For our oldest boy, Emmett, who's just over two years old, Tuesday night, we came home from eating supper and he was just off a little bit, ended up coming down with a fever in the middle of the night, ran a fever most of the day, Wednesday, Thursday, 103, 104. We were a little bit concerned, took him to the ER, got him checked out and some kind of viral infection. And I know it meant a lot to my wife and I for people that message on Facebook or sent text messages or to know that people were praying. Several of you even this morning asked, how's your son? How's your boy? And that meant a lot. I know a few stopped by. And that meant a lot to us. Even the flexibility, we had to cancel a few dinners with our little son being sick, and even the flexibility of the church, showing their graciousness in that was great. And so, thankfully, Friday night he began to get a little bit better and kind of the the medicine kind of the fever reducer had wore off so uh we're just you know you wait till that wears off and is it going to go back up or is it going to stay the same in it and it stayed the same uh right there 98.6 and uh he did good slept pretty good friday night and saturday he was i call it back to maybe 80 he's about maybe 85% today and all better, but just, man, wore out. And I don't get fevers a whole lot, so I don't know what that is. I think I've had one fever in the last, like, 15, 20 years of my life, and so I don't know, that was just a small one for like a day. And so, but thank you for your prayers. It's meant a lot for your prayers, for you guys asking about him. And so that's meant a lot to my wife and I. We've enjoyed the week. Several have asked, well, what do you think of the area? And I said, well, I don't really know. We were planning on maybe driving around and seeing some different things, but with Emmett being sick, that kind of changed everything. So the duplex we're staying in is really nice. We really, it's nice. And I say that a little bit jokingly, but no, I do want to thank the injuries for allowing us to stay at the duplex and furnishing it. And I'm telling you, it was great. It was awesome, especially with Emmett being sick, that we could put him down. It wasn't like a hotel room where all of us are trying to be in one room. And so that's been awesome. And so I do want to thank them. I do want to thank people that had us over. And I don't want to thank too many people, because then I thank everyone, and then I leave one person out. I just leave it at that. But I do think the people that had us over or sent meals, it's been a great time. And we've enjoyed getting to know the people. I think our prayers this week was that, Lord, if you would allow us to be here, that you would knit our hearts to the people and that the people would be knit to us. And then Lord, that you would allow the church to get an accurate picture of who my wife and I are, who our children are. I don't know how more accurate you can get than being sick, but that's life, I guess. And that we would get an accurate picture of you, and so we've enjoyed getting to know you all. Just a few things, I'm looking forward to the luncheon and then looking forward to the Q&A. I will say this, if you want to catch me at the luncheon table or whatever, feel free just to come right up to me, ask me anything. I'll probably hang out a little bit after the Q&A as well to ask me anything. So I don't know if there's more questions that are on the Q&A that maybe people have as individuals. And so we are an open book. You can ask us anything and we'll try to, to the best of our ability, tell you where we're at or tell us that information, whether it's about our personal lives or whether it's about, hey, this, that, the other. And so I do want to make that open. So just if we're out there, whatever, even if I'm shoving food in my kid's mouth, whatever, just come up and say, hey, I want to talk to you about this. I want to have this conversation. I'll do and we'll do our best to kind of answer those questions. And then looking forward to the Q&A as well. And my wife and I was kind of giving me a quizzing me as we drove up here, you know. I thought I was back in college. But no, I think a lot of those questions are good questions and looking forward to it. But man, it's been a great week and looking forward to today. So hopefully that's given you guys time to get to Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians four, last Sunday we talked about Ephesians chapter two and we talked about the gospel. We talked about what the gospel is. We talked about, if you remember, It says that we were dead in our sins. We talked about where we were. We talked about what Christ did. It says, but God who is rich in mercy. Talked about Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins. We talked then about what Christ has done in our lives through salvation, that he's reconciled us, that he's cleansed us. And at the end of it, in Ephesians 2.10, it talks about we are his workmanship. And along with that, it says that he has ordained us, he has allowed us to be set up with a purpose. So this morning, I wanna talk about what is the purpose of each and every one of us. And we'll look at several different verses here in Ephesians four, Ephesians five, and kind of the key word that kind of draws us all together is walk. So Ephesians 4 verse 1, it says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. Verse 2 says, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Our littlest one, Oliver, he's about 10 months old, and he is just now, he's been pulling himself up, and if you hold his hands, he'll kind of walk with you. And if any of you that have had children or grandchildren, you've known when people learn to walk, maybe they'll stumble a few times. The idea of walking is not just taking one step, but it's something that's gonna be repetitive over a period of time. If I wanna walk from here to the educational building, it's gonna take several steps. It's a progression, and this is what he's saying, that we should walk, and the first thing here, it says, how we should walk, it says, walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. One of the questions I've asked people, if you've interacted with me, typically I ask these two questions. How did you end up at Faith Baptist Church? And then I'll say, what career are you in? And it's been neat to see the different careers. I know the Underwoods, they are involved with the public access station and the radio station. I know some people have been in law enforcement. Some people, they said, hey, I've done, I work at the water treatment plant. And all these different vocations that people are in, And here, this word vocation or calling is to everybody. It's to the whole church. What is our calling as a church corporately, then also as an individual, what is our calling? What is our calling as a church? And I want to give you two things here about what our calling is. Maybe we can say the purpose of our calling or the purpose of our vocation is that first of all, that we would walk in unity, that we would walk in unity. If you notice here, the verses to follow, it says that we would walk with our, sorry, worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. with all lowliness, meekness, and longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We'll come back and look at verse 2 in just a second. It says in verse 4, it says, There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all in you all. but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. You see that when we come to the church, we should be unified as a body. We should be unified as a group of individuals. And sometimes people think that, well, I just, I don't have anything in common with that person. I know sometimes with teens, Teens take a long time to step outside of their comfort zone And sometimes they say well, I play volleyball and they and they they just They really, you know, they play the trumpet. What do I have in common? And they're trying to look for these outward things that they have in common But when it comes to the church the thing that we should have in common are these things that are mentioned here in verse 4 one body one spirit one one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and the Father. Our unifying factor should be the fact that we are all Christians and we're all going to this calling, this vocation together, that we have this one corporate goal in our life. I mentioned that a little bit last week and I overarched and said our one purpose is to glorify God. This morning I'm going to get a little bit more into the details of what does that look like? How does that look? But you notice in verse 2 it says, "...with all lowliness, meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." Those words should be aspects of every church. They should be aspects of your life. They should be aspects of Faith Baptist Church. Then when we come into church and we come in and say, what do we want to accomplish with Faith Baptist Church? There should be a lowliness, a meekness, a long suffering for bearing one another in love. There's always maybe that person that maybe rubs you the wrong way. And I know that maybe I've said it before, and I know that people have said it every night, oh, I just, you know, that person just can't, you know, I'll use the name Jared because I don't think I've met a Jared. If there's a Jared here, this doesn't apply to you. You know, oh, you know, Jared just, oh, you know, I just, you know, just, man, he just always, he just runs his mouth. We're called to forbear one another. We're called to, and in a little bit we'll look at 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. We're called to 1 Corinthians 13 one another. And to come in where it's not necessarily what I want or what you want, it's what God wants for the church. And so our purpose is to be called to unity. Is Faith Baptist Church unified? Is Faith Baptist Church, as I look around, is there unity amongst the members here? And I've only been here a week, so I haven't observed any contention or anything, but is there any contention? Is there anything where it's like, well, man, it's this side of the church versus this side of the church. We have the same God, we have the same Lord, we have the same salvation, we're going the same direction, So we're called to unity, but then we're also called to a goal. We're called to a goal. And I know I mentioned the overarching goal of our life is to glorify God, but let's get into kind of how that looks. So for sake of time, come down to Ephesians 4 in verse 11. Ephesians 4 in verse 11. This is kind of, I call it one of the key passages if you're going to describe what the purpose of the church is. I say Ephesians 4, 11 and following and at the end of Acts chapter 2. But Ephesians 4, 11 says, He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body. So we all come in the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, with the slight of men, undercutting craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body," once again this is a verse we're going to talk about unity again, "...from whom the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, making the increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." You see kind of the purpose here. I know that's a very meaty passage and, man, we could spend all day just looking at this. But I want to look at verse 12. It says, "...for the perfecting of the saints." The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, teachers, they're called to help. That word perfecting means help to equip. And the pastors, the teachers, the evangelists, they're called to help equip the saints so the saints can do the work of the ministry. Our vocation, it's not necessarily the pastors and people like Pastor Shoaff or even those that are the deacons that, okay, they're called to do the work of the ministry. No, the pastors, teachers, the evangelists, they're called to help equip the saints so the saints can do the work of the ministry. That is our calling. That is what the Bible says. And what does that work of the ministry look like? So it's for the edifying, or we could say the building up of the body of Christ. We can build up the body in two ways. And we can break it down in multiple ways, but I think this is the easiest to, through evangelizing the lost, and edifying the Christian. Everything else should fall under that. As a church, everything should fall under those two categories. And we can get more specific, I know, and there's maybe semantics there, but evangelize the lost. Every single one of us is called to go out and be a witness. We're called to go and tell. We're called to give the gospel out to our co-workers, to our neighbors, to our friends, to our families. I've met several people that say, hey, pray for this person. They're out of church, whether it's a brother or a daughter or a sister or even a father that need to get saved. And I've heard many prayer requests. And that's encouraging because I see that Faith Baptist Church is seeing the need of evangelizing the lost. And then edifying the saints or building up the saints. That can look like a lot of different things. That can look like grabbing someone and saying, hey, can I have a word of prayer with you? Edifying the saints, I think Faith Baptist Church did a great job of edifying my wife and I this week. People calling, people texting, people praying for us. building up, along with edifying the saints, I can put in there a discipleship. And as those of you that are more mature Christians to find those immature Christians or new Christians and help disciple them and help them teach them what the Bible says and how to read the Bible and how to study the Bible. But this is what the church is called to do. This is our vocation. This is our calling. You might be in here today and you might say, no, I'm a welder. That's my vocation. That's my calling is to be a welder. Your calling is that you are a minister of Christ. You just happened to grab a paycheck from that machine shop. You may say, no, no, I'm a school teacher. First of all, you're a minister of Christ. and God has allowed you to minister at being an educator. I think sometimes we flip that and we think, no, I'm this, and then whatever kind of is left is down here, and we break it up into different categories and say, okay, I could say I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a youth pastor, and then I'm a minister, and then I serve God. No, we serve God, and then just in all these different attributes. So we are called to walk with a purpose. We're called to, in this purpose, to walk in unity. We're called to then also, our calling is to evangelize the lost and to edify the saints, if I can wrap it up into that. And then as we look here down through the passage, if you look there in Ephesians 4 verse 17, it says, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. And verse 19 says, who being past feeling, having given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. So we've kind of said what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to walk in unity. We're supposed to walk evangelizing and edifying, but then how to do it, how to how to walk in it, and if you can take your Bibles over to Colossians chapter three. Once again, we referenced Colossians several times last week, kind of parallel passages here. Colossians chapter three in verses, we'll look at the first four verses here. Colossians 3 and verse 1 will start, if ye then being risen with Christ. So he's talking to the church. He's talking to us. He's talking to the church at Colossae there, but then also talking to us. Seek those things which are above. where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. And it goes on then to talk about mortifying our flesh. But in verse two it says, set your affections on things above. We know what our purpose is now. Our purpose is to walk in unity, and our purpose is to evangelize the lost and edify the saints. And along with that, we need to make sure that, as Ephesians says, walk not as the Gentiles walk. Here it says, set your affections on things above. And yes, it is talking that we should not walk in sin, and there is an aspect of that. But even, I think, along with that, there's an aspect of to not live for the temporary. to not live for the dollar, to not live for the comfort, but to walk with a heavenly focus, to walk with an eternal determination. I don't know if it was on this list of questions or maybe a list of questions. I don't think it's on this afternoon's list, but I've seen it before. What is your concern with the culture of churches today? And I think sometimes people would automatically go to maybe bad theology, and I think that isn't a concern. Or they would go to, ooh, they're allowing sin in the church, man. And I know that there is, several churches in even this region, probably more so than Tennessee, that allow sin, but they don't call sin, sin. And I think that's a concern. But probably the greatest concern that I have, or I call our circle of churches, is busyness and distraction. We come to church on Sunday and we say, well, I gave God this, I served here, whether the nursery, children's class, and man, I'm thankful for that. We're thankful that we're not having to bounce two kids right now in the front row, and we're thankful for that. But then sometimes people go throughout the week and just, almost without thought, that we're called to serve God, 24-7. Here it says, set your affection on things above, not on things on this earth. Where are your affections set? That word lasciviousness, of course, often is used in the idea of just desiring to do evil things or kind of just fulfilling the desires of the heart. We often think immorality, alcohol, Drugs. What if it's just money? What if it's just comfort? I'm not gonna ask for a raise of hand, but who likes to be comfortable? I do. It's a struggle for me. So the church is called to walk in unity, to walk with the purpose of evangelizing and edifying, but then we also have to have this eternal focus. Walk not as the Gentiles walk, and yes, let's not walk in sin, but let us not walk, I call it being so temporarily focused with the here and now. Focused on, man, if I work extra, man, then I can have some extra money so I can buy a new car. Are new cars wrong? No, they're not wrong. But is our affection set there? Matthew talks about your affections in heaven, where moth and rust doth not corrupt, where thieves do not break through and steal. Everything we see on this earth, besides the souls of individuals, all pass away. I think we need to be good stewards of what we have. I think that's important. But we can't just be living for the promotion. We can't just be living for the next thing. We can't be living for comfort. We cannot be living for the dollar. We gotta be living for Christ. Now, as you live for Christ, will you get a promotion? Will you get more money? Yeah, maybe. And that's great, that's awesome. God blesses in those different ways. But we have one goal, and that's to serve God. Don't ever think that you can categorize like, well, I go to work and clock in at work. No, when you go to work, you're a minister that God has placed you there. It's often been said, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but every member, a minister. Every member, a minister. So we want to walk with a purpose, the purpose of unity, the purpose of evangelizing and edifying. Then we wanna walk differently, not with a temporal focus, but with an internal focus. And along with that, if we had time, I would get into talking about the different sins that are mentioned there. Then there are different sins, and I won't have the time to go into it, that are mentioned there in Ephesians about going back into that love chapter and talking about not, you know, Ephesians 4 talks about walking in kindness and not in wrath and evil concupiscence and all these things that be put away. And we won't take the time to get into that because, man, our trigger would get cold. But I do wanna take your Bibles back to Ephesians 5 in verse 2. Ephesians 5 in verse 2. I just wanna mention it real quick here. Ephesians 5 in verse 2. We'll go ahead and read verse 1 just to make it nice and clean. Ephesians 5 verse 1 says, be therefore followers of God as dear children. And I didn't mention that, but that word, therefore, in chapter five and in verse four, goes back to Ephesians two and three, because of what Christ has done for us, okay? That's what that therefore is, well, therefore, is what Christ has done for us, and Paul does this a lot, all this that Christ has done for us, the love of sending the Son, the power of the cross, the power of the resurrection, because of all that, therefore, we walk as our vocation in chapter five, verse one says again, Therefore, followers of God, as dear children, it says, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, and offering a sacrifice to God by a sweet smelling savor. And then it talks a list of sins that should be done away with. We won't get into each sin, but let me just read that real quick here. Verse three says, for fornication, that's any sexual sin, whether it's physical or mental, any sexual sin, in all uncleanness and covetousness, covetousness, desiring something that you don't have, that God maybe hasn't purposed in you to have. Let it not be once named among you as becoming saints, neither filthiness or foolish talking or jesting, I would say worthless talk, which are not convenient, not helpful, but rather giving of things. And then it goes in verse five, for this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is in idolatry, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. These should not be a characteristic of our lives. I don't have the time this morning to get into each of these. There's another list there, and if you go back to Ephesians 4, kind of starting in verse 25, wherefore put away lying, speaking every man truth with his neighbor. But we should not be, we should walk in love with one another. That goes back to walking in unity, but no lying, no backbiting, no anger. I'm just kind of summarizing this list in Ephesians 4. No corrupt communication. No vile, no corrupt communication. I can say no vile speech. Whether it's God's name in vain, or a curse word, or even something that kind of borderline, shouldn't be a part of us. 1 Corinthians 13 is a great chapter. And let's just flip over there because I can't, I never want to ignore the Word of God, but I'm going to read this chapter and encourage you to have an open heart and an open mind of what does it mean to walk in love. First Corinthians 13 verse one, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I have nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, I profit at nothing. So you might be in here this morning, you might say, okay, let's walk in purpose, let's edify the saints, let's evangelize the lost, but if you don't show love to one another, if you don't walk in love, what Paul's saying and what God's saying is, you're not doing it right. And this goes back to the unity, that a church should walk in love and in unity. And then it describes here in the next few verses what charity or love looks like. Charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity voneth not itself, is not puffed up. In other words, charity is not looking to promote oneself. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, That's a hard one for me right there, thinketh no evil. We all say, think the best of people, and the churches think the best of one another, but sometimes we're like, they said this to me, what do you think that meant? Hmm, you know, do you think they were trying to get at something? Why not believe the best? Sometimes our own worst enemy is our mind, right? We replay things in our mind and conjure up things, and then when we interact with that person, we're like, huh, you know, They said this to me, and they're real mad at me, so I'm gonna snub them. And then it's like, we're going off what ifs, but thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Man, I love that word all. No exceptions. No getting out of it. It doesn't say bear all things unless someone's a really, really mean person. It doesn't say believeth all things until they've committed, you know, let you down 30 times. No. Walk in love. And this goes back to the unity, but a church needs a walk in love. Love for one another. Love for the people in this room. Love for the lost. hopeth all things. And we can hope that as we show the love of God to others that they would hear and that God would draw them onto himself. So we should walk in love. But what is kind of then, I wanna end here, with the why is this so important? Why is this so important? And of course God has called us to it, but why is this so important? And kind of, if you will, put a timetable on it. Take your Bibles back to Ephesians, Ephesians five and verse 15. Ephesians five and verse 15. So we've learned that our vocation, our calling, is that the church walk in unity, that unity should then grow to be evangelizing and edifying, and then along with that, that we would walk in love, and that we would walk with a focus, a heavenly focus. But now I kind of, I'm trying to think of the right word here. Some, man, can't think of the right word, but put it on a timetable. Why is it so important? Why is this something that we just cannot put off to tomorrow? Ephesians five and verse 15 says, seeing then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. When it says there, the days are evil, it's talking about the evil of the day, it's talking about how we live in a corrupt world. But we see that word redeeming the time. We see this walk circumspect, what does that mean? Overall, and I don't wanna take too long, so I'm just gonna combine it together. Overall, what it means is that we have to be on the lookout to take the opportunities that God allows us to minister for Him. Walked through the grounds of heaven, that we would be aware of the opportunities. That's what this means when it says redeem the time. Finding the opportunities in our day to serve God. That we'd be consciously aware of what's going on. When we sit at lunch, at work, and we'd be consciously aware and looking for those opportunities to be a minister of Christ, whether that's to share the gospel, or we come into this church building, Hebrews says, exhorting one another. And that's why it's so important that we meet together. I know for COVID and some different reasons, there was a time where maybe we were all online, but that's why it's so important that we meet together to exhort one another That we would come into this building and we would be looking with a conscious mind, saying, who can I exhort today? How can I minister to my brother or sister in Christ today? Be consciously aware. driving up here, and we would be driving, and you kind of see a car kind of, you know, they're going into the shoulder a little bit, and they come back. I don't know if they're texting, trying to put a piece of gum in their mouth, whatever. But as I'm driving on the highway, especially on the interstate, you're consciously aware. You're kind of looking, OK, what's going on? OK. Kind of actively engaged to be safe on the road. As we minister for Christ, we need to be actively engaged, looking for opportunities to serve. That's what that means to walk circumspectly. You can read stories, and there's several illustrations and stories, but when people would fight in the Middle East, they said that they would be, our American soldiers, they'd be looking for anything that was out of place, because that could be a warning sign for something that can go awry. They'd come into a village and just the slightest little thing, they were on edge, they were constantly looking, constantly aware. And something looked out of place, they were even more on guard. They were looking for danger. We need to be consciously looking, vigilantly looking, where does God want me to serve? What does God want me to do? You know what? That person's sitting all alone. I'm gonna go sit with them. You know, that person, they just went through a loss. Let me pray with them. You know, my neighbor, I haven't talked to them in a while, and I know that they're unsaved. Let me go take that opportunity to witness to them. The days are evil. We have a short period of time on this earth. What does the Bible say? Our life is like a vapor, and it's gone. I don't know how many of you invest in different things or whatever. I mean, there's whatever, cryptocurrency, stock market, stuff like that. And I don't know if anyone's ever invested in something and then lost. Let's say you lost $1,000. You know, if you lost $1,000, you could probably gain that back somehow. Maybe a different investment. Maybe, you know, doing something else. Maybe working more. You can gain $1,000 back. Once March 27th, 2022 is gone, it's done. You'll never get it back. You can never make it up. We have 24 hours a day. Once it's gone, it's gone. Solomon said that he lived for vanity in the book of Ecclesiastes. Once a day is gone, it's gone. You can never get it back. That's why it's so important that we walk vigilantly, circumspectly, looking around, to take the opportunities that God has for us, to be a servant for Him. As a church, we should walk in unity, and that unity should grow to edify one another, evangelize the lost. We should then also walk with an eternal focus, not a temporal focus. We should walk in love. And there's an urgency, that was the word I was looking for before, there needs to be an urgency. Because the other side, Satan is actively working out there. We need to be urgent, concerned, that we would minister for Christ and what he has for us. And if I could sum it up, and I know we'll get a little bit into Q&A, That right there is my passion. If the Lord would guide me to be a pastor here at Faith Baptist Church, that right there is, I call it the heart of what I'm about. And so I hope through this, maybe there's things that you need to work on as an individual. whether it's walking in unity, maybe you say, you know what, I don't have any problems with anyone here, I really enjoy people here, but I haven't really been doing the work. Maybe you hear and you said, I've gotten a little bit lazy, I've laid back, I go through my life without being aware of what God has for me, just kind of floating, if you will. This morning, I pray that you would refocus your life and say, God, help me actively pursue where you want me to minister, not just in this church building, but to be a minister throughout our weeks and throughout our lives. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that this would be a help. Lord, I pray that you would guide, direct us. Distraction in my life, I know, has been a struggle for me. And Lord, I pray that, Lord, if someone needs to talk with you or readjust their life, Lord, that they would take that opportunity to do that. Lord, I pray now as we sing our closing song and go over to the education building to eat, Lord, I pray that you would just, Lord, that you would continue to bless and guide and direct. Lord, give Faith Baptist Church wisdom. Give my wife and I and my family wisdom. Lord, we desire to do your will and let us walk in it. In Jesus' name, amen.