“In with the New (Various Texts)", Will DuVal | 1/4/26
1/4/26 | Will DuVal
Our theme for this morning is “In with the New”. There is SO much NEW-ness going on right now:
*It’s the first Sunday of a new YEAR…
*Our first Sunday in a new BUILDING…
*New PULPIT… new BACKDROP… I got a new iPAD… 🙂
*For some of you, it’s your very first Sunday here trying out a new CHURCH; you couldn’t have picked a BETTER weekend! BTW: next Sunday would be an EQUALLY great one to invite your friends, with the start of…
*A new SERMON series!
But even this message this morning is the continuation of a new mini-series for me; Pastor Thad did a wonderful job last week unpacking 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and its message of “out with the OLD”; we are to “put off our OLD selves, which belong to our former manner of life” in SIN (Eph 4:22), and remember that we have been “washed… sanctified… justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1Cor 6:11); we have been made NEW! So now God calls us “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24).
We LOVE the NEW, don’t we? The smell of a new car, all the bells & whistles of a new phone, the excitement of a new job, a new relationship. A couple years back my boys inherited their sister’s 5 year-old, faded pink Power Wheels Barbie Jeep, which they all but ran into the GROUND, they drove it so much; they loved it. But on Christmas Day, the minute they unwrapped their brand NEW mini-GOLF cart, you better believe they forgot all ABOUT that old Barbie Jeep. Out with the Old; IN with the NEW!
And we’re not the ONLY ones who love it; I wanna show you this morning in God’s word how much HE loves the new.
-He is the God who counsels his people in Isaiah 43:19 to ““Remember not the former things… Behold, I am doing a new thing”.
-The God who delights to bring us “new mercies every morning” - Lamentations 3:23 -
-And who invites us in response to “sing unto the Lord a new SONG” - Psalm 96:1 - praising the God who is “making all things new”, Revelation 21:5.
Now, to be fair, I should ALSO point out that God often loves and values the OLD as well:
-Job 12:12 recognizes that “Wisdom belongs to the aged, and understanding to the OLD.”
-Jesus of course loved and valued the Old TESTAMENT, quoting it nearly 300 times throughout the Gospels.
-And when the Israelites got bored with their “old-time religion” and started worshiping NEW gods instead, God sent the prophet Jeremiah to rebuke them, urging them to “Look… for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it” (6:16).
So to be clear: “NEWER” doesn’t always mean BETTER. Nevertheless, it is my contention that we can actually summarize the entire story of SCRIPTURE by distilling it down to just 6 acts; 6 epochs of redemptive history - if you wanna think of the Bible as a TV mini-series, these are the 6 episodes - ALL of which center on this theme of NEW-ness. And my hope this morning is that as we walk through the story again (or at least “fly over” it at 30,000 ft.) that God will not only ignite a re-NEW-ed passion for His word in your heart - because of ALL the worthwhile “resolutions” you and I could devote ourselves to in this new year, NONE is better than pursuing a new INTIMACY with God through prayer and the study of His word. So I’m praying God will allow us to see the old story with new EYES this morning.
But I’m ALSO asking Him to show us how HIS story relates to each of OUR stories with new RELEVANCY. Cuz we don’t just need a history lesson this morning; we need to be made NEW. Or at least to “put ON our new selves”; to live OUT our new identities as “new CREATIONS in Christ”. So as we work our way through each of these 6 Acts of the Bible, I’m gonna try and get really practical and suggest some tangible applications and implications that each of these new chapters in the story of Scripture might have for this new chapter in YOUR life, as a new year commences, and in our collective life together as a church.
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So I invite you to STAND with me now as you’re able for the reading of God’s word. As I said, we’re going to look at SIX different passages in turn, marking the six acts of the story. We won’t stand for ALL of them. But we begin… in the BEGINNING: with Genesis ch1; Hear the word of the Lord:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day…”
[And we’re gonna skip ahead to the END of the chapter now, and the end of the sixth DAY of Creation, where we read in v31 that…]
“God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested…
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This is the word of God…
Of the THOUSANDS of points that could be made and entire SERMONS that could be PREACHED on Genesis chapters 1 & 2, for our purposes this morning, here is the MAIN idea we need to see:
#1- that our God, is a God of NEW BEGINNINGS. (Gen 1-2)
A God who creates new beginnings… for US. We didn’t read ALL of ch1, but HAD we, we would have heard about God’s creation of…
A new UNIVERSE in v1…
A new LUMINESCENCE in v3…
A new DIURNAL CYCLE in v5…
A new ATMOSPHERE in v6…
A new TERRAIN in v9…
New FLORA in v11…
New CELESTIAL BODIES in v14…
New MARINE life and new AERIAL life in v20…
New LAND life in v24…
Including new IMAGE-bearers, HUMANS, in v26…
And then God gave us two new ASSIGNMENTS in v28: to 1) “be FRUITFUL & MULTIPLY; and 2) exercise DOMINION - AUTHORITY - over the earth”.
God essentially hands Adam & Eve the keys and says, “Have fun; it’s ALL YOURS! You can go ANYWHERE, you can do ANYTHING, you can eat of (ALMOST) any tree”; the possibilities… and the potential for progress and prosperity are literally ENDLESS!”
Friends, this is the kind of WORLD, the kind of LIVES that you and I were originally created to LIVE: life to the FULLEST. And according to JESUS, in John 10:10, it’s exactly why HE came to earth on his rescue and redemption mission 2,000 years ago as well: “I came,” he declared, “that [you] may have life and life to the FULLEST”!
So my very simple personal application question for you here with point #1 is this: “In what areas of your life are you NOT experiencing “life to the fullest” right now? The life God desires for you; the life Christ DIED to make AVAILABLE to you?”
I believe God wants to make a new beginning for someone - for MANY of us - here this morning, in this new year.
For someone here, you’re gonna look back on 2026 as the year that God STARTED you on the path of SOBRIETY.
Your first PORN-free year…
Your first NICOTINE-free year…
Your first ALCOHOL-free year…
Your first SOCIAL MEDIA-free year…
Whatever that unhealthy dependency is that God wants to cut OUT of your life… Maybe it’s FOOD you turn to - to cope - instead of going to GOD, and your new beginning is a new BODY. Did you know that God CARES about our bodies? “Don’t you know,” the apostle Paul informs us in 1 Corinthians 6, “that your body is a temple of the Holy SPIRIT within you… You are not your own, for you were bought with a price [Christ’s BLOOD!]. So glorify God with your body.” (1 Cor 6:19-20)
Or maybe you cope by SPENDING, and God wants to bless you with a new prudence, a new CONTENTMENT; “Keep your life free from the love of money,” Hebrews 13:5 warns us, “and be content with what you have”.
God wants to give SOMEONE here a new HUMILITY. You are plagued with PRIDE. And your new beginning means heeding God’s warning in Proverbs 18:12, that pride only leads to DESTRUCTION, but humility leads to HONOR.
For someone else, you struggle with the OPPOSITE affliction: INSECURITY - “I’ll never be enough” - and God wants to bless you with a new CONFIDENCE, a new ASSURANCE that Christ JESUS is MORE than enough, and if you are in HIM, then “neither death nor life, not angels nor rulers, not things present nor things to come… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39).
I believe there’s a COUPLE here, who God wants to bless with a new MARRIAGE this year. Because whatever it is you’ve got right NOW is only barely… TECHNICALLY… a “marriage”; you’re really just CO-EXISTING. But the God who announces, “Behold, I am making all things new!” (Rev 21:5) wants to declare that over your MARRIAGE this year, and give you a new LEASE on LOVE for one another… if you’ll let Him, TRUST Him, and both look to Him and learn from Him and LEAN on Him.
What’s the new beginning God has in store for YOU? For some of you, maybe it’s the greatest GENESIS of all: the start of a new relationship with Christ. God wants to bring you new LIFE - the ETERNAL life - that comes ONLY through relationship with HIM. “This is eternal life,” Jesus said, “that they know you [personally, INTIMATELY], the only true God, and [know] Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).
Do you KNOW Him, friend? If you want to know life to the FULLEST, you’ve gotta know the One who came and died and rose again to GIVE it to you. To know Jesus, is to know life abundant.
But friends: NO Jesus (“N-O” Jesus); NO life. “I am the Way, the Truth and the LIFE”, Jesus declares, “NO ONE comes to the Father” - and thus, no one experiences LIFE; real, life to the FULLEST - “except through ME” (Jn 14:6).
If that’s you, and you HAVEN’T yet experienced the LIFE and TRUTH, the JOY and PEACE, the PURPOSE and HOPE that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ, nevermind all the talk about what God wants to do in your life “this YEAR”; He wants to do it this MORNING! “TODAY is the day of salvation”, 2 Corinthians 6:2 rejoices. No better time than the PRESENT, to start enjoying the “newness of life” that Christ offers you (Rom 6:4). It begins with REPENTANCE - “God, I confess and I turn from my sin and self-centered ways” - which culminates in FAITH - “God, I believe you sent your Son Jesus to DIE for me, and to RAISE me to newness of life in Him”. Friends, the Bible promises, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). That’s the new beginning God desires for you above ALL the rest.
Listen: we could label this year as a “new beginning”, a new CHAPTER in the life of our church, with the renovation now officially underway: a new BUILDING! Can I tell you what excites me - and more IMPORTANTLY, excites GOD - INFINITELY more than a new building: what if when the history of West Hills was retold… when Pastor Thad leads newcomers through ENTRY Point every other month, he spends 10 or 15 minutes on our church’s now 55-year history, all the way up to the present; what if, when we look back and LABEL this year, this “chapter” on our historical timeline, instead of “2026: Building Renovation”, what if the HEADLINE was “2026: REVIVAL in West Hills KIDS ministry! Following the baptisms of Felicity and Elizabeth Kesselring at the end of December 2025, TWELVE more kids gave their lives to Christ (or more accurately, traded their sin & DEATH for NEW life in Christ)”
What if the headline was “2026: Evangelistic EXPLOSION!” “Freed from concerns over limited parking and seating in the sanctuary… and (more importantly) COMPELLED by the good news of the GOSPEL and a desire to see their lost loved ones be SAVED, West Hills experienced unprecedented growth - not just TRANSFER growth, of sheep swapping pastures and coming over from other churches (that’s fine; we love you; and of COURSE, we welcome you here) - but what if we witnessed unprecedented CONVERSIONS in 2026?!
Are you PRAYING for it? Asking God to DO it? I sure HOPE so; I know I am! And I can honestly say I’d be more excited over even ONE conversion, to see just ONE soul cross from DEATH to new LIFE in Christ this year, than if we built the BIGGEST, most state-of-the-art church building imaginable (which we’re NOT, by the way; so you can temper your expectations…).
New Year’s Resolutions are fine. But what’s even better - what we need even MORE than our own “resolve” - is a New Year’s REASSURANCE that we worship a God who DELIGHTS in creating new BEGINNINGS for His people. “Behold, I am doing a NEW thing”. What’s it gonna be in YOUR life this year? In OUR life together as a church? Let’s dream big… PRAY big… we know He CAN do it, we know God WANTS to do it; let’s ASK Him to. And TRUST Him to.
#2- God calls us into a new FAMILY. (Gen 12:1-3)
Returning to the story of Scripture now, just one chapter LATER in Genesis, AFTER God created everything “good” and gave us the keys, we drove it off a CLIFF, metaphorically. Adam & Eve chose their way over God’s - they SINNED - and invited CHAOS and DEATH into the world.
But in His great mercy and LOVE, God refused to give UP on humanity. He chose a man named Abram, in Genesis ch12, and called him to ““Go from your country[b] and your kindred [your FAMILY] your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And [then God COVENANTED - He PROMISED - Abram] I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.””
Once again: SO much worth UNPACKING there, but for our purposes here, let’s keep it big picture again: God’s plan of redemption - from start to finish; Genesis to Revelation (where we meet a “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, tribe and tongue, ALL [worshiping TOGETHER] and crying out with [ONE] voice, “Salvation belongs to our God” - at every turn, God’s plan of redemption is thoroughly COMMUNAL.
Faith is ALWAYS personal but NEVER private.
That’s why we pray “OUR Father who art in Heaven”.
That’s why God calls the Church collectively “the BODY of Christ” (not the BODIES of Christ).
It’s why God declares He is making “a PEOPLE for His own possession”, not “PERSONS for His own possession”.
And here in Genesis 12, it’s why God calls Abram OUT of one family and INTO another… and why He STILL does the same with us today, spiritually. When we trust in Christ and are adopted as God’s children, we join what 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the “household” of God, the Church. As a matter of fact, if you were with us this fall for our study of Galatians, you’ll recall Paul’s claim that ONLY those who have trusted in Christ are TRULY “Abraham’s offspring”, because we’re now related on an even DEEPER level than the genetic one; we are a family of FAITH.
So by way of practical application, I just want to take this opportunity to challenge you - and INVITE you! - to go even DEEPER in your relationship with this faith family, this church, in the year to come.
If you’re BRAND new, that may be as simple as coming back again next Sunday! 🙂
If you’ve been here a little while now, it may mean joining us for ENTRY Point TWO weeks from now, so we can start to get to know you, and get you connected.
If you’ve done that, and you’ve been here LONG enough now to know “Yeah, I think this is the church God wants me at”, it might mean attending the MEMBERSHIP class THREE Sundays from now, to learn why WE believe that God takes this calling to be in community SO seriously, He invites us to actually enter into COVENANT relationship with one another, as a church.
If you’re already a member but not yet enjoying real, life-on-life fellowship with others, maybe it means joining a LIFE group, or a DISCIPLESHIP group this year.
Or if you’ve checked ALL those boxes, maybe God’s calling you to EXPAND your circle of church relationships this year: your small group can’t meet at the church BUILDING anymore, and the drive to your leader’s home who’s hosting is so far; maybe it’s an excuse to join a NEW group, make some NEW friends.
Or you got used to chatting every Sunday with the same two couples who always sat on either side of you, but no one knows WHERE to sit ANYMORE! What a great opportunity to chat with some NEW folks on your way out today.
Or perhaps God is calling you to go DEEPER with fewer. You’ve been in a DOZEN different groups and ministries now, and you feel like you kinda know everyone… but kinda don’t really know ANYONE. And you’re realizing, “If they’re supposed to be my FAMILY, I’ve gotta go deeper.”
God calls us to “confess your SINS to one another” (Jas 5:16); ‘I don’t have anyone here I’m close enough with to confess my sins to…”. God calls us to “REBUKE” (1 Tim 5:20) and “RESTORE” (Gal 6:1) those who are caught in sin; ‘there’s no one I’m close enough with to observe the sin in their life, much less CALL them on it…”
Proverbs 18:24 warns, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Perhaps you hear that and realize, “I don’t have ANY friends like that here yet; we’d like to help you FIND them. I love playing Matchmaker; Thad is Pastor of CONNECTIONS; he loves it. Come talk to us. We want to get you connected.
#3) God redeems us for a new OBEDIENCE. (Ex 19:1-6)
God FULFILLS His promise to Abraham, to MAKE of him a great nation. But as his family - the Israelites - multiply in the land of EGYPT, their ruler, Pharaoh, gets paranoid, so he subjugates Israel into slavery. But God raises up a deliverer, MOSES, to rescue and REDEEM His people. And after God has led them OUT of Egypt, he tells them why He DID it, in Exodus 19: “On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt… Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him… saying, “Thus you shall say to… the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed OBEY my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples… and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”
In other words: “I FREED you to FOLLOW ME.”
“I RESCUED you to respect my commands; DELIVERED you for dutiful deference.”
“I SAVED you to seek and to serve ME” - “I brought you OUT of Egypt, to bring you TO myself, and to OBEDIENT observance of my WORD.”
And this truth, that we are redeemed for a new obedience, is repeated in the NEW Testament as well; in one of our favorite passages describing HOW we’re saved - Ephesians 2:8 & 9 - if we read on just one more verse, God explains WHY we’re saved:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
That’s HOW he saved us. But WHY’D he do it? V10: “For we are [God’s] workmanship, (re-)created (anew) in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Freed to follow; saved to serve.
So let me jump straight to the practical application for US, and ask you: “In what areas of your life might God be calling YOU to a new and more faithful obedience to Him in this new year?”
And without listing all - or really ANY of the 1,667 commands that God gives us in his word - can I at least suggest this as a starting point for our obedience: that we READ His word. STUDY it; devote ourselves to INTERNALIZING it. Because we can’t even hope to “obey” God’s voice if we don’t first HEAR it, and we HEAR it as God speaks to us through His WORD.
So I want to encourage you, on this first Sunday of the New Year, to find and commit to - cuz anybody can START it; the question is: “Will you STICK with it?” - find yourself a Bible reading plan that seems like a good fit for you, in your season of life right now. It doesn’t HAVE to be the entire Bible (23 chapters a week); just ONE chapter a DAY will get you through the whole New TESTAMENT… with an extra HUNDRED days to SPARE; maybe you work in Proverbs, read thru IT three times.
As we said about going deeper in COMMUNITY with God’s family in point #2, the question to ask yourself is: “What is MY next step?”
-If you’re not in the habit of reading the Bible at ALL yet, it might be as little as a few verses a DAY; a short, 3 minute, guided devotional reflection like Paul David Tripp’s New Morning Mercies or Everyday Gospel.
-If you’re in the habit of reading thru the ENTIRE Bible every year, perhaps this is the year God is calling you to “go deeper with fewer” (books of the Bible).
There are TONS of great reading plans out there; we put together a list of just SIX of them for you, to get you started in your search (In bulletins…?). But whatever plan you choose, let’s be faithful, obedient HEARERS and DOERS of God’s word this year. That is how He CHANGES us, and GIVES us all those exciting new beginnings we talked about in point #1: you want a new MARRIAGE? You better get in God’s word… together. Want a new FREEDOM over some besetting sin, a new CONTENTMENT, a new HUMILITY, a new INTIMACY with your heavenly Father? Your new beginning BEGINS with you getting in God’s word.
#4- and most CRUCIAL of all (related: you know the word “crucial” comes from the Latin word crux meaning CROSS…) - God rebirths us as new CREATIONS. (2 Cor 5:17-21)
God REDEEMED Israel for a new obedience. But while He was literally in the ACT of giving them His life-giving LAW, while Moses was atop Mt. Sinai transcribing the Law for them, Israel was at the FOOT of the mountain already BREAKING it, making a golden CALF to worship INSTEAD of God. And sadly, their obedience over the next 1,500 years of the rest of the Old Testament - on the whole - wasn’t much BETTER. Israel was stuck in what seemed to be this never-ending cycle of: STRIVING to obey God… then, over time, NOT striving so hard anymore; ignoring, neglecting God’s word; DIS-obeying… so God would CHASTISE them… and they’d recommit themselves all OVER again: “We’re really gonna STRIVE HARDER this time; resolve NOT to let ourselves get complacent and careless again”... and they’d DO it… for a TIME. Until they got complacent and CARELESS again, and the cycle started all over.
Friends, if I may: perhaps that sounds a lot like YOUR spiritual life, YOUR walk with God (or FAILURE to, as it were).
You keep TRYING to obey Him…
But over time, no matter HOW hard you try, no matter how many times you RECOMMIT yourself, despite all of your New Year’s Resolutions, your white-knuckling WILL-power, you somehow always seem to find yourself eventually right back at square one, of the “strive-slack off-slip up-SIN & SHAME” cycle.
If that’s you, can I just gently but INTENTLY remind you this morning that you are forgetting about the most important part of the story.
The part where God BROKE the cycle.
By inaugurating a NEW covenant with His people, like He’d promised, through the prophet Jeremiah:
““Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel… not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall [they] teach [each other], saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”” (31:31-34).
Friends, God BROKE the cycle. By making good on His promise through the prophet EZEKIEL to give us new HEARTS:
“I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which you have profaned among the nations…. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when… I clean [you] from all your uncleannesses… I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone… and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes...” (36:23-27)
God BROKE the CYCLE. By sending us the long-awaited “new PROPHET”, the BETTER MOSES God promised in Deuteronomy 18 to “raise up from among us” to lead us to the better PROMISED Land: HEAVEN!
Friends: JESUS broke the cycle!
JESUS established the new covenant in HIS blood…
JESUS cleanses us from all unrighteousness, by giving us a new HEART and a new SPIRIT - HIS HOLY Spirit - that now EMPOWERS us to “WALK in God’s statutes”.
And even when we still fall short, JESUS’s mercies are NEW every morning. “There is therefore now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh [our SIN, our inability to KEEP the Law] could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of [our] sinful flesh and for sin,[c] God condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us” by CHRIST.
In other words: Jesus broke the CYCLE! And now He offers you “new WINE” this morning (Mk 2:22), his very own BLOOD, for the forgiveness of your SINS.
He’s offering to REBIRTH you - ““Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again … of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3-4).
Friends: when we turn from our sin, trusting in Christ for salvation, we are literally - SPIRITUALLY - reborn as new creations in Christ.
“if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[c] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come! All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself… that is, in Christ God was reconciling[d] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them… We implore you (then) on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:17-21).
Jesus Christ - who was PERFECTLY sinless; he “knew no sin” - nevertheless He BECAME sin - he took ALL of your sin upon himself on the cross - that in HIM, YOU might become - not just “be FILLED with”; but actually BECOME - the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God. Which is exactly what it takes to be “reconciled” to right relationship with a perfectly HOLY God: perfect, spotless RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Only JESUS can offer it to you. And He DOES! Will you ACCEPT it… accept HIM?! THAT’S how we’re born again: “to all who receive him, [JESUS] who believe in his name, he [gives] the right to become the children of God, who [are] born, not of blood… but of GOD” (Jn 1:12-13).
And once we ARE, #5) God empowers us for a new MISSION. (Lk 24:44-49)
We’re gonna finish in a flurry, but consider Luke 24 with me briefly; this is just AFTER Jesus has DIED to forgive our sins, and after he ROSE to CONQUER the power of sin, and just BEFORE He ascended back into heaven to INTERCEDE for us sinners, we read this COMMISSION he left us with, not just his ORIGINAL 12 disciples, but ALL those who would follow him:
“[Jesus] said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for[c] the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.”
My Holy SPIRIT, to EMPOWER you for the job.
So here’s your practical application point: ready for it?
DO it! Let’s DO the work Jesus has LEFT us here… and EMPOWERS us… to DO: proclaiming REPENTANCE and the FORGIVENESS of sins, in his name, to ALL nations. Til the WHOLE WORLD hears.
But friends, it BEGINS in JERUSALEM, in your own backyard. It might start with simply inviting your friends to church. Cuz you KNOW they’re gonna hear the gospel here, God’s INVITATION of a new beginning, a new family of FAITH, the new CREATION in CHRIST that he wants to make of them. The new HOPE he wants to bring them.
And that’s where we end, where the STORY ends, where all of HISTORY is gonna end, in Revelation 21 & 22: with
God encouraging us with a new HOPE. (Rev 21-22)
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place[a] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,[b] and God himself will be with them as their God.[c] 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.””
Friends, God offers us a new HOPE this morning. “I know how the story ends / We will be with YOU again” (“You’ve Already Won” lyrics). We know how the story ends, Church: God is coming to DWELL with us once again, just like the Garden. With NO more pain, sickness, death… And that puts all the brokenness between now and then into proper perspective. We can and we WILL endure, knowing that we are destined for a NEW heaven and NEW earth… a new YOU, and a new ME. Cuz He’s the God of new beginnings.
Let’s pray…