The word “new” is used 131 times in the Bible, from the first chapter in Exodus to the last chapter of Revelation. I took the time, last week, to look at all of those references, jotting down a page of notes. I discovered that the Bible makes no reference whatsoever to the “New Year.” It is not a Biblical holiday or festival; there are no parades or college football games described in Leviticus. However there are more than 20 references to “new MOONS” which in essence are new months. The Jews didn’t have months of 31 or 28 days; they were all 30 days, based on the phases of the moon. The “new moon” was a new month to them. Paul, in his Colossian letter, tells us that “new moons” shouldn’t be overly important to us as Christians. But clearly, they are not condemned in the Old Testament among the children of Israel. They were apparently used to delineate the passage of time, and sacrifices to God were appropriate.
There are a couple of lesson in that for us. What Paul says in Colossians 2:16 is: “Let no man therefore JUDGE you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or the new moon, or of the sabbath days.” Don’t make it a practice to judge what other people do in these areas, and don’t make yourselves obnoxious when it comes to eating pork, drinking coffee, in keeping the sabbath or even Christmas. “But remember,” he adds, “these things are a shadow of things to come.”
A second lesson could be that instead of using at January 1st to give us a clean slate, so to speak, perhaps we should look at our lives in smaller chunks. January has plenty of time for victories and defeats. In 31 days we can put a lot of chalk on that clean slate. But with the coming of Feb, we can start over, making new resolutions and cleaning up our old mistakes. Don’t wait a year for January, 2025 to start anew. You may not have that opportunity. Begin again in February, if you have to begin at all. And going even more deeply than that, with every Lord’s Day, there should be a new beginning. We need to start every week with our Saviour – in the Lord’s House – further resolving to make something of the next thirty days, if He gives them to us. The resolutions of the “New Year” are usually a waste of breath or paper, unless they are renewed at least twelve times during that year.
Leavening sermon number one, let’s move on to today’s advertised message: “The Gospel of the New Year.” Obviously, since the Bible doesn’t speak of the “New Year,” there is no “GOSPEL of the New Year,” per se. There is just “THE gospel.” But the word “new” does relate to the gospel in several ways, and I’d like to use some of them as our outline this morning.
But first we have to begin again with the question: What is the gospel? What is the gospel of Christ? Paraphrasing what Paul tells us, the good news – “the gospel” – is the message that God’s Son died on Golgotha’s cross, and that He was subsequently buried, but then He arose from the grave. Christ died “for our sins” – He died in respect or in regard to our sins. He shed his blood to redeem us from the penalty of our sins. And this was done “according to the scriptures;” not according to the opinions, will, or wishes of men.
With the words “for our sins,” we learn that the Biblical gospel begins with man’s greatest need. The preaching of the gospel must include the declaration, with appropriate proof, that we are all sinners. The gospel should then declare that Christ died in order to satisfy God’s judgment for the sinner. And it might then conclude with the great blessings which come as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. And in each of those points we can use the word “new” in various ways.
The NEED of the gospel arises out of man’s SIN, or as we might say, his desire for NEW GODS.
This has been a problem from day one. It was a problem in Garden of Eden, when our first parents wanted to replace Jehovah’s will with their own. It was problem in Noah’s day, when the Lord saw “that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually.” Included in those evil thoughts were new, imaginary, less than holy, gods. And even in the “people of God,” there were new gods popping up all the time. As Moses looked back on Israel’s earlier history, he said, “They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to NEW gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them…” (Deuteronomy 32:16-19). Later Deborah and Barak looked on the people of their day, and they too had to refer to Israel’s new gods – Judges 5:8. In Judges 2:12, the writer, probably Samuel, stated the obvious: “And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed OTHER gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.”
This world needs the gospel, because it is a place filled with new god’s, with newer god’s arriving regularly. Like the latest technology, which is usually nothing more than an alteration of yesterday’s technology… Today’s new gods are most often just adaptations on yesterday’s god, or even a new corruption of Jehovah himself. That is why the religious hucksters can become so popular – many people don’t even realize they are bowing before a new god because it is presented under the Lord’s old name. But as Samuel said, when Israel bowed to their new gods, they “provoked the Lord to ANGER.”
For example, there was a day in Israel’s history, when the “Ark of the Covenant” was taken by the Philistines. After God judged those idolaters for their sinful crime, they decided to return the Ark to Israel, so they put it on a new cart and sent it home. There was a bit of a miracle involved in that. The Ark ended up in a private home rather than in the Tabernacle where it belonged. Then later King David decided to bring the Ark to Jerusalem. But unthinking David, and the ignorant priests of the day, chose to follow the Philistines’ manner of worship. Israel put the Ark on a new cart to carry it to the city, and in the process, a man lost his life. Israel once again “provoked the Lord to anger.”
That cart might be used to illustrate a new way to WORSHIP and SERVE God. It was a clear disregard for the way the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to be carried from place to place. It was the insertion of man’s ideas into the service of the Lord. It was NEW. And it “provoked the Lord to anger.” More often than not, religious man’s “new things” are nothing more than natural man’s “old sins.” Sin needs a solution, and the gospel tells us about that solution.
The gospel also reminds us of a NEW form of JUDGMENT.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they were judged and punished with spiritual death and expulsion from the Garden. To be driven from the Garden was something they immediately understood, but I’m not sure how much they understood their spiritual deaths. Then came another form of death. Physical death soon began to plague humanity, beginning with the murder of Abel. Death is judgment for sin – the sins of Adam and Eve, and our own sins. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” “The wages of sin is death…” Then in the days of Noah, God sent the greatest natural disaster in human history up to that time – and this. It was something new, and millions of people died in a very short period of time. God hates sin.
But in some ways there was an even more spectacular and newer form of judgment seen in Numbers 16. In the days of Moses, Korah led a group of priests in rebellion, modifying God’s plan of worship. Something had to be done; judgment had to be meted. Verse 28 – “And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the LORD hath not sent me. But if the LORD make a NEW thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD. And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.”
The judgment and death of Korah was certainly a new form of judgment, but it was, ultimately, physical death. But there is another form of judgment, which is entirely different, and which is in a sense utterly new. It is a judgment, not for just rebellious priests, but for all of us with new gods, new morals and new worship. John describes it in Revelation 20:11 – “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” The Bible clearly teaches that this second death will be the final judgment on humanity and its members. It will be horrible. It will be permanent. It will be the most physically and spiritually painful thing anyone has ever experienced. It is one of the most practical reasons for the gospel, the good news of Christ.
My next point needs a lot more time and teaching than I can give it this morning, but it must be mentioned.
The gospel is built on a NEW COVENANT or a NEW TESTAMENT.
It was originally is a covenant made between the members of the God-head – the Father, the Son and the Spirit. But it was an agreement made for the benefit of us sinners – people standing on the brink of that new judgment in the lake of fire. Jeremiah speaks of this in chapter 31 – “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a NEW covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.” As the Apostle Paul teaches us, we who are not originally of Israel or Judah, have been graciously grafted into that covenant.
And then later, the Lord Jesus used the New Testament equivalent of “covenant” when He said “testament.” At His last supper with the disciples, “As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the NEW testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” This takes us into the heart of gospel of new things. Jesus Christ, in dying, shed His blood in order to deliver – to redeem – us from our sins. Of course, Israel had been sacrificing animals for centuries, but this particular sacrifice was absolutely new. In the crucifixion, God’s own Son willingly laid down His life a ransom for many, fulfilling the new covenant.
Isaiah, the evangelical, Old Testament prophet, quoted the Lord as saying, “Behold, I will do a NEW thing,” and “I will EVEN make a way in the wilderness” (Isaiah 43:19). The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was that new way and new thing. After His crucifixion, the dead body of Jesus was laid in a new tomb, but His stay there was only temporary. Seventy-two hours after His very quick interment, “He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by (His) resurrection from the dead” – Romans 1:4. And as Paul said in Hebrews 10:20, “by the blood of Jesus – by a NEW and living way,” a way was consecrated for us to approach and worship the holy God.
In Acts 17 Paul was in Athens, Greece, and he began as he usually did by preaching the gospel to the Jews.
But when they weren’t interested in the new covenant, Paul moved out into the streets and market place. “Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this NEW doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.” At that point Luke added, “for all the Athenians and strangers which were there spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some NEW thing.” So Paul took that opportunity to preach to them the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the process, he described some of their particular forms of sin – the gospel always begins there. Then he concluded, saying “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth ALL men EVERY WHERE to REPENT.” A part of the Biblical gospel is that sinners – all sinners, everywhere – must humble themselves and turn from their sins and idolatries – repenting before God. “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
Some of you may be thinking that you have heard all this before. You should praise the Lord if that is true. But there are billions of people around the world who would say that this is all absolutely new and foreign. Even for the child that was born into a Christian family, there once was that first day when the message of the gospel was first heard, and it was truly strange. Yet, this gospel has been preached now in a hundred thousand places for two thousand years. It is NOT a NEW gospel, and it is not a new DOCTRINE. And if there ever is another gospel, this late in human history that will be the new doctrine. If is at all different from what I am sharing with you – that will be a false gospel. There is only one true gospel message; one message of divine good news, and I am sharing it with you this morning.
The gospel is a message of a NEW LIFE in CHRIST.
Aren’t you tired of being a slave to your sins? Aren’t you exhausted with trying to feel good about yourself through plans and efforts which have all failed? Recreating your life through New Year’s resolutions, is not going to make any real change. You are going to eventually go back to your old habits with their old sins, and you are once again going to feel miserable about yourself. What you need is a change from within, but one which only the Spirit of God can create.
“If any man be in Christ he is a NEW creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become NEW” – II Corinthians 5:17. The Lord Jesus said in Revelation 2:17 – “I will give you a NEW name, to go along with that NEW life.” Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:14 that new creature in Christ is a “NEW man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” In speaking to Israel the Lord said, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new HEART also will I give you and a new SPIRIT will I put within you” – Ezekiel 36:25-26.
And ultimately, where will this new life be lived? Today, we are nothing more than babes living and playing in our earthly nursery. One day, soon, every Christian will graduate to adulthood, living his new life in Christ, and wearing his new name in the glory of his Saviour’s presence. “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also I me. In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” The Book of Revelation tells us that there is a new home for those who believe on Christ. “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.” – Revelation 3:12. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” – Revelation 21:4-5.
Conclusion:
The Bible uses the word “new” in other ways beyond these, some of which relate to the gospel. But rather than becoming tedious, let me stop here. On this first Lord’s day of 2024 – on this new Sunday of the New Year, please understand that you need to be born again. You need to become a “new creature” in Christ. Without the Lord’s deliverance from sin, you will die the old death only to taste the new judgment of the Lake of Fire.
I implore you to look unto Jesus this morning. Hear Him say once again, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me.” Right there in the privacy of your own heart, you can go to the Saviour, with the humble repentance and faith He is giving you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him for the forgiveness that your sins demand.