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Collierville First Baptist Church
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Good to see everybody.
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I don't know if they moved us in here in anticipation of an overflow crowd tonight. (Congregation Laughing) I don't think that was the reason, but it's great to see you here. And I am blessed to have the privilege to teach God's word to you tonight. Thank you, Pastor Chuck, for that invitation. I always am blessed to get to teach in my home church, and I love this church, and everywhere I go, I try to be an ambassador of this church. And so it's a blessing. Be turning in your Old Testament tonight to Isaiah 43. Brother Chuck just gave me a open-ended invitation to teach on whatever I wanted to teach. If I wanted to follow in the life of David, I could, but I didn't want to interrupt that.
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So I want to share something with you that I've been sharing now for a number of churches. I am presently involved in my 14th interim pastorate in the last six years. And I view God's calling on my life right now as an interim preacher to help prepare the churches that he's placed me into for their next pastor.
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And so how ironic that the timing of this would be that in my home church, I hopefully can do the same thing. I pray that tonight God will use this to encourage and hopefully help infuse vision into our heart as all of us anticipate our new shepherd here at First Baptist.
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I told the pastor search team a couple of weeks ago
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that I have a vested interest in who we call as next pastor because he's going to be my pastor and my family's pastor. And I'm kind of spoiled over these last 20 years with the pastor I've had. And I know God has some exciting things and good things for our future. We're gonna talk about that a little bit tonight.
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You know, whenever a church faces the decision that we're in, in looking for another pastor,
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it reminds me of the Chinese character for crisis.
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The Chinese language is picturesque. And in that character for crisis are two things. One is the character for danger and the other is the character for opportunity. A crisis is an opportunity for danger
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or it's an opportunity for the church to see God do something very, very special. And so I pray that'll be what happens. But the enemy always looks for that opportunity to bring danger into the situation. And that's why it's so important that we pray for our pastor search team daily and just bathe them in prayer for God to give them wisdom, patience and direction. Well, the text is found in Isaiah chapter 43 and I'm gonna begin reading in verse 15. I wanna talk to you tonight about God's new thing. God's new thing in Isaiah chapter 43, beginning in verse 15. And I'm gonna read through verse 25.
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Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. For your sake I have sent to Babylon. If you mark your Bible, I would mark that word Babylon, circle it, underline it,
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because it's an important part of our text. I will bring them all down as fugitives. Even as the Chaldeans, that's another word for Babylonians, into the ships in which they rejoice. Now let me pause to say that when Isaiah is writing this around 700 BC,
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the major power in the world was not Babylon.
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It was Assyria.
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Babylon was more of a fledgling nation. They would not come to power and be a world leader for another hundred years.
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So here's a case of prophecy.
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God seeing things ahead of time.
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And he's using that as an opportunity to both challenge and encourage his covenant people of Israel. To challenge them by telling them what's going to happen through Babylon.
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And encouraging them by telling them what's gonna happen to Babylon after he gets through using them. So that's an important thing to realize that when Isaiah is writing this, Babylon was an unknown entity. The amazing thing is in chapter 44, and I believe it's verse 28, he even names the name of the king that God is going to use in Mediopurge to bring them out of Babylonian captivity and back to the Holy Land. So this is just a wonderful passage of scripture here.
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Isaiah chapter 40 through 66 are all challenges of comfort and infusing vision and hope. Chapters one through 39 is just the opposite.
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One through 39 is judgment. In fact, those two sections are so different that many liberal theologians have tried to convince us that it was written by two different Isaiahs.
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But the difference in content is because of a difference in emphasis. The first 39 chapters, he's talking about judgment.
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40 to 66, he's talking about a different subject. He's talking about hope. And so we're in that comfort section. He says, "I am the Lord your Holy One, "the creator of Israel, your King. "Thus says the Lord, who makes a way through the sea "and the path through the mighty waters." Now put your thinking cap on. What possibly could he be referring to?
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They made a way through the sea, through the mighty waters. And then to help us understand it even more, he says, "Who brings forth the chariot and the horse, "the army and the mighty man. "They will lie down together and not rise again."
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Got it figured out?
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All right.
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"They have been quenched and extinguished like a wick.
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"Do not call to mind the former things."
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Is he saying, forget the greatest redemptive act in Israel's history, the first Exodus?
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That seems to be what he's saying here.
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"Do not call to mind the former things." The things he's just mentioned are Babylon
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and coming back from Babylon and the Exodus, two mighty acts, redemptive acts of God in the Old Testament.
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"Or ponder things of the past. "Behold, I will do something new.
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"Now it will spring forth. "Will you not be aware of it?" Let me give you Vincent's paraphrase. Don't miss it.
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That's what he's saying. I'm gonna do something new, something great, something grand.
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But if you don't pay attention,
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and if you're so absorbed in the past,
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you may miss what I have for you in the future.
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That's what he's saying here too. It's a word for us. He said, and then he says, "Will you not be aware of it? "I will even make a roadway in the wilderness."
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"Rivers in the desert.
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"The beast of the field will glorify me, "the jackals and the ostriches, "because I have given waters in the wilderness "and rivers in the desert "to give drink to my chosen people. "The people whom I formed for myself "will declare my praise." The shortcomings of Israel.
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"Yet have you not called on me, O Jacob, "but you have become weary of me, O Israel. "You have not brought to me the sheep "of your burnt offerings, "nor have you honored me with your sacrifices. "I have not burdened you with offerings, "nor wearied you with incense.
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"You have bought me not sweet cane with honey, "nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices.
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"Rather, you have burdened me with your sins. "You've wearied me with your iniquities."
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And then here's a great verse for you to memorize. I memorized it about a month ago. I don't know why I waited so long.
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"I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions "for my own sake, "and I will not remember your sins." Amen. Isn't that a great verse? "I will blot them out for my sake, "and I will not remember your sins."
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Hey, have you ever taken your kids to the fair, the county fair, the circus, and bought them those glow sticks, you know? All different colors, they glow real bright. But what's the problem with that? By the time you get home, they're just dull, they're gone, and the glow is gone. They've lost their glow. That happens.
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That happens to businesses.
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I haven't eaten a breakfast buffet at Shawnee's in a long time.
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(Congregation Laughing) That happens, that happens
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to churches.
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We can lose our glow. That happens to individuals.
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It happened to Moses.
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In 2 Corinthians chapter three verses seven and eight is an interesting thing. You know, we think about in the Old Testament when Moses came down from the mountain, his face was all the glow. Remember that? And they had to cover his face because of the glow on his face. Now, if all we had was the Old Testament, we would think that was all there was to it.
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Now, I've been around preaching for 60 years now, and the last 13 years I've been in so many different churches. Everywhere I go, I run into people. And Rose keeps saying, "I'm gonna put a sack over your head."
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(Congregation Laughing) Well, Moses had a sack over his head. Listen to what it said in 2 Corinthians three, seven, and eight. But if the ministry of death in letters engraved on stones, what is he talking about? He's talking about the law.
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Came with glory, even though it was the letter of the law in stone, it was a glorious thing. So that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face. Now, listen, look at this, fading as it was.
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Part of the reason he wore the sack was not just so you wouldn't be blown away by the glory, but the glory was departing, and he didn't want us to see the fading of the glory.
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God defines sin this way. For all, Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned, and what church, come short of the glory of God. In other words, God always connects sin with the loss of glory. I love what Watchman Nee said in the normal Christian life. If you've never read this classic, do yourself a favor and get it out of the library, find it somewhere and read it. In the normal Christian life, the Chinese Christian Watchman Nee said, God's purpose for man was glory, but sin thwarted that purpose by causing man to miss God's glory. When we think of sin, we instinctively think of judgment it brings. We invariably associate it with condemnation and hell. Man's thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. But God's thoughts is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. The result of sin is that we forfeit God's glory. God's purpose in redemption is glory, glory, glory.
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In other words, the problem with sin is that it robs us of the glory of God in and on and through our lives.
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The old Westminster Catechism, which our Presbyterian friends teach their children, is a wonderful document. I don't agree with all of it, but with that first question they ask, what is the chief end of man? And that's a good place to start, isn't it? And the answer to that question is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's a pretty good purpose. That our whole reason in existing is to glorify God. Listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20. He said, "Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and you are not your own, you are bought with a price. Therefore," listen to this, "Glorify God in your body which are his." So God saved us to reflect his glory, but sin has robbed us of that glory. And in our text, God is saying to us, I want to restore that glory. Israel had lost her glory. She had sinned, she had given over to idolatry with Baal and Asherah. She was engaging in all kind of immorality, in all kind of idolatry, and all kind of indifference. And so God spanks them by sending them to Babylon for 70 years.
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Now, what I want you to see is this, that God's desire is as an individual and as a church, that we reflect his glory. Now, in the text here, he has one major idea. I think I put it on your outline. And that's this, God's greatest concern is not merely rescuing us from judgment, but restoring us to his glory.
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God wants to restore us to his glory. Now let's talk about this new thing that God wanted to do for Israel. And we're going to look first of all at the immediate context in Isaiah. He gives us two examples. I've already alluded to them, so it won't take a lot of time there. He gives us two examples in the immediate context. And then I want to broaden it out by giving you three examples from the broader context of Scripture itself, okay? So let's look at the description of God's new thing. First of all, the prophet Isaiah's new thing, the immediate context. The first thing is the thing about Babylon. He says, "Thus saith the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. For your sake I have sent to Babylon." Now, he's doing something amazing here. He's talking to God's people Israel about forgetting something that hasn't even come into existence yet. And so it's kind of confusing, but you got to put your thinking cap on. He's talking about 100 years yet in the future. And yet he's saying, "Now what I'm going to do 100 years in the future, I want you to forget it." So you just kind of hang on to that. Don't let it get you to it. Now Isaiah here is prophesying how that Babylon, after holding Israel captive for 70 years, is going to fall to Media Persia and to Cyrus. Now in 605 BC, the media Persians, rather the Babylonians came and took Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach away. And then in 586, they came back and totally ransacked all of Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. Babylon did that. And after they stayed in Babylon for 70 years, then God raised up the media Persians. And they allowed the children of Israel to come back and reestablish their home in Israel using Nehemiah, Ezra, you're familiar with those passages of Scripture. Now what he's saying here is this.
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If I do that, if I can restore you after you being in captive, POW for 70 years, I can restore your glory if you'll follow me and obey me. Now here's the second thing. Not only is there the Babylonian new thing, but he talks about the new Exodus. Did you figure that out? Look what he's talking about. He's talking about the new Exodus. He says, verse 16, "A path through the mighty waters, who brings forth a chariot and horse, the army and power, they shall lie down together, they shall not rise up, they're extinguished like a wick." What else could he be talking about except that experience through the Red Sea? Where God opened the Red Sea, the people of Israel walked through and then Egypt's army got caught in the middle, chariots got stuck, and they all drowned. Now, the amazing thing he says right after that is this. Look at verse 18, "Do not remember the former things."
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That's amazing to me.
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You see, the Exodus was the epitome of redemptive history in Israel. If you'll study the Old Testament, time after time, almost every book in the Old Testament will refer you back to the Exodus. Anytime they want to brag on their history, they go back to Egypt and God delivering them from Egypt through the Red Sea.
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Now, what is he saying?
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He's saying, "Listen, I've got a new Exodus.
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"I've got another Exodus. "I've got a great Exodus to follow the initial Exodus." And notice how that Exodus is gonna be. He says, "Do not remember the former things "or consider the things of old," talking about the old Exodus. "Behold, I will do a new thing." Could there be anything new he does that's going to equal or exceed what he did when he brought them out of Egypt, two million people through the Red Sea? "I'm going to do a new thing. "Now it shall spring forth, shall you not know it?" Paraphrase, "Don't miss it."
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And this is what he's gonna do. He's characterizing the new Exodus. Notice what he says. "I will even make a road in the wilderness." What's he talking about?
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How do you get from Babylon to Israel
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through the wilderness?
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The first Exodus, the problem was too much water.
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How are we gonna get across this Red Sea? That was the first Exodus. The problem was too much water. The problem in the second Exodus, not enough water.
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We're going through the desert.
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How are we gonna get through that desert? "I'm gonna do a new thing. "I will even make a road in the wilderness "and rivers in the desert."
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He said, "What I did in the first Exodus,
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"I'm going to do more than that in the second Exodus.
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"It's one thing to part waters that already exist. "It's another thing to create a river in the desert." That's a new thing.
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That's a new thing. And then he says,
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"The beast of the field will honor me, "the jackals and the ostriches, "because I give waters in the wilderness "and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, "my chosen, this people I have formed for myself "and they shall declare my praise." He's saying, "You've been praising the first Exodus now "for all of your history?" He said, and this is Vincent's paraphrase, "You ain't seen nothing yet." This second Exodus is going to make the first Exodus pale because I've got something new, something greater. Now that's the immediate context here. Now, if I could contemporize that, that would be somewhat like for Isaiah to say, "Don't remember that." Would kind of like saying, "Don't remember D-Day, you veterans.
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"Don't remember the signing "of the Declaration of Independence." Forget that. I've got something better than that. That's the essence of what Isaiah is telling Israel to do. He says, "Remember not the form of things." Well, you're listening too well. Let me run on to the larger context now. We want to broaden it. We've looked at the immediate context, but this is found throughout Scripture. And I could give you a lot of examples. We don't have time to do it, but let me just give you two or three here based on the time. The first thing I want to add in this broader context is what I call the Messianic, the Messianic new thing. The Messianic new thing.
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I think we probably agree on the dominant theme of the Gospels. Wouldn't you say it's the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah? He came, John 1, 11 and 12, he came unto his own and his own received him not.
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Now there are many reasons I think we could give for that, why they didn't receive him. But I think if we were to boil it down to one major thing, it would be because he did not meet their expectations or what they thought the Messiah was going to do. You know, in the Scripture, God's people don't have a good track record with dealing with new things.
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We just don't.
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When God sent the Messiah, Jesus,
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and he came healing, loving, preaching,
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a message of not the kingdom of this world,
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but the kingdom of heaven.
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And he began almost immediately to receive opposition.
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Not from the man, I call him the man in the pew,
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but from the religious elite,
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from the Pharisees and from the Sadducees.
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Jesus through the religious establishment completely off track.
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They were not prepared for the kind of kingdom that he was offering.
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They had bought into the contemporary notion that the kingdom was going to overthrow Rome, reestablish the kingship of David, and rule and reign, and take them back to their military and economic power that they had known in the past.
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You see, the problem was that the Pharisees knew their Bible
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but they didn't know their God.
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They recognized false doctrine a mile off but they didn't recognize God when he was staring them in the face.
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In fact, Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of me."
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I mean, they were staring God in the face,
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trying to plot how to kill him, not how to receive him.
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You see, we don't have a great track record. There was a new thing of the Messiah. He came to his own and they rejected him.
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Then there's the new thing of the church.
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The first Christians were all Jewish, remember? Pentecost.
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All the Christians in the early church for quite a while were Jews and there was a thought that that Jewishness would be perpetuated much to the chagrin of the apostle Paul
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because he knew that God's kingdom was much broader than the racial entity of the Jewish people.
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Paul understood that God had come to do a new thing. When I think about recognizing God's new thing, my mind always goes to Mary.
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Even the disciples failed to grasp the significance of Jesus coming death.
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And even though he told them time and time and time again,
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up until the last week.
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And they were meeting in the home of Lazarus.
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And Mary does a new thing, something unprecedented for a woman as a Jew.
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She broke up the dinner by slipping up to the feet of Jesus and anointing his feet and his head with all.
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And the other disciples and all of them were included not just Judas, the others added into it. Why didn't we sell this and give it to the poor?
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And Jesus said, let me paraphrase what he said,
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"Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about.
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"She has anointed me for my burial."
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She got it.
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The other disciples didn't get it until after the resurrection, but the spiritual insight. You know why she had it? Because every time you find her in the New Testament, she's at the feet of Jesus.
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A tender heart made her accept and embrace God's new thing.
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The church, man, God started saving Gentiles and they had a hissy fit. Y'all know what that is? That's Mississippi language.
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Up in Antioch, Gentiles started getting saved. Peter had this vision.
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In Acts chapter 10 of this sheet coming down and Peter just said, "Lord, I don't eat unclean things." And God said, "Don't call unclean what I call clean."
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God was teaching Peter he's doing a new thing.
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And when God began to do this new thing,
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some of the God's covenant people struggled with it.
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Maybe they needed like Mary to spend more time
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at the feet of Jesus getting his mind and his heart.
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Remember what Peter did after he had that vision? He got excited about Gentiles getting saved.
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Here he was. I mean the primary Jewish apostle, steeped in Judaism. But God had given him this vision and he caught a vision that was broader than the Jews. And he went down to Antioch to celebrate with them.
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And you know, I think you'll have to read this for yourself. It's in Galatians chapter 2 verses 11 and follow. I won't take the time to read it. Let me just tell you the story. He was enjoying his freedom in Christ, meeting new Gentile Christians. And then all of a sudden,
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there was a delegation came from First Baptist Jerusalem.
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Peter recognized the voice. Now you know this is sanctified imagination. You won't even find this in the amplified Bible. (Congregation Laughing)
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Here's what I envisioned Peter doing. He'd just eaten the first pork chop he'd ever eaten in his life.
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And there was that knock.
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I can just see Peter running out the back door, going down to the drug store, getting him some Listerine
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to get the pork off his breath.
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And when he comes back, he plays the hypocrite.
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He plays the hypocrite.
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And Paul confronts him to his face. He says, Peter, you've been enjoying fellowship until the brothers came down from Jerusalem. You're Jewish friends who have not come to understand and embrace the breadth of God's kingdom yet. You played the hypocrite.
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You see, even Peter struggled with God's new thing.
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All right, now let's move on to the character real quickly. The character of God's new thing.
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God's nature never changes.
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Malachi 3.6 says, I am the Lord.
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I change not.
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Now there is a sect, I should say, of theologians today that are called progressive theologians who believe that God is always learning new things.
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And that he learns from his mistakes.
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Well, let me just distance myself from that group.
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God makes no mistakes.
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But God never changes.
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He's not changed himself or his opinions about sin
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or about salvation. He hasn't found a new way to be saved.
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Now, God never changes, but he's in the changing business.
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Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5.23, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God always begins in the spirit.
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He works in the spirit, regenerating the spirit. And then he works up through the soul, our mind, emotions, and will, and it flows out through our body. And so God is renewing us. He's doing a new thing in us, and he starts on the inside, not the outside. And the problem with so much Christianity is we start on the outside. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.
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Can I tell you this?
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The last thing in the world you need is religion.
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Religion is the heavenly way to go to hell.
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You can lop off all the things and do all the things that religion tells you to do
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and still be lost because God begins in the heart.
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Once our heart is right, then he can begin to work in our mind, emotions, and will, and it can spill out into sanctification and practical righteousness. So, let me just share a few things about the character of God's new thing. Number one, in all probability, God's new thing will stretch us for greater vision.
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God loves to stretch us. Have y'all found that out?
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He enjoys stretching us, sometimes making us uncomfortable
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because that's the only way we grow.
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We grow by being stretched. Rondon says we have to realize that God puts us always in things over our head,
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but it's never, it's always under his feet.
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But he wants us to stretch, to grow. And so God's new thing, whatever it is, is going to probably stretch us. I love Maxwell's definition of vision. He says it's a clear picture of what the leader sees his group being or doing.
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George Barna said, and I was in a doctor of ministry seminar with George Barna, the worst one I've ever had in my life. He says a clear picture of a preferable future.
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What leadership does is hold before us a preferable future.
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Pray for our pastor search committee that God will give them what we're talking about here, vision. I think the best definition of vision I've ever found is this, seeing things from God's perspective.
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You see, when vision emerges,
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or let me put it another way, leadership begins when vision emerges.
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Let me throw out some names to you.
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The Apostle Paul.
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Isaiah. Isaiah.
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Walt Disney.
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That threw you off, didn't it?
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Yeah.
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What's the commonality? Let me throw one other end. It'll really throw you off.
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Adolf Hitler.
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All four of those people were driven by vision.
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Hitler's was demonic and evil, but nevertheless, it was vision.
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The Apostle Paul was driven by vision. Jesus was driven by vision of why God sent him here.
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Our lives will be impacted. Our families will be impacted, especially fathers and mothers, but especially fathers, we need a vision for what God wants to do with our family.
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What God wants to do with our individual life.
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I remember when I pastored at Leewood, we had a beautiful sanctuary and we remodeled it, and it was gorgeous. It would seat about 1,800 people.
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And a young pastor came by one day to see me, he wanted to see the sanctuary and I took him down there. And he went and he looked around and he said, "Wow."
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And then he said something to me. He said, "Brother, tell me, I bet you never dreamed you'd preach in a sanctuary like this."
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I looked at him and I said, "What?
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Never dreamed?
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Since I was a 19-year-old preacher, I have dreamed about preaching in a place like this." I used to go to the hospital in my first church, drive by Bellevue Baptist Church and look through the windows and dream. One day the door was open, Brother Bob, and I went in, I stood behind the pulpit at the old church downtown and I thought, "What would it be like to preach in a place like this?"
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And then Dr. Rogers gave me that opportunity.
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At the new place, he called me one day and my secretary said, "Dr. Rogers is on the phone." I said, "Sure he is."
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It's one of my preacher friends trying to throw me off.
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And I was ready to say something funny, but I heard that voice, "Tommy."
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Distinctively his voice. He said, "Brother Tommy, would you come? I'm going to Spain, would you preach for me?" One of the highest honors of my life.
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Yes, I dreamed of that. Don't you dream?
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Don't you dream about what God can do? Sometimes I get convicted about what I could have been
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if I had just followed the Lord more closely.
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Yes, it will impact us.
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It will impact us. God's new thing will strengthen us for greater service.
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You know, when God gives us a new thing, there's energy in that.
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And even though there is a sense of sadness on all my part, and I know on your part, I mean, God's blessed us with one of the finest pastors and preachers, and there's a sadness there.
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But there also ought to be a excitement.
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Because Brother Chuck would be the first to say, "This church didn't begin with him, and it won't end with him."
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We're all a part of the process in history, and God has a new thing.
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And his new thing is a good thing.
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And then can I say this? And I need to stress this.
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God's new thing does not diminish what God has done in the past.
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That needs to be said.
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Some people have the idea, if we celebrate the new thing, then it's casting aspersion on what we had in the past.
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I went to pastor a church a million years ago and a million miles from here.
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I was told when I went there, I followed a long-tenured, beloved pastor. They said, "Now Brother Tommy, in that situation, you can't celebrate your victories as much as you normally would."
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But you have to take full responsibility for all your failures.
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That weighed heavy on me.
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And I caught myself at times wanting to celebrate more, but I was afraid it would cast aspersion back.
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That shouldn't be the way it is.
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You see, the past that God has blessed Israel with was a glorious past.
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When he split the Red Sea and took two million people, "Hey, do you realize how long that line had to be? Don't think too abreast. They'd have been there for five months. Think about a mile-long group marching across that river. That's a miracle."
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And God says, "You ain't seen nothing yet.
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If I can take it through the water, I can build a river in the desert." Amen.
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Well, here's a word of caution and I'll be through.
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Don't miss it.
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That's what he's saying.
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Note the phrase, "Shall you not know it?"
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N-L-T translates that. "Do you not see it?" E-S-V translates that. "Do you not perceive it?"
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Basically what he's saying is, "Don't miss it." So if he's telling us not to miss it, what's the possibility? We can miss it. He said, "I've got something for you."
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Now, let me close by answering this question. How can we ensure that we not miss it?
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Number one.
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Number one, abide in a close, loving relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Abide close to Jesus. Be merry.
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Spend time at the feet of Jesus.
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Abide in Christ. John 15, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you,
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"you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you."
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John 15 talks about abiding in the vine. If we wanna stay close to Jesus, if we don't wanna miss the new thing, we need to press in close to his heart. And then number two, ask God to open your spiritual eyes
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to what he is up to.
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I love what old Henry Blackaby used to say, "Find out where God is at work and join him." God opened my spiritual eyes to see what you are up to.
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Almost 14 years ago, I was on staff here
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and I had had in my heart a desire for a number of years to spend the closing years of my ministry, doing mission work overseas. Our daughter was in India and doing itinerant preaching. That was a desire in my heart.
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And I began to pray and Rose began to pray with me. God, when is the timing that I'm to make that step?
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And we prayed and Rose would say, "But you're the only pastor I've ever known except Brother Chuck here." You know, and I understood that.
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And it was an unknown. I didn't know if I'd get to preach once a month or you know, once every six, I didn't know. You just don't know. And we were praying, trying to get some direction.
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And I say, "Lord, show me, open my eyes. Let me see what you're doing in my life."
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We were on a family vacation down in Panama City, Florida.
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And we were eating all you can eat seafood.
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We had a table.
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My grandson was sitting across from me and we've been praying for him.
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Some of the family.
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And this little lady and her husband were sitting over from us. We had not been talking about anything religious.
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So she couldn't have overheard anything. She came over to me and she invaded my space. You know how people sometimes get a little too close. And she got right in my face and she said, "You're a preacher, aren't you?" I said, "Well, yes ma'am, I am."
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She said, "Well, I believe the Lord's impressed on me to share something with you.
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Honestly, I've never had anybody do that to me before.
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I'm not one given to that sort of thing."
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But I said, "Well, ma'am, I'm listening. If God has a word, I want to hear it."
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She said, "Well," she said, "I just believe I'm supposed to tell you that that thing you're worried about, that step of faith, you need to not worry about finances. You need to not worry about anything else.
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Just obey him and do what he's calling you to do."
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And she turned and walked away.
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She didn't ask me my name, she didn't ask me anything.
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But can I tell you this?
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When we walked out of that seafood restaurant, I felt like I'd been in church.
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My feet hardly touched the ground and neither did roses.
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God had spoken to my heart and given me an assurance
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that that was his will for my life.
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Now I don't believe God always works that way. In fact, I don't even know that he often works that way. But in this hard head, that's what I needed.
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And God gave me what I needed.
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And then the last thing I would say is this,
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be persistent in your pursuit of God.
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If you really want to know God's new thing, Matthew 6.33 is so important. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousnesses and all these other things will be added unto you. And then add chapter seven, verse seven to it. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek persistently, pursue God. Well, let me ask you a question. I think I know the answer.
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Are you ready and willing for God to do a new thing here at First Baptist Church, Colorado?
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Amen.
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That doesn't cast any kind of aspersion on the past. It just welcomes his new thing.
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God specializes in new things.
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Behold, he said, I make all things. New.
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Let me pray.
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Lord help us learn from our past.
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Help us to thank you for our past.
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But Father help us to never be imprisoned by our past.
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Help us to not be so infatuated on the way it used to be
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that we can't embrace the way it will be.
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Lord, I pray as Paul prayed in Philippians three.
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When he said, I do not regard myself to have taken hold of it yet.
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But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind
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and reaching forward to what lies ahead.
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I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
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Lord, that's our prayer.
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And we ask it in the precious, holy and mighty name of Jesus. Amen. God bless you.
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