The Hardest Part (2)

We love a good transformation story, don’t we? There’s something ingrained in us that loves when something or someone goes through a seemingly magical transformation from one thing to another. Just think for a second about how the stories that get told about this stuff.

It could be a weight loss story or if someone gets a big makeover. We love stories about old homes getting restored with new life…

I mean, we love Chip and Joanna Gaines, right? The show Fixer Upper turned into a binge-worthy feat of television genius as those two drove around central Texas and found and fixed up homes to meet the needs of their clients.

I know when I’m killing time on my phone, the reels that I tend to stick on the longest are the ones where people are going through some sort of transformation. And of course the algorithms pick up on this and then all you get are videos and pictures of dudes going from long hair to short hair. Right! We love a good transformation story!

Taking that a step further, we particularly love stories about significant life change. Or when people take a big step like getting baptized. We saw that a few weeks ago right here in our building.

I was watching one of my favorite movies a few weeks ago that showcases some pretty significant life-changing moments. It’s a movie called “Jojo Rabbit.”

This story takes place in World War 2 Germany and it tells the story of a boy named Jojo, who when the movie starts, is a fanatic about the prevailing political ideology of his country and he also happens to have the German dictator as an imaginary friend. You follow me? I’m being intentionally vague, here… Okay…

Anyway, Jojo has learned some rather nasty ideas about the Jewish people and he’s surrounded by others who share those thoughts. He’s part of a group of other boys in his hometown who are being indoctrinated to these beliefs at a day camp and they are being trained to be future German soldiers. However, Jojo suffers an injury during camp and he’s no longer able to attend and he’s spending lots of time at home as a result.

Spoiler alert…Jojo’s mother is not a sympathizer of this political ideology and she is part of a network of people who house Jewish runaways. Jojo ends up finding a girl named Elsa hiding in the house one day. And of course, because of his misunderstanding about this girl and her culture, he has a really difficult time processing how to feel about this.

His transformation isn’t immediate, but what he learns is that everything he believed about this group of people was a total fabrication. This changes everything for Jojo as he ends up breaking away from his former beliefs about the Jewish people and he ends up being a lighthouse for protection and comfort for this stowaway he finds in his house.

Jojo’s transformation from oppressor to liberator evokes a common phrase we all know when we hear and think about a story like this, “That was then…” and “This is now…” and even though Jojo might have to continue to live with the fact he sympathized with a vile political ideology, his transformation shows us that there is wisdom in treating everyone as if they are made in the image of God and if we do this with the people around us…real change is possible.

Let’s get into the bible this morning and talk a little about how Paul saw this kind of thing. In 2 Corinthians, what we find is Paul writing to a church that he’s deeply concerned with and cares about. In chapter 5, we find Paul expressing his view of how we should look at Jesus and others because of what he suffered on the cross. And he’s driving home the idea that Jesus’ ministry was one of reconciliation to God through this act.

He kind of starts talking about this in verses 16 and 17 saying, “we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now!” And this is a call for people to view others in a more positive way than maybe we would have before we knew Jesus.

By choosing to follow Christ, our opinions of people shouldn’t be ones that are disparaging in any way. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t hold people accountable. God is most certainly a God of justice, but it almost seems like Paul is trying to get people to think of others a little more highly.

You might know Paul was not always so forgiving in this way. He was a man who persecuted Christians and didn’t think so highly of those who didn’t see things the way he did. Before his conversion to Christ. He was a person who thought the Messiah was going to be a political operative sent to release the Jews from the oppressive rule of the Roman government.

He goes on in verse 17 to express the idea of becoming a “new creation.” It says, “This means that anyone who believes in Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone, a new life has begun!” This sentence futhers what Paul is trying to get across to his audience about what it means for us to experience transformation because we have heard and believed the message of Jesus. It’s not necessarily erasing the past, though. It’s just choosing to walk down a path of reconciliation.

The wisdom we find in the first couple verses of this passage is that when we choose Jesus, we are being defined by something new that has entered our lives. Paul’s encouragement here is to see people differently than we did before our acceptance of Christ. I think an important question for us to consider is who are those people in our lives we struggle to see as people who can be “new creations.”

You see, this line of thinking goes along with the call to treat others like yourself. And in the movie, Jojo had a tough time seeing Elsa as a person, even, let alone as someone he can live life beside. He lets his preconceived notions about her culture and heritage shape the way he thought about her. It wasn’t until he got to know her personally by spending time around her that he unlearned his behavior and decided she wasn’t so bad after all.

But we can take this a step further by just allowing ourselves to let go of the negative ideas we have about people who are not like us, or who have wronged us in some way, or just people we think poorly of.

I think sometimes we have difficulty letting people change in our minds. You think about people you might’ve known 10-15 years ago who you didn’t think very highly of. You might think, “Ah, that guy will never change.” But the truth is, people do change and it’s important to let our minds evolve in such a way that sees people as Paul is encouraging us to look at them, which is how Jesus viewed people. To be considered a new creation is something that’s pretty special. And for those of us who are on the inside of this thing, if we really want to be like Jesus, it’s really important to allow our minds to transform to see people as the image bearers of God.

Paul goes into verses 18 and 19 he says, “And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.” You know, last week we talked a bit about how you take the things from your past with you even as you progress through the various stages of life. I would love to be a person who can completely forget about all the bad things that might have happened over the years, and truth be told, I often pray for that to happen. In a lot of ways, making the decision to follow Jesus is considered a fresh start, we become unshackled by the burden of sin. But man I’ll tell ya…some days, those things from the past have a way of rearing their ugly heads and they come out and getcha. You know what I’m saying? I was dealing with some of that this week and I was venting a little bit about my experience and the person I was talking to just stopped me and said, “That’s fear. That’s an attack from Satan.” You’re on a path of righteousness and you don’t have to listen to it if you don’t want to.

It was a good reminder, you know, that reconciliation can take constant renewal. Jesus paid that price and it’s up to me to follow that path. Yeah, the past is gonna come get me sometimes, but I don’t have to constantly live with the fear that it defines me. That’s what Jesus does. It’s my job to rise up, acknowledge my weakness, and move forward.

Because of all this, the most Christlike way we can respond to the idea of being a new creation is to live our lives as a beacon for that message of reconciliation to God through Christ. Loving God and loving people in a self-sacrificial way that shows others the gift of grace we have received. Verse 20 says this, “So we are Christ’s ambassadors, God is making his appeal through us; We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” We don’t speak for God, God speaks through us. When we allow the Holy Spirit into our lives, we become part of the body that Christ works through to bring God’s people back into the fold through the important work of reconciliation.

So here’s the deal, this passage is probably Paul's most robust explanation of how he views what Jesus’ death means for us. Essentially what he’s saying is Jesus is aligning himself with our sin and taking it with him on the cross so that we can be restored. And when he tells this powerful story to the people in the church in Corinth, he’s also trying to reconcile himself to them.

Paul is dealing with some unruly people and that’s one of his main reasons for writing this letter. He cares a lot about this community of believers and he’s just trying to get them back on the right track. I think a bit about the things Paul would’ve had to encounter in order to fulfill his duties as a missionary. He’s going into a lot of communities where there aren’t people who are like him. Reading this letter just proves his conviction to make sure he spreads the gospel to the known world.

Think about this: Paul was arrested at least three times that we know of in scripture, and maybe up to five times. He was beaten, there were times he was shipwrecked, he was betrayed by his fellow Christians, and he also had this thorn in his flesh that he talked about. We don’t really know what it is, but he was suffering from some pretty bad physical stuff.

I mean, the dude went through hell for the gospel to be spread all around the Mediterranean. I think about him in relation to this quote by a Rabbi named Steve Leder and he says, “If you’re going through hell, don’t come out empty handed.” Every time Paul was beaten, imprisoned, gossiped about, betrayed, cursed at, spit on…I mean the dude got all the noise. And at every turn, he gained wisdom and he decided to use it to write about his faith in Jesus, about his joy in his suffering, and how it made him stronger to have to endure the mental and physical pain of being a missionary for the cause of Christ. And he gives us this incredible synopsis of what it meant for Jesus to follow through with God’s plan to reconcile us back to the father. Paul didn’t leave empty handed.

And he doesn’t ignore his past of being a persecutor of those who followed Jesus, but he refuses to be trapped by it, he doesn't allow it to define him, he takes his conversion seriously and moves forward. Because that was then…and this is now.

This is how we gain wisdom. This is how we cultivate endurance. This is how we experience a deeper faith. Let’s ask ourselves this question: What should a transformed life look like?

The first thing we can work on is changing how we see others. No one wants to be defined by their worst moment. Paul goes from persecutor to preacher when Jesus meets him on the Damascus Road. He changes his life in such a way that we now know of him as an Apostle of Christ. It just does us so much good to allow people to change in our minds when they’ve made changes for the better.

But also! And here’s the second thing… We have to think better of ourselves. In the same way, it does us no good to think of ourselves so lowly that we can’t function on some days. I mean, what good is that? We’re in community with Jesus now. And we need to be able to count on that community to rise up with us for the betterment of the Kingdom. And look here, if you need help, go get help. I’m a big supporter of counseling when we’ve got problems we find that are hard to deal with. I stand before you here today as a man who has benefitted from receiving that help. There ain’t no shame in it. And if someone tells you there is, they’re wrong. Plain and simple. We’ll take you as you are, but the point of this whole thing is to experience the fullness of Christ while living in his community. Any ethical resource that helps get you to 100% should be considered.

Alright then, here’s the third thing. We have to consider how all of this helps us invite others into transformation. Paul used his hardship to spread the gospel. His life is a reminder to us that transformation isn’t just something we experience–it’s something we share. He didn’t just suffer, praise God, and die. He used his suffering to create a platform to share his story.

There’s a story in Acts 16 where Paul is travelling with another missionary named Silas and they get arrested when some people get mad because they decided to cast a demon out of a woman. While they’re in jail…they’re singing songs. Then there’s this earthquake that happens and all the prisoners are able to escape. But they don’t…They just sit there. Chillin’. Then the jailer shows up and he’s just a mess because he sees the condition of the prison and he assumes everyone has escaped. So he draws a sword to kill himself when he hears Paul and Silas tell him to stop. Because of this…the jailer asks them how to be saved. And that man’s whole family was saved that day. The wisdom here is that Paul’s hardships don’t silence his message–they amplify it.

Here’s another thing, and I mentioned this before, but we do not speak for God, he speaks through us. Our call as believers is to be ambassadors for Christ. This is done through how we choose to live our lives. Being people of harmony, hospitality, and hope. Paul finds himself in some pretty sticky situations at times. One of those times is when he’s on trial in Acts 26. He’s been falsely accused of desecrating the temple and they keep him locked up for over two years! Through all of this, when people are asking him to defend himself, he uses every opportunity to share his testimony. Allowing his life to point towards Christ once again when he is facing dire straits.

Here’s where I’m going with this; when it comes to experiencing transformation, there are few better examples for us on how to do this than there are with Paul. This is a guy who walked the walk and talked the talk, so when he comes at us with the stuff he writes in his letter to the church in Corinth, he’s approaching the subject with the experience and WISDOM is takes to show us how it’s done.

What would it look like for us to follow his example?

It looks like sharing our stories. Don’t be afraid to tell your story. Don’t underestimate how powerful your transformation story can be for other people. And you don’t have to spend a lot of time doing it. It’s not like you have to spend 2-3 days studying before you share with people how Jesus changed your life. I’ve experienced this myself. I can relate to the real-life struggle of others because I go through them myself.

It also looks like living differently. Nothing provokes me more to return to my former self than when things go bad. You ever catch yourself in these moments wishing you could return to the way you used to deal with things? Pleading with God like, “Lord…if you really love me, you’ll let me get my vengeance in some way. Nah…that was then…and this is now. We don’t do that anymore. Vengeance is the Lord’s and we belong to Christ. We are called to react differently. With hope, peace, and perseverance. Here’s a reminder from Romans 5:3-7.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.

Said more plainly, “Affliction produces an eternal weight of glory.”

That’s 2 Corinthians 4:17…it’d be good to memorize that one

The last thing is this and then we’re gonna get out of here. Live intentionally. Our lives should be lived in such a way that they cause people to become confused about how happy we are. Paul wrote letters, spoke to rulers, encouraged churches—he actively sought ways to invite people into transformation. Where can we do the same?

Let’s pray