405: Ethan Barrett - Exhortation: New Mercies Every Morning

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Welcome to good Christophian talks. Thank you for. Joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. Each week. We post a talk. That we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world. Then we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk.

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   And now let’s talk. More about this week’s talk. Hello and welcome back. This is brother Chris. As we get into the summer months now, we are going back to our tradition of having. Guest hosts. For the month of July, we’re actually going to have a couple extras both in June and going into.

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   August, so we’re excited for. You to get to hear those, those will be starting next week and. We’re excited for you. To be able to hear some new voices and new perspectives and potentially some different talks that. These guest hosts. Will have to recommend for you. I want to especially thank all of the guests for agreeing to fill in so that the regular host could get a break over the month of July and be able to enjoy the summer for those of us in the Northern hemisphere and also to thank.

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   All the regular hosts. Who worked to coordinate? All these various guest hosts so that we could. Have them all on. The podcast. Also, because we’re going into the summer months for North America, I also want to mention to remind you all that if you hear a particularly exciting talk at a Bible school that you’re going to over this summer, to make sure to send in those recommendations. The Bible schools are often the source for some of the best talks that we share on here, and so I would very much like to get those in if you hear of any of those. Please feel free.

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   To share those now with that I will go over and now give you the intro for the talk for this week. For this week we’re listening to an expectation that was given by brother Ethan Barrett at the Mills Bridge Ecclesia in Australia in December of 2025. And the title of his expectation is New Mercies Every Morning and what I.

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   Particularly liked about brother. Ethan’s expectation that he gave is he took a time of the day that I know for myself and potentially for many of you is sometimes a struggle first thing in the morning, waking up, getting going, having the right perspective as you start your day groggily. Maybe you’re waiting to get your coffee in, but Brother Ethan takes that morning and kind of reframes it in a way to be a reminder of God’s amazing faithfulness and mercy that really.

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   Tries to get you to reset. Your mindset. For the start of. The day which then impacts the. Way the rest of. Your day goes. So I found this to be a super encouraging expectation and a good reminder. It’s one that I have written down some notes and suggestions from brother Ethan that I try to look at in the morning to try to be a little more chipper first thing in the morning, which sometimes is a challenge.

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   But it is still a encouraging and good thing to look forward to and a reminder to look at things going on around us as a reminder of the power of our God at work in the world around us. So I hope that you find this to be as encouraging and maybe it will perk you up a little bit the next morning after you listen to this one. So with that, I’m going to turn it over. To our brother.

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   Ethan Barrett for his expectation entitled New Mercies every Morning. I’d like to share with you something this afternoon that I find incredibly hard in my life. I’ve never been good at it and I might even go to the extreme. And so that 99% of the time I hate doing it. And I think a good proportion of you probably know what this is.

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    And that is waking up in the morning. I have to have the loudest alarm there is, otherwise it’s not going to be heard. I have to hit the snooze button a few times before I even consider getting up. And after that then I’ve got 10 minutes to get out the door and I’m running 100 mile per hour rushing around and eventually get to work on the minute to start.

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    And and then a recent sort of self reflection of my discipleship brought this out that in a morning, I was just a mess and, and I was rushing around and that left absolutely zero time to thank God for the morning that he had given me the breath in my lungs, the sun that had risen up, my family, my job, and the list goes on. And so I thought I’d do some Bible study on mornings and what it means that God brings the sun up each day, that each day that I wake up, as we wake up, it’s a powerful reminder to myself and us to thank God for what he has provided and in effect resurrected us to another day to serve him and looking forward to the last day in which the Sun of righteousness will arise and those asleep will be raised to see him. And so we find in the Bible when we look on this theme of daily cycles of the sun coming up and going back down, it’s linked with God’s covenant and his faithfulness. So if you turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 8, we come in after God has wiped the earth with the flood to start again, in effect a renewal of the earth. And God says in verse 21 of Genesis chapter 8 and the Lord smelled a sweet saver.

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    And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for man’s sake, for the imaginations of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite anymore everything living as I have done. And I love that first part God said in his heart. So this is a deep emotion by God.

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    Obviously God doesn’t have a heart, but it it’s for us to make that connection that this is a deep feeling and, and by using the heart, we can relate to this emotion. And he will never curse the ground or wipe every living thing from the earth as he has done. So that’s his promise. And he goes on to say then in verse 22, while the earth remain sea, time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. So the cycles of the earth, the harvest times, the summer and winter, all these laws of nature will never stop. And God makes that promise.

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    And so we are reminded every year, every day, of God’s deep, loving mercy that He knows we are evil from our youth, yet stops judgement on the earth. And it’s an amazing thought to think God set these repetitions in our life to easily be able to pick him out every day and remember Him.

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    We can be wherever in the world, at whatever time. We can be in Cornwall or we can be in Yorkshire. We don’t have to go to a special building or albeit a certain place at a certain time. He just wants us to look outside and see him. And Solomon too picks up a similar theme in his words in Ecclesiastes.

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    Just turn with me there. So Ecclesiastes, he, he saw that life in was all vanity. Humans just pursue change. They, they want new things, they want new pleasures. And this is all vanity and worthless. And he picks up that we need to focus on God who is unchanging and he uses the laws of nature for this.

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    So I’m going to read Ecclesiastes chapter 1 and the 1st 11 verses. So Ecclesiastes chapter 1. The words of the preacher, the son of David King in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities set the preacher vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

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    One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteneth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth towards the South, and toward and turneth about unto the north. It were with about continually. And the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

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    All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour. Men cannot utter it, man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done.

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    There is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything where of it might be said? See, this is new. It had, it had been already of all time which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that that ought to come with those that shall come after. So Solomon says, we are temporary in effect. From dust we are, and dust we’ll return. Things that happen in our lives that we chase are in the end worthless.

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    And no one remembers what previous generation did. But the earth is forever. A different version of verse 8 is easier to get the point from the new English translation. It says all this monotony is tiresome. No one can bear to describe it. The eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear ever content with hearing.

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    So I understand from these verses that Solomon is saying people look to the laws of nature and they get bored because they never change. And so because we crave change and we crave something new as humans, we’re never just satisfied by looking at it. God set these regular patterns for us. But yes, consistency is boring.

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    And Solomon says the eyes are not satisfied. And, and that word satisfied is to mean to be full. And I want you to hold on to that idea and we’ll be linking it later, that idea to be full, to be satisfied. There is nothing new under the sun. Humans crave new things, but on Earth, nothing is truly new and meaningful. The only meaningful thing in life is the unchanging God who brings the sun up and go back to its place, the wind to continually follow patterns and the water cycle to continue. And we love talking about the weather in England, don’t we? How, how It’s too hot, or it’s too cold, it’s too rainy, it’s too dark at 5:00.

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    But let’s turn it around and say how amazing everyday is and and how it shows that God’s shows God’s never changing character. And this goes hand in hand with his promises in Jeremiah chapter 31. You don’t have to turn there. I’m just going to read a couple verses. So in Jeremiah chapter 31, God uses this unchanging aspect about him. So the laws of nature to link with His new covenant with Israel about Him writing the law on their hearts. So Jeremiah chapter 31 and I’m reading verse 35 and 36. Thus set the Lord which giveth the sun for a light by dare, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divided the sea, when the waves thereof roar. The Lord of hers is His name.

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    If those ordinances depart from before me set the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. So if the earth stops doing these usual patterns, then His promise to Israel will end up and they won’t be a nation. So we have nature and covenant tied together like in Genesis chapter 8, right to the start, God uses nature as a visual aid for us humans to recognise that he is unchanging and so is his promises.

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    And it’s this covenant then that Israel will never cease as a nation that presumably it’s Jeremiah writes about in Lamentations. So if you turn to Lamentations with me, Lamentations is a hard, it’s an emotional read. It’s full of terrible things that have happened and are happening to Judah as they’re taken into captivity.

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    But as the poem works up to a central point in the book, so the central point is chapter 3. In the middle, we get beautiful hope seen by the writer. So Lamentations chapter 3 and reading from verse 16, he hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath covered me with ashes, and thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity and I said my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.

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    So life is is terrible for them and that there’s no peace. It feels as the the hope God offered to them is gone, they will cease as a nation. Let’s continue reading from verse 19. Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the Wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion’s fail not.

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    They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, Seth, my soul, therefore will I hope in Him. So in all the affliction and judgement God is causing them to go through, Jeremiah remembers in his mind the promise that God gave that they will not be consumed, and it is through God’s mercy that they are not.

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    That word compassion is to mean womb also. So it’s a very deep love, like to a child, to a fetus, and like in Genesis chapter 8, it was a deep compassion that an end to the world would not come again, like the flood. And to hear it is the same deep emotion to His people, Israel, that He will keep His promises because He loves them.

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    We read there in verse 23 that His mercies are new every morning. They are renewed each day and faithfulness is the idea of never changing. You know, when God makes a promise, that’s it. It’s stuck. And each and again, each new morning, the sun coming up, Jeremiah is reminded of that promise that they will never cease to be a nation.

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    What did Jeremiah have left? He had absolutely nothing. But they did have one thing, the sun coming up and going down that would never change in their state. They could be still be reminded of God’s covenant. So as the people woke up in the morning, even though their family or maybe their friends had been killed, even though they struggled for food, they always had a reminder of God’s hope to them. And so whatever situation we are in, wherever we are in the world, our brothers and sisters in, in far off countries and wars and in famines, we all wake up and we see the same thing each and every day.

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    The sure mercies of God that we are not consumed but by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the hope of the coming Kingdom through His death and His resurrection. And so did you notice the link to Ecclesiastes? Solomon said that there was nothing new under the sun. There’s nothing made by humans that creates substance and meaning. There’s nothing new.

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    Well, each day and every day God gives us something new, His mercy and his compassion. Every day we need new forgiveness of sins for what we do. They are renewed each day. And we and we thank God so much for this. It’s it’s not stockpiled, it’s renewed each day. And notice then in verse 25, what is our response to knowing this hope?

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    Verse 25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should birth hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. So wait and that’s opposite to what Solomon said humans are like. We need to slow down, be still and know that he is God. Look to the unchanging laws of nature. Look to his unchanging character rather than the ever changing earthly desires.

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    And finally verse 27 we read there bear the yoke in his youth. Our imaginations are evil from our youth. We got told in in Genesis chapter 8 and so it’s at the start of our lives when we get many desires when we are young to cut them out early. It’s a hard time for a disciple in their youth when the world is ever changing to focus on the unchanging God.

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    When Solomon says things can be boring for our fleshly thinking. And Solomon makes reference to nature a lot in Ecclesiastes. Again in chapter 12 verse one in Ecclesiastes he says, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Although the new living translation reads, Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honour Him in your youth before you grow old and say life is not pleasant anymore.

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    We can easily forget the mercy of God that He gives us each day by being taken by the ever changing world that we live in. Just turn to Psalm chapter 90. Psalm 90. Now this Psalm is a prayer of Moses seen at the top of my page. And it’s a prayer about the greatness of God and the smallness of man.

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    God is timeless, but we are but a day in his sight. And throughout this Psalm I’ve coloured in time frames. So, for example, God is ever in verse 2, everlasting to everlasting, and we are but a morning and an evening in in verse 5 and 6, or spoken of as days of our life in verse 12.

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    But just look to verse 14 and 15. So Psalm 19 and verse 14. Thus satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. So there again the world is evil, but in the morning the Creator set the morning to show His mercy.

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    It’s that daily reminder that we are not consumed. And that word satisfy. There is again to mean to be full. It’s the same word as we saw in Ecclesiastes chapter 1. And remember that everyone thought the unchanging world is brought is boring and that their eyes are not satisfied. It’s the same word.

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    Their eyes were not satisfied. So we have a contrast. Moses is saying he is satisfied. He is full each morning with God’s unchanging nature and his promises. But the others are not satisfied by what God offers. They want to pursue earthly things. And that first time that word satisfied is used is for the manner in the wilderness in Exodus chapter 16 and in Exodus chapter 16. And the children of Israel said, God’s brought us into this wilderness to be killed of hunger. And and so they’re literally starving and they had no food. Yet we read that God provided mana for them to save them, to give them life.

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    And in verse 8 of Exodus chapter 16, Moses said, this shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to bread to the full. That word is the same word as satisfied, for that the Lord heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him.

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    And again in verse 12 it says that in the morning you shall be filled with bread. So it’s the same word there be filled to be satisfied, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. So the manner showed God’s mercy every morning and they were filled with it physically. It was a showcase that God was not going to let them die in the wilderness but give them life and it is through the bread from heaven life is given and they are reminded each morning, reminded of His mercy that renews every morning.

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    The bread renewed each day. They couldn’t stop pilot. It had to be gathered every day apart from that, that 6th day. Turn to John chapter 6 with me now.

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    And the Gospel of John is all about life, isn’t it? The word life is repeated 41 times. The other gospels only say a combined 32 times. So we know that we will find it in John 6 about life in Christ. And chapter 6 is the bread chapter. It starts with the feeding of the 5000 or at least 5000.

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    And then Jesus tells the disciples that He is the bread that fills them up rather than the physical bread. And so he relates himself to the manner and how He gives everlasting life, not just sustaining for the day. So John chapter 6. And now we’ve come to verse 47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, heed He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life.

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    Your father’s did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

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    So Christ is the bread who gives us everlasting life, the bread that is provided by God, renewed every morning. His mercy is renewed every morning in that the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s death and resurrection are new every morning. And we’re reminded, just like Genesis chapter 8, just like in Jeremiah and just like in Lamentations, we’re not consumed, but we have hope through Him. We’re reminded each and every day of God’s mercy that we do not perish, but we have everlasting life. And it’s through the bread and wine that we’ve just taken that reminds us of this amazing covenant, the regular pattern of days.

50. 25:48

    Then a reminder of God’s unchanging, his everlasting covenant, that we will not perish, but we have everlasting life through his mercy and through his Son’s death and resurrection. We’re not going to go there, but Psalm 118 is all about God’s mercy and about not trusting in man, but trusting in God, like Ecclesiastes taught us.

51. 26:16

    And I’ll just read these verses as we close our thoughts. So Psalm 118, it starts by saying, oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good because his mercy endureth forever. Let Israel now say that his mercy endureth forever. And then jumping to the later verses from verse 22, the stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing.

52. 26:46

    It is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord, O Lord, I beseech thee, Send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the House of the Lord.

53. 27:07

    God is the Lord which has showed us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. Thou art my God, and I will praise thee. Thou art my God. I will exalt thee. Or give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.

54. 27:28

    So I started by saying my mornings are terrible there, a rush there a panic leaving little to no time for God. However, after looking at what the morning showcases and the blessing a new day gives every morning, I will say this is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice and I will be glad in it because the sun coming up is another reminder of God’s mercy that is new every morning. It is His provision of His bread, of His Son that we have remembered, that we are not consumed, but we have everlasting life through him.

55. 28:14

    And I pray that we never get bored of the unchanging God, the regular seasons, that the regular days, but we are always satisfied. We’re always full to the brim of God’s mercy each day. Now in effect, to sum it all up, my excitation is to say stop being so British, for us to stop complaining about maybe the days and the weather, but to praise God every day for it. And we wait patiently together for that day to come which will never end because God’s light will fill the world forever. His promise of His Kingdom is here and is fulfilled. Thank you for listening to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast.

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    God bless and talk to you next week.