"He Is a New Creation"-- 2 Corinthians 5:16-17

With every New Year, we look back, sometimes with regrets, sometimes with fond memories. We cherish the things that became dear to us over the preceding 12 months, and at the same time anticipate that the New Year will also give us new memories, new goals achieved, new mountains climbed.

We also look forward. We look forward to a new way of doing things, making resolutions that will help us to be better people. We look forward to the promise of tomorrow, the hope that things will be better.

Each New Year is a time to reflect and to plan. It is true of the year, and it’s true of ourselves. We don’t have to wait for January 1 to become new and better. When we accepted Christ, we immediately became something new. And, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we each have it within ourselves to grow in our new self to strive to become what God wants us to be.

Central Truth: When we become followers of Christ, we are transformed into something brand new.

Being a new creation:

1. Changes our world view (16)

An interesting thing about people is that our world view is often shaped by the places of our origin. People who grew up in a primarily rural setting experienced life differently from those who grew up in suburban or urban areas, and vice versa. Growing up in West Texas is very different from growing up in East Texas or Central Texas or South Texas or places in between. We are shaped by our places of origin, by our families and friends and by the various other things that make us uniquely us.

But no matter what our origins, we can change. In today’s America, it’s not unusual for people to move from one region to another. Looking at my own family, my sister moved from El Paso to the DFW area, my parents moved my brother and me from El Paso to Tyler. My brother has since lived in Colorado, Dallas, Austin, Washington, D.C. area and now lives in a quaint little town in the California mountains not too far from Nevada. I myself moved from Tyler to DFW, back to Tyler, then to Cumby, Cincinnati, the Texas coast and have lived in the Waco area since 1996.

Each of these moves have had an effect on my world view, some minor, some major. But nothing has had a more profound impact on the way I look at the world than the moment I accepted Christ as my Savior. From that moment, I began to see the world differently, and I am continually seeing God, Christ and the Holy Spirit in an on-going changing way as I grow in my relationship with them.

Paul raises that issue in v. 16. Paul, then known as Saul, grew up in the city of Tarsus. He was born a Jew, but also a Roman citizen by virtue of being from Tarsus. From other passages in the Bible, we learn that Paul was trained by Gamaliel, a prominent teacher of the Pharisees. He was a devout follower of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, committed to the keeping of the laws as given to Moses and as interpreted by the Pharisees.

It was this Saul’s world view that anything that contradicted or challenged the law was heretical, and anyone who taught such a thing was a blasphemer worthy of God’s swift judgment under the Law. It should come as no surprise that this prosecutor of the Church no doubt viewed Jesus as one who deserved the death He died at Calvary.

It was on the road to Damascus that Saul met Jesus, and after that encounter, Saul was never the same. He stopped being Saul and became Paul. He stopped persecuting the Church and became the defender of the faith, someone who not only began to see the faith as true, but also willing to share that faith with Gentiles, something no self-respecting keeper of the Law would ever do.

Is it any wonder, then, that Paul wrote that he no longer regards Jesus from a worldly point of view? At one point, that’s exactly what he did. But the road to Damascus changed all that. From that moment, he was different man, seeing things from a radically different point of view. No longer worldly, now he sees with a spiritual insight that comes only from the hand of God.

The Spirit that now shaped Paul’s view is the same Spirit that indwells you and me. It is that Spirit that is shaping us to see the world through the eyes of God, to understand the world with the heart of Christ. It is this Spirit that is transforming us by the renewing of our mind.

If our world view hasn’t changed since the moment we accepted Christ, then we need to have a literal “come to Jesus” meeting and find out why we are not becoming like Him, seeing things as He sees them, doing things as He does them. No longer should we see the world through our old world vision; we should see it from a Spiritual point of view.

1. Is grounded firmly in our relationship with Christ (17a)

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the promise shown in Hebrews 6:16-20. In that passage, we are given a great hope through the promises of God in the New Covenant He made with us through Christ. That promise acts as an anchor for our soul, firm and secure.

That same promise is founded in the fact that we are now in Christ. We enter into Christ through our faith and our obedience. On His last night with His disciples, He tells us that if we love Him, we will obey His commands, and as a result, He and the Father will make their dwelling within us.

The Spirit-filled life begins the moment we profess Christ as Lord and Savior. At that moment, we are in Him, just as He is in the Father and He is in us (John14:20). Since we are in Christ, we see things differently, as Paul mentioned in the previous verse.

And it is this new relationship we have with Christ that is changing us, transforming us, making us more like Him.

When I moved to Whitehouse as a 15-year-old, I had grown up in church. I knew enough about what the Bible taught to know that I needed to accept Christ, but I wasn’t ready to. My first day at my new high school, I didn’t know anybody. At the beginning of third period, I made my way to the science lab for my class in biology. Shortly after I sat down, these two guys came and sat at the table in front of me. One of the guys turned around, extended his hand to me and said, “I’m Chris McNeil.” I shook his hand, told him my name, then he introduced me to his friend, Bobby Reeves. We had lunch after that class, so I asked if I could tag along with them. From that day, a wonderful friendship began to grow.

That friendship has had a profound effect on my life. Both Bobby and Chris were actively involved in their church and were Christians. While I attended a different church, it wasn’t long before I finally heeded the Spirit’s conviction and accepted Christ as my Savior. Whether they knew it or not, Bobby and Chris played a part in that decision. Others that I had befriended also played a part. My life has been shaped by these friends. I told Melissa that when I grow up, I want to be like Chris or Bobby.

Just as our friends have an influence in our lives, so our relationship with Christ is inevitably bound to have a profound effect on us. When God reaches out to us and we enter into that relationship, we are made new, and in that newness we are able to be changed by that relationship.

Because we walk with Jesus, we are made new.

1. Frees us from the past, frees us for the future (17b)

Our past shapes us. Years ago, my brother gave me a phone call that took me to a dark place. I spent three days stewing over the “wrongs” done me in my growing up days by him, by my parents, by all sorts of people. I sunk deeper and deeper into a pit of bitterness and anger. It was on the third day, as I was driving from Cincinnati to Louisville that God intervened in my self-destructive period. He reminded me that the past is the past, and I cannot change it. It was those things, for good or bad, that made me what I was and who I am. I had a choice to make. I could live in bitter anger or I could accept that truth and move on in His grace. As I drove to Louisville, I spent the remainder of the drive talking to God and seeking His forgiveness and rejoicing in His acceptance.

When we look at our past, we need to understand that our past is exactly that—our past. It shaped us, yes, but it is cannot be changed. In Christ, though, we are a new creation, and we are able to look forward, to look ahead.

The word translated “creation” in this passage is the same word used to translate “created” in Genesis. Just as God created mankind in Genesis, so He has created a new thing in Christ. In Genesis, God created us with the ability to have fellowship with Him through the giving of our spirit. Our personality is found in our soul, and we express our soul to the world through our bodies. We also express our soul to God through the spirit.

The problem is that sin killed our spirit. The wages of sin is death, and that death is the killing of the spirit. When we sin, we end our opportunity to commune with God. We are unable to have a relationship with Him, because our sin causes a gulf and destroys our soul.

God, in His graciousness, rekindles our soul through His Spirit. We respond to Him by faith in Christ, and we are created again, this time with a spirit that cannot die, because it is cleansed by the blood of Christ and indwelt by the Spirit of God. This is what makes us a new creation. We are made to have a life-long relationship with the Father by the Son through the Spirit. Because He lives, we live. And we walk with Him, and we talk with Him, and He tells us we are His own.

What does this newness mean for us? It means we can:

1. Discern the will of God.The Spirit gives us insight into God’s will and God’s ways.

2. Remember Jesus’ words. The Spirit brings to our remembrance everything Jesus said.

3. Become fruitful. Jesus tells us that we can know someone by their fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is present in all who follow Christ.

4. Become effective, useful parts of the body of Christ, the Church.The Spirit gifts us with abilities that enable us to better serve Him and each other.

5. We can dialogue with God.Through prayer, we can not only express ourselves to God, but we can listen and hear His words to us.

6. We can express our love for God.God created us new to give us the ability to love Him by loving those we encounter each day.

There are many other things that we can do because God, by His grace and mercy, has created us new. We are made new in Him not as a point of pride, but of humility, gratitude and compassion.

And there is one last thing we can never do. We cannot walk away from God ever again. He hold us in His hands, and He will never let us go. This frees us to live for Him without fear and without doubt. We can walk in Him, not licentiously, but obediently knowing that, if and when we fall short of His will, His forgiveness is ever present and He is always with us, even until the ends of this age.

Conclusion

There is something about newness. The smell of a new car. The feel of a newborn baby. The taste of a favorite food placed before us—that first bite is always a treat. The sound of a new song. The promise of a new day.

We enter into a new year. We enter that new year walking with the Father. Let us make the commitment this day that this new year will see us living out our new lives in Christ. That is the best way. The only way.