New Life As A New Creation

Transcript

GR 1808
05/24/2015
New Life As a New Creation
2 Corinthians 5:16-17; Romans 6:1-24
Gil Rugh

All right go to 2 Corinthians. What Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 5 is how the doctrine that he preached shaped his life in every way. He was constrained by the truth that he had come to know in Christ. It controlled his behavior in all that he did. He has mentioned two factors in the doctrine that he believed and preached that controlled how he lived. We used to hear people talk about, well, we don't need more doctrine, we need stuff more practical. Paul is saying the practical way I live my life is shaped by the doctrine that I teach and believe.

The first was future judgment in 2 Corinthians 5:9, “Therefore we have also as our ambition, whether at home or absent,” whether we are present in this physical body or have been called into the presence of the Lord, we have one ambition—to be pleasing to Him. Why? “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.” It's not a fear of being condemned to an eternal hell as we have already looked at, but a fear of being displeasing to Him. Our ambition is to be pleasing to Him, verse 9. Paul says I am in awe of Him, I have a reverence for Him and I would not want to appear before Him and be told that I have not been pleasing in the way I have conducted my life and things I have done.

Then he goes on to give a second reason in verse 14. Not only the truth of a future judgment and evaluation before the throne of the One who is his Lord and Savior, but what this One who is his Lord and Savior has done with him in the greatest of all demonstrations of love. Verse 14, “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that One died for all, therefore all died.” I am controlled, constrained, hedged in, boxed in if you will, by the wonder of the love of Christ. He died for all, He died for me, but “He died for all so that they who live my no longer live for themselves but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” What Christ has done in providing salvation by His death for all is so that when a person comes to enter into the benefits of that salvation through faith, as we have talked about, they now no longer live the way they used to live. “That we may no longer live for self but for Him.” There is a radical change and transformation that comes to life when a person comes to place their faith in Christ, His death as payment for their sin. God brings about a change and you are never again the same, you never live the same. He died for us so that we would no longer live for ourselves. You just can't go on the way you were. If you do, you have never experienced the life-changing salvation that is found in Christ. You may have had a religious experience, you may have been dramatically impacted, but the salvation provided in Jesus Christ goes much deeper. It goes into the innermost part of your being, it is a creative work of the creating God. That's what Paul talks about, why we no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us and rose again.

He is going on to elaborate on that in the next two verses, verses 16-17. You'll note they both begin with the word therefore, that old Greek conjunction, hosta. It denotes the consequence of something. Here are two consequences, a negative and a positive, out of the truth that I have just expressed in verses 14-15. Therefore in light of the love of Christ, “the One who died for all and therefore all died, and He died for all so that those who live,”have placed their faith in Him and have entered into the benefits of that death and the new life that goes with being identified with Christ in His death and in His resurrection “should no longer live for themselves but for Him. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh.” This is the negative consequence of what he has said. We no longer recognize people and evaluate them according to the flesh, “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet we now know Him in this way no longer.” What Paul is saying, when I came to trust in Christ I was impacted by the power of His salvation, it changed my whole way of looking at people. I no longer looked at them on the basis of the superficial, external physical things.

In your newsletter today they had a little paragraph taking off on this, God Can Use Me. And it says when we think only those with grayed hair, perfect teeth and a dynamic personality can share the Gospel or teach the Bible study, we need to remember that those qualities are not God's requirements. That's what looking at the flesh is. This is what Paul is having to battle with the Corinthians. Remember teachers claiming to be believers have come into the church at Corinth and they are trying to undermine confidence in Paul and the message that he preached. Stop and think about it, does he look like someone that God would be using in a powerful way? He may write a strong letter but if you hear him in person, you won't be impressed. He's not much to look at and he's not much to hear. And they are turning the whole thing. This is what the world gets involved in, it's what the church gets drawn to.

We're going to have a speaker come to Lincoln and what do they write about him—oh his appearance, he's relatively young, younger than I am and that is relative, he's trim, he looks athletic, he has a head of dark hair, he has a great smile, he has a compelling personality, he's attractive. The world loves it, the church loves it. The problem is, it's not the message of truth.

That's what Paul says, “we recognize no one according to the flesh.” Back in 2 Corinthians 5:12, “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, not in heart.” That's what Paul is talking about. I now recognize that what is important about a person is whether their heart has been changed, whether they have been made new in Christ as he is going to talk about. Their physical appearance, those superficial things, their intellectual capabilities, all those external things, that's not how I evaluate people anymore. How do you see inside? He's going to talk about you can see inside, for example, because out of the heart the mouth speaks, Jesus said. You reveal what is inside by the way you live, by the One that you live for. Are you living for yourself or for Him? That's what Paul is talking about. I'm concerned about the spiritual reality of a life that has been changed on the inside.

And then he says in the last part of verse 16, “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh we don't know Him this way any longer.” What he's talking about is not that I remember seeing Christ and so on, that's not the point. Paul's evaluation of Christ was purely on the superficial physical level until he was transformed. He was an itinerant Jewish preacher who claimed to be the Messiah, who claimed to be the Son of God. But Paul didn't recognize any of that and he was in a crusade of persecuting those who were followers of the One who had been crucified. Paul says my picture of Christ is totally different now. I recognize Him for the spiritual reality, who He is, what He has done. You'll note it transforms you all around, it's not just oh I see Christ differently. That means now you look at people differently. And there may be not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble who are called, as he wrote to the Corinthians in his first letter. But I see people who have been transformed by the power of God. I see people who can be used in the service of the living God and to demonstrate His power as they humbly and faithfully serve Him. That's a different perspective. If you are of the world looking, what have you attained? What have you acquired? How successful have you been? What is our intellect? And on it goes. That's not how we evaluate people. We have to be careful of that in the church. Somebody comes in who may not be obviously among the more wealthy, may not be recognized among the scholars of the world and so on. We think, nice to have them. Somebody comes in with money, position, maybe scholarly—it's great to have him as part of our congregation, they'll really be an asset. What are we doing? We're looking at things on the superficial level, according to the flesh, the same way the world looks at it. Here Paul would come in, he'd sit down and say, I think we had a visitor. Yes. I saw him sitting there, looked average or a little less, talked to him a little bit, he's not someone special. Paul says my whole perspective has been changed not only about Christ but about how I see others as well. So we might say that's the negative. Here's why I no longer look at people and things.

Then you come to verse 17, “Therefore,” same connecting word. Verses 16-17 both connect back to the truth that he has unfolded in verses 14-15, the love of Christ controls us. Now I see things differently than I saw them before. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ.” Probably no more important expression, one commentator who sorts through these things said that this expression “in Christ” is used over 160 times in Paul's writing. So it is a consuming, gripping truth for Paul, being in Christ. That's the spiritual reality of how he looks at other people. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ,” there is nothing more important about you than whether you are in Christ or not. That determines whether you can be effective as a servant of the living God if you are in Christ.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ,” on Christo, in Christ, joined to Him by faith. “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creature,” a new creation. What does that mean? “The old things passed away, behold new things have come.” It's a radical transformation of life. You are not saved by changing your life but when you are saved your life is transformed. Not superficial external changes, but you have been changed in heart by the power of the creating God. That makes all the difference. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ.” That means to be joined to Him, be identified with Him.

Come back to Romans 6, Romans 6 unfolds, the entire chapter, in greater detail what Paul has been unfolding in these verses at the close of 2 Corinthians 5. He starts out the chapter by asking, “What shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?” False teachers always find ways to twist the truth so that they don't openly deny it. They just twist it and make it say something it never said. Since God's grace is so great that He forgives all our sin, and that grace continues its forgiving power even after we are saved, maybe it is all right to sin because the more I sin the more I magnify the greatness of God's forgiving grace. That's a lie from hell. “May it never be.” such a thought is inconceivable that God's grace was so that we might sin. Then his questions, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” You know when you die physically, you no longer live in that realm. If I drop dead this week, I won't be preaching here next week. That's a reality, you won't be doing what you do. If you have lunch appointment this week and you die on Monday morning you won't be keeping Tuesday's appointments. I lived for self, I lived in sin, I died with Christ. How can I talk about going on in that old life? That's the point.

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” And just because you read baptism, don't read water. There are various kinds of baptism in the Bible, there is the baptism by fire and not by water. What he is talking about here is the baptism of the Spirit and in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body.” The context there is the body of Christ. So we have been identified with Him, we've been joined with Him by the work of the Spirit into His death. “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,” note this, here is where we are in 2 Corinthians, “so we, too, might walk in newness of life. We no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us and was raised again. For if we have become united with Him,” that's where it is if we are in Christ, we have been united with Him, we have been identified with Him. “Christ died for all.” But it's only when I come to place my faith in Him, in His death on my behalf that I am joined with Him in His death and thus become the recipients of the benefits that He provided by dying, that I might have salvation, that I might be forgiven, that I might be raised with Him. “If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we will be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this that our old self,” our old man, “was crucified with Him” so that we would not have to go to hell. That is true but that's not what the Spirit of God directs Paul to emphasize here. “So that our body of sin might be done away with.” We worked through this passage. The body of sin is the body used for sinful purposes, to bring selfish pleasures in the physical realm so that our body as used for sinful things, as you'll see as he explains it, might be done away with. “So that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin.” This is the whole issue in salvation.

That's why trying to just get people to reform their life, clean up their life, stop doing certain sinful things does not help them at all. In fact it may just make them self-righteous, that they cleaned up their life. But it doesn't free them from the power of sin and living for self. You can hear people give “testimonies” of how they were entangled in drunkenness or drugs or some other sinful practice, but they were able to escape it. Then they want to tell people, you can do it, you have the power within you to do it. And it's a lie. You can stop certain sins but you can't stop serving sin apart from the power of God that causes you to die with Christ and be raised to a new life.

But you cannot die with Christ and not be raised to new life, that's Romans 6:8. “If we have died with Christ, we believe we also live with Him. Christ died once for all to sin, now He lives to God.” Verse 11, “Even so consider,” reckon “yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. If any man be in Christ he is a new creation. Consider yourselves dead to sin, alive to God in Christ.” What does that mean? I am joined with Him, the One who died for me. I understood and believed by the grace of God and I was identified with Him in His death. And there is a spiritual transaction that takes place within that Paul is going to express in a moment in our passage in Corinthians. It is supernatural, how do you explain it? You can take the most wonderful things uncovered by man, the most awesome statements made by men. They can't change the heart but in Jesus Christ the truth concerning Him, Almighty God does something only He can do. He makes a person new on the inside. We have new life, we die with Christ and we are raised to new life.

So live in light of it. How do I look at sin? I died to it. “Don't let sin reign in your mortal body,” verse 12, “so you obey its lusts. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Present your body to God to serve righteousness.” You see the enabling power that comes with being made new in Christ, that Spirit that identified you with Christ in His death and resurrection to new life now wells within you to enable and empower you. Doesn't mean Christians never sin, it does mean Christians never have to sin. Sometimes sin seems so alluring and appealing that I decide I want to indulge. I wouldn't have to because I could draw on the enabling power of the Spirit, but I don't want to. True for us all, even as believers. This is not to be the pattern of life. I have to remind myself that I never have to sin. Now James says we do, we all stumble in many ways. And do you know the biggest trouble we have? Stick your tongue out and grab onto it, that's the problem James says. If you could control your tongue, you could master your body by the grace of God. How often do we say something and afterwards you think, why did I say that? Why would I say that? I shouldn't have said that. It just gets out. Do you know why I said it? Not because I couldn't help myself. I wanted to, I wanted the satisfaction of saying it even though I knew I shouldn't. It felt so good to spit it out, then it felt so terrible when I thought about it afterwards. As a believer, did you ever sin and afterwards look back and say, I'm really glad I sinned. I don't think so. As part of a believer we realize that wasn't worth it.

So that's what he is talking about, we don't have to, don't do it. And verse 15, “Shall we sin because we are not under Law but under grace?” Some of the accusations that come against those who are “dispensational,” we'll talk about tonight, is that they don't believe you are under the Mosaic Law so you are free to sin. Paul didn't believe you were under the Mosaic Law, but he didn't think that meant you were free to sin. “Shall we sin because we are not under Law but under grace? May it never be!” And verse 17, “Thanks be to God, though you were slaves of sin you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness.” There is no such thing as a free person in the sense that it is often used in the world. You were either a slave of sin and the devil or a slave of righteousness and God. You were slaves of sin, you became slaves of righteousness when you placed your faith in Jesus Christ. There are only two kinds of people. I know some pretty good people and I think they live good lives. God says there is none good because even the relative good that is done is done without a desire to honor the living God and be obedient to Him. Because if you want to honor Him and be obedient to Him you would respond. God commands all everywhere to repent, to come to trust His Son. We are to present our members as slaves to righteousness.

Verse 22, “Having been freed from sin and enslaved to God.” You see there is no middle ground there. Well, I was freed from sin, I'm not going to hell. Great. Now I can enjoy my life knowing I won't be going to hell. Now you can serve the living God. You've been freed from sin and enslaved to God, “you derive you benefit,” literally your fruit, what your life has produced, “resulting in sanctification the outcome in eternal life.” You have now been set apart by God for Himself to live for Him. Often we call it the doctrine of sanctification, the root of the word is sanctify, holy, saint, to be set apart. We've been set apart from sin for God. He didn't save us so we wouldn't have to go to hell and we could go on living in sin. He saved us and by the power only He could bring to a life, no longer do I live for myself but for Him.

Come back to 2 Corinthians 5. We spent a little time in Romans 6 but it is just an unfolding in greater detail of what Paul is talking about here. 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature.” That's pretty abrupt. Anyone who is in Christ, a new creature, a new creation. I mean, it's just that clear. The wonder of it. He saved me, He not only cleansed me from my sin, absolved me from my guilt, declared me righteous; He made me new. I'm not the person I used to be. How great is God's grace. A new creature, what does that mean? “The old things passed away, behold new things have come.” That's what it means to be a new creature, imaktisis, new creature, a new creation. Made new by the God who is the creator of all things. How can that happen? Think about it. You can believe in Einstein's theory of relativity and go to an eternal hell. You can believe in some of the greatest literary works and greatest discoveries of science and go to an eternal hell. But the Bible says you believe in Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection as payment in full for your sin, a hell-deserving sinner and you will be made new on the inside.

Romans 10 Paul wrote, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the message of Christ.” A person can't be saved without hearing the truth concerning Christ. And how shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach or proclaim, and on it goes. They have to hear, someone has to tell them and it's the grace of God that someone came and brought that message to you; that brought it to me, because there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ. Then you are made a new creature. “Faith comes by hearing.” You can't be saved without believing the message, and you can't believe the message if you haven't heard it. “How shall they believe in Him in whom they have not heard?” They can't. So we bring the message so they have opportunity to hear it, so by the sovereign grace of God they might believe it. But if we never tell them, they can't believe what they've not heard. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. How do I explain it? It's supernatural. You are made a new creature, a new creation. That means the old things passed away, that means the new things have come.

It used to be we would express this, you must be born again. Still a true statement, but we perhaps don't hear it as much as we did back in the 1980s, a born again Christian. Keep trying to modify Christian because the word Christian is just an all-encompassing word, everybody is a Christian. Parade Magazine a week or so ago had a cover from a TV personality. They've been living in an immoral relationship for a dozen or so years, but they talk about their deep Christian faith. What is that? The word Christian just becomes an encompassing word. So we talk about a born again Christian and that's true. We might say a biblical Christian, one who is in Christ.

Turn back to John 3. Jesus confronts Nicodemus and remember what he told Nicodemus? Verse 3, “Jesus answered and said, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again,” or born from above, “he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Telling this to a Jewish teacher meant you are excluded from the kingdom, you will be cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. You have to be born again. Here the word is born from above, but the point is a second birth. As Nicodemus understood it he said, how can you be born a second time? I can't get back into the womb and start over. Well, you have to be born of water and the Spirit. That's not talking about baptism. Jesus questions Nicodemus for not understanding these things in verse 10. There is no teaching of having to be baptized to be saved among the Jews. They have to be cleansed and made new, the washing of regeneration as Titus 3:5 talks about. The washing of regeneration and making new by the Spirit of God, the cleansing and forgiveness and making new. That's what has to happen. “Don't be amazed that I said to you,” verse 7, “you must be born again.”

Come back to 1 Peter 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” Here he uses the word again whereas John 3 uses the word above, born from above, born again. Same thing. “He caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ form the dead to an inheritance reserved in heaven for us who are protected by the power of God.” You see what God has begun, God finishes. “He who has begun a good work in you will continue to bring it to perfection until the day of Christ Jesus,” Philippians 1:6 says. God's power in salvation is an ongoing power as He has made us new and now enables and empowers us to live for Him, live protected by Him and His power.

Come down to verse 22, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for,” changed conduct, “love of the brethren,” love for fellow believers, “fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again.” You obeyed the truth, you believed in Christ. “You've been born again, not of seed which is perishable but imperishable through the living and enduring Word of God,” that eternal Word of God that brought us the message of an eternal salvation. God not only ordains the end of salvation, He ordains the means—believing in Christ, which means hearing the message of Christ and responding in faith so that the benefits of what Christ provided in His death, and resurrection might be ours. A new life, made new, born again, being a new creature, a new creation, all of these things are saying the same thing.

Come back to Galatians 6, and note what he says in verse 14, “May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” That identification with Christ breaks the hold and allurement of the world and all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, 1 John tells us. I was crucified with Christ, I was crucified to the world. So verse 15, “Neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision,” note this, “but a new creation.” Same things he says in 2 Corinthians 5, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation.” These external things, circumcision or no circumcision, some of these Jewish teachers were saying it is fine to believe in Christ but you also must be circumcised. Paul says, no. All that matters is that you are made new in Christ.

Back up to Galatians 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore keep standing firm, do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” And then note what he says in verse 4. “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by Law. You have fallen from grace.” The context here is not that they lost their salvation, but if you think that salvation comes by believing in Christ plus being circumcised, you are cut off from God's grace. You cannot be declared righteous, justified by a holy God by believing in Christ plus a work you do. Do you know what that means? People who think they are saved by believing in Christ plus baptism are on their way to an eternal hell. We think they believe in Christ, isn't that enough? It's too much if they add anything to it. Very serious passage here. That's our difference with Roman Catholicism, they say your salvation is not complete when you believe in Christ. Don't get confused, a Roman Catholic will say we believe in Christ also, you have to have faith in Christ. They do not believe it is faith alone in Christ. The Council of Trent declared and it still stands. Anyone who says you are saved by faith alone in Christ is anathema, cursed to hell. That's the Galatian heresy. You say that faith in Christ alone is not enough, you are no longer within the realm of God's grace. You are cut off from that saving grace. That means you are on your way to an eternal hell. That's why he started out in Galatians 1, “anyone who adds or takes away from this Gospel that I am preaching is anathema,” condemned to hell. Serious matter. Those who say I believe in Christ, I believe His death on the cross, that's all good, but I believe that's not enough to save you. You also have to be baptized. That's the road to hell. People get confused on this, that's why it is put here in the Scripture. Don't get confused. You are made new only one way, God's way. This is not a negotiating principle. We're going to talk about this in our next study as we talk about the doctrine of reconciliation. You do it God's way, it's not like we'll negotiate. God, I'm willing to respond and believe everything you did and I want to bring this with me. No. Well, I don't want to come if I can't bring this with me. Then you can't come. Salvation is only on God's terms but it is so gracious. Let go of everything, understand you are a sinner without hope, just place your faith in what I have done—the death and resurrection of My Son who has paid for your sin.

People get confused, the Galatians were confused. Paul told them in verse 7, “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” Why are you off track? There is no excuse for your being off track. You have these things because it softens the offense of the cross. People don't mind generally, talk to Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, “Christians.” They are not offended if you say believe in Christ. That's what Christians do, but tell them believe in Christ alone, your church can't save you, the sacraments can't be a part of your salvation, your baptism is not part of it. All of a sudden now we have a firestorm, we have people all worked up. That's the message of salvation, that's what a true Christian is.

Then you come down to verse 19, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident.” So that transformed life, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, here are the things you won't be doing. That doesn't mean a Christian can never stumble, but this is not our life. We've been made new, we no longer live for ourselves. “And those who practice such things,” the end of verse 21, “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Sounds like what Jesus said to Nicodemus, doesn't it? Unless you are born again you will never see the kingdom of God, unless you are made new in Christ, which means you will now live for Him. That means these are the kinds of things that won't characterize your life.

“But the fruit of the Spirit,” verse 22, “is love, joy, peace.” These are the kinds of things that will characterize your new life in Christ. It's not a matter now I'm going to try to do these things. No, when I believed in Christ I was made new. That doesn't mean I don't have responsibility, I am to exercise my will now because that's different. I have to be made new. You have people who have never been made new trying to live a Christian life. Why would you lie to them and tell them that God will be more pleased if you clean up your life, when God says “there is nothing you can do to make yourselves more pleasing to Me.” Romans 8, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. We might as well just be honest. Well, you are telling me I have to stop being immoral, I have to stop living for money, I have to stop . . . No, I'm not telling you, I'm telling you if you do stop those things it won't help you one bit. Probably just make you a little more miserable. Let me tell you the living God says there is nothing you can do. That's pretty hopeless. Yes, accept the God of hope has done what only He could do for you. Now the only decision you have is will you accept that or will you not. Isn't that simple? How gracious God is. He didn't say Gil, if you cleaned up your life, if you try to live a little better, if you don't do some of those bad things, I think we can work a deal. No, no deal. You realize you can't do anything and the best of “your righteous deeds are filthy, polluted rags” as Isaiah the prophet says as God's spokesman. All you can do is let go of it all, come to realize your wretched, sinful condition. That's a hard thing to come to, hard for people who see themselves as already pretty good, to see themselves as polluted, defiled and unacceptable to God.

Note what Paul said in Galatians 5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit let us walk by the Spirit.” We're back to the beginning, we have life by the action of the Spirit who identified us with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. We were in Christ, identified with Him, joined with Him by the power of the Spirit of God. Now let's just continue that walk by the Spirit.

A number of other passages but we'll stop there. Paul is going to go on in 2 Corinthians 5 as we move toward the last part of this chapter to talk about the work of God in reconciling his enemies to Himself. And his enemies are all those outside of Christ, and yet God has done a work to reconcile those enemies and bring them into right relationship to Him. Remarkable doctrine. We talk about reconciliation among people, but God has done something totally unique. It was foreign to the world that Paul lived in, that the one offended should do all that was required so the offender could be brought into right relationship with Him. It's the grace of God providing salvation in His Son.

Isn't it amazing in all this? Why would you sit and think being a member of this church, being baptized at this church, being “a good person” would make you acceptable to God. You could come and hear every sermon I preached and die and go to an eternal hell. You could be the most philanthropic person and die and go to an eternal hell. You could be a multiple baptized person. I was baptized. My parents thought we better get this baby baptized. All it did was make me cry, it did nothing to deal with my sin because the penalty for sin is not baptism. The penalty for sin is death, and Jesus Christ paid that penalty. Have you availed yourself? It's a free gift, it's there for the taking. You can say no, you can say yes but there is no negotiation.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the greatness of Your grace, a saving grace, a life transforming grace. Lord, how wonderful it is that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. The old things have passed away, new things have come. Only You the Almighty, all powerful, all sovereign God could so create newness in the innermost recesses of our very being, make us new in heart and mind with a desire to serve You, to live in the glorious freedom of knowing we are forgiven, we are cleansed, we've been declared righteous in Your sight, we belong to You. How great is Your grace, how deep is Your love, how wonderful is our salvation. May we be living for You in the weeks and days ahead of us. May our church be a testimony as we serve together of the life changing salvation that has brought us together. We pray in Christ's name, amen.