He is All We Need — 1 Samuel 1

0:00 Let's just start in prayer. Lord, we come to you and come in the name of Jesus. We ask that you would share your word with us. Pray that you would bless the speaking of the word that your spirit would guide in both the words that I say and the words I read from your word and also just in the hearers that our hearts would be open to the message that you have for us and that you would continue to transform us into the people that you want us to be. I just pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

0:40 My kids said I wasn't allowed to lean on the podium like I normally do. Say I'm about to fall asleep. So I'll try not to. Mothers. This is a day where we recognize our mothers.

0:57 We all have a mom, but only some of us were a mom or are a mom. And we're blessed... We're all blessed to have a mom, of course. To every mom here in this room and listening, thank you for being a mom. I want to recognize you and honor you.

1:16 To my mom, you aren't here. You are a Proverbs 31 woman, and I rise up and call you blessed. And to those of you who feel the same about your mom, can I hear an amen here? Amen. Kids are actually...

1:37 Liam, you want to help? You want to come up here? Liam? You can if you want. You don't have to.

1:42 If if if the kids can grab a rose. Okay? The mothers can have a... I was told by somebody it was a stupid rose. Not exactly practical.

2:01 Let's put it that way. Perhaps they weren't meant to be practical. So in recognition of our appreciation, we're handing roses to mothers, okay? And I believe we have enough that if you wanted to be a mother or you might have, you know, whoever wants a rose can have one. Okay?

2:33 Or mothers can have two even. Okay. So it's just a symbol and the rose is a beautiful flower. The soft, gentle, velvety, delicate petals are really amazing works of art as was pointed out in the previous meeting, right? Art and science.

2:56 They remind us of a certain beautiful and often thought of as characteristics that we think of women in our life having quite often. It is true that kindness, empathy, comforting can be characteristics that men and fathers and husbands have or should have as well. And maybe not every woman or mom exhibits these three characteristics at every moment of their life, so none of us are, you know, perfect, but it seems that God through nature seems to have given women a special biological superiority in general over men in regard to some of those softer characteristics that, by the way, we also somewhat relate to some of the comforting the Holy Spirit gives, right? And so we appreciate the women in our lives that have comforted us and been a part of nourishing us in our growth. But also with the rose there are thorns.

4:05 Along with the beauty, a rose has these thorns, and they were listed as part of the curse in Genesis. Thorns were born by our beloved savior on his head to increase his suffering, And in that it is a really good symbol of motherhood because part of motherhood is more than just the idealism that perhaps one looks at when they see a family with a mother taking care of her kids, right? There's brokenness. There's hurt. As a mother engages and puts her heart out there, the natural caringness that the Lord has called them to makes them vulnerable to be especially hurt in the brokenness that sometimes is our family.

4:59 Some of that broke us, I would also want to say, has to do with the fact that there are many people, there are many women that would love to be mothers but can't. There's a brokenness there, right? There are many times when, honestly, all the hopes and dreams we had for our kids, they don't happen, you know, or love is not returned by our kids. Moments and perhaps lifetimes of this. Okay?

5:27 And so there is disappointment along with the hope and dreams that are involved in the subject area. Want you to think about turn So your mind to passage one of Samuel. You can turn there if you want, and I'm just going to simply refer to this passage. One Samuel one, and it opens with a story of family brokenness. Hannah, the future mother of Samuel, is obviously the fact that she's in a polygamous relationship is part of the brokenness.

6:52 For her, this loss that she experienced and broken dreams were a time and an opportunity for the other wife that her husband had to torment her and make fun of her. And she would weep and she would cry and this happened year after year after year. She was childless. Elkanah, her husband, he actually didn't make anything worse. He tried to comfort her, okay?

7:28 And he said, Why are you crying Hannah? Why aren't you eating? Why be downhearted just because you have no children? You have me. Isn't that better than having 10 sons?

7:43 Let me ask you women, would that make you feel any better at all? Raise your hand if you say yes. I don't see any hands up. Well I'll first say that perhaps Alcana, rightfully speaking, that was not too helpful. But on one level I actually believe that Alcana pointed towards something.

8:12 He wasn't all wrong. Okay? But let me first say that we all have broken dreams. We oftentimes look at what we don't have and we mourn over that. Right?

8:28 We're saddened. It breaks our heart that what we dreamed of, what we thought would be something that would be good, we do not have. Here in this case, the Bible actually says in verse five, he says, the Lord had stopped her womb. Okay? And so at that point in time, the Israelites...

8:53 I mean, the Bible itself says that it was the Lord who did this. Right? The Israelites, in their view, looked at as a curse. God had cursed them. And so we all have feelings about these things when things don't work out for us.

9:15 What do the feelings I have when I suffer tell me about what I actually believe about God? You have to ask that. Do my feelings ring true with the truth that I know about God from the Scripture? What is the truth of my feelings in regards to who He is, who who I actually believe God is? Okay?

9:38 And so it seems to be that there was an understanding that that Hannah was cursed. And that would seem to indicate also what type of God she had. Okay? And by the same token, we oftentimes have loss in our lives, brokenness of different types. And we need to notice how we respond and what that means about what we believe about God.

10:08 Okay? In Romans eight twenty eight, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes. Purpose for them. In Genesis 5zero 20, it says, You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. And so specifically that verse talks about God's intentions even when other people intend harm to us.

10:35 And for Hannah, this was a torment. It was called a torment, the way that this other wife approached her. Jesus said in the Beatitudes, and this was preached on a couple weeks ago by Devin, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And this is an interesting verse. I won't go into it too much, but there is a difference between mourning and loss.

11:26 And if we don't mourn, and I believe part of mourning is recognizing our loss before God, because in order to be comforted, we need a comforter. Right? And so and so there is this promise from God that as we mourn, we would be comforted. And to such an extent we would be comforted that we would be called blessed even in spite of our loss. It doesn't promise that our loss will be made up, just that we will be comforted, that will be a blessing.

11:57 So, for Hannah, she did in fact mourn. And there's a whole scripture, a whole section where she has this interaction at the temple. Hannah comes away with a promise and she is comforted. It says her face was no longer sad. Okay?

12:17 She didn't at that point have a baby. Though at that point in time it was a promise, a physical promise that would be later kept, we all have the promise that we will be comforted and it will be a blessing. Okay? And it's not necessarily a promise of physical blessing, but part of it, I believe, is how the effect it will have in our heart, and we're going talk about that in the next passage. And so to get back to Elkanah, I made this mention, I said, well, he was partially right.

12:57 Okay? Yes, he was tone deaf in his little attempt at comforting that failed with his wife. But when we really look at it when we really look at it and the idea that we will be comforted, he said, am I not better than 10 kids? And I want to say this, God says that to us. Am I not better than this thing that you lost?

13:25 Okay? When we will not accept comfort from him, what are we saying? What are we saying to him? You are not as good. Right?

13:35 So often, so often, what I would say is that the losses that we have are opportunities for us to get a better understanding of the idols that we have in our life that are actually destroying our joy. Okay? Your idol... See, your idol... And and for Hannah, and and I think for us, oftentimes, I would...

14:00 It's what I would call a soft idol. It's not that the idol is less bad or that we... It's less of an idolatry, but it's the fact that oftentimes the idol itself is actually good. Right? We've been trained in the scriptures and virtues.

14:15 We know what virtues are. Right? It's just that our heart's not right about that virtue. Right? We don't...

14:20 We haven't put it in the proper place. So anything... I've heard this said, anything that you love, anything or person that you love more than God, anything or person that you fear more than God in your heart, anything or person that you trust more than God to meet, like, say, any kind of need, whether it's emotional or anything else. Fear, love, and trust. These soft idols are oftentimes good.

14:54 They're in fact gifts of God, his creation. He creates them for us. But as soon as we start to love them more than him, we put Him in a place, we take God from preeminence and put this as preeminence. I trust this to meet my emotional needs. I need a son.

15:12 Not God. I need whatever. I need success in business. Not God. I need a wife or a husband.

15:18 Not God. You know, I want this. I love this. Just... I love money.

15:23 I love lust. I love this. Right? More than God. Right?

15:29 I fear this. Right? Oh no, what's gonna happen with the Russia war? What's gonna happen with this? It's gonna affect my business in different ways.

15:38 I'm embarrassed, you know. I'm embarrassed what you guys are gonna think about me when I come up here and I mess up. Right? Who do I fear? Who do I fear?

15:48 Do I fear God? Is he preeminent in my heart? Or do I fear you guys? Right? Nothing wrong with you guys.

15:57 Perhaps there's even a reasonable place to fear you. But but not above what the Lord, not above who the Lord is. Right? And so we put these idols in our heart. And you know what?

16:15 It's... When we when we do that, we get the idol's reward. Right? Always a false promise. And I I said, I surrender all.

16:45 Right? So he doesn't promise to change the all the the specifics of life, just that he gives us life abundance in the specifics of life. Job said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Right? David said, Your unfamiliar love is better than life itself.

17:06 How I praise you. That's a man who put the Lord preeminent in his heart above all else. Right? And the funny thing is we give up our life. Bob always says, like, give up your life to gain it.

17:17 Right? We give up our life, but it's not a sacrifice. Right? Most of the idols, they require a lot, and they give nothing in return. The promise always evaporates.

17:28 Okay? We get from him so much more. Okay, so this is the point where I actually get to the real message. Okay? So we're going to get to Nehemiah eight.

17:45 If you could turn there, feel free to. Now I am reading an NLT. I know that's not normal here, but I love to read out loud using that. So follow along. Nehemiah eight.

18:01 All the people assembled with a unified purpose at the square just inside the water gate. They asked Ezra, the scribe, to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given for Israel to obey. So on October 8, Ezra, the priest, brought the book of the law before the assembly, which included men and women and all the children old enough to understand. He faced the square just inside the water gate from early morning until noon. I'm told that's about six a.

18:39 M. That's six hours. And read aloud to everyone who could understand. All the people listened closely to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood on a high platform that had been made for the occasion.

18:56 To his right stood Mattathiah, Shema, Ananias, it lists several other important people. Ezra stood on the platform and full of all the people. When they saw him open the book, they all rose to their feet. All rise. I heard that saying.

19:15 Normally, when someone important, they say, I'll rise like a judge. Then Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, Amen. Amen. Let it be. Let it be.

19:25 As they lifted their hands, then they bowed down and worshiped the lord with their faces to the ground. The Levites, Joshua, Bonnie, list the Levites, then instructed the people in the law while everyone remained in their places. They read from the book of the law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people to understand each passage. Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, don't mourn or weep on such a day as this, for today is a sacred day before the Lord your God. For the people have been weeping as they listened to the words of the law.

20:19 And Nehemiah continued, go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don't be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. And the Levites too quieted the people, telling them, Hush, don't weep. This is a sacred day.

20:51 So the people went away. They ate and drank at a festive meal to share gifts of food and celebrate with great joy because they had heard God's word and understood them. I love this passage. It's a neat passage. I especially have enjoyed the verse that says, The joy of the Lord is your strength.

21:58 Okay? But he he was used, by God to organize the rebuilding of the temple in a miraculous way. Ezra was... Ezra's name... Ezra and Nehemiah were also like protagonists in the story.

22:19 Ezra's name actually means God helps. And he played a role of organizing the people to worship and teaching them God's law in the community of the Lord there among the people that came back from Babylon. Okay? And Nehemiah, his name actually means comforted by God, very similar to Ezra's name. Both of those would be kind of synonyms to the Holy Spirit, a helper and a comforter.

22:51 And he played a role in establishing the physical safety to the people who had come back out of exile. The book is looked at by Psalm as just due to its anticlimax at the end and throughout there's multiple anticlimax where it's kind of like, Oh, really? That didn't seem that great of an outcome, right? So even after Nehemiah does everything that he's called to do and the temple is built, Everyone's like, Oh, that wasn't like what I remember. And then after Nehemiah, you know, works through God's power and the Spirit directs everybody and somehow this, under the greatest, the most difficult circumstances within a short period of time that wall gets built.

23:41 Then you even see this passage, and then you see revival. You see brokenness that even with the revival doesn't seem to fix it, and then Nehemiah leaves and and comes sure enough, a lot of the things that he did, they're just in total disarray. You almost see a kind of disappointed ending to Nehemiah where he says, Oh, God. You know, like, he's going around beating people and pulling people's beards out. You shouldn't have done this.

24:12 Then he says, God, remember me for what I did. You know, he kind of throws up his hands and... You know, and it's the inadequacy is shown. The Savior is not yet on the scene. The person who's going to make this all right is not here yet.

24:28 Right? And yet in this, you see grace, yet you still see God working. Right? And so this is the setting where we have. So right at the start of this, the chapter before, chapter eight, you see the finishing of the work.

24:46 And then as the work is finished on the wall, you see Nehemiah says, Oh, but there's nobody in here. The safety is not going to help. So he takes family representatives and makes sure they each have a home and place inside the city. So that even though the agrarian society that they were, people would live and work outside in the fields and have houses where they worked, they would always be able to have somebody that they could go run to and say, This is my house inside the city with my family, when there was a time of danger. And so they were ushered into safety.

25:25 The reforms that Nehemiah made provided a new, know, for instance, people were being sold into slavery. There was a usury. People were the rich and powerful were putting people into bad situations that were poor and then selling their kids off when they couldn't meet their obligations. And Nehemiah said, No more. You're stopping that now.

25:49 And so he brought stability through God's direction and God's law and God's provision. And so suddenly, I mean, you could look at it kind of like if you've the phrase surprised by joy, there's a book by that where they didn't deserve it. It was a big mess. They were still really messed up in many respects, but God decided to bless him. He used Nehemiah to do that.

26:14 And He brought them into safety and suddenly it's like, Woah, my basic needs are met. I don't have to worry about survival. So now, you know, Maslow's Hierarchical Need. They say the first thing you need is shelter over your head and safety. Right?

26:49 It says a unified purpose. They got us all assembled out of nowhere. I would call that a working of the Holy Spirit. They specifically asked the book... To to bring out the book of the law to Moses.

27:01 Of course, Ezra, he'd been studying this the whole... He's like, finally, you asked. You know, he... And and... But the point is that his word was honored.

27:10 Okay? That that is that is something that happened. And then as they honored his word and they explained it in detail, they worshipped him. Now this isn't a 100%... What I will say is the sequence isn't 100% a sequence, right?

27:36 There's a little bit of worship, a little bit of learning, okay, going on here, a little bit of revelation. But in terms of learning and understanding, there was an honoring of the word. They brought all these leaders together behind the teacher. Right? It was like you see a president or someone important, a mayor, a governor.

28:05 They come out to make an announcement, they bring all these people behind them on a platform, and it's like they're standing in solidarity and they're saying, this is important. Right? They made it important, both the leaders and the people. And then they explained it. So not only did they make it important, they made sure it was so important that they made sure it was understood.

28:27 They essentially had a Bible study. Said they had all the Levites, they branched out and a group of people here, a group of people here, they went through it. The one version says they made sure that they understood the sense. They understood the nuances. What does this mean to you?

28:46 How do we apply it to our lives? And so again, they valued the word. They didn't just value the words, but the meaning of the words. Why are we saying this? And how do I apply it to my life?

29:02 When Ezra started this, they started by worshiping. Immediately when they opened a book they stood up. They said, Amen. They responded, let it be. And they bowed down and worshiped, and then they taught more.

29:22 Now as they proceeded, they started to weep. As the true meaning of who God was and his holiness started to hit them, they started to weep and cry. Their heart was broken because they had now understood how far they were from who God was and what His will for was. They started to understand their own history. The law that was read included their history.

29:58 They started to see their ancestors. They started to understand their current situation that they had just been rescued from and how it had come to be. Then they realized that they were no better. And here they were just rescued, they were already doing the same thing that caused the total destruction of their society that they were just one of the few lone survivors of. They started to weep and cry.

30:24 They were convicted, and they mourned sin's brokenness. Now the funny thing is that, you know, we just talked about this passage, the the beatitude that that says, blessed are are those who mourn. And I and I mentioned that. I said, you you have to mourn. Mourn before the Lord.

30:51 Bring your loss to him. Right? So that he can comfort you. But here they did something funny. They prohibited three different times it's mentioned.

31:04 It says, Stop your mourning. Stop it. They repeat themselves. It says different ones said it, in three different times it says, Don't do it. And one of the times He says, He gives specific commandments about what to do instead, right?

31:25 And so what I would say here, and this is just a further nuance of what we understand, we mourn before the Lord, and then we are comforted. Right? This is not a permanent state. Or why would we, you know, it flies in the face of the gospel itself. First of all, in terms of the repentance part of mourning, you know, like the brokenness of our own sin.

31:56 We repent, and then we turn away from it. Right? There's a prohibition on mourning. So he gives two different so he he gives they give two different reasons for this. Okay?

32:16 In in the passage itself. First of all, he says this is a holy day. Right? And so there is a time for recognizing our own sin, and then we turn away from it. And who do we turn to?

32:36 We turn to him. Right? And so why would there be joy? And why do we stop mourning? Why are we comforted?

32:44 Is it because of our own sin? Or is it because... An inward look at ourselves? Or is it because of His holiness and who He is? Right?

33:29 There, they had been absolutely... They had gone through a lot. Right? Then they had this tremendous push where they'd all physically exhausted themselves. So for years they had been living as refugees.

33:45 They did not have the power and strength to rescue themselves. And now they come to this moment of repentance and where many people go wrong is they think that they need to do it themselves. Right? It's not my own strength that is my strength. We don't have the strength to do what God has called us to do.

34:07 We don't have the strength to rescue ourselves from our sin. And and so so the joy of the Lord is our strength. And for all of us, we can easily focus on the brokenness of our life, our own brokenness, and the brokenness of others. And that is not what is going to give us the joy of the Lord. Right?

34:32 What kind of joy of it? It's not the joy in the Lord, it's the joy of the Lord. But in the Lord, we will have the joy of the Lord. Does that make sense? As we focus our hearts and our minds on him, we get to have an attribute that is one of the characteristics that he has.

34:52 And it is that attribute that we exhibit that will provide us the strength we need to live the life he calls us to that is bigger than what we think. We thought it was just that little thing, whatever, filling your idol. This is it. No. No.

35:09 I called you something bigger. Just worship me. Do it as unto me, and I will bring you through this, and I will sustain you. I will give you the power. This is an illusion, or perhaps the Gospel in a nutshell, it doesn't explain it all.

35:25 But the difference between the Gospel of Christianity and the religion of Christianity that you see so much is that there's always this idea that we're going to do this. We're going to really push hard and do this. We can... It's the law, you know. If I can just be good enough, I can work really hard, I can earn my way into heaven.

35:42 He says, No. It's not going to get you there. You don't even have the power to do this. Right? You cannot mourn yourself and weep yourself and grovel enough and self flagellate enough to get yourself to where I'm bringing you.

36:03 Right? And certainly that's not the life that he has for us. Where it is? I didn't write the full reference, I copied the verse here in my notes. So there's a verse here, so that on the contrary, you ought to rather forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow.

36:21 This is in second Corinthians where there's the man that was disciplined by the church and now he's to be restored. And we heard teaching on this last year from Steve Price. And basically this idea that his mourning, his sorrow will destroy him if he has not received back into this relationship. Right? And so for us to continue in mourning is important so that we can come to the point of focusing our heart on Him and realizing that we need Him to comfort us.

37:03 But after that, the thing that powers us, the thing that we rely on is His joy and that's found in Him as we look at Him. In Hebrews twelve:two, it says, We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor besides God's throne. Christ took the ultimate brokenness and he himself had a higher view that allowed him to endure the suffering he was called to.

38:05 Likewise, in James one verse two, it says, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. The way that we suffer says a lot. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance, there's that word again, the strength to continue. A full lifetime of what God is calling you to do. Right?

38:34 We don't just need to get out of this little hiccup we got where we don't have... Where people running and attacking us and, taking advantage of us. We don't need that. We need to live the rest of our life as well. We need strength for that, right?

38:49 It's tested. Your endurance has a chance to grow. Let it grow. When your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. Again, he says, it is an opportunity for great joy.

39:06 So the next step is a party. There's a party. Who sang this song? I think it's Black Eyed Peas, Will I Am. Tonight's gonna be a good, good night.

39:19 Okay. I'm sorry. That was more about debauchery. Okay? But that's part of the point.

39:25 Okay? So often we look forward to something. Right? And so a lot of us do have an opinion of a party, like they think of the high school parties. And I kind of touched on already this idea of who do we worship and what happens, right?

40:00 When we worship God's creation rather than the Creator, I talked about the idea that we don't even get to enjoy. God has actually built it into our biology to not allow us to enjoy the fruits of the idols. Okay? So if you go, and I didn't write my reference here right, but I believe it's in Genesis. He said, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

40:50 The pleasures of sin for a season. When we are seeking pleasures for our own satisfaction, they're always just for a season. Okay? And God made us that way. He actually put it in our biology.

41:09 And I'll try to explain really quickly because we're already over time. But he actually designed us so that outside of relationship pleasure, your ability to experience pleasure actually dissipates. You have five senses, and all of these senses come in and they're processed in your brain. And your brain evaluates whether there is some sense of meaning that is greater in this or not. In meaningless pleasure, remember the joy of our salvation?

41:47 I mean, it was the joy that allowed him to endure difficulty. But also joy itself allows you to experience pleasure. Joy itself is never found outside of a relationship with somebody. Have you ever noticed you've done something and it wasn't that fun, but it used to be fun? The ultimate example would be someone taking some kind of substance the first time is very fun.

42:16 But immediately your brain has all these ways of... Basically there's like a calculation that happens. It says, That was not relevant. There was no relevance that was associated with the feelings you had. And so there's no meaning there.

42:32 And so we can't enjoy the things that perhaps a party could be a celebration or could be a debauched, something not. In one case people are consuming things for their pleasure. In another case there's a relationship involved. So within God's blessing and when we have Him as who we're seeking, the blessing He gives us can be enjoyed as blessings from Him. Right?

43:11 And so there's meaning there, and we enjoy them all the more. Okay? And so in this party, in this celebration, it was really a celebration about the Lord. There was an ability to really enjoy it, and there was a call to relationship. So the first thing...

43:36 So you see after all these sequences of things happening, where people have been comforted and they have worshiped, there's now a relationship here. Okay. Does anybody know what this is, kids? It's a triangle, right? Do know what kind of triangle it is?

44:03 Did someone say equilateral? Yes. I I played them up here on the screen. I can't see them on my little cue, but, yes, it's a... Well, it's both an isosceles trial and equilaterally triangle.

44:13 Yeah. So, yeah. So, wow, and I can't see my own thing on the little thumbnail, but here you see a triangle. And some of you, I first saw this at a marriage seminar, I was talking about, you know, you would be on one side and your spouse would be on the other side. Right?

44:35 And God at the top. And so this triangle is really helpful when it comes to relationship. When we want to understand relationship, it helps to sometimes have a little picture in your mind that you can work things through. In here you can imagine that if it's truly an equilateral triangle that means that all sides are equal. Right?

45:02 And so when you move closer, you shorten one side, the other sides are going to shorten as well, and everyone's going to be closer and more unified together. It's one of the reasons why I've heard it said that all relationship issues have an issue with worship as well. And what I will say is this, is that when Jesus said the most important commandment, he said in Matthew twenty two thirty seven, Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Okay. And then he said the second is like unto it.

45:40 You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Right? It's similar. It's not the same, but it's like unto it. And then he said, on these two, all the other commandments are are are fulfilled or I forget exactly how it was, but essentially everything else...

46:00 All other good that you could do in terms of what God requires will fall under those two. Okay? So this is a universal thing. Now, we know for God that He loved us first. Right?

46:16 He reached out to us, and He encouraged us to come close. And so as we come closer to Him, as we worship Him, and you saw that here in the story, as they worship Him, as they come closer, they understood Him, their hearts were changed. Right? And so, we understand from Scripture that we are called to be more like Christ and to have His mind in ourselves. And we know that He had, number one, He created everybody.

47:01 He put His image in everybody and And he sees people in a different way than we see them. We tend to see people's brokenness. And I believe spiritual eyes, when we're moving closer to the Lord, are ones that see people not through their brokenness to the image that God put in them, regardless of whether they're saved or not. They were still made in his image, even in the brokenness. And so like unto it, you would expect, I thought a lot about it, I thought, you know, I know what it's like when I worship the Lord.

47:38 And there is a sense of sacredness. When I look at him, it changes everything. And when I'm in the presence of another individual, I should expect in some way that I have a sense that I'm in the presence of another person made by God. And so... Oh, what just happened?

48:00 I flip screens. Well, it is 12:09. I see people getting anxious. Probably have twenty more minutes. So what I'm going to say is this, that I'm going to skip a couple slides here and you won't be able to see it.

48:44 Our calling in family and in church, in our biological family or adopted family, is one of suffering and joy. And it requires strength and endurance, okay? It's a big calling, but we need to pursue for what God is calling us now. We need to pursue the joy of the Lord. And also, I think along with that, there's a call to carry our cross, right?

49:26 And also we need the same joy to help understanding of Him and the same joy to love each other as well and have the community that He calls us to. Happy Mother's Day. I apologize for keeping a little late. I'm sure there's other things to happen, but, in your life. Alright, guys.

49:47 It's done.