In With The New

Introduction:

**Recently, as happens most summers, my wife takes time after her school year is over to completely rearrange sections of our house

-I’m really thankful for my wife’s diligence in doing this, as it helps us stay organized and to get rid of things that we don’t need

-However, the main problem with this is that by the time I finally figure out where things go in our house, she begins her cleaning and rearranging process again, leaving me bewildered as to where things go

-Sometimes it seems like I’m wandering around aimlessly, trying to figure out where an item should go or find an item that my wife has recently moed

-What I probably should do each time this happens is to take a few minutes and walk around with her, taking stock of all the new storage bins she’s bought and all the new places where things go so that I can make sure I’m familiar with what my life will look like over the next few months

-Sometimes as Christians, it can be easy to lose our sense of purpose or direction in life

-We can at times forget or fail to really think about what our lives look like now that we’re in Christ

-We can begin to wander aimlessly through life, simply surviving in our day to day life instead of living with a sense of purpose and thankfulness for what God has made new in our lives

2 Corinthians is a deeply personal letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church

-This is a church that’s certainly had its problems living rightly as Christians

-Paul has already wrote at least one longer letter known as 1 Corinthians trying to address many of the problems this church was facing because of their selfishness and immaturity

-As Paul writes 2 Corinthians, he is wanting to deal with a conflict that apparently some people in the church have had with him, as well as let them know why he wasn’t able to visit them recently

-But early on in the book, Paul takes 5 chapters to pause these discussions and give an extended look at what life and ministry in the New Covenant ought to look like

-In a sense, he takes these believers (and us by extension) on a tour of the New Covenant house and shows us what areas of our lives have been made new in Christ, and how we ought to live with a sense of purpose because of what Christ has accomplished

And as we jump in with Paul on this tour, we’re going to let him remind us of what our lives look like now that we’re Christians under the New Covenant, and how that ought to affect us each and every day of our lives

**Read text and pray**

1. Our New Covenant Outlook (vs. 16)

-Now that Paul has been transformed by Christ and is living sacrificially for Him, he does not view others the same way he used to

-Paul in his day, struggled with the same temptation that we do today, which is to make superficial judgments of people based on external factors

-Whenever we meet people or see people, we are often doing more than making observations about them

-We are doing cost-benefit analysis

-We are determining if they are worth spending our time or energy on

-What do they look like?

-What’s their skin color or ethnicity

-How do they dress?

-How do they smell?

-Are they tall, or skinny, or good-looking?

-How would being around them affect my reputation?

-Would I be looked down upon for being associated with them?

-Or will being their friend help my reputation and how I’m viewed?

**I still remember being a little kid, and in our neighborhood, we had a couple of kids in our neighborhood named Evan and Quincy

-Evan was known as the weirdest kid on the block

-We was a complete nerd, very socially awkward, and an outcast

-Hanging out with Evan was not going to help you in anyway with your reputation or making friends with others

-And then there was Quincy

-Quincy was the coolest and most popular kid in the neighborhood

-He was funny, good-looking, and everyone wanted to hang out with him

-You could really help your social status out by hanging out with Quincy

Each of you can relate to this because you’ve all known Quincy’s and Evan’s in your life

-There may be Quincy’s and Evan’s at your workplace, or your school, or in your extended family, or in your other social spheres

-And it’s not surprising when people in the world flock to the cool and influential people and avoid the unpopular and awkward people

-They’re mainly concerned with how their friendships will make them look, how it will help them reach new heights socially or economically

What is surprising is when Christians adopt this way of thinking!

-Paul says that he doesn’t do that anymore!

-He doesn’t view people the way he used to!

What changed??

You see, Paul used to view Christ according to the flesh

-As a Pharisee and a former persecutor of the Church, Paul used to see Christ as an imposter!

-We know from Isaiah 53 that there was nothing externally compelling about Jesus

-He probably wasn’t 6’4, muscular and good looking

-And he came, not preaching a Gospel of the Jews overthrowing the Romans and making life better here, but preaching a Gospel of the need for all men, Jews and Gentiles, to repent and seek refuge from the coming wrath of God

-Furthermore, Jesus died a humiliating death, being crucified by the Romans!

-And for Paul, he used to view Jesus as merely a messianic counterfeit, an imposter!

he could not have possibly been more wrong

And when Jesus knocked him off his horse on the road to Damascus and called him from death to life, Paul no longer knew Christ in that fleshly way anymore!

-He no longer viewed Christ merely from externals, seeing only an unimpressive man who was killed by the Romans, but instead came to see the truth the Jesus was the very Son of God who rules over all!

-And because of that, Paul no longer viewed others according to the flesh either

-Gone were the days of basing judgments of people based on external factors

**Did you know that your skin color is one of the least important things about a person?

-Did you know that your height, hair color, the car you drive, or the number next to your bank account are some of the least important things about a person?

-None of those things tell you anything about someone’s character, someone’s relationships, someone’s ambitions, and those things certainly don’t tell you anything about a person’s relationship with the Lord

-If you’ve been saved, you ought to have an entirely new perspective on people!

-Stop being obsessed with how people look!

-Stop being obsessed with celebrities!

-Stop making determinations on whether someone can help you get to where you’re hoping to go in life

-Instead, because of your life being changed by Christ, you must view others through a new lens

-A lens that sees every single person as a person created in the Image of God, no matter how repulsive they may be

-A lens that sees that every single lost person is in desperate need of a Savior, no matter how annoying they may seem

-A lens that sees fellow Christians as family members of heirs of the household of God, no matter how much you may not mesh with their personality or preferences

Perhaps you there is an unsaved coworker or neighbor you have, but you won’t spend time with this person because they’re known as the awkward and annoying person

-Perhaps there are fellow church-members that you don’t try to build a relationship with because they’re not your age or don’t share some of your interests

-Brothers and sisters, we ought to have a new perspective in how we view people because of being changed by Christ!

Not only do we have a new covenant outlook, but notice . . .

2. Our New Covenant Identity (vs. 17)

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Now, what does it mean to be “in Christ?”

-It simply means that by repenting of our sin and placing our faith in Jesus, we have been brought into union with Him, and therefore enjoy all the privileges that union brings

**Back in 2022, I got married to my wonderful wife Ashley

-When we got married and became one, I married into all of the things that she had

-She had a car, and that car became my car as well through my union to Ashley

-Ashley has a mom and a dad, as well as a brother and a sister

-Her family members became my family members because of my union with Ashley

When you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ through repentance and faith, confessing Him as your Lord, you get all of the blessings that come with being in a relationship with Him

-You get the Holy Spirit to live in you

-You get the reconciled to the Father (as we’ll see in these next few verses)

-You get your sins forgiven

-You get to spend eternity in the Presence of God one day

-All of these things and much more are your’s now, because of your connection to Jesus Christ!

What happens when you are in Christ?

“you are a new creation!”

-There are thousands upon thousands of self-improvement books and videos and podcasts and motivational speeches

-There is a huge market for providing people with the tools for self-improvement, generating an estimated worth of 13.5 billion dollars last year in 2023

-But Christ did not come to make good people better people

He came to make sinful people new people

-Christ did not come and die on the cross and rise again primarily to help you be more disciplined

-Or to have a better marriage

-Or to be a more effective parent

-Or to be a more functional part of society

No, Christ came to change you entirely!

-And this is why there are many people who do not want to repent and receive salvation

-They don’t want to be changed entirely

-They want a better marriage

-They want to be more kind

-They want to stop causing damage in their relationships

-But become a new person entirely?

-No thanks

-But for those who realize their desperate need for salvation

-For those who realize they are sinful to the core

-For those who realize their need for to be entirely changed, only Christ can do that!

-He is the One who can change everything about you!

Now, is this verse saying that the moment you get saved, you become a perfect person who never sins again?

-Of course not

-We know from many other parts of Scripture that the Christian will still struggle with sin and temptation

-But will Christ completely reorient your desires, to where you will begin to hate the sin you used to love, and love the God you used to hate?

Absolutely

**When I was 10 years old, I came back from a Christian camp, convicted of my sin and desperately concerned about where I would go when I died

-I knew that if I were to die in my sins, I would go to hell and get the punishment I deserved

-So I prayed with my mom

-I repented of my sin and asked Christ to save me

-And he made me an entirely new person

-Back in 2007 John Stephens bowed his head in Applebees and was made a new person

-In December of 2020, Jer’mon and Kwa’mon bowed their heads in a Sonic parking lot and were made into new people

-When Dennis and Jennifer sat in their living room with a pastor decades ago and recieved Christ, they became new people

Do you realize that in Jesus Christ, you’ve been made new?

-If you’ve accepted Him, He’s taken all of your sin

-He’s forgive you completely

-He’s changed your desires and made you completely new

-You have an entirely new identity!

**insert possible illustration**

So we’ve first seen our new covenant outlook, next we’ve seen our new covenant identity

3. Our New Covenant Purpose (vs. 18-19)

-notice that these two verses are very similar

-Verse 19 kind of restates the message of verse 18, helping us understand it more fully

Notice that there are two main components in these verses:

The first is this: God has done the work of providing reconciliation to Himself

-Paul says in verse 18 that the God who has created all things and the God who has made us new creatures has reconciled us to Himself!

-What does reconciliation mean?

-this word and its root is used 10 times in your New Testament, and simply has the idea of bringing together two parties that are at odds with one another

**Those of you who are parents or who grew up with siblings know that this is

-You have two young boys who are playing together

-And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a nasty fight erupts between the two children

-And one or both of them come crying to mom and saying how his brother hit him or called him a name, and the brother is denying it or saying that the other kid who started it

-And mom turns to the first boy and says, “you need to say you’re sorry to your brother for hitting him.”

-And so the first boy reluctantly gives an apology through his tears

-And mom turns to the second boy and says, “you need to say you’re sorry for calling your brother that name.”

-And so the second boy gives his reluctant apology

-And then mom turns to both of them and says, “ok, give each other a hug.”

-And so both boys reluctantly give the other a hug

-And then they go back to playing games

-What just happened?

-There was reconciliation

-Now, the major difference between the story I just gave and our text is a big one:

-in that story, both of those boys were in the wrong

-But in the conflict between sinful humanity and God, only one party is in the wrong, and it’s not God

-We have all sinned, and therefore we are estranged from God and enemies with Him

-Most people think they are just fine with God!

“Why would God have a problem with me? I’m a decent person.”

-They don’t realize that the Bible teaches that all have sinned and therefore are enemies of God!

-But Paul tells us that reconciliation has been made possible through Christ!

-in verse 18 he says that God “has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ”

-And in verse 19 he says that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them.”

-God, the One who has been sinned against, has accomplished everything necessary for reconciliation through sending His only Son to earth to take on flesh and die in our place

And this leads us to our second component of these verses which is this:

-you and I as Christians have been entrusted with the ministry and the word of reconciliation

-The High King of Heaven has provided a way of forgiveness, and he has entrusted that message to us to go into the world and to proclaim!

-that’s why we’ve sent out the Boyles

-that’s why we’ve sent out the McCrocklins

-that’s why we’ve sent out the Stephens

-Because our responsibility is to proclaim to all people, regardless of ethnicity, or money, or status, that God has provided everything necessary for their reconciliation and forgiveness!

**In December of 1974, a 10 year old boy living in Florida by the name of Chris Carrier was approached by a man after school

-the man introduced himself as Chuck and claimed to be a friend of Chris’s father

-The man offered to drive Chris home

-Chris got in the car with the man, who drove out into the Florida Everglades

-The man pulled the car over and pulled out an ice pick and a lit cigarette and began to stab and burn 10 year old Chris while holding him down

-Finally, the man shot the Chris in the back of the head and drove off

-Remarkably, 6 days later, a farmer found Chris in the Everglades still alive after being unconscious for those 6 days

-They rushed him to the hospital where they were able to treat his wounds

-The gunshot had remarkably missed his brain, but he permanently lost vision in one of his eyes

-The man who had tortured and shot Chris was named David McAllister

-The police suspected him and brought him in for questioning and for a lineup, but Chris was unable to identify him and ultimately, the police were not able to pin anything on him

-20 years later, Chris received a phone call from a police officer who informed him that David McAllister was dying in a nursing home and had admitted to abducting and shooting Chris all those years ago

-Chris drove over to meet David McAllister, and held his hand, and told him that he had forgiven him

-David McAllister’s life ended with hearing the message that Chris wanted to be reconciled to him

Brothers and sisters, we have a message for all those who are lost in sin . . .

4. Our New Covenant Message (vs. 20-21)

Vs. 20

-We are Christ’s ambassadors, His representatives

-An ambassador is an official representative of a King or authority

-We understand this, as we have ambassadors in countries all over the world

-For instance, the US ambassador to France is Denise Bauer

-When she is in France acting in that position, she represents President Joe Biden and the United States of America

Brothers and sisters, if you are a Christian, than you are an ambassador for Christ

-You represent Jesus to a lost a dying world

-And through you God is pleading

-Not in a weak way, as if God needs people to like Him and accept Jesus

-No, in a compassionate way, the way you might plead with someone you love not to make a decision that will bring them harm

-God is pleading through us this message:

Be reconciled to God

How can God say that? How can people so wicked be made right with God Almighty?

-that brings us to what I believe to be one of the pinnacle verses of the entire Bible

Vs. 21

-Let’s work through this and we’ll be done

-Who’s the “He” referring to?

-The nearest referent is God the Father in verse 20

-Who is the “Him” referring to?

-It’s the one who was made sin for us, Jesus Christ

What does it mean that Jesus knew no sin?

-It means He was completely and totally sinless, completely perfect

-God made His perfect Son to be sin for us

What does that mean?

-Let’s start with what it does not mean: it does not mean that Jesus became sinful on the Cross

-Jesus cannot change, and therefore he cannot sin

-Jesus did not in anyway become sinful

So what does it mean?

One of the closest similarities we find is in Isaiah 53:10, which speaks of Jesus

Isaiah 53:10 NKJV

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

God made Jesus to be a sin offering for us

two verses later, Isaiah says this: Isaiah 53:12

Isaiah 53:12 (NKJV)

Because He poured out His soul unto death,

And He was numbered with the transgressors,

And He bore the sin of many,

And made intercession for the transgressors.

At the very heart of the Gospel is the idea of penal substitution, that Jesus died on behalf of sinners

-that he took the punishment and wrath that we deserved from God on Himself

1 Peter 2:24 NKJV

who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

Isaiah 53:5–6 NKJV

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

**I remember as a child, I was not the most obedient of my siblings

-My parents were a firm believer in spankings, and I certainly got a lot of them

-It was not unusual for me to get 2 or 3 a day at times

-I remember one instance when I was pretty young, where I had done something wrong again and deserved another spanking

-And I don’t know if my dad was just tired of spanking me, or he was trying to teach me a lesson, or both

-But I remember my dad taking me to my room to get a spanking, but instead of giving it to me, he turned the paddle on himself and hit himself instead

-The punishment that I deserved, he took instead

-that’s what Jesus took for us

-And far from making God some kind of cosmic child abuser as some suggest, this actually shows God’s mercy and grace

-That he would be willing to provide the atonement for our sins by giving His Son, who was not forced to die for us, but did it willingly

-Why would he do that?

-So that we could become the righteousness of God in Him

-Because Jesus took our sin, we can take his righteousness

-We can be granted right standing before God

**I don’t think it’s true, but there’s a story told of two immigrant brothers who moved to America

-One brother began to work hard to provide an honest living for himself

-But the other got caught up in trouble and began to live a criminal lifestyle

-One night while out gambling and doing things he shouldn’t, the man shot and killed another man

-In a panic, he went to his brother’s house to flee from the Law

-When he got there, he changed out of his bloody clothes and left them lying there on the floor, grabbed a change of clean clothes, then left

-when his innocent brother came home, he saw the bloody clothes and the mess, and figured out what probably happened

-So the innocent brother put on the bloody clothes of his guilty brother until the police showed up and arrested him

-they tried him and found him guilty, and the innocent brother died in the place of the guilty brother

This is the message that we have to proclaim!

-That Christ died for you so that you can go free!

-He is willing to exchange His righteous standing with your sin, so that you can be reconciled to God

-If you are here and have never repented and recieved this reconciliation, I urge you today to be reconciled to God!

-Fellow Christians, this is the message that we’ve been entrusted with

-We are to plead with sinners of behalf of God to be reconciled to Him through Christ

-Who do you need share this with this week?

-Who can you pray for that God would give you an opportunity to witness to this week?

-This is not a task only for those who are super Christians or for those who are more outgoing

-This isn’t an optional task that you can participate in if you feel like it

-This is the God-given responsibility for every Christian

-We are to implore those around us to be reconciled to God