MK040 Sermons
Promises (Audio)
what we want this new year to be about and part of thinking about what the new year is going to be about is I would encourage you if you haven't already done so to think about what this past year was about and not just think about the events that happened but to take some time to reflect on where has God shown up in my life this past year for some of you that may be hard to sort out because it's been a bleak dark year and God hasn't really been there very often that's been kind of hard and maybe just when you show up here you get this little glimmer of hope that helps you take another step forward and make it through another day but for many of you maybe God has done some things in your life that you can look back and and all likelihood there are things that you didn't realize when the year started I know when the year started I knew that my wife and I were going to take a trip and I knew that the sabbatical was coming but I didn't realize all the other things that God would have in my life and as I thought about my life I thought of a word it was really movement I thought I saw God move me from to visit places I had never been before and I saw God move me in and out of the time of sabbatical that the church blessed us with this summer and and I saw the God move our church from this location and now in this next year we'll have a new location that we're looking for and I also saw God move my heart closer to him and a longing to know him more than anything else in my life and so I don't know what that looks like for you but I would encourage you to take some time if you haven't already done so to sit down and think back and say what happened this last year and not just the chronologically then but where did God show up in my life through this past year and as we're moving forward into a new year there's a lot of things that people have as resolutions and I don't know what new year's resolutions you might have made but I thought I would just get started by sharing with you the top 10 new year's resolutions that people are making this year so number 10 is to spend more time with family that's a good resolution I think we'd all agree with that number nine is to fall in love I'm not sure how that can be a resolution I'm just not sure you know okay you it's me and you you know the way we're in this you know I don't know how that works but nice idea but not sure about a resolution how about this one help others in their dreams that's kind of a cool one here's another one I quit smoking save you some money in the process if you do that number six is learn something exciting I don't know if there's something you've been thinking about but maybe try something new you haven't done before how about number five staying fit and healthy now this assumes something doesn't it that you're already fit and healthy right so that already assumes that you're already fit and healthy so for the few people in the population that are that can be their resolution how about number four enjoy life to the fullest that's kind of idealistic you know I don't know what that really means but number three spend less say more you quit smoking you save some money you know so that was how that one works together number two is getting organized and what do you think is the number one New Year's resolution lose weight that's right number one New Year's resolution and it's interesting as I was researching this and kind of learning a little bit about about half the population make some kind of resolution a small percent of the population only keeps the resolution and over time the resolutions kind of weighing over time one statistic that I found very interesting was the percent of 20 year olds who keep their resolution and the percent of 50 year olds who keep their resolution okay now how many of you think it's higher with the 50 year olds who keep their their resolutions how many think that okay how many think it's higher for the 20 year olds to keep their that's interesting about half and half actually twice as many 20 year olds will keep their resolutions than 50 year olds and that's kind of interesting because you would think it might be the reverse because you think well they don't have a lot of commitments a lot of responsibilities but but the ones that they commit themselves to they will stick to and so I started thinking about well it's great to think about resolutions but how do we keep them how do we keep them and I came up with a few ideas on how to keep resolutions one is to write it down you realize it doesn't do any good if it's up here you need to write it down so that's a good idea and another one is tell someone if you tell someone your likelihood of keeping it will go up third is if you review it daily if you review it daily and so I thought how could you review it daily well here's one you could get a tattooed on your arm you know and then every time you take in a shower you could look at that resolution there it is again you know here's another one I thought of tell it to your student if you tell your student something you are going to do I guarantee you they'll remind you over and over again all throughout the year when you're not doing that thing you just said that you are going to do and here's one final one to help you remember make it the background on your phone any idea how often we look at our phones on a daily basis anybody want to venture a guess take a guess come and give me a number come on account mr account give me a number in the front row here so a hundred okay he's not quite he's about half two-thirds of the way there 150 times we look at our phones for some reason the people in the UK look at there's 220 times a day I'm not sure why but but think about that if you want to remind remind yourself of something do what put it there as a background on your phone and you'll remember it all the time well this morning we're going to talk about promises and we're going to talk about commitments and if you were with us back in the fall we began a series of studies looking at the Sermon on the Mount Jesus most famous message and this morning going to reenter that message and ironically the place we're going to enter it is where he talks about making promises so I thought this is a great fit for a new year's weekend as we're thinking about what the new year is going to bring about and promises that we're going to be making the Sermon on the Mount just let me refresh your memory a little bit about that Jesus was speaking to a large group of people he had just announced to them that the kingdom of God is near he didn't say the kingdom of God is here it's arrived he said it's near it's getting close you say well what did he mean by it's near it's getting close well Jesus was here and he's one day going to be the king but he wasn't ruling his king Herod was the ruling Herod was the ruler as king but Jesus would one day be king and so he said let me tell you what life when I am the king is going to be like and as you hear what life when I am the king is going to be like I want you to consider being a part of my kingdom and he used this phrase at the beginning of it he used this phrase he said repent for the kingdom of heaven is near he invited people who are walking a certain way of life good people religious people Jewish people to live a different kind of life and it's interesting as you read through this Sermon on the Mount and you discover the kinds of people who are going to be in this kingdom and you're left scratching your head a little bit and you think that's not the people I thought we're going to get in it's a little confusing and then the more you read about this Sermon on the Mount Jesus doesn't tell you all these different things you need to think about to be a part of the kingdom he says I want you to I want to tell you a different way to relate to one another when you're part of this kingdom because Jesus says people that follow me people that put me that be the king of their lives they live differently in relationship to each other and that's why he talks about things like anger and lust and divorce and keeping promises what Jesus doesn't do is he doesn't add more to your back pack of your faith journey and say now there's three more things that you need to do it's not what he says he says I'm offering you an alternative way of living I want you to take something the way you're living in this area right now and I want you to throw it out and I want you to turn and adopt something new now if your house was like my house this past week after Christmas there was a number of things that had been in our house for a very long time that either ended up in the garbage if they were no longer usable or if the good will if we thought somebody else could use them why because we were given some gifts and we swapped them out we took the old things out and we put something new in its place Jesus is not adding more to what following him is all about he says I want you to trade something I want you to trade something from the way you're living now to a new relationship with me as king that I want to invite you to live in today and so this morning we're going to take a look in Matthew chapter five if you have your bibles um turning them to Matthew chapter five if you don't have a bible our guys have some and they'll pass them out Matthew chapter five is where we're going to be this morning beginning in verse 33 Matthew 5 33 and I'm going to read through this for those of you this still finding I'm going to read through it and then we will talk about what Jesus has to say in this this morning Matthew chapter five beginning in verse 33 so let's see what Jesus has to say he says again you have heard that it was said to the people long ago do not break your oath but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made but I tell you do not swear an oath at all either by heaven for it is God's throne or by earth for it is your footstool or by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king and do not swear by your head for you come out make even one hair white or black all you need to say is simply yes or no anything beyond that comes from the evil one Jesus talking about vows and he's talking about promises and he's talking about oaths what is he talking about in all of this well making promises and making commitments is important to God one of the very first ones that God provided for us is in the book of genesis shortly after the great flood took place God said to his people to the people that were alive Noah and his family he said never again am I ever going to flood the earth with water and he said I want you to know that this is not going to happen and I want to make a promise to you and the promise I'm going to make is a rainbow so every time you see a rainbow it'll be a reminder to you that the earth will never again be flooded with water one of the very first promises and what Jesus said God said throughout the Old Testament he said when you make a promise you need to keep the promise now one of the things that happened in that culture and we'll talk more about it and even as it relates to our culture is that when God gets added to that promise then all the sudden the stakes go up and the weight of keeping that promise increases for instance if you appear in a court of law and you testify in that court of law you put your hand on the bible and you repeat this oath and at the end you say so help me what God why you're saying God I want you to help me to be as truthful as I possibly can and adds a level of weight to our commitment to be honest and to be truthful in the Old Testament law in the book of Deuteronomy look how God described this in Deuteronomy 23 he said you've heard it said long ago do not break your oath but keep the oaths you've made to the Lord he goes on the next verse to say this but if you refrain from making a vow you'll not be guilty he said keep your oath keep your promise but if you don't make a vow to wait that heavier so you're guaranteed to keep it you'll be okay go to the next verse whatever your lips utter just do it because you made your vow freely the Lord with your mouth so literally what God is saying is he saying I want you to be honest when you make a commitment I want you to say it and the the struggle is is God knew the human heart and the human heart has a tendency to deceive doesn't it then that deception goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden where Adam was to see Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent and then Adam lied and then Abraham lied to Sarah and Jacob lied to his uncle Laban and all throughout the story of the patriarchs the Jewish patriarchs there was lies and deception lies and deception lies and deception and that has continued to this day if you pulled a group of students now I didn't pull our students who were here today but if you pulled a group of students two-thirds of them would admit that they lied to a parent teacher or someone in the past three months 60s percent of them admit they lied to a friend past three months 30 percent of them admit that they cheated on a test in the last three months and plagiarism software has had to become increasingly sophisticated because of the use of the internet for copying of material and then being presented as your own now I don't say this is an indictment on students because students had to learn this from someone didn't they somewhere didn't they they learned it from adults and what's happened is we've adopted a way of life that says if it works for me it's okay if it works for me it's okay talking to some friends recently who had a son and daughter a son actually who had done a year of teaching English in China and then in Japan and he said one of the biggest struggles in those cultures is because of the value of education and the value of knowledge it is completely acceptable in their minds too cheap and he has to try to confront that and so what we're talking about here is more than just keeping my promises it's tied to my commitment to what is true and how do I communicate that truth and how do I get that truth across God says keep your word and keep your promises and don't add a lot of other things to it go back and look at the verse there in Matthew chapter five he says again you've heard it said do not break your oath but fulfill to the Lord the vowels that you have made God says when you make a when you make an oath keep it and keep the vowels that you have made you say John I'm not quite tracking with you that's okay I understand let me see if I can make this a little bit simpler since we were kids we've used statements at the end of something we've said to convince another person that what we said was true let me give you a few of them see if you can figure them out here's the first one cross my heart and what hope to die stick a needle in your eye right my eye that's right yeah what is that that is that is a vow saying I told you what I was saying was true if you don't believe me this is what I'm going to add on top of it to guarantee that you're going to believe me okay here's another one pinky what swear okay kind of hook your another person pinky I swear that I am telling you the truth right now as you get a little older you don't use those phrase but you might use this phrase you might use this phrase I swear on my what mother's grave right starting to get the sense here when you make a statement when you say something the other person is like I don't believe you know I'm that no no way you're like yes and so what do you do you add something on top of that to make your own words believable because they don't believe that what you're going to say is true you might be pulling their leg you may be lying you might be deceiving and so I have to make an effort to get them to believe that this is true and the last one that we say is I swear to whom to God right I swear to God this is not a new problem this is a problem that's been happening for centuries Moses wrote about it in the book of Deuteronomy then Jesus writes about it because what the Jewish leaders had done remember the Jewish leaders they're one of the goals with their oral tradition there was what God says and then they added on top of that all this oral tradition and the purpose of the oral tradition was to create loopholes for you to get out of doing exactly what God said to do and so what they did in their culture is they took these these different vowels that they would put on top of a statement and each of those vowels would wait that statement more heavily and that would put the heaviest part being I swear to God and then that means you have to tell the truth and that's really what Jesus is talking about now let's go back and look at these next couple verses and look at the way that they're the way that they're described look at there in verse 34 what does he say in verse 34 he says do not swear at all either by heaven for it is God's throne so kind of the lowest letter level that you could kind of wait on it you know kind of like the pinky swear thing is you know I swear by heaven is what they might say and he said why are you swearing by heaven that's where God lives that's the same thing as what's the point of all of that so they add another one what's the next level the next level is I swear by the earth that makes it even more because the earth we can see heaven I'm not sure about heaven at the earth I know I swear by the earth he says why are you swearing by the earth that's if heaven is his throne the earth is like where it's feet it's like he props his feet up here you know if that's not going to wait in anymore and then he says I swear by Jerusalem he says why are you swearing by Jerusalem that's the city of the great king that's God's city it's waiting it even more this last one he says and this one's a little more confusing in our culture today he says I swear by the hair by your head for you cannot make even one hair white or black now in our culture today we can make our hair red and blue and yellow and purple and you know you can kind of it's gray you can make it whatever you want it to be so this one's a little trickier for us today you know what in the world is he talking about here well I think what he's talking about there's other place in the bible where it says that God knows the hairs the number of hairs on your head and for some of you that's less of a challenge for God than it is for others but you know he knows them all even the ones that aren't working and don't produce hair you know he knows them all all those things you know and I think maybe the point here is that you know he's talking about swearing by God changing your hair color or changing something about you that only God has any control over and so what the Jewish culture did is they added these different these different vowels to weigh their promise all in an attempt to convince the other person that their words were going to be true and what does Jesus call us to do he says kingdom people are so honest they do not need oaths or things that they swear by on top of what they say to guarantee that their words are true they tell the truth all the time so what did Jesus say he says whenever you say yes it should be yes and whenever you say no it should be no now for some of you you say well you say yes way too often and those of you that do you know who i'm talking to you know and your spouse is like why'd you say yes I can like well you did it again you know and in all likelihood you are gifted by God as a servant you are gifted by God as someone who likes to help you're gifted by God as someone who meets people's needs and so whenever there's a need or some way to help or some way to get involved you're like yeah me me me me me me you know and yet what happens over time is you begin to hate the fact that you even said yes to something that you thought you wanted to do At one point in time, and then you regret ever saying it and wish it was no. For some of you, you say no way too often. You've seen the life of the yes person. You're not going to live in that world, and so you're going to live in the no world. And so you're answering it, no, don't even bring it up, no, no, no, don't even bother, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to talk about what that means in terms of how do I live this out. But look at how he closes this. He says anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Wow, that is harsh. That is harsh. He's saying if you make a promise, if you say yes to something and you can't fulfill that, or you say no to something and you don't end up fulfilling that either, he said anything other than doing exactly what you say, which is the point. Comes from Satan. Comes from Satan. Do you remember what Jesus said about Satan? He called him the father of what? Father of lies. And what did Jesus say? He says, I am the way, the what, the truth, and the life. And so what Jesus is calling people to do, who follow him or people that live according to his kingdom, according to his ways, is to say, whatever it is you say, make sure you can do what you say. Because if you don't, this is not a God thing. It's actually far from it. It's something from Satan. You know, the Jewish leaders were so committed to manipulation. Listen, just briefly with me, from Matthew 23, where these are expanded on. Listen to how they did this in Matthew chapter 23. He said, if anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, they're bound by their promise. You fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred. If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift on the altar, it's bound by the altar. What do you blind men, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes it sacred? And he goes on to describe other things in that passage. And basically what he says is, he said, you are using words to manipulate and control the situation. It's literally what you're doing. You say, why do people swear on top of statements that they make? Dallas Willard said this, to impress people with their sincerity and reliability and to gain acceptance of what they are saying and what they want. If I don't think someone is believing me, then I have to up the ante to convince them that what I'm saying is true. And ultimately, it's a form of manipulation. I have to push the issue and get them to trust me, so I use the phrase I swear on top of that. In sales, it's called a song and a dance. In politics, it's called a spin doctor, where you're trying to convince someone to believe something to be true about you that they aren't willing or sure if they can accept. What kingdom living does is it lets people come to their own conclusions and decide what they deem as best based upon the character and integrity of the individual. And what Jesus is saying to his followers, and ironically, maybe not ironically, but he puts this in the passage right after the commitment to marriage. That's where he puts it. And as we talk back in the fall about the breakdown of this in our culture and within the church, where when we make a commitment, when we make a promise that we have said before God and witnesses till death do us part, we're so easy and quick to break it. Jesus isn't about people who know more than other people, and that makes them more godly. He's about people who live differently, who have traded a way of living for a different way of living. If you think about the culture we live in, we're a culture of promises and of contracts and of release forms and of binding negotiations, we're culture full of that. Why? Because we can't trust a person's word, can't trust their word. And Jesus says, "I want my followers to be people whose word can be trusted." Now should you have those things in place? We live in a broken, sinful, fallen world, and so I'm not suggesting those get eliminated. But the reason that they exist is because of that, because of that. The challenge for all of us is to be men and women and students of integrity, where our word counts for something, and we carefully think through the promises and the commitments that we're going to make, because we know once we make those commitments that we are going to keep them, because that is who we are. You know that one of the things that it's next to impossible to replace is your integrity and your credibility. If you've ever had that happen to you whether because of your own sinful or bad choices or because lies or gossip has been spread about you, you know how difficult it is to replace that. And God calls us to be people of integrity, to be people of honoring the commitments that we make. I want to give you an opportunity this morning to practice this a little bit, and that's what the handout inside your program is for. If you would pull this handout out, and Ushers, if you would grab some programs and just kind of walk around, if anybody didn't get a program, I'd like to have everybody look at this because it's not going to come up on the screen. And I wanted us to think about making a promise that we can keep. Now, upon initial glance at this sheet, it looks a little bit overwhelming, and I certainly understand that. But we're not going to ask you to hand this in or give this to anybody or make commitments and all these areas. That's not what we're going to be asking you to do. My challenge is going to be to ask you to commit to one of these areas this next year, because my challenge to you is to make a promise and keep it. And so I'm going to walk down through these things that are listed here, and I want you as you're listening to me talking about them just to be attentive to the fact that God is giving you a nudge and saying, "I want you to do this, this coming here." Now, there may be something else that God has for you, but I want us to think through a process of how do I think about a commitment I'm going to make and then honor God with it. And so I've listed six areas that our staff came up with, and we thought, "These are six areas that are good things for us to think about at the beginning of the year." And my challenge to you is to say, "Is there one area here that God wants me to make a commitment?" Not that John says or my spouse says or my parents say or small, but that God's kind of given me a nudge to make a commitment in one of these areas and to grow in it. So the first one there is rhythms. One of the things you'll hear us talk about all the time here at CCC is rhythms. Our heartbeat has a rhythm. It goes up and it goes down, and then it goes up, and then it goes down. Then it goes up, "Everything in life is built on rhythms. We're in the rhythm of what season? Winter right now." And everything is what? It's dead. It's dark. It's dreary, you know? But it's a season where everything has to die so we can experience what in just a couple of months? Spring, right? Where everything will come to life. And so we have rhythms that we encourage people to think about. One of the rhythms that's important is coming to worship on a regular basis here at CCC. You see, John, why would you put that? I read some research recently that said that in 2015, the amount of times that people attend church is going to drop from the amount of times people attend in church in 2014. Of regular church going people, people all the time ask, "How many people attend our church?" Well, on a given Sunday morning, 25% of our church isn't here. That call CCC, their church homin, attends on a regular basis. They say, "Why are people going to attend church less than 2015 than they did in 2014?" A couple of the reasons they said number one reason, anybody want to venture a guess? They're about this high and they're very busy. Kids, sports, and activities. Number one reason why people who attend church regularly attend church less. Number two reason, professional responsibilities, business travel. Number two reason. Number three reason, all the opportunities and activities that are available for us to be involved in. So I put this on here as an important rhythm for us to consider that in the process of our lives, in a seven-day process, God said it was important and we'll talk about this a little, to take one day and rest and turn our attention in a way that we maybe haven't all week long. Another part of that is spending some time with God. We think it's important for you to put life on hold as you begin your day in the middle of the day, at the end of your day, and just spend a few minutes talking to God. Opening up the Bible, and maybe it's reading the passage of Scripture that we're talking about this morning. I love having you version on my phone that no matter where I am, I can sit for a couple minutes and just kind of read and just sit quietly and reflect on what it is that God has for me today. The passage I read this morning, the song we're going to sing at the close of the service, it's all about that passage. And the last one is practice Sabbath weekly and Sabbath, when we talk about Sabbath, we talk about 24 hours where you do the things you enjoy doing, it's a one-two-day and not a half-two-day. Some of you think, "Oh, that sounds so inviting." And then you're thinking, "I have no idea how I'm going to do that." That's part of the challenge. But we believe God has built into our lives a rhythm where one out of every seven days, we put life on pause. We don't do all the things we have to do. We don't pay the bills. We don't run errands. Don't do projects around the house. We don't diet. Something like, "Oh, I like that day." You don't have to exercise unless you really like to, if you're one of those weirdos, there's a few of us. But you get to do the things that you want to, the things that God has made you to be all about that give you life. And we believe that should be a part of the rhythm of life that God has created us for. So maybe you're like, "You know what, I need to put some rhythms in place in my life." And maybe that's an area. The next one is relationships. And if you hang around CCC long enough, you'll know that relationships are part of why we believe God has created us to live in a relationship with Him, first and foremost, and then with one another. And so we encourage you, if you're new to CCC or if you're just beginning your faith journey to be a part of starting point, it's a group where you'll get to know some people. There's settings for men and women, that's what knights and women's groups. There's our community groups and maybe even the lead a group. And you will hear us talk all the time about being in relationship with other people. We don't believe you can live the life that God has for you by yourself in isolation. How about serving? How about serving? There's a lot of people that serve here at CCC. We have over a hundred volunteers that serve on a regular basis. Some are very gifted and talented as you saw on the stage earlier. Some just know how to use a mouse and click it and they're really good at that. And that's how they serve. Others are great at serving with their hands and you may know that we're renovating a facility that's going to be our future home. If you can do nothing more than swing a sledgehammer, then maybe you can come and serve God in that way. Maybe you've served and you just kind of help with an event and God says God's kind of giving the United say this is the one for you. I want you to be a little more focused on others and so I want you to serve somewhere on a regular basis. If you hang around here long enough you see some of the same people in certain areas and they've committed themselves and said I'm going to do this on a regular basis or maybe it's for you to lead in a way. Maybe the challenge for you is in the area of finances, in the area of finances. Maybe it's saying I'm going to give some money back to God. Instead of it all being for me I'm going to give it back to God. Maybe for you it's knowing where your money goes. You know we've talked about this often that you can't be a good steward or a good manager of your money unless you know where it's going. Maybe it's giving a percent, maybe it's saying I'm going to give God a certain percent of my income first before all the other expenses have to be paid. That's what a tie this. Maybe it's for you just being generous with everything. Maybe you do those kind of things like I know I'm supposed to budget, I budget, I know I'm supposed to tie, I tie, but you're kind of tight-fisted and everybody knows don't ask him you're just going to get a no and God's saying I want you to open those hands and say God help me to use my stuff to bless other people. How about sharing Jesus? Maybe the challenge for you this next year is to identify some people that don't know God that are maybe far from God and God says I just want you to find a way to serve them. And maybe after serving them you invite them to come to CCC or maybe you even talk to them about Jesus. Not about God, everybody in Lancaster County believes in God. Most of them believe in Jesus too, but talk to them about a personal relationship with Jesus. What does that look like? And the last one there is just maybe making some commitments to CCC. We've talked about some of these along the way, but maybe I kind of come and I kind of show up and I like being here and I like the people and I help out a little bit, but I never kind of jumped in and maybe jumping in for you as being baptized and that's just going public and saying I'm a follower of Jesus and I want everybody to know. Or maybe it's becoming a member and saying you know I'm all in. I'm not just going to be someone who shows up, but I'm in. I'm a part of what God's doing here. And so I want to encourage you to take this with you and sit with it. I don't want you to make a decision now. Some of you already know what God's kind of giving you nudge to do. Somebody like I know, I know. We've been talking about this and now it's time to put some feet to it. Some of you it's different than this I've given you some that we thought of, but there's others. Maybe for some of you there's some pain from your past that you've not been willing to do some work on and God's been giving you a push to this and loving friends have been saying it's time. Maybe there's a habit that there's a secret habit on the inside and God says it's time. Here's a relationship that's been broken for a long time and you don't want to walk back towards it. God says it's time, it's time to make a promise to me and then keep your word. I don't know what that's going to be for you this coming year. But for people of faith, for people that want to follow Jesus, for people that want their lives to be about him, he says will you make a promise and then keep it. Something I know to be true, some of us shy away from commitments because we don't want to over promise, some of us over promise and then we feel like a failure because we can't follow through again. I think both of us God is inviting you to spend some time with him, some time with your spouse, some time with one or two trusted friends that know you really well and you say hey this is what I'm thinking about this year, what do you think about this? Let God use them in your life and I'm going to encourage you in your small groups and your nights groups and our student ministry to have this conversation say what is that one commitment God's calling you to make this coming year. I want to invite you to bow your heads with me and let's just take a couple minutes quietly for you to talk to God, maybe you already know what it is and you have to be willing to say okay God I will, maybe it's kind of a surrender issue for you. Sometimes it's humbling because we might need to ask someone else to help us and might not be good at that because you know God wants you to do so but you don't have a clue how to do it, maybe you're just not sure, you might have to look at this for a day or two days or three days and just keep saying God what's it going to be this year, what's the promise you want me to make, I don't want to commit to doing it, I want to be a person of my word and I want to start with you. I don't know what you've put in each of our hearts but I know that if we are open to you that you want to work in us and you call us into this relationship and you invite us to know you and to follow you and God you today are challenging us to swap a way of life that either casually makes promises or has to try to convince people because we've had, we failed them in the past, we over promise and then we're hating ourselves and hating life because of what we've committed to, to just say what is it that you want me to do and with your help I'm going to do it, guys we've been in a new year, we kind of have this sense that we get this fresh slate, it's kind of white clean of all the old things and make some new fall and snow, it's pure and God I just pray that as we begin this new year that this reminder of make a promise and keep it is something that would ring in our hearts and it would give us a sense of what does this look like to follow you and your delight and pleasure as we seek to do so.