We've seen how we overcome our impulses. We have a revenge impulse. Many times we want to set things straight. But in these next few verses that we've read already, Paul moves into giving us rapid fire instruction. And these are short commands, as we saw last week, just even the first verse, I said it was the second shortest verse in the Bible. And yet it is a very powerful verse, and it's probably one of the hardest ones to see in our life accomplished. And continually rejoicing. And we saw verse 17, to pray without ceasing. We're to be in worship and constant communion with our Lord, to bring Him glory for our life, to reflect the Lord, and we're to be the light of the world. We're reflecting the light of the world. That's who Jesus is. And in order for us to do that, we have to have a life that is different. We need to have had a transformation. If we try to imitate something, that is not transformation. If we try to pretend, if we have some change, but yet we're not truly transformed, we're going to have some failure at some point. And people will see through that. That is one of the greatest criticisms of the church, is hypocrisy. And we don't want to be guilty of that. May the Lord help us to be in constant communion with our Lord and to give Him the glory in all things. There should be a spirit of continual prayer. I'm not saying that we have to have our eyes closed. We talked about that last week. We're not able to always pray with our eyes closed. You might be driving down the road and we don't want you to close your eyes when you're driving. We want you to keep your eyes on the road. Amen? But you can be in prayer and communion with the Lord. And I know One of my good friends in college, his dad had an hour and a half commute every single day to and an hour and a half from work. And he would have devotions with their family in the morning, seven in the morning, 7.30, and they would have their family time, and then he would get in his car and he would listen to the Bible that whole time. He maybe had listened to radio at some point, but he just decided he's gonna give that time to the Lord, and he spent it in communion with God. And what a blessing. You can turn a real nightmare and a real drudgery, an hour and a half commute, three hours a day, could you imagine spending 15 hours a week in commuting? But he turned that into a spiritual blessing in his life. But all things can be turned into something good. I believe that. I think the Lord can take anything that is maybe a hindrance to you, you feel it's a hindrance to you, and God can turn that into a blessing. And God can turn our sorrows into joy. And if we would just be mindful of what the Spirit is doing in our life. But we need to cultivate that spirit of continual prayer. Not just calling upon the Lord when things are difficult, when our life gets heavy, but to be in contact with Him at all times. And Right now, you can even pray right now and ask the Lord, Lord, what is it that you want me to learn from your word today? Help me to be sensitive to you. If we would do that, God will speak to us. So prayer is like spiritual breathing. Without it, your soul will suffocate. You are going to struggle in your spiritual walk. How can you become more like Christ if you're not talking to your Savior? We need to be in prayer and listening, not just talking, but listening. Number three, give thanks. See that in verse number 18. Read it with me. In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Hey, what is the will of God for my life? You just read it there, verse 18. In everything, give thanks. And I said last week, sometimes we may not truly be able to say, I'm thankful for this, but in spite of this, I'm going to be, I'm going to have a grateful attitude. And sometimes God can turn those difficulties around. Years down the road, you can look back and say, I'm glad that I went through that. I'm thankful for that. But in the moment, you might not be able to be thankful for that, but you can be thankful through it. Be thankful. And then we see that number four, this is where we left off last week, verse number 19. He says, quench not the spirit. Quench not the spirit. And I think that one of the ways that we can quench the spirit, if you think about quenching, when you're thirsty and you drink some cold water, and I think to me, my opinion, my opinion, when I was younger, the best water I ever drank was after mowing the grass on a very, very hot, hot, hot summer day and maybe mowing more than three or four lawns, because I had a small little lawn business when I was a teenager. And I found a neighbor when I was mowing their grass, and it was just so hot, and I found their hose, and I turned on that water hose, and that water was so cold, and I quenched my thirst. Now, after service, you can come up and tell me how terrible that was, to drink water out of a garden hose. But that was 20 years ago, and I'm still alive, so... You know, I'm thankful for that cold water that quenched my thirst. And yet, when we think about quenching the Spirit, this is not a positive thing, this is a negative thing. We can pour water on the work that God wants to do in our life. And I think one of the greatest ways that we do that is found in verse number 18, the verse we just read about being thankful. And in everything, give thanks. When we're not thankful, we're quenching the Holy Spirit. Because we begin to, that's actually the opposite of having faith. Faith-filled people are grateful people because they understand there's a greater purpose in whatever it is that they're going through, the good and the bad. And when you got married, if you got married and you said your vows, it was for better or for worse, right? For better or for worse in sickness and in health. and for richer and for poorer. And I saw a video this week, I believe it was a real thing, sometimes you don't know, right? You look at something on the internet, who knows? But I believe it was a real video, weren't actors, and there was a lady and a husband and wife, or young man, young lady that were getting married, and the lady was having a hard time saying the poorer part and the sickness part. And they got to the part where the minister said that you will obey, you know, in obedience to your husband and all these things, I don't know what the vows were, and she looked at him and said, I don't remember talking about that part in counseling. He said, we talked about that part, and I felt sorry for that groom. I felt sorry for him. Usually we're feeling sorry for the bride, amen? But in that instance, I felt sorry for the groom. I said, you should probably, if he gets to the part where, if anyone objects to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace, I think that groom should have spoken up, okay? But we don't want to quench the spirit. Be grateful in the good things and the bad things. Your difficult days sometimes can become the greatest days of your life. And so trust the Lord through the hard times. Gratitude. Just one more thing on gratitude. It shifts your focus from what you lack to what you have in Christ. If you would just stop and count your blessings, Just count them. And we sing the song, count your many blessings, name them one by one. And sometimes we can name them two by two and three by three and five by five, right? You have hundreds and hundreds of blessings in your life if you would just stop to reflect on that. And it is the will of the Lord. This is God's will for your life. Thanksgiving is not only the will of God, it is the way to stay in the will of God. Amen? Quench not the spirit, number four. The spirit of God is like a fire, in Acts 2 we read that. The spirit of God brings warmth and passion, light, power into our life. when we, and many times people don't like certain terms, like somebody's on fire for God, but I think what that means is they have a passion for serving the Lord, and they have a passion for living for the Lord, amen? And sometimes we can quench the Spirit of God speaking to us when we begin to disobey, when we're ungrateful, when we're disobedient, and we lack faith, and God says, move forward. And we say, look at what's all around me. How can I do it? But we serve a great God. And with God, all things are possible. And he is the God of the impossible. He is the one that can make a way when there is no way. And he parted the Red Sea for Moses. Amen? He made a way in the wilderness, and so let us trust him. Don't you, wouldn't you love to have been there to see the parting of the Red Sea, or whatever miracle you wanna, you know, you wanna have seen, right? And to see Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. And God can do miracles in our life. And these are spiritual things that we should be looking for, not, and you might be saying, well, man, I wish I could go to a funeral and see somebody raised from the dead. Well, Someday we will see people raised from the dead in the rapture. Amen? And we're going to get to see that. But the focus many times for us is a carnal focus. We're focused on all the things that God can do for us materially, physically. What can God do for me? And we're focused on prosperity. We're focused on the wrong thing. God's greatest miracles are spiritual miracles that he does in our life, transform lives. I love the show, the radio program, Unshackled. How many of you like that program? I'd like to go back down there. We got to watch a taping of that program a few years back, and that was a great blessing to see that. I love radio, but I love seeing live drama. Not the drama that we many times think of, but radio drama, amen? And I don't like church drama, but radio dramas are great. And to hear the true stories, the true stories of transformed lives. Those are the greatest blessings that we can have. And you might say, well, I wish God would have done that for me. Well, you know, God can change your life, and he will change your life if you will let him. And God wants to do the work for you. Even after you're saved, God is still transforming you, and he's doing a great work in your life, but you have to let the Lord work. It takes faith. It takes faith to step out and to see See the changes that need to be made. When God tells you something in His Word, don't turn a deaf ear. Don't quench the Holy Spirit. Yield to Him. We quench the Holy Spirit when we resist His conviction. When you're hearing a sermon, and God is convicting you, the Holy Spirit's speaking, Don't quench him, don't turn a deaf ear, say, Lord, I don't know how to do this, I don't know what you're gonna do, I don't know how you're gonna do it, but I know you can, and I will trust you, and I will step forward in whatever area he's speaking to you. Maybe it's the area of service. Some here have served the Lord faithfully. We are, We're thankful for what you do, and the Lord will bless you, I'm sure. But you've kind of stopped, or you may say, well, I'm old now. I can't do what I used to do. Sometimes in our season of life, God, he will prepare for us something new to do. Those that you might say, oh, I used to go soul winning. I used to knock on doors. I used to be faithful there. And you just can't do it anymore. Maybe you have some mobility issue. Well, prayer goes places that we can't physically go. And so we need to retool and spend more time in prayer than we could have before. Now you've freed up maybe in your retirement, you've got time to do other things. Don't let your life become cluttered with worldliness and with worldly endeavors. I love hobbies. I think they're good. I think it's important to have productivity and to do things and to make things and that's wonderful. However, your first priority is the Lord. Whatever God says to do, that's what we're gonna do. It may be some big steps, and you might be saying, I can't do it, but God can. And so, do not quench the spirit. Don't resist his conviction. Don't ignore when he knocks on your door and prompts you to do something. By the way, do not hold on to your sin. You might be saying, well, I can't forgive that person. They need to ask for forgiveness so I can forgive them. You can forgive them before they come to you. You can be right with the Lord, whether they are or not. You can be right with them and towards them, whether they are or not. Not every relationship is going to be fixed. Not every relationship can be restored or will be restored, I should say. God can do anything, and any relationship can be repaired and fixed, but sometimes they won't because that person won't do it. But you can be right towards them. Trust the Lord. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a church that was so in tune to the Lord and so focused on the Lord that, like I said, church drama just didn't happen? And it's not why we're here. We're not here to be a collection of perfect people. We're going to have problems. And when we reach people, we'll have more problems. But we need some strong Christians that can have the maturity to help those that are newly saved, to become disciples, to understand what it is to live the victorious Christian life. We need examples. We need to be able to look to people. You might be saying, well, that's what your job is, Pastor. Well, yeah, it is a higher profile job because people are looking to me. And I have to be right with God. I have to do the right thing. And sometimes I'm not, and I need to repent. But Why are you holding yourself to a much, much, much lower standard and not taking those steps of faith that I know that you need to and God has been telling you to take? We need good examples in our church, people that will be able to point the direction, show people the way to go. And Paul, the Apostle Paul, we read a lot about him and we read a lot of what he said, but he wasn't the only Christian in the early church that was an example. And there were hundreds and thousands of people that were living for the Lord and were right with God and could help those that were young in the faith. And so, you take your role seriously and move forward. Number five, despise not prophesying. There, see in verse 20? Despise not prophesying. In Paul's day, prophesying many times was referred to, it referred to spirit-led preaching or messages of truth. Now, we may not outright reject the preaching, But our attitude can say that we don't think it's important because we don't show up, we don't come to certain things. And hey, if we haven't held a revival Monday through Friday in quite a while, but if the church, if we decide, hey, we need to have some more preaching, we need to have a week of revival, it should be our goal to be there every time the preaching of the word of God is preached from this pulpit. The Word of God and the preaching of the Word of God changes lives. It helps us because the Bible commands us to do this. And so if we're commanded to preach, we need to have people here for the preaching. We need to have our lives changed. I was thankful this last week to be able to go to Hammond and actually hear some preaching and not not have to be the one that is the one preaching, but to hear the preaching of the word, and it is helpful to our soul. You can grab some good preaching CDs or maybe even cassettes if you have a cassette player, and if you say, I'd like to get a hold of some more good preaching, there are plenty of resources, places for you to listen to godly preaching, biblical preaching throughout the week. So, despise non-prophesying. When we do not come to church, we're not here all here. You might be here physically, but you're not here maybe in your mind. You are saying this is not important. We're despising it passively, but we are despising it. If we are convicted and we resist that conviction of the Holy Spirit, we're despising it. We are not taking everything. Maybe we look at it as, well, this is my buffet, I can take that and I can leave that. No, all of it, the whole message, everything that God is saying to you, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us. Embrace and listen, agree with what God says, not just what we want to hear. So we need to come to church, and how do we do this? We need to come to church hungry. So many times we are so, we are so mentally checked out because we're overwhelmed. We're inundated with so much information and so much entertainment and so much, so many things that we watch and we look at and we read and we listen to that we are not, we are not spiritually prepared. And this is why people come to church and they say, I'm not getting anything. If you come to dinner. after eating a bag of Skittles and stopping by the Speedway or the Quick Trip and getting your 44-ounce soda on the way home from work. And your wife says, why aren't you hungry? Why aren't you eating your vegetables? Why aren't you eating food? And you say, I'm just not hungry. Well, she knows and you know that it's not that you don't need to eat. is that you already did eat. It's not that the food isn't good at home, it's just that you have not, you've already filled that appetite. You've already satisfied, maybe with junk food, but satisfied your hunger, your thirst, so on and so forth. So if we're filling up with things and our soul is so full with junk food, we are not going to be able to retain and take in what God needs to give to us. And that's not just on Sunday. This is every single day. We, many times, we will skip our Bible reading for something that we want to prioritize. We put in front of that. And that, in effect, is idolatry. Because God should be first. And if there's anything left over, it should be stewarded wisely, but we can then maybe read the paper or do something, read a book. But God's word and what God is telling us to do should be priority in our life. Come out to the preaching. Don't resist the Holy Spirit. Come to church hungry. And don't evaluate so much the messenger. I know that sometimes we hear something and we just tune out. I was at youth conference, and sometimes they tell jokes, and it's like, okay, that was kind of funny, but we're here for the preaching, and sometimes that can cause us to tune out. We get focused on something that's distracting, and God's messenger needs to focus on the preaching and to be clear and concise in what he's saying, however, we need to just focus on the message. What is God saying to me? Not so much what is God saying to the church, what is God saying to sister so-and-so, what is God saying to brother so-and-so, what does God say in his word for me? What is the application for me today? And embrace that. Let the word of God search you. What is the Holy Spirit saying? How is He speaking to you? I believe that every time we hear preaching, we have an option. We can choose to listen to God, or we can choose to turn Him away. And what we do at the end of the service here at our church, we have an invitation. We have a time for you to make that decision, sometimes public. And we invite people to come and pray with counselors, or to even come to the altar and pray. And you might say, well, I can't kneel down. But come and stand. And that will encourage others to say, hey, you know what? I should be making a decision. There's something that God has for me today to hear from his word. And when we just come to church and once a year we have our heart affected by the preaching, there's something wrong with us. There's something wrong with us. The Word of God will not return void. Sometimes we say, well, the messenger. Well, Holy Spirit's speaking to you too. So, I don't think it's the messenger, it is, or the message, so much as it is the receiving. Are we receiving what God says? And so we should be affected by it. The Word of God is a sword. It is quick and powerful, and it is sharp. And so we need to be realizing, if we're not being affected by the Word and not being affected by the preaching, There's two things I heard somebody say one time. There's two things that we should do at the end of a service when we have an invitation. And that is, we should ask God, why didn't you speak to me? Or we should say, God, you spoke to me, here's what I'm gonna do. Here's my decision. And every time we hear the word of God and we read the word of God, we should be reading for a decision. What is it that God has for me? So let the word of God search you. Number six this morning. Prove all things, verse 21, the Bible says, Now, Paul's not asking them to just blindly accept everything, but to have spiritual discernment. Try the spirits, John says, try the spirits to see whether they be of God, because not everything that is spiritual is of God. Not every angel is an angel of light. Amen? Not every angel is truly an angel of God. There are spiritual forces that are at war in our world and that are at war in our life. And you have many times people that call themselves Christians that are being deceived by demonic spirits. And they're going into churches and there's things that are going on in these churches that seem good because it's affecting their soul, it's affecting their spirit. And they may at first say, this is a positive thing, this is so great, I feel so good. And yet, There's no spiritual fruit. There's no true spiritual fruit. In fact, there's a lot of spiritual deadness. There is stagnant spiritual, there's a stagnant Christian. Their life is not being affected, it's not being changed. And sad to say, sometimes people are being led into a false faith and a false belief, a false understanding of their eternal security. And so we need to be aware that not everything is a good thing. Prove all things. Test All things. I think of the Bereans in Acts chapter 17. The Bereans searched the scriptures daily. They wanted to know, what does the Bible say? Not what does my favorite preacher say? Not what the podcaster says? Not what does this influencer have to say? Not what does this TV evangelist have to say? No, what does the Bible say? Because that is where we will find the answers for life. And so we try to, we try to lead you into the scripture, but prove it. By the way, it's not just one verse out of context. We need to look at the whole thing. What is the Bible actually saying? And instead of what do I want it to say, what do I want to hear? And the Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter 4, you don't have these verses in your notes, but the Bible says preach the word. Timothy was being instructed by Paul to preach the word. Be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. And the preacher needs to be longsuffering, but he needs to be in season, out of season, faithful to the job. Verse three, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts, their own desires, what they want to do, We see a lot of Christians that are following that which feels and sounds good rather than that which is true. Doctrine. This is biblical doctrine that we are supposed to be teaching. What does the Bible say, not what does my heart want to hear? And he says, They will not endure sound doctrine. They will after their own lust, verse three, they shall heap to themselves or gather to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they want to be fed maybe. They want to hear something, but they want to hear the things that they desire. What is it that sounds good? What is it that feels good? And what are we doing? We're feeding the flesh. We're not actually feeding our soul, we're feeding our flesh. We're not feeding our spirit. Verse four, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. Paul, the apostle Paul, was brought up in the midst of Jewish fables and genealogies, endless genealogies, as he writes in 1 Timothy chapter one. Paul was raised and taught in many of the traditions of the Jewish people. And there was a lot of things that when he got saved, he had to reject and say, that's not scriptural, that is not biblical, that's not actually what God's saying, that's what man has contrived, that is what we have come up with as men, because many times we write things and say things to kind of make them fit our system of thinking. But our system, our philosophies need to be challenged. All of us need to be challenged. You might say, well, we have a doctrine as a church, but there are times where our understanding grows on some things. Don't get nervous. I'm not saying we're changing doctrinally, okay? What I'm saying is there are times where we just have to realize we don't have everything 100% right all the time. We're thankful for the Word of God. The Word of God is true. But sometimes our understanding can be a little bit obscured. I believe the closer we get to the Lord's return, our understanding of things will grow because as prophecies are fulfilled, as they have been for the last hundred years in a greater way, I believe that our understanding is coming into a little bit greater focus. Things can be a little bit blurry. Have you ever taken a pair of binoculars and just put them up to your eyes? And are things always crystal clear? Oh, you have to do what? You have to adjust them. And I believe that as we listen to the Spirit of God and we heed to the Word of God, we are bringing things into focus. And as time goes on, our understanding of what's going on in the world, as it relates to the Bible, our understanding of the Scripture does grow. However, we need to be mindful to the Holy Spirit. Not just, oh, that makes more sense. No, no, no. What is God saying? Sometimes what God says doesn't, at first, make sense. Sometimes the paths that God leads us down do not always make sense at first, because it is the walk of faith. So if it doesn't require faith, then it's just walking by sight. Yes, times, the times we're living in, definitely still times of faith. But I believe that our understanding is growing clearer. As the world grows darker, it really does contrast with the Bible. And it helps us understand, and by the way, the way the world's going, this woke ideology and all of the things that are going on in our culture, it hasn't even taken that long for them to realize that doesn't work. A boy, born a boy, trying to become a girl, and trying to use a girls' locker room, and trying to play on girls' sports teams, that doesn't work. It goes against nature. By the way, God's nature, this is the laws of nature, and nature's God, right? God set these things up because this is the way he has ordained them, this is how it should be. He created male and female. He created a husband and a wife to have children and to be fruitful and to multiply in this world and to subdue the earth. And when we go against God's plan, of course, we know much better than God, don't we? We always know so much more than God does. Somehow we think that God just kind of works for us. Sometimes we as Christians believe that God's our heavenly bellboy and he should just do whatever we want him to do. No, my friend, if we would just submit to the Lord and say his way is the best way, his way is the only way, we will find joy in our life and we will find true peace as we submit to God. Where did sorrow come into the world? When man decided to go against God's rules. So where are we finding sorrow? We're finding a lot of suicides, we're finding a lot of really confused and hurt people, and our heart goes out to them, because we do not stand in judgment of people that have been deceived, and even people that have willfully gone the wrong way, but have repented and said, hey, I did wrong, this isn't right. We need to help them and encourage them and bring them into a place where they can be restored to the Lord. And just like all of us needed to be, we needed reconciliation with our creator because all of us have gone the wrong way. Amen? And so we see here a need to search the scripture. What does the Bible say? Don't just ask, does it feel right? Ask, is it true? Is it true? Don't just cling to tradition for tradition's sake. And that's why I'm saying sometimes we need to kind of challenge our thinking on not just doctrine, because I think our doctrine is pretty set, but our philosophy, what we view, how we view people, how we view things, how we view our ministry, how we do things, how we operate. Our culture and our church does, it needs to be evaluated. It needs to be evaluated, because as we become more like Jesus, guess what? We realize, hey, what I thought was right at one time, now I realize, after my eyes have been opened a little bit more, I realize I was going the wrong direction. Number seven today, verse 22, let's read it. Verse 22, abstain from all appearance of evil. Here's a final instruction. Paul warns us to steer far away from anything that would damage our testimony or compromise our witness. The world is watching us. The world is looking at how we live, the things we do, the things we say, the influences we allow, the places we go, our attitudes. By the way, this is not about legalism. Some people don't like this because it can seem subjective. Avoiding the appearance of evil. Well, what you think is evil might be different than what someone else thinks is evil. But I believe if we, if we tune into the Holy Spirit, God speaks to us. He tells us there are some things that we just shouldn't do. Places we shouldn't go. It's not always, it's not about legalism. This is about living above reproach for the sake and glory of God. So we need to live clean. It's not because we're better but because we belong to God, to live clean and live holy. 1 Corinthians tells us we're not our own, we're bought with a price. Jesus paid the price for our soul. And our spirit and our body, the Apostle Paul says our spirit and body belong to who? Our spirit belongs to God and our body belongs to God. She asked, would this thing, this choice that I'm doing, would this hurt my Christian witness, or would this cause a young Christian to stumble? And I know, again, this can seem kind of subjective, because I do believe in some ways it is, because all of us are in a different, we're growing in a different way. Our backgrounds are all different, and the Holy Spirit, although he doesn't have one rule for one person, one rule for another, we're hopefully going in the same direction, but we are at different stages in our growth. And so we need to ask, Lord, is this something I should do, or is this something I shouldn't do? Is this someplace I shouldn't go? And no sin is worth it. No sin is worth it. No wandering in the wilderness is worth it. Think about all the people following Moses that didn't get to go into the promised land because of their lack of faith. Is it worth it to just kind of coast for a little while? No, you're gonna miss out on some of God's blessing, I believe. And so may we just live clean and live right because it is right. We represent the Lord. He is holy. And so we are called to be holy. We're different. So what does the spiritual atmosphere of a church look like? I don't believe a true spiritual church is cold. I don't think a true spiritual church is divided. I believe there is a heart, and by the way, when our heart is pumping blood, you can tell somebody's alive. It's scary when you realize that somebody has passed on, and you're like, wow, that person's soul has left their body. They're in eternity. But when we are a dead church, that is a scary, scary place to be. But I'm so thankful that I believe that God always will give us another chance if we will repent, get right with Him. And so may we contribute to the spiritual atmosphere of our church. not a divided atmosphere, not one of different groups and factions, not people of different, you know, I'm of Paul, I'm of Paulus, I'm of this person or that person. No, we are followers of Jesus Christ. It's not about personalities. That tends to carnality. When we follow people, we become a carnal church. In a sense, it's a dead church or it's gonna be a dead church soon. If we follow Jesus, We're going in the right direction, amen? So let us listen to the Lord and contribute to a spiritual atmosphere that is conducive to people getting saved. And when somebody gets saved, we should rejoice, amen? If heaven's rejoicing, we should be rejoicing. When people are coming into church, we might say, they're messing up the paint, they're messing up the pews, they're messing up the carpet. There's just too many, or their behavior's too bad. I believe in order. I believe that we should take care of what God's given to us, be a good steward. However, with every investment, there's always a risk. The greatest investments require greater risk. And sometimes when we bring people in, we're taking a risk. But that's what God called us to do. We're not supposed to be this museum here at 3800 South Howell Avenue. This is not the museum. This is a hospital for souls. This is a school. This is a place where we're training people to be soldiers for the warfare that we are in. And so we need to be willing to help those people that need the help and receive them and take a chance on them risk a little bit of our pride and our investment of money or whatever is needed. Milwaukee doesn't need another trendy church. We don't need another club. What is a church? A church is a soul-saving station. So let us be that. Don't worry about what people, you know, the reputation of, you know, well, you know, that church just, they just have a lot of bus kids or they just have this or that. Don't worry about that. Are we serving the Lord? As best as I can. We are trying to go in the direction of reaching souls and being as effective and as, as, doing as much as we can with the resources that we have. I think sometimes people say, wow, how do you guys do what you do? with the resources you have. I was privileged to this week, again, go to Fairhaven, where I went to college, and realized once more that I was able to be a part of that church where they had just in some ways a small group of people, six, 700 at that time, but they were reaching, they'd had over 2,000 on a Sunday because they were reaching into the city and getting the kids and families to come to that church. And they had a large Christian school and a college And they were making an impact with their missions and all the things that they were doing. So many missionaries were called out of that church. And so we don't have to be this big, mega church to do something. We just have to be faithful. Be faithful. Work hard. Be faithful. Find your place of service and be faithful. Don't worry about what kind of credit you're going to get. We're supposed to lay up treasure in heaven. Not collecting trophies down here on earth, okay? Not collecting attaboys and recognition. Hey, may God speak to us. I think that probably affects all of us, because that strikes at our pride, and that strikes at kind of the things that we feel is important. If we don't get recognition, sometimes we feel like we're not doing anything. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. Let's have the right spirit. Father, I pray that you bless our church, Lord. Help us to Be mindful that you are doing something here in this city. And Lord, help us to just be faithful. Help us not bray at all on ourselves or say, hey, we're staying faithful. Lord, help us to just be what you called us to be and allow you to give us the reward. Allow you, number one, to receive glory because that's what it's about. Our relationship with you is to bring you glory. And Lord, for us to be blessed. and to have the joy of the Lord in our life. Lord, I thank you that you have called us to rejoice, and when you've called us to do something, that means that you're gonna help us to do it. We thank you that you've called us to be thankful in everything. We know that you'll help us to be thankful. God, I pray that you would give us discernment, help us to know what your word says, help us to know how to avoid the appearance of evil, God, of course, anyone can say, make an accusation or criticize, but Lord, help us to realize that there truly are people watching us and watching our life. Help us to not bring a reproach upon Jesus. I pray that you'd help us with that. Father, I pray if there's one here that's not saved this morning, that today they would get saved and be forgiven. And the only way that we can be saved from our sins is to put our trust in Jesus and what he already did on the cross for us. Thank you for that. Thank you that Jesus died, he was buried, but victorious over death, three days later he rose from the grave. Thank you for that. I pray today that you would bless our invitation in Jesus' name, amen.