Walk the Line

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Happy New Year, everybody! So as I was coming in a minute ago, my neighbor Kyle, who hands out bulletins, said, You missed the mission.

And he pointed to the top of his sermon notes and it said, Walk the line.

And he told me that I had the opportunity to dress in all black and come up and preach about Johnny Cash.

And I'm sure that that is where your mind might have gone when you heard the title, Walk the Line.

And if you can believe it, I thought about coming in here today on your first sermon of 2026 and preaching about Johnny Cash Walk the Line.

There's some good stuff in there.

I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine.

How about I keep you on my mind both day and night?

Because you're mine, I walk the line.

Johnny Cash wrote that in 1956.

He wrote it to his first wife, Vivian.

And there's really good stuff for a sermon, and one day one may come from there.

But today I want to tell you that Johnny Cash talked about walking the line, and he wrote about walking the line, and he sang about walking the line, but he didn't walk the line.

You see, because within five years of when he played that song, he and his first wife, Vivian, were separated, and within ten years they were divorced.

And a lot of the reason was that even while that song was playing on the radio, Johnny Cash did not keep a close watch on his heart, and he didn't keep Vivian on his mind, and it didn't work out.

Years before Johnny Cash wrote that song, though, walk the line was a popular term, and one of the places that it comes from is tight rope walking.

Tightrope walking is a very difficult thing to do.

From what I understand, there's a two-inch line, and you walk across, and man, sometimes life can feel like we are on a tightrope, and we have to put one foot in front of the other very carefully, in great danger of falling.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for the opportunity to speak your word to your people today.

And God, I thank you for a beautiful first Sunday of 2026.

And I just pray that you will help us to clear our minds, open our hearts, so that we can prepare to hear your voice today.

In Jesus' name.

So I was in Chicago just before Christmas, and I was thinking about walking the line, and I came across a story of a man who was from Chicago that you've probably never heard of.

This man's name is Harry Callcord.

And Harry Callcord on August the 17th, 1859, when he was 25 years old, walked up to the edge of Niagara Falls and went across on a two-inch tightrope, a line.

And I've started wondering what kind of preparation must Harry Calcord have made to stand on that ledge and get ready to go across on that line.

And so today I want to talk to you a little bit about preparation, some principles of preparation to help you better walk the line in 2026.

And one thing, as you've already heard from my wife, that you must do if you're going to walk any line is you have to stand.

That's the first blank on your notes.

They say that you can't walk unless you crawl.

And I think that there are some children who just skip the crawling altogether and just go straight to walking.

I'm not sure I buy into that.

But I can't fathom how you could possibly walk unless you first stand.

I know that I can't.

Even at the circus, these guys who walk around on their hands, I think they have to stand first.

Stand means to have or maintain an upright position.

It's a show of strength and power.

And anybody who's ever watched any boxing or some of that UFC thing, they know the importance of standing.

In society, we say we're going to take a stand, we're going to make a stand, I'm going to keep on standing.

I'm still standing.

We hear a lot about standing.

But here at church, we talk a lot about walking.

How's your walk going?

How's your Christian walk?

Are you walking with the Lord?

And God does tell us that we need to walk, but in Ephesians chapter 6, he tells us that we need to stand.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

You guys turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 6.10, and let's read this.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore.

And then it goes on into the armor of God.

I just got to believe that with this many people in the room today, there's somebody that says, Dave, I understand walking the line, but man, I'm just trying to stand up.

And I feel like I don't have the strength, and I feel like I don't have the energy.

I can't even think about walking because I'm just trying to get up.

And I feel like every time I get up, something knocks me back down.

Man, I'm tired.

I'm done.

I'm glad 2025 was over, and we're four days into this new year, and I'm just not so sure about it either.

I need some strength to stand.

I remember September 14th, man, I was about to get knocked down.

And it lasted a while.

I needed strength to stand.

I talked to a guy on February 20th who was about to be knocked down.

There's somebody that's been knocked down in the last couple of weeks, and you're just trying to stand up.

And you just don't think you have the strength.

But let me tell you this: God knows.

Did you catch it, what we read in Ephesians?

It said, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.

Put on the armor of God, the whole armor, that you might be able to stand.

God knows we can't do it on our own, but we can be strong in him.

And he will give us strength and he will give us power and he will give us might to fight against the wiles and the tricks of the devil.

I don't know if I can take a single step, but God just help me stand.

God, I can't do it alone.

And God says, hey, you don't have to.

Because just like the Apostle Paul said, God's grace is made sufficient in my weakness.

His strength is perfect.

And when I am weak, then I am strong.

We aren't fighting flesh and blood.

We're fighting unseen forces that are much too powerful for us.

And all too often we want to focus on what we can do in our own strength.

We want to think about what I can accomplish, what I can fix, battles that I can win.

How can I shine here?

How do I make a name for myself?

How do I set myself apart?

How do I be distinguished?

Listen, guys, you don't have to do anything remarkable.

And sometimes the battle is so intense that just standing is remarkable enough.

In the 1950s, there was this guy named Rudolf Abel.

He was a Soviet spy, and he got captured by the United States.

There was a movie about him a few years ago because what happened?

Abel was captured by the United States, but then the Soviets shot down an American pilot.

And this movie was about a lawyer whose job, he was an American lawyer, and he was trying to negotiate the exchange of Rudolf Abel for the pilot that got shot down.

And there's a scene in the movie that's one of my very favorite scenes I've ever looked at.

And it's where Rudolf Abel is talking to his lawyer, the American, who's defending the Soviet spy.

We don't do this often, but we're going to try to show a clip today.

You don't have to do anything remarkable.

You may not be able to walk the line.

You may not even be able to take a step at all.

The devil is powerful and he's cunning, and he's coming to beat you, knock you off your feet, devour you.

He will still kill and destroy if you let him.

And even when you don't think you can anymore, you got to get back up.

You got to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might and put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand and withstand and stand.

And having done all to stand, just be a standing man.

Just stand there.

But sometimes standing can be so hard.

If I'm standing for a long time, I start hurting a little bit.

And I don't know if moving around helps, but I sure feel like it's gonna.

And I just need to do something.

But you know what?

A lot of times I don't need to do anything.

No movement at all.

I just need to stand there.

I'm not really what you would call country.

I've never baled any hay or brought in any harvest or anything like that.

A couple times in elementary school we went to this learning farm, and I think I sheared a sheep and maybe milked a cow or something like that.

But I grew up in a suburb of Birmingham, and our woods was like a couple of vacant lots that people hadn't cleared yet.

And our stream was this little water runoff that came out of the concrete pipe under the street.

Like we didn't get a lot of wildlife in McDonald's Chapel, Alabama, which is right in between Mulga and Inslee, for those of you who know things about that part of town.

So even though we didn't have much chance at all of ever seeing a snake, my mother always warned me, be careful you don't run into a snake.

We had a little shady patch in the backyard that she termed Snake City.

Now, her constant warning combined in with this old movie that I saw when I was about five or six years old, a cowboy movie, and in this very intense scene, the main character, I don't know who he is, Scruffy Beard and all that, he gets bit by a rattlesnake.

And then he has to like heat up his blade and cut his arm.

It was bad.

And so my mom's warnings and what I have seen in the movies about what snakes are, before I started first grade, I had a deathly fear of snakes.

Now, the first time that I ever remember seeing a snake is when I was about seven.

And we went fishing, me and my dad and my stepmom.

And we always had to go fishing, and we always went on the creek bank fishing, and we always fished for catfish, and I always got bored and forgot to look for the bobber go in, and then my dad would holler, and then I would get hot, and I just wanted to go home and watch Sprague Rock or something.

Maybe the Smurfs.

One day we were fishing on the creek bank, and my dad was getting supplies ready, and I was sitting on a rock, and I was kicking my heel on the rock, like kids do, and my dad says, You better be careful, there might be a snake under there.

And so I just the mention of the word, I hop up and run over to my father, about to have a heart attack.

And so my mind drifts away, and it's been just about long enough that I've forgotten all about that.

And lo and behold, a snake comes out from under the rock where I had been sitting.

Now, my dad was an old deputy sheriff, and he uh always had two guns, sometimes maybe three or four, and he's a protector.

So I'm over here, and he gets his pistol and pops off two shots at the snake, and he missed them both, but the snake went on up the tree.

And since that day, I just believe there's a snake under every rock.

Now, when I got to be 25, that's when I got married, and I think at 25 I had seen live in the wild, like out of captivity, not counting the zoo, maybe 10 snakes.

Now I had heard well in excess of 10,000.

Leaves and squirrels and things dropping in the woods, but generally I just didn't go where they go.

You want to go hiking in the winter?

That's fine.

You want to go hiking in the summer, we gotta wait till winter.

The snakes can have the woods in the summertime.

Just don't go where they are.

Now I tell you all of that to tell you this.

I have a brother who's 14 years older than me, and when I was young, he married a girl named Jessica.

And Jessica is from Corner.

They call it that because it's in the corner of Jefferson County, and she is very much country, and she is not in the least bit bothered by snakes.

I even heard stories as a child that from time to time she would even pick up a snake.

Once they had a snake living with them and their children, and I went and saw it in the house, and then I did not go back until it was gone.

So at 25, Amanda and I get married, and my brother and Jessica come to visit us at the house we're at in Gardendale, not that far from Corner.

And so it's warm, it's late summer, and this house, I'll tell you about it, it's it has like a concrete covered porch, and then it's got like a retaining wall situation and a staircase that goes down into the carport.

All right, so we're standing outside and we're telling my brother and Jessica goodbye, and she looks at me and tells me something in a low, serious voice that you should never tell me.

She says, David, don't move.

Listen, don't tell me not to move.

That's a very bad situation.

I thought, warm weather, outside, snake handler, I went into flight mode, about knocked Amanda down the staircase, ran across the patio, stubbed my toe.

There wasn't a lot of blood, but there was a little bit.

And I finally got far enough away that I felt safe, and I looked back at them, and they were all looking at me.

My brother was like helping Amanda stand back up.

And I said, I thought there was a snake.

But you know what?

There wasn't a snake.

There was a baby raccoon.

One that didn't know to be scared of people yet.

And it had kind of wandered up onto the porch, creeped up behind us, and Jessica wanted me to see something really cool.

Was it a threat?

Yeah, probably, maybe a little bit of a threat, but not near the threat that I presented to myself.

You know what?

I really didn't need to move.

I just needed to stand there.

There's an old saying, don't just stand there, do something.

But in 2026, I want to challenge you, at least from time to time, don't do something, just stand there.

It might be all you need to do to see something really cool.

Before God parted the Red Sea for the children of Israel, he told them, Do not be afraid, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today.

The Lord will fight for you.

You shall hold your peace.

The psalmist tells us in Psalm 46, 10, Be still and know that I am God.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven after he rose from the grave, he told his disciples to just wait on the promise of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes you just need to stand and wait.

But the Bible tells me this in Isaiah chapter 40 those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

They'll mount up with wings as eagles, they'll run and not be weary, and they'll walk and not faint.

Don't do something, just to do something.

Just stand there, be a standing man.

Number two in your outline.

You might be standing just fine.

But sometimes if you've been standing a while, you can get off balance.

Balance is number two.

And it's very hard to walk without balance.

You're not gonna make it very far.

And there are people here today I know that if you can come out of this next year in 361 days standing and balanced, that's a big, big win.

And sometimes it's just about all you can do to stand up and stay balanced.

And before you venture out onto any tightrope and try to walk any line, you better make sure you're balanced.

Because the devil wants to knock us down so he can devour us.

And the easiest way he's gonna push us over is if we're out of balance.

Balance is the even distribution of weight.

It enables things to remain upright and steady.

It's when the different elements are in the correct proportions.

I always think about the V8 guy whenever I think about this from way back in the 80s.

But we could only show one clip.

The guy's all leaning over because he needs all of his V8 vegetables.

So do you have balance?

Are you upright and steady?

Is everything in the correct proportion?

Or are you overweight in one area or another?

A lot of times elements get out of proportion, and it's not like they're bad things.

Like there are some really good things that can get you out of balance.

1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 10, it's on your notes.

1 Corinthians 6:10

Paul says, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful, but I will not be brought under the control of any.

It's strange how quickly you can get brought under the control of something.

Even something that's really, really good.

I've got five things that came to mind that sometimes can get out of balance.

And the first one is work.

We're created to work, I believe this.

We're created to accomplish tasks and do things.

If you read in early Genesis, before sin entered man, Adam had a job to do.

Genesis 2.19.

He had to name the animals.

You might laugh, but that's because you know what a consonant and vowel are.

He didn't even have a language to name the animals with, but he had to name the animals.

There's a mention of tilling in there somewhere too in Genesis.

2 Thessalonians 3.10 says that if anyone shall not work, neither shall he eat.

1 Timothy 5.8, anyone who will not provide for his own, especially those of the household, have denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

You're supposed to provide for your people.

It's not just lawful, it's instructed in the Bible.

But do you get brought under the control of your work?

See, money is one way to provide, but it is not the only provision that your people need.

They need your time and attention and your presence and support, encouragement, spiritual direction, a lot of other things that sometimes go by the wayside in the name of finance and the operation.

So this very good thing of work can get you off balance.

And the way it happens, I think is tricky because you start off trying to provide, but somewhere along the way, the focus shifts and it changes, and you go from trying to provide to trying to achieve.

And I think goals and achievements are fine, but all things are lawful, but I will not come under the control of any.

Do your quotas and your goals and your metrics and your numbers and your advancements and your promotions, do they control you?

Is it about provision or about pride?

Pride might be the number one thing that knocks you off balance.

In fact, Proverbs 16, 18 tells us that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit goes before a fall.

And you can find many instances in the Bible where it says God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Don't confuse provision with pride.

And I'll stop about the work now.

Number two, I'm not gonna say a whole lot about this.

Health and exercise can be unhealthy sometimes.

There are some people that have this, like it's going crazy.

And that's what your pastor who has a 39 BMI is going to tell you right now.

And we'll move on to number three.

Number three is screens.

Do we even keep up with screen time anymore?

Like I used to have a thing, and it always came in like on Sunday morning during Sunday school, and it said, You've been on the screen however many hours a day this week or something.

I don't get it anymore.

I don't even know.

Um are you in charge of your screens?

How many hours a day do you spend looking at multiple screens at the same time?

Could you go one day without a screen?

Would you be able to function?

Next week, I think we're starting the 21 days of prayer and fasting.

I don't want 21 days.

I'm just wondering if there's anybody who might say, I'm gonna try one day without my screen.

And all the older folks are looking at the younger folks and saying, Them phones, well, I'm talking about Fox News too.

Who's in charge of this operation?

Screens overall, probably good.

But they can knock you off balance.

Number four, sports.

Let's be honest.

I might could go a day without a screen, but not the day my team has played.

Have a good day when your team wins, a bad day when your team loses.

Did anybody here have a bad New Year's night?

There's an old country song called Lucky Man that says last Sunday when the Bengals lost, Lord, it put me in a bad mood.

You replace Bengals with Packers, and you've got me.

I know when they play.

But I don't live and die with it.

But how much time really do you spend thinking about the team or the coach or the playoffs or the schedule or the opponent or the next season or who we need to get in on the NIL?

It can be exhausting.

And what about kids' sports?

Now, how much money did you spend last year on the kids' sports?

And how much time did you spend on the kids' sports?

And not just sports.

I'm talking about all activities on the kids' sports and their music and their scouts and their horses or whatever it might be that's the thing.

What are you willing to sacrifice for it?

I do love the Green Bay Packers and I love kids' sports.

And we, it's almost like a second Christmas around the second week of May.

When the NFL schedule comes out, we pick a game we're gonna go to.

Like we're in this thing.

And I spend plenty of money and time on my kids' sports and activities.

And last year it was almost like a dream come true.

I got to see both kids do the thing on the Chelsea high school field on the same night.

I never thought that was gonna happen.

It was amazing, but guys, there's more important things.

We make the kids little gods, and we idolize people who can throw hard and jump high and run fast and hit and kick things, even though we don't have any idea who they are.

Be careful you don't lose your balance.

Number five is service.

There are people who come to church two or three times a week, and it's hard to find a time when they're not serving.

Children, media, coffee, the setup team, teaching a class, doing the music.

Sometimes they do kid sports.

All good things, but man, they get tired and burnt out, and it's because you're off balance and the elements are not in correct proportion.

And if you're not serving, just hear me today.

There are people who come here every week to work.

It's like a part-time job.

Give them a hand every now and then.

Before you walk, you gotta stand and you gotta balance.

You gotta have an even distribution of weight.

Even the good stuff needs to be in the correct proportions.

And standing in balance, wearing the armor of God, not under the control of anything.

If that's all you do in 2026, man, you've had a great year.

But if you want one more, number three is focus.

Focus means paying particular attention to something, having something be the center of your activity.

And there's a Bible verse in Colossians that you've heard many times, and it's about focus, but you may not realize it's about focus.

Colossians 3.23.

Whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men.

The NIV replaces heartily with all your heart.

And when you focus on something with all your heart, you have to get rid of the distractions, or you're gonna miss something.

Because something won't get my full attention if I've got 17 other things that I'm thinking about.

And this guy that I told you about earlier, Harry Callcord, I just have to believe that when he was about to go across Niagara Falls, he was locked in, focused, undivided attention.

You wouldn't want to go off doing something like that while you were juggling a bunch of things or checking your messages or seeing who liked your post.

I'm thinking he probably did it completely with all of his heart, working heartily, just like Colossians 3.23 says.

The first one I learned about when I was in my early 20s and building my resume, where I put a bunch of stuff on there, even though I hadn't never done anything.

And I had my skills, and one of my skills that everybody said I have to have on my resume is multitask well.

Well, do you know what that means?

That means you can do a lot of things without giving anything undivided attention.

You can juggle and not ever give anything your whole heart.

It's a valuable skill in business, I think, but I don't believe that's what God wants from us.

I think He wants us to work heartily with our whole heart on the things that we choose to do.

There are things here and there that they have to be done, but we're instructed to give our whole heart to the things that we do, to focus.

And if you find yourself juggling too many balls and you're just too busy to even think, you got so many people that need you, so many places you gotta be, so much you gotta do, you're just surviving.

You never even get to focus on anything, not even your family, not even the Lord, ask yourself do you control your schedule?

Or are you under its control?

It's hard to stay balanced and focused and multitask well because at some point there's just gonna be too many things.

And you're gonna slip and lose your balance and you're gonna fall.

And I hope you're not off in the middle of a line when you do that.

The second thing that can distort your focus, first is multitasking.

The second one is impairment.

1 Peter 5:8 tells us to be sober and vigilant because our adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour.

1 Peter 5:8

So we're supposed to be sober, and that means not be intoxicated.

We're supposed to be vigilant, and that means we're supposed to watch.

So, yes, drugs and alcohol are ways you can be intoxicated and not watchful and not sober.

But I think that there's another thing that can cause you to lose focus and knock you off balance, and it's a lot trickier, and it's this more.

Don't be impaired by the intoxication of more.

More achievement, more power, more success, more popularity, more attainment, more influence, more money, more notoriety, being number one.

Do you have enough or do you just need just a little bit more?

When you get to the top of the mountain that you're climbing, is the first thing you do look around for another mountain.

Because you can run yourself crazy trying to get more.

And if you do that, you're gonna be overcome by this intoxication of more, and you're gonna be focused on things of the earth, and you're not gonna be able to set your mind on the things above, like the Bible tells us in Colossians 3:2.

Colossians 3:2

Be careful with the multitasking and be careful with the intoxication of more.

Number four, rest.

If you're doing all this work and all this preparation that we've just discussed, man, you're gonna need some rest.

You don't want to step up to a two-inch tightrope and not be rested up.

And Jesus gives us permission to rest.

You know the verse, but do you do it?

Matthew 11, 28 through 30.

Come to me, all you who labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke and learn from me, because I am gentle and lowly of heart.

You'll find rest for your souls.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

A lot of you know Psalm 127, verse 1, unless the Lord builds the house, the men labor in vain who build it.

Psalms 127:1

But do you know verse 2?

It says this it's vain to rise up early and to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, because God gives his beloved sleep.

There's an entire culture out there that forsakes sleep.

And I think a lot of times they do it for more.

But God gives us rest.

It's a gift.

He told the children of Israel, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

I read this to Ella, and she said, You gotta put Psalm 4.8 in there.

It's on my mirror.

I will lie down in peace and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell safely.

We're supposed to sleep.

The whole first half of Hebrews chapter 4 is devoted to talking about rest.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

We who believe enter that rest.

The rest the Lord offers through Jesus.

Just as God's rested on the seventh day, he's told us rest.

He says there remains a rest for the people of God.

Let me summarize.

God created rest and God rested.

He told the children of Israel to rest.

Jesus told us to rest, the psalmist told us to rest, and half of Hebrews chapter 4 is devoted to talking about rest.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

So when is the last time that you actually admitted to someone that you were resting?

Like I might rest, but I ain't gonna tell nobody about it.

It's a sign of weakness, a barrier of entry into a lot of professions in this world: law, medicine, coaching, banking is whether or not you're willing to go without rest.

Can you just imagine someone calling you up and saying, hey buddy, can you give me a hand?

And you say, No, I'm resting.

Well, how'd you answer the phone if you're resting?

Well, did you not sleep good last night or something?

Did you get up too early this morning?

Are you sick or something?

It's like we gotta have a reason to rest.

Or what?

What about this?

What if you call your friend and say, hey, can you help me?

And he says, Well, you know, I'm resting, and you say, Oh yeah, what are you resting for?

And you hear, well, just so I can stand.

I haven't been on balance, and I'm having a lot of trouble focusing.

You're gonna stage an intervention.

You're gonna tell him he needs to go over to the hospital and see one of the doctors that's been working about 30 hours.

We're supposed to rest.

So I know you guys, we said we're gonna talk about walking the line.

And I've been up here a while and we haven't talked the first about walking the line.

Just preparing.

Standing, balanced, focused, resting.

But what about walking the line?

Let's go back to this guy, Harry Calcord, that I told you about, who on August the 17th, 1859 went across Niagara Falls on a two-inch line.

Did you catch that?

I've been very careful with my words.

I have never once told you that Harry Callcord walked across a tightrope over Niagara Falls.

You see, Harry Calcord was the manager for a guy named Charles Blondon.

And Charles Blondon was a tightrope walker who had walked back and forth across a tightrope for two months that summer.

It was like a thing he said he was gonna do.

The first time was on June 30th, two months before.

They say the former president Millard Fillmore went to see him one time.

One day there's a story that he walked across pushing a wheelbarrow.

Somebody said he sat down in the middle of a rope and cooked an egg one day.

That's what it says in the encyclopedia.

Somebody says he put a bag over his head and went blindfolded.

He went backwards.

So on August 17th, 1859, when Harry Calcord stood up to that ledge of Niagara Falls, he had no ability whatsoever to walk the line.

But you know what?

He had seen Charles Blonden do it again and again and again and again, and he knew that he could do it again.

I'm still sure he was scared to death, but what he had to do, he had to stand and he had to balance and he had to focus, but not on his own.

He had to stand with Charles Blondon and he had to balance with Charles Blondon and he had to focus on Charles Blonden.

And then when the moment came, he had to take one step of faith, and we have a picture.

He had to crawl up on Charles Blondon's back.

And he went across Niagara Falls on a tight road.

But he didn't walk the line.

But he knew someone who could.

Let me tell you this today: we can't walk the line.

But we can stand with Jesus, and we can focus on Jesus, and we can let him help balance us.

And when a time comes, I pray that you'll be able to take that one step, trusting Jesus to get you to the other side.

And you know why I believe that here today?

Because my Lord has taken me places I never dreamed that I would go.

And he's kept me safe in places that I never dreamed I would be safe.

He's blessed me more abundantly than I could ever think or imagine, exceedingly abundantly more.

He has given me.

Jesus has moved mountains and he's made a way where there was no way.

And I believe he's gonna do it again.

You guys stand to your feet.

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community, to grow with one another, and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

Take a moment and text CCW Connect to 94000.

Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.