A NEW DAY
Notes
Transcript
CALL TO WORSHIP SCRIPTURE: John 11:25
CHILDREN’S TIME SCRIPTURE: Matthew 14:13-21 (Have some snacks for the kids)
It has been a wonderful day to be in the house of the Lord. I want to say thank you for your prayers and support for my family. Please continue to do so.
Today, I want to talk about a new day. Today is a new day for our church. A new season of hope and excitement about what the Lord is doing in the life of this church. There’s a hope in this church that hasn’t been here in a long while, and it is such a blessing to see.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we are in a new day, and as I’ve prayed about what to speak about, the Lord led me to the book of Isaiah. Please turn to Isaiah 43:18-19. This morning, we are going to look at two verses that I feel are fitting for today. Isaiah was a prophet who along with the other prophets of the Old Testament spoke out about Israel and their sin. How they had turned from their first love, their love for God, and that they were being punished, but there was coming a day of hope when everything would change. How the old will pass away and everything will be made new.
In the first thirty-nine chapters, Isaiah focuses on the Lord’s judgment on the people of Israel because of their sin. It focuses on how God is holy and the people’s sinfulness. It reveals the consequences of their sinfulness. These thirty-nine chapters span the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.
In chapters 40-55 where we find ourselves this morning, it moves from punishment to restoration. Isaiah focuses in on God’s sovereignty, the futility of Idolatry, and the promise of redemption. It is this theme of redemption that we will focus on today. There are three things that we are to keep in mind as we enter this new day.
Three Things About Living In The New Day:
Forget the Former Things
Focus on the Fresh Future
Follow Along The Path
1. Forget the Former Things
1. Forget the Former Things
18 “Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old.
The Lord is telling the people through the prophet Isaiah to forget how things once were - their wrongs, their turning away from the Lord, and their past mistakes. He commands them to let go of those things and not to hold onto them. As I was preparing for this morning, I kept going back to the transition we make when those of us who are followers of Christ came to faith. We are born again into a new way of doing life. For many of us there may have been a voice reminding us of our past. How we once were, how we were sinners and that we will mess up again, and that because of our past we will go right back to how we once were. Nothing changes, everything stays the same.
The reminders of our past can evoke powerful reactions. It's why nostalgia is such big business. And we all have that with something. Maybe a song, or a toy, or a smell can just take you back in time and remember. Remember "the gold ole days." Yet sometimes our past reminds us of the pain that we once in. It can be used to remind us of the regrets, the “if onlys.” Reminders of who we once were and not who we are now. Even as followers of Christ, the things we’ve done in the past, even as Believers, can paralyze us and make us stuck. One of the things that I tell our students and anyone I counsel when they make a decision for Christ is that while the angels celebrate, the devil plans. And one of the things that he uses is regret. Regret for our past mistakes, our failures, and the person who we once were. And he does that because he knows that if he can get us off our focus, then he feels that he has won.
But do you notice with God, He does things differently. He doesn’t rub our face in our past. He doesn’t drag us down, or hold it over us. With Israel, even though they have forgotten their first love and are being punished because of it, God says the He is letting go of the past, and He tells them to do the same. I love how God can work even in the midst of our mistakes and our wrongs:
He forgives, covers us in His blood, throws our sins as far as the east is from the west, and remembers them no more. Amazing grace! How sweet the sound! That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but NOW I’m found, twas blind, but NOW I see. How beautiful this truth is!
So if God can let go of our past, then so should we. For us as a church - we are to continue to do the same. To continue to move forward and to allow the past to be in the past. I believe last Sunday, one of the hardest chapters of our church was closed and now we are in a new chapter in the story that God is writing.
So let us forget the former things. Let us focus on a fresh future.
2. Focus on the Fresh Future
2. Focus on the Fresh Future
When I was a kid, one of my favorite bands was a group named DC Talk. They were a group of guys that sang Christian music, and I thought that they were the coolest. They had a song called New Thing, except it was told in that cool 90s way - NU THANG! (have some fun with this). The song was all about how God is doing a new thing. It comes right from the first part of Isaiah 43:19:
19 Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming.
God here tells the people to not only let go of the past, but to look forward to what God is about to do - something new. God is promising that there is coming something new, and that it is already on the way. That’s something new is the promise of salvation. It is the promise of hope that we see is Jesus. He is telling them this to give them hope. Not an empty hope.
Please understand! The hope that God has for us is not an empty hope. It is not weak, it is not wishful thinking. It is strong, and grounded in who God is. When God says that something is coming, we can trust that it is coming. When God says that He will do something, you can trust to know that He will do it.
We often try to make our own way to secure our future — we depend on our success, accomplishments, maybe our status as a ‘good person’ — and these things can make us feel as though we’re secure. As though we’re doing okay. As though we can have hope for tomorrow, if we can set things up for ourselves now. Maybe this is true for you, and maybe you have done anything and everything to try and create the hope for yourself that can only come from Christ. You might have tried to be a good enough person, or have tried to do everything on your own. I believe the great preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said it best when he described that self righteous behavior as nothing but a painted pageantry to go to hell in. And while that may sound strong, it is the truth - that’s why Ephesians 2:8-9 says:
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
It is only through Christ - God’s promise here in Isaiah - that we can experience life new. For those of us as followers of Christ, when we came to know Christ, we experienced the transformation into being made new. From the inside out.
Maybe you are here this morning, and you’re a Christian, and for you, God is wanting to do something new in your life. He is wanting to shape you into the person that He is calling you to be. Instead of fighting it, embrace it. When God is calling us to do something, He is already preparing the way for us, working in us. For us as a church, God is doing something new in us, but it requires us to not only forget the former things and to focus on the new. It also means for us to follow Him along the path before us.
3. Follow Him Along The Path
3. Follow Him Along The Path
19 Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.
Only God can create a pathway in the wilderness. Whether that was the wilderness where the people of Israel traveled in the Exodus, or in the unknown that is the future. For you and I, as much as it meant to the people in the time of Isaiah, the call that God has for us is to step into the unknown. For us as a church, we are in a new day. But the call for us is the same. We are to trust God as we walk in the path that He sets before us.
The Christian Standard Bible translates Hebrews 12:2 “2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. I love that translation! Because He goes before us to prepare the way for us and out response is to follow Him. It is not our place to carve the path that we are to follow Him - it is His.
Our place is to trust Him. To go where He leads and to go where He sends. And the thing that I think we don’t realize enough is that He is with us every step of the way. He doesn’t leave us to our own devices, but goes with us.
We can trust in Him. God is not bound by our past decisions but is always eager to move us toward a hopeful future. Isaiah 43:18–19 serves as a powerful reminder from God that He is always doing a new thing, urging His people to actively seek and recognize the fresh work He is accomplishing.
Today is a new day to forget the past, to look to the future, and to follow Him along the way.
Go down for invitation
