New Things – All Things New

Well, Father God, we just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

To be able to gather as a church, to gather as a body of believers, and to worship you

is an amazing and wonderful privilege.

And Lord, as we gather, we simply pray and ask that your Holy Spirit would come and rest

on this place, but more importantly, that your Spirit would come and rest on our hearts.

And Father, we do not claim that we can do anything apart from you.

Lord, we can't even worship you appropriately without your Spirit guiding us to do so.

So this morning, Lord, we humbly come before you and we ask that your Spirit would be in

this place, that it would be in us and God, that you would show us and teach us and guide

us in how to worship you, how to give you glory, how to give you honor, how to give you

praise.

And Lord, we come humbly to give ourselves to you at this time, Lord, no matter what

our reason may be to be here this morning, whether this is our church or whether we came

to see someone be baptized or whether we just came to visit because there's something drawing

us to you.

God, I pray that we would all humble ourselves at the foot of your throne and once again

invite you to be the Lord, the God, the King of our lives.

Lord, we are such a small part of your creation and all that you want to do in this great,

incredible, massive plan that you have.

And Lord, even though we're a small part, you love us so much.

And you have paid such a high price for us to include us in that.

So this morning as we gather, we ask that you would teach us and show us and help us to

become more and more like you.

Father, for all of our brothers and sisters who aren't able to be here today, we lift

them up to you.

We ask that you would touch their hearts and their lives this morning as well and we believe

and have faith that you can be with them now where they are, just like you are here with

us where we are.

From the physical to the spiritual to the special requests that we have, Lord, we give

all these things to you.

And in these coming moments, I pray that we would give you our focus, our hearts, our

minds, all that we are would be yours for this short amount of time.

Lord, we love you and we thank you and we ask all this in Jesus' name, all God's

people said, amen.

You may be seated.

It's great to see you guys this morning.

Very thankful for you being here.

Welcome all of our guests.

I know we have a lot of family who's come in to see family members get baptized this

morning.

We're so excited about that.

Over the past several weeks, we have been talking about God doing new things of how

we have this amazing and wonderful and perfect God who never changed.

He never shifts.

He never changes his mind.

And at the same time, he loves to do new things in our world and us through us.

We've talked about how he's made us into new creations.

We've talked about how he's forced new paths, how he's used new methods and how

he's done new works in us.

And today, as we continue on and finish up, this is the grand finale, is talking about

how God is, his goal, his plan, his purpose is to make all things new.

And I think we forget about that a lot of times, you know, we move throughout our world

and there are many good things in the world.

I've talked about this before and, you know, there are so many good things.

When God created the world, everything that he created, he said that it was good.

And when he made people, when he created human beings, he said that it was very good.

So it's not that anything in this world was not good, but we do live in a world that is

very broken.

And the problem is, is that we're the ones who broke it.

You notice that when we sit here, we have a lot of questions.

We have a lot of frustrations.

You know, life doesn't always go the way that we want it to.

And we like to sometimes in our immaturity, in our anger and emotions, we like to pin things

on God, but we forget so many times that we have contributed to the brokenness of this

world more than we would ever like to admit.

I myself have sinned.

I have hurt people, I have sinned against people, I have contributed more to the brokenness

of our world and our community and even our church more than we would ever like to admit.

And that's something that we have to come to the point in our lives where we see that

and we understand it and know this morning that if you are sitting here, that God sees

that the things in this world are not perfect.

They're not as good as they should be.

They were, but the world isn't perfect now.

Sin entered into the world and all of us have played a part in it.

And so this morning, if you're a Christian and you love Jesus and you're filled with the

Spirit of God, it is very much possible for us to live in this broken world and it doesn't

matter the situation and the circumstances of all that we have in our life, we can find

joy and hope and peace in the midst of anything, whether we have much or we have little,

we can have peace and hope and joy even in a broken world.

And if you're sitting here this morning and maybe you believe in Christ but you haven't

fully surrendered and maybe you don't feel that joy that I'm talking about yet and that's

something that you want or maybe you're just like, I don't know about this whole Jesus

thing and I don't know about Christianity, but I know the world's broken.

I know life stinks a lot of times.

I know it's very rarely the way that I want it to be.

I want to encourage all of you this morning that the Lord sees that.

He very much knows that the world is broken.

And this whole idea and understanding that God wants to make all things new is something

that we need to consistently remind ourselves of because there's some of us who see the

world and it stinks and it's bitter and it's hard to live in and know that God wants

to make all things new.

And there are some of us who look at the world and we think, man, this is great.

I love life.

I'm very happy with what I have.

Life is amazing.

I have friends.

I have family.

I love being here.

I can't imagine going anywhere else in life being any better.

And to understand that you have a God who has everything in this world that even though

it may be good, he's wanting to make all things new and he has something so much better

than even that.

We serve a God whose full intention and plan that involves us being saved and making him

the God of our life and having eternal life and going to heaven is to make all things new.

We got to remind ourselves of that for polar opposite reasons.

And so this morning we're going to be in Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

We're going to read verses one through seven.

And as John is on the island of Patmos, this is one of the visions that God gives him.

And as John writes, this is what he says.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared.

And the sea was also gone and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from

God out of heaven like a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.

I don't know about you guys, all you men in here, but I was 30 when I got married.

There was many days where I was wondering if I would ever get married.

And I'll never forget seeing Hannah come down.

And the joy in that moment of what God had provided in my life that I'd prayed for

for a long time was one of the most joyful moments I'd ever experienced in my life.

And to sit here today and think about the world that we live in, if it stinks, then

obviously you're looking forward to something better.

If it's great, then obviously there's questions in your mind of like, how could heaven be

better than the life that I have now?

If you're that thankful and that joyful over it, know that God has something so beautiful,

so amazing, something so much better prepared for anything that you could ever think, imagine

or have in this world, it's that much better.

Like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

In verse three is that I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, look, God's home

is now among his people.

And in the next couple of verses, you see where God is basically recreating this idea

of the Garden of Eden, where he is going to dwell among his people, he's going to walk

with them, he's going to live with them.

If you've ever been saved, if you've ever experienced the feeling of the Spirit in your life,

to know what it's like to have God move and work, it is one of the most amazing

things you will ever experience in life.

And to know that God wants to bless you with that eternally, for you to feel and see and

experience his presence for all of eternity is one of the greatest gifts, is one of the

greatest highs, it's the most exhilarating, wonderful feeling you could ever imagine.

And God wants to give it to you for eternity, not just a moment, not just a lifetime of a

few decades, but for all eternity.

It says he will live with them and they will be his people.

God himself will be with them.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow

or crying or pain.

And you won't have to see me crying in front of you anymore, so that'll be good.

And all these things are gone forever.

And in verse five, he says, and the one sitting on the throne said, look, I'm making everything

new.

And then he said to me, write this down for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.

And he also said, it is finished.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

And to all who are thirsty, I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.

All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings and I will be their God and they

will be my children.

That is what we cling to as Christians.

And this morning, if that doesn't at least make you excited or somewhat emotional, you

need to look inside your heart and really figure out who it is that you belong to.

That should give a joy and an excitement and an anticipation that is just beyond the ability

to explain.

And we got a lot of young people in here this morning and I want to tell you, I understand

how extremely difficult it is to be like, yeah, I look forward to death.

Like that's not normal, right?

Even old people don't look forward to death, right?

We don't look forward to, I'm getting old and I don't look forward to death.

But at the same time, the older I get, the more I realize, man, the world is broken and

screwed up.

And there's a lot of hurt and pain.

And it doesn't matter how good life is or how much you have or any of that stuff,

there's just something within you.

As long as we live in this world, there's something that we long for, that God plans

to give us an eternity that will fill that hole, that we will only experience then.

And as a young person who has your entire life to look forward to, I'm excited for you.

As a church, I hope that the rest of the church is praying for you, as I'm praying

for you.

But I want you to know, your spouse will not fill the hole in your life.

Your job will not fill the hole in your life.

Your career, your possessions, family, friends, hobbies, nothing will fill those

holes and those desires in your life.

You think it will for a time and it may make you happy and smile for a day or a

few, but everything gets old and you always want more and you always feel like

you need more.

But God can give us something that we desperately need.

So point number one this morning is that God understands how broken things are.

I think that's really important for us to see.

We can look at the world, we can look at everything and see how broken it is.

A lot of things need to change, a lot of people need to change.

We ourselves, we need to change and we see that.

This is probably one of the only spiritual things that you can rationalize.

Like we know in our hearts, even if we have a good life, even if we have

everything we could ever want or ask for, we look around and we know like God

really needs to fix all this.

We can see it.

We know that because we know even if our life is great, we can see people whose

lives aren't great.

We can see people who struggle, see people who don't have that.

We know God needs to do something.

I mean, you look at our lives today, we, just the people inside this room, we live

in the greatest country on earth, yet all we can see is the faults in it, right?

It's true.

It is the only, it's one of the only countries this morning that you could

come and you can worship in and you don't have to fear this idea of someone

waiting for you out there to do something to you for choosing to be in

here this morning.

And then if you wanted to this week, sometime you could go and you can

protest against your government leaders and you have all these freedoms and

you can do, you can move across state line, you can do all these crazy

things and yet we're so unsatisfied with what we have and it's the

greatest country on earth.

We have clean drinking water.

We have a pair of clothes because thankfully none of you are naked this

morning.

You have food in your refrigerator.

You have water that runs out of your spigot that even though it may not

be filtered, it's still drinkable.

We're wealthier than 75% of the rest of the world and yet we complain

constantly about what we can afford, how we're going to pay for things,

how we're going to do this.

We're constantly worried about money and we have more than 75% of the

rest of the world.

We have access to amazing health care.

We complain about it.

We take medicines to keep us alive and we complain about the cost of it.

We have some of the longest life expectancies on earth and yet every

time death comes, it's still too soon.

Right?

It doesn't matter if you live in a third world country and you have

third world problems or you live in a first world country and you have

first world problems.

We all have problems.

We all struggle because the entire world is broken no matter where you

are.

And as much as you love your boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse, they're

also broken.

You are also broken.

Your parents are also broken.

Your children will also be broken.

We're all broken.

God sees it and he wants to make everything new.

Thankfully, we serve a God who understands this.

In Hebrews four verse 15, it says this high priest of ours who is

Jesus understands our weaknesses for he faced all the same

testings we do.

Yet he did not sin.

Jesus came in the flesh and lived in our world to experience what

it was like to be someone's child.

So you get to experience what it was like to be a human being, to

feel hunger, to feel pain, to feel betrayal, to feel rejection.

If you were here Wednesday night, we talked a lot in our Bible

study about how even his own family did not believe in him.

His own brothers did not believe in him and they rejected him.

Told him to go somewhere else and do his miracles.

He understands how amazingly painful life can be and at the

same time, how there are great moments that we cling to.

You ever think about how like we cling to this life?

Like none of us want to die, but at the same time, we'd say, man,

this world's pretty screwed up.

None of us are ready to die.

Even if you claim to be a Christian, everybody's like, I

want to go to heaven.

I'm not ready to go right now, right?

That's where most of us land, you have to be kind of weird.

We cling to this world because there are good things in it and

there are good moments in it and it's amazing what we're

willing to put up with just to experience these good moments,

these good times, these good things along the way.

But these moments and these times and these experiences, these

people who are good that you experience in life, they were

never meant to sustain you for eternity.

They are meant to give you a taste of what God has for you in

eternity, that he is ready and willing and has already set up

to provide for you if you're willing to acknowledge him as

Lord and Savior.

Point number two this morning, God is faithful.

You know, one of the things that we see in this passage is

that God says he is the Alpha and the Omega.

He's the beginning and he is the one who is faithful.

He's more than able to do all the things that he said that

he's going to do while we ourselves are unfaithful.

God is faithful.

Think about that this morning.

We're the ones who are unfaithful.

It's like we love to pin a lot of things on God like we

want to say that God's the one God.

How could you let this happen?

God, why is this?

Why did this happen this way?

Why is this in my life?

Why is this happening to me?

What's going on?

God, explain this to me.

You know, it's like we like to say, oh, God's in control.

And yet when it comes to our own personal life, we are the

very ones who says, no, God, you can't control me.

No, God, you can't have this area of my life.

No, God, I'm not going to surrender you and do this thing

that I know and I feel in my heart that you're leading me to

do.

I'm not going to do it because I don't want to or I'm not ready

or there's something else that I would rather do.

And we love to say like, oh, well, God's in control.

It's his fault.

He allowed it to happen when we ourselves are the very ones who

pull away from God and take control into our own hands.

And then we want to put it on him like it's his fault when

things don't go our way.

It's a dangerous game to play.

Because our God is faithful and the truth of the matter is this

morning is is that everything that God has said that he was

going to do, he is always done and everything that he says that

he is still going to do, he will very much do as a believer

in Jesus Christ.

Part of submitting to Jesus is literally saying, God, I

believe that not only have you done everything you said you've

done, but I believe you're going to do everything that you say

you're going to do.

And we cling to that and we live our lives based off of that.

There is no faith if you don't live your life based off of I

believe Jesus is preparing eternal life for me because

that's literally what we're living for and that he's going

to take everything that we see and touch and feel now and

he's going to destroy it.

It's going to be gone.

It's going to go away and he's creating everything new, new

heavens, new earth, a kingdom where he can live amongst us

apart from the sin that we've contaminated with.

He's going to do creation all over again just to have us and

be with us for all of eternity.

That's what we're putting our faith in.

That's why we surrender to the things of this world, not

because God just says, well, are they willing to do this?

Check, check, check, check.

No, it's like the whole idea is everything in this world

that we see, feel, touch, smell, taste, it's all going to

pass away.

And God is saying, do not cling to the things that are

temporary, cling to the things that are eternal.

Don't cling to this world.

This world's going to pass away.

Cling to the things that you cannot see because those

things are eternal.

God has plainly said everything, everything on this earth is

going to fade away.

And in John chapter 14, verses two through three, Jesus said

John 14 · chapter mention

that there is more than enough room in my father's home.

If this were not so, would I have told you that I'm going

to prepare a place for you?

It goes back to this whole idea is Jesus a liar.

What do you really believe about Jesus, the God that you say

you believe in?

What do you believe about him?

Is he a liar or does he tell the truth?

Is he faithful or is he unfaithful?

You've got to decide that for yourself.

And Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a place for you.

And when everything's ready, I'll come and get you so that

you will always be with me where I am.

That is Christ's greatest goal for you is to be with him.

To walk with him in this world and to be with him on the other

side for all of eternity.

A lot of people love to pick and nag on all this like weird

stuff and theology and things like that.

God's greatest goal for you is to be with him.

He simply wants to be with you.

He wants to be with you now.

He wants you to walk in fellowship with him and he

wants to fill you with his Holy Spirit.

And he wants to he wants you to be with him for all of eternity.

And the whole thing going back to our focus passage in verse

seven he says all who are victorious will inherit all these

blessings and I will be their God and they will be my

children.

God doesn't just want you to be with him.

He wants you to belong to him.

He wants to take care of you.

He wants to provide you to everyone who wants his I'll

provide life giving water for all of eternity.

And the last point this morning point three is is that we

must all be made new to experience this new creation.

Now in week one five weeks ago we talked about being made

into new creations.

And I think one of the most fascinating things about

scripture about spiritual things is that basically they

make circles and they connect and it's something that flows

very organically in the way that we should understand it

and see it and this idea about God making new things

creating a new heavens and a new earth creating this home

this place to prepare us for us to dwell with him for all

eternity.

The only stipulation is is that we need to come before our

Lord and Savior and allow him to make us into new creations

in order to partake in that.

To surrender in such a way that allows God to work and

move in us.

Jesus has paid the price so that we can be made new and

live with him in a new heavens and a new earth.

We go back to creation who screwed it up.

I did.

We did.

And this morning it's really important to understand that

if God has taken this idea of creation that he created

physical things in this world that we live in and he says

man this was good when I made it it was really good.

And if it because it's been contaminated with our sin that

he's willing to destroy it and create a new heavens and

a new earth.

Why in the world would he spare the people who are the

ones who contaminated it with the sin.

And he is willing to spare us through the blood of Jesus.

But if we reject Christ and we don't surrender to him we

don't accept him as Lord and Savior we subject ourselves to

the curse of the destruction of sin in this world.

Jesus has set everything up so that you and I could be

forgiven of that sin be made into new creations be made

into new men and women with new hearts new minds which we

talked about five weeks ago this important of just like

being made new because you know this you know sitting in

here this morning because so many of us do this like we say

yeah I believe in Jesus I believe that he's Lord I believe

in God I believe in eternal life and yet we are still the

same we struggle with the same sins we say the same things

we do the same stuff we hurt people to just the same it's

like nothing changes in our lives but we say with our

mouth that we believe and we say that we are this thing

and yet none of there are some who are never transformed

and the truth is is we need to get on our hands and knees

and cry out to our heavenly father and beg him to empty us

out of who we are and to fill us with the Holy Spirit so

that we can be made new God's desire for you is to have a

new heart to have a new mind there are temptations in your

life that God does want to remove from you because I know

people who have testified that they had addictions and

that they had sins and they had temptations that was in

her life and whenever they got saved and they give their

heart to Christ God took those things away and so he's

more than able to take them away and at the same time

there are people that I know even myself included some

of the things the Lord took away some of the things he

didn't and there are still temptations and things that

I'm drawn to in my life but the spirit of God presses on

me and convicts me greatly and we should be praying God

fill me with your Holy Spirit if you're not going to

take this temptation away from me if you're not going

to remove this desire for my life fill me with your

Holy Spirit so that whenever I see it or act upon it

or desire or whatever it is that it makes me sick to my

stomach and my soul to do it because I want to be new

and I want to be yours I want to belong to you and I

want to experience eternal life with you in 2nd

Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16 through 18 Paul

writes to the Corinthians he says that is why we

never give up you know in the early church they

were writing letters to all these Christians and the

Christians were struggling with a lot of different

things a lot of different temptations a lot of

different sins it's pretty crazy when you read some

of the sins the early churches were struggling

with but Paul says this is why we never give up

though our outer bodies are dying our spirits are

being renewed every day God wants to renew your

spirit every single day God wants to give you

strength and hope and joy and peace and he wants

to carry you through this physical life to prepare

you and bring you to the other side verse 17 for

our present troubles are small and won't last very

long yet they produce for us a glory that vastly

outweighs them and will last forever so we don't

look at the troubles that we can see now rather

we fix our gaze on the things that cannot be

seen for the things we see now will soon be

gone but the things we cannot see will last

forever that's hard to rationalize from a human

perspective it's hard to sit here this morning

and say especially the younger you are because

you have so much more life ahead of you as you

get older it's a little more to rationalize it

because you realize a lot of the things that

you thought you wanted that you got your hands

on witness great as you thought it was going to

be anyway but as a young person it's all in the

vision it's all what you want it's all what

you can have and you're dreaming and thinking

and aspiring to things and you're making

decisions right now in your life of am I

going to base my life around things that I

know I can actually get a hold of and

experience or am I going to believe and

trust in something that I cannot see that

most people around me are not going to

understand if you're a grandparent or

a parent you should be praying for your kids

and your grandkids and the young people in

the church because it's a much greater

sacrifice for them than it is for you as

an adult they'll be giving up a lot of

things and never experiencing a lot of

things that we got to experience or

chose to experience but that's part of

believing in Christ is putting your hope

and faith and things that you cannot see

rather than in the things that you can

see and that's hard we know the world

needs to be made new we know our bodies

are wasting away if you haven't hit the

age of 30 yet you don't know it but when

you hit 30 you'll know that your body is

wasting away and it gets worse as time

goes on but the only way that we can

experience that new heavens and the new

earth and receive our new bodies are to

allow God to make us in new creations

now 750 years before Christ came Isaiah

was prophesying and there were so many

prophecies that Isaiah that the Lord

gave to Isaiah about the coming of Jesus

and what eternal life was gonna look

look like in Isaiah 65 verses 17

Isaiah 65:17–19

through 19 I want you to look at how

similar this passage is to the passage

we read from Revelation which was about

800 years later look I am creating new

heavens and a new earth and no one will

even think about the old ones anymore

if life stinks and you're looking

forward to God doing something you know

that what is coming is going to be so

much better you won't even remember how

bad this was and even if life is good

for you and there's a temptation for

you to cling to this life know and

believe this morning that what is

coming is so much better that whenever

you experience what God has planned for

you you won't even think about this

anymore it's that much better in verse

18 Isaiah says be glad rejoice forever in

my creation and look I will create

Jerusalem as a place of happiness her

people will be a source of joy I will

rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my

people and the sound of weeping and

crying will be heard in it no more God

is very consistent and God is very

faithful everything that he plans to do

he communicates very clearly he

communicates at multiple times he makes

sure that the people who are willing

to listen gets the message and this

morning you personally no one else you

have to decide whether or not you are

willing to listen whether or not

you're willing to focus and put your

attention and you fix your eyes on the

things that you can see or the things

that you can't see because everything

that you set your sights on that you

can see is temporary it will fade it will

turn to gravel inside your mouth even

no matter how good it is it cannot

satisfy and fill the hole in your heart

that is there only God can do that but

the things that are unseen are eternal

nobody in this room would raise their

hand today and say I don't want to go to

eternal life like if I could prove to

you if I could say like yes you can see

that it exists it most definitely 100%

exist nobody in the room would raise

their hand and say no I don't want that

so the decision is are we going to cling

to the things that we can see are we

because the things you can't see are

eternal but you have to believe you have

to invest you have to give up things in

order to have what Christ has always

intended for you to have not just for a

moment but for all eternity and it's

going to be so good you won't even

think about this anymore which one will

you believe let's pray together father I

thank you so much for the opportunity to

be here today and to read your word and

I pray that you would speak powerfully

into our hearts and in our lives but we

pray for the people who are coming to

be baptized in just a moment I pray that

you would speak to them you would make

today this incredible impactful

experience and Lord that you would draw

them closer to you through this Lord we

give our hearts and our lives to you and

this morning we pray that we as people

would not cling to this world or

focus on things this world but Lord we

would take that step of faith that leap

of faith and we would begin to look to

the unseen things to put our hope and

trust in Lord send your Holy Spirit into

our lives to help us do this father we

love you and thank you and ask this in

Jesus name amen