(2 Corinthians 5: 6-17)
Back when I was a young police officer in Houston, I was assigned to a district that had a lot of action. I couldn’t wait to get to work every day and usually stayed out as late as I could before the dispatcher started bumping me looking for my car for the next shift. Things couldn’t have been better, until we got a new sergeant assigned to the district. I immediately got a bad vibe from him so I put as much distance between us as I could, putting my head down and running my calls hoping to fly below his radar. Apparently, he picked up on it and started working out a swap where one of his buddies from the Traffic Division would take my place and I’d be sent to Traffic, which was a dead-end job unless you were into writing nothing but tickets day after day, week after week, month after month. My lieutenant learned about it and, not wanting to lose me, transferred me to an adjacent district where nothing happened, and I was out of the sergeant’s reach. Apparently, God was at work behind my back. Fast forward several years to when I got promoted to the rank of sergeant. I was thrilled when I found out I was being assigned to the DWI Task Force which was a plum assignment if you wanted to work and arrest as many drunks as you wanted to. Thrilled until I found out that the other sergeant assigned to the Task Force was my nemesis. My heart sank and a sense of dread enveloped me. My first night on the job was tense to say the least. After rollcall he said: “We need to talk. Let’s go for a ride.” Once in the car he recounted how he didn’t care much for me back when he was my sergeant and wondered what my problem was. He told me he was a very angry person at the time but since then he had found Jesus and had been saved. Words cannot describe how relieved I was as we cleared the air. We worked great together and became the best of friends. I really liked my new and improved friend.
And being new and improved is what the Apostle Paul is talking about in our scripture reading for this morning. We pick up where we left off last week where Paul told us that if the earthly tent in which we live is destroyed we have a building from God, an eternal home in heaven, not built by human hands. Remember, Paul is trying to sooth the frayed nerves of the church in Corinth that is hard pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. He reminded them that they carry the death of Jesus in their bodies so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in all that they do in service to the Father. Paul says: So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Paul is essentially telling his readers, the Corinthians and us, that he is not afraid to die because of his confidence in spending eternity with Christ. You see, Paul does not fear the unknown because he knows what lies ahead. The Corinthians, like us, experienced many of the every-day issues we face and would probably be blown away to see some of the things that keep us awake at night. We can identify as facing the unknown may surely cause us anxiety; the unknown of what to do if you lose your job, or if the house you are renting is now up for sale, or you’re not feeling well and the doctors can’t seem to figure it out. And the anxiety intensifies if the ones who are hurting are your loved ones, people close to you. You hurt for them and wish you could take the pain away. You feel so helpless, so anxious. But if we believe in Jesus Christ, we can share that same hope and confidence of eternal life with Christ that Paul has with others as we do our best to comfort them and calm their fears of the unknown, reassuring them of a brighter future. Just this past week I’ve had two occasions to minister to people who are facing the end of their lives and their loved ones who are facing it right alongside them. But they are unafraid because they know what Paul knows; death is only a prelude to eternal life with God. They are finishing their race; they have fought the good fight. If we understand that, we will continue to live so as to let this hope give us confidence and inspire us to faithful service to God, living our lives in God’s name for all to see.
Paul continues by saying: So whether we are at home or are away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil. Now we know that the promise of eternal life is a free gift given on the basis of God’s grace as stated by Paul in Ephesians 2: 8, 9 where he said: For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do so it’s only natural that Christ will have a discussion with us when we get to meet him. Now, I’m not sure what this judgment experience will be like for me, but I imagine it will be something like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz standing before the Great-And-All-Powerful Oz. I’m kind of hoping Jesus will say something like: Well Scott, you got off to a late start, but you finished strong doing a pretty good job with what you had to work with,” as opposed to: “You were quite the couch potato.” This judgment will reward us for how we have lived in service to God. We must remember that God’s gracious gift of salvation does not free us from the requirement of faithful obedience. When Jesus was predicting his death the first time, he said to his disciples in Matthew 16: 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. All Christians, including you and me, must give an account one day for how we have lived, what we have done or not done.
Paul then says: Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others, but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. This “fear of the Lord” language can be a little confusing as we have been taught about the loving kindness of our God in our new covenant through Jesus Christ. God is no longer portrayed as the Old Testament God who would just as soon “smote” you as look at you. No, I think fear of the Lord is more of a healthy kind of respect for all He has done for us by his grace, grace we did nothing to earn, unmerited, undeserved grace. This healthy respect of the Lord should spur us Christians to do good deeds, to do what pleases God, similar to how as children we sought the approval of our elders as we did what we thought pleased them. This healthy fear of the Lord, this respect, also frees believers from all of life’s anxieties and worries. Knowing that God is for us, as Paul wrote in the eighth chapter of Romans, can keep believers unafraid of the earthly powers like those people and governments who do not have our best interests at heart. God takes care of his own and this healthy respect we have for God gives us uncommon courage in the face of life’s troubles.
Paul concludes by saying: From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! What Paul is saying is that Christians are brand-new people on the inside. The Holy Spirit gives them new life, and they are not the same anymore. Like my sergeant friend, he was saved by grace and given a new life, the old life was gone, and he wasn’t the person I first knew and feared. As new Christians we are not reformed, rehabilitated, or reeducated, we are re-created, we are a new creation, we are new and improved, living in vital union with Christ. At our conversion we are not merely turning over a new leaf; we are beginning a whole new life under a new Master. We’re under new management. We are no longer chasing the things of this world that will be consumed by moth and rust.
So, what is new? Well, not only are we believers changed from within, but a whole new order of creative energy through Christ takes ahold of our lives. There is a new covenant, a new perspective, a new body, a new church. All of creation is renewed and we view the world through a different lens seeing clearly what matters to God. There is entirely a new order of all creation under Christ’s authority and the authorities of this world do not have the final say. This new way of thinking requires a new way of looking at all people and all creation. We begin to see people as Christ sees them, children created in God’s image, and we see the natural world as God sees it, a creation of perfection and harmony to be revered and cared for. So, we have to ask ourselves, does our life reflect this new perspective? It is new and improved?
Let us pray.
Merciful and loving Father, when we were shackled by a heavy burden underneath a load of guilt and shame, the hand of your son Jesus touched us, and now we are no longer the same. And since we have met this blessed Savior, since he has cleansed and made us whole, we will never cease to praise him, and we’ll shout it while eternity rolls. Thank you, Father, for taking our shattered lives and making in us a new and improved creation, a creation that shines for all to see and reflects the love of Jesus Christ for others. Move us to use this new life to make a better life for others so that they too can be touched by Christ, so that joy may flood their souls and make them whole. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.