Transformed by God
2 Corinthians 5:17
A businessman owned a warehouse that had sat empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and trash was everywhere inside the building.
The businessman showed a prospective buyer the property and took great pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage and clean out all the garbage.
“Forget about the repairs,” the buyer said. “When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different, something entirely new. I don’t want the building. I just want the site!”
A new site to rebuild is just what God is looking for. If you haven’t truly given yourself to the Lord, I encourage you to pay attention this morning, to see what God wants to do with you. If you have given yourself to the Lord, then be reminded of the work He has done in you and continues to do in you if you are still allowing Him to do so.
Transformed. What does it mean to be transformed?
Webster’s defines it this way:
1. to change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose
2. to change in condition, nature or character; to convert
Either way, one thing must happen for something or someone to be transformed. There must be a CHANGE.
The apostle Paul puts a lot of emphasis on this point throughout his letters to the churches.
2Co 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Paul here states that whenever a person becomes part of the body of Christ by faith, there is a new act of "CREATION" on God’s part. One set of conditions or relationships has passed out of existence and another set has come to stay. Paul clearly emphasizes the discontinuity between the two orders and the "newness" of the person in Christ.
The truth is, there will be a transformation & you will become a NEW CREATION.
Let’s look at some other areas where Paul has emphasized the significance
Gal 6:15 Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything as a means of salvation. The only thing that counts is to be born again, to become a new creation. This comes about not by observing the law in ANY form but by receiving the truth of the Gospel and accepting the gift of Grace that God has freely offered us.
As I mentioned last week, the legalists who cut in on the believers at Galatia, convinced the believers that there was something more they needed to do besides believing in Christ. They were told that they needed to be circumcised as well. Paul shot that argument down very adamantly. Here again, he tells them, get circumcised, or don’t get circumcised, it doesn’t matter, what matters, is that you accept the truth of what Jesus has done for you and receive Him as your Lord & Savior. When you do that, you will become a NEW CREATION.
Let’s look at another letter:
Eph 4:22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
Eph 4:23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;
Eph 4:24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Paul now gives the content of the teaching his readers received earlier. Their previous lifestyle was to be thrown out completely. They must forsake their old behaviors and indeed lay aside the costume of their old selves. The metaphor of putting on & taking off garments is common in Scripture. The old self is subject to an internal process of continuous disintegration.
Yet in a contrasting positive statement, Paul reminds the Ephesians that instead of being subject to progressive deterioration, they were to be continually renovated in mind and spirit. "To be made new" involves an element of restoration, since the image of God, which has been impaired by the Fall, is fully reinstated in the new creation. Christian converts are to undergo a radical reorientation of their mental outlook. This can only take place under the influence of the Holy Spirit, acting on the human spirit as it affects the realm of our thoughts.
The "new self" assumed by the believer is the direct opposite of the worthless "old self". It’s not the old nature being tidied up, but a totally new creation. This is said to be "like God." The characteristics of the divine image are "RIGHTEOUSNESS” & “HOLINESS." These are qualities in God that are reproduced in his genuine worshipers: his love of right and his hatred of sin. When we become a NEW CREATION, these attributes will begin to grow in us.
Let’s look at one more letter:
Col 3:9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
The sin of falsehood may be singled out because in it more frequently than in anything else we manifest ill-will toward our fellow human beings. Its being given separate treatment makes the condemnation of it more emphatic. The Greek terminology used here suggests the translation "stop lying."
Grammatically there is a strict connection between these verses and the prohibition against lying. The essence of it is that Christians have had a radical, life-changing experience in which they have put off the old self with its practices (i.e., habits or characteristic actions) and have put on the new self. The metaphor again is one of clothing. The "old self" is like a dirty, worn-out garment that is stripped from the body and thrown away. The "new self" is like a new suit of clothing that one puts on and wears. The picturesque language gives vivid expression to a great truth, but one must be careful not to press the imagery too far, for we are painfully aware that the old nature is ever with us.
A beggar lived near the king’s palace. One day he saw a proclamation posted outside the palace gate. The king was giving a great dinner. Anyone dressed in royal garments was invited to the party.
The beggar went on his way. He looked at the rags he was wearing and sighed. Surely only kings and their families wore royal robes, he thought.
Slowly an idea crept into his mind. The audacity of it made him tremble. Would he dare?
He made his way back to the palace. He approached the guard at the gate. “Please, sire, I would like to speak to the king.”
“Wait here,” the guard replied.
In a few minutes he was back. “His majesty will see you,” he said, and led the beggar in.
“You wished to see me?” asked the king.
“Yes, your majesty. I want so much to attend the banquet, but I have no royal robes to wear. Please, sir, if I may be so bold, may I have one of your old garments so that I, too, may come to the banquet?”
The beggar shook so hard that he could not see the faint smile that was on the king’s face.
“You have been wise in coming to me,” the king said. He called to his son, the young prince. “Take this man to your room and array him in some of your clothes.”
The prince did as he was told and soon the beggar was standing before a mirror, clothed in garments that he had never dared hope for.
“You are now eligible to attend the king’s banquet tomorrow night,” said the prince. “But even more important, you will never need any other clothes. These garments will last forever.”
The beggar dropped to his knees. “Oh, thank you,” he cried. But as he started to leave, he looked back at his pile of dirty rags on the floor. He hesitated. What if the prince was wrong? What if he would need his old clothes again? Quickly he gathered them up.
The banquet was far greater than he had ever imagined, but he could not enjoy himself as he should. He had made a small bundle of his old rags and it kept falling off his lap. The food was passed quickly and the beggar missed some of the greatest delicacies.
Time proved that the prince was right. The clothes lasted forever. Still the poor beggar grew fonder and fonder of his old rags.
As time passed people seemed to forget the royal robes he was wearing. They saw only the little bundle of filthy rags that he clung to wherever he went. They even spoke of him as the old man with the rags.
One day as he lay dying, the king visited him. The beggar saw the sad look on the king’s face when he looked at the small bundle of rags by the bed. Suddenly the beggar remembered the prince’s words and he realized that his bundle of rags had cost him a lifetime of true royalty. He wept bitterly at his folly.
And the king wept with him.
The new self is described as "being renewed in knowledge." That is, the new self does not decay or grow old but by constant renewal takes on more and more of the image of its Creator.
We continue to grow, and as we grow, more and more into the likeness of our Lord, then the more people will begin to see Jesus through the church as it was intended.
May we make that our challenge this week? If you haven’t truly experienced the Transforming Power of God, then don’t wait any longer. Seek to be made into the NEW CREATION that God desires. Make a decision today to make your relationship right with him and allow Him to do the work in you that He desires to do.
