1475 - “It's all about Jesus!” 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1475. I want to remind us today of where we're going with the story of the Crimson River. You see, it all ends in Jesus. Jesus paid the debt that we could never pay. He paid a debt he did not owe. He paid a debt that I did owe. And that is what essentially Second Corinthians chapter five, the end of the chapter, is talking about. The Bible says that God has reconciled us unto himself and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Yes, that we become ambassadors for him. And so let's pick up on what the apostle Paul said in chapter five and verse seventeen, a very familiar verse to all of us. The Scripture says in verse seventeen, therefore if anyone is in Christ, is in Christ, has come to Jesus, has given their life to him, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, and behold all things have become new. Now that is the same word that is used as far as a new creation as the apostle John uses in the closing chapters of the Book of Revelation. That's right. The Bible says that God is going to make a new heaven and a new earth. This is why I have taught for years now since I had translated those two passages and followed this terminology throughout the New Testament. You see, this is why I believe that God's not going to disintegrate this earth, but he is going to renovate it. He's going to make it new, not a remodel, a total renovation. Because God is not allowing Satan to ruin what he created as good. Oh yes, Satan and sin have taken their toll, but the heaven and the earth that God made is all good. And sin has taken its toll, but one day God is going to purify it by fire, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. That is the same word, for if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. When you and I were born into the family of God, we became a new creation in Christ. Now that doesn't mean that Tony disintegrated and a new Tony was formed, and you can put your name in there. No, God remade us. God took us and made something new out of our life. And so this is exactly the terminology that's used about the new heaven and the new earth. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all these things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. You see, God came to us, and he knew that we could never come to him. And so the Bible says he took upon him flesh, and that is why he was virgin born, lived a perfect life. It's amazing to me to think about this. You see, Adam was created, God as his father, he had no earthly mother. Jesus had an earthly mother, but no earthly father. Adam was made and put into a pristine garden, put into a world where sin had never touched. That's right. It was absolutely holy. Everything around Adam and Eve gave them a propensity to do good. They had never sinned. There was no sin nature. They were created absolutely perfect. And everything around them promoted godliness. God walked with them every day. He talked with them every day face to face. But yet they chose to sin. Now let's look at the other side of that. Jesus came into a world where even his mother was a sinner who bore him a godly woman, an example to all women, but she was a sinner because she was a child of Adam. She had a nature, a propensity, an inclination toward sin. And Jesus came into a world that was cursed. That means everything around him was pulling him toward sin. But unlike Adam, who was in a pristine place, an absolute perfect place, and he was perfect, yet he sinned, Jesus came into a place that was totally cursed, and yet he did not sin. Why? So that he could bear our sins. When Jesus died, the wages of sin is death. He would have never had to die. No, he was absolutely perfect. And so he died not to pay for his own sin, but to pay for ours. Why? Because God sent Jesus to reconcile us unto himself, and his delight was to do the will of the Father. And the entire volume of the book was written about him. That's what the psalmist said. Verse 18, now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the anointed one. And he has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. What is that ministry of reconciliation? That is that God was in Messiah reconciling the world to himself. And here's what he means by that. And he committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now what does all that mean? That means that Jesus came and took our sin, and God put on his account the penalty for sin, which is death. That doesn't matter whether it's one sin or a billion sins, ten million sins. There's only one penalty, and that's death. And Jesus died that death to pay for our sins. Just as in Adam all die, it was because of Adam that we have a sin nature. And because of Jesus, we are set free, and we have the ability to be able to choose by God's Spirit and God's grace and his living inside of us to choose to live before God in obedience. And so God put on Jesus' account all of our sin. But the wonderful thing is, and this passage doesn't deal with it that much, but the Bible is filled with passages that say that not only did Jesus take our sin, but God put on our account his righteous life, his obedience in every aspect, so that when God looks at your life and he looks at my life as his children, he doesn't see our sin, and he doesn't see a blank slate. He sees the imputed righteousness of Jesus, that which was put on our account because of what Jesus did. And that is why the Scripture says, Now then, now then in verse 20, we are ambassadors. We are of the embassy of heaven. We are ambassadors for Messiah, for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you in Christ's behalf and on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. This is the message that we take. The ministry that we have is not bad news, it's good news. And the Euangelion, the good message is that Jesus has paid for our sin. And that we can be reconciled to God. We can be brought back to God. We are now enemies, and there's enmity between us. That is, there is war between us. And God took the first and second and last step. You see, Jesus has done everything he can to save you. The Holy Spirit has drawn you and drawn me, and he does it over and over again. While we're running, God is chasing after us. I used to see these tracks that would have man trying to work his way to God and trying to get to God. Well, I understand those, and there is a sense when we try to come to God with our own righteousness, which is as filthy rags, the word there is the word for menstrual rags. That's just stinking in the nostrils of God. That's the word. I'm not making that up in the book of Isaiah. All of our righteousness, that means the very best things we can do, not the worst things, but the very best things we can do if we put them before God and say, I want to pay for my sin through my good works. That is as though it is stinking menstrual rags to God. Why? Because the Lord Jesus came to take our sin away, to pay for our sin. And so we can't do anything to merit God's favor. It's the grace of God from beginning to end. We have good news and we plead with people. Please turn to Jesus and live. Look unto Jesus and live. Put your trust and your faith in Him, not anything you can do. And so we plead with people, but you must understand most of the world is going to go to hell. That's what the scriptures teach. When we talk about winning the world, honestly, that's not going to happen. I'm sorry to disappoint you. And I know it's good for denominations and evangelists and pastors to come and they say, well, let's win our world to Jesus. We're not going to win the world of Jesus. But we can win those that are around us as many as God will give to us if we'll open our mouth and share the gospel. But this idea of winning the world, oh, that sounds good. But that's discouraging, honestly, because most of our cities are going to hell. Most of our neighbors are going to hell if we live in any kind of neighborhood at all where a lot of people live. You see, many people that even claim to know Jesus don't know it because they don't understand the gospel at all. Well, what is the gospel? The Bible says in verse twenty one, Second Corinthians chapter five. Boy, this is it in a nutshell. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That's the gospel in the most simple terms. It's not about us, it's about Jesus. It always has been about Jesus, it always will be about Jesus. He is the end, he is the goal, he is the reservoir into which the Crimson River flows. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.