The Power to Be

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Focus: regeneration

Function: To help people be free to obey instead of bound by overcoming sin.

Form: Study

Intro: Here is an Idea for us to help see this passage of scripture. God is a verb.

In the 4^th full paragraph, page 209 of the first printing of The Shack by William P. Young, God is speaking, and in the book, God is represented by a wise older Black Woman, kind of like The Oracle on the first Matrix Movie. And God says something like this paraphrase by Phil to the protagonist: “I am a verb. What that means is that I am the power inside of you to succeed. When I am a noun, then I am the ideal of perfection by which, in comparison, you always fail. But, when I am your noun, then I am the power inside of you to fulfill what I have called you to do.”

The idea did not originate with William Young. He is quoting a Jewish Rabbi David Cooper. But the concept holds.

God is not the wrathful God to be feared because we can never measure up. God is the loving parent who also dwells inside of us and gives us the power to be who God has called us to be. God gives us the power to be new creatures. God gives us the power to be born again. God gives us the power to overcome the evil and sin that is in our life.

And the Church is the place where we come and get re-fueled.

Let me re-read verse 17 to focus on it: ¹⁷Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come.

“Joined to Christ.” I like that. I like as a term for what is coming. You know that the next verse, “God has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation” is one of the more salient verses when it comes to what I should be preaching and what we should be doing as the body of Christ.

And the translators pick up brother Paul's reconciliation back into the family of God.

It emphasizes the communal nature of our salvation. It isn't something done in a vacuum. It is done with and through the participation that we share with one another.

This is how we become more and more like Christ Jesus.

When the Bible says that wherever people are gathering in the name of Jesus, the presence of the Holy Spirit is there in a special way to encourage the nurture of fellowship and Christian discipleship.

When I was newly restored back into God's family, I was pretty sure that once I overcame smoking, cussing and drinking, God would be ready to have me prepared as a complete and mature Christian.

I soon found out that those outside things, those external “sins” were easy compared to having to forgo my ego and forgive when I did not want to. They were easy compared to forcing the kind of humility that lets another person do what I can do, maybe even better, (maybe not), just so that we can share as partners.

When in Tijuana, and we are building an house for a desperate family. On Thursday, that family prepares the best possible meal they can for the team. And, for the most part, seeing the conditions that the food is cooked in, and the type of food, it takes a lot of prayer for me to eat. But if I do not let them serve me, then I set myself up as better and God wants me to place in high value everyone else, even those who are completely different from me.

The Holy Spirit of God is actually dwelling inside of believers. Not only do we have the standard conscience, the standard piece of God inside all of us that Romans 1 and 2 refer to, but we also have a divine relationship with Living God.

And, there is a promise that when in community, the power of God is even greater. Now, I don't really know what that means when faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain. But it must mean something.

And it does.

As brother Scot shared, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the power to love, accept and forgive others.

But that still leaves us with the question of sin.

Is it okay to sin without regard to the consequences?

Sin is committing acts of evil.

Sin is broken relationship with God and others.

Where 2 or 3 are gathered, in my name, doing God's work, we can expect God to be present.

Let me give you an example.

Scot and I took Ishmael on a bus ride.

I was sitting next to Ishmael when a gang-member came on to the bus and sat across from us. We were at the front of the bus facing the other passengers.

He was white with his gang colors and flag flying proud and pristine. He was sharp looking, and scary.

He saw me talking with Ishmael and gave me a look of disgust and shook his head, right at me in disapproval. It was scary and I was tempted to be afraid.

I was wondering how I can explain to Ishmael to look for gang signs and avoid them.

But the Spirit of God is in us even more when we are gathered, even 2 or 3.

And instead of fear, faith came over me and I the scripture verse “Love covers a multitude of evil” came to my mind.

I decided that I was going to engage this gang banger with me and Ishmael. I wanted the gang member to see the humanity, instead of the Muslim-ness of Ishmael.

And, by the time we got off the bus, the gang-banger got off with us, we stood and exchanged pleasantries an the curb before we left.

I promised you that I would talk a little bit about sin and I am.

Can we sin and get away with it? Yes, technically we can.

Should we?

No!

To continue to sin is an affront to the cross of Christ.

Jesus died on the cross to forgive the evil of humanity.

I don't understand the mystery of atonement and why it was necessary. God didn't need to go that far to do it, but God did and God is God and I am not.

So, I trust it.

And since it happened, I and we have been given the power by God to be forgiven and to forgive.

But, if we were to force the bible into its technicalities, which is not genuine and it insincere and in one sense a sin in it self, then yes, technically we can sin and get away with it.

Twice in 1 Corinthians, Paul says “all things are lawful....” And he is talking about sin. But he goes on to say that even if I can get away with it, they will not benefit me. As Scot said last week, we need to repent from sin. And the second time Paul mentions it, he tells them to think always about the impact of others on people before we sin.

Yes, technically we can. But that does not mean that God, who loves us, will not discipline our sin away from us.

But it is the Church that provides the space and power to overcome the evil and brokenness that can dominate our lives.

What we choose to define as sin is going to vary among every one of us. That is part of our diversity and our commitment to diversity.

But remember, in the community of faith, there is real power.

Sometimes, God leads the leader, sometimes, God leads the pilgrim.

In Acts 10, when Peter changed the entire OT law and was given authority by the Spirit to change the law through a vision that he received, the Holy Spirit lead the leader to make the change and they trusted him.

But at the same time, the pilgrim was lead by God to seek out the change.

God does it.

God's spirit is reconciling the world to God and to each other.

Anything that gets in the way of the reconciliation could be considered to be sin as well.

So what happens when the community gathers?

The community empowers each other to live as Christ wants them to live.

Let me give another example of what and how the Church does this.

I preached the Community Thanksgiving service this year in Hastings.

I sort of preached a fireball message, the kind I generally don't preach here because this audience is a little bit more sophisticated and I appreciate that.

But I had a clear leading from God about preaching what I preached.

If you remember, a political marginalized every Muslim by spreading fear rhetoric about letting refugees come into the US.

Several governors, in order to garner the political capital created by that statement jumped on the band wagon and declared their states Refugee free zones.

And all of a sudden, my evangelical Christian pastor friends in the COB were alarmed that this kind of fear rhetoric was also being spread in the Churches.

Pulpits were spreading the fear message about others, even though this scripture calls us to be agents of God's reconciliation.

From pulpits the message of fear was being preached and that is not from God.

So, I used the power of the Holy Spirit to preach faith to the crowd and the message was well received.

The Church is the place where we find our faith and invite others to this place of grace.