Take the Hill Country

[00:00:00] Well, good morning. Good morning Christchurch. [00:00:03] Good to see you today. Yeah, there we go, there we go. [00:00:08] Yeah, happy to kick off fall fest with you. Get some doe daddy Thursday night. That was a great kickoff. So thanks for everybody who's been praying for that and supporting that. And today I'm gonna take a little break from Galatians and I want to share a different message with you from the book of Joshua and then next week we'll pick up and get back to our galatian site. So we're gonna take a little detour today but there's these verses that really inspired me and I thought might be helpful for us to think about as a church. But let's pray and we'll get into it. Father, we thank you so much lord for this time. I thank you for our church family here. I pray father that you would bless us into this fall season. I pray you would fill us with faith, fill us with a desire to move towards the challenges that you have in our life as people, as families and as a church. And I pray you would be glorified in all we do. In Jesus good name we pray. Amen. [00:01:16] Well, I want you to think for a minute about your first day at a new job. Maybe that's been a long time, maybe it's been recent, but think about the nervousness and the anxiety that comes day one. You know, you want to make a good impression, you want to feel comfortable, you want to build good relationships. [00:01:41] And I want to tell you this story about a man named Lawrence Miller who was going for his first job, first day and it was at the White House, little bit of pressure. And not only was it at the White House, but day one he was going to be meeting with the president. [00:02:02] So his first day he wanted it to go well. He wanted to make a good impression and can you imagine the pressure of that? And so this was a long time ago and Teddy Roosevelt was president. So Lawrence Miller showed up to his first day, showed up to the Oval Office to meet with Teddy Roosevelt, the sitting president. And Teddy Roosevelt said, hey, we're going to go outside and play tennis. [00:02:28] Little curve ball. [00:02:31] And so he obviously was very anxious. And then he was just praying, God, please don't let me be Teddy Roosevelt's partner because you don't want to let your boss down who's also the president. Amen. [00:02:49] And so of course, as things would happen, he ended up being partnered with Teddy Roosevelt. And so they played game after game and he's exhausted, sweating. He wasn't in the best of shape, but he wants to do good. He wants to make a good impression. So they're just battling it out, and it's just. They're playing for seemingly ever. And then by the grace of God, a dark rain cloud comes in. [00:03:22] And can you imagine the relief that he felt in that moment? And it rains, and they stopped playing. He's like, okay, thank God I made it. I didn't embarrass myself too bad. You know, I think this is going okay. And then the rain cloud disappeared, and Teddy Roosevelt's like, let's play some more. [00:03:42] Go out, play hours, more attendance. And then after that, he's like, hey, let's go for a run. [00:03:52] And they went and ran 4 miles out. [00:03:56] Keep in mind this is a long time ago. So there's not, you know, nice metro park, running trails, running through woods and swamps and mud 4 miles out, and then turns around, says, all right, we're gonna make our way back. And he starts, and he's just exhausted. Cause church, if you're not planning on doing any of that, that's not an easy task. And then a mile away from the white house, he dies. No, I'm just kidding. [00:04:32] He dies in his spirit. [00:04:39] It wouldn't be that far. Yeah, right. That would have added a little. I got to add a little preacher flair to it, you know? [00:04:46] No, he didn't die, but he was so exhausted that he couldn't run anymore, and he had to be carried back. How about that for your first day of work? [00:04:55] And what might you think about your boss at that point, the president? Teddy Roosevelt. And Teddy Roosevelt was known to do stuff like this because he was a guy that valued adventure, that valued difficulty, that valued exercise and hard work. And it was part of just his approach to life, his approach to leadership, and it sort of permeated everything he did. And many people called this the strenuous life that Teddy Roosevelt believed in the strenuous life, that we should not try to make life as easy as possible, but we should try to make sure we're always engaging in meaningful and difficult challenges. Here's what Teddy Roosevelt said. He said, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort and strife. [00:05:59] And so the reason this all happened was because Teddy Roosevelt believed that we are at our best, not when we're just kind of taking it easy in life, not when we're sort of in a place of complacency, not when we're just trying to keep everything in the status quo and the way it is and always been. But we're at our best when we're pushing beyond our limits, our comfort zone, and we're intentionally challenging ourselves to different heights. [00:06:40] And he believed that that's true for us as individuals, but it's also true for us as a nation. And you know what? I agree with him. [00:06:50] I think he's right on that. I think that the times where I just sort of take it easy and kick my legs up and relax, those aren't usually the most spiritually developing times in my life. Anyone. [00:07:04] They're not always what I hope they're to be. And so today, I want to talk to you about the strenuous life, because I think this is an idea that we see through the pages of scripture. This is a theme that is present in the Old Testament and the New. And I want to share a story that illustrates it from Joshua, chapter 14. So, let me read it to you. It begins here, verse six. It says, then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh the kezonite, said to him, you know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God in Kadesh Barnea, concerning you and me? And now we're going to see this conversation between Joshua and Caleb, and this is Caleb doing the talking. He said, I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And I brought him word again, as it was in my heart. But my brothers, who went up with me made the heart of the people melt. Yet I wholly followed the Lord, my God. I. Now he's recounting this event that happened 45 years ago, and I'll explain more about what it is, but he's saying, we had this opportunity to go into this land that God gave us, and I was all for it. And Joshua, you were for it, but no one else was. [00:08:31] And he says, and Moses swore on that day, saying, surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you've wholly followed the Lord, my God. And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said these 45 years, since the time the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day, 85 years old. He's been waiting a long time. 85 years old. But I'm still as strong as I was in the day Moses sent me, said, I've been doing pilates. [00:09:12] I've been taking creatine. [00:09:15] I've been taking my fish oil. I'm still as strong as I was. [00:09:22] My strength now is as my strength then for war, for going and coming. So now give me this hill country. [00:09:29] And if you have a copy of the scripture, just circle that hill country right there. Give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day. For you heard on that day how the Anakim were there with great fortified city. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said. Now, there's a lot in these verses, and it's such a powerful picture of what a life of faith looks like if you're a follower of Jesus today. A life of faith is not about making life as easy as it could be. [00:10:10] It's not about just sort of like waking up every day and phoning it in. But it's about a life of choosing the right challenges with God. [00:10:23] And here Caleb does this in a really, really powerful way. He says, give me the hill country. And today I want to talk about the hill country in each of our lives. Because I believe that there's a hill country in your life and my life that God has for us. But it's a challenging thing. It's a difficult thing. It's something that can only be taken with faith, and we have to be willing to move towards it. Now, the whole context of this conversation is this long history of Israel and the promised land. I want to just explain it to you in a moment. [00:11:07] When Caleb begins a story, he tells Joshua, he says, hey, let's go back 45 years and what happened at this point. Washington, the people of Israel, they were slaves in Egypt, and God led them out of Egypt through the leadership of Moses. Many of us probably are familiar with some of the amazing things that happened, the Red Sea parting and all these amazing acts of God to free his people. But God said, I'm freeing you, but I'm also creating a place for you to live, for you to be at your own land. And it's going to be beautiful, and you're going to be your own people. No one's going to be controlling you, and you'll have freedom to thrive. [00:11:55] And so God led them to this point where they could go take this land. Now, the problem was people already lived in this land. [00:12:05] So to take it, they had to battle them. They had to fight him. But God said, I have this for you. And so just before they were going to begin to enter the land, they decided to send out twelve spies to go check it out, put a game plan together and see what was up. And so Joshua and Caleb were part of that. Twelve spies, they go into the land and they look at it and they do some recon and they check it all out and they come back and all twelve of the spies, they agree on these things. They agree the land is awesome, it's beautiful. It's got tons of great cantaloupe, things like that. I don't know what grows there. It's got good stuff, beautiful apple orchards like Ohio. [00:12:59] And they say this land is awesome. It's incredible. And it's occupied and the people that are in it, it's not going to be an easy fight because they're pretty comfortable, they're fortified, they've got defenses of this is going to be challenged. And so the ten of the spies start inducing group panic. [00:13:24] Has that ever happened? You know, the room was okay then someone came in and everybody's now losing their minds and this is what happened. And Joshua and Caleb were the only ones that are saying yes, it's beautiful land, I agree with you. Yes it's occupied and it's going to be difficult but God will help us. [00:13:45] And if God will help us then we need to go right now. [00:13:51] And they were the only voices saying that and everybody else was saying no, no, it's too scary, it's too difficult, it's not worth it. And so here's what happened. So then after that God said all right, because you did not pursue this opportunity, you will now wander around for 40 years in the same area. [00:14:17] And until this generation is gone only then will I give the next generation this land. And it's a really, really tragic story. [00:14:28] But there are incredible lessons for us today because we often don't think about what this story shows us. That church. In our lives, there is incredible cost to fear and inaction. There's a cost to that and the cost is that we stay stuck and we keep circling the same paths. Now imagine living in a very kind of confined area for 40 years and this is like the wilderness. So imagine just walking down the same path and be like, I've seen that stump before. [00:15:09] I've named every stump in this area. I know every little hill, every tree, every bush. Like how maddening would that be? Just seeing that again and again just the same old path. I know exactly where this goes and the views are never different. That would drive me crazy. I don't know about you, I get cabin fever at my house after like a couple hours. I'm like, can I just go to CV's or the gas station or something? [00:15:39] I just get cabin fever. And I cannot imagine how maddening this would have been for Caleb to be like, guys, we're seeing the same sights again and again and again and we didn't have to. [00:15:57] God had better for us. [00:15:59] And I think sometimes, church, that reality plays out in our lives too. Have you ever realized that there's certain ways of thinking, there's certain ways of acting, there are certain ways of relating to other people that keep you stuck in the same place that you don't really want to be? Ever noticed that? [00:16:23] Have you noticed in your life where certain thoughts will lead you, but yet you're like, why do I keep returning back to this? Because I know exactly where this path goes. Goes and it keeps us stuck. Now I think that part of the reason we get stuck and they got stuck was because they listened initially to the wrong voices. When Caleb tells the story he says that when we came back, Joshua and I said we need to take the land. But the ten other spies, he said they made everyone's hearts melt. [00:17:06] Have you ever met a melter in your life? [00:17:09] Like you were feeling good, you were feeling confident and then you talked to them and it just melted. [00:17:17] You were feeling optimistic and then you talked to them and then you were just filled with so much doom and gloom all the faith melted out of you. Church, don't be a melter in life. [00:17:29] Don't be someone who robs others of hope and faith and confidence. [00:17:37] Be a Joshua and a Caleb who inspires others with a deep sense of faith. You with me on this? [00:17:46] They listen to the wrong voice. See, many times in our life the majority of voices don't always lead us in the direction that God has for us. [00:17:57] We have to be discerning about the voices that we let influence our life. One of the things I'm so grateful for is I've been on staff at Christchurch. Next year it'll be 20 years. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I started very young, 25. So it's just been really stressful. That's why I look the way I do. [00:18:25] No, but it's crazy. And I've learned so many. I've learned so many incredible lessons working here. And doc, our lead pastor, has been such a profound mentor in my life and I've learned some deeply valuable lessons from him. The most important lesson I've learned is that Jesus Christ is excellent in every way. And to me that is the most important lesson anyone can ever learn. That Jesus Christ is good he is trustworthy. He is the center of everything. And life is about glorifying and honoring him. That's the first lesson. But here's probably the second most important lesson I've learned from him. It's that faith is about taking risk. [00:19:15] Faith is about taking uncomfortable steps. Faith is about doing hard things. [00:19:23] That faith is not about keeping things easy in the status quo, but glorifying God through worthy challenges. [00:19:34] And I'm so grateful to be part of a church and to grow up in a church where that is really our ethos, where our ethos is much more Joshua and Caleb than the other ten. And that's been a tremendous gift, church. And I want you to have that ethos in your heart and in your life because I think it matters so much. So Caleb finally is now at this point where he can break out of the status quo. [00:20:09] Finally, the years have gone by, and I can't imagine what it was like for him to wait for this moment. [00:20:17] Like, all right, people, can you all just be done now so I can get out of this place? And finally the moment comes and he goes to Joshua and he says, I want the hill country. [00:20:32] Now. This is really, really significant because the hill country is like it sounds, it's uphill and you don't want to battle uphill. That's a way more difficult way to fight a fight. You want your enemy to be going uphill and you have that great advantage. But Caleb says, no, no, I'll do. I'll pick this difficult country. And not only is it uphill and it's fortified and it has these great warriors in it, it's basically Caleb looks on the map and he picks the hardest area to go after. [00:21:16] And remember church? He's 85 at this time. [00:21:21] He's not a young buck anymore, but he's like, I want it. And God has kept me for this. But you know what's great about the hill country is it has really nice views. [00:21:39] It's a place that creates a much better future, not only for Caleb, but for his family and the descendants that will come after him. And I love this picture because I think in all of our lives there's a hill country, and it's that place that maybe you're scared to go for because there's a lot of reasons not to. And Caleb had a lot of good excuses, right? He could have said, no, I'll take. I don't want the hill country. I'm 85. My knees aren't that great. I don't want to be going up there. He could have picked an easier area. He could have picked maybe an area that nobody was in. And certainly at 85, he could have been like, look, I've done my time. [00:22:33] These knuckleheads didn't listen to me then, but I don't need to keep living in this constant state of challenge. But church, he chooses to do it and not give into those excuses because truly it's a better place for him and a better place for those who are come after him. And I wonder, in your life, is there any hill country that God has for us? [00:23:04] Is there any challenge that is right? It's a noble thing. [00:23:11] It's a good thing. It's a place that would create a better future. But it's scary to attempt to ascend the hill. It's intimidating. [00:23:25] You're not sure that there's enough in you to do it. Is there a hill country in your life that God has for you? [00:23:34] Maybe God's like, no, I want to make your marriage healthy, but you have to reengage. [00:23:42] And you're like, but I don't want to. It's hard work. [00:23:47] I don't want to. You know, what if I experience a deeper sense of rejection? God's like, no, that's your hill country. [00:23:55] Maybe for some of us, God's been calling us for a long time, and we've been doing everything we can to avoid it, anyone. [00:24:06] And we're scared to engage. And the Lord's like, hey, this is your hill country. [00:24:11] Yes, it's intimidating. Yes, it's difficult. [00:24:15] Maybe some of us. God's like, hey, I want you to get financially healthy this year. [00:24:21] And you're like, I don't even want to know what I'm spending. I don't even know what I want to. I don't even want to go into any of that. [00:24:29] And you're avoiding it because it's intimidating. It's overwhelming. It all seems too difficult. [00:24:38] But church, I'm telling you, that's where God has a better future for you. And can I tell you this? Faith always calls us uphill. [00:24:50] Church, if we want to be people who live lives of faith, faith is always going to call us uphill, not downhill. [00:25:01] If today you're like, you know what? What I really want to do this year is increase the screen time on my phone from 6 hours a day to 8 hours a day. [00:25:10] That's going to be a very easy journey, and you won't need any faith for it. If today you're like, you know, what would I really want? You know, 2025 is 90 days away. What I really want to do in the new year is I want to serve God less, I want to pray less, and I want to avoid my bible for at least three months. [00:25:33] That's a very downhill journey. [00:25:36] You're not going to have any challenge in that. You're not going to need any faith for that. And it's also not going to do anything meaningful in your life or in your relationship with God. But faith will always call us uphill. That's why as a church, we can't ever get complacent and comfortable. [00:25:57] Cause faith always calls us uphill. And some of us, maybe we're in an uphill battle today. Maybe, hello, maybe we've. [00:26:08] Maybe we're in the midst of the struggle. And in our hearts we're kind of questioning, is this journey worth it? And I want you to know it is. Don't give up. [00:26:19] Don't lose heart. Don't quit moving. Because here's the deal. God has already given it to you. [00:26:28] You just have to go and fight for it. Notice in everything that Caleb says, he says that God promised this to him. God promised this inheritance to him. And so the land, it was already his, but yet he had to fight for it. And we can't expect that everything God wants to give us is gonna come wrapped up in a perfect little bow in a nice package. [00:26:57] Sometimes the things God wants to give us are gonna be wrapped up in effort, in hard work, in the grind, and will require incredible spiritual grit out of us. You with me? Both those realities can be true. God has this for you, but you still have to go fight for it. And Caleb understood that and he was willing to engage in it. And I just want you to ask yourself today, man, what is that hill country that God has for you? What does he have for you? Church. I'll tell you, man, we're fighting for our hill country as a church. [00:27:37] We've been working to build a new facility. Why? It's not just for us. It's for all the people who God wants to reach through our church. Not just for our generation, but like Caleb, for generations to come. Could we choose an easier path as a church? Sure. [00:27:57] We just kind of sit here, hang out, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, eat dough, daddy. [00:28:06] But that's not why God has us here. [00:28:10] He has us here because there's hills he's called us to take, because there's people sitting outside, all in our communities who don't know him, who are far from him. And everything would be different in their lives if they could see the excellence of Jesus Christ. And he's tapping us on the shoulder and he's saying, are you willing to take that hill? [00:28:36] Are you willing to fight the good fight? [00:28:40] What are we here for? Caleb says, God's kept me for this moment, and so how do we climb the hill? Let me just give you a few thoughts about this. How do you climb the hills in your life? Well, number one, you got to decide that some hills are worth taking. [00:28:59] Some hills are worth taking. Allie and I, two weeks ago, we got an opportunity to go to the Ohio State game. And we went and we made a little getaway out of it. I love. I love my kids with all my heart, but I love 24 hours away from them, too. Amen. [00:29:19] I can't tell you. [00:29:21] I didn't even. My soul came alive again. It was beautiful. And we had such a great time. Went to the Ohio State game and we stayed over in Columbus. And then Sunday morning, when Jovan preached, we went to church together down in Columbus, which was. It was so fun because, you know, just being able to go and sit and receive together, it was cool. And we went to this really cool church. And they were. And they were talking, like, all about what God was doing in Columbus, you know, and what God was doing through. And I would just love to hear it. It was so encouraging to me. I love seeing God work in any church. Amen. We're all same team, same fight. [00:30:03] One of us wins, we all win together. [00:30:06] And it was just beautiful. And I was just taking it in and I was like, man, this is so cool. This is so nice. But then I just felt like I started thinking and my heart started just getting filled with faith for what God is doing in our church and what God is doing in the Cleveland area. And so as I was just grateful for what God was doing right there, right where I was, I couldn't help but just get filled with faith for what God? Cause Columbus is cool, but it's not Cleveland Mandev. You know, this church was cool, but it's not Christ church. Amen. And I just felt like, man, the Lord has good work. And it made me want to come back with a deeper faith church. I want your faith to be encouraged today. [00:30:57] There are challenges in your life. But you know what? That's okay. Cause that's why God has made you. That's why you're here. That's why you're in that moment. Caleb says, God's kept me for this. [00:31:10] He's kept me for this. And there's some things God has kept you for that he wants to do through your life. And, you know, Caleb says I'm strong at 85 as I was at 40. [00:31:25] I pray that's true in my life. [00:31:30] I don't have the faith to believe that, though. [00:31:34] But you know what? There is a thing. There's a very real physiological thing called old man strength. Have you heard of it? It's real. So you young bucks, watch out, all right? It's a real thing. And sometimes what you lose in physical strength you can make up for through wisdom and trickery. Amen. [00:32:02] One day, Teddy, my boy, he turned one this week, which is awesome. And one day he's going to be stronger than I am and he, you know, and he's going to try and wrestle or something like that. [00:32:16] And if we were playing fair, he would win. But I'm going to fish hook him. [00:32:21] You get me? [00:32:23] What I lack in strength, I will make up for. And trickery. [00:32:29] You gotta be careful, you know what I'm saying? So there's unique things you can bring to every season of your life and what we lack in one season, God will give us something new in a different season. [00:32:46] See, maybe the previous seasons of your life, everything looked different, you felt different and all that. And you know what? You don't need to compare this season to that season because whatever God is calling you to do, he will provide the unique resources that you need to do it. You with me on this? Caleb says, I still got some fight in me. [00:33:13] I still am ready for this fight that God has for me. Cause here's the deal. Cause Caleb believed his ultimate strength came from God. [00:33:26] He says maybe the Lord will drive them out. The Lord will fight for me and church. The real strength in your life and in my life, it comes from God. [00:33:39] And if he has a hill for you, then his help will meet you there. [00:33:45] His help will meet you on that journey. And church, when you take a hill, you bless not just yourself, but generations to come. [00:33:56] Church. I know some of us in this room, you're taking the hill for the first time in your family's whole family tree of having a healthy marriage. [00:34:10] Some of us are families. There's never a healthy marriage. You have no example of it, no history of it. But you're gonna take that hill and generations are going to be different because you fought the good fight. [00:34:30] Some of us. I know in this room, you're the first generation in your family tree to believe in God. [00:34:40] You're the first one to trust in Jesus Christ and serve him and that is going to change generations to come. Cause you've chosen to trust God in taking that hill. See, when you take a hill, it changes a lot of things and it glorifies God. This passage ends. The author says that Caleb, he wholly followed the Lord, that Caleb wasn't being crazy in doing this. He wasn't being over the top. [00:35:18] The author says, no, he's being fully obedient to God. [00:35:23] See, so many times in life, we only worry about what we're not supposed to do. [00:35:30] But we need to worry about what we should be doing with our lives and make sure we're moving towards that. [00:35:38] Now, as we talk about this, maybe some of us might think about moments that we've missed in our lives. Hills that we failed to take, places where we've gotten stuck. And I don't want you to leave with a sense of discouragement. I want you to leave with a sense of faith. I recently read this really powerful book called the power of Regret by Daniel Pink. And this book, I don't know about you, but I hate the feeling of regret. [00:36:10] And I never know what to do with it because the thing about regret is you're like, oh, it's my fault. And I can't go back and change it. And that's a very frustrating thing to feel. Now, in reading this book, I was actually happy to find out that most of us don't know what to do with regret. And that when people survey, like, emotions and feelings, like the one they despise the most is the feeling of regret. So if you're like that, you're in good company. A lot of us. And it's a tricky thing. And he says that ultimately, you cannot get through life without experiencing regret. [00:36:54] I mean, I wish we could. Amen. But you can't. [00:36:58] You can get the no regurgit tattoo you can do. [00:37:03] You can preach the no regrets lifestyle, but you can't get through life without it. Sadly, we're broken people. [00:37:12] And he says that ultimately, there's four areas that we all share. Regret foundation. Regrets. These are regrets when we wish we were more disciplined. I wish I saved more money. I wish I paid attention in school. I wish I took better care of my health. Those are kind of the discipline elements of life that you regret not being more locked in, more disciplined, more focused. Then he says, there's boldness, regrets. I wish I took a chance. [00:37:41] I wish I applied for this job. I wish I moved here. I wish there were you. It was risky, and you kind of just back down from it because you were afraid. Boldness, regrets. Because there's moral regrets. It's where you do something hurtful, you do something unethical that goes against your morals and you regret doing that. And then there's connection. Regrets. You lose a relationship or you lose touch in a relationship and you regret that. And he says, we all will have regrets in these four areas. [00:38:16] But he says, but regret can actually help us. [00:38:21] It can help us because it can help us to see the future that we really want. [00:38:29] And today, if you're here and you have some regrets, then you can understand where Caleb was at. [00:38:37] It's like, I don't want to stay on the same old path. [00:38:42] I don't want to stay circling these same old trees and being stuck in the same old patch of real estate. [00:38:55] And, you know, God's got a better future for each of us if we're stuck. [00:39:02] We don't have to stay stuck. [00:39:05] We don't have to count all the hills that we've missed. You know, what matters today is can you identify a hill in front of you and are you willing to trust God and go up it? [00:39:18] That's all that matters. [00:39:21] And if you're willing to do that, and I'm willing to do that. Goddess invites us into a better future. Listen to what psalm 121 says. It says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. [00:39:38] See that? I lift up my eyes to the hills. Why? Where does my help come from? [00:39:47] My help comes from the Lord who made help heaven and earth today. Would you just lift your eyes up to a meaningful hill in front of you? [00:40:00] And as you look at that hill, here's what you have to do. Don't look about how steep it is, how difficult it is. [00:40:07] Look to where the Lord is. [00:40:11] Cause he's there. [00:40:13] And for some of us, our faith is flatden. Cause instead of looking up, we're looking down. [00:40:20] Instead of looking up at what God has for us and what God's calling us to, we're just looking straight ahead. I invite you to look up today and to see God's help and to be willing to move towards it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much, Lord, that you call us to this challenging but wonderful a life of faith. [00:40:49] I pray, Lord, that we would, as a church, as families and as people, we would not be content with the status quo. [00:41:02] I pray, Lord, we would just be a unique church. We would not be a group of melters, but we would be a group of hill takers. [00:41:13] I pray, Father, where you have a hill for each of us in our own life. Help us to look up, help us to see your help in this moment and help us to have the courage that we need to move forward. [00:41:28] Bless us, Lord, and I pray that our faith would glorify you, that all of this would honor your good and holy name. And ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.