Welcome to the Harvest Chapel PA podcast.
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We're so glad you joined us.
Each week, you'll hear powerful messages, testimonies, and conversations designed to
help you grow in your faith and encounter Jesus in a fresh way.
Let's dive into today's episode.
Yeah, super excited for the last Sunday of 2025, but truly looking into 2026 with
joyful expectations of good things to come.
Anybody else?
Who's really, really excited for this new year?
Who's really, really excited to maybe leave some of those things behind in 2025?
Anybody?
I wanna encourage you though, if you don't do things different in 2026, you can't
expect different results.
Because you can't go into a new year doing the same things, having the same habits
and expect something just magically to happen.
All of us in this room have been given the beautiful gift of time, the beautiful gift
of time management, and what are some things you wanna do?
What are some habits you wanna create, some healthy habits?
They say it takes about 20 days to establish a habit.
So sometimes when we do things for 21 days, like a fast, we almost kinda
kickstart some things in our lives.
So say maybe you haven't been intentional to start and end your day in the Word.
Well, a lot of us, we get on some Bible plans and different routines in the new
year, and those things are amazing, but if we're honest, sometimes six months
into the year, we get a little lost.
Maybe we lost a day or we missed a day or we missed a week, and then we get
discouraged and we stop.
I would encourage you to not stop and to continue to move forward into the things
that God has for you.
Maybe you've never truly read through the Bible.
You don't know where to start.
Just start.
Just start.
Get yourself a Bible that you understand.
Get yourself a translation that reads in a way that you understand it, and start off
in the Gospel of John if you've never read through one of the Gospels, and take your
time and not rush, and don't make it about a systematic, I just have to check this to
say that I did this.
Really dive in.
How many of you have read a page of a book, and after you read the page,
you're like, what did I just read?
And then we check it off and go, well, the next day.
Well, why don't we just read this page until we understand what it says,
and then we continue to move on and let God show us certain things.
But like Mama Lori said, as Pastor Anna and I were just praying over 2026,
we kind of saw this beautiful picture of Jesus kind of speaking over our church,
and truly saying, follow me.
And I know that that might sound so simple, but you know what he's not saying
is follow routines, follow religion, follow systems.
Like he's truly looking at all of us as one body, but also individually,
and saying, would you follow me?
Man, what is it gonna look like for your family if you choose to follow Christ
wholeheartedly with everything in you?
Like if you want your marriage to go to the next level this year, follow him.
If you want your finances to go to the next level this year, follow him.
It's all about keeping your eyes so fixed on Christ and being captivated by who he
is, not who he's becoming, not who he is going to be, but who he is.
He's worth all of your attention right here and right now, amen?
He doesn't have to become better.
He doesn't have to do anything else for you.
He doesn't have to answer any more prayers for him to be worthy of all of your
praise.
We have to be ready in and out of season.
How many know that the worship team did fantastic this morning?
And it was three people on our stage.
Why is that?
Because two people that were scheduled have fevers this morning.
I would say that they're having a sick experience.
They're not sick people.
They're having a sick experience.
And a lot of the times when we experience sickness, the enemy wants us to identify
with that sickness and make it be an identity.
But you are a son or you're a daughter of the Most High King.
That's who you are.
That's your identity.
Now, sometimes we experience sickness and I'm not asking you to be in denial.
If you have a cold, I'm not telling you that, you know, you have to walk around
saying, I don't have a cold, but don't let that cold define you.
Let the Christ within you who is the hope of glory define you.
And you wake up and you might have the sniffles, but you're like, you know what?
I'm not gonna allow these sniffles to hold me back from having a good day.
My day may look a little different.
You know, Rick was walking outside and he slipped on some ice and he broke his
wrist.
And you know, Rick is not at home saying, I'm gonna have such an awful next couple
months.
We all know Rick too well to know that he's not saying that.
Now it might change the way that he has to do things a little bit.
We can believe in the kingdom for a speedy recovery in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Paul Fontaine, you guys know Paul Fontaine.
He fell the same day and broke his hip.
So you have two people break pretty substantial things, but those injuries
don't define these gentlemen.
It just, maybe it's a little speed bump, but we're not gonna identify with that and
say, well, now this is gonna, well, so much for having a good year.
Because that's what happens.
We experience something negative and then the enemy would love to take a negative
moment and make you already believe and declare that 2026 is gonna be a bad year.
I promise you, if you're going into this new year saying and believing that this is
just gonna be another one of those years, you're probably just gonna have another
one of those years.
But if you're going into 2026 saying, this year is gonna be incredible.
God has plans for this year for myself.
God has plans this year for my family, your children's children's children.
And you actually believe that you're the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
I believe if you wake up believing right, you'll actually live right.
If you wake up in the morning believing that you're just a sinner saved by grace,
I actually believe you will sin, you will continue to sin by faith.
Were you a sinner before Christ?
Absolutely, you had no part to play.
Whether you did good or bad, you needed to save your, you needed to be saved,
that was your identity.
But when you gave your life to Christ, when you surrendered your life to Christ,
I believe you supernaturally became a saint.
Your identity changed, your identity switched from sinner to saint.
This is even on my notes, but I think this is beautiful to make sure that you know
this going into a new year.
You wake up in Christ, you don't have to try to be a saint and you have to believe
that that's who God has created you to be, amen?
Because we get so stuck in habits and sometimes we believe things because
someone told us this in our life sometime, but you have to chapter and verse things
for me, especially if you're going to put your whole life in this camp and identify
with these things.
But some of us, we've been identifying with sickness for far too long.
We've been identifying with depression for far too long.
We've been identifying with anxiety for far too long.
You can't be one with the prince of peace and still believe that anxiety is your
portion.
It doesn't mean that you're not going to experience anxiety from time to time.
Most of you in the room, you know my testimony, you know that I spent years of
my life in depression and suicidal thoughts and anxiety, but that's who I
used to believe that I was.
But God, He came and He transformed my life.
He made me a new creation.
It doesn't mean that anxiety doesn't try to knock on my door, but because I'm no
longer the landlord, I don't answer that door.
Jesus is not only my Savior, He's my Lord and Savior.
So when anxiety comes and knocks on the door, He goes, you're trespassing on
purchased property and you must go in Jesus' name.
That's been Uriah's new thing in the last couple weeks.
Go, I'm like, man, he's getting ready for his deliverance ministry.
Go, with his lightsaber in one hand.
Go, in Jesus' name.
But Matthew, chapter 16, verse 24, we all know this verse, but I want this
verse to be something that is more than something that just tickles our ears.
It's something we truly live by.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Man, church, today we stand on a beautiful threshold of a new year and I love this
time of year because it reminds us that God is a God of new beginnings.
Aren't you thankful that we serve a God of new beginnings?
That He makes all things new?
Lamentations tells us that His mercies are new every morning, not just every January.
Guess what, when we get to May, His mercies are new in May as well.
But there's something powerful about intentional transitions.
There is something truly powerful when you realize you're stepping into something
that's new.
So as we step into 2026, I want you to say this clearly that we're not just turning a
calendar page, we are responding to an invitation, but you're the only one that
can respond to that invitation.
I can't respond to that invitation for you.
I wish I could.
But all of us, I believe, are being given this beautiful invitation to follow Christ
in a deeper way.
What does it look like for you to follow Christ more intently than maybe you
followed Him in 2025?
We cannot afford to incorporate Christ into parts of our life when it's
convenient.
He wants all of you, not some of you.
God is not interested in 99.9% of you.
He wants your whole heart.
I actually believe it's that one little percent that sometimes holds us back from
stepping into everything that God has for us.
It's that one thing in your life that maybe some of you even are thinking about,
that one thing that, man, I just, I know that God is calling me to surrender
that to Him and lay that down at His feet, but man, it's scary to just fully trust
God.
It is scary to fully trust God.
But us as Christians are called to trust in the Lord with all of our heart,
not some of it.
You're called to trust in the Lord with all of your heart.
Lean not on your own understandings, but in all that you do, seek His will.
And when we do that, He promises us and says, I will show you which path to take.
Son, daughter, if you trust me with all of your heart, if you lean not on your own
understandings, you're not gonna understand how this is gonna work out.
And if you seek my will, you lay your will down at my feet as a beautiful sacrifice,
and I will show you which path to take.
Aren't you thankful that that's the God that we serve?
And I know that that verse is sometimes easier read than done, but I wanna invite
you to make that verse a challenge to say, you know what, God, I don't wanna doubt
you.
Sometimes things happen in ways that we don't believe they should happen.
How many of you have experienced loss this year at some point?
How many of you have experienced a prayer not be answered the way that you would
have liked it to be answered?
Now, I don't have the answers to all of those questions, but what I do have is I
have a relationship with God that says, God, I'm going to worship you no matter
what.
God, I'm going to declare that you are good no matter what.
Because our worship for the Lord cannot be found in him answering our prayers the way
that we would like him to.
That means if that's the case, that means our love for God is
conditional.
It's God, I'll love you, God, I'll serve you, but I'll only do that if you answer
this prayer, if you bring this person to you, or if you give me this job,
or if you work this out in my marriage, or you bring my kid back to church,
or whatever it is.
God is worthy of all of your praise in the midst of all of that craziness,
in the midst of all of that unknown world.
I love resting in the mystery of the unknown.
I love God calling me things and I'm like, I don't know how this is gonna work out.
Because it forces me to put my whole trust in him.
It removes all distractions, it removes everything, and honestly, your
relationship with Christ is put to the test.
Man, it's easy to trust that God is an amazing provider when all your bills are
paid, right?
It's easy to believe that God has your back and he's for you, not against you,
when you're not going through a pretty nasty diagnosis.
But when you're met with those things, who do you truly believe that God is?
Do you believe that God is your provider when you don't know how you're gonna make
that payment?
And I believe that God is actually calling us as a church, as a local church,
to supernatural stewardship like never before.
If I was you, I'd be getting in that financial class and you might be like,
well, why does it cost $10?
Because it's important for you to sow into yourself.
It's not even about us collecting the $10.
Honestly, it's about us setting up and if 50 people show up, if 50 people sign up,
we wanna be prepared for 50 people.
But sometimes 50 people sign up and then 20 show up.
And now we've gotten a lot of materials and we printed a lot of things that
honestly has cost us as a church and we're like, we want you to learn good
stewardship.
If I was you and if you had the time in your schedule, I'd make time for it
because God is breathing on us being good stewards.
We can't blame the devil for bad decisions that we make.
Maybe some of us in this room chose to put a lot of Christmas gifts on credit cards.
And when May comes around, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't afford this.
Those are the things we have to learn.
We have to learn how to be good stewards.
And trust me, Pastor Matt's gonna learn the hard way.
It's fun to give gifts to people and it's fun to be able to give, but I wanna be
able to learn how to save correctly throughout the year so that when
Christmastime comes, I have a pot of money to pull from to be able to bless people
with.
I'm not gonna put my family into hardship just because.
You guys okay?
And that's a heavy thing to say, but I mean, it's practical things like
that that if we learn, oh my goodness, I'm gonna learn how to steward my money.
I'm not gonna continue to blame even the devil for things that, man, I can learn
and I can grow and I wanna go from glory to glory, church.
I wanna grow.
Amen?
So this year, it's not about hype, it's not about trends, it's not about
comfort.
It's about following Jesus fully, daily and faithfully.
What does it look like for you to follow Christ fully and daily and faithfully?
Jesus never said, follow me when it's convenient.
He never came to the disciples and said, hey boys, follow me when it's gonna be
really easy for you.
No, he just said, follow me.
And you have to understand the context behind that phrase is very important.
It's very powerful because these Jewish boys would have dreamed about hearing a
rabbi say, follow me.
It would have said that they were good enough to continue their studies.
They would have tried to memorize the Pentateuch.
They would have tried to understand the scriptures in a way where they could have
continued in their studies and they could have eventually become a rabbi,
but because they were fishermen, it shows me that somewhere down the road,
they weren't good enough to continue that walk.
So now Jesus, as the great rabbi, is coming to them and saying, follow me.
They heard that for the first time and I can imagine them, because they left
everything to follow him.
They left relationships, they left their livelihoods to follow Christ into the
unknown.
And some of us, we consider following Christ to be going to church on Sundays
and sometimes Wednesdays.
What does it look like to follow Christ with your whole heart when you're at work
and no one at work is following Christ?
And you're the only one that professes to be a Christian and we should be able to
walk with Christ in such a way that as we're following Christ, people can see us
and the way we walk and the way we talk and go, something is different about that
person.
What is it?
What is different about them?
And you get to say, Christ.
It's not I that lives, but Christ that lives in and through me.
I'm not living for my own, I'm living for him.
Like, what does it look like for us to fully get this and grasp this and take
this into this new year and let this be something that you're willing to die for?
Man, we gotta be willing to die for this thing.
I mean, there's people all over this beautiful world that are dying for their
faith in Christ.
We don't even see those things on the news or what, but there's people being
slaughtered by the thousands just because they profess Christ.
And sometimes we think someone cutting us off in traffic is persecution.
Or someone writing a comment on our Facebook post.
That's not persecution, church.
I am one of the biggest advocates of heaven invading earth.
I truly believe, if Jesus taught his disciples, this is how you pray,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Until I take my last breath, I'm going to try and bring the kingdom of heaven to
this earth.
And I believe that depression doesn't exist in heaven.
Sickness doesn't exist in heaven.
So I believe it's our mandate as Christians to believe that that's possible
in the midst of chaos, in the midst of confusion, in the midst of politics,
in the midst of this and that.
But we should have learned this surely that we can't put our hope in politics,
can we?
Jesus is still the King of Kings and he's still the Lord of Lords.
And I promise you, he's gonna continue to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Nothing is gonna change that.
He is our provider, he is our provision.
When you get bad news, how does that, how do you respond?
You either react or you respond to things as they come into your life.
Pastor Dan coined this phrase, I think it was the first person I've ever
heard say it, but why is it, you know, when a Christian is squeezed, everything
but Christ comes out.
So where if I had an orange up here and a pitcher and I squeezed that orange and the
pitcher filled up with apple juice, everyone in here would be like,
what kind of orange is that?
That's weird.
But it's the same way when a Christian is put into a situation where it's a little
challenging or it's a little not comfortable, why do things like fear and
worry begin to manifest?
When we're squeezed, things like perfect peace should come out.
Hope should exist in the midst of that hopeless situation.
But because you're in a relationship with hope, hope can be present, amen?
Your hope isn't found in everything going perfectly, amen?
Your hope is found in Christ.
It's not about comfort.
Before we go any further, I wanna start by calling us into something that will help
set the tone for the entire year.
Our 21 day fast is kicking off next Sunday and honestly, some of us, we need to be
intentional to fast negativity and feast on positivity.
Without looking at your spouse, without pointing to the person next to
you, what does it look like if you, no, don't even think about your spouse,
what does it look like for you to go 21 days without being negative?
Some of us were like, that would be impossible.
If you're the spouse and you're thinking that, just shh.
Cause we get, sermons like this happen and we're like, man, I really wish so and so's
listening.
I really wish that, oh man, I really wish that person would have been here to hear
Pastor Matt say that.
What can you get out of that?
Cause you're only accountable to yourself.
You only have control over yourself.
You need to be such a good steward of you that you choose and say, you know what?
No matter what your spouse is gonna do in 2026, are you gonna pursue Jesus with
everything in you?
Are you gonna truly follow Christ?
Cause I believe when you choose to follow Christ, your spouse starts to see a
difference.
Your kids start to see a difference because you're responding to things.
You're not reacting to things.
I don't wanna be reactionary.
I wanna be able to respond.
I wanna be able to give people Jesus.
Amen?
I wanna be able to go through hard things and stand out to a crowd and go,
how is that?
And it's not about being a pastor, it's about being Christian.
It's about being a Christ-like one.
That's what it means to be a Christian.
We're a little Christ, we're Christ-like ones.
It's the spirit of God that lives and dwells within us.
When we're out and about and when Uriah gets to be an age where he needs his
mother and father to reprimand him a little bit, I want the way that we
reprimand him to look like Christ.
Sometimes that'll look firm.
Sometimes that'll look gentle.
Sometimes it'll be like Uriah, you can't do that.
Like you can't touch the stove, my guy.
But I'm not gonna just sit back and let him put his little hand on a stove that's
going to burn him and go, well, you know what, he needs to learn one of
these days.
No, I'm gonna be a father that snatches him out of that situation and it might be
abrupt and it might scare him and he might cry, but it caused him to not burn.
So we need to know that God loves us and he is for us.
But we also, I believe when we step into this new year and it's not about just this
new year, I think it's about a new normal, is having this healthy revelation of the
love of God but partnered and married with the fear of the Lord.
We've gotta have both.
We can't have one without the other.
There has to be this beautiful marriage of the two.
And fear means like this reverence.
Like you're walking with Christ in such a way where you're like, I don't wanna do
that thing because if I do that thing, it's gonna come with guilt and shame and
condemnation.
How many know guilt, shame and condemnation are not from Christ?
But when you do things, when you fall short, when you partner with sin,
those things start to manifest and then you start to believe the lie that I'm not
good enough to be in the presence of God.
You are good enough to be in the presence of God, not by your works but by His
obedience.
It's not about you following these rules and these religion, Jesus came and did
what none of us could do.
Jesus came and He was willing to live a perfect life and then He was willing to
die for you as you.
That you were co-crucified with Christ, it's no longer I that lives but Christ
that lives in and through me.
Like Jesus wasn't the only one that died on that tree, you died as well.
You were buried with Him, you were co-buried and then co-resurrected to new
life.
But sometimes we spend so much time trying to dig up that old man when that old man
should be six foot under.
It was actually a form of Roman torture that they would actually put, I know this
is graphic, but they would put a corpse on live individuals and they would chain that
corpse to an individual and they would make them walk around the city.
You know what would happen?
It would begin to rot into them and then cause death.
That's a spiritual picture of what it looks like when we try to dig up our old,
sinful, dead, co-crucified self.
And we choose to identify with that.
That only brings death.
But what does it look like for you to wake up and believe?
I am the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
And you look in the mirror and you truly believe that.
None of this is on my notes, so pray for me.
I got about nine pages.
But we need to go into this new year not taking these old beliefs, these old
religious mindsets into this new year.
You have to realize that God has made you a new creation.
But as a new creation, you can't keep acting like your old self that's died with
Christ.
If the Lord has redeemed you and he sanctified you and he pulled you out of
addiction and maybe your past self used to be alcoholism, well, it probably wouldn't
be wise for you to have a fridge full of alcohol.
In your home.
When that's how you looked, that's how your old self looked.
I mean, Pastor Don has mentioned this these last few months in different ways,
but we shouldn't think about what we've been saved from and go, well, you know,
back in the day, I did do those things.
And we almost reminisce like we miss it.
If that's where you are, are you where you think you are?
Because when we read, depart from me, I never knew you, it doesn't say,
depart from me, I knew you, and then I forgot you.
I never knew you from the beginning.
You were never in it for me, you were in it for you.
It says, depart from me, I never knew you.
We never had a relationship.
Maybe you had a relationship with the church, maybe you had a relationship with
a pastor, maybe you had a relationship with a Bible study, but depart from me
because we never knew each other.
So this new year, Jesus himself, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords is
looking down on our church and he's saying, follow me, follow me, CJ.
Follow me, Rick.
And what does it look like if all of us individually choose to follow Christ with
everything we have?
I believe this year is gonna be filled with blessings and increase, but not only
that, but just you knowing Christ, which should be the best blessing and
increase ever.
Do you know that Jesus himself is the greatest reward?
If Jesus doesn't answer one more prayer for me for the rest of my life here on
earth, he is still worth my entire life.
If we never stepped into the beautiful gift of parenthood, which is the best
thing ever, and I'm so thankful for it, but if we never stepped into that promise,
he still would be worth me waking up every day saying, God, how can I make this earth
look more like heaven?
God, how can I serve you more today than I did yesterday?
Now I'm so glad and I'm so grateful that we serve a God that likes to give his kids
good gifts.
And I want more children.
I want a minivan full of kiddos.
Pray for my wife.
We're believing for that.
But we're also celebrating with other friends as they're stepping into their
second child, their third child, their fourth child.
I'm so excited for them.
And honestly, if we just have Uriah for the rest of our life, man, he's pretty
awesome.
He's incredible.
I'm believing for more.
But if we never get more, I'm gonna still lay my life down for him every day of my
life and say, God, I love you.
And you're so worthy of all of my praise, all my whole life, you're worth it.
Amen?
Page one of 11.
But there's an importance to fasting, guys.
Sometimes we get so systematic.
We get so like, oh, here we go again.
Some of us, we do like, well, you know, I'm gonna fast social media.
We should be doing that anyway.
It shouldn't take a corporate 21-day fast for you to not be on social media for six
hours a day.
I know that's crazy, but if you pull up your phone, some of your phones will tell
on you.
And it'll tell you how long you've spent on Facebook, how long you've spent on
YouTube, how long you've spent on Instagram.
And then we say, well, I don't have any time to read the word or I don't have time
to spend with God.
And pretty soon we can find six hours.
I love you guys so much.
That's why this is a challenge as we step into this new year to say, you know what,
God, I can't afford to not spend time with you.
I need to be with you every day.
And I know that we're one and I know that we get to, you walk with me, you talk with
me, but I wanna talk with you more.
I wanna walk with you more.
I wanna wake up early so I can just spend more time with you.
God, I wanna stay up a little later so I can just spend a little bit more time with
you.
God, on my lunch break, I wanna just go off to the side a little bit and I wanna
speak to you and I wanna acknowledge you.
And I promise you, your days are gonna look different if we do that.
I promise you, it's gonna look different.
Fasting is not a punishment.
It's an invitation to alignment.
Fasting doesn't twist God's arm.
It turns our ears.
Isaiah 58 shows us that biblical fasting, it breaks change.
I would encourage you to read Isaiah 50 on your own time sometime this week.
But it shows us that biblical fasting breaks change, brings clarity,
releases freedom, and it positions us to hear God's voice.
Fasting helps us lay down distractions so we can pick up direction.
Who needs a little direction as we're going into this new year?
The best thing for you to do is just get in the right alignment with him and say,
you know what, God?
I wanna remove all those distractions.
I wanna silence all of those voices.
I want your voice to be the loudest voice that I'm listening to.
This fast, it's not about perfection, it's about participation, it's about
obedience.
So between you and the Lord, just pray and ask God, what do you want me to do?
Maybe he'll tell you a certain meal.
Maybe he'll tell you every other day.
Maybe he'll show you something unique that's just for you.
And when you do fast, don't be like, well, brother, I'm fasting today,
so I just can't.
No, the Bible teaches us to go about your normal life normally.
Get showered, dude, please get showered.
Don't make it about like, whoa, I'm just in a season of, no, I'm in a
season of fasting.
You don't even need to tell people about it.
It's between you and Jesus.
And you allow him to get you to a quiet place where you can just hear his voice.
It's like his voice just gets amplified.
He's always speaking to you.
That's right.
You need to know that God speaks to you.
Sometimes we believe this lie, that God speaks to everybody but me.
I promise you, God speaks to you.
If you're his sheep, you hear his voice.
That's a big if.
If you're his sheep, if you've surrendered your life, if he truly is your shepherd,
but we can't just incorporate him into our life.
He has to be our entire life.
Amen.
I need my, where is that?
The washcloth.
Yep, it's right behind my chair.
Thank you.
Yep, thank you.
God bless.
Help me, Lord.
So we already started this off with Matthew 16, 24.
If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross
and follow me.
This verse, it's not poetic.
It's actually confrontational.
It's not symbolic.
It's practical.
Say this is for me.
It's not soft.
It's loving truth.
Jesus gives us three requirements of discipleship.
Are you ready?
Desire, number one.
Number two, denial.
Number three, direction.
Okay, so we're gonna unpack these three parts to this verse in the next 15
minutes.
Anybody have faith in the room?
Come on.
If anyone desires, okay, Jesus begins with desire.
If anyone desires to come after me, following Christ is not forced.
It's not coerced.
It's not inherited.
It's chosen.
Parents, I would love for you to be able to force your children to follow Christ,
but you can't.
But what you can do is follow Christ and force your children to watch you as a
parent follow Christ.
God does not drag people into discipleship.
He invites them.
Watch this.
Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you everything.
Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you everything.
John chapter one, verse 38 says, Jesus asked the disciples, what do you
seek?
I believe that that question, what do you seek, it still echoes today.
What are you really after?
Are you really after comfort?
Are you really after security?
Are you really after approval?
Or are you truly after Christ?
Because if you're truly after Christ, you'll get your approval from Christ.
If you're truly after security, if you're following him with all you have,
you will be secure.
This all fits.
This is all this beautiful thing that goes together.
If we make Christ the most important part of our life, we live in a culture that
wants Jesus as savior, but hesitates to follow him as Lord.
We want to be saved, but do we want to surrender every area of our life to him
and allow him to be Lord of our whole, of our whole being?
Jesus doesn't separate the two.
It's not, you can't pick and choose.
Luke chapter nine, verse 23 actually says, if anyone desires to come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his cross daily.
Daily, not occasionally.
You guys okay?
Not seasonally.
We can't just be like, oh, it's the new year.
I'm gonna seasonally give my life to Jesus for the month of January.
And we'll see how February goes for us.
Or we say that, we go, well, we'll see.
I'm gonna give this fast a shot.
I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna not eat this.
I'm gonna spend some time with Jesus.
I'm gonna get on a Bible plan.
And if my life is radically changed and shifted, then I'll keep serving him in
February.
He's worthy of being followed in February the same way as he's worthy to be followed
January 1st.
And I would encourage you, don't wait till January 1st.
We still got a few days.
We have to follow him wholeheartedly right here and right now.
Part two, let him deny himself.
Obedience over convenience.
I wanna be obedient when it's not convenient.
This is where things really get real.
Denying yourself does not mean self-hatred.
It means self-surrender.
It means laying down the right to be in charge.
Does any of us have a hard time with that sometimes?
You're either in control of your life or God's in control of your life.
And sometimes God will ask you to do things that you don't wanna do.
And in those moments, are you the one that's alive or is he the one that's alive
through you?
I don't wanna pick up the phone and call that person and humble myself and ask for
forgiveness.
Well, if God's bringing someone to your heart and your mind before you step into a
new year and he's inviting you to a level of forgiveness that requires humility,
that requires you saying, I missed the mark, would you forgive me?
Well, that person never came to me and asked me, it's not about what that other
person can do, what can you do?
What can you take ownership of?
When you look in the mirror, are you okay with what you see?
I don't know about you, but I used to avoid mirrors all the time because I
didn't like to, I was.
But now I can look into a mirror and I can see the Christ within me that's the hope
of glory for the world around me.
Doesn't mean I don't wanna lose some weight.
You can laugh, it's fine.
You know how I'm gonna do that?
Not having so many sneaky McDoubles.
Mountain about, hey, we need some formula, okay.
Anna said we need some formula, she didn't say we need formula and then
stop at the dollar menu, which no longer exists, by the way.
There's no such thing as a dollar menu, unfortunately.
And then you forget that you have the little McDonald's bag in your back of your
car and then you get in your car the next day and then Anna sees it.
Oh man, I should have got rid of the evidence.
We can't live that way with the Lord.
He knows, he sees you in the dollar menu.
He sees you, he knows what you're thinking.
Galatians 2, chapter 20 says, I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
I've quoted this, this entire service, but sometimes we need a chapter in reverse
for us to be like, wow, that is really what God is saying.
To deny yourself means my life is no longer my own.
My preferences don't lead me, I just follow Christ, even if it's not what I
prefer.
God, I believe that there's so many of us in this room that you are right where God
wants you.
Seriously, you are right where God wants you.
Maybe it's a job, maybe it's a career, maybe it's whatever it is for you,
but sometimes we try to pray ourselves out of the things that God has given us.
And God simply just wants us to be a good steward, and as we're a good steward,
he gives us more things to steward.
But how many of us, some of us in this room, we're passionate about nations,
but we can't steward our household.
We're passionate about doing this with our finances, but we're not even faithful with
our 10%.
Guys, I know this stuff isn't easy to talk about, but if we get these things in order
before we even enter into a new year, I promise you, your year is gonna look
completely different.
You wanna do something scary?
Maybe, oh my gosh, I don't know, like I look at my budget and I write
everything down, it just doesn't make sense.
It's not gonna make sense.
It's not ever gonna make sense.
But it's about you being obedient.
It's about you being faithful.
And if you're like, I don't know, 10 scares me.
Start with five, give him something to work with.
This isn't even about finances.
This isn't a financial message, but when you follow Christ, he also has
your finances.
When you follow Christ, he has your calendar.
When you follow Christ, he has your career.
He has the way that you love your wife, the way that you love your husband,
the way that you love your kids.
It's all about him when you fully surrender and it's obedience over
convenience.
Amen?
My comfort doesn't dictate obedience.
This is why one of our declarations this year is obedience over convenience.
Convenience asks what's easy.
Obedience asks, what did God say?
Because some of us, we want a new word, right?
We're like, God, what are you speaking over me?
What are you doing with me this year?
When's the last time God spoke something over you?
Where are we at with that?
Because sometimes we want a new word, but we haven't stewarded the original one.
God's not gonna get you out of something and put you into something new if he's
already spoken over you.
He's already said things over you, but maybe those things haven't been
convenient.
Community's not convenient.
You forcing yourself into friendship isn't convenient.
Why?
Because people have the ability to hurt you.
And if we're really honest, some of us in this room, we've been hurt.
We've been hurt by people.
We've been hurt by churches.
We've been hurt by pastors that aren't even any of us on leadership, but
sometimes you end up bleeding on people that didn't cut you.
And some of you just need to take a look in the mirror and go, God, before I step
into this new year, is there anything that I need to take care of?
Search me, oh Lord, very dangerous prayer.
Search me, oh Lord.
God, is there anything in me that's not found in you?
Is there any bitterness?
Is there any anger?
Is there any frustration?
And if there is, just deal with it.
And give it to Him.
He's able to carry it.
He's not even shocked by it.
He already knows that it's going on in your mind.
He already knows the thoughts that you're thinking that you haven't even allowed
come out of your mouth.
But if you truly give those things to God, you know what He does?
He heals you.
He embraces you.
He makes all things new.
Don't you love that?
You gotta be real with Him.
Convenience, it builds comfort zones.
Obedience builds faith.
Some of us are stuck because we keep asking God to bless what we refuse to
surrender.
I'm gonna say that one more time.
Some of us are stuck because we keep asking God to bless what we refuse to
surrender.
You want God to bless your marriage?
Surrender it to Him.
You want God to bless your finances?
Surrender it to Him.
You want God to bless your workplace?
Surrender it to Him.
Following Jesus means we don't ask Him to follow our plans, we follow His voice.
Part three, take up your cross.
Faith over fear.
In the first century, the cross was not jewelry.
Okay, when we say cross, maybe you think of a cross or a necklace that you received
from a mother or a grandmother, but it wasn't inspirational decor back in
the day.
It was an instrument of death.
So when Jesus says, take up your cross, everyone listening and hearing Christ say,
take up your cross, knows what He's talking about.
It meant dying to yourself.
It meant public surrender.
It meant trust without guarantees.
Trust, sometimes, I mean, we need to study church history because sometimes we think
that our life is so hard.
Look and study the ways the apostles died.
And then everyone says, oh, doubting Thomas.
Thomas was speared to death in India preaching the gospel.
Running up a mountain, he was speared to death.
Doubting Thomas.
Yeah, Thomas gave his life for Jesus.
This is where faith over fear comes in.
Watch this, fear says, what if I lose control?
Fear says, what if it costs me too much?
Fear says, what if people don't understand?
I'm here to tell you they're not gonna understand.
Your family, your friends, they're not gonna understand when you say things that
this Bible teaches you to do.
Why, because they're not reading it.
And maybe they're reading it, but if they're not, surrender to Christ and the
spirit of God is not within them, they're reading it without the translator.
We can read this and understand this because God has placed his spirit within
us.
Faith says, if he called me, he will carry me.
Some of you need to remind yourself, God's called you to things and maybe you
feel stressed, you feel overwhelmed, but I promise you, if God called you to
it, he will bring you through it.
If he leads me, he will sustain me.
Hebrews chapter 11 verse six tells us that without faith, it is impossible to please
God.
Faith does not mean obedience of fear, it means obedience in spite of it.
I'm gonna be obedient even if I'm, some of us, we say, well, I can't be the
Lord because that makes me uncomfortable.
Why do you think we have the comforter?
God's called you to some things that's gonna require obedience and it's gonna
require surrender and it's gonna require you being like, wow, everything in me
doesn't wanna do this, but God, I can do all things through you because
you're the one that gives me strength and Holy Spirit, you are my comforter,
I need you to comfort me through this because I don't wanna have this hard
conversation, I don't wanna call up that person that hurt me, I don't wanna call
that person, I promise you, unforgiveness is only hurting you.
Unforgiveness is you sitting in a jail cell and the jail door is wide open.
The price has been paid.
Jesus wants you to look at him, he wants you to follow him out of that
jail cell into beautiful forgiveness so that you don't have to walk and be heavy
anymore.
I'm not telling you you have to go back and have the same kind of relationship
that you once had with individuals, but if there's things that are holding you
back, they will only continue to hold you back if you realize you've been set free,
you've been set free, the price has been paid.
That's the kind of relationship that Jesus is so desiring to have with you.
I just wanna spend time with you, son, I just wanna spend time with you,
daughter, so that nothing can hold you back from being who I've called you to be.
Because if you were out and about shopping and the Holy Spirit prompted you to just
start preaching the gospel, would you?
Well, no, because I'm not an evangelist.
All of us are called to preach the gospel.
All of us who have Christ within us have the ability to literally heal the sick and
raise the dead and cast out demons.
You know how many emails we get that ask for, Pastor Dan, I love him, he's one of
my heroes, but it breaks his heart when he finds out that there's people that won't
receive prayer from me or Tyler or Anna or whoever in here that has the Spirit of God
within them because they're like, I just, we make it about a man when it's
about him.
Pastor Dan has been obedient, radically obedient, and his life has been blessed by
it.
But you have the same access to the same Christ that's within Pastor Dan.
The moment that Uriah gives his life to Jesus, whenever that is, where faith just
hits his little heart and he surrenders his life to Jesus, you know there's no
such thing as a junior Holy Spirit.
He, in that moment, gets filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the
dead.
You have something going on in your life, you find one of those kids over there in
the children's ministry and have them pray for you.
Before you leave, sweetie, could you just pray for me?
Oh, why, what's going on?
I have this going on.
Okay, let's pray.
They're so pure.
But sometimes we make it about a man when it's about him.
It's about Jesus.
And then follow me, trust, over control.
This is the heart of it all.
Christianity is not a belief system, it's a following.
Jesus didn't say admire me, admire me, world.
He didn't say study me from a distance, did he?
He said follow me.
Following means movement, following means surrender.
We learn from people that we spend time with.
People ask me questions from time to time.
Like, Pastor Matt, you've been leading Harvest Chapel now for, you're into your
fourth year now.
How did that happen?
How did that become a thing?
I just was willing to do whatever God wanted me to do.
But if someone asks me, like, man, what have you learned from Pastor Don?
I mean, I love messages that Pastor Don has preached.
They've changed my life, but you know what really has changed my life?
When it's 10 o'clock at night and it was, I don't know, six, seven years ago and
there's someone going through something and he called me because I was just,
you know, you passed your assistant at the time.
I was just willing.
I made myself available.
I followed him and he said, hey, I'm gonna go pray for this family.
Would you like to come with me?
How many know I could have said no?
I could have been like, man, it's late.
I mean, it's 10 o'clock, I'm already in bed.
It's in those moments where you put your shoes on, you get dressed and you go and
you go be Jesus to people.
That's why the disciples were willing to die because they spent time with Jesus.
They were discipled by him.
I never forget the day, Pastor Dave, we got the call.
Your brother had passed away and the local funeral home, the gentlemen that were on
duty that day were well in their seventies.
And this home had lots of steps and they didn't know what to do.
I remember Pastor Don got the call because they knew that he was willing.
They knew that he's willing to help out.
So you know what it looked like being a pastor that day?
Going with Pastor Don to go visit Pastor Dave's brother that had passed away.
And then we physically carried him out of that home down flights of stairs in the
rain.
And sometimes that's what it looks like to be a pastor.
But those things aren't just for us as pastors.
Those things are for us as Christians.
When we see someone that's hungry, we go, how can I help feed them?
We see someone that needs clothes.
How can I help clothe them?
It's not about you calling someone and going, how can we do this?
How can we be the hands and feet of Jesus but we cannot be the hands and feet of
Jesus if he does not have our heart?
If he has our heart, he can use our hands and he can use our feet.
But going into this new year as we, I'm gonna try my best to land this plane
the best that I can.
There's a lot stirring in my heart at the moment because this is so important and
I'm glad in your bulletins you got a handout that kind of articulates my heart
for what does it mean to follow Christ?
What does it mean to deny yourself?
I would encourage you, put this on your fridge, keep this in your Bible,
read this weekly, just be like, God, how can I partner with this?
How can I become more like you?
Because this is what it looks like to practically follow Christ in 2026.
It's saying yes when it's uncomfortable.
When someone needs something, it's such a blessing to be able to, we have this page
on Facebook and if you're not a part of it, we try to keep it for people that
attend Harvest Chapel because it's called HC doing life, community life.
Well, you gotta be doing life with us to kind of be a part of that community but it
blesses my heart so much when somebody posts something on that page and without
using names, it's not about embarrassing anyone.
This is beautiful.
This is what it looks like to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Somebody posted a situation that there was a young man that was a single father and
Christmas was coming and there was some things that he needed and man,
that guy got just radically blessed.
Not just physically blessed with material things but spiritually blessed.
He was here on Christmas Eve with his little girl and I got to meet him.
I got to shake his hand and just, man, it's so good to have you here and
before the night was over, the person that had brought him here already reached out
and said, Pastor Matt, this gentleman, he's so wrecked by what the Lord has done.
He wants to get baptized.
How can he get baptized?
When can we get him baptized?
So we're already looking at in the new year to when we can make that happen but
how many know that sometimes God can use you blessing with physical things to get
to someone's heart?
You can feed someone's belly and point them to Jesus.
Maybe you have a neighbor that has a broken down shed and you're thinking to
yourself, man, I'd really like them to fix that shed because it's kind of an eyesore
every time I look out the back window.
What if the Lord prompted you to fix it?
I don't know who that's for.
I don't know if it's prophetic.
It doesn't have to be but I am encouraging you that if you're that person that has a
situation like that, maybe God is calling you.
How can I be a part of the solution?
To that problem.
And then what are you doing?
What are you, I just saw that you needed some new lumber, you needed a new roof and
all of a sudden we're pointing people to Jesus.
What does it look like to choose obedience when it costs you?
Trusting God when you don't see the full picture.
What does it look like to walk and step with the Holy Spirit daily?
I don't know about you but I want that.
I don't want it to be a part of my life.
I want it to be my life.
So as a church family, what I'm asking you to commit to is, man, I don't want you to
be a spectator.
We're not spectators, we're disciples.
We're not laying down, we're laying down what holds us back.
If you have anything that the Lord has showed you over this message of maybe it's
a situation, I encourage you to lay it down at his feet today.
Don't even wait till next Sunday.
I want to be in step with Jesus.
So before we transition, I know sometimes it's tempting when we stand up to just
kind of slowly start making your way out.
I really want us to just stand up together right now and just be a part of this
moment.
Don't think about heading out yet.
I know that certain people need to get in place as far as volunteerism and that's
fine but just put your eyes on Jesus for just a moment.
Because of Jesus's invitation, it still stands.
He's still saying, if anyone desires to come after me.
We have to understand that not everyone will.
We have something called free will.
It's overrated if you ask me.
But some will.
Some will say yes to surrender.
Some will say yes to obedience.
Some will say yes to following Jesus fully.
As we begin this fast next Sunday, I want it to be more than a tradition.
I want it to be a declaration.
Jesus, I'm choosing to follow you even when it's not comfortable.
Even if I started this thing off and I said, you know what, Lord, I'm gonna fast
my lunch and I'm just gonna spend time with you, Jesus.
You know what's gonna happen?
Lunch is gonna happen and your stomach is gonna get really rumbly and maybe some of
us genuinely will forget and we end up having lunch and then we're like,
oh man.
You know what sometimes we do though?
We do that and we're like, well, forget it.
And then we just give up the whole 21 days.
Instead of just being like, well, you know, I'm just gonna give myself
grace, I forgot.
It's okay, Lord, this isn't about that.
This is just about me and you being intimate, being close.
And God, tomorrow, would you help me remember when lunchtime rolls around that
I'm choosing to lay that down.
But don't condemn yourself, don't shame yourself.
Maybe you've never fasted before.
There's material out on the welcome center that will help you, that will show you
different types of fasts.
There's books in the bookstore that you can get.
But let's not make this about routine.
Let's not make this about tradition.
Let's make this about following Jesus.
Amen.
Let me just pray over you guys.
Father, we come before you with grateful hearts.
Lord, thankful.
I wanna go into this new year, thankful of all the things you've done in
2025.
God, thank you for your mercy that it's new and for this fresh invitation to
follow you more closely.
As we step into this new year, God, we choose to lay down what has held
us back.
Old fears, old habits, old mindsets.
We don't wanna carry yesterday into what you are doing today.
So Jesus, teach us, what does it truly mean to deny ourselves?
What does it mean to take up our cross and follow you?
God, give us hearts that are quick to obey, faith that rises above fear and
trust that rests in your leading.
I just hear the Lord saying this.
You can do this, son.
You can do this, daughter.
It's not too late.
It's not too late.
If you're a part of our prayer team, I'm gonna ask you just to come forward in
this moment.
Because I just wanna give out an invitation because we talked about a
couple different things.
And if there's anyone in here that's struggling with unforgiveness or
bitterness or any of the things that we talked about, it's very humbling to
respond to a prayer time and say, you know what, I need some prayer.
But man, all of us have been there.
Some of us are there right now.
And if your heart is just beating out of your chest in this moment and you're like,
you know what, I need to take care of this.
Before we get into the new year, I wanna take care of this.
So I'm just gonna invite you to find one of these individuals to pray with you
right now.
Just if you feel that drawing.
Maybe you're in here and you're like, I've never given my life to Jesus.
I've never fully surrendered my life to Jesus.
I don't even know what that means.
We have incredible volunteers that are gonna be over at the Freedom Banner and
they would love to pray with you and say, man, God is so for you and he's not
against you.
So Lord, I just thank you for everyone here, everyone watching.
And God, if there's anything in our hearts that we need to deal with right now,
I just ask that they would respond.
They would receive the prayer that they need.
They would come to you if they're weary and they're carrying heavy weights because
your word teaches us that you will give us rest.
As we close, maybe you just need to take a little bit of time at the altar by
yourself and you don't necessarily want prayer, you just wanna be with him,
that's okay too.
So God, I just ask you bless everyone here.
You continue to speak to their hearts as we enter this new year.
And God, I just ask that you would have your way in and through them in Jesus'
name, amen?
Amen, love you guys so much.
Again, if you'd like prayer, please come forward.
If not, we'll see you next week.
Have a safe New Year's.
I guess it's safe to say, see you next year.
Thanks for listening to the Harvest Chapel PA podcast.
We hope this message encouraged you and drew you closer to Jesus.
So stay connected with us at HarvestChapelPA.com or follow us on social
media at Harvest Chapel PA.
We can't wait to be with you again next week.