It's a New Day Part 1
It's a New Day • Sermon • Submitted
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And there was Evening and Morning
And there was Evening and Morning
Do you ever find yourself focusing more on what happened yesterday than what is in front of you in the day in which you are living? Do you ever find yourself fretting over what tomorrow might hold rather than embracing the opportunities God has given in the day in which He so graciously allowed you to awaken once more?
It is so easy for us to not see the glory of God before us in each given day. In Genesis we can see a simple pattern of how God focused on His intent for each day. In each day we see His active involvement.
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
We could continue but I think you see the pattern. With each day there is evening and there is morning. They both exist because of God alone. There is rising and setting of the sun. This pattern has continued before you were conceived and will continue long after you and I are gone. In fact, I do not know of any place in Scripture where God says that He intends to cause this pattern to cease.
This pattern speaks not about the pattern of nature but about the faithfulness
and goodness of God. Lamentations 3:22-23 affirms this about God.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Take a moment and consider your fluttering existence in light of the faithfulness of a loving God. Great (in this case is rabbah רָבַב meaning much of many, continuous and increasing). Well, God’s greatness is not progressive in that He is daily increasing in greatness. You cannot get any greater than God. The context is that the greatness of God increases in your life and you walk in the light of His goodness. For example, look with me at King Asa in 2 Chronicles 16:7-9.
At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you.
Now Hanani חֲנָנִי was a Prophet that probably few of you have heard of. His name means favourable in the eyes of the Lord. Here he confronts Asa the King of Judah for not trusting in the faithfulness of the Lord. Asa became impatient in his waiting on the Lord and prideful in the victories given him forgetting the source of his favor.
Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”
The eyes (עַיִן ‘ayin) of the Lord. In context here, it refers to the Spirit of the Lord looking at the desires of one’s inner most being and judging if they are towards or against the will of God. Asa’s heart was not towards the will of God. But what the prophet reminds Asa of here, we need embrace and remember today, that every single day God is calling us to trust in Him and Him alone. Trusting in God is to lean away from the natural compulsion of our fleshly intentions. It is to be patient in His mercies from morning to morning.
"What an exquisite thought is suggested by the allusion to the eyes of the Lord running to and fro throughout the whole earth! At a glance He takes in our position; not a sorrow, trial, or temptation visits us without exciting his notice and loving sympathy. In all the whole wide earth there is not one spot so lonely, one heart so darkened, as to escape those eyes." (Meyer)
Every day the Lord is looking for our hearts to be blameless toward Him that He might work His works revealing His mercies each and every day.
Blameless - tam תָּם meaning complete, healthy, well-behaved, civilized, guiltless, without sin, upright and honest. From which comes the word referring to animal sacrifices, tamim תָּמִים meaning blameless, without fault, free of blemish, devout, consecrated, complete in honesty and integrity. In the Old Testament, only animals who were undefiled physically were worthy of being offered to the Lord. Sacrificing defiled animals was not only a violation of biblical law but blatant disrespect for God (Mal. 1:6-14).
We live in a world with defilement all around us. But when we willingly defile ourselves with defiled living, living that is in brazen opposition to the way of the Lord we need to repent and know His mercies anew.
It is the mercy of God that regardless of yesterday’s shortcomings, you can repent and turn your heart toward Him and began a new day in His favor.
In Isaiah 43:19-21 the Lord speaks through the prophet revealing the ordering of the days by the will of God Himself. He also speaks to our purpose for each day.
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. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.
Just as in Genesis, with each rising and setting of the sun initiated by the Word of God, the Lord wants to do a new thing in you. In Christ, it is indeed a new day. Regardless of what is going on in the world around you, let the Holy Spirit open your heart to perceive what God is doing. Our world today is indeed filled with jackals who despise God, ostriches who just stick their head in the sand and hope it all just goes away or gets better by chance. We all go through times of wilderness but our God makes a river for us there. He gives to His people living water that sustains our souls.
Be encouraged Follower of Christ, just as Christ broke through the grave and over came sin and death, so it is a new day for you.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
Do not hang your heads. Do not grow weary. Do not be faint in heart. Lift up your eyes to the heavens from which our hope flows like a river of living water. Last year is gone and the year before that. And we look not to what this world says nor perceive as they perceive the days. We see each day through the eyes of our Lord, and there was evening and morning and behold God said it was good. Set your heart blameless before the Lord as His eyes are indeed upon you. It’s a New Day!
Say with me, rahamana litslan רַחֲמָנָא לִשֵּׁזְבָן “May the Merciful One save us.”