More than a restoration, we need to be made new

On this Cruise-In weekend, you will find many restored cars on display at the fairgrounds. Each car will have its own story. The story of my 1961 Oldsmobile F-85 goes back to November 1960, when my parents bought this “economical” V-8. There is nothing sleek or sexy about this utilitarian four-door sedan, and yet, it holds significance for me, having been in my family for 65 years.

I first started driving the Olds when I was in high school, and when I moved to Utah in the early 80s, I gave it to my brother. Then, 20 years ago, I got it back from him with plans to restore it. However, as the years went by, due to the challenges of the restorative work, I did very little work on the car. In fact, the car sat on jack stands until this winter when I asked a local shop to help me with the mechanical restoration.

The word restore means, “repair or renovate so as to return it to its original condition.” If you walked around the Cruise-In, you saw many beautifully restored cars, but restoration work cannot fully erase years of wear and tear and restore a car to its “original condition”. My car is a long way from being fully restored. It doesn’t shift as smoothly as I remember, I’m missing some trim, and the interior and paint job need work, but restoring a car is a work in progress.

Often, the need for restoration is due to neglect and is delayed due to the time and sacrifice required. It might be a car, a house, or a marriage; whatever it is, we enter into the project hoping for it to be restored to its original beauty. Where Bondo and paint will make a car look better, a home makeover will restore my home, and counseling can strengthen a marriage, something greater is needed for spiritual restoration. Spiritual restoration will not come from hard work; it requires the touch of God

The need for spiritual restoration is due to the disrepair brought on by sin. Jesus told Nicodemus, a Pharisee, that he needed to be born again: “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) Possibly, like Nicodemus, you may wonder what this means. Jesus says that apart from spiritual rebirth, restoration, we are incapable of having a saving relationship with God.

Like the Pharisee, we can be tempted to address our spiritual problems with religious activity, but this is like addressing transmission problems with sawdust. Jesus called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs with their attempts to make themselves look good, “Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23:28)

Paul tells the church in Corinth how he prayed for their restoration, “Your restoration is what we pray for... Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Corinthians 13:9b, 11) Similarly, Peter instructs, “Resist the devil, standing firm in the faith… And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:8a, 10)

My car needed restoration because it was not operational; likewise, the sin we inherited from Adam has left us dead, in need of spiritual restoration. While sin causes our separation from God, the Bible offers a path to reconciliation through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross bridges the gap created by sin, offering forgiveness, restoring the relationship with God that was broken by sin.

It is even clearer in Paul’s words, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”( 2 Corinthians 5:17-19a)

The spiritual restoration we need is a work of God done for us through Christ. “God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”. We need something more than a makeover; we need a full and complete restoration; we need to be made new. Like the restoration of my car, spiritual restoration comes at a cost. Not a cost that I can pay, but one that Christ paid for me on the cross.