Not A New Day, But The New Day

​Photo by Sua Truong on Unsplash

This week, we have looked at a number of places that people place their hope. We can hope in politics rather than worship, riches rather than sacrifice, even sin rather than holiness. Today we are going to look a one more, extremely common place people put their hope: a new day. 
We have come up with a lot of ways to cope with the busyness of modern life, and one of the most popular is the line, “things will slow down in a couple weeks.” Things then don’t, in fact, slow down in two weeks, so we repeat the lie again, hoping this time, it is in fact true. 
Now, that is meant to be funny because this is something that we do all the time, but many of us cope with much more serious things this way and use it as an excuse to view pieces of our lives as meaningless and without a job. We look at our lives as a series of “just gotta get through this” moments. We turn our lives as always just two weeks away from fulfilling. Or turning just after potty training as when life really begins, or just after the kids are married, or just after this medical scan, or just after this wedding. 
Do you see what that does to your life? Raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord turns into something you just gotta get through, which means, really, it is a waste of time. Fulfilling your marriage vows before God and caring for a spouse as a picture of the gospel as you await medical results becomes a chore-filled, meaningless, busy work. Joy is always somewhere over there. 
This passage, however, should change literally everything, and in fact, it did. Even secular life, non-Christian people have reoriented the calendar around this. It is the year 2025, because it has been (more or less) 2025 years since Jesus was born. For the Christian, however, this passage should change every single part of your life, including those parts that you say, “I just gotta get through this, and then things will be better.” 
How? 
Well, before I answer that, I need to clear up a few things first. 
Number one, I’m not saying that the resurrection makes life easy. It doesn’t (yet). It’s still a fallen world (for now). I’m not saying that the resurrection turns waiting on a cancer diagnosis fun. I’m not even saying that we can’t grieve when sad things happen in our lives, and we look forward to the pain fading. What I am saying is that the Resurrection gives us the hope, the full assurance, mind you, of THE New day when all things are made new, when all things are resurrected from their dying state. On that day, all of these things that are unpleasant and sad and terrible will be redefined as the very things that lead us to the joy of heaven (Romans 8:28). We will see, with redeemed minds with the greatest hindsight capability possible, will look back over our lives from the heavenly point of view, and see that every single struggle eventually led us to this moment. So again, I am not saying that it makes life fun, but it will make life understandable. 
Number two, I’m not just giving you a longer time to wait. In other words, you might be saying, “Ok, so you’re just telling us to stop putting hope in two weeks from now but rather 100 years from now when I’m dead? Aren’t you just telling us to do the same thing, hoping for the future, but make it longer?” That’s an insightful question, but no. 
Putting your ultimate hope in eternity is very different because, number one, that future is actually guaranteed to you if you are in Christ. Two weeks from now being better isn’t it. In fact, it almost certainly will be the opposite. And number two, life slowing down in two weeks doesn’t change anything about today. Knowing that we will know whether or not it is cancer in a month does nothing for today except remind us of how much we don’t know. 
Jesus rising from the dead actually changes everything about today, because it proves that there is a new King Who rules the world, and He has something for us to do during the waiting times. Not only that, but He is also the God of the universe, who brings all things into our lives for a specific, and good—in all meanings of that term—reason. 
Let’s walk through this passage to see what this means. 

Jesus Really Rose from the Dead

This is important for us to realize and remember. Jesus’ rising from the dead was not some sort of imaginative or metaphorical thing. If Jesus doesn’t physically rise from the dead, then we are just following a dead person who said they could give us life. We would be, as Paul said, a people most to be pitied. The world is over if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, because that means that the Father’s wrath consumed even the best sacrifice possible and still isn’t finished. The whole world would be going to hell, and not even God the Son could stop it! It is only by having Jesus come back to life again shows that He was able to provide more grace than there was sin to pay for. By dying, he paid the penalty for sin, and by rising showed the He served the full sentence. 
Now I know for this audience, we all believe that the Bible means what it says. The Bible is a real historical account of things as they were, but too often, Christians who do believe the Bible forget about this fact. Let’s put it this way. Let’s imagine that at the Sunrise Service this morning at Evergreen cemetery, someone dug their way back to the surface after being undeniably dead for 3 days. What else would you be talking about this week? Imagine if that guy then wrote a book. How many of you would be reading that? We would be thinking to ourselves, “Who is this who can defeat death?” You’d line up to talk to him. We would get up as early as we needed to to meet with him. 
We’ve gotten too used to the fact that Jesus did exactly this and what that means. It means that death isn’t the end. Yes, we all have things we want to do in this life, but we know we aren’t going to be able to do all of them before we die. And that’s ok, because we are going to live again in heaven. And if that sounds like a cheap cliche it is simply because we have gotten to used to hearing that without really thinking about it. Spend some time this afternoon really thinking about that. The pain you walk with will one day be over, and not just over but will start again, but I mean really over. And it won’t just be the end of pain, but the beginning of strength the likes of which you have never yet experienced. Those of you who know what it is like to be imprisoned by anxiety or feelings of regret from the past need to remember that you won’t feel that way forever. It will transform into the greatest sense of peace that you simply haven’t experienced yet. Heaven isn’t just the absence of negative experiences but the overflowing positive that is so hard to put into words, people who saw Jesus Himself (Paul, John) saw it and couldn’t do it.
And the only reason why that is true is because Jesus rose from the dead. Life isn’t just “life is hard and then you die.” It is life is hard, but it is preparing you for an eternal experience of glory. That is what this really means. And one day, you sitting here, will experience it. 
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And that makes a difference for you today 

So what does this mean for us this afternoon? What does this mean for the two weeks until things slow down? The answer comes in Jesus’ words at the end of this passage. The actual word of command here is “make disciples.” In other words, create other followers of Jesus. Of all the things that Jesus could tell us to do as the final command, that was the one. Teach others to follow after Christ. And that following after Christ isn’t all contained on Sunday morning. It affects every aspect of our lives. There is a distinctly Christian way to parent. There is a distinctly Christian way to be married, to go to a job, to suffer, to die, and more than likely it isn’t the way you intuitively think. It likely is different than how you were raised. And it works best in the places where you think it doesn’t need to be. For our purposes today, it has meaning for those waiting times, those times where you are just hanging on. 
What’s amazing about this command, like all of God’s commands, He helps you keep it. One of the hardest parts about making disciples is being discipled yourself. Sure, we need to be taught how to read our Bibles, pray, be a part of the church, but the concept of those things I can teach you in an afternoon. It is teaching others how to apply this reality of the resurrection to everyday life that is the real challenge. And it is exactly in those moments that you wish you could skep is exactly where those are taught. 
So when you are waiting on that diagnosis, that is a great prompting for additional discipleship on prayer. Nothing teaches you to pray quite like being brought to the end of your strength and finding that God was offering you His all along. The best way to learn to pray is to pray, and nothing prompts prayer quite like the unknown. Waiting isn’t wasted in this way. 
Or when you are waiting during those times of parenting where they have soiled the bed for the third time that day. You didn’t even know that was possible. This is a great discipleship moment of building patience and love for another while being reminded how much patience and love is being showed you. 
These are the moments where character is formed, where living for Christ matters, and where the Bible says there will be rewards. 
Matt 6:19–21“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Col 3:23–24 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Matt 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
What will that look like exactly? Scripture doesn’t really say. But if God is the kind of God who sends His own Son to die for you promises wonderful gifts, I think we can trust that they will be unbelievable. 
Bring the hope of that day coming into the present moment. Dealing with hour two of toddlers is fraught with eternal significance. Dealing with year 24 of marriage is ripe with opportunity for serving God. Dealing with year ten of pain grants an opportunity to trust in God that will be rewarded. 

English Standard Version Chapter 8“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”
That’s where you place your hope. Christ has bought it for you with his resurrection and it brings with it a holiness to every moment.