A New Creation

Pray

Today’s verse isn’t one that you would necessarily think of as being a verse of encouragement. It’s not the type of verse you’d see on a sympathy card or a bookmark.

And yet, there is encouragement that we can take from this verse that I’d like to share with you tonight - and it’s by way of assurance perhaps, more than anything else.

Our verse is...

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

And it’s not really this verse that I want to go into in detail - today I’d like us to look at the concept that lies behind the verse - what it means to be a new creation.

So, to unpack this verse I want you to think of getting your car serviced.

So your car is knackered - it’s barely chugging along. You’re struggling to get around, there’s no get up and go in the old thing. In fact, some times you think you’d go faster if you got out of the car and pushed it.

So you take it to a mechanic who looks around it and does that thing that mechanics do…they suck in air....

‘ooossh, tut, I don’t know - you’re going to need a new engine. That one is kaput.’

Now, if the engine is knackered, chances are the body of the car could do with a bit of a clean up too. So let’s imagine the car itself is a bit rusty, the interior upholstery is ripped and tatty…and now you’ve been told the engine is gone too.

Now, today we simply get a new car. But let’s for a second, imagine that the mechanic took your rusty, tatty car and put in a brand spanking new engine - a high tech one that doesn’t wear out, that doesn’t need serviced - something the Japanese had been working on for years.

And the mechanic says, ‘This engine comes with a new body too - but they’re not yet manufactured. But there’s a guarantee, that if you get the engine replaced, when your car falls apart then you’ll automatically get a new body for the car - rust-proof, leather upholstery, chrome buttons and so on.

I know this is far fetched, but come with me on this.

So what you have is a rusty old tatty car with a brand spanking new engine inside, with the guarantee that you’ll get a brand new body and interior whenever your rusty car falls apart.

Pause

Now, keep that thought in your head, and come with me to John chapter 3.

Jesus, when he’s talking to Nicodemus, says this...

John 3:3 NIV

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

And we talked about being ‘born again’ a lot in Northern Ireland. And what’s strange is that many people think that there’s a difference between being a Christian and being a born again Christian. I’ve heard people call themselves Christians, but would say, ‘oh no. I’m not born again.’

Just in case you don’t know - being a Christian IS being born again. You can’t be one without the other. If you’re not born again you’re NOT a Christian.

Now take that verse and then add this verse...

Galatians 2:20 NIV

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

…and put them all together. What have you got?

What you have got is an amazing picture of what it means to be a Christian. And here’s how I understand it...

If I was to ask you when does eternal life start, what would your answer be?

It started from before I was born.

It starts here on earth.

It starts when I die and go to heaven.

Maybe you have other answers. But all my life I thought that eternal life starts when I die. Like, when I die and I go to heaven, that’s the start of my eternal life with the Lord.

But I don’t think of it like that anymore - because of these verses.

What I believe now, is that as a Christian your eternal life starts the day and hour, the minute and second you give your life to Jesus Christ.

Because when you do that you are crucified with Christ - and you no longer life, but Christ lives in you (Gal 2:20).

And at that point you’ve just been born again (John 3:3) - by the Spirit and you are a new creation (2 cor 5:17).

It’s like you’ve got a new engine - a brand spanking new engine that won’t wear out, that won’t need serviced. It’s the perfect engine.

When you fully trust in the Lord for your salvation, then you get a new life. You’re born again, you’re a new creation. The old has passed away and behold the new has come.

In other words, you will NEVER EVER die. Your old life has been crucified with Christ - it’s dead. It’s not coming back. But your new life is perfect and it will continue forever. Which is why, when our bodies die our souls continue to heaven to be with the Lord - because our new lives are eternal.

Pause

So you’ve got a new engine that is perfect.

The problem is that we’ve still got rusty, tatty interior bodies that get in the way of the new engine working the way it should.

If you have a new engine in a rusty car with bad alignment, the car will run great, but trying to steer it can be difficult. There are times when you hit a pothole and bits fall off the car, or you get a flat tyre and end up swerving into the side of the road. It’s really hard to drive a car that is old and battered and rusty and not working very well.

It’s really had to drive that kind of car, no matter what type of engine is inside it.

And while we’re still here on this earth, our physical bodies get in the way of our new life in Christ. Because our physical bodies, or the flesh, as Paul calls it, is sinful.

So we want to do stuff that goes against God’s word and his direction in our lives. We have a perfect life inside of us - we have Christ living in us so of course it’s perfect…but our bodies aren’t. And that’s why we get things wrong and slip up and make mistakes, and don’t live the way we should. It’s why we’re not perfect, because our bodies get in the way.

But that engine comes with a guarantee, that when the rusty car falls apart you’ll get a new body that is rust-proof.

So there will come a time when our bodies on earth will eventually stop working. When we die our sinful bodies die with us - in fact, that’s the only thing that DOES die - because we have been born again - we are a new creation right here on earth. And when our bodies die, our life continues and we will get new bodies.

This is why I read the first part of 2 Corinthians earlier. Let’s read it again from a different version....

2 Corinthians 5:1–5 NLT

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

And there’s that guarantee of a new body - the Holy Spirit in verse 5.

Pause

And because of this great news, this is how we can be sure that once someone comes to faith in Jesus Christ they can NEVER lose their salvation. Because if you’ve been born again with a perfect life that is eternal, nothing can kill that life.

But it requires us to be born again, not just Christians, as if there’s a difference. But what I mean by that is that it’s all well and good looking like a Christian. In fact, what many people in our tradition do is they clean and polish the outside of the car. They make it look really shiny by going to church and dressing right, and saying the right thing and doing the right thing…but inside they are dead. Their engine is knackered and falling apart.

Pause

Paul says in Col 2:13...

Colossians 2:13 ESV

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

That before we were saved we were dead in our trespasses.

So we never HAD life before we came to Christ.

Which means that there are many people walking around this world who are dead inside - and many of them don’t know it. And because they are dead inside, when their bodies die, their souls die too. I don’t mean that they cease to exist, but they die eternally in hell.

And like I just said, there are many who are in our churches and even in this church, who are dead inside, but they are polishing their car to make it really shiny. That doesn’t make a difference.

We need to be born again by confessing our sin to Jesus and trusting in him. But for those who do that you can be assured that you have a new life, a new eternal life that starts right here on earth and continues into heaven when you will get a shiny new perfect body that won’t decay or get sick.

Isn’t that worth living for? Isn’t that worth giving your life for?

Let’s pray.