God’s Not Done With You Yet

I leaned pretty heavy on Wayne Searls' great sermon, God Wants To Do A New Thing In Your LIfe. I redacted it. Took Some out, added a good bit to it. This is what came out the other end.

TITLE: God’s Not Done With You Yet 08-27-2012

TEXT: Isaiah 43:18, 19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 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.

I. THANK GOD FOR CHILDHOOD SUNDAY-SCHOOL

A. Usually when we hear some say, “God’s not done with me yet.” we

generally think of some person who is doing their best to follow

Jesus, who has their faults, but is submitting them to the Lord on a

regular basis.

1. God’s not done with me yet. He is perfecting me. He is calling me

to a higher level of holiness.

2. I hope I can follow Him. I hope you will excuse me while I grow.

3. This is indeed a wonderful sentiment. We all need to treat each

other with this in mind.

B. But there is another way in which this phrase can be understood.

There is the person who has made so many mistakes, so many

wrong turns and bad moves.

1. Why they don’t even have to be sins of the flesh—not that he was

above sins of the flesh mind you.

2. These decisions could have been made ignorantly, perhaps with

too little prayer, but with pure motives.

3. And yet, time and the voice of God demonstrate that these have

been moves and decisions contrary to the path ordained by God.

4. As sure as any sinner who explores the realm of disobedience, this

person finds himself in a fix. This person finds himself at the end of

a dead-end road with no place to turn around.

5. He’s stuck. He thinks God has forgotten about him.

6. He fears his life is wasted and is just as good as over. His biggest

regret is that he has failed God.

7. But then, as gentle as the wind blows, the still small voice of the

Holy Spirit comes reminding him of a story he first learned in

Sunday-School. (Thank God for Sunday-School. There is no greater reservoir of encouragement courage for adulthood than

the childhood Sunday-School class)

8. It was the story of the Exiles in Babylon. They were defeated,

destroyed, devastated, humiliated, captured, ripped apart from

loved ones and possessions, carted-off, forced into servitude once

again.

9. A result of so many mistakes, bad moves, wrong decisions and

failing to follow the path ordained by God.

10. Yes, they too were at that very same dead-end road. Someone

had been there before. Our discouraged life traveler’s interest is

pricked. He is at least encouraged that he has not been alone in

his folly.

11. This bad decision maker, sensing the gentle whisper of the Holy

Spirit, drawing his strength from a childhood Sunday-School

lesson looked around for parched bones. Surely those people

must have died here.

12. It is so hot, dry and miserable. Nothing could survive here for very

long. But he couldn’t find any bones.

13. So he began to look for the grave stones where the people of

God gave up hope and died, one by one burying their dead here at

the dead-end land of all hopelessness. But he could find no grave

stones either. Just how did that Bible lesson go anyhow? (Read

Text).

14. There it was, as plain as day. There were no bones and no grave

stones because God didn’t let His people die there. He wasn’t

done with His people yet.

15. You can still say that about Israel today. God is not done with

Israel yet. But that is not the point of this message.

16. The point of this message is: You may be like Israel. You may

have taken whole bunch of wrong turns, made a lot of bad

decisions, wasted tons of time. Now you find yourself at this dead-

end road in the land of utter hopelessness, seeing no place to

make a turn around.

--And you wonder, Is God done with me?

--Have I made too many mistakes?

C. Please make a statement of faith audibly, aloud with me, let it come

from the depths of who you are and what you believe about God and

what the Bible says He believes about you. Let it ring in this place:

“GOD IS NOT DONE WITH ME YET!”

D. Another prophet would say Jeremiah 29:10-14 This is what the

LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I

will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back