Amen. Amen. Well, if you could stand it, just have a seat. But, uh, could we just thank these guys one more time? Love you. Coming off of that new album, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. That's right. Um, so, so here's the thing. We're all searching for something. We're all searching for something. I don't know what it is for you. It's purpose. It's, it's meaning. It is trying to fill that void. Some of us, it's, it's, I just want some relief. Some of you are, are, are, you wanna feel useful, you wanna be included, you wanna be seen. Some of us do want peace with God. We want that sense of being forgiven. We wanna know that we know, that. We know that we are right with God. I just want you to know, wherever you are today, whatever it is that you came in here with, I think you came to the right place. In fact, I'm gonna go you one further. I think the case could be made that the sovereign God of the universe had something with you being here today. Now, I know some of you came here, uh, just, just out of joy and expectation. Some of you came here out of routine. Uh, some of you came, it was, it took everything. You, it took everything you could to get here today. Some of you're here because you're here with family like dad or kids, and you're all here together, and it's gonna be a day. So let's just say this one more time. Happy Father's Day. We appreciate and love you dads and grandpas out there. This might be your first Father's Day as a dad. Congratulations. This might be your first Father's Day without your dad. That word sometimes is really complicated. So for some of us, you, you, you hear something and you go, wait, I've got these thoughts. I've got these hurts. I've got memories. But I think there are many, many, many of you today, if it's appropriate, I hope that you get a chance to celebrate and to be celebrated, because we really are grateful for you. Now, when I say grateful, uh, there's something that's happening in our lobbies that's been happening over the weeks of this series. Uh, we started off just saying, Hey, would you go out to those art experiences and just write like why you're grateful for the second chance God gave you? What was the second chance he gave you? And they just sort of morphed into gratitude boards, which was just fine with us, people just proclaiming why they are grateful to God for any number of reasons. And so, I hope by the end of today, you get a chance to go out there and see some of those at each of our sites. We will have them here next week for the baptism services. They tell our story and they tell our story together. And maybe they could begin to tell your story. You see, I I, I don't know why you thought you came here today, but I believe the God of the universe brought you here for a reason. Now, hear me? He doesn't need anything from you. He wants something for you. He wants you to know him, not just know about him. We want you to know him, to experience him, to enjoy him, to walk with him, to trust him. In fact, there is a place in the New Testament that says, God did all of this, arranged all of these things, put everything in place so that we might seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Though he is not far from each of us. That's my prayer, is that by the end of today, you will reach out to the God who loves you, because he is not too far from each of us. But I gotta tell you one more time, it all comes down to one life, to one death, to one mind stretching event we call the resurrection. It all comes down to Jesus, because Jesus is the one who makes a way for God to be known and for us to come home. Father, I pray now, as we open your word, as we tell a story that for some people is gonna be so familiar, they're gonna, they just might feel inspired to come up here and, and, and take over Lord. Um, and that'd be okay if, if that's what you tell 'em to do. Uh, um, and Lord, I know I just freaked out some of our security people in the room when I said that. So, uh, but Lord, you just lead us as we go through this and, um, and it surprise us Lord, and shock us and challenge us and heal us and encourage us. We, we, we are so grateful to be here and to see this beautiful work that you are doing in our midst. We ask this all in the name of Jesus. Amen. So it doesn't take long, uh, when you read the New Testament to, to notice something. I mean, you notice, of course, what I've just said, which is it's all about Jesus. But you also begin to notice one of the most like influential writers and thinkers of the first century. You see this one voice rising above all of the other voices in the New Testament besides Jesus. It's one life that begins to shape our theology, that begins to help us understand who Jesus is and what this grace is. It's there's one voice that God works through that writes a lot of the New Testament. Now, here's what I want you to do. I want you to meet your neighbors. You've already said something kind to them. You've already been loving towards them. But going ahead, just reconnect with them. And here's the thing. Just tell them who you think I'm talking about. And if you don't know, that's okay. If you're a Bible, Billy Whizzbang, just drop a little Bible knowledge on him. Tell him who it is that I'm talking about. Go ahead, just talk to each other real quickly. Hopefully you guys are figuring out that, uh, You know, I've already been quoting him a bunch today. I thought I'd just go ahead and tag this a little bit here. Um, uh, so we're talking about St. Paul, right? I mean, we all know that that's who we're talking about. It's St. Paul. Well, here's the deal. When I say that, uh, and, and I tell you that he's so influential, it's even secular scholars will, will mention that. Here's just one historian. He puts it like this. Other than Jesus himself, no person was more crucial to the survival of Christianity and to its eventual conquest of the Roman Empire than Paul. Like. You could, you could make the case that he's like a hero of the faith. And when, as soon as I say that some of you, like you get an image in your head of some superhero, right? The Kate flowing great hair, you know, he's kept in Paul to the rescue. No, it's not that. Like when I say Saint Paul, though, you also have problems. Because sometimes when we say Saint Paul, you think, well, hey, he's got the gold plate thingy behind his head and all of that. See, when we start to say hero of the faith, or say, Paul, I think some of us get lost because we go, oh yeah, that guy, I have nothing in common with him. I couldn't learn anything from his life and we'd be wrong. You see, the other truth about Paul is that he was very broken. He made a lot of mistakes. The same guy who writes so many beautiful things about Grace says this about himself. In one of his letters, he says, I was the worst of sinners. But still, we kind of wanna know more about him. Uh, I'm gonna quote an ancient source late second century. Some people try to trace it into the first century. We just don't know. We just don't know. We're outside of the biblical text. But here is the oldest description we have of Paul, a man, small in stature, small of stature with a bald head and crooked thighs, strongly built, hollow eyed with eyebrows meeting and a nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness. Now be honest, is that the image that came to mind when you were thinking of Paul superhero of the face saying, Paul? So is that what he looked like, a nice friendly little bald guy with bow legs and a unibrow? Was that it? Is that Paul, I don't know, maybe, I don't know. But the scriptures tell us who Paul is, and that's the point of the story. We learn from the details of his life, things that we can apply to our life. So together, let's now jump in there. We'll start with the backstory. Paul, uh, is a Roman citizen. So he's born into a family, probably of means, probably connections. You wouldn't have been a Roman citizen, uh, in his situation otherwise. So that's him. He grows up at a place called Tarsus. It's in the southeast corner of Turkey. It's a thriving cultural city. It's got a big university there. Paul grew up in a city where things happened. He probably spoke Aramaic at home. He may have spoken Latin. He certainly spoke Greek. It was the language of the marketplace, and he most definitely spoke Hebrew. Now, how could I be so sure on that last part? Because Paul was an orthodox Jew. Paul grew up in an orthodox home, but even more than that, this Shaul or Saul, that would've been his Hebrew name, he says this about himself. At one point I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age, and was extremely zealous for the tradition of my father's. So this kid's at the top of his class, a smarter, more zealous, more religious kid, you will not find, okay? But he was this Paul or Saul, I've called him. Let's just deal with that, shall we? So, uh, they're both his names. Sometimes people think, well, he got his name Paul, after he comes to Jesus. Nope, that's not it. He, it's later when he is moving into a, a, uh, a missionary, uh, expedition into a non-Jewish area that he uses his Greek name, but they're both probably his names now, Saul, he was proud of. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. He never stopped telling people that he was, he was of Jewish descent. So this Shaul was, was, was, that was his name. But when you get to to, to Greek and to Greek speaking people, solace, uh, can mean a, uh, like a, like a provocative way that women would walk if they were like prostitutes at, I'm not gonna walk that way. I was just trying to get your thoughts going in that direction for a second. But if that's what solace means, I can see why he switched to Paul. It was also his name. Now, Pless in the Greek can mean it's a nickname for short. So maybe we're back to that description. All I know is that the Saul Paul character was a Pharisee. And as a Pharisee, he's not just religious, he's at the top of the top of religious people. In fact, he's hyperreligious, he's, he's so sensitive to the traditions of his fathers. And these are laws that are layered on top of scripture. Jesus bumped into these guys all the time, but that's who this guy is. Even there, he's at the top of the class. At some point early in his life, he moves from Taurus to Taurus to to Jerusalem. He becomes the student of a guy named Galio. He's the top professor in the land. So he is brilliant. He has memorized, maybe the way it worked back then is you memorized not just a couple of Bible verses, you memorized in some cases the entire Hebrew scriptures. That's what these guys would commit themselves to. He's taught to debate like a lawyer. He's at the top of his game in so many different ways. He's connected, he's influential. He's this young scholar that everybody is, is, is respecting. He is on the fast track to success. So here's what I want you to do. Now, go back to those people that you were talking with and define success, your definition of success. And depending on who you're with, uh, share with them a little bit of your dream, a little bit of your hopes. Now, I know you're all gonna start with the very nice kind of surfacey, you know, maybe even churchy answers. But I'm gonna ask you to take it a layer deeper for you. What is success for you who are starting out your career 40 years from now? Looking back, what do you wanna say that you accomplished for you who are looking back of 40 years of, of something? What do, like, what's success? Go ahead and talk to each other for just a second. I'll give you some time. Okay? We're gonna keep talking about this and we're gonna come at it from a couple of different angles. I'm gonna give you a couple of different ways to think about this. Um, you know, some of the things that we talk about and that we say that we want, you know, our goals in life, they aren't necessarily bad. It's just do we have them in perspective? Some of the things that, that we chase after really maybe not helpful at all. I came across a quote by Thomas Merton, uh, a few weeks ago. Uh, uh, just listen to this. People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only defined once they reach the top that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Now, let's just think about that for a second so we can like, pursue this life. We can pour things into this life. We can have these goals and we start climbing the ladder of what we think is success. But every rung up the ladder leaves us like empty. Like it didn't work. Like, wait, what's going on? Oh, I know. I'll just go a little bit higher up 'cause that'll be it. But every time we go a little higher up, it still doesn't work. But here's the thing. If it's the wrong wall and you keep going up this ladder, there are times that we can find we are turning into someone we never dreamed of becoming. The wall matters. Write that one down. Just at the time when this sa Paul character is, uh, is climbing his own ladder of success, there's a young man, kind of a contemporary, really. His name is Steven. He's one of the young leaders of the church, very articulate man. He's dragged before this religious council. Paul is there, Saul is there, he's uh, uh, he, he gives a defensive Christianity like nobody's business. You can find it in the book of Acts. But these leaders are done. They want this movement shut down. Paul is with them. We gotta shut these people up, or they're gonna, they're gonna ruin everything. This religious council allows Stephen to be dragged outside the city walls. And he is bludgeoned to death. What am I saying? I'm saying scripture tells us that he's stoned to death. How does that happen? You get stones that are big enough to cause damage, and they're light enough that you can hur him through the air and his body is crushed and he dies. But if you read the account, you will see, as many of you will remember, that as people are taking their robes off and getting ready to commit this act of murder, they put their coats at the feet of Paul. Hey, will you hold these things? 'cause man, we gotta take care of business. And then in Acts chapter eight, it says that this Saul Paul character actually approved of the killing. Now this unleashes a whole persecution of the early church and people start to scatter. And the one who is running point on all of it is Saul. He's the one. We've got to stop this. Jesus isn't resurrected, he's not Messiah, he's not the son of God. I don't care how much blood is shed. This has to stop. We have to shut them up. He's breathing murderous threats. At one point, he looks back and says, I had a kind of a raging fury against them in the Greek. That word raging is the same word. We get the word maniac from. He was losing it. I mean, he lost all perspective. He was just pursuing this. Now with that as the backstory, now we can pick up the real story. It's in Acts chapter nine. In Acts chapter nine, he has picked up some intel that there are Christians in Damascus. Now, this is the capital of Syria. It's about 130 or so miles north of Jerusalem. It's about a mile. I'm sorry. It's about a week's worth of walking. Okay? So it's a journey, but they'll get there in about a week. This is where we pick up the really famous story. And if you've been around church for more than a day or two, then this is a story, you know, but now listen and allow God to speak to you. Maybe there's something here for you and me that we didn't quite expect. As he near Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. Now, we should ask the question, what is that? What is that light in scripture? Light represents oftentimes the glory of God, the blinding presence of, of the divine. And so this soul is now engulfed in this light. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me? Now if you are curious about what's happening to the rest of his crew, as they're all going there, Paul would later recount and say, they saw the light. They too were freaked out, but they couldn't understand what was being said. This is a very, very personal conversation, but I want you to picture now, this cultured, this connected, this brilliant this. On his way up, this guy who has got it all going on, and by many people's standards was a success. His face is now in the Dirt. He's confused, he's unsettled, he's completely thrown. And I would say humbled. CS Lewis says, A proud man is always looking down on things and people. And of course, as long as you were looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. Saul. Saul, Maybe it's an obvious point, but God knew him by name. God Knows you by name. This gets personal. Saul. Saul, who are you Lord? Now what does that Lord business mean? Sometimes we say that it's a a kind of a, a, a, a. It's a, it's a sign of respect. Who are you, sir? It could certainly be that. But remember, he has memorized the Hebrew scriptures. He knows about the glory of God. He knows about light. I would suggest to you that I think Saul knows that he's in the presence of the divine. Later. He says, I saw someone in that light. I mean, I know I'm talking to someone and he's trying to figure out who he's so unsettled. He's so freaked out by all of this. Who are you Lord? And then he gets the answer. I'm Jesus the one you're persecuting. I'm Jesus the one you're persecuting. Now notice how, uh, how, how personal this is. Jesus is saying, you're doing this to me. If you do this to my followers, you are doing this to Me. And it's here that, uh, a couple more things are said. And then Saul is, uh, well, he needs help. 'cause he's blind. This guy who was so feared, I guarantee you there were, there were people in Damascus that knew he was coming. And everybody, everybody is fearful. And now they see him coming through the city, being led because he is blind. They tuck him into this building. It's on straight street. You can still go to straight street today in Damascus. It's one of the oldest cities in the world. And he's there for three days. He doesn't eat. He's trying to figure things out. Night, blurs into day, blurs into night, blurs into day. Remember, I've stressed it two times now. He memorized perhaps the entire Hebrew scriptures, what we would call the Old Testament. So in the dark, all alone trying to figure this out, he is now going back to the prophecies. He's going back to the promises. He's like, wait a minute. I just saw Jesus. And he is alive. What does that mean? He is putting it all together with the help of God in his time alone. I don't know how long it took for it to sink in, but he does a 180 on what he thinks and believes about Jesus, what he thinks and believes about the church, about God, about his own call on his own life. By the way, that's what repentance looks like. You do a 180 on things, you rethink, you re you, you, you reconsider everything. So he is wait. He is Messiah. He is the fulfillment of prophecy. He's alive. He's, he's the king. He is God, I've been wrong about so much. Quick show of hands. Anybody here ever been, you know, wrong? I won't ask you to raise your hand on this one. Anybody here ever been wrong about something really important? Like, I mean, so important. Like you were chasing after it and then at some point you went, man, that cost me so much. Are you familiar with, um, and I wanna make sure I get this right. Are you familiar with Coopers Hill, uh, cheese wheel and cheese Rolling and Wake? Some of you're familiar with it. You can watch the documentary, you can learn about this yourself. I'll tell you what it is. Uh, every year at the end of May, just outside of Gloucester, England, people gather, it's about a 600 foot hill. You do not have to, by the way, you do not have to prepare for this. You can go like, I don't recommend this, but you could go next year and just walk up and say, I want to register. I want in the race and you're hip. That's how it works. But basically what you do is you're now, it's a steep hill, 600 feet long. And what they do is they just roll about an eight pound wheel of cheese down the hill and everybody starts chasing after it. And whoever gets it first at the bottom wins sounds crazy, doesn't it? You can't even imagine it. Well, don't worry. I'm gonna show you. Here it is. There it is. I'm Off the 2025 bros off. And it's the German again. The German looks good. He might be down, but I don't think he's out. Spider-Man's looking good. Superman's even better. Superman looks like he might win this one. Superman has done it's Wrong ever. Cliff the see, when you start yourself, find out. It's just amazing. Quickest of all. Abby's only second at the moment. Mustard trousers is just trying to hold her own head and go all the way down sideways. Is Abby gonna make it down in front of her? It's gonna be very close. Oh, it's a winner in the mustard trousers who went down all the way holding her own head. I think she's still holding it now. I I mean we just don't know what happened to mustard trousers. I'm sorry. Um, here's what I can tell you is there are ambulances that are filled. The ERs are filled, and you ask these people at the end, so why are you doing this? And they go, I don't know. I don't know. Isn't it easy to laugh at other people chasing after silly stuff? So let's go back. Have you ever chased after something that cost you dearly? Now I understand the, the, the path that Paul took and, and I understand that the wake of destruction and hurt was way more serious than what we just saw. But I will tell you in my own mind, in that darkness as he's beginning to just see what he's been doing with his life, I gotta think he at least has this in common with mustard trousers. He's gotta be holding his head in the dark on, what was I thinking? It's a godly man named an anani. He is sent by God to meet with Saul. And it's one of those things where it's like he says, nah, I don't really want you to do. You know who this guy is? Yeah, you gotta go, you gotta give him a message. I got big plans for him. And so this courageous, obedient man gets close enough to the fire-breathing pharisee to lay hands on him. Now, I don't mean lay hands on him, I mean lay hands on him. I mean, to bless him, to anoint him, to pray for him and to give him a word from God. And he does and says that that scales fell off of his eyes. The spirit filled him. And if you keep reading it says he was baptized. Yep. Even Saint Paul got baptized. So there's that. But the thing I want you to see that maybe you haven't seen before is like some of the first words that this guy who's sitting in the dark wondering what he's been spent his whole life doing, a couple of the first words that he says or he hears is, is brother Saul. And you think about it, he's about as far outside of Christianity as you can get. And now he's being welcomed into the family. This guy lovingly calls him Brother Saul. I mean, welcome. We're you're a part of the family. Now, I can't even imagine what that felt like. I don't think Paul ever got over that. I know he never got over God's grace, but I don't think he ever got over the fact that there were people who lovingly said, you are forgiven. We're gonna welcome you in. And from then on, he lives on the edge. He is on the edge trying to, to, to speak to people who think that they're out of hope, that they have done too much, that God could never forget them and forgive them. They're people who think they are forgotten. They are people who who, who have never been seen included or or otherwise acknowledged. Paul spends the rest of his days trying to say, I wanna welcome you in. I want you to know that God loves you. You can be a part of the family. That's the rest of his days. He never forgot that moment when he was welcomed. Brother Saul, you're in now this week as you and I and this month and this year as we think of like ways that we can, uh, we can love and we can, we can extend this grace to others. Um, let me give you a thought. So this is the week that many people will remember that day when slaves in Galveston, Texas got word that they were free. And freedom is something for each of us. But because it's that week, it got me to thinking about George Washington Carver, who's just somebody I've always been fascinated with. I've told you this before, but it was my grandmother that really got him, uh, like into my brain as a kid. My nanny, uh, got me thinking about George Washington Carver. He was a noted scientist, he was a researcher. He was, uh, he was, uh, a, an educator. He was on faculty at the Tuskegee Institute for I think 50 years. He was an outspoken Christ follower. One of the things I've always loved about him is that he out loud said, you can be a man of faith and a man of science at the same time. But he wrote something, and I think I've shared this with you before, but this quote, it preaches how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate, with the aged, sympathetic, with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Those are pretty good goals, don't you think? But there's more because someday in your life you will have been all of these. Yeah, there it's, you see, someday in my life, I will be all of those. And I never wanna forget what it's like to be welcomed into the family. I never wanna forget what it was like to be forgiven and to experience this grace. I never want to stop inviting people into this kingdom story. So if you are on the outside looking in and you're saying, wait, I think I've done too much. I've blown it. There's no way I am telling you that God is not finished with you. If you think that these days you are someone who is not seen or included, if you're watching online and saying, there's no way I could show up in person 'cause there's no way they would welcome me. I want you to know that God of the universe is saying, come on, join us. If you are someone right now who is saying, I have a moment or a season of moments where I have blown it so badly, there is no way God could forgive me. I wanna respectfully tell you, you are as wrong as you can be because the love of God knows no bounds. Listen to me. The, the, the the slave traitor, uh, John Newton who then comes to Christ, uh, and his whole life reforms, he writes that him amazing grace. He's now at the end of his days, he's an old man, a famous quote here. He says, my memory is fading, but two things I know I was a great sinner and Christ is a great savior. Romans chapter five, we'll go right back to it one more time. Paul says, we're bounds, grace abounds more. Yes. And get this, it's not going to be the same, uh, experience that Paul had. I don't think you can find it. Scripture, uh, there's no formula on. This is how you come to Jesus. And this is what we all experience. You probably aren't going to have, uh, like this, this, uh, the, the the sky's part. You may not hear a heavenly voice. I'm not even sure you're gonna be blind for three days. You might not have like this heart melting emotional experience. It might be very private and profound. All I can tell you is it will be between you and Jesus. It's you bringing your love, your, your hopes, your dreams, your hurts, your failures. And you bring it all to this God who forgives you and wants to restore you. This is what it is. This is how we live this life. It's because of Jesus. It's because of what he did on the cross. You know what we have in common with Paul? Grace. Jesus made the first move. Not Paul. Jesus made the first move with each of you. He is the one who is like, he put the, the stories and the people and the songs and the relationships and the things on your path these past few weeks and years. He's the one who's been trying to get your attention. It's Jesus always Jesus. But you need to hear me. He takes the first step. He makes the first move. But he will not violate your free will. He will not force himself in even with Saul. He had to say yes, he had to get to a place where he surrendered. Well, I I wrote it down 'cause I just didn't want to forget it. Uh, the the opening lines to that song, to the one who hasn't found the things they thought that they would find at the bottom of the bottle or the ladder that they've climbed, the ladder that they've climbed, there it is. You see, I I when we realize that we've been spending our best days like climbing a ladder and that ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, it's time to surrender. Now, one of my friends says, be aware that these wrong walls aren't always obvious. You see, sometimes you just start up this thing and you get to a place where it's like, wait, this isn't working. I'm tired. It's costing too much. But it isn't just that. It's like I have this ache in my soul and it's not satisfying me. And, and, and maybe the wall is religion. Maybe it is something that we're just saying no, if I just keep doing more and more and more and more. But it never works. And it doesn't. It just, it never works. And I want you to know, there comes a moment where we surrender, where we say, God, I can't do this on my own. I can't do this on my own. Here it is. I don't want you to settle for a passionless, joyless, busy, but empty life. You were made for more. And it means at some point we have to realize the wall that we have our ladder leaning on just might be wrong. And there's a moment of humility. There's a moment of surrender. And this is what we're talking about. I have a friend named John Tyson who's a pastor in New York City. He's from Australia. Just a brilliant guy. And so, so one of the things I love about John is not only does he make me think whenever I'm with him, but uh, you never doubt where you stand with John. He's just so, so good. I just, I just so appreciate him. But he has written in recent years a lot about being a man in today's world. He's also written a lot about what it means to, to raise young men as a father. He spent a lot of time kind of thinking this through and studying it. And uh, you know, dads for just a second, lemme just just talk to you. And I think it applies to each of us. But John as, uh, forgive me if this seems morbid, but in raising his son, there was a day where he took him to, uh, to a place like, well, you, you would recognize the place because he showed him a bunch of these. So he takes him to a graveyard and they start talking about life. And you're going, man, that's a pretty, that's a pretty intense move. But they did talk about life. And of course, whenever you and I think about something like this and we see this, we get to a place where we, uh, we, we, we, we, we start to automatically think about that date. 'cause we all have that date. And it's coming. And I hope you're ready to face to face. Jesus, I hope you're ready to, to say that I have accepted you into my life. But that wasn't even really the point that John was making. The point he wanted to make with his son is it's all about that. He calls it the dash Son, your whole life will take place in the dash. I want you to live a full life in the dash. Yes, this matters. Yes, you will stand before God one day and you will have to give an account and he will ask, what did you do with my son Jesus. But I want you all to hear me. You live your life in the dash. So men, if I could just say this to you, uh, your families need you. Your church needs you. Your community needs you, your country, your nation, your world needs you to be men and to be men of God. So let me just say this, we need to be men. We need to be men who embody things like justice, who show restraint in a world of excess wise men in a world of foolishness, we need to be courageous men in a world of fear. And we need to be good men who trust Jesus and humble men who know the mysterious power of surrender. We need to be people who say we don't have it all figured out, but I'm chasing after the one who does. And we need to raise young men and young women who know what it's like to trust Jesus. And let's do what we can to show them the right wall to lean their ladder against. Okay? Now for some of us, we're like, man, okay, you got all cranked up there. But I can't get past the fact that I got my ladder against the wrong wall. I can't get past the fact that I've been chasing some wheel of cheese down a hill. And it's left me bruised. And hold in my head one more time. It's not too late. Turn to the God who loves you. Turn to the Jesus who made a way for you. Paul would tell you it's grace. It's always grace. He says, I am who I am because of God's grace. This is the story we tell around here. It's not what we've done. It's what God has done for us. I want you to enjoy this life. I want you to figure this out. Let's keep encouraging each other in the middle of this life because God has not finished with us. And I'm gonna tell you one last thing. That's why those people are stepping into the waters next week to tell the story of what Jesus has done for them. And just so y'all are clear here, and at each site, I want you to know, again, historic for us. Over 500 people will be baptized next, next week. And as glorious as that is, and if you want to know what it means to be baptized, then, then run. Don't walk to where those meetings are at each of your sites. But I need you to hear this clearly. Baptism is such a big step, but it's not the step. The step is when you turn to Jesus and you trust His grace, because he's the one that will help you live this life now. And it stretches into eternity. And I am convinced that he brought each of us here today so that we might reach out to him for he is not far from each of us. And if you believe that, if you're willing to pray that, if you're willing to confess that, if you're willing to even join us in a song that you know, but we're gonna do it just a wee bit differently, little attitude here, little uh, proclamation here. Can we do this together at each of our sites? Now, we are so glad that you joined us, but would you stand with me and let this song be our closing prayer to Jesus himself?