New Beginnings: Creating Longing
Revelation 21:1-22:6 & Psalm 119:169-176
Tik Tok artist named Tyler Shaw, posted on Youtube on January 13, 2022. It’s music starts just the same but continues with these lyrics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeaLd3VfWU0
(Lyrics Chorus):
a b c d e f g h i love you still
and you know i always will till the end of time
i won’t change my mind
love you i’ll be there
i will never disappear
said forever i swear so i will be there
WELCOME: to Central Church of Christ, not a place, but a people called out to show God’s love, tell God’s story, and be God’s family. We shifted from a wonderful Christmas season to thinking about the new year of 2022, we wanted to focus on New Beginnings and Psalm 119 is the perfect place to orient us. As listed on BibleStudy.org, the number 8 is widely recognized as the number of “New Beginnings” and with all 176 poetic verses in Psalm 119 organized into groups of 8, I very well say that Psalm 119 is a great place to begin again in the new year. After looking at many stanzas that have taken us all over the Bible, Today we look at the last segment of Psalm 119 that points us to a very desperate and needed truth in our faith!
174 I long for your salvation, O Lord,
and your law is my delight.
175 Let my soul live and praise you,
and let your rules help me.
176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
Mark Twain was a noted humorist and atheist in his day didn’t think much of heaven.
“There is no humor in heaven.” (Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven)
And he said he preferred “Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
Revelation 4:2-3 – “The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were SINGING A NEW SONG before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders…”
I Corinthians 15:51-53 “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
John said he saw “a NEW heaven and a NEW earth” Revelation 21:1
‘Behold, I am making ALL THINGS NEW…’” Revelation 21:5
“The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald,… etc. etc.” Rev 21:18-19
In Psalm 37:4 God promises:
“Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
2 Samuel 12:8 “if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!.”
Revelation 21:3-4 “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Someone took this promise and composed a poem that goes like this:
“No dust, nor rust, no rats, no rot,
No raucous rock, no potent pot.
All tell the truth, state only facts,
No wars, no debts, no income tax.
No growing old with weakened sight,
No dentures slipping when you bite,
No bombs, no guns, no courts, no jails,
Where all succeed and no one fails.
According to this dream of mine
In Heaven no one stands in line.
And there are only smiling faces
And lots and lots of parking places.”
(Humorist Richard Armour)
1 Thessalonians 4:16 “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven WITH A SHOUT…”
I long for your salvation, O Lord,
and your law is my delight. – Psalm 119:174
