CRAZIES FOR CHRIST

2 CORINTHIANS 5:11-21

NASB

11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. 12 We are not again commending ourselves to you but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. 13 For if we [a]are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one [a]according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ [a]according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, [a]he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and [a]He has [b]committed to us the word of reconciliation.

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

5:13 [a]Lit were  5:16 [a]I.e. by what he is in the flesh  5:17 [a]Or there is a new creation  5:19 [a]Lit having  [b]Lit placed in us 

NLT

11 Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too. 12 Are we commending ourselves to you again? No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us,[*] so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart. 13 If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. 14 Either way, Christ’s love controls us.[*] Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.[*] 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

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.

[5:12] Some manuscripts read proud of yourselves.   [5:14a] Or urges us on.   [5:14b] Greek Since one died for all, then all died.   [5:21] Or to become sin itself.  

I’ll admit it. Sometimes we Christians get a little crazy, at least from the perspective of outsiders. Frankly, if I were outside the faith, I’d think Christians are completely off their rockers too. If you live in a “Bible bubble,” you may have forgotten how other people view us. But all you have to do is turn on the morning news during a political segment to be reminded. We are not reasonable, according to secular standards. We are too conservative, too dogmatic, and too intolerant. We believe strange things, speak a strange lingo, and have strange practices. Though our beliefs and practices used to be regarded as mainstream in Western society, now we are considered to be barely hanging on to the fringes.too conservative, too dogmatic, and too intolerant. We believe strange things, speak a strange lingo, and have strange practices. Though our beliefs and practices used to be regarded as mainstream in Western society, now we are considered to be barely hanging on to the fringes.

The great A. W. Tozer put his finger on it when he wrote:

A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest, and happiest when he feels worst. He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, and knows that which passeth knowledge.[129]

I repeat, we may appear to be a little strange. But that’s not only the mark of a good Christian; that’s the mark of a strong Christian. In my experience, the more mature you grow in an all-out commitment to serve Christ, the stranger you appear to the person disinterested in the things of Christ. In fact, we “crazy Christians” are in good company. Even Christianity’s founder was considered insane by those around Him. The multitudes said that Jesus had “lost His senses” and was “possessed” (Mark 3:21-22). Many said He had “a demon” and was “insane” (John 10:20). So we shouldn’t feel surprised if we, His followers, are regarded with the same contempt. For example, after hearing Paul’s testimony concerning his conversion to Christ and his Christian convictions as an ambassador of Christ, King Agrippa told the apostle he was “out of [his] mind” (Acts 26:24). Hebrews 11 tells of the reaction other radical servants of the Lord God received:

Others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. (Heb. 11:36-38)

The world thinks we’re crazy. That’s okay! In fact, if nobody thinks you are a little out of step with the culture because of your Christian faith, then something’s wrong with your walk. Your faith ought to raise eyebrows at times. People in your shop ought to look over their machine and say, “You said what?” Your students should do a double take. Your professors should frown. Your colleagues should ask you, “What did you say?” And your neighbors may very well ask if you are serious. When unbelievers notice the stark contrast between what they believe and what you believe, this becomes a platform for your testimony.

This is exactly what the apostle Paul did in 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. Written in the context of the preceding verse about the believers’ judgment (2 Cor. 5:10), Paul explains how we are to live as believers by explaining his own behavior. His explanation, however, makes clear just why we tend to look so outlandish to the rest of the world. From this passage we can see four reasons why Christians are so misunderstood by those outside the faith:

— 5:11-13 —

We live in an age where personal choice reigns supreme. Most people think each individual has every right to choose to live any way desired: married or divorced, homosexual or heterosexual, religious or secular. So long as they do not harm anybody physically and directly, we are told we should accept people as God made them, tolerate their decisions, and stop trying to make them feel guilty or change their minds.

Paul, however, had a different take on the believers’ responsibility. Whereas everybody else in the world has the prerogative to leave people to the errors of their ways, our mission is unique. We have a responsibility to share the truth with others. Instead of tacitly accepting others’ beliefs and actions in an “I’m okay, you’re okay” fashion, the looming reality of the judgment seat of Christ motivates us to “persuade men” to accept Christ (2 Cor. 5:11).

Note the word “persuade” used here. It is the Greek word peithō [3982], meaning “to convince,” “to prevail upon,” or “to win over.” Paul’s means of persuasion were not through force, shame, deception, or theatrics, but by intelligent reasoning from the Scriptures (Acts 18:4; 28:23). In other words, our fervent belief that Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) motivates us to a ministry of persuasion —trying to reason with people, convincing them through biblical revelation that Jesus is the Christ and their only hope of eternal life. This does not mean becoming obnoxious in the process. But, like Paul, we may go to great lengths to win a hearing with people from all walks of life (1 Cor. 9:19-22).

From My Journal

“You Guys Are Weird!”

2 CORINTHIANS 5:13

Because of my ministries at Stonebriar Church, Dallas Seminary, and Insight for Living, most of my day-to-day interactions are with other believers. Yes, I get out and interact with unbelievers when I travel, shop, and run errands, but my particular ministry calling confines me to a Christian community most of the time. This has not always been the case, however. At different periods in my life I had various kinds of interaction with unbelievers —and to this day I still remember how weird they thought we Christians are.

I remember one episode back when I was in the Marine Corps. There aren’t too many sold-out Christians in the Marine Corps, and those who are stand out like a sore thumb. I remember a bunkmate of mine in Okinawa named Eddie who made it very clear to me as soon as his seabag hit the floor that he didn’t want me to lay my religious trip on him. He made it unmistakably clear that my Christianity and his life were never to so much as brush up against each other by accident. So, in a weak moment, I reluctantly agreed.

Later I felt haunted that I agreed not to talk to him about Christ, so I began to live for Christ, hoping to communicate His grace and love through actions rather than words. After some time, I realized that I wasn’t talking to him at all about my faith. So after pondering that reality, I worked out a way to make that happen.

At the time, I was in a rather intense Scripture memory program with The Navigators, so I asked Eddie one day, “Why don’t you help me memorize these verses?”

In a weak moment he said, “Sure. Why not?”

So he’d lie on his bunk below, and I’d lie on my bunk above, and I’d spout all these verses. And he’d go through them and correct me: “No. That’s not the word. You missed such and such.”

And sometimes I’d miss a word or two on purpose to emphasize it. “God so . . .”

“Loved . . . loved.”

“Right. God so loved . . .”

“The world.”

“Right. God so loved the world . . .”

I’d work through these delightfully convicting verses, and Eddie would labor with me through them, one agonizing verse at a time.

When I got to 1 Peter 2:9, I’ll never forget a comment he made. I was trying to memorize most of that chapter in the King James Version, and when I got to verse 9, I recited the following: “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.”

Although I got it word perfect, Eddie interrupted me with a choice comment —when I got to “peculiar people,” he said, “That guy Peter was right on. You guys are weird.”

Paul clarifies that he was not trying to impress the Corinthians by his radical evangelistic lifestyle (2 Cor. 5:12). Rather, he wanted to simply present the facts so when his adversaries in Corinth bad-mouthed him and his fellow apostles, his defenders could speak on his behalf. His opponents took pride in “appearance” rather than in sincerity of heart. Paul, on the other hand, didn’t seek the approval of the masses. He says, “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God” (5:13). The word “beside ourselves” is the same as the one used in Mark 3:21 when Jesus’ own family feared He had lost His mind. Yet the Corinthians should have known that Paul wasn’t crazy, but “of sound mind.” After all, Paul had used reason and persuasion to convince them of the soundness of the gospel. The charge of lunacy came not from fellow believers but from outsiders and false teachers.

— 5:14-16 —

A second reason we believers are so misunderstood in this world is that our approach is different (5:14-16). We have an internalized, compelling force that “controls us” —the love of Christ (5:14). Most people have nothing of the kind, no driving passion in life, no overarching purpose or plan for the decisions they make and the priorities they set. They do whatever seems expedient or pleasurable, living for their momentary, self-serving interests.

Christ’s love for us and ours for Him now defines our lives. In the grip of this love, our outlook on the world changes. Three themes determine our choices and our paths: first, that Jesus Christ died for all (5:14). Second, that since all people are dead spiritually, they all need someone —Jesus —to give them new life. Third, that once we have given Him our lives, we no longer desire to live for ourselves but for Him (5:15). When we align our trajectory with these three markers, our approach to life will differ completely from the world. Unlike the world’s positive “we’re all good people” approach, we view all people —including ourselves —as essentially bad apart from divine grace. At the same time, we view all people as potentially “saveable” because of divine grace.

This is what Paul means when he says, “We recognize no one according to the flesh” (5:16). Just as we all once regarded Jesus as any other man, “according to the flesh,” once we have accepted that He is the God-man who “died and rose again” on our behalf (5:15), our whole outlook changes and we view people as sinners who can be saved by the gospel of Jesus. This radically alters our perspective: we now view our own purpose in life as Christ-centered in response to divine grace.

— 5:17-19 —

A third reason the world regards us as a little loony is because our life is transformed (5:17-19). Believers in Christ have not just turned over a new leaf. They have not simply managed to carry out a New Year’s resolution past February. Nor have they been brainwashed into some kind of cultish lifestyle in which their every move is determined by some guru on high. Rather, they are truly changed from within —transformed!

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (5:17). Most people do not realize that Paul is alluding to a very important Old Testament passage, Isaiah 65:17: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.” The Isaiah text refers specifically to the renewal of creation that will come about after Christ returns and perfects this world, cleansing it from its wickedness and radically restoring and surpassing its original intention. Peter writes, “According to His promise [in the Old Testament Scriptures] we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). In Revelation 21–22, we catch a marvelous glimpse of this new condition.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul applies this imagery to the redeemed believer, indicating the stunning, radical, dramatic transformation that God designed to take place when a believer says “I do” to Jesus Christ. When Christ invades a life, He performs a miraculous act of re-creation, analogous to the extreme overhaul of creation itself that He will perform at the Second Coming. He brings into being something new. When this new life is born in us by the work of the Holy Spirit, not by human works (Gal. 6:15), we will be transformed from the inside out, changing our priorities, our relationships, and our actions. Only God can do this work in us, but once He has done it, we participate in living out the inner working (Phil. 2:12-13).

The first obvious sign of our transformed life is to fulfill our ministries of reconciliation (katallagē [2643]; 2 Cor. 5:18-19). God has commissioned each of us to show others that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for our sin, appeasing God’s wrath and bringing about forgiveness. His resurrection from the dead opened us up to a new life in relationship with Him through the powerful indwelling of the Spirit of resurrection (Rom. 8:11). To us, then, who have personally experienced this reconciliation with God, Christ has committed the message of reconciliation —the gospel of the person and work of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:19).

— 5:20-21 —

A fourth reason unbelievers think Christians are crazy is that our role is unusual (5:20-21). As representatives of Christ’s righteous rule, we speak a different language, we have different customs and lifestyles, and we appear a bit like foreigners in a foreign land. We are ambassadors for a nation without borders, an invisible kingdom without currency, a King whose throne is in heaven and who reigns spiritually through the hearts of His people. One day, of course, He will establish His kingdom on this earth, and what was unseen will be made visible; but until that day, we have an unusual role to play as ambassadors of an invisible empire (5:20).

Ambassadors represent their homeland and its messages, promoting its policies to the people among whom they live. Their country is often judged by their actions as their deeds are watched and their words scrutinized. The same is true for us. Our true home is in heaven; our true sovereign is the Lord Jesus Christ. As His ambassadors, we represent King Jesus to those around us, even though they do not acknowledge Him as their own sovereign Lord. R. V. G. Tasker gives a succinct description of our unusual role as ambassadors for Christ:

Ambassadors engaged upon human affairs are chosen especially for their tact, their dignity and their courtesy, and because they are gifted with persuasive powers. The ambassadors for Christ should show the same characteristics. They must never try to bludgeon men and women into the kingdom of God, but must speak the truth in love . . . by the gentleness and meekness of Christ.[130]

Our task as ambassadors is simple: to “beg” others on behalf of Christ to “be reconciled to God” (5:20). The simple content of this message of reconciliation is succinctly stated: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (5:21). This verse is the heart and soul of the saving power of the gospel. Jesus, the perfect God-man, the spotless Lamb of God, was made a sin offering in our place, just as Isaiah had prophesied centuries earlier, “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief, if he would render Himself as a guilt offering” (Isa. 53:10).

Through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ, we become the righteousness of God. A real transfer occurs at the Cross: We trade our guilt for His innocence. Having been declared righteous (justified), we are completely free of guilt and shame and have become full heirs of a glorious promise.

Is that crazy talk? Maybe. But I would rather be a fool for Christ’s coming kingdom than a wise man in a world that is passing away.

APPLICATION: 2 CORINTHIANS 5:11-21

How Can “Crazies” like Us Be Effective?

Unless you’ve been hiding in the wilderness for the last couple of decades, you’ve probably noticed that the world’s gone crazy. Off-the-deep-end crazy. I know that if you turn on the television or surf the web, many of our politicians and media moguls make it look like Christians are the ones who have lost their minds because we refuse to call good evil and evil good. This leads to an important question. In a world that’s lost its way, can we “crazies” be effective in representing Christ in word and deed? Let me share three things we can do to continue to be effective.

First, we maintain our mission. As 2 Corinthians 5:11 says, because the fear of the Lord guides our steps, we need to keep on pleading with this world that is off its rocker. We need to persuade them to consider the claims of Christ as Savior and Lord. We need to appeal to them to be reconciled to the creator God they’ve shut out or shunned. We can’t afford to lose sight of our mission.

Second, we keep our perspective. Now that’s a hard one. It’s so easy to look at our message concerning Christ’s death and resurrection and believe it has no relevance to the world today. In the cacophony of entertainment, politics, and business, it may feel like our little voice telling the “old, old story” just can’t be heard. Nonsense! As ambassadors of Christ, we need to remember that God’s booming voice speaks through our most timid whispers. It’s God’s Word that does the work. As 2 Corinthians 5:16 says, we should no longer regard anyone according to outward appearances. Remember, the flashiest rock star, the crookedest politician, and the worldliest tycoon will one day bow to the crucified and risen Lord. Our message has the power to bring them to their knees today, before it’s too late.

Finally, we fulfill our role as ambassadors. We don’t speak on our own behalf, but on Christ’s. It isn’t our message that we convey, but His gospel. We don’t invite people to our church, but into His body. We don’t build up our little kingdom, but His. Ambassadors who represent rulers of this world speak with their authority. If they had to stand on their own power and authority, they would collapse. In the same way, God is making His appeal to the world through us as ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). Therefore, we can stand in bold confidence when we open our mouths to share His good news and live our lives in a way that flies in the face of this world.

When people look at you funny for holding “quaint” or even “crazy” ideas about God, Christ, and holy living, don’t fret. Maintain your mission. Keep your perspective. Fulfill your role as an ambassador of Christ.