that you have just entered yourself into a half marathon, you didn't train, you didn't stretch, you just heard the gunshot and you took off with the crowd. Now you start running and you start going and he said, well, I just I started the race, I might as well keep going. And so you start to persevere and one mile goes after the next and wouldn't you know it? You finish in seventh place, it's pretty impressive. Right? What's even more impressive is that this is a true story with one change and that is this is a true story, but not for a human, but for a bloodhound named Ludivine. This is a true story. Two years ago in Canada, the owner let the dog out of the house to go to the bathroom. The dog saw the crowd went over and right as the dog went over the race started and that's no joke. This dog Luke even ran 13.1 miles and only stopped twice once to check out a dead rabbit and another to examine a herd of cows, but actually legitimately finished in seventh place in this marathon, in this small town up in Canada. And so when the dog crossed the finish line, they actually gave the dog a medal and it became kind of a story of folklore up there for this dog. Now, what's interesting is that the owner had no idea what was going on. It was a small town and the dog was used to kind of roaming the neighborhood that everyone kind of knew the dog and so she was a little surprised that after about an hour and a half to come out and the dog returned to her house with him wearing a medal. The owner's name april hamlin said At first she was embarrassed that her dog got out. Then she was worried that maybe the dog interfered with some of the runners. But mostly she was surprised because as a bloodhound, she said for the most part her dog was pretty lazy, so she was actually impressed that the dog would complete a half marathon. Now, Maybe you're sitting in here the start of 2020 and you've set some goals, you've made some resolutions and and maybe we can all be like this dog and complete a half marathon without training, but we have these things that we want to step out and do and we want to prepare for and we go into it. And so we are in a series right now called starting line. And the idea behind this series is that as a church, as Mission Grove, we want to come alongside you and we want to help you achieve your goals that you've set for yourself here in 2020. Now, last week we talked about a foundation for 2020 rests not on a principle, but on a person. And that person is Jesus and we shared from scripture that really a person plus purpose plus power equals passion. And so if you want the passion and the energy to go after this year, it starts with jesus and knowing jesus have a personal relationship with the God who created you then gives you purpose to go and live out and to make his name known and to make disciples and then he promises the holy spirit or the power inside of you to go out and to love people the way that jesus has loved us. And so we talked about, what does it mean to go out and how to and have a healthy foundation for 2020. Well this morning we want to dive into the topic of habits and how do we create and form healthy habits as as Christ followers. And really just as humans in general, If you have your bibles open up to Ephesians chapter five Ephesians chapter five, we're gonna place the verses on the screen and I want to encourage you if you do not own a bible, but you would like to take up that habit of reading scripture on a daily basis. We'd love to give you one for free. Just our gift to you just for coming this morning and you can pick up a free bible at our guest services table after service, but for right now we're going to dive into it, paul is writing to the church at Ephesus And in chapter five really just set it up really the first paul. Typically when he writes letters to churches, the first half is theology. So that's the study of God and then you have a methodology or application in the last half of the of the letters or in the back chapters of the book. And so it starts off talking about who is God, who is man, what a sin. How are we saved? And then he transitions into the later part of his letters and okay, here's how we apply this into our lives. And so in this particular case, and in the letter to Ephesus, he writes, and in Chapter four, he says, therefore, therefore he says, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. And he goes on to talk about this idea of equipping the saints and walking in light and walking in truth. And then he begins chapter five by saying, Walk in love. And so you hear this, this continual theme of walking And so we pick it up here in Chapter five, verse 15 and 16 paul writes, look carefully, then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Other translations actually, instead of just saying, make the best use of time, it actually says redeem the time. I love that picture, Redeem the time. But if you notice in these verses a couple of things, first of all, it says look carefully, that means that there's intentionality behind walking. That means that in a world it's like entering a child's room filled with legos, you gotta be careful where you step because your feet are about to get torn up. Okay, he says look carefully where you walk and how you walk, because then it says walk as wise, not as unwise, which means that there are choices involved, there is a wise way to walk, there is an unwise way, there's a, there's an ability to redeem the time and then there's an ability to waste time and it says be careful and he puts this responsibility onto the church onto God's people, you see, because we have been safe because we've been given this gift, this personal relationship with God, because we've been given the Holy spirit, we now are called to live and to walk as wise, not as unwise. So that means there are habits involved, because it's an ongoing process, habits is not just something that we talk about around New years, it is a human condition of the heart and that we need to condition ourselves and train ourselves to be godly Paula. In his letter to timothy actually says in first timothy 47, he says, train yourself in Godliness, jesus himself was a practice of spiritual disciplines part of being a disciple is to be disciplined and to continually do things the right way at the right time with the right people. And so habits is actually a biblical concept, especially when you talk about spiritual formation or making a disciple or being self disciplined. In another letter, Paul writes this in Galatians chapter six, He writes this starting in verse six, let the one who has taught the word, share all good things with the one who teaches do not be deceived and God is not mocked for whatever one shows that he will also reap for the one who sos to his own flesh will reap from flesh, reap corruption, but the one who sos to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. Let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. So then as we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially those who are of the household of faith, verse nine, if if you want to highlight a verse, I would highlight that one because when you're feeling down, when you're feeling depressed, this is very much an encouraging verse. Being in ministry for about 14 years. Now, I've come to this verse many times when you invest in a relationship and a friendship and a mentorship and you're like, you've poured hours and hours and hours into someone and they walk away and I'm like, oh my goodness, why do I why even start? Or maybe you've battled addiction and you've overcome something, but then you're tempted once again, you're like, seriously, I thought it was over this, but this is an encouragement and this is a promise because he says, let us not grow weary because in due season we will reap. And so this idea of sowing and reaping is that if we, so if we plant ideas and actions of the flesh, we cannot expect fruit of the spirit. But the reverse is true that if we plant the seeds of the spirit in our life and what we think about and what we memorize and what we read and what we say and who we hang out with, who we talk with. How do we encourage? How do we serve if you continually plant those seeds into your life and into your relationships, do not give up because in good time and do time, if you plant the spirit, you will reap the spirit. And this comes down to habits, jesus himself routinely practiced spiritual disciplines, he would come, he would get away to pray, he fought off temptation with scripture, he gathered with friends, he had communion with the disciples. He routinely practiced rhythms and established healthy habits that then he modeled for the disciples. This is how you shall live, this is the way of God, this is the way of life. These are things that you should practice on a regular basis, even God himself, when he created the universe, he created the world in six days and took the seventh day as a sabbath not because he needed rest, but because we need an example. And actually, in ancient times, when they would start with the sabbath, they really believe that that was a sabbath that would prepare them for the week. And so they really started with blessing and then they started with rest and then they would get to work. That's completely opposite of the american culture, isn't it? That we got work, work, work, work, work, work, grind, grind, grind, grind, and once you're completely exact exhausted, then take time. But even in creation itself, God gives a rhythm that we are called to follow. And so throughout scripture, you you see healthy habits established and practiced and you see, jesus getting away to pray, You see paul telling us, you have to, you have to sow seeds of the spirit so that you can reap the fruit of the spirit in your life. And so if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down is that habits in and of themselves in a nutshell, habits are consistent behaviors that meet specific needs. Habits are consistent behaviors that meet specific needs. Now, I found this to be true. Is that successful people do consistently what other people only do occasionally? Does that make sense? Successful? People do consistently what everybody else only do occasionally. Have you ever been motivated to work out? And then you go one time you're like, all right, let's see the changes. No, the only thing that happens from the first workout is you were incredibly sore and you're mad at everybody else who seems to be working out with no issue. Right? Yeah, we do this all the time. We make commitments and we do something once you're like, okay, I'm changed. No successful people do consistently what other people only do occasionally. And these are the habits, these are what impacts our lives now. Anything can be a habit from brushing your teeth to how you eat, to what order you get dressed in the morning, right? It's is it the pants first? Is that the shirt first? You lay out the shoes that you like even to when you get in the car, when you sit down in the car, if you notice, you will follow the same routine every time where you look, do you touch the mirror? Do you just back up without looking um what, what are the routines that you have that without thinking? You do it every single time. These are habits that we put ourselves into. Now. The idea of creating healthy habits comes from scripture. You see it in jesus, you see it in the disciples, you see it in the passage, we just read about redeeming the time walking as wise, the idea that you reap what you sow and so if you, so of the flesh, you will reap of the flesh. But if you plant the seeds of the spirit into your heart and into your actions and into your lives in good time in due time, you will then reap of the spirit. So what does this look like? Well I want to give you some additional resources if you really want to go deeper into this. Let me just share three books with you. Uh there's a practical book called seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey sold over I believe 30 million copies. So a few people like the book and so so that's an awesome resource. Also Charles do big um here. The power of habit. And then most recently James Clear uh created a book a couple years ago called Atomic habits. And so these are three great resources if you really want to dive deeper into the topic. Um and some the science, the neuroscience behind why we do what we do. There are some good resources for you. Let me just read a couple quotes and you'll see how even the wisdom of the world matches with scripture. So we just talked about sowing and reaping. Right, let me read for you a quote a couple quotes. This one's first ones from Stephen Covey and the seven habits of highly effective people. He says so a thought reap in action. So an action reap a habit. So I have it reap a character. So a character reap a destiny. We are the culmination of our decision making. The little choices we make every single day impacts who we are and who we become and where we go. People are not made in a day but we are made daily by the choices that we make Charles Duhigg says this, the difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do. Is that interesting? There's a gap between who you are and who you want to be. Well that gap is the choices you make in between James clear puts it this way. Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs. But as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. I love this picture especially heading into a super calm election year. Well there'll be no division then we can we just agree. Now just truce like everyone's nice. That's it will be okay. Right. No, not even close. It's it's a train wreck that we're all know it's coming but yet we're all on the train and so we're just like what's gonna happen. I don't know so but here's what I want you to consider. Okay, I want you to consider in this election year, consider that you have two people running who you are and who you want to be Are the two candidates. Now what James clear is saying is every time you act every decision you make is casting a vote putting a vote in the ballot box and so if you want to become healthy as you make healthy choices if you want to become wise as you make wise choices, you are casting a vote for your new identity and over time you're gonna see how those votes stack up and so you're like no that is who I am. And when you start to view yourself as a saint and as a child of God, you start to act in those ways because ST is an identity, sin is an activity and for too long you can be identified by sin is like, well I am only as good as all the mistakes I've made. That's not encouraging you wanna want to tell your kids that would you? Okay kids, you are your mistakes and that is it. No, it's it's not about behaving, it's about becoming and so every healthy action that you take is like casting a vote for the person you want to be. If you cast enough votes, you'll start to believe that yourself James Clear also writes this, he says habits are the compound interest of self improvement and he goes on to say that you do not rise to the level of your goals but you fall to the level of your systems, You do not rise to the level of your goals, but you fall to the level of your systems and this is where we're gonna land and dive in and get super practical and really get into Okay, how is it that we can so seeds of the spirit so that we can reap fruit of the spirit. So here's here's where we dive in deep. Okay, just giving the image, this is from Charles duke and he says that puts it this way, this is called they uh really, this is called the habit loop. Now James clear and a few other guys add a couple other steps but I like simplified things and so three was enough for me to remember. And so every habit that you can picture okay has three elements, it has a queue, it has a routine and then it has a reward. The Q. Is the trigger, so it is the location, it is the time, it is the event, it is the person right? Every time you see this person that that triggers the routine of your emotional response and then you end up here an easy way to think of a queue is okay, you hear a buzz on your phone, you then check your phone or your email and then the reward is that adrenaline, adrenaline or dopamine or whatever it takes place in your mind is like oh I see this and you see this reward, Here's what's scary. The most recent study came out that the average American touches their phone 2,617 times a day. It's a lot. But it's true isn't it? Every time you hear something, have you ever been in public and you heard a ding and you start to check your pocket, write or phone rings and you look and it's not you right? And and so we we are naturally creatures who respond to cues and so we go from one thing to the next and it's everything. If it's from the person that you interact with, its it's the meals that you eat that you sit down and so you see something you respond and then you have a result and it just continually loops. So if you want to change these things then ultimately comes down, you have to change one of these three elements. You have to change the trigger or you have to change the routine or you have to change the reward at the end of it. And so if you want to make better habits, you can do a couple of things that if you want to do these things, you can write this down is that first you want to make the good choice obvious. So if you want to eat fruit, don't hide the fruit in the back of the fridge and the bottom of the drawer, okay? But put it right front and center. The opposite of this is true as well. If you want to get rid of a bad habit, don't put everything right in front of you. And so if you're struggling with the amount of times that you're on your phone, put the phone in another room or put it and instead of right next to you right? And so if you want a good habit you make it obvious right in front of you. If you have a bad habit you want to put it as far away as you can or about someone who lives in the Northeast and and they're trying to give up smoking and so they told themselves they are only allowed to smoke outside. And so in the winter they made it less attractive because it made if I'm gonna smoke I have to go outside and it's like negative 20 out and so that so you just make it more difficult to access those things, right? So maybe if you're on your computer too much power down the computer. So every time you get on to check you have to actually turn on the computer, enter the password right? And you go through these steps and so you make it more difficult. Whereas the healthy things you put it right in front of you, the next thing to form good habits is to make it attractive to make it attractive. I found this to be true, but you can disagree with me that's okay, but I'm right. Um so no, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding kind of um I've found personally that when you try to do something here's where I go right, I want to make a change in my life, I get overwhelmed and so I do nothing at all. And then when I do something, I think I have to do everything at once. Have you ever done that at first? It's like, man, I have so much to do and you find yourself end up watching netflix and you're like, wait, right, or you'll do anything except the one thing you're supposed to do, you know what I'm talking about or it's like, okay, now that I'm gonna commit, I'm gonna make a good habit now. And then you try to do everything all at once. You try to run the half marathon when you haven't walked in a at all right? Like you and and so this is what your body and your flesh tries to tell you is that you either have to do everything or nothing and it has to be perfect when the reality is, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to start and you have to take a step. That's why I love the idea of the spiritual life being a walk, being ongoing, being a process and that you can cast a vote for who you want to be with a healthy choice. And so you make it obvious you make it attractive. Start with the things you like 3rd 1 is make it easy, don't make it difficult on yourself. Those when you're starting the rhythms of a new habit, a lot of people say, okay, I'm gonna read through the bible in a year and they knock through genesis, there's some really crazy stories in there, people are are alive, people are getting killed. There's like relationships, there's drama. I mean if you really read the story of joseph, it could go on abc right now, like as is and or on netflix, and you're like, wow, this is crazy. And then you hit leviticus and you're like, what? This is like reading the Apple terms of service, right? Like you just click, agree and move on. Like you just want to like, you don't wanna you don't wanna read that, right? Okay, well let me just give you a tip if you're trying to start, Okay, start something that's gonna be intriguing. Start in the Gospel, starting the story of jesus. Start in the psalms or the proverb is something you can work through. Don't don't go, okay, step one genesis, all right, here, we're going into Deuteronomy leviticus because you won't finish right? But it's because how our mind works, you gotta start where things are obvious and attractive and easy because you can act your way into a feeling, you will not feel your way into an action because you never feel like it at first, You never just wake up, like, Okay, now I'm gonna do something that I haven't done in the past 10 years. It doesn't work that way, but you can start by putting your bible okay out in front on the counter the night before, attach it with something that you already enjoy. So if you love coffee, okay, say, okay, I will read my bible while I'm drinking coffee, you attach it with something that you've already enjoy. Are you connect with and then you move forward or you say, I will not get on my phone until I do this. And so you attach positive things and so you make it obvious, you make it attractive, you make it easy and then you make it satisfying. This makes, this gives you an environmental advantage. A comedian was talking with the comedic, great jerry Seinfeld and said, how is it that all these years you've sustained great jokes besides just making obvious observations, which is all of jerry Seinfeld's jokes, but that's okay. They're they're great. I love it. He said that when he was a young comic, He's, he committed to Writing one joke a day. And what he did was he got a calendar and every time he would write a joke, he'd put a big big red X on the date and then the next day would come and he'd write a joke and he put a big X on that date and after about a week or two, pretty soon it becomes well, I don't want to break that streak right. And so he started going through and start going through them pretty soon. It became a habit of for him writing a joke a day. Same thing with us, whether it's prayer, whether it's bible reading whether it's a relationship, whether it's reaching out whatever habit that you're striving after this new year start by making it obvious and attractive and easy and satisfying. And then you start to develop these patterns. So give yourself an environmental advantage, right? If you want to go running in the morning and set everything else out ahead of time the night before. So when you wake up it's right there. I don't like so simple things like decide what battles you want to face. There are actually some scientific studies of wealthy people who wear very few different kinds of clothing, like they wear the same shirt every day or only like three colors because their mindset was, I don't want to have to make that decision because I already have it made up. So that when they start the day they're already moved along because they've already grown in the area. Does that make sense? So give yourself an environmental advantage in the habit you want to achieve moving forward. And so let me give you three applications here as we close of how can we do this? The first thing is that you want to pick what's called a keystone habit? A keystone habit. This is a habit that will hopefully help other habits kick into place a keystone is a picture. Let me show you a picture here is the middle stone that's kind of wedge shaped or triangle shaped at the top of an arch, it supports the weight of the other stones that form the arch without the keystone in place, the arch falls, but with the keystone in place it supports the weight of the other stones. And so these are habits that once you start, they actually lead to other healthy habits. For example, um Some say that making your bed is a keystone habit. The idea that if you get used to your brain making something and completing something first thing in the morning you'll be more productive in the day. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I don't necessarily agree. I don't I know my wife gets mad at me and I say why do we need 100 throw pillows? I don't know. But but they say why don't you make your side of the bed in the morning? I said the same reason I don't tie my shoes after I take them off, you don't need to I'm getting right back in in a little bit, you know? And so okay, so I might disagree with the making bed thing, but some of you just got the shoe part, it's okay. Um And so but there actually is scientific studies behind that if you make your bed first thing in the morning that you end up becoming more productive. And so what are the things, what are the habits that could lead to other habits? Kind of cascading or supporting the weight of it. A couple. Examples for myself is that in our marriage, we made it a keystone habit for us to have regular date nights. And so we committed and it changed whether it's weekly or monthly. Um, but it changed depending on our circumstances, but we, we committed Samantha and I to go on regular date nights. Now it's been awesome being near family and so they can help out. But even when we lived 1500 miles away from any family, we worked out a deal with friends who also had a similar value. And so we would exchange times where like we'd watch their kids, they would watch our kids. And so we just committed as a relationship, a keystone habit for us was to have regular date nights because we found that when you have date nights were able to prioritize each other, we had conversation or communication was better, our trust was higher. And then when things came up in, circumstances came up, we know that that bank, that relationship bank had already had some deposits made in it. So that when withdrawals were coming out, we know that there's always a consistent investment in our relationship. And so for us, something like a date night was a keystone habit that we have established early on in our relationship that now we've continued on Through 13 years of marriage as a personal level for me, a couple of spiritual keystone habits are reading the bible and praying. And so this idea that if I am prayed up, my perspective changes and I'm ready to attack our approach The other parts of the day, a couple of just practical, even business examples. Um, there was a guy named Paul O'Neill in 1987 he became the new ceo of a company called the aluminum company of America. They made everything from aluminum cans to the small screws and things that would go in satellites and so anything metal these guys made and so he came in as a brand new Ceo and in his first meeting in front of all the investors, he stood up and said, we will be the safest company company in America and they're like, okay, that's kind of weird. But tell me your strategy and investment and where we want our, you know, portfolio to be. He said, no, we will make it to where no one is injured and hurt in our factories. He said, okay, but what's your plan for growth? He said, we will be the safest company in America. And what he did, what he realized was that in an age where companies were trying to scale so quickly that they were having all kinds of accidents in the factories and these accidents were causing really the morale to go down as well as the publicity on a negative sense to go up and so by actually focusing on safety, the employees worked harder and they worked smarter and it was consistent and they created systems and they started producing more product and now because they were factories were not being stopped because of all the injuries and and figuring out what went wrong. They created healthy repeatable scalable systems and that by the time he retired, Their company actually grew by five times and was worth $27 billion. That started when he came and said we will focus on safety for our employees. So what is your keystone habit? What is something that you can focus on that can impact everything else. The second thing is once you pick your keystone habit that you want to work on, you want to prepare for the tension points, prepare for the tension points. You know, there's a lot of things, you know, we go into the politics behind stuff with companies like Starbucks, but one thing you gotta give them credit for is their scalability and ability to train mass amounts of people in a quick amount of time. And what they found is that the leadership of Starbucks committed early on to train people for tension points. Think of the habit loop of cue routine, reward what they did was they started to prepare for the tension of negative cues. So for for example, when they deal with an angry customer, I don't know if they still do this today, but a few years ago they would train their employees to remember the acronym latte and Latte stood for, listen to the angry customer, acknowledge their pain, take action, thank the customer and then explained what, what happened in the first place. And so rather than just say, don't make mistakes, they said, okay, when a mistake happens when an angry customer happens, you know what's gonna happen and it says, here's what you do. Another example in 1992, there was a British psychologist who studied Scotland's, two of Scotland's busiest hospitals. And he went in and he studied patients who are recovering from hip or knee surgery. And he picked a group of people who are older who are uneducated, who didn't have a lot of money. In other words, this group of people were the least likely to follow through with the rehab program. But in one group, they gave a booklet and simply put, I want you to fill this in every week. My goal is blank. That's it. That was that was the difference. They had one group and another group, same economic class, same. Everything was the same. Except one group had a book that we're just gonna fill out every week. My goal is, and one did not. The people who filled out their weekly goals healed twice as fast as the people who did not write down and they were able to stand up three times faster than people who did not put down their goals. But what was interesting is that when they wrote down their goals, Many of the goals of these patients centered around tension points. So I'm in pain when I don't feel like getting up, I will do this, you know, I can't move, but I have to go to the bathroom, I have to get up and do this. And so they centered on tension points or potential difficulties and then they said, ok, when this happens, I will do this and by centering on tension points, they created a new loop that they were able to respond to and make a difference. Now, the last thing here is that you want to actually make specific action steps or stage your environment. Okay, I'll give you an example of this process of picking a keystone habit, identifying tension points and then making specific action steps for me as a believer in christ that and I would encourage this for you as well. That prayer is a keystone habit. Now I understand a couple of things. One I know my personality is not one to sit for five hours on a time because you hear those stories, I got up at three in the morning and I prayed until the sun came up. That's not me. Okay, I'm just gonna be real with you. If you thought that was me, I'm sorry to burst your bubble. Um it is not, I get distracted very easily and so I would pray and say, okay, I need a better system. I also am in a parenting stage with young kids a lot of times who don't sleep and so I would wake up early and then so on my kids and it's hard to have a moment with God when Children are screaming at you. And so I was like, okay, I know that's attention point. So what did I start to do? I started to change things. I started to set alarms on my phone throughout the day and the label on the alarm, I would put a bible verse or I'd put a name that I was praying for. Uh the car became a time that I would pray not close my eyes, but I would go in the car because that was a time where I was alone and I had 30 minutes and I'm driving somewhere and I started going through any time. So I started telling myself every time I get in the car by myself, the first five minutes of that car drive I'm gonna pray and I started praying for people by name. I started praying for specific needs. We started teaching bible study at a local high school a couple years ago when I was a youth pastor and we actually had a list of every student and every faculty member and we prayed for the school people by name systematically throughout the year. And so by getting specific with it, I was able to pray through things. I started to also give myself frameworks in which I could respond two people and and going that way. So I started taking the Lord's prayer, Okay, for example, as the band's coming up on stage, they can come up and kind of get ready as we close. But um but I would start to do this. Our father who art in heaven Father, that means you're present with me, hallowed, be your name, God that has praised, I praise your name this morning, that kingdom come thy will be done, that's purpose. God may my prayers be about your will coming into my life, not my life going into yours, May it come down, give us our daily bread. God, I pray for provisions in my life and for my family talked about the idea of you'll forgive our sins as we forgive our debtors. God maybe just pardon in my life, protect us from evil. Let us lead us not into temptation. God, I pray for protection for family, for our church, for this community. And so I started taking something like the Lord's prayer and I just started walking through it and getting specific and talking about who he is and praising him and asking for forgiveness. And so as I got specific, my prayers got better and as my prayers got stronger throughout the day, it impacts the other spiritual habits in my life. And so what we're gonna do as a church to close is that we're gonna practice this right now. One of our habits as a church is as an organization every month to take communion and what communion is, is that is a routine, a habit of rhythm of remembering what jesus did for us. And if you do not call yourself a christian yet or your your first time here at the church, you don't quite understand. I want to give you the freedom to let the plate pass by you and that's totally okay. But I want to encourage you that if you believe in jesus and you want to make a rib rhythm and a habit of remembering who jesus is that we're gonna sing a song called Nothing, nothing else. And it's all about who God is and why we gather as a church and I want you to reflect on what God has done and then we will collectively as a habit as an organization, as a rhythm. We will take communion together as a body. And so we will practice that. I want to I want you to take whatever habit that you're struggling with, whatever goal you want to set before yourself. I want you to give that to God and think how can you give the situation in my life and my choice is up to him. Let's bring during the father God and thank you. I mean, we establish healthy habits in our lives God, we come before you with who you are and when we make good choices when we take a keystone habit like communion or prayer or scripture reading or community. God, may we identify the tension points and God will we make specific actions so that we can grow as people and as your Children got as we get ready to take communion, gone way, we make it a habit to regularly remember what you've done for us and who you are, We love you God, it's your sense that we pray amen really. Hours before jesus would go to the cross, he established a habit, A rhythm that the church has practiced now for 2000 years. Taking time to remember what God has done for us that there with his disciples, he passed the bread and he said this bread represents my body that I give for you. Let us come together as a body as a church family and as a habit and a healthy rhythm to pause to reflect and to thank God for what he's given for you and for me, let's take this bread in remembrance of him. They then passed around wine and staircase juice that symbolizes the blood that was shed on the cross for you and for me we make it a habit and a rhythm and a time of reflection to thank God for sacrificing his blood. For for us let's take together dear heavenly father God, There's no one else, there's nothing else, everyone except for you. It's my prayer that for whatever the people in this room are going through right now that God, we can make it a choice, a time where we can weekly gather as a church family to worship you God. God, I pray that we can celebrate this moment and thank you for saving us and and making those daily choices to reflect on who you are and what you've done. We love you got it and your son's name, we pray. Amen. Will you stand and finish this?