How Has Christ Changed Your Life?

The Question of Salvation and the Need for Self-Examination

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians 5 and find your place at verse 16. The title of today's message is How Has Christ Changed Your Life? We have been now in a study of 2 Corinthians for several months.

We have seen that this is the most personal of Paul's letters, perhaps only superseded by Philemon. And we have seen through this that Paul is writing to defend his ministry against those who would call into question his integrity and the truthfulness of what he has had to say.

And much of what he does in this letter is to defend what he is doing and why he is doing.

It.

And so we come today to a portion in the message where he describes what his ministry is, that he calls it a ministry of reconciliation. And so as we consider Paul's definition of his own ministry, I want us also to see what we learn in this text about how that ministry has, or may I say, should have affected us.

How has the ministry of Paul, the ministry of the gospel, how has Christ changed us? So with that in mind, let's stand together. We'll read beginning at verse 16, and we'll read down to the end of the chapter.

I'm reading from the English Standard Version, and it says, 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. Father in heaven, as we now begin to open your word today and go to an exposition of it, I pray, as I always do, Lord, and not simply for vanity of repetition, but Lord, because every time I preach, it is a fearful thing.

And so I pray, God, keep me from error. And I pray, Lord, that you would, by your Holy Spirit, teach today. For, Lord, if I stand and talk for 30, 45 minutes and your spirit is not in it, Lord, then there will be no good that comes out of it.

But, Lord, if I speak and your Holy Spirit is in it and he carries those words into the ear and through the ear to the mind and through the mind and to the heart, Lord, men and women can be changed. So I pray that you would use this service.

Use this time to change lives, Lord, for believers, that they would recognize what Christ has done, that they would recognize the things that Christ has done in their lives already and is still doing.

And, Lord, I pray for those who are not yet saved. First, I pray, Lord, for those who think they are and are not. Lord, what a fearful thing it is to hear the words, depart from me, I never knew you. So I pray, Lord, for those who are not saved but think they are, Lord, that they would be exposed in their own minds today to the reality of their condition and that they would come and run to Christ and find in him true salvation.

Or for those who are not yet saved, Lord, who maybe are young or maybe have been in church for a long time and have not considered the reality of what they've heard. Maybe today, Lord, you might pierce their heart and save them.

Or, Lord, those who have been putting it off, like those who heard Paul and said, we'll hear you again on this matter. May it be today, Lord, that they not say, may we hear it again. But, Lord, may in hearing it today, they recognize that they are not promised tomorrow.

Lord, may the gospel message go out today clearly and you do with it what you and only you can. In Jesus' name, Amen. Are you saved? Well, that's a fairly common question that people will ask, particularly in times of evangelism.

People might go up to another person and simply say those three questions forming that interrogative sentence. Are you saved? And I always liked Dr. R .C. Sproul and his answer to this question. He said he used to, when he was teaching at the universities, he would be walking through the university cafeteria or through the quad and he would get stopped by a young, enthusiastic evangelist and the person would say, are you saved?

And he would simply say, saved from what? And he said it was amazing how often the people didn't know the answer to that. They just were stunned because they weren't prepared to have a question posed back to.

Them.

Are you saved? Saved from what? But another common question, which is often asked, and I would say in the South, particularly where Baptist churches tend to reign supreme, is the question, when did you get saved?

That question is fairly common and it assumes that you are because we know that everywhere south of Georgia is saved, everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon is saved, right? We're all saved in the South.

The Bible buckle keeps us firmly attached to Jesus. So people say, when did you get saved? Well, that question is problematic too. One, because it assumes that you are, but also it tends to boil salvation down to just an instant.

It boils salvation down to a moment in time and a singular event. And while that is true that justification is a moment in time, we go from being children of the darkness to children of light, we go from being dead in sin to being born again in an instant, that moment changes us forever.

So I am convinced that the better question to ask men and women, if we are concerned with the condition of their mortal soul, that the better question to ask is not, are you saved? And not, when did you get saved?

But rather the question, how has Christ changed your life? Let me tell you something, when you ask somebody that question, it's a much different time of introspection. Now, our goal today is to see four ways from this text that if you are in fact saved, four ways that Christ has changed your life.

Four things that have happened if in fact you are a believer. Now it's not common that I would begin an exposition of a text by going to the end. Normally an exposition, like walking up a ladder one rung at a time, an exposition would normally begin at the first step and walk up the ladder.

We've even talked about this in our hermeneutics class, we said part of how we understand context is going from one step to the next to the next. However, I do want to show you something in verse 21 that I hope to show you ties everything together.

And by the way, next Sunday I am going to preach just verse 21. And I'm going to show you, at least it is my desire and hope, is to show you that verse 21 is one of the most precious verses in understanding the gospel, particularly the understanding of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ in the whole Bible.

And so if you had planned on taking next week off, don't. Cancel the trip. Wait, I think Andy is going to be gone next week.

Sorry.

Andy has been asked to preach.

Sorry, Andy.

You can catch it on, he can catch it on live stream. He has a reason. None of the rest of you. But 2 Corinthians 5 .21 is a precious verse. And I do believe that Paul bookmarks this section with this ending point.

Because this ending point tells us exactly what caused the change. As I said, four things have happened when you became a believer. Four things happened when you came to Christ. And why did they happen?

And they happened because God made him who knew no sin to become sin on your behalf. So that you could become the righteousness of God in him. You see, that truth is what undergirds everything that comes before it.

That truth is the culmination of everything that comes from verse 16 down to verse 20. We call this passage, verse 21, we call it the great exchange. Meaning that it succinctly explains the gospel which says that God took a man who had no sin, Christ, and he laid upon him all of our sin because having no sin of his own, he could then bear the sin of others.

So God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us. That's the first half of the atonement. Our sin goes to Christ and we're forgiven. But that's not enough. It is not enough to walk to the gates of the new heaven and the new earth and say, Lord, I am not guilty.

Not guilty is not righteous. It's not the same thing. To be not guilty is not positive righteousness. We need a positive righteousness to stand before God. In fact, we need the righteousness of God. The gospel is the power of God for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. We receive the righteousness of God which is ours in Christ Jesus. The righteousness which Paul says comes not from within but from without.

The righteousness that is, as Luther called it, alien. Alien in that it comes not from the inside but an alien is that which comes from the outside, that which is not inherent, that which is coming from somewhere else.

The righteousness that we have is foreign and it is introduced and given to us by what is called imputation. God takes our account, which is dreadfully full of sin, and he clears it and gives that to Christ.

And then that same ledger, which is void of all righteousness, is filled with the righteousness of Christ. This is the great exchange. And beloved, if you've said, I've heard that many times, you gonna keep on hearing it.

Because if anything deserves to be repeated, it's that, that God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we can become the righteousness of God in him. So with that, that change, that change, for everyone who believes in Christ, that change is the most significant change in all of human history.

And out of that flows four changes. Out of that change flows four changes. A change in evaluation, verse 16. A change in position, verse 17. A change in relation, verses 18 and 19. And finally, a change in mission, verse 20.

A Change in Evaluation: Seeing Christ and Others According to the Flesh

Now, let's look first at change in evaluation. This is verse 16. Paul says, from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Let's stop right there at the end of that sentence and let's just try to get an idea of what Paul is saying.

First of all, he has said here that he uses the word, therefore, which indicates a tie in some way, shape, form, or fashion to what he has said before. And you'll remember one of the things that Paul said, and we studied this last week as we studied verses 11 through 15, that one of the things that Paul is addressing in this letter are those who commend themselves by their ministries.

Look with me again up to verse 12 and notice what Paul says about those who boast. He says, we are not commending ourselves to you, but giving you a cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart.

Paul's enemies had boasted about their outward appearance. Paul's enemies had boasted about their grand ministries. In fact, we talked about last week how it could be translated that, those who boast about having grand ministries.

Remember, the men who Paul is addressing are men who came to Corinth with letters of commendation. These were men who came with their master's degrees. They came with their doctorates. They came very much as men who sought to impress by worldly standards.

Their ministries were intended to entice the worldly man. And so Paul says in verse 16, from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the.

Flesh.

We do not regard men's ministries the way the world does. We do not use a worldly standard for judging the ministries of others. If we did, we would all have to concede that some of the greatest ministries in the world are being taught by some of the worst teachers.

Amen?

Can we not look at some of the ministries in the world and see stadiums filled, and yet the gospel is not in those stadiums? Can we not look into the world and see massive amounts of followers, whether it be through television or social media, and find that with those massive amount of followers, they are following a person who is leading them to hell?

And so Paul says, we do not regard according to the flesh, or as one translation says, we do not regard from a worldly perspective. Again, Paul is addressing his opponents, and he is saying that external evaluation is insufficient.

Overt giftedness and even visible success are not always markers of God's work in a ministry. He says we regard no one according to the flesh. And then he makes this statement, which may seem rather odd, but he says, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Paul is likely referring here to the fact that prior to his Damascus Road experience, he saw Jesus not as Savior, but as a fiend. Think of how Paul thought of Christ prior to being blinded on that Damascus Road.

Think about how Paul looked at Christians prior to God speaking to him, Christ speaking to him on the Damascus Road. What is Paul's thought about Christians? They deserve to be arrested, they deserve to be imprisoned, they deserve to be punished, they deserve even death.

Consider what Paul was doing while Stephen was being stoned. Do you remember? He was holding the coats of those who stoned him.

Why?

Well, we would have to conclude at least that he was giving approval. And as he was on his way to Damascus, the Lord changed his life. How do you think Paul would answer the question, how has Jesus changed your life?

Paul could say, I was an enemy of Christ, I was one who sought the followers of Christ, I was a persecutor of Christ. In fact, that's what Jesus said, right? Why do you persecute me? When Paul, as far as we know, did not meet Christ in the flesh, there's no way of knowing for certain one way or another, but we don't know, but we can say this, when he persecuted the church, Christ, connected to the church, said, why do you persecute me?

And as Paul is persecuting the church, Jesus says, why are you persecuting me? Why are you kicking against the goads? And God changes his life. And out of that, what happens? What is birthed out of that changed life?

One of the greatest Christians to ever walk the earth, one of the men who God would use to be the apostle to the Gentiles, to go and plant churches everywhere that he went and give his life for the gospel of Christ.

That's how his life was changed. And so what I say, why I call this a change in evaluation is this. When you come to Christ, when Christ changes your life, you will evaluate things differently, particularly Christ.

But you'll also evaluate others and the world. Everything will take on a different significance. Christ, who meant nothing to you before, will mean everything to you now. Ministries that would have been impressive before, if they do not have Christ, you will see them as nothing but dung now, because Christ will be the pearl of great price.

You see, your evaluation of things will change, including your evaluation of yourself. You know what most people think they are when they're not in Christ? Pretty good. You know what people know they are when they come to Christ?

Wretched.

Boy, we know it so good, we sing about it. We say, you can't insult me. I sing songs that say worse things than that about me. Great. God, how infinite art thou. What worthless worms are we. May the whole race of creatures bow and pay their praise to thee.

I remember we used to sing that a lot. And I'd always get that new person that got real nervous. That dude just called himself a worm. I'd say, no, I'm worse. Because worms do what worms were created to do.

They worm.

But I have sinned against the holy God. Therefore, I evaluate myself differently now. I can see what I was. And I can see who I thought Christ was. I remember a time when I thought of Christ no different than Buddha.

And Mohammed. And all of the rest of the religious figures. He's just one of many ways. And everybody's going up the same mountain. We're all going to get to the same place. No, every other trail men follow are leading them off a cliff.

The Bible says there is a narrow way which leads to life. And a wide road which leads to destruction. And might I say on that wide road, there are many men with flags trying to get you to go down that wide road.

When you are in Christ, your evaluation of yourself and of Him will change. Number two. There will be a change not only in your evaluation. But when you come to Christ, there will be a change in your position.

A New Creation in Christ and the Doctrine of Regeneration

Notice this text. And boy, I got to tell you, I was tempted just to stop here. So I'm going to try not to. Even though I might come back to it. Because I can't help it. This text is so beautiful. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Understand, beloved, how important that phrase, in Christ, is. That concept for Paul is used all throughout his epistles. Romans 8 .1 If any man be in Christ, therefore there is no condemnation for anyone who is in Christ.

1 Corinthians 15 .22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive. Ephesians 1 .3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

Ephesians 2 .13 But now in Christ Jesus, who once were far off, have been brought near by the blood of the cross. 1 Thessalonians 4 .16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first. Over and over. And that was only five of the myriad of verses where Paul uses the phrase, in Christ. Do you understand what it means to be in Christ? It means to be changed in your position.

Because you were not born in Christ. In fact, I would challenge you if you think you were. There is a theology out there that has this idea that those who are born in a Christian family are somehow born in Christ.

But the Bible says that even though we are born in a Christian family and we are sanctified by it because our family does set us apart and does give us a peculiar blessing by being born in a Christian family, that does not mean that you are in Christ.

In fact, I would just again remind you young people, just because your parents are Christians does not mean you are by de facto Christians. Coming into a saving relationship is not something your parents can do for you.

Now parents, it is your job to point them to Christ, to teach them about Christ, to even catechize them in the doctrines of the faith. But you cannot convert them. God by His Holy Spirit is the only one who can reach down into their dead heart and give them life.

And that is what it means to be in Christ. It means to move from the position of deadness to the position of life. The Bible says there are only two positions you can be in. The two positions are the position of in Adam or the position of in Christ.

I remind you again, I just read it, but I'll remind you again of 1 Corinthians 15, 22. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all are made alive. When you were born, you were born a son or daughter of Adam.

Why does that matter? Because when Adam did what he did in the garden, when Adam who had been given a command by Almighty God, and that command was simple, that command was you may eat of every tree in the garden except for this one tree, and this one tree you are forbidden to eat, and on the day, the aetest of it, dying you shall die.

And Adam in his impotence and in his rebellion and in that moment his hatred of God took what God had forbidden and from his wife's hand he ate. And he brought death and disease and destruction to every one of his posterity.

And by the way, that includes all of you. Every one of you are a son or daughter of Adam. In fact, she was called Eve, the scripture says, because she was the mother of all living. There is no one on this planet today who didn't come from Adam and Eve.

By the way, that's also what makes racism stupid. And I know that's a total departure, but I'm going to say it anyway. If you're racist, that's dumb, because we all come from Adam and Eve. We're all distant cousins in one sense.

And there is only the human race that matters. We are all sons and daughters of Adam. But we're not all in Christ. Because being in Christ is a change of position, right? You're born in Adam. But when Christ changes your life and you go from death to life, you get a change in position where you are now a new creation in Him.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Consider the weight of that phrase, a new creation. When God created the world, He did so by the word of His power. And God said, and it was. Well, Paul here uses the language of creation to describe what God did in your heart.

You who were dead in trespasses and sins, God made alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. You're a new creation in Christ. Beloved, that is something we should rejoice over. That is something we should be praising God over.

We should never ever have a problem singing. We should never have a problem rejoicing when we stop and take a step back and say, What has God done for me? How has God changed my life? He has made me new.

And the word new here is not just chronological newness, like old and new. But new in the same as qualitative newness. He changed who I am. He didn't just update the old model. I didn't just get a software update, a patch that gave me new apps.

But He made me new in Christ. And therefore, He says this phrase after that. He says, The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. I don't want to go too far down this road. But you may have remembered this passage differently.

Especially if you grew up memorizing the King James Bible. Because it says, The old has passed away. Behold, all things become new. And at this particular verse, this is not simply a translational difference.

But there is something here called a textual variant. Some manuscripts have tapanta. Tapanta means all things. And some manuscripts do not. Now I am not going to argue one versus the other today. To go down the road of textual variation.

And the reasons why they are introduced into the text would take us well away from my intention in the message. But if you had wondered why there is a difference, that is the difference. It's an underlying manuscript difference.

It's not simply a translational difference. But I do want to say this. Whether you say, The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Or whether you say, The old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new.

Whichever way you choose to understand this text. This is the doctrine of regeneration. Because the old man has passed away. And the new man has come. That's what we see here. And what's interesting is the text of the verbs here.

The phrase passed away is in the aorist. Which means it's one time, done. He's dead. But the becoming new. The new coming. Is in the perfect tense. Which means it had a time when it happened with continuing effects in the future.

Not only did you become new. But you are still new. And this newness that you possess is going to continue until you're made perfect in the new kingdom. Because guess what? Even though you're made new.

Can anyone in here stand up and say I've been made perfect yet? If anybody wants to stand up and argue for their sinless perfectionism. I'll send you to the Methodist church. John Wesley believed in a form of sinless perfectionism.

That a man could be sanctified. And have in himself no sin in thought, word or deed. Could be sanctified to that point. The reform doctrine does not say that. The reform doctrine says that sanctification is a process which begins when we are born again.

And it is a process that goes throughout our lives. Whereby we are conformed to the image of Christ day by day. And we live a life which is marked by repentance. Beloved, do you live a life that is marked by daily repentance?

The daily recognition of your need to come before Christ and repent. If you do, I can say praise the Lord. Because even though I can say that you're still battling sin. Guess what you're doing?

You're battling sin.

The most dangerous thing that is being taught in churches today. Is that sin does not need to be battled. Sin needs to be accepted. And if you are in a church that is teaching you to accept sin.

Rather than to hate it, battle it, fight it, flee from it.

Then you are in a church that is encouraging you to love the old man.

Rather than the new man.

The old man is dead.

This is pictured for us in baptism. What do we say in baptism? Buried with Christ in baptism. Raised to the newness of life. All things, the old man has passed away. Behold the new man has come. And beloved, don't we look forward to the day.

For the perfecting of the new man. We do. And I would say the greatest thing about the new man. Is the change in desire. Because when we were the old man, what did we desire? Everything that was opposed to Christ.

But now that we have become the new man, what do we desire? That which pleases Christ. Do we battle with the flesh? Yes we do. But we seek to please Him. The old man is dead. The new man has come. So we have gone from a change in evaluation and a change in position.

Now a change in relation. A change in relation. All this is from God. By the way, that by itself is worth preaching. Because all this is what Paul just said before. All this that God has done. Taking you who were the old man and making him the new man.

All this is from God. God made you new. You didn't make you new. You didn't convert yourself. You didn't even come to faith. Apart from the working of God on your dead spirit to give you life. 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.

Beloved, Paul defines his ministry as a ministry of reconciliation. Earlier in this same book. Back in chapter 3. He called himself a minister of the new covenant. Now he calls himself a minister of reconciliation.

And the reason for that is because the new covenant is the covenant of reconciliation. That's what the new covenant does that the old covenant could not do. Read Hebrews. What does it say? They had to keep doing the sacrifices over and over.

Because men kept sinning. And the sacrifices kept being necessary. And they weren't perfect. They didn't finalize anything. They just kept putting it off. Kept pushing it forward. Kept moving to the next.

From sacrifice to sacrifice to sacrifice. But God sent His Son into the world. And what does the Bible say Jesus did? He saved to the uttermost those who draw nigh unto God through Him. Through one sacrifice.

Through one act of atonement. Christ has done what all of the old covenant could not do. He reconciled us to God. I want to share with you something that's very important. The word atonement is a very important theological word.

And it is pregnant with meaning. But that word is not used in the New Testament. Unless you have a King James Bible, it is used one time in the New Testament. It is translated atonement in Romans chapter 5 verse 11.

Other than that, it's not used in the King James New Testament at all. And in the ESV and the New American Standard Bible and most other modern translations, the word atonement is not in the New Testament at all.

The word atonement in the ESV is used 87 times in the Old Testament. But none in the New. Why is that? Because the New Testament word for atonement is reconciliation. In fact, if you go to Romans 5 verse 11, the newer versions say reconciliation.

Where the King James says atonement.

Why?

Because that's what it is. Atonement is reconciliation. In fact, just this past week, I was having lunch with a pastor. And he was asking me about Calvinism Reformed Theology. And he asked me, he says, you know the one I really have trouble with, is I have trouble with limited atonement.

Can you explain it to me? Limited atonement is the doctrine that Jesus Christ on the cross did not pay the penalty for sin for all men, but paid the penalty for sin for those who would believe. And the reason for that doctrine is because if Jesus paid the penalty for all men, all men go to heaven.

That's why we believe that. But here's the point. And I think it really registered with this man when I said this. I said, take the word atonement out. And put the word reconciliation in. I said, are all men reconciled to God?

And he said, well, no. I said, then you believe in limited atonement. Because if men are not reconciled to God, there has not been an atonement made. And who was the atonement made for? Those who believe.

Now some of you may be looking over my shoulder and say, but wait a minute, this very passage says he reconciled the world to himself. Yes, it does. And far be it from me to ever contradict Scripture, but understand this, the word world has 11 different uses in the New Testament.

And most of the time what it's referring to is not the world in general, all men, but rather men of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. The very thing we see in Revelation 5 when it says, I looked and behold men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation were standing before the Lamb.

Christ reconciles men and women and children of every nation in the world. It is not for the Jews only. It was for the Jews first, but also for the Greeks. And by that, extending to all Gentiles. So, when it says, all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself, it's saying something.

It's saying our relationship to God has changed. Beloved, your relationship to God changed in Christ. Because in Christ, you went from being an enemy to a friend. You went from being an outsider, the Bible says, strangers to the covenant, and now you have been brought near by the blood of his cross.

Your relationship with God changed because of Christ. And finally, a change in mission. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Beloved, understand what this is saying. You who are in Christ have had your relationship to God changed. You went from being enemies to being friends. You went from being outside of the covenant to being in the covenant.

You went from one whose sins were going to send you to hell, to now being one whose sins are not counted against you. Your trespasses are not held against you. And therefore, now you have become new in Christ.

The new man has come. And you've been given a new mission. And your mission is this. You are an ambassador for Christ. Now, I have to say this, because the context here is Paul referring to himself and those who are in his ministry, those who are his associates.

So some would say, well, Christ, excuse me, some would say, well, Paul is only saying that he and his associates are ambassadors for Christ. And I would have to admit that at least that is the context here.

He is saying we are ambassadors because he is defending himself against those who would call his ministry into question. So he is speaking in context about himself, saying you who have denied me, you who have rejected my message, understand I come with the message of Christ.

I am Christ's ambassador. So that's the context here. And we mustn't abandon context. We must see how it fits. But that being said, I do not think that we can apply this to Paul and not also say it has at least some residual application to ourselves.

Because what is an ambassador, beloved? An ambassador is one who goes in the name of someone else. An ambassador is one who goes as a representative of someone else. And beloved, when you became part of the body of Christ, you took on a new identity, and that identity was in Christ.