Priority One | Part 1 | Pastor Darin Poli

everybody. Shout that. Welcome all of our locations here at Spring Lake Park, Maple Grove, Elk River, Lake Field. So excited if you're joining us online as well. We're glad that you are worshiping with us this morning. And how many are loving this extended fall? Come on somebody. I love that. And somebody like where's the snow? I'm like get thee behind me. I don't need that right now, right? We can we can wait a little bit. So all right. So anyways, it's it's just incredible. Excited to be in church today. Excited for the opportunity to to kick off our new series. What a blessing our church. God's on the move in so many incredible ways. I did want to take just a moment right off the top. Many of you are aware of this at all our locations that October traditionally around the Twin Cities, maybe around the nation, is Pastor Appreciation Month. And I know some of you have written cards. Some of you have already encouraged the pastoral team. It's not pastor singular. It's pastors. All the people that serve as pastors at Emmanuel at all of our locations, including our Central Ministries team. There's many pastors on that team. I want to say two things. Number one, our pastors feel blessed. We are blessed to be able to serve this church. And number two, I know that we as a church at all of our locations, we love and appreciate all of our pastoral team as we as we get to serve each other and serve the Lord and build the church. So at all of our locations, the count of three, can we show appreciation to all the pastors that serve here at the church. One, two, three. Yeah. Come on, we can shout loud. That's good. That's so good. Thank you. Feel free to write a card or get my hug or just speak life over the team. It's such a blessing that we get to serve the Lord. Well, we are beginning the new series today. The next four weeks, we just wrapped up a great series in the book of Ephesians. If you missed any part of that, you can go online and watch that. Today, we're kicking off a series entitled Priority One. Everybody say Priority One. All right. So I want you to grab these bracelets, if you would. You all receive these at all of our locations and each of our services on your way into church today. So would you grab these with me? I'm going to press a little bit because there's

always guys in the room that are like, I don't need that. Well, I'm just going to press you a little bit. All right. If I'm wearing mine and I'm like an Italian guy that doesn't like these things either, you can wear yours. All right. So it says Priority One. And I'm going to ask you, it's going to fit throughout this series. If you would put this on and that you would wear it for the next four weeks and that as you have a prayer time throughout the week, hopefully daily, there's some things that we're going to we're going to ask you just to be thinking about about this topic of Priority One. So I encourage you, I've already shared that. I've been wearing mine for the last five days. I've showered it in a few times and it works just fine. All right. So you don't have to, that's probably too much information, but you don't need to know anything else. But it can be a blessing too. I encourage you to do that. It's just going to be a great reminder. And I want you to say the word stretching. One more time, say stretching. This series, it will stretch us. It will. It'll stretch us. It'll stretch me. It'll stretch all of us. Maybe you're a first time attender to church. Here at Emmanuel, one of our locations, we're so glad that you're joining us for church. Maybe you've been here for months or years or decades. We're glad. For all of us, I encourage you not to miss a week of this series. Next week's miracle offering. We have a guest for just an incredible ministry that's going to be with us. Pastor Nate will be part of the services. It's going to be amazing. And then Pastor Nate will do week three. Our location pastors will do week four. We're going to look at miracle offering and great commission and meeting the needs of neighbors and people closest to us and reaching the world and generosity and tithing and some really big topics over the next month. And it's going to be stretching. And I pray that our heart, our desire, as God calls us higher, everybody say higher,

it's not, it's God calling us higher that we would say, God, what is priority one in my life? What is it going to look like? So just tell the person next to you, get ready. Come on, say it, say it louder. The person on the other side, get ready. So God's going to stretch us, but it's going to be good. When God's stretched us, it's not in guilt, it's not in condemnation. It's encouragement and challenge to step up. And kind of, kind of go after the things he wants us to go after. Luke chapter 12, we're going to start in the New Testament, the words of Christ. Then we're going to do a deep dive in Daniel chapter one. If you have your paper Bibles, you can get ready to go there in the app. You can get, if you're using your app, you can get ready to go there as well. And we're going to look at the life of Daniel. just so you kind of know what's coming. So let's jump into priority one, part two, or part number one, part two is next week. It says this, "And don't be concerned about what to eat and what to drink. Don't worry about such things." Everybody say worry. We are commanded not to worry. Can I hear your name, man? We know we have concerns, but we should not let it go to worry. Worry is not like God, you got it. Worry is like, how am I gonna figure this out? So our challenge from Jesus is that we would not carry that worry. These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world, but your heavenly Father already knows what you need. Seek the kingdom of God above all else, and He will give you everything you need. Leave that up on the screen just for a moment. Seek the kingdom of God above all else. And let me just tell you those three challenging words everybody say it after me, above all else, above all else, that's priority one. Jesus is saying that there's something, there's a lot of priorities. We'll share about this later that are in our lives. A lot of important things that we do in our lives. Jesus gives this challenge that we are to seek the kingdom of God above all else. How many of you agree? That's a challenge. It's a challenge in my life. I believe it's a challenge in your life. It's not like, oh, that's a neat idea that Emmanuel has. No, that's what Jesus is telling us to do. So what does above all else look like in our lives? And I think, again,

it's a challenge, but I also want to say it's a blast. It's inspiring. It's fun. It's something that's going to be really, really incredible. Throughout this series, I pray that we answer that. What is above all else? Here in the United States, there's been a lot of surveys done about, hey, what are Americans' top five priorities? And there's different surveys, different respondents. Pew Research did one, and these results of Americans' top five surveys will be up on the screen. You can see them from Pew Research. The first one is an enjoyable job or career. The second one is having close friends. How many think it's pretty cool to have close relationships, right? It's a good thing. The next one, kind of surprising, number three, was having children. Sometimes not because children aren't great and grandchildren are even greater. Not because of that. It's interesting. I know when surveys are done and confidentiality and people aren't, and they're just answering it confidentially, sometimes they kind of share a little bit that's in their heart, which is really cool. The fourth one is having a lot of money. Does that surprise anyone? How many notice? It doesn't just say having money. It says what? Having a lot of money. How many are you okay if you have a lot of money? Wave at me. Come on. Miracle offerings next week, by the way. All right, so you got a lot of money. But that's the fourth one. And the fifth one was being married. Being married. That's interesting to me. God's foremarriage. God supports that, wants that force, biblical marriage. So I thought that was really, really interesting. And I just, as we jump into Daniel chapter one, I wanted to ask Emmanuel of our locations. Is there anybody at church today that you're just really thankful for the Bible, for God's Word? Can you just wave at me? I mean, Maple Grove, Elk River, Lakeville, all of us. I'm just telling you, I've been able to study this. And if you've been around church a while, maybe you're not a newer person to church. Again, we're so glad you're here. Maybe you've been around church a while. Sometimes you repeatedly will read chapters. And I've read this chapter a lot, and I've just been again read just additionally grateful for the blessing that the Bible is in our lives. It's such an incredible resource. And it's so, so special. Daniel chapter one, I believe we're going to read it. It's a lot of scripture gives us a, what I would call, a missional roadmap to what priority one looks like in our lives. And I believe he's going to share some thoughts with us even through his words and and his actions. Everybody say roadmap. I am thankful for maps in my life. So it's just incredible. So let me just give you a little back story on Daniel. It's important to understand this. We could, I wish we could spend more time on the

history because there's so much here. Even I was learning the last few weeks. Daniel went all this happened in chapter one in the moment. And before Nebuchadnezzar, all of that, he was approximately 16 15 years old. [BLANK_AUDIO] being committed to God. Just like many of us here today, we are committed to the one and only true God. There was false gods, false idols never can answer, had one, we'll read about that in a moment, but Daniel was committed to the God, the one and true God, and that's awesome. He was a confident young man. He was bold. He was confident. By the way, he was an achiever. He got things done. People recognized his talent. If you, again, study the chapters, we'll look at it, but people are like, "Wow, look at him." Even when he was chosen to be one of the servants, they were just recognized just the giftedness that this young man had in his life. He was, so just know that. Again, that's not something to look down on. If God's put great gifts in us church, man, use them for the glory of God. Use them because God has put them in our life. He was in Jerusalem, a resident of Jerusalem in Judah, when it was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, the king. And so Joseph was basically a captive servant when he was, Daniel was a captive servant, sorry, when he was taken into this place of this time before this training with Nebuchadnezzar. And so understand, again, this is Daniel's journey as he was in this process, and it's just so, so significant. So let's look at this. It's a lot of Scripture.

If you love God's word, say yes. Daniel chapter 1 says, "During the third year of King Jehokim's reign in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave him victory over King Jehokim of Judah and permitted him to take some of the sacred objects from the temple of God." So Nebuchadnezzar took them back to the land of Babylonia and placed them in the treasure house of his God, everybody say lower case. So that's a lower case, gee, did you see that? It was not the one true God. It was an idol God that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, right? And that comes in even later in these chapters in the book of Daniel. Then verse 3 says, "Then the King ordered Ashman as his chief of staff to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah's royal family and other noble families who had been brought to Babylon as captives. Select only strong, healthy, and good looking young men, right? How many of you were in on the strong and healthy, but we lost young good looking, right? So that's kind of my story, right? That's who you're supposed to bring in. He said, "Make sure they are well-versed in every branch of learning, are gifted with knowledge and good judgment, and are suited to serve in the royal palace. Train these young men in the language and literature of Babylon. The King assigned them a daily ration of food and wine from his own kitchens. They were to be trained for three years." Everybody say, "Three years." And then they were to enter the royal service. Daniel, Hananiah, and Ishael, Azariah, were four of the young men chosen, all from the tribe of Judah. The chief of staff renamed them with these Babylonian names. Daniel was called Belta Shazar, Hananiah was called Shadrach, and Ishael was called Meshach, Azariah was called Abednego.

But Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and the wine given to them by the king. So again, there's not a lot of history in this context, in this text that we're reading even right now, that Daniel's choice of why did he refuse that was he had a commitment to the one and only true God of what was allowable to eat as a believer. So it'd be different from our world today, but that's one of the reasons. He didn't, it wasn't turned it down just to be obstinate. It was about his commitment that he had made to God. He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods. Now God had given the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel. But he responded, "I am afraid of my Lord the king." Look at, this is, this is what the employee saying, the leader saying, "Who has ordered that you eat this food and wine, if you become pale and thin compared to all the other young people your age, I am afraid that the king will have me beheaded." There was no HR department back then, right, church? Daniel spoke with the attendant who had been appointed by the chief of staff to look after Please test us, look what he says. For 10 days, on a diet of vegetables and water, Daniel said. At the end of the 10 days, now see how, at the end of the 10 days, see how we look compared to all the other young men who are eating the king's food. Then make your decision in light of what you see. The attendant agreed to Daniel's suggestion, and tested them for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king. Everybody say better. When we obey our commitment to God,

it ends up being better for us. It might require a step of faith, it might require a sacrifice, it might require a risk to be taken, right church? 'Cause that was a risk to say, "Hey, can I have the permission not to eat that stuff?" And then the risk was, "Hey, is vegetables in the water "gonna make me have a lesser advantage "over those other young men that were being trained?" And the answer was because he was committed to God's plan, he actually surpassed everybody else. That is just so cool. So after that, the attendant fed them only vegetables instead of the food and wine provided for the others. Look at this, no. God gave these four young men, God gave. Everybody say God. God, oh man, the blessings and the strengths and the gifts and the opportunities we have in our lives, they come from God. They're not 'cause we're great, that's 'cause God's great, right church? That's just, it's so, so important. God gave these four young men an unusual aptitude for understanding every aspect of literature and wisdom. Age 16. And God gave Daniel the special ability to interpret the meanings of visions and dreams. When the training period ordered by the king was completed, the chief of staff brought all the young men

to King Nebuchadnezzar, the king talked with them, and no one impressed him as much. Everybody say impressed? No one impressed him as much as Daniel had and I and Michelle and Azariah. So they entered the royal service. Whenever the king consulted them in any matter, requiring wisdom and balance judgment, he found them 10 times more, 10 times more capable than any of the magicians and enchanters in his entire kingdom, right? I mean, this is a young leader of great competence that's somewhere close to 16 years old, right? And it's just amazing the story of Daniel and his friends in this moment as he's trying to live out what is priority one in his life and he's this overachiever young man. So I wanna ask you a question at Emmanuel, all of us. Have you ever asked somebody really successful that you admire and you kind of sat down with them and you asked them this question, how'd you do it? What's your secret? Have you ever done that? It's kind of a fun question, especially somebody that's long into their journey and there's a lot of stories you can read about great leaders and great athletes and basketball players and how, after every practice that every practice they had, they went bough by themselves and shot an extra 100 or 150 free throws.

And you're like, well, that's probably why they're really good at free throws. And you can study different things. Something happened in my life when I was kind of new in Bible college. I was 19 years old. I only been a Christian at that time two years or so and there was this really old guy. He was like 62 but I was 19. So he looked really old, right? And he was just super wise, super gifted, super godly. I'd get around him, he was always praying under his breath. He's praying for people. He always had a heart. He noticed everybody and he was just this godly leader that had a ton of wisdom. And I met with him several times just kind of as a mentor and I sought that time out and he was gracious to meet with me and I asked him that question. I just said, I said, hey, how do you do it, pastor? How are you this good at this area of Christianity and inspiring other people? And he kind of hemmed and hog 'cause he's not a prideful person and he talked about how good God is. And then he said, Darren, I'll tell you one thing. I thought, well, I haven't, but it was, I mean, 500 times. And I remember that moment. And I'm like, there's something about people

that are highly strong leaders for the kingdom of God that have moments in their life that God established something big and important, and they stayed faithful to it almost their whole lives. In this message, in this series of priority one, I pray that there's some things that get started in us or continued or built in us as we talk about some of the biggest areas of Christianity, some of the most things that are really, really significant. I actually took off on that journey with him. I'm a couple years behind him right now, but it's, I want to say how many at this point, but I just felt really compelled that I was supposed to read Proverbs as well, 'cause I really expected this, I really respected this individual's wisdom and strength. So I want to share with you what I would say if Daniel was here with us, Emmanuel, I want to share with you kind of four or five things I think he would say to us about how to live out what it means to be priority one, that committed lifestyle, that lifestyle that says, God, your plan is so important, it's so big. So if you're ready, Sam, ready? All right, so here we go, the first one's this. And again, just thinking that if Daniel, Daniel will kind of have some of these thoughts, but by his actions and by his words, what we just read in all those verses in chapter one kind of speaks out to me this way.

So here's the first one, God's plan for me is different. God's plan for me, church, it's different. The Pew Research might say this is what Americans have as their priority, God says something different, right? And I just think Daniel would say to us, hey, it's a different plan, it's a different plan. And we got to be okay with that. And we got to be excited about that. And God, what is that plan that's really important that God says he has the answer for? So it's like us asking God as the wise mentor, what is that plan? And I think Daniel's just saying to you and I that God's plan for me is different. Here's the second thing. He says, I will be faithful to God's plan and God's path. I will be faithful to God's plan and God's path. So many I know are, you're taking notes. I love seeing that. How many of you know there's a difference between knowing a plan and being faithful to execute it? Hello, right? Everybody try a diet before? Come on, somebody, right? I mean, it's just true. Daniel not only knew that God had a different plan for his life that wasn't about every other youth called to be trained. He just said, I know for me, I'm not supposed to eat that. And then he said, I'm committed not only to God's plan,

but God's path for my life. Here's the third thing. I trust that God is always, everybody say always, always in control. I'm just gonna trust. I think he'd say to us, Emmanuel, just trust, just trust. What about when I'm being captive and my city's being conquered and I'm getting trained up to be a servant and I'm one of the highest achieving young men where I grew up and now I'm in the setting where I'm gonna be a servant in the royal palace. I think he'd say, I just trusted that God's in control. And that is true. That is true. I need that in my life. You need, you're starting a business. You're praying about a new ministry. You're doing something in your family. You jumped into it. You're first new into marriage or parenthood and things are kinda struggling right now. Can I just tell you God's in control? All you gotta do is listen to God and follow his voice. Because God is in control. I know that's strong. I know there's brings up a lot of, well, what about this pastor? What about this pastor? I know there's tons of what about this pastor, but I just think Daniel would say to us,

hey, just know in your heart of hearts that God is in control. Here's the fourth one. Obedience, this could be its own sermon. Opens the door to greater kingdom influence. Obedience, I've learned this the last few weeks from Daniel, opens the door to greater kingdom influence. We read the verse, the verse says, he shows up in front of Nebuchadnezzar after he's been on this diet and training for a long time. And any time I'm seeking wisdom, understanding, or I need direction on something, make sure you get Daniel in front of me. Can I just tell you something? It wasn't his own personal influence. It was kingdom influence. It's not about you and I becoming more popular, more everybody look at us or everybody kind of thinks we have all the answers. It's because they believe that we are connected to God and they see that God is doing amazing things in our midst. So I just, I want you to know that. So again, it's not like we give to get or it's not just that we're obedient because we know we're gonna get blessed. It's not that, it's that that is a by-product. So greater kingdom influence. And can I just say, I gotta say this quick, I'll keep moving on. God has given our church greater kingdom influence.

As we sit and worship right now, Emmanuel, miracle offerings next week, it's a big deal. We got a lot of missionaries here in the Twin Cities in our country, around the world. We wanna come alongside them and resource it in a big way. That's awesome. God's given us four locations in the Twin Cities to reach people for Jesus, right? That is kingdom influence. And so Lord, show us, show us how to steward that influence. Well, in our lives individually at church this weekend, you, God has given you kingdom influence. And the more you obey the path that God has for us, the more I do, and I gotta get better at this too, God's opening doors of influence just like he did for Daniel. We gotta keep going. So there you go. Here's the fifth one. I just think this is true and it's fun. Watch and see the faithfulness of God. I think Daniel would state all of us, hey, just watch and see the faithfulness of God. But pastor, I don't see it yet. I think he would say, watch and see. It's coming. It's coming. The faithfulness of God and priority one, as we focus on this, is coming. It's going to be amazing. And everybody said amen.

'Cause it is true. I wanna ask you a second question. It's this. And this is again for anybody at any of our locations. Have you ever had a really big moment when God was asking you to commit to something big? Have you ever had a really big moment where God was asking you to commit to something big? And I want you to track with me here as we share this and I'm gonna share a quick story from my life and then we'll jump into the New Testament and then we'll wrap it up with some thoughts. I think there are those moments. I know those moments happened in Daniel's life that I'm learning from those. We're learning as a church today. When I was 17 years old, I had been a Christian just a few months and I was raised in a liturgical church. Not a church like Emmanuel. And I learned about Jesus at a retreat that somebody invited me to and I accepted Christ. And a few months later, a friend invited me to go to a Christian summer camp. I had never been to a Christian camp in my life. I'd never run to summer camp in my life and talked about the different opportunities, sports, and it was in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. And I went, went with my friend. And honestly, I didn't really know why I was going.

Other than my friends, I was gonna be great and cool and whatever. I mean, let's do that, I'm 17, right? Never been to camp, didn't know who the speaker was, didn't know I was supposed to know or even care who the speaker was. I was a brand, I was new Christian and I got there and this will be part of my story for some of you that know me a little bit more over these last several years. I, the third night of this camp, the speaker, was, this is 30 plus years ago now. The speaker was an individual that they had, their calling was to smuggle Bibles into communist China. And again, a long time ago, they still do this stuff, but there's a lot of technologies you know now and there's some other things that can help in this, but this was 30 plus years ago and so I'm listening and he's sharing his story. I'm enthralled, it sounded like James Bond to me. I'm like, this is so cool, they're smuggling these, it was just, it was amazing. And he got to the end and he said, I feel like I'm supposed to make a call, an altar call. I didn't know what an altar call was. And he said this, he said, I wanna ask this, if there's anyone here in this chapel that will give one year or more of your life to Bible training and the mission God has for you, I'm gonna ask you to get up from your seat and come stand at the front.

And I don't know, I really don't remember the next 75 seconds, I just remember standing at the front. [BLANK_AUDIO] And I remember this moment where I felt God saying, "Let's go, Darren. Let's go. You've got a lot to learn." But he says, "I'll never leave you or forsake you." And that led to a year later going to Bible college, and that led to youth ministry, a lot of things and admissions. There's a lot that goes into it, but there are moments, you know this church, where God has or will ask you to do something big, and it will feel life-changing. Mine wasn't like Daniel level, I know that. But I had other plans that had nothing to do with this. And I just felt God said, "I'm shoulder tapping you." And I can tell you 40 years later, the best decision in my life. What an adventure to be able to build God's kingdom, right church. What a blessing to be able to do it. It's so, so important, it's so good. So I want you, we're going to transition here, and I want us to make a statement that we cannot miss throughout this series, all right? So here's the statement, "Priority one is not only priority." Did you get that? Leave it up on the screen if you would team, thank you for doing that. Priority one, that's the title of our series. The title is not only priority, how many of you know there's a lot of priorities? There's a lot of important things, there's a lot of priorities in the Bible. So there's a lot of things, we just had a whole series on another great priority that we just wrapped up in Ephesians. So understand, we are talking about a priority one, and it's a significant bold title, but it's not saying that there's not other really important priorities in the Bible in kingdom

work in our lives that God is asking for. So as we get ready to wrap up, I just want to give us a quick test. Now don't overthink this, all right church, any of our locations, just give an answer just to know if we're kind of a quick test to understand if we understand what a top priority really is. So here's question number one, there's just four of them, they're really fast. What is Chick-fil-A's top priority? One overthink it, what is Chick-fil-A's top priority? Chicken, right, Christian chicken, right, I mean that's it, like it's something else, no, they want a still chicken, all right, you'll get the next one now. What is Starbucks top priority? Coffee. Coffee, you guys are so sharp, it's amazing, here's the third one, what is the Vikings top priority? Yeah, there was some divisiveness in the body, but anyways, right, we all know it's beating the Packers, it's winning, it's winning football games, right? Yeah, so let's, before this gets out of hand right here, let me ask you the fourth question. What is Emmanuel's top priority? Think about it just for a second, thanks. This is a little bit of a gotcha question, what is Emmanuel's top priority? Luke 15 says this, so Jesus told them this story, if a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won't look at this priority one church, won't he leave the 99 others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together as friends and neighbors saying, "Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep." In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner, everybody say more joy. There's an amount referenced here, right? More joy in heaven over the one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over 99

others who are righteous and haven't straight away. I shared with you, at the beginning of this message, it was going to be stretching. There's going to stretch all of us because some are, we'd wrestle with this a little bit or maybe you feel like you've got to, there's a different answer or something like that. Remember, I said it's not the only priority, but Jesus is saying this. And here's what he's saying, he's saying that this is a priority, lost people. He says that we are called to reach lost people, and where we called to do it, we're called to do it near and far, across the street, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our workplaces, in nations, to the 7,000 unreached people groups. We're called to do this, right? Well, pastor, I don't think it's that simple. I'm sorry I do when I'm preaching, so there you go. No, it's, I know it's a stretch. I know there's something to it, again, there's other priorities, we know that as a church. We will celebrate that and teach on that and preach on that. But in these four weeks, we're going to look at priority one. And can I say something before I wrap up and pray? These verses that we just read, where it says that in the same way there's more joy in heaven over one lost sin or who repents and returns to God, than over 99 others who are righteous and haven't straight away. I don't want you to miss what I'm about to say, because I want to be crystal clear. This verse is not saying. It's not. It's not saying that as the church and people in the church that God does not love you and I and care about us deeply. It is not saying that. Can I tell you something? God loves you. He you are so important to him.

You are so vital. Our church is so vital. God loves us with an unconditional love. That is true. What it is saying, that's what it's not saying, what it is saying is God has prioritized. God has prioritized searching for people that are lost. And he's asked us to do the same. That's it. So whether it's a miracle offering, whether it's prayer walking in our neighborhoods, whether it's going on a Kingdom Butters team, whether it's a coworker that I know I'm supposed to reach out and share God's love with, whatever it is, we're supposed to say yes. Because it's God's priority one and the joy that comes from that is so, so amazing. So I encourage us, everybody smile at me. I encourage us to never forget that living the life that God has for you and I, this life of priority one, similar to what Daniel did, is a life that is full of God's goodness. Because he loves us, each and every one of us, an amazing way. I want to ask everybody to stand with me if you would. Just real quick, would you open your hands in front of you? Then we'll, we're gonna have a brief worship song and then I'll do one more prayer and then we'll finish up. But as you open your hands like this, I pray that we have these wristbands. And I pray that each day of this series over the next few weeks, you would just do a simple prayer in addition to whatever other prayers you pray. And you would pray this prayer, "Thy will be done in my life, God. In every area of my life, thy will be done." Pray with me, Father in Jesus' name, we thank you for that invitation. Use us for priority one. Use us to be your hands and feet extended. Use us and then let us know the joy and the fulfillment and let us know God as you smile down on our serving you as our leader.

Thank you for your amazing love. In Jesus' name we pray. Everybody study good, amen, amen. (audience clapping)