Prayer, History, Eulogy | Coleton Segars

There is a verse in Deuteronomy that says this it says, Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanksgiving.

This time of year, uh, Rainey knows this.

This time of year, I get very reflective.

I get in my feels.

Like I'm just always like looking back.

I start reading old journals.

I have a journal that I keep throughout the year.

And so for 2024, um, I have like the way that my journal breaks down is I have my Bible thought from my reading my Bible that day.

Then I ask myself a question every day, uh, and it's a different question every month.

And so, what did you learn yesterday?

That's the question I'm currently dealing with.

So I do that every January.

What did you learn yesterday?

So some of the questions are reflective questions, some of the questions are vision questions, some of the questions are um, like, how do you feel right now if you could rate it on one to ten?

Just trying to, I nor I'm a man, and so normally my emotions are I'm either good or frustrated.

Those are my two emotions.

I have two emotions, and so I have to actually figure those things out.

So it helps me and kind of do that stuff.

And so at this time of the year to look back in January of 2024 and then kind of walk through like what was I praying for?

So it's a Bible thought, a question, and then a prayer practice that I practice.

So those three things, and that's how I spend my morning.

Um and so this time of year to go back and to look at some of those things, like what was I praying for that I'm no longer praying for because God answered that prayer?

Um, what did he teach me last year that I'm thank God I learned that I don't have to learn again this year?

Um, what what what happened in my life that shaped me, that I'm this worry that I did have that I no longer have because the Lord has saved me from my anxiety?

And so I do that.

And as I was doing that and thinking about this Sunday, um there was a number of things that I learned from my time with Jesus in in prayer or in Bible study, that just like five or six different um things that he spoke to me, that I was like, man, it'd be kind of cool to do this like a Spotify playlist, like the most played songs on your Spotify or the most played songs in your Amazon music or whatever.

And for me, it was like, here are the most substantial takeaways from my Bible reading in 2024.

Um and so I I had like six or seven of them.

I condensed them down to three.

You're welcome.

And so we're only gonna talk about three of those today.

But what I wanted to do today was actually look at like these are the three things that, as I was reading the scriptures over the past year, these are the three things that stood out to me that I felt like the Lord kept driving me back to consistently that had the most impact on my life over the span of a year, and it wasn't just like I read this passage in 1 Samuel and now I've forgotten it or anything like that.

But it really has been this space where he said something to me, spoke something to me, and it shaped the entirety of my year.

And I love this verse because the Lord talks about this a ton.

He's like, don't forget me.

Like, spend time reflecting, spend time thinking about what I've done in the past, spend time on the words that I've said to you, spend time on the prayers that you've prayed that I've answered, that you remember those things.

And so today is going to be kind of a reflection of looking back on these things that the Lord taught me, and then the hope is that these will be things that will benefit you as well.

Okay, so it's they're not connected in any way other than go to the next slide, that they are the top three Bible takeaways from 2024.

Oh, yeah, Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, so let's not do that.

Um, always good to have a quote from Socrates.

Um, all right, so these are the top three Bible takeaways from 2024 for me, and my hope is again that it would benefit you in some way to see some of these things.

So the first is to commit to prayer.

Maybe not a shock, maybe it's not shocking that every sermon of mine I talk about prayer in some particular fashion, but this stood out to me uh as I was reading the scriptures, commit to prayer.

James 5.17 says this.

He says, Elijah was a human being like us, but he prayed earnestly.

Elijah was a human being like us, but he prayed earnestly, and this is where I was like, man, I need to commit to prayer.

This verse is fascinating because if you know the story or the history of Elijah back in the Old Testament, Elijah was one of the most powerful prophets that existed in the Old Testament.

So much power, so many miracles done.

He's referenced a ton in the New Testament.

Uh and so just a couple of uh like just some history of Elijah here, just some of his miracles.

Uh he caused the rain to cease for three and a half years, so your prayers do affect the weather.

So if you're getting married sometime soon, pray.

Um that was medium funny.

Okay.

The uh miracle of the barrel and the meal and the oil, uh, he resurrected a widow's son, no big deal.

He called down fire from heaven on the altar, then he caused it to rain, then he called down fire from heaven again, and then he did it again.

He parted the Jordan, and also he didn't die, but he was caught up in a whirlwind and taken to heaven in the chariot of fire.

And so to me the verse is fascinating because James says, Elijah, he's just like us.

And I'm like, I don't think he is.

Like, I don't think he is just like us.

But what he's saying is like the the thing that you see in Elijah's life, he was just like us.

The only difference, the thing that made the his life more spectacular, the thing that changed everything.

He prayed.

He is just a human being like me and you.

He just happened to pray.

And so it's this idea that's given from James to the people he's writing to is like, hey, if you want to understand what what prayer does, you need to look at Elijah's life and go, he was just like you and me.

His life was fascinating because he chose to pray earnestly.

Not because his life was just endowed with different kind of power or because he was a prophet, although those things are true.

But his life was substantially different simply because the man spent time praying earnestly.

And so for us, the the idea is to commit to prayer.

There's this space that exists for us where we get to experience something better and more spectacular with the Lord by spending time earnestly in his presence praying.

He was just like us, but he prayed.

For this church, I do not have any numerical goals for our church.

We are not trying to get to a certain number.

I don't care if we stay the same size, we shrink a little bit, we get a lot, I don't track numbers, maybe you track numbers, I don't track numbers, I don't care anything about that.

I have no goals on that.

We're not trying to grow by 15% in the new year.

Do not have anything like that because I do not care.

What I do care, the goal that I have is that we grow to understand this year and the years beyond, that we grow to understand the gift that prayer is, that we get to experience time in his presence that Jesus bought for us on the cross, the gift that prayer is, the power that God is giving us in prayer.

If we understand that, if we understand that and believe that, that's the goal that I have, that you would just love spending time in his presence, that you would understand that like the most powerful thing I can give my time to is actually talking to him and contending with him and interceding before him.

That's the goal that I have for us.

Being a large church, and we know this because some of y'all went to large churches, being a large church does not make you love Jesus more, it doesn't make you experience more of his presence, it doesn't make you experience more of his power.

It doesn't do that.

The megachurch season has happened, and now the stats are in that if something doesn't change in the church, is what Barnes said, if something doesn't change in the life of the church, that all we will, all pastors will do will manage the steady decline of Christianity until Jesus comes back.

Like that's the stats that exist.

So mega churches began sometime you know in the 1900s, and then they really kind of kind of built up and became a thing.

It's like you gotta have this in order to do that.

And now what we have is the here's what pastors get to do.

Welcome to seminary, you get to learn how to be a pastor.

Okay, I'm gonna teach you how to manage the steady decline of every congregation you ever lead.

Like those are terrible, terrible stats.

So having a large church does nothing.

But a church and a space where Jesus' presence is manifesting, like you people are hungry to actually experience the living God among them, that changes things and that does something different.

When people actually begin to believe, when He when we pray, He hears us and He responds, that you can actually still hear His voice speaking to you.

When you believe that and know that, it shapes you, it forms you, it marks you.

When we can move and understand that prayer is not some rote exercise that you do, but it really does nothing, when you move beyond, I'm just supposed to do this because I'm a Christian, to I get to do this thing that shifts and shapes the world and what God chooses to do in the world, all of a sudden it turns from this thing that's like, I don't know, I guess I'm supposed to, so I will, and then we feel guilty about it, to I can't wait.

I should take everything to God in prayer.

He can do anything.

To me, when people have an encounter with him, when they hear him, when they experience his presence, their lives are changed, their lives are marked forever.

It's his presence that makes a church healthy.

It was always supposed to be that way, from Genesis to Revelation, God dwelling with his people.

And what happened is somewhere along the way, we were like King Saul, where it was like, we just need, you know, human methods, just big things.

That's what we need.

That's what will make us successful.

And it doesn't do that, it doesn't do any of that.

This is why David, uh in the Old Testament, I'm reading in Samuel right now, when he becomes king, as soon as he gets power, as soon as he gets power, he um first thing he does is he goes and says, We need to get God's presence and we need to bring it back into our midst.

We have to do it.

This is what he says in 1 Chronicles 13.

It says, Let us bring the ark of our God back to us.

For we did not seek him during the reign of Saul.

We didn't even seek God's presence during the reign of the king of Israel.

Like we didn't do anything.

And David's like, and look at his kingdom.

We've been just overwhelmed by the Philistines, just absolutely destroyed by our enemies.

Because they thought we just need bigger armies, taller people, more you know, heavy artillery or whatever.

Like they thought all the, and David's like, no, no, no, I understand what victory, where victory l lies and where joy and fullness live, it's in his presence.

We have to go and get the presence because we did not seek it during the days of Saul.

And so for me, David understands this idea that's like, man, we don't need a big church, we don't need lights, or well, we don't have that anyways, we meet in an elementary school, which is perfect.

Uh but like we have this space, like where you're sitting there going, like, what is it going to be that's gonna turn the tide?

It's not gonna be bigger buildings or whatever, it's gonna be his presence, meeting with people directly, and for people to understand this is who he is, he's still this way, he still speaks, he is the living God, not an ideal that we worship on Sunday, but an actual living, breathing, human person that now sits at the right hand of God and rules and reigns in authority there.

And if we understand that and believe that, not just by saying we believe it, but in our hearts and actually do that, I think it would do something.

And Elijah understood that.

He was a human being just like us.

His life was spectacular because he prayed.

He understood spend time in his presence.

And to me, the same can be true for us.

Everything that we long for is found in his presence.

And prayer is just time in his presence.

Prayer is asking for more of his presence.

Your kingdom come, bring more of your kingdom presence here, bring more of your present will among us.

Do those things.

We want you and nothing else.

And we just sat back there in the prayer room before we prayed, and all four of us were just we just happened to catch on this theme of we as we were praying to God.

And it was like, we want you here.

Like we want you in this space.

And it was just four of us just crying out like we want you.

Like, there's just nothing else that matters other than him.

Like, I'm so thrilled that we're together and I want us to love one another.

But when he's here, we'll love one another better.

When he's here, we'll love each other even better than that.

When he's here, when people encounter him, their sins are not only are they not condemned at all, they're people are led to conviction over their sin.

They're led to wanting to confess their sin.

They're led to actually experiencing the healing and the wholeness that they want.

When people encounter the living God, they experience all the things that they've actually been longing for.

And prayer is just this pocket of space where you're able to enter into this space where you're able to be in his presence in a more direct, intentional way.

So, James says, Elijah, he's just like you.

His life was spectacular because he prayed.

Commit to prayer in 2025.

Spend time in his presence.

The goal that I have for this church is that we would all love, I love spending time in his presence.

I want to do nothing else but spend time in his presence.

That's number one.

All right, number two.

Remind yourself of your history with God.

Remind yourself of your history with God.

I did this a ton this year because I was really stressed out.

Spend the most stressed out year of my life doing a new thing.

I've been a pastor since I was 19 or whatever.

Um, but doing this was a brand new thing.

I've never led a church.

Um so I've been more stressed out, more questioned, questioning myself, more insecure.

I'm not an insecure person.

Rainey knows that.

And this year she was like, Who are you?

Like, why are you so?

And I was like, I don't know, I just don't know what I'm doing.

And uh, and I had to do this thing where like it was like the Lord spoke this thing.

It's like, remind yourself of your history with me.

Remind yourself of what how who I've been to you in the past, remind yourself.

This is what the psalmist said from the verse I was reading.

Psalm 116, he says, and notice just how he reflects on his history.

I love the Lord for past tense, he heard my voice, he heard my cry for mercy, he turned his ear to me, and I will call on him, because he did that, I will call on him as long as I live.

The cords of death entangled me, past tense.

The anguish of the grave came over me, I was overcome by distress and sorrow.

Then I called on the name of the Lord, Lord, save me.

And the Lord is gracious and compass gracious and righteous.

Our God is full of compassion.

The Lord protects the unweary.

When I was brought low, he saved me.

And then he says this to himself now.

He's looking at the past, and then he says this now.

Return to your rest, my soul.

For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

And I love that idea where like the psalmist is dealing with some form of unrest presently.

Something in his life right now is out of whack, it's out of order, it's it's chaos.

And he just, what he does is he's like, What I will do is I will remind myself of my history with God and allow it to inform my present circumstances and the future that I have.

Because who he has been is who he will be.

And right now I'm freaking out, and I need to look back at what he's done for me in some particular situation or maybe over a period of time in situations.

I need to allow who he's been to inform who I currently am and what I'm currently experiencing.

And then when he does that, he says, Hey, you can rest.

He's dealt bountifully with you before, he'll deal bountifully with you again.

If that's who he was, that's who he will be.

And he uses his history to inform how he should think and feel.

And you actually see this all throughout the scriptures.

If you remember Caleb in the book of Joshua, uh Joshua comes to him, they're taking over the land of Canaan, and Joshua rolls up to Caleb and he's like, What do you want?

How much, what land do you want?

And Caleb's like, I want the land I was promised 40 years ago.

He's like, God promised me land 40 years ago, and then all those fools said that God wouldn't do it.

He goes, but I believe that he would do it, and God said that I would live for 40 years, even though everybody else will die.

He goes, So here I am.

I'm 80 years old now, I should be dead like everybody else, but I'm not, because God was faithful to his promise in the past, and therefore he will be faithful to his promise to give me that land even still.

The promise was given when I was 40 and able-bodied.

Now I'm 80 and not as able-bodied, although he says that he's just, he's still in his prime.

And he's like, which I love that.

Like if you're 80, you're like, still crushing it in my prime.

Love that.

But he's like, I'm still, I'm still just as, I'm ready to go just as much as I was back then.

And he moves into the land going, he was faithful in the past, he'll be faithful again.

And Caleb takes the land.

And there's this beautiful space right after this where Caleb's kids come to him and ask for land.

And nobody's kids are going to anybody else asking for land.

You know why?

Because all their parents are dead.

Because they all died, because they were, they didn't believe that God was faithful.

And so no one has children to, no one has parents to go and ask, hey, I don't want to fight.

Could you fight for me?

And I just I just get some of the inheritance?

And all of a sudden you see Caleb's daughters, and they're like, hey, we can actually go to dad, because dad was faithful to God, and now he has something to give us.

And this is a really beautiful story.

But Caleb believed, I know who he has been.

He will be that way again.

David does this when he's a ton in this in the Psalms, but he does it the most popularly against Goliath.

Saul's like, King Saul's like, you can't fight Goliath, like you're a child, and this guy's been killing people since he was your age.

Like, you cannot do this thing.

And David's like, he saved me.

God has saved me from a lion and he saved me from a bear before when I was tending the sheep.

The same God who saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will save me from the Philistine.

Do not worry, I'll go take care of it.

And then he goes and does that thing.

But he uses his history with God to inform his present circumstances with us.

God tells us to do this in his word, just doing a biblical theology of this right now.

But he tells us to do this.

God constantly says this, he says it, go to the next slide here.

Uh yeah, in Exodus 3, Moses is going to the Israelites, and it's like, what should I say?

And the Lord's like, the one who sent me to you is the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

And he and God is saying, Hey, tell them that I'm not just some new God like the Egyptian gods.

Tell them that I'm the one from the past.

I'm the one that was actually the God of their fathers.

Make sure that they know that they have a history with me.

They're counting on that history.

Make sure they know that I'm the historical God of their fathers.

And then he says this, like he's about to give them the law in Exodus 20, and he's like, hey, I'm about to give you some laws to follow, but I'm not just telling you to go do these things and earn so that you earn my love.

I want to tell you first, I'm the great God who redeemed you.

I'm the one who brought you out of Egypt.

I'm the one who ransomed you out of slavery.

Now, follow me based on that.

Don't follow me to earn my blessing.

I've blessed you, so follow me from blessing, understanding that this is who I am.

Remember who I've been and allow that to inform your present.

And then Isaiah 44, remember these things, Israel, for you are my servant.

I have formed you.

And God is just doing this, He's just saying this, look at my past.

You are my servant, Israel.

You will not be forgotten by me.

I have wiped out your wrongdoings like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist.

Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

He's looking at the past.

And God is constantly saying, Remember who I've been, remember who I've been, remember who I've been.

He's constantly trying to remind us, remember who I've been, remember what I've done for you so that it informs your present.

And when people don't do this, and you see this all throughout the Old Testament, when they don't do this, it says, and then the people of Israel forgot Yahweh.

The people of Israel forgot God's goodness.

The people of Israel forgot him, and then they run off to other spaces and they wind up in spaces of destruction.

So every time there's this space where it's like, if you would just remember who I was, it would inform where you currently are, but you forgot and you grew afraid and you walked away from me, and it actually led to your downfall, not to anything better.

God wants our past to inform us, and so we need a history with him.

We need to be informed by our history with him.

We need to look back from January 2024 to December 2024 and go, what did he do for me this year?

Who has he been for me this year?

And then to respond to our current circumstances and respond to the future worries that we have based on what he's done and who he's been.

I did this a ton this past year.

I told you that.

One of the most substantial ones was when we were trying to hire a youth person to work with our youth.

And uh we had this girl, uh, not Ella, we had this girl that was making her way through the candidacy process, and we thought this is gonna be the person that we hire.

And I didn't met with the students, met with the parents, and did an interview and this whole thing.

And the whole time it was like, we desperately need someone to take this over.

Like we're desperate, like we really need somebody to take this over.

Um, but no one felt it with this person.

It was like, eh, it's fine, but it's not great.

It's fine, but it's not great, but we're desperate for somebody.

And so it got to this point where it was just like, let's just do it, let's just hire this person, even though she's not checking all the boxes, like we need somebody in this space.

And we had this time where I was I was just talking with some of the people, and they were saying, like, we just trust the church, we trust whatever you guys want to do.

And I was going, that's so much pressure.

For the first hire.

Um, but and I just started, I started, I just rehearsed my past with the Lord.

And I was like, every time I've needed to hire at previous churches, I've I've the Lord has always provided someone for that role.

Every single time, he's always provided for that role.

And when I've ever stepped ahead of him and been like, I don't feel like this is right, but I think I just need to do this anyways.

Every time I've stepped ahead, it's always blown up in my face and caused more, and then leading me to have to fire people, which is not fun, although I don't mind.

I just don't love it.

Um, it's just, it's just like it created more issues and stuff like that.

And so after like rehearsing my history with God on this stuff and just going, You love this church more than I love this church, you love these students more than I love these students, you have someone for us, and I don't think it's this person.

And he's like, Then you just need to cut this off.

And so we did, and we didn't hire that person.

And I was like, This is we're losing someone.

And then like two weeks later, Ella reached out to us and was like, Hey, I'm looking forward to actually serving with the students, uh, or I'm looking for a space to serve with students.

Do you have anything?

And I was like, God, thank you so much.

And it's been phenomenal, it's been so good, and he provided this thing.

But it was this space where I was like, I was able to look back at who you have been.

Who have you been, God, in my past?

And certainly that would inform this is who you're going to be.

And I think we have this space where it's like, yeah, that's who he was in the past.

He saved me once, he provided for me once, he did this kind thing for me once.

I don't know that he'll do that again.

We deal with that thing, and it's like, yeah, I know he did it once, but I don't know that he'll do it again.

And the idea is actually from the scriptures, is that thing that he did once is supposed to inform your present and your future forever.

Who he has been is supposed to always be this space like that's who he's been, that's who he will be.

And the Lord is constantly saying that through the scriptures, and the people who get it, who write about it, normally the psalmist.

They actually experience peace and joy and hope in the midst of despair because they're going, I've seen you move in the past.

I've seen your love for me.

I've seen your unfailing love for me in the past.

I'm going to trust your unfailing love for me here in the present.

And so for us, we need to have a history with him that we acknowledge and that we see.

But then we need to have it in a space where we're in the worries that we have, in the issues that we have, that we remind ourselves of those things because who he has been is who he will be.

The God who forgave you before will forgive you again.

The God who provided for you in the past will provide for you again.

He has not changed.

And the idea is, he's like, I want you to rest on my faithfulness.

I want you to rest and it's supposed to bring you rest and not like, well, he did it once.

Do I have like a limit?

Does he only do it like 10 times?

Like, no, he will do it forever because he cannot deny himself.

He will be faithful, even when we struggle to be faithful.

And so we need to ask: who has God been to you this past year?

And how should that inform your present circumstances?

All right, that's number three.

Excuse me.

That's number two.

Thank you, Ray.

Talk about learning and quietness and submission later.

It's fine.

That's a joke.

It's a joke, yo.

Number three.

Pursue the type of life you want spoken of at your funeral.

Which, if I keep talking to Rainey that way, my funeral will be a lot faster than.

That can be any day now.

That can be any day now.

Pursue the type of life that you want spoken of at your funeral.

Uh if you're a guest here, we don't normally jabber this much, but um it's a sweet kind of day.

Pursue the type of life you want spoken at your funeral.

Moses says this in Psalm 90, he says, Teach us, God, to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom.

We were praying this text in the prayer room on Monday, and Tommy was praying.

And uh man, it was just this space where he started talking about this idea of like pursuing the type of life that you that understanding that the funeral is coming, and like pursue the type of life that you you want.

And so it just it formed me and it shaped me uh so much, just hearing his prayer, and then like having the space where I'm like messed with this thing.

I'm like, am I pursuing the type of life that I want spoken of at my funeral?

Um, but Moses says that there's wisdom that we can gain if we learn that our lives will actually end one day.

And uh David Brooks, who wrote The Second Mountain and uh another book, I think it's on building character, uh, talks about uh resume virtues.

And I don't think I spelled resume correctly, so forgive me.

Resume virtues versus eulogy virtues.

Um and what he says is like resume virtues are the things that will people will compliment you for here and now.

Um the issue is that when you die, very few people, if any, want their resume to be read at their funeral as their eulogy.

Like they were really good at sports.

Like nobody really wants that at their at their funeral.

Um but then he talks about eulogy virtues as what people actually want to be spoken of about their life.

So the stuff that you want to be remembered by.

And he just talks about these two things, resume virtues and eulogy virtues.

And so his idea is like you don't want it to be said, let's just go to this next slide here.

You don't want it to be said they made a lot of money.

You want it to be said they were very generous with their money.

You don't want it to be said they never missed a deadline, you want it to be said he never missed my games, he never missed my performances.

You don't want it to be said at your funeral, his job was the most important thing in his life.

You want it to be said the people in his life were more important to him than his job.

You don't want it to be said he was a VIP at some of the most exclusive restaurants.

You want it to be said that he made me feel like I was a very important person.

His or her net worth was X.

You don't want it to be said that nobody cares.

You want it to be said they valued our family more than they valued money.

And so you could kind of just roll this thing all the way through and just have these spaces where you look at like the resume things are nice, and here and now they do offer compliments.

People will say, here and now, they'll be like, man, that guy makes a lot of money, and that's really good.

But when you're lying in a casket or you've been burned and now you're just ashes, it's not doing much for you.

And if they compliment your casket while you sit there, you made a lot of money.

That doesn't matter.

It does nothing for you.

And so David Brooks goes in this idea of like, we need to aim at eulogy virtues.

We need to align our life, not with our resume virtues that went once once we hit them and then we die, and that's all that's left of us.

We don't want those things to be the defining markers of our lives.

We actually want the eulogy things to be the defining things that people talk about.

And so we talked about this idea of like aligning your life with the things that you actually want people to remember you by and the things that you want them to say.

And it sounds very similar to teach me to number my days.

That this is fleeting, that this is going to end, so that I could learn and gain some wisdom about how I should live based on the fact that it's gonna end one day.

And so you don't want it to be said at your funeral that you were great at business, but a terrible family person, terrible friend.

You don't want it to be said he spent more time at the gym, at the office, on the road, hunting than he spent with me.

You don't want it to be said that way.

And yet sometimes we live that way, crushing my macros.

I don't want my kid talking about how I crushed my macros at my funeral.

Like he was really good with his protein and his fats.

Like, if I if that's what he's talking about at my funeral, I failed miserably.

I want to be talking about something deep and meaningful that was actually mattered.

I started thinking about this uh after Tommy prayed that, and Randy and I talked about it a little bit, but Teddy wanted to this year, like we did this thing called Rough House and where we just wrestle and whatever.

And he wanted to Rough House one Saturday night, um, and then one Friday night, like back to back to back, Friday night, Saturday night.

And I said no both times because I was working on my sermon.

Not this week, but early.

And uh and he just said something, he was like, he was like, Oh, okay, so on the weekends, you can't hang out with me because you're gonna be working on your sermon.

And I was like, I was like, man, what a terrible life.

Because I am a perfectionist about this thing.

Like, I really do want this to matter and to be really good, and I I care a lot about the sermon that I'm gonna preach.

But I thought I was like, man, at my funeral, if he was like, oh yeah, he worked really hard on his sermons, but he didn't work really hard to hang out with me.

Like every time I wanted to spend time with him, he was spending time with someone from the church or working on his sermon doing something for the church.

And I just had this idea of like, man, if that's the way my life is currently aimed, I'm aimed incorrectly.

Like the thing that I'm supposed to spend my time doing is not only shepherding the church, but the first people I'm supposed to shepherd are my wife and my son.

Those are the people that God has placed in my life forever to be the people that I primarily disciple and that I primarily love.

If I ever love you guys more than I love my wife, I'm being biblically unfaithful to what Jesus has called me to do.

And if she ever says, you really love the church more than you love me, I need to quit, according to what Paul says.

And so I'm like, I need to shift my goals back to something because I do want my sermons to be good and I do want this church to thrive.

But if Teddy's talking about, yeah, he spent a lot of time on that church, he really loved the Instagram posts.

Like, well, that's terrible, and I'm a terrible father, and I don't want that.

This quote that haunts me is about A.W.

Tozer.

Um, don't go to it just yet, but A.W.

Tozer is someone, he was a pastor theologian, author, just someone that means a lot to me in his writings has done have done a ton in my spiritual life.

Amazing.

He's married for 45 years to a woman named Ada.

And when he died, Ada remarried within the first year of his death.

Okay.

Um, and this is everybody was kind of shocked by that.

Um, and all of her family and all of her friends were like, Hey, are you happy?

Are you happy?

Do you miss Tozer?

Do you miss Aiden?

What's his name?

Do you miss him?

And this was always what she said.

She says, I've never been happier in my life.

AW loved the church, but Leonard, her new husband, loves me.

That's the testimony of a man's life.

AW loved the church.

Leonard, my new husband loves me.

And I just I read this in his biography that uh this this guy wrote, and I was like, Never, like I never want that to be true of my life.

And so all that to say, like, teach me to number my days, then they gain a heart of wisdom.

And there's something for everybody in this space where you're like sitting there going, like, what do you actually want them to say at your eulogy?

What do you actually want people to say at your funeral?

And many times when you want to figure out what you want them to say, and then you look at your life, are you aiming at that at all?

You see this huge discrepancy because it's so easy to move towards what you get applause over and to move towards what the compliments lead you towards.

Well, this will, I will get compliments here.

It's like, yeah, but then that's gone.

And you're left with this thing where it's like, I don't get those compliments anymore because I can't hear them because I'm dead.

Like, and that's it.

And you actually want something that's like, this actually mattered, this was meaningful.

And so for us, I want to learn a number of ideas, I want us to do that.

So we need to consider what do I want to be said at my funeral?

What do I actually want to be said there?

How do I want to be defined?

Because one day that actually is coming for all of us.

Um and so it allows us to gain the wisdom of actually aligning our lives towards things that really matter versus things that matter just temporarily here and now that give us a smattering of applause.

And so I want us to avoid that.

All right, so those are the three things.

Those are the things that stood out the most.

I had three, three or four more, but those are the three.

I want to give you some practices because I love practices.

I want us to practice the way of Jesus.

I want us to put these things into practice.

And so, based on these things, here are a couple of practices.

The first is join us in prayer.

Elijah was just like you, but he prayed.

That's the difference.

His life was spectacularly different because he prayed.

And so join us in prayer.

If you can't join us here, I'm trying as much as I possibly can every year to add one to two hours of prayer.

It probably my vision would be two.

I'd love to add two.

It'll likely be one.

But I would love to add more and more hours a day where I'm in a space where we're in a prayer room that you could join us at different hours of the day so that you could pop in and be a part of this thing.

And just sit there and learn how to pray, or just sit there and be a part of the faith that's in the room.

But join us in prayer.

Find a space that you encounter him when you're sitting with him while you're praying.

Make this the year, as Rainey said earlier, make this the year that you learn to love just sitting in his presence and actually praying.

The second, write your history with God over the last year.

Start in January, work your way through.

It doesn't have to be this long, drawn-out thing.

You can do one per month, but write your history.

What has he done for you this past year?

Who has he shown himself to be this past year?

And if you don't have one, then I would just begin now, just paying attention to the things that you actually want to see happen and the prayer requests that you actually have, and then pray those things, write them down, and then look back over them over the past year.

One of the things that I do is when I have a prayer that I know, I think of sometimes I think of persistent prayer like chopping wood.

Like it's like this gigantic thing that you have to chop, and I get this teeny tiny X.

And like I'm just gonna be chopping this thing, and it's gonna take like however many chops to get through this piece of wood before it comes falling over.

I see persistent prayer working like that.

Like I'm gonna pray for this person to be healed, I'm gonna pray for this marriage to get better.

And I know that like one prayer might not do it, but maybe 3,000 prayers do do it.

And it's the chopping, just constantly chopping.

And so, for you, uh, if you have these things in your life, these prayers that you want to pray, or these things that you want to do, just take notice of them and acknowledge the fact that God is doing things in your life and write that stuff down.

When you see him act, mark it down because the things that you mark ultimately will mark you.

And so make sure you actually do that so that you can draw on your history with him and apply it to your current circumstances.

And when you're fearful, when you're worried, or you're whatever, and you're nervous, or you can draw on who he has been and pull it into your present and go, but that's who he was.

He's done it before, he will do it again because he says he will, not because we're just making that up.

He says, I was faithful before, I will be faithful again.

My name is faithful, I will be faithful to you.

So write them down.

Write your history with God over the last year.

I would do it every year though, but just start with 2024.

If you can't do it, pause.

If you can't do it in 2024, maybe do it over the span of your life with him.

I don't know when you became a Christian or followed Jesus, whatever, like maybe you can just do it over that.

Just mark some moments out to see who he is.

All right.

Third, I would write out what you hope people say at your eulogy.

Write out what you hope people say at your eulogy.

What do you want your family and friends to talk or say about you?

And then I would encourage you, look and see if your life is aimed at that.

And if it's not, align your life towards those things.

Because to you, what you're learning is a heart of wisdom.

What God has given you in that space is I'm not gonna live forever.

And these resume virtues are nice right now, and it gives me a little bit of that, but then at the end of it, like that actually does nothing for me.

And so it gives you this space where you're actually able to look into the future of your life.

And then when you see the misalignment that your ladder climbing up is on the wrong building, you realize, oh no, I'm supposed to be over here.

I actually want to be on this building, climbing this ladder.

Then pivot and turn and do those things and realign your life to what you actually want to have said about you when your life is over.

And then, fourth, and this is just for free, read his word.

Read his word.

This is like, he is he has spoken, these things came from like these times in the morning or wherever I'm reading the scriptures.

Like these things just came with like it's shaping and informing my life in a way that I'm so thankful for.

And the truth is, he wants to speak to you.

His words are life to you.

Um, what he wants to say to you are things that you need, that you need his guidance.

And he is a father who wants to guide his children.

He is not a genie that's like, here are two options.

If you pick door number one, it's gonna go terrible for you, but I'm not gonna tell you door number one is gonna go terrible for you.

Like he doesn't do that.

He's not like you got it's 50-50.

This is this is hell on earth, and this is gonna be a good one.

Good luck.

Like he doesn't do that because no parent would do that to their kid, and he's not gonna do that to you either.

He wants to guide you, he wants to speak to you.

And so create space where he can speak to you through his word, it is life to you.

If you cannot read the Bible, if reading the Bible through in a year sounds awful, join the club.

Okay, I don't want to read the Bible through in a year either.

I did it for a long time, and it was fine, but I don't want to do that.

If you can't do that, don't do that.

There's no biblical command that tells you you're supposed to read the Bible through in a year, but there is a biblical command that blessed is the one who meditates day and night on God's word.

And so if you can read one verse, if you hate reading, listen to it, have somebody else read it over you.

Like just but you need to be in a space where you have the ability of God to speak into your life through his word.

And so find something that works for you, that isn't given to you by something else, but like this works for me to actually posture myself in a space where I can hear his voice spoken to me.

If you can read it through in a year or multiple times a year or 90 days, some of y'all do these plans.

You're like, I read through the Bible in 90 days.

I'm like, wow, that's really impressive.

Um, it really is.

And I think Amy and some of the women in the church are doing a cool one with the videos and stuff like that.

Like, jump into some of those things.

But don't give up on doing it because he's not giving up on speaking to you.

He wants to speak to you.

Read his word.

All right, that's it.

Love you guys.

Let me pray.

Father, your desire in Genesis was to create men and women created in your image that you could spend time with them, that they would experience just the beauty of rest in your presence.

And you spent days getting things ready for them, like someone preparing a house for kids that are returning home.

You spent days getting it ready.

So that when they when you finally made them, you that they were able to eat and to drink and to be refreshed.

And then you the first day on earth was not get to work.

The first day was, hey, we got nothing to do today but just spend time together.

Like your desire is to just be with us, and to spend time with us and for us to know that like that's who you are, that there's no pressure in this.

Jesus, you even said, come to me.

If you're tired and heavy laden, come to me and I'll give you rest for your souls.

And so, God, I pray that this year would just be a space where we encounter your presence.

I pray it would be a space where we see you for who you are, that we would rest with you and see that you are the God that is constantly doing everything he possibly can to just be near us and to be close to us.

God, I pray that we would posture ourselves before you like that, with a God who just wants to sit with us and be near.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.