New Start

Scripture: Isaiah 43.1-7, 18-21; Acts 8.14-24; Luke 3.15-17, 21-22



There was this obituary in the paper the other week. It appeared originally in the San Francisco Chronicle and was picked up by the Associated Press. The obituary was titled, “Author dies.” Here is what it said:


Richard Carlson, a Bay Area psychotherapist who became the
world-famous writer of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” and 30
other motivational books stressing love, gratitude and kindness
above all other values, collapsed and died Wednesday on a
flight from San Francisco to New York. Carlson was 45.


It was that last line that really caught my attention. The expert author on stress relief died at age 45 on an airplane. Now let me be clear that I’m sure he will be missed by those who loved him and I’m not making light of his death. But. . .I wonder if this expert author really knew what he was talking about. I’m wondering, maybe you should sweat the small stuff.

This is the time of year when people make resolutions and set goals for themselves: I will read more. I will take that trip. I will not try to keep Krispy Kreme open by all myself. I will get a new family. . .

I know that a certain amount of willpower is required in any change, because, really willpower is just effort. So a little sweat never hurt. But it takes more than sweat and effort.

True change in life doesn’t reside in a book or a gym, or in a method or a diet or a program. True change starts from within and it happens by the power of God’s Spirit as we cooperate in faith with Him.

In Acts 8, we find the Holy Spirit being gifted to many believing Samaritans through the ministry of Peter and John. There was a man, Simon, who saw what was obviously a supernatural event taking place, and assumed that the key to the whole thing was in the proper technique of the laying on of hands. Simon thought of it like a magic spell, an incantation. He offered to buy the secret off of the apostles. They rightly scolded him. They told him the secret was not in the hands but in the heart. And his wasn’t in the right place.

What’s also interesting is Peter and John seemed to know fairly accurately what was in his heart:

“Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.” Acts 8.23 New King James


One of the tasks I wanted to accomplish this week was taking down the tree and putting away the Christmas presents. I soon realized that if we were going to fit the new toys and clothes into the boys rooms, some of the old would have to go. I carried out two big bags of clothes that he had outgrown this past year. Amazing!

If this is true with stuff how much more true it is that in order for God to do a new thing in us, we must be willing to clean out the old and make room for the new.

What it is implicit in this is a conviction that the new is better than the old. Dallas Willard writes, “The early message (of Jesus) was not experienced as something its hearers had to believe or do because something bad – something with no essential connection with real life – would happen to them. The people initially impacted by that message generally concluded that they would be fools to disregard it. That was the basis of their conversion.”

Jesus doesn’t call us to dogma or to religion. He invites to a way of life that is the best way to live life. The author of life wants to suggest to us that life doesn’t work very well other than the way he designs and shows us to live. Life doesn’t work very well without Him. Anyone who is changed by God soon realizes by the impact in their life that Jesus is a person of great ability.

It’s shocking how little we really listen to Jesus. We just don’t do what he said. And that, my friends, explains why most people, religious and nonreligious, see no relevance in the Christian faith toward individual character development and overall sanity and well-being.

Yet, there are those who still hear Jesus say, “Whoever hears these words of mine and does them is like those intelligent people who build their houses upon rock,” standing firm against every pressure of life.” Matt. 7.24-25


Just as true change doesn’t happen by a program or fad or willpower alone, true change is not just feeling warm and fuzzy inside, inspiration must turn into perspiration. We must begin to participate in the Jesus Way of Life and get side by side, if you will, with the Holy Spirit as He does His work.

In Isaiah God says to us, “Do not remember the former things, or dwell on the past. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

Erwin McManus writes, “We have a lot of great assemblies that we call churches, yet the very word church means ‘to be called out’. No football team has ever won a Super Bowl on the strength of the huddle. It’s what happens after the ‘ready, break’ that brings the victory.


The boys got this great game for Christmas. I suggested getting it because I wanted it too. It’s called Twenty Questions. The way it works is, you think of a thing, anything, and the little computer in the game asks you questions to try and figure out what it is you’re thinking of. It’s amazing how often it knows what you’re thinking.

Computer: Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?

Me: I’m not sure.

Computer: You’re thinking of your Aunt Edna’s tuna noodle casserole.

Me: That’s amazing!

What if we played that game right now, and our thought was, our Christian selves. You know what the little computer will ask us? It will ask us to describe who or what we are by what we look like and by what kinds of things we do. That’s all that matters to it in naming us. It won’t ask us what we believe, because, frankly, that’s not relevant to figuring out who we are.

Jesus is now taking students in the master class of life. He has things to teach us and things for us to do. Will we listen to his words? How life-giving it would be if all of us were to simply reply, “I will do them! I will find out how. I will devote my life to it! This is the best life strategy I ever heard of!” and then go and do it. We would be fools not to.