“Getting Excited Part 4”

Isaiah 66:18–19a ¹⁸“For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, ¹⁹and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory.

          We have put a lot of thought and work into our festival, “The Gift of Peace.”  God knows of our thoughts and why we thought them, He also knows our works and the cheer we felt as we did them.  Sometimes the labor is hard and takes us out of our comfort zone or our daily routine.  Biblically we can consider Abraham, Joseph, the Prophets and Moses. They too had thoughts and they were not always as positive as God would have liked them to be.  However, each of these historic people saw some of the fruits of their labor and gave glory to God for what they saw and what was yet to happen.

          We might not see all of the fruits of our labors, but we will see more fruits as we continue to labor towards God’s commission we read in Matthew 28:18-20.  It is looking at the little things along the way that allows you to see the fruits of your labor. This is easy to see in the life of Joseph. There might be set backs on the way, however if you look close enough you will see the gains.  Abraham, Joseph, The Prophets, and Moses saw little gains and they were excited to see these gains.

          I know that I have seen a lot of these little gains throughout my life when I look back at where I’ve been.  I see these little gains continuously every day as well as I realize what God is showing me.  My excitement grows as God shows me what gains He has lead me to be a part of.  We can all grow in our excitement as God is showing all of us the little gains happening all around us every step God takes with us and we take with Him.

Isaiah 66:19b–20 And they shall declare my glory among the nations. ²⁰And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.

          Along with every little gain follows a larger gain and this larger gain is filled with pure excitement as it also is made up of pure joy.  When we get excited over the little things, we can give God the glory and in return God will build your excitement.  God wants you experience the excitement that He provides, especially when it comes from His Glory, because it brings excitement to Him as well.

          Just think about as we reach out to all of our brothers in mankind to let them know we care, these brothers get excited to see this care.  This excitement grows as we all feed off from God’s word, His promises, and especially as we realize how he works His gift of salvation for us.

          Isaiah 66:21–23 ²¹And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.

²²“For as the new heavens and the new earth

that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord,

so shall your offspring and your name remain.

²³From new moon to new moon,

and from Sabbath to Sabbath,

all flesh shall come to worship before me,

declares the Lord.

          These verses we just listened to should bring us great excitement.  Here God tells us that we have something to look forward to, that not only will there be a new heaven and a new earth but they will remain.  That is, God is making us something that will not fade, or disappear, or be destroyed, but something to remain for all eternity.  This comes from the words of our Lord that we read in John 3:16-17.  God gave us His Son to save us not to condemn us.

          Jesus Christ chose to die for those whom God calls His own, and we are all His own.  Jesus chose to die so that we could have eternal life.  And in this new and exciting time looking forward to the new heavens and earth; we will not only live in this place but have an eternal exciting relationship with our God. Amen.

Written by: Pastor Curtis A. May