A New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Uh everyone welcome to 9:15 uh devotional and uh for those that are new uh everybody is muted now. Uh at the end we'll open up for comment or suggestion or conversation. Uh at the bottom you'll see microphone. Just uncheck it and and you'll be free to speak uh at will. Uh today we're going to be and let me go ahead and click on the scripture. So today uh we are going to be in it'll load here. 2 Corinthians 5:17 and and it it kind of flows in a little bit from from uh from what we discussed yesterday. So let me read this. This is Paul and Paul's really defending himself a little bit to the to uh those that are in in Corinth.

This is 2 Corinthians 5 and 17. Uh hence uh he's he's talking to the church at Corinth. And he says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here." Um, I'm going to leave this up for just a minute. So, uh, when we talk about this, actually, you know what? Let me just go ahead and kick the kick the scripture off. So, when we talk about this, um, yesterday we were talking about, uh, the the windshield and the rearview mirror, right? and we were talking about God doesn't want us to look back. He wants us to look forward.

Um, we can't change anything that happened a minute ago, much less yesterday or last year. We can't bring the good times back and uh and we can't we can't erase the bad. We we none of that can happen. And so he wants us to focus on looking forward. We don't we don't have to erase what's happened, good or bad. It's there. It exists. But that shouldn't be where our heart and our focus is. It should be in looking forward. And this text is really good because this is Paul stating the same thing. Yesterday we were talking about where our vision is, right?

Don't look back. Look forward. This is Paul describing what forward is. So he says that therefore if anyone is in Christ, hopefully everyone on here has given their life to Christ. So if you're in here, you have you you are in Christ. And Paul uses this phrase like a lot in the New Testament. I don't know what the number is, 40, 50, 60, 70 times. It's a it's a it's a recurring uh phrase for him. So if anyone is in Christ, uh if you are in Christ, uh it's you are there. It's a location. You're done. You're there. It has come. It's not something that you're working toward attaining that.

It is there. And he goes on to say, "The new creation has come." In the Hebrew and in the Greek, the word new has different meanings. Our language, we have just new. It's a new car. It's a newborn baby. There there although those are two very different things. One's a car, one's a baby. The context for those is different as well, too. Let me explain. There is the new model. I have a new car. But there's also something that is brand new, complete. It's not a refresh. It's not a It's not a a betterment of what was there. And this word that's used that Paul uses is the new creation.

It is the new. Something greater has happened. It's not an improvement of the old. So, it's not that you got better. You got new. You got different. And this is what Paul is saying. He says, "The old has gone. It's gone. It doesn't exist. It's gone. The old is doesn't exist anymore. You are a brand new creation. The new is here." And so when we when we think about what we talked about yesterday and not looking back and then we talk we we we we cover this scripture right here try trying to to uh to explain this properly. it. You're You didn't just get better.

You're in Christ. You You are a completely different creation. You You didn't heal your right arm. You You didn't You didn't uh You didn't grow two inches taller or lose 40 pounds. You are a brand new creation where in Christ it is nothing you did. There's nothing that you could have done to to to make yourself a new creation. uh uh except for accepting Christ. So you are a new creation. So So what does that mean? I'm brand new. There's no reason for me to look that way. Why? I'm not even the same person. Looking back and looking at the glory days, that was a completely different person that experienced that.

Looking back and you were incarcerated, that's not even you. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. There's zero reason that you might as well be looking at somebody a Bob or a Bill or a Susan. It's not you. That's not who you are today. You have nothing in common with that person back there. You are a new creation in Christ. And so this is why in Isaiah and this is why Paul talks about it here. We are new. We have to look this way. We have to go in this direction. There's zero reason for us to look back that way. Christ doesn't want that.

He wants us to have our eyes firmly fixed on on him and his glory and what he is doing in our lives. Not what we're doing, what he is doing in our lives. All right. So, let me open this up. Thoughts, comments, questions, free yourself. Yeah. I got to say that uh that hit home because I responded Christian like to my daughter on one of her comments and it really took her by surprise. I might have said something like, "Hey baby, you got to let go and let God." Her response to me was, "Wow, what have you done to my dad and where is he? He's a new creation." That's where he is.

Yeah. Amen. Somebody else. Well, ju just on that same note, um the reason new creation is because before Christ, we were dead in our sins. Um, and a lot of people don't understand that concept. We weren't spiritually sick. We weren't like, you know, needing of spiritual healing. We were spiritually dead and then we became we made we became born again, made alive. And that's how we become new creatures. And um, that's where I think the concept of total depravity. I'm not a Calvinist, but that's where I think the Calvinist have that point nailed down really well.

Awesome. Yeah. I'm probably people out here understand Calvinism, but yes. Amen. That's exactly correct. Yeah. You were dead in your sins. You You weren't You weren't just a bad version. You were dead. Yeah. And the uh the precursor to all of this is repentance, right? Like Jesus means nothing if you don't repent. And the reason we are new creations in Christ is because of the Holy Spirit lives in us. Galatians 2:20, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ Jesus who lives in me. in the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Jesus says if you want to be my disciple you must deny yourself daily. Pick up your cross and follow me. You know John 7 I think it's John 15:3 Jesus says you already clean because of the word I've spoken to you. In Timothy it says that Jesus Christ is the savior of all people especially those who believe. So he loves you like crazy and like maybe if you're like you know not living it out fully. It's like you know doesn't mean you're necessarily going to hell let's say but it's the precursor is repentance. And if you look at the lives that Jesus's disciples lived, I mean, they lived lives full of the Holy Spirit, of power, and like lives that nobody else on the planet lived.

Like that kind of and that's the authority you have in Christ, just as uh Dwayne says, um, in the Bible, it actually talks about how Jesus at the right hand of God, but the right word for that, the original word for that is that he's in the right hand of God. So in the same way, just as we're in Christ, he's in our father. And it says in John 17 that his entire will is to bring the whole world into unity. Uh for us to be in him and for him to be in us, to know that our father loves us just as he loved Jesus. And so let's circle back to to what Connor said to begin with, which is, and I love that, is that he loves us like crazy.

Why? Because we've accepted him. Because we're a new creation. That's why. Anybody else? That's that's exactly how the Holy Spirit's going to work. The people who need to hear the message are going to hear it. And that's why reading your word, being in a group, going to church, uh studying the Bible, being on a 9115 devotional is important for all of us because it allows us to be able to grow spiritually and be able to hear context like this. All right, so it's 9:28. We got we got 20 more seconds. If anybody's got a 20 second comment or question, I I got a quick I can get in 20 seconds.

Um so the only thing point I want us wanted wanted to make is that um all those good fruit like you know repenting and all that um they're all a consequence of what Christ does in us. So we don't we don't repent and Christ makes us born again. We repent because Christ has born us again. And it's a bit it's an important distinction because we can't claim any virtue. Anything we do comes from God. Yeah. All right we got it's 9:29 guys. We got to close out in prayer. Let's bow our heads. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for uh for the for Isaiah who who gave us this instruction back from you thousands of years ago. And then we have Paul who sentiments it going forward. If we're a new creation in Christ, the old is gone and the new is here. Lord, there's no reason for us to look back. And thank you for this message. Thank you for uh for for bringing someone to to this morning on this day who needed to hear this message. Only you can do that, Father. Not not any one of us. And so, Father, we just thank you and praise God for that that very thing. Lord, watch over us today.

Guide us. Allow us to continue to grow forward. Uh, often times, uh, there and we'll hear one thing which maybe sounds a little different than the other and one comment sounds a little bit different than the other, but at the end of the day, babe, uh, Father, we're know that we're between the guard rails and we're moving in one direction and that's really where we need to go. That needs to be the name. our focuses, our eyes are on you. And Father, I just pray that we would continue to do that. That nothing would deter us or derail us from waking up every morning, Lord, and calling you the Lord of our lives.

Father, we love you. We praise you. And as always, in your son Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right, we'll see you guys tomorrow, same time. Thanks, Dwayne. Thank you for our leave button. I hear a little voice saying bye bye bye guys.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.