What's New? Series

2 Cor 5:17-21 What’s New? 2188 words

People crave for new things today

• New phones, new cars, clothes, hairstyles, and even a new face.

• Go for plastic surgery to get a new nose, new ear, new look, new body...

Especially during New Year, we want to set new goals, new resolutions

• For the Chinese, during CNY, we wear new clothes, new shoes…

• New furniture for the home… If we can change everything, we would.

Anything that is external, that is. That’s what we can change. And it’s simple.

• But we cannot CHANGE us – the real me! I can change my clothes but it’s still me.

• I can spot a new hairdo, but it would still be me.

• I carry with me the same old handicaps, worries, fears… same sadness and miseries.

• No amount of new gadgets, clothes, things can really give me what my heart longs for.

WHY? Because what we need are not new things, but a new life.

• We can have many new things but we cannot have a new life, unless we come back to Christ.

The Bible says only in Jesus Christ can we have a NEW LIFE – a new creation.

• It’s not an EXTERNAL change – I still look the same. It is internal.

• I experience God’s love, joy, peace, and hope. These inspire me.

• Man cannot see these things. The man who looks gorgeous on the outside may be a miserable man. The one who looks shabby may be one of the happiest men around.

So before we are too drawn away by the sights and sounds of this world, tell yourself – “I need to hang on to Jesus.” Do you want to be really happy in life, try getting to know Jesus more.

• Listen to Jesus - John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

• I am already living, why give me life? Obviously it not about just living - we can be living without a life, without meaning and purpose, don’t know what you are living for.

• Jesus refers to an abundant life, a full life. In John 17:3 He says, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Man has made great improvements over the Centuries. The speed at which we are gaining knowledge is amazing. Half of all that we learn in the history of mankind was acquired in the last 10 years! We have made great strides in education, science, technology – the new gadgets we have.

• Yet life has not been better. Life is made easy but not better.

• We live with the same worries and fears, probably MORE. We worry about not having enough; we fear being diagnosed with cancer of some kind; we have relationship problems – at school, at home, at work, even among courting friends. We have more broken families today, a growing number of suicides and divorces today than ever. And we see more violence. We need to have anti-terrorism drills.

• Life has not improved. Why? Because man has fallen away from God.

So if you really want a good life – get back to Jesus. Talk to Him, and keep talking to Him.

Jesus will make you NEW.

It’s like an old house – He did not renovate it, He rebuilt it. Jesus describes in John 2:19, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The life we have in Christ is an entirely NEW creation.

BUYING THE SITE

A man was selling an old warehouse. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Gangs had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and thrown trash everywhere.

As he showed a prospective buyer the property, he took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.

The buyer smiled and said, “Forget about the repairs. When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.”

Jesus puts it this way to Nicodemus, "you must be born again." (John 3:3)

WE HAVE A NEW BOSS

Let me put it to you with the story of a simple, illiterate man who was converted through the work of the Salvation Army. He went regularly to the Salvation Army citadel. One day he came home rather disconsolate.

His wife said, "What’s the matter?"

He said, "I’ve just noticed that all the people in the Salvation Army wear red sweaters, and I don’t have a red sweater."

She said, "I’ll knit one." So she knitted him a red sweater.