Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:45.
[00:00:07] Good morning. Hey. If I have not had the chance to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. Would love the opportunity. After the service, I hang out here for quite a bit. Feel free to come up, shake my hand, introduce yourself. If you have a Bible, would you guys open up to the book of Second Corinthians? And we're gonna be in chapter five. Specifically, we're gonna be in verses 11 to.
[00:00:31] And I wanna start off, and I wanna read the last five verses of the text that we're gonna be preaching from. As I read these, if you're a little bit familiar with the Bible, you are gonna be very familiar with these verses. Verse 17.
[00:00:46] Paul says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, Behold, the new has come.
[00:00:57] All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us those of us who are saved. The ministry of reconciliation. Verse 20. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. Probably familiar with this. And if I were to ask you, like, what is the main so what of this text? The vast majority of people would say the primary point of this text is that you and me are proclaimers of the gospel. We get to go tell the world, be reconciled to God. You are an enemy of God. But through the blood of Christ, he's offering forgiveness and reconciliation. And that is an accurate, truthful application of this text. But it's not the primary point of this text. In fact, there are things going on in the context of this text that once you kind of understand them, kind of bring this text into a whole new light. So, yes, one of the so what's should be go proclaim the gospel. But there's actually something far more challenging, far more meaningful behind this. And by the time we get to the end of this message, I want to show that to you. All right, so most people, if you're an exception, yay. But most people have that one person that they don't want to see out in the public.
[00:02:51] We would call this our nemesis.
[00:02:56] Don't say their name out loud. But even just by the rumblings in the room. The majority of people in this room seem to have some kind of like, person or picture in their head. They're like, I kind of hope I don't run into them. Your nemesis would be that former friend, that former fling, that former ex. It could be neighborhood, neighborhood boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, that estranged family member, that former coworker, the person who blanked you, betrayed you, deceived you, insulted you, cheated you. You can fill in whatever word you want there.
[00:03:29] Most people avoid contact with their nemesis, right? And understandably so.
[00:03:35] I want you to capture that person in your mind and I want you to think about this.
[00:03:41] What would you do if that person who hurt you or offended you or put themselves in the position where you just hope you never have to see them again? What do you do if you hear that that person has trusted in Christ, has become a true follower of Jesus? Like, what do you do? Do you reach out? Do you call them? Do you acknowledge? Hey, Nemesis, what's up? How's it going? You are my archenemy. And could we have a. I hear you become a Christian. Like, what do you say? So one of the most difficult experiences a Christian will face is offering genuine forgiveness to those who have deeply hurt us. So I want to prepare our hearts for this text and I want to read to you the true story of a woman named Corrie Ten Boom. And if you don't know her, this is from her book, the Hiding Place. And during World War II, she would be hiding Jews from the Nazis. Eventually she was arrested. She was sent to a concentration camp where her father and her sister were would die. And she suffered extensively at the hands of some very cruel guards. Years later, after the war, she had the privilege to talk about Jesus in front of large groups of people. And so she writes this about one of these church services that she was speaking at.
[00:05:03] She says it was at a church service in Munich that I saw him. The former SS man who had stood guard at the shower door in the processing center at Ravensbuck concentration camp. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there. The room full of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, my sister's pain filled face.
[00:05:29] He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. And he said, how grateful I am for your message. He said, to think that as you say, he has washed my sins away. His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who preached so often to the people in my hometown, the need to forgive. I kept my Hand at my side.
[00:05:55] Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man. Was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again, I breathed the silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.
[00:06:25] As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder, along my arm and threw my hand. A current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges but on Jesus. And when he tells us to love our enemies, he gives, along with the command, the love itself.
[00:06:56] For the apostle Paul, who wrote the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul had a group of people that you could rightly call his nemesis in this church. And these people were a thorn in his side, his entire ministry. But they weren't just kind of any group of people. They were objectively fake Christians. Now, you might be saying, pastor Michael, that's pretty judgmental of you. How do you know that they were fake Christians? Well, two ways. Number one, they rejected Paul's gospel, which was Jesus gospel. And so if you claim the name of Jesus, but you reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, even if you call yourself a Christian, you're not a real Christian. To be a real Christian, you have to believe in the pure gospel of Jesus. Now, the second way that we would know and Paul knew that they weren't Christians is because they willingly and without repentance proudly participated in behaviors that the scriptures explicitly teach are demonic in. So they believed a false gospel, and they willingly participated in what were demonically influenced behaviors. Everywhere Paul goes, every city, every church, there is a group of fake Christians that rise up and they do the same thing to him everywhere he goes. They lie about him, they slander him. They try and turn his church and friends against him. They cast doubts over his leadership. They challenge his conversion, his calling, his authority of the church, and most egregiously, they try to kill him or set up circumstances where he can be easily killed. So in the region of Galatia, in the cities of Philippi and Rome, the group, they went by the name judaizers. And the judaizers, they insisted in these places that salvation was not just through faith in Jesus Christ, but you also had to obey the Old Testament law. So it was salvation by Jesus essentially, plus works. And so in this region, Paul's constantly fighting them. In Rome, it was a different group of people. They were called the libertines. And what they would say is that it doesn't matter how you live your life. And they would encourage like disgusting sinful practices and say all that matters is that your soul is right from God in your body. You can live however you want, follow your feelings and your impulses and your desires. That he was dealing with them. In Rome, in Colossae, it was the Gnostics who said Jesus death on the cross wasn't enough. You need secret knowledge, which conveniently only they had in order to experience salvation. In the city of Ephesus, it was false teachers who were denying the gospel, changing the gospel, substituting the gospel. And so Paul's regularly in this city trying to deal with a group of people of false teachers there. And in Corinth, there is a funny name for this crew of defectors. They were called super apostles.
[00:09:52] They didn't just reject the gospel, they rejected Paul and the apostles. And they would say this, we aren't just apostles, we're super apostles because we're rich, wealthy, and we talk really, really well.
[00:10:10] So what do these Corinthian super apostles really want? We know that they are Paul's nemesis. We know that they are in the church.
[00:10:19] And understanding somebody's motivation can help you maybe make sense of their behavior. At the end of the day, the super apostles wanted power, access and influence so that they could take the Corinthians money.
[00:10:37] Why is Paul such a threat to these super apostles? Well, because when they came into the church, Paul called them out for who they really were, unveiled before everybody what their ultimate motives were, and unashamedly made sure that everybody in the church knew these people. They don't love you and they're trying to extort you for money. Now what do nefarious people do when their real motivations and their actual secret sin is revealed? They do what they do everywhere. You see this in politics and it's been the same thing for 2,000 years. They lie, they slander, they create division. They cast doubt over leadership. They name call. You see it online, you see it everywhere, you see it in your family. This is just what people do. Paul is no exception.
[00:11:27] These are the same tactics used by every group of detractors all the way to the first century. Here's a hard lesson.
[00:11:37] People who are power hungry but don't have the skill or experience to excel in politics or to own a business, who are often not respected in their own homes. They often turn to lower level management or smaller churches to exert power and control. And unfortunately, so many of you know this by personal experience. It's an actual thing. And so especially in the first century, they were particularly vulnerable to this. So like you and I, like, we have the Internet, we hear stories, et cetera. We know to look out for people who are trying to extort us for money. We know when we see prosperity preachers on the tv, we're like those guys. I think they're up to no good. We know this because we have experience with this. But in the first century, they didn't have the Internet. They didn't have this long extensive experience with people trying to extort them and exploit them for money. And so they're particularly vulnerable to this. And so the Apostle Paul sees what these no good people are up to. He stands between the church and them and outs them for who they really are. The book of 2 Corinthians, it's about a lot of things, but this book is written in the aftermath of the collision between the Apostle Paul and these people who are trying to extort and exploit the church for money.
[00:12:49] And so this isn't new. This has been going on in churches forever. It's been going on in homes forever and families forever. This is just, this is part of the world now. 2 Corinthians 5, 11. We find ourselves eavesdropping, if you will, on this conversation between the Apostle Paul and the Corinthian church. And I want you to understand this context because this is very important. Inside the Corinthian church are two groups of people. The first group are real Christians who have actually believed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And then there are also fake Christians. These are people who have rejected the gospel and they're people who are sort of trying to worm their way in to exploit the Corinthian church for money. And Paul knows when he is writing this letter, both groups are in the church. And so one of the ways that you have to kind of understand the context is you have to figure out who is Paul talking to in each verse. And so we're gonna start here in verse 11. And right now, Paul is talking to the real Christians in the Corinthian church and he's going to make comments that are kind of like pointed right at the fake Christians. Verse 11. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, implication, some people in the church don't seem to fear The Lord Jesus in Corinth, he says this. We persuade others. Translation, we're not giving up. You can threaten us, you can beat us, you can try to have us killed. You can do all that stuff. That's fine. But, like, we're far more afraid of Jesus than we are you. And so these super apostles, they want Paul out so they can get the church's money. And he's like, I'm not afraid of you. I'm more afraid of Jesus. Verse 11 says this. If you don't understand the context, this will just sound weird. He says, but what we are, he's talking about Paul and the apostles, the true apostles. But what we are, it's known to God. And I hope that it is known also to your conscience.
[00:14:50] So Paul's character is in question, but also his calling. Something to understand about this Corinthian church is that the majority of the people in the church personally came to faith because of Paul's gospel proclamation. Or they came to faith because Paul brought someone to faith and that person proclaimed the gospel.
[00:15:16] And the relationship between Paul and this church was really strong and really beautiful until these quote, unquote, super apostles came into the church. And from the first day they came into the church, there seemed to be tension. And the Corinthian church now has a challenge. They have to discern.
[00:15:37] They have to discern who do we trust? And two questions. Number one, can we actually trust Paul? And let's just put ourselves in the perspective of the super apostles. Here's some of the things that they might be saying.
[00:15:54] You know, Greek leaders, like, we know what leadership is, and they're great orators.
[00:16:03] They're successful and they've got charisma and they're wealthy. And they walk into the room and you feel it.
[00:16:10] Paul's ugly and he's beaten. Like, if Paul was really from God, wouldn't he be like the great Greek leaders?
[00:16:20] And so the people are like, wow, that's kind of a good point. I mean, Paul's like. We see all these leaders and Paul's in any of these.
[00:16:26] And the question number two is this.
[00:16:29] Whose gospel is the true gospel? I mean, here's the fundamental difference. Paul preaches the true gospel, which brings people in truth to Jesus, and they're preaching a false gospel. And so they gotta figure out, can we trust Paul? But also, like, whose gospel is real? Whose gospel is true? Now, as we look back at this, we're like Corinthians. It's so easy, guys. Paul preaches the pure, true gospel. So Anybody who preaches contrary to that, run away. Paul's not asking you for money. They keep asking you for money. Run away. Like we're so clear headed about this, but, but we're sitting here and we're 2,000 years removed. And in this church there is this struggle between Greek cultural values, cause Corinth is in Greece, and biblical values. And we face this all the time. We're like, wow, what happens when our cultural values, which we don't even know we have, collide with biblical values? And that's one of the challenges that they are experiencing.
[00:17:29] Verse 12, Paul says, We're not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance. That's what the super apostles are doing. Look how much money we have. Look how wealthy we are. Look how good I can speak. I'm like a great Greek leader. Look how much influence I have. Jesus loves me because of my wealth, my power, my influence and my ability to speak really, really well.
[00:17:54] And he says, I'm gonna give you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart.
[00:18:05] Let me translate what Paul's saying.
[00:18:08] I'm not going to ask you to defend me publicly to these liars.
[00:18:12] We've been through it all. You know me and you know my heart.
[00:18:19] But if the opportunity comes up and you're going to say anything and brag about anything, brag about the love that you know that I have for Jesus in you.
[00:18:28] Verse 13 gives us a glimpse into some of the lies that they're spreading about Paul. By the way, these are, we're just going to identify two, but there's a whole lot more. These are just the ones inferred or mentioned in this particular portion of chapter 5, verse 13. He says, for if we are beside ourselves, it is for God and if we're in our right mind, it's for you. And so here's the first lie that they were saying. Paul is crazy. The dude is Looney Tunes. Corinthians. Have you listened to what this guy has said? He said Jesus saved him personally and he heard the audible voice of God and then he was blinded and then he had visions and was brought up into the third heaven. Like the guy is out of his mind.
[00:19:10] I mean, that's a good point. It's kind of weird. I mean, I mean maybe he is crazy and you can, you can see that they're trying to cast doubt over him.
[00:19:20] And Paul, you can, like, feel his response. Maybe. But at least if I'm crazy, I'm crazy about Jesus and I'm crazy about my love for my church.
[00:19:29] At least I'm not trying to extort and exploit people for money.
[00:19:33] And I could imagine them saying, that's a really good point, too. I mean, if he's gonna be crazy, let it be out of love for God and love for love for the church.
[00:19:40] In verse 14, Paul responds to a second line. He says this. For the love of Christ controls us. Line number two, Paul's just trying to control you.
[00:19:50] It wasn't just his sanity that was being challenged, but his motivation, his heart.
[00:19:56] In verse 14, he goes on and he gives, I just think, a simple and masterful defense of his heart.
[00:20:03] He says this. We have concluded this, that one has died for all. Jesus died for everybody. Therefore all have died. And he died for all that. Those who live, this is the important part, might no longer live for themselves, but for him, who, for their sake, died and was raised. And so here's kind of his rubric. He's like, okay, Corinthians, am I using you? Am I trying to control you? Am I crazy? Right? Look at my life.
[00:20:32] Look at my behavior.
[00:20:35] Who am I living for? Have I gotten rich off of you? No. Okay. Have I gotten more powerful off of you? No.
[00:20:44] Has my affiliation with you caused myself to be beaten and almost killed multiple times? And have I stood strong in my love for you, despite the. Yeah. Okay, so who's living for who right now? The super apostles.
[00:20:59] All they want is your money.
[00:21:01] And I'm sitting here saying, listen, if I'm trying to control you, that's fine. But, like, I'm not getting anything out of this. And I love this. Paul didn't take his salary. Paul raised his own money by building tents. Like, really, what a beautiful picture. And Paul can just say, look at my life. Look at my life.
[00:21:17] And they know him. And they know him very, very well. And so this Corinthian church, they have to discern, who can we trust? And for us, the answer is so simple. Here's just a couple, like, things. Pick Paul because he suffers for you. Like Jesus. Pick Paul because he sacrifices for you. Like, like Jesus. Pick Paul because he gets nothing from you. Like Jesus. This is one of my favorites. Pick Paul. Cause the dude can do miracles. Okay? So later in the book of 2 Corinthians, he says this. I just wanna read this to you. Cause I think it's just really interesting. He says, I was not at all inferior to these super apostles as they're saying that Paul's inferior. He's like, I wasn't inferior to them, even though I'm nothing. The signs of a true apostle. Here's how you know a fake apostle from a true apostle. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience with signs and wonders and mighty works in the first century. How did you know who a true apostle was versus a fake apostle? The true apostles in the first century were able to do signs, wonders and miracles. And the Corinthian church saw Paul do this, and he's like, guys, the super apostles do not have the ability to do signs, wonders and miracles. All they're trying to do is extort you for money. Please ignore them.
[00:22:39] Number five. Everything was great until the day they walked into the church. And this is striking. He's like, listen, we were good. And since these people came into the church, consider all of the fighting and letters. I mean, four letters have had to be written between Paul and this church. And there's a lot of conflict. And these group of super apostles were at the center of it.
[00:23:04] All right, so our sowats, they take us to the last six verses that we read at the beginning. And I think by the time we get to the last, so what? You're going to understand why these verses are not just about evangelism. They're about something actually much deeper.
[00:23:18] Number one.
[00:23:20] Followers of Christ discern a person by their tested character, not by their smooth words, great skills, or outward appearance. Verse 16. Paul says, from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. The super apostles defense of their ministry was all according to the flesh. Look how good looking we are. Look how tall we are. Look how wealthy we are. Look how handsome we are. Look how much money we have. Follow us. Look how good I can talk.
[00:23:52] We don't follow people because they look good and talk well. Those are outward appearances. He says, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we looked at Jesus and we thought, he's unmoving, disinteresting. He's a rebel. He's not very good looking, doesn't have any money. We treated him according to the flesh and we dismissed him because we honestly just looked at people on the surface. But in fact, we miss God in the flesh because we judged by outward appearance. He says, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. To regard someone according to the flesh means to judge someone. By external things and ignoring the reality of what is actually inside of a person.
[00:24:38] So Paul brings people into this crazy mindset, which by the way, was the crazy mindset of Jesus.
[00:24:44] We don't judge people or value them based on how much money they have, on how good they look, how tall they are, what they can do for our social status, how useful they are to us. Like these are not the standards by which we judge and by which we connect ourselves to other people. Otherwise we are just users. In fact, we see that we acknowledge someone's wealth or good looks or power or influence or whatever it is, but those are not the primary things that draw us to somebody. We actually look past that and we look to the heart of a person. And Paul's saying this, look at their heart and look at the Apostles heart and they're two very different hearts. One is a heart of sacrifice and one is a heart of taking. One is a heart of extorting for money. The other is a heart of saying give your stuff away to other people. Very different heart, very different motivations. And he's saying, listen, we judge not based on the outward appearance. We judge based on what is in the heart.
[00:25:46] The world has a way of judging and assessing value primarily based on usefulness.
[00:25:55] And I think this is the beginning of so much evil. But when you see someone with an extreme disability, we don't primarily see them as useful or useless.
[00:26:08] We see them as God sees them as maybe even particularly vulnerable and in need of protection. When you see a child, we don't process children through the lens of useful or useless. We see them as God sees them as valuable and in need of protection. Now I want to start to bring this full circle. When Paul sees his nemesis, what does he see?
[00:26:33] So yes, they're a threat to his church and he has to protect his church. Yes, they are demonically influenced and he needs to protect his church. But they are not just these things.
[00:26:45] Those are the externals.
[00:26:47] When Paul looks at each one of his nemeses, he does not see their failures first. He sees that they are souls and who are separated from God and need to trust in Jesus.
[00:27:05] What you see primarily in somebody will determine how you treat them. If they are first and foremost your nemesis, you will treat them as such.
[00:27:14] But if they are first and foremost a soul beloved by God, it will shift the way you treat them. And where did Paul learn this crazy idea? From Jesus. He's on the cross and there's somebody there who's spitting on him and he's still offering salvation he's just hearing words of insult to Jesus. One of the thieves actually believes in him and receives eternal life.
[00:27:44] You find this experience with the guards and they're cursing him and just terrible things while he's on the cross. And one of them looks up and says, surely this is the Son of God. It's striking that Jesus always had a hand of salvation and forgiveness extended to his worst enemies. And by the way, every one of us who have trusted in Christ, the Bible says that before we were sons and daughters of God, we were enemies of God. And aren't you so glad that when Jesus and you and him had a conversation about you being sorry for your sins, he didn't identify you first out of your failures, but offer you forgiveness because he loves you? And so this is a striking paradigm shift. And you can imagine that the people in the Corinthian church, they were just like, ah, these people are preaching a false gospel. And Paul's like, before they are false gospel preachers, before they are your enemies, before they are your nemesis, they are souls. And guess what? At one time, you were an enemy of God and somebody loved you enough to share the gospel with you. And our highest priority, we gotta figure out, how do we protect the church and help them understand the gospel so they could believe in Jesus.
[00:28:56] And so, number two, sometimes your most powerful gospel message is the one you live and preach to, your nemesis.
[00:29:05] I wanna say this again, but I want you to notice something about the context of these verses.
[00:29:10] Here's how Paul is going to deliver this letter, how this letter is gonna be delivered. So Paul's gonna write it. Someone's gonna bring it to one of the elders of the elders of the church. What they're gonna do is they're gonna gather all the Corinthians together into a room, probably a house, and they're gonna know Paul sent a letter. And so people are gonna be excited. Some people be a little bit nervous. If you're the people who hate Paul, you're like. If you're the people who love Paul, you're like, yay. And so the church comes together. Not a big church, but they come together in a house. And so the pastor reads this letter to everybody in the house church. There are two kinds of people in the Corinthian house church. The first group of people are fake Christians, and the second group of people are true, real Christians. And so this letter, he kind of weaves back and forth who he is talking to. And one of the things that you're gonna see here is that Paul is going to preach the gospel to his enemies in the church. But first, verse 17, he's talking to the true Christians. And here's what he says in verse 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, meaning he's birthed anew. This is kind of the idea of being born again, brand new person, little baby. And he's like, by the way, FYI, implication, when you came to Christ, you were born again, you were spiritually new. Verse 17, he elaborates, when you did trust in Christ, the old passed away. The new has come. You guys don't want to be treated out of your old self, do you? Well, what if one of your enemies comes to true faith in Christ? How will you treat them out of their past? Or will you give them a new start?
[00:30:47] The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All of this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself. Verse 18, still talking to the true Christians, and gave us. When you trusted in Christ, not only were you reconciled to him, but he has given us the ministry of reconcil reconciliation.
[00:31:07] That is, what does this mean in Christ? God was reconciling the world by the way his enemies to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. If you're not in this room and you are not a believer, I have great news for you. When you come to Christ, all of the horrendous things that you have done, God promises to forgive you and to not count those things against you. And the apostle Paul looks at them and says, you know all the terrible things that you did before you came to faith in Christ. You know all those things that God forgave, right? And Paul could look and say, I murdered Christians because I saw them first and foremost, not as beloved by God, but as enemies. And if God can forgive me, this enemy and you, what happens when your enemy comes to true saving faith in Jesus? What happens when that old self is gone and there's a new person being birthed? What happens when God is doing something brand new in the person that you have liked the least?
[00:32:13] Verse 20 he says, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. And then the second part of verse 20 is where the shift happens. Paul stops talking to the true Christians and then he talks to the fake Christians.
[00:32:32] And sometimes when you read 2 Corinthians, you get to this part where like, why is he pleading with the Christians in Corinth to become Christians? It's because he's Recognizing that there are fake Christians. And here's what he says to the fake Christians. He says, we implore you. He just got done sharing the gospel. What God can do in your life, that he'll forgive all of your trespasses. He. He can take that old self and begin to make you into a new person, can give you forgiveness. And he looks at them and he says, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Paul is talking to his accusers, his enemies, the ones who want him dead and gone so that they can go extort and exploit the church for all their money.
[00:33:11] I can imagine. Do a little pastoral imagination.
[00:33:16] I can imagine the pastor, the elder, getting this letter, getting everybody into a room and reading it. And then when he gets to this part, he looks dead at the people who are, who are the fake Christians, and says, we implore you on behalf of Jesus. All the stuff that we just talked about, be reconciled to God.
[00:33:42] This is an incredible moment where Paul chose to model for his church. No, we don't treat people first out of what they have done to us. Whether they're our nemesis or enemy or what they've done. First and foremost they are beloved of God. And we want to make sure that when they die, they have been reconciled to God through faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
[00:34:06] Paul isn't done. Though he expounds in verse 21, he's still talking to the fake Christians for our sake.
[00:34:14] He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. I love this. You don't need to be defined by your sin any longer. You can actually be defined by what Jesus has done for you. You can be moved from being identified as an enemy of God to being a beloved, righteous son or daughter of the Most High God. And he is offering real time in the church as this letter is being read. Salvation to the people who have harmed him the most.
[00:34:45] I am personally blown away by the Apostle Paul's love, by what God has done in his heart and his ability to not see people first and foremost as what they did to me or my friends or my family or whatever, but as people who need to meet Jesus. And how you see somebody primarily will determine how you treat them. I want to close our time and I want to read to you another story, true story from World War II.
[00:35:14] There is a pastor and evangelist who during World War II was able to preach the gospel and then after, him and his wife traveled the world writing books and proclaiming Jesus and telling stories of what had happened in World War II. His name is Richard Wurmbrand, and his wife, her name is Sabina. And Sabina's entire family were murdered. And one night, Richard and Sabina were staying at an inn and they knew the owner of the inn and there was another person there who was a soldier. And the person, the soldier came in and was bragging about how many jobs Jews he had killed. So the owner of the inn went up to Richard and said, hey, FYI, I know your family's story, I know your wife's story. Her entire family was murdered. This guy actually is bragging about it. And I think he's actually, he was actually a soldier where your wife's family were all killed. And so what Richard does is he decides, I'm going to go talk to the guy.
[00:36:18] Here's what he says.
[00:36:21] The murderer proved to be not only a murderer, nobody's only one thing. He was a pleasant talker. And eventually it came out that he had a great love for music. I turned to this man. His name was Borilla. B O R I L A I turned to this man and I said, I have something very important to say to you.
[00:36:44] He said, please speak.
[00:36:47] I said, if you look through that curtain, you can see someone is asleep in the next room. It's my wife. Her name is Sabina. Her parents, her sisters and her 12 year old brother have been killed with the rest of the family.
[00:37:00] You told me that you had killed hundreds of Jews near Gota and that is where they were taken.
[00:37:07] Looking to his eyes, I added, you yourself don't know whether you have who you have shot, so we can assume that you are the murderer of her family. He jumped up, his eyes blazing, looking as if he was about to strangle me. I held up my hand and said, now let's try an experiment. I shall wake my wife and tell her who you are and what you have done. And I can tell you what will happen. My wife will not speak one word of reproach. She'll embrace you as if you were her brother. She'll the best thing she has in the house. Now, if Sabina, who is a sinner like all, can forgive in love like this, imagine how Jesus, who is perfect love, can forgive and love you only return to him and everything you have done will be forgiven.
[00:37:54] Barillo was not heartless within. He was consumed by guilt and misery of what he had done. And he had shaken his brutal talk at us as a crab left its claw. One tap at his weak spot and his Defenses crumbled. Now came instead of the attack, he expected words of forgiveness. His reaction was amazing. He jumped up and tore at his collar with both hands so that his shirt was rent apart. Oh God, what shall I do? What shall I do? He cried. He put his head in his hands and sobbed noisily as he rocked himself back and forth. I'm a murderer. I'm cloaked in blood. What shall I do? Tears ran down his chin. Barela fell on his knees, trembling, and we began to pray aloud. He knew no prayers. He simply asked again and again for forgiveness and said that he hoped and knew it would be granted. We were on our knees together for some time when he stood up and we embraced each other. And I said, I promised to make an experiment. I shall keep my word.
[00:38:50] I went into the other room and I found my wife still sleeping calmly. She was very weak and exhausted at the time. I woke her gently and said, there's a man here whom you must meet. We believe he has murdered your family, but he has repented and now he's our brother.
[00:39:07] She came out in her dressing gown and put out her arms to embrace him. Then both began to weep and to kiss each other again and again. I have never seen a bride and bridegroom kissed with such love and purity as this murderer and the survivor among his victims.
[00:39:23] Then, as I foretold, Sabina went to the kitchen to bring him food. While she was away, the thought came to me that Barilla's crime had been so terrible that some further lesson was needed. I went to the next room and returned with my son, who was then 2, who was asleep in my arms.
[00:39:39] It was only a few hours since Barilla had boasted to us how he had killed Jewish children in their parents arms. And now he was horrified. The sight was an unbearable reproach. He expected me to accuse him, but I said, do you see how quietly he sleeps?
[00:39:54] You are also like a newborn child who can rest in the Father's arms. The blood that Jesus shed can cleanse you. Barilla's happiness was very moving. He stayed with us that night, and when he woke the next day, he said, it's been a long time since I slept like that.
[00:40:11] What do you do when your Nemesis comes to faith in Jesus Christ? Amen. Ville CHURCH let's pray. Father, we love you and I am so thankful for men and women who have gone before us. Such maturity and strength. But at the end of the day they would testify, it is all from you.
[00:40:32] And Lord, we confess we were all your enemies. And we deserve hell and we deserve reproach and we deserve separation. And yet you did not see us first and foremost out of our sin. You loved us, Jesus. You died for us. You raised from the dead. Just proving that you are not just another dead guy, but you are truly God in the flesh. And the payment for our sins was accepted. Thank you for that. That those of us who've trusted in Jesus never, never once have to pay for our sins. You have forgiven us. We are so grateful for that, Lord. If there are fake Christians listening, Lord, may you expose that and may you draw them to true faith. May they come to you and say they are sorry and believe in the life, death and resurrection. And may they be moved from enemies to sons and daughters. Lord, for those of us who names kind of went through our brain of nemeses that have yet to trust in Christ God, would you. Would you teach us to pray and would you prepare us to transition our thoughts from enemy to brother and sister? Lord, what an incredible thought. And Lord, every one of us, we were at one time enemies like the apostle Paul. And you've loved us so. God, would you encourage us, would you remind us, Would you keep our hearts tender? And would you not allow us to forget that before people are their successes in the flesh or their failures, they are beloved by you in souls that need. Jesus, we love you. We pray all of this. We do it in Jesus name. Amen.
