New Years Message: The Blessing Journey - How God Re-Routes A Life

Abraham - “The Blessing Journey: How God Re-routes a Life”

Happy New Year! New Year, new you?...Maybe. But the best news is: the same Jesus—yesterday, today, and forever!

We’ve just been through the Advent and Christmas season, and this is...the first Sunday of 2026. Christmas of course is the celebration of the Incarnation, the day when God arrived in the flesh

- the day when the transformation of the world began, because the salvation and transformation of every life that would believe in the name of Jesus, became possible.

So the pastors and elders discerned that it would be good for us to consider the impact of God on a life for the first number of Sundays of the year.

The shift that occurs when a person becomes a follower of God, a follower of Jesus Christ.

Let me ask you something: if God asked you to leave everything familiar, what would you say? If God said, “Pack up—leave Toronto, leave your friends, leave what you’ve always called home… and go to a place you’ve never been,” what would your first response be?

Because I’ll tell you, on most days, mine wouldn’t be, “Here I am, Lord.”

Mine would be, “Okay Lord… quick question: where?”

And right behind that: “When?”

And then: “Is there Wi-Fi?”

And then, if we’re being honest: “Can I bring my wife, my people? Can I bring my stuff? Can I at least bring my favourite chair?”

What questions would cross your mind? Maybe:

“Uh… what now?”

“How can I know for sure it’s God and not just indigestion?”

“Who… me?”

Or, “Lord, I’m too old, too stressed, too tired, too weighed down by life to be starting over.”

And that’s exactly why the story of Abram matters—because God doesn’t only call the young, the brave, and the unbothered. He calls real people. And real people ask real questions.

So, we’re going to look at a snapshot of the life of Abram, who God would later rename Abraham.

Now, Abram is 75 years old when God says, ‘Pack up and move.’ So again, if you’re thinking, ‘I’m too old to start something new’—Abram would like a word.

Let’s read again from our passage today from Genesis Chapter 12:1-4, which is our introduction to Abram, or Abraham. Abraham is one of the most important people in human history.

Genesis 12:1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

Here’s where we’re going in this message:

Big idea: God reroutes ordinary lives by His word, for His purposes, by His promises.

Roadmap: Call (God speaks) ? Cost (we leave) ? Covenant (God promises) ? Commission (we bless others).

Abram. We don’t know much about him at this point, so after a brief introduction to his family,

and after learning that he starts out this story as an older man – again a spring chicken at the age of 75 - we’re let in on a one-way conversation between God and Abram.

God told Abram, ‘Go (from everything that’s familiar)… to the land I will show you.’ That’s it so far. Not go to the east, or the west. No more details about the where that he is to go.

So if you feel like you don’t have the full plan for 2026—congratulations, you’re in very biblical company.

But let’s be honest: most of us don’t love that kind of uncertainty. We want a map. We want details.

We want God to show us the destination, the route, the pit stops, and the timeline. We want spiritual GPS. An invite with the location would be nice.

There’s a scene from The Office TV show that is quite famous, where Michael and Dwight are delivering gift baskets to win back clients.

Michael is following the GPS, and it calmly tells him to “make a right turn.” Dwight looks up and says, “Michael… there’s a lake there.” But Michael insists, “The machine knows where it is going,” and he turns anyway. And sure enough—splash. Right into the water.

Later, Michael tells everyone, with total confidence, that he “drove [his] car into a lake” because a machine told him to… and he uses it as proof that technology can’t be trusted.

Now, most of us haven’t literally driven into a lake. But plenty of us have had a “Michael Scott moment” —maybe not into Lake Ontario in our case, but close.