[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m. if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, you can find us
[email protected] dot. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: So tonight we have with us Dale Jenkins. Dale is married to Melanie and they have two boys, Philip and Andrew. And one of his greatest claims to fame is one of his sons is a Florida state fan, which is so awesome. And I know he's really, really proud of him for that. I would be if I were in his shoes. But we also appreciate so much Dale in the work that he does for ministers before he's doing what he's doing now with the Jenkins Institute, being full time with them. Dale worked at the Spring Meadows Church of Christ up in Spring Hill. Isn't that right? Spring Hill, Tennessee. And now he and his brother Jeff. Jeff, who was my preacher growing up till I was, I guess, about 6th or 7th grade, he and his brother go all over the United States speaking at churches and one of their main ministries. If not their main ministry, is going around and supporting and encouraging ministers and ministers families. And I can't thank them enough for what they do. I know there's even been times they've passed through town here and taken us out to eat and had lunch together. And we've really enjoyed those moments. So we appreciate you very much, Dell, and appreciate what you do for so many places and so many people. Can't wait to hear you speak tonight.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Well, good evening.
That was weak.
Good to see you. It's great to be here. I've been here a couple of times before and I could take a lot of time and just talk about what this congregation means to me personally. My family is originally from Huntsville. I never lived in Huntsville, but my dad and mom both grew up in this area. And so this place is very dear to me for that reason. Tony Hoover's here, and Tony and his wife and they. They're kin to me. I think they're 7th cousins, not close kin, I think, actually second cousins once removed or something like that. I don't know. And Richard Todd here is my wife's cousin. And your two preachers here that stand in the pulpit are dear, dear friends and have been for a long, long time.
I think Andrew Itzen had a hand in leading my son, Andrew Jenkins, away from the Lord in Crimson Tide.
And I remember years ago calling, we're trying to hire a youth minister and calling my brother Jeff, and saying, we want to get the best guy we can get. Who's the best out there? And he said, brandon Prestol. I've always thought that was true and thankful for the good work he is doing in the pulpit here now, Jordan has been a dear friend for a long time and just thankful for this good church, thankful for the help that y'all give us, that y'all give the Jenkins Institute. It means a great deal to us, and we appreciate that. Years ago, my brother interviewed here. I don't know who the elders were then, and they offered him the job, and he almost moved here and didn't.
What the elders did not know is I had a list of three churches in my life I wanted to preach at, and one was Madison. So they offered it to their own Jenkins, or maybe they offered it to the right Jenkins, because neither of us moved here, and we saved you from that bullet. So I've worshiped with you. I worshiped with you last Sunday, I was not here in the building, but I went online. I watched the service there kind of twofold. I wanted to kind of see what things were like. And the other part of it was, I wanted to know how I needed to dress tonight, because you don't know anymore. And so Andrew got in the pulpit to do the welcome. He had a t shirt on. I thought, I'm okay with a jacket. I think I'll be fine.
I've listened to your four or five summer series speakers you've already had and appreciate those good men and what they've talked about.
But I was asked to talk about strong spiritual community relationships and building resilience.
What does resilience have to do with the importance of our relationships with each other in community? How does that affect it? And I really wanted to kind of hit the topic head on. I didn't want to, you know, kind of skirt around, and you just talk about how important relationships were. We don't need another lesson on the importance of relationships. Everywhere you go, there's one voice after another telling us how vital, how important, how significant relationships are.
They are vital. And it's interesting. Today we have more tools than we've ever had when it comes to developing relationships. We have more tools with communication abilities than we've ever had in the history of mankind. But we are less connected than we've ever been. Isn't that true? People are just disconnected. You can go to the mall and everybody there has got their head in the phone. You know, you can see families sitting at supper at a restaurant, and they're all on their phones. We have great communication tools, but we're disconnected to the people that are right in front of us, that are right beside us, the people that are most important in our life. And we've not yet learned to navigate, how to use the tools that we have in the most effective manner. So the title tonight is kind of fancy. I think it sounds good. But how do we do it? How do we connect in such a way? How do we build relationships in such a way? How do we use relationships to build community, to build resilience? How do we make that happen in our lives? What do spiritual relationships do in building resilience, and how do we do it? So tonight we're going to look at two things. We're going to look at the what and the how, the what and the how. We're going to spend a little bit of time talking at first about the what, and then we'll turn our attention to when I walked through this lesson with my wife a few days ago, she said, you've not said anything about how to do it. A lot of people know what it is and why it's important. But how do we go about building the relationships that we need to build? I think there's some things we can learn from Paul. I think he has some valuable insights for us when it comes to what strong spiritual communities have to do in helping us be resilient in our faith.
I noticed most of the guys that have spoken really haven't talked about resilience. They've just taken the first part of the lesson, not talked about the last part of the lesson. Whoever came up with this, I don't know who came up with it. I believe the design of it was, we need resilient faith. You see, for many of us, we have what I call a camp time religion. You know, we go to camp every year, we get a booster shot for our faith, and we're strong in faith for a little while, but then our faith wanes. After that, we don't have any real resilience. We don't have any bounce back. We don't have the ability to be strong year round and throughout our lives. And so what we want to do is we want to build people who are lifelong followers of Christ, who aren't just followers of Christ, you know, one week a year or a couple of weeks a year, when they go to the right retreat or they're around the right person, how do we build the kind of resilience that will keep our faith strong?
I'm thankful you have so many young families in this congregation, and I've seen the growth that's happened just the last several years in that, and that is refreshing and exciting. And I get to share with you tonight, Chris. The reality is that I'm seeing that everywhere I go. I preach in 100 churches a year now, and everywhere I go, I'm seeing a lot of young families, a lot of young children.
But just to have them there is wonderful, and it's fun, it adds energy.
But what we want to have happen is when they get to be 70 and 80, we want them to still be there. We don't discount age. We want this to last throughout life. So there's some lessons we can learn from the apostle Paul, and they're important lessons, and I'll share them with you as soon as the clicker starts working again. But for some reason, it has suddenly. Ah, there we go. What spiritual relationships do? Building resilience. Number one, spiritual relationships sustain support networks. We need support networks. And one of the things that when we have healthy relationships, we have healthy spiritual relationships. It supports a network, and a network is vital. A network simply means you belong to something, you're part of something. And the things that we belong to, the things that we're a part of, end up meaning a lot in our life. If you're a part of a booster club, a part of a high school band, organ group, if you're part of some social group that gets together once a week and eats together those relationships, those networks become extremely vital for us. And Paul emphasizes a need for support in difficult times. You see, that's what happens when we have the right networks in our life. And it's kind of neat to watch what he does. Paul was the ultimate networker. You know the books he wrote and you know a little bit about them. Have you ever read the last chapter of Romans? Romans, chapter 16? There's a preacher called Fred Craddock. He died a few years ago. He was a preacher in the christian church, and he preached a sermon called when the role is called down here, Romans. Chapter 16, is a list of people, one after another. It's just a long list, one person after another. And he talks about the role they played in his life.
And when you're reading, whether you're reading first and second Timothy and Titus, or you're reading Philippians, or you're reading Galatians, whatever book it is, Philemon, there's one person after another that Paul will mention, and he has names for them. He names them fellow servants, fellow prisoners, fellow slaves, fellow laborers, fellow soldiers, friends, beloved sons, brothers, sisters, moms, partners, companions, coworkers, faithful, faithful friends. One person after another. And he speaks into their life about the role that they play in their life. Let me ask you to do something tonight. Will you do this real quickly? I want you to think about three people in your life that have helped you spiritually, to help you be the person you are tonight spiritually. And here's how I want you to think about them. I want you to think about an older person. An older person in my life. I would name Herman King. Herman King was an elder when I was growing up.
He made a dramatic impact on my life.
I watched this man deal with his wife's death.
I watched this man deal with church issues that were plaguing him, and he impacted my faith.
Then I want you to think about a person that is contemporary, somebody that's about your age, somebody that YoU hang out with, somebody else YoU spend time with.
How have they affected your life spiritually?
And then I want you to think about a younger person in Paul's life.
You know, he had older people in his life.
Older people had people his age, like Barnabas in his life, probably about the same age. And then he had those guys that are younger, like Timothy in his life, that were younger people.
And so in your life, you should have people in your life that fill all three of those roles. And part of what that does, it gives you resilience. You know, I used to be a young preacher. I'm an old preacher now, and I didn't fully understand it when I was younger, but I get it now. When I get to spend time around younger preachers, it's one of the most enjoyable things I get to do, because I get to see what the future is going to be like. And they give me hope for the future. They help me be resilient. They help me keep on, because they build into me, even at a young age, hope for what's coming.
And I love being around older preachers. You know what they do?
They tell me what it's going to be like, that it's worth it. And then I like to be around guys my age because they call me into something we're going to talk about a minute ago in a few minutes. They call me into accountability.
I want to tell you tonight that if you want to make an impact for the Lord, I don't care where you're serving in this family, here at Madison, work together to put teams together.
Too many churches, way too many churches pull themselves apart and find reasons to be at opposite ends of whatever it is that's going on. And I think you would agree with me that probably in the lifetime of everyone in this room, we're living one of the most vitro eclipse times in the history of mankind, history of our lives, where people will fight about anything that comes along.
There's two sides on everything.
And you watch the news ever you follow Twitter feeds, ever ex feeds. You look at Instagram, you look at Facebook. If you're a little bit older, you look at those things and there's always two sides and they always go from zero to 100 in nanoseconds. It doesn't take any time at all.
You want to do great things for the Lord. Don't bring about division. Be a networker for the kingdom of God. Bring people together. It will sustain you. It will build resilience in your life. Number two, spiritual relationships, seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Spiritual relationships, seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Paul taught the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation. He talked about how words forgive one another. And I don't want to bore you with that tonight by trying to teach you something you already know. But Jesus said that our forgiveness, that his forgiveness is based upon our willingness to forgive other people.
And in a church this size, in all likelihood, at some point, you've been at odds with somebody in this room.
Make it right.
Make it right.
Figure out how to reconcile.
We are ambassadors of reconciliation.
We are part of a kingdom that is based upon reconciliation. And if we can't learn to reconcile and forgive each other, if we can't learn to get along with each other, we have a huge issue going on in the kingdom.
I love Ephesians, chapter four and verse three. He says to endeavor to make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
When I was young, I'd hear people talk about churches and they say, everybody here loves each other.
And I remember thinking, and what else are you going to lie to me about?
Look closely at that verse.
You realize what we don't do?
We do not make the unity of the spirit.
We keep the unity of the spirit.
The spirit united us when we were baptized into Christ. It's not our mission to make unity. It's our mission to keep the unity that God has already made.
I sadly suspect that many of us are willing to let someone go rather than do the difficult thing.
And that's the third thing here. Spiritual relationships share strength through support.
I've got that wrong on the screen. Share strength through support.
They call each other into accountability.
Paul believed in the power of accountability. Along with his tremendous encouragement, he had a high level of expectation when it came to accountability.
Paul had no problem at all calling people into accountability. He did it over and over again. And what's sad to think about is that sometimes we will let someone leave the church rather than doing the difficult thing of calling them to accountability. When we see them slipping away, you know whose responsibility it is to do something about it. When someone leaves the Lord, it's yours.
It took me a long time to realize that.
For years I thought it was my responsibility as a preacher.
It's not my responsibility as a preacher. It's my responsibility as a Christian. But here's what happened. We'd have people leave the spring metast church, where I was the last 15 years as a preacher, we'd have people leave and it get back to me that they were saying, we've been gone for three months and nobody here has contacted us.
And I would realize they're lying because I contacted them through text messages, emails, phone calls and visits, but nobody's been assisted. And I knew a couple of elders had contacted them.
And what I realized was that they discounted people in leadership roles, making an effort to bring them back. You know what they wanted? They wanted a member in that church to care about enough to reach out. You have more of an impact on someone who's leaving the Lord than I have, than your preacher has.
We'll say, you know, I don't where so and so. I don't really know. I guess they just really weren't that committed, really.
Do you know when someone leaves the church, there's a.
I cannot assure you of this timeframe, but there's about a six week window.
They kind of sit in the window seal and watch and wait, just wondering if somebody is going to reach out to them. You've got about a six week period of time, and if you don't reach out to them that six week period of time, they're gone.
Listen carefully.
The world will always say, welcome back.
The corner bar will always know your name.
Satan will always be happy to get you back into his kingdom.
But what do we do if we do nothing? We ought to be ashamed.
If we put them at arm's length because they made a mistake, guess what?
You have to. And you'll make others.
If we put them on probation because you know they did something they shouldn't have done.
Do you do the same to yourself?
If you metaphorically unfriend them? You know what's gonna happen.
We need to learn something often in the church about conflict resolution and about how to deal with conflict.
Wouldn't it be helpful in the real world that we live in today that is full of so much conflict?
And this contributes to building resilience, because when we learn about conflict and dealing with others, when conflict comes into our life, we are more prepared to deal with that conflict in our life. We're more prepared to embrace the experiences of conflict and to grow from it to have greater resilience.
I said Paul, in that previous screen, believed in the power of accountability.
I was thinking about Philemon when I was putting this together.
And you remember the story.
Cliff notes version. Onesimus apparently is a slave that belongs in the first century to Philemon. And I don't want to send you down a wormhole. Christianity did not advocate slavery, but Christianity did and always does. It takes the situation it finds itself in, and through the power of Christ, it changes things. And wherever Christianity goes, eventually slavery leaves. It may take some time. Interesting enough here in the state of Alabama, you know how many slave owners were in the state of Alabama?
Slavery time? I think the number is 115 in the whole state.
Do you know the free state of Winston? Not too far from here? You know they refused to take sides in the battle. You know how many slave owners were in the free state of Winston?
One.
You know why there weren't many slave owners?
97% of the people who lived in Winston county in the Civil War were people of faith. 97%. And they refused to be a part of this.
To see Christianity changes things. So Onesimus went down a bad path there. But Onesimus has run away. He ends up, may be in prison, but somewhere or another comes in contact with Paul. He helps Paul out. Paul converts him to Christianity, and Paul sends him back to Philemon, because he's apparently stolen some things from Philemon, and stealing is wrong, and so he needs to make it right. So he sends him back.
But he sends him back with a letter that Paul writes to Philemon. And he says to him, I'm sending him back to you, sending my very heart.
And he's going to call him into accountability. He said, I preferred you do nothing. I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but by your own accord. You see, what Paul's doing is twisting his arm without twisting his arm, isn't he? He said, here's what I expect, that of you. I could demand it of you, but I'm not going to demand it of you because I know the kind of guy you are and you're going to do what's right. And then he says, if you consider me your partner, receive him. If you receive me. And then the last thing he says, look at that last sentence there on the screen. To say nothing of your owing me, even your own self. Apparently Paul had converted Philemon.
Now, there's no, I cannot prove this. It's not in the text.
History says that eventually Philemon and Onesimus served as elders in the church at Colossae together.
Christianity changes things, but sometimes we have to deal with the difficult things in order for it to change things. Paul could have ignored this whole situation, but he didn't. He called them into accountability.
When we were called to reasonable accountability. We become more resilient in our faith. Number four, spiritual, spiritual relationships show strength in our diversity.
Are you listening? Our culture has totally misappropriated that word, diversity.
But some of that might be because the church has not modeled it at times.
And sadly, now, instead of setting the standard, there are some churches that are following the ungodly model that the world has set of diversity.
And here's the model of the world. Lose your mind. Accept anything, anywhere, from anybody. If they say it's true, it's true. If they say they're this, they're that. If they do that, that's right, because it's right in their mind, that's the world's standard of diversity.
If a ten year old boy says he's a girl, you got to accept it because he said he's a girl. It's all about diversity.
Paul recognized diversity within congregations in the first century. Right, diversity. And he saw it as a strength rather than a weakness.
Romans twelve, first Corinthians, twelve Ephesians, chapter four. Over and over again, he will talk about how each part of the body has a place.
And one of the things that happened in Protestantism that came over into Christianity when the restoration movement happened is too often part of. I don't know how much you know about church history, but part of the whole restoration movement was the priesthood of all believers was the desire to restore the priesthood of all believers. It was a desire to get away from a clergy laity mentality and to realize that every Christian had a role to play.
And some places we've slipped back into that mentality of a clergy laity mentality.
And that doesn't mean it's wrong to have somebody stand up and preach and pay them. Paul's very clear that that's all right to do, but what it does mean is that you were not saved to sit.
First Corinthians chapter twelve, verse 18 through 20, says that God has put each member in the body just as it has pleased him.
And when you do not feel your role in the body, you are handicapping the body. God puts you in the body with a role for you to play.
That's diversity, and it's a beautiful thing.
In one Corinthians twelve, in Ephesians chapter, excuse me. In Romans twelve, he highlights unique gifts and the perspectives that each member of each community brings into value, into the unity of believers in the midst of diversity.
When we don't practice this, we miss something that is very, very powerful in the local church.
Old Texas Preacher used to say, there's a hurtin in every pew.
And I think he's right.
And I imagine that in this auditorium tonight, that everyone here has either had a deep hurt in their life, or they're waiting on a deep hurt. It's going to come.
The only question is, when it comes, what are you going to do with that hurt?
You going to build walls, roll up in a little ball in a corner, and are you going to use it to the glory of God?
I can tell you story after story, but I'd rather say it this way.
There is not a struggle going on in the individual lives of the members of this church tonight that someone sitting in this room has not dealt with the exact same sort of struggle.
What if we decided to use that?
What if we decided to go to them and say, listen, I know this is difficult, and you probably don't want to talk about it, but I struggled with alcoholism.
I struggle in my marriage. I struggled with pornography.
I lost a child. I couldn't keep a job.
I had a hard time controlling my temper, and the Lord has helped me through it. And I'm not going to treat you like you're nobody, but you need to know that other people have been through this and that they can get through it. And I've been through it, and I'm here for you anytime you need me. What if we decided that's what James is saying, isn't it? Confess your faults one to another. But I'm not opposed to people walking forward in a church service.
I'm a preacher. I like people to come forward.
Siegfried and warrior, fried Hardyman. I had this plan. I was going to volunteer my services to go along with guys who are trying out at churches preaching. And I'd drive separately and I walk in and when the invitation song was sung, I'd respond.
And depending on what they paid me for my response, I'd respond very specifically or very generally. I'm not opposed to responses publicly.
That's not what he's talking about in James chapter five.
He's talking about our willingness to go to people and say, I'm struggling in this area and I need some help. And then that person saying, yeah, I've been there and helping them. That's diversity and that's how it works to build up, to build resilience in the church. That's why all those one another passages are there.
You know the one another passages, probably about 27 of them or so.
Forgive one another, exhort one another. You know all the one another passages.
I was asked several years ago to speak in Kentucky on a program called foundation for the Faith.
They'd ask Ralph Gilmore to come speak.
And Ralph had a heart attack.
And they'd given Ralph this real fancy, long, deep, educated title. And Ralph had a heart attack and they called and gave that title to me.
That was not very smart of them.
So I spent about two weeks studying the one another passages and I found out that the reflective and reciprocal. They're reflective, you're seeing this in the mirror. But they're also reciprocal. What you're doing to others, they're doing back toward you.
The greek word for one another is the word Elelu. Isn't that a neat word, Elelu? You won't forget that one, will you? Alelu. Can you say it with me? Alelu. Neat word, isn't it? Now, just so you know, that's not how you pronounce it. I'm horrible with greek, but that sounds like a hawaiian word. And so it's easy for me to remember and it's mighty close to it, but that's why those passages are there.
Number five, spiritual relationships support perspective. With empathy, these relationships build empathy, which builds love.
You know how empathy builds love.
I know you're struggling with something and I see you struggling. I see you working through whatever it is. It brings me closer to you and you feel that closeness that I've come to you with, and there's a mutual love that exists.
Listen to Paul. He urges christians to bear one another's burdens. He tells them that when you correct someone, consider yourself, because you're going to be tempted at some point as well, to support each other through trials, to mirror the love and compassion that we learn from Christ, to exhibit the grace that we have in our life.
I realized something about seven years ago.
I'm kind of slow. Here's what I realized.
We cannot give away what we don't possess.
For years, I watched these little old ladies in churches that were so sweet, and I wondered how they became so sweet, because all the old ladies in churches are not sweet. We had a lady at Granny White in Nashville where I preached for ten years, that she sisterhood, she'd sit on the front row up here, and our classrooms were back here behind. And the young people would come through after class, and she had a cane and she sat on the front row and she poked the kids with a cane when they came by, and they got used to it. So what she then started doing is every once in a while she'd slip that cane out there and try to trip them. Not all older ladies are sweet. You know what I learned?
I don't know what I just said, but apparently I didn't mean to say it. Okay. What I learned is this reality that sweet little old ladies were sweet young ladies saved by the grace of God.
We can't give away what we don't possess. Ever meet somebody in a hard time giving grace to other people? There's only one reason they've not experienced it.
They never realized the sinner that they were.
They thought maybe they became age nine or ten or eleven or whatever age it was for them. And they were baptized, and they were never that bad a person.
You were your sin, regardless of what it was, whether it's one that would land you on the front page of the newspaper or the evening news, or it's one that nobody else knows about except your closest and dearest friends.
Put Christ on the cross.
You had to have his grace in your life.
Spiritual relationships support perspectives with empathy. Number six. Spiritual relationships stimulate steadfastness and stamina. Endurance.
We gain strength through community.
We need stamina in the church.
We need somebody who comes on beside us and says, it's tough, but you can make it. It's like the older men in the Book of Titus.
The picture of an older man in Titus is a man that's made it up the tough climb of a steep mountain, and he's standing at the top of that mountain. He's looking on the other side, and there's a beautiful, lush valley below.
And he's hollering down to the people that are struggling, trying to get up the mountain that aren't there yet, and saying to them, come on up. It's worth it. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it. Paul's own life serves as a model of this kind of resilience in the face of adversity that he faced on numerous occasions. He faced one challenge after another, one hardship after another. But he maintained his trust in God, and he continued to spread the message of truth, of faith, and of hope. And you listen to Paul's writings.
Paul had a kind of an, oh, wow, how in the world did God let me be a part of what I'm a part of mentality.
I thank God that he counted me worthy and put me in the ministry.
I'm the chief of sinners, romans seven, o wretched man that I am, but thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ.
Well, number seven, spiritual relationships showcase sustenance through prayer. Paul's teaching underscores the power of prayer. We are out of time.
Am I right? I hadn't heard a bell or anything, but they told me 740.
That's the first bell. I got five minutes to work my way through a whole lot of points. All right, those are good verses.
That's a really cool slide, but too bad.
The challenge is how?
How do we do this? It's easy to talk about the what, but how do we do it?
That's the first bell.
You told me wrong. I had six minutes.
Open your bible. So, the book of Philippians, real quickly. Chapter one. I'm going to do this real quickly. This is not original to me. I originally got it from Rick Warren out in California. It's a really good four points. So I believe in telling people where I got things. I don't agree with Rick Warren on a lot of stuff. In fact, I strongly disagree with him on a lot of stuff. But this was a good one, so I used it. Number one, Paul would say, be proud of the good in people. Be grateful for the good in people. People are difficult to deal with, and our focus sometimes becomes the problems in their life.
We get that from being parents who got it, from being parents who got it, from being parents who got it. We could go on, right? That's where it comes from. And our children disappoint us, and we start only seeing the disappointment and not the great things that they do. What if we could change our perspective and start seeing everybody walking around with a sign around their neck that says under construction?
Paul says, he who began a good work in you will finish it in the day of completion, day of judgment. But God starts. God finishes. And we're all still under construction. And what we need to start doing, Paul says, is being thankful. Grateful for the good in people.
Philippians written to the church at Philippi.
And Paul says, in verse four of chapter one, I thank God for every remembrance of you.
Every remembrance of you. What happened to Paul and Philippi. You remember he's arrested illegally.
He's beaten. He's put in a roman gel. It wasn't like an american gel. It was a dank, dark prison that was cold, probably in wet.
While in prison, there's an earthquake.
One writer called that the original jailhouse Rock. That was not five minutes.
When he gets out of jail, he's told to leave town.
But Paul writes about it, and he says, I thank God for every remembrance of you.
The lesson for point one is, remember the best and forget the rest.
You want to enjoy the people in your life. You want to move forward in your life. You've got to start seeing the best. All right. Number two, practice positive praying. Thank God for people and prayer for people. Be patient with their progress. Remember, God is not finished with people and love people from the heart, or they'll get on your nerves. I must fill my life with God's love. Thank you for listening tonight. I'm sorry. I spent too much time on some things I shouldn't have and not enough time getting through this. Thank you for being kind tonight. Let's pray together. Father, we're thankful for your word. We're thankful for your people. We're thankful for your church and what it means to our life. Help us to be encouragers of what is good. Continue to build this family to be more like you. May this always be a church that is like Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.
