Gospel Transformation

Well, good good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How's everybody doing this morning? All right, that's awesome. Here, you know, Cornville has creeks, but you know what else they have? Cooler temperatures as well. So, we're a little jealous, right? I was going around with Pastor Chad this week and I kept complaining about how hot it was, how miserable I was. You know what he said to me? You need to toughen up a little bit, okay? So, I took his advice. No, I'm still weak. It won't make a difference. Um, well, like Pastor GJ said, my name is Lyall. I do serve as a cross church elder. I've had the the privilege of that. Uh, my family and I were from the Elmarrage campus. My wife actually runs the children's ministry over there, so she couldn't be here with me today. And I was only able to get one of my kids to come with, you know, I even bribe them with all the water slides. Like, whose kids don't like water slides? My kids. They're they're just weird. But at least I have one kid who loves me who came with me this morning. So, you know, I have that. But I guess they're all What do you think? They're more mama's boys, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Don't Well, she'll know now that I said that. I forgot this one's online, right? Yeah. Well, before we begin, Crossers Phoenix, I just want to say thank you. You know, you were our first campus expansion and because of you guys, all your hard work and everything that you are doing, Elmarrage wouldn't be what it is today. So, you know, we're there standing on your shoulders. So, thank you for all your support. Thank you for all your giving and thank you for everything that you are doing here as well. But I have to admit, every time I come here, I'm really jealous of this campus. It is so beautiful. There's so much space, so much room. Like, I wouldn't even show my wife how many classrooms there are for the kids here because she would be like, "Why don't we have that?" You know? Well, let's go ahead and get started. Go ahead and open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 as we continue our series rooted in holiness. And you know when we think about what it means to be holy, to be holy means to be separated, to be set apart from the world, to be set apart for the things of God or the purposes of God. And that's what we are. If we are in Christ, we have been set apart for the things of God. And you know what got us there was the message of the gospel. It's a message of the gospel that has transformed each and every one of us. And as Christians, at some point in our life, we heard the good news about Jesus's sinless life, his substitutionary death, and his resurrection. And you know what God did? He opened our eyes. We got to see who we really are, our true state, and we realized that we needed a savior. And now, some of us in here, we have amazing testimonies. You know, we were at rock bottom. Now we're on the mountaintop. Some of us like me, I was just a kid in Sunday school in 1995 and I gave my life to Christ. So, I don't have the coolest testimony, but either way, you know, however we came to know Christ, we have all experienced gospel transformation. And that's the beautiful thing about the gospel. We've been changed by Jesus. We've experienced real actual life change before we lived for ourselves. Before we we sought our own desires, but now we make it our aim to please God. Just like we saw at the end of our passage last week, verse 14 said, "Since he died for us, we no longer want to live for ourselves, but for the one who died for us." And this is a transformation that has happened in each and every one of us because of the power of the gospel message. So, as we dive into our text today, let's look at how the message of the gospel has transformed every one of us. Go ahead and let's begin reading uh in 2 Corinthians 5 starting in verse 16. It says, "From now on then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and see the new has come. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against him. And he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf. be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God and working together with him we also appeal to you. Don't receive the grace of God in vain. For he says at an acceptable time I listen to you. In the day of salvation I helped you. See now is the acceptable time and now is the day of salvation. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for gathering us here this morning. Lord, we thank you for the salvation that you have given each and every one of us through Christ. And Lord, I pray that this morning that we will see the ways in which you have transformed us through the gospel. And Lord, I pray that we would grow in our knowledge of you. That we would understand all the things that you have done for us in and through Christ. So that Lord, we may praise your name and that you may be glorified through us. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, let's look at the first way that we have been transformed by the gospel. Because of the gospel, we now have a different perspective. Because of the gospel, we now have a different perspective. Look again at verse 16 with me. From now on, then we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. You know, as we get older, our perspectives about things tend to change. Right? When we were kids, you know, when I was growing up in my parents' house, I was so frustrated and so angry about all their rules and how strict they were. And so I said really dumb teenage things like, "You know, when I have kids, I'm going to let my kids stay up all night. I'm going to let them play video games all the time. I'm going to let them eat whatever they feel like." And then you know what happened? I had kids. I have three boys. I have a 12-year-old who loves Minecraft. And you know what he wants to do? Play it all night. But now I get it. I'm a parent and I understand. Like, you know what? There's a reason why they did this. Maybe my parents were right. I don't want to admit that, but maybe my parents were right. You know, I'm actually surprised I didn't get spanked more often now that I think about it. So, you know, and if you're a parent, you can really relate to this. You'll have that moment where like you're talking to your kids, you're yelling at them, and all of a sudden you'll say something and you'll realize, "I'm just like my dad. I'm just like my mom." Or how about your first job when you got your first paycheck? You know, you worked for two, three weeks. You added up, you know, how many hours you worked, how much you make, and you're like, "I'm going to be loaded this week." And then you get your check, you take a look at it, you're like, "What? Where did all the money go? Start looking at through it down. What's net? What's gross? What is all this? What what's taxes? And now we look at taxes with a different perspective, don't we? Well, because of the gospel, the same thing has happened to each and every one of us. Things start to look a little different. Our perspectives about others and how we look at them and our perspectives about Christ, it begins to change. You know this passage starts off Paul says from now on which means before you knew Jesus you used to think a c certain way used to think like the world but now now that you're a believer now that you know Christ you look at things from a different perspective from now on you've been transformed by the gospel as verse 16 said it said from now on then we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective we no longer look at people according to to the world's standards. We start to look at people from a spiritual perspective. Now we see people as God sees them. We see that all humanity, they have worth. They have value. They're all made in the image of God. Now we feel called to love and to serve others. We start to care about others. You know, before we didn't, now we do. And we don't just care about their physical needs. We start caring about their spiritual needs. We see that people are broken. They're they're hurting. They're bearing the weight of all their sin. And we start asking ourselves, man, is this person saved? Do they know Jesus? And are they going to spend eternity if God or are they going to spend eternity in hell? We look at our friends differently. We look at our family differently, our co-workers differently. We start to look at them from an eternal perspective. And our perspective even just changes how we look at the world in general. All society, you know, we start to look at the world through God's perspective. We see through the lens of sin. We see through God's righteousness and God's justice. We see clearly the effects of sin on all humanity. It's like we put on a pair of glasses, you know, we put them on and all of a sudden, you know, we look around like, whoa, things look totally different now to me. We realize that all the crime, all the hate, all the violence, all the greed, all the immorality, all the evil, everything that we see on the news, in the media is a result of people who are lost. They are blind. They haven't seen the light of the gospel. They're in the dark. They don't have the hope that we have. They don't have the same spirit that we have. They haven't found the grace and the mercy of God that we have found. And we know that that is the root of the problem. They need Jesus. They need to hear the gospel. And instead of standing in judgment of them, now our heart breaks for them because we recognize that at one time you and I, we were just like them. We were just like the rest of the world. Titus 3 3:44 says, "For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another. But when the kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy." Now that we've been transformed by the gospel, we see that others need God's mercy. And because God has had mercy on us, we also can no longer look at Christ from a worldly perspective. Like Paul said, even if we did at one point in our life look at Christ from a worldly perspective, we no longer do. We can't. You know, he's no longer just a historical figure who may have existed or may not have existed. He's no longer, you know, just a good moral teacher who just gives us sound life advice or ways that we should model and live after him. And it's no longer funny when shows like movies or shows and movies like Family Guy or South Park make Jesus the target of their jokes. His name is no longer used in place of a curse word. And those jokes and those curse words, they just used to not bother us. They used to just fly over our head. In fact, we used to go along with them and we used to laugh at them. But not anymore. Not anymore. Because we no longer look at Christ from a worldly perspective. Jesus is our Lord. Jesus is our King. He's our Savior. He's our creator. He went to the cross and he bled and he died for my sins. He took away my shame, my guilt. He's offered me forgiveness, mercy, and grace. So, how could I look at him the way that I used to? How could I look at Christ from a worldly perspective? Because of the gospel, we can no longer look at Christ from a worldly perspective. We can no longer look at him at the way that we used to. We have been transformed. We have a different perspective. And we have a different perspective about others and about the Lord. And not only do we have a different perspective now, but here's the second way that we have been transformed by the gospel. Because of the gospel, we are a new creation. Because of the gospel, we are a new creation. Look at verse 17 with me. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and see the new has come. Because of the gospel, we all of us are a new creation. We no longer are who we used to be. We're born again. Which means we have been born of God. In John 1:12-13, it says that all who receive Christ and believe in his name are born not of a natural descent or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but they are born of God. And this is called regeneration. And regeneration is just like a fancy theological term to say that you've been now born of the spirit. You've been reborn. You've been born again. In John 3:6, Jesus says, "Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the spirit is spirit." So the best way for you to understand the concept of regeneration is to think about your natural birth. Think about when you came in the world, you did nothing to birth yourself, right? You did nothing to create yourself. It wasn't based on your will. It wasn't based on anything that you've done. You were just born. And in the same way, when we become a new creation in Christ, we don't will ourselves to be saved. We can't do anything to save ourselves. We do nothing to be born again. God does it all. And it's a gift given by grace. And now we are born of the spirit. But why did we have to be born of the spirit? Because we were spiritually dead before Christ. Ephesians 2 says, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously lived according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also." But here's the hope. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace. And guess what? God did it. And before Christ, we were spiritually dead to the things of God. Amen. But God made us alive with Christ. Now we are spiritually alive. Now we understand the things of God. It makes sense to us because now we've been born of the spirit and we have the Holy Spirit within us. Our bodies are actually the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit now leads us. It guides us to the truth about who Jesus is. He convicts us of our sin. He produces good works within us. Now we produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. He empowers us to walk in a manner worthy of God's calling and to live a life that honors and pleases our Lord. And there is so so much hope in being born again. Think about what we hear from people all the time. I was born this way. This is just just who I am. I can't be changed. But guess what? Christ can change you through faith in him. You can be born again. And here's the amazing thing. You don't stay who you were. You're transformed. You become a new creation. The old has passed away. And behold, the new has come. And think, think about what that means. That means our old self, our old identity. Who we were is gone. It's passed away. Our identity is now found in Jesus Christ. And we are no longer defined by our past. We are no longer defined by our sins that caused us so much shame, so much guilt, so much embarrassment. And the old person who we were, our values, our beliefs, our priorities, our plans, they are all gone. They are dead. They have passed away. And we are now a new creation in Christ. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to sin. That doesn't mean that we're not going to struggle with sin. You know, there's going to be a sinful battle within us because we still have the flesh and we still have the spirit. And the two are at war with each other, but we're no longer controlled or defined by our sinful nature because we now have a new nature in Christ. Ephesians 4:22 says that we were taught by Christ to take off our former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires to be renewed in the spirit of our minds and to put on our new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and the purity of the truth. You know, our old self is like an old coat that we put that we're wearing. It's torn. It's dirty. It's stained. It's ugly. It looks like half the clothes that I own and wear just to embarrass my wife. She says, you know, why don't you buy some new socks? We can afford new socks. I'm like, because no one can see the holes. But our new self, the one created according to God's likeness, it's a brand new coat that we put on. It's clean. It's not stained. It doesn't have holes in it. You know what? It looks really good on us. Man, we need to bring you to Elmarrage. And look, now we understand the things of God. We want to live a life that is rooted in holiness. We want to live according to God's righteousness, his standards, his ways. Now we aim to please God because he's given us a new coat. He's made us a new creation. And you know the greatest thing about being in a creation, it didn't depend on anything that you did, right? It's dependent upon Christ. And since it's dependent upon Christ, we can have such great assurance. So as a new creation, we can have assurance in our salvation. The gift of eternal life. We can have assurance in the forgiveness of our sins that our sins are forgiven as far as the east is from the west. We are justified. And we can have assurance in that. That we can stand before God as if we had never sinned because of Christ. We can have assurance in our sanctification that God will complete the work that he's began within us. We can have assurance that we are adopted as children of God. That we are sons and daughters of God. That we can call him father and that we can cry out to him and that he loves us. We are truly blessed with every spiritual blessing that is in the heavens because Jesus accomplished it for us. He transformed us. He made us a new creation and all of this is from God. All of it. But we're not just a new creation only because we also have received reconciliation from God. So let's look at the third way that we've been transformed by the gospel. Because of the gospel, we have been reconciled. Because of the gospel, we have been reconciled. Look down at verse 18 with me. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is in Christ God is reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. Once again, like DJ said earlier, everything is from God. And we should praise him for that. Amen. And you know what? We weren't looking to be reconciled to God. It was God who reconciled himself or us to himself through Christ. You know, and if you're married, you understand the concept of reconciliation very well. At least I do. I think I practice reconciliation at least once a day. uh if not multiple times a day, you know, because I usually do something kind of dumb and then my wife gets mad. She deserves to get mad and I usually deserve it. And she's not here today, though. She's not here today, so I should use her as an illustration, right? Not myself. You like when I preach in Elmarrage, I'm always like, "I'm the bad guy. It's me." But that's cuz she's in the audience. Yeah. My wife messed up. She didn't wash my truck before I got home from work. Now there's a divide between us, right? And we need reconciliation. She needs to come to me and say, "Honey, I am sorry I didn't wash and vacuum and detail your truck today." We know that wouldn't happen, though. It's me. I'm the one who, you know, makes us get into arguments that causes the divide in our marriage. I'm the one that has to go and repair the marriage. I'm the one that has to go and apologize. That's the reality. That's the truth because I'm the guy. So, I go to her, I say, "Babe, you know, you're looking pretty good today." And I say to her, you know, I I'm sorry. I I'm sorry. I was wrong. Will you please forgive me? And did I mention that you look really beautiful today, by the way? And that works. That works pretty well. That's a tip for all you guys in here. Try that first. But you know what happens when I go and I apologize? Our relationship is now restored. We have reconciliation. But here's the difference between my relationship with my wife and my relationship with God. My wife and I both do things that cause conflict in our marriage. But God has never done anything to wrong me. The broken relationship that exists between God and I is all my fault because God is good. He is perfect. He is holy. He is righteous. He is just. There is no darkness in him. And he is not capable of sinning. But you and me, that's a whole different story. Our sin and our rebellion has caused a division that exists now between us and God. And because we willfully sinned against him, it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't an accident. We transgressed his law on purpose and we did it over and over and over again. We were considered enemies of God and we deserved his just wrath. We deserve death because it says that the wages of sin is death. And here's the problem that we have because of our sinful nature, our inability to live up to the righteousness that God requires. There is nothing that we can do to reconcile our relationship to God. Only God is good enough to to do it. But here's the thing. He can't just like forget my sin. He can't just look past it like it never happened because God is righteous and God is a just judge. God wouldn't be good if he didn't punish sin. He wouldn't be good if we didn't receive justice. You know, and we'd feel the same way. You know, if we were wronged and the the offender went to trial and the judges said, "You know what? Uh, never mind. I'm not going to punish you. You're not going to go to jail." How would we feel about that? We'd be upset. It wouldn't be good if I wasn't brought to justice. So, if we are reconciled, if God has reconciled us, how did he do it? Look at verse 21 with me. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. He made Jesus the one who never sinned. The one who was perfect, who was holy. He made him a sin offering for each and every one of you so that through Jesus we might be reconciled to God. And this is called imputed righteousness. That's another uh fancy theological term, right, Pastor DJ? But it's simple. It means that God punished Jesus for all of our sins and he took all the goodness and the righteousness and the perfect holiness of Jesus when we put our faith and trust in him. And then he credited it to us. He gives it to us. He counts us as if we were Jesus. And he counted Jesus as if he was us. Think of it like a spiritual bank account. And in this analogy, don't think of your own bank account. You might get a little sad. It might be too true, too close to home, right? Because we're broke. We've racked up a lot of debt. We've sinned and we've sinned and now our account is full of overdraft charges that we will never ever ever be able to pay back because the interest just keeps compounding and compounding. But then God takes all of our debt. He takes everything that we owe and he makes Jesus pay for it. And not only that, he takes the money that's in Jesus's account and God says, "You know what? I'm going to I'm going to consider this account your account, too. This is now your account. I'm going to credit it to you." So, think about what that means for us today that are in Christ. your worst sin, your worst moment, the thing that you are most ashamed of, the thing that you feel the most guilt over. God took that and he placed it on Jesus's shoulders. And Jesus paid the debt. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us. And he took all the goodness, all the righteousness of Christ, his perfect holiness, and he gave it to you so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Colossians 1:21 says, "Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds, in your evil actions, but now he, God, has reconciled you by his body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him." Now you can stand before God as holy, separated from sin, faultless, blameless. Romans 5:10-11 says, "For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received this reconciliation." So this morning, let's rejoice. Let's rejoice that God has reconciled us through the gospel. And you know what? God reconciled each and every one of us for a purpose and that purpose is so that we would share the message of reconciliation with others. He did this so that we would be ambassadors. So let's look at the fourth and the final way that we have been transformed by the gospel. Because of the gospel, we are now ambassadors. Let's look at the second half of verse 19 with me. Says, "And he," that would be God, "has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." Because of the gospel, we are now ambassadors for Christ. And that means all of us. We are all messengers who represent Jesus with his death, I'm sorry, his life, his death and resurrection. And now that we have a different perspective, now that we are new creation, now that we have been reconciled, our lives are the evidence of the gospel's transformation power. We are the proof. We are the testimony that the gospel is real and that Jesus saves and that Jesus transforms lives. And because of that, God has committed that message of the gospel to us. Every one of us. That means every one of us who are in Christ, we have a duty to go and share the gospel with others because he's entrusted us with it. He's given us the message of reconciliation. And we know we've all been commissioned. Matthew 28:19, Jesus said to us, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." And that's why here at Cross Church, our mission statement is that we exist to make Jesus known. We believe in the importance of sharing the gospel with the lost world. And that's why everything that we do, everything we do is centered around making Jesus known. Because we have a lost and dying world around us, guys. We have a world that desperately needs to hear the message of reconciliation to God. And we all know people that are far from Christ. We know loved ones, family members, co-workers, and friends who are spiritually dead. We know people that need to be born again. And we know, we have this hope that God can save them because in 2 Peter 3:9, it says, "It's not God's will that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." And we should desire what God desires, that no one would perish. We should desire to see others experience the same transformation that all of us have found in the saving work of Jesus Christ. But we can't just have a desire. It can't just be a desire only. We have to take this desire and we have to put it into action because God is making his appeal through us. We need to plead on Christ's behalf to our loved ones, to those who are lost, be reconciled to God. And look, sharing the gospel is not easy. It's not It's hard. It can be kind of embarrassing sometimes, right? But we're not sharing the gospel alone because like our passage said, God is making his appeal through us. We are working with God together with him. We are his ambassadors. So let's take comfort in knowing that we are not alone when we share the gospel. God is with us. And because we represent him, we're his ambassadors. And as ambassadors, let's have an urgency to go and to share the gospel with others. Look how Paul shares the gospel in chapter six. Chapter 6, starting verse uh in verse one, it says, "Working together with him, we also appeal to you. Don't receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, at an acceptable time I listen to you, and in the day of salvation, I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation, man. Let's have that same attitude as Paul. Look at the urgency in his request. He says, "Don't receive the grace of God in vain." We should say that to others. Don't brush this off. Don't just ignore this. This is important. You need to be reconciled to God. Turn to him. He will listen to you. God will answer you. Do it today. You need to do it today because you do not know if you have tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation. So, I want to challenge us. I want to challenge myself. And I I don't want to just walk out of here today and just go about our lives knowing that everything that God has done for us through the gospel, how he's transformed us, how he's changed us, and just keep that to ourselves. We can't just keep it all in. As Romans 10:14 through 15 says, "How can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe in him without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news? And that's us. Because we are ambassadors for Christ. So let's make it our goal. Let's make it our goal to live out this key thought. And this key thought is really simple. It's very basic. Because we have been transformed, we should share the gospel with others. Because we have been transformed, we should share the gospel with others. And as the worship team comes up and we prepare to sing our last song together, man, if you are here today or if you are in this room and you do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it is not an accident that you are sitting in here today. It's not a mistake. And we want to make an appeal to you. God is calling you. And listen, he doesn't call those that have it all together. He doesn't call those that think they they have everything figured out. He calls those who are broken over their sin, who are hurting, who are afflicted, those who have guilt and shame. And like God said, "At an acceptable time, I listen to you. And in the day of salvation, I helped you. God will hear you. God will save you. And he's calling you today to be reconciled to him through faith in Christ. Remember, he made the one who did not know sin to be sin for you that you might be the righteousness of God. Jesus went to the cross. He paid your debt so that you can have forgiveness. And today is the day of salvation. Do not put this off. You don't know if you have tomorrow. Call out to him today. Be reconciled to God. And if you don't know what to say, where you're at, where you're sitting, you could just simply pray something like this. Lord, I have sinned against you. Please forgive me of my sin. I believe that you paid for my sins and I put my faith in you as my Lord and my Savior. And if you do that today, you will be a new creation. If you do that today, you will be reconciled to God. You will have a new life. And if you do that today, you're going to want to let someone know about it. So, we invite you to go over to the I said yes corner over there. Pastor Chad will be over there and he would love to talk with you and to walk you through the next steps in your new faith in Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your salvation, your mercy, your grace. Lord, we thank you for your reconciliation. We thank you for making us a new creation. And Lord, I pray that if there's someone in that room who does not yet know you as Lord and Savior, Lord, that they would become a new creation this day, that they would be reconciled to you. And Lord, I pray for us that we'd have the same desire that you have. That we not want to see anyone perish, but all come to eternal life. So Lord, let us please have an urgency for the lost in our city, in the city of Phoenix. And Lord, I pray this week that we would be challenged to make you known. Lord, please give us a boldness to share the gospel, knowing that we are not alone and that you are with us and you are working through us. So be with us as we go about our week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Will you stand with me as we continue in worship?