This blog unpacks Pastor Lee’s sermon from June 9, 2024: What is Your Status?

We live in a culture where status is everything.

How many likes did I get?
Who am I following?
Who should I be following?
Who did they vote for?
They live in THAT neighborhood?
They went to school WHERE?
They wore WHAT?

But status doesn’t just affect our personal lives. It affects our spiritual lives as well.

LET’S BREAK IT DOWN:

Picking back up in 2 Corinthians, Pastor Lee gives more insight into Paul’s return to Corinth:

After fighting long and hard to develop devoted followers of Jesus, Paul is heartbroken to come back and find that false preachers and prophets have influenced the Church to return to Old Testament ways of thinking.

Let’s remember, before Paul became an Apostle, he was the poster child of Judaism. He knew every law and doctrine, and practiced them all with hopes to become righteous before God. In his terms, he had achieved high status before the Lord. Until he met Jesus.

Think about that for a minute:

Paul did everything right.
He followed every rule.
Checked off every box.
Lived a blameless life.

Yet, his works were meaningless without Jesus. 

Paul attempts to explain this to the Church when he makes his return in 2 Corinthians 3:12-14: “Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.”

What is this veil Paul is writing about, and why is it important? 

Paul metaphorically uses the veil to explain life without Jesus. Those who are caught up in their status of righteousness will continue to remain under the veil, but those who accept God’s grace as freedom will be removed from the veil. 

He writes to encourage the Church to pursue the grace of God, not endless works that will result in unsatisfactory results. Because the finished work of Jesus supersedes the law, those who believe in Him are no longer bound by the law.

Paul shares such a special perspective and heart for the Church of Corinth because he used to be just like them. He had status, was well-known, and pursued the law like no other. But even a man like Paul with high status was willing to give it up to gain status with the Lord when he found out how good He is.

The goodness that the Lord offers fulfills a void that man can never give.

Talk about a lot to unpack. 

In a world that is more divided than ever, we identify with the labels that give us status. Whether it's our political beliefs, the designer on our clothing tag, our race, denomination, creed, or our education or location, the comparison game kills. 

The harsh truth is, God isn’t impressed with the clothes on our back, how many of the Ten Commandments we’ve memorized, or which Biblical laws we’ve upheld. The more we try to impress Him with our works, the more we miss the mark.

He is, however, impressed with the posture of our hearts. God loves to take people of zero status and turn them into spiritual weapons. In fact, He DELIGHTS in it.

Paul clearly tells us that it’s so easy to get wrapped up in status that we miss the word of God. We miss His voice. His touch. His nudging. In the church especially, it’s incredibly easy to fall into the routine of religion. We check off our boxes, keep the Holy Spirit at an arm’s length, but never let Him get too close that we get uncomfortable; we leave the veil on.

Imagine if we lived a life crucified with Jesus: the stone tablet of the Old Covenant destroyed, and the promise of His Word written on our hearts. It’s a dangerous way of living, radical even, but POWERFUL. When we accept Christ and we enter into His kingdom, every label that existed in earthly measures disintegrates, and the veil is torn.

No label that man puts on us can exist when the Holy One calls us as righteous.