New Things – New Creations (Part 1)

Well, Father God, we are very thankful to be here once again.

And Lord, we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to be in this place, God, that

you would work and move, that you would do incredible and powerful things that we cannot

do ourselves.

And Jesus says we gather together this morning and we pray and we read your

word and we sing. Lord, we anoint people and we accept new members. God, we are

simply here trying to be obedient to you. And Lord, we acknowledge that we're not

perfect. We acknowledge that we fall short in many, many ways, but Lord, we

know that you are more than enough. Lord, we believe that you are more than enough

to make up for our faults and our failures. And so, Father, we come to the

only one who can make it right. And God, as we come and we seek to grow spiritually,

and we seek to have voids filled in our lives and we seek to have shortcomings

that means forgiven. God, we also pray for our brothers and sisters. Lord, we

continue to pray for Mr. Graham. Lord, we pray for Ms. Fisher. God, we continue to

pray for Ms. Judy Smith and our shut-ins and all of our other people who have had

sicknesses and ailments. And God, we just pray that you would work and move in

powerful ways in them. God, we love you today and we come humbly before you and

pray that you would speak truth into our lives and truth into our hearts. And

Jesus, we need you today. We need you. We need your Holy Spirit. And Lord, we

ask that you would not only be in this place, but that you would feel the

very depths of our hearts and souls today. Father, we love you and we thank

you and we ask all this in your Son's precious and holy name and everyone said,

amen, you may be seated. Well, I know Pastor Timmy probably already said this,

but I just want to make sure you know that this is vacation Bible school stuff.

No one's trying to make it look like I'm walking on water this morning. It's

just happened to be like this. I get a hard time from a lot of our people over

weird stuff, so I just want to make that clear before anything gets posted. But

we're very glad you're here this morning. This month, we're talking about new

creations and how God does new things in our lives. And I think that's one of

the most amazing things about God is that while he is this amazing,

incredible, unchanging God, he never changes. He never has to shift or

maneuver in any way because he is perfect and we can have trust and faith in a God

who is perfect and who has done all things perfectly and at the same time

because of us, he is very much in the business of doing new things. And

that's a wonderful thing. We see that all throughout scripture from Genesis all

the way through Revelation. This is really weird by the way, in case you're

wondering. But we see that all throughout the Bible of God doing, of creating new

things, of doing new things among people, of God making a new people out of, I

mean, God is constantly in the business of doing new things. And today we're

talking about us being made into new creations. And I think that's really

important to understand that as God does new things, it's always for us. We're

created everything. He saw that it was good. There was nothing wrong with what he

did, but in fact we were the ones who messed it up. And the amazing story about

the God that we serve and the Savior Jesus Christ that we serve and we claim

to have faith in is that they are constantly willing to do new things for

our benefit so that we can be reunited with them. And you see that all

throughout scripture from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, the

Kings, the prophets, the exiles, and then the coming of the Messiah and the

establishment of the church, which we talked about last month. It's a

wonderful thing to know that we serve a God who's constantly doing new things

for mine and your benefit so that we can have a relationship with our

Heavenly Father. But the most important number one thing is is that God's

intention for all of us is to be made into new creations. Now I want to

clarify that as we get started because as you were created there was nothing

wrong with you when God created you. But the truth is is that we have messed

ourselves up. Now there's been a lot of things that's happened in your life

that you had no control over. There are people who have hurt you. There are

misfortunate things that have taken place in your life that you did not choose

for yourself and all those impact you. But when push comes to shove, the heart

of Christianity is simply acknowledging that we have sinned and we have brought

destruction upon ourselves. And because of that Jesus Christ wants to take us

and make us into new creations and throughout the New Testament this is

spoken of continuously. God most certainly can make us a new creation and this may

be intimidating for some of you. This may be something that you're just like man

I don't I don't know about this. I don't feel like I can be a new creation.

I've tried to change. I've tried to be different. I've tried to stop doing

this. I've tried to start doing this and I just can't do it. And the truth is if

you've been trying to do it then no you can't. It will be intimidating. But God

wants to make you a new creation. God wants to change who you are. God wants

to change your desires. God wants to change your instincts. He wants to change

your heart. And if we are trying to do it on our own it is a very

intimidating and impossible thing. And if we're trying to do it on our own we

said it week after week we're gonna be miserable and we're gonna fail. But God

wants to turn us into new creations. So if you truly want Jesus Christ in your

life becoming a new creation should not be a problem because he's very much set

everything up to help you become a new creation. But this morning if you have

the attitude of I don't want to be a new person I like who I am I just want

heaven. And you call on the name of Jesus but you don't want to be new you're

playing a very dangerous game. Because Jesus said in Matthew 7 verse 21 he

Matthew 7:21

says not everyone who calls me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but

only those who do the will of my father. And I can tell you this morning

from a human perspective when you sit down and you start reading God's Word and

you start understanding the vast volume of God's will for all of his people and

all of us as individuals in our life it is impossible for you and I to do the

will of the father under our own strength. We have to become new

creations in order to do that. And so if you think this morning that you can

call on the name of Jesus Christ punch your heaven ticket and then you like who

you are and you stay the way you are that's a dangerous game to play it's a

very incomplete game that you're playing that we're not gonna finish because

we're not capable of finishing that game. But we're called to be new creations. I

want to read to you a really weird passage of scripture for this. This is

Ezekiel chapter 36 verses 22 through 27 and I'm reading this to you because

Ezekiel 36:22–27

everything that God had been doing in the Old Testament leading up to this time

has been like this preparation of the coming of the Messiah. Now God has done

new things. God created man and woman. They sinned. He brought him out of the

garden. He set up the idea of sacrifices. He's brought the flood. He took them to

Egypt. He brought along the Exodus. He set up the nation of Israel and he's

taken them into exile because they fell into sin. So everything has been leading

up to this process but I want you to see the very heart of what God wants for

his people. That hundreds of years before Christ ever came God was

communicating what he wanted for his people and you can say well you know

this is Old Testament. This is the people of Israel. No this is all of God's

people. When you read it and you consider yourself a child of God this

is what God wants for all of us who claim God as our Heavenly Father and so

in Ezekiel 36 verses 22 through 27 the message of the Lord is therefore give

Ezekiel 36:22–27

the people of Israel this message from the sovereign Lord I am bringing you

back and you pay very close attention to these words today but not because you

deserve it. I'm doing it to protect my holy name on which you brought shame

while you were scattered among the nations. I will show how holy my great

name is the name on which you brought shame among the nations. You see under

our own strength we can claim God all that we want to but all we're gonna do

is bring shame on him but it doesn't matter that we have brought shame on God.

God still desires to bring us back which is an amazing quality of God that

most of us cannot comprehend because we would not be willing to do that for

someone who's brought shame or hurt on us but that's God's desire. He wants to

bring all of us back and when I reveal my holiness through you before their very

eyes says the sovereign Lord then the nations will know that I am the Lord for

I will gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your

land then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean your filth

will be washed away and you will no longer worship idols and I will give

you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you I will take out your

stony stubborn heart and give you a tender responsive heart and I will put

my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my

regulations. Hundreds of years before Jesus Christ ever came God was

communicating exactly what he wanted for his people. He wanted them to have

new hearts and new spirits and there was a reason why they needed new hearts and

new spirits because he expects his people to be obedient to him. So point number one

this morning the first thing we need to see is we are not new creations because

we deserve it. We are not new creations because we deserve it. We don't get

saved because we deserve it. We don't have access to God because we deserve it.

In fact what we read in this passage tells us something very different. That we

as people have this amazing knack to bring shame on God's name. I don't know

about how many of you but I can raise my hand high this morning to say I have

brought shame on God's name probably a lot more than I brought glory to his

name because I have failed him many times. I don't know where you are on

that but I can say for me that's probably the case because so many times

we fall into this trap of trying to do it on our own not seeking him like we should

not praying like we should not being in tune with his word and his will like we

should and when we live that way we fail and we bring shame on God's name. We

do things we know we shouldn't do. We say things we know we shouldn't say. We

treat people how we know God would not have us treat them and even though the

people of the world does not claim the same God that we serve they know very

much when we don't act like the people who claim to know God and they'll be the

first ones to call you out on it and they should because they're watching.

There's a reason why God says and when they the foreign people see how I've

brought you back and I've cleansed you and I've washed you then they will know

that I am God. Other people in the world who don't claim to know God will

know that God is God and will give glory to God because of how we act according to

what he's done in our hearts and lives. We do not deserve to be made into new

creations. We're naturally selfish we're internally focused on our lives and

most of this starts as kids. I mean you think about it I remember when we first

started having our kids and they were babies and they couldn't talk and you

know there's some difficult days in those times. There are times where you

just look at your kid and they're crying it's like what do you want like just tell

me what you want and I can remember someone coming up and saying you know

it's like whenever they can start talking and they can tell you what you

want it's a game-changer because then you can just give them what they what

they're crying for and you can like ease some of that miserable moments in

life where there's no relief from it and so like we rejoice as people whenever

people like our kids start communicating for first what they want and then they

spend the next 50 years of their life communicating what they want and then

we get mad about it. But it's one of the first things we teach like hey like when

we teach our kids this our own kids we say hey like we don't scream we don't

holler we don't cry we don't yell we don't whine because we don't understand

that language speak clearly and let us know what you want or what you need and

if you do it in a respectful way most of the time you get what you want and so

one of the first things we teach people is communicate what you want and we do

this with God too like one of the first things we start doing when it

comes to God is just start talking about all the things we want all things

we need. We fall into that trap and we do this we're kind of ingrained as

human beings to self-preserve to take things for granted and the truth is this

morning that we know that we need to be made new I mean if we were all honest and

we looked in the mirror and we were like man if people really knew who I was and

what I thought and the things I wanted to say even though I might not say

them and I might not do them if people knew they would never let me in the

doors. People would run the other way from who I really am and there's

something in us that knows that we need to be made new we need to be cleansed

and we need to be washed clean of who we really are and yet we still fall

into the trap of thinking that being a new creation is just a given like it's

just gonna happen but the truth is I mean let's be honest there's so many

people who claim to be a follower of Christ and yet they're not new creations

there's so many people who claim to know Jesus and there's no fruit in their life

indicating that they belong to Christ that's a dangerous game to play it's a

dangerous game to punch our ticket to try to get into heaven but not let Jesus

come in and actually change us and to make us new and the truth is is that we

don't deserve it and so we're we're we're pushing against something that the

greatest gift that God has for our lives even though we don't deserve it and

we just take it for granted like no I don't want that I'll just take heaven

and that's all I want I want the bare minimum I'll get into heaven by the

skin of my teeth and I'm completely fine with that and the sad part about it

scripture does not indicate that that is the way that that can be possible at

all when you look at the people of Israel they had made a mockery of his

name and yet God still chose to redeem them and I talk about this this morning

because if you were sitting here today and maybe you have just punched your

ticket to try to get into heaven you prayed the prayer so you could go to

have eternal life but you have not changed and you have not let God change

you and you have have pushed against the Spirit of God working and moving in

your life and you've pushed against convictions and you've pushed against

callings to let you know that it's not too late that you can still surrender

that you can still humble yourself before your father in heaven and allow

him to do the very thing that truly you and I don't deserve but he very much

wants to do and it stinks because we would like to say oh God wants to do

this because he loves me so much and yes he does love you very much but when

you look at this there's something bigger to creation and bigger to

eternity than just you and I to know that whenever it comes to an end and we

read Revelation and you start talking about okay what does the end look like

what does judgment day look like it says every knee will bow and every tongue

will confess that God is the one true God he is it and there's no one and

there's nothing else that glory will be brought to him that is why God loves us

it's not because we deserve it and I don't know how many times many of you

looked at your own children and you know there's moments where you're like mmm

you know you get a little moment where you like I'd choke you right now if I

could as much as you love them there's times where you're psyched you know you

think man if there were not laws and cameras and things be a tough day for you

and we love them and the truth is as you think about even though you love

your kids and you would do anything for them there's still a lot of lot of

selfishness in that love that you have for your kids of things that you do

form for goals and hopes and dreams that you have for them for hopes that you've

hoped that they accomplish and people that you hope that they can be I truly

believe that God creates us and allows us to be parents so that we can just

experience a little bit of how he feels about us to know that he does love us

very much but God has a purpose and a plan for our life that goes far beyond

just us and while your kids benefit greatly from you and they are blessed

because you are their mom and dad all the things that you do for them are not

just for their benefit but it's for like the greater good of all things it's for

the greater good of your life as a whole even into the future in Romans

Romans 6:4

chapter 6 verse 4 Paul wrote for we died and were buried with Christ by baptism and

just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father now

we also may live new lives man it's so important to understand that as we talk

this morning that Jesus Christ did not come and to suffer and bleed and die

just to get you a punch ticket into heaven but he came and he suffered in

blood and died willingly to bring glory to God so that you and I could live new

lives to bring more glory to God that's why I did it I think understanding the

reason and the purpose behind it helps us to kind of understand what our lives

should be looking like and how we should be living and how we should be

carrying this out because understand that we don't deserve it you know God told the

people Israel I ain't doing this because you deserve it I'm doing this to bring

glory to my name because I want the world to see that I'm willing to love of

people who don't deserve it I'm willing to love of people who brought shame to

my name and to bring them back and lift them back up and to let them have good

lives and to benefit them to bring glory to my name and God doesn't come

for you as individuals to make your life easier or better or to get you out of

the trouble that you're in or to clean up your mess no he come because he does

love you but he wants to bring glory to his name and while we serve Christ and

we walk with Christ there are many benefits of being a Christian there are

many blessings about being a Christian that come with life but it's about

walking with him point number two we are new creations to reveal God's holiness

when you talk about accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior it's not a matter of

necessarily I want to get to heaven like that that's that's what I want and

I'll be honest with you I've said it before when I got saved that's why I

got saved that's why I professed faith in Jesus Christ because I knew I was

going to hell and I wanted to go to heaven and that's why I initially gave

my heart to Christ but it was revealed to me very quickly that God wanted more

than to just get me on the other side and Scripture reveals that constantly

God called Abraham because he wanted the world to see what he could do with

one man who believed in him there was nothing significant that Abraham had

done up to that point other than just he simply believed in God and he was

counted as righteous because of it every major character in the Old Testament

believed in God and believed in the coming of the Messiah they believed in

the coming of Jesus Christ they had faith they believed that's why they

were counted as righteous and we are not new creations to just hop to the other

side we're new creations so that we can live lives to reveal the holiness of

God in second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 Paul wrote to the church in

2 Corinthians 5:17

Corinth he says this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new

person the old life is gone and a new life has begun so many people who claim

faith in Jesus Christ look exactly the way they did before they ever said I

believe that's not good that is not what Scripture is saying putting our faith

in Jesus Christ it gives us the possibility of becoming a new creation

in serving God again not to just have eternal life eternal life is one of the

benefits of following Christ but a true relationship with Jesus Christ will

begin when we really realize and understand and I don't deserve this

this is so much better than what I deserve this is so much more important

than what I could ever contribute or give this is better than anything I could

ever ask for having anything else in this world when we truly realize the

significance of how great and amazing it is and how undeserving we are I don't

think we can truly understand the relationship with Christ that we're

supposed to have until then we're so undeserving of it and remembering that

though it is impossible for me to do it through Christ all things are possible

that's the thing I guarantee you I guarantee you there are people in this

room right now who know who know how frustrating it is to try to follow God and

serve him on your own how much you try how much you want to how much effort you

put in to read your Bible and to pray and to go to church and not do stuff

and then do stuff you think you should be doing and how exhausting that is to

do that under your own strength it is exhausting and that is not what Christ

has called us to do he did not call us to stay who we are he called us to be

made new and we get to be made new so that we can glorify God you cannot

bring glory to God under your own strength as important as we like to

think we are we are not that special we're not that important we're not that

talented there's nothing that you and I can do to bring glory to God underneath

our own strength it's only through Christ and him making us new creations and

filling us with the Holy Spirit and point number three we got to receive new

hearts and new spirits when you look at the focus passage that we first read

one of the things that he was communicating is is that man you need

to have a new heart and spirit I don't know about y'all but like when you start

talking about people's hearts and spirits like there's some really good

people in the world there's some great people I've talked about many people

there there are people out there who refuse to accept Christ the Savior who

are incredible people nicest people you'll ever meet but that's not the point

God has come Jesus has come so that we could all receive new hearts and new

spirits we cannot neglect the truth and necessity of this we cannot control

what is in our heart and spirit you're sitting in here today and I'm telling

you the the the differences in the temptations that you have as an

individual are vastly different from the people around you you some of you may

have some of the same temptations but I guarantee you some of you have some

very different temptations and while one of you for whatever reason may be

tempted to steal the other one may be tempted to punch someone in the mouth

and the other one may be tempted to to constantly cuss or use dirty language

or one might be perverted or one might be this or one might be that or

whatever we cannot control what is in our hearts and lives and as much as you

sit here and you pray God take it away please take it away God take it away

remove it from my life and I've talked to many people inside the church and

some people tell you you know when I got saved I prayed the Lord to take it

away and sometimes people say in the Lord took it away and I've never I've

never looked at it never wanted it since and other people say I've prayed and I've

asked and I've prayed and I've asked him for whatever reason God just has not

taken it away and I'm telling you this morning you cannot control what is in

your heart and your spirit but God can and God has the power and ability to

take the desires and the temptations that's in your life that you cannot

overcome and He has the ability to completely remove it from who you are

and there are people in this church who can tell you things that they used to

desire things that they used to live for and crave Jesus took that from them

and they've never wanted it ever since only God can do that and there's some

of you who have prayed and you've sought after God and you said God please take

this from me help me with this please take me take this from me and for

whatever reason God has chose to let that stay within you to be a desire to be

a temptation and he has not left it there to destroy you he's not left it

there to make you miserable he's not left it there to condemn you or to drag

you down but perhaps he's left it there to remind you in your life how much you

constantly need to seek him daily to give you the strength to overcome the

things that your flesh is still desiring the fact that we need to be filled with

his spirit daily is something that we need to realize and understand our life

that we cannot live without as Christians and I can promise you this

the temptations that may cease in your life today rejoice but know tomorrow

Satan will come with something else tomorrow that as we overcome certain

things in our life Satan will bring along new things totally different

things that we never knew were an issue until all of a sudden they are the

need for us to have new hearts and new minds is so imperative to our relationship

across we cannot do it without it but it's not even a matter of all man like

on this day I got a new heart and a new mind and then it's fixed from then

on no it's like we need a new heart and a new mind daily we need to pray and

ask God God give me a new heart give me a new mind even from yesterday give me a

new heart and a new mind because I understand I live in a sinful world I

live around sinful people I am still a sinful person and I need to be renewed

every single day in the name of Jesus Christ for his glory and his honor

Hebrews chapter 8 verse 10 says but this is the new covenant I will make with

Hebrews 8:10

the people of Israel on that day says the Lord I will put my laws and their

minds and I will write them on their hearts and even as we read and even as

we pray and even as we hang out with other Christians and we go to church and

we join as members and we do all this other fun stuff that we know that we're

supposed to be doing this Christian nothing replaces the power of God

inserting himself into you putting his laws and his words and his

expectations inside your heart and inside your mind reminding you constantly of

who he is and what he expects from us and also reminding you that it's not

through your power and your strength but it's through his and that we lean

into him to accomplish all that he's called us to point for last one we will

be new so that we can follow and obey I mean this is the reason even in the Old

Testament when God was prophesying and giving these messages to Israel and

saying I'm gonna do this I'm gonna make y'all new I'm sending someone to redeem

you I'm sending a Savior I'm sending the Messiah and the whole reason so that

they could be made new was so that they could actually follow and obey all the

things that he was calling them do this is why we talked so much about fruit

being present in a Christian's life this is why we talked so much about how

important it is that whenever someone says I believe in Jesus Christ that they

don't look the same as what they did before they asked him in their heart

but they're a completely different person because God wants them to follow and

obey the clearest and easiest way that we can bring glory to God is by being

obedient to the things that he's called us to do you don't have to do anything

fancy you don't have to do anything great or important you don't have to

speak in front of millions of people or sing in front of millions of people or do

some like talented thing that we think we need to do in this world all you

have to do is be obedient that's the greatest desire that God wants from his

people is obedience and he set it up and everything that Jesus did was to

renew us so that you and I could be obedient and in verse 27 in our focus

passage God always intended to put his Holy Spirit in us so that we would be

careful to follow his decrees and careful to obey his regulations that's

our callings as Christians we talk about God doing new things and God making us

new creations like that that's the calling that we have as people don't

focus so much on trying to do something great trying to impact a thousand people

or a million people or anything like that you simply focus on surrendering your

life to Christ so that you can be obedient to him that's our calling

Colossians chapter 3 verses 9 through 11 says don't lie to each other for you

Colossians 3:9–11

have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds put on your new

nature and be renewed as you learn to know your creator and become like him in

this new life it doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile circumcised or

uncircumcised barbaric uncivilized slave or free Christ is all that matters and

he lives in all of us look at what the scriptures are saying Christ should be

living in us it's not a phone a friend it's not Jesus is my homie and I got a

free ticket to heaven it's the simple fact that Jesus Christ lives in me his

Holy Spirit lives in me his Holy Spirit is empowering me and to understand that

we are called to be new and it doesn't matter who you are who you were if

you're the worst of sinners a barbaric heathen Gentile or if you grew up in

the holiness of amazing parents doesn't matter all that matters is that Christ

lives in you so only you can answer the question are you new I dare to say most

people in this room has asked Jesus to be their Lord and Savior you've asked him to

forgive you of your sins you've said something along the lines of God I want

to go to heaven like we've all prayed that prayer but as far as being you

that's a question that only you can answer that's something that you're

gonna have to stand before the Creator and when he calls us to account and we

stand before him and we give an account for everything we've said everything

we've done the real question is is were we new or did we cling to the old if you

cling to your life you'll lose it if you give it up for my sake you'll find

it let's pray father thank you so much for the opportunity to be here once

again thank you for these people and Lord most of all for your love and

mercy and your word that guides us in so many ways and father I pray that you

had work and move in our hearts Lord if there's anyone in this room who you have

spoken to I pray that they would not to just they would not cut you off in

this moment but Lord they would continue to seek you and allow you to speak to

them Lord all that we've talked about this morning is impossible in our own

strength it is daunting it is overwhelming we cannot do this but

through you all things are possible through the power of your spirit we can

be new through the power of your spirit desires and temptations can be taken

away and through the power of your spirit even if they're not taken away

they can be overcome and we can bring glory and honor to your name this

morning we pray that you would help us do that love you and ask us in Jesus

name amen