Are You Verified? By Tim Badal

The gospel has given a new vision. Notice what it says. If anyone is in Christ, verse 17, he is a new creation. That means that there are two classes of people, not rich and poor, not educated and not educated, not, I'm sorry, not educated or those that don't have education, not those who are beautiful and those who are plain looking, not those who are old or young, not male or female. The two classes that every person falls into is very very simple. Are you in Christ or are you without Christ? [00:17:30] (38 seconds)  #NewCreationInChrist

So Paul gives us two verifications. The two verifications we see is that we need to see souls, not labels. We need to also share a significant message, not a lesser one. And finally, we need to seek to serve Christ, not just live for ourselves. Notice verse 15. He says that those who Christ has died for has given us the ability to live so that we no longer live for ourselves. Can that be said of you this morning? That because of Christ, you no longer live for yourself [00:31:32] (35 seconds)  #ServeChristNotSelf

Notice in verse 14, as I close this out, we do it because of the love of Christ. The word He says, the love of Christ controls us. That word means compels or directs. We don't do this because of guilt. Don't do this because you feel like I'm pressuring you or guilting you. But ambassadors live the way they do. They speak the way they do. Because they know and fully recognize that Jesus loves them and has saved them. And he loves and desires to save others and he wants to use us. [00:33:08] (34 seconds)  #CompelledByChristsLove

What is going to happen on the day of judgment for that person? Will they receive well done good and faithful servant or will they be consigned to an eternity in hell? You see friends, we miss out on the eternal in so many of our interactions with people because we're judging them according to the flesh and not according to the spirit and the sight that Jesus Christ gives us by faith. [00:19:00] (27 seconds)  #JudgeBySpiritNotFlesh

Can you imagine how the emperor would have felt if an ambassador left his throne room with very clear instructions to go and carry his message and find out that that ambassador went into the town square and just talked about whatever he wanted to talk about. That's not a good ambassador. That's not a verified ambassador. And yet, brothers and sisters, as ambassadors of Jesus Christ, we do that every day. [00:21:58] (27 seconds)  #SpeakTheKingsMessage

So now we have a different perspective, a faith filled expression of how we see people and how we see the world. We don't just see people through our physical eyes, but now we have to ask the question, how do we see people through God's eyes? [00:09:53] (15 seconds)  #SeePeopleThroughGodsEyes

Now, as human beings, we have our own vantage points. We see the world. We see people through our lenses, through our prejudices, through our biases. We see them from our perspective. And Paul says, from now on, we can't see the world and people like we once did. Notice, he spoke about this a little bit in verse seven. If you go back to last week's passage, he said the believer walks by faith not by sight. [00:09:24] (28 seconds)  #WalkByFaithNotSight

And I will tell you, you're gonna sit there for a while, and you're gonna tell people again and again and again that they have need. And the reason why is it takes us a while for it to sink in that we do have a need. It it means to humble ourselves and not think we are the answer to all that befalls us. And so, at some point, we say, you have a need. Well, here's the answer to your need. His name is Jesus. Here's what he did. Jesus created us. He gave us life in this world and we, instead of following him and pursuing him, we said we can do it on our own better than we can do it with him. So we went our own way. And in going our own way, we created nothing but trouble and havoc in our lives. And because of that, all kinds of issues and struggles came. We had enmity with God that is separation from God. We fought God. We fought one another. We fight ourselves. And we're at a place, man. We're we're all messed up. [00:25:47] (65 seconds)  #WeAllNeedJesus