Gregg Marutzky: Happy New Year Church.
Happy New Year.
2026.
I don't know where 2025 went.
It sure went fast.
If it, if you're like me, it went too fast.
It is over.
It's great to have Pablo and Nicole back with us.
Amen.
We love you very much.
We're proud of you.
We're inspired by you.
You left a great legacy here.
And, uh, just we hope you come back when you're done.
Amen.
And I've been overseas.
I know what that's like.
It's a different world, gives you perspective, it humbles you.
It's a whole different culture.
And so, uh, we'll be praying for you and we look forward to
hearing more and more good news.
Well, today I like preaching New Year's sermon because I like living
sort of with a stop and a start.
Yes.
Oh, to put some things behind me and then to go forward.
I like to dream.
The title of the lesson today is say, new year.
Same God, but it's also New Year, new Dreams.
Same God.
Amen.
And I think we need to dream as people.
If we don't dream as people, we're gonna be stagnant.
We're gonna let the circumstances of our life affect us too deeply.
You've got to have that vision.
As Hebrews 12 said, Jesus with the joy set before him endured the cross.
You've gotta have joy set before you.
And it can't be just temporary.
It can't be the next vacation.
It can't be the next weekend.
It can't be your team winning because they may not.
They may not.
And so I want us to dream spiritual dreams.
I want us to be able to.
Say goodbye to 2025 and more than just 2025.
I want you to be able to say goodbye to your past.
You can't live in your past coming from a doctor.
Don't look behind.
You're gonna trip going ahead.
Don't look behind.
There's baggage back there.
You need to cut off so you can fly and you can get above
the circumstances of the past.
You've gotta be able to heal from the past.
You've gotta be able to look forward and be focused and have dreams.
I love this poem by Lord Tennis, and I read a bunch of of poems this week.
I wanted to inspire myself.
I wanted to inspire you, and I read a bunch of sad poems.
I read a bunch of garbage.
A lot of people think they're poets out there.
Don't believe much of what you read on the internet.
All right.
I searched and searched.
I asked for the best poems and it took me a lot of time and energy
to find this one, and I like it.
I like it a lot.
All right, Lord Alfred Tenon ring out wild bells to the wild sky.
The flying cloud, the frosty light, the year is dying in the night.
Ring out wild bells and let them die.
Ring out the old ring in the new ring.
Happy bells across the snow.
The year is going.
Let him go.
Ring out the false ring in the true, ring out the grief that SAPs the mind.
For those that here we see no more ring out, the feud of rich and poor.
Ring and redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause.
And ancient forms of party strife ring in the noer modes of life.
With sweeter manners and pure loss ring out the want.
The care, the sin, the faithless coldness of the times wr out.
Wr out my mournful rhymes, but ring the Fuller Menstrual Inn, wring
out false pride in place and blood.
The civic slander and the spite ring in the love of truth and right ring
in common love of good ring out.
Old shapes of foul disease wr out the narrowing lust of gold ring out thousands
wars of old ringing in thousand years of peace ringing in the valid man and free.
The larger heart, the kindler hand wring out the darkness of
the land ring in the Christ.
That is to be.
That's my theme today.
Wr out the old and wr in the new, wr out the bad and wr in the good.
I mean, wr out the past and ring in the future, wr out the
sadness and the sickness and ring in the health and the gladness.
Amen.
I mean, let's let this be a new beginning.
That's why I love school and I'm not gonna go to school anymore.
I think 25 years of graduate school's enough, whatever it was, 12 years
before that, 13, I don't know, whatever.
I'm done.
But what's good about school is I always went semesters.
So I had a, a fall.
And a spring or winter, they'd call out spring, but it was really winter
in the places I lived and then summer.
But I let that semester system be a start and a stop, a time to reflect, a time to
review, a time to repent, a time to even regret, and a time to refresh and renew.
And revive and go forward.
That's right.
And so this week is a good time for us to do that.
Some of us still we're.
We're on vacation.
You haven't had to go back to work.
Tomorrow may be the day.
I'm so sorry.
All right.
I mean, we're taking our grandkids to the airport.
I'm gonna savor today and tomorrow.
Two more days of vacation.
Amen.
All right.
I, I'm cheering for myself.
I know you didn't get into that.
All right.
But then it's back to work.
It's back to work.
But after I leave them at the airport, I'm gonna really focus and I hope
this lesson can help you as well.
Amen.
Americans, we make resolutions.
In fact, it says, studies show that about 60% of Americans
make New Year's resolution.
And what do we make resolutions about?
Well, let me, let me, uh, uh, share with you some statistics of what
those, what we make resolutions about.
We make resolutions to drink less alcohol.
Okay?
And then for some of it's for health reasons.
We don't drink any alcohol.
There's nothing wrong with that, and even for religious regions, we don't.
Now, Paul said Timothy because he had a, a, a bad stomach to drink a little
alcohol, so it's okay to drink a little, but if you don't need it, don't drink it.
All right.
I, I used to drink a little, now I don't drink at all because I
have two professional license and I don't want to ever lose those.
License.
Took, took too much work to get 'em.
Yeah.
And even though I'm a big guy and I think that, you know, I can maybe
handle some, I'm not gonna even test it.
Get a better education.
Well do that if you need to.
All right.
Everybody needs to be a lifelong learner.
I mean, life passes you by the studies show right now that you'll not have
one career your whole lifetime.
Wow.
That now, it used to be you'd have at least two careers.
Now it's four.
Wow.
All right.
So you're gonna have to be a lifelong learner.
You're gonna have to continue to evolve it.
It maybe you're a digital, uh, native and you know all about
the internet and all that.
Well, guess what?
AI's come along and there's a lot more to do.
Learn.
You gotta just keep growing and learning and changing.
You need professional development.
I'm so proud of Steve Stevenson.
He's gonna start grad school this semester to get his master's in theology,
and the four guy's probably gonna have to have me as one of his professors.
Amen.
He better be nice.
All right.
Get a better job, get fit.
Let's all work on that.
Lose weight.
Well, that's been a lifelong journey.
I'm gonna be really skinny in heaven.
Amen.
Manage debt.
Get out from under debt.
That's just a burden.
Manage stress.
Do things every day.
Even this ring in and ring out.
Ring in the good.
Ring out the bad.
Right.
Ring in the new year.
Wring out the old year.
I mean, these breathing exercise, I do 'em all the time.
Do they work?
Sometimes?
Yes, but sometimes it's good enough.
All right.
Manage your strength.
Quit smoking.
Oh, I pray you'd already did that.
All right, so quick vaping.
All right.
Reduce and quit nibbling.
I know what they got out there.
All right.
And I drive down 55, the huge cannabis store.
All right, reduce, reuse, recycle.
Amen.
Californian wrote this, amen.
Save money, take a trip, volunteer.
Get a new car if you need one.
Don't waste your money if you don't.
But the sad thing is after one month, that 60 goes down to 50.
Two months, those that 60 goes down to 40, only 10% of people that make
New Year's resolutions keep 'em.
Wow.
10%.
But my attitude shoot for star.
Hey, you might hit a moon.
I'm gonna try to lose weight if I don't lose a lot, at least I'll lose some.
That's right.
I may not get in great shape.
I might not be able to lift what I did when I was.
In college, but I'll be stronger to live a few more years.
Amen.
So do what you can.
Do what you can.
Amen.
I went to school at Aing Christian for my first doctorate for four years.
And right outside the Graduate School of Theology, sometimes in
class you could look out the window and see this, and it's a statue.
Somebody donated a bunch of money and one of the professors of art, the at Abilene
Christian designed this and made it at the bottom of it, there's a F, there's
a baptism where the students get BA can get baptized, but this is Jacob's Ladder.
And as a former civil engineer, I would just go out there and I'd be in awe.
Man, they, how is that still standing with these Texas tornadoes?
I mean, I was just in awe of this 'cause it looks like they're just floating
in space and there is bars in between 'em and steel and reinforcement and
rebar and all that kind of stuff.
But it's so beautiful and we're gonna see the story today about
Jacob's Ladder because wherever there's a portal to heaven.
Wherever there is a stairway to heaven, that's a sacred space,
and this is in preparation for moving back into our building.
We're gonna sanctify that place to where it's a stairway to heaven.
Now, for all you old rockers, I know that that has some flashbacks for you.
Okay.
Stairway to heaven, but we're talking spiritual this morning.
All right.
There you go.
All right.
Jacob Slatter.
It's a great story.
Let's get into it.
Turn your Bibles over to Genesis 28 if you have 'em with you.
With you either in paper form or electronic.
This is a great story and we're gonna look at, first, we're
gonna look at God's promises.
That's what.
Lifts our eyes.
Lift your eyes above circumstances and life and look to God.
We're gonna look at God's promises because this year you can be in
the right place at the right time.
Haven't you looked at some people who've won the lottery or got the, the
promotion or became the star of the show?
They were in the right place at the right time.
Yeah, I want you to place yourself in the right place at
the right time this year, right?
And then we're gonna look at Jacob's dream.
And we want imitate his dream.
We want to be dreamers, and we wanna be crazy good dreamers, not nightmares.
I want you to get rid of the nightmares.
Ring out the nightmares, or ring in the dreams.
Amen.
Because what goes around comes around.
Jacob had had nightmares because his name meant.
In a good way.
Wrestler in a bad way.
It meant deceiver.
All right?
And he was both, he wrestled with God.
He wanted blessings from God.
That's another story, and we'll preach that one.
At some point.
He was a wrestler, held onto his faith.
He didn't give up.
Wrestlers are the most tenacious, committed people.
It's the hardest sport I've ever done.
I mean it, I mean, I, I'm, I am in awe of wrestlers and most of them, you can
tell they're wrestlers by their ears,
leave it there.
Don't go any further.
All right.
But they're tough people, so it's, it means they're resilient and they know
their goals and they work for 'em.
But also it meant sometimes in Jacob's case, he was a deceiver.
And then we're gonna look at the last part, his resolution to be better.
'cause it can get better and better.
Some of us don't believe that today.
There's some people that have been a part of the OC church for a while, and you're
down, you're worn out, you're tired.
Some of you're even negative, and I'm a good listener.
I listen to it, you know, I'm a, I'm a big boy.
Forehead of flint.
I can listen to good or bad, happy or sad, you know, and I can even process it.
I can let it not draw me down, and I'm determined to help us all to
dream again and believe that it.
Will get better.
That's a theme of my life.
It gets better and better.
Amen.
So look at, uh, yourself today.
It's always good to reflect and to review.
All right?
It's always good to think about things.
And as a Christian, what are our goals gonna be as a church and as a person?
Are they the same as our fellow citizens?
Some of them, yeah.
But then we wanna have some loftier ones want right?
Should I be looking at a different set of values than most people around me?
Yeah, I hope so.
And are the results equal to the importance of other Americans?
I hope our results and how what we want to change make an eternal difference.
All right.
I love this verse in Ecclesiastes seven, in verse 29.
It says this, only have I found the wisest man of the world, Solomon eth.
God made mankind upright.
But men have gone in search of many schemes.
Some of you want to get rich quick, some of you wanna take the shortcut.
You don't want to put in the work.
Want to, don't want to put up, put in the effort.
You know, one very wise philosopher said that.
We are just a bundle of our habits.
William James, an 1800 psychologist and some of his, uh, ideas have been
researched only recently, improvement.
True.
We are a bundle of habits, and I'll take that one step back.
We're a bundle of our choices, right?
What choices we make.
Yes.
Decide our habits and our habits, decide our behaviors and decide our life.
I got a great, uh, poem of prose, I guess you'd call it from Paul Blakely,
one of the brothers up in Santa Clarita.
I'll share it with you maybe in another sermon.
This beautiful, he wrote it to me on January 1st, and uh, he'll
probably publish it, so I don't want to steal his s thunder.
But it was just about the rain 'cause it's been raining for several days.
One, one brother said it's been raining for 24 straight days
here in Southern California.
I thought it quit for a while.
I mean, I guess he's sort of negative.
He thinks it's just kept raining the whole time.
I don't know.
I thought it, it quit a few days, but not Paul.
He likes the rain.
He says it's the Lord's rhythm and.
Syncopation of life and nature because it does nourish the earth.
And Isaiah 58, 4 tells us that as the rain and snow come down from heaven, so God's
word goes forth and bears fruit as well.
But what he said about the rain was he decided to use a puddle,
a rain puddle as a metaphor.
And should he step forward into the puddle and beyond, or should he
stay back as he contemplated this new beginning, the new choices,
the new habits for this next year?
He wrote this beautiful prose about whether I should step forward,
should I let my fears hold me back, or should I go for it?
And I know he's a part of a new venture and new, new business, and so that's
probably what he was wrestling with.
But we all do.
We have our fears for the future, the fears for this year, but I wanna encourage
you to listen to God as Proverbs even says the first couple of chapters,
that our ways are not the right ways.
God's ways are better than our ways, and we often go the wrong
direction and learn the hard ways.
So let's.
Dreams.
Some new dreams.
Dreams for God this morning.
Amen.
Genesis 28, verse 10.
Read with me.
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for heroin when he reached a certain place.
He stopped for the night because the sun had set taking one of the stones there.
He put it under his head and lay down to sleep.
I'm glad my pillow is not a stone.
How about you?
Yeah, he had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth
with its top reaching into heaven, and the angels of God were ascending
and descending Jacob's ladder.
What did this represent?
Jacob's Ladder represents a gate, a place to get to heaven, a portal
to God, a sacred space, and the intersection of the human and the divine.
Kathy's been taking the television away from me lately.
It's sad, it's rough, but uh, you know, there's a lot of football games.
She gave me a day to watch, you know, the football games, but she's
been watching Stranger Things.
She wants to get caught up.
All right.
Yeah.
Some of you are wither on that and you know, since I have to.
Can't watch what I want.
I've been watching with her and you know, that was during COVID and
there's, yeah, it was just sort of the passing of time thing to do and it
was a little scary, A little mystical talking about porthole and stuff.
Porthole to evil.
This is port hose to good.
Alright.
Intersection of the human and the divine.
Not the evil and the human.
It's a stairway to heaven.
And guess what?
This is really God's vision for the church.
Amen.
I mean, this is supposed to be the portal.
This is the sacred space.
Right now it's at the pack.
It's gonna be a 10 good year.
That needs to be the place we go to and we bring our friends to, to get to heaven.
We get to heaven.
We help them get to heaven.
Amen.
That's what this stairway to heaven, this vision, this metaphor is all about.
It's awesome.
It's a great picture.
I like it.
I like it a lot.
All right.
I don't know why I'm on that this morning.
Genesis 28, verse 13.
There're above it.
It stood, stood the Lord at the top of the ladder.
He said, I'm the Lord, the God of and the of your Father,
Abraham, and the God of Isaac.
I will give you and your descendants, the land on which you are lying.
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will
spread out to the west and to the east, to the north, and to the south.
All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring,
your children, your descendants.
I am with you and will watch over you.
What a great promise.
Wherever you go, I will bring you back to this land.
Me, I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
Amen.
That's God's faithfulness.
God fulfills his promises.
If you've had doubts about God, if you've been shaken in your faith,
if you've been discouraged this last year, put it behind you, wr it out.
And ring in God's faithfulness, ring in God's place.
Renew your prayer life.
Renew your hope and the goodness.
And the greatness of God and the power of God.
Because look at these promises he gave to Jacob this Mor that night, and
where did, when did he give it to him?
When did Mary and Joseph get God's direction in their dreams?
You need to get good night's.
Sleeps all right.
Too often I take Tylenol PM to get to sleep.
I'm, I'm going off of it 'cause I want to have some spiritual dreams.
I don't just want to die at night and then be revived in the morning.
Right?
I want to dream some spiritual dreams.
All right?
And see now that I planted that seed.
Do you think?
Do you think Dr.
Greg's right?
Will that happen?
Check me out.
All right.
I believe God's faithful.
I believe sometime you're gonna get a dream from God.
All right.
What were these promises he gave to his people?
A place for us, it's 10 Goodyear.
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited about it.
I mean, we've had all these committees going and people have been
working hard and dreaming dreams.
You know, Rusty's gonna get his barbecue finally.
All right?
I mean, we're gonna have a coffee shop, we're gonna have a tent with
a coffee house and a coffee shop.
We're gonna get all these artists coming in there and playing.
We're gonna have all this, these singles, we're gonna have food there, Pablo.
We're gonna have some good food there, you know, a a little bit anyway, all right.
We've, God's promised us a place.
He's promised us to be a nation and a people.
Ron sent me something this morning about one of the, the ancient,
uh, spiritualist, one of the old writers of spiritual formation.
He wrote something and, and, and I'm not sharing it with you 'cause
it was sort of negative, you know, it was about how he, this, this
Catholic month loved the church.
And hated the church and every, every rhythm was he loved and he hated.
I'm like, I'm not sure I want to be in that church.
But then I thought about my life.
There's times when I've just loved the miracles, loved the church,
loved the victories, and there was other times, oh, what is going on?
God.
Yeah.
And so guys, it's okay to be conflicted.
It's, it's okay to, to not be in a perfect church 'cause you know
there are no perfect churches.
Yeah.
And go out there and look.
You won't find it.
Well, I'm gonna look Okay.
Go.
You got free will.
God gave it to you.
That's right.
We don't have bars around this church.
You don't even know where we're gonna meet unless you listen.
You know.
But we are a people.
We are God's people.
We're disciples.
Jesus is the Lord of our life.
And that's not ever changing.
And I love that.
I love, I love the church so much.
I'm not going anywhere.
God promises protection.
Why to His people don't wander from his people.
'cause then you may be outside God's protection and God
also promises his present.
With his people.
These are great promises and they all start with P and that took
me a long time to come up with.
I appreciate it.
Please.
Genesis 28, verse 16, when Jacob awoke from his sleepy thought, surely
the Lord's in this place, and I was not aware of it, he was afraid and
said, how awesome is this place?
'cause all of a sudden his sin hit him, all his deceptiveness.
And all his garbage.
This is none other than the house of God.
This is the gate of heaven.
We've gotta mark this place.
People need to come here so they can get to heaven.
He felt early.
The next morning, Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and he set
up a pillar and he poured oil on it.
On top of it, he, he gave an offering.
He called that place Bethel, which means house of El, house of God.
Though the city used to be called laws, you know, Jesus promised you and me,
wherever two or three are gathered, two or three sincere Christians,
just takes a few of us for God to be there for it to become sacred space.
We try to have sacred space around the dinner table at night.
We always make everybody come around.
Little Kenzie will come in our room, Papa, you're late for dinner.
Come to dinner.
She loves to tell Papa what to do.
You know, little kids get told what to do all the time, man.
They're gonna take advantage of it when they can.
And I say, yes, ma'am, I'm on my way.
And I go, 'cause we can't pray until everybody gets there and we hold hands.
And before I had to, had to entice her to hold my hand.
Now I put my hand out, just slaps her hand into it.
Oh, I love it.
That's gonna be my memories, you know, holding hands with my little
granddaughter and we pray and we take turns praying it becomes sacred space.
Good sacred space guys, Jacob wanted to mark that place.
He wanted to put down a marker.
He wanted a boundary.
He wanted a stake because he made a resolution, a vow, a commitment to God.
And so he's gonna lead us now in what are our vows?
What should they be for this next year?
To God.
All right,
so when I slap my hand, my phone is gonna call the hospital that I'm in danger and
I have an emergency, so I gotta stop that,
but it also gives me a chance to see what my time is.
All right.
Got five minutes.
I have to shut that off.
'cause it, it goes to my daughter and then she'll call verse 20.
Did Jacob made a vow?
Here's our New Year's resolutions folks.
If God will be with me and we'll watch over me on this journey.
What was he doing?
Going to find a wife.
It's okay.
That's right.
You wanna find a wife this next year?
You wanna find a husband?
Do it All right.
Come on.
I mean,
I found mine and then I converted her.
All right.
I probably wouldn't have one because I'm not the most desirable guy.
I'm not, thou I wasn't then, but I, I got her when she was young
and not as smart as she is now.
My God,
I shouldn't tell you my secrets.
Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and watch over me on this
journey, I, I am taking and will give me food to eat, clothes to wear so that
I return safely to my father's house.
Then the Lord will be my God, and this stone that I set up will be as a pillar.
Will be God's house and all that you give me.
I will give you a 10th.
That's a pretty good guide and a pretty good template for our New
Year's resolutions rather than sisters.
He says three things he's gonna do because God gave him this dream and
this vision and this, this, this portal.
This stairway to heaven.
First, he renewed lordship.
He tells us we need to renew our lordship.
That Jesus is Lord.
The Lord will be my God.
Say it with me.
The Lord will be my God.
You need to say it.
Say it with me.
The Lord will be my God.
Three times the Lord will be my God.
That should be all that matters for 2026, that Jesus is the Lord of my life.
Amen.
The second, and I'm gonna worship him, I'm gonna give him my life because he is Lord.
He's gonna be Lord over and master of my my house.
And so he says, I will be a pillar.
For the house of my God, this, this, this stone's gonna represent who I am.
I'm gonna be a pillar in the house of God.
I'm gonna be one of the strong brothers.
I'm gonna be one of the strong sisters.
I'm not gonna be one of these weak, struggling, inconsistent,
unfaithful, sinful people.
I'm gonna finally be.
A righteous man, a holy woman, a good Christian, a true disciple, I'm going
to be a pillar in the house of God.
Amen.
You gotta make that decision.
Kathy and I are married because our campus ministers said, you
know, Kathy, Craig's a leader.
You know, I know he doesn't want to go into the ministry,
but he's still a leader.
He leads two Bible talks and he's got a, got two majors.
He's a leader.
You know, I know you're new to the campus ministry.
I know you transferred from Texas, but I, I know Greg loves you and, and you
guys are dating, but I just want to encourage you, so you guys, stayat com.
Uh, compatible.
Compatible.
There you go.
Thank you.
Help me church, help me.
All right.
Alright.
I got stuck there.
Brain irregularity.
That's what happens when you get old.
All right.
He said, Kathy, you need to try to become a Bible talk leader.
Well, she said, okay.
She became a Bible talk leader.
Then years later, we went into ministry.
I'm so glad she made that decision.
'cause I do believe that marriage is unity and you gotta be on the same page.
You gotta be compatible.
It's such a hard word to remember, isn't it?
Right?
You gotta be unified, spiritually, socially, sexually, and you don't
need to live with someone to know if you're compatible, sexually kiss 'em.
If you like it and they like it, you're compatible.
All right?
You get those feelings.
All right.
We've gotten off subject back to our resolutions, a pillar
in the House of God commitment.
The last one
brother, stop laughing
and he also committed to sacrifice for God.
That's right.
I look back over 45 years of being in the church and I can see the
times when the church soared and I, I know the times the church sank.
I know when we were doing what was bringing God's blessings to us,
and I know when God disciplined us, and all I can tell you is.
It wasn't, we had great organization, we had great ideas.
We, we had the formula.
It's when we were faithful and sacrificial.
God blessed us.
That's right.
I knew when we hired a campus minister from Florida up in the Antelope
Valley, Brian Kelly and his girlfriend Jessica, I knew they were gonna come
and they're gonna be very fruitful and help us rebuild our campus ministry.
Yes.
Amir and Jewel built amazing campus ministry and then
they moved to Turning Point.
Now they're the region leaders there, and they took some of the kids with 'em, and
the others became singles and got married.
So we didn't have a campus ministry anymore, so Brian and Jessica had
to come and we had to rebuild it.
And I told the elders, let's hire these kids.
And Brian was so open.
He is like, you know, I, I've gone to counseling.
I've had some struggles, I've had this, I've had that.
I told Brian later, don't lead with your weaknesses.
Lead with your strengths, but, but the only strength I needed to know
was, here's a kid had never met me except on the phone and on Zoom.
Move during COVID across the nation to a church, to people he didn't
know, talked his girlfriend into it.
This is a sacrificial, faithful guy who puts the Lord first, and those are the
kind of Christians we want in the church, and that's the kind of Christians he made.
And I don't, I think in the three years he was there, I think a
couple people left the church.
But tens and twenties and thirties became Christians and stay faithful.
Amen.
This is what God blessed commitment.
I will author a 10th a percentage of everything I have.
These are the simple, this is the simple template for our New Year's resolutions.
So what are the morals of this story?
Jesus is our stairway to heaven.
Can I get Amen?
Amen.
God shows us the way if we dream.
Amen.
Jacob's Ladder is climbed by what faith?
God renews his promise to bless all nations at all times in everything we do.
That's throughout the scriptures.
That's the promise of God, the faithfulness of God.
The church is the Bethel or the house of God.
That's what we are, folks.
That's what we've, we, we, we may not have been perfect at that in the past,
but that's what we are going forward.
Amen.
And God's faithfulness is revealed in dreams.
This is the morals of the stories.
So what are our.
Resolution's gonna be, I want you to recommit yourself to dream.
Recommit yourself to dream.
You know, when I remember my dreams, it's not when I first go to sleep.
It's after I wake up about two or three, and then I lay there for
a while and I go back to sleep.
And then from about three or four in the morning until six,
those are the dreams I remember.
And then about six, I'll wake up and I'll, I'll lay in bed, even though Proverbs
says, to get out of bed and don't turn like a door on its hinges, get out of bed.
I quit doing that.
I did that all through college, jumped up, got going.
Now I lay there and meditate and pray, and I doze off and God's
dreams come to me as well as all the things I need to do for God.
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, he gives me some responsibilities as I dream, but those are the
ones I remember and I love it.
God is in this place, recommit to church.
I've talked to a lot of you and you've told me, Greg.
Yeah, I was thinking about quitting.
I've been checking out some other churches.
Think about going some other places, but I'm gonna hang in there.
I'm gonna stay.
Please all of you stay.
Amen.
You know, I knew a little bit of what I was getting into when
Kathy and I came down here, but I've got a few new revelations.
Alright.
And that's okay.
It's okay.
There's no perfect churches.
Let's just be in it together.
Amen.
Recommit to be a pillar in God's house.
And then thirdly, recommit to sacrifice.
Sacrifice for this Orange County cleanup.
It's such a good thing.
I was driving up the 73 this morning.
I saw so much trash and I thought I'll fill up one bag at least
with that when it stops raining.
Right?
And, and then I drove down 4 0 5 the other day.
I wrote about this in my letter to you guys.
I saw so much more trash.
I, I, it, it's unimaginable for me to that so many people throw
trash outta their car, but they do.
I've even seen it as I've driven.
But I want us to take responsibility.
I want us to be good people and I want us to team up together to do something good.
For our city and I think God will bless us for that.
And we're gonna raise some money for the church.
Yes.
Finally, I'm gonna close with a little bit of spiritual leadership.
Review, reflect, regret, and revise.
Some of the people that have left and even thought about leaving have told
me over and over, Greg, why don't the leaders admit what we did wrong and
tell us what we're gonna do different.
And, and I've been telling them, I've been doing that for about 20 years, since 2004.
I've been doing that.
Amen.
I mean, I went back to Denver three times on apology tours and said
what I had done wrong as the leader and what I'm gonna do different.
And I've been back to Dallas and I've done that and I went,
came back to LA and I did that.
But.
Either people didn't hear it or didn't need it then, so I'm gonna say it again.
All right.
A little bit more abbreviated this morning, because I do believe
this is what Thomas Merton said.
We make ourselves real by telling the truth.
Okay, so lessons learned.
What are some lessons learned?
I'm gonna hit these quickly.
All right.
I regret the lack of grace and freedom in the church.
We were a little lopsided on discipleship commitment or repentance.
Death.
Self needed to be more gracious.
I trust you.
Make your own decisions.
You'll do the right thing.
You may learn the hard way the first time, but you'll come around.
All right.
I regret lack of grace and freedom.
I'm the grace preacher now.
Amen.
I apologize and I am sorry for the command and control leadership.
I mean, that's what I learned in football.
I mean, command and control, strong leadership.
But now I hope I'm a gentle, soft leader.
I, I was told at the beginning of ministry, you gotta be steel and velvet.
And so that's what I've always tried to be.
I'm not as much steel anymore.
I let the Holy Spirit do that.
Let him do that.
All right, now I'm just more of a big teddy bear.
All right.
Come on.
But this, I still preach the word and it's still all right.
I acknowledge the pain
and I didn't know how to word this exactly.
Caused by the control.
You take away people's autonomy and free will.
It damages them.
I've learned enough in therapy that you don't do things in a healthy right way.
It can damage people, and some people are really fragile, right?
Yeah, and I acknowledge that pain.
I recognize the damage of us claiming to be the only ones.
We're just trying to, we're the only, we're not the only ones.
We're just trying to do what we know is true.
Right, right.
I confess sins of pride, performance, competition, just things that hurt
people and were the wrong motivation.
I commit to listening.
To empathy and to patience.
Now, will I be perfect?
No, but neither are you.
All right.
So let's treat each other fairly.
All right?
I renew my commitment to Jesus's Lord and I trust you.
Church, with your free will and your choice.
I'm not gonna try to control anybody, and neither is our leadership.
So what are some lessons that we're gonna live?
I rejoice that we did live.
I rejoice with the thousands of baptisms.
Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
It wasn't all bad.
I saw miracles after miracles after I saw God move, I saw so much.
Good.
Keep perspective.
Don't have extreme thinking.
You know, don't, don't go there.
I reflect on God working to disciples.
I mean, even when we were wrong, he worked.
Yeah, he worked.
He disciplined.
We had our desert time.
We had our wandering in the wilderness.
All right.
Don't ever leave God out of the picture.
I stand in awe of the miracles I've witnessed.
I refuse to give up on the church because it's my family.
My eternal family, I accept responsibility to correct, create a healthy ministry.
Why are all these I?
'cause I can only speak for myself.
I'll let the other leaders speak for themselves.
I admit immaturity.
I mean, I was leading big churches, a thousand member churches at 28.
You know, let's take advantage of our elders and older people now.
Amen.
But we didn't have any older people.
The oldest people back then were.
Late thirties and early forties.
I admit the immaturity, the isolation, and the ignorance, the inbreeding.
You could say, I appreciate the sincerity and the sacrifice
though for years, and I hope for humility, spirituality, and unity.
Amen.
So what covenants do we have as a church?
People are always saying, we need to share what we really believe.
Well, here's what we really believe.
We believe the Bible is God's sacred word of truth.
Right.
We don't make up our own truth around here.
We follow the Bible.
We believe that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, the creator of all of us.
We believe God created humans in his own image.
We're in the image of God.
We all have value and we're eternal souls that God has breathed his spirit into
and he created male and female, right?
God, we believe that humans are good and they're not good.
Yes, we, we were made in paradise Perfect.
And we had a choice though.
And we sin and we're falling.
And so we're both, and we struggle with that.
And we'll struggle with it our whole human life.
All right?
So we sin and we need salvation.
I, we believe salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ.
He was God.
He came, he died for us.
The only God that I know of that died.
And sacrifice himself.
We believe the church is God's people.
We believe Christians are to live like Jesus, and we believe
disciples make disciples, but not of themselves through the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
So ring out the bad ring in the new ring out the old ring in 2026.
God bless you, church.
Amen.