New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions

Thank you Jason.

Good morning, Morningside Baptist Church. What an honor it is to stand before you this morning on New Year’s Eve.

What a powerful testimony by my friend and brother in Christ, Jason Melton. Jason and I have been through more than I care to mention during our BC days. God has seen fit to reunite us as we look to do a new thing in our community.

4 years ago Jason and I had a dream to bring a Celebrate Recovery to Cordele. Our hope was to bring a recovery ministry to Cordele that would be centered around Jesus Christ. We never imagined that it would become what it is now. I may be a bit parcel, but I am fully convinced that recovery ministry is one of the greatest evangelical tools in which God is choosing to draw the lost to Him.

By the way Morningside Baptist, you play a key role in this ministry. Jason and his family have been blessed because of God working through this church.

Is it not beautiful how all the different body parts work together to accomplish God’s will!

We are all a part of One Body!

The Body of Christ!

Changing gears.

The message that God has given me this morning is titled, “New Year’s Resolutions.”

What a roller coaster 2023 has been for the Johnson family.

There have been highs and there have been lows.

Isn’t it wonderful that God is greater than our highs and our lows?

As we get ready to enter into a new year, what can we do differently?

What do we keep the same?

If you have your Bibles, would you turn to the book of Isaiah, chapter 43.

As you are turning in your Bibles, I want you to think about what New Year’s resolutions you plan to make.

Some of us do this every year.

We might say:

“Hey, I’m going to get a gym membership and I’m going to go to the gym 4 times a week.”

Two weeks later, your going twice a week.

Once a week.

Once a month.

Maybe we have some runners in God’s house this morning.

I’m gonna run a marathon.

Or maybe a 15k.

A few miles.

I’ll just walk around the block.

This is exhausting, I just want to take a nap.

These promises we make ourselves are nothing without discipline.

The same was true when Isaiah prophesied to a divided kingdom.

MacArthur writes, “He condemned the empty ritualism of his day and the idolatry into which so many of the people had fallen.”

God saves His people.

He instructs them through Moses on how to live.

His people lack discipline and rebel.

Isaiah 43:18–19 NKJV

18 “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.

1. GOAL

2. PLAN

3. ACTION