In Christ - Part I
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 · Vern Peterman · Jun 6, 2010
1 & 2 Corinthians, No. 49
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492626162236

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Before we proceed into this most outstanding passage here, I just want to make one thing known here. There is a fellow that Bruce met when he went, what was that, two years ago now, right? to Uganda for the first time and then when Bruce went back over he took me with him. I also met this fellow and then last time I went and saw him there again. We're bringing him here. He will be here to join us for two months starting Friday June 18th and he'll be staying primarily with Nancy and and me, but he will be joining us during times of fellowship and teaching and we intend to give him rather intensive training time in the Bible. One of the things that I experienced last year while it was a tremendous experience to go over there and indeed of value is I would like to at least have the opportunity to have someone get more in-depth teaching which is a little difficult to do on little A week and a half or two week long trips over there. So this will be an interesting adventure to have him join us.

Be praying about that. He has never been in an airport before. He's never been in an airplane before. He will be traveling from Africa, where he's spent his life, to Europe on a quick hop through Rome, then to Washington, D.C., and for the first time in his life, changing planes. So pray for all that, would you?

And also for the rest of his time here. We're really looking forward to the Lord's opportunity here and also thankful for Bruce's efforts to be able to get him here. Now, on to the passage here. The passage Courtney read for us was just a wonderful passage. It's so wonderful that we're going to take a look at it today and then continue on with it next week. because there's too much in it to just move by quickly.

We have this first slide, as you have on your handout, is of people of Christ, of God's accomplishments through him. Now, certainly you have heard that people say that there are both positive and negative interactions among us, depending on how we view ourselves. as well as how we view other people. And certainly that self-image issue is one that people put a lot of focus and emphasis on.

This passage, however, gives a rather different message. This passage tells us it is how we view Christ and God's awesome accomplishments through Him that is most pivotal, rather than how do we view ourselves, at least at start. Our view of what God did through Christ is intended by God Himself most clearly and most distinctly to radically impact how we view ourselves and other people and all eternity. The Lord intends that what we see in this passage here have a major impact upon our lives.

One of the reasons we'll be studying it not only today but next Sunday as well. Here's the poetic pattern for this first couple of verses, verses 16 and 17 and you see in the first part in verse 16 there is this therefore and then an alternating between we and something about recognizing or knowing and according to the flesh 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. And then he says in verse 17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. And we'll talk about what that means. What's new? The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. So the question here is, what's our people perspective?

Paul makes reference to his bad old days. when he viewed people in Christ from an earthly perspective according to the flesh. Yes, Paul had those bad old days and in fact even talks about it at intervals throughout the book of Acts. He talked about it as he wrote, including in this letter, making brief reference to it. The people who believed in Christ, people like ourselves, Paul once thought just needed to be eliminated. He says in the book of Acts, wherever I had the chance, I voted for death.

Those people who believe in Jesus, just get rid of them. It's the best thing you can do. Get rid of them. That's what he thought. That was his view of Christians and of Christ. But he had this confrontation on the road to Damascus. It was an amazing thing. He was struck blind but saw for the first time. He was a guy whom the Lord confronted directly. Why do you persecute me? The Lord took the persecution of believers personally.

Paul's new view of Christ had given him a new view of believers in Christ. And this is the phenomenal difference we want to look at here this morning. So we have the question here, what's our Christ perspective? Paul had not simply changed his view of people. Ah, now I see people differently. It's way more than that. Much more than that.

Only by seeing Christ and God's accomplishments through him can such a radical transformation take place. Christ first. and who He is, what He has done. That's how the radical transformation happens. That's how it takes place. As we see Christ differently, it doesn't make for just a new perspective. It's way beyond that. As we see Christ truly, as we believe in Him and what the Lord has done in Him and through Him, We are made into a new kind of person. It's not just a difference in our perspective. It's a difference in who God has made us to be when we believe.

Now, there is this humongous word, in, that we need to talk about. It's a huge word. Everyone notice that? Let's count them. One, two. How about the Scrabble score? One, two. No, that can't be it. So why is this word in so big? Why is it such a huge word? Why is it humongous?

Well, it's not big because of the number of letters. It's not big because of the Scrabble score. Even if you put on a triple word score, you still don't get very much. It's because of the huge difference in who you're in. That's the difference. That's why N, this little two-letter word, is so huge. It's massive. It's humongous. And that's not an exaggeration at all.

Our identity, who we are. Who we are forever. Our nature. Now, this nature thing, you've got to understand. Nature is important. And I don't mean nature like, you know, all this nature around us. I'm talking about the character of something. If I say the word crocodile, you don't expect to find a crocodile up in the trees chirping and running around getting little twigs and branches and splitting from tree to tree and then hopping down to the ground and eating a few seeds and then jumping up in the tree again. That's not the nature of a crocodile, right? So this word nature is a big one.

We have a new spiritual nature. that characterizes the believer forever. Our eternal relationship with God is impacted by these two little letters, IN. Our interactions with others here on this planet, while we go about, as well as for eternity. Our views of ourselves.

Who am I? What am I here for? What's life all about? And here's another very important one. Our spiritual history has now been replaced because we're in. That's a biggie. Everything about what life is about turns on the person whom we're in. That in is a huge word. It's a humongous word. You see, the believer is a new and kind creature. That's what he makes clear in these couple of verses here. Not that kind of a creature. Not that one either. Okay? All right.

Those who believe are made to be in Christ by God's doing. Paul started off 1 Corinthians 1 chapter verse 30 by telling the believers that. Those who are in Christ are made so by God's doing. It is not something we earn. It's not something we try hard to be worthy of. It is not something that we have a part in accomplishing at all. We believe and that's it. And God does the work of placing us in Christ. It's his job. That big, humongous word, in, is all because of God's doing. It's not superficial. It's not trivial. One's outer appearance may not change very much.

I've told the folks here at Holly Hills that I became a believer at age four and a half. And that was even after my parents told me to wait, that I'd really need to take a little while to understand this. And that's when I woke them up. I went and woke up my mom and I said, I've waited long enough. That and ain't. I've waited a few hours. That's long enough.

But what I didn't understand, I hear this guy that was four-and-a-half who became a believer. After he became a believer, he didn't look a whole lot different. Still had a scar on the inside of his left ankle from getting his foot caught in the bicycle spokes. Same guy. Same funny-looking guy that runs down the street with shoes that are too big. Anyway, the appearance on the outside may not change, but the inside What happens spiritually, radically different. Huge difference.

We are made to be in Christ. And one of the things that that means, and this is where we talk about our spiritual history, one of the subjects that We study sometimes, at least in the introductory fashion in college, is psychology. And you go through and they'll talk about your history, your personal history, and how that impacts you. And some particular theories major in your personal history. But the truth is, for a believer, it's your new history, your replacement history in Christ, that makes the huge difference. not the way you were brought up, or whether this or that happened, or how your diaper changes took place, any of that, all about your new history in Christ, your replacement history in Him. We're not talking about subtle shades of difference either. This doesn't mean some slight inclination. This is a whole world of difference if we are in Christ.

Now, but one of the things that is a truth, it's a reality, Christians are born with spiritual amnesia. We have no idea what has taken place when we believed. All we did was we believed that Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again. And that's all we believed and that's what we knew. But all the other truths about what has taken place, what God has done, placing us into Christ, all the rest of that, we don't remember that. Remember when you were crucified with Christ? You remember that, right? Remember when the nails went in? You remember that? It hurt, right? You remember that? You don't remember?

Well, neither do I. None of us do. That's why it's been revealed to us. That's why we're told what it is that's taking place. We are born with spiritual amnesia. We don't know what has happened. We have to learn it. We have to hear it. We have to be taught what has happened. We have to read about it to discover who we are, to discover our new spiritual history. to discover who God has made us to be.

What's our new identity? What is our nature on into eternity? We have a new history. We have a new present. Our new present is something we have to learn about. What's happening with me? Why is God doing this? What's happening in my life? Why is God allowing this in my life? Why isn't God allowing this other thing in my life? What's God doing?

We have a new future and, in fact, a new forever. All those are things that we have to learn about. We don't remember them. We don't all of a sudden recognize what we were in our new history, who we are, who we're going to be. What's God doing? All those are things we have to learn after the fact, after we believe. I want to talk briefly about some isms and some ologies. I want to tell you beforehand, if some of these terms don't mean anything to you, then don't worry about it. There is, however, among Christendom those who argue for Calvinism.

That is, God is sovereign, you don't make the choices, you go around planting tulips everywhere. God is the one who makes all the choices. You don't make any choices. And you believe because he chose you and that's it. End of story. In Arminianism, it's the other way. We make all the choices and God responds to our choices. These are arguments that have gone on for four centuries, at least under those names. In addition, there is a term more recently used called open theism.

It's the idea that God doesn't know the future. God likes surprises, is even the term that they will use. I'm not so sure about that. I don't want God saying, oops. But anyway, He's stuck in the same time tunnel we are, if that is what you believe. God is as surprised as you are about what's happening. He doesn't like the bad things that happen. He just can't do anything about it because He's as surprised as you are. That's open theism.

There is also this idea of, there's this guy Freud who established some ideas about your personal history determines who you are. Things that happen to you. One of the Freudian ideas is that basically you're substantially locked in in character by the time you're about five years old. There are some books in the Christian realm that have this idea. And interestingly enough, both these authors of each of these two books live here in Colorado. Now, there's another major psychological theory out there, a fellow by the name of Carl Jung. It's not your personal history so much as your evolutionary history that determines who you are. And interestingly enough, one of the proponents in the Christian realm is a fellow who lives here in Colorado. Again, interesting. With all that, one of the things, and we'll take a look at it more next week, with all that, the understanding of these identification truths basically is an answer to all of those isms and ologies.

Why? Because God is sovereign when he made you to be in Christ, in his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, and seating. And all these isms and ologies and the centuries of argument that have gone on are senseless. They're knocked off the shelf, knocked off the table by this understanding of having been made to be in Christ.

You can download the supplement. There may be some handouts on the cabinet to the right as you exit here, but you can download the supplement to this message that has a write-up that deals with those isms and ologies. And again, if none of those terms make any sense to you or it doesn't matter, don't worry about it. Okay? All right, let's move on.

What they don't understand. is that if they understood who we are in Christ, these arguments would never have taken place, would never have happened. In more recent times, the arguments with the open theism and these various psychological theories would never have been proposed in the Christian realm if it was understood who we are in Christ. We are made to be in Christ, identified with a new history, identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding.

The impact of your personal history has been replaced. You now have a new history. It's no longer a matter of sorting through the things that happened to you when you were a kid or to your ancestors long ago that came out of the jungle. No more of that. Instead, it's who you are in Christ, your new history. That's what matters.

Now here's the beginning of the poetic pattern in verse 18 and 19. It's as if Paul says, now these things are from God, and he has bullet points here. And two of those points are about the ministry that was given to Paul and his companions along with them. And the others are a statement of us, we, being reconciled to the Lord through Christ.

God's doing. It was not a matter of God being reconciled to us. He didn't have to move back in our direction. It wasn't God meets us in the middle. You do some and God does some. No. It was all about us being reconciled to God through Christ. God did it entirely through Him. It was us reconciled to God through Christ's doing. It's not our efforts. It's not our determination. It's not because we have the right genealogy or are exactly precise in how we understand things. It is all God's doing.

So, is this the way it works? Here comes the invoice. God did the work and now He's going to send you the bill. Right? Is that the way it works? Get your cash out. Better stack it up because you'll got a lot. Right? Nope. Grace. We owe Him nothing. Oh, you might say, oh, we owe Him everything, but that's not really true. Why? It's all by grace. You can't pay Him back. God doesn't want you to or expect you to. You see, Grace isn't grace unless it's amazing. Imagine all the things that the Lord has done and there isn't a penny to be paid back, there's not a dollar to be paid back, there is no invoice.

Now, I know you've all been very patient as I presented all these Jewish poetry patterns, and that's very kind of you. I appreciate your endurance and perseverance through all that. And of course, you know that roses are red and violets are bluish. And when you see the pattern, you know that it's Jewish, right?

OK. Oh, boy. OK. Here we have this beginning part. We are. We beg. What do we do? Therefore, we do this. We are this. You also have here a reference to God and the lines there between. There in verse 20. And then the first couple of lines in verse 21 dealing with him and sin. Dealing with the issue of sin. And the last part of that in verse 21, dealing with how we become the righteousness of God in Him. First half of verse 21, sin. Second half, righteousness. Verses 18 and 19 are all about what God did.

So he begins with, now all these things are from God. God did this. God did this. God did this. God did this. What did you do? Nothing. Nothing. It's all about what God did. It was we human beings who needed to be reconciled and there was no way we could pull it off. So God did it through Christ. He says, I'm paying for this whole thing. It's all at my expense. I won't send you a bill because there's no way you could ever pay it back. I don't expect that. But there's another reason I'm not sending you a bill.

That's because you need to know about my grace. You need to know about it because it is infinite grace. You need to know about it because I'm going to spend eternity, Ephesians 2.7, showing you about my grace. You're going to be learning and seeing and gasping in awe about my grace.

Out of God's grace, infinite grace, out of His love, out of His mercy, He was the one who took the steps to reconcile us, to bring us back to Him. He did it all. All we do is believe. We can't add to what God has already accomplished. We don't need to. He doesn't ask us to. He doesn't expect us to. He just asks us to believe in what he's already done. But in addition to that, he also sent us ambassadors of this reconciliation. Paul, of course, is writing about it as an ambassador himself. One who speaks for the Lord, as Paul puts it.

So which ministry do you prefer? Paul's been talking for a few chapters now about different ministries. If you want to sign up for the ministry of law, you need to know that you're signing up for a ministry of death and condemnation. Would you like that? Anybody's like to sign up for that? Better get the rocks. Pick them up. Get the rocks out. Want law? That's what you got. Get the rocks out, because some people need to die. People need to be condemned. That's what you're doing when you sign up for law. Anybody sign up? Any volunteers? What? No?

Can't blame you. If we come to realize what God has in mind, we'll see that we are graciously given. this ministry of reconciliation. You see, Paul wasn't given that ministry originally because he earned it. It wasn't because he was worthy. All by grace. All by grace.

A light bulb moment. The ministry that God has given us is a ministry of telling people that God has done all the work. It's not about, look, you've got to come up here and you've got to do this and you better do that and we pass the offering plate and make sure it's loaded up and we'll pass it by several times and make sure you're here because we keep track of everybody that's here and God wants to make sure you're in here because God just loves it when you walk on this piece of real estate. Right? No, it's not about any of that. God has done all the work of reconciling Himself, ourselves to Him. He's done it all. Being a minister of reconciliation is telling people that God has done it all. God's accomplished it all. All He asks us to do is believe.

I want to tell you about one spring day near Jerusalem. Oh, it might have even been, at least for part of the day, kind of a nice day. On that spring day in Jerusalem, 30 AD, more or less. Might even have been exactly that year. A number of massive and momentous and awesome things took place, unnoticed by everyone who stood by.

Oh, it's just another crucifixion. Ah, somebody else getting... Oh, I hate looking at those crucifixions. They're always ugly. I wish the Romans wouldn't do it here. It's just nasty to look at. Ugh! Disgusting. But what they didn't know, Those who were there only jeered.

What they didn't know was a phenomenal and awesome thing was taking place that day. As Jesus was crucified between a couple of criminals, God made him who know no sin to be sin in our place. I should have been there. I was the one who deserved to be up there. I was the one who deserved to have the nails. I was the one who deserved to have the condemnation. Yeah, it should have been me. But he who knew no sin took the sin upon himself. When Christ died on the cross, it wasn't just that he died for my sins. Was that great? Yes, it was wonderful. We were in fact forgiven at an unbelievable price. But as good as that is, as phenomenal and wonderful as that is, that's not all that happened.

It was God placing us in Christ, baptizing us into Christ that makes us new creatures. In the day they had a sword that was heated white hot and then was baptized into the water to heat treat the sword. as they put it in, the sword was made radically different by this baptism. That's the word that is used for you being placed into Christ. Radically changed by what takes place, by that insertion of that white hot sword into the water, suddenly cooled.

Another way in which that word was used was dipping cloth into the red dye. The red dye was so expensive that it cost more per ounce for the red dye than for gold. It took a huge number, thousands of these shells to make the red dye. But once the cloth was placed into that dye, that very expensive dye, baptized into it, that cloth was changed. In the technology of the day, there was no way to make it white again.

It was changed forever. That's what it means for us to be baptized into Christ, radically changed by the immersion. It was God placing us into Christ that was the means for the Father blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. How many of them? Every one. Where? in the heavenlies. That word in is a huge word, a massive word. We're going to be taking a look this next time.

We're going to be taking a look this next time at more of what does this mean for us to be in Christ? What? My history has been replaced? I thought my own personal history was important, but nowhere near as important as the new history that you have in Christ.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we anticipate taking the Lord's table here together this morning. As we look at that, what a wonderful thing took place. Not just that you took our sins upon you, but that we were there that day. And your death there that day was something that we were placed into when we were placed into you, only beginning our new spiritual history. Thank you for that. What a wonderful, what an awesome, what a gracious thing you've done. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.