The Scattering | How God Uses Uncertainty to Advance His Mission | Josh Leake

Guys, good to be with you. If I don't know you, my name is Josh. I'm one of us, and I'm the lead pastor. Wow, old habits. I'm the lead pastor here. And can we welcome God behind bars over in Somerset? So happy you guys are here. And we're getting into our fourth week of this series, Divine Partnership, where we are walking through key moments in the book of Acts where people partner with the Holy Spirit and learning how we can do that in our everyday life. So this week we're gonna talk about how we can start to take some really practical steps in partnership. If you've been following along each week, the first week we talked about how God doesn't want us to just be religiously active and do things, but he wants us to partner partnership. This is what it's all about. The second week, Pastor Sean talked about how partnership with the Holy Spirit helps us face opposition. Last week we talked about how the Holy Spirit empowers us, power clothes to carry out his mission, but there's still a burning question in this series that I think many people are wondering, which is what do I actually do to move forward now? God's given me a dream or a passion or a vision or he's called me to do something big

and I don't really know how to take next steps to get there. Or maybe you're in the position where you would say, I want to start to partner, I've never really done that, but it feels a little inaccessible or intangible. How do I even do that? Because truthfully, sometimes following Jesus is really exciting, it's really clear, there's mountain top moments, but there's also a lot of moments where you can feel a little bit like you're fumbling around in the dark and you wonder, God, where are you gonna guide me through this? Where are you? Can you make it clearer? And you have a vague idea of maybe what it should look like or where you're supposed to go, but you can just feel a little lost. And I've talked to people even this week that we're saying it would be so nice if God could just spell it out or do some sort of miracle or sign so that I know this is exactly what I'm supposed to do or these are what my next steps are, but for now it just feels like fumbling around in the dark. Let me tell you about one of the scariest experiences I've ever had in my life. I've been so excited to tell this story. I've been saving this one for the right moment. I have never liked sleeping in pitch black. That's never been, I always like to have a light on so that if I wake up in the middle of the night,

I can at least see if I need to get up. Some people I know they want to simulate sleeping in the abyss. They want no ounce of light. It's like the deepest, darkest cave or they won't fall asleep and they're grumpy about it. So again, that's not me, but my brother Dave was this way. So when I was away for college, I came home to visit my family, but I didn't have a room anymore. So I stayed in Dave's room on the floor on an air mattress in the pitch black, couldn't see my hand in front of my face. And Dave neglected to tell me a very important piece of information, which is that he had been having night terrors. So he would have a nightmare and he would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. So I'm on the floor on an air mattress and I wake up at 2 a.m. in the abyss, can't see. And there's just the sound of shrieking. And this shrieking did not sound human whatsoever. So I jump up and I'm panicking and I'm feeling, I don't know this room that well. So I'm feeling around the wall and I can't find the light switch. And so I start calling out Dave, Dave, Dave. He's not answering. All that I can hear is like that sound. It did not sound like my brother's scream. It was terrifying.

It's hard to describe the absolute terror of hearing an inhuman banshee shriek in absolute dark when you can't find the light switch. That's probably the most terrifying experience of my life. Finally, I found the switch. I turned it and I flip it on and I turn around and Dave's just sitting up in bed. I was like, what happened? He was like, what do you mean? He had no idea what happened. So trying to find the light switch in a dark room was terrifying, but it's also infuriating. Spiritually, I think a lot of us know what it feels like. Maybe not the terrifying part, but the feeling of I vaguely know where I'm supposed to go, but I feel like I'm just kind of fumbling around. I can't see enough to know how to get there. And you feel like you're feeling around for the light switch saying, God, couldn't you just make this a little clearer? Can you illuminate things a little more than you have? And then the people that we study in the Bible, sometimes it makes it worse. We study Jesus and we see what he's doing and we're like, but he was God, he is God. Or we study the 12 apostles. We study Peter and we're like, well, God used him in a really unique way. So here's what I love about who we're studying today is the guy we're studying does not enter the book of Acts

as one of the famous names. Last week, we talked about But this week, the guy we're studying makes it super practical and actionable about how to partner with the Holy Spirit. Because this guy's life makes partnership easy to understand and easy to help us move forward. So here's how we meet them. In the book of Acts, remember it starts with Jesus ascending into heaven. The Holy Spirit comes on the believers and empowers them. They preach thousands of people are getting added to the first church here and more preaching, more miracles, it just continues on. More and more people are getting added to the church every day. And with more people comes more drama. This is just a universal life principle. The more people you have, the more drama you have. So Acts six, we get exposed to some of the drama of the growing church, Acts chapter six verse one. In those days, when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews, among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So here you have two different groups of Jewish people arguing that one is discriminating against the other in the food bank ministry. So the 12 gathered all the disciples together and said it would not be right for us to neglect

the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Now the apostles are not belittling this need, but they're recognizing saying yes to helping lead this food bank would actually be saying no to God's assignment for them. The food bank and making sure people were being cared for was still important. So here's what they did. Verse three, brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and we'll give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. So the people stepping into this leadership role of this food distribution ministry needed to be proven and trustworthy. And then we get the list of people who were selected. Verse five, this proposal, please the whole group, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Procarus, Nichenor, Tyman, Parmenus, Nicholas, from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. And they presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. Now you might be wondering which one of these guys are we studying? We're gonna study Philip. Philip's story is awesome.

You're about to see, but he doesn't seem significant at first. One of the original 12 disciples was named Philip. This is not that Philip. This is the first time we are seeing this guy, this Philip. And this Philip is not chosen to be a superstar in the church at this moment. He's stepping into a leadership need to take care of people. Actually, even how he's listed in the passage that we just read, he sort of feels like an afterthought. So put up verse five for me here again, just read this. So this proposal, please the whole group, look at this. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, also Philip. Like it just feels a little bit like he's like an afterthought there. But you're about to see Philip does some incredible things. So let me encourage you with something. There is no such thing as an afterthought with God. Your path or your process or your call, your assignment may look different, but you are not less important to God. Some of you just need that reminder today. And Philip's journey started out just by filling an important need within this food ministry. But this actually is not the end of his story, because at the end of the chapter, we were just reading of Acts chapter six, Stephen, which was the guy we saw right before, Philip that was selected to be a leader in the food ministry, Stephen gets arrested for preaching

and doing amazing miracles in Jesus name. And the Jewish religious leaders who did not believe in Jesus were frustrated and angry about the attention and the growing numbers and momentum of the church of Jesus Christ. So it says they actually produced false witnesses to lie about Stephen. They accused him of blaspheming God. So they arrest him. And then Stephen, when he's in front of the Jewish religious leaders called the Sanhedrin, he again confronts them and preaches Jesus. And so these religious leaders stone him to death. And this moment is the first time a person was killed for their faith in Jesus Christ. Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr. And this murder stirs up a wave of persecution against the church. except the apostles, to nearby regions. So it seems like the momentum of what had been happening in the beginning of Acts is just all wasting away here. But this scattering moment is actually what launches Philip into what's next. So let's look at Acts chapter eight, verse four. Says those who had been scattered, preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.

For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city. Some of you have been trying so hard to figure out where God is taking you, what the destination is, what the next steps are, that you've started to feel anxious. And you've been asking, God, what is the next thing? What's the big thing that you're gonna do in my life? How do I get there? God, when are you gonna show me the path? When is it gonna stop feeling like I'm fumbling around in the dark? What am I supposed to become? Who am I supposed to become? How do I finally get there? But if we look at Philip's life, he did not have it mapped out. So how did Philip become a major force in the early church for the person of Jesus Christ, releasing miracles, shaking a city? He just kept faithfully responding to what God put in front of him. That was all that Philip did to get where God wanted him to do. God put something in front of him, and he faithfully responded. You could read Acts chapter eight and look at that, the miracles and being used by God and say, that's what I want.

I want the big moment, or at least wanna be in the position where I know that I'm being used by God. I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. I know I'm doing something that matters for God. You could also have the opposite reaction. You could read this and be like, I could never do that. I don't think that would ever be me. But partnership with God is not mainly about the grand destinations, and it's not just about the thrilling mountaintop miracle moments. Big moments with God are built on a thousand smaller moments of showing up and saying yes to God. Sometimes we're feeling frustrated about what's next, but actually the big moments that we're waiting for are really just built on a thousand small moments of showing up, surrendering, and saying yes to God. Philip was ready when the moment came because he had already been living a life of faithfulness. So I wanted to boil this down to one really short, simple principle because this story in this message was just ministering to me. I was preaching this to myself. So here's what I boiled it down to. Chase faithfulness, not outcomes. Chase faithfulness, not outcomes. If God's given you a dream or a vision of what you're supposed to do,

just chase being faithful to God. Philip's story, again, he's been encouraging me so much because we see with Philip, if you just chase faithfulness, if you show up for God, you give God your yes every day, God is going to take care of getting you there. I just kept preaching this to me. Chase faithfulness, keep showing up. If you feel intimidated by getting started or by stepping out, or maybe by some of the supernatural aspects of what we've been talking about, what's your next step, chase faithfulness. Stop, don't try to control the outcome. Just keep showing up for God and give him your yes one day at a time. You don't have to worry about micromanaging the process to get somewhere. You also don't have to worry about failing the process to get there. You just need to chase being faithful to God, keep your eyes on Jesus and leave the outcome to him because the mistake that's easy for any one of us to make is to fixate mostly on the outcome. You can actually fixate on what destination God is taking you to and distract from his process to get there. You can obsess about the future and about the roadmap. And as you do, it's distracting from what God wants to do to prepare you to get there. This is actually one of the primary points of stress and confusion that I see when I talk to people

about moving forward where God has called them or next steps in their partnership journey is even this week I was talking to people who were saying, I think this is where God's leading me. I think this is what I'm supposed to do, Or I'm trying to figure out what the next steps are, but God doesn't feel like He's making it clear, so I just feel stuck. But Philip's life gives us such good guidelines of what to do in those moments. And what do we do? We chase faithfulness, we obey where He leads, and we leave the outcomes to God. We actually also get let in on God's development process. Did you know God has a development process? Sometimes we are obsessing about the future and how to get there that we end up short-changing God's development process. We can look at Acts 8, Philip shaking the city in Samaria, the mountaintop moment, the miracles, the preaching, but what came before in Philip's life actually brings us in on what God's process is. And as we prepare to just look at a couple of principles that are part of God's process to develop us and partnership, here's a quick statement that just kind of helps bring context to partnership here. Partnering with God usually starts smaller than we want and requires a more prepainful growth process than we'd like. This is actually encouraging because if what you're doing right now feels small or smaller than you want, or if you're walking through a season that feels painful, it doesn't mean you're off track. God's development of Philip actually didn't even start with the food distribution ministry. It started way before that because the apostles and the group of believers, we know they chose Philip because of the fruit of his life up onto that point. God's development process for Philip's partnership actually started with who Philip was becoming before what ministry he was doing. It started smaller than we think. But also if you look at the trigger moment for Acts 8 where Philip is preaching and doing these miracles, the trigger moment to get him there was the murder of Stephen. It was the persecution that the believers faced. It was the scattering of the church. It's what seemed to be like everything falling apart, losing momentum. It was a period of pain and difficulty and fear and instability and uncertainty that actually positioned Philip for the incredible moments in Samaria in Acts 8. You don't get the mountaintop preaching miracles, city-shaking moments being used by God. You don't get those Acts 8 moments without the Acts chapter 7 pain. The problem is that we don't like pain very much. We know in a lot of ways that pain can be a gift.

So I just got a lovely gift this weekend that I found out I need another root canal. I found a couple years ago when I had another root canal, the guy who was working on my teeth, he looked inside my mouth and he said, "Yeah, unfortunately, just based on your genetics, your mouth is disgusting." No, he didn't say that. He said, "Your enamel is genetically terrible, and unfortunately, no matter what you do, you're probably going to need several more root canals." Just great news. But with the pain that I'm going through right now, thankfully it's not horrible. But the warning signals of pain are telling me something's wrong. So pain can be a gift in that way where it says you need to pay attention to this. But we also know that there's such a thing as developmental or productive pain that's good for you. So when you're exercising or when you're learning a new skill, there is pain that is required to produce what is needed. There's a pastor and author who frames pain so well. His name is Samuel Chan. Listen to this quote. He says, "Pain is God's classroom for growth." Love that because it helps us reframe challenging moments. Philip was actually positioned through the pain of Acts chapter 7. So Philip's partnership journey, again, it didn't start huge. It wasn't this grand miraculous start. And to get where God wanted him, it required a painful launching moment. But God used him as a major force to release miracles and to preach the resurrected Jesus. So again, we see some really important principles of how we partner with the Holy Spirit. And what I want to encourage you is as we look at these principles, write these down. Especially, especially if you're in a place in your life where you have been feeling in that fog or kind of like you're fumbling around in the dark, my prayer would be as you write these down and you pray on them throughout the week that God is going to help you get unstuck. based straight out of the Bible and what we see in Philip's life. So here's the first principle that Philip demonstrated for us of God's process. Formation before opportunity. Formation before opportunity. So you may feel stalled out or stuck but God is actually just working on and preparing you spiritually for what's next. Because when we find Philip in Acts chapter 6 for the first time we know two things about him. What is it that we know? We know that he was full of the spirit and full of wisdom.

That's the only things we know. God's partnership process starts with who you are becoming before what you're doing. Because the person that you become is infinitely more important than the opportunities that you take. People who step into an opportunity before they are properly spiritually formed are often crushed by the responsibility of it. Back in 1940 there was a bridge that opened up. Engineers built the bridge called the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and it was in Washington and this bridge when it was done it looked finished. Traffic was going across it everything was going fine and then after a few months some strong winds started to expose a design flood that they didn't realize was there when they were first building it. So when the winds came the bridge starts to twist violently and it collapsed. There were no human casualties. There was only one casualty and it was a dog. It was a cocker spaniel named Tubby. Poor Tubby always lives on in our memories. But in this moment the design flaw wasn't exposed until the winds came and then the bridge collapsed. So the bridge looked ready but it was not prepared to carry what was coming. So if you feel frustrated with the pace that God seems to be moving you at remember that the slow process is a gift. If you want to partner with the Holy Spirit you got to first understand that the invisible work that God does on your character, on your soul, on your heart is actually protecting your future. So we got to come back to our main point here which is learn to chase faithfulness to what God is forming within you before chasing an opportunity. So what does this look like? It means we find ways to really allow God to work on us on our inside, on our character, on our heart. So you can work on your spiritual

disciplines, daily Bible reading, developing your prayer life, giving, community, and community is the one that we're highlighting this weekend. It's the one that is often inconvenient. It's easy to put off but community is one of the primary ways that God works on you to mature you. Maturity is what our groups are focused on through community with each other, studying the Bible and accountability, people faithfully chasing God and lifting each other up. So a lot of your first step may just be you need to find a group of people here that you're meeting with regularly they're going to that are going to help you form into the person that God wants you to be. That's the first step and remember formation before opportunity means God is not in a rush. Philip was known as full of the spirit, full of wisdom. Those things don't come overnight. They're not instant. There's no easy bake option. You can't rush that. So we got to submit to God's process, chase faithfully, after him, show up and give him our yes and trust him with the outcome. So first is formation before opportunity. The second one is serve the need in front of you. So this is where partnership with the Holy Spirit starts to get really, really practical. It's easy for us to over-complicate it because we want to know the master plan or we want to know all the steps along the way or we can over-spiritualize it but again we don't see Philip starting with a massive supernatural experience. That wasn't the start of Philip's journey. What we see is that he started with the need that God had placed right in front of him. The food ministry needed a wise spirit-filled leader to take care of people. So let me just encourage you here. You don't need the whole picture to take the next faithful step. As you're evaluating that, here's some questions you can ask. What problem is God asking me to do something about? or what opportunity have I been.

Let me just clarify one more thing, too, about Acts chapter 6. Philip leads the food ministry. Acts chapter 8, Philip is casting out demons, doing miracles, preaching about Jesus, shaking a city, both of these moments, Acts chapter 6, Acts chapter 8, both of these moments in Philip's life were both partnership with the Holy Spirit and obedience to God. We tend to look at Acts chapter 8 and we say, "But that one's so much better." He's doing bigger things, he's doing better things, miracles, awesome moment. But both of them, Philip was just being faithful to respond to what God had placed in front of him. So you can't compare God's assignment to different people, but you also can't compare God's assignment for you now to what his assignment may be in the future. What does God ask us to do? Chase being faithful to what he's placed in front of you. The pressure is not on you to manufacture the outcome. Your responsibility, my responsibility, is to respond faithfully to what God puts in front of us. So formation before opportunity means I allow God to form me before I chase an opportunity, serve the need in front of you means we start to ask, "Holy Spirit, what are you putting right here as the next step that I need to say yes to?" Then here's the final principle from Philip's life. Don't waste the scattering. So this scattering moment is Acts chapter 7 when Stephen is murdered and all of the momentum seems to fade away. Seems like everything that God had been doing is now just fading out. But Philip didn't step into the Acts 8 miracles because everything went right. He was actually launched into it because everything seemed to fall apart because of the pain. Pain does not mean that God is absent. Sometimes in the middle of the difficult seasons, situations, challenges, we start to feel isolated. We start to feel like God is distant or absent. But pain doesn't mean God is absent and pain doesn't mean something has gone wrong.

We actually know two things about our pain from what the Bible teaches us. First of all, Psalm 34 says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. That means if you're struggling, if you're grieving, if you're facing a physical or emotional or spiritual challenge, it means that God understands what you're going through. He has not forgotten about you and He's close to you. Sometimes we let our feelings dictate who we think God is or His closeness. But God's closeness to the brokenhearted is not a feeling. Sometimes there's feelings that come with His closeness. But whether or not we feel it, we know the truth, which is that God is close to the broken-hearted. The other thing we see about our pain is that God does not waste pain. With God when we submit to Him, when we surrender to Him, we follow His leadership, our pain is never pointless. For Philip, this painful scattering moment of the church was not wasted. It was actually God's plan to launch the gospel all over the world. People didn't know that at the time. It felt like everything was falling apart. But the scattering moment was actually so important for what God wanted to do and for Philip's partnership journey. Don't waste the pain of the scattering moment. And personally, I am in the middle of one of these scattering moments right now, where many of you know, my dad, Pastor Jeff, was the leader of this church for 35 years. And he passed away tragically in February from a heart attack. And just being honest, I had a lot of really hard moments this week where grief just hit hard. You know, you can't predict when it's going to come. But there was just a lot of moments where I was like, "Man, I miss him so much." And thinking things like, "This was not supposed to be the way that things went." He was supposed to be here for another couple of years finishing out his time leading the church. This was not part of the plan.

But what I'm continually learning is that there are depths of closeness with God that come from the painful scattering moments that you don't get anywhere else. I'm also learning that God gives you strength to face the next day one day at a time. scattering moment. have gone out of control, but oftentimes God is using it to draw you closer to Him, and to position you for what's next. So don't waste the scattering. What I love about Jesus, about who He was and who He is, what I love about the gospel, about Christianity, is that God's path to redeem and save humanity was through pain. God Himself endured torture, crucifixion, to redeem humanity. Because humanity was doomed because of our sin, self-inshness, the plague of sin in our life, and knowing that God came to earth. Jesus loved us so much He sacrificed Himself after living a sinless life. He endured rejection, betrayal at the hands of people closest to Him, mocking of the people He came to save, the physical pain of being crucified, nailed to across, the emotional torment of taking on the curse of our sin. God's plan to save us was not to stay distant. He went through pain. So if you're in the room and you're feeling exhausted, you're grieving, you're dealing with loss, you're facing some kind of emotional, physical challenge, whatever it is, you need to remember that our God is not a distant God who has no idea what that's like. First of all, we know that He's close if you're feeling that way. But also we know He knows what it's like to go through those things. God Himself suffered in every way. So He knows what it's like to be there. I believe He's here in the room this morning and wants to remind you of this truth. Many of you just need to take the first step in the partnership journey, though, which is to say, "Jesus, I need to be forgiven for my sin, and I want to make you the King of my life." Maybe you have believed in Jesus.

You believe that Jesus is real and that He's God, and you've done religious things, but you have yet to take the step to say, "Jesus, forgive me for living my way, forgive me for my sin, and I want to make you the leader of my life." It all starts there. This is what the Bible says is the salvation moment where the Holy Spirit regenerates us, makes us into a new creation, is when we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and we say, "Jesus, you're the King of my life, forgive me for my sin." So if you're in the room and you have not yet taken that first step, I want to give you the opportunity to do this because it all starts right here. So everybody in the room, bow your heads, close your eyes with me. And if that's you, you know that's you to say, "I want to come to Jesus. I want to know Him like that." Everything is about knowing your heavenly Father, about knowing your Savior, Jesus Christ, but you have to take that first step to say, "Jesus, forgive me, and I want to follow you." So if that's you, you want to take that first step. When I count to three, I want you to raise your hand. Okay, why do I do this? When you're saying yes to Jesus, the God who gave his life on a cross, bled and died for you, it's important not to just think it, right? There's all throughout the Bible, we see the importance of acting on something. So if that's you, be bold. Now, don't worry about anybody else. This is the most important decision you'll ever make in your life because what happens is the Holy Spirit makes you into a new person. He gives you peace and joy to face the future, regardless of your circumstances. And you also have an eternal inheritance, which means one day, when you breathe your last breath, you can know I'm going to be an eternity with Jesus Christ, an existence of peace and joy forever rather than separated from God in hell. So if that's you, when I count to three, be bold now. Ready? One, two, three, say, "Yeah, that's me today. I need to be forgiven." Just raise your hand to say, "Today, I need to surrender to Jesus.

I need to make him the king. I want to give one more second. That's awesome." Yeah, anybody else, you would say, "Today, I need to make that decision." The most important decision you'll ever make. Awesome. You can put your hands down. And now every person in the room, repeat after me. Let's pray a prayer of dedication. Repeat after me and say, "Dear Jesus, thank you for the pain that you went through. Thank you for dying on that cross. Thank you for taking my place so that I can live. Lord, I need you to forgive me. Forgive me of my sins now. I don't want to live my way. I surrender to you. Be the king of my life. Be my leader. And Lord, fill my life with joy. amen, amen. Give it up for those that made that decision. Awesome. Here's what we're going to do to close the service now. We are going to take communion together. So this is the moment where we take the bread and the cup. We're remembering back to the Last Supper when Jesus established this practice. He said, "Do this in remembrance of me, this is the new covenant in my blood." So we're remembering when Jesus died and came back to life, it's God's new covenant with His people, the church. The only requirement to take part in this part of the service is that you have asked Jesus to forgive you and that you have made Him the king of your life. If you're not sure if you've done that or you haven't done that, you can just let the trade pass you by and just observe this moment. But the team is going to lead us now and we're going to sing just a song of surrender to close this message to the ushers. You can begin to make your way forward, distribute the elements, and I'll be back out to close us in communion. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Come on, tell them this. Yeah, Lord, we trust You as we prepare to enter into this moment. We trust You as our Savior,

as our King, that You are committed to Your people. Thank You, Jesus. Just hold the bread in your hand and hold it up with me as we prepare to just pray and we'll eat it in one second. But we remember that the bread represents Jesus' body, the pain that He went through when His hands and feet were nailed to that cross. So let's pray now, Jesus, we say thank You so much for what You went through in our place. You endured the cross for Your people. We also remember that You suffered. You know what it is to suffer, to be betrayed, to hurt. We thank You so much, Jesus, that You are not a distant God, but You loved us. You showed us Your love and You are still committed to Your people. So Lord, we just say we are committed to You as families, as individuals, and especially as a church. We are Your people. We are committed to You. We don't take this moment lightly. Thank You, Jesus, for Your sacrifice and Your name we pray. Amen. Let's take the bread together. [Music] Now hold the cup in your hands and let's pray. Lord, we thank You for the cup which represents Your blood that was spilled on the cross. And because of Your blood, the final sacrifice we are forgiven. There is nothing that we could do to perform or to earn our way into Your forgiveness, to earn our way into Your love. Because of the blood of Jesus, we are free. We have hope and we are called sons and daughters. So Lord, we just remind us, no matter what we face on earth, no matter what situations or challenges we come across, there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. And it's all because of Your sacrifice, And we, Lord, if there's anything in our life that has not been pleasing to you, any sin that we've been excusing, anything, Lord, that is not, that's not of you, Lord, reveal it to us, we ask for your forgiveness. Show us, Lord, cleanse us so that we can be more like you. We can look more like Jesus. If there's anyone that we have been harboring unforgiveness, against. We remember that you forgave every debt for us. So, Lord, help us to forgive, just like you forgave us. We're so grateful for your love and your commitment. In your name we pray, amen, amen. Let's take the cup together. Yeah, now just stretch forth your hand. Let me pray over you. I pray that this week you would be reminded of Psalm 34, what that says, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. I pray that the supernatural peace and joy that transcends your understanding would carry you through this week. I pray that God's favor, his grace, his blessing would rest upon you, that would rest upon your family. In Jesus' name,

everybody said together, amen, amen. Awesome. Guys, thank you for being here. Team's going to stick around if you want to worship. And don't forget we have our connection life group tables out there. For many of you, this is your next step. Get plugged into a community. Take that step. Thanks again for being here. Have a great weekend.