Paul Daugherty - How to Let God Write Your Story This Year
Summary
This sermon from Genesis 1 urges us to let God be the author of our 2025 story, starting fresh with Him at the beginning just like creation did. The preacher shows how God brought order, light, purpose, and blessing out of chaos, reminding us that He’s still hovering over our lives, ready to speak life and multiply good things through us. The big takeaway is simple: surrender the pen to God through daily Bible reading, prayer, and fasting, and this can truly become your best year yet—a year of Jubilee, restoration, and thriving.
In the Beginning: God
All right, everybody say, «In the beginning.» If you have a Bible, go to Genesis 1, verse 1. Come on, Jesus! I want to preach to you today about how to let God write your story this year. How to let God write your story this year. Note-takers are history makers, world changers, culture shapers. In the beginning, God. Let’s pause right there: in the beginning, God. If God is not at the beginning of your story, it is not going to be a good story.
Here’s the good news: you might have started your story without God, but at any moment, you can invite God to write a new chapter, to start a brand new page. It’s time! Maybe you came through a year, previous years, or decades where God was left out of the story. 2025 is a year to begin with God, to continue with God, to say, «God, I’m handing you the pen, and I want you to write my story.» In the beginning, everybody say, «In the beginning.»
God Creates with Purpose
God created. See, God was acting immediately. God is not a passive God; He’s not a quiet God; He’s not a God that stops moving. Everything in Genesis has movement; everything has function; everything has purpose. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was formless and empty. God loves empty places; God loves empty vessels. That’s a perfect vessel for Him to fill. He shows up in dark, chaotic spots.
The Earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the chaos. The Spirit of God was hovering over potential. The Spirit of God was hovering over what was yet to be. It’s like God is hovering over the calendar this year before you’ve turned the page. Right at the start of January, I just sense in my heart the prophetic voice of God. God, in Genesis 1, wants to prophesy over you this year.
The Spirit Hovers Over Chaos
And the Spirit of God was hovering over what was yet to be. You know, the Holy Spirit hovers over your life, even in the chaos, even in the disorder, even in the darkness. The Holy Spirit is not running from you. If the Holy Spirit hovered over the darkness in Genesis, what makes you think He wouldn’t hover over your life, waiting for an invitation, waiting for the voice of God? The Holy Spirit was voice-activated in Genesis. As God spoke, the Holy Spirit moved.
What we see happening in Genesis chapter 1 is God begins to bring order out of chaos, and He makes something out of nothing. That word «create» in the Hebrew means «bara.» That word is only used in conjunction with God. It’s not used with any other person in the Bible because only God could create something out of nothing. Only God could be an authentic, original Creator.
Everyone else was copying or taking from something that God had already placed in the Earth, but God in Himself was authentic, creating something that no eye had seen, no ear had heard, no mind could perceive because there was no mind alive yet except for God’s mind. God saw it before He spoke it. He saw the vision inside Himself before He released the prophetic word out of His mouth.
Vision in the Darkness
And by the way, everything I’m saying about God has connection to who God wants you to be and how God wants you to move this year. God was getting the vision inside Him in the dark. He was getting the vision in the chaos, in the disorder; He already knew what He was about to do. And in verse three, it all started: «And God said, ‘Let there be light, ’ and there was light.»
The first thing that God creates is light because God wants a year full of light. God wants a world full of light. God wants humanity full of light. The enemy’s plan is darkness to cover the face of the Earth, but God interrupts the darkness with light. Isn’t it interesting that the beginning of God’s creation in the Old Testament mirrors the beginning of Jesus’s ministry in the New Testament?
That the very first thing that happens, John the Apostle—John the Baptist, John the prophet, John the disciple—begins to speak, and he says, «And light entered the world, and darkness could not overcome it.» God said, «Let there be light, ” and God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. Why should we mesh something that God separated?
Good with Progress
God called the light „day“ and darkness „night.“ And evening passed, and morning came, marking the first day. And God said it was good. God was good with progress, not perfection. God was good with a process, not a finished project. Isn’t it amazing that God said, „It is good“ before it was done?
You say, „But God, you still have six more days before you can say it’s good!“ But God said, „I’m good with the process. I’m good with the centimeters of progress that you’ve made in your relationships, in your marriage, in your health, in your finances.“ God looks at the unfinished you, and He says you’re still good, not because you are righteous and holy, but because His DNA lives in you.
His progressive, powerful work that He started in Genesis lives in you. He looks at the unfinished Ashley, the unfinished Liam, Josiah, the unfinished green, the unfinished Ty Barker; He looks at who you want to be. He looks at all the potential that’s inside you, and He says, „It is good.“
Today, the work that you’ve done—going to church, praying, reading your Bible—but I didn’t finish all my projects, I haven’t lost all my weight, I haven’t done all I need to do, I haven’t read all the books I need to read, I haven’t accomplished my goals in 2025. And God says, „It is good.“
Boundaries and Order
And then the second day began, and God wasn’t finished because He’s never finished. If there’s breath in your lungs, God’s not done. As long as the Earth remains, there’s seed and harvest, and God’s not finished. Are you listening to the prophetic word that God’s speaking through Genesis? He says, „Let there be space between waters.“ Let there be separation and boundaries. In other words, God was saying „no“ and „yes.“
God was okay with putting boundaries in creation. This is a year to set some boundaries in your life. Stop saying yes to every single thing that knocks at the door. It’s time to tell fear, „No, you’re not allowed in my house anymore.“ It’s time to tell comparison and sin and darkness and everything that’s been coming in your house, it’s time to set a boundary.
So God put space; He said, „You stay there; you stay there.“ And God called the space „sky.“ And evening passed, and morning came, marking the second day. Then God said, „Let the waters beneath the sky flow together.“ God was organizing things. God is not a God of confusion; He’s not a God of disorder; He’s not a God of disorganization. God has function for every single thing He makes.
You need to look at the areas in your life where you have lost functionality. You have lost order; you’ve lost organization. Things have become chaotic, random, no plan. At the start of your year, God says, „Let me write your story.“ Hebrews 12:2 says He is the author and the finisher. The author is only used when it comes to books. It’s a title of a publisher. It’s a title of a writer. It’s a title of someone who was intentionally writing on pages for a purpose.
Bringing Life and Multiplication
So God says, „Let the waters flow together.“ And God called the dry ground „land“ and the water „sea, ” and He saw that it was good. And God said, „Let the land sprout with vegetation.“ In other words, God was bringing more instruments into play. God was stirring a crescendo. At the start of Genesis, He was saying, „You, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you all have a purpose.“
He was saying, „Let every seed-bearing plant begin to grow. Let every tree begin to bear fruit, and the seeds produce kinds of plants and trees from which they came.“ And the vegetation began to grow. „Let lights appear in the sky—stars over here, a moon over there, a sun over there. You shine at this time; you shine at that.“
Oh, what was God doing? He was orchestrating the universe. He was bringing order and a plan, but He wasn’t done yet. So God kept speaking; He kept prophesying. He says, „I want to fill every empty space.“ Then God said, „Let the waters swarm with fish—Nemo over there, Dory over there. I want sharks on this side; I want stingrays over here. Let the skies be filled with birds in the air. I want eagles flying there, hawks flying there. I want the mockingbird and the mockingjay. I want rhinoceroses over here.“
And the rhinoceroses started running, and they started pounding as the rhinoceroses were hitting the ground like Lion King Mufasa, and the lions started running, and the alligators started snapping. And God was multiplying, and He said, „You are blessed; now multiply! Fill the seas, fill the skies, fill the Earth.“
The Masterpiece: Humankind
And then God got to His masterpiece. In verse 26, God said, „Now let us make human beings in our image.“ Who was God talking to? He wasn’t speaking singularly; He was speaking plurally. He said „our“ image. It’s like God was inviting other people to add to the architectural design of the universe. We know who it was: it was His Son, it was His Spirit, it was God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—the Trinity—all working together.
It was like they were in a huddle together and God was saying, „Now between the three of us, we’re going to make humankind to be like us, to possess the same prophetic voice, to speak things into existence, to build things that the world has never seen, to function with order and organization. Everything will have a purpose.
The bass will sound like this; the electric guitar will sound like this; the drums will have each of its own sound, and the piano.“ And then He says, „They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the Earth, and the small animals that scurry on the ground.“
Can you imagine this? I mean, to be a fly in the Garden of Eden, watching what God was doing—just seeing things pop up. „What’s that? That’s a giraffe! What’s that over there? That’s a bear! What’s that over there? That’s a grasshopper!“ God was just creating things that He saw on the inside of Him, and He says, „I want people to have the same divine DNA in them that we have.“
As He’s looking at the Trinity, God’s talking. He says, „I want them to rule and reign and have dominion over fish in the sea, birds in the sky, livestock, and wild animals on the Earth.“ This is a hunter’s favorite verse right here. Hunters circle this; they’re like, „That’s my permission slip to go and kill some animals this year!“
Made in His Image
I’ll get back to this creative moment, but let me just pause for a second. My oldest son got a rifle for Christmas, and the first thing he wanted to do was go outside and look for a bird. So he’s getting out there—and each of our kids have different personalities. So one of our kids is a real animal lover, Benny. He goes out there, and he’s like, „What are you doing? This is God’s creation! You are hurting, you’re hurting nature!“ You know? And he’s crying for the animals. No birds were hurt; everybody’s fine; nobody died.
But to see that moment—to see that moment where God was saying humankind, as God begins to form out of the ground—look at this in verse 27: „So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God, He created them: male and female.“ There are no other pronouns here; there are no other genders here. It’s just male or female.
And God doesn’t make accidents. If He made you, you’re not an accident. You are placed on Earth on purpose. Now, your parents might have called you an accident, but before they could call you an accident, God has already blessed you. God has already put His DNA inside you. God already had a plan. Jeremiah 29:11 says, „For I know the plans I have for you.“
Maybe your parents didn’t want you; maybe you were born out of wedlock; maybe things happened in your life, and you go, „I feel like a mess; I don’t know who I am.“ God knows who you are. „I don’t know what I’m supposed to do; I don’t know what I was made for.“ God knows what you were made for.
If He knew what the rhinoceroses were made for, what makes you think He doesn’t know what you’re made for? If He knew the functions that He would give to the giraffe and that He would give to the gopher, what makes you think that He doesn’t know the functions and the assignment and the purpose that He has for you? So who should write your story this year? Why not God?
Be Fruitful and Multiply
Then God blessed them. Now, look at this: here’s the assignment He gives. He looks at all of humankind, and He says, „Whether you’re in the back row or the front row, whether you’re the last in your family, the middle child, or the firstborn, I’m calling you; I’m assigning you; I’m functioning and purposefully intentionally creating you to be fruitful.
I didn’t place you on this Earth to shrink and to survive in 2025. No, I want you to thrive! I want you to flourish in 2025! I want you to multiply in 2025! I want you to take what’s been given to you like in Matthew 25, the parable of the talents. I want you to, if you got two talents, turn it into four. If you got five talents, turn it into ten. If you got one talent, don’t be like the lazy servant that hides it and says, ‘God has no purpose for me.’ No! Take what you’ve got and multiply! Somebody say, ‘Multiply! ’
He says, „Be fruitful; fill the Earth; fill the Earth; govern it; lead! You were born to lead! You were born for more! You weren’t born to eke through life, to survive, to let other people’s opinions shape you. Don’t let what people say about you make you think less of yourself. Don’t let what people think about you—and most of the time it’s what we’re saying to ourselves; it’s not even what they’re saying to us—God is saying over you, ‘I called you; I created you; I pulled you out of darkness into light, and I have made you to be fruitful and multiply. I’ve made you to govern and I’ve given you every seed-bearing plant. I’ve put potential in the Earth.“
You know, it’s guys like Elon Musk that walk past something and go, „I think I’m going to build a space machine out of that. I think I’m going to build an electric car over there.“ It’s people like—I don’t know, maybe back in the day, Steve Jobs—that looked at a computer and said, „Maybe we could turn this into a cell phone, and maybe phones could take pictures and videos.“ It’s people that look at something and go, „There’s more than meets the eye here.“
Where did that come from? Just because people might do wicked things doesn’t mean that they didn’t have the DNA of God inside them. Creative power comes from God alone; it doesn’t come from you or me. But how do we tap into it? How do we realize, „Wow, there’s way more potential inside me than I thought there was?“ There’s way more creative flow, and that’s what God was doing in Genesis 1: He was in a creative flow. He just kept going; He kept going.
The Serpent at New Beginnings
But anywhere there’s a new beginning, anywhere there’s a birthing of something fresh, a transition into something new, a turning of a page, there’s always a serpent waiting. So in Genesis 3, while God was birthing something new, the serpent was the shrewdest of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. And one day the serpent starts twisting the words of God: „Did God really say…“
How do you let God write your story this year? This could be your best year yet if you will hear God’s voice and obey Him. Our best days are not hinging on how powerful we are, how talented we are, what connections we have, who’s in the White House, what laws are passed as a nation. Our best days are hinging on will we surrender to God? Will we lean into His voice? Will we follow what He’s speaking?
Led by the Spirit
When I was a teenager, my dad wrote this book and released it. It’s the story of him and my mom starting Victory Church. The title is „Led by the Spirit: How God Guides and He Provides.“ Each chapter, he unfolds a part of Victory: the Dream Center and the college, the camp, and different moments where God showed up. He was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing because he was led by the Spirit.
If I could just break this message down with just a simple sentence, I want you this year to be led by the Spirit of God so you can be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. So you can be led by God and have the provision of God, the protection of God, and the testimony from God so that God gets all the glory in what He wants to do in 2025.
This can be your best year yet! Nudge that person next to you: „This is going to be your best year yet if you let God write your story!“ Let God write your story!
Creative Flow in Worship
Give the band a big hand; didn’t they sound awesome? I mean, we didn’t even practice that; they were on fire! I might call y’all back up; we need to do some creative flow. Y’all mind if I sit down at the piano for a minute? All right, I was going to do it whether you wanted me to or not.
Can you see? Right before I came into church this morning, I sat at the piano and I said, „God, if that same creative flow is in You that was in You is in me, then I should be able to flow from a creative place whether I feel like it or not, whether I think I’ve got all the tools or not.“ And I just think that God wants to do more through us. Sometimes we’ve got to test ourselves; we’ve got to push ourselves; we’ve got to push the limits; get out of our comfort zone.
So I just sat down and I started singing: „It’s 2025 and I think I’m going to thrive. I know it won’t be easy, but you best believe me when I say it’s 2025 and I’m not listening to those lies that the devil tried to feed me. No, he won’t deceive me anymore. I close the door on 2024 and I’m stepping into something bright, something like 2025.“
But here’s why I say this: it’s because God wants to do something fresh. Everybody say „fresh!“ Fresh means you haven’t seen it yet; you haven’t felt it yet. God doesn’t want to regurgitate what you walked through; He wants to birth—this service feels fresher than the last service! I mean, y’all were sitting in the last service front row; y’all know this is different! You’re like, „Wait, he didn’t do this in the last service!“ God doesn’t want to do what He did before; He wants to do something fresh.
Three Practical Ways
I want to give you, real quickly, three ways to let God write your story this year. Number one: daily time reading your Bible. I’m not saying read your Bible once a week, once a month, once a year; I’m saying read your Bible every day! Every day! What would happen if you opened your Bible every day? Dust it off the shelf; pull it out! Start with Genesis; go all the way to Revelation! Follow along in our Victory Bible reading plan at the end of your rows. There are Bible reading plans you can pass them down.
Choose this year! If you’ve already gotten one from last week, you can pass it to someone else or take one with you and give it to someone at your house, but say, „This year, I’m going to read through my Bible every day.“ And if you miss a day, pick up the next day! Don’t let shame stop you from reading your Bible every day! That you can! Every day, as you get in the Word, the Word is going to get in you.
When I read the Word, the Word starts reading me! And it hurts sometimes because Proverbs is like, „Paul, you’re being foolish right here!“ „Paul, hold your tongue!“ How many of y’all need to hold your tongue more in 2025? Anybody ever gotten yourself in trouble by talking too much? The whole front row—and me included—and all of us in this room; all of us need to hold our mouths more! We all need to master our mouths more!
The very first thing we see in Genesis is God has mastered His mouth! He only speaks life! He doesn’t gossip, doesn’t talk bad about people, doesn’t compare Himself with other creators, doesn’t sit around slandering other ministries, doesn’t sit with the Trinity going, „I got something bad to say about that rhinoceros over there.“ Stop talking about the cows! Let old Bessie just be by herself for a little bit!
God’s not using His mouth to speak negative about anything or anybody; He’s only speaking life! What if this year you let the Word of God change your mouth? Change your language? Speak hope! Speak life!
The second way to let God write your story this year is daily time in prayer—pray, pray, pray—in your known tongue and pray in the Spirit. Last night I was praying in the Spirit from the stage for a moment because I was saying how sometimes I’ll pray in the Spirit just to talk to God. And by the way, prayer is two-way communication, not one way. It’s not just me yapping off to God; it’s me being quiet, listening to God.
Fasting to Sharpen
Here’s the third way to let God write your story this year: have a set fast of some kind to kick off the year. Now, we’ve kicked off a 21-day fast! You can join it! Give up something—whether it’s bread or social media or one day a week that you’re not going to eat, or maybe pop or whatever it is—coffee! Something that you go, „I’m going to give up something my flesh craves so that I can get my spiritual appetite growing on a higher level.“
Here’s what fasting does: fasting is more about longing for the power and presence of Jesus than it is about restricting your appetite. The fast is not meant to just stop something you love; it’s to gain something you love even greater! The greatest enemy for the hunger of God is not poison but apple pie! It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, John Piper said, „but endless nibbling at the table of the world.“
In other words, we are so consumed by what our flesh craves, like TV screens and social media and movies and shows and more late-night meals and food and ice cream—all that stuff—and it’s not bad; it’s just that it starts choking out our hunger for God! When we fast, we are saying that the cry of our spirit is greater than the cry of our stomach!
Every major decision that I’ve made has come from a place of prayer and some kind of a fast and reading the Word to hear what God has to say, seeking wise counsel. It sharpens me! Ecclesiastes 10:10 says, „An axe that is dull requires way more work, but an axe that is sharpened leads you to success.“
Year of Jubilee
Let me tell you something, church. I Googled this last week. I asked, „What is 2025 supposed to be?“ That was the question I asked. The number one result was that the Chinese calendar calls 2025 the Year of the Snake. I said, „Hold up! I rebuke that serpent in Genesis 3. I rebuke that serpent in Matthew chapter 4, and I rebuke that snake from the Chinese calendar in 2025.“
But right beneath that website, there was another answer. It said the Jewish calendar calls 2025 the Year of Jubilee. I said, „Hold up! That’s my result right there!“ This is what it said: „The Year of Jubilee is a year where something is going to happen in a powerful way. It is a window of grace, an open heaven, a year of hope. It is marked as a season of divine intervention, restoration of lost opportunities, extraordinary deliverance, and the emergence of transformative leaders…“
Come on, church, get ready for Jubilee! Get ready for Jubilee!
Invitation to the Altar
Lord, my spirit is counting on a Year of Jubilee, a year of restoration. I want to pray for you right now. We’re going to worship, but if you are counting on this year to be a Year of Jubilee, I want you to leave your seat. If you want God to write your story, come and find a place at this altar. Come with your spouse, come by yourself, however you came here. Just say, „Let’s go down to that altar. Let’s give God 2025. Let’s hand it to Him like it’s an open book, like it’s a book full of empty pages.“
Let’s just begin to worship. Let’s begin to fix our faith on the author, the finisher of our faith. … (worship lyrics and final prayers continue as in the original text, closing with amen and amen.)