-our first Drink Deep in 2010. Woo. Just think, only ten years ago everyone thought the world was going to end because computers were too dumb to know what year it was. Crazy.
-but this is a time of year that’s full of snow, shortest days of the year, it’s cold and most people are sick, yet people love it. Why?
1. EVERYONE GETS A NEW START
-it’s a new year. Back in about 150 BC the Romans moved their new year to what is on or around our January 1st (the name January comes from the Roman goddess Janis who had two faces, one looking back and one looking forward).
-then, 1500 years late Pope Gregory took a calendar a monk had created and decreed that all Christian people should use that calendar (which is why almost every country on earth uses it now). And it started on January 1st.
-so think about it for a second. Because some monk decided to start where the Romans did, because some Roman picked a day out of nowhere, suddenly we all get a new start, the last year is gone and people look at the new year with new possibilities.
-why else do we make New Year’s resolutions? Really, do we have to wait until a day on a calendar to stop smoking, to start exercising, to get a better job? (those are some of the top resolutions made).
-we don’t need that day, but most people make it on that day. Why? Because we have this idea that a new year means new possibilities and all the things that were stopping us before don’t seem that big. We can become new because the year is new.
-but we get this chance even without a calendar date. What about school. You’ve all been back for a week. What happens every year (and sometimes every semester)? You get a new chance, a fresh start.
-think back to 8th grade. You had a D+ in math. It’s okay, you can admit it. But what happened when you started 9th grade math? You got a fresh start. You didn’t carry that old grade over with you. Imagine what would happen if you did that!
-businesses do the same thing, which I think is really, really funny. They start a new fiscal year (in my old store it was April Fool’s Day, I thought that was fitting), but when they start a new fiscal year, what happens. They start with a balance of 0. Even if they lost $3 million last year and are in debt, on a new piece of paper for the year, they look at it as a 0 and start fresh. They get a second chance.
-our whole culture is based on this! The American Dream, no matter who you are or where you were born with enough hard work and right connections and whatever else you can make it, you can be rich and live out the dream.
-do you have any idea how many people in the world have no idea what you think, how they have no hope in their situation because they don’t know they get a second chance?
-In India they live in what is known as the Caste System. It’s kind of like our class system, most people are middle class, but there are the rich upper class and the poor lower class. The difference in India is there are five castes, and whatever caste you are born into, you cannot escape. If you are born a lowly peasant, you must be a lowly peasant for the rest of your life. The only possible way to get out is reincarnation, be a good peasant and maybe in your next life you will be in the next caste up.
-can you imagine living your life never ever thinking that you have a chance? That your one shot you were dealt at birth, that’s it. There are no second chances, no matter how hard you work or do, you stay where you are.
-we are lucky that we live in a place, in a time that believes in hope. We talked about it last year, hope lives, we can change the world, but we can also change ourselves. We have hope that we can make mistakes and God will give us a second chance.
-so for today, I want us to see what god thinks of this.
2. NOT A NEW IDEA
-this is not a new idea. God started it 3000 years ago. First we have the idea that we can be forgiven, and much like our new year’s, it happened once a year.
**Lev. 16:32-34a -> “32In future generations, the purification ceremony will be performed by the priest who has been anointed and ordained to serve as high priest in place of his ancestor Aaron. He will put on the holy linen garments 33and purify the Most Holy Place, the Tabernacle, the altar, the priests, and the entire congregation. 34This is a permanent law for you, to purify the people of Israel from their sins, making them right with the Lord once each year.” (NLT)
-so do you see it? God put a provision in the Law (yes, this was law) that the priest would once a year make a sacrifice that covered everyone in Israel for all their sins for the past year.
-sounds kind of like New Year’s, doesn’t it? The idea we’re talking about today, it’s 3000 years old. Every year the priest would allow you to start new by praying for you.
-but that wasn’t the only one, here are a few more.
-God also put in the law that every seven years was supposed to be a year of rest, while every 50 years (7x7) there was a celebration called the Year of Jubilee. Basically, you were supposed to do minimum work and party for the year (nice!). You weren’t allow to plant crops or anything like that.
-here’s one of the laws for that year:
**Lev. 25:13 -> 13Yes, during the Year of Jubilee everyone shall return home to his original family possession; if he has sold it, it shall be his again! (LB)
-think about that, you are low on money, you sell your house and land, but God has put in a stipulation in the Law, this is law, that you have the chance to take it back on this year!
-for the year of Jubilee, they even say when you sell land to take into account how long it is until the year of Jubilee and if it’s a short time, sell for less because they know you can take it back soon.
-the same was true for jobs. Say you had to sell your land so you go to work for someone else, which in those days was considered slavery (the original idea of slavery is much different than ours, you were paid, given a place to live, etc. You just weren’t allowed to quick). But here’s another law:
**Lev. 25:39-41 -> 39If a fellow Israelite becomes poor and sells himself to you, you must not treat him as an ordinary slave, 40but rather as a hired servant or as a guest; and he shall serve you only until the Year of Jubilee. 41At that time he can leave with his children and return to his own family and possessions. (LB)
-so again, at this time of year, you were allowed to just quit who you were working for, who you were a slave to because of debt or choice, and just go back home, your land would be returned to you.
-I don’t know, but it sounds like God is all about the idea of a second chance. After all, that’s why he promised us:
3. YOU CAN BE NEW
-that’s where this whole idea of forgiveness and grace comes in.
-the church in Galatia was worried about what rules you have to follow, what things you need to do to be a Christian, and Paul said this.
**Gal. 6:15b -> 15The important thing is being the new people God has made. (NCV)
-God wants us to be new people, He wants us to be living new lives.
-but therein lies the catch. There are lots of people who want God to make them new, they want to be forgiven, they want to experience grace, but they don’t want anything to change.
-there’s a story Jesus told in Luke 5 (and other gospels). He tells the parable of how you can’t put new wine in old wineskins.
-now for those of us who don’t carry our wine to school in goat bladders, let me explain. When they would make something to drink back in Jesus’ time, they would place the wine in what was called a wineskin which looked like a leather canteen. As the wine sat in there, the wine would ferment, causing the wineskin to stretch and it would be perfect for the wine. But, if you put new wine into an already stretched wineskin, it would be stretched and dried out so it would crack and your drink would be ruined.
-to put it in today’s terms, think computers. No one here would go out and buy the best of the brand new 2010 recording software or photoshop stuff and put it on your computer at home running Windows 98. Why? It would crash, we all know it. You don’t try to run a new iPod app on my old iPod!
-the message is the same, you can’t live your old life and be new. God can make you new all you like, but if you keep doing the old things that were problematic, you’re going to end up with the same problems.
-there’s a reason you don’t see someone in Alcoholic’s Anonymous going to visit their friends at the old bar they hung out at. Why? Because it makes sense, no matter how strong you are if you put your new self back in that old environment, the old problems will start to pop up.
-God wants us to be new, but also to have a new life.
**II Cor. 5:17 -> 17This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (NLT)
-this is why you or your friends or people you know at school seem to have problems with Jesus. They like Jesus, they like the idea of being forgiven, but they don’t make any changes. They love Jesus, but they listen to the same music, watch the same movies, hang out with the same friends, read the same books, but also, don’t do new things like read their Bibles or pray, they live the exact same lives as before. And then they wonder why there is no change.
-God is a nice God. He doesn’t force Himself on us. He won’t make us do something even if He knows it’s what’s best for us.
-if you want to be new this year, you have to choose to make some changes. You have a second chance to get in shape, but that means you change what you eat, you start to exercise, you do the things you need to do to keep that resolution. God is giving us a second chance here, but we need to take it.
-that Year of Jubilee, no one handed you back your old land. God allowed for you to get your house back, but you still had to go and get it. If you still lived as a slave, you still worked for someone else, you didn’t get the house, it was gone.
-we need to be new and stop living as slaves.
**Ro. 6:6-7 -> 6We know that our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful selves would have no power over us and we would not be slaves to sin. 7Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control. (NCV)
-and there’s the key. If you are willing to die, kill your old self, then yes, you can be new. You can live a new life. You can have a second chance, but you have to live like you have a second chance.
-so this year, live like you have that second chance. Don’t try to fit God into you lives, fit your life into God. Be who He wants you to be and you’d be surprised how much of a difference it will make.
