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Well time is a good thing. Time is a gift, and I believe that time is a precious commodity, a limited commodity, that if you're anything like me, at times you probably struggle to do a good job of investing. You guys tracking with what I'm saying this morning? Time is this thing that you don't really know how much you have of it. You know it is limited. And it's one of these things that sometimes you struggle to know how to use it well, and so you'll come to the end of something and be like, man, I really just wasted my time there, or I didn't use my time well, because time is valuable. There's many there are many things in our world that remind us of the value of time, but uh one of the things that has reminded me of that value in a very silly way over the years is a movie trilogy series known as Back to the Future. Some of you were laughing and some of you were excited that I'm about to talk about this, some of you like I have no idea what you're talking about, but Back to the Future is a trilogy that was uh set up in the late 80s, early 90s, and if you have not been blessed enough to have experienced its awesomeness, uh what you need to know is that the main characters, Marty McFly and Doc Emmett Brown, go through time in this amazing time machine. It's actually a GMC DeLorean, which is a stainless steel car, complete with what Doc's mounted up on the back, which is a flux capacitor, right? And it enables them to whisk through time, forwards or backwards, and and the basically the setup of the movie is they go back in time and then they go into the future, but they mess with history, right? And as they mess with history, like the universe starts to unravel, like everything they know goes wrong because they mess with time. And the the story kind of revolves around them trying to get things back right the way they're meant to be. Eventually they do that, they don't only just do that, they actually make things better. So the movie ends with them being in a better place, as you know, any good Hollywood Hollywood movie does. But as silly as it is, I walk away from watching that and I'm reminded of the value of time. Because, like I said, time is valuable stuff. When it comes to using it, actually, we can sometimes be quite stingy with our time. We uh we we can hold to it tightly and cling to it like it's ours to keep and not want to share it with others, and that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today, because today we're gonna talk about neighboring and investing time, okay? So basically, if you're gonna take the two subjects of time and neighboring and bring them together, that's where we're going today. We're talking about neighboring because this month, as a church and as actually part of the churches in Austin, we're asking the question of what does it look like to love where we live? And this whole series is kind of set up with this subtitle of The Art of Neighboring, really asking the question of what does it look like to love where we live? Nick set us up last week to start off this four-week series, and he focused in on a couple of key things that I just want to recap with you. The first thing was that he reminded us that the great commandment, which by the way is to love God and love people, isn't uh just a theory, it's something to be lived out. That's your first fill-in-the-blank if you're going to take notes this morning. So the great commandment to love God and love our neighbors isn't a theory, it's something to be lived out. If I could summarize the Bible for you and what it tells us and how to live, if you could say, yeah, the Bible is a manual that helps us understand what it means to be human and how to live, if you could boil it down to one thing, it'd be basically this. The Bible tells us that we are called as human beings to love God and love people. And so we started out this qu this series by discussing this thought that it's not a theory to love God and love people, it's something that's a practical thing. And we went on to ask the question of who is our neighbor? If we're called to love our neighbor, what does that mean? And we'll get back into that discussion a little bit today, but we eventu eventually basically came to the conclusion that anyone who has a need around us is our neighbor. Then the third thing we kind of discussed was this idea that we as the churches of Austin are going to ask this question over the next few weeks. There's a roughly 400 churches in the Greater Austin area that are partaking of this series, this Art of Neighboring Things. And what we're really doing is saying, what would happen if the churches of Austin took responsibility for the people who just lived physically close to them? What if they said the people of the church in Austin said, we're going to pray for and we're going to seek to serve and to love and point towards Jesus, the people who live physically close to us? Would God do something amazing through that as we pray about that and as we engage in that? And I don't know about you, but I'm kind of excited about the possibilities. Now, this passage that we were in last week was Luke chapter 10, and I'm going to ask you to go back there this morning with me because we're going to pick up kind of not where we left off, we're actually going to go back to the same scripture we were in last week and take another picture, but kind of from a different angle. We're going to take a different perspective on the scripture that we used last week and then we're going to continue on. So Luke chapter 10, if you wouldn't mind turning there, I'm going to give you kind of a high-level view of some of the stuff we talked about last week. So what's happening in this story? If you look at verse 25, there's this expert in the law who comes and questions Jesus. So you've got a picture that Jesus is here with some disciples, some people, he's teaching. This guy's kind of listening in. The people who are in the crowd probably knew who this guy was. If he was an expert in the law, it'd be like, you know, a celebrity pastor or somebody there, you know, that everybody's like, oh, there's that guy, you know. So he's there and he's listening to Jesus, and he decides to test Jesus. Now, obviously he doesn't realize that Jesus is God's son. Probably not a good idea, right? To test God's son. But anyway, he decides that he's going to test Jesus by asking him a question. And so what he asks is actually a good question. He says, What must I do to inherit eternal life? That's a good question, right? And so as he asks this, I love Jesus' response because what Jesus says to him, he basically flips it on him and says, What's written? How do you read it? Basically saying, Hey, you're the expert in the law. What do you have to say? You tell all of us what the law says. And you can almost see this guy swelling up in this moment and being like, oh, here's my opportunity. Show everybody how smart I am and how much I understand the law, the Old Testament scriptures. And so he rattles this thing off. He says this Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Which actually is a really good answer, right? He takes the Old Testament scriptures and there's a there's a passage, this passage is known that he quotes as the Shema, something that the Jewish people would quote to themselves multiple times in a day. But he doesn't just do this, love you the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, all of that. He goes on to add, and love your neighbor as yourself, which is actually quite clever because what he's done is he's summarized the whole Old Testament scripture, the laws, because that's how they're all based around. If you took the Ten Commandments, right, the Old Testament law, you would see that they neatly divide up into two categories, loving God and loving your neighbor, loving the people around you. And so by tacking on love this name, love your neighbor as yourself, he's actually answered quite well. And so it's interesting because Jesus in this moment says, Okay, good job, you've answered well. And it's almost like I picture Jesus there in that moment being like, Yeah, good job, and then as if he's about to turn around and engage back in whatever he was doing, the teaching or the conversation he was having. But this guy, this expert in the law, isn't happy with that. And so he wants to he wants to be justified. We talked about this last week, and so he says, Well, who's my neighbor? And so Jesus has to turn and engage this man again, and as he engages him, I want you to read with me what he says. So Luke chapter 10, if you wouldn't mind turning there with me. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seats in front of you. You're welcome to take that with you if you'll read it, um, if you don't already own a Bible. Luke chapter 10, verse 30. Let's look at Jesus' response to this expert in the law. Jesus took up the quish question and said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and fled, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, saw him and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan man on his journey came up to him, and he saw the man, he had sorry, when he saw the man, he had compassion. He went over to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine. Then he brought him on then he put him, sorry, on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave it to the innkeeper, and said, Take care of him. When I come back, I'll reimburse you for whatever extra you spend. Jesus tells this story, turns to this expert in the law, and says, Tell me, which of these men was a neighbor to the man who was injured? And the this expert in the law is so disgusted by this story. He's so disgusted by the fact that it's a Samaritan, because you've got to understand a Samaritan is thought of as the lowest of the lows. They were half Jews, they weren't proper Jews. And so a Jew wouldn't even associate with a Samaritan. They wouldn't talk with them, they wouldn't touch them, they wouldn't engage with them at all. And the man is so disgusted that he can't even say the Samaritan. What he says in his response is he says, The one who showed mercy to him. And Jesus comes straight back to him and says, Go and do the same. And that's the end of this story that we have here. And you have this picture of this man kind of walking away, feeling just a weight on his shoulders, because as much as he may have wanted to justify himself and make himself look good in front of Jesus and in front of this crowd, what he's realized is by this story that Jesus has told, that even though he may be an expert in the law and understand all the intricacies of the law, of the Old Testament law, the implications of living that out practically were ones that he could not live out easily. To love like that Samaritan was not an easy thing. I want for us to go back and think about these two men who passed the injured man up. I want you to go back and think about these guys, because what it tells us, if we look back to the scripture about this priest and this Levite, is that they come up to this man. Picture with me, this man that's, you know, naked and and bleeding there on the trail. On the road, sorry, I think in trails, I ride my mountain bike too much. He's there on this road, this gravel road, and he's in the middle there, and and it's not like he's just hidden off to the side. They have to like move around to get around this guy, right? It tells us in the scripture that they pass by on the other side. Now there's several reasons why these guys wanted to do that, and I want to get into that for a second. Because think about it with me, these guys pass by on the other side. Why did they do that? I think there's two main reasons, and these two main reasons are the same two reasons that you and I oftentimes pass by on the other side. Because we read this story and we're like, oh yeah, how horrible of them to pass by on the other side. But we do the same thing all the time. I mean, look if we're honest with each other here this morning. We pass by on the other side. There's somebody, you know, with a situation of a car broken down, I don't know what it might be, but we see somebody in need, and we're like, man, I really hope somebody will help them out. You know, there's that thought that goes through our mind. And yet we don't stop to engage. And much in the same way, the two things that keep us from doing those things are the two things that kept these gentlemen from doing the same thing. By the way, we've got these two guys, they're a priest and a Levite. Nick touched on this last week. These guys are religious leaders, these are guys who would serve in the temple, right? And so think about that. If you want a modern-day equivalent, these two guys are like the pastor and the worship leader going down the road, right? And they see this guy who's injured and they pass by on the other side. So these two reasons, the first reason that they pass by, and the reason that we pass by, is because they were fearful of getting their hands messy. This guy's like beat up. To get down there and to engage with this man would have required them to get messy. To engage with this man and to love him and to serve him like the Samaritan did, would have been a very messy procedure, right? They would have got blood all over themselves. They would have got blood on their donkey, they would have, you know, had to use some of their resources to try and clean this guy up. They would have been unclean ceremonially in their culture by getting in this guy's mess. And so that was the first reason. The second reason, the one that we're really going to focus in on today, is they knew that getting involved with this injured man was going to take their time. To engage this man would have taken them longer to get back to wherever they're going. Maybe they had something going on, maybe they were going to, you know, they had their wife's anniversary or their kids' birthday party, or maybe they're going to buy a field. I don't know what was going on. We always have something going on, right? These guys were going from point A to point B. They had an agenda. And yet one of the reasons they didn't stop was because they realized that time was going to be taken from them if they engaged this man. And they were right. Helping the man was messy. Helping the man did take time. But what I want you to note here is that you cannot fulfill the great commandment without getting messy and without using your time. That's your next fill-in-the-blank there this morning. You cannot love God and love people. That's the great commandment, without getting messy and without using your time. Bummer, right? It'd be nice if we could, you know, fulfill all that God has commanded us to do without that. But the truth, the reality is, as we look at this story this morning, we realize we cannot do this without getting messy, without using our time. So let's think about this time thing some more. The problem is when we say I don't have time to get to know my neighbors, essentially what we're really saying is I don't consider getting to know my neighbors as important as everything else going on that I have going on in my life. I don't see it as important. All day, every day we're making decisions on what matters most and how we're going to use, how we're going to invest our time. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but if you look at Jesus' life, he was very good at using his time. If we were to read the stories of Jesus found in the first four books of the New Testament, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, if we were to read those today, what we'd see is that Jesus was actually really good at using and investing his time. He never seemed hurried. He never seemed stressed out or frantic or or he never seemed actually even rude, like, hey, would you just leave me alone? I'm on my way to Jerusalem. You know, you never see that in Jesus' life at all. He was always available and willing to engage the people that were around him. And I love that as I reflect on his life, and it makes me ask this question of myself this morning. Do we, do I live at a pace that allows me to be available to those who live around me? Jesus had time for interruptions. Do I have time for interruptions? Do you have time for interruptions? What would it take for us to change the pace of our lives in order to be more available to those who are around us? My wife Liz and I were kind of asked that question by a book we read recently. So across the city, they're doing this campaign of Love Where You Live. And one of the things that they kind of asked us to do as churches was to get our leadership in the churches to read through a book called The Art of Neighboring. And so, along with our life group leaders and some of our other leaders here in the church, my wife and I read through this book called The Art of Neighboring. And there were some good thoughts and some good stuff that came out of it. But but two very practical things kind of surfaced for us as we were reading that book. There were kind of two takeaways that we decided to try out. The first one was this. And so we're like, oh yeah, that seems pretty s simple. Let's try that adjustment and see what happens. So we tried that out and we were surprised. I mean, there were some days that nobody else came out, but a lot of times we got to have some great interaction with our neighbors. We got to, you know, have some great spontaneous conversations with our neighbors just by being out in our front yard rather than in our backyard playing with the kids. It's a small adjustment, but an intentional one, and it actually really helped. The second thing that the book that kind of suggested on a practical way to love where we live was to suggest that rather than seeing your neighbor as you're outside and being like, hey, and walking on inside, doing whatever you're doing. You know, you're walking to your car, you're walking from your car, you're taking the trash out, hey, walking in. I don't know if you guys do that, that's what I typically do. Um rather than doing that, the suggestion was to say hey and take a step towards them. Again, not a big difference. Rather than, you know, like moving on in the trajectory I was already going, the difference was to just say, hey, what's up? How are you? You know, take that extra step, take those extra few words. I've been blown away by the amount of really good conversations I've had with my neighbors by just doing that. It's something so small, something so seemingly insignificant, but knowing that, yeah, it is going to take some of my time. I might be on my way to a meeting, I might be on my way to whatever, but to just be like, hey, how are you? What's going on, has led to some incredible conversations with my neighbors. Again, just some very small practical things. And what I want to note to you guys here this morning is this to love where we live, we must be intentional. Great word. We must be intentional with our time. Speaking of intentionality, I believe that when God created the scriptures, when he helped the human authors pen these words, he was very intentional. I don't think that things just happen coincidentally, and and and because of that, it's interesting to note that the very next story after what we read this morning. So if you end here in verse 37 and go on to the next story in verse 38 of Luke chapter 10, is a story about being intentional with time. I don't think that that's a coincidence that there's this talk about how to be a neighbor and then how to use our time and how to be intentional with our time. And so what I want for us to do this morning is we're just going to read on, okay? So we're jumping from one story to the next, but it's the exact next verse after what we just read, where Jesus says to this guy, go and do the same. So read with me the story of Mary and Martha in verse 37. Uh, sorry, verse 38. While they were travelling, he, that's Jesus, entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord's feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand. The Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you're worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her. Now some of you have probably heard this story before, some of you may not have. But it's a great story, right? Because here is this little snippet into these guys' lives, right? We have this snippet into Mary and Martha's life. And Mary's there just busying herself with all the stuff that's going on. She's trying to be a good hostess, she's trying to serve these people, she's trying to love them with her actions, and she comes to Jesus and says, Hey, this isn't very fair. She's sitting at your feet, doing nothing, and here I am slaving away. Would you help me out? I love Jesus' response because he says to her, Martha, Martha. It's not just like, uh, Martha, get over it. No, he he he he addresses her in a loving fashion, right? And when you read those words, Martha, Martha, I picture like a parent lovingly and kindly instructing a child that they love. And he says to her, Martha, Martha, you've got to understand that there's only one thing that's necessary. It's not all the stuff that you're busying yourself with. The one thing that's necessary is what Mary has chosen, sitting at my feet listening to my words. And the words that are used here in this passage are very interesting to me. Jesus says to her, Mary has made the right choice. Isn't that an interesting phrase? And I want to propose to you this morning that it's hard to make the right choice when it comes to our time. It's hard to make the right choice when it comes to our time. Because typically, we are like, if you're anything like me, I identify a lot with Martha. I busy myself. I get up, I jump into my day, I've got my stuff going on, and I've got, you know, all these great things that I want to do, and some of them are even like good things about God, serving God and loving God. But the question is, am I making the right choice with my time? Am I sitting at Jesus' feet? Am I connecting with God? If we go and look at this question kind of in deeper detail, I want you to ask this question with me this morning. When it comes to our lives and making the right choice with our time, are you making the right choice? Are you making the right choice when it comes to your time? I think a great and easy way for us to answer this is by going back to that great commandment and ask this question. Is my life loving God and loving people? Because if it is, you probably are making the right choice with your time. If you're not, you're probably not making a great choice with your time. And if not, what are the things that are inhibiting you from loving God and loving people like He's calling you to? Are you obsessed with work? Are you overly social? Do you just have your calendar so full that you're not able to love God and love people? Are you never restful? Are you overwhelmed by your family? Are you distracted by a hobby or a habit? Are you isolated by the internet or social media? Are you consumed by TV? These things can and should be, some of these things can and should be a blessing. But if they're denying you the opportunity to love God and love people, they've gone from being a blessing to being a curse. And so I want you to think about that with me this morning. Think about the fact that, yeah, is you know, if work has gone from being something that is a uh enables you to love God and love people, your work has gone from being a blessing to being a curse. If if if if your uh social schedule and your calendar is so full that you're not able to love God and love people, your social, your friendship friendships and all that busyness that you have got going on has gone from being a blessing to being a curse in your life. And this reminds us that making a right choice means that we have to find this beautiful thing called margin. Margin is something in our schedule that enables us to breathe, to have the ability to have space to engage and to love in the way that God has called us to. Now, some of you this morning are probably sitting there going, this is a lot to think about, Harley. Like, what you're talking about, neighboring, getting in people's mess, like all of this sounds overwhelming, to be honest. Like the things that we're talking about, loving people, using our time, and what we're gonna use about next week, overcoming our fears to engage people, like this sounds overwhelming. Well, I don't want for you to be overwhelmed this morning because what I want for you to do as we spend these last few moments unpacking this conversation this morning, what I want you to think about specifically is the gospel. The gospel is the good news that God came to save us. And sometimes when I say that word good news or gospel, what you think about is this one-time decision that maybe you knelt down and prayed a prayer so that you and God wouldn't be separated for eternity. And that's what we think the gospel is. It's this one-time thing that, you know, saves you from going to hell, it lets you get into heaven, it's a great thing. You know, you and God are made in right relationship with each other. But what we need to realize and understand, and I know we say this a lot here at Point Community, but we've got to get this, is that the gospel is for each and every day of our lives. The gospel has implications on every area of our lives, which means that the gospel has implications on this area of time. That means that the gospel has implications to how we use and invest this precious commodity that we're given. And so what I spent some time just really reflecting on as I was preparing for this is what is how does the gospel impact, what are the implications of the gospel into this area of time? And there's two main thoughts that came to my mind. The first thing was this the gospel covers us when we waste our time. The gospel covers us when we waste our time. Let's be honest here. There have been moments and there will be moments where you and I will waste this precious commodity that we've been given called time. There's a psalm, Psalm 90, and it's actually in your reading plan this week. If you're ever wondering, you know, how do you read the Bible? Uh, we've got inside our listening guide on the back page a reading plan that's just a suggestion on things that you can be reading about the things we're talking about. So Psalm 90 is in there this week, but verse 12 I want to point out to you this morning. It says this teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. Time is a precious thing. I had a guy uh once speak to us. I was uh I was an intern, there was a group of us interns, there was about 12 to I I guess there was about 12 of us that were interns. They had this guy come in and speak to us at this church I was interning at, and he came in, very intense guy, very much loved Jesus, great guy. But he came in and he has in he was had this conversation with us, and he said to us, hey guys, what is the value of Jesus' blood? And uh we said, Well, you know, Jesus' blood has infinite value. He's the Son of God, he died for our sins, like that's a big deal. Like, you can't put a you know a value on it, it's infinite, it's beyond valuing. And he said, Right, that's good, that's good. And he said, Well, what it how is your life, if you uh have a relationship with Christ, how is your life you know made right with Christ? And we're like, by the blood of Jesus. And he said, Okay, right, so your life then has infinite value because it was purchased by something that has infinite value, and we're like, yes, yep, you're right. And then he got really serious and it was an intense moment because he said to us, what you need to realize and understand, that means that your life, every second, every minute that you've been gifted, has been purchased by Jesus' blood, which has infinite value. And anytime he said this to us, anytime you waste your time, when you waste your life, it's like taking that precious blood of Jesus and flushing it down the toilet. It was a really intense conversation, but one that has stuck with me because I've remembered those moments and I remember that there are times that I do waste time, but the beauty of the gospel reminds us that even when we mess it up, even when I'm a horrible neighbor, when I don't use my time well, when I just let things hit me in my schedule, and I'm beat up by my schedule and my busyness and all the things that may be going on, even when I mess it up, the gospel covers me. The gospel is good enough to cover me, and it the grace of the gospel covers me in those moments. A practical uh example of this I would give you is that when Liz and I were living, my wife and I were living in Houston, we had some friends uh that were not Christians. Now, some of you were like, okay, big deal. Well, that was a big deal for us because at that time all of our friends were Christians. We lived at a church, uh, didn't live at a church, we lived and worked at a church, and um I our little bubble of life was all involved with Christians, and God blessed us with this relationship with some people who lived there in our neighborhood. We actually randomly met them through Craigslist. I was saying this to some people the other day, and they're like, wow, that sounds sketchy. But uh no, they came and bought something from us from our house, and we found out they lived just around the corner. So we struck up a friendship with these guys. They're in a similar st stage of life, lived there right in our neighborhood. We had some great times hanging out with these guys. But I want to be honest with you this morning. There were several moments where we were hanging out with them where I felt very convicted that I needed to say something and to talk about what I believed, like have a spiritual conversation with these guys. And I don't always feel that way. Like sometimes I will hang out with people who aren't Christians, and you know, we'll just hang out. But there were several moments where I felt very convicted that that's what I needed to do, and I shied away from that. I didn't engage in that conversation. And I've thought back over that over the years, and I'm like, man, I wish I'd taken that time and that opportunity to really engage these people and just um tell them about who what it is that we believe. Not just live it, but actually express it with my lips. But the beauty of the gospel is that the gospel covers even those mistakes. It's not like Jesus that God's up in heaven freaking out because I didn't say anything to these people. God's bigger than that. And the gospel, the good news, covers us even when we blow it, even when we mess it up with our time. And so I want you to know that and believe that today, and not just that, celebrate that today, right? That's something we can celebrate. The fact that the gospel is good enough to cover us even when we waste the precious time that we've been given. The second thing that the gospel shows us is that the gospel motivates us to love. We're talking here today about some pretty radical things. We're talking about adjusting schedules, engaging people, overcoming fear, loving people who are pretty unlovable at certain times, right? I mean, neighbors are sometimes pretty unlovable. You know, you got the guy across the street who has the really loud car who starts it early in the morning and revs it up or his motorbike or whatever. You got the neighbors across the fence who have those loud parties that you wish they'd turn down their music, especially when it's like one o'clock in the morning. Or you've got the guy whose dog comes and poops on your yard every day. I don't know what it is, but you know, all of us have neighbors who are hard to love and hard to interact with. So what we're talking about here, loving people, getting in their mess. Like this is hard stuff. But the gospel, the good news that Jesus loves us is enough and should be enough to motivate us to love these people, to overcome those bounds. And so, what I want you to know today and to think about is this thought that you can and will love your neighbors well when you are motivated by the amazing love of Jesus. If you are truly reflecting on who God is and what he's done in your life, if you're spending time connecting with God, if you have those moments where you're sitting at Jesus' feet like Mary, you will be able to love and to engage those neighbors around you in a way that honors God, even the unlovable ones. Because the gospel motivates us to love. The gospel motivates us to be a good neighbor. So, where does all this leave us, practically speaking? There's two categories of us in this room, and I don't mean to oversimplify things, but I really believe that. You would maybe be someone who would say, Yeah, I'm a Christ follower, or in a second category, you may be somebody who says, I'm not sure if I'm a Christ follower, or I'm not a Christ follower yet. But I I the first thing I would say to you, if you're in that second category, thank you for being here. Like, it's awesome that you're engaging in a spiritual conversation this morning. Like, thank you for coming and engaging in this. And the one thing that I would say to you, if you're not sure of where you stand, where you and Jesus sit, like, get in a right place with Jesus. If you want to be all that you are called to be, if you want to engage in this life in the way that you're called to engage it, I would encourage you to would my what number one encouragement to you today would be to connect with a God who loves you. To come into a relationship with Jesus. And that may sound like churchy language, but what that simply means is you and God coming back into a right relationship. Because what we know and understand from the scriptures is that sin separates us from God. And without Jesus, we are never, you can never be good enough to earn God's favor and approval. And that's why we have Jesus because he bridges that gap, he brings us back into right relationship. And so if you have questions about what that means or how to be into a right relationship with Jesus, please please feel free to come and talk to me or to Nick or or or the person who brought you along. Um would really encourage you not to just let today pass by without engaging in that conversation. And again, great that you're here. If you are somebody who would call yourself a Christ follower, I want to give you three practical implications. The first one is this rest in and rely on the gospel. Essentially, what I'm trying to encourage you to do here is be merry. Don't be Martha. Be merry, sit at Jesus' feet, listen and connect with God. You cannot be, well, that's not entirely true. You will never be the ultimate good neighbor to somebody without God's love propelling and motivating you. You may be a good neighbor for a little while, but the gas tank is eventually going to run out unless you are connected to the fuel source of Jesus, right? He's like this fuel source that you can get an unlimited supply of love from. And so if you need help in loving your neighbors, the best way to love your neighbors is to connect with God. That may sound counterproductive, but what I'm telling you, first and foremost, before anything else, if you want to be a good neighbor, be a good child of God. Connect with Him daily. I don't know what that looks like for you, but figure that out. Spend some time at Jesus' feet like Mary was. For me personally, it's getting into our closet. I know that sounds weird, but it's the quietest place in our house. I go to our closet and I sit on the floor. That's where I read, that's where I pray, that's where I connect with God in the morning. And the days that I have good quality time with God, connecting like that, I'm connected to a love source that is bigger than just my heart and my life. And those are the days that I really engage in the world with the world well. And so I want to encourage you, rest in, rely on the gospel. If you want to be a good neighbor, don't just be like, well, I'm gonna go talk to somebody, I'm gonna go love somebody. No, go and connect with God first and foremost. Second thing, pray for your neighbors. And don't just be like, God, bless my neighbors, help me to be a good neighbor today. No, pray specifically for your neighbors. As you know and learn things like names and situations, scenarios going on in their lives, pray for them specifically. I don't know if you've noticed this yet, but the first two practical things I've given you are not, you know, go and meet them or connect with them or do something with them. The first two things involve you and Jesus. Connecting with God personally, praying for your neighbors specifically. But the third thing that I would encourage you to do this week is to take time to engage your neighbors. Take time to engage your neighbors this week. Think about what that means. Each of us have different scenarios and what that this looks like. Some of you live in apartments, some of us live in houses, whatever scenario, that's going to look different. For some of you, it may be as simple as taking a family to go out and play in the front yard and just pray that God will give you an opportunity to interact with some of your neighbors. Others of you, maybe it's going for a walk. For others of you, it may be taking up the courage to finally it may you may have lived in your house for over a year or several years. Going over to somebody's door, knocking on the door, and saying, Hey, I've never met you. Could I just learn your name? I live across the street and I just want to get to know my neighbors. I'm trying to get around and meet a few people. What was your name? You know, having a conversation with some people this week. I don't know what this looks like practically. I'm gonna let you and God figure that out. But I really want to encourage you, connect with God, pray for your neighbors, and then engage them. Find some way to engage your neighbors this week as God enables you and empowers you. My number one prayer is that as you walk out of this building today is that you would be reminded of that first practical point. That you have to rest on, rest in and rely on the gospel. If you hear one thing today, it's that. I my prayer is that it would be that. That God's grace is what motivates us to spend time, to get into people's mess, and to engage people with the gospel this morning. Let me pray for us.