New Faith in 2026
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Intro
Happy New Year. We are so glad that you are here. We are streaming this on social media and it will be on our Website this week.
We want this year to be a year of New Beginnings. It’s a time for a reset. And the best way to do that is through the …
21 Days of Prayer and Fasting January 5th -25th
21 Days of Prayer and Fasting January 5th -25th
When PK and I began this church, we wanted it to be built on prayer. And for the most part we have been… sort of. I feel like we have drifted from that some what. So I am thankful for the new Year and this 21 Days to reset back towards prayer.
I will be putting a short video out via email to you each day during the Fast that I hope it will encourage you.
We are also fasting. Most people don’t know much about fasting, and see it as a way to shed off some pounds we have put on during the holidays. And it will do that, but Fasting is not a diet.
Someone said that a diet will make you look better but fasting will make you see better.
Boudreaux Joke.
Texted his doctor. Doc, I need to lose some weight. I ate way too much over the holidays. So his doctor text him back. “Don’t eat anything fatty.” So Boudreaux texted him back and said, you mean like hamburger and fries… . The doctor texted back, No Fatty, don’t eat anything.
Let’s look at the importance of fasting…
14 At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.” 17 Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.
Jesus had sent them out to minister and everything they did worked except this.
The disciples couldn’t heal the boy and he gave these two words… faithless and corrupt.
Faithless: Not connected to God
Faithless: Not connected to God
You can be a Christian and not connected to God the way you should be. Maybe your prayer life is not in order. When this happens, your faith grows weaker.
It’s also,
Corrupt: too connected to the world
Corrupt: too connected to the world
It means that you have allowed the world to seep into your life… you have allowed corruption into your lives.
We have all done this. We all have looked at things we shouldn’t look at, said things we should not say, thought about things we should not think about. We have allowed corruption into our lives.
This is why you may be successful in some ares of your spiritual life but unsuccessful in others.
Finish the story
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”21 But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.
Jesus gives us the prescription on how to correct what the disciples missed.
Prayer connects us to God.
Prayer connects us to God.
You have more opportunity during these 21 Days than you do during the rest of the year. We can’t keep up that intensity all year, but for the next 21 days you can.
I will be praying more during these 21 Days than usual which means my faith will be higher than it is right now because I will be connected better to God.
Fasting disconnects us from the world.
Fasting disconnects us from the world.
Fasting is not a penance where we suffer for God to show him how much we love him. There are no scriptures in the Bible that say that.
God doesn’t want you to suffer. He wants you to be healthy and whole. You don’t owe God penance to show God how holy you are.
We are trying to look at what’s in my life that connects me to the world right now so I can get it out of my life. We do this primarily with food. Adam and Eve lost dominion and connection to God by what they ate in that garden.
Most of the time we just want to push the plate away.
Complete Fast
Complete Fast
You only drink water. Don’t do this without medical supervision.
Selective Fast
Selective Fast
Daniel Fast is an example - no meats, sweets and bread.
Pick certain foods that you will not eat during this 21 Days. no sugar…
Partial Fast
Partial Fast
Maybe you skip one or two meals…
Soul Fast
Soul Fast
Your issue isn’t food, it’s other stuff that you are allowing into your mind and emotions. phone, digital, news, social media… maybe you won’t watch anything secular on TV for 21 Days… except football of course.
If you will do this… spend more time in prayer and less time connected to the world, I believe that God will do some good things in our lives this year. I am believing that He will show us things during this 21 Days that will be life impacting.
The Year of New Beginnings
The Year of New Beginnings
This should be the theme of our lives every year. God likes everything brand new. Here are a few scriptures where God is the God of brand new.
18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
He is ready to do a new thing.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
When you get saved, God has no intention of reforming the old you… just making you look and sound better. NO! He wants to get rid of the old and you are a brand new person.
Reconcile - bring balance to zero. Quicken will have balloons pop up to celebrate. God wants to have a party and does have a party whenever one person gives their life to God… they become a brand new person.
Even at the end of the Bible…
5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”
God makes it new. When he forgives you, it’s gone. He makes it disappear. The all knowing God chooses to forget your sins that you have confessed and that He has forgiven you for. They are gone. When you come to him over and over again with the same sin… he goes… huh?
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Can we thank God for that right now? He doesn’t treat us as we deserve.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
God makes the choice to forget your sins.
12 They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
That ought to make us all love God and understand that God loves us like crazy.
Here is a concept I want us to look at. It’s called the year of Jubilee.
10 Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan.
What is the year of Jubilee? It’s …
A divine reset is where everyone could start over without the burdens of the past.
A divine reset is where everyone could start over without the burdens of the past.
Debts Cancelled
Debts Cancelled
Everyone’s debts are canceled. Not only are all your debts cancelled, but you have to cancel everyone’s debts that are owed to you.
A lot of us want things from God but we are not willing to extend that to others. When you do that, you are blocking the grace of God in your own life.
What would it look like if you stepped in with a clean slate, but also decide that all the debts you are holding against others… you will forgive. You may say, that’s not fair because they hurt me so bad… they owe me so much … Listen you will be the beneficiary of that much more than them.
Freedom from bondage
Freedom from bondage
So if anyone was a slave or in prison, they let them go.
Some of us here today have been in bondage to things for a while. It’s become a part of your life… it’s attached itself to you. It’s become family… that habit… that addiction… that thing… Listen. It’s time to break free.
Restoration of what was lost
Restoration of what was lost
Basically, land and property were returned to the original owner.
Provision from the Lord
Provision from the Lord
They couldn’t farm during the year of Jubilee. So they had to receive their provision from the Lord supernaturally.
When Jesus shows up.
16 When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. 17 The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, 19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
I was raised in a household where it was NEVER discussed if we were going to church. We were going… not matter what the weather… no matter what was on TV… no matter what sports opportunities we had.
There is a growing trend in America where people are not going to church like they used too. Many go online or don’t go. They know they can go whenever they want too online. People are going to church about 1.7 times a month. I don’t know what the .7 blooks like…
Jesus was going to church. I wonder what it would look like today, if we just decided, we were going to church. We were bringing our kids no matter what. Used to, we went sick. We don’t want you to do that today.
I would love to see a move in America to make going to church their usual custom.
Jesus was saying that He was the year of Jubilee. He will do this anytime you go to him. We use the power of the New Year to jump start this.
Jesus is the year of Jubilee. What would that look like?
Putting it into practice
1. Repent and go all in with God.
1. Repent and go all in with God.
Repent is not the bullhorn guy in the street during Mardi Gras. It means to change direction… to turn around and go this way.
Someone listening to me needs this…. you are going in the wrong direction… hanging out with the wrong crowd… doing the wrong things… looking at the wrong things. Turn around and go all in with God.
How may of us can say, we have done that? Some don’t even know what your life would look like if you did go all in. If you do this, you will love the life you have in God.
19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
When you get into the center of where God wants you to be, it’s refreshing. I want those times of refreshing from God. When this happens, hope will flood your life.
When we get desperate for God, He will show up. Go after God. Look at this…
The effort I put in determines the outcome I get out.
The effort I put in determines the outcome I get out.
You may disappointed with your life or your spiritual life, but it’s not God’s fault. You need to put more effort into it.
Try it for a year and see what happens.
2. Move on from old history, hurts and habits.
2. Move on from old history, hurts and habits.
You cannot go into the new hanging onto the old.
We all have markers in our lives and some of you have markers in the wrong places… History… hurts and habits. At some point, the past has to be the past. At what point do we say I need to move forward. Some of us keep taking the habits with us from year to year. We are trying harder, but we still have the same issues. And our flesh controls our lives.
That’s a reason the fast is so great. We are saying no to that food, that site, that movie, that whatever… Your body will scream at you. You may feel like doing harm to someone as you come off of sugar. But we are saying NO. …
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
yoke - that thing that’s weighing you down. Why not this fast? this year? Why not loose yourself from those things that are holding you back.
I can’t start the next chapter of my life if I keep re-reading the last one.
I can’t start the next chapter of my life if I keep re-reading the last one.
We have to let go of the last chapter.
When your slate is clean, its not clean, it wasn’t so that your slate was empty and clean. He cleans the slate because the wrong things are written on the slate. We have to write the right thing on our slates. What is the right thing? To find your God given purpose.
Your slate was
3. Commit to finding and fulfilling my God-given purpose.
3. Commit to finding and fulfilling my God-given purpose.
The reason your life a a slate full of stuff is because it’s full of the wrong stuff. When He cleans it, He wants to write something new on it.
God wants to tell you… not me… God….
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
God wants to put some right things on your slate. Why?
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
He created us to do good things… what are some…
Baptized… change your plans… Maybe you want to study at Bridges or Global.
Why? I want to take you on a journey so that you can really
Know God
Know God
So that you can really
Find Freedom
Find Freedom
So that you can really
Discover Purpose
Discover Purpose
So that you can…
Make a Difference
Make a Difference
Ill of honking beep beep… sitting at a light and someone in front is texting or something and you miss the light. I may go beep beep.. but I want to go BEEP. Here is what if would sound like if I were laying on the horn.
Are you going to pay for your own sins? That is redicilous. God wants to know you and he paid a high price for you and you are worried about… water… time … one more year.
Get free from that.
Let’s change the world together, but listen to me… the light is green.
Prayer -
Salvation Prayer
Fill out your connection card and let me know if you prayed that prayer. Also, let us know what you are praying for in the Prayer and Fasting time and what kind of a Fast you are on.
