So, What's New?
Sermon
Something's Coming ... Something Great
Sermons For Advent, Christmas And Epiphany
"So, what's new?" he asked. It happens all the time. You meet someone on the street you have not seen for awhile. "What's new?" "Oh, nothing much, really. How 'bout with you?" That's the way a lot of conversations go, but I wonder what would happen if just once as a Christian I had the courage to respond: "I'll tell you what's new - it's the good news of what God has done for this world in Jesus Christ!" That would be a startling answer, but here at the beginning of a new year, that kind of bold announcement might be a refreshing change from the hackneyed, "Happy New Year," or the clever greeting someone gave me this past week: "Pastor, may all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions!"
So what is new about what God has done for the world in the lives of the Hebrew people and supremely in Jesus Christ? The prophet Jeremiah - who incidentally, was not a bullfrog as the old song implies - announces in our text some of the new things that God has in mind for the people of Israel following the terrible experiences of exile and dispersion. In fact, in some of the most memorable and poignant words the Old Testament has to offer, Jeremiah lays out in very human terms the new age that God will inaugurate when Israel is restored and the Messiah reigns in power over this earth. Jeremiah suggests at least three dramatic changes that can take place right now if we will let God's Messiah, Jesus Christ, reign in our hearts in this new year.
1. A New Beginning
First is the promise of a new beginning. Jeremiah says, "The Lord has saved the people, the remnant of Israel. The Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him." Do you hear those key words? Jeremiah speaks of God saving us, ransoming us, redeeming us and that is precisely the new beginning God offers each of us in Jesus Christ! This is no vague injunction to "look on the brighter side of things in the new year." I chuckled over the little boy who signed up for Little League baseball. After the first day his father asked him how he made out. Billy replied: "The coach says I'm the best of the worst three!" That's a wonderful attitude, but the new beginning Jeremiah speaks of is something far more radical. It is nothing less than the opportunity to wipe the past slate clean, to start over again, to know one's life is cleansed by the forgiving grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Jim was a business executive who had been in and out of church for most of his life. Last year during Lent, Jim was invited to join a small group in his church that was committed to studying the Bible, praying and sharing together for six weeks. The six weeks were wonderful, but something very unexpected happened on the last evening together. The leader invited the members to share anything new in their lives as a result of their time together. Jim found himself saying, "I am forgiven" and he choked up. Tears began to flow down his cheeks. He repeated the words once more, "I know I am forgiven." Jim's life would never be the same again.
Diane had a similar experience in another Lenten group. For 15 years she had carried inside her soul the hurt of a divorce and the awful sense that she had failed herself, her family, her church and her God. Through the weeks together in the group, she put others to the test as if trying to prove that this forgiveness and grace everyone talked about could not possibly be for her. It was several weeks after the group ended that from deep inside Diane came a witness of the Holy Spirit, and she suddenly knew that God's forgiveness was for her! A radiant new person emerged from a 15-year-old cocoon.
The history of Christianity begins for every person at precisely this same starting point. Mary Magdalene, Martin Luther, you and I, we all start over when the awesome reality of God's forgiving grace enters our lives. This is why God's Son came into our world - to make possible in God's love a new beginning.
2. A New Belonging
But Jeremiah's vision of a new age includes not only a new beginning but a new belonging as well. "Behold, says the Lord, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth. He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock." George Gallup is continually discovering millions of Americans who think of themselves as "believers" but not "belongers." But there is no such possibility in the kingdom of God. God's plan from the very beginning was to make a united people who would reveal God's glory to the nations. Jesus brought people into a community of faith. Christians were never meant to be isolated individuals. We are bound together in Jesus by the Spirit to serve as witnesses to all the world that God's love overcomes all barriers.
How broken our lives are when we try to live them separately! How desperately we need to be bound together in love! How little we know of God's grace when we isolate ourselves or even hide from one another! I often recall the fellow who moved into a new town and decided to visit a number of churches. Some had great preaching. Others had beautiful buildings and fabulous youth and music programs. But one day he came into a little church a few minutes late. The people were praying a prayer together and the words of the prayer were: "We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done." When the prayer ended, the man turned to the person next to him and said, "Thank God. I think I have found my crowd at last!" But you see, that is God's design that we be knit together in a family of faith, a people who belong together in the common experience of God's grace in Jesus Christ.
Sometimes, however, we forget Jeremiah's vision of a whole people belonging to God and instead, we set limits on God's love and grace. I remember reading of a pastor who was trying to bring a young black man to a place where he would accept Christ as his savior. The young man listened and then told this story. When he had been a boy of 10 or 11, they had a revival in his town in the white church. The black boy and his mother went for several nights and sat in the back pew. Night after night the boy heard the stories about the love of Jesus. It excited him and thrilled him. Then the leader of the revival announced that everyone who believed in Jesus and wanted to be baptized, should be at the river at a certain time and should wear a white robe. The boy's mother made him a white robe and he went down the next day to the river. All the other people at the river were white, but that did not bother the boy because he knew he loved Jesus and Jesus loved him. They began baptizing men and women, boys and girls. All of them were baptized and then they left. All of them, that is, except this little black boy. They left him standing by the river alone.'
Jesus died because of prejudice like that, but he rose from the dead to demonstrate for all time that hatred and prejudice and every evil that keeps us apart can be conquered by the amazing and limitless love of God. We can experience a new belonging in this year if we let the Spirit of God draw us into the community of faith where it is possible to love others as God has loved us in Christ.
3. A New Being
Jeremiah's vision includes not only a new beginning and a new belonging, but the possibility of a whole new being. The prophet speaks of people "being radiant over the goodness of the Lord," and promises a life where God will turn "mourning into joy." Those words suggest a whole new life where love, justice, righteousness, peace, truth and purity become the hallmarks of everyday life.
Some years ago I saw a T-shirt that had a picture of an apple on the front with a bite taken out of it. Above the apple was written "Not Perfect." Below the apple were the words "Just Forgiven." Now that is clever, but I have some trouble with that message. There is no question about our being "Not Perfect." That's my story and your story! What bothers me is the phrase "Just Forgiven." We are not just forgiven! This is not a gospel about a ticket to heaven, but a gospel of transforming power for life right now! God intends those who make a new beginning in Christ who now belong to a new community, to look and act like new persons! We are not just forgiven so we can stay sinners. We are forgiven and renewed so that we can become the agents of God's reconciliation in this world. To put it another way, think of the familiar lines of the hymn "Amazing Grace." Why would God want to "save a wretch like me" just to leave me "a wretch!" We are a people who have been saved in order to serve, and that ought to show in our daily living.
Do you recall the old story of why the man fell out of bed? According to the story, he stayed too close to where he got in! Do you know why some people fall out of church and out of a vital relationship with Jesus Christ? The same answer, they stay around the edges of the gospel. They attend, they sing, they pray and they give, but they fail to make that inner surrender in their heart to the Living Christ that opens the way for us to become new beings - whole new people in Christ. We are like the woman who picked up a bottle of perfume at the store counter and tried it. The salesperson said, "This perfume is called 'Surrender' and it is our hottest item. Would you like to try it?" The woman hesitated and then said, "It's nice, but do you have anything called 'Negotiate'?"
Unfortunately a lot of us want something less than a surrender of our lives to the Living Lord. But a new being and a truly new year in our lives become possible only when we put our lives into the hands of the master and let God reshape us into the likeness of Christ, and use us in bringing righteousness and redemption to the whole world.
In a hotel in Norway a little girl loved to play the piano. She knew one song, and every morning she would play that song much to the disgust of the guests. It did not seem to be a very pretty song and she did not play it very well. But one night a famous pianist stayed at that hotel. In the morning he was awakened by the little girl playing her song. He quickly threw on his robe and went downstairs to where the child was playing. He said to her, "I know that song. Will you let me play it along with you?" The little girl said, "Yes," and the pianist sat down at the keyboard and with the child on his lap, began playing that same melody. But this time it was so beautiful that everyone stopped to listen. The girl played along with the pianist but the music blended so well because the master player was in control. If we will give our lives to Christ, something of that new radiance and joy that Jeremiah foretold so long ago will help us become new beings in Christ.
So, what's new in this new year? In Jesus Christ you and I can have a new beginning, a new belonging, and a new being. That's good news! Why don't you share that good news the next time someone says to you, "What's new?"
So what is new about what God has done for the world in the lives of the Hebrew people and supremely in Jesus Christ? The prophet Jeremiah - who incidentally, was not a bullfrog as the old song implies - announces in our text some of the new things that God has in mind for the people of Israel following the terrible experiences of exile and dispersion. In fact, in some of the most memorable and poignant words the Old Testament has to offer, Jeremiah lays out in very human terms the new age that God will inaugurate when Israel is restored and the Messiah reigns in power over this earth. Jeremiah suggests at least three dramatic changes that can take place right now if we will let God's Messiah, Jesus Christ, reign in our hearts in this new year.
1. A New Beginning
First is the promise of a new beginning. Jeremiah says, "The Lord has saved the people, the remnant of Israel. The Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him." Do you hear those key words? Jeremiah speaks of God saving us, ransoming us, redeeming us and that is precisely the new beginning God offers each of us in Jesus Christ! This is no vague injunction to "look on the brighter side of things in the new year." I chuckled over the little boy who signed up for Little League baseball. After the first day his father asked him how he made out. Billy replied: "The coach says I'm the best of the worst three!" That's a wonderful attitude, but the new beginning Jeremiah speaks of is something far more radical. It is nothing less than the opportunity to wipe the past slate clean, to start over again, to know one's life is cleansed by the forgiving grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Jim was a business executive who had been in and out of church for most of his life. Last year during Lent, Jim was invited to join a small group in his church that was committed to studying the Bible, praying and sharing together for six weeks. The six weeks were wonderful, but something very unexpected happened on the last evening together. The leader invited the members to share anything new in their lives as a result of their time together. Jim found himself saying, "I am forgiven" and he choked up. Tears began to flow down his cheeks. He repeated the words once more, "I know I am forgiven." Jim's life would never be the same again.
Diane had a similar experience in another Lenten group. For 15 years she had carried inside her soul the hurt of a divorce and the awful sense that she had failed herself, her family, her church and her God. Through the weeks together in the group, she put others to the test as if trying to prove that this forgiveness and grace everyone talked about could not possibly be for her. It was several weeks after the group ended that from deep inside Diane came a witness of the Holy Spirit, and she suddenly knew that God's forgiveness was for her! A radiant new person emerged from a 15-year-old cocoon.
The history of Christianity begins for every person at precisely this same starting point. Mary Magdalene, Martin Luther, you and I, we all start over when the awesome reality of God's forgiving grace enters our lives. This is why God's Son came into our world - to make possible in God's love a new beginning.
2. A New Belonging
But Jeremiah's vision of a new age includes not only a new beginning but a new belonging as well. "Behold, says the Lord, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth. He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock." George Gallup is continually discovering millions of Americans who think of themselves as "believers" but not "belongers." But there is no such possibility in the kingdom of God. God's plan from the very beginning was to make a united people who would reveal God's glory to the nations. Jesus brought people into a community of faith. Christians were never meant to be isolated individuals. We are bound together in Jesus by the Spirit to serve as witnesses to all the world that God's love overcomes all barriers.
How broken our lives are when we try to live them separately! How desperately we need to be bound together in love! How little we know of God's grace when we isolate ourselves or even hide from one another! I often recall the fellow who moved into a new town and decided to visit a number of churches. Some had great preaching. Others had beautiful buildings and fabulous youth and music programs. But one day he came into a little church a few minutes late. The people were praying a prayer together and the words of the prayer were: "We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done." When the prayer ended, the man turned to the person next to him and said, "Thank God. I think I have found my crowd at last!" But you see, that is God's design that we be knit together in a family of faith, a people who belong together in the common experience of God's grace in Jesus Christ.
Sometimes, however, we forget Jeremiah's vision of a whole people belonging to God and instead, we set limits on God's love and grace. I remember reading of a pastor who was trying to bring a young black man to a place where he would accept Christ as his savior. The young man listened and then told this story. When he had been a boy of 10 or 11, they had a revival in his town in the white church. The black boy and his mother went for several nights and sat in the back pew. Night after night the boy heard the stories about the love of Jesus. It excited him and thrilled him. Then the leader of the revival announced that everyone who believed in Jesus and wanted to be baptized, should be at the river at a certain time and should wear a white robe. The boy's mother made him a white robe and he went down the next day to the river. All the other people at the river were white, but that did not bother the boy because he knew he loved Jesus and Jesus loved him. They began baptizing men and women, boys and girls. All of them were baptized and then they left. All of them, that is, except this little black boy. They left him standing by the river alone.'
Jesus died because of prejudice like that, but he rose from the dead to demonstrate for all time that hatred and prejudice and every evil that keeps us apart can be conquered by the amazing and limitless love of God. We can experience a new belonging in this year if we let the Spirit of God draw us into the community of faith where it is possible to love others as God has loved us in Christ.
3. A New Being
Jeremiah's vision includes not only a new beginning and a new belonging, but the possibility of a whole new being. The prophet speaks of people "being radiant over the goodness of the Lord," and promises a life where God will turn "mourning into joy." Those words suggest a whole new life where love, justice, righteousness, peace, truth and purity become the hallmarks of everyday life.
Some years ago I saw a T-shirt that had a picture of an apple on the front with a bite taken out of it. Above the apple was written "Not Perfect." Below the apple were the words "Just Forgiven." Now that is clever, but I have some trouble with that message. There is no question about our being "Not Perfect." That's my story and your story! What bothers me is the phrase "Just Forgiven." We are not just forgiven! This is not a gospel about a ticket to heaven, but a gospel of transforming power for life right now! God intends those who make a new beginning in Christ who now belong to a new community, to look and act like new persons! We are not just forgiven so we can stay sinners. We are forgiven and renewed so that we can become the agents of God's reconciliation in this world. To put it another way, think of the familiar lines of the hymn "Amazing Grace." Why would God want to "save a wretch like me" just to leave me "a wretch!" We are a people who have been saved in order to serve, and that ought to show in our daily living.
Do you recall the old story of why the man fell out of bed? According to the story, he stayed too close to where he got in! Do you know why some people fall out of church and out of a vital relationship with Jesus Christ? The same answer, they stay around the edges of the gospel. They attend, they sing, they pray and they give, but they fail to make that inner surrender in their heart to the Living Christ that opens the way for us to become new beings - whole new people in Christ. We are like the woman who picked up a bottle of perfume at the store counter and tried it. The salesperson said, "This perfume is called 'Surrender' and it is our hottest item. Would you like to try it?" The woman hesitated and then said, "It's nice, but do you have anything called 'Negotiate'?"
Unfortunately a lot of us want something less than a surrender of our lives to the Living Lord. But a new being and a truly new year in our lives become possible only when we put our lives into the hands of the master and let God reshape us into the likeness of Christ, and use us in bringing righteousness and redemption to the whole world.
In a hotel in Norway a little girl loved to play the piano. She knew one song, and every morning she would play that song much to the disgust of the guests. It did not seem to be a very pretty song and she did not play it very well. But one night a famous pianist stayed at that hotel. In the morning he was awakened by the little girl playing her song. He quickly threw on his robe and went downstairs to where the child was playing. He said to her, "I know that song. Will you let me play it along with you?" The little girl said, "Yes," and the pianist sat down at the keyboard and with the child on his lap, began playing that same melody. But this time it was so beautiful that everyone stopped to listen. The girl played along with the pianist but the music blended so well because the master player was in control. If we will give our lives to Christ, something of that new radiance and joy that Jeremiah foretold so long ago will help us become new beings in Christ.
So, what's new in this new year? In Jesus Christ you and I can have a new beginning, a new belonging, and a new being. That's good news! Why don't you share that good news the next time someone says to you, "What's new?"
