The New You.

Sometimes we think that growing in our faith means pulling away from the people we love. But the truth is, the "New You" is actually meant to be a bridge. Last Sunday, we talked about how to live out our faith in the midst of our friendships, workplaces, and families.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Howdy all, welcome back to the Preacher Man Podcast. I'm Bland Crane, the Preacher Man. Um hope you had a great week so far. We're recording this on Friday and really excited about it because um got a pretty eventful weekend and starting of a new week coming up for uh us and my family. Um get to go to a a wedding. One of my daughter's high school friends and still and college friend for that matter was is getting married. We get to go and and and watch that, and my daughter's gonna be a bridesmaid in the wedding, so that'll be an extra bonus. And then we'll have some other things happening, of course, on Sunday. We'll be worshiping here at Northcrest. And then uh Sunday evening I will be uh preaching at the Westside Church of Christ with uh Brother Willis Ratcliffe and the congregation that meets there. It is always, always a wonderful experience to go to West Side and worship with them, sing with them, pray with them, and um I hope that my uh lesson that I will be presenting will be something that will be worthwhile, uh encouraging and uplifting. So we are in the middle of well, yeah, well I can say that we're in the middle of our new series of uh Fix and 26 theme. Uh we've been focusing on the relationships of the chord of three strands. And last Sunday I concluded that part of the lesson with the subject of or with the understanding of what happens when the new you is revealed to your friends. And um many times we there is an assumption out there that many times when we give our lives to Christ, when we obey the gospel, we have to um shun the people in the world. Uh there's even biblical scripture that if you were to I guess you could say misinterpret it, it would say that you know we're we're called to be um not in the uh in the world but not of the world. In other words, uh the things that we have done in the past when we were um a slave to sin we don't do anymore. And so part of that some and I can see how some of that could be uh interpreted to saying, well, you've got to shun your friends and remove and and and not be friends with the people of the world because, you know, uh the bad influences. And I I I I kind of wanted to bring in that verse in Corinthians where uh Paul writes that uh bad company corrupts good morals. And I didn't want to go there uh particularly because part of our uh new life, uh part of the new you is to show yourself, reveal yourself, and let your friends who are your real friends and or family members or co-workers experience that new you and in turn will want to be able to follow in your footsteps. They're gonna want to know why you are the way you are now, and ex and and all those good things that come from being a Christian. That good example, that uh that that uh that that that integrity that you have, you know, it's and it's not it it's not like you are uh acting like you're better than them or you think you have something over them or anything like that. You're not you're not supposed to be self-righteous, you're supposed to be just righteous. And so this new you is um should be attractive. This new you should be um inspiring. And this new you should get people's attention. And you can't do that if you are um not associating with not being around family and co-workers and friends to be that new example. When you become a Christian and you change your ways and it has an effect on you, the Holy Spirit is living inside of you, it's gonna get noticed. At least it should. We're not supposed to become hermits, we're supposed to become ambassadors. And so um this morning I'm going to uh go ahead and roll the sermon that we looked at last Sunday, titled The New You based off of Second Corinthians 5, verses 14 through 18. And after that, we'll be back for some closing thoughts. Open your Bibles or hope you still have your Bibles turned on to 2 Corinthians 5. 2nd Corinthians 5, the verses that were read will be what we will be looking into this morning. I appreciate uh also the uh privilege to be able to lead a communion, uh lead in our Lord's Supper. Um, every so often the opportunity is given to me at a very short notice, and uh I'm always thankful to be able to be a part of that as well. Many of you remember um, many of you remember Duck Dynasty's uh founder, Phil Robertson. He's no longer with us anymore, the Duck Commander. Um many of you know that uh I guess you could call him Brother Robertson because he was a member of the church. He was um a very, very outgoing, unashamed uh leader in the church, did a lot of good for uh for his uh church and for us in general. And we all know his story. A movie was made about his life story and his biography, and he wrote a biography about how he uh turned from being a heathen as he called himself to a Christian. And one of those stories, and what's interesting about this is that I he talks about it in his book, but he gives more detail about what happened to him just, I mean, it wasn't weeks after he became a Christian, weeks after he reconnected with his wife and his boys, because uh he left and uh they had to they had to fend for themselves for a while, and while he was out finding himself, uh he was able to realize that not only did he need his wife and his family, he needed help. And so a preacher came and studied with him, and after a while he obeyed the gospel, became a Christian, and never looked back, many of what he was saying. But shortly after all that took place, he really, I guess you could say he really had his one of, he faced one of his first temptations. His old drinking buddies finally found him. Everything had been, when his wife started over after he left her, he she put everything, Miss K put everything in her name. And so really Phil was off the radar. I mean, he just, you know, kind of for the most part disappeared. And when they and when they reconciled their marriage and he moved back into the house where her and the boys were living, he didn't change anything about that. He just kind of said, I'm gonna I still think I want to stay below the radar. Well, his old drinking buddies found him one night. And they were, hey, glad to see you. Didn't know if you were still alive or not, etc. etc. He goes, Come on, Phil, let's get in the truck. Let's go out to the places where we would go when we were before all this, and let's knock a few back. Let's do this and that. And Phil tells in a couple of videos and a couple of podcasts, he basically the conversation went something to the point of boys, the Phil Robertson that you're looking for died, and he ain't here no more. He said, You're looking at a new Phil Robertson, and this Phil Robertson is going nowhere with any of you ever again because he knew how powerful that temptation would be. Now we are looking into a uh starting off this series of of uh of understanding what it means to uh work on our relationships, to fix our relationships. We uh well last Sunday we started a new series with the Court of Three Strands analogy that's found in the Old Testament, and as we start this new lesson on a new you, I want you to think about this question. What is one of those old habits that you had previously before you made Jesus Christ your Lord and Master? What was an old habit or a reaction that God has already removed from your life that changed the way your friends, your co-workers, maybe even some of your family members saw. That's what I want you to think about. Phil chose to ostracize himself, to remove himself from those men, not because necessarily he was weak, and not necessarily because his buddies were just evil. He did not want to be around the temptation that they were offering. Bible says, you run from the devil, flee from the devil, he will flee from you. Phil knew that in his state, in his present, the state that he was in, he probably would not have been able to fight off that temptation. So he told his buddies to hit the road. Now, Phil will also tell you that 12 years later, one of his buddies came back and said, You remember that night you said you had died? What did you mean by that? And Phil was able to sit down with him, study with him, and baptize him into Christ. That's a really neat little story. In Corinthians, Paul explains that Christ's death for sin changes the way he regards people. Instead of looking at each person as a mere human being, Paul says, now we are challenged to view those who are in Christ as something entirely different from what they were in the past. Those who are in Christ are those who have faith in him. Their sins have been forgiven by Christ's death in their place. And so such a person is literally a new creature. Those in Christ have become something that no one has ever seen before. Almost brand new. Their identity has changed from being an enemy of God, a fallen enemy of God, to a version of themselves that is associated with the righteousness of Christ. That's who they are now. So many of you can relate to this idea of a new you. You recall the moment that you got convicted that the message, that the study convinced you that you were living in sin, that you were separated from God, and you knew that you needed to correct this problem immediately. Many of you remember your baptism and what all that took place, and what took place after you came out of the water. My message to you this morning is that part of that coming out of the water and that new life, that new you, doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do anything drastic when it comes to your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members. Who knows? God may have put you there for a specific reason. Because you know that you've changed, but they're only going to see the change in your life unless you're around them, with them, surrounding yourself with them. When we think about this in the in the verses that we're going to look at, what Paul says something, it kind of makes me think about uh what compels, what motivates, what pushes or drives the act of love down the road of life? What propels it? What moves it? Paul says in the text that it is Christ's love that compels us. Look at verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 5, um, where he says that for the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for him. Paul says the motivation behind this is that explains and demonstrates a brand new you or a new you in general isn't driven by a new set of rules that you have to follow. It's not driven by a special religious performance where you, in many ways, try to be something that you're really not. It's driven simply by the love of Christ. The love of Christ and what he did for us is the driving force that calls us to do all these things that might be different now than it was then before you became a Christian. I know I've told this story hundreds of times, but when I was little, I would joke with my mom about who she loved the most. And I'd go down the list of all my brothers. Mom, do you love me more than Terry? Yes, Blan, I love you more than Terry. Mom, do you love me more than Randy? Yes, Blan, I love you more than Randy. Mama, do you love me more than dad? Don't tell him, but yes, Bland, I love you more than dad. Well, I was just, I mean, I'm oh man, mama loves me. Mama, do you love me more than God? Mom put the dish towel down, laid it by the sink, turned around and walked to the table where I was sitting, eating my chicken pot pie for lunch. Put her hands on her knees, bent down so she could look me right in the eye. And says, baby, it's because I love God I can love you. I'll never forget it. Probably gonna put it on her tombstone anyway if I ever have to get a chance to do that. But the point is, is that when you realize Christ died for you, there should be a priority shift. And that priority shift, it's real simple. It's gonna leave self-interest and go to a new form of interest called Christ's interest. So if it's important to Christ, then it's gonna be important to you. If it's something important enough that Jesus to say it more than once, repeat it. If anybody wrote about it in God's word, then it's important to you. It's what helps us reflect Jesus in our lives. So that this brand new you won't look like some self-righteous snob. Instead, you come, you just get a little softer around the edges, you get a little more, you get a little uh a better attitude, um, more joy, more more uh being uh happy with what you got. And your coworkers see it, your friends see it, your buddies at school see it. Maybe even, dare I say, some of your family members see it. There should be a change coming in you as you start your journey as a Christian. When your friends and your coworkers notice it changing you, it should it should look like you've suddenly become, it shouldn't look like you've become better than them. It should look like you've suddenly become just more loving than you were before. This new you might make you, well, it should make you more compassionate. And here's a little warning sign. If the new you makes you less compassionate, then you well, I wrote you have the wrong version of Christianity. You that's not Christianity at all. If the new you makes you less compassionate, you've you've been reading the wrong book, been worshiping the wrong Lord. You need to get back and maybe review some things. And this new you has a new kind of nature to it. He says in verse 17 of 1 Corinthians 5. Says therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, the new things have come. Being new doesn't mean changing your personality. Being new doesn't mean that you have to change your hobbies. I mean, unless your hobbies are really bad. I mean, if you something, if you know, if you got some bad habits, yeah, you got to get rid of them. But the point is that the new you shouldn't change your sense of humor. It didn't change mine. The new you means your core identity has moved, like I said, from self to Christ. People will notice. They should notice. People will see a different reaction to things like stress. They should see a difference in the way you talk to others. They should see Christians, church, they should see a difference in the way we talk to each other. The decisions that you make on that board or in that office before, the decisions should be different now that you are a child of God. They should have that they should see maybe that you are being, you have a little more peace in your life. Often we feel like we have to double down and do even extra more than what Phil did. And that is when I become a Christian, I've got to just completely shun all my former friends who may or may not have been a bad influence, who may or may not have led me astray. I mean, they're my buddies, they're not perfect, but still, I'm a Christian now. I've got to say no to the world and everything in it. But our friends are supposed to see the new you. We have something new that makes us more significant. Very simply put, we're called to be ambassadors, not called to turn ourselves into little hermits. Y'all know what a hermit is? Someone who becomes just totally, you know, exclusive, goes off and hides in the hills, turns off all the phones and computers and lives off the land, you know, just you know, hermit. No, that's not what we're called to be. We're called to be ambassadors. Look at verse 18 of chapter 5. Now, all of these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us a ministry of what? Say it with me. Reconciliation. I thought we had, I thought we were supposed to have the ministry of the gospel. Yeah. The gospel is all about reconciliation. I thought the gospel was the good news of Jesus Christ. Uh-huh. And part of that good news of Jesus Christ is that He has come to seek and save the lost. He has come to reconcile you. God didn't save you to take you out of the world. He saved you to put you back in it as His ambassador. You don't have to lose your friends. You don't have to lose your co-workers. You don't have to lose your buddies at school. You don't have to lose any of your family members. In fact, they are the very people that you are now equipped to be able to love deeper. When someone is Christ-centered and has that kind of love, you work where you're planted. The new you is constantly, should be constantly looking for new ways to heal broken relationships, to bring peace in storms of strife, to show grace when the world is doing anything but being graceful. You are one of those strands that is called to work on that relationship while you're staying connected to the source. That's called being an ambassador. That's called having a ministry of reconciliation. That strand gets tighter and winds and winds and winds, and you just start and you collect more and more and more. So what's the takeaway this morning? Real simple. First of all, don't what do we teach our little kids? Hide it under a bushel. No. I'm gonna let it shine. Don't hide it, shine it. You don't have to leave your workplace, you don't have to leave your school, you don't have to leave your home, you don't have to uh uh banish all your friends to be saved. You're there for a reason. You're there for a reason. People will notice the new you when they see you responding to them with grace instead of judgment. That's evidence of love in your life. Your new perspective and this new you will have a drive to really and do your best to try to fix the relationships in your life, not in them. We're not shunning, we're trying to collect more. Now they got to be willing to work with. I mean, they I mean, you know, what's the whole saying, lead a horse for water, can't make them drink? That kind of thing. They gotta be willing to be, they gotta be receptive and everything else. But that doesn't stop you from trying. That doesn't stop you from doing all these things. With this whole series of lessons is based around the core to three strands. And and what you need to remember, this that this new you is part of those strands. You're never meant to be a lone a strand by yourself. A single strand of rope can be broken really, really easy. But when you and your friends and Jesus are all woven together and that bond is nice and good, it is almost impossible to be broken and snapped into. You so don't pull away from your friends. Don't don't uh don't give up on your family members, don't give up on your co-workers, don't give up on that person who you that one. I know each and every one of you have one person, you know, man. If I could just get them to come to church, you don't you don't give up on them. You don't stop, you don't pull away from your friends, you find a way to be that influence in their lives. Good, I got two minutes. I can close with this. But it's really, really good. This is this is the invitation, really. So there's a fellow by the name of Joey Chestnut. Anyone know who Joey Chestnut is? You probably, if you didn't know, you would miss him. Joey Chestnut holds the world record for eating the most hot dogs in a 10-minute time span. Last year, Joey ate 70 and a half hot dogs in 10 minutes and a half a second. That that is that is that is like I don't know, what, seven or eight hot dogs for every three or eight or eight seconds? I can't, I'm the math is just still turning around. Now, the reason why this got my attention is because hey, I'm I'm like a good hot dog. Especially when you got some chili on it and it fixed up on ice and everything else, but man, that's a lot of hot dogs in ten minutes. So they asked him a question one time. They kept, Joey, why do you do it? Why do you keep coming back every year to try to uh eat more hot dogs and break the record? You know what he said? He said, This is my mission to eat hot dogs and chicken wings faster than anybody else. That's the mission I'm on. And then he said, and the second reason why I do it is that eating the most amount of hot dogs and chicken wings in ten minutes, that's what gives me significance. What's your mission in life? Do you know? You have one? Have you thought about that that way? What's your mission in life? Here's another question. What gives you significance? Not many people can say it's hot dog and chicken wings. Have you thought about that? What gives your life significance? What gives you significance? Paul Paul closes out chapter five this way in verse two to one. He said, He, God, who made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, here we go, mission and significance, I would submit to you, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That right there is what you call a gos the gospel in one sentence. Um it's no secret that I'm a big fan of the Robertson family. Um I'm a big fan of um what they do. They have an unashamed podcast that is listened to often. And uh this gets talked about a lot. And when so I told the story of how Phil basically told his his old drinking buddies that the Phil Robertson that they were looking for is dead and gone. He got buried, referring to as baptism. And um he's not that way no more, and he's not gonna be hanging around with them no more. If they're going to do those kinds of things, he's not gonna be a part of it. This is a a brand new person they're looking at. And that according to Phil, that really uh threw them for a loop. But it's important to remember that while Phil did not associate with them because of he knew the power and how and how big that temptation would have been for him not to go back to the boozing and the drinking and the drugging, that he did for all terms and purposes, disassociate himself from them, but it wasn't because of the people, it was because of the temptation. And he makes a point to talk about the fact that twelve years later, one of his best one of his best buddies who he hang around with during that time, came to him later on and and asked him, He says, What did you mean by that whole thing of being buried and no longer going to be running around and and and boozing boozing and drinking with us? And through that question, Phil was able to um study with him, show him what the Bible was all about, show him who Jesus was all about, and was able to baptize one of his closest friends. And and and so it it worked out in the end for both Phil and one of his buddies. Sometimes it's gonna take people a while to appreciate this new you. This world will cause us to lose faith and trust in people simply because too many times we have heard, we have seen, we've probably even said it, we're turning over a new leaf and then we don't do any of those things that we say we're doing we we just we just revert back. Now that's not necessarily a a bad thing. I mean w anyone who will tell you that after they're a Christian after they became a Christian, they no longer had any problems or issues or fell back into patience, they're they're they're gonna be lying to you. But just like we understand that the Christian faith is not a sprint, it's a marathon, we evolve, and I know that's probably a a word that doesn't like to be talked about amongst uh Christian people and church people, but we do evolve into something that is new. And if it's done right through the Lord, through the Bible, through the Holy Spirit, it's gonna get noticed. The change that people see in you, like I said before, should be attractive. And it should open doors for you both in your Christian walk and in opportunities to talk about how you got how you were saved by the blood of Jesus. And that's what's important. This new you is supposed to bring people to Christ. I appreciate all the feedback. Um I got a lot of good feedback from um the some of the podcasts that I've put on recently, and uh I'm thankful. I'm thankful for all my listeners. I would love to hear from you, and uh anytime you want to contact me, you can. We um my email address is preacherman1178 at gmail.com. That's preacherman1178 at gmail. And just send me a little note. Um if you have a question, I'd love to be able to try to answer it. Maybe it can maybe it can be a topic of conversation on our podcast. Maybe we can uh develop a study into that. I don't know, but um I'd love to hear from you. Please contact me and let me know what you think about the show. And um I hope that uh this weekend will be a good weekend for you. The title of this uh coming Sunday's sermon will is called The Third Strand at Work. And we're gonna be focusing on something that it may not be a very deep theological discussion, but it will be a very practical one and in understanding what does it mean to be a Christian employee, but also what does it mean to be a Christian boss, manager, supervisor, and in the workforce today. And I hope that uh it will be uh something that we can all learn from and pull from and use uh not only in the next coming weeks, but in our daily walk as Christians. This is the Preacher Man signing off. Hope you have a blessed day, and always remember who you are and whose you are.