This sermon discusses the importance of encouraging and fellowshipping with individuals of the opposite sex within the context of spiritual growth and prophecy. It emphasizes the need for both men and women to participate in prophesying and supporting one another, while also acknowledging the delicate nature of relationships between men and women. The sermon highlights the role of spiritual guidance in gently restoring and drawing individuals closer to God, promoting a deep devotion to Jesus as the foundation for genuine fellowship. Additionally, it touches on the concept of church leadership and the importance of allowing spiritual growth and maturity to develop before establishing formal structures.

Okay, so I had two questions, so maybe I'll start with that, that I just saw over here. How do I encourage folks of the opposite sex and fellowship with them? It says, we talked yesterday too about Hebrews 3, it talks about encouraging one another daily and not forsaking the fellowship of the believers. And that's not just men, that's men and women, it's not just women, it's men and women. And also, 1 Corinthians 14 talks that all can prophesy. And 1 Corinthians 11 talks about when a woman prays or prophesies. So to me it's very clear that both men and women can prophesy. And encouragement and prophecy to me are critical words that can be associated with each other. So that's possible. However, as you guys all know, it's very dangerous, the relationship between a man and a woman. I see it more and more clearly like being very combustible. And the Proverbs tells you, it's mysterious how a man and a woman interact. It's one of those very mysterious things. And I can say for myself, it's sometimes the weirdest things that can spark a connection, that can lead to an emotional attachment, that can lead to all kinds of things. Forget about all the physical realm. So I've learned from that that I have to be very, very careful. The principle I use, let's just say, how do I encourage a sister in the church? Now, I'm an elder, so sometimes there may be occasions where some of the sisters may have something private or this and that. For myself, I think as a general rule, I try not to interact with women directly when it comes to spiritual matters and alone. It's not a hard and fast rule. I'm not subject to it. But I definitely don't do it in private. I do it in the open. So when my wife is around, or when there are other believers in clear sight, to be able to see if there's even a one-on-one. For example, my wife is sometimes running after the children or something like that. So she may go away even when we're talking. So I don't be like, OK, now we've got to stop. Let's wait for my wife to come back. I'm not against it. That's probably the better way, to be honest. But we meet out in the open, so in a church building like this, for example, I might be sitting and talking to a lady who may have some questions. And I've been OK with it. I'm married to my wife, but I have to make sure that it doesn't get into anything emotionally related. And to refer any such situation to a person of the same sex. So in most of the cases, too, I mean, the woman is married, so I don't generally deal with any issue with just the woman. I would go through the husband, because I respect the chain of command. And God has given authority for the husband over the wife. And Jesus over the husband. And God over Jesus. That's 1 Corinthians 11 3. So it doesn't talk about any elder in that authority chain. So I respect that authority chain and just come on the side of the man. So, I mean, I tend to think that the church service can be a good avenue to publicly share what God is laying on your heart. And then one-on-one settings. I mean, I think we just have to use a lot of caution. In India, for example, it's a lot more restrictive. And I understand the culture is a little bit that way here in America. I'm sorry, here in Britain, and like in America, it's a little bit more open. And so I don't feel that there's any verse in scripture that says a woman cannot encourage a brother. But I think none of us are stupid. I think none of us know the incredible combustible potential there is. And so we just have to have a lot of caution in that area. I've shared this about many issues. A lot of these questions that stump you stump everybody. You may think, oh, maybe some wise teacher will have a great answer. But to me, at least, these are all gray areas to me. There's no right or wrong, very clearly. But I have found that in answering gray areas, and here's the key point I want to make. I found that in answering gray area questions, the key to me is to answer a black and white question that can help. Okay. When answering a gray question, it's very important for me not to try and unpack the gray area question, but to see if there's a related black and white question that I can answer. And for me, the clear black and white question in a lot of these matters is something very simple, which is, do I fear God? Do I have a reverence for God? Because the fear of the Lord, the reverence for God is what? The beginning of wisdom. So if I want wisdom on any particular issue, if I want to be wise, the very first step I have to ask myself is, do I fear God? So when it comes to encouraging other people, before I get the answer to, should I encourage brothers and sisters of the opposite sex, the first question I have to know rock solid in my mind is, I fear God. You know what Joseph said when Potiphar's wife tempted him? How can I do this great sin against Potiphar? No, against God. To him, that was the connection that was most important. And I think as I say, hey look, how can I do this against God? How can I do this and still say I fear God? As I keep that question in mind, I have found that wisdom is applied. So as I've interacted sometimes with a woman at church, and I felt like, you know what, I should have been a little more wise. Maybe I should have brought another elder in to talk with me, even though she said it was private. I should have probably, even from a perception standpoint, I should have done that. I judge myself on that based on the fear of the Lord. Lord, I fear you. I reverence your name. You must be treated as holy. I don't care if she said it was private or not, but this is another fellow elder with me. And it is for my protection and for lifting up the name of Jesus and his holiness that I say, look, if you can't trust him, I don't know how you can trust me. We are both elders. And I don't make this a rule, but you tell my wife and I, and so I'm still learning to kind of do that right. So that's kind of my present answer to it. Speak to the person of the opposite sex where there's no doubt in the other person's mind that you fear God. That's a helpful answer for me at least. And so that's what I give you. Here's the other question. Hello, brother. Thanks for bringing Yahweh's words to us. Two born again believers previously dating as unbelievers got married. The female for money and male for British passport eventually broke up and got divorced. By mutual consent, both have since repented and are living for Jesus. Is either allowed to marry another disciple of Jesus? They are not willing to live as man and wife, I guess because of their past. Could you share Yahweh's heart on this matter? I want to answer a black and white question as it relates to this too. I have a question as I read this, and I don't know who this is, so I'm not trying to criticize anybody because I don't know who it is. But I was struck by the person's use of the word Yahweh. And I want to make a black and white question also about that. I want to ask you a quiz question. How many times did Jesus call God Yahweh? I'm talking about for the Bible. Zero. He always called God father always hundred times out of hundred except one. When he was on the cross and he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, I think in Arabic. And it's from Psalm 22 where he says El, which is God. But if you look at the track record of how many times Jesus called God Yahweh, it's zero. He also spoke Arabic, he didn't even speak Hebrew, so I don't know what the word is in there. But to me, I'm just using that to say, I just feel like, from my own standpoint, I feel like we should be very careful to not get swayed by what to me can be a religious idea of what sounds right. Yahweh is the name for Lord in the Hebrew. But my example is not the Old Testament and how God, they call God Jehovah. It's immaterial to me. You can call my dad Zakunin all you want. I'm never calling him Zakunin. What do you think I'm calling him? Zakunin. Mr. Zakunin, come here, my dad will look at me like, what? You? What? Mr. Zakunin, what's wrong with you? It's my dad. God, Jesus called God Father, and he called him Abba Father. And the one time he was on the cross, which we never will go through, where God separated himself from Jesus, he said El. We don't have to ever deal with that, where God separates himself from us. Because we always have the blood of Jesus to cover us and cleanse us. So we can always call God Father and Abba Father, which is Dad or Father. So to me, this is just from a black and white, I feel for me it's a little bit clearer on that. To whoever wrote this question or anybody else in this particular issue, call God your father, he's your father. Call him that. Call God Dad. Practice it. Treat him like he's your dad. Make it personal. Just remember, Jesus treated God much more reverentially than you ever did, than none of us ever did. All of us put together, Jesus is more reverential towards God, but yet God, Jesus always called him Dad and Father. So it's not a disrespect to God if we call him Father. We can still live our lives in holy fear, 1 Peter 1.17. In terms of divorce and remarriage, we've had to deal with divorce and remarriage in America. It's becoming very common. There are members in our church that are also divorced and remarried. The guidance that I've gotten from my teacher, which is my dad, on this issue of divorce and remarriages, it's a very tricky issue, and each situation must be taken individually with the church that they are going to. So, if somebody comes to me for counsel, I'll definitely tell you this for myself, maybe a teacher may have more point of view on that, like my dad may be able to speak more, I don't know. I have a feeling he won't. But, if they come to me I say, look, which church do you go to? Deal with the elders of your church, because that's your family. If you have family problems and it's another person's family, I don't want to get telling you to do something, because I respect the submission that you're supposed to have towards your elders. So, if you're saying you're going to First Baptist down the road, well, go and submit to those elders. Now, if you want to come and submit to us, me and my other two elders, Bobby and Jeremy, let's talk about it, get to know us, get to really see us, and we can talk more about it. But, to me, submission is very important. So, me, if they're not submitted to me, I say, look, somebody really needs to dig into your case, understand, ask maybe a lot of tough questions, ask a lot of personal questions, because this is marriage and all kinds of tricky things associated with it, and then come up with a good answer. The one thing that I wanted to point out, though, is they are not willing to live as man and wife, I guess, because of their past. That word, I am not willing to, was the phrase that also struck me, and I just want to caution us, we may not be dealing with this, but ask yourself about that phrase if it ever comes, I'm not willing to. Why? Why are you not willing to do anything for Jesus? I'm not willing to go to China. I'm not saying you've got to go to China, I'm just asking, when you say, I am not willing to go to China, what if Jesus wants you to go to China? If it's because you're disobeying a verse in scripture, that's fine, that's not indicated here, but if that's the reason, that's fine. But, I'm sorry, I'm not willing to move out of San Francisco. That's a very dangerous statement for me to make. Now, if I'm convinced that the Lord has called me to San Francisco, that's the caveat, so to speak. I'm not willing to go anywhere the Lord hasn't called me to, and as far as I can tell, God's called me there. But I'll tell you this before God, I'll sell my house and move in a heartbeat, if God calls me elsewhere. I would love to get a call from the Lord saying, I want you to go and become a full-time worker of mine. I'll pay you. That's what, when somebody hires you, that's what they tell you. I want you to come work for me and I'll pay you. Don't go and tell anybody else for money. Don't go and ask anybody else for money. I got you. I'll pay you. I'd love to do that. God hasn't called me for that. It's okay. God calls certain people. I'd love to get that. If God calls me and says, I'm going to pay you. You don't need to ask anybody for money. I'll take care of all your bills. Now go to Malaysia. Malaysia, here I come. I'll say, Lord, just also wake up my wife and tell her that too, because it'll be hard for me to convince her maybe sometimes. You're a big enough God. You can speak to her in a dream, whatever it is. But by God's grace, thankfully, I have a wife who also seeks to do God's will. If God's already calling me to go to Malaysia, we're going. I will not say, I will not go to Malaysia. Is God's people there? Are people who Jesus died in Malaysia? I think so. Last time I checked. Who's going to send the message to them? So I just want to say, I mean, it's obviously a different context, but just for our own benefit, these are all things that people are not under our submission. I don't need to worry about. But to the extent that that phrase comes into your mind, I would caution you with that. In a particular area, I will not go back to India. Why not? Why not? I'll go anywhere. Lord Jesus, I'm yours. I gave up full rights over my life. Everything is yours. That's a good spirit of, you know Abraham? Kill the promised son? Sure. You know that spot? Mount Moriah is the spot on which God said, I want to build my temple on that spot. On that utter sacrifice of God will do anything for you. The same spot was where David, in 2 Samuel 24, there was a plague and he said, I will not give the Lord something that doesn't cost me something. I won't accept this for free. I've got to pay for it. Because I don't want to give the Lord something that doesn't cost me something. It's a good attitude of sacrifice. To me, I'm not willing to. I just have to ask. If that phrase comes into your mind in any area, ask yourself, if the Lord's calling, will I go? And so then I would not say, I'm not willing to. I'm not willing to sin. No, I'm not willing to sin. That's the one thing I'm not willing to do. All else, Lord, I'll go anywhere. Do anything for you. In terms of the divorce issue, I mean, I think, A, I definitely don't have the wisdom to answer it, but B, I think, the Lord gives wisdom and faith with the wisdom for the particular need when I present to myself. I need to know that they submit to me. I need to know that they are under my counsel. And then I need to know a lot more details about them before I get... It seems like a tough situation. It seems like a hard situation. Any other questions or comments? Sure. I mean, I have two questions, Sandeep. It would be good if you could answer those. I mean, it's related to what you were just answering. One is, I think the question about this Yahweh, I think there's one line of teaching where they somehow encourage you to use the exact terms that are used in the original Aramaic Hebrew stuff. So they use Yahweh and they use Yahshua for Jesus. I see. So, for me, it didn't matter if I called Jesus the wrong way and I eventually discovered it's different than how Jesus would have been pronounced. To me, it didn't matter. But I think there's one line of teaching that is... I mean, it's possible that some of us are being exposed to that teaching. So I'd like you to comment on that. That's one. The other thing I want you to comment on is, you know, you had spoken a few things while we were talking during lunch break. See, you have been gifted to speak to thousands, right? You have that gifting. Now, why are you restricting yourself to a small little group? You have been given to the Church of God. So you have to be a blessing to many. So what if they come to belong to another church? They have been helped in a bigger context. So I want you to tell us why you are now, in a sense, being narrow-minded. Yeah, yeah, sure. So let me answer that in order, I guess. I don't care. You know, honestly, I'll tell you how I am. You can call me Sandeep. You can call me Kirti. You can call me Ravi. You can call me Jeffrey. It doesn't matter what you call me. I want to know, do you love me? Do you respect me? Can we be friends? Can we just have love for one another? Call me whatever you want. Honestly, my name's Indian name. The Americans butcher it anyways. I've stopped caring. They get some version of it. That's my opinion. And so, it's just not the God I know. The God I know is just not that, who's picky about that kind of stuff. I'm not picky like that. I'm able to see deeper than that. I'm able to see the heart. And so, to me, I would say, if it really bothers you, call him Yeshua. Call God Yahweh. I'm not anti it. Just be careful of the religiosity that can be associated with it. Just call him Yeshua. Call God Yahweh, but know him as a father. Because the theology is God is your father. If I call my dad Zach Poonen or Mr. Poonen, but I treat him like a loving father that he is, while my other brothers call him dad, but treat him like a faraway person, I'm better off. I will give you that. So, if you're going to call God Yahweh, but you are going to exemplify the daddy-child relationship more than anybody in this church, go right ahead. I just think that it's conflicting messages. It's highlighting the reverence for God. I prefer to highlight, like Jesus, the intimacy of God. Not that both don't hold water. I like Jesus, and Jesus is my guide. I just, as I said, Jesus called God dad, Abba. I don't know what the Hebrew, Greek word, or Aramaic word for father is. It's definitely not Yahweh. Yahweh, that I know. But whatever the... It's also interesting, just as a side note, that Jesus didn't speak Hebrew, as far as I understand. He spoke Aramaic, which are two different languages. So he... I don't know whether the same word was the same for all this stuff, but the way he quoted scripture, he didn't quote the Hebrew, he quoted the Aramaic, because that's the language that they spoke at that time. But it's really technical. Bottom line is, make God your father. Blow that up. Blow that up. Let me end by showing you this verse in John 5, verse 18. I consider God being our father so sacred, and let me tell you why. John 5, verse 18. John 5, verse 18 is a... In fact, John 5, 18, 19, 20, I was about to speak on 19 and 20, actually, in the last session, but then I just thought, look, I could go on and on. John 5, 18, 19, 20, is what I was going to speak on. But let me speak on John 5, 18, just that verse where it says, For this cause, they were seeking the more to kill him. What was it about Jesus that made the Jews so furious that they wanted to kill him? Just read. Two things. He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but was calling God his own father. They killed my Lord because he called God Father. They killed your Lord, your bridegroom, the head of your body. They killed him because he called God Father. It was a big deal. And God, Jesus never backed down. Never backed down. Because it was a big deal to him. But they killed my Jesus for that. I can weep when I see the passion of the Christ. Here is the reason why they killed him. Because he called God Father. It's a very important message. And the Sabbath speaks to breaking religious traditions. They killed him because he was breaking with religious traditions, the Sabbath. They'll kill you for that too. And so those are the two truths that to me, personal relationship with God as a father, and building the church, not the old covenant way of life, but the church as a family of God, they'll kill you for it. And I find that to be true about Jesus, and I find that to be true today, in some kind of way or form. Criticism, streams of thought, whatever. I don't want to get technical, but bottom line is, they killed my Lord for it. It's a big deal to me. This is my Savior. This is the one who died for me. They killed him because he called God Father. It must have been very important. The fact, if it was just something that they were stumbling over, Jesus could have changed. Oh, sorry, I didn't want to offend you. No, he was intentional. I'm calling God my Father. God and I are one. I only do what the Father shows me doing. So, that's the answer to the first one. Maybe I disagree with that stream of thought from this verse, I'd say. The other question was about speaking to thousands. I'm not rejecting speaking to thousands. If thousands ask me to speak, I'll go speak to them. I've got no problem speaking to them. Unfortunately, nobody's calling me. Thousands are not calling me. That's the reason I'm not going. I'm not that popular. I'm not as popular as you guys may think I am. That's the biggest reason I'm not going. Nobody's calling me. If millions call me, I'll go preach to them. If the Ayatollah of Iran calls me to go, I'll go speak in Iran. No problem. But he knows what I'm going to speak about. I'm not going to be talking about Allah in his mosque or anywhere. There'll be a condition. I'm going to come to speak in your mosque. I'll speak anywhere in the world. You know what I'm going to speak on. I'm going to speak about Jesus Christ. You can call him prophet. I'm going to call him something different. You can find out if you want. You can have your stones ready if you want. It doesn't matter. I'm speaking on what I'm going to speak about. I'll speak anywhere to anybody, any group of people. So it's not about whether I reject thousands or not. That definitely is not the case. I'm not against speaking to big, big numbers. In fact, I think it's a wonderful opportunity. The question to me is not about what I will or will not do. I would definitely speak to as many people as I can. The question is what am I going to focus on? What am I going to labor on? So first of all, thousands are not calling me, so I don't even have to engage with it. But to me, I'm interested in building families. The church, to me, from everything you've heard about me, you've heard how important God as a father is to me, and you know how important the church is to me, hopefully by now. And the church is such a big deal. And the church is two or three who are in fellowship with the Father and the Son, getting to be in fellowship with each other. That's what the church is. Or more. It could be 5,000, like it was on the day of Pentecost. 3,000 were added. And then another time, 5,000 were added. This is the New Testament church. So I'm not anti-numbers. It's just that they have to be wholly devoted to Jesus, fellowship with the Father and the Son. That's 1 John 1.3. This is what we've heard and seen. We testify to you that you may have fellowship with us, and the fellowship you can have with us is the fellowship we have with the Father and the Son. So that's what I think the church is. I have fellowship with the Father and the Son. You have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and we become one. We have that same fellowship. And then the two becomes three and four and five, man, woman, doesn't matter. It's that. I just find from every evidence in Scripture that thousands start to follow Jesus and then drop away to where 12 are left. John chapter 6, Jesus talked a hard sermon about eating my flesh and drinking my blood. Many deserted him. John chapter 8, Jesus talked about if you obey my commands and follow after me, then you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free, and many stopped following. You find that Jesus, as he continued to speak about his whole counsel of God, people were not added. People dropped off. Now you take the day of Pentecost. 3,000 were added. 5,000 were added. These were explosive entries into them. But then you look at the transitions of the churches. By the time you come to Paul, one of the greatest men of God, maybe the greatest man of God that we know besides Jesus, up there definitely, speaking on such incredible truths, gifted with incredible miracles, you find at the end of his life, 2 Timothy, that everybody's deserting him. Demas is left to follow the world. Everybody who was in Asia has deserted me. I've got Timothy, I've got Titus, I've got, please Mark, he can be useful to us. This guy who was too afraid to go on a journey, now he's useful to us because that's all Paul had. And he's got Luke, the doctor, and a few others. And you find that even Paul in Philippians says, I don't have anybody like Timothy. That's all he got. Amazing man of God, Paul could only find one man. So I find that in the true labors, and then you look at Revelation, the church in Ephesus that was started by Paul, and Paul taught for 3 years. 20, 30, whatever years later, Jesus is saying, you lost your first love. You've fallen. You've gone backwards. So I see this progression of, it's not that I'm anti-numbers, it's just that the pure church, that Jesus says in Revelation chapter 2, look, I think he says that, that I'll take your lampstand, does he say that? About that church? Yeah, I will remove your lampstand. This is the church of Ephesus. You know all that they did? I know your deeds, and your toil, and your perseverance, and you cannot endure evil men. You don't like all these apostles who are not true apostles. You find them to be false, so you're against all the false teachers, and you have perseverance, and you've endured probably persecution, and you've not grown weary. What an amazing church. But you know what? You've lost your first love. You've fallen. You don't repent. I'm going to yank you out. I'm going to take away you as a church altogether. What an incredible indictment in such a persevering, faithful church in so many ways, but lost its love. The first fervent love. That's why I said earlier, the first sign of deception is losing your simple, pure devotion to Jesus. You've already been deceived. You might believe the greatest doctrines in the world, but you're just as deceived as somebody else. And Jesus says, you lost your first love, that simple, pure devotion? Better be careful, because I'm coming, and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. So to me, I want to build a true church. I remember my dad, when we talk about different ministries or different kind of ways of doing things, my dad has said something, you know, I don't mind waiting until the judgment day. It talks about one Corinthians 3, that all of a man's work is going to pass through the fire. And some person's work will be hay and wood and straw, and other person's work will be gold and precious stone. And my dad has said, I don't mind waiting until that day to see whose work lasted and whose work doesn't. But I want my work to last. And I just don't see evidences of the thousands and the thousands growing up to become men of God, women of God, strong, rock solid, like an oak tree for the Lord. That's what I want. That's what I want from myself, that's what I want from the churches. And that only comes if they hate sin, if they fear God with all of their heart, they love God with all of their hearts, and they obey all that God commanded, and get to know his promises and commands. Such a man who is fully devoted, such a woman who is fully devoted, will be like an oak tree, planted by the river, whose leaves will always be green, all that stuff will happen, but it's hard work. And better men like Paul found it really difficult to find thousands, let alone hundreds. I don't get the impression reading Paul that he had hundreds of people just loving him. Hundreds of people may have been in his churches, Ephesus, all of that. But he looked at them and said, we have a few. In Philippians time, it was only Timothy. I am nobody else. I can send to you who really cares for you. Such a small, select few. So to me, I just keep trying to demonstrate through my own life the devotion that we ought to have for Christ, and the unity that we ought to have in the church, and then wait to see what happens. And my business is to make sure that I try to do that in the Bay Area. I am not going to turn down 10,000 people who come to our church. But I'll tell you what will happen. We have a huge sword that, I don't know, if you come to our church, you'll see it. You guys may not get cut by it, but there's a huge chopping guillotine that is in our church. Keep on swinging. And the first week you have, if you escape the guillotine the first two weeks, I'm really surprised. And you know what it's called? Women covering their heads. And most Americans just get chopped off, and they never come back. You see the blood, and you're like, okay, there they go. They don't know what to do with it. So it's a wonderful guillotine that we have. If you get through the two weeks, I'm looking at you saying, did you notice the women covering their heads, or did you miss it? Should I point it out to you? Because I want to know how you escaped the guillotine. How did you miss that chopping blade? Once you get past that, then I'll say, okay, let's see some other things there. And I, honestly, covering women's heads is such a small, we never preach on it. Never. We preached on it years ago. We studied it. We're done with it. People want to know what we believe about it. It's in the document. That's it. We've never preached on it since then. But people, we practice it. And people see it. And visitors see it. And people ask themselves, what are they going to do about it? But it's a wonderful chop. Most people get away. So, unfortunately, and this is the story. When we were beginning to be a church, I did not believe in women's head covering to be the theology I believed in. I thought I could see it both ways, honestly. This is 2010. But when the question was posed to me, what does God's word say about head covering, I had honestly never studied it. And I had read a study by John Piper, who some of you may know is a Baptist preacher in America. And he had done a teaching on head covering and he edited a book on that. And so I read that and I said, sounds good to me. Because it supported my point of view that you can do whatever you want. But whenever I tried to explain what his point of view was, I never could. I just said, go read the document yourself. I think it sounds good. But as I realized that I had to be a teacher in the church, in NCCF, I realized I have to have a point of view and I need to be able to explain it. Even if it's John Piper's. I need to be able to explain it for myself. As I studied it, and I studied the word, I just found so many holes with what he was saying. And so, the three elders decided to study it each separately. All of us. It's the first big decision that us elders made together, the three of us. And they're two Caucasians, by the way. They didn't grow up in any of that culture. But when we came together, we decided to take a month or two just to study it individually and not talk about it. When we came back together, there was not a minute of disagreement. We had all come to the exact same conclusion independently. And, we've had many disagreements about many other issues, but not that. And that was a remarkable work from God. And I knew, I was the hardest one to convince among the three of them. Because I knew, Kirti, that that was going to be the end to my preaching to thousands. I knew that there was no more preaching to thousands at NCCF. I had been preaching to thousands just a few weeks earlier. But I knew that as this was going to be said, I'd be shocked if thousands ever come to NCCF just because of that one doctrine. But, so that's a little bit of a history of why I don't see thousands coming to our church. But it's okay, I mean, the Lord had to ask me, you want to follow me or you want to preach to thousands? And I said, Lord, I'm willing to follow you 100%. I wasn't doing that to be counter-cultural. In fact, I didn't want to be counter-cultural. I wanted to be cultural. But the Lord, and so I had to give up this I will not attitude. Lord, I'll do anything you say. Once I was convinced of that, that changed everything. I hope I've answered the question. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sure, yes. I'm not against that point of view. In fact, that's how we do our conferences. We open it up to everybody. And we pay food for everybody. And out of the 200, 150 to 200 that come, maybe two or three people have come from that. But it's worth it. Those two, three people have been the right people. We're so blessed to have them. They wouldn't have come if it wasn't for the conference. And to me, it's worth it. If I get two out of every thousand, I'll pay your food every day to get the two right people. And, you know, I mean, my dad is a very special ministry in that person that if they don't even get the the truth about the body of Christ, if they will even pursue a life of holiness, it's better than what they're getting anywhere else. And, you know, the shepherds are so few, the laborers are so few who they can trust that if they will just go to CFC India out of our ministry and just, that conference, and just read it and never become a member of the body of Christ, but even become like a Nicodemus, it's better than what they are right now. It's better than the filth and the superficial stuff they're getting in their churches. So, to me, that's the attitude we've taken. But more important than being right, Kirti, is being united. And I don't think this is a decision that the whole church makes as a democracy. I think the elders must take into account the feedback from the family. But then the elders have to be united in their decision. And it's more important to be submitted to the elders and portray submission than to stand your ground and, you know, stage a disagreement. Bobby, Jeremy, and I have followed that principle and said, hey, look, where one person was okay with it, two people were okay with it, one person wasn't. And so, let's say it was me and Bobby was okay with it and Jeremy wasn't okay with it, we're not going. We're not doing it. We'll go with a more restrictive route until all three of us are equally united. Now, people may not think it's a, but, you know, so Jeremy may never have said, hey, man, I think I'm passionate about it, but he says, hey, you know what, it's not a big deal to me. I can see both sides' points of view and then we may agree to open it up. But if Jeremy said, I'm not there yet, okay, we'll go with the more restrictive route until you're comfortable. And so we look for unanimity in the elders and I'm definitely no special person, so a lot of people think, well, somebody is a senior elder and no such thing. No such thing. I have a gift to teach that I use in the context of the church, but in terms of eldership and leading things, the three of us make decisions. And there have been cases where Bobby and I or Jeremy and I have felt something and Bobby didn't feel okay, we didn't do it. I strongly believe in that. That is what I'm black and white about. Whether you invite others, whether you don't invite others, my family has, may have popcorn and movie night. You may think, I don't want movies in my house. Some people say, I don't want Disney movies. Other people say, I don't know. I'll tell you one thing though. Are you united? Is your husband and wife united in this issue? Are you fighting over it? That's the bigger question to me. And so, it shouldn't be, I think my opinion would be in the building of the local church, the members can give their input and should feel free to give their input as unburdening their heart as clearly as possible to all the three elders or to one of the elders who have their confidence. But then they should say, I trust these men. God put them in authority over this group. I trust that God will speak to them. God has spoken through a donkey. He can speak to people. It's not a problem. He can speak to us. He can speak to us as elders. And so, if it's one of the folks, if it's folks who are not the elders who feel that way, then I would say submit it to the elders. And then, I practice submission to Bobby and Jeremy. I don't think that I'm equal to them. Honestly, I submit to them. I have that attitude of submission. I just think it's a beautiful virtue. It's the divine nature, submission. It's in there. So, I want to be that to everybody that God allows me that freedom to be. Submit to one another in the fear of the Lord. So, I would raise my daughter to say, look, when you become a wife, submit to your husband. It's part of God's principle. It's a beautiful thing. And if God said, husband, submit to your wife, I would do that too. It's just he doesn't say that. But he does say, submit to one another in the context of the church. So, I try to do that in the context of the elders. So, I don't know where the question may be. If it's among the elders, then the elders really need to say, hey, look, having a principle of meaningful submission, what do we feel comfortable with? Let's pray about it. Then we come back and we can say, you know what, I just have a deep check in my spirit about opening it up. And the other two elders, if Raja had a problem with it, whatever it is, you guys have to just, I think, respect that check in the spirit of one. And God will honor it no matter which way it goes. God will make it up even if it's a mistake, man. You know, I mean, we've made many mistakes even in the conferences we've held. I'll give you an example of that. Not mistakes, sorry. We were learning. I mean, in the conference we hold with my dad, my dad speaks all the sessions except one. And one of the sessions, we have, we started with me, Bobby, and Jeremy speaking. Second year I think it was also me, Bobby, and Jeremy speaking. And then this last year we had eight people speaking. Where we had eight brothers and sisters who had been faithfully sharing, brothers and sisters, who had been faithfully sharing throughout the year, consistently. I said, look, why don't the group see a church in action? So we had eight people speak in one session. So eight times five. Five minutes max. But, you know, we realized too that there's a certain amount of a natural gift it is to speak, as you said, to thousands or to hundreds. In this case it was to hundreds. And we noticed somebody can speak to 20 people who they are comfortable with. But when they're speaking to hundreds, quality is completely different. And people are spending a lot of time and listening to a lot. So what's the right use of their time? So, you know, we're learning. I would advise people to be very careful about doing it. If you guys were thinking of having eight people speak, I'd caution you against doing it. I don't think it's a mistake in that sense, but you learn, you become wiser. Say, hey, look, people can get nervous. It's not that they're not spiritual. You know, it's a gift to speak to thousands or hundreds. It's not a sin if you don't have it. I was doing it, we were doing it to show an appreciation and to try to build up their faith, but we missed that component of it. So I know we won't be doing that part, but we were united. Bobby, Jeremy, and I were united in making the decision in just a couple of weeks. Before I came here earlier this week, I met with them and I said, guys, I have a check in my spirit about having a lot of people share. I said, I'm not sure if Bobby, the three of us, should speak. They were like, we don't care. Unity, that's all that matters. And so we move forward with unity. Yeah, just for the benefit of us, because we are a small church, we are still trying to grow. Some of us have learned about fellowship to death from CFC over the years. And some of us are newly learning. So sometimes we have struggled to truly, in a practical sense, understand what it is to build fellowship. So any advice on that, we would really appreciate. That's a great question in the sense that that's a, it's one of those words that I find that a lot of people who are CFC background use flippantly and think, just because I'm hanging out with other CFCers, that's fellowship. And things like that. So I think it's a very important question for you guys to honestly engage with. To me, fellowship is intimacy. That word is what I share with the Father and the Son. It's a knowing of God, who God is. And now, it's that communion. So if I were to take out the word fellowship, the words I would replace with it would be partaker of. It's actually, 2 Peter 1.4, that word, koinonia, is the same word in 1 John 1, which says fellowship. So partaker is another way they've translated fellowship. So you're partaking of it. You're really allowing that to assimilate and become part of you. And that's what Jesus and the Father says, this is what I want to have with you. You know, the picture I have of God, the Trinity, is a triangle, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in any particular order, and an infinite stream. And that stream was love. It's like an ever-flowing river just going back and forth, back and forth between the triangle. And here's what happened when Jesus died on the cross. And Jesus died on the cross and that thing was broken. It was just going Father and Son separated. Incredible to think about this was going for all eternity. Love, love, love, infinite love. Endless procession of love going back and forth. Jesus died. What an incredible loss. Jesus is like, really? I've known this for all eternity. I've known my dad for 40 years. I'm going to cry like a baby for months when he dies. And my mother too. Imagine not knowing somebody for all eternity and then God saying, gotta go. Lord, please take this cup from me. I don't want that. For what I've known for all eternity. That gives you a little bit of sense of what happened on Calvary. And then, after the day of Pentecost, this is the beautiful thing that happened. Jesus said, it's no longer just me. I mean, so when he, it was finished, he got back. But then on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in us, now God said, you're part of it. I'm the head, you're the body. So it's, not in the sense that we're gods, but we fellowship of that love, that procession of love. So if you're able to understand the balance of, I'm not saying that we become part of the Trinity or we become part of the Godhead, nothing at all like that. But we share in that intimacy of knowing, you know, just as the Father loved me. He's the Father who loves you. And I love you just as the Father loves me. All that, it's that endless procession that the Father was having with the Son and the Holy Spirit. He's like, you're part of it now too. You get that same stream. You get the same Holy Spirit in all of his fullness that dwelled in me. And I think, that's how I think of fellowship between me and the Father. That's the thing that I need to have. And then I think about the church. And it's a weak second. But that's what we have to build. Now in order for me to build it with Jeffrey, I really need to know that Jeffrey's also a part to be with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit too. If he's not, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not going to go out of my way to try to build fellowship with him and take myself out of this. I can't negotiate this. But true fellowship is when I find other like-minded brothers who I find, they want them just as much as I do and more. They want this. They want a part of that. Possession of love. Unadulterated love of God. Not theology. Not doctrine. Not the prosperity preachers are wrong. Not Christ manifested in flesh as a doctrine. Just the love of God. The divine nature of God. As I kind of explained in that last session. They want it. They're so devoted to Christ because of what God did for them on Calvary. It's personal. It's not because they were born into it. It's not because it sounds like Zach Wooden's a man of God. It's much, much greater than that. It's Jesus. It's that first love. That's burning in them. I used to say in all of my 20s that 17 was when I had my first love of God. That's when I got baptized. That's when the Lord touched me with the Holy Spirit. For the first time I feel as I look back in my 20s and I was having this up and down life I used to think man my first love was when I was 17. Not anymore. Not anymore. It's gone up since then. Because I've hooked into the power source. I've separated from the world system once and for all. I'm fighting my flesh with a much greater reckless abandon than I ever did. I'm getting plugged in to the love of God. More and more. And so I say Lord who's there with me? And I don't have any competition that you should have it less than me. I genuinely that's what a beautiful thing about fellowship is you want the other person to have it just as much. Without any spirit of competition. And you're not trying to convince them so that they look up to you. I don't desire that people look up to me. I desire that people may drink of the source of God. I just know I've tasted something really special. That if I can come and help you that's what I sent to my church. When I was leaving I said please pray for us. Because here's a group of people who I'm getting to share the truth that I get to share with you guys every week. Please pray that the Lord will be with us as we speak. But what a wonderful opportunity for me to share these truths and to say hey guys I want you to have the power source too. I'm not going to see you in a couple of days. I'm going to be gone but if I can leave you with a hunger to get plugged into knowing God the Father and the Son great. And then look for somebody else and say come on in. Come, come. Pledge allegiance to London's Christian Fellowship. Pledge allegiance to the Father and the Son. Because when you pledge that you know who you'll find right next to you. Me. I'm right there with you. Look at my life. I don't want anything from this world. I don't want any fame, no money. I'll sacrifice all my family time all of that for you. My vacation time from work it's for your kingdom Lord. It's all that I have is yours. Fellowship. And I think when I have that undevoted undistracted devotion to the Lord I say who's there? And I don't judge somebody who's not there. I'm able to tell. When I say I judge I have to judge and say well I think he still loves the world or I think he still has some attachment to his family. I can definitely see that in some people. I don't condemn them. If they're part of our church I keep saying Lord what can I do? How can I draw them? He still loves the approval of men. I used to be like that too. Lord how can we draw him out of it? How can he see that that's just crippling him? You who are spiritual gently restore those. I think I haven't plugged into the power source of God and I see somebody else who's not quite plugged in. You who are spiritual you are connected to the spiritual gently restore. Because if you've done you've won a brother. And so it's that deep care to draw them in and then not have them attached through you to the father and the son. No man get away from me. Go to the father and the son. I'm not going to give you the answer to the question go and ask God. He's your father not me. Ask him he'll talk to you. He wants to speak to you. Those are the kind of things I tell to the folks who come and ask me for advice. Seeking that there's that devotion. When I see that somebody has a devotion to Jesus genuine devotion to Jesus I find that I can have this. Fellowship. Because we talk about the one we really love. And he gets me fired up about the one I really love. He gets me so excited about him. Not his theology not his way of doing things. He gets me excited about him. And she gets me excited about him because she is excited about him. Very few like that but that's what I want to be. That's what I want to be and that's what I want to build in our church. I hope if you ever come to NCCF you'll taste some people like that who are gripped with that. I don't pretend that everybody at NCCF is there. I don't know their hearts but I do think there are different people on different maturity levels. But I'm proud of our church. It's like I'm proud of my family. You can't come and criticize my kids. I'm working on them. I know they're disobedient. I see that too. Give me some time. Watch, watch, watch. I'll work on them. It's the same way with our church. They're my family. So I see their problems. I see some of the things. They see my problems. They're sticking with me. I'm sticking with them. One last one? You have one more. Okay, go ahead. So my understanding was while reading the book was that the Red Darts are those who are in charge of authority to be able to lead the fellowship. So I don't know if it does have anything different between elder, leader or facilitators. I don't know. So let me ask. I don't know. How is this church set up? How is this church set up just so that I know? I mean, right now we do not have elders. I'm a facilitator. Okay. And to do all my administrative work I have Raj and Chip. That's about it. Okay. I was the leader of a small group. And I when I was young we thought that we should become a church. I knew I needed to demonstrate unity and fellowship with somebody else. So I would say that that unity and fellowship is very important to have in the leadership. So I would definitely say that that's the reason why I believe in plurality of leaders. Elders, in that sense. But I didn't force it. For many years I was the sole leader. And other people were all kind of coming to my house and I was the leader, facilitator, whatever you want to call it. I made all the decisions. But I knew that the model was that God wanted elders. God wanted that. And there's a transition period. What you don't want to do is force a marriage. You don't want to force people to be mothers and fathers. It has to happen naturally. And I tend to also think that sometimes you have to give it time. You have to give it time for the group to have confidence in multiple leaders. And to get a sense of who the Lord is, you know, calling to be an elder. The other condition that I made when I was considering having elders was I knew that I was too immature to be just me and somebody else as a church. I made it a condition that anybody who was going to be an elder with me had to be willing to submit to Zak Poonen. And that Zak Poonen could have an authority over all three of us and felt comfortable that these people could lead it. That was my condition. It's not a condition in God's Word. But given my immaturity, I felt I needed that help. And so I made it very clear even before we became elders, hey, look, it's a two-way street. I need to be able to know that you can implicitly submit to the person that I see as a man of God in my life who I have contact with. There are many other men of God, but I just don't have contact with them. And I can't call them up. I can't send an email to them. But here's a man of God who I trust. And they had also gotten to know him and by then they could trust him. And also Zak Poonen had a sense. I'll tell you this. My dad used to come to our group from 2007-2008. We had a group in my house. Every time he'd come, I'd be like, Dad, is that the church what you're seeing right now? He was very kind. I think he didn't want to disappoint me. He said, let's see. The answer was no. But he said, let's see. So if he ever says, let's see, you know what that means? No, he may mean, let's see. He may be just saying, wait. But he basically was saying, let's see. And 2008, multiple times he came, let's see. 2009, multiple times, let's see. 2010, multiple times, let's see. This is for three years, man. When it came time to select elders, I didn't need to check with my dad. Not that I didn't. I did check with my dad, but I didn't need to. I knew this is acting like a church. And these are the people, these are the two others, Bobby and Jeremy, that I should ask. It wasn't a no-brainer. God didn't wake me up in the room. I still had to submit it to them. They were ready. In fact, one of them, I won't mention who, said that he wasn't sure. So I said, I'm sure. I'll wait for you. And so we waited. And then he was sure. I also checked with my dad. My dad said, let's see when I come. He listened to some of the audios. I said, I think I'm ready. He said, I'm willing to take responsibility for oversight. So I said, okay. We're at that point. So I think that's the transition for me from 2008 to 2011 when we became a church. So when people ask me, when did the church start? It's 2011. Whatever happened until then was just I don't know what. It was just a small group on its transition to. It was a woman getting pregnant. But the baby was born in 2011. So it seems to me, based on what I've heard today, I don't believe in a church model that doesn't have a clear sense in which it should have elders. It should have multiple elders. Because I think that's how God's patterned in God. But I can see that there's a period of transition where the baby is forming. And it's not right to pull the baby out after five months. You should let it grow its arms and legs a little longer. Let the heart fully develop that it will survive and breathe on its own with a good father and mother and all of that. So I can see how, to the best of my understanding, if you see that developing in this group, let's not call it a church or whatever you want to call it, if you see this developing in this group, then pray and wait that the Lord will give wisdom to whoever you guys look up to, whoever it is, that the Lord will find the right people to lead. It should be men, and it should be men who are united in terms of building whatever you're trying to build. If you find that you can't find that, if it's not coming at the pace you feel it should go at, obviously you can try any other group. So in the in-between stage, I just think it's kind of like, yeah, I want the baby. Well, I know my wife was pregnant and we were ready for the baby to come way sooner than it came. Almost always is. But the growing pains increases the anticipation for it, and God has his reasons that I don't know why. I don't know why when I started in 2008, why God didn't bring the right people to me, and why the church only got formed in my life in 2009. I honestly don't know the reason for it. God taught me a lot. But, did I answer your question? Yeah. Well, my question was related to what you asked. Really? Okay. No, I mean, what you said is that unlike the rest of the Christendom where they just appoint leaders and so on, I think, to what I see is we try to follow what is there in the early church. I mean, it required some amount of washing of my ideas too because from the time I left CFC. And none of these things of leadership and how you appoint elders is not so visible. Nobody preaches on that topic, so it was not very visible even for myself. So, I also had to understand what the facilitator role means. And that's where we are right now. And, yeah, I mean, right now I directly liaise with Zach. And he is kind of, not kind of, he has, I mean, for all authority, all decisions, I go to him. Even for this conference, I mean, I would go to him and I would ask him, how do you want this to be done? I mean, because I'm not, I'm not, I can't make decisions on my own. I take his advice. And, I mean, I think the difficulty was because of some, I mean, it's right. You know, some of them feel well, they've been very, I'm just coming back to this point about this conference where the difficulty was well, they're trying to be too restrictive. We should be more open market, more accommodate others. I mean, one thing is we have a very small church. We have very little resources. I mean, we have only so much money to spend on feeding. We want to keep it free. We can only keep so many people. The hall accommodates 200, but we can't have 200 because we can't pay for everybody. It can only be for 100 people. So we have to restrict. So then, of course, that would give me some guidelines on, see, we do not want anybody and everybody to come. We want to know. It's not like in Bangalore CFC conference where a lot of our churches are coming together. It's not that way. It is, here we do not know. Many of them are just listening to dad's messages. Some of them are, you know, are just living down the street, are in your backyard. They don't want to, even though they know we are, you know, having a local body here, they still don't want to come. And it's fine. Fair enough. They have elsewhere to go. We have no problem. But dad's point was, see, we want to weed out all those who are coming to listen to messages. We want people who are coming to be a part of a local body who are interested in building a local body. Now, this is what I've understood. And this is what, I mean, I could be misunderstood because I'm trying to do, for me it's like, I have full confidence in dad. I think he has seen hundreds of conferences and he knows what to do about these things. So I would go by what he has told me to do. So we have a kind of two-stage process. We kind of say, give a testimony and if we feel that, you know, your testimony is fine, then we'll allow you to come for a conference. Now, dad asked that this be done. And he's, to some extent, he's given us, three of us, freedom to decide who those people will be. And I've actually weeded out some of them because I thought, look, I don't think this fellow has the right spirit. He thinks there's some amount of pride, some amount of things he don't want. So we've kind of weeded out some of them. But nevertheless, I mean, it's a kind of a difficult thing. He's a Christian, people like this. You know, are you acting out of love? If you kind of enforce this. I think that's the point, you know. I mean, among us, you could find this, I wouldn't say misunderstanding, but that's the point. The point that some of them would feel, oh well, they are not acting out of love. And yeah, I have this difficult position of losing my name. No, no, no. No, I don't think that's case number one. But two, I'll tell you, from this is important for all of you guys, no matter what church you go to, one of the biggest virtues that young people especially, but everybody needs to major in is submission. We can be experts in some things and maybe not so good, but I feel that it's so important that you become an expert. I don't know who you need to submit to. God says you can choose who you want to submit to. I hope it's somebody godly, but practice submission. John 5, 19 and 20, that passage I didn't speak of. Jesus said, I don't do anything on my own initiative. Believe that? It's in scripture. Read John chapter 5 verse 19. I do nothing on my own initiative except that I see the Father doing it. Because the Father loves the Son. Jesus demonstrated submission. To me, the question is, if you disagree with the decision, it's not that you're wrong. The question is, go and submit to somebody. Go and practice active submission to somebody. The way I look at it is, if you trust, you don't have to answer this question to me, of course, because he's my dad. If you trust Zach Poonen to be in touch with God and to want your best interest, I think that's one fundamental gate you're probably going to need to ask yourself. There was a brother who came to our church who I knew disagreed with my dad and was not happy with the way my dad had handled some situations somewhere else. I knew this. He told me this. And it's the one question I asked him. Are you okay with my dad? When he said he was not okay with it, I said, look, you shouldn't come to this church. I'm not saying anything about your Christianity, but you're going to have trouble in this church because we all look up to my dad. You're going to have trouble. I'm not saying you're wrong. Nothing about that. Just go because we're going to keep on looking up to Zach Poonen and you're going to have trouble with it. I think in a decision like this, now that I've gotten a little bit more color to it, it seems like the way the decision is made is you got Zach Poonen talking with Kirti and to the extent the two others, Raj and Jeff, and that's the wisdom God's given my dad. I'm not saying he's right. I don't know who's right. Only God knows who's right. But if you guys, if anybody disagrees with it, the question is, do I want to submit? And you don't have to submit to Zach Poonen. Zach Poonen is not gone, but I would suggest submit to somebody. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Try to practice the virtue of submission. Men too. Women who are married and got lucky, they got a guy right away to submit to. But men, I don't know who you're submitting to. Are you submitting to somebody? I am. To my other two fellow elders and to my dad. I mean this. If my dad, Bobby and Jeremy talk to my dad about some issue that I'm not living right or something, if my dad asks me to step down, I'm down. That's it. I'll explain my situation and if my dad says, I've heard your point of view, I think you should step down, that's it. Maybe he's wrong. I believe in submission. We have a church format where we have decided, the three elders, I was the one who proposed it, but we three elders decided that I'll only speak for 20 minutes. I have to speak for 20 minutes. I submit. I submit to the time. You guys give me whatever time, I hope I submit it to the time. I try to keep it as much as possible. But I believe in submission, family. So I think, no matter, it's not about right or wrong. The big question is, are you practicing submission? It doesn't have to be to Zach Wooden. Go to John Smith out there and submit to him though. And if you find a more godly man, please leave Zach Wooden and submit to that person. You're wrong if you submit to Zach Wooden if you found a more spiritual man to submit to. Honestly. Mean it. So in this situation, I think the simple question is, do you trust Zach Wooden? Do you trust him to hear from God? Do you think that God gives him wisdom? Submit. God will honor that submission, just like he honors so many women who are married to fools of husbands, but they practice submission. And God will bless them on the final day, if not before. Guaranteed. There's a reward for every woman who submits to her husband, even when her husband's wrong. But if she submits, because of the fear of the Lord, God will give her a reward for obedience. I think it's the same way in the church. He loves submission. Loves it. And he sees so little about it in Christendom. Okay, I'm afraid our time has come to an end, as we have to clear the hall by 8 o'clock. So, all together, Sandeep, we want to say thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts for giving us your time before the Dublin conference. I remember you gave us a choice whether to come before or after. We said, okay, come before. So, I think we got the first dessert, should I say, before Dublin. But, yeah, either way, we just want to say thank you on behalf of every brother and sister for coming with the love in your heart. That's how you started, with the love and encouragement. So, we want to really say thank you. And if we could ask you, as a closing of this conference and special meeting, could you please pray for us as a church? Thank you. Yes, Lord Jesus, thank you for the wonderful love with which these dear brothers and sisters have welcomed me. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for the generosity. Thank you for every pound and penny that has been spent to facilitate me being here. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would bless them for this. Lord, every cup of cold water to one of your disciples is not forgotten. I've gotten way more than a cup of cold water. Bless, Lord Jesus, every single person here for the love with which they have welcomed me. Lord Jesus, you know how much I love these dear brothers and sisters, most of whom I haven't met for many, many years, some never at all. But, Lord, I am so deeply passionate that the Church of Jesus Christ may be built in every city, every part of the world, Lord. Jesus and the Church are one, Lord, and I pray, Lord, that you may give wisdom to each brother and sister here, Lord, as they continue to interact with this group, the group that's in transition, as it's trying to see what it's going to be, discovering what it is, who are the people who really can be united with them, who are sold out and want to follow Jesus with all of their hearts. Lord, you're coming soon. You're going to wrap things up very shortly. We want to finish up, Lord, whatever is missing in your building up of your body. Prepare such people, Lord. If it's all of the people here, do that, Lord Jesus. Build a tremendous spirit of unity among them. Lord, thank you, Lord, that you love them way more than I do. My heart is full of love towards them, but you love them way, way more. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying for us. We want to live our lives, Lord. The little few years that we have is a very ordinary way of saying thank you. Thank you for what you did, Lord. You didn't need to do it, but you did it. We just want to spread your message, Lord. Go ahead and defeat the gates of hell. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to share in that defeat with you, Lord, and we too can crush Satan as you'll crush him under our feet. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you will do this. Bless every single brother, sister, child. Build them up, Lord Jesus, in the fear of the Lord and in the love of the Lord. Build them up, Lord Jesus, to be united with one another. Give us safety, Lord. Bless the people who hold this place, Lord. Bless them for giving us the opportunity to use this. Keep them safe, Lord. Keep us all safe as we drive home. Give us a good rest tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.