- Chris Ley
Making All Things New: God’s Greatest Work
DECLINE
It is Resolution Season. Over the next few days we strive to improve ourselves: improve our waistline, our lifestyle, our bank balance, our happiness.
And yet, we ignore the simple reality that we are not improving; we are declining.
We are not ascending up to the peak of our lives, rather all of us are moving one step closer to the grave.
“What is time but the inevitable, perennial march towards our own mortality” says of all people Jerry Seinfeld.
A new year reminds many of us that we are getting older, getting slower, getting more stiff and more frail.
We are perishing.
As the years roll on, we lose our youth. We lose our health. We lose our memory and our ability. We lose our relevance and fame. We lose family, lose friends. We lose our energy, we lose our beauty. All is vanity, all is vapour, a breath, which goes as quickly as it comes.
All around us, our world is passing away. Everything around us is declining.
I think this is why we as humans are so captivated when we see projects of restoration.
When something that is declining is taken and made like-new, even better than before, we are mesmerised. Because it is pushing back the harsh reality of our existence: that from dust we are created, and to dust we shall return.
There is restoration all around us: home renovations, painting restorations, personal make-overs, haircuts for the homeless, make-up – all these things look to overcome the harsh reality that time brings decline by striving to make things new.
RESTORATION
God is a God of Restoration.
Of taking what is empty and filling it.
Of taking what is broken and fixing it even better than before.
In Isaiah God promises to take his homeless, hopeless people and restore them even better than before.
In Revelation Jesus tells us at the fulfillment of time that he is making all things new. Not that he is making all new things, but rather than he will restore what is already here: broken, empty, frail – and make it all good as new.
God’s cosmic plan on Earth is to restore. To re-create. To re-deem. To re-make.
And this work starts with you.
In 2018, seek the God of restoration. Dump your broken, messy life at his feet, and experience the restoration of creation that He promises and only He can do.
Resolve to be restored.
To be clothed in salvation. Dressed in righteousness. Splendid as a cascading garden exploding with life.
This is what God intends to do. This is why Jesus has come. To stop the inevitability of decline and to make all things new.
I will sing for joy in God, explode in praise from deep in my soul! He dressed me up in a suit of salvation, he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo and a bride a jeweled tiara. For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, So the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom and puts praise on display before the nations.
(Isaiah 61:10-11, The Message)
Listen to December 31, 2017 Sermon for more