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It's great having uh Ken here. I've got a few announcements. One um was yes, I really did want to thank y'all for letting Susan and I take a couple months off. It was uh much needed and has been a great rest for me. I've got to spend uh some time with my mom in Oregon. She's fighting through uh cancer, and in fact, I just got back late last night from uh being with her, and she's uh got a lot of faith and is doing pretty good, and uh got to spend some time uh kind of focusing on our new company we started, making sure we got a really strong foundation there, which we do. But probably most importantly, really um we've developed a great teaching team here, which is part of uh really our ultimate vision. Yeah, because to me, when the attention is on one person every Sunday, it's it's just a little more difficult to keep Jesus the center of our attention, which is what uh we all really want to do. And so we're blessed to have uh Justin and Ben and Bill and Ken, and in fact, his uh schedule's freeing up, so he's gonna be able to be with here or be with us here a little bit uh more often, um which is gonna be good. And so uh Ken's this morning, Justin's next week, and then we're gonna start a new series uh the first Sunday in October that's gonna be really cool, and I'm gonna share part of that, and I'm really excited um about that. We've still got groups and classes um through oh, I should say that uh Susan's also got to rest up and spend a lot of time with uh friends and family, and she'll be back on the worship team next Sunday, so that will be uh that'll be nice. Um but groups and classes are just uh really going fantastic. And if you haven't joined us on a Wednesday night, there's something for everybody, every age, and you can just jump in anytime and you'll uh you'll fit right in. We've got uh two new God stories that are coming up uh in the next couple months. In November, we've got Telgate Sunday and then Baptism Sunday, which is uh always a really great day. So we've got a big a big fall ahead of us. Uh it's it's really gonna be good. Uh I wanted to both uh remind you and uh thank you uh about giving. Um, you know, giving is just such an important part of our walk, it has been with mine, it just makes our faith tangible, really, because we see uh God come through in a very uh tangible way. And uh our giving together allows us to do what uh we're doing here and it allows us to help uh which is big. You know, I mean we're we're we're doing so much, not just with each other and for each other, but in our community. And one of the things we do is we share 15% of all of our collective giving with three different uh ministries in the area. Uh the Cherokee Family Violence Center, which uh helps uh women who are in abusive situations and their kids uh uh escape from those situations, and uh Hope Center, which helps uh moms and uh kids uh in crisis pregnancies, and Papa's Pantry, which feeds a lot of people, but also does job training, so eventually they're able to provide uh for their own families. And so far this year, uh together we've given uh I think a little over $30,000 to each of those ministries. And um and so thank you for that. That is a significant uh help to to each of those, and they're obviously really excited and doing great um work with that. Uh here we can give in the back or online. We kind of have a uh a specialty we've talked about, and that the building's 15 years old, and so the roof needs uh replaced. In fact, yesterday it was literally raining inside um over on the youth side. Uh we had uh uh an emergency crew and Juan and his team and and got it ready for the junior high uh today. But uh a roof on the building, uh I say roof funny because I'm from Oregon, so people make fun of how I say roof, but uh anyway, it's an expensive proposition. It's uh overall it's gonna be a couple hundred thousand dollars to replace the the roof. But we're gonna do it in stages over four or five years, and we're working on the the right now the one that needs it the most. But um if you'd thought about giving extra, now it'd be a great uh time to do it, and uh that way we can meet in here without umbrellas and ponchos and uh and all that. But uh thanks for how you I mean you all are so generous, not just with money, but uh with your time and talents, and so many of you uh volunteer, and so I just appreciate that so much. So let's uh pray while Ken comes up. Father, we just thank you uh for today. We thank you for being such a great uh dad. It's just a thrill to worship you and for you to have adopted us as your kids, and we praise you for that. And uh Holy Spirit, thank you for being our teacher and uh teach us this morning. I thank you for Ken for being just such a great uh friend to me and a great friend uh to all of us here, and just speak through him and give us each something that we know was um from you, God, directly to us. And uh, Jesus, we thank you for saving us and being our friend, and it's in your name we pray, amen.

Right on. Wow. Well, good morning. That was actually pretty good. If you have a Bible, I want to just kind of pile on where we were last week and go ahead and flip open to James chapter one, and there's gonna be some great little pieces you can write in the margins. Steve and I uh we connect uh here and there for lunch and every now and breakfast, and we just hang out, every now and we get to hang out, which is just a a joy for me. And we do more laughing than anything else, and it's just a blast. Well, this last year uh he said, Hey, why don't we get together and and play golf? Which Steve's actually a decent golfer. When I play, they call it field hockey, where you just keep beating it down the van. But uh I said, you know what, you uh do you mind if I bring a friend? And he goes, Hey, I'll bring a friend, you bring a friend. And I said, You know what? I really want you to meet this guy. And uh Danny has become a friend over time and has a really cool ministry um to the inner city, and and that's just kind of his passion. It's called Desire Street. And I said, I just really think you guys need to meet, and he did. And Danny also has a little bit of a background. Uh, if you have if you're a football fan, any football fans here today, all right. Uh Danny won a little trophy when he was in college called a Heisman Trophy. And uh, so we get we're we're sitting there playing, and uh it just took me back to a time, and Danny's actually a pretty good athlete as well, and some of those hits from college are kind of taking their toys like, yeah, my back's a little bit this, but I'm overcoming this, and it just it's just great to hang out with a couple good buddies. But I'll not forget the first time I got to see Danny play live was back when he was at Florida, and it was during three days, and I have to laugh because the coaching stuff is back when uh Steve Spurrier was the coach at Florida, and they had invited me to come address the team. They said, you know what, we're in three days, we need a little humor, we need a little motivation. I'm like, cool, I'm in the area, I'd love to come down. What they didn't tell me was they said, Yeah, we're in three days, and you can come out and watch the last of the third practices. But what we're gonna do is we're gonna have the last of the three days. Now, for those of you who aren't in football knowledge, this is where they practice three full practices a day in the heat and they're exhausted. They said, What we're gonna do is have them finish that practice, we're gonna let them shower up, and then uh we're gonna let you do a brief thing before they get to eat. Yeah. I want you to put yourself between those guys and food after that. So the first thing I said, this is gonna be brief, and it was a great deal. But watching that practice, watching them, I got to go inside the inner circle and watch them practice. And at the end of the day, they do the precision drills, the precision passes, the red zone operation, because it's when you're exhausted that it counts the most. And they they're doing these drills, and I'll never forget I take a snap, and one of the receivers comes across the middle, and uh he goes up for a pass, and he can feel the linebacker just dialing up on him. And he kind of goes up and kind of turns and short arms the pass, and the linebacker just plants him. And and I mean, literally, chin under his picks him up and drives him into the ground. And this guy's on the ground just kind of shaking, and his teammates come up, you're okay, get up, and he's just kind of staggering back to the huddle. And I'm thinking, what a great opportunity for compassion. You know, his teammates wait to come up, and it's just one of those moments I just learned, learned a vital lesson. Coach Spurrier's right there, and he calls him out, he says, Hey, Hill, you're gonna get hit. And he's just staggering, and his friends are telling him, he said, You might as well catch the football. It doesn't hurt near as bad when you catch that football. And I just thought, yeah, because you're not the one getting hit. And yet I saw this discipline and the truth be told in this life. We're gonna get hit. Period. We're gonna get hit different ways for different ones of us, different circumstances, but it's coming, and we're gonna get hit. And in James chapter 1, verse 2, it says simply this consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. Well, that that seems very counterintuitive to me. Consider it joy when we're going through trials? What does that mean? And we've defined joy in the past, and we'll kind of get a big picture. But the bottom line is what he's saying here and what he's getting across in chapter one. If you have time to just read over this chapter once a day this week, I guarantee it will give an amazing perspective to whatever part of life we're in this week. And it will experience God in reality tangibly, as Steve said before, if we'll just read through this and say, okay, God, here's what I'm going through. I've shared this illustration once before, and I want to do it at least once a year because it's so powerful and it's impacted me. But it's a story I read. A woman, her husband was the head salesperson in their company. Because of that, the CEO said, Hey, I want to take you and your wife out to dinner. They go to one of the nicest restaurants in their town. They meet up and they're headed into the restaurant, and right before they get to the door, right before the door, the CEO of this company stops. And the lady is writing about this. She goes, It was a little bit too long. We didn't know if he was waiting for us to walk around him or what, but he just looked down, and then after a couple seconds, he reached down and he picked up a penny. And he just looked at the penny and he just stood there for a few seconds, and then he put the penny in his pocket and he walked up and he opened the door and he let them in, and they're having dinner. And he asked the wife, he just says, You know, your husband's so vital to our company, we just appreciate all his efforts, but we know there's some disconnect about information sometime. Is there anything you want to know about the company or me for that matter? And she goes, You know what? I really only have one question. And he goes, Great, anything, my world, my world's open to you. And she goes, What's up with the penny? And he goes, What penny? And she goes, Well, when we're walking in, you reached down and you picked up this penny, you just stared at it. She goes, You're you're doing pretty well, you don't need the penny. And he goes, Oh my goodness, I don't even realize I'd do that anymore. And she goes, Well, what's up with the penny? And he said, You know what? When we were starting the company, things were up and down. There was a roller coaster, and there was one particular time we didn't know if we were gonna make it or not. And the pressures of everything, I just had to get out of the office, and I went to go grab a cup of coffee. And as I'm walking down the sidewalk, the weight of the world on me, there was a penny. And he says, You know, I don't even notice them, I don't recognize them. I just walked by him, but something just urged me to pick up the penny, and I so I just picked up the penny and I just went to put it in my pocket, and then it caught my eye, and he says, I believe it was God, just go and look at this, and I right at the top. He says, Do you know what a penny says? And she goes, I and in God we trust, and he goes, Exactly. And it was in that moment, God just showed up and he said, Do you really? Do you really trust me? And he said, I just stopped and I just stood there on the sidewalk, I don't know how long, and I just looked at that penny, and every issue that I was letting weigh me down, I just said, God, yes, I trust you there. I trust you there. And I went through every part, and he says, Then I just put it in my pocket. I keep the pennies now, and every time I see a penny, I let it prompt me, ask the question, do I trust him? And I pick it up and I wait. What am I worried about right now? And do I really trust you with this? And then I put it in my pocket. He says, I have a bowl of pennies at my house from the day at the end of the day I put them in there. He says, It's just a great exercise. I'm like, that is amazing. So, this idea of trust and this concept of the fact that we're going to face trials, how does that work? Because I have a feeling that too often I've done it, and I would dare say we do it, where we pray to get rid of trials. God, will you just remove this? Or to avoid any kind of conflict or trial. God, just get rid of it. If you just get rid of it. But in God's economy, He's like, no, they're gonna happen. I want you to have more than get rid of it. And he says, you know what? I want the wisdom to know what to do, the strength to get through it, the realization that God is with me in the middle of it. And I want to get very, very honest because if we pan down to verse 14, we're gonna see this where God says, Never are you tempted of your own. But here's the deal in verse 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed. This tells me very clearly that every one of us has a part of our flesh, of our countenance, that is a besetting sin, a desire that we have to do that which will bring immediate gratification, to which ultimately will destroy us. That's within every one of us. What are we gonna do with that? At that point, what we talked about last week in praying is to kind of just say, God, I need your help. And I I shared about that. If you didn't get last week, grab the CD because it is that personal, honest, humble cry of just God, this is my besetting sin. And if I fulfill the way that my flesh wants to, it's gonna destroy me and relationships and all this. So God help, help me. And he shows up and he helps. Every time I cry that out, he shows up, and the circumstances tend to lose their power, and I tend to experience his power through me in the midst of that, but it's our choice to ask. So when we count a joy, when we face trials, there's three products that kind of happen, and it's in these verses, and I want us to see this in perseverance so as we face them. The first is in verse three. It says, Because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Produces perseverance. Dare I say that we want to be full and powerful and able, we just don't want to go through the process to get there. I want to be healthy, but I don't want the shot. Ask my daughter. She she wants to be healthy, she wants to get through, but she doesn't want the shot. Anything but the shot. I'm not sure death is so bad compared to getting a shot. She just doesn't want that. I I want to get better, but I don't want to go through what it takes to get there. It's football season, so I don't mind using a few analogies. One of my favorites ever was back when the Giants were in the Super Bowl. Bill Parcells is doing his mandatory press conference, and one of the brilliant reporters asked him this question Coach, who's gonna win the Super Bowl? Thanks, idiot. But I was so impressed with his answer. He said, I'll tell you who's gonna win the Super Bowl. And I really expected him to go, oh, well, of course we are, we're prepared, and all this. He goes, I'll tell you who's gonna win the Super Bowl. Whoever handles the adversity, something's gonna happen. A turnover at a bad time, an injury that's unexpected. And something's gonna happen that is completely negative. Whoever responds best to that situation will win the Super Bowl. And I just went, oh gone. That was good. In other words, whoever perseveres in the midst of that, that's who's going to win. And I see this in coaching, and I've taken this, and uh, for those of you who don't know my past, during the winter I love to coach basketball, and I coach middle school basketball, and I see these young boys who are becoming young men, and I see them just trying so hard and they lock up and they're trying not to make mistakes. And I tell them very clearly, I'm guys, stop. You've got to be free. You know what to do, you know where to be, you know how to do it. Free up. Free up. I don't care if you make a mistake. And they're like, What? I'm like, no, I won't. I promise. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get on you, I'm not gonna pull you out if you make a mistake. I will pull you out if you're not free and you're not giving your all out there. You can't mentally be thinking, don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake, don't make a mistake, and be your full potential. So here's the deal. Here's what I want you to realize I want you to make mistakes. I just don't want you to make the same mistake over and over and over. That's it. I said, I've seen you practice, you know this. I want you to say, okay, I'm guarding my guy. Oh my gosh, he got by me. Don't let him get by you on that side again. Back off. Let him take the outside shot. Get in that position where he can't beat you the same way twice. That's what I want you to experience. I would say that is one of the pieces God is longing for us to learn in perseverance, going, hey, I I came so that you'd be free. I covered your failures, I covered your frustrations. Let me live through you in this. Let me develop who you are. Just don't make the same ones twice. And when you go through a trial, learn that I'm with you in this and you can endure more than maybe you realize you can. We were in a small group. I learned this from my wife. I learned a lot from my wife. And we were talking about, we're taking kind of a prayer request, and there was a lady in the group, I'll call her Karen, because that was her name. And Karen had this just perplexed look. She goes, Oh my goodness, I need you guys to pray for me this week. Pray for me this week. And we're thinking, Oh my word, what's gonna happen? And she said, This week, um, my husband Jeff is going out of town for three days, and just pray for me. Now, you gotta understand, my wife broke up her whole life, her dad's gone two or three days a week. She marries a guy who's on the road two, three nights a week on average, and she goes, So, okay, where's he going? She goes, Oh, he's going out for work to such and such. And my wife's like, So, is it dangerous or what what is what are we praying for here? And she goes, No, it's just I'm gonna be home with my kids alone for three days. And Heather's looking at her like she grew an extra ear on her head, she's like, and that's it? Seriously, that's it. Well, she realized that not everybody has her experience, but she had developed this amazing ability to persevere because God just built that in her, and over time, she developed like that's nothing. Now she did call her, she did call her during the week, and she goes, How's it going? She goes, Well, you know, I'm thinking about this, and she goes, you know what? That's normal. And she walked her through it and walked with her through that part of it. But my wife is so now versed in perseverance in that area. To her, literally, I'll have a slow month, and she'll be like, Oh, you know what? When's your next trip? I need you to leave so I can miss you. That's what I need. I mean, it's a different end of that spectrum, but that's that perseverance that we need to have within us. And when we get to this point, and and here's the deal: if you're going through a piece right now, we want God to develop this amazing perseverance in us, look at verse 5. And I love this. This is one of my favorite verses in the New Testament. It says, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all, and here's my favorite part, without finding fault, and it will be given to you. When we're in the midst of it and we don't know how to get through it, it's to stop and say, God, will you help me? I don't know what to do, or I don't feel I have the strength, or I need your help. Please help. And he's not gonna go, loser, how many times am I gonna have to do it? He doesn't do no fault. I'm not gonna find fault, and I'm just gonna be show up and I'm I'm I'm already there. But what you do is you unlock my desire and my ability to move in your life, so it pr produces. Perseverance. In verse 4, it moves to the next step. And it's kind of what my wife experienced with the idea of me being away. And that is, look in verse 4. It says, Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature. It produces maturity. Produces maturity. I want to be wise. My mentor for years shared with me one time, and I may have shared this before, but it definitely bears repeating. There are three types of people in the world. And every one of us in every circumstance is one of these three people. We are one of these three people. There are stupid people. Contrary to popular belief, there are not stupid questions, just stupid people who ask questions, okay? And I have been that person multiple times. But that's what I love about God. He's like, Ken, I know you don't understand all I'm all knowing and I'll go through you. So ask. There are stupid people, there are smart people, and there are wise people. And my mentor shared this with me, Al. He says, Ken, stupid people make mistakes. And then they look and they go, dang, that hurt, or that was bad, or that's gonna cost me. And then they go back and they make the same mistake. And they go back and make the same mistake. And they keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. And he said, smart people, smart people make mistakes. And they go, man, that was a mistake, and I wish I didn't do that, or I wish I wouldn't do that. And God, would you help me in this? Give me wisdom to remember this next time so I don't make the same mistake over and over. And would you help me? Those are smart people. Wise people look at a situation, they pray, God, will you help me see this? And God, I'm I'm I know I'm free to make a mistake here, and I know you're with me in this. But will you teach me before I do this? Is there any part of wisdom I don't have that I need? Any direction, any priority? Will you just help me in this? And wise people watch the stupid and smart people and they go, What can I learn? Okay, I'm not gonna do that, I'm gonna do that, and they move forward. Which one am I? That's maturity, that's the type that I want to be, and it's perspective. Oh, I used to get so bent out of shape about so much. That's not fair, that's not right. I do what's right, and I've been with this. I got bent out of shape about everything. Now it's just that's just not important. I'll give you one of my favorites, drives my wife crazy. I love mowing the yard and doing laundry. That's two of the weirdness. Uh, two middle-aged married women, I just became the sexiest man on the planet, okay? I get that. Um I just really love it. It's therapy for me, but specifically the yard. And in our little neighborhood, there's 71 homes, there's this group of people on this one little committee, and they declare who is the yard of the month. Yard of the month. And they have this sign about the size of, I don't know, a real estate sign. They put it in the yard, yard of the month. And it kind of passes between the three people that are on the committee every month. Drives my wife insane. Probably 15 years ago, it would have driven me insane. Like, my yard looks awesome, and I worked just as hard and it looked, I don't care. It my yard does not look as bad as some, it looks better than others. It just priority, it's perspective, it's maturity, it's produced this maturity in me, even to the point now where I'm thinking of having some sign. Literally, I'm mowing my grass one day, and I'm like, my yard really looks good this way. And I think I'm gonna make some of my own signs. Just for fun. And put it in the yard of the day. And then I got on this roll. I'm thinking, I'm gonna make one that says voted most average yard in Cobb County. Average. But my favorite one, and I really think I'm gonna do this one in really small print. Voted most likely to never win yard of the month. I just see with maturity comes perspective. And with maturity, we can look at certain circumstances and realize with God's wisdom in us, going, you know what, this just really isn't that important. It's really not. And and if you have children, you understand this concept where we look at a child and they cry over little things and we realize, yeah, that's not that big a deal. I'm gonna show you compassion, I'm gonna hold you, I'm gonna fix it. I've got my children totally snowed. I you can ask them anytime, and I'll say, finish this thing. Daddy can, and they're like, fix anything. And I'm not a handyman, but if what's broken in their world, I can fix it. And in reality, God is literally with you and I in the middle of whatever we go through, and he's going, I got this. Maturity is saying, God, you got this. Will you just give me wisdom in it? I know I need to endure some of this, and I need to have your perspective in the middle of it. But God, I want your maturity in this. And then probably the greatest product of all, yes, it produces perseverance. Yes, we get maturity. But the second part of that in verse 4, it says that let us perseverance finish its work so we may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Mature and complete, lacking nothing. Some would hope. Now here's the question we have to ask Do I want a life where I never have to face a trial and that I'm constantly dodging anything that might be a conflict, that might not work out perfectly, and just try to dodge everything and basically live a life that ends up meaningless? Or do I want to live a life that no matter what the trial, what comes up, I know I win. No matter what it is, I win. Because I've got God with me. Which of those extremes do I want? I don't want to be the squirrel running back and forth trying to avoid the car and jumping over. I want to be the one that goes, you know what? Bring it. Bring it. Because you know what? God's with me. I I'm not in my own strength. I know that you can run over me, but you're not gonna run over him. And he's gonna give me the purpose in it, and I'm gonna have that perspective and that importance, and I'm gonna see where real strength comes from. Look at it this way there's one power in every trial or circumstance. That power is either gonna be focused on the circumstances that are hitting me, or focused on the power of the God within me from the inside out. And when I face that circumstance, going, you know what, this is this is bad. It's not some religiosity where you were standing in the middle of a hurricane going, it's not raining, I'm not wet, it's not raining, I'm not wet, it's not raining, I'm not wet. It's not that at all. It's quite honestly going, that he who is with me in me is greater than he who's in the world. God's bigger than the circumstance. I don't see it, I don't feel it, but I am honestly, humbly coming before God, going, God, will you show me how real you are in this? Will you protect me where I need to be protected? Will you give me wisdom where I need to be wise? Will you help me through this because I don't understand it? And he says, Good, because I don't want to ask you to lean on your understanding. And it doesn't mean that I'm gonna remove all the pain, that we're gonna get hit in the process. But I want to get to the point where I'm like, okay, Lord, what do I need to endure here? I don't know who said it originally, but I love this saying pain is just fear leaving the body. And when we have Christ in our heart, Christ went through horrendous pain, but it released all the fear of death and hell. And he's like, got it, I win. Now I'm a bit of a movie buff, and and ladies, forgive me if uh I go too far over on this one, but I just love the visual. And every now and I'll see a scene in a movie, or I'll see a movie that I'm just like, there's something awesome and just intrinsically right about that piece. And I've shared this before. One of them I shared, ladies, if you want to know what a man's heart is, it's this locker room scene from a movie called Cinderella Man. But it's about a boxer, a real man, Jim Braddock, back during the depression. And he had fought and he had accomplished it all, and then he lost everything. And then he tried to make a little bit of a living at it, and he was very hurt. But then he got the perseverance of real life and losing everything, and his family on decay and his body breaking down. And he learned this idea of perseverance and maturity and perspective. And there's this one scene in the movie where he's gotten a couple fights just to make a little bit of money, and they said, you know what, we'll let you do this because you've never been knocked out. But then he starts winning, and then he starts realizing it's not about my pains, it's not about my failures, it's about what's inside me. And I want you to see the culmination of the way this shifts in his world, of the world beating on him and realizing the power's not coming at me, the power's from within me. Watch this real clip.

Pay attention. Yeah, now he's gonna wonder if Radic is such an old man, why is he still standing? Why is he still coming at me? You're stronger than this guy. Don't back up, don't back off. This guy is a bull rusher, he's gonna keep coming at you all night until you stop him. He can't back up, you stop.

The look of resolve on his face when he's beaten and bloodied and bruised, and he just walks up and picks up his mouthpiece, and like, that's your best? That's it. Okay, let's go. And that is a snapshot of that power within you and I where God says, okay, which are you gonna choose? Are we gonna try to face our trials on our own? Or are we gonna literally count it joy that it is not the absence of circumstances that brings me joy, but the presence of God with me in it? Let me let me illustrate it in this way. If there was a physical attack on our world, who do I want next to me? Who do I want next to me? Do I want a politician who's going to tell me, you know what, um, it's really okay. It's not as bad as it seems. It's okay, we're gonna we're gonna make this gonna be okay. Or do I want a Navy SEAL standing next to me with a few scars and a history that says, What do we got? Well, we got a straw and a toothpick and a match. That's good, we're good. Let's go. Which one do I want? I want the fighter. I want the one who's been through it and conquered it and won it. And in the real world, in the real sense of real trials, that is Christ in me. That's the power. The question is, is am I relying on that? Am I depending on it? And am I turning to that on a regular basis? Even when the odds are overwhelming, am I turning to that? Now, uh, contrary to popular belief, I don't just watch Russell Crowe movies, but there are some, and ladies, I can just tell you the reason why we are drawn towards man movies, these movies are one to where we just like there's something there. I want to be able to face anything that comes my way. I don't think it was a mistake at all that God timed this out. I was working and it had helped to build up an incredible opportunity down in Florida. And on this one particular night, I'd had some friends that had lied to me over several weeks, and they had pulled out everything that I'd built up and it crushed my heart. And one of my dear friends was ready to go just beat all of them up, and I'm like, no, that's not the answer. And we went to dinner, and he was just like, What do you want to do? This is just wrong. It's just wrong. And I'm like, I know. I said, you know what? I don't want to overreact. I don't want to overreact. I don't want to confront. Let's just chill. I said, is there a movie or something we can see? And there's a late one, it was the middle of the week, nobody was there. And this movie called Gladiator just came out, and I thought, let's go see that one. And in the middle of this movie, I'm just like, and literally two or three times, my buddy Glenny's like, that's you, that's you. Not physically, but I mean the situation, the circumstances. And it's this proud general who has been betrayed and sold into slavery. And if you're not familiar with the gladiator times, they would take slaves, put them in the arena, basically a sacrifice, and they would just kill them. Literally kill them, uh, portraying battles and such. Well, that's what was supposed to happen. And and Maximus was one of those gladiators, and he's in the arena, and they're starting to pull up all the armorment and weapons to kill this group of slaves, to reenact the Battle of Corinth, except for they didn't realize he he literally bends over. He's the other guys are scared to death, and they're looking at all the weapons, and they're the crowd is yelling, kill them. And he just leans down and he picks up some sand. And guys, do you remember the scene where he just rubs the sand because we don't want to have sweaty hands on my sword when I win this? And then he just says, Who's been in who's been in an army? And two or three of the guys, he's like, come together. He says, Listen to what I say, and we will win. And these several of them are like, win? I just don't want to die quick. You know, just win. And sure enough, they come together and they stand against the overwhelming odds of those thrown at them and they survive to fight another day. And he it's just something about us that you and I, if we're honest, we're gonna face trials, we're gonna face hardships, we're gonna face that which we don't expect, circumstances that are overwhelming, some which are not our fault, some which are our fault. Either way, God says, I want you to count it joy because I am with you, and what I'm gonna work in you is this in verse five again. He says, Ask and I will give. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should just ask me, and I'll give generously without finding fault, and it'll be given to you. Consider it pure joy because I'm with you in the midst of it. Am I asking that? This morning I want to wrap with a real life story that I opened with. I shared that concept of the penny several times. I've shared it multiple times in multiple places. A friend of mine in Arizona had given a copy of that C D to his mother, and she said, I love that idea. Fast forward several years, she was in the same situation that Steve's mom was in fighting cancer. She had a surgery planned. And she'd been praying for it. And my buddy Steve said, I went to the hospital for pre-op in the very wee hours of the morning. Mom was already there, she's in the bed, and he says, Where once was this worry and perplexed and pain, he said, I walked in, and I literally thought they'd already given her the meds because she was just smiling and just total peace. And he goes, Are you okay? And she goes, Yeah. And he goes, Are they giving you the stuff yet? And she goes, No. And he goes, Well, I've been praying for you. She goes, I know. She said, I just prayed the whole time. God, would you just let me know? I know you're with me. I know you're with me. Give me wisdom. If this is it, this is it. But God, I trust you in it. And I just thank you for being with me. She said, I walked up to that hospital, walking into the doors, and the doors opened as I walked up, and in the middle of the floor was the shiniest penny you've ever seen. And she just went, Oh. She said, I leaned over and I picked it up. And she just went, He is. He is. And she said, This is the penny. And she said, They won't let me hold it in the room. Will you just hold it for me? And just know God's with me in the midst of this. And I trust him. And my encouragement to you and I, if we want something tangible, I would encourage you today, go home, get a penny, and just go, God, I'm gonna keep this in my pocket this week. Or if you want to, God, as I'm walking down the street, throw some pennies in front of me. And I'll pick them up and I'll stop and go, God, am I worried about this? Because I'm gonna count it joy no matter what I'm going through. I get to pray to you honestly, humbly, and just personally, and you're with me in this because you want to build within me perseverance, maturity, completeness that I lack nothing. That's what God longs for you and I to walk out with today. And I pray that we'd be so bold to say, God, okay, I trust you. Will you show me where I am in that process that I would stop praying to get rid of it and start praying for your power within it? The power is not in the circumstances, it is you within me. Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you so much that you really are with us right now. I thank you for the incredible time of worship through music where we get to just declare that. I thank you so much for this place called His Hands, where we can just come and reset our minds on what is true because you are truth and you are with us. So, Father, I don't even have a clue what everyone's going through, but you know exactly intimately and intricately what we're going through and what we're gonna go through. And Lord, I pray that we would have no fear, that we would just say, God is with me, so who can be against me? And Lord, we rejoice in that today. And even as we wrap up in the song, Lord, I pray we would just bask in your presence. It is only through the gift of your salvation through Jesus and the power of your presence in your spirit in us right now that we pray. Amen. God bless you. I cannot wait to see you next time. Thanks.