Dennis R. Wiles

First Baptist Arlington

January 11, 2026

2026: Flourishing Together:

Transformed on The Jesus Way

Romans 12:1-2 (Gospel Guide: John)

WINTER 2026: Designed to Flourish

January 1 – February 17, 2026

Psalm 92:12-15

The Path of Life

Psalm 16

Theme for 2026: Flourishing Together: Transformed on The Jesus Way

Theme for Winter 2026: Designed to Flourish

FORMATION: All human beings are being formed and shaped! The process of formation is inevitable in all human experience. The question is, “Who – or What – is forming you?”

FORMED, INFORMED, CONFORMED, TRANSFORMED: These concepts are all inter-related

With the rise of social media empires and their spooky digital algorithms, these powerful forces now have direct access to our flows of consciousness every time we slide our thumbs across our phones. What we are led to believe are just ads, news links, retweets, and random digital flotsam are, in reality, mass behavior modification techniques intentionally designed to influence how we think, feel, believe, shop, vote, and live. To quote the tech philosopher Jaron Lanier, “What might once have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale.” The “world” (as it’s called in the New Testament) is forming us, constantly.

-John Mark Comer, Practicing The Way

INTENTIONAL DISCIPLESHIP: This phrase captures what we often refer to as spiritual formation.

PERSON: For Christians, our spiritual formation (intentional discipleship) is centered on the PERSON of JESUS CHRIST!

A Disciple: A person being formed by Jesus as they follow Him in accomplishing His mission.

The Church is a purposeful community of gathered believers following The Jesus Way together in the fulfillment of His mission.

PATH OF LIFE: God has provided a path for His people that leads to life – abundant life, meaningful life, purposeful life, ------ eternal life!

“Way” is a stock metaphor in both our Scriptures and the traditions that have developed from them. At the entrance to our prayer book, the Psalms, the opening meditation uses this metaphor to set two ways of life before us. Will you live a solid life of prayer, listening to and answering God, rooted in the soil of God’s revelation, your life growing like God’s Torah, a tree with fruit-laden branches? Or will you live an insubstantial life of chatter and gossip, using words without God-context, oblivious of God, your life reduced to a pile of incoherent syllables, leaves blown every which way by the wind? Choose your way.

-Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way

Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.

-Proverbs 10:17

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

-Jesus (John 14:6)

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.

-Genesis 18:18-19

PROCESS FOR FLOURISHING: God has revealed a process that leads us to a life that flourishes. The journey towards flourishing includes these three vital steps:

-Knowing God

-Experiencing God -

-Serving God

KNOWING GOD:

We must be saved from our sins!

EXPERIENCING GOD:

We need to be shepherded into community.

We need to be shepherded past our past.

We need to be shepherded through the challenges of life.

We need to be shaped into disciples.

SERVING GOD:

We need to be sent into purposeful places of service and ministry.

PERSPECTIVE: As we follow Jesus and we are formed into disciples, God provides us with a new, profound, meaningful, and eternal perspective.

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.

-Ecclesiastes 12:13