So He Arose and Went

Praise God. Thank you. Thank you so much. God bless you. You may be seated. Wow. You know, that very, very thick presence of God's Holy Spirit here tonight comes when we choose to dwell together in unity. And I thank God tonight that Pastor Tim Delina is a kingdom builder. It's not a situation where we're saying my church, your church, their church. It's only one church. It's only the Church of Jesus Christ. And so as much as we've hated to see Pastor David and Tara go to their new assignment, yet we can send them forth with joy and recognize that they're being led of God. And we would never, nobody would ever stand in the way of the leading of God. The kingdom of God is not a man's idea kingdom. It's a kingdom that is led by the power of God's Holy Spirit. And whenever God is leading somebody to do something, the power of God comes with it. I thank God for that with all my heart. We're living in obviously very perilous times now, times that we have been warned about for 35 years in this particular congregation. And I wish I could say things in the world are going to get better, but I don't think so. I think it's going to get more difficult. According to the Word of God, the deceptions are going to get deeper. The wars are going to go farther. There's going to be famines and pestilences and earthquakes, as Jesus said. But He also said this gospel will be preached in all the world before the end comes. This gospel will be preached. And God is a God of justice, but He's a God of mercy. And He will enable us, all of us, to preach the gospel, I think, farther and wider than we've ever dreamed, more than we can even ask or think in this season. The internet is the net now. John 21, remember the disciples had fished all night and they'd caught nothing. Jesus is on the shore. He said, cast the net on the right side of the boat. In other words, do it this way, do it my way. And when they cast the net, suddenly there's 153 fish that are sent by the hand of God to swim into that net. And the net in our generation is the internet. I've known that for a long time. You've known that for a long time. This is the net that God's going to use to bring in a multitude, a harvest, I think, that's too numerous for any one of us to ever count. We won't ever be able to have a full tally of all the people that are going to come into the kingdom of God and be discipled and connect groups and be discipled on the internet and find fellowship and find other believers in their respective countries. It's already starting to happen, folks, and I'm so glad that we all get to be a part of what God is doing. And I'm so glad for Pastor David Hamm tonight and for Tara and for Zoe that are here and for Zion and Zana who couldn't be here tonight. I'm just so thankful for this family. And I leaned over to Pastor David and I said it's so good when you can get up and you can honor somebody and you don't have to stretch to do it. I can actually just speak the truth about Pastor David and Tara tonight, and I thank God for that. There's nothing more uncomfortable than when you have to do something like this and you're just trying to make words longer than they really are. But I don't know even know where to start with Pastor David and Tara because I've only ever known this man to be faithful to the things of God. He came here first at the age of 33. He's 47 now, he told me, so we've known each other for 14 years. And he came here— when he first came here he was leading a ministry called Truce. You remember that when you first came? And I sat him in my office one day. I said, Pastor David, I have to tell you something. I said, cool melts at 40. I said, it's time for you now to start moving on. You're an evangelist and God's calling you to be an evangelist. I said, you know, after 40 it's just, you know, hey, it doesn't look good anymore. Just kids look at you like, what's wrong with this guy? And I said, it's time to make the transition. He smiled at me, but he actually did it. He actually made the transition from Truce to—many who are here tonight, you've heard this man preach on Sunday night, and you know he's a gifted born evangelist. And thank God for that. And also, Tara's here tonight who has stood with her husband and just been an honorable woman of God. And I'm just so, so thankful for you, Tara, tonight and all that you've done here in the congregation. And then Zoe, my business partner, is here tonight. Does anybody here remember P.C. and Zoe's lemonade out in the lobby? Well, we're still in business. We've just been—we've been shuttered during the COVID crisis, but I think sometime soon I'm gonna have to go down and visit this new church and open up our lemonade stand in the lobby. We made over $700 the first night here on a Sunday night. And Zoe bought blankets for the homeless. You remember all the blankets in the lobby that we had there? So we've got quite a history. We go back a long way, and I'm looking forward to doing that again in the not-too-distant future. You know, when I was thinking about Pastor David Hamm, I was thinking, what story best exemplifies this man of God that's in the Scriptures? And immediately as I was thinking about it, the story of Philip the Evangelist came into my mind. And the characteristics in Philip the Evangelist's life are very similar to the characteristics in David Hamm's life. And I want to go through the story of Philip the Evangelist and talk about what was it in this man that God could use him in a spectacular way. And there's no doubt about it. Of all the people that have been used in the New Testament, there's rarely a man that's more curious than Philip, or a man that was more—had greater experiences with God. There's nobody else in the Bible ever that was translated by the hand of God. Which means—anybody here ever seen Star Trek? All right. I mean, you can raise your hand. It's okay. Nobody's going to—we're not turning the cameras around, not taking your picture. You know, in Star Trek, they stand on this thing called a transporter, and everybody just kind of disintegrates, and then they appear in another place. Well, that's what happened to Philip. Philip went into the waters of baptism. He baptized an Ethiopian man who was under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, and after baptizing him, he was just transported by God, and he appears in another town shortly after Kalisotis. There's nobody in the Bible that that ever happened. Now, Elijah went up in a chariot, but nobody was ever transported by God the way he was. But yet, it didn't seem to ever alter his character. And I want to talk about this man, Philip, in Acts chapter 8. If you'll go there with me in the next 30 minutes or so, we'll get through this. So, Father, I want to thank you, God, with all my heart, for your Word. And every time we open your Word, there should be something that shapes us, changes us. My God, I don't want to just learn and never come to the knowledge of the truth. Lord, I pray, God, that even as I preach this tonight for my own life, that you would change something in me, in my thinking, in my heart, and that the very composition of my being would be changed as we sit under the preaching of your Word. Lord Jesus Christ, I'm asking again tonight that you would take this offering of my hand and multiply it, and speak, Lord, to every person here in the manner that they need to be spoken to. God, whatever you can, you can speak to every heart, whatever way you choose. Lord, all we ask tonight is that your kingdom come, and your will be done here on earth in us as it is in heaven. Give us hearts to obey, give us minds to understand, my God. Strengthen us with might in the inner man. Give us the grace that this man in the Bible had that made him a very, very unusual man, worthy of our study. And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Now, Acts chapter 8, verses 26 and 27. We'll start there. It says, Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, Arise and go towards the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went. So that's what I called the message tonight. So he arose and went. And that was the thing about Philip. The one characteristic of his life is whatever God asked him to do, that's what he did. I can honestly say that about David Hamm, Pastor David Hamm, that when he came here and became part of our TSC staff, although he had a reputation and he was well known in the Christian world and in the ministry world, I can honestly tell you as his pastor for a season that whatever I asked this man to do, he would do it. He would just arise and he would go. And I don't recall you ever saying anything to me but, yes sir. I don't know how many times you said that. Yes sir, I'll get it done. Yes sir, I'll do it now. And I would ask, I would give him a request, and I never had to ask twice for anything to be done. He would just get up and he would just do it. And that's what Philip was like. Philip was a man like this. He was an obedient man. He went where God called him, not necessarily where he wanted to go. And David, you know, you and I both know you struggle with some of the things I asked you to do. We both know that. You know, that just would hang his head and say, God, how long am I gonna be stuck doing this? Out working with kids out at our Bible school, out leading drama with our students. Then I asked him to go to Feed New York as part of this church and start visiting some of the hundred churches we wanted to underwrite to convince the pastors that there was no strings attached to our desire just to give them a thousand dollars worth of food each per month to feed the food deprived in their communities. Most pastors didn't believe that there was a church alive in this world that would actually do that without any hidden agenda. And there was no hidden agenda. All we wanted to do is just bless these churches, help them to reach the food deprived in their communities, and to see their ministries and their churches strengthened. So I remember Pastor David went out, and he was part of a team that visited the pastors in the churches. And it took a while to kind of break down the resistance and to get them to the point of believing there actually there were no, there was no asterisks at the bottom of what we wanted to do for them. We really did want to just bless them, and still are today. And I want to thank you for that, Pastor Tim, and for Times Square Church. I want to say thank you. I don't know the numbers today, but I do know that a couple of years ago we were feeding in the vicinity of about seventeen to nineteen thousand people a month in the city through the Feed New York churches. Folks that sometimes wouldn't have a lunch, maybe young people to go to school and such like, or no fresh vegetables for their kids on the way home. And so I just so, so thank you. As Pastor Tim often does, I want to thank you for your generosity as a church. Now, Philip was a man that God could speak to, and when he would speak to him, he would simply just do what God was asking him to do. And so my question I guess to you tonight, and to my own heart, is are we like that? Can God speak to you? Can God move you from where you are today, and can He take you to where He wants you to go? Can He make your life into that which He's destined it to be so that it brings glory to His name? Or do we get so entrenched in our own self-view, our own ideas maybe of what our life should be, or even ministry, what ministry should look like, and we get entrenched to the point where the Lord can no longer…we're speaking to God, but He can't speak to us anymore. We're not willing to even consider moving outside of the comfort maybe that we found for ourselves. You know, as natural people we strive for a place where we feel accomplished, and we feel comfortable, and we feel like we've achieved something. Everybody wants to achieve something in life. There's not that many people that say my goal in life is to be a loser and to accomplish nothing. There's not very many people like that. Everybody wants to do something, to accomplish something. And so when we finally get to the place where we feel like we have accomplished something, the tendency is to more or less build a box around ourselves and say this is what my life is, it's what it's going to be, it's what God has done. It becomes our story, it becomes our identity, it becomes our testimony. The difference between that and Philip is that Philip was a man who could be moved from where he was to where God was sending him. Even when where he was seemed to be glorious, and he was sending him to something that was unknown, he didn't have any idea where it was that he was going. Now 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 18 tells us that God sets the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleases. Isn't that amazing? Like it's His choice where we are to be in the body of Christ. It's not our choice. And when it becomes our choice, we become a natural kingdom, and we cease to be a supernatural kingdom. The reason that God could do the things He did through Philip is Philip was never so entrenched in his own self-identity, or maybe his ministry identity, that he couldn't be moved to the place where God wanted to take him, even when it looked like a desert. He first appears in Acts chapter 6 verses 2 to 6. Now here's where Philip's ministry starts. It says in chapter 6 of Acts verse 2 to 6, it says, Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. Now not just ordinary people to serve tables, but people who had a good reputation. They were filled with the Spirit of God, and they had wisdom. But we will give ourselves, verse 4, continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and then it goes on and tells us about the rest of them, whom they sent before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands upon them. You see, can you just imagine now, if you had gotten to the point in the body of Christ, like let's just say you're a member of Times Square Church, you've been attending here, and you now have a reputation. Maybe God's given you some giftings of the Spirit. Maybe you have words of wisdom or knowledge, or maybe you're just you're just known for prayer or something. You're known for something anyway. You have a reputation. You're filled with the Holy Ghost. You know you are, and you make sure everybody around you knows that you're filled with the Holy Ghost, and you have wisdom. At least you think you do anyway. But you know, you have a wisdom that is birthed and given you of God, and then suddenly somebody comes to you with all those qualifications and says we need somebody to serve tables. I want you to think about that for a moment. What? Me? Me? Me with my reputation? Me, full of the Holy Ghost? Me, with all the wisdom that I have, the knowledge of the Scriptures, and you want me to serve tables? Because you want to give yourself to the study of God's Word and to prayer, and you want me to be the one that's bringing trays of food with all my wisdom and anointing, and all the things that I have? Yes, you. You see, the thing about Philippians, let me just read it to you. Philippians chapter 2. Now, it's amazing. We preach, sometimes as preachers even, with such eloquence and live with such mediocrity. Because here's what Jesus, here's what Paul said to the Philippians. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of what? No reputation. And taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men. So you don't get any bigger than God, you don't get any smarter than God, you don't get any more anointed than God, but yet even though he was God and could consider him God and could actually portray himself as God, instead of that he took on himself no reputation. Let this mind be in you. See, this mind was in Philip. This is why God could use him the way he could be used. This was a test in a sense. You know, Pastor David, I have no doubt that God's going to do some powerful things through your life. And you have, for several years, you were put through a test. And you passed it with the highest of honors. You came in here with a reputation, you came in with an anointing, you came in with all kinds of skills and talents and such like, but yet you ended up serving tables, didn't you? Just the way Philip did. Then you remind me, when I think of Philip, I honestly do think of Pastor David Hinn, because that's the kind of a man you are. You never said no, no matter what you were asked to do or how low down on the chain as it is it seemed to be. You had that mind of Christ in a sense, you know, of not considering it robbery in a sense to, you know, to say I have these giftings in my life, but took upon yourself no reputation, and became a servant, and identified with the people around you as opposed to trying to to be Lord over anyone. You just became the servant to all people wherever I sent you. Philip was a man who did not consider any form of service appointed by God beneath him. That's the point, you see, any form of service. You know, as leaders in the body of Christ, for example, if there's a piece of paper stuck on the platform, we shouldn't stand here and wait for somebody to pick it up. We should pick it up ourselves as leaders. We are called as leaders to lead by example, and Pastor David, you have led by example. You've always been an example. You've been an example to me. You've challenged and encouraged my life just in watching your response to the things that God gave you to do, and the excellence with which you did it. You know, one of the things that really touched my heart in Africa a few years ago, I was I was preaching in a conference. There's thousands of pastors in this conference, and it was it was all brought together in the main city in Kenya through the vice president's wife, Mrs. Rutu, and on Sunday I went to preach in the church, and I found out that she is part of the hospitality team. The vice president of Kenya's wife is on the hospitality team. She serves tables on Sunday, and when we asked her about it, she said this is this is what God has called me to do in His kingdom. Out there I'm the vice president's wife, and I have to do the things I do, and I embrace all of the government responsibility, and I host dignitaries from all over the world, but in the house of God I'm on the hospitality team. Not a leader, just part of the hospitality team. Phenomenal. That's why God could use that woman in the way He does to draw together thousands of pastors from all over the country, and to to do much good for the kingdom of God, because she is first a servant to the people of God before she becomes an emissary to others around her. Now in Acts chapter 8, we first saw Philip in Acts chapter 6, and then in Acts chapter 8, we see a persecution. A man called Saul was consenting to the death of Stephen, and a great persecution arose against the church, and they were all scattered. So suddenly, just as can happen in our society, a persecution arises, and it's a violent persecution. Saul is a lunatic. He's almost like the Vladimir Putin of his time. He's just a lunatic. He just wants to conquer. He wants to destroy everything unlike himself. He's got letters of authority to bring people out of their homes, take them to prison, and torture them, and by his own confession he caused people to even blaspheme the name of God under torture. He's driven. Everything unlike himself has to be destroyed. That's the Saul of Tarsus of that particular time, and because of him the church was scattered. Suddenly people, whatever ministry Philip found himself in, serving tables, suddenly had to leave. He had to get out of town because the alternative was not too pleasant. In verse 4 of Acts chapter 8 says, Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. In the multitudes, with one accord, he did the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. Now Philip has gone from serving tables to doing miracles. Well God's actually doing it through him. We're talking miracles here. We're not talking about somebody with a stiff knee suddenly, you know, feeling better. We're talking about somebody with the blinded eye suddenly seeing. Like miracles are starting to happen here. For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. So suddenly he starts out serving tables. Now he's in Samaria because he's been scattered because of a persecution. And miracles are happening. I mean bonafide miracles. And people who are lame are being healed. And people who are demon-possessed are being set free. And joy is breaking out. All kinds of people are starting to come to Christ as it is. And the prominent leaders now take notice of his ministry. In Acts chapter 8 and verse 14 says, Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. It's amazing, you know. So suddenly the big boys come to town. And so Philip could be saying, I made it. I'm in the big town now, you know. I mean miracles are happening. Healings are happening. Demons are fleeing. People are getting saved. Joy is everywhere. And the big boys come to town. Like it doesn't get any bigger than Peter and John showing up in town. So now suddenly the, you know, the general executive assistant to the general executive, you know, in our word, has taken notice of me now. Now I've hit the big time. And they come and they lay hands on people. They start receiving the Holy Spirit. And the revival is just, the revival is one of the greater ones actually in the book of Acts. And then suddenly a messenger of God shows up to Philip one day in chapter 8 and verse 26. And he says, An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, Arise and go towards the south along the road which goes down to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is desert. So he arose and went. Can you just see the people? Philip, in heaven's name, what are you doing? Where are you going, Philip? Philip, you're the man. Philip, I'm in the kingdom of God has come down to you. Philip, miracles are happening. Philip, demons are fleeing. Philip, there's great joy in the city. There's a revival happening here. The big boys have come down to even look at your ministry. And you can just see he's got his little, he's got a stick over his shoulder with a bag with his clothes in it and he's heading out of town. Where are you going, Philip? I know, to the desert. What's there? I have no idea. But God is speaking to me that I should go. You see, the point being that Philip never was, God could speak to this man. He could, he was never so entrenched in what he was doing that God couldn't speak to him. And I have to wonder sometimes, is it possible that he's the only one that God could speak to? Is it possible that everybody's so caught in what they're doing in this great revival in Samaria that the Lord is actually trying to speak to various people, maybe didn't want to take the key man out? You don't know that for a fact. I'm only speculating. But is it possible he didn't want to take this, the key player, out of there but nobody else could hear? God's kingdom was about to move into Africa. He needed somebody to meet up with an Ethiopian eunuch in the desert who was going to be converted and he was going to bring the gospel, the very first record of the gospel going into Africa. And he couldn't find anybody but Philip still could hear from God. It wasn't all about largesse. It wasn't all about ministry. It wasn't all about, look what's happening in my life and look what's happening through my life. It was God could still speak to him. And just as in the beginning, nothing was too small for him. You see, God has a long-term view. We have a short-term view. We tend to see everything in the here and the now, and because of it, it limits our vision. But when we're willing to hear from God, he has a long-term view. He sees the pastor's conference in Kenya two years ago. He sees the gospel going into all Africa. He sees the millions of people that are going to come to Christ. And he needs somebody to meet the man that's going to bring the message of Christ there. And Philip could hear him. Don't ever get so big that you can't hear from God. Don't ever get so big that something that is small looks like it's too small. Oh no, not for me. No, I'm the miracle man. Peter and John have taken notice of me. Man, I'm on the way up. This is, my career is set. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my name in lights. I'm gonna have a brochure with my picture on the front. Well, however they did it back then. Oh no, everybody's gonna know my name. And suddenly he's leaving town. Hey guys, look after the revival. God be with you. I'm heading off to the desert. And so he meets the Ethiopian eunuch in the desert and leads him to Christ. Takes him down into the water and baptizes him. I love this story. And then it says in chapter 8 and verse 39, when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found in Azotus and passing through. He preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea. Imagine, imagine you could be used of God in such a way that you baptize a man, then you disappear. And you end up in the city. And you're walking around saying, hey, you tell me where this is. Where am I? And your whole ministry is not about, you're translated. You know, today all we do is get translated into Spanish. We don't get translated the way they did it back in the book of Acts. You know, just like, and so his whole ministry is not about the fact that I was translated. Or I was a miracle man. Philip is just preaching the gospel again as he's always done. And at doesn't become all about this miracle that happened in his life. It's just about Christ. He's just an ordinary guy that God could get a hold of that started serving tables. And now the Lord is, the Lord has such control of this man that he can just take him from one spot and put him in another. Oh God, oh God. That's the cry of my heart now. Lord, would you just open my ears to your voice? Would you help me not to get stuck in the self-view or stuck in what I'm doing or stuck in what I'm not doing? Would you just help me to be able to hear you? You know, did it make a difference winning one man in a desert? That's all he could see. That's all his natural eye could see. But something much bigger than that was happening. The plan, the pattern of God was beginning to be made known and was beginning to move into another part of the world that had never known this message of Christ. And it brings me to point two, which is Philip was a man who trusted that where God calls, God will prosper. We don't have to understand it. Just have to obey it. What he asked us to do, just do that. And that's what Pastor David and Tara and Zoe are doing. It's just you've gone where God has called you to go. And I just want to congratulate you on being, I know that your whole dream in life, it really was to do videos and stuff like that. I mean you bugged me about it for years and I wouldn't let you do it. But that was your whole, that was your whole dream. If I could just do like scenarios and videos and plays and productions and then suddenly it just, it was just there and God calls you. Philip, God calls you to leave where you are and go to something else because he has a long-term view. He has something that we don't fully understand. And we don't know why we're in specific classrooms throughout our life or what even the purpose is of where we're being taken. But everything does have a divine purpose and it's always beyond what we can see and what we can understand. It's always leading us to somewhere. You see God could do miracles with this man because he had a right perspective. Here's the point, God's calling in Philip's life was never about himself but always about others. And if we can get to that, if your calling is about yourself, your ears, you might as well stick your fingers in your ears, you're never going to hear from God if it's about you. But if it turns to being about others, if it's about, if one person means as much to you as the crowds once did in Samaria, then God can use you in a miraculous way. God can take you, God can take me where to places that only he can because our focus is not on ourselves. And in the American Church, God help us in America but we've been so self-focused as a nation for so long that I fear that our ears are closed to the voice of God and much of God's house. And Pastor Tim, I want to thank you that you're hearing from God. I want to thank you that you're seeking God and bringing a word from God to this congregation and to the people online. Because the focus is not just about us, it's about others. The focus is about the body of Christ. The focus is about people all over the world hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the focus and because of it God can use you and use this church in a very, very unusual way. Now let me take it right to the conclusion now in Acts chapter 21. The last mention of Philip, and I just love this, in Acts chapter 21 verses 8 and 9. Now the writer of Acts says, on the next day we who were Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea. Remember that's where that's where Philip ends up after he's translated. And we entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven. This is the seven that initially served tables, and stayed with him. And this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied, and Luke says, and we stayed there many days. And this is what I love about this, is the man who scattered him early on in the book of Acts is now welcome in his home. Don't you just love that? I love the fact that the man who scattered all of, scattered Paul, and scattered all of his companions, and scattered Philip is now welcome in Philip's home. And Philip now has four daughters, and his last ministry now is to pass on this ability that God gave him to hear his voice to his family. And he didn't consider that too small either. You know after Samaria, after being translated, after preaching in Caesarea, after all the stuff that he did, he's now at home, and it's as if it's his reward, may I put it that way. He's got four daughters that have the same heart that he has. You know, prophesying is the ability to hear what God is speaking, and to be, and to move with it. That's what prophesying is. Remember Jesus said, when the spirit of truth comes, he will show you things to come. And so here, he's got four daughters, and they're prophesying about what God's about to do, maybe through them, or through others. I don't know what it is, but they are moving in unison as their father has, with the Spirit of God. And I love the fact that Philip does not consider being hospitable, and raising a godly family beneath his calling in God. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. And here's the promise, when we live for God, when we're willing to be used by God, when God can take us from one place to another, and it always doesn't have to be bigger and better. We will have the privilege of passing this on to our children, and in my case, our grandchildren. We'll have the privilege of being able to speak into their lives. And you see, Philip lived a kind of a life that became desirable. When he would tell the stories to his— tell us again, dad, about how God lifted you. You were in the water, and the next thing you know, you're in a place called Exodus. Tell us, how did that feel? And Philip would just, because his focus was on just obeying God, and being used for the sake of others, the Lord was able to pass on that vision that he had in his heart to his family. Oh God, help us. This is the cry of my heart now, and I know Pastor David, this is going to be your legacy. You're going to pass your willingness, Pastor David and Tara, to follow the leading of God. Your willingness to work our labor even in obscurity, with only the voice of the Lord, in a sense, daily reassuring you that you're on His path. You will pass that on to Zoe. You'll pass it on to Zion and Zainab. You will, because you've lived it, and they're going to look at it in you and say, whatever this path is that my mom and dad have taken, I want this in my life. And this is the reward of God. I was tucking in three of my grandsons in the summertime, and putting them in bed when they were younger, and one of them, just out of nowhere, says to me, Papa, tell us again what kind of a man you were before God came into your life. You know, don't you love that? So I'm telling them the story, and I shared the scripture that says, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old things in his life pass away. And then Landon, who was the oldest at the time, he was about seven, his brother Liam was four, and he says, well, Liam's not saved. And I said, why do you say that? He said, well, as long as I've known him, I've never seen any change in his life. So I'm trying to tell him, you know, Landon, you shouldn't judge your brother, and you know, you should. And as I'm starting to talk, Liam is leaning against the wall, and he starts to cry. Tears come down. He says, it's true, Papa, it's true, it's true. And before I had a chance to even speak, he goes, Jesus, forgive me for my sin, and God, I opened my heart, and I asked you to come into my life. It was amazing. And it all started with Papa. Tell us what kind of man you used to be before Jesus came into your life. See, when you've walked with God, when you've just obeyed God, when your life has been lived, it becomes attractive to your family. They want to hear about it. You're not there just hammering scriptures, and you're going to, this is another memory verse for you tonight, as good as all that is. When a life has been lived for God, there's a legacy that passes on. And you know, if I was to live the rest of my life just passing the journey that I've had with God on to my grandchildren, that's good enough for me. It was good enough for Philip, so it's good enough for me. God is not obliged to do anything more through any of us. Our names are in the Lamb's Book of Life. That's good enough. After that, He owes us nothing. Everything else is gravy after that. And if just raising a godly family is what He wants me to do, I'm okay with it. Thank God for that. And it's not a demotion, folks. It's not a demotion. And so, Pastor David and Tara, I just want to tell you tonight that God has something special for you. And you have been a special couple, and I just want to just give God thanks for you, and for what you've been an example to me, and it's challenged my heart to, as Pastor David Wilkerson used to say, if you want to know the power of God, Carter, take a lower seat. And if you want to know more power, take a lower seat. And if you want to know the power of God after that, take a lower seat. When you go into a house, find the lowest seat and take that seat, and the power of God will be your portion all the days of your life. And you've done that. You've done that. And it's our privilege to honor you tonight, and to honor Tara and your children, and to pray for you, and to wish you Godspeed, because this is about the kingdom of God. And we don't have to understand where you're going. We just have to know that God is leading you to go there.