you know that we all at times will go through trials and even as a church we face difficulties together and one of the things that I love the Bible talks about us being is the family of God because families face difficulties and in those difficulties we rally around one another and we become closer through it and so I just encourage us as a body that when we face those difficulties when members within the body face things like that that we are there to support and love and encourage any way that we can to just be a blessing to those in need. So thank you for being a church that I see respond like that on a daily basis. It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot that you obey the Lord in those things. So thank you for that. If you have your Bibles this morning, Turn with me please to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1. If you weren't here last week, we began a brand new series that we're going to be in for quite some time, going through the Gospel of Mark. And we started out last week, as you're finding your place, I'll just give you a brief summary of what we talked about. We basically looked at John Mark and who he was. why he was writing this particular gospel since there were three others. Why did Mark write? Why did the Holy Spirit inspire him to pen his own account largely related to the story of Peter and his testimony there? But I wanted to point out two scriptures again, and I'm going to keep repeating these quite often because I want them to stick in your mind. So the first would be Mark 10, verse 45. This is really a summary of what Mark's gospel is all about. And the title of my series is Jesus, Servant and Savior. And that's exactly what we're going to see time and time again as we look at these messages. And Mark says this in chapter 10, verse 45. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. and to give his life a ransom for many. You see the service, you see the sacrifice of the Savior. And also Mark 8, 27, which is smack dab right in the middle of the Gospel of Mark, it says this, And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples Who do people say that I am? And I want to put that question in the forefront every single week as we go through this gospel. Who do you say that Jesus is? Don't just necessarily repeat what you've been taught all your life. I want you in the depths of your heart between you and God alone to answer that question. I don't want you to simply give me talking points and regurgitate things that you've heard all your life. I want to know, the Holy Spirit desires to know, who is Jesus Christ to you? Who is He in your life? And Mark makes it clear in chapter 1, verse 1, that we talked about last week, what he was trying to get across by saying the beginning of the gospel, that's the good news that everyone needs to hear, because we hear plenty of bad news, bad news sells, and the bad news is that we are all sinners and in desperate need of forgiveness and grace. So Mark comes with the good news of Jesus Christ. The good news of Jesus, the gospel of Jesus, Joshua in the Hebrew, the God of salvation. That's the good news. Jesus, the person, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, is here. He's the Son of God. Not just a man. This wasn't just a very, very educated, powerful, influential human being. He was the Son of God, which gives Him the power to be able to forgive us, to be able to free us, to be able to set us eternally secure in Him. And that's the good news that Mark wants to relate. And so today I want you to look with me as we continue on in this story of chapter 1. Again, Mark moves very quickly. And so we covered a lot of ground as far as Jesus' baptism, His calling of the first disciples, the temptation in the wilderness. All those things, boom, boom, boom, Mark moves right along. And he continues that. And like I told you last week, you're going to see the words immediately or straightaway if you have the King James Bible. There's an urgency to what Jesus is doing. He is constantly on the move, constantly following God. He doesn't need to form committees and have meetings. He just hears the voice of the Father and He obeys. He's faithful. He keeps on moving forward. And we stopped last week at verse 20, and we'll pick up today at verse 21. But again, as Mark moves quickly, there's some time that's elapsed through this. It's not chronological in like minute by minute or even day by day. There's some time, maybe a few weeks up to even maybe a month or two, that have passed between verse 20 and verse 21. Some of the things that would have occurred if you take all the Gospels and put them together chronologically and follow it, In the time between verses 20 and 21, probably the Sermon on the Mount would have been preached. We all know that story, or most of us do. He called the rest of the disciples during that period of time. And he originally started his ministry in Nazareth, but because they rejected him and tried to kill him, He leaves Nazareth and moves on. All those things took place in between verse 20 and 21. But Mark, like I said, he's brief and he moves right through it. And so that's why we need all of the gospel accounts to put together the big picture. But he ends up in verse 21, it says, and they went into Capernaum. And immediately on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching. So he had left Nazareth, and he moves down to the Sea of Galilee, close by to this city, Capernaum, and he sets that up as kind of like his hub. You're going to see that as almost like his home base from here on out. This is the place where Jesus will be moving from. And look what it says as he enters into this synagogue and begins to preach there in verse 22. They were astonished at his teaching. For he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes had done. He comes in to what we would know as the church in that time. And what they would do is they would gather to pray, they would read the law, and then they would expound on that law from different traditions. Because, see, the law of God had become much more than just the Torah, the books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. The scribes and the Pharisees had added so much to it that they had the Talmud and the Kabbalah and all these oral traditions that the Jewish people would relate. They were so sacred they wouldn't write them down. It was an oral thing that was passed on. And so these things sometimes got changed a little bit. They became superstitious. And they added all these burdens and all these laws to the people. And that's why you see Jesus constantly condemning the Pharisees because they would put burdens on people that God never intended them to carry. And they took the law and made it into something that it wasn't. And it became such a weighty matter that people would come to the synagogue and they would listen. And for lack of a better term, it was very probably dry and dull and boring. And more than that, it would be very discouraging because they were constantly encountered with the holiness of God. and their inability to keep the law, which is necessary for you to realize that you have sinned and fallen short of the glory, but it gives you no hope, it gives you no cure, it gives you no remedy for your problem. And so here comes Jesus on the scene. And the Bible doesn't tell us what He preaches that morning. But whatever it was, it excited the people. It was something new. It was something different about this man. It astonished them because he spoke with authority. And it's so funny that the way God orchestrates things and lays things on your hearts, because I hadn't talked to Marcus really at all about what exactly this message was covering this morning as far as what God had laid on my heart. But you sat right there and talked about becoming complacent and indifferent. When you go through things routinely and regularly, you lose sight of what's going on. And Jesus comes into Capernaum, preaches His message and astounds people. And they are just amazed at the authority. I mean, He doesn't just get up and read the law and then kind of give them some self-help tips. He speaks with authority, and it grasps a hold of their life as only the Word of God can. And it convicts them, and it encourages them, and it shows them the Messiah standing before them. And they are amazed and astonished at that. But guess what? It doesn't last. It just doesn't last. Because in Matthew chapter 11, verse 23 and 24, listen to what Jesus says later concerning Capernaum. He says, "...And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." Think about that. Think about what Jesus just said there. If the works that I did in Capernaum would have been done in Sodom, they would have repented and still been around today. That wicked city would have turned and given their lives to Christ. Do you see what he's saying there? Do you see just how evil Their unbelief was in the sight of Christ performing miracles and preaching the gospel. He says, it would have remained until this day, but I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. You think that God is not displeased with lukewarmness and apathy and unbelief? He came into this city, He healed the sick, He raised up the dead, and yet they became complacent. How much more should we guard our hearts then against that kind of complacency? We should never come into the church and just look at it as a routine, as something that we just do to pass the time. We are getting a chance to gather together as believers, to hear the Word of God, to worship God together, to bear one another's burdens, to be a testimony, to serve one another, to serve God, and on and on and on. And that's not just a routine. That's a privilege and a joy that many, many people in this world today don't know, that they are lost and they have no relationship with God. And those of you that have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ ought to never let that become routine in your life. You want to stir that up, Paul says to Timothy. He says, stir up the gift that is in you. You know, sometimes things settle and it needs a good shake or a good stir. You get medicine from the doctor, it's got to be shaken up before you take it. We need to be stirred up. Sometimes we need to stir each other up unto good works, the Bible says. Don't become complacent. But I want to look today at this section of scripture and give you three things to take home with you. The first being the preaching of the servant. You see that Jesus shows up at the synagogue. In Luke's gospel it says Jesus went to the synagogue as was his custom. It was his custom to show up and to do those things. He went to church, basically, is what it's saying. Jesus went to church. Do you know what the word Christian means? means Christ-like, means to be like Jesus. If Jesus went to church, shouldn't we go to church? Shouldn't we be there? If it's his bride, shouldn't it be important? If we're the body, shouldn't it be important? He's the head. If he's giving people pastors, wouldn't it follow that there should be churches for them to pastor? On and on and on you can make a case for why church matters. But if you want to be like Christ, then you need to do the things that Christ did. And Christ was on the Sabbath found in the synagogue because it was in obedience to God that He went. And we need to love the brethren so that we gather together for worship. We want to uplift one another. We want to have a testimony in the world that people are watching the way that we live. And oftentimes they'll listen to what your life says before they listen to what your lips say. And so if you don't live a godly life, don't expect them to listen to your sermon that you try to preach to them through the week when you're not living it yourself. And listen, we all fall short. And so when you fall short, be humble enough in the front of people To admit your faults. Confess your faults one to another, the Bible says. Listen, we don't walk around, I hope, and people come in here and think, boy, I hope to attain to the standard of these holy and righteous people. They are so perfect and my life is such a mess that I feel out of place in here. Boy, this whole building's a mess. Your pastor's a mess. If not for the grace of God. Listen, none of us are going to stand before God with an impressive resume. We're going to stand before God and just bow down at His feet and worship that name above all names because He has made us holy. He has made us saints. He has made us forgiven. It's not anything we've done. Not anything we can do. And we never should lose sight of that. But Jesus went to church because it was important and because it was commanded. And he astonished them because he spoke with authority. Do you know, in a lot of surveys that I've seen, the number one reason why people say they don't come to church now, whether this is an excuse or the truth, or both, I don't know. But do you know what the number one reason why people claim to not want to come to church is? It's boring. 42% of people surveyed said the reason they don't come to church, frankly and honestly, is it is boring. And the problem that happened because of that is I think churches got a hold of that information and they said, oh my goodness, people don't want to come to church because we're boring. And so we get the buzzwords that we have today. The church said we need to be relevant. We need to be engaging. We need to be attractive. You buy books today and you'll find those words in every book and there's not anything wrong with that as long as it's kept to a biblical standard by which you go by. Because the church has become entertaining at the expense of being expositional. We have put focus on how can we entertain people for an hour rather than expounding the Word of God to them. And listen, there's a lot of things in the world that are entertaining. And on the Sundays where nothing better's going on, they'll be here. But if entertainment's what you win people with, and entertainment's what you'll keep people with, and if something better comes across the street, or something better's going on at Kings Island, or at Great American Ballpark, or Paul Brown Stadium, or you name it, that's where their hearts will run to. You don't win people with entertainment. You win them with the word of God and the Holy Spirit. And we have, and when I say we, I mean believers as a whole, not the church here. But believers as a whole, the church has missed the point. Because we make the focus and have made the focus about man rather than God. For church to be successful, we have got to make man happy. No, for church to be successful, God has to be pleased. with what we're doing. We can we can have a room full of happy, excited people and be completely out of the will of God in everything we do. And there's places right now that are holding service that are in that boat. They've got much bigger crowds, much happier faces, much more excitement and out of the will of God, completely out of the will of God, because they're focused on man, not him. We have turned to an emotional response rather than a spiritual rebirth. If people are emotionally charged, we are happy and excited, even if nothing on the inside is happening. You know, people can get worked up and in a frenzy. I kid with Chad and some of the guys, there's a video on YouTube of this service, and I'm not judging the service or these people by any means, but they get a bit worked up in this service. And I hope that there was something on the inside that was going on that got them to that place. But a lot of times you can just get absolutely charged up and crazy emotionally, but God's doing nothing inside. He's doing nothing inside. And the reason I know that is I've seen people cry and hoot and holler and scream in the church and then go out in the parking lot and right back to where they were. There was no change. I mean, something happened, a little bit of emotions happened inside the walls, but you didn't take it out of here. It didn't change you. It didn't affect you. The Word of God is not something that you just hear and say, well that was good. You take it and the Spirit applies it and it changes you and it molds you and it cuts where it needs to be cut. It does surgery in your life. And that's when God is at work. It's not the amount of amens or hands in the air waving. It's what God's doing on the inside. And if that leads to all that stuff on the outside, praise God. But I would rather see an internal change than just an outward emotion. That's what God looks for. And finally, we've turned attendance into the measure of success. I want a big crowd. I want a full church. I want a new sanctuary. I'd love to see all that stuff in God's time. But I don't pretend that if there's 50 people here one day, I've failed. And if there's 200 here the next week, I've done a great job. That's not the standard that I'm going to set for success. I'm going to set success on having a healthy body of believers where you have people being saved, where you have people discipling one another, where you have people serving one another, and where we put Christ first. And if that's 10 people doing it or 10,000 people doing it, I'm pleased, and so is God. And so Jesus' preaching astounded them because it was different. It changed lives. And when we put focus on anything else other than proclaiming Christ and Him crucified and seeing people grow up, we've missed the mark. Listen to what Rachel Held Evans in her book, Searching for Sunday, said about millennials, that's 20 to 30 year olds, that we're trying to entertain so much with smoke and mirrors and lights and laser shows. Listen to what she says concerning that age group. She said, Millennials aren't looking for a hipper Christianity. We're looking for a truer Christianity. A more authentic Christianity. Like every generation before ours and every generation after, we are looking for Jesus. The same Jesus who can be found in the strange places. He's always been found in the sacraments, in baptism, in the word, in suffering, in community, and among the least of these. No coffee shops or fog machines required. If we just live out the biblical mandate of what a church is supposed to be, preaching the word, carrying out the sacraments, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, loving one another, bearing one another's burdens, making disciples, if we do that stuff, Jesus said, I'll build my church. I'll build my church, and it'll be a healthy church. I can't tell you that it's going to shoot off the mark on a pie chart or a graph, but it'll grow, and it'll grow healthy. And that's what we want. And can I say this also, too? Maybe you're in the 42% that doesn't like church because it's boring. I hope, I hope that if you're a Christian that the church and the Word of God and the things of God aren't boring in your life. If they are, I would encourage you to take a step back and examine what it is you believe about Christianity. Because a relationship with God is far from boring. It may not be 24-7, 365 days a year excitement in the sense that you think of it as being. If you're looking for a constant high all the time, Christianity may seem to have failed you. But if you're looking for what biblical Christianity is, the power of God unto salvation in that message, and the change that's taken place in your life, and the hope that it gives you, and the joy that you have, and the way that you can... Do you realize what you have inside of you? Do you realize that you can go out into a lost world and offer something that every psychiatrist, doctor, lawyer, self-help person tries to offer and can't? A real, lasting, firm hope. You have that, regardless of your schooling, regardless of your education, regardless of the money that you have. You have something that the world is searching for. And how can that be boring? How can it be boring to go to someone that's broken and lost and hurt and share that news and see God take that and change them? Man, that's never gotten boring to me. Ever. It's never gotten boring. It's never gotten boring yet. And I just don't understand people that say church is boring. Yeah, this may not be, you know, the laser show and the ball game and the things that you're looking for to be entertained. But it's far from boring. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1.18, For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. That's where the power comes from, is from the Word of God, as the Holy Spirit takes that and changes it. If it's just words on a page to you, if you read it like the newspaper, it's not going to do much for you. But if you dig in, and as you read those words, you say, what does this mean to my life? What is God saying to me here? What changes do I need to make? What direction does He want me to go? Don't just read it like an article. Read it personally and intimately and allow the Holy Spirit to take that and ask Him to show you what He wants to say. And when I preach these messages to you, ask God to open your heart and to show you exactly where you need to make decisions. And you'll begin to see God change you. It won't just be words. It will be very life in you. and it will change you. It's the power of God. John Wesley, the famous preacher, was asked about his popularity. Thousands would come to hear him preach. He said, I just get myself on fire and the people come to watch me burn. He said, I just get on fire for God and people will come to watch me burn. And I believe that will work for the church today too. If we would just get on fire for God, People will come to see what's going on. They'll come to watch it burn. But it's up to us to not sit around and say, boy, this is a long sermon. I'm ready to get out of here. It's time that we take this word and get excited about it, and get excited about what we have, and get excited about what God's wanting to do through us. and to allow Him to have His will be done. We see that in the preaching of Jesus. He astonished people. We see it in the power of the servants. Look as we go on, verses 23-34, we're going to see Jesus healing. Some people he's in the synagogue. It says in verse 23. There was a man with an unclean spirit and he cried out What do you have to do with us jesus of nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are the holy one of god this demon and this man cries out You see he knows who jesus was and a lot of people today claim to know who jesus was And there's still just nothing but devils Because it's never changed them. They have an understanding of who He is, but it in no way impacted and changed their lives. So be careful when you say, I know Jesus. The evidence that you're a born-again believer is not that you claim to know Jesus. It's that, does Jesus know you? And if He knows you, He has changed you. Do you have faith? Faith isn't something that you did a long time ago when you prayed a prayer as an eight-year-old. Faith is a continuing thing that goes on all through your life. You believed at a point in your life, and you're still believing today. And you're going to believe. Faith isn't turned on and turned off. It remains in the believer of Christ. It's an enduring faith that sees you all the way to the end. So he comes and this demon cries out and Jesus cleanses him and for sake of time I'm going to move down because after he does this again the people are astonished and so Jesus leaves the synagogue and it says in verse 30 he goes to Simon and Andrew's house and it says Simon's mother-in-law lay ill with a fever and Immediately they told him about her and he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her and she began To serve them. I want you to see a couple of things real quick in these verses Number one Jesus heal somebody in a big public level all the people in the synagogue. He comes in and he heals And then he he kind of just goes into a private place with the disciples Simon Peter's house and he heals the mother-in-law of Peter A big case, one is demon possessed, the other just has a fever. And yet Jesus meets both their needs. And I want you to take a couple of things from that. Number one, there's no hopeless cases with Jesus. Some of you are in this room and are facing mountains. Giant, giant mountains. And I want you to know that there's no mountain too big for the hand of God that formed the mountains. He's able to overcome. He said if you just have a little bit of faith, you could tell that mountain to be lifted up and cast into the sea, and it would do so. Not because you are special. But the object of your faith is immensely special. And Jesus is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that you've ever wished for or asked for. And so, when we recognize the God that we serve, and we rest on Him in the midst of the biggest of trials, there's no case that's too big for Jesus. There's no place that you've gotten to, you're not too low for the hand of God to reach you. You might be in here this morning and think, I wish that I could be saved, but there's no way that God can love me because of my past, because of my life right now. Man, I am such a mess and I am so far away from where I want to be and need to be that I don't think God would ever forgive me again. You just need to understand who you're talking about. On a human level, we may get to a place where we say, I'm done with that person. They've crossed the line. They've burned their bridges. They've made their bed. That's not the God that we serve. He'll allow consequences in our lives to play out. If you make a sinful, bad decision, forgiveness doesn't necessarily remove the consequences of your bad decision, but it removes the guilt and the shame and the condemnation. Always. The blood will wash away whatever you've done. In Hebrews 7.25, the writer there says, Do you see what he's saying there? He's saying if you'll come to Him, He is interceding on your behalf. He is pleading your case before the Father. And he's not saying, well, you know, I know that Chris had a rough week and he messed up. He's saying, no, Chris is mine. Whatever he's done, the blood has covered it. The blood has taken care of that. It's washed him clean. And so there's no case too hopeless. And also I want you to see that there's nothing too small. Because yeah, on the big level, in front of all the people, he could have cast out the demon and then he could have just went on. But he goes back to Simon Peter's house, and his mother-in-law is sick. And he cares enough about that small thing to heal her of a fever, to take care of her illness. And so sometimes you feel like, well, I just don't know if this is important enough. I mean, God's got so many things He's dealing with. Was my little problem worth even mentioning? Yes. Yes, it is. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, cast all your cares upon him for he cares for you. Cast all your cares. Whatever you're facing, God wants to know about it. He wants to be involved with it. He wants to lead you and guide you through it. So don't ever feel like your problems are too small for God or you're too insignificant for God to hear you. He cares about every detail and every aspect of your life. He's an intimately personal God Not some distant deity that we can't relate to and that's extremely helpful when you feel like does God care he cares about every detail he's numbered the hairs on your head and He loves his people But I want you to see one thing It says that after that, in verses 32 to 34, many people came, and they were pressed up against the door. And verse 34 says, He healed many. He healed many. Now this is important, because I hear so much bad teaching about this, I want you to understand. Jesus Christ is the Great Physician. And by all means, I am a testimony to the fact that that. Brother Dallas is a testimony to the fact. Geneva is a testimony to the fact that God still heals. But He doesn't heal everybody on this side of heaven. He doesn't always heal. And when you don't get your prayer for healing answered, it doesn't mean that God failed, it doesn't mean that you failed. You have to understand that. I can't stand up here and explain to you every reason why God moves in some situations and doesn't in others. But I want you to see in the Bible, there's a man named Epaphroditus in Philemon that was sick unto death, and Paul didn't heal him. God didn't heal him. There was a man named Trophimus and 2 Timothy that was sick and God didn't heal him. Timothy was sick and Paul said, take some wine for your infirmities. He didn't heal him. Paul had a thorn in the flesh and God didn't heal him. John the Baptist was going to get his head cut off and God didn't open the door and let him walk free. Time and time again in the Bible, we see people suffering with illness and persecution and death. And it seems like God didn't intervene. But, you have to understand that your greatest need in life is not to be free from cancer, it's not to have a healthy heart, it's not to get rid of your backache, your toothache, or your footache. None of those things are your greatest need. The greatest need today is for you to be saved from your sins. That's the greatest need of humanity. The Bible says in Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And if nothing else, when you cry out to God for that healing, healing from your sin sickness, healing from the separation that your sin has caused, God has a 100% success record on that account. He will heal you of your sins. If you will come with a repentant heart and a sincere faith, He will save you from your sin. And as a child of God, listen, you ultimately are going to receive healing in every way, shape, or form to everything you're facing. Because where you're going as a believer, there is no cancer, there is no bad hearts, there is no toothache, backache, footache, there's none of that. So you may not get the healing you're wanting now, but it's guaranteed in the future. And that can only come through a relationship with Christ. That can only come. And finally, as we close, I want you to see in verse 35 to 39, He got up in the morning and He went and prayed. He went out in the morning and prayed. If Jesus needed to pray, How much more do we? How passionate ought we to be about prayer? It ought to dictate and govern and rule everything in our lives, and it ought to be a first priority, not a last resort. I hear so many people, and I've said this before, and I'm trying to do better about it. Well, all we can do is pray. Try everything else. Let's pray. Like, that's like, you know, we've done everything we could good, and the only thing left to fall back on is prayer. That ought to be the first place we run. We ought to get it in our minds that that is the most important and best thing that we can do is fall on our knees and cry out to God. Jesus did it and we ought to. He had a passion again for preaching. You see in verse 36 and 38 through 38. They searched for him and they found him and he said, everybody's looking for you. And what's Jesus say? Well, we better run back and do some more miracles and appease these people. No, he says. Let's go to the next town that I might preach there also. You see, the miracles were special. But the preaching of the word was more important. It was more powerful to Jesus. Because, verse 39, He went throughout all Galilee preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. The reason why was because Jesus was passionate about people. He was passionate about people. He could have stayed where the fame and the fortune and the success was. I mean, the crowds loved him at that time for what he was doing when he fed the 5000. You know, he could have been a success. He could have stayed there and turned, you know, rocks into bread and done all kinds of things. And the people would have loved him. But that wasn't why he came. He came to lay down his life and to preach the good news while he was here. And I want you to understand that as believers in Christ, if nothing else, we should have a passion for people. We should be passionate about people. And I want to close with this thought. How passionate this morning on a scale of one to 10 are you about people? Not just your close inner circle, not just your friends and family, just people, people in general. How passionate, how urgent are we about getting the gospel out to people? Is that really urgent for us? I mean, when we get a call and there's an emergency, we don't, we don't worry about packing bags or getting cleaned up or anything. We just go, we're off. Do we have that kind of urgency about us? We have gifts and talents and abilities in this church that amaze me. Are we using them? Are we using those things? Are we procrastinating? Are we putting it off? Are we allowing unbelief to keep us at bay from doing what God wants us to do? Every work begins with one step of faith. We watched that video Sunday night, a few weeks ago, and one of the things that stuck in my mind was when the priests came to the River Jordan, and God said, you know, as soon as you step in, I'll part that Jordan River. Man, there was a lot of priests. One of them had to be first. You ever think about that? When they got to that water, somebody had to be the guy that stuck his foot, and when I say stuck his foot, I mean get in there. Somebody had to do it. Somebody had to take that step of faith. And maybe that somebody this morning is you. Maybe you've got to be the one to take that step of faith. I'm going to close with this quote from Michael Jordan, the great theologian, Michael Jordan. He said this. He said, I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. This is the greatest basketball player that's ever lived. I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. He wasn't afraid. He didn't miss that shot and say, man, I'm done. Give it to somebody else. He wanted that ball. He understood his ability and his talent. And if you understand who it is you serve and who it is that lives inside of you, you ought to want to go out and do everything you can for the glory of God. So if he's calling you this morning, Brother Jeff, as we stand and as we sing, Maybe today is the day that you make that decision. Maybe today is the day you step out to serve Him, to give your life to Him, to surrender yourself to Him, to serve Him. Will you come this morning? Maybe this is the place where you want to be a member, to join and serve. Would you come? He's waiting. Will you let Him come in? There's nothing in this world to keep you apart. What is your answer to Him? Time after time He's waited before and now He's waiting again. to see if you're willing to open your door. Faith is the door that he wants you to open. Will you let him come in? Oh, how he wants to come in. As we say, do you need to come this morning for prayer, for anything? If you'll take one step toward the Savior, my friend, you'll find his arms open wide. Receive Him and all of your darkness will end. Within your heart He'll abide. Time after time, He has waited before, and now He is waiting again. To see if you're willing to open the door. Just bow your heads for a moment as we have those at the altar praying. I want to encourage you to allow God to be at work in your life. I believe every Sunday there's many people that would love to walk this aisle, but for many reasons they don't. And I want to encourage you to let God do a work in your life. I know that there's fear and there's uncertainty and the devil is going to try to throw everything in front of you to keep you from coming. But I'm telling you that we serve a gracious and merciful God. And on the day of judgment, there'll be not one excuse, no matter how good it sounds right now, that will stand and that you'll be able to offer to God. So don't let some temporary thing keep you from having an eternal relationship. As we sing one more verse, if you need to come this morning, take that step of faith and I can guarantee you that you'll find a loving Savior at the other end of your walk of faith. He's waiting to enter your heart. He's waiting. Why don't you let Him come in? Let Him come in. There is nothing in this world to keep you apart. Maybe it's time to rededicate yourself. Maybe you're a Christian, but you're sure not living like one. Maybe today's the day that you say, I'm turning my life over. Time after time, he has waited before. And now he is waiting again to see if you're willing to open the door. Oh, how he wants to come in. Thank you all again for being here. Continue to pray for one another. As I said, it's been a tough month with sickness and death and just a lot of things going on within our church family. And you've all responded tremendously. I've seen the work of God through all of you. You've encouraged and blessed many families and continue to do so. So thank you for that. I wanted to mention also, I didn't remember when I got up there, but Veronica's Veronica Harris's little girl, Emily, is going to be having her tonsils and adenoids out Friday at Children's, so let's lift her up. I know that's scary for a mom and dad, too, to have to go through that any time you're a parent, to see your little one, so let's lift her up in prayer. Remember Charlotte and Earl, the loss of her uncle, and please remember Euline and the loss of her son. God bless you. Praying for you tonight with this decision. Whatever way God leads, I'm good with it. But I just love you regardless, and I appreciate all you do. I'm gonna ask Brother Marcus Jordan, do you mind to close us today?