So excited for 2023 and all that God's going to do. And so today is called Victory Sunday. And the reason we're doing that is that we are celebrating all that God has done and that we are praying for all that God is going to do. And so this morning though, to share some exciting news and going back and forth, I'm gonna need a little help from you guys today. So if you get excited for something, feel free to shout an Amen. Um Clap a, a little bit. I know it's not common for us to interact here in the service, but it's OK if we can get a little more charismatic this morning. OK, just to interact with me here because we're gonna be sharing a lot of fun things and exciting things. If you're heckling, maybe not, maybe not that interaction but encouragement. I appreciate that as we go into it. No, I uh this last week spent some time up in Flagstaff with the family. I got to recharge and refuel and it was a lot of fun. Uh My, my wife loves to snow ski. My kids picked up snowboarding. I prefer snow falling. Um, both to watch and physically. That's what I do is I just fall, uh, I, I consider myself the buzz light year of the mountain. Um, I'm just falling with style. Ok. And, uh, I, I am still hurting quite a bit actually. Uh, I am not good at snow sports but, uh, my kids picked it up and I'm both proud of them and jealous because now my six year old daughter is way better on the mountain than I ever could hope to be. So, uh that was a lot of fun. But we spent that time rejuvenating as a family and really to spend that time being grateful for my family. But I also spent time just being grateful for my church family as well. And so today we're gonna do a lot of celebrating. But before we jump into what God is going to be doing here in 2023 we don't want to move into this new year so quickly that we don't stop to praise God and thank him for what he did in 2022. And so let's just start off right in the most recent thing here with Christmas. Christmas in all accounts was the largest uh activity or event or celebration. However, you wanna word it in the history of Mission Grove. Church. Amen. Yeah. What do I mean by that? Well, it's our largest in person gathering. We had 331 people here on Christmas Eve, we had another 398 p views online with the Christmas at home experience. Had 30. Yeah, we keep clapping for that. We had 39 1st time guests. And what I want really wanna hear some clapping on is that we had 29 people pray to receive Christ at our Christmas Eve services. Isn't that awesome? So 29 people there were following up with them. Uh super excited that we had another 22 other faith commitments, meaning like prayers, requesting prayer, recommitment, rededication, those type of things. So together, that's over 50 faith decisions just two weeks ago. And then last week while we didn't meet in person, we got to share the incredible faith story of the butler family. So if you know the butlers, they sit here normally in the front row, second service here. Well, you got to hear the heartbeat of Corey and Wendy and their kiddos as well. Who Wendy really? This idea of for six years of not being able to walk and battling charcoal and stuff. And then just around Thanksgiving here after a number of surgeries, if you've not seen their story go on youtube, not right this minute because you're in a service, but when you get home, go and watch it because it'll inspire you and encourage you because now she is walking. Amen. After six years, it is a walking miracle. Yes. So we're praising that as a about 250 people have watched that. So uh almost 1000 different interactions with the church just in the last two weeks. And so we're super excited and praying and praising God for what he's doing now. For our church. Our vision is to help every man woman and child experience Jesus. It's all about Jesus. It always has been and always will be. This is the DNA of our church. And so a vision defined as the living picture of a preferred future, meaning for every man, woman and child to experience Jesus. This is where we're going. This is what we're after. This is our why now the mission, some people use mission and vision. Same time I, how I define it is that vision is that living picture of where we're going. OK. The mission is how we get there. And it's what we're doing on a daily, weekly basis as a organization and as people. And so our mission as a church is to plant the gospel, grow in community and multiply through service and see we're seeing God move throughout this. And so, for example, last year we had eight baptisms that we celebrate that and you can see some photos there and we celebrate, we're clapping. Uh It was personal for me too. Got to baptize uh Carter, my middle son and that was so precious and sweet and so exciting there. We're seeing those, you know, 29 salvation decisions there at Christmas as a part of that. So we wanna plant and declare the gospel in our lives every single week. But not only are we planting the gospel. We're also growing in community. And this fall semester, we launched more growth groups than ever before. And so we actually have nine growth groups currently meeting that reaches over 100 and 60 people on a weekly basis. Amen. Isn't that awesome that we can clap for that, that we're growing together, that we are connecting. If you do not have a group, I invite you and encourage you and urge you to get plugged in because the Christian life is not meant to be lived alone. And more than just sitting in rows like we gather together, we sing, you hear the word of God preach. You can process through your life, but more than rose. Uh We invite you to be a part of a circle, a part of a community, a part of a family to know somebody to be known. This is where the transformation happens and it's not just listening to the words of God, but how you apply them in your lives and how you encourage others to do the same. This is where lives are changed. And that's why we don't just plant the gospel on Sunday mornings, but we encourage you to grow in community here throughout the week. Now, along with that, then we multiply through service. So if you follow the path of a seed, it's planted, it grows and then it multiplies to others. That's why we're called mission growth is that no single tree can make a growth, but a growth can start from just one tree. And the way we do that is that we multiply through service. And so you see all throughout the year, we have incredible opportunities to be for the community. And we say that because we believe God is for you, which means we are for you and together we can be for the community. We are changing the narrative of what the secular world thinks when they hear the word church. So many people, when they hear the word church define what they are against. But here at Mission Grove, we wanted to be defined by who and what we are for. That's why we've been serving the homeless going downtown. That's why we do these uh activities like fall festivals here with the Aviano community, whether it's the fireworks or Easter or blue bash. That's why we partner with schools. That's why we are, we provide a Christmas for a hope kids family or why we are buying gifts and supplies for the students at Echo Mountain. Um And for their teachers and you guys should know on top of what you guys gave at Christmas time, we're putting in Amazon gift cards on top of that uh for every single teacher that we're gonna get and we're gonna pass those out here this month to the Echo, the teachers and staff there at Echo Mountain. And one of our very own Lacy here is a part of that. So thank you Lacy for connecting us with that and for serving the kiddos every single week. So this is what it means to be for the community, looking for ways to serve, but not only do we do that here, we do that around the world. And so we had our, our first really official mission trip. We did a scout trip two years ago, but we took over 20 people down. We built a house for a family in Mexico. It was incredible. It was so much fun. We're gonna do that again in March. That's what you just heard about. But then also we began our partnership with the Timothy initiative. Now here in the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna show you some interviews that I got to do with the leaders. Now that one just, I'm giving you a heads up online audience. That one when we show the interviews that might have to stay in person because of the security risk for the people there. So you'll get to, it's an encouragement to be here. So you can see those interviews. But if you cannot make it to here and you wanna see the interviews that we're gonna show this month. Um fill out that next step form. Let me know and I can send you a secured link. We just can't post it publicly because there's some security stuff going on in the world. And so we're gonna show some of those over the next couple of weeks. I think you're gonna love it. But along with that church because of your generosity, we have planted just in 2022 320 churches in India and Nepal isn't that amazing? See, we're seeing God move in such mighty ways to help every man, woman and child experience, Jesus that we plant the gospel growing community multiply through service. This is how I try to live my life personally. This is how we try to live our life organizationally and this is what is going to bring victory in your life here in 2023. Now we talk about the crazy love project. This is what we launched there on our four year anniversary. And really the idea behind this is that we are compelled by the love of Christ to reach our community with the good news of the gospel. And I have some really fun updates to share with you. But to give an idea of where we're going in 2023 we got a little video playing. I want you, you can kind of see. This is Cape Creek Road. I'm gonna sit down so I can see it as well. Uh So you have Cave Creek Road just driving up here. You're gonna see um, I was in a small plane and I know it's a drone footage. Um, and, uh, and so then, uh, you can see this building here just at the corner of Cave Creek and Lone Mountain Road. Well, we've been praying for months and I've shared with some of you publicly and more detailed personally. Um, all the challenges that we faced with the negotiation with the lease with legal, with paperwork, uh, with permits with the city. There's a lot of stuff that goes in. If you've ever been in a building project, you understand that there's some challenges there. You can see this space. It's 11,444 square feet. It's just a couple miles up the road. So we're not going far. We're still here in our community. There's actually a space in the back that we're gonna turn into a community space. There's a playground already set up. Uh There's gonna be clouds rooms for students, classrooms for kids. There's gonna be a 200 to 300 seat auditorium, plus those classrooms, cafe area, generous lobby and all these things. Well, I shared with you on Christmas Eve that we got the keys literally days before Christmas Eve. But what I can share with you this morning the following week, our permits also came through. So after waiting for over three months, after waiting for over three months in seven days, we got both the keys to the building and we got permits for the city, we got insurance, they're going through. And the reason that's important and the reason I'm sharing all that is that construction for this project you ready for? It begins tomorrow, folks. Come on, let's go. We are beginning the project. Tomorrow it starts 7 a.m. We're gonna be there. The crew's gonna be in there. It's super exciting. Now, here's what I wanna do. If you are available to help, I don't need you yet because there's a lot of insurance and licensing and the things that need to go on first. But if you're available to help, can you let me know that? Like if you wanna help with demo, not just do you wanna swing a sledge hammer? I mean, that would be cool. Maybe we'll let you have that. But if you wanna help, if you're available, please put that in the comment section or prayer section or anywhere on this next step. Let me know. So that when we hear from our contractors, what we can and cannot do, they might not trust me with a sledgehammer, but uh I can reach out to you and follow up to you directly because the project begins tomorrow 7 a.m. So please be in prayer for that. Let me know if you want help with that. And here, what's it gonna look like? Well, actually we have a concept drawing up on the screen now you can kinda see and so it's gonna be modern, it's gonna be clean, it's gonna be fun. Uh, it's gonna be incredible and it's gonna be a space that we can call our own. Yeah. Amen. Right now. For those that are curious here or maybe newer to the church, this project's gonna take probably about six months or so. So it's gonna take a little bit. Right. It's pretty much a full remodel space, so we're not going anywhere right now. OK. So next Sunday don't just show up over there, ok? Um Don't just start hitting things with a hammer or whatnot. We're still meeting here, ok? Until you hear otherwise this is our gathering space. All right. And so we are excited for that. We're connecting to the community, but also with that, I haven't shared publicly any of the numbers that have come in. We've been putting out challenge cards. In fact, we, everyone who walked in with a bulletin received another pledge card. And so what we're doing today and the reason we're calling this victory Sunday is that for the first time here, we're gonna share with you where we're at in the project and we are praising God for all that he has done. And so first, we asked people to make a two year pledge 24 months and if you have not joined, I understand, I, I wanna give you the opportunity to do that today. That's why we have the pledge cards for everybody and understand too, that 10% of what we raise in this is actually going to local and global missions. And so I've already done that. We've already been giving away to missions uh what we bring in. So 10% we don't wanna be considered a tithing church, meaning that what you give, we also give to the community and to missions. And so that's why we say you don't just give to Mission Grove, you give through Mission Grove. And so for those that have pledged, thank you for those that are praying about thinking about it, man, jump in with us and for those that are like, man, I uh great another church talking about money. Look, this is not me asking something from you. This is me sharing exciting news for you because whether you give or not, you are welcome here, whether you give or not, we wanna preach the word of God. We wanna be the hands and feet of Jesus and we're gonna jump into God's word here in just a moment and I want something for you and because I love you and because I want something for you, this is what we're about. This is why we do it. This is why we celebrate the victory because compelled by the love of Christ. And so I'm not gonna give you a number behind it like I'm not gonna guilt you to that because I trust the Holy Spirit to do his work. And So I just want you to know. I am so grateful. That's really my posture is that I'm so grateful for those who give. And so I wanna share with you where we're at. See, we set two goals. We have a victory goal of over two years, the next 24 months to pledge 600,000. And then we called a miracle goal of 750,000. So the difference between the two is that 600,000, it's in the building. 750,000, we think can really more finish the building and get us to the spot where we can more effectively minister if you think about purchasing a home, the main thing is to get into the house, right? So, so sometimes you can get into the house. That's what that 600,000 number gets us to and then 750,000 helps us finish the house, build out the room so we can more effectively minister here to the community. And so so far church through three months. So we're not even, I mean, it's a two year program. We got a two year goal for three months right now. Can we get a little drum roll, please? A little drum roll here. We have pledged currently, we have pledged $521,303 already. We're only three months in church and we're going and that represents 57 pledges So thank you so much to those who pledged to that and committed to that. And not only have people pledged to this project into this campaign is that you have already been faithful to give. And because of your generosity is what allowed us to put down the deposit and down payment for the place. It allows us to pay for architecture. It allow us to pay for permitting and the down payment for our contractor. And because you give and because you have given already, this is what has allowed us to begin the project tomorrow. And so can I get one more drum roll please? That currently to date of the 521,000 pledge, we have already received $254,754 for this project. Amen. So we are just getting started. I mean, literally tomorrow seven am just getting started, but yet God has been so faithful. We're growing, we're reaching more people. OK? Our online presence have over 450 subscribers there. With that, we've had over 70,000 views online engagement with us there. We just coming off of our largest in-person service with the most salvation decisions ever. But I think truly the best is yet to come. The best is yet to come. I really believe that I really do and I don't think that's just something from me. I think that's something directly from the heart of God. And so I wanna pray right now and then we're gonna jump into God's word. And I, I think God's given me a word for our church today and I think God's given me a word for you today that I think if we apply this, that it can change your outlook to this new year. Will you pray with me, dear heavenly Father God? We just praise you for all that you've done From Christmas to the baptisms, to growth groups, to serving in our community, to planting churches in India and Nepal and missions all around the world to those who have just given so sacrificially and generously to this crazy love project. God. We understand that apart from you, we can do nothing but with you, God, nothing can stop us and anything is possible. And so God, for those that are here, I pray that we can just humble ourselves, be challenged and changed by your word. Yeah, you don't want. It's, it's not about the money out of our wallets. It's about the idol out of our hearts that you spoke the world into existence and that it's not wanting something from us, but rather giving something to us. And so as we approach this new Year, it is my prayer that we don't just simply live for victory, but rather God, we can live from victory that we already have in you. And so I lift up this church to you, we lift up this crazy love project to you and from wherever anybody might be watching or listening to this, we pray that you can work in our lives today. We love you God. It's in your sense and we pray. Amen. Let's get personal. Ok. That's some fun church business stuff that I'm excited about for those. I give, I hope you're excited about as well. But at, at its core, if God's not working in our lives, then what are we doing? All right, what are we doing? Like if we're, if we're not interacting with God on a personal basis, then how do we expect to be a light into this world? And so I want to ask you a question. Are you ready to experience victory this year? Are you ready to experience victory in 2023? If so, then I believe this to be true for taking notes. I want you to write this down this year. Choose courageous faith and consistent obedience. These two things I think can radically change the outlook of your year, courageous faith, consistent obedience. Another way to put it is big faith, risk taking bet the farm faith that you truly believe in the promises of God. But then small daily mundane obedience, right? Because your life isn't going to change when you feel something, your life changes. When you do something I've heard it said before that successful people do consistently. What normal people do occasionally James clear in his book, Atomic Habits puts it this way. He says people do not rise to the level of their goals. They fall to the level of those systems, your habits matter, obedience to God's word. It's not sexy. It's not crazy. No one might even see it. But those consistent steps every day, consistent small steps of obedience with big faith, belief in the promises of God. When you put those two together, the world has changed. But don't just take my word for it. You see, God has promised us victory. We find that in first Corinthians 15 verses 57 and 58 it says, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. See victory in Jesus. It says therefore, my beloved brothers be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain church. When you plant that seed, you might not see the harvest overnight, but it's time, right? It's time for victory. Story goes of a Chinese bamboo tree that those that are planted for the first five years. When you water it consistently and take care of the the soil consistently for five years, you might not see any growth. But in its fifth year, it can grow up to 90 ft in a matter of weeks. So when does it grow, does it grow 90 ft overnight or does it take five years? I don't think it's a coincidence that here we are church year. Number five. You ready? I'm go. I'm, I don't know if I'm ready to be honest. I think I'm ready but I, I'm praying church is our bamboo season. Let's go. Right. We're going for it. How do I know? Because God has already promised this victory. It says in first John 54, it says for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith. It doesn't say that your health. It doesn't say that your finances. It doesn't say that your popularity or reputation. It says your faith will be what makes you victorious. That's why we say that this year to choose courageous faith with consistent obedience, that it's your faith in the promises of God that leads to victory and to help you with that to get real practical as well as sharing with you at a deeper level. The passage that really defined this whole crazy love project. I wanna share with you five keys to victory. And these come directly from the word of God, not for me, but they come from second Corinthians chapter five in the beginning of chapter six. And you're gonna see the basis for this crazy love project. But more than just this project, I want you to have victory in your life. And more than just information shared from the stage. I want to see transformation in your life throughout the week. And it's courageous faith, consistent obedience. So the first key to victory in 2023 is our motive, our motive. If you want to have victory in 2023 you have to have the right motive and that motive being love. Second Corinthians chapter five, starting in verse 13. It says, if we are beside ourselves. In other words, if we're crazy, it is for God. if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us. Other translations use the word compels us. This is our motive. This is our motivation. This is our why says for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died and he died for all that, those who live might no longer live for themselves. But for Him who for their sake died and was raised. This is why we're going not to just build a building, not to just pat ourselves on the back, but to reach more people, for the kingdom, to reach more people with the news that Jesus rose again. This is our motive. What is your motive this year? If your motive is anything else, anything else other than love, I promise you, you're gonna fall short because love isn't a number. Love isn't just an outcome, but it is uh it's the reason we do it right. It's not always about numbers. Sometimes it's about health, right? If someone asks me and says, hey, John, how's your family doing? I don't go five. Right. Think about that for a second. Right. You, you do that as a church, at least church world, right? Oh, what do you do? I'm a pastor. Church. Well, how many people go? How do we right. Your job. How, how much business do they make? What's your profit? Was it? Right? I'm not like more successful or less successful with the number of people in my family. Really? It, but I'm motivated by love, right? There is quantity involved if you're in business and you're like, I don't know what I'm making. OK? You got other issues like so I'm not saying, don't know the numbers, just understand that there is quantitative, but there's also qualitative and it comes back to our motivation, which is love. The second key to victory this year is our mindset, our mindset and our mindset has to be one of a new creation. So our motive is love. Our mindset is new. This comes here in verse 16 and 17 says from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away and behold the new has come. We've shared this before. But in church world. So oftentimes we get identity and activity mixed up. You see, Saint is an identity. Sin is an activity. Sometimes we reverse the two. We think that I go to church. I read my Bible, I do this, I do this. This is, this is an activity. That's what it means to be a Christian. This activity, no, to be a Christian is to be a forgiven loved child of God that you did nothing to earn. It's called grace. This is your identity that there is nothing you could do for God to love you more. There's nothing you could do right now, for God to love you any less. And that you can approach the New Year, not just new year, new you, it's new creation, right? And so it changes everything that your identity is a child of God. That's why we can walk from victory, not simply for it. And then sin is an activity that we battle, we struggle. What Satan will do is that when we mess up, when we fall short, then that becomes our identity. Oh, I am my sin. I am my issue. I am my addiction. I am my worst moment. I am the worst thing that somebody did to me. I am a victim. I am this. No, you are not a victim. Church, you are victorious because you are a beloved child of God, a guy by the name of Saint Bernard. Uh Clair who wrote this it's a great quote here. It says in the first creation, God gave me myself, but in his new creation, God gave me himself by that gift, restored me to the self that I had lost. Not good. When God created the world He gave you. You right? You are unique. You are a snowflake. I always thought that was a weird story, right? Like you're a snow fake, it's you're unique. You get trampled on and disappear within moments, right? Think about it though in the first creation, God gave you yourself. You exist, God created you God thought of you said, yep, the world needs you. But in the new creation in salvation, God doesn't say self help. Hey, you're a better version of you. Not the old SNL sketch with Michael Jordan looking in the mirror. I'm good enough, right? And by golly, people like me, right? Like it's not that it's not self-help in the new creation, God gives you himself. So our motive is love. Our mindset is new. And then thirdly the third key to victory is our ministry. Our ministry really is reconciliation says in verse 18, it says all of this is from God who through Christ, reconciled us to himself, to reconcile means to restore, to original purpose. Think about that to, to restore to its original intended purpose. We had it perfect in the garden and we messed it up by chapter three and the entire Bible is filled with mistakes until God makes it finally, right? And in the last two chapters, so of the entire Bible, there are only four without conflict. That's not a good percentage. But the reason this is important, it says because he reconciled us to himself and then notice this and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So he saved us to himself. But then he saved us for something that we get to bring people to be restored to Him. It says verse 19 that is in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. If you have young kids, you have to understand the battle of entrusting them with something. Right. Right. Like you're hesitant to give them your phone or keys or anything, uh Don't break it. God gave us the keys to eternity. That's how much he trusted us. He knew all of our mistakes, all of our issues and saying I'm reconciling the world to me and I'm gonna invite you into that process so that through your passion, skills, desires, work ethic, you will be restoring creation, restoring relationships, restoring business and community and athletics and education and health care. God has called you into something so great because you get to restore creation to its original intended purpose. This is why our identity matters. This is why our ministry matters. So God gives us a new motive. God gives us a new mindset. God gives us a new ministry, but then fourth God gives us a new message. What is the message? What is it that we're sharing through what we say and do? What does it mean to love God and love others or read here in verse 19, it says that is that in Christ, God was recon reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. I wanna pause there for a second. We just read that verse. But why is it that if God is willing to not count their trespasses against people, why are we so quick to count them? Think about that for a second. God is willing to lay down his life as payment for the sins of others. And yet how many church people do you know that we are that are so quick to judge? And how many of us when we think about ourselves are so quick to judge, right? He says, no, that's not our ministry. It's a message of reconciliation. So what is it? Verse 20? Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God and it's not on the screen. But verse 21 I forgot to put on there that He continues on and he says, for our sake, he who knew no sin became sinner. God made him. He who knew no sin to become sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. This is the message, this is the good news. This is the great exchange. So we get to exchange our sin for God's righteousness, our Brokenness for God's blessing that this is the message that our world needs. Right now. I shared this with some of our church family a year or two ago, but we have a lot of new faces. So I I wanna bring this illustration back that did you know that any airplane or aircraft can be Air force one? Do you know that any aircraft can be air force one? Why? Because the call sign of air force one is not the physical attributes of the plane. It's a call sign representing that the president is on board. We think so highly of Air force one, the protection, the equipment, all these things, right? No, the the reason it's Air Force one is because the president is on board church. You are God's Air Force one that if you believe in Him, you have the presence of the Holy God living inside of you. You are God's Air force one. You are the temple, the living temple that embodies with the power of the Holy Spirit that we can reconcile the world to him and share the message that hope is possible. Forgiveness is possible, that love and purpose and joy is here, not in us but in Jesus. That if you really wanna have victory this year. It's not gonna be your profit or loss statement. It's not gonna be the weight gained or weight lost. You know, I, I have a goal to lose £20 and on a weekend I've only got 25 to go. You know, that's what happens, right? Courageous, faith, consistent, obedience. Last thing here, church, we have to understand that this is our moment. This is our moment. The time is now. Don't take my word for it though. Let's, let's let's look at the Scriptures. Second Corinthians chapter six verse one and two. It says, working together with Him. How cool is that by the way that we get to work with God? Like if you ever do a project with your kids, like I remember building the crib for Carter and Jackson when he was like four was trying to help me. He's like, yeah, I wanna build it and like he really just took a screwdriver and just started scratching up the thing and just banging it on the wall and then like, you know, you build it and we get done and Jackson goes, we did it. That's kind of like how our partnership is with God, right? Like God does all of the work and then we try to take credit for it, right? But here we see it working together with God. Then we appeal you to not receive the grace of God in vain says for he says, in a favorable time, I listen to you and in a day of salvation, I have helped you. Oh, I love this phrase right here. Behold. Now is the favorable time. Behold. Now is the day of salvation Church. What are we waiting for? I get it. Inflation is high challenges are tough. But I was reminded recently just Monday night of just how everybody needs God. I say that because if you're a sports fan and you were watching the Bills Bengals game Monday night and in a moment, DEMAR Hamlin stood up for making the tackle collapsed on the field and instantly a world became spiritual. You think about that? A billion dollar industry stopped in a moment and all people could think to do is to pray. And it wasn't just on the field, it wasn't just in the stadium. It was in the news, it was in the media and it was amazing to see all of a sudden this world that was so quick to forget God begging God to do something. Check this out. I was watching ESPN and I, I'm a sports nerd. Ok. This is who I am. Ok. And I love it way too much. I freely admit that. And a sports program that that's all about money and stats and agency and teams and predictions and betting and all these things. And a church service broke out in the middle of live television, check this out, go ahead and check this out. Football gave me everything, you know. And I think even through the midst of absolute tragedy last night, I think you saw some of the beauty of football as well that it's brought us all here together. Um, you know, like this is a little bit different. I heard, I've heard it all day like thoughts and prayers. You just heard Sheriff and Jonathan Allen say like all we can do is pray for him. And I've heard the Buffalo Bills organization say that we believe in prayer and maybe this is not the right thing to do. But I want, it's just on my heart that I wanna pray for Lamar Hamlin. Right, right now. Um I'm gonna do it out loud. I'm gonna close my eyes, I'm gonna bow my head and I'm just gonna pray for Him. Um God, we come to you in these moments that we don't understand that are hard. Uh because we believe that your God and coming to you and praying to you um has impact. We're, we're sad, we're angry. Um And we want answers, but some things are unanswerable. We just wanna pray, truly come to you and pray for strength, for DEMAR, for healing, for DEMAR, for comfort, for DEMAR to be with his family, to give them peace. If we didn't believe that prayer didn't work, we wouldn't ask this of you God. Um I believe in prayer. We believe in prayer. We lift up DEMAR Hamlin's name. And your name? Amen. Amen. Amen Church. I don't care what industry you're involved in. I, I don't care if it's the most secular thing. When you think of in a moment's notice people are gonna cry for God. What we do matters. Eternity is real. God is big. Life is short and we do pray for Tamar and, and praise God. He is his, his woken up. He's still in critical condition that he's talking with family. He had the face time with his team last night, I'm watching an NFL game and to see an entire stadium begin an NFL game in prayer. We're seeing posts. We're seeing tags. Why? Because people understand that they cannot save themselves. And while we celebrate the prayers and things for dear Hale, I also think about all the struggles people have. I think about the butlers, right? When Batling is still battling, I think about Bob Fankhauser who many of you know, later this month begins chemo, one of the founding members of our church who drove the trailer for over a year. This church begins chemo here in two weeks. How many of you know somebody who's struggling whose marriage is broken, whose finances are struggling, who maybe they had all the success of the world. But they're searching church. We don't have to search, we have victory in the world. It's not just against us here. We think it's like, oh, we're being persecuted. No, the world needs the gospel. The world needs Jesus. This is why we do what we do. This is why we gather. This is why we pray. This is why we sing. This is why we take communion. The reason I know we can have victory in 2023. It's because Jesus had victory 2000 years ago on the cross. And so what we're gonna do now is we're gonna sing. We're gonna open these elements. Top one is the way for representing the bread cup, representing the blood, open those elements. It might take a minute reflect on those. We're gonna take those together because it's through Jesus. We have victory this year. Dear heavenly Father. We just come to you. Yeah, we do pray for DEMAR Hanlon. We praise you that you saved his life. We got in the middle of that tragic moment. We are reminded of how our world needs you that we cannot save ourselves, that God, you have saved us and that through you, we can have courageous faith and consistent obedience and ultimately victory. Help us remember where that victory comes from as we take communion together. Amen.