TRANSCRIPT
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good morning friends how you doing thank you good morning good morning alex I appreciate that so we are going to jump into this in a second but first I have to give you an insight into the weird workings of how my brain is and everything uh so I was up with jude a little last night and and so we have this practice my wife and I that whoever gets up with him uh during the night gets to sleep during the morning now that’s a little more difficult on sunday morning obviously and so I said to laura as she got up with jude at about 5 30 or whatever crazy time he gets up uh wake me up at about 6 45 but then I had to trust that she was going to do it for some reason my mind didn’t trust that she was going to do it and you know how your mind goes in these weird circles so during that last sort of hour my dream was this that I was late for church by
about 15 minutes and I was trying to figure out whether I could still make it in time to to do the sermon or whether they just have to have figured out a plan and then when I got there uh aaron our worship pastor had decided that he was moving the service to a swimming pool um so all of you guys were in bathing suits in the water uh while I was preaching uh and then teresa our communications director she gave me one of these clicker things that didn’t work and then when it did work it was all slides that I hadn’t prepped for so something deep inside me said that everything was going to go bad this morning so I was relieved to get here this morning and find you all a suitably attired for church thank you for doing that continue on that journey it’s healthy for all of us no bathing suits allowed this is not southern california um and so we’re
gonna jump into the series that we’ve been walking through hindsight is 20 20. how do you take a year like 2020 and learn some principles that you can put into place that help us in 2021. for 24 many of us 2020 was a difficult year we were still processing some of that and yet there’s something about being in difficult circumstances that as we follow this journey we’re going to see they actually are good for us maybe even challenge us maybe they even spark growth in us and as we’ve been doing that we’ve been following through this letter that paul wrote to the the church in a place called philippi so to catch you up if you haven’t been here the p is philippi it’s this uh small city in what is now modern day greece and paul uh maybe our hero our writer our author he sent this letter from prison this has not been a great year from him he’s in one of
these exes this is a town called caesarea over here on on the right there’s a town over here called ephesus and all the way over there in italy is roman he’s in one of those locations locked down shut away from his friends worrying about a church that he hasn’t seen in years he’s trying to figure out what is next for this church but overall he has this incredible theme because of God’s good grace we can choose joy at all times in the midst of these weird circumstances there is still joy to be found in this letter to the philippians it is the letter of joy so I’m going to read a passage the next passage and I’m going to leave those up there for a second and realize that I left my bible down here so I’m gonna take a a slow walk of shame to pick my bible up and come back to you so we’re gonna read today from philippians chapter three if you get to
revelation you’ve gone too far church joke for you there a little church riff for those of you that are aren’t here so here we go we’re going to start in verse 10. I want to know christ yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal but I press on to take hold of that for which christ Jesus took hold of me brothers and sisters I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwood in christ Jesus all of us then who are mature should take such a view of things and if on some point you think differently
that too God will make it clear to you only let us live up to what we have already obtained let’s pray together God as we spend time together as a community teach us for those of us that need comfort give us comfort for those of us us that need afflicting and to get moving move us on our journey thank you that you’re present with us as we learn together thank you for this book that is alive as we read it may we become alive in new ways amen so if you needed to get a picture you had your chance this is where we’re going during the course of the day it’ll be on social media during the week if you want to do some reading and we said over the this next two weeks we’re going to look at some of the ways that we can do what Jesus seems to ask us to do in this parable that we read last week this parable of these three servants who were each given
some resources to invest the parable uses the word talents uh and that kind of makes us think as english people about the idea of like our giftings but really a talent was was money and and the truth is as is often the case with Jesus parables it’s not about either of them it’s about everything we talked about how this parable really is about how you use resources you’ve been given these resources of time of wealth of energy of gifting and the ask for each of us is that we use them in a way that that takes us closer into the heart of God that that makes the world a better place and and it seems to suggest in this parable that God says like this is what I’m going to hold you accountable for you’ve been given these things what did you do with them and so we talked last week about how we can bring those incredible resources we have and we can
choose to be part of a community time talent energy and wealth we are able to choose to gather and gathering is great regardless community is important I got to chat to a couple of you afterwards that just said I need community we have things like celebrate recovery that that provide community for people coming out of addictions and things and there’s this wonderful joy in community and then there’s a joy in faith community or a magic and faith community but we looked at this idea that the the goal is Jesus-centered community there’s something about what happens when Jesus is at the center of things that he changes hearts and he gives us a completely different attitude towards each other we’re able to put the we before the me when we follow Jesus centered community and today we’re going to move on to something else but
paul I wanted to catch you up because we can’t cover every part of philippians and so paul has just gone from last week where he talked about community to the passage this week I want to just give you a quick little little blurb on where he’s gone because he’s started to talk about how jewish he is he started to talk about how he is the jew of jews if anyone has a right to boast in their heritage he has a right to boast he’s done everything right he his family followed all the right traditions and everything he follows all the laws he’s a jew of jews and I understand that because I was told growing up that I was english so for those of you that have seen downton abbey there’s those magical moments where someone who isn’t rich and isn’t a aristocracy uh they they suddenly find out they’re about to
inherit a great castle and my grandma told me for years that this was our castle maybe not in practice but in principle back through the family history the genealogy like the there’s this castle raby castle and and the bulmers her family they belong in this castle now I promise you this if it ever happens if I ever get the call I’ll take you guys with me we’ll do the journey together I won’t leave you behind and you know and and this is this is the the thing that we were told we were told you guys your english english english english english english this is your heritage it goes back and back and back and back and back and this is what paul says about his jewishness if anyone has a right to boast on their heritage paul says I have a right to boast and where he gets to this passage is he says but I decided it doesn’t matter I don’t care it’s not
worth anything what I’ve decided is all of that I was willing to lay down because my goal now is to know Jesus and this is where he is this is where he gets to this passage that we just read I want to know christ yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead philippians 3 chapter 10. not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal but I press on to take hold of that which christ Jesus took hold of me brothers and sisters I did not consider myself to have taken hold of it but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead I press on on the surface paul is talking about he’s just talking about growth if you were to build this list that we’ve been talking about over the last few weeks
we’ve talked about living in gratitude as week one we talked about choosing to gather in community and now paul’s going to move into this territory of growth it fits another passage really well that he he shares with the church in corinth church in a very similar situation a church that was very rich that was maybe tempted to just focus on all the things that the world could offer and and he says this do not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize run in such a way as to get the prize every anyone who competes in the games goes into strict training they do it to get a crown that will not last but we do it to get a crown that will last forever therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly I do not fight like a boxer beating the air no I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached
to others I myself will not be disqualified for the prize so paul in this context he’s probably sat there watching some kind of athletic competition you can picture him sort of taking notes for his letter he’s maybe sort of outlining it to somebody else and they’re writing for it and he’s picturing this idea that these games these greek games roman games they all came with a prize and it doesn’t sound on the surface like a particularly great one the winner would get a crown of laurel leaves that would be their great prize now they may get some patronage as well they may get celebrated in some other way but this this was what they were chasing after and paul starts to talk about if if a runner wants to win this prize they have to do very strict things to make sure that they get there in some ways when you look at paul’s letter on the surface just
this little snippet that we’re just reading we’re in the realms of self-help I I went on amazon and found that right now you can get 70 000 plus different books on self-help it is a huge market millions and millions of dollars spent on and how can I live better and I just loved some of the the titles that you find the ambition handbook a guide for ambitious persons if any of you are ambitious go and grab this book apparently and it will help you uh a year of positive thinking daily inspiration wisdom and courage if you can just think better then you’ll be better and how about this one quiet mind epic life if you have a quiet mind your life will be epic and epic is like a buzz word for today there’s all these books that enable you to move further on your journey to grow and to a certain degree that is true I I stole this quote and I don’t like quoting other
pastors because it always feels like this is my job to make these quotes and but but sometimes they’re just so good you feel like I’m going to leave it exactly as it is this is from a pastor called andy stanley everybody ends up somewhere a few people end up somewhere on purpose there is truth to this idea that actually if you want to grow you have to be intentional about it and that’s okay if you’re not following Jesus right now that’s that’s a good thing for you to know growing on purpose is a great goal this is mr tom brady the classic michigan man I refuse to show him in a patriots uniform or anything like that and I’ll I’ll be watching him passionately this afternoon because I love tom he was a michigan guy but tom brady is one of those classic stories about people that decided they wanted to be somewhere he was drafted in the sixth
round not considered a great prospect particularly this is what mel kiper the famous scouting guy said about him at the pro level his lack of mobility could surface as a problem and it will be interesting to see how he fares when forced to take chances down the field sure he doesn’t have the total package of skills but you have to be impressed with his level of performance this past season against notre dame it’s like damning with faint praise he’s okay not not bad like sure yeah he’s had a couple of good games this is like the way that this guy was talked about and and but but to tom brady that didn’t stop him he has a list of every quarterback that was drafted in front of him he can tell you where they were drafted and who drafted them and all of those details because he knew he wanted to be great and so he decided to chase after he is like
a a caricature or a principle that we can follow and we think about paul’s letter where he says about the runner that wants to win he has to lay down everything and he has to chase after it that’s who tom brady is first person in the building last to leave in the evening just working working working everything centers around he wants to be great and it seems like paul says that if you want to do that you can there is a choice there is a decision to grow on purpose in that respect but but what paul would say to us is this if you chase after that you might find you’re disappointed in the end you might find that there’s something missing that the laurel leaves maybe don’t last as long as you thought they were going to last everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training everyone who wants to be tom brady works and he works
and he works they do it to get a crown or 17 super bowl rings or whatever he’s rocking on his hand right now they do it to get a crown that will not last but we do it to get a crown that will last forever therefore I did not run like someone running aimlessly in paul’s mind you can achieve some great things but ultimately if you want to if you achieve them you may find they just don’t last in the way that you thought they were going to last and paul’s sort of goal for us would be this turn your attention to something that does last turn your attention to something that is bigger than that that’s exactly what he did when he laid aside all the jewish stuff and he said no this is what I’m running after I’m running after this crown of life the laurel leaves don’t fade on this crown I want to know christ this is now for him this is his central goal I just want to
know Jesus I’m not interested in all of the other stuff I just want to know Jesus yes to know the power of his resurrection participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow attaining to the resurrection of the dead and this is the last part of that little letter this letter to the to the philippians that we’re focusing on today I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwood in christ Jesus there’s this purpose that we can chase afrida we can choose to grow to go somewhere or end up somewhere on purpose but ultimately choosing to follow Jesus according to this rider paul is a bigger thing it lasts forever so maybe when we talk about living gratitude and choose together instead of just grow maybe I’d add this maybe it’s grow like Jesus maybe it’s becoming more like him chasing after
him becoming closer to him but this raises attention because some of you have been in church for a while know that there’s this whole conversation about well well who makes that happen who does the work who makes you and I like Jesus if we decide that’s what we want is that a me driven thing do I have to make that happen or is that like an organic thing that’s going to happen naturally over time think about growth in an organic sense you have a plant and to a certain degree it grows without you doing much at all it has this thing that seed that sparks up those environmental things that need to be there but it it grows by itself and paul I would say he seems a little bit confused I’m not sure he knows exactly who does the work either look at this little verse from philippians chapter two therefore my friends as you have always obeyed or
do not only in my presence but now only now much more in my absence continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling work out your salvation guys for it is God who works in you to will and purpose in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose which is it should you be working should you be trying to work this thing out should I be trying to work this thing out or is it the guy is it God that works in us he seems like he’s not particularly sure this was his opening to the letter that we looked at a couple of weeks ago I thank my God every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now beginning being confident of this that he began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of christ Jesus whose
responsibility is it are you supposed to make something happen in your life am I supposed to make myself more like Jesus or is this something that’s supposed to come out of us or grow out of us and is it supposed to be organic and maybe the answer is just simply this maybe it’s both and not either or see this is the starting point of life with Jesus and if you’ve never grasped this this is an incredible incredible truth so the bible uses this word metamorphosis about life with Jesus it is as spectacular as when a caterpillar goes into its cocoon and it comes out as a butterfly now one of the things I sometimes wonder is if we realize as people just how spectacular that is this caterpillar goes into a cocoon as I understand it I’m not hugely scientific but it literally breaks down its whole body disintegrates into almost nothingness and then it’s
reformed as something completely different it’s not that there’s the butterfly inside and it grows out no the whole thing starts from scratch it is no less spectacular than if a mouse went into a little thing and came out as a hummingbird that is how ridiculously incredible what a caterpillar does in becoming a butterfly and that’s the language that the bible chooses to use when it starts to talk about what has happened to you and I when and if we choose to follow Jesus you became a different person you were one way and now you are something else it happened instantaneously it was God that did it it wasn’t you you were just responding that is the supernatural thing that has taken place on one hand the work is guts but then we can’t discount the fact that paul has talked about things like laying off every weight making sure that
you’re going into training making sure that you’re working towards this goal that God has given you and when we look back at Jesus life the same is true as well this is a verse from luke chapter 2 verse 52 it’s one of those fun little kind of gap verses in the bible the verse before this Jesus is a small child and in the next verse he’s going to be an adult and so there’s this sudden movement between like one little verse he suddenly grows up but it says this to us and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man now luke has used the word grow a couple of times already in chapter one and earlier in chapter two and when he’s done it he’s used a word for growing greek that is very organic he’s talked about natural growth this this idea that like a plant it springs up and it does its thing you don’t have to do anything can you
improve the growth yes but it does it naturally and then in this work this verse he’s going to use a completely different word a word that hardly appears anywhere else in literature he’s going to use this word procoptin it’s literal meaning is this it is to beat a pathway forward it is to choose to grow it’s not organic now it’s important to understand here some big time wrestling for those of you that are around my age 30 sort of mid-30s maybe you remember 1990s wrestling this was an awesome season to be alive there were all these great characters hulk hogan the ultimate warrior all these guys doing their thing and it was fabulous and what they seemed to have got in their heads was this they had to pretend all of these guys doing wrestling really had other jobs because wrestling didn’t seem serious enough so they’re always like stuck
car racers that have decided to leave the stock car circuit to chase glory on the professional wrestling scene and they took this very seriously and these are two characters called the bushwackers I never knew what bushwhacking meant I was just oblivious I just took these characters at face value they just were a little goofy but but I actually now know what it is it is procoptin that is bushwacking it is to have a forest in front of you to have a wilderness and it is to beat your way through it it’s actually become a popular trend out where I used to live in upstate new york now I’m on board with denver I will say this the the denver mountains are vastly superior to the adirondacks I’m giving you that but there is some joy in the adirondacks as well very cold very windy all those different things very icy the skiing is bad you don’t need to
go there when you live in denver just stay where you are but the quote was about the adirondacks so I’m going to keep it about the adirondacks bushwhacking has become this art form that people have started to perfect where they have started to chase places that aren’t really on the map what the description was was this or the reason for it was this there are more great places to go than there are trails to get you there there are more great places to go than there are trails to get you there and so if you want to experience these incredible things you have to go you have to be blaze your own trail I do this with my kids sometimes we call it blazing a trail we go out somewhere and we just we go off the path and we’re just we’re just gonna find something fun this is the language that luke chooses to use about Jesus growing in
wisdom and favor with God and man it is intentional growth and paul’s language will be I’m just trying to be like Jesus I’m trying to do the Jesus thing he says to us you follow you follow me as I follow Jesus Jesus beat a trail it seems like he grew on purpose the tension point I think within the church is this that we’ve had this language for years that works are bad and grace is good and there is some truth in that of course if you’re working to earn something that isn’t what the christian life is about it is a gift when Jesus called you to him he gave you new life as a gift that’s the the metaphor morphosis the caterpillar becomes a butterfly the mouse in our story literally becomes a hummingbird that happened to you but that doesn’t change the fact that you and I get called to choose to grow on purpose we get to choose to beat a trail to to follow Jesus on
that journey he has for us and what I would say is there are more great places than there are trails to take you there there is a decision to say I am going to follow Jesus I am going to pursue him and I am going to become what he has for me to become and this is a great dallas willow quote that kind of helps us sort of frame that a little bit what he said is this grace it isn’t opposed to effort it’s opposed to earning there’s nothing wrong with working in the sense of I want to grow more like Jesus it doesn’t earn you anything it’s not something that you’re doing to earn some kind of salvation heaven when you die or anything else but but there is this truth that it’s not a post effort you can choose to grow on purpose I would say maybe this is good language because of God’s good work in you you can grow on purpose with him we can take all
of the hardships of 2020 and choose to focus them on growing in Jesus we can take those resources that we talked about and choose to focus that time that energy those talents that wealth on growing like Jesus that is there for us but I would say this a good question to ask is who supplies the power for you to do that who are you relying on as you seek to do that does your spiritual life your following of Jesus or whatever journey you’re on right now is it encapsulated more by this photo or this one this one or this one this one this one you look at the difference between the two both our work sailing is work but sailing is about harnessing a greater power it is about taking the power of the wind and using it whereas rowing is simply about using your own energy and your force to get you somewhere and when we think about
taking those two things together the truth that God works in us and we get to work out what he has given us as we grow on purpose the truth is that you you know you get to choose but you have to choose to use the power that God supplies right now you cannot follow Jesus even if you try really really hard outside of his life in you it’s not just about effort it’s about his work in you and harnessing the power he gives to grow intentionally maybe I would tweak it to say this yes we’re growing like Jesus but we’re gonna choose to live in gratitude choose to gather but also to grow on purpose and so my question for you is how might God be growing you this year how am I in the midst of those resources might he be working in you because what I have found to be true about myself is this I am lazy by nature I’m an enneagram seven for those of you that
are any grand people what that means is enneagram seven’s like happiness that’s what we enjoy so I started doing crossfit for a while and I found it hard as I expected that I would the first two weeks were miserable I hated it but what I realized is after a while things got easier but then I learned a deep dark secret about myself and maybe it’s true of you as well I actually at my heart just want the gym to be easy I want to get to a point where I’m fairly physically fit that I can go and do a workout and not have to try very hard I don’t want to embarrass myself I don’t want to be the last to finish so everything that I did with crossfit was to manipulate the system if the workout was finishing about finishing first I would make the weights as light as I possibly could so I wasn’t the last to finish if the workout finished at a set time I knew that I
could lift heavier weights and just do less reps than everybody else I was manipulating the system to look good and I had no real interest in growth I just wanted to stay where I was and yet one of the things we learn about life is this right things that stretch us are good for us if 2020 stretched you it may have been hard it may have been a difficult journey but the stretching part was good you become someone else in that journey of stretching so my question for you in amongst all that conversation about resources about time and energy and about wealth and giftings where might God be stretching you this year what new thing might he be calling you to do maybe he’s calling you into a journey with your time to spend more time on spiritual disciplines maybe prayer has been a struggle for you maybe you need to find some
new ways to be able to partner with God to take his power but use that to spend some time in prayer maybe you start by taking a walk and praying at the same time maybe it’s a practice of spending some time in silence I hate silence but it’s so good for me when I do it maybe you’ve never taken a challenge to read the bible or memorize passages of scripture maybe that is something that you’re called to do this year it’s a stretching experience that will lead you down a journey of growth maybe you’ve got into a habit and I find this by nature as well that I I manage my money in a very selfish way and maybe God is calling you into all these wonderful avenues that you can choose to give and he’s calling you to stretch and think about how you use your money to make the world a better place some of that might involve giving to south for
the first time as as a partner here but some of it might just involve giving to different wonderful organizations all around the world maybe you’ve got talents and gifts that you’ve just hidden dormant and and the call is to stretch and to use them in a new way in 2021 maybe it’s to intentionally put yourself in places that will stretch you because growing is good it starts with God’s gift and God’s work in us but we you and I we get to choose to grow on purpose and I love how paul finishes this passage that we just read it’s like paul is the ultimate he’s the ultimate sort of like relator all of us then who are mature should take such a view of things and if on some point you think differently that two guard will make clear to you only let’s live up to what we have already attained feels like paul would do really well in 2021 with all the chaos I
always thought of him as being very hardline and decided on his opinions but in this he’s like it’s okay if you disagree with me I can handle it God will show you in the end maybe that’s something that we can learn too as a little aside somehow we need to learn to figure out that people might think differently how will you grow on purpose in 2021 how might God be stretching you we’re going to watch a video in a second we’re going to pray over a wonderful family that are about to head out to luxembourg as missionaries that south will be supporting so I’m going to invite the hammersmiths to come up on the back end of this video and any elders that are present we’d love you to have you come up and pray over them but you’re going to see in their story what it looks like to be stretched and moved into new things so let’s cue
that video guys is it recording it is recording well I’m craig hammersmith and we have ian may janice levi and logan boy we’ve been at south for I think around seven years now we’re looking for a new faith community and and we found it here itself um there were there was kind of two simultaneous stories that were kind of happening and they kind of converged uh the first one is I was at a family reunion back in july of 2017 at that reunion I learned that I could become a citizen of luxembourg and I thought wow that’s kind of cool don’t know what I would do with it but I’m intrigued and as I started pursuing that I lost my job and so it was really in the sort of a season of three months where I started asking the lord okay lord I just came out of a you know tough season of work uh what is next and as I was asking that question I was sensing the lord
saying craig do you trust me um it was really in that time where um he kept done saying do you trust me and saying I have something for you and so once I said yes lord I trust you I need you to lead the next steps is when he started revealing uh some aspect of missions I decided to go ahead and file for the citizenship paperwork they explained it was a year and a half process from start to finish and four months later I get a call and they say congratulations you’re officially a citizen you’re completely done and she said that you know after you filed your paperwork luxembourg enacted what they call article seven which basically stated if you had all males in your family lined to a certain year you could be fast tracked to the system and and so here I am with this citizenship document in my hands in the mail never had to go anywhere I
had never even been to europe and I’m looking at this saying okay lord I just wrestled with this four and a half months ago of you’re saying trust you say impossible missions and now I have this citizenship paperwork what am I supposed to be doing and so mostly me I started just reading and understanding the country and this dynamics and I was introduced to people along the way and I reached out and someone said hey you’re interested in doing missions work possibly in luxembourg there’s a organization called young life that’s trying to get started here maybe you can chat with them I ended up a month later five weeks later from that conversation I was in europe having a conversation with young life and what I learned is that young life had been praying for almost two years up to that point about getting started in
luxembourg and they were praying for the right opportunity and waiting on the lord to help direct them into what was next and so as they told me their story I shared my story and there’s this moment of silence where you could almost hear a pin drop we just kind of agreed that lord is up to something here and we should be watching and seeing what he’s gonna do so I knew I was just praying that God would reveal whatever he needed to reveal but it didn’t I didn’t expect that he would come home and say I think there’s really something in luxembourg for us and well at first I disengaged I just thought this is crazy and I didn’t really think about it craig would craig was thinking about it a lot and every once in a while would bring up conversation to me and then I finally decided I should start praying about this and at least engage with God
about it and so he really spoke to me in very sweet tender purposeful ways through bible study I was in through south like just little sign after little sign after little sign that no person could ever put together january of 2018 was a big pivotal time for us and that’s when ryan started his sermon series on life was amazing discerning God’s will I mean I was crying in the service because yes those are my questions I don’t know I’m getting to the point that he’s made it evident enough that if I say no I’m gonna be saying no to God in his calling I hadn’t said yes yet then they all were saying mom when are you gonna say yes you’re holding us all back so thank you God for bringing us together in unity there’s zero young life in luxembourg it’s one of the only western europe countries that doesn’t have a young life presence so I get to help start that
um really there’s kind of a couple different visions um the first one is to start with the international school since it’s an english-speaking school and I guess what I see is is sort of the make disciples aspect I go back and tell you a little bit about luxembourg it’s this little tiny country that’s a dot on the map has significant influence financially across europe and the world as well as tech and look at that they can do that business-wise what’s God going to do spiritually in this little tiny country so there’s a fresh opportunity to connect with students to present something they maybe have never heard before ever love them and show them God and they go home share that with others yeah yeah if you email us we can get you on our monthly newsletter and we’ll be happy to add thankful for the partnership and support from
south and I guess our prayer requests would be just as we transition from a mom’s heart as we transition and the emotions can be up and down that we would all grow in our faith with God and that he would help us to be peaceful in him and trust him and shine through us for his glory love it how many of you guys want to do a trip to luxembourg let’s go so I’m going to invite craig janice and the kids if you’d like to come up on stage with me what a great story of just what we were talking about today God working behind the scenes beginning things and and these guys choosing to partner with that choosing to I think the language was to to engage and then get on board um so thank you guys for doing that and you’re going to have a great journey out there I’m excited for for all of you guys to experience life in a in europe and just all of that
that that brings so uh I’m going to invite some of the elders current elders pastels if you’d like to come up on stage uh you know I always have to hold you guys back we’re not all going to pray for as good as that is but we don’t have time otherwise the next service will be mad at us so uh we’re gonna give an opportunity for one or two of you to pray um and uh guys we’re excited well father I want to lift up the hammersmith and thank you for how you’ve worked and led and lord that story as I’ve got my hand on craig here just to think he’s a citizen of luxembourg that’s amazing and I know as I’ve walked on this journey somewhat with them I’ve always scratched my head about luxembourg it just seems like such an idyllic christmas card place and yet I’ve come to realize oh lord you love every heart that’s there in luxembourg as
much as you love every heart and other desperate places of this world and you have raised up craig and janice and their family to go and be your hands and feet and lord you’re going to use their efforts through your power and I praise you and thank you for that and I know you’ve been working in them to willing to act you’ve been you’ve been putting that that drive that desire thank you so lord I entrust the hammersmith into your tender loving care as they go to distribute your love to those people in like luxembourg ah man you may you use them in powerful ways praise your lord thank you amen in Jesus name amen thank you lord for all the years I had the opportunity to work with craig and lord thank you for your very very clear direction to him um I remember when he was wrestling with all of this process and what to do
and lord you made it so clear to janice uh to craig we are grateful for that and we ask for your blessing your protection your guidance your leadership over them as they reach out into the world and into luxembourg to spread your word lord and share your love thank you Jesus thank you God for the way that you work in us you work through us and we get to participate with you as these guys are stretched as they move into new things as they grow on purpose may you use them to do wonderful things in luxembourg may we hear stories of disciples who make disciples who make disciples thank you that you are present with them on the journey with all of the things that are ahead of them your presence remains there with them faithful as always amen amen thank you guys be sent and enjoy the adventure and for the rest of us I’m going to
close us with a benediction from philippians chapter one appropriately if you’d like to stand as I close us if you’d like to hold out your hands to receive the blessing you’re welcome to do that if that’s unfamiliar to you you don’t have to I thank my God every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now been confident of this that he who began a good work and you will carry it on to completion until the day of christ Jesus may you go this week and may you partner with this God who loves you who has transformed you may you know what it is to walk with him may you walk into new places may you grow on purpose in partnership with Jesus go in peace amen
