Stand for the reading of the Gospel of John. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He found first his own brother Simon, and said to him, we have found the messiah, which translated means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which is translated, Peter. The next day he purposed to go into Galilee, and he found Philip. And Jesus said to him, follow me now. Philip was from Bethsaida of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathaniel said to him, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, come and see. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and said to him, behold, an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel answered, Jesus, rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him, because I have said to you that I saw you under the fig tree. Do you believe you will see greater things than these? And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Let's pray. Father, may your will be done. Jesus, may your word be proclaimed. And holy spirit, may your work be accomplished in us, we pray. Amen. You can be seated. Peace be with you. And just as a sign of peace, watch this. I'm going to skip two pages of my notes. You're welcome. All right, now let's get into this one. Let me do that shameful plug of our Bible studies that I told you about last week that I was going to do. I would love to sit here for the first 30 minutes and tell you all the nuggets that John, as he's writing to us in this first chapter, is going to give you and how they are just so overwhelmingly exciting that it makes sense how this fire gets stirred among his first disciples to go and follow Jesus. John really is a great writer, and there's so many nuggets that I would love to point out, but I'm not going to do that, because if you come on Wednesdays, we do this. If you would show up to us going through Genesis, you are going to learn a little bit more about the end of this passage. So I'm just going to shamefully plug those bible studies that if you want to know more about those things, come to these bible studies. Get into the word dive deep, and what better way to start the beginning of this year than to dive deep in the word of God? This is one of my most favorite things to do. The reason why I stand in the back and wait for my sermon is because I can't sit still. I have been pouring over the word of God and even from my times in youth group. What really impacted me the most is that knowledge isn't given to you for your own sake. It's given to you to share. And that greatly impacted me, that man. Anytime I come to the scriptures and learn something, I want to tell others about it. That's just how I'm wired. And so we're going to bypass all that. And so what I want to do for the remainder of our time is go to the very end of my sermon. The implications, what is it that we can draw from and apply to our lives? And I'm just going to walk us through several of those things, beginning with this understanding that in this passage there's a lot of sight, there's a lot of mentions of seeing and saw. And that really helps form what John is going. Pastor Marshall preached last week that this opening of John's gospel points us all the way back to Genesis. In the beginning was the word, right? And he's pointing back to Genesis. And I think John is continuing to do that throughout the chapter by saying, now there's also another piece of Genesis that we're about to see here. And that is when Adam and Eve are in the garden and they're seeing this fruit of this tree, and then what do they do with it? And here John is saying, hey, look, they're being invited to come see Jesus, this tree bearing fruit. What will they do with it? Will they take him? Will they eat it? Will they follow after it? Come and see. And there's this open invitation, the way that John writes, that invites us all into it, not just these disciples. We're seeing one third of Jesus's entourage coming into existence and following after him. And there's a lot of things that we can learn from their own lives that we can apply. So that's one aspect is that there is this idea of seeing, right? And then there's this other idea that while we are trying to come and see Jesus, we're also told that he first sees us. That's interesting. And so I've broken up this passage into three segments. One is come and see. What is Jesus? What's the big to do about Jesus of Nazareth? Then we're going to see that. Come and tango. I like to use the word tango because it reminds me of a little tango, but also, like, if you're going to tango with another dude, like, hey, let's get into that. And we're going to see that in this passage as well, that not only does Jesus have this invitation for you to come and see him, he also says, come and strive with me. Bring your doubts, bring all those things with you, and we'll figure those things out together. But not just that, but come and see even greater things than what you initially see. And so we're going to move through this passage with those three caveats in mind. And the first happens in verses 41 through 45. Here we are told that Andrew, which is Peter's brother, which are fishermen, right? Andrew goes and follows after Jesus, and he goes and grabs Peter, and they begin to follow Jesus. Jesus renames Peter and gives him a new name. And then they go and they find Philip. Or you can say Jesus goes and find Philip, but again, you have to come to Bible study to figure out why. I don't think that. But it just seems that there's this fire that their encountering with Jesus leads them to go and share, to go and bear witness right out the gate. And this is why I would argue for us today that this, we're given this, and John writes this in such a way, is witnessing is really the first marker of believing, if you believe in Jesus. All over the gospels, the gospels are riddled with these scenes that when people encounter Jesus, whether it's at a well, whether it's just walking by water or wherever they encounter Jesus, they can't keep it to themselves. They bear witness immediately. And we don't know much about them. We don't really know much at this point of the gospel, much about their moral character. We don't know if their faithful habits to the synagogue. We don't know much that. We know that they've been in the word. But before all those things, before all those high markers of the faith that we give credit to, like going to church, reading our bibles and praying, the one marker that comes before all that, that we're given here is that there's a witnessing aspect to those who believe that they can't keep it to themselves. And so, right there is an application for us is like, gauge your own faith. Oh, sure. You might say, well, I have good moral character or I pray a lot. I read the Bible a lot, and those things are absolutely markers of the faith. But the initial marker of the faith is I found Jesus and I have to tell someone else. And we're not just left with that. We're not just left with these disciples bearing witness. We're also given who they bear witness to. Because, let's just be honest, this kind of makes us cringe when you hear preachers and teachers saying, you must go and evangelize. Oh, okay, that's a little awkward for me. I'm socially awkward anyway. And now you're asking me to do this thing that's actually confrontational because I'm going to have to tell people that Jesus is going to make their lives better, which tells them that their life isn't good. That's confrontational at some level. But the good news here and how John writes, or at least is informing us, this is his take, right? Is that they first go to people in their area of influence. Consider everybody's relationship in this passage. You can go back and read it, right? Andrew, Peter, brothers, they're connected. They have a relationship there. That's family. Then they go and they find and Philip comes along. And we're specifically told that Philip is from the same town, Bethsaida, that Andrew and Peter, you know what Bethsaida means? It means house of fishermen. So it means that maybe they're coworkers, more than just acquaintances. They're coworkers. They've worked together. They're from the same town, right in the region of Galilee. John could have said they're from the region of Galilee, but he says Bethsaida specifically, they're in the same town doing the same things. Coworkers. So we're told family coworkers and acquaintances and friends. Because Philip then goes to Nathaniel, who's from Cana. That becomes significant with the next passage, the wedding at Cana, where Jesus performs the first miracle. And so we're given that you don't have to fear just going to strangers. At your initial encounter of Jesus and your desire and this fire to share about Jesus in your life. Go to those you have actual influence and relationship with, family, coworkers, and acquaintances. First. We will know that Jesus will send these guys out to strangers and in strange lands later on, he'll send them out two by two. So we'll get there. But it take courage and comfort in the fact that when you're witnessing, when you're sharing about Jesus, you don't have to do it cold turkey. You can do it right with the relationships you have in your life. And I would say that that's kind of the marker. If you truly believe in Jesus, he will be the greatest thing. There's something about coming and seeing Jesus that you're like, I have to tell my spouse about this, my kids about this, my dad about this, my mom, my coworkers, the ones I actually have relationships with. Which brings me to my next point that we get implied in this is not only do they bear witness with each other, with their friends, coworkers and families, but even within that circle of influence, they drop it down to things that they have in common. And that's indicated by this word I have found. See, it's not that they're just family coworkers and acquaintances with one another, and that's who they're going to first. But they all have this common thread among themselves. They're seekers. They all identify this by saying, like, hey, we have found the one that Moses had been writing about. We have found the one, the Christ, the Messiah. Which means they've been reading a book called the Old Testament to us, but they've been reading a book that speaks about this one that is to come. And they all have been looking. And it's indicated that when they go, when Andrew goes to Peter, he says, I have found. When Philip goes to Nathaniel, he says, I have found, as if to assume that Nathaniel's looking as well, as if to assume that Peter was looking as well as if to assume that Philip was looking as well. They're all seeking. And this is why we call like maybe church, we're seeker friendly. So here's the point. Here's what's implied first. You don't have to go to strangers of strange lands. Go with your area of influence. But even among those, go to those who are truly seeking, those who are truly desperate, those who are looking for something outside of themselves, looking for something better, the one, the meaning to all of life. Because there are some that aren't seeking. They're full of themselves, full of their own life, and they don't need anything else and don't want anything else to come and interrupt their life. They're good. But to those who are poor and lowly, needy and helpless and are looking for help, start with them first. Right? So John is drawing down this concept of witnessing and how these first disciples represent for us, how we too can be disciples of Jesus. Having encountered Jesus coming in, journeying with Jesus and starting small with the people that we have relationships with, that know us, who can trust that we're not going to lead them astray, that are searching for the same things we've been searching for? And I found the answer. Right. That's what John is doing. But not only does it reveal all these things, John is also giving us a breadcrumb that I just need to talk about for a brief second. I am a guy that loves to read scripture and look for Jesus everywhere, on every page in every verse. Like, I am just addicted to it. Right? And here I find it fascinating that John makes privy to us. The fact that they have been reading the scriptures and looking the scriptures they have was not the New Testament, was what we would consider the Moses and the prophets the Old Testament. This speaks to the reality that there is much of Christ in the old Testament scriptures. We cannot say that the Old Testament offers little about Christ, for the Old Testament had these men looking for him, the messiah. They knew enough that upon encountering Jesus, they believed immediately that he was the one spoken about and it motivated them to follow him specifically to their death. Though they may not have seen him yet, they believed he was out there. That's what the Old Testament's all about. The people that existed in the Old Testament looked for the one to come. Well, isn't that what we do today? Other than we look back to the one who came? How is it that we're saved on this truth, that Jesus is the Messiah? This is the good news. This is the hope of those who were longing in the Old Testament, of the promised one to come. And now we too look back to the one who came. And we trust both of us experience pretty much not what the disciples do, but they're all longing and looking. We're looking back, they're looking forward, right? And that's the faith we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We claim to be true. And you're going to see that connection. You guys are in this passage. I don't know if you're going to. I'm going to show that to you. You guys are in this passage and it's in the language that Jesus uses at the very end. And what he points out to. Well, I was just going to get there. I can't get ahead of myself. Lastly, before we move on, lastly, before we move on, there's something else that I think is implied that I think is important. Why does he go? Why does John tell us so much about this name change of Peter? I think it's for a couple of reasons. One is that Peter can identify that Jesus is the God who renamed Abram, who renamed Jacob, and now renames Peter. He identifies, like, that's familiar to me. You're the God who renames. Okay. But he also does this, I think, to show potential, because imagine Andrew going to his brother. Both of them have been searching for this messiah, and they found him. And Andrew brought his brother to Jesus, not knowing the potential that would become of Peter's life, not knowing that Peter would be the very rock upon which Christ would be building his church. Can you imagine the day at Pentecost when Andrew was seeing his brother preach and multitudes were coming to know Jesus? You were witnessing about Christ to those in your area of influence, you don't know what potential might take place. You don't know how God is going to blow up the world through your brother, through your friend, through your coworker, or through you. But John tips his hat to you and says, nobody knows the potential. You guys got to read it. We get to read it. We know Peter's potential, but Andrew doesn't. So he's not motivated by what might happen. He's motivated by the genuineness of who Jesus is. I think it's very powerful for us. A lot of us say, man, we just need good leaders in this country. We need this to be changed. This to be changed. Do you know who can bring about that change? God. And you know how he can do it? Through using you as an agent to go speak to that one person. And then that one person's potential becomes the next president and leads and steers the country back in right order. Could happen. It's how God likes to work. Sure, he can do it. He could speak it and happen, but he goes, ah, but you know what's cooler? So I want to use my people to witness. So enough about that. The come and see portion. Now I want to call attention to the come and tango portion, one that I'm very fascinated. Right. Come and tango. Come and strive. Come and wrestle. Right here is where there's a connection between this character Nathaniel and Jacob, because Jesus makes this connection with the patriarch Jacob and Nathaniel. But here's the first thing, is, Nathaniel's the skeptic so far. Andrew, Philip, and Peter, easily. There's no hesitancy. It seems like it just is as smooth as butter that they go and bear witness to one another and follow after Jesus. And now we're given this character Nathaniel. Can I call him Nate? Thank you. His name is Nathaniel, also known as Bartholomew. Bartholomew, whatever. You know what I'm talking about? Right. But he's the first one to be skeptic. And we come to understand this because he challenges Philip by saying, can anything good come from Nazareth? Right. But Nathaniel's not an idiot and he's just not extremely biased. And we'll find that out later because when he's confronted and encounters Jesus himself, he says, you are the son of God, the king of Israel. The dude's informed and the dude's been seeking. But he questioned and was skeptical about Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph specifically. And he was skeptic. And being skeptical, I think, is okay. I think that's implied in the text, but not the type of skepticism that's stubborn. I've met many skeptics that are just really not skeptics. They're more stubborn and don't want to believe anything. It's those people that say when you tell them some truth, they're just like, they discredit it. You could confront them with hard, cold facts, and they still refuse to believe because they are stiff necked. They're not skeptic. A true skeptic is all about seeking truth. They want to know truth, but they won't be just easily convinced of truth. They want to know for sure. And that's the skepticism that Nathaniel has right here. And this is why Jesus refers to him as an israelite in whom there is no deceit. It's not saying that he's an outstanding moral character guy. It's because Jesus knows a lot of things about Nathaniel, and he has already seen Nathaniel under the fig tree. And Nathaniel's like, what? Right. Jesus knows his skepticism. But notice that his skepticism doesn't stymy him from going to check out Jesus of Nazareth. That's the clue. That's the telltale sign as Nathaniel is coming and he goes, can anything good from Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth? And Philip says, what? Come and see. Come and see. And what does Nathaniel do? He goes and sees. So how do you deal with skeptics in your life? How do you deal with those naysayers in your life? You do something as simple as Philip. Come and see. Come and give it a go. Come and give it a whirl. How will you ever know and how could you ever discredit? Unless you don't come and see, and maybe you'll find that you can't discredit it. Maybe you'll come to. The whole reason why you're a skeptic is that you're seeking truth and you'll finally come and be encountered by truth. And this is a true response that all of us. It is not our job to do the convincing. That's Jesus'job. Our job is to do the inviting. Come and see. That's a simple answer. You don't know well, if you're a true skeptic and search for truth, come and see. Give it a go. Live it out. Try to be convinced or unconvinced. Strive with God. Christianity is not an insecure religion. We have no secrets. We could be bold. This is why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, even if it doesn't make any sense to you. It's fine. I'm going to tell you anyway because I'm not the one that makes the gospel effective for you and significant. And I'm not the one that can change your life. I'm going to invite you to come and see, to come and hear and come and experience. And it's God who will do the convincing. It is God who will penetrate your life. It is God who will make things happen. He's the effective one. It's him who makes things effective, not you. We don't have to do the convincing. So take that burden off your shoulders. You don't have to be an apologist. You don't have to know every single thing. You just have to invite them. Come and see about Jesus. Give it a go. Which brings me to another interesting piece of information here that he gives us is when Nathaniel, who's the skeptic, does encounter Jesus immediately out of his mouth, he says, you are the son of God. It's the first time in any of the gospels that there's such a great declaration, proclamation of Jesus. So early, so early. He says, you are the son of God, the king of Israel. And what formed his mind to determine those things? He must have understood the concept of what it means to be the son of God and the king of Israel. And then he likened it when he encountered Jesus that Jesus is the fulfillment of that. But I would also argue he doesn't know all the ways. Nathaniel did not know all the ways that he was the son of God or how all of that made sense. He did not know all the ways of which, as king of Israel, that his reign would manifest itself. He didn't know. Which points to the implication that you too don't have to know every single thing, right? You don't have to know every single thing to speak to a skeptic. You don't have to pontificate some kind of glorious diatribe about Christ. Or some theological treatise. But the best and greatest response is come and see and a proclamation of, I don't know how this is, but he is the son of God. I don't know in all the ways he rules and reigns, but he is a king. And imagine when you go and see, jesus says, come and follow, and you're diving into deeper that relationship with Christ, and that's when you grow. Peter says this in his epistle. Grow in grace and in knowledge of Jesus Christ. Declare he's the son of God, because he is, but then live into that and discover more about him. And Jesus is about to make this invitation to all of us when he says, oh, you think that's cute, Nathaniel, that I saw you under the fig tree before Philip came and got you? You think that's great. You're going to see greater things. And then he's going to pivot, and he's going to speak to everybody. The you becomes plural, not just singular on Nathaniel, the you becomes plural. And he says, I tell you, everybody's going to see angels ascending and descending on the Son of man, me. Which is an invitation to draw in deeper to Christ, to experiencing something, a greater revelation. And that's what we do here every Sunday, every Bible study we do, is for that intent and purpose is to draw your knowledge about Jesus Christ, who he is. That's what scripture is all about, isn't it? Scripture tells us what is scripture. But scripture is what we are to believe about God and what God requires of man. That's what we find, and that's what we discover. We discover that Nathaniel represents this striving, this wrestling with Jesus, and that's a good and right thing. Take courage in this. Some of you may still struggle not knowing everything, but doubt, well, this has happened in my life, or this seems like I read these things about, like, what about this? Jesus? What about this? I don't understand this. I don't understand that. What about this? Bring those. Jesus says, bring it on. Let's tango. Let's strive together. And this connection that Nathaniel and Jacob, that Jesus makes, it said like an israelite in whom there is no deceit, an israelite is Israel. What is Jacob's new name? That after he wrestles with Jesus in the Old Testament, or the Lord, he says, you're Israel for you strived with the Lord. And. And here's one of the great things. Little tidbit. If you were to come to a Genesis class, here's the three things I've learned from the patriarchs is that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob represent three kind of seasons that I think we all go through. Abraham is a patriarch, one who believes in God and trusts in God and yet receives nothing in his lifetime but lives as if he's going to receive it all. So he executes faith and patience and endurance in his life. Some of us need to be like Abraham and exercise our faith in that way. Is even though no blessings come your way, God has promised you eternal life in his son Christ Jesus. That though your life is unraveled and unfolded and all a mess and dramatic, will you continue to endure and be patient and faithful like Abraham? Then there's Isaac. We're given just a couple episodes of Isaac. And Isaac seems to be the guy that's endowed with everything. Abraham's faith is passed down to his son Isaac. The blessing comes to Isaac and Isaac has everything and he's living into it. He's living in all that blessing. The Lord is being prosperous towards Isaac and everything. And sometimes Isaac is a good account for how we live into blessing when we're being blessed. And then there's Jacob. Ha. Jacob, right. I would argue that Jacob represents wrestling and striving. How do I fight for what God, who God is and what God is doing? How do I take it? By storm? Because I value it. Wrestling with God. The scene of Jacob is him wrestling with the Lord in the middle of the night. And as the light begins to creep up over the horizon, the Lord says, let me go. The light's about to come up. He says, I'm not going to let you go until you bless me. Some of you had to take your faith by the horns and say, jesus, I'm not letting you go until you bless me, Jesus. There's a lot of things going on there. Seems like I'm fighting in every turn. This person's against me. This person's against me. This person, this thing, everything is against me. Walls are being built, but I'm going to come after you as hard as possible because there's no greater thing. That's what I believe Jacob represents. And that's the connection that he is making with Nathaniel is this is a guy who's skeptical. But he didn't stop. He wasn't stymied by his stubbornness. He pursued after Jesus anyway. And he came to discover he found what he was looking for, the son of God, the king of Israel. And then Jesus makes it personal. This is a cool moment in John. I just got a couple other things here, but this one's really neat. Whatever kind of secret that Jesus and Nathaniel have about this fig tree, nobody knows. We don't know. We can speculate what Nathaniel's doing under this fig tree, but whatever he's doing, whatever he's meditating on, reading, doing, picking his nose, we don't know. He could be doing anything. But whatever it is, there's this secret inside joke between Jesus and Nathaniel that nobody else knows. But it brings Nathaniel to faith. I liken it to these little moments where Jesus shows up in our life, not in our face, but something happens, something just out of the ordinary. Like that doesn't make any sense. How on the same hill does that work? And it's these moments that are meant to encourage our faith to continue to endure in our faith. I remember when I was. I think it was my first youth ministry. I drove 2 hours to mountain city, Tennessee, from my college Wednesdays. And on the weekends they gave me a parsonage to stay at. And I remember driving up to this parsonage, and I had never seen a white dove before, never in my life on tv. But that's it. Not physically. I thought they were not very. Doves weren't numerous. It's like a special occasion to see one at this time. Of course, I'm young. I'm like a freshman in college. So I'm driving up and I get out of my car, and there's this dove, like right there. You would think it would have moved as I'm pulling up. You would have thought it would move. When I opened the door. And I can't explain why I was there. It was probably no big thing. There's birds all around. But I had never seen a white dove before. And I took it. In that moment, for whatever reason, what crept in my mind and in my heart was because the dove looked at me. And then it flew off. It was just like. And it took off. And I was like, for whatever reason, however you want to interpret that, I was like, lord, thank you. And it encouraged me in my faith. And these are the moments where Jesus does make your faith personal. Between him and you. There are things that happen in your life that you cannot explain, but they're just moments where Jesus is giving you his wink to let you know that he's present to encourage your faith to say, keep going. Right. And we imply that because that's what he does. Nathaniel, we're given that. Do you believe? Because I saw you under the fig tree, Nathaniel, wait till you see more of what I'm going to do. And that brings us to the very end. The big finish of this passage. And it's in two things. He's going to tell Nathaniel that you're going to see greater things. That's where the you in the greek is very singular. He's talking to Nathaniel. You're going to see greater things, and guess what happens? I've already mentioned it. In the next passage we get in Cana, which Nathaniel's from the wedding, the first miracle, right? So, yes, that's true. We're going to see that happen. But what's greater is how this story ends. And it ends with this dream that Jacob had, the patriarch, if you remember back in Genesis, Jacob as he's fleeing from Esau, and he's going into exile, going out of the promised land into a strange land, he encounters this. He gets sleepy and he goes to sleep and encounters God in this dream. And in this dream, there's this ladder, and angels are. Note this. You can look into this later because I don't have time to go into it. Angels are ascending and descending. We would have said they descend and then ascend, but it's specific. And even Jesus referenced it. They are ascending and then descending on this ladder, on this Zaggernot thing, right. And then the Lord shows up to Jacob and engages with him in conversation. And after this dream, however this dream is interpreted, Jacob actually reveals the fact that this is the gate of heaven, meaning the entrance, the point of entry to where you're entered into the house of God, because he anoints the oil his head was laying down on. And he calls this place Bethel, which means house of God. Another side note, Bethel Bethsaida house of God, house of fishermen. Run with that. And so what you have is Jesus saying, now, though, about the dream, the son of man, you will see the heavens opened up and the son of man and the angels ascending and descending on the son of man. The ladder, the entry, the gate, the house, the gate into the house of God is Jesus. And Jesus is tipping his hat to everybody's. His near shot, because the you is now plural. And he says, everybody, check this out. You're not going to fully understand this, but I am the entry into heaven. Come and see, come and follow and come experience what I am coming to offer. That's what this passage is all about. And it's a different take. It's a robust take. It's an exciting take. It's one that encourages us to live into the invitation to follow after Jesus personally for ourselves, to come and see Jesus for ourselves, but not just stopping there. That by encountering Jesus. And coming to see Jesus in ourselves, we're going to want to bring those close to us who are also seeking for something with us. So it's not just about ourselves, it's about themselves and them coming. It's okay to wrestle. It's okay to question. It's okay to be skeptical about some things. But striving with God is the key. Coming and seeing and striving with him, tangling with him, wrestling with him is key. Don't be hindered. Don't be set back. Give it a go. Dive in deep. Don't be stymied by stubbornness. And then Jesus says, if you do that, if you come and see, come and touch, come and feel, come and experience, come and follow me. It is going to be revealed to you in mighty ways that I am the entrance to this deep relationship with God, where God and man will live once again, forever. It's on me. I'm going there. Come and follow me. I think you all know how to apply this to your life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word and how you write it, how it speaks to us today. And I just pray for each and every person here that we would come and see and experience and follow and dive deep and wrestle in all the things that you're not an insecure God, but you are a God of goodness and loving and kindness that personally engages with us through little simple doves and things in this world to show that you are present in our lives. So I pray that you would encourage each and every person here, that you would light a fire in them to go and share with those that they have things in common with in their areas of influence, about not just anything, but about the one big thing, and that is Jesus Christ. I thank you so much for your word. May it be applied in our lives today. We pray. Amen. It's.