DEC 26 2021 | Proverbs: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World S1E1

Sea Change Church · Proverbs for the New Year · "Proverbs" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · December 26, 2021
Proverbs 17:1
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Music Start spreading the news I'm leaving today Sometimes you guys gotta feed a different generation than the one I grew up in. So I thought we'd go to Frank Sinatra for this one. And that is, the reason we play that is because he is known, obviously, for just being a great singer, Old Blue Eyes, and a whole bunch of other reasons. But also, having to do with the new year. When you think about a New Year's song, a New Year's approach, and what you're looking for, Frank is the one that you listen to.

And so yesterday I was going through the Frank Sinatra catalog and came across that. I am beginning, I am launching in, to a short little series on the book of Proverbs. And the book of Proverbs, and the reason being, in order to give you wisdom to set 22, the year 22, aright. To set it, perhaps, in a different trajectory than the last year you lived. I would say that our last two years have been a year, have been two years, where we weren't really able to live according to goals, right?

And this is something I'll talk about in a moment. That I am a values-oriented, I'm trying to be a value-oriented person, rather than a goals-oriented person. The, I'll tell you why that is in a moment. And the book of Proverbs is less about goals and more about values. And why that has been important in the last two years, because if you had a goal, perhaps, to finish school, or to go on a trip, or to make a certain amount of money, or to buy a house, or whatever it is, it seems that those goals could so easily be swept away.

And if you were living a goal-oriented life, it is so easy, sometimes, to be disappointed when those goals don't happen. But if you're living a value-oriented life, no matter what the scenario, whether it plays out in the accomplishment of your goals, or in the diminishing of your goals, that if you are focused on values, that you can live a life that is equally as meaningful, because you're focusing on the fuel of those goals.

Now, I want to start with these questions as we move into the new year. Here's the first question for you, and you can write this in your notes. There's a lot of room for notes today on your packet. First of all, where are you trying to get to? It's a good question to ask yourself at the beginning of the year. Where are you trying to get to? Where are you trying to get to in your life? Where are you trying to get to in your relationships?

Do you even think about where you're trying to get to? The next question I would ask is this. What is most important to you? If you were to write down a list of 1 to 10 of what is most important to you, what is most important to you? Many of us would put values such as family or faith or whatever that is, and we have these high goals and we have these high values that we go after. But what I often find in my own life is that there's a competing set of desires that competes with my values.

I might say that family is my number one value, but sometimes the way I live my life doesn't always show that family is. And the goals and my desires tend to be at war oftentimes with the things that I most want. And so we see that and we ask ourselves some questions. Number one, where are you trying to get to? The second, what is most important to you? And let me ask this. And a lot of people don't even know the answer to this.

Why are you trying to get where you're going? Why are you trying to get to the place that you're going? Now, a lot of times the answer to that question is because we have a utopian view of our future. We have a view that if we get the things that we actually want, then we will be happy. Then we will find this place of contentment. Then we will find this place of joy. We will find this place of happiness. Actually, we will find all the things that Christ promised you, that Jesus promised you, without accomplishing any of those desires and goals.

And so we begin to think that if we get to this certain place, then that place will be filled with the place that we want to be, a lot of times emotionally, a lot of times spiritually. So the question is, why do you want to get where you're going? And why is what is important to you most important to you? If we look in the Proverbs, we have a Proverbs we're going to look at today. It's Proverbs 17.1. And if you have your Bibles or your iPhone or your notes, or you can just look at the screen, let's show that up on the screen.

Proverbs 17.1 says this. The reason I wanted to move into this series on Proverbs is I would say that while there are other books that are perhaps more theologically important for me, the book of Romans, incredibly theologically important. The book of John, in regard to who Jesus is from the perspective of perhaps Jesus' best friend, incredibly important to me. We have our books that we love the most. But I would say if there has been a book that has shaped my own personal life, the way I try to live, and actually the on-the-ground decisions that I make, there is no other book other than the book of Proverbs and perhaps its sister book, Ecclesiastes, that work in tandem to guide my life.

I read the book of Proverbs every single day. That's not true for any other book. Almost every day. I read the book of Proverbs almost every single day, and I read, because there's 31 Proverbs, you can read a proverb per day. And what I have found is as you continue to read those, it promises you that it will fill you with wisdom. If you want to be a person with wisdom, read the book of Proverbs. And what happens is your favorite Proverbs begin to show up the more you've been doing this.

Now, I've been doing this now for, I don't know, 15 years probably in my faith walk. And you will get to a place where the decision that you will make in a difficult crossing of the roads in your life will immediately be responded to with a proverb that God has put on your heart. I have multiple Proverbs. I'm going to share today four or five of these quick Proverbs that I go to. These are my go-to verses that have shaped my life personally.

And if you see anything within the leadership, within the church, within relationships, within my own family, within my own life, that you think, well, that's something I wouldn't mind taking on board. It was probably shaped, I would say it was most definitely shaped, through the Proverbs. And so that's what we're going to be doing for the next few weeks as we look at that. Now, Proverbs has a word that's really important.

And in Ecclesiastes, we're going to be looking at these together, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, both written by Solomon. The word is better. Better. The word better is, if you're in England, you could say better, is used more often in the book. I mean, it's exponentially greater in the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes than anywhere else in the Bible. Now, I guess the question I would ask you is, do you want a life that is better?

Do you want a life that is better? And the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes say that by using the Proverbs, that you will have a life that will actually be better. But it won't be based on goals. As a matter of fact, I don't really know anywhere in Proverbs where that gives you a goal to do something, unless that goal is living out of value. I actually see Jesus, other than, you know, sharing the message of hope and going to the cross, didn't have any goals that he followed.

Now, there's nothing wrong with goals. Goals get us out of bed in the morning. But what I have learned is this. You can easily accomplish all of your goals, and I've seen this many times in life. You can easily accomplish all of your goals while besmirching and violating all of your values. And many people do that. I've been in, I would say, one or two organizations where I've worked that were Christian organizations that crushed it on all of their goals.

They crushed their financial goals. They crushed their number goals. They crushed so many goals, but over and over again, I watched those organizations earlier on in my life, and the leadership violate their values in order to accomplish those goals. What's more important to you, your goals or your values? One of the things I know about values is if you live according to your values, you can fail in all of your perceived goals.

You can fail in all of your perceived goals. And at the end of the day, look back at your life and say, that was a life of meaning. Because while I failed at not accomplishing that business, and no one read my book, and no one danced my dance, and no one sung my song, or all these grandiose dreams that we have, that when they fail, if you live them with values, and you said, as I did those, I did those with a value of love.

I did those with a value of chastity. I did that with a value of honor, with a value of loyalty. These are the values that we live by. Unfortunately, we live in a goal-oriented society. Bigger house, bigger car, more, more, more. You know, there's a quote by Pearl Buck, one of the original missionaries out of China in the early 1900s that worked for Asian adoption, which back in the early 1900s was not something that was, it was frowned upon.

Mixed race adoption and these different things. She worked to help the poor. She's an incredible Presbyterian missionary. She said this, many people lose the small joys of life in hope for the one big happiness. Let me just say that again. Many people lose the small joys in life in the hope of one big happiness. Ecclesiastes uses this word better, like I said. Ecclesiastes uses that word better 23 times. The book of Proverbs uses that word 21 times.

I believe that the closest to that is about 8. I mean, exponentially. It's saying in these books, if you read these books, if you listen to Wisdom Call, that you will have a better life. The question is, what is guiding your life? What is guiding your desires? Why do you want to get to where you want to get to? Why do you want to do what you think you want to do? And do you even know what your values are? And if you do, are your goals actually superseding sometimes your actual values?

In the book here, there's a recipe for contentment. There's a recipe for contentment. Let me just read that verse, Proverbs 17, 1 again. Better a dry crust of bread with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. Better a dry crust of bread with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. I want to say that there's four areas of a recipe that will help you bring this into your life. Now, I don't know about you, but I was making, I decided I wanted to do something Christmassy the other day.

It was like Wednesday. So I thought, I'm going to make some cookies. So I get this cookie. Now, I didn't do my normal cookie recipe, which is like stunning. It's, I mean, it's sublime. It really is. I think it was, it's a stunning cookie. You've had it, Crit. No, okay. The adjective pretty, good, is not no. They're sublime. Not cakey. Lots of chocolate. 70% cacao in the chip. I mean, which causes them to hold their structure.

Nonetheless. So, not that I've thought about it much. So I'm, I make a cookie, and I think I'm just going to make a fast cookie, and I throw it in there. And I put too much butter. I don't really measure the butter. And I throw it in there, and then I get like this goopy, and I'm like, oh my goodness. So as it's mixing, I'm like, I'll just add some flour. One of the things I've learned about baking, it's not like cooking.

Like with cooking, just throw some more tomatoes in, a little more salt, a little bit. Just kind of do it as you go. Baking, as my wife has told me, is chemistry. If you're a baker, you can't mess it up. I gave a little bit of extra half tea, what's a half teaspoon of baking soda? About that much cookie. I'll tell you that much. So I make it, and I taste it. I get these really tall, cakey cookies, okay? Like this tall, hard to find the chips in there.

I eat it. I brought it to one of Eric's sons. I think he's nine years old, okay? He's nine. I gave him a chocolate chip cookie. He's the violin player. By the way, Eric, my mom loved you. She said you were amazing. And I guess this is just your spot. You can just sit there and play violin for the next year. And I gave it to the nine-year-old, and I said, what do you think? He goes, yeah, it's okay. You want the rest?

And I'm like, okay. If a nine-year-old gives you a chocolate chip cookie back, I said it's a little cakey, isn't it? He goes, yeah, a little dry, a little cakey, a little dry. Why do I say that? Because when it comes to achieving contentment, contentment is a recipe. The book of Proverbs talks about peace, joy, contentment, and rest. It talks about these things that we all want in our life, and it's a recipe. I want to say that contentment doesn't just happen.

You're not going to just walk through life and have contentment happen. I want to say that contentment, peace, joy are a decision, and they're actually difficult to accomplish. They don't just happen. You have to make a conscious decision. Some of the things in your life must suffer so that you may have those things. And then once you get there, once you extricate from your life those things that pull away the joy, the peace, the contentment, sometimes you're striving for more, you want bigger, you want better, or whatever it is.

We want a bigger yard at the suffrage of our children getting to spend time with us so we work longer hours and more jobs to make all this happen. And at the suffrage of those, at the end of the day, we find out that we don't have the things that we actually wanted. And so first thing is achieving it is difficult. You have to work just like a recipe. I'm going to talk quickly about that recipe here as we come in for a close on the message.

And then the next thing is once you achieve it, I have found that it's difficult to keep it. You actually have to find it. And I've said this before, and I had one of the people in the, about four or five years ago contact me, and I said, contentment can be quite boring. And somebody got back to me and they emailed me, if it's contentment from God, it's not boring. Okay. Maybe you're right. And I'm sure that if God gives me this perfect contentment.

What I have found is as I've decided to reach for less, as I've decided that if I got to the goal, maybe I don't want what's on the other side. One thing we never do is look at our goals and think, what if we get there and we don't want it? What if we get there, we never look at the dystopian side of it. I think you should look at both sides of your goal and see what it actually costs. And so as I, as I look at that, what I have found is this.

I have gotten to a place where I've extricated many things in my life to bring me to a place of peace and joy. And then you get there and I want to tell you what happens. I just start, I don't know about you, I'm kind of high adrenaline. I start twitching. Like I got to go find something to do. I got to go look for a house to buy. I got to go on a trip. I got to go like, I got to go do something as opposed to just being able to rest in the place that we all want to be, right?

Like don't most all of us want to be in a place of contentment, joy, peace, happiness, living in the moment. And then we do everything in our life to distract ourselves from being able to do that. And so one of the ways to do that is to want less. We'll look at the practical. I'm going to give you just a practical understanding. I understand that this is a very practical message as a more than a theological message. But let me just give you from the church business something we did.

We were going to send out a mailer to all of Bird Rock and Northern PB announcing our Christmas service. And we asked for advice from this mailing company and they gave us the flyer. And he said, this is how you have to do it. We printed it out, paid for 5,000 of them. We got them. And it's like Tuesday and we're trying to do the turnaround. It was creating all this tension on the staff. Who can pick up the things? Who can drive to there?

And there's so many things happening. And then the postmaster called me and I finally got them there. I drop them off and I get a call from the postmaster. You don't really want to call from the postmaster if you drop off 5,000 pieces of mail. And the postmaster said, they're not right. We can't send them unless you put a sticker on all 5,000 of them. And I was like, hmm. After the Christmas party on Tuesday, we gather everybody around and we lick and put stickers on every single...

I had a decision then. Put this entire staff, it was crazy enough as it was, into overdrive mode or just hand out as many flyers as we could to people who came and went by and let it go. And in that moment, part of me was like, we've got to get this mailer out. What would happen if the people of Bird Rock don't hear about our Christmas service? We were going to have a camel 24 hours before. The camel lady calls me. Smoking camel.

No, I'm just kidding. The camel lady calls me. And she says, hey, we have needed 24 hours to know you can do it. I can't risk paying my staff, so we're going to cancel. If you want the camels on the rainy day, you have to send people here at 730 in the morning, get a team and send them to help load the camels. No camels. Let me just tell you. And you know what happened in those decisions? These verses, and that verse on the 17th that I read this week said, better a dry crust of service with no camels.

And peace. I mean, we probably overthrottled on the bratwurst as it is. I mean, we're looking back, we're like, we probably overthrottled on the bratwurst a little bit. That is a practical decision to say, look, you know what's more important in our church, because we want to be a church of rest, that is more important to us, even if the flyers don't get out. Even if we paid for the flyers, and I'm like, ugh, we paid for these flyers, even if they don't get out.

Why? Because I want to value something greater than a goal. I want to value something that is more important to us as a church, joy, peace, contentment, a staff that doesn't walk around like they're crazy all the time, it's hard enough to be in ministry, to have peace beyond that. We want to value that more than we want to value growing the numbers. You know, we don't even have a growth plan for our church. We don't, I just want you to know, we don't have goals.

We've never had a growth goal. We've never, other than setting the budget, we've never had a finance goal. But this will be the best year of giving that you guys have ever given, ever, in the history of this church. It's been incredible. Thank you. Yeah. One of the things I know this is, if you, I found myself with goals, and I understand this is a very practical message, where I'm talking a lot of practice, and we're not digging into the Hebrew of that verse.

I get that. But I think it's important for a new year to occasionally speak about the practice. One of the things that I have learned is, as we look at our values, is that I will actually forget what I was going to say as I give that other addendum. So I forgot what I was going to say. We'll see if it comes back to me. Oh, there I found it. Hey, Holy Spirit. It was a quick turnaround from Christmas Eve. Let me just say, that was a quick turnaround.

One of the things that I have learned is, if I set a goal, I tend to stop at the goal. But if I set a value, my values actually have superseded our goals. I've looked at all the things that this church has done, and all the things that have happened here, and I've realized I never would have had the spiritual hubris to set goals as high as we've reached through just going after our values. I have found that when you live by values, God can come in and set into those.

So here's four quick things. One, peace is an undervalued commodity. Peace is an undervalued commodity. If you grew up in a house of chaos, if your house is full of chaos, you will know it. Peace is an undervalued commodity. Contentment is the fuel of peace. Peace is an undervalued commodity. Contentment is the fuel of peace. Joy is the product of peace and contentment. Joy is the product of peace and contentment. And passion flows from joy.

Let me just say that again. This is a recipe. I talked about having to get the recipe right. Here's a recipe. First of all, peace is an undervalued commodity. Do you value peace? And are you relentless at going after peace in your life? I'm not talking about stagnation. Stagnation is not equitable with peace. Peace is even when things are going crazy, you can maintain peace based upon letting things go, based upon submission.

Peace is an undervalued commodity. How peaceful is your life? How peaceful is your workplace? Not that there's not moments. We have moments at Christmas and Easter here when we launch small groups. But as a whole, do you have peace? Look at the value of peace and how important is it? Because I want to say lack of peace makes us feel alive. Fight or flight, that makes us feel alive. I want to say feeling alive when you have peace is a way different fuel.

Peace is an undervalued commodity. Contentment is the fuel of peace. Joy is the product of peace and contentment. And passion flows from joy. And I will say that the correct passions, the right passions, will not flow from you unless you have peace, contentment, and joy. You'll have passions. But perhaps they're going to be guided by your desires. Perhaps, as the scripture says, they're guided by your stomach. Like, do you have these passions that are coming from joy?

Pure passion, the passion to help the poor, the passion to follow the values of Jesus, oftentimes start flowing when you have peace, contentment, and joy. And then finally, as we look at these, the first one I said is, better a dry crust of bread with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. We live in a culture that values a big house over quiet houses. Let me say that again. We live in a culture that values a big house over a quiet house.

And so the question is, are your children growing up? Is your family, is it a place, is your home a sanctuary? For us, it was really important to make decisions to make our home a sanctuary, a place where there wouldn't be yelling, there wouldn't be chaos, even telling our kids, one sport, one thing at a time, you're not going to be acting and doing sports at the same time. And we're driving all over and we never see each other because we're driving everywhere because I got to get that scholarship or whatever reason it is.

We just told our kids that. The next one is Ecclesiastes 4.6. Here's one of the other four verses. Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Better one handful with tranquility than two fistfuls, it says, was striving and chasing after the wind. You know what it means to chase after the wind? The wind, you can see it, but you can't grab it. The things that the world offers, you cannot grab, but the values of God, you can actually attain.

No longer chasing after the wind, but rather chasing after the eternal. Once again, what are you chasing after? And are you really pursuing it? Are you really desperately pursuing it? Proverbs 16.22 says this, Better a patient person than a warrior. One with self-control than one who takes a city. I want to say that this has helped me in my personal thinking and in relationships so many times. You know in relationships, when something starts happening, all of a sudden you want to go to war mode?

Like everyone goes to war mode. Like if somebody says something you don't like or they upset you or whatever. It was interesting. I had two statements. Pastor Harry said to me recently, I don't know where Pastor Harry is. You hear Harry? There you are, Harry. He said, when it comes to decisions, he goes, you hate chaos and you will make a decision for peace. Something like that? Was that close to it? Close enough? Right.

And that was this, I think that was just a normal conversation. And then Drea came up to me and she says, you know what I know about you? You're a person of peace and you will go for it. Peacemaker is what you said. Now those were random, but I have to tell you, dude, I, that makes me really stoked that your staff, that works for you, come up to you. Those are like little badges I want to wear. You know, not for you guys to see, but like, yes, that's what I want in my life.

I want peace. Not it being a codependent doormat, okay? Like there comes a moment where, hey, enough's enough, a line in the sand and we're going to go to war. But better one, it says better here, one who is patient than one who takes a city. It says better as a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. I would say when I was younger, I didn't have self-control. I said whatever came to my mind, there was no speed bump between what went into my mind and what came out of my mouth.

And in my home, in the way that I spoke to my wife, and the things that I said to people, and this is so important. Are you patient? Patience is a weapon. I want to say not a weapon you wield like a sword, but patience is one of those things that actually will shape your life completely. And then the final one is this as we come in for close. Proverbs 15, 16, and 17. Better a little with fear of the Lord than great treasure with turmoil.

Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. Better a little with fear of the Lord than great treasure with turmoil. Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. I, my best friend, there's a picture of a, I want to show you this car. This is the Ferrari 328 GTS. There it is. That is a gorgeous car. And I think they call it like dynamic blue or something.

When I was 17 years old, my best friend was 17, and this was the car his parents gave him for Christmas. Seriously. The Ferrari GTS, 328 GTS. He crashed it four times. It was amazing. Then his dad got him the Corvette, yellow convertible, and he was angry and cussed his dad out for having to get him a lower A car that was not as good as the Ferrari 328, beautiful GTS. It's $105,000 now if you want to go pick one up. Looking at those yesterday.

Why do I say that? I would go to their house, and it was so full of stuff. I mean, multiple houses. One on the beach that I think Barbara Streisand bought in Del Mar, and then there was one in Rancho Santa Fe. And they had a Rolls-Royce convertible, okay? They had so much stuff. I remember one time he's all, Adam, his dad was like, Adam, can you go get the milk for us? And he goes, take the Corniche convertible. That's the Rolls-Royce.

I'm 17, right? My mom was not into me hanging out with this dude, by the way, just FYI. She never thought it was a good deal. I was like, oh my gosh, money, stuff, stuff, money. Yeah, I will take the Rolls-Royce. I remember driving through, like, you know, in a Rolls-Royce convertible to go get milk at Del Mar there at Flower Hill Mall. Why do I tell you this? Because their house was so full of chaos. It was so full of chaos, the FBI actually came over the wall at one point and arrested his dad, who's still in jail.

My best friend is now in jail. It was complete chaos, but everything they had, I went to a school, I went to a school called Francis Parker. Everybody wanted everything, that they wanted everything. And I tell you what, in the goal to acquire everything, everything was lost. He had five sons. Two of his sons, well, no, one's still in jail. One wrote a book about having gone to jail. I mean, what are you going after? Look, you're probably not going to have the FBI come over the wall of your Del Mar estate that Barbra Streisand is going to buy.

But if we start chasing the wrong things, it leads to death. And do you want life or do you want death? What's most important to you? Time with family, time with people, time with friends, or stuff. These are decisions, and every one of these decisions creates a life. Every one of these decisions creates a life. In the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes talks about having a life that is better, a life that experiences God.

And the book of Ecclesiastes ends with this, and I'll end with this. The main message is this in Ecclesiastes 2, 24. A person can do nothing better, there's that word, than to eat, drink, and find satisfaction in their toil. This too I see is the hand of God. And in 8, 15, so I commend the enjoyment of life because there is nothing better, there's that word again, for a person under the sun than to eat, drink, and be glad.

Then joy will accompany them in their toil in all the days of their life that God has given them under the sun. And so Ecclesiastes ends like this. Live in the moment and enjoy God in every moment. Find as much joy having a cup of tea with your daughter or your best friend or a staff member as you get from that thought of you having that thing that you want. Life is more than stuff. Life is about decisions that lean into joy and peace and experience that.

Today, as you go home this year, see God in the sky. See God in a smile. See God in an orphan's face. Begin to want less and that's what it is. If you want to be content, want less. That's the thing. Want less. How's your want meter? Just want less. Want less and have more. And in the moment of that, let God be the presence in every moment. Amen? Amen. Great. All right. So we have our baby dedication that we're going to finish our service with at the end of the year.

And we're going to invite the Froms up. Can I have a message? And this is... Now was she part of the baby apocalypse the other night on Christmas Eve? Who was here for the baby apocalypse first service? Only a few of you? When all the babies began to howl. Chris. Chris is our head elder. Chris, introduce us to your lovely family. Yeah, this is... Yeah, Sam's over in the care area for the children. This is our faith. And this is my wife, Katie.

And we actually have my in-laws here and my family out in the back. And thank you very much for joining us for this very special day. We want to set this time aside to dedicate ourselves and make a commitment to the Lord to raise up our daughter in his path. And know that Jesus will be guiding us and whenever we have struggles or whatnot to put those before him. Yeah, it's incredible what God is doing in bringing new life into this congregation.

I've said it many times that Dick Cotton was a former head elder before you were. And by the way, Katie, thank you for letting him be the head elder. First of all, he's amazing. You guys are stoked to have such an incredible head elder. But the time it takes and everything. And then for raising your family here, Dick Cotton said, I remember a time when we forgot what a baby looked like at this church. And that is not true anymore and we are doing everything we can to...

You are so beautiful. She is very cute. Do you want me to move the pulpit for that video real quick? We're going to end the service with this. But do you want a little... Oh, can you hold it? What do you think? Oh, I want to kiss you. My doggy, I want to kiss you. Do you like a little doggy? Oh, yeah. Doesn't that feel good? Yeah. Okay. Oh, just chew the little guy. Oh, this is... I can do this. Sorry, just hang out for a second.

Okay, I'm going to let somebody hold it because she has the power of grasp yet. We want to bless the Fromm family and Faith and little Sam who's in the other room. Would you extend your hand as we just... Another baby dedication in our church. It's amazing. An incredible family as we build families here, Lord. Jesus, I want to bless the Fromms, Lord Jesus. I want to thank you for her little Faith, these incredible blue eyes.

You are so gorgeous. We bless her in the name of Jesus Christ. We bless her, God, with leaders in this church that will come alongside the family. They can speak words that sometimes parents can't. We bless their marriage. We bless them as they step into these values of faith. They step into these values of contentment and joy in their home. We pray peace over their home. And we dedicate you now in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Amen. Amen. I love touching your little baby head. Yes, it's a soft little baby head. Let's give it up for the Fromms and Faith. Thanks, guys. All right, I want to bless you and... Oh, you get yours. She gets the key. No, it's not just a little... It's not a prop. The tithing was good this year. We can afford the animal. Sorry. All right, if you would stand, I want to bless you and in this new year, hopefully as we...

This will be a year that you step into faith and you step into a new way of living as you define what you actually want for your life and to step into that and let Jesus be the center of all that. If you extend your hands, let me pray for you. Lord Jesus, I bless these people, Lord God. We bless this church. You love this little church on a corner. And God, I pray for the corner that they live on, that you would bless them, care for them, be there for them, Lord Jesus.

That you give them wisdom. And Lord, you even spoke. There's some things, there's a tension that people are pushing for and that maybe they don't even know why they're pushing for it and maybe it's time to let go. Maybe it's time to grab onto something else. Maybe there's some values, Lord Jesus. Maybe it's just wanting less and being content with the more of you. We bless their homes and we pray that they would grow deep roots here in the year ahead in a community that believes, that they want to be around people who believe, people who have faith.

And we bless you, we send you out now in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. If you want prayer, please come forward. Hey, it was a great year. We'll see you next year, all right? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.