A New Thing

OPENING HOOK

Big idea – God’s presence turns our exile into exaltation. We are a new people for a new world.

My first Sunday. Excited!

Honest? Tod Bolsinger: leading through change is about "disappointing people at a rate they can tolerate." 

disappoint all of you at some point! 

Some will want to go left and I'll go right. Some will want it loud and it will be quiet. For others, it will be just the opposite. You'll root for the Falcons and I'll root for the Saints…who knows!

·      Stick with me, go with me – will be good

·      Jesus is our captain, lead us into things never imagined.

·      1st sermon series = Living as the People of God. 

·      Deep dive, what it means to be the church. 

·      And I believe the word God has for us will change our community if we're ready to listen and follow.

But here's the thing: there’s been change and more is yet to come. Not change things just to change them but because we are not yet where God is taking us. He’s not yet completed that which he has started. 

MOVEMENT ONE: A New Moment

So let me tell you where we are. A new chapter. Not just in our life here, but for New Providence Church, for many of you personally.

Mix of emotions here this morning. 

·      excited—eager to see what God does next

·      cautiously hopeful—disappointed before, hold back

·      just plain tired—been through a lot, low energy for another transition

I get it. Coming out of season that’s felt like exile or captivity. God has brought us out of struggles, conflicts, transitions that tested us. But we're not "there" yet.

We’re living in-between—out of one chapter, not yet into the next. Still wilderness, still uncertainty, still waiting.

This "in-between" is not unique to us. God's people have always lived in this tension—God has always had a word for them in it.

Turn with me to Isaiah 43. This is where we'll camp out this morning. Isaiah 43, starting at verse 18.

Isaiah’s prophetic message is to the Jews who would be in exile in Babylon 150 years later, a people who would be facing their own in-between moment. Let me give you the backstory in brief:

Isaiah was a prophet who preaching in Judah during the time of King Ahaz and then King Hezekiah.

Going back over 400 years, Israel had known the glory days—David, Solomon, temple in Jerusalem, prosperity, peace. 

But their unfaithfulness was going to lead to judgment, a message of many of the prophets. Sure enough, in 586 BC, the Babylonian Empire conquered them, destroyed Jerusalem, and dragged the people into exile.

They had Babylon behind them but an unknown future ahead. The Persian king Cyrus would eventually let them return—but would the journey be safe? Would they recognize home when they got there?

Sound familiar?

1500 years earlier, ancestors once had Egypt behind them but wilderness stretching forward. Freed from slavery, but Canaan was 40 years away—hard times, lack of food, water, enemies.

In both moments, the people were stuck. Between promise & fulfillment. Between deliverance & destination. Between memory & hope.

That's where we are today.

And that's exactly where Isaiah speaks. God's word to people between captivity & promise. Between what was and what will be.

Transition: So, let's hear what God has to say.

MOVEMENT TWO: The Biblical Story 

In the book of Isaiah—the longest of the Prophets—Warning of judgment in the first half, then pivoting to hope in the second half: God will not abandon His people. Deliverance is coming.

Right in the middle of that hope, we get our text. Isaiah 43:18-21:

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland... to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."

God's message: "I am doing a new thing."

But hold on. There's a wrinkle here.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past."

Wait—forget the former things? What former things does he mean? Two verses earlier:

This is what the Lord says—     he who made a way through the sea,     a path through the mighty waters, 17 who drew out the chariots and horses,     the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again,     extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:

This is stunning. Because "the former things"—Egypt and the Exodus—that’s Israel's defining story! That was their greatest moment: flight from Egypt, the Red Sea split open, manna from heaven, the giving of the Law at Sinai.

Repeatedly, the people are commanded to remember God’s deeds in the past, to not forget what he did. The chief event? The Exodus. 

So central that the main feast in Jewish tradition revolves around it. The Passover feast every year was to remember exactly that. When we take communion at the end the service today, we're building on that event from over 3000 years ago!

The Exodus was the heartbeat of their whole identity.

But now God says: "Forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do."

He's not erasing memory. He's challenging nostalgia. Don't let what was good then keep you from seeing what I'm doing now.

No matter how good they were, the "good old days" don't have to be the greatest days. God's best is still ahead—if we're willing to go with Him.

What God is about to do will be greater than the Exodus itself.

Think of St. Peter's Basilica. The original stood for over a thousand years—a monument to faith and power. But in 1506, Pope Julius II had a grander vision. He tore it down—stone by stone—to build something greater. Today, 400 years later, it's still the largest church in the world.

They didn't reject the past. They honored it. But they didn't let the past prevent something greater.

That's what God is doing here.

Because here's where it gets even more interesting. There are two surprising insights in this passage.

·      The first: God told the people to forget the one thing He always said to remember.

·      The second is more subtle. It relates to the Exodus event, and specifically the wilderness.

The Exodus was about deliverance from something—slavery in Egypt.

The return from Babylon would be about restoration of something—the temple, the city, the covenant.

But the ultimate "new thing" is about transformation into something—a new people, a new creation, a new humanity.

In the Exodus, God brought His people through the wilderness to a new land He'd prepared for them.

But the wilderness was still there. And the wilderness of human sinfulness and separation from God, the wilderness of a creation wrecked by disease and violence—that wilderness was still there.

Though God had brought them through one wilderness to Canaan, now generations later, the people found themselves in another wilderness—captivity and exile in Babylon.

You see, that's the pattern. The cycle of human life apart from the work that only God can do for us. We keep getting stuck in the wilderness, never quite able to get to where we really crave to be.

Why? Because we're the same old people in a new place. Same bent hearts. Same wandering desires. Same cycles of sin and slavery.

The problem wasn't that they went to Egypt or Babylon. The problem was that Egypt and Babylon got into them.

But Isaiah's message declares something truly world-changing.

This time, God is not leading the people through the wilderness—He's going to transform that wilderness into paradise itself.

"I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."

Roads where there were no roads. Rivers where there was only sand.

The God who split seas can bring water in deserts, life in wilderness, resurrection from death.

The new thing is the reversal of the Fall itself.

Where human sin led us out of Eden—where God's presence dwelt—into exile, God promises to lead us out of exile back into Eden.

This isn't just about geography. The wilderness is the human heart and the human family cut off from God.

There is no life. No direction. Dead, empty purposelessness that always leads to the same dead end.

But God is changing all that.

God doesn't just free us from bondage. He frees us for something:

·       Made in His image

·       Made on purpose for a purpose

·       Called to dwell with Him and reflect His glory

But there’s one catch: this message was to people in exile—but not all of them would respond when the time came.

God promised it would happen for the nation. But that didn't mean it would automatically happen to every person.

When the decree came to return to Jerusalem, only a remnant chose to go back. The rest were content to make their home in Babylon.

The problem wasn't that they were in Babylon. The problem was that Babylon was too much in them.

When Babylon has made its home in our hearts and in our community, it’s a wilderness and desert for the people around us.

·      Too many churches today are extensions of Babylon, not outposts of heaven on earth.

·      People come looking for living water and find dry desert sand.

·      People come desperate for deliverance and find others blindly wandering about.

·      There's no life, no truth, no way out.

Why? Because the presence of God is nowhere to be found.

But when those who call themselves the people of God hunger for the presence of God, the Spirit comes with the power of God to fulfill the promises of God!

And wildernesses are turned into paradises, deserts into highways, wandering into a way out, bondage to freedom, sickness into healing, despair into hope.

Death into life. The old made new. And heaven comes to earth.

The church is called to be an outpost of the kingdom of heaven. Like an oasis in the desert where weary travelers—lost, confused, damaged, thirsty—can come and find new life.

A church full of people hungering after God's presence offers a glimpse, a taste of the kingdom of God here and now.

We are a new humanity being prepared for a new world.

And redemption happens yet again.

Transition: God is not just rescuing people. He is re-creating a people for His presence. The question is: What kind of people is He making us into? 

MOVEMENT THREE: God’s Presence, Our Future

Here's what we need to understand: The goal of redemption is not just deliverance—it's life with God's presence at the center.

Redemption is not about deliverance but new life. In the same way that marriage is not about the wedding but the life that comes after.

The big story of Scripture—from beginning to end—is the story of God dwelling with His people:

In Eden, He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day.

In the Tabernacle and Temple, His glory filled the sanctuary.

In Christ, the Word became flesh and dwelt—literally "tabernacled"—among us.

In the Church, our very bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

In the New Creation: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man" (Rev 21:3).

Every chapter of God's story moves toward one destination: His presence with His people.

The prophets promised a new covenant—not written on tablets of stone but written on our hearts. We become the living dwelling place of God. The place where heaven and earth meet.

That's the true power of the church. Not programs. Not strategies. Not buildings or budgets.

But God's presence.

Israel's history warns us of this: when they lost hunger for God's presence, the temple fell to ruin. When they chased after other gods, the glory departed.

That’s true for churches still today.

There are lots of churches in which the glory of God has been politely asked to just leave the building. 

But if we seek His face, when we consecrate ourselves—streams will break out in the desert, highways appear in the wilderness, and life will flourish where no life was to be found. 

God's presence turns our exile into exaltation. That's what brings life.

So what does this mean for us—for New Providence Church—today?

The church is not "what" but  "who"

We are God's people, Spirit-filled, redeemed image-bearers living holy lives and extending His kingdom into our community.

As N.T. Wright puts it: "Our mission is not to rescue souls away from the world, but to bring God's redeeming love and glory into every corner of creation."

We are a new people inviting our neighbors to experience a new life in a new world.

But here's what it requires:

Like Israel at the Jordan, we stand between wilderness and promise. Behind us: the past. Ahead: the future God has prepared.

Remember what Joshua did? He put the priests—carrying the ark of the covenant—at the head of the procession. God's presence led the way into the new land.

They had to step into the water before it parted. They had to move forward in faith following the presence of God.

That's the message for us today.

If we want to experience the new things God has for us, it begins with hungering for the presence of God above all else.

Actor Denzel Washington: “I don’t want more stuff. I want more of God”

Not our preferences. Not our comfort. Not our programs or plans.

His presence.

My vision for New Providence Church:

"Becoming one Spirit-formed family—discipling all generations, caring for all members, worshipping passionately, and embodying God's kingdom."

That's a picture of what it looks like when God's presence dwells in our midst. That's the kind of church God is calling us to become.

But it only happens when His presence is what we hunger for most.

So here is the challenge:

Will we consecrate ourselves fully to that vision?

Will we lay down our nostalgia, our preferences, our disappointments—and say together: "God, we want Your presence more than anything else"?

Will we step into the river? Trusting that His Spirit goes before us?

Because here's the promise:

When the people of God hunger for the presence of God, the power of God through the Holy Spirit fulfills the promises of God to make all things new.

And when that happens—wildernesses become paradises, deserts become highways, death becomes life, and heaven comes to earth.

That's what it means to live as the people of God.

communion

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread 24 and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you.* Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.” 26 For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again. (1 Corinthians 11:23–26, NLT)