Dr. Rodney Plunket

Nothing is more painful than the breaking up of a relationship.  It can be a relationship between a longstanding boyfriend or girlfriend.  It can be between a long-term friend or business partner.  It can be the rejection of parents by a child or a child by parents.  In marriage, it can be a separation or divorce.

The deeper the love that once existed, the more painful the break.  And it is the most painful when one party still loves deeply but the other’s love . . . has died.

Paul in the Book of 2 Corinthians (2Cor) faces a situation that has the potential to become a full-blown break up.  His relationship with the Christians in Corinth is suffering.  Paul and his co-workers love those Christians deeply, but rivals have moved into the region and are seeking to discredit Paul and his missionary team.  Paul in 2Cor 11:1-6 reveals the danger that the rivals pose for the Christians to whom he is writing.  Please look with me at what Paul says there:

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness.  Do bear with me!  I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.  But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough.  I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.  I may be untrained in speech, but not in knowledge; certainly in every way and in all things we have made this evident to you.

Feel the anxiety that Paul feels, an anxiety born by the concern that these Christians are about to leave their “pure devotion to Christ.”

Paul in this letter reveals the deep love that he and his missionary team have for these Christians.  He also reveals how much he wishes that the Christians to whom he writes returned this love.  Please look with me at 2Cor 6:11-13:

We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you.  There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours.  In return–
–I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.

Feel the fervor of Paul’s passion, Paul’s passion for the restoration of the loving relationship he once had with these Christians.

We will be focusing our time this morning on 2Cor 5:11-19, but I want to first draw your attention to what Paul writes in 2Cor 5:9-10.  There we read:

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.  For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

Here Paul is revealing to his readers one of the reasons that they should trust him.  It is because he and his team do what they do to please Christ, and they do that because they know that one day Christ will judge their works.

Now please look with me at the first half of 2Cor 5:11:  “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; . . .”  Here Paul is making clear that the knowledge that will Christ will one day judge guides his and his team’s efforts to persuade persons to receive the Good News of Jesus.  Why can his readers be confident in the message Paul brought?  They can be confident because Paul and his team are motivated by an attitude of reverential respect for the coming judgment of Christ Jesus.  They will not “play games” with the message because one day they will have to face the glorified Lord for whom they speak.

Now please look with me at the remainder of v 11:  “. . . but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences.”  Here Paul is saying that God knows that what Paul is affirming is true.  God knows that Paul and his team’s motives and methods are shaped by their reverence for Christ.  In the context of 2 Corinthians, his statement, “I hope that we are also well known to your consciences,” should be heard as an indication of his doubt that his readers do, in fact, have the same confidence in him that God does.

Now look with me at v 12:  “We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart.”  With these words, Paul reveals that the reason he is talking about his motives in the way that he has in verses (vv) 9-11 is to provide his readers with something to say in response to those rivals who are casting so much doubt upon Paul and his co-workers.

In v 13 we read, “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”  Several times in both of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he makes references which reveal that his speaking style was not impressive to some in Corinth.  The clearest indication is found in 2Cor 10:10 where he writes, “For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible’” (cf. 1Cor 1:17; 2:1-5; 2Cor 11:6; 13:3).  It seems to me most likely that Paul is referring to that style issue here.  It is likely that when he preached he did not follow the discipline of Rhetoric taught in Paul’s day.  To the well educated, he and his co-workers seemed beside themselves.  Paul says that their speaking style “is for God.”  On the other hand, Paul’s writings followed rhetorical style more closely; so, in his letters, Paul seemed to be in his “right mind.”  Paul explains that he writes the way he does for his read­ers.  His style of oratory is for God.  His style of writing is for his readers.

Now please follow along as I read vv 14-15:

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.  And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

What keeps Paul and his team “at it”?  What causes them to continue spreading the Good News about Jesus?  What is causing him to write this letter and to plead for these Christians to stay faithful to the gospel that Paul preached?  It is the love of Christ.  The wonder of Christ’s love for them, a love that caused Christ to die for everyone, that is what causes Paul and his co-workers to keep on proclaiming the Good News of Jesus.

But that is not all that Paul is declaring in these verses.  He is also declaring that those who are converted to Jesus share so profoundly/so radically in Christ’s death that they die as well––they die to themselves, they “live,” Paul says, “no longer for themselves.”  They live instead “for him who died and was raised for them.”  In other words, they live now “In Light of the Resurrection,” in light of all that God has done for them through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus––in light of all that Easter celebrates.

But the power of Easter on our lives does not end at v 15.  Please look with me at vv 16-19.  There Paul writes,

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.  So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:  everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Here Paul makes even clearer the radical transformation that Christ’s death and resurrection has effected.  Those who have been won to God by the death and resurrection of Jesus do not even look at people the way the world does.  One commentator points to Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28 as an indication of how differently Christians look at others.  In that verse Paul declares, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  But why do believers in Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection look at people so differently?  How can they put aside the externals that the world uses to judge people?  They can do that because they live in light of the “new creation.”  They live in light of the new world/the new age of righteousness that God has revealed in Jesus.  We live in light of the world to come, a world in which God’s rule will be complete.  Loving as God has loved us in Jesus will be the constant experience of us all in that world to come.  But we do not wait for Christ’s return to live and to love like that.  We know that it is God’s way; therefore we live it now because of the transformation that God has effected within us in and through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord.  And that new style of life has given to all of us a ministry, the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry of proclaiming, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (v 19).

I am going to ask Randy Gattis to come to the microphone now.  Randy is a freshman at Texas Tech University.  He is from Mesquite TX, and he is a baseball player, a right-handed pitcher with lots of heat.  In fact, the New York Yankees drafted him right out of high school.  He had scholarship offers from every junior college in Texas and NCAA Division I teams like USC, Hawaii, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, and, of course, Texas Tech.  During his decision time, he was also being drawn to the Lord.  After prayer one night, he woke up knowing that he was supposed to come to Tech.  We are so glad that he did.  He has a testimony this morning that will help us know the power today of God’s new creation.  Randy come share with us.

The Testimony of Randy Gattis

A year ago my life was about one thing: baseball.  Baseball is who I was.  And if I pitched a bad game, it seemed as if the rest of my world went down.  So I partied and drank to get away from it all.  The old Randy had all the things that most teenagers want—and the things I thought I wanted.  I was popular.  I was an athlete.  And I soaked that life up.  Some days I was on top of the world and some days I felt lower than you can ever imagine.  There was some happiness then, but no real joy.

As a little kid, I never went to church—not even on Easter.  But in high school, I started to go to church a little bit, but for the wrong reasons.  I was going because a girl I was dating went and her parents wanted me to.  But I started seeing things in the lives of Christians that I wanted in my life.  I heard people talk about how they turned their problems over to God and he took care of them.  I thought that was awesome.  I had a lot of problems I wouldn’t mind God taking care of.  So I tried to ask God for guidance sometimes.  But I kept him out of certain aspects of my life.

After high school, I felt like God wanted me to come to Texas Tech.  And four days before I left for Lubbock, on a Thursday afternoon, I went to Meadow View Church of Christ and asked to be baptized.  I knew very little really and there is still so much I don’t know.  But I knew I wanted and needed Christ.  And I did not want to start my new life in college without Jesus.

I had heard of Broadway from some people back home and the first Sunday I was in Lubbock, I came here.  There were so many new students here that morning, but Melissa Knowlton found me and met me that morning.  Then that night I went to the CA Pigout.  When I walked in the door, the first person I met was Melissa’s husband Todd.  It meant a lot to me that they went out of their way to meet me.  For the first time, I felt like I was at home at church.

My first semester, my attendance at church was not all that good.  I was working through some stuff and focusing on baseball.  But I was studying the Bible with a group of guys from CA and growing a little, even though it was slowly.

One day Todd and I were in his Suburban and he asked me a question, and although I did not know it at the time, it changed me forever.  He asked me what I would do if baseball is not what God has planned for my future.  We looked at the verse from Matthew 19 about the rich young ruler and how he was unwilling to give up what was important to him to follow Jesus.  At that point I did not know what I would do if I could not play baseball and I wasn’t really happy with Todd for putting that thought in my head.

On Tuesday, February 4, I pitched my first real game at Tech.  I threw well and I was confident about the season.  Two days later, I went out to practice and after throwing a few pitches, my arm swelled up and turned purple from my wrist to my neck.  I spent the next seven days in the hospital with a blood clot in my pitching arm.

My first thought was that my life was over.  I was out for the season and maybe much longer.  Baseball was still the most important thing in my life.  And now it’s gone.

But it was through that blood clot that God showed me some really great things.  I remembered the talk Todd and I had about what if God’s plan for me was not about baseball.  I also learned the power of the church community.  People from Broadway came to the hospital every day and offered to help me and my parents with anything we needed.  That made a big impact on me and my parents as well.

I really started praying more after that.  And I started to see that my blood clot was part of God’s plan.  I started to come to church more regularly, and the messages from Rodney and Dean really spoke directly to me.  Sometimes I thought the messages were just for me and everybody else was just having to sit through it.  These messages were ones I would have missed if I had been playing baseball.

The spring retreat with CA was planned for a weekend where I already had plans.  Those plans were going to be hard to get out of.  But I prayed about it and I knew that God wanted me to go on that retreat.  So I went on the retreat.

Wow.  I never experienced anything like that weekend before.  It was like everything that has happened to me in the last nine months fell into place and it all made sense as part of God’s plan.  That’s the weekend when I truly fell in love with God.

I still have a lot to learn about Jesus.  I have not read nearly as much of the Bible as most of you.  But I do know that because Jesus died for me, I don’t have to die.  And I know that what Jesus did has made me new.  New Randy has joy.  Old Randy didn’t.  And new Randy is working on accepting whatever God has planned for me—whether it includes baseball or not.  A year ago my life was all about one thing: baseball.  Now that one thing is God.

Randy lives life now in the context of the new creation from God.  I have asked him to stand up here at the front during our final song.  I want him to remind us all of the fact that God is still transforming lives in light of the resurrec­tion, in light of the new creation.  If you want to live life in light of the resurrection of Jesus, in light of the God’s new creation, in light of Easter, please come to the front now and ask to be baptized into the resurrection power of Christ Jesus the Lord.  Please come now as we stand and sing.

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