While the Church celebrates the 4^th Sunday of Easter today, we also celebrate something else here in the United States today – Mother’s Day. So for all the mothers here today, I want to say “Happy Mother’s Day,” and thank you for saying yes to the gift of life when God called you to share in his work of creation. Thank you for all the countless things that you have taught your children – how to walk, how to get dress, how to tie their shoes. Thank you for all the meals you have made for your kids, even the ones that you had to argue with them to eat. Thank you for all the times you helped with homework, stayed by the bedside of a sick child, for being the taxi driver getting kids to sports, scouts, cheerleading, dance, music lessons, and so many other events. In short, thank you for being Mom.

In addition to celebrating Mom, we are starting the fourth week of our Easter message series, “Brand New.” We've been saying throughout this series that the brand new, it excites us, whether it's something big or small, simple or expensive, there's something about new things that fill us with a sense of hope for a brighter future. And the premise of this series is that the longing that we have for new stuff, it's been given to us by God for a reason. Because before the resurrection, our ultimate final reality was in death, but now after the resurrection, our ultimate and final reality is in Christ. And the same thing that God did in Jesus, with Jesus, He wants to do in you and in me. He wants to give us brand new life.

A few weeks ago, we said that God wants to make us into a brand new creation. We said that that begins by the renewing of our minds, that the lives that we lead are reflection of the thoughts that we think. Last week, we said that God wants to give us a brand new spirit. He wants to give us a spirit, just like Peter and the apostles, one of boldness, and courage, and faith. And we achieve that by yielding our spirit to God's Spirit.

This week, we're talking about yet another brand new thing that God wants to do in us and for us. Newness means change; they go hand-in-hand. On this Mother's Day weekend, I think one of the things that we all appreciate about our moms is they're experts at change. They're experts at adapting to the situation because a mother needs to constantly change and evolve to meet the changing and evolving needs of her family.

All of us have to be change experts to some capacity. Change is headed our way. It's constant in our lives, whether we like it or not. When change happens around us, it often reveals what's really going on inside of us. Today, we're gonna hear a story of change from Acts of the Apostles.

After Jesus’ resurrection, well more after Pentecost, the early Church took on the mission of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. This idea of missionaries emerged, sending people around the Mediterranean to share with people the good news of the risen Lord. St. Paul emerged as one of the leading missionaries of the Early Church.

In chapter 13 of the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul, and his traveling companion St. Barnabas, begins their first missionary journey. First they travel to Perga, and their second stop is Antioch in Pisidia, which is in modern day Turkey.

We read that, "On the Sabbath, they entered the synagogue and took their seats." What might not be so clear, unless you use a Biblical commentary, is that St. Paul, as a Jewish rabbi, would have been dressed as a rabbi and given a seat of honor. People would have been curious as to who this new rabbi was, so it was natural for St. Paul to be invited to speak.

Paul stood up and open up the Scriptures and begin to preach to them from their Scriptures, the Old Testament, talking about all the things that God had done through the nation of Israel that eventually led to the person of Jesus. He would tell them how Jesus was crucified and died and was buried, and that on the third day, he rose from the dead and started appearing to people, and he ascended to the right hand of the Father. He would preach and tell them that if they placed their faith and their trust in Jesus that day, they too could receive new life. Paul’s preaching was spectacular that morning for we hear, “Many Jews and worshipers who were converts to Judaism, they followed Paul and Barnabas.” They wanted to learn more.

There is another important thing in this passage we need to be careful not to pass over; there were two groups in the synagogue that day: Jews and Gentiles who had converted to Judaism. "On the following Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and with violent abuse contradicted what Paul said."

What a difference a week makes. The first week, everyone seemed excited to hear Paul preach. This week, the Jews were not so happy to see so many Gentiles coming to the synagogue to hear Paul. It's one thing for this new guy to start preaching a new kind of message, but it's another thing entirely for him to start attracting a new kind of people. He was attracting Gentiles, and that made the Jewish leaders jealous. So often, change can feel very differently when it becomes real in our lives.

The Jewish leaders are resentful. They're angry and jealous of the message that Paul is preaching, so much so that they utterly reject Paul's teaching. He tells them, "Hey, listen, if you're gonna reject my teaching, I'll just continue to preach to the Gentiles." The Gentiles were delighted when they heard this and glorified the word of the Lord. They have an incredibly gracious response. "The Jews," however, "stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their territory."

The Jewish leaders and the Gentiles, the condition of their hearts was different on that day. The Gentiles had soft, open, receptive hearts to Paul's message, and the Jewish leaders, not so much.

God wants us to have a brand new heart. Through the Prophet Ezekiel, He tells us, "I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." When I talk about this idea of a new heart, I just want to clarify; I'm not talking about emotions. Our hearts are better described as our executive center, our morality, or our conscience. In contrast to modern usage, the Bible when it uses the word heart designates reason and will. It's the source of wisdom.

Our hearts are our consciences. And when our conscience becomes hardened, we close ourselves off to God and His will and His working in our lives. When we have open and receptive hearts, we remain open to God and to one another. The bottom line for us today is when God does a new thing, harden not your hearts.

I want to encourage us to live gratefully today because gratitude, not just the feeling of gratitude but the actual practice of it can soften any hardened heart and it can keep a soft heart healthy. Because when we live gratefully, we live with the spirit of openness. When ingratitude creeps in, we close up. We become prideful and selfish and we think all about ourselves. So whatever God's up to, whatever change is headed your way, choose gratitude, choose to live with a soft, open heart. That's what God wants for you.