Let me close with a beautiful promise of victory given by Jesus, John 16:33:

“I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble; but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

That’s good news, isn’t it? The world is not our friend, it’s our enemy, we’re going to have trouble, but Jesus has overcome the world! And through Him, we too can overcome the world, if we’re willing to go out to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

Our time is up for today. I’ll be back with you again tomorrow at this time. I’ll continue with this theme, “Twelve Steps to a Good Year.” Tomorrow I’ll be speaking about the twelfth step.

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It’s good to be with you again. This week I’m continuing with the theme that I commenced last week, “Twelve Steps to a Good Year,” a theme that’s specially designed to give you a good start to the new year. Each of these twelve steps is based on a passage from the epistle to the Hebrews that commences with the words, “Let us.” Taken together, these twelve passages constitute twelve scriptural New Year’s resolutions. Up to now, we’ve looked together at the first four of these resolutions. They were: Let us fear; let us be diligent; let us hold fast our confession; let us draw near to the throne of grace. Let me just repeat those once more: Let us fear, let us be diligent, let us hold fast our confession, let us draw near to the throne of grace.

Today we’re going to look at the fifth such resolution. It’s found in Hebrews 6:1:

“Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity.”

That’s the resolution, let us press on to maturity. It’s tremendously important that we see that we have to do this, we’re not given any options. I think many Christians have got the impression that somehow in the Christian life you can arrive and settle down and say, “Now I’m there.” But that’s never true in the Christian life. To remain static in the spiritual life is almost impossible.

I’d like to share with you a single penetrating verse from Proverbs 4:18:

“The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.”

Now that phrase, “the path of the righteous,” is absolutely general. It’s not speaking about some particular believer or even some group of believers, but it’s speaking about every righteous person.

Notice, first of all, that righteousness is a path. A path is something that we move along. A path is never designed to stand still in, much less to sit down in. So righteousness is a path; it implies motion, it implies progress, it implies development. And then it says this path is like the light of dawn. That’s when we first come to know the Lord in His glorious fullness as Savior and Lord. It’s like a sun rising after the darkness; it’s like the dawn that comes in our hearts.

But that dawn is not the end of God’s purposes; it’s the beginning. It says that this path is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. So when we’re walking

Twelve Steps to a Good Year

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