Resolved: To Use God's Appointed Means
Lord's Day Exhortation
As the year of our Lord 2025 draws to a close, this is a natural time to both reflect and make resolutions for the coming year. This is a good practice, as we are called by God to examine ourselves and to endeavor to live more and more in glad obedience to Him each and every day.
When it comes to goals or desires regarding your faith, I want to encourage you all that you do not need to look for some hidden or spiritual secret to sanctification. Rather, our Lord has already provided you with everything that you need in what has been called the “ordinary means of grace”—namely—the Word, sacraments, and prayer. We see these in the life of the church in Acts 2:42, where the believers in Jerusalem are said to have “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship (that is the Word), in the breaking of bread (sacraments), and in prayers.”
It is through these very accessible means that the Spirit is pleased to continuously offer all the benefits of redemption and strengthen your faith. Therefore, this year you should resolve to attend to these divine aids more and more. You must not neglect the very means that the Lord has ordained for your growth in Christ.
Instead, take up the Word daily. Read it in the quiet of the morning. If your mornings are anything but quiet and you’re too tired to wake before the kids, read it in the evening or listen to it in the car. Bring it to your family’s attention at the dinner table. And strive to sincerely and reverently receive the preached Word each Lord’s Day.
Having received the Word, pray it back to God. With the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart, give Him praise throughout your day. Seek His wisdom from above in all things. Offer Him thanks for every blessing that you have and bring Him every need, handing them off to Him in faith.
Lastly, attend to the sacraments every week. You are baptized only once, but every baptism you witness is a powerful reminder of your own. And come to the Lord’s Table, but don’t come absent-minded or absent-hearted, but with your whole selves and with open hands.
And so the exhortation this morning is to make diligent use of these ordinary means of grace in this next year, that the Lord would be glorified in your lives.
This exhortation was given on December 28, AD 2025, at King’s Cross Church in Moscow, Idaho.