Openness

Welcome

We exist to help people who are far from God, draw near to God. We do that by engaging people in relationships promoting prayer, worship, ministry and healing.

Offering

Prayer at the church on Sunday mornings at 9 am

Youth Bible Study on Tuesday nights at 6 pm

Not So Newlywed Game - Feb 6th. - 7 pm

Youth Super Bowl Party - Feb 8th 6:30

Introduction

You may not know the first name of the person I’m going to talk about to open our time together today, but you can be sure you’ve been impacted by his life in some way or another.

Harland was born in 1890 in Henryville, Indiana. Unfortunately, he lost his father at age 6, which you can imagine back then, that meant you were going to have a hard life.

Harland had two siblings - Clarence and Catherine - that his mother Margaret now had to care for along with Harland. When Harland became a teen he learned the value of hard work by working several different jobs, just trying to help his family make ends meet.

As his life would go on, eventually, he’d get married and have three kids himself. At the age of 40 in 1930, he opened a service station after trying his hand at starting several other businesses that failed.

After many years of owning this service station in North Corbin, Kentucky, he decided to see if he could sell home cooked food to his customers, so he started out making country ham biscuits. He rolled out an old dining room table and sat it in his gas station and he found a small measure of success. His restaurant grew a decent following but, at the age of 65, a new highway bypass cut off his restaurant and his business was closed.

Harland was left with another failed business and just a social security check with no prospects of what to do next. Now, at 65, no one would have blamed him if he had just retired and done nothing the rest of his life, but that’s not Harland.

Harland loaded up his car, with a pressure cooker, some chicken and 11 herbs and spices and the rest is history. Harland became known as Colonel Sanders and he started a franchising empire out of the back of his car by cooking his special fried chicken to anyone that would listen to him. It’s estimated that he drove over 200,000 miles a year over the next decade plus of his life. About 10 years later, in 1964, he sold KFC to a group of investors for 2 million dollars and he became the brand ambassador where he continued to travel and promote his chicken.

I think it’s safe to say, Col. Sanders, at the age of 65, was open to a new thing in his life. Here’s a quote that I think best describes his attittude.

“One has to remember that every failure can be a stepping stone to something better,” - Col. Sanders

We are continuing our series called The DNA of a Disciple, where we are looking at how a disciple is formed, what they are made out of and what are some of the common characteristics that they share.

Faith - expressed in sacrifice and self-denial

Enlargement - God’s process of moving us from obscurity to influence. 

Fathering - Imparting values without requiring conformity. 

Wholeness - the process of being “healed in heart and formed in service”

Openness - Embracing The Whole Body Of Christ In Every Genuine Move Of God

Today we are going to talk about openness. And by openness, I mean being open to the new things God wants to do in your life. Are you open to the new thing that God wants to do in your life? Let’s look at a popular passage of Scripture today and see what God’s word says.

Main Text

Isaiah 43:18–19 ESV

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

This morning we are focusing on the idea of Openness. It’s the opposite of being closed. When we are closed to new ideas and new things from the Lord, we stop growing. We stop moving forward.

So today, I think Isaiah gives us some clues in this passage on how to be open to what God wants to do in your life. Here are the three R’s of Openness:

1. Release The Past

Isaiah encourages Israel to forget the past. Remember not the former things. He’s prophesying to the tribe of Judah who has been taken captive by the Bablyonians and are living in exile.

In other words, there’s a clear thought here, stop thinking about what things used to be like. They are not like that anymore. Things are different.

Some of us need to let go of the past because it was bad. It was hurtful, harmful. You’ve been hurt, you’ve been lied to and it was wrong and you have to let those things go. But some of you need to let go of the good things in your past too, those days have gone on and today is different.

He’s not saying in this case the former things were bad. Or that the way God did things in the past was bad, he’s just emphasizing the idea that they need to look forward.

Some of us struggle with this in our own lives. We are looking to the past, thinking about how good we had it “back in the day.”

Spiritually We Look Back , Rather Than Forward. Aside from the idea that in the natural sense, we tend to look back at our lives with a nostalgia factor, we also do this spiritually.

Now, this isn’t the case always, but for many of us, we might think back to a time in our spiritual walk where things seemed easier. They seemed simpler. The Lord seemingly spoke to us more often or we felt his presence in greater measure.

This idea causes us to look back with affection. We think of the days gone by spiritually as being better than wherever we might find ourselves today.

In Order To Move Forward, You Must Release The Past. Just because the past was good, great even, doesn’t mean the future can’t be even better. Think of it this way…what if God has been preparing you, your entire life, for the days that are ahead of you, not the ones that are behind you?

What if what you need is not more nostalgia, but more hope? Hope is one of the essential elements of a disciple. We’re talking about the DNA of a disciple, what is he or she made of? One of the core elements of a disciple is most certainly hope!

Releasing The Past Is Not About Forgetting His Faithfulness. There are some things in life you need to forget, but we are to always remember God’s faithfulness. The Bible consistently tells us to remember what God has done and that might sound like a contradiction, but God isn’t asking us to forget his past faithfulness to us. This passage is encouraging us to look to what he is doing presently over and above what he’s done in the past.

2. Recognize The New Thing

Isaiah prophesies next, “Behold I am doing a new thing.” Often we hear this and we think about our own personal problems and how God wants to do something different. I’m not opposed to that idea, but in this context, God is doing a new thing in the midst of their problems.

Remember, this is written to those that are in exile. They are in Babylon. The former thing was a life in Israel, as the chosen, beloved people of God, in the City of David. They were evicted from the land because they had forsaken God. God had every right to forsake them in return. Instead, he sends them into exile and he goes with them and promises they will return.

I think he sends people into exile because he wants to create a longing in the people. He wants his people to long to be with him. That’s represented by their longing to return home, to Jerusalem. Today that means we should have a longing in us to see what God is going to do in our generation.

This passage is ultimately pointing the people to their own redemption. God is going to repeat an Exodus like experience with them and bring them back into the land.

In Church History, God Repeatedly Does New Things. One of the hard parts about growing up in the church is that I saw God move in mighty ways as a teenager and now, it doesn’t appear that he is moving in the same way. Now, it would be easy to become cynical, but God is asking me to be open and recognize the new things that He is doing.

The whole Christian life involves an unfolding and enlarging of the heart’s openness to the things of God. - R. C. Sproul

It would be easy for us to say, well God did it this way 10 years ago, so let’s recreate that. In fact, I think that’s what a majority of churches in our area are doing. They are looking at how God moved in the church 10-20 years ago and they are redoing it. That’s why so many of the more traditional churches around here have latched onto charismatic worship songs. They are trying to capture what God did, rather than seeking what God is doing.

My encouragement to our worship team is this…let’s look for the new thing that God is doing in our time. How is He trying to shape the way we worship by song today?

For the rest of us this means we need to be open to new expressions of the Spirit. In the old Pentecostal churches, people ran the aisles and spoke in tongues and revival fire fell. While some of that was likely just the flesh, some of it was from God. Years later, a spirit of prophecy dropped on the church, we saw people speaking and praying prophetically over people. Now, I don’t believe these gifts are stopping, but I do see God doing a new thing in this generation.

I see a resurgence of the Spiritual Disciplines - People embracing solitude and silence. Listening for God. Praying and fasting and enjoying Sabbath rest.

I also see a resurgence of discipleship. Many people have gotten pretty far off track in their theology and I think God is renewing interest in discipleship and bible study.

God Is Doing A New Thing. Not that any of this is truly new. God has moved in these ways in the past, but they are new to us. They are new focuses or emphasis.

Isaiah’s question is our question. “Do you not perceive it?” Isaiah looks at Israel and says, hey God’s doing something new, you gotta forget the way he moved in the past. He’s doing something new. Can you not see it? Are you still looking backward? Look around! He’s doing a new thing.

That’s my cry to you today. Do you not see what God is doing in your own lifetime? Do you not know what story you are in? God’s writing a story and we are in a new chapter! Stop looking backward and start looking at what He’s trying to do in your life today. It’s a new day church!

Afterall, Jesus Is The Ultimate New Thing! God did a new thing by sending Jesus to die for our sins and raised him from the dead.

The Book of Hebrews is a good resource on this. God did a new thing in Jesus and it was so much better than the Old Covenant System that was in place. He died once for all and it completely destroyed the old system of repeated animal sacrifice.

3. Respond To God’s Provision

We Release The Past, We Recognize The New Thing God Is Doing. Next, we need to RESPOND to God’s provision. Verse 19, I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Once You Perceive It, You Must Receive It! When it come to recognizing the new thing, after, you’ve let go of the past, once you perceive it, you must receive it. The way in the wilderness. The idea in this saying is that God is going to put a highway in the middle of nowhere.

A highway is how we get somewhere fast. It gets us quickly from point A to point B. The idea here is that when God is providing something new in your life, the life of the church, it may come out of nowhere. The provision for it may not come from where you expect it.

These second statement in this passage is equally impossible, rivers in the desert. Rivers represent life and here God is saying that he will provide life in lifeless places. The desert is a place of death.

When We See The Provision, We Need To Respond - God’s new things always come with the provision for them to happen. When we see God sending us a new type of provision, this should be a sign to us that He is moving in a new way.

For instance - We moved back to Johnston County almost 10 years ago, but before we did, Autumn and I started noticing God providing a way to move back here. I had a boss who announced his retirement. I was given the task of redrawing the sales territories. The housing market had begun to rebound so we could sell our house and make money off of it. There had been inroads made in specific relationships.

We started to notice where God was providing and moving and then we responded by moving here. And in the long run, that decision changed my life, because God moved in me spiritually in powerful ways and called me to pastor this church and he renewed our marriage. These were new things God was doing, but it was because we responded to his provisions.

God’s purposes always have God’s provision.

John Blanchard

When God wants you to do something, he makes a way.

We Need To Respond To God’s Vision.

For many years, I had this foolish idea, I thought that when I became a pastor or leader, I would be able to shape things the way I wanted them. I thought I could turn this church into the vision I had for a church. You know, I like this type of music and I like for the people to be this way or that and I want the building to have this vibe or whatever. I thought I would have a lot more control over things that I do.

What God Taught Me. God is the one driving the train, I’m just the guy on the train yelling “All Aboard!”. He sets the agenda. He provides the people. That includes the musicians and the homegroup leaders and teachers and greeters and everyone else who serves in this place. I don’t get to pick what I want, it’s about what he wants.

My job was simple. I am to respond to what God provides. It’s new, it’s different. It’s not what I was used to and not what I thought, but it’s his provision and it’s come out of nowhere. It’s not come because I willed it into being.

So if you don’t like something about our church, take it up with the Big Guy. He’s the one providing for us. He’s the one who is leading us. Our job is to respond.

With all of this said, I want to go back to Isaiah’s question. Do you perceive this new thing God is doing? I want to ask an important question to end tonight…

How Do We Perceive It?

The Importance Of Discernment - We live in a time when people have lost all discernment. We don’t know the truth and so we are tossed to and fro by all the “new” things, missing THE New thing God is doing.

Knowing Your Bible

Prayer

Silence & Solitude

Fasting

Decision

One of the primary responses to this message is to those who are not a Christian. God is asking you to look at his provision and respond. What was his provision? Well God did provide a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert and those streams lead us to the cross. He provided his son for your sins and you need to respond today. Repent, receive the love that he has for you and the forgiveness of your sins. He wants you to become a new creation today. He wants to do a new thing in your life. Are you open to that?

For The Christian in this room. I think God is asking us to take a moment and perceive the new thing God is doing in our lives. Where do you see him moving that you haven’t seen him in the past? What provisions has he sent to you that you need to respond to? What has he supplied to you that he is asking you to use for his glory and his kingdom? Whatever it is, I think he is asking for a response.