Part III

Let me say to you this morning clearly that life will not be the same when you go through change and transition. Whether you graduate, get a new job, get married, have kids, change your career, lose a loved one, change what you’re doing, change why you’re doing it, it’s not going to be the same for those around you. All new beginnings are untidy. Just think about the birth of a baby. It’s painful…it’s ugly. You go to the hospital and they have this brand newborn baby. They bring him out and say, “What do you think about this?” And you look at it—they haven’t even cleaned it up yet—and you say, “Isn’t that a precious baby?” It needs to be cleaned up a little bit, you know. And fortunately it doesn’t look like the daddy—maybe it took after the mother, you know? But the Bible says in John 16:21, “A woman, when she’s in labor has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a new human being has come into the world.”

How many are mothers here today? How many of you have more than one child? See, you forgot all about that pain. Remember all of those things you called your husband in the labor room? Remember how you told him you didn’t want him to touch you again? Remember? Something happened when the new season of life began. When God opened your visage to a new life of responsibility and opportunity and love and service. Psalms 35 says, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” I’m so glad that as we walk through the neutral zone and begin to take those first fledgling steps we don’t have to be afraid because God has a better plan.

I quoted earlier a portion of Psalms 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters, he restoreth my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” You don’t have to walk this process alone. When God takes us through an ending, he prepares for us a new beginning. When we are ready for a new beginning, when we process through the neutral zone, with faith and prayer we shall surely find a new opportunity.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 29:11-12 a verse that’s become very popular in the last ten or fifteen years, but as you know that verse was written to the children of Israel. It promised them that for 70 years they would languish in captivity in Babylonia; but a man of God named Daniel, who had remained faithful, began to read the scriptures. He began to read the word of God and the Holy Spirit moved upon him and enlightened him to a certain passage there. In the verses before there it says that for 70 years Israel you will remain in captivity. But then there will come a time when I will hear your cry, I will hear your prayer, and 70 years from now will deliver you out of the bondage of your captivity. Daniel didn’t have any more sense than to believe God. And that verse, speaking to Israel, says, “Because I know the plans I have for you,” declared the Lord, “plans to bless you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope, plans to give you a future. When you call upon me and come to me I will listen to you. When you seek me with all of your heart I will be found by you.” In all new beginnings God has a better plan.

Horace the Greek philosopher wrote, “He who hath half the deed done has made a beginning.” Paul has a better idea. Paul writes in Philippians 1:6, “Being confident is very one thing that he who began the good work in me shall accomplish it, shall complete it, until the day of Jesus Christ.”
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Hallelujah! I don’t have to depend on someone’s weak flesh to get me through the pearly gates. He has started the good work in me and this Italian is going to complete it. In spite of all the devils in hell and Minneapolis and Memphis, TN, and anywhere else his imps are prancing around today. God has made a promise—and I’m just simple enough, just common enough, just lacking enough—to put my trust in his word and believe that he will see me through. He will keep me when I cannot keep myself. I believe that and I put my trust in that. I will not always be perfect or sinless and it doesn’t mean that I turn away from him…free to use His grace as an occasion to sin…it just means that I believe that God and I have a covenant and by his help and grace he’s going to bring me through.

History is full of famous and not-so-famous people of all ages who have found faith and trust in God, and the willingness to hear his voice, and in doing so they found a path to new beginnings of spiritual life and self-renewal in God’s grace and in transitions. Endings and beginnings, with sometimes emptiness and germination in between; but for the true believer we never have to process that alone—he’s with us. The footprints in the sand poem…remember? It is in fact the brooding of the Holy Spirit in us as believers that quickens our mortal bodies, that opens new visages of opportunity and call that didn’t exist before even though they were there before but didn’t exist for us because the germination of the Holy Spirit had not been allowed to take place. When we close one door and put that closure at the foot of Jesus and at the foot of the cross, the Holy Spirit begins to move in our soul and in our spirit, and begins to chug and churn, and pretty soon cream is going to come to the top. And God is going to begin to show you a new opportunity, a new beginning.

Graduates, singles, young marrieds, middle-aged or more (like me entering the best years of my life)—I don’t know your plans, but God knows. And I believe if you’ve given them up to him, he will give them back to you and he’ll sanctify them and purify them, and you’ll have the assurance you’re walking his will.
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The gospel songwriter put it this way, “I believe everything’s going to be alright.” I believe everything’s going to be alright, don’t you? In closing, I am reminded of Caleb, one of the ten spies who went into Cana to spy out the land of Kadish. He was one of only two, you recall, who came back with a good report. Caleb and Joshua were the only two spared the curse of death in the desert and were allowed to enter into the Promised Land. But Moses had promised the land where Caleb had traveled, Mount Hebron, that it would belong to Caleb and his children. But for 45 years other events and problems had prevented it from happening. But God’s promises are true and at the age of 85 the Bible says that Caleb was as strong as he was on the day that Moses had promised the land to him. He was still strong enough to do battle. He went to Joshua, and reminded him of Moses’ promise, and he declared to Joshua, “Now, therefore, give me this mountain.” And Joshua blessed Caleb and gave it to him as his inheritance.

At the death of Ronald Reagan, I was reminded of the words of Ronald Reagan when he stood before the Berlin Wall, held his finger up and prophetically declared (as Caleb did before Joshua), “Now, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” A spirit of prophecy and the anointing of God were upon both of those men. Ronald Reagan believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God used him, not as the only instrument, but as one of many instruments—before the Pope in Poland as Evangelical faith began to take root, as Lech Walesa led that solidarity movement and began to tear down and challenge the communist structure there, and other events—Christians, millions of them, praying around the world—and soon that wall came down. And as it came down, so did the Soviet Union, that godless communistic system. And today there’s a witness in many of these countries that has never been allowed before because people prayed. There was an end, and there was a new beginning. God always has a better plan!

In closing, Dr. Jonas Salk writes, “It was because I was denied my desire to pursue studies on rheumatic diseases during an elective period in medical school that I found myself in the laboratory concerned with studies on influenza. Ultimately this opportunity, which was not my first choice, proved to be an even greater good fortune because it broadened my experiences so that I would able to direct my career and assume the responsibility to meet the needs of my generation.” This man developed a vaccine that put an end to a worldwide plague of polio. And why? Because there came a time in his life when something ended that he wanted, that he desired, and the door was closed. But another door was opened because God had a better plan for his people and he brought deliverance through that vaccine. Praise God! God works through his creation and he works for his better plan.

The Bible tells us in closing this morning that God always has a better plan. Romans says, “For we know that all things work together for the good of them who love God and are called according to his purposes.” Amen
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