Digging Ditches for a Covenant Heart

Pastor Zach Whitehead

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But uh like I said, so Sundays we'll talk about everything in in in in practical uh coming from scripture and then Tuesday, like how do we how do we make that happen? Um I think a lot of times again we teach, but then we don't put it in application or make it clear um how how how we get the application of it. And so uh Sunday we've been talking about through the lens of the lamb, and then uh Tuesday, I I'll I'll probably read that set of verses every week. What does that look like digging the ditches out? And so Sunday we talked about covenant, um we talked about the kind of heart that Jesus is building, and so tonight I want to shift our attention a little bit because God doesn't just build hearts, but he also teaches us how to steward them. So we talked about building the heart Sunday, but let's take it a step deeper and let's talk about stewarding it tonight. So the Lamb builds the house, but work all work hold to prepare those channels. Um Kings 3, the passage of Scripture have been talking about. Again, you'll probably be able to quote this sooner or later. And he said, Thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of ditches. Uh, for thus saith the Lord, uh, you won't see the wind, neither shall you see the rain. Yet the valley be shall be filled with water, that you may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beasts, and this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. And he will deliver the Moabites in your hand, and ye shall smite every fence city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all the wells of water, and err uh mar every good piece of land with stone, and it came to pass in the morning when the meat offering was offered, that behold there came a water by the way of Edom, and the country was then filled with water. So notice something, God never told them to make water, right? That's his job. He spoke in the waters and the waters were made, the waters came out of the earth. God told them just to prepare for the water. So there's a big difference. God doesn't ask us to do the supernatural part because there's no super about us, we're just natural, right? God's not going to ask us to produce the water. He's gonna produce it, he just tells us to prepare for it. The miracle belongs to him, but the prepare the preparation for it belongs to us, belongs to the people, his people. So here's the big idea. God pours out his spirit, and then we determine how prepared we are to receive it. We don't determine how he pours it out. We just determine our posture in receiving it, right? Not just for ourselves, not just for our family, for our children, but for our church as an organization as a whole. So I'm I'm pretty sure many of you grew up hearing, especially if you swam, uh, if you weren't chicken and you swam in the lakes and you swam in rivers and you uh swam in streams and stuff like that, that your parents or your grandparents, your your auntie, your uncle, your parent told you don't drink the water. When you jump in the water, make sure your mouth closes, stay closed, and if you get water in your mouth, spit it out, right? Because they weren't trying to ruin your fun. Um I don't know for some reason Maverick enjoys pool water. I don't know why. Um he likes he likes the uh Uncle Donovan and Valerie actually have like a salt water pool. And so I don't know, I hate it. He'll like gargle it and spit it. I'm like, dude, that's gross. It's pool water. Like you kids are swimming in here all the time. Like it's it's gross. But you know, there's something different with lake water, it's it's not ever trying to ruin the front. We just parents and grandparents and whoever's with you understood something that yes, water gives life, it's good for us, until it becomes contaminated. And you don't always see the bacteria, you don't always see the little swimmies in the lake water. You put it under a microscope and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm even swimming in it. You don't see the chemicals washing downstream, you don't know where uh the the sewer drains or the runoff from people's yard and all that stuff. You don't know what animal just went in the bathroom up the creek, but contamination changes what water produces. So something created to sustain life, the water itself can turn into something that takes away from life. And so this is what we want to think about. The same can happen spiritually. Jesus called the Holy Ghost living water, not just water, but living water. So God's spirit is what? It's pure. And the problem isn't the source. The source is like where his spirit's coming from and where that flow is coming from, that living water coming from, the source is never there, is never contaminated, right? He's God, he's perfect. The problem is eventually what that water flows through. And so if we become the channels that the spirit flows through, when he pours out his spirit, when he sends the rain, the only contamination, it doesn't come from him, it comes from us. And so here's here's taking in practical application what we talked about Sunday and bringing into okay, here's the real of how this works. Again, we we we reframe the conversation of holiness. It's not just about outward appearance, and especially talking about what Jesus told the Pharisees. You can clean the outside of the cup, but if you didn't clean the inside, everything that comes out of it is impure. And so, again, holiness is often misunderstood in that. People hear holiness and immediately think there's list rules, standard restrictions, what we talked about, but biblical holiness begins much deeper. Holiness is again about protecting what God has placed inside of you. You can, you can, he can pour out his spirit, he can pour out that living water, but if we don't clean the inside of the cup, or more importantly, allow him to clean the inside of the cup, we can have the outside all decorated, all nice, all clean, all spotless, but again, somebody goes to drink from it, and it tastes worse than contaminated well water. Holiness is about protecting what God has placed inside of us. So imagine as they did in 2 Kings, as they were uh asked to do, building those irrigation ditches, building those ditches for the water to flow into. The water that came was good, and so water coming from a reservoir can be crystal clear, but imagine halfway down that channel, someone dumps trash into it, oil leaks into it, a dead animal washes into it, the source is still pure. Where it's flowing from is good. Um I was watching something and they were talking about like where can you can identify where's kind of that point in coming from a water source that you can no longer just go to the like the water, you know, go down and drink from it. And really it's the closer to the source that you get, because the that they that's exactly what they were telling they they were talking about is you don't know at what uh you don't know at what point an animal has died in there or they've gone to the bathroom there or any of that. And the more contaminants that you get further away from the source, the more impure the source gets. And that can be from a mountain spring, that can be from a glacier, that can be from any of those things. And naturally you can go and you can take a cup, you can use your hands, you can do whatever, you can drink as much as you want from there, and you will not get sick. But the further you get away from the source, the more risk you take every time that you go to that water source. Everything downstream will suffer if something upstream isn't taken care of. And again, we talked about that a little bit Sunday is that we don't want to we want to affect what's upstream first because if again we turn this in the the manner of the way that God works on the heart first, then everything that flows out of it, the heart, then marriages, uh then children, um, our homes, then the church and leadership, all that stuff will flow if we get the order right and come from the source. Again, the source doesn't get contaminated, it's the channel that it flows in. So this is why the scripture says, be holy, not because God says, be distant from me or anything. He actually is saying quite the opposite. Being in covenant, being in relationship is about closeness. It's God wants us to let his uh his life to flow through us without contamination. So everything flowing eventually reaches someone else. Out of our marriage, it's gonna reach somebody else. Out of our child, our our parenting, our children, it's gonna reach somebody else. Through our through leading, through creating disciples, like we're called to do, some what flows through us is gonna reach somebody else. If we're leading a team or just volunteering at the church, it's gonna flow to somebody else. Leadership is always downstream from somebody. So if my heart becomes bitter, people eventually, somewhere down the line, are gonna catch some bitterness in the water. May not be a little bit at, it may be a little bit at first, but exposure over time will eventually um cause trouble. So if I become cynical, the same thing. Even if I'm the slightest bit cynical and I keep that over time and I don't do anything about that, and I let that get in my spirit, it'll either grow, but also even if it doesn't grow, and it's I would say, well, I'm just still the bare minimum, bare minimum uh cynical, over time you can drink from a contaminated source, it'll just take longer to poison you. But poison is poison still at the end of the day. Whatever's flowing out of my spirit is gonna reach somebody down the line. And so if I've even got if I've got bitterness somewhere in my heart, if I've got cynicism somewhere in my heart, um, if I lose compassion, if I lose a desire, if I lose uh just my my hunger for God, as that stuff works and shifts and moves, it's gonna affect somebody else. And a very practical level, not even not even like leadership level first, just just just in what we're called to do for God. So remember, water carries whatever is in that channel. And so this is what we gotta think about. That covenant actually just actually keeps the ditches open. Because water naturally finds a way into prepare channels. Water is one of those things, just like electricity, it wants to find the path of least resistance. But that's the thing about all this. Relationships don't. Relationships don't want to find the path of least resistance. They they take work. Healthy covenant, healthy relationships require continual maintenance. And so nobody digs one ditch and actually expects it to clean, uh, stay clean forever. You guys have you guys have all we've all done it before. We've had to clean out leaves, we've had to clean out mud that has just built up over time, branches that have fallen into it, uh, junk that has drifted in from the road or other people's yards. Everybody knows that maintenance to those things never stop. Um you've got it for the city, for the parish, um, even just like personal as land as landowners and homeowners, those things have to be taken care of. And so the same is true spiritually when it comes to that. The same is uh, excuse me, I actually double tapped. The same is true spiritually, that over time, if we think about it, offense will accumulate, pride will settle in, fatigue will build, unforgiveness collects, distractions pile up, but none of those things, they just don't happen overnight. It's not a one-time occurrence. It's small buildup over time. It's like the Bible tells us that small foxes spoil the vine. It's not that we wake up one day with a big issue and decide, I'm gonna go have an affair. I'm gonna I'm gonna go pick up, I'm gonna go pick up, not just drinking, but I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go pick up and I'm gonna go, you know, smash a fifth every day. You don't start there. You don't start, um, you don't start on a painful addiction. You don't just start and just decide and wake up and do those things. It's small buildup over time. It's small buildup over time in our hearts and in our spirits. And that's the thing that that that we're getting that holiness does, is it brings that into light that I need to continually work on this. And not just me, I need to be in constant conversation with God. God, would you examine my heart? Would you know me? Would you search my heart? If there's roots of bitterness, as much as it's it's it's just it's it can be distracting, it can be painful, it can be any of those, God plucked it out of me. Uh and that's what, and that's where conviction, that's where those things come in. And we have, we know what they mean in a denotative sense and in that dictionary sense, but the connotation or the emotion that comes behind it, we don't like that word conviction. We don't like the word, we don't, we don't like those words that are associated with that, with God correcting us and and and that, but again, it's that illustration of a parent. I don't necessarily like correcting my kids, and nor do my kids like it, but you understand that you know, once you once you're a kid, you're like, man, my parent always was ragging on me for things, but once you get to be a parent, you're like, whoa, it makes a lot more sense now that we're watching out for me. And that's the same with God. Even as adults, it's weird to think about he's still our heavenly father. There's things that, whether we're 30, 40, 50, 60 years old, that we still don't understand and we still don't know. And God is still not looking down on us because we're we're humans and we're so far beneath him. He's looking down and saying, I see before you. I see, I have, I have a bigger field of view than you do, and I'm trying to help you. I've got great plans for your life. You don't see what's all the other stuff going on. You don't always see what's in you, what's in your heart, because sometimes you just got some blinders on, and that's what that's what God is doing. And so the holiness being close to him, those things that pile up in our heart, that unforgiveness, the distractions, fatigue, pride, any of that stuff, anything that is contrary to his spirit, we'll begin to feel like, man, there's there's something there on what is, and if we pray, he'll expose it to us, which is a good thing. But we gotta take, we gotta remember that eventually that stuff will build up so much that it'll slow the flow of his spirit in our lives. If we have some unforgiveness here and some pride that built up here, offense, you know, here and there along in that flow, eventually it'll slow down. And it might not be as fast as it was or strong as it was, and it'll turn into a trickle. And it's not because God stopped pouring his spirit out. It's not because his spirit isn't capable. It's not that the living water isn't living anymore. It's because we haven't taken the time to clean the ditch. We haven't taken the time. If we're the vessel that he's flowing through, we haven't taken the time to clean it out. So you guys ever seen a culvert after a storm? The water's still trying to move, but sometimes all it takes is just one big branch, one log, one piece of debris to just kind of get stuck in there just right. And then it'll start catching everything else, and before you know it, it's clogged, and then that ditch is overflowing, and all that, and and and that water can't go where it's supposed to. Even if the middle of the culvert itself is clean, all it takes is one thing in the right spot to start accumulating and and and it cause backflow and cause problems that it shouldn't be there. The rain isn't the issue, it's always the blockage. And sometimes we're praying God send revival, but God's looking at us and responding and saying, Hey sin, I'm waiting you to clear out yesterday's offense. I'm waiting you to you to look closer at what I'm telling, like I'm speaking to you, and you need to you need to deal with the bitterness, you need to, you need to deal with unforgiveness, you need to deal with that stuff. Why? Because that doesn't have any place in a holy heart. That doesn't have any place, and not saying God's demanding we be perfect, because he knows we can't. Like that's that's the beauty of this this this covenant relationship with like we can be in a relationship with a perfect God, and he has no demand of perfection on us because we can't we can't do the perfection, right? But also he's at the same standard, he's saying, I understand you can't do perfection, but I want to see you work at it. I want to see you try, I want to see you continually work in this. And so holiness to stewardship. It's not earning God's love. We talked about that Sunday, but it's stewarding his presence. It's stewarding that flow of his spirit through our lives. Um, you think about the temple, everything dedicated to God was treated differently. Not because God was fragile by any means of the sense, but what belongs to him should remain set apart for his purpose. So our hearts are now his temple. The Holy Ghost lives there. And so holiness becomes less about what can I get away with? How close can I get to the line? You know, what what what what what where is that that line of sin? But no, it gets to the mindset, okay, what best protects the presence entrusted to me? What's what's good, what's good for my spirit? What's what's okay for me, what it and we have to start thinking like practically, is what I'm watching on Netflix or Hulu or whatever, you know, whatever streaming service you say, is that messing with the flow? Is that putting something in my spirit that shouldn't be there? What I'm reading, um, who I'm talking to, the places that I'm going, it's it's not about I can't go to this place or I can't watch this thing, I I can't be a part of that, I'm not gonna read those books, I'm not gonna do, you know, X, Y, Z. It's more about I say no to those things out of personal conviction because I know that messes with the flow of God in my life. And there'll be some points in our lives that some people can do certain things and it'd be and it and it's okay for them, and some people uh can do other things and it's not okay for that person. Is there uh uh is is that, you know, is that a double standard? No. No. Do I do I struggle? So you think about it in terms of this. You don't go and ask, you don't go and ask an ex-alcoholic to go to a bar to go witness, right? But have there been times that, you know, especially in like campus ministry, that I've got a phone call that somebody's really messed up and had to go pick them up? Yeah. Did I struggle with the the idea of going and picking them up and I was gonna worry about that? I was gonna go and get and you know, have and go get hammered?

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No.

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But there's gonna be places that I can't go because I know in my heart what what I struggle with every day. I know what I struggle with on a daily basis because I have to I have to keep. Am I making sense? Am I making sense? It's so that's where we have to, we have to, we that's where personal conviction comes in. And the beauty of that is that can only come from a place that it's a conversation between you and God. If we as a church and a body and believers, we mandate and we rule out everything we can do, everything we can't watch. I I believe there's there's a pretty base set of things that are kind of like the common sense, I would say. But if we step into that next level of relationship with God and it's continual, God already knows what you deal with and wrestle with. He's know he's known you your whole life. He knows your battles, he knows your struggles. Some people struggle with lust more, some people struggle with addiction more, some people struggle with with gambling more, some people struggle with um other financial issues. Like God knows what that weakness is, God knows where we fall short, and that's the beauty of it. His grace and his mercy will make up for it. Um, but he's gonna speak in our lives and he's gonna let you know some things. And he's gonna, and if you if if you feel convicted about it and you don't do it, that doesn't make you any less of the to me, it doesn't make you any less of a believer. It makes you more of a believer in my eyes. It makes you a stronger believer because you're willing to say, I'm willing to give up uh personal freedom that I could be closer to God, or you're also saying, I'm giving up personal freedom because I want to be able to reach somebody else. That's like the next step in holiness. It's not just saying, I'm gonna give up personal freedoms because I want to be close to God, but it's also saying, I now know there's some personal freedoms I'm gonna give up so I have influence in other people's lives, so I can speak to things. So uh I can, with that flow of the spirit is clean when it's coming from me and I'm trying to speak into somebody's life, give them a Bible study, help them through situations or issues, that that flow from my life is clean. Uh what was it? Maverick was saying something about watching a movie the other day, and I was like, no, man, I don't think you're ready for that. That's got some pretty big people stuff in it, and just, you know, he because he's he's four. You can't explain it to him yet, right? And so he says, Well, when I get older, man, and that punched me in the heart when he said that, because it's like I was like, I wanted to say yeah, when you get older, but it's it's it's gonna have to be one of those things. No, it's not just when you get older. It's you gotta you've gotta learn to decide, is that good for me? Is that good for my heart? Does that make me want to, you know, a little make it a little harder not to say bad words or think bad thoughts or or or or do those kind of things? And it man, I just felt such a check in my spirit by God. It's like I don't I don't want that to become if if I if I that becomes the common language of my parenting, then what's the my what's does that become the common language in my disciples in making disciples? It's like how close again getting back to the thought, how close can I get to the line? And yeah, there's we're gonna look different as a people. We're gonna look different, and that's okay to be set apart. Um, because it keeps again, it keeps us closer to God. It's not being set apart for the sake of standing on the outside looking better or more superior to anyone, as like the Pharisees or the Sadducees would have done, but it's admitting, hey, I know my weakness, and I, you know what? If I can't go there and I can't do that, you can think what you want of me, but I value the flow in my life. I value what God is trusting me with, not just for my life, my marriage, my parenting, but also what he's trying to do through me to reach other people. And so this is where our vision has it comes alive is that every ministry is another ditch. We talked about, we talked about last week, we talked about what those main things, those main inflows were going to be marriage, children, uh, prodigals, uh, developing leaders, the whole idea of discipleship, not just church, but church culture and the community. So the question isn't simply, do we have those ministries? Do we have that inflow? What do we do with that inflow? Is really, if we if we think about it first, what's the kind of water that's flowing through them? If we have, if we have that those areas, what are we allowing to flow through them in the first place? What are what are what what what's the quality of that? Programs don't transform people. Programs have to change over time, they have to change with things going on. The presence of God changes. And again, I love structure. I love I love programs. Um, I love those things, but more than anything else, I've got to remember that it's not gonna be just because we do a 12 step program that God's gonna change people's. Lives. It's the pre is the presence is the presence of God present at that 12-step program. Is it present in the youth group? Is it present in Sunday school? Is it present with any other ministry that we have now or we're going to potentially start? Again, we want to prepare things in excellence, but we have to make sure at the end of the day that if the presence of God is in it, it's just another community program. And that's not who we are. We're called to be the bride of Christ, not just another community program. Our responsibility in all of this first is to make sure those channels stay clean. And like we talked about Sunday, if God's going to build a healthy house, it starts with the individual heart. And if it starts with the individual heart, then it starts with that individual responsibility to say, I have to make sure that this vessel stays clean. And so here's a couple of questions to think about. Where are we expecting rain without any preparation? I think we talked a little bit about that last week, and you got we um we went through a couple of different questions and you guys sent in some answers. And so, in that, where have we confused activity with healthy flow? Maybe another way to say it is where have we confused being busy that we're just doing something and confusing doing something with a healthy flow? Because we can get busy all we want, and actually I would think the enemy would prefer that, but is our busy effective? Is our busy making progress? Is our busy moving the kingdom forward? Is our busy actually helping people find deliverance and salvation? And so even the harder questions, and these are ones that we have to go home and we have to talk to God about. And this is something, again, self-reflecting every day. What debris tends to collect in leaders? And then that point, what what debris tends to collect in my own heart? Am I quick to forgive? Or am I or is it harder for me to hold on? And again, some people have my oh man, it it kills me sometimes. My father-in-law is like one of the most forgiving, jovial people on the face of the earth. And there's times, man, where I like it was something that stuff that's happened to him happened to me, and I'm like, man, I've struggled so much to work through that. But then there's other things that I see over the course of time, it's like he wrestles with that and I don't. We're all different. And just because somebody in this room may wrestle with unforgiveness more doesn't mean that the person sitting next to you doesn't wrestle with bitterness more than you do. Again, God knows the way your mind works. God knows the way you're wired because he put the initial wiring in and he's watched as people may have switched some of the wires around, or you've switched some of the wiring around in your brain, but it doesn't mean he's he's upset because you you you wrestle with unforgiveness. It's more, I think it's more upsetting when we settle for it. And so we have to think about what debris tends to collect in our hearts and stop the flow. And then what practical habits, and saying that, okay, now once we know, what do we do about it? What practical habits keep our heart clean? If you wrestle with unforgiveness, how are you practicing forgiveness? If you wrestle with bitterness, how are you, how are you, how are you, how are you going against that? If you wrestle, um, if you wrestle with anything, what are you doing to stop that? What are you doing to uh circumvent that? What are you doing to to fight it on a daily basis? And then um even practically in in in in your in where you serve in ministry and what you're doing, what what what what ditch needs attention before even this next Sunday? Is there something that happened on the team that needs to be that needs to be settled out and dealt with? Is there something that you saw that man that that that things didn't flow right and there there's there's lead to it? Again, these are the kind of things that put us in the seat of responsibility. Again, it's the building churches and and building God's house in a community is like an all hands-on debt kind of thing. Again, there's there's oversight to be given, but it's it's the same thing when you're when when you when you're invested in something and you have ownership in it, you're gonna actually look at it. What's breaking down in this system? What's breaking down with our people, what's breaking down with finances, what's breaking down with supply and demand, like where's all this stuff going? And if you have you have buy in it and you're invested in it, you're gonna look at that stuff, and this stuff's gonna keep you up at night. And that's okay, it's not a bad thing. God's gonna speak to you not just to how to help identify it, but if God's gonna identify it for you and he's gonna point something out, he's also gonna give you a way to correct it, and he's also gonna give you a better way to do it. But it's it's it's starting and saying, in that posture of humility, of saying, okay, God, I just want to be real and I just want to be honest, where does it start here personally? I don't want to look and I don't want to examine everybody else on the team first, I don't want to examine everybody else on the same, the same row as me as church or who I've been around forever. It's the personal responsibility of saying, God, this vessel first. Because if I can get this vessel clean first, and I can get this vessel in alignment with you first, and if I can get my heart and my mind focused and synced up with your heart and your mind, then it'll go downstream and it'll affect it. If I can't do that as Zach, my marriage won't be in line. And if I can't do that right, and my marriage won't be in line, my parenting won't be in line. And you see where I'm going with this? If we don't fix the upstream, everything that flows out of it in godly order. So it starts with the individual, it flows to the marriage, it flows to the parenting, and then ministry flows out of that. If I get any of that out of order, or I don't start with the base of is this heart right? Is this vessel right? On a personal level, everything that flows from it downstream will be contaminated. And it's a it's it seems like such a big thing, but again, God cares about the big things because he cares about the little things. He knows what little contamination of a bitter heart that somebody comes in contact with on a Sunday morning will do. We don't know when somebody walks in the back door what their story is. We don't know what they've gone through in life. We don't know if they lived in a home where they they they they have a lot of uh I don't hate calling it church hurt because it's not church hurt, it's people hurt, but um just people have put a bad taste in their mouth. They've experienced bitterness in other churches. And so to us, the smallest, slightest bit of bitterness in our life may not be a big deal, but because there's be they know it and they can spot it a mile away, the smallest might be the biggest turn off to them and turn them away from even if God may be calling them to this house. And that's scary to think about. But again, God doesn't point out that stuff in our life to ridicule us, to mock us, to like, ha ha, you're so human and you stink. He's like, no, no, no, no. It's out of love. So I don't believe God is just preparing us for bigger attendance. Again, you can, and that's this is scary to say, you can grow big churches by events, by great music, you can do all that stuff. I've seen it, I've actually, I've been a part of it before. And it's crazy because what happens is you take it away from being a house of God to just another community, uh, just another community thing. But what I believe God's actually doing is calling us to carry more of his presence. Again, all of this, the gospel wasn't, wasn't the whole the point of the story. The gospel is just a rescue plan, communion, priesthood, uh, being in relationship with him. That's what Adam and Eve they walked with him in the cool of the garden. That's what God wants. We're supposed to be presence carriers. We're supposed to be around him. And that's why this season matters. That's why we're we're talking about this. We're it's talking about the uncomfortable stuff, digging the ditches. That's why we're defining what holiness is early on. I want to define what holiness is. I want to define these things because we we we've got to put it in the right order in the right places. So we're gonna dig the ditches, but also we're gonna clean the channels as we go along, too. There's already some there's already some ditches that are established that aren't that that are needed ministries, but we've got to also go through and we've got to clean those things out. We've got to make sure there's nothing in there. We've and then we've also got to protect that covenant, and when we protect that covenant, we protect that flow. And so, because when the rain comes, I don't want anything in this church to contaminate what God is trying to pour out. Because that's the crazy part. God is using imperfect people to perform his perfect will. But what does that mean? It means that God trusts us enough that when we were in full submission to him, his perfect will can flow through perfectly in imperfect people. His perfect will can flow perfectly through imperfect people, and he uses what would be foolish to upend the wise. And so we what what you see is God will use very imperfect people that don't have all their life together and don't have everything together, but can are bold enough and brave enough to walk into his presence and say, God, I recognize my imperfections, I recognize what I battle with on a daily basis, I recognize where I fall short. God, would you search me? Would you know me? And and would you and in that God help me keep clean, help me to walk in purity, help me to walk in righteousness, help me to walk in holiness, not for my name's sake, but for yours. And that's the kind of churches that turn their community upside down. Not because they just want a better program or they just want better music or they want better events, but they strive for purity in the presence and holiness of God. And when you have that flow, people are drawn to it because that's living water. People search everywhere in this world for something that that'll heal their soul. And what sin? Sin is pleasurable for a season until it starts producing death. But when you come in contact with living water and you come back again and again, and you realize, hey, this this is not like that stuff. This is not like that thinking in the world, this is not like what I've been reading and what I've trying to try to do. This doesn't produce death. This is life. They'll come back and they'll they'll say, I don't know what I need to do. Show me the way, and then and then it's all over from there. And then it just happens again and again and again. So again, the miracle isn't that God sends us living water, the miracle is that he entrusts us to carry it. Perfect God and perfect people trusting us with this perfect flow. Holiness is how we honor that trust, and covenant is how we keep the channels open so his life reaches everyone downstream. And think about, I want you to think about this. Every leader is a water carrier. The Bible calls us vessels. Every leader is a water carrier. Pastor Cliff said it, um, he says it often, and he just we were talking this past week, um, and he said, uh, he says a leader sounds a lot like leader. So L E L E E A D E R is a leader, right? But it's a lot like a leader, L-I-T-E-R. And what's a leader in L-I-T-E-R? It's like a court, but it's just a little bit more. And that's what leaders are, just a little bit more than what the other than what everybody else in the church is carrying. And if we're called to be water carriers, if we're called to be carriers of his presence, it's okay to go back to the source and say, between you and where it reaches me in the flow, what do I need to correct? And what do I need to do? Because I don't want to strive just for outward everything looks good, and I look like the right dispenser of living water. But I want to make sure that, yeah, I look right on the outside, but more importantly, I want to make sure what's flowing from here is good and right because there's people who need this living water just as much as I need it. So again, we want to take what's we talk about Sunday, and we're just gonna keep working through it. Might be uncomfortable, it's fine. It's believe me, it's uncomfortable on this end talking about it. But we're gonna keep talking about Sunday. So I say Sunday, we're gonna talk about marriages. Um, I know I haven't been married forever. I just, again, I want to reframe each of these things that we talk about marriages, children, prodigals, uh, leadership, church culture, and community, and the way that the Lamb talks about it. And if we look at the word through the lens of Christ, um, what that does. So, God, thank you for tonight. Thank you for every person in this room. Thank you for thank you for their heart for the house, that they they showed up on midweek, um, coming in tired, driving in from after work. And God, believe me, I understand that and I respect it. And I pray that you would pour that back on them, not just in terms of blessing in your spirit, but God bless their time, bless bless their family, their marriages, and uh bless their finances as well. And so what you've called us to do is to be water carriers and help us, God, help us to make sure that the flow that is coming into our life and coming out of our life, God, help us to make sure that's alignment and and in purity with what you you're giving us. And if there's anything, search us and know us, God, as David prayed. Let us let's pray that same prayer every day. God, create in me a clean heart and renew in me a loyal and a steadfast spirit. And we mean that with purity of heart because this matters. Not just that we reach other people, but it's got to start with personal responsibility of this soul first, our souls first, and then let it flow out in a holy in a in a holy and a loving and a kind manner. In Jesus' name we pray. And everybody say amen. All right, it is 7 41, and that is all I got. So I love you guys. Um, and we'll see you Sunday.