Hello there, brother. Brother Frank, can you remember the book here, don't you? All right, that sounds good. Let me just check to make sure we're live now. All right, and those online, if you make sure, let me know if this sounds okay. It still should be interesting.
We were talking here about the snow that's coming in, and all those that are... It was just a lot. All right, let's take a look here. Thank God for what God is doing. Appreciate each one here this evening. We have a few. Those in the service on site and those online, we appreciate you being with us.
We're going to take a look at really this year of 2025 being the year of our change, and so we're looking at a series that we're going to be starting our year off with change. And so, you good? All right, so make sure you're good. I'll get you another one.
So tonight, as we're going to look at it, each Tuesday, we're going to be going through the Word of God about how to start the year off in a brand new way. I've always told people that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you're going to have the same results. And so since this is going to be the year of change, then we need to do something different.
And so that's what we're turning off in our Bible studies on starting off in a brand new way. So tonight, we're going to be looking at drawing nigh to God, drawing nigh to God. So again, let me just make sure it sounds okay.
Before we get started, let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you right now, God, for your goodness, your mercy. We thank you for all that you're doing in our hearts and our minds. We ask, God, that you bless this evening. Let your will be done and help each one as they start off this new year with the desire to grow closer to you and to do more for you than they ever have. And we ask, God, let your will be done. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right. So this is going to be an exciting year. We thank God for an opportunity to work and labor for Him. And for those in the church, we have plans and we're working on all the activities. We started talking about ideas last week. We had one young man who had all kinds of ideas that he wanted to implement in the church.
And I think his mom shut down some of that. Because, Brother McCree, the reason why she shut it down is because I told everybody, don't just throw ideas at me. If you're going to offer an idea, that means you're going to be participating with me in that. And so his mom didn't want to participate in that. And everything that the young man wanted to do... Lord have mercy. That was funny.
All right. But James 4 and verse 8 tells us, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." And so this is where we're going to use this as a springboard.
We want to always remember God loves us. Each and every one has got to remember the very love of God and how much God cares for you. And so it's not God's desire that you continue in this stagnated spiritual self that maybe you've gone through a couple of years because of distractions, problems, and whatever.
And you're not as close to God as God wants you to be. And so rather than letting you continue to go through that stagnation year in and year out, God begins to put it in the heart to draw closer. He gets it in our heart and mind, and He puts things in our heart to do and maybe grow and get stronger.
And the more we begin to gravitate to His will, find ourselves in alignment with God's goals for us, because God does have goals for us, then we begin to really want to do more for God. And this comes because we say, you know what, something's just not right. I don't feel as powerful as I think I should be.
I'm feeling an unction to do this this year. Some wanted to grow the ascending school in a very big way. Others are trying. They're trying to help out in the outreach, and they want to fill up every chair. And I say, that is wonderful. But, you see, God is dealing with hearts.
This is a time that we need to implement things. Now, as we get ready to start here, I'm going through our scriptures here, keep in mind that we have to begin to look at this. It takes an intentional walk with God. You can't just say, I'll trip over a stick and I'll just serve God.
But you have to make sure, if this is your year for change, then you've got to implement change. Change never happens unless change happens. And so we have to begin looking at that. I was looking at losing weight and working out in the gym and all this other stuff.
You can think about going to exercise all you want. But until you actually make time in your schedule to get up in the morning... For me, it's in the morning. Some do it in the afternoon. Some do it in the evening. But for me, I've got to get up in the morning, drag myself to the kitchen, make sure I've got my coffee or whatever I'm going to use to get myself going, get to the gym.
And then I've got to actually start keeping track. I've got to love my weight. So you can't just keep doing the same thing because you won't get any gains. And so you have to kind of look at this and challenge yourself.
And so I'm looking at YouTube and all these different things. In other words, it's an intentional change in my exercise program. But if we have to intentionally change in our exercise program, how much more in our spiritual journey?
All right. Now, Jeremiah 31 in verse 3 tells us, "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee." This, again, is we start looking at drawing nigh to God.
Why are we trying to draw nigh to God? Why has God drawn us? Because God loves you so much. You're loved with an everlasting love. And so this is something that people begin to go through. They don't understand. God's love is very genuine. He truly wants to have a relationship with you.
Now, Zechariah chapter two, verse eight says, "For thus saith the Lord of hosts, after the glory that he has sent unto me and to the nations which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye." God looks at us as being the apple of His eye. That's God is concerned about us.
Now, as we're going through this, we're showing here, you may not be where God wants you to be exactly. You may not be where God wants you to be as strong as God wants you to be, but you are still the apple of His eye. And because of that, He's calling you to do more, do greater things than you've ever done, to change.
Sometimes people don't want to change. They get comfortable right where they're at, that comfort zone, and they like that, but we've got to step out of our comfort zone. Now, I've got a couple of things that we're going to take a look at this evening, but someone tell me, what is one of your comfort zones that you have to force yourself out of sometimes?
Anybody have a comfort zone that you have to step out of sometimes? And I can understand that. Brother Franklin said, when he's at work, he likes to be left alone. But you said you have to step out of your comfort zone sometimes because you have to interact with other people, especially because you're the boss.
That's good, yes. It would be wonderful if you could just tell everybody, leave me alone, but since you're the one putting everything in place, it's hard for you to tell everybody, just leave me alone. That's very good.
So there are times that we have to step out of our comfort zone and really begin to just do whatever is necessary. And so much more when it comes to serving God, we're used to just shouting amen on Sunday morning, but at some point, God's going to call you to do more than just shout amen on Sunday morning.
He's going to tell you to invite somebody to church, help the preacher out in whatever program, take care of some things, be responsible in the work of God. And maybe somebody said, well, I've never been responsible for a program in church. I can't do anything like that. You can if God's calling you because He never puts more upon you than you can.
And so we look at this, you are the apple of God's eye and God loves you. Now, John 20 and verse 17 says, "Jesus said to her, touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."
When we look at this, this is something I like to use to show many people that God is making Himself available to us. He made sure that they knew where He was at, knew sure He was ascended, but He also made sure to let them know that God is making Himself available to us.
To my God and your God. God is making Himself available. And our challenge is to make ourselves available to God. While God is making Himself available to us, we have to do the same thing. God has drawn nigh to man.
And so as the people of God, we've got to draw nigh to God. Again, this is going to go contrary to our comfort zone and contrary to the things we like to do. It'd be easy sometimes to sit back and let everybody else shout in church. It'd be easy to sit around and let everybody else knock on the door and pass out all the cards and all that.
But at some point, we have to take the responsibility that God's called me to be a worker for God and that I need to draw close to God. I know sometimes one of the ladies was telling me one time when she came, and she just didn't really feel like having church, but she knew she needed to be in church.
And so as she came to church, she was just going to sit there and let everybody else shout. And I said, sister, that's the wrong attitude. Because if God touched you enough to come to church, then you ought to have a made-up mind to praise Him while you're in the building.
So leave all those negative thoughts on the outside. Instead of you saying, I'm going to let everybody else shout, why don't you leave the shouting? Leave the rejoicing. Leave the praise. And just get in and serve God.
And over and over, we find that when we just come to church and we're just going to let the devil orchestrate our worship by just doing whatever we feel, our feelings, just sit here and let everybody else. We're not going to even try to worship God. Then we're staying spiritually immature.
But we've learned to, you know what? He's worthy of praise. I'm going to work through what I'm feeling right now. Work through the negativity that I had or maybe somebody said something right before service, which does happen sometimes. I'm going to praise His name.
And as you're going to do that, the spiritual maturity begins to grow and you're going to realize, I'm going to praise Him anyway. I'm going to give God all the glory and honor. And that's what I'm talking about tonight. Intentional, drawn nigh to God.
So one of the things we look at also is Romans 3 and 12 to kind of help us out to understand. The word of God says, "They're all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."
And so the common concept of many people is just to go your own way and do whatever you want to do. But when it comes to serving God, that's not the case. We must draw nigh to God.
Now, the first thing in order to draw nigh to God is very hard. And so that's why we're going to take a look at that first, because He said that you had to do something. Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you.
And so then He's beginning to give the specifics on how to draw nigh to God. He says, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners." At some point, we have to begin to make up our mind about sin.
I sometimes, I don't know who else uses Instagram or some of the social media things, but as I'm going through sometimes, I just get, you know, looking at some of the funny Instagram videos. But every now and then you see a church service or you see somebody preaching and saying some crazy things.
You know, excuse me, using sin and doing some things that are just crazy. There's one, and I don't know why it's in my algorithm on my page, but I'm always seeing this. It's this guy doing the robot behind the pulpit.
He's always talking about dancing to God, but then he starts doing the robot, and he's doing all kinds of these church dancing, whirly dancing. I'm like, have you seen that? I'm just like, what are you doing? If you want to boogie, go to the club. Don't be, you know, it's right there in the church.
What we have to begin to realize, we are the Bible that some people read. There are some people who will never go to church, that will never open up the word of God for themselves, and so we become that word of God and live in word of God, if you will, and we've got to give a good testimony as unto God.
And so we have to begin to make up our mind, I'm going to live this way. I'm going to make myself available to the Holy Spirit to be an example of the believer. There are some that try to live in sin and out of, in church, and maybe one day they're at one foot in sin, and one day they're in the church shouting praise the Lord and hallelujah.
At some point along the line, when you want to draw close to God, when you want to mean business with God, you've got to make your mind enough is enough. I'm not going to play on both sides. I want to give my heart and mind to God.
And so I know there are those that have a concept of going to church, and we live holy Sunday mornings, but as soon as we leave the doors, we go back to doing the same old thing. At some point, we're going to have to begin to realize He's good Sunday morning, but He's also good Monday morning as well.
We have to live for God every single day, giving our heart and mind to God. Whenever I'm teaching along these lines about cleansing our hands and being consistent in Christ, I always want to think about when I was growing up in San Jose, California.
I would imagine it was this way for everyone else, but for me in San Jose, I listened to a worldly radio station all the time. That's just music I was listening to back then before I really hit the rock. But on Sunday morning, from 8 to 1 o'clock, it was some of the best gospel you ever hear.
The Georgia Mass Choir, Mississippi Mass Choir, all of it. I mean, they were having church up in that place. Exactly at 1 o'clock, we went back to Michael Jackson, Earth and the World, and everything else. I would imagine it was the same way everywhere else.
But right at a certain time, the music changed out, and they put in the new ones. We have to make up our minds. We can't be living one way on Sunday morning, and then right at church time is over, I'm going right back to my same old ways.
I've got to live for God each and every day. We're tempted to join the world being like that, but I can't be like that. I can't be back and forth like that. We want to develop a life that's pleasing to God.
Now, we see this in Philippians 4 and 18. "For I have all and abound. I am full, having received of the Ephroditus the things which were sent to me, an odor, a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." We want to live a life that is well-pleasing to God.
We want to do what God wants us to do and make up our minds that I want to serve God first and foremost. So many times, I'm trying to get people to pray about their actions, pray about the things they're doing. Get in God and make up your mind.
If God has saved you from the alcohol, let go of the alcohol. If God has saved you from drugs, let go of that drug. If God is doing a work in your life, then go ahead and live for God, and that chick can go on back and forth.
When someone will tell me, I'm doing good. I'm not doing as much drugs as I used to. Well, I'm glad that you decided to stop that on a small basis, but I really want you to just let go and just let God begin to bless you.
He said, "Whom the Son has set free, he is free indeed." If you don't need a little bit, you don't need all at all. Go ahead and serve God with everything within you.
For the Word of God says, Jeremiah 4 and 3, "For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among the thorns." When we begin to repent of our sin, and we allow God to humble us, things can change in 2025.
We can have a new life. We can have a wonderful year as we begin to dedicate our heart and mind to God, and as we begin to change, instead of a little bit of sin and a little bit of serving God, a little bit of sin, a little bit of coming to church and giving Him praise, why don't we just go ahead and give God all the praise and all the glory?
In fact, serve God with all that is within you. Now, Hosea 10 and 12 says, "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till He come, and rain righteousness upon you."
This is what He said. We've got to break up that fallow ground, that ground that has gotten cold and hard. We've got to get in there, and we've got to break it up. Why? So God can begin to touch our heart.
We want to become tender to the moving of the Holy Ghost. I used to wonder sometimes when I'd ask people, when they were telling me they were getting ready to go do something, and they said, oh, yeah, I prayed about it. I prayed about it.
But in my mind, I was like, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? That's not spirit-filled. That's not spirit-led. And you're telling me you prayed about it? And then I began to realize their heart was not tender toward God.
God couldn't speak to them anyway. If He was yelling from the heavens, they still couldn't hear, and they still keep on doing what they're doing. And then they want to say, God's not blessing me. I'm praying, but God's not blessing me.
We've got to get to a place where we break up our fallow ground and our heart and have a heart that's tender toward God. And you'll be surprised. God will speak to you each and every day.
When we finally have the soul prepared, He will sow the seed and bring forth a fruitful crop as unto Him for His glory. See, this is what we have to begin to really do. And that is for 2025, think about it.
There were many times that you were going through so many things, and you had so much to do, and you had all the responsibilities, but you let go of your Bible reading. You let go of your prayer time. You let go of really just spending time with God.
I was somewhere a couple of years ago, and I was looking at some Bibles. I was looking at a new Bible, and I came across this Bible, and the Bible's called a minute Bible. And I was like, what in the world is a minute Bible?
And as I began to look at it, in the middle of the Bible, on the pages, there were different words. You didn't have to read the whole passage if you didn't want to. You didn't have to read all the different verses. They gave you key words of every single one, and you could scan that in less than a minute.
And I thought about that. I said, wait a minute, if you can't take time to read the Word of God, this is not going to help you. You need to understand the context. In fact, I've always told people, you need to read the Scripture before and the Scripture after.
If you're going to tell me about a doctrine and things, you've got to understand the context of what was going on there. You can't just scan a word here and a word there and a word there down the middle of a page. Take time to learn God's Word.
So he says here, "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, and break up your fallow ground." Now, one more thing I want to take a look at also. He said, "Purify your hearts." It means we've got to begin to really purify ourselves and really get to a place where we love God.
Now, imperfection is to be free from guilt, immoral, ceremony, and blemish, free from undesirable elements, things that we know on the inside that need to be taken care of. Let's just go ahead and take care of it.
I have showed, again, I get all kinds of crazy stuff coming on my Instagram stuff sometimes, and I'm going through there. And one thing that came up the other day is something from, I guess, a show my wife used to look at, The 600-lb Life.
Anybody look at that? And this lady is arguing with the doctor about how she doesn't want to be malnutritioned. She needs to eat something. Would you believe what the doctor said? Do you look like you're malnutritioned? Oh, my goodness. I about bust a laugh when I saw that.
At some point, you just got to look at yourself and just make things right. You're a certain weight. You got to eat like the doctor's telling you. You got to lose weight. But as long as we keep going back and forth, and we don't have a conviction, and we don't have a conviction in our heart, man, we're going to do all kinds of justification.
How many of you have ever justified something that you wanted to do? Why? Because of what you want to do. At some point, you've got to realize it's not about what I want to do. It's what's right.
And for her, she was saying, I've got to eat. He was telling her, you're going to eat the right thing. You're going to eat a certain amount. But you have to begin to stop the justification.
When someone tells me, God just doesn't listen to me, or God's just not blessing me, God's blessing someone else, He's not blessing me, we need to stop the justification and find out why isn't God blessing. Spend some time with God.
See, the word of God tells us here in 2 Timothy 3 and 2, "For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, and unholy." Don't want to hear what anyone else has to say. I want to do what I want to do.
But then at the same time, when the mom needs a blessing, or the family is sick, or kids are sick, oh, God, I need your touches. I need a miracle. God needs you to open the windows of heaven. Wait a minute. If you have not been living for God, how can you pray the prayer of faith that God will just come down and begin to move everything in your life like He wants, or like you want it, I should say.
We've got to begin to realize, I need to submit myself to God. What did the Lord say? Not my will, Thy will be done. We purify our hearts. God, I belong to you.
Psalm, the word of God says in 2 Timothy 3 and 5, "Having a form of godliness, they deny the power thereof; from such turn away." We're not trying to have a form of godliness; we want to be godly, be in His will, do what God wants us to do.
And as we begin to look at this, there are those that sometimes want to show a good life, and as they just act a certain way, they're thinking that's good enough. It is not. You've got to surrender your all at the altar and say, God, take me and mold me to what you would have me to be.
So as we purify ourselves, we begin to really just get into it and let God help us to draw closer to Him. James 4 and 9 says, "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness."
And taking steps to draw near to God, instead of just having a good time and doing what you want in life, again, you've got to step out of your comfort zone and begin to submit yourself to God and say, God, what would you have me to do?
I told somebody, I said, we need people to invite people to church. We need people. I can't be the only one inviting people to church. I can't be the only one.
And I hear many times people tell me, I'm not able to initiate a conversation. I'm not used to speaking to people. I'm more of an introvert and I don't like talking to people. And I understand that. I really do.
But I believe in life, sometimes you've got to do things even though you may not want to or you're not comfortable doing it. Because if we don't tell them about Jesus, who will?
If we don't step out of our comfort zone and begin to say, God, use me, mold me, make me what you want me to be, how will they ever do it? How will they ever know Christ as Lord and Savior?
Others have had to pray. God, give me the ability to speak to people. Make me a witness. God, I surrender my heart and my mind to you. Rather than us justifying it and say, well, I'm an introvert at this level and that level, and so that's why I don't talk to people, that's not going to cause you to grow closer to God.
At some point you've got to realize, I am a servant of the most high God. And times past when the king told you to do something, you did it. There was no telling the king, well, king, I can do this, but I'm not going to do that. You lose your head that way.
When the king said something, we had to do it. And how about when it comes to King Jesus? If we're supposed to go out to the lost and dying world and compel them, the word of God says, then at some point I have responsibility.
I need to learn how to talk to people. How to initiate a conversation. How to begin to just pass out a card out in public and give them a card. I had to do that one time long ago when I was starting out, and man, it was kind of uncomfortable.
Then I begin to put some cards in my pocket when I'm out talking to people, and we start talking about things. I give somebody a church card, I give them an invitation, hey, why don't you come to church?
And then I started a prayer campaign a couple of years ago, and I'm calling people up, and I'm praying with them. That's not something that I was trained for in Bible school. I'm not somebody that talks to people all the time like that, but that was God's call upon my life.
To minister to them, and so guess what? I'm going to learn how to do it. God gave me the words to say that can comfort them, that can lead them to you, and next thing you know, we have people come to church because why? Of the prayer campaign.
All I'm saying is that many times it's not about how you feel, it's what is the will of God. And then as we get ready to pray, He said, double-minded. Stop standing in confusion, and just make up your mind.
He's my Lord. He's my Savior. And I'm going to do what God wants me to do. Get rid of the old paths back to sin. Burn those bridges if you have to.
I know somebody says you should never burn your bridges, but when they'll come to go back into sin, burn those bridges. Make up your mind. Psalms 27, verse 4 says, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple."
That's what I want to do. Have you ever thought about that? I want to spend time, eternity, with God. There are those that are double-minded sometimes. Sometimes on certain things, you don't know what you want to do, and so you're kind of standing on the outside, and you're not really making a decision, but you need to make a decision when it comes to serving God.
Are you in? Are you out? Are you a child of God? Are you just a church attendee every so often? You see, by looking at being halfway in and halfway out, you have to understand something. When you're not decided, be assured the devil is decided.
He's very much decided to destroy you, so he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And so different ones begin to sometimes equivocate, and they don't want to do this, and they don't know if they really get religious. They don't know if they're really to let go of all their friends.
If I start serving God, Pastor Tucker, I'm going to lose all my friends. And so going back and forth on that, make up your mind. Is He the Lord of all, or is He not Lord at all?
I saw this someplace, and it said on a recent trip to Haiti, a Haitian pastor was doing an illustration of the congregation on the need for total commitment to Christ.
He told of a certain man that wanted to sell his house for $2,000, and another man wanted to buy it very much because he was poor and he couldn't afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half of the original price with just one stipulation.
He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding just over the door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell.
So the first owner, because he had that loophole of the one nail, he went out and found a carcass of a dead dog and hung it from that one nail. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to move because of that one stipulation.
I'll sell it to you for half price, but I'm going to put a nail on the door. And because of that, he had to, the family had to move. The Haitian pastor's conclusion was, if we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ's habitation.
You've got to be totally sold out to Jesus. Make up in your mind. I want to draw nigh to God. I want to serve Him with everything within me, and as we begin to do that, we're going to have a wonderful, victorious 2025.
Now, I know it's not always easy to just make a decision. Tell me a time when you were double-minded about a certain situation and how you made a choice.
Anybody? Tell me a time that you were double-minded about something and you had to make a choice. How so? You make it happen, don't you?
How about you, Nazisha? Tell me a time that you were equivocating on something and you had to make a decision. That's right. I make it happen this year. This is our year.
That's right. You know, sometimes you just look at it, and there's things that we have to do. I can't play games with this. I can't. I can't keep going back and forth. I've got to make a decision, and I just got to make it happen sometimes.
When it comes to serving God, really the lesson is stop playing games with God and draw nigh to Him.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you right now, God, for your goodness, your mercy. We give you praise and glory for all that you have done. This is our year, and God, we look forward to all that you're going to do.
This is the year of change, and as we begin to change our ways and draw closer to you, Lord, we expect blessings. God, we just know that you're going to bless abundantly, help us be fruitful in your word, and we give you glory, honor, and praise in Jesus' name, amen and amen.
Don't forget, this Sunday, we're going to have our planning time, so when you come to church, son, if any of those are going to help me plan out the year, make sure you plan for an hour, because we're going to try to plan out the whole year of all of our activities, and we're going to put names on who's doing what.
And so we're really looking forward to getting that. I find that if we know who's going to do what and we get all that stuff taken care of, then people start already praying about it.
I know LaVon was saying she's praying about some things that she wants to do right before our Easter service. She wants to teach the kids a certain lesson, and different ones that I want to pray about, some things we do for Christmas.
I want to work on some things for our coming media stay that we're going to be having, our outreach program. So a lot of people are already praying about different things, so when you plan it out, you know when things are going to happen, you can start planning accordingly.
So we look forward to that. So that will be this Sunday at 11 a.m. I'm Pastor Tucker at New Testament Christian Church.
on Jan 11, 2025
