[0:01]Morning. Our text this morning comes from 1st Samuel 18 verses 1 through 16. As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day to and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, even his sword and his bow and his belt. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants. As they were coming home when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all of the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines, with songs of joy and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated, Saul has struck down thousands, and David, his 10 thousands. And Saul was very angry. This saying displeased him. He said, they have ascribed to David 10 thousands, and to me, they have ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day on. The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed out upon Saul and he raved within his house while David was playing the liar as he did day by day. And Saul had his spear in his hand, and Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, I will pin David to the wall. But David evaded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand. And he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him, and when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him. But all of Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, church. Triva, thanks so much. This is Triva Marquis. She's one of our newest members here at the Creek, and uh we love to have our new members come up here and so you can get to see who they are and and we're so glad you're with us. You're awesome. Well, good morning, church. All right, good morning, church. Hello. All right. Good to see everyone this morning. We're glad that you're here. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to 1st Samuel chapter 18. That's where we're going to be today as we continue on through our Kingdom Come series. Hopefully you're enjoying this series as much as I am. I love going through 1st Samuel. And uh I love seeing what God is doing in the Old Testament as he gets us to the New Testament revealing his son Jesus. And uh everything that we see here is a a foretaste of what's to come in Christ when he comes on the scene in the New Testament. And so last week I I love this the sermon that Pastor RC led us through as he spoke to us uh about David and Goliath, a familiar story and how we all have an enemy that's coming after us. But God has won the victory in the battle, Amen. And so I'm very thankful for that. What a great reminder. And and I love this chapter in uh 1st Samuel, chapter 17 and 18 because these two chapters really could just be one chapter combined. Because as soon as chapter 17 ends, it's that that's where chapter 18 begins with his conversation with Jonathan David after David got done talking uh with Saul. And it really got me thinking as I was studying as I was looking over our text, it really got me thinking about friendships and community and relationships and and how they uh interact in our own lives. And and I want you to think about real quickly. Think about your best friend. I mean, the best friend in your whole world. I mean, uh that man or woman, that guy or girl, you're your ride or die. That that's your brody, you know, your bestie, your BFF, uh friends to the end. I mean, they got your back no matter what. Now, think about those people. And we think about some famous best friend relationships. There's some famous ones out there. And you know who they are. You think about you can't have Bert without who? Ernie. I mean, they're they're best friends uh to the end. You can't have Batman without Robin. You can't have Buzz without Woody, and and Frodo without Samwise, and you can't have Shrek without Donkey. You know, and and the most famous one, the best one out there. You can't have Maverick without Goose, you know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, there there are some famous relationships. And if we we think about it in our own lives, we all we all want a relationship like that. We all want someone to be that close to us because we know that type of relationship is irreplaceable. You're marked by that other person by uh good experiences or maybe even tough times. Uh we we have those shared responses because we know that person and that person knows us. And every single person in here would say, man, I want someone like that for me. But let me ask you a question. Have you ever wanted to be that type of friend to someone else? Have you ever wanted to be that friend to someone in your life? And honestly, that's not our first go-to. Our first go-to is is looking out for ourselves. We want a friend like that for us. We want to be that to have that friend. And I'm curious if we're sitting here today thinking about our text and thinking about relationships and friendships, if we're that type of friend to someone else. So let me ask some diagnostic questions to see where we land in our friendships, to to see what type of friendships or relationships we have with others. When your friend or the people are in your circles, when they hurt, do you hurt or do you feel happiness? When they succeed, do you rejoice or get jealous? When they get invited to the the party or the event and you weren't included, do you get excited for them that they were there or do you get jealous that leads to resentment?
[7:04]And then you have that FOMO, because you're sitting there, man, that should have been me. Why aren't I invited? And we quickly our friendships quickly turn and be or tainted by our own sinful desires. Looking out for our own mindsets, our own selves. And and too often, we let our feelings dictate what's real. Our feelings uh fill those gaps with mistrust. And they start causing riffs and divides in our friendships and our relationships because of past wounds. And unfortunately, we let our past dictate our present instead of letting the Lord dictate our present. And so we we think that happens outside of these walls, and oftentimes it does. But I'm going to tell you, it happens in here as well, in church world as well. Think about this, when a group has more members than yours, what what am I doing wrong as a leader, we think in our mind. Or we see someone serving on stage and think, that should be me up there. I should be the one leading. I should be the one speaking. That should be me up there. Or when another church has more members than we do. And I'm going to be completely transparent. I felt these thing things. I have battled with these same issues before. And instead of being excited that the kingdom of God is advancing, comparison and fear and mistrust, bitterness, resentment, jealousy, pride creep in, turning what should be joy into insecurities when I'm around those folks. That's exactly what we see as we get to chapter 18 here in our text. We see two type of relationships that unfold before our eyes. And we need to really lean into what our our verses say today because David has just been anointed by God as the new king of Israel. And he goes out and defeats Goliath, the giant, and the Philistines are defeated by the Israelites. And they're slain. And David has this conversation with Saul, and at the end of chapter 17, this conversation ends, and then this this scene unfolds between Jonathan and David, but we see another example of a relationship as we move further in our text, between David and Saul. And they could not be two different types of relationships that we see here in our text. So point number one, if you're taking notes, write this down. Covenant relationships. Covenant relationships.
[9:44]Let's read together back in verse, uh, verse one through six in chapter 18.
[10:36]As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, that was be David, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was a good this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. Now, be reminded, David had just killed Goliath and and had this conversation with Saul. And as soon as David stopped talking with Saul, Jonathan uh knew right then and there that there was something different about this shepherd boy named David. He felt it in his soul. And it it really doesn't make sense if you step back and really see about what has is happening in this this scene right here. Jonathan was Saul's uh firstborn. He should have been the heir to the throne, but his dad messed that up. His dad uh ruined that for him. I mean, Jonathan was a warrior, and he killed thousands upon thousands of Philistines. And it should have been his rightful place to the throne. But yet his father messed that up. So you got Jonathan, but you also have David. He was the last born son of Jesse, a shepherd boy, who the only thing that that David loved was a bunch of sheep. And he killed no one up to this point, but just a few lions and bears. Now, don't get me wrong, that's pretty awesome, I'm not going to lie. But that's all he killed. And the first man that he ever killed was a giant named Goliath. But at the end of the day, he would literally be the last person that would be picked for the throne. But Jonathan saw something different in David's life. He saw not just what he's his father once had, but he sees what David is is what's in him and the potential that could be in David's life. When I think about this, I'm reminded of a quote by Spurgeon, who said, A holy life will make the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns, they only shine. Isn't that good? Isn't that so good? Jonathan saw the light of the Spirit of God inside of David, and David's soul was knit together with Jonathan. Now, I'm sure that there's no dude in here that looked at another dude and said, bro, our souls are knit together, bro. I'm sure that's never happened. So what in the world does that mean? This isn't talking about soul ties or soul links. They weren't soul brothers. Uh there there there weren't having a homosexual relationship. These are two brothers, these two got these two guys that came together that and I was talking to someone earlier, they didn't have a bromance going on with each other. I mean, these are two guys that came together that almost had the same blood flowing through their veins. Or marked by the spirit of God inside them. And we see some key things that Jonathan did for David that too often times we would skip past. We would run past through our text. And we think, okay, that's not that big of a deal, but let's look back at verse 14 and see what Jonathan did. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt. I think about this. He wouldn't just throwing his jacket on David's shoulders because he was cold. No, he took his robe and threw it on David's shoulders, symbolizing that you will be the next king. Then he takes his sword and his belt and his bow and his armor and gives it to David. This would be the second time someone tried to give him armor. The first time Saul did that right before he fought Goliath, and he didn't take it. It wouldn't fit him, but this fit perfectly because of the friendship and the bond that they were receiving. But what was this showing from Jonathan to David? This was not just saying, hey, you're going to be a king, but you're also going to be a warrior king. You're going to go fight, and you're going to battle, and you're going to be victorious. Just before uh Jonathan gave David these things, Jonathan looks at David and made a covenant with him. Then this covenant would be a lifelong promise of loyalty and respect and protection and friendship. That would that would no matter what the future held, they would be together. And this covenant would never be broken. And I would venture to say, that's the type of relationship that we would all want in this room. We all want a covenant relationship like that. I have a saying that I say quite often. I say to my kids and I say to my friends, I want to be the friend that I want to have. I want to be the friend that I want to have. And you can replace the word friend with boss or employee or spouse. But here I want to use the word friend. Be the friend that you want to have. When I think about this text, now, what does this type of friendship start with? Truly, if you strip everything away, what does it start with? It starts with humility. It starts with humility. Several months back, I I I preached a sermon um that was entitled more than a friendship. And we looked at these verses. You can go back, you can see it online, you can read and watch it, but we talked about true friendship uh starts with loyalty and intentionality and sacrifice. And all of those things are 100% true, but there's one ingredient that each part of these covenant friendships start with, and that's humility. A key ingredient. When I think about this, I I heard it said that you are never more like Jesus than when you are humble. You're never more like Jesus when you're a humble. Humility lays your wants, your desires, your passions, your feelings down and lift those others up in someone else and others. And where do we get the perfect example of this? In Christ. In Jesus. Remember what Philippians 2 says? Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow on heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jonathan took off his robe and put it on David. Jesus took off his glory and put on our humanity. Jesus humbled himself on the cross that we might have life. That we might find success through him, not from our doing, but through him and what he has done. Jonathan's humble covenant relationship with David is a is a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us. That through our lives that we can overcome, we can be successful if you will, through Christ. And we'll talk about that success in a moment. But we get encouragement and we get extreme and we get strength through what Christ has done for us. And I'm not talking about success from a from a health and wealth standpoint or naming and claim it type of thing. I'm not talking about that type of success. I'm talking about the ability to overcome whatever the enemy throws at us. Through Christ. I'm talking about the ability to look at someone through uh the lens of Jesus and look at them how Christ looks at us through the cross. I'm talking about the the type of success that you can walk into battle with someone with because we know who's won the victory, Jesus. These type of relationships only advance the kingdom of God. They only help the kingdom kingdom of God. And I I see so many of those here at the Creek. I really do. I see, I see these unfold often in these walls and you here at the church. I I think about our first covenant relationship we have. You know what it is, it's with our spouse, if you're married. It's with our spouse. And most of our marriage ceremonies, you had a preacher get up there and say something like this. Do you take this man or this woman to be your lawfully wedded husband or wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, through sickness and health, through richer and poor. Through all these things, uh from this day forward until death do us part. And what does he say at the end? He says in the sight of God and the sight of these witnesses, I pronounce you to husband and wife. You know what that that's called, what that is? That's a covenant. That's a covenant that's being made in this marriage. We're coveting with our spouses that this relationship is the most important relationship outside of Christ that we have. Now, I'm going to say this, will every day be rainbows and roses? No. Will there be hard times? Yeah. When you covenant and you heard that poor part, did you really understand what that meant? Richer and poor. But you have to remember the covenant relationship you made with your spouse. You have to. You have to remember that our covenant marriages should always be wanting the best for our spouse. Always want the best for them. Spiritually, emotionally, and physically as well. We have to humble ourselves to them and lift them up. But too many times the enemy comes in and causes us to white knuckle the robe that we should be throwing over our spouse because of past resentments and unforgiveness that we hold in ourselves. After our covenant relationship with our spouse, you know what our second covenant relationship with is, is with our children. It is with our children, our homes. All of us parents would say that we want our children to have a better life than we did growing up. We would say that. So we buy all the we all the buy all the equipment and we take them to the uh to the games and we give them all the toys and in hopes that their relationship with us would be so tight and they would be blessed and everything would be good in their lives because we want them to have super success that we didn't have. But what if the biggest thing that we can give to our children is a right view of Christ? Instead of giving your armor and sword to your children, do you try to live vicariously through them? Parents, one beautiful thing I see and I even see it in this room, teach your children the Bible. Let them worship beside you. Let them see you worship. Encourage them with grace in their shortcom companies. Give them accountability when they mess up, discipline out of love, show them that you are that they are loved. Why? Because that's what God has done for us through Christ Jesus. Let us have that same covenant relationship with our children. As God has with us. But it doesn't stop there. What about the covenant relationships that we have in friendships? In friendships. Do you have a covenant relationship with someone, even in this room? When I think about uh you, when I think about the folks in this room, one of the places that I see one of the most beautiful covenant relationships displayed is in our groups. Being the groups guy, I get to see all the ins and outs and all these groups coming together. I see our D groups meeting, our life groups meet. I see men and women who come together who would never see each other on a regular basis, or probably even talk to each other. They might sit in different spots in our auditorium or they might go to a different service, but yet throughout the week, men meet with men, women meet with women, and men become brothers, women become sisters, families become families because the covenant relationships that were being made. I mean, these folks would take a bullet. You would take a bullet for each other. I see it. And it's amazing. We have folks pouring in and and learning and living life with each other. You know why? Because they want to be the friend they want to have. But in sometimes, too many times, I see people who say, man, I I really want that, but I can't do that because of of all the other commitments I have in my life. I can't give another night of the week up. I can't I can't do this. I I can't be vulnerable in front of another group of or a group of guys or a group of women. I can't do that.
[24:49]But you know what what happens when our attitudes and our mindsets get get in the way of our our covenant relationship with our spouse or with our children or with other people? You know what happens? Instead of advancing the kingdom of God, you know what we do? We impede it. That stops the kingdom of God from advancing in our lives. Now, we know that God God is sovereign, and he is going to rule and reign. But what if we decided that today we're going to take off our robe and we're going to throw it on our spouse? We're going to give our armor to our children. We're going to be the friend for to someone else. We're going to be the Jonathan to a David in someone in this room. And I'm telling you, I am so thankful that I see so many of those types of relationships in this room. I really do. I see that so often. And we are here's why. I I see that because and I know that's true because the kingdom of God is advancing in the amount of people that are coming to hear the gospel. I see that. So let's continue to be faithful in what God has called us to do. But you know what's going to happen? When we are faithful to the Lord, you know what happens? The enemy hates it. He hates it. And you know what his number one goal is to to do is to divide. He wants to do everything he can to weasel his way in, to bust up the covenant relationships that we need to have in Christ. So we see in our first part of our text, we see covenant relationships, but we need to transition to another type of relationship we see here in chapter 18. We see need to look at our competitive relationships. Competitive relationships, or competing relationships. A lot of things happened in my life in 2003. Right now, everybody's going back to 2016. I'm going to go back to 2003. And and and I think about that that time in my life. My the band that my wife is in, they cut their first album, uh in the spring of 03. And in the summer of 03, they get signed. And and fall or excuse me, in August of 03, we get married, and then the fall of 03, they go on their first tour. There was a lot that happened in 2003. And I I I remember at that time I was working uh uh a part-time um ministry position. I was a part-time youth pastor at a small church in Middle Georgia. I mean, we had a whopping 12 teenagers in our youth group. And then I was also part-time uh farmhand at a farm for a guy, uh in our in our our town. And and what was interesting, I I never forget I was always remembering that growing up. I led worship with the lead singer of the band that Megan was in. And so I knew him, I knew the songs, I I remember uh when he wrote half the songs on the first album, and I remember having these dreams as we would go lead worship at youth groups and and disciple nows and camps. I remember, I remember going, man, I would love to do this. I would love to have that opportunity to tour the world and in and play and lead worship and sing and and play my guitar across the country. And I'll never forget when Megan was climbing up on those to on the tour bus to go off around the country. And I was getting off my tractor going to go share the gospel with these 12 students in Middle Georgia. And I was trying on on the outside, I was I was so excited for her. I was so happy, but in the inside, I was so mad. My encouragement quickly turned to snarkiness. My joy for her quickly uh deflated because I felt so much jealousy because that wasn't me. My support turned to competition. It really did. And when I look at this text, and we see verses 6 through 16, we see this competing relationship happen between Saul and David. And David returns the battle, and the women are singing his praises. Jonathan killed thousand or excuse me, Saul killed thousands and David 10 thousands. And everybody was excited about this shepherd boy. And Saul is tick. He's hacked off. He's so mad because he he starts feeling threatened by David. And instead of equipping David to be the next king, he starts throwing his spears at him to try to kill him. And David evaded him twice. And so that didn't work, so Saul said, okay, I'm going to put you on the battlefield to let the battle do what I can't. And hoping that David would die. But instead, David only gains more respect and more admiration and more love from all of Israel and Judah. David's life was marked with success, yet Saul's life was marked with competition. Now, we need to think about what what caused this competition in Saul's life. Look at verse 12. Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of thousands. And he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all of his undertakings, for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him. Remember, the spirit of the Lord had been removed from Saul and given to uh David. And Saul received a tormenting spirit that the Lord allowed to happen in his life. And honestly, Saul wasn't just displeased in this moment. There's more to this. With with he wasn't just he wasn't just saddened or hurt by David's uh success. He was acting demonically. Remember what James says in chapter 3? But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic wisdom. When we're faced with a competitive heart towards someone, it causes us to replace love for them with hatred from hell. Towards them. We don't throw spears physically, but we shoot firebrands out of our mouths, don't we? We tear them down with our words. I mean, think back where this has crept in in your own life. Someone gets a promotion that should have been yours. Someone gets the guy or girl that should have been yours. That that that I wish our marriage looked like them. I wish our group looks like their group. I wish our our sphere of friendships look like their sphere of friendships. And and then comparison and competition creep in, and every time you get around those people, you feel these insecurities arise, and you just shrink back. And honestly, you really get angry. You get fearful that you will never measure up to what they have, and you don't have what it takes to be successful, to get the job or the boy or girl or the relationship that you so desperately desire. And it reminds me of a wise sage said once, a long time ago, fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Isn't that true though? It really is. We suffer in our own lives. Let me ask you a question. Are you tempted to envy anyone close to you? Jealous of their God-given gifts or success? Let me tell you something, folks, make war against that demonic spirit. This type of attitude does not advance the Kingdom. It only hinders the Kingdom. So how do we overcome this temptation? How do we fight against it when the enemy comes at us and tries to divide us? Let's look back at verse 14 on how David stood up to these thoughts. And David had success in all of his undertakings. For the Lord was with him. The Lord was with him. The Lord was with David, even when Saul tried to kill him. The Lord was with him. When the Saul sent him to battle, the Lord was with him. When the spirit of God left Saul, the spirit of God was with David, and guess what we have in this room after salvation, the Spirit of God inside of us. We have the Spirit of God. And the only way we can fight against the the temptation of a competitive relationship with others is the Lord being with us. That's the only way. When that temptation arises to compete with the with others, we have to repent, literally turn in the other direction. You know what that that word repent means in the Greek is, you're walking this way and do a 180 and go the opposite direction. When you feel that competitive spirit in your life with someone, there's a good chance that they have no idea what what you're feeling. So you're walking this way. You feel that competitive spirit in you. Turn around, repent, go back to the Father who is with you. And you know what the Father may do? He may tell you to go back to that person and ask forgiveness. Not because of something they did towards you, but because of what you said, because of how they made you feel, and that was not their intent. That was not their intent.
[34:47]When I think about this, the enemy wants us to fill gaps with mistrust. But we have to be reminded of what God has done for us. I had to go back to my wife. And say, baby, I'm so sorry. Would you please forgive me? She did nothing wrong. She was doing what God had called her to do, but I was so jealous. As a man that happens sometimes, we get we get bitter, we get jealous. Listen, we have to drop our pride and do what God's called us to do. To have and restore our covenant relationships with folks around us. When I think about this, at the end of the day, if we really think about it, David's success was was not a result of a good relationship with with Saul. Or excuse me, a bad relationship with Saul and a good relationship with Jonathan. You know what his success was all determined on? Was that the Lord was with him? Let me ask you today, folks, is the Lord with you? Is the Lord with you? As we think about our covenant relationships, we can go back and think about what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. He's given us life. He's given made a covenant with us through his son Jesus, that when we accept him as our savior, we have him as our friend. And too many times, we can look at David and we can go, we're the David in this situation. We're we're the David. We want, we need to have Jonathan's and come to us and we need to push away Saul's that come in our life. But let me just ask you this, what if we looked at this rightly as David is a picture, a a figure of Christ? And are we a Jonathan or are we a Saul to Christ? Do we look at Christ and go, God, you didn't give me that promotion. You didn't give me that job. I don't I don't have that marriage. I don't have those things. You didn't bless me that way. Why, God? What in the world? I'm not going to have anything to do with you. I'm not going to get in a group. I'm not going to come to church. I'm not going to open myself up. You you just do you and I'll do me.
[37:17]Or do we say, okay, God? I don't have a robe. I don't have armor to give you, God, because you have it all. But I surrender my life to you, Jesus. What type of relationship do we have? First and foremost, if we want our horizon our horizontal relationships to go right, our vertical relationship has to be right. So today, today, let us be reminded of the covenant that God has made with us. And we're going to be reminded of that and I love how we're going to end our time together. We're going to be reminded of that through our uh through the partaking of the Lord's supper. I'm going to invite our pastor RC to come up here. And lead us through the Lord's supper.
[38:06]When I think about what God has done in our lives, RC, come on up here. When I think about what God has done in our lives in here, the church. I think about the relationships that we have. This isn't something that we want to just preach, and you go do, and you go do these things, and we see it in the word, now you do it. No, I I'm preaching to the choir here. And I had to really wrestle with this in my own life. And when I think about a Jonathan and David relationship, my prayer genuinely is that I would be a Jonathan to this David. I truly want to lift him up. I truly want to honor him. I don't have a robe, but I'll probably throw it on his back.
[38:55]But I, but I love my brother and I love our pastor, and I love how he leads us. And friends, I I want to be completely honest. My prayer for you, you will find complete contentment in Christ when you are a Jonathan to someone else. Because you know what? God will bring a Jonathan to you. And so today, today, as we remember the Lord's supper, let us pray. Let's be reminded of our pastor's words in just a moment. Let's be faithful to our covenant and our relationship with Christ. Lord, I love you. I thank you for your word. I thank you for covenant with us through Christ, the God. God, I thank you for giving us the spirit, and the spirit right now, I pray that you will convict our hearts. God, may we not walk away from this place with a competitive nature in our hearts. May we truly want a covenant relationship with others as a result of our covenant relationship with you, King Jesus. So Lord, we love you. We praise you in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Ryan, thank you, uh, for blessing our church.
