It is great to see all of you today. My name is Russ. I'm one of the pastors here. Can I just start off in prayer? Can we pray together? We got a lot to pray about. Father, we come to you, depending on you, trusting in you, but pleading with you. God, for you to work. And we we all, I imagine most of us here are aware of world events that are taking place. And not to go into depth into details, but God, my prayer is that you would work in such a way that the gospel of Jesus will go forth, doors will be opened. God, we do pray, God, just for protection. God, I pray for the underground church in Iran. I pray, God, that you would open doors for believers there to flourish in their faith and to be willing to reach their people with the gospel of Jesus. Protect our troops, protect those that are involved in all the things going on in these world events. But Lord, we also, we've got something really important happening this next weekend as we invest in the next generation. Our United Weekend, Lord, we pray, God, that this week, I just I want all of us to be in unity, praying that you would work in such a way that students, middle school, high school students, would give their hearts to Jesus. And God, they'd walk away from the temptations of this world, and they would surrender their hearts to Jesus as their Savior. We pray that you would work in a powerful way. It's in Jesus' name. We pray, and everybody said together. Amen. Amen. Well, um, most people come to Christ on the arm of a trusted friend. I learned that. Pastor Ike, my pastor, he's still my pastor. He used to say that all the time. He said, Most people come to Christ on the arm of a trusted friend. And that is significant because it means that every one of us has the ability to have significant influence. When God transforms a life through Jesus, it changes everything. It changes everything. And you can't be the same. You can't be the same. And so when Jesus changes us, the Bible says that we moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And now we are beneficiaries of someone who is willing to step out of their comfort zone to share Jesus. Listen, everybody in here, those of you that have trusted in Jesus, somebody, somebody influenced you. It might have been a mom or a dad, it could have been a grandmother or a grandfather, it might have been someone you went to school with, someone you worked with, someone uh that invited you to some event, invited you to church, and and and you have the ability to influence people. And here's what I know, and and you probably know this too, but just a reminder, is the enemy wants to keep you from sharing your faith. The enemy wants to keep you from being bold and and and sharing your relationship with Jesus with people close to you and the people literally around the world. And he's gonna do anything he can to keep you from doing that and keep you from being effective. He's gonna make you, he's gonna tell you, hey, I love Jesus. This is what the enemy will tell you. I love Jesus, but I'm I don't know if I should, I don't want to be become like a fanatic or a crazy person. I mean, my my dad said that. He when I told my dad about how Jesus changed my life, and and I began to share my faith, and he said, Listen, I believe in God, but my dad wasn't born again. He said, But Russ, it's okay to believe, but you don't have to be a fanatic. Now, all of us are probably fanatics about some things, right? You say, well, not really. Not really. You you all have something in your life that you love, not bad, and you're willing to share and do some crazy things because of your excitement. I mean, I mean, look, look at this, look at a couple pictures. Are you talking about fanatics? Fanatics. I mean, who, what grown man wakes up one day and says, I'm gonna put these mouse ears on top of my head for the benefit of my kids? I mean, most people have been to Disney. I've been to Disney. I I I'm a fan. I'm a fan. And I probably did some crazy things that I wouldn't do normally in my life. You say I don't, that's great, Russ, but I you're talking about something totally different. Am I? I mean, we're we're all raving fans of something. If it's not Mickey Mouse, you'll go to a stadium and bark like a dog. But you can't tell your work associate about your testimony. And and you say, Well, Russ, you're getting personal. I I am. Here's what people say. Well, I listen, I my faith is personal. It is personal. It's personal, but it was never meant to be private. It is personal. Hopefully it's personal. Listen, we've all had significant things in our life that we get excited about, but the thing that we ought to be most excited about is the eternal life, the free gift of eternal life, the transforming work of Jesus in our life. And and in the process, he puts us on a path. And that's what this series is about. It's about a pathway, it's a pathway to becoming all that Jesus wants to become. And we talked the first week about belief, and that belief is, we use it as a noun, but it really needs to be a verb. I faith, God. I faith, I believe. It's a verb. It requires activity, it requires a response, it demands a response. And then the second week we say, hey, we all belong. God changes us and He unites us and connects us into a spiritual family. And we all want to belong somewhere. We want to be connected. We want to be in community where we know and we are known and we love and we're loved, and we celebrate and we're celebrated. We serve and we're served ourselves. And and then we talked last week about how we are to become like Jesus. We are to walk down this pathway and this process of discipleship and spiritual formation to become like Jesus, to become what God wants us to be. And it's a lifelong process. And today is about build. It's about building the kingdom. See, the kingdom of God is built in what? It's built in relationships. The apostle Peter said, we are living stones. And so the kingdom of God is built in relationships, and so people are either in the kingdom or they're outside the kingdom. And if we are in the kingdom, we are commanded to go and make disciples of all nations. You say, well, that's a big scope, Rush. Well, don't get caught up in the big scope. Just what I want you to hear today is that most people come to Christ in the arm of a trusted friend. And you know what Jesus wants you to be? He wants you to be that trusted friend. And so we build the kingdom. We join God in building his kingdom. And so, and this, these four rungs on a ladder, these four stones that mark our pathway, we don't check them off. We constantly are walking in and out of believing and belonging and becoming and building. And so today we're going to look at this passage of scripture in Mark chapter 5. If you got your Bibles, turn to Mark chapter 5. And it's a story where Jesus meets and heals a demon-possessed man. And it's a story that shows us what Jesus does when he encounters the broken, the desperate, and what he calls us to do in response. So this story is found in Mark chapter 5, and we're going to start in verse 1 there. The context we've taught the past few weeks in Mark chapter 3 and Mark chapter 4. Jesus is doing miracles. He's teaching. In this specific setting, he has crossed over in a boat from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other. And he encounters and he goes from an area that is predominantly Hebrew, Jewish, and he goes all the way on the other side of the lake to a place that is what we would call what we know as Gentiles in Scripture, people that are outside of God's family. And so far from God. Now here's what Mark says as he's sharing his account of Jesus. He said, They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Garashenes. As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him. He lived in the tombs, and no one was able to restrain him anymore, not even with a chain, because he often had been bound with shackles and chains, but had torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. So on Jesus' off day, he was confronted with a man possessed by demons. He's confronted, and this man was hopelessly desperate. He's living among the tombs. He's unclean. He is alone. He's demon-possessed. He's out of his mind, behaving in a way that people could not subdue him. He had superhuman strength. They couldn't shackle him. They couldn't restrain him. And of course, this is in a Gentile, non-religious, or certainly a community that was in opposition to the Jewish community. And so one of the things Jesus is teaching us is hey, there's no boundaries for where I want to take and share my gospel and my love and my mission of sharing eternal life with people. And so this man had been possessed for a long time, so long that it had become his identity. He was living like a wild animal, subhuman life, and he had no home. And so he lives among the dead. And you need to understand this he was considered unclean by Hebrew standards because you were not allowed to touch a dead body. It would make you unclean. You could not go into the presence of God without purification. And so he lived among the dead in the tombs. He was tormented and he was self-destructive. He would cut himself, he would damage himself. Needless to say, he was, it was hard to control him. And so we we said, John 10 10, one of my life verses, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And he'll, this is an obvious picture. But we we come in contact with people every day of our life that don't seem to be subhuman. They don't seem to be possessed by demons, but they're still far from God. They're far from God. They may be functioning in life better than this man, but they still need Jesus. And here's five truths that I think we could attach ourselves to and meditate on and think about. And the first one is this: apart from Jesus, destruction is our destiny. Apart from Jesus, destruction is our destiny. Before we meet Jesus, we're in desperate need of freedom from spiritual bondage. The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 2.13, you're dead. He says, and you who were dead in your trespasses, the and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses. John 3.3 says, We're blind. Jesus answered, and truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of God. Ezekiel describes us as having a heart of stone. Ezekiel 36, 26, that he says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit, and I will put my spirit within you, and I'll and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. We're hostile to God, unable to please him. The apostle Paul says in Romans 8, 7, and 8, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. For those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And we're slaves to sin. Paul, if you wrote, read Romans 6, Romans 7, just read those chapters. We are enslaved to sin when we are outside of a relationship with Jesus. And so even though we may or may not be demonized or our friends may not seem like they're possessed by demons living in a graveyard, cutting themselves or cutting ourselves, listen, we're outside of Jesus, we're all in the same boat. We're all in the same boat. Whether you seem to be moral or whether you are not, we all fall short of the glory of God. Paul says this. And so, for in order for us to understand our missional responsibility to build the kingdom, to advance the kingdom, to push back darkness, to win our community to Jesus, to take the gospel to the state of Georgia, to the to the North American continent, to places that are beyond our national boundaries, we must first understand our desperate need of freedom from spiritual bondage. Every person fits in the same category with this man. And he goes on in verse 6. He says, When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him. And he cried out with a loud voice, What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you before God, don't torment me. For he had told him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit. What is your name? He asked them. Have you ever had a conversation with a demon? That's probably a bit comforting to me that you haven't. You know, because a lot of people that begin a conversation, man, I had a conversation with a demon. You know, it shoots a red flag up for me. But this is Jesus having a conversation with a demonic spirit. And he says, My name is Legion. That word legion describes a measurement of one of the largest groups of Roman troops at that time. I think it was 5,600, what was the number of troops that were that were calculated to be in what was called a legion. And he says in verse 10, and he begged him earnestly not to send him out of the region. So there's this conversation that Jesus is having with the demonic forces and the demons. You know that James, James said that Satan knows and believes in Jesus. Even the demons believe. The demonic forces know. They are aware. And it said verse 11 a large herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside. The demons begged him, send us to the pigs that we may enter them. So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs. The herd of about 2,000 rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned there. What a strange encounter. What a strange encounter. There's a lot there. This was Gentile, non-Jewish, non-Hebrew community. They didn't have to live according to the law, because if you live according to the law, you could not own, touch, eat, barbecue, pork, pigs. I mean, they're they're an unclean animal. And you say, how do we know? I mean, if you do our they do archaeology all the time over there, if they come into a community and do archaeology and they discover pig bones, they know this is not a Jewish community. And so, not hard to tell. And so this is a man not only far from God that has doesn't even have a connection to the community that is that is declaring the gospel and declaring the truth of God's love and God's purpose and God's significance. And so the waves and the storms obey Jesus. Well, this demon has to surrender and submits to Jesus. And he does this, and he casts the demon out of the man, or all these demons, these spirits, into this herd of pigs. They run off, the demons force these pigs to run off into the Sea of Galilee. And so this man, his body was covered with self-inflicted wounds, old scars, his hair. Imagine his hair and beard were long and tangled, his eyes were cloudy, he's unwashed, he's probably naked, or he's arrayed in a ruin of rags that maybe they try to put on him. He has no control of himself. He's far from God. They think that if they can just remove God's presence, they'll be safe from the authority of Jesus, but they they have been and will always be under the authority of Jesus. And here's the second truth you can stand on is this Jesus rules and reigns over the spiritual realm. See, we think we've got to fight the battle. Really, all we're called to do is be obedient and then leave the consequences up to God. We're called to be obedient because Jesus rules and reigns over the spiritual realm, and we depend on him. We do not have to do the work, he will do the work. And it's what Jesus came to do. I think this is one of Jesus' purpose statements that he declares in Luke chapter 4, when he stands up in the temple for the first time, really going public with his ministry, and he says, This, Luke 4, 18 and 19, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. The next truth is this Jesus sets captives free. He sets people free. He sets people free, he changes identity. When we put our faith in Jesus, we we go from being an orphan to being a child adopted by the king. John 1.12 says, He calls us children of God. John 15, 15, we are friends of God. We've moved from being enemies to friends of God. We've been justified, Paul says in Romans 5.1. We are justified. What does that mean? It's just as if I have never sinned. He clothes you with the gift of righteousness. He takes off your sin, and Jesus bears it. It says we're one with him. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, 17, we're one with him in the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, he says we belong to God. We are adopted as his children. As I mentioned, Ephesians 1, we're redeemed and forgiven of all my sins. We're complete in Christ. Colossians 2, 9 and 10. We have direct access to Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4. We're free from condemnation. Now you ought to be getting a little bit excited about this. God is working all things for my good. Romans 8. Nothing can separate me from the love of God. And now I'm a citizen of heaven. I'm in God's temple. I am God's temple. I'm seated with Jesus in the heavenly realm. I am God's workmanship. Ephesians 2.10. And I am an ambassador for Jesus. So he didn't just come to get your ticket to heaven, he came to anoint you to ordain you into the gospel ministry. My pastor used to say, every time someone is baptized, that is their ordination into the ministry. He goes on in verse 14. He says, The men who tended, the men who tended them ran off and reported it into the town and the countryside, and people went to see what happened. So Jesus comes out of the boat, this demon possessed man confronts him. He casts the demons out, sets him free. Man, this makes news, right? This is the little community who hear that this man is set free. But you know what they're really mad about? Is their economy has been affected. Man, this herd of pigs that run off a cliff, this is their, this hits home. They're not very receptive to Jesus at this point. And it's all these people come to see what happened. Verse 15, they came to Jesus, saw the man who had been demon-possessed sitting there, dressed and in his right mind, and they were, what, what does it say? They were afraid. Those that who had seen it describe to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs. And then here's listen, verse 17. This is star this. You would think they would say, hey, Jesus, you've just set this man free. Please come in our community and deliver us all. Save us all. No, they they they're they're concerned about their worldly possessions, their economy. So verse 17, they then they begin to beg him to leave their region. Isn't that a sad state? When Jesus shows up, somebody's begging for him to leave. So they're watching in the distance. The herdsmen watch their pigs run off the cliff and they're scared. Others were upset because Jesus would have Jesus has healed this man. It just makes them afraid. And here's what we need to understand it's it is a beautiful thing to see Jesus deliver people from spiritual bondage and to bring them into the kingdom of light. And we serve a God that cares more about every individual soul, more about that than he does about the economy or our politics. Or you could continue down the list. And this is a scary thought. They preferred the dangerous demonic man over the divine deliverer. So it's it's it's understandable, but there's a spiritual battle. Because of that spiritual battle, it's it's not it's it's hard sometimes to live out our faith, to share our faith, especially verbally. And so here's where the story gets even better. Verse 18, after he was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged him earnestly that he might remain with him. Jesus did not let him, but told him, listen to this. I love this. Hey, can I, Jesus, you've just saved me. You have delivered me from these demonic forces. I think it would be natural. I want to follow you. I want to be with you. But what does Jesus tell him to do? Jesus did not let him, but told him, go home to your own people and report to them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. So he went out and began to proclaim, began to proclaim. He began to preach, he began to uh give a proclamation. And the proclamation is Jesus has set me free. Go home to your own people. Tell them what the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you. So he went out. And I love it, new believers. I met with a young man on Friday afternoon that we baptized a few weeks ago, man, and he is on fire. He's a student at Loganville High School, and he he just doesn't even know yet that he's not supposed to talk about his faith. It's so pure, it's so, it's just incredible. And I said, and he he was asking me about ministry and calling and all this stuff, and I said, listen, God will take care of that. You keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus who set you free. He'll orchestrate that. We talked about all that. And so it's funny. Every person who comes to Jesus, I think, and every person that comes out of the baptismal waters, man, they're they're stoked. They're fired up. We're gonna baptize a guy at the last service, 1145 today. I mean, it's an incredible testimony. And and and I love seeing his excitement. I don't want him to get over it. And somehow the world, demonic forces, if they can't keep us from receiving and believing, they will tell us, the enemy will tell us and work it into our minds that, mmm, you know, you're excited, but don't be a fanatic. Don't be crazy. And he wants to keep us from sharing our faith. And so verse 20 says, so we went out and he began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and they were all amazed. Isn't that crazy? Jesus knew the only way the whole city would come to know him. This is what I've learned. We want Jesus beside us, but we taught a few weeks ago or a few months ago. We taught, we did a series on the Holy Spirit, the familiar stranger, and and we tend to want, we think Jesus beside us is better than the Spirit in us. No, Jesus is teaching us right here, even though he is there physically, go, I will be with you. If you believed and put your faith in me, I will be with you. Not even just be with you, I'll live in you. And so Jesus knew the only way the whole city or this whole community would come to know him was if this man who had experienced the power and the mercy and the grace of Jesus was the one to share the message with everyone he knew. The interesting thing here, he didn't say, he didn't say to the man, hey, go, listen, sell everything you have, go, go, go to another country. He didn't even say go stand on a shriek corner and grab a bullhorn. What does he tell him to do? Go, say it? Home. To your own people. That's interesting. That word home is in the Greek is the word oikos, and it and it literally does mean home, but it also has some extensive uh meaning. Beyond that, it can mean your home, but it also could mean your cul de sac or your community or the people that you work with, the people that you do life with. It could mean your neighborhood. And in our day, I think it could be your neighborhood, the people you work with, it can be people you come in contact with, that you play sports with or or that you're involved with musically, whatever. He said, go to your people. Go to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you. And that word oikos is it's your it's your family and your extended family. I live in a neighborhood, and that's my that's my oikos. That's my mission field. Moved there 22 years ago, and and when God planted us there, my goal was to reach everybody in that community. Reach everybody. And then even beyond that, on my street, there's community. That's my oikos. I've got extended family that don't know the Lord. That's part of my oikos. And here's what I've learned: deliverance from sin always leads to deployment and mission. Deliverance from sin always leads to deployment in mission. And so out of joy and thankfulness, we can't help but to talk and to share about what has changed us. And I listen, I love Mickey. I love Ball over in Athens. I love all those things. But they won't save me, they won't affect my eternity. I mean, you say, oh my Russ, that is heresy. The magic kingdom? No, that's not the kingdom that we're talking about. And I'm not against listen, I I've been and I liked it. I don't know if I liked it that much. All my kids are raised. But here's what he first here's what he does. He says, He says, go just tell your story. Go tell your story. Go tell people what the Lord has done for you. See, people want to they'll want to say, well, oh man, don't get into don't get into religion. Don't get into politics. No, that's not that's not what I'm talking about. I'm tell your story. People will differ with you on politics, they'll differ with you on religion. They can't differ with you on your story. And second, he says, go home, go to your community, go to your place where you live, where you have family. And listen, we need to have people that will serve overseas. We need people that will share their faith. And listen, it's not my thing to go preach on the street. I've done that. I've done that in other places in the world. And I probably I would do it again if I had the opportunity. But my personal heartbeat is simply to share Jesus with the people I come in contact with. Most people come to Christ on the arm of a trusted friend. Build friendships, build relationships, and you can build a kingdom. You build God's kingdom, relationship to relationship. What does this mean for us practically? We talk often about going and sharing Jesus and our own circle of relationships. What does that mean? It means you can go home to your biological circle. So I remember when I came to Christ as an 18-year-old, first thing I want to do is tell my dad. I want to tell my dad because dad, I mean, my dad was an alcoholic, he had struggled. Man, why wouldn't he want to know this Jesus? And you know, my dad came to Christ three years before he passed away. So God, God, I believe, used my life change, my brother, my two brothers both had come to faith in Christ. And so your biological circle, the people closest to you. You know, we're called to reach people from God. So who in your life and your family is far from God, but you are close to them? The second concentric circle is your vocational community. Where you work, you have an extended oikos in a sense. You share your faith with a person sitting next to you, a person working next to you. How about your volitional network? That's your hobbies. That's what you get excited about. You know what one of the things I enjoy doing now? And I don't have a lot of big hobbies. I quit golf and and I mean pickleball. Pickleball is is people are crazy about pickleball. Have you noticed that? They've lost their mind. But but hey, listen, anything you do where people are gathered, that's an opportunity to share the love of Jesus. And then geographical, how where we go, it can be it can be your normal daily traffic areas. I go to school or I go to work or I go to Kroger. I mean, my wife is great. She doesn't let me shop, but she goes to Kroger and she shares her faith with people. She's got long-term relationships with people in these normal traffic areas that we deal with people in life. Just start with the person closest to you and share your story. And Jesus promises to bring life change. He promises to work. Now here's the interesting thing about this passage. Now flip over to Mark chapter 7. So two chapters later, so what do they, how what do they tell Jesus? What did the community when Jesus sets him free, the demonic man, what did the people ask him to leave? They're afraid. Two chapters later, he comes back to the same area. It says in verse 31, he returned to the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis. So Jesus in chapter 5 provides deliverance for this man, invites him into a personal relationship. The town tells him to leave because they're afraid, they don't understand. In two chapters, their whole mindset has changed. Verse 32, and they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hands on him. What made the difference in two chapters? What was it? Why did their mindset change so significantly? Why, two chapters before, they're telling Jesus, we don't want you here. We're afraid. Two chapters. Man, would you come and heal these people? They're bringing people for healing. Verse 36 and 37 of chapter 7, then Jesus charged them to tell no one, but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it, and they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. What happened? Now, the Bible doesn't give us a direct answer to that question, but I would bet, this is what I believe, by just looking at the text, it all started with that one man who was set free. And he didn't know any better but to simply obey. And so he spends two chapters worth of his life telling his story with the people closest to him so much that when Jesus comes back, they welcome him, invite him with open arms. Listen, there's nothing more significant when it comes to building the kingdom than the simple testimony of a life that's been transformed. You see it? Most people come to Christ on the arm of a trusted friend. And see, Jesus, he tells us, he says in Matthew 5, you're the salt of your earth, you're the light of the world. And so meeting Jesus always leads to change. It impacts our life and it begins to impact our oikos, our community, the people around us. And I believe this story is a great story to end this series on, this series that we'll come back to. It's part of who we are and our identity as a church. We are saved to be sent. We are not saved just so we can have a ticket to heaven. We're saved to be sent. Your salvation, your baptism is your ordination into the ministry. And so when you walk out of here today, I want you to know you're walking out of here, not that you check a box, say, man, I went to church today. You're walking out of here a missionary called to your people to tell your story. Look for opportunities to serve and to give and to go. Jesus will never be truly good news to a lost and dying world if those that have been recipients of the good news decide to keep it to themselves. You see it? So would you pray with me? Let's just pray together. Spend a moment asking the Lord to work. Father, thank you for the gift of eternal life. Thank you for the hope we have in Christ. Just say that to Jesus. Just tell him, just in your own heart. You can say it out loud, you can say it in your heart and your mind. Just thank you, Jesus. Thank you for saving me. In this room, there's there's really everybody fits in one of two categories. You either believe or you don't. And if you believe, I hope this message of today will challenge you to take your faith and to make it active and to share it verbally, to share it in your life. Through the way you live, to the way you treat people. And if you are in the other category and you are outside of the family, you're outside of the faith, this is hopefully an encouragement today for you to step over the line of faith, to put your hope and faith in Jesus, and to believe and receive the gift of eternal life. So, Father, I pray that you would work in such a way that we will take responsibility for our faith. God, it is nothing that we've done to receive it. It's all of you. But now that we receive it, it is our responsibility to go to the people in our circles of influence and to share our story and to invite them into a relationship with our Savior. So we're going to close this time with a song that talks about how we can't help but to speak of what we have seen and what we have heard. And I hope this will be a time where you can reflect on whether or not you are in the kingdom or outside of the kingdom. And I want to encourage you, if you never put your faith in Christ, come today and say yes to Jesus. And then as we walk out of here today, my prayer is that we will take responsibility for our mission field. To build the kingdom, we are saved to be sent. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. It's in your name we pray. And everybody said, Amen. Would you stand with me?