Living From Belovedness

So let us look at these scriptures here as we begin.

So Paul writing to the Colossian Church.

This is Colossians chapter one.

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have

not stopped praying for you.

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the

wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy

of the Lord and please him in every way.

Bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

being strengthened with all power according to his glorious mind.

So that you may have great endurance and patience.

And then next slide, Colossians two, verses six and seven.

So then just as you receive Christ, Jesus', Lord, continue

to live your lives in him.

Rooted and build up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught

and overflowing with thankfulness.

And there's that word again.

So let me begin here.

Here, and this might be a little bit random, but track with me.

Who here has their skipper's ticket?

All right.

If anybody wants to trip out in the boat, these are the people that you go and see.

All right.

If you're not sure what a skipper's ticket is, it's what you need to be able to, uh.

Operate is a good word.

Operate a boat.

And one of the skills you learn as you are going about getting your skippers ticket

is that of navigation, like navigation's kind of important when you're.

In charge of a boat.

And I always remember this story, that my brother told, and this is years

and years and years ago when he was going for his skip skipper's ticket

and he was out on a boat doing the training before you take the test.

And and they were learning about navigation.

And this one particular girl, there was a group of them on the boat who

are all learning, you know, trying to get their skipper ticket and, um.

They were told to pick a point kind of in the distance in order to, that

the boat would travel in a straight, relatively straight direction,

choose a point, focus on it, and then the boat should go that way.

Well, as this particular girl was at the helm, it's suddenly the

boat just starts drifting and the instructor's like, what is happening?

What point did you fix on?

And they're in the river.

And she goes, oh.

I picked a car on the freeway.

Clearly she should not have a skipper ticket.

Right?

Which she failed to realize.

Needed to be a fixed point.

Yes.

It's only gonna work.

You are only gonna get navigate well in that way if you have

located a fixed point to aim for.

So what is navigation exactly?

Navigation can be defined as the process or activity of accurately

ascertaining one's position.

Then planning and following a route or course either by land,

sea, or air to your objective.

And so navigation's really important with boats, with planes, with hiking.

'cause how often do we hear about people getting lost?

Many, many stories.

And so, even church camp, many, many, many people over the years have failed to

navigate rightly their way to church camp.

And we hear all sorts of stories of the weird and wonderful

places that people end up in.

And so in the spiritual life navigation is the ongoing work of

orientating one's life towards God.

Amid the noise and distraction and competing voices and practices like

discernment, and this is what we are focusing on over this month of January.

This practice of discernment, living a life worthy.

it functions like a compass for us.

It's help helps us to recognize God's guidance as we seek to navigate this life.

Well, and last Sunday, Luke opened with a simple but probing question.

What are you listening to?

In Colossians one, Paul prays that the church would know God's

will through spiritual wisdom and understanding, not so that they can

make better plans, but so that they can live lives worthy of the Lord.

And at the beginning of a new year, many of us are planning and

prioritizing, imagining dreaming, thinking about what lies ahead.

But beneath all of that, for followers of Jesus, there is a deeper desire.

Or at least there should be, maybe it's a little bit more buried in some than

in others, is this question of how do I live in a way that pleases God or

how do I navigate this life this year?

In a way that I would live a life that is worthy of God, as Paul

talks about in those verses in the first chapter of Colossians.

And so this question becomes something that helps us to orientate around our.

True north.

And I love this idea of a true north 'cause it's a, really important idea when

it comes to things like navigation and

orientating ourselves.

who knew?

There's actually

three kinds of north, there is true North, there is magnetic

north and there is grid north.

And Sue's nodding at me 'cause she's big into boats, aren't you, Sue?

And, and plane on planes.

Yeah.

Yes.

And they're not the same thing.

And so if you are trying to navigate, and you are using magnetic North and you don't

know it, and you think you're using True North, you are gonna end up off track.

And, so in navigation, distinguishing between true North, magnetic

North and grid North is essential because each represents a different

referencing system, confusing them.

Leads to Drift, and in some context, serious consequences

for safety and decision making.

And I don't think it's a huge stretch to see how this can be a

bit of a metaphor for our lives.

Hey, and so one's true North is established.

Every other direction can be accurately understood in relation to it.

Without this fixed reference, movement becomes reactive,

inconsistent, and prone to drift.

So deliver life worthy of the Lord.

What does it require?

It requires knowing the will of God, which is what Paul talked about in that

first passage we looked at, and that that would be our true north, which requires

spiritual wisdom and understanding, and which scripture actually

calls or refers to as discernment.

And so what exactly is discernment?

Got a, got a definition here.

Discern this is from Dallas Willard.

So discernment is the cultivated ability to perceive and respond to God's

guidance as a natural expression of a life rooted in loving attention to God.

One shaped by scripture, community obedience, and the transforming

work of the Holy Spirit.

And so just to kinda lean in a little to what the ground

that, Luke covered last week.

We live in this world that is saturated with voices competing for our attention.

There is a almighty war out for our attention, and so the voices that we

listen to, they shape our decisions, our priorities, and our sense of self.

So it's really important we ask.

That question, what voices am I listening to?

Am I being led by influenced, by, shaped by?

If we desire to live lives worthy of the Lord, then we must learn to

discern God's voice above all the others, to recognize where he is

leading and where he is guiding us.

What voices are you listening to?

What voices are guiding you?

Are you discerning the voice of God or are you being led by other voices

that are perhaps taking you off course?

Like in Homer's Odyssey, many of you'll be familiar with

the story of Homer's Odyssey.

Where you have these sirens who are luring the sailors to their

demise on the rocks with their siren song, the Call of the Siren.

And so like in Homer's Odyssey, the siren songs of the world, they can

lure us so very easily off course if we don't have our true north in mind.

And, and they can lure, lure us off course into directions that are destructive and

harmful, just like in Homer's Odyssey.

And I wanna share with you right now, another question, A question that came

to mind for me in prayer this week.

I actually found really, really helpful to help me reestablish my true north

because we drift, we all drift, and we all can easily get off course.

And this question came to mind and I believed it was prompted by the

Holy Spirit in a time of prayer.

And this question was this, am I at peace with myself?

Interesting question.

I would pose that question to you this morning.

Are you at peace with yourself?

You see, the answer for me was very clearly in that moment that I wasn't on

that particular morning I was anything but, but as I prayed through this,

I started to discern an invitation from the Lord to come back to truth.

I'd wandered onto the condemning rocks of not good enough.

Do better try harder.

Which is greatly affecting how I was thinking and feeling about the

year ahead and the spirit through this question was leading me back.

And so you see, when we're not at peace with ourselves, we become

very, very, very vulnerable.

We become very vulnerable to the siren song of our culture.

We become vulnerable to striving that is birthed out of an

anxious need to be good enough.

We become vulnerable to really unhealthy patterns of consumption,

whether that's consumption of food, of alcohol, of entertainment, of

comfort, whatever it might be.

When we're not at peace with ourselves, we become really vulnerable to leaning into

inward and self-protective ways of living.

And in any of these places, we cannot be found, to be.

We we're not in a place to make good and wise decisions that we would

be living lives worthy of the Lord.

And so in states of non peace, we are severely limited in

our capacity in this space.

And we live in a culture that wants us to be anxious about everything.

We live in a culture that wants us to be anxious about our

appearance, our health, our income.

Why?

Because anxious people buy stuff don't they?

Anxious people are easy to manipulate because we're all wired for peace.

We're all longing for it.

If we can be in a constant led into a constant place of anxiety by our natural

default desire to be at peace, we will grab hold of anything that seems to

promise it, that makes us vulnerable.

And easy to manipulate.

By the forces of the culture around us.

And this is why we need to constantly come back to this next and related

question and a, a really good true north question to ground ourselves

in at this time of year because this is where our peace comes from.

And it's this question here, who does God say?

I am.

Who does God say I am?

This message today is not rocket science.

You know, it's kind of a bit of a 1 0 1, but I think the beginning

of a new year is a good time to come back to 1 0 1 kind of stuff.

And I think this question of who does God say I am?

This is a question that we can f.

We can forget the true answer to quite easily, and so it's one that is good

for us to return to quite regularly.

So Paul reminds the Colossian Church that peace has already been made for them when

he says this in Colossians one 19 to 23.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

That is Jesus, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether

things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed

on the cross once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds

because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ, physical

body through death to present you wholly any sight without blemish and free from

accusation if you continue in your faith established and firm, and do not move

from the hope held out in the gospel.

This is the gospel that you have heard and that has been proclaimed to

every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

God has reconciled us to himself through Christ presenting us holy without

blemish, and free from accusation.

This is the gospel.

Our identity is not earned.

Our worth is not fragile.

Our peace is not dependent upon our performance.

So actually, if you are a child of God in this place this morning, if you

have professed faith in Jesus Christ, if you have given your life to him

and he is the one that you follow.

It doesn't matter how awfully you live out this year ahead, it doesn't change

your status as the beloved your 'cause.

Your worth is not fragile.

It is grounded in the gospel.

So what I heard that morning in that place of prayer, through the invitation

of this questions, what I heard was this.

The gospel tells me that God is okay with me.

And if God is okay with me, then I can be okay with me.

I know that's really simple language, isn't it?

It's not exactly theological speak, but if God is okay with me and that

is what the gospel says, I can be okay with me 'cause he's forgiven me.

He's good with me, and so I can be good with him and therefore

I can be good within myself.

I can be at peace within myself.

Now that's freedom.

We can have all these notions in this world about what freedom is, but that

is freedom to be at peace with God and to be at peace with one another.

And that's what Jesus died for, to give us that peace.

And I think sometimes we think that peace is the absence of fear

or anxiety, but I think we are better served to actually think of

peace as a substance within itself.

And that, what anxiety is, is actually the absence of peace.

And so the peace, if peace is a substance, the peace of God is a

substance and it's right there for us to apprehend when we take hold of it.

Anxiety must flee.

It must go because anxiety is like darkness, which is

the absence of light, right?

Darkness is is not a substance in itself.

It's the absence of something.

So when we are places of anxiety, when we're not at peace, yeah, it's

not that anxiety is substance, it's.

Our peace has wandered somewhere and we need to apprehend it again.

And so my hope and my prayer that if perhaps here you are here today and

there is anxiety within you, there's pressure, there's a striving I need.

As you think about the year ahead and you're thinking about all these

things that you need to do, and I must do this and I must do that,

and I must organize my time better.

And pressure, pressure, pressure.

I must do this with my kids.

And pressure, pressure, pressure.

That you would actually stop, you would discern who God says you are, that you

would come to a place of peace, and then think about what this year might bring.

So Jesus's mission was to bring us into his own life, to ground our deepest

identity in him so that we may live as he lived, to live fully in God.

And so our first and most important spiritual task is to know and to

claim God's unconditional love.

For us, which is why Paul prays for the Ephesians that they would have

power to grasp the love of God.

You know, Ephesians chapter three, he prays that they would power to

grasp how wide and high and long and deep as the love of Christ that

surpasses understanding why, so that they would be filled to the

measure of all the fullness of God.

It must be discerned this reality of who we are before God.

I can tell you.

But it's gonna be a work of the spirit for to actually take root in your heart.

It must be discerned.

It's a world of difference between me just here standing up here and telling you a

fact than you actually hearing the voice of God for yourself, saying, I love you.

You are my beloved to the spirit testifying with your spirit,

that you are a child of God.

So to navigate well.

You gotta know where you are and you gotta know where you're going.

And I think we'd all do well at this time of year to spiritually discern where

we are in God, to have a revelation of our position as the beloved, as Paul

speaks about in one Corinthians two, there are spiritual truths that can

only be discerned through the spirit.

When the spirit reveals to you you're a child of God, that you are the

beloved, you have peace with God, and then you are at peace with yourself.

And when you have those.

Things peace in those two realms.

The natural default is you are a peace with those around you because it is an

unshakable peace and you're able to then orientate yourself around what is true.

So when we discern and we, we accept and we receive our belovedness.

This identity as the beloved, we are free so much.

This is what occurred to me in this place of free, oh my gosh.

In that place, when I know I am the beloved, you, I know I am at peace

with God and I have this peace.

Then with myself, I'm free to be misunderstood.

I'm free to fail.

I'm free to love without fear.

I'm free to serve without striving.

I'm free to trust God's guidance.

I'm free to live a life of loving service towards others.

I don't need to worry about what's in it for me because I've got it all.

I've got all that I need.

I have peace with God and peace with myself.

And so the fruit of belovedness, it is joy and it is freedom, and it's the

capacity to love others as God loves us.

I read this story in, Henry Nolan's book called Discernment.

Luke referred to this book last week, and I'd highly encourage you if this

idea of this practice, this discipline of discernment, is something that's

really sparking in you.

to grab a hold of this

book and have a read, it's a beautiful book, and Henry Nowan just writes

in the most beautiful, gracious way, but in his book, so, um.

Henry Noun was a, Catholic priest and he ended up living in a community called

La Ash Daybreak Community, which is a community where people with intellectual

disabilities would live alongside their caregivers and their friends.

And so he speaks about a time, not long after he arrived at La Ash as the priest.

And he says this, I had a powerful experience of offering the

blessing of belovedness to another.

Shortly before I started a prayer service, Janet, a member of our community, said

to me, Henry, can you give me a blessing?

I responded in a somewhat automatic way by tracing with my thumb, the

sign of the cross on her forehead.

No, that doesn't work.

She said, I want a real blessing.

I suddenly became aware of the inadequacy of my response and said, oh, I'm sorry.

Let me give you a real blessing when we are all together for the prayer service.

She nodded with a smile and I realized that something special was required of me

after the service, when about 30 people were sitting on the floor, I said, Janet

has asked me for a special blessing.

She feels she needs that now.

Janet stood up and walked toward me.

I stood up, opened my arms to welcome Janet as she walked up

and laid her head on my chest, putting my hands on her shoulders.

The sleeves of my robe enveloped her.

I looked at her and said, Janet, I want you to know that you

are God's beloved daughter.

You are precious in God's eyes, your beautiful smile, your kindness

to the people in your house and all the good things you do.

Show us what a beautiful human being you are.

I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness

in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are, A very special

person, deeply loved by God, and all the people who are here with you.

As I said these words, Janet raised her head and looked at me.

She smiled and said, thanks, Henry.

That is so much better than the first one.

And so maybe you are a

bit like Janet.

As Henry writes here,

she feels she needs that now.

She feels like she needs that blessing from the Lord to know

that she is seen and that she is accepted and that she has known.

And maybe that is you today.

You are guy.

I am not at peace.

My internal world is a hot mess.

And maybe you need to sit before the Lord and say, I need that

blessing, Lord, I need to know.

That you're good with me.

I need to hear it again.

I know the Bible tells me so, but that's not cutting it right now.

I need to hear it from you.

I, you need to hear your heart to mine, that you're good with me and

that I can be good with myself.

We all need this blessing because the world is constantly

telling us a different story.

Our culture is constantly telling us, you're not enough.

You're not good enough.

Whatever you might put before that word enough.

And so we need to come back to the heart of our Heavenly Father and say, bless me,

Lord, bless me with your heart to mind telling me what you think of me, that

you love me, that you are good with me.

So in Ephesians six, Paul, speaking of the armor of God, he talks

about feet that are fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

And when the gospel is what we are grounded in, we have

a peace and we are ready.

We are peace and that when we are ready.

So are you grounded in who God says you are?

Or are you still being tossed to and fro by the wind and the waves

of the voices of this world around us being tempted by its siren song?

So for me, once I had been reestablished in this place of

peace, in that time of prayer.

My orientation completely changed.

My thinking about this year shifted from, well, I need to eat better,

I need to exercise more, and I need to use my time more effectively.

And this is how I let people down in this previous year, so I better make

not sure I don't do it this coming year.

Maybe I'm the only one that operates at this level of anyone else Res resonate.

Oh good.

Praise the Lord.

This is kind of a chill area, but it seems like the wings are

more anxious folks amongst us.

You're my people.

Um.

And so once I had sat in this place and I was re able to

reorientate myself to what was true.

My thinking about the year ahead did shift.

So how do I plan and prioritize my life?

Then it became too, yeah, away from these ideas of striving and all the

things I must do to be better and try harder to, how do I plan and prioritize

my life so that I'm loving God with all my heart, with all my soul, with

all my mind and strength, and how this year can I love my neighbor as myself?

Because if these two things are my focus in this year, then I'm gonna live

a life worthy of the Lord, aren't I?

I'm gonna be much better set up to at least, and it's not hard to see

which two of these postures, the striving, anxiety ridden posture, or

the one that is grounded in peace.

And knowing who I am in God, it's not hard to see which of these two

postures is gonna lead me to that place.

Of meeting that brief that Paul lays out at the beginning of his letter

to the Colossians of a life worthy.

And we don't live a life worthy of the Lord to earn the Lord's favor, right?

I don't want you to now be anxious about, oh my gosh, I've gotta go live a life

worthy of the Lord on top of losing weight and organizing my time better, and

eating better, and being kinder to people.

No, no, no.

We live a, we pursue living a life worthy of the Lord because we have it.

We have his favor not to earn it.

And because this is the way of life.

You know how so much of last year, what were we looking at?

We were looking at and covering the way of Jesus.

And that is the good way, the way of life and truth and peace and joy, and the way

where we are blessed and those around us are blessed as we live as children

of light in that way and in that place.

So again, as we bring this home, let me just refer us to those scriptures

that we read at the beginning.

Paul continually asking God to fill the church, to fill you

with the knowledge of his will.

May you be filled with the knowledge of God's will, through discernment, through

all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live

a life worthy of the Lord pleasing him in every way you know for the child

of God in this place this morning.

And my prayer is that it is all of you, but I don't know where you've come.

Maybe, maybe you're not quite there yet and that's fine.

You are welcome here.

But if you have the Holy Spirit, you are a child of God.

There should be a resonance in you.

Even as I read these words, I go, oh yeah, that's what I wanna do.

I wanna live a life worthy Lord.

Oh my gosh, I forgot that's what what I meant to be about.

Praise the Lord.

I've heard it again, I'm reorientated, right?

There should be a stirring, a desire, a willingness.

To wanna live this way, to live a life worthy of the Lord, no matter where your

foot treads, no matter what this year might look like for you, pleasing him

in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of

God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious mind, so that

we may have great endurance and patience.

So talked about this thing called discernment.

Luke talked about it last week and we're gonna talk about it again next week.

But how do we actually practice it, right?

Just in these few minutes I have left here, how do we practice it?

Because we would do well to set our hearts and minds on the goal

of being those who are disciplined in our practice of discernment.

Right, because what discernment allows us to do is actually to hear

the voice of God for ourselves.

And so, as Luke mentioned last week, it begins with solitude and with

silence, silence creates space.

It removes us from the noise, and it gives our full attention back to God.

And this, this time of being in silence and solitude with God, stillness with God.

I mean, what does the scripture say?

Be still and know that I am God.

And that is that knowing, that deep relational knowing.

And so this time of silence and solitude is not about being productive.

It's simply about being in the presence of God.

And so some key elements of discernment, which are helpful for us to be aware of

as we think about how we can actually

practice it and I guess, implement it into our

daily and weekly rhythms of life.

Some things to be aware of.

Discernment grows out of obedience, not curiosity.

Okay.

God's not a genie in a bottle.

He's not a magic eight ball.

And sometimes people can think discernments like that,

I've got a question now.

I'm gonna go discern the answer from God.

And once I've got the answer the formula, then I'm good and I can go

off and I can live my life because God's given me the instructions.

It's not that it comes from a posture of obedience before God.

God speaks to those who intend to do His will not merely just know it.

A character precedes clar clarity.

A surrendered unhurried and truthful life creates the conditions in

which discernment becomes reliable.

And this is really important because I think one of the downsides particularly,

I mean probably in your more charismatic Pentecostal expressions of church, is

you do hear people say an awful lot.

Oh, God said, I have discern, and God said, and I, well.

The character of your life, I'm struggling to trust.

That you're actually hearing right?

There should be a kind

of matchup.

And so, this idea of character,

you can't just go and be living life however you want and then

run around claiming, oh, I've heard the voice of the Lord.

A surrendered unhurried, truthful life creates the conditions in

which discernment becomes reliable.

God guides whole persons, not just isolated decisions.

Discernment is about living wisely and faithfully, not just extracting divine

instructions like I talked about before.

And discernment is communal and scriptural.

Luke talked about this last week as well, tested within the life of the church and

grounded in the reveal character of God.

One of the most dangerous parts of this idea of discernment is when

people just run off on their own and go, I've discern this from the Lord

and not checked it with anybody.

And not submitted it to anybody.

Not prayed with it with anybody.

It's amazing the stuff people can come up with

that God says, and, this is why we need

community and we need to test these things in community.

And so, um.

If we just go, can we just go to the next slide there, Sarah?

So what I've just got, these are just some simple

strategies.

and I've put, actually these notes

here from here on, they're actually on the app, the Red Door app.

So if you

wanted to grab these, get the app and you

will find document there with just on

how to prep.

Just, discernment and I've

just drawn on a few different people who I have found helpful in this space.

So strong Coleman here strong is great

New Zealand guy.

And, his writings on practicing, prayer and discernment

are just so beautiful, so good.

So he uses a technique called breath prayer where you just, you find

a word, right?

And, some suggestions there.

Abba or Jesus.

And, so you inhale one word

or you breathe out another word or phrase and you just, you don't do

that for like the whole 20 minutes, but it just helps settle you into

that space of God's pre, it helps quiet the noise, quiet the mechanism.

If anybody's familiar with that movie.

Anybody know what movie I'm talking about?

No.

What's the movie, babe?

Quiet.

Oh, my husband's not listening to me.

He's not hanging off my every word

quiet.

No.

Quiet.

Quiet.

The mechanism.

It's a baseball movie.

Kevin Costner.

Yeah.

Kevin Costner.

Anyone For the love of the game?

Yeah, for the Love The game.

For the of the game.

Anyway, sorry.

That was a massive squirrel.

I am so sorry.

Come back.

Come back to me, church.

All

right, next slide.

centering prayer tradition

just uses a single word to bring your attention back

when your attention starts to

wander.

Next slide.

welcoming prayer.

So,

Ruth Haley Barton.

She's another one who has a lot of wisdom in this space.

Another writer I've found really helpful, gleaning from her wisdom.

So she's talks about when you notice strong emotions or resistance

arise oh, and you will, um.

Just notice what is present, name it

and offer it to God.

you know, when, when

I first started really practicing silence and solitude, I was

shocked at what rose up.

And to find myself just randomly in places of tears.

Like sometimes if you've never practiced this and you start

practicing silence and solit.

Your soul will almost begin to weep because it is just so weary and exhausted.

And so if you find yourself crying, don't be surprised.

It's not that it's you're going wrong, you're doing anything wrong, it's just

that your soul has finally found a place to just rest in stillness with God.

And it's just so

relieved about that.

it's interesting the

different kind of feelings that as we just sit in the presence of God still in still

places of stillness, what can bubble up.

All right, next slide.

Loving gaze.

So Henry now talks about just using your imagination.

See yourself sitting before God.

A God who is looking at you with delight, like a loving parent

would look at their child.

No words, no agenda, just sitting in a place of just

being seen and just being loved.

Oh, it is a very, very good thing.

It's a blessing for your own soul to do these kind of things.

Next, noticing without engaging, so thoughts will arise.

Don't fight them.

Instead, notice them.

Let 'em pass gently.

Return attention to God.

Next one.

Actually, just keep going 'cause I just

wanna bring it home.

I just wear parents

with kids.

Keep

going.

You guys can, access this document

if you want.

Next.

Beautiful.

All right, so

practicing the way.

which is an organization, that, puts out a lot of resources

around this idea of spiritual formation and different practices.

So they have a really great teaching on the practice of solitude.

So if this is something that is really you, like, you know, this

is something I really need to

get serious about, you can access that

material there and it is really good, solid stuff.

Highly recommend it.

And

this next one here, rule of Life.

also

from practicing the way.

Yes, because what you will find, so rule of life is essentially how

do I order my entire life around my true north, which is Jesus,

but my whole life, not just my church

life,

but all of it, and, a rule of life is just

a simple way that we can think about our whole world and bringing

it into alignment with God.

Because if we do not.

Get really intentional about how we live our lives.

We won't find the space for silence and solitude.

Yeah, we're always going.

We're always doing.

We're always, because the pressures of this life are, that's the way

they are leading us and calling us.

And so this is a simple workbook you can go through as you think about the year

ahead, about how you're gonna organize and structure, prioritize your life,

which I can highly recommend as well.

Alright, my friends, well.

I'm gonna pray for you now and then I will release you and, but as we go,

just have a think about, you know, I talked about different questions.

Were there, was there any of those questions that I mentioned this

morning that really resonated in you, that you felt like, oh yeah, that's

something I need to pay attention to?

You know, are you at peace with yourself?

Do you know who God says that you are?

What is your true north?

Like you might, oh, hello.

Yeah, go.

Sorry.

We're a team.

If you listen, you know, when you are listening to those sort of prayers, you

know, silence, prayers, breath prayers, if

there's a level of resistance in your inner soul towards

doing that, what that means is.

Is that you are not posturing yourself to receive God's love for you.

You're actually in a posture of trying to achieve that

yourself.

So be very, wary and observant

about your own soul because we are hardwired to earn this ourselves.

Are you hearing me?

Like the natural default to every person sitting here is

not to receive, but to earn.

That's the thing that we are battling against.

And, but it's in the places of silence and solitude, that that

can be exposed and then realigned to receiving the grace of God.

D's gonna pray.

You wanna pray?

No.

You want Oh, okay.

I'm gonna pray all.

Let's close your eyes for

a moment.

Lord, we, we bring all this before

you, and I pray that this morning for everyone, particularly those who really,

really need it, that this morning would've been a moment of recalibration

and perhaps where we, have listened to voices

that are not your voice and they've been taking us off course.

That this morning would be a time to come back into alignment with you, with your

heart, with your will, and with your way.

Lord, help each one of us here as we go out this day,

this week, and into this year,

to have our eyes fixed on our true north, which is you.

Your word says you will keep imperfect peace.

The one who keeps their eyes fixed upon you.

The psalmist writes that I will always keep my eyes on the Lord

for with him at my right hand.

I will not be shaken.

So Lord, help us to be those who truly have you as our true north.

And Lord, for the souls that are here today that are

wondering, that are doubting.

And that are anxious about whether you are okay with them.

I pray for your Holy Spirit to come, and I pray for them to cry out for that blessing

that Janet asked for and that you would meet them there in that place of longing

of needing to know that place of anxiety.

That if they have surrendered their lives to Jesus, then they have nothing to fear.

Then they are good with you and they can be at peace, and then go out with that

peace having feet that are fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

Lord, as we come back to this place, this place, as the beloved may we find

ourselves truly ready to enter into this new year and to live it out in a

way that honors you that is fruitful.

And that is worthy of you, Lord, in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.