We’ve been talking about joy over the last several weeks. Last Sunday we listened to the old, beaten and bruised Apostle Paul explaining what it means to be a “cracked pot for Christ.” The old guy explained to us where joy comes from in the midst of great challenges.
Then on Sunday afternoon, Monica and I had the very distinct privilege of hearing the great The Blind Boys of Alabama perform with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Orchestra Hall. It was really good church! It was some devil-stomping, Jesus joy and heavenly hope! It was three old, happy, blind men; three cracked pots and some younger friends who have been singing the good gospel together since 1939; three old, joyous, feisty guys who had a hard time sitting still for the show. It was joy. It was old man’s blessing.
And then on Friday morning, with everything going on in my life this week, I was here very, very early working on my sermon studies. I finally got down to the end of all my commentary work and turned to my old, commentator friend Warren Wiersbe. I save his stuff for last because it always has a way of speaking directly to where I believe God wants me to go on Sunday. I wasn’t disappointed on Friday. Once again, I was stunned to see how Dr. Wiersbe settled on exactly the same three points I was feeling led to discuss today. This has happened so repeatedly and so beautifully, I decided to stop for a moment and tell Dr. Warren Wiersbe how much I truly do appreciate him. I did a little research on the internet, found his home phone number and called him. After a few awkward, “who is this creepy stranger calling my husband at breakfast time” moments with his wife, dear Dr. Wiersbe got on the phone and joyously proceeded to make me feel like the most important person in his day. We talked about 2 Corinthians 5, what I’ve been preaching lately and some other good pastor stuff. He told me a Garrison Keillor joke about lutefisk and a very funny old Spurgeon limerick about stealing sermon material (that I wish I could remember now). He told me to take very good care of my leaders and then he prayed for me and adamantly insisted I call again sometime. It was joy. It was old man’s blessing.Today I was planning to continue our joy conversation, picking up in 2 Corinthians 5 where we left off last week. But as I studied 2 Corinthians 5 more deeply, it seemed to me the LORD would have us go in a slightly different direction. Today is about the old man’s blessing. I believe the old man just wants to bless us with an explanation of the newness compulsion driving him to do to do what he does…
So open your Bible to 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 11. The Apostle has just given a lengthy, thoughtful explanation of his perspective on earthly life groaning in anticipation of the wonderful life to come. He concludes by recognizing his accountability to God for everything he does in this earthly life. With all this as background, he goes on to say:
Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. (NIV)
There are three joyous and critically important things the old man wants his dear friends in Corinth, and all of us here at Elim this morning, to understand about what it means to be a genuine Christ-follower, what it means to be compelled by the newness. We do all we do, we live as we live, we spend our money and our lives as we do because there are three powerful, persistent engines pulling us along; three great newness compulsions we cannot escape.
The Fear of the LORD
The first engine is found in verse eleven. Because we know what it is to fear the LORD, we constantly try to persuade people to follow Him. We share our hope, we share our joy, we live our lives in the way we do because the engine of genuine fear is pulling us down the tracks.
There are many who would water down this “fear of the LORD” idea. But we must never do so! The old man says what he says here because he has just been talking, in verse 10, about one day standing before God Almighty to give an account of himself. While of course we don’t fear God as the world does, we do fully understand the great and terrible God with whom we have to do. Contrary to popular opinion and today’s politically correct preaching, fear is not a bad thing. Fear is only a bad thing when we fear the wrong thing! I fully believe our culture is in the poor spiritual situation it is in because people today fear all sorts of things more than they fear God. When we fear people and their opinions and ridicule, when we fear the world's definition of poverty, when we fear the future, when we fear pain or puniness, when we fear anything more than we fear Almighty God, our soul train has left the tracks.
The old man is not at all interested in how he measures up to the flashy, more spiritual and powerful preachers of his day. He isn’t interested in how successful people consider him to be. He is only concerned with what God thinks of his faithful service. This old man Paul is only afraid of one Man. He is only concerned about what God thinks of his behavior.
People used to call D.L. Moody “crazy Moody” because he left a successful business behind to work in the Sunday Schools and eventually become an evangelist. And yet we don’t know the names of any of those people now, do we? Moody wasn’t afraid of their opinions.
The commentator William Barclay, in his commentary on this passage, tells the story of a man who once boarded a ship with the great General William Booth of the Salvation Army. Some noisy, happy Salvation Army friends came to see him off with songs and tambourines and this other passenger did not approve. Later, after getting to know General Booth onboard the ship, this other passenger told him he did not approve of noisy, inappropriate music. Booth’s feisty response was classic. “Young man, if I thought I could win just one more soul to Christ by standing on my hands and beating a tambourine with my feet I would do it.” I am not afraid! I am not driven by what people think. I am only afraid of what God thinks.
I fully understand, as Jonathan Edwards said so famously in his sermon many years ago, that I have sorely offended the One who holds me by the wispiest of threads like a spider over the fiery furnaces of hell. I understand there is nothing keeping me from hell but the merciful hand of God himself. His hand on my life is the only hand with which I must be concerned.
Dear brothers and sisters, the great and terrifying tragedy of this age is that we have foolishly managed to make ourselves enormous and God very small. The old man pleads with us here to see the insanity of such a situation. He pleads with us to fear and follow the LORD.
But this fear of the LORD engine is only the very first engine pulling him along.
The Love of Christ
The second engine is found in verse 14. We are pulled along, or we are compelled as Paul says here, by the love of Christ. We do the things we do, we love others as we do only because we ourselves were so lavishly loved first. Because He died, we died. Because He lives, we too live and live more fully and joyously than would ever otherwise be possible. His perfect love casts out all fear except the passionate and proper fear of God himself.
We are compelled to love as we do, we have the newness compulsion we do because you and I haven’t just been religiously reformed, rehabilitated or reeducated in some nice way, we have been made completely new. The Greek word for this “newness” used in verse 17 is “kainos” newness, not simple “neos” newness. We are qualitatively, essentially new. We are as new as new as the Garden of Eden; squealing babies in the arms of our Father. We are new creations. I am no longer feisty, furious Saul of Tarsus; I am crazy, cracked clay pot, joyous, prison loving Paul the Apostle! The newness compulsion process begun in us is the same one that will one day culminate in Revelation 21:5, where “He who was seated on the throne says, "I am making everything new!" "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
We no longer live for ourselves because the self we used to live for is dead now! The love of Christ compels us to do all we do. We have a newness compulsion we cannot suppress!
Warren Wiersbe, in his wonderful commentary on this passage, tells the inspiring story of Frances Havergal who went to Germany in 1858 with her father who was getting treatment for his failing eyes. While in a pastor’s home, she saw a picture of the Crucifixion on the wall, with the words under it: “I did this for thee. What has thou done for me?” Quickly she took a piece of paper and wrote a poem based on that motto; but she was not satisfied with it, so she threw the paper into the fireplace. But the paper came out unharmed! Years later, her father encouraged her to publish her poem and eventually something rescued from the fire became a blessed hymn of the church. I gave, I gave My life for thee, what hast thou given for Me?
We are crazy in love with Jesus! Fully understanding our terrifying, desperately lost position apart from Christ, we fully enjoy our new creation position in Christ. We revel in our newness and we are compelled to share this wonderful newness with all those around us. The love of Christ becomes an engine pulling us, a newness compulsion driving all we do.
The Old Man Mission
And those first two engines culminate in the third. Look again at the end of verse 19 where the old man tells us how “he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” We are driven by the fear of the LORD, the love of Christ and the ambassadorial mission given us.
There is something wonderfully poetic in the Greek behind this word “ambassador” Paul uses here. Did you know that literally translated, this ambassador word means “old man” of Christ? This word was originally used because any emissary, ambassador or representative of a powerful person in the ancient world of Paul’s day would of almost of necessity be an old man, a distinguished, respected elder statesman worthy of a sovereign’s trust and confidence.
And so Paul is poetically saying we are “the old men of Jesus.” We are now the newly distinguished, worthy, truly respected statesmen and women of King Jesus. We are not from this country or any other. We do not fear what this world fears, nor love what this world loves. We have been given the old man’s mission, a newness compulsion, to share love and hope with the enemies of God. We have been sent to the world to help explain to the world that Almighty God has not declared war on them, but peace! We have been given an old man, baby newness compulsion to break through all the silly superficial fears of the people around us and help them to be reconciled to the only One truly worthy of fear. We are the old men sent to tell prodigals daddy is still standing there waiting at the end of the road. We are the old men of Jesus.
We fear the Lord. We love Jesus. We are the old men of the Savior.
And as a genuine old man of Jesus, the Apostle closes this conversation as only a true old man of Jesus always will. He begs us all to be reconciled to God. He begs us all to see that this is the day of salvation. This is the time of God’s favor. Listen to what this old man says…
May we receive the old man’s blessing today! May this old man’s gospel song move us closer to Jesus! May we all fear God, love Jesus and embrace our old man’s mission!
Amen.
