A Worldly Point of View

2 Corinthians 5:16-21New International Version (NIV)

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Monday morning I asked Cora to put her socks on and since they weren’t the traditional pink or purple or girly looking socks she assumed they were Griffin’s.  They were black socks and since they were not what she thought her socks should look like she refused to put them on.  I did my best to patiently ask her to get over this ridiculous tantrum simply because she perceived the socks to not belong to her.  After politely asking her to put them on and her not-so-polite refusing to put them on I sat her on my lap and put them on for her.  Mind you, that was Monday morning.  My lovely daughter of mine has a very odd nighttime routine that includes a drink of water after she is already in bed, it includes a kiss and hug after she has playfully told you she doesn’t want one, it includes throwing her baby doll into Guthrie’s crib hopefully missing his head, and it includes her kicking off all the blankets only to ask you to put them back on her.  After this back and forth of a few minutes she will give you the hug, kiss and a fist bump that you must blow up. I would say this is her routine roughly 75% of the time.  Getting back to the socks incident that occurred Monday morning, and keeping in mind her routine that I just described to you, Cora did not want much to do with me again until Friday night.  Cora and I are typically pretty tight, I usually get her dressed and help her put her coat on and she wouldn’t let me do that anymore.  5 days she went holding that grudge against me.  5 days.  A two year old held a grudge for 5 days.  Over socks.  I know it seems ridiculous but I couldn’t believe how much it hurt me.  It was a long 5 days and I couldn’t wait for things to get back to normal.  That silly, often annoying routine, was missing and I worried that it might not return.  The possibility that this back and forth routine may be gone forever frankly terrified me.  I was worried that socks would be the end of that silly routine.  Again, I know this may seem silly but relate it to some of your past relationships.  The issues that caused some sort of division probably seem absolutely silly right now.  Most likely, we all have had some sort of “sock” issue that has caused us some stress in one of our relationships.  Chances are pretty good that we have had a similar issue with God.  

Our scripture for this morning starts off by saying, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.”  Some translations replace worldly with human but nonetheless, we should not regard any from our human point of view.  What does this mean?  I think this scripture directly points to whatever “sock” issue we have that is driving a wedge between our relationship with God and/or with someone else.  I mentioned to you how terrified I was that this routine could possibly come to an end but think about how desperately God wants a routine from us.  Think about how badly God misses us when He doesn't pick out the right socks for us. When I say that God loves you that love is something greater than we can fully understand.  We love our children, our spouses, our family but even that kind of love doesn’t translate to the kind of love God has for us.  God is in love with us.  He desperately wants to be in relationship with us.  He hurts when we hurt.  He laughs when we laugh. He cries when we cry.  He mourns when we mourn.  He rejoices when we rejoice.  So, so badly I wanted Cora to get passed what was holding her back.  So desperately did I want that routine back.  I cannot help but to think that God also desires the same from each of us.  It is easy for us to lose sight of God’s love when something terrible happens to us.  But that is exactly why Paul said what he did, “From now on we regard no one from a human point of view.”  He said this because the human point of view stinks.  It is full of pain, death, heartache, mourning etc but that is exactly why Paul went on to explain that God reconciled us to Himself through Christ which meant that there was a new creation through Christ.  In Christ we have eternity, grace, forgiveness, loyalty, and the deepest kind of love that goes beyond our ability to understand it.  Cora has a strictly worldly point of view at this time in her development.  It is nearly impossible for her to think outside what she can feel, see, or hear.  A strictly human point of view means we caught up in worrying about someone’s hand size instead of their ability to lead.  A strictly human point of view means we worry about the color of socks instead of helping others to see how God has already reconciled us to Himself.

Christ took our spot on the cross.  He carried our sins before God and laid them at His feet.  Christ didn’t take our spot on the cross simply because God was bloodthirsty and needed that desire to be quenched.  While Jesus was in fact a sin offering on our behalf it wasn’t for the reason we may think.  It is typical for us to believe that Christ took our spot on the cross because we deserve to die for our sins.  That, of course, is one way to look at it but let’s look at Paul’s last verse of our scripture for this morning, “God made him who had no sin to be a sin offering for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Let’s look carefully at what Paul says here.  First, he makes clear that Jesus was a sin offering but Paul’s reasoning for doing so may catch us off guard if we haven’t ever looked at it closely enough.  Paul could have written anything here as to why Christ did what he did but he chose to say, “...that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  That we might become the righteousness of God.  Jesus died on the cross as an offering on our behalf so we can pursue the righteousness of God.  The righteousness of God begins with taking a long, hard look at the way we view the world.  Are we choosing to get upset at the color of our socks or are we looking at the world through the lens of Christ?  

Becoming the righteousness of God will most likely look different to each of us but one look at Romans 12 and knowing that the body of Christ takes many parts allows us realize that this different looking righteousness is not only ok, it is necessary. It is necessary as long as we hold onto the undeniable truth of God’s love as demonstrated through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  William Barclay does a masterful job of relating this to us:

  Suppose a father sacrifices and toils to give his son every chance, surrounds him with love, plans for his future with care, and does everything humanly possible to equip him for life.  And suppose the son feels no debt of gratitude, never feels the obligation to repay by being worthy of all this; and suppose he fails, not because he has not the ability, but because he will not try, because he forgets the love that gave him so much.  That is what breaks a father’s heart.  When God gives people all his grace and they take their own foolish way and frustrate that grace which might have recreated them, once again Christ is crucified and the heart of God broken.  

God forgives not because it makes us feel better but because forgiveness, grace and love have the power to permanently transform us for the betterment of self and community.  Quit worrying about the color of your socks and start seeing one another the way God looks at every single one of us. Amen.