His Church,
A Place Of New Beginnings
New Years 2022
Dismiss GROVE KIDZ
Welcome, to church!
Welcome, to the year 2022!
Yes a brand new year is off and running.
34 hours down… and 8,726 still to go.
OKAY – here’s the deal…
TODAY - day 2 of the year 2022…
God is handing every single person in this room 364 blank pages of life…
AND HE – is inviting each of us to write a new future, a new beginning on them in the coming hours, days, weeks and months.
A FUTURE – that is so much better than the past,
A FUTURE – a 2022, that is so much better than the year 2021!...
LIKE – not just a new year, but a renewed year.
AMEN?!
NOW – I know that some people, like to pooh pooh the idea of getting excited about a New Year…
QUESTION - what does it mean to pooh-pooh something?
WELL – ‘pooh-pooh is a ‘Transitive Verb’ and it means
• to express contempt for, or make light of,
• to play down or dismiss a statement or idea
BUT LISTEN - we are not going to pooh-pooh this time (the beginning of this new year)…
INSTEAD we are to grab and embrace it.
BY – jumping out of our new series, “Matthew, The King and His Kingdom” to begin a 2 week conversation, that I am calling, ‘His Church, A Place Of New Beginnings.”
His church is a place of what? A place of new beginnings!
Man, I gotta tell you… I not only love and believe in,
BUT - I so very often need those 2 words, ‘New Beginning.’
Someone say, ‘New Beginning.’
AND LISTEN – I love that idea of ‘new beginnings so much. THAT – the other elders and I have decided that in 2022 those 5 words (A Place Of New Beginnings) are going to be our motto as a church. (Now a motto, is not something we have ever done together before)
UNDERSTAND MGCC – that is what we want to be in 2022,
A place of new beginnings… AMEN?!
QUESTION…
• Do you know of anyone who needs a new beginning?
• Do you think that there is anyone at Maple Grove who needs a new beginning?
• How about in our community… like, does anyone out there need a new beginning, a fresh start, a renewed hope?
• Do you need a new beginning? Is there anything in your life, that needs to be made new?
LIKE - are you content with where ‘your story’ is right now? Or are there some parts that need to be rewritten and renewed?
OKAY, LISTEN – here’s the deal…
‘A New Beginning’ is about changing our story by resetting both our course and our focus, on living the life that we were created to live.
YOU KNOW…
BECOMING the person and DOING the things that God prepared in advance for you to do.
AND HEY – did you notice that the word beginning is plural?
THAT’S BECAUSE – the God that we follow and serve is not a God of the singular, just one more shot and you best get right or it is all over for you.
INSTEAD – He a God who encourages us every time we fail and fall to get back up and begin again.
AND – I don’t know about you, but I am so glad ‘that this’ is who is He is. AMEN?!
OKAY – like I said this is a 2 week conversation.
THIS MORNING (1/2/22) we are going to unpack several words, that are key to you and I, actually experiencing and living out, a new beginning in 2022.
Changing our story by resetting both our course and our focus, on living the life that we were created to live.
BUT BEFORE – we go there I want to show you a quick video.
NOW – just a heads up, that there are some pretty power quotes about new beginnings in this video, so you may want to have your phone ready to take a picture of the ones that really speak to you.
VIDEO - NEW YEAR'S INSPIRATION
Steelehouse Media Group
NOW - some of my favorites quotes were…
The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is the we should have a new soul.
GK Chesterson
Maybe this year… walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but potential. – Ellen Goodman
You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; all things have become new.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21
UNDERSTAND MGCC – our God has always,
SINCE - the dawn of creation in Genesis (where He gave shape and life to an earth that was formless, dark and empty)…
TO - the culmination of all things in Revelation (“Look, I am making all things new!”)
BEEN ABOUT - new beginnings…
• IN - Genesis 12 God calls Abraham to become a NEW NATION
• IN - Genesis 35 - we see God: giving Jacob both a NEW NAME (Israel) and a NEW BEGINNING.
• IN - Exodus 3 – God gives an 80 year old guy tending sheep in the desert a NEW MISSION
• IN - the book of Joshua God gives His people a NEW LAND
• IN – the book of Ruth, God gave a foreign widow a NEW PEOPLE
• IN – 1 Kings 19, God gave a depressed and downcast prophet, a NEW PURPOSE
• IN – Isaiah 40, God tells the weary, tired and worn that if they hope in Him, they will be given NEW STRENGTH
• AND WHEN - God put on flesh and walked this earth, He spoke of: a NEW COMMAND and a NEW COVENANT.
• IN - Acts 5 after breaking them out of prison an angel from God told the apostles to stand on the street corners and preach the message of this NEW LIFE.
• AND John in His Revelation spoke of a NEW HEAVEN and a NEW EARTH
YES MGCC – there is no doubt about it, our God, the Creator of all that we see, The Lord of Glory and the King of kings… IS - really into NEW.
AND – the question I want us to consider on this, the first Sunday of the year 2022 is…
How do we - put ‘His New’ into our new year?
How do we – do we get in on this new beginning that God wants to pour into our story, so that we can begin living the life that we were created to live?
NOW - I thought about this all week… and I came up with several words that will help us do just that…
STOP – listening to the lies of the enemy
MGCC – we have an enemy, and he is a liar…
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies… - John 8:44
YES - our enemy is a liar… and he has been lying ever since the garden in Genesis 3…
• Who God is (you can’t trust Him, He’s holding back on you)
• Where life can be found
• What the consequences of certain actions would and would not be
• Who we are, what we’re really worth and who we have been created to be.
John Eldredge writes the following words in His book ‘Waking The Dead,’ I have shared these words many times before, but we all need to hear them again as we begin a new year.
“You are not what you think you are. There is a glory to your life that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you act on it…
The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”
UNDERSTAND IF – we want to close the gap and live the story that God intends for us… We need to stop listening to the lies of our enemy…
NOW – keep in mind, he is never going to stop lying, but we don’t have to listen.
QUESTION – but how, do we know when it is our enemy who is talking to us?
“Any word or suggestion that brings; discouragement, condemnation or accusation – that is not from God. Neither is confusion, nor any counsel that would led you to disobey what you know. Reject it all and carry on in your journey…
The voice of God is never condemning, never harsh or accusing. His conviction brings a desire for repentance. Satan’s accusations kills our hearts…”
QUESTION…
What lies, have you and are you, believing and agree with that are keeping you from your God-ordained destiny?
• Your too young/too old
• You always fail
• It will never get any better
•
START – believing in who you really are
UNDERSTAND – you are not who your enemy says you are… INSTEAD - as a Jesus-follower you are, who God says you are!
NOW – there are so many Scriptures that we could read that tell us who ‘we are’ in Christ… here are just a few…
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! – 2 Corinthians 5:17
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things, which God prepared in advance for us to do . – Ephesians 2:10
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
– 1 John 3:1
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. – Romans 8:37
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. – 1 Peter 2:9,10
B/S – you are…
• A new creation
• God’s masterpiece
• Created to do good things that God prepared in advance for you to do
• A child of God
• More than a conqueror
• Chosen, royal, holy, God’s special possession
QUESTION – why is it so much easier for you to believe what God says about Himself, than it is for you to believe what God says about you?
LISTEN – we need to turn that around in 2022, if we want a new beginning… if we want to live out a better story.
STOP, START… and the next word is.
LEAVE – some stuff behind
No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins – Luke 5:37
UNDERSTAND – if we really want to change our story and experience His New Beginning…
WE - will have to leave some stuff behind.
AND LISTEN – that is what we see happening all throughout Scripture.
• Abraham had to leave his family and homeland
• Moses had to leave the comfort and security of playing it safe in the desert tending sheep
• Peter and John had to leave their nets and fishing business.
• Paul had to leave his legalism and false ideas about Jesus
• Timothy had to leave his fear and timidity
• The early church had to leave a bunch of old habits and other issues, that kept creeping back into their lives
OKAY – now here is what happens to us.
WE – hear about this new beginning and changing our story thing, and with good reason it excites us.
This year can be different… better.
BUT THEN – we head out still carrying a bunch of old stuff with us.
AND – it keeps getting in the way and tripping us up.
QUESTION…
Is anything holding you back for experiencing His New beginning? What do you need to leave behind so that God can refocus your story on the life He created you to live?
MAYBE - you need to leave…
• Doubt, fear, pride, guilt, shame, envy, jealousy
• insecurity, selfish ambition,
• anger, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness
• some sin, an attitude, an addiction, a way of thinking
• a habit or a relationship that is pulling you away from God
Roger Knighton Testimony
YOU KNOW – I am sure that there is something each one of us needs to leave behind in order to experience His new beginning in the year 2022.
AND SO – the question is, just how serious are we about living out His new beginning.
AND LISTEN – if you cannot think of anything to leave behind… if you are serious about living out a better story, ask God about it… LIKE – David does in Psalm 139.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – Psalm 139:23,24
STOP, START, LEAVE, and the next word is SEEK…
SEEK – Him first, before and over all else
Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
– Matthew 6:31-33
• Seek First – Greek, ‘protos’… not first as in a list, but that which determines everything else
• His Kingdom – is His Church, is His rule in the hearts of His people, and
• His Righteousness - is His person, His plan and His purposes.
OKAY – so what Jesus is saying is…
Don’t be like the pagans (those who do not know God) who run after…
INSTEAD – seek first, allow Jesus His Kingdom (His church, His rule in the hearts of His people), and His person, plans and purposes to determine all that youTHEN – all of the things that people run after will be given to you.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, - Jeremiah 29:11-14
UNDERSTAND B/S – there is something about who God is that we will not really find Him until we seek Him with all our heart, until we want Him more than we want anything else.
STOP, START, LEAVE, SEEK, and the next word is
GROW – like Jesus grew
QUESTION – do you think that your 2022 would be…
Better, different, more positive, more fulfilling and more God-honoring… IF – growing more like Jesus was part of your new year? (yeah, me too)
AND SO - how did Jesus develop and grow?
AGAIN – the Scriptures provide the answer for us.
Jesus grew in wisdom (intellectual development) and in stature (physical development) and in favor with God (spiritual development) and favor with man (relational development). – Luke 2:52
UNDERSTAND MGCC
IF YOU - want to experience God’s new beginning in 2022, IF YOU - want your story to be refocused on the life that you were created to life, THEN - you must grow in the four ways Jesus developed…THEREFORE – this week you need to take some time and prayerfully set 2-3…
Intellectual Goals
A book reading goal; Taking a class over at a college or online; Study something you have always been interested in; Develop a new skill; Learn a language
Do some studies or watch some conferences on right now media
Physical goals
Lose some weight, Go to bed earlier, Get on an exercise plan,
Change your eating habits, Start walking every day?
See a counselor (your mind is part of your body)
Spiritual goals.
Be in church every Sunday (online do it at 10:15), Read your bible _ day per week, Go to a bible study, Join a life group, Find a place to serve in the church, Start tithing Share your faith with someone… really commit in 2022 to Pray For One
Relational goals
Do your part to restore a broken relationship; set aside a specific time to be with individual members of your family
Start meeting regularly with a few other believers who are on the same path as you are (you know, running buddies);
Find someone that you can mentor and pour your life into;
Ask someone who is a few steps ahead of you if they would
help you in your journey; Have people over to your home for a meal; Make an effort to get to know a few neighbors or co-workers
STOP, START, LEAVE, SEEK, GROW and the next word is
CAST – the right character in the lead role
UNDERSTAND – casting the right main character can either make or break a movie right.
FOR EXAMPLE…
One of my all time favorite movies is Braveheart.
UNDERSTAND B/S – one of the reasons why we get stuck and off track in our story and miss out on God’s new beginning… IS BECAUSE - we cast the wrong character (‘us’) in the lead role.
NOW – I don’t know about you, but I really struggle with wanting to be the main character in my story.
BUT LISTEN – if our story does not revolve around God’s glory – it’s not worth telling.
MGCC – we are not the main character in our story, Jesus is IN FACT – that is exactly what God’s word says…
Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
– 2 Corinthians 5:14,15
UNDERSTAND – Christ is to have the supremacy in all things, including in our lives (in our stories)…
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? – Matthew 16:24-26
OKAY – here’s what I’m trying to say. We can be an excellent supporting element in God’s story… BUT – we make a lousy main characters.
MGCC – I just gotta tell you I make a terrible main character… terrible. YEAH – when my life is centered on and all about me, it doesn’t work so good.
“LORD, help us to cast you as the main character in our lives…”
STOP, START, LEAVE, SEEK, GROW, CAST
and the next word is
Follow – the correct script
UNDERSTAND – we have been handed all of these scripts by our culture. AND SO – we follow those scripts and at the end of it all… WHEN – we are frustrated, burned out, alone – depleted. WE - wonder why it didn’t work. I MEAN…
• WE - earned what they told us we needed to earn
• WE got what they told us we needed to get
HOWEVER – when we got what we wanted…
IT - didn’t DO what we expected…
AND WE – didn’t FEEL the way we thought we would feel.
OKAY – here’s the deal… I believe that God would say the same thing to us that He said to Adam and Eve…
AFTER – satan, in the garden handed them a Script,
“You don’t have to listen to what the director, to what God wants… go ahead eat the fruit. Yeah I know, what God told you… But you won’t surely die.”
AND SO - Adam and Eve followed that script, ate the fruit
AND THEN THEY - felt the shame of sin… as, we all do whenever we get off the Script of God’s story.
YOU KNOW – it’s interesting (and telling) that when God goes looking for Adam and Eve (they are hiding because they feel naked and ashamed)…
AND GOD SAYS – “who told you that you were naked?
I MEAN – when you were following my script, obeying my commands, living according to my heart you didn’t feel shame.
NO – it was when you started following the wrong script… “Who told you – you were naked”
Who Told You…
• That you had to live the rest of your life in shame because you were abused as a child, or made some terrible choices inregards to your purity.
• That you have ‘to do this’ or ‘achieve that’ to have value or worth
• That Jesus couldn’t wash away that bitterness, that guilt, that shame
• That you couldn’t overcome that hurt, that habit or that hang up
• That ‘real’ life is found, not in self denial but rather in self indulgence… pursuing pleasure, possessions, position and popularity
• That you could not overcome and rise above your past and what others say about you and live a full and abundant life in Christ.
Who gave you that script?
UNDERSTAND – those are NOT the scripts that the Director (the One, who is over all things, sustains all things and holds all things together) – who put on flesh and endured the cross… THAT’S NOT – the script that God wrote for your life… NO – you script is right here, in this book
Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. - 2 Timothy 3:16,17
STOP, START, LEAVE, SEEK, GROW, CAST, FOLLOW
and the next word is
PURSUE – the life you were created to live
NOW – I only want to mention this word, but how we actually pursue this life is what next week’s conversation will be about.
STOP, START, LEAVE, SEEK, GROW, CAST, FOLLOW, PURSUE
and the next word is
ASK - If What You Want, Is Worth It
UNDERSTAND – it’s not that we want the wrong things or that we want bad things, it’s just that what we want isn’t worth all that much in the light of forever.
NOW – our world says that… possessions, pleasure, fame,
success, popularity… ARE - the things we should give our lives for… BUT – are they really worth it?
(Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, John Belusie, Christ Farley, Robin Williams)
In the opening pages of his book, ‘A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, How I Learned To Live A Better Story…’ Donald Miller writes;
If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and he worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end of the movie when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the movie you’d seen.
The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except that you were robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.
But yet, we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, IF what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful…
YOU KNOW – if you look at your favorite movies, they are probably about a character that wanted something that was worth it…
AGAIN - my all-time favorite movie is Braveheart… and what did William Wallace want?
Freedom… Now I don’t think it would be my favorite movie if William Wallace went through all he went through just to get a new horse to pull his plow.
Think about some of your favorite movies… what did the lead character want?
Rocky IV, Rudy, Lord of the rings…
SO – what’s worth it… what’s really worth wanting in the end? QUESTION – what did, the apostle Paul want…
As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing. – 2 Timothy 4:6-8
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? – Matthew 16:25,26
STOP, START, LEAVE, SEEK, GROW, CAST, FOLLOW, PURSUE, ASK, and the next word is… I’ll tell you in just a moment.
A few verses…
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. – Jeremiah 1:5
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
– Ephesians 1:4,5
QUESTION – has anyone out there ever seen the show called, ‘The Voice.’ It’s a singing competition that been around since April of 2011… I have always liked how the first few episodes go down.
The judges do not face the contestants…
INSTEAD – they sit on four, really awesome chairs… with their backs to the contestants. They don’t see them, they just hear their voice.
AND - they have this big button on the chair, and if they want to commit to coach that contestant… they hit the button and then their chair spins around…
YEAH – I like it…
They make their choice not based on appearance, or on what they can see… But simply based on what’s inside the person., their voice…
The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart…
- 1 Samuel 16:7
COME ON – aren’t you glad that this is how our God, the creator of the Universe rolls?
UNDERSTAND – God chose us just like He chose Jeremiah… HE – choose us… Before we born; Before He formed us in the womb, Before He made the world, Before He saw us
Before we hit the first note
Before we even got onto the stage
YOU KNOW – much of our lives are spent just trying to get people to approve us…
I MEAN – we go on stage after stage trying to hit the right notes. Trying do things just the right way… hoping someone (our mom, our dad, our kids, our spouse, our friends, our boss, the world) will hit the button and spin their chair around and approve us…
• If I just get the right job; Make the right grades
• Loose 20 pounds; Get the promotion
AND LISTEN – do you know what happens?
THIS – “Way of thinking’ that pervades our relationship with people (trying to get their approval, trying to win or earn their acceptance)…
BECOMES - the foundation for the way we relate to God.
What I’m saying is that…
We start… DOING things, and SAYING things, and TRYING things and STOPPING things… Asking God
• will you hit the button and turn your chair around
• will you choose me for your team
• can I be a part of what you are doing
• is there a place for me in your story
BUT LISTEN… I am convinced that…
AS - we begin a brand new year,
AS - God’s lays out before each of us a new beginning and a better story…
THAT – He wants to say to us
CANCEL - The Audition, Because You Already Got The Part…
AND HEY – let’s go ahead and just acknowledge the truth upfront… THAT IF – this audition would have been based on our talent… WE - wouldn’t even been able to be in the same room with a Holy God.
A GOD – who isn’t impressed with anything we bring to Him, because He is the one who put in us to begin with…
NOW – I don’t know if this stuff is helping anyone else out there but sure is helping me…
YOU SEE – even after 42 years of following Him, I still at times find myself…
THINKING - that I have to DO something for God in order for Him to hit the button and turn His chair around…
BUT MGCC – it’s 1/2/22… and His church is a place of new beginnings and this year I am not going to live my life anymore auditioning for a part God has said that before I was even born… was mine! “Steve…
• you’ve already got the part – now just play it
• you’ve already got my acceptance – just walk in
• you’ve already got my life – just live it out
BUT LISTEN – that doesn’t mean I going to stop trying…
IT – just means that I am going to stop trying out!
MGCC/BS…
Cancel The Audition,
Because You Already Got The Part…
STOP, START, LEAVE,
SEEK, GROW, CAST,
FOLLOW, PURSUE, ASK,
CANCEL
10 words that we help us experience His New beginning and refocus our story on the life we were created to live.
