Lord, we love you. And as God, we're reading through all of these announcements and events. It is just a reminder that we live very, very busy lives. And our tendency, Lord, is that we have, we look at our calendar and we see all the events that are taking place and our minds are overwhelmed and we automatically begin planning and what we need to do and where we need to go. And sadly, so often you are overlooked and father in the business of the season, if anything, Lord, it drives us to our knees even more. reminding us, Lord, that we need you to accomplish all of these things. Lord, we pray for all the ministry starting for Awana, for the micro groups, as we think of the ladies starting their Bible studies, and we have the Wednesday night groups, and Lord, there is so much going on. We're thankful, Lord, for a ministry that is busy about your kingdom. Father, we pray your blessing on each ministry leader, and as we have the opportunity to study this morning a really unknown Bible character, I pray, Lord, that you would give us the ability to learn, And Lord, that you would help each of us to grow in a way that we each need. And we pray this in your name, amen. So we've studied throughout the last three months, we've looked at some unlikely heroes in the Bible. And when we say unlikely, they're unlikely for many different reasons. When we started off and we were talking about Enoch, he was unlikely because he was just a plain person. A lot of times when we think about Bible characters, we think of David. We think of Paul. We think of just amazing, amazing people, but then we very easily overlook very simple folks like Enoch. And his greatness was the fact that he was faithful and that he walked with God. We study Joseph and that his brothers despised him. And this was not normal family rivalry. I mean, his brothers literally hated him and cursed him. However, his greatness was in the fact that he trusted God to turn evil into good. and that despite his circumstance that he remained faithful. We've studied the life of Gideon. Gideon was a weak man. He was a fearful man. And so often if we're not careful, we think about our inadequacies and God can never use me because fill in the blank. But God used Gideon and that he was a weak man that was made strong. We could go through so many of these Gideon was a man, I'm sorry, Jonathan was a man who already was great. He actually had a royal heritage, and he actually put himself aside because God's will was greater than his ambition. And that's a struggle right there. When we want to do something great in our eyes, and God says, actually, no, I need someone else to do that. And the humility that it would have taken for Jonathan just Just an overwhelming, I don't think he gets nearly enough credit for who he is. And we could go through so many of these and we studied Gideon two weeks ago and then Will filled in last week and we briefly looked at Samson again and so. A lot of times, we kind of, our exposition, our text, we'll go through a book of the Bible, we'll go through Ephesians, we'll go through Jonah, something like that. And what we've really been doing lately is we've really been looking at a survey approach because the passages are not grouped together, they're very much spread out. And so, we're going to study the person this morning, John Mark. John Mark. And we're going to notice is that his name is mentioned, but it is very scattered. And the way we're studying it is first mention, second mention, third mention, and we're going to see what the Bible says about him in a chronological time frame and what we see about the man. So let's start, if we would, and look at Acts chapter number 12. So here we have the resurrection of Christ, the end of the gospels, beginning of Acts, and we know that the ascension took place, and the same people that persecuted Christ then turned their attention to his believers. Because one of the things that the Jewish leaders did was they played on the Roman government and saying that this man claims to be king. We have no king but Caesar, which they were looking for any angle that they could. And as Christ then ascended and the believer grew, the early church grew, they then shifted their focus. And Christ said, if they're going to hate me, they are going to hate you and a persecution arose in the early church. This same religious group went to the Romans and said that he left a following and these people are a threat to the Roman Empire and it would have started very simple like boycotting. So, for example, the church in Macedonia was a very, very, very poor church. And this is why Paul talked about the offering that they gave to the church in Jerusalem, why it was so significant, because they gave out of their poverty. They were not buying from Jewish businesses. They were going bankrupt. They weren't able to feed their families. The persecution started in just a boycotting matter. And then for those of us who know history, we realize the Romans and the gladiators and Fox's Book of Martyrs and all that takes place. and a persecution blew into full-blown persecution. And we read in Acts chapter number 12, and at that time, Herod the King. Now, if you're not careful, your mind goes all the way back to the beginning of the Gospels. First of all, we have Herod the Great. Isn't such a humble fellow that he gave himself that name, Herod the Great? And a lot of times in history, they would spend their entire tenure as a ruler building great monuments to themselves so people would know how great that they were. However, he was most well known for For what? Spiritually speaking, where does it reference what he did? When Christ was born, he was out there killing babies because he was concerned about his own legacy. Then his son comes on the throne, and this is where we see this guy right here. We have Herod Antipas listed right there. And when it mentions Herod here in this verse, it's talking about this guy right here. And ironically, if you read the end of Acts 13, It's a very gruesome end to the man's life. God does not take well when people try to steal his glory. God is not a glory hog. He was eaten by worms. That's a bad way to go. Sorry, you're eating breakfast, right? Sorry. So that being said, so this is the Herod that we're talking about. And so, and at that time, Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. And what we know is that he likely cared little about the Christian faith. He was most concerned about his political position. And when he looked at this, he killed James, the brother of John. This was not the James we talked about. Okay. The James we talked about a couple of weeks ago was, was James the half brother of Christ. Okay. So that's why we know that it's not the same one. So he killed James, the brother of John with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, it's amazing, even though he's lording over them, he's still trying to please the people. This is why his grandfather built the temple. He was trying to get the favor of the people. And so he saw that what he did, it brought him favor of the people. So he said, well, that worked out really well for me. So I'm going to go and I'm going to do something a little bit extra. And he said, when it saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. And so naturally Peter was a spokesperson. He was the loudest one. He was the guy at Pentecost. So Peter was kept in prison. And then what we find here, if we look at the timeframe, we look at the timeframe, we are around right here. Okay, because we see right there where it says, James the Apostle was martyred. So we're roughly right around AD 44, AD 45. It's roughly around the time frame that we're looking at here. And what we find here is when Peter was kept in prison, earnest prayer for him was being made to God by the church, okay? Then we read in verse number six. Verse number six. Now when Herod, which by the way, if some of you folks would turn to Acts 12, there's something I'd like for someone to read. Now when Herod was about to bring him out on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, so he was not taking any chances whatsoever. He had two soldiers guarding just one man. bound with two chains, and centuries before the door were guarding the prison." So in other words, there was, this would be like a high security, he had people around him, people on the other side of the door, there was not a way in case they tried to stage some kind of coup. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone around in the cell, and he struck Peter on the side and woke up, saying, get up quickly, and the chains fell off his hands. And we read down to verse number 11, After the angel took him and carried him. I mean how that happened. We don't know he got him the chains fell off He went through this gate went through that gate and in verse number 11 when Peter came to himself It's almost like he woke up on a Monday morning. He was groggy Okay, am I sleeping or what? I'm feeling like happened is this legitimately happened or was I dreaming? And we find in verse 11, and when Peter came to himself, he said, now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me. Incredible. But what's more incredible is how humorous this next passage is. So, reading in that, I believe, starting at verse number 12, someone was starting at verse number 12. Not all at once, someone at verse number 12. Just keep going for now. When he realized this, He went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And when he knocked on the door of the gateway, a servant girl named- Whatever her name is, yeah. Came to answer, recognizing Peter's voice. In her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, you are out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, it is his angel. But Peter continued knocking. And when they opened, they saw him and were amazed. So here we have, if you just kind of let your mind just kind of run with this. The church is praying for him. They knew James had gotten martyred for the faith. They know what's going to happen to Peter. They call everyone together. They're praying. God miraculously delivers him. He's knocking on the door. Rhonda goes and sees him, runs and tells everyone, Peter's at the door. And they're like, stop interrupting us. We're praying that God would deliver Peter. OK, literally. And they literally said, you are out of your mind. And meanwhile, where's Peter? Standing at the door, like, hey, I'm waiting. And so when we look at this, it's very easy for us to gloss over the fact that somebody was there. Who was the mother? Mary. Mary, if you remember, is a very common New Testament word, but we found out in our early study that Mary is actually the old word for Miriam. And so it was a very common name for them. But then we find that the son's name was John, which is a Jewish name, and Mark, which was his Gentile name. So what do you think might be some reasonable assumptions that we can figure out about John, Mark, in just this little blurb here? I'm sorry? How so? Okay, so I mean the idea of hearing from Peter because we read in verse verse 17 and Peter described to them How the Lord brought them out of prison hearing firsthand account from Peter? About what just happened that in of itself would be a blessing to hear what else? Folks you got to ask questions you got to think deep when you're reading What can we assume about his mother? obviously, because they're meeting at her house. And so she's offering the hospitality and prayer meeting. There's probably quite a few people there. And so it's a central location for that to be. So there are some early assumptions we can make that are solidified by what we read here in just a little bit. He had a godly mother. He lived in a godly home. His place was a house of worship and prayer. Okay, so we can make some assumptions about that, that he was, to some degree, he was a part, he was a witness, at least, of some of the things that were happening in the early church. Okay, these are some reasonable assumptions that we find out, but this is just a first mention, and so far, that's all we know and all that we can assume. Now we look in verse 25. And Paul and Barnabas returned from Jerusalem. Now, I'm sorry, returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service. What is not in right here, we'll look at it in just a minute, I think it was at the end of Acts 11, and this is again where it's very easy to lose track of all the chronology that takes place in Acts. At the end of Acts 11, Saul is still, now Paul, is very much still in the early church, people are still warming up to him, and we find that Barnabas, the son of Comfort, the one who was the encourager, that he goes to him at Antioch. Antioch is the first place that believers were called Christians. So Jerusalem was the center of the Jewish church and Antioch was the center of the Gentile church. Okay, we think about that. We think about being the capital of the church. Paul and Barnabas are in Antioch because if you read through the book of Acts, Paul literally washes his hands from the Jews and says, I'm going to go to the Gentiles. And so at this point in time, Paul is in Antioch with Barnabas. And they come back to Jerusalem, which is where that we read right here. It says, and Paul and Barnabas returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose name was Mark. So what we are going to see right here is that we are still right there. Paul and Barnabas are about to go on a missionary trip. They have just come back from Antioch. And Paul and Barnabas say, you know, it's great that, you know, here in Antioch, we've got a super great church, but there's people who need Christ. And you notice that all of Paul's missionary journeys, if you just do like a simple Google search, Google image search, Paul's heart and passion was Asia Minor. Okay, that's why he wrote in Ephesus, Thessalonica, and Corinth, and all of those, that entire area, which we'll look at in just a minute. And so Paul and Barnabas say, you know what? We're gonna go on a missionary trip, and we're going to take John Mark with us, all right? Now, in verse 20, now why do you think that they would have taken John Mark with them? They must have known he had something that he could offer. Okay. He's respected. Very good. Obviously, because he would have grown up and so he would have had some references that would have said he would be worthy of taking. So he had probably some character references. He would have had a godly background. He, likely they saw something in him. Okay, and I think absolutely all of these are true. Something else we find out in Colossians was that he was also the cousin of Barnabas. He had some family ties. And so kind of going back and saying his, not only his mom vouched for him, but his cousin vouched for him and saying, I know he has something to offer us. Although it's overlooked, Paul oftentimes used a lot of different people in his missionary journeys. He would send people weeks ahead of him to prepare. place to find a place for them to worship to be able to secure whatever they needed and then once he got there of course I think a Billy Graham crusade all right so there have been a lot of people that would have been inside that operation but then when he left he would leave people to then operate the church so so yes so Paul had so when we think of Paul and Barnabas there was more than Paul and Barnabas involved in his missionary trips So he had a godly heritage. He would have had gifts. And because we have so many needs on these trips, I'm sure he would be a help to us. And by the way, he has a family connection and his cousin vouched for him. So then we find the third mention of him. The third mention of him. Now, and of course, you're going to find some differences of opinion when you look at his missionary journeys and different timetables and all that. It is estimated that Paul, in his three missionary journeys, traveled over 100,000 miles without a car, without a plane, 100,000 miles. His first missionary journey took about a year and a half. His second missionary journey took about two to three years, and his last missionary journey took anywhere from four to six. So when Paul went, he was going for the long haul. And what we read in Acts 13, because this again is the timeframe when Paul is starting his first official missionary journey, In Acts chapter three, verses four and five. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, which by the way, you'll notice again, right there, there's Antioch. That was the center of the Gentile church, okay? They went down to Seleucia, and from there, they sailed to Cyprus, right here. They arrived at Salamis. And again, you see the spots listed right here. When they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John to assist them. So we see once again, John Mark, okay? Simple little blurbs. So far we just have, he's just barely mentioned by name, little blurbs, which is so easy for us to overlook Bible characters like this when they're disconnected and not in a narrative. And so, it did not take long for things to get interesting. Paul described it this, we read it this way in Acts 13, verse six. And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician. a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elimus, the magician, that is the meaning of his name, Bar-Jesus, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him, and he said, Bless your heart." No, there actually is no grace whatsoever in this narrative. He looked at him intently and said, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, fool of all deceit and villainy. Will you not stop making crooked the straight path of the Lord? And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time. Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. And the proconsul said, I believe, I believe. I don't want that to happen to me. I thought it was funny. And when he saw that this occurred, he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. Not only that, but in Galatians 4.13, Paul says that shortly after leaving Paphos, this passage, that he was struck with a physical ailment. Many people believe it was something like malaria, something that would have brought him very weak and even to the point of death. Paul's mindset was one of being driven. If we go to earlier in Acts, Acts 6 or Acts 7, where it talks about Paul, Saul at the time, he breathed threatenings on the church. And he was a man who was so passionately driven, And he took that same drive on his mission strips. He was driven. He was committed. He was focused. That very same passion that he persecuted the church, he took with him for the gospel. And that is why we read in every one of his epistles that his passion for the gospel just oozes off of every page. He describes to Timothy, be a good soldier for Jesus Christ. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It's not going to be easy Paul describes in 2nd Corinthians chapter number 11 what it was like for him on his missionary journeys People bought me coffees. They put me up in nice hotel rooms They gave me a nice speaker stipend He says this in stripes above measure. I can't even how many times I got beat I in prisons more frequent and deaths often. Of the Jews, five times received I 40 stripes, save one, 39. Twice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, but not in that way. Thrice I suffered shipwreck, which by the way, in one of those occasions being shipwrecked, as soon as he got to shore, they built a fire and a poisonous serpent bit his hand. It's like the man just can't catch a break. Even when I got shipwrecked, even when I was floating on a log, I finally got to shore and I got bit by a snake. It's just, it was a Monday, I'm sure. in journeyings often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings, in cold and nakedness, and besides all those things, I've got the stress of dealing with people in church. And we read about John. He said, yeah, I'm out. I'm out. Yeah, for that reason, I'm out. They had just started the missionary journey. This is not like year four. They're like in month three, probably. They were literally on the very first island, on their second stop, and John Mark says, I can't deal with this. And all that we read about him is John left. That's all we read, and John left. What words at this point would you use to describe John Mark? I mean, let's be honest. Oh, she's being spiritual. Come back to that. Come back to that. Let's speak fleshly for a minute. How would we describe this fellow? You're a quitter. I mean, he would have said, Paul would have said, I was counting on you. Like I was counting on you to set up my tent for me. I was setting on you to go do whatever and you left me. You quit on me. And honestly, when we think about these things, how typically do we react to people who leave us high and dry? Not well. I mean, you would just think about, well, he lacks grit. He lacks tenacity. He lacks commitment. I bet he doesn't even love Jesus. I mean, can you just imagine? Now granted, I think we're reading into the text a little bit. I mean, I can't imagine Paul. I mean, Paul was driven. So I can't imagine that he reacted well. Although we know Paul was not a stranger to people abandoning him. What we find here is that John Mark, it doesn't tell us why, but we probably have a pretty good reason to know why he left. He left. Then we get to our fifth mention of John Mark in Acts 15. Going back to the very same graphic, they spent about roughly a year and a half away on the first missionary journey. And for in the book of Acts, we have what's called the Jerusalem Council, and that's around in Acts 15. This is where The Gentiles are coming to Christ. Should we force the law on them? Should we make them Jewish proselytes? What do we do with the Gentiles? And this is where the who's who came in. This is Peter came into town. This is where Paul and Barnabas came into town. All the elders in the Jerusalem church, including James, the half brother of Jesus was there. This was like the who's who. And they brought in every heavy hitter they could do it because they were struggling with how do we look at the Old Testament? We look at the gospel and how do we treat the Gentiles? That was Acts 15. That is the council there at Jerusalem. And you'll notice here right after that, Paul and Barnabas say, you know what? Now that that's settled, we're gonna go back to our calling. We're going back to the Gentiles. Because even though we just got back, you know, the first church that we stopped at, actually, it's probably been about a year and a half before we've been at that church. Although ironic, I think the second missionary journey, I think they actually went north and around instead of, they kind of went reverse. And so he says, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Awesome, great, super great thing. Although they will be gone twice as long. It's important to know they will be gone twice as long, right? And Barnabas says, you know, I've got an idea. Let's take John Mark. Now, how do you think Paul reacted to that? You must be out of your mind. Because you remember when we needed someone and he abandoned us. You remember that I gave him all... Barnabas, remember, who was the guy that recommended him? You were. Thank you very much, by the way. And he left us high and dry and burned me once, shame on you, burned me twice. Shame on me, and so we're not gonna do that. And what we find here is that there arose a sharp disagreement between them that they literally could not resolve. So they separated one from another. Now, right then and there, what is the irony of this? What is the irony that Paul would not give John Mark a second chance? And not only that, who was the person who gave him the second chance, who vouched for him? Barnabas. And Barnabas said, I think we should do it. And Paul says, I have no patience for him. He's a quitter. And Barnabas said, I tell you what, I'm going to do the same thing for him that I did for you. And how about we just part ways? And so we read that Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, which now makes sense why Paul went the opposite direction. He said, well, if you're going there, I'm starting in reverse. OK? And so, and then ironically, in chapter 16 is when Timothy, Paul's son in the faith, joins. And it's amazing, even in disagreements, that God works together things for good. And Timothy is brought in there. And so, having been commanded by the brothers to the grace of the Lord, and he went through Syria and Cilicia, and so again, he went north and went around strengthening the churches. And so, if you look at this cool little, these cool little graphics here, if you look at where Acts ends, right there, about chapter 28, we find that the book of Acts ends somewhere around AD 62. Okay, somewhere around AD 62. And you could again see when we look at other ones in here, I've got some other notes in here. So the book of Acts ends somewhere around AD 60 to AD 62. You'll find some disagreements with a couple of historians, but it's around that timeframe. And at the very end, you'll notice that Paul is extradited. He's extradited all the way to Rome. And this is where he's in a crowd and he says, I appeal to Caesar, is where he says. And as a Roman citizen, he was allowed to literally appeal his case directly to Caesar. And that's where he gets put on a boat, and he gets shipped to Rome. He's on house arrest. And so inside of that, this is where we find where it's called his prison epistles. And again, there's a lot of disagreement, but Paul used his social distancing to write some books of the Bible. He said, if I've got to be isolated and by myself, I'm going to spend my time praying, I'm gonna spend my time writing to the churches. And we find here that he has his first Roman imprisonment, and we see that he has Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians. And so we see that there's roughly right here about at least 10 years, 10 to 12 years between where the book of Acts ends and where you see right here where Colossians is at. You guys see that, okay? So now what we, this is important, Colossians is being written about 10 to 15 years after the last mention of Mark. John Mark literally disappears and we don't know anything about him anymore in the book of Acts, nothing at all. Until we get to the book of Colossians. And now we read the fifth mention, Colossians 4.10. as Paul often is, kind of writing off salutations at the end of his letter, tell so and so, so I said, hey, tell so and so, I said, what's up, tell so and so, grace and peace be with you, okay? What we read in chapter four, verse 10, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you, and notice Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him. That's not the same Paul that we saw in Acts 15 that says, no way. We read in 2 Timothy chapter 4, which by the way, 2 Timothy was written probably at least four to six years after Colossians. So we're not talking about a one-time blurb. We're not talking about 15 years after John Mark abandoned Paul. And he says, Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him. And notice what he says, he's profitable to me. He's beneficial to me for the ministry. And then in Philemon, which we're going to come back to next week, Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so does Mark, and he calls him my fellow worker. Something has changed. If we can just be flat-out honest, if we have ever given up, how do we typically feel about ourselves? Not great. I feel ashamed. I feel embarrassed. Matter of fact, I should probably not even try. I've fallen down, and why would God ever use me? If we're honest, how difficult would it have been for John Mark to have disappointed Paul? I mean, he wrote it in a letter that he gave up. And here we find that John Mark was a hero because he came back from quitting. Every one of us face the temptation to quit, to quit a marriage, to quit our parenting, to quit being a good testimony in school. Every one of us have that temptation to quit. I tried, and it was hard. As a matter of fact, if this is how hard it is, I'm out. But here we have a man, John Mark, who came back. When we think about the life of John Mark, which I do have some application points, but what can I live, what can I learn from the life of John Mark? You personally, not something for everybody, but for you personally, the life of John Mark, what does it say to me personally? Don't quit. And if I do quit, go back. Get yourself back up. Just because you're down doesn't mean you have to stay down. Because if anything, the devil is a master at making us ashamed. The devil is a master at isolating us, thinking no one else in the history of Christianity has ever given up except you, and you're not even worth Christ dying for. As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, if you were a believer, you wouldn't have given up in the first place. You're a good for nothing nobody. And honestly, our tendency is to say, you're probably right. And we just, we sulk and we sit. And if the devil can captivate you by fear and anxiety, what good are you going to accomplish for the kingdom of Christ? Nothing, nothing. If you have found yourself a quitter, you are in very good company. Who in the Bible was also a quitter? Peter. And that was the first person my mind went to. He quit, he cursed, he denied. And one of the first things Jesus said to the women at the tomb is, tell Peter. You talk about some encouragement. Hey, I know you quit, but I want you to know I still love you, and you can still do something for Christ. Pick yourself back up. Who else? Jonah, the word of the Lord came to him. He wasn't happy about it, but it did come to him a second time. I thought about Jeremiah. Jeremiah lost his wife, and God says you're not even allowed to weep for her. Get back out there and start prophesying. And Jeremiah said this, he said, I will not make mention of him anymore. I will not make mention of his name. But there was a fire that was in his heart, he said, and I could not, I was weary of forbearing. It was that ember, every time I tried to stomp it out, every time I quit, the word of the Lord came back to me and it just fired up all over again. If you are tempted in quitting, You are in good company. Elijah quit when Jezebel threatened his life. And God says, in his grace, I love you too much to let you go. You quit, I'm not letting you go, come back. Even in these passages, Paul quit on John Mark? Very much so. If you find yourself a quitter, to be a quitter, that's better English, sorry, God's grace is sufficient to redeem. Proverbs remind us that even a just man falls, but he gets back up. If you find yourself falling, you find yourself failing, okay, you're human. In God's grace, get back up. Don't be a washout. Don't just say, that's it, I'm done and I messed up because you are in a company of people who mess up. We have a book filled with case studies of real people who face the exact same struggles and they quit. Just because you fail does not mean you're done. God's grace is greater than that. If you are tempted to quit, which Paul was, he said, I've got this thorn in my side, and I've kept going back to God again and again and again, and God says, I'm not gonna take it from you, but what I am going to do is I'm gonna give you my grace. God does not promise to take away the hardship. He does not promise us a carefree life. But what he does offer is his grace that strengthens us. He gives us his grace that encourages us on our difficult days when our heart is wrestling in spiritual warfare and anger and bitterness and all that. His grace is greater. We serve a sovereign God who, despite knowing everything about me, still chooses to love me. And folks, John Mark, If we only read the first couple mentions of him, we would probably have a completely different devotional this morning. But folks, what we read is that God does not give up on broken people because that's all he has to use. Not that he has to use us, but he chooses to. So folks, if you're struggling, don't give up. And if you have given up, get back up. Not in your own flesh, because we know that without him we could do nothing. It's God's spirit and his grace, and we're thankful that we serve a God that does. Sam.