The Antidote to Rage Baiting | Pastor Chris Kouba

You know, whenever you have food poisoning and all of a sudden after you eat that one thing that kind of made you sick, like you never want to eat it ever again.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like it doesn't matter.

Like you had Taco Bell that one time and you're just off Taco Bell for the rest of your life, kind of thing, just because it made you sick, and I'm not going back there.

I'm not doing that, all right?

Our prayer is this week is that you would have an experience where you begin to put aside some of the things of the world and never want to go back.

Never want to go back.

But you but you only discover that when you put them aside and when you seek after the Lord.

At the end of the service, I'm gonna ask you to turn this card in, okay?

So I want to just encourage you, fill it out, or you can take a picture of the QR code.

You can register online.

But we would love to have as many people as possible, all of you, in fact, to be able to participate as we move into this fasting and to join us on Wednesday night for our worship night at 6 30.

Grab your Bibles and open up with me to John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

John chapter 17 is where we've been camping out.

John 17 · chapter mention

Uh, I want to welcome all of the men and the women at our correctional facilities, those that are online on the other side of this camera.

Let's give them a hand and celebrate them.

So grateful for the opportunity to reach them.

Every year, Oxford Press puts out a word of the year.

And the word of the year, in many ways, is almost like a cultural commentary.

It kind of lets us have a little mirror and see what's important to our culture, like what stuck out this past year.

Let me give you a little history lesson and tell you where we've been.

Uh, 2021, the word of the year was vax.

If you remember, we were kind of coming uh sort of still in the middle of COVID, trying to figure that out.

Everybody's telling you that you need to get vaccinated and people are rolling up their sleeves, figuring out what that looks like.

And so the word of the year that continually got brought up and spoke about any more times than anything else was the word vax.

2022, the word of the year was goblin mode.

Goblin mode basically means you just kind of dress in your pajamas, you're dressing your slippers, and you just don't care.

All right.

You're gonna go out and you're gonna go like these days, people just get on a plane dress that way, all right?

They're just gonna live in their whole lives in goblin mode.

I'm not really worried about it.

I'm just gonna be super chill and I'm just gonna kind of live my life.

2023, the word of the year was Riz.

Okay.

Riz means you've got charisma.

Riz means you can kind of date and got some game, you got some stuff like that.

My kids tell me all the time, Dad, you got Riz, you know?

They've actually never told me that in my entire life.

All right.

Uh I just need you to know that.

But I feel like at one time I probably had Riz.

I feel like it, at least I got Hillary, you know, kind of a thing.

And so uh Riz is something that's, you know, kind of word of the year, then, okay?

2024.

This is crazy.

The word of the year in 2024 was literally brain rot.

It literally is describing what's happening in our culture right now, all right?

It's when you're literally looking at your phone and scrolling through life, watching other people post their lives while not living your own, all right?

It's brain rot.

Literally, your brain is rotting right in front of you, okay?

And then this year, the word of the year for 2025, for last year, rather, the word of the year, they released it at the end of last year, was rage bait.

Rage bait.

You ever heard of it?

It increased its use three times last year.

Here's the definition: it's online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrated, frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic or engagement.

You know what this looks like.

It's when you're looking and you're looking online and you see an article that makes you mad before you click on it.

In fact, the headline makes you so mad you want to click on it.

That's the whole point.

Or it's when some stranger makes some comment to a post that you have, and all of a sudden you look up and 45 minutes later, you're arguing with someone you don't even know.

But you're like, I'm not gonna let you get away with that.

What in the world are you thinking?

I've experienced this, no question about it.

When anybody brings up the 2017 Astros and says that they're cheaters, it just drives me absolutely crazy.

You wanna know why?

Because at the end of the day, every single team was cheating.

They were just better at it than everybody else, and because they won, they're the ones who got caught.

And to suggest that the Astros somehow are cheaters for life is ridiculous when you consider they made the World Series two more times and they won the World Series in 2002.

I probably need to calm down a little bit.

I'm a little upset.

A little upset.

I just got rage baited right there, all right.

Here's what's crazy though.

This whole idea of rage bait isn't something that's just kind of happened.

It's by design.

Like the algorithm is designed to try to make us angry.

Not only make us angry, but to stay angry.

There is profit when people are mad at each other.

One tech professor, he says this, this let this sit for a second.

He said, What the algorithms figured out is that there's something better than sex, and that's rage.

Enragement equals engagement.

What I want you to see is this our culture is trying to make us mad at each other.

It's constantly trying to divide us, like literally in the algorithms, it's trying to get you to be mad at somebody else and to stay that way because there is money to be made off of your anger.

The question I want us to think through then today is this what's the antidote to rage bait?

What if I told you that over 2,000 years ago, Jesus, when he was in the upper room and he was praying, prayed for this very thing.

He could have prayed for all types of things.

But the thing that he prayed for in that moment, literally hours before his death, is for unity.

John chapter 17, it's called the high priestly prayer.

John 17 · chapter mention

We've been walking through it, and we've been seeing uh through this series called Signal Strength what it looks like for us to be aligned with God.

Because if we want to make sure that our prayers are heard by God and we're praying things that are in accordance with his will, then the easiest way to do that is to pray what he prays.

And in John 17, we get like a snapshot into what he prays.

Like we get to like open his prayer journal, if you will, and we get to see what it is that he says.

The first week we looked at the upward signal, and we talked about how when your Jesus prays for his glory to be to be known.

And we saw that whenever you pray for God's glory, it doesn't mean that you're just kind of left to do whatever.

It actually shows you that when you pray for his glory, you're most satisfied in that moment.

Last week we talked about the inward signal, and that's the whole idea that we don't just pray for our circumstances to get better and our situation to improve, but instead we should be praying that God would change our character, not just our circumstances.

And we saw that he does that through transforming us through his truth, which leads us to mission.

Today we get to see the outward signal.

And what we're gonna see is what Jesus prays for us, that we would all collectively become as we move forward, which is pretty crazy because if you think about it, Jesus, when he was praying here in John 17, if you just look at the chronological uh the chronologic chronology rather of the John, the book of John, what you'll see is he's about to be arrested, he's about to be betrayed, he's about to be beaten, he's about to be crucified.

So, of all the things that Jesus could pray, I would have thrown a hey, can you help me get through this in there?

And he doesn't do that.

Instead, what he prays is for us to have unity.

John chapter 17, let's begin in verse 20.

John 17 · chapter mention

I'm gonna ask you to stand and honor the reading of God's word.

He begins this portion of the prayer.

He says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.

I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me.

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me through your the because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

I have made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

You may be seated.

Look again at verse 20.

He says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

If you're a believer in Jesus, I want you just to kind of let this sit for a second.

Jesus prayed for you.

Because he's praying for his disciples, and he says, Not only the disciples, but those who believe in him through the disciples.

And the disciples told somebody else, who told somebody else, who told somebody else, who told somebody else, who told somebody else that happened a bunch of different times through many generations, who told somebody else, who told you, and if you're a believer in Jesus, then Jesus is praying for you.

You're included here.

I don't know about you, but I find that pretty fascinating.

I find that pretty amazing.

The fact that when Jesus was right before he died, he he had kind of me on his mind.

That's kind of wild to think through.

And I'm like, okay, well, Jesus, if you're in that moment, like what did you pray for?

Because I I got a pretty cool list.

And I got some stuff I want to throw in there, like, hey, can you make sure this doesn't happen?

And can you change this?

And all that kind of no, no, no.

He prays for unity, not for buildings, not for budget, not for comfort, not for not for convenience.

He prays for unity.

And what he shows us at the very end of his life, his last prayer, least public prayer that we see reveals his priorities, which is oneness.

Main takeaway, if you look at your cards, I want you to see the main takeaway for the message today is this unity is our witness.

Unity is our witness.

This has been, this prayer right here has been a part of my journey for sure.

As I think about my time here at United City Church, I'm just later this year going to be celebrating seven years on staff here.

I came August or April 2nd in 2019, and I was asked to come to a church that needed some revitalization, historically great church, but had been on some difficult uh times and had come through Hurricane Harvey and all the things, and there was a lot that we needed to do.

Um, but I also uh had no idea that within 18 months we were gonna have a global pandemic that was gonna shut the world down.

Had no idea that there was gonna be massive racial division in our country, and really, if you think about it locally, uh, that was going to really divide everything and really the country in great ways.

I had no idea that the political atmosphere uh that would end up becoming in in 2020 was gonna be so volatile that it's divided our nation.

I'm still not sure we're anywhere close to reconciling just the division that has now drawn so clearly on the political lines.

I had no idea that literally we were gonna have algorithms designed to make us all hate each other.

Just make us hate everything.

Uh, but I did know this, I knew I needed prayer.

So I just started to pray.

God, I don't know what I'm doing.

Can you help me?

I need you to give me some guidance.

And specifically, I remember asking God, would you show me what to pray for?

Like I want to pray what you want.

I had a lunch with a pastor uh across town, and uh that pastor began to describe to me about his congregation, and just I knew it was a successful pastor.

Uh their church was doing really, really well, reaching the community in pretty significant ways, but they also were kind of known for their diversity.

And I said, Man, how the hag did you do this?

And he said, Man, I prayed all the time for unity and diversity.

So for about three and a half years, every single day, every single day, I'd get up and I'd pray, God, would you help us to be unified?

And God, would you help us to have diversity?

What I wanted was that God would allow us to be a church that would be able to look like the kingdom of God here on earth.

We're not gonna be a perfect church, of course, but I wanted us to look like the kingdom.

I wanted us to be a growing church.

I wanted us to be a church that was reaching people for Christ, supposedly far from him, that could come into a relationship with him.

I wanted that in every way.

God, would you make us unified?

I know this sounds crazy.

Not everybody's for that.

A lot of people in church don't like that.

And so, God, it was like, God, would you help us be unified around that mission that we would do that?

But also, Lord, would you help us not only look like the kingdom of God, but would you help us look like Houston?

Would you help us to reflect Northeast Houston?

Like, would you let us look like our community?

Would you give us the ability to be in to do that?

Now I look and see where we are as a church.

I just think about it even last week with our new members and just think through how God is continuing to add to his church and God is continuing the stories that are in the life and the testimonies of the people that are coming to our church.

God is allowing us to see a small window of what he largely wants to do, which is to allow that unified mission that we would all be aligned, heading in the same direction, and see the Spirit of God begin to move.

But I thought in my mind, God, would you help us look more racially diverse?

And God has not only allowed us to be more racially diverse, he's allowed us to have more diversity in our socioeconomics and generations and in all different backgrounds.

And praise God, I prayed too small.

I prayed too boxed in.

God decided to answer that in a whole different way.

And what I've now been able to just look back and see, it's not because of somehow my leadership, it's not because of anything that our staff did, it's not because of any decisions that we made.

I believe the reason that God has poured out his blessing and allowed us to experience a taste.

I think he's got way more for us, a taste of unity and diversity is because the prayers were aligned with what his heart is.

It's what he wants, it's what he is about.

I also think back to the beginning as well, you know, we were trying to figure out what the name of the church was gonna be, and we were trying to figure out what our mission statement was gonna be.

We put together a small group of folks from the staff and a small group of folks from the church.

We began to meet monthly for a year, beginning to discern and figure out what this was gonna look like.

And there was one thing that kept bubbling up to the surface, and honestly, the entire group didn't like it, me especially.

It was the word united.

And I was like, man, I don't want to be united.

What if we're already united?

And what we began to discover in the midst of that journey of self-reflection is no, we're we have uniformity, we're not united.

We're not united in our purpose, in our mission, in our strategy, and we're certainly not united with this community.

We're reaching people, but we're not reaching every people, we're not reaching everybody that's here, and so God began to just lay out not only the name of the church, but our mission statement, everyone, every day, crossing every divide to live united in Christ.

I had an idea of what this could look like.

God has blown that to smithereens and done it way more than I could have ever possibly imagined.

He's allowed us to see.

I'm convinced again, it's not because we were so good at words.

It was because I believe that this mission statement reflects the heart of Jesus, who wants us and prayed for us right before he died, that we would experience unity in every way.

Go back again with me to verse 20.

It says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them, even as you loved me.

There's three things I want to point out to you about unity, what Jesus means when he prays for unity.

The first one is this write this down.

Unity stands on truth.

Unity stands on truth.

Look at verse 20 again.

He says, I'm praying for those who will believe in what?

Through his word.

The foundation is his word, the apostle's word, the message, the truth.

Jesus doesn't pray that we would be unified built on shared hobbies.

He's not playing, praying for the Republican church one day in 2026 to be together or the Democratic Church.

He's not praying that we would be aligned on worship preferences.

He prays for unity built on shared truth, the gospel proclaimed by the apostles that's preserved for us in scriptures.

Jesus repeats this theme of truth over and over again.

John chapter 14, verse 6.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the what?

The truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

Folks, the world is telling you, be unified around a cause.

That's not true.

Be unified around the truth that is found in Jesus.

That's the stable thing.

And it's not just the the Jesus that says this, the Holy Spirit as well.

John chapter 16, verse 13, it says this when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

John 16:13

The purpose and the goal of the Holy Spirit is not to just give you words that are just words for you.

The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to give you words that are in alignment with what is Holy and Spirit, Holy Spirit-inspired scripture has already said and that remind you, points you, guides you to Jesus, who is the truth, which is so important because I pray and I hope that God speaks to you this week in the fast.

Every time I've done it, God begins to move in my life.

He begins to move in my family, he begins to move in the areas uh that are there.

But please know this if God's telling you something that's inconsistent with this, that ain't God.

Our foundation is not built on things that we hear in our heads.

Our foundation is built on what he's already said right here.

That is the most important thing that is true for us in our lives.

But in addition to that, what we also see is last week, John chapter 17, verse 17, sanctify them in the truth.

John 17:17

Your word is truth.

Here's the pattern: Jesus is truth, the Spirit guides us in a truth, God's word is the truth.

That's the foundation that we stand on, not our opinions, but his revelation.

A lot of churches will try to experience unity by doing things like watering down this.

And so they'll like when it comes to the hard topics, the cultural topics, the difficult things, the things that might be controversial, they'll say, Hey, we just don't talk about those things.

Okay, that is not unity, that's called avoidance.

And you ain't gonna build a church on avoiding hard things.

Okay, you instead let the our our our mission state or our our core values, the Bible speaks.

We're gonna let it speak, and if it stings, part of it.

But I would also tell you this the Bible comforts at the same time, and the Bible guides and he shows you.

I tell this to my kids all the time.

I'm just telling you, man, this is the only way to live.

Like it's the best way to live.

I experience something and I see somebody going against this, and I just remind them when they hear the story.

Let me just gotta remind you guys, this is the way to live.

This is what it looks like to begin to make this a priority in your life.

But other churches, here's what they're we're gonna be all about doctrine.

We're gonna make sure that we follow all of this, and so therefore, here's it is, and if you don't like it, you can just leave, and this is what we're gonna be about.

That's called pride.

What the scripture teaches is that we can stand on truth and also live in love.

We can do both at the same time, and that's what he's leading and calling us to do.

Uniformity is based on preferences, unity is based on the truth of Jesus Christ.

Here's a great way Paul says it in Ephesians chapter 4 of what it looks like in verses 4 through 6.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

He says, There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

That's unity.

When we stand on what is built from the truth, because unity stands on truth.

Look again with me at verses 21 and 22, that they may all be.

One, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you.

Skip down to verse 22.

The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, and that they may be one even as we are one.

The second thing I want you to see about unity, not only does it uh stand on truth, but it's number two, unity centers on Jesus.

Unity centers on Jesus.

Uh it's pretty interesting when you think about all of the Father, and you think about the I'm in you and you and me, and all the oneness language, whatever.

It's showing the Trinity.

The Trinity is that there's one God who exists in three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And there's a relationship between these, and what God is inviting us is into that relational connection with God.

And he shows us the center of Christian unity isn't a cause, it's a Christ.

He mentions there in verse 22 the glory that you have given me.

What we're seeing is that the glory that Jesus gives is not based upon our spotlights or our platforms.

The glory is based upon instead that what was displayed by Jesus at the incarnation, at the cross, at his resurrection, and now the fact that we pray to a God who is seated at the right hand of the Father up in heaven.

He removed the veil, and what he's saying is we now get to reflect his glory.

Second Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18 says this, and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

2 Corinthians 3:18

For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Because we have got rid of the things that distract us, and we've sought after Jesus.

And just like Moses, everybody can tell when he went up to the mountain.

It's just obvious.

That's part of my prayer every single week.

Is I have the privilege of standing before you and opening up God's word that you would not see me, but you would instead see the Jesus' reflection off of me.

Because you know, man, this has been in me already before it's come to you.

This is part of what I want us to see as a church.

Here's the problem, though, when it comes to this idea of unity.

A lot of times we think unity means we can bend God to do what we want.

That's how your calls get dropped.

Remember signal strength?

The whole idea is that you'd have five bars, you'd be totally aligned with God.

A lot of times, whenever you drop a call, it's so frustrating.

How do we twice yesterday?

Gosh, it's so annoying because I kept talking and I don't know how long I was talking before they fell off of the call, right?

And it feels like things just get disconnected.

Maybe you feel like that's about your prayers.

What we want to do is align ourselves with it so we've got full signal strength, can pray towards the Lord.

But here's the thing you can't do that whenever you're like, God, I need you to do all these things for me.

Instead, we talked about it the very first week.

What we instead need to do is, God, I need you to get me towards your glory because that's where I'm going to be best.

And so, therefore, even if it means that the circumstances don't change, if you're using that to align me with you, I'm okay with that.

I will receive that, I will accept that, I will embrace that in my life because we want to be about his fame and his glory and his name.

And when Jesus is the center, it's possible to experience unity across every human divide.

Here's the problem, though.

A lot of times too, we begin to think about unity based upon our comfort.

Some of you may have this thought right here.

I'll get into a group as long as it's with all my friends.

I'll get into a group as long as it's all with my people.

I'll get into a group as long as it's not with annoying people.

I'll get into a group as long as it's not with people that I don't really like and don't necessarily want to have to be.

The Lord does not say, Father, would you give them comfort?

He says, Father, would you make them one?

So whenever you choose to pursue people that may be a little more difficult, guess what?

You're fulfilling Jesus' prayer.

Whenever you show patience when it's kind of hard to, you're fulfilling the prayer of Jesus.

When you seek the hard at times of relationships, you're fulfilling the prayer of Jesus.

And he says that's what he wants for us is to be able to live in that way.

Here's the payoff.

Why does Jesus care so much about unity?

Look with me again at verse 21.

The end of that verse.

So that.

Okay.

Grammar school, you learn so that means that uh the effect is on the back end of that.

So that the world may believe that you sent me.

Look at verse 23.

So that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me.

Third aspect of unity: unity reaches the world.

Twice Jesus gives us the purpose.

Unity is not an end in and of itself.

Unity is evangelistic.

What the watching world sees is Christians who have every reason to divide but don't.

They see something when we express unity that they can't explain.

They see evidence that God is real.

Our unity is our apologetic.

Think about what divides us in our culture right now.

Politics divide us, race divides us, language divides us, geographic boundaries divide us.

If I was to tell you I was from Kingwood or Atascacita or Umble or Huffman or Crosby or Newcane or Porta, Porter or Splendora or Cleveland or Houston or Spring, you immediately would have some presuppositions about me.

You would immediately assume some things about me.

In addition to that, what you begin to see is that the algorithms are trying to make us mad at each other.

So that even if we live in the same city, we're still mad at those people as long as they don't vote like us or they don't act like us or they don't comment in the same way that we do.

You then compound that and know that we have an enemy who wants nothing more than to distract us, to make us angry, to make us live in constant rage, and he wants nothing to do with unity.

Why?

Because he knows unity is that antidote to rage debate, and that's why Jesus prays, in the midst of the chaos, let them be one so that the world may believe in me.

What if United City Church was known as a people who disagree on a lot of things, but are unified on Jesus?

What if our unity was so unusual, so countercultural that people had to ask, how is that possible?

And we could tell them the answer is Jesus.

That we could glow with the glory of God on our face, and as we live out in the community, that the world would be able to see what we're about and not just what we're about, but instead who we reflect.

This church plant that we're we're doing collectively, it's not just about us trying to figure out how we can hoard and make United City more and better.

We want to send as many people out as possible because you are sanctified not to sit, you are sanctified to be sent.

And so this is a tangible expression of saying, God, we want to be a part of your greater thing called the kingdom.

We want to send people to be on mission and to be a part of this amazing work in an area.

It's not my neighborhood, but it's still a neighborhood you care deeply about.

We want to ask you to do.

We got a missions expo out there.

We've got local, we've got uh national, we've got international opportunities all over the place.

What we want to ask you to do is to consider what it could look like for you to be unified and don't say this, well, I just want to serve my friends.

I just want to serve my people.

No, no, no, no.

It's not about your friends and your people, it's about the mission that God is calling you to.

You go sign up and meet new people that may be in different life stages and different demographics and different all different types of things and serve together, man.

That is unity.

And let's be a people who don't just keep it to ourselves, but instead who serve, go by the missions expo and you go and take a look and see what God may be leading you to do.

And I can assure you this the answer is not nothing.

The answer is for you to be active, for you to be connected, for you to be sent in every single way.

The world has a word for 2025, it's Rage Bait.

But Jesus has an answer for 2,000 years ago.

That's unity.

His prayer reveals his priority.

And we know that unity stands on truth because the gospel is our foundation.

We know that unity centers on Jesus because he's the focus, it's not us.

And we know that unity reaches the world, our oneness can be a witness.

And so 2,000 years ago, Jesus prayed for you.

He prayed that you would be one with other believers.

He prayed that your unity would compel the world around you to believe in him.

So, in a world of rage big.

Church, let's be the antidote.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me, please?

If you're online, please do the same.

Where are you divided?

Is there something and someone that you need to reconcile?

Maybe someone that you've been avoiding.

Would you commit right now to make that call, to set up that meeting, to offer that apology?

Jesus says it in the gospels.

He says, if you're at a worship service, you got something against your brother, man, just leave the worship service.

You go make it right with your brother first.

Then you can come back and worship.

Romans 12 chapter 18 says this, if possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.

Notice it says, so far as it depends on you, you can't control that other person.

But you can control you.

Some of you have been hurt, some of you have been betrayed, some of you have church hurt, relationship hurt, job hurt, all kinds of hurt.

I'm not minimizing those things at all.

I'm just asking that you would allow the Spirit of God not to let those things control you, to own you, to dominate you.

Because I can assure you this, the world just wants you mad.

What God wants is for you to be unified, have a pure and holy heart before Him.

Right now, would you make the commitment before the Lord to follow His lead and do whatever He's calling you to do?

I'm gonna ask as well for you're here today.

Would you pray for this church?

Pray for unity, pray for diversity.

I don't even think we've started to scratch the surface of what he wants to do.

Praise God that we've got a Spanish congregation.

What other language does he want us to have?

Praise God, that he's allowed us to see growth.

But what is our disobedience keeping him from doing even more?

I believe God wants to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think.

And I hope that as you pray today, as you pray this week, she'll say, God, help us be unified on our mission.

Man, man, we just be we don't want to be a shotgun, we want to be a rifle.

We're gonna be laser focused.

And God, would you pour out your blessing?

Let us look like this community in ways like nothing we've ever seen.

Some of you are here and you can't be unified because you don't have a relationship with God in the first place.

I need you to know this, you were designed for one.

But because of your sin, you're kept from it.

You're separated from him, but God made a way when there was no way.

God sent his son Jesus Christ to come to this earth, live a perfect, sinless, obedient life.

He took a punishment for your sins.

And now you can experience the gift of reconciliation with him.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8 30, 10, 11 30, or Espanol at 1 o'clock.