Houston
Congregational Christian Church
Pastor James Manuel
4883 Russia-Houston Road
Houston, OH 45333
Phone: 937-295-3591
Email:
click here
Message Title: New Beginnings With God
Call to Worship: Psalm 33:12
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:16-18
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable unto You O Lord on this Your day.
New Beginnings With God. May I say that many of us here today probably need A New Beginning with God. And the Good News from God’s Word is that God allows us New Beginnings. January is the month when It’s drawn to our attention that we are now entering a new era in our lives. 2008 is in the rear view mirror of our lives and 2009 has already begun.
Today I would like to focus our attention on New Beginnings with God. A New Beginning for our country. A New Beginning for our Church. A New Beginning for our own lives. First since we just installed our 44th President last Tuesday we can now focus on New Beginnings for our country. And may I say regardless of who you voted for last Nov. we now have a new President. And I believe we need to remember what Romans 13:1 says, ‘Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.’
As Christians we need to support our leaders and pray for their success and pray that through their leadership our nation will have A New Beginning. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 tells us that, ‘all request, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone; for kings and all those in authority.’ And my friends when we pray and lift up our country and its leaders to God I believe we will receive the blessing promised in Psalm 33:12, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is Lord.’
Throughout all our doubts and fears we need to put our trust in God for this New Beginning. Jesus tells us in Matt. 19:26 that, ‘With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible.’ And my friends as Christians we might well remember and learn from the attitude reflected in Phil. 3:13-14, ‘Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do---Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’ Such a verse may well draw us to want to make a fresh start,
Also a New Beginning for our church. A New Beginning for our lives. And may I say A New Beginning begins with one person at a time. For you see we all mess up. We say things we later wish we could take back. We do things we wish we could undo. We miss opportunities. This happens in all spheres of our lives. Sometimes we make mistakes at work, sometimes we hurt the people we love, sometimes we disappoint God. And because we mess up, we’d like to start over, to turn our backs to the past, to look forward, to hope that this time round things are going to be better.
There’s something exciting about starting over---new challenges, new experiences, new opportunities. That’s what President Obama will face as he begins A New Beginning as President. That’s what our church will face as we begin New Beginnings here. And that’s what each of us will face as we begin New Beginnings in our lives. I believe we all like to start over. Because we know that the future holds the hope for something better. The Bible speaks of a completely New Beginning in 2 Cor. 5:17, ‘Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.’ Paul explains that when someone decides to dedicate himself to Christ that person is a new creation. They become a brand new person from within. And they begin a new life.
This is what baptism symbolizes. Your old life dies and you are buried under the water, just as Jesus was buried in the tomb. Then you stand up out of the water, just as Jesus stood up from the grave. You stand up as a new person---the old has gone, the new has come.
Jesus offers this sort of a New Beginning to our country, to our church and to each of us. Jesus offers us a new life to our hopeless situations, He gives us living water as John 4:10 says, ‘…and He would have given you living water.’ Jesus offers us living water. You see this living water quenches a persons thirst and gives eternal life. There’s a number of O. T. passages which refer to God as the fountain of living water. Psalm 36:9 says, ‘For with You is the fountain of life.’ And Jeremiah 17:13 refers to God as, ‘The spring of living water.’
What Jesus is saying to us as a country, a church or our own lives is that----Hey I’m the Messiah. I’m what you’ve been longing for. I’m what you need in your life. In our country, our church and in our lives it’s not easy to confront our failures, our disappointments, our pain. In fact it’s possible for us to get used to living in spiritual poverty, to live without hope. For you see to hope again is scary. If we begin to hope again we can be disappointed again. If we try to start over again we might just fail once more. But however scary it might be to think of making a new start that’s exactly what the Bible is promising, 2 Cor. 5:17, ‘If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.’
When we meet Jesus as our personal Savior then our lives are filled with a deeper purpose, then we become His ambassadors, then we are entrusted with the message of reconciliation. It really doesn’t matter where you are today, because today is a new day. As Paul writes in 2 Cor. 6:2, ‘Now is the day of salvation.’
Friends, it’s January 2009. And today is a new day. Jesus is offering each of us what He offered to all those He came in contact with 2000 years ago. Jesus is offering us----a new creation, living water. Jesus is offering us----A New Beginning. Go and drink from it.