Our sermon title this morning is The Road Ahead.
We are coming to the end of 2025 and that's often a time when
people reflect and think back how did the year go from where
we were to where we are and where we are anticipating to be.
Maybe at the end of 2026 there are things in our lives we'd
rather forget because they didn't go so well.
Maybe embarrassing things that happened to us or maybe bad
decisions we made that we shouldn't have made or decisions
we regret having not made. The question, the bigger
question this morning I want to ask us is this has last year
prepared us for the road ahead. Someone once said that the rear
view mirror in a car is smaller than the windshield for a
reason. You're not supposed to spend a
whole lot of time looking back into the rear view mirror and
looking back. We're supposed to look ahead and
what's ahead of us. Yes, there are times when we
need to just look back and see what happened in the past.
Just as we when we drive down the road, we sometimes stop at
an en route or stop at a rest area and then we just pull off
and then just to refresh, to reset, to refocus and to look at
the map. And now we have GPS.
Back in the days we had maps and OK, where have we come, how far
have we come, where are we now, where are we going and how will
we get there and so on. We need to do that sometimes in
the calendar of life. We take a rest every seven days,
or at least we're supposed to. I mean 7th day day of rest, as
the Bible says, we take Sunday as our day of rest, but still
the same principle. We stop to rejuvenate, plan
ahead, look at how the past week has been and so on.
And we do have a map and a road map for the book of for our
lives, the the book of life, the book of truth, the Bible.
It tells us what came before. It tells us where we're at now.
It tells us what will come. Yet not of course, the details
in our events in live in our lives.
But generally speaking, it's a road map of life.
And let's just face it, the road map of life is not easy.
It's tough, it's tough terrain. And sometimes it feels like
there is no Rd. We're just going overland now.
There's no direction last night and I went to this event in
Windsor, I forget the name of it again, but there's some
candlelight, something in the church and they have this, all
this, this beautiful music. We don't listen there.
Went early, went shopping and from the place where we were
shopping to this church where this was at, we just went
through some different roads, some different streets.
We normally don't travel. And it felt like either we need
to get a car that's off road or they need to fix the roads.
It was just very bumpy and I wasn't sure, like, will this car
last? Will this car even hold on the
road of life? We often don't get much of A say
where we want to travel. It's just dealt to us and it's
very uncertain. None of us know how the road of
life itself will unfold ahead of us.
We know the end destiny where Jesus is taking us.
But the twists and turns, the mountains and valleys that we
have to have to navigate, we don't know about those.
This last week, as I was preparing for this morning, one
of the stories that went through my mind about the journey of
life that kind of fits this metaphor is the story of the
apostle Peter. He was this guy who was very
confident, sure of himself, overly confident at times.
And one day they are out in the lake.
It's at night, they've, they've left shore and Jesus in the
mountains praying and they're, they're rowing and they're,
they're sailing. What they're all doing, I'm not
sure. But that got stormy and the Sea
of Galilee can get very stormy and it wasn't going so good And
they were afraid. And for veteran fishermen to be
afraid on the water, take some, some tough weather, some
difficult weather. Anyway, they're sailing and and
they're, they're rowing and it's in the night and all of a sudden
they see in whatever light there was, there's this dark, there's
this figure in the distance. There's this distance, there's
this figure. Was it was this figure
illuminated or not? Bible doesn't tell us.
They see there's a ghost that cry in terror.
Not only was the weather bad, now there's a ghost coming.
Difficult, terrifying. Well, then this being talks
back. It's, it's, it's me.
Don't worry. It's I, I Jesus talking the
relief. OK, Jesus here, everything's
good and good. Now everything's good.
Now when Jesus here, OK, now everything's good.
Just the roller coaster, the, the valley of the, of the, the
weather and the the storm and then the ghost.
And then it's Jesus. Oh, now we're up here.
Now we're good. Now we're good.
And Peter, as he often did, says, Lord, if it's you, tell me
to come to you in the water. Jesus come and he steps out of
the boat onto the water and the waves and all that, and he
starts walking on the water and he's really high right now.
He's walking on water, something he's never done before.
And it's so like he, I'm sure he felt good.
He's walking on water toward Jesus.
But then his mind flips. Oh, there's that huge wave
rolling coming toward him. He looks, sees this wave in the
storm, the fear, and then he starts sinking down.
He goes again. Do our lives resemble that some
days on cloud nine, hide, nothing can touch us.
We're good, we're good, and then boom, we're down just like that.
Well, Jesus grabs him by the hand.
What's your problem? Don't you have any faith?
And he gets rebuked. I too get caught up at times
with all that's going wrong in the world, to get depressed and
discouraged and down and then something good happens all all
up again. Now we're all good again.
And is that the way to live? Should we live that way?
I think we should live even keeled.
Jesus did. Now, I'm not judging us for not
always accomplishing this. Don't get me wrong, I do.
We're human, all right, We're human.
But where does God want to take us?
This roller coaster where we're high on cloud 9 in one day and
discouraged and frustrated the next?
No, He doesn't want that for us. God wants us to be even keeled
and balanced. You know that there's a, there's
a huge problem that we as humans have of becoming distracted.
And Peter got distracted and that boat on the water, there's
a law in our country against driving distracted.
You know that, right? When you drive and you do funny
stuff with a car on the road, pieces behind you, he pulls you
over. And if nothing, he's gonna need
a ticket for distracted driving. And it can get pricey.
Now, if you have an accident while you're driving distracted,
that can get really pricey. What would we do if God would
handle penalties for distracted living?
How many decisions don't we make because, oh, I got distracted, I
got carried away. I wasn't thinking.
Somebody once wrote years ago that most accidents happen
because of an empty train of thought.
Next Sunday is January 4th and we're going to begin a new
sermon series in the book of Judges.
I won't talk about that this morning, but just to say, if you
want to read the book of Judges this week, what a distracted
lifestyle those people had from one thing to another to another.
And they were so distracted repeatedly God disciplined them,
punished them, and up and up and down, up and down repeatedly.
Book of Judges is a very much of A roller coaster book, but
that's our culture too. This morning I want don't want
to go into Judges nor even talk more about Peter, but I want to
pick up a story. In the Old Testament, in the
book of first Samuel of the people of Israel.
They did not look at the road ahead and what they were.
They were traveling but not the road they're supposed to be on.
And it took them down a very dark season of life.
They got distracted, turned away from God and brought them a huge
amount of suffering and years of suffering.
They were not walking with God anymore.
They had followed their own thinking, the culture of their
time. The story is found in First
Samuel chapter 4 and Chapter 7. And again, I won't read all
those passages. Don't worry, that's much.
There would be too much reading. I'll pick out some select
passages there. What it begins with in chapter 2
is the decline of the spiritual leadership in First Samuel.
They still had the worship services.
And if you know of the Old Testament maps of Judah, I mean
of Israel and Palestine, there's a place kind of north of
Jerusalem called Shiloh. And in that place, there's this
place they worship God. The tent of meeting is there
and, and it's, they have maybe built some additional facilities
there, but there's the gates there and they, and there's,
there's a worship going on, repeat ongoing worship.
That's the normal routine for the people of Israel.
They go to Shiloh to worship and the leading priest at the time,
his name was Eli. He was the leader.
He was the spiritual leader of the people of Israel.
And he had two sons named Hoffman Phenahas.
They were also priests, but they were living very immoral lives.
It actually tells us in First Samuel that they were actually
sleeping with the women who came to serve at the at the House of
God there. And Eli knew about it.
He just told don't do that, boys.
And that's all he did. He didn't deal with it at all.
God sent a messenger and to warn Eli.
We have that story in first Samuel 22 verse 22 to 36 and
won't read that, but sent a messenger to warn him and he
didn't listen, just kept right on going.
The young boy named Samuel was serving there as well and God
spoke to him and gave him a message of judgment on the House
of Eli. Nothing changed.
They just kept right on doing what they'd always been doing,
that people had walked away from God.
Then in chapter 4 we have a story of the nation of Israel,
how the Philistines attacked or they attacked the Philistines.
I don't know who attacked who, but war happened between Israel
and the Philistines. And then in the course of the
battle, they're losing. Let's read First Samuel chapter
4, verse 2. You have in your devices there
or in your Bibles or your phones says then the Philistines put
themselves in battery against Israel.
So here we have it. It's actually Philistines
against Israel. And when they joined the battle,
Israel was defeated before the Philistines and killed.
They killed about 4000 men of the army in the field.
So the war is not going well. Verse 3.
And when the people had come into the camp, the elders of
Israel said, why has the Lord defeated us today before the
Philistines? And here's where things go badly
wrong. Let us bring the Ark of the
Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us, that when it is the
keyword here, it comes among us. It may save us from the hand of
our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh
that they might bring from there the Ark of the Covenant of the
Lord of Hosts who dwells between the Caribbean.
Very descriptive here. And the two sons of Eli Hoffman
and Phenohas were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God.
Words fail to describe the spiritual arrogance, pride and
blindness and foolishness of these people.
They had an outward appearance of loyalty to God, but it was
just a show. For years already they've been
doing their own thing. They've been charting their own
path. Now they wanted it.
The ark of God. It was a box of, of wood encased
with gold or overlaid with gold with two Angel Caribbean above
there. And it was called the mercy
seat. And the God's presence dwelt
there, had some rods that on the sides of it guys could put on
their shoulders and carry it. And that's how the priest would
carry the ark. And so they decide, you know
what, this battle is going bad. We're going to bring the ark of
God here and we're going to win. That's how they're going to
chart their path forward. They literally believe that if
the ark of God comes here, it will save us.
This, this box was just the box. It was God's representation in
the in the community. True, it was a holy, sacred box,
but this was not done with God's will.
We'll bring the ark of God into battle and then it will help us
win. Is that not like modern times?
I'll go to church more often then life will be good.
I'm going to give more money to the church.
Life will be good. I'm going to stop maybe abusing
my wife or my children or my husband or my my family or I'll
start. I'll stop.
I'll start being honest then. No, that's not where we begin.
We begin with this word called repentance.
We'll get there. The word repentance was not even
on the radar with these people. You see, when God is viewed as a
means to an end, disaster is near.
In the case of people of Israel, not only were they bringing the
ark of God into the battle, the these two immoral perverts,
Hoffman and Phenohas were there carrying it.
How con, how far apart can this get?
We need to learn from these stories.
It's a day in in our country. I will say this from the pulpit,
not because I wanted to to stir something, but there's so much
going on about Bill C9. Should it scare us?
I'm not going to speak for for I for either side here.
I'm just going to say that it's a bad bill in my opinion.
I'll say it from the pulpit. When people are told what they
can and cannot read from the Bible, it's dangerous.
Shouldn't be, but what brought it about?
I'm not saying we shouldn't respond, we should, and many are
and I'm happy that some do respond.
But there's something that needs to happen before we need to 1st
get right with God. Let's live out Jesus's love in
our communities, His truth and honesty and integrity and
confronts and call it out and all those things.
But from what foundation? From what point of reference?
You see, so many people have an outward veneer of Christianity,
but it's not there. It just looks like it, but it's
not real and somehow think that with enough church going, enough
letter writing, enough protesting, then we'll get our
way. No, we have to start somewhere
else. We have to align our hearts
first. It's easy to say we want to walk
with God when in reality we just want His blessings on what we
already decided to do. Reading again First Samuel
chapter 4 and was in five and on we read what happened when the
ark got into the battlefield. They shouted with victory.
Oh, we got we're winning. We're winning now.
We got this battle. We got this under control now.
And the, and the Philistines, they hear the shouting in the
Philistines. They know this what's going on?
OK, they're shouting because they got the ark of their God in
the battle. And they're terrified because
they heard the stories of, of Israel in in the past, what God,
their God did. And they say Philistines fight
because the gods have come into the camp and nobody can stand
against these gods. The Israelites, they, they
fully, completely, totally trust that bringing this ark would
solve their problem. And they, Philistines fought and
they won the war. Israel lost 30,000 men that day.
Hafen Fina has died too. They were killed.
And the ark, the special Ark of God was taken by the
Philistines. They lost the war.
Well, the news went back home to Shiloh, where Eli, the old
priest is sitting beside the road.
He's old and blind. By that time.
He's 98 years old. And he.
How'd the battle go? Well, battle went badly.
We lost Hothman Phenom as your sons are dead and the Ark of God
has been taken. What a disaster.
What a catastrophe. God had said they would.
They would be judged. And Eli hears the news, folds
backwards off his chair, breaks his neck and he dies.
And that was the end of him and his sons huge loss of life.
And now they were subject to the Philistines.
The Ark was gone, they lost the war and new dark age settled on
the land. Eli is a man had lost his way as
a leader. He had not paid attention to the
road ahead. His passiveness had caused much
wickedness to flourish in the nation, and the end result was a
huge loss of life in dark times. But truthfully, this was only
the fruit of what they've been doing for years already.
Now they're harvesting the fruit that seeded its own.
Does this not somehow ring a bell for our times?
In the book of Samuel, in the first while after the war, the
Philistines rejoiced at their victory, but God was not pleased
that they'd taken his ark. And they set it up in the in the
temple of their idol, Dagon. And then God topples that that
idol over. And in the morning they see
their idols been toppled. And well, they realized this ark
has got more power than they thought.
And so they send it to someone else, to some other town and
people get sick and one thing after another goes wrong.
And after a number of months they say, well, it's not good
for us to have the ark of the God of Israel, We'll send it
back. So they take it, team of oxen
and and put a cart behind it, behind the oxen and the ark on
top of the cart and see what they will do in the ox wander
off to the land of Israel and bring the ark back.
Well, the ark gets back and things should have gone better
right now the ark is coming back.
Now the ark is coming back. Things go, go, go good from now
on, right? And the people are surprised the
ark is coming back. So men from the tribe of Levi
are called and they take the ark off the cart.
But then in chapter 6, verse 19, it tells us that God struck the
men of that community down. There was a lot of people that
were there to guess, to see this thing and to to celebrate and
whatnot. It says in verse 1950 thousand
men, 5050 thousand and 70 men were struck down and killed
because of what they looked into the ark.
It's a it's a terrible story. It says in the people of Israel
lamented because so many of their people have been killed.
But now they're at the point where things are starting to
shift a little bit and things are starting to change.
So let's read first Samuel chapter 6, verse 20 to 21.
And the men of Beth Shamash said, who is able to stand
before this holy Lord God? And to whom shall it go up from
us? So they sent messages to the
inhabitants of Kirchiran saying, the Philistines have brought
back the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up with
you. The problem was not that the art
of God was in their community. The problem was that they
disobeyed God. You know, there's, there's
something here. It's almost like people have
this mindset. OK, let's create distance.
Let's create distance instead of repenting and aligning with God.
They well, it's who can stand? Who's stand before this?
Let's let's create distance. No, distance is not the answer.
Repentance is. Is this an age-old problem?
Remember what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden as soon as
they sinned what they want, Let's hide as if that solves a
problem. Let's get away from God.
He's going to be after us. You can't get away from God.
So instead of focusing on connecting with God, how can we
get right with God? Let's create distance.
They understood God's holy. That was good.
But let's not get too close. It's dangerous.
But things were starting to happen and things were starting
to go. They were going to get better.
Verse Chapter 7, verse 1 is where it really gets going.
It says then the men of Kirjath Jiram came and took the ark of
the Lord, brought it into the House of Abinadab on the hill,
and consecrated Eliezer his son to keep the ark of the Lord.
So it was that the ark remained in Kirjath Jiram for a long
time. It was there 20 years and all
the House of Israel lamented after the Lord.
You see people sin may take a second, but the journey back can
take a long time. Usually that's the way it works.
You can get ourselves into a mess, into a pickle we don't
know our way out of and the healing is a long time.
Jump off a building and break your leg takes a few seconds.
Healing that leg months, but time was working for them.
But there's one thing that has to do before revival can come.
There has to be an awareness of sin.
And oftentimes this is a slow journey.
People don't want to, first of all, admit they've done wrong.
Over time, the changes, OK, well, maybe we're not as good as
we thought. Eventually, OK, I wasn't good.
Eventually, OK, you know what? I've sinned, the House of Israel
lamented after the Lord. Sometimes people don't like
their sinful ways, but they don't want to repent either.
There's too much pride, and the road to becoming better is
difficult. Sometimes people live that way
their whole lives. They know what they're doing is
wrong, but don't have the desire or courage to do anything about
it. The people of Israel now had
come to the threshold of change after 20 years.
It's a long time. We don't know how long they
lived moral failure beforehand, but they made some bad decisions
when the war happened. They lost the war made life
difficult. That had not changed them.
Didn't like the situation, but not willing to give up what they
were doing wrong. And as a consequence, we're
living under God's discipline. It says you're the lamented
after the Lord. It's painful.
It has been said that people will not change until the pain
of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of change.
I'll repeat that, people will not change until the pain of
remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of change.
These people should have done the lamenting and repenting
right at the start when the sins took place, not see how long can
they stretch it out and how comfortable and convenient can
we make it. And then maybe it'll work after
all, it always leads to ruin. And Eli, the priest, he should
have done the first thing he did.
Nothing. He just allowed it to continue.
He's long dead now, 20 years ago, and still things are not
where they should be. But then things changed in verse
3 to 6 Chapter 7 says then Samuel spoke to all the House of
Israel, saying, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts,
then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtereths from among
you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve Him only, and
He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.
So they're subject to the Philistines.
So the children of Israel put away the bales and the asteroth
and serve the God, the Lord God only.
And Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will
pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered together at
Mizpah, drew water and poured it out before the Lord.
And they fasted that day and said, there, listen to this, we
have sinned against the Lord. There you go, that's it.
And Samuel judged the children of Israel, Mizpah there.
He was the leader. Finally, finally, after 20
years, they were at a point where they admitted,
acknowledged and owned they had sinned.
And now they're at the point where God could intervene.
Now the connection between God's people was going to be restored.
Notice Samuel says if, if you will return, there's a
condition. It's not going to happen just
because God wants it. It's going to happen because
there's going to be repentance. The conditions for the people
where they would have to turn from the idol worship and return
to the Lord. One would think that they would
have learned the lesson, right? Just think, it had taken 20
years before the people were ready for change.
They had gotten tired of being sick and tired.
They wanted to turn back to God. Up to that point, it was just
head knowledge, but not heart action.
They lamented and they prayed. Now Sam was speaking to the
people and things are finally looking up.
They own their sins. There are many people who never
get to that point where they actually own what they've done
wrong. It's always the other person,
always the other guy who messed up.
And that's why my life was all messed up.
I did wrong because he made me. I did wrong because I couldn't
help it. It's always somebody else or
something else that's the problem.
One of the most difficult phrases to speak in the English
language is I have sinned. That was the thing David said
when he had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
Nathan confronted him. He didn't rationalize, didn't
justify that I have sinned. That's the change point.
As long as we can't say those words with honesty, nothing will
happen. But when repentance does happen,
does it get easier? No, it gets better.
It can get very painful. Sometimes.
It means opening up and confessing and repenting in a
way that we don't like. Repenting is not easy.
It's hard, but it's good. Well, let's continue.
When God's people start to repent, not everybody will be
happy and not everybody's pleasing.
What happened here at Mizpah? They get together at Mizpah.
Sam is going to have this big prayer meeting here.
They're going to pray and have a big prayer meeting.
Philistines here, but all the Israelites are congregating.
Something's going on. Something's happening, and they
don't like it. Well, are they going to
uprising, have an uprising against us?
We control them now have for 20 years and we don't want to lose
that this big get together, this big congregation of Israelites
means one thing. It means an uprising.
They don't want to let that happen while they beat the God
of Israel once and they can maybe do it again.
And it says in verse 8, so the children of Israel cried to Sam,
said to Samuel, do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for
us that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.
Now they're getting it. Now it's working.
They knew salvation comes only through God, not trying to
manipulate him. They remember 20 years ago they
knew what had happened, then brought the ark, that the ark
would save them. That hadn't worked.
Now they're on the right track. They're connecting with God,
with the right hearts, no longer proud and arrogant.
No, no more of this. OK, let's see if the Ark of God,
Ark of God works this time. None of that stuff.
They're begging in prayer, asking Samuel, do not cease to
cry out to the Lord our God for us.
No more double standard living. No more dual allegiances, no
more. We got this idea.
How often don't we want to bargain with God?
God, if you will, then I will. And God's not interested.
God's not into deals. He just wants repentance and
surrender. He wants to show himself
powerful on our behalf, but too often we stand in the way.
What did Samuel do? Verse 9 Samuel took a suckling
lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord.
And then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord
answered him. Now it's unfolding as it should.
Now with their hearts turned to God, connected to God, waiting
on God, the road ahead looked clear.
They knew only God could save them.
Didn't know how the Philistines draw near to battle.
We can just imagine how they may have been thinking, OK, we beat
him last time and they brought their God into the camp and we
still beat him. They were not aware that back
then God was not on the side of Israel and they were living in
unrepentance. But things have changed now it
says in verse 10 and on. Now as Samuel was offering up
the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle
against Israel. Here it goes.
But the Lord Thunder with a loud Thunder upon the Philistines
that day so and so confused them that they were overcome before
Israel. They didn't even have to fight,
but they did. The men of Israel went out of
miss but pursued the Philistines drove them back as far as below
Beth's car. Then Samuel took a stone, set it
up between Mizpah and Shannon, called it Ebenezer, saying thus
far the Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued,
and they did not come again anymore into the territory of
Israel, and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines.
All the days of Samuel must have been a shock for those
Philistines. Whoa, wait a minute, they're
gods, not even present, and they still win US?
Well, actually, they're gods fighting us of the sky from the
Thunder. Samuel was doing the right thing
when he was crying out to the Lord for, for, for the sake of
Israel. While the Philistines were
marching to battle, Israel's busy waiting on God.
And the Philistines learned a lesson.
It's not their gold box that saves them.
It's God who saves them. The Israelites learned a lesson.
The ark of God had not saved them.
That's that's just the box. It's a holy box.
But was God himself who saved them not some material object?
The Philistines probably learned a lesson that day, and Israel
did too. And Samuel puts up a stone
called Ebenezer, meaning thus far the Lord has helped us.
Do we see this? See, there's no self
congratulation by the people just worshipping God for what
He's done. The nation's back on track.
The journey away from God had lasted a long time, but they
were back now. God had promised his people the
land of Canaan as an inheritance.
That was his plan. But they had a responsibility to
to God to to serve God, to worship God, their devotion and
obedience in all things. Instead, they repeatedly got
distracted and turned away into other roads and followed other
paths and separated themselves from God and in the end paid a
high price and God withheld his protection.
He allowed the enemies to overpower them, make them
subject to them. And we're going to go back next,
starting next week, into the book of Judges.
And there's a long list of those stories.
They became disconnected from God.
They lost their way and paid a huge price.
What difference does this make in our world today, in my world,
in your world today, this morning, I usually get up early.
And in my readings, I came across a short piece by a writer
named Max Tocado and a little piece titled it The Road Ahead.
Well, that's my sermon title this morning.
I thought, that's my sermon title, The Road Ahead.
Not that he stole it or I stole it from him.
I just happened to read it this morning.
And I just want to include that here this morning.
And he says, occupy yourself with the nature of God, not your
biceps. And he tells what God did with
Moses. He says, Remember when Moses was
in the desert and God called him?
What's the first thing God said to Moses?
Take off your Take off your sandals because you're standing
on holy ground. Even that thin piece of leather
between his feet and the ground was too much.
God says you stand be me for barefoot nothing.
Take off your sandals because you're standing on holy ground.
Those 11 words Max writes with that Moses was enrolled in a
class on God. The roles were defined God is
holy and even as much as sandals on his feet was too much.
No time was spent God convincing most most what you can do and so
on and and explaining Moses you're well qualified for the
job and you're well equipped for the job and your your resume
looks good and your strength for the none of that.
No pep talk, no Pats on the back.
Just here's my job description for you and I will be with you.
I will do this with you. God revealed himself.
Do we want God to reveal himself to us as we are in the threshold
of another year. If we look at the News Online
and TV and Internet all that that doesn't look good.
I get it, but that's not our focus.
We serve the same God that Moses served, that the Israelites
served, that Jesus worshipped. We have the same God.
Jesus was God in the flesh. We have no idea what 2026 will
bring, how it will unfold, what may happen.
It doesn't matter. That's not our responsibility.
Yes, we have responsibilities, but that's not our focus.
Our focus is to live for God. The road ahead is walking with
God. If we obey God, yes, we'll
suffer. We don't know.
Through some government policies, maybe.
Through some economic stress, maybe.
Through sickness, Maybe people reject us.
Maybe. And even if we do, we still have
the assurance we're in God's will.
We may be like a Peter up and down this roller coaster,
unimaginable. Down, down, up, up and back and
forth. It doesn't matter.
And whatever idols we need to clean out, let's do it.
Let's surrender. Whatever sins we need to repent
of, confess and make right, let's do it.
Whatever commitments we need to make, let's do it.
He will guide us on the road ahead.
He didn't promise a vacation, but He promises a good journey.
He didn't say it would be safe. He says it would be good.
Will be drawn to Him, will experience His peace and joy in
our lives. And yes, the road ahead may be
easy or difficult, but that doesn't matter.
The point is, are we with Jesus? So I will encourage us as we
wrap up 2025. Let's walk with Jesus and it
doesn't matter what we face. He will guide us on the road
ahead. Let us pray, Lord.
We're thankful that we do not have to personally learn each
and every lesson of history by experience.
We have your word that tells us the stories.
We can learn from the stories. We don't have to repeat them.
We know how your people of old walk before us.
Many of them failed miserably. Some walked holy, sacred lives.
Help us, Lord, to walk with you. We have this rich history.
May we learn from it. Help us to be patient, Lord.
Help us to be diligent. We pray, Lord, for forgiveness
where we fail. We pray for strength and
endurance in the race of life. We praise you, Lord, for your
promises that you'll walk with us.
In your name we pray.