The New Thing
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This morning we are going to be taking our main text from The Book of Joshua. If you like to get ahead, you can turn there.
Today I will be reading the major portion of our scriptures from the NIV.
The whole counsel of God‘s word confirms that:
God is continually positioning us for our greatest day.
Key Scripture: Isaiah 43:19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Every day, in each life and challenge, God gives us His best.
God has a dream for the future and His dream includes each of us.
Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God is conscious of us and has already thought out His will concerning us and has made good and prosperous plans for our future.
What may seem like a surprise to us is actually a plan to God.
God does not have to first get our permission before He upsets our plans for ourselves, in order to give us His plans for our lives.
God is offering His very best to us each day.
Today is a day in which God is doing a New Thing
In lives, families, churches, businesses, communities and nations.
The next step to our destiny is waiting right now, right in front of us, waiting for any one of us to take the dare and embrace it.
Have you found the book of Joshua?
This book is a story about a New Thing, a New Day, if you will. The story begins with the scripture in:
Joshua 1
1 ¶ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant:
2 "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.
3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.
Amazing … there was an ‘after’ - ‘after the death of Moses’. There was a New Day - A New Thing, well not really a New Thing in the mind of God, but it was a New Thing for these people. God had already planned it and talked about it and dreamed about and prepared for it but it was certainly a New Day for these people.
What did God say?
Moses, (yesterday), is gone … it’s over. Not the promise and not the plan, just how you thought I was going to do it - it’s over.
Now then, you and these people get ready … I am about to do something new with your lives.
“I’m gonna do what the old day promised I would do.”
Now look on over in:
Joshua 3 (NIV) The congregation is given instructions for their New Day
1 ¶ Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over.
2 After three days the officers went throughout the camp,
3 giving orders to the people: "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it.
4 Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before …
Follow the anointing of God which is upon the shoulders of the chosen leaders and move out from your positions.
This is how you will know the way to go … follow the ark and the priest who have been commissioned to carry it.
You have never been this way before …
Even though the children of Israel had never been this way before, they had been right up to it.
Forty years earlier, when the ones who were now priests, elders and leaders were under 20 years old, they had come right up to this point with their fathers.
They had been up to the will of God before, but never actually over into it. Their fathers would only accept one New Day in their lifetime.
They had been living in the dead old yesterday of God’s will for the last 40 years of their lives. Ever since the former generation failed to cross over into the next New Day.
For forty years they had been walking around and around the mountain of God, in the rut of life, waiting on the enemies of the New Day to die off so they could get on with God’s plans for their future.
God speaking through our key scripture this morning said:
“See, I’m doing a new thing … can you recognize it?”
Neither your enemies nor God’s enemies want you to have the New Thing - they want you to die unfulfilled in the old thing … but God who does not sleep nor slumber has great plans that include you and no enemy of the New Thing has the power to deny your destiny!
Let’s look at some of the Enemies Of The New Thing
1. The Old Thing (Moses would have done it … Moses is dead)
The church is not a refrigerator to preserve the Old Day, but an incubator to birth the New Day.
2. The Same Thing (I don’t like change … but it‘s not working)
Why sit we here till we die … sitting in our own pew.
3. The My Thing (I like it this way … maybe it’s not about you)
This is Father’s house, not elder brother’s house.
These enemies are roadblocks to the New Thing.
I promise you … no God promises you that:
* The New Thing is better than the Old Thing.
* The New Thing is better than the No Thing.
* The New Thing is better than My Thing.
Not New Thing for New Thing sake, but New Thing because God’s plan is being put together like a puzzle, little by little, block by block, stone by stone. We see through a glass darkly and God is continually clearing up our vision and repositioning us according to His plans.
God has a New Day for each one of us.
Without regard to where we are or how we got there, God has a best for us from here.
Even David, after he had committed adultery, conspired to betray his friend, murdered a loyal follower, taken another man’s wife and abdicated his royal responsibilities. When David turned to God and repented, God offered David a New Day.
One day it was not God’s will for David and Bathsheba to consort together, become intimate and have children. It was not God’s best for David nor for Bathsheba.
Then, after the sin, after the judgment and after the true repentance from David, God offered David and Bathsheba his very best for them. God offered David and Bathsheba their greatest day; God offered David and Bathsheba a New Day.
From David’s loins through Bathsheba’s womb came Jesus the Christ, Messiah and soon returning King of the Universe. Bathsheba is one of the great grandmothers of Jesus.
One day God spoke to Abraham to sacrifice his promised son Isaac upon the mountain of Moriah.
Three days later, while obeying God’s command, God spoke once again through and angel and told Abraham not to sacrifice his son.
God was offering Abraham a New Day.
With the first word, ‘sacrifice the child’ … and …
With the second word, ‘don’t sacrifice the child’
Both words from God had their particular challenges but Abraham responded correctly.
To the first word … and …
To the second word.
Abraham did not let the old word, the former word, the first word to be the last word.
Abraham lived his life ready to hear a fresh word, embrace a new day, accept a new thing from God … even when it looked like it was very different than the old thing, not the same thing or what he wanted.
God is continually positioning us for our greatest day. Don’t worry about change, especially when it’s is evidently out of your control.
God is committed to transforming us and working with us to help us:
Make a living, Make a life and Make a difference
The Apostle Paul said it this way:
Philippians 3 (NKJV)
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let’s not let the old thing, the same thing or the my thing become roadblocks and hold us back from embracing the New Thing.
Let’s pray that we do not miss the chance for a great New Day.
It’s going to happen anyway, with or without our consent, approval or participation. God will have His way, even with us.
Why not work with Him and learn to enjoy the journey.
The journey really is your friend.
