New cars are everywhere. They look so elegant and shiny. The advertisements are designed to make you feel that your car is inferior. In fact, you are a bad person for not purchasing this new car because it is safer for your family. You don't want to put the lives of your family at risk do you?
I sit in my car, now almost 13 years old, and realize it's getting old. The paint isn't as shiny as it once was. The floor mats are dirty and threadbare. The windows are getting cloudy and the windshield has a chip in it. The dashboard is dusty and there is dirt in every nook and cranny.
Time for a new car I decide. But soon I realize my budget won't allow for a new car, so instead I decide that maybe I'll just clean up my old one and make it look like new.
So that's just what I did. Now when I sit in my car I look out through clean windows. The outside has been polished so nicely I can see my reflection on the hood of the car. The seats have been cleaned and the floor is spotless. The car is so clean, inside and out, that it looks and feels brand new.
I am so excited by the way my car looks that I drive around town with a new pride. This feeling lasts until a brand new BMW pulls up beside my 2003 Toyota Corolla. It is at this point I realize that even though I've cleaned and polished up my old car, it's still an old car. Nothing I can do will change that fact. The only way I can ever have a new car is to buy one. My old car can't be clean, washed, or polished enough to become new.
There is a similarity between old cars and our lives. When we discover that we are sinners, we often do many things. We try to deny that we are sinners. Maybe we put on a front that suggests we are good people. We wax and polish our lives so that no one will realize we are sinners.
The problem is that we are still sinners. We can't fool God. There is nothing we can do that changes this fact. Nothing that is, except to take the gift of new life that Jesus wants to give us. John 3:16 tells us that Jesus has a new life waiting for each one of us.
