Divine Love, New Life, and a Heavenly Calling
Notes
Transcript
Look around the room. What is your perception of the people around you? We perceive others according to outward appearance, obviously, but also what they can do for us, what they may take from us, what they want from us or for us. We see our differences very clearly and we pick and choose our acquaintances accordingly. We claim turf and defend it against those that are different. How would our world change if we who call ourselves by Jesus’ name would love indiscriminately, live as if we need nothing from anyone, and commit to a mission of reconciliation? In other words, what if we lived as missionaries?
What has motivated missionaries for the last two thousand years to give up careers, comfort, and reputation to share life with people who are completely different from them and seek their flourishing through peace with God in Christ? What if we all lived with that mindset no matter where we lived?
Paul’s letter to Corinth is a perfect study for us. Paul had arrived in the city of Corinth as a missionary. Paul’s gospel preaching had converted many people and a church was formed. But that church retained some of their old way of life shaped by their culture. They were prosperous, comfortable, and prone to judge according to appearance and popularity. Paul had seen the resurrected Christ and this had changed his perception of himself and of every human he met and had motivated the very mission that had brought them the good news of Jesus. And if the Corinthian church could change their perception of Jesus, themselves, and their relationship to the world, they would be more effective partners for the sake of the gospel.
2 Corinthians 5 is filled with words about seeing and judging or seeing and knowing, words about perception. Do they perceive Jesus rightly? Do they perceive others clearly? Do they perceive their own identity and calling? I hope we can perceive from our passage that for us to be effective missionaries and missionary partners, we need a motive, a message, and a mission that are shaped by our life in Christ more than our human perceptions.
Our New Motive is the Love of Christ
Our New Motive is the Love of Christ
Okay and Yes...South Korean missionaries going to North Korea, prepared to be martyrs for Jesus. What motivates that kind of attitude?
What motivates you...in your work, in your relationships? Is it selfish ambition, people pleasing, keeping up appearances, or jealousy, or fear? Those things belong to our old sinful nature. When we have new life in Christ, we experience a new motive. Paul says when he learned to know Jesus as Lord, he learned Jesus’ love in a way that motivated him.
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
When we discover that the Lord of life, God the Son, died in our place as sinners deserving God’s wrath, we learn His indescribable love. Jesus knew no sin. When He lived His life on earth, He never had a sinful thought. He was patient and kind. He did not envy or boast. He did not grasp power or pride. He was not rude or self-seeking. He was not easily angered and was quick to forgive. He did not delight in evil but rejoiced with the truth. He never spoke a less than truthful word. He never gave into the temptation to lust. He wasn’t filled with jealousy or selfish ambition. Jesus did not deserve to die.
Every one of us has rebelled against God. In our sin, we would rule ourselves rather than submit to God’s kingdom. We are traitors deserving death. Jesus died the very death we should have died in our place. His death was a sacrifice for traitors. No one else loves like Jesus loves us. He loves even His enemies.
Paul says Jesus’ love controls him. He found the love of Jesus so compelling, he gave up his career and his reputation to share the love of Jesus with people far from God. Our love for others is very limited. It’s hard to get past our perceptions of them. But the love of Jesus is unlimited, and unrestrained by prejudice. He knows the worst parts of all of us, and it only increases His compassion for us and He draws even nearer. If we are every going to love others in the same way, it won’t be our own weak, fickle, self-seeking kind of love. It will have to be His love in us.
This is what Paul gets at in verse 15. Jesus died for us all that we might die to our sinful self-seeking and prejudice and fear, and live for Him. He did not only die for us, He lives for us. Do you love Him? He is so compelling. Let Him compel you to walk in His way toward those who need the compassion of Christ. Experiencing His love changes your whole life. This is what Paul says next.
We are New Creation in Christ
We are New Creation in Christ
This was Paul’s message. You can be made new.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
What does it mean to be a new creation? Paul says it begins with new eyes. God, who in the first creation said, “Let there be light”, Paul says back in chapter 4,
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We live in the light of Christ. We don’t see with the eyes of the flesh, judging by appearances. The old you has passed away with its prejudices, and the new you shaped by the love of Christ has come. We now have love for Christ, and live for Him. And we have the love of Christ in us for others. We see them through His eyes. We love them with His love.
Let’s dig one layer deeper. As new creation, we have been restored to the conditions of creation. What were the conditions in creation before we fell into sin? We lived in paradise with God. He cared for our every need in a garden of delights. The Lord was our shepherd and we lacked nothing. We were fruitful, and we partnered with Him in His dominion, cultivating fruitfulness in the earth.
Here’s Paul’s worldview. When you perceive Jesus for who He is, the glory of God with a human face, and when you believe in Him, your faith unites you with Jesus. Jesus died and has risen to new life in the new creation. If you are united with Christ, you partake in the new creation. In Christ, God tends to your every need. You lack nothing. You can commune with God and tend the garden of your soul. We are restored to fruitfulness in Christ. We bear the fruit of righteousness, holiness, love, joy, peace, and every kind of goodness.
Now, you can enter the lives of others needing nothing from them. You enter filled with good fruit, overflowing with Jesus’ compelling love, seeking God’s kingdom for others, and cultivate their flourishing. We seek their reconciliation with God.
We Have a New Calling in Christ
We Have a New Calling in Christ
How would you describe your calling? Do you have a job or a vocation? For some people, those are the same. There are nurses and teachers and moms and engineers and financial advisors that sense that they were made to do what they do. God gave them gifts that they have developed and they feel His pleasure when they do their work. What is the calling of a missionary?
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Ambassadors - “senior representatives”. We speak and act on behalf of our Lord. We do what He would do if He were present. And we know what He would do if He was present. He would proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, He would set at liberty those who are oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). We would tell people, God is good and He has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah. Give your life to Him and He will set you free and give you joy and you will have eternal life.
Paul says, we speak as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore, plead, beg you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. We are the delegation sent ahead of the coming king. He is coming to judge the earth. We are pleading with people to reconcile with Him now so that they will enter the new creation and not be found in their sin and condemned as rebels. You can be freed from the power of sin right now and have peace with God.
Paul saw himself and the other apostles as ambassadors for Christ. He was a Jew travelling in Gentile lands. Is that calling only for the apostles? Missionaries today travel across borders with the gospel of Jesus. Is the calling as ambassadors for Christ only for missionaries? Do all Christians share this calling?
Paul says in his letter to the Philippians,
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
We live in the U.S.A., or some other country on earth. But our citizenship is in heaven. So, wherever you live as a Christian, you live in a foreign country. You are an ambassador of another country called heaven. You are a missionary. You have received the ministry of reconciliation.
But like any ambassador, the place we occupy, our home, our vocation, is sovereign territory of the kingdom of Christ. We are living under His authority, and we answer to Him. We have a responsibility to obey the laws of the country in which we live. But we cannot violate the laws of the kingdom to which we belong. A Christian will always live counter-culturally, no matter what culture they inhabit.
One early Christian writer was explaining the Christian lifestyle to a local official in the Alexandria area. “They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.”
We are equally counter-cultural when we promote life for the unborn, the aged, the disabled, and the immigrant. We will not serve the idol of comfort and convenience at the cost of proclaiming good news to the poor. We reject all forms of sexual immorality and promote marriage and healthy families for healthy children.
The Corinthian Christians needed to learn to perceive others according to the new creation in Christ, not according to the flesh. In what ways do American Christians need to learn a new perspective? Many of us have separated our job from our vocation.
Whatever you do for vocational work, you can integrate your calling as an ambassador for Christ. Whether we engage in business, education, healthcare, the arts, technology, parenting, politics, or any other endeavor, the goal of our vocation now becomes seeking priorities of the kingdom of Christ. We seek justice and righteousness, faithfulness, and steadfast love in our work. How can your work be reconciled to God? And besides, there are people there that need your ministry of reconciliation.
“The church is the pilgrim people of God. It is on the move - hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, hastening to the end of time to met its Lord who will gather all into one.” Lesslie Newbigin
Look around the room. Do you perceive any difference in those around you now? Close your eyes, and look around your life. Who have you been perceiving according to the flesh? Someone that you have been seeing as an enemy, a nuisance, or an obstacle is someone that has been hurt or lied to and is living a less than flourishing life apart from new creation in Christ Jesus. Do you perceive the love of Jesus as compelling enough to cross a border into someone’s life? Are you preaching a message of new creation in Christ but living as if people owe you something? Or do you have a message of new creation hope for them, and are you carrying out your calling on mission with Jesus, ministering reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ? Has God put one of those unreached people groups on your heart, and He’s calling you to find a way to partner for the gospel there? If you are a new creation in Christ, you are an ambassador for Christ.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Communion
Questions for Discussion
What are you thankful for this week? What has been difficult?
In what way did Psalm 96, shape your life in the last week?
Now, turning to 2 Corinthians 5:14-21, what do we learn about God there?
What has God done in and through Jesus Christ? How has that impacted your life?
What do we learn about ourselves in this passage?
What motivates you in your relationships and in your work?
How do you experience the love of Christ controlling you?
How would you describe living as a new creation in Christ?
What do you consider your vocation? In what ways is God using your work for the sake of the kingdom of Christ?
In what place has God placed you as an ambassador for Christ?
How will you respond to this passage this week?
Who is someone with whom you can share this passage this week?
