All right, so I am a little bit or maybe a lot emotional because it was 30 years ago this weekend

that a handful of people, many of you, met for the very first time in a two-car garage.

And today, here we are three decades later, celebrating God's faithfulness, God's goodness, God's power, God's

grace as Jesus has been building God's church. And today I celebrate the presence of God, the goodness

of God, and honestly, I celebrate every single one of you,

every life that has been changed, everyone that's prayed faithfully, everyone that served and used

their gifts, everyone who's given toward the work of God. People say, did you ever expect any of this

to happen? And the answer is no. And if you told me it might, I probably would have run for the hills because it exceeds anything I ever dreamed possible. And so it's this time of the

year that we tend to look back just at our own lives. I'm doing that in the church. And we tend to

look forward and we evaluate where have we been and where is God calling us to go? And if you're like most people, you're probably

looking at your life right now, you might be making some goals moving forward. I'm doing that in my

life and in the church as well. You might set goals to eat better this year. You might set goals to

maybe eliminate debt. You might set goals to strengthen your marriage. All are really, really

good goals. But I want to raise the question today, what if our greatest goal this year

wasn't just to improve our lives, but what if our greatest goal were to please God above anything else what if the driving desire

the cry of our hearts is to live in such a way that our greatest goal is to please God

it was Paul who said this in 2 Corinthians

5 verse 9.

He said, so whether we're here in this body

or away from this body, say it with you,

what is our goal?

Our goal is to please God.

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