By Faith, Not Sight

 

Read 2 Corinthians 5

This may be one of the toughest chapters for me to preach. It’s not that the concepts are difficult. They are not. In fact, the theology here is very much within our grasp.

It is difficult for me for the same reason that Romans 8 is. It is jammed packed with what I will call golden nuggets—phrases that are full of rich teaching, some even proverbial .  For instance:

To be at home in the body is to be away from the Lord. To live is Christ. To die is gain. We know the concept. While we are on this earth, we fulfill our commissions, learn from our Master, and are known by our love. When we die, it is celebration time.

Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. You old people out there and yes, it was a shock to find out that I am the same age as old people, do you remember deposits on Coke bottles?

When I was a kid and saw a glass bottle that used to contain a soft drink, I saw potential income. I would collect the bottles, put them in my little red wagon, and walk the two or three blocks to the neighborhood store and cash in. If my load was big enough, sometimes I got folding money.

I even gathered up Coke bottles in high school and threw them in the back of the car or truck I was driving. They were the promise of gas money.

The Holy Spirit is our deposit from God, guaranteeing that his promises are true.

We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. That’s gravitas right there. That is a solemn realization that though I am saved in the blood of Jesus, I will still stand before him and be judged for how I lived once he took away my sin. What did I do with what he gave me?

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. And in a similar vein we receive these words. We are to live a life worthy of the calling that we have received.

So, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. That is a challenge. For as long as we exist in these bodies, our nature is to see people from a worldly perspective instead of someone made in the image of our Creator. That’s a big paradigm shift for most folks, and some never get there while we remain in these jars of clay.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! This is one of the biggest challenges in Paul’s writings. Regarding others from Christ’s perspective is tough. Regarding ourselves as a new creature, that’s even tougher.

We look in the mirror and see the same person that was looking back yesterday. For all the physical indicators that we have, we are the same.

But, that’s not the message that accompanies the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are made as one who has never sinned, even though we did and we still do to some extent.

But if we are to grow, we must see the new creature. If God can speak creation into existence, call it good, and even very good, how can he not bring righteousness to our lives in the blood of Christ Jesus?

We need to see all who have called upon the name of Jesus, including ourselves, as new creatures who desire to bring glory to God.

We are Christ’s Ambassadors. What is an ambassador? It’s someone who represents his or her nation at the highest level, but lives in another country. Where they serve is not their home.

When I was assigned to the United Nations at the end of the First Gulf War, I was the senior Marine in Iraq, maybe Kuwait as well. I went through all sorts of training before I went to the big sandbox, but the one piece of counsel that I received before I left was this: “Don’t go native.”

What did that mean? Never forget where you came from and who you represent. It’s the same for us. We are Christ’s ambassadors. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and we are Christ’s ambassadors. People will know Jesus through us.

We don’t go native and abandon the ways of God for the ways of the world.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is an old self—new self conversation.

God did everything required to save you from sin and death. He did it all.  We are to live up to the right standing granted to us in the blood of Jesus.

Quit trying to live by, seek satisfaction in, and glorify the things that we said we turned away from. Be the new creature you are.

There are so many golden nuggets in this chapter, and there is much in between them that are harder to package as nuggets but still of great value.

But I skipped a big one. Some of you who read your Bibles frequently have been waiting for it.

We walk by faith, not sight. We live by faith, not sight. We live a whole bunch not by what is seen but by what is unseen. What is seen is of the world and what is unseen is what is to come.

The world teaches that seeing is believing. We know that believing is seeing. What do we see that the world does not?

We see the promises of God as if they had already been fulfilled. In God’s realm they have.

In spite of daily evidence to the contrary, we see the work in progress as the completed product, whether in others or ourselves. God has finished the work.

In spite of some of the boneheaded things that we do, know that God’s Spirit is living in us and is a deposit on what is to come.

In spite of being saved by grace in the blood of Jesus, we know that we will all answer to him for how we have responded to this wonderful gift of life in Christ.

In spite of looking very much like the person who never professed Christ, we are a new creature.

In spite of living in this world, this world is not our home. Our home is with God and our room has been prepared.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we are being made in the image of God, in the image of Christ.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we are growing in God’s grace.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we have been made complete in Christ. We can only see the brokenness now, but God finishes what he starts.

In spite of a budget that seems to get tighter and tighter, we have done the work of the Lord with an abundant spirit most of the time.

In spite of a world that is always selling fear, and it’s always on sale, we are not afraid and we are not discouraged. We are strong and courageous.

In spite of cancer, strokes, joint replacements, serious accidents,  and other ailments and afflictions, we know that in the blood of Jesus we are healed.

In spite of the world coming at us from all directions, and I will go back a chapter for that verbiage:

·       Hard pressed but not crushed.

·       Perplexed but not in despair.

·       Persecuted but not abandoned.

·       Struck down but not destroyed.

In spite of the trouble we have in the world, our hope and peace reside in the One who has overcome the world. Every promise of God is yes in Christ Jesus.

The world says that seeing is believing. We know that believing is seeing.

We walk by faith, not sight.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. We live by faith, not sight.

Amen.