Mission

You know, I'm feeling great, man. I tell you what, it's just awesome to be here today. I'm going to save a few announcements until the end and share a little bit of what's coming up and what's happening. But I thought I would just kind of transition right into the message today since this is a condensed service and we've got kids in here and we're trying to move through quickly so that they don't get too rowdy or too, you know, you know how kids are, you know, having them into church. Man, when I was a kid, we didn't have youth ministry, so that was a long time ago.

There was churches we were at that didn't even have youth ministry. We had to sit in there with my mom and my mom would have me all straightened up in the seat, you know, you better behave yourself. And we had to kind of sit there. We wanted to play and do things, but I know how it is, kids, and we're excited to get the kids back together. And it looks like that's probably going to happen soon.

We're still watching and seeing what other people are doing and what other ministries and other daycares and things like that are doing and how they're doing it. So, we're keeping close watch on that so that we can begin our kids' ministry once again. We want to do it right. The kids don't social distance well, and they're all over each other. So, you know, this is why we're doing this right now.

And I know that many of you are watching online right now because you're not ready to come back. And I get that. And your kids, you're not ready to bring your kids back. But we're looking at possibly doing that the week after 4th of July weekend, which not next weekend, but the following weekend. That's just tentatively what we're talking about.

We want to see if we're capable of doing it. And if we have to do things a little differently with the kids' ministry just to make it work for us so that we can keep the guidelines in place by the CDC, we will do that. So, be excited about that. Be looking for that. Keep up with us.

And stay plugged in with us. If you're not here with us today and you're online watching right now, stay plugged in with us. In fact, comment below. We've got people interacting online with you right now. We want to see you.

We want to see your presence here. Start, you know, if I make a good point today, I want you to say, amen, and shout it out on social media right there on Facebook Live. We would love for you to be a part of that. We're beginning a new message series today called Church and Culture. Church and Culture.

Church being who we are, gathering around an idea, right? And then culture being the time or a period in which values and where we express what we believe, the belief system of a particular person in a particular time. So, how does that all interact? Most mainstream society teaches us one way to act and respond when we're faced with uncertainty, when we're faced with crisis, and when we're faced with a lot of the things that we're faced with today, right? We live in a world that is the world, but we are different than the world.

And that's kind of what I want to talk about today. How does the church respond? How does the church live out their values in a world that's everything but their values? So, the big idea of this message and what I want to get across is that our culture becomes, as our culture becomes more broken and sick, the more counterculture we become, the more attractive we will be rather than trying to be like the culture to attract people. We are attractive in a different way.

There's something different there that people are attracted to. And in our society, in a society of anger and division and racism and polarization and meanness and rudeness and fear and disrespect, and all those things that we deal with, hopelessness really is what it comes across as. The Christ-like values of peace and unity and kindness and compassion and courtesy and respect, and all the things that shine out in the Christian life should shine even more during this time. So, we're counterculture. So, the subtitle of this, Church and Culture, is counterculture living in an age of outrage.

And it certainly is an age of outrage, amen? I mean, we see a lot of outrage in the world, and how do we react in an age of outrage? It's very important that we look at it. So, over the next few weeks, it'll be a shorter series, but I wanted to really tackle, felt the Lord lead me. How do we, as a church, really respond?

And how do we act? When we put on our Christian hats, when we're wearing our Christian labels, when we put on our Christian shirts, you know, who are we supposed to be? Do we look like the world? Do we look like culture? Or are we countercultural?

Or do we have a counterculture, something that people are actually attracted to? And so, we're going to look at that. So, next week, we're going to talk about counterculture compassion. How do we live counterculture compassionately? The following week, we're going to talk about community.

How important it is for us to be a community of different types of people, with different types of ideology, but yet, we're under the banner of Christ. And how do we live that out? How do we be brothers and sisters? How do we live counterculturally in that way? As you know, people are disunified.

Their friendships are broken over different ideologies. How do we come together as a Christ-like people? Different colors, different ideas, different thoughts, different places, different cultures, and things like that, don't we? Because we do want to be a culturally relevant church, amen? So, when you think of the word mission, in fact, today's message is counterculture mission.

Let me just throw that up first. Counterculture mission, living on mission. How do we be counterculturally missional? When you hear that word mission, what's the first thing you think about? You think about a missions trip, probably.

You think about going to another culture that's different than you, and they do things different than you, and maybe you're the only one in that culture that actually stands out, right? I think about one of my favorite mission trips that I've ever been on was in East Africa. I love East Africa. The people there are so friendly. Apparently, it was about early winter for them, and it was early spring for us, and we were leaving.

I was leaving the States, and it was getting a little warmer, but it was still a little cold. But when I arrived in East Africa, in Kenya, Africa, I got out of the plane, and the funny thing was everybody had coats and coffee. Their hands, and they were doing this, but I walked out, and it was like 75 or 78 degrees out there, and I was like, this is completely different to where I came from. We were still hitting 40 and 50 degrees at home, right, because it's a little different there, and they're kind of structured to not be able to take, because they're used to their environment. And it was interesting, being in a place like East Africa, and other places in the world as well as Central America, South America, and in a culture where you don't really stand out, me, a white American boy, I don't really stand out all that much, outside of maybe being a ginger, you know, sometimes gingers stand out a little more.

People call you out, hey, you ginger over there, you're a ginger, so, and that happens a little bit, possibly, but not really. I mean, you don't stand out a whole lot, but being in a country like that, you definitely stand out. The kids there, they loved my hairy arms, you know, my blonde hair on my arms, and they would just rub it and look at it, and they would just see me and see me as something different. And in that culture, it was so different. Even the way they did church was nothing like the way we do church.

It was completely different. They didn't care if they had tuned guitars. We're struggling even before service sometimes to get our audio and our video fixed, and being a mobile church and coming into a new facility, we're trying to work out all the hiccups right now, and we get a little, you know, been out of shape. I'm back there. We've got to get this going.

We've got to get this going because we've got to start church at 10. We don't do 10.30 anymore. We do 10 o'clock. And I just realized my glasses are on.

I got a point to that. I got a point for that later on, so I just hit my glasses there. I was like, hey, my sunglasses are on. This is perfect. I'm culturally relevant, guys.

But what I wanted to say here is they didn't care. They had, you know, broken strings. They had off-key guitars. They barely had electricity there, so they were just happy to have an electronic keyboard, and it sounded like a steel, you know, one of those steel drums. And they're not even hitting the right notes, and everybody's just bouncing back and forth, and they're clapping.

And here I am. I don't dance, okay? Like, the Book of Second Opinion says, Thou shalt not dance if your name is Leon Dunning. And I'm just not a great dancer. So, and that's my opinion, and I think my opinion is factual, so I will stay away from dancing.

But in that environment, there was a lot of dancing. So we're just dancing back and forth, and I'm doing my Elaine dance, you know. And if you're Seinfeld fans, you know what I'm talking about here, you know, kind of doing this and doing that. But it was just a different environment. And they're excited, and they're happy, and they're looking at you, and it didn't really matter.

And just a different culture altogether as far as church was concerned. Another thing that was different is the way they evangelize. Here, if you're a street evangelist, what happens? You get pegged as a Bible beater, right? So we're heading to a village, a village out kind of north of Nairobi, a very small town, barely had electricity.

A lot of people were still living in kind of mud huts and things like that. And on our way there, the missionary looks over at me, and he says, Leon, evangelist Leon. He talked like that. He just got you all excited when he talked to you. He says, Pastor evangelist Leon, guess what you're going to do today?

I said, what am I going to do today? You're going to lead people to Christ through evangelism. You're going to get up there in the corner of the street and evangelize. And I'm like, I am? You didn't tell me about this.

He says, yeah, you're going to do that, and you're going to go out there. And I'm going to take a picture of you and put you on our little news thing, you know. And I'm like, okay, here we go. Because at home, you don't do that, you know. The way we evangelize is a little different.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I mean, there's some people that do it really well on the streets. And if that's your calling, go for it. But for me, it was like, I don't even know how to do this. And so I said, what am I even going to talk about?

What am I going to speak on? And so I, you know, thought about the 99, how Jesus left the 99 for the one. I said, that's perfect. Because, you know, there's a lot of sheep herders around there. And they understand what sheep and shepherds are and all that good stuff.

So I'm like walking up on stage, and there's this little, and again, they had like a, that guy with that keyboard, he's doing that, right? And he's got that going on. And it's like a dirt path you're on, you know. And everybody's kind of walking out. And just out of nowhere, there's these people just gathering around by the hundreds.

And they're just dancing. And half of them aren't even saved. They're just like, whoo, there's music. And there's electricity. And here we are dancing.

And then I'm like, man, look at this. And I don't, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. Because I'm like, I've never done this like Billy Graham type evangelism before we get up there and tell people they need to come to Christ. It's just a different culture, you know. And I said, is this even going to work?

And Reverend Phillip List, who was the missionary who told me I was going to speak, he's just smiling, looking, I can't wait, I can't wait, you know. And so I walk up there on stage with my Bible. And I have a translator beside me. And this is pretty cool. So I walk out there.

And I'm looking at this. And I said, man, this message is going to be so simple. I don't know. I'm not really an evangelist, you know. And so I start sharing the message.

And I say, so there was this shepherd. And the guy beside me was like, yeah, you know. And I don't even know what he was saying. It was like Swahili. Because most people spoke his wife.

And I said, man, this sounds good. And I said, and he was pumping me up. And he was like, he was just going at it. And it was amazing. And people were responding.

And it was just a powerful, powerful moment. And we saw, you know, people come to Christ that day. It was just a really amazing experience for me. But it was very uncomfortable for me. But sometimes being uncomfortable brings about what God's purpose is in your situation.

Being uncomfortable is actually a calling in our life. So let me start off by saying this. The Christian life, if you want to hit that first point, the Christian life is a mission trip. The Christian life is a mission trip. Now, if you don't have notes, I realize we don't have physical notes today.

But if you go to your YouVersion Bible app, you look at the events section, find Salt Church. It should pop up if you're close to the area. Or type it in. And you can go to the notes section and follow us there if you need to. But the Christian life is a mission trip.

Okay? It's a mission trip. And we say things like, live on mission. You hear me talk about living on mission. But really what it is, is we are on a mission from God.

As Christians, we are on a mission from God, and one of our core values is we want to go and change the world. We are making a difference. We say salt always makes a difference, and we are called on mission to change the world and make a difference, but sometimes making a difference isn't easy, and it's going to be uncomfortable. So I'm challenging you and pushing you out to be a mission trip. Your life should be a mission trip, and you should live on mission, being uncomfortably uncomfortable.

Comfortably uncomfortable. So John 20, Jesus appears to the disciples as they were hiding, and he shows them his hands in his side, and they were worried about, you know, the authorities and being crucified themselves because of what was happening with Jesus, and so they were in a very uncomfortable place, but then they saw Jesus, and they saw his hands in his side, and they rejoiced, but some were still quiet with disbelief and not really believing. But he said this, he said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

And that still echoes today. 2,000 years later, Salt Church is a church that is sent with people that are being sent by Christ. Here I am, Salt Church, I'm sending you. I'm giving you the authority to live on mission in your community and your sphere of influence. So it's important you get this, that because the mission we are on, it matters in the moment we're living.

It matters in the moment we're living. Everything in the world that we're facing today, it couldn't be a more exciting time for you to be alive, to share, and be on mission. There's no place in the world where things like this aren't happening. There's brokenness, there's anger, there's frustration. Some places, they have political divisions.

Other places have cultural divisions. Other places have financial divisions, rich people and poor people, a large gap between. There's always divisions. So the mission we are in is impacted by the mission we are on. The mission we are in, the culture we are in, impacts the mission we are on.

So what do we do? The second point I want to make, Christians live and look differently. Christians live and look, we are different people. We live and look differently. Rick Warren is one of my heroes in church planting and into faith.

If you don't know him, purpose-driven life, church is purpose-driven church. The father of contextualizing church. If you're going to reach somebody in a particular culture, you've got to contextualize your church to reach that culture, which is, you know, my Hawaiian shirt today represents Rick Warren because he planted a church 30-something years ago. I believe that's how long ago, it might have been longer than that, called Saddleback Church in Southern California. And he is known, or was known, he hasn't worn those shirts in a while because they probably went out of style for a little while.

I don't know. Maybe Southern California changed a little bit, but he is known for his Hawaiian shirt. And this was a Southern Baptist pastor that wore suits and ties that moved to Southern California and became a contextualized pastor and grew a movement that is now reaching every people group in the world through Saddleback Church, a missions-oriented church. Amazing. But he wrote this.

He said, as our culture becomes more broken and sick, the more counterculture we become and the more attractive we will be. Rather than trying to be like the culture to attract people, get that. Now, this is the guy who wore Hawaiian shirts to attract people, right? To attract people, what is attractive today is really something completely different. And that's kind of interesting.

But I think what he's trying to get across here in contextualization is that we are a culturally relevant church, relevant in that we can connect with culture and culture, we can reach culture because we look a little bit like culture, but we don't live like culture. We look like culture, but we don't live like culture. So we are a culturally relevant church that is developing counterculture disciples. We are a culturally relevant church that develops counterculture disciples. So we want to be a church that is contextually appropriate, but living radically different lives.

Radically different lives. Some churches look different than the world, but they live like the world. We're going to be a church that looks somewhat, when they look into the windows of the church, oh, those people are sort of like me. They have same interests of me. They dress a little bit but when they discover who we are, we are attractional because we live radically different lives.

And that's what he's getting across here. Look at Philippians 2, 14 and 15. It says this, do everything without grumbling and arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. Don't you just love that last part?

There's three things we can get. Let's just break down this verse just for a minute. First of all, without grumbling. Do everything without grumbling or arguing. If we're going to be different, we need to do everything without grumbling and arguing.

Some of you are like, well, I'm out. I'm done. Some of you are looking at your spouse and, well, you're out. Maybe she needs to, or he needs to listen to this message, right? And some of you are like, how in the world do we do that?

There, but there is not a person in this auditorium that can't say that this is something that we can all work on. Everybody has to work on grumbling and complaining. And the more you love like Jesus, the more you look like Jesus. Because 1 John says this in chapter 4 verse 16, God is love and all who live in love live in God and God lives in them. And as they live in God, our love grows what?

More perfectly. It grows more perfectly. It grows more perfect. And the more you love Jesus, the more you look like Jesus. And the last thing that people want to do in an age of outrage is love.

In fact, we're taught from an early age, if someone punches you, what do you do? You punch them back. We fight them back, right? We fight them back. And we are taught that, but Jesus teaches us something about living in perfect love, that we actually become love as we grow closer to God, which leads me to my next point, and that's standing out.

If we dig back back in Philippians 2, it's... So that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like the stars in the sky. So a warped and crooked generation, guess what, was no different than it is today. Two thousand years ago it was a warped and crooked generation.

So generations haven't changed. It is a dark world, but what I love about what he says about stars shining is that when it's dark and when it is a dark world, stars shine, right? They become very clear and they can become very apparent. And my daughter and I were out, or my son and I rather, were out the other day and we were looking at the stars and I was explaining to them how, you know, billions of light years away these huge stars that are much bigger than our star exist and how overwhelming that is. But we are like those stars when we're in a dark world, when we're living the way, when we're living different, and in light of the gospel we are attractional.

We do not look like the people or act like the people. We might somewhat look like the people because we're wearing sunglasses on our shirt and wearing Hawaiian shirts, but we are different living people. And this is what we're getting across here. Look at Romans 12, 2. It says, don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your eyes on God and you'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, here it is, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity. So that's what happens when we become, we live like the culture. When we live like the culture, we become immature.

But God brings what? The best out of you. That means God wants the best for you. And he brings the best out of you, well-developed, formed maturity in you. But for many of us, social media and newsreels form our maturity.

They form our discipleship. They form our spiritual transformation. I mean, social media, Facebook only being about 11 years old on the phone, on a mobile device, and how it has radically killed Christian discipleship. It has misrepresented the name of Christ. It's caused many Christians to have damaged their witness by not sharing out the gospel, but instead becoming angry, angry at each other, causing division.

I can't tell you how many times I have saw a comment or seen a, or there's a comment put on social media, and you look at it and you say, that's not right. That's not good. Who's putting that up? And you go to that profile and you find out it's a follower of Christ, follower of Jesus, or a pastor even, or a teacher. And you say, wow, that's just not what we're supposed to be doing.

And the third point I want to make is holding firm. Holding firm. So how do we hold firm? It says in Philippians 2.15, as you hold firmly to the word of life, ending that scripture there, right?

There's a lot of things we can hold firmly to, the things we believe in. And listen, if you are a follower of Christ, if you say that Christ, Jesus, is the only way, if you believe that he is the only way to heaven, you believe that he died on the cross for people's sin, and you tell people about this, and you preach to people about this, and you teach people about this, guess what? It's not going to be popular. So what we believe, the things that we believe, are not very popular. They're counterculture.

So we can't just wins them our way through everything, but we can live a life that does reflect Christ in an attractional way. So we, things that we believe is part of holding firm, and then it's how we live. Because if we believe it, and we're not living that way, then what's the point, right? So whatever happens in Philippians 1.27, it says, whatever happens, conduct.

Just take that word and just say conduct. How is your conduct? Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you, or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel. Philippians 1.

1. Can, can you say that? That you practice good conduct? Conduct around everyone when, when nobody's around, when you're, you're, you're by yourself, and no church people are around, or none of your brothers in Christ, and sisters in Christ are around. Do you practice good conduct?

Because people think that spiritual maturity is based on how many scriptures you know, and how many, how much Bible trivia you know, or whatever it might be. But if you know all, but if you have all the knowledge, but you're not living out your conduct, then you're not spiritually mature. You're not spiritually mature. And we need to be well, well-informed, spiritually mature disciples of Christ. And it leads me to a third point.

Christians live as ambassadors. So we are Christ's ambassadors, according to 2 Corinthians 5.20. God is making his appeal through us, and we speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God. So in context, Paul is talking about he and his contraband of, of guys who are going out and sharing the gospel and preaching and teaching, right?

But this applies to the church. This, this applies to the church in general. And so, so we are called as ambassadors for Christ. We stand and we share and we show the love of Jesus as ambassadors of Christ. And for, for many, it's, it's not easy to be an ambassador of Christ across the world.

It costs people their lives. It costs people their jobs. It has even cost people their children. It has cost people, uh, very difficult and painful situations. But Hebrews says it provokes us to love and good deeds.

I, I don't know if you remember, a few years ago, there was this story of a girl named Amber Geiger who murdered, uh, Botham Jean, a 26-year-old accountant in his apartment. It was a mistaking, a mistaken act. She walked into the apartment. She thought it was hers. It was one of those identical apartment complexes.

She hit the second floor instead of the third floor, saw him in there. He was a black young man. And obviously she, she, she, she thought he was intruding and, and, uh, and maybe a little prejudice in the way she was looking. and shot him dead immediately on the spot. It was just a horrible situation.

She was off a duty police officer, in fact. By cultural standards, the family had every right to want this woman to be locked up forever and to burn in hell. In fact, somebody even said that at one particular post. You know, this woman has no business even being alive the way she treated and acted. It was an act of prejudice.

It was an act of racism for her to walk in there and see a black man and think that he was robbing her place. And here's what his, and there's two parts to this. Here's what Botham's mother says. His forgiveness for us as Christians is healing for us. So he just said, we forgive him.

But she did say this, but as my husband said, there are consequences and it doesn't mean that everything else we have suffered here has to go unnoticed. It doesn't mean that. So, you know, but what really got me, what really was shocking was this moment where an 18-year-old teenager, and if you don't believe that teenagers can make a difference in this world, you're sadly mistaken. You're sadly wrong. They have powerful testimonies.

He made a statement that just blew everyone away when the world and the culture was saying, you are outraged for reason. You are, there's reason for you to act the way you act and do the things you do. You have outrage for reason. But a follower of Christ says something completely different. And we have a video up here to play, that courtroom appearance where he was on the court bench testifying of what happened.

Could you play that for me, team? I can speak for myself. I forgive you. I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you. I don't think anyone could say it.

Again, I'm speaking for myself, not even bad for my family. But I love you just like anyone else. I'm not going to say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did, but I personally want the best for you. And I wasn't going to ever say this in front of my family or anyone, but I don't even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you.

Because I know that's exactly what Botham would want you to do. And the best would be give your life to Christ. I'm not going to say anything else. I think giving your life to Christ would be the best thing that Botham would want you to do. Again, I love you as a person.

And I don't wish anything bad on you. I don't know if this is possible, but can I give her a hug, please? Please? Yes. What we see here is an 18-year-old young man who sat in a witness seat testifying for his brother's murder.

And he shares Jesus. You can cut that and get off team. He shares Jesus. But not only does he share Jesus, but he shows. He shows.

He shares and he shows Jesus in a time and age of outrage. An ambassador of Christ. Point four, and lastly in ending this, is Christians look like impious Galileans. Impious Galileans. Some of you are like, what in the world is that?

And I'm going to end with a bit of church history here. 252 AD, a devastating plague broke across the city of Carthage. And Cyprian was bishop of Carthage at the time. He's a saint. He's as this plague was breaking out.

Many of the Christians during this time were very marginalized. And a lot of people think that Christianity just exploded in the first century, but it actually did. And it happened in the middle of the second and the third century because of this man and this wild idea that if we love because he first loved us, as found in 1 John 4, 19, that this could be a revolutionary thing. So he calls the Christians together in the middle of this plague. And what was happening in that time, people were burning bridges, people were burning homes with people in it.

They were so fearful of the plague and for the virus that they were just doing everything they could to eliminate anything that could happen to them. And here he pulls the Christians together and he says, we're going to be different. And he says this very thing as he writes in his memoirs. He says, I call you to give personal and financial aid to all according to their need, not their faith. Isn't that interesting?

We are going to care for those or care for the sick and the dying. So instead, we are going to share and show the love of Jesus. About a century later, there was a man named Julian the Apostate. Julian the Apostate. You've probably heard him in church history.

No, his mother didn't name him apostate. It was a tag that was put on him for some historical stuff that happened. He was a pagan emperor and he wanted to do everything he could because of this very thing that was put in place, the Christian church began to grow. It grew by the millions and millions and millions. And he was like, wow, how are we going to stop these guys?

Because he was a pagan emperor and they were worshiping another god as opposed to the gods that they are supposed to be serving. So he did everything he could and could not stop them. And he said this, he says, while the pagan priests neglect the poor. For the hated Galileans, and I'll get to that in a second, devote themselves to works of charity. These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also, welcoming them in their agape.

What is an impious Galilean? Impious simply means an atheist, in his term, because they weren't worshiping the gods of his time and his world, and they had, they believed in the one true God, Jesus Christ, therefore they worshiped, in his opinion, a false god, although they were worshiping the true God. And he called them Galileans because they followed this man named Jesus, this man named Jesus, a Galilean. So my question for you is, are you an impious Galilean? Are you an impious Galilean?

Are you a follower of Jesus? Are you willing to step out and share and show the love of Jesus in a culture that is completely opposite of what you believe and think? That you live a radically different life for the glory of the kingdom of God. Imagine a church, imagine a church named Salt Church that lives that way, that goes out in your sphere of influence, your community, your world, living on mission, in a mission trip. You are a mission trip.

Amen. Let's pray. And as we reflect just for a minute, online, I want you to pray with me as well. I think it's important that I ask this question. Are you an impious Galilean?

Some of you, maybe you've never even heard of this man named Jesus, or you've heard of him, but you never really knew what it really, whether it really made a difference. But I tell you from the bottom of my heart today, wherever you are in your spiritual walk, whether you're going to grow closer to Christ, or whether you want to just receive Christ for the first time, I tell you, you're welcomed and you're wanted, and you could be changed, you could be transformed, and I beg and plead with you. Today is the day to make that decision. Do you want to be and have the hope that these people had in church history and that we have today as we live counter-culturally? You can make that decision today.

You are welcomed and you are wanted as a child of God. If you would pray this with me today, Father, my desire is to be one of these Galileans, these impious Galileans, to serve the one true God and to make a difference. So today, Lord, I realize that I have fallen short of your glory as you say in your word that we all are sinners. I realize that I'm far from you, but today I want to make a decision for you that you would come into my life. I believe that you died on the cross for my sin and that you rose on the third day proving that you are Lord and God, authority over all.

And today I give my life to you. I give you the praise and give you the glory. Amen. Amen. Can y'all celebrate Jesus.

Come on, guys. Come on, church. We are impious Galileans. We need to get some t-shirts made called impious Galileans and wear those proudly. Let me just make one more announcement.

If you guys all would stand with me as we break out. Okay, so if I just wanted to mention giving real quick. Well, we're not taking up a bucket right now. Those of you online, this is good for you as well. You can give online.

You can give through our website. You can give by text. For this house. Amen. God's got big things for Saul.

Things are moving in place. Things are happening. We're having opportunities for you. You cannot do it without your financial help. So if you would just bless the Lord and bless us by giving today.

I want to pray real quick as we break over our offering and over everything. That God, God, we just pray that you would give us everything you can, that we need to accomplish your purpose and the vision for this church. We believe that you will bring in everything. Everything. We already know it's already there, Lord Jesus.

But we're just asking God that you do a tremendous, a tremendous, just favor us, Lord Jesus. As we continue to give to the poor, as we continue to give to the elder that can even be here today, we're continuing to give to them. As we continue to give to organizations that are making a difference in the world. We're not going to stop doing that, Lord. We're just praying over these funds.

As we do that, we do it more than we've ever did before because we want to give it all away and do so much more for your kingdom and for your glory. We're praying for that, Lord. So we give you the praise and glory. We lift our finances to you. We lift everything we have to you for your glory and your name.

Amen. Amen. All right, guys, have a great day. Enjoy your Sunday. Thank you.

Be back with us next week.