On New Year’s Eve many of us watched the ball drop at a party with friends and family. One million people cram into a 2 to 3 block radius. And close to 1 billion more watch the festivities on TV.
Whether it’s a new year, a new car, or a new shirt—we just love brand spankin’ new things, don’t we?
I got a new watch. Pretty sure I haven’t taken it off since Christmas.
Why do we love what’s new? Because we love a fresh start, a new beginning, and a clean slate. The ‘new’ promises hope, excitement, satisfaction, fulfillment, security, and happiness. Maybe what is ‘new’ will offer us something the ‘old’ cannot.
Maybe getting our hands on the ‘new’ makes us feel less ‘old’—we feel important, ahead of the game, first in flight, trendsetters, hip, and on the cutting edge.
Maybe getting the ‘new’ convinces us we can save time, cut corners, multitask, be more efficient, and live more comfortably. The ‘new’ makes us wonder how we ever survived with the ‘old’.
Deep down inside we believe the ‘new’ will restore us, refresh us, renew us, and rejuvenate us. We believe that whatever is ‘new’ will remove any regrets and bitterness we have about the past. The ‘new’, we think, will kick the past in the teeth.
If we’re not careful, we may be caught up in a mad and furious quest for the new ‘me’. We make New Year’s resolutions to do this, do that, to stop this, to stop that, to get this, and to get that. Because maybe we are dissatisfied with who we are.
At some point, you would think, we sit down, out of breath, exhausted, burnt out—and ask, “What’s the use?” There is nothing ‘new’ out there—and if there is, it doesn’t last. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find something ‘new’ that never got old, never rusted, never rotted, and never expired?
In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon surmises in 1:9-10 “That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, ‘See this, it is new”? Already it has existed for ages which were before us.”
And this is from a man who was obsessed with ‘new’—acquiring 20,000kg of gold a year so that everything he possessed was always new…even Solomon admitted there was nothing new under the sun.
And so we wonder, “What is it that lasts forever?”
God, of course. He is the alpha and omega. The beginning and end. He was, and is, and is to come. He is eternal. Everlasting. Permanent.
And so we ask God, “Hey God, what’s new?” And He says, “All things.” Actually, He does say this in Revelation 21:5, “I am making everything new.”
Friends, we worship a God who is passionate about transforming the old into the new. A God who is in the business of restoration. And He has a way of seeing the potential in what’s old, and bringing out the very best—so it doesn’t just look like new—it actually IS new. And it won’t become old or outdated either—it will always be new. God is on the cutting edge for what’s new…
In Isaiah 43:19, God says “Behold, I will do something new. Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.” On a roll, God speaks again in Isaiah 48:6 “I will proclaim to you new things from this time—hidden things which you have not known.”
So what’s new? Jesus. He was all about the ‘new’. He introduced the new covenant, spoke a new teaching, issued new commandments, was laid in a new tomb, and will bring about a new heaven and new earth.
And He is all about making US new. Paul beautifully writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice. You know, to be born all over again and redo this whole thing?” That’s what my friend overcome by a pornography addiction told me a couple months ago. I replied to him, “Good news bro. You can be born all over again. Just believe and accept what has already been done. Jesus died so that you could be born, again.”
So what if we focused less on who we are NOT, and more on who we already are? In Christ, we are forgiven, accepted, loved, renewed, reborn, and restored. We are brand new. And this label never expires.
So may we be suckers for what’s ‘new’, but suckers only for Him who is able to make all things new.
May we be easily won over by the One who never changes in His love for us.
May the temporary ‘new’ of our world pale in comparison to the permanent ‘new’ of our Lord.
And may we live and move and breathe like we are new, because we are…
Like Jesus.