Embracing the Spirit: A Guide to Living Wisely in 2026

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in a couple different passages here this evening.

We're going to start in Ephesians chapter 5.

So if you can turn to Ephesians chapter 5.

I am not a resolution person.

As Brother Dan said, I don't think they ever work because I mean, most of the time as a person we say, okay, we're going to try to eat better and maybe we make it a couple weeks or if we're really strong willed, a couple months.

But eventually, inevitably we, we turn back to a way that we weren't really planning to go.

Now that's not the case for everybody.

Some of you in this room might say, no, I, I kept true to it and that's great, more power to you.

But the reality is, is that in most resolutions, New Year's resolutions, we have, as Brother Allen mentioned, that self focus of like this is on me.

This is something that I have to do.

This is something that I have to just pull myself up on my own bootstraps and do.

But biblically speaking, as a believer, that is not the method of seeing change in our life.

To see change in our life.

It's really the complete opposite.

It's a complete reliance on the power of God.

But at the same time, God gives us wisdom, God gives us strength, God gives us certain elements of what we might call organization to follow the path that God has given us in his word.

And so there is this methodology that some people live out in their life.

It's just basically, well, I'm just going to give up and God's going to work through me.

But at the end of the day, there's no initiative to follow what God is calling us to do.

So, so there is, there is a action that we have to follow and that is to be led by the Spirit.

And that's what I want us to talk about here this evening.

I think all of us would be in the right place if we said, Lord, our goal for 20, 26 and even further, if God gives me time, is to be led by the Spirit.

Now for many people, that might not make a lot of sense if you're not a believer to be led by the Spirit makes no sense because that's gonna.

That sounds something that we can't even obtain.

It sounds like beyond our comprehension.

But a believer should understand what it means to walk in the Spirit.

And so we think about this time of the year, and it's getting to the end.

We only have a few more hours left of 20, 25.

And I was thinking about what verse could we go to, what passage could we go to to discuss using the time that God has given us to the best of.

Of.

Of not just our ability, but in accordance to the word of God?

And I came to Ephesians, chapter 5.

The passage here is speaking about using our time wisely, using our time for his purpose and not our own.

And really there's a.

There's a comparison and a contrast between the wise man and the foolish man, the.

The wise person and the foolish person.

And so the wise person follows the wisdom of God and utilizes the time for the kingdom of God, for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The.

The.

As it says here, the foolish person.

The foolish person is focused on himself.

The.

The foolish person is focused on what can be obtained right now in the here and now, in the material world.

So In Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 15, he says, See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.

And so Paul says here, walk circumspectly.

Now, circumspectly means to look around you, to be aware of your surroundings.

I don't think Christians should walk around their life with blinders on and just focused on what they have in front of them.

No, the Bible says for us to be aware of those things around us.

Be aware of our neighborhood, be aware of the needs in our church, be aware of the chaos in the world, but don't allow that to dictate your emotions, your faith.

It says, see then that you walk circumspectly, but not as fools, but as wise.

Because there's a way that we can walk circumspectly as meaning this.

We see what's going on around us.

We notice what's going on around us.

We turn on the news and we see what's going on in the news.

We.

We notice what's going on in our neighborhood, and we allow that to cause us to fall into man's wisdom.

And that is essentially foolishness.

And, and so he says, don't walk as fools circumspectly, but as wise.

And so the.

The note that I got from that.

The.

The Challenge that I got from that is, as I walk around in 20, 26, what I want to do is I want to notice the things around me, but I want to do it with God's wisdom.

And then he says in verse 16, redeeming the time, using the time, buying back the time.

And we even know in James chapter four that, that the Bible tells us is that life is like a vapor.

You know, it's cold outside, we breathe and we see the smoke and it goes away.

That's the way the Bible gives us in the analogy of how short our life really is.

And I didn't think about that when I was young.

When I was in school, like, let's say fourth grade, I thought that life was forever, like I was going to, because I couldn't get through that day.

Like, man, it's still 10 o'.

Clock.

I'm, I'm so bored.

I'm so tired.

I just want to go home.

But we all know that the older we get, the more we can comprehend how short life really is.

And so with that being said, as Christians, we need to use the time that God gives us.

Now you might say, how much time do I have?

I don't know how much time you have.

I don't know how much time I have.

But I do know that I have time.

It might be 20 minutes or it might be 20 years, or it might be even more than that.

We don't know.

I use this as an example many times because it was real to me.

I remember a couple years ago, right before Silas was born, Alicia was still pregnant with Silas.

I preached a message on a Sunday night right here in this very spot, behind this very pulpit.

And I preached on trials.

I preached on trusting God through the trials.

And then we get out in our car and we wreck our car and we flip it and we total the car and the kids are in the back.

And I'm thinking, Lord, I, I, I, I really, some of you know what I'm talking about.

You see that light flash before your eyes when that car was flipping, I was like, this is over.

I, I, I didn't know what to think.

All it was was I was just calling out to the Lord.

And, and so with that realization in my mind, it's this.

I could have 20 minutes.

I could have 20 years.

I could have 40, 50 years.

But the Bible says to redeem the time that we have now, you might say, well, how much time do I have?

Well, we don't know.

So what does that mean?

That means that we should Live every moment like it's our last.

Not.

Not in a way of hopelessness.

Not like, well, I'm going to go out and do whatever I want to do with my life.

No, but I'm going to live with the passion that God has called me to live with.

I'm going to live out my purpose.

I'm going to tell other people about Jesus.

I'm going to.

I'm not going to wait to do the things that God has called me to do.

And so he says, redeeming the time.

Why?

Because the days are evil.

It's evil around us.

We know that.

But the truth is, is that as we walk in the wisdom of God, we're able to affect others, to lead other people to the truth.

And it says in verse 17, wherefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

So how do we walk in wisdom?

We walk in the will of the Lord.

Now, how do we know the will of the Lord?

Well, we find the will of the Lord in His Word.

We.

We find how to follow him, we find how to obey Him.

If we love God, we keep His Word, we keep his commandments.

So one of the goals that I would have for this church, one of the goals that I have for my family, one of the goals that I have for me is to be so in love with God that we are in love with His Word.

And sometimes that's difficult, especially if we're not used to studying His Word, especially if it's not something that we are comfortable with.

It sometimes is a stretch.

It's a discipline.

It's out of our comfort zone to make it important in our life.

But what I would say is that one of the best goals that we can have in finding the will of God is to be in His Word, to make time for it, to see the importance of it, to know that what the Bible says is that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and His prophetic for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, righteousness, to understand that it will affect my life.

The Word of God will change me.

The Word of God will grow me.

The Word of God will change the way that I act, the way that I react, the way that I speak, the way that I love, the way that I forgive.

If the Word of God is the centerpiece of our lives, we're able to come back to this as our guide.

And so I would say in 2026, to follow the will of God is to follow His Word.

And so he says here, don't walk like the unwise, but walk with understanding what the will of God really is for you and find that in the word of God.

Read the Bible too.

You have children in your home.

They might not even know how to read, but read them the Bible.

Read them the Bible.

We were reading the Bible to our children before they were walking around.

We were reading the Bible while they were still in their mom's bellies.

We want to bathe the life of our children in the word of God.

We want that to be the norm.

Someone accused me one time of brainwashing my children.

I said, yeah, I need to wash their brains from the dirtiness of this world and give them the word of God.

That is unapologetically the goal of our household.

And the truth is, does that mean my children will be perfect?

We all know the answer to that.

No, they're not going to be perfect because we have the sin nature.

But the counter side of that would be not the wisdom of God, but the wisdom of man.

The wisdom of man is foolishness.

So to follow the word of God is to follow his will.

And to follow his will means to walk in his word.

But I would also say to understand his will, we must also walk with life of prayer.

We need communication.

To read His Word is one thing.

To understand what he wants us to know is one thing.

But the other thing is to communicate with him our needs, to communicate with him our desires.

God already knows what we think.

God already knows what we need.

But it's about the communication line.

It's about relying on him and coming to him humbly and and sacrificially to say, lord, I want to spend time with you.

Corporate prayer is an amazing thing.

I would echo that.

I think we should get together and pray.

The Bible teaches in the New Testament, the Book of Acts, they got together and they prayed.

And so I would say corporate prayer is vital.

But also, don't come and pray corporately and not have your private time.

That's exactly what was condemned at the Pharisees, right?

The Pharisees came together and prayed publicly.

And I'm not saying public prayer is wrong.

I would say we must public pray.

But at the same time, sometimes the temptation is to pray only when people are around us.

I would encourage you to get some private prayer time.

Get a place, get a time, have a plan.

They sell prayer journals on Amazon for really, really cheap.

Or you can make your own with a spiral notebook.

Track your prayer request, track your praises, attract the answer to those things.

Allow yourself to track that, and then communicate to people that you're praying for them.

These are all things that we can do.

Walking in the will of God.

And then it says in verse 18, this is really interesting, says, and be not drunk with wine, whereas in excess, but be filled with the spirit.

Now this is a verse that we hear quite frequently dealing with avoidance of alcohol.

And I would agree with that completely.

I would say that drunkenness is going to lead us away.

But I also would say that this verse has a second piece that we have to think about.

It says to be filled with the Spirit.

And so what it's basically doing is contrasting the fact that if I'm allowing any type of substance to control me, any type of thing to control me, I'm not going to be led by the Spirit.

And in so doing, being led by the Spirit means that's what's going to direct my life.

And so what the Bible says is that there are many things that can lead us away from being led by the Spirit.

But what we have to do is be an open vessel for the Lord to use to guide us in his spirit, to yield the spirit.

So if there's anything in our lives, anything, any substance, any, any.

Any addiction, any.

Any thoughts, any activities that are leading us away from being filled with the Spirit, we have to ask the Lord to give us strength to overcome those things and to die to those things and allow the Spirit to fill us and to guide us.

The Christian has two choices.

Whether or not he or she is going to yield to the flesh or yield in spirit.

2026.

One of the goals could be, lord, let me walk in your will and follow the Spirit's guidance in my life.

Verse 19, speaking to yourself.

And so it's not just an individualistic task that we have.

Like, this is my private life.

No, it says here more so speaking to yourself, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

That's speaking of corporate worship together.

That's why we sing when we come to church.

It's not because we want to perform and, you know, make sure that we're heard.

It's.

It's about praising God and, and encouraging one another to do that together.

And that's encouraging us to do so.

Then the Bible says, giving thanks always for all things unto God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, we can give thanks, we can give praise.

And so going back, how do we walk at 20, 26 in the will of God.

We walk in the will of God by praising him and thanking him and giving him the honor and glory for who he is.

Folks, corporate worship is vital.

That's why the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, not to forsake the assembly of ourselves together.

I know I'm speaking to a crowd that's here on a Wednesday night where you could be anywhere else.

What I would encourage you is to make an effort to say corporate worship is a priority.

In my family's life, I grew up in an environment that says if you're not in church, you.

You aren't a good Christian.

Okay?

You got to be in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

And I would agree with that.

But that's in some ways a legalistic standpoint, because I can be in church and be a thousand miles away.

I could be looking on my phone, watching the football game and going, okay, who's scoring here?

Who's scoring there?

Right?

Just me being in church doesn't mean that I'm worshiping.

What I would say is coming to church with the right heart, the right spirit, the right motivation, and saying, yes, I'm coming to corporately worship with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ because this isn't the only place that we should worship.

First Corinthians 10:31.

Whether, therefore, you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.

That means I can worship God at breakfast.

I can worship God hanging out outside.

And so some people even say, well, then why do I need to go to church if I can worship God on my own?

Because the Bible says that there's an issue of individualism, that if we come in corporate worship, we die.

And we say, you know what?

I'm coming together with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and I'm encouraging one another, exhorting one another.

Then it says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Meaning this.

There is that accountability factor.

There's.

There's that factor of exhorting one another.

So what does that mean?

We humble ourselves before one another to encourage one another.

So that.

That's why we're following God is.

Hey, look.

Hey, how you doing your prayer life?

Hey, I haven't seen you at church in a while.

Is there something that I can pray for you about?

Hey, can we study this passage of scripture together?

Hey, do you want to come over and have coffee?

You guys understand the picture here.

Following the will of God is not just focusing on oneself, but it's looking to Encourage others and worship with others.

That's a goal for 2026 that we could say to follow the will of God is to fellowship one with another, to disciple one another.

Now the reality is, is that one person cannot disciple every single person in this room.

Just it's impossible to, to do it right.

Let's say, for example, I said, okay, I'm going to take every single person out for a one month study together.

We're going to meet every single day.

You know how long that would take me?

I'm not, I'm not a mathematician, but if this room was full, it would take me years and years and years and I probably still couldn't keep up with it.

So what does that mean?

Does that mean just people get lost in the mix?

No, what that means is that each individual takes it upon themselves to say, you know what?

I want to reach one, someone's reached me, I want to reach one.

And the reality is, is that as Christians, we have to think about that as part of the will of God is to not just keep it for ourselves, but to share with one another.

There's another passage of scripture that speaks of time.

And I think it's important for us to look at Colossians chapter four.

Colossians, chapter four kind of speaks a little bit more about how we can live our lives in the will of God.

And I think it's important for us to note if we're going to make goals, let's make realistic biblical goals that are achievable.

Let's say, for example, we say, okay, I'm gonna, in one year, I'm gonna read the whole Bible.

I'm gonna lead a thousand people to Christ.

I'm gonna get three different theology degrees.

I'm going to start a church.

You guys see there's some aspects of like, selfishness there.

Like, I'm going to do all this.

I'm going to do all this.

And sometimes what we do is we make humanistic, lofty goals that eventually will fail and we get discouraged.

So let's make realistic goals.

And what realistic goal would be is to follow Christ.

Now, if God calls you to start a church, fantastic.

If God calls you to lead a thousand people to Christ, fantastic.

If God calls you to go get a degree, perfect.

But at the end of the day, it's following God's will for you, not for somebody else.

There, there's things that God is calling me to do that he might not be calling you to do.

I'm going to tell you, there, there, not everyone's at the same step, same phase of their life.

But in the.

In Colossians chapter 4 and verse 2, it says continue in prayer.

Continue in prayer.

All of us can pray.

All of us can have that prayer life that we already talked about and watch in the same with thanksgiving again to.

To sit and to rest and to serve and to love.

With thanksgiving giving praise to God.

Verse 3, with all prayer, with all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance.

Here's the next step part of following the will of God.

In 2026, we'll be praying that God opens doors of utterance to share the word of God with other people.

And I'm not just talking about other Christians.

That would be discipleship, but I'm also talking here about evangelism.

That God might open a door for you to share the gospel with someone who needs the truth of Jesus Christ.

Now, that can be done in many different ways.

But I would say that one of the prayer requests that God has always answered for me is, lord, give me an opportunity to share your word today.

And that.

That has always come back to me with someone just.

Just opening the door just a little bit.

Paul said, I pray for a door of utterance.

I pray for an open door.

So maybe that's something that we could pray for in 2026.

Lord, give me an open door to share the gospel with someone that I know or maybe someone that I don't know.

And so that's the idea.

And then also we see here it's not just us, but it's also praying for others to do that.

What if we all prayed for one another to say, lord, help brother, so and so get a chance to share the gospel.

Today, just as much as I want to share the gospel, let me pray for someone else to have that open door with a family member, with a co worker.

It moves further here, he says, with all praying also for us, that God would open us a door of utterance to speak what?

To speak the mystery of Christ.

Some people get tied up with that word mystery.

It just means something that was not known before.

The truth of Jesus Christ.

The people, it is a mystery if they don't trust in Jesus, if they don't know Jesus.

And so it is to speak the gospel for which I am also in bonds.

What Paul says here is, he says, I'm captive to the gospel.

I can't do anything else but share the gospel.

Now, I know that's a tough thing for us to say because maybe we're living In a culture that is a little bit different.

We live in a culture that, especially in our Western culture that has kind of compartmentalized church and the gospel to something that's private or in our weekends.

But for Paul, the gospel was his light.

And for us, I would encourage us to think about how can I be more Gospel Focused in 2026?

Doesn't mean that I, I have to go above and beyond and go to a foreign country to share the gospel.

I have many opportunities to share the gospel right where I'm at.

And so he says here that he's in bonds to the gospel.

How about we just say this year, hey, if I just give a little bit of time, a little bit more time sharing the gospel with someone around me, think about what that would do.

Verse 4, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.

He says, I, I want to make clear, I want to make public what I should be saying.

We're going to get to that here in a second about what we should say.

Verse 5.

Walk in wisdom.

There's another reminder to walk in the wisdom of God, to walk in the will of God toward them that are without.

Specifically in this case, he's saying, walk in wisdom on how to deal with other people around you that aren't Christians, that aren't acting like Christians.

They don't believe what we believe.

Let's walk in wisdom towards them.

Not walk in anger, not walk in bitterness, not walk in isolation, but walk in wisdom to know how we can reach those around us who are without the gospel.

And then he says, redeeming the time.

That's a common theme, right?

Redeem the time, use the time.

I think one of the themes that we could think about in 2026 with our goals would be to be busy for the cause of God.

Now I would say this.

We can't get too busy.

We can't get burnout.

It's not about being busy, like active.

It just means being focused, using the opportunities that we have.

What someone told me one time is work smarter, not harder.

Sometimes it's just like we were sitting here.

We're trying to do everything that we can.

And hey, you know what?

We could go to church every single day.

We can go out every single day.

And over time, sometimes that can become burdensome to our physical nature.

But at the end of the day, what we can say is this, Let me just use the opportunities that I have.

And then he says here something very interesting.

He addresses our speech, how we should talk to others.

This is one of my goals for 2026.

I'm just going to be clear.

One of my goals for 2026 is to think and to meditate upon how I am talking to other people around me.

And it's not like I'm sitting here saying bad things to people.

Okay?

Trust me, I'm not.

I don't go around saying bad words to people, calling them names.

But at the end of the day, it's not just talking about that.

It's actually talking about how we can build people up in our.

And so he says, let your speech all way with grace.

So, so I thought about that as I was studying this passage.

Like, what does it mean to have grace in our speech?

And, and with.

That's a whole other study for another day.

But what I would say is this, with grace in our speech, it means this, that, that we want to give people the benefit of the doubt in loving them.

We want to be patient with you.

We basically want to talk to people the way that we want to be talked to.

We want to give people respect.

We want to build other people up.

Basically with grace means giving something to someone that they don't deserve.

So being nice to the person that is rude to me at Wawa, instead of saying something back, smart alec and you know, because I'm bad at that, someone will say something sharp to me and my flesh just wants to say something sharp.

Really?

Really.

What is that going to help?

That gives me an immediate gratification.

But at the end I, I miss an opportunity to be graceful.

So the Bible says to let your speech always be seasoned with grace season with salt, meaning this giving flavor to our conversations.

Flavor in a good way.

You know, salt brings out the flavor in a dish if properly salted.

Right?

And that's the idea here.

He says, you know, and also another aspect element of salt would be preservation, building other people up, preserving the truth.

So he says, let your speech be with grace, season with salt.

That you may know how ye ought to answer every man that's walking in the will of God to respond in the spirit in every situation.

Now are we going to do it in every situation?

Probably not.

That's, that's where we're struggling as humans.

But we could say that a goal could be.

I want to have more opportunities to deal with people in the right way at the right time for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I find that so important.

But where does it start?

It starts with the Word.

And, and I went to another passage of scripture that in Psalm 19, if you, if you have your Bibles turn there with me.

We're going to kind of conclude with this thought here.

Psalm, Psalm 19.

There's a lot that we could talk about here.

Starting in verse seven.

It starts talking about the beauty of the Word of God.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.

And I truly believe that an individual who is bathing his or her life in prayer, Bible study, evangelism, yielding to the Spirit, is going to be a person who is going to ultimately glorify God.

And we get to verse number four.

Actually, let's go to verse number 10.

In Psalm 19, it says, More to be desired are they than gold.

He's talking about the Word of God.

More to be desired are they than gold?

Yea, than much fine gold.

Meaning this.

The Word of God should be such a treasure to us that if someone laid out money here for us, it could be gold, or it could be dollar bills, or it could be whatever.

And we look at that and we would pick the word of God over that rich.

The rich is there, he says, more to be the desire than they.

Than gold.

Ye, than much fine gold.

Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

You know, at Christmas, there's a lot of sweets around the table.

At least at our house, there was a lot of sweets.

And I'm typically not a person who indulges in sweets, but this past season, I've really been not so disciplined on that.

And I've eaten a lot of sweets.

And that's like, wow, for a while there, when I got away from sweets, I lacked the desire to eat them.

When you stay away from it for a while, you know what it is?

It's like, I don't need that.

But once you start coming back to it and just saying, I'll take a little bit of.

I'll take a couple of cookies here I have one slice of cake that after a while I start craving it.

So, like, after every meal now, I'm like, okay, so what are we having for dessert?

And it's like, what.

Where's that coming from?

You haven't had dessert in like a year.

It's like, well, it's because I want.

Causes that craving, right?

That's what he says here.

He says instead, back then, they didn't have refined sugars.

It was honey was the sweetness, right?

So when that honey.

He's likening the desire that we should have the things of God, specifically the word of God.

Like, we had that craving for that sugary sweet that.

That I want more of it.

And the more I have it.

The more I want more of it.

So I would say it's okay to, to.

To have that type of insatiable desire for the word of God.

It's not okay to have that insatiable desire for the things of our flesh and, or the things of this world, or for money or for some type of gluttony.

But it says here in this case that it is okay to desire the things of God that way.

He says, moreover, by them is thy servant warn, meaning this.

That's how you're warned to do what's right and what's wrong and not to do what's wrong.

And he says, and in keeping of them, there is great reward.

Following the word of God.

There's great reward.

Who can understand his errors.

Cleanse thou me in the secret folds.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.

Let them not have dominion over me.

There's a prayer here to say I don't want sin to have dominion over my life.

Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Then.

This is really the verse that I want us to think about as our testimony.

Maybe for 2026 you could say that this is my prayer.

And I would actually say that there are really great opportunities to pray through certain passages of scripture because a lot of these are prayers.

And I think that if we mean them, we can take these prayers and we could ultimately lift them up.

The Lord, so he says, let the words of my mouth, so what I say in the meditation of my heart, what I think about, what I dwell on, what I believe in, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

He says what I say and what I do.

I wanted to glorify you, Lord.

I want it to be pleasing to you.

Why?

Because you are my strength and my redeemer.

You are my strength and my Savior.

And if we think about it from that perspective, we will understand when conviction comes in our life that Lord, what I just said is not what you want from me.

That's not following your word.

That's not wise.

How I just reacted to my spouse or my child or my co worker.

That's not right.

The beauty is that we have forgiveness.

The beauty is that we confess our sins to the Lord.

He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so that's the wonderful thing about being a Christian is that sometimes we will stumble.

The Bible says, though he fall or stumble, he shall not be Utterly cast down, but the Lord upholds him with his hand.

So the, the, the comfort is that Even if in 2026, we have these goals, and let's not call them resolutions, because I think it's a biblical thing to say, lord, I want to walk in your word, I want to walk in your will.

I want to walk in your way.

But then when we stumble, inevitably we will.

We don't give up, we don't quit, don't get angry.

We don't take it out on somebody else.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm angry or upset or frustrated, my Wesley reaction is to try to blame somebody else.

Well, it's because of them.

I would have never done this if it wasn't for them.

Right.

My life would be perfect without that struggle.

But no, instead of doing that, taking responsibility and saying, lord, no, it's on me.

I'm leading.

So as a dad and as a husband, as a pastor, no, this is on me.

This is my responsibility.

No one forced me to do this.

It's my decision.

And, Lord, I need your help to get back on the right path.

And so we can boil it all down to say this.

A goal for 2026 could be to walk in the Lord's will, desire his will.

What's his will for you?

I don't know.

The ultimate will.

I know his will for you is to fellowship one with another as believers, to worship him, to share his word, to pray, to study the Bible, to do all these things that we call the spiritual disciplines.

The spiritual disciplines don't save you.

Reading your Bible doesn't save you.

Praying doesn't save you.

Necessarily, going to church doesn't save you.

But faith in Jesus Christ saves us.

But at the moment of our salvation, the Bible speaks of that desire being changed.

And so the more we grow in our knowledge of who God is and what he has done for us, the more our desire should be for these disciplines.

But at the same time, disciplines are, are difficult.

That's why they're called disciplines.

I don't know if any of you have gone on an exercise regimen, but the more you do it, the more you grow in your desire to do it right.

You enjoy it.

It's something that becomes routine.

You get out of that routine.

It's so easy to regress.

And so I, I would say that maybe some of you have done Bible reading plans throughout your life.

That's fantastic.

But it might be, it might be a while since you've done it.

So I would encourage you to get back into that.

I would encourage you to get back into maybe talking about the Lord in your homes.

Husbands, wives, speak about the things of the word of God, pray together.

If you have children in your home, share the word with them.

And it will be uncomfortable at first, just as it's uncomfortable.

You know what I'm gonna start?

I'm starting a new.

The Bible does say bodily exercise profit if the little meaning not that much.

And like actually spiritual exercise is better.

And some, sometimes people quote that out of context.

What that's saying is basically physical exercise might help you a little bit, but it's not going to save you.

Spiritual exercise is better and that does save you.

But what I will say is that I think bodily exercise is a good thing.

So here, coming up soon, I'm going to be starting some different things that I'm trying to do.

I already know it's going to be difficult.

I already know it's going to be painful.

I already going to know I'm going to want to quit the first time I do it.

And that's the same thing that you're going to do when you sometimes study the word of God, especially if you've been out of it reading the Bible.

Oh, I could do this.

I'm going to get back to it.

I'm going to get to it at the end of the day.

Maybe you will, but maybe you won't because you allow other things to come into your life.

But what I would say is just think about those priorities.

What's your priority for 2026?

My prayer is that our priority is to follow the will of God and to do that Matthew 6:33.

Seek first the kingdom of God.

And I would encourage you to seek the, the truth of God's word there.

All right, well, in conclusion here tonight, I. I do want to offer you an opportunity as you head on out tonight.

There's two tables in the lobby, two round, black, tall tables.

We have two different Bible reading plans out there and some of you might already have a really good Bible reading plan and that's fantastic.

You keep doing your Bible reading plan, but I thought that it would be really appropriate since tomorrow's the first day of the year.

We can get started on the right foot.

I have two different plans.

One plan is just a read through the Bible 52 week 365 Bible reading plan.

That's the one that's closer to my right.

Your left.

Okay.

There's another Bible reading plan.

I actually found this one and it's a really good One, it's every day you're reading a passage from the Old Testament and the New, I believe, or it might just be Old Testament, but then every single day there is a proverb to read along with that.

And I think that the Proverbs, if you don't know what the book of Proverbs is all about.

The book of Proverbs is all about walking in the wisdom of God.

There's 31 chapters and the longest day of the month is 31 days.

So you can technically go through the Book of Proverbs pretty much once a month.

And I would encourage you to bathe your mind and your heart with those proverbs so that you're able to walk in that wisdom of God.

So that's one of the Bible reading plans that we have out there so that you can read, say you read the book of Genesis and then you read Proverbs 1 that day.

And that sounds like a lot and it might be for you, but I want to just offer those resources to you.

There's a lot of good online resources I know that we have.

There's the Bible app that has a lot of different Bible reading plans that many people use.

I would encourage you and challenge you in love to find one that works for you.

Find a prayer journal.

Or what I would say is, you know, you can make your own prayer journal.

Get a spiral bound notebook.

Write the date at the top.

Here's what I would suggest.

It's not the only way to do it, but I would suggest this.

Read a Bible passage, even if it's just one verse.

I would meditate upon that verse.

What does that verse mean to me?

And then pray.

And then pray.

And you can pray with this acronym acts Adoration.

Praise God for who he is.

See Confession.

Bring forth the things in your life that you or harboring in your heart.

And, and maybe something that you've done that you want to bring to the Lord and seek restoration.

And then you have the T, which is thanksgiving.

And then S, that's supplication.

That's asking God for things.

That's a very basic, that's a very basic outline.

And then at the end, write down your prayer request, write down your praises and be able to track that day by day.

And I, I, I know that that will help you have a better direction on your prayer life.

Again, you don't have to do that, not in the word of God, but I think it's a pretty neat tool to be able to track your prayer life through fellowshipping.

Well, there's a lot of ways that you can fellowship here.

You know, obviously fellowship in the lobby to head on out this in, in 2026, there's going to be a lot more opportunities for you to find different Bible studies and different small groups that you can get involved with.

And my prayer and my goal, I know it's a lofty goal and maybe one of those unrealistic goals, but I believe that God would have every single person at Middletown Baptist Church finding one group outside of corporate worship defined as a place where you can study and fellowship and be a part of a tighter knit group that you can grow in.

And so just be praying about maybe how God would have you be led in this year.

Later on in 2026, I'm going to be unveiling some opportunities for everyone in service and in fellowship.

But I would encourage you to think about the church as a family.

The church as a family means this.

Not everyone's perfect.

My family is not perfect in, in any way.

There's, there's.

Everyone's got their strengths and everyone's got their weaknesses.

And we, we, we don't point for the weaknesses out, but we love each other through that.

And, and I would encourage you to think about the church that way.

Like, not everyone's going to like the same things you like.

You know, not everyone's going to like the same football team that you like.

Not everyone's going to like the same, the same, different things.

Right.

But at the same time, we can love each other through that and we have more time.

You can read through Ephesians 4 and it talks about being in one spirit, one body, one baptism, one Lord, one salvation.

We've got something in common.

Doesn't matter what you look like, what country you're from, what sports team you go for.

If you love Jesus Christ, if you have faith in Jesus Christ, we have the same spirit living within us.

That's a pretty exciting truth.

And it's something that I'm really trying to grow into my life of how I see an individual, to not see them as my different person, but to see them as Jesus Christ sees them as a soul.

So I wanted to encourage you to think about that.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro at middletownbaptistchurch Com.

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.