The Power of Habit

And Happy New Year to all of you. My name is Mark, one of the pastors. So glad that you are joining us here. And as Adrienne said, congratulations for being in church on New Year's Day. I mean, you're amazing. People, being in church, New Year's Day, you practically don't even need a sermon. But I'm going to give you one anyway. Because 2017 is laid wide open before us. It's like a blank canvas, right? We don't have control over many things in our lives, but to the extent that you do, how will you fill in those empty spaces? You know, what will the picture look like a year from now? Well, that's why we're kicking off this new series at this time of year, Habits. Because so much of what you are going to do in this new year, so much of what I am going to do, we will do by habit.

Think about where you're sitting right now, right? If you've come more than one time, you've already got your spot. Why do we do this? We are creatures of habit. You are a creature of habit. And in his best-selling book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg cites a research study at Duke University that finds that 40% of what we do every day, we do by habit. 40%. So if you're awake 16 hours of the day, that's 6.5 hours every single day living in your habits. And often, because of the way that habits work, we're not even aware that this is going on in our lives.

For example, do you ever leave your house? Perhaps you leave to go to work or something like that. And then five, ten minutes later, you're like, "Did I lock the door? Did I close the garage?" You don't even know how you got there in the first ten minutes. You're just like, "What am I doing?" I do this all the time. So much so, especially on family trips, it's become like a joke in our family because, you know, I get two, three miles down the road and I guarantee you, I will turn to Laura and I will say, "Did we turn off the stove? Did we lock the door?" And then I'm imagining our house, it's wide open. Looters are running out the door with whatever is worth looting. Flames pour out the windows because we left the stove, the oven, the iron. They were all left on, you know? I know I'm completely nuts, but can any of you relate to that?

The reason that we forget these type of things is because they're habits. And one of the things that habits do, your brain takes routine tasks and makes them automatic, which frees up your brain to think about other things. So the more routine, the more automatic, the less aware you are in the moment. I'll give you another example. How often do you think you look at your phone every day? Oh, now it's getting personal. 200? We've got one honest man in front. Okay, let's just start at a lower number. How about 20? A little audience participant. 20 times a day. Yeah, probably 20. Okay. How about 30 or more? Keep your hand at 30 or more. 40 or more? Anyway, 40? 50? He's like, "Man, I'm a true believer, man." Look at this. Brand new study. The average person reaches for their phone, and this is teenagers, and they're lumped into this average. So here we go. 85 times a day. 85 times. In fact, the study found that whatever you think it is, invariably it's about twice as much.

And by the way, if it was 85 times, that's once every 11 minutes in those same waking hours. So you get three shots during this message. But Sally Andrews is a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University, and the study's lead author says this. She says, "A lot of smartphone use seems to be habitual, automatic behaviours that we have no awareness of." Same's true of all the other habits in our lives. So whenever you click the mouse or you pop open the fridge, you know, you reach for a glass, or you pull out your credit card, or pick up the remote, most of the time you're on autopilot. It's habits.

You know what this means? It means that much of the time, at least, you either control your habits or your habits control you. So this is what I want to do just to get things started in this series. I want to talk for a moment about habits and how they work. I'll be drawing from Charles Duhigg's book, and then I want to share with you four life-changing and indispensable habits. And I don't call them that to hype them up. I call them that because they are life-changing and indispensable, especially for followers of Christ. But if you think about it, almost every habit boils down to some very simple, basic behaviour. Very simple.

For instance, if you were to lift weights, Adrian's always got a weight with him. He's working out all the time. And by the way, doesn't Adrian look awesome? He's incredible. So stay tuned for details on that. But this is not the most complicated thing in the world, right? Up, down, up, down. But if you keep doing this over and over again, this becomes part of your overall workout habit. What's going to happen? Today, what's going to happen? You're going to get so pumped up, you're going to have fabulous biceps, you're going to be so powerful, right? We all know how that works, but you know what? The spiritual habits are often the very same. They're so simple, so basic, and yet they are so essential to growth.

But here's my concern today, because sometimes when we have messages that become very practical, very simple, they can also seem formulaic. Because they focus on still practical things that we do. So what we need to do is we need to keep in mind the larger context, which is what God has done for us in Christ, what he continues to do for us in Christ. We sang about that in that last beautiful hymn that Trent led us in. Just the mystery of his working and his life is amazing grace, because if we lose sight of that, otherwise this just becomes ritual, routine. It becomes just kind of another religious list that we follow.

And so we're going to wrap up our time together today with a powerful reminder of God's grace as we gather around. This is a 2,000 year old tradition, the Lord's Table, communion, where two very simple elements, bread and cup, remind us of God's grace and love for us and nourish our souls. Well, let's start out with habits. As far as I can tell, every habit falls into one of four categories. There are four kinds of habits, and they are bad habits, good habits, former habits and new habits. Bad, good, former and new. And I suppose a fifth kind would be other people's habits. Those are a lot more fun to think about.

But I want you to think about your own habits, especially how they fall into those first three categories right there. And what's at least one bad habit that you wish that you could shake from your life? One bad habit. In fact, I want you to write that down in your notes in big bold letters so the person next to you can see it. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But I'm just betting that there's something very specific that you are thinking about right now that you wish was no longer a part of your life. Well, you know what? You're not alone. Because even the mighty Apostle Paul, the one who wrote much of the New Testament, who had incredible missionaries, you know, planning church after church, even Paul had behaviors in his life that he struggled with.

In fact, he may have had a very specific habit in mind when he confesses in Romans 7:15. He says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do." That sums up all of us right there. Now, there's no doubt that you also have some good habits in your life. In fact, raise your hand if you have a regular exercise habit in your life. Just raise your hand. You get regular exercise? Very good. The rest of us hate you, though. Anyway, I'm just kidding. Raise your hand if you'd like to have a regular exercise habit. And it's stunned me. Three services in a row. I get about, you know, 30 percent of the room. The rest of you are like, "No, I don't want any exercise. No, not me." This is too much exercise, Mark. I can't count. I don't want to do that.

But you know what? It's a new year. There's so much potential. And if we can leverage the power of habit in our lives, massive changes are possible. I'll give you a real-life example. Lisa Allen started drinking and smoking in her mid-teens. It became habitual behavior. She also struggled with obesity. She was chronically in financial debt. By the time she was 30 years old, her husband tells her he's in love with another woman. He wants a divorce. And so she goes into kind of crazy mode. And in addition to another thing, among other things, she shows up on the new girlfriend's porch, banging on the door, drunk, yelling she's going to burn the place down.

Thinking that a change of scenery might help, she always wanted to go to Egypt. And so she maxes out yet another credit card and lands in Cairo. The first three, four days in the hotel, she's smoking, drinking, and binge eating. She gets sick of that and decides, "I'm here. I've always dreamed of this place. I'm going to go see the pyramids." And it's during that drive in the taxi, looking out at the vast Egyptian desert that a goal forms in her heart and her mind. And she says, "Someday, I'm going to come back here and I'm going to trek through this desert." Problem. She's terribly out of shape. And that's what she decides. If I'm going to reach this goal, I need to quit smoking, which she successfully does.

How did she do it? Well, this is going to sound very simple and don't confuse simple with easy. But whenever she felt the urge to smoke, instead of reaching for her cigarette, she reached for her jogging shoes. And instead of doing the thing that she'd done for half of her life, she starts to develop a new habit just by replacing one object for the other. She kept her shoes right in front of her, knowing the craving was going to come. And by doing that, she reprogrammed an old bad habit and turned it into a new good habit. And here's why experts say she did the exact right thing, because experts will say that every habit has three components.

There are three components of habits, and every habit begins with, first of all, a cue. A cue is a time of day, it's a place, it's an emotion. Something cues in us a type of craving. So for example, at three o'clock every weekday over in the Twin Lakes office, some of us develop a craving for a cup of half-caf coffee from the Keurig machine. And it just comes reliably around three o'clock every time, which leads to the second component, which is the routine. In the case of that habit, you get up and go get yourself a cup. Or in Lisa's case, in her past life, she would smoke. And finally, there's the reward. So you get the cue, the routine, the reward. The reward is, again, a sense of pleasure, satisfaction, a stress release, accomplishment, whatever the nature of that habit might be.

Now, you think about a habit in your own life, maybe even that bad habit that I invited you to think about. You will be able to identify those three components. The cue, where the craving comes upon you, it's typically same place, same time of day, the routine, and the reward. These are like the gears of a habit. And once you identify these three components, you can begin to kind of mess with the gears, so to speak. So let's go to just that three o'clock coffee habit that I mentioned. Let's say I wanted to change that habit. Well, one way would be to put myself someplace other than the Twin Lakes office at three o'clock in the afternoon. Because if I'm not there at three o'clock, the chances of me experiencing that cue, that craving, are almost nil.

Now, there's a problem. I get paid to be in the Twin Lakes office most days of the week at three o'clock. And so I could then look to the next component, the routine. And when the cue comes, instead of walking to the break room, walk out my door, take some laps around the campus or something like that, my same cue, different routine, my brain still experiences reward. And that is exactly what Lisa Allen did by simply replacing the cigarettes with the running shoes. And once that jogging habit started to become developed in her life, it started a snowball effect into other areas of her life. She started to care more about how she ate. She started sleeping better. She started managing her money better. Eventually, she lost 60 pounds. Then she started competing in half marathons, then full marathons, all because she changed one component in one habit her life was radically changed.

And that brings us to today's big idea. So if you forget everything else, I want you to get this. Here's the big idea today. Habits are either powerful friends or powerful foes. Good habits can just be your best friend, but boy, bad habits, they are ferocious enemies. And you know this from your own life, don't you? The more entrenched a habit becomes, the greater the impact that it has. And so Galatians 6:7 says, "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." You keep sowing the same behaviors. You will reap a harvest for better or for worse. And I want to be clear about something. I'm not saying that you are simply the sum of your habits because the good news of the gospel is that God's redemptive work is always going on in our life.

And so there's the mystery of his care, his grace in our lives. But generally speaking, we are nevertheless than our habits either. We reap what we sow. And sometimes the harvest is awesome. And sometimes it is utterly heartbreaking. Just a couple weeks ago, I got out of the water from surfing. And I ended up talking to a young man in his mid-twenties. He just got out of the water as well. And I never met him before, but really friendly guy, very polite, funny. We had about a 10-minute conversation. And I just thought, you know, cool guy. I hope he has a great day. I was heartbroken to find. Less than a week later, he was found dead in his room from an overdose of drugs.

It haunted me because you just never know when you're going to have that last conversation with him. He certainly didn't know in the midst of that conversation that he had less than a week to live. But in talking to a friend of mine who's very familiar with addiction, he said this to me, it's really stuck with me. He said, you know what, Mark, addictions are patient. They are very patient. As I learned more about this, this young man's life, he had enjoyed a time of sobriety. But on a very rainy day, we had some rainy weather in December. He had nothing else to do. And that addiction found its opening. And he died in his disease. It's so tragic.

And while experts nuance the difference between habits and addiction, what is important for us to know today is this. If you are battling addiction, you need more than just good information or some good book or something like that. You need recovery. And by the way, we have recovery groups that meet Monday at seven and Thursday at seven every week of the year, including this Monday night. They'll be there and Thursday as well. I invite you, please, seven o'clock, take advantage of that. But you may also need treatment. You might need medical care to deal with what is a chemical, physical dependency in your life. And I am begging you to get help. I would talk to any of our pastors. We're prepared to give you resources to help you get the care and help that you need. Don't become a statistic. Hear me on this because the longer you wait, the greater the toll becomes.

You might be thinking, well, that's not me, Mark. Good thing. Well, good thing indeed. But you know what the Bible says? The Bible says we're all addicts one way or another because we're all addicted to sin. Why do you think it is so much easier to start bad habits and so hard to start good habits? It's because we are natural born sinners. It is always easy to roll downhill. And so you know what? Hey, I'm all for establishing great habits in our lives. I mean, why in the world wouldn't you want to do that? But your greatest need isn't to be skinnier or to have a better rear end or manage your money better. Your greatest need in life is to find life in Jesus Christ and to grow in His grace because you don't have to be a slave to sin.

He died to break those chains. He took your guilt. He took your shame. He took your bad habits and they were nailed to the cross with Him. And by rising from the grave, He proved He is Lord of all. He is Lord of all life. And that is why the apostle Paul so boldly proclaims in Romans 1 when he says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes including you." And I hope you hear the word of the Lord today. I hope you hear it. This is about God's help, not just self-help. You know where I'm coming from? It's about the power of the gospel in our lives.

Having said that, does God invite us to cooperate with what He's doing in our lives? Well, of course He does. Absolutely. You don't have the power, but you have the choice as to whether or not you will tap into that power. It's like if you're sailing out on the bay. You don't have power over the wind, but you can choose to raise the sails, can't you? So along those lines, I want to share with you just these four very powerful, very, very basic habits. And for some of you, this is not going to be new information. You've got to lock on this. And I hope this...you'll just go, "You know what, Mark? I'll praise the Lord that's become a habit in my life." And praise the Lord that's become a habit in my life because that's evidence of God's grace in your life.

And I want to give you this might be new or you're struggling in this area. And man, I just pray that God will give you the desire to seek His help in making these a reality because they will change your life. And the first habit is this. It's a habit I call starting with Jesus. Starting your day with Jesus. Starting your commute with Jesus. Starting with Jesus before you make that important decision or you have that emotional conversation. Starting with Jesus before you eat or drink, before you buy, before you travel, before you give up, you start with Jesus. Maybe you don't even know the first thing about God. Start with Jesus.

Hebrews 12:2 says, "Let us fix our eyes on," who? Let me hear you, church. "Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." It all starts and ends with Jesus. Maybe you've heard the words of the prayer of St. Patrick. They include this verse where it says, "Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me. Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down." In other words, I invite Jesus into every area of my life. I start with Him because you can have it all together. Your life can be so fine-tuned, so dialed in. But if you don't find your meaning and your purpose in Jesus Christ, you are missing the absolute best part. You're missing out on why God has you on this planet.

You know, the Apostle Paul, there's a lot of things he could look to as accomplishments and accolades and pedigrees. He was an impressive person, and yet he says in Philippians 3:8, he says, "Yes, everything else is worthless when compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." So start with him. And when you do that, the second habit just naturally flows out of that. The second habit is listening to Jesus, listening to Him. Every time we spend absorbing information, every 11 minutes, right? But is there anything more important than hearing what Jesus has to say to us?

It reminds me of a fascinating story in the Gospels where Jesus invites three of His disciples to go on a little hike with Him, and they end up at the top of a mountain top where suddenly there's a surprise waiting for these three guys, Jesus' glory is revealed in that moment. And all of a sudden, these brilliant white light just radiates from His body as His divine glory is on display. And the disciples, of course, they're just completely freaking out. They say, "What would you be doing?" And it says in Mark's Gospel, it says, "Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud. 'My son whom I love, listen to Him.'" Of all the things that God the Father could have said, "This is my son whom I love." And then what? "Listen to Him." And you know what? I don't think that's just for those three guys. I think that's for us too.

Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly." Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world," and that includes its habits, "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." In other words, as you take in the message of Christ, the Gospel, and you soak in His Word, it will literally transform your mind because you're inviting Him to speak to you. You're inviting Him to do this. And by the way, one of the ways that you can leverage a habit that you may have when it comes to cell phones, if you're going to be looking at your phone every 11 minutes, you might as well make it worthwhile because if you don't already have this app on your phone, you need to get it. It's called YouVersion.

It's totally free. It's a version of the Bible. This is stunning that this is available for free, but there's hundreds of translations of the Bible available that you can download on your phone. It's got verses of the day that it will send to you. It's got reading plans for a month, for a year, for along a certain topic, and it's all totally free. And so you can just work that into your daily life because over time, the message and the truth of Jesus Christ, it permeates your heart, your mind, your soul. It transforms your perspective on everything else as we listen to Him.

But you know, Jesus doesn't want the conversation to just be a one-way conversation. And so the third habit is this. It's called talking to God. In other words, prayer. And this was clearly, clearly this was a habit in Jesus' own life. It says in Luke 5:16, it says, "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." Does that surprise you? I mean, you would think, "Of all the people that have ever lived, does Jesus really need to pray?" Well, apparently, He did. A lot. So much so, it was a known habit in His life. You know, if He went missing, the disciples would probably just go, "Oh, yeah, He's not praying. That's what He does." You know? Kind of got a habit of doing that.

Well, if He felt that much of a need to pray, how much more do we have a need to pray? Colossians 4:2 says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." And I have to admit that when I look at this verse, I am not what you would call a natural-born prayer. You know, some of you, prayer is like breathing. It's natural. For me, this was a habit that I had to develop in my life. I really did. And years ago, something that really ignited prayer in my life, I was studying what Jesus teaches about prayer in Matthew 6:6. And in verse 6, He says, "When you pray, go into your room and close the door and talk to your Father. Pray to your Father."

And as I studied that passage, I discovered that the word "room" He refers to there, refers to a specific room in these first-century Middle Eastern homes. It was a little central room that was often used as a store room or be the place that you would go to kind of have some privacy get away from everyone else. Because their rooms were, their houses were otherwise somewhat open. And it's the type of room that we would call a closet. A closet. And it's as if in that realization, Jesus was saying, "Mark, find your prayer closet. Find your prayer closet and that's where we will meet." And so as I thought, "Well, do I have a prayer closet? Is there some place that I go?" And I realized, I do have a prayer closet.

It's not a closet at all. It's my bed at about 6 o'clock in the morning. Most of my life, in the wee hours of the morning, I just naturally, I'm just predisposed to pray. I start thinking about the Lord and I want to talk with Him and talk about decisions, talk about concerns, and pray for other people. It's just a natural thing. I just never thought that was like my prayer closet. And once I embraced that and ran with it, I was able to develop perhaps the best habit in my entire life. Just running with that. And so if you haven't found your prayer closet yet, it might not be in your bed. It could be at the kitchen table. It could be in your car. It could be on your daily walk. But find that, run with that, and you'll see your prayer life just start to soar.

Now before we look at this last habit, one of the things we're doing during this series is we're recording people in this church, people just like you, who are willing to talk about their own habits and putting them into a little video package so you can hear from more than just the paid staff. And the couple you're about to hear from, they could speak to any one of these habits, but they really zero in on the power of the second and third one, the power of listening to God through His Word, listening to Jesus and talking to Him through prayer. And so I want you to watch the screen.

Hi, we're Dennis and Fay Malone, and we start our days with Bible study and prayer in the morning. My daily habit is to get up, start the coffee, grab my Bible and sit on the couch and spend some time alone with just me and God when it's still dark outside, and let Him speak to me in the stillness. And I wake up about sometime between 5.30 and 6.30 in the morning. I have to keep myself focused on what I'm doing because I'm easily distracted. I have to stay on track and go directly to the place I have prepared to be with the Lord. It kind of sets my heart and my mind in the right place, and it gives me a chance to really think about all the good things and the good gifts that God provides on a daily basis.

I didn't become a Christian until I was 25 years old, and I definitely wanted to learn more of God's way of living your life versus my own selfish way of living. I started the habit of Bible study because I lived the first 32 years of my life without the Lord. Life without the Lord can get very desperate. And once I knew the Lord, I just wanted to spend time with Him. This habit has really changed my life. It gets me centered in the beginning of the day. And if I don't do it first thing in the morning, I know myself and I know, and it's not going to happen. So if I don't do it first thing in the morning, then I'm not going to have the best day that I can. So that's why it's important for me to get up and to do that. And if I can say a word every day, it helps me to stay grounded.

Another thing Faye and I enjoy doing is we like to pray before we start our day when we leave for work. So we'll just stand at the door before we're going to part and just take a moment to stop and give God thanks and ask for His guidance for the day. You know, if you're someone that seems overwhelming to do any kind of Bible study, and if you just start out, read one verse and just think on that. It's important for us as individuals to tune into our internal clocks and what works for us. For me, I'm a morning person and that works out great. You might be a lunchtime person or you might be an evening person. It really doesn't matter when, it matters that it works for you. But don't get carried away with how much time you're spending because God's not, He doesn't have a stopwatch. He just cares that you want to be with Him. And for a short amount of time, that's fantastic. And if it grows after that, then that's good too. And He's always talking to us, we just don't stop long enough to listen.

In spending time in God's Word, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose because there's much more that we don't know than what we do know. So being in God's Word and just trying to dissect it and read verses and let them get in your heart, and God's going to do the rest. He's going to make it happen. Let's thank Dennis and Faye for being willing to share. And I also want to thank them for this. Just this weekend, they concluded that 28 years on our staff at Camp Hammer have been so faithful to one of the vital ministries of this church. So can we just thank them one more time for an amazing, amazing run. Love them dearly. I just love them so much.

But you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, you know, Mark, clearly I am not wired that way. I don't have a whiteboard in my house where I write down my little spiritual insights or something like that. In fact, Mark, I don't even know where my keys are right now. You just might be wired somewhat different than that." Well, guess what? Neither am I. I've been what you might call a professional Christian since my mid-20s. I had the privilege of going to seminary. I love to geek out reading Hebrew and Greek. And yet I still lapse in these four very basic areas. So, you know, you might be like Dennis and Faye. You've got this down cold. You're like a black belt in these areas. And you know what? Praise the Lord for that. You didn't just fall into that. That's evidence of His grace in your life. And you know the power of those habits.

But if you're like me, and maybe you kind of struggle to be as consistent as you'd like to be, just take this as God's gentle New Year's nudge that it might be time to either start some new habits or restart some former habits and ask Him for the power to help you actually put that into practice. Those habits are starting with Jesus, listening to Jesus, talking to God. And fourth and finally, this is not going to come as a big shocker here. The fourth habit is this, coming to church. Now you're thinking, "Well, here I am, Mark. Got that one. Check that box." And good on you. Congratulations. I know I'm preaching to the choir here this morning, but I just want to encourage you in this habit because I cannot tell you how much a blessing it has been to be in the church habit.

So to speak for most of my life and specifically this church. And many of you could say the same thing countless thousands of lives that are blessed simply by being a part of church. And I will never forget the first time we came to this church. I was a fifth grader. I had been in a church service larger than a hundred people. And suddenly we could come into this giant room with all these people. It was overwhelming. So of course, we booked it straight to the balcony, back row. Right. And I'm not suggesting that's why you're up there today. But for us, we wanted to keep maximum distance between what was happening here and where we were sitting. And I would say for now, some of you, of course, it's just a habit or you like the view. But again, that's why we did it.

And if you would have told me that kid sitting up in the balcony and we sat up there for a while, sitting up there that someday I'd actually be on the stage for any reason, let alone preaching a sermon. I believed you in a million years and no one else would have either. But I digress. And if I had believed you, I would have run for the hills, man. I'd still be running. But over time, this church just absolutely transformed my life, my brother, my sisters, my entire family. And you know what? It wasn't the room that did that. It was the people in this room. Now some have gone off to heaven, but many of you, you're still here. And you volunteered in my youth group or the college group that I was in. And you've spoken to my life and the life of my peers. You not only served, but you modeled humble devotion to Christ. You prayed, you gave.

In other words, you helped make this possible. And along the way, you blessed my life and the life of thousands of others in ways that we can't even begin to calculate. And this is why I feel this last verse I'm going to share with you. I feel this in my bones. Because this is my story. And in Hebrews 10:24-25, I love these verses, it says, "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." And I'm not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. And yes, just as churches is a habit, not going to churches is a habit, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. These are life verses for me. I've been on the receiving end of these verses. Many of you have as well. And boy, for the rest of my days, I just hope to be on the giving end as well.

I want to be of encouragement to you and to others. You too, you want to have an impact. But to kind of put it bluntly, it only happens when we show up. When we have a meaningful presence. You know, not waiting until our lives or our circumstances are perfect, they never will be. Or not waiting until this church or some other church is finally the perfect church. That's not going to happen either. And you know, I'm not talking about getting all legalistic and weird and perfect attendance. I'm just talking about having a level of consistency that makes it meaningful. Because we are called to community. We are the body of Christ. And there's something very unique and powerful when the body comes together. So don't miss out on it.

Not for your sake and not for the sake of people around you who God wants to touch their lives through you. So we're going to celebrate our togetherness as we close today. We're going to celebrate that around the Lord's table. Two thousand year tradition. We're two very simple elements again, remind us of His love for us. First of all, He invites us to His table. It's His table where He offers life beyond the habits and hang ups that we want to shake. He offers life that gives power and meaning to everything that we would aspire to. Gives us hope in the midst of everything that might cause us to despair.

And so to all who hunger and thirsty, says to all who are weary and heavy laden, He simply says, come. And if you've done that, that's your desire to do that. It's not very complicated. You just say, yes, Jesus, I want that. I want the life that you offer me. And today could be your first communion. What better way to start off the new year than just simply say, yes, Jesus, I want to start with you today. I trust you. As much as I understand it, I know you died for me and you offer me new life. If you believe that, He says, hey, share with your brothers and sisters around my table.

And so I'm going to invite the ushers to make their way forward here in just a moment as they get the communion elements prepared. They're going to serve us. And as they do, I want you to hold on to that bread and the cup and just think about the significance of those two elements in your life. Think about God's grace. Think about what He might have been speaking to you today and reflect on those things. And Trent and Robin are also going to sing about, I'm going to have a word of prayer first so that we can prepare our hearts.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your grace in our lives. We thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to come before you. And Lord, I pray there's a broad spectrum in this room. There are folks in here, and they've been doing this for decades, these four very simple habits, and their lives are testimony to the power of these things. Simple as they are. Others of us, Lord, we struggle and we're kind of consistent for a while, and we kind of fall off. And Lord, I just pray this year, you would really cement these habits into our lives in a really consistent way. And then we would just continue to rely on you for the power to do that.

And for those, Lord, who are brand new, there are people here, Lord, I believe are here because they are desperate for the life that you offer. They're desperate for a change in some very entrenched habits. They're desperate because they are being stalked by dark forces in their life, and they know it. And so they're here looking for sanctuary, looking for hope, and so Lord, meet them in this moment. Wherever we're at today, Lord, we offer ourselves to you and pray that you would just take our lives and do as you will. Thank you for, again, what you've done for us on the cross and this opportunity to remember and reflect on the significance of your sacrifice for us. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, all God's people said. Amen.