A New Creation in a New Year

Introduction

Well, here we are at the end of another year, another difficult year. We have suffered the loss of many a family member and friend.

But even as difficult as this last year has been, I can not help but look forward to the new year. It has such a nice ring to it, the new year. We like things that are new. Perhaps you may have received something new over the Christmas season, not counting the new charges on your credit card.

I remember how excited my daughter used to get every time she got a new phone. I generally keep a phone until the battery will no longer stay charged, but she liked getting her phone upgraded as soon as possible after the next model came out.

It is a real social event whenever a new iPhone is introduced. People will camp out for days just to be at the head of the line. I have to admit, I sometimes yield to the excitement of something new myself.

I recently got a new camera, well not new really, it’s used but new to me, and it is exciting. I have only had that camera for about a month and have already taken over a thousand photographs with it. I get excited when I think about the possibility of all the new locations I can go to, new opportunities I will have to take that very capable camera out into the field in pursuit of new images of birds and wildlife and landscapes and sunsets, maybe even the occasional person.

One thing that naturally seems to come from the New Year is making New Year’s resolutions. The two most popular are exercising more and losing weight. According to a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychology only 46% percent of people who made new year’s resolutions are successful.

But you know a part of that study also involved non-resolver, those people who had a goal they wanted to achieve that year but who did not make a new year’s resolution. Only 4% of the non-resolves were successful in achieving their goal.

So it appears there may be some value after all in new year’s resolutions. There may be some value in “resolving” to achieve those goals.

Today I want to talk about something new that should have us all excited, but it has nothing to do with a new years resolution. Let us turn to:

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

First let’s think about what it means to be “in Christ.” This was one of Paul’s favorite formulas and occurs 164 times in his letters. We have all heard that term but how much time have your really spent thinking about what it means?

In Christ

In Christ. It is a relatively strange phrase and one that hardly sees any use in ordinary life. Imagine, if you will, a person who was a close friend of Franklin Roosevelt. Someone who had spent many years in close company with him, and then had dedicated 10 years to writing of his life.

He might characterize his relationship with him in many different ways. He might say that he feared the man, or admired him, or even loved him, but he would never say “I am a man in Roosevelt.” It would have never occurred to him to use such a phrase, but Paul was, above all else, a man in Christ.

Being “in Christ” transcends any other kind of relationship that we can have on this earth.

I want you to do a little exercise with me. Hold up your left hand. This will represent Christ. Now hold up your right index finger. This represents you. Now, wrap your left hand around your right index finger. What do you see? You see Christ. You don’t see yourself at all because Christ is covering you. So it is with faith. When you believe in Jesus Christ, when you are in Christ, your faith covers you with Jesus Christ and His righteousness.

In Galatians 2:20 Paul says:

Galatians 2:20 ESV

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Now what happens when you are “in Christ?” You are a:

New Creation

Once you place your faith in Christ you are a new creation. Not a renewed creation, not a modified creation, not an overhauled creation, you are a new creation. There is a significant difference is something that is new and something this is renewed.

When you go out to a restaurant to eat, you expect to be served something that is new, not something from yesterday’s menu that has been renewed.

There was a man who was interested in purchasing some real estate. He went to look at some property, and as he did the current owners realized that the property was in need of some upkeep. They told the man they would fix things up a little before he took possession. The man said, "Forget it". "I don't want the building. I just want the site."

God isn't interested in our trying to fix up the building before we come to Him. He's interested in the site. Then He can build what He wants on it. That requires a new creation.

In Galatians 6 Paul says:

Galatians 6:14–15 ESV

14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Here Paul is saying that the only thing he takes pride in is his relationship with Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that was made on his behalf.

Previously Paul was an important man in the Jewish religious administration. He thought that he had a lot to be proud of, and by the standards of the world, and the Jewish circles he moved in, he did. In Philippians 3 Paul says:

Philippians 3:4–8 ESV

4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

He also says that is doesn’t matter where you came from, what your previous religious affiliation was, the only thing that matters is being a new creation, being in Christ. Paul states this more plainly in Galatians Chapter 3.

Galatians 3:28 ESV

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Returning to our original passage:

2 cor 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

The old has passed away

It’s kind of like the New Year. When 2022 comes, 2021 will pass away never to return. You may have memories of that year, you may even wish to go back to some previous year, but you cannot. The old year has passed away and the new year has come to take its place.

This is a lesson we would do well to learn. As a new creation we cannot return to that old life, although many people try to do so. The result when a new creation tries to return to the old life is a person who will be totally miserable. If you return to that old way of life and suffer no issues of the heart or conscience from it, then I would have to doubt that you were ever a New Creation to begin with.

The old and new cannot mix any more than 2021 and 2022 can mix. Jesus tells it this way in a parable from Luke, Chapter 5:

Luke 5:36–38 ESV

36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

You have to understand that Jesus is not talking about patching an old garment or an old wineskin, He is talking about the separation between the old man and the new creation. He is talking about the fact that you cannot mix the old and the new, you cannot combine the “old man” with the “new creation.”

The next thing we see in 2 Corinthians 5 is where Paul says “Behold.” That means take notice. Pay attention because something important is being imparted. Something is changing that you need to be aware of. I had a teacher in high school who occasionally would say “If I were you, I would pay attention to this.” You could bet that what he was about to say would soon appear on a test.

Behold:

The New has Come

The new has come and only those in Christ can be “new.”

Ephesians 4:17–24 ESV

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

I read a story about a Communist who was testifying in a public park about the benefits of communism. He pointed to a man in tattered cloths who was standing nearby and said “Communism will put a new suit on that man. There happened to be a old preacher in the crowd who replied “Christ will put a new man in that suit.”

Conclusion

A famous English cleric named John Stott said this:

I find it helpful to think in these terms. Our biography is written in two volumes. Volume one is the story of the old man, the old self, of me before my conversion. Volume two is the story of the new man, the new self, of me after I was made a new creation in Christ.

Volume one of my biography ended with the judicial death of the old self. I was a sinner. I deserved to die. I did die.… Volume two of my biography opened with my resurrection. My old life having finished, a new life to God has begun. We are simply called to “reckon” this—not to pretend it, but to realize it. It is a fact. And we have to lay hold of it.

We have to let our minds play upon these truths. We have to meditate upon them until we grasp them firmly. We have to keep saying to ourselves, “Volume one has closed. You are now living in volume two. It is inconceivable that you should reopen volume one. It is not impossible, but it is inconceivable.

This is a good time of year to be thinking about new things. A new year brings new opportunities, a time to consider a new start, a time to make those resolutions to improve our health, or our relationships.

During this time of gift giving and receiving, is a good time to think about the most precious gift that we will ever receive and that is our salvation granted by a gracious God upon our commitment to Him.

It is a time that we should spend some serious time thinking about if we are honoring God by living up to the opportunity He has provided us by making us into a new creation. Are we honoring that new title of Christian that has been bestowed upon us?

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, once offered WGN Chicago Radio sports-talk host David Kaplan $50,000 to legally change his name to “Dallas Maverick.”

When Kaplan politely declined, Cuban sweetened the offer. Cuban would pay Kaplan $100,000 and donate $100,000 to Kaplan’s favorite charity if he took the name for one year.

After some soul-searching, and being bombarded by e-mails from listeners who said he was crazy to turn down the money, Kaplan held firm and told Cuban no. Kaplan explained: “I’d be saying I’d do anything for money, and that bothers me. My name is my birthright. I’d like to preserve my integrity and credibility.”

“Christian” is the birthright name of every follower of Jesus Christ. We have a responsibility to live everyday in a way that brings honor to that name.