My Identity: A New Creation!

Good morning everyone. It is a privilege to stand before you and with you and witness what the Lord has been doing in Afghanistan and how you've been a part of that. 

Prayer

Let's pray. Let the nations praise you, O God. Let all the nations praise you. Father, I pray that as we open your word, your spirit would move us. Father, I pray that we would be a part of the bigger thing you're doing and I thank you that your word has the power to change hearts. So open your words, open our eyes to see your word and allow us to enjoy your word this morning. I pray all of this in Christ's name. 

As I was walking through the Parliament, I used to work in politics before I joined ministry, I was walking with a very high ranking minister. I won't tell you who he was, but we were walking through the halls of Parliament and as we were walking, he stood by the Peace Tower and he told us, a couple of his employees, this. He said in 1916, during World War One, Canada was a part of the Allies and we were fighting against Germany and the Axis powers. And in the month of July in 1916, Canada had a population of 8 million people and we had 600,000 people that had joined the military. So 8 million people in Canada, 600,000 people that had joined in military and in July of 1916, in one of the greatest battles that Canada has ever been in, Canada lost 60,000 people in that one day alone. That's 10% of the people that went into the war lost their lives in that one day and that's about 1% of all of Canada's population at that time. Canada lost about a percent of all its population in one day in one war. 

And as he was saying that, I start thinking about Afghanistan. We have had a civil war in Afghanistan. We have had a dictatorship in Afghanistan under the Taliban. We have had military regimes and during 1985 to 1986 alone, when Russia was in Afghanistan, we had over 1.5 million people lose their lives. That's 10% of the whole population losing their lives in one year alone. And so as I was thinking this and as I was thinking about what to share with you, I thought of this year when I was in Afghanistan. After 17 years, I went back to my country and it's not a country that is safe. It's not a place that you want to go for vacation. 

And as we do ministry there and as I was sitting in a taxi there, you know, when you get to a roundabout here, you slow down and you try to not hit anyone else. But when you're in Afghanistan, there's a lot of traffic and it's a dangerous thing that happens, especially when the US military goes through because when the military is going through, that's when suicide bombings usually occur. And so as I was sitting in a very crowded place and as we were, as I was sitting there, our whole thought was mine and the taxi driver and others. And you could hear a sense of tension. Will something happen? Because we saw tanks coming out and we were wondering if there was going to be a suicide bombing. And as we were thinking about this, this is what came to my mind. Why am I here? What am I doing? Have we lost our minds? Why do this mission? There's so many other things. Canada is a wonderful country. There's so many work opportunities. There's so much opportunity. Why pick the dangerous thing? Why do missions in this way? Why not pick even an easier mission? 

And perhaps for us as well, Grandview, we are sitting, as Rachel said, in that awkward time of the year where we don't know, where we don't know what day of the week it is. Being between Christmas and New Year's, the incarnation and the hope of a new year, we have to ask ourselves as well, who are we? What are we doing here? Why are we partnering in ministry in different ways? And so as I'm thinking, as I was thinking that, I was sitting in this taxi. I started looking outside and I saw a man passing by, a man with a long beard. And it seems in his eyes, I don't know, I don't want to judge, with much hate in his heart. Whatever else you could tell about this man, I knew this one fact about him. He did not know Jesus. Whatever else you could tell about him, you knew this fact. He did not know Jesus. As the woman was passing by, a woman completely covered in her hijab or niqab, and she was going with her children. And you could just imagine the kind of pain she has seen in life, the possible physical abuse she's been going through, and all kinds of discrimination that she has witnessed and hurt that she has felt. Whatever else you could tell about her life, you knew that this was a reality. She had never heard about Jesus. And you looked at the children, and as you saw them walking towards school, and you didn't know what the future is going to be like. There's a lot of apprehension and fear about the future in Afghanistan. Whatever you could tell about the future of these kids, you knew one thing. It was more likely for them to be hit by a lightning than hear the gospel of Jesus. Afghanistan has a population of 36 million people, pretty much the same as Canada, but we have a thousand to three thousand Afghan Christians. And when we were visiting home churches in Afghanistan, if it was ten people in the church, that was a mega church. 

And so why do missions in this way? And is missions about us feeling bad about poor Afghans? It's not. Missions is not about humans. It's not even about lost human, and it's not about us feeling bad about other people who are lost. Missions is the work of God that He has set before Himself from the foundations of the world, and we see Him accomplish what He came to do primarily in the incarnation and the crucifixion and the resurrection of His Son. 

So I want us to turn to the Word of God and see what God has for us. But as we get into the Word, I want to remind you and situate us ourselves. Where are we? Where do we stand as a society? Terry Eagleton, who is an English critic, he says this, "Societies become secular not when they dispense with religion altogether, but when they are no longer specially agitated by it." He's a famous critic, and he says this. Let me repeat this for you. "Societies become secular not when they dispense with religion altogether, but when they are no longer specially agitated by it." And he continues to say, "It is when religion starts to interfere with your everyday life that it's time to give it up. In this, it has a certain affinity with alcohol." What he is essentially saying is this, "Our society, societies become secular when they don't particularly care about God." And you know, this is very similar to alcohol. If God interferes with your daily life, it's time to give up on Him. That's a secular belief. 

But GK Chesterton wrote this, "You're free in our time to say that God does not exist. You're free to say that He exists and is evil. You're free to say like poor old Renan that He would like to exist if you could. You may talk of God as a metaphor or a mystification. You may water Him down with gallons of long words or boil Him to the rags of metaphysics. And it's not merely that nobody punishes, but nobody protests. But if you speak of God as a fact, as a thing like a tiger, as a reason for changing one's conduct, then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can. We are long past talking about whether an unbeliever should be punished for being irreverent. It is now thought irreverent to be a believer." That is where we are at. We live in a secular society, and you know, the haunting thing about what Terry Eagleton says is that we can sit in a church and still feel like God is not the kind of reality that we read about in the Word of God. We are not particularly agitated by His existence. It is not a reason to change our lives. It is not a reason to live a radical life. And the incarnation, what we just celebrated, Christmas, was particularly an event where we are called to the fact that God is concerned about the world, and He came to do a work. 

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and we'll read verses 17 to 21. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ is a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God was pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, for He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation." 

You Are A New Creation

So as we said, let's ask the question, "Who are we?" And the Bible has a very clear answer for you. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. In fact, if you read the Greek sentence, it says, "If anyone is in Christ, a new creation." It doesn't even use the pronoun. It is a declaration that if you are in Christ, you are a new creation. And sometimes, because we grow up in the church, those words lose their meaning. We have heard that we are a new creation, and we generally think of two different ways about it. 

What Does It Mean To Be a New Creation?

First, when we think of a new creation, we think that we are...let's put it in another way, we are a refurbished creation. We had certain defects, and God took us, and He fixed it, and put it in a new package, and we are good to go. A new creation. That's one way we think about it. Or second, we think that at the moment of faith, God gives us a new heart and a new life, but over time, we get a little dance here and there. And the shirt that He gives us, the shirt of righteousness, when it tells to put on Christ, but over our lifetime, through our sin, it becomes stained, and we become...this new life that we were given becomes less of a new life. It was a new life that was given to us, but now it is becoming an old life. But that is not what the Bible teaches us. If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation, period. But what about my sins? What about...since I've become a Christian, what about my sins that I committed this last week? Am I still a new creation? Yes, the Word of God declares to you that you are a new creation, not because of who you are, but because of what Christ has done. 

And there is a poem. An elementary teacher wrote this once. He came to my desk with a quivering lip. The lesson was done. Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher? I've spoiled this one. I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted, and gave him a new one, all unspotted. And into his tired heart I cried, "Do better now, my child." I went to the throne with a trembling heart. The day was done. Have you a new day for me, dear master? I've spoiled this one. He took my day, all soiled and blotted, and gave me a new one, all unspotted. And into my tired heart he cried, "Do better now, my child." Our relationship with Christ is not about us. It's about Him who loved us and has called us a new creation. I don't know if that moves you at all. Where I don't know if what this idea of being a new creation, I don't know if that touches your soul. You know, as you grow older and as sin weighs on your heart, as you come to recognize who you really are, the darkness that sometimes prevail over your whole being, to know that we are a new creation in Christ is the greatest news anyone can give any one of us at any time. You are a new creation this morning. I pray that your heart would rejoice in that. You're a new creation. You are a new creation. Nothing you have done will change that if you are in Christ. And that's a big if. Are you in Christ? If you are, you are a new creation. And praise be to God because this is not of us. 

Is the God Christianity like the God of Islam?

Verse 18 tells us, "Now all things are of God." Now all things are of God. But before we get into the implications of being the new creation, I want to talk about how did this come to be? How did we become a new creation? Is Christianity like other religions, such as Islam, that says God just forgives you? God is all forgiving and so He forgives you and makes you a new creation. No payment to you and no care about sin. 

He Became Sin For Us!

That's not what the Bible teaches us because if you go to verse 21, it says this, "For He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." We are a new creation, but we are a new creation because Christ died for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us. Listen to what it's saying. It's not saying that you had done some actions that were sinful. Sin is a way of life. It is a way of being. We are not just sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. That is what we are in our core identity. But praise be to God, Him who knew no sin became sin for us. Jesus, the righteous one, became sin. He didn't become a sinner. He never committed sin, but He became sin for us. His very identity took on who we are, what St. Augustine calls the maximal sinner. Jesus becomes the maximal sinner. If you think of adultery, St. Augustine says Jesus became the maximum adulterer. If you think of a thief, Jesus was the maximal thief. Not because he sinned, but because he became sin. He was the sinless sinner. Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for you. He had never committed any sin, and yet He stood before God and was judged for your sin and mine. 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Nuremberg Trials

And you know, sometimes the word sin doesn't have the same kind of weight for us as it does in other societies. We're not so sensitive to sin anymore. Our consciences are not as attuned to the moral law. We live in a secular society, but in his very famous book, The Gulag Archipelago, the Russian writer, Solzhenitsyn, says this. He says during the Nuremberg trial, once in a while, something remarkable happened. And you know what the Nuremberg trials were. This is after the Nazis were defeated. Some of the generals, some of the people that were running the death camps, they were brought before the trial, before this international court, and they were going to pay for their crimes. And over and over, their lawyers continued to argue that they only did what was the law of the land. They only did what was the law of the land, so they were not guilty of anything. They were just following rules. 

But Solzhenitsyn tells us that something remarkable happened once in a while. He says something happened that was very unusual. Once in a while, as these people were brought before the court, as their atrocities were read before them, the person that had committed the sin, the atrocity, would break down and start weeping. They would just kneel and say, "I don't want a lawyer. I have no defense." And Solzhenitsyn tells us that the height of justice is this. This is the height of justice, when the sinner feels within himself the ugliness of his own sin and hates himself for what he has committed. The height of justice is when the sinner feels the ugliness of his own sin and hates himself for it. 

The Judgement Seat of God

You know, one day, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, and what we have committed will be read out to us. And in that day, we have no defense on our own, other than that he who knew no sin became sin for us. And praise be to God, if you are in Christ, when you stand before the judgment seat of God, you will have no defense of your own. You have committed sin, as I have. Your heart is ugly as mine, but praise be to God that he who committed no sin became sin for us, and you are now the righteousness of God. When God looks at you, he doesn't see a sinner. He sees the righteousness of his own son. You are the righteousness of God himself. And how beautiful a thing is that, your identity, a new creation. Why a new creation? Because the Son of God gave his own life for you. The Son of God gave his own life for you and me. 

Ministry of Reconciliation

But is that the end of the story? Sometimes we forget that there is verses in between. We like these privileges. We like the privilege of being a new creation. We also love the privilege of being forgiven and being called the righteousness of God. But Paul tells us something else in between those two verses. So let's read verses 18 to 20 now. "Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." Two verses that almost say the same thing. God has reconciled people to himself, and in verse 19, it is repeated. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. Second, he has given us the ministry of reconciliation. And in verse 19, he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 

Two things happen when we are saved. First, we are reconciled to God. Our trespasses are no longer counted against us, but something else also happens. We are given a ministry of reconciliation. That is, God is imploring the world through us. There is the privilege of being saved, but there's also the privilege of being a reconciler, someone who stands before the world as ambassadors of Christ. And you and I are called to do that. And the reality is this, that we who have been called to be citizens of heaven are also given the privilege of being its ambassadors. We who have been given the citizenship of heaven have also been given the privilege of being its ambassadors. You cannot be a citizen without also being an ambassador. This is the way the Lord has done it. This is what he has called us to be. 

Being An Ambassador

And as I was sitting in the parliamentary cafeteria once, talking with a few ambassadors, one ambassador in particular was sharing his story to me. And I asked him, I asked him why he became an ambassador. Is it not hard on the family? Because sometimes he had to leave his family for months on end. And he told me, he said, "It's not easy, but this is the height of my privilege to serve my country in this way. This is the height of my privilege to serve my country in this way." And so we who are citizens of heaven, who have been called to be ambassadors, also have this privilege of being ambassadors for its sake. Who are we? We are new creations because of what Christ has done. But what are we called to do? What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here? You are here to be an ambassador for the sake of Christ. And for many of us that looks different in whatever we do, we are all called to be ministers. We are all called to be ministers of this gospel. It doesn't mean you leave your job and become a pastor. It means wherever you are, the aroma of life that is Christ in you spreads to those who are outside. 

Be an aroma of life. And to those who are unbelieving, perhaps, as the Word of God says, the aroma of death. And so as we wrap up what we have been talking about, missions in light of the incarnation and the cross, missions, as we said in the beginning, is not about the people who are lost. Missions is not about some people who care about the lost. Missions is about the fact that God is love and that He loved us enough to come to this world, die for our sakes, reconcile us, make us new creation, and calls us now, gives us the privilege of being a part of the ministry that He's doing. 

Happy New Year!

So as you think of the year ahead, New Year's is in a couple of days. Some of you may be writing your New Year's resolutions. I hope that you sit down and reflect about who you are. And I pray that you would sit down and reflect about what is your identity and what is your calling, what is your goal, what is the purpose of your life? It cannot be. It simply is not. 

Especially if you're a believer, your purpose in life is not just to go through everyday life and be done with it and just get home to watch some TV and waste your life in that way. Your call is something much greater than that. You know, the reality is over a billion people do not know Christ. People in our own communities do not know Christ. People in Afghanistan do not know Christ. I pray that God would call some of you to partner with us. I pray that God would call some of you to start living a dangerous, radical life for the sake of Christ. 

Being Beside Ourselves Because of the Gospel!

When Paul is thinking about his own experience of what God has done on the cross, he says this in verse 13, "For if you are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if you are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us because we judge this, that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all that those who live shall live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them. And rose again." So Paul tells us that when I think of my experience of the cross, if I am out of my mind, if it seems like I'm losing my mind, if it seems like I've gone crazy, it's because the love of Christ compels me. I think of what he has done for me. He died for me. 

And when I was sitting in that taxi, and as I was contemplating about who I am and what Christ has done, you know, if I had to give my life a thousand times over, it'd be worth it because Christ is worth it. Christ is worth living a radical, dangerous life for. And you and I are given the privilege of not being comfortable, but being ambassadors, representing Christ to those who may never hear it, unless you step up and unless you share him with others. 

I pray that you have a wonderful new year. I pray that you would reflect on these words that we spoke. I pray that God would stir some of you and work in you and call you to join him in the ministry that he's doing in KW and globally. 

Prayer

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you have made us new. You have given us a new heart and a new identity, and you have called us to be ambassadors for you. Would you, Holy Spirit, now take these words as weak as they were? Would you work in people's hearts? Would you apply this word in our hearts, O Lord, and call us to where you want us to go? Father, I pray that we would come with blank checks before you and let you be the Lord of our lives. Send us where you want to send us. Let us live the way you have called us to live. I pray that we would, if we came here hopeless, thinking about our walk with you, that you would encourage us by the fact that our righteousness is not our own. We have been bought with a price. Let us love Christ more every day. In Christ's name I pray, amen.