What a strikingly handsome young man that was. Many, many say that he get his great good looks from his mom. And I agree that's true. If you haven't figured it out yet, uh. He gets his sweetness and his kindness from his mom, thank goodness, but he gets his sarcasm. That's right, pass that along nicely, didn't I? And his quirky sense of humor, you gotta blame half of that on me every time, so please try to be a little kind. I know, but good morning, Mission Grove. I'm, uh, just very pleased and honored to be here this morning and thank you for sharing your Sunday morning with us. If you're taking notes this morning, you can start by writing this down. 2 + 2 equals 4. Are we good? Can I wanna say it again? Do you want me to repeat that? Are we all right? And, and if that answer clears things up for you, I just wanna say you're welcome. Now what if, what if someone comes along and says, nah I don't like 4. Not my favorite number. What if, what if my truth is 2 + 2 equals 3? Yeah, I'm gonna go with that. And then somebody else comes along and says, no, no, no, no, 5 is a much nicer number than 3 or 4. My truth is gonna be 2 + 2 equals 5 and then you say after you fight the urge to say, well then you're just really stupid and you're just gonna quelch that and you calmly point out that 2 + 2 equals 4 really is a universal truth. It's unarguable, unarguable. How's that? It's an indisputable truth and why is this so important? Well, let's turn to one of my good uh philosopher friends, CS Lewis, who I love to read and CS Lewis said this. He said this equation is not just a simple fact. But it's an example of the underlying rationality of the universe, a rationality that reflects a divine order. What he's really talking about here in his book, The Abolition of Man, he's really talking about absolutes. And that we do have absolutes. And he starts with math and then he works into other areas and he said this leads him to a divine order which leads to a divine truth which in turn points to a divine creator as the source of all truth. We live in a world that doesn't wanna have absolutes. We live in a world that wants to get rid of absolutes because they wanna just live the way they wanna live. They don't wanna be held accountable. They don't want parameters. I will discover my own truth. I will decide what is right and wrong for me, so leave me alone. Have you ever heard somebody say that? And you say, you know that that's fine if you believe it, but that's not my truth. When did we start replacing the real truth with my truth and how dangerous is it? Very dangerous as we're about to see here this morning. uh, by the way, if you don't want to read the abolition of man, I understand that's for like theological nerds like John and myself, but the one I do wanna recommend from CS Lewis is a book called Mere Christianity. I think that's a must read for every new Christian seriously, it is so easy to read and yet so profound it's just a really fun read so mere Christianity, put that on your, your checklist to read. We've been studying the last few weeks of praying the right way and John has said this more than once from this stage we need to learn to pray kingdom down. Not culture up what does that actually mean? Well, we need to pray to a holy God to come down and teach us the way to live, not just offer our culture back to him and ask him to bless it, but we need to have God teach us the way because if you haven't noticed it friends, there's a battle going on in our culture over truth. Truth is taking a beating in the last few years. It's, it's just being bantered about like it's not important and yet it's very important. We've been talking about the Lord's prayer and the importance of learning how to pray, and that leads us to our theme this morning, praying in truth. Connecting our prayers to the one true God. You see, the erosion of truth can be directly uh tied to the decline of our culture, not just here in America but in other parts of the world as well. Jesus made this bold statement in John 14:6 when he claimed his deity, and he claimed it this way, he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Notice that when Jesus is making his strongest claim about being the true son of God, he puts truth right there in the middle. I am the way, the truth and the life. Jesus is really saying, look, either believe in me as the way, believe in me as the truth, believe in me as the life and accept then the path that it gives you to get to my father's uh uh offer of grace and redemption, no small thing, by the way. Or don't and lose out on the offer God has made to reconcile you with him and adopt you back into his family. Jesus understood that following God's truth is critical to building that solid foundation. Look what he said in John 8:31-32. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. Now watch carefully here, and you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free. Remember this is a time when when free meant a lot to the Jews because they were under captivity by the Roman Empire. And so Jesus saying, knowing the truth, you want to be free, Jews? Know the truth. The truth will set you free, which leads us to our big idea today if you're taking notes, and this is seriously taking notes this time, not just jokingly taking notes, but if you're seriously taking notes, here's the one to write down praying God's truth offers believers both a foundation and a freedom. Praying God's truth offers believers both a foundation and a freedom. Now it's a foundation on which we can build our life around. When we renovated this facility. Uh, there was one. Real big problem. I don't know if you were here when it happened. We have a, we have a beam on this left, your right side, and we have another one against the wall on your left side. And do you remember this? Who was here? We had a beam, right, right, Clark, right behind you there was another beam just right there. It was the biggest eye sore you couldn't walk in the room and not see that pole standing there in the middle of the room. And we, we debated it we, we, we met at on it and argued about it because taking that pole out would mean we'd have to replace the entire header beam and if you know anything about buildings, the header beam is the central piece that keeps the building from falling. Kind of crucial when you say? So it's like do we take that poll out? Do we spend the money because it was not cheap. I'm not allowed to share what it was. I wish I could. I'm dying to give you the number but it was not cheap. It was a lot of money, more money than you would think. And we just kept thinking, can we live with it? People walk in and hear the sermon and they'll be looking around and like, where's the preacher go, Oh, there he is. Oh, there he went. OK. Oh, there he is. We just decided we just can't live with this eyesore right in the middle of the auditorium. So we, we, we, we prayed about it we pulled the trigger, we spent the money they had to bring in, they had to custom make a new header beam. They, they sent the wrong one from California by the way, so they had to send it back, it delayed the construction again another month nothing else could happen until we fixed that and then they finally came in and did it and again I I'm just gonna say for the last time an enormous amount of money to to put that in, but was it crucial? Oh man, yeah. I mean you wouldn't want to be in this building without that headerbe. It'd be too dangerous, it'd be too scary. Building the right foundation is essential to having a building that won't crumble and fall. Christian friends, likewise, grounding your life in God's word is essential. To moving forward on the path of being a Christian. As opposed, uh, as opposed to finding your own truth. When you, when you ground yourself in God's word. It gives you more than this, but it gives you three main things. Let's put them up there, stability. Direction and strength. Stability, direction, strength, not only to make good decisions, but really helps in setting your priorities in order. What do I mean putting your priorities in order? Well, life, life is busy. Nobody argues that life is complicated. Life is sometimes out of control. Life has a good amount of uncertainty that comes with it in everybody's life. Nobody's life runs from A to B on a straight line on smooth, calm waters, nobody's life runs that way. There's always some uncertainty that comes with life. That's why it's so important as we get to our bullet points today, our first one is very crucial. Let God's word be your compass. Let God's word be your compass. Psalm 119 says it really well. You've heard this verse before, but it really applies here. Psalm 119 105 says, Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. What's so crucial about having a lamp into my feet and a light into my path? It really does two things. One, it keeps you from stumbling and crashing and hurting yourself. And 2, it shows you, it shows you the path forward. Now maybe you haven't done this in your life, but it sure has happened more than once in mine where you get up in the middle of the night and you have to go across the living room, but it's dark and you don't want to bother your spouse you don't wanna turn any lights on or maybe you're too stubborn to turn any lights on because we're guys and that's what guys do, right? I've walked through this room 100 times. I know where everything is. I can, I can do it with my eyes closed, which is basically what I'm doing because it's pitch dark out. And as I'm halfway across the room, bow right into a piece of furniture goes my toe, right? And it happened to anybody else or am I alone here in this? Yeah, and you just feel like an idiot that you didn't turn a light on, right? And I. I've even had to go to the emergency center. I've done some stupid like that. Talk about embarrassing. That's what light does. It keeps you from hurting yourself. God's word keeps you from, from hurting yourself. And it also points the arrow where you should go. That's why it's so crucial that you spend time in reading, studying, learning from God's word. It's like reinforcing your inner structure to withstand the uncertainties of life. It's like putting that header beam in your own life. To withstand the uncertainties of life. I have friends in Florida. They live in the hurricane zone. They'll get hurricane warnings and a few here from here and there. We lived in Florida years ago and I'm uh in Hurricane Andrew, which wiped out a whole city. It was like a 1 mile wide tornado basically if it had turned 2 degrees north, it would have gone right over where we were living so we were in the evacuation plan and we had to put up hurricane shutters on our windows. Why did they do that? It is to prepare For the, the uncertainties of life, the people in LA are are finding this right now too. I have a bunch of graduates that live in LA and work in LA I've, I've touched base with a few of them. Some of them sur most of them survived with their house intact because they were in an area that didn't get the fires, but some of them lost their homes. And now they're really, really, really paying attention to how you fireproof your home when you rebuild, don't you think that it's gonna be a priority? Why? Because it's crucial. Moving forward. So let's focus on the obvious. If you wanna be in the middle of God's will. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, if you wanna live a life that's not chaotic, but is organized and even peaceful. And maybe joyful, take the time to invest in God's word let God's word be your compass now I know the arguments because I've used them myself. I will, Lord, when I'm not so busy Lord, you and I are gonna have a great devotions together. Why, Lord, when these things take care of this and I'm done with my to do list over here and my my obligations over here, I'm gonna have some devotions. I will, I I I will, I promise. There's just Too much going on and I simply don't have the time, really. Really Let's play a game. Let's play a game of what if. Let's say that I love your company. I love spending time with you. Uh, not in a weird stupid way, but in a nice mentoring, consultant way. I would just like 10 minutes of your, your day. I'm willing to pay you for those 10 minutes because I love being with you for 10 minutes. I will pay you $1000 for those 10 minutes of your time. No, I'm kidding, you're not worth $1000. I will pay you $200. Uh, maybe some of $1000 I don't know, but let's say I'll pay you $200 for 10 minutes of your time. How many of you in the next week could find 10 minutes for me for $200? If you don't raise your hand, I'll be insulted. Oh, we're not paying that for you. You gotta pay us more than that, right? What if we did it every day? Oh, What if every day that you take 10 minutes out with me, I'll pay you $200. Got your attention now. Think about the math, OK? I know some of you aren't that good at math, so I'll do it for you. If you do that kind of math, that's an extra $6000 a month in your pocket. For 10 minutes a day. Could you find 10 minutes for $6000 a month? If I have a sign up sheet out there, would there not be I say, I'll do it with the 1st 10 people who sign up. Would there not be a rush to sign up those 1st 10 people? Now maybe you're just too rich and you don't need the money. I don't know, maybe I'm just not that important and you just can't do it for that kind of money. But I bet you that $6000 a month would help? Am I right? Can I see some, yes, OK. You see, the point is It's not a time problem. It's a motivational problem. If you only understood the value of spending 10 minutes with your heavenly Father each day. I promise you that 10 minutes with your heavenly Father is worth more than $6000 a month. I promise you it is. That investment in God's word yields stability. Direction And strength How much is that worth in your life? You know, we're we're losing the battle to the generation that will follow us. We're losing it. Very little stability Could use more direction, right? How many have teenagers in their home. We call it the scary years. Ready? Dun dun d. My son's a teenager. My daughter's a teenager, right? Whole new chapter. Hey, parents, pretty soon they're gonna drive. Legally with a license, oh my, my, my, my, that's a big day, right? scary big day. They're gonna start dating. Oh my, oh boy, here we go. Right? It's a scary time. Listen to these alarming statistics from a survey of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 years old and tell me, tell me if social media hasn't had a negative influence on their lives, OK? 88% of teenagers think it's OK to have sex outside of marriage. 88% No big deal. Sure, why not? Wow. Don't think that'll lead to some problems. 80% think homosexuality is just fine. Leave them alone. Responses included, who cares, let them live the way they want, who am I to tell them how to live. 80% no problem with it whatsoever. Question, how old were you when you were taught that it's wrong to lie? Well, that one's out the window. 66% of teenagers think that if you can get ahead. You can do something that makes your life better, you can do something that makes your life happier. It's OK to lie to get it. 2 out of every 3 teenagers don't have a problem using the lie to benefit from. And those are the safe statistics. Now it's starting to get scarier. 55% of teens say they're often mentally stressed or have feelings of depression. That's over half. 42% will be diagnosed with a mental disorder before the age of 18. Ouch. 13% of high school students have had a major mental breakdown and needed some kind of professional counseling, 13% before the age of 18. And then we get to suicide rate, and I'm not even gonna tell you the stats on that because they're too scary. Let me just say that the rate of suicide has doubled for teens in the last 10 years and that suicide is now the second leading cause of death among teens. Car accidents are number one. And finally when they were asked who they trust. To give them the answers if they have a problem. Do they have someone that they can rely on? And that they can trust 82%. 82% of teenagers say they cannot trust anyone. Wow We are losing a nation of teenagers. Because we have accepted throwing away the absolutes of God's word. Paul warned us about this in Romans one, he warned us about a society that searches for its own truth. He warned us about a society that searches for its own right and wrong. He warned us about a society that takes pleasure in doing evil and then not only does it but brags about it. Think I'm kidding? You know, pride used to be a bad word. Proverbs talks about it as a disgrace. Pride is a disgrace. But now it's something to be celebrated. It has its own parade. It has its own month, yippee, we get to celebrate our differences. Wow. Paul warns about this in Romans 1, you can read it for context and get it later in its context, but I'll just go to verse 32, the last verse. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these things but also approve of those who practice them. This breakdown, this, this finding your own truth, you ever heard someone say, well that might be fine for you, but that's not my truth. When did my truth replace the truth? This way of thinking permeates everything, television, movies, social media, podcasts, music. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. You ever heard that one? Marketing genius. Because there's no accountability. That's what the phrase is saying. They're saying, hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Come to Vegas. You'll be free to be as evil and depraved as you want and with no consequences. Wow. Don't tell me that doesn't appeal to someone's sinful carnal nature. Uh, honestly, that slogan is just a bunch of horse doo do, really. Can I say horse do do in church? I just did. How do we fight back? How do we fight back with the culture that wants to eliminate God from the conversation? They don't want to argue about God and what he does and what he doesn't. They want to eliminate God from the conversation. What does God's word lead us to do? How do we, how do we get back to following God's compass? Well, one step we have to take is in Ephesians 6. We have to put on the armor of God. We have to put on the armor of God. It lays it all out in Ephesians 6:10 to 18. We're not gonna take the time to read it, the helmet, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword. We don't have time to read it, but it starts with this, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Be strong in the Lord. And in the power of his might. How do we become strong in the Lord? How do we become strong in the Lord? How do we become strong in the Lord? We need to build up our faith muscles. We need to build up our faith muscles. How do we do that? By sitting in church once a week and being a good listener. There's a story about an old guy who was visiting a health club. And he would come in every day for weeks at a time and he would just go sit in the corner in a chair and he would just watch other people work out. Sometimes he sit there for an hour, an hour and a half, and he just sit there and watch everybody work out. Finally, the, the owner of the health club said I gotta find out what's going on with this guy. So I went up to him and he said, sir, are you OK? Can I help you? And the guy said this, he said, Well, you see my doctor told me if I want to live longer I need to visit this health club every day for a year. So here I am. How silly is that? And yet I know Christians who live their Christian life like that. They sit in the corner, watch others. You have to make the investment. You have to feed your faith muscles. You need to step out and and spend time in reading the Bible and get in the habit of having daily devotions, spending time in serious prayer, spending time with other believers, it's so obvious it shouldn't even have to be said. It's like advice for dieting. There's a 1000 books on dieting and they all come down to the same two things, you know what they are? Eat better, exercise more, boom, I should write a book. The title of my book Eat better, exercise more. Open the cover first page it says. Hey moron, eat better, exercise more. Page 2. Did you not see what was on page 1? That's all my book would say. Eat better, exercise more, it's so obvious. Folks, you gotta make the investment. It doesn't happen by osmosis. It doesn't happen by just watching other people do it any more than it than you exercise by watching an exercise show on television as you're sitting on your couch. You have to make the investment. Let God's word be your compass. Second, let God's people be part of your journey. Let God's people. Be part of your journey. We're not meant to go it alone. We're not. That's not God's plan for us to go isolate ourselves and to be by ourselves. Now there are times when you wanna do that and it's wonderful. Jesus did it for 40 days. It was a good thing. But we're wired to seek out relationships. We're wired to connect with other people on a level of friendship and beyond. We're wired to to form bonds with other people. Can it be challenging at times? Oh yeah. Can it lead to serious disappointments sometimes? Oh yeah. Can it lead to heartbreak? It can. But when it works, When it works, When you connect to another human being on a friendship level or if you're even luckier than that and it's on an intimate level, oh man. There's so much joy that can come from that. True joy, not just temporary happiness, but true joy. What's the Hallmark card? I love this. Life is not about the number of breaths you take, but the number of moments that take your breath away. We are not meant to be alone. There is strength in numbers. And can I just encourage you. To join a group. It's like strands of a rope. You know the strand of a rope, just take one strand away from the rope and all of a sudden the rope's not very strong. That strand is not strong enough to do much at all, won't hold anything, won't lift anything. But you start weaving together several strands of rope and all of a sudden the rope becomes stronger and then you take those strands and weave them together with somebody else's strands of rope. Oh man, now we got a strong rope. That's how ministry works too. There's strength in numbers. You know, here at Mission Grove, you, you actually have a VIP pass. There's no annual dues. You have a VIP pass to a host of other opportunities to plug into. Let me just name a few. There's Grove Gals. I hear great things about Grove Gals. I am not a member of Grove Gals, but I hear great things about it. They haven't invited me and that's OK. They have men's ministry with Pastor Dan, they have Tuesday night youth group, they have kids ministry, they have Grove Kids. They have soul care. They have prison ministry, community service groups, volunteer groups, small group, Bible study groups, worship night at Jose's house on Friday nights. Just find one. Plug in Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that you're here on a Sunday morning. I am thrilled that you're here on a Sunday morning. I was, I was with Mission Girl from the beginning by the grace of God. I moved out here the very same year they started. And I remember being at Wildfire and some of you that were with us at that time, you also remember we would literally start services where we could name everybody in the audience by name. Because it wasn't a lot of people. Uh, welcome, good morning to Bob and Rose and Jared and Sherry and Clark and Paige. With the 6 of you please stand as we start our music this morning. I'm not making that up. Sometimes we'd start services with 4 people, 5 people, 6 people, and now here you all are. I'm so thrilled. That you have made Mission Grove part of your Sunday morning. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But don't just make the Sunday morning your only connection with Mission Grove. Amen. Plug in somewhere else outside a Sunday morning. And start putting those gifts to work. The one thing I do know because I know a lot of you is that God has gifted you in some way. He really has. Each of you here this morning has been gifted with something that's more than average. Some of you have gifts that are better than most, some of you have gifts that are even exceptional in some way. Some of you are really good with organization plug in there. Some of you are good with numbers, we need help there. Some of you have the gift of hospitality, some of you are really good in music, some of you are gifted in working with kids. Some of you are great at coding using HTML. If you don't know what that means, stay away from that one, OK? And some of you, maybe one, I don't know, have even have the gift of understanding crypto. Because I don't, I don't know anybody that does, but maybe you do. I don't know. And you don't have to be perfect to be useful, you understand that? Because I know that the excuses often is, well, I'm not good enough. I, uh, no, I'm not good enough. Hey, God uses imperfect people all the time. To carry out his will all the time. Look at your Bible, you'll see it all throughout the Bible. Moses, Mosses, the leader of the Israelites out of captivity. I mean he's on the, he's on the Mount Rushmore of of Bible characters, right? Did you know that he killed an Egyptian and had to flee for his life for years and years and years? God used him anyway. King David Who has a lot of attention in the Old Testament. Killed one of his best soldiers because he slept with his wife in adultery. To disqualify him from being used by God, he did not. Was it painful? Did he learn? Yes. He ended up writing some of the greatest Christian poetry of all time. Peter denied Christ not once, not twice, 3 times. was so embarrassed and so ashamed. Jesus said, hey, hey, hey, hey, I still got plans for you. And on that rock he built his church. Peter was one of the most instrumental disciples after Jesus was crucified and rose again. And the writer of the New Testament. Don't look into his past too carefully. When he was Saul, he was the top persecutor of believers. Had believers stoned to death. You'd think that would disqualify him from Christian ministry. But God said, nope. I got plans for this one. Struck him down Saved him Became Paul the Apostle. The writer of most of the New Testament that we enjoy and read today. Friends, you don't have to be perfect to be used by God. Your vessel doesn't have to be in perfect working order. Just plug in somewhere. God is so good, he will, he will call you where you, where you fit. Let me ask you this question, how high can you jump? What? If you jump. To the best of your ability, and we can't fit a piece of paper between your foot and the floor. God is not calling you to dunk a basketball to make your living, OK? You hear what I'm saying? If you get, uh, if you're so bad at singing that you can't sing two notes in a row without one of them being off key. Just, just pass on the worship team. We'll we'll find somebody else for you to plug in. God, God doesn't call you where you're not gifted. If you're not good at speaking in front of others, he's not gonna call you to be a motivational speaker. God doesn't mock his people. He, he, he gifts them into areas that they're good at and useful at. What are your gifts? What do you take joy in doing? Plug in somewhere that helps us as a team at Mission Grove to carry out our mission that's helping every man, woman and child to find Jesus. What's that song? Maybe I can't speak like Moses, but I can be like Aaron holding up Moses' hands. Ah, let, let God's word be your compass. Let the people be part of your journey, get connected, by the way. And then finally, the 3rd bullet point today, the real key to making this recipe work, and I just turned to one of my, my theologian friends, Burt Bacharach for the answer. Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Burt Bacharach. What the world needs now is Thank you, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just. Too little of, right? Bert got that one right. Let God's love lead the way. Let God's love lead the way. If we're gonna affect our world at all for the cause of God's kingdom, we need to let love and kindness lead the way. There'll be justice in the world, there will. God will deal with sinners. We're not called to be the punishers of sin. That's not our calling. WWJD, you know what that stands for? WWJD what would Jesus do? Let's look, John 13. What would Jesus do? Jesus in John 13:34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. We need love and kindness to lead the way. We really do. We're not called to be the judge and jury. We're not called to be the punishers of other people's wrongs. God will take care of that. We're called to love them like Jesus loved them. We're not called to be racist. We're not called to think of ourselves as being superior to others. Racism really bothers me. Really bothers me. I don't get it There's only two kinds of people in the human race. I can break the human race down into 2 groups. You ready? Sinners who were saved by grace. And sinners who still need to be saved by grace. That's it. The whole human race, we're all the same. There are people that are saved by grace, and there are people that still need to be saved by grace. There it is. You find someone who claims to be a Christian and as a racist, you better challenge their heart because by definition, they're not. You know the opposite of love. Yeah, you do. What's the opposite of love? Hate. Hate is a powerful tool used by the devil. You know what's found inside the deep bowels of hate, anger and bitterness. Warren Wisby said it best, he said, if you hold on to that anger and that bitterness for too long, it'll eventually become your master. You'll become a slave to your anger. Is that how you want to live your life? I don't think so. Do you want to live your life as a slave to anger, or do you want to live your life in truth and be set free? Jesus said. You will find the truth, and the truth will set you free. This is why Pastor John did a sermon on forgiveness. Forgiveness is such a big part of the recipe. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Free to be a vessel, imperfect, sure. But still vessel used by God. Holding on to God's truth, holding on to God's word. It gives you that foundation. Where you can be useful. As one of the adopted in God's family, friends, we're in a battle with our culture today. We have to put on the armor of God. I'm sorry, you don't get a choice here. Either you're with God or you're not, and either you're in the either you put on the armor of God or you're against him. I mean, there's no, it's not like you get to choose. I don't, I don't want, I don't wanna be part of this battle. I, I don't want to go to war with the culture. You don't get a choice, it's upon us. Just like those fires were upon the the people in LA there's no choice, you fight it because it's there. The erosion of our culture it's right there in front of us the next generation of teenagers is slipping away from us. Come on Let's not let that happen. Amen. Let's fight back. Let's put on the armor of God. Let's build up our faith muscles. Let's band together. Let's lean on each other for comfort and support and strength and strategy. And don't forget to let love lead the way. Let's use our kindness and love to help those who need to find Jesus. Amen. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Oh Lord, if if this if this if this were something that we had to be worthy to get, we would just be so lost. There is nothing worthy about us, Lord, we are sinners. Isaiah says we're like a rotting corpse. We are so dead in our sin. Lord, we need to be brought back to life by the saving grace of your Son Jesus Christ, and we thank you for that. We thank you for that, and we thank you for the people here at Mission Grove, the many who are already out there actively plugging in, connecting somewhere to really help Mission Grove reach their mission, and that's to introduce Jesus to our entire community around us. Lord, help us. Help us to put God's word forward as our compass to build our foundation to build up our faith muscles. And then to let love lead the way. And we will trust you for the results. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.