Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast. If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted. And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands. Good morning. Hope everyone's doing well this morning. Thank you so much for being here. If it's uh if it's your first time here, thanks, Nathan. If it's your first time here, we we love you. We really do. And I was thinking about that as we sing that song, He is Love. There's a verse that says that we love one another, we love because He loved us first. And so we love each other, we love everyone here, but it's it's just really because we know the person that is love, and that's Jesus. And so we're so excited you're here this morning. If it is your first time and you want some more information about who we are, what's going on around here, head to the info desk and you will receive info. And that is why there's a word, it says info. You'll you'll get all the info you can handle, so just head there and they'll help you out with that. Once we're done this morning, there will be four people at the Connect Desk, and they're there to help you join a team if you'd like to help out. We have a ton of volunteers here, and we are really passionate about a few things with our volunteers. We don't like to waste people's time, so we never overschedule and put more people on than we need. Uh, and we also don't want people to get burned out. We never want it to be that you choose to help instead of having the ability to just come and worship and connect with God. And so we're really passionate about that. The only way to really make that happen is to always be adding new people to our teams so that we can schedule people in a way that's really manageable and workable. And so this month we're really focusing on our Sunday support teams. That's the welcome team, our coffee teams, the ushers, all the teams that really make sure that Sunday mornings can happen, which I think all of us are thankful for because you're here. So you needed those people. You didn't you may not have known that this morning, but you needed those people. And so if you want to help out on those teams, head to the Connect Desk and they will get you signed up. You will definitely enjoy it, and you'll meet some great people as well. Want to thank everyone who's helping us out financially. We don't pass a plate or anything like that, but God is using every dime that is given here for a great purpose and it's worthwhile. So you can do that at the four columns in the back or online. High school students, I always look this way because you usually sit there, but if there are any high school students not there, I'm not excluding you. This is for all of you. Uh, we start back this Wednesday. This Wednesday night we're back, and there you are. We uh honestly, I've missed you guys. We're gonna have an amazing year together. And if you are a high school student or you have one that has never been a part of our high school group, I cannot encourage you enough to be here on Wednesday nights at 7 o'clock. Uh I can't promise you that you know the messages will blow you away or all that. We have great worship and all that's good. Okay, but what I can promise you is you will have never been around a group of young people that will love you and accept you and just help you get it excited and passionate about Jesus like this group of students will. I love these people. They are some of the best people I know. Uh, I hear a lot of you guys brag on them a lot, and it's for good reason. They are amazing and incredible, and you need them as your friends. You don't know it yet, but you do. So come be here at 7 o'clock on Wednesdays. Let's go ahead and pray, and we'll uh we'll jump into what we're gonna talk about this morning. Jesus. Thank you so much for being loved, for loving us in a way that that is unimaginable, in a way that we know we could not earn if we tried. And I pray this morning, Lord, that we would just receive that love and that your word would speak to us. Holy Spirit, speak through every word that we're gonna speak over this whole group of people today, and just remind us of the incredible love you have for us and the friendships that we can have together as a result. And we ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, we are beginning 2014 by basically laying out the direction we believe God wants us to go this year as a church. We're basically saying that this year for us, this is what we really believe God is doing with us, is He wants us to come together. He wants us to follow Jesus together this year. And so we want to grow closer together. We want to get to know each other. I was talking with a friend of mine about how we always say we're a family, right? We are a church family. And it's just that this year we want to go from more being a family of distant cousins to a family of brothers and sisters. We want to know each other. There are so many amazing people in this room. Every single Sunday, just having the chance to walk around and talk to people, I'm blown away by the quality of the people that are in this room right now. And it can be hard in a group this size to just meet people, to just connect and to know each other, but there is a different level of relationship and a different level of connecting with God that we experience through having close friendships around us. I mentioned the high school students a minute ago. I get people tell me all the time that they love how the high school students worship. They see how passionate they are when they worship. And I can say this from experience that that would not exist apart from the relationships that they have with one another. It's the fact that they know each other so well, they are so comfortable with one another, that if they want to worship God all out and just raise their hands and get into it, they don't worry about the people around them. If they just want to sit and take it in, they have that freedom. It's the relationship and the closeness they have that gives them the freedom to worship God like they do. So relationships are important. We we started last week off by talking about friends, mainly the one where Joey gets his head stuck in a turkey and then Ross and Chandler come. I'm just joking. You know, I used to watch that show when I was younger, and uh and I realized the other day that my parents did not have very strict guidelines on what I watched when I was younger. Because that show came out in like 1994 or something like that, and I was saying I was like, I was in the sixth grade, seventh grade, I should not have been watching that show. But I did, so there it is. Um, we talked about the importance of friends in our lives, and more specifically, the need that we have for relationships. We have a need for friends in our lives, for having amazing, godly friends, people that love Jesus and that are listening to his wisdom. And God will bring those people around us. And if you're sitting here this morning, God has brought those people around you, but it's always our choice to choose those people as our friends. And that can be tough because the criteria that we use oftentimes for our friends are things like, who have I known the longest? You know, I go way back with this person. Or who do I just interact with naturally day by day because I work with them or I'm near them. But God has higher standards for us. We're his kids, and we all love our kids, and we have high standards for them and for the relationships they choose. And he encourages us and implores us in his word to choose amazing friends. The book of Proverbs is the wisest collection of sayings that has ever existed in this world. It is God's wisdom, not man's wisdom. And it spends a lot of time talking about our need for the right kinds of friends. And so last week was about us choosing those people. And it's always interesting when you have a group of friends, the kind of dynamic that forms with that group. And it can be very different from one group of friends to another. You might have a group of friends at work, and your dynamic with them is very different than a group of friends you have outside of work. In some groups of friends, you might talk about one or two topics exclusively. Maybe it's it's sports or politics or something that kind of bonds all of you together. In other groups of friends, anything and everything under the sun is fair game. There is no topic that is off limits. You can talk about anything, you can just be yourself. Some groups have a dynamic that's more formal, some it's completely informal, and it just really depends on what group of friends you're with. It's a lot of fun to watch those dynamics form over time. And it's not so much that we change when we go from one group of friends to another, it's that the group's dynamic changes and we just sort of fit in with that. And that is the case in every group of friends that we have. This morning, we want to sort of define what the dynamic is gonna be in the small groups that we're about to launch in mid-February. On February 2nd, we're gonna be kicking off a brand new approach to small groups here at His Hands, something we've never done before in the way that we're going to do it. And we're really excited about it. We know it's gonna change the whole culture here in a really amazing way, because like I said, we're gonna grow close together. And last week we we kind of talked about the need for that, but this morning, it's about defining what that dynamic is gonna look like so that those of us that are thinking about being a part of that can say, okay, well, what am I getting myself into? That's always a good question to ask. And so the good thing about defining this dynamic is that Jesus has kind of already done it for us. When we read the New Testament, we have this incredible opportunity to look into Jesus' life and see how he lived his life. And the book of Hebrews says Jesus is the exact representation of God. So if we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus. Jesus is our mirror image of God. If we want to see how God would interact with people, we look at how Jesus interacts with people. If we want to see what God would be like hanging out with his friends, we look at how Jesus was hanging out with his friends. And as you look at the Gospels, you see this developing dynamic between Jesus and his disciples, the people he called friends. And it was a very great dynamic, and it's one that the disciples didn't really expect. They didn't see it coming, and that's kind of always how it is with Jesus. He is not what we expect so often. There's this amazing moment early in Jesus' ministry where the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus and they just ask him, point blank, are you the Messiah that we have been expecting? And Jesus doesn't answer that question directly. He does that a lot. It would be frustrating to have someone do that. Every time you ask a question, they ask another question, or they just, but that's just how Jesus was. He liked that. He doesn't answer it directly, but you could see how he would say this. You know, are you the Messiah we've been expecting? No, I'm not. But I am the Messiah. He spent a lot of his time trying to help people let go of the expectations they had of God and who God really is to help them really unlearn what they thought they knew about God so they could see him for who he really was. So Jesus definitely was not the Messiah that the people were expecting, but he was the Messiah. And we get to see this relationship develop between Jesus and his friends, and it's definitely not the relationship they had in mind. We get these little windows into that developing dynamic, and they're really interesting. One of them happens in Matthew chapter 20. In Matthew chapter 20, the disciples are a little frustrated with one another. And they're all friends, they know each other well, they walked over 3,000 miles on foot during the three years they were following Jesus. So these were men that were well acquainted with one another. And they have this moment where they're frustrated, and here's basically why this happened. A little bit earlier, Peter had asked Jesus a very bold question. He just asked Jesus, what are we going to get out of following you? What is in it for us? And that's a pretty bold question to ask God, but I guess it was a fair one because the disciples had left everything. They had left their homes, their friends, their jobs, they had left everything they had behind to follow Jesus. So Peter comes to Jesus and says, Look, just tell us what we're gonna get out of this. And Jesus says, Well, I'm gonna set up my kingdom on this earth, and I'm gonna reign. And you're gonna reign alongside me, you're gonna rule with me. Now, Jesus didn't quite tell them yet that his kingdom was gonna work very differently than the kingdoms of this world. And so they start to develop these images in their minds of what all of us would expect. You know, Jesus is on a throne, a physical throne, and he is reigning, and they are gonna reign with him. So now there's these other little thrones, six to one side, six to the other, and they're all gonna get to sit on those thrones and rule with Jesus, and they're like, yes, that is what we're in this for. And two of the disciples, James and John, who are two of Jesus' three closest friends, come to Jesus with a request, with a favor. Actually, their mom came in their stead. I don't know if they put their mom up to it or if their mom just did it either way, that's never cool. But they come to Jesus and they have this request, Jesus, when you're reigning, can John be on your left side, right next to you? And can James be on the right side? Their mother say, Can my sons just be the ones that are the closest to you, right at your left and at your right? This is the first historical example I have ever found of someone calling shotgun. That is exactly what's going on. And you know, it's it's funny because you can have a really good close group of friends, and when it's time to get in one car together and someone calls shotgun, that is always divisive. You know, all of a sudden you're like, wait, I I I thought I was the front seat friend. I'm I guess I'm in the back. I've got a friend named Zach who's six foot four, and so he always gets shotgun for that purpose. Uh, but all my other friends, you know, it just it's a it's a defining moment. Who gets to sit up front? And that's what's going on here. These guys are calling spiritual shotgun. They want to be the ones sitting the closest to Jesus. And it's divisive 2,000 years ago as well. So they start to argue, they have this fight. They're talking about who should be the one closest to Jesus. And Jesus interrupts them in Matthew 20, verse 25. It says, But Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them, but among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be the first among you must become your slave, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus is saying, look, guys, that's not gonna be our dynamic. As friends, this is not competitive. This is not about one-upping one another. It's not about who's got shotgun, who sits in the front seat. This is about serving one another. If any of you are gonna be focused on who's greater, it should be focused on who you can serve. About putting yourself last. Jesus says our dynamic together is gonna be one where we serve each other. John chapter 15, it's one of the most important chapters in the Bible. Obviously, every chapter is important, but this is one where Jesus just sort of lays out his desire for relationship with us in a way that is so clear. It's the same chapter we looked at last week where he says, I don't call you servants anymore, I call you my friends. And in John chapter 15, he he kind of defines that dynamic again that's going to exist between his friends, his followers. What he says is, I have loved you even as the Father has loved me, remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love. Now, when Jesus is telling his friends this, the word commandments is a pretty loaded word in their culture. If we've grown up in church, we hear the word commandment, we probably think the ten commandments, so we start rattling off a list. Okay, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, I forgot the other seven. Either way. That's what we think. Commandments. It brings up those thoughts. Now, in Jesus' day, it was very different in the Jewish community. They had over 600 commandments they were expected to follow. And there really wasn't any agreement as to which commandments were the most important. So the common prevailing thought of the day was just follow all of them as if they were all equally important. Washing your hands the right way, just as important as not killing someone. And that's really true. In a lot of the way that they thought, in fact, the Pharisees came to Jesus to try to trip him up. They tried to trip Jesus up by asking him, what is the most important commandment? No one could agree on that. There were debates, there were arguments, and they said, Jesus, if you're who you say you are, or at least two people think you are, just go ahead and tell us what's the most important commandment. And Jesus says, Okay, love God with everything you've got. Love him with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your spirit. Just love God intensely. And there's another one that's just as important: love your neighbor as yourself. And the Pharisees walked away because they couldn't find any fault with what Jesus said. And it's so amazing when you look at that answer, too. It's really love God, love people. If you look at the Ten Commandments, that sums all of them up. Some of them are about how we should love God, the rest are about how we should love each other. And Jesus just answered that question for them. But when he said the word commandments, the things that would have popped into his disciples' mind, it wasn't a list of ten, it was a list of six hundred, and maybe they're thinking he's gonna add to that list, and they're excited about that because that's what everyone wants, is more rules. And so Jesus is going in this direction. He says the word commandments, and then he goes on. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow. This is my commandment. Singular. Love each other in the same way I have loved you. He kind of pulls the rug out from under the disciples. They're thinking commandments. Their mind is going, the gears are turning, they're thinking all these different things. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. That's how I show God that I love them. But then Jesus says, no, no, here is my commandment. Let me simplify this for you. Love each other in the same way that I have loved you. Love intensely. That's the dynamic that I want to exist between us as friends. Intense love, sacrificial love. It's about serving one another, it's about loving one another. Just a few chapters earlier in John chapter 13, Jesus said that your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. It's your love for one another that's gonna show this world how much you love me, that you belong to me. And that is so interesting, right? Because religion teaches us that the world's gonna know that we are Jesus followers based on what we do and what we don't do. So the world's gonna know that I belong to Jesus because I will not listen to this band, I will not watch this show on TV, I refuse to go see these types of movies. I'm not saying there's not wisdom in making those choices, but that's not what Jesus said would define us. That's not what he said would be the signal to the rest of the world that we belong to Jesus. And he didn't say that the world would know we belong to him based on how we love the world. Obviously, we're called to love everyone, regardless of whether or not those people know and love Jesus or not. In fact, the more we fall in love with Jesus and get to know him, loving people should just get easier, right? If you live knowing that you are forgiven for everything you have ever done and everything you will ever do, it should at least help put you in a better mood. Love should become more natural. That's why sometimes if you see groups of cranky Christians complaining about things, you just want to be like, guys, we should be the ones that are happy and we're saved, right? We're going to heaven. We should have smiles on our faces. But he doesn't say that the world's gonna know that we're his based on the way that we love the world. And this is what's really crazy. My wife pointed this out this week, kind of blew my mind. He doesn't even say that the world will know you belong to me based on how you love me. There are a lot of us that that think that way naturally. I do. I want the world to know that I love Jesus because I am so passionate about loving Jesus. I love Jesus. And I can tell people that I love Jesus, I can put bumper stickers on my car that say I love Jesus, I can wear t-shirts that just display to the world that I love Jesus, and there is nothing wrong with that. That's great, but that is not what Jesus says will prove to the world that I love Jesus. He says it's the way you love each other, it's the way we love one another. Fellow Jesus followers, brothers and sisters in God's family, that is what's gonna show the world that we belong to God. It's the dynamic that's going to exist between us where we love one another intensely and where we serve one another. That is what's gonna show the world that we belong to Him. It's that dynamic, and that cannot exist if we don't know each other. It just can't exist if we don't know each other. When Jesus is talking about this kind of love, he's not talking about walking past one another and waving our hands or shaking hands and saying hi and little trite things like that. He he's not talking about those small things. Those are good. I love being friendly. I like it when people are friendly to me, especially if they're not paid to be. I love that. Right? Friendly is good, but it's not love. And it's really easy in a large group to stop at friendly. But Jesus is calling us to love. You see, we we read this stuff that Jesus is saying and doing. Friendship with one another is not just this convenient, nice thing that we can have that enhances all of our lives. This is something we are called for. We are called to be close, loving friends with one another. We're called to it. And it can't happen if we don't know each other. The only way for us to love each other like that is if we work together, right? That's gonna need to be a team effort. I don't know if anyone else can admit that, but I'm gonna I'm gonna need some help if I'm gonna love everyone like that. We need to help one another out. We've got to know each other to do that. The the leaders of the early church understood this. It was side, it was kind of their job to take the dynamic that Jesus had established, the culture he created with his friends, and apply that to the early churches. And these were usually really small groups of people. And so in Hebrews chapter 10, we get a little bit of a look into this dynamic that's forming in this church. It's this very small church in Italy, and the writer of Hebrews says, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. I love that. Let us think of ways to motivate each other to acts of love and good works. The message version of the Bible says, let's let's get inventive about the ways we can help each other love one another. When I when I read that, actually, I thought of Nathan Fowler this week. I've been working with Nathan for several months, and he's the one that's gonna be leading up our small groups here, and Nathan has been so creative and just thinking about all the different ways that we can help each other connect, because not all of us have the same schedules, not all of us have the same needs. There's not gonna be one night a week that all of us just magically have free, like, oh wow, what a coincidence. We all have Wednesday free. How did that happen? That doesn't work. And so the only way we can have all these relationships happening is if we get a little creative and get kind of inventive. And it's been really cool to watch Nathan do that. On November, or November, that's a long way off. On February 2nd, there must be something important in November that I'm not thinking about right now, but there's a reason I must have said that. Okay, so February 2nd, Nathan's gonna be sharing some of that passion in his heart for small groups here. And we'll be talking about exactly how we're gonna kind of roll that out. I really encourage all of us to be here on February 2nd. But that's us being inventive about ways to love one another. Then it goes on. Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do. But encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. And if the day of his return was drawing near, then it's a lot nearer now. It says, encourage one another. That's a very powerful word. In fact, they couldn't have thought of a better word to use than encourage. We hear that word and we might think compliment. Compliment one another. You see someone, they look nice, say, hey, you look nice today. That's encouragement. Or it might be affirming one another. You know, you're at work with someone, they do a presentation, they do a great job, and you say, hey, you nailed that. That's encouragement. And that's true to some degree, but the biblical understanding of this word that we translate encouragement was a lot deeper than that. In fact, it's a word that's impossible without relationship. It's absolutely impossible without knowing someone. A couple years ago, I rolled my left ankle playing basketball, because I'm such a gifted athlete. And I uh I rolled it, I knew it was bad. The absolute second that it happened, I knew it was bad. I heard a pop, I went to the ground, I was experiencing uh intense pain, and I'm just writhing on the floor. And my wife was close by, which is great. And so she came by and she's like, Justin, are you okay? I'm like, No, it's my ankle, it's bad, it's bad. We gotta go to the emergency room. I broke my ankle. And so uh she helps me up and and helps me to the car. She comes right next to me, comes by my side, and I put my arm around her, I was able to lift my left foot off the ground, and I hopped all the way to the car on my right foot, but it was really Megan doing the work. I was leaning on Megan, she was right by my side, and we did that to the car. She drove me to Kenistone Hospital, she helped me hop all the way to the reception area, then to my seat in the emergency room, and then all the way to the room where I was gonna see the doctor. And the doctor came in and he starts talking about what they're gonna do. They're gonna do an x-ray, they're gonna look at this, and and I'm already thinking, look, do your x-ray, but I know what's going on. I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna get around for the next few months. I've got to work. I work with the youth a lot in this building, their area is over there, the offices are over there. That's a long walk. How am I gonna do this on a broken ankle? I mean, I'm already at that point. I'm thinking about planning for the amazing disability that I'm experiencing. And so they do the x-ray. Megan's with me the whole time. They come back in the room after the x-ray, and the doctor, uh, right with Megan in there, says, uh, Mr. McTear, you have a very slight sprain on your left ankle. Just ice it and stay off it for about two days, you should be fine. Now, that that's good news. I should have been pleased when he said that. But I wasn't for about 25 minutes because my wife is right there. I've been, I mean, I've basically been crying. She practically carried me to the hospital for a slight sprain. This is a woman who's given birth. Okay. So, as a man, how do you come back from that? What do you do? Two years later, I hurt that same ankle. And because of what had happened the time before, I waited about a month to go to the doctor because I'm like, I'm not gonna do this again. I'm just gonna show my wife that I am a man, I am strong. And the whole time I had two torn ligaments and I was walking around on it for like a month because I wouldn't go to the doctor. I wouldn't go. And the reason I share that story is because the whole time, Megan didn't mind. She was happy to help me to the car, she was happy to help me to the doctor, she didn't complain about the bill, she didn't complain about the work, and she was really pleased when it was good news. She didn't mind at all. I was the one that was that was much more upset about how that had all gone down. That is the biblical understanding of the word encouragement. There's a Greek word that gets translated encourage when we read it, and it's the word paraclete. And what it literally means is coming alongside to help. Coming alongside to aid someone. And so when we read that, when we read encourage one another, what they're seeing is come alongside one another and do what's needed. It was a word used often in legal proceedings. If you were accused of something and you had to go and defend yourself in court, you would find a paraclete. Someone that would come alongside you, a friend, and they would vouch for your character. In the New Testament, that word's used over a hundred times. There's even a few instances where the Holy Spirit is called paraclete, meaning that the Holy Spirit comes alongside us and lives life day by day with us to guide us and to help us. There's an amazing biblical picture of that in Exodus 17. The nation of Israel is at war with a king named Amalek. And it says in verse 10, Joshua did what Moses ordered in order to fight Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and her went to the top of the hill. It turned out that whenever Moses raised his hands, Israel was winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, Amalek was winning. But Moses' hands got tired. So they got a stone and they set it under him. He sat on it, and Aaron and her held up his hands, one on each side. So his hands remained steady until the sun went down. Joshua defeated Amalek and its army in battle. That was a battle that was not determined by the strength of Israel's army. It was a battle that was determined by that word we looked at, by Paraclete, someone coming alongside someone else and giving them what's needed. And here's what's really interesting about that is sometimes that word gets translated encourage, like we just read it in Hebrews chapter 10. Spur somebody on, motivate them, help them stay the course. Sometimes that same word gets translated comfort. Hurt with someone. You may not be able to do something to solve their problem, but just comfort them. Remind them that it's going to be okay. Be there for them. Sometimes that same word, Paraclete, gets translated exhort. In other words, challenge someone. Let them know that they need to make some adjustments in their life. I have a really good friend this week that did that with me. They just were really honest with me. He said, Justin, you need to work on this because it's going to hold you back if you don't. And they were right. And that was not them being critical, that was not them being a poor friend, that was them telling me the truth. And that was Paraclete. That was encouragement. Because that's what I needed at that time. There's no way to have the biblical understanding of encouragement without relationship, because it requires that you're alongside someone. Encouragement is not something that we can really give to one another just passing by. We can compliment one another, we can be nice to one another, but to truly have this kind of encouragement, we have to be alongside one another in life. And that is what small groups are going to accomplish for us here. It's the chance to be alongside one another. It's the chance to live life with one another. In Hebrews chapter 10, it said, don't neglect getting together. And when we read that, we probably think, don't miss church on Sunday. Right? This huge gathering of people, they're going to worship together and learn together. But the understanding that the church would have had in Hebrews was very different than that. Because if there happened to be a thousand plus Jesus followers in one city, which wasn't always the case, they didn't have a big place to gather. Logistically speaking, what's happening here right now would have been next to impossible for them. They didn't have official status as a religion in the Roman government, so they couldn't build buildings and temples and those kinds of things. They didn't have a place that they could all meet together. So they met in each other's homes. As many people packed into a home as they could fit. These were people that would have known each other. These are people that would have been friends with one another. So when he says, don't neglect meeting together, that's what they would have been picturing. In Matthew chapter 18, verse 20, Jesus says, For where two or three gather together as my followers. Some translations say, when two or three gather together in my name, I am there among them. When we get together in our small groups that are going to be starting soon, there will be a dynamic that exists in these groups that you may have never experienced before. Because Jesus' presence is going to be there. And we can get two or three great people that we're friends with together, and we can have an amazing time. But there is something unique that happens when two or three or ten people, whatever it is, get together in the name of Jesus to love each other, to serve each other, to encourage one another, and support one another. And that is the dynamic that's going to exist in these groups. And that's something I need in my life. Mainly the challenging part. I need that in my life. I'm excited. I'm so excited about small groups starting up because I'll be honest, when life gets busy for me, I don't know if it's like this for you, but unfortunately, one of the first things that doesn't make the cut is time with friends. That's one of the first things on the chopping block. And it's not that I intend it to be that way, it's just my kids have needs and my job has needs and my family and there's all these things going on, and I just don't have time. But to have that time carved out for me, that's something I'm looking forward to. Because if I know that, yeah, every single Tuesday night at 7 p.m. or whatever time it is, I've got a great group of friends, and there's a dynamic that's going to exist that is the dynamic Jesus established. I can be there. Maybe not every week, but I can be there. So I'm excited about that. Worship team, will you come back up? Like I said at the beginning, this is an amazing group of people. And it may be that some of the best friends that you have ever had are sitting in this room right now and you just don't know them. And it's not like we can do that on Sunday mornings. It's not the right atmosphere. There's too many of us, but small groups are going to accomplish that. On February 2nd, I just want to encourage you to be here. We'll talk about how it's all gonna work out, how we're gonna do it. We have a good plan. I'm sure there's things we haven't thought of. But General Patton said that a good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. So that's the approach we're going to take. And we talk about how much Jesus loves us. And I know we love each other, and I know that we love each other in the sense that we all know that we belong to Jesus. But if we knew each other and loved one another the way that Jesus challenged us to, man, that's amazing. I keep hearing that beautiful baby, and it reminds me that my my wife is expecting any time, and so, you know, I'm getting nervous, but in a good way. In a good way. So I'm gonna have a girl, and all I can say to that is please help me. Some if any of you. Okay? Those of you that are dads of of girls, help me. Don't send advice. I don't care if I get a thousand emails a week, I need it because she's gonna be pretty and I'm gonna, I'm gonna die. So please, please help me, okay? Yeah, that's true. Man, I'll tell you what, um, the only other thing I might want to say is I know it can be tempting for some of us to kind of say, do I need that right now? Do I need that group of friends? You know, maybe life's going pretty well right now. And so it's easy to think, hey, life's going well. I don't know if I need my arms held up, so to speak, but maybe you're the one that needs to hold up someone else's arms. And that might be the season of life you're in, but seasons change quickly. And sometimes in just a moment, we go from the people providing help to the people that need help the most. And it's when those moments happen that the people we've invested in, the friends that we have that are are there for us, that's when we need those people. And that is what these small groups are going to be, is a group of friends like that. And it's not about a it's not about a program at all. You know, it's funny, we're not we're not developing this to accomplish some some feat or some you know benchmark. We're doing this because we need it. I need it. Jesus apparently needed it. So let's go to him, let's go to the best friend that we have, and let's just ask him to bless the friendships that we're about to make, even if we don't know those people yet, and be excited about that. Jesus, thank you so much for your love. And Lord, you know, everything we just talked about, having this incredible dynamic and relationship with you, it all begins with you, Jesus. God, I pray if there is one person in this room that does not have a relationship with you, that that would that would change today. Because you are our friend, you are our king. We'll never change that. We just get to be friends with our king. So, Lord, you tell us that there's no ritual we have to follow, there's no magic prayer we have to pray, that all we have to do is come to you. God, I just pray if there's anyone here that needs that, that needs to begin a relationship with you, that that would happen right now, that they would just surrender and say, Hey, Jesus, I'm yours. For the rest of us, Lord, the rest of us that do know you already, we need one another. We need each other, Jesus. And we pray that you would bring us together as a family of brothers and sisters, that we would value knowing one another, and that the dynamic that exists between us is one that could never exist in any other group of friends we have because, Jesus, you're there. So we pray that in your name, and we look forward to another amazing week of having having God the Father, having daddy, having you, having Jesus in our lives, having the Holy Spirit, and having one another as well. We love you, Jesus. Amen.