As we begin a brand new year, it is a fresh start.

The fresh start.

Why is it a fresh start?

It's simply a flip of the calendar, right?

Reality is, for most of us, if we pause for a moment and think about it, what was different

on the last day of December than the first day of January?

We woke up the next day as a brand new day.

No different than the last day of July and the first day of August.

It's, we woke up.

It was a new month, the new day.

New things to do every day.

The reality for us is God gives us a fresh start every day.

He wakes us up every morning.

When God wakes us up, it's a fresh start. It's a fresh start. But we put so much emphasis on a new year.

We put so much emphasis on, oh, it's a brand new year.

There's all these new things that have to be done and new decisions to make and new things that we want to do in life and

and you know, we reflect back over what we did over the last year. There's nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that,

at all, for us to do those things.

But I want to think about the fresh start.

What does that mean for us?

How do we take a look at that?

How do we learn from the things in the past?

How do we do things new and fresh as God would want us to do?

The thing is, many many times we are confident that

we are strong in God. We are absolutely confident. Somebody ask you, "Are you strong in God?

Yep, I am strong in God. We are confident. We are strong in God." But what do we base that

confidence on? Well, we base that on when we say yes, we're strong in God.

Because you see what happens oftentimes is sometimes that confidence is not rooted

in faith. Are you strong in God? Yes, I go to church every Sunday and Wednesday night.

And yes, I do all the Christian things and I tend to church when the doors are open and

I do all the different stuff that happens. So church when the doors are open and I do all the different stuff

that happens.

So yes, I'm strong in God.

But is that based in faith or is that based in action?

Is that based in, well, I go to church or is that based

in I walk with God?

You see, so many times we want to say how confident we are

that we're strong in God, but we're

not strong in our faith.

We're not really spending that time with God.

We're not really walking with God.

We just have the outer appearance that we're strong in God.

Many times they used to be when a politician would move into an area, the first thing they

did was find the local church.

Why did they find the local church?

Because if they were in the local church, then the perception would be, they were a strong

Christian person, whether they were, whether they weren't.

And so when it came election time, of course that was something they could say, "See, my

church, see what I've done, I'm strong in my fate. I'm strong in my walk."

But are they really?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

The reality is it's not just politicians, it's everyone.

Sometimes we base our belief that we're strong with God

because of the things we do

and not because of the fate that we have,

not because of the walk that we have,

not because of the things that we have, not because of the walk that we have, not because of the things that God has shown us.

Sometimes we want to be strong, but we just fail.

Say, I wanna be strong, I wanna do all of those things,

I wanna make sure that in my life I'm doing these things,

and I wanna be that person that I believe God wants me to be,

but we fail.

We fail.

And you see when we fail, there's two choices.

We can give up.

Say, you know what?

I already failed.

There's no sense in continuing to try.

Or we can get back up and say, you know what, God?

I failed today, but I'm going to keep trying.

I'm going to get up tomorrow but I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm

going to keep going. You know, we're reminded we watch athletic events and we watch races and things

and you see someone running in a race and they fall down. Most of the time, if they're able, they get

up and they keep going. They know they're not going to win, they just want to finish. They just

want to keep going. They just want to keep doing the best know they're not going to win. They just want to finish. They just want to keep going.

They just want to keep doing the best that they can

until they cross that finish line.

Others fall down and once they're done, they realize they're not going to make the end

of the race and they just give up.

They just quit.

Well, in our Christian walk, when we fail and we make choices, oftentimes we make a choice

that you know what, we already failed.

Why keep trying?

Why keep trying why keep trying I'm just I'm never gonna be that person that I'm supposed

to be and I just give up that's not what God wants us to do God wants us to

keep trying sometimes we want to be strong but we just fail many people

people during this time of the year look back over there last year, they kind of take inventory.

Some have maybe made a list at the beginning of the year and said, "Hey, you know what?

These are the things I want to do at the end of the year.

They go back and look and go, "Yep, I did that.

Yep, I didn't know if I didn't do that.

I didn't do that.

I didn't do that.

Yeah, I did that.

No, I didn't do."

And they take inventory like that.

Other people didn't write down a list.

They just had something in their mind,

and they're thinking, you know,

I really wanted to do this this year,

but it didn't happen.

I didn't succeed.

I started it strong, but I didn't finish or,

maybe I never really even started it,

it was just I had the idea, but I didn't do it.

For some people they start out and they say,

"I'm gonna read my Bible all the way through this year."

And that's a wonderful thing to do by the way,

if you've never done it.

If you have done it, doing it again is fantastic.

So I wanna read my Bible through.

They open up their Bible, they make it through

Genesis and they're so excited.

And maybe they even get through Exodus.

And next thing you know, they get to Leviticus.

Leviticus is a hard book. Leviticus is a very hard book. And people get to Leviticus. Leviticus is a hard book.

Leviticus is a very hard book.

And people get to Leviticus and they start

reading and they're going, I don't understand.

I don't, what are these laws all about?

I don't get it and the next thing you know,

they've given up.

So if you only made it through Leviticus last year,

then my advice is try again.

Keep going.

Many times we look back over the last year

and we try to figure out what we did, good, what we did bad, how can we do better this year?

I want to encourage you to do this. Not just look back over your life and the goals and all of that. Some people realize they did not achieve their goals and they want to strive to do better. But I want you to think about not just those goals,

because goals can be secular goals,

they can be Christian goals, they can be family goals,

they can have all kinds of things.

I want to encourage you to do this.

As you look back over last year, maybe you already have,

but as you do, I hope you're thinking about

how you walked with Jesus in 2025. How did I walk with Jesus in 2025? Was it good? Did I succeed in

walking with Him in the way that I think I should have? Do I know that I failed? Are there

ways that I did good, but there's still ways that I didn't do so good, and that's probably most of us.

How did I walk with Jesus in 2025?

And no matter how you walked with Jesus in 2025,

you should strive to walk closer to Him in 2026.

Even if you think, oh, I walked, I did very well.

This is the best I've ever done.

Okay, that's wonderful. That is the best I've ever done." Okay, that's wonderful.

That's the best you've ever done.

But even if it's the best you've ever done,

what about this year?

What about this year?

Well, sometimes when we look back, we say,

"Man, I can't believe that I messed up that badly."

Right?

Well, I want to give you a little encouragement.

I want to talk to you about a disciple

and how he walked with Jesus and the things that he did

and we're gonna cover some of that today.

Look with me, the Luke chapter 22,

Luke chapter 22, where we're going to begin

in verse 54 through 62.

Now just as a point of reference,

this is the night that Jesus

was arrested. Okay? This is the night that Jesus was arrested and so they have come and

they have arrested Jesus and they're taking him into custody. So follow along with me,

Luke 22, 54 through 62. Having arrested him, they led him away and brought him to the house

of the high priest, but Peter was following at a distance.

After they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together,

Peter was sitting among them.

And a servant girl seeing him as he sat in the firelight and looking intently at him said,

"This man was with him too."

But he denied it, saying, "Woman, I do not know him." A little later, another saw him and

said, "You are one of them too." But Peter said, "Man, I am not." After about an hour had passed,

another man began to insist, saying, "Certainly, this man also was with him for he is a Galilean too." But

Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you were talking about." Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed.

Some translations say he cursed.

Immediately, after all this happened, a rooster crowed.

Why is that significant?

Because Jesus told him that before the rooster crowed,

he will deny me three times.

Peter never believed it.

Peter was a strong believer in God.

He was one of the strongest disciples.

The Lord turned and looked at Peter and Peter remembered the Word of the Lord. How he had told him

before a rooster crows today, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly.

Peter, who was so strong in God, he walked with him so closely, he was one of the strongest disciples,

he denied Jesus three times, and when he realized what he had done, he wept bitterly.

He was one of the strongest disciples, and yet he failed. Why am I talking about that today?

We just finished Christmas, you're already talking about head and towards Easter, Pastor,

don't look at it that way. What I want you to look at is Peter was a disciple who

walked physically with Jesus. He learned at Jesus' feet. He saw the miracles that

happened. He was as close as any person could ever be physically to Jesus and yet he failed. He failed. So understand that we all fail. Even those

who are as close as they can be. What happened when he failed? He went out and

wept. Why? Because he realized he had failed. When we look back over last year and

we look at our walk with God. How was our walk with Him last year?

Probably for the most of us, if we truly examine our walk

with Him at the end of what we find,

we will feel saddened that we were not

able to walk the way that we thought we should have.

That we didn't walk as closely to God as we should have.

That we didn't lead someone to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

That we didn't do the things that we had't lead someone to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, that we didn't

do the things that we had said we need to do.

We didn't read our Bible through.

We didn't have a devotion time, a prayer time.

We didn't go out and talk to people.

We didn't live a life of Jesus in front of others.

Whatever it is, for most of us, when we look back, we probably feel a sadness that we did

not do last year what we thought

we were going to do, what we had planned to do.

Peter was one of the strongest disciples yet he failed.

Well, here's the thing.

I believe that we all fall short of where we want to be.

We all fall short of where we want to be.

In fact, the Scripture says, "All have sinned."

Right?

Every single one of us. Then you come to know Jesus and you never sin again, right?

If only that were true. If only that were true. But we all fall short. We strive.

Even when we strive and try our hardest to do our very best for God,

there are times when we're going to fail. Their times when we just do not succeed in what we're trying to do.

Man, how disappointed Jesus must be. How disappointed He must be in us because we can't seem to succeed.

How is it that we can't succeed? Why is it that we fall so short? Why is it that we strive to do these

things and we say we're going to do these things and we don't do it? Well, let's talk to another

apostle. This was named Paul. Paul going to tell us something in Romans chapter 7, verses 19 and 20.

This is Paul, one of the greatest apostles wrote a large portion of the New Testament. Paul says, "For the good that I want, I do not do.

But I practice the very evil that I do not want.

But if I am doing the very thing, I do not want.

I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells within me."

Now, once you understand, that is not an excuse. That is not, oh the devil

made me do it, that's the problem. What Paul is saying is that, look, the things that I want to do,

I'm not doing the things I don't want to do, I am doing. Why is it that's happening because the

sin that's in me is coming out. I'm allowing this sin to take over in these cases in my life. This sin is strong in my life.

These are the things that's happening.

Paul says the reason we fail is the sin in us.

Not the sin around us.

I want you to understand that.

It's not the sin around us that causes us to fail.

That sin is around us.

It's the sin in us.

Oh wait a minute, preacher, now, if I gave my life to Jesus,

and I repent of all that sin, then I repent of that sin. That's true you did. But you see,

unfortunately, there's still sin in us. We're still flesh. And while we're still flesh, we still

have sin in us. It's the sin from within that causes a problem not to sin from without.

Many of the Jews in the Old Testament went through these rituals of all the washing and

everything they did before they ate because they did not want to defile their body.

Jesus said, "It's not what you put in the body that defiles it.

It's what comes out of it that defiles it.

It's what comes out of the heart."

And you see, the problem that we have, the reason we fail, the reason the sin is in us is we don't daily crucify that sin.

We don't daily try to crucify that sin. We don't daily try to repent of the sin and turn it over to Jesus.

We don't do that daily. We try to walk in our own strength.

We try to walk on our own strengths.

You know, I'm a great Christian.

I'm a good Christian person.

I read my Bible.

I spend time with God.

I do all these things.

So surely, I'm good.

Bible says there's not one good.

Not one.

In us is sin.

And if we're not daily trying to put that sin to death and turn away from it,

it is going to come out.

We are going to fail.

Paul, this great apostle of God, says, I fail. I don't

do the things I want to do and I do the things I don't want to do.

Eater's failures about Georgia's failures. How does he feel about all of that? How does he

feel about all of that? Well, here's the thing. Jesus is God. God already knew from the very beginning that when He gave us free will,

one of the things that was going to happen was sin. And in the very beginning, God created

a way for us to be reconciled from our sin to Jesus, to God through Jesus. To be reconciled

to God through Jesus. He created that way. He gave us that way

from the very beginning knowing that we would fail. So he already knows we're

going to fail. Now he expects us to try very best, but he knows that we're going

to fail. How does Jesus feel about our failures? Well, let's find out how he felt

about Peter's failures. How did he feel about Peter's failures? So we want to look at

John chapter 21. This is after the

resurrection of Jesus. John chapter 21 verses 15 through 17. So when they had finished breakfast,

Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." He said to him, "Ten my lambs."

He said to him again, "A second time Simon, son of John, do you love me?"

He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

He said to him, "Shepard, my sheep."

He said to him a third time, "S Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter

was grieved because he had said to him the third time, do you love me? He said to him, Lord,

pardon me, you know all things. You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, "Ten my sheep." Jesus asked Peter three times

if he loves him. We just read a verse, some verses that showed us that three times Peter

denied Jesus. Peter had denied him three times so God asked him three times. Jesus asked him. Do you love

me? So you denied me, so I'm asking you, do you love me? You denied me a second time, so

I'm still asking you again. And the third time, for each time that you denied me, I want

you to confirm that you love me. And he did. Each time that He did, He gives Peter something to work on.

What do you mean?

Barnaby, he said, "Do you love me?"

Yes, I do.

Ten my lambs.

Ten my lambs.

If you love me, ten my lambs.

Who are the lambs, the followers of Christ?

Ten those.

Take care of them.

Do you love me?

Yes, I do.

Feed them.

Meaning teach them.

Share the Word of God with them. Show them what they're supposed to do. Do you love me? Yes, I do feed them. Meaning teach them. Share the word of God with them. Show them what they're supposed to do.

Do you love me? Yes, I do. Then shepherd my sheep.

Shepherd my sheep. God them. Direct them. Be with them.

In other words, keep striving. God knows we're sinful and that we're going to fall. He knows that. He already knows that we are sinful and that we are going to fall.

He knows that there is no possible way that we're going to survive and that we're going

to be able to do everything that we need to do in life without Him.

We can't do it. And so if he knows that, then he also knows how to help us when we do.

How to help us when we do.

I said, every single one of us fall short.

Every single one of us sin.

The sin comes from inside.

These are things that we need to work on.

These are things that we should strive for in this year.

It's to do better.

Each time that we fall, each time that we fail, each time that we fall short, we need to repent.

We need to repent. Well, I already repented, you know, and God forgave me of all my sin.

He did.

He wants you to own it.

Every time you fall, every time you see on God,

He wants you to repent.

He wants you to recognize that you sinned again.

Repent.

God.

I repent of this, forgive me of this, but understand what repent means.

Understand what repent means.

Repent doesn't just mean I got cocks on, sorry.

A good picture of repent is if I'm walking towards sin to repent means I turn around and

walk the other way towards God.

So I turn away from those things in my life that are causing me to fail.

That sin that's welling up inside of me, that sin that's coming out, I repent of it,

I turn away from it.

If I turn away from something, I have to turn to something.

So if we turn away from something, we have to turn to something.

We turn away from sin, we turn to God.

Why do we turn to God?

Because He's the one, He gives us forgiveness.

He's the one that puts us on the right track.

He's the one that when we look at Him and we follow Him,

we keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

Then He helps us as we walk through these things.

We repent.

We confirm our love.

Well, how do we confirm our love

by repenting and walking towards him, confirming that

I love you and I want to do what it is that you have for me.

I want to live my life according to what your plans are.

I want to show you my love not only through the words that I say but through the things

that I do, through the actions that I have.

Confirm our love, share Jesus with other people. Confirm our love. Spend time reading His Word.

Confirm our love.

Spend time in prayer with Him.

Confirm our love.

Actually evangelize.

Oh my goodness, hey preacher, you didn't say that, did you?

Evangelize.

We're not evangelists.

Yes you are.

If you know Jesus is Lord and Savior,

every one of you are evangelist.

Every one of you have a responsibility to tell others

about Jesus. If you know Him as Lord and Savior, you are an evangelist. You are someone that is to

tell others. That's what we are supposed to do. We tell them when we work with them, we tell them

when we meet them somewhere, we tell them when we go knock on the door, we tell them about Jesus.

And you know the incredible thing is many people are saying I've been

waiting my whole life for somebody to tell me about Jesus. I've heard a little bit about

Him but I've never heard the whole story. Can you explain it to me? Whoa. And believers

are so scared to go tell people about Jesus because they're afraid they're going to ask us a

question we can't answer. They're going to ask us a question we can't answer. They're going to ask us a question we can't answer.

I don't know about you, but in my secular work, sometimes I have to brief and tell people

things.

Had to do that my whole life.

Sometimes in the military, I had to stand up before high ranking officers and give a briefing.

Most of the time these officers knew a lot more about what I was

briefing them on than I even did. Every once in a while there'd be a colonel or a general

officer that would say, "Hey Sergeant, let me ask you a question." A leg starts shaking.

"Oh don't ask me something I don't know." But you know what if they ever did and they

did sometimes. I would say, "Sir, I'm not sure about that.

I know that this, this, and this, but I'm not sure about that.

But you know what?

I will get an answer and get back to you."

Okay.

You know what I did when the briefing was over?

I went and got an answer and got back to them.

Sometimes even if someone asks you about something in Scripture,

they ask you about something that you're just uncertain.

You say, "You know what? I just don't know the right way to explain that to you.

Let me get an answer and get back to you." But do that. Don't just say it. Do it.

Every time we repent, we confirm our love. How do we confirm our love? We serve Him better.

We confirm our love by serving Him and doing the things that He has called us to do.

We confirm our love by walking in a manner that's worthy of Jesus. Yes, we made a mistake. Yes,

we failed. Yes, they're sin that tripped us up. Okay, don't give up. Don't lay on the ground and

give up and say, well, it's over. It's too late. I made a mistake. No, I made a mistake, but you know

what? I'm getting up.

I'm repenting of the mistake that I made.

And I'm gonna walk towards Jesus.

And as I walk towards Him, I'm gonna confirm my love for Him.

And I'm gonna serve Him better today than I did yesterday.

I'm gonna serve Him better right now

than I did 10 minutes ago.

I'm gonna serve Him better.

And that's a everyday action.

That's not a one-time deal. It's a everyday action.

Wise an everyday action because it's a sin that's in us that causes the problems in the first place.

We can't be perfect. We can't be perfect. There was only one perfect. That was Jesus.

He's the only one that was perfect. The only one worthy to down the cross for you and for me.

The only one that had no sin, unblemished, that was able to be the perfect sacrifice.

He's the only one.

Not a single one of us can be perfect.

God never said you have to be perfect to get to heaven.

In fact, He's the only one.

He said, "I know you're not perfect."

That's why Jesus had to die on the cross and provide a way that you could be reconciled

to God.

But He says you should strive to be perfect.

Strive to do it every day.

You say, "That's asking awful lot."

Okay, well, I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but most of you in this congregation

either currently work for someone or have work for someone.

What do they want out of you in your job?

Perfection.

They want you to do your job up to a perfect standard.

Knowing that you will never be perfect, but they want you to do the best you can every single

day to strive to be perfect. Well if it's not too much for your secular boss to ask,

then it's definitely not too much for God to ask.

God who created you in the first place,

who knows what you are capable of,

says strive to be perfect every day.

Yes, you're gonna trip, yes you're gonna fail,

yes you're gonna fall down, yes all of those things are going to trip. Yes, you're going to fail. Yes, you're going to fall down.

Yes, all of those things are going to happen.

But even though those things are going to happen,

it doesn't mean you give up.

It doesn't mean that you don't try your best

to live the life that God wants you to live.

Well, preacher, what does perfection look like?

What does that look like?

I mean, I want to try to be perfect.

I want to try to do the best that I can do.

But what does that look like?

Does that mean I have to equip my job and go full-time, knocking on doors and telling people

about God and trying to figure out a way to live?

Well, what does perfection look like?

It's driving to be perfect.

Looks like this.

Your eyes float or open in the morning.

One of the very first things that you do.

It's thank God for a new day and ask Him to show you what He wants from you this day.

This day.

Not yesterday, not tomorrow, because those ones gone, the other ones

not here, what does he want from you today? Show me how to serve you today.

Reveal to me as I travel through this day, people you want me to talk to, the

things that you want me to do, and then give me the strength and the courage to do

that. As you go through the day, you look for that.

Many of us go through an average day

and we never once look around us at what's happening.

We have our blinders on.

Okay, today I have my to do list.

I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this,

I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this.

And all this stuff that's going on around here,

we're not looking at that.

How many times do we pass by someone who we can tell

is struggling, they're emotionally struggling.

Maybe they're physically struggling.

Maybe something's going on.

How many times do we just pass?

Right on by, I never even look because we have things to do.

But what if God opens our eyes? What if we ask God

to show us? What if when we pass by we see this person who is struggling with something going

on in their life and we're able to stop and talk to them for a moment? Maybe talk to them

about Jesus. Maybe they don't know Jesus and we can pray for them and share who Jesus is,

invite them to come to know Him.

What if we could do that?

What if we pass by someone who is struggling and they clearly are food deprived and they're hungry and they need help

and we can give them a few dollars or buy them a hamburger and tell them about Jesus.

Jesus says that if we love them we're going to do that.

You can't tell somebody about Jesus when they're hungry if we love them, we're going to do that.

You can't tell somebody about Jesus when they're hungry if you don't feed them first.

You can't tell somebody about Jesus when they're struggling if you don't try to help them

or what they're going through because all they know is what's happening right now.

How do I live to be perfect?

Ask God to show me and then open my eyes and look. Look around you.

Look and see what God may reveal to you. There may be someone that you have passed by every

single day that God wants you to talk to. Maybe it's someone in your own family, maybe

it's someone you work with, maybe it's somebody that you passed by in the intersection, whoever it might be, open your eyes.

There's a song by Brandon Heath. It says, "Give me your eyes Lord. Give me your eyes that

I can see what you see. Show me those who are hurt, those who are downtrodden, those who need

help, those with the things that are going through, show me those. How can I go through this every day and never have seen the people around me

on a daily basis because we walk through life like this. We don't walk through life with our eyes open,

looking to see what God sees. There are plenty of opportunities to

to share Jesus. You don't have to show up on a Saturday morning at 9 o'clock and go knock

on the door to be able to share Jesus. Now that's a good way to do it. That's a good

way to do it. But you don't have to do that. You can share Jesus with the person in the

next cubicle over and you get an opportunity to talk with them. You know, we'll spend

all day talking about football and politics and everything else, but what about Jesus?

Things that really matter.

Maybe it's someone in your own life, your own household that you need to share Jesus with,

talk to them about Jesus.

You know what?

Let me tell you what Jesus has done in my life today.

Let me tell you how Jesus saved me.

Let me share Jesus with you.

Let me tell you all about it.

Maybe it's a random stranger at Walmart that God just says,

you needn't go talk to that person.

You need to go talk to him.

Don't be afraid.

If God said go talk to him, he's going to give you what you need to say.

He's going to be with you.

He's going to help you.

We can't be perfect, but we can strive to be.

We can strive to be by giving every day to God and following each day what He has for

us.

Every single day what He has for us.

This is a brand new year.

So use it to strive to do better than last year. Use it to strive to do better.

We make plans to strive to do better with our finances.

We make plans to strive to do better with our health.

We make plans to strive to do better with our relationships.

We make plans to strive to do better in all these different ways.

Why are we not making plans to strive to do better in our walk with God?

That should be our number one priority. You see, we sometimes look at our life like this. There's a circle and we're

the center of that circle. It says George. I'm in the center. And around I have work,

I have family, I have church responsibilities, I have finances that have to be done, I have bills that need to be paid. I've got all these things that need to go on

also need to worship God. It's in there. I need to do these other things. God is out here in amongst all these other things. And so I gotta try to balance all those things

because I'm in the center. When I'm in the center and I'm balancing all those things, you know what happens? His God doesn't get priority.

He just gets thrown into mix every once in a while like everything else.

Just another thing I have to do.

But if we change that and we take that circle and instead of being George in the middle of

that circle, it says God is in the middle of the circle.

That's the priority and then everything else, the family life, the job, the finances,

the other responsibilities all come after God. He's the priority. Then God's

involved in my family life. God's involved in my finances. God's involved in my

job. God's involved in my daily walk. He's involved in everything, instead

of being just one of many things that I'm trying to juggle at the same time. It's a brand

new year. Use it to strive to do better than last year. Put God at the center. He needs

to be the center, not just another thing. But too many times we do that very thing. We

make him just another thing.

Here's the thing, how are you going to do that?

How are you going to put God at the center and make sure that he's a priority and strive

to do better and walk closer to him this year?

If you don't know him.

You see the only way this begins is with Jesus in the first place.

Do you know him?

You can't put Him in the

center of your life if you've never given Him your life. That's how He gets to be the center

of your life is you give Him your life. You give Him your life. You see, people were in church

all the time. Statistics say that in a congregation this size there are people in this congregation

today that do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

You're in church, many of you have been in church your whole life. Did you ever take that

time where you surrendered to Him, where you gave your life to Him and accepted Jesus

as your Savior? Because you see one day we will take our last breath.

There's an old video that came out years ago and it's a video that really makes you think.

This old video has a congregation similar to ours sitting here listening to the preacher.

And all of a sudden out of nowhere, boom, a thunder clap and a lightning

bolt, smoke billows up within inside the congregation, all of a sudden the preacher is gone.

People all around you sitting on your right and left are gone but there are still people

sitting here and they are looking around going

You know what just happened?

All these people are gone.

Where did they go?

And then underneath it says when the rapture happens,

will you be left behind?

They're sitting in a church congregation.

Just because you're attending a church doesn't mean

that you know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Only you know.

I can't look at you and say,

I know you know and you know and you know. I can't look at you and say, I know you know and you know and you know.

I can't say that.

Only God knows.

You can tell me you know, but only God knows.

So the question is, in this brand new year,

are you going to be a pretender?

Or, or are you going to be a sold out,

born again, believer of Jesus Christ?

If you're not, and you don't know him,

then listen to me. You can fool me, you can fool all the people around you, you

can fool everybody except God. And when that time comes, God's not fooled. So the

question is, do you know him today? Do you know Him today?

Have you ever given your life to Christ?

Yes, I want to live a new year better than last year.

Yes, I want to be a better person.

Yes, I want to walk more closely with God.

I want to do all of those things.

Do you know Him?

That's the first question.

(Pause)

And if you can answer that question as if you were talking to Jesus, yes, I know him.

Then hallelujah, then yes, strive to make 2026 the best year ever in serving God.

If you cannot answer that question that way, if your answer is, well, I think I do.

That's not good enough.

Scripture says you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt. If you think you do, then why do you think

you do? Do you think you do? Because at some point when you were nine years old going to vacation

Bible school, you heard the preachers say, "Come down and get saved and you ran down front." And they say

"Congratulations and they don't you." And they sent you out on your way, but you never actually gave your life

to Christ. Are you trusting in that moment back then? Are you trusting in a baptism?

You know what? The preacher baptized me. So of course, I must be saved. The preacher

only knows what you told them. They don't know what's in your heart.

Do you know without a shout-out of a doubt?

The best question I've ever heard asked is this.

If you walked out that door today and were killed by a passing car,

do you absolutely know without a doubt that you will open your eyes in heaven?

And if the answer to that is no, then listen to me.

You need to come talk to me.

You need to give your life to Christ.

If the answer to that is I'm not sure,

then you need to come talk to me.

We need to determine, do you know Jesus?

If the answer to that is yes, then hallelujah,

let's serve Him better in 2026 than we did in 2025.

Transcribed by https://soundwise.ai