The Cross has Power over Brokenness - 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

I'm Misty and I'd like to share with you how the cross has given me power overbrokenness in my life. I grew up in a home that very much felt divided. My mom grew up in a home where she was loved and knew Jesus from a little girl, and my dad grew up in a house full of abuse and neglect and mental illness. The brokenness my dad experienced growing up was carried into our home. He was very critical of my mom and my sister and I and struggled to hold down a job and provide for us. My mom made it a point to uh bring us up in the church and know who Jesus was, but there was no room for conversations about faith or prayer or anything that was welcomed because of my dad's anger towards God because of his childhood. That ultimately led me to struggle with anxiety and depression. By the time I was 20 years old, I was a full-blown alcoholic. My parents ultimately split up, but that left me feeling even more confused and conflicted. I very much ran from God simply because I just didn't understand and couldn't deal with the feelings that my childhood had brought into my life. I hit rock bottom, lost um a place to live. I was struggling to hold down a job myself and bounced back and forth between wanting to be sober and just not being able to do that on my own. There was something missing. The brokenness really started to change when I went to live with my aunt and uncle. I was able to see what a Christian marriage looked like. I was able to see what a loving environment felt like where I wasn't criticized. They also got me involved in their church and I didn't feel judged there for my mistakes. I didn't feel criticized or lonely anymore. I had known who Jesus was since I was a little girl, but I didn't really understand what it was to follow him and really surrender my life to him. Even though I still struggle with things today, like depression and anxiety, it doesn't control me. It doesn't dictate me. I have a loving husband who ensures that we are provided for and we have a safe home where our son is cared for and loved and nurtured. We have an amazing church family that walks with us through the good and the bad. I'm so thankful for the way Jesus has changed my life. I want to encourage you that no matter what you are facing and what brokenness you have in your life, you can change because of Jesus and the power of the cross if you just give your life to him. As you heard Misty's story, I wonder how many could relate to that in some way. You heard her story and you maybe found yourself in there a little bit. The details are different. Your life clearly is different than her life and and your situation's far different than her situation, but you heard words that you would probably use the same words if you told your story today. Words like division, abuse, neglect, anger, anxiety, depression, addiction, loneliness. You told your story today. If we put you in front of the cameras, we have some of these members of our church through this series, you would tell a similar story, perhaps. And and maybe thankfully, maybe many of you in this room could relate to the second half of her story, as you heard her talk about the difference Jesus made in her life and and that resonated with you when she said her story changed when she learned what it meant to follow Jesus and really surrender her life to him Maybe you can relate to that moment where you really surrendered in your life change. Maybe when she said these words, I still struggle, but my broken past no longer controls me, and maybe you could share a similar testimony. Maybe you could relate. Maybe today you could relate to the first half of her story, but not the second half of her story. That's you today. I've been praying for you this week, as I've been preparing this message in this passage of scripture that Micah read earlier from secondrinthias chapter 5, where we see God's word the promise of new life in Jesus, the power of the cross over brokenness. We're in the middle of a five week series that's going to take us up until Easter, two weeks ago, we talked about the power of the cross over guilt, how we stand before God forgiven because of what Jesus did for us on the cross and because we are forgiven in the eyes of God, it releases us also from the guilt that we feel because of our sin when we give our life to Jesus last week, Tyler preached on the power of the cross over sin. Rustin talked about power of the cross over the penalty of sin. Last week we talked about the power of the cross over the power of sin in our life. We're no longer bound to sin. Today we're going to talk about how the cross has power over the brokenness of our life and then next week over despair and then finally an Easter Sunday, how the cross has power over death. And so today we're diving into secondrinthians chapter five versus 17 through 21. We're going to talk about how the power cross has power over the brokenness in our life. We're going to jump in here, walk through these verses, and we're going to discover three changes that happen in our life because of the cross. What does the cross do for us in the face of our brokenness in our life? The first thing I want you to notice, we jump into here is how the power of the cross, how the cross gives us power over rather, now, the power of the cross gives us a fresh start, a fresh start. We see this right out of the gate in verse 17 in our passage. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation, the old has passed away, behold, the new has come, and I want you to notice right before we go any further the word anyone. Anyone verse 17 says this is a promise for anyone who is in Christ. I want to say that round of the gate, I want to call your attention to that round of the gate because some might be sitting here today and think that you could never have a fresh start. There's so much brokenness in your life, maybe there's so much rebellion in your life, so much sin in your life. You don't think there's any way that God could ever forgive you. There's no way that God could ever love you. This is a message that you hope helps someone else, but it clearly is not a message for you. That's what you might be thinking today. I want to tell you today that this is a message for anyone. We see it right in the beginning, anyone. Everyone here today can have a fresh start, a new beginning through faith in Jesus Christ. I hope you'll discover along the way today a great irony that we often often fail to see, and that is this the further away you feel from God right now ironically, you're a whole lot closer than you realize, and the reverse of that is true. The closer you might feel to God, the more religious you might think you are apart from faith in Christ, you you think that you're a very religious person, you actually might be a lot further from God than you think you are. I think there's some in this room that are a little bit further than they might realize, and some who are a whole lot closer that they may realize. I hope God will show you that as we walk through these verses today. This is a message for anyone. It's a message for anyone who is in Christ. That's the second thing I want you to notice about this verse. It's a message for anyone in Christ or anyone belonging to Christ. Anyone who has given their life to Jesus, who submitted their life to Jesus and allowed Jesus to create in them a new heart. This is not a message about overcoming the brokenness of your past on your own ab in your own ability, your own efforts. This is not a message about how to turn over a new leaf, how to break old habits, how to on your own effort pick up the broken pieces of your life. This is not some sort of self-help TED Talk. This is a message from the word of God that promises us that when we give our lives to Jesus, we put our faith in Jesus, he creates in us a fresh start. Anyone who is in Christ, the Bible says is a new creation. When we put our faith in Jesus, we become a new creation. Anyone belonging to Christ has become a new person. when you begin to follow Jesus Christ when you reach a point in your life where you realize you can't do this on your own, there's nothing you can do to pick up the pieces of your broken past. There's nothing you can do to to take away the city of your life. Your only hope is Jesus, when you turn to Jesus, put your faith in Jesus, the Bible says there is a spiritual transformation that takes place in our life. In our life before Jesus and without Jesus is a thing of the past, and our faith in Jesus causes us to be born again to a new and fresh start. That's why the Bible so often uses the phraseborn again. Jesus said this truly truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. There has to be a new birth in our life. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23 says, you have been born again, not of a perishable seed, but imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. We see in the word of God what it means to put our faith in Jesus and we are born again when we commit our life to him. You're become a brand new person. This isn't just like a makeover or a restoration or a remodel. It's a radical transformation when you are born again. That's what's pictured in bapti baptism. You guys have a privilege today, seen a couple of baptisms at the end of this service. We have several baptisms over the next few weeks here at Northland today, in this service you're gonna see at a mom and a daughter baptized together in this service. If you wanna come back, the second one, you'll see a young married couple, a husband and wife, baptized together. what are they doing when they're baptized? They're saying, we've given our life to Jesus, we've put our faith in Jesus, and Jesus has caused us to be new people. What they're doing, when they go in the water, they're saying, just as Jesus died for me, I've died to my old life, and I've been raised up to live a new life. I'm a new creation in Jesus. The Bible continues in verse 177. It says the old has passed away, behold the new has come. The old life is gone, and now a new life has begun. We're set free from the sin of our past, the brokenness of our past, those patterns from our past that seem to enslave us are now gone were given a new identity in Jesus, and all those things in our past are gone. the old value system, our old priorities, our old beliefs, our old desires, our old aspirations are gone, and while sin and evil are still present, they are no longer bound by them, or no longer controlled by them. Jesus Christ has given us a fresh start. Has that happened to you? Today you can put your faith in Jesus and you put your faith in Jesus. He can bring about in your life a radical transformation. He creates in you a new beginning, a new heart, not just as again, it's not just we like these restoration shows where this person has a makeover, some new clothes, new hairstyle, now they look different or or this house we remodeled, the house looks a little different. This is not a remodel. This is a complete brand new life transformation in Jesus Christ. At my age, I'm starting to have friends who have had heart problems. I'm trying to escape that as long as I can to try to be healthy, but I have people, my age now that say, uh friend, hey, pray for me. I'm having a stint put in, or I'm having bypass surgery or I just had a heart attack. At my age, I wanna know that happens. I'm always like, okay, tell me about that guy who's 50 who had a heart attack. Tell me that he was out of shape and overweight and did a lot of drugs. tell me something other than just 50 year olds can have heart problems. facing the realities of getting older, right? This is not God this is not a doctor going in, yeah, we gotta put a little stit in and then your heart will work better. We're gonna just bypass and then your heart work better. This is a heart transplant. This is God taking out of you a dead and broken and rebellious heart and putting within you a new heart that beats for his glory and that desires to serve and live for his glory. In 197 assuming 1967, December of 1967, a South African doctor, Dr. Christian Bernard, uh completed the first heart transplant surgery. That patient died 18 days later. But the next month, January of 1968, Dr. Bernard performed surgery on a dentist named Dr. Philip Bibberg. Philip Bibberg had a heart attack at age 45. He had to quit his dental practice at that point. his heart was weak, he wrestled heart issues for the rest of his life until 1950 excuse me, until 1968 at the age of 59, Dr. Christian Bernard performed a heart transplant on Philip Bibberg. and Philip Bibberg was the first man in history to hold in his hands his own heart. After the surgery, after a short time of recovery, uh uh the doctor who performed the surgery said, would you like to see your old heart? And he said he would. And he took a glass jar with his old heart in it and placed it in his hands and he held his hands own heart. In the article I read about this reports that as he held his old heart in his hands, he said these words, so this is my old heart that caused me so much trouble. This is my old heart that caused me so much trouble. This is what Jesus does. He takes that old heart that has caused you so much trouble, so much brokenness, so much rebellion, and he puts within you a new heart. When you surrender your life to Jesus, he takes away our broken fallen, sinful, rebellious heart and places within us a new heart that beats for his glory. You can have a fresh start today through faith in Jesus Christ. You could be a new creation. Second thing that can happen today for you is when you put your faith in Jesus, you can have a clean slate. The power of the cross gives us a clean slate. The power of the cross wipes out the old sins of our rebellious heart and gives us a fresh start with a clean heart, wiped clean from sin because of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. Look at verse 18. First thing I want you to notice about verse 18 is it says this. All this is from God. All of this is from God. God takes the initiative. God does the work of transformation. God creates new life in us. He sets us free from the past that once enslaves us. This is not something of our own doing, something brought about by our own effort. It's something that God causes to happen in our dead hearts. Look at Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 verse one says, you were dead and the trespasses and sins. You were dead in your trespasses the sins, but he continues a little further down, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, for by grace you have been saved through faith. this is not of your own doing. It's the gift of God, not of a result of works, so that no one may boast God caused you to live again. It's through faith in Christ alone. It's from God. You can't wipe away your own sins. You can't take care of your own sins. nothing can do to make up for your own sins. It is the work of God in your life through Jesus Christ. He continues verse 18. This is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself through Christ he restores us into a right relationship with himself. He unites us with him when we were once alienated from him, and he does that through Jesus and his death on the cross. Verse 19, he kind of just restates what he said in verse 188. If you compare verse 18 verse 1, they're very, very similar in what they state. He says that this way in verse 19, he was reconciling the world to himself. How did he do that? He did that through Jesus Christ. We were enemies of God. We were alienated from God, we were separated from God, living in our broken, sinful past, and God has created a way for us to be reconciled to him to have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ. The scripture says in first Timothy chapter 2, verse 5, there's one God and there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He did this through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. I was talking to a young lady in Ecuador during our mission trip there and we met up with some university students that we developed friendships with over the years and our trips going there. and and we the subject turned to religion and and what they believe they were talking about some of the shifting views of the younger generation Ecuador compared to their parents and their grandparents and the topic turned to religion and and the religious atmosphere and how their views are changing. And this young lady, she said, you know, at one time I tried to figure all of this out. I went to church with my grandma and I was trying really hard to follow all the rules they were telling me. I was finding that very difficult. She goes I had a lot of questions, and I was asking questions all the time and and she said, I think they got tired of my questions because they just started kind of ignoring me because they didn't have the answers to my questions and and she said, they weren't interested in answering my questions and I was having a really hard time following their rules and I just quit going. Let's good going. And as I talked to her, I said, do you think it felt like kind of a ladder you were trying to climb up? She goes, yeah, it was like God was up here and I was down here and I was trying to get up to him. I was trying to reach up. Do you ever feel like that? I just trying so much to know you, God, and you seem so distant so far away and and you're trying to climb the rungs of the sladder and you find it difficult to get from where you are to where he is, or maybe you find yourself in a pit, you feel like you've dug a hole for yourself and you want to get out of that pit, there's just not a ladder you can make tall enough to get to the edge of that pit to climb your way out of good news for you today. Jesus replaced the ladder with a manger in a cross and God said, you don't have to climb up to me. I'm coming down to you. This with a message of the Bible is that God came down and took on flesh. That's what we celebrate at Christmas time. and now we're about to celebrate Easter time that Jesus, after living a perfect life on earth, went to the cross and God in the flesh was nailed to a cross to pay the penalty for our sins so that we can have a relation with God. not that we would have to climb up to him that he came down to us so that we could be reconciled and be made at peace with him. And no longer 19 continues, no longer are our trespasses counted against us, no longer our sins counted against us. This phrase, not counting their trustpasses against them. If you were in the first century world reading this in that language, you would recognize this as coming from the world of commerce or accounting. This would have been a phrase that would have referred to a debt that you would have owed a debt that you would have accumulated that you would have been responsible for. and what he's saying here is there is a debt that you have accrued that you've accumulated, that you've built up, that you're responsible for, but God is not going to hold that debt against you. Here it means that he's not gonna post the debt that's rightfully your debt. He's no longer going to post it to your account. He posts it to the account of Jesus. Think about a debt right now that you owe. I bet every one of you can think of some amount of money, uh, talking to someone recently about a credit card debt that he's trying to get out of and working a little extra to knock that out. I talked to students all the time that are shackled by student loans that I need to get rid of these student loans or someone that says we bought this car and and we took on a little bit more than we should have. I wish we hadn't have done this, and now we're trying to pay off this car. You got a debt right now, most of you. Now there may be someone in this room that that's 100% all the way to your house debt free. I'm gonna guess that most in this room have some kind of debt that if it went away, it would change your life. There's a debt that weighs on you that hangs over you. And if you got an email or a letter this week from your bank or your credit card company or your lender, instead, hey, I've got good news for you, somebody came in and anonymously paid off that debt. It would change your life. It would give you so much relief to know that somebody just took that debt that weighs on you and wiped it out. That's what Jesus did. He took this debt far greater than any student loan or car payment or credit card payment, the debt of your sin, and he wiped it out. He eliminated it. And that ought to be so free. And this is a message for those that still feel the weight of that debt. You've never turned that debt over to Jesus. I hope today might be the day that you bring that debt to the cross. Some of you have done that, and this might be a good time to say thank you, Jesus, that I don't carry that debt anymore. that sin is no longer accounted against me. Thank you, Jesus, that you have wiped it out. Now, how did he do it? Versus 18 and 19 tell us what God did. What did he do? Through Christ he reconciled us. verse 21 tells us how he did it. So think of verse 18 and 19 as the the what? Here comes verse 21 the how. How did God do this? He does it in verse 21, says, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. What is he saying here? He made him to be sin who knew no talking about Jesus. God made Jesus bear the sin that was our sin. He took the debt that was our debt and he put it on Jesus, and Jesus, who had not sinned died in the who did not who had not sinned died in the place of those who have sinned verse Romans chapter 5 verse six puts it this way. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Look the beauty of that. It's really even hard to you see the author here, the apostostle Paul who's writing these words in Romans five, he's striving to come up with some example of what has happened here, and he says, we can't even get our minds around the fact that that someone would even die for a good person, let alone someone dying for a sinful person. I was an Ecuador a couple of weeks ago, my task most of that week was to team up with Josiah Adams, one of our students, our student ministry, and we ran the recreation for the camp that week. We out on this little volleyball field thing and we playing different games, and we were playing a game one day where um where you throw the ball over the net and if it if you didn't catch it, if it hit the ground, you'd be eliminated, playing this game and and I was always chasing the ball because it would roll off over here, roll over here. And one time I got the ball and I came back and I was almost certain that the kid who had been eliminated was still in the game and a different kid had come out of the game. Now they all were wearing the same color T shirt and the same age group, and it was a boys' group and then a girls's group so maybe maybe I'm mixed up on which boy it was. and then it happened again. I'm like that same kid who was eliminated is still and a different kid went out. and I just kind of let it go the next day we were playing dodge ball. and the same thing happened the next day. a kid would get out, I'd go get the ball, the kid be in and another kid would go out. They were always sending a kid out. What't they doing as I paid more attention to what they were doing? They were sacrificing the weakest kids. And it just I think it was just a kind of a cultural thing as it happened with every age group, both genders all day, all week. if someone got eliminated, if he was a better athlete or she were a better athlete, they'd stay in the game and they'd picked a weak kid to go out of the game. It kept happening over there. Now what what's serious about that? That's human nature, isn't it? If we're gonna succeed, you got a sacrifice the weak kid, you gotta sacrifice the weakest girl, the weakest boy're gonna go out, the strongest one is gonna stay in. That's how we look at the world. We we live in a fall in human nature that says, you sacrifice the weak for the sake of the strong. Now that's the opposite of what Romans chapter 5 is saying, isn't it? The strong one was sacrificed. The perfect one was sacrificed so that the imperfect could live so that the weak could live. Jesus does the exact opposite of what our human nature in logic all the way down to the playground level would tell us to do sacrifice the weak so the strong can continue on. Jesus, the strength of God in the flesh, the righteous one, the holy one, the sinless one goes to the cross for wretched, rebellious sinners like us. Why did he do that? He did that, so that the second part of verse 21, so that we might become the righteousness of God. You see there's a great exchange that takes place. The sinless one went to the cross so the sinful ones could be forgiven. The righteous one hangs on the cross so that the unrighteous ones can be declared righteous. See, Jesus took our sin to the cross, and then Jesus gave us his righteousness as a result. all that debt that should have accrued to our account, God puts on Jesus, and now the righteousness that we don't deserve, God puts on us. There's a theological term for this. It's called imputed, the word imputed. Now, that's a word you may not ever use. I don't know the last time you use the word imputed in a sentence. If you were to try to say the word imputed, you might choose a more common word like credited or attributed. It just means that. So if you read a pick up a theological textbook or you read an article, you take a classic seminary and a theological professor says imputed, here's what they mean that God credited the righteousness of Jesus to you. God ascribed the righteousness of Jesus to you. The righteous of Jesus was imputed to you means you didn't deserve it. You didn't earn it. but God put it on you because of what Jesus did on the cross. 1 Peter 224 says, Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. We become the righteousness of Jesus because of what he did for us. He bore the sins who bore our sins so that we could bear his righteousness. And because of that, we're given a new permanent righteous standing before God. God looks at us as if we are righteous. I shared this story a couple of years ago. It may have been three three years ago we were in Romans and um uh you probably heard this, but every time I think of being in the imputed righteous of Jesus, my mind goes back to this moment. I was given a parking ticket in the city of North Kansas City and I just wanted to go to court. I knew that I had parked longer than I should have parked, but I was going to go kind of ask the judge for mercy and and I was had a free night and I thought this will be fun. So I sit in court and there's two or three cases ahead of me and then he calls my name. I go up there and I begin to say, yes, Your Honor, I I'm parked. I was going to this coffee shop and then I went to lunch in this restaurant and I didn't move my I'm trying to make my case and he just interrupts me. and he says, young man, is that a chief's shirt you're wearing? I had a button down shirt with a little logo and embroidered right here. Jim, you own the same shirt. We born them on the same day before. And I said, yes, your Honor. He said, come a little closer. I looked at my shirt. He goes, I like that shirt. I'm dismissing this ticket. And what did he do? He saw on me, not my guilt, but a team he liked. And he said, I like that shirt you're walking out of here without a ticket. That's what God does. every illustration breaks down, so don't push that one too hard, but but in a in a light way, this sort of illustrates this. When God you stand before God, the judge, you are guilty, you can try to plead your case, it's not gonna work. There's no excuse, you' without excuse, you are guilty, but God looks at you and he doesn't see your sin, he sees Jesus. And he says, I see Jesus on you, and because you have the righteousness of Jesus, you you're not going to be held accountable, responsible for these sins, because those were taken care of on the cross when Jesus died for you. And so today we have a clean slate because of the power of the cross through faith in Jesus, your sins can be wiped away today. If you confess your sins, he's faithful to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all in righteousness the word of God says. You can bring those sins to you. Now, let me remind you again what I said earlier. There's a great irony here. if you feel like a wretched, terrible, rebellious sinner, I have really good news for you. You are almost there. You are almost there, because you've already recognized the latter won't get you where you're trying to go. Now, if you're here today and you don't have Jesus, you feel like you're a pretty good person, you're not very close because you first have to realize you're not a very good person. You first have to recognize the insufficiency of the ladder you've been trying to build. And if you're here today and you say, man, I know the ladder's not going to get me there. I've been trying and I'm I'm far further now than I ever have been, and I don't know what I'm going to do. I have great news for you. You're almost there. You've recognized that you can't do this on your own. The next step is to turn to Jesus and to bring that sin to the foot of the cross to get off the ladder and kneel at the cross. Jesus said things like this, the healthy don't need a doctor, the sick do. If you feel sick, he came for you. Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous, but to call the sinner. Jesus said, I've come to seek and save that which was lost. Jesus said, I'll leave the 99 to go get the one. He's talking about those who've recognized the latter's not going to get him there. The ladder's not going to get him out of the pit. They're only hope is Jesus. Would you turn to Jesus and bring your rebellious broken past to Jesus for a clean slate and a fresh start? There's the third thing that happens, and that is that when you give your life to Jesus, you're given a new purpose in life. The cross not only gives you a fresh start and a clean slate. It gives you a new identity, and with that new identity comes a new purpose verse 18 says, he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ver 19 says he gave us a message of reconciliation. What does that mean? That means that when you gave your life to Jesus, you reconciled to God and now you have the message. You learned what it takes to be made right with God. You heard the good news of Jesus in faith in Jesus. And now that message you've received, you're now responsible to share that message with other people. And the ministry of reconciliation is you taking that message to those who have not yet discovered the new light, the clean slate, the fresh start in Jesus that you have. and Jesus has made you a he's made you an ambassador for him. He's made you an ambassador verse 20 says that you are now Christ's ambassadors as though God were making this appeal through you. He's taken this your broken rebellious life and he's changed it. He's given you a new heart. He's giving you a clean slate. He's given you a fresh start. He's wiped it away a new identity, and now he's giving you a mission. and your purpose now, your driving ambition in life should be able to share that ministry of reconciliation, that message of reconciliation to be an ambassador to those in your life with the new purpose that he's given you. Are you representing him well? Our new identity has come with a new purpose, our new relationship has come with a new mission. He's changed you now from a rebel to an ambassador for him. Are you sharing that message with those in your life who are still lost in darkness? Three final challenges I want to give as we wrap up our time, we've seen the power of the cross to give us a fresh start, a clean slate, a new purpose. How will you respond? What will you do with that? First I want to challenge you is to bring your broken and rebellious past to the cross. You've never given your life to Jesus. Today can be that day that you can have a new beginning. I imagine most in this room, if you could get in a time machine and go back to some moment in your past, there's something you would change. You would go back and say, if only, I could go back and do this differently. If I could go back and fix this, I've only I could go back and not do this thing that I did, I'd go back and I'd do it all over again. We don't have that chance. What we do have the chance today is for a fresh start in Jesus to bring the brokenness of your past, to bring the rebellion of your past, to bring all of that to the cross and say, Jesus, would you give me a fresh start today? I was talking to a man this week. He was sharing his story with me. And I didn't know this about him. I haven't known him very long, but he showed that he was adopted. I didn't know that. And I said, tell me the would you tell me the story about that? He said, yeah, it was kind of a rough home that I was in and at a young age, I was taken out of my home and I was put in foster care and eventually that foster family adopted me. and and I said, what was that like? He said I was terribly can't imagine as a child what that was like to grow up in the situation I was in, then be taken out of that, putting this this home with these strangers. And then he said this, he said, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I said, how was the best thing I had me? He said, because I found Jesus there. I point him to Jesus and I began to follow Jesus and my life is so different today than it would have been. Had I not ever been taken out of that family, I would have had the life I had today. God gave me an opportunity there when I was adopted that changed my life today. You can be adopted into the family of God. You can put your faith in Jesus and you can have a fresh start, a new beginning. The old things are gone. New things can come. You can be a new creation. Have your sins wiped away? Would you bring your sin to the cross and put your faith in Jesus? Second, I want to challenge you to strive to live alive consistent with your new identity in Christ. The cross has brought healing and forgiveness from your past and can also transform your future. Your life is different now. I son to this young couple are being baptized in the next service. sitting in my home and talking about their faith in Christ and what baptism is, their decision to be baptized and they were sharing that they were expecting a baby we' talking about their first baby on the way. And I said, you know what's really cool? You your baby's going to grow up in a radically different home because you're now really committed your life to Jesus and walking. What is that life? Like the everything just changed because Jesus is going to be in the center of that home. You put Jesus the center of your life and it gives you a new identity. Are you living like a new creation? What areas of your life need to change to be consistent with the new life in Jesus, the new identity in Jesus? Colius three five says were to put to death those things belonging to our past life We' to make a break with those past sins, those past patterns, those past views and have a new life in Jesus. How were you treating that new heart you've been given? God is transplanted in you a new heart. How will you treat it? Will you center it on the glory of God pursuing him? And finally, how can you faithfully carry out the ministry that Jesus has entrusted to you? Are you representing him well? Are you a good steward of the ministry and message of reconciliation he has given you? Who in your life needs to hear the good news of reconciliation? Your life has been changed by Jesus. There are many people in your life that have not yet experienced that. What can you do this week? What commitment can you make today to be faithful in carrying out this ministry that God has given you to take that message to those who have not yet experienced the new life you have? Let's pray together. Maybe the name of someone is on your heart on your mind and you would say God help me to be a minister of reconciliation to this person in my life. God help me to be an ambassador of the gospel to this person in my life. God help me to represent you well to be faithful to this ministry, this new purpose you've given me. Maybe you would say, honestly, there's some things in my life that I need to still cut ties with that part of my own life. It shouldn't be part of my new life. I'm not treating this new heart he's given me the way I ought to be treating it. God help me put to death these patterns of my past that seem to want to pop back up into my new life. Maybe your prayer is a prayer of Thanksgiving. God, thank you for wiping out my sin. Thank you for the clean slate you give me the new life you've given me for the healing from brokenness you've given me. Or maybe your prayer is one of commitment to Jesus today. You would pray a prayer like this, Jesus, I need you. My own efforts are useless. The dead of my sin is too great. On my own effort, I'll never make up for it. But Jesus, I know that you came and died so that my sin can be wiped out so that I could be reconciled to God. And that's the desire of my heart today, Jesus. Just a prayer this is Jesus, I'm bringing my broken and rebellious, sinful past to you. asking you to forgive me to wipe it out to give me a fresh start. Jesus, I'm turning my life over to you. Would you create a new heart in me? to set me on a new force, change the brokenness of my life into a restored relationship with. Jesus, we thank you for your death on the cross for the salvation that it makes possible I pray for anyone here who's never put their faith in you that today is the day that they turn their broken and sinful passed over to you. God, we thank you for wiping out the dead of our s, help us to live this week, walk in holiness and obedience to the new identity you've given us. be faithful to the call, to be ambassadors for you, we pray for your help in this. and Jesus Amen.