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It's a great story. I am. I'm so proud of Fernie and Omar there at our Santa Ana congregation. All of our congregations throughout Southern California are watching now, if we haven't met, my name is Eric. I'm the senior pastor. I'm so glad that you are with us. This weekend. We're going to be walking through this teaching series. We're in Proverbs for your love life. But before we get there, I want to announce what we're going to be teaching in a couple of weeks. In three weeks from this weekend, we're going to launch a new teaching series in the Book of Nehemiah. We love doing this as a church, walking through a book in the Bible. And the Book of Nehemiah is one of 66 books in the Bible. It's an awesome book. Cause it's gonna show you God is faithful to his people, that God is faithful to you. But it's also a really practical book. In fact, we're gonna title the series how to Lead. Because people have looked at the Book of Nehemiah as the first leadership book in human history. In fact, people have studied this book for centuries. And there's lots of practical insights on how to lead others really well. Now, some of you know you're a leader. You are by your profession or people look to you as such in the community. But if you're a Christian and you haven't thought of yourself as a leader, I want to help you see yourself as a leader because God has commissioned you to influence others and serve others. And the Book of Nehemiah is going to give you great insights on how to lead people well. So three weeks from now, we'll start walking through the Book of Nehemiah because it's what we typically do when we give you a magazine when we walk through a book of the Bible. Three weeks from now, you'll get this when you come in. It's going to be awesome. Our team has put this together today. Going to help you interact with God's word. Every other service was excited about it, but whatever, 11:30, whatever, whatever, it's going to be great. I was not expecting that because 11:30 is usually the most jacked service we have. So I thought you would have been like all it is. All right, great. All right, well, I got some work to do today, so here we are in Proverbs for your love life. Several years ago, University of California, Irvine, UCI right close by, they made it to the NCAA tournament for basketball March Madness. And there were some shirts printed that were sold in local Costco's, but they misspelled Irvine. It was UC Irvine. UC Irvine. And people were, it's like you got one word to spell right, man, UC Irvine. But they misspelled it and people were making fun of it on social and they recalled all the shirts. Now when I saw it, I, I chuckled, but I did not repost it or make fun of it. Here's why. In my former life, before I became your pastor, I was in the marketplace and I led a publishing. I was the senior vice president over a publishing division. And we made lots of mistakes. And so when I see mistakes, ah, I mean, it brings back painful memories. We publish lots of books and every single book will have 50,000 to 60,000 words. It's a high likelihood there's going to be a mistake. And we publish Bible studies and all kinds of resources, including even Bibles. And one of the biggest mistakes that we almost had happen, that we caught that someone else, a major mistake made is when we sent files for this Bible. We published the Christian Standard Bible and we would send it to printers. We outsourced our printing and then they would print the Bibles and send them to us. We would warehouse them and then distribute them to our retail partners and to our direct channels. Well, one time a Bible was sent back to us and thank God somebody was checking it. There's a whole section that they failed to print in the Bible. So they sent us a Bible with a section missing. And this is what was missing. It's the last verses in the whole Bible in the book of Revelation. I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share of the tree of life and the Holy City which are written about in this book. So a Bible printer sent us Bibles with the section out of the Bible that says, whatever you do, don't take this section out. So we called them and said, we're not sending these, we have to send these back to you. We're not selling them to our retailers. And they're like, no, no, we'll give them to you at a deep discount just to cover our cost. I'm like, you're Smoking crack. We're sending these back to you. There's no way that we're giving people Bibles with this section out. So we make mistakes. Even books. I wrote. So I've written books and I've made mistakes. Oh, this is so painful. It just fits. So I'll tell you, like, 13 years ago, I wrote this book with a group of friends, guys that I really love. And one of the chapters that I wrote, I referenced a book that's really impacted me about parenting. It's called Gospel Powered Parenting. Notice the author is William Farley. So I referenced the book, and like an author's supposed to do, in the endnotes, you quote the source, but this is how I quoted. This is a mistake I made. I read from my own words. Remember, his name was William Farley. But I wrote, we are grateful to Pastor Chris Farley for his work. Gospel Powered Parenting. He deserves the credit for the thinking behind offensive and defensive parenting. Thank you, Pastor Chris Farley. I wrote that. I wrote that. I did not even realize that I had made such a brutal mistake until an online blogger called it out. Was so kind of him. And so when I see UC Irvine, it just brings up, like, the painful mistakes I've made. Now, when that happens in publishing, and I'm assuming the same is true for you in your role, when that happens in leadership, typically what you do is you audit the process. You say, okay, where did things go wrong? Let's audit the process, and let's be sure we have enough eyeballs on the decision and the right eyeballs on the decision. Because we make foolish choices when we're in isolation. Let's be sure we have the right people around the table. We're going to be sure we have enough eyeballs and the right eyeballs looking at any resource. So we'd always audit the process. That is true in leadership. It's true in publishing, but it's also true in your relationships. You need the right eyeballs on your relationship. You need the right people looking over and watching and caring about your relationships. Whether you're single or dating or married. You do not want to make relationship decisions in isolation. The reality, though, in the culture in which we live here in the US is there's a cliche that has been said about relationships that is actually damaging relationships. It's hurting people whether you're single, dating, or married. And here's the cliche. You've heard it said, this is just between us. Sometimes someone will say that when they are dating online or via the apps, they'll Start communicating back and forth and no one knows at all. No family member knows, no friend knows. It's truly just between the two people. Sometimes a young man will say to a young woman, listen, I'm interested in you, but I've come through a crazy season in my life. I. I want us to keep our relationship on the down low. Let's keep this just between us. Sometimes married couples, when they're going through a challenging season, can say to one another, listen, we don't want anyone else to know about our struggles. Let's keep this just between us. Let's not raise our hand and ask for help. Let's keep this just here between us. Just between us, though, hurts a lot of people. Where does it come from? Why do we say that here in the US when really, when you look at global history and even other parts of the globe, it's really an American phenomenon, this whole just between us, that our relationship doesn't impact anybody else. No one else needs to know. It doesn't impact anybody else. It's just between us. It actually comes from the individualistic spirit here in the US and that's really rare throughout human history. In the 1800s, a very famous philosopher named Alexis de Tocqueville, he visited the U.S. he was from France, he studied U.S. culture, and he wrote a book that is still studied today called Democracy in America. And in this book he said, there's an individualistic spirit in America that's going to cause you to flourish. You're gonna be entrepreneurial and you're gonna push human progress forward. But I warn you, Tocqueville wrote, your individualism could actually be turned against you. You could start to splinter and fracture. You could actually push away community. Your individualism, this deep individualism that I see in America, wrote this in the. Is going to hurt you if you're not careful. In the 2000. No, no. 19. When was this book written? Pull this up. Put it up. I've been speaking too many services this weekend. How it to the heart? When was this book written? Today is 2025. I think this was written. Liz, what's my manuscript say? I don't have it on the manuscript. I think it was written in the 80s. You can pull it up on Amazon if you want to know for sure. But this book was written from UCI, University of California, Irvine professors and other UC professors throughout California in the UC system. And they basically asked the question, this book's been. It's a very popular sociological book. They asked the question, was Tocqueville right tocqueville said we have an individualistic spirit in the US Was Tocqueville right? And they concluded in their research they're studying all of life in America, that not only was Tocqueville correct, alarmingly so that there's more individualism now in America than there's ever been before. And they coined a term that has been used by sociologists since expressive individualism. They said that the heartbeat of America is you are going to be the best version of you. If you as an individual can express yourself. It's not about the community you, it's about you expressing yourself. Now you've heard this throughout your whole life and things like follow your heart, you be you. And when it comes to relationships, you've heard, hey, no one else needs to know. This is just between us. Just between us. But this is the opposite of what we know as Christians. As Christians, we know that we are not self sufficient, that we can't satisfy ourselves, that we can't rescue ourselves. That the whole message of the Christian faith is that we needed a savior who would enter this world for us. God the Son came here to rescue us. We are not sufficient. We need Him. His grace is sufficient and he rescues us and places us in community. That there is wisdom in other people. It's not true that it's just between us. So the world says, the proverb from the world is, hey, just between us. The word says something different. I want to teach you two proverbs today. This is God's word. Proverbs chapter 12 and then Proverbs chapter 15. If you want to follow along in your Bible or on the screen, I'm going to read two proverbs over you and then I'm going to apply them to your life. No matter what your relationship status is, this is God's word. Proverbs chapter 12, verse 15. A fool's way is right in his own eyes, but whoever listens to counsel is wise. This is God's word. And then flip the page to Proverbs chapter 15, verse 22. God's word says plans fail where there is no counsel. But with many advisors they succeed. Now, one of the proverbs is a proverb trying to protect you. A proverb saying, hey, listen, you need community around you. You're going to make foolish choices on your own. You need people around you to protect you. And the second proverb is a provisional proverb that if you will have wise counsel, then plans won't fail. Essentially, your marriage won't fail with wise counsel, your relationships won't fail with wise counsel. You want wise counsel around you? So let me give you these two proverbs. I'm going to break them down into two different statements. Here's the first one. God honoring community protects from bad choices. The reality is, every single one of us are prone to make bad choices. There's an old hymn that we sometimes sing, Prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. All of us left to our own devices, we can make foolish choices. We can. That's what the scripture teaches us. We all will go a foolish path. But good community will protect you from bad choices. So you wanna be sure you have the right kind of community around you. Good community protects you from bad choices. Good community protects you from believing the lie. It's just between us. No, it's not just between us. It involves other people. And I need good community around me. Let me paint a picture of two different scenes for you. The first is a modern day scene. A 25 year old young man finishes his day today. He goes to a restaurant. He goes and works out. He gets home to his apartment and in his apartment he pulls up his phone and the dating app that he's a member of. And by himself, he sits on his couch and he thumbs through lots of profiles. And he makes dozens and dozens of decisions. Split second based on a few pictures and a few lines of bio. He just makes decision after decision after decision. He's fully alone. It's only him, the algorithm and hundreds of strangers. That's today. Second scene In a different culture and a different time, there is another 25 year old young man and he's gathered around a dining room table. But it's not only him. It's not only him and his immediate family. His extended family is there. They gather together multiple times a week for long dinners. Grandparents from both sides are there. Parents and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. And they have this dinner for several hours. In the last 30 minutes of the dinner, the conversation turns to the 25 year old young man at the table and uncle says, I've been watching this young woman in the community. The grandfather speaks up and says, I. I've seen how she treats her aging parents with such care and dignity. The mother says, I had a conversation with her last week and she was filled with such grace and compassion. One of the cousins speaks up and says, I've known her since she was in high school and she has grown so much as a person. I am a raving fan of her. They talk about this Young woman. And then finally someone says, son, we believe that this would be an incredible match for you who's going to talk to her father about possibly arranging a marriage. Those two scenes, I know that the second scene for us sounds crazy, but when you step back and you look at human history, which scene is unproven, which scene is really. When you look at the totality of human history, which of those two scenes is the data saying isn't working? When you look at the totality of those two scenes, which one really seems unwise? And maybe you're thinking right now, oh my gosh. Is this the time when Eric is about to preach for arranged marriage? Is he actually advocating arranged marriage? I'm not, but I want. Let me take you on a journey for a couple moments. I am not advocating for arranged marriage. I'm thankful that our country doesn't practice, or some do, but not many practice in our country, arranged marriages. I'm thankful because Kay's family would never have chosen me to marry her. And you're like, you're just being humble. No, there is no way that they would have chosen me. And here's how I know. All of Kay's family lives on the same property. You may not have known this, but Kay is one of five. She's the youngest of five. All of the other siblings, they currently live on the property. They grew up in the same house. Five kids in a 1100 square foot house. And they moved from that house to homes that they built on the same property. Each child or the spouse of the child is given 50 acres of land and they build a house. And so they would not have chosen a son in law who's going to take K all over the country because she marries a preacher who preaches in Miami and then Southern California. And you're like, some of you are thinking, eric, you have 50 acres right now that you could be living on. I do, but I want to be your pastor instead. I'd rather be your pastor. 50 acres of mosquito infested with a great view of Bubba's outhouse land. Right? I'm joking. So I'm not, I'm not advocating for arranged marriage, but I just. We should be humble for a moment and just ask the question, is there anything to learn? Because divorce rates in America are 40% and globally divorce rates of arranged marriages are less than 1%. Can we just be humble for a moment and just ask, is there something to learn? Now, I want to be honest that the data of 1%, there is, there are some bad stories in that data. So we make a distinction between arranged marriages and forced marriages. And some forced marriages are in that data too. So the data is messy and we would never want to be for a forced marriage where in some cultures women are viewed as property, which the Bible speaks against. Women are not property. Men and women are both created in equal in the image of God and they are co heirs with Jesus, those who are rescued by him. And so high view of women and high view of men in the Scripture, women are not property of men. And so we would be against a marriage like that where a woman is oppressed and forced into marriage. But when you pull the forced marriages out of the arranged marriage data, it's still a much higher success rate than marriages in America. So maybe we should ask, who's crazy? Are we perhaps not learning some valuable lessons that we should learn about community? Now, here's what those who advocate for arranged marriage say. Here's the sociologists, even in America write about arranged marriages. It's not two individuals coming together, it's two families coming together. It's two families coming together. And so when the two families come together, there's conversations. How can we help this couple? They're young, they're new. How do we help them financially? They're new, they need wisdom. Who can we provide around them? How can we provide care for them? How can we come alongside them and shepherd them? It's not just between us, it's two families coming together. So here's what the application I think for us is. Those of you who are single and those who are married, let me give it to you. I'm not advocating for arranged marriages, but I am advocating for you to listen to the proverb and to not discard wisdom. A fool's way is right in his own eyes. But whoever listens to counsel is wise. And you are wise to get counsel around you and listen. So let me apply this to you who are single. It is common in our culture now to date via technology. I'm not speaking against in this teaching series the use of technology or dating apps. In fact, God is in charge of everything and he uses technology. But you must be aware if you date via the apps, that you are in the middle of a social experiment, that this started in 2009 and that how you're dating now is just different than hundreds and hundreds of years when dating was done publicly. Lori Gottlabug. I messed up her name. Not Gottliebug Gottlieb. She said this a psychotherapist. Guys, it's 11:30. I'm slurring my words. Hang with me, hang with me today. Dating on the apps, the worlds of people don't collide. The community used to be the Greek chorus. You don't do this. This is what we do. These are our ethical rules. So she's saying, listen, we used to have people who would watch a couple date and say, hey, don't treat her that way. Hey, don't talk about him that way. And now when it's done privately, we miss out on the Greek chorus. So if you date online, every strategy in life has an upside and a downside. The downside to dating online is a lack of community. So you always want to minimize against the downside in any strategy. So how do you minimize against the downside? You bring the relationship into the community as quickly as you can. So if you meet someone online and you start dating the person, great. But then just bring it into the community as fast as you can so you can get wisdom from other people. And the reason this is wise is because when you're dating someone, at first, the feelings can overwhelm you. I mean, you start having a crush on someone, you hold hands for the first time, all the butterflies are going. You're sitting across the table, you're looking each other in the eyes. Woo. I mean, the feelings are just happening. They're happening. They do. They happen. I mean, there's hormones, there's all kinds of things happening in your mind. But we know we don't always make the best decisions when our feelings run our lives. And so you want to bring the relationship into community so other people can speak into it, because your feelings are often not your best guide. And you know this, married couples, here's how this applies to you. There's a lot of really bad counsel in our world right now to married couples. It's very common on a podcast or a TikTok video or social media post for someone to say to a married couple, if your husband or if your wife is not helping you be you, you can end the relationship because you have to follow your heart. I told you that. And it was 2000. It was 2000 whenever that book came out, Habits of Heart, that they coined the phrase expressive individualism. A new term is being used now, expressive divorce, which is essentially, I want to be me and my spouse is stopping me from being me. That is common advice in the world. Listen, you need wise people around you who. Who give you wise counsel, which is not. When you sit across from coffee from a person, you say, my Marriage right now is really hard. And it is sometimes. Those of us who are married know that life is not this fairy tale all of the time. There are very challenging seasons that will happen in a marriage. But you want a wise person across the table from you who looks at you and with compassion. Not mean and strong language, but kind and compassionate language, but says to you, listen, your marriage is so worth it. And God uses the difficult seasons in our lives to grow us. And marriage is about more than just. It's not just between you and your spouse. Marriage is bigger than that. Other people are impacted. You want people who believe that, who pour wise counsel into you. Godly counsel will protect you from bad choices. All right. The second proverb is about God honoring community, providing wise counsel. So the first is protective, the second is provisional. We read verse 22 of Proverbs 15. Plans fail when there's no counsel. But with many advisors, they succeed. We want our relationships to succeed. According to the proverb. We need wisdom for our relationships to succeed. So let me apply this to you who are single and then use you who are married, you who are single and dating or looking to date. I realize I learned this from the young adults on our staff who I would give my life for the many young adults who are plugged into our church. And now my daughters are at age where, I mean, Eden's about to be 18, Evie's about to be 16. So I understand that there's a difference between going on a date and dating. So going on a date, I'm not suggesting that you bring the community into the date. Like, hey, I'm bringing my 12 friends with me on the. I'm not suggesting that, but I am exhorting you that when you move from going on a date with somebody and then you exclusively are dating this person, which you have heard me say throughout this teaching series, I believe that is the way to honor your another person is not to date a whole bunch of people at once, but to pursue one and date exclusively and see where God takes that relationship. Whether you call it talking or seeing one another or dating, that you're exclusive with this person. Here is the Christian vision I believe you should embrace if you're dating, okay, I'm going to date this person. And one of two things is going to happen. And either one of these is good, but I want one of these two is going to happen. And either one of these, either one of these, God's going to be honored. One, I'm going to date this person, and we're going to Decide as we are dating that we're going to commit to one another and we're going to become one. We're going to marry one great option. Or as we date, we conclude that we're just going to be friends, that we're not going to commit to marry one another. We're going to decide that mutually. Or he will decide it, or she will decide it. But we're not going to marry. But at the end of the relationship, we're both going to love Jesus more than when we did when we started the relationship. At the end of the relationship, when we part ways and we're just friends and we decide to not get married or go any further, that we're both going to have a greater sense of awe for God than we did when we started. That would be a massive win. So the Christian vision for you who are dating is either we're going to marry and be one to the glory of God, or. Or we're going to walk away from this relationship both being more formed into the image of Jesus because of the relationship, which would impact how you treat one another, how you care for one another, how you speak to one another, and how you actually date. Now, some of you are in the pain of this one. You thought the person that you were dating was going to be your husband or your wife. I know because I've gotten messages from you throughout this series, and you are devastated. And I just want you to hear me tell you you have not failed. You didn't fail the relationship, didn't go to where you thought it would go, but you walked away from the relationship. And you love God more than you did before you started the relationship. That is a win. You didn't fail at all. You were not a failure. But listen, either of those two options, you need community for either of one. Those for either to happen. Marriage, or we both love Jesus more. You want the wisdom of others and so bring others in. Now, young women, if a young man is pursuing you and he says to you, hey, listen, I. I don't want to bring other people in right now. I don't want to meet your friends yet. I just want to be with you. Just us. Just you. You may think that sounds sweet. That's not sweet. Shady. That is shady. It's shady. It's shady because what is it in his life that he thinks your friends might see? Because he knows you're blinded by your feelings, and what is he afraid that other people in your life will see? So you bring the relationship into the light. You bring the relationship into the community so other people can observe how you treat one another, how you talk about one another, how you interact with each other and each other's friends. You bring the relationship into, into the community. It's best for both of you, you who are married. This applies for you. This applies for me as a married man that our, our marriages benefit from wise counsel from other people. Kay and I were married really young. I'm so thankful for the wisdom that others poured into our marriage. When I was 21, Kay and I asked a group of 70 year old couples in our church to mentor us. Three couples I for the whole summer, I often met with the men, Kay met with the women. Sometimes we met together. And from these amazing couples, we got a vision for marriage. As this newly married couple, I learned so much wisdom from other people. Doug Fields is one of our pastors. Years ago, early in my marriage, before I was living in California, I heard him say that the greatest gift a married couple can give your kids is for you to have a healthy, growing marriage in front of your kids. He said, which was countercultural, that the most important relationship in your home if you're married is not the relationship with the children, but the most important relationship is the relationship that the spouses have with one another. Which is so opposite from what the culture says. Where in our world where there's a lot of kid centric homes, where it's like a child is born, it's like Simba and everybody gathers around and the kid becomes the center of the home. It's really hard to convince a kid to not be selfish if the kid has been the center of the home. And some of you are like, I don't know, I was the center of my home as a kid growing up. We know, we can tell, we see it clearly. I love you deeply. It's actually not good for the kid. That is a lot of pressure to put on a child, for a child to think I'm the reason this family has life. I'm the reason that this family is filled with joy. That is an immense amount of pressure to put on a child. So as a new married couple, we committed. We're going to date each other every single week. We're going to go on vacations even when our children are small, without our kids and fly in one of our parents to watch the kids for a week. Grandparents love doing that. And we're going to invest in our marriage. We want our kids to know that the most important relationship to each other is the relationship that we have with each other. That's what we want our kids to know. We believe. And Doug Fields said it years ago when I believed it, that that's going to provide safety and security for the children in the home because they're gonna know that mom and dad are deeply committed to one another. So we learned that from others, we learned from other parents. It took us a while. You know my story for us that we wrestled with infertility for years. And so it took us a while to have children. But we saw other parents who we just loved how they were shepherding their kids and parenting their kids. And we believe when we have kids, our main goal is we want to raise children who love Jesus and bless this world. They're gonna love him and follow after him and they're gonna serve people. They're gonna bless this world. God help us to be those kinds of parents. And we saw parents who did whatever it could for the kids and the kids friends to want to be at the parents house. So I mean, we didn't have a lot of money, but I started saving any extra money I like. I'd write a book. Even when I would misquote Chris Farley, I would take the money and I would save it. All the books I wrote, we would save the money, just save it, save it. So one day when we had kids, we could fix up the porch or the back patio to where our kids would want to be there with their friends. And anytime they ask, the answer is always yes, yes, yes. Bring your friends over all the time. Yes. Yeah. That's how we went into parenting teenagers. But we got that vision 15 years before they were teenagers. And we got that vision from other people. We got that vision from other people. We got the vision for we're going to be generous with our lives and generous with our resources and be hospitable with our home. We got that from other people, people from otherwise people in our lives. Listen, you don't want to live as a married couple without receiving wisdom from others. And so we want to help you whether you are single right now, currently dating someone, or you are married. If you are engaged or married. I'm sorry, engaged or looking to get married with the person that you're dating. We have this pre marriage course. We'll put otherwise couples who are further along than you with you to help you. And if you are married, we have a new course by Doug Fields, Doug and Kathy, who've made a massive impact in our marriage that are teaching this course called A Better Us. And so we want to help you. You've heard me reference this book multiple times in this teaching series. Brad Wilcox wrote the book Get Married. He's writing it really to young adults who he knows have heard a lot of messages saying, hey, marriage is not awesome for you. Marriage will stop you from being you. And he shows a lot of data that marriage is actually very fulfilling. He's a sociologist at the University of Virginia, and in his book, he gives four different groups of people who he calls masters of marriage that essentially he believes they're awesome in marriage. And one of the groups he highlights is. He highlights are Asian Americans. He says Asian Americans are masterful at marriage. I loved reading this because we have many Asian American couples in our church. And he said the reason that they are, they have very low divorce rates compared to the rest of Americans. The reason that they're masterful, he said, is because they don't believe the lie. It's just between us. It's not just this person and this person getting married. It's families coming together. And so even when one says in the research, I'm not happy in my marriage right now, but there's no way I'm walking away, because I'm not walking away just from this person. There's brothers and sisters and aunts and aunts and uncles and grandparents and kids. There's a community involved. I've committed not just to a person, but two families have become one. It's not just between us. There's a lot of people that are impacted by your marriage. It's not just between us. There's a lot of people impacted about how you're going to date. Are you going to date in a holy way, a God honoring way? There's a lot that are impacted by the decisions you make about your relationships. You know, who did not tell you it's just between us. Jesus. God the Son. When he entered this world for you, he did not enter this world to pursue you as his own. Privately, he did not say to you, hey, I'm going to keep our relationship just between us. No. When God the Son entered this world, he placed himself on a cross to absorb in his flesh all of your sin and all of your shame. And when he did, he was publicly humiliated. Not privately. Publicly. Scholars estimate a million Jewish people in Jerusalem on the Friday afternoon for six hours. As he absorbed in his flesh all of your sin and all of your shame. He was proud to purchase you on a cross. He delights in you and longs for you and wants you to be His. And he didn't stay on the cross. He was buried on the third day. He walked out of the tomb alive. He ascended to the right hand of the throne of the Father. And one day he's going to bring you into everlasting life where he's not a shame, ashamed of you. But you will rule and reign with him as a co heir of Christ. He will publicly testify that you are his. He's not ashamed of you at all. Not ashamed of you. He did not say, it's just between us. And now he also doesn't want you to say to him, hey, God, my relationship with you is just between. It's just between us. Sometimes people will say that to me, Eric, my faith is private. When someone says that, I say, hey, can I ask you, what do you mean? Because people you meet say different things with words. Do you really mean private like no one else knows? Or do you mean personal, like it's just really personally important to you? Because if you mean personal, I'm with you. Your faith is deeply personal. But in fact, the more your faith is personal, the less private it is. The more your personal faith changes you, the less private you can keep it because he's changing you in full view of everyone. Your relationship with God is not just between us. And then God placed you in a community of people where your relationship's never private. Your relationship with him is not private. It's one of the reasons we come to church. Our relationship with God isn't private. It's, it's one of the reasons we sing. Some of you, you don't sing. You stand there, you don't sing. And I get it. I used to feel that way because you don't sing well. You, you feel like you're a bad singer. I am a really bad singer. But one time a worship leader told me, eric, you inspire me so much with your singing. I said, really? I, I, I, I, I've always been told I sing really badly. Oh, you sing horrible. You're a really horrible singer. It's actually your bad singing that inspires me. I said, really? Tell me more. He said, yes, seriously. Because I think because you sing so badly and you're not ashamed, that I shouldn't be ashamed when I go to the coffee shop to tell the barista about Jesus. If you aren't ashamed when you sing badly, that actually inspires me to be more bold. Dieter Bonhoeffer, famous pastor from years ago, stood up against Hitler and Nazi Germany. He said about church, the reason we hear each other sing is so that the faith of your brother will encourage you. Meaning we. When we sing, we don't only sing for God, we sing for each other. That you should sing loudly, even if you sing badly, because when you sing loudly, you encourage someone else. In fact, you might actually encourage someone more if you sing loud and bad at the same time. Not the people on stage. We want them to sing good. I'm talking about us. We actually might inspire others because they see in us. Jesus is changing me, and I'm not afraid to say it. All right, extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you are gentle and approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.