A New Creation in Christ!

A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST JESUS

(Sunday, the Fourth of January, 2009)

2 Corinthians 5:1-21 By Jay Irwin

Key Verse 5:17



“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”



Happy New Year!!! We wanted to start out 2009 by pondering what it means to be a new creation. Of course, around the New Year season lots of people are looking for ways to make a new start and turn over a new leaf in life. They want to start fresh, and not continue on in whatever they may have been entangled in or tied up with in the previous year. But, this is what we want also, isn’t it? Well, if indeed it is what you want, then it would help us to search out these scriptures today carefully in order to receive from God, His way of making things new for each of us this year. Even more than our desire to start things off newly, there is God’s desire to reconcile us to himself and make us into new creations. Let’s see how God can make us each into a new creation in Christ Jesus. Before we begin, let’s pray.



Part I, Our Eternal Hope in the heavenly kingdom



Verses 1-5 say, “1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” When the passage talks about “our earthly tent” its symbolic of where we are now living, our physical body. Yet, when it says, and “a building from God”, this refers to where we will be living in the future, in our resurrection body. Throughout our life on earth, we live in physical bodies made of the dust of the ground. These bodies are merely physical, weak, and temporary; we will not be here forever. Deep down we wish that our souls were clothed with our heavenly dwelling, our resurrection body, that which is spiritual, strong, and eternal. What we are eagerly hoping for is to be in heaven with Christ. And indeed, we who have been given the deposit of the Holy Spirit will be with Christ in eternal glory in the kingdom of God. That is the place that we are looking forward to earnestly.



In verse 6-10, we are assured of this heavenly hope because of our faith and the deposit of the Holy Spirit. We are confident of our hope in the heavenly kingdom because we know that our final destination is with Christ in heaven. We don’t have to guess or wonder where we will go after we die because our faith in Jesus’ promise gives us great confidence: “3…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” While we wait, this heavenly hope moves our hearts to please God and be used by him to do his good work. We have this goal to please God in all we do because of God’s great love for us revealed through this real and living hope.







Part 2, A New Creation in Christ



Now let’s search the second part of this chapter to find out what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Verse 17 says, “17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” When a person becomes a new creation, there is a radical and complete change that takes place in his or her life. There is clear evidence of the newness that God has brought about inside of that person. This change however is a work of God, not of man’s efforts or decisions. But before we think about what it means to be a new creation, let’s first think about the first part of the verse that says, “…if anyone is in Christ,…” Then, we’ll think about “…a new creation.”



To be in Christ means to have been brought out from sin and the world. Before anyone is in Christ, he or she is God’s enemy. We are not in Christ automatically when we are born or by going to church all our lives, instead we are born in sin and we are of this dark world as objects of God’s wrath. The Bible says that our sins separated us from God and because of our sin our relationship with God was broken. Simply put, we were dead in our sins and cut off from God. This is the condition of anyone who is not in Christ.



Where do you find yourself today? Would you say that you are in Christ? This question is a very important question that each of us must answer before starting the New Year. May we not wait any longer, but come to Christ, and be found in him. Accept his love and forgiveness, and as the passage says in verse 20, “…Be reconciled to God!” No one can become a new creation unless they are first reconciled to God through Christ. Let Jesus mend your broken relationship with God and bring you back into close fellowship with Him. If it is not already, we ought to make it our number 1 goal, to allow Christ to reconcile our relationship to God. This requires simple child-like faith. To be in Christ means to believe in Jesus’ grace of sin forgiveness. We trust that Jesus forgives our sins because he died on the cross, shedding his blood to cleanse us and to wash us white as snow. Jesus is our city of refuge, in him we can come and hide from the avenger. Jesus is also our ark, in him we can be safe from judgment and preserved from all harm. When we are in Christ, then we can be made into a new creation through the powerful work of God.



Now that we’ve learned how we can become a new creation, let’s think about what it actually means to be a new creation? As we mentioned, it means radical and complete change. This radical change can be seen by a changed hope, a changed mission, and a changed identity.



First, a changed hope. Look at verse 4, “4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Before we were made anew in Christ, we lived with lowly earthly hopes. Most people only hope for things like a pay raise at work, a new video game, or even for the weekend (TGIF). Some people are very hopeful on Friday’s, but despair on Sunday nights because they have to go back to work or school the next day. There are also more noble hopes like the hope of marriage, of getting a new house, or the hope of being successful and accepted by family, friends, and coworkers. All these hopes are not necessarily sinful, but often times such earthly hopes disappoint us, and do not last. During these troubling economic times, many are despairing and have no hope. Since so many have earthly hopes in political leaders or money, they will be disappointed if these things don’t deliver what they promise.



Yet, as we saw in verses 1-8, the hope of a new creation is a heavenly hope. When a person has been reconciled to God, forgiven of their sins, they are a new creation; there is a fundamental change from hoping for earthly things to hoping for heavenly things. Paul’s hope and the hope he was trying to remind the Corinthians of was the heavenly hope to someday be with God and to be clothed with their glorious resurrection bodies. Our heavenly hope is eternal in nature and will not disappoint. The changed hope runs deep in our hearts and gives us full assurance of what we are longing for and expecting from God, that is, to someday be with Jesus in glory in heaven. The gospel fills our hearts with these heavenly hopes that endure through bad times and good times and help us to carry on without despairing.



Second, a changed mission. Look at verses 11-15. Verse 15 says, “15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The direction that we were going in our lives before being a new creation was self seeking. We lived for ourselves and not for Christ. We did not know the love of God for ourselves or for the world, so we just lived to please ourselves and follow the desires of the sinful nature. Some people before being saved passionately devote themselves to noble causes like the cure for cancer or fighting world poverty and starvation. I’m sure most of you have heard of Bono, the famous U2 lead singer, is living for the “do the red thing” cause, to find a cure for AIDS in Africa. He is donating and speaking and traveling and dedicating himself fully to this mission. Yet, even such noble causes can still be entirely motivated from the old self. Not even the nicest guy or girl in the world can make himself into a new creation. Serving noble causes make people look like their life direction is on target. But this is not always true. We must be recreated from the inside out, and our mission comes from heaven. We first must be directed by the Spirit of God to live for Christ and for him alone, otherwise, we might get to the end of our lives and find out that we served a mission that’s end was the glory of men rather than the glory of God.



Look at verse 15 again. It says, “… that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The changed mission is the new life direction to live for Christ who died for us and was raised from the dead. When we have been created anew by God, then we have the desire to live fully for Christ and His gospel. Living for Christ means persuading men to turn from their sins to God’s grace and mercy. It means being crazy for Jesus and allowing God to make his appeal to the world through our lives. It is to preach the gospel in all we do, sharing our testimony with others and leading them to the Savior. What mission and life direction do you have for this coming year? Is it to live for you or to live for Christ? May our answer be a bold and firm “for Christ” There is an old saying that goes something like this, “Only one life to life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” May what we do for Christ be the new direction of our life as a new creation in Christ, until we reach our heavenly home.



Third, a changed identity. Verses 16-17 says, “16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Once again, before we were in Christ, our outlook was worldly, which meant that whatever we saw we saw through the lens of worldly ways of thinking. The world’s point of view is that people are valuable based on their family background, the intelligence, their looks, their bank account, or their career. Do you look at yourself and others from a worldly point of view or a Christ-like point of view? Do you make judgment calls based on how talented or attractive you are? What do you pay attention to when you see yourself or others? In Christ, we have a new identity, so we should not see ourselves or others with a worldly outlook, but instead also see them as a new creation in Christ.



When Jesus called Simon, he changed his name to “Peter”, which means rock. This was to give him a new identity, to be a strong man of God, rather than one who was unstable. Later, he went and preached the gospel fearlessly to the Jews and many were saved through their ministry. Also, Jesus changed John the apostle’s name from a son of thunder(one who always judged and condemned others) to “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” Later, John wrote such beautiful and poetic words by saying, “10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Our Lord also fundamentally gave the apostle Paul a new identity as well. Paul was once named Saul, he was an ultra-religious, self-righteous, Pharisee who murdered Christians. But when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, he met Jesus personally, and God gave him a new identity as a servant of Christ Jesus to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.



In the same way, our identity is to live as ministers of the gospel of reconciliation called by God to lead men back to God and unite all people under Christ. Yet, the ministry of reconciliation is not easy to serve. It means that we have to learn to say sorry first. Usually, we wait around for others to apologize to us, but when we have a broken relationship we should follow the example of our Lord Jesus who took the first step to forgive us even while we were still sinners and enemies of God. Recently, a leader in UBF demonstrated the essence of this hard process of reconciliation by simply saying, “sorry” to Carrie and I for some problems we had had in the UBF ministry. We realized that this leader showed real Christ-like character when he apologized to us. Through this we could see that God is changing the UBF ministry more and more into a Christ-centered ministry of reconciliation, one that works to serve the gospel which has the power to mend any broken relationship.



Personally, this passage really spoke to my heart as I wrote this message because I could see how much I had digressed as a Christian over the past year. The year of 2008 was a very hard year for me spiritually. Even though years ago, God had done a great work in my heart, making me into a new creation in Christ, I found that I had gone back to all my old ways. In my life testimony I would always share how God saved me from my sins of lust and addiction to pornography and video games. However, last year I got entangled again with these sin problems. My relationship with God and my wife and others was broken, and there was no peace in my heart. I suffered greatly, but I did not go to God and cry out to him or call on his name. This hurt even more. In addition, I had broken relationships with many people in UBF for just leaving without saying much of anything despite all the love and grace that had been invested and poured out into my life. I was living for myself not for Christ, and played video games and committed shameful immoral sins. God convicted me though as my marriage started to have problems. I realized my need to return to God, repenting of my sins, and devoting myself once again to the words of God and deep Bible study. God allowed me to have 1:1 with Pastor Kevin where I could repent and be reconciled to God. After our first Bible study I felt like a new creation, like the breath of God had been breathed into me newly and I was alive again. This showed me that I need to be a new creation everyday through giving my heart to Christ and serving the ministry he’s called me to, namely preaching the gospel to people.



But from this passage, I could give thanks to God because I realized that God has the power to make all things new and to renew my heart and inner man for this new year. The same God that made me into a new creation in Christ years ago, can still today forgive my sins and reconcile me to himself once again. I accept his grace and love and pray to give my whole heart to his ministry of reconciliation. To me this means going to the NIU campus and inviting students to Bible study in the new semester. It means helping my family members to be reconciled to God through Christ as well. It also means me learning to say sorry first in my relationship with Carrie when I’m wrong and we argue.



In conclusion, let us each pray that to start off the new year, we would be reconciled to God through Christ, and that in this way we would be made into new creations. I pray that we can have a new identity in Christ. We are not just a teacher, a paperboy, a forensic expert, an administrative assistant, or a Geek (squad agent), but rather we are new creations in Christ Jesus. Let us give our hearts fully to God’s ministry of reconciliation by preaching the gospel and making efforts to restore broken relationships. Let’s remember our Lord Jesus who gave up his life make us a new creation, living with heavenly hopes, a clear mission and direction in life to live for Christ not ourselves, and a changed identity as ambassadors of Christ preaching the gospel to the world.



One Word: A new creation in Christ