What I Know About 2019

Wouldn’t you like to go into 2019 with more joy and hope than you have had in 2018?

Did you realize that we are on the cusp of a brand new year?

Although the new year starts on a Tuesday, sandwiched in the middle of a week, it still triggers something in us that says something new is around the bend.

Wouldn’t you like to go into 2019 with more joy and hope than you have had in 2018?

As I see it, there are probably basically three different categories of reactions when it comes to New Years:

Some of you are excited about 2019, because this is finally the year. Maybe this will be the year you finally graduate or finally get married or start a family. Maybe you have a investment that is about to finally pay off, or something else has you excited about the coming year. Maybe last year was so hard that you imagine that next year has to be better.

Some of you don’t care. For you, every day is about the same, so it doesn’t really matter. Tuesday is another day, and the calendar is marching onward.

For others, you are scared to death. You may know of something coming down the pipe that is going to hurt you or your family. You may just have that sense that you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things have been going too well for too long, so you know something is up.

Wouldn’t you like to go into 2019 with more joy and hope than you have had in 2018?

My prayer for you is that, whichever camp you find yourself in, that this morning’s message will give you an ironclad promise to give you hope and confidence in 2019.

I will be honest: I don’t know how your portfolio will do. I don’t know what will happen with your marriage, your health, your job, or with school.

However, I know this beyond a shadow of any doubt: If you are a child of God today, then God has promised to protect you every second of 2019.

Let’s look at one of the passages where we learn that.

Open up to this morning, where we want to make 3 powerful observations to back that up this morning.

These may be familiar verses to some of you, but let them soak in again today and grab onto the truth in them.

When you see God as he is, you can run into 2019 with anticipation, excitement, and joy, knowing that whatever comes, God is walking through it with you.

Read this passage with me...

I want to make some simple observations that give me hope in the coming year, and I pray they will you as well.

First, we see this:

Because God created everything, nothing can overpower him.

1) Because God created everything, nothing can overpower him.

The first two verses of this psalm may be the most well known out of the whole thing.

This psalm is one that the people of Israel would sing when they were headed to Jerusalem for one of the national feasts.

Jerusalem was up higher than the country that surrounded it, so as they approached it, they looked up to the mountains.

They knew help was there because that’s where God’s temple was.

His presence was in the temple, so they knew he could be found there.

There was more than that, though.

What title does the psalm writer give God? “The Maker of heaven and earth.”

The Bible teaches that God made everything, simply speaking it into existence.

Throughout the Scriptures, you see that God is the creator and sustainer of everything that exists outside of himself.

How does that help in 2019? Because that means God is bigger than everything that could ever come up!

Now, many of you have been in church a long time, so that may not sound like a big deal for you, but stop and think about it: Do you really believe that God is the creator and sustainer of the world?

Do you really believe that he is bigger and more powerful than anything in heaven and earth?

If he is, then what in the world do you have to be afraid of in 2019?

If you can believe it, I got picked on a lot in high school. When I graduated, I weighed 135 lbs. at most. I was a straight A student who didn’t do anything athletic, didn’t hunt, and wasn’t into drugs, so I got picked on a good bit by various people.

Sometimes, I would tell my friends about what people had said or done, and there was one friend in particular who would always say, “Want me to beat them up for you?”

I almost took him up on it because he was bigger than most of the other guys at school.

He played football, and he was ready to stand up and fight for me.

It put me at ease knowing I had Matt in my corner if things got tough. I knew he was big enough to handle it if people messed with me.

As great as it was to have Matt in my corner, the reality is that you and I have someone even greater: the Maker of heaven and earth.

If you have turned from your sinned and turned to following him as the Lord and leader of your life, then you are a part of his family, in his love, and nothing can take you out of that.

Here’s how Paul said it in :

Romans 8:37–39 CSB

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There will be deaths and births, spiritual warfare, things we don’t expect, things we are dealing with now, and any matter of created things that will happen in 2019.

Yet not a single one of them can separate you from the God who created the sun and moon and stars and you and everything in else.

Are you excited about 2019 yet?

Maybe not, so let’s keep going.

Not only is God the maker of heaven and earth, but we also see:

2) Because God doesn’t doze off, nothing catches him off guard.

Look at verses 3-4.

This is one of the most comforting verses in all of the Bible to me.

Have you ever fallen asleep at the wheel?

I remember one time, I had been hiking with a friend. We were dehydrated and shouldn’t have been driving, but we were. The heat was on because we were cold, and it was raining.

My friend was asleep in the seat next to me, and I was trying to stay awake and drive.

I remember hearing the patter of the rain and the swish of the wipers, when suddenly, I heard it start back up again.

For just a split second, I had fallen asleep at the wheel.

In his grace, God woke me up before anything happened, and we made it home safely.

It is scary when you are sleepy like that, because you are a danger to yourself and others!

Lots can happen while you are dozing off, and things can go wrong in a hurry.

Listen to me: God never nods off at the wheel.

Isn’t it cool how this is phrased? God doesn’t slumber or sleep.

He doesn’t take a quick cat nap and let the world spin on unchecked.

He is always awake and always alert.

How does that help me in 2019? Because that means God is never caught off guard!

I have heard other preachers say it this way, “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurred to God?”

That means he sees and he knows everything that is happening.

Matthew 10:29–31 CSB

Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

God sees every single hair that falls out of your head!

What better person to have as your protector in 2019 than someone who never gets sleepy and who is completely aware of everything happening?

Here’s the thing, though: these two don’t necessarily mean that God is going to take care of you, right?

I mean, I know that it says he is the protector, but just because someone is powerful and alert doesn’t mean they are good.

That’s why it all pulls together with the last four verses, where we see that...

3) Because God is compassionate, nothing can harm you permanently.

Read verses 5-8 with me.

Isn’t it cool to see the personal nature of this? Yes, God is the protector of his people generally like we see in verse 4, but the Maker of heaven and earth, the Protector of Israel, is protecting you!

These demonstrate the incredible compassion of our God.

That the maker of heaven and earth would protect us is unbelievable!

In those days, the right side of the body was the one that did all the work. You fought with your right hand, worked with your right, etc., so God brings relief even to the part of you that is working the hardest!

You don’t have to fear what will happen to you during the day when the sun is up, nor do you have to be afraid of what will happen during the darkness of the night. God is protecting you in all of it!

Let’s slow down and put things in their proper perspective as we get to verse 7.

Read it again.

Does that mean that nothing bad will ever happen to a Christian? That life will be all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows?

Some teach that, but it isn’t true!

For us to understand fully what is meant here, we need to take a step back and think about what we know of human history.

When God made heaven and earth, everything willingly followed his commands. However, Satan rebelled, and we rebelled as well, which brought sin into the world and created a kingdom that rejected God as king.

As we have been talking about, God sent Jesus to establish his kingdom on earth, pushing back the effects of the curse.

He did that as he showed God’s power through his miracles, laid out the expectations of what it meant to be in his kingdom, and then secured the way for us to enter it through his death, burial and resurrection.

Now, we are waiting for the day when he is going to come back and finish what he has started.

Those of us who are his, who have put him in charge of our lives, are living as citizens of that kingdom now.

When we look at the promise that God will protect us from harm, it has to be in that light: There is nothing that can happen to us that will take us out of God’s Kingdom.

There is nothing that can happen to us that will take us out of God’s

There are things that will happen that will cause us pain, but as we saw earlier from Romans, nothing can take us out of the kingdom of God.

He is going to protect you, not letting you slip out of his grasp, both now and forever.

Jesus talked about that in :

John 10:28–29 CSB

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

No matter what happens, no matter how hard it gets, you have a good, loving, compassionate king who is watching over everything.

He is going to work every piece of it out for his kingdom and for your benefit.

You know how I know that?

Because he has already protected me from the biggest danger I faced.

You see, the Bible says I was lost in my sin and faced the prospect of eternity separated from God and cast out of his kingdom.

Yet, because of his compassionate mercy, in his love, he sent his own Son to die my death and give me his life, drawing me into his kingdom and protecting me from the death my soul deserved.

If God do that, then can’t I trust him with 2019?

Can’t I run into it with joy and anticipation, seeking for honor him, running to him for protection every moment?

It may not always be fun, but it will always be worth it.

How are you feeling about 2019?

I am confident, because I know that my God, the maker of heaven and earth, the protector of his people, will watch over and protect me every second of 2019.

I hope you know the same.