Pastor Rick Lentz's New Year's Eve sermon focuses on the themes of God's faithfulness, personal spiritual discipline, and the process of living a Christian life. He reflects on the past year, encouraging gratitude for God's intervention and faithfulness, even amidst human unfaithfulness. Pastor Lentz draws parallels between New Year's resolutions and spiritual commitments, emphasizing that discipline is key to both. He intertwines various biblical references, including Colossians 2:6 and John 3:16, to highlight the importance of receiving Christ and living a life that reflects this relationship. The sermon underscores the idea of 'walking in Christ,' meaning to live a life rooted in faith, actively displaying the teachings of Jesus through good works. He reminds the congregation that while good works do not save, they are the evidence of a transformed heart and a relationship with God. Pastor Lentz encourages believers to persevere in their faith journey, to live a life pleasing to God, and invites those who have not yet begun their journey to consider doing so as the new year begins.

Now we get to see if the school can work. As we pull out this year and think about God's faithfulness, perhaps sometimes our unfaithfulness, Perhaps sometimes our unfaithfulness, but his intervention that hurts the lives. We do need to stop and thank him and praise Him for even in our unworthiness, He has shown himself to be worthy and trustworthy. And as we close out and think about the new year. I read a devotion this morning and it talked about the past, this past year, perhaps the opportunities that we missed.

And our God is the God of the past as well. But he tells us that we should walk towards those who are without redeeming the time. You see, we serve a Redeemer. We serve the one who came to redeem our past, to forgive us of our sin, and then to give us a new life and a new hope, and perhaps even a new vision for what's before us in 2026. New Year's Eve oftentimes is a time when people gather and stop, but then they start thinking about resolutions.

And I won't ask you to raise your hand if you make New Year's resolutions or not. Some of us will, some of us won't. I do know this, that for many it involves some self-discipline exercise perhaps. We live around the corner from a YMCA. Tomorrow morning the parking lot is going to be full.

And it will be full until about the first or second week in February. And then you can begin to see fewer and fewer cars. And that's about statistically right. I asked AI how long New Year's resolutions last, and it went from six weeks to three months. But if we're making some kind of resolution, and I'm not talking about New Year's resolutions, but as you and I make some God-honoring spiritual decisions for the year before us, recognize that the key to having New Year's resolutions successful is discipline.

It will take discipline on our lives as well. And I always find it interesting as I look at that word that the root word for disciple or discipline is disciple. So we're called to be disciples. And so as we ponder this I want to challenge you to a command of Scripture for us in this coming year. It says this in Colossians chapter 2 verse 6, As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in him established in the faith as you have been taught abounding in it with thanksgiving a week ago tonight we celebrated the greatest gift ever given to mankind.

As we thought about the reality of John 3.16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whomever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And as we talked about that last week, and we recognized perhaps the reality, but saw with a greater spiritual inside vision, if you will, the purpose, It says God didn't send his son to the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. You see the world, since Adam and Eve, deserves condemnation. And God, in His love and mercy and ultimate plan, was to send the sublime sacrifice for the sin of the world. The Gospel of John, we've been looking at on Sunday morning, 6th of the third day.

John said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's speaking about Jesus Christ. And it tells us in our text that you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, you and I are the walking things. Luke chapter 19 says that he's keen to seek and to save the lost. And this gift as we shared last week needs to be received.

Ephesians 2 tells us this, by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves. It's the gift of God and not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So you and I receive Jesus Christ, who as many as received Him, to them gave you right to become the children of God to those who believe in his name we receive him by grace through faith I mean that's the process I can't tell you how it works. I can tell you the problem, the sin.

I can tell you the separation from God is impossible to breach by any of my efforts. I can tell you all of that, but it's a miracle of God works faith in a heart and gives us the grace to respond to his word that he said to us when you received him, you and I can open up a blood-cleaned heart to receive Jesus Christ. But tonight, we're challenged Because it declares to us, as we have declared from this pulpit multiple times, that's the beginning. There's a faith walk before it's all. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.

In a biblical walk, and biblically the word walk usually speaks to a life lived. It isn't necessarily just an exercise, it isn't just a destination that you and I go for a walk. Remember that I would go for a walk. We always have a destination in mind that's getting home. That's pretty good for our age.

You and I have a walk that's before us with a destination. Heaven. Eternal life with Jesus Christ. But we have a life to live here, giving evidence of our relationship to our Savior and Lord. And we're told the preparation, we're told what's necessary to be successful, to be disciplined in this journey.

And they say, you and I would be rooted, built up in him, established in the faith as you have been taught, of owning him with thanksgiving. What's it telling us? That you and I need some discipline in our hearts and lives to give ourselves to reading and meditating and studying God's Word. But that's just learning it, applying it to my heart and your heart, my life and your life, that we can give evidence of this knowledge of Him. We can give evidence of His commands and His word.

We can give evidence that you and I not only have come to receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, but our wife. We're told in Romans chapter 6, right at the end of this whole visual picture of baptism and what this really means, being dead to ourselves and alive unto Christ. It says, Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we should walk in newness of life this new life I think I'm being Christ is a new creation old things that's the way all things have become new. We are given this challenge and this command. And Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and 2 tells us this is our reasonable service.

You might read Romans 12, 1 and 2, present yourself a living sacrifice and say that's highly unreasonable, but to God it's a reasonable service. That we would become this living sacrifice walking in obedience to God. With a promise of being very confident in this very thing that he has begun, a good work in you will complete it until that day of Jesus Christ. Being confident in this very thing that he, Jesus, who has begun the good work in you will complete it for the day of Jesus Christ. Walking, living a life.

Matthew chapter 5 verse 16, like your light so shine before me, they might see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven. We aren't saved by our good works. Good works will never produce a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ in the saving relationship in will always produce good works. And that's just not going out and seeing and feeding the neighbor the poor visiting those in prison whatever those are good works and I'm not minimizing that But the good work begins in my heart and your heart.

Like Sam tried to teach us Christmas Eve, this whole fruit of the spirit thing. You know, love, joy, patience, love, suffering. I'd ask Sam to give up and give the rest of it, but I won't tonight. But you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm speaking to is that God wants to transform my heart and life to reflect and give evidence of my relationship with him.

And then he goes on to give us some rather particular and important instructions that we cannot just gloss over. We cannot just pretend that I didn't hear that. We can't just pretend, well, that's just a suggestion. Remember going to some Bible studies with some people in Wausau where we lived before? And the man got a rather contentious argument with the leader of the Bible study, because it was his perspective that the word thought means it's just a suggestion.

You ought to be a- no, that's a client, folks. That's just not a suggestion from God. But listen to what he says, because I need to apply this to my life as well as we all do. And this is really why we started the study on Wednesday nights about principles of precepts, because this is what he says. Therefore, whoever hears, no, I'm sorry, you have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently, O that my ways were directed to keep your statutes.

Therefore whoever hears these things of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock." You heard that scripture earlier, you can see. What's he saying? Well, it's quite simple. You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently, or that my ways were directed to keep your statutes, your ordinances, your laws, your commands that we have here. Whoever does these things, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

For we walk by faith, we live a life by faith, not by self. We respond to God's word by grace through faith, and when we respond, God changes our heart, he changes our lives, he changes our everything. We're new creations. He tells us in Colossians chapter 1 that you may walk or live a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Is this the evidence you and I give of our relationship with Jesus Christ?

That we're living a life worthy of the Lord? That we're living a life fully pleasing Him? Not our time, not Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, sometimes Tuesdays, sometimes... Fully pleasing Him? Fruitful of every good work, that Ephesians 8-10, increasing in the knowledge of God, our text verse 7 being rooted and built up, keeping his word, obeying his law, desiring to live a life pleasing to him.

This is how we manifest this love relationship that we have with our Father Jesus Christ. This is love. That we walk, or that we live a life according to His commands. This is the commandment that you have heard from the beginning. You should walk in it.

God tells us that at the end of this journey, there's a reward If we're on faith. He tells us this in Revelation, chapter 21, but I saw the temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are his temple. The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it. For the glory of God illuminates it. The Lamb is its light, and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the year shall bring their glory to honor it.

As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord. So walk in me. Live in a life fully pleasing. Lord, encourage those who have just begun their faith walk. Keep on.

Keep on. For those who have been walking many years, keep on. Don't stop. And for those who have not yet begun this journey of faith, let this new year be your day of salvation. You would see yourself as a sinner and need a savior.

You would ask Jesus Christ, by His shed blood on Elber's cross, to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. If you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive tons of all unrighteousness. Invite him into your blood-cleansed heart and let's surrender to live a life, to walk worthy of his calling. He who overcomes shall be clothed in a white garment, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but will confess his name before my father and before his angels. We've become overcomers as we serve and surrender to Jesus Christ our Lord.

Our commitment, our prayer, should just simply be, as for me, I will see your face in righteousness. I will be satisfied when I awake in your light. Have you walked worthy of this call? Now then, I would pray that we would just grab a hold of this text for a minute. Perhaps you convicted us of being lazy.

Of just kind of giving this a lick and a promise kind of thing. But that's not your call for your people. Your call is to be holy, sanctified, to be holy surrendered. To walk worthy of our calling. To live a life that gives evidence of who you are, not just the one who's forgiven us of our sin and granted us a way to eternal life, but the one who rules and reigns in our hearts and lives is Lord.

In wonderful Christmas carol we sing this. We remember what the angels did. Heart that herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Glory be that King, through the rain, and each of them with faith in every one of our hearts. As we begin this new year together.

It's in your name we pray. Amen. Thanks for watching!