Sermon - Kingdom Partnership: "Citizens of Heaven" Series

Sermon Outline
Focus: Joy is not found in our circumstances, but in our identity as citizens of heaven.
As we move from consuming church to participating in the gospel mission, we discover the deep and lasting joy of the Kingdom.

I. Gospel Partnership Produces Joy (“Partnership in the gospel…” vv. 3-5)
        We are called to participate, not just attend
        Joy is found in shared mission (RFKC, Habitat, short-term mission trips)
        Joy grows when you move from being a consumer of church to a participant            in the mission.

II. Gospel Confidence Produces Joy (“He who began… will complete…” v. 6)
        God started the work; God sustains the work; God will finish the work
        Our confidence is found in the finished work on the cross and in the empty              tomb.

II. Gospel Growth Produces Joy (“That your love may abound…” vv. 9-11)
        Growing love; Wise discernment; A fruitful life
        Joy increases when your life produces eternal impact.

IV. Joy is not found in what you accumulate, but in what you multiply for the                   Kingdom.
        Don’t settle for a small life.
        Step into the mission.
        Find your joy in His Kingdom.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Have you ever truly given your life to Jesus Christ? Not do you attend church, not that you believe that there's a God out there, but have you given your life to a very specific person? A God man named Jesus. Have you surrendered? Have you kneeled at his altar? Have you trusted him for your salvation, that his blood was enough? Have you turned from your sin? Have you placed your life in his hands? Because, friends, there is no lasting joy outside of his kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome to the Church of the Lake 3 Sermon Podcast. We're so glad that you've joined us and we're honored to be part of your spiritual journey. Today, after Jared's Greek death, we get a new sermon series in the Book of Philippians, written by the Apostle Paul. This first message in this series is titled Kingdom Partnership. Paul wrote this Book of Joy from Christmas and reminds us that true joy isn't found in our circumstances, but in our identity as citizens of heaven. As we move from simply consuming church to actively participating in the mission of the gospel, we begin to experience this deep and lasting joy of the kingdom. And now, here's Pastor Jared. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Good morning. Christ is risen. We can still say that even though it's not Easter morning, because we are an Easter people, amen. We are bearers of the resurrection because we serve the risen King Jesus Christ. It is a joy to be with you. I absolutely loved last week at worship. Again, being able to celebrate and worship that great reality. Jesus is indeed alive, and therefore we are as well. If you're a guest with us, thank you for being with us this Sunday after Easter. It's full transparency. I was wondering how many people are going to be in church today because it's a Sunday after Easter, but you all look good. This is a good crowd of people, so praise be to God for that. We are kicking off a new series of messages where we're going to spend the next seven weeks walking through the letter to the Philippians. We're going to call this series Citizens of Heaven. Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul, and it is known as the letter of joy. And the reason this is known as the letter of joy is because Paul is writing this letter to the early church while being incarcerated. He is imprisoned in a Roman prison for his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and for his bold witness of the gospel. What makes this letter again so astounding is that even though he's writing this from a place of imprisonment, a place of persecution, it is a letter that exudes joy. I mean, there is joy on every single page of this very short letter, Paul writes to the early church. It's just a tone of joy in every page and every verse you read. I think nine times Pastor Brian mentioned at our first service that Paul even refers to the joy that he has in the Lord. And you got to ask yourself the question: even in the midst of this more than tenuous circumstance that Paul finds himself in, why does he have so much joy? How does Paul do it? Well, first you got to define what joy is in contrast to happiness. I know we live in a culture, in a society that the pursuit of happiness is one of our ideals, but there's a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness, if I could define it quickly, is often an elusive emotion that is contingent on circumstance, context, and maybe even company. Joy, however, is about countenance. It's about the state of your being that is not contingent on circumstance, context, or company. And so how does Paul do it? How does Paul live with this joy despite what he's going through at this time in his ministry? Let me share a statement that I think for some of us could actually be a life-altering statement, and here it is. Your joy, hear this, will always rise or fall with whatever kingdom you are living for. Your joy will always rise or fall depending on the kingdom that you are living for. The apostle Paul figured that out when he came to faith in Jesus Christ. So if your life is built on a kingdom of this world, uh maybe your comfort, your finances, your reputation, your job, your success, your influence, if your joy is rooted in the kingdoms of this world, that joy will always be a fragile joy. And the reason being is because all those things are fragile. They rise, they fall, they shift, they fail, they ultimately end. But the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3.20, and we're going to get there in a few weeks, is that our citizenship is in the kingdom of heaven. If you are a person who believes in Jesus Christ, you have trusted in his blood for your salvation, you've acknowledged his lordship over your life. Guess what? You belong to Jesus. Your citizenship is in the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of heaven prevails for all time, for eternity. Which means, for those of you who belong to Jesus, your true identity is not where you currently live. It's not even what you're currently going through circumstantially. Your identity is rooted into where and to whom you actually ultimately belong. Your citizenship is in heaven. It is in another kingdom, a kingdom that is not fragile, that is steadfast, that is grounded. It is a better kingdom. It is a better kingdom than any kingdom of this world could ever be. It is an eternal kingdom. And here's what Philippians is going to show us over the next seven weeks. Friends, joy again is not found in circumstance, context, or even the company you keep. It is found ultimately in your citizenship. It is found in your proximity to the risen Savior. Because when you anchor your life in heaven, you can have joy on earth even when things get hard. And so, again, over the next seven weeks, we're going to walk through what it looks like to actually be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, what shapes our joy, what defines our purpose, what marks our lives, what fuels our mission, because the joyful life is found in the kingdom life. And what Paul's going to show us particularly this morning about where to find joy is that joy for kingdom citizens, kingdom of God citizens, is often found in gospel partnership and in shared mission. I'm going to read the opening verses of Philippians 1. We're going to walk through this whole book over the next seven weeks. I want to encourage you, challenge you, bring your Bibles with you when you come to church over the next seven weeks so you can like maybe highlight or underline verses or key words within the passages or take little notes in your pages of your Bible. If you see mine, I got a ton. A lot of highlights, a lot of notes. It's good to do. You can refer back to them. If you don't have a Bible, we will graciously give you a Bible. We want to put the Word of God into people's hands. So if you don't have a Bible, please come see me after service today, and I will give you a really nice study Bible. But listen to these opening verses from the Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the early church at Philippi. It starts out with these words a word of introduction. Paul and Timothy, servants or slaves of Jesus Christ. Isn't it interesting? Just a quick sidebar. How Paul identifies himself primarily. Not as a religious leader, not as a person of influence, not even as a persecuted person. He primary identity marker right here is that he's a servant or a slave of Jesus Christ. By the way, if you had your Bibles, I'd have you circle the word servant or slave. Because that's where you should be rooting your primary identity. It's in your servitude or your slavery to Jesus Christ. Anyways, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul goes on, I thank my God every time I remember you constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and the praise of God our Father. Friends, this is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, I thank you so much for this morning, this chance to gather in this space just simply to worship you, to celebrate, Lord, the blood of Jesus that gives us our salvation and the empty tomb, Lord, that that demonstrates, it declares that you accepted what he did for us at the cross. And now, Lord, we thank you for your word. I thank you for the proclamation of the word. And as I offer reflection on this life-giving word, Lord, I pray that you bless the words of my mouth, the meditation of all our hearts, that they be of profit to us and acceptable to you, for you indeed are our rock and our redeemer. Amen. So several years ago, a journalist followed a group of volunteers that were so willing to give up a week of vacation to go help build homes after a disaster, a disaster, a natural disaster. Many of you have done that within our church as you think of the different mission trips, short-term mission trips we have taken on the heels of a disaster that hit some part of our country. Last year in particular, Tony, Pastor Tony led a group down to Asheville, North Carolina to help that community repair after the devastating floods that hit that community. Anyways, uh, one of the volunteers on this particular mission trip that I'm talking about was a very successful businessman. This guy had the kind of life that a lot of people in America desire to have. Financial security, really nice house and a really nice community, and the really the availability to take a vacation whenever and wherever he wanted to go. However, um at the end of a very long day of swinging a hammer, um, sweating, he comes into the mission house and there's a reporter there looking to kind of have conversation with him. And this man said to the reporter, I feel more alive here than I've ever done on any vacation I've ever taken. Now, this really kind of struck the reporter in a very profound way, so she kind of pressed in a little bit and said, Okay, tell me why. Why do you feel more alive today than you have ever felt on any vacation you've ever gone on? And he said this, and I love it. Because this actually matters. This is bigger than me. And that's when it clicked for the reporter. Friends, the deepest joy that you and I can experience in life is when we are not being served by others, but when we're part of something meaningful that's bigger than self. You know, this businessman offers a sentiment that I've heard many of you offer that have given up a week of your vacation to serve at our foster kids' camp called Royal Family Kids Camp down in Camp Wakanda, uh, just about an hour south of here. Pastor Brian will say that it is the hardest week you'll ever love. Why does he say that it's the hardest week you'll ever love? It's because when you get immersed into that week, as hot, as uncomfortable as those beds are, as yucky as the food is, when you immerse yourself in that type of environment and you realize you're part of something bigger than yourself. You find yourself getting caught up in the fact that you are making a market difference in the lives of a very vulnerable population of people. Same could be said for those of you who will give up your weekends over from May to September to help build our habitat home in Canton City this year. Okay, that's exactly what Paul's talking about here in Philippians 1. Again, friends, Paul is in prison. He has lost comfort, freedom, and control, but he has not lost his joy. Why? Well, it's because his life is anchored in something bigger than himself. The gospel message, uh mission, and the people that he's partnered alongside with in it. So according to Paul, what produces joy? Again, joy is not happiness. Happiness is an elusive emotion that is determined based off context, circumstance, or company. That's not joy. Joy is a state of inner being that cannot be shaken by context, circumstance, or company. So how does how does Paul say we are to produce joy within us? The first thing he said is that gospel partnership produces joy. Look at verse 3 to 5. If you had your Bibles here, I'd tell you to open them up. And anyways, Paul says, I thank my God and all my remembrances of you because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Let me share really quick how the church in Philippi even came into existence in the in the books of the Acts of the Apostle. I'm going to kind of give you a fly overview of what was taking place here in Paul's life and in the way he's taken just the world by storm for the sake of the gospel. Paul was very strategic in the way he carried the gospel to new people. What he would do is he was he started in modern day Turkey and he would hit all the major seaports and major cities with the gospel, the places that had a concentrated number of people. He'd spread the gospel to those people, and then they would take the gospel to the surrounding areas that is to where they lived. Very strategic. Well, Paul is in, again, modern day Turkey. He's up in the northwest corner of it. He's trying to start heading south down the western coast, and the scriptures tell us that the Holy Spirit is preventing Paul from going south. He's facing these hurdles, these barriers. He's like, tells his team, all right, time out. Let's have a night in Troas. We'll wake up and discern next steps that the Lord wants us to go. And so that night as Paul is sleeping, he has a vision of a man in Macedonia that's pleading for him to come to them to help. Paul wakes up, he tells his missionary team, guess what? I know where we're going. We're going to jump over to Macedonia, which is modern-day Greece. They land in Macedonia into one of the leading cities of that community called Philippi. And at Philippi, another part of Paul's strategy to reach people was whenever he entered a new place, the first place he would go was the synagogue. Let me try to convert the Jews that their Savior has in fact come and his name is Jesus Christ. He shed his blood at the cross for your salvation. Let me share the gospel with you. And if the Jews received it, praise be to God. If not, then Paul would go to the Gentiles and spread the message in that manner. Philippi, this major city in Macedonia, had no synagogue. So Paul went down to the river to the place of prayer. And down at the river he met a very rich, wealthy businesswoman by the name of Lydia. Holy Spirit illuminated Lydia's need for salvation in that moment, received the gospel from the Apostle Paul, gave her life to Christ. Her and her whole family are baptized. Paul moves on. He encounters this slave girl that is possessed by an evil spirit. This possession gives her the ability to be able to tell people's fortune. So her masters exploited this girl in her gift to tell fortunes to make a profit for themselves. This agitated Paul, so he casts the demon out. She can no longer tell the fortune, ticks off the masters, undoubtedly. They get him beaten in the city court, and then they throw him in prison. At midnight, the scriptures tell us Saul and Pilas, as they're licking their wounds, are praying to God and singing songs of praise and hymns of the faith. Again, joy not contingent on circumstance, as you see in this moment. Anyways, the Lord brings an earthquake, all the chains fall off of all the prisoners' arms and legs. The jailer wakes up, runs into the area the prisoners should be, realizes none of them are there. He thinks they've all run off. They've freed, they're free. In Roman Empire, if you lost a slave, guess what? It was your life for their life. So he pulls out a sword to kill himself. Paul says, Stop, don't do it, we're all here. Jailer comes in, trembling, falls at the feet of the apostle Paul, and asks a really important question. What must I do to be saved? Paul shares the gospel. The jailer and his entire family is baptized in that moment. Okay, that's the beginning of the church in Philippi. Talk about eclectic. You got a rich businesswoman named Lydia, a slave girl who used to be possessed by a demon and a blue-collar jailer. Different backgrounds, different stories, one gospel, one mission. So when Paul says and he writes in Philippians 1, I remember you with joy. You know what he's remembering? He's remembering that these people forged together as one in mission, in suffering, and in grace. And friends, here's the truth that I think lands the plane for us today. Joy grows. Please hear me. Joy grows when we move from being a consumer of the church to being a partner in the mission of the church. Can we let that sit for a moment? Joy grows when we move from being a consumer of the church to being a mission, uh being in mission partnership with the church. You see the differences, right? Well we we live in a culture, in a world, in the American Christian landscape, particularly in the suburbs, where we've bought in this um this mentality to consume what the church offers. So so we approach our church in this manner. We ask questions like, do I get anything out of this? Can't say amen, say ouch, right? Do I like the music today? Was it inspiring? Did the preacher tell enough jokes in his 20-minute monologue to make me laugh so I could stay attentive? Does this fist does this place meet my needs? Okay, that's consumer Christianity. Contrast that with the Christianity that that Paul is trying to unveil here, and it's a Christianity that contributes to the mission of the church that, by the way, was conceived when the Holy Spirit came upon us on Pentecost. That's going to happen in a few weeks. But but people who are partnering with the mission of the church ask questions like this Who am I reaching for the sake of the gospel? Where am I currently serving? How am I building God's kingdom that is in heaven on earth in all my circles of influence? Who am I currently discipling right now? You see the difference in the questions? One sits, the other sacrifices, one critiques, the other commits, and here only one produces joy. Listen, if you're disconnected from the mission of the church, hear me, you will feel disconnected from the joy the church declares. But when you serve alongside one another, when you pray with and for one another, when you give of your time, treasures, and talents for something eternal, when you invest into somebody else's spiritual life, their spiritual well-being, guess what? A shift changes. Something shifts. Because you are no longer just attending church, praise be to God, right? Instead, you are advancing the mission of God here on earth. And friends, let me tell you, there is joy when you know that the work you're doing is advancing the mission of God here on earth. Gospel partnership produces joy. Another thing that produces joy is gospel confidence. Look at Paul in verse 6. Again, if you had your Bibles, I'd have you underline verse 6 because it's a really important verse. I'll stop now. Um, but Paul says this He, meaning God who began a good work in you, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Wow, gospel confidence producing joy. Listen, Paul's joy is not rooted in what the Philippines are currently doing, it is rooted in what God has promised He will indeed do. The promise? He will fulfill, He will finish what He started. He who began a good work in you will finish what He started. What is this? Good work? Well, it's not self-improvement. It's not self-indulgment. It's not moral therapeutic deism. What this good work here means is it's God saving you, God changing you, God using you for his mission here on earth. It is God building a people for his kingdom that will reign forever. And how do we know he's going to finish that work? Well, because it's rooted in two historical events. The first is the cross upon which Christ died. One of Jesus' seven last words was to telestim. But what that word means is it is finished. What's finished? The debt of our sin has been paid by the precious blood of our Savior. That's what that means. It means the penalty of God's justice was absorbed by Christ on the cross. The work of our salvation was completed. That's the first historical event. You want to know the second? Could you take a guess? The resurrection, right? The empty tomb. The empty tomb was God's declaration that the work Jesus did on the cross, that the blood he shed was actually accepted to pay our debt. It means that sin was defeated, death was conquered, victory secured for God's people. So when Paul says he will complete it, he's not just, it's not wishful thinking here. It's biblical hope. It's a certainty in that statement. He is standing, friends, on the finished work of the cross and the certainty of the empty tomb. You know what that means? It means your salvation is not fragile. It means it's secure. It means your future is glorious and it's anchored. It means your growth in the Lord is sustained by his presence and power. Friends, God started the work, God sustains the work, and God will complete the work. Praise be to God. Man, some of you are here today and you are carrying a load on your shoulders, hear me, that you were never meant to carry. Anyone here feel like everything in your life and your circle depends on you? And how well and effective you can execute, how well and effective you can provide? Any of you out there? You think your spiritual growth is the contingent on you? You think your family's well-being is contingent on you? You think your children's future is contingent on you? Let me ask you a question. Are you feeling worn out? The kind of worn out where a good night's sleep doesn't shake? And any of you here feel like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders? Listen, if that is you, please hear me. You are not the author of your salvation, nor are you the finisher of it. Goddess. You do not have soul responsibility over your existence and the existence of those you love. God does. Will you stop striving and start trusting in the one who gave his life for you? Listen, when your confidence can shift off yourself and onto your risen Savior, guess what? Your joy is gonna return. Gospel confidence produces joy. Here's the third thing I see here. It's gospel growth produces joy. Paul says in verse 9 to 11. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more. So that you may approve what is excellent, being filled with the fruit of righteousness. You notice how Paul's not praying for their comfort. Nor is he praying for his own. You know what he's praying for? He's praying for transformation in the people of God. He's praying that kingdom citizens realize they are not just forgiven of sin, but they are being formed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, by the presence of God's Holy Spirit. So in these verses, Paul lays out the progression of our growth. He says that love abounds, that your discernment sharpens, that your purity prepares you for what's to come, and finally that fruit multiplies in your life. What does that mean? It means a life that offers and produces visible evidence of God's reign and rule over you. That's what Paul's saying here. No, we are not saved by good works. No, we are not saved by our fruit. We are saved by grace through faith, right? But hear me, our good works, our fruit is visible evidence that God is ruling and reigning within us. So what does that fruit look like in some of our circles? Well, I think it looks like this: a harsh person becoming a gentle person. Somebody who has so much road rage has now become courteous to other drivers on the road. A selfish person becoming generous, a fearful person becoming bold, a passive person becoming engaged, people actually living out the call God has placed on their lives. Friends, that's fruit. That's the fruit of the kingdom. And here's why this matters joy increases when we can see that our lives are producing something that's gonna last forever. It's not just activity, it's not just busyness. Goodness, let's stop being busy. Let's start doing things that have eternal impact to them. You want eternal impact? Ask yourself these questions. Let me slow down. Ask yourself these questions. Who is in heaven today because of your life witness or testimony? Or who's gonna be in heaven tomorrow because of your life witness or testimony? Who is growing because you are currently in a season of discipling that person? Who is being served because you are serving? Who is hearing the gospel maybe for the first time because you have been generous of your time, your treasures, and your talents? One more. Who is experiencing the kingdom of God presently because you are seeking and being intentional about building the kingdom of God right now in your circles of influence? Friends, at the end of the day, joy is not found in what you accumulate, it's not. It's not found in what you amass for yourself, it is found in what you can multiply for the kingdom of God. Let me end by speaking very plainly for a moment. There is a kind of life in America that's very easy to drift into. And it's easy to drift into because we have been rooted in a society, a culture, that kind of encourages this type of life. This pursuit of happiness. And it's a life that's really centered on who? On me. That's the life that's easy to drift into. It's about my schedule, my comfort, my success, my plans, my reputation. And it's not that that in and of itself is a terrible thing. It's just that it's small. It's small. I I once heard it said that there are people who have spent their life trying to climb the ladder of success. Right? Working harder, achieving more, amassing more, gaining everything they've ever wanted, only to get to the top of that ladder and realize, wow, the ladder was leaning on the wrong building this whole time. How many of us have done that? We've climbed up the ladder that is leading on the wrong building. We're climbing, but we're never satisfied. We're achieving, but we still feel empty. Friends, please hear me. Don't waste your life climbing the wrong ladder. Don't waste your life on the wrong kingdom. Do not spend your strength on that which will not last. You were made for so much more than this. You were made for a kingdom that does not crumble, a mission that does not fade. And hear me, a king that does not die. Amen. And that's why Jesus came. On the cross, friends, he didn't just show you love. He didn't just show you love. He died in your place. You know that, right? I know Jesus' death was a show of sacrificial love. I get that, but there was a purpose under it. He didn't just die for you, he died instead of you. He carried your sin. He paid your sin debt with his precious blood, he uh absorbed your judgment, and when he rose from the grave, man, he proved that the cross was enough. So hear me clearly. You don't climb your way into the kingdom of God. You know what you do? You receive it by grace. So let me ask you right now, right here. Have you ever truly given your life to Jesus Christ? Not do you attend church, not that you believe that there's a God out there, but have you given your life to a very specific person? A God man named Jesus. Have you surrendered? Have you kneeled at his altar? Have you trusted him for your salvation, that his blood was enough? Have you turned from your sin? Have you placed your life in his hands? Because, friends, there is no lasting joy outside of his kingdom. You know, right here, right now, you can call out to him if you never have and just say, Jesus, I need you. Save me, forgive me, lead me. And here's the amazing thing. When you do that in sincerity of heart, guess what? He will save you. He will forgive you, and he will lead you. But I'm guessing there's many more of us here today that we've given our life to Christ, but man, we have settled for a small life. When we realize, you know what, we've been actually called into a greater mission than ourselves. Friends, joy comes when you move from being a consumer of the church to being a partner in the mission of the church. So can I say to you now, step up, disciple, give, build, because the cross is enough, the tomb is empty, the king is alive, and his kingdom will endure forever. And the greatest joy you will ever know is not found in climbing your ladder of success, it is found in giving your life to the king and his kingdom that will endure. Praise be to God for Jesus. Will you pray with me? Well, Heavenly Father, uh, I just want to thank you. We want to thank you this morning that our joy that you offer to us is not rooted in circumstance, necessarily in company or in context, but it is rooted in our citizenship in your kingdom. That it is rooted in our proximity to Jesus Christ. So, Lord, for now, in this moment, for those who are still searching, that have made their way at the in the Church of the Lakes today, Lord, would you draw them to yourself today? God, would you give them the courage to trust in Jesus, to surrender their lives, to receive the grace that you freely offer? It could be as simple as just praying, Lord, I I need you. Save me. Forgive me, lead me. And God, give them the assurance that when they pray that prayer that you have answered it for them. And Lord, for those of us who belong to you, will you stir our hearts to step into the mission more fully? To move from consuming to participating, from watching to building your kingdom here on earth. God, use our lives to bear fruit that lasts and fill us with just a sense, a deep sense of your joy that comes from walking with you. Lord, we pray this in the name of Jesus, who is indeed our risen King. And all God's people said. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Thank you for listening to the Church of the Lakes podcast with Pastor Jared Preesett. If today's message encouraged you and helped you grow as a devoted follower of Christ, we invite you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also help others discover this podcast by leaving a five-star ready for review and sharing it with your friends, family, co-workers, and others in your circle of internet. We're also very grateful for your generosity, which helps make messages like this available to more people. If you feel ready to give, please check the link in the description. And if you're in the Kent, Ohio area, we'd love to invite you to join us in person on Sunday and worship together. To learn more about Church of the Lakes, visit churchoftheikes.org or click the website link in the description. Until next time, stay encouraged and keep walking in faith.