Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Life: Priorities Reimagined

Pastor Fletcher preaches from Psalm 127, read for us in Spanish. Discussion points: Even our secular jobs belong to the Lord, we can more easily rest when we know that we are fully loved by God and can trust him, children are a blessing from God but you can be a complete person without having them.

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  Scripture reader: [Psalm 127, read in Spanish, English version provided here] Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: I was not expecting to hear my name multiple times. During, during that scripture reading Fletcher is a old English word for arrow maker. And so when you get to arrow in other languages, a lot of times you, you have some type of form of fletcher which is funny. And I wasn't expecting it.

  Well, we're in the middle of a series called Life Reimagined. This series is an opportunity to evaluate the way that we are living to evaluate the American dream even to evaluate the way that all of us have walked through our lives and in many ways, we've fallen into the stream of the way that our culture has defined life. But as Christians were called to step out of the stream and to re evaluate the way that we're living in light of the way that God intends for our lives to be lived.

  And so as a guide for us, as we're walking through this series of life, reimagine, how does God intend for us to live? We're using the wisdom literature from the scripture and the wisdom literature is a collection of 3 to 5 books. You know, scholars differ on which ones. Exactly. Everybody includes Ecclesiastes, Job and Proverbs. But we're also going to be covering Song of Solomon and some of the Psalms as we go through the wisdom literature. And we're going to be examining this wisdom literature and to see what it has to say to us about how we should be living in light of who God is.

  So last week we covered the book of Ecclesiastes. What a fantastic book we did the whole thing last week, it was one of my favorite sermons that I've done in a long time because I just haven't spent that much time studying Ecclesiastes before in my life. And it was really fun to dive deeply into that book and to see the message. So it was very timely and we looked at what it, what purpose reimagined looks like. What is our purpose reimagined looks like.

  Today we're doing Psalm 127 and it's more priorities reimagined. In this song. The author tackles one of the things that's, most difficult for modern life and that is the dreaded work life balance. How many of us have had conversations about work life balance in the past couple of weeks, many of us have had that conversation about work life balance. My wife is a very impressive person to me at least. Ok, she works a full time job. We have three children. She still finds time to like go to the gym and, and, and to take care of herself and we go on dates and it's just kind of amazing all that she does. So, last week, I think actually, another mom with younger children, our, our kids are older now for our congregation. They're fifth grade, third grade and, and three years old.

  But the another mom looked at my wife and was just like, how do you do it? How do you balance it all? How do you, how do you have a full time job and you have a family with three kids, all the responsibilities, guys, we have four soccer activities every week. Some of them are at the same time as each other. Like how do you do that? You're just, you have to become omnipresent as you have multiple children and that's one way that I don't wanna be like God. Ok? And, and, and somehow she does it all. And so this other mom say, how, how do you do it all? And you stay mentally whole. How is it possible? My wife said, who said anything about mentally whole? We're, we're barely hanging on over here.

  And, you know, having a job and children is especially hard. Hey, I just want you to know if, if you got a job and kids or if you're trying to balance life and work, I see you, ok? Like it's hard. There's a lot of responsibilities out there. Our world says work hard. Achieve your job is your ultimate, is your ultimate allegiance. We have that Danny Rojas view of work like work is life, the American dream, work hard and you can be whatever you want to be. How many of us have been told that from a very early age, the world says that.

  But I say to you dear follower of Jesus that your work does not define you, ok? Just breathe that in for just a second. OK? Let's all. Just sit here. Maybe you need to just like take a deep breath in your work does not define you. You are more than what you do. That's such an important principle for us this morning. You have a God who watches over everything you do and you're not expected to be perfect because he is, you're actually expected to be frail and limited. You are, you are just dust and to dust, you will return. But our God is unlimited, just, just soak in that for a second. Ok, guys, if you've been stressed at work, just know you're limited except the limitations. Our God is unlimited.

  Our world says that you need to have it all and you need to juggle it all perfectly. Do you feel that pressure that you need to have it all? You need to have all the best clothes, all the right cars, all the right stuff and you need to juggle it perfectly. And our God looks at you and you're very mid level ability to juggle and he loves you despite it all because of who Christ is. There's so much pressure in our world to be great, great at our jobs and great as parents for those who the Lord blesses to have children. And how does God intend us to balance these two? Well, let's reimagine life.

  Let's look at the passage. Ok. Psalm 127. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there and look with me. If you don't, we'll throw the, we'll throw some stuff on the screen for you. Hopefully, and, and you'll be able to follow along from the top. Ok? The very top first. Let's, let's read some of the stuff that you skip over a lot of the times when you're reading the Psalm. Ok. Psalm 127 a song of ascent. Ok. Let's just talk about what that is first. There's 15 songs of, of ascent in the Psalms. And these are the Psalms that were traditionally sung by the people of Israel as they made their way to Jerusalem for the high feasts each year.

  And so there were at least three times a year when the people would make their way up to Israel for a high feast. And as they went along their way, they would sing these 15 Psalms that we find included in this section here towards the end of the collection of Psalms that we have in our Bible. Our Lord Jesus Christ probably sang these Psalms as a young child walking his way to Jerusalem from Nazareth or and it's been used throughout the years as, as Christians have gone back to the Psalms of Ascent to find the Lord.

  Now, it says of Solomon a song of ascent of Solomon. Now, when you see of Solomon, you might think that Solomon wrote a lot of Psalms. That would be an easy thing to assume that Solomon wrote many of the Psalms. David, his father wrote lots and lots of Psalms. He's like the top of the charts in the Psalm. Writing Solomon is a lot like Jacob Dylan to Bob Dylan here. OK. He only has two hits. Solomon's only got two Psalms. All right. And with these two Psalms, it's just Psalm 127 and Psalm 72 in Psalm 127. Therefore, since it's written by Solomon, we would expect to have some Ecclesiastes vibes going on here. So as we read it, you might be hearing some of the echoes of what we heard last week in Ecclesiastes.

  Verse one. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it build in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. This passage just quiets my soul. Every time I read it, I, I almost don't even feel like I need to explain it. I almost just feel like I should read it about 17 times for us to, to hear. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. All of my work that I busy myself with that, I run myself anxious thinking through and stress about it is all in vain. Unless the Lord is behind it, unless he is doing it. It is all in vain. Everything that I do in my power can be wiped to nothing in the blink of an eye. But the Lord has sustaining power.

  The jobs in this passage. Look at the jobs you have unless the builders build in vain. Ok? Unless the the construction workers construct according to God. And unless the the watchman stays awake in vain. Unless the security guard stays awake in vain. These are very kind of blue collar jobs that's listed here. But I think that it's intentionally like that. He's not saying unless the priests do teach with the power of God, they're teaching in vain. That's true also.

  But he's not just talking about my job here. He's talking about your jobs. You might be able to say, ok, I see how Fletcher might need God in his job, but how my you need God in your job. In modern day years, we might be able to say unless the coders have the Lord on their side, they code in vain. Unless the experiments are done with the Lord, the scientist experiment in vain. Unless the Lord is with the Excel spreadsheets the accountants crunch the numbers in vain. Your work belongs to the Lord.

  And I think that all of us, even if we have a secular job, need to take a step back every day and say God, this job belongs to you, help me to be fruitful and to keep the right priority and mindset on it, help me to do your work even in my secular job. Verse two, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. If there could be a theme verse for Somerville, it might be this one. OK? Burning the candle at both ends. It is, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, except for Somerville might say, like eating the artisan croissant of anxious toil.

  Are you working a little bit too much friends? Do you have a tendency? Ok. Do you have a tendency to push a little bit too hard for the majority of us? That answer is yes. Especially if you didn't grow up here and you moved here. Ok. But even those who grew up here, they grind. OK? Like I've never met a harder worker than someone who grew up in this area because it's just in the water. I don't know what is a cultural value that we have busy. People are, are happy. People work hard, die young. Kind of, it's like work hard.

  Are you pushing a little too hard? Are you stressed out about work about time? Do you resonate with eating the bread of anxious toil? What a word picture. Here's a quote that haunts me by Annie Dillard. She says this how you spend your days is how you spend your life. How you spend your days is how you spend your life. It's easy to think. Oh, tomorrow, I'll get it to put together or you know, that's not really how I am. But if you spend your days in anxious toil, burning the candle at both ends, that's how you are spending your life. It haunts me when I die. Do I want the epitaph to read here? Lies Fletcher lang. He worked harder than his coworkers. So he could eat at marginally better restaurants and drive marginally better vehicles. But he never truly lived.

  John Ortberg says we just skim our lives instead of living them, we just skim our lives instead of living them. So what does, what does the Lord have to say to this? In contrast to it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. What does he say? He says for he gives to his beloved sleep.

  I love sleep. Can I get an amen? A hearty amen. All right, I said, can I get an Amen? Thank you. I love sleep. I mean, I'm borderline narcoleptic. If I lay down right here, I would be asleep with you all in here. OK. It is I have three children. Did I mention that I love sleep? I fall asleep faster than a cat and a Sunbeam. I am just out if competitive sleeping were a thing, competitive napping were a thing. First round draft pick. OK. I can do that. I could nap every day. No problem, no problem. I love sleep. What better gift could there be from sleep than sleep if you could just jar up sleep, bottle it up and give it away for Christmas? Imagine how happy I would be. Ok. All of your pastor's gifts sleep.

  But there's only one person who can give away sleep. Ok. Maybe two God and a good anesthesiologist. And that's what God does. He gives us sleep. Isn't it weird that we were created carefully crafted to shut down one third of our lives? We just turn off for a third of our lives. Like nothing going on. Computers shut down. We're just asleep. Resting a gift from the Lord. It must be pretty important that we're wired that way. But God never slumbers and he never sleeps. Hard work is a good thing. God made us to work, but he also made us as limited humans.

  And so sleep is this daily reminder that we have to trust God. And so there's two truths that will help us to sleep. Well. Now, if you have problems sleeping, my heart goes out to you. My wife also is an insomniac at times. And so like I, she, she reads like 50 books a year and people are like, how do you have time? She's like, oh, yeah, sleep. I don't sleep. Yeah. that's, that's how I do it. She's sleeping better these days. Ok. Thanks. But ii I have pity for you because it's difficult.

  But there's two truths that will help most of us to sleep. And it's this, that you can, that you are completely accepted by God and that you can trust God. You are accepted by God and you can trust God when you fail, it can make it hard to sleep. You start worrying about things and running through all the different scenarios. I call it, this is very nerdy. Ok. If you're very theologically driven, maybe you'll get this. I call it mental molinism. Ok. Molinism is a theological position that says that God doesn't know the future. He knows all the possible futures. And so what I try to do is I try to be like God in that I want to know all the possible futures. And so I do this mental molinism thing in my mind.

  But if I just understood that God accepts me and that I don't have to be perfect, imagine how much easier it would be to sleep. And then the other one is that I can trust God with the things that are unfinished or done poorly. I can trust Him to complete the work or to help me to finish it in a timely fashion or even you're never more vulnerable than when you're sleeping, never more vulnerable. But yet you can trust God to take care of you even in those moments when you were so terribly vulnerable.

  If you work from a place of ultimate acceptance, you won't feel the need to constantly prove yourself to yourself or to others. And if you work from a place of ultimate trust, you will lean on God and your shortcomings and you won't spiral into an anxious panic.

  Now, personally, I struggle with workaholism. It's something that I had to face over the summer, I took two months off for a sabbatical this past summer, which was great. Thank you for sending me on sabbatical. But it was kind of hard to chill out. I'm just kind of wound a little tighter than, than most. And I was wanting to find things to do to occupy myself. And one of the things that I did to occupy myself, but also to try to get me to chill out was read a book called Resilient Ministry. And this was a book that was a, a study of pastors and how pastors thrive and survive in local churches. And so they, they studied like 200 pastors and, and got their feedback and, and the evidence for what it takes to survive a ministry.

  And one of the things that they noticed over and over again is that pastors don't always have the best spiritual lives. And one of the reasons that we don't have one of the best pet spiritual lives is because we're al almost all workaholics that we just feel the need to prove ourselves constantly in our work. They say it like this, that our workaholism comes from the belief that we never work hard enough or that others work harder than we do. And the assumption that we are responsible for everything that happens in the church.

  Now, if you just substitute church for your workplace, many of us might struggle with the same struggles that we have here. Pastors are supposed to be leading churches spiritually. But if workaholism is a struggle even for us, how much mu how much more must it be for all of you? Do you believe this lie? I am. What I do. How about this one? If I do not complete this task, my life will fall apart. How often do we do we get that? Never mind if I do, don't, don't finish this little thing, everything's gonna fall apart. It's a lie.

  The truth is you are accepted by Christ and you can trust God in your shortcomings and failures. And so this is the secret sauce of the work life balance. The reality is you. I'm sorry. I feel like it's, I feel like you're not gonna like it. The reality is you don't balance it. You don't, you walk through life with full acceptance and full trust and it helps you to deal with the fact that you can't balance it all. That's the secret. You just don't, you can trust God to make up for your failures. And if that's true at work, how much more true is it with your family?

  So let's look at the next verse. Verse three. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of a womb. A reward, a heritage is like an inheritance. It's a lasting mark that you leave on the world and your work is not your heritage. Very few of you. If any will be remembered for your work, very few of you that even those of you who are writing scientific papers and whatnot. The only people that will see those papers are people that are nerdier than you are right now. OK? The only you will be remembered more for your children. If you do have children than you will be than your work. Simply put if you are a parent and I'm gonna get to those of us who aren't parents. OK? But if you are a parent, your children are more important than your work. Let me say it again, your children are more important than your work.

  They are your heritage. Let me put, let me say this, your spouse is more important than your children. I made an unending vow to live my life sacrificially for Megan, I will love my children fully. But Megan is my priority. And so for me, the, the priority list, very simply God, spouse, children work and for me work and church are like the same thing. OK? So you have to figure that one out yourself. OK? There are going to come times when you have to choose between your work and your family and you're going to have to draw boundaries.

  This is just really practical stuff. I'm gonna get back to some of the more spiritual stuff that this is spiritual. We commit too much time to our work because we feel like we have to prove ourselves. Right. But w when we're honest with ourselves, we rarely have to work as many hours as we do. I have a friend a few years ago who was working 70 hour weeks and constantly, always 70 hour weeks just, and he would complain a little bit, but not that much. And then, this same friend I've known him for a long time. We're still friends and I talked to him a couple of years ago. I was like, hey, so, so did you have to work 70 hour weeks to get where you were? And he was like, no, that was me. Not my work. In that case, I think a lot of us if we take a step back, our works don't require the hours that we give it a lot of times.

  Now, you don't want to be lazy, you want to work your hardest. But you also need to have this idea of boundaries. For me. There came a day when, as I said, I, I can be a workaholic at times. I can just always have church stuff on the mind. And there came a day when, when Megan said, hey, I don't like this. I don't like my spiritual life being what you're obsessing at my church. And now you just obsessing over this all the time. I am not in on this. And if that means that you have to quit ministry, like I think that that would be better. And the I came like this close. I almost like just left being a pastor and had to go find a job somewhere else doing something.

  And that's because my spouse is a higher priority and her spiritual flourishing is a higher priority to me than pastoring. That's just the way that it is. And so I was willing to give that up so that Megan could thrive. We ended up working through it, obviously, but I'm more committed to being her husband than I am to your pastor. I'm more committed to being Kennedy and Shepherd and Rowan's father. I am to being your pastor. That's, that's the truth.

  And I think that we all need to think about what that means for each of us. So it's easy to see children as more of an inconvenience than a reward. Like it's something you take on, on to like we think about children as like something that whenever we get to a certain place in life, we'll add them as, as like this kind of thing to, to enhance our life instead of, hey, they are a reward and an award from God. Something that's truly a gift from him that they are a joy.

  Now, having said that I want to mention those of us who struggle with this, that there are many people in our church who struggle with infertility and with miscarriage. We, we experienced a miscarriage at at one point. And it was, you know, something deeply profound change in me with that. And I don't know if it changed back. It, it was like a sorrow that I hadn't experienced before. And I just want you to know, we see you a couple of years ago, we had a couple in the church who I knew had been struggling to, to get pregnant for several years. And we're exploring like IVF and some other options for having a child.

  And I was at a lunch with them with a bunch of other church people. And one of these church people very well intentioned said, so when are you guys gonna have some kids and they handled it so well. They're like, oh, you know, like we're, we're just being patient. We're waiting until the Lord wants to bless us with that. But I could see that it crushed them. And so we have to step into these situations with care. The reality is children are a gift from the Lord, but we live in a broken world and not everything comes the way that we want it to from God. And so we need to pray and we need to come around if that's something you struggle with. We want to walk with you on that.

  I know that that means opening up a, a part of the China cabinet of your heart and letting some people hold some of the nicest dishes that you have, the family heirlooms and the stuff that you never want anyone to break. But maybe you need to find just a couple of people to share that with so that they can walk with you through the struggles that come with miscarriage and infertility.

  Verse three, the whole children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of a wo of the womb of reward like arrows in the hands of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Now, arrows as we continue to walk through this passage, arrows, I want you to think about arrows. OK. That you, that you shoot, who does the arrow belong to? Does it belong to the warrior or does it belong to the king that they, that the let me put it like this, us army shoots bullets who do the bullets belong to? Do they belong to the soldier or do they belong to the US government? What's written on the side of the casings us government? I guess, I don't know, I've never seen like an army bullet but I would assume us government owns the bullets.

  Now here as it says that our children are gift from the Lord like arrows in the hands of a warrior or the children of one's youth. It's saying that who do your children belong to? They belong to the Lord. If the Lord blesses you with children, you have to remember this. The bigger have faced this in one way or another. And this will maybe give you some compassion for your kids. But the biggest struggle that you will face as a parent is the desire to control everything about your children's life. Now, some of us got some in-laws. There are like that's true. Amen. It is a struggle.

  The goal of parenting isn't to control everything about your kid's life. The temptation is there. You want to control, not just their behavior, you want to control their diet, you want to control the way that they see the world. You want to control their struggles and their sufferings. You want to control their education, their spirituality, their spirit, their psychological adjustment, their health and all of these things are outside of your control as a parent, outside of your control, as a parent.

  And so parenting is this process of letting go of our children of shooting them out of the bow and trusting that they belong to the Lord. Proverbs chapter 22 says, train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. That's assuming that you let that child go and let them take what you've taught them. The best thing you can do is just try to make the arrow straight, try to shoot it as best you can. But to let go of control. And that is a process.

  Parenting is a process of letting go of control. If you have young kids, you're gonna have more control. But as time goes on your authority lessons and your influence grows and you just have to do the best to influence them as you can as you can. Some of us need to let go. And if you even look at the modern psychology, like there's a book by Jonathan, he called the Anxious Generation. And what Jonathan he says is we need to control what kids do on screens more and more. OK. We kids don't need the screens and the social media, but we need to let them loose in the neighborhoods. Basically, he's like less control in general and like less social media.

  And we need to let our kids to have this process of independence. That's our goal as parents, which is just so radically different. You see, he, it's like the anti helicopter parent in many ways. It's, it's, it's challenging.

  Verse five. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Has anybody ever heard of that Christian subculture? The quiver full movement. All right, there's some like documentaries about this and, and stuff. Basically, there's like a whole group of Christians who read this verse and then they're like, so this says that we need to have as many children as we can possibly have and then we're going to buy a 15 passenger van or larger if we need to, we're gonna name it the quiver and we're gonna fill it with our arrows. Literally.

  There are people that have this quiver full mentality that are, you need to have as many kids as possible. Respect all respect if you have that many kids, I'm not judging you. That is fine. I drive a Subaru, it's full, like I'm, my quiver is small, I guess. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm kinda happy but, but I think what is trying to communicate is that your children are a blessing. No matter how many you have and when he says that he will not be put to shame when he speaks to his enemies at the gate, the man who has a quiver ful.

  What it's talking about is this idea that in ancient Israel, the business deals were done at the gate of the city. And so the uh a father would go and deal with his business and his children, his adult children, older children will be there and they got his dad's back. And so if the, if the dad their dad's back and so if the dad is, they're doing a business deal, then he's got this whole army of children basically, or he's got children that have his back. And that's just a beautiful picture that he has raised his kids in such a way that his kids are, have allegiance towards him and they've got their dad's back at any point and I, I hope that, that I've got that with my kids one day that I just am not over controlling to the point where they want, they don't want anything to do with me but that they want to have my back, as I'm dealing with my enemies at the gate or whatever that might look like for us.

  Now, I know that half of the sermon has been about parenting. Ok? We, we car handled work which most of us can resonate with and then parenting a lot of us aren't parents. I just wanna say this before. I don't wanna like neglect you him in here. A lava want to be parents, lavas don't care. You can be a complete person without having children. In fact, the most complete person to ever walk the earth did not have children, did not have a spouse. He did not need another person to complete him. He was complete and who he was with. His fellowship with his father and the Holy Spirit, the fellowship of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. Unmarried, no children, complete person.

  Children are a blessing from the Lord, but they do not complete you. And the second you start thinking that my children will complete you. You're falling into a trap that we call idolatry. That's the same way that we think my work will complete me that I will be OK. Once I finish my work, that is idolatry. If you don't have kids, you resonate with Jesus who also loved children. What did Jesus say? When the children start coming to him? His disciples said, no, no, no, Jesus is too busy and Jesus said, get out of here. Let the children come to me. I want the children to come here. I love children.

  And so we love children even if we don't have them. If you don't have kids here, the reality is you have fewer responsibilities. And that is a gift from the Lord also. That's what the gift of singleness is in scripture. It's just the fact that you have less responsibilities and you can le well, you know, the singleness is that you don't have a spouse. not, not that you don't have children, but it's that you have less responsibilities. And you can use that to pour into hobbies to pour into volunteer work, to po pour into church relationships, discipleship, whatever that looks like. And if you want to have a family, you still have to be re evaluating your relationship with your desires and with your work, or you'll develop some bad habits, they're going to be hard to break.

  So to conclude things here today, if you make your work your whole world, if you think my job will completely will complete me, this will kill you. And if you make your children, your whole world. If you think my children will complete me, this will also kill you. This is what idolatry is about is making good things into ultimate things. And so we lay these at the feet of Jesus. We trust him with these things. Reimagine life, reimagine priorities. You are not defined by your successes. You don't need to prove yourself. The validation and success you are looking for has been given to you freely. Jesus is your righteousness.

  I recognize that today is gonna be a day where if you're going to take the words of Psalm 127 and truly apply them, that many of you might need to be laying things down at the feet of Jesus that we need to come to Jesus humbly with open hands and talk to the Lord about the way that we're working. We might need to just first receive his grace, but then we might need to go home and make some some practical next steps of defining stricter boundaries for work, for your work hours, for practicing the Sabbath, for actually taking vacations, whatever it might look like, maybe we need to change some of the ways that we're parenting. We might have to invite others to speak into our parenting.

  Some of us might not have as radical changes to make, but we just need to lay our lives and our parenting down at the feet of Jesus in our work and receive the love of God and our failure. So here's the main point just to summarize work life balance, you can't balance at all. But you were still lo you can't balance at all, but you're still loved, you will have shortcomings.

  But because of what Christ has done, God actually does and this is what you're feeling at this moment, God actually does expect and demand perfection from you. That's what you're feeling. But then when you try to do it yourself, you are trying to be Jesus. You're not just trying to love Jesus. You're trying to be Him because God sent Jesus to live the perfect life that you could never live and to die, the death that you deserve. So that as He demands perfection, he doesn't have to look on you. But in through your faith, he looks on Christ and sees his completed work on your behalf. And so when you feel those feelings of, oh, I'm just not measuring up, I'm not doing enough. Look to Christ who is perfect on your behalf and trust in Him.

  Each week, we have a way of reminding ourselves of what He has done that we are imperfect, that we're shortcomings that we're not doing it well. But yet He's done it all perfectly and he gave us a sacred symbol of communion or the Lord's supper, Eucharist, whatever your tradition might call it. And what the way that we do it here is we, if you are a Christian here with us today. We invite you to come and receive this meal. If you need to just get in a posture of prayer. during this time, you are welcome to like kneel or whatever that looks like for you. If you need to give the Lord your work or give him your parenting, whatever that might look like, we just want to encourage you to talk to the Lord during this time. So if you would stand, let us pray as the band makes their way back up here, and we respond.

  Father, as we, as we close things up today and as we come to you, God, we pray that you would help us to process these things and really consider how we can let go of the control that we have that we can accept, be accepted by you because of Christ and that we can trust you because you are never slumbering, never sleeping, always working and you care for us. And so God, as we worship you today, God, I pray that as we prepare our hearts for this, this communion meal that you would help us to hear from you, to worship you and to draw near to you, we ask all of this in Christ's name, Amen.