Above It All | God Did | Jeremy DeWeerdt

Time to all the dads, come on, let's just show our appreciation, our honor. We love you guys, thank you for all you do, more importantly, who you are. We love Father's Day. Well, today we are continuing a series called Above It All, and we are looking at the most influential sermon ever preached in the history of the world, which I know sounds very dramatic, but it's also accurate, and that was the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preached about 2,000 years ago. No other speech or sermon in the last 2,000 years has had the impact of the Sermon on the Mount. It has changed literally cultures around the world, given us value systems that sometimes we don't even realize came from this sermon, but we're diving in today to one of the most well-known parts of the sermon. In fact, even if maybe you're visiting church today, which if you are, we're so glad you're here, you might just be peeking in the window of faith, wondering kind of what this place is all about or what a relationship with Jesus looks like, you've probably heard of the portion of the sermon I'm gonna talk about today, because today I'm gonna talk about the Lord's Prayer. I'm gonna talk about the Lord's Prayer, and you know, within this sermon that is the most impacting sermon ever, there is a prayer which is also

the most impacting prayer ever, and Jesus himself prayed it, and he gave it to us as a blueprint so that we know how to pray. It says in Matthew chapter six, verses five through 13, it records it this way. Jesus says, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. Okay, he's coming in hot, all right? For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full, but when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. We're gonna come back and talk about that. This, then, is how you should pray, and this is the famous part that most people have heard before. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Jesus, he's given us a model on how to pray, but before he does that, he talks about our motives. And he starts off by saying this, don't be like a hypocrite. I mean, this is pretty, pretty like, you know, colorful language here that he's using, but you gotta understand what's going on. Back in Jesus's day, in the religion of Judaism, which many Jews still practice today, there was a tradition of fixed hour prayer, fixed hour prayer, which means this, certain times on the hour throughout the day, you were to stop and pray. If you lived in Jerusalem during Jesus's day, during one of these hours, you could actually go to the synagogue and you could pray along with the religious leaders that were praying in that moment. But if you were out in the street or you were in the field somewhere or not in the city, if that hour rolled along, let's say it was 3 p.m. in the afternoon, which was one of the times they had to pray, you would literally pause whatever you were doing. If you were like tilling the field or whatever, you would stop, you would actually kneel, and you would take a moment to pray, fixed hour prayer. This is not a bad thing.

This was actually a really good thing. And even today, many Jewish people, they actually honor this. However, what Jesus is pointing out here is very important because what he's saying is there are certain people during these hours, these specific times of prayer, they would strategically position themselves in a place where there are a lot of people who would be watching them pray because their real motive was they wanted to show off their own spirituality. And Jesus is saying, don't be hypocritical like this. See, the people were wanting attention more than connection with God. And so Jesus is saying, don't go into the corner of the street at 3 p.m. and you just happen to be there. And when it comes time to pray, you speak out loud and you say, oh God in heaven and that, because you're doing it for the wrong reasons, Jesus was saying. So Jesus uses an example. of an opposite. He says, when it comes time to pray, go to your home, go into the back room, lock the door, make sure there's no windows, and there you can pray in private. Now, what Jesus is not saying, he's not saying that's the only place you should pray

or the most holy place to pray. He's also not speaking against public prayer. In fact, here at City First, most weekends, we take time and we have public prayer. In fact, even after this service, if you want prayer for absolutely anything, there's a team of people who would love to pray with you, just normal people like you that believe in a God that is an incredible God that can do the impossible. And so we'd love to pray with you. There's even times during the service, we'll say, anybody have a prayer request? Just raise your hand. We're gonna pray, God knows it. So God is not saying you cannot have public prayer. What he's doing is he's juxtaposing pride versus humility. What he's really getting at here is he's talking about a matter of the heart. We talked about this last week, that people look on the exterior, but God looks on the heart. In every church, every church, in every community, in every nation, there are people who want others to see their spirituality. Why? Because in every church, there are humans. People are like, look at me, I love God, I'm spiritual. And there's something inside of us makes us feel good about having others think that we have a spiritual advantage, you could say.

But at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is it comes down to our own insecurity and our desire to impress others. What's really ironic is if you're a person that has a thriving relationship with God, you won't need to tell people because people can sense it. You know, we can all fall into the temptation, even your pastor, all of us can fall into the temptation of wanting others to think we're more spiritual than what we are. You know, we haven't prayed for a long time, but when someone asks us, you know, how are we doing with God? We're like, oh, things are great. Or maybe our Bible is collecting dust on the coffee table. We haven't read it for weeks, and yet we want others to think that we really know the Bible or we're in the word, or maybe our faith is a little shaky. And you know, instead of admitting that to somebody and be like, man, my faith is a little on the rocks right now instead of that, we're all like, hey, no, things are great. Hallelujah, praise God, you know. Start throwing around the language, you know, makes it sound like we're spiritual. Now, we may not be like on the corner of the street like the Pharisees, but we are trying to think or let others think that we have a faith that's stronger than what it really is. And really at the end of the day,

what Jesus is saying is that private pursuit always eclipses public performance. In other words, He is more interested in who you are inside. Yes, He is interested in what you do, but what's more important is what's inside. And you and I have to decide that we're gonna pursue God in prayer. And when we do that, it really moves the needle. When you talk about prayer, and I've talked about, I mean, in the last 35 years I've been doing ministry, I will tell you, I've spoken on prayer hundreds and hundreds of times. Every time you do, it always feels a little bit like in your spiritual diet, this is the vegetable. It's the thing you need, but it's not necessarily the thing you wanna eat. You know, and I will tell you that today is so vitally important because your prayer life moves the needle of your life. When you pray, it's inviting heaven's influence into your earthly situation. Does that make sense? And it's not about perfection, it's about pursuit after God. God rewards what happens behind closed doors. And really, this is good news. It's good news because if God only noticed what we do in public, it would be very disappointing. Because most of the decisions I make in life are not public decisions, they're private decisions. Can I get an amen on that, right?

Like, don't we want a God who notices when we bite our tongue and not speak what's really on our mind, right? Don't we want God to be like, good job, Jeremy, you didn't say it. You thought it, but you didn't say it. Yeah, I want a God that notices that, right? I want a God that notices when we take a high road and we let someone else win. And like I talked about last week, just because you're like, it's not worth it. It's not worth getting scrappy and wrestling it out. It's just not worth it. And so, yeah, I'm gonna let you feel like you won. Don't you want a God that notices that? Don't you want a God that notices when you choose honor rather than dishonor, even if the person doesn't deserve it? See, one thing about honor is this, we get this confused with respect. Respect is earned, so someone needs to earn my respect, but honor is given. I give honor, even if the person is dishonorable. And so, when you do that, don't you want a God that notices that? Don't you want a God that notices when you make right choices in the private moments of your life, the stuff that will not land on Instagram, but will be noticed by heaven? It's the stuff that we really want to count.

So Jesus is saying, hey, listen, prayer is not a spotlight moment. It is an intimate secret moment between you and your creator. And when he uses the word room, when he says, go into the room in your house, the Greek word there refers to a private inner chamber where valuables are kept. And your prayer life should be like that. It should be a treasured moment. Prayer is personal. It's a personal connection with an almighty God who cares about you. The Bible says that he even knows the numbers of hair on your head. And for some of us, maybe the numbers of hair that aren't there, all right? My humanity wants to distort all this. I want to make prayer about me rather than about us. I want to think about affirmation of people. What do people think about me rather than the affirmation of heaven? This is the human nature that comes out. But faith thrives in the unseen. God hears and sees what no one else hears and sees. So prioritize private prayer over public validation 10 out of 10 times. Then Jesus kind of shifts the tone. So he talks about, don't be a hypocrite. And then he says this, and don't, when you pray,

don't just say a bunch of gibberish and babble like pagans. What does that mean? In fact, he even says this this way. He says, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Anyone in here an over explainer? I am, all right? I'll admit it. You don't have to raise your hand. My name is Jeremy DeWert and I am an over explainer. We're having a little support group here, okay? Jen will tell you there's so many times when, I'll say, hey, can you run this errand? Can you do this for me? And then I'll explain to her what to do. I'll be like, hey, this is what you need to do. You need to show up at this place. Then you're gonna knock on the door and you're gonna go and you're gonna go to the left and down, then a right hallway. And then there's a door, three doors down. And she'll stop me and she'll be like, hey, Jeremy, Jeremy, I'm an adult. I got it. Sometimes we do this with God. We pray about a situation. And then we spent the rest of our prayer time telling him how he's gonna fix it. Here's a simple rule of thumb. Keep it simple, keep it sincere.

When you pray, keep it simple and keep it sincere. God isn't moved by the volume of your words. He's moved by your faith in him and your trust in the word of God. Jesus is saying, don't be babbling. And the word babble there, by the way, is interpreted this way, empty repetition. In other words, words that aren't connected to your thoughts. The pagans in that day in the Greek and the Roman cities, they would go into pagan temples, not worshiping the God that we worship, but worshiping false gods. And they would go in there and part of what their ritual would be is they would go in and they would chant. They would chant over and over and over again, words, or maybe sometimes it weren't even words, they were just sounds. They would just say them over and over and over. And what they believed is, is by chanting these words or these sounds, they could manipulate their gods to do what they wanted their gods to do. Can I just tell you, when it comes to our God, the one and true God, you don't have to talk God into helping you. He wants to help you. He's a good father. What an appropriate day to talk about a good father, right? He is a heavenly father that loves you.

Prayer is not informing God of what's going on. It's inviting him into the situation. Like when you pray and you're. Like, God, I'm going through a rough time. God's not like, really? What? I was busy over here. I didn't realize that you're going through, no, no, no. You're telling him what he already knows, but he wants you to talk to him. Why? Because you don't have a relationship without communication. If you have a marriage without communication or a dating relationship without communication or a best friendship without communication, you don't have a relationship. You just have an acquaintance. So here's the thing. We need to be people who prioritize communication to God and let's ditch the pressure to sound super spiritual. I sometimes hear people pray and they're trying to sound like the King James version of the Bible that was written 500 years ago. We don't talk like that anymore. You know, they talked like that in that day. And 500 years before the King James Bible, they didn't talk like the King James Bible. My point is this, is that you can communicate to God in everyday language from your heart.

Keep it simple. Keep it sincere. Be honest, be real. God already knows. He wants you to talk to him. He wants you to ask. And prayer is not just an activity or a ritual or an obligation. Prayer is communication and communion with God. In other words, God isn't interested in wasting your time. Sometimes you feel like when you pray, it's like, this is a big waste of time. What am I doing? I'm talking to the air. You're just, what is this? No, no, no, it's not a waste of time. Now, I don't understand how prayer works all the time, but I will tell you, it works every time in me. I say that to people. People are like, do you think prayer works? I'm like, every time, 100% of the time. They're like, well, it didn't work for me. Like, I prayed whatever and it didn't happen. No, no, no, no, here's the thing. Prayer works every single time in me. Prayer is doing a work in me as much as it's doing a work in the background of my situation. Prayer is always working in me. Even if the answer to my prayer doesn't happen

in my timing or the way that I want it, it is always working in me. Always working in me. You can give that a round of applause. I know some of you wanna clap. You know, sometimes we think prayer is kind of our tool to get our way with God, and that's not what prayer is either. It's really when we pray, God is working his way in us. It's like the one time that my youngest kids at the time, they're now my oldest two sons, but one of them was really, really young and just watched Star Wars, and we told him that he needed to get a haircut, and he didn't wanna get a haircut, and so Jen got him in the car. He's sitting in the backseat driving to the barber, and she looks in the rear view mirror, and she sees him doing this. He's trying to do the Jedi thing. Make mom turn around and go back home, right? Sometimes we think prayer is that. It's our way of being able to look at circumstances and do this, and that's not what prayer is. Prayer is not getting God to do what we want, but rather getting us to do what God wants. It works in me. What does God want? Well, that's a whole other sermon series, but in short, if you wanna know what God wants,

you read his word, and if you want a prayer that is praying the will of God, you pray the word of God, all right? And after Jesus gets done talking about don't be a hypocrite and don't just babble and things like that, he said, okay, now when you pray, this is how you pray. Here's the blueprint. This is where he gets into the Lord's prayer, and the Lord's prayer begins with these two realities, worship and surrender, worship and surrender. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will, not my will, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we're praying, we're asking that the will of heaven become a reality on earth. Hallowed, the word means this. It means to be revered or respected. In other words, when I'm praying, I'm also reminding myself I'm not in charge. In fact, can I just say this to all of us control freaks out there? I'm one of them. We're not in charge of much. You're not in control as much as you think you are. I mean, really, at the end of the day, there is so much in our life that's an X factor that we're not sure whether or not it's going to pan out or not pan out, and we don't have control over it. And so when we pray, we are reminding ourselves the one who isn't in control is praying to the one who is ultimately in control, and it puts us in a good way in our place.

And before we ask, we worship. We stop and we say, God, you're hallowed. Now we don't use that word anymore, hallowed. What does that mean? I respect you. I revere you. In fact, God, I thank you. You are a holy God. You are an almighty God. You're all powerful. You are in control of this situation. I'm about ready to pray for. God, thank you that you saved me. You're worshiping God, and then you pray and you pray to want what God wants. In other words, not my will, but thy will. This is a surrendering of my will to his will, which is why we need to pray every single day because all of us humans need a reminder. It's not about me. It's about him. And it's not about what I want. It's about what God wants through me. God, what do you want from my life, my actions, my choices, my outlook? What is that supposed to look like? God, I want the will of heaven to become a reality in this earthly body. It's not me-centered. It's God-centered. Then Jesus basically, he goes to the second part of his prayer and he says this. He goes, give us today our daily bread. Now what does that mean? It basically means that we can go to God and ask him for what we need.

Like I don't know where you're at today. You came to City First today. You're watching this online. There's literally thousands of people watching this online. There are people right now in God Behind Bars, and I just want to say hi to all of our friends at God Behind Bars and on the Pando app. We love you guys. What do you need today? What do you need? Do you need a healing? Do you need wholeness? Do you need resource? Do you need a rescue? What are you facing that's bigger than you and you need God to intervene? From time to time, my oldest sons now that are in their 20s, they'll call me or they'll text me and they'll ask for help. They'll ask for advice. They'll ask for maybe like something broke at the house and they're like, hey, can you help me come fix it? Or it might even be a personal thing they want prayer for or whatever it is. And can I tell you, even with my little guy, Paxton, that most of you know that Jen and I have a little guy, Paxton, he has special needs. He asks me for help every single day, usually revolving around my iPad. And I will tell you whether it's my big boys or my little boy, I'll tell you this. I as a father, I am never, ever put off or disappointed when my kids ask me for help. I am there 100% of the time. It doesn't matter if I'm in a board meeting or I'm speaking on a stage or I'm in a pastoral counseling session or whatever I'm doing. As soon as I can get back to, they are first on the priority. I call my kids because they need help.

I found this picture that I thought was appropriate that not only symbolizes our relationship with the heavenly father, but it also is a great picture of Father's Day. You know what? A healthy earthly father is like this with his kids. And can I say this, that our perfect heavenly father did that with his kids. We were broken, separated because of our sin, lost in our shame, meandering around like we were blind in this world trying to find happiness. And a heavenly father said, I'm going to give a piece of me. My son, Jesus, is going to come and die on a cross for your sin. He gave a part of himself so that we could have a full life. But that's only the beginning. Do you know that, yes, it's important that you are saved, that you make Jesus the leader and the forgiver of your life, but that's not the end of the story. Our heavenly father wants us to call upon him every single day. And then Jesus shifts to the next part of the prayer and he says, you got to be honest with God, though, about your failures and even those that have failed you. Give us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We make. that are wrong choices every single day. I don't know if you do this, but sometimes you lay in bed and you kind of wish that you could have a mulligan for certain situations that took place that day. Literally, this happened to me on Friday. I'm tired right now. We're kind of coming to the end of our heavy ministry season that began like, well, in September. And somebody asked me what I thought. And tiredness is like truth serum.

And I told them what I thought. And I shouldn't have said it the way I said it. And I'm laying in bed on Friday night going, ah, that was dumb. You ever done that? I had to ask God to forgive me. Like, God, forgive me. Shouldn't have said that. But then in that same moment, laying in bed, I thought about 48 hours earlier than that, that someone had done something that kind of hurt me and they did something I thought was wrong. And in that same moment, I had to go, and God, forgive that person. Forgive me and forgive that person. Isn't it interesting that Jesus puts the whole ask for forgiveness and give forgiveness in one sentence? He doesn't make it two separate things. It's in one sentence. It's almost as if he's saying, hey, listen, remember our own shortcomings in the light of God's perfection as we think about other people's shortcomings in the light of our expectations. It's all one. This is the tension that brings humility in our life. As we get angry at somebody else, but then we also remember how we hurt somebody else. God, forgive them as I'm needing you to forgive me. Lastly, Jesus wraps up this powerful prayer.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. He points out evil one. I talked about this a little bit last week. Evil one is a person, Satan, the devil. And we need to ask God for protection. The Greek word for temptation there means both testing and tempting. By upraised hand, how many of you say at some point in your life you've been tested? Right? How about in some point in your life you've been tempted? Okay, 100% of us, right? Even if you didn't raise your hand, you were tempted to not raise your hand. Situations in life will test us and the enemy will tempt us. There's a prayer that we need to pray. God, don't let me get overwhelmed by tests and don't let me get seduced by temptation. Every day, we need God's help because we're weak. But you know what? Jesus went into a desert and he, the Bible says, in the wilderness was tested and tempted and he successfully made it through without sinning. Which means this, when we call upon God, we say, God, help us with the testing and the tempting. We're calling upon the one who knows how to successfully get past those things. And we're saying, God, you've walked this path,

you defeated the enemy, help me to do the same. So we don't fight for victory, we pray from a position of victory. Do you understand that? And we understand that Jesus is our guide and he's our guard and he's our great deliverer and he's our companion in the testing and the tempting. Your source of power comes from a savior who defeated the enemy and gives you victory. So prayer is not just something we do because it's the spiritual thing to do. It's not just something we do because God wants to waste our time, no. This prayer that God gives us is such a great blueprint that we can apply to everyday life and we can put our own words to it and we can see victory, not praying for victory, but saying, I stand in victory and now, God, I pray that you would help it to happen in my life. And so when we pray, God listens because he loves us and we begin to see him show up on the scene and turn impossible things around, sicknesses that get healed, we see financial situations that get overcome, we see marriages come back together again, relationships that were broken be mended. Minds that are cloudy and feeling dark become full of joy and life. Prayer does the impossible because heaven's influence comes into.

our earthly affairs, and we stand at the testimony and say, God did it. It wasn't me, it was God. Just like this song. Let's listen. If you've ever been pulled about the pit, if you've ever made it through and it makes no sense, that's how you know it was Him. If you've got a Savior who broke your chains, if you've got a Maker who made a way, if you've got a Holy Ghost in your veins, then praise Him like you're not ashamed. Who opened your prison door? God did, God did. Who dried up your ocean floor? God did, God did. Who did everything He said? God did, God did. Who raised you from the dead? God did, God did. Anybody in here can testify, if you've got a story of how He changed your life. If you've got a hallelujah, let it fly. Sing like you know the Most High, who came in the nick of time. God did, God did. Who snatched you out of the fire? God did, God did. Who healed you of your disease? God did, God did. Tell me who slew all these? God did, God did. All of you can do it. Yes, He did. He always does it. Hallelujah. If you did it all, you'll do it again. For how you saved my soul. For how you made me whole. For how you paid it all. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. For those mountains you moved. For those shackles you loosed. No one did it but you. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. For your body and blood. Your love never gave up. Here's my hallelujah. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. Who opened your prison door? God did, God did. Who dried your ocean floor? God did, God did.

Who did every little thing that He said? God did, God did. Who raised you from the dead? God did, God did. Who gave you another day? God did, God did. Who gave you a brand new name? God did, God did. Who ran away on your ship? God did, God did. Who gave you breath to breathe? God did, God did. Come on, let's give him praise one more time. We thank you God. Thank you Lord. Take a moment and we realize that prayer is not some just ritual. It's not just rote. It's not something that you're just wasting our time. But prayer brings heaven's influence into our earthly affairs. In other words, God, you intervene. And like that song said, when we are up against an obstacle, when we are up against a problem that seems like a mountain or an ocean, Lord God, you do your best work at those times with your miraculous power. So Lord, I pray right now for anybody who says that they need a healing. Jesus, if they walked into this place or maybe they're watching from home, they wish they could be in person, but because of a sickness, they can't be. Lord, right now we pray for healing in the name of Jesus over their bodies. Lord, I pray that whatever the diagnosis has been,

that God, you would be the great physician and you would reverse it and you would heal it by the power of your Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray for those people that have walked in here and they're struggling with just mental health and anxiety, depression, maybe even thoughts of ending it all. God, I ask, I pray right now that you would give them the mind of Christ that would be one that says that they are whole, that they are loved, that they are chosen by you. God, I pray that the enemy would be silent in their thoughts and they would focus instead upon your word, God. Lord, give them breakthrough, I pray, from the darkness and the cloudiness. Lord, I pray for anybody that is maybe in a relational struggle right now. Might be in a marriage, it might be in a family, it might be a best friend relationship that's gone on the rocks, Lord, whatever it is, I just pray that God, you would bring healing and that, if possible, bring restoration. God, I pray that forgiveness would reign in both parties' hearts and that, God, you would restore what the enemy has torn apart. Lord, I pray for anybody that has financial needs right now, that they just, it seems like things keep breaking. They keep having to spend money on stuff they don't wanna spend money on.

Lord, and they just feel that they're looking towards the end of the month and there isn't gonna be enough to cover all the needs. Lord, I pray, be the God that, like what Jesus, you said, provides our daily bread. Lord, I pray that you would give resource as they pursue, as they work, as they are good stewards. I pray that, God, you would resource them and that you would stretch the resource to cover all the needs. I think where it says in the Bible that even if the Lord notices one sparrow, notices a bird and the needs of a bird, how much more does he care about us, his children? Lastly, God, on this Father's Day, Lord, we acknowledge you as the perfect heavenly Father. And God, if some of us haven't decided to join your family, if we haven't given our hearts to you and asked for forgiveness, I pray that today would be that day. In fact, before I close this prayer, if anybody here says, you know what, I've not made Jesus the leader and the figure of my life, I've not joined the family of God and I want God to be my heavenly Father, ask for forgiveness of sin, heaven is my home someday. If that's you, just raise your hand real quick, I'll pray for you, okay? Yeah, there's hands. Heavenly Father, you see those hands.

And today, I pray that they would acknowledge you, ask for forgiveness of their sin, invite you, Jesus, into their heart, and heaven is their home someday. We love you, thank you, God, for being a good, good Father in Jesus' name and everybody said, amen. Come on, let's give God a huge round of applause. What an absolutely incredible message. I hope it was just encouraging to you, challenging, and both encouraging. You haven't made Jesus the leader and the forgiver of your life. This is your opportunity to do that. I'm just gonna lead you in a simple prayer and it's just, that's where the relationship starts and it's just the beginning. We'll give you some instruction, but if you wanna say that prayer, go ahead and repeat after me. Say, dear Lord. I know I've made mistakes, and I need your forgiveness. I believe that you died for my sins. I now invite you to be the leader and the forgiver of my life. In Jesus' name, amen. It's as simple as that. That's the beginning, the beginning of the relationship. So maybe you're going, okay, well, what do I do now? Well, there's a couple of things that we would encourage you to do.

One is let somebody know. You can drop it in the chat, you can tell a family member, you can tell a friend. Somebody's gonna come alongside and encourage you in that relationship with Jesus. The second thing is this, there's a resource that we have for you. QR code's gonna pop up on your screen there, or you can find it on the app or on the website. But it's just simply called New Beginning. And what it is, it's gonna give you some basic instruction about how to pray, where do I start reading the Bible, some simple things like that that are gonna help you begin to navigate this journey. And then Corey's got something else that's gonna be helpful for you as well. Yeah, that's great. After you finish that New Beginnings resource, we wanna encourage you to join and sign up for GrowthTrack. So GrowthTrack is a class that we offer here at City First that starts the first Sunday of every month. And it really answers the question, what is God's divine design for me? So like I said, it starts the first Sunday of every month. You can sign up for that with a QR code or go to our website. Absolutely, and if you need prayer for anything, we know that life has its ups and downs and there's seasons that are extremely beautiful, there's seasons that are heartbreaking.

And so if you're going, man, I could really use prayer, and I would love for somebody just to join their faith with mine to pray for you, you can drop that prayer request in the chat or go to the app. We have teams that are praying all throughout the week, and we would love to be able to pray with you in a belief for you, whatever you're praying for. And then second thing is this is on that app, it's so helpful. There are certain things there that are like devotional plans, things that you can do that just continue to encourage and continue to build your faith. You can find the life group there, different things like that. So go ahead and download that app and make sure you stay connected and just continue to keep growing in your relationship with Jesus. That's right, and the next best thing you can do is keep coming back to church. We wanna see you guys in person and online. And just keep coming back, keep getting fed. Hey, we hope today's message blessed you. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, and we'll see you guys next week.