Lent Reflection #4: Turned Inside-Out

I could hardly sleep last night. I was still so jazzed up about the incredible worship service yesterday. It is so encouraging to see and hear what God is doing in peoples’ lives.

I took a bit of a different track in the 2nd service (the one that is online), so I wanted to just share some of the reflections from 2 Corinthians that I shared in the 9 a.m. service.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (New Living Translation)

¹⁶ So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! ¹⁷ This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

¹⁸ And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” ²¹ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

1. People matter to God for who they are, where they are. Paul says in v. 16 that “we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.” We have to look at each and every person with God’s eyes and see what He sees – a beautiful person made in His image and for whom He sacrificed His Son. The obvious implication is that we not judge people by their appearance, but perhaps a less obvious notion is this: that we not rush people through a process or program trying to force them to reach their potential. People matter. Not for the potential they have, or the results they can produce, or the amount they can give or serve. But for who they are, where they are.

2. God loves you just the way you are, but He also loves you too much to leave you the way you are. “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (v. 17). God loves you and accepts you just the way you are – with all your history, junk, and mess. And because He loves you so much, He’s not going to leave you just the way you are. He’s going to change you; transform you from the inside-out. You can’t come to Christ and not be changed. But this is why #1 above is so important. Because it is God that does the changing, not us. We can put steps in place to guide the journey, but it is God that transforms the heart and mind.

3. Our transformation is for other peoples’ reconciliation. “And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him” (v. 18). We are transformed not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of others. So that people can see what God has done in our lives and be reconciled (literally “to change a relationship”) to God by the powerful witness of God’s miraculous work in our lives. In the words or our mission statement, we are “turned inside-out by the life-transforming hope of Jesus Christ and sent out to embrace thousands more…”