 God's heartbeat for the life of young people is the same today as it has been since the very dawn of creation. And so the title of my message this morning out of Acts chapter 26 is Paul, an apostle, a sent one. And we're gonna see how God arranged Saul of Tarsus who became Paul's life in such a way that on the road to Damascus, this second most influential person in Western civilization, world history really, Paul encountered the living God, but it had everything to do with how his parents had set him up. So look with me here at Acts chapter 26, beginning in verse one. This is Paul or Saul who became Paul standing before King Agrippa and giving a defense of his life. And he says, so Agrippa. He said to Paul, you have permission to speak for yourself. This is Agrippa saying this to Paul. So Paul stretched out his hand and he made his defense. I consider myself fortunate that it is before you King Agrippa that I'm going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews. Stop right here real quick. Whenever you read through this and you see Jews and spoken of in a derogatory manner, we wanna be careful that this is not them speaking against a race or a group of people. They're speaking against the religious leaders of the Jewish people. The vast majority of the Jewish community at this time was not antagonistic towards Christianity. It was the Jewish leaders. So I want you to keep that in mind. So it says, so it's before you that I'm making my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar with all of their customs and controversies of the Jews. And therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently. My manner of life from my youth was spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem. And it's known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time if they are willing to testify that according to the strictest party of our religion, I have lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers to which our 12 tribes hope to attain as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by the Jews, O King. Why it is thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead. I myself was convinced that ought to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme. And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Verse 12, in this connection, I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and the commission of the chief priests. At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's hard for you to kick against the goats. And I said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise and stand up to your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and a witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. So this is Paul recounting to King Agrippa basically his life's journey of how he arrived at the place that he was at as he's now arrested. He's standing before the King trial and he's giving a defense for who he is and how he's lived his life. And when we look back on the, you know, from Acts chapter nine, really Acts chapter eight, when Saul first appears at the stoning of Stephen and in Acts chapter nine, he encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus and in Acts chapter 13, where at Antioch, the leaders of the church of Antioch laid hands on him, recognizing the apostolic call on his life. And by the way, the word apostle comes from the Greek word apostolos and it means a sent one or a commissioned one. And Paul was commissioned by Jesus and he just recounted it to us as he's looking back many, many years at that event. And he said, it was Jesus who appointed me as an apostle. But it was at Antioch that the leaders of the church, the elders, the pastors, the prophets and the teachers heard from the Holy spirit, laid hands on Paul, said, yes, you're an apostle and they sent him. We see that in Acts chapter 13. And from there, Paul then travels throughout most of the Mediterranean world throughout Asia Minor, which is Turkey today and all of kind of that area into Europe a little bit in the Middle East where he would go and preach the gospel. He would establish churches and he would be persecuted. And then he'd move on and everywhere that Paul went, the gospel penetrated some of the most difficult, darkest territories that the world had in existence at that time. Different from the other apostles because the other apostles really stayed in Jerusalem. They were Jewish. They kind of were Jerusalem centric until there was a time of persecution that forced them to go out. But it was Paul under the inspirational Holy spirit who began to take the gospel to non-Jewish people, to Gentiles. And I'm grateful for that because I is one. Any other Gentiles in the room? You better raise your hand unless you're David Klein in this room. David Klein is my messianic friend and he attends our church and he's one of our dear close friends. I did ancestry.com, figured out I'm 3% Jewish. So I'm in the tribe. I count 3%. I mean, I'm only 1% a Lions fan. So I figure that makes me way more Jewish. But most of us in this room are here today because a man who encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus was so overcome with conviction and compassion and radical obedience. And all of the other things that he had learned in his life that became part of his personality and temperament that caused him to drive beyond barriers and bring the gospel to new frontiers where no man had boldly ever gone before. And because of that, the gospel is here today. Who is this guy, Paul? I mean, Paul, the second most influential person in world history probably. It's at least in modern times over the last 2000 years and you say, well, who's number one? Well, that's Jesus, obviously. I mean, that's Jesus. But next to him, Paul. Paul wrote two thirds of the New Testament. Paul brought the gospel into new frontiers. Paul established some of the early church leadership. Paul took the brunt of persecution early on. And if you look at the ramifications of what this book that Paul wrote two thirds of half of it has produced at least in Western civilization today that you and I live in, it's the result of Paul. Paul's the one that brought the gospel and billions and billions of people's lives have been impacted by this man. And you want to do a study in a personality, do a study in the personality and the temperament of the apostle Paul. And it's fascinating, this apostle, this sent one, this commissioned one. But how did Paul become Paul? You might start at the road to Damascus and say, well, obviously he encountered Jesus. Well, how many know that's huge? I mean, that changes everything. When you're walking along, going where you think you're going, right in your own mind, and then the light of a 747 shows up, knocks you off your horse, and then God himself speaks to you. How many know that will probably change everything in your life? At least it should. And I would say that, yes, his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus was the tipping point that did shift and change so much. Jesus said to him, Paul, it's I, Jesus, you and me are persecuting. Paul hated Jesus. And then met him and realized all the work that he had been doing for God was actually working against God. And God, his son appeared to him and said, it's hard for you to kink against the goats. And if you don't know what a goat is, when a farmer had horses or oxen that they were using to plow a field, when the ox or the horse decided that it didn't wanna go in a straight line or it didn't wanna move anymore, a farmer had a sharp stick called a goat and he would use it to poke them and motivate them. It's like, you can stop, but it's gonna be painful. And sometimes they would try to go against the farmer, so the farmer would use goats on the plow that were pointed up, that kept them going in a straight direction and kept them from deviating from that course. Here's what Jesus said about Paul. He said, Paul, you've been kicking against the goats, which means for a long time, Jesus has been trying to get a hold of Paul's attention, but he keeps kicking against it. How many know sometimes when people are fighting against something passionately, it's because they know that there's something there that they need to pay attention to? And that was what took place in Paul's life. But it wasn't just the road to Damascus that shaped who Paul was. As Paul is preaching and presenting his case before King Agrippa, look at verse number four here. As he's telling his story, he goes all the way back to the beginning of his life and he says this, my manner of life from my youth. My manner of life from my youth, if you have a pen and you have your Bible or you're taking notes, write that phrase down. My manner of life from my youth, from the beginning among my own nation and Jerusalem, it's known by all the Jews. In Galatians chapter one, Paul says something very similar. He says, you all know of my former life in Judaism. How I was advancing beyond many of my own kinsmen, among my own age and my people group in Judaism, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of our fathers. This is what Paul says about himself. I was advancing, I was growing, I was learning and I was at the top, I was extremely zealous. Well, where did all that zeal and passion, where did all that advancement come from? And Paul, it came from his manner of life, his manner of life. When we think about a manner of life, that phrase that is used there is actually a phrase that whether you've actually used it of yourself or not, the reality is that in the formative years of your life, you developed a manner of life and had everything to do with the input or the lack thereof of your parents or of other people into your life that helped craft a worldview for you of how you saw the world. It also helped craft a self-view for you of how you saw yourself. And from a spiritual standpoint, it has to do with a heavenly view of how you saw God, how you see God, how you see yourself and how you view the world. Those are the factors that then help you create whether consciously or subconsciously a manner of life. For Paul or for Saul at that point, it was a manner of life that his parents helped craft. And when we're talking about a manner of life, it's really three things. So write these down. Number one, it's your patterns, it's your perspectives and it's your passions. It's your patterns, it's the daily disciplines of your life. It's your perspectives, your worldviews that I just described to you. And your passions, the things that you are passionate about. Oftentimes we're born with passions. If you've ever watched little kids from an early age sit down and play the piano, it's like, wow, how in the world did that happen? I mean, how did they know that they loved music? It was just in them. It's part of the God-giving gifts that are inside of us. But there are other passions that are actually developed over time that are the result of being trained. Because that's what parents do. We're called to train up our children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, right? We train them, which means that we teach them and we model by our own example or we kind of point them in a certain direction. We'll talk more about that here in a moment. But Paul is saying, look, my manner of life, verse four, my manner of life from my youth was spent, where? In my own nation at Jerusalem. Well, why is that important? Well, number one, Paul did not grow up in Jerusalem. Paul was Jewish, but he grew up in one of the most influential cities in Asia Minor at that time called Tarsus. Tarsus, like Kalamazoo, was a university town. It was not a Christian town. There was no Christianity as he was growing up. It had a small Jewish community, but it was a pagan city. It was part of the greater Greco-Roman culture. It was pagan, but it was very cosmopolitan, very wealthy, and it had a major university. About one third of the population of the city of Tarsus was university students from all over the Roman world. It was not that far from the Mediterranean, so he had access to kind of beach life. I mean, he grew up in a very, very non. I mean, sometimes we think of Paul that he's like this Jewish leader that kind of grew up in a Middle Eastern context. Now he was very almost European, grew up in a very secular or a very pagan culture in a strong Jewish community and from a very affluent Jewish family. And so from early on, his family established a pattern of life for him, a manner of life for him, because that's what takes place within the Jewish family context. So here's what they did. Paul's parents helped to establish this pattern of life or manner of life for Paul by establishing footings and foundations into his life. And they did it by doing things like this. They did it by celebrating the Sabbath together every single week. Sabbath was vital to the Jewish community. When everybody else is working at sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday, they honored the Sabbath, the time of rest and a time of worship and a time of prayer. Paul had this happen in his life from the moment that he was born. It wasn't something that his family did after he was born, he was born into it. And as part of that, so he had the footings of seeing Sabbath and part of what Sabbath was was a reminder that God created everything. So what was it? It was a perspective. God is creator. Cause sometimes kids ask questions. Have you figured this out? It's like, Hey dad, why don't we do anything when all of our pagan neighbors, you know, they're going out to the restaurants on Friday night. Why don't we go out on Friday nights? It's because we're different. Why are we different? We're Jewish. Why are we Jewish? Because God picked out the people of Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob, Israel as special to himself and marked us. Okay, so why don't we do it? Because this is the Sabbath. Tell me about why it's the Sabbath. It's after six days when God created everything. Oh, who's God? God's the creator. So he created everything. Yes. And so what did he do after he created everything? He rested and because God rested, we rest. That got into the framework of Paul from the time he was a child. And along with that, they established the footings and the foundations of a life of prayer, of reading from the Torah, which is the scripture, the law of Moses. This was in his footings. And as part of that, he learned to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem because the Old Testament, as he's reading the Torah, the Torah says, not only do you celebrate Sabbath, but there are special high feasts. And when you do it, come to Jerusalem as if it's possible and celebrate. So very likely Paul would go to Jerusalem with his family every Passover and they would go. And maybe multiple times a year to these feasts and they would gather together with other Jewish families at the temple and they would say their prayers and they would remember the history of the Jewish people and God's redemptive history with them. And they would hear from the Torah and different scholars and upon this pilgrimage, as he's among all of his other peers, there's a leading theologian and scholar, Rabbi, whose name is Gamaliel. He is even in secular history and Jewish history. He's one of the most brilliant teachers. He's a disciple of one of the two leading schools of thought Shamai and he's looking for disciples. And so when Saul's family brings him from Tarsus, at some point, there was something inside of him that his parents are like, get in closer to the rabbi and Gamaliel goes, I like this young man. He says, why don't you send your son to Jerusalem and let me train him? And so his parents sent him probably after his bar mitzvah, after about 12 years old, they sent Saul in his teenage years into the environment of sitting at the feet of the leading rabbi of his day, where he learned deeper about a manner of life, deeper about the history of God's redemptive work in Israel, deeper about the Torah, deeper about prayer, deeper about all of these things. And his parents had to fund all that. Why am I telling you all this? It's because his parents established this manner of life in Saul's life that later on as an adult, he's describing. Who's responsible for that? It's Paul's parents. Paul's parents did it. And in fact, we know from New Testament that Paul becomes a tent maker. That's his like part-time job. Do you know that the leading industry outside of the university in Tarsus is tent making? So somewhere along the line, they even taught him a trade. So his parents said, I'm down and go, you're really sharp, you're really smart, here's our family, here's our identity, here's how we are, here's who God is, here's who you are, here's how you fit into this whole equation. And they trained him in a manner of life by two things. The first thing is they taught him by their example. They established the footings in the foundation in Paul's life by their own example. They did not say, hey, Paul, you should go up into your room and read the Bible. Now, they read the Bible. Parents, can I just tell you? What you tell your kids, they might hear, but what you show your kids, they will learn. And so whatever it is that is your manner of life is parents. And I'm talking to future parents. I'm talking to single parents. I'm talking to dual parents. I'm talking to grandparents. Your manner of life in moderation will become your children's manner of life in excess. And you might say, well, my kids are doing things I never did. Well, it might not be the specific things, but if there's compromise in your life or hypocrisy in your life in one area, it will be magnified in your children's life in others. Now, let me just say this, that isn't a universal rule. There are seasons and times where your kids are gonna push against the limits and do what you don't want them to do. I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about the long version of who they become, what you teach them by your example has so much influence in their lives. Paul's family did this. They prayed. They read the scripture. They went to the synagogue on Sabbath. They honored the Sabbath. They went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. Paul probably worked with his father, who was a tent maker, and learned to trade as he went along. Our children, this is so important, and listen, this may be one of the most important messages that I ever preach because as I look at the landscape of our culture right now, the biggest threat that is facing us is the dismantling of the nuclear family because of all the atomic repercussions of that. Because in the void of parents, in the void of intentional fathering or intentional mothering, speaking into the life of our children and doing this and creating a manner of life, there is a spirit of this age that is more than willing to step in and become the anti-parents for you. We're all worried about the Antichrist. I'm not worried about the Antichrist as much as I'm worried about the anti-parents. Because the only reason an Antichrist has influence on the voice of a person is because there hasn't been a parent that had a stronger voice. And we can gain the whole world, parents, and invest our energies and our passions into climbing the corporate ladder of just kind of enjoying the comforts of this present age. But if we will really lean in and deal with our own insecurities and let the first love flame of our heart really get stoked and direct our attentions, it's like I just got a window of time with my kids, mom and dad both. You might be in a single parent family household and go, I'm doing double duty. Great, God will make all grace abound to you. I trust this. But all he's looking for is intentionality. This is key because the family is the greenhouse today of what will grow in our society tomorrow. Okay, don't wave your hankies at me. Paul's family taught by example. And we have to teach by example. My earliest memories, okay, so I grew up in a single parent home and my grandparents had to step in. Earliest memories is my grandfather every single morning of 530 sitting in a chair reading his Bible. You've heard me tell that story before. That is indelibly imprinted on my heart. Your kids need to see you read the Bible. Yes. One of the reasons I want you to have a physical Bible is because it's too easy to hide behind a phone. Oh, what are you doing? Oh, people might think I'm scrolling Instagram, but I'm sneaking a little NLT. No, no, you need to get a big black king, no, probably not King James, but you need to get like a physical Bible that, I mean, you might say, well, isn't that kind of outward expression? Yeah, because God sees your heart, but man sees the outward appearance. So I want my kids when we were growing up, Jane would get up way earlier than I did back in the day. And our kids know what it's like to wake up and hear worship music in our living room and their mom sitting on the couch reading their Bible. Our kids know what it's like to come home from school and to see me at the table studying with my Bible open, reading, we would get in the car when I would take them to school. And my kids, when they were really little, their favorite thing to do is ask me. It was like red hot with just my kids. And by the way, my kids asked way tougher questions than you guys do. Where did dinosaurs come from? Dad, did Adam have a belly button? I'm just like, oh, Lord, it's seven in the morning. Can we just start with Jesus loves me this I know? I mean, these are powerful markers though in the life of our kids. When you make attending church as a family a priority, you might have to fight your kids to get them in the car. I mean, we don't wanna go. My grandparents were like, we either go to church or you don't eat. It was like, so if you wanna stay home, you don't eat. I'm just like, okay, we'll go to church. Cause I like food. And so we would go to church. I mean, it was, I can't think of one Sunday, my entire time of ever being with my grandparents that we did not go to church. And we went Sunday morning and Sunday night. Come on, anybody else grew up in era where you went Sunday morning from the rising of the sun into the setting of the same, the name of the Lord is to be praised. And buddy, we are going to church. We are not staying home. You're not watching, you know, your TV show. We are going to church. If the deacons are at the church washing the windows, we're going to, they're to say, yes, and amen. We are going to church. It establishes a pattern. We're gonna pray together. We're gonna process together. So they taught by example, and here's the other thing that they did. They prioritized environments. What do I mean by that? Well, not only did they create a pattern of life for their kids in their home, but when they had opportunity, they put Paul into environments that they knew were gonna cause his faith to flourish. What do I mean? They sent him to Jerusalem. Imagine sending, it's like sending your kid to boarding school, but they knew if he's there, he's going to grow exponentially spiritually. And so they sent him to sit at the feet of Gamaliel. They put him in environments. What's that mean for us today as we're raising our kids? Number one, we need a lead by example, and we need to, we're responsible for building the fire as Garrett made reference to on the altar in our homes. That's our responsibility. But number two, putting our kids in environments that we know are gonna feed their faith, or at least set the stage for Jesus to encounter them. That means sending them to youth. If you have teenagers, you need to send them at either one of our locations to student ministries and student leadership on Monday nights. Why? It's because it's getting into them. Well, they don't really want to. Well, I mean, you send them to school every day. Do they want to go to school every day? I mean, if you have a child that wakes up every morning going, I can't wait to go to school today. Today's gonna be a day of learning. Then you've done something right. That was not me. It was like, get out of bed. I don't wanna go, I'm sick. No, you're not. You ain't sick. If you're sick, you will sit in this bed, no TV all day long, your phone is confiscated. That was the house I grew up in, so we were rarely sick. Or we mysteriously felt better by 1030 and went to school after we woke up. But we have to put our kids in environments. It's like, kids in sports every single day don't feel like going to practice. Why? They do it because they know it's a rhythm. You are the one that creates the rhythm. Well, I wanna just let my kids be free range kids. You let your kids be free range kids, they will turn out to be deranged adults. Guardrails are good things. I'm preaching to somebody now. I just feel the Holy Spirit just lighting upon a parent over there. I felt that, oh, see that? They put their kids in environments, send them to camp, send them to student leadership, put them into environments. The environments you put your kids into intentionally are the genetic code of what they will be in the future. We spend, oh, I'm about to, mm-hmm, okay. We spend thousands of dollars in our culture to put our kids in every travel sport by every uniform, get every technological tool and advancement, and then we give them breadcrumbs of faith and patterns of faith in their lives. And then when they're 18, we wonder why they walk away from the faith. We have subconsciously sent a message. What's important is that you become an athlete, not that you become a disciple. Now, put them in sports, but fill them with faith. So when they go to the sports, they're gonna excel at what they do, but they're going to excel from the inside out because they've got character, virtue, and faith. Don't put them into an environment where they're going to experience peer pressure and they've got the wrong set of priorities. All right. Okay, here, here, see sending, everybody say sending. Sending is an intentional act. And before Jesus, remember, apostle means sent one. How did Paul become an apostle? He was sent by Jesus. But before Jesus sent Paul to be an apostle, which was his purpose in calling, his parents sent Paul to Jerusalem. They sent him into environments that build foundation stones in him so that when Paul encountered personally the Lord, it would connect him to his purpose and his faith. You can't make your kids Christians. You can't, but you can set every obstacle in their way that would keep them from it. And you can build family foundations by your example and the environments that you intentionally put them into so that all God has to do is show up and encounter them. See, Paul was an enemy of the gospel, but he had foundations of faith. And all it took was one moment in the presence of the living God, that all the pieces came together. For me, that happened when I was 12. My mother to a degree, my grandparents in large degree put me in environments so that when I encountered Jesus at 12 years old, it all came together. Jane will tell you that she grew up in church, her and John went to church twice a Sunday, went to Christian schools. She really would say that she knows that she's shared this publicly before, but that she really was not a Christian. But when her and I began to date and she encountered the presence of the Lord, all the foundation stones that have been built by her parents in her life all became the altar, that the flame of love for Jesus could light upon. You can't make your kids a Christian. And just because you take them to church doesn't mean that they are. But I know this, that the majority of kids that grow up in church, if parents have laid those foundation stones in the home and in the environments, when Jesus meets them, they're gonna have to leap over the fire of God's presence to avoid following Jesus. Think about this this morning. And I wish I had time. Psalm 127 says, children are arrows in the quiver. Why does he use the example of an arrow? Because arrows are something that have to be pointed. And here's what I know is that the direction that we aim our children in with what we do will become the aim of our children in their future. Think about this example, and I'm gonna close with this this morning. One of the great revivalists, probably the most brilliant theological thinker that America's ever produced was a man named Jonathan Edwards. In the 1700s, he was one of the great theologians who taught at Yale. He's the preacher of one of the most famous sermons called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He led the first grade awakening. Again, he was not a perfect man. There's some things I wish that he had changed, but he was a man of his day and he was a devout follower of Jesus. And he had many, many children. And he talks about how, even though I think he had 11 children, he would invest a certain amount of time with each of his children every single day, talking to them about their soul, talking to them about life, talking about their interests, investing into them. And Jonathan Edwards listened to the legacy of Jonathan Edwards. Of all of the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers, 30 judges, 60 doctors and deans of medical schools, 80 holders of public office, three United States senators, three major mayors of large cities, three state governors, a vice president of the United States and the controller of the United States Treasury. Members of his family wrote 135 books and edited 18 academic journals and periodicals. They entered the ministry in platoons and sent hundreds of missionaries overseas as well as stocking many mission boards with lay trustees. This is the legacy of one man who decided to look into the eyes of his children and say, I'm going to help you build a pattern in a manner of life. I'm gonna lead by example, I'm gonna invest into you and then I'm gonna put you in environments that God can meet you, that will launch you into your purpose. You wanna know the answer to changing our society? If we're gonna wait for people to legislate change, it'll never happen. The answer is let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Let every Christian home say, as for me at my house, we will serve the Lord and it's every parent, every grandparent rising up and saying, we're gonna build an altar, we're gonna lean into our kids and we're gonna pray, we're gonna believe, we're gonna invest and we're gonna lead by example and Jesus will do the rest. He will launch them into their purpose and we will see the salt and the light push back darkness and reinvigorate life again. I want you to stand with me to your feet. I know that sometimes when you hear a message like this because I've heard them, it's like, but man, it's so hard. You don't even know where to start or you begin to feel like I should have done this but I haven't done this. So how do I change? Very honestly, and this is true a lot of times for men because it's historically in the church, it's been women who take the leadership roles in the household, but I know that there's a lot of men who have a desire to be a man of God, a desire to lead their families. Just don't know how. They're insecure, they're intimidated by it. It's just easier to just let somebody else do it. Let her do it. Church do it. And we will do our part. We want to partner with you. But today, I just want to speak to every man in this room, every man at Portage, every man who's watching me online, you were created to reflect the father heart of God, to your family, to your wife, to your future wife, to society, you were created to be a leader and don't let any lie from our culture try to steal from you your God ordained calling to be a leader. And I want to speak to every mom and every woman in this room. There's an anointing on you to be a nurturer, to be a teacher, and to be a strength and a support. You are a leader. Don't let anybody tell you that your unique calling as a mother, as a woman, as a daughter of God, that you need to change it, culturally adapt it, that you need to pursue some achievement in this world in order to find your value. You were created by God with a unique set of skills that are dangerous to the gates of hell but are strengthening to the family. And if every single one of us will take our responsibility and just say, as for me, I will serve the Lord. I'm gonna invite you as families tonight to come. Prioritize it. I'm gonna invite those of you who are like, well, I don't have a family yet or my family's grown up. You're an intercessor and you're an example and you're an encourager. We need you. Church is a family. And to prioritize, would you come tonight, would you pray? Let's lay a cornerstone of change for us individually, for our community, for the church and really society. It starts with us. To the degree that we take that seriously is the degree that God will meet us. I wanna invite our prayer team to come forward if they would and I'm gonna pray and dismiss in this morning. Here's the call. The call is whatever you need prayer for in just a moment, our prayer team will be available to pray for you but the call is to come back tonight at 6 p.m. And let's set a cornerstone of change as we seek and send. Heavenly Father, today we thank you for the grace of God that meets us and strengthens and empowers us and gives us the ability to do what we cannot do in our own strength, Lord. For every parent today, I'm asking for a new dimension of strength that comes from you, wisdom, discernment, knowledge, insight and I'm praying for every dad today, courage. I'm praying for every mom today, comfort. I'm praying for every child today, protection. And that you would do a work in us Lord that the stones of the family altar that maybe have fallen down are never been set in place. This would be a first step in building that. We wanna see the raising up of apostolic young people like Paul who will go into their culture, in the church, in the marketplace, in their schools and carry an anointing and carry the security that they have because they know that their purpose in calling is rooted in you. Help us to do that. And Lord help radiant church to be a pillar in that pursuit, in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.