- As we returned to the Book of Acts, we embarked on this journey in the fall, we haven't gotten very far, have we? But we're gonna keep working our way through this powerful book. It's an incredible epic story. There are two words I want us to think about, especially as we turn the page from last year into this new year. They're words that were actually given to me by someone 20 plus years ago. He looked at me at one point in my life and he said, "You need to remember pace and balance." I thought, "Wow, those are great words." Pace and balance. As we look into this next year, I wanna remind you of pace and balance. Now, why are those two keywords so important in our lives? Because pace and balance allow us to pull back from the busyness of life. And once again, hold those things that we know are important, those priorities, in balance with one another. And there's ebbs and flows to that, right? So from the perspective of someone who is a follower of Jesus Christ, I wanna make sure that Jesus is central to my life. Here's the way I kinda look at it. And He is involved in everything, okay? He's the driving force. I consult Him on everything. I want Him to be involved in my work, my life, my family, everything, He's at the core. But then in life, as in your life, there are probably a handful of priorities that we hold in balance and there's ebbs and flows to that. There are certain seasons in our life where we emphasize one area versus another, but we hold them in balance. And that is particularly true when it comes to our spiritual lives. And the reason why it's important to take time, to remember pace and balance so that we can keep those first things first is because there are so many other things that will demand our attention. It could be the tyranny of the urgent. It could be family issues. It could be difficulties. It could be success, right? Sometimes we have success as an individual. We have a success at life, our business, and we forget the very things that caused that to occur. Family is a perfect example or our individual lives. You might be a student here today and you're beginning a brand new year, and you know good and well that there are gonna be things that are screaming for your attention, right? Academics, sports, entertainment, opportunities, friendships, things your mom and dad tell you to do, things that they tell you not to do. I mean, all that stuff is involved in there, right? And before you know it, you get so busy that you haven't taken time for pace and balance to evaluate, am I doing the right things? Now, what happens if you're a single adult? Well, life is beginning and it's magnificent for you. And you're starting your career, you're finishing school. Maybe it's both, and. And you've got this great professional life. And before, you know it, you're involved in pursuing that professional life as a single adult. And then you're praying for that right person to enter into your life. Now, the problem is you may not be fishing in the right pool, or you're wondering if there is a right pool anymore. And you're struggling with what to do with that. And all of this stuff is coming into play, and you're just trying to manage life. And you're beginning this adventure that is really, you're moving into the best season of your life. But you've got all this stuff coming in, and before you know it, if there's not pace and balance, you're not pulling back to evaluate, am I doing the right things? And then you just got married and life is great. And you're beginning this incredible adventure, and you're trying to figure one another out. And once again, you're dealing with those things. You might be finishing school, you might be starting your career, your professional world. You're just having a great time. There's entertainment, there's friends. And before you know it, though, life can get complicated. And once again, you're focusing on a lot of good stuff, but maybe not the main things that should be there. And then what happens when we start having kids, right? Oh, life gets really complicated, fast. My philosophy of parenting is very, very simple, in addition to grace-based parenting. Now, here it is. I believe that once you start having kids, mom and dad play tag team, okay? With all the busyness and stuff that goes on. When the second little knee biter comes along, now it's man to man, right? Okay? You're both occupied doing all kinds of things. Now what happens when three become part of this family structure? Well, then it's zone defense at this point, okay? You wanna put one in this zone, make sure they're there and they're not gonna get out of there, and then you can focus your attention over here. But then the fourth one comes along. Some of you have experience here, right? Okay? Fourth one comes along. Best word I can come up with there is prevent defense, okay? You just wanna prevent the bomb. No disasters, just whatever has to happen. Now, if it's five or more and we have some of those wonderful people here at Rockpoint, if it's five or more, best word I could come up with is chaos, okay? So, you're just trying to manage everything that goes on. We had some really good friends in California. They had four boys in this house, okay? And he refers to his house as an arena. They were really into sports and he was a body builder. And then they had this thing called a weapons bin. So I'm sorry, I'm not politically correct. And they had weapons in there and it was just testosterone. Mom would say, "One gallon of milk a week, and that's it. You guys are on your own." 'Cause they were just guzzling it like crazy. Well, what happens when life gets complicated like that? We end up drifting from those things that are critical in our lives. And so we grow, we grow as individuals and the same thing can happen in a church. And what we're gonna talk about today has application both at an individual level, but also as our church. And the topic that comes up in Acts 6 is this, there is really a danger of growth. Now growth is wonderful. It's something we should be celebrating. And it's wonderful when it happens, but there's also a danger there. There is a danger individually, when I go through the seasons of life and I'm growing as a person, my family life, whatever that is, but there's also danger, and it is a danger in a church as well when it begins to grow. And the danger is simply this, it's a concept that I didn't coin, it's around. I read a book called "Mission Drift". And that is exactly what is happening in Acts 6. They are on the edge where there's some yellow flags going off because there's a mission drift that is potentially going to occur. Organizations face it, nonprofits face it, churches face it, individuals face it. And followers of Jesus Christ definitely face it because before you know it you're drifting off mission. And we can come up with countless examples that talk about that. And the reason why I love Acts 6 is because this is an epic journey that is being described for us. And there is miracle after miracle after miracle. Have you have you read the book? I mean, some of you already have, some of you haven't and you're new with this, you're watching online. It's like, "Oh my goodness, I've never been in this book before. I just found it, just came to Christ." Man, we're gonna bring you up to speed really fast on what happened in the history of the church as we go through this book. But what happens? We just go from one thing after another and there's this epic, incredible journey. But I have found that once in a while, Luke writes a portion of church history into this book called the Acts of the Apostles. And he does so in such a way that allows us to pull back and have some pace and balance. To take a breath of fresh air and reflect upon all of the things that are going on around us 'cause this church is exploding. And he says, "Now, wait a minute. Let's just pause, let's reflect, let's look at reality. This church is not made up of super Christians. These are people, they have problems, they have issues. And then let's take a look at the lessons that we all need to learn individually and as a church as well." So look down at verse one of Acts 6, just for a second here. He says, "now in these days..." Okay, we gotta stop there. Okay, before I can even go any farther. Now in these days. what are these days? Well, let's just do a quick review. In Acts 1, Jesus taught the apostles for 40 days about the kingdom. And then he said, "I'm leaving guys. So go back to Jerusalem. And while you're in Jerusalem, wait, because the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you and you will receive power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And so as we've gone through the first couple chapters in the Book of Acts, we're beginning to see how Jerusalem is exploding with spiritual life centered around the cross and the resurrection of Jesus. And it's beginning to spread into Judea. And the church now starts with a few believers. And now it's several thousand meeting in houses all over Jerusalem and Judea. The Holy Spirit came and empowered them and now the rest of the book is actually gonna really chronicalize or lay out for us historically, what happened as the church grew out in to the ends of the earth. And so thousands of people are coming to Christ in those days. And then it says when the disciples were increasing in number a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. A daily distribution could have been food, it could have been money. So let me fill in the context here of the problem that occurs in this passage. There's some complaining going on between two groups, Hebrew Jews, Jewish widows, and also the Hellenistic widows, the context is really important here. First off, most of the individuals that had come to Christ were from Jerusalem or Judea. They were Hebrew individuals that were from that culture and they spoke Aramaic and they followed the Hebrew Old Testament, it was written in Hebrew. And they came from that culture and that setting. However, at Pentecost, there were individuals that were coming from the ends of the earth. They were coming from all over the Roman empire and they were coming to Jerusalem to celebrate that. We talked about it in Acts 2. However, those individuals coming were influenced by the Greek culture. They predominantly spoke Greek and they also followed a Greek translation of the Old Testament. And they were more cosmopolitan from the Roman-Grecian world. Here's the other thing that was happening, in many cases, if you were Jewish and you were living way out over here, oftentimes they would move back to Jerusalem or Judea to end their days as widows. And they were coming to Christ. And so now you have this collection of the church, this beautiful picture of people growing from different cultures and different settings and whether it was intentional or not, the passage does... Let's be honest, the passage doesn't say, but people are people and preferences often times occur, don't they? And all of a sudden, intentional or not intentional, you have individuals who were from the Greek culture being overlooked in the daily distribution of food, money, whatever that might be, widows who had come back here, individuals coming to Christ. And the Hebrews, the hometown people are getting taken care of, but those that aren't like me have not been. And so a complaint arose. So here's what happened. Verse two, and the 12 summoned, 12 apostles, the full number of the disciples and said, "It's not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. Therefore brothers pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." And what they said, pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. He'll come up next week. And Philip, and Procorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch. These, they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them. Now they all have Greek names. So more than likely, they came from this group of people who were familiar with this Hellenistic Greek culture so that they could listen, hear, empathize, and actually address those needs. It's just really smart what they put together here. And then notice verse seven, that's kind of important. And after they made this adjustment and the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. In other words, when they mobilized others to be a part of what's going on, things began to grow again. The apostles said, "Wait a minute, our calling is to preach the Word in prayer. We can't possibly serve tables." And that could be a variety of things. That's not something that was a lesser task. It just wasn't a primary calling. So they couldn't run around serving tables, distributing money and food, to thousands of people all over Jerusalem and Judea. And then there's only 24 hours in a day focused on those things that they were genuinely called to do. And so again, they had to kinda balance what is going on. So they mobilized others. They selected these individuals and all of a sudden before you know it, the church explodes again. Now, what I want you to think about here though, is, what caused this complaint that happened? The needs were real and they should be addressed. No doubt about it. But what was the Genesis of this complaint? Well, it wasn't a spiritual issue. They weren't debating the doctrine of Christ or the resurrection, it was a cultural issue. It was a cultural issue that was causing one group to be overlooked versus another group. And it really allows us to take a look at the fact that, wait a minute, this is something that's emerged within the church. It wasn't a spiritual issue, it was more of a cultural clash of what is happening. Satan is very clever. He's always trying to ruin the mission and get us off mission. And that's what you see throughout this book. It started with persecution. They tried to silence the apostles, he did, with the officials, the priests and all that stuff. And we read about that at the beginning of Book of Acts. So when that began to happen, and you're gonna see more of it, it's actually gonna be utilized by God to drive the gospel to the ends of the earth. So he'll try persecution. He does that today. He tried inserting hypocrites within the church. We found in Acts 5, you had some hypocrites trying to destroy, get the church off center, mission drift again. And now what do we have here in Acts 6? You have a complaint which could result in disunity within the body. And before you know it, they're gonna be off center. They're gonna be drifting from the major priorities because of division and disunity within the church. And I'll tell you what, it works so well in the first century, if you read the rest of your New Testament, it shows up throughout the New Testament and it's worked so well. Satan's been using this in churches ever since. So when we look at this issue, it's really important for us to understand that the practical stuff that emerges so we can understand the dangers of growth and how to avoid it. And it begins with this one and that is protecting unity by guarding against division within the body. Because that's exactly what can occur here. Now notice, I didn't say conflict, I said, division. Conflict is actually a good thing. I'll illustrate it this way, oftentimes, and I've done enough work in this area so I know, opposites attract when it comes to couples, okay? It's just what happens. Now, there's a continuum there. Some are more compatible than others. I've seen them on polar opposites as far as the north is from the south, But they do come together. And I think actually the theological and biblical reasoning of this is that God wired you that way. You are attracted to someone else who's different than you. You wanna know why? God wired you that way. So that together you more fully reflect the image of God. I think there's a theological reason behind it. So couples come together and before you know it, you're attracted to this person. And here's the way somebody explained it to me, that opposites attract and provide an opportunity to build bridges of compatibility so that you work at it, so that you're able to come together in different ways and you agree upon those major things. But division is something totally different. Division is strife. Division is bitterness that all of a sudden emerges. And what is happening here is, there's the potential for this taking place. Intentional or not, the issue was people were being overlooked. Needs are real, but they were based on cultural issues. So what was ending up happening was, they were gonna start focusing on that instead of the mission that was before them and it could cause a division. We have to be very, very careful when it comes to cultural differences or preferences within a church. And that's why I wanted to camp on this for a minute. Especially as we move forward, we have to focus on majoring on the majors and minoring on the minors. Our denomination helps us with that, the Evangelical Free Church. And what I mean by this is, we will hold to the major doctrines of our faith, and I use that word intentionally. Because there are some things about Jesus Christ being the only way that we're gonna camp on. And if we disagree on that, then there will be division because we hold to it, Okay? That's a big deal. However, there are some preferences that flow out of culture that should never divide us. We are a church of six generations here at Rockpoint and it is growing. And when that happens, you have differences of how to do ministry and how to reach people, and which group to feed, and which group to help out. And you have differences in preferences of music styles and oh, my goodness gracious. Sit in my chair for a while and you'll begin to see all the stuff that comes up in a church. And we shouldn't divide over those minor issues. So again, we're reminded here, be careful of all the growth, because if we're not all of a sudden, we start complaining and division arises and we get off center, and mission drift begins to happen. There's a great phrase that I heard years ago. In essentials unity, non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity or love. Did you to catch that? So, in essentials we find unity, but in non-essentials liberty, we respect those differences, but we still unite around our mission because in all things love. And that way we can focus on the mission before us. Now, one of the best ways, one of the best things we can do to avoid the dangers of growth, it's not only protecting our unity, but it's to remember this, and that is to keep first things first so that we don't fall into the mission drift category. We're not gonna be very good witnesses in the Book of Acts if we get off center when it comes to this issue of keeping mission at the center of what we do. So how do we avoid it? And what are just some general things that I think emerge from this passage as we practice pace and balance that we can put into our lives going into this next year and also as a church? Well, this one is pretty obvious 'cause we have camped on this one over and over in the Book of Acts. A great commission and great commandment living. Now, this comes right out of what Jesus provided the apostles, and it is really the framework of everything you see in the church of Acts and also here at our church Rockpoint. Matthew 28, Jesus gave it right before His ascension when He was up with His disciples in Galilee. And He says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. and behold I'm with you always to the end of the age." So there it is, right away, go, go. That's the mission. Go and make disciples. It needs to be at the center of what you do. Now the way that we carry that out is called the great commandment. And I've kinda condensed it down, but it's found in Matthew 22, starting in verse 37. And as you are going out, making disciples and completing that mission, the way that we are to do that is by loving the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. You are going to live differently in your life. And then notice what he says, "And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." So the way I like to phrase it is, living differently and loving radically. So as we flow in to this concept of His mission, is Christ as center, I'm living differently, I'm loving radically, and I'm never to lose sight of that central focus of His mission, great commission, great commandment living in my personal life and also within our church. And that's why we framed our mission statement this way. And it's similar to a lot of churches. Why? Because, well, this is really what Jesus told us to do. Multiplying disciples in a healthy church. We wanna be a healthy church. We wanna multiply disciples, which means it's an ongoing process, it's not something you've simply arrived at. You need to be reproducing that in someone else. And then they're gonna reproduce that in someone else. But this is our core mission. We turn the page from 2021 to 2022. This has to be central to everything we do as a church. And we're working hard at doing that. So the spirit came along with them to help them actually do this. And that's why the second major first thing first that needs to be a part of our lives as an individual, and also as a church that flows right out of this passage is living under the control of the Holy Spirit. That's the only way you're gonna be able to accomplish the great commission and great commandment living. If you look down at verse three, they picked individuals, seven men of good repute, but then right in the middle is full of the spirit and of wisdom. So it was the spirit that brought about wisdom and also brought about good character, that's the idea. So again, review for some of us, if you're joining us for the first time, we'll bring you right up to speed. We talked about, well, what does it mean for the Holy Spirit to come on you and to fill you? Well, the key word is control. When the Holy Spirit fills you, he controls your life. So what does that mean for me? That means total submission. If I want him to control my life, to flow, to fill into every category, every nook, every cranny, every closet in my life, it's waking up every day and it's saying, "Lord Jesus, I want you to be at the center of my life. And Holy Spirit, would you fill me today? Would you take control of my thoughts and my actions and actually give me the power to follow Jesus Christ and live out this new life and love differently." So I'm living differently and I'm loving radically. I'm focusing on the great commission, great commandment living. And I'm doing so only by the power of the Holy Spirit, because I cannot accomplish this on my own. This is a supernatural work of God. And so you submit to His work and therefore He begins to help you develop the kind of character qualities of good repute, and also provide the wisdom because it's the application of the knowledge, that's what wisdom is. And only the spirit can help us do that. But here's what happens, oftentimes we get to a point though, where we look at a passage like this, and you hear me talk about great commission, great commandment living. And you kind of feel like we're heaping piles of guilt on you because you feel like, I'm not doing this. And the reason why you're thinking you're not doing it is because some of you are engineers and doctors and lawyers and janitors and you're nurses and you're doctors, and you're doing all kinds of stuff, and you're trying to take care of your kids full-time at home and you're just doing so many different things. And you're saying to yourself, "But I'm not doing what Pastor Roy does. I'm not doing what an evangelist does. And I'm not standing on a street corner. And I probably shared my faith once this past week. So all of a sudden I'm feeling like, well, am I really living this out in my life?" And I don't want you to feel that way. So here's the illustration I wanna give you or metaphor to play with and then we'll see how this thing lands this morning. So many of you have served in our military and we thank you for your service in so many different ways. And when you decide to serve in one of our armed forces, the way I think about it, and you can correct me after the service, but there's probably two things that are foremost on your mind. Number one, you wanna keep our country safe. Okay? So you wanna protect our freedom and you keep us safe. And that's part of the mission. But what happens when we get into an armed conflict or war? What is your mission? You're gonna win. It doesn't matter what, we win. So we will throw everything we possibly can at it so that we win, our freedom is protected. That's the mission. But not every one of you flew a plane, not every one of you even fired a missile. You didn't drive a ship. Some of you were actually cooking. Some of you were sweeping decks. Some of you were taking trash out. But you did those particular roles and responsibilities. And some of it was based on gifting. And some of it is just based on uncle Sam telling you what to do, right? But every one of those were important towards what? Protecting freedom and accomplishing the mission. And that's why I think it's important to understand in order to keep things first, to deal with the danger of growth, it also means serving based on our gifting and that also emerges from this passage. And so we stop and we pause, we have pace and we have balance and we say, "Wait a minute, is the great commission, really the great commission in my life and great commandment living? Number two, am I being filled with the Holy Spirit every single day to accomplish that? And then number three, as we turn the page into this new year, am I serving based on how God has wired me?" 'Cause that emerges from this passage, the apostles couldn't do it all. So they selected individuals who had certain giftings of wisdom, which means they had organizational capacity, and they had tact and relational skills, and integrity and sympathy. And they brought a whole set of gifts to this in order to mobilize a team to actually serve the growing needs that were happening in the church. Why? So they could keep first things first. So they would not lose sight of great commission, great commandment living. And before you know it, the goal is for all of us to use our gifts and our abilities and our skills within the roles that God has given us to move towards the mission that God has given to us as followers of Jesus Christ individually, and also as a church. Now, let me play it out this way, because there are so many gifts that are provided for us, throughout the rest of the New Testament, and that's not my point this morning specifically. But they're listed in 1 Corinthians 12, and Romans 12, and 1 Peter 4. And there's all kinds of gifts that are used there. And it's also important to understand as Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 12, that we're all like a body. Some of us are hands and some of us are feet and some of us are nose, but we're all coming together to do the same thing. That's important to understand. And we all have different gifts and roles and responsibilities to accomplish that, again, to communicate the gospel. And as all that stuff comes together, we all share different roles, but we still all still have responsibilities. Now, is it a responsibility of everybody to share their faith? Absolutely. If the opportunity arises, you need to be ready to share your story of how Jesus Christ has changed your life. If you need help there, we can do that for you. But there are also individuals who are gifted in evangelism. They're the individuals that they're sharing Christ on a regular basis and people are coming to Christ in big numbers. Okay? And you're looking at that and thinking, "Well, that's not me." No, but you still have the responsibility when the opportunity comes up to share your story of how Jesus changed your life. But sometimes He's planting seeds. But there's these individuals who have been gifted by God, where they're sharing Christ and thousands of people are giving their lives to Jesus, that's the gift of evangelism. Same thing with generosity. We are all asked to have a biblical understanding of what it means to give sacrificially to the Lord. Generosity should be a part of our lives. Using our time and our talents and our treasures. But there are certain individuals who have a particular gift of generosity. They have the burden, but they have the resources and God continues to open up opportunities for them to give generously. You see the difference between those two? Same thing with the gift of mercy and the gift of helps. We're all supposed to have compassion. We're all supposed to help other people, but there are certain individuals, they're just wired that way. I don't know if you've ever been around somebody like that. They are seeing opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. Matter of fact, they have to be careful that they don't deplete their resources because they're constantly stepping, "I'll help you. I'll help you. I'll do this. I'll do this." They're doing stuff that other people aren't doing. Have you ever been with someone who just notices somebody needs an arm around them? Have you been the other person like me? Who's like, "I didn't see that." Then you end up feeling guilty about it. Don't feel that way. Sure, you need to serve and you need to have your antennas up, but there's certain people that are wired that way. Those are the gifts that we're talking about. And that's the balance here. Find those gifts are for yourself and what they are and how you can serve. I have a sneaky suspicion when we started doing those questions, well, how do I find those gifts so that I can begin to move in the new year and serving it in a particular way? How do I find them? I have a sneaky suspicion that most of you already know what they are. And you can take a test and those things can be helpful, but there's already something churning inside of you. And here's a way to figure it out. What do you love to do? And what are you better at than somebody else? Let's just be practical, that is not a bad thing. What are you better at? And what do you love to do that other people aren't? Just look at your strengths. Some of you have been given enormous gifts in certain areas. You're better at something than someone else. Boy, you should pursue that because God has gifted you. And then the second thing you can do is just listen to what other people are telling you. If they're saying, "Hey, wow, that really touched me or wow, I really saw you..." And they affirm the gift because you've touched their life in some way. Or they've told you, you've touched other's lives, that's an indication that that's a gift and you just start finding places to serve in the area that God has gifted you in. And the wonder of all of this is as the body comes together and when you put all this together, it's really powerful. Because it is through pase and balance that we begin to look at these areas that are most important in our life so that we don't get off mission as individuals in this next year and also as a church. And I love a passage like this because it allows us to once again, reflect. I mean, you and I both know that if you launch a rocket that is one degree off from planet earth, it's gonna be millions of miles off target in space. And that's what can happen with mission drift. So periodically we have to pull back and say, "Wait a minute, Jesus, what have you called me to do? What should be the priorities in my life? How do I hold those in balance with you at the core?" Where there's ebbs and flows? Absolutely. And then, "How have you wired me to serve in a way so that we all accomplish the mission of multiplying disciples in a healthy church?" And what is central to all of this is what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. That's why we come back to this moment month after month, because we need to remind ourselves of what Jesus Christ has done for us. This not only helps us think through, "Wait a minute, he died for my sin," but it reaches down into our heart to motivate us. I have been forgiven of so much. And even though I keep on sending as Pastor Doug was talking about early in our service, I come to this moment of once again, acknowledging in a fresh way that I receive the incredible grace that has come to me and forgiveness only by way of my trust and faith in Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. And once again, I'm motivated to complete His mission and His calling in my life. So in the next few moments we're gonna sing. I'll be back up. I'll help us as we take communion together. But if you're listening online or you're in some other place of our building, or you're here this morning in this room, and you've never made the central choice of placing Jesus Christ at the center of your life, here's how that happens. It happens when you are finally willing to admit your sin and that, yes, you're not perfect in any way, shape or form. And that, that sin in your life has separated you from a holy God. But He so desperately loves you, that He provided a way for you to have a relationship with Him again, and find forgiveness. And that happens when you have a moment in your life where you will finally accept, "Hey, no excuses, God, I'm a sinner and I need forgiveness and I want a relationship with you. And so now I'm gonna turn to you, Jesus. And I believe in that you died on that cross for my sin and you rose from the grave. And I want you to be my savior, and I want you to lead my life. And I wanna follow you." You can say that in whatever words you want, but that is the critical decision that places Jesus Christ at the center. So that now, as we begin to live, we keep Him central to everything we do and say as an individual and as a church. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the hope that is found through Christ. And as we sing about you, as we sing about your glory, as we sing about what you've done, and as we take communion together now, Lord, we recommit our lives to you. We ask that you would lead us so that we would not get off center. We would remember what it means to be a witness for Jesus. It's in His name we pray, amen.