Behold, New Things Have Come

Would you please stand now as we read the Word of the Lord from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 4 through 17. This is the Word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. 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 now we 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. You may be seated. So I start by asking you a question. What controls you? That's the question. What controls you? I think many of us would like to think that we're not controlled.

but that we choose. But we start here with the Apostle Paul saying that he's controlled. He says the love of Christ controls us, him and his cohort, his friends, his followers. He says the love of Christ controls us. And so when I ask you what controls you, I don't want you to say no one or nothing, because that's not what the Apostle says here. He doesn't say, I'm free on my own to do what I want. He says, no, actually, I'm constrained. I'm controlled. I'm under authority. I am bound by the love of Christ. And that control dictates to him his decisions, his priorities, his travels, the things he says, the things he agrees with, the things he opposes. All of his life is controlled by the Lord Jesus Christ, by the love of him. And so if I change the question a little bit and I say, if you were to be asked, How many of your choices are motivated or controlled by the love of Christ? How would you answer? Would you say all of them? Would you say none of them? I think you might say, I don't like the question. It's a loaded question. I feel like it's a question being asked at the end of a spear or the muzzle of a gun. What do you mean? It's a hard question to answer and not just because of our sins. It's a hard question to answer because we know we haven't loved Christ as much as we should.

It's a hard question to answer because we've wondered, does God really care about this decision or that one? Does it matter? It's a hard question to answer because our motivations are hard to parse and sort out. They're never pure. And by pure, I mean pure. They're always mixed with some sort of sin, some sort of deformity, some sort of impact because of our corruption. Have you ever said, I know I didn't sin. In that situation, have you ever gotten in an argument or a fight or a conflict and the one thing you were sure of is that you didn't sin? Did you know you were not telling the truth? You may not know what the sin was, but we ought not to live like our behavior isn't impacted on a minute-by-minute basis by our own sins. And so when we're asked by this text, Does the love of Christ control us? It's a hard question to answer because there's all kinds of reasons why the answer is no, or not as much as it should be, or not as much as I hoped it would be. Yet Paul says the love of Christ controls us. It constrains us. When you think of being controlled, when you think of being constrained, when you think of being bound, does that have a negative connotation in your mind or a positive connotation? I think for most of us, we'd say that's a negative thing. You think sort of about being arrested, you know?

Hands locked behind your back. Put it in the back of a car. Put it in a cell. You're confined. You are no longer free to move about. So is that what the love of Christ does for us? Does it lock us up and take away our freedoms? Does it keep us from what's good for us or what glorifies God? It doesn't. And so how is it that love constrains? It's an interesting thing. When we think about being constrained, as I said, we always think about being held back, kept away from. But that's not what the love of Christ does. It doesn't keep us back from the good things. It doesn't keep us from what would honor God. It actually sets us free. It controls us and constrains us and motivates us to serve God. And so love is a great motivator. And we have to recognize that the things that we love, are in fact the things that control us. Whatever it is you love, whatever is important to you, whatever you get excited about, you have to realize that excitement has taken root and has grown in your heart and it controls you. It keeps you from doing certain things and compels you to do other things. So what could be controlling us? Well, in the end,

We could answer that question very granularly, very particularly. Well, in this situation, it was this, and here's why. And in that situation, it was this other thing I was thinking about or concerned about or afraid about or angry about. But I want to back off of the sort of granular answer, and I want to scale back and say there's really only two things that you have to choose from, two camps. You're either going to be controlled by the tyranny of Satan, that's one camp, you're going to be controlled by Jesus Christ. That's it. It's just one of those two things. That's what's going to constrain your heart. Now, one of them will lead to your destruction and one of them will lead to your peace and to your rest and to your joy. And so what Paul's arguing here and saying is that he's free because the love of Christ has gotten into his hearts.

It controls him now. It keeps him away from sin. Think of it this way. Before Paul came to know Jesus Christ, what controlled him? What was he like? What did he do? I would say his zeal controlled him. He was zealous. And what was he zealous for? The law, God's worship, the Jewish religion. And when Jesus Christ got a hold of his heart and the scales came off of his eyes, What did he then come to realize he was controlled by? He was controlled by evil. He was controlled by his own blindness. He was controlled by Satan. He was not doing the Lord's work as convinced as he was that he was zealous for God. He was not, in fact, zealous for God, but rather to destroy the works of God. You remember when Jesus came and confronted him on the road to Damascus, he asked him a question. He says, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

And in that moment, Paul goes, I didn't know. I didn't know it was you, Lord. And at that point, was he bound or was he set free? It's like, I don't know. It was both, actually. He was set free from his blindness and from his bondage to Satan, and he was bound by the love of God. And you and I, we live bound by one or the other. We're not our own. Later on in this book, Paul tells us, he says that we ought to honor God and glorify God with our body for we were bought with a price. Where were we bought from? Who were we bought from? Were we just free and then God bought us and stole us away from our freedom? No, he bought us away from Satan and the power of sin in our lives. And so we have to learn to think in these terms that we are under control. We are being constrained.

The question is not whether we're being constrained, but by what are we constrained? We ought to be constrained or desire to be constrained or seek to be constrained by the love of Christ. On the one hand, you have Satan's rule, as I've mentioned. What is it that Satan wants for you? What does he seek for you? Your good? Your pleasure? Your peace and comfort? No. He seeks your misery. And finally, your destruction. And you might think with those kinds of words that it would be obvious and apparent that that's the road you're on. But Jesus tells us that the road that leads to destruction is what? It's a wide road. And there are many who travel it. What does Christ seek to give you? Life, peace, rest. Matthew 11, Jesus says this. Come to me.

come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. And you have to ask yourself, rest from what? What do we need rest from? Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So Jesus calls out to those who are tired, those who are worn down, those who by the grace of God have seen just a little bit of the shackles they're in and are tired of carrying them around. And he says, come to me and I'll set you free of those things. You'll find rest for your souls. Take and learn from me, for I am humble in heart. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. You guys know what a yoke is for? What's a yoke? Not like in an egg. A yoke was this big piece of wood with metal.

loops on it and leather straps that you would put around a set of oxen to go work. It was meant to control and to guide and steer the animals. So Jesus comes and says, come to me, learn from me, find rest from me for my yoke is easy. So does he constrain his people? Well, the imagery here is yes. He puts a yoke on us and he guides us and he steers us. Away from destruction. Away from where we would naturally go. That's what it means to be controlled by the love of Christ. It's a good thing. It's a kind thing. It's a gracious thing. So why did the love of Christ control Paul? He says this. He says, having concluded this. So he's like, we went and searched it out. And he says the conclusion was simply.

That one died for all, and that one was Jesus Christ. And in him and through him and by his death, 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. So Paul reasons that Christ's death on behalf of his people was so that they might no longer be lived for themselves. He defines living for yourself as being under the rule and tyranny of Satan. And he's come to earth and he's died and been raised from the dead to set you free from that. It's a very unfamiliar thing to live for Christ. It's not a natural thought. It's not a natural thing. It's an acquired taste and it's acquired by the Holy Spirit, making it sweet to us, changing our affections and our desires. I could tell stories as I look out at some of you who have been here longer about how God has worked in you and changed you.

It's just been sweet to see. And in my own life, Paul says, Jesus Christ died for us, having paid the penalty for our sins that we deserve to set us free so that we might no longer live for ourselves, but for him. On Good Friday, I said to you that we don't often think about the cost of our sins as much as we should. We just kind of go through life thinking it's not a big deal. It's not that big of a deal. It's not causing us any real big problems. So we don't think about it very much. But I want to follow up and say, if we don't think about the cost of our sins much, we will then not think very often or very deeply about our duties or our responsibilities to God, the one who saved us from our sins, the one who sent his son to die. We'll just continue to live for ourselves and we'll neglect our duties and our responsibilities toward God. Duty, like control or constraint, is a negative word in our minds.

But what do I mean by our duties to God? What does Paul mean by our duties to God? Simply, that we would love him. What is the greatest commandment after all? To love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Is that such, so onerous and so miserable and so difficult to command that we ought to try to escape it? No. It's what we've been saved to do. And so our duties to God are simply to love him. 1 Peter 2.16 tells us that we ought to act as free men. Act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God. And so we as Christians ought to remember on this day where we remember and celebrate our Lord's resurrection, his victory over the grave, that that has implications for our lives. We are to live as those who are constrained by the love of God. If he's died for us and conquered victory,

conquered the grave and overcome death and has gone to prepare a place for us, then we ought to live as those who are in love with him, seeking to do what pleases him. Paul then goes on and he says, therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh. Because we have known, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh yet, now we no longer know him in this way. Is that a sad thing or a good thing? That they no longer know Christ in this way. Well, before his death, you remember it was a sad thing. When he was like, he kept telling his disciples, I'm going to go away from you. I'm only going to be here for a time and then I'm going to leave. And they kept saying, no, no, no, we don't want you to go. And then he tells them, no, it's better that I go because if I go, then the Holy Spirit will come. And if I go, then I'll prepare a place for you and I'll come back and I'll receive you into my Father's house.

And so I think that we have to read this passage not as a negative, like we used to have the good thing, but now we've got sort of the leftovers. I think it's the opposite. If we understand this passage in the light of the scriptures I've just mentioned, he says, even though we knew Christ according to the flesh, we yet now know him no longer in this way. Now, why does he argue about how we knew Christ and how we know him now? It's an interesting thing that goes on here because when he says, Therefore, now we recognize no one, meaning us, according to the flesh, but we knew Christ according to the flesh. You realize that we recognize different things about their flesh. When Jesus was in the flesh, it was a good thing, right? But when we are recognized by our flesh, that's a bad thing. Because his flesh was pure and righteous and holy, and our flesh is corrupt and decaying and leading us astray. So what does it mean when he says to us,

We no longer recognize anyone according to the flesh. What he's saying is that we ought to take the work that Christ did in dying and being raised from the dead as changing how we view both ourselves and other people. When you think of it this way, when you think about a sibling, a co-worker, a neighbor, what defines them in your mind? Probably their habits. their character, their behavior, right? And sometimes it's a positive recollection, but many times it's a negative recollection. What we know, especially about the people we're closer to, we remember them by their sins. We're lazy. We're liars. We're proud. We're full of lust. We're greedy. We're selfish. Paul tells us that's not how we ought to recognize.

one another anymore. Not because we don't still struggle with sin and fall into it. We do. But he argues that since Christ has been raised from the dead and has come to give us life, we ought now no longer recognize those among us according to the flesh. Instead, we ought to recognize them according to the work that Christ's done on their behalf. You know how easy it is to get mad when people sin against you? You know how easy it is to say, oh no, it's fine. But it's like it gets stuck in the filter somewhere inside of you and it doesn't get out. It just sits in there. When you're doing that, you're not recognizing them according to the work that Christ done for them. You're recognizing them according to their flesh. And if Christ is raised from the dead, then we ought to be able to forgive and let go of the sins that are committed against us. And so if you're the kind who's tempted toward bitterness or toward holding grudges or keeping,

a long memory of wrong suffered against you, I want you to hear me clearly. You're not living like a Christian. That is not how Christians ought to view one another. And what I find to be true is that those who keep track of other people's sins often keep track of their own sins and often live very guilty lives. Not joyful people. Not cheerful people. Not obedient people. Miserly. Grumpy, cynical. And so we really do have to do away with this way of thinking. If sin has lost its grip on us, its power over us, if that's what Jesus' resurrection accomplished for us, then why do we live remembering and regurgitating and ruminating on the sins of our past and the sins of other people's past against us? It's pretty wicked, isn't it?

It's also pretty common. And this is just one of the things that Christ's resurrection came to abolish in your heart. If he can forgive you, paying all of the debt, like we talked about at Good Friday, can you not then forgive one another? We must. How else do we recognize one another according to the flesh? It's not always according to our former manner of life or the sins committed against us. We also recognize one another according to the flesh by sucking in the world's The way that the world sort of chops up and divides people up. And so we look and we see people who are rich. And we have thoughts about them. Or we look and we see people who are smart. We have thoughts about them. Or we look and we see people who are poor and we have thoughts about them. And we look and see people whose skin is a different color than ours and we have thoughts about them. But if we're to recognize no one according to the flesh anymore, then these things really ought to be purged out of us.

You see, sinful men are always trying to rally around people who are like them. And that's all they care about are the people who are like them. They want exclusivity. And they're always locking the door and shutting other people out. That's where we start from. But Christ came to bust that door wide open and to open up our hearts, to enlarge our hearts. To love and to accept our neighbors and those who are different than us. Those whom the world says we have nothing in common with, but those who through Christ we have everything in common with. That's why the apostle says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. Behold, the old things have passed away, the new things have come. The only distinction that ought to matter to us, or at least that we ought to be training ourselves to recognize and to think in terms of, is whether or not they're a Christian.

I'll tell you guys who are newly married something you ought to avoid in your fighting. It's related to this. As you're married, you're going to have arguments and disagreements, and you're at some point going to have a bad argument or a disagreement because something was said or something was done that was very offensive to you or very hurtful to you. And this thought will occur to you. And the thought is, if they were a Christian, they wouldn't have done that. or said that. And you'll think it for a little while, a couple of weeks, a couple of months. It'll just, it'll just, it just gets stuck in your brain. And at some point you'll say it in the middle of a fight. And I mean to tell you, you're trying to recognize no one according to the flesh anymore. And you should never say that about your spouse. They are sinful. And so are you. It's unhelpful. It's destructive even. Because if we turned the mirror on you,

and let someone examine your life the way that you're examining their life, what would you think if they concluded, well, because they've sinned, they must not be a Christian? We would be hiding in the corner to get away from that scrutiny, if we're honest about ourselves. You know, I think that this passage, this verse that I mentioned at the beginning, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature, and the old things have passed away, behold, new things have come, is of actually... A very familiar passage to many Christians, but a very hard passage to understand. Because it speaks in terms of the old doubt. The old doubt and the new sin. And it's all fixed and it's all done. You know, it's like one of those remodeled TV shows. You know, they come in and they convince you that they did all the work in 72 hours. Or whatever, I don't know how long they take to do it. But they always make it seem like it was just seamless and then there were some setbacks, but they overcame them. And they overcame them really quickly.

And everything was perfect when they were done. And Eric laughs because he's done renovations and he's flipped houses and he's like, yeah, fat chance. That's not how renovations go. That's not what this passage is teaching you. It's not teaching you that when someone becomes a Christian, they are in that moment what they will become in glory. They're not yet. I'm not yet. You're not yet. You're becoming what you will be. It appears to be an all or nothing proposition, but that is not how God works in the hearts and lives of his people. I want to go back to the remodeling project and just sort of tease out the example because I think it's helpful. When you do a remodeling project, the first thing you have to do is define what the finished product is supposed to be. Not what it is now, but what it's supposed to be.

down to the colors and the cabinets and the profile of the trim and the stain of the floor and the tint on the windows. All of it has to be decided. If you're wise, you decide all of that stuff before you start because you have to figure out what all this stuff costs, whether you have the time and the resources and the energy to do it. And so you start first with the finished product in mind. You say, this is the finished product we're going for. And then you look into the house as it is and you go, We've got a long way to go. Walls have to be torn down. Wiring has to be redone. Plumbing has to be ripped out. We have to fix the mold that we didn't know was there. We didn't know the roof was leaking. This ceiling's not insulated. It's all kinds of things that pop up. But when you start the remodeling project, once you actually get to the work, what's the first thing that you have delivered to the job site? A dumpster.

And you do demo. And that's the fun part. Every little boy, there's nothing better in the world than demolition. You want to kick your foot through the wall? Here's a whole house of walls. Kick your feet through all of them. Right? You show up with a dumpster. And you start the work of tearing everything up and out. Is that a fun work? It's a fun work. It's also a really nasty job. It's a really nasty, nasty job. And there's things you discover in that process. that you didn't plan on, right? That mold that was hidden in the wall, that subfloor that's rotten, that floor joist that has termites in it, that roof that's leaking. You find new stuff, and there's just more demo work to be done, more demo work to be done. What's the temptation when you start tearing into a house and you find this kind of work? The temptation is to not tear out all the bad, but to just tear out enough of it and start, well, we'll change the finished product so that we don't have to,

Get involved in that set of nasty work. But if you do your work well, you'll tear all of the rotten out, all of the broken out, all of the old and decayed out, and you'll throw it in the dumpster. And then you start getting all the new supplies delivered. The new flooring shows up, and the new rolls of wire show up, and the plumbing pipes all show up. And it's all fixed now, right? It's all move in. All the new stuff's here. None of the new stuff's installed. Now all the new stuff has to be installed, and it has to be installed in a process. Right? You can't hang the drywall before the wire is in the wall. You can't put the trim up before the walls are painted, or you shouldn't. There's all this work to be done. And it's meticulous work, and it takes time. The house is under construction, and it's going to be a long time before that final product, those pictures that you had in your mind, all those pretty things, are actually finished.

With enough time and enough effort, that work will be completed. That house is you. You're that house. You're that old thing that's passed away, that's days are numbered, that's going to the dumpster. And you've become, by the power of God, the new thing. And yet God's working to tear out the old and build the new. This is what Paul tells us in Philippians 1. He says, I'm confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. That is not tomorrow. There's work being done. We're forever being changed and made new. It's nice when you can take a house and you can just rip the whole thing down to the studs and build it all back. But when you have to do a remodel project in the house you live in, it's so much worse, isn't it? Because you have to cook dinner in the...

In the kitchen that's under construction. This is the work the walkers are doing now at their house. And it slows down the process because you can't just rip everything out all at once because you have to continue to live in that house. Isn't that us? We can't just be burnt to the ground and created new all at once. We're in a process of changing us and refining us and redeeming us over the course of our whole lives until the day of Jesus Christ. That's what it means to become a new creation. It's not this simple, easy thing. It takes a lot of time. So how many of you like remodeling projects? How many of you husbands, when your wife says, hey, I want to redo the kitchen, you're like, great. I was hoping you'd say that. I'll tell you who ought to like remodeling projects. Christians ought to like remodeling projects. You ought to revel in them because you're a Christian. Because every rusty nail and rotten board, you have a picture right in front of you of yourself.

The work that God's doing in you. And so God has begun a good work in us, changing us into what we'll become. But he's not done yet, even though all of the material is on site. God is working in us to clear out the old things and to cultivate the new things. Many times we resist this work. We don't want to change. We don't want to move that wall in our hearts. But that's the work that God's doing in us. Have you ever fought God when he's trying to change you? Oh man, did you win? Did you put up a good fight? Did you think you were putting up a good fight? Oh man, aren't you glad God didn't give up on you? Why did he give up on you? Because he's raised his son from the dead to change you. And so even your resistance to the work that God's doing in your life can't overcome the power of the resurrection. He's going to finish the work in you. And we would do well not to stiffen our necks, dig in our heels.

When something needs to be torn down and rebuilt. In 1 Corinthians 6, there's a passage that outlines the sorts of sins that people are given to. And then there's this really sweet comfort at the end of it. It says, this is 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. It says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Don't lie to yourself. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves. nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Are you in that list? Well, then you won't inherit the kingdom of God. If God doesn't act, you won't inherit the kingdom of God. So Paul goes on and he says, such were some of you, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

So, it's a strange thing to remember and to see yourself as you truly are. Now, you could take that statement as being like, well, you mean recognizing our sins and admitting them, and I mean that. That's the first step. You have to see who you are. Because in seeing who you are and what you are, you see your need of Christ. But having seen who you are and what you are, you then have to progress on to seeing that Jesus He is not still in the tomb. He's raised from the dead. He's ascended into heaven and is preparing a place for all of his children. And so the thing that you struggle with, the thing that controls you, he's going to break you free of it. He's going to break you free of it. And praise God for that. Such were some of you. Now, does that statement, such were some of you, mean that we just, all of the temptations, all of the habits, all of the everything, just...

Gone. Sometimes, but I would say rarely. Many times it's a fight by the power that the Spirit provides to get free of our sins, to get distance and space between them and us. And so the point of the resurrection, Paul concluded, was that we ought not to live for ourselves, but rather for him who died and rose again on our behalf. For us to do that, we have to be made new creations. And by his resurrection, that is what we are. And though we're not done, We're not mature. We're not perfect. God is at work changing us, conforming us into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to tell you, what that means in your life is the older you get, the stranger you're going to become by the world's standards. All of you young people who are married and have kids, you've started down the path. Like as the marriage age goes up, or people just don't get married at all, here you are getting married and having kids. You've already started down the path of...

becoming strange, provided that you've done those things as an act of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ as opposed to giving yourself to fornication, then praise God for working in your heart to give you those desires and don't be ashamed of them. And yet there's still a lot more work for you to do, isn't there? There's a lot more growth to be wrought in you. God will do it. God will do it. And so you ought to rest. in that fact. And I don't mean that you ought to rest as a way of excusing or justifying your lethargy or your resistance. I only mean to say you ought to rest in the love of Christ, and you ought to be motivated by it. Here's the thing, guys. You're free to do what you want. Serve God, then. How will he who didn't spare his own son not freely give us all things?

Why do we worry so much about our lives and our relationships and our health and our finances and our food? What do you worry about? That's my quick list. What do you worry about? Love God and love your neighbor. Christians' lives, actually, when they're serving God, their priorities and their actions become very simple. Simple in terms of being able to say what motivates them and what their priorities are. Hard because of their flesh holding them back, but simple in terms of what they're committed to. We ought to seek and desire the new creation that we've become. We ought to seek its growth. We ought to water it and feed it and cultivate it. So here's a question. How do you cultivate it? Three hours of internet consumption a day. Four on the weekends. That's a joke. How do you cultivate the love of God? It's not magic. You seek him. You seek him in his word.

You guys drive around. Your car will talk to you. You talk to your car. It'll play you whatever you want. There's really no excuse for you not to study the Word of God or to have it in your head. There's really no excuse to it. I know you guys listen to a lot of stuff. You ought to listen and be reading and absorbed in Scripture. Prayer. What do you pray for? How often do you pray? Do you pray the same rote prayers? every night before you go to bed. I'm glad you pray. I'm not here to discourage you, but I mean to say, are you seeking God in those prayers? What's on your heart and your mind? These are things we can grow in. These are ways we can seek God. These are ways we can cultivate the new creation that we've been made into. Attendance upon worship. It's one of the ways you'll grow. Find a church, stick in it your whole life.

One of the best things you can do for your spiritual vitality and for the vitality of your marriage and for your children. Find a good church and stick in it. Give yourself to the work. Give yourself to the sinners that go to their church with you. Love them and forgive them. Care for them. Pray for them. These are the things that Christ's resurrection has freed us to do. He secured our final outcome. We ought not to sit on our hands and wait for him to come back. We ought to be busy about the work. of cultivating this new creation that we've become. So how are you going to do that today and the week ahead and for the rest of your life? That's the question. And may God help us to answer it every day in a way that honors and glorifies him. Let's pray.