- That's a great, great
passage of Scripture. Hi everyone, welcome to The Meeting House. We got Greg Boyd in the house! (audience cheering and clapping) Woo, so listen, before we get to Greg let me mention two things. Greg is really setting
the table, so to speak, for what we are starting next week which is our series on the reunion that the gospel leads us into with God. And we are going to beginning next week be talking about how
we can best understand and then clearly communicate
the gospel to others and we're gonna be walking through that. And so I encourage you to
come ready to take notes and learn and grow in
the truth of the gospel. So that starts next week. I'm so looking forward to that. And Greg's message today
is gonna be perfect to get us ready for it. The other thing I should mention too is that if you weren't at our AGM, our denominational Brethren in
Christ annual general meeting then you missed something
that is historical, and that is the Brethren
in Christ are no longer the Brethren in Christ. In Canada they voted to change their name. And although Brethren
has rich history to it, it's just kind of male-centric
and old-fashioned, and so... Yet they wanted to honor the
past by keeping the B-I-C, and so they tried different B words. What could be the B for the B in Christ? And eventually decided to let
the B just be the word Be. And so we are now Be In Christ Canada. This only applies to
Canada, but that's us. We can focus on being
beloved and belonging and becoming all that God wants us to be. I'm proud of a denomination
that is just ready to change and say what can we do to be
the best version of ourselves? So here's to the, I was gonna say here's to the Brethren in Christ. Here's to the Be In Christ Canada! Yeah, they've done a great job. (audience clapping) That brings you up to date, and now Greg's gonna take it away. Greg, I'm so glad you're here. Greg has been the pastor of Woodland Hills Church in the States. He is author of over 20 books. He's a smart cookie. His latest book, Crucifixion
of the Warrior God, is about 1400 pages? - A little more. - Yeah, little more, yeah (laughing). I didn't wanna sell it
short, you're right. And he's a brilliant brain. - Oh, golly. - But (laughing) he's got a massive heart and that really comes through, too, and that combination is
just really beautiful. And he's become really,
Woodland Hills become a friend of The Meeting
House and us to them and I'm really appreciative
for this brother. So once again let's welcome Greg Boyd. - Thank you, brother.
- Love you, man. (audience clapping) And he's got my table all wet, baptized it in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, yeah. Well congratulations on your name change. Be In Christ is way better
than Brethren In Christ in my humble opinion. But that's not even saying much because Brethren In Christ really is, pray for your brothers and
sisters down in America who haven't quite got there yet. They still use that term, and it's just such a massive obstacle to the mission that they wanna do. When Bruxy was talking about that I just, I have a weird brain sometimes and I just, I couldn't get outta my head ♪ Let it be, let it be ♪ ♪ Or the letter B, letter B ♪ (audience laughing) Be In Christ, it's a brilliant name. I know that you're looking for a B word but to Be In Christ it's like, it actually is a brilliant name because you've got to
be before you ever do. And the call is to be, to be the church, to be beloved, to belong, to just be who you are in Christ. You get all that for free. And then out of that fullness
you do a lot of stuff. But you do a lot of stuff
because of who you be. You don't be because you
do a lot of stuff, you see. So you're be-ers in Christ,
you're not doers in Christ. It's a good thing you
didn't call yourselves Doers In Christ because that acronym wouldn't work very well at all, would it? (audience laughing) Okay (laughing), boom-boom-ching. (audience laughing) Okay, one last thing. (laughing) I wanna say that
you gotta get Bruxy's new book if you haven't got it already, Reunion. First of all, it's gonna
help going through the series that you're gonna be going through. But it is a brilliant book. He talks about my brain. Well, he's got a brain that can just, he has a way of saying things. I call him sometimes a
walking fortune cookie because he just says these things. It's like oh, that sounds
wise, these aphorisms. (audience laughing) And he's able to put into
simple form the gospel. You know, there's all these
like evangelism tricks, the Romans road and the bridge and all these kinds of things. The trouble is they have
such a truncated gospel. It's about how you can be sure you're gonna go to Heaven when you die. And so that's the whole thing or the main thing that
God's up to, and it's not. And Bruxy's able to
take the kingdom gospel, the full gospel, and make it that simple but without excluding the real meat of it. And it's just brilliant. It's brilliantly simple
and simply brilliant and Bruxy's a genius at simplicity. So there you go. One last thing, and that is I don't wanna hear one more person tell me this morning that
they so liked the sermon they almost said amen. Do you know how frustrating that is? They almost said amen. If you wanna say amen, say amen. At our church it's a little dialogue back and forth, it's nice. So if you feel like saying amen, say amen. Let's give each other
permission to say amen, amen? - [Audience] Amen. - Let's give each other
permission to say amen, say amen? - [Audience] Amen. - But you gotta say it with
enthusiasm. It's like amen! Come on, preach it brother! Like that, okay, amen? - [Audience] Amen! - All right, now we're talking. You don't have to do that. I'm just saying don't hold it back. All right, so I'm kind
of setting the stage for this series you're
gonna have on evangelism and let me just ask you. Is there anybody here other than myself who has struggled with evangelphobia? It is the fear and/or
disgust of everything associated with the word "evangelism." It's a form of post-traumatic
stress disorder (laughs). (audience laughing) Because some of us have been traumatized either by being evangelists or
having people evangelize us. So what I am told, I read, that there's 1041 official phobias that people can be afflicted with. All right, some of them
are pretty bizarre too like a fear of cabbage, I... (audience laughing) But as of now there's 1042 because evangelphobia
is a very real phobia. Somehow you get traumatized. So when I was, I came to Christ in this radical Pentecostal church which is probably why I
like these amens, you know? It's the Pentecostal in me. And so this Pentecostal church
was really big on evangelism but the way that they would
motivate you to evangelize was a lot of fear and a lot of shame and a lot of oughts and a lot of shoulds. And the preacher would stand up there with their preacher voice. This is how they talked in
this Pentecostal church, and they say things like, "Friends, how many souls
have you won for Christ "in the last year? "How many jewels do you
have in your crown, glory? "You oughta be out there saving souls." And there's this, like, if
you're not out there evangelizing there's something really wrong with you. And the picture we were given is that people's eternal
welfare depends on us. And on the Judgment Day we're
gonna have to answer for that. So I would have this picture in my mind of like coming up on
the Judgment Day, right, and there's the sheep and the goats and I'm gonna be one of the sheep because I believe the right things. But there's goats, poor goats, you know. Here they'll say to me just
before they go to Hell, "Greg, why didn't you tell us? "You had a chance. "You walked past us every
day at halls in school "but your mind was on something else. "You were paying attention
to that girl or whatever "and you didn't care enough
to share Christ with us "and now we're gonna go
to Hell because of you!" And I'm supposed to go to Heaven and have joy after hearing that. And that just kind of terrified me. And I am nothing if not
OCD on being consistent. And so if that's true, well then it's gonna
affect the way I live. And so I became the single
most obnoxious person on the planet for my whole
senior year in high school. It was terrible. I was a cool kid before my senior year. People liked me. I had this huge afro,
you know, and I was cool. I was in a rock band
and I had it going on. And then I turned into this Jesus butthead who carries around a Bible like this and I got my hair cut short because that's what Christians
are supposed to get. Now I couldn't grow it long if
I wanted to, but... (laughs) (audience laughing) If I tried to have Bruxy's hairdo it'd come out like Bozo the Clown because I got curly... (audience laughing) Because it's real thin
up here and thick here, so it'd be like yeee. (audience laughing) (laughing) Can you imagine that? That'd be delightful. Where was I? Okay, so yeah, I turned
into this Christian butthead and I'm walking around and I'm thinking I gotta answer for every
person that I pass in the hall. And so I'd be just be
preaching Christ to them and how they needed to get saved and they're gonna come
under the judgment of God and all this stuff. It's so, looking back on
it it's just embarrassing. I didn't go to my first
three class reunions because I was so embarrassed by the way I was my senior year. I finally went back for the fourth one and just tried to like, "Please
forget that last year, okay? "Just delete it, it didn't happen. "Remember me as I was." So I had this fear of
people preaching evangelism where people are gonna start doing that. And I think that's why evangelism's one of the topics
I've talked about the least. My conversations were awkward
and manipulative and... Plus the gospel I was preaching
wasn't really the gospel. It wasn't good news. The word gospel as you'll see
in Bruxy's marvelous book, it means good news. It's supposed to be good though the gospel that a lot of us was given, it's not really good news. It's scary news that you're
supposed to call good. You go up to people and say, "You know what, here's the deal. "You're going to Hell. (laughs) "You're going to Hell. "God's mad at you. "Unless you believe that
God took his wrath out "on his own son instead of you. "If you believe that, well
then you go to Heaven." And that's supposed to
be good news, yippee! It'd be like if I'm on a street corner and a stranger comes up to me and says, "Hey, there's this guy
named Bruno out there "and he's mad at you, and
he's gonna torture you forever "unless you believe that Bruno took it out "on his son instead of you." Would that like make my day, like oh that's, oh, thank you so much! I'm in such a better mood now. (audience laughing) Good news is supposed to make you happy. That would not make me happy. If I believed that I'd soil my pants. Who's this Bruno guy? (audience laughing) Boy, I sure wanna hang
out with him. (laughing) Or I'd go to Heaven
and hang out with Bruno the rest of my life. But that's basically the gospel
that some of us were given. One of the ways you could
tell the real good news in contrast to the scary news that you're supposed to call good is that the good news is good. I'm profound sometimes. I have a Ph.D. (audience laughing) The good news is good! It really is good. It should put a smile
on your face, all right? It's like here's an example of good news. At my church there's a couple that their daughter,
young daughter came down with this really
aggressive form of cancer. She had colon cancer that
spread to her adrenal glands and then got to her liver and it was looking really, really dire. Mother of three children
and it was just a sad thing. So we covered her in prayer. I just saturated her with prayer and she got chemotherapy and she got this thing
called immunotherapy and when she went for her last
checkup she was cancer-free. That is good news, amen? - [Audience Member] Woo! - That's good news. That's good news. (audience clapping) Now the reason it's good news, let's dissect this a little bit, it's because something
happened in the past, and this is the way all good news is. Something happened in
the past that was good that changes for the better
the way you look at the present and changes for the better
what you expect of the future. So this young lady, what was in the past is that she had this radical, this aggressive form of cancer and looked like she was gonna die but through prayer and
chemotherapy and immunotherapy she was healed. That's the good thing
that happened in the past. So now in the present we no
longer are fearful for her. Instead we're filled with joy. And as we look in the future
we no longer are seeing the possibility of her three kids being left without a mother and her husband being left without a wife and the church being
left without her gifts but we see her raising her kids and entering the joy of that and being this loving wife
to this loving husband and giving her gifts to the church. And so everything changes because of what happened in the past. All good news is like that. So what I like to do is
to look at the good news, the gospel that we're given and ask what makes it good? What changed in the past
that affects our present and changes our expectation of the future? Now we already know the future stuff. That's the part that
always gets emphasized, you know, the kingdom
comes and we're in Heaven and we're dancing with the
triune God and all that. So I don't need to talk about that. Where the misunderstanding is often is our understanding of
what happened in the past and how it changes the present. And this, folks, changes everything. The passage I'd like to read out of is from 2 Corinthians 5, a passage that up until about
maybe six, seven years ago I didn't fully appreciate. I had read it the way I was
always taught to read it and then I noticed some
things different about it. It was like it was too
good for me to believe it until I was in a place where
I finally could receive it. And you'll see here that the good news gets gooder and gooder
and gooder, all right? 2 Corinthians 5, I'll start with verse 13. If we are out of our mind, Paul says, as some say, it is for God. But if we are in our
right mind it is for you. For, listen to this,
Christ's love compels us because we are convinced
that one died for all, and therefore all died. One died for all, and therefore all died. Okay, let's stop there for a second. I'll read the rest of
the passage in a minute. But here Paul is addressing
this issue of is he insane because people are saying he's insane. He had this good, cushy life where he was a respected
rabbi in tribe of Benjamin and he had it going on. It
had a good gig going on, and then he all of a
sudden abandons all that, becomes this missionary playing
church all over the place. He gets shipwrecked,
he's thrown in a prison. He gets beaten up, riots break out. He's got a tough life. Why would anyone do that? What are you, nuts? And Paul's saying here
look it, if we're crazy we're crazy about God. But if we're sane it's because of this. The love of Christ compels us because we're convinced
that if one died for all, all have died. Now notice here that the motivation that Paul has for doing what he does and going through the
hardships that he goes through, for giving up the good life, the reason is because he
was compelled by love. He had experienced the love of God for him which made him fall in love
with God, Jesus Christ, which then caused him to share
in God's love for people. And that love compelled him. He wasn't motivated by
an ought or a should or fear or guilt. He was motivated by love. And love's always the fuel
that the kingdom runs on. And when you're really in
love, as some of us know, it can lead you to do things that others who aren't in love think is crazy. Love can make you crazy sometimes. And see I was crazy in high school. I was a crazy Christian in high school, but it wasn't compelled by love. It was a craziness that was compelled by oughts and shoulds and fear and guilt. And that's why all my conversations were awkward and obnoxious
and felt manipulative. They weren't natural because it was always something I was supposed to do not that I wanted to do it or it came... No, it was a rule, I gotta do this. And so you force it. And any time evangelism is
motivated by an ought or a should it tends to be awkward,
you know, it's just... But it's all together different when you're compelled by love. When you're compelled by love if you love someone or something it oozes out of you in
the most natural ways. So like for example, and this
probably isn't a good example but it's what comes to mind. Three and a half years ago or so I discovered this thing
called heavy metal music. And the first thing I
noticed was the drums. I'm a drummer, and in
speed metal especially the drumming is so fast. And they can go so fast
on their base drums it's like (voice trilling). (hands drumming) This is all wet. (hands drumming) It's incredible, it's
like a singing circle on the base drums. And I thought, "How do they do that?" And so I went on a journey to kind of discover the technique and I've been practicing it ever since. It's (mouth trilling) sort of cool. Okay, then I started liking the music. And I don't like what some
of you probably think of with heavy metal music where you get that grunge voice, that monster voice. They call it singing, but it's like (grungy
heavy metal singing). (audience laughing) And I'm not fond of that. But there's other kind of metal music out there that is powerful and majestic and it gives you goose bumps and it's fast and every morning
I like to wake up with this, put the headphone on and
just turn it all the way up and just groove out to this metal music. It's just so cool, it's just so neat. Shelly keeps on telling me
that I'm gonna lose my hearing. I just go, "What?" (audience laughing) So because I love metal music
I end up talking about it. I find myself talking
about it quite a bit. I've had about a dozen conversations with people about metal music. What bands do you like? And it just flows
natural, nothing awkward, nothing obnoxious, it flows natural. And so here's the first point to take away from this message this morning. We've gotta be motivated by love not an ought, not a
should, not a gotta do. If you're a real Christian you would have been saving
souls to Jesus, none of that. It's gotta be motivated
by love which means this. We've gotta be investing in our love relationship with Christ. It's gotta be good news. You have to experience the
goodness of the good news if you're gonna be a bearer of good news, if it's gonna come natural. Is it good for you? Do you experience the
profound, unfathomable, unsurpassable love that God has for you as you are right now,
no if, ands, or buts? Do you have time where you invest on just receiving that love? Because it's when we receive that love and experience that love for real that we again fall in love with him and then begin to share
his love for people. And then evangelism and
everything else in the kingdom comes naturally out of that. Everything in the kingdom
is supposed to come naturally out of this
profound love relationship that we have with Christ. We don't do things to try to get life. We do things because we've got life. And the life we have is the love that Jesus Christ pours into us, amen? - [Audience] Amen. - All right, that was eh, rated a three on a one to 10 scale, but we'll get there. And so the question is
are you spending time, we do this in worship of course, but we need to have,
individually have time where we hang out with Jesus and just let him love on us. It's what our soul hungers for. We're created to have this
as the core food of our life, what sustains us, what strengthens us. I encourage you to carve out time where you just hang out with Jesus, just let him love you. Hear him and see him,
envision him say to you all the things he says
about you in Scripture but now he says it to you with your name. And sense his love and
experience his love. I like to get alone in a room sometimes and just turn off the lights and put on a beautiful
soundtrack in the background because music is a gift from God that sort of melts your heart and opens you up, that's good. And then I ask the Spirit just
to lead me to Jesus Christ. That's his job. And then I envision Jesus
and we just hang out. And I just let him love me as I am. Beautiful things can happen
in these dates you have with Jesus, but that's where
your love gets rekindled and things come alive for you. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, a really important passage, he says that when anyone turns to the Lord a veil over your mind is lifted and now you're able to see
what you couldn't see before and that is you see the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ. And as you behold that glory you're transformed from one
degree of glory to another. What you see in your mind determines what you're gonna become. How beautiful is your picture
of God, that's the question. The beauty of your life and the
passion of your love for God will never outrun the beauty
of your picture of God. Spend time getting a
beautiful picture of God, and that picture of God is
given to us in Jesus Christ and on his death on the cross. God loves you like that. Drink it in so that then you're motivated not by an ought or a should. To the degree that the good
news isn't good for us, well then the only thing
that can motivate us is an ought and a should and
a gotta do and fear and guilt. Then your conversations will
be awkward and obnoxious. Don't go there. Fall in love with Jesus
over and over again and it will flow naturally out of you. Okay, so what is the good
news that Paul preaches? What does he say happened in the past that changes everything in the present? Let's look at this. So let's pick up the rest of the passage. He says if one died for
all, then all have died. I'll say a word about that in a second. And he died for all, Paul says, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but
for him who died for them and was raised again. (slurping water) The love of Christ compels them to live out of their self-centeredness, to get free from that
and to live for Christ. So, Paul says, from
now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view, lock that phrase in. Though we once regarded
Christ in this worldly way we do so no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ the new creation has come. And the Greek has the connotation of look, look, the new creation has come. If you're in Christ, you can see this. The old is gone, and the new is here. And this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation, which is this. That God was reconciling the
world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he's committed to us the message of reconciliation,
which is what he just said. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making
his appeal through us. So we implore you, here's the appeal. We implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. God made him who, listen to this, man. God made him who had
no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, hallelujah. Praise God, okay, so what good thing happened in the past that
makes the good news good? First thing is this. Christ died for all and
therefore all have died. That happened in the past. Know Paul says all have died. He doesn't say therefore those who believe in Jesus have died which is how most
Christians seem to take it. It's like retroactively once
you give your life to Christ, boom, now you retroactively, now you died with him
on the cross, all died. When Jesus stood in
our place on the cross, the good news is much better
than we have tended to believe. When Jesus stood in our place on the cross he stood in place of every human being. He stood in the place of all
humanity, fallen humanity. And when he died that humanity died. In some sense every human
being has already died. They did 2000 years ago. The humanity that died, the
humanity that was crucified with Christ is this old humanity. Not the new creation, the old humanity. The humanity as we were in Adam. The humanity that is at war with God. The humanity that's in bondage to sin. The humanity that's in bondage to Satan. The humanity that's alienated from God, and the humanity that was
destined for destruction. That humanity was put to death
2000 years ago on the cross. And Paul's saying that that old, ugly, rebel, damned humanity is crucified and every human being is
included in that crucifixion. And that, folks, is good news, which leads to the
second thing that's good that happened in the past. See, that's a done deal, it happened. You can't undo that. Second thing is that 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 just so, so beautiful, you guys. God made him to be sin for us. Think of it like this. This is a profound theological concept but here's a easy way to think about it. It's like when Jesus is on the cross, God was able to take
this sinful, rebellious, condemned humanity and
squish it all into Jesus. He now becomes a
representative for all humanity and therefore for all humans,
past, present, and future. And he squishes that fallen,
sinful humanity into Christ and it's as though Christ then suctions out of that condemned humanity, suctions out of that humanity
the poison of our sin and the poison of our bondage, the poison of our war with God, and he ingests it in himself. And he dies and it dies with him. It's a little bit like anyone
here seen The Green Mile, the movie The Green Mile with Tom Hanks? It's a really, really good show, a real kind of Christ imagery
show, it's incredible. But there's this huge guy who's in prison and he's got this ability to suck evil out of people's lives. And he sucks it in himself and then he gets sick
and he coughs and stuff and then he's able to
expel it and it comes out in the form of gnats
or something like that. It sounds strange but
it's a beautiful show so I encourage you to check it out. But that's something like
what Christ did on the cross. He suctioned out this humanity and when he dies he takes
it with it, all right? And see this is why Paul
says in Colossians 2 that when Christ died everything that was written against us, everything that stood against
us was nailed to the cross. When he died our sin died. And that's why Paul says that therefore he disempowered the
principalities and powers. Colossians 2:15, he disempowered the principalities and powers. He unemployed them. Why, because the only thing they ever had on us was our sin. Our sin is what gives
them legal right over us. That sin died when Jesus died. Therefore the enemy no
longer has anything on us. The enemy doesn't... Everything he could ever accuse us of, condemn us with, make us feel guilty for, everything he ever had that
could possibly separate us from Christ, it all has
been defeated and destroyed and annihilated, decimated, abolished, eradicated, eliminated, it's gone. And now as far as the east
is from the west it is gone. Everything that we have ever done that could possibly be used against us, it doesn't exist anymore. It was killed 2000 years ago on the cross. And because of that,
folks, we've been set free. We've been set free from bondage, set free from the enemy, set free to enter into
God's righteousness and love and joy and peace and
dancing with the triune God, and we'll be doing it throughout eternity. Do you think that's good news? That's the best news in the world, amen? - [Audience] (clapping) Amen. - If you can't get excited
about that there's something wrong with your excitement
button or something. It's beautiful, everything
that can separate us from God has been destroyed. It died, it died with Christ which leads us to this third thing, and that's that God was
reconciling the world to himself. He was reconciling the
world to himself in Christ not counting people's sin against them. So in Christ where he
packs in all humanity, sinful humanity, suctions out the poison. So now God reconciles the world to himself by getting rid of everything
that set the world at odds with himself. He destroys everything that came between the world and himself. He annihilates it, and so
now there's nothing there that separates us which is why Paul goes on to say
that God is not holding anyone's sin against them. Why, because the sin is dead. Sin's not the issue anymore, folks. Whether you have Christ
or not is the issue but the sin thing's been taken care of. And from God's side it's all reconciled. He's got no issue with you. The only remaining thing is this, will you accept it? Will you accept it? But God's already claimed you. This is the beauty of the gospel. You know, you find these
passages like Romans 5 where Paul says as all were in Adam so all are in Christ. Or as all died in Adam all
will be made alive in Christ. What about that? Now some folks say, "Well,
that's universalism," that everyone's gonna be saved which goes against a lot of Scripture. It also goes against the belief
that love has to be chosen. God can't, he's not gonna
lobotomize everybody into believing the right
thing so they get into Heaven. He's not a coercive god. He respects your humanity
to the bitter end. But what it does mean is this. From God's perspective he's got an arm hugged around everybody. He's cleaning everybody. He's got no issues with anybody. He's reconciled, the question
is are we reconciled? And so the message we proclaim is this. Will you accept your reconciliation? In light of all that's done in the past will you accept your reconciliation? From God's perspective all
that has been destroyed and so he's not counting
people's sin against them which is incredibly beautiful, wonderful, fantastic news unless
you're into religion. Yeah, if you're into judging
people that's probably bad news because that means that gig is done. It's probably bad news if you think that you're holier than
those sinners out there, then this is bad news. It's bad news is if you're
kind of looking forward to seeing certain enemies
of yours get judged and you wanna see them condemned. If you've got vengeance in
you, this isn't good news. If you're into religion,
self-righteousness, this isn't religion. But if you're thinking
sober and sane and biblical then you know that without Christ you are as lost and as gone and as hopeless as any
person on this planet. So this has got to be very,
very good news for you, amen? It's the best news in the world that God's not holding
your sin against you. And if it applies to you
it applies to everybody because if it doesn't apply to everybody it doesn't apply to you. So this is good news. Something happened in the past that was wonderful that changes everything in the present. So that's what happened in
the past, those three things. Now how's it change things in the present? Now that I've got seven minutes,
oh, Lord give me the gift of succinctness right now. How does this good thing that happened in the past,
this beautiful thing, affect our understanding of the present? Okay, Paul says two things here. Follow this because this is beautiful. Number one, because of
what happened in the past Paul says so from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view though we once regarded Christ that way, because if anyone is in Christ the new creation has come. The old has gone. Behold, everything is made new. People tend to think that when Jesus died all that changed was it
opened up the possibility for believers to go to Heaven. Nothing else changed. But in fact Paul is saying
that when Jesus died everything changed for everyone. And you can see that if you're in Christ. And I've always heard people say, like, that we think that when Paul
says if anyone is in Christ behold they are a new creation,
that's how they take it. Like oh, Paul's referring
to you as a new creation. Whereas everyone else is still
part of the old creation, you're a new creation. But what Paul's saying, he's talking about how we look at the world. He says we're no longer
gonna look at the world in a worldly kind of way. No, if you're in Christ, look! There's a new creation! Behold, old things have passed away! Behold, everything is new! Can you see it? Can you see it? If you're in Christ we should
be able to look at the world through the lens of Christ and we see something that
the world doesn't see. The worldly point of view is
simply looking at the world with the natural eye. It's looking at the world where what you see physically
defines everything. Deciding truth on the
basis of how things appear. The worldly point of view, it's the way most people look at the world including, sadly, most Christians. But it's looking at the world as though everything didn't change when Jesus died 2000 years ago. It's looking at the world as though it's not true that Jesus died for all and it's not true that
everyone therefore died and it's not true that God
reconciled the world to himself and it's not true that
God's no longer holding people's sin against them. It's looking at the world as though what was true is false
and what's false is true. That's the worldly point of view. But Paul says if we're in Christ, if we have gotta have a, what happened in the past has gotta change the way we look at the present and we oughta be able to see something that other people can't see. There's a new creation. God has claimed everybody. What Jesus did, he did for everybody. The old self of everybody is dead. That bondage self is dead. Now they don't know it but you know it. It's what you should change
the way you look at them. They don't know that that
old miserable, rebellious, bondage self got crucified 2000 years ago but you do know it. So you have to look at
them with that knowledge. They don't know that they
have unsurpassable worth but you do know it because Jesus paid an
unsurpassable price for them and that's gotta affect
how you view the world. They don't know that God's no longer holding people's sin against them but we do know it and that's gotta affect the way that we look at the world, the way that we look at every individual. They don't know that God
is absolutely gorgeous, outrageously beautiful
with his unsurpassable love as evidenced by the
unsurpassable sacrifice that he was willing to
make for every human being. They don't know that but we know that and that has gotta affect
how we look at the world. What lens do we look at the world with? Do we let the appearance of things define what's real for us or do we look at the world
through the lens of Christ where everything is changed? Behold, there's a new creation. You see people differently if you look at them through
the lens of the cross, if you look at them through
the lens of good news. God's love embraces everybody
and defines everything and the old things are passed away. The cross changed everything. Now to look at the world this way, folks, to get out of the worldly
way of looking at the world you have to collapse
your judgment mechanisms, this compulsive thing that we do where we judge people, we assess
people. You do it, I do it, we just don't know that we do it because we're so used
to doing it (laughing). We look at people and we
decide what we agree with, what we don't agree with, what
we like, what we don't like, and we're the arbiters of good taste and we have a gossip
column going on our brain. Oh, look at that fellow with (mumbling). Oh, look at that. Oh my, just look at (mumbling). And we do it because we're
feeding off of people. However pathetic we are, at
least we're not like that. We're parasites, all right? The Lord told us to get
all of our life from Christ so we don't need to be getting it by extracting it from other people. If that's going on in your brain you're not gonna see the new creation. You're looking at things in the old way. But if you can collapse
those judgment mechanisms and agree with God that
because of what Jesus did every person you see has
got unsurpassable worth, if you do that you'll
begin to see what God sees. I tell people at Woodland
Hills Church this all the time that unless someone has
invited you intimately into your life or into their life they want your opinion
because they need help walking out the Christian walk and we all need people
like this in our life, people that can speak into our life, we all need that. But outside of those relationships you're only allowed one
opinion about people. And that is that they were
worth Jesus dying for. This is why Paul says
in 1 Corinthians 2:2, he says I've resolved, I've committed to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. - [Audience Member] Amen. - Thank you, I know
nothing other than this because that's all you
really do know about people unless you've been invited
deeply into their life. If you know Jesus Christ crucified you know everything you need to know about God, yourself, and other people. God's the kind of god that
would love people like us to this extent and therefore
I have unsurpassable worth and you have unsurpassable worth, and as a disciple of Jesus,
as a follower of Jesus my first job is to agree
with God about that. And every judgmental thought I have disagrees with God about that. Think about it. So Discipleship 101 and Evangelism 101 is to shut the brain up. Bring every thought captive to Christ and start blessing people ascribing unsurpassable worth to them. See them as whatever
you see their lifestyle, whatever you see about
that their attitudes or however nasty they
are, it doesn't matter. Just in your mind you say,
"Lord, I agree with you "that that person has unsurpassable worth. "They were worth you dying for." And then you reflect that worth by how you think about them and how you speak about them and how you speak to them
and how you treat them. You're dealing with
kings and queens there, people for whom Jesus died
so they must be worth it. All right, be transformed by
the renewing of your mind. Collapse the judgmental things. And that, see, what you see, you begin to see what God sees and then you begin to love what God loves. And you'll notice the gap
between the new creation that they are based on all
that Jesus did for them, the gap between that and what these people think of themselves and how they live and what they experience. They're living in this
worldly point of view and therefore they don't
experience what is true. But you see this gap and it
begins to break your heart and that's what begins to motivate you to wanna tell them about
what is true about them, that God's not holding
their sin against them and that everything is
changed because of Calvary. And that's the love that
compels us towards evangelism. That neighbor of yours, she thinks that she's really worthless
but you know she's not. She's got unsurpassable worth. And that other neighbor of yours, they're miserable because they feel that they got short-changed
and they're not gonna get their best life, but you
know that there's far more than this life and you
could maybe be the one to tell them about it. That person over there thinks they've done an unforgivable sin, but you know that it's all been taken
care of 2000 years ago. That person over there thinks that they're gonna be addicted
the rest of their life and that they're no better than that, but you know that that addicted self was crucified 2000 years ago. And the gulf between those two things creates a yearning in our
heart to set people free which leads to the last thing, the second thing that gets
changed in the present where Paul says God committed to us this ministry of reconciliation, that we are his ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. So we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. This is our message. This is the good news. God's not holding your sin against you. That's the message of reconciliation. And he's given to us
that message to preach. God's not holding anything against you. God is 100% in favor of you. I don't know about you but the
"good news" that I was given was the opposite of that. My message, and I suspect
it's true for a lot of us, my message was God is
holding your sin against you and you are in deep
doo-doo unless you believe that God took his wrath out
on Jesus instead of you. It's the other message, it's not good. The message we have, folks,
is that because of the cross everything has been changed. And so God is on your side. He's for you. He is already claiming you. God's not holding your sins against you. He just wants to have a
relationship with you. Will you accept that? He just loves you with
his everlasting love. Will you accept that? Will you yield to that? He wants you to have this eternal life. Will you accept that? He's already given it to you, but will you just receive it? He sees eternal potential in
you and says beauty in you. Will you just receive that
and start living in that? That's the message that
we proclaim to the world. To proclaim it we've got to see it. Look to the lens, look
through the lens of the cross and see the good news, how
it applies to every person. So I wanna end with these
three questions here. Number one, everything in the kingdom rotates around this
center, and the center is your love relationship with Jesus. People sometimes wanna
change the world for Jesus. That's wonderful but it's not gonna help unless you are, the best
thing you can do for the world is to be the best
passionate you you can be. And that requires spending
time, hanging out with Jesus. When you spend time doing
what Jesus saved us to do and that is to do nothing
but hang out with Jesus. Out of that will come a lot of do's, but the center of it is simply
basking in the love of God, drinking deeply from the
infinite well of God, experiencing the love of God. And so I encourage us to
spend time doing just that, gazing upon his beauty. Going on dates with Jesus, letting that fire of love
be rekindled in your heart because out of that, that's the thing that's gotta compel us, that moves us to do crazy things sometimes, these things that are crazy beautiful. And now sharing the gospel becomes the most natural thing in the world. It's never awkward, never manipulative. It comes out of love just naturally. Secondly, so are you
experiencing the good news, the goodness of the
good news for yourself? Secondly, can we commit to putting off the worldly way of looking at things? It's tough because we've
been conditioned to do it. Even by the church we've
been conditioned to do it. A lot of Christians think it's there job to notice people's sin. You don't need to notice people's sin. That's part of the old. When you see something
that just grosses you out just remember that's
part of the old creation. You are to have new creation eyes. And the one opinion that
reflects that new creation is that this is a person
for whom Jesus died and therefore they have
unsurpassable worth. I encourage us to pay attention to what's going on in our brain. What thoughts are we thinking
as we go about the world? And when you find yourself thinking these old creation thoughts, those judgmental thoughts,
self-righteous thoughts, just gently put them aside
and then agree with God that that person has unsurpassable worth. I encourage people to
be blessing machines. As you go about the world
just be a blessing machine. Just bless everyone you see. Really you can go to the airport. Don't just sit there,
start blessing people. Just start thanking God for folks. You're driving down the highway, they cut you off. Put aside that curse and
just start blessing them. Pray for their driving skills maybe but bless them nonetheless. (audience laughing) If you just whatever you're
doing be a blessing machine. And try that, watch what it does. It uncorks, judgments are like corks. They block the flow of God's
love flowing through you. Because spiritual constipation the blessing of God can't get through. So here's the laxative. Put the judgment aside
and start blessing people and it's gonna flow (laughing). Okay, I gotta get off
that analogy really quick. (audience laughing) It's gonna flow, folks,
and it feels great! It feels great just to let that flow. And finally, folks, I encourage you. We're missionaries here on
assignment, we're ambassadors. And the job is to demonstrate God's love by how we live day-to-day but also to spread this good news. We know something that
other folks don't know. We have the opportunity
to tell them about it, encourage them to be reconciled to God. That won't happen by accident. It has to be intentional. And so the place to start is this. Will you ask the Holy Spirit
to put two or three people on your heart to start praying for? Two people whose paths you've crossed. And just start praying blessing on them. And if you have any judgments towards them put it aside and just
pray blessing on them. And God has a way of sometimes
putting people on our heart that we don't wanna have on our heart because it will grow us
to have them on our heart. That neighbor that you
never wanna talk to again? Yep, that's the one the
Holy Spirit puts on. And so just start praying. And then pray that you
can forge a relationship of some sort with them because see, as the
good news is good to us and we start hanging out with people who don't know the good news, it starts to wear off. And then pray for a natural
opening at some point where you can just begin to address whatever the need is. You begin to share the good news. You know, you don't
have to live like that. You know, I've found that
Jesus just really had something profound to say about that. I gotta figure that out
too, but I found that if I just, you know, I know
what God thinks about me because of the cross and
that just changed everything There's a natural, it
will just flow out of you especially after you read Bruxy's books which is just marvelous, you'll just see it's just the most natural
thing in the world. See the world with new creation eyes and be a new creation person compelled by the love of
God to spread good news to people who very desperately need it and God wants them to have it, amen? - [Audience] Amen. - Amen, okay, let me pray. Father, thank you for being
the good God that you are and for giving us this good news that could not possibly be better. It's the most spectacular news imaginable. Lord, help us to feel that goodness, the goodness of the good news, and be compelled by love to be the people you called us to be, to
put on display your love, to proclaim your good news
to people who need it, to set the captives free, to liberate those who are oppressed, to help people walk in the truth that you have already accomplished for them because of Calvary. Thank you for the privilege
and the opportunity and the joy that we have
to be your ambassadors in Jesus' name, and all
of God's ambassadors said one last time! - [Audience] Amen!
- Amen, God bless you guys. Go and spread good news, love you. (uplifting music)
