More than Nearby - James 5:6 - End

You can sit through sermons for years and still be invisible, and James has no patience for that kind of church. We close out the book of James by slowing down over James 5:13-20 and asking a pointed question: are we actually among God’s people, or just around them? From the jump, we talk about why the early church expected a shared life where suffering, joy, sickness, and praise were brought into the open and carried together in prayer.

We dig into what it means to pray as a church community when the room is a true mix of highs and lows. If you’re suffering, you may need to hear someone else’s worship to borrow strength. If you’re cheerful, your praise might be the exact reminder someone else needs to keep trusting God. Then we get practical about calling the elders, why mature spiritual leadership matters, and what anointing with oil actually symbolizes in the Bible: God’s presence coming close, not a mystical shortcut.

We also address the tension many Christians feel with healing prayer and unanswered prayers. The “prayer of faith” is not a lever to pull for the outcome you want; it’s a way of seeing the world through trust in God’s care, even when the road is dark. That leads straight into confession, heart posture, and the kind of church that loves each other enough to have hard conversations before someone drifts into a mess of sin and regret.

If you want a deeper prayer life, stronger Christian community, and a clearer picture of what church is for, press play and come ready to be challenged. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s been drifting, and leave a review telling us: what helps you move from attending to truly belonging?

Transcript

Welcome And Opening Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right, welcome to the summit. Happy Thursday, y'all. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Hey, y'all survived the smoke pocalypse. It was good to see the sun today. For a minute there, I thought it wasn't coming back. I was like, you know what? The end is now. We have arrived. Well, hey, tonight we're going to have a little bit of a different night. We're going to go right for the sermon. Then we'll have some time spending some conversations afterwards. But um yeah, man, I I'm going to ask something tonight, and this is going to sound a little wild, but hey, can I just go for it tonight? Like I don't have a cool gimmicky story to get started. I don't have some real funny thing that's catchy and it's going to make you want to listen to me more. Man, I just I just want to get to it. And so tonight I'm going to pray and then we'll let's just rip. Man, let's see what God wants. I believe God wants to do something tonight. And so would you just be willing to come along for the ride with me? Let's pray. Jesus, thank you. God, we love you so much. God, we're overwhelmed by the way that you've shown love to us in so many different ways. God, we're overwhelmed by the way that you would sacrifice so greatly for us. God, we thank you. God, you you choose to be with us. You choose to walk with us. God, we don't deserve any of this kind of love, but you come down so close to us. And God, we just want to say thank you. That God, before we dare ask you for anything, we just want to say we love you. We want to know you. We want to be like you. We want to understand you more. We want to give you the glory you rightfully deserve. And so, Jesus, we we just come humbly saying, We want more of you tonight. And so, Lord, would you would you help us to lay our walls down, to come before you and say, uh, Jesus, have access to all of us. And God, we pray that you'd make our brains a little smarter to understand you tonight, God, make our hearts a little bit softer so that we might not leave here the same way that we walked in. And so, God, we thank you. Sometimes it's just random Thursday nights like this that you do the wildest thing. So, God, will we not be so quick to call it coincidence? Will we not be so quick to call it happenstance? Will we believe that the God of the universe is in the room right now? And so, God, we're we're here. You've been here long before we have, but God, we're here now. Would you help us to see you more clearly tonight? Jesus, we love you. We thank you, and we want to know you more. In Jesus' powerful name we pray. Amen.

Why James Ends With Prayer

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Amen. Man, if you've been with us the last couple of months, we've been tracking through the book of James. And tonight we're gonna wrap up the letter. In case you've forgotten, James is this letter that's written by Jesus' half-little brother, who is now left in charge of taking care of the persecuted church. James, if you remember some of the weeks that we've gone through, he's talked about all sorts of things like our speech, what pursuing and following Jesus looks like. He's talked about finances. And now we come to the end of the letter, and James is going to spend some time talking about prayer. Now, if you got your Bible, we're gonna look at James chapter 5. But if you scoot all the way to the end, you realize, man, James is not that good at saying goodbye. He's not like Paul who gives you some great encouragement and some good name drops. We just get this great reminder about prayer, which is pretty significant because I think one of two things happened. Either James was killed before he could finish writing the letter, or James wanted the believers in the earliest church to really focus in on prayer and not just prayer, but hey, this is what it means to pray together as God's church. And so tonight we're gonna look through this passage just kind of piece by piece, little by little. So if you got a Bible, we're gonna go to James chapter 5, beginning in verse 13, going all the way to verse 20. The first thing that James teaches, but hey, this is what it means to pray together as God's people. It says this, and I think we got it up here. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Man, it's helpful to note to hear that James is talking, he when he's talking about prayer here, he's talking about what does it mean to pray together? It's a little bit different than the instructions when Jesus is talking about praying by yourself in your closet. But here's the thing that's crazy. No, when James is saying, Is anyone among you? He's writing to the church. Back in that time, the church didn't have a name, it didn't have a location that was the same spot week to week. It wasn't a place you attended. The church were a people that you were a part of.

Church As People Not A Place

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And here's the thing, right? In James' time, there is no printing press. So they didn't go to church, they didn't get their copy and then go back home to their private rooms and read the letter. They would have stuck around and heard somebody read it all together for them. Man, so when James begins asking, hey, is there anyone among you that's suffering? Is there anyone among you? He's beginning to help us see, uh, or he's making us ask ourselves the hard question. Man, do I participate in my church in a way that this is even possible? Man, does anyone in my church know me well enough to know if I'm sick or suffering or praising or celebrating or happy or sad? Am I uh being a part of God's church or do I just attend it? If not, I've got to ask the hard question, hey, do I actually participate in the life of the church? Am I taking advantage of the thing that Jesus actually invites me to and calls me to? And maybe using James's language, hey, am I among them or am I just around them? You see, I think a lot of us like to keep our church life and our private life separate. We come to church and we say, hey man, keep providing me the information so I can go back home to my closet and apply it in private. I don't want to be known, I just want to be encouraged and informed. And James here seems to indicate that, hey, the church is the place where you work out your spirituality in community. Man, if you continue to try and live your Christian life keeping the church at arm's length, you're gonna miss out on the grace that the church is designed to provide. And here's where I think, man, I think it actually gets a little bit more dangerous when we start living this way.

unknown 6:54

Right?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Sometimes we come to church and we want everyone else to do the work for us. We want the elders to chase us down. We want everybody to help us make sense of our spirituality for us, we want everyone else to do the pursuing. And here James says, Let him call for the elders. James seems to indicate, hey, we've got to be willing to make that call to invite someone into our spiritual life so that something can finally begin to make sense. We can't just wait for everybody else to do the hard work for us. We've got to be the ones who are willing to share what's going on inside. Man, to come into this space and expect somebody to read your mind and know where you're at spiritually is unrealistic. We want uh to expect someone to live understand the hurts that are happening for because here's what gets a little bit more scary, right? Some of us will go home from church all hurt and upset and say, Man, nobody's helping me. And the real question is, hey, are you bringing your authentic self to the table? Do you actually want to be helped? Do you want to have this wrestling match with people that might actually be able to help you in your spiritual walk? And for James, right, there's no world where you could just slip in and slip out of church every single week, just listening to sermons and worship and then leaving. Man, there was this expectation for the earliest followers of Jesus, they would show up and bring their entire selves to the table. Man, so so I say this to say, man, if you come to church and you attend, but nobody knows what's happening in your spiritual life, then you are missing the point. If you come to church and you're just around the Christians, but you're not among them, then you are missing the point. If you're here and we haven't got the opportunity to rejoice with you, if we haven't got the opportunity to cry with you when things are not going well, then I beg you, bring yourself to the table. Stop holding me at arm's length. Let the church do its job, which is to help you understand, focus, and fall in love with Jesus. And so now we're beginning to understand, hey, James is starting from this place, that if you're going to be a part of the church, it means coming to the table with all you've got. And so it's from that place that James can then move to this next idea that now that we understand, hey, this is what it means to come to church, now we can begin to talk about what does it mean to pray together as a church.

Suffering Joy And Worship Together

SPEAKER_00 9:20

You see, James writes, hey, if you're suffering, you should pray. If you're cheerful, then sing praise. If you're sick, call the elders, let them anoint you with oil. So remember, if James has a gathering in mind, the people of Christ being together, man, this is really significant because when you come to church any given Sunday, it's a mixed bag of how people are coming from. Man, any single week where there's two or more Christians gathered together, there's joy mixed with sorrow. For some of y'all here, this has been the greatest week of your life. For some of y'all here, this has probably been one of the most difficult weeks of your life. And so, why is it important that we pray together when we're around each other? Why? Because if I'm suffering, then I need to hear you praising in the background. That if I'm here and I'm having a difficult week and it's really difficult for me to believe in God or trust that God's going to do something special, I need to hear your voice singing loud that God is capable. I need to hear you in the worship, I need to hear you elevating that God really is worthy because when I can't see it, I'm trusting that you can. You can begin to see, hey, if if you're withholding part of yourself, if you're not sharing that part of who you are, then we can't do what we're supposed to do as a church. The church is dependent upon us coming together. And really, isn't that beautiful that God would design it in such a way that together God can use your sorrow, my joy, and my joy and your sorrow to help us all follow Jesus a little bit more closely. Man, when we pray together this way as a church, we paint a picture of a God who can take care of the highs and the lows. We see more clearly a Jesus who enters into our suffering and a Jesus who conquers our suffering. And man, there's no way for that to happen if it's just me and Jesus and my coffee on a morning making a great Instagram photo. There's gotta be this element of doing it with other people. Man, if you're here tonight, or if you show up to church this Sunday and things aren't going great for you, man, would you take a moment and listen to the sound of your brothers and sisters praising around you? Would you let them have the faith that you're lacking in the moment of darkness? Would you let them shine the light for you when you're in the middle of a place where you can't see it? Man, if you're like me, when I get tired, when I get depressed, when I get anxious, I am tempted to withdraw from community. But James seems to indicate here that the answer isn't to run away, it's to run toward. It's to dive into the people of God that want to help you know him more clearly. That calling on God alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ is actually an important part of the process. Not just to get relief from your suffering, but it's also powerful to help your soul know Jesus all the more. And so we're beginning to see this picture, man, that God desires us to bring our full selves in the church, and when we do, it helps us round out our picture of what God is really capable of.

Calling Elders When You Are Sick

SPEAKER_00 12:31

But the next thing that James gets into, he begins saying, Hey, when you're in sickness, it's worth calling the elders to come and pray for you. James 14 says, Let them call the elders of the church, let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. A couple of important notes. First, this doesn't mean every time you get seasonal allergies or a mild cold, you're like, I'm gonna call up the elders. Let them pray for me. Nah, pray, drink fluids, and go to bed. Some people be calling for prayer and say, Hey, you haven't you tried some water, a little bit of H2O, ain't gonna do your body wrong right now. Take a solid nap. But right when James is saying this is, hey, when someone is sick enough that they either can't join the gathering or someone is going through something that is a threat to their hope, it is worth taking the time to bring the elders in. So why? Why would you call these elders? If you look throughout the New Testament, you find that elders were designated people who were given responsibility for the church in a given region. When you read Paul talking to uh Titus in chapter 1, verse 5, he encourages, hey Titus, go and appoint elders in every town who can help continue the work of the church. This is important for you to know because if you're new to Christianity or you haven't taken the time to really understand why we do what we do, that ever since the beginning of the faith, the church has selected people whose faith has been tested, who have a track record of following Jesus, who show real evidence in their lives that they love Jesus and that they're giving everything that they've got to him. They're not somehow superior to you, but they've been entrusted with caring for God's people in a given region. Man, here at CBC, we have elders whose faith has been tested. When people are sick and in need, they're gonna be people who will be really helpful to you in that moment. And here's the thing it's not that my prayer is more powerful than yours. It's not that I don't have a direct hotline direct to the Lord. But because elders are people who should be living above reproach, they're pursuing godliness, man, this should be the type of person you want praying for you. And here's the thing, what why I think it's a good practice to call on an elder, man, there's a special type of humility that it takes to say, hey, I need you to pray for me. It's admitting, hey, I'm in a spot that I need somebody to go before God for me. It's a special type of humility that I think that's the kind of heart that God loves to see in his people. And when we do that practice of calling upon an elder, what we're saying is, God, I've got a humble heart and I acknowledge I need help. Can I invite someone to help me pray through this process? And here's the cool thing, right? When you do that, when you're doing it in the church, when you're calling on an elder, we get to pray publicly so that if God does the miracle, God gets the glory publicly. That when together, when we know the need, when it becomes clear, all of us together can praise God. Hey, this is what you've done. And so you begin to see uh James is helping us understand, man, it's important that we pray together. It shapes our soul in important ways.

Anointing With Oil And God’s Presence

SPEAKER_00 15:48

The last part, he invites them to anoint them with oil. Man, if you had a crunch, how many of y'all had crunchy moms? Anyone here got crunchy moms? Okay, just mine. Okay, now a couple of y'all, you know what I'm saying. You're probably thinking, like, yo, I know about this oil stuff. Y'all know about essential oils? Some of y'all had an essential oil mom out there. She still just sent you tonight with like three things of palm oil. You know, I don't even know what this does. But right, if if you read this and you don't know about oil, like, hey, I don't need someone giving me three ounces of pepper oil mixed with bird oil, and I'm gonna be that's not what this is. This isn't some magic spell or ritual that only elders can do. There's nothing magical or sacred about the oil. But throughout the scripture, when we anoint people with oil, it's a symbol of God's presence. And for some reason, God decided, hey, our little brains can't handle the reality of what it means for God to be close. So I'm gonna help you understand what it looks like when God comes close by putting this oil on somebody. And we found it used in Numbers 3:3 and 1 Samuel when David, when uh David gets anointed to be the next king. It's a fancy way of saying, hey, God, I want you to be with this person and help them do what they can't do without you. So when they're anointing you with oil, they're essentially saying, God, we want your presence to be with this person. We want your presence to help them navigate this specific sickness or illness. God, we're depending on you to be with this person. And so tonight, after service is done, if you're here and you are suffering or sick, I want to invite you to join in with 2,000 years of Christian history. Pastor John and I would want nothing more than before you leave, just to pray with you and ask God to heal you and walk with you. Man, this doesn't have to be something that you read about in the Bible. This is something that's real for you now. And so tonight, before you leave, Pastor John and I are going to hang out in the back. You're more than welcome to come, and we would love to pray for you and trust that God will work with you. So we move, right? We're beginning to understand this is what it means to practice praying

Prayer Of Faith And Trusting God

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together. And next, James seems to move this idea of hey, what does it mean to have a right heart when you pray? He says this in verse 15. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and earth bore its fruit. Now, I don't know about you. But there's been times where I've prayed for people and they haven't gotten better. When I read this passage, I'm tempted to say to myself, Man, did I not offer a prayer in faith, God? I look at dudes like Paul throughout the scripture. They walk around left and right healing people, but for some reason Paul had a thorn in his flesh, a physical, spiritual ailment that bothered him. And I wonder to myself, man, did did Paul not have enough faith for himself, but he had it for everybody else? Man, I don't think that's what the passage is trying to say. I think many Christians have taken this passage and created a formula in their head that if I just pray with enough faith, then whatever I ask for is gonna happen. And I don't think that's what James is describing here. That James seems to be describing the very lens by which the one praying begins to see the world. That the one who prays from faith ultimately rests in God's care. So even if that means that God is healing you by taking you from this physical life, I have enough faith that if that's his plan, it's ultimately for my good. Man, that's what real faith looks like. Faith isn't how hard can I hope for the right outcome. It's how much trust do I have in God. That even if things don't look good, even if things don't look great from where I can see it, I believe he's got a bigger and better plan in mind. And if his priority is my soul, if it's my eternal life, then I've got to trust that whatever temporary suffering he's bringing me through right now might actually be making my eternal life better. Man, ultimately the prayer of faith is the conviction to say God really is who he says he is. It's saying, hey, I really believe that God is who he says he is, and he can offer what he says he can offer. Here's the cool thing, man. I think when you begin praying that way, when you begin understanding this is what faith actually is, man, prayers from that place, they share the gospel of Jesus all the more clearly. Man, prayers like that force us to ask, what do we really believe about God? And do I believe that God is powerful enough to save me from eternal death, even if my temporary life is done right now? Do I believe that it's my sin that really needs treating, not just my physical suffering? James seems to indicate, man, the one who can pray those kinds of prayers, man, that person will be saved. That if you trust Jesus enough, you can look death in the eye and not blink because you know the very next moment you open your eyes, you're gonna be with him for eternity. Man, and all of a sudden it begins to come clear that yeah, Jesus will in fact raise me up. It might not be now, I might never get out of this hospital bed, or I might not receive this diagnosis that I want, but it could be that I get to heaven in this next moment. But if that's what is the most important thing about my life, then I trust he'll make it right. Man, this is the kind of faith that James had. This is the kind of faith that the rest of the apostles had. This is the Kind of faith that allowed them to endure prison and martyrdom and death and persecution for the sake of the gospel. Why? Because they had a faith that saw beyond the temporary discomforts of this life. Man, if you want to be the kind of person that prays faithful prayers, start from that place. If you want to be saved, if you want to be raised up, like James talks about, whether you even feel better on this side of eternity or not, start from that place. That's why James begins to make it clear hey, your heart matters when you

Confession And A Heart That Changes

SPEAKER_00 22:38

go into prayer. That's why he would say in verse 16 that we need to cut, he moves to confession because for James, our heart and our prayer are not two separate things. We always must consider, man, what is the heart of the person praying? It's been said that prayer changes you just as much as it changes your situation. And though I think that's true, I also think your heart changes the way that you pray. Man, I I think some of us pray because we want God to change our situation, but we don't want God enough to want Him to change our hearts. That we want God enough when we're suffering. We want God enough because we've caused a mess in our life and now we're reaping the consequences, and we need him to come and clean things up. We don't love God enough to give up that habit that's been causing our sin for so long. That we want God to just be an escape hatch and not the king of our lives and the lover of our soul. And so James is beginning to show us here that hey, your heart matters when you pray. That a heart that's focused on the gospel will always have its prayer answered when it when it uh understands that that prayer begins and ends with Jesus being King and Lord of our lives. And so, if that's the case, if our hearts matter, then it really makes sense as to why James would invite us to have really hard conversations as the church right at the end of his letter. He says this in verse 19. And if you've tracked with me so far, you can see how James gets here. That if he's concerned for the heart of the people within his church, then it seems to make sense. This isn't some concept out of left field, James isn't struggling with ADD at the end of his letter. This makes perfect sense with what he's shared so far. I mean, if the church is the place where you can bring your deepest concerns before God in hopes that Jesus can transform us, then man, we have to be about the business of caring for each other's souls.

Hard Conversations That Save Souls

SPEAKER_00 25:12

This is why I think this is really hard for us in America in 2026. We've made Christianity this thing about uh it's a private thing that's just figured out between me and Jesus. And we don't like other people confronting us about our faith walk. Man, I'll tell you where I see this most clear with younger folks. I'm young, I'm just not as young.

unknown 25:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

We'll get interested in some guy or girl, and little by little we begin making compromises. We start making decisions based upon our feelings and our emotions and less upon how we can prioritize Jesus in this season of our lives. But because we're so deep in the fields, because the love goggles have already been slipped on, we can't see it yet. And someone will reach out to you and say, Hey, I'm concerned that you're not thinking clearly here. Your actions seem to indicate that you're thinking less about Jesus and more about this relationship right now. And we get offended. Because it feels like somebody's trying to get between us and the thing that we want. And instead of hearing, hey, bro, I love you. I want to help you choose Jesus and help you do relationships his way, we hear, hey, you just want to be a party pooper and take away the thing that I'm wanting to go for right now. And James here seems to be indicating that it's better to have the hard conversation with your brother or sister now and turn them to the truth instead of letting them wander towards death. When you read that another way, James is saying, hey, it your willingness to have a hard conversation with the brother or sister in Christ might save them from a multitude of sins. And as someone who crossed boundaries in my younger years, as someone who developed sinful habits that reaped chaos in my life for years. And I wish one of my bros would have seen me wandering and said, hey, come back to the truth. I wish one of them would have just had one hard conversation with me. I wish one of them would have said, Hey, man, it's worth preventing you from going through a multitude of sins. Man, a few hard conversations would have helped me honor God's daughters better. A few hard conversations would have helped me save me from the heartache of finding out, man, I was putting my hope in relationships instead of my Savior. I wish the dudes who told me that they love me would have smacked me around a bit and said, Hey Andrew, do you really love Jesus this way or not? Because your actions are saying something else. The question we have to ask ourselves today is, hey, am I willing to be just a little bit awkward if I love my brother or sister enough to save them from certain death? And maybe a hard question we've got to ask ourselves too is, hey, am I the kind of follower of Jesus that makes it harder for my friends to have awkward conversations with me? Have I been practicing my pursuit of Jesus in such a way that I'm exiling other people from having any other say in my life? Or can I become the kind of person that says, hey, bros, I need you to see what I can't see. Sister, I need you to pay attention to the things that I'm unaware of myself, and I'm willing to submit myself to your feedback. I'm willing to submit myself to the things you can see because sometimes I can't be trusted. When we begin to see that this is the nature of the person that follows Jesus with all their heart, man, you can see something special can happen in those places. When we begin to see that kind of person doesn't shut people out from portions of their life because they don't want people to ask hard questions. They invite people in saying, Hey, help me see what I can't. Man, can I be real again? Man, I think some of us have maybe confused church hurt with someone who's looking out for your soul and saying something you don't want to hear. James seems to indicate that if you're going to be a part of the church, if you're going to be a part of God's body, that body prays together, that body focuses on faith together, that body is concerned with the condition of our hearts together. And hey, if we're going to be that kind of people, we've got to be willing to have the conversations that nobody else will. Because here's the thing: if you go to the world, they're going to co-sign whatever idea you have. Whatever plan, whatever crazy idea that you come up with that's going to make you feel good, they're going to say, yeah, keep on going. Doesn't matter the chaos reaps, keep doing what you want. They're not looking out for your eternal best interest. They're going to see things from a temporary, worldly perspective. And of course, they're going to say, do what you want to have the most joy you can have now. But the Christian way says, hey, what does this mean in light of eternity? If God designed you to live with Him forever and ever in the beauties and the joys of heaven, then the Christian is going to ask, hey, what does this mean for that part of who you are? So we're beginning to see, man, I hope you're seeing tonight this invitation to be a part of the church. It's the most beautiful, wondrous, glorious connection of people together. Those are the people who are living the right way. Those are the people who aren't living make-believe. The world is living make-believe. The Christians are living according to the truth. And so if that's the case, would you not live halfway in and halfway out? Would you do it God's way? Would you take a look at what He's given us to be clear in Scripture and say, Jesus, I want to be a part of your church.

Gospel Invitation And Final Prayer

SPEAKER_00 30:59

And if you're here tonight and this is news to you, and I want you to know there's a God who made you and loves you deeply. That each one of us have made poor choices in our lives, and we've distanced ourselves from that God, and that God has gone to great lengths to give away to help you come back to him. That God left the beauties and perfection of heaven to come to earth. And when he came to the earth 2,000 years ago, we couldn't even stand his holiness, and so we killed him. But on his death on the cross, he paid the price for all our wrong, all our wrongdoings in our sin. And instead of us suffering the guilt and the weight and the consequence of our sin, Jesus took those upon himself. And so now that those who believe them, believe in him and give him lordship over their lives, we can be free to live how we were made to be. And that beautiful God, when he's designing us, he gives us his church. If you're here and you're saying to yourself, boy, those summit people sure are happy. If you're here and you say, boy, those summit people seem to live differently than everyone else at my school and my job, it's because of one thing. That we've given up our way and we're going Jesus' way. Tonight, I believe that God wants to know you as well. So please, if you're here, do not leave this place without considering the question, hey, what if these guys are actually right? Hey, what if their way of following Jesus is the right way? What if Jesus really is who they say he is? And what if he really did design me to live the way they're talking about? Then please don't hesitate to begin that conversation tonight. I'm going to pray here in a moment. The invitation still stands. If you're here and you're suffering or sick, in just a few minutes, we're going to kick some music up. The conversations will begin. Pastor John and I are going to be hanging out in the back, and we'd just love to pray for you. But tonight, I hope you got a taste of what it means to be a participant in God's body, not just be around God's body. And as you dive into that, I'm trusting that God's going to help you grow in love and care for Him. So please don't be around us, be among us. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for your church. God, we don't deserve her. That you've created a space so that it wasn't just you and us, but you said, Hey, you need people who are just like you, who've gone through journeys like you, and you give us your church, God, a body in which we can be sharpened and made more like you, God, as we practice loving one another, that we give the world something special to look on and wonder what our purpose our purpose is. So, God, tonight, would you help us? God, forgive us for those times where we've taken your church for granted. God, forgive us for the times where we dumbed it down to just a sermon and some music. God, forgive us for thinking we could walk in and walk out and just take what we want and not be apart. So, Jesus, would you call us home? Would you help us to but be among your people and not around them? God, to not to try and do our spiritual life in isolation, but to do it as you've called us to. So, God, we we ask for your help. Lord, for the conversation that we're gonna have after, would you bless us? Would you help us to love you in deep and powerful ways? And God, we thank you. That you really are real, God. That if anything in this conversation tonight struck somebody's heart, that wasn't because I'm good. It's because you're aware of their heart and want to speak to them tonight. So, God, would you help us respond well? Jesus, we love you, we praise you, we thank you. We're honored to be known by you. And help us to glorify you in all that we do. In Jesus' powerful name. Amen. Amen. All right, saints. Well, there's a couple of snacks in the back. Have some time of fellowship there. We'll see you next week. God bless.