Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] So Lord, as we come before you right now, I pray that you'd open our hearts to you as we look at your Word. A beautiful text of scripture. I mean, they're all beautiful, but this one really spoke to me this week and I pray that it'll speak to all of us. In Jesus name, amen. So we're in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, and we're going to finish that chapter. We're going to look at verses 16 to 21. And I've entitled the message how to experience a new beginning in your life. I don't know about you, but every once in a while you feel like you need a start over, you know, a reset. And we're going to look at this. How does that happen?
[00:00:32] Some of you may be acquainted with best selling author Laura Hildenbrand.
[00:00:36] She was doing research for her book Seabiscuit, An American Legend. I saw that movie. I like historical movies, great story. But while she was doing that, she was looking through old papers and she found a clip in 1938 of a young running phenom by the name of Louis Zapperini. And eventually she's going to write about this guy and they made a movie out of it. It's called Unbroken. She jotched his name down in her Seabiscuit research notebook and she said, later I came across Louis name again and this time I learned a little bit about his wartime odyssey and I was very intrigued. She said she discovered his address, wrote to him, he wrote back, and I called him and I found myself in the most fast, fascinating conversation of my entire life.
[00:01:23] He told me his story and I was captivated. So many elements of Louis saga were enthralling, but one in particular hooked me. He told me of having experienced an almost unimaginable abuse at the hands of his captors. And yet he spoke without self pity or any bitterness. In fact, he was cheerful, speaking with perfect equanimity. And when he had finished his story, I had one question.
[00:01:51] How could you being victimized by such monstrous men, yet not express rage? And his response was simple.
[00:01:59] Because I forgave them.
[00:02:02] So how did Louis deal with the abuse that happened to him in World War II? And like many war veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, well, you see Louisiana, when he came home, he began to abuse alcohol. He drank heavily, his marriage was in disarray, his thoughts were tortured, he couldn't sleep at night. He kept reflashing the actual abuse and particularly one guard who was very abusive to him. And he couldn't get his mind away from it. And he wanted to rid himself of that guard, somehow take him out. But he found himself one day at a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles. It was really the Los Angeles crusade in 1949, probably the turning point in Billy Graham's life, too. His whole ministry exploded at that time in a powerful way. It was there that Louis found God, and God reached out to him and transformed his life. And as Laura Hildenbrand wrote, in a single silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation, his helplessness had fallen away that morning. He believed he was a new creation.
[00:03:08] Softly he began weeping. To begin anew in our life, we need to understand and assess life differently. And here from our text in 2 Corinthians, we're going to discover three things that we must do to experience a new beginning in our life. And the first one, and really how to experience God's grace. The first one is simply this, that we're not to regard others from a worldly point of view. And I want to delve into this. It's almost without thought that you and I make judgments. We don't think about it, but we simply make evaluations. Many times worldly evaluations. We look at how somebody dresses, maybe how they speak, their age, their social standing, race.
[00:03:51] Discrimination is expressed in social snubs, rude remarks, or lost opportunities.
[00:03:56] But Paul warns against such an approach in his relationship to other people. And when he says this. So now, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
[00:04:08] If you and I just acted on this verse, it would change the way we relate to people. That's why application is so powerful. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
[00:04:21] Now we have to remember something. Paul's previous life, if I can use it that way.
[00:04:26] His name was actually Saul. He was a Pharisee who later became Paul the missionary.
[00:04:32] And he thought of Jesus as a false messiah and. And he saw him as a threat to Judaism. Saul was so adamant in his rejection of Jesus as the Messiah that he at once became the foremost antagonistic and persecutor of the early church.
[00:04:49] It was Saul who testified against Stephen, the church's first martyr. He was the primary witness who spoke against them. And we read that in Acts, chapter seven. And when members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious, and they gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven, saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Now, how many think that's amazing? I don't believe anybody else saw what Stephen saw. We're just getting, you know, a report here. But he could see something that nobody else was seeing.
[00:05:20] He said, I see heaven open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Well, at this point, they covered their ears. Haven't you noticed that some people don't want to hear the truth?
[00:05:32] They just covered their ears. I mean, I think that's a very forceful picture, physical picture of what they don't want to know. And they began yelling at the top of their voices, and they all rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. So he was.
[00:05:51] He was actually the perpetrator of. Of this whole situation.
[00:05:56] And while they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, oh, this is powerful. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
[00:06:03] And then he fell on his knees and cried out, lord, do not hold the sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
[00:06:10] That's a euphemism for he died as a believer. And Saul approved of their killing him. Wow.
[00:06:19] So Kent Hughes writes regarding Paul's assessment of Jesus. To him, Jesus was a messianic pretender who pushed too far and got what was coming to him when he was condemned by the Sanhedrin and crucified by the Romans. In fact, Jesus crucifixion proved to Paul that Jesus was cursed of God because God's law said in Deuteronomy chapter 3:21, verse 23 categorically that states that a man that is hanged, a hanged man is cursed by God.
[00:06:54] So Jesus suffering on the cross was therefore an emphatic and deserved rejection of Jesus Messianic pretensions. But the personal irony now for Paul here in Corinth is that he himself has come to suffer the same disregard and rejection by some in the Corinthian Church.
[00:07:13] They've observed that he was weak in appearance and speech, and he was but more Paul perpetual suffering, as he described it, afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and even struck down.
[00:07:27] Plus his daily dying proved to them that he must have been a phony. This was bitter irony because Jesus had been despised and rejected by Paul through fleshly regard, and now Paul himself suffered from the same fleshly or worldly evaluation and rejection. How many think there's something interesting here? So what's happening? People are looking at a situation from a natural humanistic point of view, and Paul is going, we can't do that.
[00:07:54] So Scott Heffman says this Paul's statement in 5:16 most likely refers back to the practice of his opponents who continued to criticize Paul's ministry. In other words, evaluating people by worldly appearance because of its lack of worldly status due to his suffering and apparent lack of spiritual power.
[00:08:16] Paul understands this way of thinking since he himself once regarded Christ in the same way. According to the flesh. How many know, apart from the resurrection Jesus, death on the cross could only mean that he had been cursed by God for his own sin.
[00:08:30] But so prior to Paul's conversion, in which the glory of the resurrected Jesus made it clear to Paul that Jesus had died not for his own sins, but for the sins of his people. And Paul disdained the cross as a radical contradiction to Jesus messianic claims and a rejection of Israel's nationalistic hopes. So what is Scott saying? He's basically saying the same thing. He's basically looking at what happened to Jesus and saying, he can't be the Messiah. This would have never happened. As a matter of fact, we had a totally different expectation of what the Messiah would bring, and this is not what's occurring. So Paul saw him as a phony, as a pretender, as a false Messiah. That's why he was persecuting the people who were following him. He thought that they were deviating from Judaism. However, all of that changed in Paul's life. And how did it change?
[00:09:22] Well, it changed very dramatically.
[00:09:24] Jesus was not just crucified, he rose again.
[00:09:29] He was alive.
[00:09:31] And because of that, this resurrection appearance that came to Paul by Jesus himself blew him out of the water. How many know that's true? That totally changed Paul's whole thinking. It redefined his whole thinking about who Jesus is, about theology. His whole life was radically transformed. But let me just give you the picture here as Luke describes this amazing encounter that changed Paul's life.
[00:09:57] Meanwhile, Saul was still threatening out murder threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus so that if he found there any who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. You might think this guy's pretty aggressive. Anybody think Paul's a little aggressive?
[00:10:17] How many think he's a radical? You know, he's zealous, zealous for his religion. Okay, now what happens? And he says, as he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground. He heard a voice say to him, saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
[00:10:37] Who Are you Lord? Saul asked. I am Jesus, whom you're persecuting. Wow.
[00:10:43] Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.
[00:10:48] The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound, but they didn't see anyone. Now, I want you to understand something. When things happen like this, not everybody experiences the same experience.
[00:10:58] Anybody notice that Paul's getting a totally different experience than the rest of these guys? Because now Paul is actually hearing what Jesus is saying. They know there's a noise, they're hearing something, but they can't understand what's really happening. But boy, is God ever directing his remarks to Paul, to Paul or Saul.
[00:11:17] He got up from the ground and when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing.
[00:11:22] So they led him by the hand into Damascus for three days. He was blind and did not eat or drink anything. Now I have to say, most people don't have that kind of a dramatic conversion.
[00:11:32] But how many know? That's probably the only thing that would have convinced Saul because theologically he was totally bent against Jesus. He saw him as a false pretender. But when, you know, it wasn't the cross that changed Saul's life, it was the resurrection that changed his whole understanding. You know, it's one thing for somebody to die, it's another thing for somebody to rise from the dead. And that's what transformed this radical, zealous person who was totally opposed to Jesus. And the way that Jesus was being presented by his followers, you know, he realized that his understanding of who Jesus, who God is, and the nature of the Messiah is needed a major overhaul.
[00:12:17] And that is exactly what happened. He moved from being a self righteous Pharisee to a humble follower of Jesus. He moved from being proud of his heritage, learning and status in the Jewish faith to become the greatest proponent of bringing the gospel not just to the Jewish community, but to the non Jewish community, which really got him into trouble. I mean, he went all out the other way. Now it says he underwent so much intense persecution and difficulty in fulfilling his mission. And listen to how he sees himself in light of Christ, moving away from his past worldly point of view. This is what he said.
[00:12:57] He says, if someone else thinks they have reason to put confidence in the flesh, in other words, in my social status, I have more circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, by the way, that was the first tribe that had a King Saul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee. I mean, Pharisees means somebody who adopts a pure lifestyle. It means purity. Isn't that interesting?
[00:13:25] As for zeal, persecuting the church, as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me, I now considered lost for the sake of Christ.
[00:13:40] What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.
[00:13:52] But I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ and being found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.
[00:14:04] The righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
[00:14:09] Wow. How many go? Paul had a totally different view. Who Jesus is, he was no longer looking at him strictly from a physical, humanistic point of view. He was now seeing him as he truly was. From another point of view, he saw him as God in the flesh.
[00:14:26] It totally changed his life. Let me move on to the second thing we must do. And in order for us to have this new beginning, this new transformation like Saul even experienced, that's to accept God's work of reconciliation through Christ.
[00:14:41] For some, the hardest thing to accept is that there's nothing we can do to save ourselves. How many go that goes against human pride just cuts against the grain. You and I can do absolutely nothing to save ourselves.
[00:14:56] You can't be good enough.
[00:14:59] You can't. You know, if you made one mistake and then you're trying to compensate, how many of you know when you make a mistake, no matter how many times you kind of compensate for it? It's never enough.
[00:15:09] You can never undo what you did. That's what I'm getting at. You cannot save yourselves, though, like Paul, we have much going for ourselves. Maybe from a worldly perspective, we realize, like Paul, that it means nothing.
[00:15:23] It relates to our relationship to God.
[00:15:25] Reconciliation is what God provides for you and me. It's what God does.
[00:15:32] The idea is that we need God to save us. Attacks our pride and our ego. But we need to realize that only God can deliver us from the penalty and the power of sin. Do you realize that only God can do that? Listen to what he writes here in Second Corinthians. I love this text. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone, the new is here.
[00:15:53] This is where I'm getting the idea of a new beginning. How can I have a new beginning? Well, Paul tells you here, if I'm in Christ, I can have a new beginning.
[00:16:01] Isn't that beautiful? You can have a new Startup point. You can have a reset button in your life. And how many people say, I live with a lot of regret paths. If I could start all over again, I would do it all. I would do it totally different again. I'm giving you the opportunity today. I'm giving you a message today that you can begin all over again.
[00:16:21] You can have a new beginning today.
[00:16:23] You could start over again. How beautiful is that? All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself.
[00:16:42] God is the one that brings about reconciliation in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. You know, Kent Hughes reminds us of this amazing truth. We do not reconcile ourselves to God. Rather, it is God doing something we're incapable of doing for ourselves in order for us to be reconciled to God. That's why the Gospel, which means good news, is so critical for our world. The message of Jesus Christ is the only hope for this world because the message is, you can be reconciled to God. And when that happens, everything changes. A new beginning happens.
[00:17:22] I love how Ken Hughes frames it. He says we must not miss the thrust of his passionate plea because it is not reconcile yourself to God, but be reconciled. And that tense is passive. In other words, it's not something we're doing that is be reconciled by God.
[00:17:40] Receive God's offer of reconciliation. This is a passionate offer of peace, because peace with God is the result of this reconciliation. And I'm going to tell you, when you have peace with God, you got peace with your own soul. It's so powerful.
[00:17:55] Receive God's offer of reconciliation.
[00:17:59] This is a passionate offer, because peace with God is the result of reconciliation. The atoning, substitutionary death of Christ brings reconciliation and peace with God beautifully. The promise of this peace was made long ago by the prophet Isaiah. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our inequities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his stripes we are healed. The Gospel is not reconcile yourself. The Gospel is be reconciled, receive reconciliation from God. Now, some of us are probably reading through those devotionals that we encourage at the beginning of the year, reading through Nikki Gumbel's Year at a Glance. And so we're reading every day, day by day by day, and you're reading through scripture and, you know, I was reading this week, and he said it so beautifully, and he quotes John Stott, the Cross of Christ. I just Happened to have read that book. What a beautiful book it is. And this is what John Stott says. I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross.
[00:19:03] In the real world of pain, how can one worship a God who's immune to pain?
[00:19:09] He took our pain. He knows what it's like to suffer. He knows what it's like to be betrayed. He knows what it's like to be forsaken. He knows what it's like to be hungry and thirsty. He knows what it's like to be weary. He knows what it's like to be misunderstood and not received. He understands all of it. He walked through it.
[00:19:29] We see the reality of this acceptance by what happens at the moment of Jesus death.
[00:19:34] What happens? The curtain, this is amazing of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom.
[00:19:42] The symbolism of that is explained in the book of Hebrews. The curtain separated the people from the most holy place, which is really the presence of where God is now. Through Jesus you can experience God's presence and an intimate friendship with him. Even the detail that the curtain was torn from the top to the bottom reminds us that it's a work of God and not of humans that enables our acceptance into God's presence. In other words, God said, look, he ripped the curtain and he said, come into my presence. I've made a new and a living way. I love that. Do you realize that this phenomenon of the curtain being torn, I think was one of the key contributing factors to why so many priests, as we're going to read in a moment, came to faith in Jesus. I want to explain to you the size of this curtain for a minute. It's just amazing to me.
[00:20:31] 60ft high.
[00:20:34] 60ft high. That's six stories, guys. 60ft high, 30ft wide, 4 inches thick. It was so heavy, it took 300 priests to handle it.
[00:20:45] Why was it created this way? It was to teach a powerful lesson that the presence unto God was impassable.
[00:20:53] And what does God do at the cross when Jesus dies for our sins?
[00:20:57] Rips it.
[00:20:59] How many of you know, no human being can rip that barrier.
[00:21:03] God ripped it. God made the way into his very presence. And so the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. Yes, people were sharing the gospel with them, but how many know they were looking at this thing that was torn from the top to the bottom? I think they caught the picture. You see. What does it mean? If anyone is in Christ, the New creation has come. The old is gone, the new is here. I think we need to remember something back to the fall.
[00:21:34] When Adam and Eve sinned against God, the image of God in their lives was affected.
[00:21:42] They were afraid of God. They recognized their nakedness. Up until that point, they didn't notice that they were in a state of innocence. There was no shame. But now they were filled with shame. They covered themselves with fig leaves. They hid, they ran away. They were trying to hide from God.
[00:21:57] And then God confronted them with their disobedience. Isn't that what's happening to humanity today? People don't want to come to God. They're afraid of God. They're running from God. They're hiding from God. They're filled with shame and guilt.
[00:22:08] That's where people are living.
[00:22:10] And God confronts us with that behavior. And they resorted to blaming rather than taking responsibility, saying, yes, it's me. I've sinned. I did the wrong thing. You know, God isn't out here to destroy us. God is out here to reconcile us.
[00:22:26] Sin distorts God's image in our lives. But when we're reconciled to God, that image is restored.
[00:22:33] Scott Heffernan describes what this transformation is all about. He says, as the second Adam, speaking of Christ reflects the image of God. Christ brings his followers back to the glory of associated with Adam before his fall into disobedience. Thus, for Paul, the real evidence of the glory of the new creation is not some spiritual ecstasy, but moral transformation.
[00:22:57] You know, I'm deeply concerned. I was praying this morning and I was reading scripture and I was thinking about it. You know, what is God really trying to make us understand? Well, let me put it you this way. When Jesus came the first time, he sent his servant John the Baptist. And what was John's job? He was a hero. Prepare the way of the Lord. And how do you prepare for God's coming? It's by turning away from your sin and turning to God. That's how you prepare. And when Jesus came on the scene the first time, the first thing he said is, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe.
[00:23:30] I want you to know something. The message of repentance has always been alive and well. What does repentance mean? It means that we're changing our mind and we're turning towards God. And we're not trying to redefine God in our image. We're trying to understand who the biblical God is so that you and I can be refashioned into his image and become the person that God designed us when he created us, to become that better version of ourselves. And so you and I want to move away from how sin dominated and controlled our lives so that we can be free from that and become more like him, more loving, more forgiving, more generous, more kind, more understanding.
[00:24:07] God wants to bring that image into our lives. Linda Belleville challenges the world point of view. She says a better way of looking at things has come. The tense is perfect. A new set of standards and attitudes has come to stay so that a person is now to be judged in a completely new light. Paul has in mind specifically the person in Christ. This is a favorite phrase of his that is more than often means to belong to Christ. To be in Christ means to belong to Him. So how does this reconciliation then come about? God made him who knew no sin or had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Again, I want to just say Scott Heffernan explains the power of this text as referring to the sacrificial system which allows God to address sin and sinner while allowing his grace and mercy to be given without diminishing his justice.
[00:25:00] I like that.
[00:25:02] Just an explicit link. Now I'm going to quote Scott. I was just explaining what he's going to say. But this explicit link between the Old Testament sacrificial system and the death of Jesus is found in the fact that Jesus as the suffering servant of isaiah in chapters 52 to 53, bears the sins of God's people and their ransom. Against that backdrop, Paul's reference to Christ as the one who had no sin, did not know sin, whom God nevertheless made to be sin, thus recalls the death of the righteous servant who did not sin in Isaiah 53. So, without a doubt, it is not to be inferred that the efficacy or the effectiveness of his death arises from the sinlessness of his life.
[00:25:49] Only when Christ's death as the sinless one is seen as an atoning sacrifice for our sins does it become clear why God is able not to count his people's sins against them without compromising his own integrity and justice.
[00:26:03] And therefore, as a result, Christ's death. Not only does Christ take on our sin, we take on his righteousness. And when God sees us in Christ, he sees the perfection of Christ having already been granted to us as a gift, even though our being made perfect in Christ is still to come at the consummation of the age when we will see Christ face to face. So what is God really saying to us that Jesus substitutionary death is an acceptable sacrifice for our sin 1. Because of his sinless life, God is able to address the injustice that sin created. And God then can show us forgiveness and mercy as a result. But even more than that, God now sees Christ in us, in right standing with himself.
[00:26:49] Now, let me give you a picture, and I love this picture.
[00:26:53] The Chinese character for righteousness is very interesting.
[00:26:58] It's composed of two separate characters. You know, their language is characters.
[00:27:04] One stands for a lamb and the other for me. And when the Lamb is paced directly above me, a new character is formed. Righteousness is now formed. Isn't that a beautiful picture?
[00:27:16] This is a helpful picture of the grace of God between me the sinner and God the Holy One. There's interposed by faith the Lamb of God, by virtue of his sacrifice, he's received me on the ground of faith and I become righteous in his sight. So in other words, when God is looking down from heaven to a Christian, what he's looking at is Christ between us and God, and all he sees is Christ. I mean, that's a beautiful picture.
[00:27:43] That's how God sees you.
[00:27:45] He sees you as right with him because he sees Christ in you.
[00:27:51] I love that picture. But let me move to the third thing we must do. Become an ambassador of Christ to our world. As wonderful as being reconciled to God is, it's something God did for us. We accept it. That's what we must do, is accept it. As wonderful as it is to receive that, the amazing privilege also comes an incredible opportunity and a responsibility.
[00:28:13] We now become ambassadors, messengers of this incredible message, this gospel. We have been given the ministry which is a message of reconciliation.
[00:28:25] All this from God, who reconciled us to himself to Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. How many like that? God's not. God's not there, you know. Oh, there you did it again. Oh, there's that person. Well, look what they did there. No, he's not keeping track of that stuff. Thank God he's not working. He's not putting to use his accounting skills here. And he's committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
[00:29:03] Now, I love this term ambassador. See, Ken Hughes kind of explains it here. The Apostle Paul, having been entrusted with the ministry and message of reconciliation, employs a bold analogy to describe his ministry that of an ancient ambassador, an imperial legate in the Roman Empire, a man of immense authority. As such, he did not speak in his own name or act in his own authority, nor did his message originate in him, but it came from the emperor, from above. He stood in his sovereign stead in authority. So the actual truth was that as Paul spoke, God spoke. The ambassador analogy was not chosen because it approximated Paul's authority, but because it was reality.
[00:29:55] God really did make his appeal through him.
[00:29:58] I don't know if you guys understand something.
[00:30:00] When you're operating correctly as an ambassador, you don't bring your own ideas across.
[00:30:07] You represent your country, and you're only bringing the message that the people are sending you to communicate. That's your job.
[00:30:15] And that's. You know, I'm going to say this right now. We need to understand the moment we are converted, we're called to communicate that same message just as Paul was.
[00:30:25] Look at how it started here in Acts, chapter nine. The moment he gets saved, it says, I am Jesus, whom you're persecuting now. Get up and go into the city. You're going to be told what you must do. But the Lord said to Ananias, this is later on. He was going to go to Paul, go, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles, to their kings, and to the people of Israel. And I'm going to show him how much you must suffer for my name.
[00:30:49] Oh, wow, it's interesting. God says, okay, you're going to be my ambassador now. I'm going to send you, oh, by the way, they're not all going to respond nicely to you.
[00:30:58] And I think we need to understand something as believers. God says the same commission that he gave Paul is the same commission he gives each one of us that every time you and I speak to someone on behalf of this message, we're speaking as an ambassador on behalf of God.
[00:31:14] Actually, God is speaking through you.
[00:31:16] God is speaking through me.
[00:31:18] He's calling people to be reconciled to himself by accepting what God has done on their behalf. It's very powerful. So what is the message of reconciliation? Well, I think we need to faithfully communicate God's message and not a distorted version of it. We don't change the message to make it more palatable for other people.
[00:31:42] How many know? If you were an ambassador and somebody sends you off and all of a sudden you go, you know, I know what they say, but, you know, I want to tell you, you can do this.
[00:31:51] How many go, you're not A faithful ambassador.
[00:31:54] You'd get into trouble with your country, with your sovereign. You'd be in trouble for doing that.
[00:32:01] I think there's a lot of Christians today, they're changing the message. They're distorting the gospel.
[00:32:06] And the problem with doing that is it diminishes its power and its efficacy, which means its effectiveness.
[00:32:14] Folks, you and I don't have the authority and right to change one ounce of this message. But when you do do that, it diminishes what God is really trying to communicate to people.
[00:32:26] I'm going to show you how powerful this message is. It's effective. It changes lives when we just clearly communicate it. Kent Hughes explains the actual message of reconciliation, which is to accept God's peace treaty.
[00:32:41] Clearly, then, reconciliation is not something we do. It's something God has accomplished. The ministry of reconciliation is not telling people to make peace with God, but telling them that God has made peace with the world.
[00:32:54] At bottom, the gospel is not good advice, but good news.
[00:32:58] That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. And in Romans, we read it for if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more being reconciled shall we be saved through his life? And not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
[00:33:20] So transformation is what happens when we encounter God. Now let me go back to Louis Zamperini, because I want to close with you.
[00:33:28] It says he's now, he's been shot down. He's a World War II fighter pilot. He's floating in the South Pacific with a couple of his survivors of the plane crash. They're on a raft.
[00:33:42] It's terribly hot. These guys are dying, dying from thirst.
[00:33:46] And in that moment, he makes a prayer to God in desperation. You know, it's amazing. You know, people say, I don't believe in God, but in a moment of desperation, people do pray.
[00:33:58] He says, if you will save me, I'll serve you forever.
[00:34:02] Now he forgot that. He forgot to do that.
[00:34:06] He survives the war, he comes back, and for five years, he's totally messed up. He's living a wild, reckless.
[00:34:13] He's totally tormented in his mind. He's abusing alcohol to try to take the pain away. He's having a hard time sleeping at night. He's having all these flashbacks.
[00:34:22] Now he's under another tent. Billy Graham is preaching.
[00:34:27] And he says they're standing under a circus tent on a clear night in Downtown Los Angeles.
[00:34:32] Louis felt rain falling.
[00:34:35] It was the last flashback he would ever have. What happened when he prayed that prayer? Rain started to fall. That's how they survived.
[00:34:42] God answered his cry. In that moment, he remembered that moment he had prayed to God. This prayer he had forgotten. How many know we forget things. He had totally forgotten it. And in that flashback, it says, Louis let go of Cynthia, his wife's hand, and he turned to Graham because he wanted to leave, because he was running from God. But all of a sudden, God got a hold of him and he turned to Graham and he felt supremely alive. At that moment, something supernatural was happening inside of him. He began walking. This is it, said Graham. God has spoken to you. You come on.
[00:35:17] And when they entered the apartment later, Louie went straight to the cache of liquor. It was a time of night when he needed.
[00:35:26] The need usually took hold of him. But for the first time in years, Louis had no desire to drink.
[00:35:31] Boy, did God ever do a work here. He carried the bottles to the kitchen sink, opened them and poured the contents into the drain.
[00:35:40] Something's happening in this man's life.
[00:35:43] Then he hurried through the apartment, gathering up packs of cigarettes, a secret stash of girly magazines, everything that was a part of his ruined years.
[00:35:52] And he heaved it all down. Thrash root, he says, I'm done with this. I'm done with all this garbage.
[00:35:59] It's amazing work. God can do an amazing work in our lives.
[00:36:02] In 1950, this is like five years after World War II, Zapperini went to Japan to Sugomo prison of war camp, where he was, you know, he'd been treated poorly, and then he was shipped to Japan at the end.
[00:36:16] Many people don't realize this. If they had not rained those atomic bombs, every prisoner in the United States would have been killed. I don't know if you know that. I've done a lot of research on this. It's true.
[00:36:28] These guys were suffering terribly. There was a lot of animosity and hatred.
[00:36:32] It was demonic, folks. War becomes very demonic. You need to know that.
[00:36:39] He went to there and many of the captors, his captors were there. They were now in prison because of war crimes. They had been, you know, had to admit that they had done all these abusive things. The guy that was the most abusive, they called him the bird who had tormented Louis. He had committed suicide. He didn't even want to face his punishment.
[00:37:01] When he was told that the Bible.
[00:37:05] Laura Hildenbrand says this Louis felt something he had never felt for his captors before, with a shiver of amazement, he realized it was compassion. And at that moment, something shifted sweetly inside of him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete.
[00:37:21] For Louis Zapperini, the war was now over.
[00:37:25] Before Louis left, Sagamo, the colonel who was attending him, asked Louis former guards, to come forward. In the back of the room, the prisoner stood up and shuffled into the aisles. They moved hesitantly, looking up at Louis with small faces.
[00:37:38] Louis was immediately seized by a childlike giddy exuberance. Before he realized what he was doing, he was bounding down the aisle in bewilderment. The men who had abused him watched him come to them and his hands extended and a radiant smile on his face.
[00:37:55] He was full of forgiveness.
[00:37:58] How do you overcome evil?
[00:38:01] By doing good.
[00:38:03] And that's exactly what happened.
[00:38:06] How do we reset?
[00:38:08] Hit the reset button to our lives. What does it mean to take a new beginning and allow this transformation to happen in our lives? We must stop evaluating life through a world's lens.
[00:38:20] We need to accept the gift that God is offering to us in Christ.
[00:38:27] And we need to be reconciled to God by simply accepting the gift of Jesus sacrifice on our behalf, which is an admission on our part that we have sinned against God and are prepared to turn our backs on the life we once knew.
[00:38:43] And when we experience God's grace, there comes with it a new purpose in our lives.
[00:38:48] We now have a message of reconciliation to share with those around us.
[00:38:54] Let's stand.
[00:38:59] I don't know. I was just so excited yesterday because I just. You have no idea. I had such an intense week. I don't normally confess this kind of stuff. I had such a busy week. I said to the Lord, I said, you know, I feel like I'm behind in my sermon preparation, but I had been reading and thinking, and yesterday as I was preparing, it felt like the Holy Spirit was just downloading the sermon. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And when I got down, I said, wow, this is going to bring an opportunity for people to reset their lives.
[00:39:31] And maybe you're here today, maybe you're listening to me today on stream, and you're saying, this is what I want.
[00:39:41] God's spirit has been speaking into my soul. I want a new beginning.
[00:39:46] I want a new beginning with God.
[00:39:49] You know, you can grow up in the church. Let me tell you something.
[00:39:52] I'm noticing something. Kids are growing up in the church, but unless they have their own personal encounter with God, it's just a bunch of head information.
[00:40:02] It doesn't bring transformation.
[00:40:04] And we see so many kids wandering away and going Here and going there. Now I see people in the church, too.
[00:40:10] You know, they come to church, maybe they're going for a while, but then pretty soon they start drifting.
[00:40:16] We start drifting and allowing the world to just pull us into its orbit. It's like gravity just sucks us away.
[00:40:24] But this morning, God is saying, I want you to hear, I have something better for you.
[00:40:31] I have something better. If you choose what this world has to offer, you will be so disappointed in the end.
[00:40:37] You will come to the end of your life filled with regret.
[00:40:41] It will just break your heart. You'll just say, wow, did I ever squander my life?
[00:40:45] So I'm going to ask every head to be bowed today.
[00:40:48] And boy, I think the spirit of God has been moving and speaking today. And maybe you're here today and you're saying, oh, my goodness, I need to hit the reset button.
[00:40:56] And that's you this morning.
[00:40:59] You have every opportunity. God's made the provision for you.
[00:41:03] You know, you're running from God.
[00:41:06] You're battling shame, you're battling guilt, you're battling all these demons, you're battling all this brokenness and disobedience to God's ways. You basically, Adam and Eve, they were in rebellion against God. That's the human problem in our society today.
[00:41:21] The real issue is rebellion against God.
[00:41:25] God says, I've made a provision for you to be reconciled to me, and all you need to do is to come to Christ.
[00:41:31] And he can change even your appetites, he can even change your desires. He can give you a heart after God. He can give you a passion for God. He can give you a hatred towards what was once the things that you once enjoyed doing. But I'll tell you, when you really come to Christ, you'll lose an appetite for those things.
[00:41:50] They'll just begin to. You'll want to run from them.
[00:41:55] And that's you today, just with an uplifted hand.
[00:42:00] I'm going to ask you to do something even braver than that.
[00:42:03] I'm going to have you to come forward. I'll tell you why I'm doing this.
[00:42:06] I think there's something powerful about us saying, I want God. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks.
[00:42:14] This is an act of faith on my part. I'm just going to come to him. I'm going to ask you to step out of your pew right now. Just come. Just come this morning and just say, I want God.
[00:42:25] I want what God has to offer for me.
[00:42:28] And God's speaking to you right now. You just need to respond. This is an opportunity. You're going to stand one day before God, in eternity.
[00:42:35] This will be a moment you'll remember, an opportunity. Don't let it slip away.
[00:42:41] Embrace it, Grab it, run with it.
[00:42:47] Maybe you're here today and you're a believer and you're saying, pastor, my life has been such a mess.
[00:42:53] If you only knew how bad it was, you know?
[00:42:57] But I want to be. I want to get things right with God this morning.
[00:43:01] This is your opportunity. I'm going to ask you to come.
[00:43:04] Don't worry about what people think. This is you and God today.
[00:43:08] Just come.
[00:43:09] Come this morning.
[00:43:11] Just come down, Come to the front. We're going to pray with you.
[00:43:14] We're going to let God do his work in your soul today.
[00:43:17] Amen.
[00:43:19] Amen. God bless you.
[00:43:21] Someone else today?
[00:43:23] Yeah. Why don't you pray with him there? That's great. Yeah, Come, guys.
[00:43:28] Beautiful. Just come, just come. Just right where you're at. Don't worry about what people think. Forget what people think. It's not important.
[00:43:36] It's what God thinks that matters.
[00:43:40] It's good.
[00:43:42] Amen. Can I have some altar workers if you can come down here right now? Quickly. Yep.
[00:43:48] Great. Got people coming forward. It's awesome. Beautiful.
[00:43:53] Terrific.
[00:43:54] Come on, guys. I need your help. Need my altar workers to come, please come and pray with these guys. I'm going to close in prayer right now. So, Father, we thank you this morning. This is an amazing moment in people's lives. This is a restart moment.
[00:44:11] New beginnings.
[00:44:13] And Lord, I just pray today for the rest of us, as we're listening to this message, help us to understand we have an opportunity and responsibility.
[00:44:22] We have a message to bring to a broken world. Help us to be faithful and courageous, not compromising that message. Father, help us this morning to do what is right and pleasing in your sight. In Jesus name we pray.
[00:44:37] Amen. Can I have some more altar workers to come down here? Would you do that?
[00:44:44] Disciple makers, elders, deacons, just come. Come and pray. God bless you as you leave this morning.
