It's A New Day // Matthew Anderson

0:00This is an exciting day, huh? Come on, we're all back. It feels good to be all back. We look forward to this day. Like when everybody begins to come back and is back and so just want to say, welcome back to those of you who have been gone for the summer. In and out, welcome back. We are excited about what God is doing here, what He's going to continue to do. And yes, if you are our guest today, I'm Matthew. I'm the lead pastor here. And I love what I get to do. I love serving you all, getting to lead pastor you all. And it is a joy. And I honestly all this and God's on the move. You know that, don't you? He is on the move. And I was at a big conference that all of the Anyok Church's staff gather at this summer. We were there in July. There was 750 of us adults and with kids, we had 1200.

1:00And that's staff. That's Anyok staff. And not everybody's there. But we tried it mostly. And I was sitting there and the Lord gave me a couple words that I felt like was for the movement and I felt like was for here. And so today I'm going to dive into that word. Is that okay? And so I'm pretty excited. And I don't know if you know this, but did you know we're three years old? We're kind of celebrating our three year old birthday. It's pretty crazy. God called our family to Phoenix to help lay a foundation. And so we stepped out in faith, joined a team from Chandler and planted this church, and honestly watched God do the impossible. And there was a lot of impossible that happened. And so I just want to recognize if you were a part of the very first people who gathered

2:05three years ago, can you just stand up really quick? I mean, first of all, I just want to say thank you and I am so sorry. It's like planting a church is not easy work. And a lot of gaps. And we still have a lot of gaps, but there's a lot of gaps. And we work hard and we're still working hard. But I just want to recognize you all. You started this thing with us. You've come this far. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We have a long way to go. And we all know that. And so, but we're excited. So bless you, thank you so much. Yes. You know, I love our story. The scrappy beginnings, right Saturday night services.

3:06And you know, not the ideal, but we did it. And it was awesome. And then we moved to the next, not that ideal. But you know what's funny about the not so ideal is for one or two people. It's always the ideal, right? So true, right? And so we moved to Sunday nights. And we were in this church called Blessing. And y'all remember Blessing? To you whoever remember Blessing. So we were blessed by Blessing. Truly, it was amazing that they allowed us to have that place and all that. But it was kind of just out in No Man's Land. And so, but I love those beginnings. I wouldn't trade them for anything like the Sunday night set up and tear down in black curtains. Oh. So, and all that stuff and getting out the signs. And I just remember sometimes pulling out those signs and having to walk, felt like

4:07a mile because it was really hot in the summer. And some of you still pull out signs, don't you? Where did it go? And anyway, all those amazing stories that we have from the beginning days, it's pretty amazing. And it was really raw faith that got us there and got us here. And it's pretty amazing. But as your lead pastor, I just want to say something clear to you today. And here's what I truly believe. The best days of this church are not behind us. They're right here. And they're going forward. Amen. And I believe that with my whole heart, we're stepping across a threshold. And God's calling us out of the start-up survival mode into a permanent thriving work. And you know, this is a second church.

5:08I've been a second church I've planted as far as like been the lead pastor of. I've seen several churches planted across the nations. But one thing about church planning is it's hard. Things never go the way you think they're going to go. God always comes through usually at the very last minute, but not too late. But enough to make you stressed out, you're always worried about different things. Like, are they going to leave? Are they going to stay? Do we have enough money to even do what we need to do? Like all those things. And then you worry about the big gaps. The huge gaps that you see, by the way, we as your leader see the gaps. And so we don't mind you telling us about the gaps because we already see them. But it's a constant like, how do we feel the gaps? How do we feel the gaps? And then sometimes you're like, we just can't feel the gaps. Does that make sense? And that's always hard. He's a church planter and who wants to take care of everybody. And it's hard as a new church. But I believe that God's beginning to move us out of those stages, although we've still

6:11got some of those stages that we're still looking through or working through. But he wants us to begin to build. And he wants us to build a thriving work, one that lasts and sustains through the years. And so today, I think, not I think, I know that the word that God's put on my heart for our church is simple. It's sharp and I believe it's full of life. And here's the word. You ready? It's a new day. It's a new day. And I want to say this, whether you are a branch, maybe you're a freshman in college and it truly is a new day. Or it truly is a new day. But maybe you're coming back and it feels the same or maybe you've been around for the last three years and it's like, what's changed? I just want to say, I think in the spirit God is saying it's a new day. All right? And so I want to talk to you about that today because I'm super excited. And the word that he gave me was out of Isaiah 43. So if you have Bibles, open to Isaiah 43. And we're just going to kind of camp out here for a little bit.

7:18The first thing I want to say is this. I want to talk a little bit about being secure in identity and open to the new. All right? Be secure in our identity and open to the new. So let me give you a little context of Isaiah 43 before we jump in. To understand the way of Isaiah 43, we have to look at the original hearers. This text was spoken to the Israelite community sitting in Babylonian exile. All right? They had been there for a while. Jerusalem had been ruined. Solomon's temple was burned. They had been stuck in exile for decades when this word came. All right? You need to understand that. They were paralyzed by survival anxiety and trapped in nostalgia for how good things used to be. And so into this culture of spiritual exhaustion, God speaks to re-anchor their identity before calling them into something new. And so look at verses one through three.

8:22In chapter 43 it says this. But now this is what the Lord says. He who created you, Jacob, he who formed you Israel, do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior. Isn't that good? Come on. That's so good. So before God asked them to change, he settles their security. All right? So here's the other. And years one, two, and three as a church plant, it's easy to operate kind of out of subtle fear. Will we survive? I already asked you questions. Will we make budget? Will people stay or leave?

9:23And I believe God speaks to our three-year-old church today and he says this. You ready? I bought this house. I named this church your mine. And here's the deal. When you know you're secure in Christ and in his ownership, you stop clinging nervously to the past and you start risking for the future. Right? Y'all listen. When we know who we are in Jesus, right? We stop clinging to the past. Sure we want to learn from it and all that, but we stop clinging to it and we start leaning into the future and risking for it because of who we are as his children. Now look at the paradox God sets up in verses 16 and through 19. This is profound to me. He says this. In 16, he says, this is what the Lord says. He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together and they lay there, never to rise

10:26again, extinguish snuffed out like a wick. Now here's the deal. If you're not catching it, that's Exodus language. Right? He's basically saying, remember the Exodus. Remember all that I've done. Right? Remember what your God's done and now listen. It's like he's going to give him whiplash because here listen to the next verse. He says this. Never get the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. All right. So verses 16 and 17, God reminds them of the Exodus. How we part of the Red Sea. God points to the history because listen, here's what we need to know. Holy memory builds faith. All right? Godly memory builds faith. So he's saying, remember the Exodus? But then immediately in verse 18, he turns around and he says, but forget the former things.

11:28Don't dwell on the past. Why give a history lesson only to tell them to forget it? Because there's a vast difference between sacred memory and toxic nostalgia. All right. There's a vast difference between sacred memory and toxic nostalgia. Sacred memory uses past miracles as a springboard for faith. Right? It says God part of the sea then. So I know he can do something fresh now. You'll listen, they had never seen anything like the sea before. Ever. And so looking back at that, we're like, oh my gosh, if he did something fresh and new then, he can do something fresh and new now. Does that make sense? Nostalgia on the other hand uses past miracles as a museum.

12:32It says God did it then and because it doesn't look like that anymore, God must not be here. I had a friend who used to say that denominations were the fossils of revival. And so what we as Christians, what people, not just Christians, people in general, is like when something good happens or as since we're Christians, so when God moves in a certain particular way, we kind of want to put a box around that and say that's how he's got to move all the time. And then we create denominations and rules and policies around that box and what happens when we do that is we miss what God's doing new and now right, new and fresh right now. Does that make sense? And the reason we do that, here's what I think, I think we're afraid of new because we've never seen it before. Sometimes it can freak us out a little bit. It's weird sometimes or it's like, ah, and so we like the comfort of what he did before.

13:43Brugamon calls verse 19, Brugamon by the way is a theologian who I really like, but he calls verse 19 God's Novum. And it's his capacity to bring forth a dynamic, unexpected, unprecedented reality. So God tells Israel if you spend all your time trying to recreate the Red Sea miracle, you'll miss the brand new road I'm cutting through Babylon. Hmm. Let's not miss the brand new road everybody. He's doing a new thing. It's a new day. Point two, I want to talk about three obstacles for our three-year-old church. So as a three-year-old church, if we're going to step into the new day, we've got to guard our hearts against three subtle trap doors, all right? And this is kind of where it all gets practical for us.

14:44So obstacle number one is I call it start-up nostalgia, what dwelling on the early years, all right? So in a church plan, it's easy to romanticize the beginning. I remember in the last church time we had, we actually, so in this church plan, we're going to always talk about the chairs that broke. When we don't have them anymore, we'll talk about them and we'll miss them. Okay, maybe we won't miss them. But we'll definitely romanticize them, all right? It's not fun to be in a chair and it breaks, all right? But in the church plan that I did before this one, we actually, all of us brought our own chairs. Like, we had an auditorium that was chairless, and so we just brought our own chairs. And like 200 people, usually 200 people, like, setting up their chairs like this or their camping chairs. We had some people like really like bring their camping chairs and have their feet up. I was like, whoa, I don't know about that. But it was, but it's like, but in that church plan, we romanticized that.

15:46Like, we, it's like, oh, I wish we could go back there. And I'm like, no, no, we don't want to go back. We don't, we don't want to go back. We want to go forward. And so, so as a church plan, it's really easy to romanticize the beginning. A lot of times it comes with, we remember when we're super small and everyone knew everyone. Remember, we remember how simple things were before we needed all the new systems and the new volunteers. We like that. Or maybe if you just joined us recently, your nostalgia might be pointing back to the church you left when you moved to Phoenix or when you moved over here. And now you're joining a plant and maybe part of it is like, well, at my old church, we didn't do it that way. My old church is a little better at doing that probably. We used to worship or do youth or do outreach this way probably. Like all that could be true.

16:46All probably is true. But what happens is you get stuck there and you don't allow God to do what he wants to do with you right here right now. So here's what I want you to hear. I want to honor the early years of our beginnings. And I want to honor wherever you came from. Like in the faith that that built in you, but those places were meant to be springboards not permanent residences. All right. So don't let it become a permanent residence. And here's the deal. Why am I telling you this? Because in my 30 years of ministry, one of the biggest things that keeps people stuck is not being able to move on from a time when God met them. I don't understand it, but it's true. It's like God met me over here in this way and I'm not moving from here. And so they begin to just miss everything that God's doing up in front of them.

17:49Don't let's not be that church. All right. Let's constantly enjoy God's presence now. Let the past move us into faith for what he wants to do next. Amen? Yes. All right. Isaiah 43, 5 through 6 as this, do not be afraid for I'm with you. I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, give them up and to the south. Do not hold them back. Give me my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth. God wants to gather. You got to get this. He wants to gather lots of lost sons and daughters across the valley into this house. I believe it with all my heart. If we try to keep this church feeling like a small one-year living room gathering, we'll

18:50build a wall that keeps out the very people God's trying to bring in. All right. So we've got to be careful there. We've got to be really careful. And I'll address a little bit that little later. But let's move on to obstacle number two, which I've called paralyzing trauma and past hurt, living in the rubble. So when God says in verse 18, forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. He wasn't only talking to people who missed the good old days. He was talking to people who were deeply traumatized by their past. Israel wasn't just romanticizing the past. They were haunted by it. They remembered the siege of Jerusalem, the burning of Solomon's temple, the defeat, the shame, the years of exile. There was like a hopelessness probably over them. They were convinced that their past pain, their past failure, their spiritual judgment, was the final word on their future.

19:51So God was telling them stop defining your identity by the rubble. Y'all, some of you need to hear this stop. You need to stop defining your identity and your past mistakes in the past abuse in the past sin and the past, whatever it may be that has been traumatic. That is not who you are. Sure, God will use it to shape you, but the trauma itself is not who you are. And so in a three-year-old church plant, I think this trap shows up in two very distinct ways. First of all, unhealed church hurt. Many of you came to this church plant because you were burned out, wounded, disillusioned by leadership or experiences at your previous church.

20:52And here's what I want to say. If you're not careful, you will project that old church trauma onto this family. And therefore you'll hold back your trust. You'll sit on the sidelines and you'll view every new initiative through a lens of cynicism instead of faith. Don't do it. Let God heal the trauma. Let God heal the old church hurt. And here's what I've just learned. Almost all of us have church hurt. It's just part of... I've been doing this for 30 years. And this is just... I don't know how... I mean, I don't know if I met anybody that's actually not experienced some kind of church hurt. Y'all, we've got to just... I'm not saying like, get over it. No. Take it to Jesus. Maybe you need to go to a counselor. All that kind of stuff, but let him heal you and move forward.

21:54Don't let it keep you stuck and don't let it keep you from seeing what God's doing right now. Because it will. It will keep you there. It will keep you stuck. The enemy wants the church stuck. The other trap door on this one is early plant scars. I'm so sorry. That's why I said I was sorry. In the first three years of planning to church, there are moments that leave scars. Right? Scrappy seasons have burned out. Key families moving away unexpectedly. Financial stress. Ministry setups that felt overwhelming. Ministries that failed. We can go on and on. We've not been perfect. There's been a lot of stuff that we've done here that's been far from perfect. That can leave scars. It can leave wounds. I recognize that. Please, please forgive us. If you need to talk to us, we can talk.

22:55We want to seek your forgiveness. That's not what we ever intended. Yet at the same time, I've never been a part of a plant or actually talked to pastors who were part of plants that the gaps didn't do that. We all can imagine. We all come with expectations of what a church should do and how it should function. When you meet that and it doesn't function that way, not maybe because it simply could be your style or what you think should happen or all that kind of stuff, but it will leave a wound. So, expectations, when we have expectations, whether they're good expectations or bad expectations and they're not mad, it hurts. So, we have to deal with that. Then we have to ask the question. One of the things I do in premarital, I know you're like, what, premarital? It applies. I have the Mary couple list all their expectations of what they think Mary is going to be like and what they expect from their spouse.

23:57I have them do it alone. Then we come together next time and we read those things together, out loud, and then we like, hey, what do you think about those expectations? Sometimes it's good. I think those are fair. Sometimes it's like, hey, can we talk about that one? I'm not sure about that one. It's good because here's what a man and I've learned in 30-some odd years of marriage. Most of our disagreements and hurt and anger and arguments have come from expectations that weren't met. What I've realized is most of the time she didn't know I was expecting it because I didn't tell her. Does that make sense? We all come with expectations of a church. We do. We all have the definition of what a church is, what it should be, and how it should function, and how leaders should treat you, and all that kind of stuff. When that doesn't happen, it hurts.

24:57Now here's the deal. Maybe it should have happened, but they never know that you were expected that or maybe you have unrealistic expectations. But either way, you need to talk it out and figure out, was that expectation realistic or was it unrealistic? Does that make sense? We need to do that. But what I've learned and what I think the trap for us is getting stuck in all those wounds and hurts that happened over the three years that we've existed because we just couldn't do it all. All right? Okay. God's heart for you today is this, your past wounds do not get to write the blueprint for your future. Period. God doesn't want to just heal your memory of past glory. He wants to heal your memory of past pain as well. Don't let old church or early startup exhaustion lock you into a prison of self-protection. All right? Don't let it do it.

26:01Lay down the rubble with the altar today. Forget the former pain. He's building something whole right here right in front of you. Obstacle number three, the failure of perception, rejecting the new container. In verse 19, God says in a C, I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? Why is the new thing hard to perceive? Have you ever thought about that? Here's the reason I believe because growth and maturity require new containers. When a church moves from three years old into its future, it requires deeper structure, new leadership layers, greater organization. We're trying to do that. We're learning as a leadership. Like, oh my gosh, like where we've been weak, we can't be weak anymore. It requires moving from informal family gathering to mission driven mobilization.

27:02All right? It doesn't mean that we don't have the informal families. That's why we do life groups still. But at the same time, it demands that we all move into this mission mobilization. Like we're about seeing the world come to know Jesus. And so if you're looking for God to move only through the raw informal ways he moved when we first launch, you will miss how he wants to move through our maturity today. Do not judge this current season by what feels different or what feels the same judge by the God who is building a lasting highway for us. It's pretty amazing. And so as I close, I just want to give us a charge. And I've called it Streams in the Phoenix Desert. God, Isaiah closes this section of 16 through 19 with verses 20 and 21.

28:08And he says this, the wild animals honor me. The jackals and the owls because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I form for myself that they may proclaim my praise. Y'all listen, God didn't plan us here in the Phoenix Desert to dry up. Freshman in college, he didn't bring you to GCU, to the hot desert to let you dry up. Drink Gatorade and lots of it. It's for real, right? No, but he didn't do that. He planted us here to be in Oasis. I believe it. A place where people dying of spiritual thirst can find water and declare his praise.

29:09So how do we respond? How do we step into this new day together? And so I'm asking us as a church, as a church family, to trade our memories of how it used to be for an eager expectation of what God is about to do. Because I believe he's about to do something fresh and new in our midst. I believe it with all my heart. I can't explain it. I don't know exactly what it's going to look like. It wouldn't be new if I did. But I believe he's doing something and he wants to do something. So here's what I believe. It's time to begin to build for the Long Hall and Phoenix. So three things that I'm asking us to do. One, put down deep roots. All right? I'm asking if you're a college student, would you just, would you, would you, would you root here? Would you root here while you're here? Like jump in.

30:09I've said this before, but what I find with college students is they grow in their faith with Jesus the more they root somewhere. There's something about rooting with a family and even if it's an odd family. There's something about rooting with a family and being there that God does something to you. He begins to grow things deeper than if you just hop around everywhere. All right? You know why? Because we get to know each other and then someone actually can say, hey, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing that? Right? Or you have the chance to say, hey, dude, why are you doing that? Like, we sharpen each other. But when you're hopping around, you don't know. It's like, it's hard. It's hard. Not only that, every local church, I believe, has an assignment on their church from the Lord. But when you get rooted, you get to partake in that assignment, which is amazing, right?

31:13So I want to encourage you. Let's put down deep roots. So how would I do that? How would I move from being a consumer or a spectator of this church plant to an owner and co-builder? How do I move to those things? Okay, here's just a couple things. All right? Here we go. And yes, it's a market. I'm advertising. So here we go. I'm just telling you right up front. All right. So life groups. They're not perfect. Oh my gosh, they're not perfect. I've led some doozies. All right. I've not been the perfect leader all the time. And so, and I admit that, and I know that, but I keep on going back and trying again. All right? So, they're not perfect, but you can find hopefully friends there that will pray for you and that will walk with you that you can share your life with. And so, I want to encourage you to do that.

32:14And here's what I want to also encourage you. It takes vulnerability on everybody's part for a group to be vulnerable. Does that make sense? I find that if I hold back, then other people hold back as well. And that's what you'll find in group. So, and it's really hard to move from shallow to deep. I know it's hard. It's vulnerability, but I want to encourage you all, risk it, because God's doing something new. He's doing something new. We're launching a new thing and it's called emotionally healthy spirituality.

33:15Man and I have led about 300 people through this. And the reason we're doing it is because it actually helps establish healthy life groups. We believe it's the foundation for healthy life groups. And so, we've wanted to introduce it for a while. And some things came up that we were like we need to introduce it sooner than we thought. And so, we're introducing it. We'll start that as well this fall. And for you families, right now, this is what we're offering. And just know that it's around tables. There'll be a lot of discussion, but we will go deep. The whole point of emotional health and spirituality is that we cannot be spiritually mature if we're not emotionally mature. And there's so many Christians that have been walking with Jesus for 20 years, but are still one year emotionally. And so, they've never gone beyond the one year old mark in the spirit, in their faith, and all that. And what we've seen, God, do through this program, it's not even a program. Through this class and small group structure is changed and transformed people's lives.

34:21And it gives you the tools to move through. So if you don't have a life group or you don't feel like you belong anywhere, do that. There is a cost. There's three books that come with it. It's nine weeks. It'll be in the beginning. It's $40. But signups are now, if you can't afford the 40, but you really feel like there's just to go, please see us. We will figure it out. All right? So that EHS. So, life groups, EHS. Also, y'all, we have serve teams here. I always say a healthy church is a church that serves. All right? We want to beat the whole percentage of 20% of the people do 80% of the work in a church. We want actually 80% of the people to do. You know what I mean. That came out wrong. We want to serve. And here's what I, it's like when we serve, and here's the deal, y'all, how? Yes, I got it. I got to be done.

35:21We're setting a table for all of us to encounter God, and for then whoever would come through those doors that are looking to encounter God. When you serve here, you're setting a table so that people can encounter God. You're a part of that. And people are encountering God. Those are being changed. And so it's not just that we've got to have this done. It's so that people can encounter God. We're part of the team. We're part of the family, right? And that's what we do. And so I want to encourage you. I mean, we have plenty of needs, whether it's from lawn care and all that stuff to children, to everything, building, to media, to worship, to greeting. And we have needs, right? To new life-root leaders, all the stuff we have needs.

36:26And so I want to say serve. And then lastly, we do outreach is here. And not only are we trying to have it as a lifestyle so that we're doing it everywhere and anywhere, we also do it corporately. And so we have outreach and someone encourage you. And we get involved in the outreach is whether it's going out and sharing the gospel, where it's going out and caring and feeding the homeless. Like we're doing things. And then if you have a passion for intercession, man, we can pray. So it's the thing that backs and fuels what we do. So get involved. All right, so that's put your roots down deep. Secondly, make room for the harvest. Welcome the new faces. Embrace new ministry structures. Serve with joy. Honestly, if you do that, if we do that as a church, I'm telling you, people will feel welcome. All right?

37:26And then thirdly and finally declare his praise. Shift your focus from holding on to what you have to reaching the people who aren't here yet. You know, God didn't bring us through the launching phase of this church just to let us plateau and going forward. He didn't bring us across the desert to let us settle for good enough. The God of our foundation is the God of our future. Amen? It's a new day. Don't you perceive it? And you feel it. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to pray for us, but then we're all going to stand. And here's how we're responding today. We're going to respond with a exciting, uplifting worship and praise, high praise song.

38:31And then at the end, I'm just going to release you. And I would release you to go out and either get connected at any of the zone tables, whether it's life, pre-observing, EHS, whatever it may be, we're just going to release you in response to like, hey, I'm going to get connected. All right? And I'm going to go for this. So can you all stand with me? Let me just pray over. Jesus, oh, we love you. There is no one like you. Lord, thank you for your compassion and your love and your grace and your mercy. And Lord, I thank you that it is a new day. It's time, Lord. There's a world that's hungry. We've made it through not just to church plant years, but Lord, the last 10 years of church history.

39:32And it's been tough, but we have made it through. And it is a new day. And it's time to become all that you've longed for us to be. And so Lord, we say yes to you. Lord, I pray that you bless everyone here. We worship you. And we praise you. And we thank you. And we pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.