Okay. Hi everyone. It's good to be together. If you've been with us for the last few weeks, since Christmas, uh, we've been looking at the book of Galatians. We're calling this series Unleashed. And uh, Galatians is a letter actually, that Paul wrote to a group of people in the area of Galatia. He wrote several letters, but we're specifically looking at this one. And this week we're gonna look at chapter three. Now, listen to how Paul starts this chapter. He starts by saying, you foolish Galatians, who has Bewitched you? Now, have you ever gotten a letter like that from, um, a pastor? It's like you're foolish. Other ones say, uh, other translations say, you idiots. What happened to you? You understood this so well. What is going on? Why is Paul so angry? What's going on here? Well, you may be asking right now what's going on here because you are not Tim. Where's Tim? Well, Tim is, uh, under the weather, so he asked me to step in. I'm Angela by, I'm the campus pastor at the Grants Trail campus in South County. So let me start by love bombing them. Love you guys. I know you're watching. I'll be back. So it's good to, uh, have you join us. Also, mid Rivers and Fenton, glad to have you join us and online and in this room. Thank you for letting me step in, um, and take Tim's place. He will be back. Don't worry. All right, so we've been looking at this letter, and right off the bat we said, this one's different. This is different than most of the letters that Paul writes to churches. Um, his mo is normally starting a letter by saying, I am so grateful, so thankful. Every time I think of you, I love the news I'm getting about how you're doing and how you're carrying on the work that we started. And this one's got a zing to it. This one's got a little punch to it. Paul is not happy. And he is not happy because there's a group of what he calls agitators who have come along and they are convincing these people who've accepted this gospel of grace, that they need to follow the law of Moses, the Jewish law, in order to be part of this new beautiful community where people are erasing, dividing lines and coming together in a really beautiful way. Uh, enemies are discovering each other as brothers and sisters. And this group of agitators that he calls 'em has come in and Paul is saying, listen, you understood this gospel of grace as clear as if I had shown you a picture of Jesus on the cross. And now they're taking you back to a law that says that you have to become perfect in your own strength. You need to become perfect by human effort. This is not the gospel I preach to you. And so we're gonna unpack that. What does that mean? The law of Moses? What does it mean? This gospel of grace? We're gonna unpack that today. Um, basically they're taking them back to this law that would include observing the Sabbath, really strict things around food. Um, males would have to be circumcised again, that's a bigger problem for some of you than some of us. That's okay. But, uh, he's saying, no, you don't have to go back to that. So we're gonna unpack that. But first, let me pray for us. And, um, if prayer is new to you or maybe you've, you know, never experienced praying or, or prayers just kind of been something you check off the list, I wanna just, it's probably obvious, but make this clear. We believe in prayer. We believe God hears us. We believe God answers us. We believe that God moves among us and through us. And so this is why we stop, to invite him to speak to us. And that's what we're gonna do. Now, will you join me? So Jesus, we do recognize that you're here. Your Holy Spirit is indeed welcome here to speak to us. And I know that, uh, some walk into this building or in our campuses or are watching online, who are so grateful for all you have done, all they have experienced through you, through your love and your grace. But there are others who today it was even hard to put their feet on the floor, hard to get here because heartache happens. We're in a world where fires, plane crashes, sickness, natural disasters happen. And so we wanna pray route right now to this God who answers and say, bring comfort, bring provision, bring healing. We're asking you to intervene and, and provide. I also ask you to be with us here this morning that we can put away all distractions and just be really attentive to you and your word and to each other. And we pray all this in the name of our savior Jesus. Amen. Amen. Okay, so to just to look back a little bit, we started this series a few weeks ago and then last week we took a break as our lead pastor Greg, uh, paused to give us some vision, vision about where we're headed as a church, some things that God has prompted us to do, some directions he's leading us in. I left personally really encouraged and excited about what's coming. If you missed it, please go back and watch it. It's easy to do, 'cause you, it's, it'll really make you excited about what God's doing. So that meant that this series got put on hold for a couple of weeks. Um, and so we wanted to just help stir your memory and we put together a little recap, recap of what we've already covered. So watch this For the next few weeks. We're gonna go into a conversation together where we're gonna open up God's word and we're gonna study the book of Galatians. Now, this is a letter that Paul wrote. It's a small letter that we find in our New Testaments. And we'll, he wrote it to some churches in a region. We'll get to all of that here in just a little bit. But um, but what we're calling this conversation on Galatians is we're calling it unleashed. And to be honest with you, I can't think of a better word to describe the main message in this letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians. See, we're invited to receive a kind of gift from God that is God sized. It is so big. It is so incomprehensible, it's so beautiful and so uncalled for. It's so shocking. But when this gift of grace finds its way into the corners of our lives, what you'll find over and over again is it never runs out. It only runs over. Ultimately, Peter is giving into the lie that there are two classes of Christians. How much more true could it be that through Jesus we could have these deep, meaningful relationships built on the foundation of the cross? To quote another writer, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female for you all are one in Christ Jesus. But Paul's point is that what's making him so angry in that moment is not that the Galatians were believing in some kind of workspace, righteousness. It's not that they were still believing that the law is what saved them. What makes Paul so angry is he says, you guys are taking a step backwards from one of the most important things that God's grace is meant to do in this world. Reconcile, bring people together in unity under Jesus To bring us together. No Jew nor Greek, no first class, second class citizens, no in, no out. This is what this gospel of grace does. So, um, Diego was actually quoting Paul from chapter three, and I wanna just read that again and then let you know what the next verse says. Here's what he says. There's no longer Jew or gentile slave or free male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you. And now see, the church is still fairly new and they're getting their heads around what it means for Jews and Gentiles to be part of the story of God and they're just working this out. And so now Paul is bringing up Abraham, he your children of Abraham. What does that even mean? What is he talking about? Well, uh, he's reaching back, he's connecting a.to them all the way back in Genesis, in the Old Testament. Now our Bible is divided into Old Testament, new Testament before Jesus. And with the birth of Jesus, we start the New Testament. But it's all the same story. There's not a new story that started with the New Testament. It's all the story of God's life with mankind from start, from genesis to revelation. And so it makes sense that Paul's pointing them back to explain something. He's going back to the Old Testament and saying, listen, there was a an important moment that is now for you, not just for the Jews, it's for us all. And this moment happened through a man named Abraham. And so he's pointing all the way back to Genesis 12, to this promise the Lord said to Abram. Now later God changes his name to Abraham. He does that sometimes. Um, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land. I will show you, I will make you into a great nation. And I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So this is quite a promise that God is giving to this man named Abraham. He's saying, I'm gonna make your name great. You're gonna be the father of a great nation. I'm gonna bless you, but you are gonna be a blessing. And so what what happens over and over in the Bible is God comes along into an individual's life or into a family's life or even into a group of people's lives. And he does miraculous awesome things. Um, he heals. Uh, we see guys who went through a fiery furnace and didn't burn up a guy who was supposed to get eaten by a lion and he didn't. We see water's part, but every time, if you keep reading, it didn't stop with their little story. They were always part of a bigger story. After the guys go through the fiery furnace and don't get burned up, a pagan king stood in front of everyone under his reign and he said, I am declaring this. There is no God that saves like this one bigger story. And so it's true with Abraham right here. So God is saying, Abraham, I'm gonna bless you. These great things are gonna happen in your life, but it's not just about you. You're now part of a bigger story. I'm in fact gonna bless the whole earth through you. It's bigger than you. So God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. This is what Paul is trying to get them to understand and notice that the scripture does not say to his children as if it meant many descendants. Rather it says to his child, and that of course is Christ. So now Paul is connecting Jesus all the way back to this promise. He's saying, this promise actually was fulfilled through Jesus. Jesus is enough. You don't have to back up to this law of Moses. Now, what is this law of Moses? We'll get to that in just a minute. But then Paul says this, let me ask you one question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not. You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. So now Paul is pointing back to another pivotal moment in the Old Testament. He mentions the Spirit or the Holy Spirit and we sang about the Holy Spirit this morning. Um, put a pen right there, kind of put a, a bookmark right there. We're gonna talk about that next week. So come back next week, we're gonna talk about the Holy Spirit, but for now, let's, let's just move forward with what was he talking about in this law of Moses? Well, God gave Moses the law. Uh, it became known as the Torah or included in it are the 10 Commandments. And God gave Moses this, the law after a great rescue you can read about in the Book of Exodus. So God's people were servants, they were slaves. And God sends Moses as their deliverer and he leads them out of slavery. And then God calls 'em together and he says, look, Moses, these people have never governed themselves. They've never done anything but obey. So let's, let's give them some guidelines. I'm gonna give them this law. Now it's important for to remember. And one thing Paul wants them to understand too is God didn't give the 10 commandments or the law and say, now obey this and then you'll belong to me. He gave the law 'cause they did belong to the, to him. He didn't say, I'll love you if you obey. He said, I love you, so I'm giving you don't kill each other, don't take each other's stuff. Don't. So he gave them some guidelines. And this is what we talk about when we talk about the law of Moses. And now that came, the law came 430 years after the promise, but the law didn't replace the promise. The law didn't make the promise, uh, void. It didn't, it didn't scrap the promise. They walked hand in hand with each other. Paul says this, why then was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child was who was promised. We could talk about that all day. That is packed full right there. So the law was given 430 years later, but it was only meant to last until the birth of Jesus. And so he's going, don't move backwards because you cannot. What is the law? The law is trying to be perfect in our own human strength. You can't do it. Listen. So he says the law was given so that you would recognize your need for a savior. What does that even mean? Here's what it means. Every time you miss the mark, every time you hurt someone, every time you tell a lie, every time you gossip, every time you miss the mark in any way, it's a reminder that you need a savior. Because what we've discovered is we can't be perfect in our own strength. We need a savior. By the way, if you think you are perfect, you need to go have a conversation with a therapist. We've got diagnosis for things like that. You're not perfect. So the freedom is that Jesus came and fulfilled the law. How did he do that? He was perfect. He lived the perfect life. He did what we couldn't do. He did what we were never gonna be able to do. And he took our sin to the cross with him and connected us right back to the promise that was originally given. And Paul is saying to the Galatians, don't move backwards. We're not going back to law. You're not gonna go back to the bondage. That means you have to be perfect in your own strength. No, you get to live free in Jesus. Are y'all tracking? Is this good news? We don't have to be perfect. You're not perfect. So Jesus came and fulfilled it and we get to inherit this blessing because now there is no Jew in Greek. Now we were all welcome into this family of God. So back to Abraham. So how did that happen anyway? How was Abraham the one that this promise came through? Well, Paul explains it like this. In the same way Abraham believed God, God gave this promise and Abraham believed him and God counted him as righteous. Why? Because of his faith. He counted him as righteous because he believed him. This promise was given 430 years before law was even given. Abraham wasn't given a promise, he wasn't gonna be blessed or be a blessing because he was living a perfect life. He believed God. It was all through faith. We don't belong to God because we follow the law. The the people of God have always been identified because of their faith. So now we're an heir to this promise. And through Abraham Paul says, we're all children of that promise. You're blessed. We're unleashed to be a blessing to others. So what comes to your mind when you think of blessing? Like think of a time when you were blessed by someone. Can you think of that moment or that person or what that was? Okay, we're gonna give you a minute to talk to each other about that. Share with each other a time that you were blessed by someone. Okay? I hope that you can recall a time when you were blessed. I asked some of the people on our staff to give me examples of when they were blessed. Actually, Dave right here just said, um, that his father-in-law gave them a hundred thousand frequent frequent flyer points. Frequent flyer points, which okay, that's a blessing though, right? But I know what you were thinking. You're thinking what I was thinking. So one of our tech guys said, um, after college, well in his life he didn't really have a father in his life and he had a mentor that took him under his wing and, and was was fatherly like with him. And when he graduated from college, this mentor of his gathered a bunch of people and they paid off his truck, right? No, that's a blessing. Um, one said he has a mentor who frequently takes him fishing. Now that sounds like a curse to me. I don't enjoy fishing, but that's about time. He's, he gives him his time and he does that. One said on his 30th birthday, um, all of his friends and family wrote him notes. And he said what was so beautiful about that was they wrote, uh, especially like the men in his life wrote things on paper that he had no idea. They thought like they had never said these words to him. And it was such a blessing to him to get to get those notes. One said, uh, when I was, uh, just finishing college and didn't kind of confused, didn't know what I was gonna do in my life, a man in my church who I didn't really know walked up to me and said, let's, let's get coffee sometime. Probably could just see there was something going on. And he said, that was 18 years ago and we're still in touch even though he lives in a different country now. It's just that, that connection. There are people who foster children, people who adopt children. That's, that's, that's being a blessing. We've watched from a distance, my son's wife just had a, a pretty big unexpected surgery and they have three kids. And so we got to watch from a distance. They're in another state where their, their group of friends have shown up and taken care of kids, sat with him, uh, when his wife was in surgery. They've got meals planned through March. I mean, this is showing up and being a blessing. Looking back now, I realize that my first grade teacher was probably a blessing because when I'd get in trouble for talking, she would make me stand up in front of the whole class and talk until the timer went off. And she was just preparing me for this. She had no idea. I wouldn't stop talking. And so that's, um, what she felt like she had to do. Alright? So blessing was always meant to be part of our story. If we back all the way up to the beginning when there was Adam and Eve and they walked with God in the garden, blessing is what he intended for them. Perfect communication. And, and that can be confusing for some of us. 'cause it's possible that that's not the God who was explained to you or maybe that experience explained to you that, that maybe you think there's this God who's angry with me. There's a God who's judging. There's a God who's distant. Surely my sin has disqualified me, but you don't understand the things I've done. No, yes I do. But the whole, the whole beautiful thing is that you don't have to be perfect to be accepted. And so blessing was always meant. We were always meant to long to live in blessing, but it was also always meant to flow through us. Part of the promise to Abraham was not just that he would be blessed, but that blessing would flow through him. Like these experiences that we just mentioned where people were blessed were meant to be a blessing. This is what Dallas Willard says about blessing. Blessing is the projection of good into the life of another. It isn't just words, it's the actual putting forth of your will for the good of another person. It always involves God because when you will the good of another person, you realize only God is capable of blessing like that. So we naturally say God bless you. It it overflows from us when we're receiving from God what we get to pass off. Now, as a southerner, what I understand, and maybe you do too, is often when we say in the South, God bless her, it, it's not a real blessing. Bless 'em. God bless her is that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about God bless you. I want God to bless you. And guess how He does that? He does it through us. We are his hands and feet. We are his ambassadors. So yes, we're meant to be blessed, but we are meant to bless. So what are some of the ways we do that? We mention some of them in these examples. By giving of our time, we bless with our words. And by the way, not just when that person is present, our words can bless or curse. Um, even if the person's not there. Just by giving attention, by believing in someone, by giving them hope, by inviting others in, we, we bless that way. We can bless simply by having a non-anxious presence. Uh, my husband and I, um, have a, a disabled son and he, um, has had a lot of surgery, a lot of work done, a lot of that. And often the biggest blessing for us was when a doctor would walk in the room with a non-anxious presence, even if the news wasn't good. When a teacher would give a report with a non-anxious presence, when a neighbor would show up and with a non-anxious presence and say, we just found your son in our house. Here you can have your son with non-anxious. Can you imagine the blessing it is for children when their parents have a non-anxious presence? What it is for coworkers when you have a non-anxious presence, can you imagine what a blessing it is for those who read you online on social media when you're exuding a non-anxious presence? Can you imagine that? Another blessing connected to our son when he was born and he was little and we were doing all of these surgeries. Uh, we had just moved to a new town, started a new job, he was still little. We had three other kids and juggling all these things and he had a big surgery that was out of town. Now we're in a new house again. And so I had bought a bunch of wallpaper that we were gonna put on the walls. Do you know what wallpaper is? Anybody? It's kind of like painting. It's coming back, it's coming back by the way. But, um, it's not painting. It's sticking, you know, pattern up on the wall. So I bought it, but, but with all that was going on, we couldn't get it up. And so while we went off to have the surgery for our baby boy, we had friends that took care of our kids. And while we were gone, they wallpapered and painted my whole house. And what kind of blessing is that? I could name a thousand ways that we've been blessed as people have come alongside us and helped to carry that and to bless us that way. Here's what God did not say. He didn't say, I'm gonna bless you and I want you to bless those who are just like you. I want you to bless those who deserve it. Bless those who are living a life you approve of who vote like you, who think like you, who listen to you, who take your advice. No, no, no, no. He said, I I'm just telling you to bless. You're free to simply bless. It's meant to flow in and it's meant to flow out. And we're not meant to be choosy at who it overflows onto. The whole earth is meant to be blessed. This is our promise now that the whole earth will be blessed through you. And that is very intentional. So I have people in my life, you probably do too. When I think about someone who just naturally exudes that, that's their mo they just bless. They're just good to people. They're just loving all the time. I've got a friend I've had for decades and this is just who she is. I don't think she knows how to get mad. I've, I've looked at her before and gone, Becky, girl, I need to teach you how to hold a grudge. This is not right. This is not good. And so she just naturally is good to people. And when you see the fruit of that in her life, it's like, oh, that's how this, that's how this was meant to work. Some of you I know, bless, uh, when you drive, I witnessed it yesterday. I was coming up the interstate and there was a long line of people waiting to get off and exit. You know that feeling right when you're in line and you know those who come along really fast in this lane and scoot over at the last minute. Well, some of you pause and let them in and the rest of us get really mad at you because you're supposed to bumper to bumper to bumper to bumper so they can't get in. See, we bless even when we drive. Um, if you're an aggressive driver, please don't put a Christian sticker on the back of your car. That's all we wanna say. You, you know, you know who you are. But anyway, um, one of those probably the person in my life who just exuded that the most of anyone I've known or experienced is my mom. Now, don't get me wrong, I saw her get mad. I saw her get disappointed. I saw her have regret. I saw her not be perfect. But the overarching just theme of her life was to love. She loved those who weren't kind to her. She loved those who opposed her. She just was good and gracious and generous. Now, three, almost three years ago, my mom, uh, ran off and left us and went to heaven. So she is no longer with us, but three years before that, she had a massive stroke that left her unable to walk. In fact, she couldn't even transfer to a wheelchair and dementia set in at that time. And so we, we kind of experienced for three years her, her slipping away. And if you've ever had someone in your life who was just slipping away like that and you've lost them, but they're still there, it's kind of an ambiguous loss. Um, it's, it's a real unique kind of grief and loss. Well, as she was really slipping away and getting to the end of her life, my daughter Melissa decided she would fly to Mississippi to see her. And she, she knew it would be the last time and they were real close and she knew it would be the last time she'd see her. So normally before my mom's stroke, um, she would sit, they would sit together and talk for hours. My mom would pray for her, um, cook, serve all the things they would do. But this time was different and, and mom wasn't making a lot of sense most of the time. But when, um, Melissa went home, she called and we were processing her visit and listened to what she said to me. She said, mom, I haven't experienced the presence of God in years like I did with Ghana this weekend. And it wasn't her words and it wasn't her service, it wasn't anything she did. It was who she was. I am telling you, I hung up the phone and I put it down and I said a prayer. And I said, God, if you never answer another prayer, I pray, please answer this one. I wanna be like that. I want people when they leave me not to feel corrected, not to feel diminished, not to feel judged. I want them to feel you and your loving presence. Now you see from my mom that didn't start when she got dementia. That didn't start with a stroke. It started decades before that. And the reason it just oozed from her was because of all those years where she practiced blessing, where she knew she was blessed and had something to give. She was unleashed to bless. And so by that time, even in her presence, without the words you could sense it, wouldn't you like to be like that? What if when people left our presence, they were like, man, I just experienced God and I can't even explain it. What if those who haven't even yet heard the good news of the gospel or maybe aren't even open to it yet? What if they left our presence thinking, what the heck was that? I need to figure out what, what that was. What if even our adversaries and our opponents, what if they said, listen, I'm better because that person was in my life and we never agreed on anything. But I walked them. I watched them walk through every bit of it with grace and with kindness and with blessing. What if people could say, I am so glad that person was in my life. That was my parent, that was my child, my coach, my teacher, my neighbor, my friend. What if, what if that made a difference? I think that's what Paul was talking about. Yeah, you're blessed, but you are blessed to be a blessing. Psalm 73 says this, my health may fail and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart. He is mine forever. This is what I think my daughter was sensing in my mom because God had become the strength of her life and he was still hers forever. And it just, it just oozed out of her. Paul continues his encouragement to the Galatians and he says, for you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love for the whole law can be summed up in this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. So the whole law, don't go back to law. What law means now is love. We're meant to love each other. The whole law can be summed up like that. We're free to love, we're free to bless. We're unleashed, we're compelled to do it because of what we have experienced. So pause with me for just a minute. Take a breath and imagine this, wherever you are on your faith journey, you may have walked with God for decades or maybe you're just listening or hear or watching because you're curious. Could it be true? Could trusting Jesus could I don't have to become perfect in my own strength? Could it be true that I'm not my own savior? I'm no one else's savior. I can trust God with all the things. What does that do to you When you imagine, what if that's true? What if I'm right before God because of what Jesus did today, just as I am now? I don't know what that does for you. For me, it brings my blood pressure down. It brings my anxiety level down. It's not up to me. It's not all up to me. I sleep better when I live in that truth. And by the way, it's true, it's true. Those of us who have experienced the grace of Jesus, those of us who have figured out I can't be perfect and he loves me, I can't be perfect, but I can bless, I can, I can let pour out of me what has been poured into me. I can do it. Paul said, so let's not get tired of doing what is good. Do you ever get tired? Let's not get tired of doing what is good at just the right time. We will reap a harvest of bless of blessing if we don't give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to those in the family of faith. We should do good to everyone. You're blessed in order to bless the entire earth. This is meant to go everywhere. You've heard us talk about, maybe you've experienced, maybe you're in it right now. Our genius of one course, and this is one of the things we talk about. This is one of the reasons we have courses like that is to come together to, to figure it out, to talk about it. And so I wanted you, we just started last week, but I wanted you to see a clip of one of the ways we talk about this. Watch this, These words we speak have that kind of power. The power of life and death. And behind those words and in the depths of our hearts, the motive isn't to be right. It isn't to prove someone wrong. It isn't to win an argument or to get even. Our motive is always love. So love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self Love. Doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others. Isn't always me first. Doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others. Doesn't revel when others grovel. It takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. Puts up with anything. Trust God always, always Looks For the best. Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies. Love doesn't keep a score of the sins of others. Don't keep a list. Love cares more for others than self. It always looks for the best. It never gives up, it never fails. How do you love like that? How do we do that? Well, if we're honest, it's hard. It can be hard. In fact, it can be really hard. And depending on the circumstances and the people in your life, you're like, listen, you don't understand how I've been hurt. You don't understand how I've been abandoned or betrayed or how they're treating me. Or you don't understand how they won't listen. You don't understand. It's hard to love like that. It's hard not to keep a list. It's hard not to keep a hold, a grudge. And if that is you, and if you might even say, actually, you know what I would say it's impossible. I can't do it. There are people I cannot love. Then let me say this, that does not make you a terrible person. It makes you human. It makes you fragile. It means you need a savior. It makes you finite. So then how do we love like that? I think there's only one way. There's only one key to loving like that. You need to know that you are loved. Only when you understand that you are loved today, just like you are. Only when you understand the depth of God's love for you can it flow through you and out of you only. Then Paul wrote another letter to the Ephesians. And in that letter are some prayers. Uh, you can steal those prayers and pray 'em over people in your life who you care about. But here's one of 'em. He says, I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts. As you trust in him, Christ will make his home in your heart. As you trust in him, your roots will grow down deep into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully, then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and the power that comes from God. By the way, this is how your pastors pray for you. This is why we gather for classes. This is why we love hearing your stories. This is why we love gathering together. We want you to understand love like this. Only then are we unleashed to love like that. It's from him and pours out to the whole earth. Alright, so God gave a promise. Law came. Jesus came, took us back to the promise. It's all about faith. He loves us because we have faith in him. We've trusted him. We believe him. So now do we go on our merry way and just live our lives? No. Here's what Paul said. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. And Jesus said the same thing. Jesus, when he was, when he was pressed about the most important thing, he said, the most important thing is to love the Lord your God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. To love is always the right thing. So we've talked about people who do that. There are people, as Dave mentioned, who show up here and, and bless and love. There's a great volunteer at Grants Trail named Joanne. And she started a small group years ago. Her little small group has grown into an army of women that you don't wanna mess with. They are, they're gonna change the world. They're amazing. And so, um, Joanne's husband was diagnosed with a LS and was going downhill pretty fast. She kept serving her team. She even helped start a ministry to senior adults at our campus. During that time when he was too ill to be left alone, they just started meeting at her house and her small group kept going and she kept showing up. Um, he passed away and we got to watch her love them as much as they loved her through, through that whole passing. In fact, we have a picture of some of them. This is not all of 'em. There they are. That's that's a wonderful group of ladies. Um, she took part of the cardboard testimony that we did several months ago and that that is her testimony. But a couple weeks ago, Joanne got really sick and um, was in the hospital a while. Went home and listen when she got home, these ladies didn't let her be alone for five minutes. They took turns spending the night. They took care of her. They made sure she ate, made sure she wasn't alone, as sick as she got. And I watched the tables turn. She, she served and then she was served. She blessed and then she was blessed. And that is just meant to ebb and flow like that. We're meant to give, we're meant to receive. Now we'd always love to be in the seat of the one giving, but sometimes the gift is that we, we are blessed. People take care of us, they give to us. And so week after week, uh, Dave already mentioned this, but did you know that people show up to bless you? Did you know that the coffee that you get doesn't make itself shocker? It doesn't make itself. There are people who show up to make coffee, people who show up to sit back with kids so that parents can come and, and sit in this room for just an hour of peace and quiet and to listen. We have people who serve our youth week in and week out. I am telling you, when I was a youth, my leaders, they saved my life. That ministry saved my life. We have people who sh rehearse, who sit behind cameras, who go outside these walls and serve when we ask 'em to. And this is their way of blessing. We bless each other that way. And so I, whether you know it or not, you become like the people you're around. And so we kinda like to be around people like that. So we wanted to end a little early and to give you a chance to learn a little more about that. Um, first of all, thank you for letting me take Tim's place. It's been a joy to be here with you all. Thank you. And I'm gonna pass it off to the campuses. They're gonna go off and do their own thing. And here we're gonna invite Dave up to give you some instructions.