We're gonna take our Bibles and turn to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs chapter three. One of the highlights that I have every year, Megan and I were talking about our year this year, talking about some things that God did in Canada and Minnesota and South Carolina and Florida and different places where we saw God do some great works. One of the highlights that we have every year that we've been able to privilege to go was to go to Washington, D.C. in March and be a part of the Capital Connection Awake America Conference where Anabaptists from all over the country come. And we just kind of stormed Capitol Hill with the gospel and giving out horse tracks and so on. And one of the biggest highlights of that time is a midnight tour. And this tour, well, there'll be about, I don't know, 300 of us or so. We'll have this private tour there of the Capitol, but we'll get into the House of Representatives. Now, the House of Representatives is where the State of the Union speech is given, and I've been in there many times. And what we will do is we'll go in there, maybe hear from one of the representatives, maybe he'll talk for just a little bit, but the main reason why we're there is to pray. And we get on our knees in all of those seats and almost fill that bottom floor and begin to pray. And I don't know if there's another group that has a permission like our group does to come in there and to pray at the House of Representatives. It's a powerful moment. And I always try to get one of the first rows there, and I'll sit down there, and oftentimes you see the president speak. Just above, though, they hardly ever show it, but ingrained in granite is these words, in God we trust. If they just panned up just a little bit, you could see it. Now everybody that's looking at the president can see it, big bold letters. That's the writing that's in there. It's in God we trust. And even on the, it's a circular room and there's different law givers and the one that's in the middle is Moses. All the other ones, the philosophers and so on, they are looking straight ahead, but Moses' eyes are looking right down at that lectern. And just powerful how God is, is there with our founding fathers and so on. But in God we trust. And that is our country's motto. In God we trust. It's on our money, on our coins. And where did we find this motto? Well, it was Francis Scott Key who wrote the song, The Star-Spangled Banner. And I always thought she did a great job writing that. It wasn't a she. And he was one of the deacons in his church. But of course, we have the regular first verse that is sung many times in sports venues. But another verse says, oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation. Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land praise the power, that's capitalized, that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. And this be our motto, and God is our trust. And the star-spangled banner and triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. That's where we get our motto, from the star-spangled banner. In God we trust, and of course, The Declaration of Independence wasn't just declaring independence upon Brenton, it was declaring their dependence upon God. The last statement says, and for this support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of capitalized divine, capitalized providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. That Declaration of Independence was also a declaration of dependence upon God. And if there's anyone that ought to have the motto in our lives, it ought to be us who know Christ is our Savior and God we trust. We see here in Proverbs chapter 3, and our text this morning is verse number 5, but we'll begin in verse number 1. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. Why would he say don't forget it? Because it's easy to forget. We've got to memorize and meditate upon God's work. The fruit of this, for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thine head, write them upon the table of thine heart. I sense such an urgency. Don't let these things go. Cling to them, clasp to them. Verse number four, what's the result? So shall thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. The text, verse number five, trust in the Lord with some of thine heart, no, with all thine heart and lean not to thy own understanding and most of thy ways, no, and all thy ways acknowledge him and he should direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. Father, I thank you for your word. Lord, it is such a joy to be able to look down, to have eyes, to be able to see the pages of Scripture. Lord, thank you that we have ears so we can hear the Word of God. Lord, we are so blessed. Thank you for all 66 books. Thank you for the complete Word of God that we have with us right now. And Lord, I ask that you would speak to each one of us, Lord, with specificity and with power, and Lord, that you would peel back the layers of our hearts and touch that area that needs to be touched, Lord, where we are leaning to our own understanding, where we're not trusting you with all of our hearts. Lord, I pray that you would draw us closer to you by us being here this morning. Lord, I am in desperate need of you. Lord, I come to this text and I feel so inadequate. Lord, I pray that I need your help to deliver this message and we all need your help in listening and obeying what it is that you have for us. And Lord, if there's any here that does not know thee as Savior, I pray, Lord, that they would see their sinful condition and see that they need Jesus Christ alone to save them, and that they would turn to Christ alone for their salvation before it is eternally too late. Lord, please get glory. May this day be gold, silver, and precious stone at the judgment seat of Christ, we pray in Christ's name, amen. The title of the message this morning is, In God We Trust. In God We Trust. We'll see number one, our trust must have the right foundation. Number two, our trust must have the right fervency. And then number three, our trust must have the right focus. Because of who God is, we must surrender all to him and trust him. We see number one, our trust must have the right foundation. He says, trust in the Lord. Now this passage of scripture is one of the most famous of all the Bible. It is maybe a favorite of many of you. And it's a great, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is a great passage to have as life verses. I don't know how many times I've had these verses as tests growing up in Christian school and going to Bible college. But I've had these verses more in the test of life. Not just a test on paper, but the test of life. And we see our trust must have the right foundation. Who are you trusting in? There's the story of Matthew 7, verse 24, of the wise man, the foolish man. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken to him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock." Is your foundation founded upon a rock, upon the rock, upon God? But if you don't have the foundation that is upon the rock, you have the other foundation, which is sand. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell. And great was the fall of it." I just heard from a class I'm taking, a preacher said many times, Jesus Christ just preached in two points. We see this here, two points. You either have your foundation on a rock, or you have your foundation on a sand. Who are you trusting in? What is your foundation in? Is it in God? In Hebrews 11, men and women had great confidence. Their foundation was in God. They had faith in God. They had trust in God. They were confident in God and believed his promises. And we can trust in a lot of other things, and we do. And we don't trust in God. When's the last time you were disobedient to Proverbs 3.5? When's the last time you disobeyed Proverbs 3.5? You say, oh, well, you know, back in July. No, it's been sooner than that. Yesterday, I'm meditating on these verses, and God's revealing, you're leaning to your own understanding in this area. You're leaning to your own understanding in this area. You're not trusting me with everything. We can trust in a lot of other things other than God. And when we don't obey Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, this is disobedience. This is not a suggestion. This is a command of Scripture. So often we have confidence in others. Confidence in unfaithful man in the time of trouble is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint, Proverbs 28, or 25, verse 19. When we had the memorial service for Pastor Rogers, Michael was here and there were several of us from the youth group back in the 90s that were here. And so we all came up on the platform and we took a group picture. And Michael grabbed a roll of toilet paper. And he had us string out this roll of toilet paper and have a picture of us with this roll of toilet paper. You say, why did he do that? Because many years ago, we teepeed houses. I did it, many others did it. There was one time that was the best time, and I said, I'm never doing it again, I hadn't done it since. But I remember many years ago, I'm in high school, and my mom gets a phone call, and it was from one of the sisters of a girl that came to school here, and she said, I'm not supposed to tell you anything, but, This girl, Holly is her name, is having a sleepover, and at 2 a.m. in the morning, would it be okay if they come over and teepee your house? And my mom says, sure, that's fine. And so my mom, being the good lady that she is, she told me about it. Now, I was very sick at that time, and we had a basketball game the next day, and I'm like, I don't wanna stay up till 2 a.m. waiting for them, and so I asked, hey, could Michael come and spend the night, and he could stay up, and we'll get him when they get here. And so Michael came over and I said, now, Michael, I need you to stay up all night, you know, till they come. I said, they're coming out 2 a.m. And so what we did is we had two hoses and one hose we stuck on the roof and with a spray nozzle, so it's already on, all you gotta do is spray. And then the other one we put near the back fence, so where the trees are, and it had that, again, another spray nozzle right there. And so when they were gonna get there, we were gonna get them pretty good. We were gonna soak them, and I was excited about that. And so we're in the living room, I fall asleep. And then after a little while, I hear this tapping on the window. It's just a light tapping, and I'm like, wait a minute, what's happening? And then I realize someone's tapping on the window, they're already here. And I look over on the couch, and there's Michael. And he is out, and I'm like, you had one job, you know? I mean, just stay up. And I'm like, Michael, Michael. And I said, don't move, because they could see in a little bit. I said, don't move, but they're here. And then they kind of went away. And so we quickly, you know, get out, go to the backyard. He gets up on the roof. I go over the back fence, and we watch them drive away. they've already teepeed the entire house. And so we missed out on it. And I'm like, Michael, you had one job. You know, I tried to trust him in that, and yet he failed me. Now, it's not that I don't ever trust Michael again. No, there's things I definitely trust Michael of, but you know, here I've trusted him before, and I've trusted him in other areas as well, and yet God, he's never failed me, but I don't understand, other than the wickedness of my own heart, why I don't trust God more. You know, you have this friend that's not faithful sometimes, but God is always faithful. Others will let you down, but God will never let you down. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12, verse number one, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and these sin. What's the sin? The sin of unbelief. The sin of not trusting God. Every time you and I sin, we are disobeying Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Every time, we are sinning the sin of unbelief. It's rooted in not trusting God, of what he said, his word. He says, lay aside every weight, and these sin which will so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God, at the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. Our eyes are to be upon him. So often we get our eyes on man. We need to have our eyes upon God. There was a time I was very discouraged in college, and one of my teachers confronted me about it. And he's like, what's going on, Tim? And I had a friend that messed up his life, and I was just so despondent about it. He says, Tim, you've got to get your eyes back on God. And he was right. I was looking at man. I've got to have my eyes upon God. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord, Isaiah 6.1. Oh, that we would get our eyes back upon the Lord. Psalm 118.8, it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. We can trust in man. We can trust in riches. We can trust in our money. Of course, that's fleeting as well. There's many things we can trust in, but the best trust we can have, the best foundation is in the Lord. Proverbs 22.19, that thy trust may be in the Lord. Psalm 115.11, ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. Jeremiah 17, seven, blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. So our trust must have the right foundation. But then we see number two, our trust must have the right fervency. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Now we would like for it to say some or most, but not all. Not everything, yes, everything. Anything less is disobedience. Anything less than trusting Him with all of our hearts. Here's Saul, Saul is commanded to utterly destroy the Amalekites. And yet he doesn't destroy all of them, no, he keeps King Agag alive. Samuel said, 1 Samuel 15, verse 22, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. It's more important to have obedience than to have all of the sacrifice. I was listening to a missions conference, and an ambassador, you know, you think, okay, I'm gonna give to missions. God doesn't just want you to give to missions, he wants you to put yourself in that offering plate too. I think so often we as Americans, and it was said, and I've known this for a couple years, but it was said in that missions conference, that it's not a lack of funds right now in missions, it's a lack of laborers. You know, people are glad, okay, yeah, I'll give as long as I don't have to go. I'll give as long as I don't have to be involved. I'll put this matter of sacrifice into the Lord. God says, I'm not wanting just a sacrifice, I'm wanting you. So I want full obedience, not just a giving. I want the full obedience of your life. And so because of his disobedience, because he leaned to his own understanding, because he didn't trust God with all of his heart, it cost him his kingship, and it ultimately cost him his life. He would be killed by an Amalekite. You see, the Christian life cannot be lived successfully by being half-hearted. God has called us to be all in, and yet our Christianity is such a, you read about what's going on in India, and you think, what problems do we have? You know, what do we have all to complain about? And yet our Christianity is just such a pansy, it's so weak. And God's called us, what, to wholeheartedness? We've gotta trust him with all of our heart. We must love him with all of our heart, our soul, our mind, our strength. This Christian life cannot be lived in victory and obedience without being wholehearted. If you love me, keep my commandments. It takes the whole heart to obey God. It takes the whole heart to keep his commandments. When you and I are half-hearted, we're losing. In Matthew 6, 24, no man can serve two masters freely or he'll hate the one, love the other, or else he'll hold to the one, despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. We must trust him. Trust him with all of our hearts. Have that right fervency. Psalm 62 and verse eight, trust in him at all times, ye people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us, Selah. Isaiah 26 three, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusted in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. You may be distant in your trust of God because you're distant in your walk with God. You're not walking close to him. You're not in his word. So in faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And so we must hear the word of God, we must be in the word of God. How are we gonna walk close to him? Can two walk together except they be agreed, Amos 3.3 says. 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, that means to agree with God, to agree with God about our sin. He is faithful and just, forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we're going to learn to trust him, we must learn to walk with him. We need to be in God's word every single day. Be in prayer every single day. Rich Tozer, when he was 15 years old, made a vow to God. He said, God, from here on out, every day of my life, I'm gonna spend five minutes in your word every single day for the rest of my life. And so he says, as a teenager, he says, I did great for about the first week. And then one night, I'm going to bed, I'm just about asleep, and I realized, oh, I didn't spend any time in God's word. Got out of bed, turned on the light, and read for five minutes as he had vowed to God. And every day since then, since he was 15 years old, now he's almost 60, he has read God's word every single day. When he said that as a teenager, and I did not make a vow to God, but I made a commitment. I said, okay, God, from here on out, I didn't give God a specific amount of time, but I said, from here on out, every day of my life, by your grace, I'm gonna spend, in your word, some amount of time every single day. And every single day since then, God has helped me to spend time in his word. Now that does not mean that I have been right with God every day of my life, far from it. It does not mean I have not been backslidden, but it has kept me from a lot, I believe. And some of us, we're not consistent in the matter of spending time with God. We're not close in our trust with God because we're not close to him. You know, there's some people you get close to and you're like, eh, I don't like their character. I better not get close to them. There's other ones that the more you get to know them, the more respect you have for them. One of those is Jeff Lutes. Another one's Brandon Campbell. The more I've gotten to know those two men, oh, Scott Dean as well, those men are solid. I'm thankful for them, and the more I trust them. And the closer you get to God, the more you will trust God, because he is absolutely trustworthy. Dr. Ron Comfort, who started at Ambassador Rapids College, he would have this statement, no Bible, no breakfast. If I don't spend time in God's word, I'm not gonna eat. I'm not gonna eat until I spend time in God's word. And if you have a problem, a struggle with the discipline of spending time with God each day, put that in your life. Okay, no Bible, no breakfast. No lunch, I'm not gonna spend time. If you don't eat breakfast, say, okay, I'm not gonna eat until I spend some time in God's word. You know, you can make that same commitment. Say, you know what, God, from here on out, from this day forward, I'm gonna spend time in God's word every single day by your grace the rest of my life. God's commanded us to spend time in his word every day. God wants us to commune with Him. And it just makes sense that we'd spend time with His Word every day. One lady came up to me, I made that statement about no Bible, no breakfast. She says, I'm a diabetic. She says, I have to eat all throughout the day. She said, it just makes sense to me that I don't just need God's Word in the morning, I need it all throughout the day. And we do. We need it all throughout the day. We need to have that meditation. Oh, how love I have always my meditation all the day long. Psalm 119, 97. And so to spend that time in God's word every day, that will help develop that trust, that closeness, that oneness. Because it's not just knowing about God, but it's knowing him. Jeremiah 9, 23, thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory his wisdom. Neither let the mighty man glory his might, let not the rich man glory his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. You're not gonna grow in your Christian life if you just come to church Sunday morning and that's it. God hasn't called you to that. No, he's called us to trust him with all of our hearts, to have the right fervency. Say, God, every day of my life, not just on a Sunday, but I'm gonna spend time with you. I'm gonna trust you with all of my heart. I love the song. I need thee every hour, and I sing it many times to the Lord. And someone else wrote a moment by moment. They knew the song, I need thee every hour. They're like, no, I don't just need you every hour, I need you moment by moment. I enjoy both of them. But we need God moment by moment. We do need God every single hour. And the closer you get to him, you will trust him. And so we must trust him. We must trust him with all of our hearts. Anything less to him is an insult. Anything less is sin. Anything less is disobedience. And so number one, we see our trust must have the right foundation, must have the right fervency, but now lastly, must have the right focus. He says, and lean not unto thine own understanding. Proverbs 28, 26 says, he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. Oh, we could share stories of when we've done dumb things, where we've leaned our own understanding. I'm thinking of a coworker of mine that he was a born again man, and he said, hey, I'm gonna go to this dealership, and we made the same amount of money. His car was nicer than my car. The next day, he comes back with a brand new truck. And he says, man, check out this new truck I just bought. He says, they gave me a great deal on my trade-in. And I'm like, how in the world is he going to afford this brand new truck? And the insurance went up, and everything was in California. And a couple months later, he said, Tim, I've got to move back to where I grew up in Kentucky. He says, I messed up. He says, Tim, I lean to my own understanding. When I bought that truck, I shouldn't have bought it. So you're telling me that Proverbs 3, 5 will help you financially? Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's gonna help you in every aspect of life. Oh, we get ourselves in trouble when we lean to our own understanding. Every sin that we've committed, it's because we've leaned to our own understanding and not trusted God. Sometimes, I was listening to this class and the teacher, the evangelist was saying, sometimes we think that God is not involved. And so then we tend to say, you know what, I'm gonna do this. Since God's not working in this area, I'm just gonna go ahead and do it myself. And the divine pattern is our submission to God and God's anointing. We do not do ministry without him. We cannot go apart from him. We are co-laborers with him. Robert Murray McShane was a tremendous preacher, godly man. He said, one of the statements he made was, my people's greatest need is my own personal holiness. And what a tremendous statement. And he died a young man. with a broken heart, he was just a godly man, and they were having the services going on, and they were looking for him, and he wasn't there yet, and so one of the deacons went into his office, and he saw him laying there on the floor, just crying out to God, saying, God, I can't go. I can't do this without you. God, I'm not gonna go if you don't go with me. God, you've got to go with me. I cannot get into that pulpit without you. And the man just quietly shut the door and went back to the people, and he says, he's gonna come out in a little while, and his friend will be with him. And speaking of God, and God used Robert Murray McShane in a tremendous way, but he realized he cannot do this without God. How much of your life do you think you can do without God? He says, without me you can do nothing. I mean, how helpless, how desperate are you? Helplessness is the language of the helpless. We don't pray, we don't see God because we don't see our need of him. And we lean on our understanding, we miss out on so much that God wants to do in and through us. We're impatient, we don't wait upon God. Psalm 27 verse 14 says, wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. We can get impatient many times in our lives, get impatient, oh, God's not doing this in my timing. Well, it's because His timing's what's best. I'm thankful that I waited till my senior year to start dating Megan. I'm thankful that God helped me not to be impatient. I said, all right, God, I was praying, like, Lord, where is she? It's my last senior year, and so God put it all together in his perfect timing. God's gonna work things out in his perfect timing. We must wait upon him. There's a twofold secret of maintaining patience, and that is intercession and expectation. intercession expectation. We must pray, seeking the face of God, but then expect him to work. You know, we're in a waiting time right now in our church. We're in a wait, okay, who's our next pastor? I don't know yet. But I know that God is working. I know that he's working these things out, so what do we need to do? We need to wait. What do we need to do? We need to intercede. But then we need to pray with expectation, because God is going to answer. It is going to happen. God's gonna bring the right one to us. And so we must have that intercession expectation and wait upon the Lord, because waiting, again, is a act of trust. It's not leaning toward understanding. We must wait upon the Lord, we must trust in the Lord. We think of relationships, being with college students, some guys can be so dumb, and of course I was one of those too, but I counseled some of those college students, like just wait, just have patience, just trust in the Lord, don't lean toward understanding. I mean it's first, financially, maybe you have a big decision to make, financially, have you prayed about it? Do you have the peace of God to move forward on it or to say no to it? You know, the fears that we have, what are we doing? We're leaning on understanding. You know, we think, okay, what's gonna happen? We have this whole scenario we might make in our mind, but it's an atheistic scenario. Put God in that equation. You know, there's a lot of different fears we could have, but oh God, he cast out all of those fears. Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, Philippians 4, 6. So you have fears, let those fears drive you closer to God. You're having a hard time waiting, having patience, let it drive you closer to God. You have a decision to make, don't lean your understanding, let it drive you nearer to God. Commit thy works to the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established, Proverbs 16 and verse number three. So this matter of Proverbs 3.5, oh, it does save us from a lot if we obey it. I don't have time to tell you about our robbery that we had many years ago, but I always think about this, and if I would've leaned on my own understanding, what would've happened? I could've been hurt or killed, my wife the same, my mom and dad the same. I'm so thankful that at that point, God helped me to trust him with all of my heart that I didn't lean on my own understanding. You know, the greatest cost in the matter of leaning on your own understanding comes with eternity. Where are you gonna spend eternity? Are you gonna spend eternity in heaven or are you gonna spend eternity in hell, in the lake of fire? That's what the Bible says. There's only two places that you're gonna go. Every one of us is going to die at some point. Someday it's gonna be your final breath. Someday you'll have your name upon that grave marker. And God, He wants you to spend eternity with Him. He created you. He loves you. But sin separated you from Him. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And sin's punishment is death. For the wage of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And Jesus Christ paid that punishment of your sin, and he died upon that cross, and shed his blood for your sins and for mine, and was buried, and then he rose again that third day, conquering sin, conquering the grave. And all who call upon him will be saved. It's just like sitting in that chair that you're in. You put your faith, your trust, your confidence, no longer in your legs, no longer in your ability to hold you up. No, you are absolutely putting everything upon me. Hold your weight upon that chair to hold you up. The same thing is true with salvation. Let's say, God, I can't save myself. I'm a sinner. I'm in need of a Savior. And I'm putting my whole trust upon you to save me. And all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. In closing, I was in Alaska my first year in evangelism. Megan and I were there for several weeks. And there was one of our last rounds, the second week, we were there for three weeks, but our second week, I remember praying, I said, God, would you give me somebody this week that can be my project? Like, I wanna just really work on him. The very first night, before even any services started, there was a young man that was very cordial, very nice young man, 14 years old. He comes up to me, introduced himself, and asked if I'm the speaker this week. And I said, yes, I am. And I said, what's your name? He said, my name's Phillip. And I said, How many years have you been coming here to the camp? He said, oh, this is my first time. And I said, oh, OK. And I said, what church do you go to, Philip? And he said, Soldat and the Baptist Church. And I said, how long have you been going there? And he said, five weeks. And I'm like, oh. Started talking a little bit more, and I'm like, oh, Philip doesn't know Christ as Savior. And so I'm like, all right, he's my project. I remember texting Pastor Rogers and telling, hey, Wednesday night, pray for this guy, Phillip. The church, I told mom and dad, hey, pray for this guy, Phillip. He's my project this week. Now, this man, Phillip, he had a friend of his who was a girl, and they just hung out with each other all day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We would play games and things. I'd try to talk to him, but any free time, it was just he and her were together. And I just, it was hard to get them apart. And I remember preaching Wednesday night, I was giving the gospel, and he was at the edge of his seat, raised his hand saying, I don't know if I'd die today, I'd go to heaven. Several responded, but he did not. And I'm like, ah. And I was so burdened for him. I remember going back to where we were staying, and I was praying, I said, God, I feel like he's rejected you tonight. But as I, the next day I realized, no, he didn't reject him, he just needs some more time. And then Friday, I preached the last message, And I'm like, God, this is it. This is my last time to preach. Lord, please have Philip respond to the invitation. I mean, every night he's raised his hand. And that night, once again, edge of the seat, he's raised his hand, but he does not respond to the invitation. He doesn't come forward. And so we close the service. That next morning, I'm kind of broken hearted. I'm like, Lord, I need a time today, without the other girl with him, I need a time to talk to him about his salvation. And we had breakfast, and I never got a chance to talk to him. I remember him being on the bus, and that bus leaving, and my heart just breaking. I'm like, God, I'll never have an opportunity to talk to him again about the gospel. Well, that afternoon, I asked the camp director, I said, hey, I don't have a place to go tomorrow, Sunday. I said, you know, what church should I go to? And he says, why don't you come to the church, our church. I said, where are you going? He said, St. Dot and the Baptist Church. And I'm like, oh, that's where Philip goes. The next day, we go there, Sunday school, and between Sunday school and Sunday morning, we have the break, and in walks Phillip and that girl. And I'm like, forget this, I'm gonna break this thing off, and I'm going, I said, Phillip, can I talk to you one-on-one? He says, yep. And I go to him, I said, now, Phillip, I said, if you were to die today, where would you go? And so confidently, he says, heaven. And in my mind, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't know that. You don't know Christ your Savior yet. You don't know that. And I said, Philip, has there ever been a time in your life where you saw yourself as a sinner in need of a Savior, and you turned to Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? He said, yes. I said, really? I said, when? He says, last night. Last night? Yes. Last night, he says, I was going through all of the notes that we had in their cabin devotions, the messages that you preached, and it all made sense to me last night. I need Jesus Christ to save me. And I asked him to save me last night. And I gave him a hug, I mean, I was all teary-eyed, and he says, you know, we were talking a little bit, and that girl that I thought was such a hindrance, that I thought there was some kind of relationship there, there was no relationship. That girl goes to public school and she was so burdened for this guy in her class, Philip, to get saved, she went to her church five weeks or so before camp and said, would you please pray specifically for this other guy in my class named Philip to get saved? Somebody else called upon them at their house and began to take him to church those five weeks. Somebody else paid for him to go to the camp that week. And what I thought was a great hindrance was actually the one who started it all. And I don't even remember her name. I remember Phillip, but I don't remember her name. But she had that burden to see someone else coming, oh Christ, your Savior. We were talking, he says, Brother Schmidt, he says, you know what song meant the most to me at camp this week? And we sang all kinds of songs, some silly songs. I said, what song was that, Phillip? He said, that song called Trust and Obey. He says, I went online last night and I downloaded a whole group of people singing it, probably a choir. He says, I just had it on repeat. Trust and obey. The very first song that I remember as a kid, I'm probably about three or four, maybe, I don't know, probably three, maybe even two, is the song Trust and Obey. You know, really, it's trust to obey. And really, Christianity can be boiled down to just Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust God, obey God. Trust God to obey God. Where is it that you are being disobedient to Proverbs 3 and verse number five? Let's go to the Lord in prayer.