All right, 2 Corinthians 5. For context sake, I'm going to read the entire chapter of chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians. We're going to call this having a right view, a proper view of people, I guess. 2 Corinthians 5. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put our heavenly dwelling, put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we were still in this tent, we groaned, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, Oh, man, I just realized that I had switched. Hang on. I'm going to switch this back to my new King James. I was doing this study. I had it switched over here on ESV. All right, back to chapter 5 here. I thought something was sounding a little different. I'll start here in verse 6. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. I'm in chapter 4. Wow. This is literally... goes from 4 to 5. Oh wow. This in the middle of my screen here it overlaps. It's doing something very strange. Okay. Back to 6. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home, in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well-pleased rather to be absent from the body than to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done in the body, according to what He has done. Whether good or bad, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God, or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all, that those who live shall no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh. Yet now we know him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as through God we were pleading through us, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God to him. Okay, so our passage we're going to be looking at specifically is 16 and 17. But in verse 21, is a description, obviously, of the Lord Jesus. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. So we have a proper understanding of Christ and His work in there. But then if we back up in the verses we're going to be looking at here in 16 and 17, we're going to see a proper view of people. Now, Paul... Paul, prior to his conversion, had judged Christ according to the flesh. And he found Him lacking. To Paul, Christ was a pretender who had pushed too far and who had gotten what was coming to him. He had pushed people to believe in something, and he got what was coming to him. He was condemned by the Sanhedrin and was crucified by the Romans. In fact, to Paul, Christ's crucifixion confirmed that he was a pretender, based on Deuteronomy 21, verse 23. that stated that a man who had been hung on a tree was cursed by God. Therefore, to Paul, Christ's death on the cross appropriately and emphatically ended all of his any other messianic pretensions. In other words, his death on the cross of Calvary confirmed to Paul that Christ was a fraud. as we all know, this earlier perception was dramatically, dramatically seems so weak to describe what happened to Paul, we know that his perception was dramatically reversed when Christ, in a glorious post-resurrection appearance, confronted Paul while he was on his way to Damascus, specifically to persecute Christians. At that moment in time, his view of Christ changed. Or in other words, At that moment, Paul was able to view Christ not as a fraud, but rather as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. So even though Paul had earlier judged Christ according to flesh, after this encounter, he judged Him quite differently. He no longer judged Him by the flesh. But ironically, very ironically, As Paul was writing 2 Corinthians, he was now being judged according to flesh, or in other words, according to the external misplaced standards of the world in the same manner he himself had judged Christ in his earlier life. And who was doing this? His critics within Corinth were doing this. And why were they doing this? They were doing this in order to disparage Paul and try to diminish his influence among the Corinthians. As a result of their attack against him, Paul, as an apostle of Christ, felt compelled then to respond to these attacks strongly, which in turn launched further attacks against him by his critics. And this brings us here to our text in 2 Corinthians 5. So how do these verses fit here and what all we read? The first part, just earlier before it, is an attempt to explain his strong response to his critics, especially as he put forth in this letter, this severe letter, a response that some in Corinth apparently had deemed out of line, like he went too far, he went over the line. He detailed for the Church of Corinth two driving motivations that he hoped would not only explain his strong response to his critics, but would also explain why he lived in the manner he lived, or in other words, why he made this, in his time, be a counterculture lifestyle, a revolutionary lifestyle. So what were the two motivations, so what were the two driving motivations that contributed to his, Paul's passionate response to his critics and to the way he lived his life in 2 Corinthians in verses 5, verses 11 through 15, just prior to our text. Paul's first driving motivation was the fear of the Lord. We see that spelled out in verses 11 through 13. He says, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your conscience. For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God, or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. And what was Paul's second driving motivation? Paul's second driving motivation to contribute to his lifestyle was his love for Christ in verses 14 and 15. For the love of Christ compels us because we judge thus that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all that those who live shall live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. The fear of the Lord and the love of Christ informed then the basis of Paul's lifestyle and of his counter-lifestyle, a lifestyle which was totally and completely dictated not by what served him, but rather by what served Christ, the one who loved him and who had given his life up for him. This lifestyle was based on Paul's identification with Christ through the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit and motivated by his fear of the Lord and his love of Christ. It left him standing apart from the world in many different ways. One of the ways he was left standing apart from the world was in the way that he viewed people. You think of You think about how people are viewed. You think of Christ overlooking the people. He sees them as sheep without a shepherd. He could always see the urgency of the gospel. He could see the urgency for the need of the gospel to go forth. So this morning we're going to look and see what Paul had to say here in verses 15 and 16 about that. So in doing, we'll be seeking to answer the question, what do we learn about Paul and how he viewed people then in our passages in verses 16 and 17? hopefully we will seek, hopefully we'll answer this question and then it would truly have an impact on what we believe and how we feel. Not only how we view others, but even how we view ourselves, which you'd like to think by the grace of God would be dramatically impacted, would dramatically impact not only our thinking, but every aspect of our life. So then the hope for this message The hope for this message is to answer this question. The hope is we examine these verses and then we will better appreciate the importance of looking at people as God himself would look at them. And this better appreciation would then help us to live lives more like Christ and live a more fruitful life. But the first thing we learned about Paul and how he viewed people was this, that after his conversion, he no longer viewed them according to the flesh. So just the things that he could see. Now that is the entire culture around us, isn't it? Everything is just viewed by the flesh. The culture views people by their outward appearance. It views them by what they own, what they do, what kind of influence that they can have, all of those things. That's what we see all around us. That's what we experience every day. So let's look at 2 Corinthians 5.16. From now on, therefore... Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer." Here he begins with the word, therefore. It points back then to the previous two verses, verses 14 and 15, to the love of Christ that has compelled him as our substitute to die, our death, so we can live through Him. Then after pointing his readers back to this event, this monumental event that is the heart of the gospel, then he goes on to say, therefore from now on, or in other words, since our conversion that was made possible through Christ's death, we recognize no one according to the flesh. When Paul said that he recognized no one according to his flesh, he simply meant that after his conversion he no longer viewed people based on worldly distinctions or worldly exceptions. So he would see people the way that they really are. The world constantly is making personal judgments based on nothing more than their own prejudiced distinctions in regard to race, status, wealth, beauty, success, some giftedness, some title, some nobility. We don't see nobility much in our age, like what you think of as kings and queens, but there certainly is nobility. It doesn't see them as that This is not the way of Christ and neither should that be our way as followers of Christ. We shouldn't be limited by this corrupted understanding as all that we can perceive in that way is corrupted outside of seeing it like Christ sees it. If there's any doubt about this, all we need to do is look at Paul and his own personal experience with Christ over the course of his life. In the second part, or in verse 16, it says, therefore from now on, or in other words, since our conversion we recognize, or we know, or we can see, or we can perceive, no one according to flesh, in other words, the various worldly distinctions or exceptions we had in the past or he had had in the past, then he says he doesn't see them. But now he sees them even though we have known Christ like we'd known Christ like that. But now we don't see him like that. Think of the difference. Think of his the difference that he saw in his perception of Jesus. He sees him as this as this up and coming leader, but then he's killed. He hangs on a tree. He sees him as a fraud. You probably saw him. Well, just imagine. I mean, it's speculation. You have to speculate some. But imagine what he would have thought. And then he sees him killed. He sees him hung on a tree. He sees him humiliated by men. according to the flesh, but now he sees him in a different way. When Paul said that he had known Christ according to the flesh, he was referring to a period of time prior to his conversion, when everything he knew was based on worldly distinctions and exceptions, and he had rejected Christ. In other words, he had in the past, prior to his conversion, made a human assessment of Christ based on the distinctions and the exceptions of the world, and had concluded that he was just a man, and therefore was a false messiah, he was an enemy of Judaism, which, as we know, of course, led Paul to his persecution of Christians. But his perception of Christ changed very dramatically. Isn't that what he told us here in the end of verse 16? We regard him thus no longer. In other words, Paul, prior to his conversion, having known Christ according to flesh, had rejected him. But after his conversion, he no longer viewed him as a fraud, but literally as God incarnate and the Savior of the world. So it would be the... now his... his Judaism finally came to fruition. the things he'd been taught about the Messiah, now he sees them. He recognizes it. After Paul's conversion, he viewed Christ and people in general, not according to the flesh, but rather according to the Spirit. And that is the only way that we as followers of Christ should view people. When you look at people through the eyes of Christ, may God give us the grace to do this so that we, in the name of Christ and in His strength, serve them then to the glory of God. But this was not the only way that Paul's view of people had changed after his conversion. Paul, after his conversion, not only stopped viewing people according to flesh, but more specifically, he began to view Christians as new creatures in Christ. In verse 17, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. If Christ had not been willing to die our death so that we might live through him, then we would have continued to view people as the world views people rather than as God views people. And we would never have had the opportunity to view ourselves as new creatures in Christ. This is something that should be exciting to us. It should be the greatest thing that motivates us. And that would motivate us in a spirit of humility, right? Whenever we take our eyes off of Christ, that's when we lose our humility and we become full of hubris and we're boastful. And then we begin to look down on other people. Think about how mixed up people get things when they view in the flesh. Some people feel sorry for a certain, they may feel sorry for someone, but everything has some kind of a selfish motivation when you can only view things in the flesh. Everything viewed through the flesh has a selfish motivation. You can say, no, I know people that are in love and they do food. It's all from selfish motivation. So why would it be exciting? Why would it be an exciting thing for us to view ourselves in this way? Because we will not be able to appreciate this unless we are able to appreciate the very phrase that we say, and it's oft repeated, in Christ. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the phrase in Christ succinctly and profoundly summarizes all of the rich blessings of salvation. Romans 8.1, Romans 16.3, Romans 16.7, 1 Corinthians 1.30, Galatians 3.28, Ephesians 1.1, Philippians 1.1, 4.21, Colossians 1.2, Colossians 1.28, Philomenes 23. All references to in Christ. It speaks of our security in Him who has born in His own body with the judgment of God against our sin. He's taken it on. It speaks of our acceptance in Him with whom God alone is well pleased. It speaks of our assurance in Him, knowing that He is our resurrection and life. It speaks of our inheritance in Him, who, as the only begotten Son, is the sole heir of God. It speaks of our participation in Him, in the divine nature, who is the everlasting Word. It speaks of knowing the truth and being free in that truth, knowing that He, in fact, is the truth. All of this and much more than we would ever have time to talk about here, is contained in the simple phrase, in Christ, which speaks of our identification with Christ through the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit. In light of this understanding, it should not surprise us that Paul would go on to say, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. In other words, a new creation. He is a new creation, a creature that has now a new nature. The selfish, the all-selfish, motivated nature is being replaced by the new nature in Christ. In light of this, it should not surprise us that Paul would go on to say, therefore, if anyone asks Christ a new creation, in other words, a new creature, in other words, a new creation. Why would he say this? He would say this because this is exactly what those who are in Christ have become. And now Paul will go on to expand on this So when we read in verse 17, the second part of 17, He's a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. When Paul declared that for the Christian, old things passed away, This points back to a definite moment or an event, namely the experience of the new birth. It was then that old things, the distinctions, the prejudices, the misconceptions, the things that we were being enslaved to of our former unregenerate way of life then have passed away. Then what does Paul say? Therefore, if anyone, no matter how bad they've been, is in Christ, in new Christ as a new creation, a totally new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. The word that's translated, have come, indicates a past act. that has continuing results in the present. So they have come. Now they're here. So we put the two thoughts together. The old has passed away permanently. Now we know that we still have habits. We still have thoughts. We still have things that we're working through through our sanctification. But that old enslavement is gone. We're not a slave to that anymore. We don't continually returning back to that. as a way of life, like a dog to vomit, right? We are being sanctified, even though the remnants of some of those things remain that we're working through, the new has come. And the new will continue to stay and will never leave because it's not maintained or kept by us, it's kept by Christ's work and the work that He did. If it was up to us to maintain it and to keep it, then it would be a useless endeavor. We couldn't do it. But because it's Christ's work, the new has come and the new will stay. The passing of the old and the coming of the new was most likely meant by Paul to call to mind between the Old and the New that Paul has already illustrated many times in 2nd Corinthians. He illustrated earlier in 2nd Corinthians 3.6 between the Old and the New Covenant. An example of this contrast in 2nd Corinthians 3.6, hopefully my electronic Bible here 3, 6, "...who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." Therefore, if Paul did, in fact, want his words in 2 Corinthians 5, 17 to call our minds to what he said earlier about the old and new covenants, then all all that is in the new things that have come to us in Christ flows out of the New Covenant and the blessings, New Covenant blessings that are told of in Jeremiah 31. May God Himself continue to give those of us who are in the new, that don't see things in the flesh, may He continue to hold us. And for those here that do not see that way, may the Lord be calling you out today to no longer be held back by your views through the flesh, but in the Spirit. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you this time this morning that we have to look and to see the difference between the old and the new, to be able to see, to be able to understand and have this great example of your servant Paul, to see his life in such a contrast, maybe the most shocking contrast in all of Scripture with Paul's views changing your spirit doing the work and us having the example that we see in Paul. May you help us, Lord, to be ever mindful of the things that are much less traumatic but nonetheless important as we seek to help those around us to grow as we ourselves grow. Father, help us to see the urgency to preach the gospel to every living creature. May you give us opportunity. May we put our own May we put our own distractions aside. We have so many. And may we be able to see, like our Lord, the urgency. the people around day every day that we interact with, the urgency for them to hear the gospel preached, and Lord, to see that your great work go on before us. We pray for the rest of this day today, that you may help us to be, not be distracted by the cares of the world, but focus our attention and our affection on our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. For his name, for his sake I pray, amen.