1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 Amen. 2 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Amen. 3 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:29,980 Let's pray. 4 00:01:29,980 --> 00:01:59,960 Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. 5 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:29,940 Let's pray. 6 00:02:29,940 --> 00:02:59,920 Let's pray. 7 00:02:59,920 --> 00:03:29,900 Let's go ahead and stand, and we're going to be reading out of Psalm 98 verses 1 through 3, and it says, "O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy 8 00:03:29,900 --> 00:03:59,880 arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation. He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. 9 00:03:59,880 --> 00:04:19,880 We thank you for the start of a new year, and we thank you for bringing us through this past year and through all the joys and the hardships and the trials and the praises and everything that you've done for us this year so that we can glorify you and know how to worship you. 10 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:34,880 And we thank you so much for our church and how you've taken care of it, and we thank you for the people here and the people that are watching online that just are all an encouragement, not just to Brandon and I, but to each other. 11 00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:46,880 And we ask that you be with our service today, allow it to glorify you. We thank you for coffee this morning, and in Jesus' name, amen. And there is more coffee coming, just so you know. 12 00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:50,880 Alright, we're going to get started with Here I Am to Worship. 13 00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:31,880 The beauty that made this heart adore You. Hope of a life spent with You. 14 00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:45,880 Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that You're my God. 15 00:05:45,880 --> 00:06:03,880 You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to be. 16 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:30,880 King of old days, all so highly exalted, glorious in heaven above. Humbly you came to the earth you created, all full of sick became whole. 17 00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:58,880 Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me. 18 00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:26,880 And I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross. And I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross. 19 00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:53,880 Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely. Altogether worthy. Altogether wonderful to me. 20 00:07:53,880 --> 00:08:20,880 Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely. Altogether worthy. Altogether wonderful to me. 21 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:47,880 Keep moving into our prayer and share time, and Stu's going to do that for us today. And if you're watching online, you'll be able to text us any requests that you have. So please do that if you'd like to share that here. We're going to go ahead and sing "How Great Is Our God." 22 00:08:47,880 --> 00:09:14,880 The splendor of the King, hope and majesty. Let all the earth rejoice. All the earth rejoice. 23 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:41,880 All the earth rejoice. He wraps Himself in light. His darkness tries to hide. He trembles at His voice. He trembles at His voice. How great is El God. 24 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:58,880 Sing with me how great is El God. Oh, we'll see how great, how great is El God. 25 00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:16,880 Page to page He stands, and time is in His hands. Beginning and the end, beginning and the end. 26 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:34,880 The God hath breathed in one. Father, Spirit, Son, the Lion and the Lamb, the Lion and the Lamb. 27 00:10:35,880 --> 00:10:55,880 How great is our God. Sing with me. How great is our God. Oh, sing. How great. How great is our God. 28 00:10:58,880 --> 00:11:19,880 How great is our God. Sing with me. How great is our God. Oh, sing. How great. How great is our God. 29 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:43,880 Name above all names. Worthy of all praise. My heart will sing. How great is our God. 30 00:11:46,880 --> 00:12:12,880 Name above all names. Worthy of all praise. My heart will sing. How great is our God. How great is our God. 31 00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:30,880 Sing with me. How great is our God. Oh, we'll see how great, how great is our God. 32 00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:44,880 Thank you. 33 00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:14,880 Thank you. 34 00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:44,880 Thank you. 35 00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:44,880 Amen. 36 00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:14,880 Amen. 37 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:44,880 Amen. 38 00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:38,880 I've got to fix something. The whole week between Christmas and New Year's is such a blur that you don't really know what day it is. I don't know if that's for anybody else, but every day this week I woke up and was like, "I think this is Monday, but it was actually Wednesday," and things like that. 39 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:53,880 It's so good to be able to have a point to come and focus and be able to know what day it is and just be able to have a time where we can focus on God and get together and just worship Him together. 40 00:17:53,880 --> 00:18:02,880 We're going to move into our time of communion, and we're going to be singing "Blessed Be Your Name," if I did what I did right. Yes, I think so. There we go. 41 00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:30,880 "Blessed Be Your Name in the land that is plentiful. Where the streams of abundance flow. Blessed be your name." 42 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:49,880 "Blessed Be Your Name when I'm found in the desert plain, or walk through the wilderness. Blessed be your name." 43 00:18:49,880 --> 00:19:01,880 Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, 44 00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:24,880 still I will say: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. 45 00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:38,880 Blessed be your name. When the sun's shining down on me. When the world's all as it should be. Blessed be your name. 46 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:53,880 Blessed be your name. I'm a room mugged with suffering. Though there's pain in the offering. Blessed be your name. 47 00:19:54,880 --> 00:20:18,880 Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name." 48 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:28,880 Blessed be your name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. 49 00:20:49,880 --> 00:21:17,880 Jesus said, "Follow me." Every time Greg is not here, every Sunday when he gets here and starts setting everything up for us, he always sets aside some communion for Derek and I. 50 00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:26,880 Sticks mine on top of my Bible. As I was getting ready to walk up here this morning, I realized Greg wasn't here, and just headed out without what I needed. 51 00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:45,880 It's one of those small things that Rachel was talking about, how thankful we are for our little church. And it's those small things, those little encouragements that we find from each other that I think makes the family of God a wonderful thing to be a part of. 52 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:55,880 So as we've been singing this morning, one of the things that we've tried to do is focus on God's goodness and on God's greatness. 53 00:21:55,880 --> 00:22:07,880 And I want to, as we prepare to take communion this morning, I want to go to Deuteronomy chapter 11, and I want to read from verse 10 down through verse 12. 54 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:15,880 And this is commandments regarding obedience to God and what will happen when you get into the land. 55 00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:24,880 And it says this: "For the land that you are entering to take possession of, it is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, 56 00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:34,880 where you sowed your seed and irrigated it like a garden of vegetables, but the land you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, 57 00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:44,880 which drinks water by the rain from heaven. A land that your Lord God cares for, the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, 58 00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:53,880 from the beginning of the year to the end of the year." And as I was reading and thinking, I like to read Spurgeon, 59 00:22:53,880 --> 00:23:00,880 one of my favorite preachers outside of the Bible, and one of the things that he said about this passage 60 00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:07,880 that I had never really thought of before, is he says that this presents to us sort of a picture 61 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:14,880 of the two conditions of man, right? There's a condition of man where we don't trust God, 62 00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:20,880 where we seek to walk in our own way, and Spurgeon will say, in our own providence, 63 00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:26,880 looking to ourselves for all of our needs. He'll go on to say, "Because of that, 64 00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:33,880 our cares are heavy. They frequently become so heavy, they drive us to desperation. 65 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:40,880 When we live according to our own strength, we live a life of care, anxiety, sorrow, fretfulness, 66 00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:47,880 and disappointment. We dwell in Egypt. We know that there is no joy or comfort or provision 67 00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:54,880 if it does not wear out our souls for winning it." In the picture there is a type of striving 68 00:23:54,880 --> 00:24:02,880 where we seek to find all of the good things in life in ourself. If I work hard enough, if I plan the best that I can, 69 00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:10,880 if I do everything in my power, if by fortune everything comes together well, maybe someday I will find joy, 70 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:17,880 but it's going to be a struggle. And that's what God says about the land of Egypt, that if you wanted to plant something, 71 00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:22,880 you had to work at it, you had to irrigate it, you had to garden it. But the contrast is, 72 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:28,880 the promised land of God that God cares for. And so this is what Spurgeon says, 73 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:34,880 "The spiritual man dwells in another country. His faith makes him a citizen of another land. 74 00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:40,880 It is true that he endures the same toil and experiences the same afflictions as the ungodly, 75 00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:47,880 but they deal with him after another fashion. For they come as a gracious father's appointments. 76 00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:55,880 They go at the bidding of loving wisdom. By faith, the godly man casts his care upon God who cares for him. 77 00:24:55,880 --> 00:25:02,880 And he walks without a care because he knows himself to be the child of heaven's lovingkindness, 78 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:07,880 for whom all things work together for good. God is his great guardian and friend, 79 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:13,880 and all his concerns are safe in the hands of his infinite grace. Even in the year of drought, 80 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:19,880 the believer dwells in green pastures and lies down beside still waters. 81 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,880 And I love this picture of God's people. 82 00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:28,880 It doesn't mean that we go through life in a different manner or experience different things, 83 00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,880 but that we have someone who, in the midst of it all, cares for us. 84 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:38,880 And I think we see that most magnificently demonstrated at the cross, 85 00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:46,880 where Jesus comes and He takes our place. He bears the weight of our sin, and He dies for us. 86 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:51,880 And so we're going to remember that, as Christians, we see this world from a different perspective. 87 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:59,880 We don't see it as Egypt, but rather we see it as a God who cares for us even in the midst of those darkest moments. 88 00:25:59,880 --> 00:26:02,880 So let's pray, and then we'll partake together. 89 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:08,880 Father in heaven, be with us this morning as we gather together. 90 00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:14,880 As we begin a new year, and we know from the end to the beginning, it's all in your hands. 91 00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:19,880 The goodness and height of the mountains and the sorrow and the darkness of the valleys, 92 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:26,880 we know that you are at work in all things for your glory and for our good. 93 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:35,880 And so we ask that as we gather this very first day of the year, that you would focus our hearts on your goodness. 94 00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,880 That you would help us to cling to your grace and to your mercy. 95 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:42,880 That you would remind us of your love for us. 96 00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:51,880 And that we would seek, as we follow you, to trust you and walk with you through all the mountains and valleys that this life brings to us. 97 00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:57,880 I ask that you bless this bread and this cup. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 98 00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:06,880 As Jesus did with his disciples, let's take the bread that he said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Jesus." 99 00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:12,880 Let's remember Jesus together. 100 00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:27,880 And let us take the cup as Jesus did, and he said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do it as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." 101 00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:35,880 For as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim our Lord's death until he comes. 102 00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:45,880 We're going to be in Ecclesiastes 9, just for a few minutes this morning, if you would like to follow along. 103 00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:53,880 There are some sort of shorter, simplified handouts by the door as you come in. You're welcome to grab one of those if you're watching online. 104 00:27:53,880 --> 00:28:02,880 Those handouts are available on the live streaming page on our website. So we're going to go ahead and pray, and then we will jump right into it this morning. 105 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:12,880 Father in heaven, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you for your grace. I thank you for new beginnings, and I thank you that you're a God who brings us to new beginnings. 106 00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:25,880 Help us as we look at our lives this morning, that as Solomon seeks to both humble us and encourage us, that we would find our foundation in you and in you alone. 107 00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,880 It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 108 00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:37,880 Over the Advent season, we have walked through all of these big, wonderful, joy-bringing themes. 109 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:47,880 In Jesus, there is hope. In Jesus, there is peace. In Jesus, there is love. In Jesus, he's the one who can bring peace between us and God. 110 00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:56,880 Like Adam and Eve, we don't have to hide. We don't have to try to fix things. We don't have to make excuses like our first parents did, 111 00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:04,880 but that we can come to God in peace, but he also restores peace in our relationships. 112 00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:11,880 And so we come to that point where we kind of maybe say, "Well, how do I go about living that way?" 113 00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,880 And so as we begin the new year, I want to go to a man who's very wise, Solomon, 114 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:25,880 and I want to look at just two verses where he gives us some instruction in how to think about how we live. 115 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:33,880 And one of the things that we often find is that maybe we're really good at knowing things, but maybe we're not necessarily very wise. 116 00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:42,880 And I think that the common illustration, I think it was a British journalist who came up with the phrase, is that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. 117 00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:52,880 Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Somebody came along later and said, "The philosopher will then ask the question, is ketchup a smoothie?" 118 00:29:52,880 --> 00:30:02,880 And so we want to try to take knowledge and put it to practical use, and Solomon is very, very good at doing that. 119 00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:11,880 And one of the things that if we have lived for really any length of time, we begin to realize that life doesn't always turn out like we imagine it to. 120 00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:19,880 And so as part of my preparation for the new year, I was reading through and trying to organize some old files and some old things I'd written, 121 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:26,880 and I ran across this kind of exact situation. I think I wrote it back in like 2015, 122 00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:32,880 and evidently the situation was that Rachel and I, one evening, were sitting there. 123 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:41,880 She may have been on Pinterest or somewhere and came across this recipe for peach baked French toast. 124 00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:48,880 And so I think that the draw behind this is that you make it mostly the night before, 125 00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:54,880 and then you wake up and pop it in the oven. And so I'll just give you a quote from the recipe 126 00:30:54,880 --> 00:31:01,880 because we all know how floury some of these recipe writers can be. And then I'll just tell you a little bit of what happened. 127 00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:09,880 And so it starts, the recipe started like this, "This simple overnight French toast casserole with fresh peaches 128 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:17,880 and a buttery brown sugar and pecan topping is sure to make everyone smile. We love to sit down to an extra 129 00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:22,880 special weekend breakfast whenever we can. And if I'm able to prep the meal the night before, 130 00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:28,880 that makes my weekend mornings all the better because it's more sleep, less work, and a better morning." 131 00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:35,880 It took me just a few minutes to slice the bread and the peaches and to stir together the cream and the eggs 132 00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:42,880 and then tuck the dish into the refrigerator for the night. Now so in our house, and this is what I went on to write about 133 00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:49,880 that is that it looks very different in real life, right? Because you're supposed to make this ahead 134 00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:55,880 for sort of optimal morning bliss, right? I think we decided on this like 9 or 10 at night. It's like, 135 00:31:55,880 --> 00:32:01,880 "Hey, let's make this for tomorrow." And then you go to the refrigerator and realize that you have nothing 136 00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:07,880 that you need to make this dish. And so what do you do? You begin to improvise and you sort of hope 137 00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:14,880 that it comes out okay. And so the next morning, the recipe goes on to say this, "The next morning I turned 138 00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:21,880 on the oven while I started the coffee. I set the cold casserole in a warm oven and sat down to sip coffee 139 00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:26,880 and watch cartoons with the kids while breakfast baked and filled our house with a delicious aroma 140 00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:34,880 of baking peaches. And I'm reminded once more how nice make-ahead breakfasts are for a relaxed morning." 141 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:41,880 And so my first question was, "Does this person even have children?" And in this particular case, I was bludgeoned awake 142 00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:49,880 far before I wanted to, and I think it was by a two-year-old holding a space shuttle going, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy." 143 00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:56,880 Right? There was no gradual slipping into consciousness saying, "Oh, I have beautiful French toast in the refrigerator. 144 00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:02,880 I'm going to bake it for a quiet, peaceful morning." And so I groggily sort of stumbled to the kitchen. 145 00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:08,880 I pressed the button on the coffee maker. I grabbed this casserole that somehow, by the grace of God, 146 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:15,880 I even remembered was in the refrigerator. And all I remembered was it was supposed to be covered and in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. 147 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:24,880 And so I managed to get it in there, and I was praying at that moment that my coffee would sort of kick in before I ended up on the nightly news. 148 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:30,880 And so the next step, according to this recipe, was to sit down and sort of calmly watch cartoons. 149 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:41,880 Well, the aroma of fresh peaches filled the house. And to be honest, that didn't happen, because it's not just to make a red recipe. 150 00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:49,880 Right? You now have to make this delicious topping. And so I ran to the refrigerator, and I went and checked, and thankfully we had butter. 151 00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:59,880 Somebody in our house doesn't necessarily want nuts on top of their French toast, so I had to substitute out some granola to sort of add that crunch. 152 00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:09,880 And so I had to bake and make the sauce. And then I looked at the recipe and realized, instead of 30 minutes at 350, it needed to be 20 minutes at 350. 153 00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:16,880 So I hurriedly pulled it out of the oven, added the sauce, and now it has to go back in for another 30 minutes. 154 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:23,880 And so finally, the oven beeps, and we pull out this, and then you read the recipe. Now it has to sit for 10 minutes. 155 00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:30,880 And it's still so incinerating that our kids were unable to eat it, right? 156 00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:39,880 And I will say this, at no point did our house ever fill with the aroma of nicely baked peaches. 157 00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:49,880 And probably most of us have experienced something along these lines where you have this picturesque, beautiful idea of how things should be, right? 158 00:34:49,880 --> 00:35:00,880 This beautiful casserole, you with your coffee watching the sunrise, your child sort of contentedly in the corner watching TV, and in no case in our life did that happen. 159 00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:07,880 But we've all been there, right? We see something on the menu, and we say, "Oh, that looks amazing," and when it comes out, it looks totally different. 160 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:17,880 Or maybe we have an idea for a family get-together or vacation, and we have all of these dreams and plans, and we get there, and it's nothing like we imagined. 161 00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:26,880 And one of the things we learn very quickly in our life is that the picture doesn't always match the reality. 162 00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:31,880 That's Solomon's point in our text this morning. Let me read it to you. 163 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:44,880 "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge. 164 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:55,880 But time and chance happen to them all. For man does not know his time like a fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare. 165 00:35:55,880 --> 00:36:02,880 So the children of men are snared at an evil time, and suddenly it falls upon them." 166 00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,880 You may say, "Well, why do we talk about this?" 167 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:11,880 Right? There's this picture of life that for us so often ends up broken. 168 00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:16,880 And that's what Solomon's point in verses 11 to 12 is, right? 169 00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:20,880 You expect the fastest to win the race, but it doesn't always happen. 170 00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:24,880 You expect the strongest to win the fight, but it doesn't always happen. 171 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,880 You expect the wise to succeed, but it doesn't happen. 172 00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,880 You expect the intelligent to make a profit, but it doesn't always happen. 173 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:40,880 You expect the one with knowledge and usefulness to be well-liked and useful, but that doesn't always happen. 174 00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:47,880 Simply being better, whether that's faster, stronger, wiser, more intelligent, more knowledgeable, 175 00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,880 it doesn't in our life guarantee success. 176 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:59,880 And there is a human tendency that every single one of us have to think that if we can simply change our situation, 177 00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:04,880 or change ourselves, then our problems will just disappear. 178 00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:09,880 In fact, we have sort of a constant refrain that just simply says, 179 00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:16,880 "If only," right? If only this was different, things would be better. If only I had this, then I would be happy. 180 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:21,880 In fact, if you've ever seen the movie The Wizard of Oz, right? That's the premise of The Wizard of Oz, right? 181 00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:31,880 If only I wasn't in Kansas, right? If only I had a heart. If only I had courage. If only I had a brain. 182 00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:38,880 If only I had this, everything would be better. And you and I are experts at 183 00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:46,880 If only-ing our way into some kind of dream, right? If only I had this. If only I did this. If only life had turned out this way. 184 00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:54,880 If only, if only, if only. And we have this idea that if we can just get that thing, then we will be happy. 185 00:37:54,880 --> 00:38:00,880 And it's not just in our minds or our movies, but our culture conditions us to think this way, right? 186 00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:07,880 If only my guy wins the election. Or think about advertisements, right? If only you have this, 187 00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:14,880 you'll have better hair. If only you have this, you'll have a better car. If only you have this, you'll have a better life. 188 00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:23,880 And what Solomon does in this verse, this very first verse, in verse 11, is he takes our if-only's and he turns them on their head. 189 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:34,880 And he says, "If only," right? Faster, stronger, wiser, more intelligent, more knowledgeable. Solomon says, "If only," I've got some news for you. 190 00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:40,880 It doesn't always work. The race isn't always to the fastest. The battle isn't always to the strongest. 191 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:46,880 And so what he is saying to us, it doesn't always match the picture that we have. 192 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:51,880 And it may seem to us in this moment that this is a really depressing thing to say as we start a new year. 193 00:38:51,880 --> 00:39:00,880 That life will not work out according to our plan. But Solomon here is not trying to discourage us. 194 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:07,880 What he is doing by humbling us is ultimately leading us to hope. 195 00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,880 You see, his first message in verse 11 is simply this: 196 00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:17,880 What you have and who you are won't guarantee success, right? 197 00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:19,880 That's the winning the races and winning wars. 198 00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:24,880 What you have and who you are will not bring you satisfaction, right? 199 00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,880 That's the food and the wealth he talks about. 200 00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,880 What you have and who you are will not bring you popularity. 201 00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,880 That's what he means when he says "favor." 202 00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,880 And the reality is these are the things that most of us are searching for, right? 203 00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:40,880 We want to succeed. We want to win. 204 00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,880 We want to have enough. We want to be liked. We want to be loved. 205 00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:49,880 And what Solomon is saying here is a message that stands contrary to the world in which we live. 206 00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:54,880 He's telling us you will not find that in yourself. 207 00:39:54,880 --> 00:40:03,880 That you can't improve yourself, you can't resolution yourself, you can't what-if yourself into happiness, right? 208 00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:07,880 And we know, I think instinctually, that this is true. 209 00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:17,880 Have you ever had that moment where you have dreamed of something, and then you get it, and it doesn't turn out to bring you the joy or the hope that you thought it would? 210 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:27,880 Almost every time that we have made a big purchase, we bought a car, we instantly almost regret it, right? They have a word for it, right? Buyer's remorse. 211 00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:33,880 "Man, if I get this, I'll be happy," and we get it. Immediately we have doubts, "Did I make the right decision? Do I do the right thing?" 212 00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:39,880 Over time we begin to see flaws, and we think, "Well, if I can get this other thing." 213 00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:46,880 And what Solomon is saying is that it doesn't always turn out. 214 00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:53,880 You can work hard, you can work smart, you can fail spectacularly. I remember in high school, and I've shared this with some of you before, 215 00:40:53,880 --> 00:41:02,880 but part of our science team, they had a bridge-building competition that took place at Norwich University, which is a military school in Vermont. 216 00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:10,880 And you were just allowed a couple of different materials. You could have popsicle sticks, toothpicks, dental floss, and white Elmer's glue. 217 00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:15,880 And the idea was to take those things, put them together into a bridge, you go to Norwich University, 218 00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:22,880 they put it in a hydraulic press with some gauges on it, and see how much weight your bridge could handle before it cracked. 219 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:28,880 And so I went up there with my friends who were competing, just to watch, and we're sitting there, you know, all the bridges come on, 220 00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,880 and they put some weight on them, and it cracks, and some people's little bridge will hold a hundred or two hundred. 221 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:38,880 And they've, you know, intricately designed them, right? You've got support, you've got a suspension bridge with floss. 222 00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:44,880 And then some kid who put zero thought into design, just got like a million popsicle sticks, lined them up, 223 00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:52,880 glued them together, lined them up, glued them together, until he literally had a two-by-four of popsicle sticks covered in glue, 224 00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:57,880 and they put it on the hydraulic press, and it broke the hydraulic press, right? 225 00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,880 And so then he had to take it, they had to take it down to the basement to the bigger one, 226 00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:07,880 and it ended up taking like two tons of weight to actually crack and break this, 227 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:13,880 because he had overlapped it, and woven in dental floss so well, and used so much glue, 228 00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:19,880 this thing just wouldn't break, right? So you have all of these beautiful designs, 229 00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:26,880 and then some idiot comes in with a two-by-four, right, and ruins everything, right? 230 00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:32,880 The best design doesn't always triumph, right? The best work, best thinking doesn't always triumph. 231 00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,880 And they ended up, just to give you the appendix to that story, they ended up basically saying that if you bring a two-by-four, 232 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:42,880 you're instantly disqualified every year after that, and they instituted a weight 233 00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:47,880 to the weight of your bridge, to the weight of the weight that it would take ratio, 234 00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:54,880 in order to actually encourage design, right? But things don't always work out according to our plan. 235 00:42:54,880 --> 00:43:01,880 And so these characteristics that Solomon gives us, speed, strength, wisdom, intelligence, and popularity, 236 00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:06,880 they're not bad, right? It's not bad to pursue improving yourself. 237 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:17,880 It's not bad to seek to grow as a person. The problem is when we put all of our hope into that thing, right? 238 00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:24,880 These things are not intended to take the weight of our hope. Just like an egg is fragile. 239 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:30,880 If you hold an egg over your floor, and you have a hard floor, and you drop that egg, what happens? The egg cracks, right? 240 00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:42,880 It's not meant to take that kind of force. These things are not bad, but they are not intended to take the force and the weight of our life. 241 00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:52,880 Or maybe like this, if you've ever walked out on the ice. We did a little bit of a walk or a hike on Tuesday, and there was a bunch of ice in different places, right? 242 00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:58,880 And so you walk out on the ice to kind of see how strong it was, and it wasn't very deep. Your shoes are just going to get a little wet, right? 243 00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:06,880 You stand on it, and you kind of hear it crack, and you think, "Well, I'm going to have to walk a mile with wet shoes if I keep jumping on this," right? 244 00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:20,880 Because ice doesn't always take our weight. And what Solomon says is if we base our joy and our happiness and our future on these things, that I'm faster, stronger, and better, and I can do all of these things well. 245 00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:27,880 If we put all of our hope on those things, we are walking on thin ice, and eventually that ice will collapse. 246 00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:39,880 And we will drown. What Solomon is saying is stop trusting yourself. Stop seeking your salvation within yourself. 247 00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:49,880 In fact, trust the one who is bigger than the sun. When Solomon says under the sun, what he's saying is the hope that you and I are looking for isn't found here. 248 00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:56,880 It's found in the one who is bigger and greater and more powerful than the sun. You can be the best in all of these things. 249 00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:06,880 And you can still fall through the ice. You might say that seems very discouraging, but that's not his point. 250 00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:16,880 His point is to point us to the reality that there is one with whom can bear our weight of our hopes and our dreams and our future and ambition. 251 00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:25,880 And he's encouraging us to shift our eyes from ourselves to the one who can hold the weight of our hopes and our dreams. 252 00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:37,880 And one of the things, and it's so wonderful, you see it in Scripture, there is no one who is too small, too weak, too broken, or too sinful for God to use. 253 00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:44,880 And instead of maybe just telling you this, I'd rather, I think, show you this. 254 00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:54,880 If you move through Scripture, and in fact, in the first several books of the Bible, you find this phrase, "As God identifies Himself to His people," 255 00:45:54,880 --> 00:46:01,880 the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if you think about those three men, we learn from Joshua 256 00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:09,880 that Abraham and his father and his brother worshipped false gods. And so God brings Abraham out of idolatry. 257 00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:23,880 And while Abraham is in many ways very faithful and very good, he also makes mistakes. He gives his wife away a couple of times. He seeks to rush 258 00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:33,880 God's plan by doing it himself. Isaac, his son, not a very good dad. In fact, he continually plays favorites. 259 00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:42,880 Jacob, his son, is a liar and a cheat who also plays favorites. In fact, as he's seeking an heir out of his sons, 260 00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:52,880 he goes all the way down to number 11, to Joseph. And through those things, he causes great trouble and struggle and strife 261 00:46:52,880 --> 00:47:02,880 for Joseph. Joseph is eventually ambushed by his brothers, sold into slavery in Egypt, falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, 262 00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:10,880 and he finds himself in jail. And it is from that prison that God lifts him up, puts him as regent, 263 00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:21,880 second in command over all of Egypt, saving not just Egypt, but his brothers and his fathers and all of God's people. 264 00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:29,880 The Israelites themselves are slaves in Egypt. And God, to deliver them, chooses a man by the name of Moses, 265 00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:37,880 who at 40 years old kills a man and runs away into the wilderness. And at 80 years old, God comes and speaks to Moses and says, 266 00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:45,880 "Go and free my people." And what's Moses' first excuse? "I don't talk good." And God will speak to him and explain to him, 267 00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:50,880 and Moses' final response is, "I just don't want to do it." And God says, "You're going to go do it." 268 00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:58,880 Moses is an 80-year-old murderer who in his mind is not strong enough or good enough to save his people. 269 00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:07,880 Joshua seems to have gone through life maybe being a little fearful because God's refrain to Joshua is, "Be strong and courageous." 270 00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:12,880 When God comes to Gideon to save his people, Gideon says, "You've got the wrong address. 271 00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:19,880 I'm in the smallest tribe, in the smallest family, in the smallest person in this house." Saul was too afraid to attend 272 00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:26,880 his own coronation. David wasn't invited to the dinner where Samuel sought to anoint him as king. 273 00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:32,880 Solomon, when he begins his reign, God says to him, "I'll give you whatever you want: wealth, long life." 274 00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:39,880 And Solomon says, "The thought of governing your people is so overwhelming. I ask that you give me great wisdom." 275 00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:45,880 And we can continue through the Old Testament, but we move into the New Testament. 276 00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:51,880 And the salvation that enters our world, John the Baptizer comes to a family that's too old. 277 00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:57,880 Jesus comes to a family that's too young. Ultimately, the hometown of his parents and Jesus' hometown, 278 00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:03,880 after being born in Bethlehem, will be Nazareth. And the response to that is, "What good comes out of Nazareth?" 279 00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:10,880 He chooses disciples, a fisherman, a tax collector, a Jewish rebel, not the smartest group of guys, 280 00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:16,880 because on the day of Pentecost, when they began to speak in tongues, what do all the people begin to say? 281 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:23,880 These men are drunk with wine, and they're just babbling. That's the estimate of the crowds, 282 00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:30,880 of the intelligence of Jesus' disciples. There's no way these guys can speak another language. 283 00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:35,880 They must have had too much wine. That's not a good way to begin the sermon 284 00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:42,880 where the people who are listening go, "Did this guy get into the communion wine a little before church started?" 285 00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:48,880 But you see their humility. Everyone looked at these guys and said, "There's no way these guys could be speaking for God." 286 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:56,880 But God uses them to proclaim the gospel to the nations. You have Paul, the persecutor of the church. 287 00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:07,880 You see, God using weakness, and brokenness, and hurt, and smallness. And this for us probably boggles our mind, 288 00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:21,880 because we have to deserve, we have to achieve. Yet in the midst of this, while we were still weak, Christ died for us. 289 00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:27,880 You see, Solomon isn't humbling us, or trying to put us in our place to beat us up. 290 00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:33,880 He's trying to tell us that the strength to live in this world isn't found in us. 291 00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:40,880 It's not found in our goodness or in our abilities, but it's found in the One who is greater than the heavens. 292 00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:48,880 And he's calling a broken people to take their eyes off of themselves, and to put them on God. 293 00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:56,880 He's trying to alleviate our excuses where we say, "I'm too small. Not strong enough. I'm too weak." 294 00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:03,880 And he would say to us, "But God is strong enough. God is not weak. God is not small." 295 00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:07,880 In verse 12, you have this sober warning. 296 00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:12,880 "For man does not know his time, like a fish that are taken in an evil net, 297 00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:17,880 and like birds that are caught in a snare, so are the children of man, are snared at an evil time, 298 00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,880 and it suddenly falls upon them." 299 00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:25,880 He's not against hunting and fishing here. 300 00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,880 He's not saying it's bad to snare and to fish. 301 00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:34,880 What he's saying is that life takes some unexpected turns, right? 302 00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:39,880 When you look at your life, are you where you thought you would be? 303 00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,880 And in my case, I think about that, and I think that's not where I imagined I'd be. 304 00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,880 But not necessarily in a bad way, right? 305 00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:52,880 God has done remarkable and amazing things in blessing and providing. 306 00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:57,880 And I think of all of those good things, and I think, man, that's not where I thought I would be, but I see God's hand in it. 307 00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:03,880 But that's not what Solomon is talking about, those good surprises of life. 308 00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:08,880 He is talking about the heartbreak of life. 309 00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:15,880 Right? He's talking about those surprising moments when everything falls apart. 310 00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:20,880 Solomon in these verses is saying there's two ways to walk through this life on thin ice. 311 00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:25,880 One is to trust in your abilities and your identity instead of the power and strength of God. 312 00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:32,880 But secondly, to think that you have everything planned, and everything will always work according toward your plan. 313 00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:38,880 Right? No fish ever wakes up in the morning and thinks, "I'm going to be dinner today." 314 00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:43,880 No bird ever wakes up and thinks, "I'm going to spend the day in the crock pot." 315 00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,880 Right? It comes suddenly. 316 00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:51,880 And what Solomon is trying to tell us is that our best plans fall apart. 317 00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:56,880 None of us wake up and say, "I'm looking forward to some tragedy today." 318 00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:01,880 But we still get those moments and those phone calls and those knocks on our door. 319 00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,880 Life takes us by surprise. 320 00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:11,880 In fact, we have advertisements that point us to that, right? Life comes at you fast. 321 00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,880 And what Solomon is saying about the fish and the birds, that we're the same way. 322 00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:19,880 We don't know when we will face disaster. 323 00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:24,880 And we can walk through this life on thin ice by trusting in our own ability, 324 00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:29,880 but we can also walk through on thin ice by trusting in our own plan. 325 00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:34,880 And Solomon is seeking to focus ourselves outside of ourselves, 326 00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:38,880 apart from our abilities and accomplishments, and apart from our plans, 327 00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:45,880 and appoint us to the one on whom we can build and we can rest our life with confidence. 328 00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:51,880 And the question is, what will we do with this information that the wisdom of Solomon brings to us? 329 00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:56,880 Will we choose to walk on the thin ice of our abilities and our plans? 330 00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:03,880 Or will we put our strength and our trust in the power and the goodness of God? 331 00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:07,880 In Matthew 7, there's a very familiar parable Jesus tells. 332 00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:14,880 "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. 333 00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:17,880 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, 334 00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:21,880 but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. 335 00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:28,880 And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house in the sand. 336 00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:33,880 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against the house, 337 00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:36,880 and it fell and great was the fall of it." 338 00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:40,880 Jesus here is saying the same thing, just with a different picture. 339 00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:44,880 There's two ways of building. One is to build upon yourself. 340 00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:49,880 And in that, everything collapses. 341 00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:52,880 Jesus is saying build on the true rock. 342 00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:55,880 And it's not just knowing the true rock. 343 00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:58,880 It's not just knowing where the true rock is. 344 00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:03,880 In Luke's Gospel, he will say that the man found the rock and then he did something remarkable. 345 00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:06,880 He dug down deep. 346 00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,880 Just as Solomon says, your abilities and your goodness is thin ice. 347 00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:12,880 Your plans are thin ice. 348 00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:15,880 Jesus says the same thing. 349 00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:21,880 That if you trust in your abilities and your plans, the storm will come and it will sweep you away. 350 00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:27,880 But if you go to the rock, to know the rock, and dig down deep into the rock, 351 00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:34,880 those storms will come and you will find a safe place and a shelter. 352 00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:38,880 Some of us are maybe hearing that truth for the first time. 353 00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:43,880 And I would direct you to Jesus, the one safe place to build your life. 354 00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:50,880 Some of us know this, but even though we know it, we've been building our life somewhere else. 355 00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:55,880 And the call of Solomon and the call of Jesus is that we would repent. 356 00:55:55,880 --> 00:56:02,880 And some of us, in the midst of our storms, need to be reminded and encouraged 357 00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:10,880 that our life, belt upon Jesus, will withstand the storms of life. 358 00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:16,880 So I don't know this morning whether you're grieving or rejoicing, hurt or angry, fearful, facing the storms, 359 00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:20,880 or in the midst of a beautiful summer day in your life. 360 00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:24,880 But I will say this, there will become a time where you'll feel weak and you'll feel small, 361 00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:30,880 you'll feel unable. And I want you to know that God is the one who works. 362 00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:35,880 So at this point, we're going to pray, and then we're going to sing about building our lives upon Jesus. 363 00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:43,880 Father in heaven, I thank you for grace, I thank you for joy in the foundation that's built upon you, 364 00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:49,880 that no matter how big storms get, no matter how bleak it looks outside, you sustain us. 365 00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:53,880 So help us to trust in you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 366 00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:58,880 Let's go ahead and we're going to stand and sing Cornerstone. 367 00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:47,880 I hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. 368 00:57:51,880 --> 00:58:20,880 I hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. 369 00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:49,880 Christ alone, cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, He is Lord, Lord of all. 370 00:58:49,880 --> 00:59:18,880 The darkness seems to hide His face. I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. 371 00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:47,880 Christ alone, call us Lord. Weak made strong in the Savior's light. Through the storm, He is Lord, Lord our Lord. 372 00:59:47,880 --> 01:00:16,880 When He shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found. Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless than before the throne. 373 01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:45,880 Christ alone, call us Lord. Weep and strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm He is Lord, Lord of all. 374 01:00:45,880 --> 01:01:14,880 I am thankful that you are here with us. Stop that for right now. I am thankful that you are here with us for our church, and I'm thankful for the good news of the gospel. A couple of things that are coming up this Wednesday. We are beginning a study 375 01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:43,880 in the book of James at 7 p.m., and so we'll be gathering together to walk through that. There'll be a video and some time of discussion, and so I am excited to dive into that. I think it will be a good time for us. Also, just a heads up, coming up on the 28th, we've got a men's breakfast that Saturday morning. We'll have some more details for you, but we want to kind of get this into your 376 01:01:43,880 --> 01:02:12,880 head and keep reminding you about that. I'd also encourage you guys, invite some friends, have them come with you, and we'll eat, and we'll spend some time together. So we're going to go ahead and have a word of prayer. I'll read a verse from Colossians, and then we will sing the doxology. Father in heaven, I thank you for taking care of us, for blessing us. I thank you for your goodness. Just be with us. Help us as we move into this new year, and we think about a fresh start and all the things 377 01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:41,880 we want to do differently. Help us to realize that those are our good things, but we only accomplish things through your strength and your goodness. May you be our foundation. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Paul will say to the Colossian church in Colossians chapter 2, "Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." 378 01:02:41,880 --> 01:03:10,880 Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 379 01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:12,880 Holy Ghost. 380 01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:42,880 Amen. 381 01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:12,880 Amen. 382 01:04:40,880 --> 01:04:42,880 Amen. 383 01:42:10,880 --> 01:42:13,580 Thank you.