Made New - Living The New Life
Bible Reading:
Psalm 148
Revelation 21: 1-8
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
If you watched the CTV news on Thursday evening you probably saw a clip on this man - Eckhart Tolle. A dropout from Cambridge University, he found himself at the brink of collapse and suicide when, he claims, he suddenly experienced an inner transformation. Tolle dropped out of university and walked around London for two years as a vagrant, exploring his newfound consciousness. He wrote a book, The Power of Now, which has sold more than 100,000 copies. He now travels the world lecturing. Celebrities like Meg Ryan and Oprah Winfrey are heeding his message.
"All of life is a journey ... so why not enjoy the journey ... why not enjoy this moment. You will never have anything else," says Tolle.
Enjoy now...
There is something deeply right about what Tolle is saying. Very right.
Stop. Take time to look around. Take it in. Enjoy. For if you don’t, life quickly degenerates into a frenetic rat race. Do I even need to say it? We all know how quickly that happens. Daytimer in one hand, car keys or bus pass in the other and, zoom, out the door we go for another day packed with whatever. Back home for a few quick hours of sleep and out the door again tomorrow. Week in. Week out. Fulfilling, isn’t it??!
Compare that all too common reality to the one that is portrayed in the Bible in Psalm 148. We’ll read this passage and as we do, I’d like to ask you to not only follow along, but - as you do - consider the following:
How the writer of this poem is positioned?
Where is he?
To whom is he speaking?
What is he thinking?
Let’s read together:
PSALM 148
So..... were you able to visualize how the writer of this poem is positioned?
Where he is?
To whom he is speaking?
What he is thinking?
Verses 1-6 is a call to all creatures in the heavens.
Verses 7-12 to all that live below the heavens.
Together with them, aware of them, joined with them, the writer looks to God as the Creator and Care-Giver of their lives.
Life in all the Cosmos. God made and guides it.
And they, all of them, experience it,
and together experience Him, their Creator..
It would be easy to miss, to roar right past it.
But sometimes you simply need to stop what you’re doing and look around to see what life is filled with — what’s up above you in the skies; what’s all around you on the land. And to appreciate the God who placed it all there.
To miss that is to miss an awful lot of the depth and riches and beauty that God has placed here for us. Life becomes a rather thin veneer. Grows old rather quickly. And drains us of vital life energy.
Your response may well be - "Something new, please. I know this."
Perhaps. I know it, too. But, if you’re at all like me, it may well be worth stopping to ask what we’re doing with what we supposedly know.
If you’ve been around Calvin for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard me say that when the Bible speaks of knowing it means two things:
1. understanding
and 2....... well....... do you remember "2"?
2............. taking what you understand and doing something with it.
Life in the Cosmos; life as a human being — far more than just me ‘n my work. Much, much more.
Look up.... and around.
See and appreciate it.
Interact with it.
Together with it give praise to our God and Maker!
Fact is that most of us do precious little of that, no matter how much we may claim to understand it.
Which is why a society hungry for this kind of deepening in life experience comes flocking to a college flunky who can put this message in a new bottle.
Only one thing.
While Tolle may be partly right, he’s missing something.
Tolle is missing something huge.
There is something deadly wrong with what he is teaching.
Listen again to his central statement -
"Why not enjoy the adventure, which is now?
Why not enjoy this moment? You will never have anything else."
Any bells going off? Warning lights flashing?
Let me suggest where they may be by going back to my days in driving school. Like many of you I was taught the "Smith System Of Defensive Driving." A simple but solid system with five basic points:
1. Get the Big Picture - See all around the vehicle.
2. Aim High In Steering - Look at least two city blocks ahead.
3. Keep Your Eyes Moving - Shift your eyes at least every two seconds.
4. Leave Yourself An Out - No cars immediately to the left, right, rear or front of you.
5. Make Sure They Can See You - Clearly communicate your own driving intentions.
Focus on the first two:
- Get the Big Picture
- Aim High In Steering
"Get The Big Picture" is what Psalm 148 is all about:
Looking around and looking up.
Appreciating creation, and giving praise to the Creator.
Very important - something most of us can stand much more of.
But now, get that 2nd point: "Aim High In Steering."
Look ahead, way ahead, to anticipate what’s coming down the road.
And that, you see, is Tolle’s HUGE flaw.
He says, "you will never have anything else than NOW."
Better not tell that to a driver on the 417. The lane and space you occupy at present is not all there is; it is not all that you will encounter. Better look ahead, because there’s more coming......
.......and it may be a truck, or the side of an overpass.
Take Smith’s principle from driving to life in general:
The present is not all there is or will be.
You will encounter more..... FAR more.
Look into Creation, give praise to the Creator, enjoy life as God has granted it to you, and blessed you in the moment.
But don’t leave it there.
Do you know what’s yet to come; what awaits you?
Do you factor that into your planning and living today?
Honestly........
.........do you "Aim High" in steering your life?
May I invite you to read with me the Bible’s vision of what’s down the road.
May I invite you to hear the Holy Spirit’s challenge and directive for "aiming high"?
REVELATION 21: 1-8
The entire book of Revelation is designed to help us aim high - to steer our lives with the future in mind. It does that using vivid picture language to cast a vision of what’s down the road, as it calls us to live towards that vision.
And it is from down the road that we hear the echo of God’s voice -
"I am making everything new." [Rev 21:5]
New heaven.
New earth.
First ones gone.
And no more sea.
Let me start with that – "No more sea."
Please understand that the Jews were NOT sea-loving people. It was an evil place. That idea comes through in Bible imagry:
In Isaiah 57:20 the wicked are compared to the tossing sea which cannot rest, whose waters toss up mire and dirt.
Rev. 13:1 pictures the beast of evil, who blasphemes God and makes war against God’s people, as rising up out of the sea.
No more sea means no more evil.
Romans 8:21 comments:
"Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of children of God."
A new heaven and new earth: It is creation reborn, remade, cleansed, purified, completely overhauled.
A fresh beginning free from the shackles of decay, pain, evil and death.
Forever.
Beginning with Psalm 148, we believe that behind the Creation is the Creator.
He brought the world into being.
He maintains the existing order, keeping it from crumbling into chaos.
Beyond Psalm 148, the Bible’s teaching is that the Creator works to renew the Creation.
This working found its most critical point in the huge celebration and remembrance season we just came through – Good Friday and Easter. The Son of God coming to earth as human – living, carrying our burden of guilt and punishment, dying; then beating death and rising to eternal life.
The renewing process continues even today through the work of Christ’s Spirit as He moulds, shapes, and rebuilds the hearts and lives of believers. Which is why the Bible says:
"If anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation....." [2 Cor 5]
It continues then through these rebuilt believers as they head out into the structures of society to rebuild them.
And all this work ----
the maintaining of a semblance of creation order
the renewing of believers’ hearts and lives
the renewing of society and creation
All of this happens with a goal in mind.
It is NOT merely spinning on some treadmill.
And it is definitely NOT, as some contemporary spiritual leaders may want to suggest, just going around and around as some grand circle of life -
some huge hamster wheel without beginning or end
Cosmic life is moving towards an end point.
That end point is the day that Revelation 21 envisions.
New - new heaven; new earth....... New.
And yet with a familiar echo to it.
God is right present with humanity.
No tears, pain, suffering or death.
Can you hear them???
The echos of Paradise?
And as much as Paradise is connected with the reality we experience today, so will final Paradise - the New Creation -
so will it be connected to what we now experience.
Only far grander.
Unimaginably so.
1 Corinthians 15 uses gardening language to describe it. It talks about the body experience -- comparing what we have now to what is waiting at the end of the road. "The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
Many of you, I’m sure, plant some seeds in Spring. Small, dry, hard. You drop them in the ground. Then, miracle of miracles, a green shoot pokes out of the ground and turns into a vital, lush plant.
Same DNA, but much richer and more beautiful than the mere seed.
Rev. 21 gives us a peek at that vitality, that lushness, that riches which awaits believers at the last day when Jesus returns.
Which is what Philippians 3:20-21 refers to when it says -
"....We eagerly await a Savior from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
David Anderson, in a beautiful sermon on Revelation 21, tells of the lemming, the salmon, the caterpillar. All three are on a mission.
The lemming - well, you know the legend of this arctic rodent; how it rushes with a herd mindlessly off the cliff, plunging to a meaningless death.
And the salmon. Have you ever watched them in spawning season - determined, relentlessly fighting and moving upstream to spawn...... and then to collapse and die.
And, then, the caterpillar – also on the move. Eventually spinning a cocoon and resting dormant for a time. Only to break out of that shell one day to emerge as a vibrant, beautiful butterfly. Life is take to a whole new level.
Think of our life today as the caterpillar stage. And earthly death, when we face it, is the dormant stage. One day Jesus will break us out into a glorious life on a whole new level. More spectacular than we can ever imagine!
Revelation 21 is a picture of what one person calls, "The end of the beginning." [Gary Vanderet]
What we are living now, the existence shaped and framed by Psalm 148, is just the first inning, the prelude to the full symphony. And the power of God, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, directs the flow of that symphony.
Aim high as you live, believer.
See what is to come.
And take heart.
Take heart in your working and serving for Jesus.
As you lobby and fight for just structures in society; struggling to consider and promote Christian policy alternatives.
As you seek to be an influence for Jesus in the world of industry and commerce. As you strive to bring His Lordship into the classroom.
As you allow Jesus to affect the way you live as a neighbor, as a family member.
For the seeds you sow today will be taken by Jesus, nurtured, and one day brought to bloom in ways more spectacular than you ever imagine.
And take heart in the times when grief is suffered, when hurt is experienced, and life runs off the rails.
Remember that you do not struggle here alone.
Jesus sees, understands, is with you, and working for you towards a day of renewal. He who will one day heal all our hurts, invites us to trust him in our grief today.
God invites us to walk in faith, to seek him in the midst of our pain, to discover his comfort, his love, his forgiveness, his strength, as we look forward to that final healing moment. [Timothy Peck]
The story is told of an elderly grandmother who lived with her children and grandchildren. She had a full, and sometimes difficult life. Poverty. War. Widowhood for many years. Crippling pain.
Yet, there was something about her. An air of hope. Something buoyed her. Everyone around noticed. And some wondered.
One day the conversation turned towards what would be reality in the near future – her funeral wishes. How would she like to be remembered?
"Oh," said grandmother. "Please keep it simple. Just one thing I ask. When you lay out my body during the wake, I’d like to be wearing the last dress your father gave me. And.... please..... make sure there’s a fork in my hand."
"A fork?" asked her son-in-law. "Whatever for?"
"Do you remember dinner time as a child?" replied the Christian woman. "Remember how your father and I said to clear the dishes, but keep your fork...... Keep your fork because the best part, dessert, is yet to come. Son, that’s how I’ve been living all these years. Jesus is preparing the best part. And when I’m gone, this is how I want everyone to know it.
So when they ask you, tell them.
Keep your fork.
The best is yet to come."
