Tag: New Year

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Four Blessings to Ask God For in 2025

This article first appeared at Small Town Summits Articles.

Father, as we sail out upon the unknown waters of 2025, we are reminded of past years that held joys and trials and we are a bit weary. It could be a year of smooth sailing and joy that easily points us to you, the giver of all good things (James 1:17). But life in this fallen world is so uncertain. What life-changing squalls could hit with hardly a moment’s notice?

Jesus, we know that you are our captain and that you are Lord over the storms. So, with you in our boat, we cry out to you, asking you to work in our lives, our church and our family in 2025.

We ask these things with boldness, knowing that the same Jesus who heard the cries of the disciples and asked where their faith is hears us today (Romans 8:34). Jesus, we believe—help our unbelief (Mark 9:24)! We serve you in faith, believing that you not only exist, but that you reward those who earnestly seek you (Hebrews 11:6). Lord, may you be our reward as we seek you today and look ahead to 2025.

We ask for four blessings from your hand in 2025—hope, peace, joy, and to see Jesus’s glory.

Give Us Hope

Give us hope that you are working all things for our good (Romans 8:28). Give us hope that you are forming us to look more like Jesus even though we get so impatient with our progress in sanctification sometimes (Romans 8:29).

Give us hope that the Word is doing its work in other church member’s lives and that you are at work in our community even when we can’t see it (Mark 4:26-29). Give us hope that you will never abandon your church (Matthew 16:18) and that you will use us, but that gospel ministry is not reliant upon us (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Give us hope that you are cheering my spouse and I on each time that we move towards each other (Song of Solomon 5:1b). Give us hope that you are working in my spouse’s heart and life and that you are forming his or her character into a beautiful work of art that belongs to you (Ephesians 2:10). Give us hope that you hold each of my children in your hands and that no one can snatch them out of your hands (John 10:28-29).

Give us hope that you can do more than we can ask for or imagine in our walk with you, in our church, and in our family in 2025 (Ephesians 3:20-21)!

Give Us Peace

Give us peace, knowing that we can sleep because you never sleep, always watching your own (Psalm 121:3-4). Give us peace as we navigate our own doubts and fears (Matthew 10:31). Give us peace that can only be found in knowing you personally, as we pursue you even more than we have in past years (Psalm 119:10).

Give our church peace in conflict that may arise in 2025, and give us a heart to seek the unity of the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3). Give us peace as we navigate the complexity of being believers in today’s world (2 Corinthians 11:28). Give our church a greater measure of the peace that comes from resting in Jesus (John 14:27).

Give my spouse and I peace if financial or health or extended family situations arise this year that add stress to our marriage (Isaiah 26:3). Give our home peace and may our children and grandchildren grow in enjoying their relationships with each other (Psalm 133:1). Give our children your spiritual protection from the evil one, so that they can experience the peace that comes from walking with you in a tumultuous world (John 17:15).

Give Us Joy

Give us joy, knowing that joy is always available in Jesus regardless of what circumstances may come in 2025 (John 15:11, 16:20). Give us your joy in the happy days, and the eyes to see the world as a place where your beauty and power are constantly on display (Psalm 24:1). Give us joy in trials, knowing that you have not abandoned us and are producing Christ-like character in us (James 1:2-3, Romans 5:3-5).

Give our church joy so that when unbelievers visit, they will want this joy that the world cannot offer (Luke 2:10). Give our church joy that is not surface-deep but rather that is deep like a glacier, because it is joy in God (2 Corinthians 1:24). Give our church joy that is Spirit-produced as we worship the living God on Sunday mornings together (Psalms 4:7).

Give us joy in our marriages, as we seek to enjoy life with the spouse you have given us (Ecclesiastes 9:9). Give our spouses joy in their day-to-day responsibilities and in their ministry opportunities (Romans 15:13). Give our children joy through spiritual tastebuds that savor Jesus rather than sin (Psalm 16:11).

Give Us Jesus’s Glory

In the same way that Moses did not want to move into the Promised Land without viewing your glory (Exodus 33:14-18), we don’t want to move into 2025 without a fresh view of Jesus’s glory!

Give us Jesus’s glory in our times of Bible reading and prayer in 2025, so that we can take a spiritual drink and be satisfied (John 7:37-39). Give us Jesus’s glory through seeing your salvation in our personal witnessing with friends and community members (Luke 5:25).

Give our church a view of Jesus’s glory that is so breathtaking that they will want to run from sin (1 Peter 1:13-16). Give our church the focus that church is about Jesus’s glory, not their preferences or ease (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Give our church such a sense of Jesus’s glory on Sunday mornings that they will long for the next time of worship together (2 John 1:12).

Give our families a view of Jesus’s glory that comes from having a privileged front-row seat to your work in so many lives (Acts 2:43). Give our children Jesus’s glory so that they have mountain-top spiritual experiences, but also we ask that when they come down from them that they will have eyes for Jesus only (Matthew 17:8).

Father, we recognize that we don’t deserve any blessing from you. But we also know that you love to give good gifts to your children (Matthew 7:11). So, we are asking you today to give us, our family, and our church four things in 2025: give us hope, give us peace, give us joy, and give us Jesus’s glory!

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Resolutions of a Small-Town Pastor

This article first appeared on Small Town Summits Articles. I serve on the Leadership Team for Small Town Summits.

Note from Tim: I would like to thank the other members of the Small Town Summits Leadership Team for their help thinking through resolutions.

There can be a healthy way to consider New Year’s resolutions as it is a natural time for us to look ahead to the coming year. Jonathan Edwards even famously showed us that resolving to live life for the glory of God can be a helpful way to take stock of our life and goals. As a small-town pastor, here are specific resolutions that I have as I think about ministry in 2020.

Resolved: to “watch my life and doctrine carefully.” Paul instructed Timothy to “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.” (1 Timothy 4:16) This means that I am resolving to exercise more in the coming year as I need the discipline, better health, and energy for ministry that regular exercise will cultivate (1 Timothy 4:8). But it also means that I will take the same care to guard my mind and doctrine by reading one theological book that will challenge me. For me, this means Owen’s The Holy Spirit that has been sitting on my shelf for a few years.

Resolved: to preach with all the passion & preparation the Word deserves regardless of how many are in the pews any given Sunday. The sheep need to be fed well. As pastors we are to preach the word and be ready “in season and out of season.” (2 Timothy 4:2) For a small-town pastor like me, that may mean putting just as much preparation and passion into a Sunday sermon when I know that it will be a smaller Sunday. One of the realities of small-town ministry is that several families all gone the same weekend can put a damper on the excitement of Sunday morning. But my call to preach the Word is not dependent on how many are in the pews, but on the unchanging Savior I am called to proclaim.

Resolved: to read one biography of someone who had a fruitful small-place ministry, to readjust my vision of success. Our heroes of today are so often the large-place pastors and big conference speakers. Our heroes of the past are so often the Spurgeons who preached the gospel to thousands week in and week out. But sometimes we need to be reminded of lives perhaps not as well known but just as well spent, ministering in smaller and lesser-known places (our Small Town Summits Resource Page provides some ideas).

Resolved: to believe that Jesus is enough, and that he is worthy of all my labors, regardless of the fruit I’m seeing or not seeing through my ministry. As I look ahead to 2020, I long for God to work in big ways in our church and community as I see the gospel advance for God’s glory. There are so many within miles of our church building who hardly know the name of Jesus beyond perhaps a curse word. While I want to pray for revival and ministry fruitfulness more, I am also seeking by God’s grace to need it less. I resolve to be content with the pace of ministry that God grants by his grace.

Resolved: to be a husband who better reflects the love of Christ to my wife, and to be a dad who disciples his children and has fun with them. Ministry is serious business. In the same day we could go from visiting a member moments from eternity to visiting a newborn baby in the hospital. In the same week we could go from counseling a marriage that is on the verge of divorce to the joy of officiating a wedding. And there is always more to do. But I am resolving to remember in 2020 that I will never regret spending time with my wife and focusing on growing in better reflecting the gospel through my relationship with her. Sometimes date night may be more fruitful in my ministry than a couple more hours put into the sermon or visitation. I resolve to continue to join my wife in discipling our kids and to remember to have fun with them. They may struggle with believing in a Jesus who became like one of us if I never “stoop” to speak their language of fun and play.

Resolved: to joyfully embrace the place that God has sovereignly assigned to me. Missionary Jim Elliot once wisely remarked, “Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” God sovereignly placed you in the small town that you are ministering in today. There are people there that he means to reach with the gospel through your unique gifting. We have the privilege of shepherding some of God’s people in the specific context he has assigned to us. I resolve to remember what Peter instructed: “shepherd the flock of God that is among you…” (1 Peter 5:2) There is joy in serving in the place that God has placed me in.

As I look ahead to ministry in my small town in 2020, I know that these resolves will never happen by my own strength or resolve. But I know that the Spirit loves to fulfill what God commands. So, fellow small-town pastor, know that this is being prayed for you today and into the new year: “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you… (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12a)

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The Best Resolution for 2019: To Live to Make Jesus Famous!

Photo by Jason Betz on Unsplash

A slightly different version of this article (targeted more to ministry leaders) was featured at the Baptist Convention of New England blog.

On the first day of 2019 I can think of no better resolution than to live for the fame of Jesus Christ more than ever this year. The Christian missionary Henry Martyn was surrounded by religious leaders once who were trying to convert him to Islam. One of the clerics blasphemed Jesus’ name. Henry began to weep. They were surprised and asked him why he was crying. Martyn explained, “You have just blasphemed the name of my wonderful friend and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

In my context in New England, there are many who blaspheme the name of my wonderful friend and Savior, Jesus Christ. But it is more often that they don’t even know his name. Yet I don’t weep about this very often. I am resolving in 2019 to have more of a heart like Henry Martyn, which loves nothing more than to see Jesus lifted up.

The fact that so many around us don’t know who Jesus is should give us a holy angst, a desire to live to make Jesus famous.

Where the Good News of Jesus Goes, His Fame Goes
While words like “glory” and praise” are used much more often to describe the honor that Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord should receive, the word “fame” is used in the Bible as well.

Moses talks about the fame that the LORD had among the surrounding nations (Numbers 14:15), and Psalm 145:7 sings to God about generation after generation pouring “forth the fame of your abundant goodness” and singing “aloud of your righteousness.” In the New Testament, the Gospels talk about Jesus’ fame spreading throughout certain regions, often after he taught or did miracles (Matthew 4:24, 9:31, 14:1, Mark 1:28). As the “gospel of the kingdom” spread, “His fame spread…” (Matthew 4:23-24).

Just imagine what it would be like if our churches were full of people who desired nothing more than to make Jesus famous. We can do this by spreading the gospel of the kingdom. For where the good news of Jesus goes, His fame goes.

Our Core Motivation
Doing ministry, purposefully practicing evangelism, and making disciples through teaching the Word and modeling what it means to follow Jesus are all ways to make Jesus famous. But this core desire to make Jesus famous must motivate all of those ministry activities. Our love for Jesus must burn in our hearts so much that ministry comes out of a desire to see him become more famous, not vice-versa.

Our problem in ministering to others is often not doing the wrong things, but doing the right things for the wrong reasons. When we have our priorities right, God will often bless with stronger churches, more churches, more converts, and more disciples. But a desire to spread Jesus’ fame undergirds these activities in such a way that even if God does not bless in the way we expect or hope or pray, we will continue, because our hearts burn with a desire to see Jesus glorified.

May our longing prayer in 2019 be, “Father, there are so many around me who don’t know your Son. Show them Jesus through me! Show them Jesus through your church!” God loves to answer that prayer. One of the Holy Spirit’s main jobs is to shine the spotlight on Jesus. When we do the same, we are working with Him. Jesus explained, “He [The Spirit] will glorify me…” (John 16:14a).

The New Year is a good time to step back and reevaluate. Maybe it is time for you to refocus. First, are you involved in ministry through a local church and then in your community, region, or the world? Second, is your ministry about you or about Jesus? Is your core motivation the joy of doing ministry, or first and foremost the joy of loving Jesus? Jesus died and rose again “that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15). There truly is no greater resolution.

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