Well, go ahead and be seated. It’s great to gather with you today. How many of you are of the vein where you are kind of tired of all the snow? Let me see a few of those hands. Yeah, most of you over 50. I see they raise your hand for that. What about the other? How many of you are like. I wish it would start snowing right now. Again? Let me see a few of those hands. Okay. All right. There’s a few of you over 50. Most of you trend a little younger than that. Yeah. You know what? There’s just something about a weather event like this that just breaks up the pattern of life. That’s kind of nice. It’s kind of refreshing to have a change of pace. I’m sorry we had to cancel church last week. I’m going to make it up to you today, though. I’ll give you two sermons today, this morning, and we’ll go twice as long. Hey, I wasn’t expecting that. That’s nice. Well, I’m not going to test you on that today. I appreciate the applause, but we’ll we’ll just stick to one sermon today. It is nice to have some of the break in rhythms of life, and it’s good to come back together. I know some of you were dying to get out of the house, and it’s great to be able to come together today to launch into a new year. Our theme for 2025 is to grow. And when I say that we’re not we’re not talking about numbers per se. Of course, I’d love to see this full. Plenty of people, more people wanting to worship together week in and week out. But what’s as important, in fact, what’s a precursor to that is that we are individually growing deep in Christ. And that’s the focus of the word grow. In fact, the phrase is grow into oaks of righteousness, and an oak is strong, and an oak gives life to others around it. An oak can endure in the hard times. And we want to be individually oaks of righteousness. And as we grow individually, and God will use that to bless our community. Now the question is, how do we do that? How do we grow into oaks of righteousness going into 2025? How do we do that? An important step, and something we’re going to talk about today is first to do a little bit of self-assessment. In fact, the phrase that has come to mind as I thought of the first few messages of this New Year phrase phrases come to mind over and over again. It’s a phrase that goes back to Socrates, who wasn’t in the Bible, but he summed up this idea when he said, it’s important to know thyself. If you want to move forward, you have to know where you are. You got to know who you are, and you got to be honest about that. You got to deal with reality. In fact, I want to turn to a passage in Second Peter, we’ve been going through first Peter, we’re going to take a short break from First Peter these next couple of weeks. Look at second Peter. Do this for a couple of reasons. One, First Peter, let’s be real here. It can get a little heavy because the theme is all on suffering. But Peter talks about other things as well. Second Peter is more about hope and truth, things we all need, and I think things that are important to Valley View and things that are needed when we want to grow, we need hope and truth. But in Second Peter chapter one, and if you don’t have a Bible, we have Bibles out in the lobby. Those are free to you. You can slip out and grab one anytime. Second Peter is going to be almost to the very end of the New Testament, so it’s towards the back. If you find revelation back up a few pages. In Second Peter chapter one, there’s a section starting at verse five that is heavily focused on growth. How do you grow? What does growth mean? How does God work in your life to help you to grow? And in that, we’re going to see an important element of us doing a little bit of self assessment in order to move forward. Look at Second Peter chapter one verse five. I’m going to read just the first few verses here of five through 8 or 9. Chapter one, verse five says this: for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. So we get this list of character qualities, of attributes, of things that should be true of us as we’re growing. In fact, he says in the next verse, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we want to be fruitful and effective for him, these qualities should be growing and increasing in our lives. Part of the challenge is, though, that sometimes we become, we lose perspective on where we are. In fact, the next verse addresses this directly. Verse nine for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Does this ever happen where you lose perspective on where you are? You think you’re here and maybe you’re not there? One of the highlights of my week when we lived in Little Rock, we served there in ministry for a number of years. One of the highlights of the week was this midweek pickup basketball game with a group of guys from from the office, and we’d meet up at a local church a couple times a week. Loved it was so much fun. Good group of guys, all pretty skilled. It was a pretty skilled group of guys, and I felt like I was there in the mix with them and the pace was pretty good. It was a great time getting out aggression from the day at the office, a good time of exercise, good bro time. It was a great time of hanging out and I remember one day I had to sit on the bench for a minute because we had too many guys. Guys need to rotate in to play and I was sitting there on the bench watching these guys play, and I thought, you know, when I’m not in there, they really do slow down and they look a lot older. They don’t play nearly as well when I’m in there. The thing is it’s moving fast, okay? Everybody’s playing so well. But then it hit me actually no, John, from the bench it looks slow. It feels fast in there. But guess what? It’s just slow. Yep. Sometimes it’s easy to think I’m here, but actually we’re here. We got you got to do a little self-assessment. You got to be real about and honest about where we are in order to grow. And that doesn’t mean you don’t want it to turn into self-loathing. I’m the worst person on earth because I’m here and I want to be there. No, it’s just you got to deal with reality, do a little self-assessment. You got to know yourself. You got to know who you are and where you are. And so this year, going into this year, I want to talk about who Valley View is. I who when you think of Valley View, you know every church has its different characteristics. Every group of people, when they come together, they have different emphasis, they have different burdens, they have a different take on things. And when you think of Valley View, what are some things that describe Valley View as a church? Who are we? Because if we want to grow, we got to know who we are. We got to know ourselves. I there’s a few phrases I want to focus on today and next week that are things that I think Valley View is about and values that are so critical to who we are and so critical to us growing individually and collectively. And so I’m going to walk through three of those today and for my dedicated note takers, you’re going to have to listen more closely to that, because I didn’t put any notes on the screen. I just want to talk with you some and just connect. These are going to be some familiar phrases by the way, I’m going to repeat some things that you have heard before, but I want to give it a little more emphasis today. So a few things we value. The first thing that came to mind as I thought about this. What is what is something that Valley View really values that summarizes up our approach to life and ministry? There’s a phrase that came to mind that we say all the time, I want to unpack it a little more because it can mean a few different things. It’s this phrase we say, come as you are. When I think of Valley View, I think of that phrase come as you are. We don’t care, for instance, what you look like. We don’t. I don’t care what you’re wearing. Come in a three piece suit, come in a sweat suit, I don’t care, just come. Not in a swimsuit. Okay? And if you do, we’ll find some clothes for you. Because people here are so generous. They want you here. We don’t care. Come as you are. That’s so critical. To a church, being able to reach others. It’s not about appearances. It’s not. I don’t know why it is that many churches focus on behaviors and appearances. I mean, I kind of know part of it is we can’t know. You can’t just look at someone and know their heart. You can’t by looking at someone. No know where they stand spiritually. But sometimes we’ll say, okay, I see this about them. Therefore I know their this about their heart. We make assumptions. We want to put people in categories based on how they appear. That’s not how Jesus went about it. Of course he knew their heart. Churches tend to focus on appearances and and of course, there are times where we do that when we shouldn’t. None of us are perfect, but I think as an overall general reality, Valley View says, come as you are, we don’t care how you look. We want to meet you where you are. There’s a story I’ve heard told so many times and you know you’ve heard it so many times and so many different ways. I don’t even know if it’s fully true, but it’s the kind of story that should be true the way I’ve heard it. The version I’ve heard was about a Baptist church in southern California in the 70s, and it was it the season where there was a lot of growth happening, the Jesus movement was happening, a lot of hippies were getting saved. But this is a very traditional, very straight laced church. Everybody had on their Sunday best choir robes were all perfectly ironed for the perfect choir, the you had the organ on the piano and that was it. Very traditional. But one day in the back, here comes this hippie had come to know Christ, and he’s just in a t shirt and shorts and barefoot, kind of scraggly, long hair, dirty. And he’s walking up the middle aisle and everybody’s staring at him wondering, what is this dude doing here? Where is this going to go? He walks right down front and sits in the floor. Right in front of the pastor, just right down there like you would naturally if you were going to hang out with some friends. Just sit down to learn. And so everybody’s looking around, what are we going to do? What do we do about this? Who’s going to say something? That’s not how we do church. And the oldest guy, the most respected guy in the church who had on the fanciest suit gets up. He’s in the back tending the door. It takes him a while because he’s got a cane, and everybody watches him slowly hobble down the aisle and they think, what is he gonna say? And he comes up to that guy and he just sits down right next to him, cross-legged on the floor. Come as you are, come as you are. That’s what we want. I want hunger for Christ, hunger to know his word. Not even worried about what do I look like? Where am I coming from? Come as you are. That’s something I think that we’re about now. That also means it’s not just for those who are out there. By the way, if this is your first week, come as you are. I hope you feel that. It’s not just that. It’s also for us who who have been here a while. Come as you are. Meaning you don’t have to come acting like you have it all together every week because you don’t I don’t, so I know you don’t. We don’t. And you don’t have to come acting like everything’s perfect every week. We’ve got to come– in fact, I love this phrase. Tommy Nelson. He’s a pastor in Dallas. I love listening to his stuff. He said it this way. You don’t have to get cleaned up to get in the shower, right? I don’t have to take a pre-shower to get in the shower. No, I come as I am and I come to Christ, and he is the one who gives you the strength and the ability to get cleaned up. I don’t get my life in order so that then I can become a Christian. If who’s tried that, Aw, come on. I know I have. Let me get everything in order. Let me have my appearances right, so then I can go to church and look right now. Come as you are, come as you are when you first come to him. And every week come as you are. The phrase for that is humility. We need to come in humility. In fact, look at verse three and four here in Second Peter. Look back at this chapter one, verse three and four. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises. The key word here up to this point that showed up twice is he has granted that to us. His divine power has been granted to us. He has granted to us his precious and very great promises. He granted it to us. I didn’t have to get cleaned up on my own. He granted me that ability. He is the one who has that power, not me. I don’t have that power. So that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature. And then. But look at this last phrase. Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. The reality is we all walk around with sinful desire, and we’ve got to come every week as we are, in humility, with the strength to say, I need Christ to move in my life to deal with that. I can’t deal with that on my own. That’s why we do a memory verse every month in our memory verse to start this years first Peter back and first Peter, first Peter five six humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time. Humble yourselves, come in humility, and come as you are. Come as you are. I love that phrase. It’s so powerful. Now there’s another side to this. That’s the first phrase I think that sums up who we are as a church. Come as you are, I hope. I hope you can bring any friend and they feel welcomed. They feel invited, they feel accepted, and yet also maybe just a little uncomfortable because that’s how I feel when I come to church. And that’s the second half of that phrase, come as you are, so that you don’t have to stay as you are. That’s the other side of it. Come as you are. Please do. But we don’t want to stay as we are now. That’s why you’re here. None of us do. That’s not some kind of judging you, or looking down on you because you’re not perfect. That’s what we all want. We all want to be growing. None of us want to stay where we are. Come as you are so you don’t have to stay as you are. I hope at the end of 2025 I can look back and go, here’s what God did in my life. Here’s how he helped me grow and change and become a better husband. Become a better pastor. Become a better father. Become a better friend. Who wants that? Doesn’t everyone want that? That’s what we all want. That’s why we’re here. Come as you are. So you don’t have to stay as you are. You know, that’s an emphasis here in this passage. If you look back at verse five, for this is the very reason make every effort to supplement your faith. This doesn’t mean that you somehow create your faith. You take supplements, not in place of food, but they are supposed to help enhance the food, make it work better in your body. You’re supplementing your faith, meaning you’re coming alongside what Christ is already doing and seeking to grow. Supplement your faith. Also in verse eight, if these qualities are yours and are increasing. Our burden is to be growing, to be changing, and sometimes. The reality that is sometimes that’s hard. Sometimes that requires hard conversations with one another. Sometimes we don’t like that. What’s the whole phrase? Iron sharpens iron from Proverbs 27. Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. What’s the problem with iron sharpening iron? Sparks metal grinding against metal. That’s not comfortable. That’s not fun in the moment. I was talking to a pastor friend of mine this week, and he shared with me the story. He was out to lunch one day, and he saw one of his key ministry leaders in the church. Wasn’t a staff member, but one of the guys he leaned on for ministry and he was out at lunch with another lady from work, and he said, I was watching them eat lunch together. He didn’t know I was there, and it was clear they were way too comfortable with one another. And so I called him later that day and I said, hey, man, tell me what’s going on, because I saw you at the lunch. Is that a normal thing you do at your work, by the way? One man, one woman not related out to lunch. And you guys looked way too close. What’s going on? He said, I just hit it head on and the guy said, oh man, nothing. There’s nothing going on there. No big deal. You don’t need to. Don’t worry about it. Yeah, we I won’t go out to lunch with her again. That probably wasn’t best, no big deal. He said okay, thought nothing else of it. A few months later, the guy comes back to him and he goes. God tried to use you in my life and I didn’t listen. A week later, we became very intimate physically, and God brought you into my life to confront me, to confront my sin, to confront where I was. I was already way down a road. And God tried to wake me up through you. And I didn’t listen. And now I want to repent. And I want to see if God can work in my life. I don’t know what all that means, but I want to be free. Sometimes growth requires hard conversations. In fact, that same guy I served in ministry with him. He came to me once and said, John, I shared something with you. You shared it with someone else. I feel like you’ve broken my trust. I didn’t want to hear that. And he was right. I’m so sorry. I hope I can rebuild trust with you. I see what you mean. I see what you said. Thank you for being willing to come to me and bring that up and not just write me off. I can’t trust that guy anymore. I guess he’s I better never share anything with him again. Might be some wisdom in that in the moment, but I’m so grateful that he came to me and that wasn’t a fun conversation for him or me. But we don’t want to stay where we are, and that’s a key part of growth, and that’s going to need to happen here at times. In fact, I would say to you. I know there’s a temptation at times when you’re upset with someone to go get some perspective from some other people. Sometimes you need that. Sometimes that’s a cover for gossip. You know what I’m talking about. I have a prayer request for my group. Go as much as you can. Go directly to that person as often as you can. Go directly to that person. Follow the biblical pattern in the book of Matthew. Go to them and if they don’t respond, you bring another. And if they don’t respond, you bring the church. That’s the biblical pattern. That is going to help us to grow. It’s going to help you to grow. It’s going to help Valley View to grow in 2025. And it’s a big part of coming as you are so you don’t have to stay as you are. Now the third thing I think that sums up Valley View, and it’s probably the one that I think when I think of Valley View, I think of more than anything else. Because of my experience here growing up. I’ve been pastor here about three years now, but I grew up here as a kid. And here’s the phrase, and I love how our worship songs tied into this today. To know who you are, you have to know who he is. And how do we know who he is? It’s through his word. You got to be in his word. To know who you are, you got to know who he is. You’ve got to be a student of his word. You got to be able to have perspective, to have some standard of truth in your life. I love that Valley View is all about knowing God’s word. It’s been that way from the very first memory I have here is sitting in some kids class with someone teaching me about the Bible. I mean, I was probably 4 or 5 years old and we’re sitting in a circle being taught the Bible, not entertained. We were being taught God’s Word even at that age, because this church knows how critical that is to know God’s Word, to be in God’s Word, to know truth. Because if you want to know who you are, if you want to know how to grow, you got to know who he is. You gotta have some standard of truth. This is all over this passage. If you look back at Second Peter, verse three, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him. Know God’s word. It’s the path to knowing him, to knowing him personally. And this is so critical in our day and age. You gotta have some standard of truth to live by. It can be really trendy and cliche to say you have your truth and I have my truth. What happens when your truth is different than my truth? What do we do? Who wins? Who is right? Usually it’s whoever is stronger, to be frank. In the history of the world might becomes right if we have no other standard of truth. If we have no standard outside of ourselves. What do you do? What do you look to for strength outside of yourself? If you think you are the standard of truth and that falls apart, where do you turn? You got to know God’s Word. You’ve got to be in His Word. And I love that this church is all about that. Every pastor I’ve known here has been all about that. I gotta teach God’s Word. When I walk up here, I walk up here in confidence. Not because of me, but because I’m trying to point you to this. And I can be confident that his word will guide you. And so in the coming year, make being in His word one of your highest priorities. That’s why we do a daily Bible reading plan. There’s printed copies of those in the lobby. There’s links to digital versions of that where it can just be read to you. Be in God’s Word, absorb a standard of truth in your heart every day. I can’t stress this enough. Make this your highest commitment of the coming year. Be in His word every day. And look, if you miss a day. Okay? Great. Move on to the next day. This isn’t a legalistic thing, but I pray there is a hunger to be in his word. We live in a world where people want to take Christianity like the buffet. I’m. I’m gonna take a little of this. This makes me feel good. I don’t like that. I’m going to avoid that. But I’m going to take a little bit of this. The ala carte Christianity. I heard a pastor in Atlanta listen to an Andy Stanley sermon this week, and this guy grew up under his dad, Charles Stanley, who was this fantastic Bible teacher. And I listened to him say, you know what? We need to get away from the Bible being the standard of our faith. We need to get away from the Bible being the foundation of our faith, because a lot of people have problems with the Bible, and if they have problems with the Bible, we need to make it easier for them to come to the faith. So the Bible shouldn’t be our foundation of our faith anymore. It should be the resurrection. Now, the hard part of that is it’s not either or. Andy Wood and by the way, he spent the next 20 minutes using the Bible to explain why that’s the case. Yeah, you should laugh, because how do we know about the resurrection, by the way? How do we know everything we know about the resurrection? How do we know? From the Bible? It’s not either or, Andy, we don’t go and say, I don’t like that. So I’m going to put that aside. And I don’t like this, but I like this. No, here’s here’s what we do. Here’s what Valley View does. Here’s God’s Word and here’s how I feel. And how I feel is going to come up under what his word says. I’m going to align my feelings to His word rather than trying to make his word align to my feelings. You see the difference. This is our foundation. This is our standard of truth. If you want to know who you are, you got to know who he is. All this is important. Because what do you do when you don’t know what else to do? What do you do? I listen to an interview this week with an with an actor. His name is Neal McDonough. And he is. You may have seen him, and he’s one of these guys that you don’t really think about, but you’ve probably seen him over and over again. He often plays a villain. In fact, he said he was gearing up for a part recently and the make up lady was like, how many times have you died on screen? And he said, I don’t know, 20 or 30. She said, today is number 61. He’s like, oof, that’s a lot of death. He’s the villain and he’s part of his job. But the path on how he got there. He grew up a Christian, wandered in his faith. He would even say, I made some poor decisions about some of the roles I took. I’m not proud of that. But I felt like God had given me the gift of acting, and I didn’t know what else to do. But then there came a day where he said, I’m no longer going to compromise. I’m no longer going to compromise. I’m no longer going to put myself in situations on screen that I’d be ashamed of, physically intimate with someone who’s not my spouse. I’m never going to put my lips on another woman who’s not my wife. And he said, and I took that stand, and it became known, and no one would hire me. Which I got to say, I just. The fact that so much of what we’re consuming has that undergirding their core values in media, that people would say, we don’t want a guy like that on our screen. A guy who would take that kind of stand, who just wants to be faithful to his wife. We don’t want him on our screen. That says a lot about the state of Hollywood and media and I’m we’re never going to tell you, watch this. Don’t watch that. But just don’t be deceived. Don’t be naive to the reality of what the values are of that whole world and culture. And he said, for two years I couldn’t get a job. Nothing. I lost my house. I lost my second house. I lost my nice Mercedes and cars. And I got five kids to feed, and I can’t get an acting job and no one will hire me because of this. He said I turned back to drinking again. I had put that aside and I was putting on weight and I was struggling. And one night I’m laying on the floor just crying out to God, why have you allowed this to happen? What is going on? God, I need you to show up. He said I was desperate and I was turning to him and calling out for him. I’m on my face, he said. I’m on my face screaming, God, show up! And the phone rings. Can you show up? We need you in a part. Two years of waiting, wondering, but standing firm and depending on the cross. Turning to truth. If you want to know who you are. If Valley View wants to know how to grow in 2025, we got to know who he is. And I know that’s what you value. And my prayer is that this year that this book would come alive to you like never before. It doesn’t matter how much of it you’ve read already. Pick any verse, even a verse you’ve memorized inside it over and over again. There are thousands of insights to be seen. Make it your highest priority for this year. To know him, to know his word, to have that as the foundation in your life. And I promise he will do things in your life like never before. Let’s pray. God, we thank you that we do have a standard of truth in your word. We thank you that Jesus came to rescue us from the self-deception of sin, from ignorance of who you are, from the desire to make ourselves the center of the universe, from our desire to make you in our likeness. But you made us in your likeness. God help us to conform to your truth. I pray that 2025 at Valley View, our hunger for Your Word, our growth in holiness, and our desire for righteousness would grow like never before. And as we grow in knowing who we are because of we knowing who you are, I pray, as Second Peter said, that we would become increasing in our fruitfulness for you. I pray that all of the south end of Louisville, Valley Station, and PRP, they would know you’re at work here. They would know you’re alive here. They would know when they come here, they’re going to experience your presence. Move in our lives this year. Jesus, help us to be submitting to you and all that we do. Thank you for loving us. We love you, Jesus. Amen.