Last Friday, September 22, at 12:27 PM, Fall arrived. So said the calendar. So said the radio and television weather forecasters. But no one told the thermometers. It was 96 degrees on Friday. The “real feel” temp was over 100. Fall? I don’t think so. Saturday and Sunday were much the same — about 80 for the lows and pushing 95 for the highs. Fall? Yeah, whatever.
I saw one of my friends, Steve Delaney, at our once-a-month Sunday night worship service. He had on a sweater. It was 90 outside and he was wearing a sweater! And he was smiling at the ribbing he was taking for it. He just kept saying, “It’s fall — and I’m dressed appropriately for fall — and fall is gonna show up any minute.” Turns out he was right.
As I drove away from the church building, headed home, I could see the blue-gray clouds building in the northwest. I turned off the A\C and rolled down the window, something I hadn’t done in several months. I felt the cool, blustery breezes as the first cold front of the season finally pushed its way into south-central Texas. And the smell! I could smell that coppery-static rain scent in the air. Even though fall had arrived two and a half days ago, its real effects were just now being felt.
I made my way home, put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and hurried out to the back balcony to watch the show. And what a show it was. Gusty cool winds. Bright flashes of lightening. Marvelous, booming rolls of thunder. And great big fat rain drops. It was wonderful! It was fantastic! It was amazing! It was FALL! Finally!
As I sat there, taking it all in, it struck me how, with a shift of the wind and a drop in the temperature, every thing had changed. It was a whole new world. My living room, with it’s overstuffed chairs and its constant whir of the air conditioner, was no longer where I wanted to be. My balcony, a less than luxurious lawn chair, was the new right place for me. The world had changed and it seemed like nothing was the same. What a feeling!
I remembered something Paul wrote in one of his letters to the early church. He wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come.” In effect, what he was really saying was, “It’s a whole new world.”
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“The old is gone. The new has come.”
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I started thinking about the parallels between the coming of Fall and the coming of “a whole new world.” When someone comes to Christ and they place themselves under his lordship and accept his gift of grace, there’s always that brief exhilaration of salvation. They feel clean, washed in the waters of baptism. Their sin is gone. They stand pure and perfect before the Father. It’s a whole new world.
But then “real life” comes rushing back in. They go home to a less than perfect marriage. They find themselves in the same old job, doing the same old thing — not really very thrilled about it — and they begin to wonder about that whole-new-world stuff. Yes, for a while it felt like a whole new world. But then the same old world is still there. it’s where they live. So what’s up with that?
Remember how Fall came on Friday but didn’t seem to show up until Sunday night? It was Fall on Friday, it just didn’t feel like it. Sometimes that’s the way it is with the whole new world of life in the Lord. You place yourself under his lordship, receive the gift of salvation, but it takes a while for the Spirit to make his mark on your life. Temptations are still there. Anger is still there. Addictions are still there. You believe in the whole new world but you keep bumping up against the same old world. What are you to do?
Be patient. Keep believing. Worship. Study. Confess sin. And watch as the same old world begins to lose it’s grip on you. And always remember this — regardless of how you feel — Christ has made you new. Over time, if you continue to believe, that newness will touch every part of your life. And the cool, soothing breezes of a whole new world will give you a new confidence about life — life in Christ — life in a whole new world.
A Whole New World