Sermon for New Year's Day
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new (Revelation 21:5).
The newness which Jesus brings is bright, clear, heavenly, enduring. We are at this moment specially ready for a new year. We are glad to escape from what has been to many a twelve months of great trial. We hope that this newborn year will not be worse than its predecessor, and we pray that it may be a great deal better. At any rate, it is new, and we are encouraged to couple with it the idea of happiness, as we say one to another, ‘I wish you a happy New Year.’
This is the first day of a new year, and therefore a solemnly joyous
day. Though there is no real difference between it and any other day,
yet in our mind and thought it is one of the milestones set up on the
highway of our life. If Jesus has not made us new already, let the new
year cause us to think about the great and needful change of conversion;
and if our Lord has begun to make us new, and we have somewhat entered
into the new world wherein dwelleth righteousness, let us be persuaded
by the season to press forward into the centre of his new creation, that
we may feel to the full all the power of his grace.
I am going to talk tonight for a little upon the great transformation spoken of in the text.
The great transformation
This renewing work has been in our Lord's hands from of old. We were under the old covenant, and our first father and federal head, Adam, had broken that covenant, and we were ruined by his fatal breach. The substance of the old covenant was: ‘If thou wilt keep my command thou shalt live, and thy posterity shall live; but if thou shalt eat of the tree which I have forbidden thee, dying, thou shalt die, and all thy posterity in thee.’ This is where we were found, broken in pieces, sore wounded, and even slain by the tremendous fall which destroyed both our Paradise and ourselves. We died in Adam as to spiritual life, and our death revealed itself in an inward tendency to evil which reigned in our members. We were like Ezekiel's deserted infant unswaddled and unwashed, left in our pollution to die; but the Son of God passed by and saw us in the greatness of our ruin. In his wondrous love our Lord Jesus put us under a new covenant, a covenant of which he became the second Adam, a covenant which ran on this wise: ‘If thou shalt render perfect obedience and vindicate my justice, then those who are in thee shall not perish, but they shall live because thou livest.’ Now, our Lord Jesus, our Surety and Covenant Head, has fulfilled his portion of the covenant engagement, and the compact stands as a bond of pure promise without condition or risk. Those who are participants in that covenant cannot invalidate it, for it never did depend upon them, but only upon him who was and is their federal head and representative before God. Of Jesus the demand was made and he met it. By him man's side of the covenant was undertaken and fulfilled, and now no condition remains; it is solely made up of promises which are unconditional and sure to all the seed. To-day believers are not under the covenant of ‘If thou doest this thou shalt live’, but under that new covenant which says, ‘Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.’ It is not now ‘Do and live’, but ‘Live and do’.
We are not what we were: we are new, and have begun a new career. We are not what we shall be, but assuredly we are not what we used to be. As for myself, my consciousness of being a new man in Christ Jesus is often as sharp and crisp as my consciousness of being in existence. I know I am not only and solely what I was by my first birth; I feel within myself another life – a second and a higher vitality which has often to contend with my lower self, and by that very contention makes me conscious of its existence. This new principle is, from day to day, gathering strength, and winning the victory. It has its hand upon the throat of the old sinful nature, and it shall eventually trample it like dust beneath its feet.
Heavenly joys
What a transformation grace makes in all things within our little world! In our heart there is a new heaven and a new earth. What a change in our joys! Ah, we blush to think what our joys used to be; but they are heavenly now. We are equally ashamed of our hates and our prejudices: but these have vanished once for all. Why, now we love the very things we once despised, and our heart flies as with wings after that which once it detested. What a different Bible we have now! Blessed book; it is just the same, but oh, how differently do we read it.
I do not wonder if men who have tasted of the grace of God, and feel that the Lord has done great things for them, whereof they are glad, do feel like crying out for joy. Let us have a little indulgence tonight. Now, you that feel that you must cry aloud for joy, join with me and cry ‘Hallelujah, Hallelujah, glory be to our Redeemer's name’. Why should we not lift up our voices in his praise? We will. He has put a new song into our mouths, and we must sing it. The mountains and the hills break forth before us into singing, and we cannot be dumb. Praise is our ever new delight; let us baptise the new year into a sea of it. In praise we will vie with angels and archangels, for they are not so indebted to grace as we are.
The whole creation is travailing, all time is groaning, providence is working, grace is striving, and all for one end – the bringing forth of the new and better age. It is coming. What a prospect does all this open up to the believer! Our future is glorious; let not our present be gloomy.