New, Not Improved – 2 Corinthians 5:17 (Apr 5, 2026)

To third grade, they can go ahead and head out to their class now.

Just a reminder because I feel like I will forget afterwards when uh after the sermon before our next song, we will actually have all parents go and get their kids so that we can all be in here together uh to celebrate baptism on this Easter Sunday.

But right now, if you would, if you've got a Bible with you, we'd love for you to open it up to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, no worries.

Uh in your bulletin, the passage is right there.

Uh, we've kind of taken a little bit of a hiatus from Revelation this week to look at 2 Corinthians 5.

And really, this entire chapter highlights the reality, the hope of the resurrection.

And so this morning we're gonna look at just mainly one verse, a verse that maybe many of us know and have heard, 2 Corinthians 5, 17.

And we're gonna look and consider the fact that Jesus doesn't make us improved, but new.

You know, I don't know if you remember back in my day in the 90s when there were many bookstores.

I'm kind of thankful that bookstores are making their way back again, but you would have a little section of a bookstore, it might be a bookcase or two, that would be labeled self-help.

And self-help books in that time, most of them had pretty corny, even outrageous titles.

Things like the power of now, or the light turning the life you have into the life you want, or manifest your destiny, or my favorite.

I actually want to read this one.

I read it last night, real deal.

Who moved my cheese?

If you've read that, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm just interested.

I didn't take the time to uh look into it, but some pretty, I think we would say, some pretty bad titles.

And the only thing that were worse than the titles of these books were the covers that almost always had the person who wrote the book on the front page, big, usually smiling or like pointing at you.

Um self-help in my day, it felt like a little bit was fringe, kind of to the side.

Today, that market is valued at over$13 billion in the US alone.

And it's estimated to rise to$100 billion globally within the next decade.

Everything, everywhere, is self-help now.

We don't live in a day anymore where you have to go and look for advice.

You have to figure out how to evaluate all the advice that is coming at you.

We live in a world that is desperate for self-improvement, and everyone, it seems, is selling it.

But I wonder maybe if you're here this morning and you're thinking, well, isn't that kind of what Christianity is?

Is it sort of Christianity, kind of a self-help, a way to become a better person?

Maybe arguably the best way.

I think often we're tempted to think that, aren't we?

Even as Christians, many of us actually think and live this way.

We think that we are saved by our goodness.

And so when we do good things, God is pleased with us and we're doing great.

But when we do bad things, when we fail, when we mess up, God is not pleased and we're in trouble.

And so what we need is we need God to help us be better, to be a better person, maybe to be a better Christian.

See, for maybe some of us this morning, you've come in here and you think Christianity is sort of a form of self-help.

Maybe not self-improvement, but soul improvement.

Maybe you've come this morning and you think, you know what I need right now in my life?

I just need a little religion.

I just need a shot of church.

I don't think you're alone if that's you this morning.

But here's what I want to tell you the Apostle Paul in our passage is gonna assert something that I think is groundbreaking.

I think it is absolutely revolutionary.

He's gonna tell us that Christianity is not about self-improvement at all.

It's actually the exact opposite of self-help, and it is so much better because Jesus came not to fix us, but to remake us.

Jesus came not to make us better, but to make us new.

It's actually our main idea this morning.

Christ did not come to make us better, but to make us new.

Hopefully you've got the passage out in front of you.

Let me read it for us.

2 Corinthians 5, 16 through 21.

We're focusing on 17, but we want to get the context.

Here's what Paul 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 them.

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.

We're gonna look at three points this morning: the want of newness, the way of newness, and the walk of newness.

First, let's consider the want of newness, our need for newness.

You know, one of the primary problems of the self-help industry is the belief that all we need is a little help.

Now, the underlying assumption of that idea is that for the most part, we're okay.

We're not perfect, but we're basically good.

Friends, that is not what scripture teaches.

The Bible is actually clear.

There is something fundamentally wrong with us.

Maybe we'd understand this a little bit better if we think from a medical illustration.

If you had an organ, a kidney, a liver, a heart, it might be a little bit unhealthy.

And in fact, you might uh be helped out to have some medicine or there be some sort of uh treatment, it could be healed or helped, but every once in a while, an organ like those can actually cease to function.

Or at least to function in the way that they were created to function.

And in those times, medicine isn't going to help.

What you need is not a treatment, you need a surgery.

Actually, you need a transplant often.

The patient needs a new kidney or a new uh heart or a new liver.

That's the argument of the Bible.

The Bible argues that we are not merely unhealthy, but we're actually dead.

Look at Ephesians 2, 1.

Here's what it says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

See, Scripture tells us that our problem is not that we simply do wrong things.

I think that's how many of us think about it, right?

We tend to think, if we really kind of dig into it a little bit, that we sometimes say bad things, we do bad things, but we want to separate our words and our actions from our person.

We might do something or say something bad, but we aren't bad people.

I think most of us, deep down, that's how we think.

But is that true?

Here's what Jesus says.

Luke chapter 6, he says, this an evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

For his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.

Jesus says that actually what comes out of our mouths and what we do, our actions and our words, actually come from our hearts.

You might imagine, and I recognize it would take quite a bit of imagination here in Indiana.

But if you were walking around, I don't even know if this actually happens.

I feel like I've seen it in cartoons or movies, but if you saw like a little spurt of oil coming out of the ground, very unlikely in Indiana, I get it.

But if you saw a spurt of oil coming out, you would imagine that there is much more oil under the surface.

In fact, you'd be quite assured of that.

There could even be a whole cavern of oil underneath the surface.

Well, church, I think when we lie, gossip, grumble, lust, covet, etc., what we know is that that's not an isolated sin.

It's actually the result of an inward cavern of sin, a heart of sin.

There's actually much more under the surface.

Now, my guess is, maybe even for some of us this morning, that rubs us the wrong way.

I've already said this.

I I think many of us would be very quick to recognize we are not perfect.

But I do think we think, but we're basically good.

We're still good a good person.

Deep down inside, we're good.

Now, I just want us to think about that for a moment.

Just to consider if that were indeed true, if it was that deep down we actually were good people, then I think what that means is the closer and deeper you got into the heart, the more, the less and less sin you would find.

That what you would find is that our desires were better than our thoughts, our thoughts were better than our words, our words were better than our actions.

But we find it's the exact opposite, isn't it?

Most of us do not say or do half the wrong things that we feel and think.

In fact, if you wanted to be terrified, the thing that could we could do is to have all of your thoughts read in a given day or a given week.

None of us would want that to be the case.

All of us would be horrified at the idea that every single thought that ran through our mind would in any way be broadcasted to someone else.

Why?

Because we know, if we're honest with ourselves, what's really deep inside our hearts.

See, I think it is a verifiable fact that actually the deeper that we get into our heart, the more corruption and sin we find.

And I think that's why many of us live lives absolutely exhausted, expending so much energy trying to appear good, look good, trying to hide or conceal the sin in our hearts.

It's because we know it's there.

You know, Paul actually gives us sort of two examples, ways in which we can see the fundamental sin that is in our hearts.

First, he's gonna tell us and show us, remind us of how sin actually shapes how we view our very lives.

Joe did a great job of expositing this text on Good Friday, 2 Corinthians 5.15, look at it.

Says, and he died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

But notice what Paul says here.

Outside of Christ, how is it that all humanity lives?

They live for themselves.

We, outside of Christ, live for ourselves.

That's why the well-known Reformation leader Martin Luther made this statement.

He said that sin is at its heart radical selfishness or radical self-centeredness.

He actually used a Latin phrase that means that we are curved in on ourselves.

That our sin, what does it do?

It makes everything about us.

We see ourselves, our life, everything through the lenses of self.

It really, in some sense, our life is about us.

Even when we're doing things for other people, even when we're serving other people, if we're honest with ourselves, we're doing that in some ways for ourselves.

So Paul says that.

Secondly, though, he also says that sin shapes how we view ourselves and others.

Look at verse 16.

Might be a little bit of a confusing verse, first verse, and kind of our passage.

Here's what he says: he says, from now on, so something has changed.

We do not know anyone from a worldly perspective, meaning we used to know everyone from a worldly perspective.

Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, Paul is saying that we used to know Jesus from a worldly perspective.

Yet now we no longer know him in this way.

Our passage this morning, the context of verses 14 through 17, really is an autobiography of Paul the Apostle.

And Paul here is telling us that before Christ radically transformed his life on the road to Damascus, he had a worldly perspective.

And that worldly perspective means this: that the values of our fallen world were his values, that he thought the way that our world thinks.

And that's how he viewed himself.

You can actually see references to this.

Paul will tell us that he saw himself as a Pharisee of Pharisees.

That he actually prided himself on his performance, his prowess, his prestige.

And that's also how he viewed others.

He looked down on those who were not as successful, who did not have the accomplishments that he had that weren't as impressive as he was.

Do you know what he's saying here in this passage is that's even how he viewed Jesus.

You can imagine the Apostle Paul, a leader in that day, thinking, who is this lowly carpenter from Nazareth?

Who is this guy that's trying to upstart and rebel against us, the religious leadership of Israel?

He is a criminal.

Paul would even say here, in some sense, he deserved the death that he got.

That's how Paul used to view Jesus.

I don't think it's too hard for us to see how we also can live with such a worldly perspective.

That's often how we view ourselves.

That we want to be seen as impressive in this world.

We want to be known for having good skills or for having a nice house or a nice car, nice clothes.

We want to have an enviable career, we want to have a put-together family, we want to look good, to be impressive.

That's why I think few things, think about it for a moment.

What is more frustrating to you?

I would argue, angry to you, than someone belittling you.

There is nothing that we dislike more than somebody treating us or making us feel like we are lesser.

Why is that?

Because we view ourselves from a worldly perspective.

And that's also sometimes how we view others.

This is how our sin shapes us.

We favor important people.

I always think about the passage, James 2, uh, when James is actually calling the church against favoritism.

I always wonder what would it look like even in our church if a well-known or an important person in society were to come into our church on a Sunday morning.

Would we roll out the red carpet for them?

Would we favor them?

We think, oh, guess who is here?

I think it shows us in so many ways we are drawn to people's accomplishments far more than their character.

Church, I think many of us can see this if you're a parent, especially.

I think it's so tempting to just want our kids to be impressive.

Like we want them to crush it in school, we want them to crush it on the ball field, we want them to amass a very solid list of extracurriculars.

It's easy for us, even as parents, even as Christian parents, to sometimes begin to think more about their resumes than their hearts.

Why?

What do we see here is that sin is at the very core of our heart, and it shapes how we view life and how we view ourselves and how we view everyone else.

See, what we need is not help, it's not medicine.

We need to be made new.

We need surgery, we need resurrection.

And that leads us to say that Christ did not come to make us better, but to make us new.

Let's look at that now.

Let's look at the way of newness.

We've looked at our want of newness, our need of newness.

Now let's look at the way of newness.

Because can we be made new?

Well, look at verse 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Paul answers the question Yes, we can be made known, but how?

Paul says, only in Christ.

Here's the truth: you can make yourself better, but you cannot make yourself new.

And the phrase new creation is really helpful there.

That word new creation keys us very quickly to the second half: creation.

It reminds us of the very beginning of Genesis 1 and 2, the creation of the world.

And what the entire Bible is very clear to tell us is that God alone is creator.

That everything else, everyone else is creation.

He alone is creator.

And the point here then is just as God created all things, so as he is creator, he is also recreator, redeemer.

If creation is solely the work of God, new creation is also solely the work of God.

Paul makes this uh connection between these two things even more evident in the chapter before.

2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6 says this for God who said, Let light shine out of darkness.

2 Corinthians 4:6

That's what happened in Genesis 1.

God called forth light out of darkness.

He created light.

But notice then what Paul says that that God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Just like God called forth light in the darkness and creation, so God has called forth light in our hearts, in the darkness and sin of our hearts, to create us anew.

See, this is the language of regeneration.

And if that's a word that's unfamiliar to you, that word simply means maybe even how we more often talk about it, to be born again.

New birth.

Again, do you see how it relates to new creation?

Here's what Jesus says about being born again.

John 3, verse 3.

John 3:3

He says, Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now, Nicodemus, who he's talking to, is very quickly gonna be like, What?

How can I be born again?

I've already been born.

And Jesus is gonna say, he's gonna equate this new birth with being born of the Spirit.

Now, I think the image of birth is really helpful because every single one of us know this that we had nothing to do with our physical birth.

News flash.

You brought nothing to your birth.

Well, the same thing is true for our spiritual birth.

That actually our spiritual, that's the language of being born again, is something that God does.

It is God who opens our ears and our eyes and our hearts to hear and see and receive the good news of Jesus.

See, I think this is sometimes why we struggle with Scripture's insistence that we be made new.

One, mention the first, because it shows us our neediness and our sinfulness.

But second, because we can't do it.

Because we don't have a part in it.

We can't earn it, we can't accomplish it because salvation is the work of God alone.

And for some of us, that might hit our pride.

We want to earn it, we want to prove ourselves.

But I actually think.

It should increase our hope.

Look again at our passage, verse 17.

Look at the very beginning.

Paul says, if anyone is in Christ, anyone, anyone.

Let me make that just abundantly clear.

Anyone includes you.

That's what this passage means.

See, maybe you're thinking here this morning, well, you don't know me.

You don't know my heart.

You don't know my heart.

You don't know my thoughts.

You don't know what I've done.

Well, here's Paul's question for you.

Are you anyone?

Yes.

You are anyone.

So hear this.

If anyone is in Christ, see, Paul's point is if he created you, then he can recreate you.

He can redeem you.

And maybe your problem is that you've tried to save yourself.

Maybe you've gotten to the point where you know that you cannot save yourself.

Maybe even you're a Christian and you know that God has saved you, but you're trying to sanctify yourself.

You're trying to make yourself right now in God.

Well, here is the point.

We can't do it, but He can.

Christian, I think this should be an encouragement for us.

I think imposter syndrome is a very real thing.

And I think it's a real thing even in the church.

See, it might be that you're a relatively new Christian here this morning.

Or maybe you didn't grow up in the church.

Maybe you don't have VBS or awana on your resume.

Maybe it's that some of the Christian lingo that we use sometimes, you're like, I don't know what that word means.

Maybe there are certain songs that we sing that you're like, I've never heard that before.

Maybe it's that for the life of you, you could not find Habakkuk in the Bible.

Some of us have been Christians for a while.

It's still a struggle.

That's why they have that table of contents.

Maybe you think, but you don't understand, I feel like I am so far back on the journey to holiness.

Like I'm just, I'm way far away.

Well, here's what Paul's telling us this morning.

If you're in Christ, you are not an outs less new.

That there are actually no levels of newness in Christ.

That it is Christ being in Christ that is the difference, is the point.

It's a little bit like the hokey pokey.

You're either in or you are out.

You are either in Christ or you are outside of Christ.

And yet, but you can't really do this quite as quickly.

That's the only difference.

Every illustration breaks down.

So the question then, I think, for us has to be this: what does it mean to be in Christ?

That's what Paul says.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

We understand what it means to be with someone.

That sort of language is great.

We know what it means to be behind someone or around someone or near someone.

What does it mean to be in someone?

Well, I think that's different.

And in fact, I think that's part of the point.

The Bible actually only speaks about two people as being representatives of humanity.

The Bible actually tells us that all humanity is either in Adam or in Christ.

Let me give you an example of that.

1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 21 and 22.

1 Corinthians 15:21

Paul says this for since death came through a man, resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.

Verse 22, for just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

We're gonna get a little theological for a moment.

Listen to this argument that Paul is making here.

He's saying that death came through Adam, and in Adam all die.

Now remember who Adam is.

If you're not familiar, Adam is the very first human being.

We have to go all the way back to Genesis 3 here to understand Paul.

Paul is saying that Adam sinned against God, and the consequence of that sin was death.

But here's what Paul is saying: that sin and death did not stay with Adam.

It did not end with Adam.

In fact, what we see is that all humanity after Adam knew sin and death.

All you gotta do is keep reading in Genesis, and you're gonna see sin very clearly, and you're gonna see a lot of people who died.

That sin and death came through Adam.

Adam is a type, he's a representative.

To be in Adam means this: that we are united to Adam.

It means that what's true of Adam is true of us, that we share, in a sense, Adam's sin and death.

Okay, so we have to understand that.

But now apply it to Jesus.

Because what does Paul continue to say?

He says, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.

In Christ, all will be made alive.

Here's what the New Testament tells us that Jesus is the second Adam.

He's the true and better Adam.

He's the Adam who does not bring death to his people, but actually brings life to his people, righteousness to his people, hope to his people.

So, what does it mean to be in Christ?

It means to be united to Christ.

Here's the most glorious thing I can think of.

It means what's true of Jesus is now true of us.

Church, that is a wondrous reality.

Now, the question for us is how can that be true?

How is it that we are united to Christ?

Well, our passage actually helps us for that.

Look at verse 21.

So good.

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.

Here's the very heart of Easter.

The very heart of the entire gospel.

Look at what it says again.

God, he made the one, Jesus, who did not know sin.

Jesus is God become a human being.

He is God in the flesh.

And where Adam failed, Jesus did not fail.

Adam, tempted in the garden, sinned.

Jesus tempted in the wilderness, did not sin.

In fact, Jesus never sinned.

So God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us.

Jesus actually took on our sin.

He became sin for us.

When he died on the cross, he died our death in our place.

He paid the penalty for our sin, all the guilt, all the shame for our sin, he took upon himself at the cross.

Why?

Look at what Paul says.

So that in him, in Christ, same language, we might become the righteousness of God.

That we might become righteous.

Christ took our death and gave us his life.

See here's why Jesus is the only one who can make us new.

Because he's done what we could never do for ourselves.

And here is the wonder of all wonders.

We can be united to him.

What's true of Jesus can be true of us and is true of us in Christ.

His righteousness, his life, his kingdom, his inheritance is ours in Jesus.

Now how?

How is it that we are made in Christ, placed in Christ?

The Bible tells us by grace, through faith.

Christianity really is that simple, friends.

How is it that we are in Christ?

We believe in Christ.

We trust in the good news of Jesus.

We receive Him as our Lord and Savior.

And then we rest in Him alone for our salvation.

Church Christ did not come to make us better, but to make us new.

So we've looked at the one of newness and the way of newness.

Let's look at the walk of newness.

Because here's the question I think many of us have, especially if you're a Christian.

Are we new in Christ?

I'm wondering, maybe I'm the only one.

Have you ever felt not very new?

Can I just be honest with you?

That's why I wanted to preach this passage.

Why are we in 2 Corinthians 5 this week?

It's because I've struggled with this verse.

Because there are so many times I'm like, I know it's true.

Paul says it, the Bible says it, but I have these sort of concerns.

I'm like, wait a second.

Am I really a new creation in any sort of meaningful sense?

After digging into it for a week or so, I'm happy to report.

Yes.

Paul is right.

Here's how I got there.

Look at verses 14 and 7 through 17 again.

Remember, just kind of on a big picture, these are a sort of autobiography of Paul.

He's telling us about how he became new.

But before we dig into it, I want you to think about Paul was made radically new in Christ.

And yet consider a couple points.

Paul still suffered.

Arguably more so after he was in Christ.

In fact, I think it'd be hard to argue that many have suffered more than Paul.

That's how much Paul suffered.

So what this means to me is that new life doesn't mean easy life.

It doesn't mean carefree life.

To be a Christian doesn't mean you like slap, Paul didn't like slap a life is good sticker on the back of his wagon.

I think Paul's would have said life is hard.

Because it was.

You can have a life as good sticker, like just to be clear.

No, life was really hard.

But you know what else I think is made clear here too in the life of Paul is that new life also didn't mean no sin for Paul.

Here's what 1 Timothy 1 15 says.

Paul says this to Timothy this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And then this last part, and I am the worst of them.

Paul understands himself to be the worst of sinners.

Now, Paul writes this as a Christian.

Now, I do think that he is thinking of his life before Christ when he persecuted Christians and hated Jesus.

But I also think that he is speaking as a Christian.

Because I think if we were to talk with Paul, and if we were just to talk with any Christian and know our own lives, we would say that the more we walk in newness of life in Christ, actually the greater our sin seems to be.

And not that we sin more, but our sin is more apparent.

The more we see our sin, the more we walk in newness in Christ.

Friends, I think many of us know this.

See, newness here doesn't mean, at least not in this life, no suffering or no sin.

That's what we talked about last week in gospel groaning.

So what is this newness in Christ?

Well, Paul tells us.

Look at the end of verse 17.

The old has passed away, and see the new has come.

Now, Paul is saying something very particular here.

He's not just saying some sort of vague oldness is gone and some vague newness is come.

No, he's alluding to Isaiah.

He's actually almost quoting Isaiah 43.

Here's what it says: Do not remember the past events.

Pay no attention to things of old.

Look, I'm about to do something new.

God, through the prophet of Isaiah, is telling the people of God at that time, don't look back to the old things.

Now, what is he talking about?

He's talking about the events of the Exodus.

He's talking about how God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt.

He says, Don't look back to those things.

I'm about to do something new.

Now, what is that new that he's about to do?

Well, most immediately, God is about to rescue his people from bondage and Babylon.

But God is saying something so much more than that.

God, through Isaiah, and when we went through Isaiah, we saw this, he's actually prophesying, Isaiah is prophesying of a day of the true and final Exodus, of the true and better Moses, of the true King David, of Jesus who will come to rescue his people from their greatest slavery, slavery to sin, to Satan and death.

And Paul now in our passage is saying, that day has come.

Look, the new has come.

Christ has come, the king has come.

What is promised in the Old Testament is proclaimed in the New Testament in Christ.

So what does that mean?

What does this newness look like?

Well, let's take one of these Old Testament promises.

Look at Ezekiel 36, verses 26 through 29.

Ezekiel 36:26–29

Here's what the Lord says.

The Lord says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

You will live in the land that I gave your ancestors, and you will be my people, and I will be your God.

I will save you from all your uncleanness.

Now, there was a partial fulfillment of this in Ezekiel's day, in the return of Israel to their home.

But the the fullness to come was in Christ.

Church, here's the newness.

In Christ, we have a new heart.

That heart of stone, a heart of stone is a picture of death, has been replaced by a heart of flesh.

That's a picture of life.

Our hearts in Christ are no longer hardened to God.

No, they are alive to God.

We can love God.

We actually have a new love for Jesus like Paul.

Think about that.

Paul, Jesus once said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

That's who Paul was.

But now, what is true of Paul in Christ?

Well, in verse 14 he says, For the love of Christ compels us.

Paul went from hating Christ to his whole life being motivated by the love of Christ.

He went from persecuting Christians to shepherding them.

Here's the evidence of a new heart.

It's a new love for Christ and his people.

Christian, ask yourself: do you not love Christ?

Do you not love his people?

I know not perfectly, but genuinely, truly, maybe increasingly.

Well, that's new life.

It's not just a new heart.

Ezekiel tells us we'll have a new spirit.

In fact, that we'll have God's spirit within us, the same spirit that indwelled Christ, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, that, God the Spirit, He indwells us.

And what does the Spirit do?

Paul uh Ezekiel says this, actually, God through Ezekiel says this, that he will cause us to follow God's statutes and observe his ordinances.

Christian, here's what this means: it means that because of Christ, by the Spirit, we have a new obedience.

This is a wondrous thing.

It means that we in Christ can never say that sin, either in general or a particular sin, is master over us.

And if we were to flip it on the other side, it also means this that there is no situation, no moment in our lives where we can say that we cannot or it is impossible for us to obey Jesus or for us to be faithful.

See, we are new in Christ.

We actually can obey and live faithfully before Jesus, not perfectly, but genuinely and increasingly.

We can actually obey God from the very depths of our hearts.

But newness is also a new relationship.

Ezekiel, God says this, you will be my people, and I will be your God.

I don't think it's possible to overstate the wonder of this reality.

We are God's people.

We're his.

Astonishingly, we're his children.

And that means that his unmatched power, his pure justice, his complete control, his perfect wisdom, his infinite love is for us.

We don't just know about God.

We can know God in a relationship.

To be in Christ is to be new, to have a new relationship with God.

We can actually hear God speak to us through his word, and we can actually speak to God in prayer.

We can have a real relationship with the God of the universe.

He shepherds us and is near to us.

That's what it means to be new in Christ.

It also means that we have a new forgiveness.

God says that we will be saved from all our uncleanness.

That means in Christ our sin is gone.

It's forgotten.

It is no more.

We aren't simply cleaned up.

There's like a whole industry out there now.

If you lose your golf ball like I do often in the woods or in the creek, people will go and they'll take that golf ball and they'll clean it up and polish it up and then they'll sell it.

That is not us.

We are not, it is probably my golf ball, but uh, we are not simply polished up old.

No, no.

We are new.

We are forgiven fully in Christ.

You know, as I wrote this sermon, that's what I always do.

I'm in my study in my house, and I look out the right window of my study, and there's a tree there.

And I spend a lot of time staring out that window.

If you ever looked at a blank screen trying to fill it up, you'll understand.

There's a lot of time just thinking, staring, wondering.

And as I was staring, off and on, but probably for an hour or or so, just out that window thinking.

I was doing some writing too, uh, looking up and down.

There's birds visiting every so often, kind of poking their beak around the tree.

And then eventually what I started to notice as the day progressed, I'm like, that tree is just a little bit pink.

Like just barely.

Like it was almost like just caught my eyes.

I'm like, what is what is pink there?

As the day went up and the sun came out.

I started noticing just these little, I mean, so small, little flowers, pink flowers, budding up out of that tree.

Just the littlest flickers of pink.

They're not full yet.

Hardly even visible.

But they're true flowers.

They're they're new flowers.

See, we aren't fully formed new creations, but we are new.

We are sort of like those buds, this little flicker of newness growing, awaiting the day that we will be in full bloom in the new creation.

Now, this is Paul's maybe ultimate point, though.

Do you know how you would read this passage in the original language?

Look again at verse 17, the first half.

Here's how it would read.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ.

You're like, that's exactly how it reads right now.

Um, but then it just says this therefore, if anyone is in Christ, new creation.

There isn't a he is.

No, no.

Paul says, therefore, if anyone's in Christ, new creation.

That's how I imagine him saying.

He's that excited.

But I think he's also trying to tell us something.

That not, that to be, what Paul is saying here is that we aren't merely individually new creations.

That is true.

But that we are actually part.

Of the new creation.

Church, this is so good.

Here's what this means: all that God is doing and going to do.

The fullness of God's plan and promises, the new heavens and the new earth, the new creation, eternal life with God and all its unimaginable magnificence.

We're part of it.

We're actually part of it right now.

See, here's what it means to walk in newness of life.

It means to grasp right now the reality of the new creation and to recognize that we are citizens of the new creation and even instruments of the new creation.

Look at Paul, what Paul says in verse 20.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.

We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

Do you know an ambassador is?

An ambassador is a resident of one country who lives in another country.

And what they do is they represent their true home country.

Well, here's what Paul is telling us what it means to be a new creation in Christ is that we, church, are citizens of heaven.

Citizens of the new creation, even now, and we are living in a foreign country, and we are representing our true kingdom and our true king, Christ.

We, church, together are outposts of the new creation.

We're embassies of the new creation.

See, Easter isn't about self-help.

Self-help offers advice.

It tells us what we ought to do, how we can be better.

That's not Easter.

That's not Christianity.

Easter, Christianity, is about news.

It's about what God has done in Christ.

Not about what we should do, but about what Jesus has done.

And here's the good news, friends.

That on this very Sunday, many scholars believe 1993 years ago, April 5th, 33 AD, Jesus rose from the grave.

That's the good news.

And the reason it is good news is because he was the first, but he was not the last.

Jesus promised, and Easter is the celebration that Christ has raised from death to life, but that also in Christ we will raise from death to life.

Christ did not come to simply make us better.

He came to make us new.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

So here's two questions.

Are you in Christ?

Have you trusted in the good news of Jesus?

And if you have, do you know that you're new in Christ?

Are you walking in that newness that we just highlighted?

All that Christ has brought to us, are we walking in it, church?

Humbly but confidently.

Because he has not simply made us better, but new.

Let's pray.