Isn't it wonderful to celebrate with Kellen in the baptism today? So grateful. It's a reminder also that the church is not about the building, it's about the people. And we are the church together and all of us have a significant story. God is working in all of our lives. God's love changes our lives and we want to grow in our faith together. We pray Whether you're here for 21 years or you're just here for the first time, we pray that you would experience that love and that community here at Grace. We are in a series right now going through the Gospel of Mark, and it's our joy to dive into God's Word. This is our spiritual food. This is drawing close to God. He's given us this love letter. His word is reliable. We're in Mark chapter 6 so if you want to on your phone or if you brought a Bible you can turn to Mark chapter 6 and we're looking at a theme today and in this series we're talking about moving beyond because for all of us there are things in our lives that are blockers and in our relationship with God and other people there are blockers and we want to move beyond these blockers and we're seeing Jesus do that in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark chapter 6 we're moving beyond rejection. And rejection is a theme that all of us can relate to, all of us have experienced. And what I encourage you today is to open your heart and open your heart to God and the deep restoration that he can bring. In those places where you felt rejected or someone's told you something cruel and you feel like you just don't measure up, you're on the outside looking in, would you open up your heart and I open up my heart to the healing and restoration that God wants to bring today. This is an encouraging text, and ultimately this text leads us to trust Jesus more. And that's something that all of us can do. We're all growing in our faith. We want to trust Jesus more, and that's where the text leads us. Let's pray for this time. Father, we thank you for your presence. We thank you for your Spirit, your Word. As we get into your Word, we thank you that you meet us there. God, and we thank you that your Word is living and active. God, it's what we need in our souls. Not all the noise and confusion. We don't need all the volume from this world and every message that we're bombarded with. But instead, we want to hear your voice. And your voice that is trustworthy, good, benevolent, wise. And we want to receive your Holy Spirit to heal in the deep places today where we've experienced rejection. And we pray in your name, Lord. Amen. Jesus overcomes rejection and he empowers us to do the same. Let's be real. Rejection is painful and it hurts deeply and it's something that all of us go through. Sometimes there's intense seasons. Sometimes rejection from 10 years ago can linger and there's still some pain attached to that. Rejection tests you to the core. And have you felt some of that lately? Have you felt some rejection from different people? Maybe people you love. The people closest to us can sometimes hurt us in the deepest ways. What is the positive? And in the Bible, what does God do by His grace in times of rejection that is actually good? Because God does His greatest work in the darkest times. And God meets us there in that place of rejection. One of the upsides is how God can use rejection to help us grow. It can be a time of deep learning. Also, rejection can help us shift our identity away from how people treat us, but instead to God and His love. Because all of us are made in God's image, we're wonderfully made, uniquely made, and in Christ you have forgiveness, you have acceptance, you are guided, and all of these blessings that God pours out for us, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. And identity is like an anchor. You choose where you're going to place your confidence and your identity. It's like an anchor when you land it in God and his presence, which you see this identity is secure, a security that's greater than the criticisms that we face. Also, hope is greater than what people say about us. Hope is real. Hope is available to all of us through Jesus. And I also want to point out that so often in the Bible, rejection can become really the fuel for a greater passion and purpose in life. Rejection can move us forward. The Holy Spirit can use what other people meant for evil and turn it to good with passion and purpose and fire coming out of that rejection. Today we're going to walk with Jesus down this road of overcoming rejection. And we're in Mark chapter 6. Six verses here. And the Word of God. Starting in verse one, Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. Where did this man get these things, they asked? What's the wisdom that has been given him that he even does miracles? Now, isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. Now, a couple of principles today on this road. The first one, your success and influence attracts your strongest critics. When you are actually, you know, blessings from the Lord and you're kind of up in terms of what you see God doing, that's the time where your strongest critics might show up. And in the country, they would say that the bright light attracts the bugs at night. All right? Bugs at night in the darkness find the light and here comes the bugs. What was Jesus doing? He was healing, loving, teaching, leading, delivering people from demons in the demonic realm. He was also serving, serving other people, serving God. There was an anointing on Him and they came after Him. Notice the two together, teaching, healing, serving, and they came after Him. And if they came after Jesus, they'll come after you. They'll come after me. Nazareth was his hometown. There are a couple of things about Nazareth that are interesting. People would say, Nazareth? What good can come out of Nazareth? Have you ever thought about a place like that? Like that neighborhood, that block, that city, you know, what could come out of Nazareth? I don't know what it's like for you. I think in some ways there's a little parallel here with Auburn and the sound. Like when I meet people across the sound and they say, oh, where do you live? And I say, Auburn. No one ever says, awesome. I haven't heard that in six years. No one's ever said, I love Auburn. No one's ever said, Auburn's my favorite. I've just never experienced that across the South. Maybe you have. But I usually get, oh. It's like, it kind of feels like a buzzkill. Like, oh, okay, okay. Or like, where's that? Where's that exactly? Southeast. And we love Auburn. We love the people in Auburn. We love this city. Now Nazareth, Jesus' hometown, is gonna reject him. And this is where I think Auburn is so different than Nazareth. This is a place where God is moving in Auburn. And we love all the churches in Auburn proclaiming Jesus and in God's word. We're all together, one family. We're excited about what God is doing in Auburn. And Jesus returning to Nazareth. And has anyone ever given you a fake compliment? Well, it's kinda semi-fake. I mean, it's kinda real, but like a token compliment. a little setup. It's almost like, yeah, great teacher. He's done some miracles. Yeah, he's done miracles. Miracles. You're a great teacher. Great teacher. Great teacher. Has anyone ever given you a compliment where it's kind of like, well, what do you really want to tell me? What's the real message here? Where is this going? And it's like, yeah, he's a great teacher. He's done a few miracles. And now what? What else do you want to add? And this is what they do. They choose calculating takedowns. Very deliberate, derogatory questions. And this is what they start to say. They say, isn't this the carpenter? A carpenter, a common worker. I mean, how special is a common worker? Man, don't ever fall for the lie that you're just a common worker, you're just a carpenter, you're just ordinary. That's your job, that's all you do. Don't ever fall for that criticism and that lie. You glorify God wherever you serve. And any job he places us is glorious and we shine the light of Jesus. And they say, well, isn't he just a carpenter? And then they say, isn't this Mary's son? Sadly, in that culture, women were seen as second rate, second class. It's terrible. It's a sin. It's wrong. But that was the culture. So no one ever, describing a man, links him to his mom. They would say, oh, this is the dad and this is the son. Isn't that Mary's son? People didn't talk about it. And we know it's great to be connected to mom. All the love for all the moms here and all the sacrificial love that moms show. In our context, that's an honor. But in that context, again, another jab. And doesn't he have all those brothers and sisters? Again, notice they name the brothers. They don't even name the sisters. Brothers and sisters. He's part of that family. I know that family. That family is not that impressive. Like, I know them. Yeah, they are trying to put this together and their conclusion is this is not the Messiah. This is not the Son of God. Carpenter. Mary's son. Got those brothers and sisters. That family. I know them. How could this be the Messiah? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. And they're trying to already put Jesus in a box. Put that limitation. By the way in the Bible there's a lot of miracles of Jesus and I don't know how you rank the miracles. I don't even attempt to do that. A lot of miracles they're just wow jaw dropping in awe of God. He walks on water. He turns water into wine, He feeds the 5,000, and somewhere in these miracles right up there has to be, He has all these siblings and He never sinned. Can I get an amen? I mean, raising Lazarus was pretty impressive, but all these siblings that never sin, are you kidding me? Jesus, sinless savior, and a lot of siblings. And it says that they took offense at him. And this means they had jealousy. They had envy. They misunderstood Him. They accused Him. Has anyone ever thrown that shade at you? Misunderstood, accused, jealousy, envy. They took offense at Him. And they criticized, ultimately, what they didn't really fully understand. They had prejudice. People have prejudice. People have bias. And they will criticize. And it's out of ignorance, sometimes foolishness, short-sightedness. But they will criticize what they don't fully understand. If they fully understand who Jesus is, those words should not be, hopefully would not be, coming out of their mouths. And I'll tell you today, increasingly, if you're a Christian, let's say in the sound, there is going to be prejudice. there is going to be increasing hostility. There will be assumptions about you, your lifestyle, fear, hatred. I mean, you name it, that can come more and more if you're a follower of Jesus today. Jesus went through it. His followers go through it. Ultimately, at the core of their hearts and at the core of their minds, there's a spiritual blindness. They have a spiritual blindness. They just don't know who is Jesus, what is God doing right here, and because of that spiritual blindness, they think they know Jesus, they don't really know Jesus. You know some words that stick with me in the Bible is when Jesus says, I never knew you. that there's a lot of people who say, oh, I know Jesus. Jesus, we've been around him a long time. He's from our town. We know him. You can go to church long distance. Oh, I know Jesus. I know the facts. I know the stories. I know the information. I know Jesus. And then Jesus says, actually, I never knew you. There's no relationship there. Trust has never happened. And all of us, we want to fully understand Jesus. And this text reminds us, like, there's a fullness who Jesus is that's so beautiful and wonderful and in awe. And we want to enter into that. Now, how did Jesus respond to rejection? I think it's a great example. Jesus always our example. It's a great example here. Notice he doesn't go into despair and he's not intimidated and silent the rest of his life. He doesn't just say, oh, well then forget the gospel, forget loving people, serving people. I'm not going to take any risks anymore. I'm just going to play it safe. I'm just going to be discouraged and I'm just going to retreat so you guys don't see me anymore. in this world. He doesn't do that, but also notice on the flip side, the other side of the spectrum, he doesn't get insecure. Oh, they don't like me. Oh, they're criticizing me. Let me try harder to please them. Let me play the game. Let me just get popular. Let me get popular. Let me please them. What do you want? Okay, I'll be that. I'll do that for you. Notice he doesn't do that. And he avoids both of those extremes that are unhealthy, of getting so discouraged and silent and ashamed of the gospel. And he also doesn't get worried and insecure and gotta please everybody. He doesn't run to those places. But he has a solid, secure, with the Father. He's solid, secure in his hope. He knows who he is. He knows what the gospel is. And there's one setting where they want to take him out, and the Bible says he just walks through the crowd. Just like that picture, he just walks on. And I encourage you today to walk on. If you're in the middle of that, to continue to abide with Jesus. Abide with Jesus. John chapter 15, 10 times, abide with Jesus. When all the rejection comes in, and the slander comes in, abide with Jesus. Now, let's go a little deeper and dive into the specifics of this rejection. And this is probably the longest principle sentence I've put up on the screen, but there's some elements that I really want us to be aware of in terms of the specifics. Here we go. Rejection includes people who want to control you. They try to force you into their plan. Also, people who declare small potential over your life. Oh, you'll never amount to this or that. People who enforce a limited framework. They want to squeeze you in. Nope, this is all you can do. This is all we want you to do. It's like a straitjacket. No, you can't use all your gifts. Just right here. They try to squeeze you in. And then also, in addition to that, they hold your past over you. oh well we know you we know what you've done in the past and then ultimately they also bring undermining lies as well and i'll say it again if it happened to jesus it'll happen to you let's get personal here as we open up our hearts to god and and god heals god is here he's our refuge strength and ever present help in trouble he's a healer he's close to the brokenhearted And we can open up our pain here. We can be real, and we can, the Holy Spirit will work in our lives. So let's enter in. What are the settings where rejection happens? It happens in tryouts, and I'm starting there from sports. I've been to those tryouts, and it hurts when you play well, and then you know it's political, or whatever's happening. But it ends in tryouts, job applications, opportunities, dreams. It comes from comments, sometimes siblings, parents. It comes from dating relationships and it happens in marriage as well. You say, well, what are the words that people speak? They say, you're not gifted. You're not that important. You're not wanted. I don't love you. There's no future for you. You're not going to amount to much. And then they try to twist it. What's the reason? It'll be a lie. And sometimes they'll say, well, it's because you're... this old, or it's because you're this young, or it's because you're divorced, or because you're adopted, or because you come from a different country, because you're in poverty, because your health isn't that great, because of past decisions, because you're a widow, and all of the junk and the lies and the limitations that get hurled our direction, I wanna say this is not God's report. This is not God's report, and if it's not God's report, I don't want it. There's one report that matters. There's one report, and it's God's report. And when Joseph was mistreated by his family, God said, I'm gonna take this evil they intended, and he worked it out for the good. Hagar was the single mom who was all alone and again pushed out, rejected, but God saw her and she said, I know the God who sees. Gideon came from a family and part of a clan that everyone would say, oh, what good could come from that family? And God said to Gideon, you're a warrior for me. I'm going to give you strength. There's going to be victories. There was a woman at the well and she had so many husbands. No one even would talk to her. Jesus talked to her. Jesus entered into her story and Jesus changed her life with his love. She was thirsty. He gave her living water. She became the evangelist to reach the neighborhood. Mary Magdalene had seven demons. You think they're going to put some limits on her? That's who Jesus wanted to see after the resurrection. Right away, Mary Magdalene. Paul had killed somebody. Oh, we know your past. You're a murderer. Actually, what God sees, God's report, is that one is going to be a leader to bring life to so many people. Don't let someone else's assessment, someone else's report have too much power. Stick with God. Stick with what God says. Honor the Lord and receive it. So often in life, here's the restoration. You replace what someone has said and done and the rejection that came, and some of that cruelty, and you go to God for restoration. It's replacement and restoration. You take out that dart that's fired from the evil one, and you replace it with the truth of God. Now, there's someone who's just walked a very long ways, and his name is John Halverson. 3,500 miles from Miami to Seattle. Now, he's originally from Minnesota. That's a long walk right there. That's a long walk. No shortcuts on that walk, Miami to Seattle, but he's just finished the walk. And he's originally from Duluth, Minnesota, and that's where my parents went to college. That's where my parents fell in love. That's where my mom became pregnant. I mean, that's the romantic interlude of this story. Duluth, Minnesota. That's where he's from. And kind of with some of that Midwest passion and maybe some of that work ethic as well, he's walked 3,500 miles. Why would he walk 3,500 miles? A call to pray. a call to pray, to encourage the church across America to pray, to seek God. Walking, encouraging our nation, asking God for an awakening, inspiring and encouraging people to walk with God. He has completed this walk with his wife, his RV, and a lot of prayerful perseverance. They have four kids, 12 grandkids, and this is their prayer. They say, it's an appeal to heaven. Father, we appeal to heaven. May your kingdom come to America. May your glory be seen in our land. May a great awakening touch this great nation. And I think of John and his wife and how, in the middle of everything that's going on in the nation right now, and sometimes you can feel restricted, you can feel hopeless, you can feel discouraged, there can be a lot of criticism, you can get concerned about where things are at spiritually in our country, and he said, I'm gonna walk and pray. I'm gonna walk and pray. Across the land, I'm gonna walk and pray. I encourage you to walk on, to walk on, to walk on, and keep walking with Jesus no matter what comes at you from any direction. Walk and pray. In a humble example to inspire us, let's remember to walk and to pray. Here's the last part of the passage. Check out verse four. Jesus said to them, only in his hometown among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor. He could not do any miracles there except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. Now, the power of Jesus and revival as well in a location are both linked to the faith of the people. The faith of the people is linked to the power of God. There's a link there. And it's an interesting link. And there's some mystery there. And there's some theological discussion there. And as you think about that, let's break it down this way. Faith means trust. In the Bible, when you read faith, think of the word trust. Trust is at the core of every relationship we have. With God, this is not religion and rules. This is a relationship. And trust is at the core. Trust is at the core of your marriage. Trust is at the core of your friendships. Your relationships won't go deeper and further than the level of trust. It's all based on trust. And so, when you think about our relationship with God, it's not earned. It's not earned. It's grace, receiving. And part of receiving this gift from Jesus is trusting Jesus, who he is, what he said, and what he has done, and what he will do. Now, as they consider Jesus, they kind of have this partial resume of like, yeah, he's doing some teaching, And, you know, he seems to be wise, and I heard about a couple miracles, and they've got this very, very shrunk resume of Jesus. And what I think they've not seen, not trusting, is that Jesus also has defeated the devil. The devil's a real powerful archangel who will end up in the lake of fire. Jesus has driven out demons. He is over the domain of darkness. He shines the light. He's defeated death through His death. He's overcome death. Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It's like they've taken all of who He is and tried to reduce it and just put it on a little business card where it doesn't fit on all the paper in the world. And that's how they're seeing him, they just don't trust Jesus that much. And it raises the question for us in our walk with God, what holds us back from trusting Jesus? What has he ever said that we wouldn't fully believe him? What has he ever done that we wouldn't fully trust him? When has he ever failed that we would say, you know, I'm gonna be lukewarm with Jesus because of what he said and who he is and what he's done. And I hope today it might be helpful to identify what holds us back, process that, and even obliterate. some of those blockers in our walk with God, in our faith, and ultimately with trusting God. You say, how does that work? The Word of God produces faith in our lives. When we spend time in God's Word during the week, when we listen to God's Word, faith grows. God God both brings information and inspiration. We learn, our minds are engaged, information also, and there's revelation, and then inspiration, our hearts are engaged. And when our hearts and minds are engaged, and we're connected with our maker, then our habits change, our schedules, our priorities change, and then lives are transformed, and we serve and bless, and it's locally, and it's globally. And that's how God works, starting with his word and his spirit, and how he works in our lives. And this setting right here is probably the greatest opportunity Nazareth has ever had. The greatest opportunity, a moment of visitation, a moment with Jesus, where Jesus is connecting. It's his hometown, it's Nazareth. What an opportunity for them. But you know what? Their stubborn pride that just wants to say, I don't think, Jesus, we can really trust you. We're kind of all about us. What's interesting from this passage is that Jesus, we never read that he returns to Nazareth. And Jesus will find people who are thirsty, who are hungry for God, and he will go there. The self-righteous he'll keep walking. But he invests his time and energy in his life with people who really, they might be perceived as no hope from the culture, Jesus values them and finds hope. People might see him as second rate, Jesus doesn't see anyone as second rate. And he will go find, he doesn't come for the self-righteous, he comes for sinners. And anyone who wants to puff up and think, oh, I'm self-righteous, Jesus doesn't invest his time and his energy there, but he's looking for sinners who know they need a savior, who know they need forgiveness, who don't have it all together, whose life is going this way and that way and aren't self-reliant and can't fake it and can't do image maintenance and can't play the game of the outside is so clean but the inside's empty. They just can't do that anymore and they come to him and Jesus brings his love and lives are transformed and he doesn't, he's not gonna stick around Nazareth and they're a bunch of self-righteous, stubborn. No, he's gonna walk on. And that reminder for us, I mean, it says that Jesus was amazed. That means astonished at what? Their lack of faith. Listen, he had all the power and all the capability. He could have done miracles. It wasn't like he was restricted, like they didn't have faith, and like, oh, his power ran out. No, he's choosing. Why? Because there's a spiritual environment. It was an environment of unbelief. There are spiritual microclimates. You have a spiritual climate in your home. We have a spiritual climate at Grace. There's a spiritual climate at Auburn. There's a spiritual climate in your heart. There are microclimates spiritually. And these climates are linked to how God moves. God gives grace to the humble. And we want to have together at Grace a climate that welcomes Jesus. Now, benefits of faith, because some of you are like, oh, this sounds a little like emotional and the climates. And let me get very specific here, because this is interesting from Christianity Today. Tyler Vanderweel and Brandon Case just put this article out. This is noting in so many studies that have been done how faith, walking with God, coming to church, how it's a boost in our lives in so many areas. And the research has said many studies of health care professionals indicate that religious service attenders have far fewer deaths of despair, that's deaths by suicide, drug overdose, alcohol, than people who don't attend. Doesn't mean anyone's better. It just says that reducing deaths by 68% for women and 33% for men in the study. And in addition to that, well-designed research studies have found that, again, religious services, walking with God, it leads to a greater longevity in life, less depression, less suicide, less smoking, less substance abuse, better cancer and cardiovascular disease survival, less divorce, greater social support, greater meaning of life, greater satisfaction, more volunteering, and greater civic engagement. And how interesting that abiding with Jesus will produce fruit in our lives. But more than just that information, I want us to, you know, Matt Redman has been someone I was thinking about this week, and there's a song I've been singing this week. And Matt's story, he grew up in small-town England and lost his dad when he was seven. And when he was 10, his mother remarried, and her husband was very abusive. And imagine all of the loss and that sense of rejection that Matt was going through. And he went to a soccer stadium. In England, that's kind of where you go for big events. And Luis Palau, whose ministry right here in Portland just went to be with Jesus, Queens Park Rangers, had an event there. And Matt showed up as a kid. who, again, lost his dad, died unexpectedly, and now his stepdad is abusive. And he's feeling rejected and he's feeling alone. But what happened in that soccer stadium, because it happens where we live, work, learn, or play, not just in a church building, is that God will meet you there. At that deep point of rejection, God will meet you there. And Matt started to experience a love from his Heavenly Father that his earthly father didn't provide. And it started to change Matt's life in worship. Matt started to draw near and experience God. And some of the lyrics, he says when he writes a song, it's just his prayer to God. It's just his prayer to God. He's talking with God through the lyrics. When we sing together here, these are songs of praise, thanksgiving, and also prayers to God. And he writes, to you our hearts are open. Nothing here is hidden. You are my one desire. Could we say that today, that our hearts are open? Nothing's hidden in our lives. That God, you alone are holy. Only you are worthy. Lord, let your fire come down. Let your fire come down and burn all the junk and the pain and the hurt. Let your fire come down. And then he writes, we welcome you with praise. We welcome you with praise. Maybe in Nazareth it didn't happen, but at Grace Community Church this morning, we welcome you with praise. We welcome you with praise. Almighty God of love, Be welcomed in this place. Let every heart adore. Let every soul awake. Almighty God of praise and love, we worship you. We welcome you in this place. Could we welcome Jesus fully, the honor that he deserves in this place today? Could we welcome him in our hearts today? Could we welcome him in our homes today? In our homes, we say, you're welcome in this place. In our land, the healing that we need in our land, that you would be welcomed and you would be honored, Jesus, in this place. We don't want you to pass us by. We don't want you to just move past us, but we are hungry for you. We are not self-righteous. We are sinful people who need you as our Savior. We need your touch and your visit and your healing and your restoration. We need you. We need you. We're grateful for you. And you say, well, what do we do with rejection? Like Jesus, let rejection fuel your mission and your faithfulness. Let the rejection you've experienced fuel your mission and your faithfulness. This is what matters. God's assessment, not the other person's assessment. God's assessment. This is what matters. God's assignment. Not what someone else says you should do with your life, but faithfulness to God. Let's listen in for God's assessment. Let's listen in for God's assignment. And you know what happens? When you open up your heart, nothing's hidden, and God's love comes in, there's a security that leads to authenticity. It's the only way we'll ever be authentic in the church. The church might be sometimes the hardest place to be authentic and to be real and to be sincere and to be honest. The only way we'll ever really be authentic and united and loving each other is if we let God come in to those places and be secure in Him so that we can be authentic with one another. If you can't be secure with God, insecurity will always hinder authenticity. And the only way we'll ever be secure is to let God in, God's Holy Spirit and the Word, deep, in a deep place, to bring a security that leads to authenticity and a hope that's greater than rejection. And this is what Jesus did. He didn't stop right here. He died on a cross for our sins. He paid a price. Do you think it was tough in Nazareth? What about on the cross, where he was forsaken by the Father and became sin? and cried out, why have you forsaken me? This rejection, this was just a little appetizer. This was just a little foretaste, but he didn't stop because the love of God compels him. He listened to the Father. He would get up early in the morning, listen to the Father for today, walk in that love, assignment. He would walk in faithfulness and finish strong. Can we finish strong in our lives? Wouldn't that be good in the middle of all the pandemic and all the swirling chaos and the junk and the criticism, if we could just put a stake in there today and say, let's finish strong. Let's go, let's walk on with Jesus. And there's gonna be an opportunity to make some individual decisions in a minute, but first, I wanna share with you something that's special, that's come out of the series, that wasn't planned. And you might be here today and God's moving your life and it wasn't something that's planned. But we love Auburn and we love the nations. And something that we have a great international partners team, and we're going through the Gospel of Mark together, and the idea that they came up with was, let's bless overseas. So as we go through the Gospel of Mark, this is simply a thank you right here. It's come from Papua New Guinea and the Kemano Kaffi language, where for us, we have easy access to God's Word, but for them, it takes years of Bible translation and then distribution, and people are just getting the Word in their own language. So this is exciting. Out of going through the Gospel of Mark here, together, and I say together, we have just given 1,500 copies of the Gospel of Mark in Papua New Guinea together. So this is a thank you, and the same way God is working through his word here, God is working in Papua New Guinea with incredible stories of life transformation. God is moving, and worship is a response to God. And I want you to consider your response to God today. At Grace, we've got a couple ways to respond. One of them is through the phone. because some people are online right now, and also for you where you're at, sitting, it's easier to pull out your phone. And a next step, we talk about next step, putting your trust in Jesus. For the first time today, maybe you've never received His grace. You've been always having a mindset of earning. God, you've got to earn it. You've got to earn it, you've got to do more, you've got to be good enough. Well, over half Americans think that. Okay? But that's not the Bible. It's not the gospel. It's not grace. If you today want to put your trust in Jesus for the first time, you just text us follow and we will walk with you. Baptism. Maybe that's your next step. You've seen Kellen get baptized. Maybe you need a church home. You're just tired of doing it on your own and tired of that isolation. You need a church family. We welcome you. We're so glad you're here today. Life groups, that's where we get connected here at Grace. Serving, for you, whatever your next step. No pressure with any of this, but this is the easiest way we found. And what's happening is people are texting, we'll follow up, and help you take that next step. I also want to point out we have a prayer team, and I'm going to be over there with the prayer team. And as soon as this message ends, if you want to come over for prayer, we would be thrilled to pray with you. We'd be honored to pray with you. If you've been going through a difficult time, or if you've experienced some rejection, you want to pray for God's healing, or maybe you want to put your trust in Jesus or get baptized, whatever you want to do. Listen, there's no shame. Can I get an amen? There's no shame in coming over for prayer. Amen? Like, this is what we're here for. This is what we're here for. And so it's not like a walk of shame to come over for prayer. It's like, no, this is how God moves. We celebrate this, like we celebrate baptism. And the prayer team will be over as well. Let me pray as I go over to join them. Father, we thank you for this time where we consider who you are, Jesus. And God, sometimes there's barriers and there's blockers. And we don't want to trust you, Jesus, fully, with different parts of our lives. And so we slow down and we remember who you are and what you've said and what you've done. And God forgive us for not trusting. Forgive us. for having a climate of self-righteousness at times, and stubbornness, and sin, and selfishness, and self-absorption, and pride. Father, there's blockers. And Jesus, we're here today to say, thank you that you love sinners. Thank you how you forgive, you restore. God, we pray for a time of restoration now. as there's many wounds in the room, in deep pain. Maybe it comes from divorce, maybe it comes from not being accepted in a social group or part of a job, opportunity, rejection. It hurts and we can't just stuff it. So to you, our hearts are open, nothing here is hidden. We pray by the Holy Spirit in your word today that you would move in power. Thank you, Jesus, for loving us so well, being so patient, opening up our eyes. When we have spiritual blindness, God, you open up our eyes. Jesus, for anyone who's teachable, you open up our eyes, we thank you. And God, we pray today, if anyone does not know you yet, Jesus, not religion here today, but a relationship. And we pray for the first time, a decision to follow you as Lord and Savior. God, move right now, and through the prayer team, move right now, decisions that are being made, and we pray for healing in our homes, we pray for healing in our land, and we pray this all in your name, Jesus. Amen. Yo, subscribe to YouTube channel. Subscribe to this channel.