Preparing for our annual fast and the year ahead:

From Resolutions to Reformation: Rewriting Our Story in Jesus

Primary Texts: John 1 and Colossians 1

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬-‭18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬-‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Focus: When we look ahead, simply making resolutions won’t be the path to Christian maturity—we need to reinterpret our lives and allow Jesus to rewrite our stories based on who He says He is, so that we might become more like Him, each in our own unique expressions.

Hope you had a wonderful holiday season as we crossed into 2026. For many of us, this past stretch of days was a rare gift—time to slow down, to pause, to celebrate, to sit across tables with people we love and remember what actually matters. Those moments—unhurried conversations, shared laughter, quiet reflections—have a way of recalibrating us. They remind us that life is more than schedules and metrics and obligations. They remind us who we are.

For me, one of the greatest joys this season was getting to spend time with my brother’s kids—my nephew Jack and nieces, Maggie and Lucy. I’m especially close to my family, and I’ve been fortunate enough to watch them grow year after year. And lately, we’ve been joking about how they’re becoming “real people” right before our eyes. You know what I mean—no longer just kids reacting to the world, but young humans beginning to interpret it.

They’re developing distinct personalities. You can already see their inclinations—what excites them, what frustrates them, what lights them up. And now, they’re starting to talk about who they want to be one day. Not just what they want to do, but who they imagine themselves becoming.

Watching that even more so during the last month stirred something in me that also coincided with our annual fast, which starts tomorrow.

Because as we stand at the beginning of a new year, I couldn’t help but remember how we all used to do the same thing. We told stories about our future selves. We had “personal missions”. We imagined the kind of people we’d be, the lives we’d live, the meaning we’d carry. That instinct—to frame our lives as stories, to give ourselves identities through narrative—isn’t taught. It’s human. It comes naturally, especially to children.

But somehow, as we get older, it becomes more of a luxury to keep going back to these stories, or even sustain the practice of reflecting on where and who we are.

To me, this annual fast has been the most transformative way of surfacing questions I usually avoid. It forces us to ask not just what we believe, but how we understand our lives. More specifically, for this year’s theme, it can press us to ask how we see God’s unfolding story—and whether we see ourselves living inside of it.

Last week, Pastor Rollan, in his last message on our series, Divine Movement, he shared something that also stirred me. It coincides with our inclinations as humans to find cohesion and purpose in our stories.

He reminded us that when God moves in our lives, He shifts us—away from building our lives on temporary things, and toward building on the only thing that lasts forever: Christ and His Kingdom.

And he asked a piercing question: How many of us missed Jesus because we were expecting God to show up in a different way?

My hope today—especially as we prepare to fast and step into the year ahead—is that we learn to situate our personal stories within the ultimate narrative God the Father has been writing since the beginning of time. Because when we look ahead, we don’t simply make resolutions—we reinterpret our lives.

Just like the Christians in Colossus who heard the story about Jesus:

And what if this year, we allowed Jesus to rewrite our stories based on who He says He is, so that we might become more like Him, each in our own unique expressions?

So today, let’s look talk about:

Why Jesus is the story.
Rewriting our stories in who He is - His “I AM” statements
Sustaining our fidelity in the “meanwhile”

Part 1: Jesus is the Story

Missing the Bigger Picture

There was an experiment once conducted by the psychology department at Princeton University. Every student had to participate. One by one, they were asked to look through a small hole into a room. Beforehand, they were given very specific instructions. There was a particular object in the center of the room, and they were told to study it closely. They would be quizzed on it afterward.

The students focused intently. And sure enough, when the quiz came, almost everyone could describe the object in great detail. But then came the final question—the real point of the experiment: Did you notice anything else about the room?

Most answered no.

What made that so fascinating is that the room itself was completely warped. One wall was much taller than the others. The floor and ceiling were slanted. The entire space was distorted. And yet almost no one noticed.

Why?

Because it wasn’t what they were told to look for.

That experiment may have been controlled, but it’s deeply revealing. Because growing up works much the same way doesn't it?

It’s essentially human to reduce our attention to what we need to focus on based on what’s being demanded of us. Like my nephew and nieces, we are born wired to imagine identities and futures. But over time, what we’re told to focus on becomes narrower and narrower.

Find a career, save up for your retirement

Focus on what makes you happy, but be practical

Responsibilities pile up. Limitations press in—money, time, resources. Even internal limits—our talents, fears, skills, insecurities—begin to define the edges of what we believe is possible.

And eventually, without realizing it, we stop noticing the room. We focus only on that one object.

As “very skilled” Christians let’s admit it, sometimes living by a moral code and being consistent with religious practices can even become the focus.

And that’s ok! Of course, we need these, but I would submit that even these can sometimes limit our vision from seeing the bigger picture.

Jesus is fully God and fully human, he is sinless, yet died for our sins. He rose from the dead, went up to heaven and is now our advocate. He’s taken up our broken humanness once and all, and reconciled it with the Father.

And what’s the bigger picture a life experienced with Jesus points to?

Personal relationship with God Himself
Eternity in Humanness
Reconciliation of all things

“In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.

I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us.

It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

C. S. Lewis, “Weight of Glory”

So in the Colossians passage, Paul very much picks up on how John depicted his realization about Jesus.

Our whole advent series - or any advent series for that matter - reminds us of how the birth of Jesus was in and of itself a break in the story when it takes a radical twist,.

And 30 years later, when Jesus makes His “I AM” statements in the Gospel of John, He isn’t offering metaphors for inspiration. He is revealing the new nature of reality that HE brought forth. These are clues to a new and everlasting chapter God is writing into the human story.

I personally love the Gospel of John. You could say I’m biased.

But really, most commentators will say more than any of the other Gospels, John depicts Jesus’ I AM sayings with more context clues to His personhood.

God becoming man.

A radical, unexpected twist in the God timeline.

History itself turned. Time was reoriented. Our calendars still testify to it—BC and AD. God didn’t merely influence the story. He stepped into it.

So the invitation today is simple: widen your focus. Look beyond inherited notions of God and yourself. Because like the students at Princeton, we often miss the person of Jesus and therefore miss the fullness of who we are.

“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus is the story.

Every one of us enters this year already living inside a story. A quiet script we didn’t consciously write but slowly absorbed. Stories that define success. Stories that promise safety. Stories that tell us what love costs and what wholeness requires.

Some of those stories promise life but deliver exhaustion.

Some promise freedom but quietly form chains.

Some promise certainty but leave us anxious and afraid.

Into a world full of borrowed stories, Jesus speaks simple, yet seismic words:

I AM.

He does not say, I will help you find life.

He does not say, I will show you the way.

He does not say, I will teach you the truth.

He says, I AM.

And when we fail to experience Jesus in all areas of life, we fail to experience the fullness of grace and truth in this lifetime. Faith begins with acknowledging sin—but it matures as we embrace the reality of a living Savior who is deeply interested in everything.

Part 2: Rewriting our stories in who He is - His “I AM” statements

The “I AM” sayings of Jesus challenge every worldview. They redefine sustenance, security, identity, and hope. And they demand not partial belief, but a reordering of our lives around the One who says, I AM.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬-‭23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

When we take a step back from our formal and learned Christian faiths, and just look at how humans have interacted with gods, and powerful beings, these I AM statements really transformed how we relate to God himself.

Jesus made these statements for us humans, to “humanize God”

1. “I AM the Bread of Life” (John 6:35, 48)