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Now let me ask you a question. Do any of you ever get distracted? Dumb question, right? I mean, we live in 2013. We live in the world of distractions. I think I might be given an official diagnosis if I would just go to the doctor, they would say you have ADD. I think they could probably give that to me. But I do know this that I get distracted a lot. It's like I feel like in life I'm rocking along and you know, just everything around me is distracting me. I wake up distracted, you know. It's like I wake up out of bed and there's 10 things on my brain that I need to do, and then the next thing comes, and then the next thing comes, and then, you know, before you know it, it's like a series of distractions, and then it's the end of the day. And all I've done is respond to the distractions of the day. Don't you hate that when you finish your day and you're feeling like, man, I think all I did today was just do whatever kind of distracted me in the moment, and then now the day's over. And then you go to bed and you wake up and you do the same thing over. We we've we've spent our lives distracted. And because we have so many things coming at us, so many messages, so much noise in our culture, and so many things visually. I mean, you can't drive down the highway without being distracted. Um, you know, some of you remember the the movie Finding Nemo. Um, I've watched it far too many times because I've got young kids. But you know, you think about Dory. You guys you guys know Dory, the fish that's his friend in there? Yeah, that's kind of how we live our lives a lot of times, right? And she's just like always being distracted. Oh, shiny thing, you know, it's like there we go. And that's how a lot of times we can live. And the thing about distractions is they are annoying and can be really frustrating, but even more, they can be costly and dangerous. Distractions can really be, I mean, there's, you know, in our world today, there's this huge, um, these huge ad campaigns going out for people texting while they're driving. I know none of you do that, right? I have never done that before. Okay, whoops, I just lied in church because I know that sadly um somebody's texted me and I've reached down. Oh, I can just say no real fast, you know. And uh and so we've got to be guarded against the things that can distract us. How about this? I I read this week that a 2007 study by Basics estimated that distractions cost U.S. business $588 billion per year. So I don't I don't know, I don't know where they get their figures, I don't know how they figure this out, but they they basically said if every worker worked instead of just operating and being distracted, uh, they would save these businesses $588 billion. That's pretty costly, distractions, right? And so we see how distractions not only affect us individually, but they exp exp uh they affect us corporately. You see, um I'm pretty positive that the church, the organization of the church, the infrastructure, the group that is makes up the people of the church, that the church is distracted many times. The church is not focused on the things that it should be focused on, but rather it is distracted by the things that are trying to fight and vie for our attention. And the cost of these distractions have eternal ramifications. You hear me? It's not like just we lose $588 billion. It's like people, they die, they live life without ever hearing the greatest message that they could hear, which is that there's a God in heaven who made them, who loves them deeply. And though we rejected him, he sent his son, Jesus, to save us, to give us life, and to give us hope, and that one day when we die, because we will all wrinkle and gray and die, get sick, whatever it is, that we can actually live forever with him. It's a phenomenal reality, but we get distracted. You see, the church gets lost in the weeds and we forget who we are and what God has called us to do. And so we want to teach through the book of Acts for two primary reasons. As I think about distractions and I think about how easily we can get sidetracked, we want to teach the book through the book of Acts over the next three months for these two primary reasons. First, we're a brand new church. As I said, um we've just come out of the womb like a lot of these other little babies running around here, right? So we are we're brand brand new. And when I say we are a new church, what I mean is we are a new expression, a local expression of the church, because the church is far bigger than us, right? There's a big C church, which is believers that are all over the world. But what I know to be true is that as a brand new expression of the church here in South Austin, um, we can assume a lot about how to do church and how to be the church and how to go about what the church should be focused on. But we know that God has got a plan and a purpose. And if we're not careful, all we'll do is we'll look at another church and say, okay, that's what they're doing. Let's do that. And so we'll just do a carbon copy of that. Or we'll go to a conference, or we'll go to these things, that things, we'll read articles, we'll get online because we are inundated with information about how to do church in the world around us. And we'll just do that. But I think what's important is that we don't neglect God's word, which tells us how to be the church. And so as a new church, we want to look at God's word. We want to say, God, how do you want us to do church? How do you want us to be the church? And the book of Acts, if you will, is kind of like a manual, it's a handbook for the church. Uh, there's other passages we can go to that aren't in the book of Acts, but in the book of Acts, you'll find these teachings and these descriptions of how to be the church, how to do what Christ has called us to do. And so that's one of the primary reasons we want to teach to the book of Acts. The second reason we want to teach the book of Acts is because the church on the U.S. is on decline. It's in decline. Um I read an article this week that said over the last 25 years that church affiliation, people that are connected to local churches, has gone down 10% in the U.S. Now, you might be going, well, that's only 10%. You know how many millions of people that that is that is that are walking away from the church. A lot of people disconnecting. And I am concerned that a lot of people are walking away from the church, but what concerns me most is actually that they're walking away from Jesus. That they're walking away from the gospel. They're walking away from hearing that there is a God, again, like I said a while ago, who who saves. And so when the church gets distracted, when we get sidetracked, when we get off base, this is the result. Um we don't want to undermine the fact that there is a real enemy to the church, that there is a, uh the scripture talks about him as the devil, that he wants to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to keep the church from being what it should be, but we also know that many times it's the church being distracted by itself. It's the church being distracted by the things that are around us that are keeping us from doing what God has called us to do. And therefore, we are losing ground. In fact, if you look at the world, Christianity is on the rise. Christianity, followers of Jesus, are growing in number globally. Not only that, but they're growing more rapidly than ever before in the history of the movement of the church. And so you live in the U.S. and you're like, wow, I mean, it doesn't feel that way at all. Where are you getting these numbers? Where is this coming from? Where's this research? Let me tell you, it's coming from parts of the world that are not distracted by all the things that we've tried to make the church into. It's coming from parts of the world, like where I spent some time in October in China, where people there, they have none of the things that we have when it comes to the trappings and the uh just the just the things that can be really good. And we've got Chin and you back here in the back of the room who are from China and their country is experiencing an amazing awakening. People are coming to faith in droves because the people there are focused on the mission. They're focused on what God has called them to. And we're gonna talk more about what that is tonight, okay? So, the book of Acts, and just in case you don't know much about the book of Acts, let me just give you a few quick uh snippets about it. All right? There's a place if you want to take notes over there inside your worship guide, but don't feel like you have to. Um, the book of Acts was written by Luke. Uh Luke wrote also the Gospel of Luke, which is a book just a couple of books over from where it is in the New Testament of the Bible. Okay? And Luke wrote this as a continuation of his writing in the Gospel of Luke. Um, some people call the book of Acts a fifth gospel because it is just continuing to tell the story of what happens with the early church when Christ is resurrected and then leaves, okay? And so it uh it covers a time period from about 33 A.D. to about 62 A.D., roughly. And so it's about a 30-year period that Luke is kind of covering in the book of Acts. And he wrote it really for three primary reasons. Um historically, he wanted us to understand the history of the church, and so when we read it, we get to get this glimpse into what it was like to be the part of the early church, which, again, um, it was not glamorous, uh, it was not glorious because they were undergoing incredible persecution and hardship. People were dying for their faith. As Luke is recording these accounts of all the things God is doing, and so while God's doing amazing things through the people, at the same time people are dying because the Romans uh were against Christianity growing. So it's historical in nature, so it gives you this great narrative. It's unlike some of the other books that we read in the Bible where you get um just real clear theological arguments, or Paul writes very doctrinally, like gives us these sound instructions. And in Acts, we get these stories which are fascinating. Like I said earlier, stories are powerful and it's really fun to learn from. So I encourage you to read it with us because you're gonna get to see some cool stories and unearth truths that are in these stories. But beyond that, it's not just historical, it's also theological. So there are some elements that it teach us about who God is, how he works, how he claims way before this time that he's going to come, and he's gonna send Jesus, and then he's gonna uh redeem uh his people, and then he's going to raise up the church, and so we see prophecies from the Old Testament come true in the book of Acts. And so it's a really fun um book to read in that sense, that it's theological and teaches us about who God is and how we are to understand and interact with God. And then thirdly, not only that, but it's an apologetic book. So Luke writes apologetically specifically about the resurrection. He's teaching us about um how to have confidence in the person and work of Jesus. Okay? So when you think about Acts, those are kind of the three primary ways that Luke comes at this book as he as he teaches, as he writes. So let me read um just chapter one, verse one through fifteen. It's about, it's like I said, it's gonna take a minute to get through it, so hang with me. But listen to this as we read, and uh, if you have a Bible, read along with me. I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up, after he had given orders through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While he was together with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise. This, he said, is what you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time? He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white cloths, clothes, stood by them. They said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day journey away. When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying. Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. All were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. And during these days Peter stood up among the brothers. The number of people who were together was about a hundred and twenty. Okay, we're going to stop there. So, I know that's a lengthy passage and you get to hear a little bit of what's going on, but I want you to get some of the flavor of Acts as Luke is teaching us and telling us, retelling the story of what was going on in the early church. First off, you'll notice that it says, I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach. So just as a baseline, again, we're learning about what Jesus did and taught. But notice he says Theophilus. Maybe you're like, who is Theophilus? Basically, just so you know, that some scholars would say that he was a real person, but most would actually say that it's just to the people that uh love God or are loved by God. That's how it can actually be translated in the Greek language. And so the word Theophilus is um the idea of being loved by God or a lover of God. Okay? So you can go with either way. Um I kind of like loved by God. And uh that includes all of us, right? And so uh in that in that. And so um that's that's who Luke is writing to as he gives us this book of Acts. But what I want us to focus in on tonight, like I said a while ago, is that we easily get distracted. We easily get distracted in life. And I think that the church is distracted, but I think we're distracted by the same things that the early church was tempted to be distracted by, the early Christians. Because remember, when we say the church, we don't mean just like the infrastructure and the organization at large of the church. What we mean is the individuals who comprise the church, right? So when we're talking about the church, the church is the gathering of God's people. It's the God's people collectively coming together, right? And so um the distractions that we see, I want to just take note of tonight, that are keeping us from being on mission with God are the same things that they faced back then. So the first thing you come to in the passage that we read was that it says, after he had suffered, he also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs. Now let me just stop at the first part of that. After he had suffered. One of the first distractions that the church faces, that I face personally, is fear. One of the things that can really keep us from being on mission with God is fear. And you might say, well, fear of what? Well, these guys were actually afraid they were gonna die. Remember who these guys are, okay? Um, these are the guys who not so long ago were deserting Jesus. Why? Because they thought he's getting crucified, we're next, right? We're gonna they're they're uh Jesus is dying because of who he is and what he has claimed. We're his followers, so guess who's gonna die next? We are. And so they're afraid, they're scared out of their minds, and they run, they hide, they leave Jesus, they desert him. And so we see um in the in this this idea that after he suffered, that the one of the fears that they had to overcome was dying for their faith. And when people say that this Christian movement is false, it's not true, um, or they try to make a case that you know it it it's um you cannot believe in this story. Let me let me just make an apologetic claim here. Because remember, one of Luke's purposes was to be uh for this book to be an apologetic. How many of you would die for something that you knew was not true? Anyone in the room? Okay, because think think about this for a second. We're gonna come to see this far as we get further into the book of Acts. That these men who deserted Jesus because they were afraid for their lives, ultimately actually they gave up their life to follow Jesus. They gave up their life to help build the church, they gave up their life to spread the gospel. So that tells me something. It tells me that they overcame their fear, but also it leads me to the second distraction that we face, which they overcame their doubts. Um one of the distractions of the church today is that we have doubts. Do you ever doubt that God is real? I have. Have you ever doubted that this Bible is true? Maybe you're like, well, yeah, I'm just kind of exploring this thing. I'm not even sure what to believe about this. That's okay. I I as a believer in Jesus, as someone who grew up in church, I've had moments where I've doubted. Because doubt is part of the journey, isn't it? Doubt is part of our spiritual growth, it's part of our life because we live with minds that get distracted and minds that can go down ways of reason that make sense to us. Because let's be honest, this is this is craziness. This Bible, this word, this the story that God would send his son to die for us, that is that's insane. Isn't it? But what's amazing is we see this story hold up, and the truth of the story hold up. It stood the test of time, and and the the movement has grown and grown and grown because God is real, he is working, his power has been displayed, okay? His spirit has blessed this thing, and it has grown into an amazing movement and God's work. But we have to overcome doubts. We have to deal with those doubts. I mean, that we do we really believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son? Do we really believe that he died? And here's the thing: do we really believe that he rose from the grave? When we get to Easter this spring, we already know how we've mapped out the book. I can't wait to preach the passage that we're gonna get to uh to preach on Easter because it speaks to this issue of the resurrection. And here's the thing is if Jesus came out of the grave, then you can guarantee everything else is possible. But if he didn't, we just need to just throw it in the trash can and walk away. Now that may sound harsh or or or weird or whatever, but here's the thing we believe that Jesus Christ resurrected from the grave. And if he resurrected from the grave, everything is possible. If he overcame sin and death, then everything is possible with our God. And I believe that tonight, with all that I am, that he did come out of that grave, that he is alive, and that these men who Luke is recording their lives, they saw him. It says he spent 40 days appearing to them and giving them proof. You know what's what's interesting about, without going too far into it, is in the book of Matthew, we were talking this week that in the book of Matthew, we find the story where Jesus ascends. And as he's ascending, they've just been hanging out with a resurrected Jesus, a Jesus they had seen die on the cross, and now he's alive. And it says that while he was ascending, some of them doubted. I mean, even people who saw a literal resurrected Jesus still struggle with doubts. Have you been there? Even when you've experienced firsthand God do something amazing, God really do an incredible thing in your life, you still go through hard days and you still can doubt. We have to overcome that distraction of fear, and we have to overcome that distraction of doubt. One of the next things that we have to overcome is it says here, he was together with them, and they and he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise. He says, This is what you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So they had come together and they asked him, Lord, are you restoring the kingdom at this time? One of the next distractions that the church faces today, and one of the distractions that they face then, is being preoccupied with their own agenda. We get preoccupied with our own agenda. This is when we take God and we make life about how can how much can God bless us? How much can God make my life better? How much can God make my life more comfortable, right? And that sounds like something that we all want. We want a good life, we want our best life, or all these things, but we realize that life is brief, it's temporary, it's short, and we can be preoccupied with that and miss out on God's goodness and his grace to us and his offer to enable us to be a part of his work. And so these these disciples, they're struggling with their own agenda. This was not a new conversation that they'd been having. Uh, that they just they started having. They've been having this one for a while about you know, when's Jesus gonna come in, take over the Romans, kick them out, like start his whole thing, and then we're all gonna get to be a part of this. This is gonna be great. And notice again that that wasn't what this was about. But the second doubt that fits with this that you see here is the fact that they were wrestling through um theological issues. And sometimes in the church today, we get really hung up on theological debates. We get really consumed by just trying to figure out things that we're just not gonna know the answers to. In fact, um as I told you earlier, I grew up in the church and I watched churches split, I watched churches divide and go different directions. Theological issues that don't matter. I watch churches and even groups who are connected to churches split and divide and not be engaged because they get irritated about things that aren't really the most important things. And so we've got to be really careful not to get sidetracked, distracted by theological debates. And they were asking questions that they weren't going to know the answer to. And Jesus says, you know, you're not going to know the answer to that. It's easy to get distracted. One of the fifth things that I see that they get distracted by, that we can struggle to get distracted by, was religiosity. Now I'm going to skip ahead a little bit in the story because we're going to come back to the section there that I'm skipping. But notice that while he was going up, this is verse 10, while he was going up into heaven, right? They were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them. And they said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand and look into heaven? One of the things that we can get distracted by as the church, as Christians, is our religiosity. And let me explain what I mean by religiosity. We can just get locked up into just singing worship songs, going to Bible studies, doing prayer, having a good family, having a good life, doing all those things, and forgetting that there are people who do not know the gospel, that there are people who don't know the message of the good news of Christ. And so we can actually get consumed with our own religiousness. We can get consumed with just our going through our ritualistic behavior as people who are connected to church and forget that God has a bigger purpose than just simply us coming and showing up together to do church. You see, what's worse is that when you get into this boat, the church tries to become the moral police. And they start to look around and look at all the world, and rather than trying to reach out to the world as Christ would have done, they start to condemn the world and start to say, hey, look how bad the world is. Look how bad everybody in the world is. All the while forgetting that we are a part of the world. All the while forgetting that we are a human being and we struggle too, right? And if not for God's grace, we're in the same boat. So the point is that we've got to be very careful because the church is intended not to be the moral police, but we're intended to be a hospital. A place for people who are who are sinners and are struggling and need life and need hope and need help and need grace. That's what the church is supposed to be. Not a place where we sit around and condemn people for their behavior. And so we have to avoid that distraction. And the last thing that I want us to say to see, and it's actually not even explicit in this text, but it is in the in later in Acts, is that the church can get distracted doing really good things for the wrong reason. What I mean by that, I think that the scripture tells us that we should care for the poor, right? That we should serve those in need, that we should help widows and orphans in their distress, that we should do all those things. But here's the thing: if we feed the hungry, if we go around the world and we care for those that are sick, and we do that and we don't point them to Christ, we don't tell them about the greatest thing that they need. You know what we do? We actually allow people to go to hell with full bellies. Or we to go to hell with well bodies. And that sounds harsh, but here's the truth. Like, there's a greater reality than the physical needs that each one of us suffer and deal with every day. And that's that our lives are temporary and that there's an eternal, there's a there's an eternal reality that we're gonna have to come to grips with. And so as we face life, we can get distracted by even doing good things, but just forgetting why we do them, forgetting that it's about the gospel, it's about Jesus, it's about what he has done for us, and it's about pointing them to life in him. So those are some of the distractions that we face. And as we just wrap up tonight, as we think about this from the text, notice again in all these situations what Jesus does. Jesus doesn't shun them when they have fear. I mean, when I get fearful, I'm ashamed of the fact that I get afraid. And Jesus, he doesn't shame me for my fear. He comes into that and he meets me in it. Isn't that encouraging? I think about the disciples as they were in the upper room and they were praying and they were scared out of their minds. They're coming after us, we're going to die. And it says Jesus came and he came into the midst of them and he was with them. Listen, if you're afraid, if you're afraid to follow Jesus, join the club. If you're afraid to deal with things that life brings, if the hardships that will come, you're not alone. And Christ is with you and he meets you in that. If you doubt, you're not alone. And Christ will meet you in that. If you will ask him, if you will cry out to him, if you will pray to him, if you will engage his scripture, he will give you confidence in his truth. If you are struggling with your own personal agenda and putting that forward before God, Jesus has answers for that. He knows what it's like to have to lay aside his agenda. In fact, scripture teaches us that he had to put aside his kingship in order to come down and to serve us so that we could have life. If you are struggling, if we as a church are struggling to be people who don't let theological issues become barriers to keep people out and walls we build to keep people away from Jesus. Listen, Christ is here to break down those walls and say, I'm here to set you free. If we struggle with our religiosity because we feel somehow like we're fulfilled because we do the church thing or we have good families, whatever that means. Listen, Jesus came to die for both those who are who feel like they're the worst of sinners and those who feel like they're the most righteous. They need Christ too, like I said earlier in my own story. And Jesus came to serve the sick and to help the poor, to minister to those in need, those that are outcasts. But he did it in such a way to point them to the fact that there's more than just this temporary need, but to there's an eternal reality. So what do we need to do? Um, first off, if you're here and you have been offended by the church because the church has been distracted and has hurt you in some way, I just, as a pastor of a church, I want to say I'm sorry. I want to say I'm sorry that that's been your experience because that's not what Christ has called us to do. That's not his mission. It's not his mission to uh to keep people out, but to invite people in. And so I ask your forgiveness on behalf of the church because I'm a part of that. And I've been a part of that, of being the moral police, of keeping people away from the grace of God. But I also want to remind all of us tonight that there's some things that we need to do. We need to remember the person work of Jesus. That's the center. That it's about Jesus. Okay? It's not about being just good people, it's about Jesus. That we need to continue to grow and focus on that. That we need to remember his clear and simple instructions, which were what? He says here. He says, wait for the Holy Spirit to come and be my witnesses. To be my witnesses. Christ has given us that clear instruction to witness to others. And when you hear the word witness, I don't know what comes in your mind, but since I grew up in church around that, like always think about like walking up to people and saying, okay, if you die tonight, where would you spend eternity? And I'm not saying that's all bad. I'm sure people came to faith that way. But I'm talking about if you've really experienced the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ, like you can't shut up about him. You can't stop talking about the good things that he has done, the great things that who God is. Witnessing in that way. Not making it into some sort of formal, okay, I've got A, B, C, D. I've got to make sure I say this to say I witness to a person. But truly overflowing with the greatness and the goodness of God. Because you've encountered him. Thirdly, from the passage, we see that we should rely on his power. He says the Holy Spirit should come. To wait for the Holy Spirit to come. We need the Holy Spirit. And that might sound weird to you. It might sound like, the Holy Spirit, well, who's this Holy Spirit? How does this supposed to work? But I can tell you this. Um, when the Holy Spirit comes into your life and you have God in you, again, you you can do whatever he asks you to do because he can empower you. He can empower you to forgive people who have hurt you in deep ways that you not thought you could never forgive. He can empower you to be bold, to tell others about him. He can empower you to serve others who are in need that you are like, I don't really care about them. And God gives you a care because he lives inside of you and he's changing you. He's changing your compassion and your desires. And so the Holy Spirit can move in that way. And last, we see in this passage, which I think is really awesome, it says in verse 14, all these were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. They could have just said they were all continually united in prayer, but he didn't. He said, make sure you understand the women were there, which in that day and time was a big deal. Okay, in our culture, it's not as big a thing. The women are in the room, that's just normal. But then it's saying that even the women were invited in to be a part. There was no division. They didn't see the women as something less. They weren't a piece of property, but they were valuable and they were invited in. But also, I think what's more important is that Jesus' family is in the scene. That they were a part of this thing. And remember what I said again from an apologetic perspective. I mean, if Jesus is your brother, and Jesus is your son, if he's not real and this thing really didn't happen, like you're not there, right? But they're here. The history that Luke records says that they were there praying, because that's what their son, brother, leader had told them to do. To go and to wait and to pray. And they were united, not just praying, but united in prayer. And if we're going to be the church that God's called us to be, if Redemption City Church is going to be a church in this city that really makes an impact for the kingdom of God, it's going to be because we are a people united in prayer, humbly acknowledging that we are we are fallible, we are humans, we struggle with all these distractions we talked about tonight. But God's grace is good, and we can love and serve others from a place of just letting him fill us and change us and grow us. So when we say we are a family of Jesus followers pointing people to life and Jesus and Him, we've got to be honest and self-aware that we're just as distracted and just as tempted to be distracted as these guys were. To divide ourselves over petty things, to focus on keeping people out rather than inviting people in, to get wrapped up in foolish arguments that lead us nowhere, to participate in rote religious activity rather than responding to Jesus, to be successful at growing a church rather than being faithful witnesses of the gospel. And the list goes on. But without the grace of God, we will become a distracted church. But with his grace, we will become conduits to share his love and his grace and his gospel, his good news to the world. And that's my prayer, that's my hope. And as I look around this room, I pray for each one of you that you would know that God has a purpose and a plan for your life. Don't miss it, because there's a lot of things that are going to try to distract you from it, but there is a purpose and a plan for your life. And it is far greater than anything that this world can offer. Want to pray for us and then give us some instructions as we move forward tonight.