The Future Life

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

We been to a wedding, there is graduation coming up for many, so many things going on, I entitled this message “The Future Life”. This is speaking of our life in Christ........

Let’s start our journey today in John 20:14-17..........we will briefly look at what we studied together on Wed. night............This passage is often presented in different ways, but I believe if we rightly divide the Word of Truth, that just means read and study the Bible, with God’s purpose being the basis on how we study and read, then I believe that will give us a great understanding of what is meant!

It is the first day of the week 3 days after the crucifixion, everyone is overwhelmed by what has happened to Jesus.......

Mary Magdalene and some of the other ladies has went to the tomb and found it empty and Mary M just wanted to know where they have taken her Lord!

She is still thinking He is dead.....After she goes and tells the disciples as the angel told her to, she comes back to the empty tomb, weeping.........the angels ask her why she is weeping......

She turns to leave the tomb and she runs into Jesus.....now let’s read....

Mary doesn’t know it is Jesus, some give many reasons why, let’s just read it as is and believe she didn’t recognize Jesus.......

Jesus asks her why she is weeping!

Thinking Jesus was the gardener, she wants to know where he has taken Jesus’ body.

When Jesus speaks her name: “Mary”........she recognizes Him, with her back turned......

The point of all of this and should be clear in the next verse, is that when Jesus and her met, Mary had 7 demons within her and Jesus delivered her from them....

Scripture does not say how she came to have 7 demons, but she had them.....

Her deliverance was profound in her, the life lived with those demons had more than likely left her destitute and without friends or family.......along came Jesus, with His mother, His disciples, and some of their moms......she had an instant family, a family of believers!

Truly, we can view it as a family and it is......however this is a different model of family than society/humans present.........the family unit here is led by a Good Shepherd. A flock of dumb sheep following their only Source of life!

Hence when Mary heard Jesus say her name, she knew it was her Good Shepherd!

John 10:14 “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”

Jesus also tells us that the sheep knows the voice of their shepherd and they will follow him.

This is what we are seeing here, however Mary is still clinging to what she can see.....her value was in Jesus’ physical presence!

So, now Jesus tells her not to touch Him.....as it is written in the Greek this is emphasized as very strong, emphatic...... “Don’t touch Me....”

That phrase can be translated..... “stop clinging to Me.....”

He let’s Thomas touch, a few verses down from this, so why can’t Mary?

He hasn’t ascended to His Father yet, meaning that He would only be on earth temporarily and though she desperately wanted Jesus to stay, He could not.

Mary was expressing her desire to hold on to Jesus’ physical presence!

Jesus rebuked that, why? Because of what had just been completed, we are new in Christ......His earthly ministry was only for a time, but now that all things have been fulfilled by Jesus, this is the new thing that Ezekiel and others prophecy will happen....Jesus, by His death and resurrection form the dead has made all things new.....created and new heart within the believer...

The physical is not the essence of this life, time is not an essence of this life.......everything is new.....

Let’s look at this through the apostle Paul’s writings to the church at Corinth.....

2 Corinthians 5:11-21........Paul is defending his integrity, as that integrity was challenged by those who didn’t like him or his teaching.....but in Paul’s defense of his integrity we have some powerful teaching.....

Verse 12 Paul talks about appearance, but not in heart....

Folks looked at his appearance (which was not impressive) and disqualified Paul.

Some do that today, if folks are old, weak looking, not impressive with their speech, what they wear,.....so many things that are used as judgement except for the right way to judge and that is through the Word of God based on the Good News of Jesus Christ!

Paul tells them that the love of Christ is what compels them, they are driven by their new life in Christ, which is not based on the physical but on the heart!!!!

This life is manifested because of “He Who died for all”....Jesus

Because of Jesus we no longer live unto themselves, but unto Jesus....this is a new life

That is what Jesus was telling Mary, this relationship is not based on the physical presence but a spiritual reality that lives inside those that believe in Him!

This is why I entitled this “the future life”, because of the next 2 verses....which we will probably stay here for the duration

Our future life or let’s just our new lives in Christ is no longer based on the physical but only in Christ.....

Paul tells us that he even saw Jesus in the flesh, but Paul does not know Jesus in the flesh, this life is greater than flesh.....

I believe this truth is not emphasized enough, we get so caught up in the physical, looking for physical things to come out of our life of faith.....this may or may not happen, but the our only desire should be the new spiritual life that we have in Jesus Christ!

Mary, wanted Jesus to stay, she felt secure in His presence, but what she didn’t know at the time was that because of the life and complete work of Jesus we have a new life in Jesus that is not restrained by time and the physical.....

Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:35 “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

There will be a new heaven and a new earth, but is all based on the essence of God revealed in Jesus Christ! Stop clinging to the earthly!!

Verse 17 Paul declares all of that “old things” have passed away!

I want to use an illustration that I read.........Just imagine you have a table, take the biggest table in your house, put everything on it that has value, or write it down. Put it in a big list and then give it a value. On that table you’ve got this and this has so much value, and your job, your career, your children, your house, or your friends, your experiences of vacation, your possessions, your car, whatever. Your bank account, your savings, your insurance, whatever you have in your life. And maybe you even want to put honesty and uprightness because you learned that from your parents. Just put everything that’s on your table and give it a price.

Now when you become a Christian if you think that what you’re going to do is have to throw away all that stuff that has so much value, you’re wrong. What’s going to happen is, as soon as you are in Christ, immediately God will give you new price tags. And all of a sudden everything will be reevaluated. And you won’t give up anything, you’ll reevaluate everything. And that’s exactly what he means here. Old things pass away. The old ideas and values and plans and loves and desires and passions are gone.

I mean, was there ever a more passionate man than Paul before he was converted? Yes, Paul after he was converted. But his passion was redirected, new price tags, new values, everything gets reevaluated. I mean, you look at the average non-Christian and they will look at becoming a Christian and they’ve got – let’s say they put on their little table of values, to them church, zero; reading Bible, zero; prayer, zero. I don’t want to do all that stuff. They will have to turn that in for going to the bar three times a week and the things I really enjoy – but the point is, all the – all the price tags change and all the stuff is completely reversed in terms of its value.

It is a change of heart not the physical.......when the heart changes everything is reevaluated!

You can’t lay your stuff out there when the heart hasn’t changed? Our belief in the life and finished work of Jesus Christ, our affections change!

The other side of it is expressed “new things have come,” it’s a perfect condition in the Greek which means it’s a continuing condition of fact. New understanding of spiritual reality, new understanding of spiritual truth, new understanding of time, new understanding of eternity. We now live for eternity, not time. All of a sudden now we can say with the psalmist in Psalm 119:97, “O how I love Thy law.” The one who is in Christ sees all things new, he has a new outlook on everything. And this is the true perception, by the way, this is reality.

We, as Christians, live all up in the old creation but we have a new creation perspective. That’s why we are told again and again to set our affections on things above and not on things on the earth, Colossians 3:1-2 “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

The old world is gone, all of its standards, motives, judgments, values are gone and a whole new world exists for us. God’s perfect standard of holiness is before us and to Him we look.

No we don’t meet it, but we seek Him, we desire Him!

We don’t need to see with our eyes, we see with our inward person, we believe and therefore we live it out as ambassadors because of One!!!!

Verse 21.....we live it out because of Jesus because God has made Jesus to be sin for us, Jesus, Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteous of God in Jesus Himself!!

Therefore we live no longer after the flesh or physical our future in as Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”