A few months ago Cindy and I went to the cinema to see a very forgettable film called ‘Did you hear about the Morgans?’  It was a comedy (in the loose sense of the word) about a couple of New York yuppies who witness a murder and are placed in the federal witness protection program.  They’re given new identities and taken to rural Montana where they are supposed to just blend in like a regular couple of … er … New York yuppies living in rural Montana.  And despite the fact that this film isn’t very funny, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing two highly professional and skilled operators in the jungle of Manhattan placed in an environment where their savvy, technological, wealthy, and sophisticated ways don’t count for much.  In fact, they are a hindrance to living a happy life in their new surroundings. 

And it got me thinking about what would happen if Cindy and I were to witness a murder and were given fresh identities in a place we were completely unknown and where we could not be tracked down by a mafia hitman?  How would I take to that?  Many people in our world, probably even in our own town, would relish the idea of making a completely fresh start somewhere where no one knew them.  The prospect of simply disappearing, escaping their responsibilities, would be very appealing.  All those bills they could walk away from, the jobs they hate, the relationships they don’t want, the commitments they’ve made that they now regret.  Yes, I think that if the government expanded the witness protection program to include anyone who wanted a fresh start, regardless of whether they’ve witnessed a crime that they’re willing to testify about in court, they would be inundated with applications.  Maybe there should be a box to check on your tax return next to the ‘do you want $3 to go to presidential campaigns?’ box – ‘do you want to be relocated to a place where no one will find you?’ 

Of course, the drawback to this is that there are some things you can’t run away from.  Witnesses on the program might be able to escape their responsibilities to creditors, or family, or friends, or employers, or even churches, but they can’t escape from God.  Neither can they remove their pasts – their guilty consciences, the bad memories, the fear of being found.  There are the broken hearts and promises which still haunt them in the quiet of night.  Then there’s the desperate prospect of loneliness – of never being able to be honest with anyone about who they are.  I wonder how many witnesses on the program regret their decision to take the new life in exchange for giving evidence in court.  As someone has said, ‘wherever you go, there you are’.  The things that truly make people’s lives painful and desperate can’t be removed by changing the environment.   What people need is a change on the inside.

Isn’t it good, then, to read today’s epistle reading in 1 Corinthians 5.  “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. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Here’s a passage that is teeming with new life.  There is so much freshness bursting from this reading that it could be a commercial for clothes detergent.  Here is the REAL new life that is available to men and women.  Here is God’s offer of a free and full and new existence.  Paul mentions four new things that happen when we come to Christ and receive his new life.

1          A new understanding of people
     “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.”

What is viewing someone from a human point of view?   I think it means viewing their external life rather than their heart, which is the way God views people.  So it means the usual sorts of prejudice that human beings find so easy.  Making judgments about people based on their race, their sex, the way they dress, their hairstyle, the car they drive, the job they do, their accent, their faith or lack of it.  The list needn’t stop there.  Between us we could probably name a hundred ways in which we can judge others by their outward appearance.  And Paul says that he used to judge Christ that way.  He himself judged Jesus to be a law-breaker, a rebel and a man cursed by God.  He was going by external things.  Jesus was a Jew who did things that good Jews were not supposed to do.  So Paul (or ‘Saul’, as he was at that time) judged him.  But God gave Paul, and all Christians, a new understanding of others.  Paul now knew that there was no difference between male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile.  And that’s the way God sees it.  I wonder if we’re ready for newness.  I wonder if we want God to give us new attitudes towards other people, so that we stop making judgments based on external things and see the heart, the way he himself does.

  
2          A new relationship with God
     “God has reconciled us to himself through Christ”.  Paul says that he, and the Christians he was writing to, were once the enemies of God.  We lived in opposition to God’s ways.  But now God has ended the hostility between us and we have now become his friends.  Paul stresses that this is something God did, not us.  We didn’t decide to end the enmity with God.  God took the initiative, and sent his Son to bring about our reconciliation with his Father by his death on the cross.  The truth is, then, that we are reconciled to God.  I wonder how we view God sometimes.  Do we see him as our enemy still?  Do we see him as being against us, not wanting us to flourish and live full lives?  Because the opposite is the case.  God is on your side.  He wants to bless you and being out the best in you.  His wish is not to take away your personality but to make you the best possible you you can be.
 
3. A new calling
     “God 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. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.”  Imagine tomorrow you go to the mailnox and you find there an envelope that bears the return address “The White House, Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC”.  And you think, ‘wow, my tax refund is coming straight from the top this year!’  But then you open it and see it’s a letter telling you that the President has been considering appointing some new ambassadors to foreign countries and he has chosen you to be a US ambassador.  What an amazing honour.  The President believes in you and your abilities so much that he is sending you to represent the nation overseas.  What a privilege.  You might object that you’re unworthy of such an honour, and that you’re not a very good example of a good American citizen, that you would only let the side down if you took up the job.  But the President understands that and still calls you to be his ambassador.  Got that picture?  Well, Paul is saying that is how it is for us Christians.  God has selected us as his ambassadors.  He has given us a job.  An amazing job, unlike any other in the world.  We are to go to a foreign land and be his representatives.  That foreign land is here – this world.  We are on a mission.  It’s the mission to represent Christ wherever we go.  And it’s the mission to continue his reconciling work that he performed on the cross.  You see there are still many people who have not come into a peaceful friendship with God.  We live among them.  And God calls us to be ministers of reconciliation.  Rather like a diplomat during a time of war, we are to be peacemakers, introducing people to the loving God and encouraging them to have faith in him and be at peace.

 
4. A new self
     “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.”  When a person comes to a living faith in Christ, and becomes his disciple they really do begin a new life.  That’s what the sacrament of baptism symbolizes.  The symbolism is more obvious in those churches that immerse adult believers, but it’s still the image behind every method of baptism.  The candidate descends into the water, they die to their old lives, and they rise again, out of the water to a new life.  A new life, with new priorities, relationships, and purpose.  And new joy, peace and contentment too.
 

The business of changing is hard.  The only people who like change are wet babies.  But sometimes we can make it harder than it needs to be  because we begin with an attitude of failure.  We are often painfully aware of how we fail to live up to God’s standards.  He calls us to follow Christ, yet we feel like we mess up so much of the time.  We compare ourselves with other Christians and judge ourselves negatively.  We can view the faithful Christian life as something way out in the far-flung reaches of space, and we have to grit our teeth, work really hard and perhaps we might get a little bit closer to it.  But in this reading Paul seems to be saying that we don’t, in fact start from such a gloomy position.  He is clear that those Christians in Corinth had already become these new creations, reconciled with God, and given a new life ad purpose.  It’s not that they have to work hard and if they impress God with their holiness that they might get there.  And the same is true for us.  The truth is that if you’ve come to Christ in faith and sincerity, turning away from life lived for yourself to life lived for God, then the act of new creation has happened.  You are a new person.  The victory that we think we have to work for is actually ours already.  The great call of the New Testament is simply that God has made us worthy to be his children, now let’s live like it.  So when we read passages of Scripture that we find challenging lets remind ourselves that we can do this, not because we’re greater than other people, but because Christ has done for us what we could not do for ourselves.  Each day as we live as followers of Christ we are becoming what we are.

I started this sermon at the movies, let me finish there.  I can’t remember ever quoting a Disney film before.  But tucked away among the feel-good, saccharine of most Disney films someone occasionally says something that’s worth thinking about.  So it is in the Lion King that King Mufasa is having a father-son talk with Simba.  Simba has been rebellious and has not been living up to his royal status.  And Mufasa says to him, “Look inside. You are more than who you have become.  Remember who you are.”  And with those words I want to encourage you this week.  Living for Christ is hard.  We face all sorts of obstacles from inside ourselves as well as from around us.  Changing into the likeness of Christ is difficult too.  But this week, do yourself a favour and remember who you are.  An ambassador of Christ, forgiven, restored, welcomed back into the family of God, just like the prodigal son, made new and given a place of honour in God’s family.  And then let’s go and live like it.