(footsteps) Gracious Father, we have come to seek you. To know you in our prayers, to know you in our worship, in our time of fellowship. What we are unable to do, no matter how hard we strive, we know, Father God, how desperate and dependent we are, Father, to come to you, to abide in you, to pray to you, cry out to you.

Lord, you know the needs of our hearts, you know the various things that we're wrestling with, but we know, Father God, that ultimately, life and happiness is in you. So we ask, Lord God, that you would call your believers to submit to you, to take this time, Lord God, to humble ourselves, to seek your face.

That as you hear us, and as you hear our prayers, that you would continue to soften and renew us, Lord God, that our affection for you may grow. We pray for your guidance, we pray for your spirit, we pray, Lord God, for genuine fellowship. Bless us, Lord God, as we have come to meet you.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, and so, especially the chapter one, chapter one of the book of Psalms is the introduction, and so, many commentators will say that to understand the book of Psalms, you need to understand the chapter one, 'cause chapter one is kinda like the main thesis, and everything else that you see in the rest of Psalms is kinda like the outworking of what he says in chapter one.

So we're gonna start and look at chapter one. If you look at chapter one, it basically, in the summary, it says, "Blessed is the man "who walks not in the counsel of the wicked." The word blessed, in Hebrew, asherah, it literally means to be happy. Happy is the man, you know?

Again, for whatever the reason, some people think that happiness is found in the world, and then you come to church because this is your duty, this is, Christ did, you know, die for you, so you need to do this, but then when you really wanna be happy, you go outside, and it sometimes shows in the things that we pursue.

So when you come to church, it's duty, or if you wanna be happy, you go play sports, or you travel, or you do something else, right? But the beginning of the book of Psalms, the first prayer in the book of Psalms, it says, "Happy is the man," true happiness, and that's the distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian, is a non-Christian seeks happiness in the world.

A Christian has found his happiness, his joy, blessedness, in him. And so when he begins the book of prayer, book of prayer, the book of Psalms, it says, "Happy is the man." In fact, the word happy in the New Testament is often used interchangeably. Joy and salvation is used interchangeably.

So the first evidence of genuine salvation in a Christian is joy. You know, a lot of times, we have a hard time seeing that in Christians who've been walking with the Lord for a long time, for whatever reason, but when you see somebody who just received the Lord, almost always, the first thing that you can notice about them is joy.

There's this burden of sin that's been lifted off from them, and you see this light, because salvation literally means somebody who was dead has come to life. Remember the word life is zoe in the New Testament. The word zoe is to be alive. So the idea of joy and happiness intertwined with our understanding of salvation.

So when he says, "Blessed is the man, happy is the man, "saved is the man who does not walk "in the counsel of the wicked." So the first thing that he sees is, a Christian and a non-Christian, the distinction between them is where you find life. If you find life in the world, and the church is just a place that you need to put in duty, you won't last long.

Anything that you dread to do, you're not gonna do it for long. Only people who truly find life in Christ will persevere through it all, because this is where you come to find life. He says, "Salvation is the man," and then he gives three things that he does not do.

He does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Second, nor stand in the way of sinners. Third, nor does he sit in the seat of scoffers. So obviously when he says, the first identifying mark of a true Christian is he does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.

Now, instead of counsel of the wicked, how many people do you know that are wicked? There's some wicked people, and as long as you stay away from them, you'll be fine. Wickedness in scripture is described as anyone who leads us away from God. Any counsel, any idea, any thoughts, any principles that is contrary to true life in Christ is wicked counsel.

You can come in a form of angel of light, and yet that counsel leads us away from God is wicked counsel. So he's talking about an individual who's living his life based upon the principles that everybody else lives on. And it doesn't have to look evil, right? The counsel of the wicked doesn't say, go hit your children, you know, kick dogs.

The counsel of the wicked doesn't, you don't see it black and white. Oftentimes the counsel of the wicked is distinguished between what is good and what is best. Let me say that again. Sometimes the counsel of the wicked is distinguished between what is good and what is best. So the distinction between best and good is, there are things that we consider good, right?

We wanna be good children, we wanna be good fathers, good mothers, we wanna be good parents, we wanna be good employees, we wanna be good citizens of the state. And so all of these things are not evil, they're good things. But sometimes these things lead us away from God.

Wickedness isn't always identified with black and white. It's any counsel, any principle, any thought, any advice that leads us away from Christ the center is considered wicked counsel. Someone who is living constantly by the principles of this world. If you work hard, you get money, you get a good job, you live a nice life, and then you don't get to go to hell, you get to go to heaven.

So what's wrong with that, right? Why can't we have it all? Because the scripture says, love for the world is envy toward God. So the first thing that he says, the aspect of true salvation is an individual who does not walk according to the pattern of this world, according to the counsel of this world.

And then the second thing is he said, he doesn't stand in the way of sinners. So you see the progression. An individual who's constantly making decisions based upon the principles of this world, eventually he's gonna be counted among the sinners. Sin is never dormant. If you allow compromise in your life and you begin to walk in the counsel of the wicked, it doesn't stay dormant.

It almost always grows. A sin that you've allowed and you've compromised in, and you just kind of excuse and justify, eventually will grow to become something bigger than you originally intended. And so you look at it as when it comes to the core decisions of his life, his pattern of the way he makes decisions is no different than a non-Christian friend, other than the fact that he goes to church on Sunday.

Eventually he will be counted among the sinners. His value system is no different than a non-Christian. So eventually you're not gonna be able to distinguish between an unrepentant sinner and somebody who professes to have repented. And that's the second progression. Third progression, he says, nor sits in the seat of scoffer.

Do you see the progression? First part of it is his counsel, his thought process is no different than the world. Second, then he begins to be identified. You can't distinguish him between a Christian and a non-Christian. And then third, he becomes a scoffer. If you've talked to anybody who used to go to church, or used to be at church, or used to be very active at church, and you sit there and talk with them, the people who are the most antagonistic toward Christ and the church are usually people at one point.

At one point, used to be at church. They, oh, I used to be a professing Christian. I used to be just like you. Usually the people who are the most antagonist toward the church are people, or not people who've never been to church. It's usually people who at one point used to go to church and they fell out.

And you see this progression. Let me give you a pattern that I've observed through the years, what happens to somebody who compromised in their sin, and the usual progression of how that sin has its effect in their life. They compromise into sin, and usually it's not black and white.

Usually it's not, do I choose God or do I choose Satan? It's not like that. It's usually you make a compromise where you want God and you want something else, and you know in your heart it's a compromise. Or it may be a blatant sin. Whatever it is, it is unconfessed, or it's very superficially repentant.

And so what happens is that guilt upon that person begins to weigh heavy. And that guilt begins to fester, and then as a result of that guilt, they feel distant from God. The Psalms don't have any kind of effect on you. You read the Bible, it just seems like words, right?

And you're just kind of checking in and checking out because you feel distant from God. So when you begin to feel distant from God, you begin to feel distant from others. And you get together and you're talking, you say, "Well, you know, I'm in this large group of people, "but I really don't feel like I'm fellowshipping." As a result of distance from God, you feel this disconnect with other believers.

And then what ends up happening, again, this is the progression. When somebody's not right with God, and they feel distant in fellowship, the next stage is they begin to say, "Well, you know, every time I go to church, "I feel judged because I don't connect with people. "Maybe they're the problem.

"Maybe if they were more gracious." And so because of this frustration, this guilt upon them that is unrepentant, distance from God, distance from people, and then eventually you say, "These people are judging me." And then that progresses to, "These people are a bunch of hypocrites "'cause they're no better than I am." And then as a result of that, these people are hypocrites, and the next stage is, "I hate the church." You know, church is filled with hypocrites, and all they do is judge people.

And then the end result of all of that is, "I don't know if I believe God, "if that's the way the church is." This is a progression that I've seen throughout the years, not just one person, but it almost always begin with unconfessed, unrepentant sin, or sin that they've allowed and compromised.

And so they allow their life to be saturated with the counsel that we're given, and they begin to get counted with the sinners, and eventually they are sitting with a sea of scoffers, not realizing the genesis of all of that is a sin that they allowed it to fester in their hearts.

He says, "Blessed is the man, "saved is the man, "happy is the man whose pattern of life is not that." But then he says, "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, "and on this law he meditates day and night." His delight is in the law of the Lord.

Now, we are in the new covenant, in the New Testament, so whenever we hear the word law, we think it's a bad word, right? The law, we're not about the law, we're about grace. Law is satanic, grace is from Jesus. We have this misunderstanding about the law, thinking that the law, somehow, like in the new covenant, is a dirty word that you can't say.

Remember, Paul himself corrects that. He says, "No, the law is not bad, "law is good if you use it," what? "Legally, profitably, for what it was intended for." How do we understand when he says, "If true joy is coming from delighting in the law of the Lord," you know, some of us will, or a lot of us will sit here and say, "Well, I'm in trouble, "because I don't know if I delight in it.

"I'll study it, I'll apply it, "I don't know if I delight in it." You have to understand, remember Paul says in Romans chapter seven, "For I delight in the law of the Lord, "but there's another law working within me." Whether you believe that pre-Christian or post-Christian, basically what Paul says, "In my flesh, "I don't have any ability to carry this out." And that's why he said, "Because of the Holy Spirit," right, he walks in the spirit, has life, he walks in the flesh, is death.

In and of itself, in our own flesh, we don't have the ability to delight in the law. But Paul says in Galatians 3, 24, "So then the law was our guardian until Christ came, "in order that we might be justified by faith." When he says he delights in the law of the Lord, he's not saying that, you know, if you really wanna be saved, you have to enjoy keeping the Sabbath.

He's not saying that if you wanna really be happy, you have to really enjoy making sacrifices, and waking up early, and giving to the poor. You have to enjoy that or else you're not saved. The reason why he says he delights in the law of the Lord because the law of the Lord is basically an extension of who God is, is another way of saying he delights in God.

And because he delights in God, he delights in the law of God. Because those are his words, those are his commandments. Because he loves the Lord, he delights in the law. And then he says, "And on his law, "he meditates day and night." Now, let me make this very clear.

You know, the order of this is extremely important. You don't love the Lord because you meditate on the law day and night. It's because you love the Lord, you will meditate on him day and night. It's very difficult for you to meditate on something that you do not delight in.

Correct? So many of us are trying so hard to delight in his law, memorize and meditate on it, but you don't delight in it. There's no delight in it. It's something that you just have to do. And then think about certain things that you really love. You can't help meditating on it.

Some of you guys may remember the very first date that you had, right? Did somebody tell you? Think about your date. Think about what you're gonna do on that date. Think about what you're gonna wear, where are you gonna eat, what car are you gonna drive, how early are you gonna pick up?

Did somebody have to spell out for you to really put some thought into that? Maybe some of you, right? Maybe some of you. But the natural response, when you are delighting in something, you just can't get this out of your mind. It's in your heart, it's in your thoughts, every part of it.

Now, you may not be a detail-oriented person, but if it's something that you delighted, you end up putting a lot of attention on it. Some of you guys like cars. You know more about cars than an average person because you're delighted, it makes you happy. Some of you guys hate cars.

And if somebody told you, you need to memorize all the different cars and the miles per gallon that you get and the tire size and all that, it's just, I mean, it's just torture for some of you. But some of you, you can't help but thinking about it, right?

It could be you're idle because you love delighting in too much. When he says, happy is the man, safe is the man, who delights in the law of the Lord, it's honest law, he meditates day and night, he's describing an individual who met the Lord. He's describing an individual who's seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and as a result of that, that's on his mind, that's on his heart 24/7.

So he's not forcing himself to delight. He just delights in it, he can't stop thinking about it. We're not talking about a silly joy that puts a smile on your face every time you think about Jesus, maybe. But we're talking about someone who finds true life in Christ. The evidence of genuine salvation is that you'd rather be with Christ than anything else that this world offers.

And that's why you come to church. That's why you wrestle in prayer. That's why you study the word of God. And that's why you share your faith with other people. You tend to share the things that you delight in. If you don't delight in Christ, to share the gospel with people is torture.

You say, "Well, that's not my personality." If you delight in something, I don't care if you're an extrovert or an introvert, you'll share it. You'll share it as an introvert, in the way that you uniquely do, you'll write letters, right? (congregation laughing) Maybe you won't tell 'em in person.

You'll drop hints, and you have all kinds of ways as introverts to tell people. If you delight, if that's something you really delight in, you watch a movie that you just really loved, it's on your Instagram. I don't only see extroverts doing that. It's on your Instagram, it's on your Facebook.

Every time you get around, you're seeing if other people saw it, and you're like an evangelist. Watch this movie. You watch it, you gotta watch it. You're missing out on life. If you don't watch it, you gotta watch it. Oh, you don't wanna watch it? You're missing out. I'll go with you, I'll buy you a cup.

I'll watch it with you. So you become an evangelist in something that you delight in, right? But if there's no delight in your heart, evangelism is difficult. Talking to somebody that is a stranger to you, prayer becomes very difficult. Studying the word of God, something that you feel distant from, it's just studying, you know?

You can't wait to get out of school because you're finished with studying, and then you get out, and then you come to church and say, "You gotta study." 'Cause that's all it will feel like if there is no real delight. So he's not simply saying, "Here's what you do in order to be saved." He's describing somebody that has happened to him.

And it doesn't matter whether you're an Old Testament believer or New Testament believer. It was the same, remember? He said Old Testament believers were saved by faith. They did, and they lived their life in obedience because they had faith in God. It wasn't their obedience that saved them. It was their faith that led to obedience.

And it's no different in the Old Testament and New Testament. They delighted in the law of the Lord, and it was not that that was their way of salvation. It was because they believed in God, they wanted to obey God. That's not what saved them, but that's why they delighted in it.

An individual who has met Christ, and his delight is in the law of the Lord, and as a result of that, that's what's saturating your mind, and your heart, and your thought, and your speech, and your desire. He says, "He's like a tree planted by a stream of water "that yields its fruit in its season, "and its leaf does not wither.

"In all that he does, he prospers." It is no different than what Jesus said in John 15, 5, "I am the vine, you are the branches. "Whoever abides in me, and I in him, "heed is that there is much fruit, "for apart from me, you can do nothing." How frustrating is it when we are not abiding in him, and trying so hard to bear fruit?

He says, "You can't bear fruit, "if you're not delighting in him. "If your thoughts and mind is not abiding in him, "and you're not meditating on him, you can't bear fruit." He says, he doesn't say, "It's gonna be very difficult to bear fruit." He says, "No, it is impossible to bear fruit, "if you're not abiding in him." What he's saying here in John chapter 15, 5 is no different than what he's saying in Psalm chapter 1.

So the first step of salvation is to meet Christ. What can cause you, what can cause you and I to take our eyes off of this world? This world is developed and built on tempting us away from God. Billions of dollars are spent to convince you that you need the phone, that you need the car, that you need to go to this specific place in the world.

Billions of dollars. Satan, the God of this age, is constantly wrapping his mind around making this world as attractive as possible for you to come to the world. How can you possibly, by your own willpower, say no to that? You can't. So it's only natural that somebody in his flesh will be attracted to the world.

What power exists in the universe that would cause us to pull us away from that? Christ and Christ alone. Christ alone. Christians do not have that power. Christians, they don't have the fellowship of believers, you know, peoples, friendships, they come, they go. Leaders, no matter how much you respect them, they're human beings.

They're sinful people who are standing in between and the best that we can do is to point you to Christ. No promises of man, no organization, nothing can win you over from the world than Christ himself. So if our gaze is not upon Christ, if the very thing that attracted to him from the beginning, where our eyes were open and we saw the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it's because of that we said, "I want him rather than the world." That's what attracted us to him.

But he says, if after you've been justified, you take your eyes off of Christ and you try to be sanctified and bear fruit by your own willpower, by your own organization, by your own intellect, no wonder we're frustrated. That's why he says, "Then fix your eyes upon Jesus, "the author and the perfecter of our faith." So the only power that exists that causes us to be able to overcome the temptation of the world is Christ and Christ alone.

So the invitation for us is, if that's the case, we come to him, he's like a tree planted by the streams of water, planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers. So many of us have seen Christ, we've been attracted to him, and so we made the decision, and then somehow we've kind of moved past the water and we've planted ourselves somewhere out in the desert.

And so we're getting bits and pieces of taste, right? And so every once in a while, when people don't bring the water to you, the responsibility of the leaders in your life are like, "We have to fill the bucket," or, "We have to run to you, give you some water "every time you look like you're gonna die." And that's how you're surviving.

Somebody needs to come running over to you every time you dry up and pour water, and say, "He's okay now for another six months. "We'll leave him alone, "and we have a bunch of other people "who are withering and dying in the desert, "so we gotta get buckets." So the leaders are running around with buckets of water, looking for people out in the desert to pour water in.

And that's how you're surviving. Day to day, week to week, month to month, as soon as somebody doesn't run to you with water, you shrivel up and die. So he says, "But a man who truly delights, "who's truly happy, who's living, who's alive, "is a man not planted in the desert, "but the one who was planted by streams of water." And he says, "Does not wither "because the source of life, the living water, "is in him constantly." He can survive whether it rains or doesn't rain.

Because the source that gives him life is underneath him constantly flowing. See, that's what sanctification ultimately is. It's not about, "Am I waking up in time? "Do I get a memorizing of scripture? "Am I doing this? "Am I living a certain pattern?" All of these things are byproducts. But the main goal of sanctification is to make sure that I'm planted by the living water.

If I'm planted by the living water, tell somebody who loves the Lord, tell them to don't talk about Jesus. I mean, go to the Middle East, go to certain countries where persecution is happening, threatening them with jail, physical violence, and you tell them, you tell those people who have tasted the living water, whose this living water is flowing underneath them, you tell them, "If you do this, there's consequences." You know exactly what happens.

You can't stop these people. Tell somebody who is in love with Christ to stop talking about Christ. They do more. They do more. You know why they do it? It's not because they're more courageous than us. It's not because they're made of something different than us. It's because it brings them joy to do so.

They're willing to risk their health, whatever it is that they have, because what they see in Christ is much better than anything in this world, even if they have to give their life. It's not something that they did. It's not because they were discipled properly. It's not because they had all the right formulas in their life.

It's just this living water is underneath this current. And again, the struggle that you and I have in this part of the world is that we have so much distraction. And the biggest problem that you and I have is constantly being distracted and not gazing upon Christ. This is why our time of devotion in the Lord, and why prayer, again, you can do devotion.

You can have prayer that in and of itself doesn't make you strong, because there's only an avenue to get us to Christ. So today, what I want to encourage us to do is take some time to really pray and examine our life to see where are you planted? What is the source of your joy?

Do you delight in the Lord? Take some time to think about that. Where is your life? Does it come from people? Does it come from circumstances? Does it come from hope for a superficial future? What is killing your joy? What is quenching the spirit? Are you abiding in Christ?

Is this word abiding in you? Are your friendships truly centered in Christ? Are you spurring them on? Are they spurring you on? So there's four things that I want you to focus on. If you can put that in there. Okay. I hope you can see it. First one is the word.

I'm gonna take some time to pray, pray for greater affection for Christ that will lead us to greater meditation on God's word. Pray for a more consistent time of devotion and meditation through God's word. So very first thing, if that's not a regular pattern in your life, to constantly plant yourself by the living water, that's the first thing that I really wanna encourage you to do to not to sit back and say, man, you know, like I wish I could just be planted by doing nothing, right?

Those of you who are not regularly in the word of God, your spiritual, the fix to your spiritual problem may be as simple as just regularly coming to the Lord. You say, well, I mean, you know, that's it? It may not be like completely the fix, but from my experience, if you are regularly living a pattern of life where you're not regularly intaking the word of God, and I'm not talking about Sundays, I'm not talking about Wednesday, I'm not talking about small group, I'm talking about you personally.

So I'm not gonna guarantee anything 'cause I'm not God, but I can almost guarantee you, okay, just from experience, if you're not regularly in the word of God on your own, in devotions and in prayer, being the Lord, so much of your spiritual frustration will be fixed by just doing that.

So if you're not in the pattern of doing that, don't think about, oh, fellowship, I need leadership, I need accountability. All that stuff is superficial. Like if you don't do that first, if you don't come to the Lord first, then your relationship with God is a corporate relationship. You know him only in group, but you don't know him personally, right?

So the first thing I wanna encourage you to do is how are you interacting with God in his word? Second, obviously in prayer. Is your prayer consistent and persistent? Again, communication, right? So those of you who've ever sat with me for marriage counseling, that's the first thing we talk about, is communication, because without communication, you can spend 24 hours together, and at the end of the day, you feel like, well, I don't know her, she doesn't know me, right?

So God communicates through his word, we communicate through prayer. So those two things, so those two things are not a regular pattern in our life. Those are the first things that we need to give our attention to. Third, fellowship. Pray to be more deliberate with the friendship that you already have in church.

I know some of you guys say, well, it's so hard to fellowship with people, you know? A lot of times it's because you set a pattern in your friendship that you can talk about Jesus with strangers, but for whatever the reason, you can't do it with your friends. To be deliberate about breaking that pattern.

So if you have a group of friends where it's very awkward to talk about Christ, be deliberate about breaking that habit. Ask them, even if it's weird, right? If you have a group of friends that that's just not your normal pattern, you can go to Disneyland, spend all day long and goof around, but when you say Jesus, it's just everybody just like, you're weird, right?

If that's the case and they're Christians with you, that's something that I really wanna encourage you to be deliberate about changing them, right? Take small steps, just ask them, like how's your Friday time, how you doing spiritually? Get in the habit of asking and really connecting on a spiritual level.

Secondly, pray to connect with new friends at church to share Christ with on a regular basis. If you happen to be with a bunch of friends and you're making efforts and they just have no interest at all, my experience, again, I don't know everybody in this church, but my experience is majority of the people in this church will appreciate it if you took the initiative, majority of people.

There might be one or two, right? One or two, but I don't know who they are, but I'm just, you know. There might be one or two who rejects you, but my experience has been that that is not the case, right? But if you, for whatever the reason, have a difficult time doing that, there's a lot of people in this church that wants to run this race with you, right?

Be active, look for true fellowship, not just people who you're gonna hang out with, not just some people who you're going to celebrate birthdays with and take trips with, but people who you're really gonna partner with, right? So initially, look at the people who you are already connected to, and then secondly, look outside of that, and there's so many new people, so many other people that you probably don't know.

I don't know everybody at church, so I'm almost 100% certain, not 100%, 100% certain that you don't know everybody either. And there's a lot of people who are hungry for God that would be more than willing to sit down with this chair and pray with you. So second, pray for that, pray for true fellowship.

And thirdly, evangelism. Pray for greater sensitivity to the people you are in contact with regularly to be a witness for Christ. So when we think about evangelism, we think of going out on the streets or UCI, or we're gonna go to China or India. The first place that you really need to look at are the people that you already know and be intentional with those people.

It may be your coworkers, it may be your school friends, it may be your family members, right? How can I be intentional with that? It doesn't mean that you need to have a gospel track right in your pocket and just lay it on them, right? It may not be an effective way to evangelize, but just be intentional.

Easter's coming up, right? Christmas, just any American holiday is an opportunity to talk about Christ. You just have to talk about the holiday, right? And it leads to the gospel. They ask you, what's your hobby? Don't say, oh, I like going to Zizia, man. That may be true, but that's an opportunity.

I spend a lot of time at church, which is also true, right? It's an opportunity to share the gospel, be intentional. So if your mind is not on the things of God and you're not meditating on that, you have to force yourself and then you're gonna miss opportunities. But when you're sober, right?

When you're in the Word and in the prayer and you're sober, you will be surprised just how many opportunities already exist in your life. And all you have to do is take advantage of it. So pray that God will open your eyes to be sensitive to the people who are already around you.

Secondly, pray for opportunity to share the gospel with people you know or people you may come into contact with, right? Again, not just the people who you're already in contact with, maybe there's opportunity that you can have. So again, for those of you who are students, if you're at school and you have a school project, that's a perfect opportunity.

Get together with other people. I remember when I was in college, you know, I had such a passion for evangelism and I thought, "What can I do?" So I used to go on the street and evangelize and I had an idea that Fullerton College had a public speaking class.

And I said, "If I take that class, "they give me three opportunities to preach." Well, not preach, but public speaking. To me, it was preaching. You know, so I got in there. I took that whole class for the purpose of sharing the gospel, right? And the whole class, I would say, "Man, you know, I would have to go "and talk to strangers, but the teacher "is giving me about seven minutes "with a captivated audience "and I preach the gospel three times to these people." So all I'm asking is to be sober, to be intentional.

There's all kinds of, especially if you're a student, if you're coworkers, there's all kinds of stuff. If they ask you, "Well, how can you," don't say no, right? You can't share the gospel with people that you refuse to be friends with. Become their friends, right? You don't have, you're in the world, you're not of the world.

So become friends with them, hang out with them. Don't just hang out in your Christian bubble and then when it's time to evangelize, you have nobody to evangelize with 'cause you don't know any non-Christians. Get in the habit of integrating, right? Whether you're a student or you're a worker, right?

So pray for those opportunities. And then pray specifically as we have the Easter coming up and every Easter, we try to remind you to be sober and we wanna do it early this year, right? We already have a lot of non-Christians coming to church and we're really excited because we see so many of you inviting your coworkers and friends and family members who aren't Christians coming to church and so we're excited to see that you're actively doing that.

But this Easter is a Sunday that a lot of non-Christians and nominal Christians who may not be true believers, may be confused about their faith, they're willing to come. So take advantage of that, right? Redeem this opportunity. So really pray specifically. If there's people in your life that you would like to invite even if they don't come, at least if you invite them, that may break the ice to be able to share the gospel with them in the future, okay?

So what I would like you to do is take that piece of paper that we gave you and again, I want you to write down like point one, point two, point three, point four and write down as much as you can. And then after you do that, we're gonna take some time to pray, right?

And again, the reason why I asked you to do that is because if you're not in the habit of, you can match the things that I'm asking you to pray for. And so once you've done that, again, just like last time, we're gonna take about 15 minutes and I'm gonna give you some time to pray.

You can pray out loud, you can pray quietly, right? But just pray, persevere in prayer. Even if after three minutes, like man, this is hard, right? Again, these are muscles that you need to get in the habit of doing. So sit there and persevere in prayer. So again, if you need a pen, go get it, it's in the back.

Or if you don't and you have a phone, you wanna type it in your phone, just type it into your phone. And just write down as much as you can and I'm gonna give you about five, six minutes and after that, we're gonna take some time to pray and then the priest is gonna come up and lead us in a few worship songs.

And then after that, Pastor Mark's gonna come and he's gonna lead us in corporal prayer, okay? Thank you.