The sermon titled 'Exhortations for a New Year' delivered by various speakers, emphasizes four key exhortations for spiritual growth in the upcoming year. The sermon references 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, encouraging listeners to prioritize goals that are beneficial for the soul, with the Word of God taking precedence over other activities. It highlights the importance of advancing the work of the Church of Jesus Christ, suggesting that every effort invested in the church yields eternal returns. The sermon also advises listeners to break detrimental habits and form positive ones, recognizing that habits shape one's character and spiritual life. Additionally, it underscores the importance of shaping a loving and beautiful culture within the church, driven by the teachings of Jesus Christ. The sermon concludes with a reflection on time, urging believers to redeem it wisely for spiritual purposes, as time lost cannot be regained. Mike, one of the speakers, focuses on the reasons behind these exhortations, drawing on Ephesians 5:15-16 to stress the urgency and fleeting nature of time, and the need to live wisely and carefully to glorify God.

Mike and I both have an exhortation for you in 2018. And I'm going to quote a passage of scripture and ask you to open to it. It's a passage of Scripture that I've quoted in the last three sermons in the prologue of John. And I want to bring it up again. In all likelihood, it will be quoted many times as we're going through the Gospel of John.

I really encourage you to memorize it because it it explains really the heart of the exhortation that I have for us tonight. And it's 2 Corinthians chapter three, particularly verses 17 and 18. And I'll just read verse 18. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." And so I want to bring you four exhortations that really are, they really arise out of this passage of Scripture. And the first is choose goals good for your soul.

Choose goals that are good for your soul. You know, most of us are kind of sizing up the next year and putting plans in place and things we wanna change. The Word of God should be the very first thing that you consider to put in your schedule in the coming year. The word of God should take priority over all other reading, all other activities. Put it in first and let the other things fill in.

But don't neglect to put it in first. If you don't put it in first, it usually ends up second, third, fourth, maybe last. So put it in first. It's the best thing you can do. Make it, make it your goals for the Word of God bigger than last year.

Make other things smaller than last year. And as you're doing that, don't be afraid and Don't neglect to choose goals that will stretch you. Don't be lazy. Don't default to, oh, I just don't have enough energy for that. Choose goals that will stretch you.

You know, there have been different times in my life where there have been objectives that have stretched me, and I look back on every one of them, and I'm so thankful that we stretched. On the front end, I thought, there's no way I can do it. It'll kill me and everybody around me. And the truth is, it actually turned out to be a blessing. So don't be afraid to stretch.

We don't live in times of peace. We live in times of war. And it's time to buffet our bodies and to stretch. That's number one, choose goals good for your soul. The word of God should be number one.

The second is choose goals that advance the work of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ is the center of God's plan in the world. Every minute, every dollar, every tier invested, every act of Service is invested profitably. It always gets a good return. Now you might see the return being a long return.

Much of the return in the Church of Jesus Christ is a long return. It is. And you don't often, you don't always see the return until you meet your Savior face to face because these are seeds that are sown for eternity. So secondly, choose goals that advance the work of the Church of Jesus Christ. Make that the center of your life.

Number three, break habits and make habits. Break habits and make habits. And as it turns out, we typically are manifestations of our habits, the routines we've gotten ourselves into. We all have habits that should be broken, and we all have habits that should be formed. And I just want to exhort you to consider what habits you should break.

There are grooves that you get in that just are no help at all. I can list three or four of my own. Then there are new habits. We are manifestations of our habits. You have this principle of sowing seeds and growth.

Continually sowing seeds, reaping and sowing, is a feature of life on earth. And if you sow in good habits, you'll reap fruit, good fruit from it. So consider are there any habits? Maybe they're habits of the way that you conduct your day. Maybe they're habits in the things that you look at and the things that you listen to.

Maybe there are habits in the way that you relate with people. You know, we all have these knee-jerk reactions in our relationships, don't we? Are there just some habits that actually aren't profitable, maybe explicitly sinful, in the way that we function? Make habits and break habits. So, question, what habits should you break and what habits should you make?

Just like you to prayerfully consider that. You know, my friend Jason Dome received a gift from his daughter. It was a coffee cup. And on it was a quotation that I've heard Jason quote before. And it was from, of course, you would know who the quote was from, J.C.

Ryle, of course. And on the coffee cup, the quotation from J.C. Ryle is, the best way to do a thing is to do it. The best way to do a thing is to do it. The best way to do a thing is to do it.

So just do it, you know? Break that habit, make that habit. The best way to do it is to do it. And that's a coffee cup that we all ought to drink out of. Number four, shape a beautiful culture in this church.

Shape a beautiful culture in this church. The greatest treasure in a church is love. Every strand of the Word of God leads back to one four-letter word, love. Every one of them. And this is what binds a church together.

It's what makes a church is its culture and cultures are formed by really particular things. Its priorities, its assumptions, its gatherings, its traditions. Church families are shaped by really important things. It's shaped by the way they think and the things that they do and the way that they relate with one another. That's what shapes culture.

But the greatest shaper of culture is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You know, we're very fortunate, I think, to be in the Gospel of John right now. We have before us every week the most powerful, the sweetest, the most effective, the most wonderful culture shaper we can set our eyes on, Jesus. And let's don't miss the opportunity to let him shape the culture of this church. Cultures are shaped by the one and others that are in the Bible.

There are many of them. For example, Mark 950, be at peace with one another. John 1314 washing at one another's feet John 1334 a love one another John 1334 be love one another John 1335 love one another John 1512 love one another John John 13, verse 5, love one another. John 3 23 love one another first John 4 7 love one another first John 4 11 love one another first John 4 12 love one another second John verse 5 love one another You kind of get the idea of the heart of God for His Church. Romans 12.

10 says, be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Romans 12. 10 also says, honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12 16 live in harmony with one another. Romans 14 13 stop passing judgment on one another.

Romans 15 7 accept one another as Christ has accepted you. Romans 15.14 instruct one another. Romans 16.16 greet one another with a holy kiss. Galatians 5.26 do not become conceited, provoking, and envying each other. Galatians 6.2 bear one another's burdens.

Ephesians 4.2 be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4.32, be kind and compassionate to one another. Ephesians 4.32, the end of the verse, forgiving each other. Ephesians 5.19, speak to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Ephesians 521, submit to one another out of the fear of Christ.

Philippians 2-3, in humility consider others better than yourselves. So the cultures of churches are shaped by the ways that our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded us to function in terms of the one and others. You know, think of the marvelous culture God wants to build in his church. Think about what kind of culture gets built by people who are pursuing the one another's. It would have to be the most wonderful culture you can imagine.

If we all set our hearts to building that kind of culture, there's nothing better than that. There's no organization, There's no institution that has better marching orders for the creation of a more beautiful culture than the Church of Jesus Christ. They just don't exist. You can look at the cultures that are shaped in corporate America. There's nothing like the culture-shaping factors of the one and others in the Bible for the church.

It creates a beautiful culture. So four exhortations. Choose goals good for your soul. Number two, choose goals that advance the work of the Church of Jesus Christ. Number three, break habits and make habits.

And number four, shape a beautiful culture in this church. So, Mike? Well, We didn't talk at all about what we were going to be sharing tonight. But it just struck me as Scott was speaking that he was dealing a lot with the what's, what we ought to be doing in the coming year. My focus is on the why, why we should be doing even these very four things, why we should be doing it.

And the text that I want to kind of focus on is Ephesians 5, 15 and 16. It says, see then that you walk circumspectly or carefully, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. Don't walk as fools but as wise. If you think back to Psalm 90, in Psalm 90 the man Moses prayed, oh Lord teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

There's wisdom associated with numbering our days and living out those days knowing that they're numbered. And here the Apostle Paul is dealing with the very same thing. See that you walk carefully not as fools, but as wise. And what do those who are wise do? They redeem the time.

So there is a connection between our foolishness and wisdom and our use of time. The Bible is clear whether in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. So redeeming the time. What is involved with redeeming the time? Well, I was reading and Mr.

John Flavel who has to be one of my favorite Puritans and he actually dealt with this passage here in Ephesians. And he says that there are two uses of the word, two forms of the word in the Greek. And one just specifically means time, just time as we know it. But a second is like an occasion or a season or an opportunity. And he says that's what he's really driving that here.

The Apostle Paul is really driving at that. And so he says that this time is the fitness of some parts of time above others for the successful and prosperous management and accomplishment of our main and great business here. So he says it's those seasons that we seize upon for the main reason that we're here. And the main reason he says is some of these very things that Scott has just shared with us. He says, which is to secure our interest in Christ and glorify God in a course of fruitful obedience.

For these great and weighty purposes, our time is graciously lengthened out, and many fit opportunities presented us in the revolutions thereof. So God provides us seasons for these very things for securing our interest in Christ and obeying him in what we do. And then he goes on to say, by the redemption of this time we must understand the study, care, and diligence of Christians at the rate of all possible pains at the expense of all earthly pleasures, ease, and gratifications of the flesh to rescue their precious seasons, both of salvation and service, out of the hands of temptations which so commonly rob unwary souls of them." And so it's to buy back. It's to buy back this time. And he gives a couple of really great illustrations, really.

He talked about, and maybe you children, if you studied history and the discovery of some of these lands like America and others, a lot of times the sailors would go into these new countries and the natives of those countries, they would have mined all kinds of things, gold, silver, precious things. And what were these men able to do? They were able to hold out glass beads, little shiny trinkets, and those the Indians, those people who dwelt in that land were willing to give up gold and silver for glass beads, trinkets, glass made by sand. But that's us a lot of times. The world, the things around us hold out these glass beads, and we're willing to give up the precious things that Christ offers us for these trinkets that have no value at all.

He also talks about sailors and oftentimes if you if you've studied anything in sailing they would have to wait for the wind and they would anchor and they would wait and then they would feel the winds blowing and it's time to get the sails up. And they were able to, even if the wind wasn't blowing in that direction, they were still able to maneuver all the beams on those masts to turn so to take that wind. And what are we doing with the winds of the Holy Spirit? Are we picking up on the Spirit moving in our hearts to stir us onto these things? So then I just want to close by giving you seven contemplations about time that Mr.

Flavel gives. He says, first, great is the worth and excellency of time. All the treasures of the world cannot protract, stop, or call back one minute of time. The worth and the excellence of time is such that you can't pay anything. The world has nothing to offer to get those minutes back.

When they're gone, they are gone forever. You lose money, you can make money back. You can actually make more than you had that you lost. The same thing is true of so many things. I mean, think of Job.

He lost everything, and God gave him back double what he had, right? Not with time. When time's gone, it's gone. Second, more precious are the seasons and opportunities that are in time for our souls. Those are the golden spots of time, like the pearl in the oyster shell of much more value than the shell that contains it.

He's saying it's not just the preciousness of time, it's what we can do with that time. Time is, as it were, just the oyster shell. But what's in that time? Scott was talking about being in the Word of God, being before the face of God. That's the oyster, that the pearl that's in the shell, it's just that pearl inside, the beauty of spending time with God.

Third, invaluable are the things which God doth for men's souls in time. Invaluable are the things which God does in that span of time. These are works wrought upon men's hearts in a seasonable hour in their life, which have an influence into the soul's happiness throughout eternity. So the impact of these spiritual things in time, they have dividends and they pay for an eternity, a soul's happiness for all eternity. Such are the things of time.

Fourth, lost opportunity is never to be recovered by the soul anymore. To come before the opportunity is to come before the bird is hatched And to come after it is to come when the bird has flown. It's too late then. The bird has flown. It's left.

There is no calling back time when it is once passed. Remember young people, the words of Solomon, remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the days come when you say, my soul has no pleasure in them. And this is why, because lost opportunity is never recovered by the soul anymore. Fifthly, it is wholly uncertain to every soul whether the present day may not determine his lease in this tabernacle. God might say as he did to that rich fool, you fool, tonight your soul will be required of you.

And then all of these things that you've gathered, and boy, there's a bunch, all of these things, who are they going to belong to? Who are they going to belong to? We don't know what a day holds forth. We don't know. And just, I mean we're exactly four hours away from 2018.

2018 may not come. It may not come for all of us, but it also is possible that some on the way home will never see 2018. We don't know. We don't know. Sixth, as soon as ever time shall end, eternity takes place.

The stream of time delivers souls daily into the boundless ocean of vast eternity. Time as we know it is coming to an end. And then it's all of eternity and souls will be fixed for all eternity and therefore his next point is in eternity all things are fixed and unalterable. Children do you know what unalterable means? It means it can't change.

It can't change. Remember the rich man who looked up and saw Lazarus in Abraham's bosom? There was a great chasm and it was unalterable. That rich man was in torments in hell that day and he is today. It's unalterable.

It's unchanging. And he says, as the tree falls, so it lies. As the tree falls, so it lies. As the tree falls, so it lies. And so I want to ask you, imagine yourself as the lumberjack.

You're standing right now today with an axe in your hand. You're swinging that axe on that tree. Every day is another blow in that tree. Where you chop a tree determines where it will fall. If you look today at where your marks are from your daily routines, you're setting that tree to fall in a certain direction.

Once you get so far with cutting that tree, it's too late. The tree may still be standing. It's too late. That tree will fall only in one direction. And where it falls, it lies for all of eternity.

What are you doing each and every day? What are you doing each and every day and what determination does that have on where that tree will fall for all eternity. And so you've heard the what and the why. And may God give us time to not walk as fools but to walk carefully, carefully because being wise in our walk takes it takes carefulness but may we redeem the time and may God be glorified in it. Amen.