Well, um, I've known Kevin and
Kim for like three, four, four years, five years, maybe four
years, something like that. So Kevin and Kim, they were a
military family living in Alaska. And when it was time for them
to be able to move somewhere else, when I guess your service
was up, they traveled around in an RV with their four children
visiting lots of churches and they, I guess Kevin had said
that he had been listening to some of Clay and they were blessed
by his messages and they stopped in to New Jersey, they paid us
a visit and I remember meeting them all that first day, that
first Sunday they came in and they heard the Watchmen Is that
the message that you heard? The Watchmen? Clay preached the
Watchmen? And they were just so blessed by that word. And the Lord, I guess in that
moment, that hour, knit their hearts with Clay and the brethren
there in New Jersey. And within a short amount of
time, they decided to come and join, to move to New Jersey. And many of you know, wow, that's
pretty amazing that you'd want to move to New Jersey, especially
coming from Alaska. And they had the option to go
to Florida or any place else in the 49 states, I guess. Or they could have even gone
to Hawaii. No, not Hawaii, not Guam or anything. But yeah, so
they chose New Jersey. But they immediately became an
integral part with the brethren there in laboring and serving
among us. And then after a couple of years,
the Lord I guess was stirring up your heart and Clay asked
Kevin to preach for him once and he preached and then a few
times and you know it turned into a few and then some of the
men you know in other churches heard that Kevin was preaching
so then they asked you to stop in when you were going through
the family I guess and stuff like that but anyway the Lord
sent Kevin out there to San Diego because they were calling in
men and Pastor Fortner was trying to find some pastors and so Kevin
had a heart to go out there and minister to them and then they
fell in love with him and he fell in love with them and thankfully
Kim was willing to go and so they're going out to San Diego
now and to minister there and we're really thankful for that
and happy for that congregation to finally have a pastor and
a man after the Lord's heart and we're so thankful for you
and for the brethren, and we're really touched that you would
stop here on your way there and come and minister to us. And
so we're really thankful and hopeful that the Lord knits our
congregations together, that we get to know them and they
get to know us at some point. There's a lot of distance, but
the Lord knows, the Lord knows. So, all right, Brother Kevin,
if you'll come up and preach. We're thankful to be here. I've
been excited to come and see Eric and Michelle since they've
moved. I helped him pack his moving truck. We wished them
well. We've been excited to meet the
brethren here. There's congregations in New Jersey sending their love. Let me tell you that they're
praying for you. This morning the congregation
there in San Diego texted me. They do also want to stop in.
They said they were praying for you and the Lord will add to
his church daily as he sees fit on him. We're so gracious to
us and we're tickled to be able to come by. It was on the way,
Eric. I thank Eric and Michelle for
having us. It's not easy to have anyone in your home and especially
there's a big group of us. We were like a small tornado
in that home for the last couple of days and a dog and a cat and
a hamster and they've been merciful to us and we're just so thankful
for them. I pray the Lord's giving me a
message for you today. A faithful pastor once said,
men get up in the pulpit and they say, I got a message for
you. And he said, well we'll wait and see, won't we? We were
packing out our moving truck and my pastor came to me. He
was loading boxes and he said, if you want, it was on Saturday,
he said, if you want in the morning you can bring the first message.
And I said, no, I'm not even close to prepared and I've still
got the rest of this house to load out. Why would you ask me
that? Unless the Lord wakes me up and
keeps me up all night and gives me a message, I don't think I'll
be doing that. I laid down and as I was falling asleep, I dreamed
of him, half dream and half awake, of him preaching a sermon and
there was a text there that he read and I woke up and I could
not go back to sleep. So I got up and started studying.
I thought maybe I'll have a message for in the morning and as it
went on a few hours, just a couple hours, I started getting sleepy
and I said, well this ain't for the brethren there in New Jersey,
but I think it's for the congregation there in Missouri. So I hope
it was a blessing to me. And I hope it's a blessing to
you, but it's probably going to be pretty short for you. I
hope to not keep you too long. But if you will, open your Bibles
to Ezekiel chapter 3. Ezekiel chapter 3. In this world, believers, we
have a lot of change, don't we? There's a lot of times that it's
hectic. We have a lot of ups and downs.
There's times of hard work, and there's times of rest. We have
times of great joy, great sorrow. We have times of great gain,
great losses. It's just part of our life. We've
been alive long enough to know that, don't we? But here's what
Solomon wrote in the first verse, and I thought it was precious
too. Ecclesiastes 3. An article there in your bulletin
by Clay for the Preacher. That's what Ecclesiastes is.
It's the Preacher. It begins there in verse 1. It
never says it. Solomon wrote it, but he says this is the Preacher. It's capital P. The Son of David,
King in Jerusalem. This is a word from our Lord.
He is our Preacher. He is the Son of David. Ecclesiastes
3 and verse 1. To everything there is a season. and a time to ever purpose under
heaven, a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to kill, and
a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up,
a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a
time to dance, a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather
stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to
cast away, a time to rend and a time to sow, a time to keep
silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to
hate, a time of war and a time of peace. That's a lot of things
that are ups and downs. We change. We change in our bodies. We're born. We're not an infant.
We can't stay that way. We grow up to adolescence and
then we become young men and women and we grow up to middle-aged
and next thing you know we're old and we turn to that childlike
way, don't we? Those things can't stay forever. Our circumstances change, work,
where we live, what part of the country we're moving to. Our
worries change. You have little toddlers and
you worry about infants, you worry about them when they sleep,
you worry about them when they're awake, and as they get older
you worry about them driving vehicles, worry about who they're gonna
marry, and we have a lot of worries, don't we? Worry about a lot of
things. We change a lot. Our circumstances change. But
our Lord doesn't change, does He? Malachi was moved to write
this when the Lord spoke to him and said, For I am the Lord,
I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. That's something to lay your
hat on, isn't it? That's confidence. And time doesn't
stand still for us. It always moves. We can't hold
on to any of these things in this world. The things we sow,
the things we reap. We can't keep those things. And
that's a good thing. It's a good thing we can't. We're
not bound to these material possessions we have because you buy a new
car and give it ten years and it starts breaking down and rusting.
But it's also good that we don't hold on to constant sorrow and
we don't hold on to constant happiness. If the Lord chastened
us all the time, we'd be depressed and downtrodden and just beat
down. It wouldn't break us. It wouldn't
be good for us. But if the Lord lifted us up, and just gave us
wonderful blessings all the time, material blessings, and friends
never got sick around us, and healthy children all the time.
That'd ruin us. We'd be too high-minded, wouldn't
we? So he's wise. He knows when to give those things
and when to take those things away. But we know this. We live
through it. And all these things come and go. All these things,
listen to this text we just read. It's temporary. It's temporal. And we know that. Solomon knew
that. Our Lord knew that. He lived it. He came as a man,
made like as we are. He experienced, saw these things
come and go. But one, there's one thing to
the children born of God, those that the Lord gives life to,
there's one thing in this list that never changes. That's love. Isn't that right? The Lord has
given you life. You know Christ. You have that
love that He has. And that will never change. He
wrote in Jeremiah 31, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me,
saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore,
with loving kindness have I drawn thee. That's confidence. I don't have confidence in something
like Eric was preaching this morning. I preach with Eric several
times and I always go first. And that's comfort to me. And
I don't have the ability to change my text up real fast if he happens
to have this. Everlastingly, it's everlastingly
love. But what is that love? Is it
enough for me? Like, I love my wife. Is it enough
for me just to love her? Hey, that ain't enough. If we
love our parents, or our children, our brethren, it's not enough
just to love them. We act on that love, don't we? So the Lord
moves us to do those things. That's the fruit of the Spirit.
He gives that love in you, that new life. And through Him giving
it to you, we act on it. And that's natural. For us, when
the Lord gives it. It's not just enough to say you
love someone, you act on that love. John wrote this, herein
is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and he
loved us, and he gave his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. The Lord didn't just look on us and say, well, I love them,
and I hope they love me back, and it's up to you. No, of course
not. He loved us, and he gave his son for us. He did that on
purpose, didn't he? The Father not only loves us,
He acts upon us. The God of this Bible, He's not
reactive. He doesn't react to us, He's proactive. He does what
we want, and He does. That's the difference. The Savior
said this in John 15, Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends. In my old job, in a
lot of fire departments and police departments, I'll have this verse
put up, and they said, that's great, but that's to do it for
one or two in the flesh. Our Savior, He laid down His
life. He calls us friends. I can't
fathom that. I'm His friend. He laid that
willingly. No one's ever said, I give up
my life now and die. He did. He had that ability.
He gave it to them. He gave it to the Lord for us.
But we have times of love in this world, in this flesh. We
have times of hate, too, don't we? That's ornately we get upset
with things, but spiritually we hate this old man that's in
us. As we grow, the Lord grows us in grace and knowledge of
Christ. Me as a person and who I am, not just what I do, oh,
it gets heavy. If I look to that only, oh, it's
depression and angst and anxiety and get tore up. but we have
that life within us. That's how the Lord uses us to
humble us and look upon us towards Christ. So I want to look at
a few things today in that love and how Christ had a time to
love us. And He had a time to love us
in His purpose in the beginning. So God the Father has a people.
That's declared. If these scriptures weren't meant
to argue with men and women, we declare the gospels don't.
That's what this book does. The Lord had a people and He
trusted them in Christ before the world was. He gave them to
Him and He said, these are yours and you're going to provide everything
for them. And through Christ's life, His
work, His atonement and His ascension, We get that benefit. We gain
that righteousness, that wisdom, that sanctification. We are justified
through Him. And we'll be made like Him. When
we get to see Him face to face, we'll be just like Him. We can't
understand these things, but they're true. That's what the
late Scott Richard said, the man who doesn't believe, no explanation
will do. And for the man that believes,
there's no explanation needed. I don't understand these things,
but I know they're true. The Lord said it though and had
Paul right there in Ephesians 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath
chosen us in him in Christ before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. So
there's that's given to us but that natural man Those rebuttals
that come up, they weren't me. I was born, I'll tell our congregation
that, I was born under the sound of the gospel. I had faithful
parents to the Lord, brought up to know Christ, and I was
there in Kentucky, and grew up under my pastorate, and my whole
life I've been under the faithful preaching of the word. So you
don't have any grave clothes, do you? You don't have your old
bad habits. So I got a grave tuxedo. They go out because that's
my nature. But is there something that men
and women need to do to make themselves fit to receive that
love? That's real common where I grew up. Once I quit gambling,
I'll start going to church. Or once I get married or quit
smoking. If you're in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, you stop drinking. If you're in central Kentucky,
you stop smoking. But you don't do the things that
are grown there, right? But is there something that men and
women need to do to be fit in themselves to receive that? Romans
5, verse 8 says this, But God commendeth his love toward us
in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's when
the Lord died for us. While we were yet sinners. We
don't need to attain a certain level of knowledge or stop some
things to be able to approach the Lord. Those things will happen.
As Eric says this morning, as he grows you and graces you,
you become more disgusted with that old self. We still, we're
trapped in this body. but he'll grow that spirit. But
in the Lord's purpose, did he pick a group, those people that
he died for? Is it the largest group? I've had people say, well,
the Lord's gonna, heaven's gonna have 51% of the people, and that's
how he's gonna win over the devil. He gets one more person than
the devil gets. Let's turn over to Deuteronomy chapter seven. Deuteronomy 7 there in verse
6. It writes, For thou art an holy
people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself above all people there
upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than
any people. For ye were the fewest of all people. Why did he choose
But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the
oath which he had sworn to your fathers, hath the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house
of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt." You see the language
there? He brought you. He redeemed you. That gives me comfort. If it was left up to me, I'm
in trouble. I know me. and I won't be sufficient for
it. So Christ loved us, his time to love us in the Father's purpose.
And it was also his time to love us in our providence. And walking
through... Please Lord, separate me from
my mother's womb. We understand that. We've had
several children and you can drink casserole and walk. Do
anything you want, that child will come out when the Lord sees
fit for it to come out, won't it? But the Lord provided everything
for us. He gave us that life, and throughout our lives, in
His providence, He guided everything until that moment, whenever we
heard one of His ambassadors preach Christ alone. And we see
that then, more so later, all the things in our lives that's
taking place, One of the faithful men said, what did it take for
the Lord to save you? Absolutely everything. Everything
in your life, every bird that chirped, every breath you took,
to bring you to hear that sound of the gospel, to have your mind
ready, your heart plowed for that seed. He did that. He plowed the ground. But all
those things, you know, there in Romans 8, And we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are called according to His purpose. And when you
first heard that God was just and the justifier, you first
heard those things, you start to see how everything in your
life's been ordered up to that moment and from that moment on.
If we have a trust there, because Christ loves us, we can trust
Him, it's gonna be okay. I get nervous, I have those ups
and downs like Solomon wrote of. and I get worried and I get
happy. But if I look to me, I'm always
going to be worried. I'm going to be disappointed.
But the one that controls all things, the one that loves us,
that's who I should look to. And I forget. I don't know if
you probably don't, but I get to look to myself and oh, I'm
just so anxious and worried and sad. The Lord brings me down. Through that trial, What does
he do? I look up and I said, can't be
above somebody, or you can't look up to somebody unless they're
above you, right? He brings you down to look up
to Christ. That's just when it happens. One of the brethren,
he's in the services where we were talking about the Lord having
wars. We've both been to Iraq and stuff.
He said, I think the Lord used that whole war just to have me
learn the gospel. He was roots for a man from the
church down in Florida They preached to him in evens. They talked
about the scriptures. And they said, I really think
the Lord had that whole thing to teach me who he was to bring
me to the knowledge of Christ. That's what... Egypt for thy ransom. Ethiopia
and Seba for thee. Since thou was precious in my
sight, cause were precious in thy sight, thou hast been honorable.
and I have loved thee, therefore I will give men for thee, and
people for thy wife." That's love. That's Christ loving us
in His providence. Through loving us in those good
times, and all that happiness, and when we first hear the Lord,
it sounds like the skies are brighter, the birds are chirping,
and oh, they're singing as the mountains clap, don't they? We
get high on the knowledge of Him. We're brought right back
down, and then the Lord will send a trial, won't he? But he
does that wonderfully in sending those trials. We're not thankful
of him, dear, but after that trial goes back in his providence,
because we're on that trip of time. You can't know what he
knows, but when we look back and we see those things, it's
there in Hebrews 12, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,
and scourges every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom
the Father chasteneth not? That's a blessing. And Rutherford
once wrote to a widow. She lost her husband, and then
one at a time, she lost every one of her children. And he said,
the Lord's loved you. And he said, I won't have love,
share your love with your husband. So I took him. And he said, then
one child at a time until finally this Benjamin, their youngest
child. He said, I will not share my love with your baby child. And he took him. She was all
alone. He said, I wish the Lord loved
me to the point to send me those trials where he would have nothing
but all of my love. That's a good way to look at
it. I wish I could look at trials that way and see what the Lord's
taken taken from me and taking, whittling these things away all
through my life. And you stop this and stop that,
not all the same, just the cares of this world. Since He's put
the cares of this world in your heart, and you should have a
hard work and love your brethren and take care of your children,
you know, that's important. The Lord gave you those things,
but He shrinks those things down. So all you can look at is look
to Christ and what He's done for you. So we don't look to
ourselves. So we'll go back to our text here in Ecclesiastes
3. Look down in verse 14. It says, I know that whatsoever
God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should
fear before him, and they should honor before him. It says in
verse 15, that which hath been is now. What does that mean?
Everything that the Lord has determined to happen, everything
He has purposed to happen is now. What's happening right now,
if you're in a time of grace and blessed or if you're in a
time of trial or anything, right now, the time that the Lord has
for you, He's determined that before the world was. and his
providence, his purpose, and for his glory and our benefit,
isn't it? And it says there, and that which is to be hath
already been. Those things that are coming
for each of us in our life, that's already set in stone. The Lord's
purpose and his providence won't change. And it says there, and
God requireth that which is past. He requires something we can't
provide because we live now, don't we? He requires that, which
is his past. He requires that high priest
that was sent for us, that sacrifice of Christ when he said, yes father,
I'll take him at that moment. That's whenever he was satisfied. He still had to come to the earth
and live through that atonement. But he had done that in Providence.
So Christ loved us in purpose, he loves us in Providence, and
he loves us in salvation. Ezekiel 16 says, Now, when I
passed by thee, and I looked upon thee, behold, thy time was
a time of love. That's when that time came. And
I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness. Yea,
I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith
the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. That's when we become the
Lord's. He comes to us where we are,
when our nakedness and our shame, He covers us. And He said, Now
that I've done this, now you're mine. I own you. It always brought
me to think of Christ's atonement. Eric and I talked a little bit
about this the other day. When He bore my sin, God separated
from God. God Almighty turned His back
on God Almighty, the God-man. No one can explain that. A hundred
years from now, when I'm gone, if I'm in glory, I'll sing praises. But right now, I can't understand
that. And I think times that all of my sin, all of it, not
just things that I've done, but who I am. That's what Christ
bore on the cross. He bore that wrath, eternal wrath
for my sin. All of it. And He did that at
one time. But He didn't just do it for
me. That's amazing. I can't enter into that. He did
that for every child of God that was given to Him. I don't understand
his worth, do I? How worthy must he be to be able
to make atonement, not just my sin, and swallow it. Swallow the wrath of God for
eternity, but for every believer, every child of God that he was
given to in his hands. We can't understand those things,
but we glory in them, don't we? It'll be wonderful. The day will
come when we'll be made like Him and have no sin in us. And
it'll take an eternity. We'll sing His praises, won't
we? But He saved us. He did that. And whenever He
did that, when He took those sins away, was it effectual?
Did He hit the reset button and give me a clean slate and now
it's in my hand? Look in John chapter 6. You all
know this, but it'll be good to read through it. John chapter
6, verse 37. This is all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that all which he hath
given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the
last day." Is that a comfort to you? That is to me. Lord, those that if I was given
to him, and he died for me, I won't be lost. He is the one that keeps
me. So he says in 1 Samuel, he said,
for my name's sake. So it's not something that Kevin
has done, but for his glory. That's security. The Lord loves
us in providence. He loves us in creation. He loves
us in salvation. And He loves us on that throne
where He is now. We read this earlier, but who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died yea, rather
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. He intercedes for us now.
And we need that, don't we? Constantly. We're not made a
certain way and forced to keep it after that. The Lord is always
working in us, always working in those people. So if we see
that, if we can see Christ, if we can see partially, just in
part, so we see, if we can know Him and who He is and His being
worthy of praise and glory, how do we love our Redeemer? It's
easy to love, isn't it? It's not hard to love. John wrote
again, we love Him because He first loved us. That's the reason
of it. We believe Christ, we obey Christ, we honor Christ
in our preaching. I wake up in the morning and
I want to honor the Lord. I want to study today and I hope
I can help the brethren and I can do this and that quickly. By the time I change clothes,
I'm worried about work and I'm worried about traffic. who took
the dog out. Always something. So quick to
leave him, but we want to. We love our brethren. John 15
says this is, the Lord was telling us, this is my commandment that
you love one another as I have loved you. It's easy. to love our brethren when the
Lord gives us the grace and the spirit to do so, because that's
Christ in them. Paul said that. He said, how
am I going to? The Lord told him, said, you're
going to preach to these Galatians. He said, how can I preach to
them? They know I persecuted the brethren. And the Lord said,
just go. I'll take care of you. And he
got there and he preached. And it said that they glorified
God in me. They didn't glorify us all. But
they glorified that message, those beautiful feet, that foundation
of the good news that came to them. I'm trying to be reminded,
my pastor told me that, that our brothers and sisters in Christ,
that's the closest we'll have to having Christ in the flesh
here with us. If you can speak nothing of Christ to one another,
I want to know nothing of you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
If we can speak and concentrate on those spiritual things, there's
no disagreement. There's only love and you want
to serve your brethren. You want to take care of your
brethren. You want to have six of them in your home with a dog
and a cat and a hamster. It's comforting, I hope. John wrote again, whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God, we believe Christ,
and everyone that loveth Him that begat. Everyone that loves
Christ, the one that gave that life to you, loveth Him also
that is begotten of Him. If we love the Lord, we love
His people. There'll be times we don't get
along, there'll be times I get higher minded than they do, or
I'm cast down low, and we have some friction rubbed, But we
love our brethren. They're Christ's people. My wife, I love my wife, but
that's the Lord's daughter. That's a child of God. How I
treat her is how I treat Him. And when we can worship together,
that's sweet, isn't it? I'll wrap this up. It's urgent
to put this in mind. I'll paraphrase it. When Christ's
time to love, we saw that all the things that the Lord does
for us, And it gives us a heart. We're motivated by love. We're
not motivated by the law that we have to do these things. You
want to. You want to act on that love. But we have a gift here
on this earth that angels can't partake in. We can preach Christ
to those that never heard it. We can serve our brethren here
on this earth. You can wipe it here away. Comfort
a brethren that's brokenhearted. We won't be able to do that in
eternity. There'll be more tears. It'll be everyone will know the
Lord. We'll rejoice in Him and we'll have glory in Him forever.
But that's a gift to have brethren on this earth. I tell you I'm
thankful that you're all here in Missouri. I'm thankful. The
Lord's given you all this work here to meet together and to
spread the gospel, spread the truth of Christ and that message
of grace to people. That's a blessing. that we'll
only have here in this life. The Lord gave that to us. That's
sweet of Him. That's a precious gift to have
the knowledge of Him but still have burdens that we can comfort
one another and pray for one another and rejoice with one
another. It'll be wonderful. It's wonderful
now as the Lord gives us grace to see it. I wish I could see
it more. I don't. I can get down and sad. I'm happy right now and this
evening I'll be in that big old truck driving to Oklahoma City
and I'll get in traffic and I'll be sad and mad at people. But, oh, if I could just, if
I could keep my eye on Christ, that's what, I was talking about
plowing. If you, if you're tilling up
a garden and you look way ahead to that tree, if you look at
your lines and go, if you look way ahead, you'll have a straight
line. If I couldn't, If I keep from
worrying about all those things in my life, the Lord's in control
of that. If I could look away from those and just look to Christ,
that's the end state, that's the reward to be with Him. If
I could look to Him, all that other stuff would just melt away,
wouldn't it? I pray it's a blessing to you,
and I pray for me, and I pray for you, that the Lord's kept
you here, and I'm encouraged by that, and other brethren encouraged
by that, and I trust Him, His word won't go go out and return
to Boyd. He'll continue to do work here,
and we're thankful for you. Thank you for having us, and
thank you for your time, and I look forward to chatting with
you all later, too, so thank you. Brother. Thank you, brother. All right,
well, We're thankful that we have some food in the back there,
and so we're hopeful that everyone can stay. And I thank you for
the message that the Lord laid on your heart. That was sweet
and very timely, especially for you. The change, especially. And so I pray the Lord will bless
that to your hearts as he has to our hearts as well. I'll give
thanks for the food and then brother if you just come and
close this and with the hymn and then we'll be dismissed to
the food. Our gracious Lord we thank you father for your grace
and kindness and mercy upon your people and Lord you know you
know what we feel and the struggles that we have with all the change
the change that we go through personally and as a group And
Lord, we're thankful that you do not change, that you are the
same today, yesterday, and forevermore, and that you love us in your
Son, Jesus Christ. I pray that you would, indeed,
reign in righteousness in our hearts. Keep us, Lord, keep us
ever looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, when we forget
and our eyes look at the things of this world, Remind us, Lord,
remind us of your love and mercy to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, that you would indeed fill
our hearts with love for our Lord and for one another. Lord,
we know that you do all things, all things well, and we trust
you, Lord, and look to you to do that in us and among us, not
only here in Missouri, but with each of the churches of your
people gathered around your gospel around the world, Lord. Father,
we thank you for the food that you've given to us. We ask that
you bless it to the nourishment of our bodies. And bless our
time of fellowship now. And bless our brethren as they
continue their travels. Bring them safely out to San
Diego. We pray this in Christ's name.