God is doing new things

Pastor Richard Baker
Trinity United Methodist Church

(1/1) "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." (Isaiah 43: 19)

Most of us are familiar with this verse from Isaiah and you may have heard it shared at the beginning of a new year, or perhaps a new project. Back when I was in High School and starting college, I had a job at a Greenhouse, and every fall we would plant over five thousand lilies, tulips, and other spring bulbs.

We would start by digging up the long exterior flower beds. We would then lay long steam pipes over the beds, cover them, and steam the soil for several hours. After the beds were prepared, we would plant the bulbs and cover them again.

Right after the new year, we would go outside in the freezing cold and dig up the bulbs and bring them inside where they were transferred to their own pots and forced to grow. As I was digging up the bulbs, they didn’t look any different than when we planted them, but the trained eye of the senior growers could see new life on the top edge of the bulb and with loving care they prepped them for the next part of their journey.

I believe that God is preparing us for something new. We may not see it, but it’s happening all around us. This world is ready for something new. Everywhere I turn, I see damage. We are destroying our environment. Our disregard for this world is amazing. I see the obvious food trash strewn on the ground, but I look as I drive around, I also see all kinds of trash dumbed on the side of the roads. Just a few weeks ago, an oil pipeline began to leak in Kanas with over a half a million barrels of oil spilling onto the ground. We took a perfect world that God gave us dominion over and have left it damaged.

Our disregard for life has reached a breaking point. Our government categorizes a mass shooting as four or more people killed. We have had over sixty mass-shooting this year. Baltimore loses someone every day to gun violence. Our children are no longer safe in school.

We throw away enough food to feed the entire world and yet every day nine million children in our country go to bed hungry. In our land of abundance, over a half a million people are homeless in our country. I was at a religious gathering recently and the speaker said that the United States is the only country where we build houses for our cars, while people sleep on our streets.

I say all of this, not to depress you, but to make my point that I believe God is about to act in a mighty way in this world. Most mornings, as I pray, I ask God for revival in this world. I ask God to step into our world in a powerful way and transform the hearts of those who are living.

Some people want to write the church’s obituary, but I see new people coming to the Lord. I see new professions of faith. I see young people embracing the word. I had the real thrill of doing a river baptism for one of our young members. I had two young ladies in our Confirmation class and I was amazed how seriously they took the entire experience. Each week, they arrived with detailed answers to every question. They were able to articulate their faith. I feel comfortable that they will be able and willing to share their faith with their contemporaries. I see new life springing up in the desert.

I assume that many of you reading this are believers. Many of you have faithfully attended church all your lives and, if you’re like me, you mourn that our children and grandchildren do not seem to be embracing the faith as we did. But I believe we’re only seeing a small picture of what is happening. People, both young and old, still love the Lord, but they are looking for new faith expressions. Several years ago, our denomination sent me to Florida for something called "Exponential." It was a gathering of over five thousand church planters. They did things very differently than we do in our Protestant churches. Worship is much more experiential. It’s also more spontaneous. They do not follow our model of prescribed prayers and three hymn in each service. But their churches are usually packed and branching off to start new off campus churches. I saw new life springing up.

Bob Dylan wrote a song called, "The Times, They are a Changing," and in it, he told the old generation to get out of the way if they won’t lend a hand. If we want to experience that abundant life that Jesus offered us, we may need to get out of the way. People are hungry for something authentic. People are not turned off by God, but they’re not that excited about the way we do things. Can we be open enough to allow them their opportunity at shaping the church of the future?

The new Christian church faced tremendous opposition as it got started. It was a part of the Jewish worship experience and as it grew and made the decision to welcome non-Jewish believers, controversy arose. Many Jewish people felt that new believers had to become Jewish first before embracing Christianity. The Apostle Paul believed he had received his commission from Jesus to reach out to gentiles (non- Jewish) believers.

The Jewish believers dogged him everywhere he went. They tried to stir up trouble and Paul was often locked up as authorities tried to understand what this new faith was. Finally, Paul traveled to Jerusalem and met with the church leaders, which included Peter and James. They discussed the burdens that were being placed on new believers and made what was the first accommodation to our faith. New believers did not need to convert to Judaism, but they were asked to maintain some of the food purity laws and asked to abstain from sexual immorality. The new church took off and thousands embraced the new faith. New life sprung on in the wilderness.

Like those flower bulbs we planted, it took a trained eye to sec new growth, but that trained eye was able to nurture that plant and bring it to blossom. We can never lose hope in what God will accomplish. Rick Warren, in his book, "The Purpose Driven Life" said that God is always sending a new wave for the church. It is God who is at work. Our job is to see the wave, catch it, and ride it. But we must remember that it was God who created the wave.

God is bringing new life into our world. It’s happening whether we see it or not. We have a choice. We can get out of the way as Dylan said, or we can catch it and ride it for everything it’s worth. May God give us the wisdom to choose. I invite you to visit us at Trinity United Methodist Church on Main Street in Emmitsburg where we try and catch those waves. Besides making things new, God is calling the faithful. May we all hear that voice.