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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Good morning. Welcome to church. Isn't that wonderful that we get to say that? Welcome to church. I'm so glad that you are here in the middle of all of the seasons and the celebrating that we've been doing. I'm glad that you are here today with us and for our special friends watching online. We don't take it for granted, hundreds of you guys are watching and we thank you that you're a part of the Met as well. So I have a question. Are you feeling a little exhausted and a little bit of in a daze? Oh, yes. I'm already seeing the nodding heads. Yes. As we were in Thanksgiving and now full throttle, we're going straight into Christmas and the season and all that brings. And I'd love to be honest and tell you guys, I wish I could say I don't stress and I don't worry, but somehow as the days get further into December, within me, the angst just, oh, my goodness, the stress of all the days that are coming. And honestly, it's because we really want this Christmas Day to be so special for our families. And as we remember Jesus, what's the best way to do that and to be sure we're not being too materialistic, that we are really focusing on the reason for the season and that's what we are going to do and talk about today. Pastor Bill has been challenging us the last few weeks to not stress so much at the holidays and maybe have a little bit different perspective, maybe God's perspective of what the holidays should look like and spend more time with people and focusing less on the stuff that has to be done and that we have to do.
As we approach Christmas, which is actually the biggest holiday of the year, more money is spent around Christmas. And all of our retailers know this, right? Hence good Friday. They're trying to get your money early on and we know that that is all approaching for us. And it brings its own stress too, of how are we paying for this, right? What's just the right amount to spend, what's not too much?
What can we do to really show that it's not about the material things, it's about Jesus. And sometimes I think our world, our country, has kind of lost a little bit of that.
We're going to look at how do we stay balanced? That's going to be my word for the day, is balanced because we need all of the above to make it special to make it a holiday, having great food, having great family and friends with us as we look forward to Christmas. But it's not really just about Christmas Day. It is the day we celebrate Jesus's birth, which is super exciting, but it's also all of December. We're going to look forward to Jesus'arrival. We're going to really start thinking about it right now so we're not so stressed out. As we actually get closer and closer to the day, we're going to need God's help. So I want you to start praying with your families. Start praying with your neighbors and your coworkers. Start praying of how have people call you out. How am I not going to get so caught up in the to do of all of the things that have to be done? Studies show that most of our stress at the holiday actually comes from people.
Not me or you, right? It's other people. It's those other people that are around that we need to be with. Whether it's work or family or friends or neighbors. Relationships take extra energy, extra grace, all of the things that when we are wound up and really stressed, it's a lot harder for us to come up with those things. Now, most of the time my mother's here somewhere. Hey, Mama. So I have to be careful how I say this. She's already said, this is not our family. When I told her it's the other family, I said, yes, mom, the other family. But most of the time, my family and my friends and my coworkers are life giving. Most of the time, I love so much. I'm so blessed to have so much family here that I get to spend time with. It's really wonderful, but sometimes it's a little extra stressful. People say things they didn't really mean to say. Some people have a filter and some people don't. I'm not saying any names. Do you have that in your families? People are looking at people. Yeah. It might be your person that's here with you. We get that. That's what the holidays is about, right? It's about showing extra grace and love to those around us.
And if we do have some people around us, I want to say right now we should feel extra blessed because some people don't. And we need to invite those people, if you know, a neighbor, a friend, to come be part of your gathering and of your holidays, bring them to church, bring them to Christmas services, they will be extra blessed of getting to have people around them.
Now, as I say that, I want to go ahead and put a disclaimer because my people are saying that about me. Okay. Mary's a lot. She talks a lot. She has a lot of energy.
But within all of that, we always with family forgive, we love, we move on. We say, we're here for you. We're standing next to you in this. I was talking to Caroline the other day, our daughter, and she said, mom, Caleb and I are so thankful for all that you do for Catherine, our grandbaby, who's two. And she said, ma'am, y'all are just all in and you're extra.
And I said, well, thank was just I thought that was the biggest compliment. I was so excited. I got home and I told Derek, guess what Caroline said. She said, Mommy and papa are extra.
And he said, Mary, she didn't mean that as compliments.
And I said, well, sure it is extra credit, right? You teachers, extra paycheck, extra ice cream, extra is always extra good.
And he said, well, actually, I had a conversation with Caroline and she was saying that when they take Kat home after she spent the night with us, they kind of have to deprogram her.
I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, they have to tell her no, and they have to tell her the whole world is not about her. She can't have everything she wants. She can't have six juice boxes right after the other.
I said, well, you know what, that's what grandparents are for, right? I said, we raised them. We had to do the same thing for them. So actually this is payback. That's what I think this is. This is the time where we actually get to say, hey, all those conversations we had about you were not in charge and yes, you'll brush your teeth and yes, you have to go to bed and no, you can't be involved in this or that. I said, so this is all payback. We're just bringing it up really good that she wants to be at our house and she does. And this last week we were taking her home to go meet them for dinner, actually.
And I said, hey, Kat, we're going to get in the car and we're going to go have dinner with mommy and daddy and you're going to go home and no, Marmi, no.
Which is right where we want it to be.
We want to create this environment that, hey, she might just move in with us. Caroline says mother. No kidding. I want that life. We didn't have that life. I said, yeah, that's what grandparents are for. But as we look to the holidays, just made me think a little bit about extra, right? We're all going to be called to dig deep inside of us and give some extra grace, extra love to people who might be pushing our buttons wrong. You might be at work tomorrow and somebody is just on your last nerve. God's going to call you to be extra, have an extra grace that comes from Him that he's going to give us to be able to give something to someone else.
That may not have been easy to do, but that's what God calls us to do. As we look into the holidays, scripture actually has a few things to say about how we're to focus, how we're to think about the future and how we are to treat other people. Matthew 633 says, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. If we put God first and we seek Him first in his rightful place, all the things that we think we need or we want, god may give us, he may not, but he always knows what's best for us. Philippians 314 says, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ. I love that because it says press on. I wish I could say, hey, you focus on this one time and it's going to be really easy. But it's not. It's a daily because we live in this fallen world with crazy going on around us all of the time. We have to press on to keep thinking about God and putting Him first in our lives. Philippians two four says, do not merely look out for your own personal interest. That's super hard, isn't it? But also for the interest of others. And last one, colossians three two says, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on this earth.
So I wish you could just come to church every single Sunday and get your mind set and it would stay that way, but it doesn't. The second we walk out the doors and we get on the road and we start heading home and you had a debate with your mate, as Pastor Bill says, somehow it just gets thrown out the window, doesn't it? So we continually okay. God, I know I really am feeling a little anxious about this. I need you to set my mind on you. I need you to help me focus on you and to remember that you are the main reason for the season, not all the things that we make it to be. There's a story in the Bible that I really like that talks about this family and how they were navigating this together as they had this big party at their house. And guess what? They had a really special guest. Talk about anxiety, you guys. They invited Jesus. How would you like that as you were preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas and, oh yeah, and I'm bringing Jesus with me, so now you're oh, where are we sitting him and who's going to be next to Him? And is aunt or uncle going to talk crazy and is the food going to be good enough? All that stress that we would put, and that's what this family was going through.
Before we get into our text, luke Ten, if you want to go ahead and turn there, I want to give you a little background on our family.
The special evening was at Mary Martha and Lazarus house, and they were siblings, and they were from Bethany. Bethany was about 2 miles from the temple on the east side, near the Mount of Olives.
They were close friends of Jesus. Scripture actually talks about them quite a bit in the Gospels.
John eleven five says now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus. So for Scripture to point it out, he really did love them. And they had a really special place in his heart because they had a big enough house for all these people. They say there was at least 20. We know all the disciples were there, mary and Martha were there, that they had some money. And theologians believe they were big supporters financially of Jesus'ministry. And much of what he was able to do was because of these two ladies. So in a minute, when we look at a little bit of the crazy, I want you to remember that they really did love Jesus and it was their humanness that maybe got them off kilter a little bit.
Martha's the oldest sister. Do I have any oldest sisters in the room? Here y'all are, bossy. Can I just say that because I can say it because I'm the baby and I was bossed around quite a bit by a sister and a brother.
But sometimes age comes wisdom, right? They know a little bit more. They're just trying to help prepare us. Martha was trying to help Mary, but she was a little bit wound up. Let's look at our text together. It's luke 1138 through 42. We're going to start in verse 38. And it says, as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary. I'm not sure why it says named Martha and called Mary. I've read red read. I cannot figure it out, but there it is in Scripture. Who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.
So Martha's in the kitchen getting some stuff ready. Mary's at Jesus's feet listening to what he said. Can you picture the scene? There's 20 people. It's crazy. Martha's in there. She's getting all the food ready, she's got all the dishes out. At the last minute, she probably tells Mary, oh, not that dish, this dish. It's Jesus. He's special. Mary's like, I'm out of here. You do you right. So she goes and she hears Jesus talking.
She can't stand it. She's got to go in there, she's got to sit at his feet. She has to hear every word that he is saying. And in fact, most of the time that we see her mentioned in Scripture, she's at the feet of Jesus. In John, it talks about she poured oil on his feet. When she found out about Lazarus, she fell at his feet.
Mary loved Jesus and she knew the way for her to make it through this life, for her to be able to be who she wanted to be, that she needed all of the Jesus that she could get. Have you felt that way before?
I remember one time I was going through a really hard time, and I was literally on my bed, and I couldn't even open the Bible. But I just put that Bible on my chest and I said, god, I don't know how to get all of this in me, but I need all of your Word. I need you to teach me how to live. I need you to give me grace and strength and comfort that I need for people. It's in God's word. We are so privileged. We have his actual word. Back in this day, they had some scrolls, but they didn't have all of God's word as we do. They for sure didn't have the New Testament. They were living it right.
So if you're that way today, I just want to say there's lots of things you can do. There's so many series now. Everybody's streaming, right? Netflix. You could sit in your room and watch whatever you want to watch for hours and hours and hours. And at the end of the time, you're still going to feel as lonely, you're still going to feel as separated, and you're still going to feel as depressed. You open, God's word comes alive. Scripture says it's alive, it's active, and you have the Holy Spirit in you, telling you the things that God wants you to know. It will change your life.
So Mary knew that.
She knew sitting at the feet of Jesus was where the life giving, the well was going to come from.
Martha got so caught up in doing for Jesus, and she was really distracted. Let's go on. Let's read verse 40. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, I think this was probably a little sassy, if you can hear it, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?
Tell her to help me.
So do you see? She stumped in the middle of all of these people, she goes straight up to Jesus. Remember her sister's there and she's saying, Jesus, she's not helping me. And I'm sure Mary was saying, I'm here. I can hear you.
Don't you know that she was?
And I think the more that she talked, the more wound up that she got, because distracted, I looked up the definition of distraction, and it said, it leads to aloneness and self righteousness, to self focus and question.
That's what started happening as she got distracted, as she was preparing. And she looked and she sees Mary, and she's like, I can hear her saying, well, I'd love to be sitting at the feet of Jesus too, but then who's going to get all the meals ready? Right? In her mind, she started feeling like this was the right thing. There's always an out, right? She could have said, well, hey, I'm going to go sit with Jesus too. At some point, they probably would have said, hey, Martha, where's the food? And she would have said, hey, let's all go get it, work on it together so we can spend time with Jesus.
Side note, martha also forgot to be grateful she's got Jesus in her house. Right? That's a dream. I've thought of that so many times. If I could have Jesus over for dinner, I have about five big questions that would take a while to answer that I would love to ask Him. She's got Him there in the flesh, and she's getting so sidetracked about all the things to be done and distracted that she forgets about the most important thing.
I've done that too. How about you? That alarm goes off in the morning, and I know it's time for me to get up and spend some time with Jesus. And I've said to myself, oh, God, you know, I really need sleep.
I'll get that in later this afternoon, which never happens, right? And then nighttime comes and, oh, God, I'm so tired. We'll do it tomorrow.
We've all done it.
We've all replaced our need for Jesus with serving Him, because really, it's the shiny thing. It tends to be the more exciting thing. We get to see some actual progress, and we don't always see it as any relationship that we're building in every day. We don't see always the positive results.
I love Jesus'response to her because he could have said, Martha, get back in the kitchen. Right. But he doesn't, because Jesus loves people over things.
And Jesus says in verse 41, martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one. And Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.
Remember, Mary had chosen what matters most last. We've had a lot of baptisms lately. Have you guys seen all the baptisms? It's super exciting. We've had to add so many dates in because we've had so many people getting baptized. And last service, deshelle balancefin.
Two girls got baptized. I see sweet Mike Dilworth in here. Mike and I got to kind of tag team on this, and he had been on the prayer team, and she came and was really struggling with some things, and he said, you need call Mary. You need to call Mary and go see her up at the church office. So about ten years ago, this is what happened.
And she did, and she called me, and she said, can I come meet with you? I'm really struggling. I've had some suicidal thoughts. My life single mom, and it's been really hard. And she had three little kids at the time. And I said, yes, come on up today.
Come up today. I want to talk to you. So I did. And as she sat across the desk from me, she was just telling me all the hard times she had been through, and things didn't really seem to be going well, and she just didn't know if she could keep doing it or not.
And as she talked, I said, Well, Dishelle, I have a question for you. I'm hearing all of these struggles and all these hard things in your life, and I really got to know, have you asked Jesus into your life? Do you have the Lord in your know, we talk a lot about not have you read your Bible? Not did you come to church? Did you serve? Did you give whatever it might be that sometimes we think is the right Christian thing to do? I mean, has there been a point in your life when you said, okay, God, I can't do this anymore on my own. I need you. I'm taking myself off the throne. I'm putting you on the throne. I believe in what Jesus did on that cross when he died and he was buried and he rose three days later. And that scripture says, if we believe in Him, we're saved. I said, have you done that? Have you given your life to Jesus? Are you saved? And she said, I don't think so. I can't think of a time in my life that I've actually ever done that. I've cried out to God a few times, but I really didn't put Him in the center of my heart.
And I said, well, first of all, we have to do that. So we prayed and we did, and she made Jesus the Lord of her life. And I'm not going to tell you it's been an easy ten years, but she has stayed the course.
She has struggled really hard to get her and her three kids here by herself every single weekend. They all serve now, and two of her girls got baptized last service, and I was standing down there. It wasn't lost on me.
But she almost took her life, and those girls would not have accepted Jesus and told the world they're followers of Jesus now.
So I say that because as a parent, super important what you do. You may not think it is, but your kids are watching you, and the beliefs that you have that you continue to share with them is so crucial. So sometimes, even in the holidays, we get so busy in our daily world with school and homework and practice and sports and all the things that can totally fill up our schedule, man, I've been there, done that, bought the T shirt, literally, right to lots and lots of teams. You guys have done that, too.
But we have to keep focused, as Mary did at the feet of Jesus. All the other stuff is good, but it's not the best. It's not the best thing.
One thing I'm noticing a lot right now, connection is so super important. Connection is one of the most successful reason marriages last? When you look at why do some marriages last and some don't, it's connection. They've stayed connected.
It's a reason people have good relationships with their children, because there's a connection. They're staying connected. They're not just talking to them or texting to them. They really have an ongoing relationship with them.
And I'm really concerned about our new generation because you guys have so much online, you have so much to talk to. With all of the video games and all of the things. Sometimes we forget how important it is to look somebody in the eye and have a real conversation of how are you in my house? Not saying who, but it wasn't me or Derek. We have two children, they text each other and we're in the same room.
I'm like, Why are you texting? I think they're saying things they may not want us to know. Like extra, right? So maybe that's going on, but sometimes we need to just put our phones down.
We go out to dinner, I look around the restaurant and people are out to dinner. Paying a lot of money these days, right? It's not cheap to go out and they're not even talking. They're both on their phones. I hope they're not texting each other. I hope they're doing something.
And I'm going to be honest, derek and I have had a few conversations about this because it is my pet peeve. If I'm the presence of somebody and they pull their phone out, I'm like, hello, hello, I'm right here. So now Derek will say, hey, it's work. I really have to answer this. Somebody's want okay, that's fine.
Sometimes mine will go off and I'll say, oh, it's the kids, somebody needs me. He's like no, I think they'll make it. They are grown, y'all, they're 30, 30 and 32. He's like, I think they'll make it another hour till we get done eating and get home. But something, I don't know what it is. You guys, that bell goes off, my watch goes off, I can feel the vibrating and it's like emergency answer, answer.
And it's not we've kind of programmed ourselves to feel important. It does kind of make us feel important or fear of missing out. What if somebody really needs me and I'm not answering?
So we're really trying to turn our phones off at night, really even move it up a little bit. The interesting thing too now is and Caroline will say, mom, our watching stuff on the phone is kind of like you used to watch know that's what we're doing. We're just watching YouTube and learning all these things. I'm like, we had three stations. Are you kidding me? There was not that much good stuff on, right? And it didn't go on after, what was it, y'all, midnight that it went off? You got this screen and it went gray and this was not a 24 hours thing.
Statistics are showing now that children who haven't gotten as much interaction talking to people that their brains are actually smaller and children are starting to have depression and feelings as their parents aren't looking them in the eye because they're busy on their phones.
And they're looking back at their phones and they're saying how important eye contact is for children and for us to put it down and say, hey, I'm going to be present with you. You are the most important thing to me. It's going to be a challenge. And even five years ago I thought it was a challenge, but it's ramped up. Who knows, right? As TVs are just on our wall or on the refrigerator and all the places, how much harder this is going to become for us.
I do want to say God does want us to serve him. And I think Martha kind of gets a bad rap here. I don't think the point of the scripture is to choose, are we going to worship God and read the Word of God and pray to God or are we going to serve? I don't think that's the point. As I talked about in the beginning, I think it's about balance.
Sitting around, reading your Bible and praying all day is a good thing, but if you're not with people, you're not sharing the gospel with other people, you're not serving people. That's unbalanced as well, right? We have this hub that's God and we have to keep all of these spokes aligned for our life to stay on track and what that looks like.
Mary and Martha remind us we need to be like both of them and lead a balanced life like Mary. We need to sit and hear Jesus'word. We need to bow at his feet in worship. We need to kneel before Him in prayer.
We need to tell Him the good and bad parts of our day like we would any relationship, not just asking for things as we would Santa Claus. Hey, I need help with this. Got a hard day at work. But really saying, Jesus fill my heart today. I gotta tell you a couple things. So thankful for you, thankful for the Word of God. I'm thankful for a church that I get to go in and hear about Your Word, learn about you, a relationship.
We need to ask Him for continued guidance and protection.
And like Martha, we need to serve the Lord. Scripture says we are to be light. We are to give hope to a hurting world. We are to serve the poor, the widowed and the orphans.
We are to give financially to support God's church. The Met church. We need you financially to help us do all the things that God has called us to do. Sometimes as we get near a holiday, it becomes, oh, more month than money. We need God's help. God help us to do all the things that we need to do to be faithful to you, to. Continue growing a church that's reaching thousands and thousands of people. How awesome is it that we all get to be a part of that?
So the big question as we close today is how do we make Jesus the reason for the season? Y'all, we're at the end of November. We have a whole month to prepare. We have a whole month to think about this, to navigate this, to pray on this, and to do it the right way.
So here's three things we can do to help us choose what matters most our connection with God. Number one, set priorities. Make a plan to make Jesus the center of your Christmas. It's a non negotiable. Just make the plan. Jesus is going to be the center and everything like the Hub is going to have to go around that. And if it can fit in, fine. If not, maybe we won't do it this year, because we want this year to be so much different than it ever has been before. John 15 five says, jesus says, I am divine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. So we can try to do all of this on our own, but when we bring Jesus into it, he says the miraculous will happen.
So purposely make a plan to put God first. Don't do it alone. Have a big family meeting. Get your spouse, your kids, get everybody in there and say, hey, Christmas is coming. Let's go ahead and set our priorities, because I already know God is going to be number one. We're going to go to church every single Sunday. So when Christmas comes, we've geared up to this. It wasn't about one day, but it was about the whole month of putting Him first. And we have a tool for you inside your bulletin. You saw there's a little handout on Advent, and for those of you watching online, it's on our website as well. And you can get on your app. There's a QR code at the bottom, or you can get on your app and just register to sign up. And you are going to receive a devotional every single day starting December 3. Advent starts December 3, ends on Christmas Day. And you're going to get a devotional every single day. That's going to give you some scripture and some thoughts about how to keep Jesus the focus, a prayer prompt, and even some questions for you to talk about as a family over dinner. What a great way to say, we're going to be sure Jesus is number one by every single day as we are in this holiday. We're going to make sure Jesus is pulled in and the focus.
Number two, set some goals and get buy in from your family and be sure everyone's on the same page.
Your goals for the holiday may not be someone else's I want to say that don't assume everything will be the same as last year. Don't assume everybody's off work. Don't assume everybody wants to be at your house at a certain time. Call all the family. My mom's really good about this, y'all, she starts about two months out, hey, this is when we're thinking of having Thanksgiving and you don't have any other plans yet. So it's like, well, okay. She starts really early, so we are for sure know when we're going to be at her house. So go ahead and plan it out and make sure that everybody has the same goals, the same thoughts for Christmas. Number three. Last one is set expectations, resist perfection and performance.
You're going to have it flooded with you. All the people on Instagram and Facebook and all the influencers are going to be saying, oh, this is what your Christmas needs to look like. Here's how you do your front porch, here's how you're going to do your table.
It's going to overwhelm you, and you're going to spend all of your time doing that, and you are going to forget the main reason for the season, and that is Jesus. Spend your extra time focusing on that. One of my mentors, Jackie Kendall, when I was a young mom gave me a little bit of advice and she said, as you approach the holidays, lower your expectation. I'm like, I don't lower expectations, right? I always set my expectations way up because then I strive for more. And she said, well, not at the holidays, we don't. She said, instead of thinking everything's going to be a ten, let's plan on a five, right? And then if it happens, well, then you're just extra excited and you're not disappointed that the kids didn't want to put on their Christmas pajamas and take the family picture and all the things that are going to happen right before Christmas. So she said, don't plan on it.
I think it's been helpful for Derek and I as well to talk about usually he'll start saying, like, the day before. So, like, what's your expectation of today?
Because I'll tell you, like, recently he built you guys know, we moved to a farm and he's worked really hard on welding this fence, and we had some turkey buzzards that came, and now there's a lot of white stuff on the fence. So he's been out there scrubbing the fence. I'm like, well, sweetie, that's really kind and all, but I don't care about the fence. It's the house, right? People are coming into the house. I want to be sure that the house is good and ready. So it's just good to talk about it and say, okay, well, if that's important to you, okay, let's plan a time where that can happen. It's valid, I get it. You put hours and hours and hours and hours of welding and priming and painting, and there's been a whole lot of effort going in to that piping super important to him. So just because our things are not the same doesn't mean they're not valid. So let's go ahead and set the expectations so we're all on the same page and we're all here to do what God has called us to do.
Let's remember, if we don't intentionally prioritize our holiday, we'll be overtaken and stressed by what seems to be an emergency around us.
Our planning and efforts matter. They really do. And having our loved ones around us is the most important thing as we're looking ahead.
I was watching a video and it actually was a Ted Talk. And her name is Dr. Daria Long and she's an emergency room doctor. And what she said she realized as she became a young mom, was some of the strategies that they have in the Er actually helped her be successful in everyday life. I'm like, oh, do tell. So she was saying for all of our physicians and nurses and all of you guys that work in the Er and doctor's office, you know, she said, we triage. The second a problem comes, we triage. And it's red, yellow or green. So if somebody comes in and they're having a massive stroke, red, it doesn't matter who's in line, it doesn't matter how long anybody's in there, they get straight back because it's life threatening. Correct. And she said if somebody's got a broken bone, yeah, we're going to fix that. That's probably a yellow. If it's just we got a runny nose, that's probably green, we're going to take care of them, but it's not going to be in a crisis mode. And she said when we're in crisis mode that our brains don't work so great, they start shutting down. We're not able to decipher what's good and bad, so we have to be in the habit of saying, oh, what is this, red, yellow or green? So I'm thinking about that as the things come and as the kids start saying, here's what I want to do, that in our minds, instead of being overwhelmed, we can just say, well, I would love for that to happen, but no, that's a green, that doesn't have to happen. Or hey, I'm in a program and I really need a Santa suit. Okay, that's a red. People are counting on you for that. We are going to make sure you look great for the kids program at school. We can do that on our own to make sure that we are balanced and we're setting things up in our life to not overstress us.
So as you look to the holiday, I'm praying for you guys. I'm just praying it out right now that it's going to be your best one ever this December, it's going to be your best one ever. You're not going to be as stressed. You're coming fully equipped in you're spending time with Jesus every single day. And as Christmas Day approaches and we're in this room or watching online, we're going to feel such a peace of celebrating the true reason for the season. Let's pray. God, thank you for all of my friends here. Thank you that they've given up their time to come worship you and to sit at your feet and to hear the words that you have for them.
We don't take it for granted that you love us so much and want us to know you too. Empower us to be Your hands and the feet, to minister to those around us who don't know you, who need you, who maybe just need a little encouragement.
And Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross that we can have the Holy Spirit living in us, power in action, Lord. And if any of my friends have not made that decision to trust you, as the shell had not, would today be the day that they take you off the throne?
Take themselves off the throne? They put you on the throne and ask you to come into their life, ask you to reform their hearts, that they're focused on you, Lord.
We know that sometimes the craziness around us, we can get wrapped up in it, Lord, but just keep us focused on the reason for the season. Protect us, Lord. Lead us. Keep us in Your well, in Jesus name, amen.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
