JAN 4 2026 | Proverbs: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World S4E1 | Enough is Enough

Sea Change Church · JAN 4 2026 | Proverbs S4E1 - Enough is Enough
Proverbs 13:25
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

right now that you prepare every single heart to receive the Word that Pastor Adam is going to give us today, Lord Jesus. I pray right now, Lord God, that you continue to keep us and let us, Lord God, in 2026 grow in every area that is pleasing unto you. For we thank you and we praise you. Because in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The Proverbs of Solomon, chapter 13, verse 25. The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want. And the first letter of Paul to Timothy, chapter 6, verses 6 through 10. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. This is the Word of the Lord.

the good. the one. the one. the one. the one. the one. the one. the one. the one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is over in the beginning of February with Genesis and back to the life of Abraham and beyond. The Gospels is the story of Jesus' life. The Proverbs right now and the wisdom literature will be in the Psalms this year. This summer we'll be in the Epistles.

We've been in James. We'll probably be continuing with the James series. And then going into some of the prophetic literature as well. So you're going to get a taste from every type of biblical literature that there is. And we do this kind of seasonally. We kind of drop these seasons like Netflix. So we pick up where we left off. We drop four in a row, eight in a row.

And then that's for me I think. Eight in a row. And so we're back where we were before with ancient wisdom for a modern world. And diving into Proverbs. The Proverbs, I love starting the year with Proverbs. And if you're asking what happened, I did get poked in the eye. So if you're wondering, we're fine. But I did get a finger to the eye yesterday.

People were asking me after the service. So no worries. It's still there, barely. Have you ever had when someone's finger goes behind your eyeball? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Fun times. Fun times. We're in the proverbial literature. And the proverbial literature is good because it's pragmatic. A plus B equals C. It is life for dummies, so to speak. Remember those groups of books that were called out?

It's very easy. It tells you do this, do this, and you will have this. It's not existential. It's not the book of Revelation. You're not having, you know, just these, you know, winged creatures flying through. It's just, hey, these are the basics, and we're going to get into it. And I love starting the year there because right now you're in the harbor.

It starts tomorrow, right? I start today. I'm a day ahead of y'all, right? But tomorrow you've got to get back after it, right? School, studies, tests, it's all there in front of you. The thing I want to say is most of us have not made a decision one way or another and acted upon that decision. And you still have time, according to the word of God in this passage, to decide when enough is enough.

And that's what we're looking at today. This idea of enoughness. I made that word up. Enoughness. When is enough enough? We live in a world of appetite suppression, right? We live in it, I heard on a podcast, an ozempic world where we are suppressing every appetite. Excuse me, we're suppressing one appetite, but we have no care about the other appetites that can be just as harmful.

Our covetousness, not suppressed. Our lust, not suppressed. I'm not sure anybody would even pay to stick themselves with a needle to stop lust. Maybe some would. Our jealousy, unsuppressed. Our desire for more, unsuppressed. And so we live in a world where perhaps one, maybe two elements of our lives, of our stomach, the desires and the things that are enough is worthy of suppression.

But so many other things that need to be suppressed have not been deemed worthy of the laurels they deserve. And so we're looking at this in Proverbs today. We're going to be in Proverbs 13, 25. Let me just set that up. It's a little further. We'll hit it a little deeper in the message than we normally do during a Proverbs message because I want to juxtapose it against 1 Timothy.

We'll get to that in a moment. So the proverb is the righteous, circle righteous if you have your notes. If not, you can download them online for all of our online community. He has enough, circle enough, look at that word in a moment, to satisfy his, ladies, don't let you out of this, or her appetite. But the belly, circle belly of the wicked, suffers want.

They are suffering want. And that's key as we look at the scripture because when your wanter is out of place, when you have more of a desire than you can satiate, it says that you will suffer for that. So we'll look at that in just a moment. I said we live in a Zempick world. We live in a world that never says enough. Your phone, which I call the shiny gateway to hell, which is my little term.

Some of you have picked that up. It's really interesting. You have picked that up. It does some good things. We live in a world that never says enough. Your phone will never say enough. Never. It always says one more scroll, right? Just one more sourdough video and I will be satisfied and I can go to bed. One more video of Michael Jordan dunking, you know.

Or one more yard, you know, just how to fix my yard a little better will be enough. And your phone never says enough. We need just one more follower if you're an influencer. One more episode if we're binge watching. And you know how they just immediately roll within four seconds to the next episode? My wife's a credit person. She's always so frustrated when that happens.

She wants to watch the credits. Where was this filmed? I have no idea. I don't care. She wants to see. She's a researcher. When we win, it's never enough. Got to have another championship. We want more influence, more square footage. More options. More validation. When I wrote that, oh, that hurt. Ah, that one was so close to home. Validation. Especially when I was in the social media world a lot, I rarely post anymore.

I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment when I was, you know, writing books. And it was really important in the early 2000s and, excuse me, early 2010s to have that social media going. The validation I would get by a few more followers. Oh, when I cracked 10,000 followers on my Twitter account in 2000 and whatever it was. Oh, the validation.

I realized it was never enough. The strange thing is we're full, but we're never satisfied. We're stuffed, but we're still hungry. And we're busy, but we're still empty. And I'll tell you why. God was wise enough to create us in a way where you will never be satisfied by anything but him. Anything you partner with him to do can bring satisfaction to you.

But our wanters, he created us with this desire to desire more than we can have. And there's only one thing that can satisfy that, and that's God himself. And so he's saying, I'm eternal. How much do you want of me? I can satisfy you if you just change the channel. There's a key word, and it was wrong. Because Harry, when I got poked in the eye, actually it was double vision for a long time.

And I said, Harry, you're going to preach this sermon tomorrow, maybe. So I need you to check it. And like Harry always does, it's Harry got a hold of me, and he said, your Hebrew is incorrect. The word you said is wrong, so we've got to fix this in your notes. The word for enough I had was hone in the Hebrew. That actually just has to do with money.

He said the proper word is sava. And so the key word now is going to be enough. So write it down in English, or you can circle it on your notes. Enough. Knowing when enough is enough. And the actual word that we see used in the proverbial literature in 1325 is sava. Sava means sufficiency. You have enough to be satisfied. The key thought then is this.

The gospel frees us from the tyranny of more by teaching us that God is enough. Now I have a question for you. When was the last time you felt really satisfied and you didn't want more? Do you live in a state of satisfaction? Are you feeling like there's enough relationships, there's enough love, there's enough kindness, there's enough in my life that I'm living content and satisfied?

When Paul, in a moment, we're going to get to 1 Timothy, writes to Timothy, he talks about this idea of being content. And that contentment is one of the virtues in our society that is highly undervalued. There are a lot of virtues that are valued in our society, but contentment is not one of them. What does contentment mean? It means with the little or lot that you have that you are satisfied.

Now, before you think I'm talking about austerity, I'm not talking about some form of self-purgation that you might see with the Franciscan monks of 500 years ago. Great order, but they had taken a vow of poverty. There's a story that Francis of Assisi one time walked outside, woke up in the middle of the night and he had a coin in his pocket and they weren't allowed to own anything.

They could have no ownership of anything. And so it was freezing, it was snowing. He had to get up and go wander around for hours until he found a beggar that he could give the coin to. Great, awesome, incredibly spiritual. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that we can't have things we want. We can't have things that we go for. But my question is, if you are constantly living in a want of more, it says, according to Timothy, we'll look at that right now, that you're going to suffer because of it.

And when we go after God, as we'll see here in a moment, he will fulfill that. And so my question is, how's your contentment? Go to 1 Timothy 6, 6 through 10. And we're going to frame up right now. We're going to set the frame right now, the A frame, so we can get to the proverbial literature. But we're looking at this verse 6. Now, before I jump into verse 6, I've highlighted some of the words in your notes, made them big.

Let's understand what's happening here. Paul is writing to one of the young lions. What do I mean by young lions? A young man who was following in his footstep, who was going to be the future of the church. Now, I want to say there's young lionesses as well, right? There's people that have energy. We have a lot of young lions in our church. I have a lot of 30-year-olds, a lot of 40-year-olds.

And I look at them going after life with a zest, building their businesses. Women as well. I see this as well. But I see mostly I'm more in contact with the men that I see. And I see them like, oh, that looks so, I remember the days I had that kind of horsepower. I just remember the days. And I watch them go for it. I'm like, you go for it, young man, because I'm just going to sit here and drink my tea.

You go for it. And those days of building with that kind of zest and maybe for the wrong reasons in my own life are gone. And so he's writing to this young lion. And you would think he would say, go do this. Go to build a church. Go to Ephesus. You know, go to modern-day Turkey and do all these things. And there is some of that. But this is what he says in verse 6.

But godliness, circle godliness, with contentment is great gain. Irony. Why is that irony? He's talking about contentment. When you have contentment, you're not looking for great gain. You're content. What he's saying here is if you have two components, it's an algorithm. It's very proverbial, right? Not existential. But godliness, and in the Proverbs, that word is usually righteousness.

But godliness, with what? With contentment. You mix that in together as a poultice will give you what? Great gain. It'll give you the kind of gain that might be the blessing of wealth. It might be the blessing of influence. It might be the blessing of popularity. Who knows? But for sure it's going to be the blessing of a presence of a God who is your father and Jesus his son who wants to sup with you.

And the question is, is that enough? Because what I see a lot of Christians, and myself included, I've got to speak us. I want to use we, us language. I want great gain with very little contentment. I want to be going for the next thing, right? What's the next thing? The next hill to climb? The next thing that I should do? And then the godliness part, yeah, of course, I want godliness.

But I want just enough godliness to keep it between the rails. Like, I don't want a gutter ball, right? But I want just enough godliness that me and God are on a good track, you know, but I don't want to push it too far because I know that that costs, and the more that I give him costs, I'm just being honest with you. He says to this young lion, but godliness with contentment is great gain, and the gain that you get will be satisfying gain.

What I have found is that when you're going for the next thing, you will never be satisfied because he has created us that way. I was doom scrolling, couldn't get off, right? Another sour, I'm into sourdough right now, so I'm checking sourdough crust, trying to get good moisture ratio. You know, you bakers in here, you know what I'm saying, great British baking cereal.

I'm on it, and it throws me some church stuff because I'm a church guy, right? So between every Michael Jordan video and backyard video and raising sheep video that I get, because that's my algorithm, right, it throws me in a pastor thing, and I always scroll by it really fast. I'm like, ah, I'm not here for that, right? And it was a podcast, and it said, and there was this woman talking to this guy on the podcast, and it says, is your church stuck at 700 people?

And I was like, all of a sudden, I got this fear. We're not even at 700 people, right? We're growing. And I was like, all of a sudden, I was like, oh, baby, our church is stuck. What am I going to do? What if we're stuck? It was just immediately, have you hit that video where they say something, and all of a sudden it hits you? And all of a sudden, there's this fear because you don't have the thing you didn't even know you wanted, but now you want it?

And I immediately scrolled past it, and I thought, how many churches in the world would love to be stuck at 700? The average church in the world is 75 people, right? But I began to realize how quickly my wanter is influenced by some two people on a podcast throwing me four sentences. Is your church stuck? Maybe we're stuck. Like, you know, ton of kingdom stuff.

How easy is that for that to happen? And so he's saying with godliness and contentment comes great gain. And let me keep on reading this. I'm going to go to verse 9 because this is the word that I originally used. This is in the Greek, actually, but the word was hon, which meant the love of money. This is talking about the love of money, but it could be lust.

It could be validation. It could be relationships. It could be a whole bunch of things, but he is talking about money. But this is what he says. And see if this ever, ever relates to someone you know, maybe yourself. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge, interesting word, plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of not all evil, but all kinds of evil, oftentimes misspoken, misquoted. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith, wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many pangs. I love that word wandered because I find when my wanter is out, I'm just looking at all kinds of stuff.

Whether it be, remember when I wanted to buy a house, you know, multiple times I've wanted to buy a house. I've been through a bunch of these cycles now. I'm 56 now, so I've been through a bunch of the cycles. And some of you that are my age or beyond have been through it as well. And you're constantly on, like your best friend is Realtor.com, right, or Zillow.

You're like constantly looking, right? And constantly finding that I was just wandering looking for the next thing. You can see this in relationships with people, just looking for the next relationship to fulfill them. Just wandering. Our wanter, when it's not placed on the north star of God's love, will make us wander. It says many people have wandered from the faith.

What's your north star? Granted, we all know it's God, right? We know he's up there. But how often does God become just part of the constellation, right? Just part of many stars that we're going after. And we see this because of this, many people have pierced themselves with many pangs. I want to share just a quick story before I do hit that proverb.

In the 1990s, early in the 1990s, I decided I wanted to be a writer. I was a journalism major before I switched over to religion and comparative religion, pastoral religion. And I was reading a guy named Charles Swindoll, Chuck Swindoll. And Chuck Swindoll was the most famous author of the late 80s, early 90s. This guy was the bomb. He wrote The Grace Awakening, The Servant Attitude.

I mean, he wrote these incredible books. And I went on a missions trip to Australia for a whole summer. I took three of his books. These books. So books, kids, are these things with paper in them. Just kidding. Gen Z, I'm just kidding. I don't mean it. They're all in the front. I love you guys. Thanks for being up here in the front. This guy got baptized.

You go. And so I was reading, and I wanted to be Chuck Swindoll so bad. And I remember even in the 2000s when I got my first book deal, I was like, if I could only be like Chuck Swindoll. And I was doing everything because, granted, there was a lot of God in it. And there was a lot of things I wanted to do for God. But there was a ton of I want Adam to be validated.

There was a ton of that. And I don't know if it was 50, 50, 40, 60. I don't know. But there was a ton. There was so much that I had decided to use a thing called a bot. Now, I was on Instagram early. My daughter came to me at Christmas, and she goes, Dad, you're an Instagram OG. You have an Instagram account from 2011. She said, I was like four years old then.

I'm like, yes, I did. Yeah, I had Facebook early, whatever, because it was part of, you know, we're trying to market social media. There was all these classes or whatever. But I also had Twitter. And they had a thing called a bot. And so bots back then would do this thing where it would follow you. I paid 50 bucks a month, and it would go follow a bunch of people.

And as soon as you followed me back, I would unfollow you to build my followers, right? Horrible, right? And you'd put in, like, Christian, da, da, da. And I just ran it like a machine, and I would build it. I got up to 25,000 followers like that. Now, this is when Justin Bieber only had 9 million, and he was leading the pack back in the day, right?

So the book company says, hey, you have a million followers. They were real followers. They weren't fake followers. And I felt so good. I was like, yes, I am using the latest technology to build this. And every day I'd get a new follower, I'd be like, yes, until I got a DM. I got a message. They weren't called DMs back then. And he got a message from my guy, and he goes, hey, I'm so-and-so.

You followed me, and then you just unfollowed me. And he goes, it really hurt my feelings. And I was like, bro, I did not follow you. The bot followed you, bro. I was sleeping. I was in Malaysia. You know what I mean? No, I wasn't in Malaysia. But in the midst of that, I realized that people had just become a commodity. I cared more about gaining. I'll be true about this.

I cared more about gaining followers I didn't know and influencing them than influencing the people that I knew. Horrible, right? Ooh, I don't want to go to that church anymore. Do you see when you get your wanter out of place? It's just out of place. You want to be seen. You want to have the best fit. You want to max. You want to have all these different things that you want to do.

Paul is talking about that. And let's get to this proverb, because it is a series on proverbs, and I'm 20 minutes and 48 seconds into the message, and we haven't mentioned the proverb. Proverbs 13, 25. Proverbs 13, 25. The righteous has enough to satisfy his, circle his, ladies write her besides that, appetite. But the belly, the belly, circle belly of the wicked suffers want.

But before I do that, I want to do one thing real quick. I was mentioning Chuck Swindoll. I want to be like Chuck Swindoll. And this will show you how much fame matters and those things you care about. If you are under the age of 40 and you've ever heard of Chuck Swindoll, raise your hand. Two, four, yeah. Exactly. No one remembers him. Now, he's one of the most amazing offers, and I encourage you to remember him and learn who he is.

But these things that you go after sometimes, they just mean nothing. It says, the righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite. First thing that I want to focus on in this proverb is it puts the wanter, the appetite, squarely in your camp. The appetite is not God's appetite for you. He has desires for your appetite. It says, the righteous has enough to satisfy his, her appetite.

It squarely says that your appetite, the only person who controls your appetite is you. And what I have found is you can shrink the stomach of your appetite in the same way physically you can shrink the stomach of your appetite. I don't know if you've ever been on a weight loss regime or something like that where you don't eat. All of a sudden, you shrunk your stomach.

One of the most grotesque things, I think, in our culture are the eating contest, you know, it's like 12,000 hot dogs. You have people famine all over the world. I'm just going to eat 12,000 hot dogs. I'm going to get my stomach this big, you know. You can stretch in the same way the desires of your heart, of your soul, can be shrunk with godliness and with contentment.

It says enough to satisfy his appetite. But, and I love conjunctions, when you're in the scripture, make sure you trip over if, and, but. There's always something on the other side of the conjunction. But, the belly, I had you circle that, of the wicked, the wicked belly. Suffers want. Harry did not correct me on this one. The word is beten. I was right.

I double-checked it with AI. I was right. It's always right. AI is always right, right? The Hebrew is beten. In the Old Testament, the belly is more than the stomach. It represents the centers of our appetites, the things we most want. Both physical and inward, the place where your desires are formed. Not existed. They're formed. If, and I've seen this.

If a person begins to chase after covetousness, or jealousy, or lust, the seat of power, of decision-making, of your desires, will begin to form it in that direction. Almost conjuring it in a way. That the thing that you go afterwards will be formed, and if you're going after the wrong thing, your appetite will be increased. And in the seat, in the Hebrew word, it means there is a seat of desire, like a throne of desire.

And it is being formed by your, are, my appetite. I sat with a friend recently. We had burritos. Sandwiches. And they said, I prayed that God would change my desires. I thought, that's so powerful. I thought, I don't think I want to pray that. So I started praying it. God, change my desires. I'm not even sure what desires I want. Just change it. And I realized that all of a sudden, I got a little, you know, I was thinking, I'm going to put this podcast on, listen to this thing.

And I thought, I'd rather just go sit in my chair at home. There's some sick people at our church. I'm not trying to be Mother Teresa right now. I apologize. But I just want to go sit and pray for the sick at our church. So I prayed for Olin. You know, I prayed for many others, some who are known, unknown people in our church. And then a few more times over Christmas break, I just wanted to do that more.

And I thought, wow, I think God's answering my prayer. And all of a sudden, some of the other stuff that I want, because you know when you want something, especially when it's kind of a thing you shouldn't want, you can feel it, right? You can feel it in your gut, right? You can feel it as it's that place of desire. It's the belly. It's the stomach.

What is interesting, one of my favorite proverbs, it's in Ecclesiastes, but my favorite proverbial wisdom letter, scripture, in all of the Bible, that has really blessed me is in Ecclesiastes 4, 6. You can skip in your notes, you'll see that. It says this, better is a handful of quietness. Then two, and the word is, fistfuls of toil and striving after the wind.

That has helped me so many times when I've gotten up in the morning to go after a desire, to go after a project, to do something. And God has just brought this scripture. I read the proverbs every day. So I read one proverb. There's 31 proverbs a day. I encourage you to read a proverb every day. It's super easy. And within 10 years, it'll become second nature.

The proverbs, at least they'll be there. It'll probably take 10 years to do it. I found after 10 years, it was just one proverb a day. It's like eating an elephant, right? But God would just, this proverb would show up at the right time. It would just show up at the right time. And he would just say to me in Ecclesiastes as well. He says, better a handful of quietness than two fistfuls of striving.

How content are you with a handful of quietness? You know what's interesting? The world tells us to keep reaching for fistfuls of more. And it says, if you chase that thing that you can't get, when you get it, you will have peace. When you get it, you'll finally be satisfied. When you get it, you'll finally have hope. When you get it, you will have all the things that quietness and contentment will give you for free right now.

Because if you want less and you are content with what you have, you will not suffer, as Paul said to Timothy the young lion, the pangs of many who continue to go after thing after thing that will never, ever satisfy. I want to say the pain of people I know. I've known a lot of people because I've been in this work for a very long time. And successful people.

I was at a church and I've just been around successful people. People that haven't reached their dreams. People that have. And the question for those that have reached their dreams is what's next. There is no top of the mountain. The question is what's next. And the thing that I wonder, and I'm not sure I know the answer, is the sorrow of the people who have accomplished everything they ever wanted and got to the other side and realized that it wasn't everything they ever wanted.

Or they feel like their best days are behind them. Or they reached it and they don't know what's next and they'll never reach where they were again. There is a sorrow that is there that people who have never reached the thing that they thought they wanted will never experience. And I've seen both sides of those. And both are desperate. You have people saying, I never got to dance my dance.

I never got to sing my song. I never got to write my book. And I've seen people that have written the book, sung the song, and danced their dance. And they have a sorrow as well because nothing will satisfy. That desire that you have to accomplish. You have to get to Everest. And if you don't, then my life was never meant anything. Or I'm on the backside of Everest.

I've got down and there's no other higher mountain to climb. I've reached the top of my career. Shaquille O'Neal, in a recent, I was watching an interview with Shaquille O'Neal. And he said, and maybe some of you have seen this, that he came home to his 50,000 square foot home after his divorce. 50,000 square foot. I think, give or take 10,000.

Might have been 60. Right? He said he, that's bigger than a Costco. He said he only used two rooms. And he said when he only used two rooms, it was his bedroom and the kitchen. And he said he came home after the divorce and there was no wife and there was no kids. And he had never felt so lonely in his life. A 50,000 square foot home. Had a pool, a gym, full basketball court, the whole thing.

It says in Proverbs 13, 25, the righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite. But the belly of the wicked suffers want. Even though you can assume that the belly of the wicked is going after everything they want. They're having every liaison that they can have. They're chasing everything that they can have. But it says that they suffer want. By the person who has less, who chooses to have less, is actually fully satisfied according to Paul as well.

We'll come in for a landing. More occupies the space of noise and chaos while contentment dwells in the land of quiet and still. Grade point average isn't quite high enough. It needs to be a little bit higher. Just one more to-do list. Just one more organization for you A-types of the garage. And then I can sit down and have some peace and fully go on vacation once I get another thing organized.

Another relationship. Another need for validation. The model of Jesus was this. Jesus lived lightly. Let's get to the gospel. Luke 9, 58. The son of man had nowhere to lay his head, but he was content. I'm not saying that you need to be a Franciscan monk and not have a home. What I'm saying is whether you had a home or not, Jesus lived lightly. The more we pursue, the less lightly you will live.

And you will see that. Jesus lived daily. Matthew 6, 7. Give us this day what? Our yearly bread? Daily bread. John 10, 10. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I come that you may have life and you may have it more abundantly. And Jesus also lived abundantly. He lived lightly, daily, and abundantly. So right now you're in the harbor, right?

It's 2026. You haven't set out yet. Sales aren't up. Just getting there. Just pulling out of the harbor. Looking at the open sea. You haven't made a decision yet. You haven't screwed it up yet. You haven't succeeded incredibly yet. There's no decisions that have been made. And you sit here and we can ask ourselves, what do we want? When is enough enough?

Here's your two practical takeaways. Want less. You want to be happy? Want less. Who's in charge of your wanter? You. Okay? I'm not saying want less love. I'm not saying want less God. I'm saying just want less. Your yard's probably big enough for your kids. They have things called parks. You might not need the leather, you know, in the new car. You might not even need a new car.

Just want less. You might not need the next big house. You might not need another zero in your bank account. I'm not saying for people who don't have food. I'm talking about once the basic levels of your life have been met. Basic levels. When is enough enough? Want less. I would also say fast. No spiritual discipline or exercise does more to control our appetites like fasting.

If you want to shrink the seed of desire that is your belly this year, just throw in a Thursday morning fast, skip breakfast, lunch, afternoon. Don't eat sugar. I don't know. Nothing will help control all the appetites. It is an appetite suppressant. I finished with a story from my daughter Lucy who said I could share this story. I was watching a TV show and she was streaming a TV show.

And she said in the show there was this man who had spent his whole life going after everything. He had spent his life chasing a business, a bigger house. He had missed his children growing up because he was chasing all the things that he thought the kids would want, right? Except time with them. And I don't know many children that wouldn't trade in a bigger yard for time with your parents, like I said, I believe, earlier.

And she said at the end of his life he finally realized the things that mattered. And he looked back and he had fixed his relationship with his wife. And every day he would, as he was an older man now, he would get out a teacup for him and his wife and a little plate. And he'd boil the water up and he would put the teabag in it, steep the tea, one for him and one for his wife.

And he'd bring it out and he'd set it down. And he'd sit and they'd have tea together and they'd talk. They'd laugh. They'd share life together and have something sweet to eat. And then afterwards he would take it back. He would wash the cup. And put it away. And at the end of the show she said, Lucy said that the thing that struck her the most is he said, the most important thing in my life right now, the thing that gives me the most pleasure that I'm going after is every day getting to get the teacup out, steep the tea for my wife, to have a conversation with her, to go back to wash it, to put it back in the cupboard so I can do it again tomorrow.

And I think metaphorically, scripturally, that's what Jesus is saying. What matters? What are you going after? You are in the harbor. And this year you can make this a life of meaning with less of the accoutrements but more of the substance. Let me say that again. Less of the accoutrements. What do I mean by that? Less of the extras and more of the substance.

The substance is God. The substance is each other. Amen? If you stand, we're going to invite the team up for our time of communion. Our communion time, you will come forward to receive the communion. And then you'll go back to your seats and we will hold the communion, the bread and the, it isn't wine, it's grape juice, but we will hold it together and then we will take it together and just we'll spend a moment.

You have some time right now in the harbor. Have some harbor thoughts. Where are you going this year? Ask Jesus to be a part of that. So in just a moment, we'll invite you forward. We good, guys? Looks like we're good. Let me just pray. Lord, we just want to bless this time of communion. We ask that you would bless it. In Jesus' name, amen. Please come forward and take the communion.

I am an instrument of exaltation. And I was born to lift your name above all names. You hear the melody of all creation. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only you, Jesus. You are the infinite God of the ages. Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only you, Jesus. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one.

Only you, Jesus. And the way, I have a man, the thing, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one Holy, holy Lamb of God, anointed one.

Was and is and is to come seated on the throne above. Holy, holy Righteous one who shed his blood. You proved to us the Father's love. Jesus Christ, be lifted up. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one, only you, Jesus. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one, only you, Jesus. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one, only you, Jesus.

There is no one, only you, Jesus. As we enter into this new year, we want to begin it with this communion time as we get ready, like I said, to leave the harbor of 2025 and into this incredible new year. And I'm blessed that you would want to journey it and travel with us. And with that said, when you take the bread, and in a moment we'll break it.

And I think it's really important because Jesus broke it. We want to break it because we will show that his body was broken for us. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it. Let's break it. And then he gave it to his disciples. He gave his broken body to his disciples. And he said, take and eat. This is my body given to you.

Do this in remembrance of me. So let's do that. Let's take that together in remembrance of him. Then he took this chalice of wine, took the cup. And he said, this cup represents the blood of the new covenant that was shed for the remission of your sins. It redeems your sins. You trade your sins in. And he redeems it for holiness and clothes of righteousness for you.

It's a good deal for us. And he said his blood did this for us. And he shed it for our sins. Let's take it together. Let's take it together. Let's take a moment of silence. And just give you a moment to think in the harbor here. Maybe a decision you might toy with turning the rudder in a different direction as you head out. I don't know all your lives, things that you're going after, the things that you're suffering because of going after these things.

But something would bring more contentment. Let's just take a moment. Let's take a moment. Now, gracious God, may we who have received this sacrament live in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And that we may show forth your gifts to all the world. We ask this in Jesus' name. And we'll say the Lord's Prayer together. Let's stand, if you would. Let's stand.

Let's stand. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen. Before I send you out with just a quick blessing, I want to encourage you. It feels like there's two choices sometimes. There's the call of the latest phone, metaphorically. And then there's the teacup, which represents those relationships. I want to bless you with those choices. You go after the things that fully satisfy you. Especially, we've got a ton of young people here.

And come to this service and come to this church. Especially for you guys. Make decisions that build into people. That bring contentment with Christ. Extend your hands. Lord Jesus, we bless your people in this harbor. The harbor of God's love. In this safe place. It's a safe place. We begin to set out this year, God, with a new agenda. A new map. Into the unknown, God.

Where your choices are going to be made daily. But we make choices now to follow you. I pray for contentment. Godliness. Smaller wanters, God. But bigger souls that want you. That we can meet you with godliness and contentment. Let's enjoy the things that you have given us. God, we bless you. We bless those that are here. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. If you need prayer, we have prayer for you. Please come forward. Our prayer team will be up here. We love you. Happy New Year. The story. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. The day. have. the day. Thank you.