What Paul is doing is one, he's revealing that salvation is completely and entirely the work of God and the work of His grace. So from chapter one, we see him introducing these great thoughts of this echoing of praise back to the Lord who's blessed us with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He's praying so that they could see it and understand it. He gets into chapter two and begins to show a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile. when he's using the phrases you, you, because he's writing to a Gentile audience. Of course there'll be some Jews mixed in with them there in Ephesus most likely, but predominantly in Ephesus they were all Gentiles. Paul is in a prison and writing this letter in Rome back to this church at Ephesus that he heard about him. He sends this guy over to him so that he can give a report to him, and he sends this great letter, but he's gonna remind them that though you are a Gentile and I am a Jew, in chapter two he begins to introduce the fact that God has reconciled us together, and that reconciliation between the two people groups only happens in Christ Jesus. that's where the peace and the reconciliation comes and then in chapter 3 where you are today he's now reiterating because he said I've already wrote about it I'm just reiterating how I have this revelation about this mystery is because God's given it to me and and he gave it to me so that I can preach this message to you and make you see that this is the eternal purpose of God, to reconcile the world, all ethnic groups around the world into one body, and that body is the body of Christ, in Christ Jesus, through the good news, through the cross, through the blood, through the life of Jesus, and all of it is summed up in that one word, grace, grace, grace. That covers everything God's ever done or ever will do in the life of his people, the word grace. You have been saved by Grace, that takes us back before time ever began. It takes us to what God did in himself upon the cross. And that grace will cover us, sustain us, and carry us all the way through time. And then when time is no more, when time is no more, because time's gonna come to an end. When time is no more, our salvation will always be a salvation by grace, amen. Grace, grace, grace, grace. And how you and I can work together and how we can work together with other people around the world, you know how that happens? Reconciliation among enemies can only happen because of grace. Grace, grace, grace. And praise God for his grace, amen. And then we just reverberate it. We just echo it and sing it back to him. Thank you, Lord, for your grace in my life. I was dead in my trespasses and sins. You made me alive. You gave me life. You gave me life. We were dead, we were disobedient, we were deceived. But that's the whole mankind, isn't it? Without the Lord. But in that, what did he do? He made us alive through his grace, amen? and His grace is personified in a person, the Lord Jesus. Everything is built in Jesus for His glory. So to Him be the praise. All right, well look, won't you take your Bibles today, won't you take your Bibles, and turn to Ephesians. We have moved into the book of Ephesians. Ephesians, we're up to chapter number three. We're probably gonna look at a couple things between one and three today. And thank y'all for praying over us this past week. Thank you for praying for one another, lifting each other up through the good times and the bad times. We have seen both, haven't we? And that's just how life goes for us. We're gonna go through some hardships, some difficulties, some heartaches, some loss, and we'll go through some great triumphs and great victories, and we just wanna be able to do it together, right? Isn't that what Ephesians said? We really can't understand the width, the breadth, the height, and the depth of the love of God by ourselves. We need one another. for that, and I think Ephesians talks about that for us, but thank you for praying for us. We had a good time with Morrison Chapel. Our last few works abroad have been really good, and we thank the Lord for that. We thank for God manifesting the work that Jesus has done, and your praying, all that plays a part, all that, has a really major impact upon what people can see and what people can't see. And even Paul, if you look for an example, look in chapter number one, go to Ephesians one, and he says this in verse number 15. Now, Paul has laid out in the first 14 verses some extremely important things. extremely big truths. We're talking about eternal works, eternal works of God, what it means to be part of the family of God, the fact that God has adopted us into his family, that we've been forgiven, that we've been washed in his blood, and he knows that apart from God doing a work in us, we wouldn't be able to fully comprehend or understand these things. So he says in verse number 15, he says, therefore I also, after I heard of your faith, After I heard of your faith, after I heard of your confidence and your convictions in the Lord, because faith is gonna have both of those. That's gonna be your convictions of who the Lord is, of what you know, what God's revealed to you, and with those convictions come great confidence. That is, you've heard, you've heeded, you've honored, now you're holding forth as a way of life your trust in the Lord. Because you've heard me say that before, faith is what? Number one, you gotta hear from the Lord, amen? Apart from hearing from the Lord, you don't have faith. Not the right kind of faith. You have faith, everybody has faith. You don't have to question people, do they have faith, because everybody operates in some sort of faith, but not everybody has the right kind of faith. That's the difference and the right kind of faith has to start with its origin has to be from God. Therefore you hear from him, you believe him, and you honor him. So you've heard me say we can really say faith is hearing, heeding, honoring, and then holding it forth as a way of life. Because if you believe it, and you believe what Jesus believed, now that is how it's gonna have an effect on your life. And if you believe it, you believe others need to believe it. Because it's that important to you. And all God's people said? It's that important that you see there's no other way to live other than this way to live rightly with the Lord. So that's what faith, faith says, I don't think there's any other way to live in this life without the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore you hold that forth as a way of life. And Paul said, when I heard about that, but not just your faith, but also your love for who? Your love for all the saints. Look what he said, verse 15. Therefore I also, after I heard of your convictions, your confidence in the Lord Jesus, and your compassion, your love for all the saints. That's just something supernatural that God does in the life of his believer. Not only are you rooted in these convictions, and this confidence, but now you have this overwhelming, compelling compassion for the people of God, for the saints. You love God's people. If you strip somebody, if somebody doesn't have a love for God's people, that person don't have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because they go hand in hand, right? When you put confidence in Jesus, who's the way, the truth, and the life, guess who you love? You love His people. You love His people. And Scripture says that's an evidence, a clear marker of everybody that's been born of God. Those who've been born of God love the people who've been born of God. You just love those that belong to God. to Jesus. You just do. You just do. You have to fight for it, amen? It's just something he does in us to have a compelling love for people that I don't even know a whole lot about. Because you don't have to know a whole lot about somebody to love that person, right? There's something he pours out in us. Him living in us is that compelling factor. And then when you consider like 2 Corinthians chapter five, y'all know I've shared chapter five of 2 Corinthians with y'all a bunch through the years, and specifically verses 14 through 21 is a favorite section of mine in all the Bible. And then verses 14 and 15, y'all know the nails that I put together. I use these nails, and on the back of these nails, I engrave that message, 2 Corinthians 5, 14 and 15, which Paul says, for the love of Christ constraineth us, or compels us. We judged us, we have considered this, we have thought about this. What did we think about? He says this, for the love of Christ compels us because we judge thus, that if one died for all, then all die. And he, verse 15, died for all that those that live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and rose for them. Amen? That's a summation of the gospel and its effect upon our life. John says it in 1 John, how do you know a man loves God? Well, he loves the people of God. So Paul says, when I heard about it, I heard about y'all's love there at Ephesus, he says, I do not cease, verse 16, to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that's something he's gonna draw out uniquely in chapter one and verse number three, and we'll talk about that maybe in a moment, but the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, what am I asking him to do? That he may give to you the breath of life. wisdom the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling what are the riches of his glory in the inheritance in the Saints and and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power. You notice he prayed for a few things, didn't he? He prayed for those things because apart from God, Giving us this spirit of wisdom and revelation, there's no way we could fully understand what he just said in those first 14 verses. For an example, look in verse number three. He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was sharing with the men earlier, and I've shared with you before, that the word blessed there is the exact same word for eulogy. When do we normally declare or give away a eulogy? When is that normally done? At a funeral service. And a eulogy, in its definition, means to give a fitting or a good word in regards to a particular life. To give a good word. You give that good word, and that word reverberates after they have passed. It's a word that carries on after them, that is a reflection back upon a life. Rusty, it's an echo that just echoes the life that they lived. We've been praying for Beverly and her family and her sister. and asked him the Lord to comfort them and be with them. And I would imagine at her homegoing service, it was a sweet service of testimony. that carried on after her. How many times have we heard sweet services about lives that were lived before us that have left this world? I think about Bill and Mama Rob, and we can start naming off a lot of them that we have seen right here, and when we stood or somebody gave testimony, they gave a fitting good word that echoed a life that was lived. You're thinking about right now in your own journey about family members that have gone on before you that have the weight of their living followed them and echoed behind them. Thinking about it right now. Thinking about Miss Pat's dad. His life echoed behind him. There was a eulogy. But what a eulogy is, if you notice, Paul, who's he blessing? He's blessing the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? Why? Because God's blessings upon us do what? Reverberate back toward him. We echo what he's doing what? in our life. We echo that. And that's exactly what he's doing here. He's echoing it. He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So when he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, why is that important? Was Jesus God? He was God, he is God. Not that he was, he is, amen. But did he have a God? Did he have a father? Yes, was his unique role with his God and father, was it unique and uniquely different than everybody else's? Yes, see, it's this unique connection that he had to God and his father is what makes it possible for us to have a unique relationship with our Father, amen? He's the one who's made peace in our life so that that echo of our lives can continue on as Psalm 23 would say, that when the Lord is your shepherd and he leads you in paths of righteousness for his name's sake, what did he promise would follow us all the days of our life? What did he say? What's gonna follow us? goodness and mercy would follow us all the days of our life. So therefore, we have what? Hope. We have hope for the most tragic times in our life. We have hope for the most joyful times in our life. We have hope for what we can't overcome, what we can't avoid. We have hope through it all. Why? Because of a unique relationship that the Lord Jesus had with his father. And as a result, that relationship, which is the grace of God at work, has been bestowed upon us when we place our confidence and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we keep reading through, and he's gonna tell us, look, verse number four, just as, that word just as means to be in step with or in harmony with, that it's showing a root to a thing, The reason we have these blessings in Christ now is rooted in this. What is it rooted in? He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world for this purpose, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved, in Jesus, in Him, Jesus, what do we have? We have redemption through what? Man, we sang about the blood this morning, right? We praise the precious blood or the lifeblood of Jesus. We have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will according to the good pleasure which he purposed in himself. Now, all this is what he's asking God to give him a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know. that apart from God giving us light and teaching us these things, we wouldn't know the full scope of this. So is it important for us to pray for one another? Do you need me to be praying over you, and do I need you to be praying over me? Do we need each other praying over one another? Oh, there's no doubt about it. That has to be, that has to be. Matter of fact, look in first, 1 Corinthians, go to 1 Corinthians. I want you to see something here. 1 Corinthians. Look in 1 Corinthians. Chapter number two. 1 Corinthians chapter number two. I broke out one of my new Bibles, so y'all work with me a little bit. No coffee on it, no coffee on it. It's brand new. I mean, I've been in it before, don't get me wrong. But I'm trying to make the transition. Man, I've been toting this Bible around for a long time, and I've already attempted to get in this one, and this one's been everywhere with me. It goes everywhere with me. Right after I was surrendered to ministry, A fella gave me this Bible, and man, it's a treasure to me. Well, I found me one, the exact same Bible, so it's exactly the same pages and exactly the same layout, but still and all, I get so used to this one, you know how it is. And this one here, you know, your pages are still stuck together, but what I'm trying to do, I want this one to look like that one. And I gotta get me one more so I could have three of them to pass down to the three girls and that they could all have them a Bible. So Lord willing, he keep me around for a little bit longer. I'm gonna try to fill this one up as well. But 1 Corinthians chapter number two, look in verse number six. Let's just start there. However, we speak wisdom. Remember, we need wisdom. We need the spirit of wisdom in Revelation. So when Paul speaks wisdom, it's going to take the spirit, the breath of God doing something in us to be able to comprehend this wisdom. We can't ever approach these things like you do anything else in life. You've got to have God teach you. If God isn't teaching us, we're just not gonna see it. And all God's people say it. Now watch, he's gonna tell that to us. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature. That is those who are trusting, treasuring, and growing in grace. Yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, for they are coming to nothing. This world we live in is coming to? Hey, buddy. Did he get away from you? He's fast now. He's like his daddy, ain't he? He said, I want my daddy. Listen what he says, I'm gonna read that one more time. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age nor the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. The world we live in without Jesus is coming to nothing. Gotta remember that. If you want something to be something and you want it to last, who's gotta be involved in it? God's got to be involved in it. Jesus has to be involved in it. The grace of God has to have its way in it. Verse seven, we speak the wisdom of God and we speak it in a mystery, it's hidden, which God ordained before the ages for our glory, for our good, for our benefit, for our salvation. Beauty, God spoke it for us, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. Y'all hear that? If they would have knew what we need to know, they would have never put Jesus on the cross. They would have never crucified him. But because they were in the dark, because they didn't have light, because they didn't have this wisdom, they did what they did to Jesus. And the same thing for you and me. If I'm in the dark and I don't have wisdom, I don't have light from God, I'm gonna mistreat, misuse, and misrepresent Jesus every day, all the time. Y'all follow with me? Verse nine, but as it is written, eye is not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who what? Love him. Now the ones that love him, God has revealed things to them that the natural man cannot see. This is not strictly talking about what is still yet to come in heaven. It's used often in that context. Of course, there's a lot about heaven we just don't know. That's an enticing wonder to us what heaven's gonna be like and what heaven is. We do know this though. Jesus is our reward in heaven. And that's what we wanna focus on. He's our reward. Verse number 10. But God has revealed, that is shed light, us through his spirit for the spirit searches inquires digs inquires all things yes the deep things of God for what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him even so no one is knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God that we might know the things that have been, what, freely given to us by God. Y'all hear that? The only way to know the things of God, you gotta have the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God, who searches the deep things of God, reveals those things to us when we are learning and hearing and submitting and growing in Him, and that's why Paul says in Ephesians 2 for you. What am I praying for? That God would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation, light, so that you can understand what it means to be blessed in the Lord. That you could understand what it means to be adopted by Jesus. You could understand what it means to be forgiven by him, that we can understand what it means when we were dead in our trespasses, yet he made us alive in Christ Jesus. What all that means, because a natural man in his natural abilities cannot fathom this, cannot see this, is in the dark on this, unless the Spirit of God, who searches the deep things of God, reveals them to us, amen? So you see why it's important for us to pray for each other, that God, you gotta teach Karen. You gotta show Karen things Karen can't see. God, you gotta teach Brother Nick things that Brother Nick cannot see. And if he can't see it, he can't reveal it to us. If he can't reveal it to us, we can't see what you want us to see. So therefore, you have a process in the way that you work. We're utterly dependent on you to turn the light switch on. So we come to you to do this work, amen? Puts us dependent upon the Lord to do what we can't do ourselves. No matter how brilliant, no matter what a genius, no matter how smart, no matter how intellectual, no matter what kind of education, there is no form or fashion of any kind of educational instructional system that can teach you what only God can teach you. That's why it's spiritually discerned. God's got to be the teacher of it. So these wonderful revelations that we're seeing in Ephesians of this great salvation that we have, God has to be the teacher of it. That's why he submitted right off the bat and said, since I heard, I started to pray. Why? We want to see Our people, what? Maturing, growing, being stretched, being reinforced, strengthened. Therefore, for that to happen in their families and in their lives and on the job, on the mission field, God's gotta do this teaching, amen? He's gotta do this teaching. You mind if I hold that little girl for a minute, Brittany? You mind, boo? Let me see that pretty little thing. So sweet and dainty. Come see, come see. Look, look at this. Man, look, you see everybody. Isn't that precious? Look, Brother Shannon. Little Millie. Don't understand a single word we're talking about in here, right? Just like, just like when we are without the help of the Lord, we can't either. We're just as helpless as she is without God's help in our life, amen? You smiling at me? I see you, look. I know I'm an ugly thing, I smile too, huh? I'm just glad I don't scare you, huh? You see everybody? Well, she's a good blend of all three of them, ain't she? Man, man, man, so sweet and precious. But as a new babe in Christ, now at the mercy of God, the Bible says Brandon was just feeding her some milk. And she's probably gonna spit up on me too. Memphis spit up on me, didn't it? It wiped off though, praise the Lord. But just like a new babe in Christ, we as the scriptures that desire the sincere milk of the word is merely still only Taking milk right now? Nothing, nothing else, right? Because she's not at that place to be able to eat even soft food. But that's coming. We had Ike with us last night. He spent the night with us. And he's still drinking milk. But I was feeding him, you know those little donut sticks? How many of y'all, oh Jim, do you like them? You don't like them? Not a hole, and I'm talking about little pieces of it. While we were eating last night, I grilled some fish, made some little pork bites, had some little fresh green beans, and a big old baked potato. And he don't have a tooth in his mouth, but he took those green beans and he worked the town on them, let me tell you. Now that's with mama helping him a little bit. But you see, he's growing. He's growing. He ain't shy. He's not too far out from a year old. And eventually, she's going to be able to put a pork bite in his mouth. Now, Leland, on the other hand, you can give him a little meat. He took that fish yesterday and took him the first bite of that old, it tastes, man, it tastes like old hickory smoke on it. He took a bite of it, and Jay, he went, mmm. He liked it. I touched it up with just a little blackening season on it and he ate it and ate his fish. He had him a baked potato in front of him. Didn't want the green beans. He didn't touch them. But he sure enough enjoyed the fish. Now, because we want Leland to grow. We want Millie to grow over time. She can't stay on milk her whole life, right? She has to be able to transition from milk to some soft food, to some solid food, and eventually, as the Bible described it, meat, so that she can physically, in stature, grow. Well, that's the same thing with you and I. We can't stay on the Bible for all our lives, can we? Now, as a believer, I have to go from this stage to the next stage. And you're always going to drink a little reprocessed nutrition, because that's what milk is. Milk is something reprocessed. Whether it be from a cow, from a mama, formula, whatever it is, it's something that's been reprocessed, given to them that their bodies can handle to help them grow to a certain point. But then they need to eat something that their own bodies can process. and grow from there, and that's very fundamental for all of us. So when I teach like this morning, praying for God to be a work in each of our lives, that's like reprocessed nutrition. I've eaten on it. I've chewed it up. It's been reprocessed in me. I'll share a few things with y'all. Y'all drink on it like milk, but it's the leads you. Just like if you were sitting there, how many of y'all drink milk for around your meal sometimes? Who still likes milk? Greg, you drink milk pretty regular? Anybody else? Debra, Donnie, I don't like milk. I never, when I was this age, I didn't drink milk. My mom and them had to give me goat's milk. I was allergic, I guess, to regular milk, and I never, ever acquired a taste for it. Man, give me just about anything else than straight milk. Now, I will drink milk or I'll eat my cereal. You know what I eat my cereal with? Chocolate milk. I chocolate it and marinate it sweet too. And Brittany, it's good. It's good. Really good. Really good. Why? I just cannot do the white milk. But you see, I still drink something, whether that be water or whatever it is. But while I'm eating solid food, I'm washing it down with something else. Well, today I'm giving you something to wash down what you've been chewing on. And you keep eating on it, and that is what's going to what? Mature you and grow you. What I feed you is going to help you, but it's to point you. to him and for you to spend some time with him, and then he's gonna keep stretching you to do what? Go give away some milk to somebody else. Amen? That's just how he works. Look over in chapter number two. Look in chapter number two. I'm gonna give her back to Brittany, and Brittany, you can pass her back on. Brother Greg, you've been blessed, brother. Mm-mm-mm. Sweet, sweet, sweet. I told y'all to go to chapter two. We're not gonna have time to dig around in it. We'll just have to come back tonight and keep walking through it. But here's an idea that I wanna throw in your lap today before we go. What Paul is doing is one, he's revealing that this is completely, salvation is completely and entirely the work of God and the work of his grace. So from chapter one, we see him introducing these great thoughts of this echoing of praise back to the Lord who's blessed us with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He's praying so that they could see it and understand it. He gets into chapter 2 and begins to show a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile when he's using the phrases you you because he's writing to a Gentile audience, of course, there'll be some Jews mixed in with them there in Ephesus most likely but predominantly in Ephesus they were all Gentiles Paul is in a prison writing this letter in Rome back to this church at Ephesus that he heard about him. He sends this guy and over to him so that he can give a report to him and he sends this great letter, but he's going to remind them that though you are Gentile and I am a Jew, in chapter two he begins to introduce the fact that God has reconciled us together and that reconciliation between the two people groups only happens in Christ Jesus. That's where the peace and the reconciliation comes. And then in chapter 3, where you are today, he's now reiterating because he said, I've already wrote about it. I'm just reiterating how I have this revelation about this mystery is because God's given it to me. and he gave it to me so that I can preach this message to you and make you see that this is the eternal purpose of God, to reconcile the world, all ethnic groups around the world, into one body, and that body is the body of Christ, in Christ Jesus, through the good news, through the cross, through the blood, through the life of Jesus, and all of it is summed up in that one word, grace, grace, grace. That covers everything God's ever done or ever will do in the life of his people, the word grace. You have been saved by Grace, that takes us back before time ever began. It takes us to what God did in himself upon the cross. And that grace will cover us, sustain us, and carry us all the way through time. And then when time is no more, when time is no more, because time is gonna come to an end. When time is no more, our salvation will always be a salvation by grace, amen. Grace, grace, grace, grace. And how you and I can work together and how we can work together with other people around the world, you know how that happens? Reconciliation among enemies can only happen because of grace. Grace, grace, grace. And praise God for his grace, amen. And then we just reverberate it. We just echo it and sing it back to him. Thank you, Lord, for your grace in my life. I was dead in my trespasses and sins. You made me alive. You gave me life. You gave me life. I was gonna illustrate it. Of course, I've done it quite a few times around here with the rock, because that's the picture. The deadness, unmoved by God. And that's how he describes it, that a way. We were dead, we were disobedient, we were deceived. But that's the whole mankind, isn't it? without the Lord. But in that, what did he do? He made us alive through his grace. Amen? And his grace is personified in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Does he give us hope? He does. Does He give us hope in this life? Does He give us hope for the life to come? Yes, everything is built in Jesus for His glory. So to Him be the glory. So I'm gonna ask you to pray for me as you've already been and I ask you to continue on. I ask you to pray for one another that God, you would grow us up in Christ, amen? That we won't be little babes, we won't be strictly on the milk, And something else important. You know how eventually little Millie Grace, Boo and Brandon's gonna feed her. Can y'all have that picture of Boo sitting there at some point with that soft baby food, and Millie's not gonna wanna eat, and what is Boo gonna do? She's gonna open her mouth, right, Miss Pat? Because she wants Millie to open her mouth, and she's gonna play with her, and she's gonna say, open up, here comes the train, right? You know what I'm talking about? and she's gonna try to force feed a little bit. Eventually, Billy's gonna turn her head and she's not gonna want any more of those peas. Y'all know what I'm talking about? Or she's gonna wanna spit them out and Brandy's gonna say, let's play the airplane. He's gonna, and Billy's gonna watch and they're gonna sneak one in on her. You and I don't want to be that kind of person where we go and chew, chew, chew, chew to one another, amen? We want to be able to put the food before the table and you say, let's eat, preacher. Let's eat. Let's eat on it, amen? Let's eat on it. Well, that's because we're growing in grace to the glory of God. Father, we bless you today. We ask you to help us. Thank you for your kindness to us. Thank you to be able to celebrate with you. Thank you that we can be co-laborers with you, and that you would help us go forth in the sweet name of Jesus, knowing that we have a mission, a God-given assignment from you, from you, to tell your wonderful, reverberating work that you've done in our life. May we echo the praises that redound to your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Will you stand with me? And all God's people said. Amen, amen. Keep usin' us, Lord, to see other lives washed white as snow, amen. Well, Brandon and Boo and Millie, it is so good to see y'all. So good to have you back with us and everybody doin' good and feelin' good and growin' and pretty and such a blessing, amen. Such a blessing, such a blessing. We can't wait to see how she's gonna grow up and play a part and help shapenin' her. for the glory of the Lord. It's a sweet treat to have all these little ones running around here, amen? They can knock down cameras and tripods all day long. Long as they don't get hurt, we're good to go, right? Look, I'll give you a little something to think about as you go into this week and as you go help other people think about what Jesus has done for us. You know that Jesus is our, the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. That Passover lamb. That's why Easter is different every year. We call it Resurrection Sunday, and the reason that is, it's all in reference to the moon. It's all in reference to the moon. When the Passover moon comes, that's when they crucify the Lord around that, being the lamb of God, the Passover. But God told them to do this. Eat no leaven. Get rid of leaven out of your house. Leaven is what? It's yeast. What is yeast? Yeast is a fungus It's a fungi that is decaying and eating the sugars, the carbohydrates, in whatever it's in. That's why it produces gas and raises up a loaf for bread. That's why we use it in that. But it's used in a lot of stuff. Used in a lot of stuff. But God told them to get rid of it, and for seven days it had to be completely out of their house. In particular, They started on the first day after they crucified the lamb, killed the lamb, the first morning, the first day after that was a feast, and they would have no leaven on that. Well, that leaven is a picture of decay, and it's a picture of Jesus. Why? Because God put him in the grave, and he came out of the grave on the third day with no leaven. decay. Resurrected body. That's the picture of the leaven, no decay. Tells us in the New Testament, watch the leaven of the Pharisees, watch the leaven of Herod, watch the leaven of the Sadducees. Their teaching is decaying, it's rotting, it'll get you. So you pay attention to that. But the whole point about leaven with Jesus, when they left Exodus, was there would be no decay in the resurrected lamb. God would raise him up on the third day. His body wouldn't decay. And all God's people said, use it to go tell the story of the cross and his resurrection, of what God did when he got his people out of there, amen? Amen. Thank you, Lord. Let's pray. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for this time we've had today. We pray for Carolyn in school tomorrow, but more than that, we pray for her today, as she goes home, as she walks about, as she lives, that she will be a blessing to those she lives with and are surrounded by, and we just praise you right now. Thank you for the great witness that we have in your life, in your cross, in your blood, and in the power of your resurrection. Use us, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Love y'all!