The Hope of New Life

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Merry, wet and warm Christmas to you all!

Grace and peace to each one of you

I trust that this morning the God of Hope is revealed to you

This Advent season, we have been focusing on Hope.

We, as people, are desperate for hope. Life without hope is a miserable life

But the hope that we are talking about is not some vague and helpless wish that something will take place.

No! The hope that the Bible talks about is a confident expectation that something will take place, or is taking place right now.

We’ve been talking about how sin entered this world as recorded for us in Gen chapter 3

We call that event The Fall of Mankind.

And when sin entered this world, hope departed.

Mankind was cut off from God and became the most desperate and hopeless of Creatures.

However, God wasn’t done with His people. And He had a plan in place to restore Hope

And it’s through Jesus, whose birth we celebrate today, that we have hope. A true, real, confident expectation! A Living Hope

We looked at

How the Fall broke our relationship with God and the hope of reconciliation that we have through Jesus

How the Fall put us in bondage to sin, yet we have hope of deliverance in Jesus

How the fall brought weariness, pain, and toil to our world, and into our lives, yet we have hope of rest in Jesus

And today I invite us to think briefly about how the Fall brought death into the world. I know we don’t want to talk about death at Christmas

But we must acknowledge the reality of our situation before we can fully appreciate the Hope that we have!

But through Jesus, we have the hope of new life.

Back to Adam and Eve in the garden

God had told them that the Garden was theirs to use. Everything in it was available to them

Except for one thing.

And that was the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God told them, the day that you eat that fruit, you will certainly die.

But Eve was tempted by the serpent who came to her and said

“Hey, did God really say that? Did He really say that if you eat that fruit, you will die?”

“I don’t think that’s what He really meant to communicate. Rather, He doesn’t want you to eat that fruit because He knows that the day that you do eat it, you will become like Him.”

And satan, speaking through the serpent, twisted the truth just enough that Adam and Eve were persuaded and they took the fruit and put it to their mouths

And the moment that they bit into it

What God said would happen, did indeed happen.

They died

No, they didn’t drop over on the ground

But something almost far worse happened:

They died spiritually. Their source of spiritual life was cut off and immediately they died spiritually, and they began to die physically.

It was at this point that sin entered the world

And with sin, death also entered the world

Romans 5:12 “12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”

The Bible is pretty clear that death is the direct result of sin.

When they sinned, it was at this point that death also entered the world

Disease and pain and death entered the world

Human beings, mankind, began to feel the terrible weight of what had happened

Their days became numbered

The aging process began

The ugliness of sin crept into their hearts and they began to do terrible things to each other

One of Adam and Eve’s sons killed his brother

And things became worse and worse

warfare and fighting entered the world

We have wars in the Ukraine and in Gaza, and Sudan, and in places that don’t even make it into the news

City streets in places like Chicago are literal killing fields

(although I just read that violent crime in Chicago is actually down, which is good)

And today we are all touched, sometimes in the most tragic of ways with death

Our hearts are separated from God, the Giver of Life

Our bodies are weak and die

Without a doubt, we know well our need for new life

But it was at the Fall as well that even all of creation began to die

It was at this point that even the earth began to feel the terrible weight of what had just happened.

Even The earth suffers from sin. Not its own sin, but our sin

The earth suffers from our sinful use of it

All the ways in which we use the earth for our own sinful and selfish desires instead of for the glory of God.

But even more than that, the Bible says that when Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground

And the earth is growing tired and dying as well

Natural resources are being used up at a tremendous rate. I don’t believe that the earth can sustain human life indefinitely

We deal with air pollution and water pollution

There are earthquakes, and violent storms, and wild fires, droughts and floods

Even the earth is suffering from the weight of sin that has entered the world

Romans 8 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (NLT)

Yes, all of creation was subjected to the curse and has been groaning, eagerly awaiting for redemption, for new life

But, I don’t want to dwell on death today.

What I want to talk about is

The tremendous hope that we celebrate today! The hope of new life in Jesus!

This is what Jesus came to do: To give new life to those who believe!

In John chapter 1 it says that “in Him (Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men”.

Jesus called Himself, “the Bread of Life”

He said, “I have living water for you to drink”

He said, “I have come to give you life. Abundant life! Life to the fullest!”

When His friend Lazarus died, Jesus said to Lazarus’ sister, Martha, “I am the Resurrection and the Life”.

Jesus said to His disciples, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life!”

there is no doubt about it. When you receive Jesus, by faith, you receive new life!

You move from death to life!

And as we abide in Him, Jesus continues His work of renewing, recreating, and bringing life

In Jesus we have

the hope of a new heart

It’s made clear in Scripture, that the deep problem that we have is that our hearts are dead apart from Christ

Thinking about the children of Israel and all the problems that they had staying faithful to God

The problem that they had was that their hearts were dead

And try as they might, it was impossible for them to stay completely faithful to God.

It was impossible for them to obtain righteousness by obeying the law in its entirety

God knew that. But, of course, the whole purpose of the law was to point out that very fact: that human beings on their own cannot hope to attain to the righteous standard of perfection that God demands

The purpose of the law was to point us toward the hope that we have in Jesus

The purpose of the law was to point out to us that we need a new heart

Because the one that we are born with is one that is dead apart from God, our Creator, the Giver of Life

We need a heart transplant

Ezekiel 36:25–27 “25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

This is the promise of a new heart. Not a new organ that pumps blood

But it’s the transformation of the deepest part of you:

Your motives

Your desires

Your affections

that part of us from which we live

But that’s not all

God says, “I’m going to put my Spirit inside of you”. His very power and presence living inside of us

That is the promise that God made to His people centuries ago

And this prophecy, this promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ

When Jesus left this earth, He sent the Holy Spirit

And the Holy Spirit is the very spirit of God who lives in us and with us

And the Holy Spirit:

Cleanses us

Transforms us

Empowers us

by faith in Christ, we receive a new heart. We receive newness of life…abundant life

So, the hope that we celebrate today is the hope of a new heart

And looking forward, we celebrate

the hope of a new body

I know that we look forward to this!

I know. I’m not very old. But, believe me, this is something that I have been dealing with, honestly

It seems about the time I turned 50, I really noticed a change in my body.

My eyesight (reading eyesight) really went to pot

the battle of the bulge became more pronounced

decrease in appetite, but not a decrease in weight

And as these things started to go away, the invincible feeling that I might have had at one time started to be shaken as well

Our bodies really are pretty weak, and at any moment what health we have can be taken from us

But we have a great hope that one day these bodies will be replaced with bodies that don’t get sick, don’t age, and will never die.

in 1 Cor. 15, Paul makes this very clear.

The bodies that we have are scarred by sin.

And we can’t inherit perfection, we can’t live forever in the presence of God with bodies that are ravaged by the effects of sin

No! We need new bodies: imperishable bodies as he calls them. Ones that don’t age, don’t get sick and don’t die

So, he says, one day, this perishable body that we have, will put on an imperishable body

This mortal body will put on immortality

And, at that point, he says, “death will be swallowed up in victory!”

Sin will be forever conquered and done away with, and, therefore, there will be no more death

What an amazing hope this is! Are you looking forward to that day? I sure am!

the hope of a new world

Oh man, this is another one that I’m looking forward to!

You know, I often wonder what this country looked like before European settlers arrived

A vast, wild and beautiful place inhabited by nomadic tribes, massive herds of bison,

vast forests

A landscape unmarked by city highrises, highways, and powerlines

Rivers, lakes and streams unpolluted by toxic runoff

It must have been something!

We can only imagine what this world looked like when God finished His work of creation

And there are times when I wish I could live back then and see what people back then saw

But you know, I am looking forward to a day when God will recreate this world and give it a complete makeover

And once again it will display the perfection of His handiwork

I love John’s vision in the book of Revelation

Many times we might read Revelation and we see the aweful and mysterious things described in there, and we think, “Oh no! God is going to destroy this world!” And it seems awful

But you know, I don’t think that is a very accurate picture

Because God isn’t in the business of destroying. He is in the business of renewal and new life

I believe that it is not in God’s plane to destroy this earth

Rather, He desires to renew it. He desires to give it a complete makeover

Maybe a picture from our experience is if we restore an old house or an old car.

You don’t destroy the old car. Rather you get out your sandpaper and grind away the old. you fill in the dents and the cracks.

You get out your paint and give it a beautiful new coat

And maybe that’s a picture of what God has in mind

He’s going to get out His sandpaper and completely rub out the scars of sin

He’s going to get out His paint and varnish and renew this earth

And it’s going to look like a completely new earth

The apostle John wraps up his revelation with this vision:

Revelation 21:1–4 “1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””

Folks, I can’t wait for this day!

A new heaven, a new earth

And the dwelling place of God coming down to earth

God Himself living among us, bringing peace and comfort and a world free from sin and free from death

THIS is the hope that we celebrate today!

Jesus has come to give us life. And the invitation stands open this morning!

Have you received Him? Have you tasted of the life that Jesus brings?

Do you have the very real hope of a new body and life with Him

if not, this is your opportunity this morning

The reason that we have any of this hope is because of Jesus, who came so many years ago