The Hidden Life - LIVE

0:00好不好 I'm so excited that we get to close out our message series here today. This cultivate series we've been in for a little while. And I don't think it's just me, but all this whole time we're talking about cultivate, all I can think of is a garden. Every time. Every time we're talking about, I see the word, I see that beautiful imagery that the teammate, I'm like, gardens, gardens. And it's also a little bit because this summer I did something new.

1:00I tried growing strawberries in my house. Can we put up the picture of my strawberries and my miracle? Let's go! I saved money on the budget, buying strawberries for the children. Not a lot because I have no green thumb, but I tried and I learned. And I learned a lot, okay, because this whole time I'm thinking cultivate. I'm thinking these things we're talking about in service. I'm thinking my strawberries. You got to water them more often than I did. You've got to get rid of the dead foliage because otherwise there's no airflow. More often than I have. You have to nourish the soil. You actually have to put things into the soil to get this really delicious fruit, which I didn't do until like a month ago. And so I've been learning all about how all of these things tie in and I am obviously not a green thumb. They don't look that good anymore. I had to do a big makeover on them. Now they're recovering, right? Because I did the things we're supposed to do to have some fruit. But again, these analogies just make sense when we're talking about it.

2:03So why we keep talking about it? We've been talking a lot about this through the summer. And as we've been reading the Psalms that talk about bearing fruit in young age and old, all these analogies that come together, and so naturally the way my brain works, is then I've also been thinking about a song. The song, the lyric in the bridge, it goes, I was really singing to the Lord, come to the soil, come to the soil of my soul. And like a garden, I will grow, right? And so I just keep all summer I've been thinking about this. And I love the visual, our hearts. The core of our lives, our inner hidden self from which everything flows, is really like a garden. And sometimes it can be like an untended garden, for not tending to it. You've got to get the weeds out. You've got to get the weeds out. You've got to dig out the rocks that are in there, right? Sometimes it's like all of a sudden we'd know how big it is until we actually get in and start working around the edges. Man, that thing was dug deep in my heart.

3:04We've got to nourish the soil. Sometimes it gets depleted. We've got to do all of these things to tend to the garden of our souls and the Lord helps us with that. And I don't know about you, but I've had an overgrown, untended garden in my heart. My hidden life has needed a touch of God. And what an incredible gift it is that God has given us and himself, that he has given us his empowering spirit to cultivate a rich life in Christ in our minds and in our hearts and through our lives. And this is what I'm really excited for us to sit with together and dig in. And just even now, Lord, as we're preparing to break the bread of your word, we pray for you to be with us and help us to be attention to that still small voice, Lord. Help us to hear your heart speaking into ours and to walk out of here with a plan and with an intention that we go and see through to action. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The passage we're going to be in today is from the Book of Colossians, short letter and really a beautiful one as I've been getting to study it is so rich.

4:07There's so much there and I'm going to stay on task for those who know me. I'm prone to the rabbit trails. So I'm going to stay on task and talk about the things that we have for today. But I want to encourage you to just say it's only four chapters long. It's very short and such a beautiful treatment of why the life of faith matters. And the Apostle Paul, he's in prison when he wrote it to a church that was doing well to grow in their faith, a younger church, and you were facing a lot of cultural pressure. The whole message of the letter to give you the basic cliff notes is this is that no area of human life is unaffected by the love and freedom of the resurrected Jesus. No area of life is unaffected by Jesus and the invitation of our lives is to then live fully into that new creation life in anticipation of Christ's return. We're going to focus our time on the first part of chapter three and just to give you a little overview of what's about to happen. We're going to read 17 verses. I know it's a lot. We're not going to talk about all 17.

5:08But it matters to go through to get the whole context. We're going to focus on the first four in the last three, but to read the whole thing in its context is helpful. So just to give you a sort of a gist of the overview of the structure of it, Paul starts in the chapter by pointing to the new creation life we have secured for us in Christ. And then he moves into these very direct instructions. He appears that demonstrate that new life and then behaviors that don't. Sorry, he starts with the ones that don't. And then he shows us behaviors that do. How are we seeing the evidence of new creation life in Christ? Some things definitely don't show it and other things do. Then finally he closes with these super practical ways to build up those good and beautiful things in our lives. Okay, so we're going to read through the whole thing. If you have your Bible, great time to turn to it. If you don't own a physical Bible, we have the method connection table. Please, please pick one up. It will change your life. If you have a cell phone, the Bible app, I will die on that hill. Have the Bible app on your phones. Okay, no rabbit trails.

6:09The word of the Lord from Colossians 3. If then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seed it at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above and not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death therefore what's earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander of scene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there's not Greek and Jew circumcised and uncircumcised barbarian, sithian, slave-free, but Christ is all and in all.

7:11Thank you Lord. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another for giving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love which binds together everything in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Phew, so much there. Like I said, we're going to focus on those first four and the last three. And actually I want to do this together in a little bit of a different version than

8:14we normally do. We're going to look at the message. And if you're not familiar with it, the best way I have of describing the message is like a creative translation. Eugene Peterson who wrote it took the original language of the scriptures and translated it in a way that just has this visual creative kind of impact to it. And sometimes I'm like, okay, that was a choice. But then other times the way that he phrased the language just brings this additional piece to us, we're going to see together. So let's break this down into these three sections together. We'll take them one at a time and as we do, we're going to see what it teaches us about cultivating a rich hidden life in Christ. Okay? First, Colossians 3 versus 1 and 2 from the message. If you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along eyes to the ground, absorb with the things right in front of you. Look up and be alert to what's going on around Christ. That's where the action is.

9:15See things from his perspective. So the Apostle Paul is super clear on this. If we receive Jesus, our whole lives should be changed by that reality. Our whole lives, even the way we put our attention and what we focus on, should be affected by the reality of Jesus at work in our lives. And there's no halfway to doing this. There's no halfway to following Jesus. We're either dead to our old lives or we're still hanging on to those things. And I love the phrasing. Again, how easy is it for us to be fixated on what's in front of us? It's so normal. And a lot of these things are good things. We've got jobs, we've got deadlines, we've got responsibilities, we've got the pickup drop off line. We've got really important good things. We've also got really difficult things we walk through. How normal is it for us to just get, like, we can almost get myopic in our attention. The only thing we can focus on is this thing that's right in front of us. And if we're not careful, this is a warning here.

10:16If we're not careful, we just get the order of our attention wrong. The passage isn't saying, forget about all your responsibilities and just think of the Lord all day long. I mean, yes, think of the Lord all day long, but be a good steward of the life he's given you, right? I like actually how Autoni Evans put it in his commentary on this passage. He wrote, victorious living requires a shift of focus. We must have a heavenly mindset for earthly action. Paul is not saying, think about heaven all day so you'll know how to live when you get there. Rather he says in essence, take a good look at heaven's perspective on every issue so you will know how to live on earth. We need a kingdom mentality if we expect to receive heavenly benefits. I think that's so good. A heavenly mindset for earthly action. And a kingdom mentality if we expect to receive heavenly benefits. I don't know about you, but I want heavenly benefits in my life. Anybody else? I want to see God at work.

11:16I want to recognize Him at work in my life. I want to receive His blessing. I want to be paying attention to the things He wants me paying attention to. But I can't do that unless I very intentionally fix my eyes on the first things first and then interpret the rest through that lens. We need to allow the way of Christ to form the hidden life in our minds. This is our first point of focus. We need to allow the way of Christ to form the hidden life in our minds. Without intentional cultivation of this, our headspace, we can't have this kingdom worldview. We can't cultivate a mindset that's hidden with Christ. And instead, the often ends up true, right? We, a lot of times, we don't even realize that how we're thinking about an issue might be an invitation for the Lord's change. Like we don't question our thought patterns. It's normal to us. There's nothing wrong with the way I think. It's just the way my brain works, we think, right? This is how I see things.

12:16This is how I form my opinions. It's normal to us. Sometimes we actually, the invitation that the Lord is wanting to make into our lives is to actually change these patterns. And to form us in our minds into the way of Christ. It's not just about this external behavior, like trying to look like a Christian. The Lord's interested in the internal. And I have to say, this is one of the greatest, just like one of the unseen testimonies in my life, is how the Lord has transformed the way I think. Just to be super honest, a little vulnerable, okay? This space apart from Jesus, I guess, it's real ugly. I just don't want to know, okay? Apart from the grace of God, there is a critical nature to me, very negative, very negative. Like good things are not going to happen. My BC, my before Christ, expected just bad things. Like good things may be happened to other people, but it's just not going to happen to me. That relationship is going to break down.

13:17This isn't going to, like that's my default apart from Christ wiring. Okay? I think here, anxious, fear-based, set up up here in the way I think in process the world. But the grace of God over my life, this yet, like, to bring the Lord into this space and say, God, can you help me see things and think about things the way you think about them? Help me to understand what you think so that then I can line up my mind in a way that reflects you into my thoughts. Does anybody struggle with anxious thinking? Does anybody struggle with fear and with wondering what's going to happen and with the sense of, like, I got to control it, I got to control it, guess what? We can. We don't have to. This is the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our minds and God wants to do that work in each and every single one of us. Every new experience we have, every moment intentionally stepped into is an opportunity

14:21to turn our attention and our minds into a godly way of thinking. If we seek a rich life in Christ, if we want to receive those heavenly benefits, we have to start with the way we think. We have to start with our worldview, our filters for understanding the world around us. And as we do this, I have three questions for us to consider and think about. First, when we're going about our lives, whenever we're doing, reading the news at work, talking to friends, trying to figure out how to make our plans, anything we're doing. First, are we investigating the world around us with a kingdom mentality? Like, really ask ourselves, is this conclusion I've come to this opinion I have informed with a kingdom mentality the way God wants me to think about it? Second, are we embracing the word the Bible as the truth to guide us? And submitting even our deepest health used to it.

15:22Truth is not subjective. There's not, this is my truth and I'm going to live it and you do, like, there's one truth. One truth and we find it in the Word of God. Third, are we willing, and this one's hard for me and all my opinionated nature, but are we willing to be wrong? Are we willing to be wrong in order to allow the way of Christ to be right in our lives? Because if we can choose that, if we can say, God, I can be humble enough to be wrong before you. Help change me so that I'm right in your sight. The Lord loves a humble prayer. He loves that. Jesus told us, he is the way and he is the truth and he is the life and no one comes to the Father except through him. And friends, this is not the sort of plan for getting into heaven one day. I mean, it is that I'm absolutely not diminishing that.

16:23Eternity should absolutely inform everything we do in this life. This is the whole letter of Colossians. But it's not just this like distant, oh, one day when I die. It's not just comfort for the ones who've gone ahead of us. It is that, but all of that should inform how we live now, how we think now, how we cultivate a rich life in our minds. The scriptures taught by meditating on the words, on the words, thinking of the Lord, interpreting our lives through what the Lord gives us. This is a time where it is hard to know what's true. We've got all the information in the world that the crookedly clack of a keyboard and it's like, but what's actually true? What's actually valuable? What am I actually supposed to be paying attention to? Think on the Lord and allow him to form us in our minds. It's only in regularly turning our internal life towards the things of the Lord that that will happen and he will guide us and see us through and give us his peace.

17:25And Paul goes on, he takes it a step further, let's jump into the next pair of verses again from the message, we'll see the visuals. Your old life is dead, your new life, which is your real life, even though invisible to spectators is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ, your real life, remember, shows up again on this earth, you'll show up too. The real you, the glorious you, meanwhile, be content with obscurity like Christ. I think this is part of what can feel so hard about this faith thing. The most true thing about us is hidden with the invisible God. So what's actually most true? You want to step into who you are fully meant to be? Your fullest potential? What it fully means to be human? It's hidden with Christ. And even though the Scriptures tell us, you know, all creation displays the glory of God, even though a couple of weeks ago, they've had a great, fantastic sermon,

18:27he talked about how every single person around us is made in the image of God, reflecting God right back to them. Every person we look at, we should see as an image bearer precious to the Lord, literally a reflection of God right back to us. It is still so hard because this thing feels kind of intangible, if we're honest. It's a little bit like, what do I grab onto about this when I can't see God? I can't see him, I can't call him, I can't hear him audibly, although some people get that blessing and praise the Lord for that. We try, we really do. And the challenge is that in this tension point we live, the realist us is hidden with Christ in God. And here we are in the tangible. There's this tension where the old life, the life apart from the Lord, has this habit of trying to real us back in. We need to allow the way of Christ to form the hidden life in our hearts, right? If the hidden life in our minds is our thoughts and our worldview and our perspectives, our opinions, the hidden life in our hearts is then our affections.

19:29What are the things we love, the things we're devoted to, the things we invest into with our time and our resources? What are the things that we give ourselves to, that place in our hearts, those precious things to us? You see, because Godly and worldly desires are, they're a little bit polar opposites. They're a little bit, they're a little bit opposite. And we can almost think of them like, like, a magnet that repel each other, right? Having died with Christ means that he has eliminated the power of sin over our lives, right? Thanks be to God. He has enabled us to choose the heavenly way. And so the more we choose the heavenly, the more we desire the heavenly, then the more we see the image of Christ conformed into our lives, we get pulled in this direction towards the heavenly things. But then the more we don't choose the heavenly, whether it's by, if we're honest, some willful disobedience in us, but often we're distracted,

20:31or we're just doing what's normal to us, or we just haven't gotten around to dealing with that thing. The more we don't choose the heavenly, the more we choose the earthly, we slowly find ourselves being sort of pulled further away from what's actually our heart's deepest desire. Our hearts are actually longing for the heavenly. It's why the further and further we lean into the earthly, old things, the less and less satisfying it is, read the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon probably wrote every vice, every pursuit, every wealth available to him, ashes in his mouth. This will never satisfy us. And it's usually in small daily allowances that we find ourselves sort of being drawn away from the thing that our hearts are longing for anyway. We don't usually wake up in the morning and go, you know what, I'm just gonna cross some lines today. I'm not trying to be flippin. We don't usually just wake up and break our vows,

21:35or cross a line that's like so apart from my character. It's not this instant big explosion in our lives, but could we allow ourselves to become distracted by something? Could we allow ourselves to maybe watch something that, hmm, it's probably not the best? Could we allow our eyes to linger on something that we know we should be turning away from? Could we allow a little habit to continue here unchecked or make a little allowance there that then becomes another and another? It's not in these big dramatic, phew, that we're departing the things that are good for us. But a little thing here and there and the polarity of our hearts can slowly turn away toward what should stay dead in us. And in the same way, listen, this is the power of cultivating a rich hit in life in our hearts, in the same way that there's dangers in turning away, the more we turn toward the things

22:37of the Lord, even if it's brand new to us, and it's like this is uncomfortable, I don't understand what I'm reading and prayer feels like, it's awkward. The more we do it, the more we're gonna find our hearts are drawn closer and closer and closer to the Lord, the more satisfaction we're gonna feel in our hearts and our loves are gonna get ordered rightly. It's in doing that. The work of Christ through the resurrection is that the new creation is now. It's right now and we're being called into that reality. It's not rocket science. What we focus on, who we spend our time with, will naturally gain more of our attention and our affection. If we had to ask ourselves truly, from our hearts through to our lives, why do I love most? Who do I love most? So what are the earthly things in our lives that we just find ourselves drawn to that we're having a hard time letting go of?

23:40What are the things or even sometimes people that are worrying for our attention and our devotion? What other loves are pulling at our hearts attention and are drawing our attraction away from what is our greatest love in the Lord? That love that will always satisfy us. How can we turn the polarity of our hearts more toward the Lord? The invitation of this passage is to sit with that and consider it and make a plan. Like planning is really spiritual if you bring the Lord into it. Some of us, I really believe some of us have things in our minds that have popped up as we've been considering this. We have things that I feel the Lord has been drawing to our attention and it's hard and it's kind of scary or it's intimidating and we don't know how. Please don't miss this moment. Please don't miss this moment. The Lord wants so much more for us than the sort of,

24:41I'm a good enough person kind of plan. He wants so much more for us. Our life with Christ is empowered by the literal spirit of God that we would not miss the opportunity in front of us. And this gets us here into the final section of the passage for us to sit with versus 15 to 17, which are this practical, practical, practical way of cultivating these things in our lives. We cultivate from the inside for an external reflection. Let's read the passage. Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing, cultivate thankfulness. Let the word of Christ, the message, have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense and sing your hearts out to God. Let every detail in your lives, words, actions, whatever be done in the name of the Master Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

25:45This is, I love this, this is so practical. It's so practical. God has gracious enough to give us clarity. Cultivating, we've started right. We've cultivating the hidden life in our minds, right, our thoughts and our opinions. We're cultivating it in our hearts, our affections, our devotion, and here are the final piece. We must allow the way of Christ to form the hidden life through our actions. Through our actions, starting internally, and then showing that through externally and sometimes friends. When we struggle with the internal, it can often be in doing the external that it helps to translate into our hearts. It can be this back and forth that the Lord will do in us. So I wanna encourage us as we're gonna go through these next few, these practical steps. I wanna encourage us, take one of these as we're closing the series out. I won't say, show of hands if you're willing to do it, but I really wanna ask you, we're gonna go through, they're super practical, we read the passage, we're gonna go through them.

26:46Pick one, just pick one and then go before the Lord and make a plan. Make a plan to cultivate this area of your life. Maybe it feels super uncomfortable to you. That's maybe the one you should focus on. Because God will do something really beautiful in you and through you in cultivating this rich hidden life in Christ. Okay, first let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other. None of this going off and doing our own thing. The peace of Christ. Peace squashes fear. The peace of Christ gets rid of fear and despair and anger and loneliness and all of it. The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. It's tied in collotions to the language of togetherness, right? None of this going off and doing your own thing. So peace and togetherness are tied together. And I know for us introverts, sometimes we're like, I will get my peace by myself in my happy corner with my candle and my tea.

27:47That's my every evening, guys. Okay, a little cup of tea is good for assorting some peace of the soul. It's not saying you have to be around people all the time. Okay, but it is saying, ground yourself with others and it's not a problem. We're both with others and pursue the peace of Christ together. The connection is this to experience the full benefit of the peace of God. We need to be in step and in tune with other believers. I need peace. I need peace. And when I'm off doing my own thing and taking care of business and doing my responsibilities and it's like, it's not that my life is fine. I'm just focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus. And I miss the gathering. There's something missing and I don't realize it until I'm back and it's like, oh, this is where the Lord works. His grace to us is in this gathering and you're here. Praise the Lord. The people I have known and worked with and this is the testimony of my life. The people who make this gathering a ritual,

28:47make community a priority in life, giving time in the weekday when it's busy for community groups, things like that. Pastor Tim was talking about it. Those are the ones that grow marked measurable growth. I say it with love and maybe this is something for someone you love to hear as well. Make the gathering sacred a priority in your life and watch how God works his peace into your mind and heart and through your life. Second, cultivate thankfulness. Okay, we talk about thankfulness a lot in church and we should, we have much to be thankful for. The cultivating life rich with gratitude literally changes us inside and out. And I love talking about this because neuroscience is only just catching up to what the Bible has been telling us for literally thousands of years. Okay, it's kind of like the Lord made us with gratitude in mind. Neuroscience is, there's research that shows about how creating a habit of gratitude literally changes us. You want improved mental health? Become a person of gratitude.

29:49You want a better overall sense of well-being? Make a habit of gratitude. Literally, you are a happier person when you choose to be a thankful person. It's not the other way around like, oh, happy people are really thankful all the time. It's not that way. If you choose to be a thankful person, especially when you have to look for things to be thankful for, you will literally be a happier person. Okay, decreased anxiety, studies have even noticed physical changes like improved heart function by reducing stress and lowering blood pressure. I don't know about you. I'm here for a good time, but I'm also here for a long time. Lord willing, until you return, Lord, or I see you, I go up there, whatever, he knows. Okay, we want to have a good, I know we want to have a good time. We want to enjoy our lives. We also need to have the right things grounding our lives and we have much to be thankful for. There's a beautiful quote, attributed to NT Wright that goes like this, when we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves,

30:50that insight produces again and again a sense of astonished gratitude, which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience. Again and again, to see the story of Jesus as the love of God, it produces gratitude in us when it's like, I know, I know for some of us, we're looking around going, I don't know how to give thanks for this right now. Some of us in this room are really struggling and it's easy to talk about gratitude and doing all of these things when things are stable. It's easy to talk about it and it costs us something to live out. I know how hard it can be to go, yes, my salvation, eternally great, but life stinks right now. How often do we turn our minds to glory in the reality of our resurrection that that difficulty we're walking through is not the end for us,

31:51that what Jesus did for us on the cross changes how we walk through it. If we turn our minds again and again and again to the reality of Jesus died for me because God's love for me is immeasurable and He's with me in this and I'm not suffering alone, gratitude changes us, gratitude changes us. And we go on, Paul goes on, let the word of Christ the message have the run of the house. Okay, this is one of those places. I love this passage. Let the word, the Bible, let it have the run of the house. Let it have the run of the house. No hidden corners, no little like, you know, we're brushing the things under the rug. None of it. Let the word in. Let the word into your heart. Let it into your life. I literally thought, I'm not trying to make jokes when I shouldn't, but I literally thought about that episode of friends with Monica's closet and he'd remember that episode where it's like the closet and she's like, no, you can't go in there because she's a neat freak and she's hidden all of her junk in the closet and they finally get it open and it like spills out the whole closet with her.

32:52Open the closet. The Lord loves us. Open the closet. Open the closet and let this sacred book in there. Let it in. This is God's love to us. Written down so that we could understand and learn and grow and have a meaningful abundant life here. It's hard work. It's a lot of pages. I got the large print because my eyes, okay, it's a lot of work, but you know what? It's important. It's the most important. And I have to say this. And I say this with a lot of love and zero judgment in my heart. Some of us feel we don't have time for this every day. And I get that. Some of us feel we just, there's so much on our plate and we just don't have time. And that, I get that. But some of us also spend, I'm saying it with love and no judgment, but with some of us spend a lot of time on social media. And both of those things can't be true at the same time.

33:53I have no judgment. I promise. I do it too. This, choose this. Choose this. If social media has too much attention or the news or my workout or whatever it is that all of a sudden we don't have time, but we have time for other things. With love friends. I say this not to judge. There's no condemnation in Christ Jesus. But there is a lot of life. And there's the literal, this is God giving us Himself. This will change your life. Let's jump ahead. Final. Sing your hearts out to God. And let every detail in your lives be done in the name of the Master thanking God every step of the way. Okay, I couldn't get into this earlier because you know if I talk too much about worship then there goes the rabbit trail and we're off. We talk about this all the time. We become like the things we worship.

34:53And we're all worshiping something. Even if you've never opened your mouth to sing during worship and church, we're all worshiping something. We're created for it. We're designed for it. We pay attention and we devote ourselves and we allow ourselves to be influenced by things. And humans in particular were created by the Lord with the sensitivity to music. Why do you think we put soundtracks and movies in all of a sudden it's this immersive, elevated experience? It would be weird without the music, right? It's like, oh, we're so imp at the, the, anybody get goosebumps when they hear you get the little chills. I couldn't get that song out of my head. Even if we're not a music person, we were designed and created for song to the Lord. Command it. Make it normal. To engage your voice and your body in worship. Make it normal. And do it here. Do it. It's super uncomfortable to like put the coffee cup down or whatever it is. It can be really uncomfortable. But can I tell you, no one is paying attention

35:55to each other during worship. This, there's a reason this gathering is sacred and unique. God has created this space for us to engage his presence together and you cannot replace congregational worship with anything else. It's good for our souls. Sing, sing your hearts out to God. And let everything in your life come under the banner of his love. I came across an incredible poem and it struck my heart so deeply. I thought, yes, this is it. In my mind, this epitomizes a rich, rich, hidden life in God. We'll read it together. Lord, it belongs not to my care. Whether I die or live. To love and serve thee is my share. And this thy grace must give. If life be long, I will be glad that I may long obey. If short, yet why should I be sad to welcome and list day?

36:55Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before. He that unto God's kingdom comes must enter by this door. Come, Lord, when grace hath made me to meet thy blessed face to see, for if thy work on earth be sweet, what will thy glory be? Then I shall end my sad complaints and weary sinful days and join with the triumphant saints that sing my Savior's praise. My knowledge of that life is small, the eye of faith is dim, but it is enough to know. It is enough that Christ knows all, and I shall be with him. These are the words of a person whose inner life, whose entire outlook and perspective is set on the ultimate prize and orders everything else under that. This is a person whose heart's desire is the Lord.

37:57This is someone whose words can become an inspiration for us to think, gosh, am I truly cultivating a life with eternity in mind? Am I cultivating a life with eternity in mind? Are we cultivating an inner world where the word dwells richly? Are we unhesitant to express our gratitude, our praise to God? Are we willing to change everything about our lives in order to align with the resurrection of Christ? A rich hidden life in mind, heart, and actions? So I'd love to welcome the band up as they close us in a song, a worship that we're going to sing together and we're going to prepare to take communion in it. And actually, maybe we can all stand as we prepare to do this together. This is the great gift of God for us in Christ Jesus. This is why He died for us, that we would not be exposed to the powers of the world,

39:02the distortion of the time, the lies of the enemy of our soul, but that we would be hidden in Him, guarded by the word dwelling richly in us and living out a life of abundance rooted and an intentionally cultivated heart, a life of response to Him. And as we sing this song, we're going to take communion together. And I want you to take it whenever you feel led in the song. I'm going to wait until the bridge, but I know the song. The bridge is this declaration over and over again. Every chance I get, I'll bless your name. Every chance I get, I'll bless your name. Every thought I struggle with, I'll bless your name. Every point of affection in my heart that's misaligned with the way of the kingdom and I want to bless your name. Every action in our lives, every person we interact with, I want to bless your name. Every way we're considering in our hearts is the soil of my soul, a place where God's word can dwell

40:05and grow in bare fruit. I want to bless your name. And communion is our remembrance and celebration that Jesus died for us. He died for us. And maybe you've never received that or believed that in your heart. I want to tell you, specifically, God loves you. He loves you and He's longing for you and He's been with you in that dark time. What you're like, I just don't know. It's dark in here. And He wants to bring His light into that place. If that's you, if you have not received the Lord into your life, maybe this is a point where you do it. There's no pressure to take communion for anyone who's uncomfortable, but it is an invitation to us. And He would put to death in us the things that are just not good and bring life and light into us. This is a celebration and remembrance of what Jesus did for us on the cross. The death He died for us and the blood of the new covenant He gives us to secure for

41:06us this hidden life, resurrection life, empowered life now. And it's our choice to live a life that blesses God. And to take communion whenever you feel led to as we sing this song and even now Lord, we give you thanks with our whole hearts for you, Jesus, for what you did to exchange our brokenness for your wholeness. And we sing to you together.