Who knows what's going to happen? So, John chapter number 21, John chapter number 21. Next week I'm going to have someone give their testimony, and then I'll follow up with a little bit of preaching, or if I'm not here, which is a possibility, I may be preaching in another church. If I'm not here, then I'll have somebody else follow up with something, or we'll just have Brother Adams preach and go from there. But he's gotta be here and alive. He better be better by then. So, yes. So, John chapter 21. John chapter 21, we're looking here. Beginning at verse number 15, John chapter number 21. So verse number 15. So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. Saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldest. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine, thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he signifying what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, follow me. And Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following, which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is it to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren that the disciples should not die. Yet Jesus said not unto him, he shall not die. But if I will that he tarry till I come, what is it to thee? Or what is that to thee? This is the disciple which testifieth of these things and wrote these things. And we know that this or that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, and with the witch, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, Lord, for the privilege of being able to open it tonight. Lord, as we consider this conversation that you had with Simon Peter, Lord, may we consider that you're offering the same conversation or asking us the same questions today. We pray, Lord, that we would apply these things to our lives, that we would consider what you have for us, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, how many has heard this before, this passage? Maybe, maybe not. Okay. About just everybody over here. Nobody over there. So I guess we just decided that before the evening started, you say, Well, I hadn't heard it. So I'm gonna sit over here and not not not exactly. But okay, so we know what's happening here. There's a whole lot that we could talk about, but I'm gonna try to just get right down to the point where we're talking to you, each of you. So You know that Jesus is asking Peter now if he loves him, right? There's some significance there. He asks him how many times? Three times, right? He asks him three times. Think that may have some significance to anything at all? What may be significant about the fact that he asks him three times? Peter denied Christ three times, yes. Another reason would be because when you ask a question once, it's important. When you ask it twice, it's even more important. When you ask it a third time, it's extremely important, right? And the question was, do you love me? Right? Lovest thou me? Right? And in fact, he even asks, he says, more than these, right? By the way, What's our context here? In verse number 15, it says, so when they had dined, Jesus said, lovest thou me more than these. Now, do you think he was saying, Peter, lovest thou me more than these people? No. He was saying, lovest thou me more than these fishes. That's the context. Now, could it apply to the people? Sure. But the fact is, what does he say to do? Feed my sheep. Who are his sheep? The disciples, right? So he says, he asks the question, do you love me more than these? And he says, well, yeah, of course I do. Of course I do. And so he says, OK, then I need you to focus here on what you want me or what I want you to do. I want you to feed my sheep. Right now, not everyone is called to feed the sheep, but everyone is called to do something for the Lord. And the question you're going to find throughout the word of God is, do you love the Lord? And if you do, you're going to obey what he says, right? What is it that he said earlier on in the book of John? He said, if you love me, keep my commandments, right? And so when we consider whether or not we love the Lord, the question is going to be, the answer to that question is going to depend upon how we're going to react, right? When he says, do you love me? And I say, yes, Lord, I love you. He says, well, do this. You know what we sometimes will say? What is it that we say? I don't really feel like that, right? I don't really like that plan. I'm not really excited about that. I'm kind of I'd rather do this over here instead. And the Lord knows that that's what's going on in our heads, right? He knows that that you might be sitting in front of dinner and the phone rings. And you know, it's somebody that needs the gospel. He says, Do you love me? Not the person on the phone, the Lord says, do you love me? Say, yeah, Lord, but it's dinnertime. Do you love me more than these? These vittles here? You love me more than these? Say, well, okay, I'll answer the phone. But he knows that in our heart, we love to eat, don't we? Right? Peter loved to eat. He loved the fish that he had. He says, Notice that Peter doesn't respond when he says He says yay Lord, and then it says He says thou knowest that I love thee and then Jesus says feed my lambs What Peter say Nothing at all nothing But there was something going on in here in his head Same thing that goes on in your head the first time the Lord says, hey, it's time to do this. What do you say? You say nothing, usually, but inside, you're like, well, we talked about visitation, right? The Lord says, hey, it's time for visitation. And you're like, well, I don't, you know. He said, do you love me? Do you love me? By the way, there's other reasons to reach the lost other than the fact that the lost need saved. There's actually a more important reason, and we didn't even talk about that this morning. We talked about witnessing and the importance, and I used the fact that their blood's gonna be on our hands if we don't reach them, but there's a more important reason to reach them, and that is because we love Him, right? We're listening to some preaching on the way down to Bloomington, last week or last week, Friday, and the preacher was talking about how Jesus deserves for people to be saved. He deserves it. Right? Says he is, as the Moravian said, may the lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering. What is the reward of his suffering? souls to be saved, right? Right. So so when he asks, Do you love me? Then he's going to give you the commandment, right? You say, Yes, Lord, I love you. Yes, I love you. I love you with all my heart. Love you with everything I have. Then he's going to say, OK, then I want you to do this. He's going to tell you what he wants you to do. By the way. First and foremost, God wants us to do what he says in his word, right? As some people come to me and say, well, you know, really seeking to know the will of God for my life. The first question I will ask when somebody says, pastor, I'd like to know the will of God for my life. I first ask them, are you following the will of God in the word of God? Because if you're not obeying his written will that he's given you, you will not understand and obey any other thing. If you can't obey the commandments, what he's told us to do in writing, you're not gonna be able to obey in any other area. That's why before you ordain a man to be sent out to pastor a church or to start a church or whatever, you gotta watch his life first, right? That's why the Bible says, lay hands suddenly on no man. because you're supposed to be seeing that they're living the will of God, the written will of God, right? There shouldn't be anything in the Word of God where somebody can open the Bible and say, see, the Bible says right here that you're supposed to be doing this and you're not. And if that happens, then the man needs to fix that so that he can be qualified, right? because open rebellion or disobedience against the word of God is going to restrict you from doing any more for the Lord, right? And so, so when he asks us, do you love me? You love me more than you name it, right? What is it here? We're talking about fish, or we might be talking about friends, or we might be talking about entertainment, or we might be talking about, Drugs, we might be talking about cigarettes, we might be talking about alcohol, we might be talking about, I already said entertainment, movies or music or whatever. Might be talking about lustful things, might be talking about sports, that's entertainment. Gambling, that was in my mind right before you said sports. Gambling, wrestling, whatever it is. Do you love me more than these? That's what it is. Hey, maybe it's your cool phone. Do you love me more than these? That's a useful tool. I use it for work all the time and everything. But if it begins to get in between me and the Lord, you know where it needs to go? Trash can. Actually, probably not the trash can, because then somebody will be able to use it later. probably needs to go under the bus tire. And so the Hillary treatment, that's right, I need to get some hammers and give it the Hillary treatment, that's right. Right, now I use that, I spend two hours a day on that in my Bible on there, probably a little bit more than that. But if I love the tool, more than the one that I'm trying to serve, then the tool's in the way. The tool becomes a God. If I love the, uh, the stuff that God gives me, right? Because what is it? What is it that what is it that he had here? When he asks about the fishes, is there anything wrong with those fish? No, nothing wrong with the fish. As far as we know, fresh, just drug him out of the sea. right? Nothing wrong with it. Could they be used for good? Absolutely. Absolutely. Should they be used for good? Yes, absolutely. But the fish themselves Now, the fish to him, I'm going to put this back before I lose it, the fish to them, to Simon, was his career. It was his career. It was his job. It was his livelihood. It was what was going to take care of his family. It was what was going to pay his bills. whatever it might be, you know, his boat payment and his house payment and, you know, and put his kids through Bible college and all that, right? That's what those fish were supposed to do. Don't you think it's interesting that he goes out to catch the fish and catches nothing until the Lord shows up and says, hey, cast over there. And then after they're eating, he's like, hey, Simon, I need to have a talk with you. Do you love me more than these? More than your career, more than your sustenance, more than your money. The fish was his money. Do you love me more than that? Now again, is there anything wrong with the fish? No. Otherwise he wouldn't have told them where to cast to get them all, right? So he blessed him with it. But sometimes we let the blessings of God get in between us and God. And we let the blessings of God keep us from loving Him like we ought to. Because instead of loving Him like we should, we love the blessings like we shouldn't. Sure, we can praise God for our blessings, for the blessings He gives us. We can thank Him for it, and then we can take those blessings and use them for His glory. But we've got to recognize that, what does He do? He says, after Simon says, yeah, yeah, Lord, I love you. He says, feed my lambs." In other words, take what I've given you and use it for what I've called you to do. Right? So, praise God, he caught the fish. But now, what he was to do with the fish was to use it for what God called him to do, rather than taking the fish, selling it at the market, and paying his mortgage. I don't know that they had mortgages on them, but rather than, you know, going and buying himself a nice new chariot. What's that? Or barter or whatever. Instead, he says what? Feed my lambs. Well, we know this is talking specifically about what he's going to do a little bit later here in a few days when Peter becomes, basically leads the church at Jerusalem. then they continue daily in the Apostles doctrine. So he's feeding them in a spiritual way more than just the fish, right? But again, he challenges him. He says, what's more important here? Do you love me more than this? And that's the question for each of us tonight. I'll get the gospel into this in a minute, but for those of us that are saved, we say we love God, but do we let other things get in the way? We do. We do. Sometimes we let the very things God blesses us with get in the way, right? When we're, you know, Peter and the other disciples, what happened for the last three years? They've been unemployed for three years. Anybody been there? Maybe. They've been unemployed, AJ raises his hand. I guess that's true. They've been unemployed for three years, but they've been cared for. But the Lord leaves, and now they're hiding, and they're not out preaching and stuff, and they're not being cared for, and so he says, I'm going fishing. And rightfully so, because he needs to take care of himself. So he goes fishing. But then Jesus says, hey, hey, hey, don't get the stuff mixed up here. Certainly fine for you to do that, but make sure that it goes to the right use. Make sure that what I'm blessing you with, because as I said, Jesus would not have blessed him with the fish if he was against him fishing. Make sense? I know some people say, well, see, Peter got his mind all messed up and he went fishing when he shouldn't have been fishing. He should have been waiting on the Lord. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. If that was the case, the Lord would not have blessed him with all the fish. So he does. But then he says, hey, wait a minute. I blessed you. Now I want to know, do you love me more than these? Yeah, yeah. I do. Then he asks him, do you love me? Right, lovest thou me? Now he's not comparing. He says, okay, you say you love me more than these, do you love me? I would say that now the second question, although it's not written here, I would say that the second question is asking now, do you love me more than the difficulty that you're going to face? Because he mentions the difficulty afterwards, right? Do you love me even if it means suffering harm for my name? Do you love me even if it means not having the things that you want? Do you love me even if it means not not getting not not having an easy life? Do you love me even if it means having to deal with people making fun of you or spitting on you or beating you up or crucifying you upside down? Do you love me? more than you love your own comfort? You say, well, that's the same thing as the first one. Eh, not exactly. First one, we're dealing with positive stuff, right? Do you love me more than the blessings? The second one is, do you love me enough to still love me after the difficulty, the hardship, right? See, that's sometimes we're all kind of geared a little differently. Sometimes we some of us seek the Lord more when we're getting blessed. Some of us seek the Lord more when we're going through hard times. And some of us try to do it about the same all the time. As long as the same doesn't equal not at all, then that should be okay. But I know he doesn't mention it here. But this is just just my point of application for you guys. Do we love Him even when we're going through hard times? Even when we don't know how we're gonna make it? Do we love Him enough to trust Him with His plan? And not second guess. That's the third one, by the way. Second one. First one, do we love Him more than the blessings He gives us? See, some people love God because of the blessings. And then their love of God is dependent upon the blessings. And when the blessings go away, then they're like, well, I don't have my blessings anymore. I don't need to serve the Lord. Right? Or I need to serve the Lord so I can get the blessings. what you're saying by that is I love the blessings more than more than I love God. I can't serve him without the blessings. So do you love me more than the blessings? Do you love me even when you're going through hardship, even when you're tested to see if you're gonna deny me or not? And third, do you love me? Um, I just lost it. I said it just a second ago. Do you love me? Uh, when it's, do you love me when it's not easy, right? The second one. What's that? When you're in the hard times. Let me go back to the book. Do you love me more than the blessings? Do you love me more than the, than the curses, right? Or the difficulties? And will you love me enough to keep going no matter which way it goes. In this particular case, it was a matter of denial, right? Before that he denied the Lord. And he says, I don't know who he is. What was he trying to do? He was trying to save his own skin. Avoid punishment, avoid, and what did he say to Jesus that night? Though I be crucified with thee, though I die with you, I will not deny you. And he says, oh, you won't, will you? You're gonna do it three times before the sun comes up tomorrow, before that rooster sounds the alarm. You're gonna do it three times. here he's asking him three times do you love me do you love me but our question see we we I know by the way this is how often how often do we preach stuff like this seems like almost every week for the last little while right that the Lord's brought these things around in the book of John We've got to, oh, when it comes to that, that was the third one, was will you love me even though you're not getting what you think you should be getting? You get the blessings, you get the cursings, and then the third one was your expectations, when your expectations aren't fulfilled, right? What's that? When you're in the wilderness, yeah. Or when you're obeying, no blessings come. Sometimes, that happens sometimes. Sometimes you obey and you don't receive the blessings. Sometimes you, by the way, sometimes you obey and don't receive the blessings because God knows you won't love Him when you get them. You can only obey and be blessed so many times Let me restate that. You can only obey, be blessed, and then forsake the Lord so many times before he says, okay, you want to do it that way? No more blessings. Now, that doesn't mean he won't maybe down the road after you've learned that, Lord, I'll serve you whether you, whether you, there was a time, I think I got my boss mad at me one time. We were praying for business, and I prayed this because I felt the Lord leading me to pray it, and I said, Lord, Either give us business or give us grace to live with nothing. Either give us business or give us grace to live without, to do without. And he was like, well, we want the business, brother. I said, well, yeah, I want the business too, but I want to be, I want to, I want to learn if the Lord wants, if the Lord doesn't want to give it to me right now, I want to learn to be content without it. Now certainly we want the blessings of God, don't we? But we also want to learn to be content in whatever state we're in. And so, the only way that we're going to be content is if we love Him, no matter what. Because you see, the common thing with all three of those is that there's a condition placed upon our love. Either the condition of blessing, the condition of, or rather the continuing of blessing, or the condition of not having hard times, or the condition of getting what I expect to get out of things. That's all conditional love. The Lord wants us to love him without condition, right? It's like Jacob said, what did Jacob say? He sets up the pillar there at Bethel and he says, if you bless me in the way that I go and you give me all, you know, you, you prosper me, then I'll give you 10%. I'll give you the 10th and I'll serve you all my days. Well, the Lord humored him on it and he blessed him. but that shouldn't be our attitude. Our attitude shouldn't be, Lord, if you bless me, then I'll serve you. No, no, and our attitude shouldn't be, Lord, if you provide, I'll make sure to give. Lord, if you do this and you do that and you do this, then I'll do this. We shouldn't have if-then statements for the Lord. It should just be, Lord, help me to serve you with everything I've got, and if you bless me, I'll be happy, and if you don't bless me, I'll be happy. Because I wanna know how to love you no matter what I get out of it. By the way, that's what love is. Love is caring for the other no matter what you get out of it. Love is pouring out of yourself. Love isn't about what you receive, it's about what you give. It's about, yeah, it's about what you're, what's about what you're giving. And hey, oftentimes, when you do love, you do receive, right? By the way, there's a good feeling that comes with that too, right? By the way, God's asked all of us to do some things. He's commanded us specifically in his word, some specific things. We all should be winning souls. We all should be, and by the way, there's some things that ought to be elementary that shouldn't even be a question. Like when I wake up in the morning, should I breathe in or just not? Yeah, I should breathe in. Should I ever even ask the question? I wonder today if I should breathe. Is that maybe, you know, I don't know. Maybe I could breathe today. Maybe I could, maybe I just skip it today altogether. There's no breathing at all today. You got about, you got up to maybe three minutes, three minutes to make up your mind when you wake up in the morning. Okay. I got three minutes. Am I going to breathe it or not? Well, that's silly, isn't it? Why would we ask that kind of question? That's the same as when you open your eyes, should I seek God in his word? That's like asking, should I breathe? Should I breathe? Well, most certainly you should. That's like asking, will you pray today? Wait a minute, I just did. No. That's like wondering, well, I wonder if I should pray today. I wonder, should I go to the Lord in prayer? Question, should you? And that's another thing. Sometimes people say, well, should I read the Bible more or should I pray more? So here's the question. Should I breathe in more or should I breathe out more? You gotta do them both, right? You read the Bible, that's taking it in, and then you pray, and that's sending it out, right? But that's what our time with God should be like. It should be just as important as breathing. It should be, by the way, how often do we breathe? We only breathe in the morning and the evening, right? We just breathe when we get up in the morning and we're done for the day. That's right. I took all my breaths this morning and I haven't breathed since. Y'all know that's a lie. Yes. It sounds silly, doesn't it? Just as silly as it sounds to say I spent time with God this morning. I checked the box off, I'm good. No. The Bible says pray without ceasing. The Bible says, what about his word? Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the young godly, nor sitteth and seetheth scornful, nor standeth in the way of sinners. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. That doesn't mean just in the morning and in the evening. Day and night means throughout the day and in the night. Just like you breathe, right? It says, and he shall be as a tree planted by the rivers of water, right? Why? What happens with trees that are planted by the rivers of water? What's that? They root in? Yeah, oh yeah. Now, you know, sometimes if the water floods and all that, we know that the Lord takes care of all that, but we're taken care of, right? It says, whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Not necessarily for himself, but for the Lord, right? And so, see, some things ought to be elementary. Shouldn't be a question of, well, does the Lord want me to spend time in His Word today? Does God want you to breathe today? Does the Lord want me to pray today? Does God want you to breathe today? Right? Does the Lord want me to witness to somebody today? Think you might eat today? You might go a day without eating. I'll tell you this, here's a good diet for you. Don't eat. on days that you don't witness. I bet a lot more people would witness more often, wouldn't they? Yes. But, here's the thing. You know, when God made man, he made us for himself. And we live this life like God made us and then He exists for us. God doesn't exist for you. I'm sorry to tell you. God doesn't exist for you. The church doesn't exist for you. It doesn't. It doesn't exist for me either. Not for none of us. It exists for Him. By the way, the church doesn't exist for the lost either. It exists for the Lord. And when we live unto Him, guess what? We witness to the lost. Guess what? When we live unto Him, we edify the body, right? These are byproducts. The primary thing is Him, right? But see, we live our lives like God exists for us. We often pray like God exists for us and we go to the Lord and we say, Lord, I want this and this and this and this and this and give me that and give me that and stop doing this and don't let that happen. And isn't that how we, I mean, we may not be so brazen, but what we say, please, Lord, don't let me get cancer or don't let me get this problem or don't let my kids get hurt or don't let this happen and don't let that happen. Just make everything perfect in my life, that's what I want. I want everything perfect, no trials, no difficulties, just everything perfect. Oh yeah, and my bank account needs to have a million dollars in it. And all these things, right? Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Give me what I want, give me what I want, right? No, that's not how we ought to live. He doesn't exist for us, we exist for him. And so, whatever it is, we ought to be saying, Not like Peter says, after the Lord teaches him this lesson, he says, well, wait a minute, what about him? What's this guy gonna do? Had to point at John, because he was pointing at John, right? He said, well, what will this man do? In other words, he's like, what are you all over me about? What about him? What's he gonna do? That's exactly right. When he said, what is that to thee? He was pretty much saying, none of your business. Yeah. He says, none of your business. Follow thou me. He says, no, no, no. Quit looking at him. You need to focus on you. Not focus on you for the sake of you, but focus on you for the sake of me. Right? That's the only time we should be looking in the mirror and focusing on self. When we're focusing on self, it should only be for His sake. It should only be to evaluate. Now, it doesn't mean that, you know, that we look at ourselves and we could be healthy in saying, looking at ourselves and saying, or looking in the mirror and saying, you're a dirty, rotten sinner. You're worthless without the Lord. People say, what do they tell you? These positive speakers, they say, look in the mirror in the morning and say, you're a winner. No. You're a loser. But I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. But what things are all things? All things that I want to do? No. No, no, no, no, no. No, because guess what? Going back to that, all I'm doing is losing. If you're doing all things for yourself, you're just losing. But if we're doing all things for Him, that's different. That's different. Right? So yes, we sometimes need to look in the mirror, but as we're looking in the mirror, we need to make sure that we recognize that the only value we have is the value that God's placed in us. First of all, we are valuable because God loves us and he sent his son to die for us. But that's about where it ends. And I know some people are like, wait a minute, I'm valuable. you're only as valuable as your ability to yield to God. And if you won't yield to him, it diminishes your usability. And your usability being diminished, diminishes your value. Right? What do we say about? What do we say about a Lamborghini with a blown motor? We're list. So I'll take it get a new motor. Yeah, yeah, good luck. We know you stand aside and take a picture, but that's about all it's worth is that picture. Some of the most valuable things on the planet. If they're not good for something else, they're not good for anything, right? Right, if you can't do anything with something, it's worthless. That includes you. If God can't do anything with you, you're worthless. You're welcome. You say, well, I didn't come to church to be told I was worthless. That's okay. But if God can do something with you, your value then shoots through the roof. then he can use you and he can do something, you know, if you let him do something with you, but you in order for that to happen, you've got to love him more than the stuff that feeds your belly. You got to love him more than the comforts, right? You got to love him more than having 70 degrees temperature in the building. You got to love him more than, you know, more than more than air conditioning or heat or whatever it is you feel like you need right now. I feel just about right, actually. But You gotta love him more than you need a car. You gotta love him more than you need food, more than you have your things provided for. Mhm. Now, this is growth, right? This is growth. This is area. This is now this. This is stuff that anybody can see and be successful in a sense, just this mindset, loving God. But that has to start with a relationship with Him first. So we have a relationship with Him, but we've kind of messed that up, right? With sin. As the Bible says, that all have sinned. we kind of mess that relationship up, right? And no, it wasn't just the Garden of Eden. And people say, well, if it wasn't for that woman that ate that fruit in the Garden of Eden, and talked Adam into doing it, I saw a meme the other day, it says, this is why women don't choose what, what, what should be eaten for dinner. And it's, it is a picture of Adam and Eve, you know. But We can't blame it on them. Because guess what? Each of us have had the choice to either sin or not sin. And what have we chosen to do? We have chosen to sin. Yes. And because we've chosen to sin, the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. And so because the wages of sin is death, we deserve God's wrath and punishment. but he loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us on the cross. And he was buried, and he rose again, and he offers to us eternal life if we'll turn to him and trust in him and his work at Calvary. That begins the relationship with him. The Bible says at that point we're born again. Being born again means that you're born into the family of God. If that's never happened for you, I encourage you tonight. Make sure you get that taken care of tonight. You say, Pastor, I don't know what you're talking about. Then come talk to me after the message. You need to know. But being born again, then, then we're his children, right? The Bible says in John chapter one, but as many as received him, To them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Right, so he gives us the ability to receive him and then become his children. And then as we're his children, then we can have this relationship of where we love him and he loves us and we get to be involved in his things, right? And the thing that's being dealt with here is, He's telling Peter, I've got a job for you. And the Lord has a job for each and every one of you. Everybody from, let's see here, who's the oldest here? Okay, we'll do it this way. Who's over 72? Nobody? All right. Who's over 70? 69. All right. Brother C.D.' 's our elder tonight. All right, who's the youngest? Your baby, she's in the back. Susie's the youngest. Was she three months old? Okay. So, whether you're three months old, whether you're 69 years old, or somewhere in between, God has something for you to do. Now, first and foremost, it's what he's commanded you to do in his word. There's some things you shouldn't ask a question about. But there's other things. You may say, well, does he want me to do, he wants me to do this, but where? He wants me to do this, but how, right? Those things are answered the more you love him and set aside yourself and set aside your things. He answers those questions and then we get to see, like Peter, just a few days later, gets to stand up and preach and see, how many was it, 3,000 get saved? Praise the Lord. But it took him, Realizing that he has to set himself aside, set his career plans aside, set his goals aside. And love the Lord first. Set entertainment aside, right? And then the Lord blessed. Lord took care of all that stuff. Peter didn't have to think about those things he was worried about here on that day. God dealt with those things. He had other issues to worry about, right? He had lots of work to do. He had lots of people to minister to. But we've got to first love Him. Before we can love Him, we've got to become His child. By the way, if you've not been born again, the Bible says you're an enemy of God. You say, well, I didn't think I was an enemy. Your position as a sinner makes you an enemy of God. That's not a good place to be. Don't leave tonight an enemy of God. And if you're a friend of God, if you're a child of God, don't love the world. Right? He that loveth the world is an enemy of God. So let's not be an enemy of God in position or in practice. Bless you. So we're gonna have a few moments to pray here in just a minute. I want you to take a minute to come forward and use the altar, if you will. But consider, in the book of John, we have lots and lots of things that are mentioned here. I think 78 sermons in the book of John, in the gospel of John. There's a lot to take into consideration a whole lot through there, but it all boils down to what he says when he gets to first job. Same guy. Love God. Love God and love your brother. It all. It all boils down to that. But you gotta start that relationship. And then you've got to maintain that not not keep the relationship because once the relationships there, God never disowns his children. But sometimes you can get out of fellowship with them. And then it makes it harder for him to use you because you got to get back into fellowship so you can use your right. It's kind of like, you know, fellowships real easy to define. It's like two fellows in one ship. Right? So God's one fellow, and you're the other fellow. And if you get out of his ship, it's hard for him to use you, because you're out there floating in the water somewhere, and he wants you to set the sails. And you can't set the sails when you're floating in the water. So get back in the boat. Don't miss the boat. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you, Lord.