Being "In Christ"

Grace and peace to you second family. Can you hear me? so, so They're saying. I'll try to speak loudly. It's so good to be with. You hear this, oh, that you got loud.

All right. Morphe just better. Okay, so it's so good to be back with you here today also. So good to bring you. Greetings from Lakeland, Reformed Church where I am? Most Sundays and we're actually Pastor Mark cry. One of our own is is today preaching for me. So, so thankful that I could be here and thankful to be here to honor my wonderful husband and the father of our children on this Father's Day and and preach for him. So thanks for letting me be here and let's turn now to God's word will begin with prayer.

Almighty God.

We come before you this morning and we are hungering and thirsting for your word, whether we know it or whether we acknowledge it or not.

And as we come before you this morning, Lord we pray that you would make us mindful of that need that we have for you, for your holy word. We pray that you would open our hearts. We pray that you would open our minds. We pray that you would still in us, any voice. That is seeking to drag us away and Tunis into your voice. Oh God.

We pray this in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Our Savior. A man.

So our scripture lesson this morning is from, Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. We're going to read together from the 5th verse. If you want to follow along in your Bible at 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and we're going to read the first 17 verses listen, now for the word of the Lord,

for we know that if the tent that is our Earthly home is destroyed, That we have a building from God a house not made with hands Eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan longing to put on our Heavenly dwelling is indeed by putting it on. We may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan being burdened not that we would be unclosed, but that we would be further closed. So that what is Mortal? May be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this. Very thing is God who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him for. We must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ. So that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body. Whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience We are not commending ourselves to you again, but given you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. If we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you 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. From now on therefore we regard no one according to the flash even though we once regarded Christ, according to the flash, we regard him. That's no longer there for if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold. The new has come Sisters and brothers. This is the word of God. Thanks be to God.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold. The new has come

That's where our section that we just read here from scripture ends. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold. The new has come Since you have your Bible open, or if you have your scripture on your phone, I just want to see. You may want to keep that open because we will return to that. Passage that we just read frequently. Maybe we can put it back up on the screen when I refer to it because we're going to let that passage actually drive us through our message today kind of verse by verse but I wanted to start this morning here at the end of what I just read Because what I just repeated to you is a bold declaration of what all that comes before and all that complicated scripture that we read what? I just read to you here at the start of this sermon is a bold declaration of what comes before and what it means. And this statement that I just read, it tells us in three short phrases What it means to be in Christ, what it means to be in Christ. Now this passage that we just looked at it is one of those that is so familiar to most of us who have been Christians for a long while it's the kind of Passage you know, that makes it onto a bulletin cover, you know, where you might see it as a meme of some sort on the Internet or it might be put on a slide. For example, we even sign letters in Christ. So it's standard fare for us who have been in the face for a long time. And for those of us who, who haven't been in the church, their whole lives or who are just finding their life in Jesus Christ, it is one of those verses that can just leap off the page. Or how it described exactly how we are feeling now that we have found life in Jesus Christ. Now that we are in him, But wherever we are wherever we are in our faith Journey. Those words Express this longing. This longing that we have to leave old and dead ways behind us and to be made new completely new and again, no matter where we are in our faith Journey, it is a statement. That we should be making and taking notice of because in a fundamental way. Those lines are a description of who we are and how we are to be at our very core. If we are to live our lives and be in Christ, it is the essence of our identity if we are in Christ because if we are in Christ fundamentally we are something new. We have been completely recreated and that a notch switch was old and broken is gone. It has been utterly Swept Away. And we are born again sisters and brothers this declaration of what it means to be in Christ, it is Elementary to who we are and who we want to be. If we are in Christ. Christ is is what surrounds us and defines us. It's kind of like saying that if we are in water We are wet if we are in Christ. We are new. So as we turn around now and and trying to back up a little bit to the beginning of our passage, I want us to try to keep that fundamental truth in our minds because all that comes before with all of its twists and turns is really just this flashing out of what it means for us to be in Christ to be new. So we're eating here, of course today from Paul's second letter to the Corinthian Church and I want to remind us as as we begin going through this passage that this is that this is a real letter that it's a real letter to real people in a real church with whom Paul. A real man has a real relationship. and though it all started this church, Paul and the church at Corinth. Have a somewhat troubled relationship at this point in their life together. Maybe the best way to put it is that it is complicated just like real life is often complicated just like life in churches. Is certainly complicated, isn't it in Corinth Paul and counters, a church that though it is fairly new in years is behaving as anything, but new, it has openly rebelled against the gospel that Paul has brought to them and they have gone back to their old ways, in which they used to live before they were in Christ. So, they're divided as a church, they're fighting with each other. They are not firmly focused on their lord, Jesus Christ, but they have chosen factions to be a part of. I follow this one, I follow this one, and their morality has become whacks and when Paul visits them could because he goes to visit them, hearing that they have gotten into trouble, when he goes to visit them to to get them back on track, that visit with them. Is later described as painful. intensely painful because of the ground that Paul comes to is hard and though there are many in the church who do end up repenting after he forcefully, points out how lost they have become There are also many in the church who do not and soap. All he writes this letter to them, preserved to us as the second letter to the Corinthians and he is trying in this letter to bring them back to the basics of their faith, he is trying to set them straight on what being in Christ really looks like because that is so fundamental to who they are. Because it turns out, turns out that we can call ourselves Christians. And we can call ourselves a church. All well, forgetting what? It really means to be in Christ. So now, let's look back at our passage bit by bit. If you look back at the beginning of chapter 5, Paul writes, this He says, for we know that if the tent that is our Earthly home is destroyed. That we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal. In the heavens.

Now, I have to confess to you that this passage Passages, a very personal. Personal one for me, I am. We'll see. If, if I can get through this, my testimony here. It's a personal one for me. And some of you here, may remember that around eleven years ago, just after we had our sweet little annagrace, I became really ill and honestly, there were times when I felt like I was just clinging to this life because autoimmune disease, had come in and had brought this a Cascade of illness and of Brokenness that just spread through my entire body till I felt like I was just waiting for the all the collapse were in all to break down and I remembered this passage I remember. Reading this passage during that time and feeling. So strongly that my body that this Earthly 10in, which I live was in fact, being destroyed.

In verse 4. Paul writes what we're still in this tent. We groan and we're burdened. And I remember, so, clearly feeling this truth in every single cell of my body, The groaning and the burden and the pain and the weakness. And I remember, I remember during this time calling my mother on the phone.

and I remember breathlessly reading her, this very passage that we just read And I remember her crying.

And her seeing as much as that she wasn't ready for me. Her youngest daughter's Earthly tend to be destroyed. I mean, what mother wants to hear that about her child. But I also remember something else. I also remember this sense of peace. That I had. When I read this passage. That is that tent? That is my Earthly home was to be destroyed that I had a building that I had a house not made with hands. I had a home. That was eternal in the heavens. And that as it says in verse for it was just waiting. I was waiting for what is Mortal to be swallowed up by life. And I could see it and I could taste it and I knew I had a forever home. That is beyond this one.

But you see sisters and brothers. We often forget that a tent isn't really a permanent home. Append is meant to be a place where we can pull up stakes and move on. But we can forget that until something takes and forces that truth upon us and suddenly, I could see that truth which I knew, but I could see it in a whole new way. And he, who is preparing me for this very thing. If you look at verse 5 who was preparing me for this very thing with God, and His Spirit was right there with me, and his Spirit was guaranteeing to me in my heart, that it was true. I got to tell you. I thought I knew all that before. I really did, you know, I really thought I knew it in a way. I really did.

but, I remember reading these words and realizing, But I hadn't been living like they were true. Not all of the time.

Maybe not even much of the time. because I started to realize that much of my life, I had spent living like that temporary tent. With all that life was about. Can I hung on to that tent for dear life? The way the world told me that I should as though it was the only home, I would ever have.

Until that day.

But I had to come to terms with the fact that it was flimsy. And that it was fragile and that it was easily destroyed and that it was made up of me or poles and fabric and that it was not in itself future-proof in any way.

That it was not my true home. Even though at times, I had convinced myself pretty thoroughly that it was, and there was God right there with me, through his Spirit, teaching me all over again, preparing me to see life to see real life, to see eternal life to see Life In Christ as he God sees it, teaching me again, that this tent is temporary that it is the mere tip of the eternity iceberg. And that I have one true Eternal home built by God through Christ in heaven and that death would be swallowed up by victory.

Or maybe I'm just a slow learner. And maybe that's where you are all are and there all the time already. So you'll have to indulge me here for a few minutes while I take my slow time to learn. I mean, Paul. He seems to express it with so much confidence. If you look at verse 6, he says we're always of good courage. always encourage, we know that when we are at home in the body, that we are away from the Lord, for we walk by sea, And not by sight. That's who we are. Is that right? Church? That's who we are. Aren't we always a good courage, don't we always walk by faith and not by sight.

well, except when we don't Right.

maybe what Paul is trying to do here is to encourage us to remind us of the courage that we should and that we can have Cuz don't we often don't we often struggle really to walk by faith. And not by sight. Don't we just have? This is incredible. Human propensity to want to just cling on to the, to the things that we can see to the temporary tents that we set up. And to think that they are the truth. You remember on the mountain top with Jesus, let's set up some tents, good to be here.

Don't we have this propensity to think that? That what we see around us is all there is when the truth is so much larger and so much greater

That often as human beings are our good courage. Extends, no further than to believing that somehow the one who dies with the most toys wins.

You see we hang on to our tents tenaciously. We trick ourselves into believing. They are the thing that they are our permanent home because because tents are what we know. In heaven. He seems far away sometimes and because of that, our aim becomes mostly to please ourselves and to please this world Not to please, God not truly. But when we see the truth, when we are truly in Christ seeing with his eyes and walking in his truth, when we recognize that our future, Is a future that can only be built by God through Christ, all then the aim and the goal of our whole life, it changes are in the central. Desire of our hearts becomes to please God in all that we do. And that is part of what it means to be in Christ to please. God, in all that we do. And in trying to, please God. in trying to please God, we also remember We remember what we often conveniently try to forget. We remember if you look at verses 9 and 10 that we must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ. That we was all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ and receive what is due to us for all that we have done in our tent, in our time here, on Earth, whether for good or for evil. Because being in Christ means that Jesus is the very water in which we swim through life. He's the Living Water. Being in Christ means that we have let him fully fully into our hearts. Not partly but fully and we have let his truth penetrate and motivate every aspect of who we are from our hopes to our actions. And we brothers and sisters are made completely new. And the old is gone. And it also means. That we know where we're headed and we know that what we can see right now is but a moment that it's temporary. But how, how often do we have to be pushed? To get to that point. I think about, I think about how many times when we have exhausted every possibility that we can think of these words come slipping out of our mouths. Well, How we can do now is pray.

Makes it sound like prayers are Last Resort? Well, maybe that's precisely because that is how we often live with God. Not as our first Resort, but as our last resort, the one, we go to and everything else we have tried has failed us. It's the same. When we look all through the scriptures had God's people we find again. And again, they will only depend on God. It will only be fully in God when they have exhausted every other resource that they can find it, it's human nature that if we even have have a hint of a resource laugh, we will try to use it to save ourselves and we will not turn our ship no matter how much it needs to be turned and give it over to God. We will not pull up Stakes until We absolutely have to. We will be in ourselves for as long as we possibly can. You see, we hold on to our tents, we hold on. So tightly and it is hard for us to let go and put ourselves completely and God almighty's hands. It happens with churches to, I don't care what kind of church, it is, what size Church, how long and successful, a church, mate, how how strong, and successful a church may seem. And it can even happen to hold denominations, they often start out and they're on fire on fire with a Clear Vision of who and why they are. And you can feel the spirit when you come in in the mist of the people, but as they as they grow up from that vision and as they hit their Prime, the seats are full. Your children are tumbling around in the pews and babies are crying in the middle of prayers and and there's just as overall good spirit and good feeling feeling to that place. And then in the midst of all that life,

often strange thing begins to happen.

Be kind of kind of put it on, on, autopilot, begin to Coast. They start to to drift from from mission to maintenance and slowly. They begin to forget the real reason why they are a church, they start to lose a grip on on how they have gotten to where they are. And start to forget that it is by God's help and by God's grace that they are what they are and and they start holding on to that Earthly tent. Because it looks so strong and looks so well-built. And they start to believe that it is. They who have built it and they become preoccupied, with all the temporary stop and all the things they do because they have always done them that way and they hold on Tighter and Tighter until one day they wake up and they realize they are a chef. A shell of what they once were. The children aren't? They are squirming in the babies aren't crying and the joy and the life. Aren't there. And so they try to try to go back. They try to try to turn back time to the formulas. That worked so well before in and maybe they begin to fight among themselves. The way the Corinthian Church Theodore, or if they do the dead end Blame Game blaming this person or that person, or this event or that event. But it doesn't help for some reason because something fundamental is missing that that that's kind of hard to put our finger on

They don't feel new. if you old, And it's not like anyone intended it. No one, no one deliberately went out there and try to be unfaithful or get off track. but they, Don't we wake up one day and discover that as a people we have somehow drifted away from being in Christ. We have stopped making it are are are single uppermost aim to please him in all that we do and maybe it has become instead about keeping the doors open, or or filling the pews, or meeting the budget. Maybe more about, what is on the outside than what is, in our hearts. So, we have to stop. We have to stop for a moment and and we have to pause on our well-worn paths. We have to pause from racing through life, as though as though this is all that we have to ask ourselves. To ask about our church. What controls us? What controls our what controls our way of being in the world. What controls our relationships with each other? What controls? All the ways we invest ourselves in life? These are concerned about preserving our temporary tent, or is it the home? The hope that we have in Jesus Christ, Our Lord, the hope that we have a house built for us by God. That is eternal In the heavens. What controls us? To look at verse 14. Paul reminds us. For the Love of Christ controls us. For the Love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this now. Now here is where we have to stop church and listen again, for the first time. For the Love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this. That one that is Jesus. 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 in a read that again 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.

You see, Jesus died for us. We know that. We do. He died for us, he died in our place so that we would be dead to sin and he was raised from the dead so that we two would be raised to a life, a new life that is eternal. And so we live because of him and only because of him and because of that, We live for him. That is what controls.

From now on Paul writes in verse 16 from now on WE regard no one according to the flash. From now on we stopped looking at things with mirror Earthly eyes. From now on we stopped looking at just the outward appearances from now on we look deeper we look into the heart at what is in our hearts. The part that God sees at what is at our church has heart from now on, we stopped laboring away for all that temporary stuff. That leads to nowhere and we start looking and living according to what is eternal from now on. We make it the whole aim of our life together to walk in a way that pleases God from now on we walk by faith and not by sight. From now on we let the love of Christ be our controlling Factor because the love of Christ is What saved us and made us new? And brought us out from all the old dead ways that used to hold us captive.

What does it mean? To be in Christ.

They're not just words on a page. Being in Christ means a letting go. All that old stuff, we let control us and given giving ourselves to the new life has been given to us by Christ through Christ. Our our old and dead, and life is over and a new life has begun. so if anyone is in Christ,

he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold? The new has come Sisters and brothers. Thanks, be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray.