This sermon emphasizes how the Bible enhances our perspective by helping us see others, Jesus, ourselves, and our mission more clearly.
Foothills Bible Church podcast
12-29-24 | New Beginnings #1: A New Year - A New Way of Seeing
Good morning. As Chris said, Debbie and I are full-time missionaries with Cadence International. We work with the American military around the world. If you have ever been in a cadence ministry or served in the ministry or served in the military, we'd like to meet you. We have a little display in the back and we'd like to just say hi. It is just good to be with you this morning. Let's pray as we begin. God, in these next few moments, open our eyes that we might see your truth. Open our ears that we might hear your voice. And God, give us courage to be obedient to what we see and what we hear this morning, where we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. A couple of weeks ago, I had to replace a light bulb on the headlamp of my car. To do that, I had to reach over the hood and through a black cylinder of hard plastic and feel around for whatever was back there, twist it off, pull it out, take the old bulb out, put the new one back and put it back. I was able to accomplish that, which may surprise you as a pastor and missionary that I could do such a thing. But it was harder because I couldn't see what I was doing. When you can't see, everything gets harder. And you all know that. That's why lights are so wonderful and glasses so that you can see clearly. Sometimes things are too small to see and you need a magnifying glass or a microscope. Sometimes things are too far away to see. So you get a telescope or binoculars. But, and this is surprising, sometimes you can't see what's right in front of you. Now, that may surprise you, but a couple of cognitive scientists, Daniel Simons and Christopher Charbus in 1999 conducted an experiment where they got six students, put them in a circle, three had black T-shirts and three had white T-shirts. They gave each team a basketball and then they asked participants to watch a video of them for 60 seconds and count how many times the white team passed the basketball. Now, what's interesting is these people are watching this video 20 seconds into the video, a gorilla, a full-suited gorilla, a man in a gorilla suit, walks in the middle slowly, he beats his chest and slowly walks out. What is surprising, half the people never saw the gorilla. I'm not making that up. It's called The Invisible Gorilla. They've written a book about this whole idea that sometimes we just don't see what's right in front of us. As we start new beginnings this morning, I want to talk about a new way of seeing that we see things from God's perspective, which is not natural. It's like watching a gorilla when you don't expect him there. God wants to surprise us in some ways and sometimes we miss it. Our text this morning is from 2 Corinthians chapter 5 starting with verse 16 to the end of the chapter. This is what we read. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All of this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Before we dive into this passage, I want you all to help me, and don't worry, it won't be, well, it might be hard, but I want you to do your best. I would like everyone, for just a moment, to think about somebody you don't like. Oh, I see some of you came up with that right away. Think about somebody you don't like, somebody who's annoying, all right? Maybe it's somebody at school. It's another kid or a teacher that you don't like. Oh, I see students nodding, all right? Maybe it's somebody at work, an employer, a boss that you have, or as colleagues that are hard to get along with. Maybe it's somebody from church that you don't like, somebody in your G2. There happens. It could be a family member, brother, sister, parents. Think of a person that you don't like. Now, if you can't think of anybody, think of drivers you don't like, all right? Think of people who drive too slow or who drive too fast and weave in and out. And then ask this question, why is it that you don't like those people? Why do you not like them? My guess is because you know that they are rude, opinionated, self-absorbed, entitled, narcissistic, thoughtless of others. I see people nodding. And you are not wrong. When we look at people and see people we don't like, we don't like them for a reason. And that is looking at someone from a very natural point of view. Paul says in 2 Corinthians it's looking at them according to the flesh. Well, how else would you look at someone if it wasn't according to the flesh? My suggestion is you think about someone you don't like and look at them as God would look at them. Now, I just want to run through a couple very familiar verses to give us an idea of what it looks like from God's perspective. In the book of Genesis chapter 1 in the creation story we read, "So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God made people in his own image." It does not say that about the mountains or the ocean or the beautiful sunset. People reflect the image of God like nothing else in creation. And they're incredibly important to God. Not only are people made in the image of God, but God loves them. The most famous Bible verse ever, John 3 16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." God loves everybody. He loves the people you don't like. The people you don't like were created in his image. All right, one more verse, and this will be the hardest one of them all. This is going to be Romans chapter 3 verse 23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Now that's easy. We don't like people because we see their sin. We see their fallenness. So far so good. The problem with this verse is all, which means you have sinned as well. It's not just them. It is you. It's me. What if we're not so different? What if we're all sinners and we're in the same boat? They're not that much different than we are. There was a time when I was visiting convicted murder. He was in for capital murder. He'd been in prison, I think, for 17 years when I met him. He came to Christ early in his prison stint and got to know God well. It was involved in prison fellowship, Bible studies, read his Bible, studied this Bible. And if he was here today, you would like this guy. He was like the nicest guy in the world. And one day we were chatting and he said this to me. He said, "Our hearts are about the same." And if things were just a little bit different, I would be out there and you would be in here and I'd be visiting you. And I've remembered that forever. People we don't like aren't that much different than us. They're sinners, but you're sinners. They're made in the image of God and they're love God. Now, when you think of people that way, it changes the way that you relate to them. In the book of Matthew, chapter 9, Jesus looks out at the crowd and he says when, and when we read, when he saw the crowd, he had compassion on them for because they were harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shark. Now, think of that for a moment. Jesus could have said to his disciples, "Come here, guys. Look at that crowd. Have you ever seen more selfish people in your life? Look at those people out there. They don't believe. Look at those people out there." But that's not what Jesus did. He saw people in his heart broke for them. His heart went out to them. What would happen if in this next year we started looking at people like that? That there were people in God's image, people who were loved by God and people who were not much different than we were. And we had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like a sheep without a shark. A number of years ago, Debbie and I lived in an apartment complex and we're involved with a ministry called apartment life, a wonderful ministry to people who live in apartments. We did all kinds of activities to create community and bond with people. And one of the things that we did was breakfast on the go. We lived in a really nice apartment complex in a really bad neighborhood. It was a gated community. So several times during the month, we'd get up at five in the morning. We would find tables, hold the tables down to where the gate was, put box juices, muffins and donuts on the table. And as people left for work, we would hand them the goodies and just say, "Good morning. Breakfast on the go." Most people appreciated it. There were some parents that counted on it. They were very excited about breakfast on the go. And there was one man who came through who didn't seem to appreciate it at all. Even though he ate the muffin. He had an old truck that was beat up and unwashed. It had a broken muffler, which was ironic because he worked in a muffler shop. He was disheveled, kind of scraggly looking and snarled. So when he would roll down the window, we'd have the muffin and he would snarl as he took it. To be honest, I was afraid of him. Debbie, on the other hand, this happens two or three times, he comes through and she sees him as God sees him. Not as a guy who works in a muffler shop who snarls. And so Debbie walks up, has a huge smile on her face and says, "Good morning. It's breakfast on the go." Then he reaches for the muffin and she says, "No, you can't have it till you smile and say thank you." And he says, "I don't smile." And Debbie says, "Oh, yes, you can." And this goes back and forth for a little while. I'm nervous. Eventually he cracks. He chuckles and he says, "Okay, thank you." Takes the muffin. For the next year and a half, every time he saw Debbie, he had this huge smile and said hello. Underneath this snarling guy was a man who was loved by God and made in the image of God and somebody who wasn't that different than we were. We need to look at people like God looks at them, not according to the flesh. And 2 Corinthians Paul also writes that we used to look at Christ that way. It says, "Even though once we regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer." To regard Christ according to the flesh is to see a guy who was a good teacher, to see a guy who healed people, to see a guy who was pivotal in history. And it's easy to see that Jesus. They make Jesus movies. I think I've seen all of them. I've seen pictures of Jesus. But that's Jesus in the flesh. What's it like to see Jesus as Almighty God? King of kings and Lord of lords worthy of all of our worship? That when you see him, you will fall on your face because he is God and is not to be trifled with. We once saw Jesus in the flesh, but now we see him in a different way. He's the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And we owe him our whole heart and our whole life to see Jesus, not just as a good teacher, but to see him as the God and creator of the universe. The next verse says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come." To be in Christ is to be in a relationship with Christ. It's somehow a decision that we make, that we want to be connected with Jesus. I don't think it is a lot different than deciding to get married. And you say, "I no wonder want to live alone. I want to live with this person." And your life is never the same once that happens. And when you say, "I want Jesus in my life. I want to find out who he is. What he does, and I want him to take control of my life." You're in Christ. And you can make that decision this morning while you're sitting here. Many of you made it in the past. It's likely some of you have not made it yet, and you can make it at any time. You can make them while you are walking your dog while you're laying in bed. You can make that, you can become in Christ. I'm convinced, even if you're not even sure, that it's real. I came to Christ at the end of my sophomore year in high school, and my first prayer was, "God, I'm not even sure if you're real, but if you are, please come into my life and save me." And that was it. After that prayer, I was in Christ. Best decision I ever made in my whole life. Thank God that God found me. What all I could say is, I don't even know if I believe this is real. He found me. But one of the things that's always confused me about this verse, this verse 17, was one of the first Bible verses I ever memorized. And it says, "If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old is gone. Behold, the new has come." I wondered what left and what became new. I was hoping for a new personality. The people who are laughing know me. People who give psychological tests and psychologists would tell you I am an extrovert. People who know me better would say, "I'm loud and obnoxious." Which is true. And I was really hoping that when I became a Christian, I would get a new personality. I would become somebody who would like reading, and I'd be quiet, and I'd keep my thoughts to myself. That did not happen. I thought maybe when I became a new creation, I'd be a better athlete. I have been a golfer all my life. To say I'm a golfer is really a stretch. I am awful at the game. And I really thought that now that I'm in Christ, that's going to get better. It did not. I did take golf lessons this summer, and that has helped. So what does it mean? You're a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. Let me suggest it means two things. Number one is you're forgiven. You are forgiven. The blood of Christ covers you, and now when God looks at you, He looks at you through the blood of Christ, and He sees you as perfect. No shame, no guilt, no regret. He looks at you and just giggles with delight because you're who you are. Have you ever been in a position when you really needed that kind of forgiveness and felt it from someone? There was a time in my life when I was between assignments with Cadence International, and I was teaching high school. I was teaching home economics. Pretty exciting. I had two classes. I taught three classes a day. All three were 90 minutes long. In the afternoon, I taught marriage and family and single survival to juniors and seniors. Now although I knew nothing about teaching high school, I knew something about the subject matter, and although the classes were difficult, I made it through. But my first class of the day was a freshman culinary arts class, which I was totally unprepared for because I don't know that much about cooking, and I don't know much about school, and it was rough. I'm in a big room that's kind of split in half. Half of it had desk where I would teach the students nutrition and food safety and other boring things they didn't care about. The other part was the huge industrial kitchen by which they would get to cook. They call them labs that they would do. I see people nodding. This was awful for me. 30 students out of control. The questions they would ask. Mr. Elgin, how do you turn on the oven? Mr. Elgin, where's the salt? Mr. Elgin, he just hit me. Mr. Elgin, and then they would throw food at me and try to get away with it. It was awful. I so thought that at some point one of the administrators would come in and see the chaos, and I would immediately be terminated because it was just wild. On day seven, we hit a real low. The students were in doing a lab, and they were supposed to take Reese's peanut butter cups or Reese's pieces and put them in a glass pyrex measuring cup and melt them in the microwave, which doesn't sound hard, but if you're a freshman in high school, it can be complicated. One of the freshmen put the measuring cup in, but he left the fork in the measuring cup. So it starts sparking. The things start smoking. The students are afraid so they back up. I run over and unplug it, but just as the time I'm unplugging it, it sets off the smoke alarm, the fire alarm in the entire school, and 1,700 students are walking out onto the football field. And I hear the other teachers complaining, "Why a fire drill? What kind of idiot did this? What are we doing? School has just started." Which doesn't make me feel very good. We're out there for about 35 minutes. It's Phoenix. It's August. It's over 100 degrees. It wasn't pleasant. We filed back in, and just as we get back in, the bell rings, classes change, and all my students leave. But the kitchen is a mess. There's food and dishes and half melted chocolate all over. The students leave, and the advanced students are coming in, with their teacher who knows how this is supposed to work, and she looks at the kitchen, and I say, "I'm sorry." And she scowls and says, "We'll clean it up." Which didn't make me feel very good. Anyway, after that, I go into the pantry. I may have cried. And I didn't know what to do. And I thought, "All right, I'll confess. That's what I will do." So I got my courage together. I walked up to the principal's office. I walked in. I'd only met her a couple of times. And I walked in, and I said, "I, Mr. Elgin, it was my class that caused the fire. I am so sorry." And I thought I was going to get fired or chewed out. She got up from her desk, walked around, threw her arms around me, and said, "It's okay. It's high school. You'll be fine. We're so glad you're in the school. You're going to be a great teacher. We love you. Thanks for being here. Don't worry about it for a minute." And I walked out of there. No guilt. No shame. I'd been forgiven by the principal. When you become a new person in Christ, you become forgiven by the creator of the universe. No guilt. No shame. No reason to keep secrets in your life. You don't have to tell everybody. Tell somebody. Tell a pastor, a counselor, a good friend. Don't keep secrets. Remember, you are loved by God and forgiven by God. The old is gone. The new has come. There's another thing that happens when you become in Christ. Not only is your sin forgiven, but your future becomes secure. In this life, you will have trouble. And I bet everyone in here knows that. This life is difficult. In the last couple of years, I've been asking people what's been your biggest surprise since high school when you thought you had it all figured out. And the answer I get more than anything else is this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It is hard. But our future is guaranteed. It's hard to know what heaven's going to look like. There are descriptions in the Bible that I don't completely understand, but I love this passage from Revelation, chapter 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man and he will go with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eye and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." That is our destiny. This life is hard, but the end is sure. I want you to imagine how that changes your life. Try to imagine for just a moment that you are a sixth-grade boy who just loves basketball. You love everything about it and your dad put up a basketball hoop and you play it in the summer when it's hot and in the winter when it's cold because you just love the game. But there's competitive and you don't know how good you are and I show what's going to happen. And then one day while you're out there practicing, an angel from God shows up. He's got wings and he's bright and he's got the glory of the Lord and you fall down afraid because that's what you do when you see angels. And the angel says, "Don't be afraid. Stand up. I have a greeting from God." And you wonder what kind of greeting this might be. And then the angel says to you, "You're going to make it." You'll go to a Division I school. You'll go on the first run of the draft, your favorite team. You'll be rookie of the year and in three years you'll win the NBA championship and you'll be voted most valuable player. And the angel says, "All of this is going to happen to you because God is going to give you a special ability to do this. This isn't because you're so great. This is because God has chosen to bestow this upon you." And then the angel goes away. Now think about how that changes your life. You still practice all the time because you love the game. That doesn't go away. But now every time you miss a shot, it's okay because you know you're on your way. When you get cut from the high school basketball team and the coach says, "You're never going to make it." It hurts. It's embarrassing. But you know you're going to make it. It doesn't matter what happens. You know you're going to make it. And every time the ball goes in the hoop, every time you win the game, you know the only reason you're on this path is because God put you there. And so you give him all the glory for everything that happens. Do you see how your vision changes what's going on? When you know the end, the bumps still hurt. They don't last forever. When you know you're forgiven, there's no shame. There's no regret. We should see ourselves as people who are in Christ as people who have no guilt, no shame. And our future is secure. Lastly, how do we see our mission? This passage talks about God giving to us the message of reconciliation. Verse 20, "We are therefore Christ. We are therefore ambassadors for Christ. God is making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God." You are ambassadors for Jesus. Wherever you are, you represent the King of Kings. When you go to school and you go to work, you see the doctor when you're at the grocery store, when you get cut off in traffic, you're an ambassador for Christ. There are many things that are true about my identity. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I own a dog. A dog I love. A bit of an idiot, but I love him anyway. But the deepest parts of who I am, I am an ambassador for Jesus. Now, most of the time, in most places, I show the love of Christ to other people by simply smiling, shaking their hand, looking them in the eye, handing them a muffin. Most of the time, that's all it is. It's being an optimist because you know your destiny. It's being free from shame and guilt. It's being you in front of other people. It's being quick to apologize when you're wrong because you know you can do that and it changes the world. I met my first ambassador for Christ before I was saved. I was a sophomore in high school. High school for me was a particularly difficult time. I was a dork. I didn't have many friends. I was awkward. I couldn't play an instrument, couldn't sing. My athletic career did not pan out at all. It was awful. At the end of my sophomore year, once I got saved, I started going to church and I loved church and that was a good part of my life. But before I was saved, I'm in geometry class. And even though I wasn't doing well socially, I was doing well in geometry. I was getting an A in geometry. And sitting next to me was a girl named Kathy. Now, Kathy, everyone loved her. She smiled. She laughed. She even liked me, even though I was a dork. And we sat next to each other in geometry. But she wasn't good at geometry. She was getting a D, as I recall, her recollection as well. And we're having a test and I look over at her as the test is being handed out and our hands are folded and our head is bowed. And after we have our test, I looked at it and I said, "What are you doing?" And she said, "I'm praying." And I thought, "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." The next day, when we got our test passed back, I got a C and she got an A. And I thought, "Huh, maybe there's something to this prayer." And a couple months later, I came to know the Savior. Now, as I went through high school, I didn't have any friends there. But for strange reasons, I've maintained contact with this girl, Kathy. It turned out she ended up going to the same church and we saw each other once in a while at youth group. And this year, she was organizing our high school's 50th high school reunion and wanted me to attend. I did not want to go. I don't know anybody from high school. It wasn't a good time, but I went and it was weird. Never been to a high school reunion. If you've never been to one, don't go to your 50th. It is just too weird. Kathy wanted me to feel at home there. And so she introduced me to her friends and she introduced me to Cindy. Cindy has been very involved in young life and in church and in ministries of various kinds. And I asked Cindy, I said, "Did you grow up in church?" And she said, "No." I said, "How did you come to know the Lord?" And she said, "Well, I was hanging around Kathy and she was just so happy and she smiled all the time and she invited me to church and that was it." And then Kathy introduced me to Laurie, who was deeply Christian. I said, "How did you come to know the Lord?" And she said, "Kathy, this girl wasn't the brightest girl in the school. She wasn't the prettiest girl in the school, but she loved Jesus." And it just flowed out of her. What would happen if you saw yourself as an ambassador for Christ everywhere you go at the grocery store? You talk to people at random. You are representing Jesus with optimism, with hope, with the knowledge that everyone is loved by God and made His image. I'm convinced that sometimes we miss things that are right in front of us like that gorilla. God has put people in front of us that are made in the image of God. He's put Jesus, the God of God, and the King of Kings in our lives. God has made us new in Christ. The old is gone. The new is come. He's made us ambassadors. And sometimes we can't see it. It's the gorilla in the middle of the circle. And my prayer for you today is that God will give you eyes to see because there are things that are right in front of us that are so exciting. But if you don't look for them, sometimes you miss them. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for your Bible, for the Bible, for this message. God help us to see the world, to see people, to see our future like you do. God, thank you so much for this text. Thank you for new beginnings in our lives. Thanks for letting us be here today. In Jesus' name, Amen.