Something Old, Something New
Isaiah 43:19
This morning I want to try to wrap up 2008 well for us, and then launch effectively into a 2009 filled with promise, filled with potential, filled with power.
I asked the Lord this week for something that would help us, inspire us, perhaps even change us. I believe God has given me something for us as a body of believers both collectively as well as individually. If you will take this morning’s message with the same diligence it was sought, I believe it will be in 2009 God provision in your time of need, God’s protection in your time of danger, God’s focus in a time of confusion, and God’s key to happiness and fulfilment in a time when people are running to and fro in panic.
Please open your Bibles with me to the words written by a prophet a little more than 2700 years ago, his name was Isaiah, Isaiah and the 43 chapter.
While you are turning there I must confess that I am always somewhat ambivalent talking about the New year and New Years resolutions.
A boy told his father, "Dad, if three frogs were sitting on a limb that hung over a pool, and one frog decided to jump off into the pool, how many frogs would be left on the limb?" The dad replied, "Two." "No," the son replied. "There’s three frogs and one decides to jump, how many are left?" The dad said, "Oh, I get it, if one decides to jump, the others would too. So there are none left." The boy said, "No dad, the answer is three. The frog only DECIDED to jump."
You see the problem with New Years resolutions. They only work if you decide to use them.
I saw a recent article that listed the five most popular resolutions made most every year.
The 5th was to take up a new hobby,
the 4th was to make more money,
the 3rd most popular resolution was to improve relationships,
the 2nd was to stop smoking,
and the most popular New Years resolution, you guessed it, losing weight.
A woman walked into her bathroom at home. As she did, she saw her husband weighing himself on the bathroom scales, sucking in his stomach. The woman thought to herself, "He thinks that he will weigh less by sucking in his stomach." So, the woman rather sarcastically said to her husband, "That’s not going to help." Her husband said, "Sure it will. It’s the only way I can see the numbers."
I believe strongly in the value of resetting your course each year, of evaluation what lies behind and embracing what lies ahead with intention and by design.
Behavioral scientists have discovered that we better equipped to see things that we are prepared to see and to accomplish things that we have determined to accomplish. This is all centered in a network of nerve cells called the "Reticular Activating System" or RAS. Everybody has a RAS - and it works like this:
Once something has been brought to our attention, and we have been focusing on it, the brain creates neuro-pathways to look for that thing again - and so you will be more aware than you would otherwise have been. For example, you decide to buy a new car. You make up your mind that you are going to buy a certain brand, a certain body style, and a certain color. Guess what - you see those cars everywhere. You see them on the roads, in TV advertisements, in newspapers and magazines. They’re everywhere. Now what has happened? They were always there, but the moment you were prepared to see them, your RAS kicked in, created neuro-pathways and suddenly you saw them everywhere. Exactly the same thing happens with goals. When we set goals we are actually programming our Reticular Activating System in our favor to give us the best chance to accomplish those goals. Why do you think successful people set goals? If you are prepared to see doom and gloom this year, then that’s what you will see. If, on the other hand, you prepare ourselves to see growth and opportunity and the goodness of God, then that’s what we are going to see.
So I want to give you 6 goals that I believe we would do well to adopt. Take these home with you. Pray them over. I invite you to make them yours.
Isaiah 43:19 Read - Pray
1. Commit Yourself to Forget Your Failures
Two thousand tears ago one the first Christian leaders, Paul gave this advice "Forgetting what is behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:13)
I take much comfort from Paul’s words. "Forgetting what lies behind . . " You see, I cannot think of a good reason to force myself to remember things that God is willing to forget?
And that is where the grace of God comes in. This grace of God is an incredible thing - not in that it keeps us from making mistakes, but rather that it enables us to rise up from the ashes time and again. Every mistake we make, every failure, every fall; because of grace we are able to rise up again.
You see my friend, if it was not for your failure, you would not need grace. If it was not for failure we would never grow, we would never learn to do things better. But because we live in a fallen world, the truth is that failure is not an option - it is a necessity.
Well my friend, the truth is that failure is either going to lead to more failure, or it going to lead to success.
I read this quote this week - it is brilliant. "A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else." We live in an incredible time where week people are always blaming some else for their mistakes. It is never there fault. You see my friend, while you are blaming someone else for your failure, you cannot forgive yourself.
Now watch this - when you choose to stop forgiving yourself for your failures you give up the power of God’s grace in your life to forgive yourself, and instead choose to listen to the tape of condemnation that you play again and again. And not only that, but you also tie yourself to the guilt and disappointment of that failure.
After 10,000 unsuccessful attempts to develop his electric lightbulb Thomas A. Edison said, "I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that wont work." Edison realized that men do not fail; they give up trying. He realized that success means not giving up.
It is in our failure we learn how ought not to do things. And by the grace of God we come away from that place a better person.
Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM, had to say on the subject, "Would you like me to give you a formula for... success? Its quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all... you can be discouraged by failure -- or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success."
1. Commit Yourself to Forget Your Failures
2. Commit Yourself to Give up Your Grudges
"Bear with each other and forgive each other whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." Col 3:13
When someone you care about hurts you, you can hold on to anger, resentment, grudges and thoughts of revenge or embrace forgiveness and move forward.
Forgiveness is the act of untying yourself from thoughts and feelings that bind you to the offense committed against you.
A grudge is simply the manifestation of bitterness. Bitterness is a stronghold satan has in your life from some offense that happened in the past. It is yesterdays thief that you have allowed to take up residence in your life that is robbing you of today’s riches.
Bitterness often does cost more than forgiving would, even if forgiving doesn’t seem fair. Besides, Jesus put no limits on forgiveness. Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace?, admits that forgiveness is an "unnatural act". Extending grace to someone who does not deserve it feels just plain wrong. Yet just as Jesus already paid for the guilt we feel, He already paid for everyone else’s guilt, too. You are never more like God than when you forgive because God is never more like God than when He forgives.
Unforgiveness is probably the biggest barrier to healing this side of heaven. It takes such humility and strength to say, "I will no longer hold this against you." As hard as it seems, though, it is so much harder to live with bitterness. It’s like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
In the Christian life, when it comes to offence, it is always catch and release season. And aren’t you glad. And the reason is that that is exactly what you need from others and exactly what you need from God.
Precious believer - my counsel to you is to let go of each and every, any and all grudges and unforgiveness that you harbor - for as it has been said so well before, ‘To forgive somebody is to set a prisoner free, and discover that that prisoner was you.’
1. Commit Yourself to Forget Your Failures
2. Commit Yourself to Give up Your Grudges
3. Commit Yourself to Restore Your Relationships
We live in a world filled with broken relationships. Nations war against nations. Ethnic groups hate other ethnic groups. Gangs protect their turf. Husbands and wives divorce one another and young people are so often violently at odds.
"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:18
"Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life." Genesis 45:5
When we choose to obey God and follow Christ, we begin to mend those broken relationships. We can’t love God and at the same time hate our fellow man. It’s impossible. A heart and life rooted and planted in the love of God will not bear the fruit of bitterness. Where there’s hatred we can know that there’s an absence of God’s grace.
What is the goal of forgiveness? It is restoration!
1. Commit Yourself to Forget Your Failures
2. Commit Yourself to Give up Your Grudges
3. Commit Yourself to Restore Your Relationships
4. Commit Yourself to Improve Your Worship
What is a whole life worship? "While Life worship is our response, both personal and corporate, to God, for who He is and what He has done, expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live."
Whole life worship recognizes that life and living is not about you - that you and I were put here for a purpose - and it is the choice to life to express our love and love that life.
You see precious believer, what we are individually, twenty-four hours a day, is more important than what happens in church once a week. The secret of acceptable worship lies in who we are at home, or at work, and when we are alone and nobody knows what we are doing. It lies in our total lifestyle. If we don’t get our act together before we come to church, we can’t expect to worship at church. We can’t expect something magical to happen once we’re inside the church doors. We mustn’t think, "All I need to do is get to church," because it doesn’t work that way.
Biblical worship has two sides that come from the Hebrew understanding.
Worship - to bow down in adoring veneration (Psalm 95:6)
Worship - to actively serve, work and minister (Josh. 24:15)
"Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." Romans 12:1
= Whole-Life Worship
There are three important words in the statement.
The first word "present," or offer up, is a military word. It means to stand at attention before a superior. We say to God, "You own one hundred percent of me, and you can do whatever you want with my life." The Hebrew word that parallels it in the Old Testament was used in the passage where the young boy Samuel confuses Eli with God’s call to him (1 Samuel 3:4). Samuel says, "Here I am," I present myself.
Romans 12:1 asks us secondly to present our "bodies," the sum total of everything we are physically, emotionally, intellectually, volitionally, and spiritually. God wants everything about us, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The third word, "sacrifice," can be a confusing word in our modern orientation. We see sacrifice as giving up something that belongs to us at a great personal loss or inconvenience. That is not the Biblical idea of sacrifice.
The word of God understands sacrifice as giving back to God what is already His, what He already owns.
‘Living Sacrifice’ - focus on the life of Christ
‘Holy Sacrifice’ - focus on being given over to God for His use
‘Pleasing Sacrifice’ - What is pleasing to God is a life which is totally his, a life that is infused with the life of his Son, the Lord Jesus.
I love the way The Message reads on Romans 12:1, "So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering."
"If you do not know the presence of God in your office, your factory, your home, then God is not in the church when you attend. I have come to believe that when we are worshiping if the love of God is in us and the Spirit of God is breathing praise within us, all the musical instruments in heaven are suddenly playing in full support. . . . It is my experience that our total lives, our entire attitude as persons, must be toward the worship of God." (A. W. Tozer)
Worship is the response of our entire lives to God.
Paul reminds us elsewhere that we have been "bought with a price," and again the fitting response is to "glorify God in your bodies" (1 Cor 6:20). As "temples of the Holy Spirit," both individually (1 Cor 6:19) and corporately as the church (1 Cor 3:16), the place of worship is always present with us, and the time for worship is always now: "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31).
1. Commit Yourself to Forget Your Failures
2. Commit Yourself to Give up Your Grudges
3. Commit Yourself to Restore Your Relationships
4. Commit Yourself to Improve Your Worship
5. Commit Yourself to Grow Your Ministry
Discover Your Call
Develop Your Gifts
Engage Your Ministry
Fulfill Your Purpose
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