Character Matters

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Amen.

Amen.

Pray with me if you would.

God, thank you that you've brought us back to life.

And this idea of saying two words, thank and use, seems so inadequate.

And sometimes we'll erroneously say that's all we have to give, but no, it's not.

It's got the full life to give you that you bought.

So, God, let us confess with our mouths.

Let us live with our lives that say, thank you.

We love you.

We are yours.

So do in and through us what you want to.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you would move in this place today, be active individually and corporately.

As we hear from you, God, as we hear from your word, Jesus says we better understand who you are and what you've called us to, because you've brought us back to life.

Thank you for that.

I ask all this in your name.

Amen.

Well, good morning.

My name is Wade Burgess.

I'm the executive pastor here, and our lead pastor, Neil McClendon, is uh allegedly out sick this morning.

And so uh it's uh it's been a little bit of a full morning, if you'll let me get this off my chest for just a second.

It's been a bit of a full morning.

Usually every Sunday morning there's a you know things going on, turn on the building, get stuff going, and all that.

Today had a couple of little added features.

One was we found a car in the detention pond out back.

And so if you're driving a white Mazda SUV crossover and you can't remember where you parked it, we'd like to see you right after this service.

Uh yeah, we've got that and baptism and all kinds of things happening, but we also have the word of God that's going to be preached this morning.

Amen.

And so uh I want us to have a little bit of a mutual agreement, since neither one of us thought that I'd be up here as of about 15 hours ago.

I want us to agree to a couple of things.

Number one, I want us to have a high expectation of the Holy Spirit this morning.

And number two, I want you to guard yourself against hearing this familiar story and a familiar character, and you kind of tuning out saying, Oh man, I know about all that.

I've heard that, I've heard that preached about three times better than you'll do, all of that.

I want to challenge you to let God maybe reaffirm some things in you related to this familiar story, or maybe show you some new things.

And for those that may not be as familiar with their the Bible or, hey, this isn't familiar to me, I'm not sure about that.

My prayer for you is that the word would sink deep inside of you, plant roots, germinate, and come to a full life because of our time together.

So if you'll agree to that and we'll understand each other, let's dig into today's sermon entitled Character Matters.

I want you to take your Bible or devices or give your attention to the screens as these words will come up behind me.

It's Genesis chapter six.

Now, let me warn you, we're going to uh read about three different sections here, and I'm doing that uh obviously because of time, and uh you you'll you'll follow along in the story.

I'll fill in some gaps here that we won't necessarily read together, but we're going to take a peek at God's character through this, and we're going to look at godly character, because character does matter.

We're going to do this by way of Noah, and I want you to keep kind of two overarching themes in mind this morning as we read through this and as I talk to you about some different points I think we can take from this scripture.

Uh, one is that what God calls you to may not always make sense.

What God calls you to may not always make sense.

And number two, the world will rarely be in agreement with it.

In fact, it may never be in agreement with it, and we still have to say yes.

So let me read, bear with me as we kind of skip forward, but I'll guide you through that.

But let's start in Genesis chapter six.

This is verses five through fourteen.

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

So the Lord said, I'll wipe mankind whom I've created from the face of the earth, men and animals and creatures that move along the ground and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made them.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

This is the account of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.

God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

So God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.

I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

So make yourself an ark of cypress wood, make rooms in it, and coat it with pitch inside and out.

Now, God then gives some very detailed instructions as to how Noah's going to go about that.

Let's pick up in verse 17.

This is God talking, and he says, I'm going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has breath of life in it, everything on earth will perish.

But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark, you and your sons, and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.

You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

All right, turn a couple of pages over now.

Now we're in chapter eight.

Now here's what's happened.

The flood has come.

And the Bible says it rains for 40 days and 40 nights.

In fact, I think it uh at the end of chapter seven, it says the waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

So now we fast forward.

If you know the story, you know that the rain has stopped for a while, and Noah sends out a raven, kind of hoping that this raven's going to give some kind of indication that the waters have uh decreased a little bit, at least gone down enough for a branch or two.

The raven comes back and he knows, uh-oh, we're still in trouble.

And so they wait longer.

He sends out a dove.

The dove brings back an olive branch, and Noah knows, oh, good, the waters are receding.

We're starting to get some some relief.

We should be out of here soon because it stinks.

And he sends out a dove another time, and the dove doesn't come back, which means to Noah, hey, he found a resting place, found a nesting, a home.

We're gonna be okay.

And so God, uh, in a sense, taps on the door of the ark and says, Noah, it's time to come out.

Everything is dried up, everything is ready for you and your family to inhabit the earth again.

And so we pick up on chapter eight.

This is starting in verse 20.

Noah exits the ark and he it reads this.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart, Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.

And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

So, what are we dealing with here?

Look, God's people, what's happening right now is God gave some very specific instructions as he's apt to do.

And he says, I do not want you marrying ungodly people.

And they said, Yeah, but these girls look good.

And so they start intermarrying with ungodly folk.

And here's what happens, by the way, and listen, you're gonna get a ton.

This is what you get when I prepare for three hours.

You get a ton of extra, a ton of land yap today.

One footnote about that is the Bible says, don't be unequally yoked.

Here's the crazy thing.

Rarely does the one doing right get to influence the one doing wrong.

Those of you that said amen know what I'm talking about.

And so also what we've got is these people have gone against God to the point that God has put a cap on their longevity.

You can read this later today for yourself.

But people were living a really long time, and God said, You know what?

I'm kind of sick and tired of y'all living that long.

I am going to put a cap on how long you're gonna be around because I don't know if I can put up with you for that long.

And then they kept going on and on, not doing the things God called them to.

And God said, Okay, you know what?

We're gonna start all over.

We're gonna pull the big flush handle on this thing, and we're gonna start all over again.

And look, God was so serious, even the animals got it.

Okay?

Now, I have two theories about this.

I didn't look it up, but this is my two theories.

See what you think.

Number one, my guess is some of the animals were being used for the evil that people were doing.

And so God said, we're just gonna start all over.

But also, I think the second thought, and this may be more prevalent, is have you ever put together something, maybe a Lego set with your kids or something like that?

And you were gonna move it maybe to a larger table.

And somehow it fell and a lot of it got destroyed, but not all of it.

And you're like, you know what?

Just forget it.

We'll just break this thing up.

I'm gonna just start all over.

Is it just my neighbor that's done that?

Okay.

Um, and so that's how I think God was feeling.

He said, you know what?

We're not we we are gonna start from the very beginning, all over again, is what I'm going to do.

Now it's interesting that this idea of a flood, the rain, there are some biblical scholars that believe this was the first time that rain had ever fallen on the earth.

There are some scholars that say actually, no rain came before Adam and Eve sinned, before the fall.

Uh, the idea was that there was some underground springs, there was mist, there was different ways that uh the earth got watered, but really and truly, this was the first rain people uh were ever experiencing.

Now, I I don't know if you should believe that or not.

That's not gonna change what we're gonna talk about today, but here's what I'll tell you.

Whether you believe that or not, you go and tell your community that you are going to build a boat big enough to handle 1,300 shipping containers.

And then you're gonna tell them the reason you're doing it is because God's gonna flood the world.

And oh, he's only saving me and my family.

So nanny nanny boo-boo, this is what we're doing.

I don't care if you've heard of rain or not, you are gonna think this is the craziest idea I have ever come across.

And that's what Noah and his family dealt with.

So, sin is abounding, so much sin God's fed up.

It should sound familiar to our world today.

If in my opinion, you should be reading the Old Testament as much as you are the new.

Why?

It's not because it's a great history book about what God was doing, but I think it is great insight into God's character.

And it's the same God then as it is today.

What we're seeing is different facets when we read the New Testament, which is great.

Jesus didn't come as a uh, you know, kind of a friendly uncle or something else that God sent, he just came as different facets of that character that God displays.

And the Old Testament tells us you keep jacking around with God, and you're going to get the world pulled over and whipped pretty badly.

And so that's exactly what he does.

So let's take a look at this idea of God's character.

Let's drill down just a little bit.

And the first thing I want to point out to you is that God is more concerned about people's hearts than he is creation.

Chapter 6, verse 7.

So the Lord said, I will wipe mankind whom I've created from the face of the earth, men, animals, creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air, for I'm grieved that I've made them.

In summary, God was willing to do anything to be sure of his law got adhered to, and his glory got shown.

Here's a uh maybe just a little quick note, but very impactful to history.

You know he did the same thing by sending his son, right?

He said, I care so much about people's hearts more than I do creation.

I'm gonna kill my one and only to be sure that they're saved.

And so God cares more about people's hearts than he does creation.

The second thing we see about God's character is it's attention to detail.

Now, chapter 6, 15 through about 23, we didn't read all of that, but God gives some real specific details as to how he wants Noah to go about this task, how to build it, the animals, the food, the passenger list.

I mean, he's given them all these details for Noah to follow.

Now, why would that matter?

Well, I think it's because some of us believe that our problems are just too small for God.

God's not involved in those details.

Why would he pay attention to the details?

Because it's in his character to do so.

And if you wait to pray just for the big stuff that happens, then you're not going to have the intimacy necessary for you and God to have the relationship he desires of you.

Here's what I mean.

If you had a really good friend and all y'all did was talk about the big stuff that came up, y'all probably wouldn't talk very often.

If you're talking about details, then that means you're talking to God all the time.

Exactly what the Bible instructs us to do: be in constant prayer.

And so God is about details.

He wants to hear your details because he already knows them.

And he wants you to communicate with him in such a way that he is not one that just kind of flicked the world and set it spinning and then walked away asleep at the switch.

Your problems are not too small for God to listen, to be bothered by them and to be engaged with them.

The third thing we see about God's character is that he keeps his word.

This is chapter six, verse 18.

He says, But I will establish my covenant with you, meaning Noah, and you will enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you.

Now, this is the first place in the Bible where we actually see covenant, where God is making a promise to someone.

This idea that this covenant is God is, in a sense, giving his oath to something.

And if he keeps his word, absolutely, we get to see it throughout Noah.

Why do we do that?

Because he says, the covenant I'm going to make with you is I'm starting all over, and every person after this will come from your bloodline.

It stands to reason.

If the world gets wiped out, Noah's the only one left, he and his family, all of us, somewhere way back, are descendants of Noah.

And so God's keeping his word.

Uh, he also keeps his word by saying at the end of chapter 8, I won't destroy the earth the way I did this time.

Now, I will tell you, we have given him every excuse to do so.

But he keeps his word and he says, Yeah, I'm not gonna do that.

He also is willing to demonstrate his power.

Chapter 8, verse 21.

The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart, Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood, and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

See, God's willing to demonstrate his power, and his biggest power might be restraint.

It's one thing for you to go off on someone and show how big and bad you are.

It's another thing for you to hold back and not do it.

And for me personally, sometimes the second one is a little bit easier.

Well, depending on how big they are, but that idea of showing restraint.

Did you get this?

God has said, these people are so evil that I am flushing the whole world and starting over.

You got it?

World got flushed, got the ark, it lands, Noah comes out.

And God says this.

Now listen, he says, Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.

He didn't say every inclination was evil, those people were evil.

He's saying, I know it's happening right now in Noah going forward.

What do I mean?

Every sense, Adam and Eve sinned, every one of us is born with that sin nature.

We can't get away from it.

We cannot get free from that without Jesus' blood and the salvation that he brings because of it.

And so God is saying right here to us, hey folks, I'm gonna demonstrate some power to you by restraining myself because I know what I just got through doing isn't gonna change their hearts, probably one iota.

And so this idea of restraint, he sends a message of power, absolutely, destroying the world.

And his position on sin doesn't change.

His position on insisting on his glory doesn't change, but he does demonstrate restraint, and I think that is demonstrating his power.

Then the fifth thing that we see about God's character is he rarely works alone.

Look, God could have made a boat and said, Hey, Noah, get in.

We're going somewhere.

He could have, I don't know, magically kept them.

I I don't know what he would have done different.

But here's the thing: God is so good and he's so powerful, and he's so all-knowing, and he's everywhere.

You know what he does?

He lets us participate in what he's doing.

He doesn't act alone on a lot of occasions, and he was allowing Noah to participate in what would save him.

He was allowing Noah to participate in what would save him.

Kind of two big S words, salvation and sanctification.

God's doing the same thing right now.

He's saying, I gave you a means through my son Jesus, if you will believe in him, as those two testified this morning through baptism said, I've made Jesus Lord of my life.

I said yes to that invitation, that's salvation.

And then sanctification is becoming more and more like Christ.

He let Noah participate in that, and God's still doing that today for every one of us.

He's saying, I called you to salvation, and now you get to participate in your sanctification.

He doesn't work alone.

Now, get it right, he doesn't need us to accomplish his will, right?

He could certainly do it without us, but it's the privilege of him allowing us to play an active role in what he's doing.

Now, let me give you just a few comments on Noah.

And I think by doing so, um, we're gonna see some attributes of a godly character.

So we saw God's character.

Now let's take a look at some godly character.

Uh, number one, Noah is about 500 years old when our story begins.

Chapter 5, verse 32 tells us that.

Now, some people will argue, well, was it really 500?

I mean, isn't that like it was something?

It doesn't matter.

Just go with 500, okay?

500 years old, all right?

This is when God calls him to build the ark.

Now, here's what we'll see, and you'll see why I said 500.

Just put a placeholder in that for just a second.

But this godly character that we see out of Noah, number one, is he had favor with God.

Chapter 6, verse 8 says it right there.

It says, This is the account of Noah, Noah's righteous, a man blameless among the people of his time.

He walked with God.

So he had favor with God.

He was righteous and blameless, and he walked with him.

Absolutely.

Now, I want us to be sure we understand blameless does not mean sinless.

If it did, why would God say, Well, I know that man's heart is inclined toward evil all the time from childhood?

He would have said, Oh, except for Noah.

That wasn't the case at all.

Noah was just as much born into sin after the fall as we are.

So, how could the Bible use this term blameless to do that?

I don't think it means that he didn't sin.

Here's what I believe it means that he kept short accounts with God.

He was often confessing, and he was constantly remaining focused on God.

By the way, it's the same things we can do.

Sometimes we'll find ourselves looking at these four fathers of faith and we'll look back and go, man, I don't know if I can do that.

Really?

Keep short accounts, confess often, pray always, read your Bible.

How about just those things?

See, the impossible that we look at and go, Whoa, I don't know if I could.

Oh, it's absolutely possible for us.

And so godly character involves a favor with God.

How do we get it?

We say yes to his invitation, then we live the way he wants us to.

We walk with him by an increased intimacy.

Speaking of that intimacy came before the calling.

See, Noah wasn't running around being evil, and God goes, Hey Noah, I'd like you to build an ark.

You know, I think I will.

I think that's a great idea.

And God, while I build it, you and I'll probably get to know each other.

That isn't how it happened.

God already had an intimate relationship with Noah, and Noah was already intimate with God.

So therefore, when God called him, Noah, what was the word he was gonna say, but yes.

So intimacy often will come before the calling.

He was already a man.

Of God before being called by God.

I believe that's a great note for us is that we do not need to wait for God to reveal the full plan before we say yes.

You know, a lot of times we'll think to ourselves, you know what, if I win the lottery, that's when I'm going to be generous.

I mean, if God would just make me a super athlete, this would be awesome.

And instead, God is saying, hey, why don't you just use what I've given you?

Is that not enough?

Are you telling me you need all that much more for you to do what I've called you to?

Every one of you I've called to where you are.

Why don't you then respond accordingly?

So intimacy will come before the calling.

So if you're wondering, how come God hadn't called me?

How come he doesn't use me more?

Maybe you ought to get to know him more and see what he's up to.

And then finally, godly character includes a long obedience in the same direction.

Now remember, I told you put a little placeholder in that our story began with Noah being 500 years old.

Noah stuck with an assignment.

That's an understatement of the year right there.

He was 600 when the flood happened.

Chapter 7 tells us that it was a hundred years of working on one assignment.

100 years.

I give up praying after a week.

I'm like, well, if it's not your will, God, I guess I'll just move on to something else.

There's a lady in our in our church, probably you've heard this story, but she prayed for her husband's salvation for 40 years.

Now, at 20 years, she probably thought about stopping, going, Well, God, you know my heart.

It's a great prayer.

I'm going to leave it to you.

I don't want to nag.

But I know her, and I know what she said was, I'm going to be that persistent, constant asking God, please, would you answer this prayer for me?

By the way, do you think she got to 40 and her husband said yes to Jesus?

And then she went, I'm glad I didn't stop at 39.

Noah didn't stop until it was done.

A hundred years he was at the same assignment.

Now I also like to think of Noah doing this.

You know, he was doing the same day-to-day task as he always had been.

He wasn't able to dismiss his wife or not keep raising his kids because, well, I got to work on the ark, honey.

I mean, you know, that's what I got to do.

So if you'll get dinner ready, I've got to work on the ark.

I promise you, he was still being a husband and a dad.

He was still demonstrating day to day and the assignment he was carrying out.

And so a lot of us will get tangled up in, well, God hadn't called me to anything yet.

He's called you to life.

I think we just sang that.

He's called you to live in certain ways that you demonstrate in everything you do, the way you speak, and the way you act, the way you think.

Everything we do demonstrates our faith.

And so Noah is a great reminder.

We just need a long obedience in the same direction.

And it probably won't be a hundred years, but it will be a consistent demonstration of what God is doing in us.

So you're never too old to be consequential.

If you can't get out and visit people, you could write letters.

If you can't write letters, you could call and say, I'm praying for you.

You know what that looks like.

Even if you're 50 and you've made 1,500 mistakes, I would tell you, you are never too late for God to forgive you, and you've never outsend his grace.

I brought a quote.

This is from an author and preacher Paul David Tripp.

You've maybe heard of his name.

He he wrote a uh a daily devotional called New Morning Mercies.

And I really like it.

I highly recommend it.

But this is from, and this is, by the way, God's a great orchestrator.

If you don't believe that, just you know, stop by and see me sometime, and I'll tell you about the 1500 ways he's done that for me.

God's a great orchestrator.

I didn't know I'd be preaching today.

And then I opened up this book yesterday and it had this in it.

Now you could say, well, that's just lazy.

And I would say, This is God's ordination.

Here's the quote that uh Paul Tripp wrote.

It said, God knew that my need as a sinner was so great that it was not enough for him to just forgive me.

He had to come and live inside me, or I would not be what I had been recreated to be, or do what I'd been reborn to do.

If Noah was daily walking and talking with God, blameless and righteous, then it stands to reason Noah knew that it would bode well to put his full trust in God.

See, Noah was in a culture that didn't believe at all.

Now, you know this, there is a big difference between believing he exists and believing him, meaning taking him at his word.

I bet if you polled people right now and said, Do you believe there's a God?

They would say, Yeah, yeah, I believe there's a God, maybe it's a little G, or yeah, I believe in God, a big G.

But then if you ask them, well, what's your take on Jesus?

Well, now we've moved from, I believe that sounds good, to you've actually now asked me to do something.

Because if I say, No, I don't believe in Jesus, I'm hanging out.

And if I say yes, I do, then it's gonna cause me to have to do something, or my destination is hell.

See, Noah was able to demonstrate his faith, a belief in.

He believed in God.

He had intimacy with him, but also his faithfulness, which is obedience, which really is a result of his faith.

He believed in God and he believed God.

When God said, build this, he's like, Yes, I will, because I not only believe in you, I believe in your existence, I believe in your everlasting, I believe in your power, I'll also take you at your word.

So faith will produce obedience, and that obedience produced testimony in Noah, and it produces our testimony today.

Now, some of you right now are thinking, you know, this is a neat story.

I really liked it.

And that's all pretty good.

And uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can connect the dots, God, Noah, what all happened.

What does this mean to me?

How do you bring this down to where I live?

What about this application for me?

Uh, I mean, if God told me to build a big boat, I'd probably go do it.

In fact, I think God's telling me to buy a bass boat.

And so it's something like Noah.

I'm not sure that is how it works, but I would respond to you this way.

What saved Noah did not insulate him from ridicule, from probably questioning and doubting a little bit from time to time.

It didn't save him from hard work or explaining his faith.

100 years of building.

He was still doing the day-to-day, he was still doing just what God called him to.

He was still living out a testimony that his faith and therefore obedience produced.

Each one of us, once God has revealed and issues that invitation to us, and we say yes, we still are living out what God calls us to from the minute he calls us.

And what does he call us to?

Well, it's two very simple things to love him and to love others.

Throughout the Bible, we keep seeing that over and over.

Jesus even said it.

Oh, yeah, the greatest two.

Just love God and love others.

See, that evil world is all around us.

We know that.

And it's demonstrating itself in a variety of ways.

And I we are becoming more and more the minority if we're saying, yes, we believe in the big G God and we believe him and take him at his word.

So you're thinking, well, what do I do then?

How so is it imperative for me to live out this faith that you're talking about?

I would tell you you can do it simply by going to the grocery store and buying somebody's groceries and just saying, hey, God hadn't forgotten about you.

Or when you go to work on Monday and a coworker might be talking about overindulging this past weekend, you say, Hey, whatever that is you're looking for, it can only be found in one source.

It doesn't have to be scripted.

You just have to live it out.

You get ridiculed at school for not going along to get along.

There's going to come a day when you get to say, you know what?

I believe more in than I believe in you.

I believe more in God.

I believe more in the faith I have in him.

I believe more in his word than I do anything else.

Acceptance, an idol of the heart.

Power, an idol of the heart.

Comfort, an idol of the heart.

Any of those things pale in comparison to the one that should be the real God of our heart.

So I would say to you that Jesus is that second Noah.

He's calling you.

And when he does, you answer because he wants to provide not only a shelter from those storms and rain and flooding and ridicule and all of that, but he also wants to be a refuge of sustainability as you draw closer to him and intimacy with him.

Godly character and God's character come together.

Let me pray.

God, thank you that you don't hide out and we have to look hard for you.

Thank you that you make yourself known.

Thank you that you invite us into a relationship with you, into an intimacy with you.

You demonstrate your character.

Oh, and those character aspects are never at odds with each other.

You can hate and love, you can discipline and correct.

You can wipe out the world, and you're still gonna be right and holy.

Thank you for that.

God, I pray that you would bolster us in this world that needs more and more reminders that you are on your throne.

God, let us live like that, pointing to you, to your goodness, to your grace, and to your glory.

It's in your name I pray this, Jesus.

Amen.

As is our custom, we give you some questions to consider both today and throughout this week.

We call it mental worship.

Take just a couple of minutes.

These are easy, not very many.

Consider these while Clyde plays or maybe sings over us.

Well, thank you always for your attendance and attention this morning.

Speaking of attention, I'd ask that you loan some of that to these screens behind me as we give you an update on what's going on in the life of our church.

We do that through our website, our church app, emails, and these announcements.

So take a look.

Here's what's happening at Grand Park Way Baptist Church.

Fellowship and a meal will be served from 5.30 to 6 o'clock p.m.

and the meeting will conclude at 7 o'clock p.m.

Regeneration is a biblically based discipleship program that offers healing, recovery, and freedom from any type of struggle.

If you have any questions, please contact our Connections pastor, Travis Dunham, at Travis at Grandparkway.org or visit our website.

God is at work among the nations and at Grand Parkway.

We're eager to be a part of his mission.

We invite you to join us for an informational meeting today at 5 p.m.

in the Fellowship Hall to learn how you can serve alongside our partners in Romania and France this year.

This is a unique opportunity to make a meaningful impact and be a part of what God is doing globally.

For more details and to register, please visit the missions tab on our website or scan the QR code.

It's not too late to register for midweek.

The women's only study starts on Tuesday, January 14th, and Wednesday, January 15th for everyone else.

Explore our website to find the class that's perfect for you, and don't forget to sign up for the Midweek meal.

We can't wait to see you and your family there.

Calling all adults 60 and over, join us next Thursday, January 23rd at 1030 a.m.

for a delicious lunch and meaningful connections.

At Grand Parkway, we celebrate your wisdom and experience because you're still in the game and making an impact.

So come and bring friends for a day full of fun, fellowship, and inspiration.

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

James 127.

We're excited to invite you to a special screening of The Sign of Hope, the story of Possum Trot, on January 25th at 3 p.m.

here at Grand Parkway.

This inspirational true story shares how one family's obedience to care for orphans sparked a powerful movement within their church community.

In partnership with the Sanctuary Foster Care, our new missions partner, we're offering this event for free as part of our shared commitment to support vulnerable children and families.

Representatives from the Sanctuary will be present at the screening and will also be available January 26th in the Mission Center and again on February 9th for an informational session.

While not everyone is called to be a foster parent, everyone can do something.

For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.

If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

All right, that was a lot.

I won't try to recap, but I'll just randomly mention a couple of things.

First, men, if that regen invitation just kind of pinged something in you, please don't let the enemy, your pride or anything else keep you from going to that.

We have seen a lot of success come from that program.

And so uh you would do well to attend that.

Midweeks, just as you heard, they're coming up Tuesday and Wednesday.

I highly recommend the parenting class because uh it is going to be a little different than maybe what you've seen before, but I promise you, Tuesday morning for women and Wednesday night for all adults, kids, and students are gonna be well worth it as they usually are.

Uh finally, you saw that informational meeting for missions happening today at five, right over here in our adult building in the fellowship hall.

I wanted to give you a little bit of uh maybe pull back the curtain on Romania.

I want to show you some pictures now.

This comes from our Romania uh mission uh Avidiu and his wife and Daniel, kind of the uh guy boots on the ground, are these folks right now.

Now, Romania has been a mission partner of ours for a long time.

And you see that what they're building or reconstructing here, kind of redoing, is a house of prayer.

Something that Avidiu has had in his heart for a long time, and this structure is going to provide a real haven for the Romanian people in that area to do so.

And the reason we wanted to bring that up in such detail was when you give to this church, it is not just for us to expand our campus, which we plan to do perhaps, and you'll hear more about that next week, but it also is first and foremost expanding the kingdom.

And so that's why we wanted to show you some of those.

So if today is a day that you worship through giving, you can do that through any of the wooden boxes as you make your way out.

Speaking of way out, before you leave, text welcome if you're new.

We'd love to get to know you.

Tell us how we can pastor you, and uh, you can do that on that number that's on the screen.

Let's stand to our feet and be dismissed with a blessing.

May the God of Noah sustain you in the details in the flooding of life, when all around you is crashing down.

May you say, My God is a good God, and He is always in charge.

So go out and live like it in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

You're dismissed.