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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Well, I am excited to be with you today and I'm excited to spend this time and to continue this series. Now I am celebrating a milestone in my life and I thought it'd be good to just share with you y'all. I'm a family, so why not tell you, uh, we're about to hit 25 years of marriage, uh, in May. And so yeah, praise God.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
And boy, you would clap a whole lot louder if you knew what my wife had to deal with over these 25 years, . I mean, we've been doing this a long time and I tell you I learned new things every single day. At this point in my life, I feel like I should know just about everything I need to know. But that's not true. Uh, I think that at this point, um, I still have a lot to learn. Uh, like for instance, my wife and I, I think still may speak a little bit of a different language. Um, let me explain what I mean. It's not that there are different words, like we say the same words, but I think the words mean different things. Like for instance, uh, she will usually in reference use this phrase that she uses all the time. And I'm not sure that she realizes that it actually means the opposite of what she's saying. Here's the phrase, Dwayne, when you get a chance,
Speaker 7 (14:26):
.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Now if you've been married for any amount of time, you know that when you get a chance does not mean when you get a chance. Like it, it doesn't mean that. And it's usually in reference to the trash because somehow when we set our vows, I became the trash engineer for the house, which means I'm responsible to do everything that comes with trash, which I don't mind. I don't mind taking the trash out, but I get bored or I get busy and I forget to take the trash out. And so she has to remind me, and she usually does. So with those words, when you get a chance, now that means that she's actually seen the trash 16 times and she's walked past it, that she's probably smelled it and that that's point she is ready for the trash to go out. And so when she says, when you get a chance, what she really means is you should have took the trash out yesterday, .
Speaker 6 (15:14):
And I've gotten to the point where I've realized that I should just go take it out. Now, when I first got married 25 years ago, I would get like a smooth piece of paper, like a flat piece of paper, and I would go over the trash and I would push it down just a little bit because I wanted to go back to doing what I was doing. And so I push it down just a little bit instead of taking it out and, and then the trash would start to fill up a little more and I go back over and push it down a little bit more and it would start to fill up a little more. And then I put my foot in it, right and start pushing it down with my foot because I just didn't wanna stop what I was doing to take the trash out.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
And here's the problem, whenever I did that, the trash looked good, but it wasn't good. It was completely full when it was done. And now the trash is in a place where I have to deal with it and it's overflowing all over the ground and now it's leaking all over everything. And all I had to do was just from the beginning take the trash out. Well, you know, I think that like this is kind of uh, what we do when it comes to a lot of the ways that we live our lives, especially when it comes down to our emotions. I think we experience things like sadness or pain or grief. And when we experienced it, instead of dealing with it in the moment, we push it down and then we push it down a little bit more and all of a sudden it's overflowing in our lives. And where if we had just dealt with it in the beginning, it would've been a whole lot easier. But now we got this big mess and it's falling all over the place and it's leaking all over everyone and everything.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
I think we have smashed things down whenever we run into this place called grief. And grief could be anything. It could be like the loss of a loved one or like the loss of a job or a title or a significant responsibility or the loss of a relationship or even the loss of security where we once felt safe in our lives and all of a sudden something happens and now we don't feel safe anymore. All those things bring on grief. When we have an event like that, we think to ourselves, when I get a chance, I'll deal with it and we push it down and then one day it all comes flooding back and I call that ambush grief and all of a sudden we have to deal with it. And here's the thing about grief. Like grief is a natural response to loss. It's the emotional suffering that we feel when something or someone has been taken away.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
And so in grief, we experience all kind of unexpected emotions. Things like shock or anger or disbelief or guilt or profound sadness. We sleep when we should be awake, and even sometimes we are awake when we should be sleeping. Like grief is a real thing. And the truth is is that the ghost of grief shows up in every aspect of our lives, but it's a natural thing and for some reason we don't deal with it. And then it begins to overflow. And if you're like me, you find yourself at some point in a position when you are crying out to God these words, God, where are you? Where are you in my grief? Because this hurts and I need help. You know, the hardest words for the current culture to say I need help.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
I can tell you right now that God is there in our grief. And that fortunately for us, his word tells us how we can not just survive in the midst of our grief and and how we don't have to carry our grief everywhere we go. As a matter of fact, we can actually thrive in our grief. His word contains how we can do that. And if we open it up, we can see how even in the midst of our grief, Jesus can give us profound comfort and real hope. And so today that's exactly what we're gonna do. We're gonna explore God's word and we're gonna find a way that we can actually live out hope even in the midst of our grief. So if you have your Bibles, I want you to go ahead and open them up to John chapter 20, and we're gonna do it through the lens of the life of a woman named Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
And Mary Magdalene is found in John's gospel. And so we're gonna look there and if you have your Bibles, we're gonna start with verse 11 and we're gonna work through verse 18. If you're watching that, get Hope tv, you don't have your Bible with you, it's gonna be on the screen. And if you're at one of our physical campuses, you can follow along on the screen as well as if you don't have a Bible, let us know. We'll do everything we can to get you a Bible. Now, while you are looking for that passage, I wanna kind of set the tone for the text of what we're about to step into. Mary Magdalene is a woman from Galilee, right? And Galilee is a region of Israel. And we know her today as Mary Magdalene, not because Magdalene is actually her last name. We just kind of affectionately call her that.
Speaker 6 (20:13):
And the reason why is because she's from an area called Magdala and she, we see her uh, in many places throughout the Bible, most of the time in very pro close proximity to Jesus. You see in Luke and Mark's gospel, Mary Magdalene has been delivered. We see a picture of her being delivered from demons and that delivery comes from Jesus. So clearly Jesus has made significant impact in her life and because of this, she has now become a follower of the way of Jesus. She has dropped everything and decided because she's so profoundly impacted by Jesus to follow him and she's present and many of the significant moments of Jesus' life to include his crucifixion. You see, she's there when he is nailed to the cross. She's there in close proximity to Jesus when he dies and when he is buried and his body is placed in tomb.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
And, and, and when we get to this part of the passage, Mary Magdalene has woken up early and she's gone to the tomb and the goal is to see Jesus. And she just wanted, wants to spend time with him knowing that these may be his last days on earth. You see, she's heard about the fact that Jesus may resurrect from his own mouth, but she wants to see what's gonna happen. And so she goes to the tomb early in the morning and it's still dark outside. And when she gets there, she sees that something has changed. You see this tomb where Jesus' body is laying, the stone has been moved away and she runs to a few of the disciples because she's clearly distressed by this moment. And she says like they've taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they've laid him.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
And so she's concerned about what has happened to the body of Jesus. And Peter and John run back to the tomb and they see this folded linen inside of the tomb, but there's no Jesus there. And so they head back with haste to their homes and when they do, they leave Mary Magdalene there and she's hoping to see Jesus. There's this bevy of emotions that's happening in her life right now. And she sits down and in verse 11 it tells us she does something that is very natural to the human condition. She weeps, she weeps. In verse 11, John tells us that Mary stood outside the tomb and she was crying. And that word for crying is like this unconsolable cry. It's a weep it. It's not like the Denzel Washington tear where like one little thing drips down the face. No, this is sobbing because she feels that she may have lost Jesus forever.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
She's moving in this moment somewhere between grieving and mourning. You see, grieving is what happens when we have that initial experience. Uh, it is when we have the first loss and then and then there's this mourning thing that happens and it's the expression of our loss. And she's somewhere in the midst of all of that. She just weeps. I just kind of wanna take a timeout right here because I believe that like weeping is a part of the human condition. And I think that like there are times as a pastor where I come into contact with people who are experiencing significant grief and for some reason in my conversation with them, they feel the need to apologize for their grief. They'll say things like, pastor, I'm sorry I'm crying, but I don't know what to do right now. Or they'll say, pastor, I can't keep it together right now.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
And I just tell you, who told you that you weren't supposed to grieve in this moment? You see, the first thing that I believe that we can learn from Mary Magdalene and the experience that she has in this moment, it's just simply this, that it's okay to grieve that it's okay to feel grief. I mean we see examples of people experiencing grief all throughout God's word. And I don't know whoever told us that it wasn't okay to grief because, because we can, we can experience that kind of grief and it's still uh, okay, like we can grieve it's okay to not be okay.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
You see in the Bible we see grief all the time and they don't hide it. They don't run from it and they don't apologize for it. And in the book of Genesis, we see Sarah who grieves a loss. We see King David who mourns the death of Abner. We see Mary and Martha and even Jesus at Lazarus death and Jesus himself weeps. Now this was my favorite memory verses a kid. Why? Because it was short. As I became an adult, I realized how profound that verse was because in Jesus weeping, we see his humanity. And it reminds us that even if Jesus is willing to weep that it's okay to not be okay, that it's okay to grieve. You see, grieving is a very normal part of who we are and God has wired us that way in our ability to grieve. We demonstrate the characteristics of compassion and care and those things are gifts that God has given us. We share in the human experience in our grief and we remind ourselves that this is essential truth, that this world we don't have it figured out and that we need help.
Speaker 6 (25:48):
You see, grieving reminds us that there is a God and that wean him. And it's okay to grieve. It's okay to mourn. So Mary, in this moment, she weeps. You see, she's contemplating the loss of Jesus. She's contemplating the loss of a dream. She's followed this man who has healed her from demon possession. And now she's probably thinking to herself like, man, did I waste my time following him because all the things that he said felt so real and so true. And now I don't know what's gonna happen next. You see, most of our grieving comes from the things that haven't happened yet. And she finds herself in this place. And in verse 11, John says that she wept. And as she wept, she takes just, just a moment, just a moment for a little bit of hope, and she peeks into the tomb. And when she looks into the tomb, the Bible says that she sees two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been one at the head and the other at the foot.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
And they ask her woman, why are you crying? And they've taken the Lord away. She says, they've taken this God who I love so much, they've taken him away. And she said, uh, I don't know where they've put him. And at this, she turns around and she sees Jesus standing there, but she doesn't even realize that it's Jesus. So she looks into the tomb, right? Like she sees these two angels inside the tomb. And you would think that that would tip you off, that something miraculous is about to happen. But she's so enthralled in this moment of grief that Jesus is standing right in front of her and she can't even see him. Lemme just pause for a second. You ever been there?
Speaker 6 (27:47):
You ever been at a place in your life where for the life of you, you can't seem to shake your grief? And even as you look around like you know that Jesus is real, like you know that he is near to the broken hearted, but you can't see him for the life of you because your grief is like blocking your view like right in the middle of your pain where you can't even feel, you can't sense that Jesus is there. You don't know that his presence is in that moment. You ever been there before? Because I've been there before and this is where Mary is, she's so focused on the fact that she might lose Jesus and she doesn't see him right there before her very eyes. I mean, maybe you're even there right now. Maybe you've been grieving a loss of something and and you've been grieving it so much that it's consumed your every thought.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
I mean family, you ever, when you get to these kinds of places like you don't even know what to do, uh, because you're in this current condition that you just can't seem to get out of and marry is standing right there and she can see him, but she doesn't recognize him, she doesn't look to him. Can I just encourage you with these words in the midst of our grief, one of the best things that we can do to thrive is that we can look for Jesus, look for Jesus because even in the midst of our grief, like, like Jesus shows up, I love the way the apostle Paul puts it in one Thessalonians chapter four where he says that like Christians, that we grieve differently. We are people who don't grieve the way that everybody else does. We grieve with this deep sense of hope. Why? Because we have Jesus.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
And he's vowed in his word that he'll never leave us over. In Psalms chapter 34, it says that he is a God, that Jesus is a God who is close to the broken hearted. In Romans chapter eight, verses 38 and 39, it says that I'm sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers, nor nothing present nor things to come, nor powers nor heighten, nor death, nor anything else in all creation, that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. You see, even in the great commission and the work that Jesus tells his church to do, he says at the end of it that he be he'll be with us to the end of the age. Lemme just ask you a question. When you run into a place of grief, do you look for Jesus?
Speaker 6 (30:32):
I mean, right now if you're grieving, have you tried to look for Jesus because he's not hiding and he can be found and he is vowed in his word that it'll never leave us nor forsake us. And and the thing is, is that sometimes we get to these places where we just don't even look for you. See, looking for Jesus is something that Mary doesn't do in this moment, but there's still hope. You see all is not lost even though she doesn't see him in that moment, be because he cares about her. And when we get to verse 15, lemme show you what I mean. He, he asks her, he says, he says Woman, Jesus sees her even though she doesn't see him. And he asks her, he says, woman, why are you crying? Who is it you're looking for? Now she thinks that he's the gardener.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
And so she says, sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've put him and I'll get him. And Jesus says to her, Mary, and she turns towards him. And in that moment she realizes this Jesus right there in front of her and she calls out his name in Aras, he says, rabbi, which means teacher. And Jesus says, listen, don't hold on me. Like don't hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them that I'm ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. I got work to do Mary. I'm going up to heaven. And Mary Magdalene goes to the disciples with this news and she's got great joy in this moment. She says, I have seen the Lord. And she told them that she had seen these things for herself and she says these things for herself.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
And in this moment we learned something that's essential to our grieving. And even in our grieving, Jesus shows up. He shows up in our grief. You see, I firmly believe that the reason that many of us get stuck in the grieving process is because we're not always sure that he's gonna show up. Maybe we haven't learned enough about him through his word. And so when we get to moments like this in our lives, like we're not sure that we're sure that we're sure. And so we're not sure. And so because we're not sure, we think that maybe the grief will never end or that maybe we'll never be able to move forward from this moment. And maybe we have said that our trust is completely in him. But that's easy to say when it's not testing time. And when the test comes, the question becomes very clear, do we believe that he'll show up for us?
Speaker 6 (33:25):
And he does. He shows up for her right in this moment and and he and he not just shows up, but he shows out like he shows up for it. But he also shows out like, and we can learn a lot from the way that he shows up. You see, the first thing he does when he shows up is that he comforts her and he comforts us in the midst of our grief. You see, when he shows up, he doesn't just show up to show up, he shows up and he brings us great comfort and he does that through his presence. You see, in the midst of her grief, he is right there and he calls her by name.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
He knows her. He knows what she's experiencing. And he says, Mary, Mary. And she looks at him and she realizes it's Jesus. Now, I want you to take real close note of this. He doesn't completely remove the grief from her. He instead puts his presence near her. You see, he comforts her by his presence. And the presence of Jesus alone will comfort us rather than any presence that anybody could ever give us. You see, Jesus calls her by name and in the moment she realizes that he's present and that he doesn't come to remove the grief, but instead he comes to help her to continue to navigate the journey. He comforts her in that moment and he uses it as an opportunity to point her to this essential truth that even though she is grieving in this moment, that the grieving that she feels will not last forever. And in doing so, he shares a truth with her that our current grief has no comparison to our future glory.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
You see, you might be going through great hardship, you might be going through a tough time in your life, but I want you to be aware that the grief that you feel right now will not last forever. You see, Jesus says these words to her. He says, don't hold on to me for I've not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them that I'm ascending to the Father. And what he means is that there's still work here to complete. I am going to complete this work. And when I go it, it means that the resurrection that I talked about, the raising from the dead to taking power over sin and death, that that work will be complete. And so it means that you have great hope.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
Her current condition is not all that there is. There's hope because of Jesus. He shares with her that his rightful places with the Father and he gives her purpose. He says like, I want you to go share this with everybody else. Go tell them of the good news that I have overpowered this world. You see, she's heard about the resurrection and she knows the implications that if the resurrection is true, it means that he has taken power over sin and death. And even when this world ends, that God is coming back for his people. And that's good news.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
It brings great hope. She knows that if the resurrection is true, that Jesus has power over sin and death. She knows that if the resurrection is true, that she can walk with hope because he's overcome this world. She knows that if the resurrection is true, that the current suffering of grief is not all there is that one day he is gonna come and he is gonna wipe the tears from every eye. And so weeping might endure for the night y'all, but joy comes in the morning. She knows that if the resurrection is true and our current grief has no comparison to our future glory, she knows that with Jesus there is great hope. She knows that there's a greater plan at play here, that Jesus has taken all authority in heaven and earth into his hands, and he's changed everything for all of eternity. And he tells Mary, instead of weeping in this moment, I want you to go share the good news. And Mary becomes the first to share about this resurrection of Jesus. He takes a woman who was demon possessed and he uses her as the first to share the good news of what life in Jesus means.
Speaker 6 (38:20):
See, that day is coming for all of us who our placed our trust in Jesus Christ. That day is coming. And I'm not telling you not to grieve because in the beginning of the message I told you it is okay to grieve and there's no time limit to it. Like our grief comes in waves and ebbs and flows and like we don't get to control how easily we just get to kind of stop grieving. Sometimes you'll hear a song or there'll be a moment in your life where whenever you grieve from a while ago, we'll just kind of sink back into your heart. And I need you to know that that's okay. But I also need you to know that there is great hope that there is a day to come when those who have placed their trust in Jesus will get to be with him.
Speaker 6 (39:12):
That's good news, y'all. That's good news. And so for the rest of our time, I wanna spend some time talking about what we do between now and that day. And so I want to give you just a couple things to help you process this idea of grieving and mourning. Uh, here's the first one I want you to allow yourself to grieve. Grief is a natural part of loss and pushing down the trash over and over again, it, it doesn't help because it's just gonna overflow one day and we're gonna come to that place where we have to deal with it. And what you don't want in that moment is for your grief to begin to leak over everybody else. You ever been there before?
Speaker 6 (39:57):
You know, about a week ago I experienced this up close. Uh, I'm a pastor, y'all know that. And, um, from time to time we go to the hospital to visit people and I had gone to two different hospital visits and I had told the people in the visits that I hoped that I would see them again. And before I could get back to the day of seeing them again, both had passed away. And at the same time that was happening, I I have friends in ministry who I've come up with over the years and sometimes the relationship changes and maybe they are not in the same state that they were in. And so the relationship changed and with a couple of my friend groups and, and I had lost those friendships and those relationships and I had been soldiering through it and soldiering through it and soldiering through it and, and everybody who was around me was seeing that there was something off. Because normally I'm a thousand miles an hour and I was moving at about five. And so my wife and I just stopped and I turned my phone off and we just took a day to grieve and I just prayed for God to heal whatever I was experiencing. And I will tell you that like I needed to grieve. So don't, don't stop yourself from grieving. Allow yourself to experience the grief. Here's number two.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
And you're grieving. Make sure that you look for Jesus. You see, Jesus can provide the comfort that no other person can ever provide. It's the comfort that a job can't give you. It's the comfort that another endeavor can't give you. It's the comfort that passes all understanding. The Bible calls it the peace that passes all understanding. Peace with God can be had through a relationship with him. And so when you're grieving, make sure that you look to Jesus
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Because
Speaker 6 (42:11):
He can be found and he can be found right there in his word. Number three, I want you to know that you should never grieve alone and you should never grieve alone. You see, uh, this is like my sole reason why I believe that like people really, really, really need to do the work of connecting to the local church because God has promised us that we will have sorrow and hardships and pain in this world while we are here. And without that connection to Jesus and the connection to the body, I honestly don't know how people do it. You see, we're not meant to grieve alone. We're meant to grieve in connection to other believers. And I encourage you that if you are not connected as a part of a local church, if you are a part of Hope Community Church and you're not connected here, let us help you get connected. And that might mean joining a small group. That might mean stopping at the next steps area and signing up for a discover class. So you can take the first step of faith in getting connected to other believers. That might mean asking more questions about what it means to follow Jesus. Man, it might just mean showing up for one more Sunday.
Speaker 6 (43:41):
Whatever it is, I want you to get connected because there's only three kinds of people in the world. There's those that are coming out of a season of grief, those that are in a season of grief and those that have grief on the horizon and our connection helps. So I want you to get connected. And if you are somebody who is struggling with grief right now, can I just tell you that we have some resources to help you with it? You can email us at care@gethope.net. And we even have a class that's called Grieving with Hope. It's designed to help you walk through the moments of grief that you might experience and you can sign up for that class by simply going to get hope.net/classes. Well, here's the last thing I want you to remember before we end our time today, I want you to remember that grief is not your identity. That our grief is a natural part of life, but God never meant for our grief to be the place that identifies us. You see, our grief and our mourning is something that we experience. And the truth is, is that some of us will stop at grief and never step into the expression of our mourning. You see a whole lot of people grieve, but not a lot of us choose to mourn. Not a lot of us choose to go through the process of experience, the emotions that come with our grief.
Speaker 6 (45:20):
And so we stay stuck and our grief becomes our identity. But our grief was never meant to be our identity. Our identity is only found in Jesus. And if you don't know who you are in Jesus Christ, I want to encourage you to seek Jesus. 'cause He can be found. We don't have to carry the ghost of grief. Jesus has already done the work on the cross. You see, our current condition of grief has no comparison to the glory that we'll experience when we get to be
Speaker 2 (46:19):
What
Speaker 6 (46:19):
Jesus Christ. And that should give every single one of us
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Great hope.
Speaker 6 (46:28):
So I wanna take a moment to just pray that we as a church wouldn't just survive in the midst of our grief, that we would thrive and that we would grow closer to Jesus Christ in all of it. Let's take a moment and pray together. Father, I thank you for your word, father, before we ever share your word with any of your people, you should resonate in our hearts first as pastors. And this word has challenged me from the core of my very being. And so I thank you that your word reaches into our hearts and that it meets us where we are. And I was so caught off guard by it. And so Father God, here's what I know. I know that there may be some who are also caught off guard by this thought that they may be carrying the ghost of grief. And I want them to know today that in Jesus there is great hope to be had. And in the same way you were able to comfort Mary in her grief, that you comfort every single one of us, that a relationship with you means that while we may walk in grief on this earth,
Speaker 6 (48:14):
We get to walk in hope for all of eternity. Father, bless us to understand that. Help us to thrive in grief. In Jesus name we pray, amen. God bless you guys,
Speaker 4 (48:41):
The best response that we can have is to worship and the good times and the bad times. So church, let's stand to our feet. We're gonna continue to worship.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Come on.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
He is every surrender my surrender, I lay surrender and I will.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
So
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Here is I lay down every, every, this is my surrender. This is my surrender. And here is I lay down for
Speaker 2 (50:31):
You
Speaker 1 (50:35):
To do you want and for you to do. You want to, we
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Want shake
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Up the I just want Jesus. We just want Jesus.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
No matter where we find ourselves today, the reality is Jesus is the answer. The reality is Jesus is the answer to your grief and to your sorrow. And he's the reason for your all things. The Bible says, were red downed will eventually lead to the glory of God forever. So we need to be a people that are willing to make room in our hearts and in our souls and in our minds to allow the Lord to do his work in us. Can we sing that chorus just one more time? We'll say now will make room for you. Come on, let's lift our voices and sing. Now I'll make, make
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Room for you to want. Do you want, want, want
Speaker 3 (54:54):
The empty
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Now
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Out be, be, be,
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Be,
Speaker 3 (55:41):
Be, be the lost, return, the the earth,
Speaker 2 (56:29):
The be behold. He's making all we've been down, we destroy, we've tears, we've been down. We're not destroyed. We He all these new be, be, be, be, be all.
Speaker 4 (58:30):
If we're thankful for Jesus, can we give him some Thanksgiving? We thank you Lord. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (58:42):
Grief is a season. And even in that season, Jesus shows up. And we've learned that today. I am so encouraged that I came to have an opportunity to worship together with his body, with the church. And I'm so encouraged that you came. And if you've joined us online, get Hope tv. Thank you so much for joining us. If you're new at Get Hope tv, just put it there in the comments, Hey, I'm new and we'd love to connect with you there. If you're in the room and you've joined us for the first time today, we would love to meet you at our next steps area. As soon as you walk out these doors, as you head toward the parking lot, look to your left and you'll see our next steps area there with some staff and volunteers. And we would love to connect with you if you are new. And also maybe if you've been around hope for a while, but you have not yet connected as Dwayne was talking about earlier in the message, we would love to help you get connected and take your next step and what it looks like to connect, what it looks like to follow Jesus. And so any way that we can help you process, any way we can help you connect, please stop by next steps. Let us know. So good to be with you. Look forward to seeing you guys next week. Have a great week.