We good? Good. Man, it's a good day. Um, if it's your very first time at his hands, I want to start by saying welcome. Anytime you come to a church for the first time, you you try to get the lay of the land, you want to know what the church is really about. Uh this is our this is our passion. This is why we exist. We exist to love people to Jesus. That's why we're here. Okay? And so we want to love you and want you to know so completely that you are loved by God that you realize that it's not a love that comes from us, because that'd be weird. We just met you. How would we love you? Uh it's from God. Because He's known you since before you existed. And He chose you and chose to love you before you were even created. And as a church, our passion is that you know that you're loved by God. I believe that when people receive love, it tends to have a positive impact on us. Most of the time, if someone says I love you, I respond in kind. I like that. I don't know what it is about me. Maybe I'm weird. But I think all of us are like that. We've got to know that we're loved, and we've got to make sure that everyone in our lives, everyone in this community, everyone on earth knows that the God that created this giant ball that is floating in space right now, nothing's holding it up. Think about that. This giant ball that we're on, we're surrounded with love. God loves everyone that He has created. That's why we're here. Um specific group of people we want to show a lot of love to right now is moms, because it's Mother's Day. So let's hear it from moms. So I I went through a little mental exercise this morning, and uh and and and men, if if you have a wife or or just a mom of your children, I want you to think for a second, just engage in this with me, because obviously there could be some uh some some exceptions, but I think the general rule will apply. I started to count the number of things that I do for my children on like a daily basis, and then the number of things that my wife does for my children on a daily basis. And it did not take long before the list was a little embarrassing on my part. I'm like, oh my gosh, I am I am so far behind. I've got to pick up the slag, I gotta, I gotta do some things because my wife is amazing and she loves our children. And there is something so special about the heart of a mom. And so, all of you in here who are moms, even those of you who are spiritual moms, maybe you don't have you don't have children biologically, but you are a mother to someone. You love someone in that way. You are so amazing and you represent God so well. So, just one more time, let's give a huge round of applause for all the moms. You guys are awesome. We love you. Most of us wouldn't even be here without you, if you think about it. Um, there is a lot of really exciting things that are about to happen. I want to talk about a few of them really quickly before we jump into the message. Number one, this summer, for the very first time ever, at his hands, we are doing a vacation Bible school. A good old-fashioned VBS. We're in Georgia, why not? You know, in the South, do a good old-fashioned VBS. So here's the deal. If you've never experienced this, it's a it's a week-long thing in the summer that exists for kids, and it's all about them having a blast, really having the time of their life and learning about Jesus. And for a lot of kids in this community, it will be their first encounter with Jesus, their first exposure to who he is. And that's that's an amazing thing to think about. We are anticipating between three and four hundred children for VBS this summer, which is awesome. That's gonna be so much something. It's gonna be so good. It's gonna be so good. And really, right now, what we need is some help. We need some people to volunteer to help with VBS. We'll give you more details really soon. It's in July, and I think next week we'll even start telling you when you can register and sign up your kids if you want them to be part of it. But if you are someone that loves to have fun, if you're someone that that loves children, that has some energy and that understands how absolutely vital it is for kids at a young age to know that God made them and that he loves them, go to the Connect Desk today and sign up for the VBS team and we'll follow up with more info from there. And if you don't know where the connect desk is, by the way, it's in the main lobby. It has a big word over the top of it, it says connect. We try to make it painfully obvious. But that's a really important place. Because, see, a church is not something we just want to go to. This church, his hands, is not a place we attend. It's not a building, right? It's a movement. And we have to be connected to one another if we're gonna move in the same direction. And so being connected here, it's really important. There are so many ways that you can get connected. You can join a team. That happens all the time at the Connect Desk. There are people there every Sunday to help you find the place where your gifts and your abilities fit and you can serve other people. You'll make amazing friends as you serve alongside other people. It's awesome. You can also join a home group any Sunday at the Connect Desk. You can get all the info you need there. You can sign up online and in other ways, of course. But the Connect Desk is great because there's a person there ready to help you find a married couple group or a men's group or a women's group. We have a college group, a young adult group, you can name it. We have a group for you, and we want you to know people, to be connected. I want to share a story that came in about our home groups. All of us should have had one of these cards sitting on your seat when you came in. We'll talk more about those here in just a moment. But these are our share your story cards, and this is what it says. Back in 2014, when his hands began having home groups, we felt like God was calling us to join one. Personally, during this time, we were nearing the end of an adoption process, but we were stuck in the red tape of paperwork mistakes. We felt an instant connection to the other couples in our group, and even though we really didn't know them, we shared our frustrations and we asked for prayer. Not only did our new friends support us in prayer and rejoice when our paperwork was completed the next month, almost all of them came to the courthouse and joined us in the courtroom for our adoption hearing. These couples that we had only known for two short months were there to support us in one of the most important events in our lives. They even threw us a surprise adoption party at our home group meeting that night. Our new friends showed more care and support than some people we had known for years. And our group has grown in so many ways in the past year. We've been able to celebrate so many things in all of our families' lives. How amazing is that! Isn't that not awesome? Those are the kind of things that happen in home groups all the time. And so if you're not connected in a home group, I really want to encourage you to go to the Connect Desk today and just ask about it. Find a night of the week that we have a group that works for you. Give it a try. You're gonna love it because it's great people. Um anyone knows Ken Kington, right? Everyone knows Ken? Ken? Okay? Ken's a he's a funny guy, right? Like, he's moderately funny. Uh, if you if you don't know Ken, he is uh he's an amazing part of our teaching team. He is a professional comedian, so I like to joke about him not being that funny because that's gotta bother him. And he always makes fun of me when he's here, and I he always does. If you he always has. When I first started to grow my beard, which has taken a long time to come in, uh Ken made sure to mention that often when he would come up. I would do the announcements, and then he would come up and say, Isn't it cute Justin's trying to grow a beard? And I was like, Ken, you know, so I try to use my moments when he's not here to take a few shots at him, that's all. But Ken is amazing. He's an amazing part of our teaching team, he's one of the most successful comedians in the country, and he is he's a passionate Jesus follower. And Ken's gonna be here the next two Sundays doing the message, so you definitely want to be here next week and the week after that. Invite friends, because it's an amazing, he's an amazing person to bring someone to to the first time. He's he's awesome. He's also the president of this thing called the Christian Comedy Association, which I didn't even know existed, but they have associations for everything. So there is an association for Christian comedians, and Ken is the president of it. So next week we need to be very respectful of him, very presidential in our approach to him, okay? Salute him. I don't know what you do to the president of the CCA, but but we're gonna have a special event here that he's kind of leading with that. Uh it's gonna be called the CCA, the Christian Comedy Association, comedy showcase, and it's gonna be Ken and a number of other Christian comedians. Uh, some you may have heard of, some not, but a number of other Christian comedians that are gonna be here just to do a comedy show. And if you're new at his hands, we like to laugh. We are, we, we laugh, we're laughers. Uh we take God very seriously, but not ourselves. And so uh we just want to encourage you to mark that date on your calendar, June 7th. It starts at 6.07. Ken wanted it to be 6.07 on 6.07. Ha ha ha. Like I said, moderately funny. Uh we're gonna have tickets for sale next week. It is a ticketed event, but we're gonna make it really affordable, really good. And Ken is excited about this. Uh, he's been going on and on about how amazing the group of comedians they're gonna have here are. And I just think it's awesome because comedy is one of those things that is is typically it's dangerous, right? Like if you want to watch something with your kids, you're like, I don't know if this is gonna be appropriate, and it probably isn't. Uh so it's nice to know you can even bring something with your family, your friends, your kids. You can bring them along, and you know it's gonna be hysterical, but also just really appropriate for all ages. I'm excited about it. Uh so put that date on your calendar, we'll give you more details next week. Can we pray real quick? Is that okay? I know we've already prayed a few times, but it really helps me. So let's pray and let's jump into God's word this morning. Jesus, thank you so much for your love. Oh, God, I can even hear you right now saying, Slow down, Justin. You're going really fast. And I appreciate that sometimes, God, because I do go fast. And thank you for moments where we can just stop and we can slow down, and life can be what it's meant to be, just a relationship with you where we walk each step in our journey with you by our side. We love you, Jesus. We thank you for what you've done for us, and right now we ask that you open our hearts to what you want to share, and we ask this in your name. Amen. Well, if you have been here for the last few months, we are wrapping up a series today. It's a series called By Faith. We've been exploring what it means to be people who live by faith. 2 Corinthians 5 7 says we are called to live by faith and not by sight. Live by faith, not by sight. God is really saying, hey, you've got two approaches you can take in life. You can live your life by sight. In other words, your life is defined by what you can envision, by what you can imagine, what you can dream, what you can hope, what you can understand. That's how you can live your life. The problem there is that, at least in my experience, my perspective, what I can think about, dream about, envision, understand, it's pretty limited. And so if I choose to live my life by sight, I am limiting the purpose and the scope of my life to what I can comprehend. But if I live by faith, that's very different. Because when we live by faith, the only thing that limits our lives is what God can envision, what God can dream, what God can see, and what God can comprehend. And God is by nature limitless. So when we live our lives by faith, the only thing that limits our lives is a limitless God. I want to live a life by faith. So we've been exploring this chapter in the New Testament, the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11 gives us this list of amazing men and women who lived lives of faith. They lived lives of great faith, faith that was so intense that it made it into the pages of the Bible. And we've wanted to learn from these people, to follow in their footsteps. And so, week in and week out, we've been looking at their stories, all the things they've done so that we can try to grow in our faith by imitating them. And this week we're gonna we're gonna wrap this up by looking at Hebrews chapter 12, just one verse in Hebrews chapter 12. After it's gone through all these different people, this is what the writer of Hebrews says in light of these amazing men and women that he's just outlined. He says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, talking about all the people that we've been looking at for the last several months. We're talking about Moses, Abraham, Sarah, Rahab, I mean Joseph, Jacob, you name it, all these amazing men and women of faith. Since we have all of these people watching us, is what he's saying. Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. In other words, the writer of Hebrews is saying, look, we've just talked about all these amazing men and women of faith. They lived incredible lives, they've done amazing things for God. But it's our turn. We're the ones living life now. They're watching us. So let's do this. Let's live our life in such a way that future generations say, I want to grow in my faith like they did. Because now is our time. The writer of Hebrews is calling his people into action. He's saying that by faith we have to be people who act. We have to be people of action. I grew up in a church culture that was very focused on performance. The idea basically was that how God feels about you is determined by how well you've done this week. And so some weeks I'd go to church and I'd feel like, okay, I think God's pleased with me this week. I had a little checklist of things that I needed to do, things that I definitely shouldn't do. But over time, life got a little harder and my checklist became much less impressive. And I felt like every week I was a failure in God's eyes because I grew up with this performance-oriented view of God, that God's feelings about me have to do with what I have done. And I want to let us know this right at the start. That as we look and explore this concept of acting on our faith, of being compelled to action, we're not talking about what we need to do to make God happy. God is happy because he's won. And you tend to be happy after you win. I mean, Jesus defeated death. He's in a really good mood. And he loves you. He loves you. You don't have to earn God's love. You don't have to do anything to have his love. And if you've ever, if you've ever been told that, if anyone's ever given you that impression, I'm so sorry. But we've got to start by erasing that. You don't have to do a thing to earn God's love because his love for you is the love of a father, it's the love of a parent. It's Mother's Day, right? The love of a mother. Whether children, that's the love that God has for you. And what does a child have to do to earn the love of a parent? Nothing. Nothing. Not if the parent is remotely like God. In fact, children do a really good job trying everything they can think of to get us to not love them, right? They're very creative. The things that I've even just five years being a parent, five years. I have two children, one is five, the other just turned one, and they're both, they're both amazing. I love them both. But there have already been experiences I've had in five years that have that have made me realize that if they were not my children, I don't know if I have it in me to love them. Because of some of the things that have happened. If you have a gag reflex, close your ears for the next five seconds. My my son once threw up into my mouth. Okay? And you might be wondering, okay, how does that happen? I'll explain. So I'm playing with my one-year-old son. This is four years ago. I'm throwing him up in the air, you know. I'm going, wee, wee, and he's laughing and he's laughing. And then one time as I threw him up, okay, and I said, we, something came out of his mouth right as my mouth was opening, and it was like a mama bird feeding her children. It's like direct shot. And I had to do this thing where like I'm holding him and I'm like, I can't drop him. I'm like, oh, what is that? And that's like if anyone else ever did that to me, the circumstances that would take to happen, I don't even know. But I would not love that person in my my heart of hearts. I'd try. But that happens with my son, and it's like I it was it was in a weird way, it was cute. How is that even possible? Like, oh, my son threw open my mouth, you know, just being a dad. And those of you that don't have kids yet, you might be thinking, I don't know about the kids thing. Ken mentioned this a few weeks ago because some people are like, ooh, diapers, I don't know. Dipers are like the least of your worries when it comes to the gross things you will experience as a parent. Diapers are pfft, diapers are nothing. See, that happened with my son, and I don't love him any less. And that's that's disgusting. I know that. See, that's how it is when we're when we're children, right? We when we're children, there's really nothing we can do to make our parents love us less. It shouldn't be that way. And if we've ever had experiences like that in our lives, I'm so sorry, but that is not how God is. That is not how God the Father is. He loves you. You don't have to do a thing to earn his love. You don't have to do anything to have it. He has given it to you. But here's the thing once you do have it, once you do have the love of God in your life, it is something so powerful and so strong that we have to do something with it. We don't have to do anything for it, but we've got to do something with it because otherwise it would be a waste if someone walked up to you today and said, hey, here's $10 million, it's yours. You don't have to do anything for it, no strings attached, ten million dollars. You would not go home and put it on a shelf and leave it there for ten years. That would be a waste because it's so it's so valuable, you would use it for something. You would have to use it. It would be a tragedy not to. God's love is so valuable, it is so powerful. The relationship we have with him is so amazing that we have to be people that do something with it. If we're gonna live lives of faith, we have to be people who who act. The book of James. James was the brother of Jesus, and he's a very direct person. We don't get a lot of James in the stories in the Bible, but we we get to see his tone of voice a lot in the chapters of the Bible that he writes, and he's obviously like a straight shooter. If you've ever known someone that just doesn't mince words and they don't they don't like to beat around the bush, they just get right to the heart of the matter, that's James. And he puts it this way in James chapter 2, verse 17. He says, So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, or in other words, unless there's action involved, it is dead and useless. And I like James because he's he's very, very thorough, as if we needed more after dead, right? Faith without action, it's dead, and in case you think dead is a good thing, it's also useless. That's what James is saying. He's saying faith requires action, and earlier in the book of James, he said it this way, I love this, and we're gonna focus on this today. He said, be doers of the word, not merely hearers. Be doers of the word, not merely hearers. His hands. If we're gonna be a church and a family, live lives of faith, we're going to be doers of the word. James is echoing something that Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7. Jesus said, Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall. Because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. And Jesus says, in both of these situations, it's the person that hears and acts versus the person that hears and doesn't act. It's not about hearing. Both situations the people hear. But like James says, we are called to be doers, not hearers. Now, again, I want to clarify something. One of the biggest criticisms that Jesus had of the religious leaders in his day is that they put heavy burdens on people. They gave people these monumental to-do lists. Jesus actually said to them, you put a burden on people too heavy for them to carry, and you don't lift a finger to help. And I mean this very much that if if we ever come here, if we ever come here on Sundays and we leave burdened, we leave feeling like someone has put a heavy weight on us and we walk out of here weighed down because we feel like we're just not good enough, we're not enough, we're not doing enough, then you gotta go to a different church because that means we have stopped being his hands. Because that's not who we are, right? So when I say this, I'm not saying that this is like, oh, okay, be doers. We we've got to really come on, guys, it's time to stop playing around, it's time to be doers. What I'm saying is we have this incredible, incredible opportunity to take the inspiration that faith in us stirs and builds and creates and do something with it to see a world that changes. And so if we leave here and we're we're filled with inspiration, if we leave here and we're lifted up and we have passion, that's God saying, Great, I'm doing something in your heart. Now I want you to do something with it because I want to see lives change. Inspiration without action, it's just not very useful. All of us have been inspired to do something, maybe certain things for a long period of time, but we haven't figured out how that inspiration can materialize into action yet, right? I've been trying to lose 20 pounds for like four years. I have plenty of inspiration. Plenty. And it's so funny because guys, you know how this is. Like, even if you're a guy that's just not in great shape at all, uh, there's something about us that we just have really unrealistic ideas about what we can accomplish. That's how men are sometimes. So you might like see some guy that's just ripped, like in a movie, an actor that spends 12 hours a day lifting weights, and you're like, I should probably get in the gym. Because I could, you know, I could be like that if I if I really tried. Give me a couple months, and that's how I am sometimes. I have the inspiration. Like, oh, I should, I should get in great shape. But then there's food and and sitting down, and that's fun. Sitting down, sitting down is you guys are all doing it right now. You look like you're having a good time, right? I'm burning more calories than you right now, so it's just, you know, I'm ahead. I'm a head start. I'll make it up, I'll make up for it later, promise. Uh see, the inspiration is not my issue, it's it's making the inspiration material. Materialize into action, but it's when we do that, it's when our inspiration in life actually starts to come out through our behavior that things really change. That's when results happen. And if we want to see the lives of our of our friends change, our coworkers, our families, our parents, our children, if we want to see the lives in our communities change, our inspiration has to become action. We have to become doers of the word. There's this amazing story of a group of doers in Mark chapter 2. It's one of my favorite stories in the Bible because I can really relate to it. I don't have a very shady or like crazy past at all. I actually sometimes I wish I did. I wish I had something that I could point to that was it would give me street cred, because I just don't have much of that. And I wish I could say, oh man, back in the day, I was I was in speech and debate, and I was in student government, I was in school plays, really life on the edge type stuff. That's my past. But but I will say this this story, it involves some minor vandalism, okay? And just don't judge me, but in my best effort to show that yes, I did some exciting things once, I used to toilet paper people's houses on weekends. So so the minor vandalism that we're gonna see in this story, this is something I can relate to. And I did it all the time. I loved it. I knew it was illegal. I did. But it was kind of one of those things where you're like, well, yeah, it's illegal, but so's speeding, right? I mean, like, it's sort of, it's it's not really illegal. There was something about seeing a roll of toilet paper fly through the air and just unravel. It was like I could hear classical music. It was beautiful. It was just, it was, you know, and the best was if a teacher ever told us, hey, I'm going on vacation. We're like, awesome, awesome. And we toilet papered so many teachers' houses in high school. So, so many. Had a few close calls, a few moments where I got a little scared that we were gonna get caught and there might be some consequences. The worst was was one day I was at a football game and I had already gone to the store and stocked up. I was ready. My friends and I were gonna leave from the game, go to one of their houses, and then that night we were gonna go out and just toilet paper everywhere is gonna be awesome, it's gonna be great. And I'm telling them about all the plans I have. I was like the ringleader of that group. I'm like, guys, here's what we're gonna do. I know this person's out of town, I know this person, we're gonna go there, I've got all this toilet paper. And normally my friends would have been lit up and excited and engaged and ready to go, but this time they were staring at me with concern and this really, like, really intense look of dread, and I did not know why, until I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around, and there was a police officer who I guess had been standing right behind me the whole time I was talking about this, and and he heard every word that I said. And see, here's the thing I wasn't afraid from a legal point of view, because I have watched Law and Order, and I know that possession of large amounts of toilet paper is not a crime. Okay? You can't make that stick. I know that even intent to roll someone's house in toilet paper is not a crime. There's no way that he was gonna bring me in under those types of charges, right? But he didn't have to. Because here's what he said. He took my name, he grabbed my driver's license, took down my address. He said, All right, son, here's the deal. If one house in this city gets rolled with toilet paper tonight, I will be at your doorstep in the morning, ready to talk to you and your parents together. And I remember being 16 and trying to be like, whatever, okay. Like in front of my friends, like, but on the inside, that that was like the worst night of my life. I was so nervous, I was so terrified. I I remember 10 o'clock in the morning rolled around the next day, and then 11, and I think it was like 2 p.m. before I finally breathed and was like, oh goodness. It was like that episode of that show, Scared Straight. You ever see that? That's what happened. I didn't roll another house for like three weeks because of how intense that encounter was. And so that's that's my thing. I in my past, in my youth, mild amounts of vandalism, just small little doses of vandalism, that was that was something I I enjoyed. And and it was just immaturity. That's all it was. This vandalism, this was much more than immaturity. This actually served a purpose. I love this story. It's in Mark chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. It says, When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door. While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. They broke a hole in someone's roof. That is definitely vandalism, a degree higher than toilet papering someone's house, there's no question. They lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus, seeing their faith. Jesus said to the paralyzed man, My child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, What is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking. I love that. So he asked them, Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to this paralyzed man, Your sins are forgiven, or stand up, pick up your mat, and walk? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand, pick up your mat and go home. The man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the door and through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and they praised God, exclaiming, We have never seen anything like this before. I love this story. I love Jesus. He's so amazing. He heals this man's body, he heals this man's soul. But what I love about this story is that Jesus is not the only one that stands out. And if you're in a story with Jesus and he performs a miracle and somehow you are still a person of note, somehow you still stand out in a positive way, that's a big deal. Because usually, if you're in a crowd and Jesus is there and he does a miracle, it's just Jesus and you're the people that were there. That's it. But see, these four people, these four friends, they stand out because they were doers. In fact, they they really illustrate this doers versus hearers concept perfectly. All the people there were hearers of the word. They were all there to hear Jesus teach. That's why they were there. They were listening to every word that Jesus was saying, but these four men were doing what Jesus told people to do. They were doers. They heard that Jesus was coming to town. They didn't say to their friend, hey, you should go to Jesus. You should find a way to get to Jesus because he's coming to town and he can heal you. No, no, no. They picked their friend up and physically carried their friend to Jesus. And then when they got there and the crowd was so large that they couldn't get through, they didn't say, Hey man, we gave it our best try. Maybe we can go, maybe we can go by this one roadside where Jesus might walk past as he leaves, and maybe then we can really have a moment with Jesus. They said, No, no, no, we're not stopping until you see Jesus. So they climb a roof, they lift their friend up onto the roof, they dig a hole through the roof, and they lower their friend down, mission impossible style. I imagine what that must have looked like as Jesus is teaching, and this man just comes down. And then Jesus says that he saw their faith, not just the man who was paralyzed, their faith, plural. He saw the combined faith of these doers of the word, and he healed this man on the spot. He healed him forever. He healed his body and he healed his soul. And it was all possible because four people decided to be doers. Four people decided to be doers of the word, and the result is that a man's life changed, and a whole crowd of people said, We've never seen anything like this before. You know, in this room right now, there's over 400 people. Is that easy? So, what would happen if 400 people decided to be doers of the word? How many lives would change? This community would say, we've never seen anything like this before. And I want to take a moment and just talk about this church because I love this church so much. I love this church. This is this is an amazing place. And I'm very partial to it. I say this all the time. It is impossible for me to talk about his hands objectively. I cannot do it. It has changed my life. I love this church because this is a church of doers. There's no doubt about that. I love this church for so many reasons. I love what this church is all about. I love how we kind of go about worshiping Jesus. I love the fact that no one gets famous but Jesus here. And so if you're new to his hands, there are some things you will never see here. You will never see someone on this stage with like a big picture of them and it says, follow me on Twitter. I don't, we don't want you to follow anyone but Jesus, okay? You're never gonna see that happen. This is never gonna be a place where someone has a platform to get a little bit more fame or a little bit more notoriety. Jesus is the only person that gets famous here. You're never gonna see someone's name on the front of the building. There's never gonna be a face on a billboard somewhere. We have we have the most incredible, talented group of people I have ever worked with on the staff at this church. It's a very small staff, but they are so talented. And you will not find bios or features about them on our website because it's not about us, it's about Jesus. He is the only person who ever has or ever will become more famous because of his hands church. I love that about this church. I love the authenticity here. I've never seen anything like it. And I'll be honest with you, church culture in America is not something that is exuding authenticity often. I believe God's doing something here that he actually wants to catch on across the nation. I love that. I love that on this worship team, I'll just use them as an example. I love that if I if I told you that Matt, who's got like the long hair and you know he's cool because he's whatever, you know, hip, I don't know, playing his guitar and all that. You know, that that's just that's who Matt is. But if I told you that Ben, who plays keyboard, is a software developer, you would probably believe me, right? Because Ben's not coming out here like, oh, I need to be like with the latest styles or anything like that. Like there's not, there's not a show here. Does that make sense? There's no there's no trends, there's no fashion, coals, top to bottom, right? We don't care. Like and and sometimes I and I want I want you to know that there was a time in my life, there was a time in my life that had I been a part of a different church, I would have become like this sequin jeans wearing super trendy hairstyle person. I don't even know what word to use, but this church saved me from that. Because I'm telling you, this is an authentic place. And I love the fact that you can come here and you can be exactly who you are. This isn't it's not a show. It's not a show. In fact, one of the words I can't stand in church culture is production, because the root word of production is product, and Jesus is not a product we're selling, he is the God we're serving. And so that's what this place is about. I love that about this place. And you know there's a million different ways to do church. A million, and they're all they're all awesome. There's so many good ways to do it. This is this is who we are, this is who God has called us to be. So this is not about comparing to other churches. This is this is what God said for us to do, and so we're responsible to do what He's told us to do here. And He's told us that this place will not be fake, this place will be authentic, and I love that this is an authentic place, and you make it that way. You make it an authentic place because you're doers, you live that out, and I love that. I love the mission of this church, to love people to Jesus. Jesus said this in John 13. He said, By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. That's so simple, but it gets missed so often. I grew up believing that the world would know I was a disciple of Jesus because I only listened to Christian music. That's what I was, that's what I believed. I believe the world would know that I was a Jesus follower because of what I did not do. But Jesus said it's it's by your love that the world will know that your mind. He didn't even say it's our it's our love for him. I have known many people, and I've been one of these people at different times in my life, that have loved God very much but don't really care for people. And see, that's not what Jesus said. He said the world will know your mind, not by how much you love me, it's by how much you will love one another. This is a church full of love. And it's genuine and it's real, and I love it. Pun intended, completely. I love every second of it. You guys are doers. You are so good at living this out, and that makes this such a special place. See, I believe that God wants to do something so powerful in this church and through this church, through his hands, through this family of people, that our community says, we've never seen anything like this before. We've never seen an outpouring of genuine, authentic love like this before. We've never seen a group of people who want Jesus to get famous, and they're not even willing to take 1% of the attention for themselves. Not even a small amount. We've never seen anything like that. And I believe that when we are that, and as we grow into that, lives will change. Every single person this morning had a card on your seat. And those are changing lives cards. They're really simple. On one side it says changing lives, changing lives, and that's not just us stuttering or anything like that. That's very purposeful. See, we're changing lives. In other words, our lives are changing. We don't pretend to be changed. God has changed us, but he's got a lot more changing to do. We are in process. And so if you're here and you feel a pressure that you've got to act like you're 100% fixed and together, uh, no, we're not like that. We are changing. God is working on us and he's growing us, and day by day we're becoming the people he created us to be. But we don't just want to be changing lives for ourselves. We want to be changing lives who are changing lives. We want to see the change that God is doing in us happen in the people that we love and the people in this community. And that happens when we become doers of the word, when we commit to coming together as a church and being doers, because when we do that, we become a movement. Think about a drop of water, it's not very powerful. You wouldn't see a drop of water and go, whoa, that can make things happen. But what happens when a vast multitude of drops of water move in the same direction? That's called a river. And that's powerful. And if as a church we take the love that God has given to us and we commit to moving in the same direction, to being people who are committed to the same purpose, thousands and thousands and thousands of lives will change. You are doers, and you're amazing. And already the things that I've seen happen in the last 10 years, it's unbelievable. I mean, in the last 10 years, we've had over a thousand people get baptized in this church. Over a thousand people have gone all in with Jesus. Isn't that amazing? That's awesome. A couple weeks ago, 31 kids went all in with Jesus. That's 2,300 years of life that was in that tank a few weeks ago. That's gonna live out that time committed to God. That's awesome. But see, we're just getting started. One day it's gonna be 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. That's gonna happen. In just the last 16 months, you have given away over $100,000 to charity because you're doers, because you give. Those of you that give and commit to giving, we've been able as a church to give away over $100,000. Just to say, yeah, no strings attached. That's awesome. I love it. One of those organizations is the Hope Center that we support. And if you're unfamiliar, they take, they take young women who are in crisis pregnancy situations, who believe that abortion is their only option, and they give them the support that they need to choose differently. And it costs an average of $1,500 per child to take a girl through that, through that process, to have that baby, to care for that baby, to be ready, and to have support even on the tail end. $1,500 per child. In the last 16 months, just the last 16 months alone, not the last five years, 10 years, the last 16 months, as a church, we've been able to give them over $36,000. That means 24 children. That's awesome. That's awesome. But I like the dollar amount's fine, but that means 24 children are alive today. Because you're a doer. Because you give. See, one day, one day that number is gonna be a million. And one day, as far as those children are concerned, that's gonna be a thousand, it's gonna be two thousand. Because that's what happens when we are doers of the word. I love this church. I love his hands. And I love I love you because you are his hands, the church's people. And we are doers. We are called his hands because we are called to be his hands to this community. So those cards that were sitting on your seats this morning, those are for you. That's yours to take home. I want you to take that with you today. Because that card is a story that hasn't been told yet. That card is a life that is going to change because of you. Because of you personally. See, I believe this very, very much that just like this man in our story in Mark 2 could not get to Jesus on his own, he couldn't do it. He needed someone to carry him to Jesus. There is someone in your life that needs you to be that person. There is someone in your life that will not get to Jesus if you are not the one that carries them. Because God has put you on this earth to be that person. There is someone in this world that needs you to bring them to Jesus. Now, don't get me wrong, you don't have to fix their problems. You don't have to save them. That's God's job. And it's actually really bad when God's followers start trying to do God's job for him. That doesn't usually work out. He's good at his job. So we don't have to feel this pressure, this weight of like, oh, I'm supposed to go fix the problems of my coworkers and my friends. No, no, no, not at all. But we can all be bringers. We can all be people who either bring our friends, our family, our coworkers, our neighbors, we can all bring them to Jesus, or we can bring Jesus to them. We can all be bringers. There are so many simple things that we could do that will ignite stories left and right of people's lives changing. It can be as simple as this. I invited. I invited my friend with me on a Sunday. I mean, how many of us are here? Just show of hands because someone invited us. And that person, that person cared enough about you just to invite you. That's amazing. And I'm sure that person had a moment like, oh, I don't know if if I that's weird. If you invite someone to church, does it mean you're saying their life is a mess? Like, hey, you're messed up. You should like, is that what you're saying? And the answer is, yes, we're all a mess. All of us. That's why we're here. That's why we're here. But that person that invited you, they got over that. They had the courage, they had the bravery at that point in time to say, you know what, I'm not gonna worry about that. I'm just gonna invite them. And they invited you, and I hope your life has changed like mine has. It could be you praying for someone and committing, I'm gonna pray for them every single day, I'm gonna pray for them every chance that I can until I see their life change. We had a man that came into the prayer room a few weeks ago. And he walked into the prayer room and he said, I'm not leaving this room until my life has changed. And our prayer team stayed with him for as long as it took, and he walked out of that room a different person than when he walked in because prayer works. It works. There is someone in your life that needs you to be the one that either brings them to Jesus or brings Jesus to them. That card is that person. So I want you to take that today, and I want you to keep it in a place you can see it. I don't want you to feel pressure. I don't want you to feel like this weight, because God's gonna do the heavy lifting. Trust God. Just say, hey, God, you you actually, you believe I can do this? You believe I can do something that can change someone's life, and He'll say, Yes. He thinks that highly of you. You are that person. You are that important. As a church, I'm excited about our past. We're about to have our 10-year anniversary, and we're gonna celebrate. It's gonna be great. But I am so excited about our future. Because we are a church of doers. We are not content to be hearers of the word. We want to be doers of the word. We want to see this world that we're part of change. Our worship team's gonna lead us in another song. Kind of celebrate who God is, what he's done for us. But as they as they come out, I want to do something as a church. I want to, as a family, can we stand up? Is that okay just for a second? Now you're catching up with me and the calorie burning, see? This is good. I'm helping you out. Hebrews 12 1, we read it just a few minutes ago, but I want to read it again. And I want this to be a cry of our hearts kind of thing. Because I want us to understand what this is saying. There have been thousands upon thousands upon thousands of other believers who have lived before us, who have done what was necessary so that we're here today. Even if you grew up in church your whole life, and being a Jesus follower was just kind of like the obvious thing to do, that means that someone loved your grandparents enough to invite them. Or someone loved your great-grandparents enough to bring Jesus to them, and it's stayed in your family ever since. So we have this history, this multitude of witnesses, people who have gone before us, and now it's our turn. This is our time. This is the time we've been given on this earth to be doers and to change lives. And so, with that in mind, I want to read this one more time, and I want us to respond however we feel appropriate. Hebrews 12, 1 says this, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. In other words, let's do this together. Let's be doers, let's change some lives. Is anybody up for that? Is anybody with me with that? Pray with me. Father God, thank you so much. You know, we we get together, we like to get excited. I like to get excited, God. But this is not just adrenaline. This is not just us saying, Yeah, let's do it, and then we're gonna walk out and forget about it. We are doers. You have put us on this earth and you have given us an opportunity for our lives to matter, for our lives to have meaning. And you've put within every single one of us a spirit and a soul that is capable of knowing you, that is capable of having you and your power and your love and your grace flow through us into someone else. Every single one of us in this room has the ability to change a life. Because every single one of us in this room has had our lives changed by someone else. It's whatever thoughts that we have right now that say we're not good enough, we're not qualified. Lord, help us remember that's just Satan because none of us are good enough, none of us are qualified, but you are. And we rely on you. Lord, make us doers of your word. Make us people of action, make us people that cannot stand to sit and enjoy the faith that you've given us while others don't have that. Make us people whose hearts burn for others. Make us people whose hearts yearn for other people to get a taste of your love so that they'll come back for more, Jesus. We love you. Thank you for this church, thank you for this family, God. And personally, from me, thank you for letting me be part of it because it's the greatest thing I've ever been part of. We love you so much, Jesus. We ask all this in your name. Amen.