New Year’s Day 2006! I can hardly believe it is here already. It is the day of new beginnings. It is a time to look to the future. Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? I have a couple. The new start begins today, if you choose to take it.
I remember back in the spring of 1989 when the Orioles were about to begin their baseball season. The year before had been a disaster! They began their season in 1988 with a resounding 23 game losing streak and never recovered from that devastating beginning! They finished the season with a dismal 54 wins. Their final won-lost record for that year was 54 wins, 107 losses. They ended the season 34.5 games out of first place! It was terrible. But here it was, the spring of 1989. The Orioles had a new beginning staring them in the face. They had a chance to start over. They had an opportunity to put the past season behind them, look to the future, and begin anew.
That same opportunity is here for us this New Year’s Day. We have the chance to do the things we didn’t do last year. We have the opportunity to make right some of the things we messed up last year. We have the opportunity to make this year the best we have ever had. Those are the promises of New Year’s Day.
But even better and more important than that, with the birth of Jesus Christ, through His life, death and resurrection, we were given the opportunity to return to the relationship with God that He had planned for us from before the beginning of time. Jesus’ birth signaled a time of new beginnings for all of mankind, past, present and future until the end of the age. Not just on New Year’s Day (although I can’t think of a better time), but each and every day, through Christ’s work, we have the opportunity to choose to become a new creation, to share in the new covenant, to obey the new command, and to dwell in the new Heaven and new Earth. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things have passed away; behold the new things have come.”
That is AWESOME! It means that when we choose to follow Jesus Christ, when we accept Him as our Savior and Lord, at that moment, no matter what we were, what we said, what we did, no matter how bad, at the instant we come to Jesus Christ, all of our past is forgotten! At that instant, we become a new creature, clothed in Christ’s righteousness. From then on, when God looks at us, He no longer sees the wretched sinner that we were. No, instead God sees in us His beloved Son, the King of Kings, the sinless one who died to pay the debt of our sins.
But wait. Scripture tells us more: “…put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and truth.” (Ephesians 4:24) And: “(we) have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the One who created him.” Scripture is saying to us in those passages that when we have come to Jesus, we are to discard the old self and all of its ways, and put on the new self, the self that was created at the moment of our conversion, the self that is a reflection of the image of God.
There is a story about a man named Oscar Cervantes. He is a very dramatic example of the power of Jesus Christ with regard to the transformation of human lives. Oscar began to get into trouble, serious trouble, as a child. It got worse as Oscar got older. He was jailed 17 times for brutal crimes. All of the prison psychiatrists were convinced that Oscar was “far beyond hope and help”. They gave up on him. Oscar was soon to prove all of the “learned experts” wrong. You see, it seems that during a brief period of freedom, Oscar Cervantes met an elderly man who introduced him to Jesus Christ. Oscar accepted Jesus as his Savior and Lord, placed all his trust in Christ, turned his life over to Jesus, and was almost instantaneously changed from a hardened criminal into a kind, caring man. Very soon afterward, Oscar started a prison ministry.
Listen to Chaplain H.C. Warwick as he describes it. “The third Saturday night of each month is ‘Oscar Night’ at Soledad Prison. The inmates come to hear Oscar speak about his encounter and relationship with Jesus, and they sing gospel songs with much fervor. They sit intently for over two hours and they freely come to the chapel altar. What the professionals had failed to do for Oscar in years of counseling, Christ did in a moment of conversion.”
Just as Oscar’s life was changed by the power of Jesus Christ, so yours, mine or any person’s can be redeemed. It is never too late. We are never too bad. We all can become a new creature in Christ! Once that happens, we, the new creature in Christ, are then allowed to share in the new covenant.
What is the new covenant? Hear God’s words. “In the same way He (Jesus) took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’” (Luke 22:20) The new covenant based on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ replaces the old covenant based on the Mosaic Law. The new covenant is a better covenant because of our Savior. Listen to Hebrews 9:15: “And for this reason He (Jesus) is the Mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
We have the privilege to share in that covenant, the new covenant. See, the fact is that a covenant involves at least two parties. In this case, the parties involved are us and God. Having become a new creature in Christ Jesus, and having entered into the new covenant with God, we are then given a new command. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
During the American Civil War someone asked General Robert E. Lee how he felt about a fellow Confederate Army officer who had been making some rather derogatory remarks about him. The General responded by saying that the other officer was “very satisfactory”. The person who had asked the question seemed somewhat confused and perplexed. “General,” he said, “I guess you don’t know what he has been saying about you.” “I know,” answered General Lee, “but I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me.”
God is like that. We who have accepted Jesus as our Savior and Lord, still gripe and complain far too much. We still fail to live the life He would have us live far too often. We still fall short of even obeying His command to love one another as He loves us, more than we like to admit. Yet His opinion of us remains that we are fallen, but forgiven. Once lost, but now found. And He loves us in spite of failings. Should not one of the New Year’s resolutions be, for every Christian alive today, that we should endeavor to try our absolute best to love one another as Jesus loves each of us?
Finally, after being made a new creature in Christ, being allowed to share in the new covenant and receiving and obeying the new commandment, we are then allowed to look forward to the day, with assurance, that we will enter into the New Heaven and the New Earth, to dwell with the Lord in His house, for ever and ever. What an awesome, awesome promise from God. “But, according to His promise we are looking for the new Heaven and new Earth, in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13)
A man named Dan Baumann wrote a book titled “Dare To Believe”. In it he illustrates the experience of knowing that some gift is ours, yet not having received it yet, longing to enjoy it more fully. Mr. Baumann tells us that at Christmas time he would always do a lot of snooping about for his gifts, trying to figure out what was in them. One year he discovered a package with his name on it, the contents of which was very easy to identify. The package contained the golf clubs that he wanted. Listen to Mr. Baumann as he describes the experience: “Whenever Mom was not around, I would go and feel the package, shake it, and pretend that I was on the golf course. The point is, I was already enjoying the pleasures of a future event, namely, the unveiling. The package had my name on it. I knew what it was. But only Christmas would reveal it in its fullness.”
Our new beginning in Christ Jesus puts our name on glories far beyond our comprehension. But what we do know and can grasp about them should fill us with longing and anticipation. For one day, we who are new creatures in and through Jesus the Christ shall experience the New Kingdom of God in all of its fullness.
May this New Year’s Day truly be a day of new beginnings for each and every one of us. In the name of the Messiah, our Savior and Lord, may God bless us all this year and forevermore. Amen.
By the way, the Orioles finished 1989 with a vastly improved record of 87 wins, 85 losses and ended the season in second place, only 2 games out of first.