Time's Up

All right, well, good morning, everybody. So good to see everybody here. If you are visiting with us today, man, so, so appreciative of you guys being here. I even see Mr. Wayne Juel in the congregation this morning. Always good to see Mr. Wayne and Mr. M. Anna. Man, so good to see everybody today. Awesome. And yeah, if you are one of the guests that are here specifically for the child dedication, I just want to say thank you so much for being here. Thank you, too, for, for your part in raising your adult children to follow the Lord so that they would find themselves at Sauldam Baptist Church all these years later, and they’d be doing the same thing with their kids that undoubtedly y’all did with your own. Thank you so much. We absolutely love getting to partner with your kids as they raise their own children to seek, seek what God has for them.

So yeah, if you are new to us, then this might be a little different for you, but every Sunday morning we set aside a part of our worship service for congregation prayer. You know, we don’t just want to be a church that does pray; we want to be a praying church, and that’s a deep conviction of ours. So every Sunday morning we set aside a little bit of time. This past week I came across a news story that just absolutely broke my heart. Now, I, I’ll tee it up here. I, I’ll tell you about it here in a second, but what we’re going to do, we’re going to pray for the persecuted church around the world. You know, we have an incredible opportunity here in Charleston, South Carolina, through a variety of reasons—not, not just the, the military and our government—ultimately because God saw fit to plant us here in a country at this time where we could gather on a, what’s becoming a major road here in Ravenel, and we don’t have any worries whatsoever that someone’s going to pop in. That’s not the case around the world. In particular, the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the 20th, so it’s a couple days ago, 70 Christians were found; their, their lives were given for Christ. Spare details right there; you can just Google that and figure out all the details you want. 70 of our brothers and sisters over in the DRC lost their lives for Christ this past week.

So what we’re going to do, we’re going to pray for Christians around the world that are suffering persecution. You know, we, because of what Jesus has done for us, we don’t just get to have unity here at 5945; we get to have unity with all those who call on Christ around the world for all time. And when they suffer, we suffer. So we’re going to pray for our suffering brothers and sisters right now. So grab a neighbor and pray for Christians around the world that are experiencing some suffering, and I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Y’all take it away with your prayer.

Heavenly Father, God, I don’t, I don’t get it. I don’t understand. I, I don’t understand all of why, why You allow all the things of the world to happen. I don’t understand all those reasons why. I don’t, I certainly don’t understand all of what happens or who does it or when it happens or how. I have to trust the words of Scripture that say You are a good Father, and You see the needs and the brokenness and the suffering, not just of those who call on Your name in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also those who are far from You. I have to trust the words of that hymn, “Great Is Your Faithfulness.” Morning by morning, whether I see it or not, You are faithful. And Jesus, You are faithful to Your bride, the one that You came to seek and to save, to redeem. You’re, You’re faithful to us, God. Thank You for those 70 Christians who gave their lives for You. They’re done with their persecutions now. They have run their race, and now, according to the words of Hebrews chapter 12, they are in heaven with You, and they’re seated in a stadium looking down at us saying, “Go, go, go, run your race.” Father, would we take the baton and run our race? Father, please help Christians around the world, Lord. Thinking about closed countries, Father, that worship the god of the Quran, Lord. I’m thinking about open countries like in Western Europe where Christianity used to be blossoming, but to use Carter’s words, that fire that once was ignited now is all but extinguished, and they’ve suffered a different type of persecution. Lord, I even I I pray for the the Christians in America who, Father, experience a different type of persecution of being labeled as weird things, God, whether they’re extreme or radical, whether they’ve been disowned by family or whatever it is. God, I I pray for the Christians around the world who are actively suffering persecution. I’m begging that You would bless them, that You would cover them in the shadow of Your wings, that You put Your arm around them and help them to know that You see them, You You care, You are on Your throne, and none of their suffering is meaningless.

I pray for us right now, God, as we sit here in the comfort and the security of a beautiful room that’s got central heating. Most of us, Father, are going to go have we’re all we’re going to leave here today and have basically all of our needs met and most of our wants. To God, thank You. May we not squander this the situation You’ve planted. Listen, God, cover me in my words as I share from Yours, and may everybody here be blessed by Your Word. God, we love You, and that’s in Your name we I pray, amen.

If they had it in their language, I wonder if someone this morning in the Democratic Republic of Congo would be reciting this poem:

My life is but a weaving between my God and Me.

I cannot choose the colors He weaveth steadily.

Often times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride

forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.

No, not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly

will God unroll the canvas and reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful in the Weaver’s skillful hand

as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

He knows, He loves, He cares; nothing this truth can [inaudible].

He gives the very best to those who leave the choice to Him. Amen.

That TI that poem is called The Weaver, written by a gentleman named Grant K. Tuller, born in the mid-1800s, lasted or lived until 1950. He was a Methodist evangelist, pastor, hymn writer, and publisher, and he, I’m sure, had his own questions about why does God allow the things He allows, why does God’s plan have the things it has, and he was able to come to a place of recognizing that God in our lives is creating a tapestry, a canvas. God is the Weaver; we only see the underside. We see the messy side with all the threads, and we can’t really discern much of the pattern. We just see some of the strokes of God, but God’s on the upper side. God sees the masterpiece; He understands what He’s doing.

Man, I think that this poem and those moments where we pray for our brothers and sisters around the world, it strikes at something deep in our hearts. I think we’re all born with this desire or this need to know. All right, anybody else? When you’re growing up, you would ask your parents a question, and they might respond something to the effect of, “Hey, you don’t need need to know that,” or “We’re on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know that answer.” Or sometimes than you I’ve got one honest person in the room. You know, sometimes God does things or allows things in our lives, and we’re wondering, Lord, what are You up to? Why would You permit this? Why would You allow this? What in the world is going on? We have this desire, we have this need; we’ve got to know what God is up to.

And at times, you and I, if we’re being honest, we all feel lost about God and His intentions. Maybe that comes in a scary diagnosis at a doctor’s office or through a medical portal. You’ve gone in, and something doesn’t doesn’t quite seem right, and you get the blood work, and a week later you get some news you never anticipated. Maybe you go through a job loss, and you’re like, Lord, I’m just trying to make ends me I’m trying to provide for my family, I’m trying to set up for the future, and for some reason You’re allowing me to lose my source of income. What gifts? Maybe you feel lost about God’s intentions because your family doesn’t look the way you thought it was going to look at this point. The spouse isn’t exactly the one you thought it was going to be. The maybe the The the kids aren’t exactly who you thought they were going to be, or maybe that family that you’ve been dreaming of hasn’t materialized at all. You go through life, and your kids start doing things; they start making their own choices and their own actions, and it’s terrifying. And you’re like, “Lord, why is this happening?” We all have this insatiable desire to know what God is up to, to know what He is doing, and the good news of the Bible is that God doesn’t want us to be lost about those things.

This morning, I’m going to continue our series through the book of Ephesians. We’ve really just started scratching the surface of what is to me one of the most dear passages or portions of Scripture that there ever could be. We saw in chapter one so far that Paul, he’s an apostle of Jesus Christ, he’s in prison, and he’s writing to these believers in a city called Ephesus, a city that was dominated by idol worship, dominated by government worship, dominated also by this cultural diversity. And there’s this young church that he had pastored for a couple years, and he’s just writing another letter to them to deepen their understanding of the Gospel, to help bring them together, and he wants to root all of the “you should do” in all of the what God’s already done. And he starts going into these spiritual blessings in Christ, which I’ll read again here in a moment.

We see that God has given us a blessing of being adopted as sons and daughters before time ever began. Before you could ever earn it, before you were ever a twinkle in your parents’ eye, God set His sights on you and said, “I am going to adopt that one for me.” Not only does God adopt us, God also redeems us; He provides a total ransom for our sins so that we could be in a right relationship with Him. And this morning, we’re going to see the next blessing that God has for us: the blessing of Revelation, understanding what is God’s plan, what is He up to.

So if you will, this is going to be on the screens. Follow along with me. This is Ephesians. I’m going to start in verse three for us to get the context of what I’m preaching on this morning. Follow along: “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, for He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in love before Him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He lavished on us in the beloved one. In Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace that He richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. And here we are this morning: He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure that He purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time, a plan to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth, on earth in Him.”

A lot of Scripture. I’m just going to be diving into verses 9 and 10 this morning. If you’re a notetaker, or if you just have a desire to fill out all the information in your bulletin on the little write-in stuff, then what I want you to write down today, the main point is this: Revelation is God showing us His good plan. Revelation, the blessing of Revelation, is God showing us His good plan.

You see, no one can know everything, but everyone can know the main thing. No one can know everything, but everyone can know the main thing, and the main thing is Jesus Christ. So do you wish that you could understand everything God is up to? Me too. God doesn’t choose to write down every single thing He is up to in the world in this book, but He chooses to reveal the most important things to us. It’s all about Jesus. See, God doesn’t tell us everything, but He tells us the main thing. Revelation, that is what we’re going to look at this morning. God has given us the blessing of Revelation.

So there’s four truths of God’s revelation that we’re going to walk through this morning. Here’s the first one. The first truth of God’s revelation is this: God has a good plan. It says in verse 9.

He made known to us the mystery of His will. Mystery, right there. Whenever it’s used in the New Testament, it’s like something formerly kept secret which God is now disclosing. It’s not a Sherlock Holmes who done it; it’s more of, “Hey, here is something I’m going to tell you later, but you can’t handle it yet.” God had this mystery in Jesus Christ, which when Jesus came on the scene, He started revealing. God has a will, and part of that will had been kept secret but is now actively revealed in Jesus Christ. God has a good plan, and we can trust God’s plan for our lives, amen? Because we know God, in that plan, has already adopted us and redeemed us. If adoption and redemption are part of God’s plan, then surely we can trust the rest of His plan for our lives moving forward. If God chose before time to make us His sons and daughters, if He plans for us to be redeemed and saved and forgiven of our sin, if God planned all those incredible, majestic heights, then surely we can trust Him as we go through our difficult valleys and lows. God has a good plan, and we can trust that plan.

But it’s great not only does God have a good plan; the passage also shouts to us that God tells us that plan. That’s the second truth of God’s revelation: God tells us that good plan. You see, the prophets and the leaders of the Old Testament had direct promises from God about what He was going to do, but man, they only got snippets. See, the prophets and the leaders of the Old Testament were kind of like you and me when we go to the mountains for Thanksgiving and Christmas. For some reason, we all become puzzle solvers whenever we go on vacation, or maybe it’s to the beach, right? Or is that just my family and the one I’m married into? We go to the beach and we do these puzzles. The folks of the Old Testament, it’s like they were being given individual puzzle pieces. Now they can see a blur of something. Maybe there’s a straight line on that one. Maybe they even got like a full, like, dog face on that one. For all of us here in 2025, we’ve been given the box top. We see the top of the canvas that God is weaving. Yeah, we don’t understand what’s going to happen in our lives tomorrow. We don’t need that. We know what’s gone on already in our past, and we know the end of the story: that one day Jesus Christ is going to come back, and all the persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that’s going to be done with. All of the sickness and the cancer that we battle with, that’s going to be done with. The sin that we are wrestling with in our hearts, that’s going to be done with. In the in-between time, we have this box top that we are able to recognize what God is doing on the big picture.

Or it’s like this: Grant Osborne, he is a Bible commentator—that just means that he is way smarter than I am, and he studied the Bible longer than I have—he said this: “From eternity past, God had decided how He would bring humanity back to Himself through the death of His Son, and how He would bring history to its final end, but He kept many of those details hidden until He determined the time was right.” God had a good plan, and He started revealing that plan in Jesus Christ. Words, it’s like this in 2 Timothy 1:9 and 10: “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, no, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” You see, God has been moving all along in a particular direction. God has a plan; it is good, and He’s been slowly revealing it. And when Jesus came on the scene at the right time, it’s like the people were given a box top: this is what it’s been about the whole time. Jesus, Jesus Himself said that about His own ministry in Matthew chapter 13, verse 7—verse 17, there we go, verse 17: “For truly I tell you,” this is Jesus to the disciples, “many prophets and righteous people longed to…”

see the things you see but didn’t see them and to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them. Jesus, when He came on the scene, it’s like God was giving the people of Israel and us the top of the box. It’s like Jesus all along was saying there’s a good plan and God’s been revealing it bit by bit, but now that I’m here, you got the box top. That word plan is very interesting. Verse 10, it says there’s a plan for the right time. That word plan, it’s more than just like a single decision. It’s like a whole portfolio of decisions. It’s like an administration or like a stewardship, managing affairs of something. It’s guiding an entire set of processes toward one determined end. That’s what God’s been doing. You and me, we are only ever aware of a couple things going on in our little worlds at a time, and every now and then when we turn on the news, we see something that’s happening in another part of the world at one particular time. But God, sitting on His throne over it all, sees everything from the microscopic details of our natural science system to the macroscopic political science things going on and everything in between. The conversation that you may have had around the breakfast table this morning, the things that are going to keep you up at night next year, God sees all of that. He sees what’s going on in our bodies right now. He sees the thoughts that we are thinking right now, and God, in His sovereignty, in some way, is guiding all of it to His ultimate purpose. God is good, and God has a good plan, and we can trust that God’s unwavering commitment is to bless you as He glorifies Himself, and nothing will get in the way of that.

That also means that nothing in your life is arbitrary, meaningless, wasted, or meant to spite you. The moment that you may have had with the loved one that put you on a dark path years ago, God can take that and make something good come out of it. The life-altering medical situation that you may have had, it’s not arbitrary, it’s not meant to crush you, it’s meant to draw you closer to the Lord. The things you are afraid of right now, the things you are despairing of, none of that is wasted in the hands of the weaver who is creating something beautiful in your life.

The third truth of God’s revelation is this: the whole plan centers on Christ. The plan centers on Christ. Jesus is the key to God’s good plan. That term Christ is fascinating. I’ll read verse 10 for you again. This is a plan for the right time to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth. In Him. Christ is a word that we church folks might toss around with some level of familiarity, but I think it’s one that we don’t really think about very much if we’re being honest. Christ was the Greek way of writing an Old Testament word called Messiah. Messiah, I think because we don’t use it very much, we’re a little more acquainted with what it means. The Messiah is the anointed one, the promised Savior. When they are writing that Jesus was the Christ, what they are saying is Jesus is the fulfillment of all those promises that a Savior was going to come. That’s what His name means. His name means I am fulfilling, I am the anointed one, I am the promised rescuer, which means that without Christ, God’s plan would fail, and all of human history and existence would simply be a marathon of meaningless suffering. Do you think that’s what God wants for you, for your life to just be a marathon of suffering and meaninglessness? I hope you feel this stronger than you’re saying it, because it’s not what God wants for you. God does not want your life to be this meaningless marathon of suffering, which means even on February 20th, when God saw what was happening in those churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo where 70 of His sons and daughters gave their lives for Him, it wasn’t meaningless. It might feel that way to us, it did when I read that, but it’s not. God has a purpose for everything, He’s got meaning for everything, there’s reasons, and sometimes God doesn’t show us all those things in that exact moment because we frankly can’t handle it. There are conversations I do not have with our kids right now, not because I’m trying to withhold important information.

from them but because frankly I just don’t think they’re ready to hear certain words and have certain conversations and we have to recognize God is our heavenly father so there’s certain things He does not let us in on because we can’t handle it it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have His reasons or His purposes but like I said if God is good and He has a good plan then we can trust that plan and that plan the whole thing centers on Jesus Jesus is the key to God’s plan and He is the key to the scriptures Jesus is the key man so much of the Old Testament only makes sense when you recognize that its stories and teachings all along were meant to foreshadow or show our need for Jesus man you go back to Genesis chapter 1 2 and 3 and you see how God created people to walk with Him perfectly but that first Adam failed to obey God in the garden so God promised that He would send a savior so when Jesus comes and He begins His ministry He starts it in a wilderness garden with perfect obedience calling Himself the second Adam Adam in Genesis was meant to show us Jesus in the gospels or you take it further to Noah’s Ark the ark was meant to be this vehicle of salvation for God’s people a way of delivering them from His wrath the ark was not just about a bunch of gopherwood in the Middle East what the ark was was to show us that Jesus is our vessel of salvation from God’s wrath on us we take it further to Abraham who waited so long for a son to be given to him and his wife and God would have the audacity to ask Abraham to sacrifice that son on the top of a mountain Abraham it says in the book of Hebrews believed that God could even raise the dead so so Abraham does what God wants him to do he raises the knife and God says stop I’m going to give you your son back guess what that story wasn’t about Abraham it was about a good father sacrificing His son for the betterment of other people you take it further to the man Moses who would grow up and become Israel’s deliverer taking them out of a land of bondage and into a promised land so that in the book of Colossians Paul would be able to write about Jesus saying that Jesus has transferred us from a kingdom of darkness delivered us into God’s kingdom of light Moses isn’t about Moses Moses is about showing us what Jesus would do for us the temple even the temple would become this place of meeting between God and man a physical location where the holy would meet the unholy where the divine would meet the physical that was not about the temple it was about Emmanuel God being with us guys the Old Testament was showing us Jesus all the whole time God kept giving the people puzzle piece after puzzle piece after puzzle piece and we read the Bible and we take that puzzle piece and we want to take all the layers off of it and we want to say okay let me take this puzzle piece apart and try to rebuild it or whatever man it’s all about a puzzle that points to Jesus it’s never a the Old Testament was never meant to make us good people the Old Testament reveals we’re bad people the Old Testament was not meant to say be like David the Old Testament was saying hey someone even better than David is going to come and defeat your ultimate enemy which is not a man named Goliath wielding a spear a shield and a spear your ultimate enemy is a is a it’s sin it’s death and Jesus was going to give the death blow to that not by His own force but by suffering and being a sacrifice for you the whole plan of God was about Jesus coming 2 Corinthians 1:12-20 says that all the promises of God find their yes and their amen in Jesus Christ our master and our rescuer when you open up your Old Testament this week like I trust you do every morning with your cup of coffee what you need to do is ask how does this point me to Jesus man when you start seeing Jesus in the first two-thirds of your Bible you’re going to start opening up to Ephesians and read it totally differently because you’re going to see that Jesus was not just a different phase or a different attempt Jesus was the destination the whole time. That was God’s plan. It’s always been about Jesus, and Jesus is bringing all things together in Himself. He’s reconciling everything in heaven and on Earth together into Himself for His good purposes. What feels meaningless and arbitrary to you is just the underside of the weaving that God is creating, and one day you’ll see the upper. One day you’ll see how God had to take you through that thing for you to experience the brilliance and the beauty of His plan for your life. Everything in heaven and on Earth, all things, one day will find their ultimate purpose in Jesus Christ. The book of Philippians says that we know that one day every knee will bow to the name Jesus Christ, some willingly in worship, others against their will in submission, but one day every knee will bow. All creation one day will perfectly serve God’s good purposes and exist to glorify Him alone. How could we live for anything less?

I make a big deal about overseas missionaries and sharing the gospel because there’s only a few things God Himself told us we have to do. Man, there’s a lot of things as Christians we should never do. There’s some things as Christians that we have the freedom to choose. There are a couple things we absolutely must, and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ is one of those. We don’t get the option on. You don’t get to choose if you have the gift of evangelism; you’ve been given the commission of evangelism. You don’t get to choose if you love your neighbor as yourself; you’ve been given the mandate to love. We make a big deal about the church around the world and broadening the borders of God’s kingdom through evangelism because those are our marching orders. What else could we live for?

That takes me to my final point of the sermon. The fourth truth of Revelation is that we have a role in God’s plan. God has a good plan. He is revealing that plan. Jesus is the key to the plan, and we have a role in that good plan. Richard Blackaby, noted pastor, he moved his family, a call of God, from a thriving church in Los Angeles up to Saskatoon, Canada, into what he at that time would probably call abject obscurity. I would probably still call Saskatoon, Canada, abject obscurity, but Richard Blackaby would go on to lead that church under God’s direction to plant multiple dozens of churches. They started a seminary out of that church. What’s more important is that the churches they started have started hundreds of churches. Richard Blackaby says it this way: God is always at work around you, always. God isn’t lazy. He’s not absent. He is always at work around you, and sometimes He lets you in on it. He pulls the curtain back, and when He reveals His work, He’s inviting you in, and He’s asking, “Do you want to join Me in what I’m doing?” If God is always at work, and if He’s inviting us into His work, then that means we have a role to play in God’s plan.

Ephesians 2 verse 10, we’ll study this in a few months, says this: “We are God’s workmanship; we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” God is going to bring you into doing good works for His kingdom, things that He has already planned and served up for you. God is just tossing you underhanded; He’s just setting the ball on the tee. Whatever other analogy that’s not sports that can [inaudible] next to you, just take that right now. Okay, I’m lost. All right. God is pre-planning works for you, for you to accomplish His plan. Yesterday I got a great taste of that. So we had spent a couple months, myself, Church Council, and Al and Beth, planning this weekend. We’re going to have the child dedication here in a few moments. Last night we had a parent equip seminar, is that what you want to call it? Summit, perhaps, a parent equi night where we just got a bunch of the young parents like myself here at the church, and Al and Beth were going to take us through some of the lessons they learned and all of that. What also happened a few weeks ago is we had a death in our church family, so there was a funeral yesterday, and that’s not what I’m wanting to stress. What I’m wanting to stress is that there is a team of people that were here for close to eight hours yesterday preparing food, both for the funeral bereavement meal and then for us with the parent equip. I started writing down all the names this morning, but I knew I was going to leave somebody off the list. But I just want to say for the folks that helped prepare food both for the funeral meal and for all of us young parents last night, seriously, just thank you. I just want to give you guys a round of applause [Applause] because I got here before the funeral. The funeral was outside. I came up here to start printing off stuff and getting ready for things, and I see some of that team, they’re already here doing stuff. And then I get here after the funeral, and they’re doing more stuff, and they serve all of us dinner, they serve all of us food, and I was just blown away by what they did.

And then I thought about parent equip. No one’s even listening to me at this point. This is great. What’s up, guys? So this will be fun. Okay, I don’t know how to come out of that. Al, you ever figure this one out? I thought about parent equip and Allen and Beth and the 38-plus years of parenthood that they had, and the whole time, God had been preparing them to share those lessons with us. I think about even some of the miscellaneous serving roles that have happened around this church. I think about some of the things that Sunny Morris and Victor Myers have constructed for us, the physical bookshelves, things like that. I’m thinking about all the Sunday School teachers over the years that have poured into the kids. Man, there’s just so much. There’s too much for me to really count. But what you need to know is that nothing you attempt for the Lord is meaningless or arbitrary, and it’s actually part of God’s plan.

You see, all things are made by Jesus, all things exist for Jesus, and one day all things will be submitted to Jesus. And all people are the same. We are all made to glorify Him, to live for Him, and to exist for Him alone. Which means every conversation you have, every commitment you make, every thought that goes through your mind, even the food you eat and the way you eat it, it’s all supposed to be for God’s glory. Man, let that describe us. Let it describe us that we would go to bed tonight and we would say everything I said and did was for one reason and one reason alone: for the glory of Jesus.

So Jesus is the point of God’s good plan. We’re part of that plan. How can you help complete the plan? I mean, the easiest one might be for somebody in the room that hasn’t actually accepted the good news of Jesus Christ yet. If Jesus is someone you know about but don’t know personally, then I would encourage you to tune me out at this point and to bow your head and close your eyes, and that you have prayed to Jesus and you say, “Jesus, I don’t understand all of what You do. I’m still putting all these things together, but that well-meaning pastor up there is saying that I need You.” And would you give your life to Him and embrace how He has done everything necessary for you to be forgiven?

And if you have accepted the Gospel of Jesus, man, tell somebody about it. You have no idea the domino effect that you might unleash in the kingdom of God if you would just take the time this afternoon when you’re sitting at lunch for you to share 15 seconds of how you met Jesus with the waitress. And there’s something else. I want you to look for where God is working. When you get out of bed tomorrow morning, I want you to pray, “God, where are You working? Help me to see it. Help me to join You in that this week.” Man, God’s got a plan. We’re part of it. What good news.

Close your eyes and let’s pray together. Father, thank You, Lord. Thank You for all these little ones right here, Father. Thank You for Your work in this church, God. We trust You have a plan, Lord. We trust that You’re up to something good. We trust that You want to use us for Your glory and for the kingdom. We trust that while we only see the underside of the weaving, You, the Weaver, You see the upper, and You use those dark threads intentionally, God. When the dark threads Come help us not to fight them but to accept them, and help us to trust the whole time that You and Your faithfulness are great, Lord. For someone in the room that doesn’t know You yet, I pray, I pray that You would please use these last few moments to draw them to Yourself, that You would save them. Please, God, show us Your work around us. We love You. Amen.