4 Steps to Make 2024 Your Most Intentional Year Yet - Mercy Hill

Hey Mercy Hill, Pastor Bobby here. If you are watching this or listening to this, it's probably just before the new year or we are already into the new year. So, you know, every single year, normally after our Christmas services, we like to take a week off and give our staff, give our volunteers an opportunity to rest, to reflect, to spend some time thinking about the upcoming year.

It's so crazy. We think about our Christmas services this year. Many of you, I want to thank you, whether you're a volunteer or staff, many of you went five days straight of serving to make our Christmas services happen. And so we like to take a week off this year, but we always want to provide something for you guys in terms of, you know, a sermon, a talk, some spiritual stuff to think about the upcoming year. And so going into this upcoming year, our team asked if I would just do something on kind of goal setting and, you know, how to live the most intentional year that you can live in the upcoming year. And so I'm so honored and so happy to be able to do that. I had the opportunity this year really for a bunch of different groups that, you know, I just am around business leaders, you know, people that are going after big athletic goals to kind of do some different stuff this year on goal setting. And so I'm so honored to be able to do that for us as a church to just think about, you know, how you could grow in the upcoming year, you know, how you could be, God could grow you in your character, how you could grow as a dad or a mom, as a husband, as a friend.

And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. And I really just hope that this will bless you. So, you know, as we're thinking about the upcoming year and, you know, we're thinking about, you know, why a lot of times do we maybe start to have some new hope when we come up to a new year. In many ways, I think it's just, especially as believers, because we just know that God's mercy is new every single day. It makes me think of Lamentations chapter three, verse 22 and 23, it says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.

They're new every single morning. And I think that idea of God's mercy being new every single day, I think that really plays into when we get up to a new year. You know, when we come to a new year, we know that God is gracious. We know that God's mercies are new every single day. And so as we come to a new year, there's hope, you know, there's hope that God will continue to grow us.

God will use us. God will work in our lives. So like why goal setting, you know, like, why not just kind of coast into the year to the next year, just kind of doing what you already do.

You know, I think there's just something about there's nothing magical about goal setting, right. But there's just something I think there's something real powerful and just kind of stopping and thinking and just trying to be really just kind of intentional, you know, to kind of stop for a bit and just kind of take stock, right? Like take stock, like what is God doing in your family?

You know, what has God done in your life over the last year? And there's just something about the intentionality of that, that I think can really help us on that pathway to continue to grow closer to God and grow into the people that God has created us to be. So that's what we're going to do today. We're basically just going to walk through four steps that you can make your 2024 like the most intentional year that you've ever lived. So that's the goal today, that you would have these four steps that you could live the most intentional 2024, the most intentional year that you have ever lived. So before we go and start dreaming about the upcoming year, though, I want to spend some time reflecting on 2023. And I think this is just a good practice, you know, to be thankful, to remember God's faithfulness, to remember what God has done in our lives, no matter if it's been a good year or a bad year to just remember what a faithful God that we serve.

And I think in doing that, it just can begin to kind of create something in our heart that's going to help us to dream about the upcoming year. Psalm 111 verse one and two, it says, praise the Lord. I'll give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright in the congregation. It says this great are the works of the Lord. Psalm 77 verse 11 says, I will remember the deeds of the Lord.

Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I think as we're going into the upcoming year, we just want to be thankful. We just want to be thankful for what God has done in our life, where God has brought us, you know, whether it was an awesome year or whether it was a really difficult year. We just want to thank God because he's faithful. His works are faithful. What he does in the world, he's faithful.

He's been faithful in your life. And so I just want all of us to have gratitude as we're thinking about the upcoming year. I also want to give you a couple thoughts, a couple questions maybe to ask yourself and maybe after I get through these three questions, maybe you can actually stop this and maybe spend 10 minutes or so, um, you know, with your spouse or with a friend, just kind of walking through these questions because I think they're going to help you to reflect on the previous year. And then I think they're going to help you to dream about the upcoming year, what God could actually do in your life. Okay.

The first one is this. Just make a list of 10 things you're thankful for from 2023. These could be just small things that happened in 2023. Um, you know, these could be huge things that happened in 2023, whatever they may be.

Just take some time and just reflect on what God has done in your life over the last year and just write down some stuff just saying, God, I'm just so thankful. I'm just so thankful for this specific thing that happened in 2023. The second thing I would encourage you to do is just make a list of 10 memories that you have from 2023.

You know, just memories from 2023. This could be, um, you know, an awesome conversation that you had with somebody. Um, you know, this could be an awesome dinner that you had at your house.

This could be a new friend that you made. Um, you know, just something that's a really awesome memory from this last year. Um, be thankful you're not one of my kids because, uh, I'm actually making my kids write a hundred of these things, uh, for this last year.

And, um, man, it's so cool though. Like my son Everett, he was the first to kind of begin to work on his list, you know, and he just, I think he did 15, uh, just 15 things that he remembered from the last year. And I mean, just after he went through his list of, you know, new friends made and memories we made and different things that God has done in our family in ways that God has been faithful.

I mean, I was almost just in tears, you know, after his small list of things. And so I would just encourage you to make a list of memories that you have, uh, from the last year. The third thing that I would encourage you to do before we get into 2024 goal setting and really dreaming about the upcoming year. The third thing is just to take inventory of your life. And honestly, this maybe is the hardest one to do, you know, to truly kind of take inventory of our life, the things that are going well, the things that are not going well. You know, maybe some questions when you're thinking about taking inventory of your life. One question to ask would be like, where has God really grown you over the last year? You know, can you identify an area of your life?

You know, maybe, um, maybe your character, maybe, uh, it's a relationship like the relationship with your spouse or maybe the way that you're leading at work or some other area. Um, you know, a willingness to step out and be on mission for God. Where's an area that God has really grown you, uh, over the last year. And then the second part, and maybe this is the hardest question to ask would be, you know, where do you, what area of life do you really maybe still have some ways to go? Um, you know, if we're all honest, uh, we may not want to verbalize these things, but we all are probably able to identify an area of life, especially after we think about, you know, maybe an area of life where we're really growing, just seeing that area of life and then comparing that to another area of life. You know, where is something you still, you know, want to grow in and let me encourage you in this. You know, I think as, um, you know, believers in Jesus, I think that we're able to do this, um, maybe better than anybody else.

And, and why do I say that? Because it takes, um, it takes understanding God's grace and God's mercy to be willing to say, Hey, here's an area of life that man, I'm still struggling in. You know, I still have a ways to go because here's the thing, everybody in the world, they know different areas of life they're struggling, but without Christ, we want to cover that up.

You know, like we want those struggles to stay in the darkness. But here's the thing with Jesus. Like we have to brutally confront our sin and our struggles, but when we believe in Jesus and what he's done for us through the gospel, we know that if we recognize those sins and those struggles and we ask God for forgiveness through Christ, we're met with grace. And so we can have this sort of humility and the sort of spirit and the sort of heart to say, man, God, you've done these awesome things, but I'm still really struggling over here and there should be a willingness with all of us to be able to identify some of those areas. I'll just share with you guys personally, uh, in my own life as I'm thinking through this third question about taking inventory, uh, in my life, I feel like one of the things that God has grown me in over the last year, you know, we talk a lot at Mercy Hill about Ephesians 2 10, you know, that God has specific, uh, good works for us to walk in. And as I've turned 40 over the last year, um, I feel like God's just given me an awareness of my own personal wiring, you know, the spiritual gifts he's given me, the natural gifts he's given me. And I'm just so thankful that I've been able to walk, uh, more and more in those gifts over the last year, even doing a teaching like this, I just think really lines up and with how God's wired me. So that's an area where I'm thankful that God's grown me over the last year. Uh, but there's other areas. Um, for example, you know, I just still want to continue to provide a better environment for teaching, uh, my kids the Bible, you know, like I know that's, that's just like such a simple thing, but, um, you know, there's just so many times where Alison and I, you know, we just realized like, oh, we just need to be doing a better job with that, you know, and I'm not talking about having some sort of systematic theology lesson with the kids or anything.

I mean, I'm just talking about, Hey guys, let's go over this verse, you know, Hey guys, let's spend a little bit of time, you know, praying, uh, at dinner, you know, Hey guys, let's, you know, let's go through some of these specific prayer prompts for our missionaries and stuff like that. That's just an area that, you know, I still need to grow in. Um, and I still want our family to grow in. So, you know, that's what it looks like to try to identify and just kind of take inventory, um, of your life. So, all right guys, hopefully what that has done, you know, uh, at the beginning here is really just to provide, um, just some, some reflection, you know, doing some reflection about the last year, doing some reflection about our own life so that we can start moving into the upcoming year.

So here's what I want to do. Four steps to make your 2024 the most intentional year of your life. Why do we want to be intentional with the way that we live? So the way I would think about it, going back to Ephesians 2 10, you know, man, God has created us for his glory. God's created us to do good works. God has specific works that he wants you to walk in and I don't know about you, but I just want my life to be as aligned with that as it can be. And so I just want to be as intentional and purposeful as I can about the things that I'm going to go after and that my family is going to go after, uh, in 2024.

And I hope it's the same for you. You know, when you read through Proverbs and you see at the very beginning of Proverbs, you have this distinction between the wise person and the foolish person. One of the things I think you see with the foolish person is the foolish person and Proverbs, they're just kind of drifting through their life.

You know, they're following their feelings or they're just following their sinful nature and they're not, they're not living with this, with this purposeful sort of destiny that they're following. And so I think as people that are trying to follow God and live for wisdom, we want to live as intentional and purposeful as we can. And I know you do too. Uh, all of us do. We, we, we, we want the best for what God has for our life.

Um, I want everything God has for me. So let's walk through some of these steps. These are just super practical ways that are going to help all of us to, uh, live more intentionally in 2024.

The first one is a step number one, super simple. Create a vision for each area of your life. Create a vision for each area of your life. I say each area of your life because a lot of times we, uh, we all fall victim to this. You know, we may really crush one area of our life, you know, like we may be awesome, uh, you know, in our work life, but maybe we struggle as a dad, you know, or maybe we're a great husband or wife, but, um, you know, we're struggling over here.

We're struggling with our faith or our spiritual life. And so the best that we can, we want to have a vision for each area of our life. And I know some of you, you know, you may hear this like, Oh my, you know, wow, I got to create a vision for my marriage. I got to create a vision for my kids, a vision for my life.

It seems, it seems like a lot. A vision is really just a picture of the future. That's all it is, you know, and some of you are not going to be in the place in life where you can have like this five year vision. Maybe it just needs to be, you know, man, where do I want to be six months from now in this area of life? Where do I want to be a year from now? Where do I want to be three years from now? Vision is really just a picture of the future. So each area of your life, if you're married, think about your marriage.

If you have kids, think about your family, think about your work life. How do you want that thing to be a year from now? How do you want that thing to be three years from now, five years from now? Proverbs 29 verse 18 says this, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. You know, one translation of this says where there is no vision, people will perish. You see, vision is just simply a direction to have a direction for where we're heading in the future. See, before we can create any goals for the upcoming year, we need to kind of know what's beyond those goals. You know, like before I make a specific goals for the type of husband I want to be, or the type of dad I want to be, I need a vision beyond next year. I need a vision for five years from now.

You know, I need a vision for 10 years from now. And see, here's the thing that I just realized the more and more I've thought about this, to have a vision and to think about the future in many ways, it's like, that's what it means to be human. I mean, just think about that a little bit. God has created us in his image. And part of being created in God's image allows us to create, allows us to dream about the future, allows us to think about the future.

I mean, just think about it. This is what makes us different from animals. Like your dog is not thinking about, man, how can I better myself next year?

You know, like how can I become a better dog next year? No, like animals just exist, right? Like they're not thinking about the future. But part of us as human beings being created in the image of God, we're actually able to conceptualize and we're actually able to envision the future. And so for every area of your life, you want to ask that question, okay, like what is the vision for this area of my life? And you may say like, okay, what do you mean by like areas of your life? I just mean like all the different callings, you know, that you have on your life. Like I think about myself, you know, like, okay, my faith, you know, like I want to have a vision and a direction for my faith, like where I'm going and trying to spiritually grow, you know, think about like my fitness, you know, I think about like mental fitness, and I think about like physical fitness, you know, like my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so like, I want to take care of it, you know, like God's given me one body to steward.

So I want to take care of that. And I want to have a vision for that. You know, like, I think about my family, you know, like, what's the vision for my family? I think about finances, like we all are given finance to steward to give, to save, to invest.

What's the vision for those? And then for me, I think about like fruit, like the fruit of my life, like my character, the impact I have, the impact my family has. And so your categories may be a little different, but generally they're going to be the same for all of us. So for me, I think through faith, fitness, family, finances, and fruit. And so the question I want to ask is like, where do I want to see each of these areas of my life go?

You know, over the next three years, over the next five years. And I would just encourage all of us. Let's, let's, let's pray and dream big for these things. Like, let's not forget, you know, we serve a God, Ephesians 3 20. We say this a lot at Mercy Hill. It's such a key and core verse for just how we think about what God wants to do in our church and what God wants to do in our life. It says now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us. When I read this verse, it says that God is able to do more than not only what we ask, but God's able to do more than what we think. And so I always challenge myself like, hey, for this area of my life, I want to think the biggest dreams, the most audacious dreams that I can think because Ephesians 3 20 tells me that God can do even more than that.

If I can think it, if I can imagine it, if I can envision it, God can do more than that. And so I just want to encourage you for those different areas of your life to dream big dreams because we serve a big God who wants to work in your life in a really, really huge way. So we need to have a vision for all these different areas of life. One last quick thing I'll say about having a vision, having a direction.

You really want to be able to see that vision and you really want to be able to feel that vision in your heart. In general, as believers, we all have the same direction, right? God has created us to glorify him. And if you're married, God has created the marriage in a certain way.

And if you're a parent, God's created that in a certain way. And so generally speaking, as human beings, we're all heading in the same direction, but that's going to work itself out specifically in different ways for all of us. The way that's going to work out with your vocation and in your relationships and as you parent and all of that. And so that vision of what you imagine five years from now, you really want that to resonate in your heart. You really want to be able to identify like, hey, why is it that I want to grow in my leadership?

Why is it that I want to step out and be more fearless in terms of the mission of God? You really want to tap into the why of why you're going after those things because it's going to provide a lot of motivation. The second thing, the second step to live in a real intentional way. So set a vision, right? Set a vision for a specific area of life.

The second thing is to just create some goals, to set some goals. You see, if your vision is like a destination, okay? I grew up in Tampa, Florida, and if I'm thinking, okay, I want to drive to California, right?

Florida's on the East coast, California's on the West coast. I want to drive to California, right? That's my destination.

That's where I'm going. That's the vision, right? That's the vision of where you're going. Your goals are basically like a map of how to get there, you know? So if I'm trying to drive to California or from Florida and I find myself at some point, um, you know, in Maryland or somewhere up the East coast like that, then I, then I realized, Hey, I'm off track.

I am not heading to California at this point. Okay? So your goals are just simple ways to identify if you're on track to your vision. You know, when I think of goals many times, I just think of what by when. So what am I trying to do by when?

So, you know, we all can understand this, okay? Coming into the new year. If I wanted to lose 10 pounds by this summer, that's a very good example of what I want to lose 10 pounds by the summer when, okay, same thing. I want to read through the whole Bible in the upcoming year. So the what is I want to read through the whole Bible, the when, by the end of the upcoming year, you see having goals that are like a what by when it allows you to measure the progress. Like, you know, there's no like power in the goal itself, right? Like just saying, I want to read the Bible in the upcoming year.

I want to lose 10 pounds or whatever. There's, there's no like power in that. All you're doing is sort of identifying, okay, what are some markers along the way as I'm trying to head towards my vision? And that's the benefit of goals to just have some markers along the way to know if I'm driving to California and at some point I'm going through Texas or Arizona, I probably know, okay, generally I'm heading in the right direction.

I'm heading West. So for you in the upcoming year, I mean, there are so many different goals we can have, right? You know, like some people may, like I said, you may want to, um, read the Bible, you know, in a year. Um, I know my family, we just want to continue to be more, uh, we want to be better at just doing family devotionals together. Like that's just a goal. Like I know that's going to help with the longterm vision of, you know, my whole family heading in the direction together of trying to glorify God together as a family. Like I know that's going to be a small little thing that we could do.

Um, that longterm is going to help to produce that result. Um, I mean just, we could have so many different goals. Goals really are what, by when, and we need to be specific about it.

Like we need to be specific about it because that's going to let us know how we're doing on that path. Okay. That is step number two. Let's head to step number three.

Okay. So the third thing that you want to do, um, you know, after having, having a vision, you know, setting some goals, uh, that's going to help you to be super intentional. The third thing you want to do is make a plan. Guys, this is by far the most important thing.

Okay. Because having the right disciplines and habits in our life day in and day out, this is longterm the way that we're going to see a lot of change happen in our life. This is the way the Bible has designed it, you know, as we're setting our mind on the right things day in, day out, and we're doing the disciplines that God wants us to do when we're in community, all those different things. So let's talk about what it looks like to make a plan. When you make a plan, you're really just bridging the gap between, okay, and here's this vision. Here's where I'm trying to go in the upcoming year. Making a plan is saying like, okay, what are you going to do tomorrow and what are you going to do the day after that? And what are you going to do the week after that?

Because coming into the new year, right? We've all, we've all been there, right? It's easy to be like super motivated. I want to tackle these huge goals. I'm going to have this huge vision. But sometimes what we lack is like, okay, what are the two or three really simple things? Day one, January 1st, you know, what are the two or three very simple things that I'm going to do to begin to activate on those goals on that vision? And so we need to make a plan and we need to identify whatever it is. If you're trying to grow as a dad, if you're trying to grow in some of your other relationships, if you're trying to grow as the leader God's created you to be, what are some of the habits and what are some of the disciplines that will get you there?

Why do I use those two different words? A lot of times we think about like goal setting and you know, all of that. We think of like these super disciplined people, right? Because like out in culture, these so many books written by like, oh, this book's written by this Navy Seal, this book's written by this person and they're so disciplined. And a lot of times going into the year we think, oh, I need to be more disciplined.

Maybe that's true. But in reality, and I think this is the way that God has created us and we see this pattern in the Bible, it's not that we need more discipline. We need to get the right disciplines into the place of a habit. Okay.

Here's the difference. A discipline is something that like you have to, you have to kind of force yourself to do. You know, a habit is something that you've done over a long period of time and it becomes second nature to you. Most of what we do day in and day out in our lives, it's, it's not discipline, it's habit, right? I mean, most of what you do throughout the day, you're not even thinking about it, right? You're going to bed at a certain time.

We're getting up at a certain time. Um, you know, I always joke around, you know, like for my kids, it's still a discipline to have to brush their teeth, you know, like if we don't force them and tell them it's not quite made its way into habit yet. What we want to do in terms of our goals, we want to figure out, okay, what are those things I need to move from discipline into habit? You know, like if it's, you know, wanting to grow more in God's word, right?

Like somebody that, um, you know, has memorized a ton of scripture and they're reading their Bible and it just seems like it comes naturally to them. At some point they've moved that discipline of like, you know, meditating on scripture, meditating on God's word. They've moved that from the bucket of like discipline, like they have to force themselves to do that. They've moved it into the bucket of habit and we all have different things in our life that we have moved, you know, from discipline into habit. And so the areas that you want to grow, the goals that you want to go after in the upcoming year, what are some of the things you need to do to kind of create some of the right habits? Because long term, the habits are going to be the things that are going to serve us the most. Um, this is the way that God has created us.

We are very sort of, um, I don't know. We just like, once we begin to do things over and over, um, you know, bad things or good things, it becomes this kind of spiral effect, uh, in our life. And so I just want you to be able to identify, Hey, what are some of those disciplines? What are some of those habits that are going to help me to go after some of these goals for the upcoming year? One of the things I would encourage you, because we are so prone to do this, we're so prone.

We think about like, okay, disciplines, habits, goals, what are some things I need to go after? We're so prone to think, okay, I need to make this like radical, massive change. You know, like if I'm not praying enough, I need to start one hour every day praying before the sun comes up, right? And the first week of the year, like we're so motivated, like we're going to do that. But the reality is that, that discipline, that habit, it's, it's maybe so far away from where we're at right now that if you go and do that for two or three days, you're going to get burned out. And then what you're going to end up doing is just not doing it at all. And so that's why we need to just start with the small, faithful, right steps in the right direction.

That is how people grow. I remember a sermon earlier in the year that I did from Daniel chapter six, we're going through the sermon series in Daniel. It's a really famous verse in Daniel. And it says, when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber, open towards Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God. And then it says this, as he had done previously. And the point that I really drew out of that verse is there's this moment in Daniel, like many times where he, you know, he takes this huge stand for his faith, but what we see in this verse, it says he got down and he prayed as he had done previously. And so the assumption there is there was this small habit of going and praying three times a day.

Daniel probably had been doing that for 50 years and just think about what that habit produced in his life. And so when we're thinking about the upcoming year, some areas that we want to grow in, okay, let's identify, all right, what are some small next steps that I can take that I can begin to do that's going to help me to go in the direction that I am trying to go. I'll share with you guys, I created a small list for myself over this last year, going through this exercise the previous year, just thinking like, okay, you know, what's the five year vision for these different areas of my life and where do I want to grow? And, you know, how can I activate that on the next year? And what are some big goals and yada, yada, yada? Well, then I just said, okay, let's, let's simplify all that down. What are the five or six things I want to do each day?

Not super complicated things, not things that are going to take a long time, just five or six things that I can identify to do each day. I'll just give you the list that I had over the last year. And honestly, I wasn't successful in all of these. Some of them I was, some of them I was not. I want to wake up early. Sometimes I was successful.

A lot of times I wasn't successful at that. I want to read my Bible. I want to work out.

I want to read or listen to something on leadership. I want to pray with my family each day about a specific thing and do a devotional together. And then I want to do some sort of shutdown routine each night, you know, where I think about the upcoming day and try to be intentional with that.

All of that together may take 90 minutes, may take an hour. And honestly, I wasn't successful at all of it, but when I was kind of doing all these things, I feel like it was kind of taking me in that direction that I wanted to go. And so I would just encourage you, you know, as you're thinking about a plan to hit your goals in the upcoming year, just making a small list like that. You know, what are five or six things that you want to identify that are not going to take a ton of time, but if you were to do those things each day, they're going to really take you in the direction of where God is trying to grow you in the upcoming year. All right.

The fourth step, the very last one is this. After setting a vision, you know, and setting some goals and thinking about a plan, a strategy to get there, the last thing we want to do is adapt our environment. Will the environment of our life support the goals we're trying to go after?

Church, we see this throughout the Bible. Environment, what's around us is one of the most powerful things that we can have in our life, period, full stop. You may have heard it say before, hey, the five people you're closest to, you're going to be the average of those five people. God has created us that way, right? And so whatever those goals are that we're going after, you know, whether they're financial goals or health goals or spiritual goals, is the environment around us supportive of those goals? You know, are the people around you supportive of those goals? That's why we talk about at Mercy Hill, like just the importance of accountability. You know, like we need accountability around our goals. We need people around us that are praying for and rooting for our success because like we see this in other areas of life, right?

Like you see this if you've ever known anybody who's going through any sort of treatment for addiction or anything like that, right? Like the most important thing is like a change of environment, right? Because like if there's a certain environment that's leading to all these bad habits, it's like you got to get that person out of that environment. And as believers, this is the importance of the church. Like this is the importance of what we all are trying to create together as a church. How can we create an environment each of our lives, right? Through services and community groups and all the stuff we're doing to make it easy to do the right things and to make it hard to do the wrong things.

You see what I'm saying? Like you want to make the habits you want to go after, you want to make it easy to go after those things and you want to make it difficult to go after the things that are going to take away from your life. And so I would just try to get you to kind of question, I mean the book of Proverbs is filled with this, of what it looks like to have an environment around us that's going to support our goals.

So four steps, four steps to have a crazy intentional 2024 vision, goals, plan and environment. I want to close with this. I want to close with praying for us, but I want to close just with some spiritual encouragement for all of us today.

Just really kind of two quick things, two verses to share and then we'll pray together. I hope this has blessed you. I hope this is going to help you live a more intentional year in 2024. I know God has big plans for you. I know God wants to grow you just like God wants to grow me and God wants to grow my family.

Two kind of things as we close. The first one's this, we got to just trust God with the results of 2024. Like I know you guys as a church, I know myself, I know pastor Andrew, we all are hungry to grow, right? And to get the best out of ourselves and to make a huge impact for God and man, all of that.

And we're going to do that. And that's right to work towards those things and to pray and to ask God for huge things, right? We want to walk in those Ephesians 2, 10 gifts. Like man, we know that God can do more than we ask or imagine. So we're going to pray. We're going to beg God for those things. Ephesians 3, 20. But at the end of the day, when we're coming around to the end of 2024, we have got to trust God with the results. We've got to say, God, you love me. You're gracious. I did my best.

I trust you with the results. Think about Psalm 1, 1 27, 1 pastor Andrew used this verse a lot to encourage us. It says, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

No amount of strategy, no amount of planning. Those things are great and we should do those things. But at the end of the day, it's the Lord who builds the house. God builds the church. God sanctifies you. God builds your life.

God builds your family. And so ultimately we have to trust God with the results of 2024. And then the last thing I would say, as we're thinking about the upcoming year, sometimes that can create fear in our life, right?

Fear of the unknown. Is it going to be a good year? Is it going to be bad? What's going to happen?

Who knows? Here's the thing that I know, because this is what God's word says, no matter what, no matter what happens in this upcoming year, nothing, if we're in Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. And we've got to go into the upcoming year knowing that God knows our future and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Let's just read this together and then I'll pray for you.

Romans 8, 38 and 39, it says, for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That gives us so much hope going to the upcoming year knowing, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Let me pray for us. God, I just pray. I know over the course of weeks or months there may be so many people that watch this, that listen to this, and God, maybe you would use it to birth a new dream in their heart and their life, a direction that you're going to take them, part of your mission, part of you growing them, part of them leading their family, whatever it may be, God. I pray you'd help us, that you'd give us vision, that you'd help us to have a plan, God, that you spiritually would help us to develop the right disciplines and habits, and then ultimately at the end of the day, God, we would just trust you with the results knowing that you have demonstrated to us how much you love us on the cross, and God, you would do anything to bring us back into relationship with you as you've demonstrated through Christ. So, God, we pray for this upcoming year. We pray that you would bless it, and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.