All Things New
Rev. Res Spears
Time for Something New • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
I hope you were able to get a taste of Tidewater’s false spring this week. Or maybe it was a preview of summer? Whatever it was, I’ll take 82 degrees and sunny in February over 40 degrees and raining any time.
I think we can all expect that we’ll pay the price for that little break from winter, but that’s one of the things I love about Virginia.
No matter the winter, no matter how hard and cold it gets, you’re never more than a couple of weeks from a reminder that Spring is on the way.
I used to love winter weather, but those days are long gone. The older I get, the more I understand all those folks who head south for the winter, along with the geese.
But a day like we had Thursday is enough to lift the spirits, enough to remind me that Spring is just around the corner, less than a month away.
And all those little buds I saw on the fig tree yesterday will be bursting with new leaves, and fruit will start to form. And all the birds will be flittering around, teaching their chicks to fly and to stay away from the neighborhood cats. And we’ll start to see the perennials in the garden bursting into bloom.
It’s kind of a cliché, but for me, the newness of Spring makes the dreariness of winter more bearable.
And, I know it’s coming, because the table where I like to sit in our screen room outside was covered in a layer of pollen on Friday.
Pretty soon, there’ll be a coating of yellow on everything, and my sinuses will be in full revolt. But also, pretty soon, what seemed dead will be full of life once again.
I was so glad for this spring-like day we had, and not just because I’m so tired of winter, but also because it gave me the perfect illustration to start today’s message.
You’ll recall that we’ve been talking about the new things we are promised as followers of Jesus. And what all these new things have in common is that they are from God.
He gives us hearts of flesh to replace our hearts of stone when He gives us His Spirit of life as a seal and a promise.
He makes us new creatures with new ambitions as we who were dead in our trespasses are made alive in Christ Jesus.
And as new creatures with new life within us, we receive from God new names — we are now called children of God.
He has made a new covenant with us to dwell within us by His Holy Spirit and to write His law upon our hearts. Through Jesus, He gave us a new commandment, to love one another unselfishly and sacrificially, just as Jesus loves us.
And He has put a new song on our lips, a song of praise and thanksgiving to Him for our salvation, bought with the blood of His own Son.
As I said when we began this series a few weeks ago, God specializes in doing new things. From the beginning, new things have been what we’ve seen God do.
And one of the things I love about Spring — even a false Spring — is the reminder it gives me that He who has made ME new has promised that one day, He will make ALL things new.
Turn with me to the 21st chapter of the Book of Revelation, and let’s take a look at this promise, as well as some others that are recorded there.
Now, to provide some context, the Apostle John is nearing the end of his record of the prophetic vision God gave Him of the end times that are still to come.
By this point in John’s record, the rapture of believers has taken place and the Great Tribulation is complete.
Jesus has returned to earth as the vanquishing King, wiping out those who have arrayed themselves against Him with a word at the so-called Battle of Armageddon.
Jesus conquers them all with a word from His mouth, and then Satan is bound and thrown into the abyss, where he is held in chains for 1,000 years.
And, with Satan no longer around to tempt mankind, and with Jesus ruling the world from His throne in Jerusalem, there is a 1,000-year period of peace and prosperity such as the world has never known.
But then, at the end of that 1,000 years, Satan is released, and he raises up a vast army of people who have known nothing but goodness and peace under Jesus’ righteous reign, and they once again array themselves against Him.
This time, they are destroyed with fire from heaven, after which those from all of history who have rejected God and rejected Jesus are raised from the dead to face judgment for their sins.
Whereas those who have trusted in the Savior who took the judgment for THEIR sins upon Himself at the cross are spared God’s righteous wrath over sin, these Christ-rejecters will pay the penalty for their sins themselves.
And chapter 20 ends with John’s vision of them being thrown into the lake of fire.
And so, at this point in John’s prophetic history, sin and death are no more. Satan and all the unbelievers who have allowed themselves to be deceived by him have been cast into hell.
And all that remains on earth is we believers, who have been resurrected and joined with our eternal souls.
The earth will have experienced 1,000 years of fruitfulness under the reign of Jesus. But it will still not be what it was created to be, because it was subjected to the curse of sin and death by the sins of Adam and Eve and all of sinful mankind.
And so, let’s look at what comes next. What does eternity look like for we who have followed Jesus in faith? Let’s pick up in verse 1 of chapter 21.
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.
7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.
8 “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Now, look back at verse 1. A new heaven and a new earth. Now, John isn’t writing about the heaven that is currently God’s dwelling place. This is the heaven that surrounds the earth. In other words, a new sky, a new universe.
What God is promising in this vision He gave to John is that everything we have broken because of our sins will be made new. There will no longer be the curse of sin upon God’s creation.
In fact, what we see here is the fulfillment of God’s command to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
We were made in the image of God — made to reflect His character and display His kingdom.
Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, which was a place of perfect shalom — of perfect peace and contentment, where they experienced the presence of God. But they weren’t made to REMAIN in the Garden.
They were made to go out and have children and populate the rest of the earth and bring it into the conditions that were found in the Garden.
Under the stewardship of Adam and Eve and all of their descendants, the earth was to be a place filled with the righteousness of God, a place that reflected the very character of the God who IS life.
Instead, they sought to put themselves in God’s place. They wanted the ability to choose for themselves what was good and what was evil.
And in their sinfulness, instead of life, they brought death into the world, and their sins and ours have tainted everything in God’s creation ever since.
But all the way back to the Old Testament prophets, God promised that HE will fix what we’ve broken. And not just fix, but make it all new again. Look at what the prophet Isaiah says in Isa 65 17.
17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
The Apostle Peter remembered this prophecy of Isaiah. Look at what he wrote in 2 Pet 3 13.
13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
This verse gives us a key to John’s prophecy in Revelation. This new earth will be a place in which righteousness dwells, not a place of unrighteousness and rebellion. It will be a place of order and peace, no longer a place of chaos and war.
Look at what John writes in verse 4. There will be no more tears, there will be no more death, there will be no more mourning or crying or pain.
The first things will have passed away. As Isaiah put it, the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
What God has planned for those who have followed Jesus in faith is something new. What God has planned for us is what He wanted for us from the beginning. HE will do what we could not do because of our sinfulness.
Just as Jesus lived the righteous life of perfect obedience that we cannot live, God will create the new world of perfect righteousness that we couldn’t make.
And I suspect that He will do it with the materials at hand. You see, this word “new” in verse 1 can also mean RE-newed.
Think about it. When God makes believers into new creatures in Christ, He doesn’t destroy us and start over.
He gives us a new heart and a new spirit. He gives us new life and new ambitions. He makes a new covenant with us and gives us new names, a new commandment, and a new song. We are changed completely, but we are still US.
And I don’t think we will get to this point in the history of the earth and hear God say, “Well, this place is so messed up that even I can’t fix it.” I believe we’ll get to that point and see that — as He so often does — God will make beauty out of the ashes.
But however He accomplishes this act of re-creation, God will do for us what we have never been able to do. That’s just the kind of God He is!
He is the God who reconciled mankind to Himself by sending His own Son to live a sinless life as a man and to die on a cross.
At the cross, Jesus took upon Himself the sins of mankind so that all who put their faith in Him could have eternal life — life the way it was always meant to be, in the presence of and in eternal dependance upon Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This is the life that John describes in verses 2 and 3. The new holy city of Jerusalem will come down from heaven adorned as a bride would be for her husband.
Later in this chapter, John tries to describe the beauty of this new Jerusalem, and what he writes about it just boggles the imagination.
But this city MUST be this beautiful, because, as John says in verse 3, this is the place where God will dwell. He’ll no longer be in heaven. The very God of all creation will dwell among us in this new Jerusalem.
“He who overcomes,” John says in verse 7, “will inherit these things.” That means all believers, since we are described as being IN Christ Jesus and since He told His disciples that He had overcome the world.
If you have followed Jesus in faith, you ARE an overcomer. And so, you will inherit the things God promises through John in this passage.
And what does someone do to inherit something? Nothing. An inheritance comes to someone out of the grace of the one who gives it.
We who trust in Jesus have been adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters of God. Therefore, we will inherit the kingdom of heaven right here on earth. And He will be our God, and we will be His sons and daughters.
This has been God’s desire for us from the very beginning. It was what He wanted from Adam and Eve. It was what He wanted from Israel. It is what He wants from the church.
From the beginning, though, we have so often failed to make Him our God, elevating everything BUT Him to that status. Even the church is guilty of this. But in this new heaven and new earth, this desire of God will finally be fulfilled in fullness.
What a wonderful set of promises this is for us! This is the kind of thing Paul had in mind when he wrote:
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
I don’t know what kind of pain you’re experiencing now. I don’t know what kind of heartache you’re dealing with.
What I do know is this: Whatever it is — however much it hurts, however hard life is for you now — it will all seem trivial when you stand on the golden street that leads to the throne of God in this new Jerusalem upon this new earth.
Indeed, in the light of His glory, you won’t even remember these hard times.
Knowing of the glory that is to come in these days, Paul could say that he would press on through whatever difficulties life threw his way.
Knowing of the glory that is to come in these days, and knowing that this is a promise of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, WE can press on through whatever difficulties life throws at us.
I’ve talked before here about a man I used to know named Kenny. Whenever I’d go up to him and say, “Hi, Kenny! How are you doing?” he would respond, “Jesus loves me.”
Kenny understood the glory that is to come, and he recognized the beauty and grace of a Savior who loved him so much that He gave Himself as a sacrifice at the cross.
Jesus took upon Himself the sins of all mankind — and the just punishment for them — so that all who put their faith in Him could have eternal life.
Life on the new earth that John wrote about. Life in the presence of the triune God Himself. Life as sons and daughters of Him who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
But this life is promised only to those who place their faith in Jesus. Look at verse 8.
For the cowardly — those afraid to proclaim Jesus — and the unbelieving — those who choose to deny Him — there will also be resurrection.
But this resurrection will be followed by the second death — eternal separation from the God for whom they were made to be in fellowship.
Those whose lives are characterized by a lack of faith — by abominations, by murder, by immorality, by false gods, by lying and by all the other things that demonstrate a rejection of God and of His Son.
For them, eternity will reflect the choice they made in life. It will be a place where God is NOT, a place without His mercy, a place where suffering goes unchecked by His grace, a place where sin isn’t reined in by His sovereign hand.
Every one of us has the choice where we will spend eternity. Every one of us can choose whether to accept God’s grace or reject it.
Every one of us has been offered the gift of life in this eternal kingdom of righteousness on this new earth that John describes in today’s passage. Every one of us has been offered the water of life.
There is no cost for this water of life. You couldn’t earn it anyway.
But you WILL have to give up something. You’ll have to give up the idea that you’re basically a good person. You’ll have to give up the idea that you’ll be able to stand before a perfectly holy and righteous God and expect Him to grant you access to His kingdom based on anything you’ve done here on earth.
You’ll have to admit that you are a sinner and that your sins have created a chasm between you and God that you can’t bridge.
You’ll have to believe — to trust — that Jesus built the only bridge between you and God that you can cross, and that He did it by taking upon Himself the just punishment that you deserve for your sins against God.
And you’ll have to confess that Jesus is Lord, that He is your new master and that you will follow Him.
There is no cost for this water of life, but you will have to give up your supposed right to live life on your own terms so that you can have the NEW life, the better life that you were always meant to have.
Will you choose THIS life today?
Today is Lord’s Supper Sunday.
For nearly 2,000 years, the church’s observance of the Lord’s Supper has served as a reminder of what Jesus did to purchase our salvation. But it has also served to renew our hope, to strengthen us for perseverance, to remind us of God’s promises.
We followers of Jesus partake in this ritual as a proclamation of the gospel message that in the person of His Son, God Himself stepped into the mess we’ve created and made a way for us to be reconciled to Him.
It’s a proclamation that God loves us so much that He allowed His only Son to take upon Himself the punishment we all deserve for our sins so that we who put our faith in Him can be saved.
And in the reminder that we receive during the Lord’s Supper of Jesus’ great love for us, we have our hope renewed, and we can stand stronger against the afflictions and troubles of this world.
This observance is for those who have committed themselves to Jesus and have demonstrated that commitment in believers’ baptism. If you have taken those steps, then I invite you to join us in this observance today.
Now, the conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today, but the significance of their observance was the same as it is today.
Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.
Let us pray.
26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.
“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”
Let us pray.
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you;
28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Take and drink.
“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Maranatha! Lord, come!
Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our observance of the Lord’s Supper.
Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”