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May 28, 2017

A New Work is Coming

A New Work is Coming

Speaker: James Gallaher

Series: Being Different

Category: Sunday Morning

Do you ever reminisce about the past? Do you find that no matter how good things go they are never as good as what was? The Holy Spirit is ready to begin a new work, but we must be ready. This work will not look like the past, but neither will it be less powerful, less life changing, or less exciting.

Opening Scripture:
Ezra 3:10-13   Now when the builders had laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord according to the directions of King David of Israel. They sang, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His lovingkindness is upon Israel forever.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Do you ever reminisce about the past? Do you find that no matter how good things go they are never as good as what was?

That is exactly what is happening to these Israelites in Ezra. They are coming out of 70 years of Babylonian captivity, and the first temple had been destroyed 52 years earlier. You can imagine the joy so many felt in seeing the foundation of the new temple being set for it’s rebuilding and the confusion they felt seeing the old men begin to weep.
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vs. 12   Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy.

You’ve been there, having the best day of your life and someone tells you it’s not as good as it could have been. We find ourselves dissatisfied with what we have, hoping for something different, hoping for something that was.

I believe the biggest hinderance to the next great move of the Holy Spirit will be people’s unwillingness to disconnect from what God did in the past.

If you are living in the past, it is time to let go of what He has done, so we can get prepared for what He is about to do.

Get ready because God is intending to move us from glory to glory!

Isaiah 43:19   Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

He is speaking here to men and women in bondage, a people in captivity, that are looking for a way out. So, he gives them a promise.

Isaiah 43:14-17   Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and will bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, into the ships in which they rejoice. “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 a path through the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot and the horse, the army and the mighty man (They will lie down together and not rise again; they have been quenched and extinguished like a wick):

This is a reminder that He will deliver them, He will destroy their enemies, and then reminds them how He has done it all along. God is singing their victory song, and then He tells them to forget it.

vs. 18   Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past.

Sometimes the biggest hinderance to us walking in the blessing for the future is our insistence on not moving from the blessing of the past.

I am convinced this is why Jesus didn’t heal everyone in the same way. He didn’t want us becoming more committed to the system than we are to the source.

“God begins a work, man starts a movement, soon they build a monument which eventually becomes a mausoleum full of dead men’s bones.”

The Holy Spirit is ready to begin a new work, but we must be ready. This work will not look like the past, but neither will it be less powerful, less life changing, or less exciting.

It is time we take our eyes off of what He did back then or even what He is doing out there, and turn towards what He is doing in here.

Remember the temple that so many grieved over it’s lack of splendor? That temple was the one that received the King of Kings!

Haggai 2:9   “’The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ declares the Lord of hosts.”

Will you join me in welcoming a new work from the Lord, one that will far outshine the former!

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