Genesis 12:1-9 - Beginning A New Chapter
Main Idea: Choose to begin 2025 by pursuing a daily relationship with God.
Genesis’ Storylines
Creation Out Of Chaos
God’s Establishment Of His Representatives
Sin & Failure Through Generations
De-Creation & Re-Creation
We begin when we listen to God’s Word. (vs. 1-3)
We can’t truly begin when we don’t obey. (vs. 4-5)
We begin when we continually worship. (vs. 6-9)
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
New Beginnings.
This is an apropos title for the series number one, because it's a brand new year, and we're going to be in the series through about the end of March, might be beginning of April, and we're going to be looking at this next portion of the Book of
Genesis. So in that sense, we're going to be beginning a new year, and that's our new beginning.
We're also beginning a new stage of life as a church, that as we continue now fully into the 2020s and looking towards the future, wanting to not just enjoy and reflect and look back on the previous 75 years of our church, but to look ahead and to
say, God, what do you have us to do in the future? What do you want us to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ in our area? How do you want us to reach East Baltimore and Essex, Middle River, Nottingham, Dundalk, and everything in between?
So there's that kind of beginning that we want to be looking at. What's our new beginning there?
But then I also want us to be thinking about over this next three months, the fact that while, yes, we are at the start of a new year, a new start for you, a new start for your family or your friends or your neighbors, isn't reliant on like calendar
dates. The only time, I don't know if you guys know this, there are more times of the year that you can get in shape than just like January 1st through the 5th. You can choose at any time to be following the Lord, to have a new beginning.
And as we'll look at today and over the next couple of months, we want to have a reset, not just of a new year, but of new hearts, hearts that would be bent towards God, what he has for us, what his will is for our lives, to be able to say like,
Lord, you're the one that's in control. I profess to be a Christian, a little Christ, a Christ follower. And I want that to not just be like a moniker, I stick on myself, but I want it to be reality.
So we're going to be pursuing having new beginnings. Now, the Book of Genesis is built in a very cyclical way. And you can see there at the very top of your sheet, all of Genesis storylines kind of follow this same pattern.
And first, it starts with God's creation out of chaos, that he brings order and life and blessing to where there was just like nothingness, to where everything was not able to support life. He brings life out of non-life.
He creates order out of chaos. So you can think about, well, I'll wait on that one second, so I don't confuse any of my side guys. Secondly, Genesis stories then look at God's establishment of his representatives.
That at each step along the story, God has someone that he places to say, you are in charge of this thing. Starts off obviously, and you guys don't have to collect anything yet, with Adam and Eve in the garden to say, you are these images of God.
You are going to do the same type of work in this world that I did. I brought the order. I brought the life out of non-life.
And so you guys now, you are going to create new life. You guys are going to create new humans.
You are going to order the animals and call each of them their names, if you will, giving them a purpose, the job that those animals would have in that world.
Or if you look further and further on, you can see other representatives that after the fall in the Garden of Eden, there would be this person, this family line is going to be the one that the Messiah, the promised seed of the woman that we would
know eventually would be Jesus Christ, Christ is going to come through this particular family line. So we see God's establishment of his representatives.
Then we see sin and failure through generations, that though God brings life, God brings order, God brings goodness, he sets up individuals to say, I want to give you all of the blessings and I want to give you the good life, that we butcher it time
and time and time again. This is the eventual reason why Jesus Christ came, because though God has loved us and he has given us everything that we possess, that our clothing, our homes, our family, our jobs, our resources, our sanity, everything we
have comes from God, and yet we reject his way and we insist on doing things that go against the word and character of God. And this was true all the way at the beginning of creation, that we have sinned and failure through generations.
So then God decreates, you can think of it Genesis chapter 1, you have the waters that God brought the dry land out of, he separated the waters from the waters, had the atmosphere, the sky that is now there, and waters above, waters below, and then
in the flood, what happened? Everything goes back to water. So there's that de-creation, and we'll see in one second kind of how that looks. And then you have God's re-creation out of chaos, that God never simply leaves us in the place that we were.
He doesn't just leave us condemned and uncreated, but instead, He remakes and remolds us. And while certainly there's elements of this that aren't true of our lives in every circumstance, I want you to realize as well, you are a work in progress.
If you think you're perfect, I can ask your friends, your siblings, your family members, you're not perfect. And so God will very often do this reshaping and remolding of us.
Times where we might feel like we're going through some de-creation, that we lose a job, we lose a loved one, we lose a romantic relationship, and we're like, God, this feels like this is just torn away who I am.
And He reforms us in those instances to say, no, you're more than that. You are my child and I need to help realign you with my reality. And so He re-creates out of chaos.
So I'm going to go through real quick and show you in the chapters that we looked at last year, Genesis 1-11, how this looked. So it begins with creation out of chaos. That's Eden, that out of the turbulent waters, God brings life.
He separates the waters from the waters. He brings all of the animals, the birds, the fish, all of it. He places it into creation.
Then in Genesis chapter 2, you have kind of another picture where you have this barren wilderness where no life can be supported and God brings life out of this barren wilderness, dry land where there is no life.
So you have that creation out of chaos. Then you have God's establishment of his representatives. And obviously that starts off in Genesis 1-2 with Adam and Eve.
Then you have sin and failure through generations, which begins, of course, with the fall in the garden. Where Satan tempts Adam and Eve to say, hey, God's holding out on you. And you could be experiencing more goodness.
You could have more wisdom. You could be enjoying a fuller life if you just step outside of what God has said. And of course, they listen to him and plunge all of humanity into death and destruction.
So then there's de-creation and re-creation, that they are sent back out into the wilderness, outside of the Garden of Eden that God had made all of this life and foliage from right at the beginning. He sends them back out into the wilderness.
But with the promise of Genesis 3.15, that he would put enmity, he would put hostility between the descendant of the woman, who would be all of those that would follow the Lord, and then eventually in Jesus Christ himself, and the descendants of
Satan, that serpent, the one that wants to deviate from God's path. The next time that it plays through in Genesis 4-6, you have this creation of this righteous line of Seth, that you have those initial two sons, you have Abel and you have Cain.
Cain is jealous of Abel and the fact that Abel offered the sacrifices to God that were good, and Cain got jealous and instead of saying like, oh, I want to do what God wants as well, he kills Abel and Adam and Eve obviously have grief, but they have
another son, Seth, and it would be through the line of Seth that Jesus Christ would eventually come. So you have this creation out of chaos and God has an establishment of kind of his representatives, those that show what is the right path, that live
the kind of life that God is looking for everyone to have. And obviously there you have starting with Abel, the son who was killed not for wicked things that he had done, but for righteousness.
Obviously, they're a picture and a type of Christ himself. You have Enoch, who it says walked with God and he was not because God took him.
And then you have Noah himself, who was righteous and blameless in his generations, as we would read about in chapter six. Then this failure through generations, obviously we read about Cain.
We would also read about Lamech, who was the first polygamist that was mentioned in scripture and someone that for being punched or hit, he killed several people and tried to claim that he could still receive God's blessing and protection as a result
of it. So there was great violence. And then you have the Nephilim, those that were the great warriors there in Genesis six, the ones that engaged in both sexual immorality and in kind of global dominance over other people.
And all of the wickedness that mankind could have is mentioned there in Genesis five and six.
And so then God decreates through the flood, that all the waters that had been separated at creation, now it all collapses back in on itself, and you have the flood.
But God brings creation out of this chaos, and he has the post-flood world that now exists.
And he establishes his covenant with Noah, places the rainbow into the sky to say, this is the sign of the fact that I will never again flood the earth in this way.
And he gives specific blessing to Noah, that all of the curses that were mentioned back in Genesis three and four, now there's kind of an undoing of it, and he gives him the same blessing and commission that he gave to Adam and Eve at the beginning.
Namely, be fruitful, multiply, grow across all the face of the earth. And that's the blessing that he gave of Noah as this representative one. But then we saw in Genesis 9 and 10, the failure and sin through generations.
We saw the sin of Noah with his drunkenness. We saw the sin of Ham and that resulted in Canaan. And you can listen back to that sermon on our website if you want more information on that.
Not particularly family friendly topic. So you have the sin and failure throughout generations that then ends with this tower of Babel.
They're in the place of Babylon that the early world power there wants to create this gigantic city that instead of following God's command of going into all the world and filling it, tilling it, making the whole earth, if you will, a garden of Eden,
a place of life and food and security in that way. They try to say, if we follow what God says, then we are going to be easy targets. And so they rely on building this enormous city to be their protection.
And in particular, this great tower where God, of course, confuses and confounds their languages. They can't speak to one another anymore. And so they scatter because they have to.
They can no longer speak the same language. So there is a de-creation there through Babylon. And that's where we find ourselves at the end of Genesis 11.
So Genesis 11 is gigantic genealogy. So here's everything that happened at the Tower of Babel. And then here's like 10 names for you guys.
And I know you guys, when you're reading through your Bible, you're just really hoping to get to gigantic name sections. But it's there for a purpose.
And we notice something in those genealogies beginning in verse number 10, and then kind of going all the way down to about verse 27.
You notice a significant difference between the genealogies that were mentioned in Genesis 5 and the longevity of life immediately after creation, that there is now a drastic lessening of the lifespans of humanity. It's a very like clear indication.
This is going downhill and it's going downhill fast. And as each successive generation goes on, there's no mention of God having spoken to Shayla or to Arphic Shad or to Eber or to Peleg or to Rue.
And so it seems like there is this time in human history where mankind is just left to its own devices. Nothing is happening. There is no movement back towards the life of Eden.
There's no mention of a serpent-stomping savior that is being victorious. And we find ourselves at the very end of this in verse number 27 in Genesis 11 where it says, these are the family records of Terah.
Terah fathered Abram, Nehor, and Haran, and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in his native land in Ur of the Chaldeans during his father, Terah's, lifetime. Abram and Nehor took wives.
Abram's wife was named Sarai. Abram means exalted father. Sarai's name means princess.
And Nehor's wife was named Milka, or queen. She was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milka and Iska. Sarai was unable to conceive.
She did not have a child. Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, not Haran's son, and his daughter-in-law, Sarai, his son Abram's wife. And they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan.
But when they came to Haran, they settled there. Terah lived 205 years and died in Haran. So in this final epic, if you will, of Genesis 11, before we get to chapter 12, we can see that mankind does begin to spread out over the land.
That what God had told Noah and his descendants to do, now it was kind of finally happening.
You have some people spreading out and you have this representative that through Noah, he had prophesied that the Messiah, the coming king would come through his son Shem. And then Abram was a descendant of Shem.
And we read about that there at the very beginning of Genesis chapter 12 and verse number one, that God selected Abram to be this one that the Messiah would come through. So he has this established representative.
We can see again, the sin and failure through generations, the failure and sin of Ham and eventually of Canaan. And then of Babylon, this place that would figure, it was a really big figure in the Old Testament.
As you read through, Babylon is always the big guy on scene until Babylon is destroyed by the Medo-Persian Empire.
And even then Babylon still shows up again later in the writings of John and of Peter as they look at the Empire of Rome as, if you will, a revival of the same type of human crushing, if you will, false Garden of Eden Empire as Babylon was.
And so here in Babylon, this would be where the Chaldeans lived. It's not Ur of the Babylonians, it's Ur of the Chaldeans, but that's that same area, that same country. And actually, the word Ur is kind of a play on words.
It means like the oven, the fires of Babylon and Abram and his family. They don't initially leave Ur of the Chaldeans because of God calling him out.
It's initially just because his father, Tara, wants to get out of this furnace oven place to go to a different location. And I have here, here's Ur of the Chaldeans over there, kind of more of what would be modern day like Iran, Iraq.
And Haran is much more north there. If you can see it over this way, kind of this left slope there is Israel facing the Mediterranean. So they go very, very far north first before God calls Abraham to leave.
Eventually, as we read through, as God calls Abraham to leave his family, he goes from Haran, takes this long trip south. He goes to Shechem, goes kind of camps between Bethel and Ai, and then down to the Najaf.
And what's interesting about some of that route is it's the same type of route that then Isaac, Jacob, and then eventually the children of Israel in the Book of Joshua, they follow all of this same route several, you know, 100 years after Abram does
this. That doesn't give you anything today, but that's just cool for you to know. Same exact route taken every time by these individuals. So that's where we find ourselves.
At the end of chapter 11, it doesn't look very good. It looks like this world empire of Babylon, like they're powerful.
People are attempting to be able to leave this, like, you know, furnace type place, even as we think about the Book of Daniel and the three Hebrew children.
It even calls to mind some of that, if they were literally in the oven, the furnace oven of the Chaldeans.
And we see that instead of this life and new life and birth and flourishing that God had promised humanity back in Eden, now people are even unable to have children. Sarah is the first person mentioned in Scripture that is going through that.
And so, Terah goes on this journey. He wants to go to Canaan, but he only ends up going as far as Haran, and he dies. And so, the end of the story is death and infertility.
It seems as though everything that God had created mankind for was now folding in on itself. But here's where there is a new beginning. And, today's message is beginning a new chapter, all humorous things intended with that.
Today, we're going to see that God is still in the business of creating new life. And for you today, as I mentioned at the beginning, you're not perfect, you're not done, and so God wants to create new life in you.
That you would be more and more like Jesus, the one who loved you, pursued you, and died for you, and rose again, and sits at God's right hand interceding for you. That's what we're going to be looking at today.
As we think about beginning a new chapter of our lives, today's main thought is this, choose to begin 2025 by pursuing a daily relationship with God. Choose to begin 2025 by pursuing a daily relationship with God.
Let's go through the verses of Genesis 12. We'll look at a couple highlights and then look at the end at three ways that we need to begin. If we're going to begin 2025 following God, there are three things that we need to be doing.
So we'll be looking at those. Genesis 12 and verse number one, the Lord said to Abram, this is the first time in a long time that God's being like directly speaking to someone.
And he says, go from your land, your relatives and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
I don't know how many of you have ever left your family, but nowadays when you go somewhere, you might be able to say, okay, well, I've got a job waiting for me in Chicago. You know, I've got some friends that I can stay with.
And during this time, as God tells Abram this, there's no way of knowing what's ahead of him. Like he doesn't know anyone in the land of Canaan.
And in fact, he even says, go to the land that I will show you, that Abram might not have known exactly where he was headed. And he says to go from your relatives and from your father's house that he was leaving family behind.
Think even of Jesus' words that he says, hey, the one that loves father or mother or brother or sister more than me is not worthy of me.
That can be a hard truth for us to hear sometimes because we love our family, but we should never disobey God in order to appease family. As the apostles would tell us, we would rather obey God than man.
Verse number two, God says, I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.
Here, there's these areas of Abram's life, both in who he would be and become and what he would be in relation to other people.
That he would be made into a great nation, that this childless man at 75 years old would have children and would have so many children that it would create a new nation, a great nation, a large nation. And he says, I will bless you.
All of those blessings that we would read about in the lives of Adam and Eve and Noah are the same types of things that God wants for Abraham. A fruitfulness, a multiplying life more abundant. That's what God has in store for him.
But then he says, here's what you're going to be in relation to other people. He says, I will make your name great. That is, your reputation will be substantial when other people look at you.
They'll be like, man, Gwen, that's a great person. She does a lot of things. And God says, I'm going to make your name great and you will be a blessing.
And I think for us many times we want to be blessed. We want the money. We want the house.
We want the friends. We want the relationships. But we don't really have a desire to be a blessing.
We just want to be blessed. And here God says, both of these are true. I will both bless you and make you a blessing to others.
Think of what Paul says in Second Corinthians Chapter 1. He says, everything that God does for us, the things that he brings us through, the way he encourages and comforts and blesses us, we are called to then pass that on to other people.
If God has given you comfort, you are called to use that to comfort other people. If God has blessed you financially, you are called to financially bless others.
If God has comforted you through kind words, you are to encourage others through those kind words. Then verse number three, he says, I will bless those who bless you.
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Here he says, for anyone that wants to bring you happiness, that wants to bring you joy and goodness, I'm going to bring that on to others.
And he says, I will curse, I will treat as insignificant anyone who treats you as insignificant. Who in your life do you look at to say, ah, they're not really worth my time? They're not worth a conversation with.
They're just stupid. They just don't understand. Can I tell you?
Every single person is made in the image of God. It's why James would tell us in James 3 that we don't need to be blessing some people who are made in the image of God and then cursing others.
Instead, we ought to have mouths that are fountains of life that were continually giving goodness and kindness into every conversation that we have.
And there that promise at the end of verse number 3, all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
This wouldn't happen in Abraham's lifetime, but certainly we know through the life of Jesus, through his atonement, through his payment for sin that he made for everyone, for all people, that everyone on earth has been blessed through Abraham's
descendant, Jesus Christ. And even as we would read about in the works of Paul, that we are Abraham's descendants if we believe in Jesus, if we have the same faith in God that Abraham did, that is believing in this God, not some other God, that we
too are able to be a blessing to other people. Do you view your next like six or seven days as an opportunity for you to make other people happy and joyful and blessed?
Because that's how God views your life and your mission, that you would carry the light of Jesus first and foremost, but then also the character of Jesus into your every circumstance. Verse number four.
So he tells them, I'm gonna bless you, make your name great. All the peoples will be blessed through you. Leave your land, your father's house, and your family.
Verse number four. So Abram went, as Yahweh had told him, and Lot went with him. I don't know if you remember from verse number 11.
Lot, part of his father's household, this would be his nephew. God said, leave him behind. He did not leave him behind.
Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran. You guys don't know this yet, because this is just like a little thing that the author puts in.
Over the next seven or eight chapters, we are going to see over and over and over again, the problems that occur as a result of Abram not obeying what God said when he said, leave your family in your father's house.
But we'll get more of that in the upcoming weeks. Verse number five.
He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot, the author wants to make sure you realize he did not leave the family behind, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people that they had acquired in Huron. And they set out for the land of Canaan.
When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem at the Oak of Moray. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
So, here, the site of Shechem at the Oak of Moray, as we think about all of like Genesis' patterns, that you have them starting off on the mountain of Eden, as Ezekiel would tell us, where there's a garden and lots of trees.
When you think about Noah, when he lands on the mount Ararat, and there are the, you know, budding plants, are the very first things that let them know that it's safe to get out of the ark. And they go here to the site of Shechem.
It's an elevated place at the Oak of More. He goes to this place where there are these trees, and he's going to build an altar there for the Lord. It also says, at that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
So he's letting him know a couple of things. Number one, Abram wasn't just meshing with all of the people of the land. That was a very common thing that would happen later in Israel's history, later after Israel was exiled and came back.
They just totally assimilated into the cultures. And so the author here is writing to let the people know Abram doesn't just become a Canaanite. Instead, he is still following the Lord.
And here he is worshiping.
The other thing that this tells us of the Canaanites being in the land as we'll see through in subsequent chapters, they have their cities and those are the places where they do their business, where they raise their families.
And Abram journeys around, if you will, nomadically. And he takes his sheep to the different green pastures. And he's going around following and building altars to the one true God, as we can even read about in verse number seven.
There is he's at Shechem, at the Oak of Moreh, at this taller, more elevated hill, mountain place with trees. He finds God there. Verse number seven, the Lord Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I will give this land.
So he built an altar there to Yahweh who had appeared to him. From there, verse number eight, he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel, that is house of God and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai, that's ruin on the east.
He built an altar to Yahweh there and he called on the name of Yahweh. Verse number nine, then Abram journeyed by stages to the Negev. That would be the southern part of Israel.
So as he goes through, he's going kind of step by step and still worshiping God, building altars to him, that he is not being swayed by perhaps other deities that people might have worshiped in the area, but instead he is worshiping the one true
Lord. So what do we learn from this? I don't assume that any of you today, I'm not calling you to get on a plane or a boat and hightail it over to the Middle East and get you a piece of property.
That's not the lesson that we learn from this, but we can learn from Abram's story.
What we need to do is we begin a new chapter, whether it's like a whole new chapter of our lives or simply a moment in time where we say, God, I am reinforcing right now that I will follow you and I want to begin taking steps to walk closer and
closer with you. That beginning comes in three steps. Number one, we begin when we listen to God's word. This is what Abram did.
God said, he spoke, come out, go to the land, I will make you a blessing. And Abram listened to the word of God and that is how he began.
One pastor, Mark Dever, actually down in DC, has said this, when God wants to create something, he uses his word. Jesus would tell us, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
God's word sustains us, obviously in the person of Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of John, in the beginning was the word and in him was life and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The word grows us and helps to fight the battles that we can't fight on our own.
As Paul would tell the Ephesian elders, he would say, and now I commend you to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. The word is what builds us up and preserves us.
It's Romans 1 and verse 16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
The gospel, God's clearest expression of his word, if you will, the entirety of scripture summarized is that the father sent the son to be the savior of the world. And that gospel, his word, is his effective power for salvation.
Romans chapter 10 and verse 17 says, so faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. It's God's word that creates faith in us. First, that's learning in chapter two and verse number 13.
When you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.
God's word shows us who we really are and what our circumstances are really like. Hebrews chapter four and verse number 12.
The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. God's word convicts us.
In James 1, in the exercise of his will, of God's will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. God's word saves us. James would tell us in James 1, 21, in humility, receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
If you're gonna begin walking with God or walking with God in a new and vibrant way this year, will you commit to be in the word of God? Not, will you commit to not missing a single day of reading in scripture this year?
But will you choose that this year is one where you will turn to God's word to learn, to change, to worship, and to grow? It's the only way forward. If you're like, hey, it seems a little daunting to be in the Bible, can I encourage you?
Come to church on Sundays. Lord willing, every single week, we'll be diving into scripture together to where you can see and hear from the word of God.
Be involved in the small groups where we learn from God's word together and be able to hear different things from other people of how God's speaking to them through the passages.
We have our Tabernacle Talk Podcast, which walks through books of the Bible. And that's about anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes. And you can find that on Facebook and YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.
And that can help you as you try and learn God's word. Or you can spend time with another brother or sister in Christ and be like, hey, I just don't understand this thing that I've been reading. Can you, like, do you have any help for me?
And that would be a great thing to do. Will you commit to be in God's word this year? But not only do we begin with God's word by listening to it, but we can't truly begin when we don't obey.
This is what we learned from Abram's story, and we'll see it over the next seven or eight chapters. That he doesn't obey God fully, and so he doesn't actually receive the full blessing that God promised until after he has obeyed.
For you today, are you expecting God to bring peace into the conflict that you keep stirring up? Do you anticipate God will pour financial blessings on you while you waste everything that he's currently giving?
Do you want all of the blessings that God can bring with none of the responsibilities of the relationship? You see, every genuine relationship bears responsibility on both parties.
God's responsibility is your eternal destiny, the upholding of every atom and quark in the universe, all of eternity, past and future, your salvation, the fate of rulers and nations, and your responsibility is to love and obey him and love people.
Of the two of you, I think he's got the larger responsibilities, but will you trust and obey him? As Jesus would say in Luke chapter 6, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do the things that I say?
He says, the person that hears the word of God, but doesn't actually do it, is like a person that builds his house on shaking, uncertain sand, and when the winds and the rains come, the house falls to pieces.
And many times, that's how we discover what we've actually been building our life on. Where our obedience has been is when everything kind of crashes down and we go, oh, I guess this wasn't really built on the Lord.
What areas do you need to begin obeying God's word in so that you can truly have a new beginning this January? Do you know Jesus as your Savior? It does not matter what else you do in this life.
If you don't know Christ as your Savior, if you haven't obeyed God's command to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, nothing else matters.
Not how good you are, not how much you give to charity, not how much you make, not how many people love you. The most important thing that you need to obey and follow is to accept the Lord as your Savior.
Do you need to obey God in walking with Jesus daily, just praying with him, reading his word, calling on him? Do you need to obey God in forgiving someone today that you've been holding onto or grudge for and you just haven't let it go?
You can't truly begin walking with God in this new year, in this new chapter, without obeying him. And then lastly, we begin when we continually worship.
We see that as Abram goes place to place to place, building altars to the Lord and worshiping there. We can see this even in Acts chapter 2, that if we want this new chapter, this new beginning, it has to happen through worship.
Acts 2, now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all as any had need.
Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
Every day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. That's the kind of church that I want to be a part of.
The kind of church where people are getting saved, where there is God's favor and the favor of people as God's people live out the life that Jesus created us for. But it happens as we are worshiping, both privately, yes, but also corporately.
Did you notice there, they were in the temple every day and breaking bread from house to house. It wasn't just, if you will, it wasn't just the corporate service.
It was also in small groups, if you will, that every place they went, they were worshiping the Lord. Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25.
Let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other. And all the more, as you see the day approaching.
Will you choose to continually worship this year? Will you make gathering with God's people an important, unavoidable part of your schedule each week?
Will you choose to schedule your life around Christ's Bride, the church, instead of just coming when there's nothing better to do?
Obviously, you guys are all here this morning, so a little bit preaching to the choir, but I want you to commit to the Lord like, God, I know there's tons of stuff that I could do with my week and my life.
Travel's never been easier, and certainly, there are times when we go, we have relaxation.
I have people right now that I'm praying for, like I'm praying for, my brain wanted to say it was Miss Clara that was gonna be gone, but that is not correct, because Miss Clara's right there.
But certainly, there are times when we're visiting family, when God has us to be able to rest, but do we view God's people, the gathering of his church, as something that is, if I get to it, I'll get to it, or is it something that's truly vital and
important to our lives? Today, if we wanna begin 2025 by pursuing a daily relationship with God, we've gotta listen to God's word, we've gotta obey what he says, we've gotta worship all along the way.
Today, if you don't know Jesus as your Lord and your Savior, if you've never turned to him in faith, accepting his payment for your sin, today can be the day that you begin a whole new chapter, where your eternity will change, you will be forever
God's child as a result of calling on him in faith. However, God has spoken to you today, I want to encourage you, begin this year by pursuing a daily relationship with God.
