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you you you you you you you you you you you you you Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Strong Work Baptist Church. We're going to open up our Psalms and Spiritual Songs book. That's called Habit. We're going to open up the God-breathed-she-married-gentleman. It should be on our third page or so. God-breathed-she-married-gentleman. Alright, let's sing this out in the first. God-breathed-she-married-gentleman, let nothing here display. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day. To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, oh tidings of comfort and joy. From God the heavenly Father, a blessed angel gave, and unto certain shepherds from tidings of the same. Now that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. From God the heavenly Father, a blessed angel gave, and unto certain shepherds from tidings of the same. Now that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Now to the Lords in praise is all who live in this place. And with true love and brother, suffer now in grace. And with true love and brother, suffer now in grace. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. Oh tidings of comfort and joy. My church, let's sing this out in the chorus. O come, O come, Emmanuel, and wrestle captive in Israel, and mourn till only age shall appear, until the Son of God appears. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, how days spring come and cheer, our spirit by thy hand adhere. Disperse the gloomy cloud of our might, and let dark shadows draw us to flight. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, how days don't fly on by, and order all things far and wide. To us the path of knowledge true, and not a sinner waits to go. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. On the last hope of these iron creations fly, all peoples in one heart and mind. It can be striking for us overseas. Fill the whole world with heaven's peace. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. Amen. All right, it's good to have you all here with us at Stronghold Baptist Church this morning. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements, so if you don't have a bulletin, just slip your hand up real high, and one of our ushers will make sure that they get a bulletin to you. Keep your hand raised until an usher gets you with a bulletin, and if you open up to the first page, you will see the service times listed there. It's always Sunday morning at 1030, Sunday evening again at 5 o'clock. Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We'll be in Psalm 83 this week. We've got the soul-winning opportunities listed there, as well as the salvations and the baptisms for the month of December, as well as for the year. I didn't put a place in the bulletin for this, but there was a very big success yesterday in North Carolina in a Charlotte soul-winning event that was going on with Brother Preston, and their team led that up. And I don't have the exact numbers memorized, but they had something like 16 to 18 soul winners out there, which was great. And then I believe it was 11 salvations. I counted it and included it in our numbers for December already, so it was like 71 man hours or something to put in there. They went out for a long time apparently and put in a lot of work and had some really good results. And I even had someone contact me that lives in North Carolina that wanted to join up with them, so I haven't had a chance to talk to Brother Preston about that either. But it's always nice when we have people that we go out and travel, we go to places that aren't really close to here and they show up and can do soul-winning with our church, so it's an extra blessing there. So I just wanted to share that good news and just encourage you, you know, if you are zealous, especially if you live outside of the vicinity here, like Brother Preston lives in North Carolina, so it makes sense for them to have a soul-winning event close to home, right? So if you ever feel like you want to do something like that, that's great. I'm all in favor of that and I'll support you in that. Obviously, as a church, I plan and organize events that we do in soul-winning and we do regular soul-winning times, but if you ever wanted to do something on your own time, on another day, just let me know. We'll support you. We'll give you whatever you need and put it in a bulletin and let everyone know what's going on. So I love that people have that mind to win souls to Christ. So speaking of the salvations now, does anyone have any other salvation numbers to report? Yes, sir. We're on Wednesday, amen. Anyone else? Friday, amen. Excellent. Very good. Did I miss anyone else? Great. We'll keep up the good work preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course, we've got soul-winning time this afternoon in between our church services, so I'd love to have you join us for that. It's at 1.30. We meet up right here. We've got the offering totals received through the month of December down there at the bottom of the page. Prayer requests. We have a few additions and we'll see. We've got some updates also. So continue to pray for Mrs. Taylor, who is due any day now, essentially, to have her child. So be prepared if you want to help with some meal. We do a meal train. We help the family out after the baby's born with some meals. You can either bring them to church, you know, pretty much the next service or the service after the child's born, if you're not able to make it down to where they live, or better yet, just drop it off for them at their house. And if you want to help with this and you're going to bring a meal, just please coordinate with my wife. And obviously, she's not here today, so you could also talk to me if you wanted to get involved and I can relay the information back to her if you don't have her personal information. But just so that we can coordinate the meal so that they're not just getting bombarded with, say, like everybody wants to drop off a meal on the same day or something, that would be a little overwhelming for them. So just think about that. We do that for all of our ladies who are giving birth. We added Natalie Kubara. She not only is pregnant, but she's also dealing with some immigration issues, so appreciate prayers for that as well, that that will all go well for her. Down at the bottom of the page, we want to pray for the Doty family. Sister Courtney's cousin was killed last week. Very traumatic for the family, so pray for her and her family members during their time of grief and mourning. And we added Veronica Paris, this brother Jared's mom, who's been sick in her lungs. And she was in an assisted living facility. They transferred her to a hospital. She's probably back now, but just pray that God will give her full healing. And then we have some updates on Charles Stover. So this is brother Jeremy's uncle who has the prostate cancer, and he's scheduled to have surgery tomorrow to try to remove all that cancer. So do you know if it's in the morning? Okay. Probably, but... There's no point. Okay. Okay. So yeah, definitely pray, continue to pray for Charles Stover. There was an aggressive cancer, and it's probably spread quite a bit, and that's why they're not, some people aren't as hopeful for the surgery, right? But he's going to go through with it anyways, and that's tomorrow. So say an extra prayer for him, you know, tomorrow morning when you get up and pray that God will heal him and give the doctor skill and wisdom as they treat him and try to remove all that cancer from his body. And then Kathy Sadler. She was not added to our list yet, right? Yeah. So she has multiple fractures. Wasn't, not even sure how it happened, like in her shoulder, but she's just weak, and her body's just, her bones are kind of brittle. So, and just not healing very well overall. So we'll add Kathy Sadler back to our list. So please pray for her full healing and recovery and that God will strengthen her body as well. Are there any other updates for people who are on the prayer list? All right, please, please remember to take these home. There's a lot of people, I didn't go through everybody, a lot of people dealing with cancer, a lot of people dealing with serious issues. Prayer works. It's why we do this. You know, the Bible tells us to pray, ask and shall receive, and that, you know, God wants to hear us, especially with our reliance on him, and God still does do miracles today. So pray, pray, pray for these people. And for the churches and pastors, this week we added Shield of Faith Baptist Church, Pastor Joe Jones out in Boise, Idaho. Pray for God to bless their ministry and their family as they serve the Lord. On the next page, Mrs. Hill has generously offered some of her time to take some photos for church, for people who are interested in getting maybe some Christmas photos, family photos, self photos, whatever you want to do, right? We're going to set up, here's a way it's going to work. We're going to, we have a backdrop already. Church has lights and a backdrop and everything that we would need. She's got the nice camera apparently, and we're going to set it up in the back of the auditorium. So for the next week, sorry for those of you who normally sit back there, you're going to have to move up just a little bit after the morning service. So for the evening service, we're going to have the backdrop and everything set up in the back of the auditorium. And we're going to keep it set up so we don't have to take it down and put it back up again for the whole next week. So parents, please make sure your kids don't go back there and mess with the equipment that we're going to have set up. There's going to be some lighting and like I said, the backdrop and stuff like that. So please just pay a little extra attention. We'll try to block it off as much as we can with some chairs when it's not in use. But yeah, that's anyone that wants to have that. It's just you just give Mrs. Hill your email address and she'll be able to email you the photos that we take here. So there's going to be times this after and you're going to have to talk to her maybe about the specific time since she's taking the photos. But she's going to be available I know today and also on Saturday or is that going to be near the time of the caroling like maybe a little bit before or maybe a little bit after, I don't know, somewhere in that vicinity because this Saturday we've got the Christmas caroling and then also next Sunday for church. So if not everyone was aware, is prepared to take photos, then you can do so any of those days. So it's very nice that you're offering to do that for us and we will have it all set up after service this morning. December's challenge is the singing challenge. So the challenge for this month is to stop listening to worldly music if that is what you normally listen to and to sing four hymns every day. Now I'm trying to get caught up on prizes and I bought some prizes recently but I want to make sure that I'm aware of everything that I owe when it comes to the prizes. So I'm going to start with Bible memory and I'm pretty sure I'm caught up through Hebrews 7 in full. And what I want to do is I'm going to tell you what I think we're at and if you think different you could correct me, okay, because I don't have the best memory and I haven't been writing all this stuff down. But of course everything's on the honor system here with all the prizes and stuff. But I'm pretty sure we split up Hebrews 8 into two sections. We had like an A and a B, the first half and the second half. And I'm pretty sure I got the first half done. But I don't know if I gave any other prizes out for the second half of Hebrews 8 or the whole chapter for Hebrews 8. Does anyone have a... Oh, so that was just the whole chapter then. That definitely would have only been the whole chapter. Am I thinking of chapter 9? That was also the challenge. That was the month challenge, okay. That's right because we've been doing chapter 10 for the first half for like 10 weeks. You got a chapter 8 prize? Did anyone not get their Hebrews chapter 8 prize? You did not get a Hebrews chapter 8 prize? And your son did not get a Hebrews chapter 8 prize? Brother Carter, did you get a Hebrews chapter 8 prize? You didn't do that one? Okay. Okay, so I owe two for that. And then Hebrews chapter 9. I know I didn't give that one out yet. And of course Hebrews chapter 10a. So am I missing any other Bible memory? Okay. Now on the monthly challenges. Did I do the August challenge was a Bible memory challenge? That's like the same thing, right? That was Hebrews 9? Or 8? No, 9. That was 9. Okay. That's right. I was going to give a better prize for that. Not give two prizes, but you're going to get a better prize for getting it done in that month because that was a harder challenge to do. That's what we're going to do for that. And then attendance. I know I gave some prizes out. Brother Matt, did you get the email yesterday? I don't know if you saw it. It was kind of late. Okay. Good. Yeah, it was good to see you in church with us today. Are you feeling completely better? Good. Back to normal? Back to work? Great. Great. I missed a couple more people with the attendance. No, not the attendance challenge, the visitor challenge. Visitor challenge. You had one? Okay. And I know Brother Keith had one. And I wanted to ask Brother Seth. I know they're out sick today, so do you know for sure? No, a visitor is what I meant to say. I'm looking at the next thing. I wasn't given a prize for the attendance challenge. The visitor challenge is what I sent you an email for. And then soul winning challenge. I know I didn't give anything out for that yet. And then we got singing. So we will have those prizes. Like I said, I have some prizes already purchased and in the office. And I need to figure out how I'm going to distribute those. So appreciate that. You do end up getting prizes eventually. And I'm trying to get better with that. That'll be a New Year's resolution. Maybe I could get everything more in line for you with that. And continuing on, we got the Christmas caroling this Saturday at 3.30. Meet up here. We're going to be going out and hitting the streets at 4 o'clock. So you don't have to be here literally at 3.30. But just try to get here early enough so that you can hear the instructions. We can get people grouped off into teams depending on how many people show up. And that we can get started right at 4. And then we'll go out for about an hour. We'll come back here and have dinner. If you are planning on sticking around for food after the Christmas caroling, please make sure you've signed up. If you signed up already because I wasn't very clear about that and you aren't planning on coming to dinner, mark your name off the list because that's really what we care the most about is making sure we prepare for the food. And if you haven't signed up yet, please do if you plan on coming. The new church plant, we're still reviewing some possible property locations for that. Continue to pray for that plant. We've got the Hebrews 10 Bible memory passage there. We're about a third of the way through. Upcoming events listed down there at the bottom of the page. There's a Christmas cookie exchange if you want to participate in that. Just make sure that you prepare. I don't know if Leslie is taking care of that, too. Is someone? Maybe she is. Anyways, the way that's going to work is you just make cookies and you exchange it with other people who made cookies. And everyone gets to eat cookies that participates. And if you don't participate, just hope there's leftovers. I guess that's the way that'll work. December 31st, we've got watch night service and dinner. So church will be providing dinner after the evening service December 31st. And then we'll be hanging out, fellowshipping, playing games. Just pretty much having a good time to bring in the new year here. You can read the rest announcements there down at the bottom of the page. On the next page, we've got the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries through the month of December. And that's about it for our announcements. So with that, I'll turn the service over to Brother Will, who will lead us in our next song. Hey, church, turn to song 228. Song 228, I want to tell the story. Song 228. I want to tell the story of hearts and things above. Of Jesus and his glory. Of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story because I know it's true. It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story. Of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story of wonderful disease. And all the golden fancies of our golden dreams. And all the golden fancies of our golden dreams. I love to tell the story. It did so much for me. And that is just the reason I tell it now to you. I love to tell the story. It will be my thinking glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story. It's present to me. But seems this time I tell it. For wonderful is sweet. I love to tell the story for some that never heard. A message of salvation from God's holy word. I love to tell the story. It will be my thinking glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story for those who know it best. Seems lumbering and thirsty to hear it like the rest. And when it seems a glory, I sing the new, new song. It will be the old, old story that I have loved so long. I love to tell the story. It will be my thinking glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. It will be my thinking glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. And once again, that's Luke chapter 10. The Bible reads. After these things, the Lord appointed other 70 also and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place where he himself would come. Therefore, said he unto them, the harvest truly is great. But the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Go your ways. Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves carry neither purse nor script nor shoes and salute no man, by the way. And into what so ever how she answer first say peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it. If not, it shall turn to you again. And in the same house remain eating and drinking such things as they give for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house and into whatsoever city enter and they receive you. Eat such things as I said before you and heal the sick that are there in and say unto them, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city answer and they receive you not. Go your ways out into the streets of the same and say, even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you. Notwithstanding, be sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that day. Woe unto thee, Theresa. Woe unto thee, Belsaiah. For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which had been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted in heaven, shall be thrust down to hell. He that heareth you, heareth me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth me. And he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me. And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan's lighting fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you, notwithstanding in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. And he turned him unto his disciples and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right, this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee. Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise. Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about, much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister had left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the book of Luke. We thank you for this time of the year that we can present the gospel to people, and we can let everybody know about Jesus Christ, and what he's done on the cross for us, and how he saved our souls from hell. And God, we just thank you for all of the souls that have been saved recently, and all of the souls that will be saved today, and going forward. Fill past the burdens with your spirit, and allow for him to preach with boldness, minimize the distractions of the church, allow for our ears to be attended to your word today. We praise you and thank you for all that you do. We say this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, this morning I want to focus in on that latter passage there at the very end of Luke chapter 10, the story about Martha starting there in verse number 38. We'll just read this really quickly. The Bible says, Now it came to pass as they went that they entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bitter therefore that she help me. Now before I even continue any further, this is that Martha and Mary, who also had their brother Lazarus, and Lazarus was the one that was raised back from the dead, and we saw in that story, that's the same passage where it says Jesus wept, right? He was sad over all the people who were grieving the loss of Lazarus, and he loved Lazarus, he loved Martha, he loved Mary. They were they were closer friends to his in the ministry just in general. We get that sense from reading the Bible from other passages as well. And here we see Martha is she's serving, right? So there's other people there. She's being a good hostess. She's working real hard and trying to provide everything for the people that are there. And her sister, Mary, isn't helping her. Right? So she's got this company over. Jesus is there. We assume there's probably some disciples there, some other people. And Martha's scurrying around trying to make sure everyone's cared for and do all this work as you would when you're hosting people at your house. And she's getting a little irritated because she doesn't have the help of her sister. I think we've all probably been there before where someone else in your family, you're doing a bunch of work and and you're looking like, man, what are they doing? They're just sitting over there. You're supposed to be over here helping me. We got we got guests, right? We need we need to we need to help here. And, you know, there's a few things that before I even get into what Jesus responds to her with, you know, the Bible teaches us that we ought to be, one, hospitable. Right. So so being providing for people that come into your house, it's a very good quality. It's something that's taught in scripture that we all ought to be hospitable to people that, you know, to strangers as well as to friends. And when they enter into your house to be to take care of them. And also that we ought to be hard workers. Right. There's there's plenty of evidence in scripture. You look at the Book of Proverbs, especially on how Christians, how believers especially ought to be hard workers. Absolutely. Definitely the men. You know, the men are supposed to be providers for their family and especially those of their own household. But also, ladies as well are supposed to be hard workers. They have other work to do than the men. But it's still if you read Proverbs 31 about the virtuous woman, she is doing a lot of work and is keeping herself very, very busy doing things. So very active, doing a lot of work, providing clothing for a household, providing the food, the meals, all the work of guiding the house is done by the woman. So men and women alike, Christian men and women like especially ought to be very hard workers. So we see here. So, you know, with all that being said, we understand that those are just general teaching and scripture or preach entire sermons about that. Jesus responds to Martha because Martha just approaches Jesus and is like, instead of just going to Mary, she goes to Jesus like, hey, you know, she's not doing anything. I'm doing all the work. Can you just tell her, Jesus, please? You just tell her to come help me. Right. Like like I'm doing all this work by myself. And this this story reminded me, I just preached last week on covetousness and we looked at Luke Chapter 12. Where the man I'll read this for you just real briefly, you could stay in Luke 10, Luke 12, 13 about says in one of the companies that a master speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me. Right. So we have another guy going to Jesus saying, hey, can you can you talk to my brother? Right. Like you have these people are having these these little problems, kind of family problems. Right. This is Martha and her sister, Mary. The other one is this this man and his brother saying like, hey, I've got this problem. Can you just tell him what to do? Can you tell him to do this? Can you tell my sister to do this? And he answered that man and said he said unto man, who made me a judge or divider over you? And he said unto them, take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. And interestingly enough, I think one of the lessons that we're going to get from Luke 10 coincides, it fits in really nicely with Luke Chapter 12, with this story where I use that to springboard off into the preaching against covetousness. And this sermon isn't about covetousness, but it is about what's needful. And the title of my sermon is One Thing is Needful. And that was a response that Jesus gave to Martha. Look at verse number 41 there. We're going to see Jesus's response to Martha not getting the help that she needs. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. And that's not a bad thing, by the way, either that being careful and being troubled about many things isn't inherently bad or wicked or sinful or anything like that. She's real busy. She's trying to do a lot of work. But he has to explain things for her. He has to put things in perspective. And this is a rebuke or a correction about priorities, is what this is all about. Because he responds and says, but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her. So Jesus has come to their house and Jesus is teaching. And if you see that in verse thirty nine says, yes, these are called Mary, which also sat at Jesus feet and heard his word. So when Jesus comes to the house, instead of being all worried about making sure everyone's taken care of it, she's going, no, I'm going to listen to what he has to say. I'm going to sit at Jesus feet and I'm going to hear what my Lord has for me. I'm going to hear the wisdom of Jesus and I'm going to receive of his word. And while, yes, there's a lot of things to do and we always have a lot of cares, this were a lot of troubles, a lot of things that we can take care of, a lot of work that needs to be done in the house, a lot of work that needs to be done here and there. When there's something that's needful, like hearing the word of Jesus, he's saying, I'm not going to take that away from her. And in fact, Martha probably could have sat down at Jesus feet also. And in that situation, given who was at her house and what was going on with him teaching, it would have also been appropriate for her just to be like, you know what? This work can wait. I've got all this stuff to do, but you know what? This is needful. That can wait. And you know what the thing is about work, especially work like this and coming about and doing that stuff? It's never done. It's never done. And the work in a house is never, ever, ever done. I always kind of chuckle a little bit when my wife tells me, like, I got caught up on the laundry. I'm like, no, you didn't. Like, you're never caught up on laundry because there is always clothing in the mix somewhere of being soiled and needing cleaning. You know, like, I get it that the laundry baskets may be empty and that things are put away. But like, this is like so short term, it's just like, boom, it's right back. You all know what I'm talking about. And it's the same thing with the dusting and the vacuuming and the cleaning. Just all the dishes, all the things, all the work that needs to be done. And here's what I want you to understand. I want you to walk away. It's a very simple sermon. It probably won't be very long this morning. We need to make sure that we prioritize in our life when we have all these other things going on, that we don't allow that to distract us so much that we get wrapped up in all the things and forget about that which is needful. And get so focused and worried on the side issues and the side work and all this other stuff that we forget the main point. Like, Jesus is coming to our house. We can worry about every, you know, like every little detail. And it's not to say that you shouldn't provide the best service to Jesus, right? It's not to say that you shouldn't have things in order and ready to go. But at the end of the day, what's the most important? It's not going to be every speck of dust being picked up off the floor as much as it's going to be. Your heart is ready and your ears are ready to receive what Jesus has for you. That is the most important thing. And this is what I think we all will need to retain and remember. If you want to, turn real quick to Revelation chapter 2. I'm applying this primarily individually. But even in Revelation chapter 2, we see an example of this corporately as a church. Where churches can also get off track, getting busy about and cumbered about all kinds of other business. And they forget about what's really needful and what the most important thing is. And there are tremendous amount, there's so many churches out there today that will have so many activities, all kinds of stuff going on. I mean, you want to know there's stuff going on. You could be at church every single day and you're going to have potlucks and you're going to have this and you're going to have that. And you're going to have all these other things going on. And people are going to be very, very, very busy. And you can dedicate all of your time to this busyness. But it's still often times those churches, you know, again, I'm just kind of broad brushing here. No individual church specifically, but so many of them have missed what's needful. And just completely forgotten about, no, like what's the most important thing? What is the most needful thing? That's the thing you just, you never want to lose and you never want to forget. We have an example, we have a sample church just like this in Revelation chapter 2. It's the church of Ephesus. Look at verse number one, the Bible says, under the angel of the church of Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth the seven sires in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy works and thy labor. So is this church working? Yeah. He's like, I know your works and your labor. So they're laboring, they're working, right? Thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil. So they've got a righteous mindset, it's not just like they're extremely liberal, watered down, just allowing a bunch of sin. Look, you don't like the evil, right? They've got the right doctrine, maybe they've got the right view. They're real busy. And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake, hast labored and hast not fainted. Again, bringing up, they've labored, labored, labored, labored, and they're not fainting. It's not too much for them. They're not just quitting. They're doing tons of work, and he's even recognizing you've done this work in my name. You've done this work for my name's sake. So all of these things, they're positive things, they're good things, and it's not saying that they shouldn't be doing any of these things. It's still a praise report for this church. But verse 4 says this, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. And look at verse number 5, how serious this is of forgetting the first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works. So that first love and the first works are joined together, right? Because they've forgotten their first love, therefore, they're not doing the first works. They're doing tons of work. They're doing tons of labor. I mean, they are laboring, but they're not doing the first works. And he says, remember and repent and do those first works, or else. Or else what? Or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. The candlestick, these are churches in God's eyes. These are churches that God recognizes as being churches that are going to be preaching his word, doing his work. He's saying, I'm going to remove you to where you're not even like a valid church in my eyes anymore if you don't go back and do these first works. And I wonder how many churches are in this condition right now where they may have good doctrine. They may have good teaching. They may be against evil. And they may be doing a lot of work in Jesus name, but they've forgotten the first works. They pass the verses. Well, what's the first works? That's pretty easy. What is the first works? What is the most important thing? What was the most important thing that you've ever done in your entire life? Hopefully you're going to say, let's put my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the most important thing in anybody's life. It's more important than marriage. It's more important than the birth of your children. Your soul being saved from eternity in hell is the number one most important thing. Look, spouses, children are extremely important, right? Those are those are, worldly speaking, the most important things. But, you know, spiritually speaking, Trump's all of that. And you having that salvation is the number one most important thing. It is the Great Commission. It is a job that's been entrusted to the churches to go forth and preach the gospel unto every creature. Those are going to be the first works. And look, when a church gets started, how is that church going to grow if they're not going out in reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ? You start with with with very little. You have to be going out and look, I could speak by experience. I've started two churches from scratch. But look, it's not me, it's it's it's, you know, the Lord that builds the church, but it ain't going anywhere if you're not doing the work. And everyone that even started and helped form this church from the very beginning. The reason why all the people here and you could testify if you were one of the first members here, raise your hand and let me know this is true or say amen is because this is going to be a soul winning church that's going to go out and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. So all the people that started this, this is what they wanted. They wanted a church where they were going to be sent out. That was the and that was the first works. You know, that's still the first works and that's still the primary works that we're going to do. But these are these are the things that churches can lose focus on and lose sight on, especially as you grow, especially as churches get bigger. It's like, hey, now we could do this and this and this. And you start offering a lot of other things. Look, we offer more activities, too. And we've been offering a little bit more and a little bit more. The more people that we get, the bigger we get as a group, because there's more people willing to volunteer time and do things. It makes sense. Right. And there's nothing wrong with those things. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having activities. You know, the Bible's not saying here you need to cut out this activity to say, no, you're doing these works in my name. Great. Just like Martha. She's serving. She's being a hostess. She's doing good things. There's nothing wrong with with her coming about and being busy on serving the people that are at her house. They're all good things. But don't allow all of that to cost you the first works. Don't allow all of that to then ignore the needful things. Martha was missing the one thing that was needful. And she's like, look, I'm not taking that away from her. She's going to sit here and listen. I'm not going to tell her to go away and go work and do some other meaningless task. She's going to listen. And churches that don't do those first works and forget and ignore the meaningful, the needful stuff, not just the meaningful, the needful stuff. You're treading on thin ice. Turn, if you would, to Ecclesiastes chapter one. Look at the Ecclesiastes right after the Book of Proverbs, that Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. And the reason why I was bringing up earlier that with Luke 12 about the man that approached Jesus, said man who made you and Jesus responded, you know, who made me a judge or divider over you? And he was talking about covetousness is because oftentimes one of the big distractions in our lives is going to be the cares of this world. We get too focused around all of the other work that's going on and then end up letting the needful things just fall by the wayside. And that happens frequently and as someone who's been in church faithfully for a long time now, I mean, I don't even know. Ten years pastoring, plus another seven before that of just. I mean, every church service that I'm not ill pretty much being in church. So 17 years, I see a lot I see a lot of patterns and I see, you know, over the years and over time, the people who come and go and just being really involved in church and knowing the people in church and stuff, you kind of see what happens. And it's unfortunate because it does happen. It's going to happen. But you have to decide for yourself that's not going to happen to you. Right. And you see things come up in people's lives. And sometimes it's a promotion. Sometimes it's it's some other draw that that then is is causing that person to get that was maybe extremely focused on the right things. So winning, doing, you know, serving the Lord. To then shifting and transitioning to other things and other things can be a whole host of other things, right? I mean, oftentimes it's work related, but it can be family related. It can be all kinds of other things that just sort of. Get you out from really serving God. And then you start to notice people, their church attendance starts slipping and, you know, all the until pretty much you just don't even see them anymore. And it happens a lot. And I don't want that to happen. I mean, it does. But here's the thing. And here's the thing. What I'm saying, and you got to understand this, too. It's not like you just have to have every living, waking moment of your day just being completely like soul winning and praying or something. You can have jobs. You can do other work. Right. I mean, and you're going to have to write especially to provide for yourself. You're going to have to be able to do other things. So I'm not just like trying to be so radical up here, just saying, like, you just have to just have nothing. And, you know, and do that with your with your life of just. Saying I'm only going to just preach the gospel and that's it ever. And, you know, if you want to do, that's great. I think. Amen. But it's not like God expects that just out of every single person to just have to give up. No, you still have to be able to provide for your family and do things. But you still need to put what's what's the most important first. Just as much as Martha should still be being a good hostess and helping people. But hey, you know what? When Jesus is there, this is learning time. He showed up when he leaves. I could go back to doing this other work and stuff. But right now, this is what's needful and this is what's most important. And I'm not going to overlook this aspect. And, you know, this is the one of the reasons I'm probably preaching. This is because of what's going on at my house right now. We've got like everything's torn up and we're trying to paint and we need to get new floors. Like all these other projects going on. And it's it's a distraction and it can cause you to like go, no, but I need to do this and I need to get this done and I need to do this and I need to do this. But if I do that. Then what's going to happen to church if I say, you know what, I'm just going to not do this stuff. I've got other obligations. And look, some things are more needful. You know, it's way more needful. The word of God and teaching the word of God, preaching the word of God is way more needful. Then the paint changing color or whatever, or the holes being, you know, like, look, that stuff will get done, but you can't let that become just something that's just going to take you out or get, you know, just distract you too much. And, you know, again, that's that's a little personal thing for me. But whatever it is for you, I'm sure you've got a bunch of other things going on in your life, maybe even on the weekends, maybe even on Sundays. Right. That gets a lot of people out of church. Oh, something comes up now. I can't be in church anymore. Every Sunday. Well. How needful is church to you? You have to decide that for yourself. It's a priority issue. What's more important? I had you turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one. Ecclesiastes is a pretty good job of putting things in perspective for us as far as just the things of this world. It's kind of harsh if you think about it, but it's and sometimes it may it may seem a little depressing. But it's true. And if you look at Ecclesiastes chapter one, look at verse number one, Bible says the words of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, vanity of vanity, sayeth the preacher, vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Now, look, you got to read all of Ecclesiastes, too. I don't frequently take verse like just individual verses of Ecclesiastes because you do have to get the whole picture. It starts off real bleak. But at the end, he's like, look, it's still important. It's still needful, like still going to teach people the word of God. So, you know, so going to do some things. But it does drive home this this point or this aspect, you know, vanity. Just it means it's empty. It's meaningless. It just kind of it's just empty. It's just void like vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Verses is what profit hath a man of all his labor, which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. The generations come and go and you're going to work and then that's going to be gone. And, you know, and all this stuff. So he's just saying, like, in the end, it just seems pretty meaningless. Right. And the work that we do here, we can work real hard and we can build stuff and and I can work on my house real hard. All this stuff. And then someone else is going to come along and knock the whole thing down. Right. And redo something else with the property is it's kind of like, but I did all this work for like whatever. Right. Who cares? And that's when you think about it, what we do with our lives here, most of what we do, a lot of what we do with our lives, that's just what it's going to be like. It's just kind of like, well, what did I spend so much time working around here for, you know? But you can't just have that total attitude because you still need to provide. I work so I could provide for my family so, you know, so that we can do things. And ultimately, though, hopefully it's so that you can also serve the Lord. Right. You have the resources to serve the Lord. You can you can do things. But but we don't want to get wrapped up in these things. Let's keep reading Ecclesiastes one verse five says the sun also arises and the sun goes down and hasted through his place where he rose. The wind goes toward the south and turneth about into the north. It whirls about continually and the wind returneth again, according to his circuits. And the rivers run into the sea. Yet the sea is not full until the place from whence the rivers come. The other they return again. All things are full of labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing. And that is an important truth to understand just about us humanly speaking, too. And it comes to labor. Right. Hey, all things are full of labor. And ain't that the truth, man? Everything that you do is like work. Like you just have to no matter even like taking vacations is work, especially if you have like that family. We just got back from a vacation, a vacation. Man, that was a lot of work. All things have labor. But but the latter part is more what I want to focus on there, says the eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing. And these distractions and this labor and the things that you can do. You can just keep working and working, working, working, but you're never really satisfied. You're never going to really be like, oh, yeah, I've worked enough. There's always more work to do. There's always more jobs to do. Like I think of my secular job. I work in IT. I will always have things to do. Always. The job is never, ever done. Like there's never going to come a day until I get fired or I quit where it's going to be like, yeah, you know what? There's actually nothing to do. And and honestly, like when when you're working hard, you ought to have that mindset of just saying, you know, there's always is work to do and you always find work to do. And just stand around and be lazy and be idle. Make sure that you get work to do. But at the same time, don't get so engrossed and wrapped up into that secular work where it's just like you've now lost sight of what's needful. You've forgotten about the most important thing and the most important aspect about life. Jump down to verse number 13. The Bible says, and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. This sore travail hath God given to the sons of men, sons of man, to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit. At the end of the day, he's kind of like summing this up, everything, all this work that you do under the sun. He's talking about the physical labor, because he references like I had man servants and maid servants. And he talks about he built these great works and he built fountains and he had gardens and he built all these things that like you can build, humanly speaking, just on this earth. He had all these great works and accomplishments. And at the end of the day, you know, he says it's vanity is just vexation of spirit. There's tons of labor in it, but it's it's really just meaningless. And at the end of the day, what do you get? But just be holding it with your eyes. And we want to maintain the right mindset. Right. And turn, if you would, to Matthew Chapter six, we want to maintain this right mindset so that we don't ever get too clingy to the things of this world. When you just remember, yeah, it's it's it's really at the end of the day, it's kind of all meaningless. But it doesn't mean life is meaningless. Now, it is life is meaningless to those who don't know Christ. It's truly meaningless because at the end of the day, what do you got? You got nothing. You know, we're born in this world with nothing and we leave with nothing in this world like of this world. You come and you go and there's there's nothing. Eternity matters more than anything. And the reason why our lives aren't meaningless. Is because you can still have an impact on people's souls. And not just their eternal destination, but also the rewards that God gives for your service in your life in this world. And the service is service to him, but also service to man, too. You walk in Christ's steps and God's going to reward you for that. And you might suffer in this life and you might suffer loss and you might suffer the loss of your goods. And you might not be in the highest position that you could possibly be in if you were to dedicate your life to doing those things. But who cares about that? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, right? This is what the Bible teaches. This stuff. Hey, there's no end to the work, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's all vanity. So what? You could build some great empire here on Earth. Who cares? First of all, God's in charge. So if God wants to just topple your empire. It could be done a minute. But even if he chooses not to do that. It's still just just give it a generation or two. Whatever. Right. Like like it. Time will take care of it. It's all going to come to naught. And even if it survives past your lifespan, your life is over. So what is that? What good is is that empire going to do you in the afterlife? Nothing at all. That's not going to save you. You can't barter with the empire you built with God to save your soul. So this this is what I mean when I say that it's you know, life becomes kind of meaningless if you don't have Christ, if you don't have the word of God, if you don't have the Lord, your life ultimately becomes meaningless. You can do meaningful things in your life. You raise family and things like that. But at the end of the day, you've got this short time. And if you end up just dying, you're going to hell. Oh, man. You missed it. You missed that which was needful. And wasted all your time on the things that aren't. You're in Matthew Chapter six, look at verse number 24. This is the mindset. I think we need to hear this on a regular basis. I preach on this on a regular basis. Matthew six, one of my favorite passages. To help us keep perspective. To help us regularly to re prioritize. Priorities in your life. Make sure that you've got what ought to be at the top at the top. Which is the Lord, right? Even the Ten Commandments is I am the Lord, your God, thou should have no other gods before me. And the second is talking about not having any idols. And we don't want to have anything that would be taking the place of God. If you have something else that's number one in your life, that's not God. Essentially, that's an idol that's taking the place of because God deserves and demands the number one place in your life. He created you. He bought you with the price. He gave his only begotten son to shed his blood and die on the cross for you. He did everything for you. He gives you your breath. He gives you your being. He's giving you everything. He deserves the number one spot in your life. Absolutely. And when you go and put other things, other people, other things in front of that, now you've you've you've lowered the status of God. And oftentimes I think people do it unintentionally. You're not thinking I'm going to lower the status of God in my life. Right. Because, you know, it may sound like I'm saying it, but that's not what I'm saying. People people do this, but through their actions, that is what they're doing. And when you start putting everything else first and you just go, well, you know what, maybe if there's enough time, I'll go to church. Well, maybe it'll work out this time. Maybe if there's enough time, I can squeeze five minutes in a Bible reading in. Well, I'm kind of tired tonight. Well, I've got too many other things to do today. OK, when you start using all of those reasons, I'll call them excuses. To not have even the most simple, basic relationship with the Lord, your God, meaning hearing from his word, speaking to him right through prayer and and attending the gathering of believers, which, by the way, is also a commandment of the Lord. That we're not like those that forsake the assembling of themselves together. Hey, we're doing a really, really good Bible memory passage, Hebrews Chapter 10. And if you don't have a priority on coming to church and making sure you're coming to church regularly. Now, look, I'm not saying you have to come to every service that we offer you. I think it's a good thing to do. I think you'd be blessed by that. But if you're not coming regularly to church, you're forsaking the assembling and you should memorize. I think we're like right up to that passage, too. Yeah. Just passed it. As I say, we're right there at that point. So so learn the verses from last week, learn the verses from this week, because it also is in context with last week's and. Memorize that right and understand the importance of church attendance. And just having God number one in your life, look at verse number 24, Matthew Chapter six, the Bible says, no man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God in Mammon. And again, what that's talking about is how you're spending your life. What do you what do you what are you serving? Who are you working for? What are you doing with your life? Are you just trying to make money? Like to make that's my goals. I just want to make money. Then you can't serve God. If your goal is to make money, you can't serve God. But if your goal is to serve God, then you can't serve money. It doesn't mean you can't earn money to support your family, but that's not going to be. Your goal like that won't be your ambition and you might not make it as high up the corporate ladder as you might like to, because in order to do that, you have to make that your your goal. And it becomes your life. And I'll tell you what of the CEOs that I've known. They work a lot. A lot of hours. A lot in the bigger the business, the more is going to be expected of you and people are going to have to be ambitious for that work. And again, I'm not saying you can't be a CEO and serve God. I'm not saying that. But you have to have it in your mind. What do I want to do with my life? How am I going to prioritize things? And you choose for yourself. And if you can be a CEO and still serve the Lord and not forget those things are needful, then amen. Right. Great. There's nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with Martha doing this other work, but you know what? Don't forget what's needful and don't get so focused on the mammon and putting that as your goal that. Well, now you're not serving God. And the Bible saying, look, it's one or the other. And really, at the end of day, you got to choose the priority in your life. Am I going to serve God or am I going to serve money? If you're going to serve God, then who cares about the money? If you're going to serve God, you understand already who cares about the money? It doesn't matter. It's meaningless. It's vanity. Vanity of vanities. It means nothing. Yeah. All you need to have is enough to be able to be clothed and fed and survive. Right. At the end of the day, that's really all you need is just to be able to survive, to live another day, to keep serving the Lord and to make sure that your family is provided for. It doesn't mean you have to make sure that your family all has iPads. Seriously. I mean, I mean, really. It doesn't mean that that doesn't mean like, oh, you're a deadbeat dad because your son doesn't have an iPhone. No, they've got clothing and they've got food. They even have shelter. You're providing. It's not it may not it doesn't have to be luxurious, but when you and it doesn't mean you can't have more than that. Right. So like just just get the picture. But when you're serving the Lord, you're going to be content. With however you're blessed in this life, it doesn't matter, right, because you're not going to just focus on just earning tons of money. You're going to support yourself, your support your family. But number one in your life is going to be the Lord. Verse number twenty five. Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body. What you shall put on is not the life more than meat in the body than raiment. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not. Neither do they reap nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feed at them. Are you not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take he thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. They toil not. Neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. And Solomon had been like the richest person to that point. Like he's had God gave him the wisdom and the riches. I mean, he had anything that you could ever want to read Ecclesiastes. He talks about all the things that he had. You know, it's like he could literally have any type of garment that he ever could possibly want. All the types of colors, all the beauty, whatever. And the Bible saying like. That still doesn't compare to the way that God clothed the grass. With the beauty of the flowers and the beauty of his creation. And he's like, why do you care about it so much? And yet I say unto you, even Solomon in his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek? For your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all these things. And here's where that great faith is going to need to come in, because we know we need to eat and we know that we need to be clothed. And we know that we need to have these basic provisions to live and survive. But even that stuff, God said, you know, first saying, don't worry about all the riches and stuff, you can't serve God and money. And then the stuff that you actually do need, you say, don't even worry about that. That's a little harder. It's easier to not care about the luxury stuff, but then it's like, well, how am I not supposed to care about this stuff? Well, you need to have faith because he says this verse 33, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. God wants us focusing day by day on serving him. Right. You still could do your job, you still work, but. We are seeking first the kingdom of God. That's the priority. That is the what is number one. We're seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. You know, all these other things to be added unto you don't have to worry about that stuff. If you seek first the kingdom of God, you don't have to worry about food. You don't have to worry about clothing. I'll take care of you. Just like I took care of the grass, just like I'll take care of the birds, just like I'll take care of any other creature in nature. I'll take care of you, but I'll take care of you. You just seek me first, seek the kingdom of God. And he's saying, you know, all these worries, all these cares. Are you careful about so much? You have all this stuff to do. Take no thought for the morrow. Don't worry about it. Don't get all stressed out about over everything else you have to do. Just live your day. We don't know how many days we have on this earth. Right. Don't don't fret over the amount of work that you have to do. It doesn't help anything. Know that if you're seeking first the kingdom of God, he's going to care for you anyways. So what's the point of getting stressed out and fretting over this stuff? And, you know, hey, take no thought for the morrow. The morrow is going to take care of the thought of itself. Like like when you wake up tomorrow, believe me, there'll be plenty of things that you're going to need to face and need to do. Sufficient under the day is the evil thereof. Keeping this mindset, especially during the times of year that we get busy, when the distractions come up. Don't lose sight of what's needful. Keep the most important things at the forefront. Keep serving God and make that you know what, if that hasn't been a priority. And I would challenge you just to do this. Evaluate your life, your day to day life. OK. And I want you to decide and I want you to think honestly. Just in your own mind. What place does the Lord have in your life? And I'm not asking for an emotional response because everyone's going to just immediately say God's number one in my life. Is that reflected in your actions on a daily basis? Just and whatever that means to you. OK. You be the judge. I'm not going to tell you how much time that you need to do on this or that or that to say that now you can say God is number one in your life. I can't say that. You say that for yourself. Now, I'll challenge you on other things throughout the year. To spend more time doing different things. But that's not to prove that God is number one. You make sure you're good with that in your life for yourself. And take a serious look and say. Is there a day that I mean, think about this. I would at least say this much. I'm not gonna tell you how much you need to do. But if you can if there's a day that you wake up and you have zero thoughts towards the Lord. I mean, zero. No prayer. No reading. I mean, nothing, nothing where God doesn't even cross your mind. He is not number one in your life. He is not number one in your life. Guaranteed. Because think about what's number one. What you might say is number one. If your wife's number one, you're gonna be thinking about your wife. Your husband's number one. You'll be thinking about your husband. You're gonna be doing something for them. You're gonna you're gonna communicate with them. If your job is number one, you're showing up to work. You're gonna be thinking about your work. And if your job is really number one, you're probably be thinking about your work over the weekend, too, when you're not working. It doesn't even have to be number one to do that. But I'm just saying like if it's like whatever is number one in your life. That's where your heart. That's where your mind is going to be. Evaluate for yourself and then make the change necessary and be like, you know what, I think I might have my priorities out of whack. I need to change something and I need to do it. I need to make sure I'm doing this every day. And it could be something small. You could start small. Just say, you know what, if I don't read my Bible every day, I'm going to make sure I just carve out time that cannot get moved. That nothing else takes precedence over this time right here. That this is going to be the time that I am making sure that I am spending time with the Lord because God is number one in my life. And you make those decisions and you stick to them. And I recommend doing those things in the morning because in the morning you're starting the day. So no matter what happens the rest of the day, you could just make sure I've already put God first. And, you know, if my whole day goes sideways and all kinds of weird stuff happens, I don't have to say, well, I can't I can't do this now. I can't pray or I can't read my Bible, whatever, whatever it is. Right. Because all this other stuff. Put them first. Your Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for loving us. We thank you for saving us. God, you truly deserve the number one spot in our hearts and in our minds. I pray that you would please help us not to get wrapped up and caught up in the distractions and the cares of this world that that ultimately will just end up choking us out. But but help us to reevaluate our time, reevaluate our life just regularly so we don't backslide. We could catch ourselves and stay focused on serving you. God, we thank you for your promises. We thank you for caring for us. Lord, we love you. I pray to please heal all those who are not well in our church and especially those who are dealing with with extremely difficult challenges in their life, with with cancers and other and other severe illnesses and issues, dear Lord. And just help our church to to to grow and to thrive. And, Lord, lead us. Be be the shining light for us every day of our life. We love you to Jesus name. We pray. Amen. All right. We're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, will you please lead us? On the first. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,