Now it is a blessing to be here this morning. And I get the privilege and honor of getting to start off the 10 year celebration today, anniversary celebration. And I was thinking about what that means, that it's been 10 years, and what it is we're celebrating. And I was thinking about the fact that in celebrations like this, there's really a couple of things going on. One of them is that we're getting a chance to look back and see God's faithfulness over the past 10 years as he has continued to do his amazing work among the people here at GFPC, as he has built up his church, as he has sent out his gospel proclamation. People have come to know Christ, have been saved, and his church has been built up. And we're even today seeing the fruits of that. We have not just one GFPC congregation meeting here today, we actually have two. So that's exciting. We have a church that was sent out and planted by GFBC and now gets to come and worship together today. So we have that. We actually have more than that. We have a third congregation that was partially planted by GFBC. We were a bit of a plant-slash-merger-slash-reconstitution and we just kind of say all those words together and that's how it works. But West Oaks Baptist Church has its foundations in a lot of ways in the church here. And so just to see God's faithfulness over the past few years has been exciting and encouraging in that looking back and seeing what God has done. But there's also a chance and opportunity today to do a little vision casting. And so I'm going to take that that role this morning as we do a little vision casting for what is going to be the future here at GFBC. But I'm going to do it a little differently than most vision casting you've probably heard. Anybody ever heard someone who's trying to cast a vision for an organization or a church? We're going to move forward from here. We're going to set this vision and accomplish it. And a lot of times vision casting involves forgetting what's happened in the past and coming up with some new slogan or new goals or those sorts of things and we're going to recast ourselves, we're going to create a new identity and we're going to move forward. And that's not exactly what we're going to do here. What we do as we cast vision today is we're going to look back. We're going to look back to the foundations of who we are corporately as the body of Christ, who GFBC is, GFBC Conroe, who Wes Stokes is, who we are, what is it that has formed our identity? And so in kind of compiling this, we're going to look at the vision statement for GFPC and for GFPC Conroe, and actually now for West Oaks Baptist Church, that we are a, everybody can say this together if you want, we are a, what are we? We are a kingdom-minded, Christ-exalting, multi-generational community of faith. There's a lot wrapped up in that, and I'm hoping to, as we unpack that this morning, as we look to God's Word for what that means and why that is our identity and our vision, to hopefully cast a vision for the future as well, as well as looking back to what He has done faithfully in the past. So let's walk through that and let's look at those aspects of who we are as God's church, as Christ's bride. And the first one is kingdom-minded. We are a kingdom-minded church. What does that term bring to mind when you think of being kingdom-minded? There's so many aspects to what it means to be kingdom-minded. What is the kingdom of God? And how are we involved in it? And what part does our church play in the kingdom of God? Well, I wanted to look first at what the kingdom of God is in terms of historically. What was this kingdom that was being proclaimed to come? Well, the kingdom of God is something that was promised early on in scriptures. There was this conquering salvation that was going to come for all of Adam's race who had fallen in sin when Adam and Eve fell. There was this promise of a redeemer who would come. And then to Abraham was given this promise that from his line, from his seed, from his descendants, there would be a savior, this promised one. And not only would he be a promised one, but he would have a kingdom and his kingdom would bless the entire world. All the nations of the earth would be blessed in him. And as you walk through the Bible and as you see the unfolding of God's salvation and the plan that he has worked, this kingdom became more and more built up in promise and expectation. David, the great king of Israel, he was given a promise that his descendant would sit on his throne in his kingdom, though David's was passing and eventually Israel would be disbanded and exiled, that his descendant's kingdom would never end. It would be God's kingdom on earth forever. And then, in the fullness of time, God sent his son to bring forth that kingdom when Christ came. He says early on in his ministry, he begins this proclamation in Mark 115, he says, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel that Christ now had come and his kingdom had come with it. But we all know that Christ's kingdom wasn't exactly what everyone was expecting. What were people expecting when they expected this coming kingdom of God? They were expecting a kingdom that would crush all the other nations, that would exalt Israel, and that they would have dominion over the earth in this literal physical kingdom that had come. But Christ, he pronounces this coming kingdom and then he started to act and say things that didn't make sense with this expectations the Jews had. He started to talk about the kingdom being like a mustard seed that was small and planted and grew slowly and eventually grew into this great plant. He talked about the kingdom of God being like leaven, which is almost indistinguishable. We can't even see it. And yet it begins to fill the bread and to take over the loaf. These are the kind of things that Christ proclaimed in terms of the coming of the kingdom. And when he was asked about this kingdom, he said some amazing things. He said when the Pharisees asked him about the kingdom, he answered them, the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is, there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. There was this already coming of the kingdom that Christ proclaimed and that he brought that wasn't exactly what everyone expected. And I think one of the most key places where Jesus proclaimed this was when he was talking to Pilate. He was about to die. It seemed like his kingdom was coming to an end before it had started. But what did Jesus say to Pilate when Pilate started talking about how he had, you know, I have authority to kill you or deliver you. Why won't you speak to me? And Jesus answered him and said, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not of this world. And so when we're thinking this morning about being kingdom-minded, about being part of the kingdom of God, then we need to have this same understanding that the kingdom that we serve in, the kingdom that we are a part of, is not a kingdom of this world. And this is so important for us to understand. This shapes the Christian life and the Christian understanding our identity as Christians. That's why throughout the New Testament we are described as sojourners, wanderers, exiles in this world. This is not our home. The kingdoms of this world aren't our kingdom. We serve a kingdom that can't be seen yet. We serve a kingdom that's coming. We serve a kingdom that's here spiritually, but not here in the way that we would expect to see. That's our kingdom. We are, as Peter describes, your sojourners, exiles. In 1 Peter, he says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. We're in this war, and we're members of the kingdom of God. And the other kingdoms, all the kingdoms of this world, are actually at war with us. They're at war with us. So that's part of what we need to think about as we think about being kingdom-minded. We are part of the kingdom of God because of what Christ has done in us, redeeming us, saving us out of the kingdom of darkness and putting us into the kingdom of his Son, the kingdom of light. And that's where we dwell. How does that affect us? How ought that to affect us? GFPC, here, now, in this place, in this new building, how does that affect your thinking about yourselves as a church? About your mission? To be kingdom-minded. Not just to be in the kingdom, but to think about yourselves appropriately as part of this kingdom of God. We're sitting here in this wonderful blessing of a building. Something I couldn't have expected. This is obviously in so many ways just this miraculous hand of God providing this building for GFPC. Wonderful blessings. How have you thought about this building and this change of place? There's been a lot of changes here in GFBC. There's been people who've left, people who've come. Even the short time I've been gone, it's really in many ways a different church, a new church. And so there's questions about what is our identity? What is this place, this move, this change? What do these new people and my new place among them, how do I think about those things? Well, we must think about those things in terms of being kingdom-minded. So this building, this wonderful blessing of a building, you know, there's two ways I've seen churches approach the acquiring of a building. It could become something that defines you. That's our building. It could become something that you begin to invest maybe more in this world than you ought to. You know, GFBC has been wanderers and sojourners the entire time they've been around. We were in a building that was not our own for so long. It defined us. It was easy to think of ourselves as sojourners, exiles, wanderers, having no place to lay our head or our sound equipment. This was integral to us, but now we're in a building that is your own. It's something that you can claim, something you can call your own. It's where you can leave your stuff. You can go take a nap after the service in one of the rooms. I mean, there's so much you can do here. But this could become a place where you begin to invest in this world in a way that is wrong and inappropriate, not kingdom minded. Where you start to worry more about the things in this building than who you are as a church. Where the building could become more important maybe than the people who are in it. Where you start to get comfortable where God has placed you. Comfort is definitely a danger here. But we don't want to be like the rich man who built up storehouses for himself, and yet when the day of Christ came, then all of it was gone, it was burned, and everything he had invested himself in was lost. We want to be like the man who, instead of investing treasures here on earth, invested treasure in heaven. How can you, as GFPC, and GFPC Conroe, as you're starting to think about where are we gonna be, because you guys are sojourners and now really wondering, as you look forward to think about this, how can you think about what God has given you and the place he has put you, so that it's not something that you invest wrongly in, thinking about this as being more than it ought, this is where I have my value, my place. This is who we are. We are this building and this acquirements that we have built up and will continue to invest in it and build up. And that's who we are. Or is this church building, these walls, which are a wonderful blessing and an investment, are they an investment in the kingdom of God? The kingdom that is to come, the kingdom that's not here on this earth? How could we think about it that way? How could you think about this building as being a place where by the grace of God we now have ability to minister to one another in ways we couldn't before, to gather on the Lord's Day in ways that you could not before, to proclaim the gospel maybe in ways that you could not before? Have you thought about the area that this is in? I've talked to Stephen about this a good bit, and I know that some of you probably, when you found out where this church building was, some maybe were excited, some maybe not so much. Some of you got here and looked around the neighborhood and went, ooh. And thinking, well, how can we make it, yes, right, make it safe, make it so that everything's good and our children are safe. But have you thought about where we are? Have you thought about the opportunities for the gospel to be preached and proclaimed? Have you thought about who's going to walk in the door here because of where we are? And are you going to have that kingdom minded thinking? Not that thinking where this is us and this is our stuff and we're worried about building up what we have here and we're worried about who's coming in and who's being involved and who may be touching our stuff. Or are you excited about someone who walks in the door and how can we proclaim to them this gospel that they need to hear? Has that shaped your thinking? Are you being a kingdom minded? And there's so many ways we could be kingdom minded. I need to, can you continue to move though? Cause I've got, I've got four of these I gotta get through. So, so kingdom minded, but in terms of being kingdom minded, if we're, if we're going to be kingdom minded, there's the question immediately comes, who's our king? Everybody knows the answer that that's that goes to our next point that we're a kingdom-minded Christ exalting That our identity must be in the Savior whom we proclaim Ephesians 2 Chapter 1 verse 15 to 23 says, For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened. that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. If we're looking at our identity and we need to cast a vision for the future, we need to have our vision and our identity bound up in our savior. The one who was raised from the dead, the one who is king over all, king of his kingdom now and king of his kingdom to come. That He was crucified on the cross and laid in the grave, and yet God raised Him from the dead and seated Him in power. That He is ruling even now His kingdom, which we are trying to be kingdom-minded about. That He is the one who is ruling it. He is the one who is directing it. He is the one who is reigning over it. And so if we're going to be kingdom minded, if our identity is going to be appropriately placed, it must be in our savior, the one who leads us, our captain, our king, the one who guides us. Christ is our head. And we, as his people, were redeemed for something. We weren't just saved so that we could have fun in heaven forever, though we are going to have fun in heaven forever. But we were saved, we were redeemed, we were given life in order that we might give glory to the one who has saved us. That's why we're here this morning. That's what this gathering is about. That's what this building which is gonna burn one day is about. It's about giving us a place that we can gather so we can give glory to our head, to Christ, to our King. What do we gather here to do? This is really unusual in our culture. We all get together and one guy stands up and we all listen to him for a long time. Why do we do that? Well, that's who we are. Our job, our identity is in the proclamation of Christ, who He is. Colossians 1.27. It says, to them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of his mystery, which is Christ in you. That's the wonders of our identity is that Christ is in us. So Christ in you, the hope of glory. And then he says, him we proclaim. Warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ him We proclaim that's that's what I'm up here to do this morning. That's that's what vision casting for the church is about It's about pointing us back to the one who we're following, you know Like in Hebrews 12 where you're you're casting off sin and you're running the race set before you but it's because your eyes are on Christ Your eyes are on Jesus And our vision casting must always be about turning our eyes back to Christ, to our Redeemer, to our Savior, to our King. And that's what we're here to do. The church is about the proclamation of Christ, of who he is. That's what your pastors do faithfully. And I would encourage them now to continue to do faithfully proclaim Christ in all times, in all ways. And I would encourage each of you You may not be a preacher, you may not be gifted to come up here and to proclaim the word like your pastors are, but you have been given Christ in you. And in all the ways that you can, you must be proclaiming him to all those around you. to your children in your home, to one another in your families, to one another here as we come. Proclaim Christ to one another. Talk about him. He's your identity. If you gather in this place, then your message, the content of your speech to one another must be Christ. Must be Christ. We are Christ exalting. Acts 4.12, and there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. There is no other Redeemer. As we look forward and we look back for 10 years of faithfulness, God's faithfulness to us, and His maintaining the purity of that message amongst us, which is Christ in you, hope of glory. That message must be maintained in purity. And that's all of your job, to continue to proclaim that, to look to the scriptures, to be immersed in the Word of God, which lays before you, your King, lays before you, your Savior. He's the only Savior. And if this church And if the people meeting in this building ever wander from proclaiming Christ and Him crucified, then this is nothing. It's gone. You are nothing. You're nothing but a part of this world which will burn with the rest of it. If you can maintain, if you continue to preach Christ, to proclaim Christ, to hold Him up, to exalt Him, then this church will bring glory to its head. And this church, whether it be big or small, whether this building stays or not, this church will be part of that kingdom which will never end. Praise God. We look for that. We hope in that. So we are a kingdom-minded, Christ-exalting, multi-generational. A multi-generational. What does that mean to you when you think about multi-generational? There's a lot there that I'm guessing you may not have thought of all of it. So as we look around, one of the things that has characterized this church from the beginning and continues to characterize this church, is that we are a gathering of people from multiple generations. That's unusual in our day and age. That's unusual for a lot of churches in our time. That many churches in our day and age like to get together and then separate. They gather to separate. So that people of different ages will gather in different groups together. And people of different inclinations, different kinds, will gather together. The young ones will gather, and the youth will gather, and the young marrieds will gather, and the singles will somehow get together somewhere off on the side. And then the old people, they'll kind of eventually find their own Sunday school. And everybody just splits up and disperses. But we are a multi-generational church, meaning we gather as the entire community of faith, young and old. Why? Well, it's because we are Christ-exalting. We're not getting together to gather around our interests or our likes or our abilities or the things that make us like one another. We're getting together to gather around Christ, our head. And that's all of us. Everyone who has claimed faith in Christ, who's been born again by His Spirit, given new life and transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of life, whether you are a hundred years old or whether you are two years old, all of you are part of this kingdom of God and all of you are part of this church. And that's why we gather, is this multi-generational gathering. So that's part of who we are. That's part of what we do. But there's more to this multi-generational aspect than just the fact that young and old all gather together. Because multi-generational also means that we are thinking multi-generationally. That we have a desire for multi-generational faithfulness to Christ our head. Have you thought about that? Because even some of us who are thinking about ourselves and our families and our kids, and wanting our kids, of course, to be Christians, and so we all gather together so we can all hear about Christ, but have you thought about the fact that our desire is that this church would exhibit multi-generational faithfulness? The church, the church at large would be lost were it not for multi-generational faithfulness. It would have gone. But Christ has maintained multi-generational faithfulness through his church over the ages, over the centuries since he first birthed his church in Jerusalem, as we read about in Acts. And yet now we stand 2,000 years later and his church is still here. His words that the gates of hell would never overcome his church have been seen to be true. because it is a multi-generational gathering. There is a desire for multi-generational faithfulness, that same faithfulness that we hear talked about throughout the Old Testament. God spoke of Abraham and said that his purpose was for Abraham to teach his children so that they too would walk in the ways of the Lord. that in the giving of the law, in what Moses did in Deuteronomy, he spoke in Deuteronomy 6 and said that we are to be teaching the things of God to our children, so that they could teach them to their children, so that they could teach them to their children, so that the Word of God would be proclaimed, not just in our generation, but for generations to come. That's part of the methods and the character of the kingdom of God that we are a part of. Have you thought about, is your desire for multi-generational faithfulness? That you, not only you, would be faithful to the gospel, but that your children would. That not only you and your family would be faithful to the gospel, but the next generations of Christians would. It's not just your family. It's not just about you, like in the Old Testament where you just worried about your own kin and their descendants. No, because as soon as the strange person off the street walks in that door and hears the gospel and is saved, they are now my brother and sister in Christ, and I'm worried about their heritage. I'm worried about their faithfulness, and I'm worried about the faithfulness of those who come after them. So we are desiring multi-generational faithfulness. There you go. All right, so in terms of this desire for multigenerational faithfulness, and I mentioned this earlier, but this could be lost. And there are churches, God will maintain his kingdom in his church, and his church will not fail. But there are churches, individual congregations who have faltered and failed, that you have looked at them 100 years ago, 200 years ago unseen. This is a faithful church. This is where Christ is at work. The gospel is proclaimed. These people are living as Christians. They are desiring the things of God. And that characterizes them. And then you look a few hundred years later and they're gone. The congregation is dispersed. There's nothing left. The multi-generational character was not maintained. Well, that's a danger for us too. As we look forward to the future, as we cast a vision for the future, our desire is that not only that we would be faithful in this day, but that our children would. And those who come into this church after would maintain that faithfulness and that proclamation. That even by God's grace in a hundred years, the GFBC would be here and it would be kingdom minded. It would be exalting Christ. That is what we desire. We read in Revelation 2 and Jesus gives this warning to the church that this is not assured. That your lampstand might be removed. That Christ will have his proclaimers, but you might not be one of them down the road. He speaks to the church in Ephesus and he says, but I have this against you. that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent." That picture of that lampstand lifted up and shining forth the light of Christ to the world, to the watching world. That's what we desire to be. And yet here, he tells the church in Ephesus that they might lose that. He might remove it from them. Why? Well, they actually were doctrinally sound. They called heresy heresy. They taught the right things. They held the right confession. They did all of those things. But there was something that they had lost. They had lost, it says, love. You've abandoned the love you had at first. You've abandoned that desire and passion and love of your Savior Christ, the one who you're supposed to be exalting. You're saying all the right words and yet your desire and love for and passion for Christ has fled. And probably one of the first ways that was seen was that we stopped talking about him as much. We stopped telling our neighbors as much about him. We stopped worrying about continuing to talk about him. Okay, the sermon was preached, but are we going to continue to press these things into one another? Is our love for our Savior, is it just overflowing from us in our words and in our deeds? Parents, when you go home, do you continue to just push into and press into your children this love for Christ and this exalting of Christ that we engage in here today? Husbands and wives, do you continue to exalt Christ to one another? Is your love for Christ evident in the way you treat one another, the way you speak to one another? In the way you always, in the midst of difficulty, say, stop, let's turn and look at Christ. He's our savior. He can bring us even out of this. Is that, that's the sort of love that, that fills your home. That fills your speech, even when you're not in your home, when you're at work, when you're on the street. Is the love of Christ and that proclamation of the wonders of your Savior, is that what comes forth from you? Well, if not repent, turn again. So that God, Christ would not remove his lampstand from this place, that we would maintain for generations a proclamation of Christ to the world. That's our desire to be a multi-generational church. And then finally, we're kingdom-minded, Christ-exalting, multi-generational, community of faith. Community of faith. What does that mean to be a community? Why do we have that in there? Well, there's a lot that goes into that term community. Really, a lot of it could also be found in the word family. We could be called a family of faith. That's what Grace Family Baptist Church is. You may have, when you first heard of it, thought, oh, that's because they get all the families together. It's about Grace Families Baptist Church. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what that's about. We are a family, the family of God. That when we come together, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Not just brothers and sisters, but fathers and mothers and daughters and sons. That's how we're to treat one another. Remember what Paul says to Timothy and he talks about how he's to engage with the different people in the congregation. He says to the old men, treat them as fathers and the older women, treat them as mothers. To the younger, treat them as daughters and sons. That's how we see one another. We get together and though we are different and we have different families and different lives act a little different, and dress a little different, and talk a little different, have different kinds of personalities. We get together and we are the family of God. The family, that's what this word community is meant to display, the fact that we are a family, that we come together, and that we are engaged with one another. Because one of the dangers, speaking about dangers of church buildings and having an identity in a building is that you just come to the building, you don't worry about the people. You gather in this building and you worry about building up this building and worry about how this building presents you and how you enjoy this building, but you don't think about the guy who's sitting next to you in the pew. But we are a community. We come together because of the people here, because we're all one in Christ, so that we can come together as a community to exalt Christ our head. so that we can be engaged with one another, so that we can show love to one another. This love that was lost in Ephesus, one of the other ways that that could be lost or start to show itself, that you're losing this passion for Christ your head, is that you start not really loving or caring for one another anymore. Not displaying that affection. Not just when you enjoy one another, but even when you don't enjoy one another. Still coming together, still being involved with one another. Just like your crazy uncle who comes over and you don't really enjoy having him in your home, but you still do it because he's family. There's a lot of crazy uncles here. I'm a crazy uncle a lot of times. I appreciate you guys being willing to engage with me, even when I'm a little crazy. But that's part of what we're to be is this community of faith. So what is it that binds us together? What gathers us? Because so many churches gather based on likes, based on their similarities. And this is gonna be an important question for us, especially living now with this building where it is and the people around us not being like a lot of you, not being as much like me maybe. But what is it that binds us together? Why are we gathered in this community here? It's a community not of likes, not of interests, not of similarities, but it's a community of faith. That's why we are gathered here. We are gathered as those who have faith in Christ. Matthew 16. Verse 13 speaks about what it is that identifies us. What is our identity? Why are we gathered together? It says, now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. But my father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. What is it that Jesus commends here in Peter? Why does he commend him? And what is this rock? He says, on this rock, I will build my church. Well, you probably have heard that the Roman, that the Catholic church thinks that's, Peter's the rock and he's the one built, the church is built on. And so that's why the Pope is in Rome and all of that. Well, we don't believe that, but have you thought about what this is? What does this mean? I tell you, you are Peter. He's definitely identifying and associating Peter with the rock, though he's not saying that they're the same. It says on this rock, what rock? What has Peter just done? He has confessed faith in Christ. His confession of Christ and that faith that he has that Christ, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And it's on this confession that Christ says, I will build my church and on this confession that this church being built will not be prevailed against though the gates of hell should come against it. This confession of Christ. That confession that each one of you confesses and holds. That confession that set you apart from the kingdoms of this world. When you first heard of Christ and you heard of his glories and his wonders and you heard of his character and you heard of his life and then you heard of his death on the cross that you might be saved. That he who was God became man and died on the cross so that you as sinner could be redeemed. could be pulled out of the kingdoms of this world, be pulled out of this mire of sin and death into which you were born and brought into the kingdom of light so that your hope would be in the glory to come in the kingdom that Christ would bring. And when you heard that, and you believed that, and you confessed that, that's why you're part of this community. That's what our community of faith is. It's a community, a family, a gathering, a congregation that is bound in and founded around this common confession of Jesus Christ and of what he has done and how we are now his Christ in you, the hope of glory. So as we look forward, and as you look forward to the years to come, by God's grace, years upon years to come, and as you think about where you are and who you're with and think about this building that you've been blessed with, then I pray that you would keep before you ever, this Savior, that you would be bound together as a family in love because of your common confession, because of the faith that you have proclaimed, because Christ has bound you together in Him. and that you together could be kingdom-minded, thinking not of the things of this world, thinking not of the passing things of this world, but even in your interactions with Him, even in the use of this building, and the use of your own homes, and the use of your jobs, and the money that you have, and your families, and all the different things that you've been given and entrusted to you and blessed with, that in all those things you would be thinking not of, how can I build this up here, but how can I store it away for the kingdom to come? How can I use it and expend it and just let go of it in ways that would bless and build up the kingdom to come? Because you're kingdom-minded, exalting Christ always in this place and always to one another. looking for multi-generational faithfulness, that all of us together would come together around this common confession of Christ. And we confess it to one another regularly, reminding one another, we're so forgetful. You forget, I forget. We need to be reminded of our Savior, of our head, of the love of our lives. We need to be reminded of Christ. and bound together in this common confession. Let that be what binds you together for the years to come. And let our vision for the future be wrapped up in solely our Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's go ahead and close in prayer this morning.