We Are Venture: One Thing

Well, good morning in the room and online. So glad you're joining us.

You're joining us as you are aware in twenty twenty four. But what

you may not know is it is an entire year of us celebrating our twentieth

birthday as a church, which really excited about, which is why we're gonna

take an entire year to celebrate. I got asked recently what my favorite memory

was from twenty years of venture, which I would like, how do you?

How do you pick one thing? There have been many funny moments,

and some of those sprung into my head the quickest. Uh. I just

thought, I'm gonna pick one picture just of a funny moment, and I'm

not gonna explain it. I'm just gonna use it as an illustration, just

for your musement. We like to have fun around here. So there's that

ketch. Christian later and ask him what on earth that was about. But

honestly, in twenty years, we've had such incredible moments of braakin through miracles,

healing, reconciliation in people's lives, financial provision that was miraculous. So

many times we've rallied together as a church to accomplish something or to see God

move in our midst. Just more stories than I can count. Some of

them are funny now, but weren't funny then, Like a couple of times

a building we were in almost burned down, not funny then, but kind

of funny now. Or one time true story, I actually fell off the

stage during the service, which was not funny then and hurt, but then

is funny now. Those are all good stories. But honestly, what we

celebrate most is that over all these twenty years, Jesus has been in the

center of everything that we're doing, and we want to continue to make him

famous in our world. That's why we exist as a church. And so

over the next year, we'll you'll get to hear about us celebrate all the

incredible things that God has done in our midst and the growth that we've seen.

Now that's a great segue because you're joining us at the beginning of a

new year where people make resolutions and set goals and pick a word for the

year, and so we're doing a series that kind of helps you understand who

we are and where we're going as a church. So if you missed last

week, Pastor Morgan did a great job of teaching on We're a people of

gratitude, and today I have the task of talking about growth. How do

we as a people grow? So let me just say this. My name

is Die. I'm just so thrilled to be a part of a place where

God is moving and where people are growing. And I invite you to join

me as we look at God's word today. I'm gonna ask a question before

we really launch into the Bible. So let me ask this question. And

it's nice and light enough in here that I can see you as you raise

your hands, So honest question. How many of you would say you are

good at multitasking? Good at multitasking? Okay, okay, now let me

just now let me add a disclaimer. I don't mean like you can listen

to a podcast in the shower, because showering doesn't take a lot of concentration.

I mean like you can listen to a podcast while you're helping a kid

with homework, or you can follow a recipe while you're having an in depth

conversation with someone else. Like that kind of multitasking. Who would say I

can still me, I can do way less of you, way less of

you. And everyone's hands went from this to this. Maybe multitasking is something

that I used to pride myself in, and it's just interesting because I don't

know something to do with the way that the internet works, that it knows

what you're thinking about, and all these articles start popping up. But all

these articles started popping up over the past couple weeks. So I've been studying

multitasking for some reason, probably while I was also answering an email and listening

to someone talk. But as I was studying it, I started to feel

a little bit of conviction about the fact that most neurologist and brain surgeon,

well I not brain surgeons, brained researchers. I couldn't find any that said

otherwise, but there probably is someone out there. But everyone that I read

said it is physically and mentally impossible to multitask. Every one of them said

it is impossible. So let's define multitask concentrating on more than one thing at

a time physically impossible. Your brain cannot concentrate on more than one thing at

a time, which is a problem. Because I saw how many of you

raise your hands, and the ones who didn't raise your hands, who are

probably lying because you have it. This survival is it's how we survive as

we multitask, were proud of the fact that we can produce multiple things at

one time, and we create for ourselves. These brains that researchers say suffer

from partial attention syndrome or continuous partial attention, We've cultivated a brain that now

struggles to concentrate on even one thing, let alone more than one thing.

It's why when you're watching a TV show or a movie, you're also scrolling

through Twitter or Instagram because you're bored, or maybe the movie got a little

stressful and you're like, Hi, I can't watch right now, I'm going

to look at something else. Or maybe it's the reason why you're having a

conversation with somebody and you feel this overwhelming compulsion to reach for your phone and

look at something you may have missed. Maybe it's why you're absent mindedly checking

your email while you're on a zoom call with your boss. I mean put

in whatever. But also it's why you and I struggle when we do things

like read our Bible or attempt to pray, and we struggle to stay focused.

Is that anybody out there or just me, like we struggle to stay

focused, this overwhelming compulsion to do something else at the same time, I

many years ago, I actually went through this entire coaching process where I got

my state soccer coaching license and now I'm starting year twelve of being a strong

first certified kettlebell instructor and in both of those areas of athletics. What I

have discovered as a coach is that people cannot focus on more than one's skill

at a time. It's logical, actually, really how a person grows is

they focus on one's skill and they practice it a lot, and then they

master it before they add a new skill. Okay, now I'm not a

musician, but there were musicians just on this stage. I'm pretty sure all

of them would say they didn't learn to play three instruments at once. They

had to learn to play uninstrument and not only learn to play the instrument,

but start with the basics and practice that over and over and over to develop

and master that skill in order to grow in order to add on. So

if we're going to talk about growing today, I really think we have to

hammer on this. How do we grow? And if it's true that we're

not good at focusing on more more than one thing at a time. How

do we choose what it is that we focus on. How do we narrow

it down? It feels kind of extreme to say, what's one thing?

In fact, if I were to ask you at the end of this year,

what's one thing you want to be good at, or at the end

of this year on December thirty first of this year, what do you look

like as a person? What's something that you've developed a skill in you and

I would be forced to pick a thing. Now, we might master that

thing fairly quickly and add another one, but we got to start with something.

So how do we choose what is the one thing? So that phrase

one thing really was rolling around in my head over the past couple of weeks.

It's what led me to where we're going to go today. I just

thought, wouldn't that be awesome if I opened the Bible and look for one

thing and see what the Bible says about one thing? So you're going to

join me on that little journey, But first, would you just join me?

As we pray, Lord, we we are here to grow, to

grow in our relationship with You. Really, truly, I believe that the

majority of the people in this room and listening online do want to grow in

their relationship with you? And I am here with a microphone, and I

have nothing to offer these people if you don't come and anoint these words and

use your word the Bible to speak and to direct, direct and guide us.

Otherwise, essentially what I am is a Ted talk and we don't need

another Ted talk or a podcast. We need the anointing the spirit of a

living God to guide us and direct us and stir us in the very core

of our hearts. So we're asking you to do that. It's in your

name, we pray. Amen. Well, how nice would it be if

we just did a word search and look for, dear Bible, what's the

world one thing I should be doing? Now? I did that, and

the one thing. That phrase one thing is actually used five times unfortunately,

because it feels like if I'm just looking for the one thing, I should

only find one thing that tells me what the one thing is. Instead,

I found five things that tell me what the one thing is. And that's

only in the places in the Bible where the words one thing are used,

because certainly there are other places that don't say those words and have very important

things. So what are we to do with this? So I thought,

well, let's just go on a little journey. We'll call it our Bible

study this morning, where we just work our way through the five places that

the Bible talks about the one thing because it feels important, and see if

we can find a common denominator. You in you don't have a choice.

Okay, if you have your Bible, you can follow along. Otherwise the

words will be on the screen behind me. But the first place we're gonna

look for the phrase one thing is in Psalm twenty seven. So in Psalm

twenty seven, verse four, the Psalmist says, the one thing that I

ask of the Lord, the one thing I ask of the Lord. The

thing I seek most is to live in the house of the Lord all the

days of my life. So this is written by David. David is actually

the king of Israel at this time. So the Bible describes David as a

man after God's own heart, and as king of Israel, David certainly could

have wished for a lot of things. He could have certainly had a lot

of things that were important to him, like you know, power and provision

and security and allies with other countries and peace in the land and military success,

and on and on and on. But he has chosen just this one

thing. And David's one thing is he wants to be where God is,

which I think is probably a good start for all of us today that we

could say the one most important thing is to be where God is. But

unfortunately that's not the only place that the phrase is used. So let's move

on. If we turn to Mark ten twenty one, we see that Jesus's

instructions are given to a man that's described as the rich young Ruler. Now,

this man, this rich young ruler, has approached Jesus. Jesus is

teaching, and he comes to the teacher and he says, how can I

inherit eternal life? And Jesus expresses an answer. The man is immediately saying,

I've done all the things that I'm supposed to do. I'm following the

commandments of the Bible. I've lived my life according to God's word. But

Jesus replies with an astonishing answer to the rich young ruler. Mark ten twenty

one says, looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him.

There is still one thing you haven't done, He tells the man, go

and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you

will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me. The next verse

says that the man's face falls and that he goes away sad because I can't

do that one thing. And I imagine probably every one of us in this

room would also struggle if that were the one thing, to give away everything

that we possess to people in need and then go and follow Jesus. I

it's one thing to say I want to be where God is. That's valiant

and noble, But it's a whole other thing to give away everything you pass.

Is that really what's being asked of us here? Well? But there's

more. The next place we find the words one thing is in the stories

of the story of two sisters. Their names are Mary and Martha. Martha

is the sister that has invited Jesus, which incidentally means also his entourage of

followers into their home for a meal. She then takes upon herself all of

the details of the preparation for a meal. Because we can all understand the

meal doesn't just come from nowhere. All the cooks in the room, say

amen, the meal has to be made, so details and preparation has to

be made. And it bothers Martha that her sister Mary is not helping her.

And if you're familiar with this story, you know she complains to Jesus

and says, look, I'm doing all this work and my sister Mary is

doing nothing. And I believe by the way Jesus words his response to Martha

that it's corrective, but it's also tender, because in Lieu ten forty one,

Jesus says to her, my dear Martha, it's tender. You're worried

and you're upset over all these details. There's only one thing worth being concerned

about, and Mary has discovered it. Mary, at that moment was sitting

at Jesus's feet. Yes, the details had to be done, but Mary

has chosen what mattered more, which was being right there in Jesus's presence.

And then we move on to two more and this next one, I really

feel like, if you're trying to make a checklist of all the one things

that you should be doing in order to please the Lord, you're going to

struggle on this one because this one is the one that feels like, what

how does this fit in the list? So, now that I've painted that

beautiful picture, look with me. At John chapter nine, the context is

that Jesus and his disciples, his followers have come across a man who's blind,

and the text describes him as born blind or blind since he was born

and Jesus, the followers of Jesus say, Jesus, who sinned? That

this man was born blind? Did he sin? Or did his parents sin?

And Jesus says, this man was born blind not because of sin,

but because my power is going to be displayed in this man. And so

then he does this really odd thing where he spits in some dirt and he

makes it into a paste of mud, and he wipes it on the blind

man's eyes, and then he tells the blind man to go wash off his

eyes in a pool, which the man does, and suddenly his sight is

miraculously restored and the man can see for the first time in his life.

Now the problem is the Jewish leaders hear about this and they have some issues

with it. I mean, words spread, as you can imagine, So

the Jewish religious leaders of the day get word the fact that this man has

been healed supposedly by Jesus, who is supposedly the son of God. And

they have a problem with this because why on earth would a man of God

heal somebody on a day you're not supposed to quote unquote work. And that

day is the Sabbath, and this healing has just happened on the Sabbath.

So they corner this formerly blind man and they question him, who is this

Jesus guy? Who is this man? Could he be a man of God

if he's doing work like this on the Sabbath? I just love the blind

formerly blind man's reply in verse twenty five of John nine, he says,

whether he's a sinner or not, I don't know. I like to say

whether he's a sinner or not. Don't know. One thing. I do

know. I was blind, But now I see. I mean, this

guy now has a testimony that is based on his complete life impacting transformation by

encountering Jesus. He gets in the presence of Jesus. The touch of Jesus

turns his whole life upside down, because it is not just his eyesight that

is healed. Embedded in this story is the understanding that his whole life has

changed. You agree if you haven't seen for your entire entire life and you

suddenly see man that is physical, but it is metaphorical as well, so

spiritually also, this man's life has been transformed. He's not a teacher,

he's not a religious leader. He's just saying yo. I don't know who

that guy is, but all I know is I gotten his presence and my

life has been altered. It has been changed now. That one thing,

though, feels a little harder because most of us don't have that common experience

of blindness or a physical ailment that we need healed in order to know what

the one thing is. Hang with me, though, as we look at

one more and see if we can tie them together. So turn if you

have your Bible to Philippians, chapter three, and there is a verse that

will be on the screen. But I want to build this a little bit

because this is one of my favorite chapters in the whole entire Bible. So

I'm gonna hit a few things here. This is part of a letter written

by a guy named Paul. So if you're new to the Bible and you

don't know who Paul is, let me just give you enough to make you

dangerous. Paul used to be a really religious guy, very similar to the

religious leaders and teachers that we just described in this story about the blind man.

Paul prided himself in his strict adherence to the law. He prided himself

in strict religious practice, but also in his willingness to enforce strict religious practice

in other people. In fact, he would go to great lengths to force

or in force strict religious practice in other people. I love that he lists

off his credentials in just a moment here that give him the right to do

this. But what is it that he was doing. It was all kinds

of persecution, if you've heard that word. Essentially, he was willing to

imprison or even have murdered the followers of Jesus that would not follow the strict

adherence of the law that he thought was appropriate for their lives. So this

guy is a serious threat to the new followers of Jesus until he encountered Jesus.

And if you're familiar with that story, certainly Paul knew about this Jesus

claiming to be the son of God and being crucified, and he had heard

the rumors of Jesus being resurrected. But it is when he has a personal

encounter with this Jesus that everything changes. He's on a mission, he's traveling

on a road. He's going to go hunt down followers of Jesus, Christians,

christ followers, and he's going to either have them flogged or beaten,

or stoned or imprisoned or even killed. And he's knocked to the ground by

a supernatural light and the voice of Jesus himself speaks to him in a way

that the light temporarily blinds him, and the voice shakes him to his very

core, and he encounters the living Jesus, much like the blind man,

in a way that changes his whole life forever. It is this Paul who

writes this letter to a church in the city of Philippi. It's called the

Letter of Philippians. And that's where we pick it up. This is where

Paul lists his credentials to be this way, I'll just hit a few of

them, but they're in verses five and six. Paul says, I was

circumcised. Not only was I circumcised as a good Jewish boy would be,

but on the eighth day, which when you're supposed to be I'm a pure

blooded citizen of Israel. I'm a member of the tribe of Benjamin, so

he's just listening off his pedigree and his heritage. I'm a real Hebrew,

if there ever was one. I'm a member of the Pharisees. So I've

been educated and trained in the way of the law. I know how to

follow it, I know how to teach it. I have followed that law

to the strictest of obedience in and of myself. In fact, Paul says,

I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And if there's

anything to be said about righteousness, I have been the epitome of righteousness by

how I've lived my life. That's the pedigree that Paul lists when he goes

to verse seven of Phlippians III, and he says, I once thought these

things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of Jesus. Yes,

everything else is worthless when it's compared with the intimate, infinite, sorry

value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake, I've gotten rid

of everything else. I've discarded it, and I've counted it all as garbage,

so I can have Jesus. Now just a few words here. Uh.

When Paul talks about knowing Jesus, I mean he was raised to know

the Scripture, to know God, to know how to follow him and how

to adhere to the law of God. But those knowledge things are different than

knowledge here in the heart. And so when Paul says this, I want

everything else when compared to knowing Christ. And then in verse ten, he's

going to say, I want to know Jesus. I want to know him.

That kind of know is different. That's not a no in my head.

That's not a know about, that's not no facts about. That's what

I want to know him in a way that alters my life, that changes

the course of a trajectory my life, that changes the way I behave and

how I treat other people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I want to know him. And he makes a comparison here. So the

translation I read, which was NLT. He says, everything else, the

pedigree, the education, the diploma I hung on my wall, all the

things that I thought were the most important things, I'm gonna call garbage when

you put them next to knowing Jesus. Knowing him Okay, that garbage word

is eloquent. Okay, so you might have a translation that says dross.

Dross is like the impurities when you're refining a metal, a precious metal,

the impurities that you scrape off or scum. Some translations even say scum,

like standing pool of water that develops like a layer on the top, and

you would scrape off that layer to get to the water. Okay, waste,

rubbish, Some translations say rubbish, garbage, but those are all eloquent

words. Do you know what the actual Greek word means? Probably not,

because I didn't until I studied it. The actual Greek word is scubuloan,

which is just a fun word to say, scubulan. It is only used

one time in the Bible, and it's right here. But in all the

places that that Greek word is used outside of the Bible, it is meant.

It is only meaning one thing, digestive, waste, feces. I

mean, you might think, like, wow, is Paul being vulgar here?

What's the point of going to that extreme. It's because he wants to

create a strong, illustrative picture of the difference of the vast chasm between all

the things we think earn our way into a right relationship with God and actually

knowing Jesus. All those other things are human waste. Now, Jesus also

talks about human waste just as a side note, and it's a It creates

a familiar picture for the people of this time. We have modern day sewer

systems in America, in this part of the world, in this period of

time, how you dealt with human waste was it was on a burn pile

right outside of the city gates or the community. And those burn piles are

described historically as ever burning piles of waste, human waste as well as trash

or rubbish. Imagine the smell, and that ever burning pile of waste is

what Jesus calls Gehenna, where he says those who are resistant to him what

their future is, they'll experience Gehenna. And he was saying it to people

who were in or near Jerusalem, and Jerusalem itself had a Gehennah right outside

the gates of the city. So Paul's you losing this illustrative picture, and

he's describing all the great accomplishments, all the things that you can know about

the Lord are rubbish, human waste burning on an ever burning pile of feces

and waste and rubbish. Compared to knowing Jesus and the impact he makes in

your life when he crosses your path. I mean, there is some power

for us to just grapple with there of what happens when we encounter that kind

of experience with Jesus. And it's with that context that Paul says his one

thing, and his one thing is Philippians three point thirteen, and this is

ESV. He says, but one thing I do forgetting what lies behind all

that stuff, all the human accomplishments, and straining forward to what lies ahead,

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of

God in Jesus. That phrase upward call, one commentator said, is the

goal of passionately pursuing Jesus until you meet him at the end of your life.

So I don't maybe we're onto something here, right, Like, what

is the one thing if we just look at Paul's statement. Paul's one thing

was to passionately pursue Jesus every day of his life. Passionately pursue Jesus every

day of his life. If it's true that we're not good at multitasking.

If it's true that the way that you and I grow is we pick one

thing and we focus on one thing, and we practice it until we get

good at it. If that's how we break the continuous partial attention brain problem

that we've cultivated for ourselves, if we succeed when we focus on one thing,

what should the one thing be. It almost seems like those five verses

were saying five different things. But let's just tie them together. Let's see,

if we just review them quickly, if we can find the common theme.

So the one thing I ask was David's prayer to live in the House

of the Lord. He didn't literally want to live in the church. Instead,

what he's saying is his passionate desire is to be in God's very presence

every day. The one thing you lack was said to the rich young ruler.

And this man's possessions, unfortunately, were more important to him than God.

He chose what he had versus what he could have in a relationship with

Jesus. This man lacked the desire for God above all else. One thing

is necessary, is what Jesus said to Martha when she complained that her sister

was sitting at Jesus's feet. Now, the good necessary details that she had

to orchestrate in order to host the group of people that included Jesus in her

home was important, but she missed the whole point. And the whole point

was Jesus is in your home, and time in his presence is more important

than the details and the preparation. And it was Mary who made the right

choice. And the one thing I know was what the formerly blind man declared

to the religious leaders. I once was blind, but then I met Jesus,

and now I see he had a story to tell because of his encounter

with Jesus Christ and being in Jesus's presence, the touch of Jesus Christ on

his life turned everything else upside down. And one thing I do was what

Paul said in regard to living his life in daily passion pursuit of truly knowing

God, knowing him here, not just knowing him here until he could spend

eternity with him. Scripture just points out the way for us here. What

is our one thing? It's the passionate pursuit of Jesus every day of our

life. It turns out that one thing is actually simple and hard simultaneously.

How do we do that one thing? How do we walk it out?

And here's where you're wanting a list of things that you can make a checklist

with, And there's nothing wrong with checklists. But can I ask you again,

if you were to pick, what do you want to look like on

December thirty first of this year? What do you want to be good at?

What skill do you want to master? You might have health things,

you might have financial things, you might have relational things, and I'm not

saying those aren't important. But if we just stick to the spiritual topic right

now, who do you want to be on December thirty first? That you

And what's a skill you can put into practice now that will help you become

that? Then we have lots of things to help you here. And this

is where I will get practical for just a moment. In fact, you

can go ahead and put up the slide where I just suggested a few things.

I'm going to start with what I think is the most practical and the

most simple, and that's reading your Bible. This is where you go,

oh, so I'm gonna leave here and you're gonna say, read your Bible

and go to church. It's always been the answered. Yes, reading our

Bible is such a simple practice, even if it's five minutes a day.

Reading your Bible on a daily basis is what will transform everything else. And

that's the crazy thing is if we could pick one of these things, how

many of the other important things that we want to have solved by the end

of this year are going to be affected by these things being implemented in your

life. So reading yourribal every day. We actually have read through the Bible

in a year plan. It's on the What's next page of our app.

If you haven't joined it, I invite you to join us. You may

be doing another Bible reading plan. Great, if you don't have one,

you're invited to join us. It's where we just pick up the habit of

daily getting God's word in us. I know people that are still reading last

year's plan because they got behind awesome stick with it. In fact, I

talked to a woman last night at our Veterans dinner and she said she had

just finished yesterday last Year's Plan, and I congratulated her, and her eyes

filled with tears, and she said, I don't think I would have made

it through this year. If I wasn't reading the Bible every day, yep,

that's the impact reading God's word can have in your life. Joining a

class we have launched. We have a Through the Bible class that happens every

Wednesday night, and we have launched Venture You classes. They are three weeks

long, one hour each. New classes start this week. I'm teaching one

called how to Love the Bible. So if the Bible frustrates you and you're

like, join the Bible reading plan, that's your answer, let me help.

I'll help. In fact, the last time I offered that class and

I asked her permission to share this, a woman came out to me after

the first class of how to Love the Bible, and she held up her

Bible and she said, I don't know what you're gonna do to help me

love this thing, but you got three weeks to try. And I was

like, challenge accepted. And we met together and we talked about the Bible

and she got a grappling on it and she I checked in with her this

week to get her permission to share this, and she reported to me all

the things she's learned reading her Bible recently and what she's doing. And then

after last service she grabbed me in the lobby with tears in her eyes and

said, this has changed my whole life just reading the Bible. Do you

know that if you and I just maybe your skill. Your one thing is

to pray, and you just pray five minutes a day. If we can

break the habit of picking up the phone every other minute of those five minutes,

we're going to go a long way. Pick a skill. Maybe it's

being at our worship and prayer nights on a regular basis. Maybe it's memorizing

some Bible versus. Maybe it's using our What's Next page to just study and

grow every week. Whatever it is, pick something and start with it.

And the thing is you might master it in a couple of months and then

you can add a new skill, and that's a fantastic thing. But start

with something and get good at the something. So my challenge for you is

to pick one thing to help you grow in the one thing, which is

to pursue Jesus. Could you I mean, is that practical enough? Maybe

maybe it's like anti climactic. It's so practical. Sitting near you or on

your chair is a little card that says, my one thing. Will you

pull that out? This is how we're gonna close today. This is I

believe, and I know, on the risk of feeling cheesy, I'm not

gonna make you fill this out and come bring it to the front. This

is your commitment to yourself and to the Lord. And it's so practical.

Sometimes we do the I'm gonna work out every day this year, that's my

goal, and it's just that's so unrealistic. But I'm gonna read my Bible

five minutes that you can do. This is your commitment to Lord. So

in a moment, I'm gonna pray, and I would love for you to

pick one thing to practice and get good at that will help you in the

one thing, which is pursuing Jesus every day of your life. And then

I want you to take this and put it somewhere where you'll see it.

Maybe maybe it's on your dashboard of your car, maybe it's on your bathroom

mirror, maybe it's on your refrigerator, wherever you're going to see this on

a regular basis. To remember, this is a commitment you're making to yourself

and to the Lord. I want to pursue you because You're the one thing

that matters Jesus, Will you stand your feet with me and hold this card

in your hand. I want to pray over you and with you and send

you with this as your very practical but deeply life impacting challenge. Would you

pray with me, Lord, Some in this room, I realize, or

maybe here for the time and even just knowing you at all is brand new.

Maybe they've heard something, felt something since your presence during worship or during

communion or even during reading of your word. And God, some in this

room have known you for many years, and maybe they've hit a lull,

or they have been stuck. Maybe some in this room are growing exponentially and

they just need another challenge. Whatever it is. Wherever we sit while we

hold this card, it's just a card. It's only a representative of the

commitment that we will make. And so God for those in this room who

are willing to make the commitment to themselves and to You to choose one thing

to grow in, to practice, to gain a skill in, in order

to do what is the most important one thing, and that's no you,

Lord, I pray you would give us wisdom, God help us make it

practical. And doable, and then give us the strength to strength to see

it through. It's in your name we pray. Amen.