The Joy of Real Friends - Philippians 2 - Pastor Rajiv

Father God, we thank you.

We praise you.

We worship you.

And it's in Jesus' name we all pray.

Amen.

Can we give the team a round of applause this morning?

You guys, uh, I I gotta tell you, you guys, uh all of you, all of you just stepped it up and and you showed up.

You were available and willing to say yes uh when we needed people to step up and say yes.

So thank you so much.

Uh, you may all be seated.

Um, a few weeks ago, I shared a bit of my testimony, and uh I'm I'm going to now kind of on the back of that share a little bit of what I went through when I first came to faith.

When I first came to faith, we we basically uh fairly quickly moved over our entire family to India.

And while we were in India, I I had this deep hunger inside me.

I deeply wanted to learn the Bible.

I wanted to understand it, I want to absorb it.

I in fact, I wanted to find somebody who could show me how to live this thing out, like day to day.

Just walk me with me every single day.

Help me understand this, help me absorb it, and help me walk this thing out.

Again, I was I was in India at the time.

We we found a church, we joined the church, I joined a small group, and there was this leader in the small group.

I and I asked him, you know, his name was Max.

I asked him, Max, would you be willing to mentor me?

And he said, Yes.

And I was super excited.

I was like, yes, okay, this is great, fantastic.

I've I found what I'm looking for.

But then his company relocated him to another country.

I'm like, oh no, the hunt is back on.

So I started looking at other churches.

Started to try and find this person.

Nobody seemed willing to, either willing or available, maybe there's limited bandwidth.

I don't know, but but I couldn't find anybody able to do this.

But now look, I'm an entrepreneur.

If there's a problem, I'm not just gonna sit around passively and just wait.

I'm gonna try and solve it.

So I did whatever I could.

I started listening to a pastor's sermons out of the U.S., one, sometimes two sermons every single day for at least two or three years, just trying to learn.

Now, I didn't know it then, but what I was really after, what I was really looking for, was a Paul.

I was looking for a mentor.

I was looking for a friend.

In fact, I was starving for something, all the young people in here, I was starving for something you cannot download or stream from a Facebook feed or a TikTok feed.

I needed someone to shape me.

So let me ask you something.

Who is shaping you right now?

Not just influencing you, I mean shaping you.

Do you have someone close enough to see your real life?

Now, for those of you who may be joining us for the first time, we are going through Philippians.

This is a letter written by the Apostle Paul.

Paul is in prison, he's chained to a Roman guard, he's awaiting a possible death sentence, and he's writing to tell a church that he loves dearly one thing above everything else.

Joy is possible, real joy, the kind that doesn't depend on your circumstances.

In chapter two, Paul points us to Jesus, who gave up everything, came as a servant, died on a cross, rose from the dead, and was exalted above every name.

He gave us a pattern on how we are to relate to one another.

Humility, thinking about yourself less and others more.

And then Paul says, Now you work out your salvation.

Let the change Christ made inside you start showing up in how you live your actual life.

But he doesn't leave it in the abstract, he doesn't keep it vague, he doesn't just give a command and then walk away.

He points to two very real, ordinary, flesh and blood human beings and says, Here, look at these two men.

This is what working out your salvation actually looks like in real life.

Because here's what we're gonna unpack this morning.

Real joy grows in real friendship.

Real joy grows in real friendship, where people invest in you, show up for you, and point you to Jesus.

So this morning, we're gonna open up our Bibles to Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

We're gonna finish chapter 2 this morning.

So if you have Bibles in front of you, you can go ahead and open those, or you can follow along on the screen.

We're gonna continue at verse 19.

Philippians chapter 2, verse 19.

Philippians 2:19

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.

I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare.

For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel.

I hope therefore to send him as soon as I as soon as I see how things go with me, and I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

So Paul starts off with Timothy.

Now, again, think about the question I asked earlier.

Who is shaping you?

Like, because understand, you you are being shaped right now.

The question is not if you are being shaped, the question is who is shaping you and what are you becoming?

You see, Paul understood this, which is why he didn't just preach at Timothy, he walked with him.

Timothy is mentioned by name in eight of Paul's letters.

He's listed as a co-author on on six of them, maybe seven.

It's I think it's six of them.

These two men spent years together, hundreds of conversations around fires at night, over meals, walking along the roadside between cities.

They spent a lot of time together.

Timothy wasn't just formed in some classroom, he was formed in real life walking with Paul.

That's what a Paul is.

Not a perfect person, not a celebrity pastor, not someone who has everything together.

A Paul is somebody who is further down the road than you, who is willing to let you walk close enough to watch how they actually live.

And Paul says something remarkable about Timothy in verse 20.

He says he has no one else like him.

No one else like him.

The description he's giving here, it actually means equal soul, same spirit, like-minded at the deepest level.

Understand, Timothy didn't just share Paul's theology, he shared Paul's heart.

He genuinely cared about the same people Paul cared about.

Listen, that kind of alignment, it doesn't come from listening to sermons, even good ones.

It comes from proximity, from walking close to someone whose life is anchored to Jesus Christ.

That's how that comes.

And over time, what anchors that person starts to anchor you too.

See, Tim Keller put it this way.

He said, in the early part of your life, you are what your family made you.

The rest of your life, you are what your friends make you.

Understand, your community, who you hang out with, forms you.

Your community shapes you.

So who are the people you surround yourself by?

Who are the people you let speak into your life?

And please, please do not tell me, don't let social media or Chat GPT or Gemini be what primarily shapes you.

Because here's what I'm beginning to see: people are substituting real relationships with digital ones.

Social media gives you the feeling of connection without the cost of it.

And now AI tools are doing something that I, oh my goodness, they're doing something that could really mess with you.

They are trained, hear this.

They are trained to affirm you, to tell you your ideas are brilliant, to tell you that you, to make you feel understood without ever actually knowing you.

I get, oh man, when when ChatGPT tells me, oh Rajiv, those are brilliant instincts.

You're on the right track.

Oh, it it irks me.

I say, no, no, no.

Challenge me, confront me, be critical with me.

See, you can't substitute these digital tools for real relationships.

Chat GBT isn't gonna show up for you at three in the morning when you need them.

ChatGPT is not your friend or your therapist or your spiritual guru.

This is not friendship, it's a product designed to keep you engaged.

And I'm sharing this because wait for the day when Elon starts releasing those robots because it's coming, and some of us are gonna start buying them.

Don't get me wrong, I might buy a robot to help clean the house and do my laundry and all that.

But understand, it's a robot, it's a machine, it is not a relationship, it's not real.

Real spiritual friendship, the kind that even Tim Keller was describing, is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and look like Jesus in deeper and deeper ways.

That requires a real person, someone who can see your actual life, someone who will tell you what you need to hear, not what keeps you coming back.

They tell you the hard truths.

That's a Paul.

That's a Timothy.

That's what this passage is showing us.

But then it's as if, do we do we still have the verses up there?

We're about to, I think.

It's as if Paul drops this confrontational grenade right in the middle of what he's saying here, right in the middle of this passage.

He says, Everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

Everyone.

I want you to understand something.

He's not talking about pagans, he's not talking about people who hate God, he's talking about the people who are around him in ministry, the people around Paul in ministry, the people who know the right things, the people who show up, the people who use the right language, even among them, the default is self-interest.

That's us.

But understand something.

Self-interest in the church doesn't always look so obvious.

It doesn't always look like obvious selfishness.

It can be quieter than that.

It looks like never quite getting around to investing in anyone.

It looks like knowing someone is going through something hard and sending them a text message instead of showing up.

It looks like being too busy to notice that the person right next to you is drowning.

The person who needed someone to show up and nobody did.

The young believer who was hungry and found no one willing to feed them.

You see, and underneath that behavior is a God.

When you refuse to invest in people, you're not just busy, you're worshiping comfort.

Comfort becomes your God.

That's verse 21.

That's the drift.

And most of us are somewhere in it right now.

Well, let me share another one.

There's another version of this drift that's that's sometimes harder to see because it looks like the real thing from the outside, right?

It's the person who invests, but they're investing actually for themselves.

It's the person who looks like a Paul on the outside, but has verse 21 running on the inside.

These are the people who love the idea of being a mentor more than they love the person they're mentoring.

They use the relationship to somehow feel important, to show what they know.

They perform concern without actually feeling it.

So here's a diagnostic question.

If you're if you're in a Paul position right now, not your knowledge, not your method, your heart, do you genuinely care about the person you're walking with?

Or do you care about what investing in them does for your own ego?

See, Paul, he had genuine concern for others.

Timothy had genuine concern for the welfare of others.

And in fact, that word genuine is helping us to understand.

It means the real thing.

It is a real, deep, sincere, genuine concern for that person.

It's not a performance, it's not concern that is secretly about you.

I want you to understand something.

A Paul without that genuine concern is not a Paul, it's just someone with an audience.

Now look, I know the other side of this drift.

Not the counterfeit Paul, but the disengaged consumer.

Consuming sermons, one, two a day, taking and taking and taking, and nobody was getting anything from me.

Because I thought at that time, I thought that learning was the same thing as growing.

It's not.

See, growing happens when what is in you starts moving through you into someone else.

The gospel travels through relationships.

God's word travels through relationships.

It moves from one life to another.

Paul to Timothy, Timothy to faithful people, faithful people to others, four generations in one sentence in another letter that Paul wrote.

That's how God's work, that's how God's work moves forward.

In fact, that's how it's always moved forward.

Understand something.

We all need a Paul in our life.

Doesn't matter how old you are, doesn't matter how long you've been walking in the faith, we all need some a Paul in our life.

So here's the question I want to ask you.

Do you have that?

Do you have a Paul in your life right now?

Or are you trying to follow Jesus alone?

Now I'm not talking about a perfect mentor, not someone with with all the answers, just somebody who is further down the road, who is willing to walk close enough with you that you can watch how they actually live out the gospel.

Now here's maybe a harder one for some of you.

Who's your Timothy right now?

Who is close enough to your life to be shaped by you?

That relationship, a Paul who walks with you, a Timothy you're walking with, friends, that is where some of the deepest joy in the Christian life lives.

Not in information, in formation, in proximity to people who are pointing you toward Jesus.

And listen, if nobody comes to mind, understand you're not just busy, you're isolated.

You're isolated.

And isolation is not how God designed you to grow.

It is not what this passage is describing, and it is not what the church is called to be.

It's not what we are called to be.

And I think I take pride in the fact that this church, I think, really steps up to be Paul and Timothy's one another.

But the question is, do you have a Paul in your life?

Do you have a Timothy in your life?

A Paul who invests in you.

A Timothy you're investing in.

That is the joy of real friendship.

So now, Paul shifts to a second man.

And this guy, you know, most of us have never really heard of.

His name is Epaphroditus.

We're gonna continue reading in our passage.

Verse 25.

But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs, for he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.

Indeed, he was ill and almost died, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.

Therefore, I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again, you may be glad, and I may have less anxiety.

So then welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ.

He risks his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.

Apaphroditus.

It is worth noting, his name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.

Okay, that was the world's version of love, the selfish kind of love that disappears when things get tough.

Right?

This man, named after a counterfeit love, becomes one of the clearest pictures of the real thing.

In fact, Paul gives him five titles in one verse.

My brother, my fellow worker, my fellow soldier, your messenger, minister to my need.

Those aren't just honorary titles.

Every single one of them was earned through travel, near fatal illness, and the willingness to risk everything for the sake of someone else.

So here's I want you to understand.

Here's what happened.

You got the church in Philippi, they hear that Paul is in prison, and nobody asked them or forced them to do anything.

They took it upon themselves to take up an offering on their own, and they didn't wire the money.

There was no Western Union back then.

They didn't, they didn't, they didn't send a gift basket, they sent a person.

And Epaphroditus said, Yes, I'll go.

Now, here's what that yes actually cost him.

You see, most people in the first century never traveled more than 30 miles from home.

We're talking about open seas, we're talking about being on foot.

And guess what?

He made it.

Nearly died, but he made it.

He served Paul, nearly died doing it.

He risked everything for Christ.

And now Paul's sending him back.

Now he's going back.

The same journey that nearly killed him.

Why?

Because the church needs him.

And he says yes again.

That is a man laying down his life twice.

Verse 26.

Paul says Apaphroditus was distressed because the Philippians heard he was sick.

He nearly died.

He is far from home.

He is sick in a foreign city.

And his primary concern is not his own suffering.

His primary concern is that the people back home are worried about him.

In fact, the word Paul uses to describe Apaphroditus' anguish is the same word.

Understand this.

It is the same word that Matthew and Mark used to describe what Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before the cross.

He was in genuine anguish.

But his anguish was not for himself, it was for his Philippian friends.

And then look at what God does in verse 27.

It says, God had mercy on him, not just healed him.

Had mercy on him.

Mercy is God's way of saying, I see you, I'm with you.

And then Paul says something personal, not to him only, but also on me.

See, God the Father saw both of them.

I have a friend, probably one of the strongest men I've known.

I mean, he he is physically strong.

He's a rock solid dude.

He's also rock solid in his faith.

He's the kind of man you look at and you think nothing could rattle this guy.

Well, he got some news about his health that scared him.

He was waiting for a prognosis.

And in that waiting, this strong man was scared.

He called me in tears.

He was going through fears I'd never seen in him before.

I went to him right away.

We ate together, we laughed together, we cried together, and I told him, I am adding your name to my favorites on my iPhone so that no matter what, even if my do not disturb is on on my iPhone, if you call, it will ring.

And if it rings, I will pick up.

Whether it's three in the afternoon or three in the morning.

And then God's mercy came.

The prognosis came back negative.

No cancer.

He did have to have surgery to remove what was concerning, but he was clear.

God had mercy on my friend.

I want to tell you something.

God had mercy on me too.

See, being present with someone in their darkest moment isn't just something you do for them.

God does something to you in the middle of it too.

That's what verse 27 is talking about.

When is the last time you showed up for someone when it cost you something?

Or have you trained yourself to stay comfortable?

See, there's a definition of friendship that's been around for generations.

I can't remember who said it.

I think C.S.

Lewis may have said it.

The quote says this a friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.

That's almost word for word what Ephroditis did.

And in fact, Paul gives a command after that.

Paul commands the church to do something when someone like that, when someone like Epaphroditus walks through the door.

Verse 29, receive him in the Lord with great joy.

Honor such men.

Not appreciate them quietly, honor them, celebrate them, let them know that the community saw what it cost them and it mattered.

That is the joy of real friends.

It reminds me of another story.

In 1947, a man named Pee Wee Reese did a similar thing.

In 1947, baseball was segregated.

Black players were not allowed in the major leagues.

Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field anyway, facing crowds that did not want him there.

He faced hostility everywhere he went, from the crowds, from opponents, even from his own teammates.

And he couldn't fight back.

One game, the hate and hostility peaked.

Robinson stood there, absorbing it.

Reese, a white man from Kentucky, called Time Out, walked across the field, put his arm around him, and stood there, saying nothing.

The stadium went quiet.

Robinson later said that moment saved his career.

Not a speech, not a plan, just one man who showed up.

That was enough.

You don't need an 800-mile journey to do this.

But you do need to show up.

That's the ministry of presence.

You're not there to have the right words.

You're there for someone because you refuse to let them be alone.

Somebody specific in the room right now.

There is somebody in this room who's been going through something very difficult, something hard for months, and you haven't told anyone about it.

Maybe you came in here today wondering if anyone would actually show up for you if they knew what you were going through.

Look, this passage was written for you.

That person is you, and this church is the community that shows up for you.

So let me ask a question for the rest of us.

Who needs you to show up for them this week?

And will you actually go?

Will you actually go?

Who's in a hospital room?

Who just got news that scared them?

Who's going through something alone that they were never meant to go through alone?

Look, I'm speaking to all of you right now.

You don't need a title.

Epaphroditis didn't have one.

You don't need a platform.

You don't need a position.

You don't need credentials.

You just need availability and a willingness to say yes.

Show up.

Sit with them.

Let them know they're not alone.

But I know some of you right now are hearing this, and you might be thinking, yeah, that sounds nice.

That sounds beautiful.

But I don't know if I have that in me.

Well, that's exactly where Paul wants you.

Because here's what he's not saying.

He's not saying try harder.

He's not saying be more disciplined.

He's not saying, look at these two men and pull yourself together, man, and do better.

That's not what he's saying.

He's saying something completely different.

We go back to verses 12 and 13 in the same chapter, and what is he saying?

He says, work out your salvation.

For it is God.

Let what Christ did in you start showing up in how you actually live, because it is God who is at work in you.

It is God doing God, is the one giving you the desire, giving you the ability, producing in you what you could never produce in yourself.

Understand something.

Timothy and Epaphroditus are not the standard.

They're the proof.

They're the proof that Christ actually gets inside a human life and starts producing something that was never there before.

Something that a person couldn't just manufacture on their own.

He puts it this way: he says, some Christians approach spiritual growth like stapling roses to a dead rosebush.

Right?

You drive by fast enough and it looks healthy.

But stapling roses does not fix the problem.

You cannot grow spiritually by trying to add love or add generosity or add sacrifice to your life from the outside.

You can only do it by driving your roots deep into Christ.

The more deeply you're connected to him, the more the fruit starts appearing in your life naturally.

So the question is not, how can I be more like Timothy and Epaphroditus?

The question is, how can I be more deeply rooted in the one who made them who they were?

What does that actually look like?

Any coffee drinkers in the room?

Raise your hands.

Okay, a few of us.

Any tea drinkers in the room?

A few of us.

Okay, great.

I like drinking tea.

I wish I would do it more, but I like drinking tea.

And I've noticed when I meet with tea drinkers, there are two types of tea drinkers that I come across.

There are the dippers, right?

They they they dip the tea bag in the cup and they keep dipping.

Up and down, up and down.

Throughout the entire conversation.

Up and down, up and down.

It's actually very distracting.

I start to wonder, you gonna ever stop dipping and start drinking your tea?

Right?

The dippers.

Then there are the ploppers.

Now, technical term, I think it's steeping.

These are the people who plop the teabag in the cup, cover it with the lid, and let it sit.

Think about what happens to the water.

It begins to take on the character, the color, the aroma of the teabag.

It absorbs everything the teabag has to give.

That is what it means to stay with Jesus long enough for your own life to change.

You see, too many of us are living like dippers.

Sit with Jesus before you serve him.

Steep yourself in his word.

Steep yourself in his presence through prayer.

Let him pour his life into you so that the character, color, and aroma of your life begins to look like Jesus.

I told you at the start of this morning, I spent years in India hungry, consuming sermon after sermon, looking for a Paul and having trouble finding one.

Eventually, God brought me one.

His name is Rue.

Rue became my Paul, my coach, my friend.

He poured into me the way Paul poured into Timothy.

He walked with me through some of the hardest, most difficult seasons of my life.

When we were forced to leave India, a place we loved, a people we loved, a mission we had given everything to, Rue was there.

When I had to make some of the most painful decisions of my life that involved people I love and care about, decisions that cost me more than I can share from up here.

Rue was there.

He sat with me.

He didn't try to fix it.

He just refused to leave.

And in fact, I was there for him too.

When he went through his own dark seasons, his own difficult moments.

I would show up for him the way he showed up for me.

And look, this isn't just friendship.

That's a Paul and Timothy.

That's apaphroditus.

That's the whole sermon lived out in just one relationship.

And eventually, we weren't just friends.

Together, we became co-laborers for the gospel.

Now I want you to understand something.

I'm not saying this to puff myself up.

I'm letting you know that I did not build that.

Jesus Christ built it.

He sent Rue into my life at exactly the right moment.

He produced in me what I could not produce in myself, and then he sent us out together.

But even Rue had limits.

Every apaphroditus in your life does.

They're finite and fallen, and they're doing the best they can.

But here's what I want you to see.

Every Paul who has ever walked with you, every mentor who invested in you, told you hard truths, refused to give up on you, was giving you a picture of someone greater.

But that picture was incomplete.

Because every Paul eventually leaves, moves to another country, gets sick, grows old, has limits.

Every friend who showed up when you needed them, who put their arm around you when the crowd was mocking you, who called time out and walked across the field to stand next to you, was pointing to something more real.

Every apaphroditus who traveled 800 miles to sit with you, who refused to leave you, who said, I will pick up no matter what time you call was a shadow.

A real shadow.

A precious shadow.

But a shadow of something infinitely more permanent.

Jesus is the true Paul.

He knew you before you knew him.

He chose you before you chose him.

He was walking with you longer than any mentor ever could, and he was he is never once, nor will he ever relocate.

Jesus is the true Timothy, equal with the Father, genuinely concerned for your welfare from a place of love.

He's not concerned for you because it's his job.

He's concerned for you because you are his child.

Jesus is the true Epaphroditus.

He traveled the infinite distance from heaven to earth, from glory to a manger, from the throne to a cross to rescue you, to make you his.

And he did not nearly die showing up.

He actually did.

And he rose.

And because he rose, his presence with you is not dependent on his health or his proximity or his ability to make the journey.

He is always with you, even to the end of the age.

And that is available to every person in this room right now.

Now I know some of you came in today still working out whether or not any of this is real.

But I want you to notice something.

The community this passage describes, people who actually show up for each other, who invest in each other, who refuse to let each other be alone, that is what you've been looking for.

That's what your heart is longing for.

And it only exists where Jesus Christ is at the center.

So if you have never said yes to him, today is your day.

So cry out to him.

Jesus, I have sinned against you.

Forgive me, save me, make me yours.

Lord, would you do in me what you did in Timothy and Epaphroditus?

I can't produce this on my own.

But you can.

So would you have your way with me?

I mean, imagine that for a moment.

Imagine a room full of people who all have a Paul, nobody navigating their faith alone.

Imagine a room full of people who are somebody's Timothy showing up, staying close, being formed by proximity to someone anchored in Jesus Christ.

Imagine a room full of aphroditus people.

People who who, when someone in this family gets that phone call that changes everything, they don't just send a text message.

They show up.

They refuse to leave.

That is what Paul is describing in this passage.

That is what Christ actually produces in a community that is rooted in him.

That is relentless joy.

But now I can't help myself.

I don't want to just preach this.

I don't want to maybe possibly inspire some of you, and that's it.

I want follow-through.

So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.

You all have a bulletin in your on your laps or in your hand.

You all have a visitor card in there.

Can I see you guys pull out the visitor card for a moment?

Raise them in the sky, raise them high.

And if you don't have a visitor card, Ray, Caleb, find people, give them visitor cards.

Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to be intentional.

I want you to write your name, write your phone number on that card.

And on the bottom of that card, I want you to write one of three things.

So let me finish all three before you write which word I want you to write.

Write the name Paul if you are ready to invest in someone.

You are further down the road and you are looking for a Timothy to walk with.

You're hungry the way I was hungry in India.

And you need a Paul.

That's hard to spell.

So I'm making it easy on you.

Write the word present.

If you are going through something hard right now, and you need someone to show up for you, someone who will sit with you and refuse to leave.

When you've written those names down, at the end of the service, I want you to turn those cards in.

And we will help make those connections.

We will help follow up with you this week.

Because I want you to I want to say something to you all.

Contrary to what some of you may believe, this is not a place you attend.

This is a family you belong to.

And in this family, nobody does life alone.

Nobody grows their faith alone.

Nobody suffers alone.

I hope you're hearing me.

This is relentless joy.

It starts today with each of you.

So do not, do not leave here unchanged.

Show up for someone this week.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this morning.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for the deep roots you have planted in this church, in this community, to be there for one another.

Lord, would you continue to nurture and foster more Paul's, more Timothy's, more Apaphroditus in our church?

But Lord, would you also help us to not fall victim to thinking we just need to be better, we just need to be like them.

But we deeply root ourselves in you by reading of your word, by soaking ourselves in prayer and crying out to you, by steeping ourselves, so that the character, color, and aroma of Jesus bleeds out in the way we live.

We thank you, God, for all that you're doing in and through this community.

And we pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.