Increasing Numbers of Transformed Lives 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 September 9, 2012 Travis Collins

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1 Increasing Numbers of Transformed Lives 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 September 9, 2012 Travis Collins Imagine with me a guy who has no use for rich folks. But he steps off a curb and falls into the street. He looks up as an arm with a Rolex watch and fancy cuff links helps him to his feet. He gives the gentleman who is dressed in an obviously expensive suit and carrying a leather briefcase a good look, thanks him and never looks at rich folks quite the same. A sophisticated lady always has looked down on so-called rednecks. And then one night she has a flat tire on the side of a dark road. She has no cell phone to call for help and she s about to cry when a pickup truck pulls up behind her. A guy gets out dressed in blue jean shorts, a Hank Williams Jr. t-shirt and a cap that says NASCAR. He appears to have a pinch of something between his cheek and gum. And he asks her politely, Can I hep ye? He changes her tire then flat refuses to accept any money. And she forever looks at rednecks in a different way. Imagine with me a guy who sees Jesus as a cuddly, as lovable and huggable. He has a sentimental view of Jesus. He loves what Jesus says about loving your neighbor and all that. He loves his stories and the Golden Rule and so on. Yet Jesus, to him, is a good teacher; not the Savior of the universe. For him there are many paths and many truths. But has been going to worship services for several weeks because his girlfriend invited him to go and slowly he begins to think of Jesus differently. He gets this strange assurance deep inside him that Jesus is who he said he is: The way to God, the Truth, and that in Jesus is Life at its best. He thinks of Jesus not as a little baby in a manger but as the one who took upon Himself all our sins and died. He looks at Jesus differently. And he begins to look at people differently. And he becomes a different person. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is a popular verse: If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! But we can t divorce it from verse 16, which says, I now look at people, even Jesus, differently. Paul is telling the story of spiritual conversion. I see people and I see Jesus differently now. He d been transformed. Transformation is a recurring theme in Scripture. Romans 12:2, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 2 Corinthians 3:18, We..are being transformed into his image... And the New Testament is full of examples of transformed lives. Genuine transformation is more than people becoming a little happier and a little nicer. It s more than coming to church a little more and cussing a little less. 1

2 Genuine transformation is far more than that. Transformation is Attitudinal (Transformed People look at life differently) Cerebral (Transformed People think differently) Cardiological (Ezekiel 11 says Transformed People have new hearts) Volitional (our wills, our deciders get changed) Familial (families get rescued) Behavioral (people act differently) Observable (people can see it) Fruitful (love, joy, peace ) Sustainable (not a flash in the pan) Transferable (it s contagious) Eternal (it is a new birth with the promise of life that never ends) And Increasing Numbers of Transformed Lives must be our Passion That phrase, Increasing Numbers, requires some explanation. It doesn t mean that our success is measured by the number of people in worship. What that means is that today when we go to the river baptism, it would be a greater celebration to baptize 50 than 5. Just that simple. God added daily to the church in Jerusalem, says Acts 2. The Bible says that every time a new believer is born all of Heaven rejoices. One thing I want to be clear about is who it is who does the transforming. When we say increasing numbers we re not implying that we are the ones doing the increasing. I remember an organization in Elizabethtown, Kentucky called Helping Hands. That phrase didn t mean we were going to help those poor, helpless hands. It was a description of the hands. Helping was a verb used as an adjective. You with me? Well, I ve probably gotten in much deeper than I should have but I want to be clear that we all understand that it is not Bon Air Baptist Church who does the increasing. We don t increase the numbers of people who are transformed. God does that. We are God s tools, His vehicle, the body of Christ through whom He works, but we don t add to the numbers of who is transformed. Transformation is an act of God s Spirit, not something we manufacture And where did this phrase come from? Who gave me the authority to say this should be our passion? In 1998, four years before I heard of Bon Air Baptist, the church re-organized a bit and established a Philosophy of Ministry statement. In that document, in the section titled, Our Philosophy of Church Ministries, is found this statement. 2

3 The emphasis of ministry is to be placed on the transformation of lives rather than the program of the church. Transformation is a process of inner change and is the work of the Holy Spirit in a person s life. That s got to be our rallying cry that around which we, with all our different generations and services and campuses and styles unite! I loved the following description of a transformational church : A Transformational Church is not simply a good church or a church that does good things. Neither is it necessarily a big church that offers excellent programming, preaching, and worship. A Transformational Church focuses stubbornly on the gospel s ability to change people A Transformational Church is more than a group of people who believe Christianity is the right choice and that it offers a better way to live. We found hope in them because they are covenant communities holding to a belief that God will radically change lives and entire communities The churches we discovered are interested in changing lives more than just the sake of helping people become better. There are plenty of self-help movements in the world, and the church doesn t even do that sort of thing particularly well. Certainly we don t do it as well as Tony Robbins or Oprah. But making well-adjusted and well-behaved unbelievers is not the aim of Christian mission The hope of a Transformational Church is for a complete change of individual lives and all of culture. (Transformational Church, 10, 16). This week you heard about the possibility of New Covenant Baptist Chruch becoming a campus of our church. Today Keri and I will join others there for a lunch meeting to talk about that. Of course we have a long way to go before a decision is made, but why would we have such a complicated conversation as that? Because the people of that congregation are good folks who realize they are no longer capable of reaching people in that community. They believe at this point in their history and our history if they could become a campus of our church, and a bunch of us were to come and plant ourselves in that place, their community could be transformed. So they are humbly reaching out to us. And because our calling is to be used of God for increasing numbers of transformed lives. God can t use us to transform the world unless we, ourselves, are in the process of genuine transformation. As we think about transforming our community and world it might be best to stop and think about being transformed ourselves. As someone said, establishing an outreach program for a church of immature Christians is like putting whipped cream on stale pudding. (Roy Oswald and Speed Leas, The Inviting Church). How do we get transformed into mature Christians? It begins with conversion, a new birth as Jesus described it in John 3. But our conversion is simply the beginning of a process. Spiritual maturity comes with an unfolding understanding of who God is. We are about to begin a nine-week study of The Good and Beautiful God. It will be a sermon series and a small group/bible study option. The thrust of this series is that understanding the nature of God, and his grace, transforms us. 3

4 Some people say, When I go to church I want the preacher to step on my toes! Well, that makes some of us feel better. And I do believe in speaking frankly and with clarity about our sins and shortcomings. But being hauled over the coals is not nearly as transformative as a deep understanding of God s love. Ask that woman who was caught in adultery and dragged before Jesus. Do you think she said to herself, Hey, these dudes are about to stone me; I m going to change my life! I doubt it. But I do believe she changed when Jesus defended her, love her unconditionally, and said, Go and sin no more. I believe that transformed her. Titus 2:11-13 are on your outline, and they tell us that it is grace that transforms us. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age... Nothing changes us like realizing how deeply we are loved. Fannie Crosby wrote, Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Grace, not getting beaten up by the preacher. And another hymn, by Hezekiah Walker says, Love lifted me. When nothing else would help. Love lifted me. Love, not chastisement. Not getting beaten over the head with a self-righteous stick. Not being reminded of how far I fall short. But a deep sense of unconditional, undeserved, unlimited love! That is transformational! Look at these important words from John Claypool: We all have shadows and skeletons in our backgrounds. But listen, there. is something bigger in this world than we are and that something bigger is full of grace and mercy, patience and ingenuity. The moment the focus of your life shifts from your badness to his goodness and the question becomes not 'What have I done? but 'What can he do?' release from remorse can happen; miracle of miracles, you can forgive yourself because you are forgiven, accept yourself because you are accepted, and begin to start building up the very places once torn down. There is grace to help in every time of trouble. That grace is the secret to being able to forgive ourselves. Trust it. (quoted in Ragamuffin Gospel). I believe that beating ourselves up or being beaten up by the pastor or Bible Study teacher doesn t ever change us like a realization that says, You re kidding; I m loved like that? Let s return, in closing, to 2 Corinthians 5:16, which says, We used to think of Jesus from a worldly point of view, but we don t do that any longer. Maybe we d understand what it means to see Jesus differently if I d tell a story of Patty Jenner. Years ago, in our Kentucky days, we were driving home from a football game our team was playing in a distant county, Lincoln County. Our oldest son, Landon s team had won and we were all in a good mood. We were in a convoy of sorts, following the school bus that carried the team. We came up on the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, and several cars had pulled over to the side of the road. 4

5 As we approached we saw an overturned vehicle and realized it had carried some of the guys from our school. As we eased forward with the traffic we were relieved to see one of our son s friends, Dusty, walking around. He looked fine and since he had been in the vehicle we assumed everybody was okay. But by the time we got back to the parking lot of the school news had come that one of the students in the vehicle, Michael, was dead. Michael and his family were members of our church. I hurried to Michael s home. A deputy sheriff s car was in the driveway. He already had delivered the devastating news. Those are the nights one never forgets. When I walked in Michael s mom and dad were convinced that there had been some mistake. After a while they just sat there, without the ability to speak. I vividly remember finally returning to my own house, and going room by room kissing my three sleeping children. Then I sat on the side of my bed and wept. I went back to Michael s house the next morning. There sat Michael s mom wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants heavy with grief. Her disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes told of an agonizing and sleepless night. I sat with her while she wondered aloud about God, about where He was the night before, and about why He d allow this. Yet in almost the same breath she spoke of Jesus love and his gentleness. She spoke of Jesus love for boys and girls, and seemed to take comfort in the story of Jesus gathering the children around Himself. Eventually she said words that I often think of. Travis, she said, I know Jesus but I don t know God. I know Jesus, she said, But I don t know God. Please take a moment to let those words sink in. They have a profound significance. I know Jesus, but I don t know God. Jesus, to her, was the compassionate one who enjoyed children, the miracle worker who raised dead little girls and healed sick little boys. Jesus was the kind one with sparkling eyes and a gentle touch. God, however, seemed distant. Cold. Hard. Callous. One you d like to shake your fist at sometimes. I understand why she said that and I trust that with the passing of years she sees things differently but in that painful moment she made a terrible misjudgment of God. God is not harsh and indifferent and cold and callous. Jesus is God-in-the-flesh. So God is that One who gathered the children around him, who raised that little girl and healed that little boy. There is no disconnect between God and Jesus. He who has seen me has seen the Father, Jesus said. And he declared, I and the Father are one. One of the life transforming things we re going to see about God in the next few weeks is that His nature is not harsh, vengeful and merciless. It is the nature of Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh. If you want to know how God sees you, look at Jesus who loved with an unconditional, 5

6 undeserved, unlimited love then stretched forth his hands and died. And that is transformational. To believe (to quote Peter Scazerro) that at the depths of who we are that we are more sinful than we would dare to admit, yet more loved than we would dare to dream That is transformational. 6