What Does Unconditional Love Mean?

TRANSCRIPT

We are talking about love, the topic of today's love, but, uh, let's start by talking about an idol, social media. I personally not a huge fan of social media, um, but well. Now that I've said that, put up your hand if you have social media, just so that we can kind of see Now. I know I've kind of like said I don't like it.

Yeah, I mean I have an account as well, um, on something, but I think we could talk all day about, you know, the pros and cons of social media. I'm sure there's good things about it. I feel like social media overall has been a net loss. For humanity. I don't think that it has brought enough good, um, to say that it's a great thing in our lives.

Um, I think one of the things that's come out of it is it's created this global platform for people to just be so judgmental and angry from afar with no repercussions to themselves and. Uh, one of the things that's come out of it, uh, in the last 10 years is cancel culture where people, millions of people can be judged, jury and executioner of someone based on a ten second reel based on a headline from Daily Mail UK that, for some reason shows up in your feed and all of a sudden people are just canceled based.

Uh, basically it's just like you've got no voice in this world anymore. It's a really toxic culture that started, um, I looked up like, when did this start? Because we've had the internet for a long time before we had social media. Was it social media? And the answer is yes. It was, it, it was a phenomenon that started around 20 15, 20 16.

Before that, yes, we had the internet, but we didn't, we just read blogs. Um, before that we just had magazines. We would read new idea to get all the latest goss on stuff, and we'd be like, oh, Brad Pitts left. Whatever Jennifer Aniston is with Angelina now, man, that's crazy. And then we'd go watch a Brad Pitt movie and we didn't care.

Like it was just gone. We didn't have any real sort of, um, care about what was going on in the world of all these other people. So it was really interesting when I saw that. It said that 20 15 16 was when cancel culture started. I remember, and I was thinking about this recently, the very first time I saw the whole world get together to absolutely hate on one.

Person was in 2016, and some of you might remember this happening, um, if you're old enough, 'cause you know it was nine years ago, um, a mom took her 3-year-old son to the Cincinnati Zoo. And they were at the gorilla enclosure. They were standing there. Some of you are nodding. You know what I'm about to say?

It is a terrible story. She's there with her little boy and they're looking at this, uh, gorilla. It's a a male big silverback gorilla. And this little boy gets it into his head that he wants to see the gorilla a bit closer. So in a split second, he goes under the rail, pushes his way through a bush, and falls into the enclosure.

Everyone is screaming. The gorilla gets really agitated, grabs this little boy. He's three years old and starts dragging him around the enclosure. Everyone is losing it. The gorilla's dragging him through a stream that's running through the middle of it. Face down, everyone's screaming. This little boy is gonna drown.

I cannot even imagine what the mother was feeling. The absolute terror she must have felt at watching her little boy and knowing that gorilla. Could just kill her son in a second. And in the end, the zookeepers realize they cannot safely get this child away from the gorilla, so they shoot the gorilla. So the mother has to watch as they point a gun at the gorilla that is holding her child and hope that they make the shot.

I am sure that she felt an incredible amount of trauma, a lot of guilt, and not to mention what was going on with her son. I felt incredible empathy for her. My kids were young. I think I had a. I had a 1-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 7-year-old. The world did not agree with me. This was the first time I'd seen so many people make a such a mass judgment of one person, millions of people commenting and posting about what an absolutely disgraceful mother she was to allow that to happen.

And the things they wrote were truly horrible. They were things like, um, child protective Services should come and take her children away because she's an unfit mother. They would say things like, we still see this one today. Oh, she shouldn't have been allowed to breed. And then all of the people, this still happens today.

All the people who said she should never have taken her eyes off her child. Mm. How many of you right now have no idea where your children are? You're hoping someone upstairs is looking after them. What a ridiculous thing to expect of a parent that they can look at their children 24 hours a day. From a practical perspective, this is insanity and I would love to see all these perfect parents telling other parents to never stop looking at their children.

I want to watch them for 24 hours. I wanna see how they shower. I wanna see how they pour a cup of tea. They're pouring it like this with a boiling kettle staring at their children. How are they making dinner? Oh, it's just a few fingers. It doesn't matter. I've gotta watch my kids. It's insane to me. And were they expecting her to be there at the zoo?

Looking at the gorilla. Little boy beside her and little boy's excited going, mom, look at the gorilla. Wow. And she's there going, Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Yep. Son. Sure is great. 'cause she has to look at her kid 24 hours a day. It was an accident. You're basically not a parent unless you've lost your kids at least twice and make, what makes you a good parent is that you found 'em again.

Woo. Massive judgment for this poor woman. I felt so bad for her, and Jesus talked so much about judgment. I guess people back then were just as judgy as they are today. He talked so much about judgment and he, he kind of, he really flipped it over on its head the same way that he did everything. He went and just like.

Turned the whole thing upside down culturally. He came along and he said, Hey, it's a patriarchal world right now, but men, women, children, people of all races, all status in life, all of them are equal in the sight of God and they need to be treated that way. This was revolutionary people back then, if they were sick, they just got thrown out the city walls.

They literally chucked him outside, shut the gates and said bye. Die over there, and Jesus went out and hung out with them like these people were untouchables, and Jesus went and hung out with them and touched them. And the disciples who were continually, completely confused by what Jesus did. Maybe they're going, Jesus, what are you doing, Phil Leprosy?

Whatcha thinking? But he is there just touching them and healing them. So all these things that today are pretty normal and accepted in our society. Of course, we're gonna look after the people who are sick. Of course, everyone has the same intrinsic value. That's because countries like ours have our roots in Christianity and Christian values.

So he came and he turned all these things upside down and it wasn't just cultural things, it was matters of the heart as well. He came and he taught a whole new way to live and relate to other people, and judgment was definitely really high on his list and a really great example. It's one of my favorites actually, um, is this scene where, actually I'll get you to imagine it.

So just imagine that you are. Sitting in a room with lots of people, you're all facing the same way and you're looking at someone who's speaking to you. Do we have it? Okay, let's go another step. Uh, now there's no carpet. It's just dirt and you are probably sitting on the floor and it's probably really hot.

And I'm not me. I'm Jesus. So Jesus is in this temple and he's teaching all these people there. And suddenly there's this great big like commotion outside and there's the sound of, you know, feet and there's men's voices and there's the sound of a woman sobbing. And these people, this crowd just bursts into the temple and they come to the front and they put this woman, they, she's being dragged in by two men, and they put her at the very front, in front of everyone.

And these two men, these religious leaders, they say to Jesus, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says we have to stone her to death. What do you say? Now, the side note to this is that they were trying to trap Jesus into saying something so they could arrest him and get rid of him.

Jesus ignores all of that and kind of turns it into this pretty amazing teachable moment, and he doesn't answer them. He just kind of like gets onto the ground and starts riding with his finger in the ground and this crowd of people there, they're going, well, Jesus, whatcha are you talking about? And they've got their rocks.

They're ready to go. And if we picture this, this poor woman has no idea. If in a few minutes all these men are gonna start throwing rocks at her until she is dead. Can you imagine the terror this poor woman was feeling? And eventually Jesus stands up and he wipes the dust off his fingers and he looks at them and he says, let him who is without sin be the first to throw a rock at her.

And then he just bends down and keeps riding in the dirt. And I like to imagine that maybe there's a little bit of silence then as they all think about what Jesus has just said. 'cause again, it is pretty revolutionary in this world to not judge their whole life is built on rules. And then maybe there's just like the sound of a thud

and someone walks out. Then there's two more thuds and two more people walk out. And eventually everyone is gone and there's just Jesus and this woman and a pile of rocks. And Jesus gets up off the floor, looks around and goes, oh, what? Where is everyone? As if he doesn't know. And he says, did anyone condemn you?

And she says, no, they didn't. And Jesus said, well, I don't condemn you either. Now go and send no more. So Jesus in that moment has just explained and shown so beautifully that we can't stand in a position of perfection and judge other people. He's saying, unless you are absolutely perfect, as perfect as Jesus himself, you have never done a thing wrong.

You have never told a lie. You have never damaged someone else's property. You've never taken someone for granted. You've never had any ounce of pride in your life. You've never not forgiven someone, whatever it is one of a billion things that us humans do every day. If you have never done any of those things, then yes, go ahead, judge someone else for the things they've done wrong.

But if you are a victim of humanity. You cannot go and judge someone else's humanity. The scales don't work like that.

The other interesting thing that Jesus said then is he said, I don't condemn you either. Isn't that so interesting? Because we think like Jesus is perfect. He is the only one that could really judge us if we are thinking like on earth. But Jesus said that for a very particular reason, and this is really interesting.

I was reading this in John the other day. It's in John. 12, I think Jesus says this. Um, this is John, one of his disciples has written this down. Jesus says, I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. So first of all, he is saying. There's people in the light, people who know who Jesus is, they're in the light, and then there's people who are still in the darkness.

So there's just lost and found. He doesn't say good and bad. He's not measuring anything like that. He's just saying they're either lost, they don't know me yet, or they're found and they do know me. And then he goes on and he says, I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them. For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

And Jesus says over and over and over again that the only one who judges is God, and his job was to come and forgive and give us away back to God so that we could be saved and go into eternity. Jesus, instead of judgment, gave us two other things that we could do instead. Two Commandments. And he said, you can probably say this with me.

Love the Lord God with all your. Heart. Heart. Do you remember the order? All of your mind, soul, and your mind? It was those three in whatever word you wanna say it all your heart, mind, and soul. So he said, give everything back to God. God is absolutely first you. Everything that you do should always point back to God.

And the second one is like it. He said, love your neighbor as yourself as yourself. Two commands both about love. Now, Jesus demonstrated that love in everything that he did. It's written down in the gospels that Matthew, mark, Luke, and John wrote down all of these things. They were eyewitness accounts. But then we have a guy named Paul, who was another follower of Jesus.

He wrote lots of letters to these first century churches to help them on their way as they were figuring things out. And he wrote a really great description of love in words for us. This is a very famous scripture. If you've been in church for 30 seconds or more, you've probably heard it. Even if you haven't, you've probably heard it 'cause it's pretty much it everywhere.

Wedding in the world. So let's have a look at this one. Actually, funnily enough, I was watching, um, the office yesterday, the office us. This was on there. It was there. Inner wedding. I think that people don't even realize this is actual scripture. So Paul wrote this. This is his description of love. Love is patient.

Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails, and that word fails.

Um, doesn't mean, uh, it never like gets it wrong. It means it never ends. It doesn't, um, run outta steam. It doesn't, it can't be extinguished. It's inexhaustible. That's what that means. And everything that Paul has written there, none of it is about judging other people. It's the opposite. It says, don't be prideful, don't boast, don't be self-seeking.

Anytime we do that, we put ourselves in a position where we think that we are better than someone else, and the scales don't work that way according to Jesus.

So we have Jesus who demonstrated love. We have Paul who described love, and Jesus said, go love your neighbor. As yourself. As yourself means that whatever grace and understanding and compassion you would give yourself, because you understand your intention, you understand your story, you know why you did certain things, we have to give that to other people as well.

Jesus was very deliberately saying, make sure that you know. You are on the same scale as these other people. So they're, they're the people that we've gotta love. So in our church, um, we are very big on, we've mentioned it so much this morning, already going out and serving and helping and just. Loving on people, doing these acts of kindness, acts of generosity, trying to work on forgiving people even when people feel unforgivable.

We talk about this so much being out there, being for the Gold Coast, being for people, and hopefully we pray and hope that through that people figure out who Jesus is. That's our goal is to show people who Jesus is. I think we do that well, but something I was thinking about is, okay, that's awesome, but anyone can go and do nice things.

Hm. You probably know lots of people who don't know Jesus, who are really nice people, have great moral character, really generous, all that sort of thing. And then you can go even further that and say there's some truly terrible people who can still be nice people on the outside. We've all seen true crime documentaries where someone is found out to be a murderer.

And their neighbors are like, what? I had no idea. He's such a nice guy. Brings my bins in on a Monday. And then, you know, there's multimillionaires who have not-for-profits and run fundraisers and all this stuff, and they can be absolutely corrupt and still be doing nice things. So what makes our acts of love and kindness and generosity and that forgiveness, what makes it more unusual?

Than someone who's just a nice person and doesn't know Jesus. What makes our acts transformative? What makes our act something then goes on to change that person's life, to help them move closer to where Jesus is and one day hopefully get them to be in the light with him and understand who he is. Paul, actually just before, um, he does this description.

He says something here that's really interesting. He's kind of saying the same thing that I'm saying. He says, if I speak in the gift of, sorry, if I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels, but do not have love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I'm nothing.

If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. He's saying we can kind of do all the things in in the out like the outside world in our own spiritual lives. We can do all the things. But if we are missing that one critical ingredient of love, the way Jesus demonstrated and the way Paul described, maybe it's just not quite it.

Maybe it's just lacking something. So then I went from there and I said, okay, how do we love like that? And then I heard this podcast, so I listened to a podcast called the Jesus People Podcast. Has anyone ever heard that before? Tiani has. Okay. I said I loved testimonies and things, people's stories. This thing is a hundred percent just people's stories.

Uh, this guy Ryan Miller, he, um, interviews people who have incredible Jesus encounters or just incredible ministries. I cry in every. Single episode. I am talking like gushing tears because I'm just so moved by the way. Jesus works in people's lives and we need to surround ourselves with people's stories 'cause that is proof.

So much proof of what Jesus is doing outside of our tiny, little awesome world here on the Gold Coast. So Ryan Miller had, uh, did a couple of interviews over the last two months with a guy named Han Vigar, and Han was the head of the Satanic Church of South Africa. And Rhan had been in the occult for about 20 years.

He became a Satanist in his twenties, and he rose up through the ranks of this Satanic church, and he can tell you and does tell you. All of the stuff that's going on in this global network of Satanic churches and their agenda, who's in it? Who's running it? He doesn't drop names, but he knows everything and shares everything.

And it is so eye-opening. It's really amazing and well worth listening to. Um, so he shares this story where he says. He rose up through the ranks to the point where, uh, they, the global network asked him to found a church in South Africa, a Satanic church. 'cause they wanted to increase their reach. They didn't have one in South Africa yet.

They're trying to recruit more young people. That's their current agenda. So they started up this church. He founded it and it was national news across across South Africa. So he got invited to speak at a radio station. He was the spokesperson. So he shows up at this radio station and he does the interview and he says he follows the script 'cause their script tells them how to talk and, and just.

Work on the agenda of desensitizing people to who Satan is and humanizing all the people in it a little more and things like that. So he does his interview and afterwards he's just in the booth, in the sound booth and, uh, this woman walks in and he's, he hasn't met her before, but he knows her because they've been communicating by email.

She's the radio show like liaison for guests and things like that. She walks into the room. Now, Han is not. He's a really scary looking guy. He's really big. He's got a massive beard, shaved head. He's got tattoos all over him and one big black line of a tattoo that runs down to the bridge of his nose. So he's a really intimidating looking guy.

This woman walks into the room, walks right up to him and gives him a huge hug. And he said this was shocking to him because no one had really touched him for about 10 years. He had made sure that no one touched him. He had cut off his family who were Christians. He didn't really have friends, he just had the Satanic church and the work that they were doing.

So this woman's arms are around him, and he said what he felt was this overwhelming feeling of love and compassion, and he'd never felt anything like it before. And a couple of days later, he was still emailing with her because she had to get promo photos for the website and stuff like that. And he realizes through their conversations that she is a Christian, she's a Christ follower.

And he said that was super surprising to him because he had never met a Christian who didn't immediately judge him and condemn him or was really scared of him. And then about a week later. He was asked by the satanic church leaders to perform a very specific ritual where he was supposed to communicate with demons and things like that on the other side, in the spiritual realm to fi realm to find out information.

So he goes down into the basement of their church as like, you know, church, car park, and then the basement. So really subterranean. It's a small room with no windows, just one door. And he starts lighting candles to prepare to do this ritual, and he gets to the second candle. And the whole room lights up white.

And he turns around and there's a man standing behind him and he thinks, well, this must be a demon. They know that I was about to go and communicate. They're showing up to me. And so he kind of goes, who are you? And this man says, I'm Yeshua of Nazareth, which means Jesus. And he still doesn't know what to think about this, and he thinks if you are Jesus.

I'm in really big trouble. Like he, he said he really did think that, so, and then he said, well, you'll have to prove it to me. And Jesus said Nothing else. But Han felt this overwhelming feeling of love and compassion. But this time he recognized it because it was the same love and compassion that came from that woman when he was in the radio station that day.

And he knew right then. That that really was Jesus.

That Jesus really was the king and savior of the world. That Jesus really was powerful and Jesus really did powerfully move through his people, and he fell down on his knees. He renounced all of satanism. He gave his life to Christ, and he has spent three years getting people out of the Satanic church and bringing them to Jesus too.

Wow. Yes. That's why you should listen to that podcast. So I wanna point out something first, and that is that if you ever think that you are unforgivable, if you are new to church, new to hearing about Jesus, and you think, well, I've done too much bad stuff, please remember that Jesus showed up to someone who's entire life was devoted to furthering the cause of Satan in the world and destroying Christianity, and Jesus still showed up.

Okay?

This woman, um, you know, she could have said, I don't want this man to come to the radio station. He's, you know, he's here for Satan. I'm not doing that. Or she wouldn't have come to work that day. But she didn't. She came and she respected this man, and she walked into that room and the Holy Spirit must have said to her, hug this man.

And when she did. Jesus was able to move through that and show all of this love and compassion that she herself had given the ability to show because she did not judge. She did not judge this man for where he was on his journey in the darkness because she knew that there is no scale. There is no way to weigh this.

She was loving him the way Jesus said because she did not judge. She was not a clanging symbol or just a gong. She wasn't just noise. She wasn't just action without love behind it. And her doing that allowed rhan to see just how powerful Jesus was in the world. He really did overcome all evil, and he's prevailing.

So I thought about this, okay. Jesus showed us what love looks like. Paul described it to us. We know that we cannot have love and judgment. You, they're just, they're oil and water. They don't mix. You can't be judgy and then love people the way Jesus said, because we have to love with so much compassion and empathy, and understanding and forgiveness because everybody is just as human as we are.

The difference is that we have Jesus. So then I said, okay, how do we, this is me. This is me going through this journey over this last few weeks. How do we then get to a point where we have no judgment? 'cause I am such a judgey person. Like I'm the worst. I, I, I have such a strong moral compass that I just go, I even before I knew Jesus, I'd be so annoyed at people who were mean to each other or stole something or ruin someone's property.

Or you see someone speeding down the highway at 120 and you just go, you're an idiot and you're gonna die and the world's gonna be better for it. And I still think that stuff. So bad. So I thought, okay, well God, how do we become people who don't judge, who have compassion for those who are lost? True compassion that allows us to be like that woman and transform someone in just a hug.

You know, these acts that we do, it's not giving away your home. It is something as simple as making a meal for someone, giving someone a hug, making a phone call. So I thought, okay, how do we do that? Then I read this in John and it was the first time, I mean, I've read this so many times, but I just was like, oh man, I've never read it like this before.

So Jesus goes to, uh, this guy Simon's house, Simon's Simon is a religious leader, and, uh, Jesus goes there for a meal and this woman walks in and she is a woman of ill repute. Uh, the. The sort of like insinuation is that she's a lady of the night, if you know what I mean. So she comes in and she falls at Jesus' feet and she starts weeping on his feet and she uses the tears to wash his feet, and then she dries his feet with her hair and then she pours oil on his feet, and then she kisses his feet.

Now this makes no sense to us 2000 years later, but back then it was a sign of honor and hospitality to, to wash, to wash the feet of someone who came into your home. 'cause they had dusty feet, they wore sandals, they had no paved roads. So she does all these things and uh, Simon thinks to himself. Well, Jesus must not be the son of God or else he would know that this woman who she is, what she does for a living, and he would be like, get away from me, woman.

I don't wanna be anywhere near you. And Jesus turns to him and says, well, hang on. All these things that she did for me, you didn't do. You didn't wash my feet when you came in. When I came in, and you didn't anoint me with oil and you didn't kiss me on the cheek. And she has done all these things and then this is what he says.

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. Hence, she has shown great love, but the one to whom little is forgiven loves little,

which means that if we do not have an understanding of how much we are forgiven and how much we need forgiveness, it is so hard for us to have compassion for other people who also need forgiveness. The more we understand that Jesus saved us, not just once, but every day. The more we understand that in our own humanness, we need Jesus forgiveness every single day, once we start to understand that, we stop judging other people and we just think about how much they need.

Jesus forgiveness as well. And I was thinking, you know how many times, like I spend time with Jesus, I listen to worship music, I, I pray. But when I pray, I pray for things. I pray for my kids, or I'll pray for someone. And just funny, 'cause Tom talked about this, I pray for, you know, uh, people who might be sick or I, or pray for wisdom about something.

I'm praying for things and about things, but how often am I sitting there and just saying, Jesus, I'm so grateful for the cross and I'm so sorry that sometimes I'm not the best version of myself. I'm sorry for this thing that I said. Search my heart and just show me where I need to change so that I can be like better representative of you.

I'm sorry for the way that things have become idols in my life. Can you help me with that? How often do I just sit there and bask in the absolute wonder of his mercy for me as this broken person? When we are forgiven much, when we recognize how much forgiveness we have, we go and love much, and we love without judgment, and instead we love with compassion the way Jesus showed us and the way Paul described.

So that's been my journey and I don't know if that helps anyone. I hope that it does. Uh, everything we've said this morning has honestly led to this as well. So I'm just gonna say maybe the Holy Spirit wants to do something. Um, I'm gonna ask the team to come back up. I asked them to do a song, um, it's called Rain Above It All.

If you've. Been in church for a little bit, you'll know it. The reason I wanted to do this song is because it's actually a real declaration of who we are and who we stand with, because something I have felt over the last couple of years is like the world's voice is so loud, which Tom talked about. It has felt like the negativity, the agendas going on, the, you know, I guess the evil at work in our world to destroy families now, to destroy people's identities, who they are fundamentally created by God.

It is, it scares me sometimes just how loud and overwhelming it feels. And sometimes I think, how can my tiny little, you know, oh, I fed someone a piece of raisin toast from the cafe. How can this help? You know what I mean? I, I think, how can these tiny things make a difference in such an enormous snowball of a broken world?

And I was reminded through what Rhan was sharing that. We are in the victory that Jesus did overcome the world, that anything that Satan is trying to do has already been beaten. That if you go out there and you look ridiculous to other people, if the way that you love is so unusual that people think you are insane or wackadoodle, or that you're too carefree with your money, or that you know you forgive too much and that you're a, a snowflake, or that you are a, you know.

People just walk all over you, whatever. They're gonna maybe think weird things, but it doesn't matter because what they think doesn't matter. What matters is that we are trying to show people who Jesus is so they can move from the darkness into the light before it's too late, and that we stand in the victory and in the absolute confidence of Jesus to go out and do these things every day with as little judgment as we can, recognizing our need for forgiveness from Jesus.

So when I. Said this song, I did it because this song talks about, well, I just wanna put everyone back in their rightful place. Let's put God right back at the top where he belongs. Let's put Jesus where he belongs as king and savior of the world. And that's what this song declares. Reign above it all you reign above it, all over the universe and over every heart.

That's the scope of his love. It's so wide and yet so personal.

And then it says. What is the next line? Tom? Jesus. You. What is it? No. In the chorus, you ran above it all. You ran above it all over the universe. Every heart, there is no higher name. You've gotta sing it in your head. Sometimes there is no higher name. Jesus, you ran above it all. So I thought that we could just take a few minutes to do that before we move into whatever is about to come next.

Um, and just get our hearts right, just putting everyone back in their rightful place first. So I'm gonna pray. You guys can sit or stand or do whatever you want. Um, it's your time to do whatever. No judgment here. Um, but I'll pray and then we're ready to go. Okay. Jesus. I barely know where to start, but I'm just gonna say thank you so much for everything that you did on the cross, for everything that you do in our lives every single day, for the way that you go out and heal and save people.

So much work that you're doing that we don't even get to see. But we know that you are moving powerfully. We know that your power is greater than any power in the world. We know that our, uh, battle here on Earth is not against people around us, but it is about the forces that are trying to destroy, to kill and destroy what's going on.

So we pray against those and we pray for the people that you put in our world that you would show us how to love. We, I just pray that we all remember how to come back and just. Receive your forgiveness and be so immensely grateful for everything that you did, for your sacrifice, for the way that you continue to love us, and that in loving us, you have given us away to eternity with you and with God.

So we right now wanna just spend a few minutes. Just remembering who you are in our lives and who you are in the world. We give these next few moments to you. I pray Holy Spirit, that you just do whatever to whoever that you have in mind this morning. And we just wanna be open, I think, to to hear that and and go with it.

So thank you. We just hand it all to you. Amen.