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We have been singing some new songs in our church lately, and I can't help but notice how it seems to work with human nature when we sing a new song. The first time, most people are just checking the song out and they are deciding if they like it and waiting for any surprise parts. Worship is usually to a minimum. The second time, there are some of you that your personalities are such that you dive right in and worship to the "new song." But some of your personalities are like mine and the new stuff has to grow on you, and so each time we sing it more and more get on board. Then as the song runs the course of its "life" the most avid worshippers get a little bored with the song while the ones that were a little slow to accept it would rather sing it than a newer song. And then eventually, the song becomes so "sung out" that it becomes "humdrum" and non-exciting to our worship.

Imagine with me what would happen if one Sunday morning, we sang nothing but new songs -- good, quality songs that praised Jesus, but whose tunes and words you had not heard before. If the entire worship service was nothing but new songs, most of you would not worship much because you'd be too busy checking out the new lyrics and seeing if you liked it or not. Now imagine if you came back Sunday night and we sang all of the new songs again -- in the same order and the same way that we sang them Sunday night and then I followed that with the same exact -- word for word -- sermon. You would think that strange, but your response would be a little better because you would be more familiar with the songs. Now imagine if you came on Wednesday night and we sang the same songs in the same order as Sunday am and pm and again the same sermon. Some of you would be wondering if we had lost our mind, but you would worship with the songs because by now you would be starting to get the hang of them and your mind would be turning upon Him rather than the songs themselves. Now imagine if you came the next Sunday and guess what -- we sang the same songs and the same sermon. And then Sunday night the same five songs in the same order again and again the same Word. And then Wednesday night. And then Sunday and then. . . What would happen would be that something that was once exciting -- even if they are the greatest songs in the world and even if it was the greatest sermon in the world -- if something new or varied is never introduced, would quickly become mundane and boring. If you knew that we were going to sing the same five songs in the same order, the same way every service, then you would quickly stop looking forward to the praise and worship service and ditto for the preaching.

What we have learned from our hypothetical repetitive service experiment -- which we are not planning to actually do, by the way -- is a seeming contradiction of human nature: We naturally resist change and like the old things, but without change, we quickly grow bored and stagnant. Too much of the same old, same old, kills our enthusiasm and zeal for whatever it is. Even the best song, sang every service, every week, becomes tiring and mundane to us. If our worship and relationship with God is to stay fresh and exciting, then we must sing a new song every once in a while!

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A careful glance at the song book of scripture, the book of Psalms, reveals that they are largely written drawing from stories elsewhere in the Old Testament. Their words are drawn from real life situations that really happened to Israel and the song writers. Particularly in the psalms written by King David, it is fairly simple to read the song lyrics and from them figure out what was going on in David's life at the time of the song being composed. When God did something great, then they would write a song about it and add that song to the list of those used in the temple. In those days, their songs represented what they had been going through most recently and what God had been doing lately in their life.

Understanding this helps us to realize why the Bible repeatedly -- nine times to be exact -- commands or mentions the need to sing "a new song" to God. This also helps to explain why -- although we are commanded in the Epistles (try Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16) to sing hymns to God, therefore somewhat implying that it is okay to repeat songs and sing older songs -- we are never implicitly commanded with the phrase "sing unto Him an old song." It's not that God has anything against a song that is "older" but rather that the Biblical phrase "sing unto Him a new song" has a meaning a bit deeper than just singing a new melody in song service. Because the writers of old only wrote a new song when God was doing something fresh and exciting in their life, then to "sing a new song" meant that "you had something new and powerful and fresh to praise God for." To be able to sing a new song meant that you were fresh off of a new blessing or seeing more of God revealed in your life. So implied with the phrase "sing a new song" is "because God has been doing a new thing in my life," thus the repeated commandment to "sing to Him a new song." What the Bible is emphasizing is that we must allow God to continually work with a fresh anointing and a brand new touch in our life.

That's what Isaiah had in mind when he boldly proclaimed the Word of God to Israel in our text. We read:

"New things I now declare" is what God said, therefore Isaiah adds that it is time to "sing to the Lord a new song." It's time to praise Him in a fresh and exciting way! It's time to be excited because God is working anew!

And in our other text, from the next chapter we find out precisely why they are to sing a new song:

A new thing is springing forth from God! Therefore it is time to forget about the former things and it is not time to dwell on the past. Essentially Isaiah's message from God is summed up in our title, today: Sing a New Song -- God is doing a New Thing! And I believe that this ancient message is the word from God for you who are here today. It is time to receive something even better from God! It is time to press forward and allow God to let a new well in our spirit to spring forth. God is desiring to do a new thing in your life in this service today!

As you've probably already figured out, I'm not here to talk about the music that we sing in our praise service and the songs that we have on the play list of our worship. What I've come to preach to you about is the song that is the melody of your heart. The song of your relationship with God. The song of your everyday walk with God Almighty. How dated is the song of your current relationship with God? How long since it has been changed and updated with something new?! How long has it been since you have had a fresh touch of God? How long has it been since you could genuinely say "God is doing a 'new thing' in my life!?" How long has it been since you had the joy that comes with knowing and experiencing God's "refreshing" power at work in your life. How long has it been since it seemed that all things truly "have become new" and your relationship with God has gone to a new level? How long has it been since you have "sung a new song" because God was doing something new?

Maybe the answer is "last week" and maybe the answer is "last year" but today, God wants you to know that He desires to do something greater for you than He ever has before! The Word from God this morning is that God has a greater touch, and more blessing and more power available. If we could see what His will for this service and day is, we would realize that He has a greater move of His Spirit desiring to work among us than we have ever had before! If we could view what He desires to do in our life, then we would not face the future with a "ho-hum" attitude, but rather would be on our "tippy toes" looking eagerly to what the future holds! We serve a God who:

With such a God here desiring to do such a great work among us, we do not have to settle for the ordinary or whatever is preconceived in our minds. We could have ordinary church, but we don't have to settle for that -- we could also have extraordinary church. Maybe you came in here singing the blues, but God wants you to leave singing a new song! And not just a song that masks your true feelings, but with a true heart song that stems from what God has magnificently done in your life! God is saying "it is time to sing a new song, because I am about to do a new thing!"

Today is not the day to expect the average, but to believe God for MORE! And you need it! Maybe you have received great blessings from God before, still you need a fresh touch! Even the greatest blessing and song of praise grows old if it never changes week to week. It's time to sing a new song! You need a fresh touch today! You will not stay on fire without it! You need to go further in the Lord and cannot just maintain! And God is desiring to do a new thing in your life! Therefore it can happen, today: God can take you to a greater level and you can leave singing a new song today!

Whether a song is old or new is arbitrary and depends upon the person. What is a new song to us might be an old song to another church and vice versa. "Old or new" are terms that indicate whether you have experienced it before. For some of you praying through until the Spirit takes control might be an old song, but for some it could be a new song! If receiving the Holy Ghost is a new experience for you, then you can receive it today and leave here today singing the sweet song of redemption! But for others of you, you need a fresh anointing and a fresh touch beyond your initial experience to be able to sing a new song. No matter what your level today, I'm preaching to you -- it is the will of God for everyone to leave here singing a new song because God has done a new thing!

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Now that you understand what God is wanting to do today, let me preach to you a bit. God's promises are conditional, and if you want to truly leave here "singing a new song" then there are some things that you need to do. God is not the issue or the holdup of you receiving whatever He has for you because He is always willing -- to bless you with a new thing is, after all, His idea! But what holds up the blessing and the fresh touch is our own actions. Therefore if you want to sing a new song, you will have to make sure that you choose to "stop and start" some things.

In our text, God commanded:

This is the first command, if you want to have God do a "new thing" in your life! The surest fire way to keep God from blessing you in a new way is to come to Him living in the past. In order to grasp the new anointing that God has for you, you must release what has already happened and stop clinging to it. To put on a fresh cloak of praise, you must take off the garment of heaviness!

Jesus said this:

God will not "put more on us than we can bear" and therefore if you want to receive a greater blessing and for God to do a "new thing" in your life, then you must let Him make you a "new creature!" The reason that many people cannot "sing a new song" in the Lord is because they refuse to let go of the old man and the old lifestyle. Therefore God cannot bless them as He desires because it would destroy them! If God is to bless you as He desires, you will have to change from the past way of doing things to a new way of doing things. You will have to let the old past be buried and resurrected to Him in a new life! You need to be born again into a new creature so that you can hold and receive the new and great blessings that God has for you! He doesn't want to just patch the old garment, but rather to give you a new and better one!

Such is the spiritual error of some people -- they only come to God wanting Him to patch their old life of sin. They don't want a complete renovation, but just a patch. They don't want a new wineskin, but just new wine. And it just doesn't work! Your life of sin and doing things your way will not hold the blessings of God. And therefore they never get to sing a "new song" because they are still living within their past and hanging on to what has happened. If you want the Holy Spirit today, then you need to repent which is asking God to forgive you of your sins and indicating that you want a change of life and direction. Then get baptized in the name of Jesus for the "forgiveness of those sins." Those things are important, because the old has to be done away with for the new to come! If you want to sing a new song, then you've got to stop singing the same old tune that you always have!

And some people, allow God to make them into a new creature and then get so caught up with the situation and dilemma that they are in that they cannot see the hope of God in their life right now because of the shadow of what is following them from the door of yesterday. We would do good to learn the lesson of the prophet Jeremiah who -- in weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem and in one of the worst possible circumstances that a man can be in: homeless, jobless, under attack, and among people that were God-rejects -- said this in the book of Lamentations:

The mercies of God are "new every morning!" And so Jeremiah said, "This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope!" Somebody needs to remember that God is not bound by our present circumstances or what happened yesterday. The past is the past and today is a new day with God having new mercies and a new blessing and fresh touch! But you've got to stop remembering and living in the past. Hear this preacher: the past has absolutely no power unless you allow it to affect your present, then it becomes your future! Someone once said "forgiveness doesn't release the other person, but rather releases you." And to that I might add, "unforgiveness and bitterness hold you hostage to the gloominess of yesterday and keeps you from singing a new song." You've known people before that when you greeted them with a "how are you," you cringed because you knew the answer already that was going to come. They were predictable and they were always "singing the same old song."

But today is time to sing a new song! It's time to forgive; it's time to move on; it's time to stop worrying about the darkness of the night that is spent and focus on the coming of the sunrise! Only if you will lift your head up will you see Him reaching for you! Only if you will "not consider the things of old" can God bring a new thing in your life!

Just as it does not matter what your past circumstance is, so does it not matter what your present circumstance is either! In fact, if you are "going through something" then you are in a better spot to receive God's blessing. God said in our text:

Notice where God said that He was going to perform the "new thing:" in the wilderness and in the desert! In the driest and most desolate places is where God said "I'm going to spring forth blessings abundantly and cause them to sing a new song!"

This speaks to us today because it is not to those who claim that everything is alright in their lives that God desires most to work because they don't think that they need Him. But if you are in a desert place and a dry place spiritually. If you are in a situation that you don't even want to admit how bad it is. If life is seemingly beating up on you and the sun is hot above you with no shade and little water -- if you feel like that -- then know that God is speaking to you today! He's come to bring blessings springing forth from the desert!

God can make a way in the wildest wilderness and the driest desert, but before that happens, God first commanded this in the previous chapter:

For God to do a new thing in the desert, you must be tired of the desert! We tend to become complacent with the old things. It is human nature to be satisfied with "what we're used to" even if that is not what could be. And so just being in a dry place doesn't mean that God is going to move, rather it means that He will move if you will cry out to Him and lift your voice to Him for help! If you want to sing a new song, today, then you've got to be tired of singing the old one! Aren't you tired of being hung up on the same hang ups? Aren't you tired of living your life not knowing where you stand with God? Aren't you tired of the spiritual rollercoaster, up one day and down the next? Aren't you tired of allowing doubt and unbelief creep in and steal your joy? Aren't you tired of underachieving in the things of God? Aren't you tired of not living as blessed and as abundantly as you could? If so, then good! That means that you are tired of the old song enough to cry out from your desert place! And that means that God can come and do a new thing! You've got to be tired of living where you are at, if you are going to move forward in God!

Sometimes believers cry out to get closer to God and the result is a greater trial and we forget that "trials" and what people call "going through" are really just having to face something that you've never faced before and therefore you are in a position where you have to trust God for more than you ever have before. But if that is so, then we ought to grow in our understanding enough to realize that when we face something that we have never faced before, that is God setting us up to do "a new thing in our life!" And if you'll trust God, then you'll see Him come through in a way that you've never seen Him before and then you'll be able to sing a new song of praise to Him!

If you want God to do a new thing, then you must be willing to do a new thing! One preacher once said that "people today want a steak dinner anointing on a hot dog consecration." That is sadly true for many people. We want maximum return on minimal effort and often that attitude crosses into our walk with God.

If you want to sing a new song, then now would be the time to admit that you need to give more of yourself to God. You need to obey more of the Word or you need to obey more closely. You need to give more of an effort to serving Him and talking to Him. Let's not kid ourselves: if we only do what we've always done, spiritually, then we will only receive what we have always received. To go to another level in the spirit means that you must commit more than you did at the previous level. To sing a new song, you must have a new and fresh consecration.

Sometimes it's hard admitting that what you've been doing isn't working. But swallow your pride and admit that you need more of God and therefore you need more of His Word! And I'm not just preaching to people here who don't have the Holy Spirit, because if you have the Holy Ghost, then it is a fire within you, but even the greatest fire without being given more fuel to burn will eventually die down and go out. Listen to this preacher: if you get to a place where you are satisfied with your walk with God, you will not stay there if you quit moving forward. The minute we get satisfied with our commitment to God and say "okay, I've given enough of my life and changed about all that I'm going to change" then we stop feeding the fire of the Holy Ghost and instead of staying the same, it begins to diminish and dwindle. For God to do a new thing in your life and for you to be able to "sing a new song," you've got to be willing to give God even more of your life and to commit to Him even more and to live even more according to His Word and to be even more consecrated!

And finally:

If God has touched you before, then there is a danger that you would expect only what He has done in the past. And as you reach out to let God do a new thing in your life, there is a danger that you would judge whether or not God is doing a "greater thing" in your life by past experience. Perhaps an analogy from the Word of God would help bring this point home.

If you read the little Old Testament book of Haggai, you will find that he was a prophet during the time of Zerrubabel's rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. Haggai was sent by God to keep Israel focused on building God's temple once again and he had to continually preach to them to stay on it. There are only two chapters in this little book and in the first chapter Haggai addresses the people who were more concerned in building their own houses instead of the house of God. That is another message in itself. But in the second chapter, God addresses another issue and that is some of the Israeli people were old enough to remember what Solomon's temple -- the previous temple that was destroyed 70 years before -- had been like. Solomon's temple had been extravagant and intricate and had tons of gold and so much silver that they did not even bother to measure it. And it was huge -- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

But as these older Jews saw the new temple that was being built by Zerrubabel and as they walked around the foundation, they could tell that this new temple would not be anywhere near the size of the former temple of old. And as they saw the blocks of stone and the gold and silver massed together for the craftsmen, they realized that this temple would be nowhere near as intricate as the old temple had been. And even at the dedication the Shekina presence of God did not descend into the temple and no fire fell and lit the altar. And the Urim and the Thummim -- the oracles through which God spoke directly to His people for guidance were missing as was the pot of manna from the ark of the covenant. And so these older people began to murmur and weep that the "new thing" that God was doing was not as great as "it used to be!"

But God thundered through the voice of Haggai and said:

The problem was that they were judging the greatness of the new thing that God was doing by what their eyes could see. But truly little Zerrubabel's temple did shine brighter and was more blessed than Solomon's. It never had the gold and silver and Shekina presence and pot of manna in it, but just a few hundred years later, a baby was brought to this very same temple and dedicated unto the Lord by a man named Joseph and a woman named Mary. Twelve years after that this baby turned boy, was in this same temple teaching the teachers! And eighteen years later, this boy turned man walked into the temple and declared that it was "His house" and cleaned it out and started doing miracles and turned the world upside down! Solomon's temple may have had more gold, but all that led was to a life of idolatry. Solomon's temple had more wealth, but where did that get him spiritually? But as for Zerrubabel's humble little temple, it had the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, teaching and preaching in it! He was the Living Word, the presence of God manifest to men! He was the manna from heaven and the Living Bread! He spoke the Word of God directly to the people and was our High Priest bringing us closer to God Almighty! And so which temple was more blessed in the end? Which temple was greater in the end?

And so I close today by preaching to some of you that the devil has whispered the same message that he whispered to the Jews back then and he's convinced you that "it will never be like it once was." Perhaps you have had a great experience with God before, and yet you believe the lie that God can never do anything greater than that. That things will never be as good or better than they used to be. That God is not capable of surpassing that previous things in your life!

I'm preaching to some of you that you are convinced that you will never feel God greater than you did the first time! That you will never be able to be touched in a greater way than back then! And I join with the voice of Haggai in denouncing this as the lie it is! With Jesus Christ involved, the latter will be greater than the former! Your end will be better even than your beginning! It's time to stop judging what God can do now by what He did in the past! It may be different at first, but if you will let God have His way, you will find out that in the end, God will have outdone Himself! And you will be singing a new song!

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God is wanting to do a new thing in your life, today! Why don't you let Him!? Let go of the past and stop living in it. Let some things go today so you can move forward! Let your condition cause you to cry out to Him for help and lift your voice in the wilderness. And make up your mind to give God more of yourself than you ever have before, so you can be blessed more than you ever have before! And then trust that God will cause the latter to be greater than any former in your life! Come and let God do a new thing in your life, so that you can go home singing a new song!