Sermon Notes from our Pastors
LIVING HOPEFULLY: NEW FROM THE OLD (2 Corinthians 5:14 – 6:1)
Resurrection Living (2024 April Theme)
April 14, 2024
2 Corinthians 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (NIV)
“Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!” (The Message)
Focus: to live hopefully because of Jesus’ resurrection is to see the possibilities that his newness brings – in our lives and our relationships.
What is hope? Paul writing about hope says, “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:24b-25 NIV). In the Bible hope is to live the reality of what we know to be certain but is still in the future and may even be unseen. But we are certain because of the glimpse (or guarantee) of what we have of it in the present.
Who doesn’t want to start anew, afresh? Who doesn’t want to un-do, re-do their past (at least in some ways) so that their present and even their future could be different, better? We are offered this hope through the Good News of Jesus Christ a.k.a the “gospel,” though in a radically different way. There’s nothing we can do to change our past, but God does something about it, with us, so that our present and our future is indeed different, redeemed, made into something special.
l. Hope Offered: Friendship with God
God knows that anything we have that does not include himself will ultimately disappoint, and will never last the test of eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11). And so before he can offer anything that can begin to meet our immediate needs he offers himself. In order to meet our deepest need – he offers friendship with himself. That’s the hope he offers.
A. Broken relationships that lead to “dead” lives
The human condition of brokenness, of numbness, of the loss of feeling and values is caused by everything in us that leads us away from God. It’s a condition that the Bible calls sin. Sin can be tangible – that which can be measured or proved by the Law, or God’s commands. But there is also sin that is intangible – what cannot be measured or “proved” – but is seen by its consequences of bitterness and pain in its wake. Sin causes alienation, enmity and coldness between God and us, and between ourselves. The result is a deadness in our lives…filled with despair, without hope.
B. The death and resurrection of the One that creates new Relationship(s)
The forgiveness that creates a new relationship between God and us was God-initiated, because only he could do it. On a collective basis Jesus’ died and rose to life representing all of humanity (vs. 14-15). What that means is that I need to identify with the humanity that he died for. That’s the only way I can begin to experience his life (“Heincluded everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.” v.15 Msg). On an individual basis Jesus’ death was as a substitute for each one of us (v.21) exchanging his righteousness for my sin. That’s the basis for a free and new life but again happens only if I willingly exchange my sin with him.
v.18 says that “All this is from God…” Every part of this reconciliation is God’s work, there’s nothing that we can do…except participate in it, want it. Because God wants it very much! He then becomes the very reason we hope, because he provides he certainty of what we are promised!
ll. Hope Experienced: New from the old
The life that God gives us, what we experience because we are now his friends, is only a glimpse of all that waits us – as much as a shadow only gives the outline of the reality. But the way God brings about that “New Creation” also shows us his unique way of using and transforming everything of our lives that hints at what our hope in the future is.
A. God’s “New Creation” is made from resurrected “dead” material
When we become God’s friends (reconciled with God) he shows us how he makes us his “New Creation.” As Romans 8:28 reveals, “he takes everything, and works them for our good.” God never “wastes” a single experience – the good, the ordinary, even what we consider bad; he creates his New Creation with it. Just like a Mosaic is made out of broken stones; individually they may seem insignificant, worthless and painful even, but with the “glue” of his love and forgiveness he forms a beautiful picture.
B. The New Creation perspective – seeing everybody and everything anew
When God “re-formats” our lives our perspectives (need to) change as well. Paul’s perspective of Jesus radically changed from one of hatred to love, from considering Jesus as cursed by God to Jesus being a blessing from God. With his relationship with Jesus having changed, so did his perspective of others change, from hatred to love, from cursing to blessing with the message of reconciliation.
More than anything else he urged his readers (and us) “not to receive God’s grace in vain” (6:1), i.e. his resurrection life. Living hope-fully is to grow in the reality of what we will eventually be and what we will receive because of the glimpses he gives of them even now as his friends. We not only become recipients of his work, but participants in the unique ways of forming his “New Creation” from the old.
