Immanuel Sermon Audio
State of the Church Address
[ Pause ] >> Take your bulletin out. Hopefully, in your bulletin, there is an outline. I will confess to you that in leaving town this last week, it was my mistake that I did not get my outline to Ms. Mallory on time and I texted her this morning when I realized that and she graciously came up early and printed them off and I think we got them in all the bulletins before people started grabbing them. So if you were just here early this morning, eager and chipper for worship and you grabbed a bulletin before it got stuffed, sorry, the early bird does not always get the worm and you just missed out. Put a quote up on the screen. This is from the Constitution of our country. Says the President shall from time to time give to Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. We see that instruction played out every year, usually in January depending on how the calendar falls, but we see it played out in something called the State of the Union Address and a joint session of Congress is convened and all of the major network stations and cable news stations stop what they're doing to show this and the way it works is something like this. The room is packed with people, a guy walks into the back middle of the room and he says ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America and when he says that everybody stands up and they just clap and they clap and they clap and they clap and they clap and walks the President down the middle aisle of the House of Representatives and everybody's clapping and he shakes hands and waves at people and always interesting to me if you watch these on TV there's people who really have something they want to share with him as if he's going to remember anything that they say to him right before he gives a State of the Union Address but they want to do that and they're talking to the President and everybody's clapping and he gets up to the front of the room, he stands up in the front of the room like this and everybody just claps and they clap and they clap and he stands there and just smiles and sort of soaks it all in and they clap and they clap and they clap and they clap and finally they sit down and the President begins to speak and usually he gets about three words out to what happens. They start clapping and they stand up and they say something he likes and so they stand up and they clap and then they sit down and it just goes on and on, a little bit of talking and a whole lot of clapping throughout the whole speech and it's interesting to me I like watching the State of the Union Address I like watching the newscasters who come on immediately when it's over because the first thing they usually say is there was 25 minutes of speaking and there was 48 minutes of clapping and they give you the breakdown on how much clapping there was so this morning is not the State of the Union Address but the State of the Church Address and I tried a couple of months ago to strike a compromise with the staff here was the compromise I put on the table I said I will give up all applause you don't have to clap at all I won't mosey down the middle aisle Corey doesn't have to stand at the back and say ladies and gentlemen the pastor of a manual Baptist you don't have to stand up we won't do any of that when I get up here you don't have to clap unless you really want to don't clap you don't have to interrupt me none of that I won't expect any of it on one condition one condition for the invitation song I want us to play hail to the chief I put that out there on the table and that was roundly and soundly rejected absolutely not so the pressure is off you no applause this morning we will not although it would be a new song for us Tyler new song Sunday we could sing a new song we will not sing hail to the chief what I want to do is essentially what the president does in the State of the Union Address State of the Union Address is a time where the sitting president looks back over the last year and gets to say here's some good things that happened in our country over the last year and then at some point in the speech he looks forward and he says here's some exciting things that maybe are going to happen in the upcoming year in our country and depending on your political persuasion and depending on who is in office you enjoy or don't enjoy the State of the Union Address and you get excited about some of the plans or maybe you don't get excited about some of the plans but essentially that's what I want to do this morning very unregular very unusual for what we do on Sunday mornings most Sunday mornings we're just going to crack the Bible open dig straight in and talk about what God's word has to say to us that will that will be what we do 51 Sundays out of the year I think it's helpful in a church like ours where we have different ages we have different Sunday school classes you look around the room and you may not ever talk with the person sitting next to you other than the five minutes before church on Sunday morning you look across the aisle and you may not ever talk to the person sitting across the aisle for you I think it's helpful for us to take just one Sunday at the beginning of the year and say here's where we're at here's some good things here's some things we need to be aware of and here's some things I hope that you get excited about in the upcoming year and so let's just begin with a few reflections on 2014 I don't know if you noticed but 2014 was a busy year at our church there was a lot of things that happened you started off with a pastor search committee and I'm here and that's a non-refundable transaction so you should have warned those guys up front but I'm excited to be here Brooke and I and our family have loved every minute that we have been here and we're excited about what God is doing in our church as a answered prayer for my own life first Baptist Kingfisher has called a new pastor and his first Sunday is today he is there and he's preaching today and seems like an okay guy not quite as great as the last guy but he seems he seems like an okay guy so I bet he'll do and we're excited for them and I think that they're excited for Scott to begin his ministry there but we're here and we had several other staff changes this year Tyler mince took over for us and has been leading our worship and I'm so grateful for Tyler and the job that he's done in leading our worship team I'm even more grateful for our worship team that makes him sound pretty darn good on most Sunday mornings and so we're excited that Tyler is here working alongside us we twisted Miss Terry's arm and convinced her to take over children's ministry and I just be honest with you as somebody who has kids spread all across our children's ministry and one more coming on the way there's not anybody in our church that I would rather have overseeing children's ministry than Terry she's done a great job and I'm excited about what she's been doing another addition is mr. Chris Harrington who has been leading our mission trips for several years now but Chris came on staff part-time as our missions pastor and he'll be organizing and leading our trips and already has two great trips lined up this summer I've told you this before but I'll say it again as somebody who's gone on lots of different mission trips and never had to plan any of them always been at the mercy of the planner I would really like to go with Chris as opposed to any of the other people I've gone with as far as details and planning and preparation not just logistics but spiritually preparing you to go on a trip and so we're excited for the the staff additions and you add in there Angie you don't want anybody else keep in track of the pennies I promise you that Angie you got Corey who does things like when I call him on Saturday afternoon meet me up here and scrape ice and shovels snow and salt parking lots I will say it was curious that when I showed up you handed Tyler the shovel and I had a shovel and you went to go get ice I mean salt you just disappeared and there you go but that's right take one for the team appreciate Corey appreciate Miss Chris and all she does with mother's day out almost a week doesn't go by where Miss Chris doesn't bring a new family down to meet us in the office and just introduce us and invite them to come to church crystal and Mallory doing all kinds of things that I asked them to do like coming up early on Sunday mornings to stuff bulletins that should have been stuff the week before they just do it and they never look at me maybe they roll their eyes a little bit sometimes but they never say that's not my job I'm not supposed to do that and so I just want to say to you as a church if you have any questions you have a great group of people on staff here working and serving and it's our joy to work together and to serve you and to be a part of this church there's some other things I could talk about in the past year we could talk about facilities we could talk about the things that have changed around here we got a new playground that is not being used this morning but has been used plenty over the last couple of weeks that's been an exciting thing we remodeled the children's area painted the walls new carpet all sorts of stuff in the rooms in the preschool department and then we did the big project in the sanctuary a new AVL system with lights so that you can see my face I know you are so excited that you can see me clearly now and hopefully you can hear me in the band a little bit better will is shading his eyes I assume that's a joke about a glare off my bald head so there you go yeah wild applause in the middle of the speech there it is there's some other great things that happened this year we had a great trip to Kenya a huge group of folks that went in two different shifts it was a great trip we had a great VBS saw families plug into our church who were not plugged into our church because of VBS celebrated our 75th anniversary got to see some old friends and old faces come back for that so there's been a lot of good things that have happened this year it's been an exciting year at a manual here's where I want to go with the rest of this this talk this morning a couple of months ago I sat down and I sort of tried to think through a SWOT analysis SWOT SWOT analysis for our church thinking about strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats and just kind of tried to wrap my mind around okay I've been here a couple of months now where are we at where are we going what do we need to work on what do we do really well and so I kind of sat down and thought through that and scribbled a bunch of notes on paper and then I met with our staff and I asked our staff to just talk to me and I tried my best to just keep my mouth closed and listen to what they had to say on those same issues strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats and went in the office on our big white board and filled it up two times with ideas and thoughts and discussion then I met with our elders a couple of weeks later and we did the exact same thing and so this morning is kind of all that we talked about all that's been rolling around in my head all that is on the heart of our staff and our leadership to just say here's where we are and here's where we're going let me start with maybe not the most positive note but let me just tell you some dangers for 2015 a couple of things that you need to be aware of at a manual this is not an exhaustive list but the first danger would be sin and Satan you could say that that's two dangers but I'm just going to lump them together this morning and say that's a danger for our church or for any church if you have your Bible I want you to take it out we're going to look at a couple of verses not going to put these verses on the screen this morning so if you if you want to see them you're going to flip around in your Bible or surf around on your phone or your tablet Roman 7 verse 21 it's a long discussion that Paul gives about spiritual struggle in his own life and just one verse Roman 7 21 he says I find it to be a law that when I want to do right evil lies close at hand if you read the chapter in context he's not saying there's something out there lurking close by he's saying there's something in here that is a problem there is evil in my heart that even when I want to do what is right I know that there's this conflict and there's this struggle within my own life spiritually to follow the Lord and to trust the Lord sin is a danger look at first Peter chapter 5 the way in the back of the New Testament 1 Peter 5 this is a verse that many of you probably have memorized 1 Peter 5 8 says this be sober minded be watchful your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour Roman 7 21 and 1 Peter 5 8 are not going to change in 2015 in my heart and in your heart there is still sin that is a danger and there still is a devil roaring seeking people to devour like a lion those things are not going to be any different this year than they were last year doesn't matter what kind of new year's resolution you make what kind of commit me you come into the new year with you're going to struggle with those things this year and I'm going to struggle with those things and our church is going to struggle with those things and that's a danger I just want you to be aware of just want to remind you of I hope that that's not any news flash for you but I just hope you understand and you realize it doesn't take much sin to ruin a good thing at a church it doesn't take much sin in a staff member or an elder a deacon a Sunday school teacher or a person in the pew to give a church a black eye you know that as well as I do you read the papers you know the stories it doesn't take much be aware of that danger in 2015 second danger is this complacency complacency this was something on my mind and I was glad to hear it come up quickly from both our staff and our elders 2014 was an exciting year for our church we did a lot of neat stuff and saw some neat things happen and made some positive changes and I think all of us step back at the end of the year and said there's a danger that we roll into next year maybe patting ourselves on the back a little too much maybe sort of leaning back and saying ah we've sort of got things in order we sort of feel good about this we've got that in place everything seems to be running smoothly let's just breathe a sigh of relief and just put it on autopilot a little bit and the danger in that is that we forget that there is a war waging for the souls of people all around us every day there can be no autopilot in the church there can be no neutral in the church one of the verses that came to mind when I thought about this danger is Philippians 2 flip over in your bible to Philippians 2 Paul wrote this letter to the church in Philippi and I think it's safe to say that this was his favorite church this is the only letter that Paul wrote to a church in the New Testament where he did not openly rebuke them he wrote to the Corinthians and he said quit doing this quit doing this quit doing this he wrote to the Ephesians and he tried to line them up he wrote to the Colossians and he tried to line them up on certain things but to the Philippians he just wrote and he just said I love you guys keep doing exactly what you're doing you may think that Paul is telling the Philippians to just keep it on autopilot but look what he says in Philippians 2 verse 12 therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only is it my presence but much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure was God working in the church in Philippi Paul thought he was did they still have a responsibility to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling to press on to not put it on autopilot Paul says look don't put it on autopilot just because God is working in you God is working in you he is doing great things your job is to continue to work out your own salvation with fear and with trembling beware Philippians beware a manual of the danger of complacency one more danger is this i'll do my best to make sense of this and what we talked about the misplaced identity that's always a danger for a church i think that you know as well as i do if you've been around church very long that churches feel this strong pull this strong tendency to be copycats you know what i'm saying we look around town we look around the state we look around the country and we see a church or a ministry or saw a pastor and things just seem to be going so well and we get in our mind we should just do what they're doing we should just try to be exactly like that guy preachers i'll be honest with you we're the worst about it we find a preacher we like and then we just try to preach exactly like them how ridiculous is that churches do the exact same thing we look around and we say man it looks like things are going so we should do exactly what they're doing you know what the problem with that is we're not them god doesn't want us to be them he already has a them he wants us to be us and so there's this temptation we need to resist to try to be like some other church do you know what the flip side of that danger is the flip side of that danger is we get so proud in who we are as a manual baptist church and we let our identity rest on a manual baptist church instead of letting it rest on jesus christ and we get so dead said and this is how we do it in a manual this is who we are is a manual and we don't want to be like them we want to be a manual that maybe we're not open to god leading us in a new different direction i'm not suggesting he is in any way shape or form i just want us to navigate these two dangers of misplaced identity we don't want to try to copy some other church or be like some other church we want to be us but we don't want our identity to be found in us we want our identity to be found in christ here's a verse that explains what i'm thinking about look at second carrinthians chapter five paul is writing to corn and the church was a mess a mess in corn second carrinthians five and in verse 20 he says this we are ambassadors for first baptist church cornth we are ambassadors for a manual baptist odesa we're ambassadors for christ our identity is in christ yes your actions for good or bad have some impact or some influence on our church and our reputation but you don't really represent us at the end of the day you represent jesus christ and our identity is found in jesus not in who we are as a church family or who we may want to be as a church family so be aware of the danger of misplaced identity what about expectations three simple things you can count on and take to the bank in 2015 at a manual baptist church number one god's word will be our authority period the word of god will be our authority second Timothy 3 16 is still true god's word is profitable it is useful it is sufficient for teaching for reproving for correcting and for training in righteousness god's word is sufficient for these things paul says in the very next verse that we may be equipped for every good work our final authority and our greatest need is for god's word we're going to talk more about that in a minute second we will worship in spirit and truth we will worship in spirit and truth john chapter four jesus meets with the woman at the well and in verse 23 he tells this woman who's spiritually all over the map confused he says god is seeking people who will worship him in spirit with their hearts and in truth with their minds our goal when we meet in this room is that we worship engaging our hearts and engaging our minds that's the goal the goal is not entertainment i promise you that the band is not here to put on a concert they're not in fact i was encouraged this morning as the band was working through some things should we play it this way should we play it that way one of the band members just said yeah if we play it that way that that can confuse the congregation in their worship that's the heart of the worship team they're not up here to impress you they're not up here so you applaud for them they're not up here so you give them a pat in the back they're here to lead you and me in worshiping god in spirit and in truth i promise you during the week i don't try to dream up things that will make you laugh if we laugh on a sunday morning great if we don't great i'm not a comedian i'm not racking my brain throughout the week trying to think what will make him laugh what will really get him giggling what will what will make them think i'm funny i i could care less if you think i'm funny the band is not here to entertain you what we do on sunday mornings is not a show in any way shape or form is an attempt to lead you and to lead ourselves into worshiping god and doing it with hearts that are engaged and with minds that are engaged so that's going to be a goal in 2015 in every year going forward we want to worship in spirit and in truth one more goal is this our focus is making disciples that's a certainty in 2015 we are here to make disciples i think any pastor or church who tells you that they've got that figured out is nuts i can't stand up here and say we have discovered the magical formula and a manual Baptist church for Odessa Texas this is how you make disciples i can't tell you for certain how that happens but i can tell you that's what we want to happen and i can tell you that when we meet as a staff and elders and leadership we sit around and we plan events and we plan ministries this is the goal is it going to help people become closer to Jesus Christ is it going to help people grow in discipleship is it going to help them love Jesus more and knowing better we want people to be disciples of Jesus what that means is we could care less about decisions could care less at a manual Baptist church we are not looking for people to make a decision about Jesus obviously you need to make that decision but what we're really looking for is disciples people who follow people who submit people who learn if the goal is decisions will never end up there ever if the goal is disciples i promise we'll see people make decisions along the way but our goal for 2015 our goal for every year is to make disciples a few dreams dreams for a manual these are things that i'm not saying will happen i'm not saying i think they will happen i'm just saying here's some things to think about some things to pray about one dream is this we we talked about this in both of our meetings staff and elders filling the sanctuary i know we're here this morning on the tail end of Christmas break and it's been cold and the parking lot is icy people are traveling or not traveling because of weather conditions and you look around and you say man looks like there's a lot of empty seats in here in this morning we have empty seats i can tell you that there are a lot of Sundays where we don't have all that many empty seats and you think i'm crazy come in at about 1045 when everyone's standing and try to find a seat on a regular sunday it's tricky and those of us up on the platform we watch these folks come in the back door and they sort of walk over this way a little while i don't see anything i don't see anything over here and it's a challenge maybe in 2015 we come to the point where we have to make a decision and i don't i don't know if you've noticed we've added a lot of seats in here over the last couple of months cori that's one of the things cori has not told me pastor that's not in my job description when i've said cori let's go move some chairs into the sanctuary we need an extra row we need a back row we need to squeeze a rose together and put some more in there some Sundays we're very close to being out of room the traditional rule is 80 percent when you're 80 percent full it's two full guests who come in will feel like there is no place for them and so we're not to that point yet but it's foreseeable that we could get to that point and so i just want you to have this in mind filling the sanctuary maybe that means you need to join some of the good folks upstairs in the balcony guests don't know we have a balcony and quite frankly they don't want to walk upstairs just to see if there's a seat in the balcony so maybe before church you say we're just going to sit up in the balcony say oh but the sound is terrible up there uh-huh not anymore look above you i promise you it sounds exactly like it does on the floor and so maybe you and your family say hey we're going to sit in the balcony to create some seats on here i'll be honest with you if i come into church i'm sitting on the aisle i am on the aisle and maybe you say we're going to move off the aisle into the middle so that somebody who comes in late can sit on the on the aisle think about this be aware of this as we go into 2015 that this is a possibility and quite honestly just to be straight with you this is a good problem to have to think about we don't quite have enough seats sometimes it's challenging to get people squeezed in everywhere we need them to be so think about that second dream is this starting new classes and i want to say new classes i'm talking about children terry ever brought this up talking about youth cori mentioned this in different contexts and i'm talking about adults when you have new people coming to your church you can do one of two things you can try to get them into existing classes or you can start new classes and i think our strategy is going to be yes we want to do both of those things either of those things all of those things let me just remind you of one truth sometimes if you've been in church for a long time especially one church for a long time you tend to forget this it's hard to be the new person in an established class it's hard to walk into a class where everybody knows everybody else and they're very friendly to each other but they don't feel very much like your friend that's a tricky thing and so as we have more people coming to our church listen we don't want to be satisfied with people who just come and who leave it's a great way to start getting plugged into our church come to the worship experience it listen to the preaching join in the singing that's great but we want to make disciples that won't just happen in 45 minutes in this room it happens in small groups it happens in community and so we need people to find their way into a group that means you may see new faces in your class and you need to be overly friendly more friendly than you think you ought to be or that means as a church we need to think about starting some new classes off the top of my head i would like to see us in the coming months start three to five new classes all across our age spectrum on sunday morning so think about that dream about that one last thought is this targeting college students just something to think about something to dream about we have college students at our church in fact we have some phenomenal college students at our church right now college students who are involved in serving and going on mission trips and helping and doing all kinds of things we have a college Sunday school class we have a great class i got to teach that class over the summer when we first moved here so we have a place for them but our current strategy for reaching college students basically amounts to let's open the door sunday morning and hope they show up and some of them have shown up and that's a great thing but i just want you to think about the fact that we as a church sit right between two colleges one on that side and one on that side and i think as a church family we have a greater responsibility if for no other reason than where we are geographically located to say we need to be proactive in thinking about reaching these students just the build that they will come open the doors they will come let's take it one step further and you say what's he talking about is i don't know what i'm talking about i'm just saying with two schools the size of the two that we have in this town on either side of us let's think about it what would it look like for a manual Baptist church not just to have a place for college students but to target college students during their time here in Odessa maybe they leave maybe they don't tithe maybe they don't serve but maybe they do all of those things maybe they stay maybe they become invested in our church and they have kids in our church maybe they go to another church and they use what we've poured into them for the good of that church dream about this think about this and pray about this here's some challenges this is from me to you this is from me to you as a church this is from me to you as an individual three challenges for the next year the first challenge is this read the bible more this year than you did last year i'm not going to give you the blanket challenge and say let's all read through the bible together in a year not going to do that you're going to get to spring break and you're going to be four months already passed your goal i blew it what i'm saying to you is in 2015 read the bible more than you did last year as a staff and as elders one of the things we started doing is studying together we picked books and we read these books and we discussed the books how they impact us how they impact our church our ministry we read a book by a guy named jerry bridges called the pursuit of holiness and in this book he says over and over and over again if you want to grow in holiness you've got to read god's word you got to read it you got to read it you got to read it you got to read it you say well how much i'm not telling you how much i'm just saying how about the goal of reading it more this year than you did last year maybe for you that means you read through the bible twice this year i saw a tweet the other night that said if the average adult in the united states gave up all of their media time facebook twitter social media television computer ipad if you gave up all of that and replaced it with bible reading you'd read the entire bible in four weeks easy you can make it maybe you don't want to bite off the entire bible read the new testament in a year easy read the old testament in a year read the book of psalms or the book of proverbs every day make that your commitment pick a book like the book of romans and say i'm just going to read romans and when i get to the end i'm going to go back to chapter one verse one and i'm going to read it again when i get to the end i'm going to go back to chapter one verse one i'm going to read it as many times this year as i possibly can i don't care what your specific goal is but what i'm saying to you is you need a goal if you don't have a plan if you don't have a goal you're not going to get there so just say this year i want to read god's word more than i did in 2014 second challenge is this find a place to serve at a manual find a place to serve there's so many of you who serve in so many ways and my fear in throwing this challenge out there is that the people who are doing a hundred things already get a guilt trip and say oh the pastor said i'm not doing enough i don't want you to do everything i just want all of you to do something find a place to serve at our church maybe you could help with the funeral mills uh when we have a uh a church member who loses a loved one one thing our church does is we offer to cook for the family you don't have to cook for the whole family you just bring a casserole bring a dessert bring a salad maybe you could help in that way maybe you could be a greeter on sunday mornings we have some faithful faithful people who come early not real early but 10-15 minutes early on sunday mornings and they man their post and they're there to shake hands and to welcome people when they walk in the doors we need more people to do that i'll be honest with you we have more doors than people and so we need people who will come and make a commitment to be here and to serve in that way if you like kids i promise you terry ever it will put you to work this afternoon she's got something for you to do in some corner of the ministry be involved in children's ministry maybe you say i'm gonna i'm gonna get into a small group of sunday school class and i'm gonna be the social coordinator i'm going to get everybody together i'm going to plan parties i'm going to plan events i'm going to get folks together for fellowship that's going to be my job so the teacher doesn't have to worry about it listen dream something up i don't care what you do but find something to do at a manual find some place of service to use the gifts and the talents that god has given you for the good of our church last challenge is this number three plug into missions and here's how you do it by giving and going not and or going and going plug into missions by giving and going i want to say that and going some of you just start to get uneasy what is he asking me to do i don't know if i'm up for it i don't know if i can do it listen there are lots of local missions opportunities in our own town that you can be a part of that's going going for you might be going across the street not necessarily around the world but find some way to be involved in evangelism in missions and outreach with our church and through our church go across the street across the country around the world be involved in that chris would love to sit down with you and say here's an opportunity here's a need here's a place that you can plug in and be a part of what god is doing in odesa in texas in the united states even to the ends of the earth we would love for you to be involved in going i also want you to make the commitment this year to give to be involved in giving i hit up angie this morning again she was not on the clock but she did not complain i said angie i've been gone all week i need to know how much we gave to missions this year this last week i i had the number from the previous week but i don't know the last week at it and i need to know how much did we give in our missions offering world missions offering not counting all that you give to kenya not counting operation christmas child not counting christmas in action all the local things and other things we do but what did we give in our actual missions offering the offering that goes a hundred percent to send missionaries what do we give she told me this morning the total was just over twenty five thousand dollars that's more than we've given in a long time is a church family that's an awesome amount of money that gets split up and get sent to send missionaries all over the world i'm grateful for those of you who gave here's a goal i want us to pray about maybe not going to happen this year maybe not going to happen in two years maybe it's five ten years down the road but i think it can happen i think our church ought to give enough to the world missions offering that we support a missionary family overseas for one year i think that's a reasonable goal for our church to set a meet i promise you we can do it no problem you say well how much is it oh for a a family to go serve with the international mission board overseas for one year food housing medical expenses kids go into school uh rent on the on the house or the apartment all of it together it's about fifty five thousand dollars right now and ninety percent of our world missions offering goes towards that type of missions international missions that means our christmas missions offering would need to be in the ballpark of around sixty thousand dollars i promise you we can do that i promise you here's the the catch here's the thing i know if my family is going to give sacrificially to reach a goal like that we have to start planning in january not december does that make sense if my family rolls into december and says well what do we got left over we're not going to reach that goal and so my family tries every year to be intentional in january in saying what do we want to give at the end of the year and what do we need to do now to make that kind of gift happen and so i'm challenging to be involved in missions these two things are not an either or they're not one is more important than the other one is more spiritual than the other one one makes you a better christian than the other one they're both necessary be involved in missions be involved by giving and be involved by going 2014 was a great year at our church it was an exciting year there was a lot of changes at our church in 2014 i am certainly not standing in front of you claiming to have the ability to predict the future to know what is going to happen in 2015 i'm smart enough to know that the bible says your life is a mist it's a vapor and james warns us about saying this is what's going to happen or that's what's going to happen or we're going to go here or we're going to go there he says be very careful about that because you don't know what's going to happen but these are some things i think you can be excited about these are some things i hope you'll be praying about and i hope that these are a few challenges that you'll embrace in the upcoming year let me pray for you and then we're going to sing a little bit more lord we love you what a blessing it is to be part of a church family to have people that we meet with who care about us who pray for us and who pray with us to have talented people who can play music and sing songs and teach sunday school lessons and work with our kids and plan mission trips father we are grateful for the ways that you have blessed this church with servants and with people who are gifted and talented father we're excited about the things that you're doing in our church we want to see people come to know jesus christ and we want them to grow as disciples of jesus father we want to be a church that is committed to your word a church that is committed to worship the church is committed to missions father as we say that to you we agree with paul that there is something close at hand even when we want to do the right thing father there is sin in our hearts that pulls us in a million different directions it tells us a million different lies father we believe that we have an enemy roaring around seeking to devour Christians and families and churches and so we want to be aware of the things that that can trip us up the things that can bring dishonor to your name and father as we're aware of those things help us to fix our eyes on you and to follow you father what a privilege to call you father and to talk to you and prayer and to sing our praise to you be honored this morning as we continue in worship we pray in jesus name amen