We're beginning a new year and a whole new series that we're looking at, which is called Practicing Biblical Humility. And the purpose of this is to launch our year thinking about the fact that we would like to make a choice every day that God gets all the glory. That is really what Humility is about—humility is not a cowering loss of identity, as a lot of sociologists look at people that kind of lose their identity, but it's finding Christ as our identity, as the one that we want to, as the Lord's Prayer says, for thine Lord, you, God, is the kingdom, is the power, is the glory. Life is no longer about me and my identity and my power and my glory. It's no longer. Empty me of that. That's what humility is all about, so that God gets all the glory. Well, let's open to the Lord's Prayer. That's chapter 6 of the book of Matthew. That's how we got here. And what we're looking at this morning is what I call the prayer of the humble. This is the last of the seven petitions. This is the ending that we've always said. After we go through all of the familiar words of the Lord's Prayer, we end it with this unique doxology, and that doxology says, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And that little ending is a part of the prayer, and that prayer is the prayer of the humble. And that prayer is a reminder that God wants us to make that the focal point of our life, that He get the glory. In fact, we all, if you ever had to learn the catechisms, the chief duty of man is to glorify God. And that is, as Paul said, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we're to do everything. The mundane, the minutiae of life and the big things are to be done for the glory of God. So, the prayer of the humble is, empty me, God. Empty me. I was born full of myself. I was born full of pride. I was born full of wanting my own way. At anyone's expense. Empty me of that. Every day. And why do I want you to empty me of that? So that you get all the glory in my life. That's really what humility is about. Humility is about seeing that I can invest everything I do, everything I say, everything that is a part and connected to my life, I can invest it for God by seeking not my glory, status, recognition, pleasures, but His. And what's the most amazing thing about that is, when we live that way, we find that's how God designed us to operate, and that is truly the most magnificent life possible for us to live. As you open your Bibles to Matthew 6, think of the context for these verses before us, starting in verse 9. Jesus was looking out at a group of men, his disciples, and a wider group, the crowds that were listening in to him teaching his disciples. But those disciples were so much like all of us. They needed humility. They were wired to be proud. And they needed a regular daily reminder. They needed to be emptied of their pride. So what did Jesus do? Jesus crafted a divine recipe for the best life possible. Now, I don't know if you read in the news, but about a year ago there was a big flurry. Colonel Harlan Sanders, you know, the Kentucky Fried Chicken, you know, guru that's on all those chicken buckets, or used to be, I don't know, I don't frequent the place because of cholesterol, you know, and being fat already, but it used to be on there when I was little, his face. And his nephew, down in Kentucky or wherever he's from, was allowing a news crew to come in, and he showed a personal gift that the colonel had given him, and it was a little framed picture. And he went like this with the picture and said, see, he signed it. And on the back was the recipe to Kentucky Fried Chicken. And of course, with the excellent, you know, pixel capturing Photography means we have. Anybody that took a picture of him, the resolution was big enough that finally the secret recipe, handwritten by the colonel himself, was known to the world. And of course, the secret was white pepper, I'll just tell you all, so now you can all make it yourself. But what it is, is it was the recipe that had eluded everyone for decades and made billions of dollars. was now revealed. Well, Jesus didn't hide his on the back of a picture. He wrote a divine recipe for the best life possible. And what he said is, the divine recipe for the best life possible, I'll put into a prayer model that would become a pattern for all of my followers. For all of time. From this moment onward, this recipe is worked into this prayer model. Seven petitions, seven requests to God, that were each a reminder of a desperate need we all possess. We all share something in common. We all need to be emptied of ourself. And there's both ends of the spectrum. There are the people that think too highly of themselves, and there are the people that think too little of themselves, but both are thinking of self. And God says, empty me of thinking of self, either too high or too little. The divine recipe is known to us as the Lord's Prayer. It contains each element that we need to remember and attend to on a daily basis. It's kind of like the daily vitals. What we really need to attend to. If God could tell us what priorities we have, then That would be what we should attend to. So Jesus said, I'll give you your priorities. I'll give them to you in a model that you have trouble forgetting. And so, to keep our lives tuned up, headed the way God planned for us, starting in verse 9 in our Bibles, we have before us the offer God made to unleash the truths of the Lord's Prayer into changing my life today. And Jesus here, starting in verse 9, summarizes the seven key areas each of us who follow him should pay close attention to every day. And he put it this way. Look at verse 9. In this manner, therefore, pray. Now, he doesn't say to repeat these words. That's the least you know, deployment of this passage, just to repeat it. It's a manner. It's a, actually, a direction, a framework, a pattern. It's not a kind of a line and a plate, a quote, and to act out. It's actually supposed to become a framework that we start seeing life around. And he said this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Verse 10, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Verse 11, give us this day our daily bread. Verse 12, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Verse 13, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And then here's where we are this morning. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Now that's a statement of truth. The glory is God's forever. but we are going to be having the best life possible and we are going to be maximizing our delights in life when we capture as much of our life on earth before we're before his throne, giving him the glory now. So basically what I also have called this is the seven vital signs of spiritual health. You know, if you go to the doctor, they check all those different things, and they give you your vital signs and tell you whether you're doing all right. But as you look at Christ's words before us, think about what we have in our possession. We have the actual call from Christ for each of us to monitor something regularly. Check these areas, he's saying, in your life. what we can call the vital signs of our spiritual health. Plus, Jesus tied monitoring these seven vital areas to the ceaseless habit of prayer. Notice what all of our Bibles say. The Old King James, after this manner. The New King James, in this manner, therefore pray. The ESV, pray then like this. The NIV, pray then in this way. And finally, The NIV says, this then is how you should pray. So, this is vital. This is Jesus, the one we pray to, telling us the way he wants our prayers to be packaged. Not the words. Because we're all like spiritual snowflakes. We're all uniquely and divinely constructed differently so that we can make a tapestry of praise and glory to his name from so many different directions. But this is what weaves it all together. All the versions capture the clear, simple, direct command of Christ Jesus. Pray like this. Jesus was saying that each time we pray, we are each to remind ourselves of these elements in our life. We could also call the Lord's Prayer the daily checklist for our spiritual health, and how we keep that maintained on a daily basis. And so, what we've seen, this, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, is the beginning. I'm saying, Lord, focus me on who you really are. Focus me on the fact that you are holy. and that I need you, and that you are my creator. And there's so many elements that we went through on that. And then, thy kingdom come, thy kingdom come is saying, I want you to control me. I want your kingdom, your rule, your total sovereign control of my life to be acknowledged today. Boy, it changes how we look at everything. Bonnie and I were just talking about something, and she said, do you remember? When you were talking about the Lord's Prayer, you said, nothing surprises the Lord. She says, what's changed between yesterday and today, other than our learning about, and it was someone's health that totally had changed, a dear and beloved close friend of ours. And she says, what's changed between yesterday and today? Only our perception of this. God is controlling it. And that's what Christ said the checklist for daily spiritual health is, to begin every day focusing on the fact that God is God, and I am his child, and I am a part of his family, and he possesses me, and he lives within me. And therefore, I'm inviting him every day to control me, and then thy will be done. That's the big picture. I submit to his control, but then every little choice along the way, I'm asking him to lead me. And I'm asking Him to show me, to guide me in His path. And then, everything I need to accomplish that becomes for me, as He supplies what I need, I see His hand in my life. That's why the Lord likes to keep us needing Him. The more we need Him, the more we see Him providing, and the more we see His hand in our life. And then I say, Lord, I don't want to lose this closeness. Cleanse me. Help me to not allow anything in that defiles, that causes you to be extinguished by being grieved or quenched in my life. And then protect me, the evil one. This is the whole spiritual warfare series right here. This is the whole hungering for God and fasting. series here, and this is the whole bitterness. If you remember, see, I mean, this is the last 16 months of our life going through this, but now look where we've gotten to here. This is the practicing biblical humility. I need God to empty me because I am so designed that I need him to, to empty me of my ability to do everything my own way and ruin it and to want and to surrender to doing his way which brings him glory. So basically Christ's checklist for daily spiritual health is, the Lord's Prayer is a pattern for us, a checklist for our daily spiritual health, and living a healthy, useful life, each of us has to build around these key elements. And so basically, we need to daily be worshiping our Father, we need to daily consecrate ourselves to His control, we need to daily submit to His will, we need daily reliance for Him to give us, we need daily cleansing for Him to help us to be as forgiving of others. as He is of us. Remember, be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. This whole need, relationally, is in this cleansing. And then this protection, deliver me. I can't, if Satan is the most powerful being, Satan is more powerful and more horribly wicked and twisted than any of the video games. Put them all together, he's worse than all of them. And all of the science fiction monsters, Because he's the one that spawns all that stuff, by the way. Anyway, he's worse than all of them. And so we need God to deliver us from him. And then finally, daily humility is needed for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. And so, today, we begin to look at that last petition at the bottom there. We have spent the past months looking at all the other six. Now the vital need we each have to pursue daily humility by seeking God's glory Remember the closing doxology before you in verse 13. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Jesus asked us to make sure everything in our life is tied to God's glory. Why? Because God's glory is the theme of the Bible. You understand that? It all comes down to God being glorified. And he is causing everything to work together. to that end. He is going to be glorified. Life is not to be about us, but Him. Life is not to be measured by our metric, but His. And here are some clarifying verses in God's Word, the Bible. And you know them. Psalm 115. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name be the glory. Romans 11.36, that great doxology, for of Him, through Him, to Him are all things. And that is what God wants. First Corinthians 10 31, I've already quoted it. Whether therefore you eat or drink or anything in between, do all to the glory of God. And then Philippians 2 11, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And then look how Revelation, how this book, ends the Bible. In Revelation 14, 7, when God is giving the gospel, when horrific plagues are just one after another, and the sun is on overdrive scorching people, and hailstones are squashing people, and the seas are poisoned, and life is dying, and then man is throwing in all of our pathogens into that with warfare, it says in Revelation 14, 7, this angel says with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him. Wow, for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. And then 19-1. After these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. Which goes right back to the doxology in the Lord's Prayer in verse 13. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Jesus asked us to make sure everything in our life is tied to God's glory. And I guess that's what communion's about this morning. It's a time where we pause, and we look at God's standard, and we look at our life, and instead of trying to say, hmm, that isn't what he means, which is what pride does, and kind of change what God says, which is so cultural, revisionism of the absolutes of God, Instead of changing what God says, the humble person says, I want my life, by your grace, to as much reflect what you want from me. I do want your glory. And that's what God's glory becomes our goal. See, that's the purpose of life. The Lord declared we're sinners from birth, and because of that we all want our own way, Isaiah 53, 6. Wanting our own way is probably the most simple definition of pride. I'm wired to want my own way. My parents didn't even teach me that. I was like that from the beginning. I want my way over everyone else's. And that's what pride is all about. All of us this morning share one thing in common, and that's the sin of pride. Though most of us may never murder another human, We are proud. Though we may never get involved in witchcraft or sodomy, we'll have a lifelong involvement with pride. No matter what else we do in life, if humility is not our constant choice, then God will resist everything we do. Turn back in your Bibles now to James with me, chapter 4. As you know, James was the first epistle. of the New Testament, written by Christ's earthly brother, the pastor of the first church, the church in Jerusalem, and his name was James, and so hence the book of James, that kind of is a collection of his messages. And what he says in chapter 4 verse 6 is fascinating. Because James is probably what we would call the most primitive form of New Testament Christianity. It is so reflective of the Old Testament and Christ's teaching, without the reflection of all the refinements that God brought through the inspired epistles of Paul. So James has 108 verses, and 54 of them have commands in them. Did you catch that, James? 108 verses, 54 imperatives. Every other verse has an imperative, a command. And so, he just is not into kind of smoothing things over. He's, because he is serious about getting these people ready to glorify God. So this is what he says, but he, that's God, gives more grace. Therefore he, that is God says, God resists the proud. That's a very absolute statement. God is at war against every manifestation of pride in our lives. He, He, God is looking and resisting every time, Pride shows up, bubbles up, comes back in our lives. But the good news is, he's constantly waiting to pour out his grace on the humble. Humility is a choice, and God wants to reward it. God is in a moment-by-moment personal warfare against pride in life of every believer. Since life is not to be about us, but him, and since life is not to be measured by our metric, but his, here's the big question. Are you humble this morning? I don't mean, is your whole life kind of like this, you know, Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, you know, philanthropic? No, that is not humility. Humility is a choice, a conscious choice. that whether I'm eating, or drinking, or driving, or working, or discussing, or planning, I pause and I say, God, under your control, doing your will, I want this to be done as much as possible, humanly speaking, about you, not me. And there's a lot of, we'll see in a moment, ways you can test that. But if not, God is in a moment-by-moment personal warfare against people that don't do that in the life even of every believer. Pride is a sin God hates most. Pride is a sin God sees first. And pride is a sin God wants us, likewise, to hate. Think about that. Pride is almost fashionable. We almost admire people that are so, you know, overt. And, and, wow. But if we're not consciously humbling ourselves daily and hourly and moment by moment, then we're losing the battle with pride. That brings us to Christ's messenger. Have you ever thought about how Jesus got introduced by John the Baptist? When God wanted to introduce his son, what did he send? John the Baptist, a messenger who displays the supreme character of God, seeking his servants, and that character is humility. That's what John embodied. Humility. When God described him as a messenger, what did he use? How did he describe the one who was going to introduce the Lamb of God, who would die for sin? In the book of Mark, chapter 1, in verse 3, it says, he is a voice. Behold, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. That's from Isaiah 40. No name. No snapshot. A voice. Isn't that amazing? No rain. No name, no flower introduction, and how profoundly these words about John the Baptist remind us of how important humility is to God. The supreme lesson of John the Baptist's life is humility. And there can be no more vital message that we all need to hear than that God hates pride. And God used John the Baptist Because he was willing to obey the Lord daily and by the power of the Holy Spirit to live his life, cultivating humility. Cultivating humility. You know, you drive by all those amazing, you know, school craft and all the way down into Indiana, those cornfields. I mean, they are unbelievable. The lines, in fact, when Bonnie and I were traveling to The tribal group that met somewhere in Nebraska, in Ogalla, Nebraska, I mean, those were the biggest cornfields I've ever seen in Nebraska. I mean, those sprinkler systems, I'd never seen like 20 and 30, I didn't know you could have that many of them strung together in one big circle. And I just was starting to pull off the road to take pictures of how straight those lines of corn were. You could just see it was just like beautiful symmetrical lines. Someone cultivated that. That wouldn't just happen. Corn does not grow that way. Humility does not grow without cultivation. Takes a lot of work. A lot of weed killer to make corn. All I saw is corn. I didn't see anything else. Somebody's killing everything else. That's like humility. It's cultivated. Mortifying everything else. For just a moment, let's turn in our Bibles to John chapter 3 now. So you went from Matthew to James. Let's go back to the fourth gospel. John chapter 3. In fact, this is the one we're going to read together to prepare our hearts for communion. This is the theme of everything we're doing. John chapter 3, starting in verse 26. Listen to the testimony of John the Baptist as we turn back to John 3, 26. We will hear his secret. And this is what cultivating humility is about. He must increase. I Make a choice. You make a choice that He, not me, Christ, increases. Increases. His control, His influence, His reflection, His personality. That's what the fruit of the Spirit is. It's Christ's personality increasing in me. where people see more of his goodness, and more of his kindness, and more of his gentleness, and more of his patience, and they start going, boy, you're different. You go, it's not me. He must increase. But the only way for Christ to increase is for what? me to decrease. That's the empty me part. So you there? John chapter 3 starting verse 26. Let's stand together. And as you stand, we're going to read down through verse 30. And there's two important lines in verse 27. And then of course, all of verse 30. He must increase starting in verse 26. And you follow along. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, He who is with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him." Now that's the end of verse 26. Now what's going on? John the Baptist's disciples were out and they saw Christ's crowds were bigger than John's. What a moment. What a moment. I mean, do you know how much goes on of rivalry and competition in the name of Christ? Because we don't reflect the messenger God picked. Look what it says in verse 27. And John answered and said, when he got this bad news that Jesus' ministry was bigger than his. A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. Verse 28, you yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ. But I have been sent before him. Verse 29. He who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. Now verse 30. He must increase, but I must decrease. You know, we've got half the equation down. Christ should increase, but I don't want to decrease. And that's why it doesn't work. John understood that there's a reciprocity, that there is a divine connection for Christ to increase in my life and in your life. I have to decrease so that he can increase because he uses me and he lives through me. And it has to be less and less of me, and through me, and to me, and more and more of him, and through him, and to him. Be the glory. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for John the Baptist. I thank you for how you picked and called him, Lord Jesus. You said that he's the greatest of those born of women. He surpassed, according to you, every one of the Old Testament servants in all their grandeur. He was the greatest according to you because his sole desire was for you to increase and he chose to decrease. I pray that this morning that this will become a communion of us saying, increase, Lord. Empty me. I want to decrease. I want you to get all the glory. I pray that you would cement that in our hearts for Jesus' sake. Amen. You may be seated. As you're seated, real quickly, for eight more minutes before we have communion, the key to God's attention is humility. You want to get God's attention? The key to God's attention is humility. The pathway to not being constantly Resisted by God is the pathway of humility. The hard attitude that leads to humility is summed up by John's testimony. Christ must increase. Can you say this morning, those words are your heart's desire. I want Christ to increase. That's the essence of humility. When tied to the choice that I decrease. Humility prompts spiritual blessing. Just as every sin starts in pride, every virtue begins in humility. Humility allows us to see ourselves as we are because it shows us how we are before God as He is. Just as pride is behind every conflict which we have with other people and every problem of fellowship we have with the Lord, so humility is behind every harmonious human relationship. It's behind every spiritual success. It's behind every moment of joyous fellowship with the Lord. The greatest plague on earth is pride. More people miss heaven for pride than all those sins that we blare and trumpet about and make everybody, you know, thinking that that's the ultimate sin. The ultimate sin is pride. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. Salvation is turning to God's way. and giving up my own way. And most people won't do that. The source of every gossip, the source of every hurt feeling, the source of every division in any church, is pride. At the heart of every fight is pride. And God is at war against any and all pride he sees into our lives. Both Peter and James warn us of the ongoing pride resisting that God promised. Are you still thinking about those words in James 4? Do you remember what the Lord Jesus said? God is constantly resisting the proud. In fact, the tense, in the Greek tense, both words are powerfully the same, both in Peter and in James. God is constantly, personally resisting proud people. But he's constantly giving grace to the humble. There's two constants there. Constant resistance to pride. Anytime it shows up, in any form, no matter how slight. And constant pouring out grace. In any evidence of chosen humility that God, who knows all things, sees all things, knows our motivation, whenever He detects us choosing to be humbling ourselves, pours out the grace. Whenever He detects our own way and our pride, resists us in every way. The best way to be frustrated, discontent, and empty is for a believer to harbor pride. If you cultivate pride, it's the pathway to frustration, discontentment, and emptiness. God resists the proud. Always remember that. Our greatest enemy is pride, and our greatest friend is humility. The greatest conduit for God's grace is humility. So that's why we need to identify pride in our lives and humble ourselves in God's sight and let him pour out his grace upon us so that all we do is be graced by God. Why is God so opposed to pride? Because the original sin was pride. Remember that? The original sin was Lucifer saying, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will. Not God's will, God's will, God's will. So, from the beginning, pride is the supreme temptation from Satan, because pride is at the heart of Satan's evil nature. Our only protection against pride and our only source of humility is a proper view of God. We must understand that our pride is the sin of competing with God, and humility is the virtue of submitting to the glory of God. Either we're competing or submitting. So, how do we identify so that we can confess and forsake at communion? Remember, communion is where we make sure that we have clean hands and pure hearts. So how can we take communion with cleansed hands and with a cleansed heart? Well, the gospel is all about the reality that I'm a failure because of sin. And only Christ becoming my substitute, taking my sin and guilt and shame, gives me any hope. The cross is a constant reminder that on my own I'm unable to do the right and I'm unable to stop sinning. I'm helpless to do anything about my weaknesses, my fears, and my problems. The best source of insight into pride is an examination of ourself. Asking honestly, which of these areas apply to me? Pride does not want to wait. Pride does not want to try for fear of failure. Pride makes me break the rules, bend the rules, and impose my own rules on others because I want to resist all of your rules. Pride makes me resentful when corrected, hurt when disappointed, impatient when hindered, greedy when given choices. Now, think of this. When someone corrects me, if my instant response is resent, Pride has been detected. When I get disappointed in something that happens, if I get hurt about that, that's a evidence of pride. When I'm hindered in my plans, and I become impatient about it, that's not acknowledging that God is all-powerfully causing everything to work together for good, and any disappointment or hindrance is a part of his plan. When I get impatient, when I have a choice and get greedy, It's a sign of pride. Remember Lot? Lot looked and picked the best for himself. What a quintessential portrait of pride Lot was. And look at how his life turned out. He was a believer, but he lost everything. When I speak of rivals, if I'm critical, it's a sense of pride. Did you know a humble person can find something good to say about everyone? They can find some shred of truth or reflection of God's character, even in the worst. Jealous when seeing others advance is a sign of pride. Untruthful when confronted because we want to protect ourselves. And when we get slighted by anyone, distance. Those are all the hallmarks of pride. Pride makes me unreliable because you can't tell me what to do and when. Pride makes me unloving because I won't sacrifice for you. Pride makes me unteachable because you can't correct me. And pride makes me competitive because I will always outdo you. That's how we're wired. Every one of us in this room. And unless we allow God to rewire us, we'll go through life that way. Well, humility is a choice. James 4 says, Humble yourselves in the sight of God, and he will lift you up. What can happen if we humble ourselves in the sight of God? There are several immediate results of a humbled life. Humbled believers spend less money. Did you know that? You want to help your budget this year? Humble yourself in the sight of God. Why? Because so much spending is prompted by pride. Keeping up, showing off, having the latest, being able to just be in. You know, that's part of why humble people get so much done for the Lord. They have a lot more resources of time and money because they're not living for their own pleasures. Humble believers trim their schedules of what doesn't please God. But just as selfish activity, which is prompted by our pride, keeps us up with everyone else, then we have, when we trim our schedules, we have more time for ministry because God's work is first and our pleasures are distant second. Because life isn't about us, it's about Him. Humble believers find God's word attracts them more than their hobbies and pursuits because they've stopped living for themselves. Humility means I don't have to be asked nicely and reminded and recognized before I'll serve Christ's church. Rather, I know I'm Christ's bondservant and I go around looking for ways to serve him. Basically, we can say this, humility takes the attraction away from sports, the captivation away from finances, The fascination away from media, as God's grace makes the world offensive to me, and God becomes more important than my entertainment and my pursuits. Most people, God is second in their life. Believers. When you listen to their schedule, many believers look on Sunday as the day that they can do everything that they want to do. They deserve it. rather than absolutely sacrificing it as an offering to God. It's amazing to think. Well, this is what the Bible says. Galatians 6.14. And this is what communion is about. But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what the cross does. And this is what communion reminds us. By whom the world has been crucified to me. The more I am crucified with Christ, the world becomes crucified to me. The world offends me. The world and all of its rebellion against God offends me. And the more I'm crucified with Christ, I become crucified to the world has less and less and less hold on me. Therefore, practicing biblical humility is wanting a life that God gets all the glory from. What I'd like you to do is take your hymn books and turn to 185. We're gonna read something, and I'd like all the elders and deacons to go and prepare to serve us, but I thought we would just read this hymn before we go into communion. So as soon as you get your hymn book, let's all stand, and we're gonna read 185, and think about what communion is portraying in the cross of Christ. 185, as we read these words, think about, this is what we're declaring when we gather for communion, okay? Starting in stanza one, lady 85. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. For him to increase, what do I have to do? Yeah, do you see that in the words? Do you see how the hymn writer captures that decrease? Okay, let's do the second stanza. Ah, it's a new year. This is the first year, or the first day of the new year. What about all the people that say, I don't have any time for God? Did you read what that second stanza said? All the vain things that charm me most. I can assure you that the majority of our time spent doing so many things will not matter in a thousand years. But every moment spent saying, God speak to me, your servants listening. I want your will. I want your mind. I want your spirit filling and controlling and overflowing me. All those vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them. Notice what it says in that we just read. I sacrifice them to his blood. He gave his life to purchase me, that I should no longer live for myself, but unto him. Second Corinthians 5, but unto him. Wow. Third stanza. Let's read it. Last stanza. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Communion, this morning and every time, is a declaration that God is more. important, vital, strategic, central than anything else. And I'm going to seek Him first in my schedule, first in my time usage, first in my asset allocation, first in my emotional, every part of my life. In Communions, when we just, we look at His standard, look at where we are, and no matter how many steps away from Him, It's always just one step back. Repent. Repent of my time wasting. Repent of my misallocation of my energies in life. And I want your way. And we do that every day. That's why that prayer is the grid. I want you to empty me every day because I get back full of myself. Let's bow for a word of prayer to prepare for communion. Father, I thank you for the bread that we are going to have together this morning. It's a picture that you have already opened the way for us. You have already taken all of our sins. We're gathered as your body. We're gathered as believers. You became sin for us in your own body on the tree. So therefore the power of sin has been broken. The guilt and all the stain and all the ignominious way that we have lived is gone forever. You've even erased the record. And now you want to pour your grace on every humble person that you detect any movement toward me decreasing and you increasing. You want to pour out your grace this morning. I pray that as we sing, I pray that as we celebrate, that we would be the repentant, humbling ourselves by choice, body of Christ, that you can just overflow your grace onto today and every new day of this new year. In the name of Jesus, we thank you. Amen.