June 5, 2011
There is a TV show on MTV called Made that is attempts to take one, "simple" and "regular" if not "deficient" individual and make that person into something extraordinary, talented, and irregular in the best sense of the word. Here are a few synopses: Diana, a socially inept teen, is made into a cheerleader. Mike, an athletically challenged teen, is made into a basketball player. Despite the social implications, Billy is made into an opera singer. Jason, an academically studious teen, is made into a break dancer. Despite doubts and social implications, Najah is made into a model.
While the end results differ in terms of what a teen is made into, one thing remains the same: the only way that teen gets made is with the help of an expert -- someone who is a break dancer or someone who has experience modeling or someone who coaches an all-state cheerleading squad. In any case, each student is made from zero to hero with the help of their expert coach: the man or woman who has been there, who has gone through the training, who has succeeded as a basketball player or singer and who now is able to teach someone exactly what it takes to be made into an athlete or singer.
But what does it take to be made new? What if on the next episode of MTV's Made you saw someone say, "My name is so-and-so and I want to be made new" as in, "I don't just want to learn a new skill nor do I want to simply be able to do something new; I want to be made anew."
Because when I was young, I used to wish I could be made into a millionaire or a rock star or an actor or the best athlete -- but as I get older and I witness things like regrets, pain, loss, hopelessness, betrayal, anger, greed, lust, and a cavalcade of other deeply engrained emotions, I start wanting (like many of you, I'm sure) to be made new -- not just made into something different but made into something else all-together.
How many of you have ever though that you wanted to be made new? How many of you have ever said something to someone or about someone and wished you could just go back and start anew? How many of you did something so regretful that every time you think about that, all you can think about is starting new? Truth be told, at one point or another, every single one of us -- as a species -- desires to be new: at the end of the day, after we've been made into singers, doctors, athletes, teachers, pastors, murderers, or whatever, we all desire to be made new, no matter how successful we are, no matter how much money we have, no matter how hot our spouses are, we all desire, at the end of the day, to be made new. But remember: everyone who's been made had an experience expert and coach, so what kind of expert would you need to be made new?
1. You would need an expert who knows what it truly means to be old (because if everything was new you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between what was new and old, much like if everything was white then we would have no idea what black is).
2. You would need an expert who knows what it's like to be new (e.g. if I had an '89 Honda and traded it in for a '91 Volvo, technically my car is "new" but it's not necessarily the same kind of new as trading in my '89 Honda for a 2011 Lamborghini -- such a car is entirely and completely new, where everything about it is new, not just different)
3. And this expert would need to always and constantly be new, never getting old, never getting used up, never going out of date -- this expert would need to be truly new.
Now this expert obviously can't be found on Monster.com or Craigslist -- no human being can honestly meet all three criteria… well, no human being but one and thankfully Paul explains for us in our text today who this expert is and how He and only He can make someone new.
Paul begins in verses 20-21 by telling us the name of this expert: some know him as the Christ (20) while others know him as Jesus (21); we all know him today as Jesus Christ, who according to John 3:16, is and was God's only Son, sent to the earth out of God's love to die and save the world through his death.
But then Paul moves on to verse 22 where he begins to explain the expertise of Jesus in three ways:
- First, Jesus teaches us how to put off our old selves;
- Secondly, Jesus teaches us how to made new;
- And thirdly, Jesus teaches us how to stay that way, fully fulfilling the criteria for our required expert.
Some of us right now and right here are living in the heat of deceitful desires, full of the cares of the world and a desire for riches of the flesh but this is way of living is supposed to be the old way of living -- the former way of life, not the present! If you are living in unfruitfulness and corruption, I challenge and encourage you to repent -- turn away from a life that is being corrupted by deceitful desires and turn to the expert of new-ness and the only one who can make you new: Jesus Christ. If you already have and you're still filled with deceit and unfruitfulness, then the same challenge goes for you: repent fully to the Lord -- perhaps you've let Jesus into some aspects of your life but not others; repent from those other places and let Christ into every aspect of your life!
But not only has Jesus taught what is old, since Jesus knows well what the old life is like, He also teaches us how to be made new: Verse 23 says that Jesus teaches us to made new… in the attitude of our minds. Now that is a confusing string of words because I didn't know my mind had an attitude of its own? Well, in the original language of this letter (Koine Greek), Paul actually uses the word pneuma where we see the word "mind" and the word pneuma actually means Spirit.
So Paul is saying that Jesus has taught us how to be made new in our Spirit, which makes a lot of sense because in Mark 2, there is a story of a group of friends lowering their paralyzed friend down to Jesus through the roof of someone's home. And verse 5 says, "…when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'" In other words, when Jesus sees faith, He washes away the sins of the sprit and makes that personal spiritually new. See, the attitude of our Spirits are rarely faithful -- most of the time, we desire things that are unfaithful to God, which is why we become guilty of sin. But when the attitude of our Spirits shift from our anger, selfishness, idolatry, and sin and towards faithfulness to Jesus, Jesus says, "Son or daughter, your sins are forgiven" and our Spirit are made anew.
Paul says it like this in Eph. 2:8, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…" What is the attitude of your Spirit today? Is it faithfulness or faithlessness? My encouragement to you is to be made -- not in the ways that the world or MTV makes you but in the wonderful ways that Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone makes you: new, by faith in God's grace in Jesus Christ.
And when you do that, when you place you complete faith in Jesus Christ, Paul says in verse 24 that new is what you will be -- not just for now -- but for all eternity. Does God ever become less holy or less righteous or less new? Never. And through Jesus Christ, your new-ness will last forever. MTV may be able to make you into something for now but Jesus Christ makes us into new-ness for now and forever more.
Upon the cross, Jesus became old for you, filled with the corruption of the world, so that the eternal new-ness can be gladly given to you -- not just for an episode but for all eternity. But three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, victorious over all corruption and entirely new so that you can spend all of eternity in like new-ness with Him. So today, will you let yourself be eternally Made new by Jesus Christ? Will you place your faith in Him and what He has done for you and believe onto Him?