Welcome to the sermon podcast of Exodus Church, located in Belmont, North Carolina.
For more information about our church and the many ways you can be involved, you can go to our website at exoduschurch.com.
All right, now, if you'll take your Bible and turn to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians.
We're in this series called Designed.
We've been in it for several weeks.
We've looked at God's design in everything from creation to gender to marriage to family.
We've talked about all of God's good design in those things.
And if you've not yet heard some of those sermons, I would point you to our website where you can see all the links to YouTube and all those other places where you can watch or listen.
We've also talked about what happens when we reject God's design.
We've looked at how God's word tells us that when we reject God's design in one of these areas, we ruin lives.
We ruin our lives when we reject God's design.
We ruin the lives of others when we reject God's design.
And then last week, we made a turn from God's design in creation to God's redesign in Christ.
Last week, Pastor Tyler talked about how Christ is the firstborn over all creation, not in the sense that he was the first one created, but firstborn there as supreme and sovereign over creation.
And then he's also firstborn from among the dead.
So he's supreme and sovereign over this new creation that God has established in Christ.
And over the next several weeks, we're gonna be considering what it means to be redesigned in Christ.
What does that mean for us as individuals?
What does it mean to be saved?
What does it mean for us to be shaped into the image and likeness of Jesus?
What does God use to do that?
And then we're gonna talk about what does that mean for us?
What does it mean for the church to be redesigned?
What does it mean for us to be redesigned for the mission of Jesus?
And then we'll finish with where is all this headed as we look at God's design for the new heaven and new earth?
Where are we going?
And I'm excited as we move through this series together.
And now today, we're looking at this idea of what does it mean to be redesigned or remade in Jesus?
What does it mean for us to be saved?
Now, it's important that we understand that it is a redesign, that we are remade, that this is not simply a revision, that this isn't that we need to be slightly corrected or maybe slightly edited as if we're pretty good as we are.
We just need to kind of add some Jesus to us.
That's not what the gospel is about.
It's also not a rebrand where as if the only issue is what's on the outside, that we just need to change the outside and the inside's fine.
No, the gospel tells us that we need to be remade all the way from our actions, all the way down to our nature.
And so it's more than a revision, certainly.
It's certainly more than a rebrand.
This is a redesign where the old is gone and the new has come.
And I have two hopes for us today as we go through God's word.
The first hope I have today is that if there's anyone listening who has not yet met Jesus, that you would meet Jesus today.
I would urge you to pray with me for those around you, that if someone has not yet been made new by Jesus, that they would be made new today.
And then the second hope I have is that we would be so caught up by what God has done for us in Christ that we would be so amazed at this news of the gospel that we would be set ablaze to share this news with those around us.
Our passage today is gonna say we're ambassadors, that we would be just ignited with a fire to share this good news that we've heard, experienced, and believe.
So that's my hope for us today, those two things.
So let's look at God's word, I'll pray, and then we'll jump in to God's word together.
Second Corinthians five, we're gonna start at verse 16.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
God making his appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Let's pray together.
Father God, thank you so much for the privilege of gathering here today to study your word, to sing songs that are true, to remind our minds and hearts of the good news of the gospel.
And Lord, I pray that we would be reminded today, that we'd be reminded of this great news, this message of reconciliation, that you were in Christ, reconciling the world to yourself, not counting our trespasses against us.
What gloriously good news that we have to celebrate today.
And Lord, I pray that we would believe that in fullness today, that you would capture our hearts and our minds with the beauty of what your word says.
And Lord, then I pray that you would then send us out as ambassadors, appealing, imploring, begging the world to hear and believe the good message that you have entrusted us with.
So Lord, help us, help us as we study your word.
Give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear, and give us hearts that are receptive to your word and responsive to what your word calls us to.
And we pray this all in the name of Jesus, amen.
So 2 Corinthians is the second letter we have that Paul wrote the church in Corinth.
We know from Paul that he wrote another letter, but we don't have that as part of the New Testament.
It's a pastoral letter.
He's very concerned for the people.
He shares that with them throughout this letter.
And in this section, he's reminding them of what God has done for them in Christ and what they are then called to do in response.
And so we're gonna see three points today.
We are made new, we are made righteous, and we are made ambassadors.
Let's start with made new.
We see that in verse 16 and 17.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away.
Behold, the new has come.
Now, Paul begins this section with this phrase, from now on, therefore.
So apparently, something has happened in history that Paul would say, okay, from now on, things are gonna be different.
From now on, things are not the same.
So what is the thing that has happened in history that would cause Paul to say, from now on, therefore, we do things differently?
Well, we see that in verses 14 and 15, where Paul says, for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore, all have died.
And he died for all, that those who might live, excuse me, those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
So what's the thing that happened that would cause Paul to say, from now on, therefore?
Well, that thing, that singular, cosmic, incredible reality is that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried, and was raised to new life.
And that singular event would cause Paul to say, from now on, therefore.
So everything from the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is now different for Paul.
And what he says here in verse 16 is, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
Now, what is going on here?
What's going on here?
There's a few ways that scholars kind of look at this.
I think the primary way is that Paul is getting at Christ died for more than simply the Jewish people.
And so when we say we regard no one according to the flesh, Paul is getting at this idea that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection took this from the idea that Christ came for the Jewish people only to this reality that Christ came for the world.
And in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, Paul is saying, look, we don't look at people through their ethnicity only anymore.
We don't look at people through their nationality only anymore because Christ died for the world.
And that's not to say that ethnicity is not important.
It's not to say that Jesus being a Jewish man is not important.
Paul valued his Jewish heritage.
It's not to say that Israel is not important.
We should certainly pray for that country today with what they're enduring.
But what Paul is getting at is that the death, burial, and resurrection is a historic turning point.
And he says, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
So we're no longer looking at people simply through the lens of ethnicity.
Paul is saying.
So what lens are we looking at people through?
We're looking at them through the lens of Jesus.
Look at verse 17.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
The old has passed, behold, the new has come.
Paul is saying, if anyone is in Christ, if anyone has trusted Christ, if anyone has heard the gospel of Jesus, they've understood they are sinners, they've repented of sins, they've placed their faith and hope in Jesus, they are then in Christ, and if they are in Christ, they're a new creation, they've been made new.
They're a new creation.
The old is passed away, the new has come, he says.
We are not a revision as if we needed some slight correction.
We're not a rebrand as if we simply needed a new outside.
We are now redesigned in Christ.
We are a new creation in Christ.
The old has passed away, the new has come.
Now, what is, two things about what that means.
First, being made new does not mean that you become not you.
We get a lot of questions sometimes when we talk about a verse like this, where people will say, well, look, so who do I become then?
Like, if the old me is gone and the new me is here, what is, am I a completely different person?
Like, what is happening here?
Well, I don't think that's exactly what Paul is getting at.
I think what Paul is getting at is that we are now a new us in relation to Jesus.
So we still have our quirks, we still have our likes and dislikes, we still have our gifts, talents, and abilities, but what we have now is a new heart to follow Jesus.
We have a new heart that wants to serve Jesus.
We have a new heart that wants to say no to sin and yes to Jesus.
So we are still ourselves, but we're ourselves made new.
We're a new creation in Jesus Christ.
I wonder too, if even some of that question is from a wrong place.
Like, why would you so much care who you are if you're now made new in Jesus?
If we could be made new in Jesus, why would we be wanting who we were?
We're made new.
Second thing, being made new does not mean that all your problems go away.
Our experiences are not gone.
The pain that's done to us and by us is not gone.
The hurt done to us and by us is not gone.
The consequences of our sin are not gone.
Being made new doesn't mean that all of our problems go away.
I was preaching this passage to a group of high school students a long time ago, and this high school girl came up to me, and she had endured far too much to be a high school girl.
I mean, just had endured far too much pain and difficulty and heartbreak, and just had endured so much.
And she heard the gospel that night.
She wanted to trust Jesus, and she came up to me, and she said, I wanna trust Jesus, but I have one question.
I said, what's that?
She said, if I trust Jesus, will my pain go away?
And I listened more to her story, and I said, listen, I wanna be really honest with you.
If you trust Jesus today, your pain will not go away today.
When you're a new creation, that doesn't mean that we don't still have our pain and our consequences and all those things.
But what I can promise is that you're forgiven, that Jesus is present in your pain, and that if you trust Jesus, there's coming a day when you won't have pain anymore.
But I won't twist the gospel to help you so that you'll think that if you just trust Jesus, everything's better.
And she said, well, if Jesus will be with me in my pain, I wanna trust him.
And she was made new.
In Christ, we're made new.
The old is gone, the new has come.
We're a new creation.
Second thing, we are made righteous.
Look at verse 21.
It says, for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
Now, that is a really thick, packed verse.
Let's try to unpack it a little bit.
First, for our sake.
Notice, you and I were the ones in need here.
You and I were the ones who had rebelled against God.
You and I were the ones who had sinned against God, and we were not simply unable to save ourselves.
We were running away from God actively.
And yet, even though that's true, for our sake, God does something.
Look at verse 21.
He, that's God the Father, made him, that's God the Son, to be sin who knew no sin.
So God the Father makes God the Son who knew no sin.
Okay, he had never done anything wrong.
He had always done everything right.
He had never disobeyed God.
He had always obeyed God, and yet, for our sake, God took all of our sin that we have committed, that we would ever commit, all of our sin, for all who would trust in him, and they placed it, and God the Father placed it on God the Son.
God, he made him to be sin who knew no sin.
Can you imagine that moment for Jesus?
What he was praying about in Gethsemane when he said, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me, wasn't the beating by the Roman soldiers.
It was the bearing of the wrath of God, this reality of him becoming sin for us, because he knew no sin, but he knew taking that on was gonna be incredibly traumatic.
And yet, God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, why?
So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
God the Father made God the Son to be sin.
He took all of our sin on himself so that you and I might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus took all our sin, we get all his righteousness.
Theologians throughout time have called that the great exchange, where our sin is exchanged for his righteousness.
Our sin is given to Christ, he dies, he forgives us, and then we get the righteousness of God placed on us.
This is incredibly good news.
The theological word for this is justification, that we are declared righteous before the throne of God.
Jesus took our place as sinner, we get his banner as righteous, incredible.
Which means that the primary label across your life is not sinner deserving judgment, but son declared righteous, daughter declared righteous.
That we might become the righteousness of God in him.
And this is not simply a revision as if we needed some tweaking.
This is not a rebrand as if we simply needed a righteous veneer.
This is a redesign where our hearts are changed and we are now forgiven and declared righteous before the throne of God in Christ.
And so if you are in Christ, you have been remade.
If you are in Christ, you have been made righteous in him.
You stand before God the father in the righteousness of God the son.
He's taken all you've done so that we could receive all he's done.
He took all our sin, we get all his righteousness.
And that is a glorious truth.
Now, the evil one does not want you to believe this.
Okay, he does not want you to believe this.
He's gonna try to remind you of all your sin, all the stuff you've done in your past, maybe all the stuff you did last night.
Like he's gonna try to remind you of all those things.
And then if that doesn't work, he's not gonna be able to convince most of us that this verse is not true.
But what he'll do is he'll convince you that it's true for everybody else but you.
Oh, it's true, it's still true, but it's for everybody else but you.
But what the truth of God's word is that everyone who is in Christ stands before God the father with the righteousness of Jesus.
So when you come to him in prayer, whether you're standing in prayer, kneeling in prayer, curled up in a ball in prayer, you come in the righteousness of Jesus.
Because God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
As a Christian, we need to remember, we need to remember we've got really good news.
We've got really good news that we are made new and that we are made righteous.
And in the midst of this, we're made ambassadors.
Look at verse 18.
It says, all this is from God.
Okay, all this is from God, Paul's saying.
Look, all of it.
Our being made new creations, our being reconciled in Christ, our being made the righteousness of God, all this is from God.
We didn't initiate it, we didn't deserve it, we didn't get God's attention, and he goes, oh, oh man, I need to do something for them.
No, all this is from God, he says, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.
In other words, God in Christ took the thing away that was causing distance, that was causing punishment, that was causing wrath.
God took that away, reconciled us to himself, and then he gave us two things.
He gave us the ministry of reconciliation and the message of reconciliation.
He made us ambassadors.
Look at verse 18.
It says, he gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
That word ministry is the word we get the English word deacon from.
It's the idea of someone who has a service, a stewardship, or a responsibility.
And the idea here is that we are given the stewardship of reconciliation.
In other words, we are given the work while God's done the heavy lifting, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, God's the one who's done all this, and he gives us the stewardship of taking that into the world.
We get to take this message into the world and say, hey, listen, I've got good news for you.
The God you've offended loves you and died for you and sent his son to die for you so that you could be reconciled to him.
We are given the ministry stewardship responsibility of this reconciliation.
God does the heavy lifting, we get to bring the good news into the world, which is the second thing connected to the ministry.
Not only is there a ministry of reconciliation, there's a message of reconciliation.
Look again at verse 19.
That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
So this ministry has a message, and you and I are called and given opportunity to take this message into the world.
What message?
That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them.
We have this message.
We've got the best news in the world that God has made a way for rebels to be reconciled, that God has made a way for sinners to be saved, that God has made a way for those who have sinned to be made righteous.
And then he calls us ambassadors in verse 20.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
Now, an ambassador is someone who is a representative who brings a message from the king.
The ambassador is not the one who creates the message.
The ambassador is not the one who crafts the message.
The ambassador is not the one who kind of tweaks the message.
The ambassador simply brings the message from the king.
Imagine that you go out to lunch today or brunch, whatever time you guys get out.
So you go out to the restaurant and you order your food and you see the server leave the little door from the kitchen, carrying your plate, and they're kind of moving things around.
You know, they wanna, you know, you eat with your eyes first, right?
And so they wanna make sure that it's visually appealing and they set it down on the table.
You would look at that server and go, I'm sorry, no.
Like, you need to take this back to the cook because the cook is the one who's gonna get the food correct.
All you're supposed to do is to bring it from the cook to the table.
You're not supposed to mess with it along the way.
As ambassadors, we're to hear the message from the king and we're to get it to the world.
What's the message?
That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them.
That's the message.
And we're not to tweak that, mess with that, adjust that, make that more palatable.
We're to get the message from the king to the people.
Now, notice how we do that in verse 20.
"'Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ,"'God making his appeal through us.'" That word appeal is translated beg.
"'God making his appeal, plea, God begging through us.
"'Be reconciled to God.
"'We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.'" That word implore is another word that's connected to the idea of begging.
So we've got this message of reconciliation that God was in Christ, reconciling the world.
We've got the manner of our ministry.
We beg people.
Plead, you don't have to go to hell.
You don't have to live life in opposition to God.
You don't have to live life rejecting the God who loves you.
He made a way for you to be reconciled and brought in.
We beg them to.
We implore, we appeal, we urge.
We beg them to come.
Not because we don't believe God's not, we believe God's not sovereign and able to save, but because God sent us as ambassadors and says to us, beg them to come in.
And so we're made new, we're made righteous, we're made ambassadors with this amazing message.
This amazing message.
And then God sends us into the world with this message.
We are made ambassadors, which leads us to kind of the application point for today.
And that's simply this.
We've got good news to share.
We've got really good news to share.
We've got good news to share.
You know, if the gospel was a revision, that would not be good news because you would never know if you got it all right.
If the gospel were a rebrand, that's not good news either because you know what's inside.
You know that if it's simply a rebrand, you just got a new logo, you just got a new outside and the inside hasn't been changed.
The gospel of Jesus is not only that we are reconciled to God, but that we are made new by him.
And that's good news.
That's good news.
Because it doesn't depend on us.
It depends fully on him.
We've got good news to share.
And to the degree that we know the news is good, we will share it.
To the degree that we know the news is good, we will share it.
So Christian, Christian, do you believe this good news?
Do you believe that in Christ you've been made new?
Do you believe that in Christ you've been made the righteousness of God?
That in Christ you have the label righteous?
That you have standing with God?
That you are no longer a sinner, you are now saved, made new, made righteous?
And that because that is the work of Jesus, it cannot be changed or altered?
That in Christ you stand before God the Father, saved, loved, holy, righteous, blameless.
And that the Bible says in Jude, that he is able to present us before God the Father, blameless and with great joy.
Like when Jesus brings you in the presence of God the Father, he's not like, hey, let's not look at him.
No, no, no, he's one of the ones I died for.
He belongs to you.
And he's filled with great joy for you.
But do you believe that?
Do you believe that?
Do you believe deep in your gut that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ?
Do you believe deep in your gut that God loves you and that you are reconciled to God because of what Christ did for you on the cross?
Do you believe that deep in your gut?
Because if we don't believe that, if we don't see that it's good news, we won't share it.
No matter who tells us to or how many times we get trained to or all the time somebody tries to guilt trip us into doing it, like, unless we know that we have good news, we're not gonna share it.
And when we have good news, it's hard not to share good news.
Somebody told me something on Monday, I had to keep quiet till Wednesday.
I said, no, I'm not the guy for that.
Like, I'm just not.
Like I've told people they were getting proposed to before.
Like I've told people about baby.
I'm just, don't tell me something you don't want people to know.
Just don't.
And like all Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, I'm like, don't.
Because good news you wanna share.
You wanna share good news.
I was at a coffee shop this week and somebody, a family came in and they had shirts from the place we went on vacation a couple of weeks ago.
And so I started interacting with them about this place and they said, yeah, we're going in a couple of weeks.
I said, oh, have you ever been to Pecan Jacks?
They said, no, we've never heard of Pecan Jacks.
I said, that's the best ice cream in the Southeast.
I said, you've got to go there.
They have locations in Destin, Rosemary Beach, and Santa Rosa.
Here, let me send you a link.
Why?
Because I love that ice cream.
And you wanna share good news that you've experienced.
We've got good news to share.
Christian, we've got good news to share.
And we've been made ambassadors.
Think back with me.
Think back with me to all the people in your story who shared the goodness of God with you.
Think back with me to all the people that you know who lived the gospel in front of you, who spoke the gospel to you.
Think back with me.
And I want you to think about them passing that baton to you.
And then the importance of you not only receiving it, but then passing it to somebody else.
Next year, we'll have the Olympics, Summer Olympics, and you'll have world-class athletes who can run faster than I can fathom.
And their speed will be, their success in that race will be dependent not simply on their speed, but on four handoffs.
Sorry, three handoffs.
And if that baton is not passed, it doesn't matter how fast they run.
We have been handed, we have been handed the truth of the gospel by so many who came before us.
Must we not be faithful as ambassadors to hand off this amazing message that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sin against them.
And he's given us the ministry and the message and the manner of being an ambassador.
This ministry and message of reconciliation.
We say, no, you don't have to go to hell.
You don't have to spend life without Jesus.
You don't have to walk through pain by yourself.
Jesus will be with you in that.
Jesus can forgive you and make life new.
And we've got a glorious ministry and message to hand off.
Let's make that pass.
Let's be faithful as ambassadors as we have been called because we've got good news to share.
Now, if you don't yet know Jesus, we want you to know him today.
Paul says in chapter six, verse two, behold, today is the day of salvation, today.
If you've not yet trusted Christ, you don't have to go to hell.
God loved you so much, he sent his son to die to take your sin to give you his righteousness.
Trust him today.
Trust him.
Let's pray together.
Father, thank you for your goodness to us and for your love for us.
Thank you for your word that tells us what is true and gives us everything we need for life and godliness.
Lord, I pray that as believers, we would really believe the good news that you've given to us in Christ.
And as ambassadors, that we would live toward the world in a way that they might hear, that they might see, that they might experience the goodness of this message.
Help us be faithful to share the goodness of your message with those who so desperately need it.
Lord, keep us from dropping the baton.
Make us faithful ambassadors in the world.
We pray this in Christ's name, amen.