In Christ you are a new creation – New Year’s Service

Choir Sings

G Khoza

Welcome to this service today and I wish each one here and all those listening or watching a Happy New Year. May the Lord grant His special blessing on you during this year.

It is my prayer that I will be more on fire for the Lord this year than last year and I trust that each one of you will have the same determination. May the Lord help us in that. How is such a thing possible?  I had the privilege to manage a shop some years ago. There, at the end of every financial year we had to take stock of everything in the place. We had to count everything, whether big or small. Once it was counted, we could see whether we had worked at a profit or loss. Then we considered how we could do things better in the following year. May each one of us do the same spiritually, consider your weaknesses and how you can improve there, and even your strengths, how you can keep them, not do something foolish and lose what you have.

May we walk uprightly before our Lord Jesus Christ, not afar off, as Peter did when Jesus was arrested.

Our food for the road for this year, we will receive from a message of Rev Stegen which he preached on a New Year’s Day.

Rev Stegen

2 Corinthians 5:16 – 21 ¹⁶ Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. ¹⁸ Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. ²⁰ Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

God’s words are alive. To some, they bring life, but to others they bring death. We should never get used to this Word. We find these verses about everything becoming new a few times in the Bible, especially in the New Testament.

This world will pass away, and God will create a new earth. I wonder what this new earth will look like. God’s word says there will no longer be any death, there will be no more disease, no more hunger, no more thirst, no more fighting or contradicting each other, no grudges, stubbornness or hatred, no slandering – all these things will no longer be there, you will not even find a hint of them. If you did find any of the things mentioned here in the new earth, then it would be like the old one, this one we’re living in.

But the Lord says, I make everything new. The old has gone, the new has come. We read about that in the book of Revelation as well. There are many people who profess to be Christians. But if you read God’s word and compare it to their lives, you find that their lives are not in accordance with it.

May I ask you a question – you who say you are in Christ, that you believe. Has the old indeed gone in your life? Has all become new? This is God’s word; it does not lie. Does your life testify to this word that everything has become new?

God has offered us the ministry of reconciliation. Have you been reconciled with God and man – is there nothing between you and anyone else, is there complete harmony? Paul writes that God is his witness how he lived amongst them, without blemish, in purity and integrity.

If you are married, can your wife testify to that fact that there is no blemish in your life. And the same with wives, can your husband say it about you, or can your parents say it about your life as a child? Can they say they cannot find fault in your life? All the old has gone, everything has become new. It is a disgrace when a person professes to be a Christian, yet you find the old things in his life. Our lives as the bride of Christ, ought to be spotless and without wrinkle. If you call yourself a Christian, yet there are sins in your life, either you or the Bible is a liar. It would be better if you would stop calling yourself a Christian if you allow sin in your heart.

I heard a story about a missionary who went to preach in a foreign land. He learned their language and then lived amongst them. Hearing that that tribe did not want anything to do with Christianity because, they said, Christians get irritated and angry and were not kind, he decided that he would not preach to these people but live the life of Christ amongst them. After 3 months, some of the unbelievers said to him that he must be Jesus who had come to live amongst them. He responded with: No, I am not Jesus, but I am His disciple, His follower. A while later someone told him that people said that he was God who had come to dwell amongst them. His response to that was that he was not God, but His child. Then he knew that the time was ripe for him to bring them the Gospel and they received the Word with open arms. Why was that? Because he lived, through God’s grace, the life of Christ amongst them. Sometime later, he contracted a disease from which he died. Another missionary heard that he had passed away and decided to go to the same place to continue the work he had started. When the new missionary started preaching about Jesus, the people there responded that he didn’t have to continue, because they knew him, He had lived amongst them. He was even buried there, and they showed him where the grave of the first missionary was.

What do people say about you? Can people see a resemblance between your life and that of Jesus? If not, woe to you.

I met the first missionary who told me that years before he had preached the Gospel, but his life had not been upright. He said that he had taken the Bible and as he was reading it, he was convicted that his life was not in line with God’s word. At that time he was at a place where there was a deep valley. There he knelt down and prayed: oh God, I say I am a Christian, I preach the Gospel, yet these people see things in my life that should not be there as a believer, and I bring shame to your Name. Oh Lord, will you not transform my life that I will become like you, may I see things the way You see them, feel about things the way You feel. He was there in a foreign land, all alone before God, praying Lord, won’t you change my life, God was gracious and made things new.

Friends, I ask you once again, do you portray Christ through your life? Are you holy as He is holy? If not, then let this hour and this first day of the year be the time where you come before God and you cry out before Him, pleading with God to change your life, and to remove all traces of anything not in accordance with His Will.

When those who oppose the Gospel look at your life, your conduct, your speech, may they come to the point where they will say, I can no longer oppose the truth.

There is an important person who came to visit us here. After staying with us for two or three days he said, I have to admit that God is here in this place, I see Jesus walking here amongst you. Then he said, I surrender myself to Him.

Recently, someone else with a high position, said, Your God is not my God, my Jesus is not your Jesus. I repent, I want to serve the One that you serve, He called together his whole family and said I am going to serve the same Jesus these people serve.

It's not sufficient for your religion to be in your head and the Holy Spirit to only be on paper, no, He needs to be seen in our lives. Jesus who knew no sin become sin so that sin may be eradicated.

When the Pharisees came to Jesus with the woman they had caught in adultery, they said that the law of Moses instructed that she be stoned. Jesus’s response was that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. Then He began writing in the sand with His finger. I don’t know what He wrote there in the sand. Maybe the accused woman could read what He was writing. When He had finished writing He looked up and all the men who had brought her had left. Then He said, woman is there nobody here who has accused you? She said, no one. Then He said, I too don’t condemn you, go your way, but sin no more.

That which Jesus said to her was not incomprehensible. It was crystal clear to her, and when He said, sin no more, she understood exactly what He said to her, even though she was in a relationship with a man, when Jesus said sin no more, it had to come to an end. Samson was a man of God, but he then fell into sin with women. Now we know that Samson’s strength lay in his hair. God had said he should never shave the hair on his head. He gave his strength to a woman, what a shame. I trust you know how he eventually gave away his secret regarding his hair because Delilah nagged him until he could bear it no longer, he told her the truth. His enemies then fell upon him, cut his hair, arrested him, gouged out his eyes and threw him into prison. But by the grace of God he cried out there in jail. His hair began growing and his strength was restored as he returned in repentance to God’s standard.

I remember, I hadn’t been preaching for very long and a young man came along with very long hair. I asked him why he had such long hair. He said, my strength is in my hair, those biblical heroes had long hair. I said, yes, they had physical strength, but were weak when it came to women. Many men with long hair have a weakness towards women.

When Samson was in prison, and he returned to God, his strength was restored. His enemies made an open spectacle of him. They brought him out to shame him in their temple which was a huge building with more than one storey, held up by two pillars in the centre. They stood him between the pillars and there he cried out to God who gave him the strength to demolish the building, and thousands died with him in his final act.

Woe to you – the Lord said, sin no more. Even if you are a man of God, this applies to you too, the wage of sin is death.

Revelations 21:4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Christians let me ask you – are there still things of the old life in you. Maybe you were known for gossiping, stubbornness, if so, repent today lest you be a liar, calling yourself a child of God yet not all is new.

Revelations 21:5  Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

Is Christ on the throne of your life? If not, I plead with you liar, hypocrite, false Christian, get right with God now. Either the word of God is a book of lies or you are. I won’t dare to say the Bible lies, I say you lie. As we read in verse 5, if Jesus is not seated on the throne in your life, you are accursed.

John writes there, the Lord showed me a river. The river of the water of life. That water is crystal clear, so transparent, you can see the bottom – that water flows from beneath the throne of God. Wherever that water flows, it brings life.

In Ezekiel 47:1-12 we read of that water. The trees next to that river – their leaves don’t wither, there is always fruit on those trees, in season and out of season. Jesus said, he who believes in Me as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from his innermost being. If Jesus is seated on the throne of your life, living water will burst forth from that throne.

Remember where Jesus came to that fig tree and saw it had no fruit, He cursed that tree, and it withered there and then. And it is said that the fig tree had no fruit because it was not the season for bearing fruit. Brethren, listen carefully – Jesus expects fruit from your life as a Christian, whether in or out of season. Should Jesus come to you and not find fruit on you, won’t He curse you?

In 2 Corinthians 6:17 God says that we must come out from amongst them and be separate, as He will not receive you whilst you are still touching that which is unclean. It was out of season for the fig tree, in other words, there are good and bad seasons. Good seasons have plentiful rain and sunshine, but there can also be a time when it is cold and dry. You may say, someone else started it all, I didn’t start it. If you are cursed like the fig tree was, you won’t bear fruit for all eternity.

Excuse me if I say, I won’t take your side, I’ll stand to the Lord – let God be true and every man a liar, and if you are a liar, repent today, on this first day. Cry to God with all your heart and say, oh God, have mercy on me. Let the old things pass away. Whether you have been smoking, using drugs, dagga, been with girls, woe to you – you will go to hell if you do not part from those things. You know who you are, what you have been in the past. I want to ask you – in all sincerity, have all the old things passed away? Or are they still there?

And if you fall short of this word, repent now,  even if I don’t call you to come to the front, there where you are, pray with all your heart, God be merciful to me a sinner. Turn to God in all truth.

G Khoza

Thank you very much. After a service such as this, which touches upon every corner in our lives, I can only say this. After having listened to this message, if there was something that you remember where you have sinned, remain behind and put that right. Go into this year with a pure and a clean heart before God.