Good morning. Please do turn with me to Paul's second letter to the Corinthians in chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. What a joy it is to be with you this morning on this first Sunday of 2025. Happy New Year. Let's read together From this fifth chapter, I will begin reading at verse 14. For the love of Christ controls us, because we've concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 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. 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. So reads the word of God, let's pray. Our God and our Father, our cry to you this morning is a simple one. You have spoken. You continue to speak. And so now, open our ears, we pray. For Jesus' sake, Amen. Please do be seated. Well, the dawn of every new year gives us an opportunity, doesn't it? A special opportunity to reset our thinking, to refocus, to re-prioritize, to restart. Probably all the re-words. And that's what I want us to do for these first three Sundays in 2025. We're going to look together at new creation, new resolve, and new relationships. But for this morning, I just want us to zoom out as it were and take in the big picture. Remember the great story of the Bible in one word is redemption, isn't it? Redemption. Throughout scripture we find over and over these glorious themes of reconciliation, of restoration, even of recreation. from the first gospel promise in the garden to the last unspeakably glorious picture of heaven in Revelation, we just see this story of redemption over and over. And in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, Paul picks up this language and those well-known words that we find there in verse 17. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And this is God's work, Paul says in verse 18, that he accomplishes in Christ. But part of that work is given to His new creatures to proclaim this stunning, unimaginably good message of reconciliation. So what I hope we'll see together this morning is what God has done for us and what He's doing in us is not just glorious on a personal and individual level, which it is, What I want us to see though is that this is a work that is far bigger, far greater, far more majestic than we could ever possibly imagine. Remember our God is the one who said, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. And our savior is the one who said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So let's begin this morning with exposition and first a little bit of context for you. Paul, the author of this letter, was a man steeped in the Old Testament. He trained as a young man under the famous rabbi Gamaliel, memorizing large chunks of scripture, studying the law and the prophets and the Psalms. I have a feeling, I suspect, I don't know this for sure because Paul doesn't say so, but I suspect that Isaiah was one of, if not Paul's most favorite books from the Old Testament. Seems to show up all the way through his writing. But Paul wasn't always a man controlled by the love of Christ as he says here. We just read, didn't we, of the pivotal moment in Paul's life from Acts chapter nine. You remember, he's on his way to Damascus to continue this murderous campaign of persecution against the early church. But there on the Damascus road, he's miraculously and wonderfully converted to Christ. Not many days later, he's commissioned as an apostle. And he began a lifetime of preaching and teaching, making perilous journeys, establishing the church in multiple Gentile cities before being imprisoned and put to death in Rome. So this second letter to the church at Corinth was written from Macedonia around AD 55. And chapter 5 here comes towards the end of the first section of this letter where Paul is seeking to strengthen the majority of faithful Christians in Corinth. And the first word of our passage is, therefore. Therefore. Tying what Paul is saying here to what has just come before. And Paul had experienced, hadn't he, the radical, life-transforming power of the love of Christ. He'd been literally blinded by the glory of Christ. And so he reasons if this power can work a change in someone like him, then surely it must transform all of those who are now in Christ. Just look back to verse 14. Paul can now say, can't he, the love of Christ controls us. Perhaps a better translation would be constrains us. The love of Christ hems us in, directs our actions and our affections. Charles Hodge writes here wonderfully, a Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the son of the living God, as God manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption and who is so affected by the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to make the will of Christ, the rule of his obedience and the glory of Christ, the great end. for which he lives. So no wonder, no wonder Paul writes, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. This is the great reality of regeneration. I just noticed how Paul leaves absolutely no room for ambiguity here. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Anyone means anyone. There are no Christians who are not new creations. He didn't say they might be new creations, they try really hard. No, no, it's a point of settled fact. Christian, you are a new creation, you are. And then he just drives it home, doesn't he, with the next sentence here. The old man, the person you were before Christ constrained you with his matchless love, the old has passed away, it's dead. Why can he say that? Well, look back to verse 14. One has died for all, therefore all have died. In Christ, the old man died with him. in His death. All that we deserve because of our fallen nature, because of our actual sin, was punished and put to death. And so for the Christian, that man no longer has ultimate power. Sin no longer enslaves you. Beloved, once we were constrained by our sinful nature. But now, now we are constrained by the love of Christ. But there's even more. There's even more. You see, Paul uses this wonderful Bible word, behold. Ado is the Greek word. It's not a mere suggestion. It's an imperative. It has this wonderful sense of surprise, astonishment. What Paul is saying is something that demands our attention, something that will cause us to stop and stare. Boys and girls, I wonder if you've ever seen anything that does that to you, where you're looking at something and you just have to stop and take it in. Perhaps you've been by a lake or even by the sea and you've been up early enough in the morning to see the sun rise over the water. One moment it's dark and gloomy and there are just shadows and you can't really see anything. And then the sun rises and this scene explodes into life in front of you. The wonderful colors, the light shimmering on the water and you're just captivated. You can't help but stare at it. Well, this is the kind of wonder that Paul is trying to convey to us here, except he's captivated by something far more extraordinary than just an everyday sunrise. Not only are you and I and every believer new creatures, Paul says, the new has come. And this is where Paul has something far, far bigger in mind than just you and me. Look at verses 18 and 19. Paul affirms that all of this, all of this is God's work. We don't get to take credit for this. God deserves all the praise, all the glory. But in Christ, we're reconciled to God. The enmity that was once between us is removed. Christ bore in his body the punishment we deserve. His death paid the debt that we owe. And by his resurrection, his righteousness is imputed, given to us as if it were our own. And so now there is no barrier at all. between us and God. Our sin is not held against us. And God views us now through this lens of Christ's perfect righteousness. He deals with us in Christ. But in verse 19, he goes even further. Paul says something incredible. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. What in the world does Paul mean here? Is he saying that in Christ, both the repentant and the unrepentant, the believing and the unbelieving, all of those will be reconciled to God? Of course he's not saying that. Of course he's not saying that. Acts 21, Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders. He's summarizing his ministry. He says, you yourselves know how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of what? Of repentance toward God and of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that Jesus had come to seek and to save sinners, to call them to repentance. And he made clear that those lives who are characterized by sin will not inherit the kingdom of God. He boldly proclaimed, didn't he? By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. So then what does he mean? What does he mean? Well, to help us to see this, we need to remember, don't we, that Paul was an exceptional scholar of the Old Testament. We need to remember that the whole Bible is not just a disjointed collection of competing plans and narratives. No, it's a unified whole. It's telling the same story, inspired from beginning to end by the same Holy Spirit, telling this same story of redemption. Just turn with me to Isaiah chapter 65. Isaiah 65 and we'll begin reading at verse 17. This is God speaking and he says, for behold, that same word again, I create new heavens and a new earth that the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall it be heard in it, the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days. For the young man shall die a hundred years old. And the sinner, a hundred years old, shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be. And my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. I wonder if you can hear echoes of that prophecy in what Paul is writing here. See, Isaiah records God's promise to make all things new. New heavens, new earth, the old, the former things will pass away. They won't even be remembered. They won't come into our minds. This is re-creation. The world is being transformed, changed, renewed. And what does Paul do? He takes these incredible words from Isaiah's prophecy and interprets them in Christ. The reconciling that God is doing, the re-creation that God is doing is in Christ. As we're reconciled to God, we're transferred to a new kingdom, into this new creation that Isaiah is speaking of here. We're reconciled in Christ, who is the one who stands as the head of this new creation. Paul is saying that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one in whom the new creation begins. His birth, His life, His death, His resurrection, particularly His ascension, mark the beginning, the inauguration of this recreated kingdom. And so to be reconciled to God in Christ is to begin to live in the age to come that Isaiah describes. Not only are you a new creation individually, You've been included in God's unimaginably glorious, incomprehensibly huge work of reconciliation and recreation. So this is our doctrine this morning. The Christian is an entirely new creature employed in God's glorious work of recreation, reconciling the world to himself through Christ. Now you might think that sounds a bit far-fetched. Is that really what Paul is saying? Is God really working this way? Well the short answer is yes. Yes he is. But let me give you two proofs that work together to show this. First, think all the way back to Abraham. Think of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Remember, ever since Genesis 3, mankind has been driven further and further away from the garden of God's blessing. This is the horror of the curse. They were driven further into exile, further away from God. And this all comes to a head, doesn't it, in Genesis 11, with the tower of Babel. This was the ultimate human folly, the human attempt to reverse God's curse. And the people say to each other, come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But then in chapter 12 of Genesis, God shows how he himself will reverse the curse. How he's going to reconcile God and man. And just listen to what he promises. He says to Abraham, I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. You catch that? All the families of the earth shall be blessed. God is calling Abraham. His promise to him is to make of him a great nation, to make him a blessing. And that becomes the pattern for how God works all the way through history, to reconcile the whole world to himself. Later, God promises Abraham that his descendants are gonna be more numerous even than the stars in the sky. God says, look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them. And he said to him, so shall your offspring be. You know, in ancient times, when they made a covenant with each other, this covenant was ratified through a strange ceremony. two or more animals would be cut in half and the two parties of the covenant would walk in between those cut in half animals and it was to symbolize what would happen if either of these parties broke the covenant. They were saying really that if you break this covenant you're going to be just as dead as those cut in half animals. But when God ratifies this covenant with Abraham, God shows him a kind of vision, shows himself as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. And God passes through the animals that Abraham had cut in half. God was going to say, God was saying that he would hold up both ends of the covenant. He would fulfill what he promised. Or as Paul puts it in our passage, all this is from God. God would see to it that somehow through Abraham, through his chosen people, he would reconcile all the nations of the world to himself. He would be their God and they would be his people. And so the question is how? How on earth is that going to happen? So second, consider how Paul explains this glorious promise in his letter to the Galatians. Just turn with me to Galatians chapter 3 and look first at verse 16. Galatians 3 verse 16. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. Paul is saying here that Christ is the promised seed, the descendant of Abraham. Christ is the fulfillment of God's promise. But, that doesn't mean that no one else can receive the blessings promised to Abraham. No, it's actually just the opposite. If you look down to verse 29 at the end of the chapter, Paul says this, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. If you are in Christ, you inherit all the blessings of Abraham. Your union with him means that you inherit with him. So loved ones, in Christ, you are not only a new creature, but part of God's work of new creation. You belong to God's family. You are, as Peter puts it, a chosen race. a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people called for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, a new nation that will one day be more numerous than all the stars in the universe. Isaiah again helps us see the wonder of this. He changes the picture slightly as he prophesies this. These latter days that Isaiah is speaking of, they began with the advent of Jesus Christ. The life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension of Jesus Christ. And these days will not come to an end until, as Isaiah puts it again, the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So beloved, I pray this morning that you see the glory and majesty and wonder of what God has done and is continuing to do through Jesus Christ. You know, I really believe that on that great final day, we'll be able to see the complete fulfillment of this. We'll be able to see and take in and comprehend the full scope of God's work in all of history. And then we will join with the angels in praising God because he has reconciled the world to himself. But for now, hold on to this. In Christ, you are an entirely new creation. an entirely new creature employed in God's glorious work of recreation, reconciling the world to himself. So then how do we apply this? How do we take this from here, from the lofty heights of prophecy and vision and drive it home? What does this mean to us on Monday morning? Well, our first duty is to answer an objection that might be rising up in some of your minds. And the objection goes like this. How can I be an entirely new creature? How can I be part of God's new creation if I continue to sin? If I continue to disappoint God? If I continue repeatedly to do the things that bring shame and dishonor to his son, Jesus Christ. I don't feel like a new creature. And far more often than I'd like, I don't act like a new creature. Well, to answer this objection, we need to try and grasp what Paul teaches us about our union with Christ. Throughout his letters, he teaches us that our union with Christ is of such strength and quality that what is true of Christ is true of us. Because Christ died, we died in him. Because Christ was raised, we who were born in Adam but are now in Christ are raised with him. Romans chapter 6 verse 5, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Because Christ is now seated in the heavenlies, God has raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. because our victorious Christ has been given a kingdom, we now live in that kingdom. Paul writes to the Colossians, he's delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. So I hope you can see then how Paul can say here in our passage so definitively that the new has come. All of these things are declared as true of us as redeemed individuals who as members of Christ's new humanity take our place in the new heavens and the new earth that Christ has brought. This is justification. This is what's going on. But here's the rub. As members of that new creation, the Holy Spirit is working in us progressively to reverse the effects of the fall so that we increasingly and individually correspond to what is objectively true of us because of our union with Christ. And this is what we call progressive sanctification. We are simultaneously saved and being saved and will one day finally be saved. Salvation encompasses both justification and sanctification. They are twin benefits that flow from our union with Christ through faith. But we mustn't confuse the two. Just because we know that even on our best days we fall short of the matchless righteousness of Jesus Christ. That fact cannot remove us from Him. It can't break our union with Him. Sanctification, brothers and sisters, takes time. It takes time. Boys and girls, if I gave you a dirty old bucket that was full of holes, and I asked you to fetch me some beautiful, lovely, delicious, clear spring water from a mountain stream, and I sent you off with this bucket, and it's a few miles to this mountain stream, and you fill up the bucket and you come back, what's going to happen by the time you get back? The bucket's empty. It's full of holes. Yeah, exactly. But what if I said to you, just do it again? Same thing, yeah. But what about if I said again? Just go again. What then? It's still empty. But if you spent your entire life going to this mountain stream and coming back to me, what would happen to that dirty old bucket? What happens to all the grime and the muck and the filth? Yeah, the bucket would be clean. The bucket would be clean. Loved ones, the work of progressive sanctification takes a lifetime. It takes a lifetime and it's not going to be complete until we see our Savior face to face. But then, Not only will our bucket be clean, but all the holes will be removed. And then we'll be able to drink in the glorious wonder and majesty of who He is. And we'll have the capacity to take that with us wherever we go. We'll be perfectly free to enjoy Him, to glorify Him forever and ever in the completely finished new heavens and new earth. And this same kind of reasoning holds true of that passage in Isaiah 65. Let me try and state this for you as succinctly as possible. In the resurrection, ascension, session, and vindication of Christ in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, His always coming kingdom has come and is coming progressively and will come fully and completely. And we as Christians dwell in a new heavens and a new earth that have been created by Christ's victory. What is not remembered in Isaiah 65, 17 is who we were in Adam. As well as all the former ceremonial legislation and Jewish law. There is a glorious now and a more glorious not yet here. The not yet of this prophecy is seen in the fact that though the recreation has begun, Isaiah is describing a time that is still in our future. It still hasn't come yet. Remember, Paul tells the Corinthians in his first letter that Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. for God has put all things in subjection under his feet. And so both Isaiah and Paul look forward to a time in this ongoing recreation when all of Christ's enemies will be defeated, but one, the last enemy is death. And so, Now, living in the new heavens and the new earth and experiencing this new environment and having been given a new name, we still look forward to the day when the voice of weeping shall be heard no more. Where an infant shall no longer live just a few days. So what's our charge? Paul says that God has entrusted this message of reconciliation to us. How does the kingdom of God come on earth? How does it grow and spread? Through the gospel. Through the message of reconciliation. Paul calls it the ministry of reconciliation in verse 18. This is the ministry that we as your elders are equipping you for. Paul writes to the Ephesians, doesn't he? And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And so the charge is this. Take up your employment in God's astonishing work of recreation. Take the message of reconciliation with you wherever you go. Proclaim it with your words. Back it up with your lives. What are the means that we have at our disposal for such a great task? God has given us His word. So we don't need to search for the latest, greatest evangelistic technique. We don't need an enormous multi-million dollar budget. We communicate what we have received. The word of the apostles and the prophets. That's what we have. That is the means. So brothers and sisters, the question is, do we know our Bibles? Do we know our Bibles? Can we open the Bible with the people that we meet and boldly and simply declare the gospel of Jesus Christ? Can we explain that the Son of Man, God incarnate, came to seek and to save the lost? Can we demonstrate to the people that we meet their desperate need of a Savior? Because loved ones in a very, very real sense, we are ambassadors for Christ. We don't proclaim our own message, we proclaim His. So what is the manner in which we take on this mission? Remember this, that God has justified you. He has sanctified you, set you apart. He's put his name on you and he is progressively sanctifying you. You are being saved. And as this salvation becomes progressively true of you and in you, you must increasingly become what you have been freely declared to be in Christ. So you just do take this salvation with you into every area of life that you've been called to by your saviour. You bring the aroma of salvation as Paul puts it elsewhere. You bring the aroma of salvation with you wherever you go, whatever you do. This is what it means to be salt and light. You remember those words of our saviour Jesus? deeply sobering, but incredibly encouraging words. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. but on a stand, and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." So what's the motive then? What's the motive for this charge? Our friends, this is the most glorious, the most thrilling motive of all. God is doing something unimaginably awesome with his people. He's reconciling the world to himself. And he has chosen for his own pleasure, because it pleases him to use people like you and me. He's entrusted the message of reconciliation to every single one of his people. We're involved in something that is far, far bigger than ourselves. We're being used to build Christ's kingdom, to be the means he uses to see that one day his will is done on earth, just as it is in heaven. We have a message from the King. And it's good news. It's good news. It's the greatest news anyone could ever hear. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Beloved, the curse has been reversed in Christ. And so go, go, go into this new year. Go into the world and make disciples of all nations. Teach them the word of God. Teach them all the commands of Christ and go without fear. For Christ is with you always. Amen. Let's pray. Oh God, our hearts are full of wonder that you would include people like us in your kingdom and in your work. And so we pray for the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ that you would indeed equip us for this ministry. That we would be people who take the aroma of our salvation, the aroma of Jesus Christ with us wherever we go. And may you give to us the great joy of seeing men and women and boys and girls turning to you in repentance and faith. May we see your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. For we pray in Christ's name. Amen.