"Behold, I Will Do A New Thing...."
(Mr. A. O. Fapohunda - parent. Maiden sermon preached on the first Sunday at Preston International School)
Main Text Isaiah 43 : 15-19
15I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.
16Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;
17Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.
18Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
19Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
It is a great privilege for me to be given the opportunity to speak to students of the Preston International School, Akure on their first Sunday Service. It strangely reminded me of the first Sunday Service I attended as a Secondary School student, and that was specifically on the 9th September, 1977.
I don’t know who it was who first said it, but it is really true that change is one of the only certainties in our lives. When I stop and reflect back on my own past four decades years of life, I’m astonished at the changes I’ve been through: job changes, career changes, marital changes, physical changes. I cannot believe how much my body has changed in the last couple years alone! I never used to have to think about or worry about what I ate. But my body has changed and it continues to do so. I’ve therefore lately become careful of what and how I ingest.
Even my interests and passions have changed. One remarkable change in my life was influenced by the Proprietor of this Preston International School, way back in 1981. There used to be an old piano in my Sister’s house, on which no one actually had any interest, let alone playing it. He had visited my cousin and beautifully played the Battle Hymn of the Republic composed by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), entitled “Mine Eyes have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord” on that Piano. Before then, I never knew a beautiful song like that could emanate from the old piano. That was the beginning of my interest in playing musical instruments and that year, I struggled to learn it to the extent that I became the Organist for my school – Ekiti Baptist High School, Igede-Ekiti.
Times change. People change, but thank goodness God has never changed, even though He is a God of change. That’s why He is also called “The Unchanging Changer”.
The God I have gotten to know through Jesus Christ in the last 23 years is a God of change and of new beginnings and each change is the beginning of a new phase of life. That’s probably why God actually wove the new beginning right into the fabric of the physical universe. Think about it: every single day creation itself declares a new beginning! The sunrise to sunset to sunrise pattern screams to us that each today is a brand new start! A new beginning!
When I trained as an educationist, one term I can never forget is “Tabula Rasa”. Tabula rasa (Latin: scraped tablet or clean slate) refers to the epistemological thesis that individual human beings are born with no innate or built-in mental content, in a word, "blank", and that their entire resource of knowledge is built up gradually from their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa). It generally means, a new beginning. It’s a clean slate.
Your admission into Preston International School amidst thousands and millions of children in the universe itself offers you a great and a rare new beginning and the Lord is ready to do a new thing in your life. “This IS the day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24)
Some people don’t like change or moving into the unknown, but many do. My children has been looking at the calendar for the past few months and the Preston’s resumption date seemed so far than necessary, thank God that September 16th finally came at last. When I was a teacher (in Annunciation School, Ikere and Federal Government College, Warri), I remembered how much I loved early September, when a new school year began. I had a keen sense at that particular time that I got to start all over – new students, new books, new lesson plans, new life! If I’d made some mistakes the previous school year – and I always had - I could start all over, have a fresh start. And the cool thing was that the longer I taught, the more I began to realize that I didn’t have to wait around for another new school year to start if I wanted to a new beginning! In between those new school years God gave me new sessions, new mid-terms, and new weeks. There were Monday’s, and there were tomorrow’s. Not only did I become a more effective teacher once I realized that I didn’t have to wait for another September to roll around to make my new beginning, but I also became a much happier one, when I started seizing every Monday, every Tuesday, every day as a new beginning. For that is what every sunrise represents for those who follow Christ, for those who open themselves to God’s Spirit – a new beginning!
Isn’t that great news! That’s a part of our amazing gospel that I love! I love the fact that God not only presides over but offers the changes in our lives and in our world as opportunities for a new start, a clean slate, a new beginning. God likes change. But change is not always our first choice, is it? We don’t always see change as opportunity or as new beginning, do we?
The Old Testament story from Deuteronomy 31:1-8 gives us an interesting look at how the people of ancient Israel dealt with change. In this passage, Israel’s faithful leader Moses, who had led them out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, through their 40-year journey in the wilderness, and finally to the doorstep of the Promised Land, announced his retirement. In Deuteronomy 31 he tells the people that he won’t be going with them into this Promised Land. What a scary, unsettling prospect for the Israelites! They’d gotten used to Moses and his style of leadership. They’d grown to trust him and to know that he really was in touch with God. And then, at this crucial time of transition, Moses announces his retirement? It had to have felt to the Israelites like the worst time for Moses to bail on them!
But, you see, in God’s eyes, in God’s economy, change is not such a bad thing. In fact, change is a crucial ingredient in all growth. Our God is a God of new beginnings. He was giving Israel a brand new start, a new beginning, and a new leader named Joshua, just like the Lord is now giving you a new school, new set of teachers, new Proprietors, new environment, new friends and new way of life. I couldn’t help but notice here how Moses assured his people that the God they were serving would see them through the changes. Moses reminded them that not everything was going to change as he stepped down, as Joshua stepped up, and as the people stepped out on faith to cross the Jordan River. Listen again to what Moses said: “ The Lord your God will cross over ahead of you…Be not afraid, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you or forsake you.”
One of the things that is so great about our God is that not only is it God’s nature to wipe the slate clean and offer us new beginnings, but it’s also His nature to see us through the changes. But in spite of all that, for many of us, change is still scary, disconcerting, and uncertain. And God understands that. He knows that it’s not always in our human nature to embrace change. But, friends, our faith are founded on change, on new beginnings. Remember Abraham? God came to him and said, “Leave your country, your people, your father’s household, and go to a land that I will show you.” (Gen.12:1) Moses got his start when God spoke to him out of that burning bush, saying, “Go! I’m sending you to Pharaoh. You will bring the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Ex.3:11) God went to Jonah and said, “Go to that great city of Nineveh and preach there!” (Jonah 1:2) Jesus called his first disciples, saying, ‘Leave your boats and your nets and come follow me!’ (Mark 1:17)
Friends, we can’t get around change! The Christian life, the life of faith starts with leaving what is familiar, what is comfortable and going somewhere new, somewhere we’ve never been! Up till few months ago, you were a pupil in a Primary School, but now, you are a Secondary School student in Preston International School. Now you will have new friends, new teachers, new way of life and you will also be away from your daddy and mummy for few weeks before you can see them again.
Being a follower of Christ means not only being open to change, but also actually being excited about it! In Matthew 9:16-17, Jesus used the metaphor of wine and wineskins to help us understand change the way God understands it. Jesus is in the business of change, of new beginnings, and of new wine. He made that clear when his very first public miracle at the wedding in Cana involved changing water into wine. But Jesus doesn’t do all the work of change for us; He asks us to provide the vessels, the wine skins. Christ asks us to be vessels that are flexible enough and soft enough to receive, embrace, and taste his new wine, the wine of change. Jesus asks – even requires – that our hearts, our minds, our spirits be in a constant state of openness, always receptive to the next thing that He’s about to do. And that’s not easy for us, is it? But like Moses said, we need to remember that the Lord promises to cross over our rivers of change with us. God promises to roll through these changes with us. He promises to never leave us or forsake us.
So as pioneer Prestonians, what changes are coming your way? Maybe it’s the first year you’ll have to live away from your parents and brothers and sisters.
Whoever it was who said that ‘the only thing that is certain in our lives is change’ got it half right. There are actually three things that are certain as we resume school
1) that change will come to all of us
2) that God will go through each and every change with us. AND
3) The Lord will do new things in every one of us, individually and collectively
What is not so certain is how we’ll choose to handle the changes that come. Will may fear and resent them as intrusions to our routine and comfort? Or will we receive them as new wine that God wants to pour into the new wineskins of our souls?
CHANGES TO EXPECT
From my practical experience as a parent, preacher and a schoolteacher, I would wish to practically but briefly identify few things that we would expect to change.
Changes in Identity
Achieving a sense of identity is the major developmental task of teenagers. Like a stunned soldier in a state of confusion, sooner or later, young people are hit with a bomb that is more powerful than dynamite-puberty. Somewhere between childhood and maturity, their bodies kick into overdrive and fuel charges at an alarming rate. With this acceleration of physical and emotional growth, they become strangers to themselves. Under attack by an arsenal of fiery hormones, the bewildered begins to ask "Who am I"?
The quest for this identity is scary. Somewhere between ten and twenty years of age, adolescents are forced to choose once and for all what their identity is to be. It is a formidable task. But let me assure you that after your sojourn in Preston International School, you must have received a wholesome education worthy of molding you into a:
· Modern Scholar
· Child of God (John 1:12)
· Sheep of a Great Shepherd (Psalm 23:1) and
· Leaders of tomorrow
Academic Changes
The Lord is using Preston International School to raise up a generation of Christians that will be like none we have ever seen before. They will be brilliant, highly educated, innovative people to whom God will reveal the secrets of His wealth that are hidden in every field of human endeavor. They will be first class doctors, engineers, scientists, economists, bankers, stock brokers, computer analysts, etc who will control vast financial kingdoms with righteousness, because they will be His children with His godly character.
They will be part of the greatest revival the world has ever seen, and they will represent the dawn of a new day. Preston is one of the institutions that the Lord has set up to raise children of excellence, whose excellence will go beyond academics to include character.
Physical Changes
A fourteen year old tried to excuse his poor report card by saying, "My problem is not tests, but testosterone." He had a legitimate argument. The biochemical changes in adolescence may cause more apprehension than studying for an exam. Waking up to pimples, having your voice crack in public, growing new facial hair, or beginning menstruation and breast development are all traumatic. As hormones set in motion the chain of physiological events that usher in adulthood, ignorant kids seem to turn into moody, rebellious adolescents, but as a Prestonian, you will always be able to sing one of my favourite songs, composed by Johnson Oatman (Jnr):
I'm pressing on the upward way,
New heights I'm gaining every day;
Still praying as I'm onward bound,
"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground."
Sexual Changes
As the adolescents' body begins to take on the characteristic shape of his or her sex, new behaviors, thoughts, and physiological processes occur. Each reacts to the cultural stereotype of sexual changes. The adolescent girl experiences confusion and shame about her sexual maturation. Menstruation is a serious concern, often compounded by fear and ignorance. It may cause physical discomfort, weight gain, headaches, mood swings, and so on. It is not surprising that even the anticipation of this change contributes to other common struggles. But with excellent Pastoral care from the house mothers / house fathers giving effective guardian, you’ll be able to confidently say :
My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell where those abound,
My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.
Social Changes
While the biological changes of puberty are dramatic, they are no more significant than the social changes that occur during adolescence. Entry into secondary school has many social ramifications. It disrupts the old peer-group structure, exposes the students to different achievement expectations by teachers, and provides new opportunities for different extracurricular activities. Your wholesome education in this great citadel of intellectualism will however mould your attitudinal Social changes and you can say:
“I want to live above the world,
Though Satan's darts at me are hurled;
For faith has caught the joyful sound,
The song of saints on higher ground”
Patriotism Changes
Contrary to some opinion, adolescents are genuinely interested in their country and feel that it plays an important role in their lives. Preston International School foundation is based on very solid Christian principles and 'Prestonians' therefore, are ladies and gentlemen who are being brought up to serve our nation selflessly with a sense of true patriotism and an abhorrence of the selfish attitudes and narrow-mindedness prevalent in society today.
Moral Changes
The foundation of Preston International School is premised on that fact that children are indeed the heritage of the Lord, and that the school authority are determined to be good stewards of His heritage. Children will therefore be strongly encouraged to develop a personal living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ because without this, children will surely be swept helplessly along with the strong tide of falling moral standards among the youths of today. They will be encouraged in the way of the Lord by precept and example, by teaching them from the Bible, praying with them, praying for them, and by showing them love and discipline in an atmosphere of love and godly discipline greatly enhances creativity and the learning ability of all children, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.
Because Preston is committed to entire biblical principles, Proverbs 22:6 will suffice as the school is committed to “teach them to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain on it”
CONCLUSION
You are all welcome to your Alma Mater. It’s a giant change to transit from primary school to secondary school. One thing that is very sure is that the Lord will do a new thing in your life.
QUOTABLE QUOTES
Don't be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated. True education is seeking to know more of God -- M. Thomas
The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more. -Ed Parker
“We expect a bright tomorrow; All will be well;
Faith can sing through days of sorrow, All will be well;
On our Father's love relying, Jesus every need supplying
In our living, in our dying, All will be well”.
Mary Bowly Peters (1813-1856)