 Amen. Alright, keep your place there in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. So this morning, we're going to talk about something you're probably not going to hear at too many other churches, maybe not any other churches in this area anyway. We're going to talk about, you know, what God says about how we should look and how men and women should look and how they should look different. You know, you're probably not, this is kind of a counterculture sermon. You know, you're not going to hear too many pastors of churches, especially here talk about these types of things because, you know, they don't want to preach against the culture of the day. We're going to talk about, you know, this, what we're going to talk about today applies to men and women, but just because of the way that our culture is today, you're going to see that it definitely applies more to women. So let's talk about men and women first. Turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. And I first want to, you know, just point out that God uses and values both men and women in this life. So turn to Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, we see the disciples at the day of Pentecost. They're speaking in tongues and God has given them the power to prophesy in other languages. That's what tongues mean. They were able to speak in other languages. And this is a prophecy that Peter is talking about. This is a prophecy from the book of Joel being fulfilled. And that's what Peter is talking about in verse number 17. And if you look down in Acts chapter 2 in verse number 17, the Bible says, And it shall come to pass in the last days, sayeth God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. So here you see that when the disciples were prophesying in the other languages, there was both men and women partaking in this. This is why while there are different rules for men and women in the church, this is why women are encouraged to be used of God going out soul-winning at Verity Baptist Church. It's very biblical. Turn to Acts chapter 18. Acts chapter 18. And while you're turning to Acts chapter 18, I'll read for you. Well, just go ahead and turn there. You're almost there. And the Bible says in Acts chapter 18 verse 26, we see another woman that's being used of God. And the Bible says, and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. So here you see a woman again being part of a soul-winning experience, explaining the word of God to somebody. In Romans chapter 16, I'll just read it for you, don't have to turn there. The Bible says, and I commend, Paul is saying, I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church, which is at Cetria. That you receive her in the Lord as become a saints, and that you assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you, for she hath been a suckerer of many and of myself also. Now that word, suckerer, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, but it means a rescuer, a saver, someone who helps people recover, someone who saves someone from danger, who's helping someone. So that sounds like a pretty important role to me. So I'm just trying to get you to understand that God has specific roles for men and women, and he wants them to have different roles in the family and the church. But both men and women are to be used of God in this life. Women in Titus chapter 2 and verse 5 are supposed to be discreet, chaste keepers at home. You know, the men are supposed to love their wives, work to support their families, those types of things. And as a matter of fact, like the culture that we're in today, the fact that the women's role that I just listed for you is downplayed and looked down upon by women and men in our culture today is very irritating to me, because it is a very important role, and God knew the roles that were needed in a family, and he made sure that he filled all the gaps. And I think that raising children and being a mother to children is a very important role. But we see all that to say this. You know, we see that women and men both have roles to play with God, but we see in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, if you're still there, and verse number 14 is kind of an example of this. We see that God wants men and women to look differently. And if you look down at 1 Corinthians chapter 11, look at verse number 14. And the Bible says, doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him. But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for a covering. So 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is an example of how God wants men and women to look differently. And it's in the Bible. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 22. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 22. So what we're going to talk about today is dress standards. And what Verity Baptist Church, I want to explain to you today the dress standards that Verity Baptist Church believes in. And I want to explain to you from the Bible why we believe that. It would be a disservice to you if I said our church believes this, but I didn't explain it to you from the Bible. So that's what I want to do today. I want to go through the Bible, and I want to look at three main points of dress standards. And these apply to men and women, but like I said, with our culture today, this topic kind of hits the women a little bit harder. So if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 22, we'll look at the first point. And the first point, let's read Deuteronomy chapter 2 in verse number 5. The Bible says, The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man. And then we see the other side. Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. For all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. So here we see that there's actually garments that are supposed to be for a man and for a woman. Now, we saw in 1 Corinthians 11 that God wants men to have short hair and women to have long hair, but here we see that there's a specific garment or garments that the Bible says are for women and for men. And men are not to wear what's for the woman, and women are not to wear what's for the men. Now, notice the word that's used here. It's very important. For all that do so are what? Abomination. That is a very, very strong word in the Bible. If we look at where else that word is used, go to Leviticus 1822. I just want to give you an example of where this word is used in the Bible and the seriousness of that word. So men and women are to have different clothing. We see in Deuteronomy 22 and verse number 5. If you look at Leviticus 1822, another example of abomination, the Bible says, thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination. This is talking about homosexuality. That's abomination. You know how seriously God takes that sin? God uses that same word to talk about the clothing of men and women together. In Proverbs chapter 6 and verse 16, open your Bible right in the center. You'll be in the book of Psalms. Go one book over and you'll be in the book of Proverbs. We see another example. And I want to show you, you know, I took you to Leviticus 18 for a reason. I want to show you that there's actually a tie between Deuteronomy 22 verse 5 and Leviticus 18. In Proverbs 6, let's look at another example of the word abomination. Look at verse number 16. These six things doth the Lord hate. So here we see the Lord hates these things. We see the word hate, that the Lord hates it, kind of used in conjunction with this word abomination. And he says, yea, seven are an abomination unto him, a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, and heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord amongst brethren. So look, when the God uses this word abomination, it's serious. You know, it's a very serious word. So what is the garment? There's a number of different ways to prove this and to show this. But I want to show you just from society itself, I want to let you know that even our society itself knows what this garment is. I pulled a historical article about the history of women's clothing and men's clothing in the last hundred years or so. And I want to just want to read a snippet of that for you. Our society especially has always known what this garment is. And this article from PBS.com or something says this. It says, during World War II, from 1939 to 1945, pants were more widely worn by civilian and military women, both at work and socially. They're referring to when women started to wear pants in the United States. Although women continued to enjoy wearing pants after the war, particularly for sports and leisure, style trends for women remained fixated largely on skirts or dresses until the 60s or 70s. Then, buoyed by the women's rights movement, pants became firmly established as popular and appropriate clothing options for women at home, in public and many workplaces. Now, here's something that's interesting. There were actually cross-dressing laws in the United States up until, like, 1974. Meaning that if, you know, a woman was outside the house with, you know, not in a dress wearing pants that she could actually be arrested. Now I'm not saying that that's, you know, the position, but I'm just saying this is where our culture came from and where they are today. The last one was overturned in 1974. And you can read many stories in the early to mid-1900s about women being arrested, you know, for going into public with pants, wearing pants. You know, but what I would encourage you to do is go look at the pictures of these women and who are, you know, leading this charge in our culture today. And what you'll see is because, see, there was no women's pants back in 1910. So you literally had women dressing exactly like a man, okay? We'll address the women's pants thing here on the third point. But you basically, this whole thing was spearheaded by a certain type of woman, okay? And you look at these women and their short hair and they're dressing like men. These were, you know, homosexuals largely were driving this movement, okay? So it was not Christian moms pushing this movement. Let's put it that way, all right? You say, I don't believe you. Well, let me read you the sources for this PBS article that I read. The sources, the bibliography at the end of this article it said that this is, these are the sources that they used. Transgender history by Susan Stryker. And Susan Stryker is like, I think it didn't used to be Susan. Let's put it that way. Some kind of, some queer transforming something. I'm not even sure what I'm looking at when I looked up Susan Stryker. I quickly closed the window. Gay law, challenging the apartheid of the closet. Cross-dressing in the criminal by Bennett Capers. Cross-dressing case for bathroom equality. Does that sound like it's going anywhere good? And then transgender history and geography. Cross-dressing in context, third volume. This is the people that were driving this cultural change in the United States. And the funny thing is, is that it wasn't that long ago that, you know, if you're a 60 plus year old baby boomer you remember a time in the United States where women largely wore dresses. That's what they wore, skirts. Women did not wear pants in public. And, or, you know, in general it was just socially, you know, unacceptable. We've, you know, if you're my age or younger than probably 60 or 65 years old you don't even remember a time when that was the case. But this is the case. This is another one of those social, you know, slopes that were sliding down and we shouldn't be any part of it. But I'm going to show you from the Bible. Okay? Now, we see that pants are a man's garment. All right? You say, well, what about the man? So let me ask you a question. Halloween is coming up. Halloween is coming up. And when you have a man that wants to be funny and dress like a woman at Halloween what's he going to wear? He's going to wear a dress. Okay? Everybody knows that it's dresses versus pants. Okay? So, what's happening today, you know, basically in the, with women today what's happening is the equivalent of Christian men walking around wearing dresses. That's basically what you have. Okay? And that's what's going on. When we look at the origins of this movement we see it as far away from these type of people as possible, as Christians. Okay? So, let's look at point number two. So we see that there's a garment that's for a man and a garment that's for a woman. Even the bathroom signs know what this garment is. We were in Taiwan and we saw a bathroom sign. I have a picture of it somewhere where it's like, you know, you have the woman with the dress, you know, the little stick figure with the dress and it's like cut in half and it's not like the man, you know, just with the pant on one side and the dress on the other side. But that means that anybody can go in that bathroom because this is the bathroom equality movement. Right? And it's all part of this. Okay? Turn to Exodus 28. Let's look at point number two. Exodus chapter 28. Point number two is this, that we are to cover our nakedness, both men and women. We are to cover what the Bible calls our nakedness. Your nakedness. The Bible actually gives very specific instructions to what your nakedness is. In Exodus 28, verse number 42, the Bible reads, And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness. From the loins, even unto the thighs, they shall reach. So the definition of your loins is basically the bottom of your ribs, where your ribs stop. Like, you know, your waistline almost. And your loins is, you know, kind of your pelvic area. Obviously everybody knows this, but even unto the thighs. So your thighs are the upper part of your leg, ending at the knee. So that's what the Bible calls your nakedness. So the Bible says that if you are in short shorts showing your thighs, you are considered showing your nakedness. That's what the Bible says. Now, I believe, now this is kind of Jared's opinion land again, but I believe when the Bible, you know, you could say, when the Bible calls, you know, someone naked, it could be that they were uncovering any one of those parts of their body. Okay, turn to John 21 and verse 7. And this is my basis for thinking this. So I could basically consider someone who has their thighs uncovered. It would not be a wrong statement for me to say that they are naked. Okay? Even though that, you know, they're not completely naked. All right. In John 21 and verse number 7, we see some guys fishing together here and they see Jesus. And the Bible says, therefore that disciple who loved Jesus said unto Peter, it is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girded his fishers coat unto him for he was naked and did cast himself into the sea. Now I don't think Peter was completely, you know, that would be weird. I think Peter was wearing some kind of, you know, loincloth or something that was not covering him completely as he should have been normally covered because he was out in a boat fishing or whatever. And he put a cloak around himself and he dove into the water. Okay? But the Bible calls that naked. So the point I'm trying to make is that if you have anywhere from, you know, your mid-riff to your thighs uncovered, you can be considered by the Bible naked. Okay? And we are to cover our nakedness, the Bible teaches. All right. Now, that pretty much goes against all female attire today during the summer months, basically, in our culture. You know, especially things like swimwear, workoutwear, whatever. I mean look, I would love to join a gym and like have access to all these awesome pieces of equipment and all this kind of stuff, but I just can't do it as a Christian man. It would not be right for me to do it because there's naked people there. See? So everyone's not obviously going to follow these standards, you know, but we need to know what the standards are. All right? So we know what naked means. We know what a man's garment is. You say, okay, but there's women's pants now. All right? Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2. I'm glad you brought that up. You say before they were wearing man's pants and it was a man's clothing, but now there's women's pants. So let's take a look at that and what the Bible says in 1 Timothy chapter 2. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and let's look at verse number 9. And the Bible here says, in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array. So women we see are supposed to dress modestly. Okay? And that, you know, that means that they're supposed to be modest in how they dress. They're not supposed to flaunt, you know, riches and jewelry and everything. And I'm not against jewelry, but I mean over-the-top types things. But the basically modest apparel, and here's a funny little thing. I accidentally did this. I was writing this sermon and I had my cursor in the Google search bar and instead of on my Word document and I typed in modest apparel and I hit return, search modest apparel on Google. Even Google understands what modest apparel is. Up pops on all the tabs, shopping, all, whatever. It's all these women in these long, you know, dresses. There's not one woman in pants when you Google modest apparel. Isn't that funny that even Google understands that? You know, the wicked company Google understands what modest apparel is. Look, you know, don't rule your life by what Google says, okay? That was just an interesting thing that I did. Look, they're basically all women in dresses below the knee. You don't even see anyone in short dresses when you do that little test, all right? So you say that there's women's pants now. None of them are modest. We all know this is true. And you know this is true. Basically all women's pants are basically, you know, yoga pants. They're skin-tight pants. They're not modest. It's totally immodest. So you lose either way when you're looking at what the Bible actually says. You know, you have to cover your nakedness. You have to wear a woman's garment, and you have to be modest. That pretty much rules out, you know, a woman wearing pants and a man, just like it rules out a man wearing a dress. It's pretty much the same thing, okay? I'm actually, you know, a little bit surprised that women and girls today are comfortable walking around in what they're walking around in. It's a little bit surprising to me because I know how my family dresses and it's just, it's pretty bold. It's getting bolder, it seems like. Now, so we see those three things. We see that there's a woman's garment. There's a man's garment. We see that we're to cover our nakedness and we see that we're to be modest. And this goes for men too. But men just generally don't, you know, see Christian men, I should say. I told my wife, I've said this to my wife several times, when you go to San Francisco to the airport or something like that, the day is coming where men will be wearing yoga pants. And I'm sad to report that, but it's coming. I mean, it's, what I'm talking about is, Christian men, you know, certainly at this point, don't struggle in these types of areas as much, okay? So let me just talk about situational ethics, okay? So now we see those three things, and let me talk about situational ethics because we also don't believe in situational ethics at Verity Baptist Church, because it's not found in the Bible. And what do I mean by situational ethics? Would it be, here's an example. Would it be socially acceptable today for a woman to walk around in downtown Fresno in her underwear? No. Yet, if she's located at a beach or somewhere where there's water or a swimming pool, it's totally fine, right? That's situational ethics, that in this case it's okay, but in this case it's not, okay? If it's wrong in one place, it's wrong everywhere. Let me read for you Exodus 2842 again. And now she'll make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness. From the loins, even unto the thighs, they shall reach. Unless you're at the beach or the gym or at summertime in Central Valley, California. No, it's all the time. So we don't believe in situational ethics. If it's not modest, it's not modest anywhere. If it's nakedness, it's nakedness everywhere. And if it's an abomination, it's an abomination everywhere, okay? So we don't believe in situational ethics and we've been kind of programmed in this country to accept, you know, situational ethics in the popular culture out there. That's what we're programmed to accept. So let me just say this. This, what I'm explaining to you today, you know, this is Verity Baptist Church's, you know, this is our position that we take on this issue, okay? That's why I'm preaching the sermon this morning. So you can see why we take this position, where in the Bible we see, you know, these three points that lead us to this conclusion that ladies should dress in dresses, they should dress modestly, and that they should not uncover their nakedness, nor should men. But I understand, you know, that, you know, if you, you're sitting here today and you're like, you're that church-only dress lady. You know, let me just first say this. You know, we appreciate you, you know. You know, conforming to our standards when you come here. We appreciate that. And, you know, because this is really a personal issue, right? This is a personal issue that's between you and God. But here's the thing. If you are that lady, if you are that lady, we appreciate you understanding our position on this and why we take that position. But if you are that lady, you know, just let me ask you a question. You know, God sees you at the grocery store. You know, God sees you, you know, at your home. You know, you do have an inconsistency there. And so that's something to think about. Now, I actually have a pretty strong, we actually have a pretty strong personal perspective on this issue. And I want to share that with you. And my wife doesn't want me to share that with you, but I'm going to share it with you. I interrogated my wife this week. Okay? I talked to her and I knew, you know, what we went through and when we went through things. But I just, like, I really wanted to understand her path through this issue. And I really learned some new things this week. Some depth. So, you know, guys, you should talk to your wives often. Because I just, every single time that I sit down and I have a conversation with my wife, this is, I just, it brings us closer together. And I just learned so many new things about her and about us and about our family. So take some time to talk to your wives. That's a little sidebar. But I identified, you know, three areas that I want to share with you that because my wife went through this, where we, you know, started, we left the Lutheran church. I got saved. She was already saved. But then we went to, started going to a Baptist church that had these biblical standards. And my wife wore pants and I didn't even have a problem with her wearing pants. I wasn't, I wasn't there. I wasn't there. And, but, you know, as soon as we went to the Baptist church, you know, my wife, in order to not be a cause of offense or, you know, somebody walked to anyone, she wore dresses to church, you know, like, you know, most people will. And, you know, she came to that conclusion before I did. That, you know what, this isn't right. I need to change. And when I was talking to her about, you know, how did that go? What was the hardest thing about that? The hardest thing for her was the social aspect of it. There's a social stigma on it, especially where we're from. We're not from a big city where you can kind of see, you know, we're out on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Everybody in North Dakota pretty much dresses the same. And the women's situation, clothing situation in North Dakota, let me just put it this way. We used to make a joke that in North Dakota, the men are the men. The men are men, and so are the women. We used to joke about that since I was a kid. Because you'll see women on farms, and they're just like, they dress like the men, they look like the men, they act like the men, you know. And so there's a social aspect to it. So my wife's on a farm, she decides, you know what, I'm just, I've got an inconsistency here. I'm getting rid of it. She threw away all her pants. I'm like, man, maybe you should sell them to somebody. But she's like, that wouldn't be right. She threw them all away, and she started wearing dresses. But the funny thing is that second time that you show up at a social activity, and you and your daughter are wearing dresses, people are like, what has happened? Are you in a cult? This is the kind of reaction that people get concerned about. Because you're trying to get that thing right in your life. But look, it's situational ethics. You know, we knew it wasn't right, she knew it wasn't right, she got it right, and you know, she's in a place where nobody else was like her. And that takes a little bit of strength to do that. To just say, you know what, I know, men have those types of struggles in their lives too, where men are going to have to be like, you know what, the culture says this, you know, everybody at work goes out after work and all this kind of stuff, and they go to the gym, they do these things. We're all going to have to take our stands in our life, whether we're men or women. This is just one that right now in our society, the women just have to take the stand. It's a stand that they have to take. It's a fight that's in front of them right now. But it's a fight that should be fought, okay? So there's a social aspect of it when I was talking to Heidi about it this week. And one thing that really came up for me though with talking to Heidi, she said, she really explained to me what a heart issue it was for her. And I'm not going to say too much about this, if you have questions, just go talk to her about it. But she said it was an idol in her life. And you say idol, you know, what do you mean idol? And that's what I asked her, what do you mean idol? And she's like, well, it was something that I knew the Bible was clear on, that I knew what was right, and I was just hanging onto it, and I was knowingly not doing what I knew I should be doing. And you know, we can have all kinds of different idols in our life of things that we know are against what the Bible says, but we hang onto. You know, music, we talked about TV, what we're letting into our home, all these things can become idols in our life. And you know, another thing my wife brought up is she just said, you know what, when I let go of that idol, it was like, it was like the last thing, the major thing I was hanging onto, she said, you know what, our family really changed after that. And I said, really? And then we talked about when she had done that, we kind of recapped the history of when that happened, and then just how things started moving in our lives. And she's right. You know, God started working overtime in our lives, you know, around that time. And you know, I had idols I was giving up, she had idols she was giving up, but we were changing our lives. And this was something that was an idol for her. So basically anything in your life that is keeping you from trusting the word of God is an idol in your life. You know, where you can't just put your trust on, you know what, the Bible says that, that's just what I'm gonna do. You know, that becomes an idol, and it'll hold you back in your Christian life. Okay? The third thing is this. And this is my point, those were Heidi's things, but this is something that I think about, and I want you to think about too. Turn to Psalm 16. And this is something I think about all the time. And the third thing I wanna say on this is you need to start thinking about what you wanna pass on to the next generation. Okay? And you need to, if you're a parent today and you're sitting here listening to this, you need to take this seriously and you need to think about this often, about what you wanna pass on to the next generation. Because if your kids see you some way at church and they see you another way at home, you are sending a very clear message to your kids. I mean, the way I look at it, the way I look at it is, look, my kids are gonna go through, we talked about this cultural slide that we're in right now, what my kids are gonna see in their life is gonna be much worse than what I will see in my life. So my thought on this is that I wanna write the ship in my family. I wanna write the ship, and you know what? It's hard to write the ship because people will be against you. This is just one example, this dress standard thing. When you say, you know what? We're changing our life in this area. We're changing our life in this area. We're changing our life in this area. People will fight that. And you will be surprised at how much influence people in your life think they have over you when those situations come about. But my theory on this is I need to write this ship. I need to take the steering wheel, I need to turn it, and it's hard to turn. But I'm gonna get that ship pointed in the right direction, and then when my kids grow up and my kids start raising kids, all they have to do is keep the course. It's easier to keep the course than it is to turn a huge ship. So I wanna do the heavy lifting for them. That's what I wanna do. That's one of the main goals of my life is to write the ship and keep it going in the right direction. Kids can not only have it pointed in the right direction, but see an example of someone sailing in the right direction. And if your kids see you, what have I said over and over again? What you do is more important than what you say. And kids have like hypocrisy detectors. They can just tell when they're just the smallest kids. Five, six years old, they can see hypocrisy like nobody else. It's super important. Did you turn to Psalm 16? This is one of the goals of my life, and you should make it one of the goals of your life as well. Look at Psalm 16, verse number six. I want my kids to be able to say this. When I'm dead and my grandkids are looking through a scrapbook and they see their, you know, their grandfather or their great-grandfather, whoever, I want them to look down and I want them to say, the lines are falling onto me in pleasant places. Yay, I have a goodly heritage. That's more important than money or land or anything I could ever give to my kids is leaving them a goodly heritage, leaving them a ship that's sailing in the right direction that I've shown them how to sail. You got to go this way and here's how it works and here's what you do and because they saw me doing it. So just think about when you're in these situational situations, situational situations, when you have these idols in your life, your kids will see that. You're sending clear message there, okay? So, you know, look, we love you all and you know, I'm here to tell you today what the stance of our church is and why it is that way. And like I said, if you have, if you're not where we are, I'm trying to encourage you of what the Bible says and I'm trying to encourage you to get that ship righted in the right direction. But you know, we appreciate the fact that you know, even if you are that situational person right now, we appreciate the fact that you're you know, dressing the way you do even if it's just a church, you know? So there's positive there as well. But I want you to think about today just men and women. I want you to know where this culture came from that we're dealing with today, how we got where we are today. It came from nowhere good and I'm telling you, it's headed nowhere good. I don't know what women in this country and men in this country will be wearing in 20 years but I can't even imagine with the way it's going right now. And we should have no part of that just like the bulletin says, we should be a peculiar people. People should be able to look at you, I have actually had I have given the gospel to people and gotten people to church just because my daughter and wife were at the house in a dress. I've been given examples and I think my wife probably has too because she wears a dress and she looks peculiar, she looks different. I've had contractors at my house come off the roof and say where do you guys go to church? And it strikes up a conversation with people to give the gospel to somebody. I mean people are to look at us and say, you know what, they're different. Men too. I didn't have to go to work at this new job very long before people knew that I was different because we should be peculiar to people. Why don't you swear every third word? That's peculiar. Why don't you go out to all the parties that are happening all the time? Don't you like fun? People should be able to look at us see how we act and how we dress. The Bible says look, the Bible brings it up. The Bible brings up your clothing. It's important. If it's in the Bible, it's important. So men and women, just both of you today just think about where are these idols in your life? Think about it. Think about it, outside of clothing standards everywhere. Where are these idols? What are you hanging onto? What are your hangups? Get rid of them. They'll help you move forward. Just like we talked about a couple weeks ago. What's the limits of your faith? It's limiting your faith. It's limiting your growth. Get rid of your hangups. They're holding you back. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for all these people. Bless the rest of the day. Bless the soul-winning. Bless pastors' travels down here. Lord, and bring us all safely back to church this evening. In Jesus' name, amen.