Tonight we close the book on 2006 and we open a new book. A new year begins in less than 24 hours. What will that new year hold for this church? What will that new year hold for you personally? I want us to look at both of those questions this morning.  Audio

This past year has been an interesting one. We finished the expansion of this worship center, which brings us to an end of nearly 20 years of planning and building to complete our Master Plan for facilities. In June of 1995 we dedicated and moved into the first half of our worship center, along with new nurseries and offices and foyer. Then in Sept. of 2003 we dedicated and moved into our 3 level classroom building, with space for our children, and for our students, and for our babies and toddlers, and an expanded foyer and a chapel. And finally last March, we dedicated and moved into this room. And through it all God has directed us and allowed us to be workers together with Him.

And then a few months ago I received this in the mail (picture of Medicare card). And then there have been the bouts with A-fib.

For the last couple of years the Lord and I have been having many conversations about my future. I realized a long time ago that I have many more years of ministry behind me than I do ahead of me. And I have prayed for God’s direction as to how I should spend those remaining years that I have.

Pastoral transitions in large churches are more difficult than they are in smaller churches. And so I have sought counsel from our District Superintendent, Les Welk, and from other pastors of the larger churches here in our Northwest District Network. And all of that has been helpful.

Let me assure you right up front that I am not ready to retire. That’s not at all what the Lord has been saying to me. But I am sensing the desire to make some changes, a transition.

When Pastor Norm came on staff with us, it was my desire to see him one day take the role of Lead Pastor, and I assume a different role. We have talked about that with our Deacons and Elders off & on for several years. And last September following our Elder & Deacon & Deaconess Appreciation dinner, I said something that seemed to ring a bell with Pastor Norm.

I was washing the pots and pans, and each of the other pastors and our wives were busy washing and drying and putting away things from the meal and I said: “I think the perfect job description for me would be preaching and pastoral care and washing dishes.” I love studying and preaching and teaching; I love visiting people in their times of crisis – in the hospital, in care centers, in their homes; and I love serving.

Pastor Norm reminded me of that statement 4 or 5 weeks ago and said: “What would it be like if you could do that? What if over the next few months you became “teaching pastor” and did pastoral care, and you gave to me more of the everyday stuff of leading the church?” He was not trying to take over; he was only responding to what he sensed was the desire of my heart.

And so he and I have been talking more about that. We have talked more about it with the Elders and Deacons. I’m sensing it’s a new direction that the Lord is taking us, but it needs much more prayer and greater clarity in our own hearts and minds. And we ask that you pray with us about this as well.  

God said through the prophet Isaiah: 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. God does new things, not just old things. And this transition may well be one of the new things God is going to do in this church in 2007 as we continue to seek His direction.

Another transition in our church this year has been the departure of Ryan Wilson from our support staff. Ryan has done a marvelous job for this congregation over the years that he has been on staff here.  He led in the designing and installing the sound system in this room, and the video support in both this room and the classroom building – the Underground, the chapel, the Powerhouse, the nurseries, and the sound systems in those other meeting areas as well.

But Ryan let us know over a year ago that he would be making some changes in the future. He has a growing family, and what our church could pay him was about a half of what a technical person like him could make in the secular market. Plus he wanted to get further training and experience in the internet technology field, and so he resigned as of the first of December. He is now a full time Technical Specialist for the Spokane Public Facilities District.

He is still doing our computer and network consulting and repair, but some of his other tasks have been taken over by others.

The whole area of graphics and website upkeep has been left hanging right now and some changes are in the works there. It’s another time of transition. Pastor Ryan Gilbreath left us in September and we are continuing to look at our youth ministry, all the way from middle school through college age. And we will be making some changes there this coming year as well.  Stay tuned as we keep praying about God’s direction for ministry to our students and young adults.

2007 is looking like a year of transition for our church.  But what about our own personal lives? What kinds of transition is God looking for in each of us personally?  As I have prayed, I have been impressed with four things. Let me give you all 4 of them, and then we will look at each of them individually.

My prayer is that 2007 will be for each of us:

A year of transition from knowing about God to knowing God.

A year of transition from working for God to working with God.

A year of transition from talking to listening to God.

A year of transition from words to obedience.

Now this should really be a 4-week series of sermons, but we can at least look at each of these briefly this morning.

A year of transition from knowing about God to knowing God.

What’s the difference? Knowing about God is intellectual; knowing God is relational. And there are many who would call themselves Christians who only know about God. They have no relationship with Him; they do not know Him. Are you one of those people?

To people who only know about God, verses like 2 Corinthians 3:18 are incomprehensible: And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

People who know God are changing, are becoming more like Jesus. So if you are no different than you were a year ago, maybe you only know about God. Knowing God in a personal way changes us, transforms us.

In the Old Testament, people did not generally have the opportunity to know God like we do today. The coming of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit have made a tremendous difference in our ability to have a personal relationship with God. But we see glimpses in the Old Testament.

In 1 Samuel 10, the prophet Samuel is talking to Saul just before Saul becomes the first King over Israel and here is what he says to him:

1 Sam 10:6-9 The Spirit of the LORD will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you. “Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do.” As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day.

As the Spirit of God came upon him, God changed his heart; and as we come to know God personally, as we experience Him, He changes our hearts as well. God said to Jeremiah about the Israelites:

Jeremiah 24:6-7: My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.

“I will give them a heart to know Me.” That is my prayer for this coming year. Let it be your prayer this coming year: “Lord, give me a heart to know You. Let me go from knowing about You to knowing You.”

A year of transition from working for God to working with God.

Most of us as Christians believe we need to work for God. We need to find something to do for Him. So we take spiritual gifts tests to see what our God-given gifts are, and then try to figure out where our gifts fit us to work for God. And for many people, that is a frustrating process.

What if we’ve got it all wrong? What if instead of trying to figure out what God wants us to do, we try to figure out what He is doing and ask for the privilege of joining Him in what He is doing in our world, in our community, in our neighborhood, in our church? What if instead of focusing on ourselves and on what we could do, we instead would focus on God, and on His plans and purposes?  Listen to what Jesus said:

John 4:34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work”.

John 5:19-20 “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.

John 15:4-5 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Sometimes we hear people say: “Don’t just stand there; do something.” Jesus says “Don’t just do something; stand there. Abide in Me; remain in Me; be in relationship with Me. Without that, you cannot do anything for Me. You must work with Me, not for Me.”

A year of transition from talking to listening to God.

Prayer is more than talking. Prayer is a conversation. That’s why thoughtfully reading your Bible is an important part of your prayer life. That’s why listening to God is as important as talking to God.

Sometimes it’s through the Bible that God will speak to us; sometimes it’s through other people that God will speak to us; sometimes it’s that inner urging that is the voice of God.

Twice this past month I have had inner urgings that I listened to and discovered that they were indeed the voice of God. Monday, the 4^th was my day off. But I sensed this urging to go and see Chris Mulligan, who has been battling a long time with colon cancer. So I went by his home – no one home. I called Sacred Heart Hospital, where he had been many times and he was not there. But I continued to sense this urging, so I called Valley Hospital just in case he was there – and he was.

His family was with him, and Chris was in a coma, struggling to breathe. We talked and we prayed, and I left about 4 p.m. At 7 p.m. Chris went home to be with the Lord, and I was so glad I had gotten to spend some time with him and with his family just before his death.

Last Sunday following our morning service, Mary Ann and I went out to eat. And as we were going to the restaurant I sensed that after we ate we should go and visit Art Verment, who has been struggling with lung cancer.

He was at home, in a coma, and when we arrived his granddaughter-in-law, Joanna Steinbach was singing to him. We talked, anointed him with oil, and prayed with him. And we told him it was ok to go home if that was what he wanted to do.  We left, and less than an hour later he too went home to be with the Lord. And we were so glad we had listened to God and had gotten to spend that final time with him and with his family.

I want you to know that most people I visit do not die soon after I leave, so please don’t fear when I come to visit you. But we need to listen to those inner urgings, because many of them are indeed from the Lord. And when we ignore them we miss out on opportunities for ministry that He has for us.

Listen again to Jesus’ words:

John 10:2-5 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

We must learn to recognize the voice of our Shepherd, and that only comes as we spend time with Him, both talking to Him and listening for Him to talk to us. The Bible must always be supreme. He will never say anything to us that contradicts the Bible. No matter how much peace you feel, if it contradicts the Bible, that’s not the voice of God speaking to you. Listen to Him; He wants to speak to you this year.

A year of transition from words to obedience.

Words are not enough. It’s important that you know that now, prior to standing before God in judgment. Then it will be too late. We will deal with this more as we continue on in our series of messages from the Sermon on the Mount. But listen to Jesus’ words in…

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons & perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

“Not everyone who says…but he who does the will of My Father.” When I want to know how healthy a follower of Jesus you are, I don’t just listen to what you say. I look at your obedience. Jesus said in Jn 14:15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

You can say that you love Jesus until you are blue in the face, but the fact is, if you don’t obey Him, you don’t really love Him. Your obedience is the proof of your love for Him, not your words. This moves Christianity from being a religious title that we wear to being a way of life, a lifestyle that we live every day.

In Matt. 21, Jesus told the following story to the religious leaders of His day: (28-32) “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ”‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

You and I are one of these two sons, and the wonderful thing is that we have the power to change. The first son refused his father’s request, but then he had a change of mind. And with that change of mind came a change of behavior. He chose to obey rather than to disobey his father’s request.

It says nothing about the second son having a change of mind. He said what his father wanted to hear, but it was not in his heart. It was only words, and as soon as he was away from his father, his actions showed his heart.

This can be a year of change for you. I cannot see your heart this morning, but God can. He knows what’s in it; He knows what needs to change for you to be pleasing to Him.

He wants you to have a personal relationship with Him, not just know about Him. He wants you to work with Him, not just work for Him. He wants you to listen to Him, not just talk to Him. He wants obedience from you, not just words from you.                   

PRAY.

Psalm 55:19 speaks of God’s afflicting, of His hand being against men who never change their ways and have no fear of God. 

Matthew 18:2-3 He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

1 Corin 15:51-52 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.