A Continual Feast

(upbeat music) Do you guys like to feast? Do you like food, you know? Like feasting, having a feast with your friends. You've been around people that act like they're always just feasting through life. The word, stand on the word or the word I'll stand on you. You know, people who just always act like their life is just a big party. You ever met someone like that, and it's like, you see them even go through hard times and trials, and they're just like, you know, I was gonna give Justin a shot. That was gonna be my example of Justin. For a while, I'd find myself going home from somewhere where I saw Justin, and he's just so smiley and perky, and I'd be like, what is it about Justin's life? That's so much better than anybody else's, and I'd be sitting around, trying to wrap my head around it, trying to figure out why is he the way he is, and how come I can't be like him, and what is it, and it's not just personality type, and sure I'm a sensitive guy, but I don't wanna accept that I'm to be this way forever. Meanwhile, he just never loses his cool. Why does he never lose his cool? So, A, he's faking it, right? That could be an option. He goes home every day just like, oh, these people, I can't get enough of them. I hate them. That's the first option. I don't think that's the truth. I know him very well. That's what you could think when you meet someone like that, though. B, is that they have a secret to life that no one else knows, or very few people know. And it's all in my three-part teaching series you can buy at the back. Thank you. No, I just don't want to hit traffic, so. I would say that, yes, Justin knows something that when I was frustrated, like, why can't I be like him, that I didn't know? If you have a Bible, please turn to Proverbs 15, verse 15. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. This talk is called a continual feast. In the Amplified, it says, all the days of the desponding and afflicted are made evil. By anxious thoughts and for boatings. But he who has a glad heart has a continual feast regardless of circumstances. For boatings is like almost like that sick feeling, that scary kind of, oh, something bad's gonna happen. I just feel it and I feel oppressed and that you're just expecting, maybe you're trying not to expect the worst, but you're just kind of stuck in that rut of just this nervousness of some dark thing coming over you. What if the attitude of the heart dictated how we coped with ourselves, how we handled ourselves through different circumstances, you know? I'm gonna move my Bible, don't worry. I'm still gonna read it, but I'm just gonna move it. What if our days weren't made evil by the hard things in the circumstances we're in, but by how we fill our days with maybe dread or anxiety and foreboding about those things or just chose to have a happy heart, you know? To have a glad heart. God's been speaking to me a lot about this in the last month about attitude and just how your attitude can change your perception and therefore your quality of life. And Randy and I, it's funny, we've been ping ponging these sermons together. Last week, I preached this in the morning and then he preached at night and then I really, I was like, man, I think you should release your word at VP and then he did this morning, he felt that too and now I'm preaching this here, but really, what is it about our perception in the way we perceive our circumstances that affects our quality of life so much? And what if you could decide to always purpose in your heart to be thankful and glad and just watch your quality of life change? Does that sound like a self-help book? Kind of, it's not a self-help book though because it's the word of God. You know, he who has a glad heart, you know, a thanksgiving, a thankfulness is gonna feast his way through all of his life. A glad heart makes it cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of heart, the spirit is broken. That's what the verse 13 in the same chapter says. So glad heart, continual feast, sad heart, broken spirit. And the goal of the enemy is to break your spirit. He wants you to have a broken spirit because he knows that as long as your spirit isn't broken, you will never be in chains of what he's trying to do and you could be physically bound up in chains and you wouldn't be broken and you wouldn't, he wouldn't win, you know? When I got saved, I was four years old, a Christian who was famously in jail for his faith, got light out of prison and I was four years old and I was in, we're watching a video of him. And he said, you know, I was in jail for all these years, but I was free in my heart because he knew Jesus and I was so confounded by that. How someone could be in prison in chains, but living out of a place of freedom and you could see it on his face and I gave my heart to the Lord. So I continue with the two nine says, "For which I am suffering, bound with chains is a criminal, "but the word of God is not bound." And that's the truth, that the truth of God's word, everything that he says in it can't be stopped, you know? And my friend Justin, you know, he's one of my best friends and I've seen him live that way. When he came back to the Lord and he got filled up with the spirit, he started to live like the word was actually true. Does that make sense? Because for strong force as little children, you are of God. You belong to him and have already defeated and overcome the agents of the anti-Christ because he who lives in you is greater mightier than he who is in the world. No person or thing that comes against you is stronger or bigger than Christ who is in you. And you hear people like Todd White, people like Justin, people like Heidi Baker is say, "I just started believing the word." And you're kind of like, if you're like me, you'd be like, "Hey cool, Heidi Baker, thanks for that." What actually are you doing? But you notice that birth starts with saying little children. And to really know that you're a child and to have that kind of faith, faith like a child because little kids don't doubt, I'll tell my son something and he won't doubt me. And I used to think it'd be funny to kind of trick him or joke around with him, but then I realized that he believes everything I say. So I didn't want to confuse him and like distract him. But like a good child, you believe the word of God and you believe that already. It says already we've overcome the anti-Christ. How would we actually start to live if we lived every day? We've overcome the anti-Christ. Because of the greater spirit that is in us. And if you believe that, your life shows it. Dan Moeller, he's Todd White's mentor in some of us watching some of the sermons, but he said that some of us Christians are so afraid to go into the lions then, 'cause we're not totally convinced we're not gonna get bit in there. You know, God is so big and He'll always protect you. Whatever hard stuff you've gone through. But some of us are so afraid of the trials, because we don't really know what God's like is our protector and our helper. And some of us maybe aren't believing like a little child. And I really felt to just to share some personal stories with you guys just about my life. And some of you I never met you before. I had cancer when I was about 18. And I feel like on a list of irrational fears, cancer's like pretty big for common irrational fears. I haven't gone to the Stats Canvas website in the rational fears section of their site. I'm sure that exists. But I had cancer when I was 18. And it could make you victim. I could have every right to be a victim through life, because I'd cancer when I was a young man. But by the grace of God, even through that process, I chose a happy heart. And God gave me joy the whole time. And I wasn't thanking him for the cancer. And I wasn't like, oh God, thank you. What a gift, like no, I know it wasn't from God. I know there's an enemy that prowls around, trying to destroy me. But I was thankful and I was myself and I was making jokes being silly and just being myself. And I had a glad heart. I was so thankful for the time off of school, high school. And I was thankful for my nurses and I was thankful for everyone and I was thankful they got the cancer right away. And then after that happened, sorry, actually that happened second. The first thing was that I fell on my head 13 feet and broke my wrist and I was in physiotherapy. And then I said, guys, I can't come to physiotherapy anymore. I have cancer. And they're like, oh, and so I had to go deal with all that. So it was kind of relentless. My grade 12 year of school, I missed a lot of school. And I have every right to be a victim. If you want to look at events that could happen to cause physical trauma and emotional trauma. But Jesus knows what it's like. And I don't know if some of you who are married I don't know if you've ever tried to get away with being like, oh, you don't know what it's like to your spouse. Let me tell you that you'll never meet someone who knows what it's like to be you. You'll never meet someone on the earth that's gone through the exact same life you've gone through and has the same family, same upbringing, same like genetic makeup, markup makeup makeup. You guys are very quiet. Hi. But Jesus reminded me, I was praying into this and he was saying that when he was tested and he was fasting in the wilderness, he endured every temptation that we could face in this world. So Jesus, it's not me that you have to be accountable to when you die, it's Jesus. And you don't have to come to me and say like, like, I don't have to try to prove to you how hard my life's been. You don't have to tell me, oh, you don't know what it's like. You don't know what it's like. And sure, I don't know what it's like. I don't know what it's like to have adult kids. I don't know what it's like. So many things to retire, to worry about the future in that way. I don't know what it's like, but Jesus knows what it's like. And none of us have any excuse to be a victim when we have such a big God who's suffered in every way we could suffer. Does this make sense, you guys? And so for a while, I got used to feeling like a victim and I got a lot of tension, you know, it's teenager and I was getting sick and all these girls were so nice and they'd hug me and it feels good. It feels good to get hugs from girls when you're 17 and attention, but if your identity is what you've suffered and your victim kind of mentality, you'll never overcome and you'll never learn how to be an overcomer. And James won, too, after my first accident, I wrote an album called "Consider Peer Joy." No, I wasn't thanking God for my accidents. I wasn't thanking God for any of that. But I was saying, quoting James, "Consider Peer Joy." Counted all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials and many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And it goes on to say, "So you're not mature." So you're not immature. Sorry, excuse me. It does its work to make you mature and complete, not lacking anything. It's good word, yeah. And it's not sarcastic. Sometimes I've heard people read that verse and they're like, "Oh, count it all, joyfully." And they're like laughing about it. Like it's sarcastic, like it's a slap in the face. But I wanna tell you that if you've Jesus living inside of you, you can have joy in any circumstance you're faced with. You know, maybe you're scared of trials, but isn't it scarier to never have to go through a hard time and to come out immature and complete? I'm more afraid of being immature and incomplete and lacking than saying, "God, I'm gonna hold your hand when I go through this storm." And I know on the other side, I'm gonna be more of a man than I was before I went through it. You know, having kids when you're really young is awesome. Like, you could, this is a good example. You could, sometimes you kind of watch all your friends and they're 20s traveling in the world. And you're just raising this awesome family. You could have that kind of perspective of like, "Oh, I miss you now." But, you know, I think we did the math and we'll, if we play our cards, we'll be empty nesters when we're 45 or something. So, glad heart, right? Glad heart. No, but sometimes when your kids are sick and like every 20 minutes, they're waking up, right? Right? I can't even look at each other. We're just like, "Oh, okay. Trust me, there's hope at the end of this analogy." You know, sometimes when your kids are sick, you're more than one kid and they're setting each other off and they're crying every half an hour and different body fluids and I'll just spare you the details. But sometimes you'd find yourself not naturally enjoying the blessing of children in those moments to put it bluntly. And, Tess and I found ourselves like a couple months ago, James was sick for a month and a half. Couldn't figure what was wrong with him and just, and then it would go away. It was like, it never got really bad, but it would just be like a little bit a little bit and then you'd be better. And it was just like this winter thing. But, when you're exhausted, lying in your bed and you hear him cry every 20 minutes, you have a choice whether you're gonna be like, "Oh, what was me?" You know, "Oh, I'm suffering so much." This shouldn't happen to me, you know? I prayed this morning that nothing bad would come my way or "I don't know what you prayed that morning." But let me just tell you that we started to realize we can hear our kids crying, kind of stressing us out. But some people, some people were married years and their biggest hearts desire to be parents. Or you think about people who had kids that died really prematurely at a young age. And you think of how the terror of the silence in their home, how that could maybe terrorize them. And we started to realize that even hearing kids crying, screaming sick kids in our life through a glad heart would be like, "That is sounds of life." You know, I get to be a dad. I get to have throw up all over me. I'm saying this last week, I love nice stuff. I love nice clothes. Just make sure it's machine washable and that we're good. 'Cause I'm call to being a dad. And sometimes you get really dirty. But I've seen the glad heart that I get to do this. And it's a privilege to do this. And lots of you who have been coming to church don't know much about the Justin story. You wouldn't know how much he suffered in his lifetime. And the stuff he's been through. And I think sometimes he doesn't know because of his glad heart. And I really believe this glad heart thing just changing the way you see it with Thanksgiving is what's gonna change our lives. But you have to believe it like a little child. And in James, it goes on to talk about doubt. Says in James, "The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind." That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double minded and unstable and all they do, that's in the same chapter. James 1 verses 6 and 8. And how often, like tell me if this makes sense to you. Sometimes I'd hear, you know, when I was 19 and tested I were in love and I would have all this mental anguish and I would just be, my mind felt like a beehive. I had no clarity in my mind. I didn't know how to walk in my authority and I didn't know how to have to really live having the mind of Christ. And so many times someone would be like, "Oh, try this, I would try it, go home." Oh Lord, I just pray this thing. They said to try, "I would take a small risk, wouldn't happen double minded." God see, it doesn't work for me. I'm the exception. And I'd always think I was the exception. Oh, that's cool for them, it helped them. Maybe they're a baby Christian. I don't know, I'm in a bigger mess than that. And this doesn't work for me. And doubt, it says that, you know, when you doubt, you shouldn't expect to receive anything from the Lord. And that's not because all of a sudden God's like, "Oh, you're imperfect, like I'm putting up a wall, I'm shutting you down for me." It's that you actually can't receive in your mind if you're full of doubt, 'cause you're double minded, you're unstable on all you do. And that's what I was like when I was 19, I'd go to a conference, this or that, I would try certain things, this isn't working. Oh, okay, never mind, it doesn't work for me. Go back to my miserable lifestyle. And it kind of reflects, you know, there's two extremes that sometimes I've seen in the Christian faith where it's like, oh, your whole life is suffering. It's hard, everything's hard, you just die, you give up your right, and then you're like, miserable for Jesus, and no one wants to be a Christian and they're afraid of you. And then the other extreme is like, everything's easy, you just ignore problems, you just deny they exist. And it's like, hey man, your legs on fire, it's not fire. I'm a new creation in Jesus' name. No, actually, it's on fire. Roll around, I don't need to roll around. That would be unbelief, I'm fine. No, please, somebody pour water on him, he's in fire. And the denial of hard things that were going through in the name of thinking it's faith. But let me tell you, faith is seeing things that are impossible and then looking up to who can make it possible. Faith is saying, this guy's legs on fire. We're in a desert, where's the water? God, you need to provide water and then it starts raining, you know? You can't deny that it exists, but the other hand, I feel like denies the joy of the Lord. Are you following me? Your whole life isn't suffering, isn't pain, isn't anguish, and your whole life isn't just bubbly joy, just ignore all the friends and family that you are a bit tired of being around and just be in your own little selfish personal bubble. Not like bubble tea, that's its own thing completely. You know, Ravi Zacharias says that for the Christian, for the believer, the Christian life, the center point focus of the Christian life is joy and suffering is peripheral. And that the meaninglessness of not having God and trying all these things as an unbeliever, finding meaningless list everywhere you go because the center point, like the focus of the life of an unbeliever is absolute suffering. And they get little taste of joy. You know, joy for them is peripheral. It's kind of on the sidelines. They get little bits of it here and there. But I feel like some of us aren't walking in the fullness of the joy of the Lord because we feel like it would be dishonest to walk in it. We feel like it wouldn't be honest with our situation. But wouldn't you agree if I can make it through these hard things in life and cancer and not be a complete victim, know that I'm more than a conquer than anybody can? There's nothing special about me. I used to even watch preachers and they'd be talking about the word and they'd be sharing these biblical truths and I'd be like, oh, they're preachers, you know? It's like, they're called to this. So they have more grace. But we all have grace. We can all enter into that grace. No one is, no one is the exception. Tessie used to help me not make loud inflammatory comments when I'd be panicking in situations. And I thought she was just, I thought I was annoying her or it was just her personal space. She didn't like hearing me be like, oh, this is the worst. This will never work out. But really, she didn't watch me, she didn't wanna watch me spiral into unbelief as I like cursed myself with all the things that we're declaring weren't gonna happen. Good wife, right? I'm a blessed man. Do you know why that? Because every time you're in a heart situation, you start saying, this will never work. Oh, this always happens to me and it always will. And I just don't see how it's gonna, it starts to really dethrone God from your heart. He, you take him off the throne of your heart. And that's what I find myself doing. I'd be taking him off the throne of my heart. Every time I would say something, oh, I'd be so negative, you know? And 'cause I was afraid of getting hurt by something and oh, this seems like it could be good, you know? But I didn't know, last time it screwed up so badly and who knows, maybe this isn't even the right thing. And my heart, my expectation would be down here and things would have to prove me wrong. And you know that the phrase, don't get your hopes up. I think one of the taglines of the Christian life should be, get your hopes up. Expect impossible things. God could do anything, he could do anything. And if you're in a hard place right now in a battle, just ask God what he's trying to show you. He's not cruel and he's not sadistic and he doesn't wanna just make you wonder on the mountain for years and years and years. He's really trying to give you a key. And it might be the simplest thing that you're blind to see and just re-approach the situation like a child and ask him what it is. 'Cause I don't wanna have any regrets in my life. But one thing I notice was just that me is a 19 year old man. So much of the anguish in my mind would have been squashed how did I just read this one Joyce Meyer book, to be honest. And someone's like, oh, you're struggling in the mind, re- Joyce Meyer, battlefield in the mountain. And I was like, oh, it's not actually the book, someone had it at our house, but it was like a workbook. So it was just questions and answers that you had to know the writing about. And I was kinda like, oh, yeah, I've seen her on TV before. So seeing someone's on TV, you know, a judge Terry. Like, oh, I don't know, it might be water down, 'cause she's on TV. So I didn't read it. And I thought, oh, it's a workbook anyway. I'd like to get my hands on the actual book, which I never got my hands on. And I don't live in regret, but when I see something like that, like a misopportunity, where the first two years of our marriage, I really suffered in my mind and I had to really learn about my own authority and not to make decisions at a fear, but from a place of faith, and learned a lot of hard life lessons. And a month ago, God said to me, remember, remember battlefield of the mind, you should read it. And I was like, yes, Lord, and I went and got it. And I swear every chapter, I read it, and I just cried and cried. And I was like, God, did you write this book for me? And he's like, yes. But she wrote it for her son, who struggled in his mind for years and years. And I don't have regret at my journey, the personal journey God's taken me on. But if some other kid out there suffered, his mom went to God and said, God, what are the answers? And she fought for those answers and got them in a book. How could I have denied myself that? And how many life lessons are we refusing to be childlike about? So we just learned the hard way. God says, oh, I wanted you to have it now, but I'll come back in four years. Psalm 93, one says, the Lord is king. He is robed in majesty. Indeed, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength. The world stands firm and cannot be shaken. The word says that the world cannot be shaken. It says, we've overcome the spirit of the antichrist and the world can't be shaken. When I read that, I challenge myself, am I living that kind of life? You know, we have a church on Hastings and Abbott, kind of the border of Gastown and the downtown east side. And when I go there and I start to worship and I just hope God will bring in people that are going to get touched. Am I really living like all the spirits surrounding that area or have been overcome by Jesus in me? And that really the world can't be shaken. You know, easy it used to be for my world to be shaken. Ever been there before? You know, you break your pencil in half and you're swearing. Like, my pencil, I don't have any gas. I need to go and get some pencils. I was just writing this thing out. And I forgot when I was writing. The word says that the world can't be shaken. And what does that look like for us as Christians? Knowing who's inside of us. But it all starts with that gladness. Lord, we're speaking to me during worship. Just about perspective of his everlasting love. And I just felt to read Romans 8, 31. And then Tessa has a couple of things she wants to just take on. But it says, what then shall we say to these things? Verse 31, "If God is for us who can be against us, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies who is to condemn. Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that was raised who is at the right hand of God who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? We've overcome the spirit of any Christ. The world can't be shaken. And Jesus Christ's son of God is interceding for us. So then what could stop us from his love? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written for your sake, we're being killed all the day long. We regard it as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we're more than conquest through him who loved us. For I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else, and all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. And Christ Jesus, our Lord. And you need to be careful with new believers, young believers. You know, if someone gets saved and they have this fire and the world, they see the world differently in every day's a new beginning and they're so hopeful and encouraging and we just have to be careful that we don't treat them like, oh yeah, it's a honeymoon stage, you know? Yeah, they're in love with Jesus. Yeah, yeah, don't worry. They'll come back to the reality of life soon and that'll hit them. I've heard that said before. What if they tasted something so pure? After tasting death, their whole life until that moment and it changed their whole perspective of the world? That's what I wanna live. I always wanna reassess my life. Am I living like the greatest spirit in this entire world? Which is the spirit of the risen Lord is inside me and everything else is below it. Here's my wife. (audience applauds) Just as parents, one of our biggest things is personal responsibility. So I'm gonna be a mom for a second. We're always teaching our kids, well, a common phrase in our house is what are you gonna do about it? So like mom, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Okay, what are you gonna do about it? Like, what are you gonna do? And I'm here, I'm here for you, but, and I have some ideas, maybe, do you wanna talk about my ideas? But what are you gonna do? And I just, as we've kind of been walking in this parenting thing for not super long, I'm not gonna pretend we have like grown kids or anything, but as we've been practicing this in the trenches every day, we realized it actually applies to more than just raising toddlers and that sometimes I think God's saying that to us. And we're like, "God, do something!" And he's like, "What are you gonna do about it?" 'Cause like, have you read Philippians four? (laughing) I know God's not mocking you, I might sound sarcastic, this is how I talk to my kids, I'm not mocking them. It's just like, he's like a nice dad, and he's like, "Oh, I gave you a lot of stuff in here, have you read it?" Like, (laughing) John 8, 32 to 34, says in the truth, sorry, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. That's really common, we say that a lot. But right after is really significant as well, he's talking to the Jews and they answered him, "We are Abraham's offspring descendants and have never been in bondage to anybody. What do you mean by saying you will be set free?" Jesus answered them, "I assure you, most solemnly, I tell you whoever commits and practices sin is the slave of sin." And the reason that applies is because Jesus is saying, like, you know, if you let, if you become my disciple, if you immerse yourself in truth, if you know the truth, it will set you free, it will. So, Justin says this a lot, we can't go to the word and be like, well, it's not true in my life and like kind of be like all doubting and questioning 'cause it's not the truth's fault, it's not God's fault, it's not the words fault. And so for us, and this is where personal responsibility comes in, when we don't have breakthrough in our lives and this is how we live, so I'm not preaching at you, like we live our lives this way. If we don't have breakthrough, we sit down, we pray, and we're like, what are we doing? 'Cause God gave us all the keys, He gave it all. Like He has the keys and there's a lot of stuff in the word and He wants our breakthrough more than we do. And so what we're sinful, like we're fallen, what did we screw up, you know? And how this ties into Johnny's word is that it's like we all have a responsibility hearing this now to think about and pray about how it applies to us and kind of receive it in a humble heart with a humble heart. And you have a choice, like we can't, it's not Paul and Heidi's job or anybody else's job to babysit you and be like, are you believing the word? Like are you putting it into, you know, we're not gonna all be weird like that. And so I'm just pointing this out because I know that a lot of us have heard truthful teachings year after year in Johnny was saying like eight years ago, we heard about Joyce Mayer and we've probably watched Sermons by her, but we didn't have the humility, the humble heart to receive it and to actually be like, okay, God, no really, how does this work? And why am I not getting it and what am I doing? And what am I missing and teach it to me like a child? And so everyone here has the opportunity right now to get breakthrough if you want it, it's there. But you have to receive it like a child, like Johnny said, and the only reason Johnny's gotten breakthrough is because he has that humility. So he was like, oh, I'm not a special person. He is a special person in that he has humility and that's the only difference between someone who gets breakthrough and someone who doesn't. It's because they actually heard it and said, yes, I can do that by your grace and I'm gonna receive it. So I really wanna pray. Can I pray? You guys pray in this church? I'll just see if it's Justin's worth it. And you're like, okay, this guy's kind of weird about Justin. So I wanna pray for anybody who wants to choose a glad heart with me and just wants to be empowered in their will to do that and to really not doubt. This is like stand up if you've been fighting doubts and then not seen results, but you wanna just walk in faith. That's why I'm standing right now, I'm standing up for this 'cause I don't wanna doubt anymore 'cause I wanna expect to receive from the Lord. And so sometimes you might be kicking and screaming your way to having a happy heart, to having a glad heart. It might be a real battle, you might be like, oh my God, you're pushing me, baby. And it might be like that, you might be fighting for it, but being like, when it comes down to it, I'm choosing to be glad to have thanksgiving. And then not to waver. Yeah, if that's the desire of your heart, just stand up. God, thank you for the truth in your word that puts the whole world into perspective. That it can't be shaken, no matter how negative the media is and the news, the world can't be shaken. And we just choose you right now. We thank you. We choose to have a glad heart. We're thankful for who we are at this point and who we're becoming and where you've taken us and we choose to thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe the only reason I didn't read that book was for this message. And maybe someone's gonna get set free tonight. Thank you, how you redeemed so much from our past and our lives and thank you that you're using every circumstance right now to draw us near to you and that there is joy in every opportunity. And I didn't have time, I didn't want to tell my story today 'cause I had a lot to share. But yes, there was undercover cops this morning at a church. And yes, I had the joy of the Lord through the whole process. And so many people were like, are you okay? I'm like, I'm great. Just so much peace and joy. It's happy for what God did and how He showed up in. It's a long story, but it was a good ending. And I just pray that we won't get stuck in our mindsets where we see things coming and we say, oh, historically, that makes me afraid and fearful and now it's happening again. I'm gonna be afraid and fearful, but that will realize that we have the mind of Christ and will break some of these habits. In Jesus' name. Thank you, God. Amen. (upbeat music)