He Is A New Creature

This morning, we're going to be studying the topic of Christian living, which may be, you know, if you were to go to a Christian bookstore and look at the different sections, Christian living would be this big section. Christian living. There's all kinds of stuff that falls under the topic of Christian living. And there are a lot of ways we could go. And so what I want to do is sort of narrow down our focus from the very beginning. We're not going to be talking about or studying the outworking of Christian living, meaning we're not going to be answering the question, how is a Christian supposed to live? Instead, what we're going to be looking at and studying is the inner working of how a Christian is able to live. Now these are two distinct things, very related, but without the inner working lined up and functioning, the outer working ends up just being hypocrisy.

And you might think, well, what do you mean by hypocrisy? And I mean, it's one thing to know what you're supposed to do. I think many of us know what we're supposed to do. If we asked our children, do you know what you're supposed to do? Have you been told? They'd all say yes. And then the next question is what? Well, if you know what you're supposed to do, why didn't you do it? And there's a whole host of answers that we might give or hear. But oftentimes what the problem is, is that the inner working, the gears on the inside are not lined up. It's not working. And so what you might have is a nice looking facade, a nice car, but the engine doesn't work. It's broken. It's out of time. It's leaking oil. There's problems on the inside. So today, what we're going to be doing is talking about what goes on on the inside. How is a Christian able to live?

What are they supposed to believe? What are they to understand? How are they to process through their lives and the lives of those around them? And so as I prepared this sermon, I thought about the audience. I thought, who's this sermon for? Is it for Christians or is it for unbelievers? And the answer is, I think that this is an essential thing for Christians to understand and believe. And I also think that it's one of the most attractive aspects Of the Christian life. Because in the end when you're talking about the inner working of the Christian life. What you're talking about is an inward intimate knowledge. And belief and reality of freedom from sin. This is what we're going to be talking about. And we're going to be digging in. Is this idea of being freed from sin. How are we freed from sin? What does that look like in our lives? That's the motor or the engine that runs inside of the Christian. Alright.

And so we're going to be studying 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and we're going to be reading verses 1 through 17. I'd like for you to listen now to the reading of God's word from that passage. Again, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 1 through 17. For we know that if the earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan. longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed, while we were in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now he who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, Always being of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may be recompensed.

for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God, and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. We are not again commending ourselves to you, but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore, from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet we now know him in this way no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

He is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thank you. It's sweet. They actually answered this time for those of you who aren't here. It's just encouraging. All right. Now, this is a long passage. And unless we are, you know, what I want to do is go through and highlight. some sections of it. We will not be going through line by line, phrase by phrase, verse by verse. We're going to be going through the structure of it. And so how is this passage structured? Well, there's an argument made at the very beginning of this passage. In the first five verses, Paul makes an argument. And then in the following verses, verses six, actually on past the end of our text, there are a bunch of therefores. Therefore this, therefore that, therefore this other thing.

And so it's as if it's a resolution. He's saying, this is what is true right here. And then he says, because that's true, all of these other things are how we should respond. And then he ends with a conclusion, a final summary of how we ought to resolve all of this in our minds. And so we're going to go through the argument that he's making, and then we're going to go through each therefore, each resolution that he makes, each conclusion. And so he starts this passage off talking about an earthly tent. Now, I want you to think for a minute about a tent. What is a tent? Well, a tent is a thing that's supposed to protect whatever's inside of it from the weather and from the elements. I want you to think, is a tent good at that sort of thing? Is it good at protecting you from the weather? Is it good at protecting you from the elements? And you would probably say something like,

Well, it's better than not sleeping. You know, it's better than not having a tent. But as far as like, have I ever gotten wet in a tent? Have I ever woken up in a puddle? To sleep in a tent is at some point to wake up in a puddle. Okay? Tents are made to protect. Now, what don't tents protect you from? How about animals? You know, you hear all the critters right out there, right outside, you know. Just on the other side of that little thin piece of plastic or vinyl, there's raccoons and possums and skunks and snakes and whatever else crawls and creeps around in the night. It's right out there. And if it wanted to, it could come through the wall of the tent pretty easily. It doesn't protect you from sound either. You ever been in a tent and you hear noises? Maybe you hear coyotes off in the distance. Maybe you hear someone over in the campground playing music and having a party late at night. It doesn't protect you from a lot, just from weather. And so the reason I bring all this up to you is to say,

Is a tent the kind of thing that you say, I want to live in a tent. I like living in tents. All of us would say, no, tents are not an ideal place to be. And so Paul uses this idea of tents simply to give to us this imagery of a covering of a shelter that's temporary. It's temporary. When you think of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob sojourning in the lands, one of the things they lived in for generations were tents. It's not an ideal living situation. It's not permanent. It doesn't have roots. It doesn't have foundations. The same thing could be said of the tabernacle. When the Israelites were wandering the wilderness, they had a tabernacle. They had a tent where they were supposed to go to worship. And they had to carry this thing around and they had to set it all up. And they had all this process and all these procedures. But eventually they did away with the tabernacle when they were able to have a real housing, a real temple that had foundations and that had doors and that had a roof.

And it was glorious. And so when Paul here speaks of a tent, he's speaking of something that's very temporary, that's a covering for a time, but that is going to go away. None of us would say, I want to go live in a tent forever. We'd all say, if I have to live in a tent for a time, then so be it. But what I'd really like is to live in a house. And so this is the imagery that Paul is using here. So what is this earthly tent that he speaks of? Is he talking about a physical building or a tent? No, the tent is our body. It's literally our life. It represents this life before death. He describes this life and our bodies as representative of that, as a tent, as a fairly poor covering that needs to be replaced, that needs to be upgraded, if you will.

None of it's going to last forever. None of us are going to live forever. Our bodies, as we get older, they deteriorate. Your weakness increases. Your pains increase. They don't get better as you get older. They get worse. And so what this means is that our bodies, our tent, should be a constant reminder to us that this earthly tent of ours is headed back to the ground where it came from. It's not permanent. And it's going to return to the dust. at some point. And so at the bottom of Paul's usage of an earthly tent, him talking about that, what he's really talking about is death. When he says your body's a tent, you go, you mean it's not going to last forever? And he says, yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly what I'm saying is that it's not going to last forever. You're not going to be here forever. And this is a reality that I think we try to avoid or we try not to think about or to observe. We want death far from us, away from us.

Our own deaths, the deaths of people around us, the deaths of all kinds of things. We don't want the suffering, the agony, the pain, and the finality of death to be in our minds. And yet Paul is calling it to our minds and saying we need as Christians to think about this, to be aware of this. Because death confirms that we are not immortal, that we will not live forever. Hebrews 9.27 says it's appointed for men to die once. And after this comes the judgment. And to most of us, that's a scary thought and something we prefer not to think about. It's certainly not something we naturally want to think about. We would all have black everything and black eyeliner. We'd all be goth if they're about death. But Christians aren't to be about death. And yet, we're supposed to live with a good knowledge of our own mortality, that we will die.

And so our text opens up with Paul talking about an earthly tent, and he says, if the earthly tent is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens. And so this is a comfort to us. How is it a comfort to us? Well, it's a comfort to say that when our bodies and our souls are separated, and we no longer have the tent of this life and this body to contain our soul, God will provide for his people a building that's eternal in the heavens. And so it actually gives us comfort. It gives us hope for beyond the grave. We could restate Paul's words this way. We know that when we die, we will be freed from this body and we'll be given a new one that God made himself. That body will not deteriorate or fail because we will be perfect.

Because God will give us a body that will match our new estate. Now that's something to hope for. That's something to look forward to. You have to go through death to get it. But what it says to us is that death is not our end. Death is not the thing we ought to dread and fear. Though it is an enemy, it is our final enemy. And when we face that final enemy as Christians, we will come out of that battle victorious. And so death doesn't win. These are the words of scripture. Death, where is your sting? Where is your sting? It's been swallowed up in life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so as Christians, Paul's arguing, we will die at some point. And God will provide for us a resurrection, a permanent and eternal building, a new body to live in and to dwell with for all eternity. And so as the old hymn says, death is but my entrance into glory. There's something to look forward to on the other side of death for Christians.

What about now? That's a helpful thought for the future, but many of us are not looking down the barrel of death thinking that we're going to be dying soon, unless something extraordinary happens. So what about now? Well, that's exactly what Paul goes and deals with next. In verse 1, he talks about our earthly tent, and he says God's going to provide a building eternal in the heavens for you when you die. And then in verse 2, he says, for indeed in this house, in this body, in this life, we groan. We groan. We groan. longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. And as much as we have putting it on, we'll not be found naked. For indeed, while we are in this tent, we groan being burdened because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by what is life. And so we groan in response to the tension of waiting and fighting and longing for the day when the troubles that we face every minute of the day will finally be finished. And this passage teaches us

Why we groan. We groan because when we die, when all of our troubles and all of our sufferings and all of the hardships that we face in this world, whether those hardships are physical illness and frailty leading to our death or the death of our loved ones or the difficulty of being a young child and having our brothers be mean to us and everything in between, we groan. We long for the day when that's over. What we as Christians groan for and long for is that in that day, when we die, we won't be found naked. that when our soul and body are separated, our souls won't be left naked, but that they'll be covered, they'll be provided for. And God promises that he will do that. And so while we long for that, we groan while we wait. And it's not a groan of complaint so much as a groan of longing. If you think of a couple that's engaged to be married, they groan. And it's not the groan of misery, it's the groan of anticipation. They want to get married. You can go to them at some point and say,

How long until you get married? And they stop counting it in months and in weeks, and they start counting in days. And you know when they start counting in days, which is around 90, they groan. But it's not a miserable thing. They're looking forward to their new estate that's to come. And so in this life, in this body, in this house, we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. And what we want and what we need is for God to fit us, to dress us. with eternal life so that when we die, we will be clothed. Now there's this weird thing in this passage where Paul sort of tips his hand a little bit and shows you what's coming. There's this qualifier in the middle. He says, oh, where did it go? Yes. He says, for indeed in this house we groan longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven in as much as we having put it on. And you go, wait. So that hope and that future and that thing I'm looking for,

forward to is not just for the future. It's not simply reserved for after I die. I'm actually able to put that on now. And you should be wondering, how do I put that on now? I'm full of sin and I've got all these troubles and I've got current sins and I've got past sins and I've got sins that I've committed against other people and sins that people have committed against me. How am I supposed to be putting on this immortality, this life, while I'm still sinful? Well, I'm still corrupt. And that really is the question that we're working through today. How are we to put on this side of glory what will come in the future? Well, we're going to go through the rest of this passage by the therefores. There are, what, four or five of them? One, two, three, four, five. Yeah, there are five of them. We're going to group the last two together because they go together. But these therefores are the conclusions. Paul's made this argument. We're going to die.

And our hope is in the life to come. And in anticipation of that, we struggle longing for freedom. And that this struggle is actually exactly what God intended for us. Because in verse 5 it says, Now he who prepared us for this very purpose, this groaning, this longing, and ultimately this permanent dwelling, is God. And he's given us his spirit as a pledge, as a down payment, as a promissory note saying, this is just a taste of the good that will come. And so the rest of our text is a set of conclusions or resolutions to this hope of life after death. In verse 6 he says, Therefore, always being of good courage and knowing while we were at home in the body, we were absent from the Lord. So he's telling us the truth. He says there's a tension here. This is the tension. So long as you live here, you're not with the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage. Courage showing up twice now in these verses. I say, what?

that we prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Now, that's a gnarly thing to say. And if you were here, I would ask you, why is that gnarly? What is the tension that you feel? But I'll tell you what I think the tension is. I think the tension is that when you read those words, what you think is that your love for God is set against love for people or things in this world. And you go, I don't like that tension. I don't appreciate it. That's why I don't want to die. I don't want to die because I don't want to leave the people that I love. But it seems that this text is telling me that to love these people and to not long to be with God more than them as if I don't care about them is what I'm supposed to be. And that seems to be wrong. So what I want to do is take just a second and interpret this for you because that's not what I believe you ought to be learning from this. I'd start by asking you, when are you going to die? And all of us would say, I don't know. I don't know when I'm going to die.

And I'd say, okay, the best answer you could give is, I'll die when the Lord calls me home and when my work on earth is done. And I'd say, right. Now, what work has he given you on earth? And all of you could be thinking, my job is to provide for my family. My job is to raise my kids. My job is to take care of my home. My job is to serve my employer. My job is to love my brothers and sisters and to obey my parents. My job is to... to help my kids with their grandkids. What is your work? And we'd all think of it. And then I'd say, okay, who gave you that work? And you'd say, God, the Lord gave me that work. He's given me a spouse or he's giving me children or he's giving me a job or he's giving me whatever it is I have to do. It's come to me from the Lord's hands. And so I'd say, that's right. So whatever work you're supposed to do now and the people that you interact with have been given to you by God. And so your love for your family, for your children,

for your parents, is not at odds. It's not inherently at odds with a love for God. And you might say, but Jesus said that he who loves his father or brother, mother or sister more than me is not worthy of me. And I say, that's right. He said more than me. It didn't say he who loves his father is not worthy of me. It says he who loves his father or mother more than me. And so there is an order of who we love and how we love and who we love more. We love God more. than we love the people that we're around. And yet, we have a love for the people around us. And it's intense and it's personal and it's appropriate. One of the other passages that gets at this tension is Philippians 1. Paul says, For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean more fruitful labor for me.

And so if we were to take that passage apart real quickly, which one, being present with the Lord or being present with people, which one is better? He says, well, being present with the Lord is better. He says the same thing in Philippians that he says here in 2 Corinthians 5. It's better to be with the Lord. And yet, did you catch that he says, To live is Christ and to die is gain. If I'm to live on the flesh, it will mean fruitful labor for me. And then he says, and I don't know which one to choose. He's acknowledging the tension that he feels. I'm hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and to be for the Lord and be with Christ. So that's his first desire. For that is very much better. And I have a desire to remain on in the flesh with you. He's writing two real people that he's loved.

And saying, and I have a desire to be with you, to disciple you, to help you, serve you, love you. To see you grow in Christ. I very much want to do that work as well. And so in Paul, you don't see this conflict that we feel of loving the people that God's put into our lives and loving God. Your priorities have to be straight. But there's not an inherent tension or conflict. And so when Paul says, therefore, we have hope of life after death with God. And that's better than this life. We ought to be of good courage and not shy away from saying we prefer to be with the Lord in heaven. But so long as he keeps us here on this earth and he gives us people to love and to care for, we're going to serve him by serving them. Just like Paul did with the Philippians. And so I don't want you to feel conflict between loving God and loving your family. God's given them to you. And when he calls you home, you should pray and trust that he'll make his presence more desirable to you. That he'll wean you off of.

your love for those people and give you peace about them being cared for while you're gone, when you're gone, and that he'll be increasing your desire to be with him and to finally be free of this earthly tent. And what I've often found is that when people get older, this work isn't as intimidating to them anymore because they've had many more years of seeing the Lord's faithfulness to them and his provision and his care. And they're also more, their groaning is more intense. Their desire to be freed from sin in this life actually has grown. And they're ready to be done and to be made perfect. And that's as God would have it be. And so the first conclusion is that we would prefer to be with the Lord instead of being here. But that so long as the Lord has us here, we're not living in conflict between loving him and loving the people that are around us. The second conclusion.

is in verse 9. Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. And so what he's saying is because there is life after death through Jesus Christ, we ought to concern ourselves with being pleasing to him. Why should we concern ourselves with being pleasing to him? Well, because we're going to be judged. Everything that we've done, everything that we've said, everything that we've thought in our whole lives will be brought before the throne of God and will be judged. Now, if I asked you, is that an attractive thought or a scary thought, what would you say? And I think most of you would say, that's a scary thought. I don't know that I want that to be. But I want to follow up and ask you, is the reason that's a scary thought is because when you look at all of that stuff, you're worried about whether you're going to get into heaven. Are you worried that the testimony of your life is going to be

condemning to you and that you're going to go to hell as a result of it. If it is, then I don't think you understand. There's one aspect of the judgment that we need to recognize that is a judgment of a sheep or a goat, a Christian or not a Christian. Welcome into my presence, into the joy of my Father, or depart from me for I never knew you. There is that going on in the judgment, but there's more than that going on in the judgment. What else is going on in the judgment? Well, I think that what else is going on in the judgment is what Paul has in view here. There is a bringing together of all of the things you've done for recompense, for repayment. And you're like, what do you mean about that? And I say, well, during the gold rush, what did men do? They got up, they traveled across the country, they went and bought themselves a stake of land, and they worked hard trying to find gold, right?

And they worked in the creeks and they worked in the caves and they blew the rock apart. And they did all of this work trying to find gold. And they sifted through it and they sorted through it and they took out the gold and they collected it. And eventually what they did at the end of all of their work, when they were done, they took everything they'd collected that they believed to be of value and they brought it to be paid for it. Now, what didn't they know? Well, they didn't know the quality of their gold. They didn't know how pure it was. They didn't know how much value there would be in it, but they worked hard to collect the gold. And then they came in and there was a judgment. The guy would take the gold and he'd measure the purity of it and he'd measure the weight of it. And he would translate that gold stone, such as it was, into a cash value. And then he would give them the money for it. He would buy the gold from them. And so they would walk away with their payment, with their reward.

Now, what would they walk away with for the rocks that they brought? Well, nothing, because that was a rock. What would they walk away with for the gold that they brought? They'd walk away with their reward, with money. And that's the sort of judgment that Christians are going to face. You're going to take all of your actions, all of your deeds, everything you've done as a Christian, and you're going to present it before your Father in heaven, before Jesus Christ, and they're going to judge it. And Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. He says, Now you realize you start with gold and silver and you end up with hay and straw. And you say, I'd rather build with gold and silver than with hay and straw because one's going to last a little longer, right? Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, each man's work will become evident. For the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire.

And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. Paul's talking here about this judgment, where you come and you bring all of your life's work, and it's judged by God. It's going to be examined. It's going to test the quality of each man's work. And if any man's work, which he has built on it, remains, if there was any gold in that, once the fire's been put to it, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, meaning all of the work and all the effort and all the things he did to collect his gold will be for naught, but he himself will be saved, yet as so through fire. And so I want to distinguish in your minds the difference between being the judgment simply being a judgment of you're going to heaven or you're going to hell. For Christians, there's still a judgment beyond the determination of heaven or hell, and it's a judgment of what you've done with your life. And so our salvation,

is not judged by our works. Okay? If you thought you could get into heaven or that the terms of you getting into heaven had to do with what you bring to the judgment, then there's no hope. That's not what you have anything to do with. You can't affect that judgment. But you will come with what you've done to the judgment. And it won't go into, is this person a Christian or is this person not a Christian? If you're a Christian, it's by God's doing and his mercy and the free gift of grace that he gives to us. But there will be a judgment of what you've done and how you've lived, and you'll be rewarded to that accordingly. Did you spend your life serving God? Did you spend your life loving God? Did you spend your life caring for your neighbor and building his kingdom? If so, there will be a great reward for it. If not, there won't be a reward for it.

And so our goal, the second goal, is that we would be pleasing to God in this life, knowing that everything we do is going to come before him in judgment. And it's not simply going to be, are you going to heaven or are you going to hell? But rather, how well did you serve me? How much did you produce? Okay? And there'll be a reward for that. If there was no life after death, there would be none of that. If there was no life, then there could be no reward. So because there's life, there is therefore a reward for the things that we bring. The things that we do. Verse 11, the third, therefore, therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. And so Paul's getting very personal in this section. We persuade men. Now, who's he talking about? Well, he's talking about the Corinthians. He's under this attack from these super apostles in Corinth who are saying that Paul is insignificant. He's not an apostle. They shouldn't listen to him. And so this conclusion is very personal. We persuade men. And I hope that we've made ourselves manifest to your consciences.

We're not commending ourselves, but giving you an occasion to be proud of us. He's saying to them, examine our work. See what we've said. See if it's true and if it aligns with what God has said. And if so, then praise God. In verse 14, for the love of Christ controls us, having concluded that one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all, so that they might live who no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. And so what is he doing? He's saying, I'm work to build God's kingdom. That's a Christian's primary is that the grace of God through the gospel will be extended to everyone. Therefore, we persuade men. In everything that we do, we ought to be seeking to persuade others to trust in Jesus Christ because he died to free them from sin and death. He was raised to give them an eternal dwelling with his Father in heaven. This is the message of the gospel. This is one of the conclusions of the resurrection, one of the fruits of it. So then we come to verses 16 and 17. This is the conclusion of this section. Paul says,

From now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh. Yet now we know him in this way no longer. Now many of the people at this time had seen Christ, had physically seen his body. This is the way Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15. First he appeared to these men, and then he appeared to these men, and then he appeared to the 500. And last of all, he appeared to me as one untimely born. Many of these had seen Christ in the flesh. They knew of him. And yet now he's ascended. And so now they don't know him in the flesh. They know him in the power of his Holy Spirit that he sent to them as a pledge. So what is the conclusion of all of this? We don't know Christ in the flesh. We know him in the power of his Holy Spirit. What's the primary conclusion of Christ's ascension? It's that he changed the way we're supposed to think about ourselves and about other people. What do you mean? It seems like a bit of a chain yank. How did he change how we're supposed to? How did all of this come to a conclusion in us changing how we think about ourselves?

And how we think about other people. He says, therefore, we recognize no one according to the flesh. Because we don't recognize Jesus that way anymore. We recognize no one else according to the flesh. What he's doing is drawing a distinction between our old manner of life, our old sins, our past, who we were before Christ, and who we are now. And he actually thinks it matters that you draw a distinction in your life and in your minds when you think about yourself and when you think about other people. before they were Christians and after they were Christians, that there actually is a real change that goes on, that all of their groaning, all of their hoping, all of that is not simply for the future, that actually Christians are different than other people. We recognize no one according to the flesh anymore. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. Now it gets personal, or at least I want to make this personal for you.

There are many reasons and many temptations that every one of us has to think of past sin in our own life, things we've done, or to think of the past sins of other people and have those sins be the thing that define them. They're this person. They're that person. This is what I'm like. This is what I did. There's some sort of irreparable damage that I've caused or been a part of through my sin that there's no hope of changing. And I think that the central argument that Paul is making is that that is no longer true of Christians. And that Christians have to understand this and believe this for themselves and for those around them. This is the argument he makes through Corinthians 1 and 2 Corinthians both. In 1 Corinthians 6, he says that there were fornicators and idolaters and drunkards and homosexuals and the effeminate.

and swindlers and liars and stealers, all these things, such were some of you. You used to be that, but now you're not anymore because those people don't inherit the kingdom of God. But you were washed, but you were cleansed, but you were made new. And when he's speaking to them in this way, he's actually talking about here and now. He's not saying, you will be made new in the future sometime, but really you're the same person you've always been. He says, no, you were like that. That's who you were, but no more. That's not who you are. Now, you've been made new. And he says the same thing here. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. And what I want you to consider or to think about in your own lives is the bondage or the hooks that your own sins have in you from your past sins have in you. Things that you've done, things that you've said, things that you've felt. That if we get right down to it, what you really think is that it's unforgivable. That what you did was...

has broken you, has broken your life, has ruined everything in such a way that there's no hope of restoration. There's no hope of redemption. I think this is a very common thing that Christians feel that they believe and they don't know what to do with it. They just go, oh, I guess my, you know, I have this old injury and I guess I just limp around the rest of my life with this old injury and I'm never going to be free of it. But if you're in Christ, you're a new creature. The old things have passed away. And one of the strange things that I find now, I was talking to Vanessa about this, and she says, well, you didn't grow up in the church, and so you don't have this hang-up about your old sins. You don't seem to care about them as much. And I say, well, what good is Jesus if he didn't set me free from those things? What good has he done me? What power does he have?

If I'm not actually free and forgiven of those things, I did them. A whole host of them. There's closets and suitcases full of them. But if I'm not free from that stuff, if I haven't been freed from that stuff, then there's no life to hope for in the future. Because if he can't free me from that stuff, what confidence do I have to look forward and say things will be different? I think too often what Christians end up doing is thinking that the Christian life is just this slow slide. down into misery and pain and death, and then that's just where it all ends and where they're done. And there is a sense in which that's what's happening to the old man, to your lusts, to your desires, to the corruptions of this body, of this tent, of this life. That's true. But as that old man dies, the new man grows, the inner man grows, he's strengthened.

Have you guys ever watched those videos where you watch a, they'll plant a seed in the ground and it's got its little husk or its little thing and they put it in the ground and it's right up against the glass and it's got dirt. And you kind of watch the seed kind of rot away, basically. You know, when they tell you, oh, plant this in the ground and the germination is going to take this long or that long. What they're telling you is how long it takes the seed husk to rot. For the moisture in the ground to soften it up enough that the life inside of it can break free of it. That's what a germination period is, okay?

It's just how long does the container take to deteriorate, all right? Your body, this life, is the container. It's death. There's life inside of a Christian that is breaking free out of that shell, that's going to push out of the shell, that's going to push up through the ground, that's going to then sprout and grow and bear good fruit. And you say, well, but it was dead when we put it in the ground. And I say, yeah, you're absolutely right. It was dead when you put it in the ground, but God put life in it. And he sustained, he gave that life, he sustains that life, he nurtures and grows that life. And that's what we are. We live in a shell, in a body that's dying, that's falling away, that's causing us grief and pain and temptations and all the rest. But in a Christian, there's life growing on the inside, but that life only grows on the inside.

One, first, if God's put it there, we can't go to the store and get it ourselves. We can't decide it's there. God has to put it there. But if he puts it there, then what he's telling you is, and what you ought to be recognizing is, that life is overcoming the death that surrounds it. And so your new life going forward, forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward, is you putting away and putting aside and leaving off your sins of the past. You're not that person anymore. And I've heard it said and felt at times myself, but it's in my veins. It's in my blood. What if I just return to it in time? And the promise of the gospel is that you are a new creature now. You're not an old creature. With new habits, you are a new creature. You are a different thing now. And that's the promise. That's the strength and the comfort that you have that you won't just return to your former way. You say, well, how can I be sure? And I say, we live by faith, not by sight.

Do you trust that God is capable and willing and powerful enough to do that? Or do you think that he's impotent and weak and disinterested in your life? And you say, no, I don't think that's the case. I don't think he's disinterested in my life. And I say, that's right. He's not. And so because he's interested in your life, because he's interested enough to send his own son to die for you, you ought to then take hold of the life that he's going to create in you and nurture and grow. What does this all have to do with physical death? Remember, this is the conclusion of Paul's argument at the beginning about our bodies and them dying. I said at the beginning our physical death ought to remind us that we're not immortal and that there's a judgment coming. But there's another thing it ought to remind us of, and it's this. That you're dead to your sins. That you're dead to your sins. That what God does is he takes things that are wicked and he kills them.

In us. He kills them. He removes them and he gives us life in its place. Romans 6, 11-13 says, even so, consider yourselves dead to sin. And this is speaking to current life. Consider yourselves dead to the sins that you've committed and are committing and you're bearing the guilt of. Consider yourselves dead to them. Free of them. Consider yourselves dead to your sins of the past. You're not in bondage to those anymore. Now, do I sound crazy for saying that? I think many of us want to be kept on a short leash of guilt about what you've done in the past. And here's the thing, there's no freedom at the end of that leash. There's no freedom at the end of that leash. Freedom comes through trusting God that he will finish the good work that he started in you. That it'll be hard work, that it'll be miserable, and it will not be easy. And there'll be times of sadness and sorrow, and there'll be times of weakness and pain. That's part of your growth.

But it is growth. And that is God doing his work in you. So Romans 6.11 says, Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive in Christ Jesus. What does it mean to consider yourself to be alive in Christ Jesus? Well, what it means is that by faith you take hold of the things that we've discussed this morning. And you say, that's what's true. However I feel about it, whatever hook Satan has in me, whatever power my past has, I've given. in my life and saying, that's who I am. That's what I'm like. I can't be free of it. No, you're dead to those things and you're alive in Christ. You say, I don't feel alive. And I say, well, do you believe that God will do what he says he's done? Or do you rely simply on how you feel about things? Consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust and do not go on presenting your members.

of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. To live by faith and to believe these things is to lay aside what you were, what you've done. You say, but it was really, really bad. It was really awful. Like, I still feel bad about it sometimes and I'm afraid I'm going to do it again. And I say, I know. These are the temptations that we all face. Because the things that you were tempted by back then and that you gave into at that time, you still will face. What's the way out of those temptations? Feeling bad about it? How's that working for you? You know, real practically, does that work? Do you find freedom down that path? Okay, well let's not walk down that path then. Where are you going to find freedom from your temptations and from your sins? By believing that you're dead to sin and you're alive in Christ. That the old things have passed away.

And that you've been made new. And this applies as much to the people around you who've sinned against you as it does to you. Do you feel guilty about your own sins? I understand that. Do you feel angry about sins that have been committed against you? Do you hold on to them? Do you nurture them? The frustration and the bitterness and the anger and the pain. Do you pick the scab? That also is not how a Christian would behave. One who's alive in Christ. Sinned against, yes. For sure. But you're a new creature. And those old temptations of anger and frustration and bitterness are part of the old man. And you're a new creation. That's not who you are anymore. But they sinned against me, I know. And Jesus' final words on the cross were, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. I have to forgive people who sinned against me and aren't even sorry? That's exactly what Jesus did. Is it too much to say that we ought to strive in the same direction?

Of course we should. And you'll find freedom down that road. That when you see those who sinned against you in the most awful ways, freed, when you're freed from your bitterness and your frustration at them, you'll have freedom. You'll have peace. You'll have life. And so when you think of death, your death, the death of those around you, you should remember two things. One, it's coming for you. Whether you're young or whether you're old, death is coming for you. For a Christian, life is on the other side of that death. And because there's life on the other side of it, you ought to remember the second thing, which is you're to be dead to sin. If there's life on the other side of death for you, then you're to be dead to sin now. You're not to be in bondage to what's happened in the past, to what you've done, what's been done to you. You're to be free from it. Jesus Christ came to set, to lead a host of captives free. Free from their own sins, free from the sins that were committed against them.

Free. That's what it means to be a Christian. That's what we have to have worked out in our heads and in our hearts before we have any strength to do anything. Jesus Christ came to set us free from our sins. That's the message of the gospel. Let's pray.