Welcome, everybody.
Man, can we just praise God for that one more time? How awesome was that to see all those families commission? Hey, we're going to start off just a little bit different than usual. I'm actually going to call for our team of volunteers to come.
They're going to begin passing the offering. Why I talk a little bit. My name is Jason as well. I'm the campus pastor at the ridge campus. And if you're here from all of our locations, man, we're really grateful for you being here with us today. And I just want to thank you for being here.
I just want to talk for just a moment. Pastor Andrew for the last several weeks has talked a little bit about our sort of journey to Easter. And I know I don't have the infamous Piggly Wiggly t shirt that he had on a few weeks ago. But we were talking about prayer, inviting giving. What was the last one serving for for Easter and really quickly before we dive into the sermon just to talk a little bit about the generosity portion of it, some really cool things happening. And have been happening in our next gen ministries. And if you're not familiar with what I mean by next gen ministries, our kids student college ministries, they all kind of make up next gen ministries. Obviously, you just got to see some really cool things God's doing in our kids ministry. But then also, man, student ministry has been exploding and has been going awesome. You know, the student center is packed out literally like just about every single chair, nearly 400 chairs in their people. So over the next couple of weeks, student ministry and college ministry are going to be launching their services right here at the ridge. And we could not be more excited for them. And about that, I just want to encourage those of you who have been giving generously to know your generosity is fueling the mission of multiplying the movement, you are making disciples multiplying the movement here with our students and with our college kids. And then we're just excited about that.
If you want to learn a little bit how you can jump into giving here at Mercy Hill, you can go to our website and find all those ways there on the website. Well, hey, we're gonna be back in our sermon series in the book of Exodus. So if you have a Bible, turn to Exodus chapter number 16.
See, along with the children of Israel is God part of the Red Sea, led the children of Israel to walk through on dry ground, they get over on the other side of the Red Sea. And what do they get to witness, they get to witness the entire army, sort of trying to come after them, the army that had oppressed their people for 400 years, now was trying to come after them and God swallows them up into the Red Sea, never to be seen again, children of Israel, break out in exactly what you would expect for them to break out and they break out in a worship service, man, they're singing, they're praising God, they are singing chapter 15, the song of Moses. And then what they probably expect to happen next didn't actually happen next. What they probably were hoping was like, okay, now we can relax.
Now we can rest. Now we can kind of enter into this new place where our God has us. But instead, they turn around. The land flowing with milk and honey. They don't see the land of Canaan.
In fact, they don't even see like something that's comparable to Egypt in terms of abundance and in terms of resources. What they turn around and they see is dryness, arid, desert, wilderness. But their leader goes, let's go. Moses and Aaron, they say, hey, guys, this is where we're going. So let's start walking. They start walking and then a couple days into it, one of them reaches for their water bottle and realizes that they don't have any water left.
So they do exactly what everybody will do. If you're out of resources in a place where you're being led, what do you do? You blame the navigator. What are you doing? Why are you bringing us here?
What are you trying to do? Did you bring us through that whole miraculous thing just so you could kill us? Those were the accusations that they brought to Moses and Aaron. He goes back to God and he says, God, we don't got any water. We need to rescue these people. So once again, God brings them to a place of water. The problem with the place of water he brings them to is it's just like Cape Fear and it's the most contaminated drinking water that you can imagine.
They can't drink it. So the people are like, this is torturous, Moses. You're bringing us now to a place of water but we can't even drink the water. Moses goes back to God and God says, hey, take this tree. And roll it into the water.
I'm not just going to give them drinking water but now I want the water to be sweet so that they would learn about my charity and my generosity. They take of that water and then Moses says, alright, pack them up. Let's go. They keep walking and we're a few weeks later than that and we come to Exodus chapter number 16 where we're going to begin reading today. So the people of Egypt, they left Egypt on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.
So 30 to 40 days after they left Egypt, that's where we're at. The whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt? Basically, if you would have just let us die by slavery or let us die by the plagues, I mean, that would have probably been better than the way that you're trying to starve us or let us die by the plagues. Now, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill us, this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, at evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you grumble against us? And Moses said, when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him, what are we? It is not against us but it's against the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, come near before the Lord for he has heard your grumbling and as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud and the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel.
Say to them, at twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, then you shall know that I am the Lord. I think it's just human nature that we want all of the benefits of growth and change and transformation but none of the pain of the process. Right? I think that this applies to a lot of different areas but I think if I want to lose weight and I want to gain muscle but I hate the process of but you've got to change your diet and your sleep habits and your water intake and then you've got to get sunlight and then you've got to get into the gym and you've got to do these workouts, I sort of hate the idea of the whole process. If I want to learn a new language, technology has made it incredibly easier than it ever used to be to learn a language.
Maybe, I don't know if that's true or not but it seems incredibly easy that you can open up an app and you can learn a language but very few of us want to go through the process of spending six to nine months or maybe longer of really not sounding like we know what in the world we're talking about but just saying different, you know, we're speaking a little bit like a buffoon. We don't want that process. We want to become like Jesus but we don't necessarily want the process of doing the spiritual disciplines again and at time after time after time until we are changed into the image of Jesus. Here's the reality though and I think we learned this from the passage today and we learned this in life is that you can not enter the promised land without going through the wilderness. You can't enter the promised land before going into the wilderness. So really quickly as we're talking about the wilderness, I think it's important for us to understand the wilderness isn't just the geographical location that the children of Israel find themselves in. The wilderness or the desert in all of scripture is a spiritual motif. The spiritual motif that leads us to believe when we're reading the scriptures like oh if I read about a person in the Bible who comes into the wilderness, we're about to see a struggle. We're about to see a little bit of suffering. We're about to see a little bit of pain, a little bit of uncomfortability for the people who are going through it. Maybe today you're in the wilderness. It's the place where God takes us to test and transform our hearts. Maybe today you're in the wilderness. I don't know if you're in a financial reversal, you've lost a job, can't find a job.
Maybe you're in a difficult relationship or maybe it's your health. Maybe in some way shape or form today you are in the middle of the wilderness. Understand this that God often uses these uncomfortable physical places to bring about supernatural spiritual change. Egypt was a scary place for the children of Israel. It was a tough place for them. But here's the thing, they knew what to expect in Egypt. Man, they knew without question. They knew exactly what to expect. As long as I sort of kept my head down and I kept moving, kept doing my job, I was going to be okay.
I was going to get my three square meals a day and I was going to be okay. I knew what to expect in Egypt. The wilderness brings about a whole new level of scary. The wilderness or the desert is anything but predictable. As we've already seen in Exodus 15 and Exodus 16, children of Israel didn't know where they were going to get water. That's a whole another level of scary. I don't know how I'm going to feed my family.
That's a whole another level of scary. The desert landscape, dry, barren. Nothing can grow in the desert and hardly anything can live. In fact, some of the only things that we see that actually were living in the desert were when Moses was looking back upon the wandering and he's like, man, the snakes and the scorpions were about the only things that were surviving in the desert. So here's the question you might be wondering. So God led them there?
I mean, you just mentioned this place is the worst. And you're saying God actually, a good and generous and kind God, the God who delivered them, he led them to this place where he knew there was not going to be any reliable resources. There was going to be no shade, no protection. God led them there? And then you follow it up with, God led them there, okay. But God led them there. To teach them, to train them, to transform them. That's what we're saying about God.
And here's the truth. God had brought them out of Egypt, but he hadn't quite gotten Egypt out of them. See, they were only familiar with one kind of God, one shade of who God is.
But they knew from Pharaoh as kind of their perspective or their view of God. It was very transactional, okay. I do my thing. I do my work. You feed me my meal. That's how they understood who God was like.
And God had to say, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not me at all. I'm not transactional. In fact, I will go before and I will provide. That's how I am. Regardless of at times, regardless of what you have done.
I'm going to provide. But they had to learn this. And they had to learn it by being in a place where they actually couldn't expect or predict resources to come from any other place.
Think about how they talked about Egypt. They were sitting around, sitting around. First of all, the fact that they were sitting, I remember looking at the story, guys. Y'all were working. You were enslaved.
You were being beaten. You were being like, that was your life. And here's the memory is, oh, man, we were sitting around meat pots. It's like, man, maybe you saw people doing that, but I'm not really sure that that was your, isn't it crazy how sometimes we could actually think that things were better in the past. When we were in Egypt. So they have this mindset that like, man, everything was great.
But here's what that was. It was an inner idol of certainty that was speaking. They had this inner idol of certainty that said, hey, things might have been bad, but they weren't this bad. Because we would rather have the certainty living in Egypt than to trust God living in the wilderness. You see, taking the Israelites out of slavery took just a moment. But taking Egypt out of the slaves would take years.
Or out of the Israelites would take years. And guys, this is our spiritual reality. Salvation by grace through faith happens in a moment. Man, as we're journeying through that Red Sea on dry ground, it's like, man, we're dancing. God's forgiven us. We're free. We're celebrating. Man, when we're singing all, you know, when things are going well in life. I'm not picking on anybody, but this is me. When things are going well in life, man, sometimes we can just be here worshiping this good place.
Yes, he does. Sometimes it's tough to dance through the desert. Salvation by grace through faith happened in a moment. Sanctification by grace through faith happens in a lifetime. It's a process. Jesus' work on the cross took us out of Egypt. But Jesus' work in our hearts to take Egypt out of us is a process.
It takes a lifetime. Hey, and here's the thing. That's actually, it's good news. The gospel is really good news. Amen? The gospel is the good news that Jesus died in my place.
He took me out of Egypt. But we also sort of don't love the follow-up to that. That the sanctification is the process. I think that sometimes, you know, and this happens a lot of times even with new believers. Man, you become a Christian. And everything is just like, man, nothing can really get you off. You're just so excited about all that God has done. You're excited living in this new reality. But then we still struggle with maybe some of the same sins that we were struggling with in Egypt.
We still struggle with some of the same problems that we were struggling with before. And then at the bottom we go, hey, if you've got one of those superhero serums like you did with Captain America, and you can, and you can, and you know, I mean, you know, Captain America, he goes in before he's Captain America. He's scrawny, tiny, you know, totally, you know, not, no nutrients in his body.
He just looks like a weak, man, I think that that's probably a pretty accurate, like, yeah, that's, that's how it is. But then the assumption is, I'm going to walk out of Egypt. I'm going to walk into your little, that little cage. You type in some things in the computer, you know, give me some self control, Lord. Give me some patience, Lord.
Give me some love, Lord. And then when I come out, God, I'm just going to be, man, I'm just going to be loving everybody. I'm going to be kind to everybody at work.
I'm going to treat my kids better, treat my wife better, treat my husband better, whatever the case may be. We sort of have this, this mindset that we're going to be zapped into sanctification. We're going to be zapped into becoming like Jesus. There's no machine, sorry.
There is no machine, guys, I'm sorry. That's not the way it works. Instead, the Lord leads us into the wilderness and He tests us and He transforms us. So, so what do we mean really quickly about testing? Because I think for some of us, we could get this idea that the testing that we experience is like a professor. You know, I know there's a lot of really good colleges around this area and they 100%, they're testing you to kick you out. They want to figure out if you can cut the mustard to be in their school. Because they don't want anybody holding a diploma who shouldn't be holding a diploma. So it's very much, you cannot get, you know, if you can't get the grades to pass, you're out.
Or you got to go backwards. God's not a professor. Praise God. God's a Father. God as Father does test His children, but it's different. For the last few years, I have been the one couple, the one in the marriage who has to do all of the driver's training with the kids. Anyone else there with me? God bless you.
God bless you. Hey, so, I mean, first of all, how crazy is it of a job that somebody signed up to be a driver's instructor? That like knowing that they were going to step into the car and be like, that brake pedal that I got right here is the only thing that might save my life. As a parent, we don't even have that. I mean, every time you step into the car, it is literally like, well, hon, I got to give my wife a kiss goodbye.
Hon, I love you. Just, it's a near-death experience. I mean, look at me.
Look at this. My whole purpose for that kind of testing is to just check and see, like, are they ready to drive on their own? Are they ready to be able to go out? Do I feel like they have what they need?
You know, do I feel like they could, you know, that's a different approach than a pass-fail. That's a father who wants to make sure your child has everything they need so that they can succeed. That's how God the Father is. As He's bringing about these tests to the children of Israel, and then, boy, you look in the New Testament, the book of James, count it all joy when you fall into different kinds of tests.
It's because the Father wants you to be equipped with what you need in this life. I think it's important for us as we understand, like, okay, well, what did the children of Israel, what was it that He was testing them for to make sure they would have what they needed for what? You see, God calls the children of Israel to be His special family, His covenant people. So God leads them into the wilderness so that He can do the testing and the transforming that He needs so that they can be prepared to be the covenant people to the rest of the world. You see, the purpose of the covenant people, even today, is so that we would tell the truth about who God is. We would tell the truth about what God is like. That's the purpose for the covenant people of God, and this is why it's so important that they got their theology right. It's why it's so important for us to get our theology right, because it's really difficult to reflect a God who you don't know. So it's no wonder He begins to teach them with His justice and His power and His grace and His mercy and His healing.
Guys, here's just a quick example of how this is for us. There are certain things that we can do individually in the community. There's also things that we can do collectively in the community.
One of the things that we often will do and be a part of is the Pregnancy Network's Walk for Life that they do every year. It's an opportunity to be able to reflect so much of who God is to the rest of the world. See, this isn't a protest.
This isn't something that we're going out to be judgmental. This is an opportunity for us to say, hey, we believe God loves those mamas and He loves those babies, each and every one of them. It's an opportunity for us to pray for those people. So sometimes we understand, like, man, we're still the people of God in the world collectively, but we're also the people of God individually. Here's the second part.
We've got to be quicker on this one. God provides what we need to flourish in the wilderness. So yes, God leads us into the wilderness to teach us, to transform us, but listen, while we're in the wilderness, God gives us what we need. He provides for what we need. Think about how awesome this is real quick. God just performed some of the greatest miracles in all of human history.
And what was the response of the people of God when they didn't know where their next meal was coming? What was it? Grumble.
Complain. Before we get too harsh with the children of Israel, have you ever been there? Have you ever been there where, like, man, you've seen God do something great in your life, and then on the back end of it, or maybe a few weeks after, you're like, man, I wish, or why don't I? 2008, the economic kind of bubble burst, you know, with all the real estate market, the big short, all of that stuff happened 2008, 2009. My wife and I were school teachers working for a school and a church, and I remember the day where we got sat down with the rest of the staff, and we're told our school is not going to make it, so everybody's going to be laid off. And in an instant, we went from dual income, no income.
And in that moment, we had three kids under the age of four, and we had a decision to make. What were we going to do? Well, we're not going to panic. Let's just pray. Let's just see what God does. I mean, there wasn't a whole lot else we could do. Well, after, you know, a few days, we're praying, okay, God, I'm going to look for other ministry jobs. Let's see how that goes. Man, I put out all my resume, everything, nothing.
Everybody was frozen. Looked into the public sector, all right, do I have any marketable skills? Turns out I don't have any marketable skills.
So then it's just like, okay, retail, restaurants, grocery stores. I mean, nobody, nobody gave me a call back. I'm like, what in the world? Well, several weeks had now gone by, and fear starts to creep. That idol of certainty, man, I'm teetering whether I want to worship it or worship God. But we committed, as a family, we were just going to pray. We say, God, today we don't know where we're getting our meal today. We don't know how we're going to eat today.
Lord, we just need you to come through. I carry around this paper because on this paper, it's two-sided, on this paper are 100 different ways that over six months God provided and met our needs. I remember a lady named Casey Kinch, she's a widow, didn't have much money, but she had a pretty awesome garden. I remember her bringing bags of groceries over to our house from her garden.
I remember getting that cash handshake from Kelly Ewell who put a $50 bill, and he paid the light bill. I remember Ron Bowman was our landlord at the time, and he said, hey, for as long as you don't have employment, you can live here for free. Listen, God leads us to the wilderness to be able to test us, to be able to transform us, and then He provides what we need to flourish in the desert. Listen, not every single one of my stories and not everybody's story is always just like that. And let me tell you something.
Six months of not really understanding how the water bill was going to be paid, how any of that was going to happen, I don't know if I would want to go back there, but I praise God He led me there. Church, are you in the wilderness today? Don't fight the Father who's leading you into the wilderness to be able to teach and to train us, to transform us, because He's going to provide what you need. So then why do I still complain to this day? Why do I, the guy who just told this, had this, why? And here's the reason why I think.
I think the Bible tells us, God tells us in Psalm 50. He says, because you thought that I was exactly like you. The reason why we trust God is because we compare what we would do with what He would do.
You ever been there? You ever compare what you would do with what He would do? And you start going like, man, He's lazy. He's unreliable. This person is, I wouldn't do anything for this person. They're selfish.
They're a poor money manager. And praise God, God is not like us at all. The Bible says that He is holy. He is set above, set apart from anything and anyone else.
And here's the truth. God delights in coming through. He has a name. In fact, it means God the provider. The name is Jehovah Jireh. It means God is my provider.
Listen, if you have not addressed Jehovah Jireh lately, you need to look up. Because He's the one who is providing and He's blessing. Church, here's the whole crux of the sermon and then we're going to go for today.
Because we have to catch this one thing. We talked about God leads us here. He's going to provide for us here. But there's a deeper meaning. You see, if all we understand is like, hey, God's going to bring us to the desert.
Okay, don't love it. But He's going to provide, okay, that makes it acceptable. And on the face of it, that's what Exodus 16 looks like. That's it. Desert, provision, great. Moses, in Deuteronomy chapter number 8, when he's reflecting back on God's goodness through the wilderness, here's what he said was the real deeper meaning. Let's read it. Deuteronomy 8 verse 3. He humbled you and He let you hunger and fed you with manna.
Alright, that's the whole part we just looked at. You didn't know it. Your fathers didn't know it.
Here it is. That you might make, that He might make you know. That man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Why did God provide for them the way that He provided for them? So that they would learn the deeper lesson. They cannot flourish. You and I, we cannot flourish in the wilderness that we live in without the word of the Lord.
We can't. The reason that that is true is because it's the word of the Lord taught to us by the Spirit of the Lord. That's how we have a deeper relationship with God that looks even beyond material things and it recognizes that when you have Jesus, you actually have everything. A deep and, think about this for just a second. A deep and abiding relationship with the Father is exactly how Jesus was sustained for 40 days in the wilderness.
You remember Him? If you remember the story in the Gospels, after Jesus' baptism, He's led into the wilderness to be tested for 40 days and 40 nights. And as Jesus is in the wilderness, Jesus experiences physical hunger. And the enemy tempts Him and He says, hey, why don't you turn that into, turn that stone into bread? And Jesus says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
He tempts Him again and He tempts Him again and every single time, it is the sustained relationship with the Father that gets Him through. Listen, Jesus was hungry. Jesus was lonely. Jesus was scared. Jesus was tired.
All of those physical things, the Father brought Him through and on the end of it, Jesus said, my relationship with the Father is what sustained me. Think of Moses. When Moses went through his wilderness experience, Moses learned the ways of the Father. In fact, the psalmist contrasts Moses' wilderness journey with the children of Israel wilderness journey and here's what he says. He said, he made his ways known to Moses, watch this, his acts to the people of God. Now that may not sound like a huge difference. He made his ways known to Moses, but his acts to the people of Israel.
But it's a big difference. Some people will only ever see God's acts, but they will never know His ways. They will see His mighty deeds, but they will never actually have a personal flourishing relationship with the Father. And let me tell you, in a church the size of Mercy Hill Church, and we're seeing, maybe it's not even the size, but the fact that we're seeing all that we're seeing, the baptisms that we get to see, the kids' things and the students in college, all of that stuff, we get to see.
It's all around us and it's so tempting for us to think, hey man, things are going great. We get to see His deeds, but let me ask you this, are you also knowing His ways? Are you taking a personal look inside to say, God, what are you doing in my life?
I see what you're doing in us, but what are you doing in me? So I want to leave us with this application today, that we would daily seek after Jesus. Daily seek after Jesus. And let me tell you, this is more than just reading the Bible. I'm not belittling reading the Bible. That's what I'm getting at, that we do need to daily seek after Jesus in the Word.
But let me give you a quick example. I heard a story of someone who brought some people together to do a little celebration of life. As they brought this small crowd of people together inside that crowd, there were several people who he knew and asked to participate in the celebration of life. One of those people was a famous actor.
This famous actor was brilliant, dramatic, I mean, just awesome presentation, presenter. So he said, hey, would you come up here and would you like recite a psalm for us? So the actor gets up and he recites Psalm 23. Awesome psalm, just the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not, I mean, he's dramatic.
Everybody, I mean, standing ovation at the end, how awesome. Well, the same man looked over and he's like, oh, there's a pastor here. Pastor, come on up here, would you recite a psalm? And the pastor said, yeah, I'll recite. Can I recite the same psalm?
Sure. He begins to recite Psalm 23, but this time it's not dramatic and big. The pastor begins and he takes off his hat and he sort of hides his face and he says, the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He restores my soul. He just kept going with this and the more that he recited it, the quieter it became in the room and the more emotion that was felt in the room. The man who organized the whole thing turned over to the actor. He goes, man, yours was really good.
What was the difference? He said, oh, I know the psalm, he knows the shepherd. We're not just talking about going through the motions of reading the Bible on a daily basis, church. What we're talking about is do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do you look at the word of God and say, if I don't have what I need for today from the word of God, I'm going to be ill-equipped to handle what I'm going to be up against.
As a dad, as a mom, whatever your job might be, whatever your relationships might be, I don't think I want to walk into today without being equipped with Jesus. That's what we're talking about. It is a hunger. And, man, I know I'm talking to a room filled with people who have drive, who have hunger. Man, we want to see big things in this life. We want to make a big impact in this life. But, guys, let's not allow our hunger and drive for success in this world or for the things that we could do for our family. Let's not allow that to overshadow how important it is that we have a drive and a hunger for the things of God. And wouldn't it be sad if our legacy could only be included on an estate planning sheet? Don't you want your legacy to be so much more? My legacy of my dad and my mom, man, both of them, I didn't grow up in a perfect home. But if I needed to find dad at 5.30 in the morning any day of the week, I knew exactly where to go because he was on his knees, praying, reading the Word. Man, let me just tell you, as a kid, that gave me more confidence. My dad's 5'6", he is not a tall man. He's the biggest man I know. Because his relationship with Jesus is first and foremost in his life.
My mom's the same way. I want that for my kids. I want my kids to be able to stand up and to say what my legacy is. That it is that man, he hunger and thirsted out. He was passionate to know Jesus. If we want to flourish in the wilderness, we need to see Jesus for who he is. He's the bread of life. And more importantly than receiving physical sustenance is knowing that if we have Jesus, we have everything. And I know that that might sound a little insensitive to some people, like, man, how could you say that?
You don't like everything? Here's why I can say this with some confidence. I like to stand in the middle of the room and worship when the first set is going. Last week, I got a chance to sort of just look around and I was really caught.
God drew my attention. There's one particular couple that was sitting right over here in this area. This couple's gone through it, man. He has MS. He can't sing. He can't speak.
His health is 100% failing him. And he had both hands raised, smile on his face, joy on his face. I saw a lady up here. Been going through cancer for a couple years now, brain cancer.
She's worshiping, praying over people, smile on her face. I mean, I could just name multiple other people who, most of them, their health is failing them. And they've ultimately come to a place where they said, I may not have my health, but I have Jesus. And that is worth more to me.
That's a place to be. So here's how I want to leave us today with one challenge. Tomorrow, we're starting 21 days of prayer and devotion. And it's a devotional written from the book of John. There's some prayer prompts as we head towards Easter. Some of us, maybe we're like, man, I don't read the Bible because I don't have a hard time understanding.
Listen, I get that. Start here. This is a great place to start. Others of us, man, this is just a great opportunity for us as a church to kind of collectively walk through the wilderness together as we are seeking to see God do great things this Easter. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for Your Word. God, we're grateful for Your love for us. And God, now as we head into a time of response, I just pray that You would bless our time together, Lord, that we would be the type of people who, Lord, understand, God, when we're in the wilderness that You're with us, that You've led us here to teach and train and transform us and that You're going to give us what we need. Help us, Lord, to have a hunger and desire for You. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
