Be careful about being a new Creation…
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Text: II Corinthians 5.12-21
Somethings don’t fit.
Square hole Round Peg…
Seasame Street One of these things.
CIT: Being a new creation is not about being different, it’s about being new.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
This new life changes the way the world sees us…
They’ll say youre crazy. (13)
Jesus was accused of this…
And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.
And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?
And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.
Paul is stressing the point that he is not acting crazy. Crazy is defined by the normal. So when he does the thing that is most logical for someone driven by love it looks crazy in a world filled with selfishness.
They’ll say youre pretentious. (12)
There are those that will only glory with your appearance. The false teachers were able to talk about how proud and cruel Paul was because of his absence.
They played Paul’s testimony only because they were there and Paul wasn’t.
Remember what the Lord said to Samuel: The Lord does not see as a man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). We are so easily impressed by a person’s image that we often do not see or care about their substance. It isn’t that appearance is completely unimportant, but compared to the heart it almost is.
This isn’t true at all…You are driven by love (14)
Paul explains that he is constrained. The motivation of love drags Paul to ask what is best for the souls to whom he ministers.
He can’t live for himself because the one who died for him refused to live for himself.
Christ’s love is our motivation to love….
Why is there these to notions of CRAZY or JUDGMENTAL…
1. This new life changes the way we address the world…
A. You value something eternal (16)
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
Paul has spelled it out that we don’t look at the thing that is seen. We are looking at the thing which is not there.
B. You have a better purpose. (18-19)
ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD…
God has reconciled us to himself.
Then gave us the work of reconciliation.
Here is the most important part.
This issue of motivation sit on the hinge of Identity…
If any man…
It is open invitation to all. There are not some of you chosen for new life and some chosen for old flesh life.
Be in Christ…
He is open for you all.
Notice that the focus was not about this crazy man Paul…
Notice that the focus was not being holier-than-thou…
It isn’t even about your love…
It is about the fact that God is doing a work, and that you and I have our hope in this transformation.
The context is about this work that Jesus is going to complete in us. A Christlikeness work that will shave away the sin, a loosening of the worlds agenda on our heart, sharpening our hunger for prayer, and more dependence on the father.
That work that will only be completed when we open our eyes and see him in his physical form.
This is not some turning of a new leaf that requires your aggression.
This is not some fake it till you make it.
This is a transformation that is one creature put to death. And then another is in its place.
Listen we look forward to the resurrection of our body. Hear me today Scripture is describing a resurrection that begins NOW not at death. Let us live the resurrected life today not wait.
What does that look like
People motivated by love
To say, “the love of Christ constrains us,” is to say that the love of Christ has power. It has a force that can bind us and influence us. “The love of Christ had pressed Paul’s energies into one force, turned them into one channel, and then driven them forward with a wonderful force, till he and his fellows had become a mighty power for good, ever active and energetic.” (Spurgeon)
People with the purpose of reconciliation
People free from this world and its ways.