Latest / The Daily Word / April 5 – See People as New Creations
Transcript
- Cory Barnes: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whatever time you are joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Cory Barnes. It's my privilege to serve as our Catawba campus pastor and happy Easter everybody. Happy Resurrection Day. What a privilege to be able to dive into God's word with you today, see what insights we can find and apply those to our lives. So excited! Today is April the 5th and jumping into today's New Testament reading, we're looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and there is good stuff in here, especially coming on Easter. ⁓ On the that we are celebrating Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, ⁓ there's all of good stuff in this chapter about what that means ⁓ for us. personally and for those around us and coming on a day that we are believing and contending as a church that people will come they will meet Jesus they will experience his transforming power go to work in their lives is exciting what we're going to be reading today we're going to jump right on into the verses that stood out to me and ⁓ one of them is going to sound really really familiar it's one of the hallmark verses that we believers carry with us, but we're gonna look at the verse right before it to see how we can look at it perhaps in a new light. this is verses 16 and 17, Therefore from now on we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now that second verse, verse 17, boy, that is a revelation that all of us have to gain at the beginning and continuing out throughout our journey with Jesus, that as Jesus Christ enters into our life, he restores and he renews and he creates new things. inside of us, the moment we accept him, we are no longer the old person that we used to be, we are no longer chained and bound to the dictates of the flesh and the slavery of sin, we are a new creation, yes, we still may look the way we were, we may still walk and talk the way that we were, but Jesus is on the inside of us and he has created something new inside of us that is going to start sprouting on the outside people are going to start seeing it and I want us to see ⁓ is about that verse 16 where Paul says ⁓ Therefore from now we regard no one according to the flesh And on this day, we are expecting faithfully that people are going to be meeting Jesus Christ for the first time. Let's just talk about that for a second. We are regarding no one from now on according to the flesh. Now it's a revelation for us to accept that we are a new creation. I personally, Corey Barnes, when I accepted Jesus Christ, I am a new creation. but it's another revelation to understand that the people around us, they are a new creation as well, and that we should not judge them, we should not regard them according to what is outwardly facing. Now, this is something that I feel like the American church has gotten a better handle on in the past couple decades, like, like the whole advent of like people being able to come to church that have tattoos or piercings and then being accepted and welcomed into the body of Christ. That is beautiful and that was a long time coming. But this whole regarding people according to the flesh, that is still something that we all have to reconcile. tell me when you walk in and you see someone who is more eloquent, someone who knows the scriptures, someone who is able to talk about those things, do you esteem them more highly than the person who comes in and sits quietly on the pew, takes their notes and leaves church? Like are you esteeming them, regarding them differently based on how they look? Are you regarding the person that walks in with their clothes put together, they've got a nice outfit, are you regarding them more highly than the person who kind of walks in with a kind of smudgy t-shirt on and maybe some shorts and shoes and just look a little bit ruffled, a little bit less put together? Are we esteeming them differently? We have to reconcile that, we have to work through that, we have to deal with that because If they have accepted Jesus Christ, the outside may not look the same, but on the inside, they have become part of the family. They are one of the new creations. Something different, something other than what the rest of the world has to offer. And we are not called to regard them according to the flesh. Just like we don't regard Jesus according to the flesh, when he walked on earth he was able to do amazing things, amazing miracles, but when he died and he resurrected, the clarity, the truth that he was the son of God was revealed to all. We don't regard him according to the human flesh, we regard him as God. And when we look at people around us, we should be able to see that God is residing inside of them. that they are a brand new creation. And yes, their brand new creation, the outside of it may still make some questionable social media posts. They may still have some issues. Their language might slip. They may not know all the right things to say. They may not have it all put together, but they are still a new creation. And that the most polished person is no better than the person who lacks refinement. This is what the book of James talked about. Pastor James, when he said that the church was allowing people who were wearing golden rings to walk in and they were giving them the best seat in the house. And then when a servant walked in, making them sit at the feet of those people and how that was a shame that that was not right. We should esteem people rightly. They're all part of the family. So let's talk about application. I mean, that observation kind of comes late in with application. How is it that I'm looking at the people around me, the person that came in, the single mom who walked into church today with their hair disheveled and is just struggling and looks like she's lived a hard life. Are we judging her or holding her down? we regarding her flesh as less than? than the pastor who got on the platform and delivered a Paulist message? Are we giving her less esteem and less honor because of that? Let's remember that we are all new creations. Let's remember that we should see Jesus in the people around us. And that if we don't see it immediately, if we look hard enough, if we ask the Lord to open our eyes to see it, we will. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much. For those of us who don't have the revelation that we are a new creation, Lord, I pray that you would just help that set in. I pray that you would help us to see that we truly are not who we used to be. We are a brand new person now that we know you, and so are those around us. The people that came in that we see that we knew once upon a time, they are not who they used to be, and we should not hold them to the standard of who they used to be. We should see them as who you have made them to be. Lord, I thank you for opening our eyes to see you inside of the people around us. That way we can gain from them. We can grow closer to you by what you are doing in their life. We love you, Jesus. We thank you that every time we come to the scripture, you make it real. You make it breathe life into us. You strengthen us. You guide us. You help us to walk more closely with you every single day. We love you, Jesus. And we're so thankful that you're our Lord and our Savior. Thank you for coming. for dying, the death that we deserve so that we can live the life that you deserve. In the name of Jesus, amen.