I'm glad we're able to add that song to our hymn repertoire. Thank you. You can be seated. All right, thank you, pastor, for letting me come. Thanks, everybody, for praying for us. I was supposed to be here a month ago, right? And was it a month ago or two months? But I had COVID-19. So thank you for praying for me. We survived through it. Amen. I tested positive, and I'm glad I did. I'm glad I had the symptoms, and I'm glad I made it through it. I went over to Uganda, and I told those people there, because a lot of them have never been tested. They may have had it. They don't know. Testing takes money, right? And so they have never been tested for it. I was able to tell them, most people survive. So amen. Thanks for praying for us, and thanks for supporting us all of these years. As Pastor mentioned, it has been almost 20 years. since we've been on the field, at least 18. And we've been on the field for 16. We just celebrated our 16th anniversary of being on the field in Uganda. So can't believe it. I have a child in college now, Pastor. I'm not even that old, I was telling somebody. So I don't know how all that happened. And one more thing. I'm not really from Minnesota. I'm from Iowa. And I say that. No, yeah. I get the groan. I get the, oh. I know I owe the world an apology. I know that. Every time I come to Minnesota, I'm like, yeah, I'm from Iowa. But now, wait a minute. When I go to Iowa, I'm proud. You know, hey. You know what? I went down there a couple months ago. There was a little reunion at our church down there. And I said, you know what? I have never denied you people. Even when I'm in Minnesota and they make fun of me, I've never denied that I'm from Iowa. So maybe if you're from Iowa, we can talk afterwards. Most people have family from down there, I'm finding out. But no, it's good to be here. I was born in Missouri. My parents were going to Bible college down in Springfield. and grew up in Iowa. Then I went to Bible College in Wisconsin, seminary in Minnesota, and now my mailing address for the last almost 20 years has been Michigan. I voted in all those states too. So all upper Midwest, but not the same year. That's what I should add to that. So I've been all upper Midwest. So if you ask me, I shouldn't even mention this pastor. Well, if you were to ask me what team I was supporting, I'd say whoever is NFC North, okay? But I don't want to talk about that right now. We need to move on to the spiritual things. All right. Let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Colossians, chapter 4. All my furlough preaching has been from the book of Colossians, but not always the same sermon. My kids think I preach the same sermon every time, but no, that's not true. But the book of Colossians, I don't know why we need to go there, but chapter 4, I don't know why we need to be in chapter 4. We really need the whole message of the book of Colossians today. But we only have, we don't have that much time, but we'll see what we can cover today. But I wanted to read Colossians chapter 4, starting in verse 3 down to verse 6, because I think it really It really encapsulates, I guess, or sums up how we are a team with God. We are a team in what God is doing on this earth. And we participate. We help each other. And we encourage each other. And that's the way God has it. And God wants us to know we are on His team. I go around and I ask people, you know, how many of you would like to see more people saved in your town that you live in? We're in Invergrove Heights, but Sunfish Lake, I hear that sometimes. South St. Paul, I hear that sometimes. So wherever you're from, how many would like to see more people saved in your town? Yeah, of course. Amen. Yeah. And what are you doing about it? No, I don't want to be the guy that whips you, all right? I want to be the guy that encourages you. God also wants people to be saved. And there are going to be people saved. And there are people being saved in your town. Did you know that? And we have a chance to partner with God. And I want to talk about that today as we read Colossians 4, 3 to 6. He says, with all praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance. Now, I don't know, I'm reading from the King James, so I don't know if that's what your Bible says, but it says, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, that's logos, that's word, right? But what does that mean? To speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds. that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak." I need to want to know how I need to speak. In verse 5, "...walk in wisdom towards them that are without." Those are the unbelievers, right? "...redeeming the time." And number 6, verse 6, "...let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with..." What? "...salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." That's how we partner with God, I think, right from the book of Colossians. Let's have a word of prayer to begin. I'm going to kneel down. Let's pray. Dear Father, we love you. Thank you for gathering us here today. Lord, I pray as was already prayed, Lord, that you would teach us today by the Holy Spirit, that you would open up our eyes and illuminate us to the Word, the Bible. Lord, give me your words to say now and anoint this time We dedicate it to you. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So as we look at the book of Colossians and study it out, I'm kind of afraid. I know Pastor has studied these things. Were you at Central also? No, okay, another place. If we look at the book of Colossians, we know that, number one, it was a church that Paul had never been to, right? He didn't start the church of Colossae. Somebody else did, Epaphras or somebody else, probably one of Paul's converts. But when we look at Colossians, we see that Paul is addressing a lot of false teachings that the people were up against. You know, there were even false teachings. I find this hard to believe. Christianity had only been around for a few years. And there were already these false teachings that were creeping in. People were already saying wild things about Jesus. And the false teaching that Paul is attacking The name that we give to it, anyway, is what we call Gnosticism, right? Gnostics, or the Gnostics. The G is silent, they tell me. So, but in Uganda it wouldn't be silent, all right, amen. But it's Gnosticism, and it's a word that means or knowledge, right? And these are people that said, hey, we have special knowledge, knowledge that you don't have. We know things that you don't know, right? And so we call it Gnosticism, although We can't really pinpoint where it's coming from, and from the book of Colossians. And later on, Gnosticism kind of flourished and became what we think of as Gnosticism. This is kind of the beginnings of it. But, you know, when we read this book of Colossians, we see Paul addressing certain things. He addresses the, there's a Jewish element, and he talks about feasts and things like that from the Old Testament. So there was false teachings about that. There is a pagan element, because back then the pagans, they weren't atheists, right, like they are now. They believed in something, some gods, some idols, some whatever. And they had their philosophies and their elements. And so we see some of that. He talks about worshipping angels and things like that. And we know when we get on later on in Gnosticism, you know, a couple hundred years later after this was written, we know that there was a lot of talk about angels and how spirit, what was the basic idea? Spirit is good, flesh is bad, right? And God can't have created the world, because God's a spirit, and He's good. The world's flesh is physical, it's bad. So what did God do? God created an angel, or Jesus. Jesus created an angel. You can find different variations. And then that angel created an angel, and that angel created another one, and that one created another one. And finally, After you get down the road there to the millionth angel, right? Or way down there. Then that one is the one that created the world. And so Jesus gets lost in all of that as well. And so you have a separation between spirit and material. Spirit, goods, material, bad. So what you find from that If some people were saying Jesus was a man, or he couldn't be a man, because that's bad, he was only a spirit, and you find different teachings about Jesus. Also you find different teachings about how we should live our lives. Some people were saying, you know, the flesh is bad, so we need to crucify the flesh and live this really rigid life and don't give any comfort to the flesh. And there's examples of that in church history. Other people were saying, well, flesh is already bad, so I'm going to live the way that I want, right? And just eat and drink, and tomorrow we die. So there was that. You could swing both ways on that, depending on how you came down. But basically, there were all kinds of different beliefs. And it's hard to say, it was coming from this side, the Jewish side, pagan side, where was it coming from? Well, we don't really know. We just call it Gnosticism. And I reckon, and I think about that today. It's kind of like living in America, right? It used to be, when I was younger, you could know more about what your neighbors believed. You knew more about who they were and their basic ideas about God and those things. But you can't have that idea anymore, right? You may have the Gnostic that's living right next to you. I remember 20 years ago when we lived in Brooklyn Center. And we were helping a church do a vacation Bible school. And I was talking to some young man about the Lord. He was probably 13 years old or so. And I asked him, I said, I said, are you saved? Have you ever been saved? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I've been saved. And I go, all right. And if I would have stopped right there, we would have talked right past each other. But I said, can you tell me about being saved, the time when you were saved? He said, well, when I was younger, I was eating a piece of cheese, and it got stuck in my throat. And I thought I was going to die. But then I coughed, and a little bit, the cheese came out, and I was saved. I lived. I got saved. I'm like, oh. And I'm like, wow. That's not what I meant at all when I said the word saved. We talked right past each other. And oftentimes when we're trying to talk to our neighbors and trying to tell somebody about Jesus, and we bring in our lingo, right? We talk, we just have no idea what the other person is saying. I was doing a Bible word search the other day. My children had this word search book. And you can find Ezekiel and all these different words within the word search. I was slipping through the pages, and they had one on the book of Judith. The book of Judith. And I said, hey, that's not in the Bible. It's in the Apocrypha, right? The book of Judith. And I told my wife that. And she said, you know what? I have no idea what's in the book of Judith. No idea. You could tell me anything. Some people believe it's in the Bible. I don't. I have no idea what the book of Judas said. And we got to thinking about that. Most of the world looks at the entire Bible like I look at the book of Judas. No idea what the Bible says, only what they may have heard a long time ago. And so when we go out and we want more people to be saved in our areas, our towns, Where do you begin with that? How do you approach somebody? I think Paul addresses some of that, because you're going to find people that believe anything. There will be Muslims here, and atheists here, and other religions, and who knows what your neighbor might believe. We don't even know our neighbors, so who knows what they might even believe. But I think when we look at this, Paul gives us some idea. You know, as we read the book of Colossians, Paul knows that those people are going through this false teaching. And there's some discouragement, I think. People are, the believers, alright, the church, may be getting confused about who Jesus is. And are we really following the right path? And so I love this book because you have people saying false things about Jesus. You have Paul telling us the truth about Jesus to encourage us. And so you get some of the most beautiful verses about Jesus. Some of the greatest, we would never have them if we hadn't had those false teachers. And we find, let's turn in our Bibles to Colossians chapter 1. If you ever wonder about Jesus, if you ever wonder if you really should be spending all this time at church, or waking up and spending time in the Word, should I really be spending all this time thinking about Jesus? Look what Paul says in Colossians 1, all about Jesus. In verse 15, He's fighting those Gnostics. In every word of this, He's fighting those Gnostics. He says in verse 15, "...who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature." 16. For by Him were all things created, amen, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. He's going through those different levels of angels and demons, right? I mean, Jesus didn't create demons. He created angels, but we know they fell. They became the demons. Jesus made all that. 17, He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. 18, He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and here's the part I love, that in all things He might have the preeminence. Did you ever wonder where is all this going toward? What is going on in this world? You know, when we were over there in Uganda going through our first lockdown in 2020, before we came back in 2021, and we were over there in Uganda, we were watching the news about all the things that were going on in America and Minnesota and all over. And we thought, what in the world is going on? And surely, you know, Pastor, I came back and I've been to 31 churches now, and I have never heard so many fundamental Baptists talk about the rapture as I have in these last five months. People are looking for Jesus to come back. They're saying, what in the world is going on? It looks like Based on the world, based on, I shouldn't say this, but based on American politics, some people are saying, it looks like Jesus is gonna, by the way, don't set your eschatological calendar on American politics, but I'll leave that with pastor to discuss. But I've never heard so many people talking about it, look what's going on, what in the world, look at this. And you know what I'm talking about, all things. Where in the world are we going? What's going on in America? Why are we going through this time? And in the rest of the world, things are happening too. And let me just tell you this, God is still in control, all right? Amen? And all things are working. Why? So that He, Jesus, might have the preeminence. That's where it's all going. Oh yeah, it looks rough. It is rough. Yeah, there's sinful things that are happening. I won't argue that. That's true. But as God works in and through and has a plan for everything, it's all going towards Jesus, Him having the preeminence. It's all about Him. Don't ever forget that. It's never been about us. Some people think, what's God's plan for me? What's God's plan for the world? Usually it revolves around me. I know the health and the wealth revolves around me, but usually We don't have the idea that God's will for me, even if we don't believe in the health and wealth, involves me having any kind of suffering or setbacks or problems. Usually we suspect God's will for me is 80, 90 or even 100 years. Unbroken health and surrounded by my family, right? But you know what? That's not always God's will for us. What God's will always is, though, is that Christ be made preeminent. And if God has to take us or allow us to go through or take us through some tough times to make that more real and make that a reality in our lives, then so be it. That's what He says. It's no problem. That's what it's all about anyway. We go back then So now we know the purpose, what all is going, why are things going on. And by the way, if you don't see God's hand, how can I say this? If you're not seeing God working in all of these different chaotic and crazy things that are going on in our world, in our country, in our Minnesota, in our life, in our family, all those different arenas. If you're not seeing God's hand at work in all of those things, all the way down to our family, all the way down to my own life, my job, my kids. Why is this happening? If you're asking why is this happening and you're not seeing God's hand at work in it, then I would encourage you, keep praying, Lord, show me what your will is. I know that you have a plan in this. I know it's your hand behind the scenes. I know we're not just wasting our time here. No, there's a plan. God is accomplishing it all. And we need to be able, as believers, see His hands. Instead of saying, you know, it looks like the world's falling apart. There's one guy that says, no, actually all the pieces, look at the world falling to pieces, that's what he says. No, all the pieces are falling into place, right? Amen? We see God's hand in it all. If you don't see God's hand, keep asking, Lord, I want to be filled with the knowledge. That's in chapter 1. I don't have time for that message. Lord, help me to be filled with the knowledge of your will, what you're doing. Lord, how are you? Let me understand how you work. Not my ideas of how you work, but how you really are working and what you are accomplishing on this earth. I want to see God's hand. I don't want to just see the problems. I don't want to say, oh, look what the devil's doing. No. What's God doing on the earth? That's what Paul encourages them with. It's all going towards that. Don't forget that. Don't be ashamed of your faith. Don't let the unbelievers take Jesus away from you. I remember a couple, about a year ago now, I guess, maybe a year and a half, I reconnected to one of my childhood friends. And so when I was back in Iowa growing up, we went to a Christian school back in the 80s, right? Early 80s. And this young man, his name was Nathan as well. And he went to our Christian school. Nathan was a very troubled young boy. Lots of issues. And anyway. We went to school together. When we got to about the second or third grade, Nathan went to a different school. I was in the Christian school. We kind of lost contact with each other. So now we're in our mid-40s, right? And so I had a dream about Nathan from nowhere. I have a dream about this guy, and he's being beaten up by somebody in my dream. And you know what? Whenever I have a dream about somebody, I say, well, I don't know why I had a dream about them, but I'll let Pastor deal with the meaning of dreams. But I say, you know what, the very least I can do is pray for that person. I don't know what God is doing in their life right now. I've lost contact with this man. So I prayed for Nathan that morning when I woke up. And then I said, you know what, I can do better than that. I can reach out to him. I can find him again on Facebook, right? So I became his Facebook friend and we were chatting. Oh, how you doing? It's been so long. Where are you now? And all these different things. He's out on the West Coast as well. as these other people we were talking about earlier. And he was telling me all the things that he's doing. And then I was telling him what we're doing in Uganda. And you know what? He finally comes out after several days of going back and forth. He says, you know what, Nate? I don't really believe in God anymore. I go, oh, OK. And he says, I'm woke, he says. I'm not an atheist. I'm a critical thinker, he says. How many of you know critical thinkers? I mean, you know somebody. They're woke. And he said, that's where I'm at now. I don't believe in God anymore. And I said, OK. I was trying to do verse 6 and respond in love and grace, right? And OK. And he says, after a couple more days, he said, you know, also, frankly, to be honest with you, Nate, I think that you, Nate, you have mental problems. Because you have a mental illness, that's what he said. Because you believe in a book of fairy tales. And furthermore, I believe what you're doing in Uganda is immoral. Because you're going over there and teaching them to believe in these fairy tales as well. So I'm like, whoa. That was like a slap in the face, right? I just got a wake-up call from somebody who's already woke, right? And he's saying, I don't believe this stuff. And I had to think about that and chew on that. You know what? Not everybody believes in Jesus, right? There's all different types of beliefs out there and atheism out there as well. But why do I believe in this? Why do I have faith that this is right? It's because somebody one day came, I grew up in a Christian home, but they told me about Jesus. And the Holy Spirit worked in my heart. And I believed. I believed in heaven. Amen? Though I've never been there. And I believe in angels, though I've never seen them. Have anybody seen angels? Has anybody been to heaven? How many people believe in angels today? Yeah. And heaven. And demons. We don't believe in them, but we know that they're there. Right. Amen. We believe in that. Why? Because somebody preached the truth. The Holy Spirit convinced us. This is true. Though we've never seen it. Though the unbelievers think we've lost our minds. And by the way, you leave here, we can say, yeah. Heaven, amen. And you go out there and they say, you know, you have a mental illness if you're believing in those things. But I believe in those things and I've been convinced of those things because God working in my heart. And I want to encourage you with that today. We're talking, we are supposed to be talking about how we're going to see more people saved in our towns. in Inver Grove Heights, Sunfish Lake, South St. Paul, and others. Rosemont is somewhere around here. How are we going to see more people saved? And you know when we're going to see more people saved? Is when we have, I think, more... we're going to see God's hand at work in people being saved when we start knowing, you know, God is working in this thing. It's God's work to save people. And God is the one who's going to convince people to be saved. God is the one who's going to convince them that there is a place called heaven. And I think that's what Paul is talking about. If you want to go back to Colossians chapter 4. You see, the Apostle Paul was in prison when he wrote this. And in verse number 3, he says, pray for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance. Now, I always think that if I was in prison, all right, and I was asking somebody to open up a door, which door would you ask to be opened? If you were, yeah, the door to liberty, right? I want to get out of this place, get back to life. But no, not the Apostle Paul. You know, God actually promised Paul that in his ministry he would go to prison, right? Paul knew, this is all part of the deal. I just need doors to be opened. And here's how we enter into what God is doing, and it's through prayer. You already knew that, right? When you pray, you enter into what God is already doing. You become a part of it. As we look at the world and what God is going to do, we see prophecy. The greatest prophecy is which one? The second coming of Jesus. We pray, we do whatever it is we think we need to do. Jesus is going to come back. Amen? Now, the question is always, what part are you going to play in this thing that God is doing on the earth? What is your role going to be? It's going to happen. What is your role going to be? And Paul is saying, you want to enter into God's work? Enter in through prayer. And I always think, Paul, why didn't you just pray for yourself? Why do you need other people to pray that God would open up a door of utterance? Why couldn't he just pray for himself? Anybody? Why waste time asking somebody else? Oh, man, that guy had an answer. Now, I don't have any Bible verse for this pastor, but here's an 8-rite theology, alright? We want to talk about prayer, alright? And I want to talk a little bit about prayer today, because I think there's people in this church that pray. And I think there might be some people in this church who get discouraged about prayer. Because they've been praying for something for a while. Maybe they haven't seen it come to pass. They're still waiting, as we read earlier, on the Lord. And maybe some people are getting discouraged and saying, why am I even wasting my time praying? Is it really doing anything? And Paul asks these people to pray for him. Now here's my theology, my idea, is that when you pray for somebody else, what do we call that? What type of prayer is that? intercession, intercessory prayer. And we have some intercessors right here in this room. In fact, every church I go into, Pastor, there's always somebody that comes up to me, and I've been praying for you. I've been praying. And even last week, I was at Woodcrest. The week before, I was at another church. I don't know a lot of the people there. Somebody came up to me, said, brother, I pray for you every day. I'm like, wow. And I had it again last week at Woodcrest. A man came up to me that I've known for 20 years. I pray for you. You're on my daily prayer list. I intercede for you. And I think here is the idea that I have in my mind is that when we pray for ourselves, there's a name for that too. What's the name when we pray for ourselves? Maybe sometimes we call it supplication or maybe just prayer or whatever. We don't know that one so much, but we know intercession, that's the one for others. When we pray for ourselves, and we do that, I pray for, how many pray for yourself, right? Yeah, and it's okay. But there's always a little bit of selfishness in that prayer, right? A little bit, just, you know, Lord, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. No, I'm joking. I know we're more refined than that. But when you pray for somebody else, you know that's one of the greatest, I don't want to get it too big here, but that is a great act of love. You know that? You say you love somebody, all right, you pray for them, if you really love that person. And here's another thing, when you're praying for somebody else's ministry, because I'm in ministry, and whose ministry do I want to have succeed? Well, it's mine, all right? We're going to watch a video later on today, and it's about this guy. My ministry, right? I want to see it succeed. But when I start praying for somebody else, now that's an act of love again. And here's where I don't have a Bible verse, but I think God hears those prayers a little bit more than our selfish prayers for ourselves. We shouldn't stop praying for ourselves. I'm not saying that. But I think when there is a pure love, I just want that person to succeed. I just want that ministry to succeed. And if this was another church, I would have you turn to your neighbor and tell your neighbor, I want you to succeed. Maybe we can do that. Turn to your neighbor. Do we do that in this church? I want you to succeed. You try it. Pastor wants the whole row to succeed. Oh, come on. I know we're up here in the north, our frozen chosen, right? Turn to your neighbor. I want you to succeed. I want everything that God has for you. Amen? But we don't pray like that a lot of times. We do. We do intercede for people. But I think when there is a pure, I just, Lord, help them. Bless them. Bless that missionary. And I want to see them, I want to see their children succeed. Oh, yeah, my children got their problem. Lord, I want to see their children succeed. I want to see them, I want to see that person see people saved. You know what? In every church I go into, there's always people They come up to me here and there, and they have the gift of evangelism, and I believe that's one of the gifts, and the pastor can straighten me out later if it's not, but people that really have a desire to talk to people about the Lord. And we have some at Woodcrest up there. And every time I talked to him, it's always, hey, I've been talking to this guy, and this guy at work, and this other person. One guy was saying, yeah, I'm in the free sample line at Costco, and giving out tracts to the lady. And I want to see them get saved. So you know what I started to do? I started asking God, I want to see that. Lord, give that man. I'd mention him. Lord, give him somebody to talk to today. Open up a door of utterance for him today. Lord, I want to see that church succeed. I was praying for some missionaries the other day, and after having preached this message, I said, Lord, give me the words to pray for that missionary. And God began to put ideas into my mind about how to just be a blessing to that ministry through my intercession for Him. And I know that God hears that prayer. It's a prayer of love. It's a prayer that just says, I want the best for you. And Paul was saying, please pray that for me. I do that sometimes. Pray for me. Sometimes I even ask the Lord. I say, Lord, could you give me someone to pray for me? And then I sometimes take it even a step further. Could you give me someone that would fast for me before I preach that message on Sunday or before we do this program next week or whatever? That's kind of my selfish prayer, right? I want somebody to love me and have enough love for me to pray for me. And I want you to know God hears those prayers. Prayer is not broken. You're not wasting your time praying. But here's the thing, when we work with God, and that's what we're talking about, partnering with God to see people saved in our communities, when we partner with God, when we're working with God, we also have to be aware of God's timetable, right? We all know this. God's timetable is always longer than ours. It's 100%. There's no exceptions, I think. Maybe a few exceptions. When we work with God, we work on God's timetable. And when we work with God, there'll be a lot of times where the answer is, wait. We read the Bible verse, right? God tells us to wait. And we get discouraged or angry or, what's going on? Frustration. And God says, wait a minute, I'm telling you to wait on me. When you wait on me, Where's the verse? What does he say happens when you wait on the Lord? You renew your strength. You get stronger when you wait. You learn things when you wait. So when you're praying for something, God's telling you to wait, say, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for letting me wait on you. Thank you, Lord, I can be involved in what you're doing. Because when you pray, you get into the long line of events that God has already orchestrated. And all this line of events is going to lead ultimately to the preeminence of Christ. I want to tell you a story about a long line of events that this church has entered into and other intercessors have entered into. When we went to Uganda, we're going to watch the video later on, but when we went to Uganda, there were certain things we had in our minds that we were going to do. We were going to start a Bible school, and we have, amen. We're going to start churches in the northern part of Uganda, and there have been some of that. But you know, there have been other things that God has brought in. One of them is the radio station. And somebody asked me if I had a minor in radio. No, I don't have any type of understanding. I'm learning as we go. And amen, the radio station is on today, thanks in part to this church right here and your prayers and donations. It's held together by chicken wire and duct tape, I say. But we're going to strengthen that, too. But God brought that ministry, too. We did not know that. You would not hear those words coming out of my mouth 20 years ago when we were raising our support to go to Uganda. Oh, radio station. Nope. That's only been in the last two or three times you've seen me. Another one that God has brought into our lives is the deaf ministry. I didn't have any visions or any idea I would be reaching deaf people in northern Uganda. But let me tell you how that all worked out. Let me tell you the long line of events that God had that we were able to enter, we were able to jump into that stream, right, a little bit through prayers and doing exactly what God had for us to do at that time. When we first went to Gulu, and you'll see it in the DVD, that was about 12 years ago. We didn't have a place to meet. We were meeting under a mango tree. That was our first place we met as a church. Then we were able to get a tent. It was like a circus tent, blue and white stripes. And we had benches in there and everything, and people would come. Well, not far from where the tent was at that time, there was a school, an elementary school, and high school, I guess, but they had some deaf classes there. They had a teacher that knew sign language. There were some deaf students. Anyway, some of these deaf students were coming to our church, though we had no interpreter. We did not invite them, right? They started coming. God brought them. And so there were some teenagers by that time. There were teenagers coming. And one of these teenagers, his name was Gabriel, all right? And so we were able to meet Gabriel. And Gabriel would come. And we'd say, yes, thank you for coming. You know, hello. You know, you do this when you don't know sign language. Yes. thanks for coming and this means 19 different things and you don't know sign language and so I was like Lord they kept coming week after week after week and I was saying Lord how are we going to reach these people you're bringing them give us an interpreter as well So finally, we got a guy that knew sign language. He was interpreting well. Anyway, Gabriel got saved. Gabriel was able to go through our discipleship. Gabriel was able to go through our four-year Bible school. Gabriel was able to be a part of our church and outreach. And Gabriel got married a couple of years ago. He's almost 30 now, all right? So Gabriel has been going along here with us all these years. And Gabriel is another one of these, he's one of these evangelists I was talking about. Just has a zeal to preach the gospel. He wakes up, I think, in the morning, and who can I talk to today? I think that's the way a gift works, right? You have this just overwhelming desire to do it. You don't know what your gift is. Well, you're probably already doing it in some degree because you just love it. But that's the way Gabriel is. And he's always telling me, Pastor, we're going to go preach to these deaf people over here. You pray for us. And then he comes back, oh, yeah, we preached. And maybe they got saved. Maybe they didn't. And next week, we're going to go over there, Pastor. You pray. So constantly, constantly. He's got this shirt, Pastor, that says, we went through church history, and we went through the Reformation. And so Gabriel made a shirt. Sorry. And it says, only scripture, only Christ, only by grace, only by faith, all of those solas, right? He put them on a t-shirt, big letters, to give him opportunities to witness. Anyway, Gabriel comes up to me a while back and says, Pastor, We're texting, writing a text and showing it to each other, and writing on paper. He's saying, Pastor, I want to start a church, a deaf church. I said, that's awesome. Amen. I'm in Uganda to start churches, so amen. I said, but let's pray about that. And let's see what God has, because a deaf church, that's a tough thing. And we prayed, and the idea that we got was that Gabriel could go to some of the existing churches and help them start deaf ministries, right? So Gabriel will go to a church, and he just got done with one of our churches. He goes to that church. He'll teach the people that want to learn sign language. He'll do deaf evangelism, be bringing deaf to the church. And he just was at, I think, four or five months at one of our other churches and helping them start their deaf program. And so that's what Gabriel's doing. Gabriel is reaching deaf in northern Uganda for the Lord. And I think, Amen. I didn't know I was going to be a part of that. But look what God did. And you know what? It's a great story. But I've got to continue with the story. It gets even better. When we start talking about missions and you have missionaries come in, that's when you'll start hearing these missionary words, right? And one of those words is the The words that they use are the unreached people groups. You ever heard that one? There are unreached people groups in the world. And there's organizations that go around and they map out where are all the unreached people groups. They don't have churches and Bibles. Nobody's saying they need missionaries to go in there. And you know what? One of the unreached people groups of the world that has been identified, I didn't know this, is the deaf people in Northern Uganda and South Sudan. So now we're reaching an unreached people group. And when you start talking about unreached people groups and when you start getting around missionaries, now you start talking about who's, and pastor can correct my theology here too, who's the last person that's going to be saved before Jesus comes back? And it gets interesting because the Bible does talk about every tribe, every tongue, all of that, up in heaven. And now we get to reach these people. And you know what? I figured out why they're not reached. Because nobody cares to reach them. Nobody cares about the deaf people. And that might be true here, but it's really true in Uganda. Nobody cares about the deaf people. Nobody's reaching them. So when we do this, it's really us doing it. Are there other churches that have sign language ministries, not that I know of, in all of northern Uganda. But God says, hey, this is people that I care about. And I have a plan for those people. And we're going to reach them. And I want you to be a part of it. And that's a great story. But I've got to tell you one more part because it talks about this whole train of events that we get into when we start praying. And that is when Gabriel was a little boy, He was about five years old. You see, when Gabriel was born, he was born with his hearing. He could hear. He was a bright, young little boy. When he was about five years old, Gabriel got malaria. And when you treat malaria, you treat it with a medicine called quinine. And if you overdose, that medicine will make your ears ring. You know that. And then if you get a big overdose, you can lose your hearing for the rest of your life. And that's what happened to Gabriel when he was just a little boy. He lost his hearing. And I think about that, and I think, What was God doing? Because that's a horrible accident. And there's people that would say, Gabriel has a right to be angry at that doctor or nurse or whoever did that to him. To be angry for the rest of his life. And to sue them, right? But what would Gabriel say? If you were to ask him, he's 30 now, he's almost 30. Married, reaching people for the Lord. And I think he loves it. I keep getting these texts about it. I think if you were to ask him, was that a mistake, Gabriel? No. It was part of God's plan. We're entering into what God's doing. And I'm just glad to be a part of it. And you enter into that also when you pray. That's what I'm trying to encourage you with today. God is working already. Don't be discouraged when you pray and nothing happens. Things are happening. We may not be able to see it. Don't stop praying for that missionary. These ones that he mentioned today on the West Coast. And don't stop praying for the rights in Uganda. God is working. And don't stop praying for these others that are reaching people right here. South St. Paul and Amber Grove. God's working here too. And sometimes we think the only way we can be part of somebody coming to the Lord is when we are actually the one. You know, here it is, let's pray a prayer together. No. That's not it. That's not true. When we pray, we are every bit as invested in that person getting saved as the actual soul winner. Amen? So don't stop praying. It's not a waste of time. Prayer is not broken. And I just want to encourage you to keep praying. I think I'll be done right there. Let's have a word of prayer. I'll turn it over to Pastor then. Dear Father,