Are You Embracing Your Season? | Wednesday Night Service

Just encourage you, man. You never know how valuable it is. I really want to challenge you. You never know how valuable it is. None of us know what anybody's walking through.

And just your quick acknowledgement can mean the world sometimes. So don't underestimate the impact you can have. Well, you drew the short straw and you came on a Wednesday night when they had me speak. So I would like to apologize in advance. Yes.

But I am grateful to get a chance to with you. Tamsie and I have been, I think most of you know my wife Tamsie. She's right here. Tamsie and I have been talking about seasons of life recently. We feel our kids getting older.

My oldest daughter's in Ethiopia right now, and I pass by her empty bedroom every day and I think about getting older. And I think about the fact that I can't just walk in there and fuss at her about picking stuff up. She's not there. You know, she's on the other side of the world and serving there. And that's amazing.

My son is gigantic. I no longer pick him up and take him upstairs to go to bed. He can pick me up and take me upstairs and put me in my bed. And that's a strange thing. I got my hair cut fairly short today.

So I went to Pastor Terry and I said, pastor Terry, we're friends. You tell me the truth. Am I thinning? Like, just look right here. So I had her look at.

And she's like, no, no, no, no. It's great. And I really believe her. And I received it as a blessing. I went to Pastor Abe.

Pastor Abe, is this starting to happen here, bro? Like, talk to me for a second. And he was like, no, man, I think you just guard and na, na, na. I went to my 16 year old daughter, Eden. I said, e. She's like, oh, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

It was instant thinking about seasons of life. And you know, it's funny, seasons are so much a part of life, and yet we still have a hard time with them for some reason. Right? I mean, we've been around the block a few times. After summer comes the fall, and after the fall comes the winter.

And after the winter comes the spring. And then we're back to summer. And yet we never stop complaining. Can we just. Just to get an amen on this.

Who's done with summer already? I just. I'm right here. You can. My name's Nathan.

I am done. And then I'm almost never done with fall. That's one of those that I can't That's a season I can get stuck in.

But every season has a purpose. Every season has a value.

And I think it's important that we as Christians recognize the rhythm of seasons and not despise them. And that's harder than it seems, especially. And again, it's kind of, you know, always feel like you're picking on people when you say it this way. But I am from the West. I am from America.

But especially as Americans, especially in the west, we are high productivity people. You may not personally feel super productive. I don't always feel super productive. I excel at staring out the window. It's one of my spiritual gifts.

It's where a lot of those stories come from, guys. So you get the chance to benefit from it. Cause I was thinking about it for a long time when I probably should have been doing the dishes.

But we're a productivity driven society and therefore we like seasons of high productivity. So when we're not in seasons of high productivity, it is easy. Easy for us to feel like failures.

Are you here tonight? It's just easy. I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's easy to.

And in seasons of harvest, it's exciting. The fruit's coming in. We're bringing in the sheaves, right? Where are my people that know even what I'm talking about? Both of us that sang that hymn growing up, right?

Bring like, we know what. It feels exciting. But in the winter, everything looks barren. And you just are looking around like, is anything good, right? Just not even fruitful, just good at all, you know, Like, I got sticks.

That's all I got. I got a lot of sticks looking out my window. There's no leaves, right? And so. But the bugs don't die unless we have a winter season.

And the roots do not grow deep if we don't have a winter. But if we go through it, despising it the whole time. Hello. Like, it's just important we recognize the rhythm of seasons. And I've thought about this and I've shared about this before, so some of this won't maybe sound too new or original, but I love mangoes.

That's probably my favorite fruit. Love mangoes. Praise the Lord. I got an amen on a mango. I didn't expect that.

See, I knew. I see that hand. And the funny thing is we can trick ourselves into thinking that mangoes are always available and they always grow. Cause we just go to the grocery store, right? And I can get one Pretty much anytime.

Do you realize mangoes do not grow in the state of North Carolina? Like, they don't grow here, you know? Now, Publix doesn't seem to know that, because if I go there, there they are. And I can get whenever I want them, but they grow in a season. And the truth is, we kind of trick ourselves into thinking that there's always fruit on the vine all the time.

But the truth is, they shipped those jokers in from other parts of the world where it's a growing season, and maybe it's not here and there were conglomerates and they bought it. And what it's at Publix. Okay. And we can trick ourselves into thinking, well, if there's not always fresh fruit happening, there must be something wrong with me. Are you here and I just want to challenge you.

Now, it could mean that something is off. It doesn't necessarily mean that something is off. We may be in a different season, and seasons change. Seasons change. Here's what Ecclesiastes says.

Chapter three, verse one. You don't need to turn there. We're going to make our way to Romans chapter 12. And since you're good Bible students, everyone came ready for that. So hallelujah.

Romans 12 is where we're going to be. And it just really. It's kind of a devotional thought, simple premise for this evening, but I just wanted to remind us that God is the God of every season. Every season. And we do well to receive him in every season instead of despising ourselves or despising him in different seasons.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says this. There's a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. Psalm chapter one. These are just. I'm kind of ramping up.

We're going to get to Romans 12, so that's where we're headed. Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night.

He, Verse three is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.

I just want to show you that these things are seasonal. It doesn't say, and he yields his fruit. 24, 7, 365 in seasons. Psalm 23. What does the good shepherd say?

The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. Not A lot of productivity there. He's forcing us to lie down, some of us. He has been trying to get us to lay down for quite a while.

And we are squirmers and we don't want to lay down because it doesn't feel fruitful, doesn't feel productive, doesn't feel like something we can post as. Look at my gains.

Sometimes it's supposed to look like you're laying down in green pastures. And that is okay.

2nd Chronicles 36 Nathan, where's Romans 12? I'm getting there, I promise. So the message of the Lord, spoken through Jeremiah, was fulfilled. The land finally enjoyed its Sabbath rest, lying desolate until the 70 years were fulfilled, just as the prophet had said. Do you know that God cursed Israel because they refused to keep the Sabbath year?

The they did it for 490 years. They would not rest on the seventh year, which he commanded. So he kicked them out of the land for 70 years so the land could rest and catch up on all the seven year cycles that it missed. He's serious about seasons. And there's times when he says, and now I would like you to stop.

And it takes a ton of faith to stop. Especially when you own your own business.

Are you here especially when you've got deadlines, Especially when you feel, well, if I say no now, are they ever going to ask me again? This is real stuff. No one's in trouble tonight. My name's Nathan. I'm your friend.

I'm thinning right up here. If you look close, it's happening kind of, right? So I just want to encourage you.

It's not failure to be in a different season. We have to trust the Lord. Now, before I get into Romans 12 where I want to give some solutions tonight, I want to remind you that there are certain things that are evergreen. Okay? So, yes, we're talking about seasons and we're talking about being in season, but I also want to remind us certain things are evergreen.

We don't have seasonal maturity, okay? I don't want you to leave tonight and say, well, I'm just in my immature season, okay? And babe, I've got a good four or five more years of that, okay? So I just need you to trust the Lord. No, there are some things that are evergreen.

Our spiritual disciplines, our rhythms in the presence of the Lord, meeting with him. Those things can be evergreen. But we're talking about feeling productive or things looking like we're super dynamic in every season. I'm telling you, you can be in a healthy relationship with Jesus. And with other people.

And it not always be a highlight reel. The mangoes aren't always available. And that is okay. Thank God. Different things grow in different seasons.

So that's kind of the premise. Second Timothy says it this way. In chapter four, verse two, preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season. Correct. Rebuke, encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

That's an example of things that are evergreen. We should always be able to have a testimony, an awareness of what God's done in our lives. So I'm not talking about everything is seasonal. So, you know, sometimes we. I spend time with Jesus and then I go years without.

No, it's not that kind of thing. It's about the result of my time with him may look different in different seasons. And that's okay. You know, I love stories. And so I brought you a story tonight.

Guy named Sven Nader. Anyone know who Sven Nader is? There is bonus points for this. As a matter of fact, I did not know who he was. So this is working out great so far.

Good. Sven Nader, he was recruited to play basketball for Coach John Wooden, UCLA Bruins, late 60s, early 70s. You do not have to be a sports fan to catch this, okay? So just hang tight. But that was a big deal.

But what's fascinating is Sven was recruited to be the backup to Bill Walton. Now, if you are a basketball fan, you probably have heard of Bill Walton, arguably at his time, the best center in the nation, one of the best in college sports. And Sven was recruited. His pitch to come play for the greatest basketball coach, the greatest program at this time in history, was to come be the backup to the main guy. Which means this.

You will likely never ever play a game in your whole career backing up the guy that everyone wants to come see. And that is pretty much what happened. Sven took it as an honor. He joined the UCLA Bruins and he was Bill Walton's backup. He averaged about 2.1 minutes per game that season.

I don't know if you know basketball. That's not very long. That's basically a water break, you know, and basically had no metrics to speak of.

But as a result of him being willing to be in a season where he wasn't in the spotlight and he was just on the team. He won two national championship rings and he ended up getting lots of opportunity because apparently there's benefits in practicing against the best basketball player in the country every single day, whether you get to play in the games or not. And what's fascinating about that is Sven Nader had to embrace this season of obscurity. He played at a smaller college, Cypress College, where he was the big dog. He was making it happen.

He was the big fish in a small pond. And he got recruited to come be a part of the greatest basketball program at the time. But it was to be unseen, and to be not just unseen, but dwarfed by the guy that's a lot better than he was. And yet, because he was willing, he won two national championships. And the people in the NBA were watching him as he was standing behind Bill Walton and became the first NBA player ever drafted never to have ever started a collegiate game.

Now, if you don't understand draft and all that, that's a little bit antiquated now with, you know, one and done and high school and all that kind of stuff. At this time, late 60s, early 70s, you had to play four years of college to get recognized, have an opportunity. He never started a college game and yet went on to be an all star in the NBA. He had years of obscurity, A season that probably felt extremely frustrating after having been the number one guy for so long at his smaller school. Now taking a back seat.

And here's what I kind of taken from his story.

I think all of us, to a degree, are called to seasons of obscurity. If you think about Moses, we love to think about the prince of Egypt. Not just the movie, but the fact that he was the prince of Egypt and grew up in a palace, literally grew up in the most powerful dominant force in the world for 40 years. And then the next 40 years, he is on the backside of the desert, the scriptures say, tending sheep. No one even knows if he's alive.

40 years now. 40 years on the backside of the desert. It's a lot, no matter who you are. But when you grew up in the palace and, and everything was a snap of the fingers, I would imagine that felt like failure.

And so in that time frame, the Lord is preparing him and he's in a different season. And he had to embrace it so that he'd be ready when the Lord called upon him to do something different. His season was fruitful. It sure didn't look like it. But God says that man looks on the outward appearance.

God looks at the heart. John the Baptist, season of obscurity. He's out in the wilderness. He pops up on the main stage for a little bit. A few chapters there in the New Testament, he points his disciples towards Jesus.

He languishes as imprisoned until he's decapitated.

Not a super exciting story. Made tremendous impact, but so much obscurity outside of the few moments that we see him in the pages of Scripture being used dynamically. I'll remind you that Jesus first 30 years of his life, in many ways pretty average life if you can be average and be the Son of God. Right? But my point is there's no record.

He's just living in the Father's will, exactly where God wanted him to be. Maybe it was remarkable, maybe it was fairly straightforward. We don't have anything recorded to tell us. And that's my point. I don't think Jesus was out of the Father's will by simply being steady, consistent, showing up day after day, doing the things that were required of daily life in relationship with his Father, obscurity until the moment came that he was highlighted, his ministry was brought forth, and he was revealed to be our Messiah.

Looking in hindsight, of course, we knew he was that from the time of his birth. But in daily living, life is happening. And I just want to encourage you tonight, if you find yourself in the rut or the groove of daily life and nothing feels exciting or fruitful or noteworthy, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

It just may not be the season for anything to look super fruitful. And I'm telling you, lots of fruit is being produced. You just may not see it as readily. Is this making sense to anybody? It's not a super profound thought, but I just want to remind us today.

So here's the question that I want to pose, and I want to answer it through Romans 12. How do we thrive in every season of life, regardless of how fruitful we feel? I would love for you to feel extremely fruitful. I would love for you to have story after story of all that God's doing in your life. But I want to tell you, you may not always feel that way.

That doesn't make you bad. But if we are steady, forever green in the presence of the Lord, then I'm just telling you, in season we're like that one planted by the streams of water. In season, you will produce the fruit that you are to produce. I asked you to flip to Romans 12. We're actually going to look at it now.

I went through a few months where I just was fed so deeply by reading Romans chapter 12 over and over and over and over. That's not my typical rhythm of Bible reading. I'm kind of a read through the Bible in a year kind of guy. Often I read through the Torah portions. You know, my friend Scott Volk and I do a podcast on the first five books of the Old Testament, and I'll read through that and I'll do different reading plans, but I'm not one to get in repetition.

But this last year, that's been a new kind of wrinkle in my Bible study. The Lord will park me somewhere. Recently I spoke and I talked about the book of Jude, and I For the last two months I've just read Jude over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I've never really done that before. It's a newer thing for me.

But before it was Jude, it was Romans 12, and I would just read it and I'd listen to it and I'd read it in a different translation and I'd go through it again and I'd write a few verses down and I'd try to memorize a few, and I would let a few of them just beat me up because I wasn't applying it in my life very well. And I just chewed on it for a little bit and I felt like Romans 12 could give us some keys. So I just want to read through. I'm going to start in verse 3 of Romans 12. If you've got it there.

I'm reading from the NIV, but whatever translation you have, it's going to be close to this. Romans 3. And I am going to get my glasses because I'm in a different season.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Verse 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is to prophesy Excuse me. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith.

If it's serving, then serve. If it's teaching, then teach. If it's to encourage, then give encouragement. If it's giving, then give generously. If it's to lead, do it diligently.

If it's to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

This first section, Romans 12, 3, 8, I think one key we can pull out from. How do we thrive in every season? Well, we're humble and we serve other people. Be humble and serve other people. That'd be the first idea.

How do you thrive in every season? The season that feels fruitful? The season that does not feel fruitful? The season where your roots are growing deeper? The season where you feel like the bugs are flying everywhere?

The season where things are starting to budget? How do we maintain? How do we thrive in every season? I think the first way is we're humble and we serve other people. What Paul says to the church in Rome at this point is, hey, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought.

And I think this presses on our infatuation with productivity, our infatuation with fruitfulness. We will know that we think of ourselves too highly and we're not productive and we despise ourselves for it. I'm just telling you, maybe that's a sign that we need to not think of ourselves quite so highly. Maybe it's okay that I'm not a plus at everything every day.

Maybe I need to humble myself and serve others. And here's what Paul says.

He says, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. Rather, think of yourself with sober judgment. He doesn't say, think poorly of yourself. That wouldn't be helpful. That wouldn't be holy.

God loves you. He's just saying, hey, maybe everything doesn't have to be a highlight reel all the time. Let's pull it back a little bit. And how do we do that? Well, be member of one body.

Know that we have different gifts and, and use those to serve other people. If your gift is prophesying, which is declaring the truth of God with boldness, it's not necessarily telling somebody that they're, you know, going to do X, Y and Z in 15 days. It can be declaring the word of God boldly. But if it's a gift, then use it according to the gift he's given you. If it's teaching, that doesn't mean you have to have a microphone and a podium.

It can be sitting at the dinner table with your kids. Teach something. If it's a gift God's given you, then use it. Serve other people. If it's encouraging, encourage others.

In our Next Steps class, we talk about how God's equipped us and designed us with a unique shape and that our spiritual gifts are for the benefit of other people. And I think sometimes we forget this. Our spiritual gifts are not so that we can feel powerful. Like, I'm an encourager. I Wish I was 24, seven an encourager.

I'm not always, but it is a gift of mine. It's a call life. And I wasn't Designed to look in the mirror every day and say, hey, you are pretty great. You know, it's not about me encouraging myself. It's about me giving it to somebody else.

And so many of us, if we're not careful, can get so infatuated with our own success that we actually are only serving ourselves in order to thrive in every season. Even the seasons that feel dry or cold. It's in humbling ourselves and serving others well. And when we do that, it brings value and it keeps us in each and every season we go through. Let's keep reading.

The second idea is, I think we can thrive in every season by being devoted to each other in love. Here's what verse nine says. Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.

Honor one another above yourselves. Be devoted to one another in love. A lot of us can do things out of obligation. A lot of us can do things out of rote. A lot of us can do things because we actually want to be seen as consistent.

I'm not saying that that is necessarily wrong. It's not always the best motivation. It actually can be a selfish motivation, as I want to be seen as. Paul says, no, be devoted to one another in love. And by being devoted to one another in love, it will transcend our season of feeling fruitful or feeling productive or feeling low or feeling whatever.

By being devoted in love, we won't get ourselves out of alignment by having a false motive at the core. Because I'm just telling you, few things will wear you out more than being super nice and super great because you feel like you're supposed to be. That's where the resentment shows up. I've got experience with this stuff, guys. I've got good grades in these things.

I've experienced this before where you just try so hard to be a good example. Example. I'm. If you study family systems, I'm the oldest child of four and I'm supposed to be the best example of everything. Where my oldest's at.

We're tired. Okay? Where are we all tired? Where are my tired people? Okay, all my oldest.

We're supposed to hold the line. Our parents are like, why can't you be more like your brother? And you're like, oh, God. And so you just feel the weight sometimes. And some of you are like my older brother or sister.

They missed the memo. Let me just tell you. Well, that's okay. I'm just telling you, it often can happen this way. My point is, is this we can hide behind our performance.

And love is not the motivation. And that will not keep you in a dry season. That will frustrate you. That'll make you angry. The big resentment will show up.

It'll show up big. And that's how you test. Just because you felt resentful one time doesn't mean you're in trouble or you're on the naughty list now. It's a indicator. It's ding, ding, ding.

It's the check engine light. When that resentment shows up in your heart, Ding, ding, ding. Guess what? You're not devoted in love. You're not.

I'm not mad at you. I love you. I've got these cute little glasses. I just want you to know you're not motivated by love when the resentment shows up. And that's your indicator.

So don't freak out. Let's just change the oil, right? Let's do something about it and say, wait a minute, I'm not being devoted in love. Which is not going to sustain me in a season where I don't feel super fruitful. If we're humble ourselves, not think of ourselves too highly, serve other people, make sure we're doing things out of devotion, of love, not duty, not religious vigor, not proving how holy we can be.

Man, it'll sustain you whatever your season. Things feel fruitful. Things don't feel fruitful. You will be steady because you'll be kept. Third idea is from Romans 12:12, and it's just exactly what it says.

One of my favorite verses. I've told you this before, every time I sit on the clock, 12:12. This is what I think of Romans 12:12. Be joyful in hope. Patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

I mean, if you want a good scripture to memorize and feel good about yourself, I mean, really, this is just a softball. Okay, Romans 12:12. It's three phrases. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Can I tell you something?

This will sustain you in every single season, no matter how hot it is outside. Let's use the summer analogy. If you'll be joyful in hope, it will not always be this way. Patient in affliction. Good God, I am sweating.

Ting. Okay. Faithful in prayer. Lord, I just want to bring it to you again. I'm ready for this season to change, but I trust you in the midst of it.

Joyful in hope. Patient in affliction. Faithful in prayer. I want to challenge you. Yes.

Wednesday night feels a little more like a class, so I get to give assignments I want to challenge you to memorize Romans 12:12 in whatever version you want to memorize it in. I memorize the niv. That's why I use it a lot. But I want to challenge you to memorize it. I'm not going to test you, except for when I ask you what it means, but I just want to challenge you.

Just put it in your spirit, because it's like a daily vitamin. Am I being joyful in hope? Not really. Okay, well, let's let the word transform me. Am I being patient in affliction?

Man, that's no fun. Am I being faithful? Prayer that will sustain you in every season. I really do believe that. Is that okay?

Whether it was okay or not, that's what I had. So hopefully it's okay. I think all of us are called to seasons of obscurity. Some of you may say that's the only season I think I've ever been in, and that is okay. I disagree.

I would imagine there are a lot of things I could point to, but I understand the feeling. Some of us like a little obscurity. Some of us don't want anything but obscurity. I think the Lord wants to call you out of that a little bit. So we'll let him take care of that.

He's in charge, not me. But I think all of us, to a degree, are gonna be called to those times where whatever it means for us in our personality, we don't feel super fruitful, and we don't feel like the example of much of anything.

And it's there that you find, if you're steady in the Lord, because if you will be, the seasons will change and you will bear much fruit, and it won't be just enough to feed you. It'll be to feed everybody around you. And that's the beautiful thing about producing fruit. It's not just for you. The fruit that's produced in your life is for everybody around you.

It's to feed them. It's not just our spiritual gifts. It's the fruit that's produced from a faithful life. This is one of the challenges that I've had, and I'm trying to work through it. I'm trying to find my relationship with social media.

You should be on it a lot. Then. I'm very much extreme. Then I got off it, deleted everything, got off it completely for a year or so.

But I do see that too often there is this reach to feel significant, and I just want to challenge you. Like your significance is found in the eyes of your Father who loves you, and your significance is in that steady place of faithfully walking with him and showing up and doing the most boring things in the world. Can I just tell you something? I really mean this. Boring is beautiful.

Boring is beautiful. It's become a cuss word in our society. Boring is beautiful. Just about the worst thing any of our kids can say is, I'm bored. You know, it's like, it's the same as, like, why are we alive?

You know, Boring is beautiful. Like, some of us need to slow down long enough to know actually how we're doing. A lot of us won't stop long enough to ask because we're afraid of the answer. You know, so boring is beautiful. Like, we need some time to just be with the Lord, Take a walk without our AirPods and no music and not 17 podcasts and just be and listen to the birds.

I'm not anti any of those things. I got AirPods. I listen to stuff. Don't be mad, we're all friends. I'm just saying sometimes we need to shut it off and we just need to be.

And I think it's so important. It's so valuable. Every season can be beautiful. Colossians 3 says this. Set your minds on things that are above, not on the things that are of this 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. Luke 12:2. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, all or hidden that will not be known. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden, but that will not be known.

That doesn't just mean heinous bad things that are going to be exposed. It means the faithful honoring the Lord and the little things day after day. The Lord says, I see all of it, and it's beautiful in every season, and it produces in every season, whether you feel like it does or not. And he will honor it. And I just want to encourage you, there is a reward coming and we can trust him no matter what season you find yourself in.

So here's what I want to do. I want to pray for us. I'm going to ask Daniel to come and play. I'm going to pray for us. Then I want to challenge you.

This is the part where everybody all of a sudden has to go to the bathroom. So just so I know how this works, but I want to challenge you. I'm going to pray. And if you really have to go to the bathroom, you're not in Trouble. But I want to challenge you to get in groups of four or five.

Oh, here's where the hives, they just kind of start showing up to the surface. And here's what I want you to do. We're the family of God. We love each other. We love Jesus.

This is probably one of the safest places you will be this entire week. And I just want us to pray one for another. I'm a firm believer that God's grace wants to be distributed to you. And oftentimes he puts it in the person over there because he wants us to realize we need each other. So the answer to your prayer might be sitting three seats down.

And you don't know it yet. And you won't know it until we push past our discomfort. I'm not asking you to bear your soul. I'm not asking you to go into your history of everything unless you want to just keep it to 30 seconds, okay? But I want to encourage you.

Let's get in groups of four or five and let's pray for each other. And all you gotta say is, hey, you know, honestly, I could use some prayer for X, Y, and Z. It doesn't have to be a certain seasonal thing. You don't have to quote Romans 12:12 to each other. If you do, there are bonus points that Pastor Abe's gonna hand out at the end.

But I want to encourage you, let's just care for one another, and let's do it in the place of prayer. I want to pray for you. Then I want to release us into just small groups. Four or five. Let's pray for one another.

If you don't know somebody, let me show you. This is a great trick. I'm so sorry. We've gone to church together for, like, 10 years. I don't know your name.

What is your name? And then we get over it and we laugh. Ha, ha ha. It's so funny. I didn't know your name either.

And so then we do that, and then we're okay and we move on. Don't freak out. Don't be weird. It's okay. Lord, I thank you that you love us in every season.

And, God, when we are feeling fruitful, your word says, rejoice with those who rejoice. And, God, when we don't feel it and we feel dry, your word says we can mourn with those who mourn, but either way, we get to do it together. We get to be in it together. Lord, I pray for every person tonight that feels that they've been in a winter season or a difficult season and it just feels like they're stuck. God, I just pray that you would loosen things up and move them into their next season.

By your grace I pray God you would give us the words to pray for our neighbor even as we spend a few moments together in prayer. Give us courage to do so. Let nobody feel shame or condemnation if it's awkward or difficult for them Lord encourage them despite all of my funny little ranting. So what? I just pray that tonight we would experience the beauty of caring for one another and recognizing we can trust you in every season.

Help us not think more highly of ourselves than we should. Help us serve one another get outside of our own minds. God help us to be devoted in love, not in religious action, not in duty, not improving a point or being a good example. And God help us to be steadfast by being joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. I ask these things in Jesus name amen.