We'll be in Mark chapter 6 here today, where we read from the text here a few minutes ago. And continuing forward here, back and forth from Psalms 119 to the Gospels, and then back again. And we were just in Psalms 119 last week, in verses 105 through 112, and we looked at that as a... the theme out of that section of verses being just the discernment, the pursuit, and the understanding of the will of God, how to find the will of God, to know the will of God, to have peace that God is leading in our lives, and then to see the outgrowth of that, to see the blessing of that, and wanting to try to go to the Gospels and see and an expression of that lived out by the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the ways in which he would teach his apostles and disciples these important truths like this. I think this is a passage and an example of one of those times. And I think you'll see what I mean by the time we get to the end of the message here this morning. But this is a very, very familiar story in the Word of God. This is one that we learn from when we were very, very young, the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes. And in fact, it was more than 5,000. We find, of course, that at the end of it, it says that it was that they eat the loaves were about 5,000 men. And then in other passages where this is recorded, it says besides women and children. And so we don't know that there were You know, 5,000 women, also 5,000 children, also there. It was probably a largely, a crowd largely of men, but it was certainly much more than 5,000 that were there. We know there were some, some women and children there. We know there was at least a lad there because the book of John, when the book of John records this story, that when they go to find out who has food and how much food they have in that whole crowd of people, they find a young lad who has this meal that is packed for him by his mom when he left the house and it was five loaves and two fish. And I don't know what kind of kid this is who waited to eat his lunch until the end of the day, but he did and thank God for that because there was food for the Lord to use here to perform this miracle. But what's rare, what's so unique about this story is that it is one of the very few things that is recorded in all four Gospels. There are a lot of things that find their way in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and there's a lot of parallels and a lot of similarities between those three. In fact, Matthew, Mark, and Luke tend to be so similar in their content that they're actually called by scholars, they're called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning that they really have a similar viewpoint. The Gospel of John is unique in that it is a very, very personal book of the Bible. John records a lot of the personal interactions of Jesus Christ with individuals, with people, and then a large portion of the Gospel of John really takes place not just in the last week of the Lord's life, but really in the last few days, last few hours. In fact, when you find the account of the When you find the account of the Last Supper in the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it's usually just a matter of verses. It's part of a chapter, not even really an entire chapter. And in the Gospel of John, it's like three entire chapters, maybe three and a half entire chapters that take place right there at the Lord's Supper, the last supper the Lord has with his disciples. And so John is different in the way that it is laid out. And yet, this is one of the instances where a miracle like this is recorded in John that is also recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And so this, this is, we read the text here in Mark, but this is also found in Matthew chapter 14, this is found in Luke chapter 9, and this is found in John chapter 6. And that makes it stand out somewhat. What we're convinced of here is that when we find anything in the Word of God, everything in the Word of God is there intentionally and with purpose and it has value. Anytime something, a story is repeated more than once in the Word of God, that gives a special level of emphasis to that, just by virtue of it being repeated, it's something that we should pay attention to. And we find anything that is recorded in all four Gospels that is truly a unique and a special story and one in which we need to give extra special attention to. that the Lord put it in all four of the Gospels, and so we should look closely at this to see what the Lord would have to teach us here. This starts where we read in those first few verses, and it starts in verse 30 and 31, the twelve apostles return from their missions work, if you want to call it that. The Lord had sent them out two by two throughout all of the countryside. The Lord had recently called them and he had been training them and now he had sent them out and gave them power and authority to go and preach the gospel and to to basically do the same kind of ministry that Christ was doing. One in which they were given power to heal and power to cast out devils and these signs and wonders that would accompany the message that they had that would give authority to the message that they were preaching. concerning Jesus Christ and salvation. And they came back and they were reporting back to Jesus of all of these wonderful things that they were able to do. But they were excited about all that they had just seen, but they were exhausted. They'd just been out on the road and out in the elements and out preaching the gospel all day long and doing the kind of ministry that the Lord had patterned for them. And they came back and they were excited about what had taken place, but they were exhausted from the work that they had put in. Jesus wanted to give them an opportunity to rest. And so he calls them there in verse 31, come eat yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while. For there were many coming and going and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And Jesus invites them to a place and a time of some rest and some refreshment and some recovery. And it says there the multitude would follow them to this secluded place, and they would actually outrun them to it, as the Lord and the Apostles would cross the Sea of Galilee on a ship. The people would go around the banks of it, around the shores, and they would meet them on the other side. And so by the time they got there, really the only rest, the only seclusion they managed to get was their time in the boat on the water. brought some, they brought with them some things to eat, some things, some provisions for themselves as they would go into a secluded place, knowing kind of where they were heading. They packed a cooler to go, but the crowd didn't. And when they got to the other side, it says, the Lord had compassion on them. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things in the day wore on, and it got late, and they were in a secluded place, the apostles didn't have enough to go around. Certainly not for a great multitude of people, over 5,000 people that had come to hear Jesus speak and to see him perform miracles and those things. So they wanted to send them away into the towns and villages round about. But the Lord, in his compassion for them, he didn't want to send them away weak and potentially for that to hazard their health and to cause any additional problems, he decided and he gives them the commandments to feed them. The apostles always looking at things with eyes of flesh rather than eyes of faith the way that we do. They looked and they said, we only have a little bit here and we don't even have very much money. We have 200 penny, you know, if we went and bought 200 penny worth of bread, that was not an insignificant amount of money but it certainly wasn't enough to feed thousands and thousands of people. I said it's not gonna be sufficient. We can't do what you've commanded us to do. And the Lord sends them out through the crowd and says, find out how much food we have. And they find this lad, as we're told in John. We find this lad who packed a lunch. And it's just five loaves and two small fishes. And don't think of loaves as in big loaves of French bread either. It was just little rolls, little biscuits. And he had five little pieces of bread. and two small fishes. It wouldn't have been a lot to eat. It would have been enough for a young boy to get him through the day, but not enough even for probably a grown man to be really satisfied with the meal that he had taken. And the Lord takes that very small lunch and feeds this great multitude I believe the Lord was teaching His disciples something very important that day, and that lesson that He was teaching them was important enough to be recorded in all four gospel books. We can see that the Lord, and there are many lessons in this and many things we can comment on, certainly we can see that the Lord is able to take something small and even seemingly insignificant and he's able to use it to make a big difference and to make a big impact and to meet a great need. And we sing a song sometimes, a little as much when God is in, I think we have that chorus in our hymn book. It's even a full hymn that we've sung before, but little is much when God is in it. And that's a great truth for us to remember that the little bit that we have, we see examples of this all throughout the word of God. And really, I believe all throughout a life lived by faith, we see God use the little that we have to offer and make it go farther than it should and make it have a greater impact than it really ought to have and God is so good in His ability to use the little bit that we have to offer to Him and to make a big difference through it. I think we also, another thing we could comment on is that we can see that the food that was presented, the five loaves, the two fishes that were presented to Jesus Christ, represent the word of God, and really, even as the Lord calls himself in the gospel of John, he says, I am the bread of life, and it represents Jesus Christ, and it represents the word of God, and it represents the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ, and is taught to us out of the word of God, and we see that there is more than enough for everyone. A great multitude comes. It's more than 5,000 people and there's certainly only enough food for a young boy and it seems like there's not enough to go around and there's more than enough to go around for everyone to eat and to eat to satisfaction and even for there to be far more leftovers than what was began with. and I think that we see a beautiful picture in this, is that the grace of God is never strained by those who come to receive salvation. Some would believe that there's only so much of the grace of God to go around. There's only so much of the atonement that Christ provided to go around. That in some way the grace of God and the atonement of Christ is limited in some way. And there's only enough for those who have been saved. And not enough for everyone in the world to be saved. And the truth of the matter is that's not what the Bible teaches at all. There's enough grace for all, there's just a lot that won't receive it. There's a lot that won't be exposed to it, but the grace of God is not strained. It is not taxed by the multitudes who have been saved. In another parable, the master sends his servants out to invite and to call those to the wedding. And some come and some refuse, and some come and some refuse. And he finally sends his servants out into the highways and hedges to compel them to come in. And every time the servants return, they said, Lord, it is done as thou has commanded. And yet there is room. And here we find in this, not just parable, but in this account of something, this miracle that was actually performed. They went out and they distributed the food, and they came back and they got more, and they distributed the food, and they came back and they got more, and they distributed the food, and they came back and they got more. And every time they came back to Christ, maybe expecting there wouldn't be any more food to go around, there was more food to go around. The grace of God. is not strained by those who have been saved. And at this point in history, 2,000 years into the church age, if you will, there have been millions and millions who have been saved. There's still room at the cross. That hymn we sing, there's room at the cross for you. Though millions have come, there's still room for one. There's room at the cross for you. And that hymn was written many, many years ago. It's as true today as it was then. Millions have come and there's still room for one. There's always room at the cross. I think another truth we could comment on out of this is that we get an interesting view, an interesting perspective on the Lord's definition of rest. He calls them to a place of rest. They have just been very, very, very busy. They've been working hard and doing the will of God. And they've been investing their lives into the lives of others around them. And that was a special thing. And he says, come away apart by yourselves for rest. And this rest he was talking about, he said they had not leisure so much as to eat. And that didn't mean they didn't get to just lounge in the hammock and idle. He said they didn't even have time to sit down and take care of their own physical basic needs. We are probably too accustomed to rest. I think our definition of rest and the Lord's definition of rest probably don't match up very well. He wasn't lying to his disciples. He wasn't calling them to rest and then not providing. He wasn't taken by surprise by the fact that on the other side of the sea they were met by a crowd that they would again have an opportunity to minister to and a need to serve. The Lord knew what they were gonna meet on the other side. When he called them to rest, he knew exactly where they were going, another opportunity to serve. in a different way, in a different capacity, maybe to a different degree, but it was still a calling to service. But the lesson I want to focus on here this morning, and I believe is probably the reason why that this miracle is recorded in all four Gospels, is because Jesus, again, knew where he was leading them to. He said, come apart to this place of seclusion. He called them to a desert place to rest a while. And he knew that when they got there, they were going to get to a place where they were going to have a great multitude of people to serve and need to meet. And he was going to give them a commandment to meet the need that was there. Feed these people. And that was going to be a work that was humanly impossible. That was going to be a need that they could not meet no matter what they did. All the food they had to distribute, they couldn't have even given everybody a crumb. If all the bread they could have gone to buy, it wouldn't have made even a small dent in the need that was there that day. But Christ called them out to that desert place, knowing the challenge they would have when they got there. And when they got there, it was going to be a challenge to their faith to do the will of God. I made this statement here recently before, but God always provides where he guides. God guided them out, Christ led them out to a desert place, a place of scarcity, a place where in that scarcity, in that limited availability of resources, in that place where it was hot and dry and there wasn't any place to buy things and a place where it was going to be hard to meet the need, he led them to that place to test their faith and to show his power. You know the will of God, we talk about the will of God, and we all want the will of God, and what we find in pursuit of the will of God is that sometimes the Lord leads us to a place that doesn't make sense. Why? To test our faith and to show His power. And if God guides you there, God is going to provide for you there. And sometimes where God guides us, we see exactly how God has plenty of resources to work with, God leads you to a place where there's plenty of opportunity, there's plenty of things to go around, and we're just, you know, God provides for them, and we don't doubt that, but it's not really a great representation and a great act of our faith to move to a place, to follow Christ to a place where there's plenty to go around. Sometimes God leads us out to the desert. And in that desert, he says, now, do the will of God, do the thing that I told you to do. He says, God, with what? What am I gonna do it with? and then He provides. He takes the little bit that we have to offer and He uses that to meet that need. He leads us to a place of scarcity to test our faith and to prove His power, to prove His goodness, to prove that it is His will. Because if it wasn't His will, He wouldn't provide. And if it is His will, then He must provide because He is not going to send us out to a place and then leave us to our own devices, leave us to our own resources, leave us to our own wisdom, leave us to our own power to accomplish it. God never calls you into something that He expects you to do on your own. So He leads us at times, at times He leads us to a place of scarcity to test our faith. And in testing our faith, He proves His power. Last week I mentioned the process that was written down in the process of prayer and seeking the Lord's face that great man of God, George Muller, used. And there's an interesting story about George Muller. George Muller was a pastor and he was a man of God in England at a very challenging time in England, late 1800s. There was a lot of poverty in England at the time. There was a lot of orphans at that time, and a lot of just kids running around the streets. A lot of the—just, you know, think of any Charles Dickens book that you ever read. That was the time in which he lived. Okay, kids just kind of running around unsupervised, and if they weren't orphans outright, they basically lived like them. There was just a lot of that going on at that time, but there were a lot of orphans, and the Lord burdened his heart and put in his heart a desire to help those kids and to reach those kids for Christ, and to actually establish some orphanages to care for these children, to raise them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord as best as he could. These children that needed that guidance And at different times, there were thousands of orphans that were depending on the ministry of George Mueller to provide for their basic needs. And it was a ministry that was entirely run on faith. a ministry that was supported in any way, shape or form by the government of Great Britain. It was a ministry that was entirely run by faith and it was provided for by the prayer of God's people and in particular of George Muller. And there was one day in particular where there were some thousand children waiting for their breakfast. They would come to breakfast, and they would do a morning devotional, and then they would read their Bibles, and they would pray, and then they would serve them food. Well, there was Bible time, and there was time to pray and serve food. There was no food to serve. And when it came time to pray for the food, George Mueller blessed the food. There was no food to bless. But he thanked God, and he prayed, and with those orphans, he prayed, and he thanked God for the food that God had provided for them. God had not provided food for them as of yet, but he prayed, and he thanked God, believing that God was going to provide for the ministry that he had called them to do, that work. It was the Lord's work, and he believed that it was of the Lord's will that those kids would be there under his care. And so he prayed by faith and thanked God for the food that he provided, and no sooner had he closed the prayer with an amen that he had a knock at the door. And there at the door was a Christian baker in the area who said, the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to bake bread for the kids. And so I've brought fresh baked bread for all the kids this morning. And I'm donating it to the orphanage this morning. And God provided bread. And while they were unloading the bread off of his bread cart, They got another knock at the door and a milkman who was not a Christian, a milkman who was not a Christian in the street outside of the orphanage had broken a wheel. and the milk cart wasn't going anywhere, and the milk was going bad, and he wasn't gonna be able to get it to market that day, and he wasn't gonna be able to get the wheel fixed until he unloaded the cart, and he said, hey, I've got this load of milk, and it's gonna go bad, and I don't have anything else I'm gonna do with it, so I'm gonna donate it to you this morning. And so from one Christian and from one non-Christian, the Lord provided breakfast. God never guides where he doesn't provide. And in the ministry of men like George Mueller and so many others, sometimes the answers to prayer and the way that God provides are not quite so obvious, but sometimes they are. Sometimes they are. God never guides, but what He provides. Even when He guides us, and especially when He guides us to a place of leanness, a place of scarcity, a place of these desert places that we go through in the course of life at times. When He guides us through the valley of the shadow of death, God never guides, but what He provides for us. We are truly led by the guiding hand of the Lord. you will find that your needs are provided by Him also. To go back to that thought, out of the first few verses there again, the Lord called them after they had come together and He called them to a desert place apart to rest a while. They departed to that desert place by ship, it says in verse 32, privately. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all the cities, and out went him, and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were sheep, not having a shepherd. He began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far past. Send them away, that they may go into the villages in the country round about, and into the villages to buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. And he answered and said, Give ye them to eat. And I'll stop there for a second, but again, I see here that the Lord defined rest a little bit different than I think what the apostles had in mind. They were hoping to have a few days of vacation, and the Lord wasn't thinking about camping on the beach, you know? That wasn't His idea of rest. It was just a different form of service. I wonder what our perspective on rest is. The world's perspective on rest is complete abandonment of responsibility, of schedule, and of accountability. We go on vacation, and we don't want to do anything that looks like work. And I get that. I'm not against that at all. And get away from it all for a while, and get away from the daily grind. And certainly, we need times like that. But some people, we've gone on vacation. We don't do this, but we're surprised we go on vacation. And sometimes, people go on vacation, and they want to go to a place where not only do they not have to take work phone calls, and they don't have to answer emails, they don't have to stock shelves, or deal with customers, or any of those things. They also don't want to deal with their kids. They don't just want to abandon work responsibilities. They want to abandon all responsibilities. They want to have someone watch their kids for an entire week while they spend their time at the adult side of the resort. And sometimes our definition of what rest is is very influenced by what the world's definition of what rest is. A complete abandonment of all responsibility. The world's version of rest and leisure is wasting time. The Lord wanted them to do was to take a step back and to rejoice in what the Lord had just used them to do and be refreshed and revived and renewed in their vision for what was ahead of them. He didn't want them to get to a place where they forgot about all of what the Lord had just used them to do for a while. That wasn't the point of it at all. The world's version is leisure and wasting time, and God is not in the business of us wasting our time. Now, to get needed rest, truly, in the true sense of it, to get needed rest is not a waste of time, but sometimes what we call rest is wasting time. Remember one quote I read one time. It said you should never waste your time because time is life. And when you waste your time, you waste your life. You waste too much time and you spend too much of your time in leisure and things that have no purpose and no value and no eternal impact. And before you know it, your life is spent on vanity. Read the book of Ecclesiastes. In the first four or five chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon is lamenting wasted time. And why? Because wasted time is wasted life. He spent years getting closer and closer and closer to the grave with nothing to show for it except for regret. The Lord's not in the business of wasting time or leading us into wasted time and wasted life. There is no time to waste. The world doesn't just teach us to set aside the duties of the nine to five, but to set aside all of the obligations of every area of life. Remember that ad campaign from Las Vegas tourism department, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That's this attitude. A vacation, whatever goes on vacation is what goes on vacation. It has nothing to do with my real life, but that's not true at all, is it? That's not the biblical model here. And the Lord, maybe to a little bit of their disappointment here in the moment, they came to understand that what God calls rest is not what we call rest, because the Lord's rest is not idleness, it's not irresponsibility. It may very well be accompanied by less activity, it might be accompanied by less intensity, it might be that we do actually get away and we get alone, but we do not abandon our relationship with God. He wanted them to come apart by themselves to a place where they could be with Him again. They'd been away from Christ really for the first time in their entire ministry with Christ. They had followed Him and then He sent them out and they came back together and said, okay, now we're gonna spend some time together again. Our idea of rest doesn't include, our idea of vacation doesn't include anything spiritual. It doesn't include us getting away with the Lord and getting away with our Bibles and in prayer. And yet that's exactly what the Lord was calling rest. That's exactly how the Lord expected them to be renewed in their spirits and renewed in their vision for what He had called them to. Christ called them away to a place where there was less to do, But it was not a place where there was nothing to do. They had been the ones doing the ministering. They had been the ones recently who had been doing the preaching. They had been the ones who had been doing the healing. They had been the ones who had been doing the casting out of devils. And he said, no, just come back and spend some time with me and watch me do it for a while again. And all you're going to have to do now is hand out fish sandwiches. That's easier work. but it was still work, and it was necessary work, and it was ministry, and it was meeting the needs of others. It was different. It was less intense, but it was not nothing. In Matthew 11, verse 28 through 30, it says, this is Christ speaking, it says, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The Lord's rest was not inactivity, the Lord's rest was a yoke. It was a place of service. It was not a place where there was nothing to do because he says, my burden is light. It was a burden. It was a place of service. It was something to do. But it was a place where in doing it, you were doing it with him. When you take Christ's yoke upon you, you are getting into the yoke with him, with his power, with him doing the heavy lifting while you come along for the ride. The Lord offers a yoke of obligation and of responsibility, a yoke of calling, but one that He helps us to bear. Whereas the world yokes us with burdens that are seemingly appealing at first, but they are really chains and snares. If you really understand that your option is not no yoke, a Christ yoke or no yoke at all, No, Christ's burden, Christ's responsibilities, Christ's calling are nothing at all. That's never the option. You are a servant to something. You serve the Lord and you serve mammon. You are a servant to Christ or you are a servant to the world. It's much better to be a servant of Christ. The will of God is His yoke, and when you take it upon you, you find that He is there giving you the strength and the power and the ability to do that work. And He calls them there in verse 35, in verse 37, I'm sorry, it says, And when He gives them this commandment, they begin to look at this challenge, this responsibility, this commandment through human eyes, which is exactly what I would do, which is exactly what you would do. Give them to eat. We went, many of us, it was a blessing, we got to go to the baseball game as a church group the other night, and we're a pretty good group there ourselves, but looking around, I want you to imagine this for a second, right? there were about 5,000 people at that baseball game. Those of you who were there, there was about 5,000 people at that baseball game on Friday night. So imagine that you were given the commandment to feed everyone in that baseball stadium with five hot dogs. Now five hot dogs is probably more food than what Jesus had to start with, by the way. But let's just say you had five hot dogs and you were commanded to feed everybody in that baseball stadium with those five hot dogs. Say, nope. Nice try. We couldn't have fed our entire group of 35 people with five hot dogs. Most of us bought more than five hot dogs there that night, just for our families, right? Like, that is impossible. Let's not fault the apostles for having some questions. What do you mean, feed everybody? Give them to eat, with what? Like, we ate our lunch a long time ago. And all we have is a couple hundred pennies, and that's not enough bread for very many people at all. We could feed maybe a thousand people with that much bread. Maybe, maybe. Most of our crowd leaving here pretty disappointed. He gives them his commandment, and they could not conceive of a solution to the problem because there was not a humanly possible solution. There was not a way to solve this problem within the bounds of physics and nature and matter. It's not possible. Jesus performs a miracle that truly is mind boggling. We're so used to hearing about this miracle. Again, we've heard this story six times a year since we were in toddler Sunday school that we forget how impressive this is. This is an incredible miracle. What does it teach us? It shows us that we make the mistake of measuring our problems against what we think is possible. God calls us to something, and God puts a burden in our hearts, and God leads us into some act of service, some area of ministry, even, again, rightly led of the Lord into it. Even in that process, we think of ways in which we can accomplish it in the flesh. I have this much time to give to it, Lord. I have this much money to give to it, Lord. I have this many talents to give to it, Lord. And we start to figure out how we can do this in our own power, in our own flesh. And the Lord has to sometimes lead us to a place where we don't have those resources, some place where we don't have those opportunities to where we can kind of make it work on our own. God puts us in a position where we can't do it at all unless he does the work through us. And this is exactly what he was teaching his apostles here. The Lord didn't lead them out of that desert place to just do a miracle so that 5,000 plus people could get a good meal. He did this to teach his apostles, to teach his followers specifically how he will provide for them to do the work he has called them to do. He gave them a commandment and said, do this. And they said, we don't have any way to do it. He says, I know here. When it is the will of God, He will bring it to pass. That's worth repeating. When it is the will of God, He will bring it to pass. He will fund it. He will open the doors. He will make it possible. He will give us the time and the energy and the opportunities to do it. When it is the will of God, He will provide everything that is needed for it to be done. We just have to act in faith and obedience. Don't make the mistake of mislabeling your will as God's will and then losing faith when it doesn't happen. Sometimes we do that. Sometimes we mislabel our wants and our desires as what our needs are. And sometimes we find ourselves disappointed. We say, well, God didn't provide for my need. No, he provided for your needs. He didn't provide for your wants all the time. Let's not make that mistake. But when it is in the will of God, when it is inside of the will of God, God meets those needs. God makes it possible. The will of God in your life requires a need being met. He will meet it. and he will meet it in unlikely ways. Here he met it with the small lunch of a small boy, one out of thousands of people, he met it in an unlikely way. For George Mueller, thousands of mouths to feed, met in an unlikely way. One was a Christian man who followed the leadership of the Lord and baked a wagon load of bread for those kids, and one was a lost man who had no heart for God and had no desire to help orphans, but hoped them anyway because God is bigger than all of that. God meets needs inside of His will. When God guides you, into something, he is going to provide for you there. I said if you're pursuing the will of God for your life, he offers you rest under his yoke and provision within his power. As we pursue the will of God this morning in our lives, let's remember that God is going to provide for us rest, not necessarily in the way that we expect, and he's going to provide for our needs, certainly not in the ways that we expect. But He will, where God guides, He provides. If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, the Bible says it's His will that you would be saved. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God would that all men everywhere would come to faith in Jesus Christ, and that is His will for all of us. whatever it is that God is speaking to your heart about here this morning. Let me encourage you here to respond. Join with me here as we close, heads bowed for prayer. We'll go to a time of just response and prayer here. If you remain in your seat, please continue for the next several minutes in the spirit of prayer, and let's give opportunity for a response here in our hearts and in the hearts of others. If the Lord spoke in your heart in some way, then during this invitation time, let me encourage you to take whatever step of faith the Lord is leading you to take. The piano's gonna play, and as it does, the altar is open. I'll be here in the front, but please, let's take this time here to pray and respond as the Lord leads.