Today we're looking back and looking ahead.
For those of you that don't know,
the mission statement of Hosanna is to know the truth,
to live the truth, and to share the truth.
Everything that this fellowship does as a church
is governed by that mission statement
under the leading of the Holy Spirit.
In John 17, three, Jesus, at the end of his earthly ministry,
was praying a prayer, and he said this
as a part of that prayer.
This is eternal life, that they may know you,
the only true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ.
That's the mission, that you, that I,
that the world would know Jesus Christ.
Now, in John chapter 14, verse six, Jesus said this,
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
So, Hosanna's mission, when we say to know the truth,
to live the truth, to share the truth,
our church is all about knowing Jesus, living Jesus,
and sharing Jesus, who is the truth.
That's what governs everything we do as a church.
Now, when we talk about knowing Jesus,
and knowing the truth of all of that,
it means knowing him personally.
It means that you have a personal relationship with him,
that yes, you know of Jesus broadly and who he is,
but you know him in that personal sense,
that your life is affected daily as you walk with him.
Now, the way we get to know Jesus personally
comes from knowing his word, and his word is the truth.
It tells us in John 17, 17,
sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth.
And so, obviously, Hosanna, some of you
have been here a really long time,
maybe some of you have joined us over the last year,
and you should know and understand
that we put a great emphasis
on the teaching of the word of God.
We follow the example of Pastor Chuck Smith,
the founder of Calvary Chapels,
in teaching verse by verse through the entire Bible,
because we believe that that's how you're gonna get
the entire counsel of God.
We go from Genesis 1-1 all the way
to the end of Revelation, and then guess what?
We start over in Genesis 1-1.
Now, some of you have been like,
well, at the rate you teach Pastor Nathan,
we will never get through the whole Bible in our lifetime,
and we'll see what God does about that, okay?
But we believe that God's word addresses
every possible situation in life,
every possible question is answered in God's word,
and so we wanna study all of it as a church.
It's a very, very important thing that we do
in our ministries, we encourage them,
even if they're dealing with things topically,
that they deal with the scripture
in a verse by verse contextual way.
And then, of course, as we study
the whole counsel of God's word,
that leads to us knowing Jesus more,
knowing who he is more and more,
because, well, John 1 told us that Jesus is the word,
and the word is truth, and Jesus is the way,
the truth and the life,
and you see how it's all tied together, right?
It's about knowing him.
Now, in John 17-17, he said,
sanctify them by the truth.
That the reason we put such a huge emphasis
on the study of the word of God
to know truth, to know Jesus,
is because that's what leads to us being sanctified.
Now, for those of you who don't know that word
or understand it, that is a biblical word
that means to be set apart, to do God's will.
You see, every Christian,
we live in this world today as pilgrims.
This is our home.
We're passing through, and we're passing through
with a message that we have ourselves learned
that Jesus Christ is God the Son
who came to this earth, died on the cross
for the sins of all mankind, rose from the dead,
and if we put our faith in him,
when we put our faith in him,
we are granted eternal life, forgiven of all of our sins.
That's the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, we're sanctified, we're set apart by God
as his children to do that, to be a part of that work,
to be a part of sharing who Jesus is,
and part of that is being a part of a local fellowship
and being plugged into that fellowship
and the work that God is doing,
particularly through that fellowship.
Now, I do want you to notice that our mission statement
doesn't say know of the truth.
The demons know of the truth, and it says they tremble.
But the word tells us to know it,
and so our statement is to know the truth personally,
relationally, experientially, salvationally,
to know it in all those ways
where you're drawn into a perfect fellowship with God
every single day of your life.
Now, of course, knowing Jesus as your personal Lord
and Savior, as your God, as your friend even,
to know him and his word, that personal relationship
that you would then have with God the Son,
the creator of all things, that leads to what we have
as the second part of the mission statement of this church,
to live the truth.
You see, just knowing the truth,
if you don't have a changed life because of it,
it's not really doing anything.
There are way too many people in this world today
that maybe study the Bible and they go,
I know the word of God and I know what the Bible says,
but their lives are completely the same as they were
before they ever read a word of scripture.
And there are plenty of people who might say,
oh, I know the truth,
and they don't really know Jesus personally,
but without living the truth, it's hard to say
someone has really met the God of creation.
And so when we say living the truth,
the idea is living Jesus, living how Jesus lived,
acting how Jesus acts, behaving the way Jesus taught us
to behave as people that are set apart from this world.
You could sum all that up by following his example.
Right, and some of this you're going,
well, duh, that's what we are as Christians.
If it was so easy, we'd all be doing it.
And so we have to labor towards it and to pray towards it
and to learn and study towards it.
And I wanna read to you 1 John 1, 6, 9,
I think encapsulates the idea of living Jesus.
If we say we have fellowship with him,
and yet we walk in darkness,
we are lying and not practicing the truth.
If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
You see that saving relationship that we come to
when we put our faith in Jesus Christ,
believe in who he is and what he's done,
that is a moment that leads to then us practicing the truth.
Practicing living the way Jesus wants us to live,
and that's that phrase there, practicing the truth.
If we say that we have fellowship with him,
but we're still walking in darkness,
what does he say there?
You're lying, you're lying.
You are not practicing the truth.
Now, in this, there is no expectation that the believer
will be a perfect believer, never again stumbling
and sinning because, well, other parts of scripture
make that very clear that there's this dual nature
within us until we're gone from this earth
to be with the Lord in heaven.
But practicing the truth is that phrase,
which I would state it this way,
actually being Christ-like as children of God.
Living humbly as a person who knows they've been forgiven
of all of their sin, that the penalty of death
has been removed from them forever,
and now they're living in a way to say,
God, I'm so grateful for that.
This involves forgiving others the way we are forgiven.
This involves loving the way we are loved.
It involves giving with great generosity
the way God is generous with us.
It involves humbly serving the way Christ has served us.
We do all those things by discovering
and exercising the gifts that God has given us
in service to him and to one another.
Because the Bible is very clear that God has gifted
his people with gifts that are to be used to serve
one another, to build at the body of Christ.
And this also includes being involved in and connected
with one another's lives as the body of Christ.
You see, this is a family here that we're called
to be a part of.
And for a lot of believers in the world,
they will come to church on a Sunday,
and they'll sit here and they'll learn
and hear the word being taught,
and they go, that's great, and they'll worship,
and they might say hi to a couple people,
but then they leave and they go about their life
the rest of the week, not even thinking about
or praying about or communicating with
or being involved with anybody in their church.
Now, it's hard to be a part of a family
when that's the way you engage with your family.
And so being involved with people means
that you're building a relationship with them.
You get to know people, and then as you get to know people,
you start to find out their needs and their struggles
and their wants and their successes,
and so you come to celebrate with them and support,
and pray, right?
This is the body ministering to the body.
And it's living Jesus, because all this stuff
we study in his word and all these applications
and all that his word has to say about us,
about the type of people he wants us to be,
we learn that so that we could then go be
those type of people.
And that's why our mission statement starts
with those two things, to know the truth
and to live the truth.
Now, as we live the truth and live according
to Jesus' example, both individually,
and then as a church, corporately,
we end up leading to the next part of our statement,
the third part, which is to share the truth.
Don't ever discount the power of your witness
when you just live the way God is calling you to live.
Don't ever think that the world is not watching you,
Christian, as you steal the paper clips at work,
clock in a little early and a little late
to pad your paycheck.
The world's watching, and that's why living
according to the example of Christ is so important,
because that living is sharing.
You are telling people who God is,
who the God you claim to serve is.
Now, sharing the truth is sharing the truth in word,
and that's why here at Hosanna,
we put such a great emphasis on outreach and evangelism.
We supply free tracks to everybody in the church
so that you can grab these things
to go share your faith with people,
to tell them about the hope that you have in Jesus Christ.
But it's also about that action, that witness,
and so spreading the truth of who Jesus is,
the truth of sin, the need for salvation.
If you've experienced it, you know what a phenomenally
fantastic thing that is.
That if you've come to the place of receiving the truth
that God knew everything you've ever done,
he knows everything you ever will do,
and knowing all of that, he died on the cross for you.
That's powerful.
It changed your life.
Why would we not share that with people
who don't yet know that truth?
And yet the devil is really good at making us scared
and feel ill-equipped and all that,
and that's why we go back to knowing the truth.
That's why we put such a huge emphasis
on teaching the word here at Hosanna.
That's why we, in our evangelism ministry,
we have skills meetings, so you could go,
I don't know how to do this, but show me how.
But it's everybody in the church
that is called to be a part of this outreach,
this type of reaching into the world.
And so as part of our mission,
we also have some values here at the church
that God gave us a few years ago
that really kind of are things we want to push
through the culture of Hosanna here.
One of those things that is very important to us
is community.
We value community here at Hosanna
because we believe we grow better when we grow together.
The isolated Christian struggles with growth.
The Christian who is isolated gets assaulted by the enemy,
and without support, they often fall
into the temptations and the struggles.
But when we're together, we grow.
We encourage one another.
We pray for one another.
That's community.
That's why we have our community groups.
That's why we have that ministry.
You know, a few years ago,
we had a midweek service here at Hosanna,
and over the years, I had been leading
that midweek service, and attendance just started to drop,
especially after COVID.
A lot of people didn't come back,
and the thought in my mind was like,
well, what's going on here with our midweek service, right?
And I started to pay attention,
and what was happening is a lot of people
would come to the midweek service,
and they would learn, and they would worship,
and then they would high-high and get up and leave.
And I thought, well, that's more of that disconnectedness
of just coming to sit in the pew,
but not really be part of the congregation.
And so I said, Lord, what do we do to foster the environment
where people are getting close and talking
and getting involved in each other's lives,
and he just gave me the vision for our community groups?
We've been doing those ever since,
and they've been radically successful.
There's so many testimonies of what God has done
through that.
Now, we still gather together on Sundays, obviously,
but during the Bible study,
you guys don't really get to have conversation
with each other, and I hope you don't,
because it would really distract me if you did,
so we'll wait till community groups to do that,
but community is important,
and that's why we meet both congregationally
and in our community groups.
Discipleship is the second value
that's really important to our church.
We believe that we intentionally discover
and develop our calling so that we could help others
discover and develop their calling.
That's the essence of what discipleship is.
It's you being poured into by someone else
who maybe has been walking with the Lord longer than you,
and they help you to grow and get closer to him,
and then you go and you pour that into someone else.
That is the process of the church.
And discipleship is not something
that only the pastor is supposed to do,
but it's every single one of us
that are a part of that calling.
And so discipleship, it's meant to be intentional,
not just passive, not just a,
hey, we're gonna go get lunch,
and maybe we might talk about spiritual things,
but no, it's believers getting together
with an intentional purpose to say,
let's grow deeper in our relationship with God,
let's go deeper in our understanding of the word.
And it's all wrapped around growing
and maturing as children of God.
Our third value that really is radically important to me
is self-sacrifice.
That's a value that I pray just permeates
the body here at Hosanna.
You see, because if everyone sacrificially serves
one another, then that means everyone's needs are met.
You know, the Bible tells us in Philippians 2, 3,
it says, do nothing, Paul writing,
out of selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility consider others
as more important than yourselves.
It doesn't say kind of important.
It doesn't say more important only on Sunday.
It says consider others in humility
as more important than yourselves.
This means that as a member of the body of Christ,
you look at your brothers and sisters in the body,
and you place them on a higher level of priority,
a higher level of importance than yourself.
What does that mean?
Well, that means that you're gonna be put in a position
to sacrifice often for others.
You might be in a position where someone has need
and you have to go serve them, but you're like,
but the football game's on,
and you have to sacrifice that game.
Maybe there's a need that arises in the church
or in a ministry, and there's a financial need,
and you're like, well, but I earmarked this money
for ABC, but God says, I want you to sacrifice that
and trust me.
Maybe it's gifts and talents you have,
and God is saying, hey, I wanna get you up involved
in the worship team because I've given you a talent,
and I'd love to have you share that with the body
and lead the body into worship,
and you're like, nah, it's just too much.
It's self-sacrifice.
It's the idea of giving of yourself,
and it's not always gonna be easy.
It's not always gonna be convenient, but when you consider
others as more important than yourself,
you'll say, my time, my whatever is secondary.
Now, this doesn't mean you go and neglect your family
and be irresponsible and reckless,
but the idea is that you're willing to say,
God, when you call me to give of myself my time
or my resources, I'll do it without question
because I wanna be sacrificial
the way you were sacrificial in my life.
And then the last one is innovation.
That's a value of our church where I'm an ex-tech guy,
and so I just dig tech, but in the realm of ministry
and our church, the idea is that we're always
intentionally seeking better ways to meet the needs.
We never wanna get caught in the trap as a church
that this is how we've always done it,
so this is how we're always gonna do it.
There was a time where drums were the devil in church.
Some of you may remember that, okay?
Drums in church?
That's demonic.
And now every church has drums pretty much, right?
As times change and as cultures change,
methods of communicating the message,
which does not change, grow and change, right?
50 years ago, you didn't have social media.
Today, it's destroying an entire generation,
and we're like, okay, well, God, is there a way
to get in there and to shine the light of the gospel?
Right, the idea is being willing and ready
to seek new ways to do it, but at the same time,
we don't wanna be a church that abandons things
that are working well just because it's the new shiny thing.
It's the idea of being led by the Holy Spirit
to do what he wants us to do, the way he wants us to do it
as the culture evolves.
Now, this mission and these values,
these are the filter that your church uses
to decide and discern what God wants us to do.
When we're feeling God leading
or we have a desire to do something,
the prayer is always God.
Does it fall under our mission to know the truth,
to live the truth, to share the truth?
Does it support the values that you've called us
to support, the community, discipleship,
self-sacrifice, innovation?
Because here's the reality is as a church,
and every church has the same issue,
we'd love to do everything,
but we can't do everything, right?
We have a limit in our immediate reach,
we have a limit in the congregation size,
we have a limit in resources,
and it's not that these are bad things.
It's just we can't do everything.
I would love to have a shuttle ministry
that picks up people from home to get them to church,
and a sports ministry that's gonna go play softball
and outreach people in a, who knows, fill in the blank.
But the issue is God, do these things fall under
our specific mission as this specific fellowship?
And sometimes there are good things
that we simply feel that God's going,
well, that's a good thing,
but there's another fellowship
I'm gonna have be involved in,
and I want you to focus on these things.
And so as we pray for God to enlarge our borders,
we pray for God to extend our reach as a fellowship,
to extend your reach, that the gospel would go forth
as far as God would have it go in our church.
But we also labor to make sure that we're good stewards
of the time and the talent and the resources
that God has provided here.
Now, during this last year, 2024,
we had a lot of growth in our congregation,
and that's just awesome, seeing new faces all the time.
It's, Pastor Gary retired about three years ago,
and it still weirds me out when people go,
who's Pastor Gary?
I'm like, this man was instrumental in my life.
He was like a father to me,
and you don't know who he is, how dare you, right?
But there's just new people coming,
and with new faces and new families,
we have new kids in our Hosanna Kids Ministry.
It's a wonderful thing when the children's ministry director
goes, Pastor Nathan, we need to steal your office
because we need more classroom space.
Take it, you know, I'll move into a closet if I need to.
But the idea is that things are growing, you know,
and this is directly as a result of you guys
telling people about your church and sharing with people
with what's going on in your church.
Our men's ministry this past year
held its first men's conference in years,
and that was amazing because the focus of that conference
was, hey men, if you don't know what your calling is,
if you don't know what your gifting is,
we wanna help you discover that
so that you could then get plugged in in your church
with your gifts and your talents and your calling.
And that was hugely successful.
Obviously, we finally got through Revelation
early this year and started the book of Genesis, right?
We soft launched a new discipleship ministry
that I'll talk about later.
I mean, we participated in Freedom Fest and Harvest Crusade,
just a lot of stuff that this church did.
Our evangelism ministry, both people that are directly
in our evangelism ministry, and just those of you
that are evangelizing on your own, here's the stats.
Our teams passed out 45,000 tracks this year.
4,000 Gospel of John's, they had about 1,000
actual conversations with people,
walking them through the Gospel and faith,
and that was just the evangelism team.
There's other individuals in our body
that are doing this work outside of it,
and there's thousands more of tracks
in the Gospel got out to people.
We did special outreaches, as we've been doing
for the last couple years, the Street Fest,
which had become a big staple now.
People actually ask, hey, is Hosanna doing that thing
during the Street Fest?
And it's just an opportunity for us to,
we give away a whole ton of stuff that God provides
every penny for every single year,
and we give everybody a Gospel track.
Say, hey, Belfour, we love you.
We participated again at Midsummer Scream,
that's that Halloween convention in Long Beach
that has, this year, I think it was, what, 30,000,
35,000 people?
40,000 people.
40,000 people at a convention that like Halloween.
God brought us in there to build our little maze
and pass out thousands of Gospel tracks to people,
and they invite us back.
That's a huge door that God opened up for us.
Obviously, we sent a team to Paris this year
with Living Waters during the Olympics.
Baptisms this year increased 50% over the year before.
That means people are getting saved.
That means people are getting saved
and then taking this step to say, hey,
I wanna publicly profess what God has done in my life.
And then your church, Hosanna, we're still supporting
over 13 different parachurch mission organizations
and stuff like far-reaching ministries,
organizations that are dealing with
protecting religious rights in the United States,
A21, which is an organization that actually does a lot of work
going into places like North Korea to rescue kids
that are trapped in trafficking and save the storks.
You guys are familiar with them.
They park the buses outside the abortion clinics
and say, hey, would you like to get a free sonogram
before you go in there?
And the rate of women who decide to keep their baby
because they see their baby on the screen
is just incredible.
These are things that we've been involved with
as a church.
Now, I don't share any of that to say,
oh, pat us on the back.
It's just really a tip of the iceberg
of what God is doing around the world,
but we as a church were able to accomplish these things
and be a part of all these things through your volunteering.
You're the body of Christ,
and this was accomplished through you guys.
This was accomplished through your faithful giving
and generosity.
It was accomplished through your prayers and support,
but as I said in the beginning, the work is not finished yet.
Now, I'm with you.
I'm like, God, come back right now.
We're still here.
Why?
Because there's so many people out there
that need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So I urge all of us this next year,
as we move into 2025 and we look back and we go,
wow, God, you did such amazing things in 2024,
as we look forward that we continue to serve
as Jesus served.
We continue to be generous with our time and our resources
the way Jesus is generous with us.
That we do all this in prayer
and the leading of the Holy Spirit
so that we can do everything God would call us to
as a fellowship.
You know, there's a mystery in the relationship
between, oh, God is sovereign.
If he wants us to do it, he'll provide all the funds,
and I believe that 100% for an outreach, right?
But on the other side of the equation,
God is also saying, hey, people, my people,
get involved, make it happen, be a part of the work.
And then the mystery of that,
I do believe there's times where God wants to do something
through our fellowship or another fellowship,
and when we don't step up and say,
okay, God, I hear your call,
let me be a part of this in whatever way,
we can't accomplish it.
And I personally, as your pastor,
and a coworker, co-laborer with you in this church,
I don't ever wanna say, God,
we hear you calling us to do this,
but we can't do it because we can't find enough volunteers.
Or God, because we can't do this or do that, you know?
What I'd rather say is, God, every single person
in our church is surfing, so we can't do another thing.
That would be amazing.
But we're all a part of this solution
of being open to God's leading and calling in our lives,
because as a church, we wanna see more people saved.
Do you guys wanna see more people saved?
Yeah.
We wanna see more people discipled.
We wanna see more people reached for Jesus Christ.
And so this next year coming up, Hosanna, your church,
we're gonna continue to listen to the Lord
and filter our decisions through the mission
that he's given us as a church.
Other churches may have a slightly different mission,
but this is the one he's given us,
to run everything through the values
that he's called us to lift up,
and of course, always being open to the Spirit
of changing anything he wants at any time,
because God can do that too.
But as a church, we wanna move into 2025
being in radical pursuit of Jesus,
to know Jesus, to live Jesus, to share Jesus,
to let that be the motivation of everything we do.
So with that, I wanna look at a few verses
in Philippians chapter three with you
as an encouragement for the year coming up.
In Philippians chapter three,
verses 10 through 14-ish, I think we're gonna get through,
this is what Paul says.
He says, 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 I'm already perfect,
but I make every effort to take hold of it
because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself
to have taken hold of it.
This is one of my favorite sections of scripture
in the Bible, because there is such a radical encouragement
that I get from this.
Simply this, that Paul is writing this,
this letter to the Philippians,
after he had been walking with the Lord
for approximately 30 years.
In those 30 years, this incredibly intelligent man
had planted numerous churches
who had raised up dozens and dozens of leaders,
this guy that had accomplished so much for the Lord
as a missionary and apostle.
What he's saying here is,
I still have plenty room to grow,
that there is still plenty of work to do.
I have not reached the goal.
I am not perfect.
I am not complete.
And so the encouragement I wanna give all of us
moving into 2025 is don't settle for what has been.
We celebrate what has been.
We celebrate what God has done.
We look back and we lean on some of those things
to bolster our faith moving forward,
but don't settle for that.
God has done wonderful things, yes.
He's done wonderful things in all our lives individually
and here as part of our church,
but that in no way means that we should cease
to anticipate great things in the future from God.
See, Paul, after walking with the Lord for 30 years,
was still like, I'm not there yet.
I haven't obtained it.
I'm not at the end.
I still have a goal ahead of me
because I trust God is gonna use me
until the day he takes me home.
And this teaches us a very important truth
as we move through year to year as believers.
One, we never reach perfection this side of heaven.
We never finish maturing and growing here on earth.
We're never done.
Ever thinking that you've arrived,
that you know God enough,
that your relationship with Jesus is fine where it's at,
always leads to spiritual pride and spiritual arrogance
and spiritual complacency.
And then as a church and as an organization,
as a body of Christ,
ever thinking that the best way to do it
is how we've always done it,
or coasting on past successes,
all that does is kill vision.
It kills vision in your life individually.
Here's Paul 30 years later saying,
my goal is to know him as if Paul didn't know him.
But Paul understood that he was just scratching
the tip of the iceberg.
He says in verse 12,
not that I have already attained or already reached the goal
or am already perfect.
Then he says in verse 13,
I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.
I think that's a very healthy attitude to have as a believer
and as a church moving into a new year.
We haven't reached the goal yet.
We still have work to do.
None of us have reached the peak of maturity and growth
in our relationship with God yet.
So don't stop coming to church.
Don't stop reading the word.
Don't stop studying the word.
Don't stop worshiping.
Don't stop praying because you're not there yet.
A Christian should never be satisfied
with their current spiritual state.
It's one thing to say,
man, look what God did.
I'm so happy with that.
And I'm so excited for where I'm at.
I'm doing good.
My walk with the Lord is very solid.
That's a good thing.
But then when we say,
so therefore I don't need to try anymore,
you're gonna fall.
Therefore I don't need to keep reaching out
to the relationship that Jesus wants to have with me.
You're gonna fall.
Every Christian should wanna grow more
and know God deeper to grow in their obedience
to be a brighter light to the world.
And it's same for the church here,
the body of believers at Hosanna.
Collectively as a church,
we wanna keep pushing forward with more teaching
and more growing and seeing more saved and more Jesus
and raising up more leaders
and everything that God would have us do.
So don't settle for what has been.
The other thing that I see in these scriptures from Paul
reminds us to not get distracted from what God is doing
or from doing what God is calling you to do.
Focus, prioritize, commit, and then do.
Right?
Look at what he says in verse 313.
But one thing I do.
One thing I do.
Now obviously Paul is talking about
in the context of all of this
that he's pursuing Jesus.
But he goes one thing I do
that in all the ministry activity
and all the things he could be doing
and all the, just all of it,
he goes there's one thing
that is at the top of my priority list.
You see there are things that every believer is called to do.
Right?
In our relationship with God.
These are non-negotiable,
but under those things are specific things
that God may be calling us to do.
There's specific callings that each one of us have.
I believe there's specific callings
under the general callings that we're all called to do
that even a church has.
And that each one of us has as part of a church family.
Paul says one thing I do.
He's talking about focus.
He's talking about setting those priorities.
He's talking about where the effort
and the resources are expended.
For him everything was about
I'm gonna know God more
because he knew that that trickled down
to everything else in his life.
There's so much in the world and in life
that can distract us from pursuing Jesus and his kingdom.
So much.
And we just have to stay focused.
If you were losing focus last year on your thing,
then 2025 say God I wanna refocus
and be zoomed in on what you want me to do
and what you want me to do
as a part of this local fellowship.
So I don't know if you know it,
but Satan is very good at distracting us from those things.
He distracts us from what we should be doing
as believers with everything else.
How many of you have ever been in that position
where you just feel the Lord is calling you
to get involved in this or to go say this?
Or he's calling you to a specific work
and then you're like hmm.
And so you do everything else that exists in reality.
Well I'll get to that later,
but I've gotta wash my hair first.
I'll get to that later,
but you know that project I've been neglecting at home,
I gotta finish that.
And we're real good at doing everything else
except the thing God is calling us to do.
And so if there's a thing God is calling you
to do individually and there are things
God is calling you to do as a part of this fellowship,
focus on them, prioritize them, commit to them and do them.
Now Paul says again,
and I mentioned this a couple times in verse 10,
he says my goal is to know him.
Why?
Because the more we know Jesus,
the more your heart is conformed into his.
You become to look like him.
Your priorities become his.
Your desires become like his.
And then as you're growing closer to him,
knowing him more, you start to live more like him
as you're in alignment with who he is
and your call, the call in your life
becomes clearer and clearer and clearer in your heart.
The closer you're walking with Jesus,
the easier it is to discern what he wants you to do
as a believer, both generally, corporately
and individually and specifically.
So don't get distracted.
Next he says, but one thing I do, verse 13,
forgetting what is behind and reaching forward
to what is ahead.
Don't dwell on what's behind you.
Celebrate it, yes, but move forward.
You see, when he says forgetting what is behind,
the idea is this, last year was last year.
Last year was awesome, last year was tough,
last year was whatever it was for all of us.
But regardless of how your last year was,
it is still last year.
It's past, it's done.
You move on from these things.
It's the idea of not resting on your successes
or dwelling on your failures.
Isn't that what our relationship with Jesus
is all about anyways?
He comes into our life and he goes,
hey, I love you, I died for you.
And we wanna go, but you don't know what I did,
and he goes, I'm God, do you think I don't know
what you did?
And then you're like, but, but, and he goes,
forgiven, don't dwell on that.
Focus, now, I'm God, I died for you.
I wanna save you, I wanna forgive you,
I wanna fill you with my spirit and change your life.
And then when we go, yeah, I need that.
It's a process of moving forward all the way
until we get to heaven.
That's what God wants in our life, to keep moving forward.
The past is done, our God is about new beginnings, right?
The first of the year is about new beginnings.
And so the idea is that we put ourselves in that place
of what's ahead of me, Lord.
What's ahead of us, God, is a church.
If you want a stagnant life, live your life
looking over your shoulder, backwards,
into what has already been.
If you do that, you're gonna miss what's in front of you.
Try to run down the street looking behind you,
you're probably gonna run into something.
The idea is that is done, reach forward, he says,
reach forward to what is ahead.
Here's the question that I asked myself,
and I ask all of you today as we're looking into 2025.
If we put as much effort pressing into our spiritual life
as we do our hobbies,
what would our life look like in 2025?
Spiritually.
There's nothing wrong with hobbies, don't misunderstand me.
There's nothing wrong with entertainments.
But for some of us, if we put as much time
into our spiritual life and learning to hear God
and following him as we do in all those hobbies,
how would your life change?
It'd be pretty radical, I bet.
Or the other question is what would our lives look like
if we put as much effort into doing
what we're supposed to be doing instead of everything else?
I think it's glorious if we'd focus.
And God's going, just I'm here, I live within you,
don't tell me you can't focus,
just ask me to move in your life and we'll get going.
What would our church look like if it was
like if every single one of us,
and I'm not putting anybody on blast here,
but every single one of us were participating members
of the body here at Hosanna?
If we were all volunteering when there was an opportunity,
when we were all just regularly trusting God
in our finances and giving the way we're called to
and praying for one another regularly
and just all this stuff,
and I'm not saying this to guilt trip anybody,
but just imagine what God could do with this little church.
What did he do with 12 people?
He changed the entire world.
God wants to use you to change the entire world.
So it's about hearing what he is saying
and moving forward towards that.
Reach forward to what is ahead.
Pursue what God wants you to be doing.
And if you don't know, the great place to start is
what are you passionate about?
What can you do?
What are your gifts?
What are your talents?
What are you good at?
What are you just naturally good at doing
and start there and trust God to reveal to you
as you move forward?
What was ahead for Paul?
What was Paul reaching forward to?
He says in verse 14, I pursue as my goal
the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
You know, as a pastor, I'm so thankful
for what God has done in my life over the years.
I am so thankful for what God has done in my life
through this church.
This church has changed my life forever.
When I came in as just a punk kid with earrings
and spiky blue hair.
And they said, you wanna be a part of junior high?
And I was like, sure.
I've changed a little bit since then, but.
This church, the ministry that God has done through here
has changed so many of your lives.
And God wants to keep doing that.
He doesn't wanna just stop with you.
There have been many saved in Et Hosanna,
lives changed, relationships healed,
and on it, and God is still doing that in this church.
We've had people raise up through this little church
who are, you know, Pastor Mike Winger,
a lot of you guys know him.
Like, approaching 900,000 subscribers on YouTube.
Wow, what a reach.
And again, we don't take any credit for that.
That was God doing a work through people who just said,
God, I wanna serve you.
I wanna be obedient to you.
But we can't forget that there's more unbelievers out there
that need Jesus, that need to hear the gospel.
There's more believers out there who need teaching
and discipleship and community and growth
and training and equipping.
And we have to reach into all of that understanding
that all that God wants to do through this world
starts with knowing him.
Knowing him.
He is the root of all of it.
He is the prize Paul was pursuing.
He's the point.
And so 2025, yeah, as a church,
we're gonna keep moving forward with our eyes on that goal,
reaching forward to what is ahead.
But as a church, we need all of us.
If God brought you to this fellowship
and this fellowship is your home
and you said, God, this is my home,
it wasn't just to sit in the pew.
It was to be a part of the body of Christ
here in this church.
Now if at any time God says, hey,
that's not your home anymore, please,
follow the leading of the Lord
and go wherever he's gonna call you to go.
But if God's called you here, it wasn't just to sit.
It was to be plugged in.
And if you're just sitting in the pew
and you're learning, that's awesome.
I'm glad you're learning.
Praise the Lord.
That's the start.
But we can't forget that knowing the truth
leads to living the truth,
which leads to sharing the truth.
We're all a part of this congregation.
And this congregation cannot pursue what is ahead
without every single one of us participating
with our time and our talent and our resources.
So this year I'm praying specifically,
God, enlarge our borders.
Enlarge our borders.
So that there is opportunity for every single one of us
in this church to be a part of the body,
to operate as part of the body,
to use the gifts that God has uniquely given to you
to reach out into this world
with the gospel of Jesus Christ,
to minister to one another,
to see the needs that we have in our life
just practically met and spiritually met.
I'm praying for God to enlarge the borders so much
where it's not possible for us to do that.
But then to set back and watch God go,
watch what I'm gonna do.
So in 2025, yeah, we're gonna keep encouraging,
equipping, and providing opportunities
for the body to be the body.
Much as of what we've begun over the last few years,
we're gonna keep doing that.
It's not about like, oh, we did that, move on.
But God, do you want us to keep doing certain things?
And he's saying yes, keep doing it, get better at it.
As we pray and say, Holy Spirit, lead us, right?
We're gonna keep doing our VBSs
because more and more kids in the community
are coming out every year.
We're gonna keep doing our street fest outreaches
because that line around the building
gets longer and longer every time we do it,
and that's more people getting the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We're gonna keep praying and outreaching
and teaching and preaching and evangelizing
because yes, of course we wanna do those things.
But last year, for the first time in a very long time,
I said earlier, we soft launched
a new discipleship ministry.
As God has been putting on my heart
and some of the other leaders' hearts that,
you know, passive discipleship is great,
but intentional discipleship is really effective, right?
To be intentionally, not just communicating information,
but having that back and forth dialogue and that work
and that interaction to grow deeper together.
And so in our men's and women's ministries last year,
in our men's and women's ministries last year,
we kind of identified a model we wanted to use
and say let's soft launch it and see how it works.
And the results from the people that are still
a part of those first few groups that started
is just incredible.
The blessing, the growth, the maturity is just awesome.
And so this year, I'm like, okay guys,
we're throwing the gates wide
on a discipleship ministry to open it up.
And the whole thing is about these micro groups
where it's like, you know, two or three people
gathering together weekly to pour into one another
so that there's growth.
And then guess what, at the end of it,
it's like, okay, now you go on and do it with someone else.
My prayer is that in the next five to seven years,
every single person that's in this church
has not only gone through a discipleship program
and built those roots down
and grown in their walk with the Lord,
but they are then effectively leading other groups
and walking with new Christians and other Christians
that haven't yet taken that step
to help them grow in their ministry.
You could read some of that on our website
if you wanna read more about it,
but we're heavily leaning into that.
I believe God wants us to continue
reaching out farther with the gospel.
This last year, I had one individual come to me and go,
you know, I'm not sure how to say this,
but I think God may be calling me
to be a full-time missionary.
Wow.
The last time our church sent someone out
has been like 24 years ago.
Now, we've gone on trips and we've done short-term stuff,
but someone who God raised up here
to go be a full-time missionary somewhere,
so I'm like, okay, God, enlarge our borders.
If there's people you wanna raise up
that you're calling into the mission field, do it,
that we would rally around them to pray and support.
Obviously, I'm like, God, I believe God is saying,
hey, I wanna take you guys out on some trips this next year
so that you just get outside the local context
and see what God is doing around the world,
and so we're praying that God
would open up some of those doors.
This last year, we started intentional leadership development,
and there's a bunch of young men and women
that have stepped up to say,
hey, I wanna learn how to teach,
and I wanna learn how to lead,
and I wanna learn how to be a godly servant,
and so we've stepped into that,
and we're gonna be doing that more and more
this year coming up.
This year specifically,
we're gonna be launching a pro-life ministry
to lean into engaging the culture on this issue
that is still incredibly out of control,
to not just save the lives of babies, which is huge,
but to directly minister to the moms
that are struggling in these situations
where they're even having to consider
making these decisions, and how could we help?
How could we step in?
How can we be a part of their healing
and their growth and all of that?
And so, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
We're still praying as a leadership here.
I continue, I encourage you guys to be praying
for your own individual vision.
If you're in service and ministry here at Hosanna,
I pray for you to say, God, give me vision
for my area of ministry and what I'm doing.
Because I believe God answers that prayer,
and he wants to answer that prayer,
but we can't do it without every member
of the body here at Hosanna participating fully
as their part of the body of Christ.
And so I just encourage all of you to be open
to what the Lord is calling you to do this year.
As a member of this body,
or as a member of whatever body you end up with,
to see your life grow, to see your marriages grow,
to see your kids grow, to see the effective Jesus
and all of that.
That that light that shines from this church
would grow brighter and brighter and brighter.
And that all of us would be a part of that work.
You know, a life lived in service to Christ
really is a life spent on the most significant task of all.
This doesn't mean you have to be a full-time minister,
right?
Well, I can't focus on Jesus full-time,
I gotta go to work.
Guess what your workplace is as a believer?
It's a mission field.
Are there anybody, are there any people at your work
that don't know Jesus yet?
Sure, it's a mission field.
Use words, use actions if you will.
Living your life in service to Christ,
having that as the priority of everything you do
no matter what it is means that affecting your community
and the world for Jesus is the highest priority
of your life.
And I pray you seek that and lean into that.
As a local member of the body here at Hosanna,
you participate in what God's doing.
Saying, God, how would you have me be a part
of what you're doing here in my church?
It's the name of Jesus Christ that we wanna lift high.
It's the name of Jesus Christ we want the world to see.
I don't care if anybody ever knows my name
in the future to come should Jesus tarry,
all I care about is if they know Jesus Christ.
And if I'm never a part of the equation
and they know Him,
then that was the greatest thing I could have ever done
with my life.
And it's the same for all of us.
It's the same for all of us.
As a church, which is every single person here
that knows Jesus as our Lord and Savior,
we have a very high calling to know the truth,
to live the truth, and to share the truth.
Because we believe in the way, the truth, and the life
who is Jesus Christ, amen.
So this morning as we start the new year,
I can't think of a better way to start the new year
than sharing together the truth.
Than sharing together in communion.
You know every time the church gathers in communion
and celebrates this, Jesus said do this,
do this as often as you gather in remembrance of me.
Because you see in remembering what Jesus did for us
on the cross, how He gave Himself,
the body was just beaten and brutalized,
and then His blood was shed on the cross for our sins,
that was the point of new beginning
for every single one of us.
Believing in that when we put our faith in that,
that is when our lives changed.
That is when the Spirit of God came to live within us.
That is when God started to mold us
and to shape us into His image.
And that was the beginning that everybody
that doesn't know Him needs.
And that is the beginning that I want to celebrate
as we start 2025.
So if the worship team will come forward
and the men of the communion board will come forward,
what we're gonna be doing in this is just,
everybody just remain seated where we're at
and the men of the communion board will serve you guys
as we worship together with the Lord in this.
We're gonna do the bread first
and then we will partake together.
And then after that we will then serve the juice as well
and we will partake of that together.
And so please hang on to the emblems when you get them
until we're all partaking together.
You know, God is just so amazing.
And He is so perfect.
And He is so much more than we deserve.
And yet because God loved us, He said I'm here.
I'm gonna save you and I'm gonna use you.
And we just look forward to what God is gonna do
in all of that in this year to come.
Let's pray and then we'll get started.
Father, Lord we thank you so much for what you're doing,
God, we thank you Lord for the work you've begun.
We thank you Lord that you're gonna be faithful
to complete it.
Lord as you've done so many amazing things
in the years behind us Lord, we expect and look forward
to the amazing works you're gonna do
in the years ahead of us.
And Lord as we begin a new year, Lord as we do every year,
we look at so much as fresh and new and different.
Some have resolutions, some have gotten burnt out
on those things and just wanna continue as is.
But God this is a moment where we're gonna be able
to move forward.
This is a moment where the calendar changes
and the months change and it represents a new frame of time.
And God we wanna be people who use the time
we still have for you to know you, to pursue you,
to lift your name up.
Because God we know the time is short.
God we thank you Lord for our church
and the gathering that you've done here God
that you would enlarge our borders, that God as our world
is descending into worse and worse sin
and public education is falling apart more.
God expand the borders of what we can do
to be a part of lifting your name on high
and in every area of life.
Whether it's business or education or personal things,
God just, Lord do it only you can do.
God it all began with your sacrifice for us.
The blood you shed, the you giving your body
that our sin would be paid for.
And Lord it's a price we can never pay back.
So God we remember today as we start a new year
we remember what you did that we would have a new beginning
in our eternity.
We love you so much and we thank you.
It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.