As the year 2024 comes to a close, and we brace for 2025, we take a few moments to look back on where God has brought us this past year.What has the year been like for you spiritually for you?What lessons can we learn from the past year to make the new year better for ourselves and our community?How can we better serve God this coming year?

As the year 2024 comes to a close, and we brace for 2025, we take a few moments to look back on where God has brought us this past year.What has the year been like for you spiritually for you?What lessons can we learn from the past year to make the new year better for ourselves and our community?How can we better serve God this coming year?

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FAST Missions

Daniel Vis

Looking Back

Father in heaven, as we come to the end of another year, and we look back just a moment this morning, we know that Your hand has been working.

You have been pouring out Your Holy Spirit here in our congregation, and We are so grateful, so thankful.

I pray this morning, as we just do look back a moment, reflect on what You have done, that You would send the Holy Spirit here in an even greater measure just now, that we would hear Your still small voice speaking to each of us so we can be ready to embrace the new year with our whole hearts.

And I thank You and I pray this in Jesus' name.

So just out of curiosity, do any of you remember my first sermon here in New Albany as a pastor?

Actually, not the very first 1, but my first 1 as a pastor.

Yeah, we don't usually remember sermons like that too much.

That was the title of the very first sermon here.

It was built around Isaiah 43.18 which says, Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

And my point was, in fact, Skip posted something on Facebook.

He actually posted a comment about that sermon.

And the point was, we cannot let our past experiences hold us back from what God wants to do in the future.

We can't look back and say, oh, we've tried that, we've done that, it didn't work.

We cannot let our past hold us back from the future.

And the reason was, because God wants to do anyone remember?

Now, if you haven't figured this out by now, I've probably mentioned it once or twice, but I think we all kind of have a temporal orientation.

Some people live right in the moment, and they're just sort of right there at that very moment.

And if you haven't figured it out yet, I live way in the future.

I live like a couple years ahead at least.

I'm just trying to look ahead and imagine what the future's going to be and as I look ahead, I believe that God is going to do something amazing in this church in the coming days.

But there is a time to live in the present, and there's a time also to reflect back on the past.

And so I want to just take a moment to do that.

My Scripture reading this morning, thank you Lisa for reading it.

The Bible says, only take heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life.

But teach them thy sons and thy sons' sons." When God does something, we should remember what God has done.

We can't afford to let those things that God has done in our lives, we can't afford to let them slip away.

We can't afford to let them fade away or dissipate in our memory.

Now, as I was thinking about this morning or this week, At least 3 things stand out to me about this past year.

First thing that strikes me that God has done, is that He has helped us to grow together as a church.

He has helped us to grow closer to each other and grow closer to God.

Our church has pulled together in a really beautiful and special way.

And I think as We've studied week after week all through this year, both here from the pulpit, different speakers in our small groups.

We've all been sharing, interacting, studying together.

I believe that God has been working in our lives.

God has shown us, number 1, that time is short.

And we've learned that there is a great work that needs to be done by God's people here at the end of time.

And we've learned that God has a plan to finish that work, to get that job done.

And that plan actually, at least again from my perspective, that plan is very simple.

The foundation of God's plan to finish the work revolves around the Word of God.

And in particular, there's 3 things we need to do.

We need to take it in, live it out, pass it on.

We've learned together as a church that God does not just suggest the importance of Bible memorization, but He commands it over and over in multiple places all through the Bible.

Old Testament, New Testament, using many different phrases to remember the Word of God, to lay it up, to keep it, to hold it fast, to write it on the tables, and just phrase after phrase.

I'm talking about explicit commands to memorize Scripture than any other way you can internalize Scripture.

In fact, more than all the other ways combined by a multitude of times.

We need to learn to take in the Word of God.

That's what jump starts our spiritual experience.

Second thing that we've learned, it's not enough just to memorize, but we also need to be able to live out the Word of God.

We need to be doers of the Word and not hearers or even memorizers only, but we need to do what the Word of God says.

We need to move from knowledge down to understanding the principles in the Word of God all the way down to true wisdom, which is the direct personal application of Scripture to our individual lives.

That's what God is looking for, a people that will take the principles and His Word and live them out in our daily experience.

Jesus said, whosoever hear these sayings of mine and do at them I will liken him unto a wise man.

It's not knowing what the Bible says, just that, or even understanding what it means, but it's having the wisdom to actually do what it says, to implement Scripture in our own personal lives and we've talked a lot about what that looks like especially in our small groups talked about the importance of Bible study the importance of personal prayer the importance of daily obedience to Christ the importance of a Christ centered focus and witness the whole disciples will we talked about these things so many times.

But what we've basically, I've been trying to share it anyway, is that Christian life is not just about believing certain things, but it is about the nuts and bolts, daily application of Scripture in our own personal experience.

So we've learned it's important to take it in.

We've learned it's important to live it out.

And we've also talked about how important it is to pass it on.

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Looking Back

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