us to be. And a personal self-improvement project was never what God had in mind for us anyway!

God is the One who makes the changes within us! It is through his Son that reconciliation and forgiveness are made possible. Yes, He needs our cooperation. Yes, we must be willing. Yes, we must come to the point where we submit to Him and allow Him to work in our lives—but the transformation He has in mind for each of us goes way beyond what we could imagine or pull off on our own! Our Heavenly Father has graciously provided all that is needed for you and for me to be made new creations in Christ Jesus. Are you ready?

A wonderful thing that comes alongside the hope God wants to give each of us is the CONFIDENCE with which we are to live our lives as we journey with Him. It’s all too easy for Christians to get caught up in the pessimism of our world. I sometimes wonder if Christians seem like the most pessimistic people around—because we look at what’s happening in our society, the way in which our culture’s ethics and morality must surely break the heart of God, and we get this awful sensation that evil seems to be winning.

I watched a movie recently that reminded me of the atrocities of the slave trade that for several centuries brought Africans to our continent as slaves. To see what surely must have been their realities was awful—and it weighed so heavy upon my spirit. But I feel the same way when I think about the millions of babies aborted here in our country every year and about the current move to desecrate God’s design for marriage by extending the terminology and legal status to include those who are in homosexual relationships. What are the people in our country thinking? Oh how terribly far we have come from being anything close to a Christian nation! And it can become overwhelming and discouraging and even foreboding as Christians.

But I believe that our Heavenly Father wants us to live with a sense of confidence and hope—not drug down by the evil around us. We need to remember the ultimate outcome in the history of humanity! We need to remember Who is going to win! That was settled long ago by Christ on the cross! When Paul wrote what he did to the Corinthians, there was a spirit of confidence that God is reconciling the world to Himself! “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone the new has come!” That doesn’t sound dismal or hopeless to me, does it to you? Paul was not consumed by the evil around him; rather, Paul believed with all of his heart that God could transform every person into a new creation! Paul believed that because Paul had lived it himself! God had radically transformed him!

So friend, look up today! Be assured that you don’t need to be stuck where you are right now if you know you’re not fully in a right relationship with God! “Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” This is it! It’s time for you to be made new in Jesus Christ and to put off the way of life that’s really not working for you or for those around you!

My wife Cindy loves to watch the TV shows like “Extreme Makeovers.” They did an extreme makeover for a family in Kansas City when we were living there, and another Nazarene Church actually became the host site for the Extreme Makeover crew, including their many volunteers. What they do when they go in is tear down what has become a terribly inadequate house for a family and build in its place a house that is all that the family could possibly have dreamed for—but would have been impossible for them to have built on their own. And when the family returns after just a relatively few days away, the old is gone; the new has come!

Today’s your day, friend! God wants to put behind you that part of your life that’s become terribly inadequate—even though it was the best you could do! And in its place, God wants to create a new life—one that will end up being more than you would ever have dreamed. How do I know? Because that’s how my life has been! I know what God can do with a terribly inadequate person. I know how God can give strength and help with temptation and how He brings victory into our lives. I know how He takes our failures and our trials in life to mold and shape us into the person He had in mind for us to become all along! And I know that He can do it for you, too.