2 Corinthians 5.17 says this,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old
has passed away. And behold, The new has come. From this one verse we see right
away two things. It says, therefore, if anyone is
in Christ, we see that there is a group that is in Christ,
but then we also see that there is a group that is not in Christ. And I'm going to tell you, if
God doesn't do something for you, You're in trouble. The proof is back here in Psalm
14. The fool in his heart says there
is no God. God looked down through heaven
into time and he saw that there was none good. Not a one. In fact, he saw Joe Atwell calling
in his own prescriptions for narcotic pain medicine. Going,
what in the world is going on? Playing doctor. Life outside of Christ means
this. We are children of wrath. We love darkness and hate light.
Our hearts are hard like stone. We are unable to submit to God
or please God. And we are unable to accept the
Gospel. The very thing that God uses
to save us, we say no. If you identify yourself in this
group, then you're dead. And what an exposition on death
we heard this morning. I thought, surely, thank you
Jesus for this exposition on death. That's years of ministry. Years of studying. And so what
I'd like to talk about before we get to the good news of what
it means to be changed is what spiritual death is. And I would
ask you to turn to Ephesians 2. Because when we talk about
death, it doesn't simply mean that we're dead, that we can't
move. Ephesians 2 says, then you were
dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following
the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and mind." So death does not necessarily
imply lifelessness. Not physically lifeless, or morally
lifeless, We are dead in the sense that
we are sinners. We are dead in the sense that
we cannot see or feel the glory of God. We are unresponsive to
God in Christ. And we are unresponsive to His
Word. Essentially, Christ is not the
treasure of our life. Dead to God. The most awful state
we can be in. We plead every week from this
pulpit, trust Christ. He's the only way. And you say,
no God for me. Not only do we say that, but
we say, I'm going to use you for everything that you have.
And I say, you're wicked. Outside of Christ, we're wicked.
We're hopeless without God. Spiritually, morally, and legally,
we're bankrupt. We are totally selfish and rebellious.
Legally, we stand guilty before God and are under His wrath. And apart from God's regenerating
grace, we're done. But I'm here to tell you tonight
what God's done for us rebels. God sent His Son into this world,
the God-Man, fully God and fully man. Fully human. And fully divine. Lived a perfect life. Fulfilled
all the law. And died in the place of sinners.
Intentionally. He absorbed all the wrath of
God. For all of those who believe
in Him. And we call those people the elect. Takes away all their
guilt. Forgives all their sins. And on that day, it was a bloodshed.
Isaiah 53 says, it pleased God to crush His Son for our sins. And He died on the cross for
us. He rose from the dead, triumphant over death, hell, and Satan. Ascends and rules with power
from on high. And He will come again and give
eternal life and raised from the dead all those who trusted
in Him. And that's the Gospel. There's no better news than that. So if being dead is not being
in Christ, then to be in Christ means you have to be changed
from death to life. One of my favorite verses, John
5, verse 24 says, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My
Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life. Has passed from exactly what
I just spent a couple of minutes on talking about, being dead
to God to being alive in God. And how do we pass from death
to life? Through the Gospel, which I just shared with you. This may be a poor illustration,
but I'm going to do it anyways. Our stony hearts are like this.
And anytime we're around spiritual things, it just bounces off of
our stony heart. But much like what Pastor Sasser
was speaking about this morning about God sending His Holy Spirit
after us, it comes like this. And the channel is the Gospel
in which we are changed. And so the Holy Spirit makes
its way to us. And this is like a megaton bomb
on the way to us. I was looking on the internet
the other day and North Korea is preparing for nuclear war.
All of their warheads combined don't have the power of this
bomb right here. My God reigns over this whole
world. Nothing happens without Him saying
so. And so, this megaton bomb is
headed for our stony heart. And when it reaches us, we experience
life. At that point, we experience
life. and says we are born again through
the living and abiding Word of God. So what does it mean to get saved
or to be changed? It means that the Lord smashes
the devil and our eyes go open. And once the cross used to be
foolish to us, now is the very wisdom and power to us. It means
the Lord has reached inside of us and taken Excuse me, our stony
heart out of us and replace it with a new heart that loves God. We used to look at Jesus as boring
and this Zen teacher and this genie in the bottle. If I could
just get a couple more wishes, I would wish for more pills so
I wouldn't have to be bogue. Because that's what I asked the
old God that I used to serve for. Please just give me some
more so I don't have to be bogued. And much like Pastor was talking
about this morning, the rolling way of the stone, the obstacles
in our life, which I want to name, some of our obstacles here
in this congregation are alcohol and pills, heroin and cocaine,
pornography, television, secular music, Xbox, food, People-pleasing. And some of
you are saying, being a Christian is so boring. And life goes on,
and you get caught up, and then the Gospel train is headed for
you. That megaton bond that I was talking about. I'm trying to
get my phone out of my pocket. And then one night you're sitting
at home, or wherever you're at. For me, I had just broken into
my house. Go figure. I broke into my house
hoping to steal and get some money. And this very thing rang. And through that phone conversation
that I had with Pastor Clark, God breathed life into me. He told me something very simple.
You're never going to make it unless you have Christ. And I'm
not just talking about drug addiction. I'm talking about your entire
life. Drug addiction is nothing to
God. Absolutely nothing. And if that's all you want, you're
aiming too low. When you're changed by the Creator,
it's not simply improving the old you. In fact, God uses nothing
of your old self. It's new. All things I used to
do no longer fit into this new me. In fact, the craziest things
will happen to you. You'll find that your conversations
are totally different. The people you now hang out with
are nothing like your old friends. You now have a passion and a
desire to do God's will. In fact, the new man or the changed
man has new views, new notions, new ambitions, new convictions,
new desires, and new hopes. He has nothing of the old, but
it's all new. And so how do I know that I've
been changed like the men of grace are going to sing about
for us tonight? How do I know that I've been changed? And I
say it's a real simple answer to that. I now hate what I used
to love. In fact, it disgusts me. In fact,
I want to vomit when I think of the things that I used to
do. My mother-in-law used to be the security at the job that
I worked at at Chrysler. She raided my office, and every
drawer in my desk was filled with pill bottles to the top. That disgusts me to think about
that. I want to vomit thinking about that. Because that's not
me anymore. I'm totally new. And so I hope that God has done
the same for you. I hope that God comes to where
you're at either tonight, tomorrow morning, in the shower, on the
way to work, or on the way back up here and speaks life into
you. Everything I experience now is
new, and that is how I am transformed. According to Romans 12, it says,
be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Every day renewing my mind in
Christ, in His Word, in fellowship, in prayer. Every day. And it's a struggle sometimes.
And it's not easy every day. And I don't always want to do
it. But I find it hard when I think back My life today, in comparison
to having a deer rifle crammed down my throat, trying to get
the trigger to squeeze, and not knowing why it would never squeeze,
but I know that now. I would say the best illustration
I can give for 2 Corinthians 5.17 is, therefore, if anyone
is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold,
the new has come is this. I'm driving in my car. I'm pulling
out onto the street. And I have a rear-view mirror.
And as I drive away, I watch all of that fade away. And that's
my pass. But as I continue to drive, I'm
experiencing the newness. And what is that newness for
me? Paul said it this way, I'm determined to know nothing amongst
you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'm determined to
know nothing but Jesus. I now belong to God. What does
it mean to be changed? It means this, I'm not a drug
addict. I'm a child of the King. Everything is working together
for my good, even in my suffering. God has born me again. Satan
cannot touch me. I now have a purpose in this
life. I now have God's power. I am a winner. And I'm more than
a conqueror. I'm part of the kingdom. There
is no condemnation for me. I have a mansion in heaven waiting
for me. I am born again. I am a new creation. And I have been changed. And I would encourage you tonight,
if you don't know the Lord, to come and find either myself or
one of the elders or one of the pastors after church, and maybe
we can pray with you. And we can talk about the Lord.
But I pray that the Lord comes to you, because that's the way
it has to happen. He's got to find you. I would encourage you
to praise Him tonight and worship Him for who He is. He's high
and lifted up. He's the King of kings and the
Lord of lords. Amen. Thank you.