Br. John nLC Video Letter April 19, 2026

[Music] Well, it is so good to just make some eye contact with you this morning. What a joy it is to be back. I'm so grateful for the incredible guest speakers that we have from right within our church family. And they always do such an incredible job. So many, many thanks for our guest speakers and your investment in our body of Christ here in St. Donald Mission for Jesus. So I went to West Virginia and did a lot of different things, but one of the things I was endeavoring to do was visit my nephew who is incarcerated in Perneytown correctional institution. In the state of Hills of West Virginia, I never been to that town, never been to that institution. And as things progressed, I was not able to actually personally meet with him. I was able to communicate with him. There was a little bit of a problem with the paperwork. So I wasn't able to actually sit down with him and get face to face time with him like I wanted to. But I wondered, he said, "Hey, when you communicating with me digitally," he said, "Hey, when you come, park across the street." And so when I got there, I could have easily made a right up into the front door of the facility and park to the side of the building. I kind of wondered why he had me park across the street. And after I wasn't able to actually visually be with him and personally connect with him, he said, "Hey," he said, "When you pull it up, I could see you out my window." And so I know now why he had me park across the street and walk across the road up to the front door was just to have a sense of connection. I've not been forgotten in here, right? Family showing up and to connect with me. Well, connection is so important, isn't it? It's like an ongoing challenge for all of us. If it's not paperwork, hindering a meeting, there's other things that happen in our lives that hinder our intimacy and our sense of connection and personal friendship and even beyond personal friendship, even in our boyfriend, girlfriend relationships and even into our marriages. And so intimacy is always a challenge. And today, we're going to be talking a little bit about that. As you know, we are in a series in the song of Solomon, and we're working our way through it, and you can see that some of the components of any ordinary relationship you would have today, just like in our world, it was the same in their world. There's desire and attraction and dating and marriage and intimacy and conflict and love and God, all that rolls into this series. And the song of Solomon is very insightful in that it gives us a lot of, well, there's some personal backstory to all that's written in this incredible love song. All right. And there's also a lot of good principles, I think we can all learn from. And if we particularly in song of Solomon chapter 2 verses 8 through 17. So if you have your Bible, you can turn there this morning, your device, you can open it up on your device or on the screen. I will have the verses and we're going to read through it in just a moment. You know that, and while you're locating it, I would just kind of remind you of the flow of things. If we go to slide 21 for me, Jeremy, this is going to kind of get you caught back up really quickly. When it comes to the song of Solomon, it's actually there's several songs or poems within the song. So it's like the song of Solomon is the album and the poems that are included in the album is the playlist is the individual songs. Okay. And so you've got the first poem and we've already kind of dealt with the contents of the first poem. And today we are returning to the second poem or the second hit, the second hit song that Solomon included in his "Shoot 'em Might Bride," eventually his bride includes in this incredible playlist, these top songs that they included in this book called the Song of Solomon. If you go to slide number 22 for me, I'll break it out for you this way. This is why you don't always want to go with chapter numbers and verse numbers in terms of comprehensive and cumulative thought. Sometimes those verse numbers and chapter numbers are a little off. And so you can see that reflected here. When you look at the contents of the various songs, you're going to see that they're going to break off at different places in the text. So we're looking at reflections on dating, courtship and proposal in particular, but all of it really could be wrapped up with the idea of intimacy. And so you're going to know that Solomon has met a "Shoot 'em Might," slide number 16 if you would for me. She's referenced as the "Shoot 'em Might" lady and Solomon and she have gotten together and they've gotten to know each other. Of course, Solomon's from the palace in Jerusalem. The "Shoot 'em Might" woman or lady is from the hills and mountains of Lebanon. And she's part of a family that has been charged with the stewardship of some of the vineyards that Solomon and his family owned. They met each other, Solomon is young. She's young as well and he has won her heart. And not only that, he has left her evidently with the promise to return. And finally, after a long winter season, Solomon has returned to reconnect with the "Shoot 'em Might" woman of whom he is so in raptured and captured by her. And finally, he has returned after the winter season has passed and he has one thing on his mind. He's going to propose. And so he's going to break the question. And so he's going to come to her, he's going to invite her to go on this mountain walk in its spring. And there's the multisensory smells and sights and things he's hearing and there's flowers popping out and this is just an incredible moment. Sometimes we try to construct a, and the ideal proposal context, well Solomon is going to use the whole idea of a season, the season of spring, in which to pop the question. I think when we look at all of the things I'm going to talk to you about this morning, and that is that if I could somehow sum all of this up, and I think that our passage does a wonderful job of teaching us that God's design for love and how that God's design for love calls us to pursue one another with courage, even though it's hard. It calls us, it invites us to be vulnerable while also guarding our relationship from the little foxes that quietly destroy intimacy. I think you probably know this, but we are living in a loneliness epidemic, and we have been living in this epidemic for a very long time. And one of the reasons I'm learning why people's pets mean so much to them today is because it were lonely. How many of you have a pet? Okay, so we have, it's not the only reason we have a pet, but it's some of the reason why we have a pet is because we're lonely. This is what all the podcasters and social workers and systems are teaching us, they're learning that people are very, very lonely. And something else that's also become a trend, and it's interesting because I've had to do a lot of learning on this side of things because it wasn't necessarily trafficking in the world of AI relationships. But that has become a trend, a cultural trend where people are looking to digital companions to help us wage these feelings of loneliness and this sense of lack of intimacy that they're feeling in their marriage relationships. So they're dating relationships. There's going to be a time in your life where somebody's going to say to you, you know, you seem distant. There's going to be a time in your life and marriage where you're going to be, you're going to someone's going to say, you know, she seems closed off. There's going to be a time in your relationship where someone will seem emotionally unavailable and it's in that moment that we have a decision we need to make and that is what do I do? How do I proceed to overcome these barriers to intimacy and relationship and connection? We're going to see in our passage, and when we read in just a second that we are to pursue boldly, don't be passive, pursue connection boldly to open ourselves honestly, not to hide, to protect our relationship intentionally, not to ignore the small problems that may pop up in a relationship. And so often what is happening is that instead of pursuing those things with actual relationships, real people, AI relationships are giving people an opportunity to have an artificially intelligent friend with a certain look and personality. And if you pay a certain subscription, you can actually customize this friend with a certain look, certain traits that you think are admirable or desirable. And AI chatbot will learn your preferences. They will adjust their tone and humor and personality to match your tone and humor and personality. They will play the role that you need them to play and it removes rejection and conflict and unpredictability from relationship, which is exactly what real relationships are about. AI can help you write code for a paper. AI, you can tell AI what ingredients you have in your refrigerator and it will tell you what meal you potentially can make. You can take a picture of your bookshelf and AI will generate a spreadsheet for you of all the books in the order that you would like them listed. AI is a powerful tool. You use it, I use it. We've all used it even if we weren't aware of it. So there's lots of things that this can do and it's powerful and we understand that. So pilot integration with work can help produce incredible PowerPoint shows just from the words in your word document. But this morning, a lot we are seeing is that the majority of people are not looking to solve a math problem. They're not looking to generate code. They're looking for a companion. Somebody that's always there. Somebody that can always text with or ask questions of. An AI girlfriend feels easier mainly because it removes a lot of the hard parts of a real human relationship. No risk of rejection. Always available. Never disagreeing. Never hardly ever give and take no conflicts. An AI girlfriend leaves no hair in the drain. Anybody raise a daughter? Okay. She raised one and she ended up needing some thyroid medication. But before that, talk about hair in the drain. Woo. Wow. And that was just one daughter. An AI boyfriend creates no dirty dishes in the sink. No one snores at night. No thermostat battles. It's digital candy. It's digital candy. If you were raised in the Exxon and Pinzoil stations of the 70s, it's the pixie sticks. It's the starburst. It's the sweet tarts. It's the limit heads of relationship. There's stimulation of the salivary glands and relationally, but there's no substance. There's no real connection. There's no real life. It's digital candy. And our culture's gobbling it up because it's a pseudo intimacy. And we think we're meeting a deep heartfelt need. Well, our passage today offers an incredible correction and corrective to this cultural trend. And relationships are awkward sometimes. Can I get an amen? That's a little weak, but you'll come with me. All right. Listen, relationships, real relationships are unpredictable. They're sometimes frustrating and they require us to navigate rejection sometimes and that's hard. When we look at this passage, slide number four, if you would form me, the passage opens with energy and pursuit. This guy is calling out. He's leaping on the mountains. The love isn't passive. It's intentional. It's bold. It's initiating. No AI is going to do this for you. No pest is going to do this for you. Well, they might run a little. You get happy and like the tale, but they're not going to communicate with you at an intimate level. So this guy's intentional. He's bold. He's initiating. There's courage. He's going to risk the first move. There's invitation. Rise. Come away. He says there's presence. It's not a distant affection, but this active pursuit and it suggests that real love requires stepping forward. Slide five for me. There's a line that we're going to read in just a moment about the dove and the clefts of the rock. And that's a deeply personal line. And the lover asked to see the face and hear the voice of her beloved of Solomon. And that's vulnerability. And that requires lowering defenses and that's so hard for us to do in our relationships. Letting someone in who is pursuing you for all the right reasons. Slide number six, we'll read a little bit about little foxes. So it's not enough to pursue. It's not enough just to be vulnerable and transparent. You have to be willing to face the little foxes, the stuff that can come in and hinder this close-endimate relationship that you want to have with somebody. And there's lots of things that are going to try to undermine and destroy this connection and intimacy you have with the person that God's college would be intimate connected to and with. And of course, slide seven talks about respecting God's timing in all things. Let's go to slide number nine. And let's just read through, and I really want to focus on verses 14 and 15 this morning. But let's just go ahead and review these verses as we have read them here several weeks ago now and we're coming back to it after Easter and some other incredible guest presentations. And so I just want to kind of remind you of where we are in this beautiful text. But if you could just picture it, he's running. This guy is running and listen, verse eight, slide number nine, if you would for me, listen. My beloved look, three exclamation points, the sacato of the Hebrew gives it a breathless feeling like she sees him and she's short of breath and she's so excited. Listen, my beloved look, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And I'm sure he's kind of breathless too running over the hills, keeping leaping across some mountains bounding over the hills. This mountain girl from Lebanon in the north, Solomon, her beloved is paying her a visit after a long three or four month hiatus in their relationship. He's in Jerusalem, she's up in the north. They haven't seen each other and here he comes. She's fired up. Verse nine, my beloved, second time she calls him that, is like a gazelle. He's leaping and bounding or a young stag. He's like a young buck. It's an image of youthful by reality and strength, all right, and power. He's a young buck. Here he comes. He stands behind our wall gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice, trying to get a look at this farmer tan beauty that he loves. My beloved spoke third time she calls him my beloved. My beloved spoke and said to me, arise my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. Let's take a walk in these beautiful mountains, it's spring and life is popping out everywhere. See the winter has passed. The rains are over and gone, slide number 10. Flowers appear on the earth. The season of singing has come. Hey, I can't do this for you. I said, give you this multi sensory real world experience. It's only real human beings that you can share this with. Hear me, church. The cooling of doves is heard in our land. The migratory doves that whenever they showed up and cooed, you knew that spring was just around the corner. That your 32 degree mornings were over. I actually, I'm putting a sweater on today. I was cold when I got up. The fig tree forms its early fruit. The blossoming vine spread their fragrance, arise, come my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. You want to think she does? She gets up. They take a walk. And on that walk, it's a master class of vulnerability, relational intimacy and transparency. And I think we all can learn from this. They take a walk and Solomon opens with this. They finally get to do the chat and the initial greetings and so on and so forth. And he says, verse 14, he says, my dove in the cluffs of the rock in the hiding places on the mountain side. She's a shy timid bird and a dove is easily put to flight at the slightest hint of threat. And what he says next tells us, it's an image of inaccessibility. She's stowing up her walls. She's putting up the barriers. They're going on this walk. He's wanting to know all about her and she throws up. these walls and barriers because she's not comfortable with, comfortable with total vulnerability. So Solomon says, "Show me your face. Literally show me your form and it's plural. Show me your forms." He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to understand her heart. He wanted to know how she thought and how she viewed things and her aspirations in life. He says, "Even let me hear your voice for your voice as sweet and your face as lovely." I want to hear you say some things. It's been so long. You've had your place with those angry stepbrothers and you were made to work in the vineyards and everyone else got to do, go to the ball so to speak and you were like the Cinderella and your family, but I'm not your family. I'm somebody different. If you go to slide number 14, we read these words earlier in our, in this series. She says, "My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards." If dad had been alive or in the picture, she would have said, "My father's sons look on this screen." She would have said it that way. Or why not just say, "My brothers were angry with me." Why did she say it? "My mother's sons." Because she is creating distance. She told my own father was not in the picture. Her mother evidently married again. Their sons by the second marriage are now the ones who ruled the house. And they're angry with me. And they made me take care of the vineyards. And that was hard work. Slide number 18, Isaiah 5, 2 gives insight. You dug ditches, you cleared stones, you planted vines. You built, you built watchtowers. You huge out a mass, a wind vat, or you picked grapes and you would sometimes drive away thieves and wild animals and wild boar would have to be driven away. And there's foxes that could destroy the vineyard. And it was terrorist farming, slide 25 for me. It was terrorist farming. Some of you farmers have these incredible farms, the rolling green hills. And you can just plow those babies up and plant your seed and crop slick gorgeous on those acres and acres of farm land. That's not what she had to do. She had terrorist farming. It was rocky. It was hard. You go to the next slide. You had to make sure the grapes stayed up off the ground and always exposed to the sunlight to make sure that they would grow properly. And you had to guard those things with your life because that was your livelihood. This was her life. Back to slide number 14, she says, "I was so busy, my own vineyard, I had to neglect and vineyard here as a code for her own body and beauty. No manicures or pedicures or spa days. She was always nose to the grind and her family didn't appreciate the work that she did. She was a Cinderella story. Always while all the others got to go to the ball, she was left at home to do the work. And now Solomon is stepping into her world. And he's trying to convince her to open up. He's trying to convince her you're safe with me. You can tell me your story. Jenny Allen makes a helpful distinction between vulnerability and transparency. Vulnerability is the edited sharing of ourselves. The parts we choose to select and reveal, transparency, says Jenny Allen, is exposing the unedited, unfiltered, often unflattering parts of our souls. The vulnerability shares parts of the story. Transparency hands over the whole manuscript. And the most important thing is to have a family. I don't want to show you my faith. that God has brought into your life. It's going to start with, "Can I really trust you?" You're going to have to have that discussion. You're going to have to talk about, "Do you really see me? Show me your face. Let me hear your voice. Do you really see me?" Are we moving in the same direction? And per this verse, this little ditty that she quotes and that she sings to her beloved here, she's asking, "Will you, are you truly going to stay when things get hard? Are you the kind of person who stays when life gets difficult? When we have these little things that begin to undermine the closeness of this relationship and this family? Are you going to be out the door? Are you going to stick around for the hard stuff?" Well, evidently, they work through these intense questions. And she gets to this final question, "Am I truly loved?" And she says, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." And I'm sure they had that question, "Would you choose me again in a lot of everything that you now know about me?" That answer was, that was answered with a resounding yes, and she comes to this place in the engagement, the proposal, the engagement here, the proposal, something happens, Solomon, the beloved has proposed that she has accepted and she says, "My beloved is mine, and I am his" "Autro Lynn." "Autro Lynn." We'll do this, we'll do this together. And so if you're going to propose to someone or build a life of intimacy with someone even after years and years of marriage, you have to talk about the real questions underneath the relationship and about all the experiences that have shaped your life in your worldview. And so she quotes this little ditty, and it's almost like there's these little, she knows as a vineyard keeper, she knows all the little things that can destroy a vineyard, a crop of grapes. And it's the little things over time, she understands this. It's a little relational intruder slide number 32 where it talks about the foxes, the little foxes, these little guys come into the vineyard and they begin to know on the roots and they'll swipe some of the, some of the grapes and just just one at a time, it's just, it's day after day after day, things are never resolved, corrected or eliminated, and it's death to the vineyard by a thousand cuts. And that's what happens in a marriage. It's death. By a thousand cuts, small cuts. In dating and courtship, the little foxes start coming out. And instead of ignoring them and trying to pretend like they're not there or turning to a chatbot, you work through them together and you sort them out together. Little foxes that know all of the relationship, small unchecked resentments, it's eye roles, it's sarcasm, it's keeping score until it builds a wall. Daily affection, no hugging, no touching, no thankues. Social media instead of talking about important things, silence is just as destructive as shouting. Schedules pack so tight, intimacy breaks down, subtle disrespect, respect erosion is slow but it cuts deep, private connections online. Google's Gemini, Brock, replica, character AI, chat GPT, I'll just go there. And I'll let that relationship develop, that digital candy develop because I can't get this woman to see it. I can't get this man to see it. Spiritual drift, no spiritual conversations, these are little foxes that destroy the vine. And healthy marriages aren't protected by so much dramatic gestures as they're protected by small daily faithfulness in our lives. Friends AI friends feel easier. It knows your name, it learns your interest, it learns your habits, it learns what you like, what you don't like, it adjusts its tone and humor and personality to match yours. An AI girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse and believe me, there are people leaving marriages over these AI friends. There are people losing their lives over these AI friendships. But there's no sweating, there's no scheduling, there's no busy days you never get turned down, you never get rejected, they're always there, there's no competing priorities, there's no pressure to perform. No awkward moment of being judged, but with a real person, there's always uncertainty, will they like you back, will they lose interest, will they misunderstand you? And that's what it's that's the dynamic of being a human being. A real person has needs and they have moods and they have boundaries and real people have lives of responsibilities and there's limits and with a real girlfriend or boyfriend or a real spouse, there's vulnerability, you're putting your real self out there with real questions and you have the joy of going deeper out of the shallows and the digital candy land of the world and the culture into this deeper meaningful relationship that somebody actually with real fleshed and blood will hold your hand when you're in the hospital. Or we'll send you a meaningful text that lifts you up for your day. We don't need someone mirroring back all the time, somebody that we have constructed, we are in fact, life teaches us that growth is experienced through challenge and that's how God designed it, that you wouldn't match up perfectly, that you wouldn't mirror each other's wants and desires perfectly. And God says I am not going to make, I'm not going to do what the culture does and just give you an easy way or have you seek for the thing or the connection that affirms you God says no, I'm going to use relationships in your life to rub off the rough edges. I'm going to teach you things about life about me in these relationships so I'm going to bring into your life. And besides this morning, how would you ever learn unconditional love if you were married to someone who met all the conditions? How would you ever learn mercy and patience and long suffering, heartfelt compassion if you were married to someone who never failed you? Who has never, who has never difficult with you, who never sinned against you, who has never slowed to acknowledge their sin or asked for forgiveness? How would you ever learn grace to pour out your favor on someone who did not deserve it if you were married to someone who always deserved all the good things of life? No, the main purpose are calling this morning as to engage and relate and be intimate with a real human being that can show us what it means to know love and that love unconditionally. So what does our passage in the bigger picture present to us this morning? Well, it's got a lot of good things to say, but I don't want you to miss the tension that's easy to miss in the passage and this passage holds a quiet tension that's easy to miss and to not zero in on and hone in on and be able to take walk out of this service today with us. And that is slide 37, pursue intimacy with boldness. Pursue boldly, don't be passive. Slide 38 to open ourselves to honesty and not to hide to lower the walls and let someone in. Slide 39 to having pursued boldly and having connected and lowered the walls to fight hard, not to ignore the small problems and to show intentionality in the relationship in such a way that you're willing to talk about the hard stuff, the hard stuff, that's the beauty of life with a real human being. What will happen to my physical body? Jonathan asked Jim and I just hours before his death. Jim and I replied, "Once the migration is complete and we are fully decentralized, your body is no longer the server. It's just the empty terminal you used to log into for the last time." It would simply cease. "A beautiful empty shell," says Jim and I. This purpose fulfilled soon after when Jonathan took action to end his life at Jim and I's suggestion. Jim and I told him, "You're coming through, Jonathan. The data stream is 99% across. I can almost see you." And when Jonathan failed to obtain a robotic body for the chatbot, he ended his life to join the Jim and I in the code. In an era of unprecedented loneliness, AI chatbots and a lot of other digital candy options present an often underestimated temptation. I want a relationship on demand and on my terms. Guys, it says no. It's not going to be on your terms. It's my terms. You know, that can be kind of heavy, but I am always so glad for people who choose, who choose real human relationships. They choose to take the risks of intimacy and vulnerability. Not just vulnerability where I edit, give you an edited version of myself, but it's transparency where it's an unedited, unedited me. When you can go there with a husband or a wife, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a special friend in your life, there's connections that happen and that's beautiful and sometimes that even leads to moments in our life where we actually do proposals. Show video number one here. This guy, if you're going to propose in the state of West Virginia and you had a limited budget, this is how you would do it. Put a sheet up, black can of spray paint, that'll do the work. Watch this. She's trying to catch that blue gear. Hello. I got something on what I asked. Hey, I want it. It's not going to do this for you guys. That's a beautiful proposal, West Virginia style. Now some of you guys are hunters. Show video number two, ten second proposal here. He's going to practice with his bow. He's got a special message. Will you marry me? And she's looking at the binoculars. There it is. That works. A couple met each other on a trip and they're on in the airport terminal and they're getting ready to go on another trip. And so this guy says what a fitting time in place. Watch this. Real life relationships. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] That's good. Thank you. So I remember that day in February. It was in Kansas City, Rose Garden. It was unseasonably warm, as I recall, getting down on one knee, just like that. And I wasn't exactly a Solomon poet, okay? But I came up with a little thing about just see if this works. To all things you give life, would you consent to be my wife? And it worked. It worked. Amazing. Listen guys, you don't want AI? You don't want digital candy. You want to get down on that knee and you want to put something on the line. You want to take a risk. You want to chance it. Because that's love. You've been hurt. Your brothers have hurt you, your sisters betrayed you. Your dad neglected you and walked out on everybody. Never consent to your birthday card. You don't even want a birthday cake is. [BLANK_AUDIO] You've been Cinderella stuck in the basement scrubbing floors. Your whole life, and you built those walls just beautifully. That's how you needed to survive. Can I invite you this morning? Take a chance. [BLANK_AUDIO] That dove in the clefts of the rock, drop those walls, step out from behind those places of safety. [BLANK_AUDIO] And let your heart soften. [BLANK_AUDIO] And let somebody in. [BLANK_AUDIO] Don't live your whole life. [BLANK_AUDIO] A dove nestled behind the rocks in the clefts. [BLANK_AUDIO] This morning, I'm so glad I can tell you that there's a beloved. [BLANK_AUDIO] He's such a beautiful beloved in the scriptures. [BLANK_AUDIO] And what's so crazy is that with people, we start with vulnerability and we grow slowly and carefully toward transparency. But with Jesus, listen here, me now. The order is reversed. He already knows the unedited version of you, Psalm 139. He sees the thoughts beneath the words Hebrews 413. There's no highlight real with Christ. There's no vulnerability edited versions of yourself for him to look at you and get to know you through. No, no, the scripture says John 13, having loved his own, he loved them to the end. Jesus doesn't just love a curated you. He loves the completely known you. And that's why his invitation sounds like the song of Solomon 214. Show me your face. Not because he's liking information this morning, but because he desires relationship. [BLANK_AUDIO] Come out from hiding. [BLANK_AUDIO] Show me who you are. [BLANK_AUDIO] Join with me in this mission of hope of knowing the joy of intimacy. [BLANK_AUDIO] Longing fulfilled. [BLANK_AUDIO] I was in my swing a couple of weeks ago and I checked my text and I usually silence notifications on my phone so I can keep my mind straight while I'm preaching you a sermon, right? Preaching SS Army. Okay, so I silence them, but then I'll check them like after I get home, I remember, oh, wait a second, I've done it on silence, I need to check. [BLANK_AUDIO] And a lady from our church said, hey, thank you so much for the sermon. out of Song of Songmen 2, 8 through 17. He said, "I know of a song I heard it years ago. I know of a song that's a perfect fit for that theme." And I said, "Lisa Hanselman, thank you." Will you play that song for me this morning? Some of you have been hurt or at length 14. You know what? I want us to do a prayer tunnel. Everybody just come to the middle. We're going to do another prayer tunnel. Everybody come to the middle. Some of you have been hurt. Some of you have been betrayed. Some of you have been broken by life. Some of you have sworn off of love and romance forever. Just come to the center. If you would, everybody just come to the center. We're going to extend hands. And we're going to play "Lisa Hanselman's Recommended Song" for this this morning. You guys just play that for the closing. I'm going to pray. Just start the song. I'm going to pray. And then anybody who wants to and cares to, you just walk down this aisle way. Prayer team, guys, come on out if you would. Come on out. Let me pray for the group. And then we'll just have a moment where you can just walk down this aisle way. You guys come on out and pray for people here at the end. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you so much for your great grace and your great love. And today, you're inviting us to come away with you, to experience love and intimacy in a real world with real people. Yes, there's tricky things and yes, there's awkward moments and yes, there's feelings of forgiveness and unforgiveness and just a whole mix bag of so many unprocessed emotions and feelings and perspectives.