Dealing With Conflict: God Can Use Evil for Good

Well, Father God, we are thankful to be here again, Lord, just so thankful to be a part

of your family and part of your kingdom and a part of the church.

Lord, as we come together this morning, Lord, what a privilege it is to celebrate the birth of new

babies and to think about the future and what they hold. Lord, we also live in the here and the now.

And Lord, there's people in this room right now who are making decisions in their life dealing

with things, dealing with circumstances, and we're just trying to figure it out, trying to figure out

where they are with you, trying to figure out how to just live and to just be. But Jesus, we ask you

this morning to speak to our hearts and remind us that every person in this room, Lord, you died

for us. Lord, you sacrificed yourself for us and God, you have a plan for us. And you never intended

for us to wander through this life aimlessly or to just spend our entire life focusing on

ourselves and what we can accomplish and what we can do. But God, you have a plan. You created us,

informed us in our mother's womb, and Lord, you know who you have created us to be. So this

morning, I pray that for every man and woman and child that you would help us to come to the

point in our lives where we are willing and ready to just surrender to you and allow you to speak

into who we are. Speak to our hearts and Lord, help us to be willing to let you change us and

shape us and mold us. Father, we need you today. Lord, even if we've already been saved and even

if we are walking in fellowship with you, Lord, we need a new work today. We need you to do new

things in our life and speak to us in new ways. We need our cup to run over so that we are filled

with you and not with things of the world. Father, we pray for all of our shut-ins or to

all the people on our prayer request sheet. Lord, we just ask that you would touch them as we have

physical and spiritual and emotional needs. And I got a text this morning from Angel and her

aunt just passed away. So Lord, we just pray for her dealing with that loss right now. Father,

I just pray that you would speak into our hearts and help us today to find strength in you.

And Lord, as we break up in your word and we look at what you have for us this morning,

I pray that you would speak powerfully and that we would be receptive of what you have to say.

Jesus, we love you. We thank you and we pray all this in your precious and holy name. And all God's

people said, amen, you may be seated. But we've been talking about dealing with conflict.

Tell me if you'll turn me down just a little bit. We're in week four of the series of dealing with

conflict. We've been tracking through this very simple passage in Acts 15 verses 36 through 41.

Acts 15:36–41

So if you have your Bibles and you want to turn there, that's where we're going to be again. It'll

be on the screen as always. But we've been dealing with this very sharp conflict between Paul and

Barnabas. And so far, we've talked about how conflict is unavoidable, even if you're Christians.

Even Christian mature, healthy Christian leaders are going to have conflict with one another at times.

We talked about how conflict should be kept private within reason, as you're able,

as the scripture calls us to deal with it. And then we talked about how we should be faithful

during conflict. We should continue to be faithful during that time. Now, today's our

last message. We're going to talk about how God can use evil for good. So there's a little bit

of tendency, the probability of evil to take place in this passage is really high. And so

a lot of times things don't necessarily start out as evil, but sometimes we can allow evil to set

in and take over and things can fester. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that

and how God can use evil for good. And this is one of the, this is one of the hardest things

that we deal with as Christians. Okay. When you talk to people who aren't Christians,

one of the things they'll always ask is, well, how can such a good God allowed so many

bad things to happen? And sometimes even as Christians, when we ask ourselves that question,

we don't always have a really good answer for it. We sometimes can understand it better than others,

but we struggle with that. So as believers this morning, as we start this message and we track

through the scriptures and we track through these different things, the biggest thing to

remember is, is that we serve a good God. We have to remind ourselves that because there's

a lot of evil in the world and there's a lot of bad in the world, but we serve a good God.

He is a good and He is perfect. And we got to remind ourselves of that.

Okay. So this is one of those things as you have to sit back and Ms. Linda talked about,

she didn't always do good. Trust Him that God had it, but God had it, right?

And so in the midst of our lives, it's not always easy to remember that God is good and

He's perfect, but we have to remind ourselves of that in situations because that will greatly affect

how we act and respond in situations with conflict. And when things come our way,

they aren't necessarily pleasant. And because God is good and perfect, it's a wonderful privilege

to serve a God who is good and perfect. We have to remind ourselves of that. And the biggest

reason why that's good for us is, is because we know that we are not good and perfect.

If you listen to Ms. Edith this morning, who stood up, she said, you know, so there are sometimes

that she fails God, but she's able to go back and she's able to ask for forgiveness. Even though

we are not good and perfect, God is good and perfect. And God can still use us no matter what

we do to do good things for Him. And that's a wonderful privilege to be a part of that no

matter what we've done, no matter how much we've sinned, no matter what wrong we've done in our life,

God can still use us to do His will and to bring good things not only in our lives,

but through our lives. That's important. And we need to remind ourselves of that. So

Acts 15, 36 through 41, let's read the passage once again. It says, after some time,

Paul said to Barnabas, let's go back and visit each city where we previously preached the word

of the Lord to see how the new believers are doing. Barnabas agreed and wanted to take

along John Mark, but Paul disagreed strongly since John Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia

and had not continued with them in their work. Their disagreement was so sharp that they

separated. Barnabas took John Mark with him and sailed for Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas as

they left the believers and entrusted him to the Lord's gracious care. And then they traveled

throughout Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there. So if you're taking notes this

morning, point number one, before every point you need to write down, God can use. And then point

number one is discouragement to bring about passion. So God can use discouragement to bring

about passion. Now, a lot of times we can get very discouraged when there are disagreements

or someone offends us or something has taken place. You see this a lot inside the church,

especially with people who are kind of on the fringes. Let's just say you're young.

Let's just say you're a new Christian. And we've talked about this over the past few weeks.

You're a new Christian. And you would think that coming into a church, there would not

be disagreements and there would not be fighting or quarreling or anything like that. But when

you read the New Testament, the fighting and the quarreling and the disagreements and stuff

has been happening ever since the church began because the church is made up of people

and people are not perfect. And we have issues that we have to work through.

And the whole New Testament, all the epistles are written specifically dealing with

these conflicts and disagreements and how we should proceed and move forward and work on

unity with one another in the midst of all these things. And so it can be really discouraging

as a young believer or a young person to say, well, church is no different than anywhere else

because people are disagreeing there and they're arguing or they're fighting or

you know, you know, we express things, how we're not happy with things or we would prefer

things or, you know, blah, blah, blah. We have to be careful in our lives

as you walk with Christ, no matter how spiritually mature you are, or maybe immature you are,

no matter how new of a Christian you are, how old of a Christian you are.

Because you might get to this point where you might be saved for 50 years and you're

kind of feel like you're on the other side and you're working your way out and

you're like, well, I've been saved for 50 years and I've been a part of the church for 50 years

and it still seems like it's the same. It's okay because the church has existed for 2000 years

and so much of what we read in scripture that was written for these early churches is still very

applicable today, isn't it? It's been happening a lot longer than we've been a part of it

and it will still be happening a lot longer after we've been a part of it.

No matter how faithful we are, no matter how much we try, no matter how good we do at this thing,

the church is still going to be made up of people and there are going to be times of

discouragement, there's going to be times of division, there's going to be times of

conflict that we're going to have to deal with, but we have to remind ourselves this morning,

number one, that we serve a good and perfect God, right? And God can use discouraging things

to bring about passion. He can use these times that are a struggle that are frustrating to bring

about a passion in our lives for him and if you look at these two godly men, Paul and Barnabas,

who were great leaders of the church, who disagreed sharply, the opportunity for Satan

to come in and to bring about discouragement through this disagreement was great. I mean,

it was a great opportunity for Satan to come in and try to bring about division and discouragement

and to bring about an issue, but thankfully these two men handled it really well. They

couldn't come to an agreement on what was happening, so they decided to part ways and

that may not necessarily always be the right answer, but in this one, I think it was the right answer

and I think they did handle it very well. And so in the midst of this disagreement,

it brings about passion and it brings about the opportunity for more work to be done as the two

split up and went in totally different directions. The results of this sharp disagreement were that

the gospel, instead of going in one direction with two great men, went in two directions with

two great men. And not only did Paul recruit some new people to go with him, but John Mark was given

a second chance to go back and try again the grace and the mercy to be able to have that second

opportunity to prove himself this time. When you look at the opportunity for discouragement to

happen, typically our God finds a way to bring about good in the midst of that,

and only he is able to do that. You know, when I first got saved,

I was saved for about three years before I felt called to ministry. And I can remember when I

first got saved how I just noticed immediately that it was like God placed all the right people

in all the right places in my life to really help me become a believer and help me mature my

faith. And I can remember when I started feeling called to ministry, and I went over to Eden,

it was about the same time that Pastor Greg started expressing that he might be done with

youth ministry. And I remember thinking about how disappointing that was. And then when I went

over to Eden, and I was doing youth ministry over there, and I had people like Wes Green and

Jody Reynolds and Stephen Morris and Adam Robbins and Justin Donohue and all these guys who were

helping me with youth ministry over there. And it was great because I had this like great team of

guys and young people who were helping me do all this stuff. And then I can remember when Jody

started feeling called to ministry and left and went to West Minister and how hard that was. And

when Stephen, he started working at Chesney Westland, and Wes Green started traveling, and he was with

a singing group, and he was going around to different churches. And Justin Donohue went

to youth ministry, and Adam Jolly went into missions in Argentina, and Adam Robbins was

helping out different places. And it seemed like all those people that were helping,

it was such a great team, it was such a fun time, began to dwindle. I struggled with that a lot,

because it was what I had known and had all these people around me

and doing all this stuff. And I can remember being very frustrated in the beginning because

I was losing what I felt comfortable with. I was losing what I knew. I was losing what was

working well around me and around the ministry that I was tied into. But today,

one of the coolest things I get to do, and people like Robert Hampshire, Robert Hampshire,

went off and planted a church in Virginia. One of the coolest things that I get to do

is get on the phone with these guys and talk to them and say, hey, like, how you doing?

How's God working in moving in your life? Tell me about your ministry. Tell me about

what's going on. And then listen to them and get to talk about how much God is using them and how God

is working in moving in different situations. And if they would have all stayed, if we would

all stayed in Cooley Springs at that little bitty church there, would they have ever been

able to thrive the way that they have if they did not follow God's plan and leading in their

life? And that's one of the greatest privileges that I get to have today in ministry is checking

on the people I was so frustrated is when they were going their separate ways. And I challenge

us this morning to just remind ourselves today that God can use things that might be discouraging

to bring about passion in our lives, to do more and to be more because the truth is,

is that we're not in this thing for ourselves. We never should have signed up to follow Christ,

to be comfortable and to just be like happy and to be in this state of life where we just

stay forever. In fact, we signed up to follow Christ to say, Lord, take me wherever you want

me to go. Tell me to do whatever you want me to do. That's why we should have signed up to

follow Jesus because that's the only way that we can follow Jesus. There is no other option.

We're lying to ourselves. If we don't say, God, take me where you want me to go. Tell me what

you want me to do. I'll do whatever you want me to do. If that's not the attitude of our heart,

we're lying to ourselves. He's not our Lord. And so the things that we may tempted to be

to find discouraging can bring about great passion in our life to see God's work to be done more and

more. The situation between Barnabas and Paul may have started out as a discouragement,

but it ended up being one of the greatest things that ever happened to the early church

for multiple reasons. We can't cover all of them. We're going to cover some today.

So this morning, if you're in conflict with someone

or maybe something unfortunate has happened and someone has offended you in some way,

remind yourself that the God that we serve is good and he is perfect.

And despite the situation and circumstances, our life, not being good or not being perfect,

he can take it and he can use it for good. So the attitude in our heart has to be

to remind ourselves of the God that we serve and to be praying as we are walking through

these fires of life and saying, God, I believe that you can use this for good.

I can't see it. I don't know how. I don't know how you're going to do this, but I believe that

you can do this. You can use this for good. And I believe that you're going to bring good from this

and to pray that and proclaim that and pray that and proclaim that. And one day

from my personal experience and my testimony is I believe with all my heart, there's never been

a time where I wasn't discouraged or something that happened in my life that I wasn't frustrated

with or I was unhappy with that in somehow, some way, God did not use that for good later on down

the road. And I couldn't see it then, but I can see it now. And that's what we have to remind ourselves

of. In Psalm 119 verse 71, David wrote, my suffering was good for me. Now we don't say that

Psalms 119:71

in present tense because suffering is not enjoyable, but he's writing this in past tense.

He looks back and he says, my suffering was good for me for it taught me to pay attention to your

decrees. A lot of times God will bring about things in our life because he wants to draw us

to himself. We lean on God more and we grow more with God when we are struggling than what we do

when we're happy. I don't know about y'all, but I'm a happy eater.

When I get discouraged or I'm frustrated, if I start losing weight, you better check on me

because I don't eat when I'm upset. But when I'm happy, I eat. So I start putting on the pounds,

you know I'm doing good. But when you look at this in our lives, so many times when good things

come along, we get very comfortable and we get happy and the need to pursue God doesn't present

to struggle for us. It is a natural tendency for us to turn to God during times of struggle

and hardships. And so many times God wants to use these things to bring us back to himself,

to bring discouragement and turn it into passion. Point number two,

God can use division to bring about unity. This may seem counterproductive

and in some ways it is. But when you look at John Mark and this whole thing that Paul and Barnabas

disagreed on him with, they still agreed on the main thing which was Jesus. So this morning if

you're sitting here and there's something you don't like or you don't agree with or something

even from a spiritual perspective or even in a physical like worldly like other relationship,

other contexts setting, keep your eye on the main goal. Keep your eye on Christ. He is the one that

we should be focusing on. We may not agree on every single thing in life, but if we can agree

on Jesus, he's enough. Jesus is enough. And so God can take division and he can bring about unity.

Now this is somewhat complicated. We have to be a little careful in the midst of this

because as we talk about division, if it's allowed to fester, if it's not dealt with,

if we're not using these things, if we're not taking care of these situations and circumstances

the way that scripture calls us to and these things are allowed to fester, it can very much

cause more and more and more division. It can grow. It becomes a cancer. It takes over

and eventually it can kill. And there have been many churches succumb to division.

You have splits and eventually it just dwindles and dwindles and dwindles since there's no life

in it left at all. So you have to be really careful. God has called us to deal with division,

to deal with conflict in a way that brings about a resolution because in this as a resolution is

brought, it brings about peace. It brings about unity. If it's handled the right way,

as God calls us to, it can be one of the most unifying things that you experience in life.

Let me just give you an easy example. Any of you ever witnessed a fight in school,

a schoolyard fight, especially between not so much between girls, but between boys.

You ever seen two boys punch each other and then the next thing you know, they're like best friends

for life. As simple as that sounds and as goofy as that sounds, it's also very true.

What you find is, is that when people have this interaction with one another that is stressful

or, you know, there's just something going on. If they can ever get to the point where they

can resolve that and move past it, there's a bond that's built between people who work

through stuff together. And you see that on a job site, you see that on a team,

you see that on anything in life. You may not always agree on anything, but if you can work

through it together and solve it together, there's a bond that's built in that moment

that just lasts for a lifetime. And especially as Christians this morning,

we are called to deal with this stuff the way that God's called us to deal with it.

And in dealing with it, the division brings about more unity. Now in Hebrews chapter 12,

Hebrews 12:14–15

verses 14 through 15, it says that we should work at living in peace with everyone and work

at living a holy life for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other

so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God and watch out that no poisonous root of

bitterness grows up to trouble you corrupting many. This is what we have to be careful of

in understanding that it could be the least little thing, the least little thing in our

life, the least little thing in our church, the least little thing in your circle,

levers that you hang out with and you spend time with, the least little thing.

If it's not dealt with properly, a poisonous root can take hold and not just corrupt you

or not just corrupt the other person, but it says it will corrupt many. And we are called

to keep mind of that and to make sure that we don't allow it to take place.

You know, when I look at my relationship with Hannah,

you know, that there's 10 years now and we've had a lot of conflicts in marriage, you know,

nothing like crazy, but just conflicts. I think everybody has it. You live with somebody for

10 years, you're going to fight about something. But in the midst of conflicts and disagreements

and stuff that we are able to work through those things, it's amazing that how even though we

fight and we may be ready to kill each other in one minute. But then later on, it's almost like

we're closer because we dealt with it and we know that no matter what, we're still with each other.

We're going to be with each other. When you build that commitment and that unity and that trust with

other people to look at someone in this room and to look at another Christian that you may not

even be super familiar with, but to know that, hey, we didn't agree on this. We argue, we may have said

some things we shouldn't have said to each other, but I know that they love me and I love them

and we're going to make this thing right. You don't always have that. You don't always see

that fleshed out, but it should be. And that should be the attitude for us as believers that

we are trying to make sure and remind ourselves that, hey, if division comes about in our church

or division comes about in our life or relationships or whatever, it's not ideal. But we serve a perfect

God who can take this thing and he can use it to make us stronger than we were before and remind

ourselves of that. Point number three, last one. God can use failure to bring about restoration.

I think we need to understand this personally, just from our walk with Christ, that God can use

our failures to bring about restoration, but also that as we interact with other people,

that as other people fail, God can use those failures to bring about restoration even in

our life and to bring a closer bond than what was there before. And I encourage you this morning

to never write someone off. Don't ever look at someone and say, I'm done with them. Never again.

And that's really hard because there's been situations and times in life where

I've dealt with someone and they've done something where I'm just like, never again.

And you just, you say, it's like, I'll never talk to them again. I'll never look at them again.

I'll never deal with that again. And we have to be really careful not to just write someone off

because are you on your A game every single day?

Are you perfect every single day?

Do you wake up every morning and say today, I'm going to go take somebody off

or I'm going to make somebody matter. I'm going to hurt somebody's feelings today.

We don't wake up with this attitude of this is what we're going to do.

But I know there's been days in my life, even since I've been a Christian and since I've been

a pastor where I have done and said things that I've had to go back and apologize for.

I had no intention to do it, but I did it and I had to own it and I had to go apologize for it.

And we have to give other people the benefit of the doubt as well.

Now, it doesn't mean in the future that these people who offend you will not have a significant

place in your life because they very much may. The person who you say in this moment right now,

I will never have anything to do with them again. God may have plans for them to be a very intricate

part of your life in the future. And so then you will have to wrestle with, are you going to fight

God's will from here on out? Or are you going to surrender to his will and eat your crow?

John Mark failed. We don't know why. We don't know what happened. As we talked about in the first

week of the series, it just says that he left and went back to Jerusalem. Doesn't give a reason

why it was before any persecution or anything bad had started to happen so far. Only good stuff

had happened. And John Mark said, I'm gone. I'll see you guys later. I'm going back to Jerusalem.

And Paul couldn't let it go. Paul was not willing to overlook his desertion.

And the truth is, is it doesn't matter why he failed. I think it's probably best that we don't

know why he failed. So we don't just pigeonhole. Well, we should only forgive someone if they do

this or we should not forgive someone if they do this. And we don't put it in this box and say,

well, this is when and this is how. That it's left open for the interpretation of,

we don't know exactly what someone's going to do or how they're going to hurt us or when they're

going to hurt us. But there's a need in our life to be forgiving and to overlook many sins,

to forgive many sins and many faults in people's life.

And the great thing about this is, is that

in no way shape am I saying that Paul's wrong.

But what's awesome is, is because Barnabas was willing to give Paul or give John Mark a second

chance and take him with him. John Mark was able to prove himself as a follower of Christ

later on because he spent many years going with Barnabas, doing what God had called him

to preaching the message of the gospel. And God used John Mark in amazing and powerful ways.

And in second Timothy chapter four, verses nine through 11,

this is written in about 64 AD, not exactly sure, but somewhere around 64 AD.

But Paul is writing to Timothy and he says, please come as soon as you can.

Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica.

Cressons has gone to Galatia and Titus has gone to Dalmatia.

Only Luke is with me. Bring Mark with you when you come, for he will be helpful to me and my

ministry. And it's amazing that years down the road, as Paul is continuing on in his ministry,

at this point, he's arrested, he's living in captivity, he's living under arrest,

he's writing all these letters and he's doing his last little bit of ministry he can before

he's about to be executed. And all these other people have deserted him because that happened.

There are going to be people along the way, you look in here this morning,

you look around all these people in here today. Most everybody in here would profess to be a

Christian. Five years from now, everybody in this room will not still be here.

People are going to come and go. There are going to be people who say this isn't for me.

There are going to be people who say, nope, it's not what I thought it was going to be,

and they bow out. It's going to happen. And Paul is still experiencing these people who are

deserting him. And it's frustrating and he's hurting because he really needs people now more

than ever. And it's at this point in his life where he asks, he says, send Mark,

for he will be helpful to me in my ministry. And he looks at Mark, who he would have nothing

to do with several years before and says, I can trust him now to come and do what I need him

to do in these final days of my life. And so failure brings about the potential

for restoration. God can use failure to restore. And so whether you have failed or there's

someone else in your life who has failed you, do not write it off. Do not think games over.

Do not think nothing can be done about it. We serve a good and perfect God who can use anything

for his good and your good. You know, finishing up today.

Paul's life was coming to an end. You know, he was executed somewhere around 64, 65 A.D.

He wrote that letter to Timothy sometime around 64. He also wrote this letter to the Colossians

in chapter four, verse 10, around 64 A.D. He said, Aristarchus, who is in prison with me,

sends you his greetings and so does Mark, Barnabas' cousin. As you were instructed before,

make Mark welcome if he comes your way. And so John Mark is,

now he's viewed as one of these people that Paul is sending out to do ministry

and he's vouching for him and sending him out to do more, even back in Acts.

We read our focus patches where he refused to even take him along.

And so this morning, as we close out, our worship team is going to come. They're going to play for

us. We'll do one last song before we do our baptism. There was never a clear acknowledgement

as to who was right and who was wrong. And I don't think either was right or either was wrong.

I think it was exactly the way that God wanted it to happen. Because when you look at what God

requires of believers, he requires for believers to be faithful. And Paul required people that he

was going to work with to be faithful and John Mark wasn't. And so he had to draw the line in his life

of what he was going to accept and who he was going to travel the unknown world with at that

time and go present the message of the gospel of people. He wanted to be surrounded by people he

could trust. That's valid. And Barnabas wanted to give John Mark a second chance. He wanted

to give him grace. He wanted to forgive him. He wanted to take him along again, which is

biblical. Both sides are right. And so whatever your situation, your conflict may be this morning,

chances are you could be right. And at the same time, the other person could be right.

And you could have done something wrong and they could have done something wrong. And the

point is is we're human, but we serve a God who is good and perfect. And while we may fumble

and stumble and fall, God is more than able to take these situations and take these conflicts

and to take these things and use them to bring about good for us and glory for him.

But we have to be willing to let God do this in our lives. It takes a lot of surrender,

a lot of humbleness to do this. And we can't do it spare the moment.

The first week we talked about is we have to be paid up, prayed up and ready to go into this

thing. Because if we're just looking to respond the right way on a whim, chances are we're going

to fail. We have to be prepared to go through life knowing that we're dealing with a sinful

world. And we're dealing with my sinful heart. And we have to be prayed up and ask God to

fill us with his spirit to help us to move into these situations and circumstances with good

attitudes, with love, with grace, with forgiveness ready to be given out. Because if you're not

going into it prepared, chances are we're not going to handle it the way that God wants us to,

to bring glory and honor to him. He is a good and perfect God who can bring good out of anything.

Stand and sing with us today.

Your presence, Lord.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome to you. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.

Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, Lord.

Your presence, Lord.

There's nothing worth more that will ever come close. Nothing can compare your our living hope.

Your presence, Lord.

I'll taste it and see of the sweetest of loves. Where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone.

And your presence, Lord.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome to you. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.

Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, Lord.

Your presence, Lord.

Let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience the glory of your goodness.

Let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience the glory of your goodness.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome to you. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.

Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, Lord.

Your presence, Lord.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome to you. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere.

Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence, Lord.

Your presence, Lord.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for everything that you've given us

and the many wonderful things that you bless us with today. Lord, I pray that something

that has been said, sung, or done would speak to our hearts and help us to grow closer with you.

Jesus, we love you today. Thank you so much for the men and women who have served our country,

for how they have given their lives and their time. Lord, as we baptize Mrs. C, I think about

her husband serving in the military right now, Lord, just thank you so much for everyone who has

given their time in their life so that we can have the freedom to be here today to worship

you and to do these things. Lord, we love you. We pray for the safety of all of our people

traveling and all the activities for this weekend in the coming days. We love you and ask

us in Jesus' name. Amen.