Exile: Seeing the World Through the New Creation Lens
New Creation: Learning to See Everything Through a New Lens • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 9 views(Main point: Because we are new creation, we need to see the world around us as a place where we are aliens and exiles.) The new creation has arrived and we are part of it in Christ. Therefore, we need to learn to see the present world as a place where we don’t belong, because it is passing away. This world around us is a dying and decaying place, filled with mixed-up priorities and empty promises. When we see the world through a new creation lens, we see that we are aliens and exiles here.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Introduction:
Someday, the whole world is going to be changed/redeemed/made new
But FIRST we are changed/redeemed/made new
which leaves us living in a world
where we don’t quite fit in anymore
where we don’t quite line up anymore
have you ever felt like that?
if so, it’s not only NORMAL
it’s a good thing
There is a SONG we sometimes sing…
“This WORLD is not my home…”
“This WORLD is not my home…”
The Bible doesn’t actually say that and it depends on what we mean by that.
In some ways, this WORLD is more our home than it is anyone’s
This is our father’s world
The meek will inherit the earth
but if we change the emphasis
“THIS world is not my home…”
“THIS world is not my home…”
THIS world is not my home
this present world
the world as it is
THIS is NOT my home
This world is full of…
greed
materialism
idolatry
violence
immorality
THIS world is passing away and God is going to make all things new
So how are we to think about THIS world?
How are we to live in THIS world?
Peter’s first letter deals with this question. Christians who were struggling to live in this present world. Who felt out of place in their own hometowns.
Biblical Text:
Biblical Text:
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
You have been born again
That’s what it is to become new creation
THROUGH the living and abiding word of God (the Gospel)
is the seed that was planted that brought about
our rebirth
our purification
our ability to love one another from a pure heart
it is an imperishable seed
what is true of someone who is born of an imperishable seed?
he/she is imperishable!!!
24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
Quote from Isaiah 40
Isaiah is talking about how everything that people build—no matter how strong it looks—it will WITHER and FALL, but what God’s word will abide forever!
Isaiah 40:12–17 “12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? … 15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust… 17 All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”
Isaiah 40:22–24 “22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; 23 who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. 24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.”
All the NATIONS, CORPORATIONS, and INSTITUTIONS of the world
Regardless of how big and bad they may seem
They are flesh
They are grown from perishable seed
Their glory is only for a moment
They wither and fall
But we are NEW CREATION people, born again through IMPERISHABLE SEED
Because we are born from imperishable seed
We are imperishable
We will abide forever
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
STOP acting like the world, like perishable (grass) people
malice - evil behavior
deceit - “taking advantage through craft and underhanded methods” (BDAG)
hypocrisy - “create a public impression that is at odds with one’s real purposes or motivations” (BDAG)
envy - “resentment toward the success or possessions of another”
slander - “unkind speech” (NLT) “the act of speaking ill” (BDAG) of someone
Aren’t these the traits that define the present world?
Power
Wealth
The ways of your school
The ways of your work
Maybe even the ways of your friends and neighbors
“the way the world works”
2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
“pure”
unadulterated
unpolluted
undiluted
“spiritual”
the root of this word is “logos” (word)
the same word for the message/word that brought us new birth
grow up into salvation
we aren’t the people we want to be yet
we aren’t the people we were saved to be yet
Little later in that chapter
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Who are we?
sojourners - You live in a place that is not your home
exiles - “staying for a while in a strange or foreign place”
Implication -this place is NOT your home, it is strange, it is foreign, don’t get too comfortable here
The passions of your flesh
are waging war against your soul
are promoted by the powers of the world
the world deceives us and says, “FOLLOW YOUR PASSIONS.”
but the gospel teaches us…
3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. 4 Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. 5 But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead.
You used to fit in with them
now you don’t
now you stick out
now you seem weird
The future is coming
skip down to verse 12
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
We are enduring the present in light of the future
If you suffer for being a Christian…
don’t be surprised
don’t be ashamed
rejoice
glorify God in the name “Christian”
Application:
Application:
Do you feel like an…
outsider
stranger
foreigner
reject
weirdo
YES, it’s uncomfortable, but it is how it is supposed to be…
Only when we’re strangers in this age are we prepared to be at home in the age to come.
Only when we’re strangers in this age are we prepared to be at home in the age to come.
This age is temporary, but the age to come is eternal
If we’re at home in this age
we aren’t prepared for the age to come (new creation)
we have nothing to offer the people of this age
we have to be strangers to have something of value to offer them
Invitation:
Invitation:
born again THROUGH the imperishable seed
recommit yourself to being a STRANGER, ALIEN, FOREIGNER, EXILE
stop fitting in
stop going with the flow
stop keeping up with the Joneses
let people start praying with you and helping you
