6/14/2026 Sunday morning service

sermon from Romans

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 6:32

I just want to speak the name of Jesus over every heart and every mind. I know that you speak Jesus in your presence. I just want to speak the name of Jesus. Every dark addiction that starts to break. Declaring there is hope, and there is freedom. I speak Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 7:26

Your name is power. Your name is easily.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

Your name is law.

SPEAKER_06 7:43

Shall you shadow?

SPEAKER_03 7:54

I just want to speak the name of Jesus. Over fear and all anxiety. I speak Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 8:21

Your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is loud. Shine to the shadows. Burn like the fire. Your name is power. Your name is Healing. Your name is Break every strong hold. Shout to the shadows. We're like the fire. Jesus forgiveness trees. Jesus in the darkness over everywhere. Jesus for my family. I speak the holy name. Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Jesus in the sea.

SPEAKER_06 9:49

Jesus in the darkness over every enemy.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Jesus for my family. I speak the holy day. Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 10:07

Your name is power. Your name is beauty. Your name is well. With every soul. Shall you shell?

SPEAKER_03 10:33

I just want to speak the name of Jesus. Over every heart and every mouth. I speak Jesus. I speak Jesus. Your name is power.

SPEAKER_06 11:27

Your name is easy. Your name is love.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

I just wanna speak the name of Jesus. Overfearing all anxiety to every soul held captive pressure. I speak Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 15:30

You close I know. I'm known you as a fuck. I'm known you as a free. Oh the goodness. I will see of the goodness of God. Oh, I will see of the goodness of God. Oh, I will see of the goodness of God. Jesus is my He's been my folk man in a fire, time after time, one of his favorites, washed in his blood, and what he did for me on Calvary is more than enough. I trusting God You will never fail. I trusting God Single fail. Perfect submission. All is equal. I know the after of tomorrow is all the mistakes. So this is my story, and this is my song. I'm praising my prison king and saviour today. I trust in God my state of the one. I trust in God, my state of the one, who will never pay, yeah, yeah, we would never pay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw the look, and we hurt, and we can That's what I trust him, that's what I trust, and that's what the Lord and we hurt, and we can stir that soft and look, and we have that's what I trust him, that's what I trusting that we got.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Good morning. How is everybody this morning?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Amen. Blessed by the best. All right. So this morning, if you will, please remember we are streaming. If you'll get out your phone, go to Facebook and just restream. It's on my Facebook page, Carla Bragg. And you can just hit share and it'll go out to all of your friends and that many more that'll hear the word of God this morning. So today we're going to continue our journey through the most powerful and life-changing letter ever written, and that's the book of Romans. We're in Romans today again. This is not just a theology lesson or a word for Monday morning. This is a word for Wednesday night. This is a word for Friday. This is a word that helps you every moment you feel like you can't keep it all together. All right. Every moment you feel like you can't keep it all together. So Paul opens this entire letter before he says anything else with a declaration. He says in Romans 1, 16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek. So I want you to catch the word right there in the middle. He didn't say that it was just a nice story, all right? Not a nice story. He didn't say that the gospel is a get out of jail free card. All right, which is how a lot of people tend to look at it. He didn't even say the gospel is your ticket to heaven. What he said is the gospel is the power of God. The gospel is the power of God. So here's where I need you to understand something this morning. Too many churches across the country are not tapping into that full power of God. Not tapping in. And today I want to address that with us so that we can better learn how to do that, okay? We can better learn how to tap into it. Um there's a lot of people in the world that know that they're going to heaven one day. All right. A lot of people that know they're going to heaven one day, but they're struggling right now in this life, in their earthly life. They are struggling. Uh they've got fire insurance, but they don't have the fire. Right? They uh they know they've been rescued, but they don't know how to walk in the freedom that is given to us through the power of Jesus Christ. Paul says, I need you to know the gospel isn't just about where you end up, it's the power for right now. Yes, you may be saved and you may know you're going to heaven, but sometimes we live our life right now, not to its fullest, because we're not tapping in. Does that make sense? We need to learn to tap in to the power that is there for us. The power for a broken marriage, the power for addiction, the power for depression, the power for fear, for financial struggles, and the power over that sin that keeps tripping you up each and every week. There is power today in the name of Jesus Christ and in the word of the Lord to help you to break free from all of those things. That's why we're going through the book of Romans this summer. God has not called us to be confused. He's called us to be conquerors. Conquerors, and here we go. Last week we looked at the incredible story of Paul himself. And if you'll remember, we talked about how Paul used to be Saul and how Paul had the conversion experience. Paul, when he was Saul, he murdered Christians. That's how much he hated Christianity, is he murdered Christians. He was a prosecutor. He hunted down followers of Jesus. He had them imprisoned. And yet, God still got a hold of him. No matter how bad he was, God still got a hold of him. He reached down in his darkest, most broken moment when he had slipped about as far away as he could, and he transformed Saul from the inside out into Paul, one of the greatest, one of the greatest apostles and teachers of Jesus Christ of all times. The transformation, it matters this morning. Revelation 21 and 5 tells us He who have He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, Write this down. These are word the for these words are trustworthy and true. Notice he said he was going to make everything new. Everything, not just the easy parts of your life, right? He's going to make everything new. The broken parts, the parts that you might be ashamed of this morning, even the parts that you've holding into your heart that you've never told anyone about. God is waiting to make those new for you this morning. He is in the business of making things new. But here's the thing: if we're honest with ourselves, we're all still struggling. Even though that power is there, we're all still struggling. Maybe you've never been in as deep a sin as Paul was in, as most of us probably haven't went around killing Christians, right? But but he did. But here's the good news today: it doesn't matter what your sin is, it doesn't matter how far in you've gotten. God is in the transforming business, and he will transform your life this morning. Romans chapters 1 and 2, Paul's building a case. The case he's making is this sin has completely broken our spiritual components. Sin has broken our spiritual components. God loves you deeply and he loves you profoundly and he loves you completely. So regardless of if your sin components, if regardless of if you're broken, he still cares about you. We were making Bible school stuff yesterday, and one of the signs, Crystal made it yesterday, says, she made it twice. One of the signs yesterday says, God made me on purpose, or God made you on purpose. And that's the truth this morning. God made every single one of us with the knowledge of who we are, what we were going to be, choices we were going to make. He still made us because he loves each and every one of us. And we have a purpose in God's plan. We have a purpose. But theologians, what they call it depre total depravity. Total depravity. Now, before you think that everything's gone, God still thinks you're worthless, even though the word sounds like it's hopeless. All that total depravity simply means is this we cannot fix ourselves. All right? We don't have the tools, we don't have the power, we don't have the strength or the ability from within us, our human self, to fix ourselves. But the problem today is that we keep trying to. Broken fix number one is that we ignore the truth. We tend to ignore it. Romans 1, 18 and 19 tells us the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Church, evil expands. If you were to take a rotten apple and drop it into a bucket of good apples, would would all of a sudden that bad apple turn good, or do all the good apples turn bad? They turn bad, right? Evil is like that. Evil grows. Evil grows. You tell one lie, you have to tell two, you have to tell three, you have to tell four. You do one sin, you commit one, and before long you're committing two, you're committing three, you're committing four. Evil grows. Here's the truth. God's moral standard is the only viable moral standard that exists. That's it. That's the only one. It doesn't come from a vote, it doesn't come from majority rules. And I'll tell you why. You might think, well, the majority, we can vote in good standards, but here's my thing: whose good standards? Whose good standards are you voting in? Here's a few examples. The Aztecs practiced mass human sacrifice to their pagan gods and called it good. It was evil. It was evil. How about the Roman Empire? It was built on slavery, and most of their society accepted that as normal. That was evil, right? How about the Nazis? They were clapped, they classify the Jewish people as subhuman, and the majority of their society agreed with them. But still, deep down, it was evil. It was evil. So that proves to us that the consensus of the crowd does not always know what is best. It doesn't know what is good, and it doesn't know what is moral. The only true moral standard is that of God. He knows. Morality doesn't occur naturally in people. You might think, oh, well, they're such a good person. And maybe they are, but it's been taught to them. It's been taught. How about a child? Let's let's look at a child. Nobody has to teach your child, your toddler, to be selfish. No one has to teach a toddler to be selfish. They get that all on their own. Nobody has to teach a three-year-old how to get in the floor and throw a tantrum to get what they want. They learn that. They're born with that. What we have to do is teach and disciple our kids into being moral members of society. But what moral are we teaching them? We should be teaching them God's morality from the Bible. God's morality from the Bible. And I'm gonna I'm gonna read some trends here to you. And I want to preface this point by making sure you know this is a trend. It doesn't mean it's a hundred percent all the time. These are trends, okay? Approximately 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions comes from single-parent households. That's a lot. 70%. Children from fatherless households are estimated to be anywhere from three to twenty times more likely to be incarcerated at some point here in their lifetime. Around 72% of adolescent murderers and 70% of long-term prison inmates come from fatherless homes. That's staggering. About 75% of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers come from single mother households with children from fatherless homes being 10 times more likely to use drugs and alcohol. Number one, that should tell you the importance of your kids growing up with a father in the home. Secondly, it confirms God's standard of what a family should be a mother and a father raising their children. Paul goes even further when he decides to address this. He says in Romans 1, 19 and 20, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Sometimes I hear people say, Yeah, but what about those countries where Jesus hasn't been taught to them yet, where God hasn't been revealed to them yet? How can they be held accountable? Well, the Bible tells us right here, God makes it plain that He exists just through His creation. You should be able to look at creation and know that it didn't happen by accident. It didn't just form. People are without excuse. God didn't hide himself, and he didn't make it difficult to find him. Psalm 19, 1 through 4. The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the skies display his craftsmanship, day after day they continue to speak. Night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word, and their voice is never heard, and yet their message has gone throughout the earth and their words to all the world. What does that tell you? You can see it in all creation. All of that shows who God is. I want to ask you something this morning. When's the last time a sunset made you worship? Right? I get so encouraged sometimes by the youth. And I know Jazzy, she uh she does this a lot. She will post pictures of the sunset that she sees, of the sky on her way home from school while she's on the bus. She posts these all the time because they are so pretty to her. But what she's really doing is worshiping God for the beautiful creation that He has given to us. It is inevitable that we all should be able to look at the sky and the beauty and the sunsets and the sunrises and see that's not an accident. That's God. God did it. What about the ocean? I do this a lot. Whenever I go to the ocean and I stand there, it's kind of scary to me a little bit because of the vastness and the power of that water and how little I am compared to being beside the water. It is so awesome. And when I do that, I I feel this overwhelming awe of the bigness of God. The bigness of God. And it is so awesome. That's when I feel Him really, really locked down in my soul. What about when you hold a newborn baby? Do you ever look at that baby and say, There's no way, there's no way that anything but God created this child. Just the the act of being that child, just the act of a a man and a woman being able to come together and that beautiful child exist. That in and of itself, only God could do that. Only God could do it. But the question is, are we listening? Are we listening to when we feel these things? Are we listening to these moments? Or do we still go around doubting God and his power from day to day? Why do we do that? Because we run away from God instead of to God. It is people's natural reaction to run away from God instead of to God. When the pressure gets too rough, what do people do? Misschurch. Right? When the pressure gets too strong, I need a break. I need to run. They're afraid that God might find them. They are. Why? What do they do? They chase pleasure, they chase money, they will numb themselves with addiction, entertainment, and busyness to the fact that God is trying to get their attention. If they say, I don't acknowledge the king, then in their minds, that means they don't have to acknowledge his morality or his rightness when it comes to their lives. Broken fix number two, we create our own truth. We create our own truth. I see it every day. Romans 1, 21 through 23. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave Him thanks or thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. So I know what you're thinking. Pastor Carla, I do not have a golden calf in my house. So people, people, people might say that, okay? They might say that. Or I don't have a shrine made to some animal sitting in my house, right? People say, Carla, I don't have that. What do you mean? I have given up God for idols. What does that mean? Exactly. Mark just held up his phone in the back of the room and said, That's an idol. And that is, that's what a modern-day idol looks like. All right. Your kids, your family can become idols. Anything that you put before God becomes an idol. And here's the thing. They've declined that the highest authority in their own lives is God, and they've replaced it with a reflection of themselves. People of today have made themselves their own God. They have elevated themselves to that standard. And they think that they make the rules, that they set the standard, that they decide what's right and wrong based upon what they feel that day. Based upon what they feel that day. And when people start doing that, that is setting themselves up as God. And I hear this all the time. Have you ever heard the phrase, if it's to be, it's up to me? That's a phrase that I hear a lot. I hear it a lot at work. A lot of my social workers at work might use that phrase. If it is to be, it's up to me, meaning nobody else is going to do it like you can do it. That is so false. Nobody else can do it like God can do it. If it is to be, it's up to God. If it is to be, it's up to God. Or you can be anything you want to be. Just set your standards high. That's not true, guys. I'm sorry. And I might make a few people mad. You can be what God has made you to be. You can be what God has made you to be. Let's look at Romans 1, 24 and 25. Therefore, God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator who is forever praised. They worshiped created things like the phone. They worshiped created things, your computer, TikTok. You sit and watch hours and hours and hours of reels and shorts. And then you say, But I'm too busy. I don't have time for God. I'm sorry. We make time for the things we desire. We make time for the things that are important to us. If God is as important to you as he should be, you will make time for God. That's just how it is. And I'm sorry, but it is. When people reject the truth that God has revealed all around them, they reject his standards of morality. They start building their own, a morality that conveniently lines up with their own ideas, a morality that relieves them from guilt. And I've heard that many times. People, when they start down the path of sin and they start sliding down that slippery slope of sin, all of a sudden they start trying to justify their sin. Well, God wouldn't want me to be unhappy. God wants you to follow the rules. And today's society as a whole is the worst for trying to justify everyone's beliefs and everyone's desire for what they think is right. Y'all, have you ever seen any more than the time we're in right now? People protesting because their feelings are hurt over the dumbest things, the stupidest things. That's because people want everything to be all about them, and they've taken God's standard out of it. They've taken God's standard out of it. Paul goes on in Romans 1, 26 and 28. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what they ought not to do. Guys, I want to be very clear about something this morning. Sex is a gift from God. Alright? He ordained it. There's nothing nasty about it. He said, be fruitful and multiply. It's a gift from God. But like every gift, it works best when it's used like it should be. With every gift, it works best when it's used like it should be. And that is by God's design between one biological male, one biological female, that's his design. That's his design. Let me paint you a picture. Imagine your iPhone. And we have different in my family, we have different um numbers of iPhones, like there's 14s, 15s, 16s. I don't think any of us have 17 yet, but there's different numbers. And Jared and Brian a couple weeks ago were out here in the parking lot trying to figure out how to get Jared's phone charged because Brian and I have a C charger, and Jared has a different kind of charger. So we were looking, I have adapters and stuff, and we were trying to do all that. Here's the thing: Jared and Brian were smart enough to know that they needed the right kind of charger. What would happen if someone didn't know and kept trying to slam that C charger up into the other little one that takes that little white charger to the NTL? I know a lot. What would happen if they kept trying to use the wrong charger to charge their phone? It'll break it and the phone's not going to charge. Why? Because it was not used like it was supposed to be. You did not use the correct charger to charge the phone. That's kind of where we are in the world today. We want to use our moral standard to charge our life. And it doesn't work that way. We have got to learn to plug in to the correct charger, which is Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, God our Father. We have to plug in to the right charger. I'm not here to put shame on you. But the world today, you know what they do? They celebrate sin. They call it pride, and they haven't prayed for it. And that's sad because it's not the way God intended for it to work. By ignoring the truth and creating your own morality, Paul shows us in Romans 1, 29 through 31 how far down this rabbit hole we can go. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They're gossips, slanderers, god haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, and no mercy. I just took it a step further. I jumped on the one sin that everybody kind of agrees with me on. That's homosexuality. But guys, it's not just them. It's not just them. Every kind of sin full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, or god hater, insolent, arrogant, boastful, they invent evil, disobey their parents, have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Every sin will send you to total depravity. Not just the ones that society thinks are big. But every sin has its consequence. And it's time that we as Christians learn that God's morality is the viable standard and we have to follow it. We do not have a choice. Our opinion doesn't matter. Just because I think, well, that's going a little far, God. My opinion don't count because it's God's viable moral standard that He expects us to live by. And for those of you that say love is love, well, love is love, but there's different kinds of love. And the love that I have for my fellow Christians is a love that wants me to correct them when I see them in wrong. Why? Because I want to enjoy heaven with them someday. Love, I love so much that I want you to know the truth. I love you too much to stand back and not tell you where you're going wrong. That's not judgment, that's a hand up from a brother or a sister. Guys, get your life together. When we make ourselves God of our own lives, it don't just affect one area. It corrupts everything. And then Paul lands this devastating closing statement on chapter one in Romans 1:32. He says, although they know God's righteous decree, that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of men who also practice them. They approve of others. So many times I've seen uh different people that claim to be Christians say, but I stand behind what they believe. Well, then I doubt your Christianity. Because the Bible tells me how a Christian's supposed to act. And if you're missing that mark, then you might need to have a conversation with God. You might need to have a conversation with God. This sounds so familiar. It's the culture that we're living in now. We want the crown without the cross, we want the comfort without the calling, and we want the savior, but we don't want the Lord. That's where we are now. We want to have the fire insurance to keep us from hell, but yet we don't want to get so involved that all of a sudden we're convicted for those things that are wrong that we're living in our life. Here at Lifeline Church, we believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. And most churches I've been in say the same thing. They believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. That's true. I don't care what denomination you put over the door, you serve Jesus, you practice Jesus, and that's where you should be. That's what should happen. But sometimes the people in these churches, our church, whatever church, they get stuck in thinking that God is some cosmic being out there that's not affecting their daily life. He does. You can pray to him and he'll answer your prayer. He is interactive with you now. He is interactive with you now. He wants you to live life, yes, in eternity with him in paradise, but he wants you to live a good and abundant life now. He says so. That you should have life and have it more abundantly. And the only way you're gonna do that is if you're living under God's rule. I know some of you have probably heard this before. As long as you're living in my house, you'll follow my rules. Have y'all ever heard that? As long as you're in my house, you're gonna do what my rules are. Right? Jazzy's up here, she's rolling her eyes. She's still a teenager, though. She that's how it is with God, too. You're gonna live in my house, but you're gonna follow my rules. You're gonna follow my rules as any good father should do. And why? He's not trying to punish you, he's trying to keep you from harm. Those sinful things can harm you, and he doesn't want that to happen. He is a good father. Obey his rules, and you'll get his blessings. Some people say, Well, I don't know why good things don't happen to me. Are you living like God told you to? Are you bending the rules? Are you trying to justify that sin that you don't want to get rid of? God loves us all the same. He loves us all the same. He blesses us all, he desires to bless us all. But he also says, if you're gonna live in my house, you're gonna obey my rules. You're gonna obey my rules. So if Romans ended right there at chapter one, it would be the most terrifying message ever preached. God's gonna turn you over to a depraved mind. But it doesn't stop there. It goes on into chapter two. It goes on into chapter two. Revelation. I'm gonna jump back to Revelation 21, 5. Jesus said, I'm making everything new. That means you. That means each and every person sitting in a chair in this church this morning. Jesus said, I'm making everything new. So if you are guilty of any of those, which I would dare say from me all the way through the back door, all of us have been guilty of twisting scripture and trying to make our sins look better than what they really are. At some point dear in our lives. If not right now, at some time dear in the past. Maybe at some time dear in the future, because sin's real. But Jesus said, I make everything new.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

And he wants to make you new this morning.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

He wants to make 1 John 1 9 says, But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. He'll do that for you. And Romans 10, 9 and 10 tells us how. If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. Confess, believe, and declare. That's the three things you have to do. Confess it to God first, believe it with all your heart, and then you need to make sure you share it with everyone around you. You're exhausted, you're tired from trying to be your own God. Make your own rules. You're worn out from building your own truth. Because deep down in the quiet moments, you know that your own truth is not working. And maybe you need to reattach to the power of God. Maybe the Holy Spirit's drawing you, telling you, use that correct charger. Plug back into my power. Maybe that's what he's saying this morning. So today I'm going to ask, if you would just stand with me for a moment. And I want to ask you three questions. Have you been running from God instead of to God? Have you been picking and choosing which parts of the Bible you want to follow and which parts you want to ignore? Choosing your own morality. And deep down, do you feel like you need to be renewed? Like you need to plug in to new power, the right power. I'm going to ask everyone to bow your heads and close your eyes. And if that's you, I don't want you to think too long. I want you to step out and just start walking up front. Anybody in this room you feel like you need to re-plug in, just step out and start coming to the front. Now for the rest of you that are at your seats, I'm going to ask you to do one of two things. Either come forward and help the ones that came to the altar and pray with them, or please just reach your hands out from where you are and pray for those that are up here. Heavenly Father, God, we come before you this morning and we thank you, Lord, that you are our viable truth, our morality, God. Please forgive us for when we fail you. Please forgive us for those times when we try to create our own morality and we run from you. God, I ask that you bring us all closer to you once again. That for each and every person in this room as they go throughout their week, God, that you help them to live according to your perfect moral standard, God. Help us to stop the gossip. Help us to stop living in uh anger. Help us, God, in any way that we might be putting things up in front of you, God. Help us not to do that. Take the idols out of our life, break them down, Lord. In the precious name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. All right, y'all can be seated for just a second. John, hold up. You can go back in just a second. We are starting something new this week. I have asked John to be our prayer leader, I guess is what you'd call it. Our prayer team leader. Let's do it that way. Our prayer team leader. I have asked John if he would do that. I don't know if y'all have noticed, but John is on fire. Have y'all ever heard John? Have you ever? Yeah. John is on fire. John has in his heart a desire to reach God and to help people reach God. And what I asked him to do is be an altar team leader, a prayer leader. We need the team. Now, what does that entail? When people come to the front, guys, we don't leave our brothers and sisters without people praying with them. I don't want anybody to ever feel alone. I need a team to help support John. I watched John this morning. That's awesome, John. Wonderful. I watched him this morning as we were having praise and worship practice. He was walking from chair to chair and prayed over every chair in here that God would anoint the person that was in it and help them. So y'all were prayed for before you ever got here this morning. And I think that is so wonderful that someone does that. But he needs help. He drives the bus. He can't do that every Sunday. We or his car, depending on if the bus is broken. So what we need is we need some people that love prayer. Maybe you're not the type of person that can get on stage. Maybe you're not a cook. Maybe you're not the person that can teach a class or anything, but maybe you are gifted in your prayer life. If you would like to be with John, which is one of the most important gifts in the church, is a prayer. Get with John. You guys are going to pray together. You're going to pray over chairs together. You're going to pray over people that come to the altar together. And I don't know what it'll about. Into. You may even start a menu where one caused the next cause the next when we get a prayer request and you pray over prayer requests in the church. But I need a team to stand with him and back him. So you be praying about it, and John Poff's already stepped up. I think that's awesome. Anyone else, Mark Williams in the back, said he'd be happy to be part of that team. So, and we also need ladies to join this team. Alani, Ruby, they're both raising their hand that they'd be a part of this team. And it doesn't have to stop there. He might get so many that eventually it's like this Sunday, you enjoy praise and worship while somebody else prays. And next Sunday you'll be the prayer and somebody else will be enjoying. So that's his team. He's going to lead it his way. If you raised your hand, uh John will be getting with you at some point. Okay. Don't forget this week, tonight at six o'clock is youth. Okay, thank you, Justin. This week, um, tonight is youth at six o'clock. All right. And we have new youth leaders. We have Ruby and Carson and Allison who aren't here this morning. They had something else. Um, we have youth at six. Tuesday night is our Tuesday outreach where we go out into the community. And this week, guys, we really want to pass out Bible school flyers because Bible school is not this week but the next. Okay? So we want to hit everywhere we can to pass out Bible school flyers. Wednesday night is our, we call it family night, but even if it's just you and you're single, it's still part of your night. We have men's group, ladies' group. Um I think I'm taking over the ladies' group for a while because Carson, who did the women's, is doing youth now. So ladies, men's, kids, and youth at six o'clock on Wednesday nights. Thursday night, and y'all don't laugh. Yes, John. That would be awesome. And we have some. We'll give them to you after church. Okay, that would be awesome. And anybody else that can take flyers, just get with us and we'll give them to you. Uh Lonnie can take some flyers, that's awesome. John, uh, and even if you want to, like I know Heather, you're real good to go into like um hometown or or places that will let us put it up on the bulletin. Yeah. So so let's get together. Um, and then Thursday night, we're gonna make shirts. Now y'all don't laugh. Everyone's laughing, even Alani. Alani has this cool machine that actually presses stuff onto shirts that she's never taken out of the box. So Alani's gonna bring her machine and we're gonna take it out of the box. And Susan's agreed to come, and me and Alani's gonna be here. And as soon as charity gets done picking up food, she'll be here. Anybody else that wants to be here at six to watch or to cheer us on or laugh, whatever, come at six. We're gonna try to make each of the kids a shirt for Bible school. Thursday night at 6. Well, 5 30. Thursday at 5 30. We're gonna try to make sure we have shirts for all these kids. I want to thank the ones that stepped up and volunteered to help our youth at camp this week. Thank you. Um God will bless you for that. This Saturday, is it this Saturday? Yeah, this Saturday coming is Operation Lifeline. We need volunteers to help give out food. Okay. And Alani and John can't be here. Um so we need help. Jazzy, Hoku, the Sanders, anybody that can be here to help us with Operation Lifeline, be here at 8 o'clock Saturday. Um, Keelan, good. All right. Um, I think that's it. Anyone got anything? Friday night, 5:30 is the free meal. 6:30 is the um group get together up here where you go over a lesson and some Beatitudes and stuff like that, and then followed by group chairs, don't miss it. And you're meeting in a castle right now, so we've got our Bible school castle up downstairs. Bible school this year is called Kingdom Quest, and it is like knights and swords and all that kind of stuff, armor, and we're talking about the armor of God. So if you want to see a cute castle, uh a little preview, run downstairs before you leave and check it out. Um, John, will you dismiss this this morning?