Burning Bush

Well, good morning. You guys are the brave Michiganders, aren’t you? The tried and true. Welcome, we’re glad that you’re here.

Welcome to any guests that’s here this morning and welcome to those that are online too that are not nearly as brave as these people, but you’re safe and sound, enjoying your coffee on your couch. And we’re glad that you are joining us as well, especially First Lutheran and Algonac. As we’re continuing on in our series on Exodus and we are in week four, if you’ve been with us, you recognize that we’re going to be in this book for a little bit, that we’re going through 12 chapters in 12 weeks.

Although I look outside and I go, why would we even leave? We’re set to do a chapter today, but what do you guys think? Can I do two? We can get ahead. We can start working ahead a little bit, maybe if you’re one of those overachievers. And two, I would love to remind you too, as we go through these weeks, that we’d love for you to bring your Bible with you, that you can make sure that we have the lights up, you can have a pen, you can underline, highlight, whatever you need to do to follow along.

And here’s our 12-week challenge for you, is that we encourage you to be present in worship every week, whether that is, you know, preferably here in person if you’re able, but of course, if you’re not able, you can watch online, you can catch up, that you would engage with the text every week, that we actually do have a plan for you so you know what we’ll be preaching about in the coming Sunday, so you can read ahead. And then also we encourage you to invest in your family. We don’t just tell you to do that, we try to give you some resources so that is possible for you.

And those resources are these, that reading plan that I just mentioned, you know where we’re going to be over the course of the next 12 weeks. Dig deeper questions, which could be for your own personal study. You could, you and your spouse, talk about these questions or maybe even as a small group or a life group.

And then family questions, because whether your kids are present here in worship or they’re in SG Kids, nursery all the way through sixth grade, they’re learning about the same text, they’re learning the same biblical truths, and so we want to offer that for families so they can have those conversations. About things that really matter, you know, and so that’s where we’re at as far as Exodus. And so as we kick off this morning, I could use your help with this.

What is in a name? Letters. Yes, thank you. Yes, someone said that in the first service too, letters.

And no, I’m not a big Shakespeare buff, but you know that’s like, what is in a name? You know, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. But I wanted to get to think about just a little bit on the onset here, is how significant is a name? What is carried in a name? If you’ve been with us for a little while, maybe you’re aware that I currently have three kiddos out here in the world and one on the way. And so with that, we have an Ezekiel, a Judah, and an Owen.

And so you hear this Old Testament, Ezekiel, strong biblical name, Judah, strong biblical name, Owen. If you have your Bibles open, you could flip everywhere, every which way, you’re not going to find Owen. And I find myself at a crossroads with a fourth child, because we could go back to the biblical names and ensure that Owen would go to a counselor for the rest of his life.

I’m just on the couch. I don’t know why my dad didn’t give me a biblical name. Like, what did he, what’s he getting at here? You know, even outside of that, you know, as we’re thinking about those things in our household, is I worked in the student ministry for about a decade, just a little bit more.

My wife has been a special ed teacher. Working in schools for about 13, 14 years. And when you work with a lot of kids, that means that there’s a lot of names that are off limits, right? Because names carry something with them, right? They are more than just letters.

What is in a name? Well, there’s a history in that name. Let me tell you about that name. Let me tell you about that kid.

Like, all of a sudden, things come to mind where you go, I couldn’t look at my child and call them that name without thinking back to that one kid. What about you? When your name is spoken when you’re not around, what is carried with your name? When you’re not in the room with co-workers, when you’re not in the room with family members, when you’re not around but your name is spoken, what weight is carried with it? What I find interesting is in the text today, something extraordinary happens. Is that we’re actually going to see God’s name revealed and the weight that it carries with it.

What’s revealed inside of His name. And so we’ll go ahead and jump in. We’re going to be in the chapter, Exodus 3. We’re going to go through the whole chapter.

It’s 22 verses. So hang with me. And just to get you caught up, maybe you, if you don’t recall from last week or you’re just here for the first time.

So we’re following Moses. He’s our main character. And what we know about Moses thus far is that he was born, he was saved miraculously by Pharaoh’s daughter out of the Nile.

Then he was raised by his mother for three years and then went to go live in the palace with Pharaoh’s daughter. Around 40 years old, he saw a dispute among a taskmaster who was an Egyptian and he was beating a Hebrew slave and Moses killed him. And then as the Egyptians found out and as the Hebrews found out, he had to flee because both rejected him.

He heads off to a far country called Midian. There he meets his wife at a well. He has a kid.

He’s 80 years old now. And this is where we’re picking up the story. And now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

I find this really interesting too. And I wouldn’t have recalled it if we didn’t actually preach all the way through Genesis. But he was an Egyptian.

He grew up in the palace. He was in Pharaoh’s household. And what we know from the book of Genesis is that when Joseph is telling all his brothers, hey, back then we needed it.

We need to move here. They have food. I have it all planned out.

But when you come, make sure that you tell the Pharaoh that you’re shepherds. Because if you tell him that you’re shepherds, he’ll make you live off in a far country that is part of Egypt. It’s going to be called Goshen.

But make sure you tell him that because shepherds are an abomination to Egyptians. And just knowing that one little fact that’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? Here, Moses having been raised, having been taught that shepherds are an abomination, he finds himself leading sheep in a far-off country without a sense of identity. And more than that, he’s actually just working for his father-in-law.

Another interesting thing to note, maybe you have a question if you’re looking, you were here last week. It says his father-in-law was Jethro. Just a few verses previous in chapter two, it refers to him as Raul.

He just has two names. One of those is a title. One is his name.

Commentators debate which is his actual name, which is a title. We don’t ultimately know, but we know it’s the same guy. This is the same father-in-law and he’s leading the flock.

And this is what it would look like. So you can see Goshen there in the top left. That’s where he was at.

He left Egypt. That’s where all the Hebrews are enslaved. And now he’s down there at Mount Sinai, which is just a different name for Mount Horeb.

Same name, same mountain, or different names, same mountain. And he had lived in Midian and here he is. And this is what we’re going to see over the course of the next few weeks is that there’s going to be travel back and forth in this region.

Then something miraculous happens. So he’s leading sheep. An angel of the Lord, which is super common in scripture that when God has a message to share, what’s he use? Angels, messengers, right? He sends messengers out.

Angels are messengers or ambassadors for God. So we see an angel of the Lord. But we’re going to notice in just a second that that identity is not quite clear.

Right now, we think it’s an angel of the Lord in the flame in the midst of a bush. And I always find this curious too. It’s in the midst of a bush and it’s so stark.

It grabs Moses’s attention in such a way that it was astounding that he had to go see it. And oftentimes, even myself, I would think, okay, if there’s a burning bush, it’s going to look like a tumbleweed. It’s going to be mostly dead and dry.

But dead and dry things burn, don’t they? What’s probably astounding about this bush is that it’s in full bloom, that it’s well watered, that it has leaves that are moist, yet the fire is not consuming it. And so he comes to that bush. And then we see this.

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see God called out to him. Who’s in the bush? God. God, not just an angel.

God is in the bush. And he called out to him, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am.

And then he said, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. Just another day, tending his father-in-law’s sheep in this miraculous encounter where God is drawing Moses to himself. And all of a sudden this happens.

He calls a double name. I just find this interesting too. God says your name twice.

Moses, Moses. Samuel, Samuel. Martha, Martha.

Saul, Saul. That there’s something pivotable, pivotal, but that’s about to happen. God’s about to reveal something as he calls his name twice.

And that there’s no mistaking it either. It’s not some other Moses. No, Moses, Moses.

You, Moses. I’m talking to you. Another interesting thing to know too is that the mountain itself, Horeb or Sinai, whichever you call it, is not holy in and of itself.

It is holy because the presence of God is there. And here Moses is tending to these sheep, which his feet are probably filthy. He’s coming to the presence of a holy God.

And now that place is holy. So he has to take his sandals off, be barefoot. Which actually is a foreshadowing because what we see that later when God establishes temple worship and he is in the temple, that the priests, the Levites that are in the temple, the way that they serve God is barefoot.

That they don’t bring any defilement, any dirt, anything else into the presence of God because he is holy. We know it’s God for multiple reasons. The text tells us God, the place is holy.

And the fact that Moses hid his face, couldn’t even look upon God. And then the Lord echoes what he said at the end of chapter two. The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt.

I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters and I know their sufferings. But then he goes one step further and he says, And I have come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians and bring them out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. That God has now taken this next step.

That he’s letting Moses know that all the cries, all the prayers, everything that’s transpired, that he hasn’t just seen, he hasn’t just heard, he doesn’t just know and have an awareness and is sitting up on his throne, fully informed about what’s taking place. But rather now he’s saying now, and I’m entering into it, that I am condescending and coming down into this mess. What I find intriguing is that it seems like a surprise to the Israelites.

It seems like a surprise to Moses what’s taking place. Yet God actually foretold this. He actually promised this very thing was going to happen.

And he said to God, in Genesis chapter 15, when God is making his covenant with Abraham while he’s still Abram, God says this very thing is going to happen. Then the Lord said to Abram, know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. Certainly doesn’t make being enslaved, being mistreated, being oppressed any better.

Yet it seems like they’re all caught off guard that this is taking place. But God said, he foretold that this was going to happen. Yet they’re calling out.

God knows he’s heard their cries. And to make this relatable for just a moment, I mean, I want you to think, has there been a time for you where you have experienced a deafening silence? When there was something going on in your life where you needed something or someone outside of yourself to help you and you called out to them, but they didn’t respond. That’s what’s taking place here with the Hebrew people, with the Israelites, is that they’ve been calling out for 400 years, 400 years out of the land that was promised to them.

400 years. Generation after generation being born and dying in a foreign land. Generation after generation of being enslaved and now most recently, the oppressive Egyptian government is now throwing their children into the river.

And they’re calling on God, yet not hearing a response. One of the closest things I can think of because it’s probably one of the most visceral cries out of my life. And I’ve shared this with many of you before.

But in 2020, my third son was born for a number of different complications. We were able to go home and at the two-week mark, when he was still struggling to gain weight and he was failure to thrive, I remember my wife going upstairs to where the bedroom was to tend to him. It was time for bed and I was locking things up and turning lights off downstairs to hear her cry.

She’s realized that her son was struggling to breathe and that she flew down the stairs to where I was at. I struggled to find my phone and grasped it and called 911 and called out to them. And as she was working on him to try to get him to breathe again, that I ran out into the dark night, into my street to watch the police cars that were meant to come for us go past our street and cry out to them that you need help, I need help, I need someone outside myself to come and do something I can’t do for myself.

And thanks be to God that my wife was able to help resuscitate him, to be able to get him to breathe again, that the first responders did eventually come back and find our house. But that visceral, gut-wrenching, heartfelt cry, that is what we’re seeing here in this text. Don’t just read over the fact that these Hebrew people are in slavery and just keep moving on.

They’re enslaved. They own nothing. They’re being beaten and their children are being killed.

This is the weight and the gravity which they feel. I think it’s important for us as we read that to enter into that and recognize that God hears their cries, that God knows their cries, and what is astounding is that they cry out to him. And behold, the cry of my people of Israel has come to me, and I’ve also seen their oppression which the Egyptians oppressed me, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

Two things to note here. One, he’s heard the cry because they’re crying to him. They know where to direct their grief, their struggle, their pain, their loss, is they are sending it to one who can handle it.

The other thing that just has to be astounding to put yourself in Moses’s shoes, that he hears all this. He hears that God of all time and space has seen, he’s heard, he knows, he’s come down and he’s going to do something. This is exciting, but then it turns and he says, and I will send you.

And this catches Moses off guard and we see that in just a moment that he is thrown off by the fact that you’re going to send me to do something about this. As we look at that idea though first of crying out to God, I want you to look at yourself for a moment and ask yourself this. What burden have I stopped telling God about? What thing in your life right now are you walking through and you feel like you’re walking through it alone? That you are white knuckling your own sense of identity and worth by trying to achieve, by trying to appease others, by trying to make everyone around you happy and be a people pleaser so that you can have a good name and you can be seen as good.

Are you struggling with an addiction that you can’t seem to break? But you know what? I’m not going to call on God anymore. I’ve tried that before and I’m just going to work on this myself. Are you struggling? There’s so many different areas of our own lives, but what burden are you carrying right now? What sin, what struggle, what sin from inside or what sin from without that has now come in that’s out there in the world is oppressing you and are you bringing it before God? Or have you felt like his deafening silence was too much to take and you’ve stopped calling upon his name? My encouragement to you is don’t.

He is the one who can do something and we’re going to see in a moment that he is the one who has, in fact, done something about whatever it is you’re walking through. Moses, like I said, he responds. He hears this thing that he’s going to be the one to lead and he responds like many of us would respond.

Moses said to God, Who am I? You’ve got the wrong guy. And what I also love is he does what is very good active listening. You repeat back to the person what you heard.

So okay, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children out of Egypt? So what I think I heard you say, right, you know, that’s a really good active listening skill, you know, for husbands and wives, you know, work on that. Make sure you can repeat back to them. Okay, what I heard you say is you want me to go to Pharaoh and I think you also want me to lead the people out of Egypt, but also who am I? And this question is really deep when you think about where Moses is at at this point.

80-year-old working in his father-in-law’s fields that he’s a shepherd for at this point. He’s been rejected by the Egyptians. They want to kill him because he murdered an Egyptian.

The Hebrew people have rejected him and they said, who would made you a judge among us? And now he’s living in a foreign land for a foreigner, working with sheep, which was an abomination. And on top of that, he even names his first son Gershom. Gershom means I am a foreigner in a foreign land.

So this question for Moses, I think is pretty deep. Who am I? He doesn’t have a people. He doesn’t have a home.

He feels like a complete and utter loss. Which again, if we turn it back to ourselves, I mean, if you’re going to identify with something, what is it that you cling to? What is the most important thing about you? Is it which family you’re born into? Is it where you live? Is it the occupation? We so easily start with that. Hi, I’m Ben.

I’m a pastor. Like that’s part of your identity. It’s an extension of your name.

Is what you do, your background, your personality, your character. He’s asking the wrong question. The question is not, who am I? The question that actually gives you peace and solace and comfort and confidence is, whose are you? It’s not about you.

To know who you are, to know who you are as a creature, as a created being, you have to relate to something outside of yourself. Okay, I’m this person’s son. I’m this person’s daughter.

I work at this place. I’m trying to draw my identity from something outside me to tell me who I am. And those things are ever changing.

They’re not steady. They’re shifting sand. But something that is unchangeable is, whose are you? And when you focus on that, then you can actually have some confidence because you know what he says about you.

You know that when God looks upon you, for all those that believe in him, that have placed their trust in him, that he’s given the gift of faith, that he says you’re his beloved, that you’re his child, that you’re righteous, that you’re pure, that one day he wants to be with you. And then you actually should lift your eyes from all those names that he gives you and look to his names, that he’s the almighty, the alpha, the omega, the beginning, the end, that he is righteous and perfect and holy. And if he’s anchored and steady and sure, and he calls me his, now I don’t have to ask who I am because he’s the one who’s telling me who I am.

God answers in such a curious way that should give Moses confidence as he says, but I will be with you. Moses, I’m not gonna address your question, who am I? No, no, no, wrong question. Not who am I? It’s whose are you? You are God’s, Moses.

And I am with you. It isn’t about you or your capability. It’s about him and his presence.

And he goes on and he says, this shall be a sign for you that I’ve sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Moses, this thing is as good as done.

You’re standing here right now talking to a bush, but guess what? Just wait and see. You’re gonna be here with all the Israelites and you’re gonna be worshiping me. That’s the sign, which I find so curious.

It’s not some sign that he can grasp and hold onto right then and there. The sign that he gives him is, this is gonna happen. This is how you’re gonna know.

This is gonna be your guarantee of who I am and what I’m accomplishing in and through you. Moses, it still wasn’t good enough for him. So he continues to press God.

Moses said to God, if I’ve come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me and they ask me, what is his name? Like, who is this God? Not just who am I? So now he’s getting it. Okay, it’s really about who you are. Well, who are you, God? What is your name? What shall I tell them? And God says to Moses, I am who I am.

And he said, say to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say to the people of Israel, the Lord, that is Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac or Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Well, first thing we have to touch on. I mean, this is a mysterious name. I am who I am.

I am who I am. I am who I will be. There are so many books and commentators and thoughts just on this name.

It’s mysterious. It is hard for us to grasp. It is difficult for us to understand.

But God’s not anchoring his identity in any of his creation. He’s not saying, I’m the son of this person or this is the type of work I do. No, no, no.

He’s saying, I exist outside of time and space. I am the alpha and the omega. I am the beginning and the end.

Nothing identifies me, but I identify everything else. The other thing, as I was preparing for this message, I really love that a commentator said, was he said, I am who I am as God looking at Moses, essentially saying, watch. I’m about to show you who I am.

He leaves it mysterious and ambiguous. His name is beyond comprehension. But he’s saying, you want to know who I am? Wait and see.

Watch how I’m about to act. And that will tell you who I am. The other interesting thing to note, that Lord Yahweh, is actually echoing back to God, his own name.

His name is, I am who I am. Yahweh meaning he is, he will be, he is who he is. He says, I am who I am.

And we say, yep, you are who you are. It’s just kind of curious. This is not the only time we see this in scripture as well.

And anytime if you run across a friend who, maybe is a Jehovah’s Witness, maybe has some other things that they think, oh, Jesus is a really good teacher, but he never claimed to be God. Well, he references this very thing. John 8, 58, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees.

And Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Claiming that he is God. Moving forward in our text.

So now he’s, Moses and God are having this conversation. God is trying to convince him. And then he’s giving them specific instructions that he’s supposed to follow.

He says, Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has appeared to me saying, I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt. And I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Cainites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing in milk and honey. Now he’s connecting his name, his identity.

Who am I? I’m about to show you who I am. I am who I am. And what am I going to do? How am I going to act? I’m going to act in this way to lead you out, not only lead you out of slavery, but I’m going to take you to a place, this land of milk and honey that you didn’t earn, but I’m going to hand it to you.

And I’m actually going to seal this thing with a promise. My name and my action are now connected intrinsically with one another. Now this is a promise that this is as good as done because he’s said it will come to pass.

He goes on, he says, and they will listen to your voice, the elders that is, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. And now please let us go three days, a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.

I’ll be honest, as I reread this, and I’m sure I read it before, but as I read it, it was interesting to me. God made this promise. Hey, I’m going to lead you out.

You’re going to go. You’re going to be out of slavery. You’re going to go to this land of milk and honey.

Here’s the first task I have for you. Go tell the people like I told you. Then go to the king, go to the pharaoh, and you’re not asking to leave.

You’re just asking for a three-day journey. And like, I don’t know, I don’t work in HR, but 400 years of work, there’s got to be PTO, right? There’s got, they’ve got, they’ve accrued something. Hopefully it carries over from year to year.

Three days. They’re just asking for three days. Three days to go off in the wilderness.

And God already knows he’s sending him on this mission where he’s not going to be fruitful. But he’s asking him to be faithful. Go, go talk to the elders.

Go do this thing. And I already let you know, you’re going to fail. It’s going to look like failure to the outside.

But there’s a mighty hand. A mighty hand that needs to lead them out. So it’s not by Moses and his eloquence.

It’s not by the power of the elders. But a mighty hand has to lead them. He goes on.

He says, I will stretch out my hand, this mighty hand, and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. After that, he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.

And when they go, they shall not go empty. But each woman shall ask of her neighbor and any woman who lives in her house for silver and gold jewelry and clothings. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters.

So you shall plunder the Egyptians. So God is just adding even more to this. It’s even better than you can imagine.

So you’ve been in oppression and they’re killing your kids and you’re a slave and you’re doing hard labor. But guess what? You’re going to be free. And more than that, I’m going to give you your own land.

And we’re going to spread out all these other people and I’m going to make a place for you. And more than that, you’re going to be rich. And I’m going to give you the riches of the Egyptians as well.

Because he is the one who’s acting. He is stretching out his mighty hand. Where you see, he’s the one doing the verbs.

I will, I will, I will stretch out my mighty hand because God sees, he hears, he knows, and he comes down. I loved how God aligned things for me this last week too in my preparation for this message. I was working on that, but in my own personal study, I stumbled across a verse that I don’t know if I saw in this same light before.

Because I look at this and I go, what’s God doing here? God’s choosing Moses. God is about to act. He’s going to use this person in an extraordinary way to free his people.

And who is this God in the bush? Who is this God about to save his people? Who is this God that’s revealed himself in a mysterious way? I am who I am. In the book of Jude, which is only one chapter, verse five, it says this, which brings clarity to what’s transpiring. Now, I want to remind you, although once you fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of Egypt, and it goes on.

Did Moses save the people? Did the elders save the people? Did the people save themselves by crying out? No, God in flesh, God come down. God incarnate, God condescended from on high, giving up his glory and his righteousness to put on flesh. And we wonder who is this mighty hand that God is talking about? Well, this mighty hand he’s talking about is a human hand that is fully divine.

A human hand that would be weak and feeble as he carried a cross that was meant for you and meant for me. And his name would be placed above it. And that mighty hands would be stretched out on that wood and nails would be driven into the son of God that he might show you what he’s about to do.

That he’s not saying I am who I am anymore, but he’s saying I am with you. I have come to be with you. I am for you.

And I love you. You want to know who you are? Here’s who I am as God. I am a God who loves his people enough to lay down his own life for you.

And even more than that, just like with the Hebrews, even more than forgiving your sins and leading you out of slavery and bondage, he has a good place, a broad place, a place with milk and honey. He wants to dwell with you forever. We have a God who isn’t just I am.

We have a God who is, I am with you. Emmanuel, God with us. When you want to know the character of your God, you look no further than the cross.

You look no further than his son who stretched out his arms for you to welcome you. That now when you live in the in-between, just as the Hebrew people did, that there’s a promise that has been given to you attached to the name of God. That just as he promised to them, I’m going to lead you out.

That your God has promised you here and now that the suffering that you endure, the burdens that you carry, that the cries that you lift up to him time and time again, wondering when is he going to answer? When is he going to cut through this deafening silence? When is he going to act that surely just as he’s already died for you, that he is coming again to welcome you home, that he may be with you forever. Amen. Will you join me in prayer? Gracious heavenly father, God, we thank you for your word and for the revelation that the story of the Israelites is our story as well.

Trapped and bound in slavery to our own sin. And God, you have come to set us free and that all who are in Christ Jesus are free, free in his name, free already, still carrying the weight of the sin in our bodies here and now, but fully known and fully loved and fully righteous in your sight because what your son has done on our behalf. God, let us lift our eyes from our struggles and our sins and fix them upon the hope that is to come when Jesus comes back.

Amen. Brothers and sisters, we serve a generous God. Amen.

Generous in his love and guidance for us. Thank you, Pastor Ben, for that amazing message from his word. This is an opportunity for us now during our offering time to be generous as well.

And I know sometimes, I know in my past, if I thought, man, it’s another organization that’s trying to get me to donate. It’s like, you know, but listen, this is an opportunity to support your King. This is an opportunity to support Jesus’s mission that he’s given you and me.