At Peace - Philippians 4:1-9 (March 6, 2016)

Amen.

Amen.

So turning your Bibles to Philippians chapter four.

Philippians chapter four.

We're actually taking a little break from our Colossians series.

We'll get back to that a little bit later, but I have the privilege of being able to kind of finish off Pastor Paul's Philippians series, finish off this week and then next week, rounding out the rest of chapter four.

So excited for that, the pleasure of being able to do that with you.

So get that open.

We're gonna be looking at verses uh one to nine here today.

Now, um, when you look at the state uh of our world these days, um it can be pretty easy to get rattled.

Right?

It can.

Pretty easy to get rattled.

Um the dollar, okay, it's taking a nosedive, hasn't it?

Right?

Not doing so well.

Um our governments and governments around the world uh don't exactly inspire confidence uh sometimes, don't they?

Um you got you think about things like ISIS and the Zika virus and you know suicide rates going up and the cost of living going up and all of those things.

I mean, I could go on and on and on.

Um it's easy to feel uneasy, isn't it?

It's easy.

Now, um some of this stuff probably feels somewhat removed from your uh day-to-day life and not the kind of thing that you think about.

Uh, but I guarantee you that there isn't a person in this room who doesn't struggle on some level uh with some sort of uh stress or maybe anxiety or strain uh in their life.

Uh maybe for you it's pretty mild, and there's kind of the day-to-day pressures, and you kind of go through it and you get over it and you move on, and and for others of you, it's uh it's quite severe.

Um for sure we wrestle with that.

It might range from um pressure uh to do with exams, right?

If you've got students in the room, preparing for finals, there's pressure and getting all of that uh stuff done.

Uh for for others, it might be severe like marital or or financial tension that you're uh working yourself through.

And uh, we can find ourselves uh awake at night, kind of thinking about these things over and over in our in our minds, stewing in our thoughts, worrying and all this hand wringing, wondering when is this thing gonna get fixed?

How is it gonna get fixed?

And at the end of the day, in those moments, what's the one thing that we want above all?

We want peace, don't we?

We want peace.

Well, the good news for uh followers of Jesus Christ is that uh that our God is a God of peace, amen?

He's a God of peace.

And uh these first nine verses of Philippians really reveal that to us as individuals in a church, and so that's what we're gonna look at today.

How can we, as people, and us as a church, how can we be at peace?

And so I'm gonna read this right now.

Um we've had a lot of standing here today, so um, I'm just gonna read through this and then we're gonna keep going, all right?

This is what it says, verse 1, chapter 4.

It says, Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

He says, I entreat Youodia and I entreat Centiki to agree in the Lord.

Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again I will say, rejoice.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about those things.

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Alright, I've already prayed, so we're gonna jump right into this.

If you've got your uh notes in front of you, uh here's the first thing here.

I will be at peace when I'm united with others for the sake of the mission.

Uh for the sake of the mission.

Um take a look at verse one here.

Uh this is what verse one says.

It says, Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

Now, in the latter half of Philippians chapter three, Paul had been encouraging his church, this church here.

And he was encouraging them to press on towards Jesus Christ.

He's like, press on towards him and join me in imitating me as I do that.

And he's reminding them, you might remember this from last time Pastor Paul was teaching us this, that our citizenship is in heaven.

Remember, he said that?

Citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior.

And he's going to transform our lowly bodies.

These are the types of things that he was saying.

And now Paul's saying, uh, therefore, or because of all of that, stand firm.

Stand firm.

He says, Don't crumble.

Don't wilt under the pressure, the various challenges and tensions of life.

Uh, don't let those uh shake you.

Stand firm.

Now keep going here, take a look at what uh had been unfolding specifically uh in this church situation.

Verse 2 says this.

It says, I entreat Yodia and I entreat Sintiki to agree in the Lord.

Now, a full disclosure here, full disclosure, I have no idea how to say those names.

Okay?

Just gonna throw that out there.

I tried, I worked hard, I've got a lot of Greek friends uh in our church here today.

You guys can help me out with that afterwards, maybe.

Um, but uh we're just gonna kind of limp through that, I guess.

Uh but here it says, uh, or what you see here is that obviously there was some kind of uh disagreement happening between uh these two women.

And Paul says there in the verse, he says, I entreat them, I entreat them to agree in the Lord.

So he's saying, I urge you, I plead with you, I beg of you to work out your differences.

He's like, work it out, work through the challenges, get to the place where there is unity again in this church.

Hey, listen, listen, disunity, disunity ruins peace.

It does, it ruins peace.

And I mean, we already know how seriously Paul took uh false teaching in the church, and we know how that has a real high likeliness of uh of ruining peace for sure in any church body.

We've been looking at that in uh in Colossians.

Remember, we talked about that a lot last week.

Uh, but even in this book, in Philippians, Paul had been dealing with that earlier in uh in chapter three.

Now, the the fact here that he deals with uh what to us maybe seems like kind of a kind of a mundane example here of two women who were at odds with each other, it really shows us that Paul knew how disunity like this between believers has every bit of chance as tearing a church to shreds as false teaching does.

And that's why he takes it so seriously.

And that's why you and I, we need to take it seriously as well in our church.

He goes on here, verse 3.

Verse 3 says, Uh, Yes, I ask you also, true companion, uh, help these women.

Help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

Okay, and so first of all, you need to know that that that phrase uh true companion, um, it's actually uh the proper name uh for a person.

And so you might have a little note at the bottom of your Bible there that refers to the word or the name uh sezygus, okay, another word that I'm gonna struggle with.

Um but Paul, he's likely referring here to a specific person, and he's he's lobbying this guy's help.

He's like, help me sort this problem out.

You need to own this and make sure that we get unity uh happening here, that this dispute uh gets settled.

Now, this uh the good thing to kind of realize here is that these ladies had obviously been a huge help uh in the mission of Jesus Christ and furthering the cause of the gospel, and also to Paul personally, right?

He loved these women.

And it says there the word uh labored, they labored, which means that they worked hard.

They didn't mail it in, they weren't just spectators uh on the sidelines.

They they played a key role uh in the function uh of this of this church.

He says that they did this side by side.

So at one point they were like shoulder to shoulder, together, and there was a relationship there, and it was going well.

He said they did it with Paul and together uh in the gospel together with a guy named Clement, and it says with other people, those whose uh names were written in the book of life, which means other believers uh in the church as well.

Okay, they were obviously a very high, highly valued and integral part of this local church.

But hey, there uh this this this current display of disunity uh was disrupting what the Lord was doing there uh in this congregation.

And so we see that, and uh to me it's kind of amazing to think, and I was thinking about it this week, it can it can only take like one, maybe two people uh to seriously throw a wrench into the peace and unity of a church.

Right, and some of you would uh are well aware of that, and you've experienced that before in other churches.

And uh, you know, some person comes in and creates something, and peace just goes flying right out the window.

Now, we're only fooling ourselves here if we think that we as a church are immune to any of this.

We need to be careful and we need to have a have have a heads up about um all of this.

Okay, it can happen with this many people in the room and growing.

Um, things that threaten our peace, disunity, discord, all of that thing can absolutely come up and happen.

In fact, I would say that it's already happened on certain levels, uh, for sure.

And so the question we need to ask ourselves is how are we gonna handle this?

How are we gonna handle this as a church?

And so specifically, take this uh for yourself personally.

Are you gonna decide to be a part of the problem uh or a part of the solution?

Okay, what's it gonna be uh for you?

Okay, if somebody rubs you the wrong way, okay, maybe it's just like they give you a weird look and you're like, what's up with that person?

Why'd they look at me like that on the way in?

And they're probably not even thinking anything about it, right?

But sometimes we get offended by that kind of stuff.

Maybe someone has straight up upset you.

How are you gonna handle it?

Are you gonna lash back?

Are you are you gonna throw darts?

Are you gonna gossip about them under the under the guise of warning people about that person?

Are you gonna gossip or are you gonna ignore them?

Are you gonna write them off?

Right?

There's there's no hope for that person.

They're trouble.

Are you gonna leave?

Are you gonna go to another church and try and find another place where this kind of thing doesn't happen?

Listen, it happens everywhere.

It really does.

Are you gonna do that?

Are you gonna are you gonna lean in towards relationship?

Are you gonna pursue peace?

Are you gonna pursue uh unity?

Are you gonna humbly kind of put your pride aside?

Are you gonna be willing to work through the hurt and work through the difficulty and the challenges uh that you have?

Are you gonna you're gonna fight through the issue and pursue unity and peace?

Hey, listen, is that easy?

No.

Right?

It's hard.

It's challenging and it's very difficult.

But hey, it's worth it.

It's worth it when you do that.

I've been part of churches before where I've seen people reconcile who are on at odds with each other.

It's powerful.

It's powerful.

It's such an amazing picture of the gospel and what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Right?

We were we were separated from him.

Right?

We really were because of our sin.

But he pursued peace, he pursued unity with us, and he took care of that problem through uh through his son.

Okay, the other thing that we need to realize through this text, and it really draws it out here, is we need to realize that disunity also ruins our mission.

It ruins our mission.

And that's really the task that God has given us here.

And Paul says that these women, we looked at it, labored side by side with me in the gospel.

So again, at one point they had served very well.

They served well, and uh now it's probably uh not too much of a stretch to say that that wasn't exactly happening anymore, was it?

Right?

It wasn't.

It's not as effectively as it once was.

Okay, so their squabble, okay, whatever that was, we don't know what the issue was.

It's not that the text doesn't draw that out for us, but it doesn't really matter.

Whatever it was was having a negative impact on their service to the church and to their community.

Right?

They weren't able to carry that out.

And that's ultimately the mission that God has given us and that Christ had called this church to specifically for sure.

Now listen, when we let disunity run rampant among us, we need to understand that it does way more than just affect our personal peace.

It does.

It affects other people too, the person that we're at odds with for sure, but it also stops us from serving God as well.

Do you think about it like that?

Do you think about, hey, my my usefulness in the hands of my Lord is gonna be minimized.

It's gonna be dulled.

I'm not gonna be as effective.

And all of that at the end disrupts the peace of the entire church, the entire congregation.

And the thing that we need to remember, and the New Testament talks about this a lot, is that we are all the body of Jesus Christ.

That's the picture that the scriptures give us.

So if if I'm like, let's say I'm the hand, or or maybe let's put it this way, I'm the foot, okay?

I'm the foot of the church, all right?

If I'm out of joint about something, that's gonna affect everybody else.

Right?

The body, the entire body is gonna walk with a limp because one part is not in the place that it needs to be.

Well, in the same way, disunity affects an entire congregation.

And so I want to encourage you.

Okay, you want to be at peace in your life.

You want that?

You want to be a church that's at peace?

Well, part of it is making sure that your relationships uh here, but really with anybody, uh, are in a good place.

And when they are, that unity will contribute for sure to your personal peace, but also to the peace of the church.

And then on top of all of that, we'll be able to carry out the mission of God, right?

Which is which is what?

It's to make disciples.

Right?

And and I mean we have that kind of thing.

We have it written on uh on a banner out front.

And today's the kind of day where you had like ten opportunities to walk past it, right?

And so do you when you when you walk past something like that, is it has it kind of blended into the background and something that you don't notice anymore?

And it's just like, well, it's just a thing that's kind of showing me something beside a TV, or or do you look at that to allow uh it to remind you of who we are as a church?

Right?

Our mission is to uh make disciples.

Quite specifically, uh what you'll see there is that our mission is to glorify God through the fulfillment of the great commission in the spirit of the great commandment.

And so what that means is we we want to we want to fulfill a commission which is which is to go and make disciples.

That's what Jesus said as he was ascending to the right hand of God the Father.

That's what that those are his marching orders to his disciples, and then ultimately to us.

Make disciples.

And all of that, all of that starts with sharing the gospel.

Right?

We need to share the gospel, and that's why we continue to remind ourselves of it.

You know, and there might be some people here in the room, we've got lots of guests, we've got lots of people here who, you know, you don't know Jesus Christ personally.

And I want to tell you what that's all about.

You need to know this.

You need to know that Jesus Christ, God, the creator of the universe, loves you passionately.

Right?

He created you and he wants to be in a relationship with you.

That's the purpose he created you for in this earth.

The problem is, is that you and I, we have sin in our lives.

And that sin destroys the relationship with God.

It creates this chasm that we cannot cross from us all the way to God.

And none of our morality, none of our being good people, none of that actually fixes the problem at all.

And all of it, all of our sin, means that we are now on a crash course towards hell for eternity.

Horrible news.

The worst news ever.

The good news, though, is that because God loves you passionately, he's decided to pursue you.

I want them, I want them to be in a relationship with me.

And so that's why he sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross, to pay the price for your sins that you could not possibly pay.

And so becoming a Christ follower really entails this.

It entails realizing, okay, realizing that you've got sin in your life.

Not hiding it, not minimizing, not pretending that you don't have any or anything like that.

It's admitting it.

All of it ultimately is against your creator, but understanding that He paid the price for you.

And that if you would confess your sin to Him and ask Him to be your Savior, you will have eternal life.

That is the gospel.

Our mission is to communicate that with people constantly, to do it all the time, and uh and never forget that.

When we do that, uh, we'll be at peace.

We will, as individuals and as a church.

We can't let anything get in the way of that at all, and that's our mission.

Okay, I'll have peace when I'm united with others for the sake of the mission.

Here's the second thing.

I'll be at peace when I constantly rejoice in what the Lord is doing.

What the Lord is doing.

Now check out verse four.

Verse four says, Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again I will say, Rejoice.

Let your reasonableness be made be known to everybody.

The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

And the peace of God, great verse, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

When life is throwing me a curveball, when there's some kind of difficulty in my life, I find it that much more challenging to celebrate the Lord's goodness.

Right?

If you're at a place where you don't have peace because life is difficult and life is hard, how easy is it to worship the Lord?

How easy is it to rejoice?

It's not, it's hard, it's tough.

Because when life's hard, it's way too easy to complain, isn't it?

It's way too easy to sort of embrace the bad mood and uh and the bad attitude, or to compare our situation uh to somebody else's, somebody else who doesn't seem to have it quite as rough uh as we do.

It's easy to get to get angry.

It's easy to get bitter or just become indifferent.

You know what?

Forget it, God.

I don't even care anymore.

It's easy to go down those paths.

Now, the antidote to all of that is to rejoice.

To rejoice.

You see that in the text.

He says it uh twice in verse 4.

And he tells the Philippians to do that.

And the reason why he says it uh twice uh is for emphasis.

So whenever you see something uh repeated in scripture, it's kind of the equivalent of putting uh an exclamation point behind it.

Or maybe one of those like thumbs up emojis, right?

Just trying to relate to youth and stuff.

One of these emojis, I don't know.

But um that's the purpose.

Okay, that's the purpose of the repetition uh there in scripture.

You know, good thing for us, good thing for us.

Uh rejoicing.

Okay, rejoicing, it's not merely a human emotion.

It's not merely a human emotion.

And uh, if it were, we'd probably find it pretty confusing that that Paul would tell us here to produce a feeling, right?

Just feel this way.

Well, he's not telling us that uh at all.

And that wouldn't be helpful if he did.

Okay, that's not what he's saying.

That's because joy is not, listen, joy is not a feeling.

It's not a feeling.

And I love this.

I love what John MacArthur had to say.

This is a definition of joy.

It's so clear.

This is what he says.

He says, uh, it is a deep down confidence that God is in control of everything, and therefore all is well no matter the circumstance.

Isn't that great?

Okay, this is what joy is.

It's a deep down confidence that God is in control of everything, no matter the circumstance, and therefore all is well.

Okay, we can express real, substantive, legitimate joy, whether life is good or whether life is difficult.

Right?

We really can.

And that's because God produces it in us.

He's the one who gives it to us.

And we get that through learning to constantly rejoice in what the Lord is doing in our lives.

And that's something that all Christ's followers need to learn to do if we want to get to the place of having lasting peace.

You need to be able to rejoice through thick and through.

Thin no matter what.

And so a question for you Do you practice rejoicing?

Do you practice that?

Is that something that you're working on?

Listen, we know that God produces it in us, but He adds He invites us into that process.

And we need to we need to practice it.

We need to rejo uh work on it.

Maybe you've never really thought of it like that before.

You think that it should just come to you and you don't have to do anything.

Okay, but celebrating who God is and and what He's done and what He's doing and what He will continue to do is something to be learned and practiced continually.

Okay, whether we feel like it or not.

Okay, it's choosing to rejoice.

Do you do that?

Do you choose to rejoice?

And when you can get to that place where you can legitimately rejoice, you're gonna see some other things happen as well.

Verse 5 gives us uh starts us off with a bunch of things here.

It says this, that your reasonableness, that your reasonableness be known to everyone.

Being reasonable is a community builder.

Right, you ever tried to deal with somebody who's being completely unreasonable?

Right?

It's the it's the worst thing ever.

It creates tension.

It it you know, blood pressure starts to boil.

They're not thinking, they don't they don't care, they don't want to look at truth, nothing.

Right?

Being reasonable uh does uh being reasonable does the uh accomplishes the opposite of that.

Okay, be reasonable, it says.

It's crucial for establishing a peace.

And being reasonable means that we're focused on the good of others and not just uh not just ourselves.

Keep going here.

He says, the Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And so to sum it all up, he's saying, he's like, rejoice.

He's like, rejoice in the Lord constantly.

Don't don't ever stop doing that.

Be reasonable, don't be anxious.

Anxiety is the opposite of rejoicing, and it completely um takes the wind out of that, uh, out of those sails.

He's like, be thankful, be grateful, let that spill out of you, celebrate his goodness.

Okay, you start to do those kinds of things, and you want to know what happens?

Okay, verse 7 says it.

Again, a great verse.

It says, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

He says, the peace of God will rule your hearts.

Doesn't that sound like a sweet place to be, where the peace of God rules your life?

Don't you want to get to that place where you're growing and you're there and you're a peaceful person?

We're a peaceful church, and there and there's no there's not tension and stress constantly and all of that?

The peace of God will guard your frail heart.

Aren't our hearts frail?

They give in to temptation easily.

It'll protect your your weary mind.

Your weary mind.

And it does it in a way that I love this, surpasses all understanding.

Surpasses understanding.

So God's peace actually transcends what you and I can even comprehend.

Right?

Try and wrap your mind around that.

Hey, we're excuse me, we're we're finite creatures, but God, God is infinite.

His power and his peace supernaturally go beyond our problems, beyond our circumstances.

They they enclose them, they cover them.

Even what beyond makes sense to us.

And so for that reason, rejoice.

Rejoice in the Lord and what he's doing.

Do it constantly.

Don't stop.

Okay, here's the last thing.

Last thing, I will have peace when my outlook and actions are focused on the right thing.

They're focused on the right thing.

Take a look at verse 8 now.

Verse 8 says this finally, brothers, okay, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about those things.

Like think about these things.

Now, no question, okay, no question that a lot of the time our skewed thinking, okay, and our skewed focus is a huge contributor to our lack of peace.

You ever realize that?

So you want to stop the constant replay of those negative and stressful thoughts that play over and over again in your in your mind until you are weary and you are broken down and you don't even know what's what anymore.

You want to stop all of that?

Well, you've got to get your outlook focused on the right things.

You have to.

In other words, you want peace, you want spiritual stability.

Well, all of that is a result of how you think.

It is.

How we think is that important.

And so, Paul, what he does is he gives us this list.

He tells us what to concentrate on, what to focus on.

He says, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise.

He's like, think about those things.

Think about those things.

And so as you're sitting here today, just think back to the past week.

Think back to the past week.

What are the kind of things you think about?

What does your mind drift to when you have free time?

What does your mind drift to when you're at home or when you're at work, when you're in the vehicle, when you're with your kids, you're with your spouse.

What does your mind wander to?

What do you focus on?

What's your outlook?

Now I love how Paul does this.

He starts this list off that he gives us here by talking about whatever is true.

Whatever is true.

I think that's intentional.

Because listen, it's never gonna be honorable and just and pure and lovely and all those other things that he says if it's not, first of all, true.

It's not.

And something that we say uh around here a lot, and I try to remember um oftentimes is that truth leads and emotions follow.

Truth leads, emotions follow.

And so we're what we're getting at when we say that is don't let your emotions rule the roost.

Don't let your emotions rule the roost.

Don't give in to your negative feelings and your your moods and allow your faulty thinking to dictate your life.

It's so easy to do that though.

Instead, allow truth, right?

The truth of God to rule you.

And let all of your emotions, let all of your feelings, all of that fall in line behind that.

Truth leads, emotions follow.

Because how we think impacts the kind of decisions that we make.

Is that true?

Yeah, absolutely.

You better believe it.

Also impact the actions that we take.

And that's what Paul says here, verse 9.

He says, What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.

Now he says, practice these things.

Okay, so at first, he's like, think about these things, and then he follows it up by saying, Now practice these things as well.

Practice them.

Because how we think determines how we will act.

It does.

And I think this is one of the biggest reasons why reading scripture, studying the Bible is just so, so crucial uh to us as individuals and as a church.

You know, and I notice for myself, and and maybe you find yourself um in this kind of category too, that whenever I'm struggling in my life, and maybe it's with um some kind of sin, and maybe it's uh it's I'm having a bad week and it seems worse than usual, or I find myself discouraged, or my attitude is like a complete dumpster fire, and it's awful, and it's and it's bad.

Okay, sometimes what I find is that all of a sudden it'll dawn on me that, you know, hey, I I guess I haven't really been in the word lately.

Right?

It's amazing how I go through.

We forget, right, how necessary and how crucial it is.

And so what happens is all it'll start to read again.

And then everything just kind of starts to write itself.

My attitude gets better, stop struggling as much.

There's protection in that.

And the Lord strengthens us through that.

It's because God's word is truth.

It's truth, and we're reminding ourselves, we're we're allowing it to seep into our minds and seep into our hearts and dictate where we go and how we think and how we feel and all of that.

And then of course, how we act.

When you think about the right things, you'll inevitably act the right way.

But at some point you will.

And that's why you're always gonna hear me say things like, hey, you gotta read the word, right?

You gotta be in the Bible, you need to uh come up with a game plan where you're gonna read every day and and and stick to that plan and and don't get discouraged and saturate your mind with God's truth.

Because it will create in you a godly outlook, which will then lead to godly actions.

That's why God's word is so crucial.

And then what does it say it happens as a result of all of that?

Right?

I love this.

Verse 9, take a look.

He says, and the God of peace will be with you.

The God of peace will be with you.

Now here's something that I notice, and don't miss this.

This is so, so important with this verse.

It does not say, and then you will have peace.

You notice that?

It does not say that.

It could have said that.

It would have been the worst thing in the world to say that, but it actually says, the God of peace will be with you.

You see that?

Underline the word God, right?

The God of peace.

God Himself will draw near to you.

And at the end of the day, I hope that's what we want above all else.

I hope we want the Lord's presence near.

I hope we want intimacy with the Lord and Savior above all else.

We want God more than having our problems fixed, more than even peace from God, more than him just making our lives comfortable or being happy, whatever that is, right?

More than all of the things we ask from God.

We just want him.

I find myself often convicted about that.

Do you ever treat God like a vending machine?

You treat him like that, you're constantly hitting the button, Lord, give me that.

Answer my prayer.

Lord, why why aren't why aren't you giving me that?

Excuse me.

Because sometimes I think he's uh he's trying to show us that, hey, do you just want me?

Do you just want me?

Or do you want stuff from me?

Do you want me to just dispense all of those all of those good things?

He's what we need most.

He's what we need most.

And because he is the God of peace, when we get him, we get everything else.

Right?

We get peace, we get joy, we get unity, we get all of that.

And that's what I what I really want us to end on here.

Okay, with that thought, you know, I think we've had um a phenomenal first year as a church.

Right?

I, as your pastor, I'm so encouraged.

And I am I'm so blessed to see what the Lord has done.

I was talking with a bunch of people already this morning.

We had a lot of time with fire alarms and stuff like that.

We were talking, it's like, man, the Lord has done a ton.

And it's amazing to think that a year has gone by so fast.

Right?

We've got ministries starting up and leaders being raised up and new people attending uh all of the time.

Like I love that so much to celebrate and praise the Lord for.

I hope that's on your heart for sure.

But you know, as we look forward to the next year, you know, as we look forward to beyond all of that, let's continue to pursue him, most of all.

Let's continue to pursue intimacy with the Lord.

Let's continue to want him more than anything, to invite the Lord into that process, because we don't always want him.

Sometimes the truth and the reality is we want things from him, and we're not very intimate with God.

Let's work through that, let's grind through that process.

Lord, would you help us?

Would you help us to pursue you more than anything?

That's what's gonna make this church powerful.

Right?

It's not it's not great programs, right?

It's not it's not that kind of stuff.

It's not flashy music or lights or whatever.

It's the Lord being with us.

That's what we need to pursue.

That's what brings us peace.

That'll bring you individual peace.

It'll bring peace on our church as well.

So I'm gonna pray.

And we're gonna thank the Lord for all of these things.

We're gonna ask him for more.

And then after that, we've got a video that we want to show you a few minutes long, and just really celebrate uh the last uh year or so since we've launched, and we want you to enjoy that.

And then we're gonna get Greg and the team back up here, and uh we're gonna sing, I think, due to time, one more song.

Right?

We've got one more song uh lined up.

Originally we had a whole bunch of songs lined up.

We're gonna respond that way, so get all your worship in in one, all right?

That's the way that we're gonna do that.

Um we're gonna thank the Lord for what he's done and what he continues to do.

Let's pray.

God, we do rejoice, first of all, that we are a church now, Lord.

You know, 380 days ago, whatever it was, we were not.

Lord, and so and so we want to give you glory.

Lord, look what you have accomplished.

This is not the work of man.

Lord, if it is the work of man, it is nothing and it is destined to fail.

And so, Lord, would you continue to lead us?

Would you continue to draw near to us, Lord?

Lord, would you forgive us for all of all of the sin that gets in the way of intimacy with you, Lord, all of the sin and the poor decisions that we make that disrupt our peace, Lord, would you strengthen us?

Would you make us strong, Lord?

Would you continue to bring people here that you will use, Lord, to humbly build this church?

God, as we think forward uh ahead to the future, God, we always want it to be about Jesus.

Lord, if we ever, heaven forbid, ever start to make it about a person or anything like that, Lord, get us back on the rails.

Lord, because the church is about making the fame, making the name of Jesus Christ known.

And so, God, would we do that?

Would you encourage us here today, Lord?

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We've been praying about our next church plant, and the elders have been working on this and praying about it and considering it.

If you got the prayer request, you'd have seen on a regular basis praying for a church plant in Newmarket, praying for a church plant in Newmarket, praying for a church plant in Newmarket.

When we met with those folks a week and a half ago and told them that we believe we're gonna have a church plant in Newmarket, and we're flicking on the switch, and we want to go for it in Newmarket.

I think as I think about the past year, the year that we've had as a campus, really what blows me away, I guess, would be to think about the the power of God working in us as his people have prayed.

You know, when I think about how we started praying well before we actually launched as a core group, and every week we would get together at the Holiday and Express over there, and uh just a bunch of people, you know, maybe 20 people, uh, praying every single week that the Lord would do something big.

And I think what we're starting to experience now, and even as we look towards the future, we're starting to experience the fruit of those of those prayers.

This is the day where we get to have a commission for the chapel.

Yeah! Pretty exciting day.

So I remember the first few Sundays of our church got their kids off at Harvest Kids, and there was about five kids or so, and I'm a feeling bad for them.

Um, but knowing a big part of all of this is waiting on the Lord and preparing, passion speaking to prayer and trusting what he's doing.

Uh one of the ones that fired me up a lot was just our very first baptism service, you know, in the Georgia's backyard in our pool, and uh baptizing uh a couple of ladies, seeing the church gathered around the pool, clapping and cheering and excited for what the Lord was doing.

For me, it's as as a pastor, that's just that's what you want to see because that's evidence of God, you know, at work.

I guess it would be just a few weeks ago.

I was up in serving the harvest kids and I was blown away with all the kids that were there, and just so moved to see them engaged in work that is listening to a lesson and see that developing a big stuff of black and realize what God has done, and so uh yes we step out how much God has won, and how much people think for.

And so many people are now attending a church being out of place.

God's like building church in the new market.

I mean to think that it came from such a small little room in a hotel where we're all just like talking about what are the great foundations of a church and talking about harvest.

I mean, you don't really you have to really like step back to see what God has done.

You know, this has been a story of how God moves and how he works in his people.

You know, you think back to the very beginning, there's you know, basically a small group of people meeting in a home, just praying and dreaming about Lord, what could this be?

What could you do?

And then you know you fast forward into a year into this now, and uh we've got a church here, you know, and and the Lord is is changing people, and and we have so much to be thankful for.

First of all, we have to thank the Lord, right?

He has been so good to use uh people like us, and he has encouraged us and he has challenged us along the way, and he has been building us up and uh really glorifying himself in us.

Uh, we have to thank our uh Markham Church family as well for all the energy and time and resources that they have poured into us.

Without them, we wouldn't be here.

And so we're so thankful for them for what they've done and what they continue to do uh for us, and then of course for uh for New Market as well.

So many people have never done this kind of thing before, started a church from the ground up and to come here at six in the morning and and to set up chairs and pipe and drape and all of that kind of thing, and then jump into being small group leaders and taking on leadership roles.

And you know, as we look towards the future, it's amazing to think that he has just begun to do this work in us.

And we we think about how he just wants to invite more people to our church.

He wants to save more souls through the good news of Jesus Christ, he wants to grow us, he wants to make us mature in his son.

And so we have much to hope in, much to be excited about, and we have even more to give him glory for.

And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about.