Thought: Maybe God Is Trying To Do A New Thing In Your Life. But Could It Be That You’re Unwilling To Go With His Flow? Maybe God Is Trying To Do Something New In Your Marriage, On Your Job, In Your Career, In Your Health, In Your Children, With Your Finances, In Your Family…But He Can’t, Because You Can’t Let Go Of What It Was Before! Which Is Why I Bring The Word To You Today, And Admonish You, “FORGET ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENED…”; “…DON’T KEEP GOING OVER OLD HISTORY…”
Let God Do Something Brand New! You’ll never taste God’s Gourmet Meals if you keep limiting God to the same old Food Choices on the same old menu. Challenge yourself to try something new. Listen: Many of us are or were creatures of habit. That term “creature of habit” is defined as “someone who always wants to do the same things in the same way”. Sounds a lot like us church folks, in our old, set ways, that we refuse to alter…even if it means something new, exciting, different, and great!
Mark 2:21-22, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk (new) cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse. No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the wineskins. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” (AMP)
I absolutely love documentaries and history, simply because I love finding out the origin of things, where they began, why, and how. But more importantly, I love to see if there’s been any change from the start of the thing to the present. Sometimes it’s good to see that things are now, just as they were when they began. However, that’s not in all cases.
I watched a documentary on the Revolution, and I learned something I didn’t know before. Question: Why did the American colonists win the Revolution? Well, it wouldn’t surprise you if you saw how the redcoats fought. You see, they fought battles in the OLD-FASHIONED European way. They lined up in straight rows. The front row shoots. The next row rotates in while the others reload. Now, the colonists, on the other hand, didn’t believe in lining up. They just came from everywhere! So those red uniforms all lined up in a rigid row…well, that’s like target practice, don’t you think? In other words, they were easy to see, easy to aim for, and easy to hit! Their old, outdated, rigid, well-organized, structurally sound way of fighting, didn’t work…any longer! But even though the colonists looked like they were disorganized, their NEW WAY of fighting won the battle!
Let’s listen in on Matthew 5:29-30. This is where the religious leaders are criticizing how Jesus is going about reaching people. The Pharisees and the people who followed them, they’re complaining to Jesus’ disciples: “Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to his disciples greatly offended. “What is he doing eating and drinking with crooks and ‘sinners?” (MSG). Then the Bible goes on to say, “And Jesus replied to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but [only] those who are sick. I did not come to call the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to repent], but sinners to repentance [to change their old way of thinking, to turn from sin and to seek God and His righteousness].” (vss. 31-32 AMP).
Then later the Bible goes on to further say, “He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old one; otherwise, he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the new [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine, wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is fine.’” (vss. 36-39 AMP)
See, Jesus broke out of the religious mold to reach people that no one else was touching – in a nutshell, new wine skins. Now, in those days the bottles in Palestine were animal skins. And the wine would ferment, and it would give off this gas. And if the bottle was new and it had elasticity in the skin, then it gave with the pressure. If it was an old wine skin, it was dry and hard, and of course, it burst. And such is the issue with the church! We keep attempting to reach new believers with old behaviors, and it’s no wonder, it’s not working! New wine needs a new bottle to be poured into. If poured into the old, the old is no longer designed to handle the growth of expansion (that’s why it bursts!). It’s become hardened over the years, predictable, unyielding, unbending. It no longer handles the challenge of stress and pressure. So, it bursts! And the result? The old is destroyed and the new is wasted!
Sometimes you must replace an old idea with a new idea if you want God to do a new thing; if you want to reach people no one’s been reaching you have to let go of the old and get a good grip on something new. Like those Revolutionary War soldiers. The redcoats? They were rigid and they lost. The ones who were flexible won the battle. If we want new believers, we must stop trying to reach them with old, outdated, rigid ways, that clearly no longer work!
Isaiah 43:16-21, “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands…I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sunbaked earth, drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me.” (MSG)
First things first, “FORGET ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENED…” It doesn’t matter how your grandma did it, your mama, or your daddy, your first church or your third pastor. You will always get the same old results, doing things the same old way. Forget about it! That was then, this is now. We have an entirely different generation in 2021, and the only reason we can’t reach them is because we won’t leave the methods of 1960, in 1960! It doesn’t make the old bad, but we have an opportunity for new, and we need to embrace the necessary change to get them.
Secondly, “…DON’T KEEP GOING OVER OLD HISTORY…” It’s irrelevant how your Sunday school was taught in 1960; or how the ushers marched in 1970; or how the outreach witnessed in 1980; or how the choir sang in 1990; or how the anointing flowed in 2010! It’s even irrelevant how many souls were added to the kingdom in January 2020! It’s October 2021, and we need to constantly be evolving as a church! There’s bigger, better, and greater waiting for us, as soon as we finally make the deliberate decision to leave the same, old, comfort zones alone!
Thirdly, “…BE ALERT, BE PRESENT…” Maybe today’s relationship will work out a bit better for you if we’d finally stop treating Paul like he’s Peter. Stop reliving your past and dragging your present into old bondage. We need to be PRESENTLY ALERT! Maybe that’s why we keep missing so much because our focus is so ill-placed. All you see is the past, and God is already done there. Listen to what He says next:
“…I’M ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING BRAND-NEW. IT’S BURSTING OUT! DON’T YOU SEE IT? THERE IT IS!” How is it even possible for you not to see something BRAND-NEW, that’s BURSTING OUT?! That’s like standing right next to an erupting volcano, but not being able to see the lava! How can you miss it?! God is screaming, “…THERE IT IS!” But if you’re still stuck on THAT, you most certainly will never see THIS when it comes! And please hear me, you can’t afford to miss THIS!
He then says, “…I’M MAKING A ROAD THROUGH THE DESERT, RIVERS IN THE BADLANDS…” God is now telling you that He’s Providing For You and Making New Ways For You!
But He even goes further, “…I PROVIDED WATER IN THE DESERT, RIVERS THROUGH THE SUN-BAKED EARTH…” That new thing He’s doing for you, is literally Brand-New! He’s doing things unseen and unheard of! 1 Corinthians 2:9 says it best, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” He’s doing things that don’t even make sense! And all these things He’s doing just for you, if only you’d stop focusing on the old, you’ll finally see the new!
Isaiah goes on to say: “…DRINKING WATER FOR THE PEOPLE I CHOSE, THE PEOPLE I MADE ESPECIALLY FOR MYSELF, A PEOPLE CUSTOM-MADE TO PRAISE ME.” (MSG) The term “custom-made” is defined as “made to fit the needs or requirements of a particular person.” God has customized all of us, neither of us (even identical twins) are the same. God is constantly doing something new, and something different, and something out the box. And if we are indeed His children, why are we so opposite our Father? Why are we stuck, complacent, ordinary, the same, comfortable? If the God we serve can make a donkey talk, have a coin found in the mouth of a fish, have a man sit (alive) inside of a great fish, raise a dead man back to life (after 4 days), and birth His son through a virgin woman, why are we trying so hard to be ordinary? Why are we doing the same things, getting the same ineffective results? We are a custom-made people, and we need to start acting like the priceless, designer originals we are! 1 Peter 2:9, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Let’s define Holy. What does Holy mean:
Why do you think people go to these annual fashion week shows? They can’t wait to see what’s NEW and what’s NEXT! And I am fully persuaded that the world is looking to the church for the same things! Something different, something new, something next!
Now, as a disclaimer, there are some things that never change and must never change; the product so to speak, which is the Gospel, the Message, the Doctrine of Jesus Christ. That must never change! It must never be watered-down, altered, customized, changed, added to, or taken away from! But the packaging of it? That can change! Never the message, but often the method can and will change. After all, God went from the 12 He selected Himself to preach His Gospel, to someone like Paul! The Message Never Changes, But the Messengers Can and So Can Their Delivery!
If you think about it: The world of lost people and the world of the church have never been so far apart. I call them the new unbelievers, America’s first post-Christians. They’re biblically illiterate. They don’t ever plan to go to a religious meeting to hear a religious speaker talk on a religious subject. It takes new things to reach them. Or else we could just leave them lost like we have been.
In other words, we’ve got to leave the church building! We’ll Never Find The Lost, Hanging Around Those Who Are Already Found! Truth is, they’re probably not going to come in, so we need to take the initiative and go out! We need to have our outreaches on neutral ground. Am I telling you to go into the crack house, in the club or in the bar? Absolutely not! But we can’t keep sitting at the altar, in the pulpit, in the pews, in Sunday school, bible study, prayer and rehearsals, waiting for them to come in!
We must learn to express Christ without all our religious language, in our religious location. Remember, it’s the language of the natives we’re trying to reach. And all missionaries know that you do it in the language of the person you’re trying to reach. Can you imagine trying to reach the lost in China talking Russian? Can you imagine trying to reach the lost in Africa while speaking Chinese? Can you imagine trying to reach the lost in a homeless shelter when you arrive in a BMW and dressed in a fur and diamonds? You must meet on neutral grounds, at their level and in their language, and as hard as it will be for some to do, that must be done with new ways, not old!
Maybe we need to learn to wrap this gospel that is unfamiliar to so many people in a familiar need that they do know about. We talk about marriage, or parenting, or handling stress, or sex, or singleness. And you move from those things that they do know about into the story of Jesus to show the difference that a Savior like Jesus can make in those areas and others.
In Jesus’ day the religious people totally missed what God was doing because they could not accept a new approach. The British soldiers in Revolutionary War times lost because they were rigid. We’re in a battle for our town, our neighbors, the ever-living, never-dying souls of people. Their eternities are at stake. Therefore, if God says, “I’m doing a new thing”, let’s not lose the battle by insisting on the same old formation!
Listen: Many of us are or were creatures of habit. I am quite sure we have found ourselves saying: I can’t believe what I missed because I was such a creature of habit. That term “creature of habit” is defined as “a person who follows an unvarying routine; someone who always wants to do the same things in the same way”. Sounds a lot like us church folks, in our old, set ways, that we refuse to alter…even if it means something new, exciting, different, and great! Let’s listen to our text:
Mark 2:21-22, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk (new) cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse. No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the wineskins. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” (AMP)
Here, Jesus is talking to religious folks; Pharisees, scribes, people who had ways in which they thought God would always work. They couldn’t accept the fact that there might be some new things God wanted to try. Now, Jesus came along and blew the walls off the narrow box that they had God in. He wasn’t working in any of the ways that they were used to, they were in essence saying, “I don’t know about this, God never did it this way before. I’m not sure this is even God.” But Jesus had a whole new way of doing things, and like it or not, but they were about to experience it!
And that’s exactly what we need to do with our churches, ministries, families, workplaces, we need to be open for new things! Ineffectiveness becomes our casualty because we’re too comfortable to change. Methods and approaches that once were the new wine skins are now brittle, tired, and irrelevant. It’s time we uproot the old, and sow seeds in the new. However, you must be prepared, because most often the gift of new is presented in a surprisingly new package! Don’t become so focused on the formula, that you mess up the fruit! Don’t let your religious habits inhibit the exciting new thing God wants to do in every area and aspect of your life.
You’ll never taste God’s Gourmet Meals if you keep limiting God to the same old Fast-Food Choices on the same old menu.
Challenge yourself to try something new. Whether it’s a new outfit, new color, new witnessing technique, new food, new activity, new route to work etc… And please know that it doesn’t have to be big and grand. But it does have to be different if you’re tired of the same!
Matthew 9:17, “Nor is new wine put into old wineskins [that have lost their elasticity]; otherwise, the wineskins burst, and the [fermenting] wine spills and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, so both are preserved.” (AMP)
Blessings
J.P. Olson
www.thewordwithjpolson.com
Tuesday Night Bible Study at 7:00 PM CST with Dr. Kenneth Adderley. The number to call is 951-799-9635.
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