All Things New Again

ALL THINGS NEW AGAIN

Rev. 21:1-5

How were the 90’s for you? Are you glad they are over? How about the year 2000? How was that for you? What are you looking forward to in 2001? Well we have a new president, George W. Bush, and new congress dominated by Republicans, and for all our leaders we should be praying that they will be open to God’s leading. We have new efforts for peace in the Middle East, and Saddam Hussein has been very quiet. Can this be a time for new hope for our country and the world at large? Yes it can.

This is also the time of year when people resolve for better things. Some make resolutions for better jobs, better home life, and a better relationship with God, and those are noble resolutions, how about you have you made any new resolutions this year? How are they going? Still strong or have they gone by the wayside. There is an old Irish saying that goes like this “May all your troubles this coming year be as short as your New Year resolutions.”

We all want a “do over” from time to time, a chance to do something again, hopefully do it differently and get different results. When I was a kid, we used to play “soldiers” we would run across the yard with make believe guns, sometimes they were toy guns or sticks, shooting at make believe enemy soldiers. Sometimes there would be enough of us where we would divide into teams and play “war”. During the battle we would get shot, fall down, count to 10 and jump up saying “new man”. How we long for those days, when we can jump up and say “new man”. No more sickness, no more troubles, all things new again.

God says that to us in this passage, “I AM MAKING EVERYTHING NEW”. He has been in the business of making all things new again from the beginning. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, things had to become new again, the relationship between God and man was changed, and God was making the changes to bring man back to him.

When the sin of man reached it fullest, God found Noah, and through the flood he made all things new again, and he reminds us every time we see the rainbow. All through history God has shown he makes all things new again. Through Abraham God started a new relationship with man, and all things were new again. And then after 400 years of silence God spoke again to man, in the form of a little child in manger in Bethlehem. He makes all things new again.

Not only are there things he makes new again, he makes us new again. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 5:17) “Any one who is in Christ is a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.” And again he says it in Gal. 6:15 “The only thing that counts is the new creation.” God is not interested in our past; he wants our present and our future. Only through Him can we have a future worth having.

The testimony of another man, maybe it could be ours. “I was a drunk, spent all my money on booze until I was soaked. Came home threw the few dollars I had left at my wife, told her to quit complaining and be grateful she had that. Somewhere before the end of my rope, or maybe it was at the end of my rope, I met God. Sometime ago I had given my life to him, but as life went on so did that commitment. I rededicated my life to him, since then I am no longer a slave to drink, no longer a slave to pornography, I dropped my filthy language, gave my wife what she needed financially and emotionally. I even gathered a new wardrobe. One evening late autumn, some six months after rededicating my life, my wife and I were getting ready to go for a walk; she was upstairs getting her coat and hat. I asked her to bring down my overcoat to which she replied “Which”? Huh, you mean I have more than one?”

You see God not only changed the man, he changed the circumstances. The things we complain about so much may just change if we ourselves change. We need to be changed by the ONE who MAKES ALL THINGS NEW AGAIN.

At the end of history things don’t really end at all, He is making all things new again. Over and over again, in the midst of our sinfulness God is making all things new again. God is and was and forever will be interested more in your future than your past. When we confess our sins, not only is he faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but the Bible also says. I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:34).