When Your Faith Feels Flat

Alright, so I am a little bit or maybe a lot emotional because it was 30 years ago this weekend that a handful of people, many of you, met for the very first time in a two-car garage and today here we are three decades later celebrating God's faithfulness, God's goodness, God's power, God's grace as Jesus has been building God's church and today I celebrate the presence of God, the goodness of God and honestly I celebrate every single one of you, every life that has been changed, everyone that's prayed faithfully, everyone that's served and used their gifts, everyone who's given toward the work of God. People say, did you ever expect any of this to happen and the answer is no and if you told me it might I probably would have run for the hills because it exceeds anything I ever dreamed possible and so it's this time of the year that we tend to look back just at our own lives. I'm doing that in the church and we tend to look forward and we evaluate where have we been and where is God calling us to go and if you're like most people you're probably looking at your life right now you might be making some goals moving forward. I'm doing that in my life and in the church as well. You might set goals to eat better this year, you might set goals to maybe eliminate debt, you might set goals to strengthen your marriage, all are really, really good goals but I want to raise the question today what if our greatest goal this year wasn't just to improve our lives but what if our greatest goal were to please God above anything else? What if the driving desire, the cry of our hearts is to live in such a way that our greatest goal is to please God? It was Paul who said this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9, he said so whether we're here in this body or away from this body, say it with me, what is our goal? Our goal is to please God. What if our greatest goal above anything else would be to live in such a way that our lives would please God? Above all else what kind of church are we going to be? From day number 1 to 30 years in for as long as we're on this earth it is my prayer that we are a church that pleases God and if we're going to be a church that pleases God it's got to be filled with people that are pleasing God and that means you got to please God and I got to please God and we got to individually please God so corporately we would please God and how are we going to do that? Well the Bible is very, very, very clear that there is one quality without which it is impossible to please God and we're going to talk about it but first we're going to pray and give God glory. Father we love you, we honor you,

your name is the only one worthy of all praise and today God we worship you for every person that's been saved, for every marriage healed, for every prodigal that came back to Jesus, for every bondage and change that's been broken, for every relationship that's been healed, for every single person who's been made new in Christ who's found their place to serve as your church in your church to reach the world with your love. We give you the glory for it and God we believe that you want to do more as we're a church that honors you with faith. We pray this in Jesus name and all God's people said amen and amen. To be a church that pleases God it's impossible to please God without this quality. Hebrews 11 6 tells us this and without what? Let's say it aloud as a church. I need everybody here, I need all of our campuses, it's no fun without you, everybody everywhere, without what? Without faith it's impossible to please God. To live a life without trusting God boldly in faith it's impossible to please God. If we're gonna be a church that pleases God we have to be a faith filled church, to be a faith-filled church, that means you need to live by faith, I need to live by faith. And to be clear, this doesn't just mean like mountain-moving faith. Like, God, if you want me to take this job, may a camel walk in my room right now. We're not talking about just that kind of faith. Sometimes it's like, God, help me love my boss today, faith, right? It's not just faith in the big moments, it's faith as a lifestyle. It's not just faith in the big decisions, but it's faith in the everyday decisions. Because it was the Apostle Paul that said this, he said, for we walk by what? We walk by faith and not by sight. It's faith that when we wake up in the morning,

we open up God's word, believing that God wants to speak to us on that day. It's faith to believe that he'll direct our steps. It's faith to believe that his spirit will prompt us to use our gifts to make a difference in the lives of others. It's faith to trust God, even when we don't understand. It's the faith to believe what God says, even when what he says is different than what we see. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So I wanna ask you as you move into a new year, a very serious question I'm asking myself. And the question is this, is your faith pleasing to God? Are you believing God for supernatural works? Are you taking daily steps of faith? How big is your prayer life? I could ask it this way. If God answered every prayer you prayed last week, what would be different in the world? Would your food be blessed? And you got to work safe? Or would people be saved? Is your faith pleasing to God? What's interesting is the gospel shows us two examples of how Jesus responds to faith. Two examples of how Jesus responds to faith. The first one is in Mark chapter six. And Jesus was in his hometown, he was teaching. And so people were kind of offended. They were kind of critical. They were saying, hey, isn't this like

the son of the carpenter? I mean, isn't that Joey's boy? I mean, we saw him grow up. Isn't that just that guy that's not that important? And they didn't honor Jesus and they didn't believe what he said was true. And in Mark 6, the Bible says that Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith. Two times Jesus was amazed by faith. The first time he was amazed by a lack of faith. The second story is in Luke chapter seven. And there was this man whose servant was dying. And the man had a conversation with Jesus. He said, Jesus, like I'm summarizing and giving you my version, but like, you're so powerful and important that I don't want to waste your time. You don't even have to go to where he is. Jesus, if you just say the word, my servant will be healed. And the Bible says this. When Jesus heard this, Luke 7, 9, he was again amazed at this man. And turning to the crowd following him, he said, I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel. When it comes to faith, Jesus had two responses. One, Jesus was amazed by a lack of faith. And then Jesus was amazed by great faith. And so when I ask you, which one is you? Which one is your faith pleasing to God? I want to tell you with great emotion

and great gratitude to God a little bit of my faith journey with Amy 30 years ago, starting Life.Church. The first Sunday was this snowy, cold Sunday morning. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I feel just like I do today. If I tell you when I'm getting up here, literally, I'm as nervous today as I was back then. I used to throw up in a bucket back then. Now I've grown in the things of the Lord. I just throw up in my mouth, I swallow it, and we're good to go. I've come so far. Thank God for sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit. I'm in such a better place today. At the same time, I don't know if you've ever been there, I was full of faith, and I was so scared. I was full of faith, and I was insecure. I was only 28 years old. I couldn't even grow a real mustache. I didn't really want to, but the fact that I couldn't really bothered me so much at the time. And for context, we had no building, no money at all, except for what Amy and I put in there, and it was a lot to us, but not much, really. We had no staff, we had no plan B, and we met in a garage that someone let us meet in with borrowed chairs, and we had an overhead projector.

Now, for those of you that were not born 30 years ago, you don't know what an overhead projector is, and you can just take a moment to praise God right now that you don't know what it is. But if you don't know, I'll tell you, an overhead projector was a little machine that you would take a transparent piece of paper, transparent sheet, and you'd write the words to the worship song, and you'd put it on this thing, and would transport it onto, not a wall, not a screen, but onto the garage door, because that's what we had. And what's pretty cool is our transparency flipper, that's a spiritual gift if you didn't know that, his name was Jerome, and Jerome was a drug dealer that got a finger shot off in a drug deal that went bad. But by the grace of God, Jerome was made new. And so Jerome was what we called the four-fingered flipper, and he would flip the transparencies back and forth, and people would be trying to worship, but they'd recognize something looked odd, and you could see them going, praise God, one, two, three, four. And what's amazing is, to the glory of God, 30 years later, Jerome still worships with us, happens to be on the front row, may raise even the correct hand if you want to, Jerome. Raise the correct hand, and can you zoom in on it? Can we zoom up? Look at that, look at that. One, two, three, four.

And 29 years ago, I had the honor of officiating the service between you and Shanna, who, you had only dated a girl for a total of three weeks, and now you're married, 29 years in, one of the most God-honoring evangelists that I've ever known. And in the middle of that, I was insecure and afraid, but all of us, we had faith. And the reason I had faith is because about 10 years earlier, I was a hurting and lost college student, dead in my sins, and I called out on Jesus and said, if you're real, and if you're there, and if you can save me, save me. And the work he did in my heart was something no man could do, but only by the grace of God. He set me free from addiction, he gave me purpose, he set me apart, he gave me peace, and the strangest thing, I was a business major, but immediately I felt called to be a pastor. No reason whatsoever, none whatsoever. I didn't know a pastor I looked up to at the time, I didn't know a pastor I liked, I just, I felt called to be a pastor, and I was too dumb to change my major to religion, and that I ended up paying for later. But I'm starting this new church, and in the middle of both faith and fear, we had about 40 people on that first Sunday, and we had the faith that all things were possible with God.

I'm telling you, I can just remember back then, with nothing in the natural, we had faith that God would provide. With nothing in the natural, we had the faith that God is powerful. We had the faith to believe that his word is living, and active, and powerful, and sharper than any double-edged sword, and that when his word is preached, lives are saved. We had faith to believe that Jesus died, and that God raised him from the dead, and the faith to believe that anyone who, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord would be saved, and redeemed, and filled with the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead. Looking back, I'm telling you, God had to be pleased with our faith, because we were close to him, we were dependent on him, we were desperate for him, we were walking with him. We had what I would call a high view of God, a reverent view of God. If you were with us last week, we talked about a high view or a low view of God. A high view of God is, you see God as holy and reverent, high and lifted up. You wanna honor him. A low view of God, unfortunately, is common today, when people see God as casual, and they're almost comfortable around God.

Why does your view of God matter so much? Because the strength of your faith is a reflection. of your view of God. When you have a high view of God, you'll have big and strong and growing faith. But a low view of God leads to these three types of faith. A low view of God leads to conditional faith, a low view of God leads to stagnant faith, and a low view of God leads to what I call safe faith. Is your faith pleasing to God? Or do you have conditional faith? Conditional faith is so common today. This is the kind of faith that says, God, I'll trust you as long as you do what I think you should. And if God doesn't do what we want him to do, we don't just feel disappointed, sometimes we feel betrayed. I want to tell you right now, that's not real faith. That's control. And we do it all the time. You're a kid and you're praying for your mom and dad's marriage, believing that it's gonna be saved and it's not, and your faith falls apart. Or you pray for a loved one to be healed and they're not. Or you pray some specific prayer that you get that job or get to date that girl or go to that school and you say, but God, I did everything right. And when it doesn't happen,

your faith suddenly feels fragile. Why? Because you had your faith in the outcome, not your faith in God. You see, God pleasing faith isn't trusting God to do what we want. God pleasing faith is trusting God even when he doesn't. It's a low view of God, conditional faith. It also leads to what I call stagnant faith. And this is common as well. I mean, this has been me. This is maybe some of you right now. Stagnant faith isn't dead, it's just stuck. It's not that you've lost your belief, it's just that your faith has stopped growing. And what happens is you can still show up, you still check the boxes, you still serve, you still come and even lift your hands at the right point because you know you're supposed to do that. But deep down, you know that your passion for God has faded. For me, it was a lack of spiritual urgency. It's a void of spiritual hunger. And the most dangerous thing about stagnant faith is that what doesn't grow eventually dies. It's a low view of God. God is not that big a deal. I can take God and leave. I mean, you know, he's my homeboy. You know, God's a big guy upstairs. And it leads to a conditional faith,

or a stagnant faith, or a safe faith. And what does a safe faith do? Well, a safe faith avoids risks. A safe faith refuses to step out. A safe faith hedges. I found myself praying what I call hedging prayers. God, I hope you do, but I'm not sure you will. And so if you don't, you know, I'm giving God a way out. Safe faith always has a plan B. And a safe faith, and I've been here for too many seasons, it's dangerous because a safe faith whispers, you're doing fine, you're doing fine. But a church that pleases God, our goal is not to do fine. Our goal is to live by faith, to live by faith. And here's the problem. If you're living with a safe faith right now, you have to understand, you cannot play it safe and please God because it's impossible to please God without faith. When you go back to the early years, man, I'm telling you, I get so emotional because it is impossible to describe the faith risks that we took. You go all the way back to the very first weekend, and I mean, we had nothing. We had no phone line back when there's a landline. If you don't know what that is, you don't know what an overhead projector is either. You know, nothing. I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing.

And we had the very first offering, and I looked out there, I knew most people, but there was a guy that looked out, and I didn't know him, and he looked like he had had not just a hard week, but a hard life. And I'm sitting there like really praying, God, help us have a good offering, please. First offering, God, please. And I felt prompted in that moment. to do something I wasn't planning on doing. And I thought, I don't wanna do, I don't wanna, and I said, okay, if you're here and you have a need for like food or some place to stay and you don't have, as the offering bucket comes by, you can take back out. And I said that on the first weekend when we had nothing. And 30 years later, God has honored that moment of faith and provided through and through and through beyond anything that we ever imagined. It was a faith moment, faith for me, my heart. We moved from the little garage to a middle school. We're so excited to have a place that you could fit more than 40 people. And the custodian there, his name was Paul, and we led Paul to Christ and he was so excited to be a part of the church. And at the end of May, Paul came up to me and he said on a Sunday morning, right before the service, oh, I have bad news for you, Craig. The school board said you can't meet here anymore.

This is your last week. He told me 20 minutes before service, you can't meet here anymore. And I started crying, sobbing uncontrollably. There was no place. We've been searching, searching, searching. There was no place to be. And so I stood up at the end of the service and said to everybody there, we don't have any place to meet. We may be in homes next week, I don't know. And at that moment, I'm telling you, the Spirit of God came on me. And in the middle of saying, we don't know where we're gonna meet, I stepped forward and almost prophetically said, no, actually, God's gonna open up a door and we'll call you. We didn't text, we didn't email because we didn't have that stuff. We'll call you and tell you the place that God opens up next week. And the whole church cheered. And I went home and Amy said, did you just prophesy that? And I said, I don't know. It might be a false prophet. Faith. And Tuesday of that week, someone called me and said, hey, there's this bike factory that they might wanna sell. And I went Tuesday afternoon and looked at the bike factory and thought, we could do church here. And I'm telling you right now, listen to me,

on a handshake, no contract, no money, I shook hands with a man who said he would sell it to us. Amy and I took out a home equity loan to put down to buy the thing. We met there on a handshake the next Sunday and had three great years of ministry in the bike factory to the glory of God. Many of you were there. And then the faith, the faith, the faith, the faith one day to maybe build a real and a permanent church. And we had the faith to build the Life.Church Oklahoma City Campus. The great thing about that sign is my name is misspelled horribly, not even close, but it is a hard name to spell. And we built that building, 600 people. And oddly it was full once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times. And then suddenly we were turning people away and Pastor Sam Roberts, I think it was Pastor Sam, said, what if we did church in another location? This was 1999, that was not a thing. To my knowledge, it had never been done. And we had the faith to do it at one location and then to be at an AMC movie theater where it was amazing, you could get saved by Jesus. And if you could hide for an hour, you could stick around and see a movie for free, all at the same place. And then the year 2000, how many of you remember Y2K?

If you weren't born then, it's a great time not to be born. The members of this church called Metro Church and essentially through some conversations decided to merge with us. And the building that I'm preaching in was actually another church that joined us. We had the faith to merge churches, something that had never been done before. And the very next weekend, when I was supposed to preach there, Amy gave birth. Why? Because every time I looked at her, she got pregnant. And she gave birth to Sam between Saturday night and Sunday morning. And so we thought, we'd always wondered what would happen if we showed a video message and everybody said it would never work. And so we had the faith to try and we had to, because if I had preached, I might not be married, but we had the faith to try and we ran the video teaching and more people got saved in that service than even before. And then we thought to ourselves, what if we tried that in locations? And we had about 100 people driving in from Tulsa, Oklahoma and they said, could we start a church there? And so Pastor Kevin and Pastor Bobby would take a VCR tape and after Saturday night, drive over to a holiday inn in a ballroom called the Mohawk Room and plug it into a TV with a hundred people and started what eventually became.

in the Tulsa campus, and then from there, someone had the courage and the faith to start in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and then South Oklahoma City, and then the faith to start in Fort Worth, Texas. If you're clapping now, you're gonna be clapping for a while. And then Hendersonville, Tennessee, and then Life.Church Online came up, and then Wellington, Florida, Albany, New York, North Oklahoma City, South Tulsa, Oklahoma, Owasso, Oklahoma, Yukon, Oklahoma, Midway City, Oklahoma, I'm from Oklahoma, by the way, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Jinx, Oklahoma, Keller, Texas, Moore, Oklahoma, Broadway in Britain, Wichita, Kansas, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Shawnee, Oklahoma, South Broken Arrow, Mustang, Fort Smith, Overland Park, Norman, Catoosa, Omaha, Rogers, Springfield, no wonder I'm tired, West Wichita, Northland, Mansfield, Texas, Colorado Springs, Lenexa, East Kansas City, Des Moines, McKinney, Texas, South Denver, Derby, Kansas, Amarillo, Texas, Austin, Texas, North Denver, West Palm Beach, Florida, and guess what? More to come this year to the glory of God, because we're just getting started, just getting started, just getting started. In the early years, in the early years, in the early years,

Jesus would have been amazed by my faith. Until he wasn't. Until he wasn't. Because I'm gonna tell you right now, it's been a fantastic, unbelievable, God-glorifying 30 years, and it's been hard. And midway through, the grind just started up, kind of beat me down, and I got tired of like, living by faith. And tired of hurting. And I just didn't want to risk. And so I started leading with a very, very safe faith. I started to hedge and play it safe. The problem is a faith that costs nothing accomplishes nothing. And the good news is, God never let it be easy. The first seven years, I'm gonna tell you right now, first seven years were harder than I could ever describe. And it's hard to even say this out loud, but I think the last seven years may have been more difficult. And the good news is, because it was difficult, it made me desperate for God again. Desperate. Desperate for God. Desperate for God. Desperate, desperate, like, I need you, God. I need you, God. Like the big faith kind of prayers, like, God, if you don't come through,

I'm not gonna make it, type of prayers. And I cried out to God again with a desperate type of faith. Much like the very first Sunday, with 40 people there. And they're at the end of the service. The room was cold, and I was nervous, and I felt prompted to share the gospel. And I didn't want to. I didn't want to, not because I didn't believe, but because I was afraid no one would respond. And so by faith, I closed my eyes, and I talked about sin, and I talked about a Savior. I said, if you wanna trust Him, if you wanna be new, if you wanna be forgiven, lift your hands. On that day, there were seven people, seven people, on the very first day, seven people, seven people, seven people, seven people who crossed from death to life. And I cried all the way home. On day number one, I thought, if this whole thing was just for one, it would be worth it. And that's why I wanna tell you that my faith is big again. My faith is big again. My faith for the one. I'm telling you right now, I have never cared about the one more than I do at this moment right now. My faith for the one is big again. And sometimes people say, but the church has gotten so big, and it's too big, and I'm gonna tell you right now, just so you'll hear it from me, as long as there is one person in this world

that does not know Christ, this church is not too big. It's never too big to the glory of God. We're just getting started. We're just getting started. And so what kind of church are we gonna be? We're gonna be a church that pleases God. To be a church that pleases God, it's gotta be filled with people pleasing God. So I'm gonna ask you right now, is your faith pleasing to God? Because a faith that pleases God is never conditional. It's never stagnant. It's never safe. If you find yourself like I have, where you seep into having a lower view of God, and it's limited your faith, I want you to see God as He is. See Him as He is. Who is your God? He's your Saviour, who saves you from your sins. He's your Redeemer, who made you new when you thought you were too far gone. He's your comforter, with you every moment that your heart is heavy. He's your rock when everything else is shaking. Our God is our fortress, a safe hiding place. He's your strength when you don't have any left. Our God is your healer. Jehovah-Rapha, your body, healing your body,

healing your heart, healing your mind, healing you from your past. He's your defender, fighting you in battles that you don't even see. He is your peace that passes all understanding when you feel anxious and afraid. He is your hope when the future seems uncertain. He is your ever-present help in time of trouble, right now, in this moment. That's who He is. When you see Him like that, high and lifted up, a reverent and a holy God, your faith grows knowing that all things are possible with God. And so I declare, now to Him, now to Him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to His power, that is at work within us, within you, within us, within you, now to Him be the glory, where in the church, in Christ Jesus, through all generations, forever and ever, may He get the glory. And the people of God said, amen, and amen, because a church that pleases God will be a faith-filled church. So if your faith has shrunk or if you've lost your faith, repent, believe again, trust again, step out in faith. Believe that He hears the cries of your heart. Believe that when you draw near to Him, He draws near to you.

Believe Him to heal. Believe Him to save those that you love. Believe Him to break you free from the addictions that hold you back. Believe that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells within you, calling you to do good works which glorify Him. Believe Him enough to take the step of faith and obey what He calls you to do. Believe that He can use you, use me, use us, His church, to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. I'm gonna tell you right now, this church was built by faith and the future of this church, God's church, will be built by people who still have faith that God can do more, will do more, and will be glorified when He does. It's His church and He gets the glory. So Father, thank you for 30 years. And God, we believe by your power. We're just getting started today as you're praying in church, nobody looking around. Those of you who are believers, you are a follower of Jesus. You've been baptized, you're in the church as a church, and you wanna honor God with your faith. You may look at your life right now and be where I've been. You've been living with conditional faith or your faith is stagnant or you're playing it safe in your faith. You cannot please God without faith.

You say, God, help build my faith. I wanna honor you with faith. I don't care how faith you're strong is. I hope you pray this prayer, God, build my faith. I wanna honor you with faith. If you're praying that today, would you lift up your hands all over the place right now? Lift it up, all of our churches, lift your hands up high online. Type in the comments section, I wanna honor God with faith. And Holy Spirit, we pray. We know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, and your Word has been spoken today, so build our faith. God, build our faith to do what you call us to do, individually and corporately, as your church, the body of Christ. We don't go to church, we are the church. We exist for the world. God, empower your church to do your will, your work on earth as it is in heaven. God, build my faith to believe for more. Build our faith to know that all things are possible with you. God, help us to be a faith-filled church that pleases you. As you keep praying today, there are those of you that are here just like seven people on the first Sunday who didn't know where they stood with God.

And if I ask you right now, like, are you certain, do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're right with God, that you're in fellowship with Him, that if you died, you know for sure you'd go to heaven? And if you don't, let me tell you the same thing I've been saying for 30 years, every service, every single week, that we've all sinned. I have, you have. We've all sinned, and that's why you feel guilty. And our sin separates us from a holy God, but our God still loves you more than you can imagine. In fact, His scripture says that for God so loved the world, He so loved you, that He sent. His one and only Son, Jesus. Jesus didn't come to condemn, but he came to save. He didn't come for those who are already righteous, he came for the lost. And Jesus gave his life and God raised him from the dead so that you could be saved. And we are not saved by our own works, the Bible says. We can't be good enough, how are we saved? The only way we're saved is by grace, the grace of God, the forgiveness of God through faith. It's impossible to please God without faith. If you don't know where you stand with God, today we're gonna step away from our sin, we're gonna call out on the name of Jesus by faith. And the Bible says, when you do, God hears your prayers,

he forgives your sins. The scripture says, anyone, and this includes you, doesn't matter what you've done, who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Today at all of our churches, all over the world online, those who say, I don't know where I stand, but I'm ready. I need his forgiveness, I want his peace, I need his grace. I step away from my sin, Jesus, I give you my life. As you surrender to him, he'll forgive you all your sins, he'll make you new, that's your prayer today. By faith, Jesus, I surrender my life, this isn't a, I'm not playing, all in, I give my life to you, take my life, Jesus, I give it to you, that's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now, all over the place. Praise God for you there, right up there, up there, up, up, up, praise God for you. Others of you, right back over there, lift your hand up high, say, Jesus, I surrender. Right back over there, oh, praise God. Others today say, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you. Right back over here, oh, come on, church, give the glory to God today. Online, just type it in the comments section, I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. And 30 years, we pray the same way, pray with me. Heavenly Father, forgive all of my sins. Jesus, save me, make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and serve you and honor you.

My life is not my own, I give it all to you. In Jesus' name I pray. And all God's people said. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hey, it's Pastor Craig and Amy Groeschel with Life.Church. And if you just made the decision to give your life to Christ, this is the most important and life-changing decision that you'll ever make. And all of heaven is celebrating right now because of your decision and we're celebrating with you too. That's right. And we want you to know that God sees you, he's with you and he loves you. He has a purpose for your life. And incarceration, it doesn't define you, it doesn't confine you, because you are free in Christ. You are new in him, chains have been broken today. And so as a follower of Jesus, God wants us to be on this journey together. And I want you to know you don't have to do this alone. And that's why we, as your church family, we're here for you and we want to help you grow in your faith and find your next steps. So first of all, just keep joining us for church every single week and worshiping through the Pando app.

We're so thankful that you're here. When we draw close to God, he draws near to us. And so I would also encourage you, read God's word if it's available to you. And as you do, just start to pray and invite God into every single aspect of your life. And then if you feel led, you might even share your decision with somebody else. There might be a family member or a friend, and they're gonna want to hear your story and your spiritual journey. We'd love to hear it as well. And you can send us a letter if you'd like to. The address is on your screen, and our team will write back to you and help you grow in your faith with Jesus. And so we'd love to mail you some content about who Jesus is and help you grow in your relationship with him now that you've chosen to follow Jesus. That's right. And God's plan for your life, it's greater than anything that you could ever imagine. In fact, Ephesians 3.20 says, God is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. Trust him with your whole life. You will see him work in ways you have never thought possible. Congratulations on this decision. We are your family, and you're part of the family of God.