All Things New: A Snapshot of Humanity
2 Corinthians 5:17
Beartown Road Alliance Church
Erin and I were looking through pictures a while back and having a nice little time of remembering what the kids looked like as babies and all of the cute things that they had done and said when they were little. Every three or four pictures there was one with me in it with the kids. I’m looking at these pictures and every time, without fail, my first thought was; “That looks nothing like me.” Finally, after a few minutes, I said something about how strange it was that none of the pictures of me had turned out well, they didn’t capture my true likeness. I figured our camera must have been broken. Erin just looked at me like I was crazy. She was gracious enough to be polite and not to take advantage of an opportunity to shatter my frail ego, but I know what was going through her mind. Those pictures were accurate, they looked just like me. They just didn’t match up to the way I liked to picture myself in my mind. Now, I know I’m not the only one who thinks that way about pictures. Most of us have an idea in our minds about what we look like and it seldom looks like what the camera captures. We tend to think of ourselves in the best possible light and the camera has that annoying tendency of capturing our flaws and preserving them for all of history.
For men and women in general, we have a tendency do the same thing when it comes to our relationship and our standing before God. We have an inflated view of who we are and of what we deserve from God. These thoughts and feelings have crept into the walls of our churches and we can almost feel like God owes us something or that we’re doing Him a favor by being a Christian. If we could see the reality of our humanity and our sin captured for us for even a moment, a snapshot of our true selves, I have no doubt that we would fall flat on our knees and cry out, like the tax collector that Jesus points to in the gospels; “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The problem that we are facing with this thought process is that the bigger and better we become in our own minds, the bigger the view we have of ourselves, the smaller the view we begin to have of God. Everything gets skewed, everything gets out of whack and it affects every aspect of our Christian walk; how we worship, how we pray, how we witness, and how we serve. We forget who God is and we convince ourselves that we are not really all that bad on our own.
This morning we’re beginning a new series. It’s called “All Things New.” I want to be very clear with you what the purpose of these next few weeks is. The purpose is to restore in us a sense of awe at the nature of God and a sense of gratitude for the way that He loves us. Over the next four weeks we are going to do this by looking at the nature of God, not God as the world has painted Him today. Not the big buddy in the sky kind of God but we’re going to explore what it means that God is Holy, and Just, and what it means when Scripture says that His very essence is love. We’re going to unpack the ideas of His Wisdom and Sovereignty. In weeks two and three we are going to get a good look at the God of Creation, as He has revealed Himself to us in the Scripture. Why? Because how we view God determines the relationship that we have with Him and when we see God as He really is and as He wants us to see Him, the fact that He longs for a relationship with us takes on a whole new meaning.
The fourth week, we’ll be looking at the transformation that takes place in the lives of those who place their faith in Christ. I want for us to understand and to really grasp the Truth of our identity in Jesus Christ, of what we become, of what He makes us.
2 Corinthians 5:17 is our theme verse for this series, we’ll be using several different passages but this is the Truth that these messages will be built around.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Christ came to make All Things New. We don’t just change a little, we are transformed. Our old self is gone and we are reborn by the Spirit of God into what we were created to be. It’s not just an outward thing. Sure, as the Spirit works in us and as we grow in our relationship with God, our actions will reflect that, but the real transformation takes place on the inside. Our hearts are changed, our attitudes are changed, and the way we look to God is changed. That snapshot of humanity, which we’ll be looking at today, is replaced with a picture of Christ and we are restored and renewed by this Holy, magnificent God who loves us with a passion we will never truly understand. So, the series will reach a climax that fourth week as we see all that we become and all that is ours in Christ.
Now, before we can do that, we have to address the way things were for us. In order to really understand the new that has come, we’ve got to have a knowledge of the old that was. We would never be able to know the true value of light if we didn’t have the darkness to compare it to. We would never understand and recognize sickness if we didn’t know what health was. In diet commercials or ads for plastic surgery, the after picture is meaningless unless it’s beside the before picture. To fully appreciate what is, we have to know what was.
That’s were we’re going to begin this morning, with a picture of humanity. What is our basic nature? This morning, I’m going to offer you a picture that is much different than the “I’m OK, you’re OK” mentality. We have convinced ourselves that people are “basically good.” And in the age we live in where we go to any lengths not to offend others, relativism (that belief that everything is alright and true as long as you believe it and it works for you) tells us that no matter what we do or believe, none of us is bad or evil, in fact, we are all alright, just different. That thinking, while it makes us feel pretty good about ourselves, is a lie. We’re going to be looking at the Scriptural teaching on the depravity of man and the fact that in and of ourselves, there is nothing good to be found. This is not a popular topic; it’s not something that most of us like to talk about. It’s something that many feel should no longer be taught in the church because it is not a warm and fuzzy doctrine. But again I tell you that this doctrine and an understanding of the true nature of man is essential to us as Christians. Because if we’re OK, if man is basically good, then Christ’s death was worthless, it was unnecessary. It is only because the hearts of men are sinful that the death and resurrection of Jesus was a necessary sacrifice if we were ever going to know peace with God.
My objective here is not to lower your self esteem and to make you feel less about yourself. My objective is to give you hope and to give you complete confidence in who you are in Christ. Because if you’re placing your faith in yourself and in your own basic goodness, you have misplaced your trust, your faith is misguided, and you are setting yourself up for failure. But when you grasp who you are in Christ and you gain the confidence that comes from seeing yourself as He sees you, and understanding just what it is that He transforms, it will literally change your life.
Let’s start to put together a snapshot of humanity by going back to the roots.
I. The Roots
Let’s start back at the beginning. Literally. In the book of Genesis, Scripture records for us the Creation of the world. And in the first few chapters we get a glimpse of the power and creativity of God. He says “let there be light!” And there was light. He spoke the oceans and the mountains and the birds, trees, animals, and fish into existence with a word. He obviously has a clear vision and plan for what He is putting together. When He has finished with all the details of the Sun and stars and has painted the solar systems in the heavens, He begins His greatest creation. He creates mankind with the idea and understanding that this was not like the other things He had created. In fact, He had created all of those other things for the benefit and enjoyment of the man that He would form.
GE 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."GE 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And Genesis 2:7 further elaborates on God’s creation work:
The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
So you have the creation of mankind as the crescendo, the climax of God’s plan. He has placed a bit of Himself in us, we bear His image. This isn’t a physical likeness, but it’s our spiritual being. We bear, in our spirit, the image of the God who created us. And when He had formed man, He breathed that first breath into our lungs. We truly are, as the psalmist declares, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Adam and Eve were the picture of perfection. They lived in the peaceful setting of God’s own garden, made just for them. They walked and talked with God and enjoyed full, unhindered fellowship with Him. Why? Because, and this is the first truth about man that I want you to grasp, they were created without sin.
A. Man was Created without Sin.
The last verse in chapter 2 has always struck me as odd. It just seems like it doesn’t need to be there. It says: GE 2:25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
This verse tells us so much about Adam and Eve and gives testimony to the fact that they were, for a time, without sin. There was no perversion of sex and sexuality, there was no lust, there was no shame. It is an idea and a concept that is so foreign to us today because our lives are filled with conflict and struggles and sin and shame. But Adam and Eve existed in this perfect garden in a state of sinlessness and unity with God.
But, as we continue to look at the roots of humanity in Genesis, we see another truth:
B. Man was Created to Choose
This truth is a sticking point for a lot of people. Why not create man with the inability to choose. Why not make us incapable of sin and rebellion. We don’t have time for the long answer, but the short on is: Because God loved us. He wants us to choose Him and His ways, He does not force anything on us. Each of us has the ability to choose our own way. Adam and Eve had that same free will that we all have.
Now, fast forward a little bit; If you turn ahead in the book of Genesis to Chapter 6, you see a very different picture of mankind than what we see in the serenity and perfection of the garden.
GE 6:5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Something major had changed here. We went from unhindered fellowship and sinless perfection to this, a pronouncement that man has become sinful, rebellious, and evil. The thing that brought about this change is simple.
C. Man Chose to Sin
The instructions were simple, there’s one tree that I want you to stay away from. Enjoy every other aspect of my creation, but I don’t want you to eat from that one tree. Faced with one opportunity to sin, Adam and Eve took it. They chose sin. They chose to follow after their own desires instead of the best that God had for them. They began a pattern that has repeated itself in the lives of every human that has ever drawn breathe upon this Earth. They sinned. As a result, things would never be the same. They gave up perfection, they gave up fellowship with God and instead became His enemies because of the sin that now stood between them. I think it’s interesting that the first thing that they did in their new state of sin was to clothe themselves. Scripture said that they immediately realized that they were naked and they felt a new thing; shame. Sin brings with it the stark realization of our flaws and of our imperfections and shame becomes our constant companion and the ones who were free and without shame were now in bondage and aware of their differences and nakedness and experienced shame in their lives.
In the time that we have left, I want to look with you at some specific results that came from this decision to sin.
II. The Results
This Biblical Truth of the movement of Adam and Eve to sin and rebellion has huge consequences for the rest of us. When sin entered the world, it changed the picture. The snapshot of humanity was changed. Sin changed the very nature of man and became a way of life for all of mankind.
Paul writes about the consequences of Adam’s sin for all of us in
RO 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—
Looking into our family’s past can be a lot of fun. Most of us have some pretty interesting branches in the tree. There are many who claim to be this or that because of someone that they have descended from. Maybe it’s royalty, maybe it’s money, maybe it’s someone with great historical significance. We love to point out the good that is in our past but we don’t like to talk about the family members who have shamed the family. At the very core, all of us have an identical family history. We are all descendants of Adam. Adam was a sinner, which makes all of us sinners. The first result we see is:
A. Man is born sinful
PS 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Because of the rebellion of Adam, God has thought of all who have descended from him as sinful. It’s guilt by association. John Stott, in his book Basic Christianity, says: “Sin is not a convenient invention of parsons to keep them in their job, it is a universal fact.” There may be a difference in degree, Hitler certainly is on another level than Billy Graham, but there is no difference in the fact of sin, that all of us are sinners. And when Scripture talks about this sin nature in each of us, the basic nature of man, it is not talking about just a part of us, sin affects every aspect of who we are. We’re told in Ephesians that sin darkens our understanding. Genesis teaches that our conscience and our minds are corrupted by sin. 2 Corinthians says that our flesh and our spirit are defiled by sin. Romans says that our will is weakened and that in our sinful humanity we display no godly qualities. Listen to the way that Jeremiah describes us:
JER 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Sin affects every aspect of our being. What does our sin nature entail?
GAL 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
That’s quite a list! That’s a snapshot of humanity and its not pretty. Now, we may show glimpses of good apart from God, we may accomplish something that is beneficial and helpful to others on some level. But the core of who we are, our basic nature and the drive that is pushing us is sinful. And when it comes to our relationship with God, we are incapable of any good in and of ourselves that would improve our standing before Him. We are born sinful and our hearts are evil.
B. Man’s natural instinct is towards self
Not only are we born sinful, but the way that that manifests itself in our lives is that we are naturally selfish people. Our first and greatest instinct is to take care of ourselves and to advance our causes before God’s. Adam’s rebellion was driven by selfishness. He put his will and his wants above what God wanted and asked. You have to understand this about yourself, in your humanity, your natural leaning is away from God. Your natural desire is for yourself and your own pleasure and gain.
Erin and I were watching a TV special on Sex and the Christian last week while we were on vacation. I think it was an Anderson Cooper special. I was struck by a common theme throughout. As they interviewed people at different levels of sexual sin, all of them had done the same thing. They had changed their view and definition of God to fit whatever they were trying to justify. They interviewed a man who was homosexual. He talked about struggling with it for years and trying to adjust who he was to fit what God wanted until finally he had an enlightening moment. He “discovered” that he could change his own understanding of God, and define God in his own terms. The god that he served did not mind sexual sin. In this way, the man could have his lifestyle and his religion as well.
Do you see what is happening, this is just an extreme case and one that is easy to identify, but the same principle is happening in many of our churches and in the lives of many Christians. When our natural selfishness, that wants only to gratify our sin nature, conflicts with our faith and with our understanding of God, rather than change us, we decide to change God! We’re only deceiving ourselves because God and His character and attributes are unchanging. MAL 3:6 "I the LORD do not change.
But when His way and His will don’t fit with ours our natural tendency is to follow ours and then justify it any way that we can. On the other hand, when we are living in a right relationship with God and when we are growing and following His commands, it is only by the grace of God because it goes against everything that we are in our natural state. We are selfish! We want what we want.
When we contrast this with what we become, in a few weeks, you’ll see the awesome transformation that comes with being a child of God that allows us to overcome these natural instincts and restores us to our original state of perfection in God’s eyes. Apart from that transformation, selfishness is a result of Adam’s choice to sin.
C. The sin nature produces constant struggle.
Listen to the words of the apostle Paul in a passage that all of us can relate to. Romans 7:
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.
This is true picture of humanity and the result of sin in our lives. And even when the transformation is made is us, we still have to deal with our sin nature on a regular basis. It will be a constant struggle.
Gal 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
Adam’s legacy to us, our human inheritance is a nature that will cause us to fall, to fail, and to struggle.
That is who we are. We are sinners. We are selfish. We are destined to struggle. That is the picture of us that most of us would rather not see. And in this nature, in our natural state of sin, we have separation from God and hopelessness. Its not a pretty picture. Thank God, its not the only picture either. We are going to look for the next two weeks at the nature of God and what it is that drove a Holy God to look at this picture we just described and see the potential, to see what we could be, and to fall in love with us. I want to give you something uplifting before we close. I don’t want you to leave here with only this necessary but very negative picture that we’ve painted. When Paul is talking about sin entering the world and becoming a part of all of us through one man, he uses it as a platform to introduce hope.
5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
That one man that will make us righteous is Jesus Christ. In the coming weeks we are going to look at this righteousness and at amazing transformation that takes us from sinner, all those things we talked about today, to saint in the eyes of God. Because: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
What an incredible truth.
