All I Want Is a New Beginning
Some times we make the wrong decisions or take a wrong turn in our life’s journey. Our plans go haywire and things turn out bad. We are filled with fears, doubts, and regret. We wish for a second chance, a new beginning. If we could only start over again. All we want is a new beginning.
Some times we are so focused on our past mistakes, so stuck in our past lives, that we cannot move forward. We are filled with regret and anger. We cannot forgive ourselves or others. We are hopeless and we believe that a new beginning is not possible.
All I want is a new beginning. Jesus Christ, the Lord, is the new beginning. He has begun a new beginning. At this moment he is busy completing the new beginning through his Holy Spirit and his followers in this world. He will complete the new beginning when he comes again and makes everything new.
1. Jesus is the New Beginning
Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior, is the new beginning. When John and Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” they were announcing a new beginning. When Jesus was born, God’s kingdom entered into the world. Through his life and his ministry Jesus showed us and taught us what the kingdom of heaven is all about.
Read Luke 4:18-21. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” These words have been fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the promised Messiah. He came to restore God’s kingdom. He came to save the world, to set us free, and give us a new life, a second chance, a new beginning.
People across the world are blind and in darkness. People are imprisoned, in bondage. They are caught up and locked up in physical, emotional, and spiritual prisons for various reasons. Many of us are not in physical prisons but locked up in emotional and spiritual prisons. We are in bondage, imprisoned by our sins, sinful and bad habits, addictions, emotional hurts, and abuse. We are enslaved to pride, lust, greed, to whatever is lord of and controlling our lives.
We are all blind, lost in darkness, brokenhearted, and captives in the prisons of our old lives. We need a new beginning. Jesus comes, and offers to all peoples, to all of us, a new beginning, the new life that is in him. This new life is available to everyone, yes to everyone. No matter what you have done, in Jesus Christ, you can have a new beginning. Through his suffering and death, he paid for our sins. He made us righteous, clothed us in garments, clothes, of righteousness, so that we can stand before God, clean, pure and holy. Through his resurrection he gave us a new, eternal life, that begins now when we are born again through the Holy Spirit.
Rom 6:3-8 — “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”
All we have to do is to believe in Jesus, that is, we must become poor in spirit, acknowledge that only Jesus can save us, then the kingdom of heaven is ours. We can enter the kingdom, and live this new life. All we have to do is repent, that is we must mourn, turn back to Jesus, and He will comfort us. Jesus will give us everlasting joy. We will experience his presence through the Holy Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. Therefore, we can rejoice in the Lord, always, in all circumstances because He is with us. This joy enables us to endure and persevere through the trials, sufferings, and persecutions that come with living the new kingdom life in this world.
2. The Kingdom of Heaven is the New Beginning
The kingdom of heaven is the new beginning. Jesus Christ brought God’s kingdom into this world. It is here and now. Verse 4 speaks about this new beginning — building up, rebuilding, raising up, restoring, renewing, repairing. Jesus came not only to give us a new life but also to restore God’s rule in this world, to restore God’s people and the fellowship of God’s people under God’s rule.
Jesus came to create a new kingdom people for God from all the nations of the world, a new humanity. Let’s paraphrase and apply Ephesians 2:14-22. “For Jesus himself is our peace, who has made the people from all the nations one. He destroyed the barrier, the dividing walls of hostility between them, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the many nations, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile them all to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we all have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, we are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow kingdom citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him we all are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
That is why strangers shall stand and tend your flocks, and foreigners shall be your fieldworkers and vinedressers. That speaks of peace where all God’s people from all nations will live and work together in God’s kingdom. The Prince of Peace has brought the kingdom of peace into the world.
Verse 6—“you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast.” This is already happening when God’s people, believers from different nations and cultures come together to do kingdom work and to worship God. And this will be fulfilled finally in the new creation—“The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.” (Rev. 21:24-26)
We are living in the end times, the time between the already and not yet. God’s kingdom has already come in Jesus Christ, but his kingdom is not yet fully restored. The kingdom as the new beginning has begun. And Jesus will come back. He, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, will make all things new. In the new creation, the new beginning will be completed.
We must take this seriously. Jesus is coming back to finish the new beginning. Are we ready? How will Jesus find us when he comes? That is a very important question.
3. God’s People is the Showpiece of the New Beginning
Because we as God’s people are the showpiece of God’s new beginning. Jesus saved us so that we can be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord (v3). The Lord caused righteousness, the new life in us and his kingdom, to sprout up, to grow before all the nations, before the world. And he does this to display his splendor, his glory (v3). We are the priests of the Lord, the servants of our God (v6). The Lord made an everlasting covenant with us in the blood of Jesus. He will reward us. So that the nations will know us as God’s people, and acknowledge that the Lord has blessed us.
Thus, we are God’s showpiece of the new beginning, of his kingdom. We are the products, the fruits, the outcomes of the new beginning. We are to show the world the new beginning. We are to tell the world about the new beginning. We are to call the world to the Lord of new beginnings.
What an honor and privilege! But also what a tremendous responsibility! We are kingdom people with a very clear mandate and mission. We are called to live the new life now, before the world. We are examples, testimonies of the new life. We are to display the coming kingdom, the new creation. We are samples, showcases, trailers of the coming kingdom.
That is why the Sermon on the Mount and all the teachings of our Lord Jesus are so important. We must obey and do them so that we can live and show the world that there is a new beginning, a new life. What does the world see when they look at us? A new beginning, new life, the kingdom, Christ?
4. The Lord Works to Display His Glory
What is the ultimate purpose, the end goal of this new beginning? It is not to save souls. It is not to have eternal life. It is not about us. God is doing all this — He saves, he gives us eternal life, and he creates a new creation where we will live with God, worship and glorify him forever — God is doing all this to display his splendor and glory.
This is all the Lord’s work. He is the Lord of new beginnings. God the Father sent God the Son. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon him. Jesus, the Lord, saves us. We are a planting of the Lord. The Lord faithfully gives us our reward. He makes an everlasting covenant with us. The Lord blesses us. He clothes us with garments of salvation and covers us with robes of righteousness. The Lord causes righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
It is all the Lord’s work. We cannot boast about anything. Yes, we are priests and servants of the Lord, but it is the Holy Spirit that anoints us and empowers us to fulfill our calling. 1 Corinthians 3:7-9 & 4:1 — “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building … This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”
God is at work completing the new beginning. And He is at work for his glory. Again, v3 — that he may be glorified. V9 — God’s people will be known by the nations so that they will know and acknowledge that the Lord blessed them. V11 — the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. Let’s go back again to Philippians, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Rev 15:3-4 — “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
So where does this leave us? What is our response? There is a new beginning. Jesus Christ is the new beginning. Believe. Repent. Wake up and get up. Get out and live the new life, live out the new beginning. Live out the second chance we have been given in Jesus Christ. We are a people of the second chance, of new beginnings. Be priests and servants of the Lord. Be busy with kingdom work wherever we are. Work to make the kingdom visible in whatever you are doing. Worship God, glorify God in everything you do. Rejoice in the Lord always, because we are living the new beginning.