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Hey, my name is Steve Trichler. I am actually the senior past, my official title still Senior pastor of Hope Community Church, which you all are a part of. Which means I'm Drew's boss. Huh? But anyway, I'm the founder of the downtown location. Back when there was only one, and then now my role is I help oversee and coach and mentor and encourage all the different locations, but I don't lead any of them. And yes, this is a great gig as long as things are going well. And they are going very well. In fact, they're going so well that clicky, clicky. There we go. This I did. They didn't have an update today. So today, right now, right now, it's 9:17 right now, now we're starting a new location. There's a new church that you all helped start. Our previous church start before that was you, right before the zombie apocalypse happened. And then we all went into hiding for, I don't know, a year or something. But we're starting a new location today. It's another way of saying a church, but we're united in some of the admin and the. The theology, and we get together and do the same sermon series, share the same name, some of these things. But it's kind of like you guys, pretty independent to do kind of your thing. So this one is starting in the North Lakes. Now, the word North Lakes, we get a lot of pushback on that saying, is it in Brainerd? And it's not in Brainerd. Is it in Alexandria? No, it is not. But it gives us flexibility. That region doesn't really have a name. It's in the this right now they're meeting in the Shoreview Middle School. Chippewa Middle School, yeah, and it's in Shoreview, but they may move to White Bear or Lino or something like that. They're going to be in that area. So we just wanted to have that. And right now they're named North Lakes. And so that is kicking off right now. And my son, who was just a five year old when we started Hope Community Church, what now is called downtown, before that, it was at the U of M campus. He is. He and his wife and my three grandkids are at this location and so very excited about that. They have a big party at 11 o' clock today at turtle Lake. Turtle something. Turtle Park. Crash it. Get a free brat or something if you want, afterwards. And so that's where I'm going to head. So anyway, I also get the opportunity. Drew's on sabbatical here till the end of September, is that correct? And so I'll be with you guys this week and next week as we're kicking off a break, brand new sermon series. And no, it will not last four years like the last time we did a gospel. Okay, so this is our third gospel in our history that we've ever done. And who's just saying a little PTSD from Luke, you know, whatever. In fact, we know people that came during that time because we'd say, well, that was Luke. Yeah, it came in Luke 4. And yeah, we've had people come and stay and leave the church and they were only in Luke. There's other books in the Bible. We're going to do this. But about a year and a half now, till the Christmastime of 2026, Lord willing, we're going to study the Gospel of Luke. And it is very exciting to kick this off and just as a bit of an expectation management this sermon. Anytime you do the beginning of one of these longer series and we're doing a book of the Bible, we always like to take some time in the beginning and just do some background work for you. It's what I like to call four hours of work on my part. That takes about 12 minutes on your part. Okay, so we spent a lot of time just kind of going through some of that. So just expectation over half the sermon is going to be just that. And then we're going to dive into the actual passage. But we are going to look at this passage from chapter one one time we get there and we're calling this just an introduction to Mark. Or also, get ready to get your hair lit on fire by Jesus for the next year and a half. Can you still say that phrase, hair lit on fire? I never know what the kids are saying these days, or not or whatever. I mean it in a positive way. It's not harming anyone or anything. No animals were harmed in the making of this sermon. So anyway, but we're going to read this if you don't mind, if you're able. Would you stand with me? That's something I like to do from time to time. And we'll read it together. Okay? So every time there's a punctuation mark. Just slow down right there for a second. Okay? Mark 1:1:8, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, after me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Okay, good job. Did better than I did. I always. That's a. I like to do that. It's just kind of a way interaction. None of the other pastors like to do that and they're wrong. But the. I just like to do that. But it is a lot of pressure to read that because if you stumble at all, feel like you don't know how to follow that. Hey, Columbia Heights. I don't think all the other locations are doing this. I don't know. I haven't heard. But you all on the back. Where'd you say you're pointing? Over here. There's a table over by. Back in here. And they'd love to give you a free copy of the Gospel of Mark. And it's kind of fun because it has a blank page there. You can put all your thoughts or if you want to put sermon notes or whatever you want. And you're thinking, why didn't he tell us before for this sermon? There's nothing really to write down here maybe, but. And it's this one you guys got the deluxe edition. It has a few fun graphics in here and everything too on the sides and very cool. So anyway, that's kind of a fun thing. I love these just to mark them up. I love. Just as I only preach about half the time now in between downtown and other locations and other churches that I go to. And when I'm just sitting there, it's just a great place to take notes and keep it all in one place. So that's a gift from Columbia Heights to you all. I guess it's kind of your tax dollars at work, but we won't talk about that. So I said this sermon is going to be a little bit different in the fact that it's going to be a little bit more of the introduction. We're going to try to hit the big questions that you always would ask whenever you're faced with any kind of new thing or whatever. The who, what, where, when, why and how. And so we're going to look into this now. I've done this a lot over my almost 30 years of preaching, and I will say this was the most fun that I've ever had doing this because generally it only took me four hours, which is normally it's like six to eight. And I know that's. I don't normally spend that amount of time even on a sermon, maybe, but this time, just doing this introduction, you also feel like I did six hours and it's six minutes of the talk. It's such a ripoff. But anyway, this one was the most fun because there really wasn't much at all. Differences of opinion between all the commentaries I took a look at, which is not. It's just real rare. People have a lot of times they really converge and you got to go, what do I. Some say this, some say that. Most everybody. There's only one thing that people weren't the same on. Everything else, everybody was almost deadlocked in agreement on. And so I'll share that one thing, what it was. First thing we're going to look at is the who. So who is this person who wrote this book? And it is absolutely tied to another question, and that's the how. How do you know this stuff? How did this person Mark? We're just going to go out and say it, right? How did Mark know this stuff? Because if you look through your list of apostles, the name Mark is not there. And so how does Mark know all these different things? So that's where we're going to go after first. And I'm going to use some quotes just in the beginning more than anything, just to kind of go through some of this. And some of them are super cool because they're quoting from ancient things. And those I put in italics to kind of help you out here. So the book that I leaned in on most, which, you know, it's fun when you read other commentaries and they're saying, well, the expert William Lane says this. And then they'd say, well, yeah, William Lane says this. Well, okay, this William Lane guy must be pretty smart. So I used his commentary the most for this. And he says this. The earliest statement concerning the Gospel of Mark is that of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, who wrote a book, the book is lost. That means that. Not that somebody forgot to return it to the library. It just means that we don't have that book anymore. But it's quoted in other Places. The book was called Exegesis of the lord's oracle about AD140, but known to us through quotations made by Eusebus. Thank you, Eusebus. At one point he cited the testimony of an elder, who is evidently an older contemporary. So now this is an ancient quote from this original book in AD 140. And it says this. It says, and the elder said this also. Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he remembered of the things and said and done by the Lord, but not, however, in order. For neither did he hear the Lord nor did he follow him. But afterwards, as I said, Peter, who adapted his teachings to the needs of his hearers, but not as though he were drawing up a connected account of the Lord's oracles. So then Mark made no mistake in thus recording some things just as he remembered them. For he took a forethought for one thing, not to omit any of the things that he had heard nor to state any of them falsely. Okay, there's another gentleman by the name of Irenaeus. He's AD 170. He said that this gospel was written down and that Matthew. I'll just read. After stating that Matthew wrote while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and establishing the church, he adds, and after the death of these, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing the things preached by Peter. So the concept here is, and almost everybody's in agreement with this, is that Peter was preaching and there was a guy by the name of Mark who was there and he heard all this and he started writing these things down and he started putting them together and then he wrote this gospel. Okay, so the guy is Mark. States it right here. His name was Mark. This is the one area where people disagree. Is this Mark the same Mark that was in the book of Acts where Paul and Barnabas, if you remember this, in about Acts chapter 15 or 16, Barnabas wants to take Mark. Paul says, we're not taking Mark. He bailed on us last time, we're out of here. So they fight and Barnabas takes Mark and Paul doesn't. And then they come back later, they do reconcile both Paul and Mark and Paul and Barnabas. But anyway, is that the Mark or is it the mark that's in First Peter where one Peter talks about. Peter talked about this guy named Mark or Mark or Marcus was probably one of the most popular names at this time. It was like being named Jennifer in the 1980s. Okay. Or 90s. So sorry if there's any Jennifers here, but it's very popular. So as a former teacher, I remember this. So they don't know there's debate on this one, right? Some will say definitely it's this, definitely not. So we don't know. That's the only area where people disagree. So in a lot of ways, it doesn't really matter. But he was definitely the guy that was with Peter. Okay, where was it written? Almost everybody agrees the clear tradition of the Church, both the west and the east, toward the end of the second century and the beginning of the first third, is that Mark prepared his gospel primarily for the Christians in Rome and in Italy, as well as the composition of the gospel in Rome or Italy. Okay. And it goes on then to talk about this period of time and what was going on in this period of time. If you're familiar with your Roman history at all, is there was an emperor named Nero, and Nero, here's the facts we know for sure, is that there was a fire and Nero did nothing. He didn't send anybody out. In fact, if you went to try to fight the fire, he would stop you. Okay, so that's kind of weird, right? We know that that's fact. After that, it's a lot of speculation. Most people, most historians. And the thing I'm about to read you is this is an early historian think Nero completely started this fire because things were not going well. And it's like, if things are going poorly, you go, hey, look at that. And so then you look at that, and then things are going better for me because you're better than a fire. So they say he. That's the old. What was Nero doing when he was fiddling? I don't know if he played the fiddle or what, but that's the idea. And so then people said, well, how did that fire start? And Nero came up at the end, said the Christians did it. Because if there's one thing we know about Christians, they like to start fires, right? So that's a joke that didn't go over well. Well, why? Why would they do this? This doesn't even make any sense. And in fact, it says blame for the fire was placed squarely upon the Christians. Tacitus, writing a generation removed from the event, so 30, 40 years, expressed himself with strong feeling. And this is an ancient quote here from him. Neither human resources nor imperial munificence, nor appeasement of the gods eliminated sinister suspicions that the fire had been instigated. To suppress this rumor, Nero fabricated scapegoats and punished with every refinement, the notorious depraved Christians, as they were properly called. First Nero had self acknowledged Christians arrested. Then on their information, large numbers of them were condemned. Not so much for incendiarianism, fancy word, starting the fire, as for their antisocial tendencies. That would eliminate half of us right there. Right. Their deaths were made farcical. Dressed in wild animal skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight. Nero provided his gardens for the spectacle and exhibited displays in the circus at which he mingled in the crowd or stood in a chariot dressed as a charioteer. This guy had some mental issues, right? We do not agree. Yeah. So despite their guilt as Christians and the ruthless punishment it deserved, the victims were pitied. For it was felt that they were being sacrificed to one man's brutality rather than to the nation's interest. Now I bring that up just because I want you to know this is the time frame, this is what it was like to be a Christian in Rome or in greater parts of Italy that Mark is writing to. Okay? So just realize it was hazardous to your health just to be a Christian because Nero and his power, they needed a scapegoat and they were making them into one. If this is all accurate so far. And again, there's high agreement with scholars on this. The when then puts it right at 60 to 70 AD, right when these events were taking place. And according to the early tradition preserved in this prologue to the gospel and in this other one, Irenus, Mark subsequently wrote to the death of Peter, who was martyred in Rome, probably not just for being a Christian, but probably for his preaching of the faith during that period. So this is when it was written. Real early, relatively 30 years after the death of Christ or so. And then lastly. What is it? No, no scar. Got one after that. What is it? So in other words, this type of literature, this was really fascinating to me. This type of literature is brand new and most people agree that Mark was written first. Okay? So they call it the priority of Mark or whether it's. And if you ever have a chance to do this, take a literal translation of the Bible like the new American Standard Version or English Standard Version, and put parts of Mark together, and then put parts of Luke and Matthew together. John, John is. John is John Daly. John is doing his own thing. He's off there. He's different. But the other two, and they're word for word, and, and maybe Mark or Matthew will change a word or Two and Luke will change a word or two. But it is just word for word. So they are looking at something that is happening here. So most people think that Mark was the first. And this type of literature was not out there before it says Mark. If indeed Mark is the first Gospel, it merits the most careful consideration. Its author introduced to the Roman world a type of popular literature previously unknown. The form of the gospel appears to have been shaped by the mission proclamation of the early Christian community. Here, for the first time, the words and deeds of Jesus were remembered and proclaimed in a written form. It is therefore appropriate to lay Mark a witness document that found its creative impulse in the early apostolic preaching of salvation through Jesus Christ. It is intended to be neither a formal historic treatise nor. Nor a biography of Jesus, but a proclamation. Now that's frustrating to us because we want to read it as a history book. And not that the accounts are not history, but it's more written as a proclamation. Goes on to say the evangelist's intention. That's Mark. Evangel is another one just for saying Gospel proclaimer. It's where we get like evangelism from or evangelical. Originally that means just a proclaimer. Intention is grasped when the opening line of the gospel is paraphrased. The beginning of the preaching of the joyful tidings. What follows is a historical narrative oriented around a crisis, the death of Jesus, the Messiah. There are valid reasons for believing that the gospel was written for people who themselves confronted a crisis not dissimilar to the one faced by Jesus. And then lastly, and this is the end of our background, here is why, like, why is it written? What was its intended? What was it trying to do? And I really must shift here to a different commentary because I love the way he said this. He opens his commentary by saying this. In the glare of the Jerusalem sun, Jews from every nation jostle each other to get a closer look and to hear 12 men speak about God's most recent display of power. One man named Peter raises his voice to address a crowd. Some 50 days after his master was crucified in this very city. He solemnly declares that the Holy Spirit has come upon them, inaugurating the new age. Men of Israel, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited to God, to you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did among you through him. As you yourselves know, this man was handed over to you by God, set purpose and foreknowledge. And you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. So one of the cool things here is you can do is where you know, if you're a geek, and I'm a geek, I totally am, that when you go through the book of Acts and when you read first and Second Peter, you realize that's the stuff that really influenced Mark. So you start to read like Peter's sermons in Acts and you go, this is it. This is what this guy says. In this speech, we have the basic outline of Mark's gospel which tells more fully the story of what happened. What was hidden during Jesus. Public ministry can now be made public to clarify the basis of the Christian faith. So this is really cool. Now some of you are like, okay, can we just read the Bible? Okay, I will do that now. But it's amazing how clear and concise and everyone is in agreement. There really isn't a lot of question on these things. So let's dive into the passage. Those of you who are like, okay, that was interesting. Let's get into the passage. Going to go. Just going to kind of take our little bit of time here, just kind of meditate on some of the words. It is fascinating the way he begins this, right? The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now that phrase, the beginning, right, of course, it rings a bell, right? He's ringing back to the big event in the beginning, right? God created the heavens and the earth, right? So you get this in the beginning. And here Mark is saying, guess what? There's something just as earth shattering as that happening here. The beginning of something. What is the something? The beginning of the something is of the gospel. Okay? Gospel means good news. But up until the writing of this book, that phrase Jesus talks about it to some degree, but it doesn't really become an explicitly Christian word up until, I mean, I guess some people still use it like that's the gospel truth. They'll say, which the word really means, like good news or joyful tidings or things I bring you that are going to bring joy to you. So if you see here, you found this calendar inscription from 9 BC and it says of the emperor Augustus, the birthday of the God was for the world the beginning of joyful tidings. The. The gospel which have been proclaimed on his account. So this was a common word that they would have that a typical Roman, not Christian, pagan culture would have used and it would have talked about something really happening big. Okay, the fact that Mark Uses this as an opening line in his gospel. Clarifies the essential content of an evangel, which is just gospel, which is good news in the ancient world. A historical event which introduces a new situation for the world. So he's dropping this again. We read it because, you know, especially today in the last 15 years, the word gospel is just used everywhere, right, In Christian literature. But in that time, when he drops this, it's saying something that the culture would have really picked up on and saying, whoa, you are talking about something new and good and happy and joyful that is coming. And it is going to be. It is a historic situation which is going to bring around change for the world. Keep going on here. And it says Jesus Christ. Now, a lot of people think, you know, Jesus last name was Christ. That is not true. Jesus last name probably would have been Bar Joseph. You know, he's son of Joseph, Jesus, Bar Joseph. So Christ just means Messiah. So when you see this, I'll get there in just a minute. He is opening up this idea of what is this new era that's begun? What's this new gospel? What's this new good tidings? It is the gospel. Excuse me. It is Jesus Christ who is. And he just lets it right out of the bag right away. He is the Son of God. Okay? Now it's going to become, if you're. If you're at all a mark freak. I don't think it's until chapter eight that the disciples, hey, we actually think you're the Son of God. But Mark is going to let you know. Verse 1. This is what's happening. He is actually the Son of God. Starts off here with quoting this as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet. Now notice what I did there. As I told you, where each one of those is from. One of them is from Isaiah. Two are from somewhere else, as is written in Isaiah. The prophet. Behold, I send my messenger before your face. A quote from Exodus talking about the angel is going to go before you and lead you out of the, you know, out of the desert. Okay? And then who will prepare your way? That's from Malachi. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight. Quoting from Isaiah. Now you're like, wait a minute, didn't you just say you're quoting from Isaiah? Does Mark not know his Bible? Mark knows his Bible. Let's just make that assumption. Mark knows his Bible, so why would he do that? Why would he take the time to quote from three different passages of scripture and I think this is very cool. And what he's actually doing here is he's saying all of these things that were being talked about, from the Exodus event to the minor prophet, which is Malachi, to the big dog, the big guy, Isaiah. It was all pointing to something coming. And so he says, from way back in the Exodus, when this was taking place, the Exodus is really important. It was important for the Jewish people. But the whole Exodus narrative is actually leading you on to seeing what a spiritual exodus out of sin and despondency and hopelessness is in Jesus Christ. This whole book, the whole book from Exodus through the minor prophet Malachi to the major prophet Isaiah, is saying that this is coming. And how is it going to start? Well, it's going to start by someone who's going to come and prepare the way. So as you. And this would have been the thing that people were looking for at this time. If you were a student of the Old Testament, you'd have said, how do we know when Messiah is coming? Well, someone is coming. They thought it would be Elijah. Someone is coming that is going to prepare the way for him. And notice this phrase, the voice crying in the wilderness, that's going to become important here in just a minute. So you got to understand, before this time, there's 400 years between the Testaments. There's no prophetic voice. They're waiting and waiting now. 400 years. I can't get my head around 400 years like that. Our country is, what, 250 years old, roughly next year. 250 next year. So think of our country. And another, you know, third of that, two thirds of that, all that go back that far. That's what. How much time they were waiting, and they were listening and they were looking, and they were waiting for this person. And then all of a sudden, like the Buffer brothers like to say, huh? Anybody? Michael Buffer over here, he's the ring announcer for the fights and for boxing, and Bruce Buffer is the ring announcer for ufc. And I know I just got real violent there. Sorry. It just was. But they both have great introductions. The way they do it, you know, the. Michael Buffer says, let's get ready to rumble, right? And then Bruce Buffer, he goes, it's time. And these old guys up there bouncing. The interesting thing about these two, just a little side note, they were separated at birth. They did not know that they were brothers until they were 29 years old. They met each other and realized they were both kind of doing the same gig. But anyway. But that's what it would have felt like for this period of time. And now Mark is saying it's time, it's going to kick off. And then all of a sudden it just says John appeared. There he is, this guy by the name of John. He comes out of nowhere. We don't know anything about him. His name's John, right? He's baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Okay, so he's doing something to us. It just, it's not earth shatteringly like, it doesn't. But you got to understand something. Jews didn't get baptized. Listen to this. He says the first thing we should note about this baptism was that it was totally radical. No one had ever done it. The only thing that even came close was the fact that gentile converts to Judaism were baptized. Okay, so dirty rotten sinners got baptized, but not Jewish people. However, that baptism was a ritual washing from all the defilement of the past. The Jews now were being asked to do something they had never done before in their history. Jews being baptized, unheard of. This is why John was called the baptizer. There had never been anyone like him. And he was calling him out there saying there's a new message here and you have to repent, which means you turn from your sin and you turn to something. They don't even know what they were turning to yet. Some thought John, but John's going to make that real clear in just a minute. It's not him. And they were getting baptized in the Jordan river and it actually worked really well. It said all the city, all the county of Judea, of Judea and all Jerusalem, all these Jewish people were going out and being baptized in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. Again, this is not something that had ever taken place. This is a radically brand new thing and it was working amazingly, right? Right now then John the Baptist gives his phrase. He says, oh no, not yet, sorry. And all that come to be baptized, yet confess their sins. Verse 6, it says, Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And it's one of those verses that you go, okay, that's interesting, right? Why would you say that? And most people, and I would agree, they say that because this has to happen in the wilderness. And so he's living like whatever your view of John the Baptist is. This is my view of John the Baptist. Okay, so John the Baptist was like Gimli, right? He's kind of rough around the edges, leather belt, all that kind of thing. Leather belt. I have a leather belt on, but. And that, you know, it was a. Eating locusts and honey and all this kind of thing. He was just a wilderness man. He was a guy out in the woods. And then he gives his message. And the message is simply this. So remember, you come, you repent. And he's telling them, here's my point, here's my point. And he preached, saying, after me comes one, he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Okay, so this is really interesting. Not many people do this in the history of ever. Like, you get a following. And this says all the country and all doesn't mean all, but all means lots of. Lots of. Okay, so there's a bunch of people, big crowds coming and they're getting baptized by. They're confessing their sins. And he's basically saying, I'm not the main attraction here. I am the warm up band, okay? I am the warm up band. I'm the opening act here. And it's interesting, most opening acts, if you're at all a music fan, they want to eventually be the main act, right? That's why you do this. And there's even a website here that's called the Rise of the Opening Act. They look at people who, hey, I opened for Dire Straits. Sorry, I got to get a more modern band. I can't. Taylor Swift. I opened for Taylor Swift and now look at me, right? I'm a big deal. But that's not what John's trying to do. He's not trying to rise. In fact, there's a verse in the book of the Gospel of John that says, he must increase, I must decrease. He's just looking at him and he's saying, I am really trying to be the one in the wilderness, preparing the way for the one. If you like to hunt, and if you like to pheasant, hunt and you get a good dog, a good dog. What a good dog does is comes right up to the pheasant and then it points. It will stop and point at the. It's crazy. You can't even see the pheasant, but there's this dog pointing at the pheasant. Now, as a hunter, you're interested in the pheasant. You don't shoot the dog, right? You shoot the. Okay, pheasant or whatever. In other words, a Good hunting dog points to its prey. Okay, so in other words, there is. This is what John the Baptist is doing. He's saying, yes, I'm a big deal, but, man, I'm pointing you to Jesus. And that's the point of everything that we have studied so far, is this book is going to point us to Jesus. The older I get, the. The more I realize, and I know this sounds so Sunday school, but I can't help it that it is just about Jesus. It's just about Jesus, the beautiful savior of who he is. And I'm thrilled as a church body. All four locations now are going to. You know, we always talk about Jesus, but when you're in a gospel, you have to talk about Jesus because he's the main character of almost every single story. So it's like, it's just so refreshing to just point and to see Jesus. And I want to invite you to this year and a half study of where we're going to do that. We're going to invite the worship team up. We'll close in a time of response, and the time response will be worship songs playing. What do you got? How many songs you got? Three songs you got. And during those three songs, there's a bunch of things you can take place just right where you're at. You can just spend some time praying. Also, there'll be people back in the back corners with yellow lanyards on. I'm getting this right, right? Yellow lanyards in the back. And they'll love to pray for you. We just. Because of the school rules, we'll need to step outside to take communion out in the hallway. But feel free to do that. You can go out either door and go and get communion. And you can also use this as a time if you want to give. You could do it electronically. Or if you have that set up, that's great, too. But you could do all these things. And while you do this, I just want to throw a couple things out there. I know this is a really different sermon, so it always is when we open books. But the first thing is there's something that. Oops, I thought I clicked the button. I did not. Okay. What One thing kind of landed you about the gospel, or maybe you didn't know. That's not really anything to apply. It's just something to think about that's kind of fun. And then secondly, what area of my life do I need to just be pointed toward Jesus? What am I asking God? This is. I want to see this more aligned. I want to be more in line with following you as we approach this series. Let's pray together. Lord, your word is it's flat out fun. It really is. And you just give such a great way of presenting it and showing it to us. Lord, I want to thank you for every single person here, God, as every week when we gather and we get a chance to respond through singing and prayer and fellowship with one another and hearing your word, God, we want to leave the room different than we are, than the way we come in. And I especially pray that come Christmas of 2026, having been sitting at your feet for many months, Lord, that we would be different. By the power of your Holy Spirit, we would, we would be changed. And so, God, we just ask for that. Pray, Lord God, your blessing on the rest of this morning. Jesus name, amen.