A Season of New Beginnings

Pr Malcolm Dennis

24-12-2017

"Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home." - G. K. Chesterton

"The very purpose of Christ’s coming into the world was that He might offer up His life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of Christmas." - Rev. Billy Graham

Isaiah 64:1-8New King James Version (NKJV)

64 Oh, that You would rend the heavens!

That You would come down!

That the mountains might shake at Your presence—

2 As fire burns brushwood,

As fire causes water to boil—

To make Your name known to Your adversaries,

That the nations may tremble at Your presence!

3 When You did awesome things for which we did not look,

You came down,

The mountains shook at Your presence.

4 For since the beginning of the world

Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,

Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,

Who acts for the one who waits for Him.

5 You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,

Who remembers You in Your ways.

You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—

In these ways we continue;

And we need to be saved.

6 But we are all like an unclean thing,

And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;

We all fade as a leaf,

And our iniquities, like the wind,

Have taken us away.

7 And there is no one who calls on Your name,

Who stirs himself up to take hold of You;

For You have hidden Your face from us,

And have consumed us because of our iniquities.

8 But now, O Lord,

You are our Father;

We are the clay, and You our potter;

And all we are the work of Your hand.

- Recognising the God of hope;

- Receiving God's forgiveness;

- Responding to God's Word.

1) Recognising the God of hope.

In spite of all the mess, the failures, the brokenness, there is still hope. 

"But now..." (v.8)

The God that we have is supremely the God of the now.

The Lord shows us the kind of God that He is through the prophet's prayer.

"But now, You are..."

God still is. 

This Christmas season, He is coming to us as the God of the now.

"But now..." shows us there is hope in the midst of the ashes and the broken pieces and helplessness and misery.

God steps in as the indomitable, unconquerable God.

"But now, You are our father."

This helps us to understand Luke 15: Parable of the prodigal son.

Paul's prayer:

Romans 15:13New King James Version (NKJV)

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hope comes by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of the Living God is the God of all hope. The Spirit of the Living God can turn things around.

We are waiting for God to lead us.

Hope is preceded by prayer.

Genesis 22:18New King James Version (NKJV)

18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

Our hope in God has substance. It has the guidance and work of God in it.

Prayer precedes right choices in our lives.

Prayer turns our heart of God first and foremost.

Matthew 6:33New King James Version (NKJV)

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Psalm 69:32New King James Version (NKJV)

32 The humble shall see this and be glad;

And you who seek God, your hearts shall live.

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried." - G.K. Chesterton

We don't want him to speak into our hearts and our lives. But we want His presence.

We love worship more than His Word.

You will end up with nothing.

Central to His presence is His Voice and His Word.

2) Receiving God's forgiveness.

Forgiveness is found in the content of this hope that we have found in God.

Matthew 6:11-13New King James Version (NKJV)

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,

As we forgive our debtors.

13 And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

The God of hope wants to fill us so that hope abounds.

Hope has teaching, correction, guidance, direction. Hope is rooted in the character of God. God has this for us in this season of our life.

Sometimes God has to bring us to the furnace of affliction because He wants to commune with you.

God will use your failures, stubbornness, and pride as a raw material to draw you closer to Him, to bend you, to soften your heart like never before. So that He can redirect your life into the future that He has for you.

He will cleanse our hearts of our guilt through the blood of Christ.

Psalm 130New International Version (NIV)

A song of ascents.

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

2     Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

    to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

    Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness,

    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

    and in his word I put my hope.

6 I wait for the Lord

    more than watchmen wait for the morning,

    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

    for with the Lord is unfailing love

    and with him is full redemption.

8 He himself will redeem Israel

    from all their sins.

Lamentations 3:23New King James Version (NKJV)

23 They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

The voice of our failure is a tiny little whimper.

The voice of God's forgiveness is eternal. 

The blood of Jesus comes to cleanse it all away. The Saviour has come from everlasting goodness, hope, compassion. His mercies are new every morning. There is no barrier that prevents you from entering into the holy of holies. There is nothing good in us but God is full of mercies.

3) Responding to God's Word.

God is our Potter, not our porter.

Take the life of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham did not decide how God would mold his life, shape him.

Genesis 22:2New King James Version (NKJV)

2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Abraham had to go back to square one and start all over again.

There are times that God works like this in our lives.

"Let it go. Walk away. Leave it."

It is very hard to let go.

When it doesn't make sense, God says, "I will make it make sense."

Because He has spoken, and He is in it.

Sometimes the promises/directions/spiritual gifts of God is like a durian. You cannot open a durian prematurely. The promises/directions/spiritual gifts of God progressively ripen over time.

Genesis 22:12New King James Version (NKJV)

12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

Genesis 22:16-18New King James Version (NKJV)

16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

Genesis 22:20-23New International Version (NIV)

Nahor’s Sons

20 Some time later Abraham was told, “Milkah is also a mother; she has borne sons to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel (the father of Aram), 22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel.” 23 Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milkah bore these eight sons to Abraham’s brother Nahor.

The promises of God broke open in the next generation.

After we have surrendered. After we have yielded.

Letting go is God's way of ripening our purposes and spiritual gifts that He has for us.

The first cut is the deepest.

"O Cross, that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life's glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red. Life that shall endless be." - George Matheson's hymn

Abraham experienced a kind of dying that day and understood.

2 Corinthians 4:12New King James Version (NKJV)

12 So then death is working in us, but life in you.

Philippians 2:13New King James Version (NKJV)

13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Galatians 6:14New King James Version (NKJV)

14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom[a] the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.