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Prairie Lakes Church. Uh, welcome, uh, welcome back. Maybe you're venturing out for the first time in like 10 days because Winter just knocked us. Um, but we're really, really glad that you did. We're in week three of a series, uh, that we started, uh, turns out three weeks ago called Everything is Different, walking through the Book of Ephesians.

Lemme just say this, okay? Um, last weekend, and I know last weekend was, was super cold. And, um, we, we had all that snow. And anyways, last weekend was Pastor John's, uh, first weekend back in three months.

And, um, uh, it was a, it was a huge, I was very disappointed that it was, uh, like a kind of a weather event weekend for a lot of us. Um, because I just, I wanted everybody to, to get a chance to, to experience him and say hi to him again, you know? But, um, it was awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome to hear from him again.

And I'm very, very glad that he is back. Okay? Um, and we'll get a chance to hear from him, obviously a lot more as we go on here in 2024. But, um, great to hear from him last week. He, he spoke to us on Ephesians two. And we're just gonna continue now into Ephesians three, and we're just gonna dive right into the text this morning.

Okay? So if you've got your Bibles, go ahead and grab 'em on the, the verse on the screen for you as well. This is Ephesians 3, 3, 1. Okay? And here's what, what Paul says. He goes, for this reason, I Paul, prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles.

Okay? What does that mean? Is, uh, has Jesus taken Paul prisoner? No. Okay. Paul is writing to the Ephesians, though he's writing to them from prison. Paul is a prisoner. Um, but he, he got sent to prison because of who he was preaching about.

Uh, 'cause he was preaching about Jesus. Um, hence he's a prisoner of, of Christ. Okay? So here, here's what we know about Paul. Paul. Paul went on like three different missionary journeys, or four, depending on how you see it in Acts. Um, when we say missionary journeys, he like traveled.

He did, he did like a circuit around a lot of the known world. And, and on his second missionary journey, on the second missionary journey, um, he traveled to the city of Ephesus. And these are the people who he's writing to, um, the Ephesians.

And he stayed in Ephesus for at least a couple of years. We know from the book of Acts. And he preached the gospel in the city, and he planted churches in the city. And after that, after Ephesus, Paul eventually made his way back to Jerusalem, where, um, something happens.

In fact, let's, let's turn back to Acts. And, and let's just get a context. 'cause Paul says, I'm a prisoner. I'm in prison. Um, and he's writing to the Ephesians. I I want you to kinda see why he's in prison and what happens.

So, um, and, and really what was, what was happening in his time? And Ephesus. So Acts 19 through 21 will be that we're actually gonna start in, in verse uh, chapter 21 in Acts, and we'll start in verse 27. Okay? So, uh, go, go ahead and kind of turn, turn back there.

Um, acts 21, 27, let's just kinda read through, um, let's read through verse. Yeah. Verse 30, 27, 21, 27 through 30, okay? Uh, some Jews from the province of Asia, uh, Ephesus is in the province of Asia.

In fact, it's the capital of the province of Asia. So, so some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in Jerusalem at the temple, and they stirred up the whole crowd and they seized him shouting, fellow Israelites help us. This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place.

Uh, and, uh, and besides he's brought Greeks into the temple and he's defiled this holy place. And what they had previously seen is Hamus, the Ephesian in Jerusalem, in the city with Paul, and, and assumed that Paul brought him into the temple. Um, the whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions, uh, seizing Paul.

They dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. Okay? So Paul's traveled to Ephesus, he went there for two years. He meets this guy named TROs. They TROs joins him. He goes back to Jerusalem with Paul, and this happens in Jerusalem.

Um, so I, I, I want you to get a sense of what this is like. Okay? So, so Ephesus, let's talk about that first. Ephesus was the capital city, like I said, of the Roman province of Asia. So Roman empires divided different provinces. Ephesus is the capital city of the Roman province of Asia.

It's about 600 miles or so away from Jerusalem, 600 miles. So it was a good ways, and Ephesus was a huge city for the time. Huge city for the time. It was the fourth largest city in the, the whole of the Roman Empire, like 250,000 people in the city, um, 2000 years ago.

Okay? So massive city. Paul traveled there, he stayed for a little over two years. Trophy, miss was one of these guys he met in, in, in Ephesus, um, who steps across faith line and starts following Jesus as Paul preached the gospel, and then TROs started following Paul in his, in his journeys.

And so now they're back in Jerusalem. And, and, and some Jews from Asia, maybe from Ephesus themselves, um, recognized TROs. And they assumed, right, that Paul took Trois into the temple, which was, would've been a death of creation of something they held very, very sacred.

And, and now notice their accusation. Okay? Um, this man, what they're saying, this man Paul, he's going around everywhere and he's teaching against our, our people, you know, like our heritage, right? People hold that pretty dear. Um, he's teaching against our law, so our religion or our faith, and he's teaching against this place, our, our capital city and the temple that resides in it and our nation, you know, I mean, you wanna stir up some like quick mob anger, just combine someone's heritage and their faith and their land and say, this person hates all of that.

Um, and just watch the frenzy unfold. And, and, and it did unfold. Okay? Verse 31 again, in, in chapter 21, uh, while they were trying to kill him, uh, escalated quickly, right? Uh, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar.

He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. And when the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains.

And then he asked who he was and what he had done. And some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another. Um, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, uh, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks, okay? And so now Paul is writing to the Ephesians from the barracks from prison, because, because why?

Well, because some Ephesian Jews recognized an Ephesian Gentile Christian and whipped a mob into kind of a, a Zionist frenzy in the city of Jerusalem. And, and if you read more about Paul's time and Ephesus before he got to Jerusalem, this actually was not the first time that Paul suffered at the hands of Ephesians for the sake of Ephesians.

Um, if you wanna go back just a couple of chapters in Acts, okay? To, uh, to Acts 19. And we're gonna read, uh, we're gonna start with reading verses one, one through seven. Okay? So, so this is like, now, when Paul first arrived in Ephesus, he goes, when Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus, and there he found some disciples.

So he goes to Ephesus and he finds some disciples, but take a look at this. And he asks them, Hey, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And the answer is no. We haven't even heard that. There's the Holy Spirit kinda odd for disciples, right?

So Paul asked, well then what baptism did you receive? And they said, John's baptism. And so Paul said, oh, I get it. John's baptism was the baptism of repentance. John the Baptist preach preached repentance. He was the forerunner of Jesus.

He told the people to believe in the one who was coming after him that is in Jesus. And so I'm hearing this, these 12 guys, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on the Holy Spirit came on him, they crossed that faith line.

God starts dwelling in them. And then they spoke in tongues and they prophesied, and there were about 12 men in all. Pretty cool, pretty cool story, right? 12 guys heard about John the Baptist hadn't heard about Jesus yet, Paul shares, they believe 12 new converts right there, right when he gets into town.

And, and, and, and if you, if you read chapter 19, like more cool stuff happens and some fun kind of funny stuff happens even then. But then we, you get to verse 23, okay? And so now Paul's still an Ephesus, and, and now he's gonna encounter this in verse 23, he says, about that time there arose a great disturbance about the way and the way is the name of these new followers of Jesus, because they were living according to Jesus' way.

A great disturbance arose, um, about the way I always wanna read that by a great disturbance arose in the forest, but it's not, it's not Star Wars. Okay? It's Christian. Okay? Uh, great disturbance about the way a silversmith named Demetrius in Ephesus, a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there.

Okay? Now, this is one of the reasons, um, why Ephesus was such a large city. 'cause it housed Ephesus housed one of the seven wonders of the world. Um, and one of the seven wonders of the world that was housed in the city of Ephe was this temple of, of Artemis.

And Artemis was the Roman adaptation of the Greek goddess Diana. Um, and you, you actually can still see the ruins of the temple of Artemis today, but here's what it probably looked like during, during Paul's time, okay?

It's massive. And that, that was beautiful. And, and, and the reason is it's in, in ruins. It got destroyed and rebuilt several times, but it's kind of, it's actually, you can't really, but it's on some marshy ground. They built it on some, some marshy ground.

Um, but as you can imagine, people all over the world would come to see this. And, and, and, and they would, um, the tourism industry around, around Artemis and her temple was, was huge for the Ephesian economy. And, and then also an emphasis was something called the Celsius Library.

So, and this is what the, the Celsius library looks like. That's what it looks like today. Super cool, right? Like you could go today and look at, look at something that Paul would've looked at, um, himself. And in this library in conjunction with the Temple of Artemis, there were, there were probably like 30,000 scrolls, a lot of them dedicated to writings about Artemis and who she was and stuff like that.

Um, but extremely valuable, okay? But if you read verse verses, uh, 11 through 20, what you would see is that so many people at this time in Ephesus came to know Jesus. So many people came to know Jesus, that they started burning these scrolls, and they burned around $7 million worth of scrolls if we did the math and translated it to today.

So, so Paul and his message, we read about Demetrius, the silversmith, the artist Paul, and his message turns out started to become a threat, okay? And then we get to verse 25, and this is what happens. Demetrius called them together along with the workers and, uh, in the, in the related trade.

And he said, you know, my friends, you know, you know, we receive a good, a good income from this business, but, and you come to see and hear how this fellow Paul has, he, he's, he's convinced and he's, and he's led astray, large numbers of people here in Ephesus and practically the whole province of Asia.

And, and you know what he says? He says that, that God's made by human hands are no gods at all. Can you imagine that? And, and, and then he says, Hey, there's danger. Not only that our, that our trade will lose its good name.

You know, it's gonna hit us in the pocketbooks. But, but, but, but really, you know, the temple of the great goddess of Artemis will be discredited. And the goddess herself who's worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world will be robbed of her divine majesty, right?

Like, you can just kind of hear him say it. Um, it's, it's, it's a pretty good recipe for, for building a, a platform and, uh, and getting a, a huge reaction seems like, um, just pretty good play. You know, these guys ran it.

You know, our our faith, our country, our land, our culture, our heritage, right? Um, the, the Ephesian Jews in Jerusalem, we're gonna run it a couple years later. Um, I mean, most politicians today run some, some, some version of that same play.

The land, the faith, heritage, economy. I mean, if you can convince people that someone is a threat to all of those, um, you can build a platform or even a mob pretty quickly. It's a, it's a pretty potent and actually pretty ancient combo, which leads to verse 28.

So when they heard this, they were furious and they began shouting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Soon the whole city was an uproar. The people seized gayest and Arista, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed in the theater together.

And you can still see the theater today. By the way, Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater.

And Paul ends up, ends up kind of dodging a bullet that day as it turns out. But, uh, just three months later, again, still an Ephesus. Here's what happens to Paul chapter 20. Now, verse three. Some of the Jews plotted against him just as he was about to set sail for Syria.

So he decided to go back, uh, through Macedonia. Okay? So that's Paul's time in Ephesus. That's what it kind of looked like. Those are the bookends of it. Um, he was on mission for the gospel. He had come, uh, he had some people come to know Jesus and, and, and join this movement.

There's some amazing things that God did. You know, people were burning their Artemis scrolls, right? Um, so I've gotta do some powerful things. But then he has this group on his right who thought he was a heretic, who, who hated God and hated his heritage, and hated his land where he was from.

And then he has this group on the left who thought he was a threat to their culture and their progress and their way of life. Sound familiar? Go, go back to, uh, to Ephesians with me. Go back to verse three, okay.

Knowing the context now, 'cause Paul's, Paul's not writing to the Ephesians from Ephesus. He's writing to, to the Ephesians from prison in Jerusalem. But knowing what his experience was like in Ephesus, maybe of a better shot now of kind of getting what he's saying, he says, for this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles.

And then he breaks and he says, surely you've heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. That is the mystery made known to me by revelation. As I have already written briefly in reading this, then you'll be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which has not made known to people in other generations, as it's now been revealed by the spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets.

And this mystery is That through the gospel, those on the left, the Gentiles are heirs together with those on the right, Israel members together of one body and shares together in the promise of Christ Jesus. Okay? It's both talking about here. He's talking about his own faith. Find story which began, he talks about this grace administered to me in this revelation, while the, the story really goes, Jesus knocks Paul off his donkey literally.

And he does this as Paul is, is is murdering Christians, and he's murdering these Christians because he's one of these guys on the right. That's God. And you're a heretic. And this is our land and this is our country, and you guys are a threat to it.

And Jesus knocks him off his donkey and then reveals himself, and then he gives Paul this new mission and he says, Hey, you're gonna stop preaching against me, and instead you're gonna start preaching about me. And then he says, Um, Your friends today who are gonna, uh, your friends today are gonna, are gonna try to murder you tomorrow, but the people you're trying to murder today will become your friends who would've imagined, right?

And, and, and all the suffering, Paul, that you've inflicted on on so many others, you are now gonna experience for yourself. But it's gonna be okay because you're gonna see me do these incredible things and you're gonna see me do incredible things in, in, in people's lives through your suffering.

And, and in fact, it's gonna bring you joy to suffer for my name, because through you and through your suffering, I'm gonna build my church. I mean, who, who could have imagined something like that? And then God finally says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take two groups of people, couldn't be more different.

Two groups of people that you, you, you never thought would, would, would, would, would want anything to do with each other, uh, the Jews and the Gentiles. And I'm, I'm gonna make them one and I'm gonna make them one unified and bonded forever around what I have done for them and what they've believed I've done for them in Jesus.

Who, who could have imagined. Well, Paul knew who imagined Paul, Paul knew who dreamed all of this up, okay? Paul knew who's imagination was behind all of this transformation and this new creation. In, in, in verse 20. Ephesians three, here's what he says.

He goes now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. Here it is. Okay? God imagined and envisioned his church to be a place God imagined and envisioned his church to be. A place where Jesus is transforming work in our lives creates such a unified community that even the most powerful forces in the world that divide everybody and everything else could never divide.

Okay? This is the church that God imagined he imagine envisioned this church to be a place where Jesus's transforming work is so unifying in our lives and, and, and such a, a, a bonding force in our community together with one another that, that even the most powerful divisive forces in the world could, couldn't even touch it.

He, he imagined his church to be a place where we check our politics at the door. He envisioned his church to be a place where we put our personal preferences aside. He imagined his church to be a place where we hop off our little soap boxes.

He envisioned his church to be a place where we keep the main thing, the main thing and the main thing. And the church is for everyone in the church to be unified around the transformation that can be found only in Jesus through faith and because of Jesus's love for everyone.

Remember what we said week one, everyone and everything, everyone and everything, everyone and everything under Jesus' love. So I I want you to start thinking about something with me, okay? And, and, and as we start thinking about this together, I, I, I, I want you to start thinking about it, even prayerfully.

If you can have, have a conversation in your head with yourself. Invite God into that conversation. Here's the question, when was the last time that you experienced Jesus in such a way that made everything else small and his church big in your life?

Just, just, just pause and think, when was the last time, okay? When was the last time that you experienced Jesus in such a way that made everything else in your life small, even some bigger concerns that you have small. And it made his church really, really big.

For example, when was the last time you, you felt God convict you of your sin? And he did that through his church in, in, in one way or the other? And, and he moved you to a place of confession and repentance again, maybe with his church and his church and, and you, and you felt him replace your guilt and and shame with, with his peace.

And this thing that had become so big in your life that had kind of dominated your life, suddenly became so small in light of Jesus. When when was the last time you saw God open up a door to, to speak into someone's life? And then you watched him bless that conversation beyond what you could have ever imagined.

An elevator conversation like Pastor John's story last, last week or something like that, where all of your anxiety about responding to that nudge and you felt him nudge you and you, you got over yourself, you know? And, and suddenly all of those worries you had became so small because Jesus became so big in that conversation.

'cause everyone and everything, he's working all the time and he wants everyone to be a part of his family And He wants all of his family to be on mission with him. When's the last time your concerns got small and, and his church got big?

Like maybe you got real in your group, you actually got real, you know, or, or someone else in your group actually got real and, and you watch God show up in the messiness of that conversation and the, and the discomfort of that. But in the honesty of that conversation and the authenticity of it, and you watch truth meet the realities of life and you watch grace meet the realities of life and all those invisible barriers that, that everybody kind of had set up, they were all kind of trans.

I dunno, they were just, they were moved outta the way because Jesus started building his community and his family in your group. I, When was the last time that you saw someone you never thought would've darkened the door of a church And You watched them come and you watched them get, like knocked off their metaphorical donkey and you watched him leave as a new member of the family of God.

140 people did that in three weeks. God did that in the lives of 140 people in three weeks, and he did that in our church. When was the last time you experienced Jesus in such a way that that made everything else small in his church big? If it's been a while for you, okay, if it's been a while, chances are this, chances are you've kind of just been, you've kind of just been playing church.

If everything else is big and church is super small, you probably, you might be just playing church. You might be just kind of, whenever it's convenient or whatever level is comfortable, you're just kind of playing around with it, you know?

And, and, and some people can play church for a very long time, but, but most of us can't. I don't think Mo most of us are on the hunt. We're on the hunt for something real. We're on the hunt for something like bigger than us, something that we can feel, feel good about giving our lives to.

And, and, and if we're not finding it, if we're not finding it, one of two things is gonna happen. We're gonna look for it maybe at some other church and then some other church and then some other church, you know, or, or, or, or we'll stop looking for it at church altogether and we'll start looking for it somewhere else.

But what if 2024, what if 2024 was the year where we stopped playing church and, and instead we started to experience the kind of church that Paul saw grow up in Ephesus and all over the world. What if 2024 was the year where we started chasing after the kind of church that our soul longs for?

One of 20, 24 was the year in which we experienced the kind of church that only God could have imagined. Just think about this just and continue to pray as you do, okay? What, what is your experience like with his church currently?

What is it like currently? What's your relationship even with Pray Lakes? What's that look like right now? I mean, if someone could see your relationship with your church, would they go, man, I I I wish I had that in my life.

Are you experiencing the kind of church that only God could have imagined or are you just kind of playing around with it here? Here's what playing church looks like. I wanna make this super concrete. Okay? You might be playing with church, you remember like Jeff Fox, really, you might be right.

You might be playing with church if you're attending so infrequently that it feels like you're just, you've missed a few episodes. You ever do that? Like you, you get into a show and then all of a sudden you get outta rhythm and you, you miss a few episodes and you're like, what happened?

Like, this is really worth going back and know. Well, and you go back and you're kinda like in the middle of the story. You're, you might be playing with church if you're, if you're doing that, um, you, you might be playing church if, if you have some acquaintances there, but you don't have any really meaningful or deep friendships.

And it's not because you're new. That's normal when you're new, it's normal when you're trying to figure things out. But you've been there a while and it's kinda surface level to everybody. You're kind of playing church. Um, you might be playing church if you're giving to church, if you're giving money to church more like it's a small background subscription.

I'm a Dollar Shave Club member, I have no idea. I could go and look. I don't know what that costs me on a monthly basis. It's very small. I don't think about my Dollar Shave Club membership, right? Some of us, we have that kind of relationship with our money and church, you might be playing church if that's the case.

Um, you, you, you might play in church if you're serving like it's a box to be checked if you're doing that at all. You know, it's been a while, but I I, I think I served some coffee one time. You know, you might be playing church if, if you're not inviting, not inviting is always a, a real good indicator.

Um, and and a lot of times the reason we're not inviting is, is, is because on some level we're not excited about what we're inviting them to. Turns out inviting someone to a playing church experience, not all that compelling.

Here, here, here are the fruits of it, okay? Here's the fruits of this is what kind of creeps up in our lives as we're playing church tribalism and find a group of people that we resonate with, but we resonate with them for the wrong reasons because we agree on the things that we don't like or we agree on the things that we're complaining about.

Tribalism kind of creeps up when we're playing church. Um, mistrust creeps up when we're playing church. Uh, complaining usually creeps up when we're playing church. Gossiping self focus. So about me, Right? So just look at that list, okay?

Sign me up for that, right? I mean, nobody wants that. You know what? None of us really want that either. None of us do. None of us wakes up and goes, you know what I'd like to do today, just continue my tenuous relationship with the church. You know, we all want something different.

We all want something better, something bigger we do. Here's the thing, okay? Anything that is authentically better always costs more Because It's worth More. Anything that's authentically better always costs us more because it's worth more.

And if it's truly better, you know what we do? We'll, we'll give more to get it and we'll naturally tell others about it. I sat with a group of staffers this week. They all had Stanley or some side of Stanley style mugs and yes, they were all women.

Okay? It was crazy to like think of the, they love it and they were sharing stories about it. I made the mistake of asking them and I watched them evangelize What another around these mugs? What if, what if the reason you haven't invited someone to church in forever is because of some level, you're not really experiencing something worth sharing.

What if the reason you're not experiencing something worth sharing is your fault? Because Maybe you're just playing church. The irony, right? Oh, what a twisted web we weave. But if there's some truth in that, and just gimme the grace, just keep listening, okay?

If there's truth in that, and if that's the case, then here's what we would expect. Here's the good news. When we stop settling for just playing church and we start being the church that God imagined, then we're gonna experience a church worth sharing.

That's true. That is a hundred percent true. Kind of a good news, bad news situation. You know, the good news is you can experience the kind of church that you always wanted. The bad news is you're only gonna experience it if you start being it.

Yeah, yeah. Listen, it's so worth pursuing. It is. Here's, here's what it looks like being the church that only God could have imagined. Looks like this. It's attending regularly because it's my family and because it's my home and because it's a blessing to me and that's why I go, it's, it's finding real friends by being, by being willing to build real friendships.

That's how you find them. It's, it's tithing, giving 10% and then offering above, which is biblical. Because why? Because my money doesn't control me and I'm bought into this place. I love what's going on here, right?

It's, it's serving, it's serving to discover, use and grow the gifts that God has entrusted to me. You're not checking a box, you're being a good steward. It's inviting because I'm experiencing something worth sharing. And the fruits of this, here's what it looks like when you're, when you stop playing church and you're starting to be the church that only God could have imagined, it's family, it's trust, it's gratitude, it's truth and grace.

It's others' focus. It's completely different. Okay? I know I'm wrong, I'm be honest with you. I just don't care, right? Okay, because I'm about done. I promise you, I what if 2024 was the year where we started experiencing the kind of church. Only God could, God could imagine.

What if we stop playing church in 2024 and we start being that kind of church? Okay, so here's what I want. I want to, here's where I want to end prayerfully, again, I, I don't want to give you three steps, but I do want to, I want to ask you to prayerfully consider taking at least one of these if you're not already, maybe it's all three, okay?

If you wanna stop playing church and start being the church this year, okay? Three things. Find your friends and grow together this year. Find your friends and grow together. Find your friends and grow together. It's gonna take some work on your part.

It's a little bit of a risk. You need to know people, people need to know. You need to get below the surface with them. And then you need to see what God does with that. Okay? Could be a class, could be a group, could be mops, could be grove, could be a men's Bible study, could be a serving team.

You build great relationships on a serving team. Find your friends and grow together. Watch what God does, okay? Consider that. And that might be it for you. That might be it. Not overnight, but it's gonna, it's gonna change it. Number two, start obeying with your money.

Hey, hey, start obeying with it. Let's move of us. We just give ourselves the pass on it. We just do like, ah, stop doing that. Stop doing that. Start, start taking it. Some, some of you that might be just, just starting somewhere.

For most of us, for most of us, it's, Hey, stop treating your giving like it's a small little background subscription. Bring that to God in prayer and say, God, what? What is it? What is it? And then do it. Okay? Finally, this. I've told you we've seen 140 people come to Jesus in three weeks.

This has to be the year where you pray and invite your one. 'cause God's doing something and he's doing something well beyond us. You don't know. It might be the weekend if you invite 'em. Did they come? You don't know. You don't know what God's gonna do, okay?

Find your friends, grow together, start obeying with your money. Pray for, and invite your one. What if 20, 24 was the year where we stopped playing church? We started being the church that only God could have imagined.

Let me pray for us. Father in heaven, it's you. It's all about you. It's your power. It's your story. Help us to take the steps, God, where we get to see and experience and discover that for ourselves. Thank you so much for Jesus, and it's His name we pray.

Amen.