That’s My Job

Message Transcription

How are we doing this morning? That was not a rhetorical question. Church How are we doing this morning? We're getting closer to school, starting all of that fun stuff. If you're a kid who just heard that, cover your ears. It's not really happening. All of that good stuff. Well, I've been in and out over the last few weeks and so thankful to get the opportunity to be up here in front of you this morning and to just see your bright, shining faces. One of my good friends, Chandler Coleman, always said, I love seeing your bright, shining face. Even on a day where I was downcast and trodden and beaten down by the world. It was always good for Chandler to see my bright and shining face. I want to have I have an ask of us church and this is a really important thing for me and it's a really important thing for our staff and for our elders. So over the summer we've had a handful of different guest preachers and different things like that. Carl and his family have been on vacation, resetting and recharging for another school year, sending a child off. And then this week, he's going to go on a study break for what we expect to be the thrust of what comes from the pulpit over the next few months in this next year. That's a pretty hard task to sit with God for that long and to try and discern what he's speaking to our church.

So this week is he's studying on his break and we're all doing these different things among our body. Would you be praying for Carl? Would you be praying for our staff? And would you be praying for our elders as we seek the vision of this next year of what ministry looks like through Broadway, Church of Christ, of how we're going to pursue God, how we're going to build community, and how we're going to unleash compassion. And one thing that I have loved about this summer series is that, man, we've heard some from some really good people. Amen. David Frege, Josh Haynes, Keegan Stewart. These were all really great sermons, in my opinion. In fact. Josh Haynes I love Colossians three when I signed my emails, it's Colossians three, 12 through 14, and Josh Haynes stole that verse from me before I had a chance to grab it, which is probably for the best, which means you have to stretch yourself into other scripture. And so as I was beginning, looking through, you know, what text is left in this Epistle series is greatest hits, and I'm not much the musical guy. The songs that I do know or the songs that I know, they're outside of my periphery. So when Gary Moyers comes through the office and is singing random songs or theme songs or quoting movies, I'm like, Yeah. And I watched Moneyball last night. Like, that's the extent of what I kind of do, right? Or I, you know, I just don't have the purview that a lot of these guys have.

And as I saw first Timothy four, I thought, surely I'm not going to get stuck with first Timothy four. So I say, Carl, let some people pick some other verses. And little did we know first Timothy four There it is. And I told myself, I don't want to pigeonhole myself into the don't let anyone look down on you because you were young. But set an example for the believers in life and love and faith and speech and impurity. Do you want to know why? For those of you who are visiting or joining us online, I'm the youth minister, which normally means that when a verse like that pops up, Brian speaks to our youth about this one verse. Don't let people look down on them because they're young. We do a lot of that equipping in our classroom. We even try to do it a little bit more this morning and today we're going to talk about a lot more that mentorship relationship. Most of the times I've had the opportunity to stand up here, it's been a Paul letter to Timothy, which I think is one of the most important relationships in all of the Bible, one that we can look at today, whether you are the mentor, whether you are the mentee. And we're going to talk about some really good mentors and mentees in cinema today.

I've got some stories for you guys. We'll be in for it today. I just got really loud all of a sudden. So let's talk about this. Whenever we talk about establishing a relationship today, I think there's probably five things that are really important as we seek to have any kind of relationship. So whether this is you with your spouse, you with your sibling, you with your boss, these things are all extremely important. The first is we want to have open communication. If something's going on in my life, I need to be able to tell Sarah about that thing. If I'm really excited about something, if I'm really angry about something, and that's what makes our relationship work sometimes. We're not always great about that, but we have this open avenue of communication that says if something is we need to hit the panic button, let's go ahead and do that. In any relationship, you need to be open and honest about the things that are going on in your heart, in your mind, and in your soul. This morning we talked about loving God with our heart, our soul and our mind as we were up in Bible class. And that soul is the core of who you are. And you have to be open about what's going on in that part. The heart and the soul or the heart and the mind affect the soul in many different ways. Second thing you need to do is develop people skills.

Some of us are introverts. I'm not one of those people. Some of you would be just fine to work from home, from your kitchen table for your whole life, and you don't really need to develop those people skills. I'll input data into this computer. I'll chat with people online in the virtual box. If you're one of the virtual box people, I'm sorry, that's got to be like the worst job in the world. It's got to be really hard to deal with these really frustrated people who are having Internet issues or all these different things. We need to be able to develop people, skills, respect and appreciate others. Like raise your hand if you've struggled with respecting and appreciating others in the last week. I have. And if you're not raising your hand, you might be lying. But that's okay. Respecting and appreciating others. Even when you look different than me, when we come from different backgrounds, when you say things different than me, if we have this different belief, I need to be able to respect and appreciate the viewpoint to which you're bringing that. The fourth and I had some adults and some students roll their eyes at this one this morning, accept support and be supportive. It is really easy to be supportive if you're like me. My dad was my coach growing up. My dad tried really hard for me to be a good baseball player and a good basketball player.

My dad knew a lot of stuff. I didn't know much stuff and I really didn't know how to be a good basketball or baseball player. But I tried my darndest for five days a week. I dressed up in baseball outfits or basketball uniforms, and I tried really hard, and then I even tried to play tennis. That didn't work out too well. But you know what I always was? I was always a supportive teammate, mostly because I sat on the bench most of the time. But that's beside the point. But whenever someone comes to us and says, This is the support that I need, it's really easy for us to give that. But when the roles are reversed just a little bit, Hey, I'm here to support you. Nope. I can do this on my own. I'm going to cowboy this thing until I can't do it anymore. I'm going to fake it until I make it. And a lot of us live lives just like that. And then the fifth thing, be positive. There have been a couple of things going on in our world lately. Some of you might be like, I can't be positive about gas prices. Yeah, they're going down, but I still hate that I have to spend that much whenever I fill up my tank. It's really hard to be positive about the world that's around us. It's a challenge. And so Paul is writing to Timothy. He writes to him multiple different times.

And so he's saying, Timothy, you're one of my most respected, well sought after and educated coworkers. I trust you. Which is crazy, because Timothy is this really young guy. It's like letting your 25 year old youth minister stand up in front of the pulpit on a Sunday. That's so little crazy, right? But Paul is telling him and encouraging him, you can do this. I wouldn't have sent you the gift of the Holy Spirit, wouldn't have been put on you. Could you not handle the task that was here in front of you? So as this letter begins, Paul is telling Timothy that his principal task, the main concern of this letter is to counter those who propose false doctrine. And I loved this word. This was in a commentary, fanciful speculation, not just speculation, but fanciful. Dressed up in a certain way to make us. Not challenge the validity of it. Oh yeah. At face value I can take that thing and I can run with it. I can fit it into this orifice that I've got going on here. Timothy's job is to fight on godliness, so in the spiritual realm, he's already got the world's hardest issue. And then on top of that, he's a young guy trying to help install church elders. He's a young guy trying to lead this church, and they're all looking at him like, I just don't even know if you've grown any facial hair, son.

Have you ever shaved before in your life? I imagine that's probably the looks that Timothy is getting at some level in these churches. And so these are the things that he's fighting. And this verse that we've got up here, this was my mom's favorite verse all of the time, right next to the do nothing without grumbling and complaining verse. My mom was one of those people who had the verse of the day right by the door. And I swear she flipped between this those two verses. So I would see it every morning before I went off to school. I have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales. Rather train yourself to be godly. Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. Silly Miss, let's all think about some silly myths that we've heard in our life. I will never forget this. When I was in kindergarten or first grade, this guy comes up to me and he had just swallowed his gum. Everybody know where I'm going with this, right? This kid goes, Do you know that when I'm 14, my gum will finally be digested? And then you're like, Huh? Where'd you hear that from? He's like, my mom told me. Oh, cool. So I sat here thinking, what are some myths that I've heard in my life? Well, when I heard that one, I thought, you know what, I'll just go ahead and Google this.

So I'll get to good old Google. And guess what, guys? It's a lie. The Mayo Clinic says that it just goes straight through you. So the next time you sit down to do some business, the gum is coming with you. It's not going to take seven years. So don't scare your kids by telling them that that gum is going to get caught somewhere in their intestines. It's a lie. It's not true. The Mayo Clinic says that it's not that it is true that it will just go right past you. A second one that I heard probably in the same sitting. And this guy wasn't a reliable source. Like, let's be honest, I probably shouldn't have been listening to this kid, period. It was also first grade. Hey, Brian, did you know that if I took a penny and I dropped it off of the Empire State Building and it hit someone's head, they'll instantly die. And I was like, Wow. Well, that's like a really tall distance in a penny. It's like a really small thing. Yeah. Brian, you know those weekly readers that we have, I read it in that and you're like, Oh, well, if it's in The Weekly Reader and they hand it out to everybody at school, surely this is true. My little seven year old heart broke again this week. So here's the truth of it. That is false. It is too small and too flat to gain enough momentum to create a fatal impact.

So if Gary Moyers and I if I was on top of the Empire State Building and I dropped a penny on Gary Moyers, it ain't going to fatally kill him. But it might hurt him. He might get like a big old scratch on his arm or his head or something like that. We're not 100% sure, but Gary Moyers is not going to die if I drop the penny off of the Empire State Building. And I just took those things at face value and it took me 18 years to actually challenge the validity of those things. And I know some of you are probably sitting in the room right now like, all right, so sorry, honey, the rest of my afternoon is going to be spent on Google figuring out what is true in my life versus what is not true. You're going to rediscover the Internet in a whole new way today. I think part of this is just generally due to our laziness. There's hard work that goes towards discerning the truth of what God is calling us to. I was sharing with our students about the time that I was trying to figure out what the next move was. Art was for our family as Barrett was born and all of these things I told Sara, Here's the guidelines of what I think that we might want. And this was six or seven months before I had heard from Broadway.

And so I was like, Well, this will be a lot of time. And it started going down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And then surely after a few months, you're like, I didn't hear from God. So that means nothing happened. About the time as I was driving home that day with that conclusion, I got a call from a512 number and I said, I don't know anyone from Austin. Hung up the phone. And then like 2 minutes later there's a voicemail and it's Karl and we're just like, Oh, okay. So. Now we're going to talk. They're going to challenge the validity of what God is trying to do. Even though I spent six or seven months challenging the validity of what he was trying to do in our lives, and when we become lazy and not do the hard work to discern that truth, I think we just kind of become like the zombies, right? Like you see in these. Tv shows and movies the kids are out doing. Like, if you're like a Stranger Things person, they're off fighting aliens and stuff. And the dad's at home complaining about the news anchors hair being weird or something like that. It's like, What are you doing? Your child's out fighting aliens and monsters from other dimensions, but you're sitting here and you're just flipping the channels through the news or you're trying to find the ball game. In all of these things, we become a slave to what is convenient and easy.

And we just become people who are obsessed with clicking to the next channel and finding the next thing. Oh, that product right there, that'll make me lose £50. Surely. I'll just take that. It worked for this person. It worked for this person. And we don't necessarily always do hard work or training of ourselves. We go ahead and throw up the wonderful picture up there, Miss Ashley. I think we all know who this guy is, right? This is Dwayne The Rock Johnson. This guy makes the most money in all of Hollywood and. All right, kids, I put this one up here, this specific picture of the rock. Who is this guy? To the right of the rock. This is Maui, right from the wonderful movie Moana. And he's this God, and he can destroy anything, and he can do all of these things. Now, I'm not telling you, physical training is of no value. You could look like that if you put in the hard work, if you ate like 3000 calories and if you worked out all the time. Physical training is of some value. Yes. Paul is not telling Timothy in this letter. Physical training is of no value. It is of some value, but not one of those things that is actually going to provide you eternal value. Godliness. Holiness are things that are going to provide eternal value. And in this, Paul is challenging Timothy as well.

Do you ever think about that? He might just be writing a some form of encouragement. Go get him, dude. You can do it. Except Paul probably wouldn't have called Timothy. Dude. 25 year old youth minister. I call people dude. So I'd be like, Go get it, dude or man or bro, try to cut those out of my vernacular as I get a little bit older. But he's challenging him saying, Timothy, because you were young. Because you are inexperienced. Because you're trying to do these massive things for the kingdom. You're going to have to work about 5 to 10 times harder than anybody else. If they see you become the mindless, lifeless channel flipper. Of course, they didn't have pay per view back then or TVs or anything like that. But if he becomes inundated with the things of this world, if he's not continually pursuing godliness, if he's not continually pursuing solitude of prayer, life and community with other people, if he's just going to go be a monk and sit for three months by himself and then say, and this is the truth that I've come to. Nobody's going to respect this guy. He's challenging him, saying, Timothy, you've got to get plugged into the community. You've got to be figuring out what it looks like to be in community with these people. To be in the word, to be prayerful about the direction, just like I challenged us.

At the beginning of this sermon. Let's pray for our church this week. And I know a lot of us pray for this church in lots of different ways. But we're talking about one week where we where we talk about what we're going to speak of from here. This is still a powerful spot in our church, but this doesn't hold more power than the nursery. This doesn't hold more power than the adult Bible classes or the children's ministry on the second level. It doesn't hold more power than the youth group on the third level, although the youth group is like number two on the hierarchy of all these things, I would put us number one, but I want to be humble just a little bit. It kind of rocks up there, though. You should come check it out for yourself. And he tells him in verse ten, You're going to have to toil and you're going to have to strive. In other words, your hands are not going to be clean at the end of this. To pursue godliness and to pursue holiness is hard and difficult work. And the relationships that you guys have cultivated in this room among Broadway family, among the people who are sitting here next to you. Those didn't just happen. You might have been really good. Friends clicked immediately, but you've gone through some form of struggle together. Gary's got a couple of updates for us about some of our families who are hurting here at Broadway as a result of events that happen this weekend in New Mexico and other places.

Relationships are hard. They take hard work, and especially when you're trying to pursue a relationship that is centered around godliness. It's really easy to go with your buddies to the gym and play basketball and have a great relationship there. But can you take that and can you actually move it towards Godwin? Can you move it towards Holiness? Versus 11 through 16. Say this command and teach these things. And here we go. Don't let anyone look down on you because you're young. But set an example for believers in space, in speech and conduct and love and faith and impurity. Until I come. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect the gift which was given to you through prophecy when the elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters. Give everything wholly to them so that everyone may see your progress, watch your life and doctrine closely, persevere in them. Because if you do, you will save both yourself and the hearers. Look at that verse 16 at the very end of that right there, because persevere in them. Because if you do, you will save both yourself. And you're here's we don't just exercise a gift for us to feel connected to God. We exercise it so that others might know His glory, might know his fullness, and be able to exercise their gifts in a holistic manner.

And here in a little bit, we're going to I'm going to challenge you just a second to to think about what that gift is and what you might be doing. So for me, one of my gifts, I'm still trying to kind of figure mine out because. This isn't necessarily one of mine standing in front of you guys, standing in front of the youth. It's a little bit easier because they're teenagers and they just kind of nod along, right? It's like, Yeah, Brian. Go for it. But not all of our gifts might be standing here in the pulpit. Not all of our gifts might be like Gary Moyer's getting up and singing songs or this morning he was even dancing a little bit. Guys afraid to tell you that he was in rehearsal. And I'm not Tracy Hawn. I'm not. I can't do anything with numbers, period. And a statement. She makes our budget so simple, and I still have to go talk to her and be like, so what does this mean again? Like, does this line mean this? Does this line mean this? That's not my gifting. And I sure will tell you this. My wife is one of the most patient people in the entire world. She steps back into the classroom this fall with first graders, first graders, like for 8 hours a day for five days a week and deals with parents.

How crazy is that? I can't sit there and do that. I get to be with teens for like three ish hours a week and then I do things outside of that. Like, I got to go to a swim, meet last night, got to watch my boy Reese over here dominate the 100 fly. Right, 100 fly. It was really good in prelims. I got to brag on Reese for a second. This is really cool. He goes, That guy was supposed to be 3 seconds faster than me, and I beat him by like 2/10 of a second or something. It was awesome. Like every time they came up out of the water, you thought the other one was ahead and then Reese's Touch his first. It was so cool to watch Reese exercise his gift, his God given talent, and then to like, be kind of like, braggadocious about it. Like he was supposed to be 3 seconds fast. He hops up out of the pool, says that, and he's, like, excited. But here's the other thing that I know about Reese. I saw how he interacted with his teammates last night. As they were in different lanes and they were going like, you know, touching the wall and going back. Like at one point I was really confused because I thought that we were on all these races and then everybody's doing all these different strokes and stuff. I'm not a swimmer, but you see these people encouraging and supporting and loving their teammates.

And I'll tell you, some of them didn't win their races, but they were still up there loving and supporting, utilizing their gift of encouragement to spur somebody else on. To use their gift. Kids were humble about it. It was awesome last night to see that. I've gotten to see it through a lot of different other athletic activities and things of this church where people come alongside and encourage and implore one another to do things for the sake of Christ. And today you might not even be willing to get up and do the Lord's Supper. And that's okay. Your gift is needed. Your gift is important. And when you're not here and you're not plugged into this community, it hurts the gifts of others to not be able to exercise all of them in our fullness. So we need you here. We need you to be invested. We need you to be in a small group. We need you to find a way to get plugged in to your Bible classes. We need you to live communally so we can strive and toil together. As Paul told Timothy at the beginning of this letter, You're going to have to do those things. This work is hard, but it's important. I'm going to tell you this this morning. And if this is the only time you hear this today, that's awesome. But I hope that you hear it today. I hope you hear it tomorrow.

And I hope you hear this every week. And if you're kind of looking down, you kind of tuned out. And I ask you to just lift your eyes for just a second and look at me, because I do this with our teenagers, because I believe the power of just looking in your eyes. I know. I can't look at everybody right now. You matter. And you belong here. And I love you. Your gift is important. You are important. We can't be Broadway unless we're doing this thing together. Your gift matters. And if you don't think you have one, come talk to one of our ministers. We'll get you put in with the spiritual gifts test or we'll sit down and talk with you and we'll figure out what way you can be plugged in. And our gifts. Ultimately, they're shaped by relationships. So in the vein of relationships. We show these couple of pictures right here. I thought of some great mentors in life. Everybody knows this guy, right? Everybody understands Yoda. He has trained many, many great Jedi eyes before he deserted himself to Dagobah and then train. The one who ultimately defeats Darth Vader, restores balance to the force. All of these things, if you don't know who Yoda is, we can't be friends, is essentially what I'm saying. All of the series are really great. He trains hundreds of different Jedis. Coolest thing about him is the dude is like two foot tall and beat Darth Sidious in episode three before he, like, runs away and all this stuff.

Yoda teaches many great Jedis how to be awesome. Next one. Oh man, this one just got remade. Daniel san and Mr. Miyagi. I was watching the clip from the third movie where he's fighting Mike Barnes of Cobra Kai. And Mike Barnes is fighting dirty as Cobra Kai always does. And he looks at Daniel and he gives him one of the most important pieces of advice that he hears through all of his movies. And of course, now there's another series, but he still goes back to this moment that Mr. Miyagi tells him, Daniel son, and I'm going to butcher this just a little bit. Daniel Son, you are best karate still inside you. It's never okay to lose, to fear. You can never lose to fear. In that moment, Daniel knew how good his karate was, but Mike Barnes just fought dirty, so his leg was messed up. His shoulder was messed up. Every part of him was getting destroyed. But his Paul, his Mr. Miyagi came to him and said, Your best karate is still inside you. It's time to let it out. And then all of a sudden, you know, he starts like doing all these motions and you're like, oh, my gosh, is he going to Crane kick him? And he doesn't. He just flips him. It's not cool. Like the first movie. Watch where they talk about it for all these years after.

But we need a mr. Miyagi and we need a Yoda. And last but not least, we need a Nick Saban. And I know so many of you in here right now. Just hate me. Just. Just like. A little bit, but stick with me here. You don't win seven national championships. You don't go to the NFL. Unless you got it up here and you've got it right here. Whether you like him or not. And I've actually grown to like him as he's gotten older. You know, I got over him beating my Texas Longhorns. Charles Texas Longhorns in the national championship that started his whole run of stuff. I've grown to appreciate the guy. A lot because there ain't much to do in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for college kid, but they'll go for him. They'll go for the mentorship that he provides. You hear stories about him, his athletes talking about his wife, him and Miss Terry, how they take him in, bring him to meals and love on them. More importantly, he gets more out of any player than anybody ever has, I think in the history of football, maybe Bill Belichick, but Nick Saban, one of the ultimate mentors and there's a couple of podcasts he's been on lately where he's talked about a lot of that. And you can kind of tell that he's on his last legs of coaching, but he gives you some of those nuggets of wisdom of man.

I tell my students, I tell our players. You can't give in to the rat poison. You can't give in to what newspapers are writing about. You can't give in to what podcasts are saying about you. You can't give in to this, that, or the other of what the other team says. You've got to stick to this moment inside of yourself. When you pursue godliness, the voices of the world, the the just utter disdain of everything goes completely out. It's just noise. It doesn't have any effect on my heart. It doesn't have any effect on my mind. And ultimately, it doesn't get to that power plant the soul. That I have. So as far as songs, remember I said, I'm not very good at this on the song portion, but as we kind of wrap up epistles, greatest hits, I thought of this song probably the middle of this week. I was struggling. I had it all figured out except for the song. If you're a parent in this room, there are certain songs that when you hear for the second or third time, and especially when you begin parenthood or whatever stage of life you're in, it hits just a little bit different. So when I was in college, I heard That's My Job by Conway Twitty for the very first time. And I just kind of thought, Oh, that's a really cool song. I thought about my dad. I thought about all the ways that he provided for me.

That he looked out for me, showed me unconditional love. One night I was rocking bear to sleep. I had my AirPods in. I was listening to music. That song came on. Oh, my gosh. The first time I'd ever heard it as a father. And I thought about my son going away from home, trying to experience something new, trying to find himself and say, I've only got half of the fair. If you can spot me the rest I can go. And the dad, just like without hesitation, goes. Of course, my son is trying to pursue his dream. My son is trying to utilize his gifts. He's trying to unlock this part of his heart that he hasn't discovered yet. This peace that God has put on there. And I'll do it. In multiple times throughout the song. The the son comes and knocks on the parents door and says, Dad. I'm so afraid. I had a dream that you were gone. And I don't want to live like that. I don't want to live a life without God. And I sure as heck don't want to live a life without the community of this church. You can't separate those two things if you've been kidding yourself for a while that you can. The day has come. You cannot do it. You can't do it alone. We've got to do it together. That's our job. Our job is to help raise up a generation that doesn't live into the wives tales, into the lies of the world, rather being able to discern truth.

To utilize the gifts for the kingdom so that not only are we positively affected that we get eternal life with Jesus, but that we give it to everybody that we come in contact with. I'll see you there one day, I promise. But our job is to fill up this recruiting class of people that were taken to heaven with us. So I have a couple of questions for you actually going to put them up on the screen. I want you to think about this. What? Your gift. When you leave here today, meditate on that. And if you're one of those people who's already really plugged in and you found, you know, this is this is who I am. This is what I want to do. That's awesome. If you're a person who hasn't, think about it. Figure out how you want to get plugged in. You want to be in youth ministry. Come on. We would love nothing more than to have you pour into the lives of teens for you to say things that you wish that you had been able to say to teenagers. And on this next one, there's a couple of questions as well. How are you currently using your gifts? Are you sitting in the pew letting it waste away? Are you actively involved in different ministries here at Broadway or outside of these walls? And then the last thing as we talk about this encouraging, mentoring relationships.

How are you encouraging people at Broadway to use their gifts? Hey, you know, you did really well with my child the other day. I recruited a couple of teens because they're really good with Barrett. I said, Hey, could you be in the nursery more often so that he feels comfortable? Absolutely. I'll jump in and do that. So now they're in there more frequently. We have a clothing ministry here at Broadway where you could literally just sort clothes. And as people come on Tuesdays to get those, you can hand them out to them. You can just kind of be the face behind everything. We also have a prison ministry. I'm sure that almost all of you know this, but it's just one of those things that we never really openly say anything about from this spot. You could sit there and you could grade papers and you could correspond with people who are trying to pursue God while being incarcerated. That's a really simple way for you to do that. If you're really good with grading and testing and all of these different things and writing just small notes of encouragement, maybe that's something you need to be doing. We also have this thing called Carpenter's Kitchen. I'm sure you might have heard about it before. It's just a little bit popular around this area. So just right over here, every Sunday when I served there, probably, what, 130 ish, Camille that week, probably about sometimes about 130, sometimes all the way up to 200 people getting meals that otherwise would not be having them for lunch that day.

But that's a ministry that needs people to be there on Sunday. We need people to cook. We need people to set up tables. We need people to serve. We even need people to just stand out there and be an affirming presence. Some of my students, you know, they got back there and cooked. Some of them set up tables. I'll brag on one student colleague, Joy. The last time we were there, he just went and started talking to random people. That's a ministry in and of itself. Tell me your story. Tell me something awesome. And they sat there for like 30 minutes and just talked and I kind of multiple times were like, Where's Cole? Because I put him on a job and he went and talked to some guy and I goes. He doesn't need that job. He needs to be utilizing the gift of being a friend, being a comforting spirit. So church this morning I'm imploring you, what's your gift? How are you using it? And how are we encouraging each other in the context of this place to use it? Because if you can't do it here, where we're centered on grace and truth and authenticity, where else can we do it? So again, very thankful they've gotten the opportunity to be here in the pulpit this morning.

I want to close out with a word of prayer as our worship team begins to close out in worship after this. Father, thank you so much for. For your son and the servants that you sent to. To build your church. We're thankful that you encouraged and guide and loved even in moments where we weren't deserving of it. Father. Everybody in this room is made unique, is made different. So, Lord, would you allow our differences to be what? To make us a welcoming church? To be one that encourages involvement, to be one that is pursuing you every single day, one that reflects your son in every action that we do. And whether it's one of those things that I just mentioned or or a ministry that I might have left out, Father, would you put it on our hearts to pursue you and each of those avenues that we would be equipping and empowering people? Because, again, not only saves us, but it saves those that we interact with. So, Father, would you would you set our mind on things above? Would you set our minds on the truth? Not those not those godless myths or old wives tales. Do allow us the wisdom and the knowledge to discern those out. Father, thank you so much for this church. Lord, be with us as we seek to fulfill your kingdom here on Earth. That's your name. We pray. Amen.