If you're joining us here in our room,
the sanctuary for the first time,
or if you're joining us online for the first time, welcome.
We're so glad you're here to worship with us today here at Hosanna.
We are going to be celebrating in communion together today.
If you're in the sanctuary here,
hopefully you got your communion emblems as you came in.
If you're watching online,
I do encourage you to get those ready to celebrate communion with us towards the end of service.
But yeah, we are gathered here today on the last day of 2023,
New Year's Eve, to celebrate so much,
to celebrate what God has done this year at Hosanna, your church,
and really to look forward to what God is going to do in this upcoming year 2024.
Obviously, praying and hoping that he comes to take us home,
but if he continues to tarry,
what it is that we are going to look forward to doing as a church.
2023 saw quite a lot that was noteworthy.
Some of you were excited to go through Twitter being rebranded to X.
Oh, wow, that changed so many lives.
There was a new king crowned in the United Kingdom.
That's a pretty big deal.
India, I was surprised, I missed this one.
India surpassed China as the most populated country in the world in 2023.
And I also missed this,
became the fourth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the moon.
India, pretty impressive, huh?
We also had some difficulties in 2023,
like massive earthquakes that took place in Turkey and Syria and Iceland.
The earthquakes in Iceland actually resulted in a volcanic eruption.
We had the wildfires in Maui that devastated the historic town of Lahaina.
There was catastrophic flooding in Libya.
Obviously, the Ukrainian war continued.
And then we had the start of the latest war
between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
So a lot happened.
But despite difficulties, God was working.
God was working as he does every year.
Millions and millions and millions of people worldwide
received the gospel.
You know, the gospel went out through outreaches
like Franklin Graham's outreaches,
William Graham's outreaches,
Greg Laurie with the Harvest Crusade,
and many, many more around the planet.
You had organizations like Living Waters,
who we are great, great friends with.
This year, they had 27 million gospel tracts
sent out and distributed around the planet.
That's a lot, right?
What's really cool is during the coronation in England,
16 million of that 27 million,
16 million tracts went out right there at the coronation.
Just amazing.
And then in local churches all over the world,
you know, the gospel going out through evangelism ministries and whatnot,
you know, God is working.
God is at work.
And the new year simply brings another opportunity
to be a part of what God is doing in our world.
And so I believe, I feel that the beginning of the year
is always a great time to remind all of us
what your church is about, what Hosanna is about,
what our mission is, what our values are,
what governs the decisions we make as a church
as we move out and move forward into the world
to bring the gospel to the lives of those who don't know Him.
And so today is going to be an overview of our mission and values.
For those of you that are aware of what our mission statement is,
consider this a reminder and an encouragement.
For those of you that maybe have started coming to Hosanna
over the last year and have not heard any of this,
I pray that this is an encouragement to you to be fully in tune
with what this church is about and what we pursue as the church called Hosanna.
So today will be a little bit of a state of the church address, if you will.
We're going to walk through our mission and values.
We're going to look at what God did through you, the church here at Hosanna,
what God accomplished.
We're also going to look at what's ahead
and cast some vision for the next year in 2024.
You know, and the reason we're doing all this is because Scripture is very clear
about not ever thinking that we've arrived,
because we haven't arrived and we won't arrive until we arrive in heaven with our Lord.
And so there is always work to be done as believers.
There is always growth to be had as individual Christians, right?
We are on a journey in this life to continually grow and mature in our walk,
our relationship with Jesus Christ, to continually grow and learn
and understand what our giftings are, that we would be a part of the work of the kingdom
that God is doing here on this earth.
And then specifically to be a part of what God is doing
through your local fellowship here at Hosanna.
And so we're going to be looking at all of that really as an encouragement
to continue making every effort to fully take hold of the prize
that is promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
But first we're going to worship.
We're going to praise God because he is worthy.
And I just pray that that worship is a blessing to you guys.
You know, worship isn't something we do just as a, you know, a traditional part of the service.
It's not something we do just to bookend the teaching.
This is really an opportunity, a time to stop, to set aside everything else
and just to focus on our glorious Lord and Savior,
to praise him for who he is and what he's done and what he's going to do.
And so join me in prayer and then join us together, join together with us in worship.
Father, we love you so much.
God, we thank you for what you've done and we thank you for what you're going to do, Lord.
We know, God, that you've blessed this church, Lord,
and you're using this church as you are using many, many others, Lord,
to accomplish your work in this world.
Lord, that as a body of believers, God, we endeavor to live obedient lives, God,
that our lives would be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Lord, we go out and evangelize and pass out tracts and have conversations with people, Lord,
that those who don't yet know you would come to know you,
the truth of the glorious gospel, that they too can be saved and forgiven.
And Lord, this last year as we've been studying the book of Revelation,
looking ahead at what's to come on the eschatological calendar, Lord,
we know that the time is short.
And so, God, we want to be a church.
We want to be people who are redeeming the time,
taking advantage of the time we have left, Lord,
to not just live our lives, God, but while we're living our lives,
to be people who are going forth, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,
seeing people come to know you to be saved in the glorious truth of who you are.
And so, God, we want to start this year, God, by worshiping you, praising your name,
because, God, you are glorious.
God, we are nothing without you, and you deserve all praise.
You deserve all worship.
You deserve all honor, all glory.
And so, God, be blessed.
We love you. We thank you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
As I said, we wanted to kind of overview to start out this year,
our church's mission, what we're all about, what your church is about,
the church that you're a part of, that you call home here at Hosanna,
and our mission statement that we have on stickers and our logo
and written in various different places is to know the truth,
to live the truth, and to share the truth.
That is what this church is about.
That is what Hosanna is about.
Now, everything we do as a church is governed by that mission.
Everything we do is filtered through that mission,
and obviously all of it is done under the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit.
But it all comes from Scripture.
You know, in John 17, 3, as Jesus was praying at the end of his earthly ministry,
he said this,
This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God,
and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ.
And then Jesus himself said in John chapter 14, verse 6,
I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life.
And so guess what?
Hosanna is all about knowing Jesus, living Jesus, and sharing Jesus.
That's what governs everything we do.
We want to be a church that if nobody ever knows anything about our church,
do they know that we love Jesus, that we lift Jesus on high,
that we follow him, that we glorify him, that we learn about him,
that it's all about Jesus.
That's really what church is about, is about lifting his name up,
that people would come to know him, that we would grow in our relationship with him.
And so that is obviously the mission of our church.
Now, when we say knowing him and knowing the truth,
it's about knowing him personally, knowing who he is,
not just knowing about him, but knowing him personally as your personal Lord and Savior,
and then obviously who he is broadly and what that means for us daily.
But knowing Jesus comes from knowing his word, knowing the Bible, which is truth.
John 17, 17, Jesus said this, sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth.
And so Hosanna is obviously a place, a church,
where he put great emphasis on studying through his word,
studying through the truth, studying through the Bible.
We teach verse by verse through the Bible.
If you've been here for any amount of time, you know that.
Periodically, we do take a break for a topical message of some kind,
but this is a church where you can expect to go through the entire Bible,
every single verse of it, eventually.
Okay.
I don't move very fast through Scripture.
I do always pray, like, God, am I going too slow?
And so far, I'm at the pace that I feel God is leading us, you know?
And that may change from time to time,
but when we get done with studying the book of Revelation, guess what?
We're going to go back to Genesis, chapter one, verse one,
and start again at the very top of Scripture,
and then teach our way through the entire counsel of God's word.
And then studying the word of God is what leads us back to knowing Jesus, right?
Because John, chapter one, verse one, it tells us that Jesus is the Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.
And then John, chapter one, verse 14,
then the Word came and dwelt among us, became flesh, right?
And we know that that's Jesus.
So studying the Word is really getting to know Jesus,
to know the truth of who He is and what He's all about.
But knowing the truth also involves knowing God's will for our lives,
and knowing God's call on our lives, the gifting that He's given us.
And so the idea is that we study the Word so that we can figure out
who God wants us to be, and what He wants us to do, and how He wants us to serve.
It's all about knowing the truth of all of this.
Now, we're not just called to know the truth, just to be intellectually informed, right?
The demons know God, but they tremble.
They don't obey Him, but they know Him.
So we know that knowing is not the whole deal here.
As God's children, as Christians, we are called to be different in this world.
We are called to live different in this world.
We're called to live differently from the world around us
based on the truth that we learn and know through the Word of God.
And so we labor, as we labor to know the truth,
we do so that we would then live the truth.
And that's the second part of the mission statement of this church,
that we are then people who go out and live the truth,
that we, as we go through our lives and go to work
and interact with our families and our hobbies and everything we do,
that we live Jesus, that we live His example,
that we live His teachings, that we live sanctified,
we live set apart from this world is what that word sanctified means, right?
Jesus said, sanctify them by your truth.
That word sanctified when it means we're set apart
is that we are different from the world,
and we're called to follow an example that is different from the world,
and that example is Jesus Christ,
which is why we put such a huge emphasis on studying Him and knowing Him.
You know, in 1 John 3 verse 11, John the Apostle said,
this is the message that you have heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another.
Jesus himself said, this is how the world's gonna know you're my disciples,
by your love for one another.
It says, Christians within the body of Christ love
the way God teaches us to love, that's how the world comes to see
that there's something different about us.
That's how they come to see the love that is literally the God that we serve.
And so this involves discovering our gifts so that we then serve one another in love.
This involves being involved in and connected to one another's lives
as we endeavor to live as the body of Christ.
You know, I think one of the pandemics of the church today is,
and it's been a challenge for a long, long time,
and I say church, I'm talking about church globally,
is a consumeristic idea of church.
Right, church isn't for you.
You are for the church.
Right, we come to the church to learn and study the word together,
yeah, we come to get fed, absolutely.
But we come to get fed so that we are equipped to do the work of the ministry.
That's what the point of this is.
It's not about us just coming and sitting and hearing and being taught and going,
that's nice, and then going home and going about our lives,
but it's that we become different people,
and that we become people plugged into the work that God is doing through the church,
that we then go back out into the world to do the work of the ministry.
And that's what it's all about, and that's living the truth.
It involves our behavior, right, how we do things, right?
Our witness is often tied up, or is tied up in how we live,
how we work, how we talk, right?
Do we go back to our workplaces and cuss constantly,
and then come to church and go, oh, my language is clean?
That's called hypocrisy.
Do we go back into our relationships and lie, cheat, and steal,
but then come to church on Sunday and go, oh, Jesus, you're my Lord and Savior?
That's hypocrisy, right?
And a lot of times the world sadly can look at Christians and go,
Christians are the reason I want nothing to do with God,
because Christians can sometimes live hypocritically.
Wow, I was about to say, hypocratically.
I'm like, that's medical, right?
Anyways, so we put a great emphasis on living the truth, right?
We want to encourage and equip you as the body here at Hosanna
to not just know the Word, to know Jesus, but then to go live,
and to take the stand for righteousness that God calls us to do,
and then that, through all of that, through our living Jesus and living righteously,
we end up then sharing the truth, which is the third part of our mission,
that we're greatly invested in sharing Jesus with the world.
Yes, by the Word, by us talking to people, yes, by direct evangelism, right?
We just talked about our evangelism ministry.
We put great emphasis on that, you know,
and one of the biggest hangups with people in sharing their faith is,
I don't know what to do.
That's why our ministry has skills meetings every single week,
so you could learn how to share your faith.
But then also, it's by our witness of our individual lives and how we live,
and that ultimately is a part of the witness of our church,
because, you know, when the world sees Jesus in Jesus' people,
man, it's a powerful evidence to his transforming power.
I can't tell you how many people that I've known or I knew in high school
that I haven't talked to in years, when they find out what I do for a living now,
go, what?
You do what?
And it's like, yeah, my life is a testimony of the supernaturally changing power
of salvation, and I'm blessed when people see that.
But as a part of our mission, there are some organizational values
that Hosanna has that we focus in on in fostering or values that we want to foster
in the church culture here, and these are things we encourage in all our different
ministries and community groups and stuff, and one of them is obviously community.
That is a value that is important to me as your pastor and I think is important
to our church, because we value community because we grow better when we grow together.
Right?
Christianity is not meant to be an isolated thing.
We're called to be a part of one another.
That's why we're called the body of Christ.
That's why scripture spends a lot of time and Paul talking about, like, hey,
we're all connected to one another, and we're not all fingers and we're not all feet,
we're not all kneecaps, right?
We all have a different part to play.
But as Paul said, guess what?
If your feet decided to say, no, I'm not a part of this, the body's not going very far,
is it?
If the hands decided to say, we quit, we're out of here, the body's not going to
accomplish very much, right?
And so we're all called to be connected together, so community is a great value here
in our church.
Now, obviously, we see this in our congregational gatherings here on Sunday
mornings, and it's such a great blessing to gather together, but we especially see
this in our community groups, and that's why we do these community groups and
promote these community groups, because we want to give you guys opportunity to go
deeper in your relational connections as a body, as a family here at Hosanna.
And so I encourage you guys to plug into the community groups if you haven't, to go
and find one that's on a day and a time that works for you, that you would build
a deeper relationship with your family here at Hosanna.
So it's not just a Sunday thing, hi, how you doing?
Okay, cool, I'll pray for you.
Oops, I forgot.
But it's a regular relationship that we have together as a body, that we support
one another and pray for one another and grow together.
The second value that is very important to me is discipleship, because the idea
here at Hosanna is that we intentionally discover and develop our own calling so
that we could then help others intentionally discover and develop their calling.
That's the essence of discipleship.
Christianity is meant to be a flame that passes from one person to the other as we
move forward.
That's how Christianity has spread down through the centuries.
It's one person's life who's changed by Jesus, and they want to tell someone else
about that.
And that person comes to know Jesus, and then there's one person going, hey, I've
been walking with Jesus a little bit longer.
Let me share with you my ups and downs.
Let me share with you my experiences.
Let me share with you my challenges.
It's the new baby believers that are able to come to the more seasoned Christians and
go, how did you deal with this, and how do I deal with that?
That's discipleship.
It's the idea of that we're constantly training the next generation on how to do
this Christian thing.
And discipleship isn't just learning and hearing.
The idea is not just so that we could learn and grow and be a Christian ourselves
individually, but that we then take on the responsibility of passing that flame.
Our third value that I think is critical here at Hosanna is self-sacrifice.
Self-sacrifice, you know, because when everyone is sacrificially serving one
another, everyone's needs get met.
That's just a part of the deal.
We see that in the book of Acts, where as the church came together and everybody was
like, hey, we're all here to take care of one another.
Now, I'm not here to promote, you know, a socialistic type of environment and all
that, but the idea is that as the family of Christ, we are here for one another, to
take care of one another, to help provide for one another.
We're here as the body of Christ to sacrificially serve and be a part of the
mission of what this church is accomplishing, and that involves serving,
that involves giving, not just when it's easy or convenient to do so, but because
it's the right thing to do.
You know, we're called to be people who follow the example of our Father, and
sometimes that self-sacrifice is in our tithing and our giving, and we all go
through times where that's really, really difficult to do.
But our God's a giver, and He wired us to be the same way as His children, and so
we're called to step in obedience in our giving.
You know, and we're going to be doing a teaching on biblical finances later this
year, and I hope that's just a blessing to everybody, but the idea, the culture
that we want to develop here at Hosanna is where every member of this church
desires to be an active participant in the work of the kingdom here at Hosanna.
And I've seen that in so many different ways, especially when we do these
community outreaches on the boulevard, and how many of you show up to help with
that?
It's just so cool.
What a blessing, you know?
But some of you, I know, are missing the boat.
You're missing out on the blessing God has for you in service, and so that idea
of giving, being self-sacrificial in your time is the idea of getting involved, and
this involves volunteering for ministries, right?
Periodically, we'll have different needs in the church, and I encourage all of you
to pray, like seriously pray about those things and say, God, would you have me
get involved in my church in some way?
Maybe it's something that I don't know how to do, but I'm willing to learn, right?
And watch God use you to do some awesome things.
And then the fourth value that I think is just very important, it's important to
me, and I really love to see this down through the churches, is the idea of
innovation.
Innovation.
That's a value that's important to me.
What do I mean by that?
Well, it's the idea of intentionally seeking better ways to meet the need,
right?
Our world is constantly changing.
Technology is constantly changing.
Methods of communication are constantly changing, and so as a church, we're
always saying, okay, God, what do you want to do, right?
I think it's a very important thing to never get caught up in the idea of this
is how we've always done it, so that's how we're always going to do it mentality.
Now, in some cases, that's good, but not in all cases.
So we're always open up to the Holy Spirit leading us into new or different
ways to do what we do as a church.
But at the same time, we don't want to abandon things that are working just
because we have to chase the new shiny way of doing things.
So that's what we're about as a church, you know?
I always like to keep the door open in a sense that if the Lord is putting a
ministry on your heart that maybe you don't see happening here at Hosanna, and
you think, gosh, this is something I really feel like God wants to do, please
come talk to me.
Let's talk.
Let's pray together.
Let's fast together over that.
Let's see what God will do because God might be gifting you in a certain way to
reach a group of people in a way that nobody's ever thought of before, and
we're open to that.
We're open to that type of innovation and reaching out in new and different ways.
But this mission and these values, they are the filter that we here at your
church use to decide and discern what God wants Hosanna to do.
They are so important.
They're on the south wall as you walk into the sanctuary.
If you've never noticed it, next time you walk out the front door, look on the
south wall, and you'll see there what used to be the bulletin board is our
values and our mission so that you guys can look at that and know that as people
walk by the front of their church, as they peek in the doors, which happens
quite a lot, I want them to know what your church is about, this church is
about, that we are a part of.
So they understand the priorities here.
We want to always be doing what God is directing this church to do.
That is always the goal and the direction, and that's an important thing
because there are many, many, many good things that a church can be doing.
Many good things that you and I could be doing individually as Christians.
I mean, the list is pretty infinitely long of good things, but we can't do
everything, right?
No church can do everything.
No individual can do everything, and if one entity tries to do everything, what
happens in most cases is that you end up doing everything kind of subpar, right?
You're kind of weak at everything, and so with the people and the time and the
resources that God has provided here at Hosanna and the body that God has
brought together here at Hosanna, the culture that we want to see and that I
just pray that happens in your lives is that as a church and as people, we're
constantly saying, God, what do you want us to do?
God, what do you want us to do?
How do you want us to do it?
And man, I will tell you, when you pray that prayer, sometimes you'll get crazy
things come into your mind, but God does crazy things, right?
I mean, just I was talking about what Living Waters did this last year and
going to the coronation, and I've heard some of the stories, right, when Ray
Comfort was like, hey, we're going to go to the coronation and pass out millions
of tracts, and everybody's like, whoa, that's a little crazy, right?
Guess what?
They did it.
God provided it happened, and millions of people got the gospel.
So it's always in this idea of, God, what do you want us to do?
And then as a church, your leadership here, myself and the board of directors
and the elders here, we're constantly praying, God, what do you want for this
church?
God, what are the needs of the people in this church?
How do we meet the needs here?
How do we meet the needs of our community?
We're always praying these prayers so that we can maximize the effect that God
desires your church to have.
So in 2023, I just want to share with you some of the things God did this year at
your church.
I mean, we continued the pursuit of our mission and our values by obviously
gathering each Sunday, right?
We're here every Sunday at 10 a.m.
to study and to worship together, both in person and online, and we've seen tons of
new faces over the last year, which has been great.
New faces, new people that have found Hosanna and said, hey, this is a place I
want to call home, and that's such an incredible blessing.
Most of the year, we spent studying Revelation.
We have just a few studies left, and that's been a blessing as we've been looking
ahead to what's to come, what to prepare for, and then really using all of that to
motivate us now today to be urgent because the time is short.
We've encouraged growing and living the truth through our community group
ministries and really in those different community groups, they're designed to give
you an opportunity to exercise your gifts, your spiritual gifts in ministering to one
another and building deeper connections with one another.
This last year, we had 215 signups over 42 different groups in our four community
group seasons here at Hosanna.
What a blessing.
I want to see that just keep growing.
I want to see those of you that haven't experienced the blessing of that yet
experience the blessing from the many stories I hear from people that are like,
gosh, I plugged in.
This was great.
We were so ministered to.
I want to see that just flourish in all of your lives.
Last year, we talked about starting prayer and fasting days as a church, and we
successfully implemented that and did that all the way through the year, and
we're going to continue to do that as well.
We had our first women's conference in many years, and that was a huge success.
Yeah, the ladies, I mean, you guys, you ladies, were just so blessed with all of
that, you know, and that conference was all about teaching the gifts of the
spirit, right?
What are the gifts of the spirit?
How to identify what your gifts are, and then there was a really big push in the
thing to say, okay, now how do you use those gifts here at your local church?
What a beautiful thing that the Lord led our women's ministry leader, Irene, to
put together.
It was just awesome.
Well, guess what?
The guys are doing the same thing here in a couple months, and I'm super excited
about that, that the men are going to come together, and again, we're going to
study the gifts of the spirit.
We're going to labor to identify what are my gifts, and then we're going to
actively say, okay, now this is where you could plug in so that we could, as a
church, as a body together, just keep moving forward and growing and all of
that.
We had our first all-church midsummer barbecue fellowship.
That was fun, you know, with the inflatable water slides and stuff.
We participated in all kinds of outreach events and outreach opportunities as a
church.
Our ministry, we call it Hosanna Community Care, is the ministry that is
running all these outreaches that we've done during the street fest, and we just
did one during the Christmas tree lighting, and through those ministries, we
had hundreds and hundreds of families get blessed, that were able to just get
gifts, gifted things like household wares and clothing and school supplies and
backpacks and all this kind of stuff that the Lord allowed us to bless the
community with to say, hey, we care about you guys.
And it was hundreds of families.
We had our second Hosanna Kids Vacation Bible School this summer.
Obviously, we participated in things like Operation Christmas Child, where we did
210 boxes this year.
Our Halloween outreach, Realm of Shadow, reached 1,500 people with the gospel over
three nights during Halloween.
Adopt-a-Family this year reached 67 children in struggling families, got them
gifts, Christmas gifts this year.
This is the work that you guys are a part of.
This is the work that you as a church have been laboring in, and it's such an
incredible blessing.
Our own evangelism team here at Hosanna, this one just really blessed me.
I asked them, I go, hey, do you have stats for this year?
Like, I don't know if you keep that type of stuff, but how did it go this year?
And what was reported back to me is that our own Hosanna evangelism team passed
out 20,000 tracks this year.
That's amazing.
They said they passed out over 300 gospel of John books.
The team participated in 40 different evangelism outreaches, all the things we
were talking about, where they go to the pier, they go door to door, they go to the
convalescent home.
And then just really blessed, which is the point of all of it, is they had the
opportunity to lead 12 people to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior through
those outreaches.
That's just the evangelism team.
That's not including what all you guys are doing on your own that I don't know
about.
But that's why we supply tracks and we encourage it so much, because it's a part
of the work that we're called to be a part of as the church.
And then we started our baptism services over a year ago, and this last year we
had about 20 people get baptized over our four baptism services.
And that's just amazing, because baptism is a first step of obedience, right?
And so again, if you haven't been baptized, if you've given your life to the
Lord and you've never taken that step to make that public profession, get into our
church app and sign up.
We're having one next week, all right?
And we do them here in the building now so that the rest of us can participate in
that moment and celebrate with those that are getting baptized.
Some other things that we accomplished this year as a church is we successfully
moved our Hosanna Youth and Kids Ministries back into the Hosanna building
down the street, and we renamed that the Student Ministry Building, or the SMB,
for those of you that like acronyms.
We renovated the space and repainted, and we actually built a sensory room in there.
And again, this was a part of the support that you guys as a church brought in.
We were able to build a sensory room, which is a place for kids that have
special needs, kids that maybe are on the spectrum that need a little bit extra
attention or need some sensory attention.
And we were able to put that together and build that for those kids and minister to
kids and families that have a need there.
And then, Hosanna as a church, we supported over 13 different missionaries and
parachurch organizations throughout the year, like far-reaching ministries.
That does work all over the planet, taking the gospel into really difficult places.
Pacific Justice Institute, which does so much work in our country, helping defend
churches and Christians with religious rights issues and getting into the courts.
We supported an organization called A21, which actively tries to rescue children
from trafficking situations and save the storks, which I don't know if you're
familiar with them, but they actually build these big sonogram buses.
And they go park them in front of abortion clinics.
And then when there's women showing up to get an abortion, they say, hey,
would you like to see your baby before you make this terrible decision?
And hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of babies have been saved because they took
the opportunity to see them.
And so that's just a short list of the different missionaries and organizations
that we as a church support.
But this is all a sampling of what God has accomplished through you, through
Hosanna, through this body here, through your volunteering, through your faithful
giving, through your generosity, through your prayers.
But all of it, in all of it, Jesus has been lifted high.
Jesus has been lifted high.
We have all come to know Him more.
And in knowing Him more, I just hear testimony after testimony of how people
are living for Him more and serving Him more.
The community around us here in Bellflower and the communities you guys
are in have seen the fruit of His love in our lives.
And then when they see that fruit in His people, as we share that love with people
to just want people to know what we're about, many have come to know Him as Lord
and Savior.
And so thank you, church, for your participation and all of that.
But ultimately, we praise God.
We praise God for using us as His people to do His work.
And so this next year coming up in 2024, Hosanna will continue to listen to the
Lord.
We'll continue to filter our decision-making through our mission, right?
Does it further know the truth, live the truth, share the truth?
Does it fall under that idea?
Does it reflect the values that the Lord wants us as His church to embrace, right?
Does it support the values of community and discipleship and self-sacrifice and
innovation?
And of course, we're always open to the Holy Spirit going, hey, let's change
everything, because He can do that.
He's God.
He has the authority to do that.
And so we're always open to that as well.
But all of it in pursuit of Jesus, knowing Jesus, living Jesus, and sharing
Jesus.
So that's really the overview of 2023 for your church.
I do want to take a brief moment to encourage you guys through the word here
because there's a few scriptures here that Paul wrote in Philippians that really
tie into how.
They're an encouragement of how to keep seeking the truth, how to be people who
seek after that mission of knowing the truth and living the truth and sharing
the truth.
And so if you will read with me in Philippians chapter 3, verse 10, Paul
says this, my goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, assuming that I
will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every
effort to take hold of it because I have also been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.
This piece of scripture should be a great encouragement to every believer because
here we have Paul the apostle.
This is a man at the time of this writing had been walking with the Lord for 30
years.
This is a man who is a high achiever, an incredibly intelligent guy, someone that
was greatly, greatly used by the Lord who had accomplished so much.
And what he's saying here in the letter to the Philippians is I still have plenty
of room to grow.
I have not reached the goal.
I'm not done.
I'm not perfect.
I'm not complete yet.
And so the first thing I want to encourage all of us this year in seeking
the goal of knowing the truth and living the truth and sharing the truth is to not
settle for what has been, to not settle for what has been.
You know, God has done wonderful things here at Hosanna and I know he's done some
wonderful things in many of your lives, but that in no way means that we should
cease to anticipate God doing wonderful things in our lives, God doing great
things in the future here in our church.
Paul, we see after 30 years of walking with the Lord, was still anticipating God
doing amazing things.
He was still moving forward and this teaches us just some very important things
as we live our lives as Christians.
You know, we're never people who reach perfection this side of heaven.
We're never done.
Right?
We're never done serving.
We're never done being involved.
We're never done growing.
We're never done maturing.
It's a lifelong process.
And if we ever think that we've spiritually arrived and therefore I don't
need to be involved anymore, if we ever come to that type of thinking, we find
ourselves entering into spiritual pride, spiritual arrogance, and spiritual
complacency.
And that's not what God wants for us.
That's not what God wants for our church.
He wants us to keep moving forward, you know.
As we see here, the second thing I see here in Paul is that his sense of
imperfection drove him upward and drove him forward.
And it's that same thing with us.
You know, like we realize we haven't arrived.
We realize we still have a lot of work to do.
And so let's keep plugging in.
Let's keep reading.
Let's keep gathering together.
Let's keep worshiping.
Let's keep praying so that we keep growing.
You know, Paul uses the analogy of a runner a lot.
And he says, I'm running the race.
Right?
And that idea of a runner running the race, you guys have heard this story
before, but if the runner is at the head of the pack and he lets up even a
little bit, he could lose the race.
I just saw a video yesterday of one of those guys at the end of a very long
marathon.
He's coming.
The finish line is in front of him and he starts to slow down and celebrate.
And then the guy goes, flies right past him, boom, through the finish line,
gets first place.
And the guy's like, wait, what?
He took his foot off the gas pedal.
He let up because he thought, oh, I'm done.
I'm going to win.
And then he lost the first prize.
And it's that same idea with us that we keep pushing, we keep going, you know,
that angst that we still have stuff to do, that I'm not yet perfect, that I'm
not yet arrived is something that we should embrace as God's people.
You know, Paul says in verse 12, not that I've already achieved the goal, not
that I'm already perfected.
Verse 13, he says, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.
It's important to learn from that lesson, that example that he's given us here.
You know, I believe it's an important truth that a growing Christian, a growing
believer, and a growing church is never satisfied with their present spiritual
state.
They're thankful for it.
They're grateful for what God has done and where they are at.
But they know there's more to do.
And they know there's more to step into.
And so there's that sense that they want to keep growing.
And as a church, we want to keep growing.
We want to keep moving.
We want to keep innovating to fulfill that mission that God has given to us in
our church.
And so don't settle for what has been.
The second principle, I think, in seeking to know the truth and living the truth
and sharing the truth in 2024 is don't try and do everything.
Don't try and do everything.
Focus on what you are called to do, right?
Because you'll probably find that God has gifted you to do exactly that.
Look at what Paul says in verse 13, he says, but one thing I do.
One thing I do.
And then he goes on to say, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to
what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in
Christ Jesus.
Yes, there are things that all believers are commanded to do as believers.
And those are kind of the universal givens.
But not all believers are called to do everything.
And not every church is called to do everything.
Some people wrestle with that, you know.
There are people within our church that are called as evangelists.
And they are leading evangelism ministries and participating in evangelism
ministries.
And they're going out and they're constantly out there passing out tracts and
doing all this stuff.
But not everybody is called to evangelize that way.
We're all called to do the work of an evangelist.
And so do the work of an evangelist.
Now, if God is calling you to be, you know, a part of a ministry that is walking the
piers and going to the car shows and stuff, please get involved in that.
It's important.
But if your evangelism is, you know, tracks to the Starbucks barista as you go
through the drive-thru, do that.
Be a part of the work.
But figure out what God is calling you to do in that.
I have a very specific call to this church to teach so that I can equip you
guys to do what?
The work of the ministry.
Right?
I've often shared that that's a favorite verse of mine.
Because a lot of times people think, oh, you're the pastor.
You're the one that's supposed to do everything.
And I can't.
I can't do everything.
I have my part in the body of Christ here to equip and to teach and to encourage
and to lift up.
But we're all called to be a part of that work.
And so Paul says the one thing that I do, I'm focusing on that.
And he says that my goal, verse 10 of Philippians 3, Paul says my goal is to
know him.
So Paul's overriding purpose and goal was to know Jesus more.
And then he defines that goal in a few ways.
He goes, I want to know the power of his resurrection.
I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings.
And then he says, being conformed to his death, meaning I want to experience, I
want to know what that is like.
Not just that he's saying I want to die.
He goes, I want to be conformed to that idea of dying to self.
Right?
Now we could do a whole series on what each of those means, but the point for
this morning is that Paul focused in on what he was called to do and he sought to
identify that and then he pursued that.
And he never thought I arrived.
He never thought I was done.
He kept going after what it was.
And sometimes in our lives we could expend a whole bunch of energy
accomplishing very little.
I don't know if you've ever done that.
Like man, I feel like I was just laboring for hours and hours and hours.
I got nothing accomplished, right?
And spiritually, when it comes to the work of the kingdom, the work of the church,
and the work we're called to be a part of together, Satan is very good at
distracting us from what we should be doing with everything else.
He's really good at that.
Right?
And there's a million good things you can be involved in, but what is the God
thing that God is calling you to do?
I'm not saying don't do the good things.
But I'm saying seek out God, what do you want me to do?
What am I gifted to specifically be a part of?
Maybe you're musically inclined and God's going, hey, I'm calling you to be a part
of the worship community and you're going, nah.
Listen to the Lord.
Maybe you're great with talking to strangers and he's going, hey, I want you
to be involved in the ministry of evangelism here at Hosanna and you're
going, nah.
Listen to the Lord.
There's a whole bucket load of things that God is doing and wants to do here at
Hosanna and you're all a part of it.
And so listen to what he says and find out what it is.
Now, yeah, do the good things, but endeavor to find out what the God thing
is for you.
And so he goes on, says, you know, well, the idea is I'm encouraging all of us to
ask this question.
What is God calling us to do this year?
You individually, and what is God calling us to do as a church?
That's what the leadership is always praying about.
For some of us, it's going to be spiritual improvement, right?
Some disciplines need to be readjusted.
Some of us, it's going to be serving, like God is calling you to step in and serve
and volunteer at your church.
Some of us, it's going to be in the area of giving and trusting.
Some of you aren't tithing at all, you know?
Now, I say that broadly.
You know, I don't know who you are.
I'm not looking at people right now, you know?
But in every church, there are people who aren't giving for one reason or another, and
maybe this year is going to be a year where God is going to call you to say, trust me
and step out in faith in those things.
Maybe it's something relational, a relationship that God is calling you to repair, a relationship
that God is calling you to invest in, something relational that God is calling you to do.
The idea is, God, what are you calling me to do?
Is that my thing?
And step into it and do it in obedience.
So, for 2024, you know, just keep your main thing your main thing, you know?
That's what we're going to be trying to do as a church.
You know, we have like five or six things we focus on as a church that I'm like, look,
as a church, I want to be really good at these things, you know?
One of them is obviously teaching the Word.
One of them is family and children ministry.
I just want to continually get better at that so we can minister to your families and the
kids and just do a better job at that.
I think we do a great job now, but I just want to keep moving forward in that.
Evangelism, obviously, you know, I want to see our evangelism team do 30,000 tracks this
year.
That would be awesome.
And if they blow that out of the water, how cool, right?
But that means more of us got to get involved, you know?
And if that's something God's laying on your heart, do it.
One of them is serving, you know, and giving opportunity for people to serve and plug in.
And so these things, these areas of focus, find out what it is and focus on that.
You know, some things are going to stay the same for sure, you know, like obviously he's
given us the mission of know the truth and we're going to keep teaching the Word.
He's given us the mission of living the truth and so we're going to keep equipping and teaching
and doing everything you can to help you, the body, live for Jesus better.
And he's given us the mission to share the truth.
And so, yeah, we're going to keep emphasizing evangelism here at Hosanna.
But in the process of that, God, what do you want to change?
God, what do you want to stay the same?
God, what do you want us to keep doing but do it in a different way?
These are the ideas that as we move forward.
So don't settle, don't try and do everything and then don't dwell on what's behind you.
Don't dwell on it but move forward.
Look what Paul says, one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what
is ahead.
If you want to live a stagnant Christian life, live it looking backwards over your shoulders,
dwelling on past success and past failure.
That's the quickest way to stagnate.
I don't mean that we don't look at the past and learn from it.
Like I'm not saying pretend the past didn't happen or didn't exist.
But we look at our past and the experiences and we learn and grow from those things.
But what Paul is saying here is don't dwell on that, move forward.
Move forward.
Don't go to the past, it's in the past.
You can't do anything about it and some of us are crippled by the past.
We're paralyzed by bitterness and we're paralyzed by grudges and fears and we're paralyzed by
past hurts and yeah, they're there.
But figure out how to forgive.
Figure out how to move past and move forward in what God has for you.
This includes victories, this includes successes.
God did amazing things.
Praise God for that.
It's wonderful that the way you did things then worked so well, but is there something
new God wants?
Because when we dwell on what's behind, we're not reaching forward to what is ahead.
And that word there, reach forward, he uses there means to strain with everything you
got.
It's not a casual glance ahead.
It's not a, well, you know, there's something up there, I'll think about it.
He's straining, he's reaching, he's figuring out what the goal is and he's going, I'm going
to go after that with everything I got.
That's the encouragement from the word.
When he says I make every effort, when he says I pursue the goal, it's his Greek word
dioko.
But what's very interesting is in verse six of chapter three, Paul says I persecuted the
church.
Same Greek word dioko.
So the same word for persecuted is the same word for making every effort is the same word
for pursuing.
What is the point?
Paul is saying the same amount of energy I expended before I was saved doing the devil's
work is now the same amount of energy I expend as a Christian pursuing God's call on my life.
And that's the biblical encouragement for all of us.
So the question I put before all of us is if we put as much effort into pursuing and
pressing into our spiritual life and our spiritual calling as we did into our hobbies or everything
else around us in our lives, what would our lives look like in 2024?
What would our church look like in 2024?
What would your walk with Jesus look like in 2024?
And there's nothing wrong with hobbies and other things.
But when we set aside our pursuit of Jesus for everything else in life, we stagnate.
So Paul says I'm reaching a forward.
And what was ahead for Paul, verse 14, he says I pursue as my goal the prize promised
by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
A prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
You know what is promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus?
Christ Jesus.
Him.
Knowing Him.
Experiencing Him.
Experiencing Him move through your life, bless your life.
Experiencing the miracles of Him working in and through you.
Experiencing the work of the Spirit just ministering gifts through you to people.
It's Jesus.
It's about Him.
It's all about Him.
It will always be about Him.
That is the prize.
And as a church I am so thankful for what God has done over the years at Hosanna.
You know there's so many have been saved and lives have been changed and relationships
have been healed and on and on.
And there's still a lot of work and all of that to be done.
And God is still doing that.
But there are still so many unbelievers out there that need Jesus.
They need the gospel.
There are so many believers out there who need solid biblical teaching.
They need discipleship.
They need community.
They need growth.
They need training and equipping for ministry.
We're not done.
And understanding that knowing Jesus is the root of all of it.
He's the prize.
He's the point.
And so we together turn our eyes forward to the goal, reaching out, straining that we
as a church would elevate Jesus high in our community.
That He would be elevated high in your own lives.
The purpose, the point, the priority of living.
That we would all collectively experience what God has for us to go through the things
He wants to take us through.
But it's important to not do that alone.
Look at verse 15 and we'll close on this.
He says, Therefore, Paul.
Paul says, Therefore, let all of us who are mature think this way.
If you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you.
In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.
Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live
according to the example you have in us.
You see, isolation kills.
Salvation kills.
As I said earlier, church isn't for you, you're for the church, right?
We gather together here, yes, to learn.
But every single one of you are gifted in some way.
God has given you gifts, gifts of discernment, gifts of exhortation, gifts of prophecy, gifts
of whatever it may be.
And there's somebody here in this room right now that needs your gift.
Are you seeking them out?
Are you praying, God, who do you want me to pray for today?
I'm here with my family to encourage and lift them up.
God, thank you for feeding me, thank you for equipping me for the work of the ministry.
Now let me do the work of the ministry.
Are you seeking that out?
Do you pray for that?
That's one of the things that I find difficult with online ministry.
I know there's many good reasons that people need to be home watching online, and so I'm
not condemning anybody that's watching online right now.
But if you are able to be in church, you are missing out on a whole half of what this is
all about.
You're missing out on the opportunity to pour your gifts into someone's life.
And so I just encourage you to pray.
Pray about what God would have you do.
And again, there are reasons people have to be at home and have to watch online, and I'm
not saying there's anything wrong with that.
But if you're intentionally not coming to church just because it's easier to stay home,
I really challenge you this year to reevaluate that thought, to see what God would have you
do plugging into the body of Christ that is your local church.
And so when we gather together as a congregation, there's something very special that happens.
It's a blessing.
We worship together, we partake of communion together, we hear the word taught together,
we minister to one another.
But sometimes even here in this room, people can find themselves isolated.
You're here physically, you're here bodily, and you come, you listen, you sing, but you
don't plug in.
You kind of sneak out the back at the very end.
And this is meant to result in relationships.
This is meant to result in relationships and community as we are connected together in
Jesus Christ.
Our congregational gathering should result in those real relationships that carry on
outside of Sunday morning.
I know it's not realistic, and I'm not saying that everybody is supposed to be best friends
with everybody.
You know, that just can't come to play.
But are you connected with people here in your body?
Do you have a relationship?
Are you living life together, this Christian life, with other people from your family?
You know, because sometimes gathering here on Sundays just doesn't afford the same opportunity
to grow as if you're sitting in the living room with somebody else and just talking life,
having coffee with somebody, right?
That's a part of this whole deal.
It's a part of growing.
It's a part of what Paul says here, look, when he says, join in imitating me, that means
people are observing his life.
He says, brothers and sisters, pay careful attention to those who live according to the
example you have in us.
If you only see your Christian family for an hour and a half on Sunday morning, how
are you able to observe?
How are you able to pay careful attention to their example?
How are people able to pay attention to your example?
And that's why we're called to springboard from this gathering, this congregational gathering,
and then to live life together as the body of Christ.
And in living life together is where we learn how to pray for one another and support one
another and hold each other accountable and all that comes from being a part of the body.
And so 2024, I'm just encouraging you as the body here at Hosanna to plug into those opportunities.
As a church, we're going to continue to try and equip you for those opportunities and
provide opportunities for you to do just that.
That's why we mentioned our next community group season is starting in a couple of weeks.
Plug in.
Our men's ministry is having its first men's conference in years, in a couple months.
Men, sign up.
You're going to be blessed.
Both our men's and women's ministries are going to be rolling out discipleship programs,
kind of more on a one-on-one discipleship thing this year.
Take advantage of the opportunity.
As I said, we're going to be doing a short series after Revelation on biblical finances
and stewardship because I know everybody's struggling.
Everybody is struggling.
But what does the Bible say about finances?
What does the Bible say about trusting God with what he's given us?
And so we're going to be going through some of these principles and teaching what that
means and then after that, we're going to start the book of Genesis and start with,
in the beginning, God.
And I think that's a great place to start the year.
In the beginning of 2024, God.
God is here.
God is in our church.
God is in your lives.
He is working.
We're trying to work towards having a family camp this summer.
We'll have more information on that as we come up.
We haven't done that in years.
And then again, we're just praying that God's reach through this church would continue to
go out into the community.
So pray for what God would have you do as a part of this church with the gifts he's
given you and the calling he's put on your life, how to get involved.
Because there are needs, we've announced a couple of them this morning.
We have needs in our children's church.
We always have needs in the church.
And it's not meant to be for just one or two people to fulfill all those needs, but us
collectively together, serving together to accomplish what God wants to do here in our
church.
And so I'm excited for what God's going to do through Hosanna as we together make every
effort to take hold of what God has for us because I've seen him do amazing things and
it's miraculous.
It's a huge blessing.
And so for each one of us individually and together as a church, move forward in 2024.
Don't settle for what has been, but thank God for what he's done.
But no, he isn't done yet.
Don't try and do everything.
Pray and seek the Lord on what he would have you do individually as a part of this church
collectively that we would then go forth doing exactly what God is calling us to do.
Don't look backwards.
Don't dwell on the past, but move forward.
Reach forward, press forward, right?
Strain forward to the goal ahead of you and don't do it alone.
Do it with other Christians.
Live life together.
Live, grow, mature, progress together.
You know the Bible says, as iron sharpens iron?
As iron sharpens iron.
That's how we get better.
Sometimes we have to grate against each other, but we commit to one another.
We pour into one another.
We build real relationships that go beyond surface level niceties.
And that's my challenge for you and this church this year.
Let's grow.
Let's grow as a family.
Let's grow together and see what God will accomplish in our lives individually and through
our church together.
And so this morning we're going to start the new year gathered as God's family together
by partaking of communion together.
We want to start this year focusing on him because it's about Jesus.
We want to focus on who he is.
We want to focus on what he did.
You know communion is this time where we gather together to remember the freedom that was
granted to us in salvation.
Where we gather to remember what he did for us that we would then move forward from the
ruin of sin.
That we would move forward from the shackles of sin and death in pursuit of all that he
is and all that he wants to do because we've been unshackled from the chains of sin.
That's what salvation is.
Sin and death no longer have a hold on our lives.
We are free.
We sang that in worship this morning.
We are free.
And some of you it's free to run.
Some of you it's free to dance.
Dancing's not for me.
It would just trust me.
We are all free to do what God's called us to do.
And so all that Jesus has done is that we may know him.
Jesus Christ who is the truth.
That we may live for him.
Jesus Christ who is the way.
And that we may share him.
Jesus Christ who is the life for everyone on this planet.
Amen.
You should all have a communion cup in your hands here.
If you're new the quick instructions here.
This cup has two plastic tabs on the front.
There's a very thin one and a thick one.
If you very carefully pull back the thin tab what it's going to reveal is the cracker on
the top of this cup.
If you're watching from home I hope you have your communion ebbs and bids ready.
If you haven't got them yet go ahead and get them right now as we're going to share in
communion together.
But you know when Jesus was gathered with his people.
He was gathered with his disciples.
There on that night where he instituted the Lord's Supper.
It tells us that he took the bread and then he gave thanks.
And then he broke the bread and he said this is my body which is for you.
This bread represents the body of Jesus Christ.
It isn't the body of Jesus Christ.
It represents the body of Jesus Christ.
Now this bread has no leaven in it because the body of Christ was without sin.
He was not puffed up in any way shape or form.
And so when he said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance for me he
wanted us to never forget throughout the ages of the church as we gather together periodically
to celebrate communion together to never forget that because of what he did we are able then
to move forward living in freedom from sin.
We are able to move forward from past mistakes.
We are able to move forward in forgiveness.
To not dwell on God I messed up I did this but to say God please forgive me.
You died for me you paid the price for me and God helped me move forward and he says
I forgive you let's move forward.
That's what we remember in this.
We remember that he was the only one that could possibly die for our sin because he
was the only one that was sinless.
And so in our remembering as we move forward in our life as Christians and say God what's
next take me past the ruins of my mistakes.
I want to live for you.
I want to live in obedience.
When we think of all that we understand that we could do nothing good without him because
without him we're lost in our nature as sinners.
But we remember that he went to the cross for us.
We remember that he died for us.
We remember that the wages of our sin fell on him that we would be free.
We remember that he loved you and me so much that he freely took that judgment on himself
and because of what he did we were able to know him to know the truth to know Jesus Christ
as our own personal savior and because of what he did we are then able to live the truth
to live Jesus because through him we are changed through him we are saved through him we are
set free and in doing so we are then people who could share the truth the good news of
a changed life a saved life.
That's what we remember in this moment of communion.
Let's pray together.
Father we thank you God that you paid this great price for us that we would be free and
able to move forward.
We thank you God that you went to the cross willingly.
God that you gave yourself as the atoning sacrifice that we would be free that Lord
from the moment of our salvation forward that every mistake we will ever make in the future
we could come to you and say God I know you knew about that and I know you died to pay
the price for that sin so God please forgive me please just wash me clean of that and help
me to move forward in the victory that you have for me.
Because God we know that you have purposes and plans for our life and we want to walk
in that but we can't do that when we shackle ourselves back to the chains of our sin.
So God as we remember your body given for us that body that was scourged that was nailed
to the cross that was literally freely gifted laying on the altar that we would remember
that it fully satisfied the wrath of God it fully paid the price that we can move forward.
We thank you God for that great great great work.
Let's partake together.
There's you in the room if you very carefully pull back the thicker plastic tab it will
review the juice here in the cup.
So at that same last supper when Jesus took the cup it tells us he said this is the new
covenant in my blood do this in remembrance for me and many of us have heard studies about
the old covenant and the regular sacrifice that people had to make they had to keep coming
back over and over and over to shed the blood of an animal because death was the price of
sin and yet an animal's blood wasn't enough to fully wash away the stain of sin so they
had to keep coming back over and over and over to make sacrifice.
And the problem is because it was animal blood it would just cover the sin symbolically they
were just covered the sin was still there they still had a wicked heart it was still
there but it was just covered.
But when Jesus came and he said this is the new covenant he's wanting us to remember that
he's washed us clean of sin like the stain is gone that because of his shed blood we
could press on and move forward from the ruins of sin not living a life looking backward
but forgetting what is behind as Paul said forgetting what is behind not trying to always
atone for what we've done and make up for it but understanding the price has been paid
we are free we are free to go forward in newness not harboring unforgiveness for others that
have sinned against us but forgiving them because we know God has forgiven us.
We run towards we pursue we make every effort to take hold of the goal which is Jesus and
that relationship of perfect blameless salvation and perfect fellowship with him we remember
this was the price that was paid for it.
The forgiveness the reconciliation the restoration for us for others forgetting what is behind
forgetting the old covenant in that sense knowing we've been washed clean that's what
we remember as we partake of this juice that it represents the blood of Jesus Christ shed
for us once and for all forever.
I don't know what your 2023 was like it may have been great it may have been full of trauma
but it's in the past.
What has been is gone you learn from it you grow from it absolutely but ultimately you
don't dwell you press ahead the goal of salvation the goal of freedom the goal everything that
that means Jesus has for you forward move forward trust in what he's done because he
did it and if you've put your faith in it you've received it.
Let's pray Father we remember God and we look forward to your work in our lives.
God we take hold of what is still to come Lord because we know that your blood was shed
that you cleansed us from all sin and all unrighteousness.
God we're grateful Lord that you've bound us together as a church here at Hosanna and
we're grateful Lord that you've bound us together in the relationships we have with other believers
Lord but God we know that if you're not the center of all of that Lord it all falls apart
and so God we're so grateful that you came to be the center the center of our lives the
center of our church the center of our relationships Lord that that when you made this new covenant
God it's not a process of us constantly trying to make up for what we've done and constantly
dwelling on the past and constantly trying to fix all the mistakes Lord but God we learn
from those things and we move forward in the steps needed to to fix relationships Lord
we move forward in the steps of trusting you we move forward God in the freedom and the
forgiveness you've given to us.
Lord bless our 2024 individually as a church we love you we look forward to your work in
Jesus name we pray let's partake together.
I pray God will bless your lives greatly this year and whatever that means I pray God would
draw you closer to him this year and whatever that means I pray that Jesus would rise higher
in your life that he would rise higher in your sights your horizons that Jesus would
be the focus of everything because as the years of ministry are teaching me over and
over and over again that the answer to everything is Jesus more Jesus so get more Jesus know
Jesus more live Jesus more share Jesus more and I bet you'll be blessed because of it
God bless you guys.