Fruit That Remains | Protect The Culture | 1 Samuel 17:26-37 | Arik Hayes

You may be seated in the very presence of the holy and kind God For truly he is worthy to be praised Hmm So holy and kind There is no variance in him The scriptures say he changeth not That he it means he's dependable he won't switch up on us Everything else will fail us eventually Except the holy and kind righteous judge Oh God And for that and more he is worthy and worthy to be praised Hmm Hmm Old school say if I had 10,000 tongues I Just couldn't praise him enough say if I could not say a word I would just wave my hand I Will not be caught priceless When it's time to worship our God, amen beloved Amen, it got good to me. Amen. Hey, man, welcome to 2019 church beloved. How y'all doing today? Good to see you. Good to see you. My name is Eric Hayes, I'm one of the elders here and we are a church that is a house of prayer presence and proclamation Welcome to our online community of digital disciples. Actually, I got some special digital disciples that reached out to me today I think it's Colleen and I forgot her husband's name y'all in the building man. Just want to welcome you. Thank you for coming. Amen And all the rest of the digital disciples that may have traveled in or you were coming in live across the camera We just want to welcome you we think about you We got some things that's playing for you and some of the major hubs and just won't let you know We we love you, right and now we're investing the relationship so we can continue to build it Amen and our last but not least. I want to welcome the unbeliever in the place today Amen so so why why so this is a place where you can absolutely belong before you believe, right? We understand that the work of salvation is a work of the Spirit and cannot be forced Sometimes it takes a little while. Sometimes the Lord is kind enough to woo you over a season Just kind enough to woo you over a season this happened that happened this happened that happened

It may just be the Lord wooing you away from the world who does not care into relationship with a kind lover named Christ To where every hair on your head is numbered, right? And our hope and our intention is that at some time possibly even today That the Holy Spirit will prick your heart and you will become a part of the family in the kingdom of God So we want to welcome you Right and at this time customarily and we will continue to do so I want to honor the past of this Ecclesia Philip Anthony Mitchell. You are welcome to do so No pressure just want to give you the opportunity to honor if that's in your heart, amen Amen So we have a culture of honor here, amen culture of generosity Culture of evangelism And as a church we are in week four of the sermon series that we have titled fruit that remains And I've been given the assignment to deliver the fourth message of this series today and it's been titled protect the culture Protect Protect the culture, please bow your head and allow me to pray for us as we transition from worshiping the Lord and having his presence in in worship into Worshiping through the word in the scriptures. Amen. Holy Father. Thank you for today that I thank you for common grace that we would have Activity of our lambs. Yeah right there We'll be able to breathe God that we would be able to move that we will be able to have sight Natural and spiritually God that we are just counted amongst a number of the righteous Help us not look over that God look over the triumph of the cross God And to minimize the victory over death hell and the grave and more in Christ Jesus for in him We live move and have our being God help us always revel in the fact that we are a saved people And God as I attack round two of this assignment God I seek to decrease and I seek to really hear from the Holy Ghost on how to address your people in person and online You Help us honor your God help us lean in Help us love you

Help us receive the love of the cross It's in Jesus name. We pray Amen, and amen All right, you might hanging out with me Frank, I appreciate your family Right, so I don't think I've told this before and it's ironic cuz I actually played soccer when I was younger But I actually had asthma Right anybody have asthma or dealt with asthma or looked at somebody that you love have an asthma attack It is not a fun ordeal Right for for the act of breathing really is involuntary. You don't really think about breathing until you got a problem with it You just breathe right it's just part of our system is breathe in out just lungs However, the Lord designed the body it just works and we are cool with it It's just in the back of our mind if anything until we got a problem with it Right, so So I didn't partake in this industry, but I want to talk about in the 90s I don't know if you remember like smoking cigarettes was a really big deal It's kind of hard to find somebody I don't really see people I am and I smoke all the time like people like really bad They used to take smoke breaks like every five minutes like man you off the clock more than you are on the clock Get a smoke break. You just came back in And people that were like really addicted like you've seen somebody like like back in the day Not not so much now like it's like 12 degrees outside And they're outside smoking. I'm like bro. This is a problem. You're gonna get frostbite But it was a really big deal right so matter of fact so in 1997 Americans spent approximately 51.9 billion dollars on tobacco products Right and that sounds like a lot right? That's 1997 I did the calculation with inflation and when it comes to today's dollars, it's a hundred and thirty two billion dollars Just give you a little comparison there that comes in above Goldman Sachs group earning 129 bill Wells Fargo 125 billion and Morgan Stanley earns 123 right so right now when you think of like the medical industry and Pharmaceutical companies y'all heard the term big pharma y'all heard that back then in the 1900s it was big tobacco

That like a foothold when it came to lobbyists And they actually they were pushed to a point in 2006 big tobacco was ordered to publish the truth say the truth They were like forced to put it in ads and newspapers like all across the country and they had to publish the truth and say things like this More people die every year from smoking than from murder AIDS suicide drugs car crashes and alcohol combined Also things like all cigarettes all of them cause cancer lung disease heart attacks and Premature death there is no such thing as a safe cigarette Right and one of the most one of the most damning things it said there is no Safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke Right and this was really bad because then it took like a personal decision to smoke and then it made it everybody's problem Right some of you around that time or even now like somebody they smoke you just minding your own business and it happens in Atlanta I'm sure sure happens to other places you just minding your business And you just run through a cloud or something you didn't even see it you like listen man. Hey You Didn't make the decision did you you just ran minding your own just breathing like you normally would all of a sudden you inhaled something that was a foreign substance and Beloved culture much like smoke is in the air It's not just a personal thing Right culture like smoke if you just hang around it long enough will permeate your system It'll get into your lungs. It'll get into your clothes. They actually got smart There's like so so people I know none of y'all done this right they do this at East Macedonia okay not y'all right they got so smart that those when you're trying to go get a job and then when a drug test you they used to do like urine test they got so smart it was like not give me us give me a follicle of your hair so culture and smoke can get down to the follicle and now since people had the truth they had to say listen man I'm just I'm not only need to look out for myself I need to look out to my brother and my sister look out for my brother and my sister that means what I do affects you too look at the person next to you I don't know if

they came with you or you just met him what I do affects you too hopefully they're trustworthy right cuz it's the thing beloved right well there are preachers come here there are communicators come here there are praise and worship leader but hey hey culture is made up of more than people that are just on stage if you're in the building you're affecting culture you all the way back yeah you in the overflow can't even see you you are affecting culture now the question is what type of culture are you bringing is it edifying to the Saints or is it corrosive in nature let me stop here I'm not asking to be perfect nobody is the perfect one has come live died and risen and sit on the right hand side of the father let's level set there but are you playing in sin and thinking that we won't be able to tell because we can't see you you ever have somebody smoke in secret and it got into their clothes and they try to act like it didn't they didn't smoke and you showed up he said hey fam don't you know that could happen to you too I've been spending time with the Lord have you you smell like second-hand sin it's true we've all been caught in second-hand sin right that's the thing what we do in private we bring that same thing in our heart in public and then we communicate all even Christianity is going through your heart the filter of your heart all of it all of your worship all of your giving it's going through the filter of your heart culture sometimes it's elusive you can't necessarily put your hand on it but you can feel it you can smell it you can tell like all over the place people say hey man you just got to get there your comments online these people listen listen get there you're going to encounter the presence of God that is a part of our culture it's the thing sometimes other people have to tell you what your culture is because you can be fooled you can have a blind spot you can say listen I'm a nice person hmm you got anybody to bear witness with that I got a lot of patience hmm let me ask your children I could deliver the word I could break it down hmm let me ask people in your small group do they get revelation from it or they just like hey my man do this every Friday we supposed to be on

question three in the curriculum now and you just got another one of your revelations culture in and of itself is not a positive or a negative thing it's actually neutral it's all about what kind of culture that we have and we're trying to protect it you with me beloved and now that we talked about culture I want to talk about protecting and if we're talking about protecting I believe that I was nudged in my soul to take a closer look at a profession that most of us never think about I'm talking about never it's a profession called a shepherd think about it you ever met a real-life Shepherd you ever logged on the LinkedIn and be like yo man I need to I need to get this Shepherd job somebody advertising for a Shepherd let me get some old shoes and let me get out there she right you've never seen it right it's a couple of reasons because of that right because the popularity of modern land ownership the affordability of fencing right you can literally buy lands and put fences around them and also because a lot of the predators when it came to sheep they have been killed off in large part like you don't necessarily like some of you have never seen a wolf right you've never seen a lot of these predators that they were the enemy of sheep so because of all those things combined the necessity of having a shepherd has decreased that's modern times but if we're talking about ancient times and we are being a shepherd during that time was a dangerous job let's say I was doing my research that like about two months in certain region about two months of the year you could just graze everything was okay and then after two and it's ten more months to go for the year you had to chart off rugged terrain I was looking like you actually had to go like I've seen like sheep and goats like they're they're standing on like a ridge that wide on the side of a mountain that's where they were the other time in places like that very rugged terrain rocks and stones like like it was dangerous like at any given time you could trip and do something bad to yourself like it was rugged and it was also in the wild say we don't know about that we think camping some y'all I'm gonna go glamping right you're gonna you're gonna blow up a tent and and you're gonna have like nice perfumes

you're gonna put a rug in the middle of a tent listen just stay at home that's not really it's not really camping you know you want to bring all of the comfort on the outside right guess we are in the West not so in ancient times it was dangerous you were out there exposed to the elements and different predators as we talk about the shepherd I want to take you to a particular story in the Bible enter King David let's pull up 1st Samuel 17 chapter 26 verse help me Holy Ghost and as you're changing I show you turning the page I'm gonna give you the context right so the scriptures tell the account that the Philistines had brought their champion warrior out it was a giant named Goliath if you do the calculation from cubits to feet they said he was about nine feet tall right and I don't know if you watch NBA just finish watching the finals or silver Spurks or the Spurs at all like he was about a foot and some change taller than Wimby nine feet tall and it said he would speak and the men of Israel would cower in fear and before you get tough all in the sanctuary he was nine feet tall he was an expert warrior that actually called him the champion and he actually had other brothers he was the one that was picked he was their champion warrior nine feet tall most of us ain't gonna step to that and 1st Samuel 17 26 David David famously says here is this and David said to the men who stood by him as he arrived on the battlefield after he heard Goliath speak what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel for who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the Living God who is he talking to let's drop down some let's go 1st Samuel 17 chapter same same chapter and now we're gonna go 31 through 37 five chapters down five verses down excuse me verse 31 it says when the words that David spoke that we just read in 26 were heard they repeated them before Saul and then Saul sent for him verse 32 and David said to Saul now he's in Saul's presence Saul is the king there David the quote unquote shepherd boy says let no man's heart fail because of him because of Goliath your servant will go and fight with this Philistine stop can I give you a translation I mean y'all chill out man I got this

they over there scared they were about to have a heart attack I got this chill out first 33 And Saul said to David you are not able to go against this Philistine To fight with him for you are but a youth and he has been a man of war from his youth stop He was a real giant but most of us are actually facing real Giants Right, you have a giant situation in your life and the giant situation they don't say it out loud They're very good at quoting their resume to you This is poverty. All of your family has been it been in it. You have never escaped it Y'all gonna stay in the projects. This is cancer. Your mama died from it. Your uncle did you about to go to This is insecurity. You can't get out of you were born this way this happened You were five you're gonna stay this way for the rest of your life Everybody in your family got divorced. Why should you even get married? Situations speak to you But David had a response Verse 34, but David said to Paul Your servant speaking of himself used to keep sheep for his father and When there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth And if he rose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Stop Can We ruin the whole shepherd boy little trope Shepherd boys don't grab lions by the beard And you may be tough but you have not caught a lion by the beard and clubbed it to death have you He was a shepherd Who cared for the sheep? real good shepherds

They went after the flock Slow it down Many of us if we own if we own that shift at night because sometimes shepherds they actually They would bring all of their sheep together and they would have shifts walking at night Like some of us if we the shepherd if that sheep and you wake up and it's gone that sheep just gone You can wake up see it. It's a bear and a lion. Oh, man, that's sad How bad of a man do you have to be to chase down a lion and a bear? How tenacious do you have to be and I know we talk about Samson with the power of the Lord and that was true Samson with the power of the Lord and that was true. I love that account. Well, let's talk about this And not only did he get there he had enough power and wheel that he actually delivered the sheep We're just thinking that's gonna be a bloody mess. You already got it in the mouth, right? No, no, no, no No, no, give it here. Give me the sheep. I'm gonna kill you and I'm taking the sheep back But that don't mean nothing to you if you're a good sheep If you're a sheep that always You know follows the master's voice that'll mean nothing to you But if you've ever gone your own way and went astray you love a shepherd that will leave the 99 They come get me I'm talking about a shepherd But David is not done talking to Saul He continues in verse 36 He said your servant has struck down both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine Shall be like one of them for he has defied the armies of the Living God. Wait a minute. Wait a minute Let's stay here in 36 now some of you were like me you've heard this before But you just thought it was one lion and one bear. Look at the Scriptures. There's an S there this man had a habit of delivering sheep out of apex predators Chasing them down. Give me my sheep. They belong to me. They do not belong to you. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of you. Give him here. Give him here. Brandon belongs to me.

Eric belongs to me. Sosa belongs to me. Get your hands off. Let's read the scriptures, beloved. And I love about that because when the situation or Saul, when they had a story, David had a story too. You know where he got that story from? He spent time with God on the backside of those mountains. One of the things you can never, you can come get, you can go podcast. You can listen to sermon at the sermon. You know what? You can't manufacture history with God. And you can't take my history and make it yours. And I can't take yours and make it mine. It's your own historical account of an encounter with the living God on the backside of a mountain. And sometimes you just got to grab your Bible and get to fighting. I'm going to save you about 25 conferences right now. You just need to grab your Bible and get to fighting because the same God that was with David is the same God that was with you. I'm looking for a special anointing. You got the anointed one looking for a special anointing. You have the anointed one. And David kept talking. 37 says, and David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear would deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you. That is the missing ingredient. Beloved. The Lord was with him. You see, he changed Saul's mind. The Lord was with him. The Lord is with you as a believer, whether you're on the backside of the mountain, you're going through some, some horrible circumstances. I don't care where you are. He never leaves nor forsakes. I don't care what it looks like. His word is true. And he is dependable. He is God almighty. And we already know how this ends, right? David and Goliath. He slew the giant, but I just want to highlight before he was a warrior on the battlefield, he was a fierce shepherd on the backside of the mountain. So if we're talking about protecting, it's important that we look at the shepherd. Put up John 10, 11 through 15 and approximately 1000 years later, one of his names is son of David. Christ shows up on the scene and says this, John 10, 11th verse, we're going to go through 15. He says, I am the good shepherd.

This is Christ speaking. He says, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. He says, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me. I know the father and I laid down my life for the sheep. Beloved, if we're going to protect the culture, that means we are protecting the flock. That means that we must follow the shepherd. It is not enough for him just to be Savior, he has to be Lord. And as I was even studying shepherds apart from the Bible, it says that the shepherds walked out in front and the sheep had complete dependence upon him. They have no real way of defending themselves against predators, they have no way of seeking out water, they have no way of seeking out grass. They have to follow the shepherd, and even so I was just telling y'all sometimes like they would actually have like different shepherds and they would put all their sheep in one spot and they would watch by night. He is a watchful shepherd. And what they would do is they wouldn't go down and bring out all of their sheep. They would have like one shepherd, I want to say at a time, they would stand at an opening and the shepherd would just speak and their sheep and their sheep only will come. You want to talk about protection? Yes, yes, a shepherd will go and fight. You know one of the best ways that he protects us is with his voice. Don't go there. Don't send that, don't watch that. Don't look at that. Don't respond. Don't retaliate. Don't sit in unforgiveness. I know they hurt you.

You forgive, I'll come and heal you. Give that $5. I know it's your last. I got you because I am the one that provides anyway. Trust me. Trust me on the mountaintop, trust me in the valley. You know why? It's not because things around you are going amazing. It's because I am the good shepherd and I'm leading you through it to the other side. My sheep know my voice and a stranger they will not follow. If we're going to keep this thing pure, if we're going to fight for that, we have to listen to the voice of the shepherd. You can bring up Acts 20, 28 through 30. And over and over, beloved, if we're going to keep this thing pure, we're going to protect the culture, protect the flock. Over and over in several places in the New Testament, we are warned by Christ and Paul about false teachers. Listen to what Paul has to say here in Acts 20, Acts 20, 28th verse reads as follows. He says, pay careful attention. Say careful. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. Stop. This thing is community based. It's not just about you. Now we're talking about the secondhand smoke, right? Yourselves and also everybody around you. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. He's talking to leaders here. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

It was costly to get us, beloved. It was free to us. It was costly to buy our freedom. And shepherds need to care for the flock. I like to say, shepherds need to smell like sheep. And if you a shepherd here and you across this camera, I can say lovingly, if you don't care for the flock, sit down. And I'm not talking about perfection. We all have things to do. We all have more sanctification to be done by the power of the Holy Spirit and grace. But if you don't bruise your knees for the sheep, if you don't cry over the sheep, if you're not concerned about the administration is set up to make sure that the sheep are cared for, you might be a hired hand. And in the West, we've seen too many of those. Just because you go to seminary does not mean you are a shepherd. Seminary in and of itself is not bad, but it does not give you the heart of a shepherd. Just because you know some texts, you know, some other languages does not make you a shepherd. Verse 29 says, I know that after my departure. This is Paul speaking. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves, not from the outside, beloved, will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. My point here is, if we're going to protect this, and we are, it must be the pure gospel and sound doctrine and that only. There seems to have been at least a little bit,

and I'll address it here as a shepherd, right? A little bit of Jesus plus infiltrating our body. Was Jesus plus me? Yes, Jesus died on the cross, plus you must do this thing in order to earn salvation or show that you are saved. Now, I understand if you believe, if there is real biblical belief, I preached maybe a couple of months back, right? There is always some type of biblical action tied to that. So it's not like you just get to believe in your head and that actually counts as righteousness, right? But you don't set up your whole other doctrine and add it alongside the sacrifice of Christ and make your own doctrine up. If you do that, you will ultimately drive yourself away from the gospel and end up in rugged lands, maybe with a shepherd that is not coming to get you. Right? And you would think it does warn of Satan in the scriptures, doesn't it? But also alongside it, he said false teachers, false prophets, speaking twisted things. That's when I really need you guys to understand. We really are trying to give you the unadulterated gospel here as protection. Put up first Peter five, one through four. And under the good shepherd Christ, there are what we will call under shepherds. And in this case, they're referred to as elders.

First Peter five, verse one. So I exhort the elders among you, talking to the elders, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd Christ appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. I'm gonna give it to you in the amplified. It says, therefore, I strongly urge the elders among you, pastors, spiritual leaders of the church, as a fellow elder, as an eyewitness, called to testify of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd and guide and protect the flock of God among you, right? It says how to do that, by exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God, and not motivated for shameful gain. I wanna say another translation says filthy lucre. You're not supposed to try to get rich off the flock. We don't have this problem here, but it is a problem. When shepherds do that, they abuse the office

that God gave them, and they need to get right. Not motivated for shameful gain, but with wholehearted enthusiasm, not lording it over those assigned to your care. Do not be arrogant or overbearing. Let's stop here. Listen, you see us preach with accuracy from the scriptures, with passion, but after that, beloved, you got some decisions to make. We're not trying to intimidate you here. We're not trying to lord over you, not trying to manipulate you into doing anything. That's not our call. We are to protect you by. giving you the truth and also being a good example. But be examples of Christian living to the flock, set a pattern of integrity for your congregation. And when the chief shepherd Christ appears, you will receive the conqueror's unfading glory, crown of glory. All right, so he's speaking to the elders there. So the point I wanna bring out of that is to protect the culture and to protect the flock, we must also follow the direction of the under shepherds or elders. It's a little uncomfortable because I'm one, but beloved, you got some good elders here. I think so. Not perfect, still needing sanctification, but we're leaning into holiness and righteousness, right?

We're at the office thinking of ways, how can we set stuff up for the flock so they can flourish? What can we build? What can we extend? What can we improve? We got a whole staff, we come together, but how can we tinker? How can we steward the revival, which includes you? There's no revival without you guys. How can we love on the flock? How can we prune the flock? How can we discipline the flock? Why? Because we love you. Sometimes we have conversations of discipline. No, you got to sit down. You can't do that. Actually, it's time for that person to rise up. I love what they're doing. It's time for them to be a leader. So that means if we're going to keep this thing pure, we need you to honor what we set up, beloved. We don't want you to set up and do your own thing. Right? And if you do, just let it be, let it be led by the spirit of God. Right? So by and large, we're saying, guys, family, I know what we set up. Join the squad.

Now I know it's hard to get in the squads. I'm over it. Okay. I'm over it. But we actually just started training some new squad leaders, right? We got a whole summer session, right? There's going to be more in the fall. Amen. Amen. And guess what? It still won't be enough. Right? But this is why. Why don't I just open it up? Because we care. We're just not going to put any squad leader in front of you and tell you to go to their home. That's protection, beloved. We decided we got a limp and try to train good leaders instead of just throw 500 people out there and just say, you'll get meat in their house to talk about the Bible. No, that's not what a loving shepherd does. All right? And we also have teams. We have like 20 plus teams here. Join a team. You're looking for discipleship and community? Join a team.

Wake up on Sunday. Join a team. You're going to be able to find brothers and sisters that are walking alongside of you in the faith. You're going to be able to find some friendships there. Do that. Right? You'll have community and discipleship there. We're learning. We're actually leaning into to make that better for you guys. And if that doesn't work for you, maybe you can't do that. We're saying go out and do Serve M25 and volunteer and find brothers and sisters that have sacrificed their Saturday as well and come along together before you try something else. Try what we've set up, beloved. Because we have oversight. It is not perfect. We still have to prune, right? But we have oversight on the things that we have set up. If you're going to things that we have not set up, you have opened yourself up to something that is not sanctioned by the church. And it may go well. There's some situations going well, but it also may not. And out of protection, we're going to tell you that. Does that make sense, beloved? All right. And I'm closing here, friend.

So we talked about David being a shepherd, a good one and dead, a fierce one. We talked about the son of David Christ being the good shepherd. We should follow his voice. We talked about under shepherds that have been placed by God in this local ecclesia. And now it's time for your shepherd work. Each one of us is a guard at the gate of the supernatural through our heart. Give me Proverbs 4.23. We got a man, our post, beloved. All right, so what's your job in this? What's one of your main takeaway? Yes, follow the Lord Jesus. Yes, be submissive to the under shepherds here. But also, Proverbs 4.23 says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life. And to amplify it, it says, watch over your heart with all diligence. Much like the shepherds did in ancient days. Watch over it. All of the culture has to come through your heart. So that means if there's an enemy in the heart, you deal with it. Don't let envy just sit here on your heart and attack your heart. As a vigilant shepherd, you attack it and you beat it just like David did.

You don't let jealousy just sit here on your heart. You don't let lust just sit here on your heart. You don't let enemies or all the backbiting gossip just sit here and invade your heart and have its way. No, no, no, no. Watch diligently with all vigilance in a shepherd way over your heart. And that's how we protect this culture. That's how we protect this flock. That's some of the ways we protect each other and keep this thing pure, beloved. Bow your head, let me pray for us. Holy Father, God, I thank you for today. Just thank you for your goodness, God. Just so grateful for the good shepherd. Grateful that he died on the cross for us. Grateful that you sent him to die on the cross for us. Thank you for being good to us and kind. And righteous and loving. God, I pray that you would take this word that you would have printed on the heart of the believer, specifically the believer that calls this place home. That they would take an active part in protecting this culture, which you have given us. That we would steward your presence, God.

And that others will be able to come into the kingdom along the arc of safety as they grab hold of the plow. That's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. God bless you, beloved. I love you. Amen.