So it, um, it, it, it began with a general sense of fatigue and ache in the joints. People would, would begin to see these patches on their skin that would turn white, and then there'd be sores that would begin to ulcerate that, would you, you would get lumps, they'd become disfigured. They'd lose their eyebrows. You can't even recognize who they are. Eventually, the, the disease works its way into the vocal cords, and they begin to ulcerate. So now you can't really speak, and it's raspy and it's hard to breathe. Uh, eventually there's a, a loss of sensation. You actually stop feeling pain. It's very dangerous because now you can't tell when you're injured, as your body begins to literally rot away. Uh, eventually, uh, there are other things that happen. You go into a coma and finally, death. That's leprosy. Now, if you look at ancient sources outside of scripture, what you will see is that leprosy was prevalent. It was misunderstood. It was feared. People didn't know what to do with it. If you go to the 13th chapter of Leviticus, you will see a very detailed description of how do we deal with this fearsome disease? The rabbis would eventually say that, that the lepers were the walking dead. What I can tell you is that I have been to, uh, to, to India and seen lepers in late stages that were untreated by modern medicine. And there is no life in their eyes. There is no joy. There is no laughter. When you started to show the first signs of leprosy in Jesus' day, it was like a death sentence. You were, uh, you, you were taken out of the community. You were, you lost your job. You lost your family. You lost your home. You were relegated to live. Now, outside the city, walls in, in these refuse pits or garbage dunk dumps. And wherever you were, you had to cry out that you were unclean. There was such a shame associated to this. People would say, oh, what did you do to deserve something like that? Can you imagine? Never like hugging your kids again. Can you imagine? Never like feeling the, the, the, the strong arm of a friend saying, Hey, you're not alone, never kissing your spouse. Some of you at this point are going, that has a horrible way to start a message, man. Like, where are you going with that? And of course, it all fits together. I mean, let's just say we, we, there, there's an overarching theme to today, of course. So all together now, that overarching theme is, yeah, we were looking for gratitude. The, the word was gratitude. Gratitude. Uh, and you're like, wait, what? Let's try it this way. You ever been at the end of your rope? You've ever been at a place where it's like, I, I I, if God doesn't come through, I don't know how this is gonna turn out. I mean, it's a thing that was happening. Maybe it was happening at home. Maybe it was happening at work. Maybe it was your health, but it was like, God, you gotta come through. I need a miracle. And then it happened. How do you respond when it, when God comes through? Here's how the psalmist puts it. Um, I love the Lord for he heard my voice. He heard my cry for mercy because he turned his ear to me. I will call on him as long as I live. Now, we're getting there. So let's pray. And then I want to tell you a story of healing and gratitude. And believe it or not, leprosy Father, we come before you now. And some of us are, we're there. We're ready. Some of us, not so much. There's a bunch of us every place in between. We're trying to figure out if you're real, if you'll be real for us. Lord, you are so good. You are so present here. Now, I pray that your Holy Spirit would move in through this conversation as we open your word, and that we would listen for your invitation into the story. And that no matter what it is that we came in here with, Lord, that we will hold it before you now and listen for the voice of Jesus. We ask this now in His name and Matt, okay? So I'm gonna tell you a story. Uh, and like I said, these are some fellas who need a second chance. Man, do they need a second chance? But first, first I'd like for you to, and it won't be the fir uh, the only time today. Uh, which means you be nice to your neighbor, okay? If they look lonely, if they're sitting there alone, just introduce yourself. 'cause you'll wanna go back to them a little bit later. Don't be creepy about it. Just introduce yourself. If they don't wanna play along, they'll let you know. But here it is. Would you just rate yourself on a gratitude scale right now? Like one to 10, where are you? One is, you know, you're Billy Vaughn. Bitterness, you're just blah, right? 10 is your, I don't know, uh, Wanda Mc wonderment. You're never very far from a worship song right now. Now, listen, listen. Uh, my own observation has been people on both ends of that scale are really difficult to be around. Where do you land? Pick a number and tell the person next to you. This is kinda where I am on the gratitude scale these days. Go ahead. Talk to each other real quickly. Okay? You're gonna continue that conversation in just a second. Some of you felt the need to defend your number. We'll keep talking. Lemme just say hi to those of you who are joining us around the world. Those of you who are joining us at, at Fenton and Mid Rivers. Uh, and just, y'all don't know this, but in, in the last service Grants Trail, 'cause they were one place that didn't have power. They had church out in the parking lot. But as I understand it, y'all are back inside. So we wanna welcome Grant's Trail to the indoors. Um, Do you have your Bible turned to Acts chapter? I'm sorry, Luke chapter 17. We'll be in Luke chapter 17. Uh, and I wanna just tell you a story. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read the passage. I'm gonna ask you to notice things in the passage, and you figure out what you want to talk about. Okay? So you're gonna go right back into the discussion groups in just a second. What do you notice? What do you have questions about? What do you think we should talk about together Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee as he was going into a village. 10 men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice. Jesus master have pity on us. When he saw them, he said, go show yourselves to the priest. And as and as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, we're not all 10 cleansed. We're the other nine has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner. That's the story. What are you noticing? What do you have questions about? What should we talk about? Would you go back to the same people that you just introduced yourself to talk to each other? Use the app. Let me know what you're, you're thinking, okay? So sites, that's how we're gonna communicate. But what are you seeing? What are you noticing? What do you have questions about? Go right back into the story now. Okay? Alright. Um, we've got some things from the app from some of you at different sites. Uh, uh, one of them that's come up in a couple of different ways is, what's the deal with the priest? Why go to the priest? What's that all about? Uh, anybody else got anything? Uh, uh, over here in these sections that you're noticing? Questions? Yes, ma'am. Samaritans were outcasts. They were The lowest of, okay, so that's something we should talk about. Samaritans were the outcasts. Yeah, we should talk about that a little bit. Did anybody feel uncomfortable with the way Jesus ended the story? Look, the only one who came back was this foreigner. Now, I want you to understand he's not, this is not a bad word. He's making an observation. He's actually saying something out loud that they would have said, look at it this way. Um, we'll come back. I'll ask, uh, I'll, I'll check on more of your questions. But let's just look at this one real quickly since it came up. Um, so let's say that this Is the Dead Sea. This is the Jordan River. This is Sea of Galilee. What you would see is that there were these different regions of the area. This up here is Galilee. This is where Jesus grew up. Judea is where Jerusalem was. And then this middle section here, well, that's Samaria. And these folks were seen as, uh, as really defecting from the Jewish faith. They were seen as, they didn't have pure Jewish blood. There was a lot of bad ugly that had happened between these two over the centuries. They did not think highly of each other. They didn't worship at the temple in Jerusalem. There was just a lot of stuff going on, and they were outsiders. And so Jesus' work in this region up here along the, the boundary there before he heads to Jerusalem. So that's really what's going on if you wanna know the whole story. But he bumps into a Samaritan. Okay? So let, let's come back to that. 'cause I think it's important. What else did you guys notice? Lemme see what else is coming in here. Uh, they were healed on their way to the, to the priest. Somebody said, why is it a big deal that he was a Samaritan? So, we'll come back to that. Um, would I be the one who came back, was what? Somebody said? Anybody here? Any other questions that you've got? Let's just, let's just get 'em all out here Now. Observations. Anybody in these sections? You guys are good. Thanks. Uh, anybody here? Like, what are you noticing? What? Anybody else got anything for me? Familiar? Hang on one second. Familiarity. What Familiarity and expectation can rob us of the all of God? So familiarity and, and expectation can rob us of the awe of God. Say just a little bit more about that. Jewish People thought that there was like a level of expectation that Jesus deemed Messiah would heal them, and they took it for granted. They were robbed of the awe. So there could be people who might have just taken it for granted. This is a healer. This is a doer of wonders. Yeah. He did what he was, what he was gonna do. Okay. All right. Yeah. And, and then they lose the awe of it all. Okay. Some, okay. The person that just said something here, say it again. Or, or the other nine. Why didn't they come back? Thank you. Yeah. What's up with the other nine? Yeah, where did they come? Luke doesn't tell us, does he? So we'll come back to that. All right. That's a good one. Anything over here, you guys? The 10 lovers were on a mission. They were looking for Jesus. They came outta the common Looking for him. Okay? So they were, they did have enough figured out that they knew that Jesus could help them. All right? So let's just, let's just break this story down real quickly. So Jesus is working along that boundary. There. He comes into a village, he's outside the village. And these 10 lepers come up to him, not too close, because they couldn't, they cry out. Master. That simply means the one who's in charge. Antes is the Greek word. There. You are the one. You're, you're the leader. You're the one in charge. You have authority, have mercy on us. And Jesus does listen to me. There were, there were outsiders in the midst. I wouldn't say that all of them were Samaritans. There was one guy who had kind of a double level of, of exclusion because he's a Samaritan and a leper, but they're all outcasts. And Jesus always seems to pay attention to the outcast, doesn't he? I mean, you get into the gospels, and that's what you see him doing. So he now responds to them and says, go to the priest. Just go to the priest and, and, and, and tell him that you're healed. Just go to the priest. Why would he do that? Why didn't he heal them before they went? Well, we don't know. Do we? We do know that Jesus doesn't heal the same way every time. If you go through the gospels, he will not be confined to a formula. 'cause he knows we're suckers for formulas. So he doesn't want us to miss that. And no, he can do it however he wants to do it. He can spit on dirt, make mud pats, and stick 'em on a person's eyes and heal him. He can do it however he wants to do it in the gospels. But here he says, y'all go to the priest. Now, why would you go to a priest as a leper? Because this was such a difficult and unknown and feared disease that the only way you were allowed back into community was if a priest checked you over and said, yep, you're clean. Somehow the leprosy is gone. You've been healed. Whatever it is, you are allowed back into the community. He was already reintegrating them into community. You're gonna have to go to the priest anyway. Go to him now. But along the way, they're cleansed. As they go to the priest, as they take that first step, that's when the healing happens. Y'all notice that? Right? Here's a question for you. Has God ever nudged you to take a step, like a step in your faith? It could be a step of man, I, I've, I've gotta reach out to that friend. I've, I've gotta, I've gotta talk to my parents about this. I gotta deal with this thing in my finances. I, I, I gotta call the doctor. I need to ask somebody for help. I, I, I'm, I'm gonna go public with my faith and actually be baptized this year. It's a step. And God is nudging you to take that step. Anybody here notice that? It's as you take the step that God goes, oh, okay, now you're ready. Let's go, let's do this thing. You see, God often heals me as I go, as I follow him, as I take that step. And that is exactly what is happening here. I don't know what it looked like. I don't know how it fully happened, but somewhere along the way to being reintegrated into community, the soars start drying up. They're not quite as deformed as they were for the first time in a long time. They actually feel they can feel the warmth of the sun on their skin. Wait a minute, can you hear me talking? My voice is in this raspy, because I can understand you. Somewhere along the way, they are healed. Now, y'all, that's a miracle. I don't know any other way to put it. Okay? We've talked about miracles many times in the last two or three years. I will say, if you wanna hold, teach on that, we will point you towards it. I would just say this much. I think miracles are, are a reasonable thing to expect. If you believe that there's a God, you see miracles, don't contradict science. If, if you can leave it open, that there's a God who created all of this. I can show you scientists from Sir Isaac Newton to George Washington Carver to Charles Babbage, the mathematician who invented the first mechanical computer. And they will all tell you they believe in miracles. Babbage actually makes the point brilliantly and says, there's room in science for miracles to happen. If you'll start with the fact that there's a God who created all of this, because if there is, he can intervene however he wants. And I'll go you one further. If Jesus is the image of God breaking into the story, then we would expect the power of God to be so active and alive in Jesus to get our attention that he would do things nobody else could ever do. And that's exactly what we see in the gospels. So as they are going, they are healed. Something miraculous happens. But then what we see is that nine of them keep moving forward. Only one of them returns to, to, to thank Jesus. Only one of them comes back. And, and to be honest with you, uh, we don't know why. I mean, if you think about it, we, we, we just don't know why. And Jesus says, out of all of them, it was the guy that you would call the outsider. You would call him a pagan. You would call him a heathen. You would call him a Samaritan. You'd call him a foreigner. He's the only one you see. If you go back and you read that again, does anyone else pick up on the hurt in Jesus' voice? Weren't 10 of y'all healed? We're the other nine? I mean, you're the only one. And you don't even like, fully know the story of Messiah. And, and you're coming back Now. We don't know why they didn't come back. You ever notice that when you're praying really intensely for something and it's like, like, God, you gotta come through. Oh, please Lord, please. And you can't help it. You are praying nonstop, and you are boldly coming before the throne of heaven. You ever had those kind of prayers? God, I need you to intervene. And he does. You ever notice how quickly our prayers fade? Like, man, I'm knocking on the door of heaven nonstop. Lord, I need you. Lord, you are in charge of everything. Oh, yeah, that happened. I gotta get back to work. We get busy. Maybe it's that they didn't want to associate with Jesus because he was controversial. In these days, things are starting to happen. He's getting a lot of pushback. Maybe they're just really grateful. Woo, I'm glad you did that. But I'm not gonna go, I I don't wanna be associated with you. I don't wanna go public. I don't wanna say to everybody, I'm with him. I'm too shy, I'm too embarrassed. Or maybe they just wanted to put their past behind them. Like, I don't wanna go back. I don't wanna talk about it. I don't wanna think about it. Thank you. Hallelujah. But I don't wanna go back. We don't know. Luke doesn't tell us. All we know is that there was one. Even as he's healed, even as he's like, okay, I know I'm gonna need to be reintegrated into society, but before all of that, I gotta go back to the source of my healing. I gotta go back and say thank you. So he falls on his knees. He's before Jesus. He's not from a distance. Now he's up close. Somebody in a previous service said, you talk about a visual. You've got a grateful healed leper at his feet. He's proclaiming with a bold voice. There's nothing raspy about this voice. His voice is back, and he is praising God. Why? 'cause he's got a second chance. 'cause he's got a new life, because his health is back. Here's the thing, turn to each other real quickly. Uh, just tell the people around you, uh, just one, you've got a big regimen, but just one thing that you do every day that's healthy, one thing that you do that's good for you. One thing that you go, you know, this, I build into my routine every day. Go, what's the one thing? Sure. Tell 'em right now. You only get one. Go. Okay. All right. I know some of you have a very detailed regimen, whatever it is that you just told someone in the middle of all that you do, do you remember to incorporate this into your routine? Do you say thank you? See, I know some of you have very impressive routines, and you're like, Greg, everything I do is organic. I I take organic showers. I breathe organic air. I only think organic thoughts. It's just me. It's what I do. Listen to me. I'm so impressed with some of you, but I need you to know whatever your answer was, whether it was long runs, bench presses, uh, red lights, cold plunges, you know, low carbs, high, high, uh, high protein, whatever it is that you're doing. You know, some of you're like, Greg, all I do is I look both ways before I cross the street. That's the healthiest thing I do. Listen, whatever it is that you do, I want to give you something that will literally statistically lengthen your life. The research is out. Practice gratitude. Did you know that there is study after study after study that shows when you practice gratitude, when you fold it into your life, you statistically are less likely to die. There are biomarkers connected to gratitude, that point to your heart health for all the other stuff that you do, which you should do. Way to go fold this in. Did you know that when you practice gratitude, that you think clear, you make sharper decisions, you show more empathy. Uh, there's improvement in, um, what do you call it? Memory. Uh, there's, there's, yeah. Uh, uh, can I give you one? This was just for free. If you're of a certain age and you're saying, I'm trying to fight the effects of time, put your phone down. What, you know, there was a study that just came out that said, if you will take, if you'll be off of your phone for two weeks now, I know you're like, but I'm the one that keeps the world moving. I have to look at my phone. Okay. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Me too. But the study says that if you do that for two weeks, your cognitive functioning improves. I'm just saying, put your phone down and look around. Notice the people around you and ask just one curious question. Hey, so how do you do what you do? Man, that is a cool thing. Thanks. All of a sudden, like, you're gonna, you're gonna live longer. Some of you are right now going, these are old people's strategies. Man, I'm in my twenties. I'm a teenager. What about me? I'm so glad you asked. There are long range studies that show that if teenagers and twenties, somethings will practice gratitude, depression, and anxiety levels go down. You know, that dopamine hit that everybody's chasing that feel good. That's the neurotransmitter that you want, tonin, that you, all of these things that you want the serotonin, you want these things. Gratitude produces more of those things that pro that, that give you that sense of satisfaction and happiness and motivation. This is what we all, it turns out, our, our our our our parents knew what they were. Our parents that asked the same question that has been asked for thousands of years, maybe they knew what they were talking about. You know the question, right? When you were given something as a kid, there was that question that mom or dad always asked. What was it? What'd he say? What'd he say? What do you say? Thank you, thank you, thank you Aunt Martha for the lime green sweater with the purple and yellow bunnies that you knit for me. I, I didn't even know I needed that. I must say it's beautiful and I'm grateful. I must say, you know, that life hack, right? We've taught you that before. There's a pastor here, Russ Kirkland, who used to say, Hey, if somebody serves you like something that you don't like, or somebody hands you a baby and says, like, this, this, I know you see a lot of beautiful babies, but this has to be the most beautiful baby you've ever seen. He would teach young pastors and say, what? You, what, what do you say? I must say you're right. Because I must say that just to keep the peace. It's a true story. I was with some leaders and some pastors and one of my mentors this past week, and we were all working together and, and on something for a couple of three days. And, uh, I was out of the room and this mentor of mine for 25 years now, he's so excited. 'cause he served everybody a sandwich, and he wanted me to have a, a, you know, part of the sandwich. I was like, not really hungry. He goes, oh, no, no, no, you gotta have it. And everybody's like, no, you gotta have it. So, uh, he gives it to me in front of everyone and says, here, what do you think it was? A peanut butter mayonnaise and dill pickle sandwich. Oh, yeah. What do you say? I must say, Larry, that that's, uh, I, I must say thank you that, uh, that, that, that's not as, yeah, that's an interesting sandwich. Now listen to me, when we talk about gratitude, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about gritting your teeth and eking out a thank you before you go in your room and you puke up the sandwich. I'm talking about gratitude. There's an expert, one of the world's leading experts at uc, Davis. Uh, Robert Emmons has written about this. He's done research for years on this, and he breaks it down. It's pretty simple. Really. Gratitude, he says, comes in two stages. The first stage is you notice good things. I know, right? But you notice, you acknowledge good things. Give thanks to the Lord for he's good. His love endures forever. So you notice that, by the way, in the Hebrew, that word for thank can also mean confess or admit. So I just admit, I admit there are good things in this world. Second thing, I notice that those good things come from outside of me. You see, there are good things in life. I'm not saying that life is always easy. I'm not saying that everything is coming up roses. I'm just saying there are good things that make life worth living. Oh. And some of those things don't come from me. They come from others. So you give thanks to the others that give this to you. And he even goes so far as to say, if you begin to sense that life itself is a gift, thank your creator. Whoa, way to go. Dr. Emmonds Chesterton used to say years ago that the worst moment in an atheist's life is when they get that sense of gratitude and they don't know who to thank. The Bible tells us, the book of James says that every good and perfect gift comes from God. Our heavenly Father, it's God. And so we thank him and we thank each other. It's so easy. We, we, we go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we forget. Have you ever noticed that? Sometimes you complain about something and then it's taken away. And then who are you grateful for it when it comes back? You ever, you ever complain about the speed of wifi any place? Like, I don't know. You're at somebody's house and they're still using dial up, and you're like, oh, are you kidding me? And then you come back to your house and you wanna hug your router, don't you? It's like, oh, I, I missed you. I remember as a kid, I thought loading the dishwasher was the dumbest, worst chore. And then the dishwasher broke. What? Wait, what? Mom? You're saying we're gonna, we're gonna wash the dishes like by hand in the sink. What are we, pilgrims, pioneers cave people? Nobody does that. Something gets taken away and you're like, oh, yeah, that was a gift. Maybe we complain about, uh, getting wet, running out to the car. Oh man, there's a dimple, there's a dent on my car from that hail. And then we find out people lost their businesses or their homes or their church or a loved one, and we're like, oh, yeah, life's a gift. So where are you on this? When was the last time you turned back? You see, the alternative is you're gonna lead a grumpy, stingy, uh, judgy life. Like if, if, if you, you're gonna lose that sense of awe, not just of God, but of each other. You're gonna lose it. And that is not the life God offered you. That's not the life God's calling you to. You see, we're gonna have to be intentional about this, or we're gonna drift to the nine instead of the one. So just some really quick action points here. Uh, like, I don't know, write a thank you note. Really old fashioned I know, or text or dm, do whatever you do. Email. But how about if you say it out loud in person, eyeball to eyeball. How about if you put words to it? How about if you did something outrageous and spontaneous and generous for that person in your life who has, they've given so much to you, they have put up with so much from you. They are working so hard right now. It's a friend, it's a spouse. It's, it's your parent. It's a child. They're not, they didn't just walk across the stage this week that you, you're not just proud of 'em. You're grateful for 'em. Can we express these things out loud? All I'm saying to you is life is a gift. And don't wait. I'm not trying to manipulate you. You here at the end. I'm just telling you that there was a hero of mine. A a a man who was a, an athlete. Uh, he was a basketball coach, an athletic director. He headed the, uh, the national, uh, organization of small colleges and universities. The NIA, he was the president of that. He was on the Olympic Committee, hero of mine, also, my father-in-law. And he picks up this idiopathic lung disease that he didn't, he, he didn't sign up for. He didn't have any habit that would've invited that into his lungs. But now this athlete can't breathe, and we're at the end of the end of it, right? And so this is when we just had one service. And I, uh, long time ago. And, uh, I remember, uh, saying, Rob, you gotta get down there on a Friday and then let me know. I could get somebody else to teach. I'll get the girls and we'll fly down on a Saturday or a Sunday. You tell us what. And so that was the plan. And she was just gonna get down there Friday night, kind of assess things. Call me Saturday morning, that would be that I get a call Saturday morning. I could tell she was in the hospital room because I could hear the, the hiss and the, and the whir of the, of the, uh, of the oxygen machine. I could hear nurses. And it was just very loud. But mostly I could hear the tone in her voice. And Robin said, I think you need to talk to him now. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We, I've got this, the flights lined up. We'll jump on the plane now. She goes, no, you need to talk to dad now. And she puts the phone up to his ear. Now, you ever known you were saying last words to someone? Some of you know what that's like. What do you say? I said a lot. And it wasn't very eloquent. I said it quickly as it just fell out of my mouth. But I can tell you two things that I did. Said, I said, I love you, Bob. And then I said, thank you. And I listed things. I'm so grateful for this and for this and for this. I'm not trying to manipulate you. I am telling you, life is a gift. Don't wait. I want you to practice this gratitude with each other now, not later. And it's God who is at the source of all of our gifts. Get give thanks to the Lord. For he is good. Every good and perfect gift comes from him. You see, when you and I turn to him, our hearts open up. There was one leper that came back. And when that one leper came back, I think this one, who knew what it was like to be an outcast? Who knew what it was like to be an outsider is now fully healed. And he comes running back to Jesus and things are starting to fall into place. He doesn't have it all figured out, but he's on his knees thanking Jesus, praising God with a full, not raspy voice. And Jesus picks him up and says, your faith has made you whole. What does that mean? The text literally says, your faith has saved you. Your faith has redeemed you. You wanna know the end of the story. There were 10 who trusted Jesus enough to get a physical healing, but one of them walked away with a deeper cure. One that lasts for eternity. He is forgiven, is cleansed. And I'm just telling you, that's the miracle that you want. That's where you start. You turn to Jesus and say, you know, I, I, I need this. I trust you. He's the king. I tell you, he's the king. And he will stand at the end of time, and he will restore it all. But before that happens, you and I trust him in this broken world. You see, what I'm hoping we can do now here is we're going to, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna have a soft moment and a loud moment. And you wanna be, you wanna be here for both. Uh, first the soft moment. What I'd like for you to do now is to just consider how it is that God has blessed you. And before you go back out into a bright and crazy busy world, I want you to take a moment to thank Him. Easy thing to do here would be to bail on this easy thing to do here would be, ah, no, I gotta get someplace. None of us are too busy to thank the Lord of the universe, who is the giver of good and perfect gifts. Even in a world that spits out random tornadoes. Even in a world where some of us have tired hearts, some of us have broken hearts, some of us have full hearts. No matter where you are today, no matter where you are on that scale, there's a God who loves you. There is a God who says, I, I I I wanna walk with you through it all. And there's a God who says, this isn't even the end of it. I want this to stretch into eternity. We have things to thank him for, don't we? Would you bow your heads? Would you take just a minute in your own way? Would you thank him? I could. Every song must and praise you again and again, hall, So that, uh, that Hebrew word for thanks, it can mean confess. It can mean admit. Some would even say it can mean surrender. You see, if you go to the root of that word, it actually, it, it goes back to a hand. So, so we, we open our hands, we stretch out our hands, we raise our hands. We, we clasp our hands and we thank him. Let's keep thanking him. Okay? Let's not be shy about it. Let's thank him now. So come. So come. So come and I, So we express our gratitude. And y'all, just so you know, that's not even the loud part. We're about to experience the loud part. You see, uh, we are gonna, when you leave here, the wherever you are, there'll be, you'll have a chance to thank our volunteers. Uh, they'll, we'll have food out here. 'cause food always helps to celebrate. So you're gonna wanna be a part of that. But at each of our sites, there is an art installation out in the lobbies. And we want you just to boldly just express your gratitude to him. Just do that now, because we are a part of a church where God is up to something. I want to thank you for the way that you poured in your time and your talent, the way you were talking about here, and your treasure, the way you invest in a church that is still up to something. I mean, the baptism stories are coming in. If we could talk to you about what it means to follow Jesus, let's do this together. But y'all, we get to celebrate, Lord. We get to celebrate lifelong friendships. We get to celebrate. It's good to have you back. But I remember that day we were talking about that song that we started with here, and there was some time where it was like, oh, wow, I think this thing's catching traction. And you said, Craig, I can't believe it. I'm, I'm, it's nominated for a Grammy. And I'm like, that's awesome. But wait, that's not the story people, that's not the story. The story is then he text me, Hey, I'm at, I'm in la I'm at the survey, I'm at the the ceremony. I'm like, Lord, I don't. Whether it happens or not, it's an anointed song. And I'm just grinning from ear to ear that we got to hear it first. And then you texted me back and said, I don't know how. I don't know why, but we just won the Grammy for this anointed song. Now listen to me, people listen to me. It isn't about that. It's about Jesus the king who is worshiped. Right? This is what we do. So here's how we get loud. Let's thank God for the big things and the small things. I was having coffee yesterday morning with my coffee maker. 'cause when I was out west, those guys didn't know how to make coffee. And I need my coffee. So I'm just standing there. And I started thanking God for all of these different things, big things, small things. And I'm not kidding you, you came to mind. I'm so grateful that we get to do this together. I'm so grateful I'm a part of this church. Paul says it way better than me. Here it is. He says at the end, he says, uh uh. I thank my God every time I remember you and all my prayers for all of you. I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Be confident of this, that he who began a good work and you will carry it on into completion until the day of Christ Jesus. You see, it's always gonna be about Jesus. Here he is our savior. He is our healer. He is our king. All I'm saying is, let's end this thing loud. Let's be the ones who come back and proclaim him with a loud voice. Amen. Amen. Amen. So good to be back home. I know some of your tension too, so we're gonna sing this. Come on. Clap.