All Things New (Week 2)

Great to be with you this morning! Last week was so much fun, as we celebrated with those going public through baptism. And last week’s message was intentionally simple. In my time of study and prayer, I just couldn’t get away from presenting the simplicity of how God makes all things new, and how He is redeeming or restoring us towards His original design and intent for us.

If you missed last week, open your podcast app and search for Emmanuel Assembly.

Before we dive into this week’s message, I want us to prayer over and send off two folks near and dear to us here at Emmanuel.

Samantha and TC.

This morning we are going to continue the idea we discussed last week, that God makes all things new.

STORY: Have you ever been around people who just seem to be listening in on every conversation? I mean they are the epitome, the icon, of eves-dropping.

Have you ever been around people who just seem to be listening in on every conversation? I mean they are the epitome, the icon, of eves-dropping.

DEFINE/SLIDE

I have been guilty of it. I want to hear what’s being said behind those closed doors, so I before walking complete past them I slow down with my ear in their direction to hear what I can hear.

Have you ever been at the bottom of the stairs leaving somewhere but you are curious what’s being said in the room you just left? So, once you get to the bottom instead of leaving you linger and try to hear what you can.

Maybe I’m the only one that has ever done any of this. I typically don’t have anything to hide in my conversations, but it does drive me crazy when someone begins asking questions about a conversation and during a conversation that didn’t include them and has nothing to do with them. If you are going to listen, fine. But don’t ask for clarifying questions because you don’t even have the context to ask good ones. Does anyone else know what I’m talking about?

It happens in our spiritual journey as well. We get half the picture. We overhear half the conversation of what God is wanting to do in our lives. We don’t even have the full context.

TESTIMONY: I can share a personal story. When I was 15 years old, well it was actually the week right before my birthday, I was at home sick lying on the couch. It was this week that the Lord used multiple things in my life to put a desire and call to MISSIONS inside of me. God was birthing something in me, but I didn’t and still don’t see the whole picture. I did my best to interpret what I felt like He was saying to me and what it should look like, but I have to admit I only knew in part.

I started preparing myself for missions, whatever that was going to look like. I went on mission trip. I became a part of a Spanish speaking church here in Knoxville. I surrounded myself with other cultures, ate their food, tried to learn their language, all in attempts to expand on what I thought God had spoken to me.

There were even opportunities God was putting in front of me to go to certain countries and work with certain types of people that I really struggled with. I told God that I wasn’t passionate about going there, working with those people. I wrestled with God about this.

There is this idea that God isn’t calling us to something we like or love. MAYBE. But I don’t think just because we don’t like something that God is automatically calling us to that. I believe that God will stretch us out of our comfort zone and allow us to be challenged, but He has placed desires, and passions, and likes inside us for a reason.

And this ties in to what we are talking about when God makes all things new. Let’s look at one more verse that the prophet Ezekiel writes regarding this idea.

Ezekiel 36:25–36 NIV

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. 30 I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. 32 I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, people of Israel! 33 “ ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. 34 The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. 35 They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.” 36 Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’

ezekiel

Ezekiel 36:25–26 NIV

Ezekiel is reminding God’s people about his plan to restore His original plan for them, since the Garden (vs. 35).

But it is greater than the Old Covenant. It doesn’t occur with appeasement for sin necessary to be repeated. Instead, God is taking His covenant to a whole new level. He is getting to the heart of the matter.

vs. 26-27 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take away the heart of stone and replace it with a soft heart. And I will place my Spirit within you so that you can fulfill everything I desired of you before.

Remember, last week how we talked about our attempts to fix things, to fix ourselves, usually only make things worse. Even if we manage to tape things back together it isn’t the process of redemption and repair that only God can do. This is where self-helps and secular counseling can only take you so far because they lack the element of depending on God, surrendering to His best plan for us. He’s the creator; we’re the creation. There is no shortcut to what He has for us when it doesn’t involve Him.

vs. 33/36 God is going to cleanse us, resettle us, and rebuild us. Then the nations will know…Then the nations will know...

I love this part. God does something in and through us that no one else can get credit for, and it declares to everyone else around just how good, how great our God really is.

God’s work speaks for itself, and it will speak through our lives to those around us. ALL will know that God has rebuilt, God has planted, God has spoken, He will do it.

TRANSITION: Are you needing this in your life right now? I have areas that I am. Do you know folks needing the Lord to cleanse, to change their scenery, to rebuild and heal them? God not only CAN but WANTS to do it.

TRANSITION

Last week we celebrated with folks through baptism, and maybe you yourself have experienced God in a personal and powerful way. And I love what this verse says about what God has done in us:

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

NIV

NIV17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

I love this verse. But this verse doesn’t tell the whole story. And sometimes we get it in our minds that once we saved, once we come to God, that this “new creation” things means literally everything OLD and let’s add BAD just goes away. I don’t know about you, but it didn’t work that way for me.

SHORT STORY: When I first fell in love with Jesus…overwhelmed by his nearness. God’s Word became alive for the 1st time. Gladly removed things from my life that I felt would take away from what God was doing inside of me.

BUT as I was sharing with a fellow pastor this week, it was also after I followed the Lord that I wrestled with some very real anger issues and control and even some addictions and lacked empathy for others and was really really selfish.

IT WAS AFTER CHRIST, that I found myself in some really difficult and dark moments. But I thought I was suppose to be a NEW CREATION. What happened to that part of the story, of my journey.

TRANSITION: What do we do with that? How do you handle what you consider personal failure? How do you keep putting one foot in front of the other and not stop all together when you get discouraged? I am talking about what do you do when you believe one thing should be the case but it is working out in a totally different way. It could be that someone close to you got sick while you believed for their healing. It could be that while you in a church that someone was able to hurt you deeply. It could be that while you were trying to figure out what God had next for you that you floundered with the steps to take, what it was suppose to look like, and really couldn’t seem to get any bearings.

Listen to this...

Hebrews 2:8–9 ESV

8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

I recognize that I am a new creation. I cling to the work that God has done in me by His grace. But I also recognize that the work He started isn’t completed, and though He is changing me from glory to glory (it is daily growing) it won’t be finished until the fullness of time.

Have you ever heard someone talk about their relationship with Christ in this way:

I was saved.

I am saved.

I will be saved.

There is this idea that God has done something, I am currently experiencing the results of what He has done, but that something isn’t complete yet.

1 John 3:2 NIV

2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

HERE

God is addressing the brokenness in this world. He’s bringing about a new day. As people who have been rescued from sin and death by the love and mercy of God, we take seriously our call to join God in his ongoing work. He’s made us in his image, so that we can join him in his mission to address the brokenness in this world, and make all things new.God has placed his creative and compassionate force within us. We are people of calling and purpose.We are recipients of God’s kindness and love — and we embrace our mission to not only receive those gifts, but also to distribute them to those around us. For the Glory of our King and the good of his creation, we are joining God in the renewal of all things.

Resources of the Already, Not Yet

https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2018/09/the-already-and-the-not-yet/

Hebrews 2:8–9 ESV

1 John 3:2 NIV

2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

But we read verses such as

Romans 8:30 NIV

30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

and

Ephesians 2:6 NIV

6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,

But we don’t feel very glorified. And the life I live doesn’t always seem to be in heavenly realms.

So, there is a biblical basis for the “already but not yet” system of interpretation. The problem comes when this paradigm is used to justify the prosperity gospel, name-it-claim-it teachings, and other heresies. The idea behind these teachings is that Christ’s kingdom is in full operation and that prayer can make it “break through” into our world. Evangelism is thought to “advance the kingdom.” And people are told they never need be sick or poor because the riches of the kingdom are available to them right now.

“Already, but not yet” describes the tension between the benefits of redemption already experienced in this life and those benefits which await us at the consummation. Christians enjoy the “alreadyness” of the Atonement—remission of sins, adoption as children, the indwelling Holy Spirit, etc. However, there is a sense in which we will not see these realities in totality until the last day (), and so they always remain objects of faith. For instance, the believer already has eternal life (), but he is not yet physically resurrected. Likewise, the church is a fellowship of persons who are both new creatures in Christ () and still imperfect sinners. We await our glorification and the destruction of our sinful natures in the last day.

So, today, I want you to live in the fullness of what Christ has done for us because only He can make all things new. The newness He brings is ever increasing, as we grow in our knowledge and revelation of His unfailing love and amazing grace. It is from glory to glory in our lives.

FREEDOM: I want you to be able to walk in freedom that what God has begun He will be faithful to complete it. He will see it through. He will not let you down. You can count on Him.

I want you to be able to give yourself freedom that walking out the work He started is no more in your strength than the saving power He worked in you to begin with.

You yield (surrender).

He wield (use you).

You surrender.

He supports and empowers.

Give yourself liberty to fail, but fail forward.

Proverbs 24:16 NIV

16 for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.

Proverbs 16:20 NIV

20 Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.

Don’t get caught up in the fall. Stop beating yourself up over the failure and dust yourself off. Be worried about staying down. Be worried about the enemy convening you it’s over. Be worried about settling for less because you believed your failure defines you more than His victory.

It is not over! He is not finished!

He made all things new.

He is making all things new.

He will make all things new.

PRAY

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