I wanna be known for a message of grace, a message of the gospel of grace, a message of redeeming grace, a message of the glories of Christ and the riches that are found in him. When people see me, whether they look at me and laugh at me, say, yeah, that preacher carries a bean in his pocket. They can laugh all they want. This bean reminds me of who I am. and that I'm nothing without him and I must be buried in him so that I can see the glory of God manifested out of my life, I carry pacifiers in my pocket. You say, preacher, man. Look, I've had this mentality, people don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan. I've got things that remind me and are tools in my hand to help me share with someone else about what God's done in my life. I use these little pacifiers. I carry them, I don't always give them away, but if God prompts me to, I'm ready to give them away. I buy them at the party store. They don't cost hardly nothing. They're little like this. Some of them are a little bit bigger. They're kind of like the stuff you do at a baby shower. You know what I'm talking about? Well, I carry them around because in the book of Ecclesiastes, the scripture says that it's an evil thing that a man come into this world and lead this world like he came. How do we come in this world? We come into this world with nothing, naked, having nothing, and we're gonna lead this world with what? Ain't nobody taking their fields, nobody's taking their homes, nobody's taking their money with them when they go, amen? We came into this world naked, we're gonna lead this world. But he goes on to say it a little bit further in chapter 5. He says, it's a sore, terrible thing that in all points as a man came in this world that he also leave this world. See, we came into this world more than just naked. We came into this world falling. We came into this world bent towards sin. Remember, we looked at it the other night. Last night, chapter 8 of Genesis, the flood didn't eradicate the problem with man's heart. Noah and his sons, when they came off of that, and the sons and the daughters they had, their imaginations of their heart was desperately wicked and evil. We were all born sinners, separated from the love and the life of Christ as a sinner. Now, I do believe in providential grace that a child that can't understand the things of grace, God's mercy, covers that. There is no law or no sin when there's no law for a child. If he can't understand the law of God, doesn't know of any of those things, God doesn't impute sin to him, he covers them in his mercy, but there comes a point in all our lives where we're gonna have to give an account to God. You know what we do with pacifiers with little ones? Why do we give a little one a pacifier? To do what? To pacify them, right? What does a little one want? They want a belly full, they want rest, and they want their bottom clean. If their bottom clean, and if it's not clean, and they're not rested, and they're not full, what does a little one do? How do they let you know? They cry, what do we do? Put the pacifier. They grow up a little bit, brother. And when they grow up, you know what we do? We get them a baby doll. And then they get a little bigger, we give them a tricycle. They grow up a little bit more to pacify them, we buy them a bicycle. They grow up and they get a little more, we give them a four-wheeler. Before you know it, you give them an old side-by-side. You give them a truck, and then it's a motorbike, and then it's a boat, and then it's another gun or another pair of shoes. It's this girlfriend and that boyfriend and this girlfriend and that boyfriend. It's this wife and that wife and the next wife and the next husband. You see, people go through entire lives trying to pacify themselves with things. The only thing is, as you get older, your pacifiers get more expensive. And if you've never been interrupted by Jesus, where life is no longer about you, and it becomes about Him, and you die in that, the Bible says that's a terrible thing to die as you entered into this world. You can be interrupted and redeemed by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ covered in His precious blood, and He'll make a difference in your life, amen? That doesn't mean you're not gonna still have the temptations of the flesh and all, but there's a difference in the believer's life. Not only is he tempted by the flesh, but he's got a spirit of God living in him, and the spirit won't let him do this. The flesh don't want him to do this. There begins a war going on inside, but that doesn't happen in a common, natural man. That only happens in a a man that's been interrupted by Jesus and put on another course of living. And so I use things like this to help people. See, I want to be known, not just before men, but I want to be known by God as His ambassador, as somebody He can entrust with His good news. Somebody he can entrust with the precious treasures of the Word of God, that I will treat them with honor, that I will respect him and accurately. I want to be as the Apostle Paul asked the church at Colossae when he said, I pray that you pray for me, will you pray for me? That God would open the door for the Word of God to go forth. Now Paul's in prison because of the Word. But he's asking them to pray for him that God would open more doors for the word to go forth. And he said these things that I will preach it as I ought, that I will preach it with authority, that I'll preach it with accuracy, that I'll preach it with compassion and passion in my heart. I mean, if anybody We would seem that didn't need everybody and their brother praying for him to be passionate and accurate with the Word of God. He who wrote more of the New Testament than anybody else, we would never expect him to be asking everybody to pray for him. How much more you think we need people praying for us that we would be accurate? and that we would proclaim the word with authority, that we would be humble and meek and teachable and filled up with God's spirit. Noah was known for what he preached, the waters of judgment. Those waters were personalized to him.