Patterns: Being Honest in Your Evaluation of Yourself

Good morning.

Let's begin worship with a word of prayer.

God, thank you for this morning and thank you for everybody that's here this morning.

Thank you for keeping us safe on the roads and please continue to keep us safe and just bless those that are maybe shut in or not able to get out and just socialize and be with your people.

And we thank you for your son and what he did for us, and we remember that this morning.

Lord, we want to just thank you for that and praise you for that, for giving your only son for us, and we just invite the Holy Spirit in here this morning to be with us in this service and enhance our worship and just help us worship you, and it's in your son's name we ask these things, lord, amen.

Amen ask these things, Lord, Amen.

Praise the Lord, ye heavens, adore him.

Praise him angels in the high Son of God, rejoice before him.

Praise him all ye stars of light, Hallelujah amen.

Amen Amen.

Praise the Lord, for he has spoken Words.

His mighty voice obeyed Laws which never shall be broken.

For their guidance.

He hath made Hallelujah Amen, hallelujah amen.

Hallelujah amen Amen.

Praise the God of our salvation, o Son, high His power, proclaim Heaven and earth and all creation, lord, and magnify His name.

Hallelujah Amen.

Hallelujah Amen.

Amen.

Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen From the toils that bind me it will bring release.

Burdens will be lifted that are pressing.

So showers of great blessing o'er my heart will flow.

Sing to me of heaven.

Let me fondly dream Of its golden glory, of its pearly gleam.

Sing to me when shadows of the evening fall.

Sing to me of heaven, sweetest song of all.

Sing to me of heaven, tenderly and low, till the shadows for me rise and swiftly go.

When my heart is weary, when the day is long.

Sing to me of heaven, sing that old sweet song.

Sing to me of heaven.

Let me fondly dream of its golden glory, of its pearly gleam In glory of its pearly gleam.

Sing to me, in shadows of the evening fall.

Sing to me of heaven's sweetest song of all.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb?

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, enduring forever.

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

For to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb?

Good morning.

Today's scripture reading comes from Roman 12.

Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning Don't think you are better than you really are.

Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given.

Let's begin with a word of prayer.

Father, we thank you so much for the way that you work in our lives.

God, we're thankful for Jesus and his example.

God, we're thankful for the Spirit and the way that it works for us as well.

God, we thank you for your love.

God, we pray that you open up our hearts and our eyes and our ears to the things that you want us to know as we continue to dive in to some of Paul's writing this morning.

Thank you for Jesus, thank you for his example.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

All right, good morning, all right.

This week we are continuing into our series on patterns.

If you were here last week, we started into Romans, chapter 12, looking at the first couple verses where Paul kind of urges us to live our lives as a living sacrifice or a living offering to God, and we talked about the idea that sometimes we fall into patterns and many of us have our own patterns.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

You have a daily thing that you do or you have a routine that you follow weekly.

Whatever that is for you.

You may wake up and make coffee, you may wake up and make a smoothie, but you have things that you consistently do and you fall into patterns.

Now, some patterns can be healthy and they can be good patterns.

Sometimes we can fall into a pattern that may be unhealthy and be stuck in it and kind of feel like we don't know how to get out of it.

Well, this morning, as we continue to dive into our series, we get to verse 3.

It tells us to be honest in our evaluation of ourselves, and so we're going to talk about that word of evaluations, and many of us have had an evaluation before.

Maybe you've had a medical evaluation, maybe you've had a job review evaluation.

I worked at Subway and every you know, at the beginning of the year I think, we had an evaluation of how you were laying the pepperoni and the salami and you know, did you put the lettuce in the right place and did you cut the bread at the right place?

And how did you cut the bread?

At the right angle?

Because there is, in fact, the right way to cut the bread, because if you don't cut it the right way, then the bread rips, and it was just a whole thing.

You had an evaluation I've told you about at OVU, when I was trying to graduate.

I had an evaluation with all of the Bible professors where they just kind of hammer you with Bible questions, and I failed that miserably.

I've told you that before.

I was sweating so bad, they finally just looked at me and said why don't you go get a drink of water?

And so evaluations can be fun and evaluations can be hard.

Some evaluations can be good and some can be bad.

Today I found five comments from evaluations from Indeed.

These are the top five worst evaluations, and so we'll read through these.

The first one says since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.

Works well under constant supervision.

Next one says he sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

Brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room.

That's me.

He says I've got a couple more here.

I think I skipped.

No, that's it.

It probably would take him two hours to watch 60 minutes.

That one's a little harsh.

We talk about evaluations.

Many of you have maybe seen this video.

It's quite many years old, but this little girl overhears mom and dad in an argument and she sits mom down and kind of gives her an evaluation.

And I want to play this for you this morning before we get started.

No one else than me.

Hold on, let me turn that up.

No one else than me.

Mom, are you ready to be his friend?

Yes.

Try not to be that high up to be friends.

I want everything to be low, okay.

Okay, just try your best.

I don't want you and my dad to be replaced and meanies again.

I want you and my dad to be placed and settled and be friends.

I'm not trying to be mean, I just want everyone to be friends.

And if I can be nice, I think all of us can be nice too.

I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm trying to do my best in my heart, nothing else than that.

I want you, mom, my dad, everyone to be friends.

I want everyone to be smiling, not like being mad friends.

I want everyone to be smiling, not like being mad.

I want everything to smile, especially when I see someone, I want them to smile, especially Nana, everyone.

I want everyone to smile.

And if that's for my dad and you, mom, I think you can do it.

I think you can settle your mean heights down a little to short heights.

Then it's both Okay.

I'm not trying to be mean.

I'm not trying to be a bully.

I'm trying to be steady on the floor, not way down On straight On the middle, where my heart is.

My heart is something, everyone else's heart is something too.

And if we live in a world where everyone's being mean, everyone's going to be a monster in their future.

What if there's just a little bit of persons and we will eat them?

Then no one will ever be here, only the monsters in our place.

We need everyone to be a person, everyone, including me and my mom, everyone.

I just want everything to be settled down, nothing else.

I just want everything to be good as possible, nothing else.

Thank you, tana, else Thank you, tana, come and give mommy a jib-jib.

I love you.

I love you too, no one else than me.

Mom, I'm not trying to be mean, not being a bully, just want everything to be settled, just be settled.

I watched that video last night and Morgan at the end of it goes that little girl has been parented so well.

What you can see is the reflection of what her parents have been trying to teach her.

You don't get all worked up in your emotions, you settle down.

She gave a pretty good evaluation to her mother.

Mom, you are up here and we need to be not too low.

We need to be right where our heart is.

It was a great, great video.

Romans 12, verse 3, leads us into where we're going to be today.

Romans 12:3

It says because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning Don't think of yourself as better than you really are.

Be honest in your own evaluation of yourself, measuring yourself by the faith God has given us.

And so we're going to focus on that idea right there in the middle.

That says be honest in your evaluation of yourself.

As we talk about patterns, I've said this before already, but many of us have patterns that we follow, and there are some good patterns that we follow.

There are healthy patterns that we follow, yet there is also unhealthy things that we fall into, and we're going to talk about some of those today and how to identify those unhealthy patterns and how do we break free from that unhealthy pattern and then how do we start maybe a new, healthy pattern?

Woody taught me one thing.

No, he taught me many things.

One of the things that Woody taught me is always have a counselor around so you can say across the hall and he always had Buddy.

And I have Jeff, jefferson Collier.

Many of you know him.

If you don't know him, jeff is our counselor here on staff.

He does many things, but I have asked Jeff to join me this morning and we're going to pick his brain a little bit.

He's going to share with you, using his wisdom, how to identify some of these patterns, whether they're unhealthy or healthy, and we're going to talk just a little bit this morning.

So this is Jeff.

Everybody say hi, jeff, hi.

So you ready, sir?

Uh?

So the word evaluate just means to determine the significance, right, yeah, and the worth and the condition of something, and so I'm going to ask you.

I guess the first question that we want to kind of talk about this morning is how do I, uh, how do I personally identify an unhealthy pattern in my life?

Well, I think because you sent me these questions ahead of time.

Yeah, I gave you a heads up and I thought a lot about this question of identifying an unhealthy pattern, and part of the challenge with that is do I know what's unhealthy?

Because what feels unhealthy to me might not always be that.

In a greater context, I had a good friend in high school.

When we were going into high school we were in most of the same classes, like honors classes, and he was a really smart guy and we both kind of like entering into high school, we both went through a phase where we sort of experimented with things that you ought not to put in your body, since we have little ears in here, you know, and I remember when we were going into this phase, he was one of those people that was always very confident.

He was very confident.

He was very self-assured.

He gave a report in biology one time about ecstasy and I was like, could you make that sound a little bit less like you have firsthand experience?

So he was he the whole time through this experience.

He was always like you know, it affects other people.

It's not going to do that to us.

You know, we're going to know better.

I, on the other hand, have always been a very self-conscious person.

I've always been.

I've said before my spiritual gift is knowing when to throw in the towel, like I'm just not, I know when I'm not cut out for something.

And so the whole time in the back of my mind I'm thinking like I'm not going to get away from this.

I'm thinking like I'm not going to get away from this, I'm not going to be able to get myself out of this.

Like I've seen people go into this, uh, and I've seen how it wrecks their lives and I don't feel like I'm a person who just gets off scot-free.

I don't feel like I get away from that.

And so after a couple of years we sort of went our separate ways.

I kind of came out of that and he very much stayed in it.

He got accepted to Ohio State University on a scholarship.

He didn't finish his freshman year and I found out last fall that he actually passed away from an overdose.

Oh wow, he spent his entire adult life battling that.

We reconnected a few times here and there and uh, you know, during periods of sobriety and uh, he just, he just was never able to pull himself out of it and I found that out last fall and I thought to myself man, how blessed was I to be so self-conscious.

I've spent years beating myself up for not being confident enough or not being, you know, consistent enough or not being whatever it might be, because you're supposed to be self-assured and you're supposed to always know what you're doing, and I've not really ever felt that way.

And I beat myself up for that a lot.

And then it dawned on me how many things have I been spared from by what I would have identified as a negative pattern?

Things have I been spared from by what I would have identified as a negative pattern?

And that's when Romans is talking about measuring yourself by the faith God has given you.

If we're going to identify a negative pattern, it can't just be by our own standard.

It can't be by what doesn't feel good in this moment or what I don't like about myself or anything like that.

When we identify a negative pattern, it's got to be by a standard that's bigger than us.

And so a couple of things I would say about a pattern.

If you want to know positive, negative or somewhere in between, I would say is it helpful, is it truthful and does it achieve the highest good truthful and does it achieve the highest good?

If it's not helpful, if it's not truthful, if it's not achieving the highest good, then it probably will become a negative pattern, if it isn't already.

Can you, can you?

Is there certain feelings that I might feel or experience that would lead me to believe that what I'm doing is an unhealthy thing?

If I'm constantly anxious, does that necessarily mean what I'm doing is a negative pattern, or could I also still be following a healthy pattern as well?

I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, does a negative emotion mean I'm always in a negative pattern?

I would say no.

I would say many, many times we um stop too soon because of a negative emotion.

If you're coming out of a bad pattern, if you're coming out of a bad lifestyle, that's going to feel bad, it's going, it's going to feel awkward, it's going to feel clunky, it's going to feel forced.

Um, and that feedback to feel clunky, it's going to feel forced.

And that feedback doesn't mean what you're doing is wrong.

It means you're adjusting, it means you're getting used to something new.

So I would say negative emotion doesn't necessarily mean it's a negative pattern.

It means it's something different than what you're used to, and that might be the best thing for you is to do something different than what you're used to and that might be the best thing for you is to do something different than what you're used to.

Absolutely, I think, we run away from those negative emotions I think it's what you called them sometimes.

And so if I find myself sitting here and you're talking about the idea of an unhealthy pattern, if I'm sitting here realizing I'm in one of those unhealthy patterns, the stage that I'm in right now I'm consistently living my life in a negative way what would be some tips or tools that you would give me to try to get out of it?

I think when we're talking about trying to get out of a negative pattern or negative lifestyle, the first thing we have to realize is that it's bigger than us, and you hear this a lot when people have struggled with addiction is, you know, they might go through a period of sobriety and then something random out of the blue will pop up that triggers them or like people, like they'll run randomly, run into an old dealer or something like that, and people don't always realize.

Like when I've been stuck in that lifestyle, I've structured everything in my life around that and just because I make a decision to change doesn't mean everything else around me has changed yet.

So realizing it's bigger than you in terms of the system that you're in has already adjusted to that pattern, and so if that's going to change, that takes time and that takes change outside of ourself as well.

So being patient with that, knowing that it's not like a one and done kind of thing, that, like my whole life, has to be changed as well.

And that's why, as Christians, we have an advantage, because we don't feel that entire burden on us.

We're not responsible for changing everything all at once.

We know the one who changes things and he works long before we've even decided to change, to arrange some of those things for us.

Can I give you a personal example and you help me work through this?

Sure, okay, I'm a type of person that sometimes will fill my life with busyness just because I feel like I have to be busy.

Okay, I'm a type of person that sometimes will fill my life with busyness just because I feel like I have to be busy, and then oftentimes, sometimes, one of the things I do is think I think everything has to depend on me, especially with the line of work and things like oh, the tables at the youth center have to be set up Guess who needs to set those up?

I feel like it has to be me.

Or the youth center floor is dirty.

Guess who needs to sweep it?

How would you because that's probably unhealthy to feel like most things depend on you, right, would you?

Sure, I need to make an appointment.

How would you encourage me to overcome some of those?

I fall into that pattern of I just got to consistently keep going and keep going, keep going, because if I don't do it then it's going to fall apart, kind of thing.

How would you?

help me out, and what we think we need to do is like go do something different right away.

And that is, if you're going to do that, you need to view that as an experiment in your mind just to see what's different.

What's actually better is, when you're talking about changing something, is to kind of bring it into conscious awareness first.

So there's a whole model on, like stages of change and all that, and the first step is just start thinking about it.

Start thinking about, like, if I didn't go set the tables up, who might do that?

Or if it wasn't on me to do that, like how else might that get accomplished?

What other alternatives are available to me?

What would it feel like?

What would it look like if I started to do some of those things?

Because we get tired of something and we get frustrated with something and we usually try to take action right away instead of thinking through like, well, if I weren't living with this burden or if I weren't stuck in this pattern, what would life be like?

What would be different If I were going to do something different?

What might I do and why?

So you think about it first and then you start preparing as if you're going to do something different because you have to retrain your brain too.

Your brain is just as used to that pattern as your whole life is, and so your brain's default mode is going to be what you're used to.

It does that all the time because it saves you time and energy, because you don't have to think about it.

It's just going to default to that it's true.

So you think through it and then you start to think as if you're doing something differently, and then you make a plan of how I want to try, knowing that most of the time, it takes seven, eight, nine attempts to actually figure out something that works in this place.

So be patient, patient and persevering too.

Yeah, because it's very, very easy when you want something different and you want it to be different Now, it's very easy to just go try something and then get extremely discouraged when it doesn't work.

And, if you're being honest with yourself, you're like well, of course that didn't work because I just did something else, impulsive in the moment.

I didn't actually think about what might work or what might be effective or what it would be like when I tried that.

But we just get frustrated and we get impatient, and then we do something impulsive.

And then we double down, triple down on beating ourself up for it.

Okay, I don't know.

Have you answered the last question?

I gave you how to identify a healthy pattern.

I don't think so Okay.

If I wanted to, because that's hopefully the whole idea of this is that we identify.

Yes, we have some negative patterns that we fall into, but as a Christian, as a person, just in general, we usually want to do things good.

We want to have a good pattern.

We feel better when we're in a rhythm, we feel better when we're in a good pattern.

How would you encourage somebody to begin a new pattern?

or a healthy pattern.

To begin a healthy pattern, to know that something that you're doing is healthy is uh well, first off, we have to start off with being open to the idea that I could be doing something healthy, because sometimes we get stuck in like, um, you know, I'm not someone who can do that, or I'm not someone who good things happen to, or you know.

So you have to first be open to it, that like you're participating in something good.

And the second thing is the Bible gives us a really good list the fruit of the spirit.

None of those fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness exist apart from God.

So if you're experiencing love in your life, it's because God has crafted it to be there.

If you're experiencing joy in an area in your life, if you're experiencing those fruit, it's because God has made it a point to be there.

He's brought that into existence.

We don't get to just create that on our own.

We get to participate in it.

We get to be people who produce that when we're connected to God's design and God's will.

But we are not sole creators of that, we're participants.

So if we want to know if something is healthy, is it bringing more joy?

Is it bringing more patience?

Is it making me kinder gentler over time?

Do you have a tool that you could give somebody right now to establish a healthy pattern?

This is right on the spot.

I didn't ask him.

Um, I think it's kind of kind of like what I talked about first is slowing down.

Slowing down and acknowledging that you might have automatic reactions to something or that you might automatically want to behave in a certain way, and just slowing that down enough to think about it.

That really is the first step.

Slowing it down enough to bring it into conscious awareness.

It doesn't matter if it's a driving.

How many times do we drive somewhere and not even think about how we got where we were going?

How many times do we drive somewhere and not even think about how we got where we were going?

It doesn't matter if it's like me and it's 10 o'clock at night and you're eating chips in the pantry because you just needed that late night snack.

That's something that you slow down and you bring it into conscious awareness to just actually have that.

What Romans talks about, that self-evaluation.

Bring it into evaluation and say is this something that is good for me?

We know that it's not.

Actually, we usually know that, but we don't want to feel whatever it is.

We're trying not to feel.

So that's kind of a way to ease into it.

Um, and then the second thing would be because those negative emotions are going to come.

It's a similar process of like it's not going to last forever.

In therapy, it's a skill called distress tolerance to just be able to sit in distress or be able to tolerate discomfort enough to get to the other side of that, to where change can happen, because every change has a certain amount of discomfort associated with it.

So if you can just sit in the discomfort and say this is just for now, this is not going to be forever, it's not going to feel like this forever.

Even if it's terrible right now, even if I'm telling myself a story right now that makes it worse, this isn't going to be forever.

And we again, as Christians, have a huge advantage with that because we have been given the ultimate distress tolerance, to know that we know what our forever does look like.

We know that it comes back to something good ultimately, and it doesn't depend on us to do it, so there's no way we can screw it up.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Well, thank you, Jeff.

If I was somebody here this morning and I wanted to reach out to you and get a hold of you and maybe sit down and talk to you, how would I get a hold of you?

The best thing would be to call the office on a Monday.

Please don't come up to me right after this and try to make an appointment.

Everybody do that.

The best thing would be to call the office or to come up to me and let's exchange numbers and then we'll text about it later.

All right, thank you.

Thanks Very good.

Jeff is a valuable resource that we have here at the church.

I am lucky enough I say lucky enough, I'm lucky enough to share an office with Jeff, so I feel like I just get easy access every day with him.

I don't really get tired of him too much, but we work together, and so this is one of those moments where we were reading through Romans, we decided we were going to do Romans 12, and I got to this part and I thought, okay, this is kind of over my head.

Let's pick Jefferson's brain for a little while.

So thank you, jeff, for that.

And so I want to go just a little bit farther before we dismiss this morning.

If we get to verse 4, this is continuing After he says evaluate yourselves.

He says remember this just as our bodies have many parts, each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body.

We are many parts of the body and we all belong to each other.

In his grace, god has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

So if you've been given the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.

If your gift is serving others, serve them well.

If you are a teacher, then teach them well.

If your gift is to encourage others, then be encouraging.

If it's giving, then give generously.

If God has given you the ability of leadership, take responsibility seriously.

And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

And so he reminds us.

Paul reminds us.

Remember.

He's writing to a group of Christians that he's never been with and he's saying here's what I need you to do.

I want you to continue to choose God.

I want you to continue to focus on the things God has done in your life.

Continue to choose God.

I want you to continue to focus on the things God has done in your life.

Renew your mind consistently with the things that God has done in your life so that you can evaluate yourself and continue to serve me and what, hopefully, is going to happen.

We'll get to this in just a second.

As we evaluate what is going on in our life, hopefully we're able to see what God is doing, and then our attention goes back to God.

But so?

But?

What I liked about this part here is it tells us that each one of us have a role to play.

Maybe we don't play the same role, but we have a part in the story.

We have a part in the body, just like a body has many different parts, god has given each of us different roles that we're supposed to play, and the thing is is that our bodies work together.

Even though there's different parts in our body, they all work together.

Right, my brain tells my hand to make a fist.

Then what's my hand?

Do you ever just thought about that?

It's kind of crazy that you just have the ability to like I want to do a thumbs up and then I do a thumbs up.

Like everything works.

It's just wild.

Just things that make Josh go.

Okay.

So I wanted to do a thumbs up and then I do a thumbs up.

Like everything works.

It's just wild, just things that make Josh go, whew, okay.

So I wanted to share with you this tool and I believe, because we are called to be a part of the body, we as a body, we're called to do life together, and we've tried to encourage you to do that as much as possible over the last few years to be a community and do life together.

One of the things that we can do together is help evaluate how God is working in our lives, and so I'm going to give you a list of questions here.

This list was actually developed by, I think, jeff, or did you steal this from somewhere?

No, it's 100% original with Jefferson.

Jefferson came to me two years ago and said hey, we're going to go to lunch and we're going to ask each other these questions, and I had no idea what we were doing.

But now it has become one of my favorite things that we do each year, and what is neat here is that you're asking the same question each year, so you know what's coming.

But what is neat is you build relationships with somebody.

As you're developing a friendship or studying with somebody, they start to see how God is also working in your life.

So you might say so, this first question how have you seen God working in your life?

I want you to think back over the last year.

How have you seen God working in your life?

And what's neat is, when I sit down with somebody that I've built a relationship with, I can start to.

They can start to point out things that they've seen in my life as well, and so hopefully I think this is on your outline for you to write down all of these things how have you seen God working in your life?

Think about that question how have you seen God working in your life?

And we're still early enough in the new year that we can look back, and then we can shut the chapter here in a minute, but we can look back.

What did God do in 2024 in your life?

Because, again, when we take time to focus on that and then our attention becomes on what God has done in our we start looking at him a little bit more.

The second question is this how have you seen God working in your family's life, in your, your family life?

What has God been doing?

How has God worked in your son's life?

How has God worked in your grandchild's life?

How has God worked in your spouse's life?

How have you seen that?

And again, when you're doing this with somebody that you have a friendship with, it's encouraging to hear how they think God's been moving throughout your life.

Number three is this how have you seen God working in your extended family life?

And so we think about our family.

Oftentimes we think of our core, our household, but we have an extended family.

You have those that live outside of your house.

How's God been working in their life?

What has God been doing in their life?

What has God been doing in their life?

How has he been moving amongst them?

And then, how have you seen God working in your occupation, in your job, in what you do in your everyday life?

How has God been working in your everyday life?

You get up and you are a teacher yes, your job is to teach, but how has God been working in those moments of teaching?

Or maybe you're a waiter.

How has God been working in those moments of waiting as well?

And then, how have you seen God working in your church family?

I think that's a neat question.

Over the last year, this church has been through a lot and a lot of different transitions and changes and things like that, and so it's important for us to sit back and say God, how have you been working in this family as well?

And so this is just a tool.

Hopefully, your homework this week is to find somebody and do these questions with them.

Maybe it's somebody that you already have a Bible study formed with.

Maybe it's somebody that you just have a friendship with.

Maybe it's just somebody you know that likes coffee and they want to go get a cup of coffee.

Sit down and do these this week and just see what happens.

See if you can notice how God's working.

The last thing I want to leave you with as we wrap up this morning evaluation can keep our focus and our attention on what God is doing in our life.

I think Romans 12, there's a lot of great things in there and Paul is consistently reminding them.

God has done so much in your life and God is going to continue to do great things.

Keep focusing on Him.

Life is going to continue to do great things.

Keep focusing on Him.

Life is going to get busy.

The world is going to try to win you over.

The world is going to try to get your attention.

Keep your focus and your attention on the Father and what he's doing, and when you do that, it makes it easier to live for Him.

Does that make sense?

Alright, let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your love.

God, we thank you for the way that you work in our life.

God, we thank you for your consistent moments in our life, how you're consistently there, even when we don't feel like it, even when we don't think you're there.

God, that you're consistently aligning, putting people in our life to show your presence.

God, I pray that we can be people this week that take moments and take time to evaluate what you're doing in our life.

Maybe look at some of those patterns that we've developed and, through some of the things that Jeff said, that we can help identify whether they're a healthy or an unhealthy pattern and so that we can continue to live our life in a way that we glorify you.

Be with us in those moments that we need to be patient.

Be with us in those moments that we need to be patient.

Be with us in those moments of that uncomfortable time period.

Like Jeff said, let us know that you're in our presence.

God, we pray or I pray right now for those that are going to meet together this week and just talk about how you're working in their life.

Be with those conversations, be with those moments of fellowship.

God, allow your presence to be with them.

Thank you for Jesus.

We're thankful for his example of how to love and interact with people, so in his name, we pray.

I am resolved no longer to linger, charmed by the world's delight.

Things that are higher, things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sight.

I will hasten to him, hasten, so, glad and free.

Jesus.

Jesus greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.

I am resolved to follow the Savior, faithful and true, each day, day.

Heed what he saith, do what he willeth.

He is the living way.

I will hasten to him, hasten, so glad and free.

Jesus, jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee.

Bow with me, please.

Holy Father, we thank you for this time that we can spend together as we dismiss this service.

Lord, we thank you for the health of everyone that could be here today, the interest that they have in coming to worship together with our church family.

Father, give us a blessed week.

Help us to keep you in our hearts.

In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.

We'll sing this closing song and then we'll be dismissed.

The call sweetly rings over land and sea, dismissed to the call of love.

Zion's call is ringing, coming from the throne above.

While we hear it ringing, let us heed the call of love, a perfect love.

On the road to the goal, burdens we must bear, but we have help from realms above.

We receive courage new when we kneel in prayer.

Let us list to the call of love.

Zion's call is ringing, coming from the throne above.

While we hear it ringing, let us heed the call of love, a perfect love.

While we tarry below, there is work to do and our strength cometh from above.

As we labor and wait, we must all be true.

Let us list to the call of love.

Zion's call is ringing, coming from the throne above.

While we hear it ringing, let us heed the call of love, perfect love we are dismissed.

Have a good day.