Church, it is awesome to be with you today. Listen, if I haven't met you, my name's Russ, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove. And um I uh Skip, thank you for sitting over here with me. Um you know, I I started to wonder what in the world uh one, two, four rows up here. Uh it means that this this is not only Father's Day, it must be Baptist Day, because all of y'all are sitting way back. I it's just strange. And here's the interesting thing about I've learned this in 30 years of ministry. Hey, you know what? Bring it on, dude. Hey, you guys, I don't care what people say. You that you get eternal credit for that. You know, I that's bet that's way better than what I was gonna say. Way better. This is what I've learned in 30 years of ministry. Mothers want everybody to come to church with them on Father's Day. Now, all of you that are fathers, you that are here, man, y'all, you guys are the cream of the crop. Because typically Father's Day, and this is just a you know, it's not the same every year, but fathers typically want to go do something other than sit in church. And and I and that's no, no, that's not a criticism or a blame. It's just uh we're wired differently. Um but it anyway, my point is I think that's one reason the the crowd is a little, always a little light on Father's Day, plus we're gonna baptize five people next service. So all a lot of them and their families, uh, which means that um we need to get our parking lot people ready because the crowd will be a little bit uh bigger this next um next hour. Uh you know, none of us like to wait. None of us like to wait. My kids got to learn how to drive when they were 12 and 13 years old. Because my wife grew up on a farm in Triton County, South Georgia. And you say, What where in the world is Tritlin County? Most people do not know where it is, it's just below Dublin, a little town called Soperton. It's really like Mayberry. I mean, it is really like Mayberry. Jill told me one time, she said, I really know everybody. I know everybody in town. I said, There's no way you can know everybody in town. And then I went and walked with her through the town, and everybody knew her. And my kids would would, around 12 or 13, they would, they would, their grandfather, Mr. Ronnie, I called him, they called him Papa, he would take his old pickup truck, and he would he would begin by letting them drive just around the property on the farm. And then a few months after they had kind of gotten comfortable, he would take them actually out off the property and let them drive around on the dirt roads of Trootland County, which is most of the roads in Trootland County. And then by the time they were 14 to 15, they were driving on the pavement. Now that's the that was against the law, and I am I am maybe breaking the trust of my family. But the sheriff was like their third son, so their third child. So if somebody got pulled, if one of them got pulled over, they would none of them would have gotten in trouble. But it but it created a hunger for our kids. They and and and you know this, if you've got kids, when they turn 14 or 15, they will say, I just can't wait. I can't wait until I can drive. I mean, I just can't wait till I can drive. I mean, you you know how it is. I mean, you you you know, they they imagine the independence and the freedom and the all the things that come and just the the the grown-upness and and all that. And so so finally the 16th birthday comes and we go to the DMV, and what do we do at the DMV? We wait more. We wait more, we wait longer, we wait longer. Have you been to the doctor lately or the emergency room? The emergency room should have a different name. Because you do, you are, I'm seen much faster at my doctor's office than I have been seen at an emergency room. Because none of us want to wait. It makes it even worse if we're in pain or we're hurting and we're waiting. The point is, waiting is hard. Waiting is difficult. Waiting, and we live in a culture where the modern conveniences that we all experience now have intensified this disdain for waiting. Waiting is not something that we tend to enjoy. I mean, we don't cook anymore unless you are one of those people that enjoy watching food channels and cooking and that's therapeutic. That's great. It's not to me. We don't cook as much. Drive-thru is typical, what we typically what we do. We don't read as much. You know why? Because you've got to sit and you've got to focus. We would rather listen to something, we would rather watch a movie, or we would rather ask chat GPT to feed us some information. Um we listen, I pay extra money. I pay extra money so I don't have to watch commercials. I mean, did any of y'all, most of us live in a culture, we pay a little extra to skip the ads and move to something that we want to see. The whole point is waiting is not something that we enjoy, but let me tell you this: waiting is a part of life. Waiting is something that is a part of life, and none of us want to wait. And let's get, can I get a little serious? We hate waiting. We hate waiting. We we know something's wrong, and we and we go and we have a test done, and there is a time of waiting from that point till you get a phone call to find out what the diagnosis is, what the prognosis is. We're waiting on test results. We don't like that. We don't like to wait for to hear back after an interview for a job. We don't like waiting for the prodigal child to get it together and to come back home, to come back to the Lord. We don't listen, we want healing, and we certainly don't want to wait on healing. We want to be healed instantly, and we expect God to respond immediately to every prayer and every request. We don't like waiting for God to open a door. And we've been there where God is doing something, he's doing something, and we know that the opportunity might be around the corner, but but we've got to wait. And the question is, what do we do while we wait? We're tempted to do anything to just get the waiting over. Sometimes we we we just give up. Or we take things into our own hands, and there's this tension. This tension in the human part of us, and and even the depraved part of us is to take matters in our own hands. But it's important, listen, it's so important how we respond to waiting. Because it really tells us something about ourselves and it develops something and forms in us something. If you want to want to, if you don't get anything else out of today, is this that God has not forgotten you in the waiting. God has not forgotten you in the waiting. You know what? God is preparing something for you. God has not forgotten you in the waiting. God is preparing something for you. He is preparing for you. And so we we're in 1 Samuel, we're in this series over the summer, we're studying the life of David, and so let me let me just kind of back up a little bit and walk through kind of where we what we've um looked at and maybe do a little recap. In 1 Samuel, we see Israel demanded a king. And so they wanted to be like all the other nations. So God gives them a king, and the first king that he gives them is Saul. But Saul's reign was marked by insecurity and disobedience and and worshiping false gods and ignoring God's uh word. And so God removes the blessing from Saul, and we saw the first week that God anointed a young shepherd. God can use the most unlikely people to position them in a place where God can use them. And so and so then we saw how David defeated Goliath, and we we looked at that story through a little bit of a different set of lenses. And you know, we love the David and Goliath stories, where the small college can can beat the big college, but but but really the story about David and Goliath points forward to how the greatest enemy we could ever face, which is separation from God eternally. David and Goliath's story points forward to how Jesus defeated death and sin in the grave. And we, even though we have to deal with this earthly aspect of death, we don't have to be scared of it because it has no power over us. Death is simply a stepping stone into eternity and into the presence of God for those of us who are in Christ. And so David was brought into the royal court to serve Saul, and Saul's jealousy grew, and Saul began to attack David, and David became a fugitive, running for his life. He ends up in the wilderness. He's hiding out in caves and living off what God provides. But David's not alone. This is kind of where we're going to pick up on the story. David is not alone. What happens is as people hear about David out in the wilderness, these people, mostly men, they start gathering together. And you know who it is? It's the outcast. It's the people on the edges and the margins of society. It's people who feel like they don't have a place, and they begin to gather around David because they see something different in him. And it's the kind of people that society is pushed away, distressed, indebted, discontent. Meanwhile, Saul is relentless. He will not let David go, he will not give up, and he chunks, he chases and hunts David down. And this is where we find ourselves in 1 Samuel chapter 24, and just start in verse 1 this morning. Here's what it says. It says, When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, David is in the wilderness near Engedi. So Saul took 3,000 of Israel's fit young men and went to look for David and his men in front of the rocks of the wild goats. And that's the area that we know as Engedi. And there's a couple of pictures behind me. I've shared this before. Um, especially in the southern part of Israel, it's really not that impressive. It is so dry and it is so barren. You feel like you're driving through Mars. I mean, it looks like it feels like another planet. There's nothing alive out in the southern part of Israel, in the Judea Desert, except this one little oasis that's been there for thousands of years. And you know what? It looks, in my opinion, I believe it looks probably exactly the same today as it did when David was hiding in that oasis. So Saul gets intel, he receives information that that David and these men and these people, this group that surrounded him, that they are hiding in Geti. And Engedi is this freshwater oasis. It is absolutely gorgeous and it's beautiful. It's a national park in Israel. Um it's just like any other national park you might visit here. You you see people come to visit, tourists come there, people swim, people enjoy, you see animals and wildlife gathered around this one oasis in the middle of a huge desert. Perfect place to hide. There's food to be eaten, there's water to survive on, and Saul gets word that David is there, and he takes 3,000 men. See, David only had, there's only about 600 men with David. And Saul takes 3,000. It feels like it's overkill, but but Saul is so committed to finding David, killing David, because David is a threat to him. And what happens here is a bit unbelievable because Saul is about to walk into one place that David is hiding. This is this is this is sovereignty, this is providential, this is miraculous. In a desert area that's just pockmarked with caves everywhere, that David would be hiding in the one cave that Saul decides he's gonna enter into. Verses 3 and 4. When Saul came to the sheep pens along the road, a cave was there, and he went into the cave to relieve himself. Now, in the Hebrew language, that term to relieve himself means exactly what it seems to mean. He went in to relieve himself. He went, it wasn't like they had porta potties. Yet he goes into the cave and relieves himself. And what is the one cave he picks? Who is in that cave? David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave, and they said to him, All these people with David. Now, it they're not gonna talk out loud. So this is what I imagine that's happening is all of all these men hiding with David, they see Saul come in out of the cave. Now, Saul can't just imagine, sun is bright, you walk into a dark cave, Saul can't see a thing. But all of these men with David, their eyesight has adjusted, so they see exactly who walks into the cave. And while they're not going to say anything out loud because they're hiding, they're trying to hide in secret because 3,000 men are after them. So here's what I imagine. And they're pointing at David. They're like, hey, God has delivered this man into your hands. They said to him, Look, this is the day the Lord told you about. I will hand your enemy over to you so you can do to him whatever you desire. Now, let me tell you what this moment is. It's too good to be true. It is a too good to be true moment. David's been on the run for months, maybe years at this point, years since he's been anointed as king. He even served in the court playing music for King Saul. And so when Saul realizes and the insecurities continue to build up and the fear of losing what he has control of, he runs David off and then he chases David. And now David, the one who's hiding from King Saul, King Saul is right in front of him, unprotected. It is a moment that so many of them had to believe this is a moment that God has provided. But in David's heart, it's too good to be true. See, here's the significance. David didn't just wait in the wilderness for a few weeks. He's waiting for 10 or 15 years. Now that sounds crazy to us who get upset because we are asked to pull up to the delivery sign when we go through our fast food restaurants. We get upset waiting for a few nuggets. When David's waited for years, and some of you understand that you've been in the position where you've had to wait. And so David's been waiting all this time. No throne, no crown, no quick transition. He's been anointed, but years go by. But by the time we get to 1 Samuel 24, David's been carrying God's promise for over a decade that he would be the king. This feels like the perfect moment. That God has ordained it. And if David kills Saul, he can step into the fulfillment of the promise. The throne can be his. But something in David says, not yet. Not yet. And what it reveals to us is a character aspect of David that actually displays the fact and the reality that he is the man that should be on the throne. Here's what I think David understood, and that we can understand is that providence is not always permission. Providence is not always permission. Just because an opportunity opens up, it doesn't mean that God is approving it. Open doors do not automatically mean God's will. Here's what we've got to learn now. Sometimes those in those moments, we've got to be tuned into the Spirit. We've got to be tuned in through through prayer, through fasting, through reading God's Word, fellowship with God's people, and walking day to day. And the temptation is for us to have a shortcut that looks like a God moment open door. But David knew this, and I say, I think I've shared this a few times. Listen, opportunity are tiny little hinges that open the door that God has for us in obedience. Listen, obedience are those little hinges that swing the doors of opportunity for us. And David knew that. He knew that. He could have taken the shortcut. Just take the shortcut. Just bow down. Just get the crown without the cross. But when we take shortcuts, we miss out what God has for us in the waiting. God has purpose in the waiting. God has not forgotten you. God is preparing you in the waiting. David is destined to sit on the throne, but he refuses to take matters into his own hands. Verse 4. So they said to him, Look, this is the day the Lord told you about. I will hand your enemy over to you so you can do to him whatever you desire. Then David got up and secretly cut off the corner of Saul's robe. That's how close David is in the cave. I try to picture what that would have been like. To walk up to somebody that's relieving themselves. I mean, I gotta hold one knife in this hand. I mean, it could not have been a pleasant experience. But he cuts off the corner of Saul's robes afterward, David's listen to this, David's conscience bothered him. He didn't kill Saul. He just cut the corner of his robe off because it says his conscience bothered him because he had cut off the corner of Saul's robe. He said to his men, as the Lord is my witness, I would never do such a thing to my Lord. The Lord's anointed. David still saw, he saw Saul through the lens of the reality that he was the authority over him. And you don't touch God's anointed. Even though this seems like a perfect opportunity. He said to his men, as the Lord's my witness, I will never do such a thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed. I will never lift my hand against him, since he is the Lord's anointed. With these words, David persuaded his men and did not let them rise up against Saul. You know what David does? He practices restraint, he practices self-control. It tells us something about David. It tells us something about his character. It tells us something about who he is. He listen, he has a tender heart to the things of God. And we live in a culture where that's not real manly. Here we are on Father's Day. And we're taught. We are. We should be manly. Men should take on the character of what it truly means to be a man. But it doesn't mean that you don't have a tender heart to the things of God. It doesn't mean you can't love it. Doesn't mean that you can't stoop down and serve and make sure that you keep your heart tender before the Lord. There's this symbolic picture here. Saul's robe being cut. It points to God tearing away Saul's authority. And so David is convicted. He hadn't even killed Saul. He just cut the edge of his robe. And so David has been faithful. He served, he's fought Saul's battles. Saul repaid him with contempt, trying to kill him, trying to hunt him down. Certainly God would understand David being tempted. But here's what I believe David understood that we should understand is that integrity matters more than opportunity. Integrity matters more than opportunity. Doing things the right way, doing the thing God's way, understanding through learning in Scripture, understanding through the indwelling Holy Spirit in our life and our heart. Understanding the character of God helps us to walk in that character. And see, character is who you are when nobody's looking. It's what you choose when you could take the shortcut. You can get away with something, but there's something inside of you that quickens you. Integrity and character are important. Integrity and character matter, and they matter to God. It's the temptation to fluff up, fluff up your resume, or maybe the temptation to fudge your taxes a little bit, or to cut some corner at work. And here's the question: will you take the opportunity if it costs you your integrity? And that's what I believe David is wrestling with here, and I believe it's what God might want us to wrestle with here. Our decisions matter. Who we are becoming matters. We call it spiritual formation. We are all being formed into something. We're all going through something. We are all disciples. Or you might be a disciple of something else, but really it comes down to one of two things. Am I going to let somebody outside of the character of God, who God is, the person of God, disciple me, form me, and shape me into who I am? Or am I going to surrender my heart? Am I going to follow Jesus? Am I going to turn my heart towards him? Keep my heart tender. And so David had been formed. You know what waiting does? Waiting forms us. Waiting is a spiritual formation tool that God uses in our life. And we don't like to wait. But sometimes in the middle of the waiting, we need to be reminded that we're making decisions while we wait, and those decisions matter. I've shared this quote before. And it's one of those quotes I've been wrestling with. It comes from Pastor Crawford Loritz. He's retired now. His son ministers pastors the church that he pastored up in, I believe, the Roswell area. But he he says this. He says, when you're born, you look like your parents. When you die, you look like your decisions. When you're born, you look like your parents. When you are old, you look like your decisions. We see it over and over. Where people choose to promote themselves rather than wait on God to open the door that He has chosen to open. See, we we struggle. One of the most common questions and common conversations to have with people, especially, especially as we've come through this season, right? We just come through a season where kids have graduated high school or actually they graduate, they graduate preschool, and then they graduate kindergarten, and then they graduate fifth grade, and then they graduate eighth grade, and then they graduate twelve. So we we celebrate all these all these graduations, but but when a young person is graduating high school, it's a big, big decision-making time in their life. And and a common question is what am I supposed to do? What is God's will? Am I supposed to go to college over here? Am I supposed to go to tech school over here? Or am I supposed to go to work over here? I've got to figure out what what is my next step. And that's understandable. Understandable. But here's what I think this passage, this text, what we're learning in this text, is sometimes it's not about what job you should take. It's not about what school you're supposed to go to. It's about discovering more about God and about the person He's forming you to be. And that's one of my major counseling points. If somebody asks me, am I supposed to do this, this, or this? And I'm gonna tell you, I don't know if you're supposed to do this, this, or this, but I can tell you this, you're supposed to abide in Christ. You're supposed to cling, cling to Christ. You're supposed to pursue God with everything you have. We are to abide in him, pursue him, know him. And in that, in that listen, I'm not near the end of my sermon. And whoever's controlling the lights, I know that wasn't your fault. Here's what I've learned. David refused to compromise his character character for a shortcut. He refused to violate his integrity just to get ahead. And he refused to take Saul's life, even though it seemed justified, just to secure comfort and power and authority on his timing. Integrity matters more than opportunity. He goes on to tell us in verse 7 that Saul left the cave and went on his way. After that, David got up, went out of the cave, called to Saul, my Lord the King. When Saul looked behind him, David knelt low with his face to the ground and paid homage. David said to Saul, Why do you listen to the words of people who say, Look, David, intends to harm you. You can see with your own eyes that the Lord has handed you over to me today in the cave. Someone advised me to kill you, but I took pity on you, and I said, I won't lift my hand against my Lord, since he is the Lord's anointed. Look, my father. This is him talking to Saul. Look, my father, look at the corner of your robe in my hand, for I cut it off, but I didn't kill you. Recognize that I have committed no crime or rebellion. I haven't sinned against you, even though you were hunting me down to take my life. May the Lord judge between me and you, and may the Lord take vengeance on you for me, but my hand will never be against you. As the old proverb says, wickedness comes from wicked people. My hand will never be against you. Who has the king of Israel come after? What are you chasing after? A dead dog? A single flea? I mean, this is David in his humility. He's saying, Who am I? Who am I that you're chasing after me? What threat am I? And he says, May the Lord be judge and decide between you and me. May he take notice and plead my case and deliver me from you. So what we see is David is putting on display the spiritual formation that has taken place in his life in a season of waiting. God has not forgotten you, God is preparing you. David does not take matters into his own hands. See, waiting is never wasted. It's never wasted. Now, I'm going to share out of Psalm 57, and this is a psalm that we know that David would have written while he was in this season of hiding and being chased by Saul. This is David's perspective that we see in Psalm 57. He says, Be gracious to me, God, be gracious to me, for I take refuge in you. I will seek refuge in the shadow of your wings until danger passes. I call to the God most high, to God, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He reaches down from heaven and he saves me, challenging the one who tramples me. Is it pretty obvious what where he was when this was being written? God sends his faithful love and truth. I'm surrounded by lions. I lie down among devouring lions, people whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. God be exalted among above the heavens. Be exalted above the heavens. Let your glory be over the whole earth. They prepared a net for my steps. I was despondent. They dug a pit ahead of me, but they fell into it. My heart is confident, God. My heart is confident. I love this because David, in this period, how can you have such a worshipful, such a surrendered heart in the middle of this? But David is the example. He says, My heart is confident, God. My heart is confident. I will sing. I will sing praises. Wake up my soul. Wake up, harp and lyre. I will wake up the dawn. I will praise you among the peoples. I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your faithful love is as high as the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches the clouds. God be exalted above the heavens. Let your glory be over the whole earth. And everybody said, Amen. What a word. Here's what I believe the Holy Spirit, I know wants me to understand. Is that God forms worship in the waiting. God forms worship in the waiting. You're waiting on provision, you're waiting on healing, you're waiting on reconciliation, you're waiting on having children. You're waiting for a husband or a wife. I mean, I could we could go down the list of all the things that trouble us. What are you going to do with that with that period of waiting? There's two words that I that I keep coming back to that are that are to me are central to this whole series that we're in. And the first word is faith. David models what it is to have faith. He believes in the promises of God. He is familiar with the Word of God. He knows the presence of God. He's experienced walking with God. And he believes. He believes, but faith, faith leads to a place where we determine how we're going to live our life. And so the second word that comes is very familiar, but it but it but it's very close to the first word, but it's the word faithfulness. Where God calls us not just to an intellectual belief, intellectual ascent, not just having knowledge in our brain, but having that knowledge transitioned 18 inches down to our heart and also affecting our hands and our feet and our mouth and how we live our life. And we we choose every day, am I going to live in faithfulness to what I believe? And so David demonstrates his faith and his faithfulness. And I believe there's three things that David displays here. Number one, he releases the outcome to God. He releases the outcome to God. Number two, he refuses to take shortcuts. And then he replaces grasping. Grasping for trying to figure out what God's will is too. He replaces it with worship. He replaces it with worship. You know, I speak a lot about my testimony of not growing up in a home with a Christian family. And I give my dad a hard time. And I should have, I should sometimes, because you know what? He was mean. He was so harsh. Now, y'all know this. Hurt people hurt people. His mother died when he was 15. His dad had already walked away from him. After his mother died, his dad didn't invite him to come live with him, and he didn't come back to Georgia to take care of him. And so extended family took care of my dad, but the heart, the heart, his heart, the damage to his heart had already happened. The bitterness had already taken root in his heart. And so all the anger, all the hurt, all the pain, a lot of what we experienced, me and my two brothers, was a result of the fact that he was a hurt human being. And all he knew to do was to hurt other people. And so when I came to Christ as an 18-year-old, really under the influence of my brother Eddie and my brother Butch, we all just, hey, we all decided together, hey, we're going to win our dad to Christ. We started praying together and we started talking to him about Jesus. Now, the first part of his response was not very nice. He told us what we could do with our Jesus. He told us what we could do with our faith. Leave me alone. I'm okay. I've got this. But you know what we did? We just kept praying. We kept going to church and we kept worshiping. We kept loving and serving. It was hard. But my dad got sick in his later years. He was hard on his body, drinking, smoking. And in those final years, an old friend of his named Ralph Easterwood. They'd gone to high school together at Southwest to Cab. They'd been rowdy together. They'd gotten in trouble together. But somebody had reached Ralph with the gospel, and Ralph became pastor of Glenhaven Baptist Church, at that time was in Decatur, Georgia, that is now in McDonough, Georgia. And Ralph started coming by and just hanging out with my dad when he was sick. Now, my dad just thought, hey, this is an old friend. He's just visiting me, but Ralph had a plan. And he just kept coming. He just kept coming. And he just kept coming. Now, before all this happened, years, years of frustration with me and my brothers. Years of living with a lost father. Years of an unbelieving parent. Years of frustrating. Hey God, you saved us the way you did. Why can't you save our dad? And we sometimes we would try to manipulate the circumstances ourselves. But in the waiting, God was forming something in us, but he was also working on my dad. And so there came a day when my dad and Ralph were walking around the property where my parents had moved us when I was a young child out in Henry County, and we had a barn back behind the house, and they got to talking about Jesus. And Ralph says, Buddy, is there any reason you you wouldn't just want to kneel down right now? And just give it all to Jesus. Now, I've been mad at Ralph for a long time because he took my blessing by leading my dad to the Lord after we had put in all the work, all those years. I'm kidding. Ralph's in heaven with Jesus now. You know who's with him? My dad. Because that day my dad knelt down in the barn and he put his faith in Jesus. Three years before he would take his last breath on this earth. And he and my mom, my mom had professed Christ. He and my mom were baptized together on the same Sunday morning at Glenhaven Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia. God does not waste our time in the waiting. What have you been waiting for? Rather than focus on what you're waiting for, maybe focus on what God wants to do in your heart while you're waiting. Would you just pray with me? Let's just bow our heads for a second. We're gonna close our time with just a prayer, reflection, worship. And I want to just ask you, what is it? What is it? Is it a healing? Is it a financial provision you're waiting for? Is it a positive test for pregnancy? Is it a is it a negative test for some type of sickness? Is it a relationship that needs to be restored? What are you waiting for? What I wanted you to do this morning is just imagine you taking whatever that is and laying it before the Lord. Laying it at the feet of Jesus. Because waiting is never wasted. God will do something in our heart and our life if we will trust him in the waiting. If we'll trust him in the waiting. I know that we all would probably agree that we long for the return of our Savior. We long for his kingdom to be fulfilled. We long for a new heaven and a new earth. We long for the fullness of the presence of God. We long for a time where there'll be no more wars and there'll be no more sickness, there'll be no more tears. But in the time that we wait, God is wanting to form something in us. And I believe he wants to form his own character in us. So if you've never put your faith in Christ, and you would say, today is the day that you are ready to put your faith in Christ, I want you to simply call out to him. You can call out to him in prayer, you can call out to him in song, but but basically it's just saying, you know what? I admit, God, that I am far from you, that I'm a sinner, and I need salvation. And I believe. I believe, not just with my mind, but I believe with my heart and my life that you died for me and you rose for me, and you sit at the right hand of the Father praying for me, and I give you my life. I repent and I believe. And the Bible says if you turn to Christ, you are immediately, your identity is changed. You are no longer lost, but you're found. You're no longer an orphan. You are adopted. You are no longer in the kingdom of darkness, you are now in the kingdom of light. You have a family. And church, those of us that are here that are believers, there may be some of us waiting on something, and I want to encourage you that there's no wasting in the waiting. Listen, God has not forgotten you, He is preparing something for you. And I want to encourage us, especially us fathers today, for us to be proactive rather than reactive, that we would step out and grab hold of what God wants for us, and that we would pursue Him with our whole heart, and that we would embrace what God's called us to be as men. And that true masculinity is defined in the Word of God, not by the world that wants to impose it upon us. It is God that defines who we are as men. And let us walk in that manhood and in that masculinity that He's called us to. So, Father, we come just saying that we trust you and we cry out to you. And we, God, we beg you to respond. We beg for you to move in our hearts. And this morning, if you feel God leading you, I want to encourage you to respond. There's nothing like coming to an altar and just saying, you know what, I'm gonna give it to the Lord. I'm gonna get on my knees and I'm gonna give it to him. And if you need somebody to pray with you, there's a few of us that are down here on the front. My friend Jeff down here, uh, my friend Skip is down here. There are a few of us down here. We would be honored to pray with you and encourage you. Father, God lead us and guide us this morning. As we spend our time waiting, maybe for a door, an opportunity, whatever it is that we're waiting for, God use it in a way that will form in us the character of our Savior Jesus. It's in his name we pray, and everybody said together. Amen. Would you stand with me as we sing?