Well. Hey, everyone. Man, I, uh. You guys kind of wrecked me. I'm not going to lie. I was over there, um, listening to you, like, really mean what you were singing there and, uh, got all caught up in emotion, and I'm like, I gotta get up there and be safe. Words like, it's got to be somehow intelligible in a few moments. So thank you. Thank you already for that gift of worship that you just gave me. That was that was beautiful. Sounds like you mean it, right? Sounds like you came in here because you really mean that. So, uh. Oh, what a joy to be with you, Veritas. What? What a privilege. What an honor. So thank you for letting me, uh, just participate and be here with you. Um, we're going to jump into, I think, some just beautiful scriptures. God has given us such beautiful words that we're going to look at. I do want to say, and this actually does pertain to the topic, this isn't tangential. I also just want to take this moment to thank you for sending Jake and Matt forty days from now. You might not even know this. Here's the reveal. Uh, you guys are sending Jake and also Matt, uh, to Zambia with me. And, uh, yes, thank you for that. I'm glad you're enthusiastic because I'm super enthusiastic about it, but I just want to ask you over these next couple days to pray for that time. We're going to be there at a really important time for Zambia. But let me give you just a couple images to tell you why I'm excited that they're coming along. So, uh, these are some of the children at the Hope center that we've been able to establish for them. It's a, it's a care center. It's not an orphanage. It's like a foster care system. But they often have a hard time taking in children whose parents have died, uh, because they barely have enough food to feed their own families well, alone take in this, this other child. And so we also help with an agriculture project and we teach them how to teach things. And look at these kids. Oh, my word, they're so beautiful. Anyway, and then the ones that live nearby, we give them a nutritious meal once a day and get them off to school and so forth. And, uh, but, but the reason that this all started is because, uh, primarily we're there to plant churches. We're there to, um, train pastors to go out and plant more churches. But every time a church is planted out there, there are orphans in that, in that immediate area. So everywhere a church is planted immediately becomes God's grace and mercy and kindness to care for all the orphans, because there are just so many in all these different villages. Uh, so you guys did a great job worshiping. Thanks be to God for your worship. I want to have you. This is one moment while I'm teaching the pastors this happens so often. I just want to give you a glimpse of what it's like to teach the pastors over there. So for me, it's about whether I have a room key, samba. with us. We're on our way. Now about Santa. Okay, I know, right? I don't know what they're saying either, but I know God doesn't. It's just so beautiful. Like that just happens throughout the day where all of a sudden they'll just one of them will stand up and just start worshiping, and everybody else just starts chiming in and all because they really love the Lord. And when they hold their hands out in emptiness and desperation for the Lord to fill them, that's because they really don't have anything in their hands, and they're asking God to do immeasurably more than what they ever could. And so, uh, Jake's going to actually teach them how to preach and everything. So anyway, it's going to be a great, it's going to be a fantastic, uh, time. So thank you for letting them go. And and thanks for praying over the next couple of days. There's some big things going on. And anyway, all right, I want to talk about the Lord. Let's let's start start this whole grow conference off. Um, it's an interesting thing when you meet new people. Like that was really cool. Before this thing ever started, there's like a roar in here as you guys were meeting people and talking to people and all that. So when you start meeting somebody for the first time especially, you've noticed this, I'm sure, how they present themselves, what happens in those introductory moments says a lot about those people, right? So in other words, if they lead off with something about family, okay, well, family is pretty important. If they start off with what they do for a living. Oh, okay. I guess that's a really important thing. You know, their NCAA bracket, you know. Oh, okay. We're just meeting. That's important to you. You know, whatever that is. Like we, we tend to like say something on the front end that it's kind of our presenting issue. It's our identity. What I want to talk about tonight is the way God introduces himself to us. So it's not going to shock you. We're going to go to page one. All right. So if you want to go to Genesis one with me. Uh, God takes great, great care in the way that he introduces himself. And I don't want us to blow past that. I think it's really, uh, foundational and integral to really understanding God. If we don't skip those opening words, they mean a lot. So. So let's tune in. Right, uh, to the way he introduces himself the first few verses here. Okay. Genesis one. And by the way, I'm going to be reading out of the CSB. I know you guys do the ESV, so I think you'll be able to translate along the way. And I'll have it up on the screens too as well. But uh, apologies for not switching over to your language tonight. I'm still speaking CSB. Um. Genesis one in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light. Okay, I'm going to stop there just for a second. The whole thing is beautiful and rhythmic, and it's just an epic, epic opening chapter. But he first starts off by letting us know he's our creator, and this is magnificent. Um, if God hadn't introduced himself to us as our creator. I want you to just ponder this for a second. Again, we kind of blow through this too quickly. I think. I just want you to stop and meditate on this. Had he not introduced himself as their creator, we would be left wondering who? Who are we? Where did we come from? Like even on the the horizontal level, a lot of people are really fascinated by their heritage. Right? I'm sure there are people in this room who have done big deep dives and they've done the Ancestry.com or they've done the heredity thing, whatever. Like, who are my people? Who am I? Like, there's this inner desire to know where am I connected? Who are my people out there? I remember talking to my dad about this quite a bit growing up, and I'd be like, dad, who? Who are we? You know? And he used to always say, Jeff, we're just mutts now. You know, growing up in small town Iowa, I knew exactly what that meant. You know, this neighbor's dog had that neighbor's dog. And suddenly there's this new litter of, you know. And before long, they've lost any kind of identity. Right? And so he's saying, you know, kindly, you're just a mutt. We're all just mutts. We're some weird combination of the neighborhood dogs, I guess. I don't know what he meant, but. But somehow it wasn't that important to my dad. Right? But here's the thing. We have this desire, don't we, to like, have have some connection, where am I? No, we're not just mutts. We are from God. God intentionally created us, right? We don't get to that until deeper into this chapter. But but he's our creator, the creator of all things. But more than that, the creator of us. I love this this quote by Herman Bavinck. Um, man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God by Enigma. What Bavinck is saying is we're like a puzzle. We're like a mystery. Until we figure out that we're from God, we just scratch our heads and we've got all sorts of theories, and we've got all sorts of aspirations. Until God tells us where we're actually from, who we are. It's this mystery and puzzle and can and lead to a lot of anxiety and a lot of people trying to figure that out. But but God comes out right out of the gates. And hey, you're mine. You're my people, I created you. Okay, so that's a really important thing. But it's more than that that I want to talk about tonight. God also speaks, and that's actually the whole theme of what I want to talk about tonight is the God who speaks, the God who speaks. He doesn't just create, he speaks it into existence right away. We said, and then God said, let there be light. If you keep going through that chapter and underline every time you see there. He said. And then he said, and then he spoke, you're going to find that ten times throughout this whole opening passage, you can't miss the repetition, intentional repetition, that God speaks these things into existence. Now you're like, did we bring this guy in? This seems like pretty low. Like, is this really too foundational kid, we're not in kindergarten. No. I want you to think about this with me. He didn't have to do that church. He didn't have to do that. He could have just created us and just watched and never had any communication with us. He could have easily done that. Right. We do that all the time with like an aquarium. Do you introduce yourself to your fish? No. Like you just throw them in there and then you just observe. You have no engagement with them. Like when I was growing up, we had these ant farms. Do these ant farms still. Or maybe they're just all people of my age, like no. Anyway, they were these kind of flat but vertical things with sand and you'd get ants and put them in there and they'd go, you know, God forbid your brother hit it with a baseball and, you know, sand everywhere and ants now all over. Mom's loved that stuff. Um, but but those got ant farms, aquariums, all those were forced for you just to watch. And it was super interesting. God could have created us and then just stepped back and just watched the whole thing and be entertained by us. But he doesn't, he'll end up speaking. He speaks all of us into existence and he's just going to keep speaking and speaking to us. And it's just phenomenal that we have a God, that we know who he is and that he he speaks. So that's what I want to really dive into. And the first way that I want us to consider this, the God who speaks is God speaks silently. That's my first point tonight. Sounds a little much like an enigma right there too, but know he speaks silently. Here's what I want you to do. If you've still got your Bible, go to Psalm nineteen. I don't know what you would have done with your Bible in the last few minutes, but if you've still got it, go ahead and go to Psalm nineteen with me. So when God created all things, um, Genesis one. He infused supernatural, divine magic into everything that he created such that these seemingly inanimate objects all around us in creation speak. It's magical. Great authors like C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. They bring this out a lot. That somehow creation itself speaks. It's silent, but it's. They speak. Psalm nineteen is is. It's all over. Throughout the Bible. Once you see it, you'll keep seeing it. But this is a classic passage. Psalm nineteen the heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands day after day. They're just pouring out speech. Don't you love that? It's not like every now and then. Oh, was that. Did I hear something? No, no, no, I'm just saying it's like a cacophony of words. It just keeps coming and coming. Day after day, they pour out speech. Night after night. They communicate knowledge. There is no speech. There are no words. Their voice is not heard. Their message has gone out to the whole earth and their words to the ends of the world. Now the very deliberate little enigma right here in this passage is, is what he's got all these words declaring, proclaiming, pouring out speech, communication. And then what does it say in verse three? Oh, there is no speech. Oh no, you just said that they. Oh no, there's no speech. But you just said there were words. Totally. There are no words. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is it's a weird, mysterious thing. But what he's trying to say is, oh, there's a message going out. No, it's not verbally with words, as we know words. But I am telling you, speech is going out and we have to tune in to be able to to receive it. Um, I was reading a little bit about George Washington Carver. Remember that? That historic figure late eighteen hundreds into the nineteen hundreds. Um, was the first black student at Iowa State University, I think at Simpson College also before that. But then I was it became the first black professor at Iowa State University before going on to teach in the rest of his career down in Alabama. But brilliant, deeply Christian guy. But he's he says this. I love to think of nature as unlimited broadcasting stations through which God speaks to us every day, every hour, and every moment of our lives. Now, this is really important. If we will only two in tune in and remain so you you have to tune in. Do you know how he got into science and botany and agriculture and all that? He was a painter at Simpson. He was a painter, and he loved painting flowers and botany. And his teacher said, you have such a fascination with plants. I think you should study plants. So I want you to have that in your mind as you read this quote, right? He's fascinated with creation, fascinated with things that grow so much so that he would save thousands and millions of lives with the way that he helped agriculture back in a time that was really neat. But here's what he's saying. Nature as this unlimited broadcasting station. But we've got to keep tuning our antenna to pick up those signals, otherwise we won't hear it right. Um, so I, man, I just, I love the way God keeps showing up in creation. This happened to me just this last spring. So, um, uh, we have this tulip tree in our yard. Well, I was unfamiliar with tulip trees. I'm really big into trees, but I had never had a tulip tree. Didn't know it. And in fact, the leaves, if you're familiar with those, their leaves are shaped like a tulip, kind of. And so I just thought, oh, that's why it's called a tulip tree. This is the brilliance of the man right here. Right. Oh, that's why they are okay, you guys, this I drive into my driveway and I look over and this thing is popping out of my tulip tree and I'm like, what is that? Right? Have you guys ever had a tulip tree? Do you know this? I look over this. So that's my wife's hand. Look how huge these big like Hawaiian flowers are all over this Iowa tulip tree. And I just get out and I'm like, what is happening? Because they have to get to like about twelve or fourteen years old before they start doing this. Okay. This is a big tree. It's a very mature tree. And then finally I started, I started laughing. I'm like, I wonder if that tree even knew that it was going to do that. You know what I mean? Like one day I was like, what? Like, you know, we're all having this moment together, this tree and me, like, look at that. Good for you. I know. What is it? You know, like it's crazy. Here's what I'm saying. Those things are happening all around us, these fascinating moments that God is just trying to scream out to us day after day and night after night. Right. And then I was reading through this, my Bible reading plan. I got to Exodus twenty eight. This is one of those chapters that you can sometimes go a little quick, a little detailed about stuff. He's describing the breastplate that goes on the priest, the high priest. But I started pausing because he's describing all these twelve jewels that go on this breast piece, lapis lazuli. You know, lapis lazuli is I didn't but I thought, what are these? This is fascinating. It is this I wish I had brought pictures, I didn't you're going to have to do this on your own. Not right now. Put your phones back. But later on, you can do this. But look up. This is this like deep blue rock, and it's got like gold flecks in it that you can see. It is the most brilliant, gorgeous blue. They call it the Stone of King's because it's just so dazzling. There's another, uh, stone, uh, or Jacinth or something like that. This one. Not this beautiful blue, but red. Fiery red. Sometimes an orangey like brilliant. Almost like there's a light inside it. Kind of red. Amethyst. Amethyst. It's like purple. This deep, gorgeous purple. What I'm saying is this. This whole thing had to be just like, dazzling. Like which? Which one do I want to focus on right now? But can you imagine if you were the dude that was the first one on the planet to find one of these? Like you're just in your backyard digging like a latrine for the family or whatever. You know what I mean? Just digging. And I was like, oh, what's that? Oh, you know, and you see one of these rocks all of a sudden just say purple or red. And it's fiery, you know, and you're like, I wonder, would you drop it and start like looking up to the heavens? Like, what? What kind of fascination would happen for the first guy that ever discovered one of these? Like dirt made this. Wait a minute. You know what I mean? I'm digging a latrine, and suddenly I'm finding this, like. Oh, my word. You know, that would end up dazzling the world and become ornaments and. We need to be more fascinated with creation, right? We need to look around and be like, God, how are you just screaming out things about yourself that I just keep walking around. So I'm just saying, look around. Shooting stars. Owls. We've got a neighborhood owl. I'm walking through the park and I heard it, you know, and I'm like, oh, I got a spot it because I got to send Eric a picture of this owl because we're all spotting it for each other. And the fact that a bird this size can hide in these trees with no leaves on them at all. Like I'm like, where is he at? I can't, you know, just get fascinated. A little baby's fingers. Just take a moment. Be like what? You know what I'm saying? Like in Psalm nineteen, he goes on just to talk about the sun. He goes, you know, I'm talking about all, all these beautiful things, but there's there's this sun. It's like it pitches a tent. It travels all the way over there. Just find one little aspect of creation. You get fascinated with it. The God that's out there is is speaking to us, actually. Do you look do you listen? Every time you find something new, do you say, oh, that's cool? Or do you be like, wow, Lord, how did you do that? It's amazing because if we're not listening, if we're not discovering, if not wowed, if we don't have those moments, then that's on you. That's on me. We're just suppressing the voice that's coming. It's like we're stopping our ears up because God is trying to get our attention in all these different ways. So listen, and then we'll move on from this. But I just feel like I want to reawaken this, maybe especially as you're fasting to be awakened, spiritually awakened to see this in this because God is not passive in this. He's active in trying to get your attention. Okay, one more bavinck quote because he just nails this point. Listen to this. With his eternal power and deity, he exerts pressure. I love that phrase right there. He exerts revelatory pressure upon humans both from without and from within. God confronts humans, right? This is a very active it's a very aggressive kind of thing that God's doing with the Christian. He confronts humans in the realm of nature as well as the realm of humankind in heart and conscience, both in adversity and prosperity, saying, every time you turn around where the good times or bad times, God is trying to snap you to attention, he's trying to awaken something. He's trying to confront you with his very presence. Right? So let's have that tuned in ear to hear the cacophony of words that are just declaring the glory of God. So I do have one bit of homework for you. All right, here's your first homework. Sometime in these next couple days, as you're fasting and as you're praying, just walk outside and ask God, just let me tune in. Who are you, Lord? How do I don't don't listen to a great sermon or even the Bible itself, whatever. Just for one act of your worship. Go for a walk and just say, God, what am I and just stop at one. It's a bird. It's a whatever it is that you find, you know, um, because he is aggressive, he's putting regulatory pressure on us to know that he's there. Okay, so God speaks silently, but also God speaks verbally. The God who speaks then ends up speaking verbally, picking it up in verse seven. Um, look what he says in Psalm nineteen. The instruction of the Lord is perfect, Renewing one's life. The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad. The command of the Lord is radiant. It makes the eyes light up. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever the ordinances of the Lord. They're reliable. They're all together righteous. They are more desirable than gold and abundance of pure gold. Sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. In addition, your servant is warned by them, and keeping them there is an abundant reward. Um, so here's the thing. As magnificent as creation is. God made it to be, you know, magical but intentionally inadequate. It's just to get our attention. It's just to let us know that he's there. And then he wants to actually use words, so it's really important. Let's keep our ears tuned, our spiritual ears tuned. But then he wants to use that creation to draw us in, to hear him speak now actual words. He's going to beckon us down a path to actually encounter the words of our creator. And that's where we find the instructions and the testimonies, etc.. By the way, maybe you've noticed this before, but in Psalm nineteen all the way through, he's talking about the heavens declare the glory of God. It's only about God, Elohim, God the Creator God. But then as soon as he switches over, starting verse seven to the God who speaks, he starts using Lord Yahweh, the God who has a relationship, the God who wants to talk to you so we can learn about Creator God from creation, right? But then when we want to really get to know him, he has to speak to us. And so now he becomes Yahweh. He's got a name. It's a really beautiful way that the Hebrew poem lays out. But but what's he do like with those instructions? Look at that in verse seven, he renews our life or in the ESV he revives us. Um, the idea that Hebrew word has the idea of like returning us. So imagine it's like we realize that we've been running away from this God and closing our ears to him. But the word comes as the instruction comes to us and it revives us. It renews us. It turns us back, shows us where to. How do I get back? How do I get back? I don't know, just by creation. But get the instructions. Come to us. We're like, okay, here's the way God teaches us how to take us by the hand and lead us back home, right? It makes us wise, right? The testimonies of the Lord making the inexperienced wise. Because before we get the Bible, before we get his words, we're inexperienced. We're we're gullible. We're naive. I am maybe one of the most. I bet I am the most gullible person in the room, And I'm not just exaggerating. I am clinically gullible. Like, I want to believe that's because I'm trusting. That's the positive way. But actually, no, I'm just gullible. Like you can fool me with it. I'm like, no way, dude. No, I didn't do whatever. You know, I'm just constantly getting. But by nature, I'm gullible. I'm naive. You know what God's word does? You know what his testimonies do. They make even the most gullible person wise because it's my creator teaching me what isn't inherent in me, what isn't natural for me. He teaches me. It changes me. I can actually become wise. Look at that. The the precepts of the Lord there, right? Making the heart glad, like rejoicing, right? I'm I'm right. You've straightened me. That's that idea that that the precepts of the Lord, they they're right. And so they like, man, I'm broken. I've got such a broken life. And he fixes me and sets me right and oh, it just makes me so glad, right? I'm. I'm happy. And then he. The commands. The Lord come and they're radiant. They make the eyes light up, you know. Isn't that um, it's so brilliant. It's just like I still remember when I first came to know Christ as a student up at Northern Iowa. And it was like everything I read, just everything. It was like I'd been looking at a puzzle and all the puzzle pieces were everywhere because I'd had some kind of churchy background. And all of a sudden, by reading the Bible, it all starts coming together and you just get excited, right? You're like, your eyes light up. You're like, no way. That's oh, that's great. You know, like it fascinates in your eyes light up because you're being taught we are changed. His words change us, right? That's what goes on. In fact, verse, verse eleven, we just read that these, these words, they come and they warn us, no bad path, bad path. And then they show us the way of reward. Because without those words, I'm stumbling down paths all over the place. I don't know. I don't know, right. But all of a sudden, oh, you're right, I shouldn't go down that path. Here's the path I should go. Okay, great. And there's a reward in it. Then the very last verse of the psalm. May the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart, be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock, my Redeemer. His word changes us. That all the stuff that we suspected was true because of just the cacophony of words coming at us from creation and. And now all of a sudden he really, truly reveals himself. Because now you're using words. Okay, God, now I truly understand you're you're giving, you're using words. And I get it. And all of a sudden it's just like everything changes. And he not only becomes our creator, our, our rock, but the very last word of that, of that Psalm, our Redeemer. He. He actually finds us in such a mess, so enslaved to all those times of just going my own way and listening to my own voice, naively believing everybody else is telling me blah, blah, blah. I'm just believing it. All right? And he clears all that up and redeems me, takes me out of that place of slavery to sin and darkness and sets my feet in a whole new world, gives me brand new life. Which is why the last part of this idea of the God who speaks. I want you to go way into your New Testament. Go to the book of John in John chapter one, because God speaks personally, he speaks silently. He does that. He speaks verbally. We love that. And now he speaks personally in Jesus. Look at the way that John the apostle John introduces us now to Jesus. I just love this so much. In the beginning was the word. So see how he's doing? He's mimicking Genesis one one, right? He wants the reader to have that echo in their mind. It's not, oh, we read Genesis one. Oh, now here it is. It's now he's introducing Jesus and he starts with those exact same words. In the beginning was the word again, very intentional, right? The words God is speaking is the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him. In fact, apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. I want to go actually to to verse fourteen. Let me read this one also because it's the whole thing is great. Let me skip to fourteen. The word became flesh. Okay, just. I feel like that's. You just got to take a breath and let that one sink in. The word God spoke. God said, let there be, let there be. God spoke. God spoke. Now the word incarnated. Became human. This is just absolutely mind blowing. Okay, the word that brought all things into existence became flesh and dwelt among us, started coming to us and talking to us, touching us, letting us touch him. We observed his glory. We got to see our own eyes, observed his glory, the glory of the one and only son from the father, full of grace and truth. Taking the most phenomenal supernatural event you've ever imagined in the history of the world. Stand before some outrageous waterfall or some, you know, northern lights, something that set you back on your heels and they all pale compared to the glory of the incarnation. The word became flesh. I've got one more quote for you this time not ink, but by R.C. Sproul, a guy who really has shaped my life so much. But R.C. Sproul says this a virgin birth was an impossibility according to the laws of nature. Yet the impossible was made possible by the power of God the Holy Spirit, the same spirit who came over the waters. Right. Genesis. When God spoke the words that led to the miracle of creation, like all that you saw in Genesis one now all coming together to bring us Jesus Christ, and he is full of grace and truth. He'll say that again in a couple verses. Grace and truth. Here's the thing, church, listen in and I hope as you're fasting and praying and opening your Bibles, that you will realize that Jesus, nobody knows you as well as Jesus Christ. Nobody also is willing to speak the truth to you like Jesus. He's not one of those friends that's just going to be like, oh, you're fine, Pat, pat, pat and let you go on your way. No, actually, Jesus is often going to stand in the road and just be like, hmm, actually, you're not taking another step until we have this conversation, right? He's full of truth. But nobody, nobody loves you so much that rather than just warn you about things or let you go on to your own, you know, destruction down near bad path. He's the only one that was powerful enough to actually say, but I'll take your place. You don't have any idea. I know I'm revealing some things that you now understand are bad. You're way worse off than you can even imagine. But it's full of truth as I am. And I'm going to speak truth to you. I am so full of grace. So later on in the book of Romans, we had. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. Whatever sin he reveals to you. Right on the heels are, oh yeah, I've got more than enough grace, right? It's like Psalm twenty three where your your cup is just overflowing, right? It's not just, oh, let me give you just enough, a little bit of an antidote. It's just, it's just pouring out all over. Right? Grace upon grace. Last passage I want us to look at is is in Hebrews, because this, I think in my mind, just really brings all of all of this together. Of Jesus being our Redeemer, right? The the promised one from the Psalms are our Redeemer. The word became incarnate. So Hebrews opens this way. Long ago, God spoke to the fathers by the prophets. Right? So he was the verbal God. He didn't just stay creator God. He used words. The. The verbal. God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times in different ways. But ah. But in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son. The word became human. He spoke to us by His son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. And then this remarkable sentence. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. This Jesus that you're wanting to grow, to get to know better over these next couple of days. The miracle of just the incarnation would have been enough to blow our minds. He himself made purification for your sins and then took his place on the throne. I hope that the glory of Jesus over these next couple of days brings you to your knees. Not in shame, but in deep gratitude. Right? Just. Oh, Jesus. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And then he picks you up, holds you your face in his hands, looks at you and says, yeah, so come on, follow me. Right. And just begins to teach you and reveal to you things that will blow your minds. But it all starts with the God who is there and speaks. Keep looking for him. Keep listening to just the creation, just you to know that he's there and all sorts of ways. The word man, keep this close by you. He wrote it all down, right? Everything he wanted you to know. There it is. He spoke to you. Take, take. Just wonder out of that. And then let let that lead you immediately to Jesus Christ and fall on your knees. Jesus. Thank you. Now teach me right. Alright, let's go to prayer together, church. Let's actually, let's do this. Let's stand up together. Okay? Jesus. Oh, I just feel like these, these words, some of them so familiar to us. I mean, Jesus, I, I even studied these things to give to these people. And as I'm standing here, I'm still in awe. I feel like I'm learning them for the first time. How powerful is your word? God, I just want to say thank you for introducing yourself to us. We wouldn't have found you. We weren't even looking for you. You came for us. You have revealed yourself. Over these next couple of days, we want to grow in our understanding of all that you are, Lord. Because it's just like some incredible mountain vista. Like we get to that next. Oh, this is so beautiful. Until we get to the next spot and it's more beautiful. The next spot. It's even more beautiful. Lord, we just want to grow. We just. Wherever we're at, we just want to be kind of breathless with wonder at who you are. So, Jesus, thank you that when you found us. Uh, the reason that we needed purification for sins is because we were filthy with sin, and you loved us still. So. Jesus. Thank you for grace upon grace. Continue to reveal your truth and take us back to grace. And then more truth and more grace. And just be full of grace and truth for us as we make this journey together now. May this place just rock with worship because you deserve it, Lord. We love you. Pray in your name. Amen.