Out with the Old, In with the New

I Like Big Buts – When God has more…

Wk 1 – Out With the Old and In With the New

Series Slide

Good morning and happy New Year! 2024 is upon us and 2023 is in the rear-view mirror. That means it’s time for our new sermon series. I’ve been promising this Big But series for months! The idea actually started in the middle of a sermon last year when I read a passage and said, “Wow… that’s a big but!” meaning, we read a passage that said all this bad stuff then we read, “But God…”

That got me to thinking… each time we see this we are reminded that God has more than the negative of our past. In fact, it’s like the passage from Ephesians 3 reminds us:

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I guess you could say, “God has more in 2024.” That is the point of this series. No matter what happened in 2023. No matter where we’ve been since 2019… the Covid Pandemic… the largest denominational split since the 19thCentury… wars and rumors of wars all over the world… not to mention the things that each of us deal with in our personal lives every day… no matter what, God has more in 2024. God is bigger than the sum of our past, mistakes and all… When we tie the fact that God has more in 2024 with our churchwide theme of Jesus Changes Everything, we can recognize that God has immeasurably more than we can ever ask or imagine!

So, as we get started, the first ‘Big But’ we are going to look at comes from Ephesians 2… so turn with me to Ephesians 2:1. Paul starts this letter to Ephesus praising God and then thanking God for the great faith of the people of the church there. Then we begin reading in chapter 2 about being made alive in Christ. I’m reading from the NRSV today, which is the same as your pew Bibles…

Ephesians 2:1-6

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus

<Prayer>

Sermon Slide

This past week we were getting ready to have a little family Dinner/Movie night and we did something a little dangerous… we let Evan select the movie. Much to my surprise Evan asked if we could spend $2.50 on a movie from one of the streaming platforms to which I asked, “What movie?” He said, “Joe verses the Volcano with Tom Hanks.” And I said, we don’t need to rent it, we have the DVD right there next to the TV. Aside from the comical comments of “Wow, I haven’t used a DVD since Veggie Tails” and such… that made me feel really old, we had a great time watching such an awesome classic movie from 1990 – again a comment that hit me in the heart.

How many of you have seen the movie?

The movie starts with Joe Banks, a former fire fighter turned medical documents librarian, and a bunch of other employees of American Panascope – a leader in the… let’s say not so pleasant end of the medical supply world. Joe has been dealing with continuous medical issues since he left the fire department that are only exacerbated by his demanding boss, Frank Waturi. When Joe goes to see a doctor, he is diagnosed with a rare disease called a “Brain Cloud,” a fatal disease with no symptoms. He’s given 5-6 months to live, but told all his ailments are psychosomatic. It is only because of his hypochondria that they found this rare disease. He returns to work, quits his job, and asks the secretary out on a date.

The next day, he’s visited by a businessman who offers him the opportunity to ‘die like a man, the hero that he is.’ Joe is given 4 credit cards with no limits to buy what he needs for the trip so he can travel in style as he goes to the Pacific Island of Wopani Woo to appease their fire god by jumping in the volcano.

As his expedition begins, an interesting thing begins to happen. As Joe begins this journey his psychosomatic symptoms disappear. It seems that he has found a purpose… sure, he’s about to die, but he has a purpose. He has a new life… Joe becomes a new man.

It is amazing what happens when we turn from who we were to who we are going to be. I’m not sure how many of you heard Shaefer’s sermon last week, but he talked about the fact that New Year’s is really just a made-up time when we think of restarting and renewing. The truth is, we just made another lap around the sun, and nothing is different on January 1 than December 31. BUT… it does mark a day when we can say, yesterday is yesterday… last year was last year… and this is a new year… today is a new day… or as the old phrase that has been attributed to dozens of people:

Yesterday is history,

Tomorrow is a mystery,

Today is a gift, that’s why they call it the present.

So, with that in mind, let us read today’s Big But passage one more time:

Ephesians 2:1-6

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus

Let’s take that in chunks…

Dead because of our Sin

We were dead because of our sins… following the course of this world…

Now that’s a depressing thought I guess. Kinda like ol’ Joe Banks… he was alive, but really not living. He was spending his days walking a circuitous route into a dull dark building down to a basement office with flickering fluorescent lighting working in a position without a future for a boss who had himself lost hope.

OK, maybe our life didn’t look quite that bleak… but prior to Christ we were all dead. I love the way the commentary by John Stott, “The Bible Speaks Today” puts it:

The death to which Paul refers is not a figure of speech, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, ‘This my son was dead’; it is a factual statement of everybody’s spiritual condition outside Christ. And it is traced to their trespasses and sins.

Stott, John R. W. 1979. God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians. The Bible Speaks Today. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

And the Peoples Commentary by Boring and Craddock describes death as more than just the event that happens at the end of our lives, it says death is “the power that permeates and determines human life as a whole.” It is that prior life before we knew Christ, we were alive, but not really… we were dead to who we could be, who we should be.

All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else…

But God was rich in mercy and love.

But God… Thank goodness for the big buts of the bible… But God what…

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.

There is another scene in Joe Banks life where he knows he is going to die, but he is working to keep someone else alive… they are adrift in the Pacific Ocean, just waiting to die when Joe wakes up one night as the full moon rises over the horizon. In that moment all of his past and what little future he has meet and … well, let’s watch these 90 seconds that changed everything for him…

Joe v Volcano Moonrise Scene

Joe wasn’t worshipping the moon and he wasn’t praying to the Roman Goddes Luna, Joe mustered every ounce of strength he had to rise and worship the God who created everything. He didn’t pray asking God for something, he didn’t pray blaming God for anything.

Joe looked up and as Psalm 19:1 reminds us, “the heavens declare the glory of God.” In that moment his response to God was thanks.

You could say that once he was dead through the trespasses of his life, following the monotonous dead-end life the world offers. He was living by the desires of his own senses, a child of wrath, like everyone else…

But God

Say that with me…

But God

That’s right, But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved Joe, saved Joe, and raised Joe up.

If you know the rest of the movie, it ends with the classic word, “And they lived happily ever after…”

That is the difference Jesus makes in our life. The movie “Joe Versus the Volcano” isn’t just some romcom… it is a carefully crafted parable about life before and after God.

Just as these verses today are carefully crafted verses about our lives before and after God.

Joe doesn’t know the name of the God he worships and thanks. He’s like the Greek philosophers that Paul encounters on Mars Hill in Athens. We can read their story in Acts 17… they have this temple to all the gods they worship, but then they have an unknown god placed in the middle… Paul tells them who this unknown God is… Paul introduces them to Jesus.

We know who God is, we know him by the name of Jesus, God revealed in the flesh. A God who saves. A God who is rich in mercy, love, and grace.

I’m done with those verse 1-3. Those verses are in our past. If you are in Christ you are a new creation… If you are in Christ, there is a new creation… everything has been made new.

We don’t have to drag our past with us into the new life ahead.

God has more in 2024. God has more for you, God has more for this church, God has more for this community, and you get to be a part of all that God is doing because of the truth of these verses…

I invite you to read them with me…

Ephesians 2:4-6

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus

May that be our truth in the year ahead.

Communion…