 All right, amen. So we're there in Philippians chapter four, a really great chapter for the Bible, a lot of great doctrine in it. But what I wanna focus on specifically is verse 11 through verse 13. So if you look down at your Bibles there in Philippians chapter four and verse 11, says, not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. And that's what I wanna talk about this evening, this idea of contentment or the lack of contentment that we see, especially in the United States, but also in this Christian life sometimes that we can be struggling with, this lack of contentment. Verse 12 says, I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. And that verse 13 there at the end, that's a very popular verse. I know it hurt a lot growing up but I'm sure most of you did as well. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me and that oftentimes is taken out just as a standalone verse and it can be a standalone verse and it fits in that situation, right? Greater is he that is in you than he that is in this world if we're saved this evening. But I wanna notice that that verse 13 is actually taken in the context of this thought about being content, about learning to be content, having learned to be content. It says he is instructed to be full and to be hungry to both to abound and to suffer need. And I wanna talk about this this evening is this idea of a lack of contentment that we see in the United States especially amongst younger generations and also in our Christian life how that ties in spiritually with us or can tie in spiritually with us. Mainly this lack of contentment in the United States is due to I believe a lack of hard or major problems in our lives. We have too much ease in this life. Turn to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, we'll look down at verse 19. There's too much ease in this nation today. We don't have to work as hard because of technological advancements. We don't have to maybe work as hard as previous generations had it due to technology, to industrial mechanization and so forth. I look down at Luke chapter 12 and verse 19. It says, and I will say to my soul, soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years. This is the man that had his barns and he had more goods then spaced in his barns to store them so he tore down his barns and built better. It says, thou hast goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, thou fool this night shall thy soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall these things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. He tells to himself, he says, take thine ease. I've done everything I can. It's time for me to take it easy. I can eat, drink and be merry. But this man we see in verse 21, his main problem was not necessarily that he rebuilt his barns but that he was not rich towards God. That was his fault. He wasn't appreciating the things that he had in the respect of his life towards God. So in the United States, it's easy to, we can kind of take a 3,000 square foot or a 3,000 elevation foot view of the things that were discontented with in the United States. There's a lot of things that we can get bogged down on that are important to some degree but maybe not the main thing, politics. There's always seems to be something going on in politics. Some dumpster fire going on in the news that's just screaming for our attention. Some things are important in that. Some things are not important with that. News sensationalism, any media source that you turn on the news, it's some, the world is ending according to their news story, right? It's right now. This is the most important thing in the world. We talk about censorship, censorship from preaching on YouTube but there's also censorship on platforms, on media platforms, the whole fake news thing, right? We talk about this and sometimes it's, you know, it's an important thing. We have the First Amendment but sometimes we can get distracted from major issues or we can make mountains out of these issues that are maybe a little bit smaller. The latest foreign problem that we tend to insert ourselves in as a nation, right? We used to have a policy of isolation and independence but now we have a policy of being the world's policemen. So we are introducing ourselves into all these foreign politics and it can be a distraction from the main thing especially in our Christian life. Spiritual wickedness is always in high places. Pastor talked about this a couple of weeks ago, right? We have issues in the public schools, issues in social media, different things like this that can be a distraction to us in America. One that I think is kind of interesting, we have a dairy as many of you know and, you know, so we're around cows a lot and there's this idea of animal rights activists. It's a big thing in our industry. We have people that you hear about farms, somebody snuck on and does undercover video and is trying to expose abuse in an industry and so on. And Proverbs 12 and verse 10, it says here a righteous man regarded the life of his beast. We see based on the Bible that we are to take care of our animals, right? We are to take care and be good stewards of the creation that God has set us over. But an animal is still an animal. God created men and women as human beings. We have the souls. The animals are living and we are to take care of them. But there is a hierarchy there that we need to appreciate, right? And a lot of people can get really bent out of shape with this whole idea, animal rights activists and you guys are a factory farm and all this and that. At the same time in the country, we're murdering thousands of unborn babies every day. But people turn to blind night to that. They focus mainly on this issue of animal rights but the same people won't even talk about the issue of abortion. It's illegal to cut down a tree that has an eagle's nest in it. God forbid you have a car accident and knock down this eagle's nest that has baby birds in it. You're gonna face some pretty severe penalties. A lady can walk into an abortion clinic and nobody bats an eye. And these are things that we need to keep in perspective. Some of these problems that we see in the United States that may be problems, right? I'm sure there are people that do abuse animals but keep it in perspective. What's the bigger issue? Women's right. This is a big push from the feminist movement versus God's plan for the husband and the wife and the family. One of that I think is kind of particularly interesting. Again, we have a dairy. Everybody's in search of this in the United States. My wife shared a statistic with me last night. 30% of the food produced in the United States is actually never eaten. It's wasted. We're always after the organic free range, cage-free, humane-certified, organic bananas. But oftentimes we don't appreciate that. A lot of food gets wasted. If you put that in perspective with the rest of the world, the statistic is every day, 25,000 people die due to starvation. Every five seconds it works out that there's somebody that's under 10 years old that dies of starvation. So we can get in our own first world bubble in the United States of America here. But we sometimes overlook the problems that other people are facing that are more severe problems than the problems that we face. This is this idea, right? The first world problems. Here in the United States, yeah, there are some issues. But in perspective, globally, what are the main issues? And we see this in the United States in our own social life. But what about in our spiritual lives? Are there first world Christian problems that we face here in America? Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter four, please, 2 Corinthians chapter four. The idea of this, there was a Babylon bee. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. It's kind of a farce news. They do spoof articles and spoof news ads, satire, excuse me, and so on. They had an article, it was a couple of weeks back, maybe two, three months ago. And it was a meme, I guess. It was a picture with some words and text underneath it. And the picture said it was a picture of a Chinese lady she was praying. And the meme said, Chinese Christian lady whose husband has been put in jail for the last year and a half for reading the Bible, pray earnestly for the Christian American who has persecuted severely. Boy, doesn't that hit the nail on the head where we're at today in America. You know, imagine being a Christian in China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq. We have it so good here. First, 2 Corinthians four, if you're there. In verse 17, Paul says, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Paul had quite a bit of affliction. He was stoned to death, almost died. He was beaten 39 times multiple times. He was exiled, put in prison, you name it. He had a lot of things happen to his life. He was under persecution. But here in 2 Corinthians four, he says, for our light affliction. He calls it light affliction. I know Pastor has a book under here, The Martyr's Mirror, and there's horrific stories written of Christian persecution happening under the Roman rule, 70 AD on to through the Reformation in the 1500s and so on. Some of those things, you can't even wrap your mind around that people can do to another human. But yet they're there in the historical record for everybody to see. We have such light affliction here in the United States and I think we need to, for this idea of contentment, especially in our Christian life, I think we need to appreciate what we have and use that to our benefit. You know, it's easy to get bogged down sometimes on these, you know, we study the Bible and we read the Bible and this church is encouraging everybody to read the Bible. January, they do the, we do the New Testament in a month, reading through the New Testament in a month, nine chapters a day. And the more we learn and the more we find out about the Bible, as Pastor said earlier, it's an infinite book. We will always be learning more about it. We will always be growing in our knowledge and growing closer to God by reading it and applying it in our lives. But sometimes we can get bogged down or prideful based on that knowledge. Again, kind of echoing this morning's sermon. And it's easy to get sidetracked and puffed up with the knowledge of these doctrines that we maybe overlook what's really important, right? We need people, we need churches, we need soul winners that are gonna go out as Numbers chapter 16 after Korra was brought down into the pit. Moses went through the camp with the torch standing between the dead and the living, right? We need people, soul winners, they're gonna go out into the community and do that same task, stand between the dead and the living. We need our hearts on fire, we need our hair on fire and just brazen bold attitudes to go out and not be contentious, not to be rude and so forth, but to stand between the dead and the living. There are people that will die and go to hell if they don't get saved, right? There's a time I was soul-winning, there was a guy, it was a couple months ago, the guy ended up getting saved. He wanted to hear, he was really receptive, he was interested in the gospel, he had questions and he was asking his questions, but every going through it, you could just tell he was getting it, he was just clicking, he was paying attention, he was understanding it. After the end of it, after he got, after we prayed and after he got saved, I told him, I said, look, it is that easy to go to heaven. And you could tell he was just, he was emotional, he was tearing up a little bit and I said, look, I know you have friends and family members that are not saved, they don't know what you know. But you can tell them, you can bring them to church, you can share this invitation with them, you can share this video with them and they can get saved too, right? This is the things that we need to do in our community, in this country, in this state, in this world, to turn the tide around, right? We see all these problems in the United States, like I talked about earlier with the abortion and the single parenthood rate is through the roof now. I think it's 45% of births are born to unwed parents and there's a lot of incentives in this and problems with that and these issues are not political issues, these issues are symptoms of spiritual issues, right? We have a lack of knowledge of the Bible in this world, in this country especially. So we need to make sure that we are having our perspectives on the right thing, perspectives on our eternity and on soul winning, specifically. We want to protect the doctrines of the Bible, but let's not get bogged down and get too prideful and getting puffed up to where we lose the heart for the loss. We need to, if we get somebody saved, that's a great step and we want to try and get them into church, try and get them baptized, trying to get them families and lives healed, broken families healed, drug addictions, abuse, gangs, it's important that we maintain that fire in our souls for that. Jack Hiles, a famous preacher, Baptist preacher from the late 60s all the way up through the 90s, possibly the best preacher of his time. I was doing a lot of tractor work a couple of weeks ago and so I had some extra time so I was listening to some old sermons of his and he said it in a number of stories, in a number of sermons, excuse me, the story about his father. If some of you may have heard it or not, I'd like to share it a little bit. His dad was an alcoholic, his mom and his dad, they had lost two children at age seven before he was born and so they'd had some rough times, his parents grew up very poor, very hard times in Texas and his dad turned to alcohol after the second child died at age seven and his dad was not saved, his mother was saved and he was saved at a young age and they were going to a church and his dad never went to church, his dad never wanted to go to church and one time his dad told him, okay, I'll go to church with you tomorrow. He told him on Saturday, I'm gonna come with you on church tomorrow. So this is back in the late 30s or 40s. He runs down to the next door neighbor, a ways off that has a telephone and he calls the pastor of the church and he tells him, my dad's coming to church, my dad's coming to church, please preach, please get my daddy saved, I want him to get saved, I want him to be in heaven, he might have been nine or 10 years old, I'm not sure. So he's all excited, he gets all dressed up, his dad's there, his dad's clean and sober and in his right mind he comes into church and they sing the songs and after they get done singing, the pastor gets up and he says, I'm sorry today we're not gonna have preaching service, our choir is gonna get up and do our annual production and Jack Hiles, he tells that he, his heart just sank like a stone to his feet. His dad's sitting there falling asleep during the service and he's just crying the entire service because that was his opportunity, that was his opportunity that his dad was in church and in a right mind to be able to receive the gospel and it fell short. That pastor for whatever reason decided not to preach that time and we have different things in place in this church to make sure that situation doesn't happen but the thing is, the point is if words are left unspoken, if we don't go soul winning, if we don't go out or say something to our neighbor, they will die and go to hell, if they don't get saved, if they don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Please turn to 1 Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 3. If words are left unspoken, people will not know. Oftentimes we go out soul winning and you knock on the door and nobody answers like today. Not too many people answered, a couple of people who had conversations. The question that we ask is a very pointed question. After introducing us and telling us about the church, telling them about the church briefly, we ask the question, are you 100% sure that if you died today that you would go to heaven? And that's a very pointed, thought provoking question. The first time I was out soul winning in Verity Sack, I have a vivid, it's just burned into my mind the interaction with one man. There was a young guy about my age at the time and I asked him that question and he went to some church around the corner and you could just see it. He was like, no, I don't know, I'm not sure. You could just see he was, wow, that's a big question. And he was thinking about it. I said, well, if you have time, I could show you some verses on the Bible. You can know, it's easy to get to heaven. It's not based on our works. It's not based on the things we do. It's just based on what we trust, but you have to trust the right thing. Oh, I don't have time right now. I said, well, think about it. You can know. You can know. And sometimes when we go out, we get discouraged. It's easy to be discouraged, but we don't know the impact that even just asking that question or somebody just seeing that invite on the door will have. It gets the wheels turning. It gets them thinking. It gets them praying and asking God, right? And the Bible promises when it says that ask and ye shall find, seek and it shall be opened unto you. Knock and it shall be opened unto you, right? That's a promise that Christ gives people, that He gives us. First Corinthians three and verse five. Who then is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? Who is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed? These people, Paul and Apollos are just messengers, messengers that told people that opened their mouths boldly and made known the mystery of the gospel. They just told people and these people believed. They received that word. They received the gospel. Even as the Lord gave to every man, that verse tells us that every single person on this earth has somebody that God has planned for them to go tell that person about the gospel. Now that doesn't mean that every single person actually decided to listen and go to answer that calling and open their mouth and tell somebody, but every single person on this earth has, the Lord gave to every man. That's every man. There's not anybody missing out of that. But again, if words are left unspoken, if we don't keep that at the forefront of our mind, if we decide not to go soul-winning, if there's diseases that happen and accidents and people that get a car breaks down or something, there's situations where we know that okay, there's an exception to be made, but just on this, it's easy to get distracted and easy to get lazy and easy to maybe, ah, I don't wanna go today. It's easy to do those things. What to God that we had hearts like God's? We see in the New Testament when Jesus is going through his ministry, we see often he sees the multitude and he has compassion on them. He has compassion because they are a sheep having no shepherd. There's nobody to guide them. There's nobody to teach them what is right, what is wrong. He sees the multitude in their faint because they've been following him for multiple days. He has compassion on them. Turn to Jude, please. Jude, at the end of the Bible, before Revelation, we'll look down at verse 22. You know, God oftentimes in the Bible, you see that he hears the cries. God hears the cries of Sodom back in Genesis. He wasn't hearing the cries of the wicked people, but he was hearing the cries of the innocent that were in that city in that horrible situation. He hears their cries, right? He hears the cries in the womb today that are being murdered in the United States. They have had ultrasounds during these procedures and it's, you can see them fighting for their lives and God hears their cries. And we need to keep that in perspective and what a God that we had hearts for those that are in need. Compassion like Christ had. Jude 1.22, and of some have compassion making a difference. Hopefully our priorities align with God. What about the orphans? What about the kids that grow up without parents without a father figure, without a mother in the home? What about if their parents died? What about the kids that are in abusive situations? This is the difference to soul winning and being in a soul winning church can do. It can help write these situations. It can help give those kids hope. Maybe their dad doesn't want anything to do with them. Well, God the father loves them. He sent Christ to die on the cross for him and he can save that person. All these broken situations, it's a symptom of a spiritual problem. And the Bible has the answer for every single situation. Sometimes we'll look at verse 23. And of others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Those are some pretty drastic emotions, compassion and hate, hating the garment spotted by the flesh. But that's what it takes to be, to have that humility and also have that boldness like Pastor talked about this morning. Sometimes in our Christian lives, I think I know you hear this a lot. Like is it worth it? Is it worth it? In the Bible, it talks about how we should look, how we should act, what we should do, what we shouldn't do, alcohol, drugs, how we should cut our hair, how we should dress, how we should behave, the things that we should talk, how we shouldn't talk vulgarly, being separate from the world, not taking part in certain things that other people take part in. And sometimes there are these restrictions in our life and it can be easy to get this idea in our heads like, hey, is it worth it? If I do all these things and follow all these rules, all the rest of my life, is it worth it? God's economy, think about it as a business decision, right? We have a business and if we wanna build a new barn or set up something new for the cows, it'll cost money to do that. And hopefully the increased production or a decrease in maintenance costs or whatever will offset the cost of building a business or building a new barn. It's your return on investment. We're looking for that return on investment in business decisions. Maybe if you're looking at purchasing a new vehicle or upgrading to a different house or something like that, make an addition on your house. But God's economy doesn't work the same way, right? When we go out soul winning, the benefit that we get from soul winning is not the same as the person that's gonna get saved, right? We do it because we are told to do it. We do it because we have compassion in our hearts for the lost. We don't wanna see people dying and going to hell. We know that hell is real. We know that the Bible is true and it talks about if they don't believe, that's where they're going. But that's what God's economy doesn't work that same way. We can't use that return on investment in our mindset as far as if we all sang the songs and if we all go soul winning and nobody gets saved, maybe a year from now, two years from now, one person gets saved and these two years, nobody gets saved except for one. It's absolutely worth it to that one person. That one person that made a huge difference in their eternal destiny, right? And there's this kind of dumb story. There was a guy walking along a beach and there was a bunch of starfish washed up on the beach and he's picking them up and he's chucking them back into the ocean and they're starfish, I mean, I get it. But there's a guy sitting out watching him and he sees this guy just picking up a couple starfish here and there and throwing them back into the ocean. And when he gets to him, he says, are you really making a difference? He picks one more up and he checks it back into the water and he said, well, to that one, to that one it made a difference, right? So the people that we do reach, it makes a huge difference in their life. It's absolutely worth it to those people. Mark chapter eight, if you would turn there please. Mark chapter eight, what is one life worth? What is one soul worth? You know, it's easy when it's hot outside or it's easy when it's raining. It's easy when it's gloomy weather or maybe we've had a rough week or maybe we've had a long week. It's easy to get this idea of, oh, I don't know, is it worth it to go out soul winning? Is it worth it to talk to people about the Bible? Mark chapter eight and verse 36, it says, for what shall it profit a man? If he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul. Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? There it's equating the whole world with the value of this man's soul and it's not enough. A soul is priceless. Every single soul out there is priceless and that's what it's worth. Is it worth it to us to be, maybe I missed something because a family member plans it on a church day and well, I'm sorry, we're gonna go to church. It's absolutely worth it. Is it worth it to miss these little moments? Is it worth it to miss out on going to the beach during Bikini season? Is it worth it to miss out on alcohol and drinking and all these worldly things that the rest of the world says is okay? It's absolutely worth it if we see an extra soul saved. It's absolutely worth it if we're making a difference in our community, in our family, in our future kids' generation. It's absolutely worth it. Look, we have such light affliction in the United States it's oftentimes easy to take things for granted. Back to this idea of contentment. We can go soul winning whenever we want. We can read and preach the Bible whenever we want. We can pray whenever we want. Think about the Christian in other countries, North Korea, China. You hear about people being arrested just for having a Bible, just for reading the Bible. It's easy to get soft when things are good. There's a saying, hard times make tough men, tough women. Tough men and women make good times. Good times make weak or soft men and women. Soft women, men and women make hard times. It's easy to get soft when things are good and we really frankly have it very good. And I mean, everybody talks about the top 1%. If you take the world standard, we are, if you're living in America today, you're in the top 1%. We have it so good. Think of other countries, developing countries. There was a video on the, at the end of one of the documentaries about the King James Bible. There's a group of people that they get a shipment to Bibles and they're just clutching the Bible and their tears rolling down their cheeks because they finally got to hold the word of God. That's how we should appreciate what we have here in the United States, right? Other people across the world are not as fortunate as we are. And we need to have that in perspective to have a healthy view of contentment, of what we have, to not get discontented. Oftentimes we don't appreciate what we have. We don't always appreciate our salvation like we should. We don't always appreciate having a good church like we do. How long have we all searched for a good church that has actual Bible preaching, that preaches through the entire Council of God, that preaches Revelation, that preaches Genesis, that preaches Leviticus, that preaches Matthew and Mark? How long have we searched for a church that has soul-winning, that actually has a program, right? Romans 10 said, how shall they go except they be sent? If a church doesn't have a program where it's actually sending people out to go soul-winning, man, nobody's gonna go on their own. I mean, the percentage of people that actually do that is so small. And we often take that for granted. It's easy to get here and you stay in here for a couple years, but, and it's easy to take that for granted. And we ought not do that. We ought not forget what we have. You know, in the United States, we talk about this too. We don't have it so bad. If we look at where we've come in the United States, today's dollars, the average income right now is about 50 to $55,000 per year. If we look back in 1950, the average income is $3,200 per year. But if you adjust it for inflation, 38,000 per year. So 55,000 to 38,000 equal dollars. Go back another 50 years to 1900. The average was $5,000 per day, per year, excuse me, per year. 5,000 of today's dollars per year. You know, the poverty level today, people that are living at the poverty level, I mean, most people have telephones, cell phones, microwaves, refrigerators. You know, we are so blessed as a nation and we have so much that oftentimes we get discontented at the little things. We make mountains out of these molehills and we lose our focus on the main thing. The mechanical and industrial revolutions have set this country to where it is, right? We look at, we were talking the other night, you look at the dams that have been built, the reservoirs, the canal systems, the bridges, the roads that were constructed, the railroad system that blasted through hills and mountains. Most of these projects happened in the 1800s. It was men and donkeys and, you know, very, very, very little mechanical power. Maybe steam engines were at the time, but there was no diesel, there was no electric, none of those systems. It was done on sweat, labor. This country was built on that. My son, we have a book, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel. Maybe some of you have read it before, or are familiar with it, I was read it when I was a child too. It's set in 1939 is when it was written in. It's a man who has a steam shovel. It's an old excavator type steam powered machine. And at his time, the new diesel ones and the gas ones and the electric ones were coming out and they were out competing him in his steam shovel. But a saying in his book was he could build, he could dig more with his shovel in a day than a hundred men could dig in a week. And that's how a lot of these projects were built. Men digging with shovels, that's how a lot of these projects were built. The hard backbreaking work. Again, hard time, hard men create good times. That's why we're living in the prosperity that we are living because of the labor that a lot of people in the past have put forth. I'm sure many of us have stories, right? We are largely a nation of immigrants. However long back, how many generations it was back that you have family or great, great grandparents or whoever had come over here and immigrated to the United States. My wife has a story, her grandfather was a first generation immigrant. He showed up, he got on a ship and he came here and it took him a couple of weeks to get here on boat. And he showed up with a suitcase and $20 in his pocket. And that was it, that's all he had. And I'm sure many people have stories like that where they're great grandparents, great, great grandparents or whatever it was and great grandparents came over as first generation and they didn't have much. And it was hard work and hard labor that got them to where they were today. Now there are issues with the United States, right? We have things like abortion. We have abuse in the system like welfare problems where we have people abusing welfare and people not wanting to work. Second Thessalonians three and verse 10 says, for even when we were with you, this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all but our busy bodies. We have high taxes. We have a national debt that's over $30 trillion. We have a lot of issues that are real issues in the United States at $30 trillion is that's a number so high. If you were to able to count $1 per second, which you can't really do by the time you get to the 100,000s and millions, you can't really do that in one second. But if you were able to do that in one second, it would take 950,000 years to count $30 trillion. We can't even fathom how big of a number that is. And we have all these issues that yes, they are issues. Yes, they are important that we try and address and try and write. But again, all these issues are symptoms of a spiritual problem that our nation is facing. They're fixed through the preaching of God's word. They're fixed through people getting saved, people getting in a good church, people getting baptized and cleaning up their lives and learning what the Bible says. And that will impact and send ripples through our country, through our nation. We talked about the unmarried birth rates. This is another thing that is a sign of the decline that we're in. And the good times that we've made is made for soft people and we're having a moral decline that we see. Unmarried birth rates before 1960 was less than 5%. Less than 5% of babies born were to unmarried couples. Today it's over, it's 45% on average, but it's up to 70% in certain cultures. We see a lot of broken families. We see incentives for these broken families in the United States with the welfare system. They'll pay single mothers more. So there's an incentive to not get married. We know multiple couples who are together and they have kids together and it's a guy and a gal and they're together, but they don't get married because there's extra benefits for not being married. It goes against God's word. It's just a lack of spiritual knowledge, a lack of the things of God in this world. Another one, June, it's June, right? Everybody sees all these rainbows around. And this is kind of aggravating to me as a dairyman because June is actually, since 1937, June is June Dairy Month. So they've hijacked June Dairy Month and you can enjoy your ice cream, that's June Dairy Month. But we see all these rainbow flags and it's interesting because it can be frustrating, right? It's a sign obviously of the moral decay and we all know what that issue's about. But it is interesting that they wave a rainbow, right? A rainbow is the sign that God gave to Noah that he would not destroy the world again because he did destroy the world already. He destroyed it with water and he decided, he promises that he will not destroy it again with water. But he did destroy the world. Why did he destroy the world? Because of the wickedness, because of the violence that was taking place. So they're waving this rainbow around and it's a sign that God judged the world already and he's coming again with fire. We've read Revelation, right? The plagues when the wrath of God's coming down are pretty rough. Man, those chickens are coming home to roost when they're raving that rainbow around there. That's gonna be a poetic justice. Deuteronomy 32, 41 says, if I wet my glittering sword and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to my enemies and will reward them that hate me. Excuse me, reward them that hate me. This is God talking and we see all these wicked things going on with the abortion in this pride month and all this garbage, God will recompense. He's the one that's got the plan. We know, we've read the end of the book. We know he's gonna win. We know we're gonna win as Christians. So let's not sweat the small stuff here. Let's stay focused on the main issue. The main issue is furthering the gospel. The main issue is reaching people with the word of God, getting people in church, getting lives turned around. You know, there's a lot of times people like to have this idea of going in our missionary and reaching people in a faraway country. You know, Acts 8 and verse one, excuse me, Acts 1 and verse eight says, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. He starts with in Jerusalem, where they were. So there's a good, you know, yes, it's great to reach people in different countries, but at the same time, we can always start where we are. We don't necessarily need to go to a faraway place to reach lost. There's lost people in our neighborhood. There's lost people in our city, in our towns, in this state, hundreds of thousands of lost people and we can reach them here. We need to make sure that we keep in perspective for this idea of contentment of what we have, the opportunities that we've been given, right? We were sitting here in this church tonight. We heard the preaching from this pulpit and we know what we ought to do and we have that opportunity as part of this church to go out and reach people. And let's not forget that. Let's not take advantage of it. Let's not take that for granted. Philippians chapter four, if you want to turn back there, please. Philippians chapter four. Again, this idea of contentment. We need to make sure that we have compassion for the lost and compassion for those in need. Not forget that there are others not as good off as we are. Philippians four and verse 11, not that I speak in respect of one for I have learned in whatsoever state I am. Again, we see it's a learned behavior. It's something that people can learn to be content. They're with to be content. Verse 12, I know both how to be a base, to be brought low and I know how to abound to be successful, to succeed. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed. This is kind of interesting. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry. He is instructed to be, it is the Bible teaches him to be, we are taught to be, we are supposed to be full and hungry. Full is satisfied, right? If you're full, you're not hungry. But if you're hungry, you're not full. They're opposite things. If we're commanded to be both full and to be hungry, it seems like that's a contradiction. But it says satisfied. Full is being a sense of being satisfied. Hungry could also be, say it as you're not fulfilled all the way yet. You're satisfied but not quite full. And these two things they may seem contradictory but we can also be satisfied and not complacent. That would be a better way to look at it. Maybe satisfied as full and hungry is not complacent. Hunger is a good thing. It motivates people to work, right? If a man does not work, neither should he eat. Hunger is a tool that God uses to motivate us to go get food, to go work, to earn money, to buy food. But being full is this idea of being satisfied. This being full is this idea of being content. But yet not taking things for granted. Not being complacent and like just deciding, oh, I'm just content to sit here. No, no, no, keep pushing forward. Keep having this confidence to continue pushing forward with our Christian life. It's all the things that the Bible instructs us to do. Sometimes people can say, oh man, it's just so many things. You always gotta be constantly thinking about every single thing that you're doing. The Bible says it is our reasonable service in Romans chapter 12 and verse one. It also tells us in 1 John 5 and verse three that his commandments are not grievous. The things that the Bible tells us to do, these are things that have benefit, not necessarily to us. Some of them do have great benefits to us, to our future generations, to our kids, to our families, our marriages, to our friendships, to brothers and sisters in Christ, but they also have benefits to others, others who are lost, others who are not saved, others who would get saved if somebody went to their door and knocked on their door. Turn to Luke chapter 17, please. Luke chapter 17. Kind of in closing here, I wanna look at just a couple more verses, but I wanna highlight the fact that look here in the United States, this idea of being content and we often see, especially with younger generations, this discontentment, just seeping in. There's discontentment at somebody else that has succeeded better than I am. There's this discontentment because oh, so-and-so has more or has a better car or has a bigger house or there's this always chasing after the Joneses, looking at the Joneses, comparing yourself to the Joneses, looking over the fence. The grass is always greener on the other side, right? But we need to have perspective. If we in America, the grass is greener here than many other parts of the world, excuse me. And we need to keep that in perspective. Luke chapter 17 and verse 10. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which were commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do. If we do all the things in the Bible and we go soul-winning when we're supposed to and we read the Bible and we pray and we have our prayer time and we raise our kids the way the Bible tells us to and we live our marriages the way the Bible tells us to and we put into practice all the things that we learn. These are our duty. These are the things which our duty to do. It is our reasonable service. We didn't go above and beyond. This is, you know, it talks about here in this thing. If a man asks his servant to do something and he does it, does he praise him for doing it? No, he did what it was his duty to do and that's the way that we are to Christ. It is our reasonable service to do these things. It's our duty to follow his commandments. He saved us. He died on the cross. He paid for our sins. It's our reasonable service to do these things. They're not required for salvation. They're none of that. But in the same way that my son when I ask him to do something, I expect him to do something. Christ expects us to do the same thing. Others depend on it. That's the thing. God tells us to do it so we should do it but there's other people that depend on us doing it. Like we talk. We need to have compassion on those in situations that need salvation, that need help. Second Corinthians five, I'll just read for you in verse 20. It says, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ stead be reconciled to God. Jesus Christ, he paid for the gift of eternal life. It's John 3.16. It's by God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Jesus paid for it. But we have the responsibility. God has given us the responsibility to go out and tell other people about that. That's a pretty big responsibility to have, right? If, to trust sinful man, to trust and he knows us, right? The Bible tells us that he ponders our heart. He knows exactly who we are, exactly all of our shortcomings, exactly all the things we struggle with. And he trusts us to go out and be ambassadors for Christ. That's a pretty weighty responsibility. And I think we need to appreciate that and understand that. Ezekiel 22 and verse 30, I'll close here. Very famous verse. It says, and I sought for a man among them. He sought for one man, a person, one person that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me and for the land that I should not destroy it. But I found none. And this verse, the Bible is saying that he sought for one person. One person can make a difference. We ought not get discouraged, you know, based on, you know, oh, it's just me. I'm just one person. What kind of difference can I make? It's easy to get that way when you see the whole world going one direction and we're trying to stand here on the principles of the Bible or we're trying to push for the principles of the Bible. It's easy to see everybody moving in one direction. That's that old classic saying, right? If everybody was gonna jump off a cliff, would you still do it? It's easy to get swayed with the tide or want to get swayed with the tide. But all it takes, all the difference it needs is one person. One person can make a world of difference for many people. I remember when I first got saved and learned about soul winning and a church that could go soul winning and that I could be a part of that and help people. I remember praying earnestly that God would allow me to lead one person to get saved. I prayed that prayer earnestly for months. And you look back over the years and it's just incredible what the blessing of God on those prayers have been. I mean, the prayers have been answered far and above that. And it's, I just want to encourage us all to look, even though we're only one person, together as a church we make up a mighty army, right? Gideon, he didn't use 10,000 people. He's a small army. God uses small groups in mighty ways. And I want to encourage us all that let's stick with the plan. Let's continue in. God sought for one person and he found none. Let's not leave that situation, that position unfilled. Let's continue forth with confidence and boldness. Let's go ahead and close in order prayer. Thank you.