Let's dive in. I'm excited about the sermon for today, Exodus chapter 17.
Some of you guys know this story. It's a story that is referenced a lot in Christian circles about holding each other's arms up. And it's a story of a battle that Joshua is on the front line, but he is being supported by some guys who are holding the rope. That's some insider language, but we use that language to talk about supporting. He is being supported by some other guys that are praying for him.
All right. And that's what we're going to get into today. Y'all, in any battle, there is active duty and then there's support duty. There's the front line, and then there's the rear guard that is supplying the front line, that are supporting, holding the rope. Here's the big idea if you're taking notes this weekend: Christians hold the rope for each other.
Christians hold the rope for each other. Guys, throw up the big idea slide here. Christians, hold, there we go. Christians, hold the rope for each other. And the idea is that we would know there is a active duty, but then there's also people that are on the support lines that are doing exactly that.
They're supporting and they're holding the rope. All right. Now, you say hold the rope, that's insider language. It is insider language. It's insider language, but it is coming from a very famous missionary story.
A guy named William Carey had the opportunity to go to the mission field. He was the father of modern missions. And at the same time, he said, Hey, I'll dangle at the bottom of that rope if my friends, one guy named Andrew Fuller, will hold the rope.
Alright, I'll dangle from it if you hold it. That's what we're talking about with supporting each other. In any fight, it's so important that we would have this type of spirit, that we would want to hold the rope or support each other. Guys, support lines are just as important as front lines and battle lines. That is a story that is as old as war itself.
If you think the active line and the active duty kind of line is more important than the support line, let me tell you somebody who knows that's not true. The little corporal himself, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Okay, he hey, he takes 600,000 men into Russia, comes back with 100,000. You know why? Because the supply lines couldn't keep up. That's pretty much it. It's the same reason the Germans got captured of Stalingrad.
It's the same reason that we won the battle of Yorktown and, thank God, don't have a British accent.
Okay? It's a story as old as war. Do the support lines keep up with those who are on the front lines? Many of you are going to step forward in adoption and foster care, and that is incredible. But a lot of us are not.
And the ones that don't, you still have a part to play in supporting those who do. Guys, we have had a huge vision. 1,000 chosen children. All right. 1,000 children that are chosen, you know, that are adoption, foster care, families count, impacted by the gospel in the next five years from one church.
If that is going to happen. The support lines have to be every bit as strong as those who step on to that battlefield. And listen, we're all one way. Listen, we're all gonna be active duty or support duty at different times in our life. I'll tell you right now, I am not on the front lines of the international mission field right now, right?
I live here. I'm not on the front line of that fight. We have many of our members that are right now.
Some of them are sheltered in place with all the bombing and everything that's going on. I'm not on the front lines. I'm a support worker.
So, what does that mean? I'm going to pray for them. We're going to give our tithe month in and month out so that money gets to the front line. Like, we're going to make sure that we read their newsletters when they send it to us. That's what we're going to do.
We're going to hold the rope for them. There's times when you're on the front line. There's times when you're in support. All right, and this story really illustrates it. Look at Exodus 17, chapter 8, verse 8.
Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.
So Moses said to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.
So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek while Moses, Aaron, and her went up to the top of the hill.
Now, you guys already kind of see it, right? Joshua's on the front line. Moses, Aaron, and her are in support. They're praying. They're gonna end up holding Moses' arms up while they're gonna be there praying.
What's going on in this passage is sort of a story that's actually as old as Jacob and Esau. The Amalek, the people of Amalek, they are actually descended from Esau. If you guys remember the tension from Jacob and Esau, right? And Amalek is descended from them, and now they have come to war against Israel. If you were reading the book of Exodus, where we are in the book of Exodus at this point is the people have come out of the land of Egypt, they've gone through the Red Sea, all that kind of stuff.
And now they're here and they are facing a formidable foe, okay? Amalek, these people are warriors, man. They're fighters. They're warriors. Israel has no hope of winning this fight without the Lord intervening in their life.
The people of Amalek were known because they had domesticated the camel. All right, and they were using it in battle, which nobody else was doing, which is funny because our newest church plant, Declaration Church, is going to Campbell University, who's, if you didn't know, their mascot is the fighting camels, which actually is a biblical thing, okay?
So, you know, these camels are, I mean, they're warriors and all that stuff. They're probably fighting over a wadi. I don't know if you guys have ever seen a wadi. I'll show you a wadi from when I was in the Middle East a couple of years ago. You're out there and it's just a vast desert of nothingness, and then all of a sudden you get into this valley and it's lush and green, and there's the most crystal blue water, and it's just incredible.
And you're like, man, this looked like a wasteland of nothing, and then all of a sudden there's this beauty. There was a wadi in this area called the Wadi Refaid, and maybe that's what they're gonna fight over. I'm not totally sure. But Moses divides the camp into those that are gonna be on the front lines and those that are gonna be in support roles.
Okay? And so Joshua is gonna go fight. He's gonna stay in support. Look at verse 9 again.
So Moses said to Joshua: choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.
All right, so you guys are going to go fight. Moses is going to stay back and he's going to pray and support over the whole situation. One thing I want to do for just a moment here is I think it's important is we have people at our campuses or right here at the Ridge, and you're like, man, you know, I'm newer to this thing, and it's hard for me to understand why we all get together and study about a battle that happened 3,500 years ago. And what does that have to do with my life? What does that have to do with me raising my kids?
What does that have to do with me having a better marriage? What in the world does it have to do with me becoming more ethical in my business or whatever it is? All right. I think it's actually a good question. I think it's a good reminder for us and a reminder for me.
Some of us have been baked in Bible and church and sermons our whole life.
Okay. And so we don't really think about that. Other people, that's not you. It's like, hey, I'm trying to learn all this, but what does this have to do with my life? All right.
I think it's a good question. Let me give you two answers. The first answer is this, the Bible teaches us salvation history, okay? And so, as it's teaching us salvation history, you have to understand that there is a drama to scripture. That the Bible is one story.
It's one book, one story.
Now, it's got a lot of twists and turns. There's a lot of different characters. But ultimately, there is this one story that's being played out.
Now, if you're newer to the faith or you're newer to the Bible, let me give you something that's going to help you, okay? If you're reading the Bible, you are always pretty much reading in one of about six acts of the play. All right, six chapters to the story, if you want to say it, if you want to call it that way, all right, say it that way. All right, there's six turning points in this whole one story.
Now, I'm gonna give them to you, and you can write them down if you want to. And you could listen, some people do four, some people do seven. I'm giving you six, these are kind of generalized: creation, fall. Israel Jesus The church and restoration.
Okay? One story. Creation? Fall? Israel Jesus The Church Restoration.
All right, so the Bible kind of follows that line. In creation, God made us and perfection puts us in the garden to have a relationship with us, not because he was lonely or needed a friend, but because he's awesome and the love within the trinity that God shares overflows, okay, into creation, into us. But number two, Act 2, the fall. Adam and Eve sinned. They got kicked out of the garden.
Death enters the world. And you and I can't blame them because we've ratified every decision they've ever made. Number three, God gives them a promise. And that promise is one day there will come a Savior. This is Israel.
All right. Israel will be the people that God chooses in order to bring a light to the whole world. They're going to be a light in the world, but they're going to eventually produce a light, Jesus Christ, who will be a light of salvation for the entire world. Act 3. Act 4: Jesus Christ comes into the world 2,000 years ago, right?
He comes into the world 100% God, 100% man. He's born, lives life for us in our place, dies on the cross as a substitute for you and I, who in our sin we can never get back to God, and then raises from the dead. Act 5 is when Jesus descends and sends the Spirit, and boom, lights the flame in the church that has been rolling for 2,000 years. Can't stop, won't stop. The church phase is what we're in right now, and the story is getting out to the world.
Don't be kind of overwhelmed with the news is not good for the church, and the church is dying.
Some places in the West, there is a decline. Worldwide, not so. You should see the stories that are coming out of the underground church in Iran. Or in China, across Africa, these types of places. The church is growing, can't stop, won't stop until we get all the way to the ends of the earth.
And finally, act number six is what we're waiting on to come, and that is the return of Jesus Christ, where everything sad is going to come untrue.
So you say, okay, what do these old stories have to do with my life? They show the drama. They show you where you fit in the world. They show what has happened, what will happen. Very important.
That we don't just kind of throw these things away and focus on New Testament teachings. We have one book. We are people of one book. All right? Second reason I think it's important for us to study these stories like this is the Old Testament battles teach us to wage spiritual war.
If you haven't woken up to this, you need to. Ephesians 6 tells us we do not wrestle with flesh and blood. You and I are in a spiritual fight. a spiritual fight for growth, a spiritual fight for our faith, a spiritual fight for the faith of others. All right, there is a spiritual war.
And Paul in the New Testament routinely talks about it as if it is war. Ephesians 6, for example, he tells you to put on the armor of God. He doesn't say put on the sports equipment. He doesn't say put on the padding. He says put on the armor.
Why? Because we're in a spiritual fight. 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says we walk in the flesh, but we war in the spirit. We do not war in the flesh. 2 Timothy 2:4, I learned this in the old, old, you know, the old language of the Bible.
Kind of a life verse for me: No man that woreth entangleth himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier. All right, so that's our identity. We can learn a lot. From the Old Testament battles, as we're thinking about our New Testament commission to push back darkness. And so when I'm looking at this battle and like, okay, so Moses has got Joshua on the field, he's going to be in prayer support.
One of the things that comes to my mind first. Is this? We need to remember that we have an enemy that is every bit, or if not more dangerous than Amalek. When we're looking at the enemies of the Old Testament in these battles, we need to remember: oh, we have a spiritual foe. That is every bit as dangerous.
I mean, like I said, in Ephesians 6, we are called to understand that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. 1 Peter 5:8 is a shocking verse where the scripture likens our foe to a lion. That is roaming around seeking whom he may devour. Guys, I mean, I know we go see a lion at the zoo or whatever. You gotta understand, thousands of years ago, the thought of a lion is about as terrifying as anything could be.
I mean, a lion is about the baddest thing God ever put on this planet. When you think about it, a lion's 500 pounds, but it can run almost 50 miles an hour. A lion could jump flat-footed and enter a second-story window. A lion can, you can hear a lion's roar five miles away. That's how strong they are.
In Ishasha, Uganda. They started realizing these elephants were getting killed. The lions were climbing trees, waiting for the elephants to walk by, and then raining death and fury from above. Lions are bad, okay? And they are formidable.
And that is the idea here that you and I would remember: wait a minute, this is not cute. This is not like we have sort of an enemy that's kind of the devil with a pitchfork or whatever. No, no, no. There is a real enemy who really wants to come against us spiritually. And I don't have a whole time to go into all the types of spiritual warfare that we can see, but think about in the scripture: it's spiritual warfare of lies, spiritual warfare of deceit, spiritual warfare of mental afflictions, thoughts, intrusive thoughts, spiritual warfare that ends up manifesting in physical problems.
Okay, we see all of this in the scripture, and these things can come against us. We need to remember that part of knowing. What to do in spiritual battle is just not being caught off guard by it. But understanding that these things happen. And and that we are, you know, uh on a battlefield, so to speak.
All right, the second thing I would say is this: that I think about this story, learning from the Old Testament and these battles. Guys, fulfilling God's purpose stirs our enemy to action. When we are living a life that is fulfilling the purpose that God has called us to, that is when we're kicking the hornet's nest.
Some of us are like, I don't know if I've ever experienced spiritual war.
Well, are you fulfilling the purpose God put you on earth to do? Because if you are, that's when we begin to stir up the enemy. You can say it like this, all right? Just think about it like this. If the people of God here, Israel.
are not trying to get to the promised land. They never got to fight this battle with Imelek. Right? And for some of us right now, It is when you begin to fight for purity in a relationship. It is when you sign one of your awesome middle schoolers up, 63 kids, going to learn to serve the church.
It is when you, it would not shock me at all. If the second many of our families signed their kids up for that trip, there started to be things that were put in motion to keep those kids from going. It's just the way it works. It's like, man, there is a spiritual battle. Maybe some of you are done business for a long time and you're really beginning to think about what a life of preaching or vocational ministry might look like, or you're thinking about, you know, city project as a college student or whatever.
And it's like, as we begin to step into those purposes. Do not be surprised when the enemy begins to push back.
Now, we would say it's totally worth it. Jesus doesn't leave you or forsake you, and there's nothing better than fulfilling your purpose that God created you to do. That's where the excitement and the electricity of the Christian life is. But it's not without risks. And it can be hard.
You know, Christelle was one of our college students years ago. That was part of City Project, and she was chosen to go to Canada on that mission trip, although there were more exotic type ones that were out there, and she really wished she could have done a different one. But she ends up on this trip to Canada because she can speak French, and she's the only person that we have that speaks French. She wasn't excited to be there, had kind of, as she'll tell you, kind of had a bad attitude. All right, they have a rough day where they're having doors slammed in their face and people aren't interested in the gospel.
And she gets pretty low. They're on the train on the way home. She gets pretty low. She starts thinking, man, what are we even doing here? Why am I here?
You know, is this really what I want to do with my life? And man, just in a, honestly, in a bad spot, kind of fretting, I would say fretting. is what she was kind of in a fretting kind of attitude. And about that time, someone called her name from the back of the train that she had never met. She turns around, the woman looks a little bit disheveled.
The woman is speaking in French and actually says her name, Christelle.
Now, she's never met her before, so it was a little bit odd. Then the woman begins to talk to her from the back of the train and says to her, Hey, do you believe that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life? It's kind of a bold thing to ask somebody just right off the bat, never met you before. Christelle started thinking for a minute. She started thinking, maybe this is an opportunity for me to share the gospel.
I've been looking for an opportunity. Then the woman says, Do you believe that you'll be with God in paradise? And it was very strange. And before Christelle could even get her answer out, the woman says, well, you won't. And she begins to throw bomb after bomb after bomb in terms of calling Christelle out on real-life sins that she was really dealing with.
Things with her attitude, other sins that she had been concealing. She begins to start talking about different family situations that only Christelle and her family would know.
So there's just this, and she's speaking in French. She's becoming more aggressive. She stands up, starts to walk towards Christelle, kind of having a swaying thing, kind of off balance. She starts to look at Christelle and say, Why are you so afraid? Why are you so afraid?
It was at that moment that her entire head just spun all the way around on her shoulders, okay? That didn't really ha that part didn't happen, okay? You know, that was a pretty crazy event.
Now, here's what I want to tell you. What's crazy about that story is not to me, not even the extraordinary demonic stuff that happens. This is what happens in the demonic realm. The demonic realm is not omniscient. You know, they don't know all, but they are experts in human behavior and they're watching all the time.
It doesn't shock me at all that the woman who is clearly influenced by some type of demonic figure would know things about Christelle or whatever. None of that's shocking to me at all. The craziest thing about it, though, is not the extraordinary demonic, it's the ordinary demonic. The ordinary demonic is lies from the father of liars that are sown into somebody's life to say the blood of Jesus is not sufficient to save you. That you are not in the Lamb's book of life, that you will not be with him in paradise because of how bad your attitude is right now.
You understand? That gets into somebody, it can wrap you up for a long, long time. This is what's so scary about the demonic realm. It's not just the extraordinary, it's the ordinary. But here's what I want to tell you: Christelle never goes to Canada.
Christelle never has this opportunity to see the demonic realm up close and have to actually wrestle with it. You understand? It's when we're fulfilling our calling.
So I'm looking at the people of God in Israel, and I'm like, hey, there's a part of this where they face war in the Old Testament because they don't obey. This is one of the times they're facing war because they are obeying. You got to count the cost. Is it going to be worth it to fulfill the life that God has called me to and walk in that? Even though it may stir up the demonic realm against me.
Now look at verse 11. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. And whenever he lowered his hand... Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, and while Aaron and her held up his hands one on one side and one on the other side.
So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. You understand what's happening. It's very simple. Joshua's on the battlefield.
Moses is up top. Moses has got his hands up, praying over the battle. He's got his staff up, praying over the battle. And as long as his hands are up, Joshua's winning. When he lowers his hands, and it kind of seems as if now Joshua's having a fight on his own, they begin to lose.
Because remember, the people of Amalek are crazy, man. They're riding these camels around and shooting arrows and all this kind of stuff, and it's pretty nuts. But when his hands are up.
Now it's kind of signifying this is the Lord's battle, and they begin to win. It's very simple. Some are on the battlefield, some are in support of those who are on the battlefield.
Now, what's funny is. It's actually the ones that are in support of the ones that are on the battlefield that get tired. I've always thought this was funny to me. Like, if I was Joshua, I'd be like, really, Moses? I mean, like, I'm down here fighting, you know, my tail off with this sword, and you're up there, and you can't even hold your hands like this.
I mean, come on, you know. But he gets, he, you know, Moses gets tired. Listen, our assignment from God can be tiresome. Whether we're on the front line or whether in a support role. You know, so there are times when...
Leading that community group can wear us out. There are times when praying fervently for our sent ones. You know, right now we have multiple sent ones that are in shelter-in-place type situations because how much bombing is happening over there in the Middle East. And it's like, man, it can weigh on us to be in prayer for them.
Some of you have fostered children. And man, that experience was incredibly difficult because, I mean, that child clearly had so much background baggage and hurt in their life. And man, it was just crazy. And it's hard and it gets tiresome. We can get tired.
The point of this is. When we get tired, we don't have to quit. When we get tired, we need other people around us to support us. That's the whole idea. Is that in the battlefield?
Remember, ask Napoleon, okay? It's not just about how good you can fight. It's about how the supply lines can keep up. And we need to be a church that looks at a story like this and says, hey. Being Moses, or actually even being Aaron or her.
That's just as important as the ones that are on the field. The ones that step forward and adopt, the ones that step forward and foster, they're on the front line. They're only gonna be able to go as far as the supply train of the church. In love and support, it is able to circle them up and to come around them. You know, it's funny.
It's like you read this story and you go, wait a minute, well, who's holding the rope for who? Aaron and her. Seem like they're holding the rope for Moses. Who's holding the rope for Joshua? Right?
It's really like them three are kind of working together to support what is happening on the battlefield. And that's exactly the message, and I think the imagery that we need today. Here's the application point this weekend, y'all. Hold the rope for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Hold the rope for your brothers and sisters in Christ.
I'm going to tell you, church, this is so important, what I'm about to say. And man, I've been doing this a long time now, and I'm telling you, the longer you do something, the clearer you can see what you're good at. and the clearer you can see what you're not good at. Here's what Mercy Hill generally is going to be good at by nature of the way that I'm wired, and many of our leaders are wired. Fast, big vision.
Man, we're going to try to get it done, charge the hill, all right? My leadership style is basically move fast and break stuff.
So that's the way we're going to lean, okay? And so that's fine. As long as we also all can see it for what it is and say, hey, the downside to that is we could easily outkick our coverage and not care for the people that are on the field. It could be just go, go, go, go, and we're not actually in support. My fear would be that we become a church where holding the rope is aspirational rather than our reputation.
It shouldn't be our aspiration, it should be our reputation. That people know, hey, there's a big vision, they're getting after it, but those people love and support each other as well. That happened in our life. We have so many people that have held the rope for us and our journey with Faith Ann, they're still doing it today. People that pray for us, people that have brought meals, people that have set have done other things with our other kids because they know that Faith Ann takes up a lot of mama's attention and all that kind of stuff.
I mean, I can't even tell you the amount of ways that people have just poured in, and it's simply this: they've recognized there's a unique aspect to that family, they've taken on something that's tough. And so we just want to do what we can to kind of lighten the load from them at times. And what we can be as a church. Is that way toward everybody?
Now, how do we get the motivation for that? Guys, think about it. Man, what I'm saying is this: we need to be the type of people like Moses that are willing to stand on that mountain with our hands open. And pray and support the people that are on the battlefield. You know how you get the heart that says, I'm gonna stand there with my arms wide open for you, is when you realize that there was a greater Moses who on the cross.
stood there with his hands wide open for you. When we realize what Jesus has done for us, think about it. Moses is holding his hands open, watching the battle play out. Jesus stretched his hands out for us, and in so doing, won the battle. He won the battle over sin and death.
You and I, because of our sin, we don't have a relationship with God unless Jesus Christ comes and wins that battle on the cross for us, and He did. And in his resurrection, he offers us the chance to walk in the newness of life.
Somebody held their hands wide open for you.
Now, will you hold your hands up and support others? Listen, if you're not a believer today, your application isn't to try to support others in this endeavor. Your application is to realize that Jesus stretched his hands out for you. and admit your sin and believe in what he has done. And confess him as the Lord of your life.
I pray you do that today. But for the rest of us... that are believers Now is the chance that we have to talk about supporting one another and holding the rope. And I wanna give you two opportunities, all right? We're going to talk more about this in a second, but hey, one of the opportunities we have today is given to our chosen fund.
All right, this is an offering that we have opened up for the last two weeks of the month of March. And in opening up this for the month of March, we are going to have a fund that all of the money goes directly to adoption families that are stepping forward. All right. So if you get online, I want you to see, just so you can kind of see, some of you came prepared to give today, others of you maybe not. But when you go online to give, you're going to see tithe and offering.
And you're also going to see chosen adoption fund. All right. Now, what we don't want to do is rob one to pay the other. That's not going to help anybody. Church has a budget.
We have plans for the year. This chosen adoption fund is something above and beyond. All right. And so, hey, some of us came ready to give today. That's fine.
Others of us, like my family, are not ready to give today, but we are going to commit so that we can be part of the moment. We'll come forward, pray over these, put these down, and we'll do that in just a second. Second way that you can support, all right, is this. I'm not talking about actions, speak louder than words. I'm talking about words.
What we need to do is tell people who have stepped forward in adoption or foster care. Tell them very clearly, hey. We see what your family is taking on. and we want to be in your corner. All right, would you do that?
Would God put that on your heart? Hey, if you're in a group or you serve at Mercy Hill, chances are you know a family that's either adopted or fostered or is going to or whatever. You probably know them. Man, could you say that out loud to them? Hey.
We want to be in your corner. We want to help take some of the weight off of you. I don't know if you guys remember night. November 10th, 1975. It was a tragic day.
It was the day that the Edmund Fitzgerald wrecked and 29 sailors were lost. The story was later memorialized by Gordon Lightfoot's song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Man, it was a crazy story. And what's even crazier is how many other ships have gone down. Do you know that in the last 300 years, over 6,000 wrecks have happened in the Great Lakes, claiming over 30,000 sailors' lives?
They're incredibly dangerous. The waves in the Great Lakes can be every bit as big as waves out on the ocean. The problem is, there's no salt. And so instead of coming once every eight seconds, the waves will come once every four seconds. And it can create a treacherous situation.
The Edmund Fitzgerald, when Gordon Lightfoot said it was the pride of the American side, he nailed it. In 1958, it was commissioned, and it was the greatest ship that had ever been as a freighter on the Great Lakes, right? 729 feet long. The thing had a cargo capacity that you just can't imagine. I mean, it was just an incredible thing.
And this ship set out November 10th, 1975, just like any other day. It was the last trip it was making of that entire season. It was the last trip of the captain's career over 40 years. And next thing you know, they run into the storm of the century. Ice, snow, no visibility.
Waves 25, 30, 35 feet. They do everything they can. They try to outrun it. Then they try to skirt around it. And finally, there's nothing else to do but to try to go straight through it.
At five o'clock that afternoon, The last transmission that ever came from the Edmund Fitzgerald was Captain McSorley. and another ship that was trailing them. Hours behind, miles behind, said, How are you doing? And he said, We're holding our own. Within one hour, The ship broke apart.
and sank 500 feet to the bottom of you. Lake Superior. And next thing you know, 29 guys lost their lives. There's a lot of theories about why the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. There's a bunch of them actually.
There's a bunch of conspiracy type things and all this kind of stuff. I'm gonna tell you, let me solve it for you. I'll solve the mystery for you right now. That Edmund Fitzgerald wrecked for one reason. Three words.
Two Much Wait. And the captain and crew were not little victims in this whole thing either. When the ship was commissioned in 1958, It was made to carry 20,000 tons of taconite iron ore. And by 1975, The crews, the captains, the companies, and the lobbyists had shaved, had cheated, had changed rules, and to where now by the time the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, it was carrying 26,000 tons of iron taconite, iron ore taconite. actually sunk the ship about three feet into the water, which you can imagine in a storm of the century matters a whole lot.
Now here's what I want to call you to think about for just a second. We have a lot of families at Mercy Hill that are stepping up from the sideline to the front line when it comes to adoption and foster care. And you know what? If you were to ask them, How you do it? Six months in, a year in, you know what they would probably say?
We're holding our own. Can we be the type of people who say, you know what? We're gonna come and take that 6,000 pounds out.
so that you're not over the line of where you should be. We're going to come and support you financially in prayer with your other kids, man, whatever you need. It's not gonna be an aspiration. It's gonna be a reputation. We're gonna lighten the load of these families who are on the front line.
by being a church that is incredible. at holding the rope. Let's pray. Father, But come before you And Lord, I ask right now. God, that you would give our church an incredible moment.
of generous hearts. And Lord, I pray that what we do this weekend and really the next two weeks as this fund is open. God, I just pray that it will change the lives of so many chosen kids over the next five years. In Christ's name, amen.
