Knowing God

Well, welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us online. I hope that you had a very Merry Christmas. I do want to say, as I start off today, I want to say thank you to all of you who volunteered. You served in one of our myriad of Christmas services. That was the largest Christmas Eve we've ever had. And for those of you who served, thank you. I hope that you made some great memories, especially those of you who perhaps served with your family. I hope you have some memories that you as a family will look back at for the rest of your life and just remember that time. And so thank you for serving again. Thank you for not just coming to church, but for being the church. And I hope you had a great Christmas this week. We cross over into the new year. 2026. That just sounds so crazy in my mind, I guess, because I'm an old guy. But 2026. And what I want to do over the next few minutes, I just want to share more of a devotional with you, give you some of my heart for you in the new year. But I want to talk to you about what I want for you this year, what I believe the Lord wants for all of us here in this new year in 2026. Many of you have heard part of my testimony and many of you have not, but I want to share it with you. I grew up in church and I grew up in this little church in Mesquite, Texas. I was at church nine months before I was born because my mom played piano at the church that I grew up in. But through years and years of going to Sunday school and being part of Bible studies and things like that, when I got into my later high school years, I kind of walked away from church. And I had in my mind, I would ask myself, you know, do I really believe this stuff? Or am I just part of this because that's what my parents believed? And I had this moment one night where a friend of mine asked me what the Christian life was all about. I'd stopped going to church. He said, you know, I know you grew up in church and Sunday school and Bible studies and all those kinds of things. He said, Chad, if you could sum it up, what is the Christian life all about? And the best answer that I could come up with was you're not supposed to sin. And he showed me this verse of scripture and it's Jesus talking. We're actually going to look at it as we start the new year together next weekend. But in this verse of scripture, Jesus defines eternal life. And I'm not going to quote it for you. I'm going to paraphrase it for you. But here's what he says. Eternal life is a relationship. It's about knowing God. So this week, as we begin the new year, I'd like you to think about that.

That life is about knowing God. Having a relationship with him. The reason that you were born. The reason that you are breathing in and out right now. God's purposes for you in 2026 all have to do with you knowing God. Having a relationship with him. Not just knowing about him in the sense of information, but having knowledge of him. You know him. You walk with him. You have a relationship with him. And this is what I want for you. Way back when, when I was 19 or 20, and my friend showed me this verse of scripture. And the light bulb of life is about knowing God. When that light bulb came on, it was life-changing for me. And if you and I can just wrap our minds around this truth that it's about knowing God. That's what life is about. It'll be life-changing for each of us. What I want for you in 2026 is simply this. That you would know God more. Not that you would just know about him. But that you would have knowledge of him. That you would walk with him each day in your life in this new year. And I know that anytime we go into a new year, we've got all kinds of New Year's resolutions. And things we want to change. And it's like an opportunity for a reset. And all that is fine and good. But make one of the goals of your life this year to know God more. And it could be at this moment, you're like, Chad, I don't even know what that means. Is that a mystery? What does that even mean? ask. We're going to talk about that over the next few weeks, but make knowing God a goal of your life. What would it mean each day for you to make the goal for that day to know God just a little bit more? What would it mean for you in 2026 to go all in, to just make your life about knowing God

and walking with God? I want to share with you a verse of scripture. This is Ephesians chapter 6, verse 18, and this is actually our key verse for the new series. So we're going to start a new series beginning next weekend. I hope you'll come and join us. The name of the series is going to be called In His Presence, and guess what it's about? Yeah, it's about getting to know God more through prayer. And so go ahead and decide you're going to come to church next weekend, and we'll start that journey together. But I want to go ahead and share this verse of scripture with you and ask you to look at it maybe over the next few days. And again, think about it in the context of the goal this year of knowing God more. Here's what the Bible says, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 18. It says, and pray in the Spirit. Notice the capital S there, so it's talking about the Holy Spirit. And pray in the Holy Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Here's what I want you to notice today, and pray in the Holy Spirit. So again, the goal is knowing God this year. We're going to know God better. We're going to wake up each day with the goal of knowing God better. And here's how we get to know God. You ready? Two things, through word and spirit. He says, pray in the Spirit. Over the next few weeks, when you come back, and as we start the new year, we're going to learn how to do that together. How do we pray in the Holy Spirit? What does that mean? How do we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in our prayers? So that when we pray, it's not just a religious exercise, it's actually an experience with the living God. How do we connect with God relationally in such a way that His Spirit is actually guiding us as we pray? That's what we're going to be talking about over the next few weeks. We're going to learn to pray in the Holy Spirit. Here's how we get to know God. I'm going to say it again. It's word and spirit. What's the word? The word is the Bible. The primary way that God speaks to us is through the scriptures. This is how we get to know God. And the Bible guides us. It's actually God's love letter to us. Anything the Holy Spirit ever says to us, it'll fall in line with the teachings of the Bible. Here at Sun Valley, we're a word church. We're a Bible church. We teach the Bible. We're going to teach some things over the next few weeks about prayer. We're just going to walk right through it verse by verse. We are a word church. That's how we get to know God. If you want to know God's voice, then you get into, guess what? God's word. We are a word church. And then here's the other side. It's spirit. We're going to learn to pray in the spirit. The spirit guides us in prayer. The spirit speaks to us about specific things in our lives. The spirit really illuminates the character of God to us.

It's word and spirit. How are we going to get to know God this year? Say it with me. We're going to get to know him through word and spirit. So over the next few weeks, we're going to learn how to pray in the spirit, and we're going to learn how to do that from God's word. The goal for 2026 is that you would get to know God more. You know, right now I'm in a small group, and in the small group that I am in, we actually don't talk about the sermon because that'd be weird because I'm in the group. Does that make sense? And so I'm actually not the group leader. We have a different group leader, and they allow us to study some other things. We still talk about the sermons a little bit, but they allow us to talk about some other things because Katrina and I, my wife and I, are in the group. And so right now we're studying Psalm 23, and we've got a study guide, and we're working on that. And one of the things that we talked about this past week in our group is how people have wrong thoughts about God. So I'll ask you, because we're talking about getting to know God, how do we do that through word and spirit? Is it possible that you have some wrong thoughts about God? And as we were walking through this study, the author gave a Mark Twain quote, and here's how it goes. Listen close. He says, it's not the things that we know that get us. It's the things that we know that just ain't so. Those are the things that get us. Ha ha. Think about that for a minute. Is it possible that when it comes to God, there's some things that you know that just... ain't so. Is it possible that you have some wrong thoughts about God? This year, we're going to get to know God, the right thoughts, and we're going to do that through word and spirit. So today, I'm going to pray for you. I want to bless you here in just a moment as we go into the new year. But today, I want to challenge you with three things. The first thing is this. I want to challenge you this year to spend time with God personally each day. Personal time with God each day. Now, over the next few weeks, I'm going to give you some things you can do on how to spend time with God. We're going to learn how to pray together. Again, we're going to learn how to let the Holy Spirit guide us in that prayer. But would you go ahead and commit to spend time with God each day? Now, many times we way overthink that, and you're like, do I spend an hour in prayer? How much is enough? Listen, what you do is you spend 15-20 minutes each day. Read a couple of verses of scripture. I'm going to help you with this. And you pray, and you maybe write down some things. The compounding effect of that over the course of the year will help you know God more. And again, we're going to get into God's word. I'm

going to teach you what it means to be guided by the Spirit. But right now, just go ahead and make a commitment, make it a goal to spend time with God each day. So I'm going to challenge you with that. Second thing, I want to challenge you to come to church each week. Like, go ahead and make it a commitment. If you have a family, don't on Saturday night decide whether or not you're coming to church on Sunday morning. It's just a decision you've already made for the year. If you come on Saturday night, you're not making that decision on Saturday morning, right? You're just going to come on Saturday night. You just go ahead and make that decision for the year. So you're going to spend time each day, and you're going to come to church each week. And both of those just make advanced decisions. That's just what you're going to do. Third thing I want to challenge you with, because what's our goal this year? We're going to get to know God better. That's the goal this year. We're going to get to know God better. How do we do that? Through word and spirit. I know I'm repeating myself. I'm trying to drill this in with you. So word and spirit. We're going to get to know God better. It's the purpose of our lives. So we're going to spend time with God each day. We're going to come to church each week. Here's my third challenge. I want to challenge you to get in a group. Get in a group. We're going to talk about that over the next few weeks, give you some steps you can take. But I want you to have some real friends at the church, and I want you to get in the group. And what that is, is when you get together with your group, and my wife and I are in a group. I just talked about that. When you get together with your group, it allows you to talk about your life in the context of the Word, what the Bible teaches, and how the Spirit is leading, and friends help us follow through. That's why groups are so important. Friends help us follow through. And so here's the three challenges again. Spend time with God each day, come to church each week, and get in a group because friends help us follow through in whatever it is the Lord is telling us. This year, we're going to get to know God more. It is the purpose of life. And I'll just tell you, it's why Jesus came. It's why He rose again. It's what life is all about. So we're going to get into God's Word. We're going to learn to pray in the Spirit and pray regularly. We're going to get to know God and walk with God in 2026. Sound good? Yeah, I'm excited. Listen, as your pastor, I want to tell you, I love you. I'm praying that this will be the best year of your life so far. And again, I want to challenge you with the goal. Make the goal of your life this year getting to know God more so that you'll trust Him and follow Him more. All of life is about knowing and walking with God. I want to speak a blessing over you, and then I'll pray for you. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and may He

make His face to shine upon you. May the Lord be gracious to you. May He lift His countenance upon you, and may He give you His peace. Father, as we enter into this new year, I do pray that we would be intentional about getting to know you more. The more that we know you, the more that we understand your love for us, the more that we will trust you, walk with you, do what you say. And so I pray that we would learn the Word. I pray, Holy Spirit, we would learn what it means to keep in step with you, and we pray that you would guard and guide our lives. And so bless us, help us, and may we know you more in 2026. May we trust you more, and in that, may you change us however you desire. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.