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Pressure, Power, and Prayer | Sunday Sermon
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Pressure, Power, and Prayer | Sunday Sermon
Series: Acts: The Story Continues...
Well, if you were here last week, and most of you were, you remember that when we um got into, we went through the chapter three of the book of Acts, that we read the story of the lame man who sat at the beautiful gate asking for alms. And that was a man who had been that way his whole life. Everybody recognized him, whoever went to the temple, because he had been there for so very long. And that in that story that we read last week, that Peter and John had been going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. They saw him sitting there. The man asked them for some money. And instead of money, he said, Silver and gold we do not have, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he grabbed him by the right hand, and the man stood up and he began praising God and walking and leaping, and he went into the temple with them. And when they went into the temple, they veered to the right and they went over to Solomon's portico, this place where there was columns there, and Jesus used to teach there. They went to that same place. But the people in the temple, they saw the commotion. They saw this man jumping and leaping and walking around and he's praising God. And wouldn't you, if you've been lame your whole entire life and suddenly you're walking around on your own two feet? Would you? I would. I'd probably moonwalk or something, you know. I'd be like, woo, yeah, I'm gonna test these things out, see what they can do, you know? And so he's jumping around, and everybody sees him, and they look at him and they go, Whoa, that's the lame man. That's that guy. What's he doing standing? What's he doing in the temple? What's he doing on legs that work? And so they all come running to see him. And as Peter sees all these people coming toward them and they're looking at him like, he says, What are you doing staring at us as if by our own power we made this man well? We didn't do it, Jesus did. Jesus, the one from Nazareth, you know, the one you crucified, the one you handed over to Herod and Pilate, the one who went to the cross. Well, guess what? Jesus is the one who did this. And by the way, God raised him up to his own right hand, and he's highly exalted, and by the way, he's the Messiah and the anointed one, and he sent his spirit, and that's what's going on right here. And so he begins preaching the gospel to them, and people start responding. He's calling them to repent and believe and ask the Lord for forgiveness and come to Jesus, that days of refreshing might come from the Lord, and people are coming and they're believing in Jesus. And just then in Acts chapter 4, verse 1, it says, As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed, because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. So they came up and they see these people teaching, and they're like, wait a minute, those aren't authorized teachers. They're not certified, they don't have any credentials, they didn't go through our training school, they don't have the right degrees, they don't have the right certificates. What are they doing teaching? And then what are they saying? What they're talking about Jesus. We already dealt with that guy. Remember, he's the guy we manipulated and we paid off the one guy, Judas, 30 pieces of silver, and he betrayed him, and then we had the mock trial, and he took him over and he got crucified. Well, that guy's dead. What are they doing preaching in the name of Jesus? And then beyond that, they're preaching the resurrection. Well, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection. The Sadducees didn't believe in the afterlife. They were almost a secular party at this point. They were almost like a political party at this point. I'm not saying they had no faith practice, you know, but there it was very secularized, and so they didn't believe in the resurrection. And what they were mostly concerned with in their day was political power, controlling the narrative, kissing up to the Romans so they could keep their power. I mean, to the point that these same people, when they were present and saw Lazarus get raised from the dead by Jesus, did they go, Oh my gosh, that guy just raised from the dead? Is this really the Messiah? Maybe it's him. We've never seen that happen before. I've only read stories, maybe Elijah did that. You know, that we just saw that guy rise from the dead, maybe it really is Jesus. No, they didn't do that. They said, What are we gonna do? Because people are seeing this happen and they're believing, and Rome's gonna come and take away all our power. It's like it never enters their mind that maybe this might actually be the truth. And so they plotted against Jesus, and they actually plotted to even kill Lazarus again. You know, so this is this group of people. They're not interested in believing, they're not interested in miracles, and they don't want anybody changing their narrative. And so they come in and they arrest them and they put them in jail. And in verse five, it says, On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, By what power or by what name did you do this? So the apostles get taken out of jail, they get taken before the leaders of Israel, and the way that it worked back then is they would kind of form like this semicircle of the council, okay, and then the accused or the one who was, you know, being questioned was set sort of in the midst of them. Okay, so they're surrounded by these high power people. They bring them out, you know, all in their best robes, looking real important and authoritative, and they're saying, By what name or by what power did you do this thing? And I want you to just picture for this one second, okay, what this must have felt like because these were the same people who had betrayed Jesus. This is the same situation that Jesus had stood in. And Peter and John had seen that and they knew what happened. Okay, so they're standing there surrounded by these religious leaders. Peter on that day had gotten scared. This little servant girl was like, Aren't you one of them? And she's he's like, No, I've never seen the dude. You know, and then she's like, No, I'm pretty sure you're one of them. No, I don't know the guy. The third time, oh, I'm pretty sure you know him. Beep, beep, beep, no, beep, beep. He's cursing, no, I don't know him, and he ran away. Well, now that same Peter standing before this same group of people feeling the same pressure. And what would your instincts have been, do you think, in that moment? Why is he asking me questions? Isn't this church? Scared. Yeah. Like, wouldn't your instinct be to sort of save your own skin? You know, just try to, I'm gonna figure out a way to kind of get out of this situation. This is feeling kind of dangerous right now. But Peter, the same guy who had denied Jesus in verse 8, says, Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we're being examined today concerning the good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, then let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. Does that sound like he was trying to save his own skin? Sound like he was being pretty confrontational, doesn't it? He's just standing where his Lord stood, and he's fearlessly proclaiming the truth to these powerful people. You want to know who did it? I'll tell you who did it. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the one you crucified, who by the way is your Lord. He's raised him from the dead, and it's by his power that this man is standing before you. And then he goes on in verse 12, he says, and by the way, there's salvation and no one else, for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Say, not only is this man healed because of Jesus, not only was Jesus resurrected, not only was he raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God, but by the way, he is the only way of salvation. There's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. And on Thursday we talked a little bit about this, that there's so many different pathways that the world offers us to heaven or to nirvana or to peace, aren't there? I think I heard a cricket. I shouldn't be able to hear any crickets right now. You know, I talked to a young man that's, you know, he I like him, I respect him. He's this um customer of mine, but um they has a different practice, and so he's like, I don't understand. Like, how can you say that there's only one way? I just don't get it, you know? You know, like the the Hindus have their way and the Buddhists have their way and Islam has their way, and then you know, the Hare Krishna's and Yoga and all these other things, and it's like all these faith practices, like all roads lead to to God. No, no, no, no. And then he said this, he's like, Well, what why like why does it seem like some of the proponents of those things like they seem to be peaceful and tranquil? And and it's because it's not that there's no earthly benefit to practicing meditation, it's not that there's no um peace that might come through meditation or some sort of tranquility that might come through there, but that those things do is those things minister to us at a soul level, at our mind and our will and our emotions. It's sort of like if you go in to have an operation and they're gonna do some things to your body that would hurt a lot if you had to feel them, they put you under anesthesia and you don't feel them. It's sort of like if you have a degenerated disc in your spine and you're taking Norco to try to cover the pain. Well, you might not feel it with a percocet, but the damage is still there. That's what they do, they treat you at the soul level. But but what Peter is proclaiming here is there is salvation, reconciliation with God. Payment for sin is in no one else. You cannot be reconciled to the one who created you, who formed you in your mother's womb from before the world began, who chose you and knew you and called you by name. You can't be reconciled to the God who made you in any other way, but only by the name of Jesus. There is no other name under heaven given among men. You can't pray to a rock, you can't pray to a statue, you can meditate all you want, and you can be totally peaceful right on your way to eternal perdition and separation from God. But there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Amen. And in verse 13, he says, Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. I love that line. These Pharisees, these Sadducees had had a chance to ask one question. That's it. They asked one question, I gotta get the conversation going here, you know. And Peter launches into this powerful, spirit-filled sermon and begins preaching the gospel and preaching Jesus and salvation to them, right? And says that they, so you know, after their faces got done being melted by his powerful sermon, you know, their hairs probably blowing back in the wind. And they they looked at him and they're like, wow, these guys are bold. These are the followers of the guy that we already crucified. And look at them. They're just regular, common, uneducated men. They didn't go through our seminary, they don't have our degrees, they don't, they don't get the nice robe that we have, they don't have the dingleberries hanging from the sides of their hats. Like they, they, they don't have the things, they don't have what they need. How are they so bold and courageous? And why do they have so much conviction? They sound like Jesus. And why'd they sound like Jesus, guys? Well, they'd been with Jesus. You know? Like you can't get near Jesus without being changed. You can't be his disciple filled with his spirit, following him, and not be changed. You can't have the Holy Spirit come in and take out your heart of stone and put in its place the heart of flesh without being changed. He's gonna make you like him. That's that's what he does. And so they they're looking at him, they're this look at the situation, they're going, okay, well, the guy's healed and everyone believes, and everyone's already seen it. Like the words out, we can't really punish them because the people will stone us because they just did a powerful miracle. And so what we'll do is we'll threaten them. And so that's what they did. They said, Don't teach anymore in this name. Don't preach anymore in this name. We don't want to see you around here preaching Jesus anymore. But Peter and John answered them back. Whether it's right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. For we cannot but help but speak of what we have seen and heard. Where did the conviction come from? These people weren't preaching ideas. They weren't preaching opinions, they weren't preaching theories and philosophies that they had thought through with a focus group trying to figure out, hmm, what if the universe existed for all time from this? You they didn't sit around like the, like in Athens, you know, on the uh what's it called? On that hill or whatever it's called. They didn't sit around contemplating life and come to this conviction. They came to this conviction because they saw their Jesus dead and they saw him alive. They saw him standing before them in his full flesh with his hands and his feet. He told Thomas, put your hands into the holes in my hands, put your hand in my side and see that it's me. He went to the Sea of Galilee and he told them, Cast your net on the other side of the boat. And they threw their net on the other side of the boat after not having caught anything all night, and they pulled up a catch that was so huge it reminded them of the first time he had done that in his earthly ministry. And they said, It's the Lord, and they went swimming to shore and he had fish cooking with them and he ate breakfast with them. He walked with a couple of them on the road to Emmaus and taught them everything about himself from the Old Testament. Then he sat at the meal in the inner room with them and broke bread and they went, Oh, it's him. He had appeared to them. They had seen him, they had spoken with him, they had eaten with him, they had stood on the mountain with him before he ascended and he gave them the final commands to go be my witnesses after you receive power from the Holy Spirit. They saw him. You can't, you can't threaten somebody out of speaking about something that they know and they've seen and they've heard. And that's the difference between our faith and our testimony and some theory that someone thought up on some university campus. In verse 23, it says, when they were released, they went to their friends and they reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them. So after their run-in with the same religious authorities that had threatened and killed Jesus, where'd they go first? Did they go into hiding? Did they lay low for a while? Went to old Aunt Ethel's house because no one would think to look there. No, they went to the church. They went to the people of God, they went to the other spirit-filled believers, the other disciples, the other witnesses, the other ones who had seen Jesus and heard Jesus and met Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. They went to the church because the church wouldn't try to talk them out of their call. You know, if they went to grandma who didn't know Jesus and said, This is what happened today, she'd be like, Oh, you gotta knock it off. Stop preaching in that name. No, she'd probably say, Stop preaching in that name, honey. Go hide under the bed. But they didn't do that, they went to the people that would say, Yes, yes, Jesus is moving. Look at that. He gave you the opportunity to preach to the religious leaders, to the high priest and his whole family. Praise God. And says in verse 24, when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and they said, Sovereign Lord who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything that is in them. What's their first response? Prayer. Their first response is prayer. And look at this prayer. Because what they don't pray for here in the meeting, God save us, oh help us. They don't pray for protection and safety and peace and security or revenge. They pray, sovereign Lord. So before making any requests for themselves, the first thing they do is they center themselves on who God is. Sovereign Lord who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything that's in them. Heavens, earth, and sea and everything in them. What's that include? What does that include? If you take the heavens, I'm not gonna, I'm not moving on until you guys answer me. Heavens, earth, and sea, and everything in them. What does that include? Everything. There's nothing that's not included in that. They're like sovereign Lord who made everything. There's nothing you didn't make. The one who made everything, like you existed, and there was nothing, and it was only Father, Son, Holy Spirit, forever and eternity, totally content, totally powerful, knowing all things, and then you made everything. Like with your words, you just spoke. God, let there be light, and there was just everything. Like, how did you do that? Sovereign Lord who has the power to make everything. Every single thing exists within you. You're like bigger than the whole universe. Like we can look with our most powerful telescopes into the deepest parts of space and never see the end. And all of that exists within him. There's galaxies and solar systems that we'll never get to see with our human eye that he created. Why? No one will ever see it. Because he's just that mad, majestic, he's just that glorious, he's just that beautiful, he's just that creative, that what he can do cannot be contained with what our little puny eyes can see or what our minds can comprehend. It just trips me out how people think they're smarter than him. They think they're smarter than him, like they're gonna outsmart. Oh, if God's so powerful, why would he do this? If he's so good, why didn't God do it this way? Should have done it that way. Really, bro? You think you're smarter than him. You've existed for five seconds on the whole span of history, and you think you're smarter than the God who has existed for all time and eternity, who holds eternity in his hands, who holds the molecules together and allows everything to continue to exist, who created the laws of physics from his own creative powers. You think you're smarter than him? You're not smarter than him. They start their prayers by centering themselves on who he is, sovereign Lord who created everything. And what does this do? This lifts their focus off of those leaders, it lifts their focus off the threats, it leaves lifts their focus off their pain, it lifts their focus off what may happen to them, and it lifts their focus off their own ability to deal with it. They look to Him. And in verse 4, oh no. What I wanted to mention was, I'm gonna skip that. I'm gonna skip that. I was gonna quote a verse from 2 Corinthians, you can put it up there, but Paul the Apostle talks about it. He says, Are the weapons of our warfare, they're not carnal, they're not of the flesh, okay? They're not um our creative mind and our power, like God's weapons that he gave us to fight the battles that he's given us to fight, to walk in the life he's called us to live, they're not of our flesh. They're not of our own creative powers. Okay, they're they're they're that thing's messing with me. He says the weapons he gave us to fight with are divine. They're from him. For casting down every lofty argument, every high opinion, every thought, taking captive every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ. And I always read this verse, and I always thought, you know, that that's talking about like when you argue with an atheist, right? He gave us power to cast down their arguments and their thoughts and their opinions. What if he's talking about our own thoughts, our own opinions? What if he's thinking about all the things in us when we look at a situation and we go, oh, what am I gonna do? I can't do that, I can't handle it. I got a diagnosis, I'm gonna die. And he's like, Why are you looking at it with your power? Look at it with my power. Look at it with my ability. The first thing we should always do when we face anything is we should look at him. If I was out there with Avery walking down the street, and some big scary looking guy came by, you know what she would do? What would you do, AV? She'd hide behind me. I guarantee the first thing she would do is look, where's Dad? That's what we should do. Where's our father? Verse 27, they continue their prayer. Oh, those says, Who through the mouth of verse 25, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why do the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set the themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed. So they're going to scriptures what they're doing. They're taking the things surrounding them, and instead of going, What do you think? Hey Bill, what do you think about what happened? What should we do? You know, how do you what do you make of that whole situation? What they said? What do you make of the fact that, you know, Jesus went to that trial and was crucified and everybody was like against him? What do you make of that? They instead of doing that, they just go to God's word. What does God's word have to say about it? They go to Psalm 2. Why did the Gentiles rage and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and his anointed. See, most of us interpret life through some sort of lens. When I was in seminary, even it was the funniest thing. There was people there, they all had their lens, and you could like clearly see it. Like this is the conservative one. That's the liberal one. That's the environmentalist one. That's the feminist one. You know, that's the jerk one. You know, whatever. But they're looking at it through their lens, and that's what we do. We interpret life through our own experiences, through our past trauma. We we interpret it through our news feeds, what the what the TV tells us to think, like we interpret it through our political worldview. We we interpret it through social pressure and what the community around us says. But what God wants us to do is he wants us to interpret the world, morality, situations in life, and what we face through his word and what he has to say about things. Verse 27 for truly in this city we're gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. So they're saying, the greatest evil that ever took place in history, the greatest injustice that ever happened was Jesus being crucified. And Herod was against him, and Pilate was against him, and the Roman people were against him, and all the Israeli people were against him, and the Gentiles, everybody. They were all teaming up, and you know who was behind it? Satan. Plotting and scheming and trying to overflow. Oh, that's the Son of God. I'm gonna show him, I'm gonna stop his plan. And he's plotting and scheming and getting into Judas, and he's getting into these high priests, and he's working all of his little powers. But see what they prayed right there? They said, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. Like all the schemes of the devil, all of the plans of the evil people, all of the power of Rome, and yet all of it played directly into God's hands and accomplished exactly what he had always purposed from the very beginning to happen. Even in the cross, the Son of God hanging on a cross, blood pouring down, him breathing his last breath, the death of his own son, was ordained and prophesied and purposed and sovereignly used for our redemption. And what that means is that God's sovereign over all of life and death. If God could ordain and he could redeem the murder of his own son, the one who, the only one who actually didn't deserve to pay a penalty for sin, then nothing we ever face will be beyond his power to redeem. Amen. Amen. Verse 29, and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants boldness to continue to speak your word with all boldness. Now notice what they don't ask for here. They don't ask for protection. Grant to your servants protection and safety and security. Grant to your servants, you know, judgment upon our enemies. Go and judge them. We rebuke them in the name of Jesus. Go, go and, you know, thwart all their plans. What do they pray? They don't pray about those people. They say, they pray this. They say, look upon their threats. Okay, Lord, you take care of that. But grant to us boldness. Grant to us the power to continue to speak your word with all boldness. Grant to us the power to continue to be your witnesses despite everything that's coming to pass. Because their priority was not self-preservation, their priority was obedience. In verse 30, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. So what they're doing here is they're recognizing that there's God's part and there's our part. And so they were praying, God, we know what you've called us to do. Our part is to obey you. Our part is to be your witnesses, our part is to make disciples, to go into all the world and to make disciples, to baptize them, to teach them everything you command. That's our part. But even in that part, we need your power to do that. We can't do that without your power. So we pray you'd give us the power to do our part, and then we pray that you would stretch out your hand to do what only you can do. That you would heal, that you would confirm your word with signs and wonders that are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. So what they're doing is asking God, you empower the whole mission. You empower us to do everything you've called us to do, not by our own strength, not in our own wisdom, all with the power you provide. And then you do everything that we can't do to accomplish your plan. And it says in verse 31, when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. So they're praying, they say, Amen, and the place begins to shake. God responds by shaking the place that they're praying in. 1 John 5.14 says, This is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, we know that he hears us. And if he hears us, we know that we have the requests that we've asked of him. Ask anything according to his will, he hears you. And if he hears you, he's going to give you what you've asked for. The disciples prayed, Lord, we know what you've asked us to do, we know what your will is, we pray for power to do it, and he shakes the house. And his response is in what happened here. It says they continued to speak the word with boldness. So he answers their prayer by giving them what they prayed for. But the question that we need to ask is, why don't we see stuff like this? Why don't we see as much of this? I've seen some of it in my own family right here. But why don't we see more, church? Why don't we see more healing? You know, lame walking, blind, seen, sick being healed. Why don't we see more signs and wonders? Because it doesn't exist anymore. False. Again, you can't tell someone what they've seen with their own eyes. Why doesn't the room shake when we finish praying? I think the better question is what are we actually praying for? What are we praying for? What are we actually doing for Jesus? Are we walking in obedience to the things that He's commanded us? Because what was the power for? Do any of you remember Acts 1.8? I'll start it for you. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my. You will be my witnesses. The purpose of the Spirit's power is to empower his church to be his witnesses. That word in the Greek is the word martis. It's the exact same word that's used for martyr. There's no difference between those two things. To be a witness for Christ is to be a martyr. It's to serve him, to bear witness to him with your life and with your death. With everything you that is you, you bear witness to Jesus Christ. We need power to be witnesses at that level, to boldly proclaim Christ. It's the power to make disciples. It's the power to carry the gospel into the world around us. See, often we want his power, but we don't want to be witnesses. We want his power, but we don't want to make disciples. We want his power, but we don't want to walk us across the street and share the gospel with the neighbor. We want the power of Pentecost, but we don't want to be martyrs. Think about what, like the stories in the Old Testament you saw. Elijah, right? He stood against the 400 prophets of Baal. He was up on Mount Carmel and he's surrounded by these murderous prophets, these pagan idolatrous prophets, 400 of them, and then the wicked king Ahab standing there. And he's he's having a confrontation with them, okay? Now, when he was out by the river and the crows were bringing him food, he didn't need power to call down fire from heaven. But when he's standing there bearing witness to the living God in front of all these people, he needed power in that moment, and God gave him power to call down fire from heaven and consume the sacrifice and the altar and the water and everything. Think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They didn't need God's power and flame resistance to sit in the court of the king and eat vegetables. They needed his power and his flame resistance and flame-retardant qualities when they were cast into the burning fiery furnace because they were bearing witness to the living God and not bowing down to Nebuchadnezzar's statue. Daniel in the lion's den. He refused to stop bowing down at the regular time for prayer. And he was cast into the lion's den. And when he needed that power, the Lord supplied him power over lions. Moses, when he was herding sheep with his father in law and Midian, didn't need power for plagues over Egypt. But when he stood in obedience to God as a witness before Pharaoh, he was given power. If we want to see God move in power among us, if we want to experience his power in us, we need to begin to ask God for the power to obey what he's commanded us to do. I'm not trying to put a guilt trip on it. That's not what this is all about. It's just that we need his power to be his witnesses. We need his power to make disciples and teach them to obey Christ. So the question that I want to close with is why did the Holy Spirit, why did God preserve this chapter of the Bible for us today? Why did he do that? Was it so that we could look back on this history lesson and admire these men that were so strong and so brave? I like them. They're my heroes. Who's your favorite hero in the Bible? Who's your favorite hero in the no? He gave us this story because he wants us to understand that this is the life he's calling us to. This is what the real thing looks like. And I want the real thing. I don't want to play games. I don't want to go through motions. I don't want to just do whatever he does because that's what we do. I want to do what this says. He said, You'll receive power to be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. He said, Go into all the world and make disciples. That's what I want to do. I want to obey him. I want to see what God can do through a church and through a group of believers that wants him more than anything, wants him more than our stuff, wants him more than our own little hopes and dreams, wants him more than stability, wants him more than just being comfortable. I want to serve him and I want to see what God will do. And the thing is, is this is possible. This is possible. God gives his spirit to his church. Not just at Pentecost, not just in the first century, but right now. Who's with me? Amen. Amen. Just so you know, this is what I'm living for in my own life. It's not something that I'm thinking, oh, this is my next plan as a pastor. No. This is my life. This is what I want in my life. This is what I've been living for. And I hope you'll come along with me in that.